Steve Gregg vs. James White Debate: Part 5

A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing.

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

Hands standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

He died for all. Those who elected were selected. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers.

On earth is not his equal. I think

I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

Did we in moral strength confide, our striving would be losing.

But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever.

Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

Doomed before the womb? You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he.

Lord saw both his name. Read my book. From age to age the same.

And he must win the battle. And now from our underground bunker, hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, save from those mutter

Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say his own eternal glory.

And good afternoon, welcome to segment number five, the final segment of the debate on the doctrines of grace as normal.

We are doing a little fill here for another 50 seconds or so.

And then we will have a little whistling for a little while. And then

I really hope we can skip the bios. We've heard the bios so many times now. We don't need the bios.

But anyway, today cross -examination with time limits and rules.

Each person will have one minute to ask the question. The other person will have two minutes to respond. And then the questioner will have one minute to comment on the response.

And that will allow, I think, for depending on, you know, I suppose if you answer a question really, really, really quickly, we might get more than six rounds of that in, but at least six good questions and some discussion, but no talking over anyone.

That is the important part of doing cross -examination. So we should be getting started about now.

And here we go. The Host of the

Narrow Path The Host of the Narrow Path, Monday through Fridays at this same time. Usually it's an open line kind of a program where people call in and ask questions about the

Bible. But the past five broadcasts, including today's, have been occupied with a different kind of programming.

I've had as my guest a scholar, James White, who is a

Calvinist author and a Christian apologist, and he and I have been discussing the issues, at least some of the issues related to Calvinism, not very many of them, just a few have come up.

We have so limited time. But we are actually having something like a radio debate, and we're actually going to change the format of it today.

I'm going to turn it over to my timekeeper, Paul Spurlock, to explain what we're doing, and this will be our last day of this exchange between Dr.

White and myself. Thank you, Steve. Yes, and just a brief bio for those that are joining us for the first day. As Steve said, he's the host of the

Narrow Path radio broadcast. He is also the author of Revelation 4

Views, a very popular book, a commentary on the book of Revelation. He has a wealth of biblical knowledge, and it was no doubt developed by his yearly teachings through the

Bible at the school he founded. It's called the Great Commission School, and it was located in northern

Oregon, I believe. Steve is also a frequent Bible teacher all over the world with Youth With a

Mission, or YWAM, and we're glad to have him here today, of course. He is joined by Dr.

James White. Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. It's an apologetics -oriented ministry which provides many helpful resources and features the

Dividing Line radio and webcast. James is also an elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, a professor at Golden Gate Theological Seminary, and a critical consultant for the

New American Standard Bible. And finally, Dr. White is a frequent debater within the

Church and with those who hold other beliefs, most recently with Muslim apologists. He's also the author of many books, most notably in relative to this debate, debating

Calvinism with David Hunt, and The Potter's Freedom. So welcome, Dr.

White, to the program today. And yes, as Steve mentioned, we have a format change. For our fifth and final day, the debaters have agreed to a complete change.

Today, each debater will take turns with the following. First, they will get to ask a question, and it will have one minute to do so.

That will be followed by the other giving a response in which he will have two minutes to do so.

This will be followed by a final one -minute response by the one who posed the original question, taking a total of four minutes.

Dr. White, I think you had the last word yesterday, so are you comfortable with Steve starting us off today? Sure. You bet.

Okay, yeah, yeah, we need to bring your volume up there. All right, well, I can start out with a question here.

Dr. White, I've recently read your debating Calvinism book, in which you made a number of statements about the condition of people who go to hell.

For example, on page 19, you said, God is under no obligation to extend his grace to the rebel sinner, and every single person who enters into eternal punishment would, if given the opportunity, freely choose to remain under punishment rather than to bow the knee in loving adoration of the

God that they hate. On page 56, you said, if those who go to hell were given the choice in eternity to either love

God completely or return to punishment, every one of them would march right back into punishment. I've also heard you say many times that people in hell will stand on the parapet of hell screaming their eternal hatred toward God.

I wonder if this is the disposition of all the unbelievers that you've met, or if you're getting this from some passage in the

Bible. Of course, I'm referring to after the judgment where there's no longer any restraint that is placed upon individuals.

I believe that the Holy Spirit restrains the evil of men at this time, that in fact any good that comes forth from the heart of man is a part of what is called common grace, that it is

God's intention to not allow men to sink to the lowest level that they could sink, but instead

He restrains evil within them. He uses the law and the proclamation of His truth as one of the means by which

He restrains the evil of men, I think we see in our own culture. As that law becomes less and less heard in the ears of sinners, we're seeing more and more amazing displays of the depravity of man.

But the question assumes that I am seeing this in individuals as they live right now.

Actually, we only see the true depth of the hatred of man for God. Once in a while,

God does allow dommers and others to express their hatred toward God at certain times, so as to remind us of the depth of that depravity to hopefully shock us and keep us in restraint.

But those quotations that you gave for me are in reference to the fact that once the final judgment has taken place, there's no longer that restraint.

Man is left to express his hatred without any type of limitation, that it requires a change of the heart, to change a

God -hater into a God -lover. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit of God, and since that's not going to be happening with them in the eternal state, then that is the background of the statements that I've made about their standing upon the parapets of hell, screaming out their hatred toward God.

They can no longer do anything against him or his people. And so that is, I believe, one of the great elements of punishment itself, is that they recognize they cannot any longer do anything like that.

And so that comes from my understanding of the Holy Spirit's restraining work in the world today.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that. It doesn't seem to me that there's any particular scripture that tells us what you just said.

That is to say, the reference to, the only reason people aren't doing that right now is because of God's restraining grace.

That seems to be something your doctrines would tell you, perhaps a tradition of man. I don't know of anything in the scripture that says that men would be screaming out their hatred for God, every one of them, if God wasn't restraining them at this moment.

So I was wondering about that. I did misunderstand your statement, so I'm glad you clarified that.

I don't need to go any further with my response to his statement. Dr. White, did you want each of us to get several questions in a row?

It doesn't really matter to me. I would think that would probably be the best way to do it, probably allow me to ask a question now and just go back and forth.

That would be fine, go ahead. That would probably be the best way to do it. Okay. You didn't use full one minute, so I've got one minute to ask my question now.

Mr. White, you have in the past indicated that the apostle Paul could have resisted at least for a time, and I would assume completely, the drawing of the grace of God that converted him.

If then God can desire to save someone, plan to save someone, and use them in the foundational building of his church, and yet this not happen, does it not follow that God's knowledge of future events, his ability to give prophecy, and his ability to accomplish all of his will, is dependent in the final analysis upon the free will actions of his creatures?

Well, that's a good question. I don't think God's knowledge of the future is dependent on anything except what the future actually comes to hold.

Both openness theologians and Calvinists believe that if God knows the future, he must have determined it.

There is a third position, which non -Calvinists have historically held, in that God can passively know the future.

God can know what is going to happen without being the one who determines it. I realize that both openness theologians and Calvinists believe that's ridiculous, and perhaps it sounds philosophically ridiculous, but the

Bible does speak of God knowing what people will do, and it also speaks of them having choices, and not being fully determined.

And for that reason, Arminians have historically taken that position. But as far as my statement that Paul could have resisted,

I do believe Paul could have resisted. In fact, he did up to a certain point. When Jesus apprehended him, he said, it's hard for you to kick against the goats.

No doubt referring to goading that God was putting in Paul's heart prior to that time, and Paul had been kicking against it.

He finally did cave in, of course, when he had that magnificent revelation of Christ. But many people saw

Christ glorified in one way or another. He manifested his glory through his miracles, through raising of Lazarus, and many other ways, and many people did not believe in him.

A person can rebel, even when they see God manifest himself, and I believe that Paul could have done so too.

Now, what would have become of God's plan to plant all those churches? I have no doubt that God could raise up from these stones an apostle

Paul if he wished to, or at least find another man who would not be so obstinate. As it turned out, I believe that God knew that Paul would not be obstinate.

He knew that Paul would finally give in, and therefore he had plans for him and planned to use him in the ways that he did.

So that would be my answer to that particular question. Okay, my response to that would be that to Paul's own understanding,

I don't think would fit into this idea that, well, you know, he knew that I would be pliable, but that doesn't answer the question, could he have resisted?

If you say he could have resisted, then how would God know these things? This idea of God passively taking in knowledge introduces all sorts of problems with whether God could have true knowledge.

On what basis does he give prophecy? If he's only taking in passive knowledge, that means he created without knowing what the ends would be, or the ends were determined by someone else.

And even the apostle Paul himself said that it was God, but when God, in Galatians 1 .15,

who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach among the

Gentiles. This was a specific point in time. This was very much a part of the decree of God.

And as such, the idea that, well, it might have had to have happened ten years later, or maybe God had to give up and go with someone else,

I think runs directly against the flow of the text of Scripture at this point. Okay, I'm going to let the strength of that statement stand on its own weight.

Let's go to another point. In Ephesians chapter 2, and in Colossians chapter 2, Paul says that we're once dead in trespasses, or in Ephesians 2, he says dead in trespasses and sins.

You have said, and most Calvinists say, that this does not mean that the unbeliever or the unregenerate is spiritually passive or inactive.

In fact, he does a great number of active, rebellious things against God. But you said that dead in sin specifically means that that person cannot believe, cannot repent, cannot want to see

God. I've heard this stated by Calvinists many times. I just wonder, where is it that Paul defines this term this way?

Well, of course, he describes this deadness in Romans chapter 8, for example, when he contrasts those who are dead in sin with those who are alive, and contrasts the abilities, the likes, dislikes, predispositions of these two different groups he uses both in the spirit and not in the spirit, and then dead and alive.

So those who are in the flesh, for example, he uses in the same way in Romans 8, 7 -8, when he says that the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, etc.,

etc. Then he goes on to talk about the rest there. You have both of that in Romans 8, and then the parallel in Ephesians chapter 2, and of course

Colossians is just a parallel to the Ephesians. And so you have this assertion of spiritual deadness, and since it is very clear that the same writers then do speak of man's rebellion, man's love of his sin, his twisting of God's truth, in Romans chapter 1 it is said that man suppresses the truth and unrighteousness.

These are all activities of the spirit reflecting a person who is at enmity with God and is refusing to recognize

God as his creator and is twisting that relationship. And so the need for resurrection, spiritual resurrection, so as to be a

God lover, so as to be obedient to the law of God, to find the light in the law of God, all the things that Romans 8, 7 -8 says those who are according to the flesh cannot do because they are hostile toward God.

Those who are in the spirit love to do. They love to be subject to the law of God. They love to please him. They love to place themselves in that situation.

And that is their highest priority and their highest goal. So it is a description of, it flows from the description of what the spiritual man is over against the non -spiritual man who is hostile toward God.

He is God's enemy. Thank you Dr. White. Okay, thank you for that clarification.

I personally would wish to point out that while it is true that Romans 8 does talk about the condition of the natural man, it does not use the term dead in trespasses and sins and it might very well be saying something different about the natural man than Paul is saying in another passage when he calls him dead in trespasses and sins.

To speak of somebody as dead, it seems to me, in sin would be similar to what is meant when the prodigal son's father said of his son, my son was dead, but is now alive.

My son was lost, but now he's found. It sounds like his son was dead in his sins at one point.

And yet the prodigal son is described by Jesus as having the full ability to repent as soon as he came to his senses.

Of course, that's not the only information we have, but we don't have very many cases in the Bible of someone being said to be dead in that sense.

So we have Colossians, we have Ephesians, then we have the prodigal son. I don't know of any other cases, but I personally think that Romans 8 is actually addressing a different issue than being dead in trespasses and sins, but I'm out of time for that, and so it's your turn to ask me a question.

All right, thank you. Mr. Gregg, Romans 3 .19 tells us that God has placed all the world,

Jews and Gentiles, without distinction, under accountability before him for sin. Every mouth the text says has been closed, and only upon making this claim does

Paul launch into the gospel of grace through faith in Jesus Christ. To make his point, Paul strung together in Romans 3 .10

-18 a number of texts from different contexts, all about specific groups of evil men in history, to make a final concluding point, that being the universal sinfulness of man.

Was Paul misusing these texts? And if not, please explain his methodology in light of your comments on Romans 1 from yesterday.

Okay, I consider that my comments on Romans 1 were simply... I didn't get to take my position very far because we got interrupted, but I believe that I was just saying that Romans 1 tells us that there are people who suppress the truth, but he's not telling us there that all people do it.

My opinion is that he's trying to make a case against the Jews, and trying to point out that the Jews are really the ones who knew

God and who suppressed the truth and whom God has given over to reprobation, because they knew God and they suppressed the truth about God.

Now, I'm not denying that Gentiles also do, so I'm simply trying to follow Paul's argument and say, you know, many things may be true of Gentiles, but Paul may not be talking about those things.

In chapter 3 of Romans, he does list together a series of verses from Psalms and one from Isaiah, which are talking about how sinful people are.

After he lists these verses, he says in verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, and he means these verses he's just quoted, it says to those who are under the law, in other words, the

Jews. So he's telling us, I believe, that these verses are being used by Paul to point out that the

Jews, that David and Isaiah are talking about, they're Jewish countrymen who are in this condition.

Now again, I'm not denying that Gentiles are this way too, but Paul's point, I think, is to illustrate that Jewish people are as sinful as Gentile people.

That Gentiles are sinful, I think, goes without saying. His Jewish audience knew that. He's trying to convince the

Jew that the Jew is just as bad, and no better. There's nothing in those quotes that he uses in verses 10 through 18 that would teach the

Calvinist doctor of total depravity, with the exception, perhaps, of the phrase, there's none that seeks after God.

However, David is describing there a condition of some people who he says in the next line, they have gone out of their way.

That is, they've gone the wrong way. They've turned astray from an earlier position. And so I don't think he's talking about the birth condition of people, but he's just describing the fact that Jews can be just as wicked as Gentiles.

And that's where Paul's, I think, trying to argue. Okay, I would just respond by pointing out that Paul himself interprets his own words in saying that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

He's including in that both Jews and Gentiles. And when he says that every mouth may be closed, all the world may become accountable to God, it is difficult to follow the flow of Paul's thought to say, well, all of this is just about first century

Jews or Jews in that particular point in time. There is no question that he does demonstrate the sinfulness of the

Jews. But he's writing to the Romans, and it was not the Jewish question that was the only question to deal with when writing to the

Church of Rome. And so, since he himself makes the application that Jews and Gentiles both stand before God, and they stand before God on the exact same plane as condemned sinners, the idea that there are people who are not described by the universal sinfulness of man in those texts,

I think falls without support. Okay, my turn. First of all,

I certainly would not suggest that there are people who have not sinned. And I believe that when Paul says all have sinned, he means all people,

Jews and Gentiles, certainly have sinned. Is that a question? I'm moving toward the question here.

I want to continue to talk about this same passage, I think you often use the passage in verse 11 of Romans 3 that there's none who seeks after God, there's none who understands.

And this is, I think, one of your main ways of arguing that the unbeliever cannot seek after God.

But I believe that the passage is using hyperbole. I think you disagree with me on that. But in the same psalm, the writer talks about people who are righteous and would no doubt include himself among the righteous.

So, it seems clear that he's not speaking absolutely. In fact, he does use other hyperbole. He says, but we could eat up my people like bread.

That's certainly a hyperbole. I think the psalm is full of hyperbole. But in saying that there's none who understands, none seeks after God, he certainly acknowledges there are exceptions.

Well, again, I would simply point out what the apostle's own purpose is.

And I think that is what I would direct the listeners to as well, to go back and ask the question, what is the apostle's purpose?

What is his own interpretation of his own words? And what would the original audience of these letters have understood?

When Paul begins this long catena of passages in 3 .10 -18, what is he going toward?

What is his intention? Yes, he has just discussed the privileges of the Jews and things like that.

But then he's demonstrating the faithfulness of God. And to get into the gospel, he then introduces these texts.

Now, it seems like what we were just told is, well, okay, you need to go back to the individual context of each one of these texts and then limit its application to that original context.

Is that what the apostle did? Or did the apostle, in verse 19, interpret his own collection of these texts?

This is really going back to exactly the question that I asked. Was Paul misusing these texts? Because his own conclusion is that all the world may be held accountable before God, that every mouth may be stopped.

Now, if there are righteous people who are righteous outside of the special work of the Spirit of God in making them righteous, and they don't fit in here, then where are they discussed?

And why does Paul make the wrong application in stating that all the world becomes accountable before God in light of what has been stated in these verses?

Yes, I do believe that there is none who seeks for God. I believe that men seek after all sorts of things other than God.

They seek after all sorts of benefits of God without God. I do not believe, however, that any man, when seeing the holiness of God, goes toward that holiness unless they have been changed by the work of the

Spirit of God within them in regeneration. Okay, well, you know, that's interesting because I believe that I'm following Paul's thought here, too.

So we really just are disagreeing about how Paul is using the passage. I don't think Paul uses the passage differently than the psalmist meant it.

And I certainly didn't say that there's a group of people somewhere who are righteous apart from God, as you suggested my view might be.

I'm simply raising the question of whether there's people who seek God. There might be people who are not righteous, but who are seeking

God and who might find Him. Paul said that God set things up that people might grope after God and find

Him because He's not far from any of us. And I think that there are people who seek after God even prior to being regenerated.

That would be my understanding, anyway. I'll go ahead and turn it back over to you. Okay, in Romans 8, 34, we are told that Christ intercedes for the elect of God and this is why there can be no condemnation of them.

In Hebrews 7, 25, we are told Jesus is able to save Aista Pontellos, that is, completely, all because of His always living to make intercession for them.

Since intercession is part of the work of the high priest, could you explain whether you believe Jesus is interceding for all men individually who have ever lived or ever will live, including all who will endure

God's wrath, and if so, how this can be made consistent with the claims of Romans 8 and Hebrews 7?

Well, no, I don't think the Bible teaches that Jesus makes intercession for all men. When Paul talks about Jesus' intercession,

I think he's talking about Christ's intercession for the unity and the sanctity of the body of Christ. In the book of John, in chapter 17,

Jesus makes a prayer for His people. In that prayer, He says, I don't pray for the world, I just pray for those that you've given to me here.

But, of course, the prayer He's praying there is not about who will be saved and who won't be saved, He's praying to those who are already saved about them, and He's saying that He prays that they'll be one and that they'll be sanctified through the truth and things like that.

That's exactly the kind of intercession I think that Romans and Hebrews both talk about. In Hebrews, where it says

He's able to save to the uttermost, because He doesn't die, He lives forever at intercede, I think what

He's saying is, okay, He doesn't just save us through the door, He can save us all the way to the total salvation to the end.

He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to Him. So that's clearly, of course,

Him interceding for only His people there. Now, whether Jesus ever prayed for the lost, any other kinds of prayers in His lifetime,

I don't know. Paul tells us to pray for all men, including rulers, and we know that not all rulers are saved, and probably not all of them are elect.

So I believe that prayer for unbelievers is not inappropriate, but as far as the intercession of Christ, on the few occasions that the

Bible makes mention of it, it does talk about His intercession for His people, for their sanctity, for their unity, for their eventual success in the

Christian life. And so, of course, He wouldn't pray those things for people who aren't Christians. I wondered if your question is implying that since Jesus doesn't intercede for the unbelievers,

He doesn't want them to be saved. That would be a conclusion I would not draw from the answer I just gave.

Okay, I'm a little confused, because if a person rejects eternal security or the perseverance of the saints, then it sounds like you just affirmed that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those individuals drawn near unto

God through Him. But my primary concern is the fact that the act of intercession is a part of the work of the high priest.

The high priest offers his sacrifice, and then he presents that before the throne of God. And so if he is not interceding for every single individual, then his sacrifice was not offered for every single individual, which, of course, is the concept of particular redemption, which is what

Reformed people believe, that there is a perfect unity between the intention of God and the sacrifice of the

Son, and the intercession that is His, because it is His appearance before the Father in our place that guarantees our salvation.

And so that is the reason for the question, as it was asked. All right, my turn to ask a question.

When you bring up that Jesus didn't die for everybody, it raises an interesting question, and that would be about God's will and His love for all people.

I just have a question, a very simple one. According to your self -described Calvinistic belief system, do you believe there is any sense in which

God wills the eternal salvation of the non -elect that hear the gospel call? Does God, in other words, simply not have any interest in their salvation?

Or is there any sense in which He wills that all men would be saved, even the non -elect? Well, that was a very confusing question, because you said, does

God will that the lost hear the gospel call? And then you said, does

He will their salvation? Those are two different things, because... No, I'm sorry. Let me clarify that, and you can start over again with your answer. We'll start your time again.

Here's what I said. I'm reading it. According to your self -described Calvinistic belief system, do you believe there is in any sense in which

God wills the eternal salvation of the non -elect that hear the gospel call? So I didn't ask, does

He want them to hear the gospel call? I'm talking about the non -elect who hear it. Does He, in any sense, will for them to be saved?

I've never heard of a distinction between the non -elect who hear and the non -elect who do not, to be perfectly honest with you.

And from a reform perspective, there wouldn't be any real differentiation between the two that I could see as far as having any relevance to that particular question.

But if you're asking, do I believe that there is a salvific intention on the part of God in His will to save those that He then does not exercise sufficient power to save, that He does not give the

Son in their behalf, He does not send the Spirit to bring them to spiritual life and grant to them the gifts of faith and repentance, then certainly not.

The idea of the salvific work of the Spirit of God and the decree of their salvation is specific and it is for the elect and the number of the elect are known unto

God, not passively, but actively as He is the creator of all things. And so as a result, from the very beginning,

God's knowledge is perfect on that matter. There is nothing in the elect or the non -elect that either draws the grace of God or makes someone better than someone else, anything along those lines at all.

And so the idea of a universal salvific will is different, however, than what that's normally confused with, and that is, since the

Church is not given knowledge of who the elect are, we proclaim the gospel universally to all men, not knowing who the elect are, leaving the results in God's hands, trusting the

Spirit of God will make that message come alive in the hearts of His people. And many of the objections that I hear are based upon the assumption that we somehow can know who the elect are and hence would in some way limit the proclamation, limit the call to repentance, and therefore no longer be used of God as the means by which

He brings that life -giving message to His elect people. All right.

Well, that's something I just wanted to hear you say. That's fine. You don't believe that God in any sense wants to save those who are the non -elect.

Though He does want them to be preached to, apparently, so that they'll receive the greater damnation, as if they need it more.

I mean, it seems to me that Calvinism teaches that if people are born damned and they're already as damned as they can be, that they'll,

I guess, get hotter hell if they've heard the Gospel, even though they had no opportunity to, no real genuine option of receiving it.

It's a different sense of justice that I think most humans and most Christians feel comfortable with.

But I know that you would probably consider that human sense of justice, including that that Christians hold, maybe isn't the same as God's.

Okay, you can ask me a question after that. 2 Timothy 1 .9 speaks of those who have been saved by God as those who are called with a holy calling, yet this calling did not come to them because of what they did, but in contrast came to them according to God's own purpose and grace.

Yet Paul says this grace was given or granted to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.

Could you explain how grace can be granted to a specific group of people from all eternity if there is no specific identifiable decree to save a specific people, that is, the elect of God?

Yeah, well, when you mention the elect of God as a specific people, I realize that you're talking about a specific number to which nothing can be added or subtracted as the category of the elect.

As I've explained in my lectures that you've heard, I believe that the term the elect simply refers to those who are in Christ, whoever they may be at any given time.

But Christ is the elect one, and those who are in Him are elect in Him. And certainly

God, before the world began, elected to give to all who are in Christ all the grace and the glory and all the things that the

Bible says belong to the elect. That was something God decided before the earth was created. So I have no problem with that.

I guess the idea of corporate election is difficult for a lot of people to understand. I think of it sort of like this.

If I would say, you know, our church choir was selected to perform at the

White House, well, that's a great privilege. Our choir was chosen to this great privilege of singing at the

White House. That doesn't mean the White House decided who would be in our choir. Our choir director might determine that, or some members of the choir might choose to drop out, or new people might choose to join.

It's the choir as a whole that has been chosen. It's whoever may be in it is another issue.

And so the election was made that the choir, this choir, not another choir, will play for the president.

Other factors determine who will be in the choir. And I believe that's true concerning Christ as well. God has elected

Christ. He is the chosen one. And, you know, he's the chosen vine.

The branches remain in him or they don't remain in him according to different considerations.

Jesus said if a branch doesn't abide in him, it's going to be carried away and burned and withered up. But if branches do abide in him, they'll continue to experience the blessings of being in the vine.

And so that would be our way of answering that question. Thank you. Well, I can only with respect say that there was no answer given to the text because what we just saw again was direct objects in the original language being turned into indirect objects and vice versa.

He saved us. Us is a direct object. Called us to a holy calling. Not because of works, but because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

It's us. It doesn't say he gave this grace to Christ. It doesn't say he gave this grace to a general group of people, a choir.

Why would grace have to be given except to individuals who are in need of grace? See, this is where Christian salvation becomes a depersonalized concept when you simply cannot allow for the idea that God would choose to give his grace, his undeserved grace, to rebel sinners in eternity past.

But that is the direct assertion of 2 Timothy 1 .9. Well, I wish

I could answer that, but I have to ask you a question. Us is a direct object.

That is correct, but that's irrelevant to my point. But we'll go somewhere else with that. Let's go to Matthew 23 .37

which is one of the big three that you like to talk about. It is your view that when Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you're the kill of the prophets and those who are sent to you.

How many times I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not. That Jerusalem, Jerusalem is referring to the leaders of Jerusalem, is it not?

And that the children that Jesus would have drawn is referring to the populace of Jerusalem, excluding the leaders.

And so that Jesus wanted to draw the children of Jerusalem, or maybe the general populace,

I'm not sure, maybe just the elect. And the leaders of Jerusalem would not permit this.

I'm wondering if you can justify this particular interpretation from the context and from any other exegetical grounds.

Yes, most assuredly. The text is specifically referring, of course, in Matthew 23 to the condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees, the leaders of Jerusalem.

Matthew 23 .37 is one of the summary statements of that. Many of their sins are listed in this very, very difficult text.

Difficult not to interpret, but difficult because it is the strongest language ever found in the lips of the Lord. And in verse 13, we have an echo of the same concept we find in verse 37.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people, for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

And so the condemnation, the great condemnation that would show itself, especially in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, is seen as having, as part of its most heinous element, the fact that the

Jewish leaders had sought to stand against the prophets of old. You can see this in what happens with Jeremiah.

Just read the prophecy of Jeremiah, what happens to him over and over again in regards to the leadership of Jerusalem. And that this had continued even to the point where the

Son of God himself enters into human flesh and walks the streets of Jerusalem. The reason

I address Matthew 23 .37 is primarily because of its gross misuse over and over again of people saying, ah, you see in verse 37, which by the way, this isn't even a salvation passage.

He's not talking about that. He's talking about this is a destruction oracle against Jerusalem. And they want to take out the term the children and say, how often

I want to gather you, but you would not, and therefore we see that God cannot save anybody unless they synergistically cooperate, et cetera, et cetera.

And that, of course, is not what Jesus said. We need to at least understand that the condemnation that he is uttering here in Matthew 23 .37

has to do with their standing in the way of the proclamation of the truth and in so doing, seeking to bring people under their own influence and that was a sinful influence for that they are judged.

To my mind, that's not a valid interpretation. I believe that Jerusalem does not refer to the

Scribes and Pharisees. It was not they. The Scribes and Pharisees didn't kill the prophets. They didn't even exist as movements at the time when the prophets lived.

But they did try to prevent people from going into the kingdom. In fact, Jesus said they succeeded in preventing them.

It says, you do not allow those who are entering in to go in. But there were people apparently drawn into the kingdom or on their way in, and the

Scribes and Pharisees did stop them. But Jerusalem and the children of Jerusalem are synonyms. And this is true when you use the term children of Zion, children of Israel, children of Jerusalem, anywhere in Scripture.

They're just a reference to the people who were the populace of that city. True, the leaders of the city are particularly palpable.

But in Luke chapter 19, Jesus said that Jerusalem was destroyed and her children within her, meaning 70

AD. So the children apparently didn't come even though Jesus wished to draw them under his wings like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.

That sounds like salvation to me. Okay, 1

Peter chapter 2 verse 8 speaks of the stumbling of disbelievers at the proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ.

Peter says, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Given your repeated statement that you see no eternal decree of God relating to salvation, could you please explain what

Peter means when he says that these disbelievers were destined to disobey the word?

How does this determine the shape of your theology? I believe that what is destined is that those who stumble at the word will perish or that they will die.

Because they stumble at the word, they are doomed. And God has destined that those who stumble at the word will be doomed.

There's another possibility. You'll have to tell me because I don't have my Greek inner linear here right with me now.

But if the word destined is really used here, is that the same word that means to be marked out or to be marked out before which is what predestined

I think means. If so, Peter sometimes tells us that there are people that were previously predicted to fall away.

That is that there would be false teachers. There would be people who would stumble at the word. And as such, it can be said of them that they were marked out before for this condemnation.

You know, so my own thought is that yes, the Bible has always indicated that there are people who will stumble at the word and people who will perish because they stumble at the word.

That is not to my mind saying that God is the one who determines that everyone who stumbles will stumble. I can see the way it's worded in our text, how it can easily be understood that way.

In fact, I'm very much familiar with the passage of course. But I don't personally believe that it is saying that they were destined to be disobedient.

They stumble because they're disobedient and that's a stumbling that God determined would happen for those who were disobedient.

It could be that He's referring back to Isaiah chapter 8 where it says that He's going to lay in Zion a stumbling stone, or He doesn't say

I'll lay in Zion, but He says that Jesus would be a stumbling stone for the unbelievers. Well, and that's exactly what

Peter quotes in the previous verse or in that same verse. So it sounds like He's saying that they were appointed to stumble because they were disobedient.

They stumbled being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed. Well, were they appointed to being disobedient or to stumbling because they were disobedient?

In my mind, I think that's ambiguous and therefore I know you don't like me to use the word ambiguous because you believe some things are.

Dr. White, your response? Yeah, well, again, I would direct people to the text itself and I criticized

Mr. Gregg on this point last year because there is a difference between saying that they were destined to do something, that is, to stumble in disobedience and saying, well, they were destined to be punished because they stumbled in disobedience.

And the text is fairly straightforward in what it's saying here and a person may not like it but this takes us back to, once again, from whence do we derive our theology?

Do we derive our theology from the comfortable passages? And when we encounter passages that are not comfortable, we just say that they are ambiguous and we don't know.

I didn't hear anything about why the text itself is ambiguous, what the antecedents were, what's being referred to.

I just heard the statement, well, it might mean this, but looking at the text, I don't see where that came from and that's what

I would direct other people to as well. Okay, you don't see where it came from, that's okay.

Hopefully others will look at the text and they can see it. What should we talk about next here? I was interested in something you said in one of your, well, let me do this.

In the Scripture, the Bible always says that people prepare their hearts or don't prepare their hearts to seek

God and in fact it says the preparation of the heart belongs to man though the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

It sounds like the Bible puts the obligation on people to prepare their hearts to seek the Lord. If you look up every verse that talks about that, you would say that people cannot prepare their hearts to seek the

Lord. So how is it that the preparation of the heart actually does belong to man and that God says that people do prepare their hearts to seek the

Lord? Well, of course, he's talking to those who are the followers of God in those contexts and he is instructing us.

All Christians have to be instructed regularly to prepare their hearts to seek the Lord. Every Lord's Day we instruct people to be considering the coming

Lord's Day and to prepare themselves for worship. How can anyone not have from God a word as to how they should live as Christian people if there are not exhortations to do these things?

And so, the idea that, well, if you give exhortations direction as to how people are to live, how they are to prepare their hearts or anything like that, that means that everyone therefore has that capacity by nature within themselves.

That's the unwarranted leap. That's where you go beyond recognition of the whole character and the whole counsel of God because it is the very same scriptures that quote, for example, people saying, why have you hardened our hearts?

Why have you placed in these situations? You have God not even keeping one king from following his quote, unquote, free will and hence engaging in sin.

You have him hardening not only the heart of Pharaoh but you have him hardening entire nations hearts so they might be destroyed all in regards to his purposes with Israel.

So you have all of that that has to be brought together and kept in one place and if someone is going to say, well, actually, you know, those who are the enemies of God, those who stand opposed to God, who do not bow the knee today before Jesus Christ or bow the knee before their creator, they worship pagan gods or whatever it might be, they still possess within themselves this ability somehow to shluff these chains of slavery to sin off and do what is pleasing before a holy

God. If the holy prophet Isaiah could stand before God in the holy place in Isaiah chapter 6 and his immediate response was,

I am undone when he sees the holiness of God, how much more would that be the undoneness of those pagans who continue rebelling against God?

Okay, so when the Bible tells people to prepare their heart toward God and even condemns some people and it says because he did not prepare his heart to seek the

Lord, you say this is about people who are already believers. I don't see that.

I see that people who are believers and people who are not believers are both referred to in reference to their culpability or their reward for having prepared their heart or not preparing their heart.

So it sounds like it's kind of a general thing about people and like I said, Proverbs 16 .1 says the preparations of the heart belong to man.

That sounds generic, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. So I guess I'm not going to accept your answer, but that's okay.

Go ahead and ask me another question. If, as you seem to have indicated, the words the

Lord in John 6 were relevant only to first century Jews, the remnant, who had already given themselves to God, could you comment on what in John or any of the

Gospels would still be relevant to us today? Could not the hermeneutic of it was only relevant to the original audience be applied to John 3 .16,

John 5 .24, the promises of heaven, and John 14 .17? Couldn't we say that even John 21, and it's called to believe in Jesus and have life in his name, is only relevant to the first century

Jewish remnant? If not, why not, how can we determine? Well, that's a question

I would think you would know the answer to, because certainly as an exposer of scripture, you know that there are things that are stated to individual people that don't apply to everybody.

There are things that are stated to individual groups that don't apply to everybody, and there are things that apply more generally.

There's a lot of canons of interpretation that we have to employ about that, and I think that especially one of them would be if something is repeated to every audience, then it's most likely to be a universal truth, and especially if there's any places in the

Bible that say it's a universal truth, like the need to be justified by faith is everywhere in scripture consistently said to be true of all people, and the need to repent and so forth.

What is not said of any people in particular outside of the gospel of John is that they had been given to Christ by the

Father, and all I have pointed out is that Jesus Himself uses that term and tells us in chapter 17 in verse 6 of John that those who are given to Him by the

Father that He's referring to are the ones that belonged to the Father before. He said, they were yours and you gave them to Me.

He does not say they were the children of the devil and God gave them to Him, but they were

God's people already, and so we know in the Jewish context of Jesus' ministry, there was a transition time.

The believing remnant of Israel that was there throughout all the generations was there then, too, and they were already

God's people, and when the Messiah came, just as the believing remnant of previous generations recognized the prophets and followed them, so the believing remnant of Jesus' generation recognized

Him and came to Him and He saw that His God, the Father, is transferring the leadership of the people that were

God's followers under Moses to be now God's followers under Jesus. He's given them to Jesus to be

His sheep for Him to lead them. So, I mean, that's what I believe the passage is best understood to teach as far as how you know when other passages don't.

Well, there's certainly lots of canons of interpretation to be consulted about that. Well, I'm not sure what canons of interpretation would be able to answer the question as to when we dismiss promises as being universal when we don't.

The idea that, well, these are God's people. Well, who determines that? If you look at Romans 8, Jesus makes the action of God determinative of that, not the action of men, whereas you're making it these are the ones who had already remnant, they had already come to God, and so now

God the Father is transferring them to Jesus. It seems to me and to many other people that you have the very same parallel that is found, for example, in this section in 2

Timothy chapter 1 where you have grace given to individuals, to those that God has saved from all eternity.

That would be the same people the Father has given unto the Son, and hence the promise that the

Son will never fail to save those that are given to Him in John chapter 6. And please, I point out,

John chapter 6 says if anyone looks to the Son, they have eternal life. I believe the Christian church has always taken that to be a universal promise, not one limited to first century

Jews. Amen. I agree with you there. All right, my turn to ask a question. Now, if the doctrine of total depravity is true and people cannot believe unless God gives them special grace to do so,

I wonder why is it that we read of God hardening people's hearts? It seems like the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and other hearts is to prevent them from doing the right thing, from making the right choice, to prevent them from believing or whatever.

And likewise, Jesus told His disciples that the reason He spoke to the crowds in parables is because He didn't want them to understand lest they should turn and their sins would be forgiven them.

In other words, Jesus felt He had to use parables to prevent people from repenting if He didn't want them to.

If He didn't want them to turn, He had to hide the truth from them because they might otherwise turn and be forgiven.

So we've got the hardening of people's hearts, we've got the concealing of the truth in parables. Why are these things necessary if people can't repent unless God gives them a special grace of repentance?

Well, of course, the first answer to that is that both repentance and faith are specifically described in Scripture as the gifts of God.

They are the work of the Spirit of God, and as such, we didn't get into those texts but would need to to establish the fact that if these are described as the work of the

Spirit of God, then you can have true and false repentance, you can have true and false faith. We know that's the case as well.

We know there are many apostates who had just a surface -level confession of faith in Christ.

John tells us they went out from us so it might be demonstrated that they were not truly of us. And so you have both those who have false confessions of faith and true confessions of faith, those who have false repentance and true repentance, and of course, that which is born by the

Spirit of God is that which is true. But it is interesting that you would bring up these sections because they are normally very much on the lips of Calvinists because they do demonstrate the fact that God brings judgment upon people.

You mentioned Pharaoh, for example. Why would you harden Pharaoh's heart? Well, sometimes sinners will do the right thing to get out from underneath judgment.

That doesn't mean their hearts have been changed but if I've got frogs leaping all over me or lice or darkness or boils or, you know, the list is a long one,

I'm just going to try to save my skin. And if that means bowing the knee before God, not, of course, out of a true and loving heart, but just to try to stop this stuff,

I'm going to do so. And so it's interesting that God does not allow that to happen. I'm not sure what that means about libertarian free will or anything else,

I don't know. But the parables are the same thing. This is part of judgment coming upon these people and God hardens their hearts by not giving them the full message that is given to them.

The question is then asked, well, why would he need to because it sounds like they would simply have the ability to just do these things, that they would all just be good, wonderful people and of themselves and they would repent if they just heard the truth.

Again, that's taking an extension from that statement and ignoring the clear statements of Scripture that that's not, in fact, what the natural man could ever do.

Well, I'm not sure that's clearly stated anywhere else, but the thing is that when Mark talks about this or when it's in Mark chapter 4, verse 12,

Jesus did this lest they should turn, which means otherwise they might turn and their sins would be forgiven.

So it's not worried about false faith. They're talking about a turning that would actually lead to their forgiveness of sins.

And he had to do this lest they would do this or else they might. As far as hardening, I always thought that in Romans chapter 9 where Paul said whom he has compassion and whom he has compassion and whom he wills he hardens, that hardening the heart is taken by Calvin is to refer to hardening against salvation.

I thought Romans 9 was talking about salvation there of Pharaoh and so forth in your book.

So I don't quite accept this explanation. It seems to me that God is still trying to harden some people and hide the truth from some people because they are under judgment.

Now as far as libertarian free will, no Armenian believes that God lets people do everything they want. God does judge some people and these are instances of that.

Okay, are we out of time? It's five minutes till. Almost. I don't think we have time for another complete cycle.

So James, I just give you, we're going to have to sign off in about a minute and a half. Why don't you take the next minute and summarize since this is our last opportunity to hear from you.

Alright. Well, I do believe this is a vitally important issue because it will determine not only the form of our evangelism but also the very faith that we will seek to defend.

The Christian church is under attack from every direction. The days of our freedom of speech, I think even in western democracies are coming to an end.

We have the attack of secularism. We have the attack of Islam. And the Christian faith needs to be clary and clear in its proclamation as to who

God is and what His requirements are. And so I truly believe that a consistent hermeneutic that will defend the deity of Christ, the

Trinity, the resurrection, likewise has to deal with these texts and cannot simply dismiss them as being ambiguous.

That's why I engage in this discussion and I truly hope that the listeners will likewise focus very clearly upon what the inspired word of God says.

Thank you for this opportunity. I want to thank both of our debaters for joining us for five days.

Very good gentlemen. And just remember or just a reminder for our listening audience, I encourage you all to go to both the respective debaters' websites.

You can download all kinds of teachings. They have terrific resources. Steve's is

TheNarrowPath .com. Dr. White's is AOMIN. That's short for Alpha and Omega Ministries .org.

AOMIN .org. Again, thank you gentlemen. I hope people take advantage of your resources. Continue to study and learn.

And now Steve, take it. All right. And thank you for listening to The Dividing Line today.

I think we had in that last hour an excellent example of why there need to be debate rules.

You will notice, I think, that pretty much every subject that Mr. Gregg wanted to get to yesterday, we were able to get to in today's time.

And with clarity, with no one talking over anybody else, and that's how it needs to be done. And the mistake

I made yesterday is I should have immediately thought of that instead of the last two minutes of the program thinking of that. I should have immediately said, hey, let's stop right now and let me suggest this.

This is what we used in the last debate that I was in. Let's see how that would work. And that,

I think, would have helped out a lot. But I wasn't thinking along those lines. I still had one question.

I think that might have worked out to one question extra for Steve, but that's fine. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

I think we covered a wide range of topics. And I think hopefully, thankfully, the last day might undo some of the damage of the second day as far as that is concerned.

I will say that in looking at some of the things that have been posted over on certain portions of the internet, it is very disappointing to see the level of ad hominem personal attacks that have been posted there.

I certainly have no interest in that kind of stuff. I think we need to focus upon what the text says. And if someone's misrepresented the text, then that needs to be pointed out.

But I don't think you need to be going after individuals on a personal basis to do that kind of thing. I would just let folks examine their hearts as to their motivations along those lines.

All right. Tomorrow, we will have open phones at our regular time, our Thursday afternoon time, 4 p .m.

Pacific Daylight Time is when we will be on, taking your phone calls on this subject and other things.

We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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