The Death of Joseph Ratzinger, the Eternal Covenant in the London Baptist Confession

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Spent a lot of time considering the death of Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, and what light it has shone on how most Protestants today understand the Papacy. Spend a solid fifty minutes on that before spending about twenty minutes talking about the pactum salutis, the eternal covenant of redemption, as outlined in the London Baptist Confession of Faith. An hour and ten minutes today.

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I have decided to nominate Kevin Sorbo for Speaker of the
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House, and why not? You don't have to be a member, and I think
00:44
Hercules would probably get something done. Doesn't seem to owe anybody much of anything, and if, by the way, the news comes across that there is a
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Speaker of the House during the program, please let me know. I'd be interested in knowing. It's cloudy, but you don't think it's going to snow in Phoenix.
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Okay, all right. The record number of ballots is 133 in 1859, which was right before the
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Civil War. I'll let you figure out what that means, because I don't really have any idea at all what that means.
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But yeah, there you go. That's where we are, and what an absolute incredible, amazing world we live in today.
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Every morning, every morning you wake up, and you go, it can't get any crazier, until you turn...
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What? Gerrymatitix.
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Well, I know. Algo has nominated Gerrymatitix for Speaker of the
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House. Now, the only problem with this is that Gerrymatitix has still not completed his dissertation, and Rich and I have seen
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Gerrymatitix's organizational skills at work in 1993 in Denver, Colorado.
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Wow! Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That was... This summer, that'll be 30 years ago.
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Wow. 30 years ago. Do you thought the omnibus bill was bad?
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Imagine what Gerry would put together. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gerry is the single most disorganized person
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I've ever met in my life, so maybe that's who you need. I don't know.
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The whole thing's broken anyways, so who knows? Who cares?
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Anyway, on to serious things on the program today. I didn't mention this on the last program.
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It wasn't purposeful. Maybe it was allowing some time to pass.
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I didn't have any particular reasons why it went the direction I did. But, as everybody knows, in Rome today, there was a funeral for Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, etc, etc.
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Former head of the modern incarnation of the Inquisition.
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I mean, that's what it was. The doctrinal enforcer under John Paul II a notable theologian on the
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Roman Catholic side of things really stood out because he's he was
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German. All you have to do is look at the
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Roman Catholic Church today in Germany. It's basically in schism. It is, well,
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German rationalism, German liberalism. You know, despite the claims of our
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Roman Catholic friends, having a Pope does not protect you from liberalism. In fact, having a
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Pope like Francis can be absolutely fatal as far as liberalism is concerned.
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And we may see that with, you know, when
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Francis resigns, dies, takes a
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SpaceX launch to another planet, way things are going these days, who knows.
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He may well have laid the foundation for a continued lurch to the left in the
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Roman Catholic Church. It's hard to say what's going to be coming, but when you look at Ratzinger, you just have to to go, well, he was identified as a radical conservative, but you compare him to any
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Pope of the 19th century and he would be way to the left because after Vatican II, there was such an influx of,
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I know the old term was liberalism. I think that is a misleading term.
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We need to call it what it is, leftism. And he was infected by it as well, even though he fought against certain forms of subjectivism.
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Still, you can't come out of Germany and not be deeply influenced by the left.
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In exegesis, in philosophy, in everything. And so he was certainly hated by the left or left.
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He was called the Rottweiler, the German Shepherd, all these.
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And none of those, they didn't mean any of that. If any of you have Rottweilers, you love
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German Shepherds, you love you. It's not what they meant. But still, he was still to the left of where Rome had been not all that long ago.
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And so his passing. And of course, in fact, 600 years since a
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Pope had resigned. And that led to this strange
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Pope emeritus situation that was very odd.
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And it did lead you to the situation where you've got two popes and you know, they do not agree.
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You know, they're not saying the same thing. Now, he pretty much, pretty much not completely, but pretty much kept out of things.
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There were a couple of instances. But in comparison to Francis, he still looks extremely right wing.
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There's no no choice about it. So when the announcement came out sometime late last week,
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I think. That he was very sick, which is sort of similar to what happened when the queen passed away, you know, only a few hours earlier, they had been talking about her not being well.
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The responses have been fascinating. And how do we
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I think we need to we need to think about what the responses have been, because we are entering into.
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A time period. I've been talking about it coming for years. Where believing
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Roman Catholics and believing prophets Protestants. Whatever that term means any longer.
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Are being forced into a smaller and smaller social space. Simply by the explosion of secularism.
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And the. Willingness of the left.
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To seek to silence. Anything but its own voice. And that means that believing
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Protestants will be shoulder -to -shoulder. With believing
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Roman Catholics. When that happens, one of the things that.
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I know, you know, it's just necessary result of that is you. You realize how far away you are.
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From liberal Protestants, you you recognize that when you speak to your conservative
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Roman Catholic friend. You actually have a whole lot more foundational basis upon which to speak then.
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Then they have in talking to their their liberal Catholic friends and we have in talking to liberal
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Protestant friends and now to think on it. I don't know that I have a liberal
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Protestant friend and the reasons for that.
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I don't have a liberal Catholic friends either. And the reasons are that liberal conservative divide.
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Has to do with objective truth. No ability of Divine Revelation and everything that.
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Makes a worldview possible. We don't share. With a liberal a leftist anything and so.
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When we see that and especially for really conservative
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Bible believing Christians. Who have never had?
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Anything but a. External. Surface level in passing conversation with.
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Believing Roman Catholics. Knowledgeable believing Roman Catholics. Okay, not not.
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Not the 1950s style Catholic that, you know, really really believes what Father of Flannery says.
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But. Doesn't take it seriously and doesn't live in light of anything and doesn't do any reading or anything like that.
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I'm not talking about that type of person. I'm talking about the person who really knows what's going on the world.
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And as a Roman Catholic. Believes that the Roman Catholic system actually represents.
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The teaching of Christ Church down through 2 ,000 years. Maybe hasn't engaged all the issues.
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The Reformation or maybe has just simply accepted surface level responses that they are fed just as people on our side or fed surface level responses and don't do the reading and don't you know, there's lots of semi conservative
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Protestants that I as I say are paddling around the middle of the Tiber River. They they aren't willing to go over the other side, but it could happen.
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It's not a strong matter of conviction. They're certainly not trying to keep anybody from going over their side. They're certainly trying to trying to bring people across the river.
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And they're they're inconsistent. They're they're accepting certain things that Rome believes and certain things that that Luther taught or Calvin taught and it's a it's a mishmash and and some of them are actually happy.
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It's a mishmash. They don't they don't like being pressed to consistency. I certainly get that anyway.
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One of the things that was striking was to see the kind of responses there were to.
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The death of Joseph Ratzinger. However, we want to refer to him.
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In the sense of Pope emeritus and all the confusion that resulted out of that.
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You have on both sides. The the responses of.
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You know, you know, as long as from the Roman Catholic respects, as long as he's a pope, great man, let's start the beatification process or whatever.
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And then on the other side, you have the. Unthinking, well,
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Pope or Rome, therefore, he's the Antichrist and better off that he's dead type of response that, you know,
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I saw some people like that, too. And of course. Anybody who has, you know, you just compare
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John Paul the second with. With Ratzinger, with Francis.
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And you see major, major differences between them. They're very, very different individuals.
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And the reality is they had. Differences in theology and understanding of theology as well.
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But what has been really educational necessary for us to observe.
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Is how many? Ostensibly conservative.
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Bible believing Baptists, Presbyterians. Anglicans who have had a response that disconnects.
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The historical claims of the papacy from the expression of those historical claims in an individual such as Joseph Ratzinger.
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And so you had the one fellow with the Afro over in London, who's with the
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Anglicans. At least I thought he was with the Anglicans. I don't know. Maybe isn't. Yeah.
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You know, who is just. There are just a bunch of people. Who made it very, very clear that from their perspective, the issues of the
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Reformation are past. They're no longer relevant. They can be dismissed.
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And that an individual's. Relationship with God is not really defined by the things he claims for himself.
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What I mean by that is when you. When I think of the issue of the papacy.
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Okay. First of all, I think of epistemological claims. That's because of what
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I've done for many, many years in doing debates of the Roman Catholics, at least back during the
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John Paul the second years. The constant claim was well, we don't have the problems you all do.
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We don't have the divisions you all do because we have a Pope. Well. I knew that wasn't the case.
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I knew there were strong and clear divisions on fundamental and important issues.
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Despite having the Pope, the Pope. Rarely John Paul the second rarely engaged in any type of disciplinary stuff, though.
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I would guess he would be more likely to do so than Francis would and you just had you had from the
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Roman Catholic perspective this consistency because of how long John Paul the second was was
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Pope. And so we have this, you know, we can make reference to him and so on and so forth and Ratzinger sort of kept some of that when he became
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Pope. But then with Francis that all went up when you know, almost 10 years ago now went out the window.
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And that has caused some true existential. Angst. To thinking
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Roman Catholics because you you can sit here and say all you want that the differences between a
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Ratzinger and a Francis don't really make any difference. But the fact of the matter is.
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They do. And there are much smaller differences between the
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Protestant denominations that you all have been banging away on forever as the proof of the error of Sola Scriptura.
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So you can't just you can't have your cake and eat it eat it too. But. Many people including dr.
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Craig Carter. Now, this was what was interesting to me. Was.
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Dr. Carter has been one of the leading voices. In the resourcement of Thomas Aquinas.
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His. Promotion of the great tradition. Has had deep inroads amongst
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Reformed Baptists. Baptist schools are recommending his works and reading his works and he gave a series of lectures that I believe it was
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RTS. This past year. And.
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His doctoral work was done at a believing conservative Roman Catholic institution and.
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And. A lot of people go what that doesn't make it any difference whatsoever.
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Well, if what you're saying is you can do good scholarship anywhere.
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Okay. But why would you choose to do good scholarship anywhere?
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And then turn around and basically be saying to. What is supposed to be your?
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Community and fellowship. That they need to. Reconsider some of the attitudes they've had toward.
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The great tradition. I have quoted to you many times.
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Dr. Carter's definition of great tradition exegesis. And have pointed out this is.
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This is a Roman Catholic definition. This is Roman Catholic language. And Dr.
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Carter is well aware of that fact. Because the very next paragraph that. Is found in his book.
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Shows that he was well aware of that. There isn't any question about it. And his response to Ratzinger's death shows that he does not believe.
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And in fact, I don't know how you could believe in. And say the things that he does that the gospel.
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Is a part of what defines the Christian faith.
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In the sense of what has been delivered to the Saints. And I've said to this audience more than once and I I'll have to say it again.
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And and say it with sadness. If you are amongst those that believe.
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That. This. Is sufficient to define the
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Christian faith. In all contexts. At all times.
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Even in the modern day. If you believe that you're in a small minority, you're in a small minority.
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The majority of those who call themselves Christians today. Do not believe that they do not believe that this is enough.
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There needs to be. A lot of stuff after this and maybe, you know, it can be in the form of.
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Inspired insights. It can be in the form of the development of tradition under the leadership of the
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Holy Spirit. There's lots of ways. That that people will find.
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To continue to say, I believe this is the word of God, but I don't believe it's enough.
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And what's behind that in the vast majority of schools of whatever stripe today, what's behind that is a fundamental lack of confidence.
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That there is a consistency in the scriptures. There's also a lack of confidence in the authors of scripture of the scriptures.
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Despite Jesus teaching on the subject. There is an embarrassment.
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That's the only way to put it. There is an embarrassment. On the part of many academics when they are forced to.
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Utilize the language of scripture. And the authors of scripture.
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These are ancient men. And they were not. Philosophically trained.
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And they do not address the things that we. We really think they needed to address.
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And so it's a good starting place, but we need something more than that. And that that's the that's the mindset.
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That's the idea of a large portion of the Academy. In their more honest moments.
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They will have to admit that there is an embarrassment. At the simple faith.
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Of. Shepherd prophets. You know, some of the minor prophets.
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The language they used a mark. I mean, that's just. Mark doesn't really use the floweriest language and.
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You know, there's just a lot better Greek out there, you know, than Mark and there's there's this embarrassment.
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On their part. And so once they get there, then you can understand why they would then start looking for something outside of this to supplement and to sort of bring it up to date.
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And you find that in. The great, you know, great tradition exegesis and.
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All the traditional forms that you can then bring in to supplement and build up and make a little bit more understandable.
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Not understandable, acceptable within within the Academy. So anyway, some of the recent responses have caused a lot of people.
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To go, where are we standing any longer in regards to the relationship?
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Between Protestants and Roman Catholics. It's almost like there has been a major shift that no one wanted to talk about and then something like this happens and it shines a light on it.
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Sort of like people have been inching over like this and light hits and it's like.
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I wonder if they'll notice that I'm six inches farther over than I used to be and the light goes off for a while and this kind of movement.
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And sometimes that sometimes that doesn't have to be purposeful. Like I said,
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I think there's a lot of pressure in our society right now. And I think a lot of Christians on both sides of the aisle.
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Are sitting there going. Man, the world really hates anybody who believes in objective truth anymore.
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And since that's the case. Wow. We sort of need to keep our friends close.
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You know, and and when I see myself agreeing so often. With Roman Catholics on this stuff that I'm really not sure that Reformation stuff was really all that important.
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And join that together with what
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I posted yesterday on Twitter from Matthew Barrett a nine hundred and fifty page book.
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On the reconsideration of the Reformation and I predicted at the time what that would involve.
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I'm not sure that it. Will even show up on this. But I made a prediction.
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And yeah, no, it won't show up. It's one of the many I can't decrypt that things.
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Of what I expected. Dr. Barrett's book to be about and what it should was probably going to say and and why it was using the language that it was that was using.
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And I'm scrolling to see if I can find it real quick. I wasn't going to necessarily talk about this, but it is very, very relevant because it fits into.
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You know, a lot of people here it is. The title is the
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Reformation as Renewal. Retrieving the one
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Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and intellectual and theological history. That is one heck of a title and Craig Carter had said of it.
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Not many books change our perception of a whole field of academic study. This one will change how the
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Reformation is perceived in highly significant ways. And my my first comment was who could have seen that coming that that there you would want to change the perception of the
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Reformation in highly significant who who could have seen that? Well, yeah. And so I posted that on.
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On Twitter and basically point out, well. In all probability, what this is going to be is it's going to be.
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Saying that the the core doctrines of God. Did not change.
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And there was overreaction on both sides, there was. Overcorrection on both sides that Trent was an overreaction to the
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Reformation and the Reformation was overreaction to abuses within Roman Catholicism and we need to.
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Basically recognize that while those important those issues were important, they were not actually truly definitional.
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And so we we need to get back to appreciating the one holy Catholic apostolic church.
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Now. Of course, I just watch Baptists doing this and chuckle.
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This morning, I think it was Matt LePage. I think it was him. Somebody had a this day in history thing.
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Where was it? Grable. I think maybe today was the day that Conrad Grable was martyred in 1527.
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And I posted a picture that I took on the bridge in Zurich in 2015.
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Where they gave Anabaptists their third baptism. That is, they would tie them up and then they'd lower them into the water.
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And then pull them out and let them splutter. And then eventually just keep them down there long enough till they bubbled and they died.
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And this was done at Ed's Wingly's behest. And I just you know, when
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Baptists try to pretend that that they're going to somehow do the great tradition thing.
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I just go, okay. We obviously do history very, very, very differently from one another.
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And I just sort of chuckle at that point. But. Back to all this.
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The. The response. And of course, I didn't. Somebody else had to post it.
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Craig Carter's response because he blocked me. You may remember.
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He made a bunch of false statements about me saying I had said this that nothing about none of which is true. But he blocked me anyways.
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And so a lot of people are like. What's going on?
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Where really are we in this relationship with Roman Catholicism and how to view these things?
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A man died. And we must differentiate between he and his successor.
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And his predecessor and see their different theological emphases and all those things are. Important and proper.
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But the issue is the ignorance of the vast majority of Protestants as to the claims of the papacy itself.
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And we live in a day where the current Pope. Does not exemplify.
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The extensive claims that have been made for the papacy in the past.
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This isn't a Boniface. This isn't a innocent the third. This isn't a
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Leo the 10th. There's huge huge differences here. And when you look at.
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The claims that were being made at the time of the Reformation and afterwards all the way up through the 1870s.
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With papal infallibility. You have to understand that today.
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A lot of people just don't understand how fully extensive those claims on Rome's part really were and are because a lot of people are like, well, they may have been, you know, they may have been making these claims back then, but it's pretty obvious Francis doesn't believe that stuff.
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So how do I factor all that in for me?
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The thing that helps blow away some of the smoke and some of the emotion is true.
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Remember the official titles. The official titles of the Roman pontiff when you go to Rome.
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I've only been there once. No. Yes. Yeah, just once.
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I've only been there once. And. I offended a bunch of people.
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When having toured the Vatican my primary response in social media was now that was gaudy.
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Gaudy as in. How do you take the simple faith of Peter in the
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New Testament? And then turn it into this marble mausoleum. I mean, you know, we're literally popes are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
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Places to be buried and fancier and more expensive and there's gold and there's marble and there's just also, you know.
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How did that happen? Well, I won't go into that right now, but what struck me even at that time in the titles and I'm not talking about, you know,
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Pontifex Maximus. Yeah, you can point out that was the the titles, you know, it's pagan Rome and.
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All that's true. That's that is where it came from and it's where it was appropriated from and it never should have been and it's.
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Absurd. But there are three titles in particular that were not repudiated by Joseph Ratzinger or by Francis.
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Or by John Paul II and you must seriously consider what these titles mean.
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Where are the three titles? Holy Father. Altar Christus.
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And Vicar of Christ. Holy Father. Altar Christus and Vicar of Christ.
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Now, what? Why? Why those? Holy Father. I mean, many
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Roman Catholics just use that and it just flows off the tongue and there's no thought given to it. Okay. All right.
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But herein lies the problem. What should be our standard?
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To analyze. These types of titles sort of goes back here, right?
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And immediately, oh, you fundamentalist backwoods and vast majority of people just run out the door.
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Okay. See you later. See you later. But if I'm going to ask the question, are these titles pleasing in God's sight or are they condemned in God's sight?
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Do they bring God's wrath? There's only one safe place for me to go and it's not man's traditions.
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It's not my emotions either. Okay. Holy Father.
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Holy Father. That's a phrase that does appear in Scripture. On the lips of Jesus.
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Addressing God the Father. That's the only place that appears. It is a title of deity.
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And you might say, well, you know, it's just, you know, it's certain, you know, Papa and you know, it's just like father in regards to a priest or something like that, you know, and and we're just saying that he's, you know, particularly set up.
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You can say all those things you want. But again, the reality is that the phrase is found in Scripture and it is descriptive of God being used by the son of his father.
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This is the Son of God referring to the Father as Holy Father.
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I would you would you use the divine name of anyone? I hope not.
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Isn't that in the same category as Holy Father? I cannot imagine a person taking as a religious title a phrase they know is used by Jesus of the
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Father in prayer. I can't imagine it. Can't imagine it.
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And yet every Pope takes that title Holy Father. And they're called that all day long.
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Alter Christus is not a term limited to the
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Pope. But the Pope is a priest. And when the Pope was ordained honest
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Roman Catholic priests will admit as Mitch Pacwa did and we debated any many many moons ago is used in the ordination process of a priest as an
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Alter Christus. And again, all that means is
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I stand in his place. All that means is
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I'm fulfilling his ministry to which
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I have to again say with with respect and love.
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But when I examine that by this there is no priesthood established by the
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Apostles of Jesus Christ. There isn't. The distinction between Presbyteros and Episcopos not in here.
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That's what the Apostles taught. And remember I I asked
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Mitch Pacwa 23 years ago over 23 years ago now almost quarter of a century has passed when
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I asked him is there any word that Jesus ever spoke that is not recorded for us in scripture, but has been infallibly revealed by the
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Roman Catholic Church. No. Anything the Apostles spoke no.
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Okay. So there is no sacerdotal priesthood in the
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New Testament. There's not people whose souls are marked with a particular in a particular fashion so they can do particular things.
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And you have to in essence say that Christ did not leave his church with what he needed.
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It had to develop over time. If you say well, yeah, you know, yeah, okay.
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Most of our scholars would admit that that took a while to develop. Okay. But you combine that then with their own
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Catholic understanding of what the priest does especially sacramentally in the mass and you find that the term
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Alter Christus has much more weight to it than a mere title in ordination.
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But when you when you read the words of what was it O 'Brien? Yeah. I don't probably do could pull it out there.
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But when you read the words of O 'Brien I hit the there it is a let me see that's probably not going to pull it up fast enough.
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There was a prayer that repeated over and over again where O 'Brien talks about and I know
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I've saved it in Dropbox somewhere. Yeah, probably but I'm trying to remember what
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I would have called it. Let's see what what yes,
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I'll go remember the prayer so do I that's that's the problem is
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I do it's it would what would happen is if I did a full search for bowels his head that would pull it out of the old
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IRC things that that would that would do it fairly quickly.
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I imagine. Yeah. Yeah, there's lots of stuff pulling up here but not not what
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I'm gonna find. Anyway, it was the statement from I think O 'Brien and I think it was in the faith of millions talking about the the sanctity and power of the
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Roman Catholic priest. How at his command the Son of God bows his head and makes himself present upon upon the altar and there's there's no higher power and all the rest it clearly comes from ha when you hear the little thing there may be something coming across from and this one is from August 9th there it is.
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It is John O 'Brien. Okay. This is from well, I wrote this blog article 12 years ago.
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Here we go. Since I was making reference to it and you all have been so patient. Anyway, what you know
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Rush used to have the group of people that their only job was to remember things. Maybe that's what we should call a group of guys in the chats.
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All they all they do their job is to remember things. Well, I'm glad that we have them around because I don't remember things as well as I used to so since from 2010 just one of the articles like I said,
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John O 'Brien Faith in Millions page 2526. Thank you Chris for posting this and thank you to the app for working so that I can actually see the post when the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration.
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He reaches up into the heavens brings Christ down from his throne and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as a victim for the sins of man is a power greater than that of Saints and angels greater than that of seraphim and cherubim.
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Indeed is greater even the power of the Virgin Mary while the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became in current a single time the priest brings
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Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man not once but a thousand times the priest speaks and low
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Christ the eternal and Nipton God bows his head. That's what I was looking for in humble obedience to the priest's command of what sublime dignity is the office of the
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Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and vice -gerant of Christ on earth. He continues the essential ministry of Christ.
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He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ. He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which
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Christ offered on Calvary no wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of altar
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Christus where the priest is and should be another Christ. So, that is the voice of pre -Vatican to Roman Catholicism, I would say.
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But it's still what is believed by many and certainly is what was believed when
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Roman Catholic theology developed into the form that it currently has. And so, as I said,
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Joseph Ratzinger accepted Holy Father, altar
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Christus, and the third is Vicar of Christ. Vicar of Christ.
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And of course, vicar is one who takes the place of another and you saw that in what
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I just read but the question that should be asked is is there a
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Vicar of Christ in the New Testament? And the answer is most assuredly, yes.
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And it's not Peter. It's not a papacy. The Vicar of Christ by Jesus' own teaching in John 14 and 16 is the
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Holy Spirit of God. He is when Christ promises when he says is we will make our abode with you, speaking he and the
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Father. It's in the context of the promise of the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God according to John chapter 7 who is not yet given because Christ had to ascend back to the the
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Father before the Spirit could be given because the Spirit becomes the one by whom Christ is present with his people.
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He is the Vicar of Christ. So, even the current
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Pope allows himself to be addressed by and have titles attached to him of the
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Divine Trinity. Holy Father, Father. Altar of Jesus, the
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Son. Vicar of Christ, the Spirit applied to him. I cannot imagine how anyone who has read this as their ultimate authority could allow that to happen without immediately going like the angel when
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John John bows down in Revelation 19 to the angel. The angel says, don't do that.
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No, stop. That's the issue with the papacy.
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There are many, many, many issues. We can talk about the history. We can talk about the pornography and we can talk about military campaigns and we can talk about indulgences.
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We can talk about all sorts of things. We can talk about honorius and everything else.
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But the fact of the matter is the titles that are given to the
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Pope are blasphemous. I don't know how someone can sit down with this and come to a different conclusion.
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Unless you sit down with this and you put a big old honking lens over it that filters all that stuff out.
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Okay, then then I get it. I didn't see any of that.
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I didn't see any of that. To be honest with you, I didn't see any of that in the responses. And that should be where the focus is.
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The focus should be on that. And then the real question being, what about the gospel?
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What did this person believe about the gospel? And you will be able to find, you know, with the
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Pope, you're going to be able to find them saying all sorts of wonderful things about Jesus.
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Okay. And you'll find, you know, probably any day the
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Mormon prophet is going to die because he's older than dirt as every
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Mormon prophet from now on will be unless they finally wake up and realize, you know, this is not the best way to do things.
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It's just it is not what was intended to have the oldest cadre on the planet as as prophet all the time.
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He says all sorts of things about great about Jesus and governing members of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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They all sorts of wonderful things about Jesus and and saying wonderful things about Jesus is not the standard.
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I am sure that every one of the Judaizers in Galatia said wonderful things about Jesus. I wish it was just that.
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That'd be so nice. We wouldn't have to have any arguments and we could all just get along and we really wouldn't have anything to say to the world, but that'd be wonderful if we could do that.
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But it's not the standard. It's not the standard. What did they believe
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Jesus did? Did they believe as they stood behind that altar over and over and over and over again that they were representing the one sacrifice of Christ that was not perfecting anyone in front of them?
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Is that what they believe? That has to be the issue. All the rest of the stuff pales and into insignificance.
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That has to be the issue. That has to be the issue. But that's not what we were seeing in what took place.
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Went a little bit longer on that than I expected, but well, I won't say that than I expected because I did expect it would probably go well.
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A few things to close up the program today on another topic that it's a huge topic.
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And I'll just touch on it. Well, I don't know. It's only 2 53 in the afternoon. At least where I am.
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Was thinking this morning. I actually posted a little. I wrote a little article this morning as soon as I got up.
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And then I was also I saw something on Twitter that got me thinking about one of the things
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I tried to do and succeeded in doing with the Lord's help in writing the
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Forgotten Trinity was to write a book that was passionate about this divine truth.
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So many books on the Trinity are dry deep tomes of very particular theology that let's just be honest normally leave the average person the pew clueless and cold clueless and cold.
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I'm not clue. I'm not cold when I think about the Trinity. It's not some speculative doctrine out there that I just look at and well, we've decided that sort of definitional and no, like I said,
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I love the Trinity. That's how I started the book and a lot of people are like, yeah, you're right. I've never I've never said that.
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I've never even thought of saying that. Well, why not? Well, and that's how we got started in the conversation in the book.
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And one of the articles I wrote back in the back before CRI went by the way, someone sent me a link.
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I haven't even listened to it, but I guess in 2017, you didn't know about this in 2017 sometime after Hank's conversion.
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He went after me on the Bible Answering Broadcast. And what I found interesting like I said,
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I didn't bother to listen to it, but the guy who found it, you know, told me a little bit about it. But it was
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I don't know. It was not in response to my walking through the things he had said about solo scriptura and all the rest of that stuff.
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It was it was it wandered off some other direction. you know, all these all those years beforehand on the
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Bible Answering Broadcast where we were all on the same side.
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I had the freedom to write articles for the CRI Journal. And I really put some of my best effort into those articles.
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And one of them was called Beyond the Veil of Eternity. And it was on Philippians chapter 2.
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And still think it's a very, very useful article today.
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And one of the things I brought out in that article was the beauty of the fact that there are just a few places in divine scripture where the veil of eternity is is not pulled back fully.
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But there's an opening for us to get somewhat of a glimpse into the glories that we will see and gives us once in a while a little bit of a glimpse backward.
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And I've made the statement we don't deserve that. God doesn't have to do that for us. But since he's done it for us, we should be incredibly thankful.
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That we have treasures like that given to us as a gift of grace.
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And so when you think about the relationship of the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the
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Father, the Son, the Spirit, it is the highest level of holiness that we're dealing with.
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No creature any creature that would demand to have knowledge of the
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Holy Communion of Father, Son, and Spirit in eternity past is a creature that knows nothing of God's greatness or their smallness.
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That's for sure. And one of the things that makes me love the
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Trinity is when we see the interaction of the divine persons in scripture.
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Where do we see that? We see that in John 1. We see that in Colossians 1. We see that in Philippians chapter 2.
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We see that in Hebrews chapter 1. We see it in John chapter 17. Just a few places where we are given that privilege.
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And what that leads to is the danger of speculation, first of all.
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Because when you're only given so much information, then you want more. It's like when the Gnostics made up all the stupid stories about Jesus and his youth.
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Because we're only given this much information, and so you're given just a little bit. And so, if you're not reverent, if you're not willing to be restrained by God's own act of giving us only so much and not more, then you go off and you do all that kind of silliness.
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One of the doctrines that, especially amongst
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Reformed people, has struck a nerve of truth is called the
01:00:06
Eternal Covenant of Redemption, or the Pactum Salutis, for those who like Latin rather than plain old
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English. And it is in reference to the freedom exhibited by the
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Divine Persons in entering into the
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Covenant of Redemption and the roles that each of the Divine Persons would take, which are clearly different roles.
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That is, the Father does not do what the Son does. The Son does not do what the Spirit does.
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We are clearly shown in the page of Scripture, each one taking different roles, and we have to be very careful when we think upon this as to what we derive from that, because I think there's been there's been errors.
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If the Scripture doesn't make the application, then be very honest, you're simply talking about speculation here.
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Maybe we can see from this, this, but we can't be dogmatic about it. So I think one of the errors for years and years and years was when complementarians looked at what they thought they saw in the relationship of Father and Son and extrapolated from that to human experience and relationships of authority and submission and stuff like that.
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That's problematic. That's problematic. But at the same time, there is no question that we have, for example, in John chapter 17,
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Jesus recognizing the glorious state that was his in the presence of the
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Father and his expression, John 17 5, of his desire to return to that position of perfection.
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Glorify me with the glory which I had in your presence before the world was. So the
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Son was glorious in the presence of the Father. That means the Son recognized his distinction from the
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Father, which is why he knows to pray to the Father. He doesn't pray to himself. He doesn't pray to the
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Spirit. He prays to the Father. And there is a when you have terminology of, you know, the
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Father loves the Son, the Son does, always does what is pleasing to the Father. Sure, you can, if you want to try to limit all that to the incarnate state, you are free to do so if you wish, but it seems to go far beyond that.
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If we're to love God supremely, and that is the greatest commandment, then assuredly, the relationship of the divine persons is the very essence of the definition of love.
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But you don't love a mirror image of yourself. We know what that leads to.
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That's a problem today. There has to be a recognition of distinction.
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All within the reality that the one
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God being described in John chapter 17 is Yahweh. There's no question that the
01:04:08
New Testament writers identified Jesus as Yahweh. There is only one Yahweh. These are the boundaries of divine revelation and sound biblical theology that will edify the sheep of Christ, will take the form of the boundaries provided by Scripture.
01:04:35
Once you take that scriptural revelation and try to fit it within an externally derived system, you're going to change the shape of those boundaries.
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And that is going to fundamentally alter the relationship of those divine truths.
01:05:01
And I believe it's the task of the church down through the centuries to honestly evaluate herself today as she seeks to engage a secular society and recognize what forces are shaping our thoughts today.
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And how we emphasize certain aspects of the faith over other aspects of the faith because of where we are in history.
01:05:40
We need to know those things. But we also need to be able to look back and ask the question, has that happened in the past?
01:05:50
Have there been times when terms and language have come into our tradition that have become deeply entrenched that shouldn't have been there from the beginning?
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And as a result, there has been a well, normally a compression of the breadth of God's revelation.
01:06:16
Result of this is that there's a lot of people who just are really uncomfortable even talking about the Pactum Salutis. All of this to go back to a statement in the
01:06:29
London Baptist Confession of Faith. Here's what it says in paragraph 3 of chapter 7.
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This covenant is revealed in the gospel first of all to Adam and the promise of salvation by the sea of the woman and afterwards by farther steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the
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New Testament and it is founded in that, here it is, and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the father and the son about the redemption of the elect.
01:07:05
That's not in the Westminster, but it's in London Baptist Confession of Faith. It is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the father and the son about the redemption of the elect.
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The elect are not the father and the son. So there is a distinction there. But what does it mean that there is a transaction between the father and the son?
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Here's here's what I'm saying. If your fascination with Greek metaphysics forces you to eliminate such a thought as this, there's only one of two ways you can do that.
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Either go, that goes beyond scripture. There's nothing in here that substantiates that.
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Okay, just be honest. That is a worthwhile challenge to deal with or just admit that your metaphysical system is more important than the parameters of biblical theology.
01:08:15
Or biblical revelation. Just be open about it.
01:08:21
Just be straight up about it. Now, the phrase eternal covenant redemption does not appear in the page of scripture.
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So its validity is not established by the
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London Baptist Confession of Faith. Okay. Its validity has to be established in the same way as anything else.
01:08:45
And I say to you the validity of Aristotelian Greek metaphysical categories would have to be established on the same basis.
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And the other side doesn't even try at that point because they know they can't. And that's where natural theology comes flying in.
01:09:05
Try to fill in the gaps, even though that's not what natural theology actually is. But if you're a
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Reformed Baptist, you just might want to note that phraseology. What is the eternal covenant redemption?
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A transaction that was between the father and the son about the redemption of the elect. Because that that grounds the gospel in the eternal decree in an astonishingly clear and solid fashion.
01:09:38
And the question really has to be, okay, but where do you get that? And if you just simply go, well, it's in the confession, good enough for me.
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No. We need to you know, there's a number of there's a number of texts that are provided that will give you a start.
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But there's more to it than that. And certainly I I believe it's most definitely biblical.
01:10:06
But when you get into how you demonstrate that it shines a lot of light on certain conflicts that are taking place in our in our day.
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All right. Went 10 minutes over, but that's all right. Do we have a speaker of the house?
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Haven't heard anything. All right. Kevin Sorbo hasn't arrived because that Twitter has nominated me.
01:10:33
No. There is a very obvious reason why I cannot do that.
01:10:38
And that is because there is a rule in the house that you cannot wear coogies on the on the floor.
01:10:51
That is not the rule here. You may have tried to establish that rule, but you did not get the sufficient sufficient number of votes to override my veto.
01:11:06
So no, I didn't that that didn't work. anyway. All right.
01:11:11
Well, thank you so much for listening to the program today. Lord willing, we'll be back with you again next week.