Response to Dave Barron/Patrick Navas

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

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

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

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

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

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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning, a special two -hour mega edition of the

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Dividing Line dedicated today, yes, we are dedicating the program today to someone, someone who has a birthday tomorrow.

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I'm not really sure how ancient or old that's going to make this particular person, but we thought it would be nice, given all he does for us, to dedicate the program today to Big Ralph.

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Big Ralph out there, one of our channel rats and a good friend and someone who keeps a close eye on the ministry resource list, which is always very encouraging to me.

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And so we're dedicating the program today to the man who has great taste in hairstyles, just like mine, which basically means, get rid of that stuff, it's a pain anyways.

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To he and his lovely wife, Nikki, happy birthday, Ralph. And Ralph's the one who is always, oh, it's just a jumbo today?

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It's just a regular? He'll probably say, what, it's just a mega one today? That's all I get? My birthday is a two -hour dividing line?

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Yeah, that's just how Ralph is. But anyway, he's listening in, and it's going to be his kind of dividing line, because he doesn't like the light and fluffy ones.

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He likes the ones where you have blog articles, like I posted about an hour ago.

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If you're listening live, or if you're not listening live, you're listening to the podcast and you aren't driving or something, you're where there's a computer,

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I would highly suggest that you go to the blog at aomin .org

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for November 29th, even if you're listening to this three years later, which you might. Go to the blog for November 29th of 2011, because there is an article there.

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I just decided there was no way I could engage in this response without providing materials to look at.

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It's sort of like trying to do the King James Only presentation without using a digital projector. It's next to impossible to do, just describing these things.

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So please go to the blog, and you will see that I have placed a great amount of original language material, and I've divided it up into A, B, C, all the way down through,

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I believe, E, or is there an F? No, it's just E. That will correspond to the first portion of the program today.

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My initial intention was to start a series today, where I would ...

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Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry, let me just mention, I just blogged within five minutes of the beginning of the program.

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I just posted to the blog the video, since we now have it uploaded, of a six -year -old debate, a six -year -old debate, the debate between John Dominic Cross and Marcus Borg on one side, and Dr.

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Jim Ranahan of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, and myself on the subject of the resurrection that took place at sea.

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We had video problems and recording problems, but we've got it together.

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And it has just been ... Yes, it took place during Katrina. That's how old this debate is.

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And it is now on YouTube. Many thanks to Matt for getting all that work done.

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And it is available, and you'll notice my opening presentation looks and sounds weird, because basically, the video didn't quite work, the audio didn't work at all.

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I had to rerecord my opening statement, literally, from my Tungsten T5. This is how old this is.

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My Tungsten T5, my palm, Tungsten T5. I still have the notes on it, actually.

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And I came into this studio, and I rerecorded them, because I pretty much read them straight, you know, so it fits in the time parameters.

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It's the same material that I presented. And so we rerecorded that, and then the rest of it goes on from there.

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So there it is, available to you if you want to see that debate.

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I thought it was a very interesting debate. And I am so much bigger then than I am now.

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I was up near 250 at that point, and I'm around 180 now. So, yeah, major, major difference.

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Much more of me in there than needed to be. But anyways, that is on the blog.

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Now, that's right above, Reference Materials for the Dividing Line, November 29th, 2011. My intention today was to begin a series where I would be responding to the debate that took place a week after I had my debate with Abdullah Kunda in Sydney.

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A debate took place between Diya Mohammed and Samuel Green. And Diya Mohammed made all sorts of really interesting statements.

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And in fact, I haven't written to him yet, but I can tell Abdullah Kunda was in the audience because I heard him ask a question.

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And I know that Abdullah Kunda knows that Diya Mohammed's arguments were really bad.

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I mean, just on a factual level, that the things he said about the history of the Bible are just not true.

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They're common misconceptions amongst Muslims. And I want to write to Abdullah and say, have you talked with Diya Mohammed?

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Because you know better than this. So how do you handle that? I mean, on my end,

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I've gotten a black eye and a bloody nose more than once for daring to point out that people on my side aren't being overly accurate in the statements they make about others.

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So does that happen on the Muslim side too? Are there Muslim apologists will say, hey guys, we need to step up the study here a little bit.

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So anyways, we're going to listen to Diya Mohammed's comments. And because they are, it's not because they're high -end comments, because they're really not.

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I mean, his knowledge of the Bible is very much second, third, fourth hand. But because they're so common, this is what you will hear from Muslims all the time.

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And so sometimes we have to deal with that kind of stuff too. And then

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I also want to review the recent Bart Ehrman and Dan Wallace debate.

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I especially want to respond to Bart Ehrman's presentation. And I've got a chance to listen,

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I think on Thanksgiving Day, actually, to that debate. And so two very important subjects.

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It's going to take a lot of time. We're going to do a lot of depth on a lot of things. But that's what

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I was going to do. Then Friday night, I did a debate. And I'm going to list it as one of this.

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That's debate number 112. Because it was moderated and it was sufficiently long and of sufficient quality to be called a debate,

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I believe. And it was a debate with Patrick Navas.

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That's N -A -V -A -S. You know that over the past couple of weeks, I have responded to various of Mr.

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Navas's comments in his book, 600 -plus page book,

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Against the Trinity. And we did our debate. I linked the material that night.

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Chris Date, who was the moderator, it was on his podcast, got the material put together at blinding speed, very, very fast.

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And I posted the material and I leave that to the audience to decide how those debates went.

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We move on from there. I thought it went great. But I had no intentions of doing anything more about it.

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Move on, so on and so forth. But I had the sneaking hunch.

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Folks, I've been doing this for almost three decades now. And while that's not as long as some people have been, there aren't too many folks that have been doing what

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I've been doing for as long as I've been doing it these days. And I, after a while, you start sort of get a hint as to what kind of people you're dealing with.

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And I just had the feeling all along that once that debate was over, that wasn't going to be the end of the discussion.

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And there are a cadre of young, very young, anti -Trinitarian,

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Aryan, subordinationists, Unitarians out there. And they really, really, really want attention.

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But they really can't gather an overly large audience. And from what

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Rich tells me, we get emails pretty regularly. From some of these guys looking for attention.

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Did you know that you've been mentioned by so and so on such and such a blog site? Well, if I even took the time every day to read everything it said about me on blogs,

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I would get almost nothing else done. And it would be a rather depressing life. So I don't even, to be perfectly honest with you, bother.

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But I had a feeling that if I did this debate on Chris Dates' program, that it might open up the floodgates to all these guys all of a sudden going, hey, now it's my shot.

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OK, Patrick got his two and a half hours to almost three hours of fame.

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Now it's my shot. I want to, you know, because it's a big feather in some people's cap.

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I debated James White. That's why you see so many people. I debated James White and go, I don't remember that guy. And then they say, well,

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I sent you an email. I may have even seen it. But I debated you. Or if I do respond, you know,

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I might respond with, well, I debated James White. It was, I feel sad for those folks.

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But anyway, I just had a feeling that something was going to. And of course it did. And Mr. Novice keeps sending me notes.

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And he wants to argue about this minute point and that minute point. And within 24 hours, it was like 24 hours later.

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In fact, I think it was the next morning. So it might have been within like 12 hours. A guy named

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Dave Barron, who I guess also has a self -published book against the Trinity. At least

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I think it's self -published. I could be wrong. It's an e -book. Let me take that back. It's an e -book. Are e -books published?

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Bart Ehrman is putting out an e -book pretty soon on whether Jesus existed. And his conclusion is he did. Which should be interesting.

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Remember the Infidel Guy program? Yeah, that was interesting. Anyways, he put out a

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YouTube video. And I didn't know about it.

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I don't have a Google thing set up where I look for stuff on my name. You know how I found out about it?

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Mr. Novice told me about it and very clearly wanted me to know about it.

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And sent it to both me and Chris Date and said, here's this thing here. And so I'm like, oh man, okay.

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When do you stop? Because these guys won't. Because they're one -topic people. This is their thing.

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This is, you know, they're not going to be taking on the Bart Ehrmans of the world or the Diya Mohammeds of the world.

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They don't have any debate with Diya Mohammed anyways, given their Unitarianism. But when does it end?

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And so I listened to the presentation. It's a fairly short one. I thought, all right, look.

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I will take the time to correct Mr. Barron's misapprehensions. And I will roll it into the mega deal.

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Well, as soon as I, you know, I said, well, you know, I might. Well, as soon as, well, you should have, you should have him on to talk to.

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Oh, now I have to have a debate with him. Now, remember, if he's written a book, if I'm going to have somebody on the program, if I'm going to take somebody on, you know what

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I think I need to do? I actually think I need to read their book. And I don't have any interest in doing that. I really don't. I mean, there's nothing new here.

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But I just think that's the responsible thing to do. And I already invested many hours in the 600 -page tome in preparation for Mr.

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Novice. Evidently, these guys do not want me writing any more books because they think they can tell me when I need to do these things.

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And so I'm like, oh, no, I'm not understood. Well, these guys really do think, hey, if you're going to respond to me, you need to have me on.

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You need to give me an opportunity. And it's like, really? No one asked me. You know, I remember

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Mr. Novice writing to me. Maybe he did. Maybe I didn't get the emails. But writing to me while he was writing his book and asking me to give responses or something to what he was saying in his book at that particular point in time.

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And I think my name appears about 152 times, minimally, in Mr. Novice's book.

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So anyway, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through Mr. Barron's presentation.

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And I'm going to respond to it. And then we're going to move on. And I think, hopefully, by putting the material in the blog, we will be able to make this useful to folks.

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It's going to be at a little bit deeper level than some folks might be comfortable with. But that's

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OK. And in fact, if you haven't listened to the debate yet, it might be even more difficult to follow.

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But if you have, then hopefully this will be a good follow -up for you and will be useful to you.

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So I hope that this will be of assistance and so on and so forth.

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So again, go to the blog and open up the article,

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Reference Materials for the Dividing Line, November 29, 2011.

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And that is what we will be using during the program here. I'm actually trying to get this on this one screen to get a little wider here.

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Will it fit? Barely, barely. There we go. And hopefully this will be of assistance to you as we listen to what

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Mr. Barron had to say. All right, we've got the volume up and ready to go.

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Let's listen to Mr. Barron's comments. I will, of course, be starting and stopping as we go along.

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I just had the opportunity to finish the debate between James White and Patrick Nobis on the subject of the

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Trinity. I'm really glad the debate took place because there's, unfortunately, too little interaction that takes place on a real level between Trinitarians and those of the

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Unitarian perspective who acknowledge the sun's preexistence. It seems most Trinitarian debates take place usually between somebody else.

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Now, to stop right there, because one of the questions that I have had is exactly where Mr.

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Nobis comes down on the sun's preexistence. He is very careful in his book to allow for people who don't believe that the sun existed as a person prior to his birth in Bethlehem, etc.,

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etc. So, evidently, Mr. Barron does believe in some sort of preexistence as to exactly the nature of that.

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I can only guess. Well, oneness persuasion or somebody who's a Sassanian. So that Patrick was able to represent the biblical position was really refreshing.

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The biblical position. The biblical Unitarian position, just so you caught that.

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White really is an experienced debater. He's by far more experienced than Patrick Nobis, simply because he has participated literally in dozens of debates.

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That's where you get experience. Yes, that is where it comes from. Dozens, yeah. What? Six, seven, eight, eight, nine.

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Just under 10. Just under 10 dozen, whatever that. Almost a dozen dozen. That'll be a big one.

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We'll have to make a dozen dozen a big one. Because of that, his presentation was definitely more polished, but that's not to say anything against Patrick.

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His presentation was just fine and very good, in fact. But White does have more experience, and Patrick would acknowledge this.

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But with that, there was also, I would say, more rhetoric. For example, White had a lot to say about Unitarians taking a human rationalistic perspective.

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What I said was that the Unitarianism represented by Mr. Nobis is rationalistic. That is, it approaches the text from a non -supernatural perspective.

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It's rationalistic in that it establishes a view of Christ that banishes anything that challenges a rationalistic conception of his nature.

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So he has to be something lesser than God. Well, for example, there's a number of times confusion in Mr.

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Nobis's book in regards to the two natures of Christ and their relationship to one another. Well, that's very common from the

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Muslim perspective, who take, interestingly enough, a pretty rationalistic perspective of the New Testament, etc.,

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etc. It doesn't seem that either Mr. Nobis or Mr. Barron understand what I meant by the use of the term rationalistic at that point, especially in light of the example he's about to give.

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Yet that seemed to be the very thing White did when he would rationalize how monotheistic

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Jews could never see the sun being created and certain things being true of him.

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No, that's not an example of rationalism at all. That is an example of recognizing what the beliefs of the

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Jews were at that time and comparing that with the assertions being made.

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He doesn't understand what rationalism is in the context that I was using it, and I'm sorry he did not understand that.

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How things could never be said of a mere creature, according to White. Of course, we would never say that Jesus was a mere creature.

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He is certainly created, but that is not to denigrate him at all.

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Now, a very common canard here, one that I addressed in the debate, and that is you can exalt

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Jesus as much as you want as long as you say he's created. He is a mere creature because the chasm that exists between the uncreated and eternal and that which is created and non -eternal is, well, infinite.

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And so when we talk about this perspective, it is perfectly appropriate to say he is a mere creature.

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Exalted, fine. But the most exalted creature is still infinitesimal in comparison to the uncreated eternal creator.

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And so you can exalt him as high as you want. Make him Michael the

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Archangel, whatever else you want to do. However high you want to make him, he still came into existence at a point in time.

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He is not eternal. He is a creature. And you can create all sorts of categories of creaturely deities and everything else, but there remains an impassable chasm between the uncreated creator and all that which he has created.

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And these men put Jesus in the category of the creation, just like Arius did. They stand against the

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Christian faith. They want to be considered in the Christian faith, but they are not.

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Without a divine Jesus, you don't have the Christian faith. I will stand by that.

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I am not the first one to stand there, and I will not be the last one to stand there. But that is what we were referring to.

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But I really wanted to make some comments on the debate itself, some of the topics that were discussed.

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It started with the discussion of John 12, 38 through 41. This was in relation to Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 53, both of which had passages quoted from them.

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Both sides had a couple of key arguments, but I was admittedly a bit disappointed that the most significant portion of the text was not actually discussed.

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And that's John's use of the word because. Now, notice Mr. Barron gets to decide what the most significant portion of the text is.

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And that is the word hati. Now, hati can be very, very important.

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But if you want to look at the reference materials, we are now on section A. What you have in the section, what

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I provide for you in section A is Isaiah 6, 1 in the

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Greek Septuagint. And I'm sure most everybody in the audience, but want to make sure everyone's up to speed.

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The Greek Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It wasn't done by any one man or group of men, despite the stories that circulate there.

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There are various streams of transmission of the text, even of the Greek Septuagint itself.

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We might look at an example of that a little bit later on. And what

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I've done with bold, and if I could have had more time, I could have used color and color probably would have helped even more.

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But I'm glad I got this much up. In Isaiah 6, 1, you see in bold,

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Aidan ton Kurion. I saw the Lord, seat upon a throne, lofty and lifted up.

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And the house was full, play race, teis doxas autu, full of his glory.

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And so you have Aidan, first person of Harao, I saw the

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Lord. And then you have in the same sentence, teis doxas autu, as part of that which is seen, by Isaiah, as he then goes on to describe what he sees, and then quotes from what he sees.

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In Isaiah 6, 10, which comes into John chapter 12, verse 40.

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Then I gave you the Greek of John 12, 41, tauta aipen aisaias, hati aiden tein doxon autu, and he spoke concerning him, peri autu.

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And I have bolded Isaiah, these things Isaiah said, because he saw his glory and he spoke concerning him.

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Now, to understand this issue, you need to understand what the argument is about. And again, if you haven't, didn't listen to the debate, it's going to be difficult to understand why there is the argument here.

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As I have said, for a couple of weeks now in reviewing Mr. Novelist's material, what Unitarians do is they read out of the text, anything that would contradict their position.

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Since theirs is a reductionistic position, reducing Jesus down to something less than what he is, then that evidence of the greater elements of Jesus' existence that their theology would not allow for, have to be ignored, explained away, said not to be significant, read out of the text.

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And we saw examples of this already, and I provided a number of examples during the course of the debate.

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Now, when Christians look at John 1241, the argument is not that Isaiah never said anything about the

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Messiah, because basically what the Unitarian is saying is, well, Isaiah, he saw the glorious ministry of the

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Messiah and that the Messiah would be rejected. And he talked about the Messiah.

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And that's all John 1241 is about. Is that Isaiah saw the glory of the

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Messiah and that the Messiah would be rejected. And he spoke about it.

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That's all it can mean. Now, Christians down through the ages have gone, well, that's quite true.

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I mean, Isaiah, who would ever dare question that Isaiah has a tremendous amount of information concerning the

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Messiahship of Jesus and the ministry. I mean, just read the

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Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 52 and 53. I mean, wow, just incredible stuff.

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700 years for the Messiah. Use it all the time. But is that all?

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Because, you see, what's not stated openly but needs to be seen is that for their position to survive,

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John 1241 cannot be a reference to Isaiah 61.

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Can't be. What they're saying is these things Isaiah said because he saw his glory elsewhere and he spoke about the

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Messiah. But it can't mean that Isaiah saw the glory of Yahweh and spoke about him.

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No, no, no, no. Because if that's the case, then John is making an amazing statement here because he goes on in verse 42, yet many, even the rulers, believed in him and the only him in the context of Jesus.

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And so if John 1241 is, in fact, a verbal parallel to and drawing from Isaiah 61, then not only is it talking about and fulfilling everything

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Isaiah prophetically said about the Messiah, but it's also telling us something about the nature of the Messiah that, well, we as Unitarians, we don't believe that, so it can't be there.

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It can't have a reference to that. No, no, no, no, no, no. You see? And so I bolded it so you can see for yourself.

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Now, I asked Mr. Novice during the cross -examination, do you know of anywhere else in the book of Isaiah where Isaiah is said to have seen the glory of anyone?

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Seen the glory of anyone. And he wasn't aware of any place.

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Now, skip past Isaiah 53 .2 for a moment. You'll see in Isaiah 66 .18 and 19, there are some references there.

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You've got, Opsintai tein doxon mu, they will see my glory.

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And then in 66 .19, you've got Harao there. Harakasen tein doxon mu, but that's

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Uda. Um, it's after an ug, it's talking about not. I wondered if he might go there, but they are not

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Isaiah talking about seeing the glory of Yahweh. So, my argument was, and remains, that when you ask the question, you just quoted from Isaiah 6, a famous passage, well known amongst the

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Jews. And the Jews know how this section begins. They know that Isaiah saw the

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Lord lofty and lifted up. And if you're looking at your translation, please note something.

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This is something that's even more significant. This is found in my book. It's in a footnote, but if you don't read the footnotes in my book, you don't, you don't get it.

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You might be confused by something if you're looking at an English translation that translates only the Masoretic Hebrew text, because the

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English translation says, and the train of his robe filled the temple. But there is a textual variant.

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The Septuagint disagrees with the Masoretic text. And the last line, as you see in the blog article, is ha 'oikas teis doxas autu.

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I'm sorry, play race, ha 'oikas teis doxas autu. And the house was full of his glory.

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The very same terminology that John chooses to use.

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And so when you ask the question, where in all of Isaiah did he see his glory and speak concerning him?

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The Unitarian, assuming his Unitarianism, has to disassociate

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Isaiah's seeing of the glory of Yahweh and speaking about Yahweh. That has to be gotten rid of.

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It has to only be about the Messiah. It can't be about both because you see, they don't have the

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Jesus we have. Because we can affirm everything it says about the Messiah and his ministry and its glory and everything else.

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But you see, we recognize that Yahweh became flesh. We don't assume Unitarianism. We recognize that the name

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Yahweh is used as a father and it is used of the son as well. Not merely as a representative, not merely in some extended fashion, but in ways that can only communicate that it was

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Yahweh who became flesh. Now, if you're Unitarian, you assume, oh, that's not possible because that would be the father.

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Well, that's why we're not Unitarians, because we actually allow the Bible to define these things rather than taking an external presupposition and cramming it into the

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Bible. So with that as the background, we go back to the statements and you'll see why

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I've put Isaiah 53 -2 in there. We'll look at that in just a moment. Listen to the comments.

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White's exegesis seemed to focus more on just the words, saw his glory and spoke about him. And so with those words, he would try to link that back to Isaiah 6.

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But he did not deal with the fact that Isaiah said what he said, which was what

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John was speaking about, because Isaiah saw his glory and spoke about him.

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In other words, White isn't explaining how seeing God's glory and speaking about him served as the basis for what

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Isaiah said. Or to put it another way, White hasn't explained how what Isaiah said was dependent upon seeing glory and speaking about him.

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Again, mountain out of molehill, these things, tauta ipen, comes right after quotation of Isaiah 6 -10.

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That is an entire pericope. You cannot separate 10 from 1. No Jew would, because they all knew the

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Isaiah temple vision. And so Isaiah saw his glory.

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Whose glory did he see? Yahweh's. And he spoke concerning him. Who is that? Yahweh. And yet, what application does

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John make? That it's Jesus. It's right there. I can't open eyes to see it.

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And as long as a person wants to reject who Jesus is, they can just close their eyes. Oh, no, no, not going to believe it, not going to believe it.

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But anyone with a septuagint in their hand, which was John's original audience, would see it. And they would understand it.

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And if this was just one verse, but it isn't just one verse, this is the gospel of John, folks. Even skeptics like Bart Ehrman recognize the gospel of John presents the deity of Christ.

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Even unbelievers recognize, oh, come on, it's right there. I mean, how can you miss that? But still, there's always a way to squint your eyes and to close them tightly shut so you don't see things.

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The reality is, though, that this is going to be very difficult for White, if not impossible, because the words that are quoted weren't dependent upon seeing

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God and speaking about him. It was something that was told to Isaiah. There was also a command given to Isaiah.

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Which is exactly why John quotes these words about seeing his glory and speaking about him. It's irrelevant.

34:20

He didn't have to say all that. It's this whole verse doesn't even need to be there. It says like that.

34:25

So that was the basis for what Isaiah said, him being told it, him being commanded. It was not seeing glory, seeing

34:33

God, or speaking about him. Which is why John actually emphasized those words, but never used the word commanded.

34:39

Like I said, reading out of the text, that which is there because it doesn't fit with our tradition. Novice made a really good point in that typically the

34:48

Messiah's seen glory within the book of John refers to his works, what he has done.

34:54

So that this would carry forward into John chapter 12 is certainly a very probable.

35:00

Interestingly, the most. In other words, what he's saying there is, well, we can see the glory of God in the works of Jesus, of course.

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But that doesn't explain why John says what he says in verse 41 about Isaiah spoke these things.

35:14

So here's a quote. Here's a quote. Isaiah said it because he saw his glory and he spoke concerning him.

35:23

Messianic fulfillment, you bet. But who did Isaiah see? The Unitarian says it wasn't

35:29

Joe, but no, no, don't notice that part. No, he, no, it can't be that. It can't be that because we don't believe that.

35:38

That's why it can't be that. Catch, catch how that's working, folks.

35:44

It'll help you to follow along. Immediate occurrence prior to John 12, 41 is in John 11, 40, where God's glory is spoken of.

35:53

And that also is glory seen through works. White really hammered on the verbal parallel, but of course it's meaningless.

36:02

Meeting first can't deal with because. And it really, the verbal parallel also exists.

36:08

Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53 to it says, I DOS auto. And so he says we saw him.

36:16

So that same concept of seeing is there present in Isaiah 53, he goes on to speak.

36:21

Now let's, let's, let's provide Mr. Barron with some remedial Greek one -on -one here because he's mistranslated

36:30

Isaiah 53 to provided in the blog article. You do see I DOS auto.

36:36

That does not mean we saw him. We saw him is item in Alton, which is a little bit later on.

36:46

If Mr. Barron were to actually translate the phrase there, he would have noticed that right before I DOS auto is oak,

36:54

Eston, I DOS auto UDA DACSA, which means he had no form to him.

37:01

Neither glory. I DOS means a form or appearance at that point.

37:07

It is not a verb. So I don't know if Mr. Barron has ever been trained in Greek.

37:13

Uh, he certainly hasn't taught it that's clear, but that's just a basic error on his part.

37:19

Fundamental error that a lot of people wouldn't catch, but a fundamental error in his part. So notice what's happening here though.

37:26

We have this clear citation of a text, clear, direct verbal parallels to a citation of a text.

37:36

That's irrelevant. But if we go over here, um, I know there's no glory mentioned here, but, but, but, but, but the verb

37:45

IDA it's right there item in out on. So that's good enough to make the parallel, but the direct citation isn't, um, when you're, this is called doing gymnastics.

37:57

All right. This is not exegesis. This is eisegesis. There's clearly an overriding, uh, thought here that is keeping you from actually allowing the text to speak for itself.

38:09

Then of his lowly form. Um, but then he speaks about his redemptive work. He says that he bears our sin and his pain pain for us.

38:19

So there in that redemption and his bearing our sins, the Messiah's glory is seen.

38:25

So this addresses the, the matter of how his glory was seen and where it was seen.

38:30

It was seen starting in Isaiah 52, where Isaiah speaks about the suffering servant and then on into Isaiah 53, where he continues to speak about him with first Corinthians eight, six white took the petition that, uh,

38:46

Paul was modifying the Shema of Deuteronomy six, four. I was surprised that white, white didn't really grasp the force of Patrick's point that Paul could have said, uh, notice when they say you failed to grasp means you didn't agree with, um, that's an inaccurate description.

39:05

I fully understood Mr. Novice's argument. I did not find it to be meaningful. That does not mean

39:11

I did not grasp it. Uh, might want to be a little bit more accurate in your use of terminology. There is to us one

39:17

God, the father, the son, and the Holy spirit. He certainly could have done this. And, you know, he says that the

39:23

Trinity is revealed, but this is a creedal statement. Uh, if Paul is formulating a creed here by which the church can follow, this is the time to do that, to present the doctrine of God.

39:37

He doesn't do that though. He says there is one God, the father, and that would really encompass the

39:44

Shema at that point there. Now the catch that now let's, let's look at section B and let's examine

39:50

Mr. Barron's, um, assertions. Section B gives you the

39:57

Shema in the Greek Septuagint Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh here.

40:02

Israel Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one heist in Hebrew.

40:14

That's a new shell. Then the next line, Deuteronomy six, five, you shall love the Lord, your God, all your heart, soul, mind, and all your strength.

40:22

And that is of course the Greek version of that. Uh, the reference didn't come through.

40:27

I apologize for that. But the next line beginning with all is actually first Corinthians eight. I'll, Hey, mean heist.

40:34

They asked how potter X, who taught Panta Kai? Hey, mice, ice out on Kai.

40:40

Hi. It's courteous. Yes. It's Christos D who taught Panta Kai? Hey, mice

40:46

D out too. And so here you have in first Corinthians eight and you've, you've most, if you've done any work with, uh,

40:55

Mormons, you already know this text because you know that Joseph Smith misused this text. Um, first Corinthians eight for, even if there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are

41:08

God's many and Lord's many, but to us all, Hey, mean heist the us hop hot air.

41:17

Now notice in the preceding, in the preceding verse, he has said, there are leg,

41:25

Gamma, No, I say, Hey, there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or upon the earth.

41:34

Good description of the pagan deities of that day. And then he says, whole spare ice and say,

41:42

Hey, Paul, Hey, Kai, Cody, Hey, Paul, Hey. So now he is used both say,

41:48

Oh, God's and Cody, Oh, Lords, as there are

41:53

God's many and Lord's many. Now, Paul is not saying there are many gods and many Lords. He's saying that there are those who are called gods who are called

42:02

Lords. And then he says, but this is the adversative use of a law, but to us, for us, for the

42:12

Christian people, heist the us hop hot air from whom are all things.

42:20

And we, for him, Kai heist, Cody us, Jesus Christ us through whom are all things.

42:28

And we, through him. Now I have used bold to show you why it is that, and again, and I don't think they have accused me of this, though.

42:40

I think sometimes they want to sort of present this idea a little bit. I'm not the first one to think of these things.

42:49

Okay. I'm a midget standing on the shoulders of giants. Many scholars for a long time have pointed out that for someone like Paul, who clearly is able to function in both

43:10

Hebrew and Greek, he is bilingual. He would know the

43:17

Shema like the back of his hand, because as a faithful Jewish person living at that period, second temple

43:24

Judaism, it was a part of his daily life. But he also would have heard it in Greek.

43:32

He would have known of the Diaspora synagogues. Where does he and Silas and he and Barnabas go?

43:37

They go into the synagogues. And not everybody there knew Hebrew.

43:44

And so what would the Shema be for him? What are the words?

43:55

Kurios, Lord. Theos, God. Haimon. Haimon is just a genitive form of haimin, which is a second word in 1

44:03

Corinthians 8 .6. So the idea that, well, I'm not convinced that this is actually having to do with Shema.

44:10

Well, again, you can read that out if you want. It's obvious. It's right there. The idea that a monotheistic

44:18

Jew who said the Shema over and over again could write these words and go, oh, look at that.

44:24

That looks a lot like the Shema. I didn't mean to do that, is ridiculous. But if that's where you want to go, then you can go there.

44:34

But for those who are serious about the study of the text, it's obvious that what Paul is doing here is he's not,

44:42

I don't think this is something that once this was read at the church in Corinth, they all went, wow, we've never heard of that before.

44:52

He's actually referring to something that would have been something that he had already taught them. And so what is the

44:59

Christian version of the Shema here? Well, you have

45:04

Haisteas ha -pater, one God, the Father. And what you just heard, Mr. Barron said, oh, that would be it for the

45:10

Shema right there. That's it. Again, that's it? You don't read the rest of the sentence?

45:18

Because clearly what Paul is doing is there is only one God, the Father, from whom, ex who, from whom, ta -panta, same thing we're going to see in Colossians 1, all things.

45:32

And we, for him, aisoutan, which by the way, is going to be used of Jesus, the son in Colossians 1, aisoutan, all things are aisoutan.

45:45

Chi, and this is where, where Mr. Barron and Mr. Novice miss it. There's a chi here that, oh, no, that's, that's, that's something else.

45:53

Sorry about that. Don't, don't pay attention to the sentence behind the curtain or whatever it else. But to us, one

46:01

God and one Lord. Oh, no, that's, that's a separate thing. It wasn't in the

46:07

Shema, was it? And one

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Lord, Jesus, the Messiah, de who, through whom, ta -panta, and we, de autu, we through him.

46:26

Now he uses different prepositions, which fits exactly the role that the son has taken.

46:33

Not only is the instrumental means by which creation takes place, all of creation, meaning he cannot be in the created order, as we'll see when we get to Mr.

46:42

Barron's false assertion of the part of Genitive in Colossians 1. We'll get there. We've got, still got an hour and 15 minutes left, and I may not get,

46:52

I may not even get to start my other two series, but I'm going to finish this. We are going to be consistent and thorough and move on.

47:04

Very clearly, we have a beautiful New Testament expansion.

47:10

What you've got is the Shema, and it's still there. There is no contradiction. But what have

47:16

I said over and over and over again? What have I said over and over and over again? The revelation of the doctrine of the

47:24

Trinity is in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

47:32

Holy Spirit. And so now, what is 1 Corinthians 8, 6?

47:38

It is the Shema in the fuller light of the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, and now the coming of the

47:48

Holy Spirit. You say, well, where's the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit doesn't testify of himself. He testifies of Jesus. And so this is what he's doing right here.

47:58

And so there is absolute precision and purposefulness in Paul's ascription to the haisteos and the haiskourios, all of creation, all of creation.

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Because when you take ex hu tapanta, and we for him, and de hu tapanta, and we for him, through him, that is the very description.

48:30

Of the activities of God. And we can follow those very same prepositions into the discussion of Colossians 1 as we go a little bit later on.

48:40

And so when you hear Barron saying, oh, well, you know, that haisteos, that's enough of the

48:46

Shema. It's just blindness, just putting your hands over your eyes saying, I will not see it.

48:51

I will. Yes, there's a chi there. I don't care. My Unitarianism will not allow me to see that.

48:58

But it's right there. And for he who has ears to hear and eyes to see, that chi is right there.

49:05

And one Lord, the Holy Spirit. Doesn't say that. I'm not convinced, however, that Paul is making use of the

49:13

Shema at this point. We'll notice that in verse 5, there's a contrast between many gods and many lords.

49:22

And then into verse 6, and that contrast is made with the one God and our one Lord. Well, if Paul was making use of the

49:30

Shema at that point, Lord in the Shema, of course, was the Tetragrammaton. It was Jehovah. So there was, you know,

49:36

Jehovah, our God, Jehovah is one or one Jehovah. Here, however, it's apparent that Paul is not saying that Jesus is the one

49:46

Jehovah. Rather, he is contrasting those many lords to the one

49:51

Lord, just as there were many gods. For example, the angels, they were properly called God.

49:57

The judges of Israel were properly called God. There was many of those. And there were also many lords. This might, of course,

50:03

Paul wasn't talking about proper usages of the plural theoi. He was saying legaminoi theoi, those that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth.

50:15

And, of course, just as in John 12, you have to go, that's not, Isaiah wasn't talking about Jehovah.

50:22

Now you have the very language of the Shema, which was about Jehovah. Well, no, that's not about Jehovah either.

50:31

It's like the Jehovah's Witnesses New World Translation. You know, they had these things called the J documents when they mistranslated the

50:37

New Testament, and they put the word Jehovah in the New Testament 237 times. But they don't ever put it in where it would refer to Jesus, even though many of the sources they derive from, including the

50:46

J documents, which they quote, actually had places where Jehovah was used of Jesus. But they hid those.

50:52

They didn't put them in the footnotes. You know, that's just deceptiveness, and this is just spiritual blindness.

50:58

Paul might have had in mind here, for example, we know in one early Jewish text that certain angels were called lords.

51:06

Perhaps that's what he's contrasting the many of those with the one who is

51:11

Jesus, our one Lord. Yeah, that's why he says there's one God. We're not really talking about the true God here.

51:17

We're just talking about, you know, in comparison, false gods and all things through him. That really wouldn't be about Jehovah any more than Dehu, all through him, or all things.

51:26

No, you see what happens when you just chop the text up and you don't allow it to have any flow.

51:32

You don't allow one phrase to inform the meaning of the preceding phrase, the following phrase.

51:38

See what happens? It's, you can make anything you want out of the text.

51:46

Next, when they went on into Hebrews chapter one, and I think that was really a strong case here, and White just didn't seem to grasp it.

51:54

Yeah, I didn't grasp it. White argued that God's nature is eternal, speaking about verse three, and so when it calls

52:00

Jesus the exact representation or the copy or the reproduction of God's being, White insisted that Jesus, therefore, must be eternal.

52:09

Now, let me, it is interesting, it is somewhat educational for me to hear what

52:14

Unitarians hear me saying over against what I actually argued, and the one thing that's very clear is that Patrick Novis and Mr.

52:24

Baron and these others, they're not overly self -reflective on the role of presuppositions in their own thinking.

52:32

How many times have we run into that? Here's the situation. Look at Hebrews chapter one, verse three.

52:38

It's section C in the notes on, and if you're just joining us, please go to the blog at aomin .org,

52:48

and you'll see a blog article documentation for today's program, and of course, it'll stay up there, so when you listen to this at other times, you'll be able to look at this.

52:57

Section C, Hebrews 1 -3, he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power.

53:07

When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Now, I've given you that in the

53:15

Greek, and the primary phrase that was focused upon, remember, we had seven minutes.

53:23

I covered all of Hebrews chapter one in seven minutes, and Mr.

53:28

Novis was not good at timekeeping. I don't know if he didn't have a timer in front of him or something like that.

53:34

He kept going over time, and this is where experience helps.

53:40

I'm able to look at the clock and go, okay, I've got so much to cover, and so I can only give so much time to each section, and I can just sort of do that on the fly, and I got all the way through.

53:49

I was able to present all the positive argumentation from Hebrews chapter one in seven minutes. That's not easy to do, but I managed to do it.

53:57

He didn't even get to verses 10 through 12, which is the key text, which applies Psalm 102, 25 to 27, which is about Yahweh and Yahweh alone to Jesus.

54:08

We're going to see that Mr. Barron has a really interesting way. Well, he didn't come up with it. Anthony Buzzard has used it, and they borrow from each other, but interesting way to try to get around that, which we will debunk in just a few moments.

54:22

It's the quote that will help us to do so is right there on the screen in front of you. Anyway, but first, the issue is the meaning of karakter.

54:43

Is the first phrase of Hebrews 1, 3. Who being, and please notice

54:48

I did bold on. I bolded that for a couple reasons. It's not an heiress.

54:54

In fact, it's the same phrase in Ego Emi HaOn at Exodus 3 .14.

55:02

Who being the radiance or the effulgence of his glory and the karakter, the imprint, the exact representation of his person, nature, being, depends on the context of use, so on and so forth.

55:23

Now, if you listened to my debate with Greg Stafford from back in 2004, as I recall, you know that modern day

55:34

Aryans take this and they say, well, that means Jesus is a copy.

55:40

Now, when we think of a copy, you know, we think of photocopiers, which can make sometimes really good copies, but very often, really not so good copies.

55:51

You can tell are copies. You know, the, you know, sort of like using the fax machine to make a copy. It's got the black lines in it.

55:57

And so it's readable, but it's, you can tell it's a copy, right? And they want to take that term copy.

56:04

And here's where, again, I hope by investing this time,

56:10

I am helping you to think through things and see where arguments, see the unspoken, the unspoken presuppositions of arguments that are bad arguments.

56:31

The argument from the Unitarians is if Jesus is a copy, then he has to be a creature because a copy by necessity comes after the original.

56:42

What is the unspoken assumption there? What's the unspoken assumption there?

56:48

The unspoken assumption is that the term character in its meaning and application at this point refers to a point of origin that it has a temporal element to it.

57:05

Well, of course, a copy, it has to happen. The original has to come before a copy, as if the process of copying in a photocopier is in the mind of the writer of the

57:16

Hebrews, which of course it is not. What's in the mind of the writer of the

57:23

Hebrews is the exactness of the character.

57:30

A character, I've told the story before, but I'll tell it again. If we have to go a few minutes long, it's

57:39

Ralph's birthday and Ralph would be happy if we did that. So I'm not going to rush it. But I've told the story before.

57:46

I remember one of my favorite memories of the holidays when

57:53

I was a kid was my mom, who had beautiful handwriting, had this huge Christmas card list.

58:01

And that's pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird, to be honest with you. And she would write these

58:12

Christmas cards to everybody. And then for a while, she had this neat set of candles, wax candles.

58:22

And you'd light it and a drop of wax would go down onto the back of the envelope.

58:30

Then you blow it out. And then she had this metal W, fancy W, that she would press into the wax on the back and it would form a seal.

58:41

Really cool looking seal on the back of the envelope. We just don't do stuff like that anymore.

58:47

You know, we've lost that. And every once in a while, she'd let me do that. And you had to wait a little bit till it gelled just a little bit.

58:53

And then she'd let me push it in. And I thought it was great. The impress of that W in the wax is the caractere.

59:05

And it was an exact mirror image of what was in the metal stamp. Signet rings would be used in the same way.

59:12

You'd press it into the wax and that would seal something.

59:19

And that was something that would be understood by the people of that time. I just realized we do need to take a brief break at the top of the hour.

59:28

If we can, I'll let you cue that up and keep going. Let me know when you're ready to go. Because I want to keep recording this and it's going to stop here in a few moments.

59:36

So I need to continue on because I'd like to put at least some of this up on the web. That's what this is talking about.

59:44

And if Mr. Navas and Mr. Barron and these guys really wanted to be honest with Hebrews, they would notice the context.

59:55

Are you saying that the glory of God began at a point in time? Because you're saying caractere means is referring to a point in time where an inferior copy was made.

01:00:08

But was God always glorious? Has there always been an effulgence of his glory?

01:00:14

Of course. Then where do you get this idea that character means created at a point in time?

01:00:22

It's an assumption. I've never heard them back it up with anything other than a photocopier analogy, which would not be in the mind of the writer.

01:00:31

But there's something more. As I pointed out, they don't really believe caractere.

01:00:38

Because I asked is, and this is interestingly enough, all that Mr. Barron heard, but didn't fully understand.

01:00:45

I asked, is eternality a definitional part of God's nature?

01:00:51

He said, yes. I said, is Jesus eternal? No, then he's not really the caractere, is he?

01:00:59

Because you see, to avoid the implications of the position, they have to diminish the meaning of caractere.

01:01:08

They have to turn it into a bad photocopy. That's not what the writer of the Hebrews ever intended.

01:01:15

Remember, this is the very presentation of the supremacy of Christ.

01:01:23

The beginning of it, which is going to end at the end of chapter one with the identification of Jesus as Yahweh.

01:01:28

So the idea that this is some created concept makes absolutely no sense in the context of Hebrews chapter one.

01:01:38

I will, number two and 58 .62 in the blog article are definitions of caractere.

01:01:48

The first is from Bauer, Donger, Arndt, and Gingrich, and the second is from Loewenita, if you want to have that.

01:01:53

Okay, we'll continue on with Mr. Barron's presentation and our refutation thereof right after we take a short break.

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01:04:30

And welcome back. I was talking, but no one could hear me. We are responding to a video that was posted on YouTube, comments on the debate that I had with Patrick Novis on Friday evening.

01:04:44

If you are just joining us, please go to the blog at aomen .org and you will find there the notes that I have provided, which are helping us to deal with these issues and to explain some of the things that we're talking about.

01:04:57

It's a little bit on the complicated side, but we want to be able to tackle these things and hopefully it's useful to you.

01:05:06

Let's continue on. But that goes against the very definition of what a copy or a reproduction is.

01:05:13

Yeah, a modern definition. Not what karakter means, but what a modern definition would mean, which he would have to demonstrate karakter means that in Hebrews 1 .3.

01:05:23

And that it is always temporarily after the original. It always comes after that one.

01:05:29

That's just definitional to what a copy is. So White's presuppositions came to bear there.

01:05:37

Actually, my exegesis came to bear there, and his presuppositions were just exposed. He also couldn't grasp how the language of Hebrews 1 .10

01:05:45

-12, which is a quote from Psalm 102, how that could apply to a creature. Now, let me stop here, because if you haven't, if it's been a while since you have read

01:05:55

Psalm 102, 25 -27, might I read it to you?

01:06:02

Because it, you know, it just strikes me as being pretty obvious.

01:06:09

Let's listen to it. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens the work of your hands.

01:06:16

They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away.

01:06:23

But you are the same, and your years have no end. Yeah, I think that's a very, very good description of the immutability of Yahweh, the one creator

01:06:37

God. And I just want you to consider, how could you ever apply those words to a created being?

01:06:46

To a created being. You, created being, laid the foundation of the earth.

01:06:52

You, created being, the heavens are the work of your hands. Well, what is this created being? When was he created?

01:06:58

If he created the earth and the heavens, did he create himself? They, created things, will perish, you created thing.

01:07:07

But you, created thing, will remain. Because you're not really a created thing, maybe, I don't know. They will all wear out like a garment.

01:07:15

You will change them, created thing, like a robe, and they will pass away, even though you are like them.

01:07:20

But you are the same, created thing, even though you're not always the same, because you came into existence at a point in time.

01:07:26

And your years have no end, even though they had a beginning. Ah, yeah, that's what the psalmist had in mind.

01:07:31

Okay, so, now, it's obvious to me, and it's obvious to the vast majority of the listeners of this broadcast, what is being discussed there.

01:07:44

But, there's a sneaky little way around this. And we have discussed this before in the program, but we're going to discuss it again.

01:07:52

Let's listen. It's just that the author of Hebrews would never have done that. But the reality is, is that application to another, to a creature, came much earlier.

01:08:04

And it's actually that application that the author of Hebrews is drawing from, from the Septuagint.

01:08:09

Where in the Psalm, it's reinterpreted and reapplied to what is apparently the psalmist who is interpreted to be the

01:08:18

Messiah. This text is in the Septuagint applied to one other than Jehovah, and it actually has

01:08:26

Jehovah speaking to that one. So, we find right there the reapplication of it.

01:08:34

So, what he's talking about is that there is a minor difference in the

01:08:41

Greek Septuagint and the Masoretic text. If you want to hear a fuller discussion of this, see my sermon on this relevant text,

01:08:48

Sermon Audio in the Hebrews series. But I provide you an entire quotation, and for those who don't get to follow the notes,

01:08:57

I'm going to go ahead and read F .F. Bruce's commentary at this point. There's many of you who listen on a podcast, you're driving down the road or doing what

01:09:03

I do, riding a bicycle someplace or running or something like that. And so, let me go ahead and read this for you, so you know what is being referred to.

01:09:12

Bruce, I believe this is in the NICNT, which I just got, thanks to the Lord, on Kindle.

01:09:19

I wanted this in electronic form for a long time and finally got it. The words in which the psalmist addresses

01:09:25

God, however, are here applied to the sun, as clearly as the words of Psalm 45, 6 following were applied to him in verses 8 and 9.

01:09:32

What justification can be pleaded for our authors applying them thus? First, as has already been said in verse 2, it was through the sun that the universe was made.

01:09:40

The angels were but worshiping spectators when the earth was founded, but the sun was the father's agent in the work.

01:09:46

He, therefore, can be understood as the one who is addressed in the words. Of moreover, in the

01:09:52

Septuagint text, and here's the point. In the Septuagint text, the person to whom these words are spoken is addressed explicitly as Lord.

01:10:01

Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth. And it is God who addresses him thus.

01:10:10

Whereas in the Hebrew text, the suppliant is the speaker from the beginning to the end of the psalm.

01:10:15

In the Greek text, his prayer comes to an end with verse 22, and the next words reads as follows.

01:10:23

He, restoration of Jerusalem, as in verse 13. I may have had a problem here in cutting and pasting.

01:10:32

I apologize for that. As in verse 13, and not summon him to act when that set time is already half expired, while he assures him that he and his servants' children will be preserved forever.

01:10:41

Something obviously got missed there. I apologize for that. That sometimes happens when cutting and pasting.

01:10:46

I will double -check the citation and fix it after the program. I continue on anyways.

01:10:52

But to whom, a Christian reader of the Septuagint might well ask, could God speak in words like these?

01:10:59

And whom would God himself address as Lord, as the maker of earth and heaven?

01:11:05

Now, you just heard Mr. Barron say, well, this is probably the Messiah. Oh, so God calls the

01:11:11

Messiah Lord and says the Messiah is the maker of heaven and earth. Certainly it's not the psalmist.

01:11:19

And so what is the unfounded presupposition, which once again, our Unitarians have immediately thrown into it?

01:11:27

Oh, the Messiah is a created being. Because he said, oh, it's, see, it's used here of a creature. And so God calls the

01:11:35

Messiah, Kurios, Lord? Really? Same terminology used of Yahweh?

01:11:43

Now, if the Septuagint, and if the writer is picking up on this, then he's picking up on this as a further identification as, of Jesus as Yahweh.

01:11:56

And that's exactly how Bruce takes it. Notice, and whom could God himself address as Lord, as the maker of heaven and earth?

01:12:02

Our author knows of one person only to whom such terms could be appropriate. And that is the Son of God. That our author understood this quotation

01:12:09

Psalm 102 as an utterance of God seems plain from the way in which is linked by the simple conjunction, and to the preceding quotation

01:12:15

Psalm 45. Both quotations fall in the same rubric, but to the Son, God says.

01:12:21

If in the preceding quotation, the Son is addressed by God as God, in this one, he is addressed by God as Lord.

01:12:28

And we need not doubt that our, that our author, for the author of the title Lord, conveys the highest sense of all the name, which is above every name.

01:12:36

Nor what the Son has ascribed to him a dignity, which surpasses all the names angels can bear. Nor is our author the only

01:12:43

New Testament right to ascribe to Christ the highest divine names, or to apply to him Old Testament scriptures, which in their primary context refer to Yahweh.

01:12:52

And he gives a footnote there, number 105. Compare the application of, to Christ of Isaiah 45, 23, in Philippians 2, 10 and following, and of Isaiah 8, 13,

01:13:03

Yahweh of hosts, him you shall sanctify in 1 Peter 3, 15. Sanctify Christ in your hearts as Lord.

01:13:11

So Bruce, even in noting the Septuagint issue here, does not in any way, shape or form, take it as a diminishment, and does not support the idea that this is applied to a creature.

01:13:27

I repeat myself, you cannot apply categories of immutability and creatorship to mere creatures, and yet they are applied to the

01:13:40

Son. There's no question about it. It's right there. It is, in fact, very, very clear.

01:13:48

When they moved on into Colossians 1... And this is section D, if you want to go to the notes.

01:13:54

Section D, beginning with the quotation of Colossians 1, verse 15.

01:14:02

I think Patrick might have been initially a bit confused with some of what's questioning. White kept pressing him on how

01:14:10

Jesus could be excluded from Ta -Pan -Ta and still be created. Were that the case,

01:14:17

I think... The fact of the matter is, the wheels fell off for Mr.

01:14:22

Navas during the cross -examination on Colossians 1, verse 15. Because his position simply makes no sense, and he evidently had not thought through it clearly enough.

01:14:33

Um, what I asked him was, is Jesus a part of Ta -Pan -Ta?

01:14:39

And he said, no. And I said, all right. Then, is

01:14:45

Jesus a part of what's in the heavens or the earth? Because what does it say?

01:14:50

Look at... If you look at D in the notes... For by him were created

01:15:05

Ta -Pan -Ta, all things. And then you have a series of expressions meant to define

01:15:15

Ta -Pan -Ta. The things in heaven and upon the earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or lordships or principalities or authorities.

01:15:29

All things were created through him and for him. We saw for him before.

01:15:35

Remember we saw for him? That was said of the father. Up there in 1

01:15:42

Corinthians 8, 6. I mentioned we'd see it again. I'd like to hear an explanation from our

01:15:48

Unitarian friends about how you can exchange such phraseology. But there it is.

01:15:56

What Paul's doing is he is making sure to close off all avenues of escape for the false teachers who are coming into Colossae and presenting a dualistic view of creation.

01:16:12

And so I asked, okay, if he's not part of Ta -Pan -Ta and his creative activity extends to the heavens and the earth, then where's

01:16:22

Jesus? If things in the heavens were created by Jesus and things upon the earth are created by Jesus, then where was

01:16:29

Jesus created at? Where does he live? Where was his creation at? And there really wasn't much of an answer.

01:16:37

Now, I think what Mr. Barron is doing is some damage control at this point and trying to patch things back up.

01:16:44

But what he's going to do is he's going to take that. And again, it's something that's been refuted for a long, long time.

01:16:50

What he's going to do is he's going to say, well, you need to go back to Prototokos. Prototokos posses tisseos, which is at the end of verse 15.

01:17:01

And what you need to see is first born actually means first created.

01:17:08

Because first born would normally just refers to creation. And that's clearly what's going on here in Colossians 1.

01:17:15

Yeah, there's some places where it means one having preeminence about Israel and David. But, you know, we don't want to worry about the connections between David and Messiah and stuff like that.

01:17:25

And Israel is God's first born. No, no, no. It means first created.

01:17:31

Jesus is a part of the creation. And what that means is that posses tisseos, which is in the genitive, is taken as a partitive genitive.

01:17:45

So that Prototokos is a part of the creation. And it's interesting.

01:17:52

I gave a quotation of Patrick Novis in the notes.

01:18:02

And I wanted to bring this up during the... There's a lot of things that I caught in Mr.

01:18:07

Novis' book where he made errors. Just factual, historical, Greek, whatever it might be.

01:18:13

That would have been useful. But I didn't, you know, I wanted to stick with the subject. Quotation of Patrick Novis is found on the blog there.

01:18:24

Although Jesus is identified by Paul as the firstborn of all creation. A few

01:18:31

Trinitarian Bible translators have actually attempted to change the translation to firstborn over all creation,

01:18:41

NIV and NKJV. But that is not a literally accurate or necessary translation. In a typical effort to defend

01:18:47

Trinitarian concepts, John MacArthur advanced two interpretive ideas in his commentary on this verse. And it goes on from there.

01:18:53

Now, you get some of the language. You know, I've pointed out, for example, that I am very frequently in Mr.

01:19:01

Novis' book identified as a Trinitarian apologist. But when he quotes

01:19:07

Unitarian apologists like Professor Badoon or Greg Stafford or Anthony Buzzard, he never once uses the term

01:19:20

Unitarian apologist. They're Greek scholars and Bible students and stuff like that.

01:19:27

The spin is really thick, really, really, really thick. Great inconsistencies there.

01:19:34

But you'll notice Mr. Novis, when he says, actually attempted to change the translation.

01:19:43

That's not even an accurate way of expressing it. If you think that firstborn over all creation is wrong, then you would say it's mistranslation.

01:19:55

It's not changing a translation. I don't think they have a translation. They're changing it to something else. That's not even a proper way of expressing it.

01:20:06

But what I've provided you below that, and I really did want to ask this. It just didn't come up, unfortunately.

01:20:12

The questions on Colossians 1 went too well to even have interrupted them. We only had three minutes for questioning.

01:20:18

If I'd had more time for questioning, then I would have asked him about this. Mr. Novis, in your book, you said that the

01:20:26

NIV and the NKGV are changing the translation to firstborn over all creation. Mr. Novis, do you know what the genitive of subordination is?

01:20:37

Now, I do not know how far Mr. Novis got in Greek. If you do first year

01:20:45

Greek, you will not do syntax or lexicography.

01:20:52

And I found lots of places where to someone who knows syntax and lexicography, it's obvious Mr.

01:20:57

Novis does not know syntax and lexicography. And this is one of those places.

01:21:03

And when you get to the genitive, and even if you've learned it in the 8K system as I did, even when you separate the genitive out from the ablative uses in the

01:21:15

Greek, there are so many syntactical categories for the genitive.

01:21:21

If I recall correctly, one of the texts I cited, 22, and that's not including the ablative uses.

01:21:27

So Dan Wallace, who's sort of known, he's written that big, thick book on Greek syntax, actually used as one of his examples of genitive subordination, specifically translating it as the

01:21:49

NIV and NKJV do, first born over all creation, Colossians 1 .15.

01:21:56

So you have Patrick Novis, oh, these translators are changing things. And then you've got

01:22:02

Dan Wallace, who's been teaching Greek for almost as long as Patrick Novis has been alive, saying, no, that's not how it works.

01:22:11

And by the way, the other reason that I, the other quote I gave there, I also wanted you to see something

01:22:17

I think is really neat. Notice Romans 11 .36. I provide that it's under D, because ex autu and de autu, and ais autan tapanta, to him be the glory forever and ever, from him and through him and unto him are all things, to him be the glory forever and ever.

01:22:45

We know that de autu is used of the son, ais autan is used of the father and the son, and ex autu is used of the father.

01:22:53

All the time, Mr. Novis kept saying, nowhere in the New Testament, is there any place where you have

01:22:58

God in the Trinitarian sense? And yet, if you were to actually seriously look at Romans 11 .36,

01:23:06

in Paul's own usage, how else could you understand it? Because if you say this is only of the father, then why is both de autu and ais autan tapanta used of the son, of a mere creature?

01:23:23

Hmm. One of those questions that I didn't get to in my stuff.

01:23:28

But we continue on, because if we don't keep going here, this is going to be an uber mega jumbo marathon

01:23:37

DL, and I didn't have lunch, so. Confusion was eventually cleared up.

01:23:44

Patrick explained that Jesus could not be included in tapanta, because there, in that context, that tapanta was being created in and through him.

01:23:54

Now, did you catch that folks? That tapanta, when you remember what tapanta means, all things.

01:24:02

Well, that all things, Jesus isn't including that because he created it. So it doesn't really mean all things.

01:24:09

Caracter doesn't mean caracter, and tapanta doesn't mean tapanta. When Unitarians get busy in the text, be ready for redefinition of everything.

01:24:20

Because they don't believe the text. They're in rebellion against the text. They don't believe what the

01:24:26

Bible actually teaches. What wasn't touched on, which really surprised me, or at least to any real significant extent, was firstborn of all creation in verse 15.

01:24:36

That's very clear into what it means, and that he is the first and foremost one, or preeminent one of creation.

01:24:43

So not only does he belong to that group of creation, but he is the first one temporarily, and the first one in priority.

01:24:51

So White said that that doesn't mean first created, but of course it does include that connotation. In the vast majority of cases, really all but a few instances where it's clearly figurative, and it could be nothing else.

01:25:04

For example, where David was made firstborn. Well, if you're made that, then it obviously is not literal.

01:25:10

And then the other passages are all applied to nations. Specifically Israel in a couple of different passages, in Exodus, for example.

01:25:19

So the point being, he is the firstborn of all creation. The firstborn of a group, when it's used, is always a member of that group.

01:25:28

He is a member of the creation. He's the member of the created order. He is the first one of that group, and he is the foremost of that group, but he is still a part of that group.

01:25:37

So in other words, the Gnostics had that part right. The Proto -Gnostics did, which he's about to get to that.

01:25:44

One of the issues I brought up is that one of the reasons that Paul says this, he uses

01:25:49

Proto -Gnostic language against the Gnostics. Pleroma, Eon.

01:25:55

These are words which we become much more familiar with in the second century and the more fully developed forms of Gnosticism, but clearly there was a period of time development.

01:26:05

And what Paul is saying to the Colossians is, you can't relegate

01:26:10

Jesus to one of the Eons. You can't view him as one of these intermediate beings, but Mr.

01:26:20

Barron is saying, Oh, yes, you can. He is a created being, and through him, all other created beings were made.

01:26:28

That's why the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses had to put the word other in. You can't allow Colossians 1 to say what it says when you're a

01:26:35

Unitarian. You got to mistranslate it somehow. Either make tapanta something other than tapanta, go against Paul's argument, put in the word other.

01:26:42

You can't allow it because you don't believe it. You just don't believe it. You lack faith in what these words say.

01:26:50

And so you have to change it somehow, and that's what you're hearing going on now. Because of that, tapanta in verse 16 and 17 is thereby qualified.

01:27:00

It's qualified that Jesus is included within the group. Yeah, now notice what he's just done now.

01:27:06

If someone just asked you, how is tapanta qualified by the text? You'd go, because it says things in heaven and upon the earth, visible and invisible, thrones, lordships, rulers, or authorities, all things created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

01:27:24

So tapanta is defined by the author. And how has he done it? By going back to prototokos, coming up with a meaning that it does not have, and inserting it by ignoring the big long section in the middle where you actually talk about heaven and earth.

01:27:42

Mr. Barron, is Jesus in heaven? Is he one of the things in heaven?

01:27:49

Or is he on earth? Or is there some other category you'd like to put in here? It's amazing.

01:27:55

Otherwise, but within that particular context, he is not. In discussion with Colossians 1 .16,

01:28:01

White really hit hard on the proto -gnosticism that he views that Paul was addressing.

01:28:07

Now, whether or not that was the exact heresy, we can't be certain, but assuming it was, Novus was correct to point out that within gnostic thought, the demiurge was very far away from the creator

01:28:22

God, with the aeons in between successively. As they got further and further from God, eventually the demiurge came along, and he was the one that could create the physical universe, because, of course, matter was viewed as evil, so it had to be a great distance from God.

01:28:40

White took that issue, and he really only briefly discussed it and didn't address the actual point.

01:28:47

Now, admittedly, Patrick didn't go into a great deal of detail as well, so he didn't really explain the full scope of how it worked.

01:28:55

But the reality is that... You know, my recollection is, not only did I discuss this in my published book on the subject,

01:29:01

I don't think Novus did in his. I don't remember that he addressed this background issue in his comments on Colossians chapter one.

01:29:08

I have the file on my other computer, I suppose I could... But I don't think that he even did.

01:29:14

So yeah, in seven minutes, I didn't give a full background to Colossians. That's true. I would dare anybody to do a more thorough job, however, in addressing those texts in seven minutes and still get to all the points.

01:29:28

Based upon what White said, it should be very plain how a single mediator is vastly different from a proto -Gnostic thought.

01:29:38

Now, my argument wasn't that it was a matter of Paul's going, no, no, no, no. It's not that there are many eons, there's only one,

01:29:45

Jesus. The point is, Paul is refuting Gnosticism by saying Jesus is the one who created all things.

01:29:53

They had an evil God, the Demiurge that created all matter. And Paul says,

01:30:07

I mean, that is a shot in the nose of a Gnostic. He can't accept that.

01:30:15

And that's the whole point of the argument, which, to use terminology Mr. Barron has used a number of times, he doesn't seem to grasp.

01:30:23

Wherein there would have had to have been that vast chasm between the Demiurge, who would have been

01:30:29

Jesus and the creator God. That there wasn't, that there was just one, the very first one, and he was the one that was created through, is significant and really completely refutes the heresy.

01:30:43

What I think is an important question on this is, how, if Jesus was viewed as Almighty God, how would they even have conceived of Jesus as simply an

01:30:55

Aeon or a Demiurge? How would they have gotten the idea that he was this created being? Well, the

01:31:01

Gnostics did that by being eclectic. I mean, the history of Gnosticism is,

01:31:06

I've called it theological silly putty. As it rolled along, it picked up parts and tried to fit them in places.

01:31:13

And Paul is saying, Christianity doesn't fit that. You can't just edit Christianity to fit what you are comfortable with.

01:31:19

It would have been much more difficult and much more unlikely because he is, after all, Almighty God. He is

01:31:25

Jehovah himself. The fact is that if they viewed as Paul taught, which is that he was the first one of creation, the first born of creation, that very first one, and still part of the created order, then they could have said, well, wait a second here.

01:31:42

There were all these other ones as well, and they could have expanded and added their own ideas here. Did you pick that up?

01:31:50

Well, you see, if they believe what Trinitarians believe, then these heretics wouldn't have come up with this heresy.

01:31:58

But Paul taught that Jesus is a creature, and he's part of the creation, and therefore we can understand why the heretics came up with their heresy.

01:32:05

Just so you're following the argumentation here. Make sure you're following along. But Paul says, no, that's not the case.

01:32:11

There's one, that one mediator in creation, that one that God made, that first born of all creation, and he is the one.

01:32:20

Finally, what was perhaps Patrick's... Okay, now here we... We're down to section E. We might get this all done.

01:32:29

We might actually get all of it done in two hours. I really wanted to get to other things.

01:32:35

Maybe we will... I don't know. I almost feel badly starting anything else. We're down to section

01:32:40

E, and as you can see, there's a lot of stuff in section E. There is a lot of stuff in section

01:32:46

E. I mean, the article goes on and on and on in section

01:32:52

E. But these are the I Am sayings of Jesus. John 8 .24,

01:32:59

8 .58, 13 .19, 18 .5 through 6. And well, let's listen.

01:33:07

Strongest showing was in the discussion of I Am statements in Isaiah and in the

01:33:12

Gospel of John. So he just said that this was Patrick's strongest showing. This is where he did the best is the

01:33:18

I Am sayings. Patrick successfully demonstrated really that this is normal language. It's not something unique or that has a special or mystical meaning or somehow denotes

01:33:29

God's name uniquely. Okay, did you catch that? Here's the position. Once again, just, you know, got to read out of the text any kind of significance that is opposed to your position.

01:33:40

It's just not there. Just say it isn't there. And if you say it isn't there enough times, evidently that works.

01:33:48

Here's the theory. That each time, the way that novice approach this is he does not approach the

01:33:57

I Am sayings of Jesus in John as a group. Because he knows that's a no -win scenario.

01:34:04

What you got to do is you've got to cut the text up into parts. And you got to mix other stuff in.

01:34:10

You got to go to other places where Ego Aime is used, where it's not used in a significant context.

01:34:17

And say, well, see, since it's used over there, then that means it couldn't be used in a significant context over here to communicate something about the person of Christ.

01:34:25

And the main thing you've got to do is you can't let John develop a topic or a theme. Oh, no, no, no, no.

01:34:31

You cannot allow that to happen because then you're in big trouble. And so, for example, in his book, he deals with John 8, 24.

01:34:42

And then he deals John 13, 19. And then 18, 5 to 6. And then 8, 58. That's not even an order.

01:34:49

And he does all of 8, 24 without ever once even mentioning that 8, 58 is at the end of the very same pericope, the very same story as 8, 24.

01:35:01

How in the world could you pretend to be dealing with the significance of Ego Aime in John's gospel, where you have two important uses of it in one story and you separate them from one another?

01:35:18

Because, see, the only way they can get around this biblical teaching is to cut them apart and say, well, it might mean this, and it could mean that.

01:35:24

And here's a scholar over here that says it means this. It results in theological agnosticism.

01:35:31

Well, we really don't know. The only thing we really do know is that it doesn't mean what you think it means. And it's really destructive to faith.

01:35:39

It really is destructive to faith. Now, when

01:35:45

I made the presentation on the Aime sayings, not only do I say, look, this is,

01:35:54

John has themes that he is developing. He wants you to hear his words in a certain context.

01:36:02

So you have to see the relationship of the Aime sayings to the prologue of John and to the conclusion of John and to the discussion of the relationship of the

01:36:10

Father and the Son in John chapter 5 and the relationship of the Father and the Son and their oneness in the salvation of God's people in John chapter 10 and the words of Jesus in John 17 5, where he talks about how he was glorious in the presence of the

01:36:25

Father before time was. You have to see what the author is intending to do.

01:36:30

And when you separate out that all out, you can make any verse mean anything as long as you ignore the flow of thought of the author in the context in which it's used.

01:36:43

Look, that is the methodology of the cults. And that's what we have here.

01:36:50

But I also demonstrated in the Forgotten Trinity that there is a background to this and that one of the mistakes that people make and you'll find this in a lot of books is they jump directly from someplace like John 8 58, directly back to Exodus 3 14 because they hear the

01:37:20

I am statement. I am that I am and just go, oh, there's the connection.

01:37:25

Well, I think that connection is valid, but it has to be drawn through more significant usage in Isaiah and the

01:37:33

Minor Prophets. Because the phrase in Exodus 3 14 in the

01:37:38

Greek Septuagint is Ego Aimee Ha 'on, I am the being. So even though Ego Aimee is used there, the actual emphasis is upon Ha 'on, the one who is, the being, the unchangeable one.

01:37:52

I am who I am or I will be who I will be if you look at the Hebrew, but that's a whole nother issue. So what

01:37:58

I did is I mentioned, and again, it's in the footnotes, but I expect the footnotes to be read in my books.

01:38:05

That's why the footnote sections are so big, whether they're footnotes or end notes, whatever. I mentioned some of the background, some of the

01:38:14

Old Testament background and context. Under section E, you see one of those, and that is

01:38:22

John 13 19. In John 13 19,

01:38:29

Jesus is talking to the disciples and he's, you know, it's getting very close that time of his betrayal.

01:38:39

It's after the end of his public ministry. It's now the time of the ministry to the disciples themselves.

01:38:46

And he says, which means from now on,

01:39:00

I'm telling you before it comes to pass, in order that when it does happen, you may believe that I am.

01:39:11

Now I remember, and I've told the story many times before, I remember, and I don't remember now since this was, oh, so, so long ago.

01:39:21

I was writing on this subject in Bible college. So this would have been prior to 1985, right toward the end, 80, 45, somewhere around there.

01:39:36

And I don't remember whether I was looking at John 13 19 or Isaiah 43. I think I told the story in one of my books, so I need to go back and read it.

01:39:44

It'll tell me which one it was. I got enough gray down here that I can get away with that kind of stuff and no one can blame me for it anymore.

01:39:53

And I saw that pistiu sata and I saw that ego, I mean, I've seen it someplace before.

01:40:01

And I remember that night making the connection between John 13 19 and Isaiah 43 10, which is ironically enough, the phrase that the verse from which

01:40:15

Jehovah's witnesses get their name. You are my witnesses, declares the

01:40:21

Lord. Am I serving whom I have chosen? And that's where Jehovah's witnesses get their name.

01:40:28

And a lot of people know Isaiah 43 10, the last phrase before me, there is no

01:40:33

God formed. There shall be none after me. But a lot of people don't know what's in the middle.

01:40:40

And if you look at the Greek, you notice it says, servant whom

01:40:51

I have chosen, that you may know and understand and that you may know and believe and understand that I am he.

01:41:03

Now look at the, look at the language. You cannot begin to suggest that Jesus, who knows the

01:41:11

Old Testament, in fact, is the author of the Old Testament. He does not know that he is applying to himself in John 13 19, the very words of Isaiah 43 10, which

01:41:25

Yahweh spoke. And so I provided that example.

01:41:33

But basically what our Unitarian friends are saying is that ego,

01:41:40

I, me has no significance at all. It's just self -identification.

01:41:47

It's just a stronger way of saying me. I, I am the one. And so they look at the

01:41:54

Old Testament uses of this. And instead of looking at it like, well, intertestamental Jews would, who were making, well, all sorts of invalid connections, trying to look for identity, the identity of the

01:42:07

Messiah. Do you really think they overlooked this? I mean, that might explain

01:42:13

John 8 58. You know, the pickup stones stone him, you know, they say, oh, that's just because they were getting mad because Jesus was exposing.

01:42:21

That's what novice says. I mean, it's, it's, um, again, and, and, and, you know,

01:42:26

John 18, Jesus twice says, I am John B labor is the point.

01:42:31

When Jesus said ego, I, me, they fell back upon the ground.

01:42:37

Well, that moral purity argument, it's so strong. I'm sorry.

01:42:42

I find it so utterly ridiculous. And an example of such massive spiritual blindness that it is, it's just, it's just incredible.

01:42:50

I mean, how you can seriously suggest that that's what John is saying in John 8, 18, after seeing 13, 19 and 8 58 and 8 24, it just blows me and almost everybody else away.

01:43:06

But during the debate, I pointed something out. And that was

01:43:11

Isaiah 45, 18. And that's what the next section of the notes is. By the way, could we, could we mention the folks in the channel, please don't talk about food right now, because lunch is really late and this microphone is sensitive.

01:43:26

Okay. So if we're going long, don't start talking about food and channel, because that means

01:43:33

I'm going to have to wrap stuff up here because, that's, that's, that's not a good thing. What I've provided for you after the citation of Isaiah 43 10, the

01:43:41

Hebrew line is very difficult to read. Unfortunately, it didn't, it, it, the size stuff, formatting

01:43:50

Hebrew for use on the web is not something that is easy to do.

01:43:57

It just, it just is not. In fact, it's, it's rather unfun to attempt to do.

01:44:05

I tried to bold it. I did manage to get a bold, but I had to take it out of the rest of quotation because once I bolded it in the quotation, it moved it to another part of the quotation.

01:44:13

So it's weird. Okay. That's just all there is to it. Anyway, the last phrase that, that, that Greek phrase from Isaiah 45 18 is,

01:44:24

I am Yahweh, Ani Yahweh, and there is no other,

01:44:32

Wa 'ein Od. And so you have the

01:44:37

Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wau -Heh. It's the second word from the right in the

01:44:43

Hebrew line. Now, what I pointed out in the debate is that in Isaiah 45 18, and I forgot to bold this.

01:44:53

I am so sorry. I apologize. I got to almost all the bolding, but I didn't hear. I apologize. If you look at, you see the line, it says,

01:45:02

Gertingen Septigen, current scholarly standard in LXX Textual Studies. Then you have the word 18 in a line of Greek.

01:45:10

At the end of that line of Greek, one, two, three, four, five, six words in from the end of that line of Greek.

01:45:18

And I will try to remember to bold it when I try to fix the quotation too. It says,

01:45:26

Ego Aimi, Caiuk Esten Eti. Ego Aimi, Caiuk Esten Eti.

01:45:36

I am, and there is no other. Where did Yahweh go? Where did the divine name go?

01:45:46

Here you have Ani Yahweh. I am Yahweh rendered by Ego Aimi. Now, Mr.

01:45:55

Novice has been sending me some emails since the debate. And one of them was, well,

01:46:03

Brenton Septigen doesn't read that way. And so I provided to him from the

01:46:11

Gertingen Septigen, the relevant textual critical data, which is found in the next paragraph, which starts out with 18 in it,

01:46:21

I -N -I -T period. I have bolded the relevant material.

01:46:30

And you can see there the manuscripts that have Ego Aimi.

01:46:37

And then the manuscripts that have Ego Aimi plus Kurios. And the

01:46:44

M didn't come across quite right, unfortunately, because it's a fracture M in, it's a font issue that doesn't necessarily translate over into Unicode correctly, unfortunately.

01:46:55

Because H -I equals M, H -I is Jerome. And what it's indicating, the reason they've chosen the reading that's only

01:47:06

Ego Aimi is because they view the later manuscripts as trying to be corrected back to the

01:47:18

Masoretic text. But the point is that in the best reading of Isaiah 45, 18,

01:47:25

Ani Yahweh is rendered as Ego Aimi, but there's more. There is more.

01:47:32

Look below that paragraph, Isaiah 43, 25. Isaiah 43, 25.

01:47:40

I give you the, now remember 43 is the same chapter that we've already seen

01:47:45

Ego Aimi used, that Jesus uses himself in Isaiah 43, 10. But Isaiah 43, 25, Ego Aimi, Ego Aimi, twice repeated.

01:47:58

I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. Who is it?

01:48:04

This is Yahweh that does so. But Ego Aimi repeated twice. Anokhi, Anokhi who?

01:48:14

Rendering the Hebrew. And Isaiah 51, 12, repeated twice again. Ha parakhalon se, the one exhorting you.

01:48:28

And so you have in the Hebrew, the Anokhi repeated twice.

01:48:33

Here, Ego Aimi, Ego Aimi, used twice. But you want the real killer?

01:48:40

You want, you want the end of this discussion? At least any person who has a, has any amount of sense.

01:48:50

You'll notice that in Isaiah chapter 47, there is a discussion going on.

01:49:01

And it's addressed to you, lover of pleasures. Now, therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sits securely, who say in your heart,

01:49:16

I am, and there is no one besides me. I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children.

01:49:27

These two things shall come to you in a moment in one day. The loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments.

01:49:38

You felt secure in your wickedness. You said, no one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray.

01:49:45

And you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one besides me.

01:49:52

That's the English translation, but if you're following on the screen, you said in your heart,

01:49:59

Ego, I, me, Caiuk, esten, hetera. And then in verse 10,

01:50:06

Sugar, I, pos, ego, I, me, Caiuk, esten, hetera. You see what's going on?

01:50:17

Judgment upon these people who said, I am, and there is not another. Why would that be wrong for them to say that?

01:50:24

Well, these are lovers of pleasure. These are people of sorceries. You mean they were using it?

01:50:31

Yeah, a phrase of divinity for themselves. That's not the only place.

01:50:37

Look at Zephaniah 2 .15. Now there's, you know, Zephaniah 2 .15. I feel sorry for Zephaniah.

01:50:45

He's going to be walking through the streets of heaven and he's going to run into each one of us and say, hey, how'd you like my book?

01:50:54

And he's going to be very, he's going to be one of the saddest people in heaven because there's just going to be so many, even listening to my voice right now, who probably would have to go,

01:51:10

Zephaniah 2 .15. Speaking of Nineveh, this is the exultant city that lives secure that said in her heart,

01:51:19

I am, and there is no one else. What a desolation she has become, a liar for wild beasts.

01:51:27

Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist. And what is the

01:51:32

Greek? Hey, leguza encardia altes, who said in her heart, Ego, I, me,

01:51:39

Caiuk, esten, met, eme, eti, Nineveh.

01:51:46

City, I am. God brings judgment.

01:51:52

So, I am doesn't have any significance in the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint.

01:51:58

No significance at all. So there is no background to all those texts in John and soldiers falling backward when

01:52:06

Jesus says, Ego, I, me, and Jesus quoting Isaiah 43 .10 of himself in the context of, no, no significance at all.

01:52:16

It's just not there. Of course it's there. You have to be blind not to see it.

01:52:23

And it's not just me that says this. I provided a pretty lengthy quote.

01:52:29

Sam Shamoon sent it to me. Thank you, Sam. Pretty lengthy quote from someone who's nowhere near me in the theological spectrum.

01:52:40

Raymond Brown. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. We are, we are light years apart.

01:52:46

I mean, Raymond Brown is way, way, way off to my left. And yet read the quote.

01:52:55

Over and over again. I just bolded a couple of sections. There is a natural tendency to feel these statements are incomplete.

01:53:04

For instance, John 8 .25, the Jews respond by asking, well, then who are you? Since this usage goes far beyond ordinary parlance.

01:53:13

All recognize that the absolute I am has a special revelatory function in John.

01:53:19

Well, evidently Dr. Brown did not meet Patrick Novice or Mr. Barron. They weren't in his circles.

01:53:26

All recognize it. And then look down below. There is even evidence the use of egoimi in the

01:53:32

Greek of Deutero -Isaiah. And if you're wondering what Deutero -Isaiah means, I told you Dr. Brown was way off to my left.

01:53:40

And so they think that starting with Isaiah 40, you have a second author involved.

01:53:46

I don't believe that. I don't think Jews believe that. But that's what Deutero -Isaiah means. There is even evidence the use of egoimi in the

01:53:54

Greek of Deutero -Isaiah came to be understood not only as a statement of divine unicity and existence, but also as a divine name.

01:54:05

And he quotes from the same text that I quote from. Against this background, the absolute use of I am by the

01:54:12

Johannine Jesus becomes quite intelligible. He was speaking in the same manner in which

01:54:17

Yahweh speaks in Deutero -Isaiah. So I'm not the only one who says this.

01:54:24

There are a lot of people who have said these things. Now, now that we've laid the background, let's hear what

01:54:34

Mr. Barron had to say. In the passages that that novice discussed, he demonstrated that what was happening is

01:54:42

God was answering his own questions. He was saying, I am that one, I am he. He was not using anihu or egoimi to replace the divine name.

01:54:53

White really hammered hard on this in the Gospel of John. He didn't want to go into the synoptics where egoimi is similarly used.

01:55:01

I didn't want to go into them or it was not a part of my argument. And I recognize that egoimi can be used without an identification of deity, but it is clearly being used that way in John.

01:55:12

See, let my argument be my argument. Don't try to twist it. Don't try to make it something it isn't. I didn't want to go there.

01:55:19

No, it's irrelevant to my argument. If you grasped my argument. Because it's demonstrable that that just means

01:55:27

I am the Christ from the parallels. But within John's Gospel, he hammered hard, but he never really got off the ground because his argument was undercut by the fact that he hadn't established that it had some special meaning.

01:55:41

Yeah, it doesn't have any meaning, folks. Remember, it has no special meaning. That Isaiah stuff, don't worry about it.

01:55:48

It doesn't matter. That Zephaniah stuff, the double usage, you know, quoting

01:55:54

Isaiah and soldiers falling over. I, yeah, I'm sorry, folks. I just didn't provide anything.

01:56:00

He simply assumed it had a special meaning. Yeah, assumed it. Novice had successfully demonstrated otherwise, and White did not engage that fact.

01:56:08

So at the end of the day, on this particular point, Patrick, in my opinion, clearly and unambiguously came out on top.

01:56:15

There you go. On several occasions, White talked about the Son of God. And he said, look, he was claiming to be the

01:56:21

Son of God. And so they had to stone him. They wanted to stone him for making that claim. And so see,

01:56:27

Son of God had this higher connotation. And by that, I can only assume he means as a second person of the

01:56:34

Trinity. Actually, what I said during the debate, rather clearly, was in the

01:56:39

Gospel of John. In John 5, verses 17 and 18, Jesus said, my father's working until now, and I am working.

01:56:48

And the Jews understood that by those words, he was making himself equal with God.

01:56:54

He was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. What does that mean, Son of God means? And then

01:56:59

John 19, verse 7, which I cited in the debate says, the Jews answered him, we have a law.

01:57:06

And by that law, he ought to die because he made himself out to be the

01:57:11

Son of God. I asked Mr. Novice, what's that law? Do Jews stone angels?

01:57:20

He was flustered by that, and Mr. Barron doesn't happen to mention that. There's of course, two problems with that.

01:57:25

One is first, is that the Jews at that time didn't believe in a Trinity and didn't perceive as Son of God as having such a connotation.

01:57:33

I just gave you two texts that, A, do not require the Jews to believe in the Trinity, but B, demonstrate that they understood that Son of God in Jesus' usage was not, oh, a created being.

01:57:45

They recognized that and they acted in light of it. And that was in the debate. And it's funny how

01:57:51

Mr. Barron didn't hear it. But second, for them, Son of God in the most highest meaning simply meant the

01:57:58

Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. Which means you're to stone the Messiah, according to John 19, 7.

01:58:03

Those of the Davidic line were sons of God. So this really is not a sustainable argument.

01:58:10

Those are just some of my thoughts on the debate. Hopefully they're insightful. Hopefully they add something to the discussion.

01:58:16

I think the debate, again, was worthwhile. I was glad that it took place. I am glad it took place.

01:58:22

And I certainly enjoyed listening to it. And we enjoyed listening to the response and responding to the response in this mega -sized dividing line.

01:58:34

The next time we get together on Thursday, it'll be right before I head back to St. Charles, by the way.

01:58:39

Those of you in St. Charles, Missouri, I head out there on Friday. I'm going to have a great time talking about the King James -only controversy, the history of the

01:58:45

Bible, canonization, all that neat stuff. This will be my 11th year being there, the first weekend in December.

01:58:52

Getting used to it. Hope you all join me. But Thursday, we will be back and we will dive into the

01:58:57

Wallace -Ehrman debate and the response to Diyan Mohamed. Be with us then. Thanks a lot for listening.

01:59:03

God bless. And hey, Ralph, happy birthday. We need a new reformation day.

01:59:23

It's a sign of the times. The truth is being trampled in and doing paradigms.

01:59:31

Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise.

01:59:37

I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

01:59:43

I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth.

01:59:58

Won't you live for the

02:00:07

Lord? I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth.

02:00:12

Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the Lord? I stand up for the truth.