Sam Gipp, Bible Baptist KJV Only Fundamentalists, and Anti-Calvinism

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

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

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

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

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line. I suppose we could have even fired up the

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Radio Free Geneva opening if we wanted to, because today on the program,

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I am going to be hopefully providing some educational examination of claims made by certain individuals in a debate that took place,

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I believe, June 11th of this year in Rochester, New York. I was sent a

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DVD called The Great Debate. And the primary reason I think it was sent to me is that one of the anti -Calvinists in the debate was

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Dr. Sam Gipp. Now, Dr. Sam Gipp is a well -known radical King James only -ist.

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He is the one who was on the John Ankerberg Show. And in answer to the question from John Ankerberg, if I want to have the pure word of God today, are you telling me

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I have to learn the English language? And his response was, God promises us one inspired and errant translation in one language at one time.

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Right now it's the King James Version of the Bible. He's also the one who has been continuing the great myth of the striking of Dr.

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Wilkins' voiceless during the course of taping, even though the video has been provided by the

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Ankerberg folks that shows you just how inane that particular argument is and so on and so forth.

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We've addressed that on our YouTube channel. So someone sent it to me because not only is he a

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King James only advocate of the cultic kind, the radical Peter Ruckman style, but he is also an anti -Calvinist.

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Frequently those things do go together. And so he was one of the four men, I believe, on what was called the

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Baptist side. There was absolutely no recognition on the part of these individuals of the fact that there are such things as reformed

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Baptists, such as myself. They would not. It's interesting. The radicals on both extremes, there are the radical

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Baptists who would not call me a Baptist and the radical reformed wouldn't call me reformed. So it's fairly good to be in the middle somewhere and able to defend your position from either direction.

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But it was called the Baptist position. What it was is the most narrow, don't look outside this tiny little community, independent fundamentalist

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King James only Bible Baptist range. Now I was baptized in the

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Bible Baptist church of Shiremanstown. So I know a little something about Bible Baptists and these guys sounded quite familiar to me.

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But as we will hear, one of the real problems that came up in this debate is what happens when you combine the narrow mindedness.

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And when I say that, that's, oh, you're just being mean. What I mean by that is, and I understand this from my own background.

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I experienced this in my own background. There is a fear of other perspectives and there is a fear of even contemplating the possibility that there might be other people who are actually

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Christians who disagree with you on things. That's part of the independent fundamentalist Bible Baptist mindset.

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You don't think like there might be somebody else out there who might have another way of looking at things that actually has some level of validity to it.

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There's a fear, which means you then, as a result, what you hear in this debate is the very same attitude that you hear in Dave Hunt, James, I have no traditions.

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Remember that? When I challenged Dave Hunt, I was interviewing him on the radio back in 2000 and he gave this traditional response to John chapter six and I said,

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Dave, those are your traditions talking and his response to me was, James. I have no traditions.

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I'm sure these gentlemen think they have no traditions. They for example, go off after systematic theology, we'll hear them attacking systematic theology.

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They have a systematic theology, it's not only systematic, it's inconsistent, but they've got one and whether they want to admit they have it or not is irrelevant.

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They've got it. But the fact that they don't admit it and think that, well, I just go with the Bible. This is all,

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I just go with the Bible. People like that scare me because they really do think that, but what that means is they've never, ever, ever examined the traditions and presuppositions they're bringing to the text and that's a frightening thing.

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So I have put together nine clips from this debate that we're going to try to work through today as best that we can and hopefully it'll be of use to you.

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Now it started off, oh my, with the moderator and he went on for a long time and he's the pastor of the

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Bible Baptist Church there and it was so painfully obvious what his position was.

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I mean, it's not exactly an unbiased moderator here. But what's worse is from his perspective, from his perspective, what we're dealing with here is

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Calvinism is just another form of Romanism. And he had a friend who had gone from being a

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Baptist to being Reformed, well, here, just listen to what he had to say.

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This is part of his opening comments to the debate. This morning and right now, he was ordained as a

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Roman Catholic priest in a service at Sacred Heart Catholic Church right here in the city of Rochester.

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A year ago, he was installed as a deacon of the Roman Catholic Church. You say, well, wasn't he a

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Baptist minister? Yes, he was. What caused that to happen? Well, I believe the subject at hand today between the topic of TULIP with the

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Baptist and the Reformed theology positions, that there's something that Scott began to study, the writings of early church fathers.

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He began to research and somewhere along the line, for those of you who know the scripture, something caught him.

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And he swayed away from the Baptist faith and went into Reformed theology.

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And then as I've said in letters and in personal conversation, there is not much of a quantum leap, if we can say that, from a

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Reformed theology position, because they share several of the early church writers and fathers of early church history.

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But let me just say, just to be impartial on this, this comes from the Catholic career. This is...

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Okay, I'll just stop it there. It's not much of a quantum leap. The very men who fought the hardest against Rome, the

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Reformers, who were not independent fundamentalist Baptists, by the way, they're the closest.

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It's just it's not a quantum leap. It was so obvious in his mind that his move into Reformed theology, at some form of Reformed theology, who knows what it was, was part and parcel of this.

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I fully embrace the reality. This man has no clue about church history, has no clue that it's the

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Reformed that are the strongest opponents of Rome and place the strongest arguments against Roman Catholicism.

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And you know, the majority of my debates have been against Roman Catholic apologists. I think

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I've done about 40 out of 111, so that's about over a third. And I know that they know that their strongest opponents are the

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Reformed. I've listened to them beat up on independent fundamentalist

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Baptists in debates. They would much rather debate a Bible Baptist pastor than a

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Reformed person, by a long shot, because of the very fact of what he said. We happen to know something about church history, and we happen to know that Roman Catholicism misrepresents church history and things like that.

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But that was how the debate started, and I was just, oh, you know. These guys honestly believe, they're all

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King James only, they honestly believe that there have always been people who believe exactly like they do.

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They didn't come out of the Reformation, they're the trail of blood, landmarkism, all that kind of silliness that, again, from a church history perspective is just absurd.

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But that's where they're coming from, in that sense that we wish, there was a Baptist, they literally said this,

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I'm not making this up. They referred to Matthew chapter 3 as evidence of Baptists, because it was

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John the Baptist. They honestly did that. I thought that was just something you made up in a mocking sense, but they literally, seriously made reference to Matthew chapter 3, and John the

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Baptist as evidence of, as if John the Baptist believed in the individual priesthood of the believer in the form of the

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New Testament church, and oh my, all that stuff. So it was very, very interesting.

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Anyway, we get into the discussion. I'm not going to say much about our Reformed brothers who engaged in this debate.

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The only thing that, again, too much ground to cover in one debate, all five points, just too much, that really limits what you can do.

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The format of the debate was just silly. I couldn't even figure out what in the world they were doing half the time.

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They took 15 minutes and divided it in half. You get to say one thing, you get to say it, but then you get to do a rebuttal, and you get to do a rebuttal, and it was weird.

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But the one thing that, there were two things, and by way of criticism,

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I suppose I should at least mention this. They weren't sure where they were going on limited atonement, because evidently some of them actually don't believe in it or don't believe in the historic

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Reformed perspective on it, and that meant that limited atonement was never even positively presented.

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It was criticized, but it wasn't positively presented. And I was really upset about that, because I'm a strong proponent of it, and I think it is one of the strongest arguments, because it presents a finished and accomplished work of Christ, and it flows with the other points, and so that was disappointing.

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And then for some reason, whoever answered the Matthew 23 -37 question just didn't take the strongest route of it, and ended up getting caught up by the next number of questioners who caught that in the audience question part at the end.

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And so I was like, I'm not sure why I didn't go with the rather obvious response to Matthew 23 -37, but anyway, so there's the criticism

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I had there. But that's not the educational part of this. The educational part of this is to listen to the effect of combining anti -Calvinism with King James -only -ism.

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King James -only -ism almost always results in an English Bible -only -ism, where the

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King James, the English form of the King James, becomes the standard.

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And as we're going to hear, there are places where you cannot, you cannot make a decision about what the text is saying without reference to the original languages.

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But King James -only -ism cuts that off, and these men are also radical dispensationalists, and you're going to hear dispensationalism being used as a mechanism to undercut and attack

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Reformed theology. You combine all that together, and it is a royal trainwreck of eisegesis.

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A royal trainwreck of eisegesis. So with that, let's jump into some of the comments here.

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I don't have them marked. I may have to sort of start and stop them, but let's jump in.

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You, Reformed theology and Calvinism, and I want to show you the essence of the tulip and its... Now, this is in the opening statement.

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I don't know which of the four guys this is. Each side got an opening statement. The Reformed side was a good opening statement.

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They had to rush through it a little bit, but it was a good opening statement. This is toward the very end of their opening statement. Now, try to picture what this man is doing in your mind.

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This is a pastor, standing in front of an audience. Listen to this. You, Reformed theology and Calvinism, and I want to show you the essence of the tulip and its theology of man in his relationship to God and salvation, and this is really how an individual would have to approach things.

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Two minutes. I have... Tulips are out of season, so excuse me, I have a rose. But Reformed theology in the individual as far as salvation, this is your hope.

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It goes like this. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me.

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He loves me not. And you just keep on going, and hopefully you land on he loves me. And that is your hope, and that is

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Reformed theology. That is Calvinism. Well, there you go, folks. You have a man standing in front of an audience with a rose, because tulips are out of season, and he's pulling petals off going, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.

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Now, of course, Calvinists accuse the Arminians of that. They call it

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Daisy theology. He loves me. He loves me not. But these folks are a part of the anti -lordship, easy -believism type of concept.

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You just confess Jesus. You don't worry about this self -examination stuff.

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No, that works righteousness. And that came out a lot. Well, 1

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John 5 says these things written you might know. And I just love asking folks who say that. What are these things?

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It's the rest of 1 John. Loving the brethren and confessing

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Christ. All that stuff that he's used to describe what a true Christian is.

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These things I've written that you may know that you have eternal life. It's not the ticket -punched thing.

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You don't look to yourself, but you look to Christ, His ability, and His spirit at work within you.

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And that's why you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so on and so forth. But anyway, as soon as I heard someone standing in front of the audience pulling petals off of a flower, as if this had something to do with Reformed theology.

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Anyway. Okay. We press on. ...should be holy, without blame, before Him in love.

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And the key phrase in there, the whole thing is important, obviously, but in this discussion, according as He has chosen us in Him.

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Now, what happened was, that's why I have to sort of start, get my context.

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For some reason, it started off with the moderator, before they went to the five points, the moderator asked for an exegesis of a particular text of Scripture.

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And so it was Ephesians chapter 1, which makes sense. It's a good text. Good text. And you didn't get, well, really honestly, either side.

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What should have been done on both sides would have been a, just walk through the text. Just show how your position is consistent.

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Deal with it directly, straight through. That's not what you got. And so the quote -unquote Baptists are going through here.

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And the reason I wanted to quote this is because I want to take just a moment to defend John Calvin, who would have driven me out of Geneva because I'm a

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Baptist. I fully know that. But I want to defend him against what was said here. Listen to what this, again,

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I don't know which one of the four this was, but listen to what is said. Should be holy, without blame, before Him in love.

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And the key phrase in there, the whole thing's important, obviously, but according, in this discussion, according as He had chosen us in Him.

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And the Calvinist tends to leave off in Him. And I'm just going to cite you from John Calvin's own commentary on Ephesians.

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Calvin starts with verse number four, and he says this, According as He hath chosen us, period. He then stops and says,

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The foundation and first cause both of our calling and of all the benefits which we receive from God is here declared to be

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His eternal election. So he runs right from here and begins to go to election. If the reason is asked why

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God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why He daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why He opens to us the gate of heaven, the answer will be constantly found in this principle, here's his quotation of the verse, that He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world.

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Now, he misquotes it by leaving out in Him, and that's because that's his slant on it.

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When he looks at it, that's how he sees it. He kind of just passes over the in Him. So that's,

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I think, where Calvinists make a lot of their mistake. Yeah, well, you know, what he quoted was accurate.

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I have Calvin's commentaries, and I brought that volume into the studio today.

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But unlike our Bible Baptist brethren, I kept looking down the page, and I discovered that, you know, when he says, for example, well, he quotes it as,

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According as He hath chosen us, period. And those Calvinists, they just leave that in Christ stuff out.

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Now, if you're wondering where he's going here, the idea is that Christ is the chosen one, and God has made a way of salvation if you're in Christ, but you've got to get yourself in Christ.

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It's the old, Christ is the elect one, you've got to get yourself in Christ, you do that by your free will, act of faith, blah, blah, blah, blah thing.

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Which, of course, is not what Paul says. The direct object of chosen is us.

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The realm of the choosing is in Christ. And that's what, of course,

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Calvin's talking about. But all you've got to do is just look down the rest of the page, and in the printed edition, that According as He has chosen us is on page 197.

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That's right at the bottom of the page. On page 198, the very next section, the very next paragraph is,

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In Christ, period. You see, he comments phrase by phrase, and he puts a period at the end of it.

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So, right below In Christ is that we should be holy, period. So, he says on page 198,

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In Christ, this is the second proof that the election is free, for if we are chosen in Christ, it is not of ourselves.

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It is not from a perception of anything that we deserve, but because our Heavenly Father has introduced us through the privilege of adoption into the body of Christ.

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In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit and everything which men have of their own. For when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy.

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You see, so did he skip over it? No, he did not skip over it. He was commenting phrase by phrase as if you look at all of his commentaries, his many, many biblical commentaries.

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That's how he did all of them. So, is it possible that he didn't look down the page?

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Is it possible that someone sent him something? He's going on secondary sources. I don't know, but the accusation was simply absurd.

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It's dishonest and untrue and stands refuted forevermore.

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Let's continue on. Now, here is where we start seeing the impact of dispensationalism in this argument, and we will see it a number of times.

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What these men are going to do is they're going to chop the Bible up into, well, that's just about the Jews, and that's just about the church, and this isn't relevant to that, and that ain't relevant to this, etc.,

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etc. And this fellow especially, I believe his name is Jeff Faggart is his name.

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Pastor Jeff Faggart, he's got the perfect Bible Baptist preacher voice,

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I must say that. I can barely get mine down there to sound like that. But just listen to what he has to say.

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Concur with the brethren up here. And being conformed to his image is also, again, referring to the resurrection.

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According to 1 Corinthians 15, it is when we bear that heavenly image and it takes place at the resurrection.

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No man now is conformed to the image of Christ, but we have been, because we're in him, predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

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That's when the adoption takes place. Now did you catch that? All of you who think you're being conformed to the image of Christ, all of you who think that your sanctification is making you more like Christ, and that we are being conformed to his image, and the golden chain of redemption, and all the rest of that stuff, you got it all wrong.

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You missed the dispensational understanding. That's all future. That's all future. No one, you heard him say it, no one is being conformed to the image of Christ right now.

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That's all just future. So what is significant about that is that in some of these later clips, and we've only got a couple more left actually, which we might actually be able to take some phone calls.

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And by the way, if any of these gentlemen know about the program we're doing, I'm going to be happy to dialogue with them.

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But we're going to hear another clip here in a moment where a distinctly dispensational excuse for John 6 is going to be given.

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And this pastor is going to point out, hey, one of the biggest differences between us is our eschatology. And he basically is admitting that his eschatology is the deciding factor in his exegesis, even when the text isn't about eschatology.

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And that is, again, I would say, highly educational.

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Now, here's Sam Gipp. Here's the first quote we have of Dr.

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Sam Gipp, the Peter Ruckman disciple. And this is a tremendous example, a tremendous example, of the worst forms of eisegesis.

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What's eisegesis? Reading into a text, meaning it never had before. Here, if you want to see how not to do the interpretation of the

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Bible, how not to do hermeneutics, how to ignore original language, how to ignore context, how to take as a statement, well, there's only one meaning for every word or phrase in the

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Bible. And I'll just go find it over here, and I'll read into the text over here. This is, wow, this is an amazing example of how not to interpret the

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Bible provided by Dr. Sam Gipp. This is about Ephesians chapter 2.

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And the issue, of course, that we've discussed many, many times before in Ephesians chapter 2.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works as any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, creating

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Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath foreordained that we should walk in them. The that not of yourselves.

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That, and this was brought out in the audience questions, I believe, by the Reformed side, but at a much later point in the debate.

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That is a neuter in the original language. There is no neuter in the antecedents.

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For by grace, it's feminine, you have been saved through faith.

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Grace isn't neuter, saved isn't neuter, faith isn't neuter.

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So what's it referring to? Well, the neuter is frequently used to summarize an entire clause or an entire group of things together.

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And that's what's going on here. The that is everything that came before. The salvation, the grace, and the faith.

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Now there are many places where faith is identified as a gift from God. Philippians 1 .29. It has been granted to you to believe in Christ Jesus.

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But our Bible Baptist friends evidently are aware of that.

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So here, so how do you determine what that is in Ephesians chapter 2?

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How do you do that? Well, let's get a lesson on how not to do that by Sam Gip.

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Total depravity or the Baptist side, I should say. Justin in his opening statement made a couple of misstatements, not,

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I'd say, intentionally. And it was that man is totally depraved and cannot do anything about his own salvation.

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I'll tell you where we are. We're very close to each other here physically. And theologically, if you think of a

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V, two men can be on two different roads that are right here within sight of each other, but they're on different roads.

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And those roads are how to interpret what the gift is of Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8. It says, for by grace he is saved through faith and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

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Standard Calvinist teaching is man is totally depraved, cannot have the faith. He does not have the faith.

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And that the phrase, the gift of God in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 is a reference to God gives you the gift of faith so you can be saved.

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Now, that's a private interpretation with no scripture to back it up. If you look at Romans chapter 5, and in Romans chapter 5, look at verse 15, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift.

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Not taken out of context here. So God's going to define the free gift with scripture. For through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, we'll find out what that gift is, which is by one man,

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Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.

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Well, what is the gift? Is it faith? Or is it eternal life? Well, it's hard to beat

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Romans 6, verse 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

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You can't find a place in the Bible where it says the gift of God is faith, so you can trust

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Christ. So they've misinterpreted one verse, which puts them... Although we can stand there and say, well, you know, you're looking at it this way, and I'm looking at it this way, but down the road you end up far from the

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Bible, and I'm telling you, the gift of God is eternal life. It is not faith, so you can trust

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Jesus Christ. So there you go, folks. There's only one gift of God. If it talks about the gift of repentance or the gift of the

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Holy Spirit, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's only one gift of God. And you interpret Ephesians 2 by running off to Romans chapter 6.

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There you go. Because every word only has one meaning in the Bible, of course. I listened to that, and I said, how does someone travel around from church to church for all these years and give that kind of presentation?

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I am absolutely flabbergasted that that kind of gross mishandling of the

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Word of God could be presented in this fashion. That is a perfect lesson for how not to interpret the

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Bible. You interpret the Bible in its context. Now, he thinks, you just got your systematic theology,

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I just have the Bible. He does not recognize the overriding traditions and presuppositions that he is absolutely enslaved to.

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And if you dare start exposing it, oh, look out. Because I'll be honest with you, there were some times

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I ended up not finding the section. But there was one point where the Reform guys had to go, you know, we really don't appreciate the cheap shots, because he was giving.

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He was, you know, Gip does cheap shots, and his behavior was not overly exemplary as far as that goes.

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But much more so, this is an excellent example, folks, of how you do not want to manhandle the

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Word of God, because talk about utterly ignoring context and everything else.

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It is truly amazing. We press on. Let me stop there. Reset it. You're ready to go now.

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I don't want to go now. Many of the scriptures he says are absolutely accurate.

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It's just the logic with which he interprets them. He talks about a world where man's imagination is evil continually.

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Nothing in that verse says man is incapable of faith. All the way through, he shows the wickedness of man, which we all believe in.

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Nothing did he show man was incapable of faith. And I'm not going to ask them to sign on to this description, but they believe in a two -step salvation.

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Man is totally depraved, with no faith, unable to believe. God imparts the gift of faith, and then down the road, they may call that regeneration, then down the road he trusts

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Christ. They may redefine that. But they believe that God gives them the faith. There is no scripture, he gave you no scripture whatsoever that said faith is the gift of God.

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Totally had to ignore the scripture. He used logic and ignored scripture. Now, I'm going to have to,

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I just realized, because of the way I did this, I'm going to have to sort of guess where I just was to restart that. But where have you heard this kind of argumentation before?

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You've heard it just recently. No scripture, no scripture. How about someone who's constantly going, 9 ,000 personal singular pronouns, there's no scripture that says anything about a three -minded

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God, and there's no, you know, that's the very argumentation

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Roger Perkins uses. Now, am I committing the genetic fallacy?

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No, because notice what he did there. There is no verse that says, and then you have a specific statement that you're supposed to be able to find.

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Who cares if the concept is clearly laid out? It has been granted to you to believe.

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What does that mean? Well, it means it's a gift from God. Oh, but it doesn't use the phrase gift of God.

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Oh, but you can't use phrases like that. You can't accurately summarize what the Bible says for clarity's sake.

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It's got to be, that's exactly what we find in the cults, and that's what you're getting from Sam Gap.

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And I think there's reason for that, and it's a sad thing.

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Anyway, let me see if I can, now

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I can't find where I was. This is odd. This thing is getting very strange here.

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It's not letting me select the middle of that particular thingy -me -bobby. Oh, there we go.

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It just helps to choose the correct thing, which is the cursor thing.

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All right, let's see if I guessed the right spot here. Genesis 6, verse 5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.

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No, I didn't. Let's go a little bit before that, see if we're closer. ...gift of faith, and then down the road, they may call that regeneration, then down the road he trusts

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Christ. They may redefine that. But they believe that God gives them the faith. There's no scripture, he gave you no scripture whatsoever that said faith is the gift of God.

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Totally had to ignore the scripture. He used logic and ignored scripture. That's where Calvinists are.

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Calvinists are based on a Calvinistic logic with which they interpret scripture. We have scripture and we judge our doctrine by it.

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Now, did you catch that? Calvinists have logic. We have scripture. These men really do believe this.

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They are so completely enveloped in their tradition, and because of their fear of those outside, and their separation doctrine based upon that, the light is always only coming from one direction for them.

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They never see other possibilities. And so, their understanding is the

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Bible, while you're using something else. You're using logic. We don't want to use logic. We want to be illogical.

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That just doesn't make a lick's worth of sense, but they honestly really, really do believe this.

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It's an amazing thing to see. ...which he practiced, such as the infant baptism, is because he did not know what to do with infants and their problem with original sin, as they called it.

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And so, they had to make, as we've already heard, their scriptures and their interpretation of them fit in with their system.

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And any time that you find systematic theology, you're going to find it's going to be Reformed theology. Did you catch that?

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Any time you find systematic theology, you're going to find it's

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Reformed theology. We don't have a systematic theology. They really don't think they do.

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I mean, honestly, I'm not saying that they're lying here. They just honestly think, we're just reading the

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Bible for all it says. We're just following the Bible. We don't follow any man at all. And they just don't realize that they have an entire system of tradition, an entire set of presuppositions that is determining every conclusion they're coming to.

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But they just honestly don't realize it. It is an amazing, amazing thing to listen to.

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It really, really is. All right, let's continue on. Because I think, yeah,

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I think this is where, like I said, the

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Reformed side didn't really give a presentation on limited atonement because there were differences between the people on it, which is a shame.

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Because I just think it's one of the strongest, I mean, to go into Hebrews and the finished work of the cross and the consistency of the decree of God and the work of Christ and the union of the elect with Christ and in his death.

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And, oh, it's just beautiful. And, of course, the high priest. Who does he intercede for? He intercedes for those for whom he's died.

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And if you posit a difference there, you've got to divide the, you basically have to refute the argument of Hebrews.

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Well, here is an example, one of the best examples

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I've ever heard, of the dangers of English -only -ism when it comes to interpretation of Scripture.

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This is Jeff Faggart again. And right at the beginning, he's going to show us, he's going to prove to us the universal atonement of Christ.

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It's right there in the Bible. How did you Calvinists miss it all this time? It's right there.

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If you just believed the King James Version of the Bible, then you wouldn't believe all this silliness you got from John Calvin.

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Well, then there'd be people who didn't even get it from John Calvin. You got it from Theodore Beza. Okay, whatever.

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Now, I have, in the past, mentioned this in a hypothetical sense.

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And if you've been following the Hebrews series, as we've been preaching through the book of Hebrews, I've raised this issue,

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I don't know how many times. I mean, I imagine the poor folks at the Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church or have this tattooed on their brains by now.

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Yes, we got it, we know. Well, it still needs to be repeated,

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I'm afraid. Here is Pastor Jeff Faggart. And the clear evidence that particular redemption, limited atonement, is not true.

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Here it is. We've already heard about one, he put to death for disagreeing with him over that.

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And it's something that we do disagree with him over the atonement. And it is interesting that the

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Bible does tell us about the one use. If you want to talk about limited atonement, you'll find that in the

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New Testament because it's only used one time, the word. That's pretty limited. And we find that over in Romans 5, verse 11.

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The Bible says that not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

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Through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to read to you from the book of Hebrews how that atonement was accomplished.

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In Hebrews chapter 10, the Bible tells us there in verse 8, Above when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldst not, neither hath pleasure therein which are offered by the law.

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All the numerous attempts at atonement in the Old Testament, though being obedient to the ceremonial law, the moral law which

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God instituted, they were ineffectual. And the Bible said in verse 9 of Hebrews 10,

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Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second, by the which will, now here's the atonement, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Not once for some. Not once for many. But the Bible says once for all.

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It is interesting then as we examine... Once for all. There you go.

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It says once for all. And that means once for every person.

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Not just for some, but for all. Now, if all you had was the

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King James Version of the Bible, and you could not look at the original language, and you couldn't go back and ask, well, what did the

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Greek indicate here? Then you would be left with an argument between those who say, well, once for all means once for every person.

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No, it doesn't. It means once for all. It's a time thing. It only happens one time. Nope. It says once for all.

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Now, everybody, like I said, at the Phoenix Forum Baptist Church, starting way before Hebrews 10, we encountered the term hapaks.

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Now, here it's ephapaks because it's a heightened or strengthened form.

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But it's the same root. Hapaks, you may have heard of the phrase hapaks legomena.

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Hapaks legomena means something that is named but once. So when you find a word in the

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Bible that's used only once, it's a hapaks legomena. Hapaks means once.

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It is a temporal adverb. It refers to time.

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It cannot mean, it can not mean what this man just said.

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It's just not possible. The original language does not allow it. It is not a term of extension.

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It is not a term referring to every single person and human being on the planet.

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It's not referring to that. And if he had just looked at the preceding context, he would have seen that.

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He would have seen that. Because if you look in the preceding context, the contrast is between the hapaks offering of Christ and the repeated offerings of Yom Kippurim.

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But he didn't notice that. So you could have actually argued effectively from just the

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English text. But it's so much easier to just go, sorry, the

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Greek can't mean that. Period. End of discussion. Error exposed.

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But there you go. There's the refutation of particular redemption is a completely misunderstood usage of ephahpaks.

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And in fact, if there's any text that preaches particular redemption, it's

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Hebrews chapter 10. Because what is the result of this offering?

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This once for all offering of the body of Christ? It is the being made holy, the perfection of all those for whom it is made.

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But we continue on with Pastor Jeff. Now here's going to be some more example of incredible eisegesis.

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Rather than going and looking at the usage of the term, comparing the verb with the noun usage, it had already been properly brought out by the

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Reformed men from Acts chapter 2, the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

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This was not looking down the corridors of time and seeing what was going to happen.

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This is part of God's determinative will. Acts 2, Acts 4, etc.

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That's not how these guys do biblical interpretation. The Bible says, you men of Israel, hear these words of Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which

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God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. Verse 23, Acts chapter 2. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken him by wicked hands and crucified him.

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The determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, those are two terms that have to be interpreted together.

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They are communicating the basis upon which Christ was turned over. Okay? Determinate...

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Wouldn't that have to enter into discussion? Will it? No. And the slain whom

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God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should beholden of it, we find that the same group that's being addressed there is the same group that's being addressed in 1

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Peter chapter 1 as the book opens. And the foreknowledge of God... Okay, so have you noticed we've jumped from Romans 8 to Acts 2 and now we've said, well, it's the same group in Peter and so now we're over there, okay?

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Just in case, if the movement's a little fast for you. And all of its uses has to do with God's goodness,

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God's mercy, and God's love. Knowing that wicked people would put him to death, he died for them anyway.

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And that's the same way that it's used over in Romans chapter 11 and I might add that Romans chapter 9,

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Romans chapter 10, and Romans chapter 11 is about Israel. They're parenthetical chapters.

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Romans chapter 11, the greatest chapter in all of the New Testament that talks about Israel. Fifty -eight times

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Israel is referenced in Romans chapter 11. No other chapter in all the New Testament talks as much about Israel.

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And what does he say just after Romans chapter 10 verse 21? But to Israel he saith all day long,

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I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Keep in mind according to Isaiah 45,

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Israel is mine elect. And Israel is the one that put the Lord Jesus Christ to death there on the cross and refused as a nation and as the majority of the people to accept the

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Lord Jesus Christ even though they were elect. And I might add that Jesus chose 12 disciples, but according to John chapter 6 and verse 70, one of them that he chose was a devil.

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And interesting that we find in Romans chapter 11, I say then that... Now, I almost just want to let it keep going and going because it's just like you sit there going, what is going on here?

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But I have to stop there because you see, they really think this is, oh man, this is great.

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He's just, oh, he's beating them up here. And the other side is going, what is this? But you see, it again goes back to these guys are independent, fundamentalist,

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Baptist, King James only, radical dispensationalist. And they think this is good stuff because they're pointing out, well, you're understanding of elections.

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See, one of the things they're saying is election is never unto salvation. They do the Dave Hunt thing there.

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Don't worry about what Paul said about... And the amazing thing is Gip doesn't even seem to understand that election and choosing are like synonyms and so they need to be seen together.

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And it's this, there's one meaning. There's one meaning. And so if you find

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Israel being called God's elect, well, that just means that there can't really be an elect. I'm not sure who

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Paul said. I suffer all things the sake of the elect. But it just can't be because there can only be one meaning.

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Context is irrelevant to these men. It's absolutely amazing to listen to. Again, if God cast away

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His people, that's Israel, God forbid, for I'm also an Israelite of the seed of Abraham and the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away

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His people which He foreknew. He knew they were a disobedient and gainsaying people. He died for them anyway.

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That's the mercy and love of God that foreknowledge talks about. It's what He knew. And we are thankful that the

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Lord Jesus Christ died for us. He died for Israel. He died for every man in spite of what

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He knew about us. That is the atonement that the Lord Jesus Christ made possible once for all.

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I had to catch that. That is the atonement the Lord Jesus Christ did what? Made possible.

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Not accomplished. Made possible. You've got to understand, folks, that if you don't hold to a

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Reformed understanding of these things, you've got a theoretical atonement, not one that's actually accomplished.

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He made it possible. Now, you've got to get into it. You've got to believe. You've got to do your free will thing.

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But it's just a theoretical thing. He's made it possible, but He hasn't actually accomplished it.

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See? That's the difference. That's the difference. Okay.

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I guess that was the end of that sermon. Okay. Then, got one more here.

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Because like I said, I guess I forgot to find the cheap shot stuff that he was doing. But then, we have this.

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And this one, I was like, wow, really? I don't even know how to describe it.

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But we have the same Pastor Jeff here. Here, just listen.

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A great difference between Reformed theology and that which Baptists believe is the fact that Calvin, Augustine, Rome, the

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Protestants, they were trying to establish a kingdom here on Earth. And they wanted to make the

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Scriptures fit with that. It's interesting in Ezekiel 36, the Scripture that was just read, 25, then

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I'll sprinkle clean water upon you. You shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your... Now, let me stop just a minute.

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The Reformed guys had rightly brought up the fact that Ezekiel talks about taking out the heart of stone, giving the heart of flesh, sprinkling with clean water.

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That, of course, is the very background of John 3. But you see, these guys are dispensationalists.

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And, well, Jesus was talking to Nicodemus. He was a Jew. And this is before Matthew 21.

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In fact, that's what I missed somewhere. How did I miss that? Man, I thought I had marked this.

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Well, in one of the previous clips, I didn't let go long enough. That's a bummer because I really wanted to play this.

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They tried to get around John 6 by saying John 6 is in a dispensation only for Jews.

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Matthew 21 takes place between John 6 and John 12. And so in John 12,

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I will draw all men myself, is now the current hermeneutic that we should do, the current dispensation.

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So you can chop up John based on something you're understanding of Matthew 21.

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And so the John 6 stuff is only about the Jews. And John 12 is now for everybody.

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And I was going to play that. And I don't know where I lost it at. I apologize. It's in there somewhere.

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I had it queued up. But I just didn't let one of them go far enough. And it was the same fellow again. I guess I ended up doing

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Pastor Jeff more than anybody else because if you want... He did.

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He gave us more educational examples of really bad hermeneutics in ex -Jesus than Sam Giff did, which is saying a lot.

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It really is. I will cleanse you of a new heart also, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a new heart of flesh.

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And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. And this verse was not read.

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This is part of it. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your

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God. Covenant theology has its basis in replacement theology.

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They have to take the promises that God gave to Israel and apply them to themselves. Let's not worry about Paul talking about us being the true circumcision and stuff like...

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No, no, no. Let's skip over it. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul, and He did it through the shedding of His blood, but He didn't promise to give me any land down here.

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And I understand that the Bible uses the term new covenant four times in the

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Word of God. The first is in Jeremiah 31, and in Hebrews chapter 8, you'll find two times, once in Hebrews chapter 12.

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And the Bible says in Hebrews 8, verse 8, For finding fault with Him, He saith, Behold, the day is come, saith the

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Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

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Not with the church, not during this church age. It's yet in the future. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when

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I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the

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Lord, this is quoting from Jeremiah 31, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

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After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a

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God, and they shall be to me a people, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,

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Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. Now, that hasn't happened down here yet. Not everyone knows the

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Lord. It is a future time. New covenant only deals with Israel, and I will not steal

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God's promises to Israel and apply them unto myself. There you go, folks. There is no new covenant yet.

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Catch that? There is no new covenant yet. I would try to restrain myself and suggest maybe you might want to listen to the sermons we did in Hebrews 7, 8, 9, and 10 on this particular subject, but what does this result in?

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The utter and complete overthrow of the apologetic provided by the book of Hebrews.

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This is where, and I love my dispensationalist brothers and sisters that are listening right now, but this is where dispensationalism gets scary because it does not look at these texts of Scripture in the context in which they were originally written.

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It doesn't look at Hebrews as having meaning for the people to whom Hebrews was written. If Hebrews had no meaning to the

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Jewish Christians who were its first audience, why was it written? Well, it's just written for us today. No, it doesn't.

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Yes, we benefit from it, but it had a meaning in its day. It really did.

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And if it did not provide a meaningful argument to those people to not go back to the old ways, then it wasn't worth anything.

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And the entire argument of Hebrews, the entire argument is that the new covenant has come in the sacrifice of Christ.

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The old covenant is passing away. The new covenant has come. And to say, oh, it's just all future is to show such an incredible, either utter ignorance or complete disrespect for the original context of the book of Hebrews.

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It's just amazing. It rips the heart out of the entire argument of the book of Hebrews.

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All based on what? This man's eschatology, which nobody held before sometime in the 1800s.

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But they don't have any traditions. They've just got the Bible. Oh my, that's what's frightening about that kind of perspective is that they really, really believe that.

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And they are afraid of anyone who would say, guys, you're missing it. Guys, you don't see that you have been given this entire body of theology and it came from somewhere.

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And it's not just from the Bible. It came from somewhere and you've got to analyze where it came from.

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You really do. It's vitally important. So there you go.

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Like I said, I would like to have found some of the other quotes that I missed there, especially one of them with Gipp and then that thing about John 6.

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That's not relevant anymore because of Matthew 21. Then you go to John 12 and it's like, oh wow, just chopping the

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Bible. Hopefully it's been an education, folks, for how not to handle the

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Bible. It's not respectful to handle the Word of God in that way, in any way, shape, or form.

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You have to recognize the role of traditions in your theology. Thanks for listening, folks.

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Lord Willen will be back with you on Tuesday here on The Dividing Line. We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.