On the Road Trip with James

Well, greetings. Welcome to a rolling -along -the -road -dividing -line -short.

I don't know if that's gonna stick. It probably won't. We'll come up with something else. I'm terrible with titles.

But, you know, I figured, hey, I spend hours in here, and if I had a co -pilot, we could sit here and talk.

And I don't. Maybe someday the wifey will get to go along right now.

She's taking care of her mom. And that's, you know, that time in our lives, and that's what she needs to be doing.

So there you go. But there are times when I'm like, man,

I'd like to be able to comment on that. So I thought, well, let's do an audio recording, use sermon audio, link to it, let people know.

And like today, it just does not appear that I will be able to get to my next stop early enough, really, to do much as far as a dividing line is concerned.

And, you know, we did a fairly lengthy program yesterday, so that's fine. Anyway, the troublemaker from Texas was making trouble this morning.

And what he did is I was actually getting gas when, you know, ding.

And it's funny, I was in a, I think it was a men's room at a large gas station along the interstate.

And you hear, ding. Everybody in the room is reaching for their phones.

You know, they could tell whose it was. And we all have the same ding. It's like Pavlov's dog.

Oh, the regime wants me. Anyway, the troublemaker from Texas sent me a tweet from Tony Byrne.

Tony Byrne's an Amaraldian. Well, he was last I knew, anyways. Has been for a long time. But Tony Byrne's memo, the primary, has been the primary source provider to David Allen to attack the particularity and the consistent, trinitarian consistency of the atoning work of Christ.

And so Tony Byrne tweeted, If Jesus died only for the sins of the elect, then no one, and that's in italics.

I wish it, I'd like to know how to do the italics thing. That would be sort of cool. Then no one, I think

I do know how, but man, if that's how you're doing it, it takes forever. No one can know from Scripture alone that Jesus substituted himself for their sins.

Notice the language. The ramifications at this point for the definition of the gospel, assurance, faith, warrant, etc.,

are quite profound. So, if Jesus died only for the sins of the elect, then no one can know from Scripture alone that Jesus substituted himself for their sins.

That's the assertion that is made. So once again, think through, it's so vitally important to think through what is behind the question.

I think if there is one thing, you know, very often I have people say, I'd like to get involved with apologetics and I'd like to do apologetics and things like that.

One of the absolutely most important things that you have to be able to do, and I'm not sure,

I guess it's something you can learn. I guess it is something you can teach yourself over time,

I guess. It's just a natural thing for me. It's just a natural way that I think. When I hear a statement, or especially when

I hear a question, my mind, and I've mentioned this before, sort of graphically lays out the foundations that would be necessary for the question to be a valid question.

And so I can see visually what would be required for this to be a valid question.

And so in this case, as is normal, the vast majority of objections to particular redemption are actually objections to the doctrine of election, which

Tony Burns says he believes in. But this is an objection to election.

Because no one can know from scripture alone their own election.

They can't, there's no, the list of the elect is not provided in the pages of scripture, obviously.

And so the objection really assumes that there can be some kind of specific scriptural revelation of ones being in the elect, because those are the ones for whom

Christ effectively engages in substitutionary atonement.

But no one can know that. There's all sorts of things that you can't know in that sense, because there are general principles laid out in scripture.

It's sort of like when the Roman Catholics say, well, the Bible doesn't specifically say, Mary sinned, just because she talked about God as her savior doesn't necessarily mean,

I mean, you have to have the words, Mary sinned. Or like when the

Muslims follow Ahmadiyyat, and the Bible does not specifically, nowhere does

Jesus say, I am God, worship me. And so there can't be any kind of doctrine that is not specifically stated in that sense.

And so evidently the idea is, well, scripture alone, sola scriptura, is not sufficient to give you this kind of information.

When the reality is scripture alone teaches the perfection of the work of Christ, it's perfect harmony with the decree of the father.

And that's the issue here, is that the Amaraldian system distinguishes and breaks the harmony, the inter -Trinitarian harmony, between the decree of the father and the accomplishment of the son and then the application of the spirit.

And so we can just simply respond by saying there's a unstated assumption here, and that's where the problem is.

And that is scripture has to somehow identify who the elect are so that we can know none of this actually has anything to do with the reality that the high priest intercedes for those for whom he makes the sacrifice.

That's true. Then you make application to specific individuals or specific situations, and that's where particular redemption comes from.

And so that's the kind of thing that is very, very common.

And in my experience, it is coming to understand those basic foundational things that is so important in not only understanding particular redemption, but then in listening to the objections and being able to think through, well, what would have to be true for these objections to be true?

What's the foundational presupposition assumption of the objection? And so there you go.

So I'm going to save this and try to get it to Rich.

I've just thought of it this morning, and let's see if it can even be done.

And so that's what we're doing on our way to today.

I just left Whiteville, Virginia. I'm heading for someplace in Tennessee today.

I guess it's about seven hours on the road today. Probably a little more with stops thrown in there.

And then into Conway on Wednesday. And early church history class begins on Thursday morning.

Looking forward to seeing all the bright, shiny faces and diving into the early church.

And you might say, you know, let me just add this in so it's worth spending the time uploading it.

Our emphasis at GBTS is in the preparation of ministers in the church. I really appreciate that.

That is the first and foremost function of Christian scholarship is the edification of the church.

It's not the edification of the academy. And some might say, well, if that's the case, and you all are reformed biblicists, why are you studying church history?

I can hear that from some people. I really could see that coming up. And the answer, of course, is not that Scripture is insufficient to equip the man of God, but Scripture itself directs us to history.

There are so many examples of look back to those who came before. Look to what God's faithfulness has been in the past.

That's why you had the Evan Eitzer, the stone of help, the pile of rocks that people would put up to commemorate when

God had, by his grace and power, interceded in their lives. And so we have scriptural examples of looking at what

God has done. And, of course, as Christians, we have the biblical example, the fact that Jesus promised to build his church.

And so we have the history of men and women who profess the faith of Christ.

We can't necessarily look into their hearts and know with absolute certainty who was the elect and who was not.

As I look at church history, I look at those who came before me in the way that I would want to be looked at by those who will come after me.

And that is that I want to believe the best. I'm going to be hopeful for their salvation and for their relationship to Christ.

There may be some that make that very difficult by the things they did and said and professed.

Lots of inconsistencies in church history, but I want to be as hopeful as I can.

And then I want to be able to learn. I want to be able to learn from the positive examples and from the negative examples, learn from the victories and from the defeats.

And if that includes having to recognize, hey, I'm in a completely different context than they were in.

So I have to be very, very careful, very, very circumspect in my specific applications.

There are still a lot of examples and education and encouragement that can be derived from the study of church history.

And, yes, that includes early church history. I was raised independent fundamentalist Baptist. Early church history meant nothing to us.

Early church history, as I've said so many times, was the period before Billy Graham. But the fact is there are a lot of parallels, a lot of parallels to where we are today.

The paganism of the society around us, how the church is going to respond to persecution.

That was one of my topics. I'm not sure if it's been posted. Maybe we can track it down. Oh, and as I was sitting here, as I was sitting here,

I just realized that I did not link what

I promised to link in yesterday's dividing line. So what am I supposed to do that? What am I supposed to do right now?

There's nothing I can do about that. I can guarantee you six and a half hours from now or more when

I get to where I'm going, I'm not going to remember that. So I'll have to try to, I don't know, put a bunch of string in my truck here, tie it around different fingers, hoping

I can remember which one meant to do what. But anyway, yeah,

I will try to get that link put up. But studying early church history, so many parallels, persecution.

And I gave a presentation. I don't know if they've posted it out in honestly,

I don't even remember the little city. Well, it wasn't even a city. It was just it was a spot in the middle of cornfields to the east of Harrisburg.

And it was last Friday night. And that was my discussion was the early church.

You know, I read the Cyprian's words to the miners. That's M -I -N -E -R -S.

And what was interesting was all of the questions that were asked afterwards had absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

You sort of wonder if you just either exhausted the topic or you bore the people to tears if all the questions afterwards are on completely, completely, utterly different topics.

Though I will say this. They all demonstrated a knowledge of current controversies and discussions on the dividing line.

So that was positive. But nobody asked a question about that. So let's talk about the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Let's be honest. The vast majority of us have never heard of the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Until recently, anyway. And primarily, systematic theologians would address it.

And now it has become a central theme of a controversy amongst

Reformed people. How'd that happen? Well, it's really not about simplicity.

It is about the difference between having a doctrine that is derived from biblical revelation and having a doctrine that is derived from philosophy and then made to look like it's at least consistent with biblical revelation.

There is a world of difference between a doctrine derived from scripture and a doctrine made to be amenable.

And I think over time, the sheep of Christ can tell the difference.

But sometimes on the short end of things, maybe not.

So what would be... First of all, what is the doctrine of divine simplicity? Well, it would normally be defined as the fact that God's essence is simple rather than compound.

So it's a special use, the term, simple. It's not the normal use for simple that we would utilize in the

English language today, but it has an obvious meaning to it. And that is that God is not made up of differing parts so that you can take one part out, maybe replace it with something else or anything along those lines.

Because God's being is one and God's being is not dependent upon composition.

Now, there is a biblical doctrine of simplicity and there is a philosophical doctrine of simplicity.

And it is important, I think, to differentiate the two, especially today in light of the context.

The function and authority of sola scriptura. A biblical doctrine of simplicity would basically be derived from...

Well, a biblical doctrine of simplicity is a subcategory of the doctrine of monotheism.

There is one true God. And a biblically oriented understanding would say that the being of God is not complex, is not compound, is not made up of parts, because there's only one true

God, he is eternal, and he's the creator of all things. Those are all fundamentally biblical teachings.

And therefore his being could not be made up of lesser parts because he would have to have created those parts in the first place.

And so you'd have no grounding for the lesser parts to make up God in the first place.

So, clear biblical teaching, Isaiah 40 -48, trial of false gods, one true

God, eternal, creator of all things. Put those together and you have a biblical doctrine of simplicity.

God's being is simple. It's not made up of lesser parts. So there would be a...

If you want to hold to biblical theology, there would be a mechanism whereby you can identify the doctrine of simplicity.

Today, what is being promoted by many is not a biblical doctrine of simplicity, but a philosophical doctrine of simplicity that is derived not from monotheism, creatorship, biblical categories like that, but primarily from a metaphysical standpoint of Thomas Aquinas mediating the overarching categories of Aristotle.

And so what you have there is the insistence that there can be no parts to God, and hence no distinctions, and thereby you have the extended assertion of the idea that the attributes of God are, in some fashion, not to be distinguished and cannot be distinguished from another.

And if we do distinguish them, we're doing so only as creatures with a lesser capacity, so that we don't really know the nature of God the way that it should be known.

And so the assertion being that God's omniscience is

God's omnipresence, is God's love, is God's mercy, is God's justice, etc.

Because to distinguish between the attributes is to make them parts out of which

God is constructed. And again, I don't know why that becomes a necessity.

If a statement, the name of an attribute is simply a true description of an aspect of God's being, then you do not have to confuse them, you do not have to do any of this type of stuff and engage in all the philosophical gymnastics that you have to engage in to maintain a philosophical doctrine of simplicity.

And, of course, you have the reality in history of how you explain how

God's being is simple, and yet there is a true, eternal, vitally important distinction between Father, Son, and Spirit.

How do you have three divine persons who are sharing one absolutely undivided and simple being?

Well, I actually don't see that as a real major problem, as long as, obviously, if you're holding a biblical doctrine of simplicity, that's not even an issue.

But I'll let those who hold to a philosophical doctrine of simplicity explain exactly how they fit all that together and still have a place for the

Father, Son, and Spirit to be actual persons who can interact with one another. Obviously, it is the philosophical doctrine of simplicity that gives rise to the concept of inseparable operations, which, very similarly, there's a biblical way of speaking of the perfection and unity of the

Father, Son, and Spirit in accomplishing the one will of God, and that none of the divine persons act separately from, as in distinction from,

God as a whole. But, as long as you remain biblical, you can say that in the same way that John chapter 5 says that without destroying the distinctions and destroying the reality.

you have

Father, Son, and Spirit doing particular things. So that it is the

Son who is incarnate, and the Spirit who indwells in the people of God. These things are fundamental truths, and if you put the emphasis upon the philosophy, then you end up with this strange eisegesis where you're trying to dance around the fact that the

New Testament authors very clearly distinguish Father, Son, and Spirit, and not merely based upon internal relationships, i .e.

the Father begetting, the Son being begotten, and the Spirit being expirated. Those are theological developments from a much later time period to begin with, and certainly not apostolic in the sense of some type of, this is the only way you can distinguish

Father, Son, and Spirit. The apostolic writers very plainly distinguish

Father, Son, and Spirit in meaningful fashion.

In fact, some of the greatest beauty of the Doctrine of the Trinity is the interaction of Father, Son, and Spirit seeing the

Carmen Christi, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and none of these are limited to add intra -distinctions to be able to differentiate between Father, Son, and Spirit.

So, anyway, why is this at all relevant?

Well, because the truth of monotheism is foundational to the entire

Doctrine of God. It is not only the foundational doctrine, but it determines the nature of the other doctrines that give us the entire concept of the

Trinity. And so, we need to recognize the emphasis of Scripture upon monotheism, upon the fact there is only one true

God. That is really necessary to be able to understand the Lord Jesus Christ incarnation, the fulfillment of divine promises made in the

Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, what we call the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures, the fulfillment of the promises made there.

For example, Christ must reign until every enemy is put under his feet.

You look back at the Old Testament and you see this Yahweh extending the scepter of his power over the nations and giving the nations as an inheritance to his

Son. These are all promises that are extremely important that have a context in which they must be interpreted.

And divine simplicity does allow us, biblical divine simplicity, allows us to recognize these things without falling into the error of tritheism.

And together with the biblical argument that God cannot be made up of lesser parts because God is the maker of all lesser parts to begin with, you likewise have the biblical reality of the identification of Father, Son, and Spirit with the divine name

Yahweh. And so the Father is identified as Yahweh, and just to give an example, it was

Yahweh that laid our sins upon the Messiah, that's the Father. The Son is identified as Yahweh in numerous texts,

John 12, 41, Philippians 2, and all these places where the

New Testament writers make that specific application. And the Spirit in the

Old Testament is the Spirit of the Lord or the Spirit of Yahweh. I think people will see that a little bit more clearly if they read something like the

Legacy Standard Bible where you actually have the divine name there. I think it's a very helpful aspect of it.

And so the fact that there's only one Yahweh, that's the one Yahweh of Isaiah 40 -48, and yet that one

Yahweh is identified as Father, Son, and Spirit is a vitally important mechanism whereby the scriptures preclude us from so separating the divine persons that we end up as tritheists or subordinationists where there's one

Yahweh above other representatives of Yahweh or things like that, which some

Unitarians have definitely come up with. So one might say, yeah, but it's not really a pastoral doctrine.

Well, monotheism certainly is. The immutability of God most certainly is.

His sameness over time, his faithfulness. Thank you very much.

Yes, I am driving. So it does have that pastoral and important application,

I think, that needs to be recognized as well. So do I believe in the doctrine of divine simplicity?

Of course. Do I distinguish between a biblical doctrine and a philosophical doctrine?

Most assuredly, I do. Most assuredly, I do. And I think it's important to recognize those differences.