TD Jakes and Elephants in the Room

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. I have a quick question, and we can answer whatever you want. Do you believe this is the perfect, inspired, final authority we've got?

Absolutely. So you believe there's one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. You believe

Jesus was fully God, fully man. Absolutely. You believe he died on the cross, in our place, for our sins.

Absolutely. You believe he bodily rose from death. Absolutely. You believe that he is the judge of the living and the dead.

Yes. And you believe that apart from Jesus, there's no salvation. Absolutely. Thank you.

Well, that's all we need, right? According to many today, that is all we need.

That was Mark Driscoll asking Bishop T .D. Jakes those important questions.

Now, the one thing he didn't say yes to was, do you believe God exists in three persons?

Maybe he nodded his head or something, I don't know. But there was previous discussion. We'll get to that in just a moment.

We'll get to that in just a moment. But for many people today, that's all you need.

That's it. There's no question any longer. Everything that has been said,

Bishop Jakes admitted that he had an experience of Christ in a oneness church.

Not a UPCI church, but a oneness church. There are a number of them. And yet, he agreed to everything that Mark Driscoll said.

So, that should be it. And all of us haters just need to stop our hating, and we need to hold hands, and all should be well, right?

Well, if that's all you had to go on, if there hadn't been... That's, looking at here, that's 13 minutes into the sound clip that is now circulating around from the

Elephant Room 2, from two days ago now, I guess. From the same time period.

It would be nice to ask Chris Roseborough about it, but he was threatened with arrest if he didn't leave.

So, that's a little bit odd. But, be that as it may, there were things said before this.

There were a lot of things. Many things said before this.

And so, if you're willing to just ignore all those things, then that should be enough. But, people who are concerned about truth have other questions.

For example, if Bishop Jakes is saying that today he believes that God exists in three persons, then, even as he admits, there are oneness people who would view him as a heretic for saying that, right?

Whatever it is he means by that. And, I think he's probably referring to UPCI folks at that point.

But, if you come to believe the Trinity, does that require you to identify as false those views that deny the

Trinity? Evidently, for the Elephant Room, it does not. And, that is one of the biggest problems we're facing today, folks.

If you're listening today, it's because you're interested in these things. And, hopefully, not just because you want to be involved in disputations and stuff.

Todd Freel called me shortly after the whole thing started. And, he was ready to start whatever the last crusade we had was.

Let's say it was number 12, ready to start number 13. I mean, he's ready to go. And, maybe he's right.

But, I'll be perfectly honest with you. I didn't even have the date on my calendar. I just started seeing things on Twitter.

Oh, that Elephant Room thing. I'm not focused on this stuff. If you listened to the last dividing line, you know exactly what

I'm focused on. I'm focused on witnessing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth about who

Jesus is. And, the entirety of the doctrines of the Trinity to Muslims. And, of course, the defense of reform theology.

There's lots of things that I'm focused on. Honestly, Mark Driscoll and James McDonald and these folks, they don't represent me.

They're not a part of my... That's why I don't get invited to the big things. Because, I don't have any interest.

That's not where I am. But, in listening to this, and in seeing that today, there are some big names going,

That's good enough. Bishop Jakes is a Trinitarian. We just need to embrace him along those lines.

That word -face stuff that he does in the prosperity gospel and all that stuff. But, we can all hold hands.

We agree on the Trinity now. Do we? One of the things that concerns me is, even if that were the case, even if that's where he is, could someone please explain to me how you can actually be a

Trinitarian, but view that sort of like, well, saying this.

And, this is a true statement. I was once a premillennialist. I'm now an amillennialist.

Now, there are some premillennialists, that if you were once an amillennialist, became a premillennialist, if you did not condemn all amillennialists to hell, that means you're not really a premillennialist.

There are a few people like that, I suppose. But, the fact of the matter is, that is a change in eschatological perspective,

I believe, based upon a more consistent interpretation and hermeneutic of the scriptures.

But, there are people like Squirrel and Channel, who remains confused on these issues.

And, we still love him. I mean, how can you dislike a squirrel? But, you know, it's a matter where people disagree with one another within squirrel growls.

Yeah, I've never heard a squirrel growl either. But, it's within, it's an in -house debate.

Is the Trinity really an in -house debate? Is this a matter of perspective? Is this something that's, well,

I'm comfortable now with saying persons. I prefer manifestations. But, I'm comfortable with that.

Are the core doctrines of the faith up for that kind of non -definition?

Well, you know, God's just so mysterious. He's so mysterious.

Oh, Shamgar. Well, see, Shamgar and Squirrel, they look the same. So, I'm sorry. Squirrel was laughing. Shamgar was growling.

Sorry about that. Anyway, watching the channel is somewhat distracting. Are the core issues really just, you know,

I'm now comfortable. I've moved from oneness to a comfortable

Trinitarianism. But, you know, I don't think oneness is wrong. I mean, there's value in the manifestations idea too, see.

Now, we've all seen this happening with the gospel. I mean, there's an entire spectrum of people who believe that the gospel is sort of a, you know, it's a thing on the side there.

We can have disagreements about it. Does anybody really know? I mean, come on. All of this comes down to basically saying, you know what?

We don't know what we believe. No, no, it's just all mystery. I mean, can you imagine if a believing

Muslim walked into the elephant room, if he was actually allowed in. You know, he had his ticket and he was allowed in.

And, excuse me, gentlemen, but could you tell me really what you believe about who Jesus is?

Well, you know, it's a mystery. And, you know, we're never really going to figure out. It's just a mystery. That's what's really concerning to me about this.

But there's much more about it that should be concerning to us. Let's start with this.

Let's start with some history, shall we? Let's start with some history. Bishop Jakes, this was not the first time he's ever spoken.

Now, I know a lot of, especially of my Reformed brothers and sisters, have never heard T .D. Jakes speak.

Never. I have a few times. In fact,

I'll be honest with you. The last time I heard T .D. Jakes speak was a couple of years ago. I was packing for a trip. I think

I was going back to St. Louis, so it would have been first weekend of December. And I just happened to be flipping the channels.

I went and stopped on, I never mentioned the channel, but it's between 20 and 22. And here was

T .D. Jakes and he was preaching on suffering. And I was blown away. He was talking about the sovereignty of God and being conformed to Christ.

I was like, who's this guy? This cannot be T .D. Jakes. But then

I've heard sermons that basically completely contradicted that, so it sort of depends on where he is. Now, I'm going to suggest something, especially to some of the big -name scholars that I have heard, that I've been told anyways, have basically said, you know what?

What he said in the elephant room was enough. He's Trinitarian. There needs to be an explanation about what he has said in the past and the relationship that has to what he said in the elephant room and was not challenged on.

That's the problem. So let's start with this one. Here's T .D.

Jakes, and I guess one of the things he does in some of his sermons is he has a woman read the

Bible, and then he sort of does a running commentary on it.

Let's listen to T .D. Jakes, and, well, you'll see. Thomas said,

I don't get it. Jesus said, check it out,

Thomas. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the

Father, but by me. You've got to come through this.

I'm going to rack your head. I'm going to scramble your ears. If you had known me. He said,

Thomas, if you have known me. You should have known my father. Thomas forgot.

Well, there you go. That was an excellent quotation. I tweeted earlier this morning.

If you want to hear more of that, I took that from the March 16, 2002 dividing line,

Eddie DelCour and Simon Escobedo go into much more depth than we will have time to go into today in examining a number of these citations.

Notice John 14 .10. Do you not believe that I am in the

Father and the Father is in me? Becomes I am the Father. The entire

Greek term, en, disappears. And he talks about Yahwistic terminology.

Terminology about Yahweh with I am. The problem is, egoimi doesn't appear there.

It's just ego. Hati ego ento patri kai hapatri en emoi esten. So, it's actually not one of those places where John uses

I am terminology. But there you have Bishop Jakes. Now, I don't know exactly how long ago that was. And maybe

Bishop Jakes has changed his view. That would be good, but if someone had once taught that, then you would expect them to say,

I once taught error on this, and I no longer teach that.

That's not something I believe any longer. You would hope that that would be the case.

Let's listen to some more of what T .D. Jakes has had to say in the past. One God manifesting in a multiplicity of ways.

One God. Now, you don't divide all of those manifestations into different Gods.

The God of bread. The God of quail. The God of water. The God of trees.

The God of clouds. The God of fire. This one

God, who manifests himself in many different ways, is multiplicity, manifold, many shades.

Now, go back to Ephesians. Is it 1 Timothy? Yes. 1

Timothy. 3 .16, is it? Yes. Okay, good. Now, I want you to notice something.

Where is he going? This is the same time period as the other stuff. He's going to 1 Timothy 3 .16.

1 Timothy 3 .16. And he's talking about one

God being manifested. Keep that in mind. One God was manifest in the flesh.

God. So, evidently, 1

Timothy 3 .16, as it's found in the King James version of the Bible, because, as most of you are aware, there is a major textual variant there, and unless the rest of the folks in the elephant room are using the

King James, the New King James, their Bibles say, he who is manifest in the flesh, or he who is revealed in the flesh.

But Bishop Jakes, there, is quoting from the King James version of the

Bible, and there it is, God was manifest in the flesh.

And so that was connected in Jakes' oneness teaching, because clearly the previous clip was a oneness perspective.

When you can change the Father is in me to I am in the Father to I am the

Father, that is his oneness period. Well, he's quoting 1 Timothy 3 .16

in his oneness period, right? If there is a oneness period, whoops, there you go.

Let's try this one more time. Now, let's listen to one more, also from around that same time period, where he's not preaching.

He's on a radio program, or some context to where he's answering questions, so you don't have all the audience noise, which is sort of nice.

The term Trinity is not a biblical term to begin with. It's a theological description for something that is so beyond human comprehension.

Okay, so years and years ago, Bishop Jakes, when he talks about the Trinity, he says it's not a biblical term, and God's beyond our comprehension.

I'm not sure that we can totally hold God to a numerical system. The Lord said, Behold, O Israel, the

Lord thy God is one. There he seems to think that the Trinity is a numerical system.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, I guess threeness versus oneness. But he's affirming the oneness of God, which to a oneness person is

Unitarianism. And beside him there is no other. When God got ready to make a man that looked like him, he didn't make three.

He made one man. However, that one man had three parts. He was body, soul, and spirit. We have one

God, but he is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration. It's very important that we understand that.

Okay, so did you catch that? We have one God, three different manifestations.

In fact, let's listen to this one more time, get this down, because again, this is from back then.

We have one God, but he is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration.

It's very important that we understand that. Okay, so there is where Bishop Jakes was.

That was his perspective. That's where he was coming from. And what we're being asked to believe by many people today, such as Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald, yeah, someone in Puritan Fan and Channel just said, the

Son didn't create? Exactly. That's one of the main problems here. That's why

I tweeted yesterday, if there had just been somebody on that panel that cared enough, and I really believe it's a matter of caring enough.

It's not that they don't know. James MacDonald has a DMIN from Phoenix Seminary and a master's degree from Trinity.

Mark Driscoll has a master's degree from Western Seminary.

Now, interestingly enough, they both have degrees from places where a very sub -biblical gospel prevails, unfortunately.

I mean, one has a master's degree, one has a DMIN. Phoenix Seminary and Western, lots and lots of anti -lordship, no repentance, blah, blah, blah, silliness exists.

Not always relevant to this, but it might be. Now, I would love to have listened live to a decent feed of the discussion, but that was not provided.

But only a few hours after someone did post on YouTube from one of the satellite churches that watched it a recording they had made.

So you've got to listen carefully. But let's listen to exactly what was said in the elephant room.

With that background now, with that background, let's listen.

And if you're a person who does not think that we should be discerning, if you're a person who does not think that we should concern ourselves about background issues, we shouldn't worry about what

Bishop Jakes has said in the past, and in fact, we really shouldn't worry about this, well, whether you believe in persons or manifest...

Do we really know? I want to suggest to you that the attitude expressed, especially by Mark Driscoll, says very clearly to me that Athanasius was a fool.

Athanasius was a fool. In fact, Athanasius was sinful. Athanasius, not unwillingly, he willingly did this, but in an improper way, divided the body of Christ.

He was willing to make such strong distinctions that he was willing to be kicked out of his church five times because of his unwillingness to just allow for other perspectives and to allow, you know what,

God's mysterious. There's mystery here. Athanasius should have allowed for mystery.

Evidently. Here's what was said. Let's listen carefully, and let's see if we can make some connections with what

Bishop Jakes has already said. It's not that different from this, because... I didn't get the first part.

My part is fun, as you wish. All right.

My father was Methodist. My mother was Baptist. My father's family was Methodist as far back as I can remember.

I was raised in the Baptist church, and I was raised in church, but I really didn't have a real committed experience with Christ until my father died.

After my father died, I had a real experience with Christ, a real conversion in Christ, and I had it in a oneness church.

So, you can have a true conversion to Christ under the preaching of the oneness gospel and in the worship of the oneness view of God.

That's what Bishop Jakes is saying, is if you accept his perspective, then that gospel and that view of God is sufficiently true to be salvific, just so you make sure you're following and understanding.

And... By oneness, you mean... For those who don't know all the theological terms... Well, it would be like...

How would I explain it? It would be like... It was not a UPC church, in spite of the blogs out there.

It was not a UPC church, but somewhat similar. Jesus -only modalism? Jesus -only modalism, which...

Okay, so it wasn't UPCI. It's now UPCI. Back then, it was UPC. But it's not the

St. Louis group, the very strong holiness group. But it is Jesus -only modalism, which would mean baptism in the name of Jesus only, not baptism in the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And the belief that God is manifest in three ways, but what that means, and some of you listening today are listening only because...

And you've never listened to this program before. If you go back into the archives of this program, which are available, we stream this program 24 -7.

It doesn't mean I do it 24 -7, but we stream all the way back to 1998, on the way through. We spent hours and hours and hours and hours reviewing debates by Mr.

Roger Perkins, who is a oneness advocate, carefully analyzing exactly what he was saying in preparation for the debate that I did against him in Brisbane, Australia, back in late

October. I have debated oneness folks in many different venues.

I did a debate in 1999, part of which is available on YouTube, which is very well known amongst oneness people, against Dr.

Sabin. I know a little something about oneness theology. And I was just chatting with Richard Buscelles, pastor in Palmdale, California.

He is going to be doing a give -and -take with a former oneness person who's been converted out of oneness.

There is a language that exists amongst oneness people. And when you understand what they're saying, you can detect it.

Many people, including great scholars of the faith, don't spend any time studying cults and isms.

And so, they can be easily taken in by their language because they don't know what the language is.

So, it's important to note that in looking at how people are examining things and how people are dealing with things.

All right? So, just listen carefully. Which is still a theological term.

That's why they use it. Because it's still a theological term. But the Christians, and Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, believe in the dad, the mother, the father, the king, coming back again, all the same things that you do, can accostum

Christians by virtue. But then how they describe and explain the Godhead in the traditional oneness sense is very, very different from how traditional

Trinitarians have described the gospel. So, you have traditional Trinitarians, traditional oneness, and they describe it differently.

I would suggest that it's more than just a description. And, in fact,

I would say that most oneness people would say it's more than just a description. Which, by the way, may be why

Bishop Jake says that he's considered heretical by people in, like, UPCI churches.

Because there is this middle group where, basically, you just sort of throw up your hands and say, well,

I don't know. It was just a mystery. It could be this, it could be that.

You know, we just, the Bible, and this is really one of the points here, folks, what they're saying is the

Bible is not clear enough to actually make a decision. It just, it's just not there.

And a large number of scholars would agree with that. But, of course, they also would not agree that the

Bible was the inspired word of God. So they don't look for harmony. They don't, they split up into parts.

And if you split the Bible up into parts, sure. Coming up with a meaningful, coherent message from it's impossible.

If that's where you want to go, just go all the way. And I think that's where this elephant room stuff leads, is to a fundamental, well, it is a downgrade controversy.

It really is, similar to what happened in England. It is a downgrade controversy. And that's what you're always fighting.

Every generation has to fight downgrade. There's nothing new there. There's nothing new there at all.

But just keep that in mind. And I was in that church and raised in that church for a number of years.

And my problem with it, as I began to go on, as I began to develop my ministry, I started preaching from that church, and from that book, and that sort of thing.

But I'm also informed by the infiltration of my Baptist experience, and my

Methodist experience. So I ended up like Method -Bapti -Costal in a way. Method -Bapti -Costal, okay.

So, is he saying that he's come up with his own view?

It's sort of a mixture of things? I can understand that if you're talking about arguing fine points of eschatology, or something like that.

But is the Trinity something where you can pull from a little bit here, and pull from a little bit there, and just come up with something new?

Remember, we're talking about the very revealed identity of God himself. Is that something we can just go, well, there's different parts and pieces.

It's like you can put together in different ways. It's a Rubik's Cube. I'm kind of like a mixed breed.

And I began to find out that it's easy to throw rocks at people that you don't know.

May I suggest that as soon as you start doing this, I don't want to throw rocks at folks, you are once again showing a tremendous amount of disrespect to the history of the

Church, and to those who have come before us, some of whom were willing to die for these issues, and were willing to be driven out of their churches, and were willing to give their lives in the sense of the entirety of their ministries to the defense of something they thought was absolutely definitional and important.

That is really what we're being told here, is that, you know what, if you look back at the history of Christianity, there's a lot of people who did really dumb things.

And one of the things they did was they actually thought that the truth on this subject excludes variation from it.

They were just wrong, evidently. But the more you really get to know them, and see Christ's work in their lives, regardless of their belief system, you begin to try to be a bridge builder.

So you want to be a bridge builder. And that's why you have the ecumenical movement, and that's why you have people trying to build bridges to Mormonism, and you have the silliness of Chrislam, and you have the inroads of post -modern thinking that cannot handle that there is objective truth in certain areas that cannot be manipulated and turned into something other than what it is.

I think you need to recognize that Driscoll, despite the fact he'll take on Justin Briarley, now look,

I love Justin, but Justin was a little cheeky in that interview, by the way, when I asked questions about his wife.

I was surprised at Justin. I actually listened to that, and I had enough balance and fairness to say, you know,

Driscoll wasn't completely off in everything he said. I'm not saying that he was right about everything either, but, okay, he goes after Justin Briarley on his egalitarianism, and I would go after Justin.

Justin doesn't want to debate me on that, and he would say that, because I'm just a nasty yank, but he'll go after Justin Briarley on complementarianism versus egalitarianism, but now we're sitting here, and we're talking the

Trinity, and he will not challenge on anywhere near the level that he challenged

Justin Briarley. Hello? Can someone see imbalance here?

Can someone see a lack of balance and proper perspective?

I think so. And the reason I say that I'm similar to you, only in this aspect, when you try to build bridges between people who have been fighting for hundreds of years, hundreds of years before you ever even got in a discussion, they're going to—

Does that mean, like, the Aryans? Folks, when we talk about modalism, we are talking about the earliest heresy ever dealt with by the church.

Do you know that was 100 years before Nicea? Okay, 75 years. The century before Nicea, the

Eastern Church in particular had to deal with this concept, and it was rejected from the start.

So, yeah, it's been hundreds. Actually, it's been almost thousands that this has been an issue.

No question about that. But when did modern man become so brilliant that everything that has already been settled in the past can just be brought up and put back on the table again?

Now, did you catch that?

Did you catch that? Let me replay that because this is vitally important. All right, but before we—

Well, this movement was very dogmatic and very narrow and really not the best description of how

I now understand the Godhead. And that is, when you encounter

Rome's gospel, is that just not the very best description? Is the

Roman mass just not the best description of the sacrifice of Christ?

Are the solas just a little better description than the non -solas? Is it just a little bit too dogmatic, just a little bit too narrow?

If we could just widen it out just a little bit. This is not how someone speaks who has come to understand the absolute necessity of recognizing that the

Son, as the Son, has eternally existed. This is someone who's seeking to be ecumenical and to allow for all sorts of different views.

That's why I don't think this is a rehabilitation of oneness. The oneness folks would find this to be offensive.

Anybody who believes in objective truth should find this to be offensive. I still did not want to switch teams and start throwing rocks back across the street.

Because much of what we do today is teach people to take sides. But I believe we're called as a body of Christ to reconcile wherever possible.

Reconcile in regards to personal sin, not compromise in regards to revelational truth.

People hear this and they grab hold of the emotion but don't realize the words are being used in a completely foreign way.

Reconcile? The unity of the body of Christ is based upon the truth.

What did Jesus say in John 17? Yes, he prayed that we all be one. And what was the context of that?

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Reconciliation and unity is vitally important but it's always based upon truth.

And the difference between saying that the Son came into existence at his birth in Bethlehem and saying that the

Son has eternally been God, he is the God -man, is night and day.

Night and day. Alright, but before we even get into, and I think what you're leading us into is wise and helpful and it reflects why we're here.

How we relate to people who differ is on the subject. Before we even go to that, I'd love to give you an opportunity to just, like there were some particular scriptures that began to inform you, you began to move and develop in what you personally believe.

I'd like to just hear you articulate that. My scribble as I was ordained and consecrated in the wilderness church was in several passages, sometimes the doctor fits, sometimes it doesn't.

And when the doctor becomes a primary thing, you force it into fitting places where it doesn't fit.

I really, at this point in my life, don't want to force my theology to fit within my denomination.

I'm open to hear whatever God is saying. Jesus baptized in the Jordan River, for example.

Coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends like the father speaks from heaven and we see all three of them in one occasion.

Or in Genesis, let us make man in our own likeness. Or Elohim, that he is one

God who manifests himself in a plurality of ways. Or when Jesus says, I am in the father and the father is in me.

An understanding or attempting to understand. Did you catch that? I am in the father and the father is in me.

Now that is a phrase we just heard only a few minutes ago. Bishop Jakes translate into,

I am the father. So, it would be very interesting to understand, well, how have you changed that perspective?

And what about your use and the use by oneness people in general of 1

Timothy 3 .16? In fact, what about, and here is a citation.

Listen to this citation. Quote, one of the primary sources of confusion in this matter is related to the word persons.

The doctrine of the Trinity states the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three persons who make up one God. In actuality, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three manifestations of one

God. This word manifestation means to appear and it is quite scriptural. The Bible tells us God was manifest in the flesh, 1

Timothy 3 .16. And where is that from? That is from the

Inquirer's Handbook by Randy Phillips' ministry, The World of Pentecost.

Randy Phillips of Phillips, Craig, and Dean. That is a classic oneness presentation.

And it doesn't like the word persons. It uses the term manifestation and it draws it from the

Textus Receptus reading, God was manifest in the flesh, most of the oneness folks are King James only, of 1

Timothy 3 .16. That is directly from Randy Phillips' ministry.

And I think that will be relevant as we listen to this. That began to make me rethink some of my ideas and some of the things that I was talking about.

I got kind of quiet about it for a while. Because when you're a leader and you're in a position of authority, sometimes you have to back up and pardon for a minute and really take those things through.

I began to realize that there are some things that can be said about the Father that cannot be said about the

Son. That there are distinctives between the working of the Holy Spirit and the moving of the Holy Spirit. And the working of the redemption work of Christ coming.

Now by the way, you might say, see that, no one, no oneness person can say that. No, every oneness person can say that.

Since these are different manifestations, they have different roles. The Father has a different role than the Son. The Son is the human being.

The Father is the deity that indwells Him. The Father is taking the role of the Holy Spirit. Oneness people can and do say exactly what

Bishop Jakes just said. I'm very comfortable with that. You and I have talked. I'm very comfortable with that.

I'm very comfortable with that. I'm very comfortable in particular genes.

But that doesn't mean anything about truth. I don't care what makes people comfortable.

I want to know what they confess. And what they confess when it comes to who God is, is clear and understandable.

There is very little difference in what I believe and what you believe.

There is very little difference in what I believe and you believe. That does not sound like we are all

Trinitarians. I've never said to other men on a panel where we are presenting the

Trinity, Well, you know what? There is very little difference between what we believe. What?

Really? That means there is a difference. It may be little, but it depends on what you think little is.

I don't think the difference between a divine, eternal person and a manifestation is a little thing.

Evidently, Bishop Jakes does think it's a little thing. But here is where I find the problem.

I don't think anything that any of us believes fully describes who

God is. Okay, here we go with the theological agnosticism. Theological agnosticism.

God is bigger than any of our descriptions. Well, there is a truism. That doesn't take much, does it?

But folks, you have to be able to see through this stuff. You've got to be able to think through this.

Because if you take that God is bigger than any of our descriptions, so that stuff in the Bible about the

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob over against the false gods of the peoples around Israel, it just doesn't matter.

Who were those prophets thinking they could define God and put him in a box? Oh, that's terrible.

You mean the same prophets that Jesus affirmed were sent by God and spoke by the Holy Spirit? The same prophets that Jesus quoted as having prophecies concerning himself?

Those prophets? Do you want to hold the view of Scripture that Jesus held or the view of Scripture that postmodernists hold?

God's so big that the God tent is so big everybody can get in there.

Let's all bring in the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Sikhs and the Buddhists and the

Muslims. We can just all get together and sing Kumbaya. Oh, but you draw the line too narrowly.

I draw the line where the prophets drew the line. And I draw the line where the apostles of Jesus Christ drew the line.

Paul talked about false Jesuses. That means just because someone says Jesus three times doesn't make them a

Christian, does it? And if we would ever humble down to admit that we, in our finite minds, cannot fully describe an infinite

God. No, I can. I have it perfectly figured out. I understand God so well.

I have it all down. Doesn't the concept even insult you? I don't know who the sarcasm guy there is.

Sorry, I don't keep up with these guys. I can tell who Mark Driscoll is, but the rest of them I don't know and honestly don't care.

Because whoever... that was McDonald? Okay. Because... I mean, that was just silly.

And it's insulting. I'm offended by that guy. And I'm offended by what he said and how he said it.

Because what he's actually saying is, that scripture, that Bible, don't tell me it's clear enough to decide these issues.

Don't tell me it can actually reveal who God is and who we're worshiping. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God needs us.

Don't tell me about this biblical sufficiency stuff. Don't talk to me about persecuted scripture. No, I don't want to hear any of it.

It offends me. Well, sir, if you're offended, then I don't know why anybody's listening to what you have to say anyway.

Well, we also agree in the nature of God, there's... Okay. Driscoll finally feels like, you know, he's got to be feeling some pressure here.

He's written a book on systematic theology. Now, I'll have to admit, I ran across a quote. Someone sent me a quote by Twitter yesterday. Where in his book on systematic theology, he actually...

He actually is not much of a Calvinist, by the way, in case you're wondering. He's a little bit...

He's wishy -washy on a lot of stuff. But the quote basically said that what the early church worked out in the

Council of Chalcedon in regards to the relationship of the Father... That was beyond the

Bible. Don't have to worry about that stuff. Went off course. Really?

Okay. That's interesting. But clearly, he's feeling some pressure to finally get around to asking a meaningful question.

And that's where the important stuff here happens. And it's coming up right now.

It's a mystery, and it's like a dimmer switch. You know, how much certainty, how much mystery? Thank you. But within that,

Bishop Jakes, for you, the issue between Trinitarianism and modalism at its essence is one

God manifesting himself successively in three ways, or one God, three persons simultaneously existing eternally.

Okay, that's pretty good. It could be made much more forceful.

It won't be. That's as close as you're going to get. And why the simultaneously versus the other?

Because what's important to understand is that the oneness person can say, Oh, the Son's eternally existed as a divine plan in the

Father's mind. Same thing with the Spirit in that way. These are roles the

Father's always planned to take, or manifestations that were part of his plan, and so on and so forth.

So if you say simultaneously, then at least you're starting to touch on the real issue here, and that is, did the

Son, as a divine person, exist distinguishable from the

Father in eternity past, before the birth in Bethlehem? Was there such a person as the

Son at the same time as you have the Father? Is that what you will confess?

He doesn't get asked that. He doesn't get asked that. He has now at least been given a slight, sort of wimpy, but it's there, challenge.

So your best understanding now, and I understand there is some mystery for sure, would you say it's one

God manifesting himself in three ways, or one God in three persons? Now, Driscoll's question contrasts.

It contrasts the manifestations versus persons, as it must be.

Let's hear... Remember the quotes? Remember the quote

I read you just a few minutes ago, from a oneness source, one of the primary sources of confusion in this matter is related to the word persons.

The doctrine of the Trinity states, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three persons who make up one God, and actually the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three manifestations of one

God. This word manifestation means to appear, and it is quite scriptural. The Bible tells us that God was manifest in the flesh, 1

Timothy 3 .16. Now, by the way, that is confusing a noun, manifestation, with a verb, phanerao, as I recall, in 1

Timothy 3 .16. Yes. So it's confusing the action with the noun in 1

Timothy 3 .16. That's a oneness source. Oneness theology. Let's listen to Bishop Jakes.

Neither one of them totally get it from me. So, the historical position of the

Christian Church on the Trinity doesn't get it for him. Not enough.

It's not enough. The latter one.

That's persons. That's where I stand today. Well, isn't that enough? Most people who know me know that that is really...

My doctrinal statement is no different from yours, except for the... Word manifestation. It's the manifestation of persons, which you describe as modalists, and I describe as Pauline.

When I read... Let me show you what I'm saying. When I read 1 Timothy 3 .16,

I didn't create this modalistic, and without controversy, which I think we have bickered about something that is what

Paul describes as a mystery, and I don't think we should do that. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.

For God was manifest in the flesh. There you go. There you go.

How is that any different than what he said before? Persons doesn't do it.

I'll go there. I'm comfortable with that, but I prefer manifestations because 1

Timothy 3 .16 says God was manifest in the flesh. And that's a mystery of godliness. And so we really shouldn't be drawing these lines.

See, that's why he says he's considered heretical by both sides. And appropriately so.

I bet you dollars, donuts, that Roger Perkins would identify him as a heretic. Of course, Roger Perkins would identify anybody as a heretic, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

But the point is that from a historic oneness perspective, no oneness person is going to say, well,

I'm comfortable with that. And no Trinitarian is going to say what he just said.

That doesn't do it for me. I'll go ahead and say that, but you know, it's a mystery.

God was manifest in the flesh. 1 Timothy 3 .16. What does that mean?

Does it mean what he said it meant in years past?

Is that this Bishop Jakes? And Holy Spirit and regeneration. It's very important that we understand that.

Is that where he is now? One thing is absolutely certain.

He does not abjure as an error the teaching that God is manifest rather than the existence of three persons.

In fact, if you look at the Potter's House right now, pottershouse .org,

about us, belief statement, God. There is one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three manifestations,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, the belief statement that follows beneath that is neither thoroughly, accurately, or biblically

Trinitarian or oneness. It is a mass of confusion. It doesn't answer any of the questions.

It would not be a foundation upon which anyone could give a meaningful defense of the

Christian faith apologetically to the rest of the world. To Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Islam, or atheism for that matter.

You couldn't do it. But there it is, there is one God, reading it from, brought it up this morning.

This is the current belief statement of the Potter's House. There is one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three manifestations,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, would

I like to have heard some meaningful questions asked? Does it bother me that according to Twitter reports at the end,

Mark Driscoll fist -bumped Bishop Jakes, and that there are well -known

Christian scholars, they're saying, that's good enough, good enough, hey, can't get, you know. I mean, how many times have

I said, over the, I don't know how many years now, that I've been addressing oneness theology in the

Trinity, that a large number of evangelicals in the church today are functional

Unitarians and functional modalists? They are. We don't teach.

I mean, what was the one statement in my book, The Forgotten Trinity, that everyone glommed on to and caught hold of?

It was, I love the Trinity. You don't hear people saying that, because we don't teach on it.

How can it be the object of love and passion when we don't teach on it? So I fully understand,

I fully understand this issue, and that people go, hey, look, if most evangelicals don't care about it, why should

I? But that's the point.

That's the point, my friends. These men are supposed to be leaders. These men are supposed to be modeling discernment.

And what are they showing us? What are they modeling for us?

It's not discernment. It is a fundamental collapse in discernment, and a fundamental collapse in a recognition of what is truly central in the

Christian faith. This isn't something where you can just go, oh, well, hey, you know what?

This just doesn't matter. Who died on the cross? What's the relationship of intercession?

Who is appearing in the presence of the Father for us? Who gave his life for us? Who is the fountainhead of salvation? Who is indwelling us now?

What's the means by which the Father and Son make their presence available in the life of the believer? These are all

Trinitarian questions. They are all Trinitarian issues.

And just because there are people willing for the sake of some show of unity or some show of, boy, we can really be open -minded and we're not dogmatic and we're not narrow and all the rest of this stuff, none of that should, to a true believer, have any weight at all.

Any weight at all. 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the toll -free number.

And I've had a number of people on Twitter, Twitter and Facebook, who have really been coming after me.

I had a young man sort of come after me overnight and I've responded to him a few times and I've invited him to call in.

I'd like to hear a fellow by the name of, let me see here, Chris Dell.

I'd like to hear from these folks. I'd like to understand. Chris Dell said to me, what's the saddest part of you is that you study to prove people wrong.

You are absolutely pathetic. Well, Chris, you just said I'm wrong and you didn't bother to study me.

So which is better, for me to study and say people are wrong or for you to say I'm wrong without even bothering to study? Which is better?

We have a lot of people who have come into the church but they still think like the world. The world that actually is putting up with the claims of people who say that they are tolerant.

They're not tolerant at all. Did you hear about the poor young man?

Oh, I want to do a whole story on this. I was listening to Michael Brown and Frank Turek talking about this.

The young 15 year old man, he was asked to write a counterpoint perspective on gay marriage for his high school newspaper and when he did, someone complained and the superintendent of the school district brought him in and according to his attorneys, the young man, bullied him, threatened him with expulsion and called him ignorant.

And the world goes, oh yes, what a tolerant man he is. We need to be tolerant. That's not toleration.

Anybody can see that. Now we can see it out there. I bet you everyone would agree with me about that.

Oh, there's stupidity. Oh boy, you know, I mean, I bet you this audience, if I came to you next time and said, you know what?

We have an opportunity to debate that superintendent up in Wisconsin. If you all will just get me to Wisconsin, I'll debate.

We would cover that in five minutes because everybody would love to see that.

They'd love to see that. But all of a sudden, we look inside.

If this is inside, I don't know that it is. I mean, I'm talking about dress school and stuff like that and all of a sudden, the discernment disappears.

Discernment absolutely disappears. 877 -753 -3341 or dividing line, dividing dot line via Skype.

The lines are filling up very, very quickly, which is a good thing to see. We are going to be going for another half hour.

Hey, if the phones keep us going longer than that, that's fine too, but we're planning on doing a jumbo edition today. So we'll be going for another half hour on the program.

877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Bill in Alabama.

Hi, Bill. Hi, Dr. White. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. My question is related to the issue of T .D.

Jakes and his views on Trinitarianism. I agree with you that his views are outside Orthodox evangelical belief of the

Trinity. I disagree with him completely. My question is, how do we determine which interpretation of Scripture is

Orthodox or correct, and what is heresy or incorrect? And I will context this question by I'm starting to read through Dr.

Greg Allison's book, Historical Theology, and this is a question that came to my mind in the first chapter.

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. I mean, there are certain fundamental revelations in Scripture, and basically, heresy and error always involves a denial of certain revelations that are found in Scripture.

And normally, the person who starts a heresy doesn't intend to do so.

They simply have an imbalance, or they detect an imbalance in the church in their day, and react against it the other direction.

So, you know, if you read Historical Theology, then you know that a lot of people who eventually would be considered heretical were simply very concerned about what they seemed to see as an imbalance.

For example, Nestorius was very concerned about the term theotokos, because it could result in an exaltation of Mary, and that was one of his concerns.

It wasn't the only concern, but an exaltation, which it eventually did. But he went too far the other direction in trying to correct that, even though he himself thought that the

Council of Chalcedon actually vindicated him. So when we talk about how do you know that your interpretation of Scripture is correct regarding monotheism?

Well, because there is a consistent testimony in Scripture about the fact there is only one true

God, and it's expressed in many different ways and presented to us in many different ways.

And so you look at that, and to do what the Mormons do, they have to fundamentally deny that there is a consistent revelation of Scripture on these issues.

When we talk about modalism, we see the clear differentiation of divine persons as divine persons.

There's no way to have just an idea in the mind of God, who is the

Son, when the Son is the Creator, and when the Son is involved in doing things as a divine person prior to His birth.

So it is the, historically called the analogy of faith, it is the consistency of Scripture itself.

In fact, I had a conversation with a good friend a number of years ago, and we were talking about a particular text, I think it was in John chapter 16 as I recall, he was saying, how do you,

I mean, just on a grammatical level, you know, that could be interpreted in the wrong way.

And I'm like, you're right. You're right. It could be interpreted in the wrong way.

And there's nothing in the immediate context of this one verse that you can use to keep it from being interpreted in the wrong way.

But it exists as a part of the entire revelation of Scripture. And it is that entire revelation that then becomes the connection, the safeguard, the rails that keep the train from going off the tracks.

So it all goes back to Scripture, and allowing all of Scripture to speak, and maintaining a belief that there is a consistency in Scripture.

One of the problems in the earliest church was, for example, someone like Justin Martyr never ever quotes

Paul. So think about that. I mean, we don't even know that he had Paul's writings.

So is there a reason to understand that he might there as a result not have as full an orthodoxy and as balanced an orthodoxy as we could have when we have the entirety of the canon?

Well, of course. Because it is the fullness of that revelation in toto that must be taken into consideration.

And unfortunately, what you're seeing today in much of modern evangelical theology in seminaries is a breakdown of the faith that there is a consistent message of Scripture.

And once you no longer have that confidence, then, that's why I've said many, many times, and people aren't sure why

I keep saying this, but in many seminaries today, the systematic theology classes have moved from being the center of the curriculum to the historical department.

Because you look back at the fact that people once believed that you could come up with a consistent teaching of Scripture.

But that's no longer an issue any longer. That's not what most people believe anymore.

I still do, and that's what makes me odd and unusual. I agree with you.

I've just had some conversations with some friends that have kind of taken the approach of, how do we, is it, do we know orthodoxy simply because the majority wins?

No. The majority of the early church won. No. And that's how we decide what is orthodox and what is heresy.

No. In no way, shape, or form. It's not a matter of majority wins. The truth is rarely overly popular.

Paul's teaching on grace will always be the minority opinion because of false profession and the fact that it takes a work of grace for us to believe in that work of grace.

So, no, it's not a matter of majority opinion in any way, shape, or form. It is, again, the reason,

I mean, think about what happened to the Council of Nicaea. You have the victory of truth

However, for the next 40 years, that was not considered, by the majority of people, to be the truth. And someone like Athanasius was in the minority.

So, what gave him the foundation and the strength to eventually be victorious in that situation?

Well, if you look at his writings, it was, in fact, the teaching of Scripture itself. And it was the consistency of that teaching.

You cannot consistently preach and teach the Word of God and not come up with the orthodox understanding of these things.

It's not a matter of majority opinion. There will always be semper reformanda because there will always be imbalances and every generation will have imbalances in both directions.

And that is the absolutely consistent experience of the Church over the course of history.

Okay, Bill, hey, I'd love to talk more about that, but we've got a lot of folks online, so we're going to need to get to them, okay? Thank you,

Dr. White. Thanks, Bill. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Manuel.

Hello, Manuel. Hello, Dr. White. How are you doing this morning? Doing good. Good. What do you think about T .D.

Jakes? Well, if he's speaking to being a club, he's in the wrong.

And if he's seeking their favor just for their favor, it's wrong. Do you consider him...

I think he's compromising his doctrine to say that this or that.

You know, he's stuck between two worlds there, it seems like to me. What has been your understanding in the past of where he was?

Did you consider him to be teaching oneness? I thought he was.

Is that the understanding amongst most oneness people? I'm not wrapped up into T .D. Jakes. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just not...

Oh, I know. I wasn't either. I don't really pay a lot of attention to him either, but you're coming from the oneness perspective, and so my question really is, in that world, was he at least considered to be within the orbit in light of the fact that my recognition is, maybe you can confirm this, but I thought that the fact...

the reason he's called Bishop is because he was consecrated and ordained in a oneness church, wasn't it?

No, that has nothing to do with him being consecrated in a oneness church. But he wasn't consecrated in a oneness church?

No, no, you're talking about his title, Bishop, is why he's consecrated in a oneness church?

Well, no, but I mean... There's no truth about that whatsoever. No, no, what I meant was that the church that ordained him and gave him that title, their official theology was oneness, wasn't it?

The way I understand it, like I said, I don't know all that much about him.

I thought that he was oneness, but it sounds to me like he could be compromised, and I don't really know the whole story.

I heard what you had played, and it sounds to me like he's trying to compromise his position and be a member of a club.

Okay, so you're a oneness guy, so let me see if you can confirm this. Could you ever say what he said when he said,

I am comfortable with saying God in three persons? No, absolutely not.

I could not be comfortable with that whatsoever. And so when he said that people on the oneness side would consider him heretical, you'd agree with him that that probably would be the case, that most oneness folks would say that?

You know, if he's saying that God is three persons and God is a trinity, then yeah,

I believe that that's not correct. I don't believe that's anywhere found in Scripture. Okay, all right. Well, Emanuel, I know you call frequently when

I'm talking about Islam and other things like that, but I think it's a good step forward that we were actually able to have this conversation about T .D.

Jakes, and we actually agreed. I think that this may be the great event predicted by the

Mayan calendar for 2012. I'm not sure, but it's a possibility. It's a possibility that this might be what the

Mayans were looking at. It's the end of the world. It could be the end of the world.

So Emanuel, I really appreciate your phone call today. Well, hopefully you'll let me call back.

We can actually have a conversation, I believe, and maybe talk about some doctrinal issues, because I would love to discuss some of these doctrines, especially 1

Timothy 3 .16 you talked about. Not all oneness people are KJV only.

Well, you know what? I'm aware of that. But you will admit that the citation of 1

Timothy 3 .16 is very common in the statements of faith of oneness churches. Well, sure, because it's a matter of common sense.

Who was manifested in the flesh? Right, I understand. Who do you believe was manifested in the flesh?

God the Son? Yes. Okay. But the point is that the term theos, while it's found in the majority of manuscripts, is not in the earliest manuscripts.

It's a variant still, though, Dr. White. I mean, you admitted that yourself. It's what? By saying the very word variant, you know, it's there.

Yeah, but you'd have a hard time defending theos as the original reading, though.

Well, sure, okay. That's hard to do. And the thing that caught me is that I would imagine that every other man sitting in the elephant room around that desk with Bishop Jakes, they were not carrying the

King James or the New King James, which means their translation would have read differently, but no one ever said a word about it. And that's that club thing where you don't talk about that stuff, because if you talk about the differences, then, well, the club sort of breaks up pretty quick.

And that's my concern. Manuel, one thing I can guarantee, you are not looking to be a member of a club.

I guarantee you I'm not. I can tell that. Man, I got a lot of calls. Thanks, man. We will do that conversation sometime.

Thanks. Okay, thank you. Have a good day, sir. Bye -bye. Like I said, that has to be what the

Mayan calendar was pointing toward right there. That's funny.

All right, let's talk with John over in the City of Angels. Hi, John.

Hi, Dr. White. I'm so glad that you can take my call. Yes, sir. I just got an e -mail this morning from one of the folk that come to my site.

I do enter the word apologetics here in Los Angeles to African -American. As a matter of fact, years ago, back in the 90s, it was my ministry that got the interview with T .D.

Jakes that we passed on to the Bible Answer Man that proved that he was a modalist. And it was kind of refreshing to read the article.

I just wanted to run something down and run it by you, because a friend of mine from back east asked me to tune in to your show this morning.

And it's a question about his orthodoxy. Now, since he says that over time that he had to reconsider his teachings, and his teachings, in my opinion, were heretical, and I believe that not only is he trying to be a member of the club, not only has he compromised himself, but how do we know?

What would you tell your audience? How would we know if he is truly leaning towards the orthodox faith?

Look at the position that he's in. He's a very popular man in this country.

Most African Americans would tell you that they believe that he is genuinely saved and a man of God speaking.

I did a quick five or six minute clip on my website today. And at the end of it, is he fully

Christian? As I am, I left that open. What would you say, Dr. White?

I think one of the tragedies of The Elephant Room is that, at least in the person of Mark Driscoll, I would like to think that there could have been a means of advancing truth in regards to Bishop Jakes if the right questions had been asked.

And if the response from T .D. Jakes was, I don't know, or that's just mystery, then you could advance the biblical revelation of who

Jesus Christ is by explaining, well, it's not mystery in the sense of something outside of divine revelation.

It is a part of divine revelation. Let's look at the text. If someone had just been willing to break the mold of the club thing and we are charting a new path, and we sort of like the fact that there are all these people out here that don't like us thing, if they had just been willing to put that aside for a while and say, look, what we're talking about here is the biblical evidence of the preexistence of the

Son as a divine person. That's not mystery. That's revelation. Would you be willing,

Dr. White, to engage in a conversation with Jakes around this brown table?

Of course. But not on the basis that the elephant room put it.

The basis of the elephant room was we're all getting together and we've already made the decision that everybody here is on the same page and now we're going to talk about it.

No, I'm not going to make that kind of a statement. I have proven my ability over the past, starting in 1990, so for 22 years

I have proven my ability to engage in respectful debate.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with debate. Paul engaged in debate. It is apostolic.

It's biblical. And I would direct anybody to the video of the debate between myself and Abdullah Kunda in Sydney, Australia in October of last year to see that that can be done in a respectful fashion.

But I would be happy to dialogue with the man and ask the meaningful questions that need to be asked.

Realizing, Dr. White, that Jakes does not have a theological background to answer those questions as a seminarian would.

Realizing also that as an African -American pastor he may take that as an affront because he is a black pastor, albeit popular as he is.

I believe that the indisputable question that each of us has to deal with is this man, in attempting to become a member of the club, really, why has he made this decision to come out with this now?

This is, in particular, what I'm looking at as an apologist myself, dealing with African -American issues.

Now, John, assuming that you yourself are African -American, right? Yes. Okay. What you just said helped me to understand this because I think this is important.

And folks online, do not bail out. You can still get on dividing that line. If we have to go long, we'll go long. That's fine. Help me to understand what you just said when you talk about his finding something to be an affront.

Help me to understand that. All right. Listen, the African -American Christian community believes in its pastors in the most adamant way, fiercely.

T .D. Jakes has a lot of issues, not only with the

Trinity, but a lot of preaching issues, a lot of subjectivism in his preaching.

When I listen to it, I'm very critical of what he's saying, but his affront to be a Trinitarian doesn't take care of the rest of his jargon.

And I'm saying, how do we weigh a person's intentions?

Because he claims to be orthodox? No. We weigh that intention by the objective that he's aiming towards.

What is he trying to do now? You see, this is what I want to discover, not only as a pastor, but as an

African -American, and why the switch now? Now, John, living in that community then, as an apologist, you know the importance of the clarity of the expression of the faith, the importance of communicating to the next generation what the

Christian faith is, 1 Timothy 2, to entrust those things that you've heard me speak in public to men who are worthy.

I mean, all that stuff, vitally important. But the way that you described

Jakes, why is it that he has the position that he has, if it is not because of his ability to accurately handle the

Word of God? No, because he is accurately using a dialectic to get people to believe something that he is really not connected to.

And this is how traitorous people come into the Christian faith and do that.

They use the language of the faith, but really in heart and mind, that is not their true intention.

And I believe that if one is a true apologist, he's looking at the objective of the person's words.

What is the objective? What is he trying to do now? We know that the economy is shot, folk are not giving money, megachurches are suffering, and now all of a sudden,

I'm orthodox. Come on, what does that mean? In other words, your preaching hasn't changed, your methodology hasn't changed, you're using a dialectic to persuade people to believe something, and then you get with people around a roundtable and appear to be orthodox, and then you start this debate back and forth.

Because I know when people hear about this, they're going to contact me and say, well, John, what do you think?

I just leave this big question mark on my website. I don't think anything different than I've always thought about him.

Because when you look at a man's preaching, and if that preaching is consistent over, as you said about your ministry, over the years,

Dr. James White is a consistent apologist, we know what we're going to hear when we listen to you.

And it should be the same in every true man of God. So this drastic change, so -called, that has come about is just another dialectical ploy to put

Jake in a favorable position. That's my opinion on it. Well, John, you know much more about the man than I do, and I appreciate the insights that you provide.

And I just hope that folks understand that if what he communicated was that, you know what,

I've been studying this, and I have discovered that I was in error, or I have discovered the beauty of the truth, that would be something completely different.

I would not want to crush the bruised reed. I would not want to in any way discourage someone.

I've obviously worked with people who've come out of Oneness churches and come to embrace the

Trinity, and that's one of the reasons I wrote my book and all the rest of that stuff. I would never want to discourage that.

Sure. But my concern was what we heard was an issue of, well,

I'm comfortable with this, but I'm not going to say that's wrong, God's just a mystery, it's just the big tent thing, and that's not the same thing as coming to the conclusion, well,

I have found out that I was wrong about these things. Absolutely. I think we're tracking on the same course. Thanks, James, for your comments.

Thank you very much, John. God bless you over there. Thank you very much. 877 -753 -3341.

We still have dividing .line via Skype is wide open, and let's talk with Justin.

Hi, Justin. How you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. I haven't heard from the Bible Baptist squad up here in Rochester yet.

No response on that dividing line from back in October. Oh, okay. Yeah. But I just wanted to ask you a quick question on something

I mentioned on Twitter yesterday to you. About separation issues, what do we do in response?

Because, like, for instance, in my church, a lot of the young people listen to Driscoll. Right.

And Piper, for instance, with Rick Warren, what do we do as far as recommendations, books?

What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think you have to be honest. I mean, if someone were to say to me, well, in light of Elephant Room and not just Elephant Room, there's now a pile of issues that you could point to,

I would have to say, look, there are times that Mark Driscoll says true things, but the fact of the matter is there are imbalances here that seem to indicate you have a man here who enjoys engendering controversies and just goes to the flow with them.

And the same thing now with the things that McDonald was saying. And especially when we come to important issues, central issues concerning the doctrine of the

Trinity. But my big concern is a lot of our young people and a lot of the people we're talking to don't understand why the

Trinity is central in the first place. That's why this is important, because it does illustrate a fundamental problem along those lines.

It does illustrate that people will listen to this and they will not discern what's being said.

And that means we're not addressing these issues properly within our churches. We're just not doing the job we need to do there.

And that's a problem. So, you know, am I kicking

Mark Driscoll out of the kingdom? No. But look, my list of recommended authors today is very small.

And let's put it this way. The list of men that in my church could stand behind our pulpit is microscopic.

Because we honor that pulpit as a place from which

God's truth must be presented in a balanced and proper way.

And so if someone's going to ask for my recommendations, you know, it's sort of like I will have people read books in a class in seminary that I would never recommend that particular writer as someone who would preach in my church.

So there's a difference there. In other words, there are writers who might cover a wide, might be able to be very good at communicating particular pieces of information and the background of certain issues.

But that's not the same thing as trusting them to then make godly and proper application of those things. Right. And so it's a matter of being balanced and being open and saying, look, you need to have discernment.

And their example of discernment should be being modeled from the pulpit every

Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and so on and so forth. So would you have

John Piper at your church? Would he preach in light of the Rick Warren incident?

Because I'm in charge of the bookstore at our church, and I'm trying to be discerning with what

I recommend to a number of people. Well, that's a good question.

The Rick Warren thing, you know, did Rick Warren actually – see,

I differentiate between someone's participation in a conference and actual ministry from the pulpit of the church.

So if that was an actual function of the church as in filling the pulpit, I would never have

Rick Warren. And I've never talked with John Piper as to what he was thinking about in having

Rick Warren for the Desiring God thing. Now, I was told yesterday – I don't know this. Honestly, folks,

I can't keep up where everyone's speaking, and so I can't address some of these issues in a knowledgeable fashion. But I was told yesterday that John Piper was at a conference where the big banner behind everyone who was speaking was something along the lines of,

God, speak to us, or something like that. And they had this section where someone would read a

Bible verse, and then everyone would just stand there, and they would say, Jesus, speak to us.

And they would say, how many got a word from Jesus? And everybody's applauding and stuff like that. That really concerns me.

I can't confirm whether he did or didn't, and that probably would – I've seen the video of it.

So you've seen it. It's true. That concerns me. That concerns me. That really does concern me.

Like I said, the list is microscopic. There's a couple guys in channel right now that I know we would have speak.

I can just think off the top of my head. Jim Renahan has spoken at our church. Richard Braselis would be welcome to speak at our church.

But the number would be small, because when it comes to that, what we're trying to model is a consistency in your approach to the

Word of God and in your application of the Word of God to the things of life. And that, to me, is extremely important.

So I think every body of elders is going to have – we're going to be responsible for God for the decisions we make on that.

And I can't judge somebody else along those lines. I can simply say what we would do, and that would be very important.

But when it comes to the fact that you're saying, well, our young people are listening to Mark Driscoll. Well, I would say – sorry,

I just noticed Richard Braselis said, are you saying I'm small? Small list of people.

Not a list of small people, Richard. A small list of people. There's a difference there. Sorry about that. Anyways, I would say to them, you need to be extremely discerning and ask yourself the question, why are you listening to Mark Driscoll?

What has he done to earn, and really it should be earn, your ear, earn your attention?

That's the question I would ask. Okay? Justin, we've still got three more callers to get to, and we're going past time.

So thanks for your phone call today. And we're going to get to our other – we'll get to these three more, and then we'll wrap it up after that.

How does that sound? Okay. So we'll go ahead and close the phone lines on those. We'll get to Matthew, David, and Seiko.

So let's talk to Matthew in Houston. Hi, Matthew. Hi, Dr. White. Thank you for taking my call today.

Yes, sir. I, you know, I kind of been listening to this dialogue from you and listening to the dialogue from, you know, between some other brothers in the

Lord about this very issue. And, you know, just to give you a little bit, just by background,

I came out of, you know, Word of Faith movement about six or seven years ago.

And, of course, I was totally lost, totally lost, because after a while I figured that a lot of the teachings that were coming forth were securing the truth, so to speak.

Yeah, we're using the Bible, but we are redefining the truth, so to speak, and not teaching what the early church and the apostles and Christ himself taught.

So we were straying away from the doctrines of Christ, even though we're using the Scripture. And what bothered me about this whole thing is that I'm listening to,

I'm here thinking that you have three supposedly orthodox Christian people that are supposed to warn us against wolves in sheep's clothing, and you're sitting down talking to one, and you refuse to point out all the many errors that come out of T .D.

Jakes' ministry. And I have to agree with Dr. John Coleman, who was on earlier, that this guy is a heretic, and yeah, he might be, you know, playing with words right now with manifestations, and I just don't like to use the word manifestations, but I believe it.

You know, I think it's all, where's all this heading? It seems to me that the waters are becoming more and more muddier, even in people who you would think one time was holding to the truth.

Well, you know, well, two things, Matthew. First of all, I have had a number of people in there contacting me point out that, well, let's say

Jakes even gave a, well, just now, just in Twitter, even if Jakes gave a biblical definition of the

Trinity, why would it matter? His prosperity teaching is absolutely heretical. Okay, that didn't come up, that wasn't discussed.

You would think that it would be, but you would not think that it would be in the elephant room, because the elephant room isn't about orthodoxy in those areas.

It's about blending everything together and having peace and harmony and things like that. And so to even raise the question of prosperity teaching, and, you know,

I've got a quote, so I was sent a clip by a brother in New Mexico of him talking about how he got his big, huge house, and what

God taught him in giving him this big, huge house and all the rest of this stuff. Obviously, I find that reprehensible, and certainly it would be something that would need to be addressed.

But I haven't gotten into it here, because I don't claim to be an expert on that particular area.

That's not, I mean, every one of us is called to have a particular area. I've written on the subject of the

Trinity. I haven't written on the subject of the prosperity gospel. So I just don't have the background to be able to speak with any level of expertise to those particular issues.

But clearly, there is confusion out there amongst many people.

It's a confusion that is based upon Christian superstardom, and the fact that we don't have a situation where the people that are the most important to you as far as modeling and giving guidance are the godly elders who are part of the church where you are instructed in the

Word of God on a regular basis. But instead, it's somebody out there somewhere, and that is the problem.

And so, Matthew, I fully understand why you especially would say, look, even if he, you know, what does it matter?

Look at all the other stuff that he's saying. Why isn't anybody talking about that? Well, because it's not the purpose of the elephant room to even attempt to address issues in that fashion.

I mean, they talk about the gospel all the time. As you know, the prosperity gospel is a violation of the gospel, and it would require someone to address that.

But they didn't do so, and we wouldn't expect that they would, because, well, that's just not really surprising to us.

Right, and it seems to me, and I understand your point, Dr. Smith, exactly.

I know the purpose of it, but at the same time, as you listen to even the clips you were playing, they are dancing around this thing for the sake of unity, and it's sickening to my stomach that they dance around this very issue.

You know, for instance, I just believe if you start off with bad foundations, you're going to end up with a wrecked house, period.

The whole house is going to fall down. And Jake has bad foundations, and this is just one of the many foundations.

But it seems to me that these, I guess because of their popularity, whatever it may be, that they are slowly moving away for the sake of unity.

They're slowly moving away from orthodoxy to truth, and the things that are coming out is becoming sickening and scary at the same time, because these people have huge followings.

They have huge followings, but, Matthew, if it makes you, it won't make you feel any better until you really wrap your head around it, but I'm not one of those people that believes any of these polls that talks about 60 % of the

American population being Christian. They may have a lot of followers.

That doesn't mean that they have a lot of Christian followers, truly Christian followers. So don't ever forget the fact that God's the one building

His church, and He will guide His people. Every single generation has these people to deal with.

It is part of God's purpose. We must stand for the ones for all delivered to the saints' faith. It is something we must agonizami for, is a term that Jude uses, and so we shouldn't be surprised by it.

And, you know, I told Todd Freel when he called me, and he was chewing on one ear, then he started working on the other ear as well.

I mean, he was really up in arms about all this, and I think he was a little surprised

I wasn't nearly as up in arms as him. Not to say that I am not concerned about this.

I am. Correct. But I recognize this has been going on for a long, long time.

Speaking of which, Matthew, we've got to get to our other callers, brother. I just want to say this real quick. I really appreciate what you just said about God building

His church, because that's one of the things I noticed in the elephant room. They talked about we build a church, and that's something else that bothers me, but I'm not going to go into that.

But thank you for making that point. All right. And thank you so much, and have a wonderful day. All right. Thank you. God bless.

Bye -bye. Bye. I have got a special request, Mr. Board Operator, sir, that you answer the phone from someone who is actually related to me, and therefore gets special dispensation.

So go ahead and take that call, and we will add it to the list, because I have to, because, as people have said many, many times, little girls wrap daddies around their fingers.

So, oh, I keep getting rich on voicemail. Well, go ahead and try.

It will come through this time. Meanwhile, let's talk with David in Van Nuys. Hi, David. Hey, how are you doing?

Boy, you're in California. Is it more confusing to understand theology in California?

I'm just sort of wondering. Yes, yes, because you have everything floating around here. Oh, yeah.

When it comes to what happened in the elephant room, I didn't watch it.

I tried to look for it on YouTube, or I have no idea where I could actually watch it, but I read a lot of excerpts of what

T .J. had said, and the exchange between Driscoll and McDonald, and honestly, it really, you said previously,

I forget which caller you were speaking to, but you said that it really has raised a lot of confusion and smoke, and I'm a

Bible student, and, you know, we don't really have, you know, You have Bible colleges in Van Nuys?

No, no, no, no. There is a nearby seminary that you had visited. Oh, yes, yes.

I'm well aware of that. Yeah, and that's so, I mean, I'm actually, I'm graduating in 2012.

Well, congratulations. The question is, did you get out with a shred of orthodoxy left? No, no.

It really, there was, I mean, there were some little points of, you know, things that I think that could have been, you know, pushed through the, you know, the discussion, like, you know, explaining that, you know, having, like, forced

Bishop Jakes to, you know, really, you know, to answer.

And I just, but it really just raised confusion, even when I was just reading it. I mean, it really, I'm just being honest, it really confused me as a student.

It just seemed like a mishmash between Trinitarianism and modalism by how it really confused me.

Yeah, he's clearly still a modalist. He's not a part of, he's not pushing the oneness distinctives concerning baptism.

In fact, I was looking at the Potter's House Statement of Faith here, and under baptism, water baptism by immersion soon after accepting

Christ as personal Savior is a testimony of death, sin, and resurrection into life. I would be very interested if anybody knows, anybody out there knows, do they baptize in the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or in the name of Jesus only? Wouldn't that be interesting? I mean, I think it is necessary to ask that question, and I've not seen anyone talking about it.

So I'd like to know. But he's clearly still a modalist, but he isn't trying to, you know, do the oneness thing and stay in that particular group.

He is in a middle area, which is why he's taking fire from both sides. Yeah, yeah.

And the problem was that the questions asked, well, James MacDonald wasn't even bothering, but the questions asked by Mark Driscoll, he did not press them.

He was not specific enough to expose the modalism. Yeah, yeah. That's all there is to it.

I mean, that's the fundamental conclusion. It seemed to me, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seemed to me as though he were, as Bishop Jakes was taking, you know, to some level or another, our understanding of persons, he was saying, well,

I believe in distinctions. I think he referenced that a couple times.

But overall, my understanding was he was using some

Trinitarian language, but yet saying, oh, yeah, they're distinct, but they're still manifestations.

It's still manifestations. Like you said, he's still a modalist. He didn't say anything that would indicate that foundationally he has come to understand, embrace, and find central to his theology.

Okay. The doctrine of the Trinity. That's the problem, because what he said about distinct roles, again, a oneness person could say all that.

Okay. That's where you have to ask specific questions. I've asked the specific question on Twitter.

I haven't gotten a response to that specific question on Twitter. But I would love if someone could open up a dialogue.

I'd like to talk to, look, if the man is trying to move the right direction and is open to correction, not discussion, but correction in regards to the

Trinity and the issues of the gospel, then we should be stumbling over ourselves to graciously offer the correction.

The problem is it seems that the fundamental concept of the elephant room is that no one can offer correction.

You can only offer dialogue and opinion. That's the difference.

That is the problem, as I see it, David. It really, really is. And congratulations on your graduation.

Like I said, I just hope that you can do something with that degree that will keep you from being a bag person on the streets of Van Nuys.

Well, hey, I appreciate your ministry, and I only have one quick question.

Real quick. And maybe you can please, because the elephant room caused so much confusion, even to some level, even in my own mind, as a seminary student.

Could you recommend some articles, books, defending a classical understanding of the

Trinity? Anything would be really, really helpful, especially for the confusion that I think Driscoll caused and MacDonald caused.

There's just a lot of confusion. You mean aside from the one that I wrote that's used as a textbook in a lot of places, but probably not where you went to school?

Your textbook would help a lot. It's called The Forgotten Trinity, and that would be very useful.

And I also think if you would listen to the debate with Roger Perkins and with Dr.

Sabin, and the run -up to those debates, so the dividing lines in August and September of this year,

I painstakingly went through these issues. And was it before or after October that I did the

Christology class? I did a two -and -a -half -hour. This was afterwards. So I did a two -and -a -half -hour dividing line on Christology on these very issues.

So it was basically a seminary -level class. Okay. And I recommended books at that time as well. So there's a lot of stuff online available, okay?

All right. Thank you so much. Hey, David, thanks a lot. Have a good day. Bye -bye. All right, two more calls real quick.

Let's talk with Seiko. Hi, Seiko. Good afternoon, or good morning,

Dr. White. How are you? Doing good. Thank you, man. Thank you for taking my call. I met you one time here in Humboldt, Texas.

You did a theology conference at a little small church here in Humboldt.

I do recall that. Of course, from my perspective, it was a big church, but that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, a couple of things

I wanted to just point out. I attended the elephant room conference, me and another brother of mine. We went to the location, one of the satellite sites that they had.

And ironically, ironically, Dr. White, out of all the locations here in Houston that this conference could have been held at, it could have been held at a

Trinitarian church as well, but it was held at a Wonder Church. Really? Yes. Interesting.

This was the only church in the Houston area, other than Dallas or Fort Worth, I believe.

You have to look at the map and see exactly. And I was trying to find other churches that were

Trinitarian, but it was the only one that they actually had a satellite feed for, for the elephant room conference.

Nonetheless, I went, me and a brother of mine went to the conference, and I'm glad I did, in hindsight, because what

I found out, of course, the big draw was Jake was going to renounce or affirm oneness and Trinitarianism.

So were there a lot of oneness people there that you could tell? Oh, yeah, absolutely. There were more

Trinitarians than what I expected as well, too. And so the funny thing about it was it was a mixture of Trinitarians.

We had white, me and my brother was the only two black guys there, and I'll touch that in just a minute.

That's my other concern as well regarding this doctrine issue in our community. But there were, of course, oneness people there.

Very nice, very cordial, very warm people, very hospitable. At the end of the Jake's session, the oneness pastor approached me and my friend, my brother, and he said, so what do you think about the bishop, man?

Tell me what you think about the bishop. I said, man, I believe he's fine, but I believe he was playing footsie with the doctrine.

He said, this was his word, otherwise he'd say, you know what, yeah, you're right. He did, man. I really wish that he would have came out and just said what he said, what he believed.

He said, now, this is what this oneness pastor told me. He said, I'm comfortable. I'm better at saying manifestations than I would.

I would never really say persons. I would say manifestations. And I told the gentleman, I said, you know what, I can respect your conviction, even though I extremely disagree with it, really disagree, but I can respect it because you're being consistent with your theology, although we differ on this very crucial, essential issue.

And he basically said that he has talked with the bishop before, that he has met him personally, had dinner with the man, and he said he has drawn fire,

Jake has drawn fire from even the oneness people before the conversation went down about his convictions and about his views, and he basically does not want to take a side on that.

But we attended the conference, and so I felt there was more of a setup than there was, something that was basically just let your hair down, let's just deal with these issues biblically, doctrinally, and let's bring correction where correction is needed.

Right. Now, you had mentioned something about the racial issue? Yeah. The thing that was concerning to me,

I know there's some variables, people may have to work and all that, but within the African -American community, especially

Dr. White, in reform circles, there are not too many African -Americans that embrace the doctrines of grace.

The majority of our people in our community are mostly Armenian, word of faith and whatnot, and can care less about doctrinal issues.

I'm not saying all African -Americans are like that, but I'm saying the majority, it's few and far between that you'll find a black person that basically would say, you know,

I hold to the doctrines of grace. I understand the Athanasian Creed. I understand what took place with Arius and Athanasius in the 3rd or 4th century.

It's very rare. And so when you talk about issues like this, Jake's is pretty much on the same par, if you will, with Barack Obama when it comes to people that our communities adore and admire.

And it's a shame that we don't sound the alarm or bring awareness to this and call people to think biblically.

I know God changed the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, but it's still frustrating when you can go to churches and you would like to see a mixture of brothers and sisters in Christ that understand that doctrine is important.

It's not something that's just for the elite. All of us have a doctrine. All of us have a theology.

The question is, is it biblical? Well, I know I've spoken at conferences with some brothers that are

Reformed who are African American and things like that, but why is it?

Why is what you just said, why is that the case? Why is

Bishop Jake's like Barack Obama? Why isn't there more discernment, in your opinion, just briefly? Okay, well, after I say this, you cannot get my information out because I may not see tomorrow.

But our culture is inundated with entertainment. And if you watch the

Cold Orange revival that Jake attended with Stephen Furtick, it's all about the charisma.

And I have no problem worshiping God. I'm not talking about that. But if I'm going to rejoice, if I'm going to clap, if I'm going to shout,

I want to be informed biblically what I'm shouting about, what I'm saying hallelujah or thank you

Jesus is about. I don't think that orthodoxy has to be dry, but it needs to be informative and it needs to be based on biblical truth that is objective.

And so in our communities, the majority of our black churches, unfortunately I hate using that word, but you understand what

I'm saying? The majority of our black churches lack spiritual depth and understanding in the

Word of God. I'm a house church pastor. And we have about 10 to 15 people on a good

Sunday that comes to our church. So you're talking about reformed, and you're adding reformed doctrine.

Are you talking about church discipline? Talking about accountability? No, most of our churches don't want to hear that,

Dr. Weiss. They're criminal to that. Wow. All right. A lot of folks really appreciate your insights,

David. Thank you very much for holding on, and thanks for calling the day. Thank you, sir. God bless. All right. Bye -bye. All right.

Well, let's go to Phoenix and let's talk with Summer. Hi, Summer. Hey, Dad.

Hi. So this topic got your interest, huh? Not really.

I was kind of dragged into it. I made some popcorn

Christian -y friends on campus earlier this week. Popcorn Christian -y, okay. They're full of hot air and love and not too much theology, and come to find out that they think that Mark Driscoll is the great reformer.

Oh. And he has introduced them to Reformed theology, and he has brought them in all these things.

So unfortunately, that kind of forced me to finally listen to Driscoll, which

I had been avoiding for some time, but I had to face it. So anyways, I was listening to a sermon of his not too long ago, and he said in the sermon, and this is why

I'm calling, because I don't get this. I truly don't get it, and I know I'm going to be talking to these kids today. What does

Driscoll mean, do you know, when he says that Jesus died for all people in some sense and for some people in another sense?

Yeah. I actually encountered that exact same phrase. In fact, that's found in his

Wikipedia page, where he wants to differentiate himself from Calvinism and says he's following Calvin rather than Calvinism.

I don't claim to be an expert on all aspects of Mark Driscoll's theology, but generally that kind of an assertion is meant to try to avoid the fundamental issues of particular redemption.

There is an orthodox way of saying that, and I'm not sure that's what he's saying.

However, in other words, there is the substitutionary aspect of atonement, which is specifically intended to bring about the redemption of those people for whom

Christ dies that must be limited to the scope of the elect on any logical level.

But there is the demonstration of the justice of God, there is the demonstration of the love of God, there is the general restraint of evil demonstrated by the sending of the

Spirit of God that has universal, or at least all mankind, ramifications.

And so there are Reformed theologians who would affirm that there are aspects of the atoning work of Christ that can be seen in a universal sense.

Like common grace. In a sense, even though common grace would exist prior to the atonement, there would be a special demonstration of that in the giving of God's Son.

But in essence, what many people would limit that to would make that distinction between the redemptive work of Christ and the specific intention of the atonement and those other elements.

Whether that's what Mark Driscoll is referring to or not, I'm afraid I can't tell you that because I don't know.

I would ask your friends to maybe explicate that.

Because from what I've heard, Mark Driscoll's sermons are quite long, and so I would be surprised if he did not go into great detail on that.

But I confess I don't know the details of it. Oh, it's all very confusing for me.

I just don't get it. Well, the nice thing is, unlike everybody else in the listening audience, after you meet with your friends today, you can call me and ask, and we can talk about it.

But in some sense to what you were saying about that, wouldn't that mean that what

Christ did on the cross wasn't necessarily accomplished, not finished? Is it along those lines?

I mean, I don't get it. Well, no, I think if they're talking non -redemptively, then they would say

God had other purposes. That's where you have to try to ground that in Scripture somewhere, and it's very, very difficult to do.

But anyways, hey, believe it or not, we're out of time. Go ahead and give me a call after that. We'll talk to you later.

Thanks. All right, talk to you later. Bye -bye. Hey, folks, thanks for listening today. We'll be back again on Tuesday on The Dividing Line.

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