February 5, 2024 Show with Keith Foskey on “The Calvinism of Martin Luther” PLUS Michael Shultz on “Calvinism & the Love of God”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this fifth day of February 2024.

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I initially want to just give another big heartfelt thanks, word of thanks, to my

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners for praying for my brother Andy, who was taken from his nursing home several days ago to the hospital because he had dangerously life -threatening low levels of oxygen that had a lot to do with his aspirating food and liquid, which is when food and liquid gets into your lungs and most often and very often leads to pneumonia.

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And they prevented my brother from eating and drinking the entire day yesterday.

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I visited him in the hospital, urged the doctors and the nurses to reconsider their strict protocol because my brother felt like he was being tortured.

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They gave in, they gave him food and drink, although it was the pureed food and thickened liquid diet that he hates, but it was still nourishment.

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And today, after visiting him, he is a lot better. There was no negative result from feeding him.

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And he is being, God willing, released and returned to the nursing home tomorrow.

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So thank you so much. Keep praying for my brother, especially in regard to salvation, but also for his physical well -being.

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Well, we have a double -header today. We have two pastors who are theologically reformed, and they are also both speaking at the open -air theology conference coming up later this month in Tullahoma, Tennessee on the theme,

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Why Calvinism? And for the first hour, we have to do that very thing, to promote that conference.

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We have Pastor Keith Foskey, a dear friend of mine, who is one of the pastors at Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

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And his topic today will be the Calvinism of Martin Luther, a subject that has always fascinated me.

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In the second hour, we're going to be joined by Michael Schultz, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church of Lewisburg, Kentucky, and associate professor of church history at Forge Theological Seminary.

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And he's going to be addressing Calvinism and the love of God. Gee, is there such a thing? Is that an oxymoron?

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That's what I've always heard. But anyway, first of all, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, my dear friend,

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Pastor Keith Foskey. Well, Chris, thanks for having me on again. I'm looking forward to our conversation today and looking forward to the conference.

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So thanks so much for having us. First of all, explain briefly, as you can, the fine congregation where you pastor,

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Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville, Florida. Yes, sir.

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I am, as you said, I'm one of the three elders here at Sovereign Grace Family Church, and I serve as the preaching pastor.

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And I have been the pastor here since 2006. I'm in my 18th year serving this congregation, and we are a

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Reformed Baptist church. We hold to the First London Confession, which is the 1646 edition of that confession.

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And so that sometimes brings an eyebrow or two when people hear that we're not holding to the 1689 confession.

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So if anybody's interested in knowing why, they can go to our website at sgfcjax .org and they can see an article that I've written on the subject of the confession and why we hold to the

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First London Confession. And that's, as I said, I serve with two other elders,

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Pastor Andy Vontouro, who you're friends with Chris, who you introduced us and we became good friends and he now serves here, and Pastor Michael Collier.

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So that's our church here in the Oceanway area of Jacksonville. Yes. And in fact,

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I know that I've said this before on the show when I've had you on, but Pastor Andy was, before I was married to my wife, my late wife,

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Julie, who is now in heaven for over a decade now, Pastor Andy was one of my late wife's pastors,

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First Baptist Church of Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, before he moved to Florida. But please extend to him my warm and loving greetings in Christ.

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If anybody wants more details on Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville, Florida, you can go to sgfcjax .org,

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sgfcjax .org, and God willing, we will be repeating that later on.

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Now, if you could briefly tell us about the conference, the

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Open Air Theology Conference where you are speaking in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Yes, sir.

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Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Open Air Theology Conference there, and that's where I met

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Dr. Michael Schultz, who will be on with us, or with you in just a little while. And the conference last year was from Shadows to Substance, and I was there not as a speaker, but as a participant, and I was doing interviews while I was there, and got a chance to meet

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Jeffrey Rice, who is the one who is promoting this, and Haps Addison, who is promoting this.

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They're the ones there in Tullahoma with the church there, it's a Reformed Baptist church.

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And they told me last year, they said, we are planning to do another conference in February 2024, and it was going to be on the subject of Calvinism.

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Well, I have a show, my show is called Your Calvinist Podcast, and so they knew

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I was a Calvinist just by the virtue of the name of the show, and so they said, hey, we're doing this

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Calvinist podcast, we would like for you to come and speak. And that's when we began to talk about what it was

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I would be speaking on, and I actually was the one who said I would love to talk about the Calvinism of Luther.

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And Jeff kind of turned and looked at me a little bit, and he said, I like that, I like that idea. So that was how

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I got involved, and Jeff is really, he's a wonderful man, he has a heart for the

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Lord, he has a heart to see this ministry happening through this conference, and he has got so many guys coming this year that are just guys

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I can't believe that I'll be sharing the chancel with. Not only James White, who obviously is a mutual friend of ours, but also

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Sam Waldron and Tom Buck and...

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Claude Ramsey, one of my favorite preachers. Claude Ramsey, the most beautiful of all

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Calvinists, Claude Ramsey, he's a beautiful man. And Matt Slick, who is a tremendous intellect, wonderful man, and I got to meet him last week,

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I was so excited, because I've been a great admirer of his for many years. So it's going to be awesome.

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And I only listed a few of the names, the guys who are going to be there are going to be great.

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Yeah, that would include also Brandon Scalf, Kevin Hay, and Haps Addison, and Jamie Terry, unless one of those men,

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I think there was one brother who had to leave the roster due to a conflict, scheduled conflict, but I don't know if any of them are among those men or that man.

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But anyway, if anybody wants more details on this, this event, which is being held right around the corner,

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February 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th will be a debate featuring

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries with Jason Brita, I can't remember how to pronounce that, on the

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Reformed Doctrine of the Atonement, or should I say, the

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Reformed Doctrine of the Atonement is Biblical and Important. And again,

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I find that an interesting title, because even those who hate Calvinism think it's an important doctrine, but important in that it should be avoided at all costs.

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And of course we believe it is important because we believe it makes complete sense when you are logically consistent about your understanding of what actually occurred on Golgotha when

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Christ gave up the ghost and completely, 100 % and perfectly appeased the wrath of God and finalized the redemption of his children.

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So if you want more details on that conference, go to openairtheology .com,

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openairtheology .com. Now obviously, if you know as many conservative

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Lutherans as I do, most of whom are from the Missouri Synod, but there are some from other synods as well, they are likely, most of them, going to be upset by the very notion of your theme, the

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Calvinism of Luther. And first of all, I know that you recognize, historically, that although there was an overlap in their ministries on earth in the 16th century,

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Luther, chronologically, was the first of the reformers, when you consider

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Luther and Calvin, obviously the reformers before Luther, proto -reformers and so on.

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But you're not saying that somehow Calvin was a, even though we agree with him more clearly and fully, you're not saying that Calvin was the preeminent reformer above Luther or that Luther was somehow condescending himself to embrace

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Calvin's teachings that he later would hear. You're just saying that what

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Luther originally believed about important things, especially involving the nature of man before regeneration and the will of man, he was saying things that Calvin would later agree with.

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Am I in the right ballpark there? Yeah. And let me kind of unpack, if you don't mind, sort of where the title came from.

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Obviously, you're right, Luther, we would consider to be a first -generation reformer, and Calvin, in some ways, is a second -generation reformer.

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Calvin was just a boy when Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg.

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So we understand that it's anachronistic to say the Calvinism of Luther, because there was no such thing as Calvinism when

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Luther was beginning. So that's kind of like, you've heard the term clickbait online, you name a video or a show, something that's intended to raise the eyebrow, something that's intended to cause people to go, what does he mean by that?

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And that was sort of why, when I said to Jeff Rice, I said, hey, the Calvinism of Luther, and when he looked at me, he knew what

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I was saying, and he smiled. I like that. And that's why, because it's intended to be somewhat prodding.

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And my goal is, when I give this message, is that every

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Lutheran who hears it would have to agree that what I'm saying is correct, even if they may not agree with some of the conclusions that I reach.

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I hope that I am factually accurate when I present what

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Luther wrote. And also to say this, I recently had a conversation with a

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Lutheran pastor from the UK, and he said, Luther wrote almost a new book every few weeks, and Luther's amount of writing was so ridiculously prolific that it's hard sometimes to say what

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Luther's position was on anything, because he would evolve and his ideas would grow and change, just like anyone, you know, but someone who's thinking as fast as he was and is publishing as voluminously as he was.

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So really, my argument is going to be essentially that Luther and Calvin shared a doctrine of anthropology, and that was the doctrine of man, which gave rise to both of their views.

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And I do think there's a distinction in Lutheran theology of predestination and Calvinistic theology of predestination, but both of their theologies of election and predestination was birthed out of an anthropology that was itself a product of their relying heavily on the teachings of Augustine.

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And so that's really the argument. I want to look at the Council of Orange, where the argument of semi -Pelagianism came in.

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I want to look at Augustine himself. And so that's where I'm coming from.

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Yes, and we who are Calvinists, and we have dialogue with our Lutheran friends, and I have many

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Lutheran friends that I hold in very high esteem. I've interviewed many Lutherans on this show.

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In fact, one of them, Evan McClanahan, pastor of the First Lutheran Church of Houston, Texas, regularly features

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Dr. James R. White at his church to preach and also to be involved in debates.

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And I have a feeling he may be one of the minority of Lutherans who may be applauding things we're saying today.

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But when we dialogue with our Lutheran friends, from what we remember about what

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Luther taught and wrote, especially in regard to his debate with Erasmus on the bondage of the will, we are mystified about the conclusions that many, if not most,

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Lutherans come to today. And I know that they would be horrified to ever be compared to Arminians, but there seems to be much more similarity between modern

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Lutheranism and Arminianism than between modern Lutheranism and Calvinism in the 21st century anyway.

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Am I right? Yeah, well, I agree with where you're going.

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I think it goes both ways in that we look at Luther and we say, you know, how can you not see the

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Calvinism of Luther? And you understand what I mean by that. Yeah, how can you not see Luther's views based upon the bondage of the will?

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But then the Lutheran pastors, you know, good godly men like Dr.

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Jordan Cooper and others would look from the other direction and say, yes, but that does not comport with the

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Book of Concord and the other documents that we hold to. And they will be the first to tell you they don't hold to Luther's writings.

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They hold to the Book of Concord and those things, which are their documents that they're holding to that are not saying some of the things as dogmatically or as maybe as monergistically as Luther's bondage of the will.

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The bondage of the will seems to be the big issue. And they'll say, well, you don't really like Luther.

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I've heard Lutheran pastors say, reformers don't like Luther. They like the bondage of the will and they don't like anything else he wrote.

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And I think that's kind of funny because, you know, there are a lot of things that Luther wrote and things that he said that we probably wouldn't agree with.

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And so there may be a little bit of truth to that. We like the bondage of the will because it agrees with us, you know, and there's a little bit of confirmation bias there.

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But they would say that it doesn't necessarily agree with us because of his other writings.

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And so there is some there's debate there as to what Luther's real position was.

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As I said earlier, it's hard. It's sort of like nailing Jell -O to a wall. It's a little hard to do with Luther sometimes.

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Yeah. Yeah. The specific where he was coming down. But as far as their view being more in line with the

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Armenian view, the Armenian view of a prescience that God sees the action of the will and determines his election based upon foreseen faith would would not that would certainly not comport with Luther's view in the bondage of the will.

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That's it. That's the exact thing he's opposing in the bondage of the will. Not never. So before you elaborate, go ahead.

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Before you elaborate more about the main points that you wanted to make, wasn't the divide that Luther and Calvin had personally, along with Zwingli, more in regard to the sacrament of the

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Eucharist and the implications of it over and above anything else that is typically highlighted within the theology of Calvinism?

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Well, certainly the divide between Luther and Zwingli was the the table, the colloquy where they met and they had 15 points of doctrine to discuss.

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They agreed on 14, but one that they could not agree on was the doctrine of the table.

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Luther was convinced that this is my body was a statement of a literal statement, meaning this is the body of Christ.

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And he took a real presence view of the bread and the cup, which is still believed in Lutheran theology, but not to a real but not transubstantiation.

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No, and there is a distinction to be made. Rome and Rome incorporates so much into the doctrine of transubstantiation that Lutherans don't incorporate, but real presence is not transubstantiation.

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There's a difference in doctrine there. And that's why and sometimes Lutherans are accused of believing in consubstantiation, but they don't like that word.

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Yes, I've heard that. Yeah, most of them don't like that phrase, so I try to avoid it.

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I simply say real presence because I think that's fair to what they believe.

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And the Calvinistic view of spiritual presence is really based on Calvin's understanding of the of the hypostatic union, because Calvin obviously believed, as we do, that Christ is vera homo, vera deus.

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He is he is fully God and fully man. And as being fully man and remains fully man, even in his glorified state, he is now sitting at the right hand of the father.

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So Calvin would say he is in his humanity. He is not omnipresent. Therefore, he's not in the bread or in the cup.

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But spiritually, he is omnipresent. So Calvin would say that he could be and is spiritually present in the cup and the bread.

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And so that's the that's the battle there. That's the distinction is whether he's a he's physically there or spiritually there.

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How do we understand the difference? What is real presence? And so the the I was

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I asked a group of Lutheran pastors if I would be able to take communion in their church.

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And they said no. And I and I was totally fine with that. I didn't anger me or anything, because this is what one of them said.

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He said, he says, you're not buying what we're selling. He said, because we're telling you.

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Go ahead. I was invited to participate in the Lord's Supper at a

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Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I'm not going to say where, because even though the man's retired, he still might get in trouble.

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But I said to him, I do not believe I do not agree exactly with what

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Lutherans believe about the Lord's table. Should I participate? And he said, if you would like to, you're welcome.

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And another conservative Lutheran said, oh, no, he shouldn't have done that.

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So I know that there are some disagreements even amongst them. Sure, yeah.

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And I yeah, I know another man who is a who is a Calvinist, but he's a member of a

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Lutheran church. He grew up as a Presbyterian, but the church that he's in, he had to he had to join because of where he was located and different things, the only church he could join.

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And kind of a long story. But at the end of the day, he told me he takes communion and his pastor is well aware of his convictions.

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And I was surprised by that. I was surprised that there was no issues there. But but like you said, I guess it depends on who who's in charge.

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Right. But we have to go to our first commercial break. And when we come back, obviously, we want to have you focus on the commonalities of authentic Lutheranism and historic

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Calvinism. And if you have a question, send it immediately, because Pastor Keith is only on for the first 54 minutes of this broadcast.

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We have Michael Schultz following him. So if you could send in your questions to Chris Arnsen at gmail .com

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and give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence, that would be great. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

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28:07

We are now back with Keith Foskey. We were talking about the Calvinism of Luther and our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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if you have a question. So if you could, Keith, I want you to pick up the ball now and begin to highlight what is most in common between what is known as Calvinism, Reform Theology, Sovereign Grace Theology, and what was going on in Martin Luther's mind during the

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Reformation. Well, right away, again, I think it boils down to an anthropology which has its roots in Augustinian thought.

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And so if I could, I want to go back actually a step further and simply address what we mean by Augustinian thought in regard to anthropology.

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Anthropology, obviously, is the doctrine or the study of man. And as many people know,

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Augustine had a debate with a man named

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Pelagius. And there's a lot of arguments right now online, people who are saying that Pelagius didn't really believe the things that are attributed to him.

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I've had this conversation with Leighton Flowers. Many people know who that is. He's one of the foremost men on the

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Internet who oppose Calvinistic teachings. And he and I are very friendly. We talk to each other and we've had this conversation.

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He doesn't believe that everything attributed to Pelagius was actually believed by Pelagius. But for the sake of simplicity, understanding those arguments are out there, what is believed or what has been taught that Pelagius taught was that man had the ability in and of himself to respond to God's offer of the gospel without the aid or without the necessity of any type of prevenient grace, that he had the ability to respond.

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And Augustine did not believe that. Augustine believed that man had to be given grace to be enabled to respond.

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And so that became the Augustinian -Pelagian divide. And that would lead to a later council, the

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Council of Orange, where they were debating not at that point Pelagianism, because Pelagianism had already been condemned.

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By the time of the Council of Orange, they were debating semi -Pelagianism, which was the idea that God and man sort of worked together, that there was a synergism that was happening.

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And even that was condemned. And so by the time you get to Luther and Calvin, what you have is you have a pretty robust understanding of the

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Augustinian doctrine of man, which is that man is, without the grace of God, unable to respond positively to the gospel.

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And that was something that Luther believed. That was something that Calvin believed. Both of them would take that understanding in slightly different directions.

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And if you ask a Lutheran pastor, he would say the problem with Calvin was double predestination.

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And they would say in Lutheranism, you don't have double predestination. And so that's where the divide often comes.

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But the issue still remains the same because of this understanding of man's inability.

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And this is why sometimes I love R .C. Sproul's phrase, because he said, sometimes we don't say total depravity.

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Sometimes we say radical inability. Man was so affected by the fall, man.

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And when I say man, I mean all mankind was so affected by the fall that he no longer would will to respond positively to God's offer of the gospel apart from a working of God in his heart, apart from a changing of his heart.

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And there's so many passages that could be cited in regard to that. You know, the leopard can't change his spots.

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The Ethiopian can't change his skin. Neither can the, can you do good or accustomed to doing evil?

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That's one of the passages that's often sought, Jesus's words in John 6, where he says, no man can come unless it's granted to him by the

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Father. Those are passages which are often cited. There's none who does good, not even one. Romans chapter 3, the person who is in the flesh cannot obey the law of God.

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Romans chapter 8, doesn't desire to, neither can he desire to. Those are things.

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So that anthropology is what is shared by Luther and Calvin. And so that's where I'm seeing this connection point.

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And yes, both lead to two different denominations and ultimately become two different strands of theological thought.

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But that's the seed out of which both of those are growing.

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And before I take a listener question, do you think from your dialogues with Lutherans that they are misunderstanding double predestination?

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Because many that I've heard explain double predestination are not explaining it accurately, they're equating it with equal ultimacy.

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And they are explaining it in such a way as if man had a morally clean slate and God either makes them holy and worthy of heaven, or he makes them wicked and sinful and reprobate and unworthy of heaven and worthy of hell.

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And as if God is doing a divine, supernatural work in both ends of the spectrum of humanity, whereas Calvinists just believe that God leaves men in their own sin, that men are made from the same lump of clay, but he rescues some of us, his elect, and he leaves others to pay the penalty of their own sin.

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So do you know if the Lutherans are misunderstanding what double predestination is about? I think they are defining it in the terms of equal ultimacy.

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So what you just said is correct. I think the way they define double predestination is that God has, from eternity, determined to save some and damn others.

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Now, here's where the issue comes in. I personally am one that typically says,

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I don't like the term double predestination because it leads to the thought of equal ultimacy, which you just properly described.

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Equal ultimacy is that God does the same act of reprobation that he does in the act of election, and that's not the case.

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Neither Calvin nor Luther taught that. Both of them would teach that the passing over of the non -elect is not the same as the active grace that is provided to the elect.

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And that's the difference. And here's what's funny. When I've talked to, again,

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Lutheran pastors and trying to really, I want to represent them properly. I want to hear them. I don't want to misrepresent them.

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That's one thing. James White, I'm very thankful for him and having learned from him many years, he really tries to understand his opponents.

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And I'm thankful for that. And not that Lutherans are my opponents. That sounded weird. But what I mean is when you're discussing something, you want to understand the other side, you want to understand what they're saying.

36:06

And in one of my conversations, I remember specifically being told that they were willing to leave some things to a divine mystery and that, yes,

36:22

God elects, but we don't, there seems to be a withholding of saying that in the election of some, he's leaving out the others.

36:36

And but that's the obvious, that's the obvious reality that if God, you know, if there's 10 people and God chooses five, then five are unchosen.

36:46

Therefore, the result of that is they're going to get their just desserts, which is eternal perdition.

36:52

So, but the action on God's part, trying to alleviate from him any culpability.

37:01

And that's a big, that's a big issue. And that is, is God responsible for a man's eternal condition if he goes to hell?

37:11

Is God the one who should be held accountable for that versus the person himself?

37:17

And none of us are saying that. But that's the issue is in double predestination or equal ultimacy, you got one, like you said, one neutral man, and God can either give him election and grace and make him a son of the kingdom, or he can give him reprobation and wickedness and make him a son of hell.

37:37

But he started neutral. And that's the problem is nobody's neutral. We're all wicked. Right.

37:42

By the way, our listener is from Jupiter, Florida. How close is that to you? I'm not actually sure.

37:51

I think it's South Florida. So I'm just about on the Georgia border. So I'm as North Florida as you can get.

37:57

So I think that's pretty south of us. OK, well, Amethyst in Jupiter, Florida, says, to your knowledge, did

38:06

Luther go as far as Calvin when understanding the nature of humans, that not only was a work of grace needed for the totally depraved sinner to believe, but also a heart transplant was required and regeneration preceded that person's faith?

38:30

That is a really good question. And first of all, I just want to say the name

38:36

Amethyst is a very nice name. Yes, it is. Interesting and a very, very pretty name. And I cannot speak with authority and say exactly

38:48

Luther's position on regeneration preceding faith, but based on his arguments and the bondage of the will, it would seem to be that that would be the natural conclusion.

39:02

And here's why, is he believed that faith was the result of the work that's done in baptism.

39:12

Obviously, he believed in baptismal regeneration. So he believed that.

39:17

And that's another important issue, is if you believe in baptismal regeneration and you baptize an infant, that infant is therefore regenerated.

39:26

And faith that flows out of that comes as a result of that regeneration. But he believed that the sacrament and the word together worked into bringing about faith.

39:37

So I'm not sure if it would be as cut and dry as simply saying what we believe, which is that faith is preceded by regeneration.

39:46

But certainly, logically, based upon that, it would have to be. OK, thanks,

39:53

Amethyst. And we have another question, and this will probably be the final question from audience members because Pastor Keith has to leave us in about 18 minutes.

40:04

Maybe we could squeeze another one in, but I'm not sure. But anyway, Philbert in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York, wants to know, most

40:15

Lutherans that I'm aware of today believe a genuinely born -again Christian can lose his or her salvation.

40:22

Did Luther also believe that? Yeah, I think he did.

40:30

And this kind of goes back to when I said earlier, even though they had an anthropology that was similar or the same, that seed, that anthropological seed, it produced two somewhat different strains of theology and the doctrine of apostasy.

40:51

And this is something that we need to step back and just address. Everyone, in one way or another, has a doctrine of apostasy because the

41:01

Bible has too many passages that talk about people falling away to not address it in some way.

41:06

I mean, it really is a very rare thing to find someone who just holds to an absolute one saved, always saved without giving any credence to the idea that someone could make a profession and fall away.

41:23

And so the difference is the question of whether or not you believe someone could be regenerated and then lose the grace of justification or lose that benefit of having been regenerated.

41:35

So, again, going back to the Lutheran doctrine of baptismal regeneration, if regeneration occurs and then later the person rejects

41:44

Christ, that would have to be a rejection of salvation because it came as a result of the initial work of regeneration, which came through baptism.

41:56

So I do believe the modern Lutheran view that men can lose their salvation,

42:02

I believe that was held by Luther. Again, I'm willing to be corrected on that.

42:08

But based upon other things that I've read, and again, Luther is so prolific, so much writing is there, you might could find somewhere where he quoted the opposite.

42:19

But the Calvinistic view, obviously, is that if a man does fall away, man or woman does fall away, then that because of the belief in eternal election and regeneration preceding faith, that we would say that whatever faith he possessed or professed was not truly possessed.

42:43

And it was a false faith, much like Simon in the book of Acts, the magician who sought to get the

42:51

Holy Spirit's power by money and would eventually turn into a false professor.

43:01

And we would say, as in Matthew 7, it says, when Jesus said, depart from me,

43:07

I never knew you, didn't say I knew you for five minutes or I knew you for five years or I knew you for 10 years, he said,

43:12

I never knew you. And so the Calvinistic understanding is that if a person falls away completely, then they were never truly of the faith.

43:22

I'm going to I'm sorry, I'm going to squeeze one more question in because it's so good. Christiana from Deerfield, Massachusetts, says,

43:30

Did Martin Luther, as do all Lutherans today, believe in baptismal regeneration?

43:36

Because it seems to defy Martin Luther's understanding of sola fide.

43:41

And I think that's an excellent question because it does seem to be oxymoronic. Now, I know that Luther did not come up with or coin the five solos of the

43:53

Reformation, but apparently all five of those solos are found in various places in his writings.

43:59

And certainly, sola fide is the thing that Lutherans, conservative

44:05

Lutherans, appear to champion more than any other more than any of the other solos.

44:10

But anyway, do you find that odd that he believed in both? This is that's an interesting and funny question, and I'm actually glad somebody asked it because that this this this is a question that I hear

44:28

Lutherans have to address a lot. And I think it's a fair question. I do think, however, that their answers in general are satisfactory to them, obviously.

44:42

And I didn't mean that to sound sarcastic, but even though it kind of came out that way, what I mean is that I think that they are making a distinction between regeneration and justification.

44:56

OK, and so regeneration occurs in the baptismal fount, occurs and then the justification is a work of grace that is dependent upon faith.

45:11

And so there is a distinction that they're making and they're still saying justification is by faith alone.

45:17

Regeneration causes faith, not necessarily immediately, but there is a time, you know, there can be a time between when the person's regenerated, when the person experienced faith.

45:27

But but that's, I think, where the distinction lies is I think there and I'm trying to be fair to them.

45:32

And please, if you're a Lutheran pastor and your head's exploding right now, know that I'm not trying to misrepresent you if I am.

45:38

But I do think that they they because of the distinction between regeneration and and justification, that that's where the distinction would be made.

45:48

They could still say we hold the sola fide because we're still saying you're justified by faith alone, not by what happened in the baptismal waters.

45:56

Even though the baptismal waters made it possible for you to exercise faith, even though the baptismal waters did this work in you, it was a means of grace.

46:06

That's a term or, you know, there's grace in baptism that is still it's still dependent upon faith alone.

46:15

And so that's I think that's how they would argue for that distinction.

46:22

Well, I want you and that's a big difference. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, you could continue. I just wanted to say I want you to hold the floor now because you only got about six minutes.

46:31

So but but anyway, continue your thought there. I was just going to say the distinction in baptismal understanding among Presbyterians, Lutherans and Baptists is interesting because Lutherans will believe that that baptism produces regeneration.

46:51

Presbyterians typically don't believe that, even though I'm finding some who do, which is really odd. Yes, but there are some that do.

46:59

But generally, Presbyterians would say that baptism is the sign of entrance into the covenant community.

47:05

Therefore, when we baptize a child, it's because we believe he's part of the covenant community. And Baptists believe that baptism is also a sign.

47:17

It's a sign given to us, but that it is to accompany faith. It's not to come before someone believes.

47:22

And that's what we're called credo Baptist, which means that I believe and therefore I'm baptized.

47:28

So the Lutheran view of baptism is different than the

47:33

Presbyterian view in that they do believe regeneration occurs where the

47:41

Presbyterian typically does not, even though they're both baptizing infants. I just want to make that point.

47:47

And I want you to hone in now on your main points that you'd like to make to further entice our listeners to attend the conference and to hear your entire lecture on the

47:58

Calvinism of Luther. Well, I've given you sort of a taste of what

48:03

I'm going to talk about. I'm going to start with a brief overview of Luther's life and theology, and then

48:11

I'm going to compare that with Calvin and then I'm going to go back to Augustine. But one of the things

48:17

I also want to address, and we only have an hour to preach, so I'm going to it'll be limited.

48:24

But one of the one of the arguments that's being made right now is that Augustine himself was influenced by Manichean Gnosticism.

48:36

And therefore, if it is true that Augustine was a Gnostic, then therefore

48:42

Luther's view of man is Gnostic and Calvin's view is

48:47

Gnostic. So one of the things I hope to do in my message is to show that the argument that Augustine's view was a

48:56

Gnostic view of man, I hope to show that that is not the case.

49:03

But so maybe that'll be a little enticing for people who may be interested. You might say, well, that seems like a departure from the

49:08

Lutheran thing, but it's really not. Because if my point is to simply say this, I believe Luther and Calvin had the same view on the nature of man because of their relationship to Augustine's teaching.

49:18

I believe Augustine, of course, got it from Scripture. I believe they got it from Scripture. But if there is the introduction of Manichean Gnosticism in the fourth century in the life of Augustine, and that's the reason why he believed these things, then that is, according to those who oppose

49:33

Reformed theology, that's where the major problem is. So I'm hoping to address that in the message and show that I don't think that that's actually the case.

49:41

Even though I do understand Augustine was a Gnostic prior to becoming a Christian, I don't believe that that necessarily means that that influenced his doctrine of man.

49:51

Now, in the three minutes that we have left, please explain your understanding of Melanchthon and how you believe, as do many other

50:01

Calvinists, that Melanchthon unfortunately steered the ship in a different direction than Luther after Luther's homegoing to heaven.

50:13

And that is why we have a Lutheranism today that is far more contrary to the doctrines of sovereign grace and Calvinism.

50:25

Well, again, in every attempt I can, I want to be fair. And if you were to ask a

50:31

Lutheran pastor that question, he would say Melanchthon did not change

50:36

Luther's views. He clarified them. But I do know a number of conservative

50:42

Lutherans who despise Melanchthon. Oh, OK. Well, that's good. Yeah.

50:48

So the idea, though, among some is that he was clarifying some of these more difficult things,

50:56

Luther's view of the will and things like that. And that's what ended up in the official teaching. And again,

51:02

Book of Concord, things like that. So that's where I say some would say

51:09

Melanchthon was a hero. Some would say he was a villain and not villain. But as far as how he handled being the successor there, and I think it's sort of difficult to know for sure how much adjusting was done.

51:34

But obviously, like you said, today, the differences are pretty stark between a

51:39

Calvinistic and a Lutheran or Presbyterian and Lutheran church. You're going to see several important distinctions.

51:47

Well, Pastor Keith, as always, it has been a joy having you on the program.

51:53

I much prefer when you're on for two hours, but perhaps the next time your schedule will be accommodating to that.

52:03

And once again, I want to remind our listeners about your church website for Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

52:14

That is S -G -F -C -JACKS, that's

52:19

J -A -X, dot org, S -G -F -C -JACKS dot org. And just to let you know,

52:25

I don't know if it's only my computer, but it's not opening up your website for some reason. But thank you so much, brother.

52:33

You did a great job, as you always do. And I look forward to your return to the show. Well, I appreciate you,

52:39

Chris. Thank you so much and thank you to the audience and may God bless you. All righty. And please don't go away, folks.

52:45

We're going to our midway break right now. And our second guest for the second hour of the show is

52:53

Michael Schultz. And Michael is another one of the speakers at the

52:58

Open Air Theology Conference this month, where Keith Foskey, who you just heard, and other speakers are on the roster.

53:08

And Michael is the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Lewisburg, Kentucky, and on the faculty of Forge Theological Seminary.

53:16

So please don't go away. We're going to be right back with Michael Schultz and his discussion of Calvinism and the love of God when we return.

53:42

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You want to elongate its life and you have the money above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family of extra money for benevolent, recreational or trivial purposes.

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01:11:02

and then click support and then click click to donate now.

01:11:08

And last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, or the other church that is pastored by my second guest,

01:11:26

Antioch Baptist Church of Lewisburg, Kentucky, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches.

01:11:34

And I've helped many people all over the world find churches, sometimes very close to them.

01:11:39

If you are in that in that position of not having a biblically faithful church on send me an email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

01:11:47

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Michael Schultz about Calvinism and the love of God.

01:11:54

That's ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Design Radio, Pastor Michael Schultz.

01:12:05

Yeah, it's an honor to be here, Chris, thank you so much for having me on. Tell our listeners about the fine church where you are pastoring.

01:12:16

Antioch Baptist Church in Lewisburg, Kentucky, is a very small community sort of country church.

01:12:23

We average about 60 people every Sunday, which is great. I'm very comfortable with that.

01:12:28

I know everybody in my church and we're able to really notice when somebody is not here.

01:12:34

I get to spend a lot of time visiting with my members. So I'm very thankful to be at a small church. And we're just a rural country church that does the very best we can with with what we've got.

01:12:46

And I've got some great deacons and good members around me that God has blessed me with. So I'm very thankful to be out here.

01:12:53

If people are looking for us, Lewisburg is a little bitty town in western Kentucky, just west of Bowling Green.

01:13:00

Great. And if anybody wants to look up that website, find out more about Antioch Baptist Church in Lewisburg, Kentucky, go to ABC Lewisburg.

01:13:11

And that's spelled L -E -W -I -S -B -U -R -G, ky .wordpress .com.

01:13:18

ABC Lewisburg, ky .wordpress .com. Well, we have a tradition here, as you know,

01:13:25

Michael, when we have a first time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony.

01:13:31

And I'd love to hear your story. Oh, man, wonderful. So I was I was not raised in a

01:13:36

Christian household. We were what you might call Christian adjacent. We occasionally attended church holidays and things of that sort, but no sort of religious commitment whatsoever.

01:13:48

And actually, when when I was a preteen, the church that we attended on occasion removed my family because they didn't approve of interracial dating.

01:13:59

Wow. And my sister, as a as a white person, my sister was dating a young man that was mixed. And so they asked us to leave.

01:14:06

Wow. And so what what what decade was this? That was in 2006, brother.

01:14:13

Wow. Where on earth was that? You don't have to say the name of the church, but what region of the United States?

01:14:19

This was in East Tennessee, just down out of the foothills of Appalachia. I mean, we were it was a town. It wasn't some, you know, little country church.

01:14:26

This was a major church and in a town. Unbelievable. And yeah, I mean, it was incredibly.

01:14:32

What would they do? Would they disapprove of a swarthy Sicilian dating and marrying a

01:14:38

Swede? I'm positive it was more of what do you look like?

01:14:45

That kind of thing. It was it was very much just a product of the culture. Sure. Well, that's scary.

01:14:52

Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we had a good pastor at the time, but the deacons really ran the church.

01:14:58

It was one of those sort of things. And to my understanding, to this day, the pastor never even knew that it happened.

01:15:05

So. Real unfortunate and a scary thing as a pastor to even think that could be possible.

01:15:11

Yeah, but I became you know, I was very young at that point. I was 10 or 11 years old and that really put a sour taste in my mouth for religion altogether,

01:15:22

Christianity in particular, church attendance, certainly. And so I became very recalcitrant and and just distasted with Christianity.

01:15:34

And I had a friend who was about twice my age. He was in his early 20s and he attended a meeting out of church just out of town with the screaming preacher.

01:15:45

And he came back and he said, Michael, you've got to come here. This guy, it's hilarious. It is absolutely hilarious.

01:15:51

He stands up and he screams for an hour and then everybody just goes down to the altar and they they just cry and weep.

01:15:57

And and people all through the sermon time, they're just shouting and he ha and all this. He said, you've got to come see it.

01:16:03

And so we went out and we sat in the peanut gallery, you know, and, you know, we amend and all this and made fun of the whole thing.

01:16:11

And. We went once or twice just making fun of it, and then he was pretty well done going.

01:16:17

And I said, you know, I just don't I don't know why I kind of want to keep going. Wow. And so I got one of the deacons at that church to give me a ride and I kept going for about a year.

01:16:29

And I honestly, this is a very weird thing that I haven't heard a lot of people say, although I think it's probably true for many people.

01:16:37

I do not remember the exact day that I became a Christian, but I know when

01:16:43

I went to that meeting the first time, I absolutely despised Christianity. And at some point in that year,

01:16:51

God completely changed me and saved me. And by the end of that year,

01:16:57

I was asking questions about what kind of school do I need to go to to be a preacher? You know,

01:17:03

I feel like if this is true, I really need to be telling people. And if I'm going to say

01:17:08

I believe it, I need to live like it. And so I was very fortunate that that church, even though it was a very humble church, the pastor had no formal education and essentially a shooted, very

01:17:21

IFB kind of church. Nevertheless, those guys were great at compelling me to go out and share the faith and evangelize and read my

01:17:33

Bible and rely on the scriptures and trust God that he could prepare me for the ministry. And I'm very thankful that that screaming preacher outside of town was there.

01:17:44

Amen. And I do have a number of very close friends who are IBF guys.

01:17:50

It's actually amazing how much they seem to love me, even though they radically oppose my

01:17:55

Calvinism and some other things. But people have to be very careful about broad brushing and slandering our brothers in that realm because they're not all the same.

01:18:06

Yeah, that's that's very true. And, you know, I value people that differ from me, even even if they differ from me, because if they still hold to the fact that scripture is our supreme authority and they interpret it differently,

01:18:20

I can live with that. I just value that experience. And even though they would probably cry their eyes out if they knew that I was a

01:18:30

Calvinist and teaching at a seminary, I think that God really blessed me by having them there.

01:18:37

Oh, in fact, since you brought it up, tell us about Forge Theological Seminary. And Forge is a is a wonderful seminary.

01:18:45

I'm glad that I've gotten connected with it. Somewhat new, started in 2015, so not nearly as old as a lot of the seminaries.

01:18:51

But Forge specializes in distance education so that if you're in the ministry somewhere, you don't have to uproot your ministry and try to move to get theological education.

01:19:03

And the other emphasis that we really try to push is affordability. So, you know, you're not going to pay five thousand dollars a semester, ten thousand dollars a semester to go.

01:19:15

The way that we do it is we have every program from certificate programs all the way up to doctoral programs and charge on a monthly rate.

01:19:24

So the subscription model that everybody's kind of turning to Forge was one of the first schools to take that on.

01:19:31

So right now, if you're going for a certificate through a Master of Divinity degree, you'll pay sixty dollars a month to get theological education.

01:19:40

If you're going for a Doctor of Theology, you'll pay a hundred, no, eighty dollars a month. We just lowered it.

01:19:45

So the way that that works is you can take as many or as few courses as you like at a time.

01:19:52

They're asynchronous. So you begin them whenever you want to, but you only have 20 weeks to complete them once you start.

01:19:58

If you take longer than 20 weeks, you fail the course. And so if you want to take one or three or five courses at a time, that's up to you.

01:20:06

But you have to complete them in that window. And what that does is it frees up your your financial capability to where if you're taking one course a month, it's going to cost you 60 dollars.

01:20:16

If you take five courses a month, it's going to cost you 60 dollars. And you can complete your degree program as quickly or as slowly as you like with financial flexibility at that.

01:20:27

And with that said, the academic rigor that we offer, it's a thoroughly reformed and confessional seminary.

01:20:34

Every person on the faculty has to affirm either the Westminster or one of the London Baptist confessions.

01:20:40

And so we firmly believe in the doctrines of grace and confessionalism and reform theology.

01:20:46

And we just want to be a resource to guys who can't afford a traditional education and don't want to uproot their ministries.

01:20:52

And if anybody wants more information, go to FORGE .EDUCATION. FORGE .EDUCATION.

01:20:59

Well, one of the subjects being addressed at the Open Air Theology Conference later this month in Tullahoma, Tennessee, is

01:21:08

Calvinism and the love of God. You are going to be speaking on that. And Calvinism and Calvin himself and Calvinists themselves have been truly slandered by those outside of our camp of theology.

01:21:27

They have a totally unhistoric understanding of where Calvin and even his heirs today stand on the love of God and their mind.

01:21:43

In fact, there are non -Calvinists who have literally described our understanding of God as a monster.

01:21:51

We could go on and on and on. But really, anybody who believes in hell, in eternal punishment in hell, is really going to wind up in the same dilemma of trying to defend the love of God and the theodicy.

01:22:15

And there are full -blown universalists who believe everybody, including Satan and his legions of demons, are going to be in heaven.

01:22:23

That is not only unbiblical, but it is a horrific answer to the reality of sin and the the answer of God to that.

01:22:37

So if you could explain in your own words why this is such an important issue to clarify to not only our fellow

01:22:48

Calvinists, but to those surrounding us who are outside of our theological camp, as they say.

01:22:55

Yeah, so that's a very important clarification, too, is that when I'm preaching this at the conference, this sermon that I'm going to have on Calvinism and the love of God, I'm not just going to be aiming at defending

01:23:07

Calvinist or defending Calvinism against claims from the outside that we are unloving or that the

01:23:14

God that we present is a monstrous deity that does not love.

01:23:19

I'm also going to be taking my own fair share of shots at those in the

01:23:26

Calvinist community who are guilty of that. Because it is the case that there are many people, particularly in the younger generation of which

01:23:34

I'm a part, that we cut our teeth on guys like Mark Driscoll. And although we might have

01:23:43

Luther and Calvin and Jay Grisham and others on our shelves, we've not read them.

01:23:51

And so there are a lot of guys that call themselves Calvinist and they are taking now pulpits coming out of seminaries and they really do not understand how to reckon

01:24:01

Calvinism and the love of God because they have never read the people who really formulated this whole system.

01:24:10

So there are two errors that I'm going to try to stave off at this conference.

01:24:16

One is on the liberal side and the other is on the conservative side. The liberals tend to say something along the lines of, if God loves me, he will not ask me to change.

01:24:28

That's generally the way that they look at it and that's their idea of love in every circumstance. If you're the parent of a gay child or a transgender person, you will see that kind of come to light.

01:24:41

They'll say, if you really love me, you'll accept who I am. And that's the idea behind it.

01:24:48

And that's an error. It's entirely untrue to conceive that if someone loves you, they will not ask you to change anything whatsoever.

01:24:57

The opposite end of the spectrum, though, is also erroneous, where you have the far wing of the conservatives who say, because God does not love sin, therefore he does not love those who are in sin.

01:25:15

And that is also a problem because if we really dive into this idea that God does not love sinners, then we end up really discrediting our own salvation because we love him because he first loved us.

01:25:33

Ephesians 1 talks about how that in love he predestined us. So the very salvation that we have received from God was the result of him loving us, although we were yet sinners.

01:25:45

Christ died for the ungodly. So we can't say God does not love sinners, and yet we also can't say

01:25:52

God loves sinners so much he doesn't want them to change. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on in this sermon at the conference, trying to help people really understand that a

01:26:04

Calvinist does believe that God loves, but they also believe that God loves people enough to call them to change.

01:26:11

Now, I don't know if you're going to disagree with me, but I believe that although there is a sense that God universally loves his creation and all humans in it, he only has a parental and spousal love for his elect.

01:26:36

He only loves his elect like a groom loves a bride.

01:26:43

In fact, I don't think that Paul's exhortation, do husbands love their wives as Christ so loved the church and laid his life down for her,

01:26:52

I don't think it would make sense if Jesus loved the reprobate in the same measure and in the same way.

01:27:00

So if you could respond to that. Yeah, absolutely. That's completely agreeable, because historically we've identified three different ways that God loves.

01:27:11

So there's the first type that we call the benevolent love of God, and that's what you would call the love of creation.

01:27:18

It's this love that God has simply of his own being. This is first for God is love.

01:27:25

He expresses this to everything. There's a second element called the beneficent love of God.

01:27:31

It's where we get the word benefit, and this is the love that God pours out on everything. It's beneficial to the things that are loved because he gives them things out of his love.

01:27:43

And even that we could say God pours out on the reprobate, the unrepentant, the unregenerate, even the unelect, because Christ says

01:27:51

God makes the sun to rise and fall on the wicked and the just, and he causes the rain to fall on the good and the evil.

01:27:58

And you're right. There is a third element of the love of God that historically has been called the love of complacency.

01:28:05

Complacency is a word that's kind of fallen out of usage, or at least it's changed in common vernacular today.

01:28:10

If you're complacent, that means you're lazy or inactive. But the love of complacency historically has meant more of what we would define as the love of satisfaction, the love of pleasure.

01:28:25

And so if I said, I love my children, I don't mean that I pour love on them in the sense that I give them toys and things.

01:28:35

That's true, but that's not what I mean by that. And I certainly don't love my children in the same way that I love

01:28:42

Mexican food. It's a totally, you know, it's an entirely different thing.

01:28:47

Yeah, of course. You love the Mexican food more. Some days. No, I'm kidding.

01:28:54

No, but this love of complacency is that thing. It brings me so much pleasure.

01:29:00

You know, that's really what makes me happy. And although we know that God's impassibility dictates that we be very careful about how that we refer to this, it is nevertheless true that God does take pleasure in the people who have faith in him because the

01:29:18

Bible says as much, says exactly the inverse. It is impossible to please God without faith.

01:29:24

And if so facto, the inverse is true. Those who have faith do please God. So, yes, there are different ways that God loves.

01:29:33

And I'm glad that you have a nuanced understanding about that to be able to even say that for everyone, including the unregenerate, reprobate, apostate, that God does have a general love.

01:29:47

But what I find is that, again, many of the guys that are taking pulpits now or who are now coming into the reformed or Calvinist community do not have that nuance.

01:30:01

And so if you are to ask them, does God love sinners? They'll say, no,

01:30:06

God hates sinners. Psalm 55. And all of a sudden we have a we have a problem because you end up with validation of what the critics have been saying, which is that Calvinists do not believe

01:30:22

God loves lost people. And so we need to have a nuance about that, that, yes, sinners and also

01:30:33

God hates sinners. But what I'm finding is that we're very comfortable saying God hates sinners. We are not very comfortable saying

01:30:39

God loves them. And we're willing to say that God hates them without a lot of nuance. We're not willing to say

01:30:45

God loves them unless we spend 30 minutes talking about what that means. So that may be a reaction to the fact that for the last couple of generations, people have developed a poor understanding of what it means to say

01:30:57

God loves you. But I think we need to be very careful about overreacting and overcorrecting on that.

01:31:04

Okay, we have Wilhelm in Jordan Village, Connecticut.

01:31:14

And Wilhelm asks, there are Calvinists that I have encountered who disagree with one another over what

01:31:25

John 3 .16 actually means. There are some Calvinists who have told me that God so loved the world actually means that he loved his elect who would eventually believe from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, as John later describes the world in the book of Revelation.

01:31:50

There are other Calvinists who say, no, that verse is describing every single human on the planet that has ever lived and ever will live, regardless of whether they are of the elect or of the reprobate, but they are differently loved, as was just mentioned earlier, that he only has a specific saving love for his elect and not for the non -elect.

01:32:19

Does either of those explanations fit yours? So, yeah, my understanding of John 3 .16

01:32:29

is rather straightforward and would probably be acceptable to most of the people who are not even in the

01:32:36

Calvinist camp, because that verse in particular, I don't take that as referring to atonement.

01:32:46

And many Calvinists do, and probably most Calvinists believe that that verse refers in some sense to atonement, and that's one of the reasons that they want to limit the word world to referring only to the elect.

01:33:01

I could go into really the full passage as to why I don't think that's the case, but the question directly seems to be, is there any form of official stance that Calvinists take on John 3 .16

01:33:15

as to who God loves in that passage? Would I be fairly representing that question, you think,

01:33:21

Chris? I assume you are. It sounds like it. Okay. So, the answer is no.

01:33:28

So, Calvinists have absolutely nothing approaching a consensus on what that verse means as far as who the world is.

01:33:40

So, I'll just give you an example. More recent would be A .W. Pink. I've actually got a pamphlet of his that you can get at Chapel Library for free called,

01:33:50

Does God Love Everyone? And his conclusion is no, because he goes straight to John 3 .16,

01:33:56

and he will take you as far as he can to show you that world only means the elect.

01:34:02

But if you read John Calvin, which I take to be the definitive source on Calvinism, John Calvin, when he wrote his commentary on John, this is his statement regarding John 3 .16.

01:34:17

He says, Faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life because the

01:34:23

Heavenly Father loves the human race. Later on, he says the importance of the term world, which he used, is that nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ.

01:34:46

So, John Calvin took the word world to mean every person to ever live.

01:34:53

Men like A .W. Pink entirely disagree. I favor Calvin's interpretation.

01:35:00

I do believe that in that passage, world means every person to ever live, that God loved them in such a way that if they would simply have faith in Christ, they would not perish but have everlasting life.

01:35:12

So, I don't think that there's anything even approaching a consensus on that, but I would say if you're not a

01:35:20

Calvinist or if you're considering Calvinism and getting tripped up on John 3 .16, read it the way that you think it reads, and then keep reading.

01:35:30

Because I was not convinced of Calvinism because of Ephesians 2 or Romans 9.

01:35:36

I was convinced of Calvinism because of John 1, and many others have been convinced of Calvinism because of John 6 and John 14.

01:35:46

John 6 is a good one. So, yeah, if you're thinking about it or you're doubting Calvinism because you're in John 3, although there's plenty there, you know, the spirit moves where it wants, no man can say one way or another, that you could make a very clear defense of what we might call

01:36:02

Calvinism from John 3. And John 10. John 10 is a masterpiece for the

01:36:08

Doctrines of Grace. Yeah, right, the conversation of the sheep there. Yeah, so I don't think that you need to be tripped up or held back from endorsing something that might approach

01:36:21

Calvinism because you think world means everybody, nor do I think that you should be ashamed of yourself if you think world means elect.

01:36:31

I think there's room in Calvinism for either interpretation, or at least I hope so, because I hold to the approach that Calvin did, while most of my friends and brothers in the faith probably hold to what

01:36:41

A .W. Pink did. Okay, when we come back from our final break, we're going to get a question from Francis in Coropolis, Pennsylvania.

01:36:53

I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And the email address, if you want to join us, and you better send in your question immediately because we're rapidly running out of time, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:37:04

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Michael Schultz on Calvinism and the Love of God. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. We're now back with Michael Schultz, and we have a question from a listener in Carapolis, Pennsylvania, who says, must we not be very careful when we approach the lost, especially people we don't even know, and make proclamations to them that Jesus loves them?

01:53:07

We have to be careful to bring up some of the nuances you have mentioned earlier, because otherwise lost men may relish in the fact that Jesus loves them so much, he could not possibly ever send them to hell.

01:53:22

I think that's a very good point. That is, and that's the most common reason that people right now are fraying away from the declaration of the love of God, and there's validity to that.

01:53:34

My only pushback against that is something that I've already mentioned, is that if you would unabashedly say that God hates sinners,

01:53:45

I don't think we have any right to say that and yet be hesitant to say

01:53:51

God loves them. It would be malpractice to so favor one doctrine of the

01:53:58

Bible, which is that God does hate sinners, we know that's true, and yet to neglect another doctrine of the

01:54:04

Bible, which is that God loves them. And for example, just to show that God takes this very seriously, when you read

01:54:11

Revelation 2, and you get to the church at Ephesus, that church is commended for having faithful doctrine, they endured faithfully, although the culture around them was increasingly debased, and they seem to have even engaged the culture around them.

01:54:27

Christ commends them for all of that, and then he says, I am about to close your church, and the reason

01:54:34

I'm going to do that is because you are neglecting love. And so, it's an incredible thing that Jesus says, you know, all your doctrine is right, and you're enduring faithfully, and you're even engaging your community and your culture for my cause, for my name, and I would rather your church be closed if you do all of that while neglecting love.

01:54:59

And I just, I'm convicted by that, because the questioner is very right.

01:55:07

When we say to someone, this lost person, Jesus loves you, they do tend to take that to mean

01:55:15

Jesus is very pleased with me, and he would never ask me to change who I am.

01:55:21

That is not what we mean, right? But at the same time, would we then say, well,

01:55:30

I don't want to tell them that God hates them, because that'll drive them away from God as well.

01:55:36

And I don't think that that would be the approach that we generally take. We're very open about God's anger with sin, and you'll even see, you know, there are guys like Jeff Durbin, who there's a

01:55:50

TikTok or something floating around of him saying, the apostles never went out and told people that Jesus loved them.

01:55:58

And again, that may be true, but they also didn't go around telling everybody that God hated them.

01:56:05

But nevertheless, both of those things are true. So I really,

01:56:10

I think that we need to be very careful with the church at Ephesus in mind, with the tendency to overcorrect, because you had the

01:56:22

Joel Osteens of the world, who just want everybody to know how much God loves them and how proud of them he is.

01:56:28

And when I talked to Dr. Foskey, just the previous guest on the show about this a few weeks ago, he mentioned

01:56:33

Rick Warren had said that to a group of businessmen, not even in a church setting.

01:56:39

He just told a group of businessmen that God loves them very much. And his famous quote was, God's not mad at you, he's mad about you.

01:56:48

Yeah, whatever that means. And we have these slogans like that, you know,

01:56:54

God hates the sin, but not the sinner. And we say, well, no, that's not true. And the classic one is he doesn't send the sin to hell, he sends the sinner to hell.

01:57:05

But yet again, when we say God hates you, we're not specifying there.

01:57:12

We really need to be careful about being very loosey -goosey in proclaiming the hatred and the anger and the wrath of God, while being very withdrawn in proclaiming the love and the benevolence and the grace and the favor of God.

01:57:29

And I think that if we're going to favor one over the other, which would be an error either direction you go, it seems to me, based on the church at Ephesus, that Christ has told us we are absolutely not allowed to neglect love.

01:57:47

That's not permitted. And we must never forget, we Calvinists especially, that we don't know who the elect are, and God loved the elect before the foundation of the world, even if that elect individual is not yet regenerate and is still a prostitute, is still perhaps on death row in prison.

01:58:09

We don't know who God's elect are until they repent. And we got to remember

01:58:15

Romans chapter 5, 8 through 9, but God commandeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,

01:58:25

Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath to come.

01:58:32

But we are out of time. I would love to discuss this in a part two with you at some point, because only one hour on the show goes by like lightning.

01:58:43

I want to remind our listeners of some very important contact information.

01:58:49

Forge Theological Seminary, where my guest is on the faculty, associate professor of church history,

01:58:56

I believe. That's forge .education, forge .education.

01:59:02

And let's not forget also about the church where he pastors, Antioch Baptist Church of Lewisburg, Kentucky, abclewisbergky .wordpress

01:59:13

.com. Thank you so much,

01:59:22

Michael Schultz. You've been a joy to interview, and I look forward to your return. Don't forget about the Open Air Theology website as well, openairtheology .com,

01:59:31

openairtheology .com for the conference later this month where Michael is speaking. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater