Hebrews 10 and the Perfect Sacrifice of Christ

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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you would like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is
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James White, though you can't hear me, that's okay. Gotta turn that little switchy thingamabobby wobber up there.
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It's early in the morning, 11 a .m. is a little hard to get at when you were up all last night.
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We had a cold front blow through here. In fact, I'm watching people on the channel talking about how warm it is back east.
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It's only 58 degrees here in Phoenix, very windy, and we had a cold front come through last night.
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About 12 o 'clock in the morning in stocking feet, I'm out in my backyard trying to put things back together again after it started blowing like anything and freaked the dog out because stuff is flying around and it was lots of fun.
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So it was a, I'm not sure, do you say it was a long night or a short night when you didn't get a whole lot of sleep?
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I'm not sure which. But anyways, those of you back east who are broiling today, don't worry.
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You will be cold before you know it. And anyways, it is the week before Easter, and normally that would be a very, very busy week for us, and it may be.
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I don't know how things are going to work out this coming week as far as the
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Easter pageant is concerned. The Easter pageant of the LDS Church runs the week prior to Easter, and the past couple weeks, past couple years,
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I'm sorry, they have had, I'm trying to get hold of the technical producer's attention, unfortunately failing to do so.
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There we go. That little box down there is supposed to be a two -way street, you know.
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You talk to me, I talk to you. So anyways, I think the last two years they had seven nights of English performances and a couple nights of Spanish performances.
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Now they've gone Spanish performances all last week, and then this week starting tomorrow evening,
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Tuesday night through Saturday night, the Easter pageant of the Mormon Church in Mesa in the English performances.
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And well, we started doing that. I first went out there in 1983, took my wife with me.
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We were on the back of a Kawasaki 440, and the
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Superstition Freeway, which now goes to who knows where, ended at Country Club Road back then, that's how long ago this was.
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And we started passing out tracks the next year, and then really started hitting it the year after that, 1985 was the first fully organized, every night, people at every corner, specific tracks, the whole nine yards.
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And so we've been doing this for a long, long time. And unfortunately, I do not know whether we're going to be able to do that this year.
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The reason being, those of you who have followed our website, there is a group of simply out of control, irresponsible,
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King James only, fundamentalist, Baptist, whackoids, that's the only term I can use for these individuals.
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If you ever try to reason with them, if you ever try to talk to them, you will discover I am being kind and complimentary.
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And these individuals have chosen to be a scourge upon the
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Mormon Church. Now, they think they are being a scourge upon me, I guess,
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I don't know, but I really think they're a scourge upon the Mormon Church, because they are basically attempting to, well, they call it witnessing, they call it street preaching.
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It is, as you have seen, street abuse. These are individuals, we've played audio of their abusive behavior on the dividing line before.
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Last six months ago in Salt Lake City, I stood there as one of them yelled at a group of passing
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Mormons, it shouldn't be Mormon, it should be moron. That's the level of their intellectual capacity and behavior.
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They are without shame, they are, I think, correctly described by Peter and Jude as clouds without water, brute beasts who simply will not accept correction or guidance or anything along those lines.
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They are not under the authority of churches and people who have been trained to handle the
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Word of God. So, they get into fights up in Salt Lake City, there have been people,
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Mormon couples getting married and standing out on the steps of the temple in Salt Lake City.
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These people start yelling abusive things through the fences at them until the
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Mormons come out and get into fist fights with them. It's just absolutely unbelievable. They are poisonous, they poison the atmosphere and make it impossible to speak of the
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Gospel of Grace as long as they are around because it's something they don't know anything about. We've tried to reason with them, it's simply not possible.
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You might as well attempt to reason with a wall, it simply doesn't work.
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They have promised to be in Mesa this week and if they are, I don't think anything is going to take place.
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The Mesa Police Department is not going to put up with that kind of behavior. They will simply banish us all and I can guarantee you one thing,
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I am not going to stand around with these individuals and listen to their railing at folks and get absolutely nothing done the entire week.
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I'm just not going to do it and I may have my first week before Easter where I'm not standing on the corner of Main and Hobson and Mesa.
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I don't know. We will see. Maybe God will work a miracle and these folks will get lost and end up up near Page or something standing on a street corner with their signs and Page.
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I think that would be great. I think that would be a wonderful thing. But we'll find out what happens tonight.
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I've actually come up with an idea, I thought I'd throw it out here just to see what people think. I came up with an idea, I was thinking if we broke our group up into twos and we got clipboards and we started going around doing surveys and we would survey people, we'd ask them, are you
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LDS? No matter what they answered, we'd still ask them these questions and the questions would be like, well, we're doing a survey of what people know about the
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Mormon Church and are you aware of the fact that the
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Mormon Church believes in a plurality of gods? And we might have a quote, maybe something from Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132 or the
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Book of Abraham, Chapter 4, something like that. And it would be interesting how many Mormons wouldn't know that.
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I mean, we could actually come up with some interesting results. I'd actually like to keep track of the, you know, actually make it a real survey but it's also an opportunity to get conversations going, but have specific questions about what people know about what the
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Mormon Church teaches, about how the Mormon Church teaches that there are only two churches, the
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Church of the Lamb, the Church of the Devil, were you aware of that? That's really not a postmodern view and use that as a way of beginning conversations on various subjects, both with a non -Mormon, because you could then transition into a discussion of the gospel, what their church background is, things like that, as well as a
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Mormon, obviously. And if you asked enough questions on a sufficiently wide variety of topics, you could always pick one response and focus in upon that and begin a conversation that way.
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So that's something to consider. I think it would be very easy, it would only take me a few minutes, to type up a really good list of questions that could be asked and print it out and actually, you know, make it work.
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So I don't know, that's just something I was pondering. The problem is if these King James Only guys do show up, they're going to basically follow me around.
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So I suppose I could, you know, sacrifice myself to keep them following me around.
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Obviously if they have a large enough group, they're just going to go everywhere and there would be no place we could go that they wouldn't be around.
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And so I don't even think the survey issue necessarily would work in that context. But anyways, that's what we're going to try and see how it works.
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You know, you can pray that they're just going to go far, far, far away. That would be very nice. But we'll see what happens.
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But anyhow, by the way, by the way, before we get into our subject today, or if you have a question, comment today, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.
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Last dividing line, if you hear that sound in the background, I have one of these. One of the places
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I haven't actually bought anything from in a long time, there's levinger .com. It's a place where you get all this cool leather stuff.
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They make these book weights, like there's like bean bag type things, you know, and they're really cool to throw back and forth between your hands like this.
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It's sort of a, it's a very relaxing thing to do. Anyways, last dividing line,
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Michael Fallon was on, and we let everybody know about the absolutely positively amazing developments in regards to the
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December apologetics cruise, specifically the crashing of the rates.
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I mean, you could just steal a room. You simply, you could not go to a five -star resort every night and eat the way you can eat on this boat for how much they're charging for the entire trip.
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And we didn't know how long these rates would last, but we managed to get, we managed to lock in those incredibly low rates.
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So we can, we can, if you come with us, if you book through us, you can get these incredibly low rates.
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But guess what has happened since then? I mean, today's Tuesday, that was Thursday. Mike called me yesterday, he said, dude, you've got to get on Travelocity .com,
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you've got to check something out. And I'm like, man, I just got back from teaching, can you just sort of fill me in? Oh, thank you.
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I wondered what in the world was going on. It really sounded goofy in here. So you had to do a little technical adjustment to the compressor, in other words, you hit it with a, with a hammer or something.
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It's not a good thing when that starts happening. Yeah, I figured that out. Anyhow, he says, well, what we, the cabin that we have for $306, and we need, by the way,
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Rich, we need to change these rates on the, on the website. The cabin that we have for $306, you know what it's selling to everybody else right now at, as of, as of yesterday, $1 ,607, $1 ,301 more.
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No one, no one in the world can get on this boat cheaper than through us right now.
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It's incredible. So it's, it is, it is just rad, amazing, very, a great blessing.
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And I'm really looking forward to it because Silly Brit is going to be on the, on the cruise with all his little
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Silly Brits and Lord Willen, Dr.
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Wallybolt will be on, will be on the, on the trip. And I tell you, it's really neat.
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So don't put it off. Get hold of Michael Fallon. We've had lots and lots of folks that have, have contacted us after last week and it is just going to be a tremendously good time there in December 6th through the 13th on the
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Zondam. And if you like to eat, especially, let me tell you something, the food is just,
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I mean, I've never been on a ship this nice. I mean, I've, I felt embarrassed, I'll be honest,
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I felt embarrassed by the way I was treated on the Carnival Imagination on a three -day cruise.
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I mean, I was embarrassed at the quality of the food and, and the surroundings and everything. And we've gone on a little nicer ship each time.
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We went on the Paradise the second time, that was a non -smoking carnival ship. And then last time we went on the Mercury, much nicer ship, but the
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Zondam is going to be the best ship we've been on at all. Biggest cabins, most luxurious, and talk about a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching.
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And I'm going to be doing, as far as I can tell, I'm going to be doing the vast majority of the teaching. So that's going to be something that's going to be really enjoyable.
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And I'd love to get Wonky to go on the cruise so we could work out together in the gym.
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I think that'd be a very enjoyable thing, but, you know, I'm sure that he'll be flossing his cat's teeth or something during that period of time, because whenever we try to get together with him, he's just, you know, it's just like when he said he came to Phoenix, and he didn't, and all that stuff.
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So anyways, get ahold of Michael Fallon, the link is on our website. We'll update the, ignore the prices right now.
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The prices are old, we'll get them fixed, but just drop down there and talk to Michael Fallon.
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Oh, by the way, he will not be returning emails today because his wife has taken him out for his birthday. So happy birthday,
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Mike. If today, you know, if today's your birthday and it's April 15th, what a bummer, but at least no one ever forgets your birthday at that particular point in time.
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But then again, who wants to buy you a birthday present on April 15th?
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Here, Mike, it's your 14th copy of TurboTax. There you go. What a lousy day to have a birthday.
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If, if, if it is today, it could be tomorrow. Who knows? You know how it works.
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But if it's the 15th, then I feel very, very sad for Mike.
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Oh my, 877 -753 -3341 is the number. Last week, I was actually going to raise an issue and the phone started ringing off the hook and we never, never got around to it.
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I am, I know, I know, I know. The main page article's been up there a long time. I even had someone write to me.
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I need to write back to them. We've had someone offer to videotape, to basically,
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I guess, sort of act out. The dialogue in the main page article on, on Sola Scriptura.
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And, you know, that's a really good idea. If you haven't read the main page article, you should. It was a dialogue between myself,
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Roman Catholic, and Sola Scriptura. Obviously, it could be expanded extensively. And I think it'd be a really good idea to do that.
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I'm going to suggest to them that that, that, you know, might be a good idea. We might be able to cooperate in the doing of it since we have our own video facilities these days.
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But I would think it would be good to, like, do the main page letters to a Roman Catholic. Do the main page article and then do some variants of it.
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For example, I know that one of Robert St. Genesis' apprentice apologists has written a response to that article where he gives his response.
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Well, of course, he's a traditionalist, so he's going to take a whole different perspective. And, but it'd be neat to then redo the dialogue with a, maybe a liberal
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Catholic. Redo the dialogue with a traditionalist Catholic. See how the, you know, the various things go and see how it would be handled in each of them.
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That'd be something to be really worthwhile doing, I think. I realize there's a lot of work that goes into something like that.
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No, no toys about it. But just sort of watching the discussion and channel right now is sort of funny.
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But that would be something that we really need to do. I know that that article, though, needs to be changed.
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It's been up there for about, I don't know, since January, February, somewhere around there. And so I have begun work on the replacement article.
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And I like to try to make the main page article something new. Report on something that recently took place. I suppose it'd be easy enough to put a report on the debates a couple of weeks ago.
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That would be the shortest thing. But what I want to do is put up on the main page article a discussion of Hebrews chapter 10.
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And it was, it really was placed upon my heart by the discussion that I had with Robert St.
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Genes during the cross -examination period of the debate last week.
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I thought that that was probably the clearest portion of the debate as far as the inability of at least
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Mr. St. Genes's position to interact with the text. And just yesterday morning as I was climbing what will someday,
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I'm sure, be called Piestewa Peak, I was listening to some EWTN presentations on the priesthood because the subject of the debate on Long Island on May 29th will be the priesthood.
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And it was interesting to listen to this Roman Catholic priest because over and over again he would say
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Christ's sacrifice is the one sacrifice of the new covenant. And even quoted from Hebrews chapter 10 how it perfects those that are sanctified.
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And I couldn't help but just sit there and going, OK, do you hear what you're saying in light of what you believe?
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Because then he would very frequently make reference to such things as Christ's sacrifice being made present through the
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Eucharist and all the rest of this stuff. And I was again reminded of the fact that this passage can be quoted, but as long as you have your ultimate traditions and as long as you're not listening in the context in which those words were originally spoken, then, well,
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I guess we can understand how that would work. But this passage really struck me as, again, being so clear.
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And I think one of the things that made it even more clear for me was when someone presents an improper interpretation of a passage due to the presence of tradition, the fact they have an overarching goal, they're attempting to reach a particular position they're trying to defend, responding to it and trying to demonstrate how that conclusion or that interpretation violates the context of the passage can sometimes not only be extremely challenging, but it also has the rewarding result of clarifying your own understanding of the passage.
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You might have studied the passage before, but without that challenge to examine, say, a certain aspect of the text, a certain form of the grammar, a certain aspect of the syntax, whatever it might be, you gain greater clarity regarding the meaning of the text because of the challenge, because of the interpretation that is offered that you are able to detect is not coming from exegesis.
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It's not coming from examining the text, coming from another position. But how then do you respond to it? How do you defend the original intention of the author over against the interpretation being offered?
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That can very frequently clarify your own thinking. Now, also, it can muddle you if you're not following the rules of hermeneutics.
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What I mean by that is sometimes if you're an apologist, you're looking at a passage, you don't want to see it used in a certain way, and therefore your own interpretation can become skewed.
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There's no question about that. This is a matter of balance, and balance is necessary in all things.
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And we have to be very careful that we do not misinterpret the scriptures in such a way as to strengthen what we think is our position or whatever else it might be.
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But in this case, just simply examining the text and listening to the assertions that were made was very, very helpful.
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And what do I mean by that? Well, first of all, it's important to keep in mind the context of this particular book.
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And that is, I think, one of the first things that people miss.
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Mr. Syngenis repeated what he had said in 1999, where he, in essence, insisted that the context of the book of Hebrews, 51 % of the text in the book of Hebrews, is about apostasy, about losing your faith, about falling away.
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And I respond by saying 100 % of the text of Scripture, of the book of Hebrews, is about the supremacy of Christ to the old way.
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Now, those warnings flow from the demonstration of the supremacy of Christ. There's nothing to go back to.
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This is a book that is written to Hebrew Christians. And those Hebrew Christians were being put under pressure by family and culture to go back to the temple worship, to go back to the old ways.
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And the book is demonstrating that there is nothing to go back to. There is no temple worship.
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There is no sacrifice. There is no synagogue worship. There is nothing to go back to, because Jesus Christ is superior in every way to the old way.
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The old way was merely a shadow of what was to come. Since what was to come has now come, there's nothing to go back to.
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Whether it's the priesthood, or the sacrifices, or the temple, the offerings, whatever it might be, all of that has been fulfilled in Christ.
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And so that is the message of the book. It is delivered to a mixed congregation.
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That is, it is delivered to the church that any elder has to preach to. When you preach to the congregation, you do not have some special ability to look into the hearts of all those who are listening and know who is and who is not truly in Christ.
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And so you press the warnings upon all, knowing that in the part of the elect, those warnings will create sobriety, will create carefulness, a seriousness of life that honors and glorifies
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God. And they also have a purpose for those who are not united with Christ, in that God is glorified even in their reaction to those warnings, in the demonstration of their lack of love for the truth or whatever else it might be.
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And so this is the context of the book of Hebrews, and it's in that context then that we approach the subject of Hebrews chapter 10 and its testimony concerning the sacrifice of Christ.
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Now the writer begins this section with a discussion, let me just read the first four verses.
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For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.
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Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?
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But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
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And so the writer begins this section of his argumentation with a discussion through verse 4 of the repetitive nature of the old sacrifices.
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The law of Moses was, by nature, a shadow, a mere picture, of what would come in Christ.
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Therefore the annual sacrifices which are offered continually year by year could not make perfect those who draw near to worship through them.
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This is then evidenced by the fact that if they did perfect those for whom they were made, would they not have to be offered repeatedly, constantly?
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If they did perfect them, then why do the continuation of the sacrifices, why do they have to be repeated over and over again?
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The worshippers being perfected by the offerings would no longer have had consciousness of sins. Why? Well it's important to note what the text says.
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Having once been cleansed. Having once been cleansed, the perfection to which the author refers has to do with cleansing.
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They remove the stain of sin, therefore removes the guilt which is related to the conscience. Perfect offerings remove guilt, imperfect ones do not.
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Since, however, these offerings are repeated over and over and over again, they end up functioning as an anamnesis, as the
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Greek term, a reminder, or remembrance, as it's translated in 1 Corinthians 11, 24 -25, a reminder of sins.
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The repetition of a sacrifice demonstrates its inherent inability to perfect anyone for whom it is offered.
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The fact that the high priest had to enter the holy place each year, functioned in God's economy to point the people to a greater fulfillment.
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Remember, it was this very lesser sacrifice to which the Hebrew Christians were being drawn by the pressure of family and culture.
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Hence, to demonstrate that what they were being drawn back to was actually a mere foreshadowing of what they had now come to see as the fulfilled and final sacrifice, was a devastating apologetic argument, a firm basis upon which to exhort the gathered church to continuation in their profession of faith.
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The writer then asserts the reality that the sacrifice of bulls and goats cannot take away sins.
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Now, he has, remember, previously said that Christ put away sin in Hebrews 9, 26. So, the contrast is very strong.
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Christ's death by nature has a power that the blood of goats and bulls does not. And therefore, the person who goes back to the old way, goes back to a system that simply cannot provide a means to take away sins, because to go back would involve the open and public denial, the satisfaction found in Christ's atoning sacrifice, which becomes the point, by the way, of Hebrews 10, verses 26 through 27, another passage that frequently causes people difficulties in their understanding of the book of Hebrews itself.
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877 -753 -3341, we have one call on hold. We're going to take our break and be right back.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming
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Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.
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Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
30:56
Millions of petitioners from around the world are imploring Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ.
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Elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion. In his book,
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Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.
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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed
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Queen of Heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the
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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the
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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at aomen .org.
31:51
What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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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.
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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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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very
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Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.
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And welcome back to Dividing Line. We're talking about Hebrews chapter 10 today. And we'll be taking your phone calls in just a moment.
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I just wanted to at least get to somewhat of a breaking point here. I'm not sure that I'll get all the way through this today.
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Eventually, this will be on the website anyways, one way or the other. But in verses 5 through 9, the author then gives us an argument from Psalm 40.
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He says, Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
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In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices of sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come, and the scroll of the book is written of me to do your will,
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O God. After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them.
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Then notice this little statement, Which are offered according to the law. So here he's saying, Okay, here's the argument.
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These are offered according to the law. These are the sacrifices and offerings that I'm talking about here in my argument here in my sermon to you.
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Verse 9, Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first, that is the offering of the sacrifices and burnt offerings, in order to establish the second.
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And what is the second? Behold, I have come to do your will. That then becomes the context for,
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By this will, and that's referring back to the word will in verse 9, By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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Now it's, I think, important to notice something here. Sometimes one of the hermeneutical errors that we all fall into, is we become accustomed to interpreting a particular word within a particular author.
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And then we assume that every other author is going to use that word in the same way. And unfortunately, some of the quote -unquote
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Bible study methodologies that people utilize, tend to encourage people in making this kind of an error.
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And what I mean by that is, let's say you do a word study, and you're using something like Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the
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Bible or something like that. It's very easy for someone to take a definition, and then force that definition into every use of that word, even though it is very clear that different authors will utilize words in a different way.
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Now there are some who have this view of inspiration that basically God did not utilize. The personalities of authors,
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I'm not sure how they get around the Psalms, I'm not sure how they get around Paul saying, Pray for me. But anyways, they actually have a view that's sort of what we have in the
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Bible's automatic writing. And it's all supposed to have the same, every word means the same thing, wherever it's used, it's just one author.
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And certainly we know God is the author of Scripture, but he used men. Not so as to introduce imperfection, but he used men so as to communicate to men.
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And of course I'm not using the term women for any particular reason there, I'm just not politically correct. Anyways, that is very clear in regards to the nature of Scripture itself.
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And so, when we come to the book of Hebrews, you may notice that the writer is not addressing, for example, the relationship of Jews and Gentiles and the ground by which they stand before God in justification.
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He is addressing a particular group of people. And it was interesting,
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Mr. St. Genes just assumed, and really his response, at least as I recall it, because I haven't watched the films or anything to see if this is what the camera picked up, but his response when
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I asked him about the meaning of sanctified, in Hebrews 10, verse 10, was he just assumed it meant the process of sanctification.
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Well, yeah, the term is used that way. Paul uses that to refer to God's will as your sanctification and the putting away of uncleanness for you, and lust, and so on and so forth.
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But that's not what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. When you understand the
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Old Testament background, the concept of being set apart, made holy, sanctified, that takes a very different, this is positional sanctification.
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This is being made holy, and certainly in verse 10, how can you say anything other than this?
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By this will, that is the will, verse 9, I have come to do your will,
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O Lord, in this body, the giving of this body, this offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, over against the repetitive sacrifices, which we see in verses 5 and following.
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Those repetitive sacrifices, no, Christ comes in his body. He offers his body once for all.
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That is not a distributive term. That is a temporal adverb. It's referring to once for all time, not once for every single individual.
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And then it says, by this will, we have been sanctified. This is called a paraphrastic construction.
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It uses the present tense of aimi with a perfect passive participle of hagiazzo.
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And this form, in a paraphrastic construction, when there are charts you can look up where if you have this tense of the finite verb and then this tense of the participle, the result is for the construction, this tense.
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And this is the perfect tense, paraphrastic. This is a complete action of the past with remaining abiding results to the present.
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And so the writer is communicating to us that by that will, we have been sanctified.
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It is something that has already taken place. It is a perfective action. We have been sanctified, and in only one way, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once.
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One offering. See the contrast. Same contrast it was in verses 1 -4. Repetitive sacrifices can't take away sin.
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Repetitive sacrifices can't take away sin. Now you have, by this will, we have been sanctified.
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We have been set apart. We have been made holy. This is positional sanctification. This would be analogous, not strictly, but at least as we're comparing the arguments, and the arguments are different, so use different terms, it would be analogous to Paul's use of justification.
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That is the forensic declaration of being made right before God. But here you're talking in the context of temple and sacrifice and priesthood.
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And so what is the work of God there? Sanctified. Set apart. Made holy. We have been, as a complete action of the past for the abiding results of the present, been sanctified through the offering, that's again, and don't misunderstand the use of this language, that's cultic language.
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That's a term used in scholarship to refer to the worship within the temple.
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That is the very term that is used for the offering of the sacrifices in the temple in the Old Testament.
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The offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now then you get verses 11 through 13 are sort of an excursus.
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They're a further explanation from the Old Testament. Verse 14 continues the thought of verse 10.
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The excursus says, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
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They've already said this up above in verse 4. But he's re -emphasizing the repetitious nature of those imperfect sacrifices.
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But he, in contrast, verse 12, he's contrasting the priests, again, these are the ones that they'd be being drawn back to, but he, having offered one, again, offering, same parallel being used here, he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, forever, sat down at the right hand of God.
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Now you've heard it said many times before, there was no place to sit in the holy place because the chief, the high priest's work was never done.
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He would always have to come back. There was no place for him to stay. But instead, he sits down at the right hand of God, quotation
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Psalm 110 .1, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.
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One of the most important messianic passages from the Psalms. So you have more evidence brought in by the writer of this perfection of the work of Christ.
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Then, verse 14 then, functions as what you might call bookends to verse 10.
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Verse 10, same thought repeated in different words. Now in verse 14, four by one offering.
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Not the repeated offerings, not the yearly offerings, not the repetitive offerings, four by one offering, he has perfected for all time.
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And that's the same phraseology that is used in verse 12 when it talks about for all time, for the ages.
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It's an idiomatic, continually, perpetually, is other ways of translating that.
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It's an idiomatic phrase. He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.
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Now here's one thing, then we'll go to our calls, and I'm going to take them in reverse order because the second caller actually is talking about this passage.
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So we'll try to keep them in a topical order here. The English Standard Version translates the last phrase of verse 14, those who are being sanctified.
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Now the participle is a present participle, and so it is not necessarily incorrect to translate it that way, but I prefer the
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New American Standard here because of what is being said. The participle, those who are sanctified, in verse 14, is the repetition of the thought of verse 10, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once and for all.
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And if there is any connection to the present tense, it would go back to the fact that in a perfect tense, periphrastic construction as you have in verse 10, you have completed action in the past with abiding results in the present.
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That is, we are sanctified. We are not being sanctified as if it's an iterative concept.
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We are sanctified, have been sanctified, set apart, and remain in that state.
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That would be the connection to the present tense in verse 14, is that he is referring to the same group.
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And that is very important to notice because some will argue, well, you see, this is the present tense, and so as long as you keep being sanctified, and that was the argument that Mr.
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St. Genes was offering basically, was as long as you keep being sanctified, and that is your responsibility, as long as you basically are sanctifying yourself, then his sacrifice will avail for you as you utilize the sacraments, and so on and so forth.
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That's not the writer's point at all. Instead, his point is, for by one offering, he has perfected, he is the one who has perfected.
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Who is the subject? The verb. He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.
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And who are those who are sanctified? Right? Verse 10. So it's a tremendous passage, and I've just barely scratched the surface.
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That's what I'm trying to get communicated in this article that I'm trying to get done in the midst of everything else, but a tremendous passage, and just a beautiful thing.
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So, yeah, I know, we've only got a small amount of time, but you know, sometimes you just, you have to, you can't take breaks in some of these.
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I think it would be wrong to start into Hebrews chapter 10 and go, ah, well, let's go off on some other topic here.
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And sometimes that's just the way it has to be. So let's go ahead. No, just no place to break.
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You tell people you're going to deal with Hebrews chapter 10, you need to deal with Hebrews chapter 10. So let's go ahead and talk with Scott real quick.
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He has a question on Hebrews 10 .29. Hello. Hello, James.
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Yes, sir. Okay, my question relating to Hebrews 10 .29, specifically about the part where it says, you know, he who has trampled the blood, the son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing.
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You know, that used to come up a lot when I was trying to discuss eternal security. And now it's coming up as people who are in the covenant, but that are not elect.
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I'm just wondering, because neither one of those really satisfied me. I was just wondering, what's your interpretation?
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How do you handle Hebrews 10 .29? I think John Owen was right. John Owen, the prince of the
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Puritans, in his seven -volume work on Hebrews, which was his magna cum laude, his life's work in commenting on Hebrews 10 .29,
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says that on a grammatical level, the phrase, by which he was sanctified, you have to ask, by which who was sanctified?
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And many just assume, and in fact, Owen, at age 25, when he wrote Death of Death and Death of Christ, had also assumed that the only antecedent was the apostate himself.
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Owen, as the mature exegete later in his life, said, no, that is not the case.
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The one who is sanctified is the son of God. That is the setting apart that is in view here.
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And that's what makes the blood of the covenant not unclean, but clean.
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That is, Jesus Christ himself, in his high priestly prayer, uses this same terminology.
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He has set himself apart. He has sanctified himself in his being made the offering for sin.
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He has been set apart in that way. And so I believe that the phrase, and again, remembering this is still
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Hebrews 10, we've just seen that Christ sanctifies for all time.
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He is the one who perfects those who are sanctified. This is his work.
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And so it would not be, in any way, shape, or form, an apologetic argument consistent with the book of Hebrews, for this passage to be referring to an incompleteness in the very work of Christ that is contrasted with the imperfect works of the old covenant.
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It is to destroy the very apologetic argument that the writer of Hebrews has developed all along to attach that phrase by which he was sanctified to the apostate.
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The seriousness of this sin is seen in the fact that, again, these are words addressed to the gathered church, to those who were being drawn back to the old ways, and to go back and to offer a bull, to go back and offer a goat, to stand there and hear the cries of the animals as they are slaughtered, was to trample underfoot the
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Son of God, and to regard as koine, as unclean, as common, the blood of the covenant by which
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Christ, the Son of God Himself, was sanctified, and as a result, insult the
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Spirit of Grace. So this is a very strong warning passage, and that is why I said at the beginning of my comments on Hebrews chapter 10, we need to understand the role of the warning passages and how they are beneficial both for those who are truly in Christ and for those that are simply in the congregation.
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They have different purposes for each. But it is a very strong warning passage because the sin is grave because of what is being done.
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He has regarded as unclean or common. He has simply reduced the sacrifice of the
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Son of God by which the Son of God Himself was sanctified and set apart as koine, common, the same kind of blood as that offered by the priests when it was the blood of goats and calves and bulls, which takes us back to Hebrews 7, 8, and 9 as well when it talks about the fact that His is a better sacrifice.
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His is a better covenant and that is not merely in numbers, but in kind.
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It is an ontological difference that exists between them. And so, I would just...
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I don't know if you have Owen's commentary on Hebrews. It's a seven -volume printed edition, but it's available.
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Do we make that available? Because the Ages CD -ROM, I'm not sure if we still make it available or not, but it's available through the
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Ages library, the Collected Works of John Owen. I'm not sure if it's on the web.
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Yeah, we've got it. Okay, good. We make that available and the commentary is right there.
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Obviously, Owen spent much more time on it than I did. I mean, if you've ever read any of John Owen, you know he goes on and on and on and on.
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But I would look at his commentary for an expansion on that particular issue.
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Scott? Okay, well, thanks, James. Hey, I put you to sleep, huh? No, no. I can barely hear you is the problem.
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Oh, I'm sorry. Well, we'll try to turn that up for the folks on the other end there. And if you didn't catch most of that, then maybe you can catch the archive of the program and see what the full answer was to your question.
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But sorry about that. You should have interrupted me and said, Hey, can't hear you. Turn it up. Okay, thanks a lot, man. Okay, thanks a lot.
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All right, bye -bye. All right, let's sneak one more caller in here. Ken, who has been very patient in Iowa.
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Ken, are you there? Yes, James. Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. All right. Even though I told the guy who answered the call that I wanted to talk about your new book coming out with Dave Hunt, what is that expected out?
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Well, you know, people are asking me that a lot. I need to ask the folks at Multnomah that question.
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I have, in the few things that I have seen, it seems like it could still be a while.
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I mean, the writing is done and I don't think the editing is really going to take very long because we only had a certain number of words we could write and you can't do much in editing that because it messes up your word numbers and things like that.
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So I can't see if that's going to take that long, but every publisher has a timetable, basically, a printing schedule and I don't know where this book rates as far as number of initial copies and things like that.
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There's a lot of variables that go into the publishing industry and most of which I don't even know about. So I'm going to try to find out, but it would be a very tentative date right now anyways.
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So, hard to say. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I've read The Potter's Freedom and I've also run into many individuals who have read
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What Love Is This and they just buy it hook, line, and sinker, all the arguments. So I'm looking forward to a rebuttal.
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Well, I can only address what he raises. I think one of the things that's going to be somewhat educational for folks is to compare, certainly there's a tremendous amount of consistency between what he says in What Love Is This and in our book, which at the moment has the tentative title of debating
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Calvinism, I think is what the title was. But still, however,
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I think it's educational to notice some of the differences in the presentations that are made or at least how they change over the course of the debate.
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Certainly, much of what is said in What Love Is This is abandoned because I've refuted it.
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Oh, yeah. I agree. I used to listen to all your archives and you said, you know, Dave, you shouldn't write this book.
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And when I picked up the book, I couldn't believe the first chapter. Saying that John Newton and Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, they weren't
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Calvinists. Well, anybody who does any ten -minute research can find that that's not true in some way with his
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Spurgeon projected limited atonement. Unequivocally. Well, if he understood that particular redemption is the same thing.
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I know. Believe me, I told him. I tried. So, did you have, it sounded like you were going to say that's what you were going to ask about, but you had something else.
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Well, I was listening in on your treatment on Hebrews 10, and I preached a sermon Sunday dealing with the sacrifice of Christ, the redemption, propitiation, and so forth.
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And I had talked about, the title was The Sufficient Work of Christ. And we live in a very
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Catholic community. And I'm amazed at this whole mass card system. You know, doing mass cards on behalf of the deceased person.
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So, I emailed some priest to find out what they really believed about it. You know, and it is pretty shocking.
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And I think your treatment of Hebrews 10 really stirred some more questions for me to give them about Christ's perfection on the cross.
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There in Hebrews 10, perfected once and for all, and so forth. Well, it's amazing. I was listening to that Catholic priest lecturing, and he would use that terminology and then turn around and talk about the
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Eucharistic sacrifice and being made present upon the altar. And I know that if I were to ask him, was anyone perfected by that work in the sense of the book of Hebrews, he'd have to say no.
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But the role of tradition is so strong that, interestingly enough, it's just like Dave Hunt.
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He can read John 6, 44 and absolutely insist. It cannot mean that no man is able.
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It must mean that no man is willing. Because of all these hundreds of other verses, it can't mean what it says on the page.
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And that's exactly what happens with the Roman Catholic priest. He says, you know, we have been perfected, but we can still end up in hell.
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We'll still end up going through purgatory, suffering, sadaspatio, for our sins. But they use words, like this priest said, well, when a person dies, there may still be a need for that person to be cleansed of sin they committed on earth.
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Known in our faith as purgatory, few people can step directly into heaven. It requires time to be purified.
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So they use the words purified. They have to pay for their sins and so forth.
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Well, I closed the Hunt book by, again, emphasizing to everyone, you have to, have to, have to examine your traditions.
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If you think you don't have any, then you are the most enslaved to them. And if you don't examine your traditions, you will end up elevating them to the level of the word of God itself.
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And if we're going to be consistent in saying that to Roman Catholics, who at least are open with the role of tradition, they may not see how all pervasive it is, but at least they admit that it's there.
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If we're going to point the finger there and say, you need to examine your traditions in light of Matthew 15 and so on and so forth, well, then we need to say that to people on, allegedly, our side of the aisle, even though on the issue of grace and the will of man,
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Mr. Hunt is very firmly on the same side with Rome. But we have to be very consistent and call everyone to that examination.
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And so that's what I've done there too. Well, now we're out of time. I'll call back another time.
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I have some other questions. Alrighty, sir. Alright, appreciate it. Alright, thanks for calling. Well, I hope the comments on Hebrews chapter 10, as brief as they were, were helpful to you.
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As I said, I'm going to do my best to get the new article up that will have more on that.
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It is a tremendous passage, one I think that we should be much more familiar with than generally we are. Pray for us as we go out to Mesa.
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We'll see what happens tonight. Hopefully, the Lord will give us wisdom as to how to handle this situation.
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And His will be done, and all to His honor and glory. Thanks for listening today to Dividing Line. God bless.
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