Is Knowing Jesus the Only Way to be Saved? (White vs Sanders)

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I'd like to take the opportunity first to thank a few folks. Firstly, Greg Poss, the gentleman that was just speaking, thank him for allowing this event to take place, as well as Darren Kinney, Steve Hobbs, and yes, the
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Finley brothers who helped me out so much in putting this debate as well as our one tomorrow night together. Secondly, I'd like to thank also
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Harborside Christian Church, Countryside Christian Center, and Lakeside Community Chapel for helping us with the event.
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Now, real quick, let's run down how this is going to happen. First of all, I'd like to start off with an introduction, which is going on right now.
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We will have two 15 -minute opening statements. We will have the affirmative starting and then the negative, then two 10 -minute rebuttals.
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We will then have a 10 -minute break. After that, we will have 15 minutes of affirmative cross -examination and 15 minutes of negative cross -examination.
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After that, that will be followed by a 10 -minute affirmative closing statement and a 10 -minute negative closing statement.
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After that, we will take about 25 to 30 minutes to take questions from the floor.
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And I will ask now as well as I will ask later. Please, when you do come to ask a question,
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I understand that a lot of times emotions run high in things like this, but please do not take this as an opportunity to preach.
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Please keep your question under 10 seconds and allow, well, okay, 30 seconds.
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I've just heard so many that have gone a little out of control. 10 seconds if possible.
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Please make your question direct and please do not engage in debate with the two gentlemen up here.
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Give them a chance to answer and, of course, they will be allowed then to answer the question that was given to them.
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Well, let me first start off by once again stating the thesis statement.
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You might have seen the flyer that said, Is Jesus the Only Way? The formal thesis statement is,
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Does God provide another means of salvation outside of a personal knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ for adults?
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And that is what will be debated tonight. First off, I'd like to introduce, in the affirmative position,
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Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Huntington Christian College, author of What About Those Who Have Never Heard, No Other Name, and The God Who Risks, which also some of these books will be available through Kokesbury.
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You can go over there and order them ahead of time. I'd like to introduce Dr. John Sanders.
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Secondly, in the negative position, I'd like to introduce Professor of Apologetics at Columbia Evangelical Seminary and Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
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He is the author of several books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Roman Catholic Controversy, Is the
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Mormon My Brother?, The God Who Justifies, and The Potter's Freedom. Please welcome Dr. James White.
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I would also like to ask that you keep your applause to a minimum while the gentlemen are speaking as that will cut into their time.
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It would be now that I would like to just let us all bow for a silent moment of prayer. Amen.
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Thank you. We will start with Dr. White. Harvey, Dr. Sanders.
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Does God provide another means of salvation for adults outside of personal knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
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First, three brief observations. One, the Bible, in my opinion, does not directly address our question.
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It was not a question they were asking. There are elements in the scripture that we use to answer this question.
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But the question, as we have formulated it, I don't think is directly in scripture. We have to weave together themes to form a model in order to answer this.
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And there are a great many background questions that are relevant. Depending on your answer to some of these questions will affect your answer yes or no.
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Does God want everyone to be redeemed? What is the nature of God's love in relation to his justice?
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Does God hate sinners? What is the value of general revelation?
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What must be the object of one's faith? Does God place limits on the means of salvation?
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Or does God cut people some slack? What is the reason why anyone is condemned?
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What is the role of the Holy Spirit? And does the Holy Spirit work outside knowledge of the gospel of Jesus?
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Those are just a few questions that impinge on it. And obviously Christians have various answers to that.
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Second, most of us would agree that mere knowledge does not save anyone.
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Most Christians have said that just knowing about Jesus doesn't save one.
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It involves more than that. Knowledge of the gospel is not what we call a sufficient condition for salvation.
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Third, so I'm refining the question now. Is knowledge of the gospel an absolutely necessary condition for adults in order to be saved?
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Most Christians, in my opinion, have answered no. And here's a simple reason. All Jewish believers prior to Jesus are considered to have been saved.
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That is, those who were faithful in their belief. So we have to refine the question even more.
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Is knowledge of the gospel of Jesus an absolutely necessary condition for salvation of adults, for those living after the time of Jesus?
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And even in response to this, there have been a great many Christian answers. Here's a little plug for my book,
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What About Those Who Never Heard? There's this really nifty chart in there that gives an overview of the range of major views that Christians have held throughout the history of the church.
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Everywhere from universalism, everyone will be saved, period, no matter what, through Jesus, to a divine perseverance, also called eschatological evangelization or post -mortem evangelization, that everyone gets an opportunity after death.
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That is, the un -evangelized receive an opportunity after death. To my position, inclusivism or implicit faith, which
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I'll get to in a moment, some Christians have said that people have an opportunity.
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If they are seeking, God will send the message to them, maybe even through an angel or a dream and whatnot. And a position
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I call restrictivism, which says, no, one has to know about Jesus and has to learn of Jesus in this life and put one's faith in Jesus in order to be saved.
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My initial conclusion from that very exceedingly brief overview is that many
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Christians have said that knowledge of Jesus is indeed necessary for salvation. But they disagree whether one has to obtain this knowledge prior to death and whether God might grant this knowledge in extraordinary ways.
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So there's what I call a position of wider hope. There's a range of views within that wider hope as to exactly how this might happen.
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My own framework for addressing this question is to see it as part of the problem of evil.
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In fact, what we call the soteriological problem of evil or the issue of salvation and sin.
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The Bible declares that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to save it.
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And that God is not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And I take these texts as illustrative of the many passages proclaiming
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God's incredible love for and desire to save sinners. However, the
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Bible also teaches that there is only one Savior, and that is Jesus Christ.
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And it's through him and him alone that salvation has been brought to humanity. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved,
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Acts 4 .12. So the soteriological problem of evil, then, is located between the tension of God's universal salvific love and desire to save on the one hand, and the particularity of salvation in Jesus.
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Jesus is the only Savior. So, questions arise. What does the creator God, who redeemed humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus, do to accomplish his goal of desiring to save all?
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Does God make the salvation found only in Jesus available to all people? Is salvation universally accessible?
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And if so, how might God accomplish that? Now, my own particular view is known as inclusivism or the implicit faith position.
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And I've already given you a little indicator of what motivates me to go in that direction.
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And so I believe that God genuinely wants to save those, even those who have died not hearing about Jesus.
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And I also believe that indeed Jesus died for everyone and his death is sufficient for everyone.
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So, how might God pull this off? Well, according to the implicit faith position,
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Jesus is the particular Savior of the world, but people can benefit from the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, even though they die never hearing of Christ.
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But there is a condition. They must respond in faith to God based upon the revelation God has given them.
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Inclusivists glean from various biblical texts an optimism of salvation, for they see
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God working outside the bounds of ethnic Israel in the Old Testament, as well as the church.
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God made a universal covenant through Noah, for instance. And God's choice to work through Abraham was for the purpose of blessing all the peoples of the earth,
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Genesis 12 .3. Scripture mentions several nations for whom God provided land by driving out the previous inhabitants.
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The prophet Amos declared that God had performed events similar to the exodus, the exodus for Israel, and God had performed those for other nations.
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Attention is drawn to non -Israelites and how they are looked upon in the
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Old Testament, people such as Melchizedek, Jethro, Moses' father -in -law, Job, the queen of Sheba, and others.
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On several occasions, Jesus commented on the extraordinary faith he discerned among Gentiles, such as the
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Canaanite woman and the Roman centurion. And though God was doing a special work in Israel, God was also working outside the borders of Israel.
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The Gentile that inclusivists look at most specifically is a fellow named
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Cornelius in the book of Acts. He is called a God -fearing Gentile who prayed continually.
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One day, an angel informs him that his prayers and alms were a memorial offering of which
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God took notice, and he was given instructions to send for Peter. Peter arrives and informs the household about the redemption in Jesus Christ, whereupon the household is baptized in the name of Jesus.
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In light of these events, Peter declares, From the scriptural commentary on believing
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Gentiles, inclusivists suggest that these God -fearers were already acceptable to God prior to any knowledge of Christ due to their act of faith in response to the revelation that they had.
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The redemption of Christ is applied to these people even though they are unaware of it. Cornelius was already worshiping the
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God who saves through Christ. What he received from Peter's proclamation of the gospel was the fullness of salvation that comes from the knowledge of what
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God had done in Jesus and being incorporated into the body of Christ, the Church. He went from being a believer to being a
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Christian, or in the words of John Wesley, from being a servant to a son. The Creator God, I see, is the same
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God as the Redeemer God. So for inclusivists, ignorance of Christ does not disqualify one from grace.
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What God requires is a right disposition towards God and a willingness to do God's will. The Apostle Paul says that God will approve of those
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Gentiles who, though they do not have the law, the Old Testament revelation, they do by nature the things required in the law.
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Abraham did not know about the Messiah to come, yet he was accepted by God because of a faithful response to what he knew about God.
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Christians are those who place their faith in what God has done in Jesus. Christians certainly know more about what
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God has done for our redemption than Abraham, Moses, David. Yet for Paul, there is continuity between believers such as Abraham and Christians such as those at Rome because both believe in and seek to follow the same
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God, Romans 4 .24. There is only one God, Romans 3 .29.
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The Creator who gave us life is the same God who raised Jesus from the dead. Though some only know
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God as Creator, while others know Him as both Creator and Redeemer, it is the same
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God who relates to both groups. The difference between creational revelation and biblical revelation concerns the degree of specificity about what
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God is doing, not a difference in kind, since it is the same God doing the revealing.
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Inclusivists maintain that anyone who is saved, including the Old Testament patriarchs, will be saved only by the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
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In other words, the redemptive work of Jesus is soteriologically necessary, but it is not epistemically necessary.
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Fancy words. It is necessary for salvation, but it is not necessary to know it in order to be saved.
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Those who die unevangelized are able to benefit from the atonement of Christ if they will respond appropriately to the knowledge of God given them.
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We call this the faith principle. God is looking for people to respond in faith to what they have been revealed.
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But how can humans, who are in bondage to sin, receive salvation and exercise faith in God?
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Inclusivists respond to this question by appealing to the universal work of the Son and Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Trinity, though particularly active in Israel and the Church, and uniquely in Christ, has also been active in other venues.
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According to Justin Martyr, an early 2nd century Church father, the seed of the universal
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Logos is present in all races, even though the fullness of the Logos is present in Jesus.
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And so many have used what we call a Logos Christology to see how God is at work with them.
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If a person's ability to respond to revelation is not by means of reason, or through any faculty possessed by that person, but by the initiative of God through the
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Holy Spirit, is not this basic orientation towards God a gift of grace?
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I'll say that again. If a person's ability to respond is not based upon human reason, or something inhuman, but because God is at work in that person's life, transforming that individual, isn't that an initiative of God, and hence, isn't that a gift of grace from God?
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And if so, then the question for me is, wouldn't
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God count that as the kind of faith that God is looking for, and hence apply the work of Jesus to that person, in the same way that God would apply the work of Jesus to Abraham, who didn't know about Jesus, but responded in faith.
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Finally, let me just make a few comments about who has held this view. It's not new in terms of church history.
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In fact, when I did my research, I didn't find any views that were really new.
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The inclusivist position has a long and distinguished history. Such widely divergent thinkers as Justin Martyr, Thomas Quinas, John Wesley, C .S.
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Lewis, and Pope John Paul II, and even Billy Graham.
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In fact, I would say that inclusivism represents the closest thing to a consensus among ecumenical
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Christians that we have. Let me just finish with Billy Graham.
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He said, I used to think I had to play God and decide who was and who wasn't saved.
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He says, I no longer do that. He says, I believe that there are other ways that people can learn about God through nature, for instance, and other ways to respond to God than simply through Jesus.
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And Billy Graham is perhaps the most famous evangelist ever, and yet he holds out hope for the un -evangelized, and he still evangelizes.
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Thank you. Good evening and welcome.
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It is great to be here with you at The Grind. I have never debated at a place called
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The Grind before, and I've never debated without wearing a tie, and so this is quite an event for me, and I'm sure it's not nearly as much of an event for you.
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We have very little time this evening, so we need to get focused on what we're talking about and get to the heart of the matter.
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This debate is about how God saves. Both sides confess the ultimacy of Jesus Christ as Savior.
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Anyone who is saved will be saved in the final analysis through the work of Jesus Christ.
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But we differ fundamentally on what that means and how it works out in reality. Now, inclusivism says that there are two divine truths.
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We just heard about this. It must be balanced. The finality of Christ as the only Savior must be balanced with the assertion of what is called
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God's universal salvific will. That is the belief that God desires the salvation of each and every individual person in the same way and in the same fashion.
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As a result of these two beliefs, along with a strong commitment to libertarian free will or human autonomy, inclusivism raises the issue of the un -evangelized, those who have never heard the gospel message.
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Their conclusion, giving their belief in the universal salvific will, an undifferentiated love of God for every creature, and the role of Christ as the only
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Savior, is that God must save outside of a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That is, men and women who freely make a faith move toward God, even in ignorance of the work of Christ, are saved by Christ and will come to know
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Him only after death and eternity itself. Now, while this sounds, I believe, very attractive in our modern day, it begins with the assumption of man's goodness in the sense that there is this ability that we just heard about to make this positive move toward God.
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There is also this idea in much of the writings that I have examined that seemingly God is in a position of owing to man a chance.
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Our purpose this evening is to ask really the most important question, and that is, what does
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God say about this in His word? I'm a bit of a dinosaur in the world today,
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I admit, because I am convinced of the absolute consistency, integrity, inerrancy, and sufficiency of God's revelation in Scripture.
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I am in awe of the Bible. And I cannot get away from Jesus' words to the Sadducees in Matthew chapter 22 that when you read the
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Scriptures, you are hearing God speaking to you, and you are held accountable for what you hear on that level.
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So I believe the Bible is perspicuous, self -consistent, utterly harmonious in its teaching, and I take the stand fully conscious of the arguments against it and its unpopularity, having defended this view of Scripture many times in the past.
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So why am I standing here this evening? What are the issues? Let me lay them out rather directly.
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While I agree with Dr. Sanders that anyone who will ever be saved will be saved only by Jesus Christ, we do not agree on why this is.
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I believe that it is God's purpose to save a people in and through Jesus Christ. I believe it has been
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His purpose from eternity to redeem a specific people known in the Bible as the elect.
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These people are known by God from eternity not in the sense that God merely knew who would choose
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Him, but in an intimate, personal way, God chose to enter into relationship with them even before they were created.
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God's grace and salvation is intensely personal, and hence we read in 2 Timothy 1 .9
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that this grace was granted to us in Christ Jesus before time itself began.
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We can be assured that God chose His people personally, specifically, intimately in eternity, and He chose to do so solely in Jesus Christ.
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Secondly, I believe the inclusivist position denies to God a basic freedom and ability that it rightly claims for the creature man.
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What do I mean? Well, specifically it shares in common with most non -reformed views the idea that while we recognize necessity and the propriety of humans exercising choice and discernment in who we love and how we love, it denies its basic ability to God.
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God, we are told, loves everyone equally and tries to save everyone equally, failing in many instances, succeeding in others, and yet this assumption must be challenged from the start.
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The Bible says that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Christ does not love any other body the way
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He loves His church. We could not say that Christ loves the UN the way Christ loves the church.
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He exercises discrimination in His love. We could not say that any man is to love anyone else's wife the way he loves his own wife.
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We fully recognize the propriety of the fact that a mother loves her own children with a special love that cannot be extended to anyone else.
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If the creature can and should recognize different kinds and levels of love, why should anyone deny this freedom to God?
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Inclusivism denies as a part of its assertion of a universal salvific will, the reality that there is a redemptive love of God in Jesus Christ that comes to expression in the redemption of the elect of God.
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Those who stand upon the parapets of hell and eternity, screaming their hatred of God are not examples of the failure of Christ's love, atonement, or resurrection power.
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They are examples of the justice of God, not of the failure of God's love. And of course, if the
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Reformed tradition is correct in its assertion that the Bible inarguably presents a sovereign and divine decree of salvation and that God must work the miracle of regeneration in the heart so as to free men from the bondage of sin and death, then this obviously causes the inclusivist position difficulty because that universal salvific will is one of its main pillars.
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If Romans 8, 29 through 30 is correct in stating that it is God who foreknows, God who predestines,
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God who calls, God who justifies, and God who glorifies, making the work of salvation solely to His honor and glory, then that pillar of a universal salvific will based upon an undifferentiated love of God that tries to save everyone equally but is dependent upon the cooperation of the creature, falls.
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Finally, I believe the Bible very plainly teaches that God intends to save a special people in Jesus Christ and that the divine intention is to save those people through a personal faith relationship with Him, not in ignorance of Him.
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The idea that there are thousands or millions who will only come to know of their Savior after their death is,
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I believe, completely absent from the text of Scripture. Instead, the Bible says that Jesus Christ, our great
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God and Savior, gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds,
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Titus chapter 2. God intends to conform His people to the image of Christ. How can
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He do this when these people live in ignorance of Christ Himself? But we have direct biblical teaching on this subject.
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In the few moments we have left, please turn with me to Jesus' own words recorded for us in John chapter 6, verses 30 and 31.
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And if you didn't bring your Bible with you tonight, shame on you first of all. Secondly, let me read it for you. All that the
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Father gives me, Jesus says, will come to me, and the one who comes to me 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 lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.
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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
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Him up on the last day. Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him because He said, I am the bread that came down out of heaven.
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They were saying, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say,
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I have come down out of heaven? Jesus answered and said to them, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.
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Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Now, I could spend much more than my opening period just simply talking about this passage of Scripture, I can assure you, but let me try to focus upon the most important things that are relevant to our thesis this evening.
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In this context, we have men who have come across the lake. They heard Jesus preaching the day before.
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They wanted to make Him king. They are even described as seekers of Jesus. They have come across the lake looking for Him, and Jesus recognizes they're looking for more miracles.
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They're not actually looking for Him as an individual. They don't understand their need. By the end of this chapter, they are all going to walk away from Jesus except for the 12.
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Now, notice what Jesus says in John 6, 37. All that the Father gives me will do what?
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Will make a positive move toward God? No. All that the
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Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me
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I will certainly not cast out. Now, it's very important to notice. This coming to Christ is paralleled in this passage with having faith in Him, with trusting
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Him. And this has to be in this life, because obviously the second part of the verse, and the one coming to me
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I will certainly not cast out, could not be in reference to heaven. He's not saying, well, you know, once you find out who
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I am someday in heaven, I will not cast you out. This is talking about right now. This is talking about He's, in fact, here explaining why these men in front of Him He's just identified as unbelievers.
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He said, you've seen me, yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me.
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I believe that is an explicit statement on the part of the Holy Spirit in Scripture that those the
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Father gives to the Son come to Christ, and they are the ones that Christ raises up to eternal life.
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Notice verse 38, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me,
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I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. So the Father gives
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His people to the Son, and it's the Father's will for the Son that He be a perfect Savior. Jesus must be a perfect Savior for Him to fulfill the will of the
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Father here. This is very, very clear. But then notice what else happens. Verse 40,
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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
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Him up on the last day. See how this theme of being raised up on the last day, being given eternal life, keeps repeating, and who is it that gets eternal life?
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Who are the individuals that Jesus Christ raises up on the last day? They are those who come to Him.
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They are those who behold Him. They are those who look upon Him. There is nothing here about individuals who are ignorant of Christ.
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Now some of you might say, well, yes, all those passages only have to do with the evangelized. They only have to do with those who've heard the message, not with those who have never heard the message.
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Well, notice going beyond this to Jesus' statement in verse 44 when He says, No one can come to Me unless the
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Father who sent Me draws him. This is a difficult passage for many people because many traditions in evangelicalism say everyone has this general capacity and ability.
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It is Jesus who stands at the heart's door and He knocks upon a door that has no knob.
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That's not the biblical presentation. The biblical presentation is much more properly seen in John chapter 11 when
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Jesus comes to the grave of Lazarus. And Lazarus has been dead for four days. And as his sister told
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Jesus, he stinketh in the King James Version. He was dead. He was a stiff.
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And yet when the Son of God said, Lazarus, come forth, no one stopped to ask, does
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Jesus really have that right? Because you see when Jesus, the Son of God says, come to life, dead men come to life.
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And the same thing is true in the spiritual realm. We are dead in trespasses and sins, but when the
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Holy Spirit of God works that miracle of regeneration and brings us to spiritual life, no one's going to run up to us and say, now did you give
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God permission? No one ran up to Lazarus and said, well, do you really think it's fair that God raised you back to life?
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Did anyone consult you on this? Think about that for a moment. This is resurrection, not coercion.
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Resurrection cannot be identified as coercion or force. It's a sovereign act, a sovereign act of mercy.
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And so we see that here in John chapter 6, all the way through verse 45, look very briefly at verse 45, it is written, the prophets and they shall all be taught of God.
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Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Everyone who has heard and learned from the
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Father does what? Just has an implicit faith in God?
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No. Comes to me. This is God's will. This is the way that He has chosen to express
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His mercy, which I want to emphasize, God's grace and God's mercy cannot be purchased, it cannot be merited, and it cannot be demanded.
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God did not have to save anyone, but He did. He is just in the judgment of those who reject
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God and who live in rebellion against God, which according to Romans chapter 1 is all of us.
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All of us. Romans chapter 3 concludes Paul's presentation. All of us. There is no God seeker, Romans 3 .11
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says. And God would have been just to simply allow His punishment to fall upon us, but He instead has saved an innumerable number from every tribe, tongue, people and nation, as Revelation chapter 5 says.
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But He has done so only in Jesus Christ, and I do not believe that the
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Scriptures teach that He has chosen to do so in ignorance of Jesus Christ. Now in the opportunity we have coming up, we will be able to address some of the passages.
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What about Cornelius? What about the Ethiopian eunuch? What about these specific issues in regards to that particular subject?
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We'll have the opportunity of looking at those subjects when we continue in the rebuttal period.
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Thank you very much. Well, many of the things that Dr.
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White brought up raised those background questions that he and I definitely disagree on.
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And so without dealing with all of those, let me address a few of the points that he made.
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First, the assertion that there is goodness in the human individual to make a positive move towards God.
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And I don't recall saying that, either here or in my writings.
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One of the things that Dr. White knows also, though, is when you write several things, you often forget what you did say.
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But I don't believe that humans are innately good, and so we can just be walking down the street one day and go, oh,
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I think I'll put my faith in God. It doesn't work that way. One of my former professors,
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Donald Blesch, who does come from the Reformed tradition, put it this way, that without the aid of the
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Holy Spirit, no one would even be thinking about God, whether it's God the Creator or God the
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Redeemer. So the question is, does the Holy Spirit enlighten everyone or only some?
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And here we have a basic disagreement between us. Now, second assertion, that God owes everyone a chance to be saved.
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And that's a particularly American value, this issue of fairness. And I have gone out of my way in my books to say no to that.
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I'm not arguing from that. I do believe that it's the goodness of God and the love of God that I see is why
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God wants to save everyone and why I take the view I do.
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Now, we do disagree on the doctrine called various names, but unconditional election, that God simply chooses certain individuals for salvation and he does not choose other individuals for salvation.
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And the individuals that God chooses will make a positive profession of faith. So, does
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God want to save everyone? Well, Dr. White and I have a basic disagreement there.
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And we're not going to settle that here. So, does
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God love everyone in a saving or redemptive way? I say yes. Now, you did raise a rather intriguing question about does
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God freely love or does God have to love? And I really enjoyed that. And my initial response would be that from the
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Holy Trinity, that intrinsically the Trinitarian relationship is one of self -giving love, the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit giving love to each other. And in the creation of beings external to God, God has chosen to share that Trinitarian love with humanity.
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Now, we brought up some issues of Reformed theology, but I would like for you to note that it's not only certain people, particularly
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Calvinists, who might disagree with me on this. There are Arminians who would disagree with me as well.
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So, the only arguments against my position are not just Calvinist arguments.
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Secondly, there are Calvinists who agree with my position.
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One can look at A .H. Strong as one example in his systematic theology.
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And I have had several Calvinists, and I can't disclose where they teach because they might get in trouble, who have said to me, well, of course
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God saves certain unevangelized people. He just elects whom he wants and he saves them.
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And I was kind of shocked to hear that. But anyway, so the particular disagreement between Dr.
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White and I is shaped by the traditional Calvinist -Arminian difference.
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But that's not the only way. So, one can be a Calvinist and be an inclusivist.
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One can be an Arminian and reject inclusivism. So, even though our particular disagreement centers along those fault lines, if you will, those aren't the only positions.
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How much time do I have left? Five minutes. Oh, my. Well, actually, let me return to this question here.
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And I would like to focus on the question of, is anyone in the
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New Testament saved without knowledge of Jesus?
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Were they saved prior to that? And it seems to me that the answer, from what
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I can tell, all Christians would actually say yes to that. And that's because there are believing
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Jews who died shortly after, wherever you want to place the cut -off point, the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus, there were believing
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Jews and they didn't know about Jesus. And so, it seems to me the answer to the question then has to be, yes,
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God saves those people. Even though they lived post -Christ, they still did not know about Jesus.
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And as far as the passage in John 6, again, we're going to be at loggerheads, the old
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Calvinist Arminian difference of interpretation versus those passages.
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And my understanding of John 3 .16 and other passages would not be Dr. White's, and that's okay.
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Everyone who has heard of the Father comes to me,
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Jesus says. And I just wonder if the Father, does everyone know
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God as Father? Did Abraham know God as Father? Or is the concept of the fatherhood of God one that is developed and yet some people knew about God and put their faith in Him based on the information they had?
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So, what I'm seeing is a continuity rather than a sharp dividing line between people as to how much they know of God and what
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God is looking for in terms of their faith response. Well, I'm going to shut up there.
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This podium break is going to end up right on you guys, so I hope you're ready to catch it there. A number of things.
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Let's start off with the issue of Abraham. Abraham has come up and I believe obviously that as Jesus taught that in the
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Kingdom of Heaven we're going to recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and these people were saved. Does that establish the inclusivist position?
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I don't believe that it does. Why? Abraham was saved by faith just as we are.
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Abraham had the promises of God. He accepted the promises of God, hence his faith was not just a directionality of the heart and that's a term
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I've actually taken from Clark Pinnock. Dr. Sanders may disagree with that particular phraseology. I'll ask that question later if he would agree with that.
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But it's not just a matter of the directionality of the heart. It's a matter of faith having not only the component of acceptance but also of assent and understanding.
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It has a theological aspect to it. And so Abraham exercised that faith.
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That's what Paul's whole argument is in Romans 3 and 4. He brings up the subject of faith and he illustrates that faith in the life of Abraham.
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But Abraham had the promises of God and he believed the promises of God and it was that faith that justified him.
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Now when we look at Cornelius, the story of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, was
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Cornelius on his way to heaven in Acts chapter 10? Well, from my perspective he certainly was because God obviously intended to bring the gospel to him.
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But why in the world, if he's already going to be called a believer, does
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God go through this extraordinary work of having to get through Peter's thick skull with three times the sheet thing, you know, and the different animals and trying to grind it into Peter's very tradition -laden thinking, don't call what
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I have called clean, unclean. Why does he go through all this and then have all this supernatural stuff going on just as sending
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Philip off to preach to the Ethiopian eunuch? Wasn't the directionality of their heart enough?
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No, because if you look at Acts chapter 11, right after Acts chapter 10, when this particular subject is brought out, notice what
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Peter says, beginning at verse 13, and he reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, this is talking about Peter, send to Joppa and have
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Simon, who is also called Peter, brought here, and he will speak words to you by which, what?
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You will be saved, you and all your household. Well, if you will be saved, what does that mean about you now?
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That you are not saved. So he goes through all of this to bring the Gospel message to Cornelius.
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Now, Cornelius' disposition was obviously a work of grace, but it wasn't enough in and of itself.
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The Gospel had to be brought to him. Now, we've heard the assertion, well, you know, you have your verses, and there are other verses, we have 2
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Peter 3, 9, and 1 Timothy 2, 4, and I understand these to indicate that God has universal salvific will.
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Very, very briefly, and I expand this in the book on the back called The Potter's Freedom, where I deal with these specific issues,
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I would ask you to look very carefully at those passages. You may have heard them repeated in a particular fashion many times throughout your life.
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Exegete the passages yourself. 1 Timothy 2, 4 is bracketed with repetitive references to kinds of people.
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1 Timothy 2, 4 starts off talking about rulers and those who are in authority, and then it says that Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and men.
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And I would ask you a question. If you take 1 Timothy 2, 4 to mean all men individually, that God wants every single individual to be saved in the sense of redemptive love, then it follows that Jesus Christ is the mediator for those who will someday be under God's wrath, that his mediation will fail.
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And I would suggest to you that that is grossly inconsistent with Paul's own theology of the mediatorial work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. There are many reasons when you look at Paul's own theology, drawn from 1 and 2
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Timothy and Titus, the immediate context of his words, to understand 1
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Timothy 2, 4 in a way different than it is understood by many people in a traditional sense.
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The same thing is true in 2 Peter 3, 9. Follow the pronouns. 2
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Peter is written to the elect of God, those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours. Receive that faith, by the way, as a gift of God.
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Follow the pronouns, and you'll hear that Peter is saying that God is patient toward us. Follow the pronoun.
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Who is us? Is here the Christian apostle stepping out of the Christian community and representing every single individual in humanity?
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I do not believe so. He is explaining why the parousia, the coming of Christ, has been delayed. Why? So that God may gather in his elect.
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And aren't you and I glad that he's delayed the coming of Christ at least till 2002? Because we then have had the opportunity of experiencing salvation in Christ.
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I want to ask a question during cross -examination, but since it's been brought up. When we speak of God's Trinitarian love,
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I understand what God's Trinitarian love is, the love the Father has for the
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Son, and the Father and the Son for the Spirit, and all those things. But the question then still comes, are we saying that God loved
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Pharaoh and the Egyptian army that he buried in the sea the same way and in the same fashion as he did the
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Jewish people that he brought through that sea? Are we saying that God loved the Canaanites, that he had the
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Israelite people wipe out when they went into that land for their transgressions in the same way that he loved the
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Jewish people? Is there not a differentiation that God himself shows? And if there is not, then that obviously reflects upon,
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I think, a very traditional interpretation of 1st Timothy 2 .4 and 2nd Peter 3 .9 as well. Now, it was asserted that you can be a
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Calvinist and an inclusivist. Well, I guess since we don't carry around Calvinistic ID cards,
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I just re -upped mine, how about you? Those fees are getting out of hand, aren't they? Since we don't really do that,
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I suppose someone who got their card 30 years ago could keep saying that, but I found it somewhat humorous, and I hope
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Dr. Sanders finds it somewhat humorous too, because you then said, but I can't tell you where they teach.
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And there's a reason there, because actually it's inconsistent to be a Calvinist and an inclusivist at the same time, at least in the sense that I understand the presentation being made, because it is part and parcel of the
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Reformed understanding of God's purpose in redeeming the people in Christ Jesus that he does so by a faith relationship with them.
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When someone says, well, he can elect anyone he wants, yes, that's true, but the question is, does the
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Bible say that he does so, and that he does so literally millions of times, and I would say that the
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Reformed perspective is not that case at all. Now finally, when we got to John chapter 6,
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Dr. Sanders said, well, we're at loggerheads there. Well, that's why I do debates, is that I don't think there's any reason for people who together love the
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Word of God and bow to its authority have to remain at loggerheads. I think the
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Word of God is sufficient to explain to us what the truth about any particular situation is, and I would like to hear a consistent, non -Reformed interpretation of John chapter 6, verses 37 through 45.
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I will tell you with all honesty, I've never heard one, and I have tried to find them.
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I have tried to engage folks on it. Let's sit down with the text. Let's start from the beginning, and let's follow it all the way through, and follow the terms, and exegete the passages, and we'll do the grammar, and we'll do the syntax, and all the lexical studies, and everything else, and I can honestly tell you, without any bit of exaggeration whatsoever,
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I have never heard a consistent exegesis of John chapter 6 that does not immediately abandon the text itself, run off to John 12, or do something like that, and that can follow
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Jesus' teaching all the way through. I've just never found it. And so, I don't think we should be at loggerheads.
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I don't think that that's what God gave us the Word of God to do, is to leave us at loggerheads on something as important as an issue such as this.
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I think if we will go to John 6, we will hear the statements of the Lord Jesus, all that the
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Father gives me will come to me. Are there going to be two classes in heaven? Those who experience this wonderful thing of being united with Christ, and knowing
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Christ, and being conformed to His image in this life, and then those that even though they were loved just as much, just as equally, they somehow don't find out about this until eternity itself.
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They can't look back upon what Christ did for them in this life. They only found out about it after they died. I don't believe so.
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Jesus said, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And so, it would be incumbent upon someone else to say, well, there are people that the
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Father does not give to the Son, that the Son will someday raise up to eternal life. I don't see if that fits with John 6 in any way, shape, or form.
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So, I'd like us to look at that text and understand what it's saying. Thank you very much. Well, thank these gentlemen for their time.
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Appreciate it. Now, when
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I said before that you could hold your applause to the end of their statement, you can still applaud, so don't feel afraid to do that.
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Okay, we're going to take a 10 -minute break, which will be followed by what most people come to these things for, the cross -examination period.
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So, in 10 minutes, come on back. If you could not go to where it's being recorded, we will now start with two 15 -minute cross -examinations.
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Well, Jim, let me first ask you this. Are you saying that knowledge of the
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Gospel of Jesus is a necessary condition for adults living after the time of Christ?
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Making sure to recognize that I'm not espousing a historically dispensationalist distinction as far as when you use the phrase after Christ.
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It is my position that it is God's will to save His elect people after Jesus Christ through a personal relationship with Him, which does involve knowledge of Him, yes.
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Okay. So, if someone, let's say, you know, before Christ would have met the conditions of believing in God's promises, whatever else,
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I mean, that was one condition you said, whatever else you might add on there. Were such people saved like Moses and David, Abraham?
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And if someone in that category was around at the time of Jesus, they're living in Jesus' day, but they die...
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No one's going to understand on the tape why... Right, right, we just laughed at everything. We were just waiting for the latte to finish up.
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So if someone is a believer, in your sense of the term, pre -Messianic believer, but they're living at the time of Christ, but let's say they're living in Asia Minor, a faithful Jew living in Asia Minor, who doesn't hear about Jesus shortly after Jesus ascends to heaven, is that person then denied salvation?
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Well, remember, I have a distinct advantage over your Arminian brethren at that point, because since I believe that God specifically knows
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His elect people not based upon foreseeing their faith, but upon His sovereign decree, which will undoubtedly come up in a future discussion between us on the subject of God's knowledge of the future, the theoretical issue doesn't arise for me, because, as I would believe,
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God does not fail to save any of His elect people at all, and so there wouldn't be a situation where, because of a geographical location, one of His elect people would fall into a category where what's normative now would not apply to them.
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But taking out the issue of election, I would say that any individual, just on a theoretical basis, who embraced the promises of God, as David or Abraham or Moses did, would be saved up until the point where the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ is being presented, and then we see as the Church grows in God's time, and I can't give you a date as to when this will become normative, but it's amazing to me that it seems
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Philip was the first person to experience sort of the Star Trek transporter syndrome, so much so did
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God want to see the Ethiopian eunuch actually receive the message of the Gospel. Here's a man carrying the
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Scriptures. He's reading from Isaiah. I mean, talk about the Gospel of John in the Old Testament almost. And yet,
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God deemed it proper to send in a supernatural way a person who could explain the
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Gospel to him. So when would that become normative? I mean, is there a growth period?
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I suppose that there would be. But we're long past that particular point in time now, I would say, obviously.
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Okay, yeah. Because one of the things I think about is if someone lived two months, two years after the ascension of Jesus, when exactly is the cutoff time?
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And then my question would be, what criteria would you use to establish?
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Again, from the Reform perspective, that isn't an issue because we're talking about the elect of God, and God is going to save his elect people in the way that he chooses to do so.
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The question assumes that there could be someone in Asia Minor, for example, who just outside of the work of the
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Holy Spirit or even through some general work of the Holy Spirit rather than the specific work of the Spirit amongst his elect people could somehow come to this position and create this hypothetical.
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So it would be difficult for me to answer a question that hypothetically violates my fundamental position.
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That would be more of a question that you'd have to ask of a non -inclusivist Arminian who would believe in libertarian free will, which
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I believe I'm very firmly a compatibilist on that level. Well, I guess
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I beg to differ that it doesn't apply even to the position that you hold.
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Because the question is, is knowledge of Christ necessary for adults to be saved?
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And the question is, if that's yes, then when does that begin? Okay, well,
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I would say, again, that the issue, as I understand it, is how
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God saves his elect people and that it is his will to do so according to Jesus Christ through a relationship with him.
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Now, of course, I don't believe that's ever changed. I believe Abraham had that personal relationship because Jesus Christ is the incarnate
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God, I believe, fully in the deity of Christ. He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament who was seen by Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6.
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That's exactly what John says in John chapter 12. So the true faith that a person would have in Yahweh would be that same faith in Jesus Christ.
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And obviously, as the Church grows and as the Gospel message is presented, then those individuals, such as the people who had heard only of John's baptism in Acts 19 or whatever else it might be, it was very apparent on the part of Peter and the apostles that they felt these people needed to hear the
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Gospel. Now, could there have been, theoretically, people after the ascension of Christ who had a saving faith relationship with God and in God's sovereignty and providence, as Psalm 139 says, our days are known to God, that they died in Asia Minor?
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Certainly they could be, but I don't think the establishment of a specific date is relevant today because I would say without any question after the writing of the
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New Testament, this would be normative all over the place because, as Paul said, the
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Gospel had been preached all across the world at that point. Okay, thank you. If, say, a three - or four-, five -year -old child is told about Jesus and puts his or her faith in Jesus, what would be the difference between that person and an adult person living in the
01:00:14
Pongo Pongo land who's never heard of Christ? The adult could understand the
01:00:23
Gospel, but he or she never has the info about Christ.
01:00:30
What is the difference? Well, if, in the theoretical question, the four - or five -year -old has truly put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, I believe that is an action that can only be accomplished through the work of the
01:00:45
Holy Spirit of God in his elect people, in accordance with 1 John 5 .1 and Philippians 1 .29,
01:00:51
and a number of other passages such as that. And so the difference would be not the age, but the fact that that four - or five -year -old person has, at a very early time in their life, been freed from bondage to sin and given spiritual life and has been drawn to Jesus Christ.
01:01:10
It is not a matter of, well, because they're younger, they have a less mentally developed understanding of who
01:01:19
Christ is. I was very young when Christ drew me to himself, and obviously, Lord willing,
01:01:24
I've grown in my understanding since then. But you see, I don't think it's an issue along those lines.
01:01:31
I think it's an issue of the work of the Holy Spirit. But I would say that that four - or five -year -old is drawn to Christ, not to just simply a concept of God.
01:01:41
That, I think, is the issue that I've tried to emphasize. Okay. I was curious about your rejoinder to my comment about the
01:01:51
Calvinist inclusivists, and I won't tell you their names, but they teach at Reformed Theological Seminary.
01:02:03
And in my book, in the historical bibliography, I mention a wide variety of people who hold the inclusivist position, even from Reformed perspectives.
01:02:15
But what is it you see, I'm curious, as to, you said, to get this straight, a consistent
01:02:23
Calvinist couldn't be an inclusivist? Yeah, I certainly don't believe that a consistent
01:02:31
Calvinist, either historically or given the exegetical foundation of Reformed belief, would be able to hold to the idea that an individual can be saved outside of that relationship with Jesus Christ, knowingly, because of the fact of, for example, what
01:02:51
I presented from John 6 or Ephesians 1. I mean, you know, Reformed people are constantly working through Ephesians 1, and what one phrase appears 10 times in the first 13 verses?
01:03:03
In Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus. And it's not just eschatologically, and it's not just eternally, it's experientially now.
01:03:10
And so I would find it very inconsistent to hold to a specific knowledge of who the elect is, but then say some of those are saved knowing
01:03:22
Christ and some are saved not knowing Christ. It does seem very inconsistent, but I'm not asking who they were.
01:03:28
Okay. But we will find out one way or the other. They swore me in secrecy.
01:03:39
It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but Calvin talked about occasions whereupon
01:03:46
God would use extraordinary, the term is extraordinary means, in order to save some people.
01:03:52
And here I can't recall, does Westminster Confession use that expression as well?
01:04:00
Anybody know? I'm looking for my Presbyterian brethren. It's not ringing any bells off the top of my head.
01:04:08
But it seems to me that it is in some Reformed Confession where it talks about extraordinary means, and that's where, in fact, these
01:04:16
Calvinists I was referring to are latching on to that expression from Calvin in his confession of God using the extraordinary means.
01:04:24
And so they say, well, of course God can do that. That's God's prerogative. Well, I don't think that, maybe, and I don't know this,
01:04:31
I don't know the individuals, I would understand what God did in saving
01:04:36
Cornelius and in saving the Ethiopian eunuch to be very extraordinary.
01:04:42
That is, there were quite literally miraculous events that were used to bring the gospel to them.
01:04:51
And if they're referring to the idea of God having the freedom in extraordinary situations, for example, in regards to infants or something like that, that would be something else.
01:05:04
I'm not sure if it doesn't seem, though, the way that you presented it, that's what they're referring to. They're referring to adult salvation.
01:05:10
And, again, I would find that inconsistent, especially when you believe that God has an elect people that he knows, that he foreknows from eternity.
01:05:19
Yeah. And they would just say, well, he foreknows them, but he foreknows that he has... the reason he foreknows them is because he has foreordained their salvation, even apart from knowledge of Christ.
01:05:30
I understand that, except that most Reformed people understand the term when the verb to foreknow is used with God as the subject.
01:05:38
Its object is never actions, it's always people. You're familiar with Gregory Boyd's presentation of that in God of the
01:05:46
Possible. He actually used a very Reformed understanding of the word foreknow there, which I found most interesting.
01:05:52
And, again, that's why I wouldn't see that as being consistent, because the golden chain of redemption,
01:05:59
Romans 8, 29 through 30, goes foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified.
01:06:07
So there's the calling there. And I don't see where, again, it would be consistent to look at the term called and use that outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ.
01:06:19
I don't see any reference to that in the New Testament, and it would seem inconsistent to me from a Reformed perspective. Okay. I can't think of anything else right now.
01:06:30
Dr. White? Okay, thank you.
01:06:38
Dr. Sanders, in the imaginary discussion that you present at the beginning of your book, No Other Name, I believe it was between two missionary students, as I recall, you have one of your participants state, what would happen if somebody who hadn't heard of Christ did want to repent of sin and turn to God?
01:06:57
Would God save them? Now, in light of Romans 3 .11, which states there is no such thing as a
01:07:02
God -seeker, and John 6 .44 that we looked at, how is the question posed in your book relevant to the biblical teaching of man's depravity and his deadness in sin?
01:07:13
Well, one can go in a couple of different directions. First of all, your question presupposes the, you said the biblical,
01:07:24
I would say the Calvinist understanding of Scripture and what exactly deadness means.
01:07:29
Okay. But even if one went that way, conceded that, it's solely because of the
01:07:36
Holy Spirit that anyone would consider God. I don't know of any
01:07:44
Arminians who have ever said that people just consider God, or are convicted of sin in one's life and want to turn to God without the aid of the
01:07:56
Holy Spirit. I don't know of anyone who has said that. Well, then is it your understanding in the conversation that you are presenting here that individuals can be prompted by the
01:08:10
Holy Spirit to desire to repent of sin but turn to a
01:08:18
God concept rather than Christ? Yes. Okay. All right. Would you agree that the un -evangelized, that's the primary terminology that you utilize in your writings, would you agree that with these terms that are also biblically used of them, rebels against God, sinners who revel in their sin, dead and trespasses in sins, and abiding under the wrath of God, would these all be biblical terms used of those individuals?
01:08:50
Yes. Do all people outside of those who have turned to God abide under His wrath?
01:09:04
Well, the question of the wrath of God and whether Christ dealt with the wrath is an interesting question.
01:09:13
Are they continuing in rejection of God?
01:09:23
I'll use that term. If they are continuing in their rejection of God, they are definitely headed in the wrong direction.
01:09:34
This sort of dovetails with that. As you know, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, though present in patristic writings, is primarily, at least in today's context, derived from Reformed beliefs.
01:09:44
As a self -professed Arminian, you've used that terminology yourself in your book, right? Yes. Do you hold the historic governmental view of the atonement as developed by pretty much the second generation of Arminian theologians, or do you hold to some form of substitutionary atonement?
01:10:00
Well, actually, I would see myself as affirming aspects of,
01:10:06
I think, most of the major theories of the atonement. In one of my books,
01:10:13
I talk about that the Scripture uses a lot of different metaphors for trying to get at the work of Christ.
01:10:21
He's triumphed over the forces of evil, the demonic realm. He has paid the penalty.
01:10:31
He is the expression of the divine love in Romans 5. So the different traditional theories of the atonement,
01:10:43
I think that the reason people have found them appealing is because there's an element of biblical truth in them.
01:10:50
Now, if you want to pin me down to just one theory, I'm afraid I won't concede that.
01:10:56
Okay. All right. Well, would it be fair, at least, to say that the
01:11:01
Reformed doctrine of the atonement would not be one of them that we would want to pin on you? In light of these words from page 72 of your book, where you said,
01:11:13
In the final analysis, the kind of love the proponents of limited atonement attribute to God as such, said
01:11:20
John Wesley, as makes your blood run cold. That sort of indicated to me, anyways, that that's probably not one of them that we'd want to try to pin on you.
01:11:31
Yeah. Well, that has to do with unconditional election and God's choosing to specifically redeem only some individuals.
01:11:41
And, in fact, I began that section with Augustine's term, massa damnata, that there's this massive damnation that God desires.
01:11:49
And I don't think it's so much about vicarious or substitutionary atonement that's the issue.
01:11:56
Okay. Yet, would you see a logic in the Reformed position that would say that if you have substitutionary atonement, where our sins are borne by Christ upon the cross, which then, in at least
01:12:12
Reformed theology, results in the imputation of his righteousness to us, that if you were to hold the substitutionary atonement, that it would be inconsistent to be, for example, a universalist or anything along those lines?
01:12:31
Let me see if I got that. Let me try to rephrase that. Okay. Thank you. You see the connection between the Reformed understanding of a specific elect people of God being joined to Jesus Christ in his death so that their sins are borne completely, the connection that exists between that and my question as to whether you held the substitutionary atonement, because if Christ substituted for all men, then upon what basis would any one man ever be condemned?
01:13:01
Well, the standard Arminian response to that is
01:13:06
Christ did take care of our sins, but it's an indefinite atonement is the term that most
01:13:16
Calvinists will use, but it has to be received. So there's the objective and subjective side of the atonement.
01:13:23
The objective side is that Christ has done, there's nothing I can do for my salvation, but I do have to receive the gift.
01:13:33
I can't reject the gift and be saved, which both Calvinists and Arminians agree that if you reject the gift, you're not saved.
01:13:42
I think, and I'll just ask this one and move to another direction, but does that though not result in the idea of, let's say
01:13:53
John Brown, to use just a fictional name, his sins are borne by Jesus Christ, and yet he is not even one of the unevangelized.
01:14:04
He actually has heard the gospel and he rejects the gospel. I'm not sure exactly what your position is on,
01:14:12
I know that Dr. Pinnock, and I'm not sure of all the differences that exist between the two of you on your understanding of these specific issues, but what is your understanding as to the state of John Brown?
01:14:26
Is he going to abide under the wrath of God? And the question would be, why would the wrath of God find a place in John Brown in light of the fact that all of his sins, including his unbelief, were nailed to the cross of Christ?
01:14:39
Why would he suffer if he does suffer eternally? Yeah. Well, the rejection of the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ is what, for someone from my perspective, is if you reject the gift, what's left?
01:15:03
If you or anyone, John Brown, says to God, I'm not coming to your party.
01:15:14
You know, the parable of the king's son's wedding, invite them all, go out in the highways and byways, and all the good and the bad, bring them in.
01:15:24
But there's one guy who comes in and he's got his own agenda for, hey,
01:15:29
I'll come to the party, but on my terms, and he's not accepted. So, if one rejects the gift that God has given in Jesus Christ, then what is
01:15:41
God to do with that person? Now, here, again, this is going to get into, you know, libertarian versus compatibilistic freedom.
01:15:50
So, from my perspective, what is God to do? Override his freedom? No. So, God gives the person then what that person wants, which is,
01:15:59
I don't want you, God. And God grants that person. So, they're punished for their not wanting
01:16:07
God, but not for their sins? Well, it's a denial of the gift.
01:16:14
Now, you can say, well, is that the sin of the Holy Spirit, sin against the Holy Spirit or whatever it is, some people who suggest that.
01:16:24
Now, I found it very interesting, and I'm, again, not certain of the exact interface between your own position and Dr.
01:16:31
Pinnock's, but he made this comment that I'm sure you're familiar with. In fact, I think he either cited your book in manuscript form or you cited his book in manuscript form.
01:16:39
They came out right around the same time, as I recall. It would seem that the moderation of Erasmus is winning out over the harshness of Luther and Calvin, was his statement.
01:16:51
The look on your face is, oh, good old Clark. I can just see that right now. Now, since Luther identified the issue of man's will, and especially man's bondage to sin, and hence the supremacy of grace, as the very hinge upon which the entire
01:17:04
Reformation turned, does it not fall that to side with Erasmus is to side against the
01:17:09
Reformers themselves? Boy, I'm not sure I'd agree that the whole
01:17:15
Reformation turned on that. Well, but Luther, I was saying, that was Luther's assertion. Well, Luther liked the bondage of the will.
01:17:25
Even in later life he still liked the book. Am I rejecting the
01:17:34
Reformers? Well, of course, I reject certain aspects of their theology.
01:17:40
Is this the crux of the Reformation? I guess
01:17:46
I wouldn't concur that it is. You wouldn't see monergism and synergism as being at least one of the absolutely central issues between the
01:17:54
Reformers, the initial Reformers, and Rome? Well, it is an issue, though there are
01:18:02
Roman Catholics on both sides of that, even in that time. But if one's going to be a
01:18:14
Protestant, a protester, does one have to believe in monergism? Well, I'll just be blunt.
01:18:22
I'm much more affected by what are called the radical Reformers, the
01:18:28
Anabaptist tradition, that I am, though my theology, all my professors really come from Calvin, but I have been myself more influenced in that train of thought.
01:18:42
And recently I'll say that Eastern Orthodox theology, going back prior to Augustine, the theologians in the
01:18:51
Church prior to Augustine, has had a huge impact on me, including the affirmation of libertarian freedom and the role of the
01:19:00
Holy Spirit and all that sort of thing. Could I ask you to, in your rebuttal, you had indicated that we were at loggerheads on John 6.
01:19:12
Could I ask you how you understand Jesus' statement there at the beginning of verse 37 when he says,
01:19:20
All that the Father gives me will come to me. How do you understand that from your perspective?
01:19:27
Well, you can ask. I'm not sure I'm going to give you a good, decent answer. That's what cross -examination is for.
01:19:40
This is not a passage that I have spent any amount of time working over.
01:19:48
If you wanted to ask me about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart or something like that, I have a lot of material on that, which you did bring up.
01:19:56
But on this one, when I do teach Bible, it's Old Testament. I'm sorry.
01:20:02
I don't want to ask you to put something out there that you wouldn't have an opportunity to look at.
01:20:08
But in the last minute and a half that we have here, one of the things
01:20:15
I'm sure you would admit, you even said in your book, that you really weren't writing for someone coming from my perspective.
01:20:22
You said you're speaking more to your fellow Armenian people.
01:20:29
Wouldn't it strike you, though, as it strikes me, and I don't know how many Reformed folks you've talked to in the past about these particular issues,
01:20:37
I'm sure a number, but wouldn't it strike you that, especially on issues like this, and especially since I read, for example, your article in JETS in June of 2002 in response to Bruce Ware, I think you can see where a lot of these issues interface.
01:20:56
I don't see a lot of exegesis in this material of the issues that just jump up like John 6 to me and go, here's a big red flag.
01:21:10
Just briefly in the few minutes, why do you think that is? Well, you and I definitely disagree on whether Scripture determines this issue.
01:21:22
I think there are many issues in church history that Scripture is underdetermined. A range of views have been drawn out, and it's typical that people say, well, this is the only view.
01:21:34
I mean, this is the right view. But on the unevangelized, I really don't believe that the
01:21:41
Scriptures pointedly ask the very question that we're asking and go after it.
01:21:48
And so I have to work from themes. And clearly you and I are working from a set of different themes in Scripture, have come to different overarching models for how
01:22:00
God works, who God is, and how God works in terms of salvation. But I can say that, yeah, all that the
01:22:11
Father gives me, come to me. You see it as selecting specific individuals, and I see it as a cooperation with the divine will, that the ones the
01:22:27
Father has given the Son are the ones who turn to faith. And this would include
01:22:35
Abraham for me, and Moses. Okay, time. Thank you, gentlemen.
01:22:41
We will now move on to the closing statements beginning with the affirmative with Dr.
01:22:47
Sanders. This will be followed by our questions from the floor. So if you have any questions, please come up and present statements.
01:23:00
Dr. Sanders. Well, first of all,
01:23:12
I'd like to answer a few of the questions, very fine questions that Dr.
01:23:18
White raised. Why evangelize a Cornelius if he is already saved?
01:23:30
Let me quote. This is a book I edited, but I want to quote one of the authors of this book,
01:23:37
Ronald Nash. He says, Cornelius was a believer in the same sense as every believing
01:23:45
Jew prior to Christ. So he says he was a believer.
01:23:53
Now, he doesn't elaborate on this particular question I'm going to raise now, but it seems to me then that if he's saying that if he would have died, if he'd had a coronary thrombosis prior to Peter's arrival, he would have been saved.
01:24:11
Well then, if he was already saved in that evangelical sense of the term, what does the
01:24:17
Gospel add? Why did God work so hard to get Peter there? A number of reasons.
01:24:23
One, at this time, you must remember, the Church is Jewish. Gentiles are not welcome unless they're willing to become
01:24:33
Jewish. If you become Jewish, then you can benefit from a Jewish Messiah. And I think that what
01:24:41
God is trying to say at this section of the book of Acts is that Genesis 12, 3, that through Abraham there will be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth, that that's coming about now.
01:24:55
And God is drawing in Gentile peoples and they can have faith in Jesus without becoming
01:25:03
Jewish. And that's one of the major issues in the book of Acts.
01:25:09
So then, when Peter says, well, you bring words of salvation in Acts 11 there,
01:25:17
Peter's reporting back to some people in Jerusalem saying, what were you doing with those
01:25:25
Gentiles? And why were you sharing Christ with those Gentiles? So, I would see the word salvation there used in a broader sense than getting one's ticket to heaven or whatever.
01:25:44
Another point. I do think that both of us are answering yes to the question, even though it's affirmative negative.
01:25:53
I think you did say yes to this question. Is knowledge of the Gospel a necessary condition for salvation to those living after the time of Jesus?
01:26:07
And it seems to me you did say, well, yeah, there are some people who were, like Nash says about this person, there are some people who were believers and were accepted by God, though they died not hearing about Jesus even after Jesus had ascended.
01:26:24
So then I think we are agreeing there. We're disagreeing as to how long that might continue and we're disagreeing as to how much knowledge one has to have.
01:26:35
So, I would argue that even restrictivists hold that those faithful Jews who died shortly after the resurrection of Jesus were still saved, even though they did not know
01:26:46
Jesus. So the issue becomes, when precisely is the cut -off line?
01:26:52
Two days after the resurrection? Two months? Two years? And on what grounds is the cut -off date decided?
01:27:00
But whatever is decided here, restrictivists and inclusivists are agreeing that some adult unevangelized who died after the time of Jesus are nonetheless saved without knowledge of the
01:27:14
Gospel of Jesus. So I would conclude from this that almost all Christians are answering our question as yes, people can be saved.
01:27:25
Adults, even apart from knowledge of Jesus. Now one may say, but wait a minute, wait a minute, just hold on here a second.
01:27:32
Those people believed in the promises of God. They had special revelation or they believed in the Messiah that was to come.
01:27:39
Some such thing like that. Well, fine. And that's a very legitimate question to ask.
01:27:45
But still it would not detract from the fact that even restrictivists hold that adults have been saved without knowledge of Jesus.
01:27:58
Okay. A couple of other concluding remarks. Some people,
01:28:05
I'm not saying Dr. White, he hasn't said these things. Okay, so don't take me as responding to him here.
01:28:12
But some people have said such things as well, it seems to me this inclusivism stuff is really just incipient universalism.
01:28:18
That everyone is saved and you're just smuggling them all in the back door.
01:28:26
And no, in my book No Other Name I have an entire chapter arguing against universalism.
01:28:32
So I'm not a universalist. Billy Graham is not a universalist. John Wesley was not a universalist.
01:28:37
C .S. Lewis was not a universalist either. Now, some have suggested that I reject the necessity of Christ's atonement.
01:28:49
But I deny that. My position, without the work of Jesus, absolutely nobody is saved.
01:28:57
And that includes Abraham. However, I don't believe that people have to know about the work of Christ in order to benefit from that work.
01:29:10
After all, we typically believe that infants are saved by the work of Christ and they certainly have never heard of him.
01:29:17
Now, their people, you know, tend to bring up, well, but they haven't committed a certain kind of sin.
01:29:24
They're born dead in sin. They are born with original sin. They are born unregenerate. And if regeneration by the
01:29:30
Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation and regeneration by the Holy Spirit only comes by knowledge of Christ, you have a real problem in your theology there.
01:29:42
And some suggest that this undermines the motivation for missions and evangelism.
01:29:50
So some people think that there's only one reason to evangelize and that's because those people cannot be saved in any sense of the word without knowledge of Jesus.
01:29:59
And that's the reason to go. Well, in my view, the main reasons for evangelism are, number one, our
01:30:05
Lord instructed us to go. Number two, we should want to share the blessings that we have received in Christ with others.
01:30:14
How can you hold it within yourself if you've been blessed in this way? And three, even though I'm suggesting that there are some un -evangelized who are responding in faith properly according to God, and God's always the one who decides, not me, that those people are saved by the work of Jesus, I am not suggesting that all un -evangelized are saved.
01:30:42
I absolutely reject that. There are people who are headed in positively the wrong direction and need to be turned around and confronted with the gospel of Christ and the claims upon their life.
01:30:56
So there are a great many un -evangelized who are not responding in faith to the light that they have, the revelation they have, and are headed towards damnation.
01:31:06
And we need to challenge them to turn around. So I think that we need to go out because there are people who are living in darkness, who are not in the light because they're turning away from the light, they're rejecting it.
01:31:32
We need to introduce people to the living God because many people don't worship and follow the living
01:31:40
God in any respect. And they need to be given the freedom from the fear of death that Christ has triumphed over and inspiring them in living hope and filling them with the peace and joy that comes from knowing
01:31:56
Christ. So those would be some of the possible misunderstandings of my position.
01:32:04
There are a great many other possible misunderstandings of my position, but those would be some of them that have been brought up.
01:32:10
Thank you. Well first of all, let me again thank everyone who has made this evening possible, especially to Michael Fallon for all the work,
01:32:34
Mike and Saw, and the folks here at The Grind. And I hope many of you will make the trip out to RTS tomorrow evening as we have a second debate on the subject of open theism.
01:32:46
I hope you'll be able to make that trip, even though I confess the traffic that you have all around here will probably make that a very difficult and tedious task.
01:32:56
This evening we have tried to focus our attention upon the question of how
01:33:02
God saves, and I think we have seen that the purposes of which God has revealed in His Word concerning why
01:33:09
He saves and how He saves and the centrality of Jesus Christ have come out very plainly, especially
01:33:15
I think in the cross -examination, as being the real issue that everyone needs to look at. Let me just respond to a couple statements and then make some closing thoughts.
01:33:27
We just heard, well, what if Cornelius had died prior to the coming of Peter? Well, Psalm 139 .16
01:33:34
says all of our days are written in His book. God is sovereign over such things, and Cornelius would not die if he was one of God's elect prior to the delivering of the gospel message to him.
01:33:46
That does not change the fact that in Acts chapter 11 we are told, and He will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.
01:33:54
And notice that right after that, in verse 17, we also read, Therefore, if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the
01:34:04
Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? It is the understanding of the apostles that Cornelius is saved in light of his response to the presentation, not the fact that he was a
01:34:16
God -fearer. There were God -fearers in many of the synagogues in Asia Minor when the apostles were alive and living upon the earth.
01:34:26
Those God -fearers are the very ones that the apostles want to proclaim the gospel to.
01:34:32
Well, why would they do that if these individuals were already well so they could have a better life? I don't think that's the only reason they did so.
01:34:39
That's not what they expressed here. They expressed here so that they might be saved. They might be saved.
01:34:46
Now, we've heard about faithful Jews who were being saved, Abraham, Moses, etc. And no one is arguing that salvation did not occur in the lives of godly men prior to the incarnation of Jesus Christ or His death upon the cross.
01:35:02
These individuals had saving faith that was grounded in the promises of God. They had saving faith that was focused upon the very same
01:35:11
God that we have saving faith in today. But to reject the testimony of Jesus Christ is to, of course, reject
01:35:19
God's own integrity in this day and age. They didn't do that.
01:35:25
They believed in God's revelation of Himself. But notice something. Remember Paul's description in Romans and in Galatians?
01:35:33
Paul makes the statement that the gospel was preached to Abraham. They were not, quote unquote, un -evangelized.
01:35:42
The gospel as it existed in their day and as God used to save them had been proclaimed to them and they had faith in it.
01:35:49
So they weren't the, quote unquote, un -evangelized. Remember, the un -evangelized, that sort of sounds like the un -inoculated.
01:35:57
It's almost like it's a neutral term. It's not. The un -evangelized, as we saw in the cross -examination, are those individuals who are rebels against God, who suppress the knowledge of God, who revel in their sins, are dead in trespasses and sins, etc.,
01:36:13
etc. When we just use that term un -evangelized, we lose sight of the fact that these are individuals who though the revelation of God is all around them in the creation, suppress that knowledge and instead turn to false worship and to idolatry.
01:36:29
We have heard it said that without the work of Jesus, no one is saved. That is quite true. But much more than this, the work of Christ saves those for whom it is made and that infallibly.
01:36:42
And to His honor and to His glory, not only in eternity to come, but now in this life.
01:36:48
How important it is for us to glorify God, glorify our Lord Jesus Christ for what
01:36:53
He has done. It is difficult for me to understand why then God would give
01:36:59
His Son and then save people in ignorance of Him so that He does not receive glory from them during this life and take from them the opportunity of speaking of the
01:37:10
Gospel to others. But I think most of you have probably already seen the key issue.
01:37:17
The key issue, I think, came out right toward the end of the cross -examination and that is I don't believe that the
01:37:23
Bible addresses this issue. We have to take general principles. And if we're saying there is not a specific passage that says, okay, here's what you're to believe on such and so, well, that's true about all sorts of things, of course.
01:37:37
We always have to take Scripture as a whole. It's not just sola Scriptura, but tota Scriptura, all of Scripture that is the sole and fallible rule of faith of the
01:37:45
Church. I believe that very, very, very firmly. But I do believe that when we allow all of Scripture to speak, then we can come to an understanding of what
01:37:56
God's purpose is in saving a people in Jesus Christ. And that's why
01:38:02
I believe it's very important that these passages that have been raised, John 6, verse 37, yes, all the
01:38:10
Father gives me will come to me. Well, but when you look very closely at the passage, the giving of the
01:38:16
Father precedes and determines the coming of the person in faith to Christ.
01:38:22
That's God's sovereignty expressed in the matter of salvation. In John 6, 38 and 39, the next two verses, the
01:38:30
Father's will for the Son is that of all that He has given Him, He lose how many? None.
01:38:37
Christ must be a powerful and perfect Savior to be able to accomplish those things.
01:38:42
And that truth becomes extremely important in weighing and evaluating the issue that is before us this evening.
01:38:51
Romans 8 tells us that those whom God foreknew, that is, He chose to enter into relationship with before we ever existed.
01:39:00
Those whom He foreknew, He predestined, He called, He justified, He glorified. This is all God's work.
01:39:06
It's a personal work. And this takes place, according to Ephesians 1, only in Jesus Christ.
01:39:15
Think about all the things that are relevant to this. Think about Jesus' words in John 10. What does He say about His sheep?
01:39:21
My sheep hear My voice. They will not follow another shepherd. They're not going to follow after the teachings of those false shepherds that are out there.
01:39:35
And I do not believe that there is anything in the Scriptures that talk about the directionality of a person's heart as being the final determining factor.
01:39:45
The directionality of the heart is associated with what one believes. You can't separate these things apart from one another.
01:39:52
Saving faith is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. And the Holy Spirit, what does
01:39:58
He do? He directs people to Jesus Christ.
01:40:04
And I believe that He has the power and the ability to bring any of God's elect people the knowledge of Jesus Christ, even if that involves a miraculous event as it did in events in the
01:40:19
New Testament. God brings His people to His Son. All that the
01:40:25
Father gives me will come to me. I do not believe that God is honored.
01:40:33
When we say a person can have a directionality toward God, and yet believe what the
01:40:39
Koran says, for example, that Jesus Christ was not crucified on the cross, that He is not a resurrected
01:40:45
Savior, why would the Holy Spirit of God lead a person to faith in something that denies the very work of Jesus Christ, and yet save that individual?
01:40:56
I don't understand that. Is the Holy Spirit incapable of bringing that information to the person's understanding?
01:41:04
I don't believe that He is at all. And so it's an important issue. I'm so thankful that you've come here this evening.
01:41:10
There are many of you that could be doing... well, all of us could be doing something else this evening. Could we not? The world offers us many things to be doing at a time like this.
01:41:19
You've come here this evening, hopefully, to open your Bibles and to listen and to consider and to ask questions, is what
01:41:28
I believe consistent with God's truth? And if we have gotten you to think this evening about some important issues, maybe, sadly, issues that aren't discussed very often within a lot of evangelical churches for fear of maybe offending somebody, raising troubling questions, if we've gotten you to think about these issues tonight, that's important and we have succeeded.
01:41:51
But I want to leave you with this admonition. God's Word is the only firm foundation upon which we can stand to determine these issues.
01:42:05
And I hope and pray that God will direct your heart and your mind to His inspired
01:42:11
Word as you consider the things we've talked about this evening. Thank you and God bless. Thank you, gentlemen.
01:42:26
Now we would like to take some questions from the floor. Greg, do we have a mic? Right here. Oh, right.
01:42:33
Okay, so if you do have a question for these gentlemen, let me first define some parameters real quick.
01:42:44
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Please specify who the question is for, number one.
01:42:51
Number two, remember to not engage in debate with the gentlemen. This is not give and take.
01:42:56
You may ask your question. Please allow them to answer. They will have one minute to answer the question.
01:43:02
Then the next person, the person on the opposite side, will be allowed 30 seconds to respond afterwards.
01:43:08
Okay. Hi. In my understanding,
01:43:36
I see no reference there to now.
01:43:44
So my question is, why is it a requirement that there be a change in the requirement for salvation of Abraham and not to save Abraham as it does today?
01:44:04
And I mean to say, if Abraham did not know the person of Jesus Christ, that at first in the day of the
01:44:12
Holy Spirit was called, and not know the person of Jesus Christ or in the way that it is today.
01:44:20
Well, I have not said that there was a change. I have said there has been a revelation of the person of Jesus Christ.
01:44:26
The one to do for him that he did is in fact the very same one that we believe in today.
01:44:32
The Incarnation, however, has revealed him in a very specific way, and as the
01:44:37
Bible says, and I think you sort of just answered the question in the way that you phrased that last little statement.
01:44:44
Why couldn't God do that? The question is, is that God's will? And the New Testament reveals to us very clearly that it is
01:44:51
God's will by His Spirit to join a people to Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is redeeming a special people unto
01:44:58
Himself zealous for good deeds. And so the point is that it was the Holy Spirit who sovereignly drew
01:45:05
Abraham to having saving faith back in Genesis chapter 15. And that same Holy Spirit today draws people only to Jesus Christ to say, well, since he did it in ignorance of Christ back in Genesis 15, it doesn't deal with the fact that God has revealed what
01:45:21
He wants to do in Jesus Christ now. And I'm out of my time. I understand. That was addressed to him, wasn't it?
01:45:28
Yes, did you want to respond at all? You get 30 seconds if you wish. Yes. Oh. Well, my own position would be that I see, again, continuity there.
01:45:41
That there's... Abraham knew certain things about God that you and I know a whole lot more about God.
01:45:49
Romans 4, 24, Paul says, if we believe in Him, that is the same God, who raised
01:45:55
Jesus from the dead. Abraham didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
01:46:01
He believed in the same God, however, and he trusted that God. And so I'm just extending that continuity of how much does one have to know in order to be saved.
01:46:13
Next question. This is Dr. Smith. I'm a little confused.
01:46:22
It seems to me from what I've learned about Jesus Christ that Jesus is not always...
01:47:08
Let's see if I understand the question correctly. That the predictions about Jesus are interwoven in almost every passage of the
01:47:21
Hebrew Bible. And so they believed in the Christ to come. Is that okay?
01:47:30
Well, I don't believe that the predictions of Christ are that thoroughly woven in the
01:47:36
Hebrew Bible. And if they were, then I fail to understand why the disciples had such dense skulls that they didn't get it.
01:47:43
Even after the resurrection, they don't get it. And in Luke 22, the two on Emmaus Road are all bummed out.
01:47:50
And Jesus comes up to them. They don't know it's Jesus. And He says, What gives? And the response is, Jesus, we thought
01:47:57
He was the Messiah. Dr. White. Well, I obviously agree with the premise of the question.
01:48:07
And that is that I do believe that in light of the Emmaus... I was going to go to the Emmaus Road experience.
01:48:13
Jesus then opened up for them the Scriptures to demonstrate that from Moses and the prophets that these were the necessary things.
01:48:22
And it's the Spirit's role that then made them to understand that. But I don't see that that's directly relevant to the simple fact that in the
01:48:30
New Testament, it is God's purpose to join a people to Christ and that they know Him as their personal
01:48:35
Savior. Next question. They reject, or at least they don't accept the knowledge, but they accept the revelation that He gives them.
01:48:58
And if this is so, if you believe that someone's got a son, do you believe that this then destroys a unity within a trinity because of the son and the knowledge
01:49:24
He gives, but they accept the Father, and this destroys a unity within a trinity concerning salvation?
01:49:31
You began your question with someone in the Old Testament. Well, that person doesn't know about Jesus.
01:49:38
Well, that person doesn't know about Jesus. So, they're not rejecting Jesus because they don't know about Jesus.
01:49:45
An Old Testament person. Dr. White?
01:49:52
Okay, another question. This is directed to...
01:50:02
I'm sorry, Dr. Sanders. I'm sorry. Joyce. And you're not showing that.
01:50:34
That you're speaking for and not using what He has said to go forward to speak.
01:50:39
And I just am amazed that you would do that and then take something that you call normative but have to use extraordinary examples for it.
01:50:58
Well, I do believe that I'm utilizing Scripture, and I would agree with Dr. White that the
01:51:05
Scripture is authoritative. Now, certainly
01:51:10
I'm not using perhaps the text you want me to use, but I am using
01:51:16
Scripture in my books. I appeal to Scripture. Am I using
01:51:22
Scripture according to the hermeneutical methodologies that you think are appropriate? Clearly, I am not doing that.
01:51:29
Am I outside the realm of Scripture? Again, I don't think so. Am I speaking for the king?
01:51:36
Well, I think I'm working in his service that I am speaking for him directly as some kind of prophet or something.
01:51:46
I would not accept. Five seconds. Well, I think the important part here is that I do recall, and I don't remember who exactly said it.
01:51:56
I'm not sure if it was in Dr. Sanders' section, but in the response to Dr. Ware on the subject of open theism in the
01:52:02
Journal of Evangelical Theological Society, someone made the statement, Dr. Ware had mentioned the hermeneutic of open theism, and someone objected to that.
01:52:11
What do you mean? We use the same hermeneutic as anyone else. Well, I think we're hearing something else than that.
01:52:18
I think sound hermeneutics will lead us to an understanding of what the Scripture says that is a consistent understanding.
01:52:26
Next question. They're over there, so I'll just go to the question.
01:52:44
Regarding the unevangelized, it seems at least implied that there wasn't much spoken in Scripture about the unevangelized regarding Christ.
01:52:54
My question would be, what about Romans 10, verses 12 through 17, where it says,
01:52:59
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, for all who call on Him, for whoever will call on the name of the
01:53:08
Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him whom they have not believed?
01:53:15
How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the
01:53:25
Word of God Christ. It seems to me that this is what that text is about, and that it is a question that the text is addressing, and that the
01:53:34
Bible does provide an answer for. Yeah, well, faith in Jesus is indeed brought about by knowledge of Jesus.
01:53:44
So I agree. Well, I think if I'm understanding what's being stated here, the point is that Romans 10 is saying,
01:53:52
And how shall they hear if they do not have a preacher and the message is not presented to them? There is the quote -unquote unevangelized, and the whole way of understanding what
01:54:03
Paul is saying is there is a necessity for them to hear. That's why you need the preacher. That's why you need the message.
01:54:09
And if they do not hear, then they cannot call upon Him so as to receive salvation, if that's what
01:54:15
I understand what was being said there. Next question. Thank you,
01:54:21
Dr. Sanders. This would be in regard, I guess... Anybody for me? It would be,
01:54:29
I guess, a practical implication of your teaching of impulsivism.
01:54:35
Would you believe that then, say, regarding the major world religions and that, for instance, a good
01:54:45
Muslim could be saved and then remain a good Muslim and not reject their own belief?
01:54:55
Well, are we talking about someone who has been presented with the Gospel of Jesus, a
01:55:02
Muslim, versus a Muslim who has only read the Koran? Just read the
01:55:09
Koran. Well, then has that person heard the Gospel of Jesus? I would say, no, that person hasn't heard the
01:55:15
Gospel of Jesus. What they've heard from the Koran, as Dr. White brought up, are statements that are untrue about Jesus.
01:55:25
So, and then the term is loaded, you know, a good Muslim. You know, is there a good
01:55:34
Christian? I believe that if someone is, again,
01:55:41
God is the one who decides this, and it's not me. And so I have never, ever said that, you know, pointed to a certain person and said that person, like that Muslim, I would say is saved or whatnot.
01:55:52
Is it possible that God could save a
01:55:58
Muslim, hypothetically like that? Yes. Well, I think that does get to the primary issue, and that is, as I understand it, the idea is that if there is this proper direction of the heart toward God, this faith move toward God, and I do not believe that a faith move toward Allah is a faith move toward the true
01:56:22
God. I don't believe a faith move toward the gods of Hinduism is a faith move toward God.
01:56:28
Since that faith move has to be prompted by the Holy Spirit, I don't believe the Spirit would ever prompt a person toward faith in those gods.
01:56:36
Next question. Oh, boy.
01:56:42
Ah, thank you. It seems to me you're coming from a just and vision election of theology.
01:56:54
Yeah. And how does that tie in with the statement or belief that Christ died for the sins of all?
01:57:15
Well, I understand the statement that Christ died for the sins of all to mean all kinds of men. I firmly believe, and I do not flinch, despite its lack of popularity, that the death of Jesus Christ is fully substitutionary.
01:57:28
This is what I was trying to get to in the cross -examination. And I believe that He died for His church, for His friends.
01:57:33
His name should be called Jesus because He will save His people from their sins, not just try, but will actually accomplish it.
01:57:40
Hebrews says that He perfects all those for whom He makes His sacrifice, Hebrews 10 .10 and 10 .14,
01:57:46
and that by His blood, He has redeemed men to God from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation,
01:57:52
Revelation chapter 5. And so I believe that those who are united with Christ in His death are His elect people, and hence the phrase all men means all kinds of men, as it is consistently used in the
01:58:03
New Testament. Yeah, this is a wonderful illustration of some texts that I can hardly think of that are more clear in my mind and yet distorted by Calvinists.
01:58:15
No, I said distorted deliberately there. And that is,
01:58:21
Dr. White has brought up a passage, well, this is clear, just unequivocally, read the Scripture. Well, we're both reading the same passages of Scripture here, and we come to very opposite conclusions on a very important matter.
01:58:34
And I understand how Calvin and Dr. White interpret those passages, and I can respect them,
01:58:39
I just don't think that's what it says. That issue of lordship, isn't it, that issue of lordship just as important as Jesus Christ being the
01:58:59
Savior? Because the prayer that we pray is God's will will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
01:59:08
And we know in Heaven, God is going to rule, and He's going to have lordship, lordship ruling over people.
01:59:15
Now, if there's people who can get saved without ever hearing the
01:59:21
Gospel or whoever, even being under God's lordship, then doesn't that neglect the fact that God has sovereignty and lordship over everything in the world?
01:59:32
Excellent question. The only emendation I would make would be under Christ's lordship, specifically.
01:59:38
Because some might say, well, a person who's made a faith move toward God, toward the true
01:59:44
God, would be under God's lordship, but the point is that Jesus Christ is Lord, and no one can say that Jesus Christ is
01:59:50
Lord outside of the work of the Holy Spirit. So yes, it does seem to split
01:59:57
Savior and Lord into two things. Savior now, Lord later. And unfortunately, there are evangelical theologies that do that as well.
02:00:05
I don't think that you can divide Jesus up in that way. And hence, I think that's a very insightful thing.
02:00:11
It feeds into what I've been saying all along, is I see no evidence that it is God's will to save His people in ignorance of Christ so that they cannot live under His lordship.
02:00:20
Dr. Sanders? I don't have anything to say. Next question. It seems like the church has, for a long time, been really kind of buzzing in this text,
02:00:50
I read it in 2 Chronicles 5. It seems to be clear that the substitutionary death of Christ, the indignation, my sin for Christ, and His righteousness in me.
02:01:00
What do you think God thinks that's buzzing into the church? Can you read it for us?
02:01:10
Well, there is no question that much of evangelicalism today has a very traditionalist view of the cross that is not a very biblical view of the cross.
02:01:20
And there are many theories of the atonement that are extremely unbiblical in their nature. I personally think that, at least in Western evangelicalism as it exists today,
02:01:32
I've said many times that a discerning, healthy church is a blessing upon a nation.
02:01:38
And I don't think Western culture is deserving of God's blessing. We murder our unborn children.
02:01:45
We revel in everything that is vile and disgusting. And so I think what we see in the fuzziness that you talk about may well be the result of the fact that this entire nation and this culture abides under the wrath of God.
02:02:01
Now we as believers need to remain faithful to those things and hold to them and love them ever more firmly. But in answer to your question,
02:02:08
I think that's why we might be seeing this fuzziness. Dr. Sanders? Questions?
02:02:15
Anything for Dr. Sanders now. Laughter Who die young are safe?
02:02:31
Or do you believe, just as an example, that a young spiritual authority in the family is safe when the child also is safe?
02:02:42
The question is about infants that die or young children. My own views are laid out in an appendix in this book.
02:02:55
And I don't come to a definite conclusion on that question. I lay out all the different views that have been said and proposed, but I myself do not have a definite view.
02:03:07
So I'm not one who's going to say that all infants who die are safe.
02:03:13
I mean, unequivocally, I won't say that. I might hope for that, but I just don't find the scriptural teaching clear.
02:03:21
Dr. White? 30 seconds. Yeah, right. Laughter It's almost dangerous to comment in 30 seconds, to be perfectly honest with you.
02:03:32
I would obviously point out many of the same things, and that is many people have held very strong positions on this particular issue.
02:03:41
It is, I don't think, an unbiblical thing to state that the judge of all the earth will do right.
02:03:47
I think that we need to think about this rather than just simply adopting a tradition that we've received from someone else.
02:03:54
And that is... That took 30 seconds, so... Next question.
02:04:01
This is for Dr. Sanders. Isn't there a fundamental inconsistency between your, what
02:04:08
I understand that you are open to the issue of libertarian freedom, and what I think
02:04:13
I'm hearing tonight, which is the thought that God is sovereign over the faith of the un -evangelized, irrespective of their faith or lack of faith in Christ?
02:04:26
No, I don't see any fundamental inconsistency whatsoever that God is sovereign in terms of applying the work of Christ to someone whom
02:04:35
God is the one who determines that person is responding in a faithful way to the limited information they have.
02:04:45
That's God's sovereign choice to do it that way. I'm not saying God has to do it that way, but I think that's God's sovereign choice to do it that way, so I don't see any inconsistency.
02:04:53
Sorry. I would assume that the foundation of the question is due to the fact that the use of the term sovereignty normally carries with it some elements that may not be a part of the open theistic position.
02:05:10
We'll undoubtedly get into some of those things. For example, we've seen the connection in regards to the nature of the atonement with the issue of inclusivism.
02:05:17
I think that also is very relevant to the issue of open theism as well and how our sins are imputed to Christ, His righteousness to us.
02:05:26
Next question. This question is for Dr. Wyatt. Dr. Wyatt, you said that we must come to faith in Christ in a personal manner.
02:05:35
What do you understand by the term personal? What does it mean? A knowledge of Christ's deeds, message.
02:05:42
And do all people come to Him with the same personal faith? If not, when does faith cease to be personal?
02:05:49
How does Scripture speak to us in these matters? For instance, must we receive Christ as a Messianic Jewish Savior in the line of David?
02:05:58
Well, what I mean by that when
02:06:03
I emphasize the phrase a personal relationship with Him is that I truly believe that when the
02:06:09
Holy Spirit of God works the miracle of regeneration in the heart, that we are given a new nature.
02:06:15
And that new nature longs for Christ. And I go back to John 6. These individuals refused to see
02:06:22
Jesus as the sole source of spiritual life. They wanted something more.
02:06:28
They were scandalized when He said, unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life within yourselves.
02:06:34
Because they thought they could have life from other sources. The regenerate heart longs for Christ and looks only to Him.
02:06:43
And that's one of the things that motivates my concern about this issue because I believe that what
02:06:49
I'm hearing is the Holy Spirit of God can bring conviction of sin and faith, but without that changed nature that then clings only to Christ.
02:06:58
And that becomes what I think is problematic. Well, in terms of how much does one have to know and what understanding of Christ does one have to have, do you have to have the proper view of the atonement?
02:07:18
I don't think the earliest disciples had a proper view of the atonement that we have figured out in church history.
02:07:25
So many theologians have wrestled with that question of precisely what does one have to know.
02:07:31
And it is really tough to nail down. Okay, we're going to take about another five questions.
02:07:40
This question is for Dr. Sanders. The Bible clearly teaches in various instances an inseparable relationship between salvation and knowledge.
02:07:50
Example of Colossians 3 .10 which says that we as believers have to renew any right knowledge of Christ. But you have earlier said that the,
02:07:57
I'm trying to quote you, the atoning work of Christ is soteriologically necessary, but not epistemologically necessary.
02:08:06
My question is, do the unevangelized God -seekers ever receive right knowledge of Christ in His work? And if so, at what point does this happen?
02:08:14
Good question. Well, one would hope that it would come about in this life through the program of missions.
02:08:22
And it's my view that an unevangelized, quote, believer would accept the gospel when the gospel is presented to that person.
02:08:31
If that person dies, an unbeliever who I believe has faith dies unevangelized, then that person is going to find out after death who has saved him or her.
02:08:43
Very much like in C .S. Lewis' book The Last Battle of the Chronicles of Narnia where Emmet, whose name is
02:08:50
Truth, finds out who really is the Savior. I believe that it's very clear in the
02:08:57
New Testament that it is God's purpose that, there we go, it is God's purpose that we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the
02:09:05
Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the idea that God would save in ignorance of Jesus Christ, I just don't see, and again, a lot of this goes back to the fact that I'm coming from this, from the perspective of God sovereignly drawing dead sinners who are in slavery to sin to his
02:09:22
Son and not from the libertarian perspective. That really goes back to a lot of it. Okay, we're going to take another three questions here.
02:09:32
This is to Dr. Sanders. Why do you not see that the Old Testament points specifically to Christ?
02:09:39
You mentioned that the apostles in that case would have to have been pretty dense to have not seen that.
02:09:45
But doesn't Jesus himself comment many times on there, why do you not understand?
02:09:51
So, what makes you think that it does not point specifically to Christ? Well, in fact, on the mass road,
02:10:00
Jesus, as Dr. White brought up, does go back through the Scriptures and say, here's how to understand and read them.
02:10:09
And there's no way I can answer your question if I'm given here. But it requires,
02:10:17
I believe, a whole new paradigm for the disciples that is unimaginable to them because of the death of who they thought was the
02:10:28
Messiah. I don't find the Hebrew Bible clear in terms of going up to it.
02:10:38
Do we go back in light of Christ and read things and go, well, now we can see something there.
02:10:45
We do that. How much is there? Well, clearly
02:10:50
I'm disagreeing with a great number of people much brighter than I am who see more things there than I do.
02:10:57
Dr. White. Well, I would just simply comment briefly that I think it's an illustration of the importance of examining our traditions.
02:11:06
I think that the reason that the disciples struggled was because they did have traditions that existed outside of Scripture that blinded them to the clarity of those things.
02:11:16
It doesn't change the clarity any more than the fact there are many people who have evangelical traditions today and hence can't see the clarity of the teaching of God's sovereignty and salvation, for example, because of their traditions.
02:11:28
Okay, just another couple of questions. I know we have some questions here. We'll try to get as many as we can in.
02:11:34
If you keep it brief, it will help us out. This is for Dr. Sanders. For him, maybe he already kind of answered this, but my brain is small.
02:11:43
I need lots of help. But it just seems, I know some words were exchanged as far as Cornelius and his family and their conversion.
02:11:53
It just seems to me that this view that you're presenting is really inconsistent with the pattern of Acts, not just in Cornelius' household, but as all the apostles, especially
02:12:07
Paul, as he goes out, he's not trying to convert people to just believe in God.
02:12:12
He's asking them specifically to believe in Christ, specifically as a name.
02:12:18
And so, you know, my question to you is, I know you explained that in one situation, but what about, it seems a pattern in all of Paul's writings, too, to go right to Christ, right to Christ every time.
02:12:34
What purpose there is there in trying to say that people can get right with God outside of Christ, that that's all the apostles did was take people directly to Christ, and Paul's teaching to Timothy was hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
02:12:50
Why would they not say, just get them believing that God is and that would be enough? Because Jesus has come.
02:12:57
Of course they're preaching Jesus. And if I was talking to an un -evangelized person, I'm not going to say, well, there's this
02:13:04
God and you believe in that God. Hey, wonderful, see you later. No, of course they're presenting
02:13:11
Jesus. That's the whole point. The question is not, could those people make it into Heaven without knowledge of Jesus?
02:13:22
I think the answer to that is yes. But the blessings that come with the knowledge of Christ, and of course the disciples are preaching
02:13:33
Jesus, is the same as I would preach Jesus. Well, I think we've gotten to the point where we're sort of repeating ourselves at this point, and that is, yes, they presented
02:13:47
Christ, but I don't believe they presented Christ to the God -fears, for example, they encountered, to Lydia, for example.
02:13:56
Lydia was a God -fear, and yet the Lord had to open her heart to understand the things that were spoken of by Paul.
02:14:02
Well, when the Holy Spirit opened her heart, what did she then do? She clung to Christ, and that is,
02:14:09
I think, the work of the Holy Spirit in someone's life. Okay, two more questions.
02:14:14
It's about your divine, sovereign will, Greg. Who gets them? This is Dr. Shannon.
02:14:22
The man in the front talked about a Muslim. You were saying a good Muslim could be saved, and in Romans 10 it says,
02:14:30
Paul is talking about the Jews and their knowledge. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seeking to establish their own.
02:14:44
They did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law, the righteousness of everyone who believes.
02:14:50
And so it just seems to me like that Muslim would be seeking, in ignorance, a way to God and not a way through Christ.
02:14:58
And so how, exactly, how could that Muslim truly be saved? Well, first of all, when
02:15:04
I said the term good Muslim, I said that's a problematic term. It wasn't one that I would use.
02:15:13
Because as soon as you say that, then we break into the Reformation debate about good works and the nature of salvation and that sort of thing.
02:15:24
I don't believe that people are saved by knowledge itself.
02:15:33
One has to have a positive faith and trust in God. Can one have incorrect beliefs and be saved?
02:15:43
Well, I certainly hope so, for my own sake. Maybe you can say amen to that.
02:15:53
But I think that Paul's issue in Romans is really one about what is the nature of Christ in relation to the nation of Israel at this point.
02:16:04
And why don't... Yeah, go ahead and finish that.
02:16:14
So, thank you. Why don't they put their faith in Jesus? Don't they see that God is going in this direction?
02:16:22
And you say, no, they think God is going in this direction. Well, what they're doing then is they're not responding properly to the revelation they have.
02:16:31
And my premise is people who are responding positively to the revelation they have will be saved. That very same
02:16:43
Paul told us exactly what the response of every person outside the regenerating work of the
02:16:49
Holy Spirit of God is to God's revelation. And that is to suppress it and to twist it and to engage in some form of idolatry.
02:16:56
And so we would have to assume that these individuals are actually regenerate by the Holy Spirit of God and yet they are not given the same gift of faith that we receive which has as its object
02:17:06
Jesus Christ, our Savior. Okay, Greg, I'll leave it up to you. If you want to take any more questions.
02:17:18
Yes, Dr. Sanders. All through the Bible it appears to me that God chose. God chose
02:17:23
Abraham. God chose the Israelites. God chose David.
02:17:28
God chose everybody. God chose each of us. And it says in John 15, 16 that He did not choose me.
02:17:36
I chose you. And it also says that he who began his work could be unfaithful to complete it.
02:17:43
So my question is to you. What work is that and who is the instigator of that work that is unfaithful to complete?
02:17:51
Well, first of all, divine election as I understand it particularly coming through the
02:17:56
Old Testament is God chose Abraham for service. I don't believe
02:18:02
God chose Abraham and that means Abraham gets beamed up to planet heaven. God chose Abraham to bring about a work of service.
02:18:09
He chose the Jewish people to bring about a kingdom of priests Exodus 19, 6. So the point of being chosen is for service.
02:18:21
And here I think at least on this point I would agree with Dr. White that the point of what
02:18:27
God is trying to do is to choose these people in order to bring about a transformation of individuals and eventually the whole world.
02:18:39
But it's not the view of election that you hold, I'm sorry. Well, of course
02:18:44
I don't believe that you can limit the result of God's choice merely to service because he who is not yet made right with God is not going to be serving
02:18:52
God. And so it's a package deal in essence and that many of the passages that were referenced there in the question do have to do with service but many others have to do with the fact that we have been chosen unto salvation only in Christ Jesus.
02:19:09
And so that's how I would respond to that. Folks, would you please join me in thanking these two gentlemen tonight. Applause Yes, they both came from long and far away and it's good that we can get together and discuss things like this.
02:19:38
And I appreciate you folks for sticking around. I don't think I've seen a debate crowd stick around as long as you have through the entire debate.
02:19:47
So I thank you. Once again, please come and tell me what you would like to hear next year when we're in town.
02:19:55
And we'd like to be able to take your suggestions and follow up on those. Once again, we do have some books available back here from Dr.
02:20:02
White as well as through Kokesbury you can get some of the books from Dr. Sanders. I'd like to turn this again over to Greg Poss.