Matt Slick Q&A, 2/8/2017

Yeah, I'll get my Bible, I'll get my program going, we'll go to the text, it's a common set of verses that people go to when they think that you can lose your salvation, but you can't lose your salvation.

And so what they'll do a lot of times, hopefully people don't want to set one verse against another verse. That's something we've got to avoid. So when we have clear scriptures, there's a principle of interpretation.

When we have clear scriptures, we have a set of topics, let's say for example like this, we have a topic, a certain topic, and we have a set of scriptures that fall in this category and a set of scriptures that fall in this category.

But they're under this one major topic. And what I mean is, this can only be understood one way, and these set of scriptures can be understood in, say, two or maybe more ways, but they're on the same topic.

So for example, once saved, always saved, for example, is a principle. If we have a set of scriptures on a particular topic, and one set of them, a subtopic, subset, inside of that broad set, can only be interpreted one way, for example, John 6, 37 -40, and 1 John 2, 19.

And yet you have other verses, Hebrews 6, 4 -6, Hebrews 10, 26, things like that, sometimes I think it's 2 Peter 2, 1, they will say, well, you can interpret these in different ways. Well, then these have to be interpreted in harmony with these.

Because these are clear, you can't violate the principle of interpretation that way. What a lot of people will do when I say, for example, once saved, always saved is true, they'll then take some verses like this, and they'll say, see, it contradicts what you're saying, Matt.

And what they're trying to do, automatically, is set the Word of God against itself, and that's not a good thing to do. So let me get to that set of scriptures, and we'll go through it. Now, first of all, who's the book of Hebrews written to?

Hebrews, all right. So if you were to, just scan through the book of Hebrews sometime. And in my Bible, Old Testament references are in capitals, so it's very easy to see Old Testament references. And there's just a ton of them.

All over the place, there is a whole bunch of references to, let me get some of this stuff going here, the smaller laptop today, oh, here we go, here we go, and we'll get to there. I should have had this open earlier.

There we go. And so when we get to Hebrews, we understand, first of all, it's written to the Hebrews. And since the book of Hebrews is referencing the Old Testament in a great, a lot, we just understand that it has to do with the Jewish mindset.

Now what I understand about this pericope, it says, for in the case of those who've once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

This is a warning. It's a warning by, I believe Paul wrote this, that's just my opinion, can't prove it, but it's a warning by the writer of Hebrews to the Jewish people, the Hebrews. Now the Hebrews, the Jews, had it in their brain, in their idea, that what they were to do is follow certain rules, certain regulations in order to keep salvation, in order to maintain their position with God.

This never says they lose their salvation in any way. Jesus says in John 10, 27, 28, my sheep hear my voice, I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. John 3, 16, God's love of the world to give His only begotten Son, that those who believe in Him would have everlasting life and never perish, all right?

And we can go through some other verses. So what do we do here with these then? It can't mean that they lose their salvation, even though people would like to say, yes, you can. But in the case of those who've been once enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Spirit, so here's a question.

Could that verse apply to the Jews of Jesus' time who rejected Jesus ultimately? Well, think about it. Those who've been enlightened, have they been enlightened? Yeah. They've tasted the heavenly gift.

They've experienced Jesus Himself, right? And made partakers of the Holy Spirit. Now some people say, well, wait a minute, that proves it can't just be the Jews. The partakers of the Holy Spirit means that you're indwelt by the Spirit.

That's not what it says, though. Okay, now if it says indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we've got a serious problem. But it doesn't say that. It says they're partakers of. What does it mean to be a partaker of the Holy Spirit?

Does it mean that He's in you? Can an unbeliever partake of what the Holy Spirit is doing in people's lives? The answer is yes. The Hebrews certainly could. The Holy Spirit was working through Jesus. And the Holy Spirit was working through others.

So they could have been made partakers. And there's even a sense, I believe, where an unbeliever can be made a partaker of what God's doing. We have Gamaliel. I think it was Gamaliel. There's cobwebs in the back of my head here.

He prophesied, and it was because God had moved on him to do so, but he was denying Christ. And so we know that this kind of a thing can happen. Verse 5, "...and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.".

Tasted. This is a metaphor. This is a symbol. They tasted it. So tasted the good word of God? Wait a minute. How do you taste the good word of God? You don't taste it. You don't put it... You know, the NASB Bible tastes better than the NIV.

It doesn't work like that for most people. And so it's talking about experience. These are experiences that are being talked about here. Experiencing the word of God in the person of Jesus, in the proclamations of the disciples.

And they've tasted the powers of the age to come. They've experienced them. What? Nourishment? Well, I don't think it applies in this context. But the idea of the word of... Anyway. So I've tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

And then have fallen away. It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. Now, if you were to go to 2 Corinthians... Let's see. I think it's 10 .7. Or maybe it's 7 .10. I always get those mixed up sometimes.

Well, we'll talk about that in a little bit. 2 Corinthians 7 .10. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death.

There's basically two kinds of repentance, true and false. A repentance where, yeah, I got busted. I won't ever do it again. And then you do it again. There's another kind of repentance where you really are repentant in your heart.

You really are concerned. And so one leads to life, one is death. But notice, another thing, that's the kind of repentance here in Hebrews 6 .6. But it says they've fallen away. Fallen away from what?

Fallen away from tasting the good word, experiencing the power of the age to come, tasted the heavenly gift. They have fallen away from all that that is, which I believe. I believe, I do. What it is talking about is a reference of that time and place of Jesus and the disciples themselves who had a special ability to manifest the power of God to the Jews.

They participated. They saw. They tasted. The whole bit. And many of them were coming to a kind of a false repentance as they were coming to Christ, but not really believing. And we have a public declaration.

But then they would fall away. They'd go back to the old ways. And it's impossible to renew them again in repentance. Since they again crucified themselves, the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. Because what they're doing, once they say that they believe that Christ was crucified, and that's what their atoning was, and then they later leave that, they have manifested a false repentance.

And they're again saying that the crucifixion of Christ is of no value. And they're in the sense of putting Him to open shame. So what they're, I understand what this, I see this mean. So this is to the Jews, to the Hebrews.

I mean, not just Jews, but Hebrews. And so much Old Testament stuff is throughout the book of Hebrews. So much that I see this being a declaration to those Jews, those dedicated Hebrews, who had experienced so much, gone through a fake repentance, fallen away.

That's it. There's nothing left for them. In fact, the same kind of sentiment is found, come on, in Hebrews 10 .26. So if we were to go there, For if we go on sinning willfully, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, they are no longer made to sacrifice for sin.

Now, there is rising, unfortunately, what's called the willful sin cult. The willful sin cult, that's what we call it. They use this verse, If we go on sinning willfully, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, they are no longer made to sacrifice for sin.

If you sin willfully, then you've lost your salvation. You can never be saved again. And so I'll talk to them, and I've had encounters with them. And I'll say, so do you sin anymore? They go, nope, don't sin anymore.

Well, one of the, yeah, it's clearly what 1 John says. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us. 1 John 1 .7 and 8. So, obviously, and then they have their ways of doing this.

It gets complicated. I can go to 1 John 3 .6. I can go to some other verses that they use. But the thing is that they'll use this. They'll say, if you go on sinning willfully, how many of you ever sin willfully after you become a Christian?

You know, and I'll talk to them. And I love to say to people who, you know, I don't sin anymore. Really? Spend five minutes with me. I'll cure that, you know. But, what's the context here? The Jews. Let's draw, look at 22.

Let's draw near with a sincere heart, full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. The Old Testament type of sprinklings and sanctification.

This is Old Testament illusion. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promises faithful. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, what is that knowledge of the truth? That's the question. After receiving the knowledge of the truth. It doesn't say receiving Jesus.

Now in John 1 .13, for as many as received him, to them he gave the right to be called the children of God. That's John 1 .12. And in verse 13, who were born, and it says, not of your own will. That's paraphrasing that one.

So, they receive the knowledge of the truth. They haven't received the truth. They haven't received Christ. They've received the knowledge of. What is that knowledge of that truth? Jesus Christ is the Messiah fulfilled in the Old Testament.

He died on the cross, rose from the dead, according to the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15, 1 -4. If they go on sinning willfully, rejecting what God has provided in the atonement, then there is no more sacrifice for them.

Because there isn't any sacrifice. There's nothing. The Old Covenant is done with the death of Christ. Hebrews 8 .13, Hebrews 9 .15 -16. And since the New Covenant is in effect, the Old Testament sacrificial system is gone.

That's what he was talking about in Hebrews 5, 6, and 7. Jesus being a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Who lives forever to make intercession for us. Hebrews 6 .20 and 7 .25. So he's the high priest.

He's the one who fulfilled all the requirements. Therefore, if you go on sinning willfully after receiving all of that, there's no sacrifice for you. You've got nothing left. There's no other options.

You know, nothing. And that's what's going on there. Alright? You have a question on there? Let's do it off the net. No. It just says that one does and one does not. Oh. There's a parable of the sower.

The Parable of the Sower and Unbelief

Answer why one believes and one does not. And the answer there is no. It just says one does and one does not. It doesn't say why. Then we get into the issue of Molinism, free will, predestination, election.

And I'll just tell you. The reason one believes and one does not is because God grants repentance. 2 Timothy 2 .25. And he grants that we believe. Philippians 1 .29 Our believing is the work of God. John 6 .28 .29 And we're born again not of our own will.

John 1 .13 We're caused to be born again. 1 Peter 1 .3 So the reason we believe is because God grants that we believe and ordains that we do. That's why. Now people may not like that, but that's what it is.

Yep. If I want to know what the right verses are about gray areas, I just go to CARM. I just go there. Because it's such a great website. It has all the answers. Well, most of them. That's what I would do.

And gray areas. So there are gray areas. Let's take this example of the issue of losing your salvation. And this principle here. We have gray areas, a topic, a set of scriptures on the same topic can be only interpreted one way and these another way.

Now, what'll happen is that people will say, well, Matt, that makes sense, but I don't agree with you that this can only be interpreted one way. I think this one verse right here belongs over here, not over here.

So people will argue about things. And what happens here is this, when we look it up, this verse, the way it's interpreted is due to a person's presuppositions. Okay? Presuppositions, what they assume beforehand.

So when I have discussions about this kind of stuff with people, I have to get to hear to see if their presuppositions are correct. Now, this means I also have to determine my own presuppositions to see if what I'm assuming about an area of gray, a gray area of scriptures maybe, am I presupposing a certain value in a certain area?

And so, what I have to do is check myself. And I do that a lot. And I hope I do a good job. But maybe I don't. I think I do. Maybe God's saying, no, Matt, you're trying, but you're not getting it. Maybe he'll tell me on the day of judgment.

I don't know. So how do we be dogmatic about something? What we have to do is check our presuppositions. So I typically, when we go to Matthew 24 and Luke 17, two men are in the field, one is taken, one is left.

And people say, that's the rapture. And it is not. It is not the rapture. You just got to read the context, the wicked are the ones that are taken. So the reason that people do this, and I forgot what the exact verse is around verse 24, 26, something like that, 32, whatever.

The reason people will do this is because they have these presuppositions, but they're told things mean already, and they don't want to have their presuppositions examined or cross-examined or undermined.

And so what I try and do with Christians is work on those things and try and break them down and say, is that what the text is saying? Now I'm not saying I always do this right, but this is the idea that we're supposed to have.

So one of the weaknesses of denominationalism is that we get into a denomination and we always believe what that denomination teaches in so many areas. I don't do that. I don't care. I went to a Calvinist seminary.

I have a Master's of Divinity from a Calvinist seminary. I'm a Calvinist. But I still check my Calvinist assumptions against the Word of God. I have changed my theological position since 1980 numerous times on various topics.

At first, I would change that many, the next year that many, the next year, and pretty soon I'm not changing too many things very often. Now it doesn't happen very often at all. Not because I got it all, but when you're changing your view, it affects other things.

You've got to slow down. What does that mean? And the more you have in your head, the quicker that process can become and you can work through things. My advantage is I'm able to do this because of apologetics all the time.

So how do we do this? How does the average Joe do this? How do they get to the point? I've got to do something here off-camera. There's a spider web up there. I keep seeing the light reflect off of it.

I feel much better now. So in a particular topic, what we have to do, if we're going to really study it, we've got to, first of all, say, Lord, teach me what the truth is, even if I don't like it. We go through and we look and say, what does it actually say?

Then we get into the issue of hermeneutics. The principles of interpreting scripture. First of all, what does it say? What does it say? And we expand out and we think we understand what it says. How do other verses relate to this?

Do other verses shed light on it? This eternal security thing is a great example of that. And then we can use logic and scripture. We'll use scripture, of course, but we'll use logic to analyze the issues of the scriptures that we're concluding.

This is a step. There's exact steps. All the time, you'll be right. We generally do this, this, and this. There's variations in it. People are different. Personalities are different. The more you do this, the better off you get.

How do we do it perfectly? I don't know. How do we perfectly understand what verses are the most dogmatic in order to understand other ones? I don't know. But I would say, logically, if there's only one explanation for something, that's pretty dogmatic.

For example, Colossians 2 .14. It's talking about Jesus having canceled out the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees, which was hostile to us. He took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Where was it nailed? To the cross. You can't say it was put someplace else because the text says so. When was it canceled? Nailing it to the cross. The certificate of debt, the chirographon, that legal IOU, indebtedness, was canceled at the cross.

Not when you believe. That's a great example of something in Colossians 2 .14. Because that verse, which has become one of my favorite verses over the years, tells us that the certificate of debt, the chirographon, the handwritten IOU of legal indebtedness, which seems to be either the sin debt itself or the law, as some people like to say, either one of those works fine.

Because let's say the sin debt, which I believe that's what it is, the handwritten IOU of legal indebtedness, and we break the law, we're incurring a debt, and Jesus equates sin with debt in our Father who art in heaven, Matthew 6, 12, and Luke 11, 4.

He equates sin and legal debt. But at any rate, so when we look at a verse like this, where it says he canceled the certificate of debt at the cross, there's a problem. Because we believe that we understand that we're justified, I'll use this as an example, we're justified when we believe, upon belief.

But if here the debt is canceled, okay, the debt is canceled at the cross, and from here to here is 2 ,000 years, then how could it be canceled here but yet we're justified when we believe? So what happens is, because people are dogmatic about this has to be the way it is, but this is true, and they see this and they'll say, this can't be true because I understand this to be true.

What they're doing is setting their dogmatism against scripture. Now, what they need to do is say, that's true, that's true. I have to understand how to relate them to each other. Instead of stopping and setting scripture against scripture or saying that my dogmatic opinion is the final authority and the final word, or my pastor or my denomination or whatever.

So when you do this, you learn that justification is by faith, Romans 5 .1 and 3 .28. When you learn that this is the case, you learn justification is different than the canceling of the debt. The legal debt is canceled at the cross, the application of it occurs when you believe.

No contradiction. So when you allow dogmatism, and I'm using the term that you're using, the sense of an absolute understanding of something that can't be understood in any way, this occurred at the cross.

Period. And this occurs when you believe. They're both true, but sometimes people will set them against each other because they don't understand it, because they've got these ideas in their head, they're not sufficient, and they continue to go on and cause theological problems.

So, it's a good example of stuff where I've had to deal with this with many, many Christians and say, I set them up, you know, and I'll quote this and go through certain logic, I have to teach them so that hopefully I have a better understanding of theology.

When that happens, your dogmatism shifts. And it shifts to the issue of truth. We know, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Having therefore been justified by faith.

So justification is a legal standing before God. And you can go to Romans 4, 1 -5 for that. Well, this verse talks about when the sin debts cancelled. Jesus did it at the cross because our sins were accounted to Him.

They were given to Him. And His body on the cross, He bore them. That occurred here. They were cancelled at the cross, but were justified when believed. So then, you start learning theology, you go, oh, I get it.

This then becomes a dogmatic truth. Because now, you've harmonized more of scripture instead of one verse. And that's one of the problems that a lot of people make. Is they'll make dogma out of a single verse, and then they'll take that verse, elevate it above other verses, and what they'll do is they'll interpret scripture in light of a single verse.

Mistake. Yeah. Baby passes away. If babies go to heaven, it's because Jesus cancelled their sin debt. Now, people will say, well, babies can't sin. Yes, they can. They're obligated by nature to be honoring God.

We are by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3. And so, our nature has fallen. The heart is desperately wicked, deceitful, no man can trust it. Jeremiah 17, 9. And this gets into the more detailed issues of Psalm 51, Covenant, and I won't get into it because that's a 10-minute discussion.

I will leave it at that. Open the door for that one. Okay, another question. Do you want to try the net? They have a question there. We'll go here. How do I deal with living with Asperger's? Wow. Never been asked that before.

I've never been asked that question before. How do I deal living with it? Apparently, not very well. Some people say how do I deal with living with Asperger's? Oh, how does my wife deal with it? Okay.

So, what's the real question? How do I deal with it? I deal with it by making up the Asperger's is a deficiency of not getting social cues and not understanding social norms. And so, how I make up for it is by studying body language and listening to tone.

And I didn't know that others don't do that. And when I went and saw a psychologist to get diagnosed and he said, yeah, you got it. He said it very enthusiastically. I told him he did. I told him what I do.

I went into detail and he sat for 10 minutes listening and I said, people don't do that, do they? He goes, no. They don't do that. I do it. And so, I'm always analyzing people, where they stand, how long they stand, their hands on their head, what they do with their shirts.

I'm always watching stuff and it's just like another language to me. And so, like Jamie, the way he sits back there. I've been watching. I notice how he sits. And you with your saliva coming out. It tells me something.

And so, I'm able to use that a lot. And that's one of the ways I cope. One of the deficiencies I've got is in noise. So, I don't do well with too many noises and distractions. So, I have to carry earplugs.

And so, I order some special earplugs. And this is a nice case. And no lie, I was looking at it a couple of days ago. It says five point. And these were predestined to be mine. And so, I wear earplugs.

I cope. You guys have been around me when we've been in places where there's too much noise. I had to plug my ears. I had to leave. Club. Yeah. Yeah. But, here's one of the ways I'll deal with it. One of the ways for real is to tell the people I'm around, very much, that I have Asperger's.

And to my utter surprise, I was embarrassed about it at first. And then I decided to start letting people know. I was so pleasantly surprised to find people go, okay. They didn't care. They cared. They didn't care.

And so, when I'm out with people and I have too much overload, I just say, you know what? I can't handle. I'm getting overloaded. They go, okay. Let's just move over here. Move over there. Everybody's been so good.

It's been awesome. So, that's one of the ways of dealing with it. I think it's a huge help. And the reason is because, oh, sorry. Well, how does Asperger's affect my theological perspective and learning and stuff like that?

It's a huge asset. And the reason it is is because Asperger's people are on the autism spectrum. And so, autistic people are generally able to concentrate for long periods of time. I used to, I can't do anymore.

I'm just older. But I used to concentrate so deeply that I was in self-hypnosis. And I'd be like that for hours. And Anik, my wife, would come up to me and this would happen. She would come up to me sometimes and Matt, Matt, Matt, for 20 seconds.

And I'd come out of it. I'd look at her and I'd get mad. What are you doing? What do you want? Because it was just a reaction. And then I would calm down. And because I was so intently learning. Well, right or wrong, I mean, that's just what it was.

So, I was able to study for hours, super in depth. And I mean, have books everywhere and read commentaries and think these things through. Plus, I have the ability to remember numbers. And so, and I see patterns.

And so, it's helped me to learn things in scripture that a lot of people can't figure out. Not that I'm better. It's just, when you do that kind of stuff, you figure things out. And so, here we are. So, I don't know if that answers the question enough.

But if someone has Asperger's out there, and I can tell you why children do what they do the way they do it. I can tell you why, what's going on in their heads. You have it? No, you've got something far worse than Asperger's.

I think it's early dementia. Yeah, there's a category of dementia called excessive jerkiness. And obviously, you're right in there. Yeah, I'm just obstreperous. Which means boisterously recalcitrant. Let me look that up.

Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism

Another question? Or anybody? Yeah, Rob had a question. Okay. Covenant, what is the difference between covenant and dispensational theology? Okay. Alright. Okay. So, what I'll do here is do the issue of covenant versus dispensational theology.

And stuff like that. So, what I'll do is where's the chalk? I've got to get the chalk out of my briefcase. Here we go. So, covenant, okay. Dispensational, alright. Now, here we go. Good. Bad. Okay. Right.

Wrong. Smart. Lame. Alright. Now, I'm having my fun. And I hope that the Dispies are laughing. But let's get into this and we'll kind of have, I like to have fun like that. You know, it's dispensationalism says that God works in different dispensations.

A dispensation is a period of time. Typically, dispensationalism will break up history into seven epics. Okay. And I'm trying not to use the word dispensation because it's kind of redundant to define something with its own word.

How many dispensations? Dispensationalism is dispensations. Oh, that helps. Okay. So, seven epics. Seven periods. Okay. And it's just whatever. So, it might be from there's different ways. I don't have them all memorized.

It's on my website. Adam to, for example, Noah. It might be a dispensation and then it'll be like Noah to Abraham. And they'll call it and I'm not saying these are the exact right ones because I'm not dispensationalist.

But they might call this the time of the dispensation of works or the dispensation of covenant. They might call it whatever they want, but they have basically seven dispensations. And if someone brings up my website and looks up dispensational theology, I went through a couple of dispensational books and just copied their breakdown.

And so that's what they will say about dispensations. And they'll say there's seven of them because seven's biblical. Now that's, yeah, they would have a dispensation of redemptive time or something. But they cover all of history.

And they generally like to say that what God does is chronologically you'll have the first dispensation. This is time. And then you'll have the second dispensation. Then you'll have the third. Then you'll have the fourth because they're ordinal numbers.

And it will occur in order. And that's what they'll do. And so you're going to have seven. Sometimes there's three dispensations. I've read dispensationalists say, no, there's twelve, seven, and three.

I haven't actually heard twelve. I wouldn't be surprised if they say that. But that's the idea. I'm not trying to misrepresent them. But this is generally what dispensationalism is. And it can get a lot more detailed.

And sometimes the dispes, they, could you imagine if it was an Aspie dispe? That'd be interesting. I tried. It wasn't a very good try. Guess what it? What? What was that? I heard that. That was probably an insult to me.

Probably a good one too. Dispe Aspie? Dispe Aspie. Dispe Aspie. Dispe Aspie. So this is what they'll do. They'll divide history into seven periods. And God works a little bit differently in each of those periods.

Okay? They don't deny covenant. But they say covenants can be understood in light of the dispensations. Now covenant theology, which is what I believe in, because God works covenantally. To me it's like, no duh.

You go to Hebrews 13 .20, the blood of the eternal covenant, the inter-trinitarian covenant. God works covenantally. To me this is like, I'm serious. I really have a difficult time understanding how dispensationalists can hold on to dispensationalism when God works covenantally.

And people might say, Matt, come on, you're just being ridiculous. No I'm not. When I read the Bible, I see God working covenantally. A covenant is a pact or an agreement between two or more parties. Here's my covenant signed with my wife.

We have a verbal agreement, a verbal declaration, a verbal contract. I can have written contracts, which I sign my name to. It's the same thing as a verbal one. And because of that, and I believe that if I were to say to any one of you my word, I will do such and such, that's as good as me writing it down.

I will keep my word, unless I'm not able to for a reason that's beyond my control, and I will let you know. I take it very seriously. And the reason I do is because of Scripture. Now, we have in Genesis 1, we have God saying, let there be light.

He speaks. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. God covenanted in the Trinity. God covenanted with Abraham. He covenanted with Adam. He covenanted with Noah. He covenanted with Adam, Abraham, Adam, Noah, Abraham.

There's many covenants. There's David. There's Solomon made covenants with. Basically everybody. And so we have God working covenantally. And this is what gets me. Why is it so important? To me, it's the clincher for one very important, simple reason.

Because God said so. Hold on. Let me finish this. Then we'll get to that. Because God said so. What do I mean by that? Because God binds himself by his own word. He speaks. And he covenants and he commits himself by his word because it's him that he's doing this by himself to us.

That's covenant. And I see that as being the underlying reason for everything. God's covenantal aspect within the doctrine of the Trinity. In Hebrews 13 .20 the blood of the eternal covenant where the Father gave to the Son, the elect.

The Son would come and redeem them. Holy Spirit would apply the redemptive work. Eternal covenant theology. This is how I see God work because that's what seems to make sense biblically. This, in my opinion, not to be disrespectful to the dispensationalists, is a man-made imposition upon scripture to try and get number seven to work in things.

That's what I see. Okay. What about replacement theology? God's covenant with Israel. If you go to Romans 11 .24 and 25 it talks about God not being finished with Israel yet. So what covenant theology is is that in the sense we're talking about replacement theology.