"Church of Christ" EXILE conversation with: Adam Carmichael @ThinkingTheologyYa

Introduction, Upcoming Debates, and the Guest’s Background

If you're new to the channel, I just wanna ask you to please hit the like button and get ready for this very special episode. Before we dive in, I have a new guest, by the way, but I want you to know that I have a debate coming up November 3rd, which is just a handful of weeks away from the time of this recording.

I will be debating Caleb Robertson in Virginia on November 3rd. So this will be a televised event and we will be getting into the doctrine of total depravity. Is it true? Does the Bible teach such things?

Your boy is going to be going to the word showing, yes, we are not good. There is none good, no, not one, and we need a perfect savior. So be on the lookout for that. I will also share the phone number where people can, it'll be a live call in to an audience to be able to ask questions live.

So be on the lookout for that. I'll share that information, but that is just around the corner. And then I also have another debate coming up in February. This is a little bit ways off, but I will be debating my good friend, Lucas Curcio, and we're going to be talking about if a believer can actually lose their salvation.

And so this will be at the Open Air Theology Conference. The theme of the conference is war, the flesh versus the spirit. And so this debate will fit in nicely with that as well. So be on the lookout for that.

With that being said, I want to bring in my guest,.

Adam Carmichael, how are you, sir? I'm doing very well, also known as the Tatted Theologian.

The Tatted Theologian, that's right. Well, I wanted to have you on because there is a special segment that me and the Fishbone, Trey Fisher, for those that don't know who I'm talking about, where we interview church or Christ exiles.

And so that's why you're on here today. And so before we dive into how God saves you by his amazing grace, especially out of that context, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Where people can find your content. Well, me and a friend of mine, we put together this channel called Thinking Theology. So you can put a hashtag to Thinking Theology in your YouTube search bar, and you'll pull up, it's like a green circle right there, it's Thinking Theology.

A good friend of ours, Claude Ramsey, is actually the one designed that for us. Thank you, Claude, for putting that together for us. We got good content. We're kind of slow getting started. I mean, I'll be kind of pushing forward for the next couple of weeks trying to iron things out, just trying to get content out there that people can review, critique, reject, dislike.

I welcome it all, we're just trying to get started.

12-5 Church, Reformed Baptist Identity, and the Meaning of the Shirt

Yeah, well, y 'all got a few episodes. I want to definitely encourage people to go check out Thinking Theology. And I'll post the link to your channel in the show notes below so people can easily find that.

I have another question for you. Tell us a little bit about the shirt you're wearing.

It's our new 12 -5 shirt. We're Reformed Baptists. So we used to have, it's kind of just a circular shirt. It's got 12 -5, we, though many, are one body of Christ. And that's what Reformed Baptist is.

We're trying to look to what Christ says, what the word of God says. So it's nothing new. We're just getting back to the core doctrines, reforming that, shaping that, so that we can honor Christ and God with our lives.

I like the hat, too. That's a 12 -5. Oh, yeah, yeah. A good friend, I believe it's Justin Cohart, made these hats. It's amazing. And it's also a 12 -5, but we got to represent God's church.

Well, for people that don't know, Adam and I both attend 12 -5 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. And so we just want to invite you, if you're in the Northeast Arkansas area, please come check out our fellowship.

We'd love to meet you in person. And to Adam's point, 12 -5 comes from a Bible verse, Romans 12, verse five. Even though the saints, we are one in the body of Christ, even though we are many living out God's grace in our lives.

And so Adam, I just want to start by saying, your presence at 12 -5 has been so encouraging, getting to know you and your lovely bride and the rest of your family. But you have a little bit of journey that brought you to 12 -5.

Would you like to tell us any about that?

Yeah, now don't hold me to timestamps because sometimes the times may fluctuate because how I remember things in time are different. But I used to be a drug addict for 19 years. When I come back from Iraq, I was taken away by methamphetamines.

So for 12 years after I come back from Iraq, I was just engulfed by that. So I got three drug charges back to back. So I'm a veteran. So there's a program here in Crockett County called Veterans Court Program.

And I was enrolled in that. And well, that wasn't enough to deter me. I failed drug tests for eight months in the program and they were sending me to prison. I wasn't worried about it because I didn't have a purpose.

But in my program, in the Drug Court Program, basically for veterans, part of the program was to do some sort of outreach program or anything like that to where we're getting accountability. So I started going to Celebrate Recovery because it was part of the thing that I can just be involved in to try to get back on track.

Well, I went to Celebrate Recovery for about four weeks. And this is kind of weird. The program had these ladies come through. I didn't like women at the time because I was very mad about things from childhood and all the drugs and stuff that went on with that.

But there's one girl that stuck out when I went to Celebrate Recovery. And I spoke with her. She didn't want nothing to do with me, but she gave me her number. And so we talked and she was gonna try to teach me a lesson.

So she was gonna tell me about Jesus. And yeah. Yeah. It backfired on her, didn't it? Backfired, yeah, because tell me more. Tell me more about this Jesus that you're talking about. So for about three weeks, she was telling me that there couldn't be nothing else.

She actually, she went to a church cross where she went to, it was embedded into a church cross. It's called John 317. It's a well-known rehabilitation program. I personally cannot say that I would recommend it because if you don't have the right God, it doesn't matter what kind of recovery you're still deemed for the same place.

But she invited me there. I was actually baptized there on October 22nd, 2017 by one of the, I don't know if he was an elder or not, Jim Waddell. We had many conversations. He didn't like me, but he baptized me.

And then months went on. She stopped coming and I kept coming because I didn't know what the church cross taught. I was wanting to know more because I was a new believer because I got baptized. I got baptized there and I professed faith that I celebrate recovery two nights before at Middleton Baptist Church here in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

So it all lined up. So I was going there, went and learned about who God was and that was the only place I had. So as time went on, Tori saw that I was still coming, that it must have not have been just her that I come there for.

So she come back and then we started talking more. And it was about a week after we started talking again. I'm pretty quick on a draw. So I asked her to marry me within the first three weeks. Yeah, so three weeks and she said, yeah.

So six months later we were married. And it's weird because a guy named David Bowman, my wife loved that man. He, the whole place, church cross loved like the world loves. So I'm making that distinction, a love that only the world knows because they're taking you as you are.

They don't care if you repent, they just walk with you and make you feel emotionally secure. Well, so my wife was pulled and drawn to that whole place. And so I had a little animosity towards them because they are James three.

Anybody that teaches will be held to a higher standard where they're teaching this demonized doctrine of works righteousness. And so my wife was swayed by that man, especially because he was making them feel like he loved them.

And he made in his own understanding feel that way, but it's wrong. It's not what scripture teaches. So as time went on, I think it was somewhere around 2021, I stopped going. I just couldn't take it anymore.

Me and my wife were arguing. And she said, my wife would read me better than any book. She could read my face. She's like, stop looking like that. I was like, they're talking garbage from the pulpit. I can't keep sitting through it.

So I stopped going. I started attending different churches, like Walnut Street Baptist. I've tried that place for about a month. You know, good place to go, but it just wasn't a fit for me. It wasn't ground and pound scripture.

It was something different. Great place. Got invited to a couple Pentecostal church. I didn't know they were Pentecostal. You know, somebody invited me, so I went. It was very crazy to say the least, but I won't hold that against them either as long as they hold the Trinitarian doctrine of what scripture reveals of God's essence.

And that's triune. So as that went on, I'm watching hours and hours of apologetics from 1 Peter 3 .15, because that was one of the great things I could say about Rimmel there in Newport. There's a sign going into the kitchen, 1 Peter 3 .15, revere Christ as Lord in your heart.

Be prepared to give a defense for the hope that you have in you. I wanted to hear others' arguments, and you can do that by watching apologetics. I'm not saying that that's the only way, but that was a great way for me to see how others tried to argue for you having to do something when Christ says it is finished on the cross.

I couldn't reconcile, you can't reconcile that. The finished work of the perfect Savior necessitates that it is finished. There's no more for us to do. And so I finally hear on a debate. I think it was, I can't remember if it was a Mormon or a Roman Catholic, a guy named Jeremiah Nortier, the very channel I'm on right now.

He was killing it, but he was doing it in gentleness and meekness. He was reflecting Christ-like characters, and I'm like, man, I love the Word of God. He loves the Word of God, and I wanna be able to live my life like that and stand on sound doctrine while reflecting the very character of Christ.

Well, I saw one of your bios, and it said you were from Jonesboro. I'm from Jonesboro, man, you know. So I'm like, I'm trying to figure this out, and I'm not trying to give this guy a shout out, but I went to a men's group, Trey, can't remember what his last name is, but he kind of told me about where the place was at.

Couldn't find it, GPS is really ambiguous of how it brought people there, but.

Especially where we used to be located, in Nathan's backyard.

Meeting 12-5 Church, Finding a Home, and the First Baptism

Yeah, it was in backwoods, so it was scary trying to, but as I started to leave and wasn't gonna come, I was like, man, you ain't got nowhere else to go. Nobody is standing on scripture. Nobody wants to call out false teachings.

They don't wanna, because they're looking at man and saying, well, we don't wanna offend him. I'm like, man, I don't wanna offend God, so I wanna try to find a place, and so I went up that little one driveway in that old spot where we was at, and the first person I met was Christy Wilkes.

She was the first person I got to meet at 12 .5. Amazing woman, she loves the body there at 12 .5, and I'm very grateful for her, and she kind of ushered me inside, and the next person I met was Jeremiah.

He was walking up saying, hey, what's going on? He's kind of doing the cordial thing, and I was like, yeah, I was looking for you. The look on your face kind of explained a lot of it, because you're like, and here's this dude walking in and saying, I'm looking for you, but yeah, you're a fun person.

I wanna chime in real quick, because I remember that day, and guests were far and few in between. I think you came around maybe a year and a half of our church plant, of 12 .5 Church, and so a lot of people maybe know, but Pastor Nathan Hargrave and myself were a part of 12 .5's early inception, the church plant, and so we just completed four years, and so you came on pretty early, and I'm gonna whet people's appetite.

We'll get into this, but you were 12 .5's first baptism, which is pretty incredible. Actually, I do wanna get into that. I got some questions surrounding that, but I did wanna take a moment, because you brought up an important scripture verse that this is important for apologetics.

In fact, this is where we get the word, but 1 Peter 3 .15, but in your hearts, so I'm already thinking a heart of faith, right? Honor Christ, sanctify him as Lord. He is the apex of what we're looking to in our life, whether it's apologetics, whether it's preaching from the pulpit, whether it's interacting with fellow believers.

He's at the forefront of our hearts. We are living to glorify him. So this verse says, in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense, an apologetic, right? To those who ask for you a reason for the hope that is in you, and you do this with gentleness and respect.

And so what's neat is because that has always been my prayer, like with my apologetics ministry, that I'd meet people with love and grace. And so it's incredible, Adam. It's all glory to God and his providence that you saw one of the debates I was having, I think it was with the Roman Catholic, and I think I was debating on one of the Marian dogmas.

So that's what led you to 12 .5.

Scripture Alone, the Perspicuity of Scripture, and Christ as the Final Court of Appeal

Yeah, just seeing how you handled the word and seeing somebody that loves the word, like I feel that the Lord put on me to love the word because that's how we know what he says. That's how we know what his precepts are, his commands.

It's not ambiguous. Scripture is perspicuous. It's clear for the believer that That's where we get truth, right?

Yes, sir. That word is truth. So I'm with you on that has to be the final court of appeal. God's word is axiomatic, it's self-attesting. It's truth, therefore it shines a unique light and contextualizes our experience.

So me and you, we're cut from the same cloth when we start talking about scripture alone. We have to be grounded in the word. So continue, you came to 12 .5 for the first time and you're like, wow, we're meeting on some guys like backyard, you know, and you said that was kind of weird at first, but then you started meeting Christy and then you bumped into me and eventually you got to meet Pastor Nathan.

Nathan, amen.

Nathan was, I don't want my other elders to feel any kind of way. I drifted to Nathan. Nathan just hit home with me. I still, he's the first one I call. There's something, he can relate in so many areas specifically to what I'm going through, even with my wife, how they've counseled, him and Erica has counseled me and my wife.

Him and Erica are vital to the lives of the body there at 12 .5, just like you and Allie and Keith and Karen, just specifically the walk that I was going through and Nathan was, bam, right there. And he is a vital part.

He is the mouthpiece for Christ because he kept, I only got one answer, that's Christ. Probably the best answer ever. Yeah.

It's been incredible. Like you said, you know, Nathan is gifted in a very unique way that benefits the body. So does Adam, so does Tari. It's Christ's church, right, that he's building. So when we're talking about the church of Christ, you started attending 12 .5 solo, right?

Because your better half was not necessarily there from the get-go.

Yeah, see, hey, this is why, even coming on here, my wife's like, you need to make sure Jeremiah knows we didn't hold you to that position. I was like, he knows, I was like, but we attended the church of Christ nonetheless.

I said, my wife never heard them verbalize that you had to be baptized. So she was kind of, I guess God was, I don't know, protecting her or whatever. I don't know how I would articulate that, but for nine months, almost 10 months, I was coming to 12 .5 and she was in, oh, there was problems in our marriage.

We was going, she was going to church of Christ and I was coming to 12 .5 and it got to the point where me and you had conversation about looking at the text of scripture because I think I was the first person that being baptized with 12 .5, had to kind of look at all of scripture and how, why are we being baptized in people?

Why is it important? Why is it necessary to be baptized again when you, somebody like me, were baptized into a church of Christ setting? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Baptism, Justification, and Why the First Baptism Was Not Enough

I want to camp on this for a moment because I did want to talk about this. We're about to get into a little bit dicey waters, pun intended, but when you were pursuing membership at 12 .5, we go pretty in depth.

Like church membership is really weighty. You sign a membership covenant. You're coventing with being in fellowship, joint participation with the body. And so a question that you, me, you, and Nathan spent some time talking about is if you were baptized and in your heart, you were trusting in Christ alone, by faith alone, but you were being baptized in a context where that's not the gospel being proclaimed.

In fact, the one that's doing the baptism says, hey, your past sins are getting remitted in these waters. We had to continue to talk about that, didn't we? Oh yeah. And do you want to speak to that a little bit, maybe the struggle of that and realizing that baptism is more than just being individualistic between you and God?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, the thing about it is, because I went off of my past understanding of, I think it was Tertullian. It wouldn't matter if you got baptized by Satan. Baptism plays no part in the justifying work of God.

And I get that, but there's so much more to being baptized communally where other believers in the faith there in the local body actually get to see you professing your faith in baptism. So I wrestled with that for a little while, and it wasn't that difficult for me to look at what the text of scripture prescribes, even in Acts where we see the baptizer understood that faith in Christ alone was what justified you before God.

Well, the baptizee had that same understanding because he had a regenerate heart and that the Holy Spirit had wrought that new work in him that he has faith in Christ. So that was fundamental to being biblically baptized.

So at that point there, I was saying I was being rebaptized, but then I wasn't being rebaptized. I was being biblically baptized. So I don't want anybody that watches this video to be offended by it in any way.

Every instance of somebody being baptized, it was under the right understanding of, it is Christ alone that justifies you by his finished work on the cross. So your baptism symbolizes the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

It's just the outward work. So trying to filter that out as I got baptized biblically, my wife was, oh, she was infuriated because she was like, there's nothing wrong with your baptism. I'm like, I know the, we're not talking about salvation here.

And I think it's what people misunderstand that we're not talking about the justifying work. I wanna stand before God, 1 Peter 3, with a clear conscience. If I have my thoughts that, man, I got baptized by this heathen that has a false gospel and a false cross because, and I can say that because the gospel is the finished work of Christ.

So, and they don't affirm that. So they have a different cross. If I wanna stand before Christ at the judgment seat and say, yeah, I put my faith and trust in you when I got biblically baptized by my pastor Jeremiah.

And now I can stand without a charge against me because I stand with a clear conscience for having done that with my heart saying, yeah, you needed to do that. So I moved on. We kind of had discussions with my wife.

She was opposed to it. Pastor Nathan talked with her and she was like, can I just, you know, get baptized because I wanna be a part of the body.

I wanna add something to back what you said earlier. It was what, eight, nine months before your beautiful bride, Tari, eventually started coming to 12 .5 and be like, oh, these people are awesome. They're not as scary as I thought.

I'm just kidding, Tari. That's the thing, before she came, she said that you and Nathan had me brainwashed that I needed to stop going to 12 .5 because I couldn't hear all of her objections. She was affirming because she didn't know church of Christ taught all that.

She was like, come on back. And she was like, we can, there's no way I can ever go back to a place like that. I'm trying to lead our home. Well, she prayed and prayed for a long time because she wanted to be in obedience to God first, but walk alongside of her husband.

Well, what brought her to 12 .5 was, I asked her just about every other time I came. And this time she was kind of juxtaposed. She was like, I could tell the way my wife talked. So she was like, yeah, I'll go with you this time.

So I knew she was up to something. Well, when she gets there, Nathan preaches a sermon that was directed straight towards my wife. And my wife is a praying woman. And she said that, cause I'll tell you more about that later, but she prays and God has to reveal things to her.

So God revealed through Nathan's sermon that Sunday. And she said, okay, God, I hear you. And she latched onto me and she said, I will never leave my husband's side again. So couldn't find out, Pastor Nathan balled up his whole sermon this Saturday before, wrote it all new.

Well, that's telling me that God specifically went through Nathan and preached a sermon through Nathan to call my wife to obedience to him. Because wives are supposed to be submissive to their husbands, not in one thing or something, but in all things as unto the Lord.

So God spoke to her through that sermon. And she's been with me at 12 .5 ever since. Now is our lives perfect? No, we look to the perfect one, the finished work of Christ. So we're being conformed more to his image.

But now this is even more amazing. She, after she starts 12 .5 and we baptize her, that's cause she's gave a beautiful speech. Why? She actually thought it was communal. It was something that she knew that God placed on her heart before she even come up there and said, where I got baptized before, they said there's salvation in the waters.

And she says, that's not what scripture teaches. That is not what Jesus accomplished on the cross. When he said it is finished, he meant it was finished. That means anybody that puts their faith in that finished work, they are justified by that faith in him.

And so I was very pleased to see that God works. Even when I'm pushing back and I'm trying to do it myself, I'm trying to drag her along saying, come you gotta come. She was rebellious. She's like, she didn't wanna listen to her husband.

And I had to let God mold her because as I'm praying, you're praying, Pastor Nathan, we're all praying for God to work. And we get to actually see this in real time. God brought her through the shaping and transforming of her way of thinking, looking at scripture, looking at her husband and him supposed to lead the home.

So he done all this and he was shaping me too. I'm a better husband and a better leader of the home now. I'm not perfect. He's still molding and shaping me, but she is at 12 five with me. And I was in about a year, me and two other guys, Brian A .G. and Justin Stazny, we got brought before the elders to be deacon nominees.

And I was very taken back because I love the word of God. I wanna be able to help serve in any capacity that I can. And Justin and Brian are the examples of what it means to be a deacon. They serve without questioning, they serve without groaning, moaning.

Sometimes I do because that's just residuals of my old past. I used to be a complainer, a grouch about everything, but I'm getting better to where I just wanna serve the body there at 12 five in any way that I can.

Well, praise God, we have wonderful deacons. And what's funny at 12, a lot of people think deacons are a board of directors and are calling the shots. And I think it was Justin Stazny, someone was like, so you're a deacon?

He's like, yeah, I'm serving the church. He's like, don't get that twisted. So anyway, y 'all are incredible. Y 'all do a fantastic job. And you have a few ministries within the church and just helping set up and tear down.

And so, hey, our efforts for the Lord are never in vain. So I thank you so much for that, brother. I did wanna maybe switch gears. And I love, I call you up all the time when I'm finding deeper insights.

You know, I'm thinking very apologetically, even when I'm getting ready to preach and teach. And we had a wonderful time last night, right? We got to talk a little bit about compatibilism with the church and the doctrine of unconditional election.

Dangers of Church of Christ Teaching and the Need for a Healthy Church

So shifting back to the Church of Christ, in your opinion, what are some of the dangers that people are in the Church of Christ world? And maybe they're not convinced of the doctrine. So this kind of goes back to what you and Tari experienced.

So maybe some people say, okay, I don't really believe that baptism justifies me and literally washes away past sins, but what are some dangers of being in a place that professes to be a church, but they're actually not?

Oh, wow.

There's so much there. Going to, I can't help but to think of John 10. I think it's about verse five, where he says that, after you, my sheep will hear my voice, but they will not hear the voice of a stranger.

And that is what they're doing. If you have been justified by faith in the finished work of Christ, and you're still in a Church of Christ or any place like that that teaches that you have to do these things to be right with God, it's problematic.

You're looking at man. You have, one, a false understanding of the Anthropos of man. There's so much there, we ain't got time to go in, but I beg you to turn and look to the perfect Savior, because logically you can reason from him that if he's the perfect Savior and he gave his life on the cross, and now you think that you can add to that anyway.

And I think there's a saying, like you can take a Van Gogh painting, and the second you put your finger across it, it's no longer a Van Gogh, you corrupted the painting. That's the same way with the finished work of Christ, the perfect Savior, the Son of God, who is God himself, that when he finished everything that it was for him, his father, to accomplish on the cross, well, that means it's finished.

And so if you're in the Church of Christ, and it may sound very similar, but words mean different things to them. When they say, go ahead.

I was gonna say, one word I've noticed in the Church of Christ is the word obey. You must obey. It's all over scripture, Hebrews 5, 9, all throughout the book of Romans. And so you must obey, Adam. But you know what words that I notice rarely get defined with talking to the Church of Christ?

It's the doctrine of justification and sanctification. So yeah, continue to talk about how, when you're a part of a place that's preaching the false gospel, it's therefore a false church. That can have a devastating impact on your life, and you are missing out on being in a actual church, and then we talk about being in a healthy church.

How has being in a healthy church changed your walk with the Lord?

Being in a healthy church has changed it detrimentally, because I went from not wanting to even attend or go to the place like Church of Christ, because there's no doctrine. You know how many times I had to hear there's power in the water by pastors that come through there at Rimmel and said that there's power in the water?

There's no power in the water. If there's power in the water, you logically have a false gospel, because Christ is the power of salvation. He is the gospel, and so to be a part of the healthy church, well, we love Scripture, we love the Word of God, so we wanna try to walk through the text and lovingly help mold people, because not everybody stands on the doctrines of grace, and that's okay, but if you know that Christ is the one that saved you, and when you put your faith in Him, well, that's what a healthy church is gonna try to teach you and walk through biblical doctrine, and that's foundational to being a Christian, because was it Matthew 4 .4, man shall not live off of bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the living God, and that's Scripture.

Well, that's the great thing about Reformed Baptists. I wanna know about Scripture, I wanna know what God said. I love Pastor Nathan, I love Jeremiah. I wanna know what they say. You tell me what God said, so that's foundational to being in a healthy church, because they're not gonna tell you stories, they're not gonna kind of tickle your fancy or tickle your ear.

They're gonna give you truth, and we are sanctified, and our word is truth, so I want that, and I want that for everybody else that professes faith in Christ.

Something unique that we do at Twelve Five Church, because it is all about the word. It's all about truth. It's always looking back to Jesus Christ. After the sermon is preached, then we have a time of koinonia, feast, love feast, fellowship meal, which is awesome.

By the way, I look forward to that every week. And then after that time of fellowship, we get to do sermon discussion, because everyone just has heard the word preached, and then eating a meal with one another where relationships, lifelong relationships just build all around you, right?

But people are talking about the sermon a lot of times. I walk around, and I love just jumping in Adam's conversation with somebody, or going over here and just getting to fellowship with everybody. Then afterwards, we have a time of discussion that's led by whoever preached the sermon, usually me, Pastor Nathan, and Pastor Keith.

And once again, it gives opportunity to hold one another accountable to the scripture, and I loved how you appealed to John chapter 10 earlier about God's sheep hear the good shepherd's voice. And so we just, we can't get enough of it.

Truth exhorts the heart. It sanctifies us, is what binds us together. That's why even though we are one of another, we are one together in the spirit, in the truth. We are one body of Christ. And so now, we did talk about a healthy church.

So that assumes having the right gospel. And there's so many verses that kind of capture the gospel in a verse or two. Now, I did wanna bring up the scripture in Romans chapter four. This is where I would submit to people, this is where church or Christ get this wrong.

And so we talk about how Abraham was justified by faith. Now, Abraham is the case example. How are you made right before God? How do you have all of your sins forgiven, not just your past sins, but all of your sins forgiven?

Well, the apostle Paul makes his appeal with Abraham. He even makes his appeal to Psalm 32 with David. And then Paul continues to talk about how he is justified with believers of how everybody is. And it's the same way that Abraham is.

So I'd like to read some of these verses and get your thought. If we were to start in verse three, for what is scripture saying? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, this is a quotation of Genesis 15, verse six.

And I wanna say, we are saved, Paul, Christians today, we are saved the same way as all Old Testament saints are, Hebrews chapter 11, especially with Abraham. What is true of Abraham is true of us today.

Now, the church Christ already don't like that terminology because they weren't commanded to be baptized in water yet. That is unique to John the Baptist, and that's unique to Christian baptisms. Now, there are ceremonial principles that we see with high priests, being fully bathed and so forth.

But guess what? Not even those ceremonies washed away their sin. And so we are not justified by faith plus our ceremonies and our works and our participation. No. How is Abraham justified? Well, it was by believing in the promises of God, not just assenting to the facts, knowing that they're real, but trusting.

And so Paul continues in verse four, now to the one, whichever singular person in general you wanna point to, and remember, the case example is Abraham, now to the one who works his participation in ceremony, somebody that says, hey, I'm gonna get up and do X, Y, and Z and receive something in exchange.

Paul says to the one who works, he has a wage coming his way. His wages are no longer grace, no longer a gift, but it's what's owed him. And so when we start adding our works, our participation, whether that be to a ceremony or accomplishing some set of tasks, we implicitly, if we say that that is what justifies us and declares us right before God, we are trying to put God in a debt.

And you said it earlier, Jesus's works are the only works that save us. And towards the end of Romans four here, it is Jesus's finished work that grounds our justification. The instrumentation of how we are to be justified is our faith.

And that faith is not a condition of work that we participate in, as we see in Ephesians chapter two, the promise of the new covenant in Ezekiel 36, faith is a gracious gift from above. And so verse five, and to the one who does not work, right, I believe this is an emphatic negation or at least coming up in the context, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith, not the system of faith, Adam Carmichael out there, but that person's personal trust, not just mental assent, but trust from the heart, a heart of faith.

Upon that basis, he is counted as righteous. So what do you think about that far as a place to kind of show people the gospel of how they can have their sins forgiven?