Who Controls Salvation? (White vs Bryson

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Our moderator tonight is Greg Kokel, director of Stand to Reason. Hopefully in upcoming debates we can convince him to be a participant, not just the moderator.

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And Greg will be giving us all the instructions and outline for the debate this evening. Will you please welcome Greg Kokel.

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Thank you, David. Our debate tonight has a particular topic. Who does what in salvation?

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And we have two debaters that will take opposite sides on this issue. The first, George Bryson, director of Calvary Chapel Church Planting Mission, an outreach to Russia and the former

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Soviet Union. George is the author of The Five Points of Calvinism, Weighed and Found Wanting.

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So I guess you know what side of the issue he is on that one. That was word for the day for today, publishers.

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On my right, James White, he's director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization.

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He is also adjunct professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. He is author of The God Who Justifies Bethany House, The Potter's Freedom, Calvary Press, and God's Sovereign Grace.

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Now I want to describe the format here so you all understand what you're in for and what the rules are this evening.

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We are going to start with 20 -minute opening remarks, and James White will be starting those remarks, followed by a 7 -minute cross -examination, and then a 10 -minute rebuttal by each side.

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This is about an hour and a quarter for you guys, so we're going to take a break, and David will come up and dismiss you for a 10 - to 15 -minute break, so you can mob the tables back there.

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Stand to your reasons immediately out that door and just to your right. Then we will come back for another 10 -minute series of closing arguments from each side, and then another cross -examination for seven minutes, and then a 10 -minute rebuttal and closing comments.

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That will be about an hour. Now David will come up after that, and we'll have Pastor Stan Vandenberg come and have a closing prayer, but that won't be the end of our evening.

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It's an opportunity for those of you who have to give kids or just want to move on. That will be the end of the body of debate.

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You can go back to the tables there in the back and stand to reason, et cetera, on your way out.

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But for those hardcore, we have an additional time afterwards of question and answer, and you will have an opportunity to write down questions yourself and some material that's been handed to you, and we will have about another half hour or so of questions and answers from the audience.

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That is, the questions you write out will cue the challenges on either side here, so if you want to stay for that, we invite you to do so, and then that will be the end of the evening.

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Now here are the rules for tonight, and both the audience has rules and the participants. On the audience side, please restrain yourself.

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I know some of you might have favorites represented here, but we'd appreciate it if there were no loud outbursts from the audience.

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It's distracting, frankly, from the exchange, and it limits your speaker's time. So please don't applaud for your favorite speaker.

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He doesn't have enough time as it is, all right? You can applaud when they come up and when they go down. That is, when they sit down,

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I should say. Also, you should have received a handout with room for your name and address and phone number and that kind of thing.

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If you fill it out, then you can be contacted in the future on upcoming debates, et cetera.

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There's a place in the back there, a booth called Patriarch's Path that you can hand that in, or maybe some of the ushers or somebody associated with the church can direct you back there, hand it in, and they'll make sure to get in touch with you directly for events in the future.

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And on the back of that form that you've received, this is the place to write down any questions that you may have for either participant.

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You can direct your question to one or the other. And during the Q &A session, a question will be directed to one person and then the other, and each will have a chance to give a follow -up remark on the individual question.

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So there'll be equal number of questions directed at each participant. Okay, those are the rules for you guys.

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And the rules for the debaters, and I'm going to be fairly strict about the rules and the time, just so things move along squarely.

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But from my understanding of both gentlemen, I don't think there'll be any difficulty here. First, the 20 -minute opening remarks, the 7 -minute cross -exam, the 10 -minute rebuttal,

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I'll have time cards for your benefit so you can see how much time that you have left. I'll say time.

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When the time is up, I expect you to wrap up your point very quickly if you're not already done yet. And if it takes more than 15 seconds or so,

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I'll call time again. And even if you're not finished, you'll have to stop after that. And as far as the cross -examination goes, the purpose of a cross -examination is for one person to ask the question and the other person to answer it.

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So I'm going to ask you to stay on your questions and on your answers. If you stray too much, I'll remind you to get back on the path and get back on the course if that's a problem.

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Finally, please wait for me the timer before you begin so I'll make sure that everything's ready and you and I are both ready there.

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Everybody understand? Okay, good. Well, each participant is in his corner.

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When I call your name, come out talking and may the best idea win. James White will be first.

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Thank you. It is indeed a pleasure to be with you this evening.

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I thank you very much for making the effort to be out and to engage this extremely important subject this evening.

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That subject that brings us together is not a new one, nor is it a simple topic.

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In fact, we face the danger of overloading the brief time that we have with too many topics and too many verses.

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But to help focus our thinking this evening, we should keep in mind the fundamental point of tonight's debate as I see it.

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Is God's grace alone sufficient to save or is God's grace dependent either by nature or God's choice upon the cooperation of the will of man?

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Theologians identify these two positions as on the one hand, monergism, the belief that there is one power, one force that brings about regeneration, the new spiritual life, the born -again believer, and synergism, the belief that two forces,

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God's grace and man's will cooperate in harmony with one another to bring about spiritual life.

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Today, the large portion of evangelicalism has adopted a synergistic position over against the

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Reformed position, which by God's grace I shall seek to explain and defend this evening, which emphasizes the ability and power of God's grace based upon the sovereignty of God's will and the deadness of man in sin.

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This was central in the great work of God we call the Reformation, which took place in the 16th century.

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In fact, the debate that we have tonight took place more or less in writing between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus right at the beginning of the

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Reformation. Erasmus saw that the Reformers subjected the creaturely will of man to the divine will of God, and he wrote a book defending the concept of free will.

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Luther replied with his famous work, The Bondage of the Will. Note Luther's words to his opponent.

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Quote, Now, Mark Luther's words, well,

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But, of course, the Reformers were simply men, frail and liable to error.

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The true strength of the Reformed position is not its historical pedigree, but is instead based in the close exegesis of the biblical text.

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This makes this evening's very short encounter decidedly difficult, for in -depth exegesis is not done in 30 -second sound bites.

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So it is my hope to encourage you, the listeners of this debate, to use this evening as a starting point, a platform from which to engage in the joyous duty of in -depth biblical study on the issues that will be addressed this evening.

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I shall do my best to present a biblical argument tonight, and I hope the conversation will remain in the biblical text rather than wandering about in endless philosophical conundrums that leave the biblical revelation in the background.

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The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and his word is truth. With these fundamentals in mind, allow me to state my thesis and provide a brief biblical defense.

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I believe God saves. He saves completely and fully. Salvation is a divine act intended to bring glory to God's grace and God's grace alone.

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God saves freely, without any compulsion, without any coercion. The freedom and sovereignty of God, combined with a consistent biblical teaching concerning man's deadness in sin, would require salvation to be free and unmerited even if we did not have the abundant biblical testimony to God's electing grace.

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That is, what the Bible teaches about God's sovereign and eternal decree, together with its consistent emphasis upon the in -abilities of the natural man to do what is right in God's sight, would lead us to believe the gospel must be monergistic even if we did not have the plain biblical teaching stating that it is.

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But when you combine all three biblical teachings, the case is overwhelming and undeniable.

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Man's role in salvation is simple. He is the one who is undeservedly, and in fact, contrary to his deserts, saved by God.

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He is the dead Lazarus in the grave, unable to offer the first bit of assistance. But Jesus Christ requires no assistance from the dead

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Lazarus in the grave anyway. When the divinely powerful Son of God says,

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Lazarus, come forth, will any dare to say that the Son of God can fail?

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Can his command be made void? No. And that is why I unashamedly believe in the doctrines of grace, for the

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Bible teaches me my Savior, Jesus Christ, saves perfectly. Hopefully the fact of God's utter and complete sovereignty over all his creation is not a matter of dispute in this debate.

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How that sovereignty works out must be, of course, but the fact of his kingly authority over his creation is so plainly stated in Scripture.

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No theology that even pretends to be biblical could possibly question it. The psalmist tells us that the

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Lord does whatever pleases him. In the heavens and on the earth and the seas and in all their depths. The fact that man does not have this power and ability is noted as well.

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And man's impotence is contrasted with God's power. The psalmist noted this when in the 33rd

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Psalm we read, The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations, he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

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The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart from generation to generation.

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The prophets repeat this refrain often emphasizing this same divine sovereignty over human affairs.

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Even from eternity I am he and there is none who can deliver out of my hand. I act and who can reverse it,

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Isaiah 43, 13. God acts freely. Man cannot change

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God's actions. Such words, of course, are never uttered of men. Men do not act thereby revising and reversing

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God's action. Sovereignty is surely a one -way street. Even the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar recognized this truth and he said in Daniel 4, 35,

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All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. But he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth.

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And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done? This is the foundation then of the key passages of scripture, which plainly teach the sovereignty of God in electing and predestining a specific people unto salvation.

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Romans 8 and 9, Ephesians 1, John 6, these all have as their necessary foundation a commitment to the utter freedom of God to do with his creation in accordance with his holy will.

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The religions of men are all built upon man controlling God's power through sacraments, ordinances, works, and merit.

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Christianity is God freely saving, not with reference to conditions fulfilled or works performed, but solely on the basis of grace.

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We are told the sovereign God has a purpose in all that he has done with special reference to his work of salvation.

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Paul expressed it in the highest terms, but listen carefully to the flow of his teaching as he expressed it to the

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Ephesians, paying close attention to the pronouns in Ephesians 1 which reads, Blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless before him.

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In love he predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, in accordance to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely gave to us in the beloved one.

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In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of his grace, which he poured out upon us.

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In him also we were called, having been predestined in accordance with the purpose of the one who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

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Paul is clear in his teaching, God has predestined not a plan, but a specific people from eternity itself.

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The God who works all things after the counsel of his will, not after the counsel of man's will expressed in some kind of mystical foreseeing of man's actions, elects or predestines a people unto salvation, and he does so for one reason, so that his glorious grace would indeed be glorified.

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God saves in accordance solely and only with the good pleasure of his will. All other factors, including the actions of men, are excluded.

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This truth is repeated by the same apostle in Romans, when we read in chapters eight and nine, we know that God causes all things to work together for the good, for those who love

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God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, also he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

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And whom he foreknew, these he also called. And whom he called, these he also justified.

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And whom he justified, these he also glorified. What can we say in response to these things?

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Since God is for us, who can possibly be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not also together with him freely give us all things?

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Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies.

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And then in chapter nine, we read, And not only this, but there was also Rebecca, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father

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Isaac. For though the twins were not yet born, and had not done anything good or evil, so that God's purpose according to election would stand, not because of works, but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written,

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Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?

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May it never be, for he says to Moses, and this is literally the rendering, I will mercy whom

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I mercy, and I will compassion whom I compassion. So then it does not depend on the one willing or the one running, but on the

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God mercying. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, This is the reason

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I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

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So then he mercies whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.

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You will say to me then, Why does he yet find fault for who is able to resist his will? But on the contrary,

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Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? The thing molded will not say to the one who molded it,

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Why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

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What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

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And he did so, to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory.

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We literally could not even begin to address the riches of these passages this evening, but their testimony is plain and clear.

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God sovereignly predestines a specific people unto salvation while justly demonstrating his wrath upon others.

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The main problem sinners have is not that the Bible is not clear on these topics. It is that we don't like the description of ourselves as pots formed at the pleasure of the potter, vessels to be used to demonstrate either his wrath or his glorious grace as he sees fit, not as we see fit.

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But as time is fleeting, let me try to address the flip side of divine sovereignty, so to speak. The ever -present element of all of man's religions, the philosophical spine of every form of non -reformed theology, the concept of libertarian free will.

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Please note I said libertarian free will. Calvinists believe in the biblical presentation of man's will.

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The Bible teaches that man makes free and responsible decisions based upon his nature as a fallen creature.

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He is culpable for those decisions and he is not forced against his desires to make decisions.

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But since man is fallen, as Jesus taught, he is a slave of sin. Slaves are not free.

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Such seems an obvious truth, but for many today it must be stated forcefully. Men are dead in sin and capable of doing what is good in God's sight.

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Paul put it this way in Romans 8, 7 through 8, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so and those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. The same apostle taught that we are dead in our trespasses and sins until God in his mercy raises us up.

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This is why Paul speaks of all of salvation as a gift including the ability to exercise saving faith in such passages as Ephesians 2, 8, 9 and Philippians 1, 29.

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We do not have the time to get in all the passages that could be cited on this topic. We should focus upon one of the clearest and most forceful, one which ties together all the themes of God's utter sovereignty, man's inability and Christ's power to save without the assistance of the creature and that is

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John 6, 37 through 44. Here the Lord Jesus addresses men who are the very epitome of seekers.

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They have followed him across the lake. They like what they've been hearing from him and yet by the time Jesus finishes speaking to these men, he has only the confused apostles left.

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The message of divine sovereignty and human inability has never been popular then or today, but listen as the

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Lord Jesus presented a plain, clear and I truly believe irrefutable sermon on the doctrines of grace.

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He said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.

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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me

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I will certainly not cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

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This is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me, I'll lose nothing but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father that everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day.

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Then verse 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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In the few moments we have left, please think with me about what the Lord here teaches us. Note that he tells us that the men who were seeking him were unbelievers.

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He explains their unbelief not in terms of their wills but in terms of God's actions in eternity past.

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John 6 .37 defies every single non -reform interpretation I've ever seen offered. Jesus said, all that the father gives me will come to me.

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Note a few things. First, the father is sovereign in the matter of election. He gives a specific people to the son and as verse 39 tells us, this took place in eternity past.

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He has that right and since he then entrusts their full and complete salvation to the son, their number must be known and their identity fixed.

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Next, all who are given by the father come to the son, not some, not just those who choose to do so, everyone.

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The determining factor is the father's action, period. Further, and this is vitally important, the simple grammar of the passage tells us that the giving precedes the coming.

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Why is this vital? Because many systems attempt to short circuit this biblical teaching by saying that God chooses those that he foresees will choose him.

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This passage turns that idea on its head, making the choosing of God that which results in the choosing of man.

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This is the only basis upon which we can then understand the second half of verse 37. The one who comes to him, he will never cast out.

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Who comes to him? Those given to him by the father. Keep this in mind. Next, why will the son not cast out those who come to him?

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Because he is accomplishing perfectly the will of the father for him. And what is that will?

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That he lose none of those who have been given to him, but raise them up at the last day. How can this be said if in fact salvation is synergistic?

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This passage screams monergism for Christ is able to do what the father wills for him to do without the shadow of the possibility of failure.

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So we see that when he speaks to the one who looks on Jesus and believes in him receiving eternal life, the one looking and believing is the one who has first been given to the son by the father.

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And finally, this brings us to verse 44, a passage which, along with those we saw in Romans 9, denies libertarian free will in the strongest of terms.

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Jesus says that no man is able to come to him. Do we believe his words? Do we accept them? Or do we allow our traditions to override his teaching?

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If Jesus stopped there, all would be lost, but he didn't stop there. He said no one is able to come to him unless the father who sent him draws them and he will raise those who were thusly drawn up on the last day.

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Who does the father draw to the son? Those he has given to him, of course, which is why all who are given come to the son as we saw in verse 37.

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The father draws his elect to the son. They, as a result of this divine act, are coming, believing, and looking upon the son in faith.

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Please note all who are drawn are raised up. Many try to avoid the way of this passage by fleeing to a different context and saying that all men are thusly drawn.

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This is not the case at all. Those who are drawn in John 6, 44 are those given by the father to the son.

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The end of this tremendous chapter of John 6 gives us a picture of the choice we must make this evening. After Jesus speaks the necessity of vital and living union with him as the only source of life, he repeats his teaching about man's inability in these words from verse 65.

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For this reason I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father.

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In the next verse, his would -be seeker -friendly disciples walk away from him.

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They are not interested in the only source of life, nor in being dependent upon God. There is always another show in town and they go to find it.

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What about us this evening? The truth of God's sovereignty, the freedom of his grace, the dependence of man upon the sovereign will of the father, all of these are truths that strike directly at common traditions in evangelicalism.

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I have had the blessed opportunity of introducing many precious Christians to the doctrines of grace over the years.

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I have seen those truths shatter the way they looked at God and themselves, only to then see the truth produce a scripturally -based,

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God -centered focus that has become their most precious possession. It is truly my prayer this evening that God will grant us that supernatural desire to be subservient solely to the

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God -breathed scriptures, to believe only and always that which the Bible teaches. It is my prayer that we will join with Paul when he wrote in 2

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Timothy 1 .9 that God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.

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Amen. Thank you very much. Thank you, James White. Now George Bryson will have 20 minutes for his opening remarks.

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Good evening. It's also a great pleasure and honor for me to be here. And I want to thank KFISH, KKLA and all the sponsors.

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It is an honor to be here. And I hope and I pray that no matter what is said and how many disagreements are made, that all of us understand that the

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Christian life is to be lived to the glory of God. What we believe and what we do ought to be always to honor, to please him in every way.

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And what I'd like to do tonight is really share with you some truths of scripture that I think do bring honor to him.

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In contrast to some truths that I think no matter how well intended, do not glorify the

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Lord. It is very difficult, if not impossible for me to see how some of those things taught in Calvinism with regard to the topic we're going to discuss really can bring honor and glory to him.

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But the first thing I really want to try to accomplish in keeping with the discussion tonight is answer the question, who is the

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Savior? The second question, maybe a two -part question, what does the

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Savior do and what is salvation? And I think by answering that second question, we'll answer the third as well.

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But first of all, I want to make it really clear, no matter what you may think, no matter what you may have heard, there are some of us who are not

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Calvinists who are monergists. And in fact, I think the vast majority of evangelicals are monergists.

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And let me say that if you can answer the question this way, the answer to the question who does what in salvation?

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If you can say it is God and God alone, only God, no one else, you are a monergist.

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In Isaiah 43, 11, the Lord said to Israel, I am the Lord and besides me, there is no

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Savior, never was, never will be. In Hosea 13, 4, the

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Lord said to Israel, I am the Lord your God and you shall know no God but me for there is no

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Savior besides me. Never has been, never will be.

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In 1 Timothy 4, 1, Paul tells Timothy, he says, we trust in the living

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God who is the Savior of all men, especially for those who believe.

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Since there's only one Savior, only one can and does save.

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Since only God is our Savior, it follows that only one

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God can and does save. There are no, and let me underline this word, there are no other saviors.

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And there are no co -saviors. Now, if you run into anybody, if you meet somebody in your everyday life or at school, a professor, another student, a friend, a co -worker, who tells you there are some co -saviors or some other saviors besides the one and only true

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God, you have met a synergist. But if you, in your interactions with people, in your conversations with people, if they confess and truly believe that there is only one

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God who saves, no one else, and he needs no assistance, no one else contributes or participates in the saving work, then they are monergists.

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This is pure monergism. It meets with the definition of the very term.

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Most of you know the word monergism comes from two words, mono, meaning one, and energy or work.

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Only one does the work of salvation. Now, if I were to say to somebody who wasn't a

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Christian even, that said, I believe there is only one

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God, one God and one God alone, but he didn't agree with me about all of the other great truths that we believe are important and even essential for salvation, could

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I then say to him, just because you don't agree with monergism or monotheism as I do, that you're not a monotheist?

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No, if he meets the definition, if he meets the requirement of what it is a monotheist has to believe, we should recognize.

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We shouldn't try to find differences that don't exist. We should actually try to find agreement where it does exist.

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Now, I'm convinced that Calvinists have tried to hijack this term so that in a sense, it becomes a kind of intimidating term.

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Nobody wants to think of themselves as a synergist. I mean, for goodness sakes, no one can read the Bible and think that anyone else helps

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God save. Only God can and does save and he doesn't have any co -saviors and there are no other savers.

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We all know that. But if you can get somebody to think that what they believe is synergism, you get them to question their views in a way that I think is unfair and just simply not true.

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So it's important for us to recognize. Tonight, you may have a variety of views here.

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You may be wrong on a lot of things. You may be right on a lot of things, but if you only believe there's one

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God and you know if you believe there's only one God who saves, then you're a monergist.

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Don't let anybody take that away from you. Now, before moving on to the what in the who does what in salvation question, something very, very, very important should be understood.

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The difference between Calvinists and non -Calvinists and by the way, just on this note, so there's no misunderstanding.

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I believe Calvinists are just as sincere and just as devoted as non -Calvinists are.

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I think that there are many wonderful Calvinist Christians as there are many wonderful non -Calvinist

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Christians. I believe this difference we have between us is important and ought to be discussed and I rejoice at this opportunity, but I don't think of non -Calvinists as the enemy of the cross of Christ.

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As much as I disagree with Calvinism, but the difference between Calvinists and non -Calvinist evangelicals with regard to salvation cannot be arrived at by asking the question who does the saving in salvation?

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And it may seem for just a moment that I'm going to depart from our topic, but I'm not because it's all wrapped up together here.

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I want you to know if you're going to really arrive at the question of who does what in salvation and the difference between Calvinism and non -Calvinism, you have to ask the question who does what in damnation?

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And this is all part of a package. According to Calvin, and I want to quote, now some of you have never read the

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Institutes of Calvin, never read Calvin's commentaries, and I wish so much that I could have something back here for you to see so you can see the quotes for yourself.

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I've talked to many, many Calvinists over the years who have never read the Institutes, and I recommend that you do read them.

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If you haven't, you should. But if I had this ability for you to see the quotes,

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I think it'd have a little more impact. So I just want you to trust me that I'm quoting accurately. I have a sheet out at our table in the foyer that you can read and check out these references for yourself.

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But if, for goodness sakes, if you don't believe me that I'm accurately quoting

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Calvin in context, just get the Institutes for yourself. There's plenty of different versions. There's actually an electronic version you can get.

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But Calvin said, and I quote, the first man fell. The first man fell because the

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Lord deemed inappropriate or meat that he should, end quote.

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Calvin also taught, and I quote, God not only foresaw that Adam would fall, but also ordained that he should, end quote.

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He sinned, says Calvin, because God ordained. Again, quoting

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Calvin, God not only foresaw the fall of the first man and in him the ruin of his posterity, but also at his own pleasure, arranged it.

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And by the way, if you're thinking, what does damnation have to do with salvation? Read the Institute and find out for yourself.

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They cannot be separated. For Calvin, and I quote him again, there is no reality in the free will attributed to man in as much as God decreed the fall and therefore must have in some wise way already biased

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Adam's will. It was not left in neutral equilibrium, said Calvin, nor was his future ever in suspense or uncertainty.

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It was certain that sooner or later that Adam would fall into evil, end quote.

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Again, in the words of John Calvin, all are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation, and accordingly as each has been created, says

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Calvin, for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.

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Now, if you don't like what I'm saying, take this up with Calvin. Calvin asks, and I quote, how is it that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless it seems so appropriate or so right or so meet to God?

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The decree, Calvin said, I admit is dreadful and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, foreknew because he had so ordained by his decree.

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In his exact words, listen to how Calvin reasoned. He said there is no random power, no agency or motion in the creatures who are governed by the secret counsel of God that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.

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The counsels and wills of men, said Calvin, are so governed by God as to move in exactly the course which he has destined, end quote.

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He also said in reference to Romans 9, a favorite passage of most Calvinists that I know, says this, if we cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people but just so that it pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.

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When God is said to visit in mercy or harden whom he will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond his will.

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Calvin also said those whom God passes by, he reprobates and that for no other cause than he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children.

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Calvin also said since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel in such a way that individuals are born who are doomed from the womb to certain death and are to glorify him by their destruction.

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Now we're very concerned, all of us, about pleasing God and about what pleases him.

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Where does he derive his pleasure? How does he derive his pleasure? We're all concerned and ought to be concerned about God's glory.

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What is to his glory? How can we live our lives to glorify him? But we have to ask this question, was

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Calvin right? Does it really please God? Calvin is constantly quote the passage that God doesn't delight in the destruction of anyone and yet they tell us that Calvin taught the truth here when he said

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God is just as pleased with the destruction of those who are damned and is the one who damns them and is pleased that he did and is glorified by doing it.

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And my final quote from Calvin, at least for now, he says this, life and death are acts of the divine will rather than foreknowledge.

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If God merely foresaw human events and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question how far this foreknowledge amounts to necessity.

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But since he foresees the things which are to happen simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is vain, says

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Calvin, to debate about foreknowledge while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment.

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Now if that's what you believe, you're a Calvinist. If you do not believe that, you are not a

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Calvinist. I have no right, to be honest with you, to call myself an Arminian. I happen to know what the remonstrance is.

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I happen to know what James Arminian believed and taught and it would be unfair to me to call myself an

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Arminian if I disagree with them on their distinctives. You have no right to call yourself a Calvinist if you disagree with Calvin on his distinctives, the things that made him stand apart and stand alone in some cases on certain issues.

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In fact, I agree, I'm sure, with my very able debating opponent here that so many of the people today who call themselves modern

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Calvinists are not Calvinists at all. They have no right to that term and I've encouraged them to stop calling themselves that.

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If you don't agree with Calvin, don't call yourself a Calvinist. Now I'm not saying you have to agree with Calvin on every detail, but on the main points, that which sets him apart, sets his theology apart, you should agree with him.

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And if you agree with what I just read, you're a Calvinist. If you don't, you're not. Now as to what, as to the what and who does what in salvation question,

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God and God alone regenerates the spiritually dead. In Ephesians 2, 4 through 5, we read that,

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God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even as we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.

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God and God alone justifies the ungodly. In Romans 10, 4 through, 4, 3 through 5, we read, what does scripture say?

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Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

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Now God and God alone redeems, just as God and God alone regenerates, God and God alone justifies, God and God alone redeems the lost.

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In Colossians 1, 12 through 14, we read that, he delivered us, nobody else, he delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

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It is God, the spirit's power alone that can and does raise the spiritually dead.

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It is God, the son alone who died as a substitute, a sacrifice and satisfaction for our sins.

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It is God, the son alone who shed his precious blood on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.

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Again, everything of a truly saving nature, God and God alone does.

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Call me a synergist if you will, but that is a distortion of the meaning of synergism.

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I recognize no other saviors and no co -saviors. God uses now, we all recognize this, even our

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Calvinist brothers and sisters recognize this, God uses the saved to reach the lost through a proclamation of the message of salvation contained in the gospel.

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In Romans 10, 13 through 17, Paul says or asks or at first proclaims that whoever calls on the name of the

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Lord shall be saved. It's that simple. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

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We don't have to worry about somebody being elected or not being elected. All we need to concern ourselves about is getting people to call on the name of the

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Lord because if they do that, they're going to be saved. And if they don't do that, they won't be saved. But then he asks a question, such a vital question.

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And it's not a question about election. It's a question about faith. He says, how can they call on him in whom they have not believed?

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I think most of us would agree. They can't never have and never will. They can't call on him if they don't believe in him.

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But how can they believe in him if they've never heard about him? Well, I happen to believe I'm one of those who believe that you can't believe in somebody if you've never heard about him.

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So he asks another question that puts the pressure on us a little bit, takes this issue of a privilege and makes it a responsibility.

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He says, how can they hear unless somebody preach? And how will they preach unless they're sent? So he says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

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All we need to concern ourselves about is whether or not these people have put their faith in Jesus Christ or not.

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Faith alone in Christ alone. And it's a little odd for me to be telling people in the

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Reformed community that we ought to pay really close attention to solo fide. Faith alone in Christ alone.

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Faith is the soul, the necessary and sufficient condition of salvation. No one will ever be saved apart from faith.

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Now, faith itself doesn't save anybody. We'll talk about that in a moment. God requires of the lost that they believe in Jesus Christ if the lost are to become saved.

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And you know what I hear often? Not just from Calvinists, of course, but from Arminians.

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You're making it too simple. But I don't want to make it any more complicated than God does. There was a desperate man, a suicidal man, who thought death was preferable to life.

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And do you know what he asked Paul and Silas? He said, sirs, what must

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I do to be saved? Now, they had an opportunity there to give him a lot of theology or a list of do's and don'ts.

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But you know what? Do you know what Paul answered? What today would be called easy believism or cheap grace?

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But folks, I want to remind you of something. I'm not a rocket scientist, but if it's cheap, it ain't grace.

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If you paid a cheap price for something that's free, you paid too much, not too little. It's free to us.

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Now, it cost a great deal, but he paid the price, not us. What? He said, what, sirs, what must

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I do to be saved? So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. In Ephesians 2, 8 through 9.

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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone boast, but underline through faith.

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It's by grace, but it's through faith. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, said the apostle

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Paul. In 1 John 5, 11 through 13, we read this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his

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Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

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These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

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There's obviously much more that could be said on this subject, but folks, we're saved by grace.

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We're saved through faith. That's not sinner's religion. Faith is by definition, according to Paul, not a work.

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Just because God has a requirement, a condition on the loss so they can become saved doesn't make it a contribution.

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And we'll come back to that later. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you,

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George Bryson. All right. Now we're going to have our first cross -exam time.

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And I forgot to mention earlier that one of the liberties the questioner has in asking his question is if he feels the question has been answered adequately, he can interrupt and say that's adequate and move on to another question.

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So I just want the audience to know that. We've already talked to the debaters about that.

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I just don't want you to think they're rude when they interrupt and say, okay, that's adequate and move on to the next one. We will start our seven -minute cross -examination with George Bryson at the podium and James White will be seated answering the questions.

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It's clear from my reading, James, that Calvin taught that God decreed that Adam would fall and that the decree was the cause of Adam's first sin.

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Not even talking about all the other sins of Adam and the rest of us, but just the first fall. Now, how does

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God avoid the accusation or charge of being the author of sin if he is the ultimate primary cause of that sin?

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Well, first of all, the scripture is very, very clear that God is the one who works all things after the counsel of his will. So I'll gladly embrace what

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Calvin said there. And secondly, Calvinists have always emphasized the fact that God both decrees the ends as well as the means.

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There are things called secondary causes. He decrees, for example, the existence of the will of man and the actions that will of man.

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He then holds man accountable for because man acts upon the desires of his heart. And we could get into many examples of that in the scriptures.

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But when you say, how can he avoid being charged with sin? A. Every action that he takes has a holy and just cause with the end of the glorification of his grace.

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And B. Every Christian theistic system has to answer this same question.

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The Calvinist says that he has good and sufficient reasons for the creation taking the form that it did over against those who would, for other reasons, either deny that God knew that Adam was going to fall, such as an open theism or in other forms of Christian theism that posit maybe no particular reason or that God then responded to Adam's fall, whatever it might be.

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But the reform says, no, there was an ultimate purpose and that God's purpose was worked out not only in Adam's fall, but in every other instance, whether it be the selling of Joseph into slavery,

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Jesus's crucifixion, specific biblical examples are used there. Yes. Can I follow up on that question then?

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It's the second part of the same question, really. It seems to me, if I understand Calvin correctly, and I've read everything on this subject, at least that he said,

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I think he is saying, and he said that God's decree is what caused

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Adam to do what Adam did in the primary sense. So whatever the secondary reasons are, the overarching influence and direction of overarching influence is

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God's choice. So that the primary person or being that is responsible,

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I'm not talking about culpable in the sense that we hold men culpable, but the primary reason that Adam fell or sinned is

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God, not the secondary. Am I understanding him correctly? And would you agree with that? That the real ultimate reason man fell because the first man, as you know, wasn't a sinner.

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So he didn't sin because he was a sinner. He sinned, according to Calvin, because God caused him to.

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When you use that term causation, I want everyone to understand that there is no situation here where Adam is going, oh, no,

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I want to be good. I want to be good. And there's a divine gun to his back. Adam did what he did because he desired to do so.

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The woman said, take and eat. It was good to his eyes. And he did so. The Bible doesn't tell us what filled his heart at that time.

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But the fact of the matter is, if we are to believe, Ephesians 1 .11, that God is the one who works all things after the counsel of his will.

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If we are to believe that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth, which has to do with his salvific work, there can be no salvific work if there is no need for salvation.

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If we are to believe Acts 4, that's what happened in the death of Christ, was also what God's hand foreordained should take place.

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Then, obviously, in each one of these situations, and this is why I'm a compatibilist, you have God acting and God's purpose and intention is always perfect and good.

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And then you also have man acting. And in all those situations other than Adam's, their desire is evil.

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Adam's became evil in that act. But to say, use terms like primary and secondary, again,

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I prefer biblical language. And the biblical language is, in Ephesians 1 .11, my God is the one who works all things after the counsel of his will, and he does so to the glory of his grace.

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Is there time? Yes, you have two minutes and 40 seconds. Okay, just a shorter question,

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I hope, here. There is clearly a difference between the reformed community and the non -reformed evangelical community on the role of faith.

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It seems to me that faith is viewed pre -regeneration as a work by Calvinists, if it could indeed exist at all.

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But the real issue is here, do you see faith as a condition compatible with the idea of faith as a consequence?

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I think, yeah, I do know exactly what you're saying. I've, you know, we debated this in the CRI Journal, and I've also read your work on this.

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And I think the primary, fundamental difference that we have, both is our view as to whether man is capable of exercising saving faith in an unregenerate state, which

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I do not believe that he is capable of doing. And secondly, the role of what you would identify as a condition, that is much of your work focuses upon what you feel are inconsistencies in the

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Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation from the reformed perspective. I think that there's some confusion in the presentation that I have read on that subject.

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And that is, you seem to feel that if from a reformed perspective, when regeneration takes place, that faith inevitably follows from it, that that means that we can no longer proclaim what you were just talking about, sola fide, that faith is the condition of salvation.

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And my response to that would be that I don't believe that the use of the term condition there is consistent either with what we're saying or with the biblical revelation.

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Because certainly there is no one who is saved outside of faith. There is no question about that.

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But the question is, is the unregenerate sinner capable of doing that until God works a miracle in that individual's life?

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I would argue on the basis of Romans 8, 7 through 8, that it is impossible to do what is pleasing in God's sight while we are still yet in the flesh.

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We must be born again. We must be made a new creature before we can do what is pleasing to God. Then all those things, including faith and repentance,

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I don't have any problems calling them conditions as long as they are not conditioned upon the autonomy of the human will.

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If it is then made that this is part of what God does within us, then I can understand that term condition.

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But normally that term condition is used as an autonomous action of the will. OK, thank you. And now we will have seven minutes for James White to cross -exam

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George Bryson. Thank you very much. Mr. Bryson, you just made a number of comments concerning monergism and synergism.

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In your work, you wrote the following words under a subtitle that says, No Choice. By placing faith after regeneration, the

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Calvinist is removing from the lost the only way God has provided for them to avail themselves of the grace of God.

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What do you mean by avail themselves of the grace of God? Belief. Belief.

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Belief. OK, so by believing you avail yourself of the grace of God. It is the answer to the question that the suicidal jailer was given.

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He said, what must I do? He could have said, what must I do to avail myself of salvation of the grace of God?

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And they answered him, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

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Faith is that condition. It is what God requires all throughout the New Testament.

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God requires it. Now, even though he requires it, I understand you don't believe we are able to meet the requirement, but he still requires it.

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Is that grace available to every single person equally? It depends on what you mean by equally.

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I'm not sure anything in life is equal in any sense, but I do believe that grace, the grace that saves appears to all men and that God has a saving interest in all men and that God does things on behalf of the lost so that the lost can become saved.

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So in the case of those who are saved, there was a cooperation of their act of faith and grace that was offered that does not take place in the life of the unsaved person.

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I would say that the unbeliever has to become a believer, but he isn't made a believer and he isn't made to believe.

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OK, but the person who is not saved, the person, let's say there's a person sitting in this audience this evening, the gospel is all around them.

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Grace has been extended to them in that way, but they die unsaved. Is it because the grace of God failed or because there was not a joining of the grace of God with the action of their will?

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It's because grace was not received, as Calvin has said, by faith.

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OK, so do you understand that from a reformed perspective, when we speak of monergism, we are identifying what you just said as synergism.

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We're not saying that you believe that there are other saviors. Do you understand the difference in the definition? Yeah, that's like saying to a monotheist, you disagree with me on some issues, but because you don't agree with me on other issues,

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I'm going to call you a polytheist. A polytheist believes in more than one God. A monotheist believes in one

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God. A monergist believes that only God does the saving. And if there are other saviors or co -saviors, it's no longer monergism.

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So what you accuse us of is simply inaccurate by definition.

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So it is your position then that even if you just indicated that you do have God's grace and necessity of a work that joins with it, that's not synergism, because you believe there's only one savior.

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Well, you said work. I didn't say work. OK, action, belief. See, this is the problem. This fleshed out the problem of Calvinism actually defines faith as a work, and Paul defines faith as not a work by definition.

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It is something else. OK, how about an action? I would say it's the activity of reception, as Machen said.

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In your system, do you believe that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future? I believe, yes, he has exhaustive knowledge of the future.

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Did he have that knowledge when he created? Yes, he did. Then he knew when he created that Adam was going to fall.

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Absolutely. Did he have a purpose in creating, knowing that Adam was going to fall?

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Absolutely. Isn't that what Calvin was saying in your quotations when he said that?

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Absolutely not. How do you see the difference? The difference is a decree is, and even by Calvinist terms, what makes something happen, causes it to happen.

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Knowledge of something doesn't cause anything to happen. Calvinists say God knows the future because he decrees it.

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I would say God's decrees and God's foreknowledge are a part of the totality of his absoluteness.

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He is absolutely all -knowing and he's in total control of the universe and his sovereignty. But the fact that God loves me doesn't make me do all the things

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I do. The fact that God knows something about someone doesn't make them do it. In other words, knowledge is not prescriptive.

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How did God have knowledge of what was going to take place in time if it was not the result of his decree?

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In your perspective, does the future simply exist and God knows it? Or does the future exist because God has decreed it?

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Well, by definition, God knows the future because God knows everything. If the future is a part of what is everything, then

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God knows it. That's what omniscience means. He knows it because he knows everything, always has, always will.

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There are no surprises to it. But the shape of the future then, how did that come into existence?

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Is that the result of what? Well, if you understand sovereignty, there's a lot of reasons things come into existence the way they do.

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One of those things is God gave man volition, as you acknowledge, and man makes some dumb decisions, and there are consequences for those decisions.

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But they are not outside the control or sovereign control of God. So they're not outside the sovereign control of God.

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So when God said that Cyrus would let the Jewish people go long before Cyrus was born, was

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Cyrus free in that matter? Could he have chosen not to do so? Well, first of all, you got to make two distinctions.

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Because God doesn't force everything that happens to happen, doesn't mean he doesn't force some things to happen that happen.

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So there are some people, so you can easily, you can easily see scriptures where God not only foretells something that's going to take place, but actually makes it happen.

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But for example, to give you an example, God could predict, and God knows about every rape and murder and child molestation that's going to happen tomorrow.

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But God is not responsible for that, doesn't influence it, and it doesn't happen by his decree. Well, very quickly, if God knew about all those things before he created...

01:00:20

20 seconds. Did he not have a purpose in creating, knowing those things would happen? God created, but he didn't create people doing those things, and his creation doesn't include a necessity for the people to do them.

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But if he created and knew without fail it was going to happen, did he create with no purpose in that happening?

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First of all, those are mixed questions, but the first point is that the fact that he knows something doesn't cause it to happen.

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The fact that he causes some things to happen is different than the fact that he causes or the assertion that he causes all things that happen.

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Your position actually makes God, indirectly, and I don't mean to be offensive, it makes him a divine rapist in that he causes all the rapes, and I'm saying that he does not do that, that his sovereign control is of a different nature.

01:01:11

Thank you, gentlemen. Now we'll have a 10 -minute rebuttal from each participant, and James White will open that.

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James? It is a difficult topic to address this evening.

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There are many things to be spoken of. I hope we can stay within the context of Scripture.

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I think it's extremely important, and I think the last cross -examination period began to bring out some of the important things.

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I would like to submit that if you assert that God created with full and complete knowledge of everything that was going to happen in time, you need to then give some reason as to how

01:01:47

God has that kind of knowledge. That knowledge either comes from the fact that the future just simply happens to exist the way it existed, and why then

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God would be glorified for that, I do not know. Or you're going to have to accept the fact that the future exists because God, in some way, shape, or form, is the creator of all things, has something to do with the shape of that future, as he himself claims over and over again in the book of Isaiah.

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He is the one who identifies the fact that he is the one true God to the fact that he is the creator of all things, he's eternal, and he demonstrates that all other gods are false by challenging them to do two things.

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Tell us the future, and tell us the past, and why it happened.

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God can tell us those things. God can tell us the why of every single evil act that has ever taken place.

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And I would submit to you that if you feel that you need to protect God and God's decree by saying, well, he knew it was going to happen, but his knowledge of it had nothing to do with the decree, you've got yourself a major problem here.

01:02:54

Now you have evil happening for no purpose, for no good, with no end in sight.

01:03:03

And that is a philosophy of despair. When we talk about what was just said, that God is a rapist.

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Well, if God created knowing that every act of rape was going to take place, and he did so anyways without any purpose, how is that better than saying that God created this entire universe knowing that evil would exist, but knowing that he would triumph over it, he would make a demonstration of his victory over it in the person of Jesus Christ, he would redeem every element of it to his own glory and grace.

01:03:36

How is that a greater thing? The scriptures are very clear. So far, we have not heard any discussion of Ephesians 1 .11,

01:03:44

which I've repeated more than once, that God works all things after the counsel of his will. We've not heard any response to the biblical sovereignty of God that says that not only does

01:03:55

God do what he pleases in the heavens, but he also does so amongst the children of men.

01:04:02

And then the result of all this, the very clear teaching that yes, God certainly did decree some of the things that there has been some offense taken at this evening.

01:04:12

For example, there was quotation of an individual from John Calvin, of course, saying that, well, you know, there's these people and God creates them for his own purposes to punish them.

01:04:27

Yeah, we read Romans 9 .17. And in divine revelation,

01:04:33

God says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I raised you up.

01:04:39

And what was the purpose? That my name, my power might be made known through all the earth.

01:04:47

I think maybe one of our problems is where does that rank on our priority list? Where does it rank on our priority list that God's power, that God's name, and in fact, to use the terms of Romans 9,

01:05:00

God's wrath against sin be made known to all men. It's a biblical priority.

01:05:09

And if we allow our hearts to be formed by the biblical revelation, then we will recognize the need for God to reveal these things and he has done so in how he works in this world.

01:05:21

And he says to Pharaoh, I raised you up. Now what did he do to Pharaoh? He destroyed his land and then he destroyed the man.

01:05:28

And people say, oh, that's not fair. Brothers and sisters, think with me for just a moment. The first moment that Pharaoh sinned, would

01:05:37

God have been just to bring his wrath and punishment upon him at that very time?

01:05:43

Well, of course he would have. And Pharaoh had sinned thousands and thousands of times in thought and deed.

01:05:51

He was a stench in the nose of the holy God, and yet God's wrath did not come upon him.

01:06:00

God chose to use him. To use him in such a way as to bring honor and glory to himself.

01:06:06

He could have destroyed him instantly, but he did not. And that's where we object. Because even though he was, in Paul's words, a vessel of wrath prepared for destruction, we still see in him a picture of ourselves.

01:06:22

And we go, look, I don't like this idea that God is the potter and I am the clay.

01:06:29

I want to be able to say that I'm the fine china. I don't want to be the everyday dishes.

01:06:37

I want to be the one to tell God what he's going to do with me. And it is very humbling.

01:06:47

To have happen in our hearts what happened to Isaiah in Isaiah 6 when he saw the

01:06:53

Lord sitting upon his throne. And here the holiest man in Israel is undone.

01:07:02

He is disassembled. He says, I am a man of unclean lips.

01:07:07

I live amongst a people of unclean lips. He immediately sees who he truly is. It's like Job.

01:07:13

When God finally appears to Job, Job gets an interview with God.

01:07:20

And what's his response? I place my hands upon my mouth. I have spoken presumptions.

01:07:29

We need an interview with God. We need to see ourselves as he sees us.

01:07:36

And we need to see him as he is. And only the Holy Spirit of God can grant that vision of the

01:07:43

Holy God to us. And when we receive it, it crushes our pride.

01:07:50

But then and only then can we begin to understand. With Joseph when he says, my brothers,

01:07:57

I know you sold me into slavery. I know you threw me into that pit, but my brothers, don't you understand?

01:08:03

You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. The same action. The very same action.

01:08:12

The intentions of their hearts evil. The intention of God's heart good. Same action.

01:08:19

Two different intentions. Isaiah 10, God brings

01:08:24

Assyria down against Israel. I'm going to punish an evil people. And then

01:08:30

God says, after they're done plundering, I'm going to punish the Assyrians. God takes a people, he brings them down for his own purposes against Israel, and then he punishes them for the intentions of their hearts.

01:08:43

And then when the church prays in Acts 4, 27 -28, they confess what happened to Jesus in nailing the sinless son of God to the tree was a part of God's sovereign decree.

01:08:59

His hand prepared beforehand that it would take place. But did that release Herod or Pilate or the

01:09:07

Romans or the Jews from their sinfulness? In no way. One action on the man's part, you have the

01:09:14

Jewish leaders who are simply stewing in their hatred of Christ. And the very same action, you have the greatest act that God has ever undertaken to bring glory to himself in the offering of the sinless son of God upon the tree.

01:09:34

One action on the part of man, evil intentions. On the part of God, always goodness and holiness.

01:09:43

That's the biblical teaching. Why is this so important? Well, I'll tell you. Some of you know that I've had the opportunity by God's grace of engaging many of the leading

01:09:53

Roman Catholic apologists in debate across this nation. And more than 30 of them so far. Rome's gospel does not bring peace because Rome's gospel does not have a perfect Savior.

01:10:05

Rome is synergistic to its core. God's grace is said to be there, to be offered, but there has to be this joining together.

01:10:15

And please remember John 6. John 6 tells us that the

01:10:21

Lord Jesus, the will of the Father for him, is that he lose none of those that are given to him.

01:10:27

How could the Lord Jesus fulfill that will, my friend? If there has to be this joining together, whatever term you want to use, there has to be this joining together.

01:10:38

If Christ is dependent upon our cooperation, how can he fulfill the Father's will to be the perfect Savior?

01:10:48

He can do so because he's the one who stood outside of Lazarus' tomb. And when he said,

01:10:53

Lazarus, come forth, life came into that body and he came out of that tomb. And if you're here tonight knowing

01:10:59

Jesus Christ, he did the same thing for you. Thank you. Thank you,

01:11:12

James White. And now George Bryson for his 10 -minute rebuttal. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I want to point something out here that is necessary.

01:11:25

Calvinism is not the gospel. I'm not saying that Calvinists don't preach the gospel.

01:11:31

I'm not saying Calvinism, Calvinists don't believe the gospel. I am saying Calvinism is not the gospel as it is often claimed to be.

01:11:40

The gospel of Jesus Christ is about Jesus Christ, about who he is, about what he did.

01:11:47

It's about his death, burial, and resurrection. And we have it defined and explained throughout

01:11:53

Scripture. 1 Corinthians 15 was partly written to explain the gospel and all of its implications about not only justification, but ultimately glorification.

01:12:02

Calvinism is not the gospel. Don't confuse the two. It's about him, about what he did.

01:12:08

Now, I can honestly say based on what I believe is the teaching of Scripture, if you're here tonight and you do not know

01:12:17

Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, Christ died for you. And then he rose again from the dead, and you by faith can receive him and his grace which saves to the uttermost.

01:12:31

Now, if I were a Calvinist tonight, I could not say that. I could say, if you're a believer here tonight, as a believer, you've evidenced your election, therefore

01:12:40

Christ died for you. But if you're not a Calvinist, I would have no hope for you.

01:12:45

But I'm glad that I can stand up here tonight and tell you that if you don't know

01:12:50

Christ tonight, you can. You can be introduced to him because of what he did for you, because of who he is, because of what he accomplished.

01:12:57

You can know God in a personal way. And for those of you who are Calvins here tonight, you cannot honestly look a man in the face that you don't know or don't know is a believer and say to him,

01:13:12

Christ died for you. I've had people actually ask me, as you know, I'm a, some of you know I'm a missionary in Russia and the gospel isn't as familiar to people there as it is here.

01:13:23

And people ask me, how can you know for sure that Christ loved me?

01:13:28

You're telling me that he loves me. How can you know? And I can tell him about the cross of Christ because I know what Christ did for them, not just for me.

01:13:35

So the gospel isn't just for us. It's for them. It's for us to take to them. Now, in John 20, 31, we discover that the miracles of our

01:13:43

Lord were recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name.

01:13:52

God provides salvation through Christ on the cross. We know that. In 1 John 14, 4, 10, we read in, this is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us and sent his son to the, to be the propitiation for our sins.

01:14:05

Now I can agree with you, the Calvinist, that Christ died for us, us believers. And I can accept all of the us and me passages of scripture, but the

01:14:16

Calvinist has to deny by definition all of those passages, like 1

01:14:22

John 2, 2, where it says, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for also the whole world.

01:14:31

What's good about a gospel in which Christ didn't die for you? It isn't a gospel to you at all.

01:14:37

It isn't good news. It reaffirms the despairing convictions people already have.

01:14:43

In Colossians 1, 14, we read that Christ, that in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

01:14:51

In 1 Peter 1 through 28, we read that we were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.

01:14:59

And let me suggest to you that the blood of Christ is precious for all. Whether people reject what he did for them is beside the point.

01:15:07

The point is his blood is precious. It's valuable. It has worth. And in Calvinism, it is worthless to all but the elect.

01:15:17

It has no value. He was manifest, we're told, for you who through him believe in God and raised him up from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

01:15:29

God also offers salvation to the lost through his saved servants. We know that. In the gospel on condition that the lost believe in Jesus Christ.

01:15:38

I doubt there's a person here, even if you are a Calvinist, if somebody were to ask you this question, what must

01:15:44

I do to be saved? Would you say, well, there's nothing you can do. Sorry, Charlie, unless you're elect.

01:15:51

And since I don't know who's elect, I can't tell you for sure. Since I don't know who you are, I'll go ahead and tell you that, well, this is what you got to do to be saved, but maybe you can't do it because you're not elect.

01:16:03

A Calvinist wouldn't do that. So they have to look somebody straight in the face and tell them Christ died for you anyway, or maybe he died for you.

01:16:13

The evangelistic effort of the saved does not make the evangelist a co -savior because what we offer people is from God.

01:16:24

It was provided for him. It's offered by him and they have to simply receive or accept it by faith.

01:16:31

Although God requires of the unsaved person that they must believe in Christ on a condition of salvation so that they can become a saved person, this does not make him before or after salvation a co -savior in his salvation.

01:16:47

It's like saying, and I know this troubles some people when I say this, Calvinism has done something like this.

01:16:53

They say, here's a gift, but if you have to accept that that makes you a co -giver of the gift. No, receiving the gift makes you a receiver of the gift.

01:17:02

Doesn't make you a co -giver of the gift. Being saved by God who saves by grace through faith does not make you a co -savior.

01:17:12

Again, God saves by grace through faith. That's not in dispute. God only saves by grace.

01:17:18

That is not in dispute. God only saves by grace through faith. That's not in dispute.

01:17:24

And although God and God alone saves the lost, only

01:17:30

God can and does. The lost man, the lost woman must believe in Jesus Christ in order to become a saved man or a saved woman.

01:17:45

If scripture is true, faith makes all the difference and is the only difference from the human side of the salvation equation, as Calvin himself taught, that makes any difference at all.

01:17:58

He who believes in him is not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten

01:18:08

Son of God. God and God alone does enable the lost to believe, as is evident in a comparison of John 6 .44

01:18:15

and John 12 .32. The problem is posed in 6 .44. No one can come to the

01:18:22

Father or no one can come to the Son unless the Father enables him. Can't be done unless the Father draws him.

01:18:28

But John, we were told this is irrelevant, but we're told in the Gospel of John 12 .32,

01:18:34

Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. I suggest the problem man has in not being able is solved by God in what he does to make it possible for us to come to him.

01:18:47

If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. God provides reasons for believing, as is evident in John 37 .38.

01:18:58

Even the people that I know, many of my Calvinist friends say, God is not interested, never was and never will be.

01:19:04

To those people, his opponents, his enemies, Jesus said, if you do not believe me, if I do not do the works of my

01:19:12

Father, do not believe me. But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the

01:19:17

Father is in me and I in him. God does not force the unbeliever to believe.

01:19:23

We know that. Or force the unbeliever to become a believer. God does not believe for the unbeliever or through the unbeliever.

01:19:32

As Calvinism reduces it to. I want to end with this quote from John Calvin.

01:19:39

And as most of you know, I'm not his biggest fan. But Calvin said something.

01:19:46

He got it right on one commentary, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. I'm sure he got it right in other places.

01:19:51

But here, he was especially on the mark and rebukes Calvinism in the process.

01:19:58

He says, Paul, the apostle, in reference to Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, asserts that the salvation of the

01:20:04

Ephesians was entirely the work, the free work of God, but that they obtained this grace by faith.

01:20:10

On the one side, we must look, Paul said, at, according to Calvin, at God.

01:20:16

At the other side, we must look at men. God declares that he owes us nothing so that salvation is not a reward or recompense, but mere grace.

01:20:23

Now it may be asked, how can we receive the salvation offered by the hand of God, Calvin said.

01:20:30

He answered, I reply by faith. That's how. Hence, he concludes that there is nothing of our own if on the part of God is grace alone.

01:20:38

And if we bring nothing but faith, which strips us of all praise, it follows that salvation is not of us. And the great

01:20:43

Calvinist mention said this, faith consists not in doing something, but in receiving something.

01:20:49

And faith is no more than an activity of reception, contributing nothing to that which it receives.

01:20:56

Thus, a lost man is more, excuse me, a lost man, saving a lost man is

01:21:03

God's job alone. Believing in God is man's job alone. Thank you. So we'll start with George Bryson.

01:21:10

We'll open here with 10 minutes of closing arguments. Picking up where we left off before, and I won't stay there,

01:21:17

I promise. But James 1 .13 says that God does not tempt any man, can't be tempted himself.

01:21:26

Every good gift comes down from the father of lights, where there is no shadow of turning.

01:21:32

So everything good comes from God. If it's not from God, or if it's not good, it doesn't come from him.

01:21:38

At least in the same way, these other things that we would consider not good come from him. And the implication,

01:21:46

I believe, of Calvinism is that sin and every horrible thing that ever happened can be linked to God in a direct sense that makes

01:21:55

God responsible. Now, if the Calvinist says to me, God isn't responsible, on that level,

01:22:01

I agree with him. If he says to me that God isn't the author of sin, on that level, I agree with him. But I think the implications of Calvinism actually clearly state, and I think what

01:22:09

Calvin taught, led people in that direction. And that's why some Calvinists take Calvin further than what people like,

01:22:17

I'm sure, James White is comfortable with. There are some people who go further than what mainstream Calvinists go, but I think they do so on the basis of what

01:22:24

Calvin himself taught. So this is very, very important. God is good, and only good directly comes from God so that he is only responsible for that which is good.

01:22:34

Now, clearly, God is sovereign and in control of everything, but it's important for us to understand what God himself says about his relationship to goodness.

01:22:43

Now, Calvinism says and must say that God does not, never has, and never will love millions and millions of people who live on this planet with a saving love.

01:22:58

Now, Calvinists are divided over whether or not God loves people at all. Most Calvinists that I know say in some sense, at least he does, but not in a redemptive sense.

01:23:08

But according to Calvinism, God may not love you. It's possible that some of you here tonight don't know

01:23:15

Christ in a personal way. He may not love you, but if you are a believer, you need to understand that he may not love with a saving love the person sitting next to you or your mother or father or brother or sister or your children.

01:23:33

He may not love the people you work with. Calvinism says and must say that God does not, never has, and never will have a saving or redemptive interest in millions of people who live on this planet or who have lived on this planet.

01:23:52

According to Calvinism, God may not have a saving or redemptive interest in the person sitting next to you.

01:24:00

It just may not. You don't know. According to Calvinism, the people that God does not, never will love with a saving love could be your parents again.

01:24:09

It could be your children. It could be a brother, a sister, or even your spouse. It's possible. And according to Calvinism, many of the people

01:24:16

God has called and commanded Christians to love, I think we all agree that there's a commandment, a mandate for us to love our neighbor and our enemies.

01:24:24

The people he's called us to love, he doesn't love with a saving love. According to Calvinism, many of the people

01:24:33

God called and commanded us to love, he doesn't love. Calvinism says and must say that God does not, never has, and never will do anything of a saving nature for millions and millions of people on this planet.

01:24:46

Now, I know there are some Calvinists that say there are some benefits that come from the cross of Christ for the non -Christian.

01:24:54

Perhaps it's because the non -Christian lives next to a Christian, and the

01:24:59

Christian is nicer than another non -Christian would be. But there's no saving benefits. There is no saving value in what

01:25:05

Christ did on the cross according to Calvinism. According to Calvinism, Christ may not have died for your parents.

01:25:15

Think about that. He may not have died for your brothers and sisters. People you're earnestly praying for.

01:25:22

He may not have died for your wife or for your husband, or the person sitting next to you. According to Calvinism, the precious blood of Christ may not have any saving value to you, your parents, your sisters, your brothers, your spouse, or the person sitting next to you.

01:25:44

The Calvinist R .C. Sproul explains, and again,

01:25:51

I don't often agree with R .C. Sproul, but I will say that sometimes he got it right. And this is one of those times.

01:25:59

He says, and I quote, it was certainly loving of God to predestine the salvation of his people, those the

01:26:06

Bible calls the elect or chosen ones. It is the non -elect that are the problem. If some people are not elected into salvation, then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them.

01:26:16

For them, it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born.

01:26:22

And R .C. Sproul concedes that indeed may be the case.

01:26:29

Again, R .C. Sproul, as a Calvinist, concedes that the Calvinist view of predestination seems to cast a shadow on the very heart of human freedom.

01:26:38

If God has decided our destinies from all eternity, which strongly suggests, he says, not me here, but he says, strongly suggests that our free choices are but charades, empty exercises in placating, in predetermined placating.

01:26:55

It is as though God wrote the script for us in concrete, says Sproul, and we are merely carrying out his scenario.

01:27:02

The Calvinist Thomas Schreiner says, the scandal, the scandal of the

01:27:08

Calvinist system is that ultimately the logical problem posed by, posed cannot be resolved.

01:27:16

The final resolution, he says, to the problem of human responsibility and divine justice is beyond our ability to understand.

01:27:24

Now concerning the words of Christ in John 3 .16 that most of us consider very precious and very powerful, in which our

01:27:32

Savior said that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, the Calvinist John Gill explains, all the individuals in the world are not loved by God in such a matter.

01:27:44

I think it's so important that we discuss this issue because I think the love of God is challenged here.

01:27:52

We're telling people, or we're at least believing the people he says he loves, that he's told us to tell he loves, that he doesn't love them.

01:28:00

And the cross of Christ is at stake here. And I think if we can take the cross of Christ and the blood of Christ that was shed and make it worthless to millions of untold numbers of people, then we've done a great disservice to the cross of Christ.

01:28:18

In his book titled, The God Who Loves, John MacArthur explains it this way. God's love for the elect is infinite, eternal.

01:28:27

Such love is clearly not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom

01:28:34

God chose in eternity past. And despite the fact that many Calvinists, including

01:28:40

I believe James White, despite the fact they say that they believe man is morally and spiritually responsible for his sin and his eternal damnation, even if God has no saving interest or love in them and has not done anything to save them,

01:28:56

Calvinism as a system says otherwise. And John Feinberg, Calvinist John Feinberg says this.

01:29:01

If Calvinists are right about divine sovereignty, there seems to be little room for human freedom. If human freedom goes, so does human moral responsibility for sins.

01:29:10

Worst of all, he says, if Calvinists are right, and he's a Calvinist, if Calvinists are right, it appears that God decides that there will be sin and evil in our world maybe even brings about that there is such evil.

01:29:21

And yet, according to Calvinists, is not morally responsible, we are. Now contrast

01:29:28

Calvin and Calvinism with scripture. 1 Timothy 2 .4,

01:29:33

we read that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. In 2 Peter 3 .9, the

01:29:39

Lord is long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In 1

01:29:44

Timothy, we read that there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man

01:29:50

Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. 1 John 2 .2,

01:29:56

we read again, he's the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Christ suffered death, we read in the

01:30:03

Hebrews, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, we're told.

01:30:11

And finally, I'll close with these verses in John 3 .16 and 18. And if we could, and again,

01:30:18

I don't mean to be insulting here, but if we could take our Calvinist colored glasses off just for a moment and read this passage.

01:30:26

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

01:30:34

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

01:30:40

And he who believes in the son is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.

01:30:50

If you didn't know about Calvin, if you hadn't heard Calvin's teachings, how would you understand these verses?

01:30:57

Who would you apply to them? Could you say with, I think, the writers of scriptures that God not only loved us and sent

01:31:04

Christ to die for us, but he loves them and he sent Christ to die for them? Thank you.

01:31:10

And now, James White. We were just told that this is about the cross of Christ, and it is.

01:31:20

It is very much about the cross of Christ. We just heard much said about how he may not have died for this person or that person.

01:31:27

I hope we all understand that the other side that is being offered is that Christ died for every single person.

01:31:36

And that means that it was his intention to save them and he fails over and over and over again.

01:31:44

That the sinless Son of God went to the cross of Calvary with the intention of saving the soul of every single person.

01:31:50

The Father in heaven decrees their salvation. The Son dies to secure it. The Spirit comes to apply it.

01:31:56

But the decree of the triune God is frustrated and destroyed by the almighty will of the creature.

01:32:04

That is the other side. It is very easy to say, oh, but what if he didn't die for this person?

01:32:11

God doesn't tell us. God doesn't give us these special glasses that we can put on that make the elect glow green.

01:32:19

It would make the evangelism process much easier. It would make pastoring a lot easier, but we aren't told.

01:32:24

And that's why it is a Calvinistic ministry that is at every single one of the general conferences, the

01:32:30

Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, which is where I'll be next Saturday. Because you see, I don't have to know who the elect are.

01:32:37

I proclaim the gospel to everybody, and I don't have to shave off the rough edges of it because God by His Spirit makes that gospel come alive in the heart of His elect people.

01:32:46

And there is no power in heaven or on earth that can stop the Holy Spirit from applying that gospel to His people.

01:32:52

And that's why I'll be up there for my 33rd time this coming weekend. Please hold your applause till the end.

01:32:58

It is about the cross. We just heard 1 Timothy 2 foresighted.

01:33:04

But if you read 1 Timothy 2 in its context, it says that Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and men.

01:33:13

It is already identified that it's talking about kinds of men in the preceding context. We're talking about kings and rulers and those in authority.

01:33:20

But let me ask a question. Does Jesus Christ mediate for every single individual? If He does so, does

01:33:28

He not fail for all of those who end up in hell? Or are we going to say that the

01:33:33

Son can appear before the Father and offer His blood in behalf of John Brown and the

01:33:41

Father decrees His salvation, the Spirit comes to apply it, but John Brown is able by the power of His will to make the death of Christ ineffective on His behalf.

01:33:53

That's the only other possible way of looking at this. The book of Hebrews does say that Jesus Christ tasted death for all, but it defines that when it then goes on to say, how does

01:34:04

He taste death? And what's the result of His death? We're told in Hebrews chapter 7 that He is able to save the uttermost, those who draw near unto

01:34:11

God by Him. Why? Since He ever lives to make intercession for them. That act of intercession is not some separate action.

01:34:19

It is not some other thing aside from His death. Those for whom He dies, He intercedes. Those for whom

01:34:25

He intercedes are only those for whom He died. And He is able to save every single one of those for whom

01:34:32

He intercedes. Isn't that what John 6 said? We haven't heard any response to John 6 .37.

01:34:39

We haven't heard any response to Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and 9. We've heard no responses at all to any of those things.

01:34:46

Instead, we see 1 Timothy 2 .4, which in context would either lead us to believing that we have to hold to universalism or that Christ can fail in His task.

01:34:56

We hear 2 Peter 3 .9, which if you read it in its context, is talking about the elect. Follow the pronouns. It's right there.

01:35:03

It's right in front of all of us. We've seen it said, well, in John 6 .44, we need to understand, you need to go over to John 12 .32.

01:35:09

There's a problem with that. You see, if you run over to John 12 .32, which is a different context, it's talking about the

01:35:15

Greeks who have come to Christ. That's what all men is about, Jews and Gentiles. But not only that, if you say that all men are drawn by the

01:35:23

Father to the Son, there's a little bit of a problem because John 6 .44 says, everyone who's drawn is also raised up.

01:35:29

No one can come to me lest the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day.

01:35:36

To be raised up at the last day is to be given eternal life. So if all men individually are drawn by the

01:35:42

Father to the Son, then the Son will raise up all men at the last day and we are now a universalist.

01:35:48

There is no hell. There is no eternal punishment. I don't think that's the position being taken. And so I would like to ask

01:35:53

Mr. Bryson to explain to us how it is that John 6 .44 says that all who are drawn by the

01:36:00

Father are raised up by the Son. If all are drawn, then does that mean that all will in fact experience salvation?

01:36:09

I think the biblical perspective is very plainly stated by the Apostle Luke when in Acts he records the evangelistic work of the church.

01:36:18

I evangelize in all sorts of difficult situations. I've stood in the bottom of a creek bed in Denver, Colorado during World Youth Day when the pope was in town as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walked from one state park to another and passed out tracts to folks.

01:36:34

Now that's not exactly being in a friendly environment. And I have found over and over again the words of Luke in Acts 13 .48

01:36:42

to be true. When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the

01:36:47

Word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

01:36:56

Why do you sit here this evening as a believer? Are you smarter than non -believers?

01:37:03

More intelligent? More spiritual? Better parents? No. My friends, someday when the eternal state has been brought in, the judgment is completed.

01:37:16

And there is around the throne of God myriads of myriads bowing in worship of God enthralled in their love for God.

01:37:26

And over here you have those who are experiencing His punishment who stand upon the parapets of hell screaming their hatred at God knowing there's nothing more they can do to hurt

01:37:41

Him which may be one of the greatest pains of hell. There's going to be exactly one thing that separates those two groups.

01:37:51

It's a five -letter word called grace. It's not because we're more intelligent.

01:37:59

It's not because we're more spiritual. It's because God in His grace appointed us to eternal life.

01:38:09

Acts 13, 48. Not all the Gentiles believed. Not all the Jews believed.

01:38:15

What was the difference? Those who were appointed to eternal life believed.

01:38:22

That faith that they had was a gift of God Philippians chapter 1.

01:38:30

There's a little passage that sort of goes by a lot of us because it's talking about suffering and I'm not sure that all of us really want to focus upon that subject very often but in Philippians 1, 29 we are told it's been granted to you not only to believe in His name but to suffer for Him and we look at the suffer and that's where our attention goes but notice what it says it has been granted to you not only to believe in Him.

01:38:53

Granted to you. Is that granted to everyone? If we say well yes it's been granted to everyone but you see we have to do something

01:39:03

I'm not talking about works I'm not talking about adding merit the whole discussion of monergism and synergism has always been whether you believe that there is one power that results in spiritual life or there needs to be a cooperation of powers that results in spiritual life.

01:39:24

And what we're being told tonight is well there's this condition of faith and that means spiritually dead men and women they're seemingly able to do what is pleasing to God.

01:39:36

Let me ask you a question is it pleasing to God to believe and repent? Obviously the answer would be yes it is.

01:39:45

In Romans chapter 8 verses 7 through 8 we are told that those who are in the flesh are not able to please

01:39:53

God they are not able to be submitted to His law those who are in the flesh cannot please

01:39:59

God. So is it being asserted that while still in the flesh you can do what is pleasing in God's sight that is exercise saving faith and repentance which are likened to gifts all through the

01:40:14

New Testament and then as a result you become a born again person. That may be very common that may be the only way you've ever heard of it but how then do you explain

01:40:25

Romans chapter 8 verses 7 through 8 how do you explain the description of faith as the gift of God?

01:40:35

It is about the cross of Christ because I believe in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ that is a reformed concept.

01:40:45

It is a reformed concept to believe that Jesus Christ substitutionarily takes the place of His people upon the cross of Calvary that He dies in their place that He bears in His own body upon the cross their sins.

01:41:03

I believe that. That's why as I said the very beginning my

01:41:10

Savior is a perfect Savior. Thank you very much. Thank you

01:41:16

James White and now we'll have a seven minute cross exam for each participant and James you'll start this session.

01:41:25

Feels like I was just here. Mr. Bryson I would like to ask you in light of what

01:41:32

I just said concerning John chapter 6 verse 44 all the Father gives me will come to me and the one who

01:41:38

I'm sorry no one is able to come to me unless the Father has sent me draws him and I will raise him up the last day. Is it your position that the one who's raised up at the last day in John 6 44 is different than the one who's drawn?

01:41:51

It is my position that there are two things required. You must come to Him that's one and to come to Him you must be drawn.

01:42:02

It's my position that scripture clearly John 6 44 and all of that context you're talking a lot about the need to look at things in context.

01:42:09

If you take all of that in connection there are two things that happen. One you have to see and another you have to believe if you go on earlier in that very chapter.

01:42:18

But the point here is that you cannot come you are not able to come unless he draws you but being able to come and actually coming to him in faith are not exactly the same thing.

01:42:30

He enables you to come and if you come to him and are drawn and you can't come to him unless you're drawn then he will raise you up but he doesn't raise people up unless they come to him but the ability to come he gives but making you able to come doesn't make you come.

01:42:48

Okay. Verse 44 says no one could come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

01:42:58

Are you saying those two hymns are different people? No I'm saying those two people there that one person does two things.

01:43:05

One he comes to him but he comes to him only because he is able to do so. Where did you get that from verse 44?

01:43:11

44. Two things. No one can come to me. Come to me. That's the one thing.

01:43:17

The other thing he says is that that person who comes to him has to be enabled by the Father drawing him.

01:43:23

No one can unless he's enabled. So he has to come to him and he has to be drawn but if he is drawn and doesn't come to him then in fact he will not be raised up the last day just as it earlier says he must see and believe.

01:43:40

So there is so you believe that the hymn the two hymns here are different because you just said you can be drawn

01:43:45

No. and not raised up. No. I'm capable as one person of doing more than one thing and God is capable of doing something while I'm doing something and what he does here is enable me to come.

01:43:59

What I do is come. I come in faith. As a matter of fact let me just say that even Calvin suggested that coming is a metaphor for believing.

01:44:07

There's no question about that but where does the word enable appear in verse 44? Can come. And in fact

01:44:12

I remember in your book you point this out. No one is able to come. That's right. But it does not say he is enabled.

01:44:19

It says unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up in the last day the drawing results in being

01:44:25

No. That is not what it says. It says that no one can come to me and almost all Calvinist commentaries say the can is enabling.

01:44:32

It is not inevitable that you will come. It's an enabling. Could you name one that confuses ability with enablement?

01:44:43

Ability and enablement is the same. You mentioned my own book. I never said anything about enablement. Enablement has the ability.

01:44:50

Ability and enablement unless you have a different definition when somebody is able to do something or if somebody's been enabled to do something they are now able to do it.

01:45:00

Okay. You said that between these two hymns you have to come. Who comes to Christ according to John 6 37?

01:45:07

Well, only those who are enabled come to him and those that the father has given to him.

01:45:12

Okay. I didn't understand that. According to verse 37 all the father gives me will come to me.

01:45:20

Who is given by the father to the son? Those who believe. Not unbelievers but believers.

01:45:26

Would you agree with that? So God gives those that he foresees will believe to the son?

01:45:32

Well, of course he foresees everything but I'm not saying he gives him the son because he foresees. The fact that God enables people to do something but they still must do it.

01:45:43

He enables us to believe but we still must believe. Didn't you just say that coming is a metaphor for believing?

01:45:49

Exactly. And isn't the giving of the father here what results in their coming to Christ?

01:45:55

No, that is not. Coming to Christ is putting your faith in him. I understand that but just on a simple grammatical level which action in verse 37 comes first the giving of the father to the son or the coming to Christ?

01:46:09

Well, I don't think there is a chronological order. I think there's two things that are true. Only those that the father gives to the son come to the father but only those who believe does the father give to the son.

01:46:22

Now, the other choice, the other option is to say that he gives unbelievers to the son and if you want to say that,

01:46:29

I'm happy with that. You don't believe that there is any temporal priority here between the father giving and people coming?

01:46:38

All the father gives will come to me. That's right. All that I give $10 to will buy books at Stand to Reason.

01:46:47

Which action comes first? Well, what I'm saying here and I think it speaks for itself that those who he enables to come do come.

01:46:55

Those who believe in him he gives to the son. If you want to say the opposite that he gives unbelievers to the son you can say it but all the questioning on this isn't going to change that.

01:47:07

You had said earlier that the Calvinist position is that Christ's blood is worthless to all but the elect.

01:47:15

I'm saying that's the Calvinist position, yes. I'm saying that's Calvinist. Except in a common, perhaps some side benefits.

01:47:21

That's what I've heard Calvinists say. Is it not your understanding that in fact the reformed position is that it was

01:47:29

Christ's intention to redeem his people upon the cross? That's right, which would be the equivalent of what

01:47:35

I've said. Except that the idea of... Well, that would be a response.

01:47:40

So it is your idea that worthlessness follows from a lack of intention of saving someone?

01:47:48

No, it's totally separate issues here. Worthlessness is a relative issue in this context because if Christ died for me there's value to me in his death.

01:48:01

If he did not die for me there is no value to me in his death. What value is there in the death of Christ on behalf of every person who will end up in hell?

01:48:09

The value is intrinsic to his death for that person. If a person rejects... What does it accomplish?

01:48:16

Let me explain. If I were to give you or offer you some money and you didn't take it. If I were to give you money and you didn't take it it would still have value.

01:48:24

But if I gave you blank... If I offered you blank money... Time. It wouldn't be any good.

01:48:31

Thank you, gentlemen, and thanks for the plug, Jim. And now George Bryson will have seven minutes of cross -examination of James White.

01:48:41

I don't want to beat a dead horse but I would like to get this clear. Do you believe that the Father gives to the

01:48:49

Son unbelievers? Of course. No, the ones mentioned on 637 are the elect of God.

01:48:57

All the Father gives me will come to me. God gives a specific people to the Son and as a result every single one of them will come to Christ.

01:49:08

But which is the order? We're talking about temporal order here. Does he give the unbeliever to the

01:49:14

Son as an unbeliever or irrelevant to his faith? Well, you're confusing two categories here.

01:49:21

You're using the term unbeliever. Before I was born, I guess you could call me an unbeliever.

01:49:26

I'm talking about the elect here. The elect experience faith as it is given to them as described in Philippians 129 at a particular point in time in their life.

01:49:34

But they are given as a people by the Father to the Son and the result of their being given is that we infallibly come to Christ.

01:49:43

So if I'm right, I still understand you using your logic that these people who are unbelievers are given past in eternity or present.

01:49:56

They are given to the Son irrelevant of their faith or unrelated to their faith.

01:50:02

The elect are chosen according to Ephesians 1 based upon God's own purpose and grace not upon a foreseen faith or fulfillment of condition on their part.

01:50:13

Now, these are elect unbelievers. Well, every single person of the elect, sir, is described in Ephesians 2 as being a child of wrath until that glorious point in time when

01:50:24

God regenerates them and draws them up. So he gives them these children of wrath. He gives the children of wrath, the unbelievers, the spiritually dead, the totally depraved.

01:50:34

He gives them to the Son. The elect are given to the Son before they even exist, yes. Okay, that's all

01:50:39

I wanted to know. Made it very clear. I wanted to make a comment and get a response to it.

01:50:48

As I understand sovereignty, sovereignty tells us what God can do. God can do everything he so desires, so pleases.

01:50:58

Now, all of us agree God can't make a square circle or he can't build a rock so heavy he can't lift it.

01:51:03

These are silly assertions, but we all believe sovereignty is about what God can do.

01:51:11

Could God, now I'm not saying as a Catholic, I'm not asking you to make a false confession here, but could

01:51:16

God require a man to believe and retain his sovereignty as a condition of salvation?

01:51:27

Okay, let me. The command to believe and repent is universal. Okay, but that's a command he can't keep or a condition he can't meet.

01:51:34

I'm talking about can he, could God, let me restate it then because I need to clarify. Is it possible for the sovereign

01:51:40

God, I will admit, first of all, that God could require nothing.

01:51:46

He could choose to save people without faith. My question is, is he able to retain his sovereignty and require an unregenerate man to believe in order so that he can become regenerate?

01:51:59

Or does he lose his sovereignty in doing that? In the context of the

01:52:05

Bible and biblical terminology, because you just referred to an unregenerate man, that smacks of asking if you create a rock too heavy it could lift, because what you're asking me is, could

01:52:16

God sovereignly choose to make spiritually dead men perform spiritually good actions?

01:52:24

I suppose he could, but then no one would be saved. So you suppose he could?

01:52:30

I suppose he could, but then there would be no salvation. So you're saying that it's not possible for a sovereign God to make an unregenerate man able to believe without making him believe.

01:52:40

Well, since he's spiritually dead and you continue to use biblical terminology, the

01:52:45

Bible says those who are in the flesh can not please God. Okay, so I got your answer.

01:52:52

He can't do it. All right, next question. Could God, if he chose, save conditionally if he wanted to do so, if he wanted to make a requirement?

01:53:11

Maybe you've answered that. I'll move on. Is it possible in your way of thinking that receiving a gift does not make the person who receives that gift a co -giver?

01:53:29

And I'm talking about volitionally receiving. We both know that I can give somebody something that they can have without taking it.

01:53:36

But if I require somebody to take something that I offer them, does that make them a co -giver of the gift

01:53:45

I give them? It's never been my argument that that is what a non -reformed perspective does.

01:53:50

So I would agree fully that does not make you a co -giver. That's never been an argument that I, and I don't believe

01:53:56

Calvinists make that. But you've suggested that I believe that I'm a co -savior.

01:54:02

If you make God's grace dependent upon the cooperation of your unregenerated will so that the grace fails outside of the addition of your autonomous actions, yes.

01:54:13

Okay, now, I'm hearing it.

01:54:18

God does, we know, what pleases him. Is he pleased with all of the terrible, awful, atrocious things that happen on this planet?

01:54:37

Well, God says that he works all things after the counsel of his will, all to the praise, the glory of his grace.

01:54:42

So fundamentally, in the most overarching situation, you have to, if that's what you're asking about, if you're asking about individual acts, and you're saying, should you go and tell a rapist that God is pleased with him, you're confusing two completely different categories.

01:54:59

You're using one where the law impacts the individual in his life, and then the other is, does God have an overarching purpose to all things?

01:55:07

Those cannot be compared with one another. And God's wrath comes upon sin because, and another word that is also used for that is his displeasure.

01:55:15

So if you're saying is God pleased in what he is doing in this world and what he's going to accomplish in this world, yes, he is.

01:55:24

No, I'm asking, is he pleased in what we're doing, which he decreed we would do? Well, again, just as in Genesis chapter 50,

01:55:33

Isaiah chapter 10, Acts chapter 4, as I've mentioned many times, compatibilism teaches us that within the one action you have the perfect will of God, his intention is wholly unjust, and in the intention of the human being, he has sinful actions.

01:55:48

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. And now our 10 minutes of closing comments. We had 10 minutes of closing arguments.

01:55:55

Now we'll have 10 minutes of closing comments. And George Bryson will open, and then James White will close.

01:56:04

What I'd like to leave you with is this thought, that as Christians without the guidance of Reformed or Calvinist theology, sincere, devoted, just desiring from your heart to understand what is true about God, what

01:56:33

God in his word says to us about us and about the non -Christians around us, could you honestly say that you would come to the

01:56:46

Reformed or Calvinist conclusion? Could you say, or would you say, when you read

01:56:52

John 3 .16, that God so loved the world that he only implied the elect of the world?

01:56:59

I would agree with James White that world doesn't always mean everybody in the world, but when you're reading

01:57:05

John 3 .16, don't you get the sense that God is clearly telling us how he feels about not just us, but about them?

01:57:17

One of the things that I'm concerned about here, and I know Calvinists protest when I say this, but I'm concerned that we will lose concern for those that he's concerned about.

01:57:27

We will not care about those he doesn't care about, and we will not love those that he loves.

01:57:32

Now, if he doesn't love them, has no saving interest in them, I'm not saying Calvinists won't evangelize.

01:57:39

I think sometimes they do in spite of their Calvinism. In fact, I think lots of Calvinists check their

01:57:45

Calvinism in the mission field. They simply want to see the lost saved, so they do what they have to do. They do what the

01:57:50

Bible says ought to be done. But if you're reading John 3 .16, or 1 Peter 3 .9,

01:57:56

or 1 Timothy 2 .4, do you really get the sense that God doesn't love all of those people out there?

01:58:13

Now, I know people say, this is so simplistic. Somebody once accused my lovely wife of being so, she says, you know, the problem with you guys, you're so red letter bound.

01:58:24

You're just so hung up on the red letter. Well, you know, I don't think it's just the red letter. I think it's all of what

01:58:29

God says. It's clear. Folks, when I used to live in Oregon, we had what we called ungreeting signs.

01:58:36

These were signs that invited people to every state but Oregon. They wanted to be the last ones in.

01:58:44

Most of them were Californians like myself that had moved up there. And before the rain ran them out, they wanted to be the only ones in the state.

01:58:53

Somehow, I think this has happened to Christians because of theological persuasion or theological convictions.

01:59:01

It's not from scripture we get this, but we got in by simply believing. We put our faith in Jesus Christ.

01:59:08

We trusted in him and what he did for us. We trusted in who he was and what he did because we all agree that salvation is about him and about what he did for us.

01:59:18

And the only thing he asks of us, he doesn't ask much, you got to admit. He asks us to believe.

01:59:26

I feel so sad for those that think of faith as works. I've seen people try to work their way to heaven.

01:59:33

We all know people who do. We know religions that are all about works and trying to get to heaven by your good deeds.

01:59:40

But faith, what is faith? But simply trusting in him. It's the opposite of work.

01:59:46

It's recognizing the work he did for us. But so much of what scripture says, says he did it for them.

01:59:53

He did it for us, of course, before we were saved. And he's done it for them while they are unsaved.

02:00:03

But again, ideas have consequences. Now people can say, I believe that God intended for many, if not most of the people on the planet to go to hell.

02:00:12

That's all he ever wanted for them. He designed and desired for them to be damned for all eternity unconditionally.

02:00:20

But I still want to reach them. I still want to tell them about the glorious gospel. But isn't it just a major tease?

02:00:30

If we go out and tell the people that God loves them. In fact, maybe this isn't true in your reformed church if you go to a reformed church.

02:00:38

But I have a friend who became a reformed pastor. And he instructed his Sunday school teachers not to tell the children that Jesus loved them anymore.

02:00:48

And it wasn't because he didn't love children. It's because he wasn't sure Jesus loved them because some of those children were going to grow up and not become

02:00:56

Christians. So he couldn't be certain. He didn't want to lie or misrepresent God. So he had to refrain.

02:01:02

Now, of course, not all Calvinists will do that. But I want you to think about the consequences. Either he loves us all or he doesn't love all of us.

02:01:12

And if he doesn't love all of us, how are we to view those people? There's a lot at stake here.

02:01:19

And I know my Calvinist friend would agree with me. There's a lot at stake here. I suggest if God doesn't love them and you want to be like God, you want to have his passion, his heart.

02:01:33

You want to have his mind. You want to be moved by his will. If it's his will not to save them, if Christ did not so love them that he sent

02:01:43

Christ to die for them, or he loved them, but not to the extent that he would send his son to die on the cross on their behalf, then you're not going to relate to them,

02:01:53

I think, as you ought to. You can't have the heart of God and go out and just passionately reach out for the lost if he doesn't care about them.

02:02:04

You're going to reflect his values, his views, his purposes. And remember, it's just as much his purpose to dam the dam as it is to save the saved.

02:02:14

And no matter what kind of philosophical fancy footwork you do, it still all comes out to this.

02:02:22

God, according to Calvin, according to Calvinism, planned and purposed from all eternity for no reason that anyone knows.

02:02:31

Calvin never knew and never claimed to know. Unrelated to man himself, God decided to save some and to dam others.

02:02:40

And actually, Calvin, I'm not going to say this, but Calvin said, basically, he used some very pejorative terms.

02:02:46

He said, listen, if you believe God, as Spurgeon did, if you believe God saved some and the others dammed themselves, you're stupid.

02:02:57

He thought this was insane. If you really think that God doesn't have the same control, hasn't determined essentially in the same way the destiny of the lost for the same reason, merely because it pleased him, then you misunderstand everything.

02:03:15

If you don't accept unconditional reprobation, unconditional damnation, then you don't understand,

02:03:22

Calvin taught, unconditional election. They're just, as everybody uses the term today, they're just a flip side of the same coin.

02:03:33

Now, what kind of message are we communicating? What kind of gospel are we believing?

02:03:42

What I have suggested in my book is that Calvinists don't even believe there is a gospel for much, if not most of the world.

02:03:50

How can you tell somebody honestly with a straight face that there is good news?

02:03:58

See, the good news is you're dead. You can be alive. You're lost. You can be found. You're blind. You can see. Do you live in a world filled with hate, but God loves you?

02:04:06

That's the good news. The news of Calvinism is maybe, maybe

02:04:13

God loves you and maybe he doesn't. Maybe there's hope in your despair.

02:04:21

Maybe you can go to heaven and then maybe you can't. And it's certain you can't if you're not elect.

02:04:27

We just don't know, happen to know who it is that is elect and who it is that isn't. Doesn't that affect the way you think?

02:04:36

I know some of you hold near and dear to your heart the reformed doctrine.

02:04:41

You believe it brings glory to God. It's the manifestation ultimately of his grace and of his goodness.

02:04:50

But ask yourself this, honestly, from the heart, setting aside anything you've ever learned from anybody.

02:04:57

How am I doing? One minute. If we have been commissioned, as most

02:05:05

Calvinists I know agree with me, to reach them, I think we can only do it when we feel about them the way he does.

02:05:14

When we care about them the way he does. When we take to them what he did.

02:05:20

See, but you can't with a straight face say he did anything for them because you don't know.

02:05:28

Again, you know, if I, if I offered you phony money and that's what preaching the gospel is to a person who can't believe it.

02:05:40

Can't believe it not because he simply won't believe it according to Calvinism because God ordained that he would not believe it, decreed that he would not believe it and ultimately is responsible for his unbelief.

02:05:52

As Feinberg said so eloquently, the oddity here is, is

02:05:58

God determines where you're going to go and why you're going to go there and how you're going to get there makes you do the things you do so that he can judge you to do them and then blames you for all that he does.

02:06:12

If indeed Calvinism is true, that's not the God of scripture. He really does love them as he loves us.

02:06:22

That's what it means by God so loved the world. Thank you. Thank you,

02:06:30

George. George. And James White will have 10 minutes for his closing comments.

02:06:37

The gospel of Calvinism as it was just described is not, well, maybe

02:06:46

God doesn't love you. You see, the apostolic proclamation was repent and believe.

02:06:53

It wasn't, this is what God has done for you. Maybe the problem here is that we're judging the gospel by our emotions and experiences rather than by the infallible, unchanging, inspired word of God.

02:07:08

I've heard no response to John 6, Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and 9. 1

02:07:14

Timothy 2. I've heard no replies. I've heard no exegesis that says, no, it doesn't actually say that God elects unconditionally.

02:07:22

All I've heard is, well, if we believe this, then we can't evangelize the way I evangelize.

02:07:29

Maybe that tells us something. Maybe we need to stop proclaiming the gospel.

02:07:36

What will you do with Jesus and proclaim it the way the Bible presents it? What will

02:07:42

Christ do with you? He is the sovereign

02:07:48

King. And that picture of Jesus standing outside the knobless door from Revelation 3 .20,

02:07:55

knocking. First of all, Revelation 3 .20 is about the church. And secondly, there was no knob on the outside of Lazarus's tomb either.

02:08:09

That didn't stop Jesus. I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing

02:08:16

Jesus presented as a weak beggar. He is a powerful

02:08:23

Savior. And the gospel is not a suggestion. It is a command.

02:08:31

We need to present the gospel the way the apostles did. They turned the world upside down.

02:08:37

For some reason, the world's turning the church upside down now. Maybe that's why. You know, the same text of the

02:08:47

Bible that says John 3 .16 also says this in Joshua 11 .20,

02:08:53

For it was the Lord's doing to harden the Hivites' hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, and they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy, but be destroyed, just as the

02:09:04

Lord commanded Moses. That same text of Scripture, Isaiah 63 .17

02:09:10

says, O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart so that we fear you not?

02:09:19

That's the same inspired text that utters those words in John 3.

02:09:25

I point out that the very same John wrote John 6 and John 10, but I'd like to address

02:09:32

John 3 for a moment. Because you see, so many of us have heard it repeated so often within a traditional context that sometimes we forget what the text actually says.

02:09:42

Do you remember the two verses before that? There, we're talking about Moses, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

02:09:49

The contrast with the world is that for Israel, you had the serpent lifted up and you needed to look at that serpent.

02:09:56

And not all Israel did. And those who didn't perished. But you see,

02:10:02

God shows a much greater love. It's not just for Israel. He shows a love for the whole world in that he gives his son, but notice something.

02:10:11

So many people just read this solely out of tradition and they hear that phrase whosoever and go, see, no election.

02:10:20

But many of you know, that's not what John 3 .16 says. It literally says,

02:10:26

God gave his son so that everyone believing, every believing one, everyone believing in Christ would have eternal life.

02:10:42

Does everyone do that? Have you ever noticed there's particularity in John 3 .16?

02:10:50

If this is just some sort of general love, that there is no special salvific love, that God's heart is going to be broken for all of eternity because he loves that person who's standing on the parapet of hell screaming out in hatred at him just as much as he does those who bow in adoration before him.

02:11:13

If God's going to be unhappy through all eternity, then why is it that the passage itself says that the reason of the giving was so that the believing ones would have eternal life?

02:11:31

You see, John 3 is consistent with John 6. And John 6 is consistent with John 10.

02:11:38

And John 10 is consistent with John 17. And in John 17, in the high priestly prayer of the

02:11:44

Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus said, I do not pray for the world.

02:11:50

I pray for those you've given me out of the world. The very night of his betrayal, as he's going to give his sacrifice, he says,

02:12:02

I don't pray. You say, but I don't like to hear that. I don't like to hear what it says in John 10 when he says to the

02:12:11

Pharisees, my sheep hear my voice. The reason you don't hear me is because you're not of my sheep.

02:12:20

And we want to turn that upside down. We want to make it backwards and go, oh, no, no,

02:12:25

I can choose to be his sheep anytime I want to. Can you imagine a shepherd never knows who his flock is because the sheep sort of go, well,

02:12:33

I'm not sure if I'm going to have him as my shepherd today or not. Maybe I'll go join that flock. The shepherd chooses his sheep.

02:12:42

And he then lays down his life in behalf of his sheep.

02:12:50

This is a vital issue. It is a vital issue. When I debate a

02:12:57

Mormon scholar this coming Friday in Salt Lake City, it's about the nature of sin. Mormons don't have a biblical doctrine of sin.

02:13:04

That's why they don't have a biblical doctrine of grace. Grace to be grace must be free.

02:13:15

It cannot be demanded. You cannot say, well, God has to show the exact same kind of grace to every single person.

02:13:23

Then that's not grace. If the governor of the state exercises the governor's sovereign power to pardon a person on death row, that governor is not then under any moral obligation to pardon everybody on death row.

02:13:45

Grace to be God's grace must be absolutely free.

02:13:50

It must be based upon God's good purpose and not on anything in us.

02:14:00

That is why when you read that golden chain of redemption in Romans 8, every verb there is something

02:14:06

God does. God foreknows. That doesn't mean He looks down the corridors of time. That's an active verb.

02:14:12

It means He chooses to enter into relationship in love. He foreknows.

02:14:20

He predestines. He calls. He justifies. He glorifies.

02:14:26

You can't break that chain. And that is a gospel of power. That is a gospel that honors

02:14:34

God. My friends, I cannot cause any one of you to lay aside emotions and tradition and simply come to the

02:14:48

Scriptures. But I can try to model it for you. If you can hear yourself saying the words in Romans 9 after God says,

02:15:00

I will mercy whom I desire and I will harden whom

02:15:06

I desire. You have a choice to make. You can either go, I don't like that.

02:15:12

I've had many a person when I've read that passage say I would never worship a God like that.

02:15:18

My response is, I know. Until God changes your heart, takes out a heart of stone, gives you a heart of flesh, you never will.

02:15:27

You never will. My friend, if you're a believer and God has taken out your heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh,

02:15:35

I hope you can't hear your own echoed words in what follows after that when you will say to me, then who still finds fault for who can resist his will?

02:15:45

Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? And there is the answer to tonight's debate.

02:15:54

God is God and I am not, as Stephen Curtis Chapman is saying these days.

02:16:01

I love that. God is God and I am not. God is God and I am man. And that is the most fundamental observation we can have this evening.

02:16:09

God is sovereign, I am not. I have been formed by his sovereign power.

02:16:15

He has the right over me and the amazing thing, folks, is not that he ever chooses to show his wrath because if you know your heart, you deserve it.

02:16:25

The amazing thing about election is that he took a sinner like me and he saved me.

02:16:33

That is the glory of the gospel. I have 10 questions here, two minutes and one minute in terms of response, maximum 30 minutes here for the rest of the evening, folks.

02:16:59

And I'm going to direct the first question at James White. And James, you'll have two minutes, as I mentioned, and then if you choose to use the full two, and then

02:17:10

George, you'll have a minute if you'd like to respond. You don't need to respond if you don't want to.

02:17:17

You can pass on it if you'd like. But those are the limits, at least. To James White, if the

02:17:22

Bible verse is true, which states, we love him because he first loved us, then how is it love if it's by compulsion?

02:17:33

Well, that is an excellent question because it really exemplifies one of the greatest problems in understanding the reform perspective.

02:17:43

When we use the term compulsion, we would have to, in essence, understand, again, to use the metaphor of Lazarus' resurrection, that Jesus compelled him to come out of the grave.

02:17:57

I don't think that's what most people are understanding when they use that term, compulsion. They're trying to object that, well, if you're forcing someone to do something against their will, well, the biblical analogy is he takes out a heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh.

02:18:13

Now, if you want to call that compulsion, I will leave you to your choice of terms. That sounds to me like a very major spiritual overhaul of an individual changing them from being a

02:18:25

God -hater to being a God -lover. And I wouldn't use the term compulsion because that also means there's been a change.

02:18:33

That is, the old creature is done away with. There's this new creation in Christ Jesus, and that new creation in Christ Jesus, by nature, loves

02:18:42

God and desires to cling to Christ. And so that term compulsion,

02:18:47

I think, ignores the deadness of man in sin and the radical nature of regeneration itself, which requires that total change of heart.

02:18:56

George, would you like to respond? I would just say that on one level, I agree with R .C. Sproul. The problem with Calvinism isn't who

02:19:03

God loves and the response that comes from that love. It's those he doesn't love or doesn't love savingly because we all agree that we love him because he first loved us.

02:19:16

Where we disagree is that we all love him because he loved us.

02:19:23

In other words, we can't love him back unless he doesn't love us first. But the

02:19:28

Calvinist says you have no control over loving him back because he makes you love him back by changing you into, by your nature, a lover of God.

02:19:43

This question for George Bryson. Ephesians 2 .8 and Philippians 1 .29 state that faith is a gift from God.

02:19:51

Can you believe in Christ before he gives you faith? Well, first of all, Ephesians 2 .8

02:19:57

through 10, that whole section there, is greatly disputed. Now, I've always heard from the time

02:20:03

I was a new Christian on that every scholar, New Testament Greek scholar, by the way,

02:20:10

I don't think you have to understand New Testament Greek because I think the New Testament Greek scholars, men like James White, have done a good job of putting what's in Greek and English so we can all understand it.

02:20:19

But I think Greek scholars, like English scholars, are very divided on that.

02:20:28

And in my new book, The Gospel of Calvinism, if I can put a cheap plug in, I go over and quote all of the well -known, well -respected

02:20:36

Greek scholars who totally disagree that faith there is asserted as a gift. So I believe everything, the breath you breathe is a gift from God.

02:20:45

But in the sense that the Calvinists suggest, I don't think that is taught there. I think the gift is salvation.

02:20:50

Grace is the way we're saved. God saves by grace, but he also saves by grace through faith. And as Calvin said, it is the means by which we received the gift, not the gift itself.

02:21:05

Would you like to respond to that, James? Yeah, I think that leaves Philippians 1 .29 unanswered, which very clearly does say that it has been granted to us to believe.

02:21:15

And Philippians 2, the word faith most definitely is one of those things that is tied up in that one phrase, and that not of ourselves.

02:21:25

The grace, the salvation, the entirety of the preceding phrase is tied up in that singular term, tuta.

02:21:33

And I really think that that goes back to what you saw earlier in Ephesians 2, when he said, when we were enemies to God, when we were at enmity with him, even when we were going the other direction, but God, who is rich in mercy, it is

02:21:50

God who initiates and it is God who accomplishes, and he never fails to bring to salvation the person that he initiates that work in.

02:22:00

Okay, this to James. Where did evil come from? A theodicy in two minutes.

02:22:10

As was mentioned earlier in the debate, first of all, I don't believe evil is a substance or a thing.

02:22:16

It is a disharmony, a rebellion within the creation of God, and so it cannot exist before God creates.

02:22:23

Secondly, it is God's purpose, if we do accept what the

02:22:29

Bible says concerning his working all things after the counsel of his will, to bring glory to himself by what he has done in this creation.

02:22:38

Therefore, everyone either has to understand that evil has a role in God's plan, as it does in Genesis 50,

02:22:46

Isaiah 10, Acts 4, or you have to adopt what

02:22:51

I think is a completely untenable position, and that is that either evil took

02:22:57

God by surprise or God knew evil was going to exist but chose to create anyways without having a purpose for its existence, which renders all acts of evil meaningless.

02:23:10

I don't know why anyone would want to hold either one of those positions other than, well, I don't want God to have to answer for bringing good out of evil.

02:23:19

Well, I'm very thankful to say God has brought good out of evil, not only in the life of Joseph or in the situation with Israel, but in the greatest act of saving activity that God ever did, and that is in the cross of Jesus Christ.

02:23:34

What the Roman soldiers did, what the Jewish leaders did, what Pilate did and what Herod did were evil acts, and yet we, this evening, can have peace with God through our

02:23:45

Lord Jesus Christ only because in God's sovereign decree those evil acts took place.

02:23:51

And so I am very thankful that my God is big enough to be pure and just and holy in all of his motivations and yet to have a universe where evil exists but it is destroyed by the work of Jesus Christ.

02:24:06

George, would you like to respond to that? Yes, there's a very big difference between making

02:24:11

God the author of sin and saying that God can use sin. God has used sin. He uses evil, but God's not the author of moral evil because he's not an immoral being.

02:24:22

He is ontologically incapable by nature. He can't be the author of sin.

02:24:29

So the problem with Calvinism is that it makes God, not by affirmation, even the

02:24:34

Westminster Confession clearly states and most confessions, Calvinist confessions, deny that God is the author of sin, but it's not what they affirm that concerns me.

02:24:42

It's what they explain. Once they explain their position, it implies that God is the author of sin and then when you get finally to that implication, what they say it's a mystery, we've introduced it, but you're not allowed to talk about it.

02:24:57

Okay, George, a question here for you. Is faith a gift from God or an act on our part?

02:25:07

Well, I would agree again with Machen and even in the Calvinist comment or Calvin's comment in Ephesians 2 through 8 that it is a means by which to receive a gift.

02:25:19

It's not a work, it's by definition something else. So it's an act in the sense, I would agree with Paul, for example, and Silas when the man said, what must

02:25:28

I do? They didn't say don't do anything. They said believe. So I believe that you must believe to receive and again, even

02:25:39

Calvinist argued that the decision we make, the coming to Christ, the choice that we make for Christ, and he talked about that a lot, is another way of talking about believing in him, but believing is not a work.

02:25:51

So it's not a gift in the Calvinist sense of a gift. The breath I breathe is a gift, but not in the

02:25:58

Calvinist sense. The Calvinist says in effect, I know James White doesn't like this, but Calvinists say in effect that God believes in and through you that ultimately he is the believer, not you.

02:26:10

I mean, he makes you a believer by giving you a believing nature, but he really is the believer, not you.

02:26:18

And I'm saying that salvation is God's job. Believing is our responsibility.

02:26:24

Don't make God responsible for what he makes you responsible for. God is sovereign, accept your responsibility and believe.

02:26:33

James, have you joined her? Certainly we do not in any way, shape or form say that God is believing through us and that is a totally invalid assertion.

02:26:42

It does not follow from what is being said. What has been said in there, so far, Mr. Bryson has not even attempted to respond to this, is that Romans chapter eight, verses seven through eight say, those who are in the flesh cannot please

02:26:53

God. We know that saving faith is something that is pleasing. Philippians 1 and 29 says it is something that has been granted to us, both that and our suffering for Christ.

02:27:02

And so it is very plain that the issue here is that until regeneration takes place, and as long as a person remains a spiritually dead sinner, asking them to do something that is a spiritual activity is, of course, backwards.

02:27:17

And we have not heard any responses to the biblical passages, the many of them that have been offered. And the one time we did discuss

02:27:22

John 6, 44, I would submit that the answer that was given there simply did not flow from the text and was not consistent with the grammar of the text at all.

02:27:31

Thank you. Question for James White. What effect does a

02:27:37

Calvinist view of God's grace have on evangelism? If God chooses, why evangelize?

02:27:45

Awesome, awesome question. The first missionaries were all Calvinists, and there's a reason for that. They believed that God was glorified and they're going out and proclaiming the gospel.

02:27:55

And I'm going to have a hard time making it into two minutes for this one because I got a whole sermon on this. God is glorified when

02:28:01

His truth is proclaimed. There are many groups today where the mission effort has been greatly minimized because of a denial of Reformed theology.

02:28:13

What do I mean? Many people in the mission field are forced to function on the basis of charts and graphs that tell them how allegedly they should be having this rate of growth or this number of people attending, so on and so forth, as if the work of the

02:28:26

Holy Spirit can be put on a chart or a graph. The earliest missionaries worked in areas where some had to work for five or 10 years before God granted them success in seeing their first convert.

02:28:36

But that was necessary. Only a few years ago, if you took every one

02:28:41

Mormon that left the Mormon church and became a Baptist, 24 Baptists became Mormons.

02:28:47

There's a reason for a 24 to 1 conversion rate amongst these people. And it's because you can't hand a

02:28:53

Mormon the four spiritual laws and expect them to get saved. It doesn't address them. It's like shooting a .22

02:28:58

at a tank. It takes time. It takes patience. And it takes a firm conviction that God is glorified when

02:29:05

His truth is proclaimed, no matter what the result is. And folks, as we live in an ever more anti -Christian age, we need to get hold of this.

02:29:13

Because if you start judging your evangelistic efforts on the basis of what kind of response you get when you're living in an apostate nation that hates

02:29:23

God, you're going to stop evangelizing. God is glorified when His truth is proclaimed.

02:29:29

When the apostles did that, it frequently brought them prison and death. We have to get hold of that and realize that.

02:29:35

And that's why I'm going to be in Salt Lake City this coming Saturday, passing out tracts of some of the toughest folks, because my

02:29:41

God can even save Mormons. And George, the question again, what effect does a

02:29:49

Calvinist view of God's grace have on evangelism if God chooses, why evangelize?

02:29:55

You have a minute. Well, first of all, there's a simple little statement that may seem silly, but it's true.

02:30:02

If something doesn't make a difference, it doesn't make a difference. And your evangelism, of course,

02:30:09

Calvinists say they want to obey God, so they obey God and evangelize. Or they want to glorify God, and so they evangelize.

02:30:16

They want to please God, so they evangelize. And those are wonderful motives. But the effect of evangelism for the

02:30:23

Calvinist or anybody else, according to Calvinism, is nothing. And in other words, no person, that number is fixed.

02:30:31

The whole thing has been rigged from all eternity. The issue in Calvinism is that from all eternity to all eternity,

02:30:38

God has determined to save a specific group of people and not save the others.

02:30:44

So it isn't going to make a difference. Now, they say God ordains the means, but even that means is fixed.

02:30:51

Who is going to evangelize and who isn't? So if you don't, you weren't supposed to. If you do, you are. And you can't help it either way, though you think you can because it appears you can.

02:30:59

Time. Okay, George, a question for you. Can you explain how Jesus was our propitiation, that is, takes away

02:31:08

God's wrath, and then God returns his wrath onto some?

02:31:13

I think the point is, if he's the propitiation for the whole world, how does he then return his wrath on those who he's already propitiated?

02:31:21

Well, it would be like saying that I have enough money to buy the car, and this is enough money for you to buy the car if you'll take the money to buy the car.

02:31:32

But if you don't take the money to buy the car, you don't have any money to buy the car. The propitiation is for you.

02:31:38

The satisfaction is sufficient. The substitution is perfect. There is nothing more he needed to do.

02:31:44

And even Calvinists would agree if it were his design or his purpose, what Christ did would have been adequate.

02:31:52

But the fact is, it wasn't his design or his purpose. That's why, by the way, folks, if any of you who are out here are

02:32:00

Calvinists who don't believe in limited atonement, I suggest you don't understand Calvinism because if you're an unconditional electionist, you are a limited atonement.

02:32:09

And as I know my colleague here would agree that if you believe Christ saved some, excuse me, then you have to agree that he didn't die for them.

02:32:20

It's a wasted death for them. James, response?

02:32:28

I don't think that really addresses the issue. The issue is if we believe in substitutionary atonement and if we assert that Jesus Christ took the wrath, which is what propitiation means, took the wrath that was due to John Brown and he bore the penalty for all of John Brown's sins in his body upon the tree, then those sins have been propitiated.

02:32:49

So upon what basis can John Brown be condemned to hell? What kind of wrath can fall upon him?

02:32:55

Some say, well, for unbelief. Unbelief is a sin. It was born by Jesus Christ. So what is the basis of the condemnation?

02:33:03

That's why historic Arminians do not believe. In substitutionary atonement, because they recognize that if substitutionary atonement is true, then

02:33:12

Jesus Christ took the place of his elect people and therefore that sacrifice is perfect in their behalf.

02:33:21

That's why Arminianism has always rejected that. And so you really can't believe in substitutionary atonement without being reformed.

02:33:29

Thank you, James. This question is for you. And the question is, if all men are dead in sin, dead is in quotations here, how is it that some are saved and others are not?

02:33:41

Well, that is, of course, the question of the evening. And the answer is either going to be that of the world's religions that basically say the answer is to be found in man.

02:33:53

Or I believe the answer is found clearly in the page of the scripture in the goodwill of God.

02:33:59

Ephesians 1 tells us that God has elected a people unto himself from eternity based upon the kind intention of his own will.

02:34:07

And over and over again in Romans 8 and Romans 9, the works of men are specifically excluded as being the basis of anything to do.

02:34:17

In fact, the will of man, it is not the one willing or the one running, but God who has mercy is how the inspired scriptures state this in Romans chapter 9.

02:34:28

So don't be confused by one thing. Sometimes people say, well, if you're dead in sin, I know human beings who are extremely active in their rebellion against God.

02:34:39

Being dead in sin does not mean that you're not spiritually active. What it means, of course, is that you are separated from the only source of life, that is

02:34:45

God, that your nature is completely and totally corrupt. And that individual, as we have seen over and over and over again in Romans chapter 8, verses 7 through 8, you might say, well, quit quoting it.

02:34:56

Well, I haven't heard a response to it yet. So I keep offering it. Those who are in the flesh cannot please

02:35:03

God. And so it cannot be based upon anything that we do. God's grace comes to us based upon His purpose.

02:35:11

And that is why, as I said, in eternity to come, the only difference that will separate those is that one word, grace.

02:35:20

Thank you, James. And George, one minute. During the break, somebody asked me if spiritually dead people can do anything good.

02:35:30

And I asked him how long he'd been a Christian. He said four years. And I said, well, before that, did you love your mother?

02:35:36

And he said, yes. And I said, was that good? And he said, yes. And then I said, well,

02:35:42

I thought bad men can't do good things. And he says, well, that was a sinful love for my mother.

02:35:48

I can't do anything good. There's lots of ways in which we can use the word in the flesh or even spiritually dead.

02:35:56

I mean, we're all born again as Christians, but none of us push the analogy to the point that we had a nine month or any period of time of gestation before we were spiritually born.

02:36:05

You can push an analogy too far. All I would say is this, that spiritual death poses no problem to an omnipotent

02:36:14

God. And that God can enable the spiritually dead to believe just as he can raise

02:36:21

Lazarus from the dead. He can raise us from the dead. He could do it with or without faith.

02:36:27

Hi. Thank you, George. Here's a question for you. If God cast a vote for someone's salvation and Satan also cast a vote for his damnation and we decide one way, in other words,

02:36:41

I guess we make the, cast the deciding vote, who is sovereign? This is a good lesson in democracy, isn't it?

02:36:50

First of all, I don't buy into any of the casting votes. We are saved by grace, period.

02:36:56

No one's ever been saved any other way. Only because of what Christ did for us, because he offers us salvation and enable us, enables us to accept what he offers.

02:37:07

So it is simply this, God's job is to do the saving. Man's job is to do the believing.

02:37:15

Now, call believing, as I just heard a moment ago, works if you want, but the Bible distinguishes and differentiates between faith and works.

02:37:23

And it actually makes our faith and grace, it makes faith and grace complimentary so that one is the receiving mechanism of the other.

02:37:32

God has chosen, he could be gracious without requiring us to believe, but he has chosen to give to people who believe, to give eternal life to those who believe.

02:37:42

And over and over and over again, and I have no, we keep talking about what I haven't responded to.

02:37:48

I have not heard much at all about all of those appeals and those demands and those requirements to believe.

02:37:55

Hundreds of times in the New Testament, we are called upon to believe, but called upon to do, according to Calvinism, what we're unable to do, can't do, and maybe

02:38:04

God didn't want us to do. James, one minute. When we all go home this evening, we'll see speed limit signs on the road.

02:38:13

Some people may get themselves drunk and exceed those speed limit signs. That doesn't mean the speed limit signs are now useless.

02:38:20

The Bible commands all men to believe and to repent as a universal command.

02:38:26

The fact that we put ourselves in a situation, fallen as we are in Adam, that we are incapable of doing what is pleasing in God's sight does not make the commands themselves useless.

02:38:38

Acts 13 .48 contradicts what Mr. Bryson just said. It very plainly says, those who were appointed to eternal life believed.

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Not that by believing, they appointed themselves to eternal life. And when he keeps speaking about how

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God enables all of us, John 6 .65, where he speaks of that enablement is in the context of Jesus saying in 6 .64,

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but there are some of you who do not believe. Why do they not believe? Because the

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Father had not drawn. Thank you,

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James. Here's a question for you. What is the role of prayer in the salvation of people?

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Excellent question, because many people seem to feel that when you pray for the lost, you're attempting to, in some way, shape or form, convince

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God to be maybe better than he is or more loving than he is. It's an excellent question because when we pray, first of all, who is it that we're changing?

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Are we changing God? It's very often that we hear people say, well, prayer changes things.

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No, I think prayer changes people. I think prayer changes the person praying. I don't think it changes

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God. God's already perfect. If God were to change, he'd become imperfect. So I don't follow that philosophy whatsoever.

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Well, who gets changed by prayer? I do. If I'm praying for someone, then obviously,

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I'm going to be much more attuned to opportunities to speak to them. I'm going to ask God to be an instrument of his own grace, the means, as was already pointed out, because we believe

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God decrees both the ends and the means, and it's a great privilege to be used by God to share his gospel with anyone, no matter what their response to that gospel is.

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And so when we are praying for someone, we are not putting ourselves in a position of commanding God as to what he should do.

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We are instead putting ourselves in a position of being attuned to his spirit, so we may be a perfect instrument in his hand to be that one that God uses to bring that message.

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And when he, in his sovereign and infinite mercy, chooses at a point in time to bring that person to spiritual life, there is no power in heaven and earth that can stop him from accomplishing that act of grace, and that's the only reason why any of us are sitting here this evening, who bow to Jesus Christ and believe his word.

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George, the role of prayer in salvation of people, please. Well, I would agree, of course, that a major beneficiary of praying for others or other things even is the person praying.

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But I would also say that God, in his sovereignty, chooses to use prayer to accomplish his will.

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He even asks us to pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, hinting that his will isn't done always on earth the way it is in heaven.

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People here don't always do his will, at least in the sense that he's asking us to pray for it.

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And so he asks us to pray. So we're asked to pray by God in conformity with his will. I would never pray for something that I didn't think

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God wanted to happen. But there are lots of things that I think God wants to happen that aren't happening.

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And I think that we need to pray his heart. And the way we know that, of course, is in accordance with his word.

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So I think there are lots of things that change as a result of prayer. But these are the things

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God wants to see happen. And unless you say, what will be will be, quesada, seda, it doesn't matter.

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I think praying is a powerful force in the universe. Thank you.

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And the final question, we'll start with George here. And that question is this. When Christ said, if I be lifted up,

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I will draw all men unto me. If all men are drawn, then why won't all be saved?

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Well, it goes back to the original assertion I made earlier that it is different being drawn.

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That's what God does. But it's coming to Christ. That's what we do.

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And again, I hate to just beat a dead horse, but John Calvin made it very clear that when we see the term come to him, we're talking about believing in him.

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So God draws us to him. What Christ did draws us, makes it possible for us to be saved, but doesn't, as James White would say, make our salvation inevitable.

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So to be drawn is only to bring us to him so we can believe. But coming to him, that's our part.

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We must believe in what he did. He did what needed to be done. He says, if I be lifted up,

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I'll draw all men. He did what needed to be done. That's what the cross of Christ is all about. That's why we preach

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Christ and his cross. But you still have to respond to that. And that's why the Bible says so much about putting your faith in him and his finished work on the cross.

02:43:43

You actually still have 60 seconds if you want to use it. I do. Well, since it's your last, well, actually 58 seconds now, 57.

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I just stopped the clock there for a second. Well, since it is my last word, let me just say, since we're on the cross, what a better place to end our discussion.

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So precious what he did for us. So precious what he did for them.

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Don't take anything away from, don't rob anyone from what

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God in the person of Jesus Christ did for them. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

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Let us go after them as if they were us.

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Let's think about them as if we were them. Let's care about them the way we know, according to scripture,

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God cares about. Thank you. And James, I'll read the question again if you want to go for that for a minute.

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When Christ said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. If all men are drawn, then why won't all be saved?

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Well, first of all, I would simply point out that the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews, foolishness to Greeks.

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It does not draw the natural man in any way, shape, or form. Secondly, John 12 is talking about Jews and Gentiles.

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Thirdly, John chapter six says, all that the father gives me will come to me. It is the father's giving that results in our coming.

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That is a logical conclusion from the text. Mr. Bryce has said, well, there's no order there.

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I think we can all see there is order there. And in John six, Jesus does say that all those that are drawn to him by the father, he raises up.

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There is no way to introduce a distinction into that verse. The drawing of the father results in a person coming to Jesus Christ in faith.

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And that is based upon the giving of the father. That is why Jesus Christ is a perfect savior. That's why he will lose none of those that are given to him because salvation is holy, his word.

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Well, gentlemen, I want to thank you so much for doing such a fine job. And I want to thank the audience for being such a good audience.