Radio Free Geneva: Continuing Response to Mike Winger, Focusing on Intercession/Mediation

You constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this,.

God's sovereign, God's sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign.

They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a biblical truth.

Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus. He says, Lazarus, come out. And Lazarus said, I can't, I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. Do you mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ?

You're still a raging foe.

Well, I can talk over your head like that. I know the Hebrew, the Greek, I've done theology, you can tell. I know.

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things? Um, no.

Two Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

Like that to him. Do you know what it would sound like if he were listening to it?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He wouldn't make any sense to him. A self-righteous, legalistic, deceitful jerk.

You need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism. Now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge.

And don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

You're not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat. There's a reason to have the choice of that meat.

From our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

I don't think that's the new one. I just don't think that's the new one. I listened to it carefully and I heard nothing new. So I don't think that's the new theme. I think you've got the one before that.

Tim, Tim, calling Tim. Is that the new one? What was it that we added to it just a few weeks ago? I can't remember what it was, but I didn't hear anything new. So I think that's the one before that. I really do.

So we'll find out from Tim. Tim can tell us. He will be the final authority. Welcome to The Dividing Line. We are continuing the Radio Free Geneva episode from yesterday where we, yeah, two and a half hours worth yesterday.

And so we decided to split things up just a little bit. We are responding to a video from Pastor Mike Winger from back, I believe it was July 23rd. And, you know, some people would say, so beyond that, that is one of the problems we have on the internet today.

If it was relevant in July, it remains relevant today, at least as far as the theology is concerned. So there you go. And so we started jumping in, but actually we're at a good breaking point. We were at a good breaking point.

I can't believe I only got that far. This doesn't seem right. But anyway, this next section, basically there is a difference in how Reformed folks approach, how I put this, the necessity to have an orderly, consistent theology.

In other words, as I said yesterday, what you believe about the Trinity should impact what you believe about the Gospel, what you believe about the Gospel should impact what you believe about the Church, about evangelism.

It all should be brought together and should have relationship to one another, and it really is in Reformed circles, seriously Reformed circles. In my experience, you have that emphasis. Whereas in my experience, I have spoken in a lot of different contexts, and once I get out of that context, I don't find as much emphasis upon the necessity of consistency and of seeing how things relate to one another.

You could be consistent in one doctrine, but not consistent in how that doctrine would then relate to everything else in the Christian faith. And of course, again, this is only an issue amongst conservatives.

Liberals don't believe that scripture is consistent enough to actually give you anything. Liberals look at what we're doing and just go, you people are arguing about nothing because the scriptures are not clear enough, they're not perspicuous enough, they're not inspired enough to even produce a consistent theology to begin with.

So, what are you people grousing about? They sort of look at us in that way. So, let's dive into it, and I think Mike laid it out here. I am, again, having to play this a little bit fast, otherwise we just, you know, we don't get very far.

You ignored the real issues. So, this is how Trinitarian Harmony and the Atonement is used, like a trump card. Like, hey, you haven't even really addressed the major issues, Mike. You've just skipped over them.

And so, now, this is, I think, often the case.

Okay, I just got evidence on Twitter. You still with me? Yeah, Gene Kim's not in there. The Gene Kim quote. So, yep, I knew it was in there someplace. And so, Tim, we're sorry. You know, we ask you to do this work, and then Rich just loses things.

I'm picking on Rich today. So, it's in there somewhere, but there's a new one that had Gene Kim doing his wild, crazy thing. And what was it that Gene Kim did? Remember what quote it was? It was just recently.

And it was just insane. And he popped it in for us, because I remember which one I asked him to replace. So, when I heard the one replaced, I was like, we played it once. It's on that computer somewhere.

So, we will need to look around for it. No, no, as long as it's not playing on that side of the window and not on the air, we're good. So, the Calvinist Watchdog was the guy who said it was Gene Kim quote that was missing.

And then I realized, oh, that's right. That's right. And it was the one about, now I remember remembering what it was, about me and Jeff and Greek and where he goes, blah, remember? There you go. All right.

Now we remember. Now we remember. Thank you, Calvinist Watchdog, for reminding us of that. Total disruption to what we were talking about in the first place. But sorry about that. Because Mike Winger has never gone, blah, or anything like that.

So, Mike, don't think we're trying to, have you ever seen Gene Kim? I'm not sure Mike Winger would even recognize who, but yeah, look up Gene Kim sometime. He's great. He's wonderful. Anyways, let's go back to what we were saying.

Now, this is, I think, often the case where the Arminian, or I'm not an Arminian, by the way, but the Arminian or the non-Calvinists, they will bring scripture that says, ha, this refutes that doctrine of Calvinism.

And the Calvinist says, no, no, no, no. I'm going to bring not just scripture, but a theological framework, a theological principle that will trump your scripture. I, of course, started my video, the beginning of my video, I'm going to, yeah, I have a clip here.

Notice what I said at the beginning of my video. I said, I think I have a good reason why this scripture actually trumps your theological framework. So try to track with this. Because if you understand this, you understand some of the major differences between Calvinists and non-Calvinists.

If you understand where James White's coming from and where I'm coming from. It seems that the majority of the reasons people offer for limited atonement to support this particular doctrine is philosophical reasoning.

It's not based upon, here's what the scripture teaches clearly about limited atonement. It's rather, here's what the Bible says about other issues. And I think logically, when we apply that to limited atonement, we get the doctrine of limited atonement.

I'm not really planning on covering that kind of stuff today, because I'll just say, I think I can trump that logic or that philosophy by saying, even if you feel your logic and theology is good, if the Bible disagrees with you, you should reconsider that that logic may be wrong about how you're applying one doctrinal truth to a different doctrinal question.

Okay. So again, this sort of takes us back to where we were yesterday, and that's where we need to pick up. I made the argument from the beginning that what we're dealing with here is the necessity of believing that scripture is a whole.

And so what it teaches about God's relationship to time, God's relationship to creation, his purposes in creation, his purposes in redemption of a particular people, the sending of the son, the relationship of the father and the son, obviously, and here, key, intercession, the role of Jesus as high priest, you know, all of these things.

All of that does have to be consistent with itself. And where do we drive those things? We drive those things from close, careful exegesis of the text of scripture. My assertion to Pastor Winger is when I go into the sovereignty of God, when I go into his divine decrees, when I go into election and predestination, when I go into the relationship of the father and the son, into man's deadness and sin, we're talking about not using passages that are ancillary, are on the fringe, make reference to something in passing.

We're talking about walking through an entire chapter of the Bible or more, making consistent application. And when you do that, then yeah, you can't then jump over to a text and say, I think this implies that all of that consistent relationship of the theology of God proper and the theology of man and God's purposes and grace, all of that has to be thrown out.

And my challenge to you, to all of my synergistic brothers, and you are a synergist, whether you redefine the term or not, to all of my synergistic brethren, and of course, I just angered a whole bunch of folks that I would use that term, would be, are you not making the exact same argument just without realizing that you're making it?

In other words, you have a systematic theology and it is what is determining what you see in these singular passages that you interpret in such a way as, I mean, that means you can't have limited atonement because in your system, you've already come up with a theology where God's decree is derivative from his knowledge of future events, where God is limited in regards to what mankind allows him to do.

I mean, is there consistency in your system as a whole? The system's there, whether it's consistent or not is the issue. And I just can't tell you how many people that I've met over the years, that's what eventually got to them, was they realized, wow, I've got to be consistent over here in dealing with the cults or with these religions and stuff like that.

But man, it means I need to be consistent all over. It's not just over there. It needs to be in all of my theology, and then there needs to be an application of my theology as well. And so, especially when we get into some of the statements you made in intercession, and I'm going to try to rush to get there.

I think this is where it gets really important, and I really have to challenge you on some of the things you said there.

Number one, one problem. It deals, it depends, rather.

It depends on only us. Okay, this is talking about what I call Trinitarian harmony in the atonement, the simple fact that the Father, Son, and Spirit are, since they in eternity passed as one God determined to bring glory through the means of the incarnation, the demonstration of the attributes of God in the salvation of a particular people, and hence are not working at cross-purposes to one another.

That this is very important in understanding the Trinity, the atonement, and not just making the atonement sort of a peanut butter thing that's sort of just thrown out there, and then whether it's successful or how it relates to the Father, how it relates to the Spirit is all dependent upon us.

This is part of the problem. So that's what he's responding to here.

Number one, one problem. It deals, it depends, rather. It depends on only a single intention of the Father, Son, and Spirit in the atonement. It depends on the idea that the Father has a limited intention that Jesus will only die for the elect.

Like, because that's what we're assuming. We're just, we're assuming, or I think it's being assumed, because I don't think there's any passage in the scripture that says it in any clear sense. And so if I say the Father only wants these elect people saved, that seems to be the crux of the issue.

I got to prove that that's all the Father wants before I can say the Son can't disagree with the Father. And that is something I think that is not established in the text of scripture. I think the Father elects, you know, the Son pays, the Spirit actualizes.

I would agree with that. I would agree with that.

I'm not sure how you agree with that. Certainly don't agree with it in the way that we do, in the way that we mean it. If you want to text John chapter 6, the Son is sent by the Father, not to do His own will, but the will of Him has sent Him.

And what is the will of Him? All He's given Him. He not lose one of them, but raise up the last day. That requires His sacrificial giving for them. Now, you would say, well, that doesn't mean that it's only for them.

But that would require you to say, well, then there is a specific purpose that God, the Father, and the Son have in the Son bearing the sin of someone who will not be saved. And since the whole point is the personal nature of salvation, the union of the elect with Christ, why would there be any disharmony?

And that's what the whole idea is here. All the Father gives me will come to me. Now, maybe you can make the argument that the Father gives based upon the actions of mankind. We have gone over that over and over again.

That's why I said in the last program, maybe we can't even discuss these types of things without dealing first with God's sovereign decree and man's deadness and sin, maybe, and the reality of the divine decree of election.

But we're trying anyways. And the Father gives a particular people to the Son, and it is His task to make them not lose any of them, and He does that by dying in their place. So, what is the purpose of dying in the place of the individual that the Father does not give to the Son and does not task the Son with their perfect salvation?

Or, let me put it this way, would you agree that there is a specific people for whom Christ dies and that His death for them will guarantee their salvation, but are you simply saying that there is a broader application of the atonement that wasn't intended to save?

Because I've not heard you enunciate that. There is room for a discussion of the issue of reconciliation of all things. And especially that's necessary in responding to Unitarians. Again, good Unitarians.

There are Unitarians of fluff, and there are Unitarians of theological study. But, so there's a room to discuss, is there an element of the atonement that is important in the establishment of God's justice in the end, but that is not intentionally salvific?

We could have a discussion about that. You get into some of this later on when you do talk about intercession. And you do talk about, you do make the assertion, again, I think you're following David Allen, you do make the assertion that without a universal atonement there can be no true offer of the gospel, assuming that we have to know the, not only the extent of the atonement, but the identity of the elect, which we do not.

The, but it does illustrate a difference. It does illustrate a difference between the idea of a true offer, separated from the command to repent, and the reality that what the apostles commanded was repentance, and that hence, to the repentant one, there is offered forgiveness.

The only way to hold all that together is to recognize faith and repentance to the work of the Spirit of God, who has raised the spiritually dead sinner from slavery to sin. Without that, you end up with a contradiction in Scripture.

You end up with Scripture contradicting Scripture. We don't have that problem, but that's an issue for synergists as to how they handle it.

But I think that there's more information that we have in Scripture, so we're not limited to that information. I also think it's actually refuted by clear teaching passes in Scripture, and I shared these in my previous video, but I'm going to go into them again, because I know most of you probably won't go and watch that other video right now.

So, first, John. So, I'm going to provide extremely short responses, because again, I've responded to all of these in print. I mentioned the last time, a little frustrated, because as he goes through this, the interpretation, exegesis that I offered, which I think has certainly been identified by others as a consistent exegesis, really isn't taken up.

And so, I can't complain that you spend more time reading David Allen than me, but if you're going to respond to me, then, you know, when I respond to David Allen, I read David Allen on the subject. So, I would highly recommend doing that as well, at least the chapter on the Big Three, if not some of the others.

...two.

This was one I really sat on, and James White objected to my interpretation here. I'll come to that towards the end of this video, his objections, but let me just put it out here to show you that I think that this clearly refutes Trinitarian Harmony and Atonement as a fruitful avenue, you know.

And so, 1 John 2 .2, it says, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Jesus dies not just for our sins, but for the whole world, and I will establish later, as I did in my last video, that whole world here most certainly includes at least some non-elect people.

That's my whole point on the whole world. So, okay, so, and what I did in the video was I walked through, beginning in chapter one, I provided an exegesis going back into chapter one in regards to the, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. My little children, I write in these things that you may not sin, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And so I went back and went into the categories of sin and propitiation and cleansing, cleansing us from all unrighteousness and things like this. And then the vitally important reality, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And so this concept of intercession, this concept of helosmos, parakleton, the paraclete, we have a paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, He is the source of our righteousness, and He is the helosmos, the propitiation concerning our sins and not concerning ours only, but concerning also the sins of the whole world.

And the question then becomes, how can Jesus be a helosmos that is not a helosmos? That is, I pointed out that the natural reading in the first century of this is that the helosmos, the propitiation, is available outside of just the covenant community.

That is, as John himself had written in John chapter 11 when he quoted the high priest, that by that one death, he would gather together all the children of God into one body from Jews and Gentiles brought together in one.

And so the individualistic reading of kosmos is not what the first century default would have been in any way, shape, or form. And so I provided that, and, you know, I don't, obviously don't think that the response.

Took away what was said there. So he's a propitiation, it's just the Bible clearly says Jesus died for more than just believers. He died for unbelievers, in particular, the non-elect. But the text doesn't say that.

And if I've given a consistent reading of the text, which, again, is specifically about what should be the focus here, what I challenge Mike to do is to recognize how often intercession and the atonement are brought together.

That's not the specific topic of this text. We're talking here more about fellowship within the body and things like that. But still, don't quote 1 John 2 if you're not going to then deal with, and you might say, well, I was going to deal with it later, and that's why I didn't.

That's fine. That's why I'm trying to get to it, because I'm looking at the screen here, and it's a long ways down there before the mark that I have for the intercession stuff. But so I'll have to keep pressing on.

We'll explain that in more detail later. In 1 Timothy 4, verse 10, and these are not new. None of these passages are new. Calvinists are like, I knew you'd go there. I knew you'd quote that, Mike. Well, yes, of course you did, because these are the crucial passages.

I'm not surprised you knew I'd go there. But I think that they still hold their ground, even in the midst of the rebuttals that at least I'm aware of. So 1 Timothy 4, 10, for this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

He's the Savior of all, especially of those who believe. So there's a sense in which Jesus saves all. He's the Savior of all, in another sense, especially of those who believe. This works with unlimited atonement, but limited application.

That works perfectly fine. 2 Peter 2, 1.

Now, interestingly enough, if you have the current edition of the Potter's Freedom, you will see Appendix No. 2, beginning on page 363, two controversial texts, and those texts are 1 Timothy 4, 10, which was just cited.

And then we went ahead with 2 Peter 2, 1. So it just happens, the exact same two texts, an entire appendix in the Potter's Freedom. I will simply refer you to those so we can get to the intercession material.

Let me get down here a little bit.

...bought them. So they were bought. Jesus, his purchase was made for that reason. But let me give some other responses to Trinitarian harmony and the atonement. I'm going to spend a lot of time on this particular issue.

We'll spend less time on some of the other issues. What else would help refute my position here? Or excuse me, the Trinitarian harmony and atonement. What would help refute it? It would be just this. I only need the same complexity in the Father's desires as there is in the work of Christ, so that the Father, he has a genuine desire for all to be saved, but will only save those who have faith in Jesus, and that complexity is in the Father's intentions.

I'm going to send a son to pay for all that whoever believes in him will be saved.

I'm going to send the Son, and I'm going to give a particular people to the Son, and task the Son with their perfect salvation. That's John 6, 37, 39. That's the specific statement. That's the specific statement of Ephesians 1.

That's a statement of Romans 8, which we mentioned last time. Again, militates against that. So, I think you're taking only a portion of the revelation of what that intention is. So, you have this idea of complexity in the Father's intentions.

Well, when it comes to union with Christ so that Christ's atonement brings about forgiveness of sins, are you saying that there is a complexity in that? Again, we can talk about whether the very self-giving of the Son has cosmic meaning to it, but we're talking about specifically helosmos, atonement, the concept of propitiation, forgiveness of sins.

That's where the focus has to be. If that's in the Father's heart, then there's no disunity. There is no disharmony in the Trinity. Then the Son's sacrifice, it can be for all people, but only apply to those who have faith.

The Holy Spirit can call all to come. And again, we tend to point out that the only ones that have true and saving faith are those that are regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit, and these are issues that are preceding issues that we've certainly dealt with many times in the past, but it's one of the major differences.

But only regenerate those who have faith. That means we have Trinitarian harmony in the atonement. This seems really easy to overcome, this seemingly huge objection. It seems, on my end, it seems very easy to overcome.

Well, but I don't think you're overcoming it because you are basically saying that the Father has other intentions, so the Son has other intentions in His death other than the specific forgiveness of the sins for those who are united with Him.

You do that by putting all of this in the hands of man. It's by your faith, whether you're going to be given by the Father, whether you're going to be united to the Son, it's all dependent upon you. All dependent upon whether you have faith.

And the fact is that John chapter 6 doesn't say it's dependent upon you having faith. John chapter 6 says it's dependent upon whether the Father gives you to the Son, whether you're going to have faith.

Those who are given by the Father's Son come to the Son. You're saying by coming to the Son, you allow the Father to give you to the Son. It turns things upside down. It turns a lot of things in the Gospel of John upside down.

Why don't you hear what I'm saying to you? Because you don't belong to God. Is that how you would answer? If you were talking to someone who is rejecting what you were saying about Jesus, would you say it's because you don't belong to God, or it's saying because you haven't believed?

There is a major difference there. So do I have scripture that supports this, that shows the Father has an intention that Jesus would die for all people, or his intention, his desire is that all would be saved, and then the requirement is that they might have faith, that they would believe in Christ?

So his intention is to save everybody. So the Father's trying to save everybody, the Son dies to save everybody, the Spirit's trying to save everybody. Is that really where you're going to go? Because that doesn't work in the Old Testament, so maybe you have some dispensational discussion about that.

And so maybe it's only a New Testament thing, I don't know. But that's not even the reality today. It's very obvious that God has blessed certain places with an abundance of light in the Gospel that he's not blessed other places with.

So the idea of an equal attempt is not only completely contradicted by the history of Israel, but it's just simply not a reality. You can pretend it, but I don't see how it's defensible.

I think we have this kind of support in Scripture. So Romans 10 .21 says, But of Israel, he says, all day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. What's interesting about Romans 10 .21 is that this actually has application in Romans to the people of Israel rejecting Jesus and rejecting his salvation.

And God's attitude and posture towards them is, I'm holding out my hands to you, which means a genuine offer. Now, if limited atonement is true, there is no genuine offer of salvation for those who are not elect, because Jesus didn't actually die for them.

So there is no real offer.

Okay, now we get into some more of the David Allen objection, even though Romans 10 .21 is actually right after Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found by those who did not seek me. I became manifest to those who did not ask for me.

This is simply talking about the fact that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. This message has gone out to Jews and Gentiles. God had been, all day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.

This is actually a word of judgment upon the Jewish people. And then that's the introduction to Romans 11. And I say, then, God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be, for I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a tribe of Benjamin.

So the only way to make sense of 10 and 11's relationship together is the lemma, the remnant, that there's always been a remnant, and that it's always been God's purpose that the Gospels can go out to all the Gentiles.

So that's a, I'll confess how that is relevant to the objection now being made, and that there is no true offer of the Gospel if you believe in particular redemption. But again, very, very quickly, because we've talked about this many, many times before, I do not have to have knowledge either of who the elect is to be able to say that to anyone who will return and believe they will find Jesus Christ to be a perfect Savior.

I am commanded to deliver that message. And the assumption here is that we then have to have a personal knowledge of who it is Christ died for, for that to be a meaningful message. And I understand why those, and I would be surprised if Pastor Winger falls into this camp, but I could be wrong.

I mean, maybe there's, I'm not sure where he stands on the lordship salvation issue. I would like, I need to find out, that would be relevant. But this fits amongst people who have less than a strong commitment, shall we say, to the concept of the fact that God commands men everywhere to repent, that repentance is absolutely central.

You cannot separate repentance and faith. The New Testament does not. They're both gifts of God by the Spirit who regenerates and changes our hearts and frees us from slavery to sin. It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

It's a gift from his hand just as faith is as well. But what we are commanded to do is God commands men everywhere to repent. You never find the apostles as an evangelistic methodology saying you should be nice to God because God's been nice to you by having Jesus die for you.

That's not how the apostles preached the message of the gospel. And maybe how we've gotten accustomed to it, but that's not how the apostles did it. And so the assumption is that we have to know something about this particular person's spiritual status.

Well, we do know something about this particular person's spiritual status, they're spiritually dead, but in the decree of God as to whether God is going to grant this person ears to hear, eyes to see, whether he's going to free this person from slavery to sin, raise them out of spiritual death and everything else, which we do not know.

And we are not, we aren't given that information even within the church, which is why you have apostates and all the other things you have to deal with within the context of the church as well. And so the only thing that constitutes a true offer is, well, in fact, I won't even use true offer.

The only thing that would constitute the true biblical command is to repent and believe. The rest is left to God. It's up to God at that point what to do with that individual. Um, but to utilize our ignorance in time of God's decree and eternity as an argument against the harmony of the father and the son.

And as a result, you got to understand what's the result of this understanding. The result of this understanding is an impersonal atonement. You cannot, you brother, Mike, do you, do you all sing that song, um, before the throne of God?

Is it before the throne of God that has the phrase, my name is written on his hands. Somebody in Twitter tell me, I think it is that that's, that's striking me as, as, as the same song. It's one of those songs.

It's there's, there's like two or three. They're super, super popular. They're relatively new songs, but they really over the past 20 years become amazing grace level stuff. Um, if that is the song, you know, the words, my name is graven on his hands.

It is you pull it up. Okay. Um, you can't say that you say you, you might be able to say, my name was graven on his hands the day I believed, but when Christ died. Well, but, but, but for knowledge, but the point is again, if you're going to say that Christ specifically and substitutionarily dies in behalf of every human being, then again, you may say, well, but not before Christ.

I don't know how that, how you work that out. I'll leave that up to you. But let's say every human being after Jesus, let's just even leave that out. As then you have to deal with what that death actually accomplishes.

If it accomplishes anything at all, or you simply have to go with the, it's a provisionary thing. Christ dies to make it possible for me to be saved, but not actually to save me. And given that you raised the objection later on, well, Christ died and there were people alive that day who would be saved three years later, but they're still under the wrath of God.

Therefore, that sounds like that is what you're saying, that you're confusing who was actually united to Christ in his death with the temporal application in time. I'm saying that my name was written on his hands, that there was a personal atonement, that God's decree is so firm that he knew the identity of everyone who had been given to him, who has been united to him, and so that his atonement for their sins is actually for their sins.

Not sin as a big amorphous blob, but specifically my sins. So that the atonement is a personal thing. Christ knows his sheep intimately and gives his life for them. Otherwise, I would press you, brother, that you're turning it into, because David Allen does this, if that's where you're going for your sores, into something that is provisionary, provisional, and hypothetical rather than actual.

Because my sins were actually paid for at that time. The application, God determines in my lifetime. But there can be absolutely no uncertainty of the fact that he is going to bring that application to fruition in my lifetime, at the time he chooses to do so.

So, this is important. Okay, all right. Do most 21st century Christians go through their lives without even giving the atonement? Much thought? Well, that's a sad reality, isn't it? Does that change the fact that we should, and it should be something that we think on far more often than almost anything else in the world?

Yeah, it should be. Well, it'd help if I had my cursor on the right program.

For no genuine offer, and some Calvinists will say there is, and I don't follow the logic there, it seems irrational to say that there's a genuine offer of salvation when Jesus didn't die for you. Like, that's not genuine.

That's not a genuine offer. But yet Romans 1021 implies that Jesus is offered genuinely, but not received. God's reaching his hand out, but they're rejecting it.

The application of Romans 1021 is the introduction to the next chapter. Well, it's not a chapter, it's the subject. And it's judgment. It's describing Israel as a disobedient and obstinate people that God has been very merciful to, but I'm sorry, the connection here is really stretched.