Politics Over Gospel, Back to David Allen and Romans 8

Well, Greens, welcome to The Dividing Line. It's a Monday. And what are we doing here on a Monday? Well, it's travel week. I head out on the weekend. And so that means I pick up the unit here in a few days and take it to our staging RV park.

And then you got to, you know, get it all packed up and set up and ready to rock and roll. And a long, long trip. Long, long, long, long trip. One longest I've done. And yeah, especially for my poor wife, I feel badly about that.

But there are things that need to be done this trip. And by the way, working on, I'm the, I'm not gonna say anything more about right. But there, I'm trying to get to the big Dallas get together in February.

We're trying to, it's a real challenge to juggle schedules at multiple churches, try to get a speaker who's not a Christian, do a dialogue, get them involved with things, and put it all together to where you can drive these locations.

It's a challenge. There's no ways about it. So we're, we're trying to put some stuff together for February. It may end, I may end up, I don't want to do it this way, but I may end up just simply driving to Dallas for the big debate thing and then driving home.

And then like three weeks later, head back out, maybe a little bit more South. We'll see. It may be the only way to make it work out. It's like I said, it's, it's complicated to make, to make all this stuff work.

So we're trying to do what we can with the resources that we have, address important issues such as Islam. And that really needs to be addressed. There's more and more interest in it in the United States because of what you see happening in places like Michigan.

And lo and behold, lo and behold, who has been telling us, who's, who on this program has been saying since, oh, 2006, that Islam is a politico-religious system or religio-political system, depending on its percentage within a population.

So when it's a small percentage, the emphasis is on the religious aspect. When that percentage reaches a certain critical mass, the emphasis goes to the political. And you'll never understand the political if you don't understand the religious, but it's a mixture of both.

And therefore it's very different on that level than what we are accustomed to. And it is sad to see, you know, we see these huge gatherings of Muslims in places like Dearborn, very few Christians responding to seek to evangelize these people because they don't want to.

Instead, what's their reaction? Deport them, ban them, even if they're citizens, doesn't matter, got to get rid of them, da-da-da-da-da, as if the political solution is the first solution. But let's just face it, for a lot of people who call themselves Christians today, that is where they're going.

The idea of the gospel, that's a nice religious sentiment, but I think we're seeing how few people really trust in it. Because if you actually emphasize that, then you have to believe that the Spirit of God will apply the gospel, but he'll do so in his own time, just as the Spirit gives the gifts as he wills.

In the same way, God will draw his elect into himself when and how he wills, and the reality is, it just seems that many people in the church just don't have that kind of patience, and God needs to do it my way, he needs to do it faster, and I'm going to start utilizing worldly methodologies, political alliances, and if I have to compromise on the specifics of the gospel, so be it, got to be a heritage American, got to save my country, and if sort of being a little embarrassed about Galatians is the cost for that, then why not?

And that's what we're seeing all around us, and what I mean embarrassed by Galatians. Remember, no you're not going to remember, Algo remembers, but nobody else remembers, when I debated Barry Lynn in 2001, I believe it was, a quarter of a century ago, the man who had testified for Congress that child pornography was a guaranteed First Amendment right, but then sued us to try to suppress the videotapes of the debate we did on homosexuality with him, he lost.

Anyway, during that debate, he is the United Church of Christ minister, if you know anything about the UCC, you know they are the walking dead denomination, they became apostate over a century ago, and he specifically said that he receives revelation on the same level as the Apostle Paul did, and he said that Paul said a lot of things in Galatians that were just over the top, I think it was, yeah, there are a lot of people that are embarrassed by how strong the Apostle Paul was, he identified people who added one little thing to how you become a Christian, as pseudodelfoi, false brethren, false brethren, you're not going to, that's not winsome, you know, that's not how you win people's emotions, winning people's emotions, you have to win the heart first by the power of the Spirit of God, then the emotions will follow after that, but anyway, so anyway, last week, we made some comments, and very quickly, and I'm not going to spend much time on this, because we've got other things to get to, but very quickly, Joel Webben took to the web and was talking about how he was going to go scorched earth, not sure on what or with what, but going to go scorched earth, and just as an example, one of the most vile things I've seen on social media over the weekend is a number of people who are now willing to mock the names of non-sacral Christian martyrs of the past, people who have been murdered by a quote-unquote Christian state, and so since I have visited the place of his imprisonment, did a little less than five minute video about him, and then Josh Barzon did one of his threads about Fritz Erba over the weekend as well, I have discovered that there are people on social media who are literally willing, they're so vile, they're literally willing to mock Fritz Erba's name, there's one called Real Fritz Erba, and I'd pull it up, but I blocked the moron, but that's his whole thing, and then the young man whose whose meme sharing started so much of this stuff last year, that moved here from Germany and went to Webbin's church, he even posted, another Fritz Erba sacralism banger from James White on today's Dividing Line, it's because you haven't thought about Fritz Erba for years on end that your opinion is invalid, Real Fritz Erba back into the hole with you, so we were told about how this fellow had been corrected and had come to a balanced position, no, he's still believing the same things he was believing before, it's just that his church is now much more in line with where he was before, and going farther, I think clearly, but then some guy, 1984 Sheepdog, I think is what this says, it's abbreviated on my screenshot, so Erba verb transitive to cast a person into a pit or dungeon or severe as punishment for idiocy, I mean the only way I can understand that is that Fritz Erba was being punished for being an idiot, and of course that's exactly what a sacralist would think, he was a incalcitrant rebel against the sacral order of his day, which required that he baptize his children.

What the New Testament taught, what he believed the New Testament taught, translated by the same man who 20 years later would know that he was in prison in the same place where he translated the New Testament, doing nothing about it because of view of the state church, that makes him an idiot.

Now again, I said over the weekend, not a one of these people, not a one of these men have the courage of their convictions to withstand what Fritz Erba did, not a one of them, not a one of them, they would all be screaming to get out of that hole within an hour of being dropped down, every single one of them, absolutely convinced of it.

But that aside, this movement is going exactly where we said it would go, just faster than we expected it would, and it's not going to end well for the people involved with it. Joel Webben posted a tweet where he said, it's 2025, if you're a Protestant who thinks Catholics are the biggest enemy, you are a fool.

All of Western civilization is invaded by Muslims, captured by Jews, perverted by sodomites, ruled by women, our civilization is collapsing, get a clue, ah, the wise one, the wise Webben, the wise Webben has spoken, and as normal, is inaccurate in what he's saying, that seems to be a mark of Joel Webben anymore.

But first of all, are you noticing the pattern here? When Joel Webben wants to cooperate with Roman Catholics, hey, we're just trying to save Western civilization, and this Nick Fuentes guy, he's a savant, he's a political savant, he's brilliant, so why shouldn't we cooperate together?

He's even said he won't swear on my program, and Elijah Schafer, we're going to do stuff together too. It doesn't matter what his past is, or his track record is, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we can do all this stuff, and you're just not supposed to recognize what holds all this stuff together, what's common here?

What's the common issue? And aside from the Jews are behind everything, the world's been captured by the Jews, aside from all of that drivel, what I see, and what I think everybody else needs to see, is what you're hearing, when you hear stuff like, don't worry about the Catholics, we can have Taylor Marsh, who cares if he once was a Protestant and professed the gospel of grace, and now condemns it, and anathematizes it, and prays to Mary, and that's, it just doesn't matter.

It's the Jews, people, think, right? You're a fool. Get a clue. Those are all quotes. What are these folks telling us very, very clearly, if we will just listen? They don't have theological answers to any of this stuff anymore.

Oh, they still use religious language, and oh, I still believe in justification by faith, you know, they'll use the language, but what they're saying is, that's not enough. We need something else. In fact, we're going to trust in something else.

We're going to trust in the political alliances we're creating, and you know, the thing about, look, you know, I know Nick Fuentes, he drops the F-bomb every other sentence and stuff like that, but he's promised he wouldn't do that on our program.

Let me see, let me think here, just a second. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, or out of that which fills the heart, the mouth speaks. Who said that? Oh, that would be Jesus, and so if you've got a person who regularly expresses themselves in the most vile language, and you think they're a political savant, and you're going to cooperate with them, what fills their heart?

And so, what are you trying to accomplish? What power are you trusting in? You're trusting the power of political alignments. You don't trust that the gospel can change anything anymore. Well, I'm actually just going to try to reach him with the gospel.

No, you're not. No, you're not. That's why you didn't mind having somebody speaking at your conference that thinks that Mary's prayers saved the thief on the cross. See, all that theology stuff is just, it's window dressing.

It's not the substance of what you actually think is the power of God to change this world, and that's what you're going to see happening over and over and over again, as the necessary compromises to maintain the political conglomerations and political treaties require you to be more and more silent about the gospel itself.

Besides that, if you've lost your confidence that the gospel can actually change hearts and minds, if you've lost your confidence, that's the only thing that's been given to the church to do that. And if you've actually come to the point where the primary purpose of the gospel is to maintain the United States of America, then you've got a real problem.

You've got a real problem. And it's just going to keep on going that direction, sadly. I just looked over at Twitter and someone said, well, looks like summer is over. Time to put up the Christmas decorations.

We're just hoping. I'm not sure if it's actually going to happen, but according to my weather program that I use in my backyard and my weather thingy-me-bobby, oh man, they keep changing things. Well, tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be below 100 degrees to the high, 98 and 99.

Now, you go 98, 99. Hey, we live in Phoenix, 98 is below 100. And you're just happy about that. In fact, the highest I see is actually after I leave, it's 105. So yeah, no complaints from us at that, but I'm not sure about the Christmas decorations.

Because honestly, you still put anything up in Phoenix right now, by the time Christmas comes along, all the red green bulbs, they'll all be white. The UV would just bleach all the paint right off those lights.

Because we're talking about the old style lights here. I'm not talking about all those fancy dancy things that people have now. So anyway, all right, let's leave all that depressing stuff behind for now.

Just keep watching and ask yourself a question. I do often think about this. These people talk all the time about Christendom and the great tragedy of what Doug Wilson calls Christendom 1 .0. Because he says, we don't want Christendom 1 .0, we want Christendom 2 .0.

Yeah, you know what? It sounds like these guys would be happy with 1 .0. But here's the problem with Christendom, period. It has no Christ in it. There's no Christ in it. If you don't have the gospel, if you don't have changed hearts, it's not Christendom.

It's religion-dom, you call it what you want, but it's not Christendom because Christ isn't king in the hearts and lives of the people that live under that system. And that becomes a mockery of the Christian faith and a mockery of Christ's true rulership.

Because you're replacing the very work of the Spirit of God in changing hearts and minds. It's a mockery. But see, the problem is, just as the Puritans worked toward a greater future and didn't turn out in many of the institutions, in almost all the institutions they founded, but they did it for the glory of Christ.

And that's why we benefit from their writings to this day. They had a much longer view than the current crop of wild-eyed and non-army-using social media folks who won't be remembered 10 years from now, other than the mess they caused.

They had a long-term view, and that's why their material is still useful to us to this day. It really is. Anyway, I just got to put, I got to minimize Twitter. I'll leave the radar up because we've got some pretty decent storms coming up from the south right now.

You got your windows down? They're not close enough for that yet, but I'm just seeing a whole lot of lightning and a whole lot of red and orange. If those things hold together, we could have an interesting evening up here.

There's still a couple hours of warming left with the sun, so we'll see what heads our direction. Okay, it's been a couple days, but I want to get back to looking at Liberating Romans from Reformed Captivity, a Critical Evaluation of Calvinism's Interpretation of Paul's Letter, which it's none of those things, actually.

Should be something along the lines of how to turn Romans into a man-centered gospel by quoting every disparate, contradictory source you can possibly cram into one book. That's the way to put it. Anyway, last time we were together, I had read the section, however there is strong exegetical basis for challenging the Reformed reading of Romans 8 .28 -30, and I had said at the time, well, it shouldn't just be 8 .28 -30, it really needs to go on through at least 34, but we need to see this exegetical foundation, and that's what we're going to be looking for.

And then I read this, Romans 8 specifically highlights the divine initiative, accomplishment, and consummation of salvation for all believers. What I emphasize, we were wrapping up the program last time, but I want to make sure you understand.

When you read provisionist material, the autonomy of the human will in the exercise of faith, so the denial that faith is the gift of God, the denial that regeneration is necessary for faith, that faith and repentance are gifts from God, all that is denied.

Everyone has the capacity in and of themselves, whether it's by prevenient grace or some other unbiblical phrase like that, which it certainly is, every man has the capacity in and of themselves to exercise saving faith, and so man is the final decider of who is and who is not saved.

How God has knowledge of that from eternity past is going to vary from provisionist to provisionist. You've got some Molinists out there and some simple foreknowledge people, and let's just be honest, the vast majority just haven't even thought about it or don't really care to, one way or the other.

But the key thing is the term believer, believer, believer, believer. Now what they have to explain is, yeah, the last time that particular phraseology was used was back in Romans 5, and it's not used in Romans 8.

It doesn't appear again until the end of Romans 9, where it's a contrast, again, between seeking God's grace and forgiveness by works or by faith. So Romans 8 doesn't use this terminology. You just have to assume it and run with it from there, and obviously what Paul is doing is providing, in Romans chapter 8, the eternal foundation that brings about this situation of really the redemption of all of the created order through Christ to the glory of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, various roles.

Romans 8 is a very Trinitarian chapter, obviously. But the focus of Romans 8 is God's glory, not man's control of salvation, but that's what the provisionist has turned into, because there is no control of salvation by God.

God's freedom in provisionism is limited to what he will promise to do for the person who freely chooses to believe. He can't choose who's going to do that. There's no deadness in sin. It's not the valley of the bones.

It's not the stone heart. None of that stuff. All that stuff, you have a completely semi-Pelagian anthropology. That's why they're so sensitive to that issue. Remember, we read some of the Wilson quotes before this about a neutral will, as if there is such a thing.

I mean, talk about a category that Scripture knows nothing about at all. That's what you get from Ken Wilson. So, you'll notice, it goes on, from the perspective of Romans as a whole, Paul continues in Romans 8 to expound upon the implications of justification by faith for the believer.

See? So, this is the implications for the believer. The believer is autonomous. The believer is the one who chooses these things. Anybody could do it. God cannot effectively and efficiently call. Now, it does seem somewhat contradictory, because, you know, like flowers will say that God hardened the Jews for a particular purpose at a particular time.

He may just say that that was just the one instance to bring about the crucifixion or something along those lines. I don't know. But everybody has this power. But then you have the idea of choice meets, and the idea of choice meets making themselves choice meets is a little bit confusing.

But there you go. But there it is, the implications of justification by faith for the believer. There can't be anything before that, except that's what Romans 8 is actually about. Romans 8 is actually about what brings about the situation where someone can have faith.

And how can someone who's a slave to sin, beginning of Romans chapter 8, unable to do what's pleasing to God? How can they come to the position where God causes all things to work together for the good, for them that love God, for them who are the called, according to his purpose?

Now, you know, we're going to look for the exegesis. We're going to search for it, see if we can find it. But here's the overriding assertions being made straight, yeah, being made straight up front. And so, this is not the implications of justification by faith for the believer.

This is what the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit do for their own glory. Not the glory of man, not the glory of believers. The term believer doesn't even appear in Romans chapter 8. It's just not there.

Look it up. It's not there. No one, notice this, each functioning is justification for the final claim conclusion of Paul in verses 31 to 39, no one can prevail against the believer! And no one or nothing can separate the believer from the love of God.

Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing how you can have such a strong traditional commitment to the mechanism you've developed to get around the sovereignty of God, to get around the sole glory of God, that you can insert it so that it's a part of the text itself.

Because that's not what Romans 8 says. Romans 8, the focus, anyone just reading the text, is on God in Christ by the Spirit. It's triune, it's God's power, everything in the golden chain is what God does, and none of the things in the golden chain is He dependent upon man's cooperation.

It's the extension of His grace, His power, His purpose. We are the objects of grace and mercy, not the determiners of what grace and mercy can do. It is truly a testament to the power of tradition, to listen to how these people can change the text to fit it into their paradigm.

I mentioned last night, the church, I've preached the past four weeks, and I'm sure the folks at Apologia are going to be very happy that I'm leaving before next Sunday. I did the prologue of John, I did the prologue of 1 John, and then followed up with the next section of 1 John last night.

Incredible text, and Lord is pleased, a lot of folks seem to really be challenged by last night's exposition. But one of the things I mentioned was the story that again, told many, many times over the years, 24 years ago, or was it 20?

It might have been more than 25 years ago now. I forget what the date was, Algo would know. Of the interview that I did, it might have been even as early as 98, when I interviewed Dave Hunt on KPXQ, I was filling in for Marty Minto, and Dave called it a debate.

It wasn't a debate, but I asked him about John chapter 6. He gave this surface level, shallow response, and I said to him, I said, Dave, that's just your tradition speaking. I remember what his answer was.

I'm sure we have a recording of this someplace. It's on the sermon audio channel. I haven't heard it. I don't think I've heard it since I did it, honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, I remember this, because I wrote it down.

I still have the pad of paper over there in my office that I had in the studio that day. Yeah, I think that sounds about right, because that prompted writing What Love Is This. So yeah, it was late 90s, probably.

Anyway, he just honestly said to me, and I know Dave believed this, he said, James, I have no tradition. I have no tradition. And down through the years, I have used that as an example of just how powerful our commitment to a tradition can be, so much so that it becomes the equivalent of the Word of God to us.

We can't distinguish between our tradition and the Word of God itself. I mentioned again last night, obviously still thinking about those categories in the sermon last night, we have in 1 John, we deceive ourselves.

We say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Self-deception is powerful, and it's something we should regularly pray to be delivered from, because Paul warns us, the Greek term is plenao, to lead astray.

And Paul warns us about others leading us astray. See to it that no one takes you captive, leads you astray. That's a warning that he repeats a number of different times. It's one thing to be led astray by someone else.

It's another thing to do it to yourself. It's easier to recognize when it's coming from outside of you. It's much more difficult to recognize when you are the source of self-deception, when you're being led astray by your own lusts and desires and commitments, whatever it might be.

And that's what you see here. No one can prevail against a believer. Actually, no one can prevail against the God who foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies. That's the foundation of what follows after.

All the death or life or principality, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nakedness, peril, sword, none of these things. Why? Because I'm a believer. Because I've enabled God to do certain things for me.

That's what they really think it's saying. And when it's just so obvious that what it actually is saying is that none of these things can separate us from the love of Christ because Christ has died in our place and there are seeds before us for the Father who has foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified.

It's all about God. They're all divine acts. They weren't enabled by mankind. You cannot create a stable, consistent theology out of a mess like that. It's just not possible.

So we don't just push the easy believe button?

Yeah, from Staples? Nope, that's what you do and everything else flows naturally from that. Okay, we continue on here. So I didn't mark this, but all of Romans 8 is about the believer in Christ. It's right here in case you're looking for it.

Oh, wait a minute. There, now it's highlighted. All of Romans 8 is about the believer in Christ. No, all of Romans 8 is about the triune God that provides perfect salvation for his people to his own glory.

This is the essence of the division. We've said it from the beginning. God-centeredness versus man-centeredness. And this is laid out. It's right in front of us. It's being stated plainly. You start with man, you reason upward from your conclusions about man to God.

That's provisionism. The Bible, you start with God, God tells you who he is, and you go from there to see who man is. There isn't any way to put these two things together. They are fundamentally different.

They really, really are. So what you're not going to find, you're going to see a lot of stuff here. Let's just go ahead and just read some of this so you can see what we're looking at. Because again, what I would invite you to do is I have published a work.

The focus was not specifically on this text, but it was on justification. So pick this up. I don't think anybody was calling themselves a provisionist when this was published. I don't know when that term first started being used, but I didn't hear it until about 2014, maybe?

Somewhere around there. And the copyright on this book is 2001. So here's a book that I published. Well, I didn't publish, but I said I was going to publish it. But just under 400 pages in length, here's what I present as exegesis.

And in fact, I think it's a 32-page chapter on James chapter 2 in this book is still some of the best work I've ever done, exegetically. I've never had anyone write a refutation of it that I'm aware of.

I mean, Algo mentioned some guy. I had totally forgotten that this guy even existed. That guy's scary. He really is. But when he mentioned his name, I was like, oh my goodness, what that guy could have done with Twitter.

How social media could have absolutely amplified his utter looniness. Yow, yow, yow, yow, yow. It was bad enough in IRC back then, but I've never seen anyone write any type of substantive refutation to my chapter on James chapter 2.

And justification of my works, Faith Outworks is dead, etc, etc. I've never seen it. It's been out there for 24 years, but I have never seen a response to it. This is what I present to you as what I'm talking about when I say exegesis.

Letting the text speak, the text becomes the central affirmation. We want to understand what it meant by the original author to the original audience first and foremost, and then make application today.

I emphasized that even last night, that that's what we need to do to honor God and to honor his word. So there's an example. I mean, I can give you other examples, but there's your example. So that's what we're looking for in Dr. Allen's book.

So let's see if he can give us clarity of expression and exegesis. So let's pick up here. All Romans 8 is about the believer in Christ. This is evidenced by the inclusio structure of verses 1 and 39, Romans 8, 1.

Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8, 39, for I'm convinced that neither death or life or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us in love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Notice the semantic parallels between these two verses. No condemnation parallels, nothing can separate us in love of God. Okay, sort of. There are categories, however, in condemnation that are not reiterated by Paul when he lists the things that might try to separate us in love of God.

And the phrase in Christ Jesus, meaning those vitally in Christ through faith, not through God's election, not through the work of the Spirit of God, not through regeneration, concludes each verse. The focus of the entire chapter is on those who are in Christ Jesus.

Did you catch that? Do you see the, just stop right here. Do you see the leap there? The focus of the entire chapter is on those who are in Christ Jesus. What you mean by that is that Paul is not addressing the fate of unbelievers, the state of unbelievers, things like that.

Okay, he's talking about the ministry of the Spirit of God. He's talking about, actually, there's a whole bunch in Romans 8 about the whole creation, groaning, and in light of the fall of man and stuff like that.

But he says this is a crucial contextual point. Paul's addressing the topic of the life of the believer as all the major external commentaries on Romans note. Well, he is addressing the topic of the expression of God's electing grace and power, the role of Christ as mediator, and the work of the Spirit of God in the life of the believer.

You can't take the actual central affirmation and make it secondary to a word that doesn't appear in Romans 8. Remember, believer doesn't appear. It's not a part of Romans 8. But God the Father, Jesus the Son, Spirit, predestination, that's all there.

But believer isn't. And yet, we're supposed to take that as the guiding and controlling aspect. So when, for example, Romans 8 -39, I am convinced that death or life or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's the love of God is Christ Jesus our Lord. That's central. Not us! We're the passive recipient. We're not in control. We're not determining that the love of God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ will be effective because we choose to allow them to be.

Again, this is reading, we read the scriptures completely differently. Not a little bit differently. 180 degrees differently. That's big! That's really big when people say, we just all need to get along.

The problem is, we've got to be able to deliver a coherent message to the world outside. And when we're reading the same words 180 degrees differently, people say, oh, that's why you can't know the Sola Scriptura.

Oh yeah, sure, great. So bringing the Inquisition along and that'll somehow solve the problem. You know, if someone actually reads this text correctly, really concerned about what the original author meant, you burn up the stake and that's somehow going to fix something?

No, don't think so. And so, all the major exegetical commentaries will note that Paul is addressing the life of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit, and the effect of the work of the Father and Son in the lives of the elect, yes.

But they do not make the provisionist assertion that it is the autonomous free will choice of believers that determines the range of God's actions and what God can and cannot do. Oh goodness, okay. In the Greek text of Romans 8, the fifth paragraph, Romans 8 28 -30, semantically provides the fifth justification for the claim conclusion Romans 8 31 -39.

Romans 8 31 -39 is divided into two paragraphs, 8 31 -34, 8 35 -39. That happens to be true, by the way. And 8 31 -34, in my opinion, is David Allen's Waterloo. I do not believe he can give a consistent, he cannot walk through that text and substantiate his position directly from the text itself.

He just can't do it. Each paragraph functions to make a claim that is based on Romans 8 1 -30. Paul continues to develop the implications of what has preceded in the way he introduces verse 31, what then shall we say to these things?

So yeah, since God has foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified, since it's God who's done all these things, mankind is not active in any of this. These are all divine actions. What then shall we say to these things?

This is more than a rhetorical question. These things can be taken, either refer to 5 1 -8 30 or 1 16 -8 30. No, it's the immediately preceding summary statement of the golden chain. What shall we say to what God has done?

If God be for us, who can be against us? So, and he's going to identify the us as the elect of God. So, this is very straightforward, but you're not going to get that from Alan, not reading this. Why not?

It's right there on the text. Well, because that doesn't, you know, why does the leftist media show you a burning building and say it's a mostly peaceful protest? It just doesn't fit the narrative, so we're not going to, we're not going to go there.

The structure of Romans 8 20 -30 is as follows. Paul makes a claim, God works out all things for good to those who love God. The rest says for those who are the called according to his purpose. The claim receives its justification, verses 20 and 30.

What God has, now watch this, watch this. What God has purposed for believers is that all things work for their good. Oh, really? Really? So, that's the purpose for believers. So, you determine whether this could be true of you by your free will autonomous act, right?

Let's check that out, shall we? And we know that to the ones loving God, all things work together for the good. Romans 8 20 -30. For those who are the called according to his purpose. So, his purpose is what brings about the calling.

His purpose is what brings about the calling. You see, there is no purpose of God at that level in provisionism. The purpose of God is limited to what he can be allowed to do by the will of man. God does not have the freedom to save whom he will, to give grace to whom he will.

He has to give grace to everybody equally. Remember, we saw earlier, he's saying God is trying to save everyone equally. We read that earlier, remember? So, once you say that, then you are putting yourself squarely in the camp that says that election on God's part is not the foundation of regeneration or anything else.