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The simple fact is that James is not negating what Protestants are affirming, what Paul affirms, what Hillary of Poitiers affirmed, what Victorinus affirmed, what Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, and all these others affirmed.
We will live by faith alone Clothed in merit, not our own. All we claim is Jesus Christ And His finished sacrifice. Glory be to God alone. To the church He redeemed and made His own He has freed us, He will keep us Till we're safely home.
Glory be, glory be to God alone.
I want to encourage people that the doctrine of original sin is huge. This may be news to you with Church of Christ. So they do not believe Christians have the indwelling Holy Spirit, not ontologically or actually.
They think that's all an ax paradigm, but it makes sense. They deny original sin. You do not need a transformed nature by the Spirit. And so, you know, in the whole debate of... What do you mean by an ax paradigm?
Well, their whole deal is in order to be a Christian, you got to do what the Christians did in the ax, but they're going to quickly dismiss the gifts of the Spirit. They're going to quickly dismiss any real indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
They, at large, believe that the Holy Spirit is in you only when you read the inspired Scripture. So like you had thinking Scripture, that's the Holy Spirit in you. Now, not every Church of Christ believe that.
That's just at large what's talking about. And what I was going to say real quick is in the ongoing discussion with continuationism and cessationism, I've been accused of being a radical cessationist, Jeremiah.
And I'm like, how can I paint a spectrum from somebody? Because I believe still many, the Spirit's at work in dwelling believers, transforms our nature, seals us to the day of redemption. And, you know, not to totally get into the sign gifts and how I understand that.
I thought it'd be good to actually point some people to a group that is a radical cessationist, and it's the Church of Christ. They believe the Holy Spirit does not in any way transform your nature. You have the ability to make the right decisions and do the proper works of obedience to be made right with God.
And I'm like, that's your radical cessationist that do not believe.
That they even have the Holy Spirit. Sorry to be distracted. No, you're good. So the free thinker,.
This is Tyler Vela. Tyler Vela. I was on Eli Yala's channel last week or so, and we talked.
A little bit about Tyler. So now you're telling on yourself? You're telling Tyler to go listen to that and see what you said about it? Yes. Yes, please do. So I just thought it was funny he says that outs Anthony as a Presbyterian.
So if it does, it does. I didn't realize that was specific to Presbyterians that we use that term. So a man, for those that don't know, is just common jargon for a house that's usually connected to a church, either like on the same property or maybe even attached to the building.
But it's the idea is that a pastor would live there. And that was part of how the church supported him was they would support the house in the church. You'll have to forgive me. I'm a Reformed Baptist, so I didn't catch that.
I didn't know that the term manse was specific to Presbyterians. That's awesome. I learned something. Yeah. So did I. It just shows you how we can be in our own little world with certain things. All right.
Let's see here. I'm just seeing if I take a look. Yeah. So John A., I don't know what he's referring to. How's that not blasphemy? How else do we receive Christ without being born? Oh, okay. So he must be responding to or reacting to something you said about the Church of Christ view.
It's interesting, you know, Acts paradigm. I don't know. It's so odd that they would think that you don't need a new nature, that they would deny the inward presence. That's why they deny.
Baptismal regeneration. And they'll just say, we're not of the denomination of the Roman Catholics. And I'm just like, and so as I ask more questions and dig deeper, the way that they understand baptism, that's the moment that they're justified.
And so really it's this baptismal justification apart from a transformed nature. And I'm like, ah, this makes sense why you deny the Holy Spirit changing your name. This is why you don't think fundamentally you need a new heart because you think you got the tools at your disposal already.
You know, this is interesting.
Because I think, I suspect one reason they might want to say we're not part of that group, right, is because they're thinking this group is way out there, and we don't want to be associated with them.
But what's interesting is they actually end up, I think, shooting themselves in the foot, because this ends up making a point that I've made that the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church at the time of Trent, had a much higher view of grace than a lot of these pseudo-Christian cults, and even then many contemporary Roman Catholics.
Because if you read Trent, they had a very high view of grace. It's not the same high view that you find in Protestantism generally, but it was a higher view of grace than you find among many Catholics today, and even then apparently this group.
The Roman Catholic Council of Trent was not Pelagian. You know, you can read Trent. They insist on grace, the necessity of grace, and will even say some things that many Roman Catholics would be shocked at.
They'd think, oh, that just, I thought that was a Protestant idea. Maine is only mostly dead. Yeah, I mean, so yeah, they definitely aren't fully Augustinian or anything like that, or even as robust as something you might read at the Council of Orange.
But, oh yeah, so this, so somebody says here, Morg, I don't know if I'm saying your name right, Morgay or Morg, says, did you see William Albrecht's video response to you on Mariology? Now, I think that guy should be ashamed to ever mention my name, right, personally.
That man should be ashamed of himself. I chased him for over a year, and his master should be ashamed as well, the guy who told him he had to debate me because he didn't want to. They both should be ashamed.
Why are they responding to me when they didn't want to debate these topics? Now, Sam jumped ship, right? Didn't.
He somewhat start out Protestant, or, now, I know he's Assyrian Church of the East or something. I don't really know his background, but I feel like there was some old content. Yeah, I always say that.
There's only one true church, and Sam doesn't belong to either one of them, meaning that he keeps talking about these apostolic churches, right? The Eastern Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox, all these other groups.
The Eastern Church claims it's the one true church, and if you don't belong to her, then you are lost. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church. The Assyrian Church claims that it's the true church.
Church of Christ claim that they're the one true church. Right, and not only do you have to be.
Baptized, right? You got to be baptized in the church, right? Yeah, yeah. So, I think it's funny, you know, these churches that he keeps defending, he's not part of, and at least the Eastern Church would say he's lost.
Rome is confused. It depends if you're asking the the Tridentine Roman Church or post, you know, second Vatican II Roman Catholicism, you know, you might be a separated brethren, and that could mean any one of a dozen different things.
But anyways, yeah, so I have seen that they did a response to me on Mary. Now, I'm not going to watch it. I don't even care to watch it. I don't get my information from these guys. I don't think that they have the ability to deal with, I mean, first of all, for those that don't know, I've done like 10 hours on this topic.
You can be sure he's chopped up everything I've said. He's probably distorted it, misrepresented it. These guys have had no shame about lying on things I've said in the past, so I'm just not even interested in looking at that.
But I did see, I did see this. I saw that Shamoon has said he wants to debate me and somebody else, so him and William Albrecht are going, or are willing to debate me on Mary, right? So neither one of them wanted to debate me by themselves, right?
William didn't want to debate me on justification by himself. You should just be by yourself, 2v1. Well, so, well, here's what I was thinking, okay? They call themselves brothers in arms, and the way this looks to me is like neither one of them wants to do this by themselves, so they should be called men holding hands.
But anyways, don't blame Jeremiah for this, people. This is my wit. This is my way of talking. I'm just poking fun here.
Anthony, so back when I debated a Roman Catholic on was Mary sinless or not, so William made a video saying that his blood was boiling when somebody, you know, misrepresents the mother of their Lord and these things, and they invited me to come on their channel and talk, and I had about 10 people immediately say, don't do it, Jeremiah.
Don't do it, because I didn't really know them. I knew some of the old content that Sam had had, but I'm so glad I didn't, because I could detect that it would not be charitable, and I would have been roasted to no end, because I really do want to have a charitable conversation with people.
People can go look at my content, and you'll see it. The way that I debated with Gavin James in a debate, tried to show him a lot of love and grace, ask him questions, but when he was just sitting there and seven seconds ticked by, I'm just like, hey, you think on it, and we'll come back to it later, but let's, you know, kind of move on.
I don't want to kick somebody when they're down, but I just noticed that those two, they're not necessarily trying to accomplish the same goal there.
Yeah, and you know, so I've kind of gone back and forth. I'm thinking, how much more time do I want to spend directed at them, but you know, people keep asking questions, and so it keeps coming up, and you know, I don't know.
I go back and forth. There are plenty of people that I think have made the right choice not to engage that. Gavin Ortland, for example, very respected by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people, his Irenic approach and so forth, and he's actually refused to interact.
With the material those guys are putting out. Now, I talked to Gavin recently and just said, hey, I appreciate how you're able to have a meaningful interaction with William, and he says, by no means. He's like, that person is not respectful, and he was just saying what you're saying.
I refuse to like go any further. Like, I really enjoyed Gavin's debate with Trent Horn. You know what? That was respectful dialogue. It seemed like a very historical approach from both sides, but at the end of the day, I was like, you know what?
That was a refreshing conversation.
Where two men can be respectful towards one another. Yeah, and you know, I think in my debate with Seraphim, I told him at the end, I said, I enjoyed interacting with you. You're very different than the other people I've been interacting with.
If this was the sort of thing that I was doing to begin with, this is how I started engaging these groups was with somebody like Seraphim, this all would have been a different thing, and as I mentioned, I thought that what I would do is sort of draw the fire of these guys.
You know, that way other people can have respectable dialogue. I'm not going to be bothered by this sort of thing. I know for a fact that you don't.
Get bothered easy because you debated, oh goodness, I don't remember what channel it was on, but I'm pretty sure it was a Muslim, and that was a firework show, and I just remember saying,.
Oh, you're thinking of Osama Abdullah. I think so. Yes, that was brutal. Osama and I go back a long time. I debated him, I don't know, over a decade ago in Dearborn in person, and used to go back and forth with him when I was writing for Answering Islam.
He had his own website, Answering Christianity, and so we would write rebuttals against each other and this sort of thing, so we've got a long history, and I know Osama, he's guttural in his speech and so forth, but at the same time, it's sort of like a, you know, he's easy to, I don't know, I mean, the way I think of it is just, you know, underneath all that, there's a sinner, don't get me wrong, but this guy, what he's doing is more compensating than anything else.
He has to ramp up the rhetoric because substance is lacking, and I just look past some of that stuff for that reason, but anyways, yeah, so that is what it is, but oh, so Slam asked, did you and David get arrested in Dearborn?
So this was a different occasion. I don't know, David wasn't there. In fact, ironically, Sam was there with me on this occasion. Sam also debated Osama, but the debate you're talking about with Osama was probably a more recent one than I did within the past year or so, yeah, but at this debate, I was there with Sam, Eddie Dalcor, and Lewis Lionheart.
We were all there for that debate. Anyways, let's see, am I missing any questions here? Jbox says, legend has it, Osama's still calling everything a conjecture till this very day. Yeah, he's a funny, Osama's a funny man.
Actually, yeah, his constant refrain was, his constant refrain was, that's just spaghetti. Everything he didn't get back in the day, 10 years ago, he kept saying, that's just spaghetti, right? So at one point in his debate with Dr. Edward Dalcor, he kept saying, that's spaghetti, and then Dr. Dalcor at one point says, talk about spaghetti, that's just burnt sausage, right?
It's a classic debate line. Anyways.
That's good. Have you debated atheists? I'm sure you have at some point. I was just trying to recall if you engage much with online atheist philosophers.
I haven't done any online stuff with atheists. The way it worked for me was, I was converted in a hostile context, a context that was hostile to the gospel, and for that reason, got interested in apologetics, because I wanted to evangelize people, and I realized I have to be able to defend what I'm proclaiming to them as good news.
I basically decided that I would learn stuff about the groups that I was encountering. I would go to the university campus, and in those days, of course, on the university campus, I was getting bombarded with atheistic type issues.
Darwinian evolution and other things that were part and parcel of atheism, the more philosophically inclined were arguing different philosophies. Online, I haven't really done that. My basic point is just this.
I was basically dealing with things as they came. You don't get to choose, is this person going to be an atheist? Is he going to be a Buddhist? Is he going to be Church Christ? It was whoever came to me, that's who I was going to focus on.
If I kept running into them, I'm going to read their literature. Eventually, I started getting into a lot of interactions with Muslims. That directed things for me. That's why I eventually started writing for Answering Islam, and then doing debates with Muslims, and stuff like that.
It's the same thing with this whole Catholic, Eastern Orthodox thing. I had no interest in these guys. These guys created this problem. They don't like me, and they're upset about things that I say. They should have never addressed me, because that's what brought me out.
I had no interest in their groups. I was happy refuting Muslims. I was happy refuting Unitarians. If these people didn't come along and say, hey, look, we hate your gospel. We don't believe Christ is sufficient.
We want to put Mary and the in his place. We want to detract from the glory of God. If they didn't do that,.
They wouldn't have heard from me. Now I'm here. Very similar with my apologetics ministry. It really started out when we flew Marlon in, debated Church Christ live in person at the university here in my town.
A lot of my content has been helping equip people to show how baptism is a wonderful thing to glorify and show how God is working in your life. Anyway, that was a big part. Then something else that spawned in my local context is full preterism.
There are two local churches, one being an SBC church, preaching full preterism from the pulpit unashamedly so. It blows my mind. I've had a lot of those men reach out to me. I didn't really understand what was going on.
I was very comfortable in my John MacArthur pre-millennial dispensational eschatology realizing, oh, I got to start taking these things serious. For the past year, I've been studying to debunk and expose full preterism, hyper preterism, and realizing that, man, this is just an overhaul in light of all the recent stuff going on with Gary DeMar, which is just shocking.
That's another big portion of on my channel, speaking to what full preterism teaches and where it's wrong, how it fails historically, how it fails logically, and then it fails exegetically ultimately.
I will say I'm not pre-millennial anymore, but I think that is orthodox along with all mill and post mill. I will be speaking at a conference in Indiana in September. I've been invited by Eschatology Matters.
I'll be preaching on the resurrection of the dead and how that's a part of our blessed.
Hope. Interesting, Max King was a hyper preterist, and wasn't he a Church of Christ?
He was. I've tried to tell some of these men in my local town that claim to be reformed. I'm like, you've denied the historic faith. You're not reformed anymore. You're Calvinistic, and there's a distinction there.
I'm like, you're listening to Church of Christ teaching. This spawned out of that stuff only within 200 years ago. This is new on the span of church history. You're absolutely right, and it just baffles me to no end.
It's interesting. I was thinking earlier, you mentioned Bonson. I went to a Christian classical school, Christ College, when it was in Lynchburg, Virginia, before it moved down to Georgia. I don't like saying going down to Georgia.
It always reminds me that the devil went down to Georgia. Bonson was one of the people that helped start that school. He wasn't there when I got there. He died long before I went, but at the time, Ken Gentry was teaching modular courses.
He taught a modular course when I was there on eschatology. Then eventually, when I went to seminary in Greenville, when I moved to Greenville, Ken Gentry lived 10 minutes away from me, and so I would sometimes go over to his church.
Of course, he's a preterist, not a hyper-preterist, but I mention this because both Gary DeMar and Ken Gentry studied under Bonson back at RTS back in the day. Preterism, not hyper-preterism, but just the idea nobody should object to the bare term.
Everybody could be called a preterist to some extent in the sense that all preterism means is gone by or past, and so everybody's a preterist, at least with respect to certain prophecies. We're all preterists when it comes to Isaiah 714, if we're Christians.
In the same principle, we're futurists to a degree in terms of our blessed hope.
Everybody believes that Christ has been born of a virgin. We're all preterists. We believe that prophecy has happened. If you're an Orthodox Christian, you believe that there are certain things that are still future, like Christ's visible, audible, palpable second coming, his resurrection of the dead from their tombs, the final judgment, the consummation of the new.
Heavens and the new earth. Everybody's a futurist. All that was at 70 AD, man.
Well, so point being that the Orthodox preterism that was being taught by Bonson was taught to people like Damar and Gentry, but there's been a lot of issues going on lately with Damar, and I haven't paid too much attention to all of it, but from what I understand, there's questions about where he's at with respect to these things and whether or not he's embraced hyper-preterism.
I'm not going to comment on whether he has or hasn't because I haven't kept up on it, but I will say that I thoroughly, adamantly reject hyper-preterism.
I've done two shows recently with Dr. Sam Frost, who was a lead speaker of full preterism for a decade and came out of it. This dude knows the ins and outs. The concerning thing with Damar is he's refusing to affirm those essentials of our blessed hope about Christ's future bodily coming, that we are going to receive resurrected bodies fit for eternity, and that Christ is going to restore all things.
His deal, and you can kind of go look into this in your audience, is he's just saying, okay, you tell me your proof text to support those major points. And what he's been doing every time is the verses that are being brought to him, he shows how it don't mean that.
And so it's just really concerning because he's hashtagged that post-meal life, you know what I mean? And I've loved his Last Days Madness and I've encouraged people to read these things. And I think there's a beauty to partial preterism, understanding historic orthodox preterism, understanding how God was working in the early church.
But yeah, it's a whole deal. And the reason why I brought that up is going back to what you said. I wasn't searching out after having, I was comfortable in my eschatology, right? I've a lot of times told people eschatology is the third tier issue that we can talk about over coffee and disagree and shake hands.
I didn't realize somebody could have just such a skewed eschatology that it corrupts the gospel of grace. I believe it changes the nature of who Jesus is to say that he not only returned in 70 AD, but it was in spirit form.
That's Gnosticism, right? You're talking about a different Jesus at that point. And it's no longer a gospel that triumphs over sin. I don't know if this is news to you, but they believe that this world of sin continues on into infinity.
And so that has logical problems that I've gotten into. But all of this showed up in my hometown and I have to guard the flock from this. So I'm like you, I didn't go searching after a lot of.
These things. So we've shifted a little bit, but that's not a problem because we've talked a lot about justification. We've answered some questions. I don't see additional ones on justification, so I don't have a problem.
Everybody agrees with us. But one issue that you just reminded me of. So when I first encountered somebody who held to hyper-preterism, it was back in the 90s, and I had done a lot of stuff with Jehovah's Witnesses.
So I remember one of the things that was surprising to me was when I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses didn't believe that Christ is bodily risen from the dead. And part of that had to do with their idea.
They made a number of false predictions about the return of Christ. And the next time around, right, after several false predictions, instead of saying, oh, wrong date, what they did was they redefined the nature of his second coming.
And so they defined it as something invisible and all that. And this tied in with the whole idea that he's not presently embodied. He doesn't presently have a resurrected body. And so the reason I bring this up is I was talking to this person who was a hyper-preterist.
I didn't even know what hyper-preterism was. And I was talking to this person, and they said that everything happened in AD 70. And I said, well, then how do you define the nature of Christ and his—you know, I know there's a number of ways you could try to deal with this, but the way this person dealt with it was to say that Jesus was not physically raised from the dead.
It was a spiritual resurrection. And so that's how they could explain all the passages that talk about his coming, including those that we would normally interpret as a reference to his bodily coming.
So they would say that it's all spiritual. And so my understanding, at least, of some versions of preterism—hyper-preterism, maybe not all, I don't know—but is that some of them deny that Christ right now is the incarnate Son at the right hand of the Father.
Most do. They believe that He was reabsolved as.
The eternal Logos into the Godhead. And so how do they interpret that He is still the God-man interceding on our behalf as the one mediator? We'll say, well, He still has thoughts of when He was in the incarnation, and somehow that counts.
And I'm over here like, different Jesus. Paul warned.
Us about people like y 'all. So one of the things I do with these groups, besides obviously hammering those texts that talk about Christ's post-resurrection appearances, which are all quite clearly intended to drive home the point that He's a real, resurrected, incarnate person.
Yeah, but Anthony, those are before 70 AD. But, well, so part of the problem, though, even with that, is at what point, then, biblically, do you say Christ ceased having that body? Because I can keep going with this, but it gets worse.
But here's an example of what I'm talking about. In Colossians 2, Paul says, in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It's present tense. In Christ dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form.
So he's saying, when he wrote that, now they'll say this is prior to 80 -70, but it's very clearly far after Christ's ascension that Paul's writing to the saints in Colossae, right? So at that point, Paul's thinking of Christ as having ascended into heaven and still being embodied.
But now here's why, I mean, it gets even worse. In Acts 17, when Paul's preaching to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul says that God has fixed a day in which He's going to judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has appointed, and He's given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.
So here Paul speaks of the judgment that's going to be brought as being exercised by a man who was raised from the dead. And so, well, they might say that's 80 -70, but isn't that a problem,.
Right? Because he's now a man. That's Demar's stance. That day, he thinks, and how you're interpreting the Greek, that day is soon, right? It's around the corner. Rather than, like Gentry and Philip Kaiser say, it's a certainty to happen.
But it's still missing the point that it's talking.
About Jesus as a man exercising. So you can't get around this problem of denying the real bodily resurrected nature of Christ. He was embodied long after His resurrection. He was embodied after His ascension.
He was embodied when Paul wrote to the saints at Colossae. He was embodied even in 80 -70, if you think Act 1731 is talking about 80 -70. I don't. I'm just saying if you do, you have to affirm that. And now you have to deal with the very physical nature of this person in.
Connection with that event. What do you think about this? I've been teaching at 12 .5 through 1 John 4, verse 2. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come into flesh is from God.
I believe that's in the perfect tense, right? So this is speaking to a reality that this past event has future ramifications, that Jesus is the God-man. And guess what? He's still the God-man. Theologically, He's continually interceding on our behalf.
He can only do that if He's a true representative of who we are. So I love what you're saying too. It's like no matter where you want to tackle this, we can rest knowing that not only did Jesus raise bodily, He wasn't the exception.
He was the rule. 1 Corinthians 15 says, hey, that's how your resurrected body, by the way, is going to be. That's not code for Old Testament Israel or something like that. But Jesus is reigning at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf.
Amen. Sorry I wrote you off of what we initially started. I had to get Anthony Rogers' thoughts on hyper-preterism when I had.
The chance. Well, I'm happy to speak to that. I usually try to avoid aspects of the eschatological question only because in my experience, I've met people that they want to make certain things with respect to eschatology, the be-all and end-all of Christianity.
And they want to define the parameters of the faith and who's in it and who's outside of it in terms of things that I do think the resurrection of Christ, the return of Christ, the final judgment, the resurrection of the body, all those are critically necessary.
They're essential, fundamental to the Christian faith. But there are other things related to eschatology that I don't think are necessarily of that sort and that good men can differ on as we try and work towards a more mature understanding.
That's what full preterism does. They pry on those.
Things that we have charitable disagreements with, and then they interpret everything in light of 70 AD. So, it's a complete overhaul, a different hermeneutic, and I didn't realize.
How dangerous it was. Yeah. So, my point is just there's important stuff that I want to talk to that I know some people will shut me out if they know I hold this particular view about the rapture, mid, pre, post, whatever, trib, or—.
We know you're post-mill. Nobody knows. Maybe they do. I don't know. But I'm just saying, yeah, there's some things that it's strange to me that—here's an example of something that got me thinking about this.
This is not on eschatology per se, but I used to work at a Christian bookstore back in the 90s. 1996 to 2000, I worked at this bookstore. I was born in 92, by the way. Oh, really? Okay. So, I was working at a Christian bookstore when you were still a toddler.
So, this guy started working there, and he always wanted to talk to me about tongues. He went to a Pentecostal church, and this is nothing against Pentecostals. It's just this is what particular individual—I wouldn't say it's true of all Pentecostals, but he wanted to talk about tongues every day, and I was like, I'm not really interested in talking about tongues every day.
And so, one day, I stopped him. I was like, I'm going to work, and I'm like, I am not interested in talking about tongues today. Let's talk about Jesus or something. So, anyways, we go to work, and I said to him, I said, hey—because it was obvious to me that he was prioritizing this over other things, and even if just for the sake of argument, we grant that I'm wrong and he's right on that particular issue, I'm thinking, is this really what occupies your thoughts all the time?
And so, I said to him, this was intended to just sort of get him thinking in terms of priorities and what's most important and so forth. I said to him, I said, if I was dying, if you saw me, I got hit by a car, and I'm laying in the gutter, and I'm gasping for air, and you have two minutes with me.
I said, what would you tell me? So, what would you tell me before I passed into eternity? And he said, well, and I said, well, I said, would you talk to me about tongues? I said, or would you give me the gospel?
I said, would you start telling me what the gospel is? And I said, if so, what would it be? And he's like, well, and he kept hemming and hawing, and I'm like, are you serious? You don't have anything to say?
I've got two minutes, man. I'm about to die. And anyway, so then I thought, okay, I'm going to kickstart him here. I said, okay, so you'd tell me, for example, that God's eternal son, the eternal word came down from heaven, and for us men in our salvation, took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
I said, you tell me that, right? And then you tell me what, he goes, wait a minute, wait a minute, he goes, what are you talking about? And I said, what do you mean, wait a minute, what am I talking about?
I said, you'd tell me that the son came down? He goes, Jesus didn't come down from heaven. I said, what? And he said, he goes, Jesus, he goes, Jesus, he was born of Mary. I mean, and I'm like, what? This whole time I'm working with this guy, he goes to a Pentecostal church, and he told me he was also a youth pastor there.
And the guy didn't even know who Jesus was. I thought, I am never, again, going to assume or take for granted somebody's Christianity. I'm going to make sure that people that I talk to, if I'm out witnessing and somebody tells me they're a Christian, I'm going to make sure I ask them if they know the gospel, if they know who Jesus is.
And ever since then, I was like, this guy wanted to shut anything out that I said because I didn't agree with him on tongues. And I'm thinking, so if I start addressing things like this to people that are of that mindset, then I might not get an opportunity to talk to them about Jesus, which is far more important.
So it's just that kind of thing that weighs on me. I'm not saying I'll never speak on some of the specifics of eschatology that I tend to avoid. It's just, I keep thinking, I don't want somebody shutting out what I'm telling them about justification because I don't hold their particular view of Gog and Magog, or their view of the third temple, or the red heifer, or where the Ark of the Covenant is, or something like that.
You sharing that story made me think about a lot of times you can tell pretty quick people's pet doctrines. And no surprise, with Church Christ, it's baptism. That's the thing that they're going to talk about a lot.
They're going to want to talk four evenings in a row on Acts 2 .38.
Give me an Acts in 2 .38 and I can take out any—have you heard that? No, I haven't. That's good. I used to hear that from Church Christ people. Give me an Acts in 2 .38 and I can take out any.
Or whatever group they're talking about. I've actually never heard that. That's good. So I deal with hospice care in most Church Christ, and I mean the vast majority, 95 or more. If you do not get fully immersed, sorry for my Presby brothers out there, but unless you don't, unless you get fully immersed, I mean, hand sticking out of the water, you're disobeying the gospel in their mind.
I mean, that's the level of legalism we're dealing with here. But as the more and more I talk about this, what about the person that I'm interacting with that cannot be fully immersed into water? Deathbed experiences.
Not deathbed, but they're going to die really soon. Iron lung. Yeah. Well, they didn't obey the gospel, Jeremiah. So I'm like, nope, I refuse. Then it's like, yes, I'm going to meet them with love and grace, speak the truth and love, all these things.
But there is a level of seriousness where they're distorting the gospel so much so where it leaves some people without hope. I recently spoke on the Cultish podcast from Apologia, and I make no bones about it, but the Church of Christ is a cult, both historically, beginning with Alexander Campbell and the Restorationist movement, but biblically, they have departed from the gospel of grace, which Paul talks about and anathematizes.
And so when they talk about a person is damned because they can't get into water, that really upsets me, and I'm going to speak hardcore against it. So for the people that say, well, if you have a desire for baptism, like early church fathers, or, well, we just trust God's grace.
I'm like, look, you're trying to make an exception where that's the rule, right? And so I just try to tell people obedience is wonderful, but obedience flows from a transformed heart of faith in the perfect Savior.
And so anyway, all that to say is, you can start telling the full preterists. They're going to want to talk about the timing indicators. That's their big thing. Everything's interpreted a lot of that.
Church of Christ, they want to talk about baptism because that's most preeminent, and I would venture to say it's probably what they worship. That's why when I talk to Roman Catholics, it's, why do we talk so much about Mary, right?
And why does that get your blood boiling in the same conversation where you would talk about the Trinity and Christology? Well,.
Because veneration is code for worship. Yeah. In fact, you mentioned Mary, and it reminds me, one thought that I've had, if I, at this point, I wasted a year chasing William and Sam, now suddenly they say they want to debate and so forth.
And Sam said, let's debate whether Mary remained a virgin. I'm thinking, I don't even have any much, I don't have much interest in that. What I would be interested in debating, here's a properly framed debate that actually deals with what I hold to, is belief in Mary's perpetual virginity, a de fide doctrine, that is a doctrine necessary unto salvation because the official position of Rome is that if you knowingly reject this, you reject Rome's official magisterial teaching on this, you're outside of the church.
And if they're going to be consistent with their earlier conciliar documents, they have to say that those who are outside the church are lost. That's the consistent Roman position. They claim they're irreformable, so they shouldn't be advocating a different view of those outside the church than what was held before that.
At least the Eastern people that I interact with have been more consistent in saying, yeah, we say that everybody who's outside are piddling little denominations, you know, is lost, including babies, everybody's not baptized.
I mean, they're pretty, you know, they're a lot more consistent than their Roman Catholic counterparts these days. But anyways, that I'd be interested in. Does the Bible teach as a de fide doctrine that Mary's perpetual virginity, is this something that's requisite unto salvation?
But here's a question before I lose it, that you might be able to answer. I know I can't. Breakfast Gun says, are y 'all familiar with the movement in the church of Christ away from these heresies? So, yeah, a little bit.
I can't remember. I mean, they're still.
Cloaked under the church of Christ, but they're starting to use instruments, because you got to understand something, Anthony. Legalism attacks itself, right? So, I mean, you have churches of Christ that will anathematize one another if you use multiple cups in communion versus one.
If you use instruments or if you clap your hands and are making instruments with your hands, well, you're doing a man-made tradition that's not prescribed in Scripture. So, a lot of these gatherings, I'll say for the sake of this conversation, are starting to back away from the hard legalism.
And I've met some professing church of Christ that they're just like, look, we are hearing what you're saying about the doctrine of justification by faith, and we don't think that you're outside the faith.
You might be right. Can we still be brothers? And so, yes, I've heard, and I just encourage these people, just please don't call yourself church of Christ anymore, because you're really not being the thing that distinguishes you as, quote unquote, the church of Christ.
And a lot of them start, end up changing their name, community of Christ, things like that. But yes, I'm very much aware, and I'm like, praise God, they're moving away from a false gospel that can't save.
Yeah. Shamus here is a Roman Catholic. He says, Catholics who understand the Boston controversy believe in no salvation outside the church. So, there are some Roman Catholics who would be consistent. I think certain set of vacantists are even more consistent set of vacantists are those who think that the current pope is not a true pope, that the chair of Peter is vacant.
But people like... Wouldn't you hate to have to defend the current pope with some of the things that go on and what he says? That would just be tough. I'd like to debate the pope. I would pay to watch that.
Yeah. So, all right. So, one thing, maybe as sort of a way of winding down here and kind of bringing it back to our topic is, I was thinking of, well, there's a couple different things that we could have focused on, I think.
But, well, let me just say this, and then get your response. We have sort of talked about this, but we haven't really emphasized it, and that's the fact that faith is the instrumental means for receiving justification.
We have mentioned faith, of course. We talked about Abraham's faith. We've seen it in contrast to works. The gospels are replete with references to faith as the way of taking hold of Christ, of receiving forgiveness, and so forth.
You even have that pregnant phrase in Luke 8 where Jairus is told, do not be afraid any longer, only believe. That sort of thing is a constant refrain in the gospels. It's not just Pauline. It's throughout the gospels.
And it's obvious, I think a lot of people are missing the point in some of the gospel stories when they think that when they read a story like the rich young ruler, where he comes up to Jesus, what must I do to be saved?
Or other stories. They're looking at what's really the setup to the problem as though it were the answer. The answer that's being given over and over again is believing. There's these pointed contrasts with those who believe in contrast to these others who don't.
And they're the ones who are extolled for their great faith and all this kind of thing. The reason the rich young ruler walks away sad is there's no mention there of his faith, right? It's other things.
But what do Church of Christ people say? Maybe you could tell me. How do they deal with the very clear emphasis on faith in Scripture? Maybe I'll just leave it broad like that so you can determine how strictly you want to be.
Well, there's a couple of different.
Answers you could get because they have a five-step formula, right? You got to hear the word. You got to believe. You got to repent. You got to confess. You got to be baptized, right? So when they're looking at the gospels, they're going to remind you this.
Jesus is under the law. Don't forget that. And when Jesus forgives sin on the basis of faith, they will just say, well, Jesus is the God man. He can forgive sin. And my critique is, well, he's not an unjust judge, right?
We see a consistency of how the just judge of all the earth forgives sin. It's on the basis of faith. So what they'll try to do is try to say, well, faith is the work that you're doing. So works is not divorced from that.
There's a conflation of categories. But then I think this is a stronger argument. It fails at the end of the day. But like the woman that reached out and touched the hem of Jesus's garment, they would say, see, she's doing a work according to your definition, Jeremiah.
But was that a meritorious work? And I say, OK, let's unpack these examples because the one you mentioned earlier, I'm like, it was her faith that resulted in healing, right? It wasn't something that she was able to get up and do.
But yeah, so many different examples. It's pointing back to Christ a lot of times. Jesus can heal physically, which shows the spiritual reality that he can forgive sin, right? And so I would say under a synergistic worldview, yes, she was receiving her due under this model that, yeah, she was distinguished from the crowd.
She was smarter than most people to figure out who Jesus was. If I touch him, then I'm going to get something in return. I'm saying praise God. That's not the actual world that we live in. God was graciously working in her, drawing her to the Savior by faith, right?
And so we see a mere demonstration of her faith that resulted in a physical healing. That's not the paradigm of justification. But what we can glean from that is, yeah, we can see what living faith does, right?
And so you have to remind them of that context. I want to mention another story, account in Luke chapter 5 with the paralytic. My right-hand man, Adam Carmichael, over here, we spent some time on my show unpacking this because in the church of Christ's mind, you got to do something.
Acts 2, 38, they're asking, what must we do? Not just sit there. I mean, that's the type of conversation I have to have with this. And I'm like, okay, Luke 5, the paralytic, Jesus says he saw their faith, right?
And if you measure this with Matthew chapter 9, Jesus says to the paralytic, man, your sins are forgiven. And so my question to the church of Christ that I don't ever hear an answer other than, well, faith is a work.
And it devolves into that. But I'm just saying, what works did the paralytic do before he picked up his bed and walked, right? What works did he do when Jesus said, man, your sins are forgiven? Well, they're in a pickle because he's a paralytic.
He literally can't do anything. And they say, but yeah, he saw their works. That means he, he saw their faith. That means he saw their works. No, no. Jesus looks past the works. He sees the pistis. So yeah, there was a collective group of faith and we can see that faith being demonstrated with the friends, but Jesus looked past the works and saw the heart.
That's why later in the context, the Pharisees were getting mad and accusing him of all these things, but it says Jesus perceiving their thoughts, right? What was true on the inside. I'm like, Jesus saw their heart of faith, the disposition of their heart.
But that's a classic example where literally the man only had faith. He could not do any works and he was forgiven on that basis. Now, taking this over to.
The debate with Rome in the East, I read this the other day. I don't know if you saw my recent show that I did. I was doing it for ministry to Muslims, but it appeared on their channel and on my channel.
So you can watch it here or there, but it was on the deity of Christ and the gospel from Mark chapter two. And what I was doing was taking this incident of the paralytic man and showing from this context, the deity of Christ, because Jesus exercises an exclusively divine prerogative.
And I go into the old Testament foundation for that. And the fact that Mark is clearly situating it in this context, the idea of the Pharisees, because some people like to dismiss it and say, the Pharisees were wrong.
Not only God can forgive sins. And by the way, note how Rome in the East in principle undermine this argument for the deity of Christ, which Mark is clearly trying to make by ascribing this prerogative to others, but just as it belongs to God alone in this magisterial sense.
Anyways, Jesus deity is demonstrated here, but also the nature of the gospel here is in their very presence, the one who's going to die for sin, the one who has been ordained to that end. And he is extending forgiveness to this man solely on the ground of faith, right?
Or not on the ground, but through faith. But Rome and the East both reject this as a Protestant interpretation, which I think, again, is evident from the text for the reasons you've given. But they want to say that this is an innovation.
So here's a quote that I read on this. This comes from Hilary of Poitiers, the one I mentioned earlier. This is from his commentary on Matthew's version of this account. So it's the paralytic man. It's the same account, but Matthew's version of it.
But here's what he says. He says, a pattern of truth is followed in these words, even as an image of the future is fulfilled in the words. It disturbed the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man, for they considered that Jesus Christ was only a man, and that he forgave sin, for which the law was not able to grant absolution, since faith alone justifies.
And then he goes on. And this is not a one-off, by the way. If anyone will pick up his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, it's out there. It's not hard to get. Pick up his commentary. Over and over again, he repeatedly interprets certain things in the Gospels as people being justified through faith alone.
This is why I think it was very interesting and enlightening in my cross-examination of Seraphim, how he wanted to, you know, him and Haw there. I imagine you noticed this, right? Some people were upset that I was stopping him, because the thing is, you've got limited time in a cross-ex, right?
And if a person's not going to answer your questions, you need to move on, or you need to press them to answer it. Otherwise, they're just wasting your time. I've explained the same thing to people. Yeah, I mean, and the other thing is, it's kind of like, you know, I love watching this judge on television, the people's court, because one of the things she notices, that I've noticed, is when somebody asks a very clear and pointed question, and then the other person says, what, come again?
You know, that's often a stall tactic. They don't like the question, and they don't necessarily have a quick answer, so they're trying to stall. Their wheels are going. And, you know, sometimes people don't understand you, that's, you know, fair enough.
But there are a lot of times when, you know, they're just stalling. And so anyways, the question is very simple, right? How is this man justified? On what basis were his sins forgiven? Was it because of faith or something else?
And when I'm not getting an answer to that, when it's very easy, I know there's a problem. And the very easy answer is faith alone. Now, they want to say, oh, well, whenever the fathers use this phrase, they mean it in a way different than you do.
Well, why couldn't he give that very different answer? I mean, why couldn't he answer it saying faith alone, then? Why did it have to be, you know, if there's this easy alternative way of understanding that, you know, I could say exactly what he says.
I don't have to.
Him at all. Faith alone, right? But— Anthony, you haven't read James chapter 2 that mentions the.
Phrase faith only. Yeah, I will say something about that in one second. But the other thing is, so read that commentary. Even the D. H. Williams, who does the introduction to it, points out that it's very clear that he holds to the Pauline view of justification, sola fide.
And it's all throughout his commentary on Matthew. But anyways, sola fide in—one thing that's very interesting, there's an article, actually, I think the guys at Roman Catholic who wrote it, but he makes this very interesting observation about a curious fact.
I've just given an example of one father who used the phrase faith alone in connection with justification, right? Now, set aside what that phrase means, okay? They're going to pretend it can mean something else that's magically consistent with Rome in the East, neither of whom has any official statement in their confessional document saying it's faith alone under some other meaning of that, you know?
They just flat-out reject it. Anyways, set aside whatever that possibly means. It's clear that certain fathers use this phrase, right? I just gave one. There's one, another one you've mentioned before.
Who? Victorinus. Oh, yeah, yeah. I could give so many examples. I mean, I have them at my fingertips. I have example after example. But set that aside for a moment. Why do none of these fathers think that they have to stop and explain how their words are not inconsistent with James 224?
Doesn't that strike you as problematic? Now, I'm going somewhere with this. But if they're using a phrase that James really negates, then you'd think that at some point they'd say, this doesn't contradict what James says because here's what we mean when we use this phrase, and here's what James meant when he uses this phrase.
They don't ever, not once, they never once try to explain how they can use this phrase without contradicting what James says. This suggests something. This is the sort of thing that I recommend to people.
You know, when you see this sort of thing, it's a clue that maybe there's something here to be discovered. Well, this is true not only of Greek-speaking fathers, but also of the Latin-speaking fathers, and so this is further interesting.
You know, why is it the Greek-speaking fathers have no problem with it? Latin-speaking fathers have no problem with it. What's interesting is when you look at the actual Greek phrase, and I don't know why the translations botch it so often here, but when you look at the Greek phrase, the word translated alone is not an adjective modifying faith.
It simply is not. It's grammatically impossible to render it that way. It is not the Protestant slogan that James is negating. It's not an adjective. Look at any interlinear. I don't need to look at an interlinear, but for those that do, look at it.
It is not an adjective, and that's what it must be if you're going to say it contradicts what these fathers meant or what Protestants mean. It simply isn't. The same thing is true when you look at the Latin translation.
When you look at Jerome's Latin translation, he rightly recognizes that it's not an adjective modifying faith. Now, I don't have time to unpack all the implications of this, but the simple fact is that James is not negating what Protestants are affirming, what Paul affirms, what Hilary of Poitiers affirmed, what Victorinus affirmed, what Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, and all these others affirmed.
So that's first of all the main point that I—oh, go ahead.
I was going to say my quick response—is it James 2, 24, around in there? I say, read the whole verse because he starts off by saying, you see. So like you've taught on many times, you see this person-to-person interaction, this demonstrate your faith to me back in verse 18.
That's the continued context, and the faith that's being negated is not a firm trust but a mere said faith. You look earlier in the context, and so I've had the best time of just showing people literally verse by verse the context because I've noticed these other positions, they jump off James' argument at some point in the dialogue.
I've had recently a church Christ say, okay, because they'll ask me, well, how is Abraham justified before man? Man, we go back to Genesis 22 and all before. We go through that. We can go the distance, right?
Well, how did Rahab show her faith? Because she hid them in. I'm like, for one, it's the same application that Christians are reading and the Jews of old, but what about the two men that she hid? They are two witnesses, right?
The truth of the matter is justified on the basis of two or three witnesses, as the law would later bring out. But it's like, however we want to do this dance, true saving faith will make itself known.
Hebrews 11 is built on the thesis verse of Habakkuk 2 .4, the just shall live by faith. Romans 1 brings out that fact too. It sounds like me and you have fought very similar battles when it comes to James chapter.
I think someone in the chat was just saying the apologetic dog doesn't even know that James 2 contradicts. I'm like, oh, here we go.
It's not surprising that it would come up. Robertson Genis years ago wrote a book, Not By Faith Alone. The title of the book, this is why it's so astounding, the title of the book is taken from James 2 .24, the mistranslation of James 2 .24.
And throughout the book, he constantly brings up James 2 .24. He even brings it up at times when it seems his back is against the wall. In other words, it's his escape clause. Anytime he doesn't know how to deal with a verse, he brings up this one.
And it's like a drum beat. One of the things that I want to do a video on this, I have to think through it more, but it has to do with propaganda techniques. And that's where people, I kind of think of it like, I'm not a Star Wars nerd for those that are used to, I liked Star Wars, but the whole Jedi mind trick.
Remember how it supposedly works, but not on people who are tough minded. So Jabba the Hutt was tough minded, but this, other people that succumb to it aren't. Propaganda techniques work on people that aren't tough minded.
And one propaganda technique is constantly repeating something. People hear something over and over and over again. And it's hard to overcome that. For somebody that's come under the power of that, it's hard to overcome that.
So if I quote a father, numerous Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people have had it beaten into their heads. We believe what the fathers taught. So you can't possibly be accurately representing the fathers, right?
It's a mantra. In their ears, they're hearing, we are the people of the fathers. And so I realized the same thing is true though, when it comes to a passage like James 2 .24, they have heard over and over again, that this refutes the Protestant doctrine.
This is, as St. Genes says in his book, Rome's calling card. He says, this is our calling card. This is what we use as the great defeater of Protestantism. And so I find it so astounding that nobody seems to have taken a moment to look at the Greek text here.
And it's not that St. Genes doesn't know Greek. St. Genes was trained at Westminster. He knows Greek, but he apparently never looked at it, at least not carefully enough in Greek. And anyways, I got a whole article I'm working on, on that issue.
I was wanting to speak real quick to kind of my side of things with the Church of Christ, because this is kind of their calling card as well. And when I asked the question, who is justification before?
I mean, that's why my debate was essentially before God, because I am wanting to go to Romans 4 to talk about a true living faith, what that looks like. But a lot of them will say, Jeremiah, our baptism is showing God that our faith is real, a faith that works.
And I try to encourage people to think about what they're saying. Are they believing in an omniscient being who knows all things? He knows the moment that you have faith? Or does he need to learn when that faith works a particular action like baptism?
And so that's something else that's at stake, is are we going to be consistent with who God is and then with who man is in light of that? Does he need to see that particular work manifested in order for him to know that it's real?
Well, that's absurd. God tests the heart. God knows beforehand. And yeah, we never go to James 2 .10. He's saying they don't. James 2 .10, if you stumble at one point in the law, you've shattered the whole thing.
Yeah. So I mean, that's obviously problematic for those that are... It's interesting. One of the things that they're never taking into account is this point. This is why I wanted to start by talking about God is holy, righteous, just, and the law of God, the requirement of perfection, that sort of thing.
Because it's like they think the gospel is God has relaxed his standards. God has now made it easier to get into heaven by works. That's the way some groups and some individuals seem to be thinking. I'm not saying everyone makes this sort of error, but there is this idea that we're saved by works, though none of them would say that they perfectly keep God's law.
But that's a problem. If you're to keep the whole law, and if you want to say, well, no, because Christ's righteousness or Christ's atonement covers our sins, well, now you're on our platform, right? It's not both and, it's either or.
It's either Christ is your savior or you are your savior. Scripture doesn't allow you to mix these two things. So yeah, if you stumble in one point, then you've broken the whole thing. It's the same point Paul makes in Galatians when he says, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all things that are written in the book of the law.
Note how comprehensive that is, by the way. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all things written in the book of the law. So everyone is cursed, of whom this is the case, who doesn't continue.
So it's not just doing it one day or a week or a year or most of your life. It's continual, doing it all the time. And everything, not just the main things, not just a lot of things, but everything. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all things written in the book of the law.
And the only alternative to that is to be in Christ, who has provided atonement. So I don't know, do you have any other issues that you think I didn't cover that you want to address? Well, I know we are winding.
Down. I did want to get your thoughts on this. I know in the debate that I had, 1 Corinthians 6 .11 was brought up because they're pushing for water baptism is not a work. I'm like, literally, by definition, you're participating in some degree in your baptism.
It is something that you bring to the table. And obviously, being Reformed, we see God monergistically working out all things together after the counsel of his will. And I've also taught that that doesn't negate our perspective and our life of working out our salvation and fear and trembling and our sanctification.
I would remind somebody, but this verse, 1 Corinthians 6 .11 was brought up, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of Jesus or in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
I know that maybe not all Protestants would see this the same way. My initial thought was, look what Paul is telling his audience. You've been saved by the grace of God. You were not going to inherit the kingdom of God from an earthly standpoint, living this debauched life, but you were saved by grace.
And then I've heard Roman Catholics say, sanctification comes first before justification. Well, earlier in chapter one, he talks about how we were sanctified in Jesus Christ. We've been positionally set apart from the world, and then it's qualified by justification.
So we're over here like there's no problem there. So in my debate, the question was, well, if you think this is talking about more regeneration and monergism, then why is it written in the middle voice?
And so my initial response was, because it doesn't negate our perspective. The reason why I think it's really getting into regeneration is because it's qualified by the Spirit of God. It reminds me a lot of Titus 3 .5.
And so did you want to speak to maybe how you handle this verse and the objection that says, well, if it's in the middle voice, well, then how can this be monergism?
Well, here's the question I would throw back at them. I actually think this verse clearly decimates them. It says, such were some of you, but you were washed. It is accurate to say this is an aorist indicative middle.
And if they want to say this refers to baptism, note that it cannot possibly therefore be justification. It's not justifying, because Paul distinguishes this washing from sanctification, that setting apart that takes place at the beginning of the Christian life, and from justification.
He says, you were washed, aorist middle, you were sanctified, now it's aorist passive. So that shows that sanctification is not the same thing as this washing that's in view here. But then he goes on to say, you were justified, which is another aorist passive, not a middle.
So washing here is not justification. I think they're bringing the rope to their own hanging when they appeal to this verse. So I'm saying even if you want to say that the washing here is baptism, it is decidedly not justification.
I've thought about this too, along with.
Your defining terms and showing the distinctions here. But if you're saying that the middle voice is kind of, it's all about you doing something, and if you're talking about this being water baptism, well, then you can't merely say then, I don't do anything in my baptism.
I'm merely passive, not according to their own standard. Does that make sense? So they're talking about their participation within water baptism. I'm like, oh, you're back at square one trying to get out of this being a work that you do.
Yeah. And besides that, the middle voice.
Doesn't necessitate that the person himself is doing something. That's just not true. The idea is that this has some sense of self-interest, right? This action has something to do with the self-interest.
I'm trying to think of how to put it in ways that we don't normally think in English. You have this, in Greek, you have the active voice, meaning the person's doing it. You have a passive voice, which doesn't focus on the agent.
It just focuses on the event. It's something that's happening to a person, and this could be because God is doing it or whatever, but the agent is not in view. The middle voice expresses that this is something done with a kind of self-interest.
It's something that has interest towards the individual.
It doesn't necessarily mean— Paul's saying your interests have changed, right? This is worse, some of you, right?
But something has happened in your life. Yeah. So I think, I mean, the quick answer that I would give to this is the one that I gave, that it decidedly distinguishes it from sanctification and justification.
So whatever you want to say that is, whether baptism or something else, it is justification, and therefore, if it is baptism, it baits over. Yeah, it didn't help you. All right, well, folks, I hope you have enjoyed—oh wait, there's one other super chat here I better get.
Mason says, asking a Baptist and Presbyterian infants that were baptized, they want to start trouble. When they grow up and profess, do we baptize again, and what's the history on this? Well, so if you're—now, I can give you Jeremiah's answer, don't baptize babies.
Now, my answer is that you would no more re-baptize a child than somebody would have re-circumcised a child that grew up in belief. The official Presbyterian view is that—look at you guys looking at each other, none of that—is that we accept the validity of a person's baptism.
We don't believe baptism saves, so it's not, you know—what saves is faith, and baptism is a sign and seal of faith. If a person doesn't have faith, then baptism is, you know, actually condemns them, if anything, right?
It speaks against them, and so they have to believe, right? Baptism or no baptism, those who don't believe will be damned. If I can borrow a line from your debate, I think it was—wasn't it Spurgeon who—I think I remember reading a sermon of Spurgeon's on Mark 16, where he kept emphasizing, whether you believe or—whether you're baptized or not, he who does not believe shall be damned, and he just kept hammering that.
I don't know if you want to comment on that. I already gave your answer, that way you don't.
Have to. That's true. I was like, well, this is your show, and Anthony's like the only Presbyterian that I would not want to debate on this topic, but what I love is you and I have so much unity, like we can come on and talk about justification by faith alone, that I try to encourage my Southern Baptist brothers, it's okay to have strong fellowship with Presbyterians.
I mean, we have the same gospel of grace. Now, I think you and I would have so much more in common than a lot of professing Baptists. So, the baptism thing, I tell people, is very important, but there's room for charity and disagreement for how we try to come together to understand these things.
Obviously, I love Dr. James White. I just point people to a lot of his debates and teaching series. He says a lot better than I can. I recently debated a Lutheran, of all people, on their understanding of baptism.
What kind of gets Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists in this conversation is our differing views of the covenant, how that works out. To me, I love the ongoing discussion. Something that I have nothing but just love and respect for Presbyterians in contrast to Lutherans is they hold to baptismal regeneration and sola fide, and I just think that is really hard to do.
But I think when you appeal to infants being baptized, what I can't do is try to say, well, they were doing something of their own volition. I actually agree that they were not doing anything in favor of.
I can see the gospel pictured with an infant. So, I've enjoyed that ongoing understanding from the Presbyterian and then distinguished from the Lutheran side. And so, my thought is we have to just talk about the covenant, the nature of the new covenant in Christ, and that's where the debate is at.
But Church of Christ, I think they've totally made baptism into a work that they have to participate in because they do believe you have to be fully submerged, that you have to get up and walk into the baptism, and if you don't, then you're disobeying the gospel.
So, I think there's a lot of unity that you and I share. I tell people I love the camaraderie between John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. I think they modeled that very well.
Back in the day. One question as we're closing out that occurred to me that I was thinking about before, but this brings it back up again. There's an old saying, an elephant, once it gets its nose in the door, isn't going to be content until it comes all the way in.
If it gets a little bit of that trunk in there, it's coming in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. In my mind, this idea on the part of the Church of Christ is kind of a Trojan horse. I can't imagine it really stops there with baptism.
So, I realize that in terms of what they want to say, to some extent, they're probably more comfortable trying to defend baptismal works in justification, but do they really stop at that, or is it really the case that—I'm not saying that's not bad enough.
I'm just saying, is it like a proverbial case of the elephant getting all the way in?
Do they turn around and also struggle? Here's the Trojan horse. Five-step formula in order to be saved is what they will say, but they don't tell you the things that come later. So, they say you got to hear the Word, you got to believe, you have to repent, you have to confess, and you have to be water baptized in order to be saved.
Mark 16, 16. All I do is just say, so if—for one, that's not all five steps, but if I do these steps, are you saying that I will be saved? Because what I'm about to say is, I've done those things. Oh, well, there's a sixth step where you got to be a part of our Church of Christ.
We're the Church of Christ, by the way. I don't know if you read Romans 16, 16, the churches of Christ, and I'm like, you're just begging the question. That's just talking about the nature of the church.
It's Christ's church. It's the Lord's church, and so that's a thing. The restorationist movement, the restorationist people said you got to be a part of our group, and so that's a hidden step number six, and then a hidden step number seven is you have to live a holy life, and if you don't repent when you sin, then you will lose your salvation.
So, I like what you said. I mean, there's so much more that they're not telling you up front that you got to be a part of their church, and you have to live a holy life, and that gets into a world of problems, too, because what if you don't repent when you didn't know you sinned?
Well, all the sins that you know about, well, what about the sins that you don't know about? Does God just wink at sin? So, there's so many implications, but I really do think it's legalism to the highest order, like it's modern-day Pharisaism.
All right. Thank you so much.
One quick thing here. Miles asks if I would put together stuff for resources on justification. Absolutely. I will. I will. I don't know the timetable exactly, but I've got oodles and boodles of stuff.
In fact, some of it is sitting right here. Right here. Within arm's reach. Yes, indeed. This is my justification section for those that don't know, but yeah, so I will be doing that. Let me tell you some of what I've been doing so that you can anticipate it, so you guys can drool.
So, the apologetic dog can drool. So, one thing I've done is I've gathered up all these quotes from the fathers just alphabetically, so starting with, let's say, Ambrose and going all the way down to Victorinus and every father in between in the alphabet.
I can't think of one with the Z. So, all of their stuff, and I'm by no means finished. I'm not pretending to have read every single thing that every father has written, but I've read a good, large amount of patristic stuff.
Then what I've done is I've also taken the same material, and I've broken it down in terms of commentary on verses. So, if you're looking for how did the fathers interpret Romans 1, 16, and 17, ones that are relevant.
That's going to be so helpful. There's a book. I'm sure you've read it.
It's called Long Before Luther, and it gets into a lot of the patristics that understood imputation the way that the Protestants do, a hard distinction between justification and sanctification and faith alone.
I mean, so many wonderful things that we're just saying, yeah, this is a historic faith, not something that was innovative at the Reformation.
Well, I can tell you that what I've got in the works is more comprehensive than anything I've seen out there. I've seen that. I've seen Odin's justification reader and all these other ones. They don't even come close to the amount of material that's out there.
So then I've got, according to just alphabetically, so if you want to know what does a father say on this topic, you can look at all his quotations. And obviously, you want to really look at the context of these things, but it gives you a flavor for what they're saying.
And then I've broken it down according to verses, and then I'm breaking it down topically, and I've constantly been adding to all this. So it's by no means complete, but it is quite extensive. So that's some of the stuff that you can be looking forward to.
And then can't wait. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, that was from Miles. All right, folks. Well, I thank you. I thank Jeremiah for coming on, being my first guest, and I think it went better than I expected. I thought I was going to fumble because I'm just not, there's some things I'm just not good at, and I wasn't sure I was going to do okay.
I'm not pretending I did great, but I wasn't sure I was going to do okay trying to host a interview, dialogue, whatever. But I think it went great.
I enjoyed it. I had a blast. I hope you have me back on. Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I hope.
People will check out Jeremiah's channel, The Apologetic Dog. I do have it linked in the description box. Otherwise, it's easy to look up. Again, thank you all for listening. I do hope this was a blessing.
And above all else, I hope that your strength or your faith in Christ has been strengthened. So until next time, God bless. And Jeremiah, if you would, stick around, and we'll connect again behind the scenes.
Absolutely.
We will live by faith alone. Clothed in merit, not our own. All we claim is Jesus Christ and His finished sacrifice. Glory be, glory be to God alone. To the church He redeemed and made His own. He has freed us.
He will keep us till we're safely home. Glory be, glory be to God alone.
