Johnny Hunt's Biblical Illiteracy Then Calls

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602.

Or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Wrapping Up the Textual Criticism Series

And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, wrapping up our textual criticism series today. So if you have had any questions over the course of the past two weeks, this afternoon will be the time for you to call 877 -753 -3341.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number for you to call. And if folks don't do that well, we'll just have to do other things. We can do that. We still remember how to discuss other subjects other than that particular one.

And so if we have actually answered all possible questions on the subject of textual criticism, then we will simply move on from there to other subjects. We will leave that up to our listeners. And by the way, speaking of listening, I am scheduled to do another program next week on Tuesday afternoon, two hours after we complete the Tuesday morning edition of The Dividing Line.

Then I will be joining, I believe he is called the, what is it, the freakishly tall Todd Friel of Way of the Master Radio. And I'm going to be on the second hour of their program on Tuesday. So that would be two o 'clock my time, three o 'clock central time, I believe.

And we have all sorts of things we can be discussing, but especially probably talking about the public discourse on the subject of Mormonism or the lack of public discourse on the subject of Mormonism that we are going to be subjected to for, well, at least the next year or so with the candidacy of Mitt Romney for the presidency of the United States.

And I have blogged on that already and mentioned the fact that I don't expect a whole lot of meaningful conversation to come out of that, but we still need to be prepared for those rare instances where we can actually get more than two sentences in in a row in speaking with someone.

Now, while the phone lines burn up there, I think everyone's TC'd out, man. They've learned everything there is to know about textual criticism. Know it all now, and that'll be that. There was one email that was sent to me, an individual asking about Matthew chapter 21, verse 44.

Matthew chapter 21, verse 44, and a textual variant that is found there. Specifically, and he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whoever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And the reason for that particular question has to do with the fact that it is placed in brackets in the Nestle-Olland text, and yet only because it is deleted in, again, Codex Bezae Catebrigensis, that odd one that we discussed last time, Unseal 33, Old Latin, one form the Syriac, and a couple of early church fathers, whereas it is found in Oliph B .C .L., the Byzantine Manuscripts, Families 1 and 13, and various and sundry others.

Why would that be placed in brackets? Well, mainly because some feel that it comes from Luke 20 .18, but that doesn't seem like a really good reason either. I must confess that on my part, I find Codex D to be thin ground for almost any deletion or any change in the manuscript tradition.

It's just too idiosyncratic, and so I would agree with the writer who was saying it seems odd that this would be given a low rating, as it's given a C rating in the textual commentary, at least in the one that I'm looking at.

Those change rather rapidly, but be that as it may, I would agree that there's slim basis for the deletion of that particular text. Just real quickly, if we don't have any phone calls on that subject, it is interesting.

I posted a blog article, and I'm hoping my browser won't crash here. For some reason, every time I try to open a PDF in Firefox the past three days, it has not only crashed the browser, but then it's hung the process, and I have to reset the entire system to get rid of it.

I don't know what's going on with that, but anyway, the AOMN website on the blog, which has been a really active place recently, in case you've all noticed that, and I think the clip today especially is quite interesting to listen to.

I think it's one of the clearest examples of what happens when a Bible-based Protestant engages a fully credentialed Roman Catholic theologian on the subject of the biblical text. Of course, that was the same debate where he in fact, I'm not sure if I I think I do post in the next clip from this in a couple of days, because I have, I think, three clips up from that debate, where he made the mistake of doing the Roma locuta est, casa finita est, and where is that, sir?

What? It had never been challenged on that one before. Ah, you're playing games. No, no, not playing games. Augustine didn't say that. Hello. And so it was that's interesting. Anyway, if you scroll down just a little bit to February 20th, 2007, you'll see rumors out of BYU and their claim to having discovered amongst various Gnostic texts an unidentified Christian apocryphal gospel, whatever in the world that is, a new ending to the Gospel of Mark.

Now, one of the funny things is when you start looking around and reading the comments of people who are commenting on this who work in the textual area specifically, they go, we've never heard of a Gospel of Mark amongst those papyri, so how could that be?

New end to the Gospel of Mark, a different version of two verses in the Book of Philemon, which would that mean a textual variant or something? I don't know. And a missing section in Luke 22, 43 through 44.

Missing? You mean something that's to be added to it? Or if it's missing, how would you know it was missing? Really broad claims that are going to take some extraordinary data to substantiate coming out of BYU using a multispectral imaging, which is in and of itself a fascinating and interesting mechanism for reading papyri and getting through centuries of accretion and reading sort of CSI for manuscripts in essence, which is great.

But, I've got to admit, I'm a little bit on the skeptical side when BYU is doing it. One of the reasons is the quotation that I provided there. Seth Corman, a senior from Decatur, Indiana, majoring in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, is one of the students involved in this project.

We'll scroll down here again. I hope this thing doesn't crash. If it crashes on me, it's going to be great. It'll be right in the middle of listening to Johnny Hunt or something like that. Let's see. Involved with this project on the Oxyrhynchus Collection, Corman said he has learned a lot about the Gospel from his studies.

Now, let's just back up a second. If you're not familiar with this collection of Gnostic Gospels, it's not just Gnostic Gospels, it's just Gnostic writings. It's Egyptian writings. There's a lot of Gnostic stuff in it.

There's hymns. In fact, the image from the collection that I have there is a specific song, as I recall, that's from the collection up in Glasgow. I just wanted to post it because it was from Glasgow.

It's from Scotland. Anyway, he says that he's learned a lot about the Gospel from his studies. Well, there is no Gospel in these things. So, how do you find out a lot about the Gospel? Well, here's how.

In a funny way, it has strengthened my testimony of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon especially, Corman said. There are over 5 ,600 manuscripts in the New Testament, not to mention all the apocryphal writings we are working on now, and none of them contain the New Testament as we have it today.

This shows me personally of the immense importance of the Book of Mormon. Without it, we would be lost and confused. Some people are always smack dab on top of the topic. You've got somebody who looks at 19th century fictional writing in America as the means of getting around the 5 ,600 manuscripts in the New Testament, which sound like they all say something different from one another, which, of course, isn't the case.

I wonder if they might apply the same standards of textual critical study to the Book of Mormon. Maybe they could go back over those original writings of the Book of Mormon and produce a critical edition of the Book of Mormon.

Instead of just going, well, he's a prophet, he can make changes if he wants to. I'd like to see a critical edition of the Book of Mormon that has all the changes and allegations of printer errors and everything else that came about only in a brief period of time during Joseph Smith's own life.

That would be quite interesting. I wonder what Seth Corman would have to say about that. Well, who knows? Okay, anyway, that is an interesting, again, related to the subject of textual criticism as well.

We will see what eventually comes out of those particular claims. I received notification earlier in the week that Johnny Hunt was at it again. You may recall that anytime I now see the front of Johnny Hunt's pulpit, I know that there's going to be something attacking Calvinism contained within it.

Because he has had a number of guest speakers come in and do their best on the subject of Calvinism. I really have to wonder, if I were his people and all I ever heard was this kind of preaching, I'd be getting pretty tired of the Calvinism stuff about now.

Because it's been beaten to death and obviously the only reason to continue going after it is because you're concerned about people outside of your own church. I don't know if there's still some folks who have managed to survive there who read John 6 and Ephesians 1 and stuff like that.

Anyway, the most recent sermon that I'm looking at here, let's see, what is the date on this called? The Moral Power of the Grace of God from February 18th, this time by Johnny Hunt himself. I was just queuing it up and ran out of time at the end, so we might hear a little extraneous stuff here.

But we have another, shall we say, standard attack upon the issue of Calvinism. But once again, we've had two different speakers now that we have played from Hunt's pulpit going after Calvinism. Certainly various people have contacted Johnny Hunt and I know I have pointed out numerous errors in what has been said, misrepresentations.

You would think that someone, if I was doing a series and I had really messed up just the basic representation of the other side, we would get flooded with people providing basic documentation refuting what I've said.

And if I were going to address that issue again, just simply on a moral level, I would have to encounter and respond to the assertions that were being made. And this just doesn't seem to be the case. We've responded to this stuff.

We've seen the attacks. I've forgotten the names of everybody that was involved. But for a couple of weeks there, you had different people coming in and attacking Calvinism. And now Johnny Hunt is getting on the action himself.

And you would think at this point there would be a little deeper discussion of it. There would be something more than just the standard, quote, the same tired verses that you can never exegete but you just want to quote them and keep going type of a situation.

And just say all just means all and ignore everything else that comes along with it. And that's not what we get. We have a discussion of the grace of God. And here's as far as I got back into editing, not editing it, but queuing it up.

Because I'm playing this live across the thing here. So this may not work at all. We're going to go ahead and give it a shot.

Pastor Johnny, talk as plainly as you can this morning about how broad is grace. It's one thing that you told us the subject of your sermon is the grace of God. And then it's another thing for you to talk about grace.

But how about the scope of grace? Just how broad, just how wide is the umbrella of grace? I told some of you, most of you have emailed me. I better send out 50 emails because I told you the other day that I still preach from the New King James Version.

But I love the English Standard Version. I love the New American Standard Version. And I read all of these when I'm doing my sermon prep. But listen to the English Standard Version. It says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation.

Listen to this, for all people. How wide is the scope of salvation? The Bible makes it clear that it's not universalism, but it is universal salvation. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4 .10, who is the Savior of all men, especially those who believe?

In his atoning death, Jesus Christ did not save all men spiritually, but provided the means of salvation to all men who would be saved.

Let me just stop right there. And we've addressed every one of these texts before. But again, you would think that by now there would be a little something more, a little something meatier in at least acknowledging the existence of other interpretations of these texts and then demonstrating that those interpretations are wrong.

In this situation, what you always see is that one side can play the other, play the best they have to present, provide counter-documentation, counter-exegesis, and demonstrate the validity of one side over against the other.

The other side will never do that. Have we ever played anyone actually providing a meaningful discussion of what we say and then providing a real response? I would like to find that if I could find it someplace, but it isn't there.

This same template, these same verses just go around and around and around, and we just keep going over and over again. Now what we just heard is exactly what Norman Geisler said in Chosen But Free. Christ's death saved no one.

It made men savable. Christ's death is hypothetical. It provides a hypothetical means of salvation that is dependent upon something else for the fulfillment of the purpose, the intention that God has in it, and that is the free will of man.

Now some want to try to lean as far as they can and say, yes, but God knows who's going to do that. Well, how does God know who's going to do that? Well, we don't really know. Well, doesn't the Bible actually tell us how we know these things?

Because God challenges the false gods to answer the question, tell us what has happened in the past, why it happened, tell us what's going to happen in the future. If a false god can't do that and the true god can, is that just because God's looking from the outside?

See, God could answer two-thirds of that challenge if he was just passively looking at time from the outside. He could tell us what has happened in the past. He could tell us what's going to happen in the future, but he could not say why.

Because if he doesn't have a purpose in what's going on in time, then there is no why. There is no answer to that question. But God challenges the false gods to tell us why things happened in the past.

That means they happened for a purpose. Now, can Johnny Hunt answer this question? I don't know. It doesn't seem that any of these folks are really desirous of answering these questions and holding themselves to the same standard that they are attempting to hold other people to.

And so we have the 1 Timothy 4 .10 passage cited, and we've talked about that one in the past before, and if you take it as the term is especially, it raises all sorts of hypothetical issues and things like that.

If you take it as not especially, but specifically, those who are believers, he is a savior to those. Even the Arminians recognize that's a better way of understanding it, translating it, all the rest of the stuff.

But to take that, which isn't even in a specifically satirological text that has as its intention a definition of the scope of the atonement, and to expand it out the way that he has done to this hypothetical atonement, okay, let's drag that off into 1 Timothy 2 and the issue of mediation.

Let's drag that off into Hebrews and see if that fits with the role of the high priest. You'll never find these folks doing that. They're just not going to touch those other texts where their overarching conclusions are going to create absolute havoc with the whole concept of atonement, substitution, intercession, mediation, all of those things.

But they're still going to want to have their cake and eat it too because they still want to talk about substitution. Well, what's the nature of this substitution? What does it actually accomplish becomes the big question that is really just not being answered.

He made a way for every man who would want to be saved. In his matchless grace in 1 Timothy 2 .4, God desired all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And, of course, we then immediately make the same question. Do you follow that then along and speak of Jesus Christ as the mediator between every single human being and God? Is Christ interceding for every single human being, including those that he in his exhaustive divine foreknowledge of future events in the exalted state knows will never accept him?

Will he plead his blood in behalf of rebel sinners that the Father is not going to save? Or are we going to go so far as to say the Father cannot save them, is trying but is failing to save them? Is that the real issue?

Is that really what you want to try to say to people?

I'm not real smart, but I'll tell you what I do know. I know that all means all. When you start taking a Bible and trying to tell me that all means something other than all, I'm just going to have trouble with that.

Okay, well, you know, it's so simplistic to respond to this. All of Jerusalem went out to be baptized. Does that mean there was nobody in the streets? The dogs were walking along. They had the streets themselves because all of Jerusalem had gone out.

You know, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Thankfully, I cannot hear you, Mr. Pierce. This is why this is a soundproof room. So I see your jaw is flapping, but I see nothing more than that. The dogs went out too.

Well, okay, well, you might include them under all. There are so many times when all is defined by its context that you just really wonder. And you know what? I feel for the people in congregations like this who start to engage in some level of defense of their faith and they've had modeled for them from the pulpit this kind of surface-level eisegesis of the text because once they start getting challenged by people who really do know what they're talking about and they start challenging these kinds of understandings, they haven't had modeled for them the kind of exegesis that's going to allow them to handle the text of the Word of God aright.

This is traditional eisegesis. It's based upon a tradition rather than anything else. And, you know, the scary thing is if they've been brought to faith under that kind of preaching, I've seen people, you know, we're starting to see more and more and more of these atheists who are, quote-unquote, former Christians, former evangelical Christians, former conservative evangelical Christians.

And you just wonder, how did they get to that place? And they talk about how they had had this simple faith and then when they really started to delve into it and examine it, it couldn't hold up to examination.

Well, you know what? When you're inconsistent in your proclamation, inconsistent in your preaching, you're not exactly laying a solid foundation for the souls of the people in front of you, and that's why this is important.

People say, oh, you just want to argue, you just want to argue about something. No, this is important to the people of God. God gave us his truth, and to ignore that truth, and in fact, in this instance, to attack that truth out of tradition, and that's what this is, is to damage the people of God.

Where are your priorities? Are you just going to, well, for political reasons, we shouldn't really discuss these things. Is that really how it should be handled?

I believe all is all. The Bible speaks of his desire in 2 Peter 3, verse 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I've been over that one so many times, I'm not even going to bother to do it right now.

When God calls all sinners to believe, he does not command them to believe that they are divinely chosen.

And who has ever said that they are? Pure straw man misrepresentation, Mr. Hunt. Mr. Hunt, please, if you're going to attack Reformed theology, at least try to characterize it properly. Don't caricature it.

Don't draw a cartoon of it. No one has ever said that what you're called to believe is some theory of predestination. Faith's object is always the promises of God and Christ. There's no question about that.

But it does not follow that it is not important then to see what the Bible says about these very issues. You can't make heads or tails out of Paul's statement that he endured all things for the sake of the elect if you don't have any meaningful doctrine of who the elect are.

You cannot make such an imbalanced proclamation and then expect your people to be able to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and how to handle the word of God. That's why these things are important.

Or that Christ died especially for them. He commands them to believe that Jesus Christ died for all sinners in the world. He does not offer salvation to a person either as elect or as non-elect, but simply as a sinner.

And that is a quote from John MacArthur.

Now, I will allow Phil Johnson, I'm sure he's going to find the time to demonstrate this. I have a feeling, especially as I'm looking at the video of this, that someone has thrown up John MacArthur's belief in election in Johnny Hunt's face.

And maybe he just doesn't understand what's being said here because none of those things is what Reformed people believe in the sense that you are saying that saving faith has to have these elements to it, that you understand the elect and non-elect and that you have identified yourself as one of the elect and all the rest of this stuff.

But it almost sounds like, depending on what the context of that quotation was, that you do have to believe in some form of universal atonement. And in the context where he's saying all means all, that would, of course, be an addition on his side of an element of faith that I do hear various Southern Baptists saying that should be a part.

That to really proclaim the cross, you have to actually proclaim that Christ's death can only be hypothetical. It cannot be truly substitutionary. It cannot save anyone. It can only make the salvation of every human being a theoretical possibility that is standing in lieu of or awaiting the fulfillment by the almighty will of the creature.

And if that's the case, well, goodness. It's no wonder these folks only want a monologue. They don't want a dialogue because I would love to debate somebody who would actually try to defend that kind of thing, but you'd never find anybody who would dare do it.

God does not deterministically, isn't that a big word? Does not deterministically elect. It's deterministically. Some men to salvation, others to damnation. Scripture makes equally clear that those who do not believe are responsible and guilty for the rejection of Christ.

And, of course, who's saying anything different? Open your ears, sir. Listen. Hear the other side. Honor the truth by accurately representing the other side. You know, at least I can say this with passion and fervor in my voice because I have proven over and over again that when I debate a subject, I accurately represent what the other side is saying on that subject.

They may not like the conclusions I come to, but if especially in a debate you're going to misrepresent the other side, you're going to get your head handed to you on a platter. And so it is amazing to listen to people who simply refuse to honestly and openly deal with the issue.

Men are not condemned because God has not chosen them, but because they have not chosen him.

No, men are condemned because they're sinners, because they are the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. That's why they're condemned. And no one is saying anything other than that. No one is saying that someone is condemned because they're not elected.

This is a straw man. It is dishonest. It is dishonest. Every single professor in a Southern Baptist seminary, Arminian or Reformed or somewhere in between, should be calling at least for honesty on the part of these leaders.

But how can they, when you have Johnny Hunt and you have the current president of the SBC, all of them putting out this straw man, this absolutely dishonest misrepresentation. I just, I can't conceive of this.

It is so difficult to understand the mindset behind this. It's fear. It's fear mongering is what it is. You're just trying to scare people off with a misrepresentation of the boogeyman Calvinism.

If you go to hell from the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, it won't be because God did not choose you. It would be because you would not choose God.

It'll be because you're a sinner and you did not choose God. But here's the important part. And the only reason that you will go to heaven from the pews of the First Baptist Church of Woodstock is not because you are better than the person sitting next to you who goes to hell.

It is not because you are smarter. It is not because you are more sensitive. It is not because you are more spiritual. The reason anyone will go to heaven from the pews, the First Baptist Church of Woodstock or the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church or anywhere else is not because we're better, not because we're smarter, but for one five-letter word called grace.

Isn't that the whole point? And the irony is this sermon is supposed to be about grace. But since you don't have a grace that can save anyone, but can only try to save,.

Here's what you end up with. The Bible says in John 5, 24, Jesus Christ speaking, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.

John 5, 40, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.

Exactly. They are not willing. Who is going to be willing? What did Jesus say? You cannot come unto me unless it has been granted to you by the Father. John 6, 44, no one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

That's the rest of John's message. There's nothing inconsistent there. But tradition, the glasses of tradition keep the man who is staring at the very pages of the word of God from seeing its consistent testimony.

What an amazing thing to see. All right, we're going to take our break and then come back and continue on with a little bit of Dave Hunt, Johnny Hunt, whatever, and your phone calls. We'll be right back.

How the pilgrim's progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to the sun day by day. It's a walk of grace.

What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book Chosen But Free? A new cult? Secularism? False prophecy scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism.

He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant. In his book The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.

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White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned. Based firmly upon the bedrock of Scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see.

The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from His Word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows. Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross-dressing, ignoring God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women.

Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get Pulpit Crimes in the bookstore at AOMN .org. The history of the Christian Church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith. Once the core of the Reformation, the Church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine.

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There is solid meat throughout, an outstanding contribution in every sense of the words. The God Who Justifies by Dr. James White. Get your copy today at AOMN .org.

You know who that is, don't you? John Tesh. Really great CD. Really good. Welcome back to the Dividing Line. Let's listen to a little bit more of the Johnny Hunt sermon.

Before we get to our callers here. It is not the extent of atonement that excludes some people from salvation. That's why 1 John 2 says, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

So what does propitiation mean? Oh, we're just going to assume propitiation means theoretical non-substitutionary atonement. Is that what we're going to assume? Yes, let's just assume that because we're hoping that our audience is never going to dig deep enough to ask questions like that.

The whole world.

Hebrews 2 .9 teaches that Jesus tasted death for everyone. So the problem therefore is not in the sufficiency or the scope of God's grace. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2 .5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, and the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom, a payment note for all.

So without any exception.

So we stop right there. We've quoted 2 .4, 2 .5, and 2 .6. Now can we get a consistent theory of atonement from Johnny Hunt? Can we get a consistent theory that addresses the issues of substitution? That explains to us how you can say propitiation and then turn it into a theoretical thing?

Or are we just going to get more of the scatter gun, fire all these things at once type of a situation? I think that's what we're going to get.

God calls all men to faith that his son Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice was more than sufficient to cover every sin that has been or ever will be committed. Think about this for a moment. Occasionally somebody will say to me, Pastor Johnny, you don't know how bad I am.

To which I want to say to them, you don't know how good my God is. You don't know how great his grace and goodness is.

How broad is God's grace? I think that's probably about as far as we need to go with that. Thank you very much, Mr. Hunt. We look forward to the day when we get some more serious discussions of those particular issues.

Caller Questions on Election, Apologetics, and Textual Criticism

Let's go to our phone calls here. Let's talk with Shane in Charlotte. Hi, Shane. Hey, James. How's it going?

I'm glad you turned that off. I was about to get sick. I guess my biggest question is, and it seems like in just your history debate, why is it on the issue of election, and it just seems to be the pattern, that the 2 Peter 3 8's are always quoted.

They will never. It's everyone from Hank Hanegraaff to George Bryson. The argument is never from Scripture because they always leave the first 7 verses off.

They also leave the context before and after 1 Timothy 2, and they leave the context of Matthew 23. All of them are treated in the exact same fashion.