Did the Father Forsake the Son, World View and Aristotle

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:01

Here we go, starting. Well, greetings and welcome to a road trip edition of The Dividing Line.

00:44

Here we are again. It looks really dark, actually. It's not dark. It's very windy, but I put the shades down a bit, basically because it was making me look really weird.

01:00

Who knows? Every time you set up, it's a little bit different. The sun's coming from a different angle.

01:06

It's really windy today. I'm in Las Vegas. I'll be heading up to Cedar City, Utah tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening.

01:15

I'm not sure where. It's, I think it's on Jason Wallace's Facebook page, but I'm speaking somewhere in Cedar City, Utah.

01:26

And I'm pretty sure I'm talking about the Trinity. I'm pretty sure. You always have to be prepared to rearrange if you need to.

01:37

It's actually a relatively short trip from here to Cedar City, so that's good.

01:44

But I was here last evening, spoke at Redeemer Community Church, which is where I spoke last time

01:50

I came through Vegas, and had a nice little group of folks, really primarily younger folks.

02:02

There was one guy over to my right that I figure is probably around my age. Most everybody, they're pregnant young ladies and lots of babies and sort of like apologia, lots of beards.

02:16

And it was exciting to be with everyone. It was a tough topic. And in fact,

02:22

I sort of surprised them because one of the elders had said, well, we'd love to have you talk about prayer.

02:28

We'd love to have talk about abortion. And so I talked about praying for the end of abortion in Las Vegas.

02:38

And then I did it out of 1 Kings 18 and 19. You'll have to track it down and see if you can figure out how in the world

02:47

I did that. But ended up being sort of a heavy topic. I'm not sure how these days you can talk about stuff like that.

03:02

I mean, I haven't seen all the video, but Jeff tells me that they were putting out, you saw the images of the aborted babies found in Washington, D .C.,

03:15

late term abortions. But they had actual video, not just the images we saw on Twitter.

03:22

But Jeff had the actual video and they played it on Apology Radio.

03:30

I think yesterday. And so as I said to them, I figured

03:35

Jeff would do a better job than I would on that particular subject, but I did my best. And it was really encouraging, like I said, to see young people who are very serious about the fact that they realize they have been called to a different time than I was called to as a younger man.

03:59

I look back at the 1980s and I wouldn't have said

04:05

I had it easy. We were poor and all sorts of stuff like that. Then again, I was raised very poor.

04:14

And honestly, as long as you don't live in a society that promotes being a victim, it's no big deal.

04:25

As long as you, I didn't have to shiver out in the cold and I always had enough food.

04:33

It wasn't always the food that I necessarily wanted, but that's the way it was.

04:38

As long as you don't have people constantly telling you that you need to be really, really angry because you need to be a victim, it's not that big of a deal.

04:50

Anyway, they are gonna be facing a very different world than I did at their age. And so it was very, very encouraging to me to be able to be of encouragement to them.

05:02

And one young man said, man, that was real heart -check, I really needed that. I really needed that.

05:08

And if there's just a few people that I can encourage in however many trips like this we have left, who knows?

05:20

There are very obviously people in positions of power that want to make this kind of thing impossible to do.

05:30

You just need to, the World Economic Forum wants you living in a box, eating bugs, and not having children.

05:42

That's the World Economic Forum view of the future. Is the elites live in the mansions and they have whatever they want, and the rest of us live in boxes and eat bugs and don't have children.

05:56

And live lonely lives of service to the elites. That's where things are going.

06:03

We literally have enslavers. The slavers are back, they're back. And the amazing thing is they're being supported by and promoted by all sorts of minorities.

06:15

Just the world is an amazing place. Anyway, that's what we were doing last night.

06:21

And like I said, heading up to Cedar City tomorrow, and then straight from Cedar City to Salt Lake City.

06:28

And you can look at Wade Orsini's Facebook page. It's on our calendar too, for what's gonna be going on up there.

06:38

First thing is Friday night, and then really busy day on Sunday, and then we've got a bunch of stuff the week after that, and then heading up to Moscow.

06:51

And a lot of what we're doing in Moscow is not public. There's gonna be a lot of recording of video for future dissemination and things like that.

06:59

But I will be preaching at the downtown location of Christ Church on Sunday.

07:05

That's my understanding. And so yeah, it's gonna be,

07:11

I'm just simply, I said to my wife as I was leaving, now every time

07:18

I head out, I could be doing this 10 years from now, or the trips we have for this year could be it.

07:28

I don't know. And so the best attitude I can have is be really, really thankful for every opportunity, every opportunity to speak in churches and to do this, to do road trip dividing lines.

07:46

I think it's awesome that we're able to do this. Believe you me, this would not be working if I was using the campground

07:57

Wi -Fi. It's just bad, bad. I have discovered it doesn't matter which campground, honestly.

08:04

And I know the KOA folks try, but no, no, this would be, if there was any video, it would be 640 by 480, 10 frames per second, something like that.

08:17

It'd be really, really, really bad. But no, since I was here last time, my phone tells me that I now have 5G ultra wide.

08:30

So last night, we were actually outside last night, and there was a cell tower.

08:39

I mean, just right there. And I'm sort of like, well, we're gonna be well irradiated by the time we get done this evening, because I mean, it was right there.

08:50

Anyhow, so let's get to it. This was not the troublemaker from Texas, who's quite busy with his own stuff.

08:59

Oh, by the way, this is my, I love this cross that I got at the

09:05

KOA in Santa Fe. It's, I'm not sure how to describe what it's made of, but it's a,

09:12

I don't even know how to describe it. It's a super lightweight, high temperature fired type thing.

09:20

I don't know. But anyways, don't worry. I don't leave it up there while traveling. Wouldn't stay there.

09:25

And then I got the, I have the John Calvin quote up there that just fits there perfectly.

09:33

I didn't have to put any nails up, glue or anything else. It ain't moving. So it's like, I'm gonna leave it there.

09:40

And then of course, there's Ultraman over there. Now, I haven't seen an Ultraman episode since I was probably seven, but Chris Honholtz gave me that Ultraman.

09:51

And so given that I have discovered that during the month of December, Chris develops a tick every time

10:02

Amazon shows up at his door, because he's afraid he's gonna open the door and find a full -size cutout of Buddy the

10:09

Elf standing on his porch, of which he has like 12 already. I just sort of felt,

10:15

I have a slight, it's very slight feeling of guilt that I've had a little bit to do with.

10:23

It's very small. But Chris gave me Ultraman. And so I've kept

10:30

Ultraman with me. He's now been traveling around the United States. He's one of the best traveled Ultramen, Ultramans?

10:37

I don't know. But I just decided to keep him in here. And every once in a while,

10:43

I'll send a picture of him to Chris and say, I'm stuck in Las Vegas now. Stuff like that. Just, you know,

10:49

Chris came by and his family came by and we had dinner here and stuff like that when it was really nice and clean. It's currently not the moment, but the camera's not facing that way.

10:58

So who cares, right? There you go. All right. So it's not the troublemaker in Texas, but I guess we'll say the troublemaker in Phoenix sent me a link.

11:11

Well, not a link, but just a citation from an article that was posted by Dan Wallace.

11:20

Now I had seen, I think I saw something related to this where Dan was talking about what year he feels

11:31

Jesus was crucified in, whether it was 30 or 33. And if it was 30, then the crucifixion would have been on such and such a date if it was 33, it would be such and such a date,

11:41

April 3rd, specifically, if it was in AD 33. And I had just read that with interest in passing.

11:49

Now you gotta understand, I love Dan Wallace. We've known each other for a long, long time.

11:55

We had a blast together taking a trip to Phoenix. We were taking on the King James Only guys in 1995 on the

12:02

John Ankerberg show, and you can still go back and catch those episodes. And I thought we did a pretty good job together in dealing with those guys.

12:13

In the background, because it was a few years after that, in fact,

12:21

I watched a discussion that Dan gave about the sickness that he had and how he's had to relearn

12:26

Greek three times in his life. And, well, learn Greek three times, not relearn.

12:32

Relearn twice, learn once. Anyway, I stayed in contact with Dan.

12:38

I don't know if he even remembers this because, I mean, he really, he had, even at the time, they didn't really know what it was.

12:45

They were talking about Lyme's disease and there were all sorts of things, but we stayed in contact and we talked on the phone.

12:51

And I don't, like I said, I don't know if he remembers this, but I tried to be a good friend to him during that period of time.

12:59

And he did write a real nice commendation for the Potters' Freedom. And we still, we'll exchange pleasantries once in a while, just chat with each other.

13:11

But we don't agree on everything, obviously. And Dan doesn't require you to agree on everything with him, thankfully, as I try not to as well.

13:20

Obviously, I get along with people that I have disagreements with. Anyway, I'm gonna be disagreeing with Dan, but hopefully it'll be interesting to folks in the process to see this.

13:33

But in Facebook on April 3rd, he posted the following. Today is

13:39

April 3rd, the day I believe Jesus Christ was crucified. Good Friday in AD 33. What did he accomplish on the cross?

13:46

His death was nothing less than receiving the penalty for sin bodily and spiritually that was due to every man, woman, and child.

13:53

So obviously there's a universalistic perspective there that I would not agree with. And he did say in an email to me that I almost convinced him of particular redemption, but evidently he didn't.

14:05

In his death, he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Father did indeed forsake the

14:11

Son. Many today would argue that no, God did not forsake his Son, but many passages just say this.

14:17

They were one in purpose. Jesus obediently went to the cross and God demonstrated his love for us now in what

14:24

Jesus did then. But make no mistake, the entire Trinity suffered at the death of Christ.

14:30

Now, I didn't see it, but I have been told again by the total maker in Phoenix that this prompted a fair amount of discussion amongst certain groups of people today.

14:46

And I might say, I'm not sure, but I might say, just in passing, that some of these people, whenever you talk about the

15:02

Father, the Son, the Spirit, they become uncomfortable in the sense that it just seems for some people to be able to be as plain and open about the relationship of the divine persons in light of other commitments that they have.

15:35

Whatever we do as a doctrine of the Trinity, we cannot do less than the

15:42

New Testament does. And there is a danger, obviously, that later developments could be less than biblical, could be less than doing justice to the biblical revelation of what takes place.

16:05

One of the articles I wrote years and years ago, Beyond the Veil of Eternity for the CRI Journal on Philippians 2, which, by the way,

16:12

I've told the story before, Dan and I stood at the NET desk. The one time

16:17

I went to the ETS meeting, it was in Florida. It's normally in Florida. Not always, but normally.

16:25

The one time that I went, we stood there for an hour debating the meaning of the

16:31

Cardinal and Christy, which we also had disagreements on. But on the basis of the

16:37

Greek text, but neither one of us had a Greek New Testament with us. It was just, we had both been doing so much work on it that it was just, it was a great conference.

16:44

There were two highlights of my trip there, and that was one of the two.

16:51

The rest of them were pretty much lowlights, which is why I've never been back. But anyway, so it does seem as some people struggle with the fact that there are key texts,

17:04

Philippians 2, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, John 1, John 17, John 8, just going through a list in your mind, where you have some of the most amazing revelation of the relationship of the

17:23

Father and Son and self, which actually gives us a glimpse into eternity. And if your philosophical pre -commitments require you to water down the depth of that interaction and the reality of that interaction, you need different theological and philosophical pre -commitments, is what

17:45

I would say. Anyway, so turning to what Dan said here, most people know, even though,

17:56

I don't know that I removed it from being a footnote and brought it into the text in the last edition of the

18:02

Forgotten Trinity or not. I know I thought about doing it, maybe that's why I'm wondering whether I did or didn't, but minimally in a footnote in the

18:12

Forgotten Trinity, and if not, in the second edition in the main text, I addressed this issue.

18:20

And that's what he's talking about when he says, the Father did indeed forsake the

18:25

Son. Many today would argue that no, God did not forsake His Son. I would be one of those that would say, well, any meaningful exegetical approach to the use of Eloi, Elai, Lama, Sabachthani in, on the cross by Jesus, has to begin with the recognition and citation of Psalm 22 .1.

18:52

And so, instead of starting with, well, he says, why have you forsaken me?

19:00

Therefore, there is a forsaking going on. It's just necessary when an

19:07

Old Testament text is being cited that you recognize what the original context was and what the application of it is being, what the application is intended to mean in the context that you're dealing with.

19:23

So, I wanna look at that and, you know, we're in the quote unquote

19:33

Easter season. I'm gonna miss it. I'm really sad that I'm gonna be missing the

19:38

Easter pageant out in Mesa, Arizona. I certainly would have been out there if I were there, but I'm not.

19:46

And Paula G is gonna be out there doing her thing. And so, it's that time of the year.

19:53

So, and if you've watched any of the debates that I've done with Muslims, you know that this text,

20:02

Matthew 15, and the other citations and the other synoptic gospels, where you find this language being used, very favorite texts of our

20:13

Muslim friends. So, I think it's important to know what's going on here.

20:21

And if you've already heard my responses, well, maybe you can fast forward past this, though I'm gonna be looking at some textual issues as well.

20:29

So, you might find that to be of some interest to you. So, looking at Matthew chapter 15,

20:37

I'm sorry, Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 27. And I'm gonna go ahead and try to do the screen sharing thing and hope this works for, oh,

20:52

I can't do it because the host disabled participants screen sharing. So, I cannot share my screen with you.

20:59

Um, so maybe that will get fixed.

21:06

Should have tested this beforehand, I suppose. That was a change.

21:12

Now there is something right in front of my face. That looks interesting.

21:20

Hi, there, okay, now, okay. I don't know what's going on now.

21:25

Let's do this for a second while I try to fix this. And you just keep talking because they can hear you. Uh -huh,

21:31

I gotcha, all right, well. So, I don't have anything to talk about because I need to screen share.

21:39

So, I don't know what I can tell you about the people walking by outside.

21:46

I can complain about the fact that the gravel that I use here at the KOA is way too small, it's too fine. And it ends up getting stuck in the bottom of your shoe and you end up dragging it in, no matter what you try to do.

21:58

And then it pops off your shoe and you step on it with bare feet and it's really not a whole lot of fun.

22:03

So, just first world problems that we have there. And so, that's about all

22:12

I've got there and I still don't have screen sharing here yet.

22:23

So, I can start singing. I'll start singing John Denver. Some of you don't remember that that was a big threat back in our radio days, is when

22:32

Brother Warren was helping us with the radio program,

22:38

I would tell people that Brother Warren was gonna start singing John Denver songs if we didn't have callers.

22:43

Okay, try it now. There you go, thank you.

22:50

Gotta make sure that the default on that needs to be changed or something, I don't know. So, that that's just automatic.

22:58

Okay, so here is our text. At least, hopefully, you're seeing the text.

23:08

And 1 Corinthians 15, 27, and they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.

23:16

And then there is an interesting textual variant. You'll notice in verse 28, and I am, by the way, you will notice that the text on the left side of the screen is the

23:26

LSB. I have mentioned that I'm using the legacy standard

23:33

Bible now. And so that's what's displayed there on the left -hand side of the screen.

23:39

And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and he was numbered with transgressors, but notice there is a single bracket around the verse, and over here in the

23:49

Greek, it's not there. Well, it's not in the main text of the

23:54

Nestle 28th edition, but it is, that's the indication right there of its insertion in other manuscripts.

24:04

And you can see that right here, verse 28. And it was fulfilled.

24:11

Hey, Graphe, hey, Legosa, Chimeta, Anamone, Elagiste. And so here, right here are the texts that contain verse 28.

24:25

You will notice it is the majority text reading right here. That's always what that majority text sign indicates.

24:32

But you'll notice KLP, Gamma, Delta, Theta, Families 1 and 13, so on and so forth,

24:43

Lectionaries, Latin, Vulgate, versions of the

24:48

Syriac, but not all. That's very clearly a Byzantine reading.

24:54

Now, I mentioned that because I might, if I have time, do a little talking about a

25:01

King James Only video that was sent to me yesterday. I haven't really had time to go through all of it, but I might respond to its assertion that there are two lines of manuscripts.

25:16

This shows you that's not the case. Why? Well, you would think, well, this is a good line, this is a bad line.

25:23

You've got Sinaiticus, you've got Alexandrinus, but Alexandrinus is actually very often with the

25:30

Byzantine in the Gospels. Psi can be as well, and notice the parts of the

25:38

Syriac do not contain this verse, and part of the

25:43

Boheric and the Sihitic does not, and that means those translations were done for manuscripts that didn't have it. So the point is the idea that there is this split, this division between the two just simply doesn't make any sense, and it does not hold up to any type of meaningful examination of example after example.

26:03

The point being that Luke 2237 is cited, it's, of course, a quotation from Isaiah 53, 12, but Luke 2237 is cited as a possible source or origin of this particular reading coming into Mark, between Mark 15, 27, and 29, because certainly these are the earliest manuscripts we have, and it does not contain it, though these manuscripts would have it at Luke 2237.

26:36

So again, the people that say, well, heretics were trying to get rid of a certain doctrinal belief, it's just not consistent.

26:45

If they're trying to get rid of it, they wouldn't have it at Luke 2237 either, but they do. So, well, they're trying to get fewer references because it's absurd, it doesn't work that way.

26:58

So anyway, here's Mark 15, 27. Those passing by were blaspheming him, shaking their heads, and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.

27:10

Isn't it interesting that that particular quotation is primarily given to us in its fullness in John?

27:18

Not in the Synoptic Gospels. It's one of those interesting historical crossovers between the

27:25

Synoptics and John. The same way, mocking him to another chief priest also, along with the scribes, are saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself.

27:33

Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him were also insulting him.

27:41

Obviously, we could have lots of commentary on the fact that, of course, they're saying they would have believed, but, of course, they would not have.

27:52

In the sixth hour came darkness throughout the whole land until the ninth hour. This is Roman timing they're using here. In the ninth hour,

27:58

Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and here it is, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my

28:04

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the response is, when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, look, he is calling for Elijah.

28:14

Now, it's always, it's interesting to think about why would bystanders have not recognized this is from Psalm 22?

28:32

But, I mean, you see, Eloi, Eloi, it's quite possible it would have been very difficult for people to understand what

28:40

Jesus was saying. When you're gasping for breath, your enunciation is not overly clear. They're a good distance away from.

28:46

There's various reasons. Could have simply been eschatological thinking about Elijah, things like that.

28:55

But we know because both the Legacy Standard Bible puts it all in caps.

29:03

The Nesoddam 28th edition has it in italics. This is your way of indicating a citation from the

29:14

Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And it is the fact that it is the opening phraseology.

29:26

It's not found buried in a Psalm someplace. It is the beginning of arguably, but not overly arguably, the most messianic

29:40

Psalm in the entirety of the Psalter. The specificity of the language in Psalm 22, the fulfillment of elements of Psalm 22 that are found in all of the

30:03

Gospels. But Matthew especially focuses in upon this as well.

30:14

But Psalm 22 is about the crucifixion, but it's also about the vindication of this suffering servant as well.

30:26

Psalm 22 ends with the vindication of this servant.

30:33

And so here we are at the point in this is when

30:47

Jesus prayed in the garden and sweat as it were drops of blood.

30:53

That does not mean the atonement started in the garden, unless you're a follower of Joseph Smith, who was a very confused man.

31:10

The depth of agony of soul that is represented in Jesus's repeated prayers is not a fear of the pain of crucifixion, the pain of the whipping, the pain of the beating.

31:30

The depth of the passion has to do with the giving of his perfect life, being made sin so we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

31:44

The sinless one bearing the just wrath of his own law so that those who are joined to him would have justification in eternal life.

32:03

So when we talk about this and someone says, yeah, right there, that's when the father forsakes the son.

32:18

Well, this is the son's point of ultimate obedience. No matter how you, and remember that the seven words from the cross, you've probably heard that terminology.

32:34

That's artificial in the sense that what it's doing is it's collecting the gospels together and putting them all together and then figuring out what order they may have been spoken in.

32:49

But no one gospel gives all seven. You have very shortly after this, seemingly within minutes, if you compare the gospels,

33:08

Jesus says, father into your hands, I commit my spirit. So if there was a forsaking, it didn't last very long.

33:19

And it does not leave any evidence in the words of Jesus other than his citation of Psalm 22.

33:29

It seems much more likely in light of the fact that this is the point of the son's greatest obedience to the father.

33:41

This is what the father sent the son to do. This is what the son is lovingly doing. And it's just makes so much more sense, especially since this idea of forsaking is not picked up anywhere else.

33:57

I realized someone might try to maybe glom on to a textual variant in Hebrews two to try to say otherwise, but that's an extremely weak variant.

34:11

And even if it was, it's not developed. Where else in the New Testament do we get this idea that the father forsook the son?

34:18

This is the only place, this is the only place. So if especially in those texts that are discussing what happens to the cross, if it's not picked up, it's mighty strange that there isn't any discussion of these things.

34:40

Instead, it was a normative process or a normative practice,

34:45

I'm sorry, to quote the beginning of a song. Jesus is hanging on a cross, he can't quote the whole thing.

34:55

But as I've said many times, all I have to say, all I have to do is go, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

35:03

Do I have to quote all the verses? Of the rest of that hymn for you to call it to mind?

35:11

No. And remembering that the Psalms are, of course, the hymn book of the church, then that's all

35:22

Jesus has to do is quote from Psalm 22 and say that there is, because what came right before this?

35:33

The mockery of even the high priests. I'm sorry, the priests. Let him come down to the cross and we'll believe in him.

35:43

And so when Jesus quotes from Psalm 22 that they claim to know so well, how does it end?

35:50

With the vindication of the one who has suffered, which they should be able to see is the

35:57

Messiah right in front of them, but they don't see it. And that not only is a vindication of him, it's a condemnation of them.

36:08

And so, again, I appreciate,

36:14

I can understand many who take this perspective and who insist that what's going on here, there's some type of, not so much an ontological separation, but some type of a soteriological application of separation between the

36:36

Father and the Son. I just don't believe that the text substantiates that. They were one in purpose.

36:45

Jesus would be in the cross and God demonstrated his love for us now in what Jesus Christ did then.

36:53

But make no mistake, the entire Trinity suffered at the death of Christ. That's sort of dangerous language to use if you don't clearly explicate and explain what it is, what you suffered in what way.

37:13

Because, again, we have to come up with a term for this.

37:19

There are some who are struggling to even confess the biblical teaching that the

37:29

Son does things and the Father does not, or the Father does things and the Son does not, or the Spirit does things and the

37:34

Father and the Son do not, so that all they can say is, well, one, the language doesn't even work.

37:51

And maybe they would say, well, that's because our language is just too limited. But the fact that Father, Son, Spirit take different roles,

37:58

I didn't know anybody was uncomfortable with that until, well, I knew the one that Pentecostals were, but Orthodox Trinitarians didn't know if anyone would be uncomfortable with that.

38:10

It's certainly historically Orthodox, but more importantly, it is plainly biblical.

38:17

And obviously the role of the Son as the suffering servant is very, very different than the role of the

38:29

Father as righteous judge. And so was the crucifixion

38:39

Trinitarian? Yes, but what does it mean to say the entire

38:47

Trinity suffered the death of Christ? If all you're saying is the Father and the

38:53

Spirit are not somehow completely separated and distant from the suffering of the

39:04

Son, okay, but there's still a difference. There needs to be,

39:12

I think, an acknowledgement of a fundamental difference in how each of the divine persons would be experiencing this.

39:21

And of course, we're talking about something in time. That's one of the main problems right there is we're talking about a temporal action.

39:34

And again, certain philosophical systems don't want to allow

39:39

God to have any actions in time. So they struggle along those lines.

39:49

So with all brotherly love and respect for Dan Wallace, I disagree, and I think

39:56

I can make a pretty strong case from really how we handle almost any

40:02

Old Testament citation, but especially in this narrative utilization, how it would have been understood and what it would have meant in that particular context.

40:14

So there you go. Okay, so after our last program, man, the ice just disappears in these things.

40:24

You don't have them in those, in my cold bottle thermoses, they just disappear.

40:33

It results in it being all watered down. I don't know. I don't know. I'm the one that grabbed the standard red plastic cup rather than taking the time to get my nice cold thingamabobbies going on.

40:51

My fault. Okay, after the last program, an incident took place that had some repercussions over the weekend.

41:01

I didn't want to spend much time in it, didn't want to see any of that happen, but for many months now, when

41:16

I would address particular topics on this program, especially when

41:21

I would address issues relating to natural theology, natural revelation, the role of philosophy in the construction of confessions, the relationship of sola scriptura and the ultimate authority of scripture and the nature of scripture as the anus das versus historical manifestations of inferior views of this subject.

41:51

And especially as I have addressed the issue of divine simplicity, the extended assertion of the ad intra, ad extra distinctions regarding the attributes of God and Aristotle and Aquinas and all the rest of that kind of stuff, what would happen is sometimes within just a matter of hours you'd start getting sub -tweeting from a particular group of people,

42:22

Reformed Baptists primarily, some Southern Baptists. And it would rarely quote me, but would be making reference to me.

42:36

And sometimes it would happen if, especially if Jeffrey Johnson would post something, others who would post things, you'd get this sub -tweeting going on, where instead of quoting someone or saying such and such a person said this, and I disagree and here's why, you get these arguments that allow you to say, who, me?

43:05

I didn't say anything about that.

43:12

It can be funny at first, but after a few weeks of it, it's not funny anymore, even though those doing it seem to think that it continues to be very, very funny.

43:26

And so whenever I talk about any of these things, you'd get this stuff. And it's been going on for months and people would contact me and they'd send me something, they'd go, what's going on?

43:36

I thought y 'all were buds. And I'm like, yeah, I thought so too, but evidently not.

43:42

And my response over and over again has been, this wouldn't have happened in the 90s when

43:50

I preached for that guy. This wouldn't have happened in the 2000s when I taught at that guy's school.

43:57

But now here we are in 2022 and everything's changed.

44:05

And it's just all because of COVID, I guess. Anyway, so this has been going on for a very, very long time.

44:13

So you'll recall the last program, I read from Dr. Waldron's article and I focused on one of the five areas that he expressed concerns about.

44:25

And I had focused on Sola Scriptura and confessions and really asking questions.

44:38

Like if you can't even raise the question as to whether the writers of a confession were even focused upon a particular area.

45:02

Because see, I recognize, I've recognized for a long time, when you look at any ancient confession, any ancient creed, when you look at Nicaea, when you look at Chalcedon, there are certain things they were focused upon.

45:18

And I've known, I do teach church history and have since 1990.

45:27

So 32 years, which is, I've taught church history longer than some of my critics have been alive.

45:36

And I know that, and I learned at Fuller Theological Seminary that I can have deep appreciation for the

45:47

Chalcedonian definition and the hypostatic union and reject

45:53

Utopianism and Nestorianism and Apollinarianism and Neopollinarianism and all that neat, fine, wonderful, fun stuff.

46:02

But I know that I don't accept what Chalcedon said about a bunch of other things because they didn't just do that creedal statement.

46:13

They also had canons and decrees. Council of Nicaea had canons and decrees, which are very interesting. The sixth canon demonstrates that there was no concept of papal supremacy at the time of the

46:23

Council of Nicaea. The Council of Nicaea demonstrates there was no concept of papal supremacy at that point in history.

46:30

So I'm well aware of these things. And so I'm perfectly comfortable with interpreting church history and saying this council got this right, but it didn't get this, this and this right because that wasn't its focus.

46:47

These sub articles, these canons and other things weren't what people were talking about at that point in time, that they weren't what the focus of the council was.

47:01

And so I can look at the big thing and go, yeah, that's right. And then look at these other things and go, that's right, that's wrong.

47:09

That's right, man, I don't know. Because those sub things, that's not what they were focused upon.

47:18

If that's the case with ancient church history, it's the case with modern or more modern church history.

47:25

And so I can look at any confession of faith, Westminster, London, I can look at the three forms of unity.

47:33

I can look at Savoy, I can look at all this stuff and realize there were historical contexts that decided this was the central focus of what they were dealing with.

47:52

And that means stuff over here wasn't really the focus of everything. And so can we look later on at this stuff over here and go, okay, since that's really not what their attention was, it sort of looks like they have imbibed tradition at this point.

48:12

Shouldn't we, if we're consistent, be able to analyze that tradition? And doesn't that mean there needs to be a meaningful understanding of Semper Reformanda?

48:30

Wouldn't, isn't it fair to say that the framers of Lombard's confession of faith were primarily focused upon the issues of their day, which was a continuing counter -reformation.

48:46

Counter -reformation wasn't done. So Rome remains, by explicit statement, one of the key issues in the confession that defines some of the terminologies being used, especially in the section on the

49:06

Lord's Supper, you have specific denunciation of the mass. The idea of a perpetuatory sacraments is specifically said, no, this is not what we're saying.

49:15

We are reacting against that. But let's be honest, what's the point of that? Primary thing, the primary thing for the framers of the

49:23

London Baptist Confession is we have, in recent memory, been martyrs, martyrs as Baptists.

49:36

And it's only been 150 years since Munster.

49:44

And people still think that we really think

49:49

Jan Wyden was a cool dude. And we don't, and that's not where we came from.

49:56

And we are Orthodox in our understanding of election and predestination and the atonement and the inspiration of scripture and all these things, but we're focused on ecclesiology and baptism, the ordinances of the church, sacraments of the church.

50:26

That means there's a lot of Christian theology that was not the burning issue of their day.

50:34

It was not that which they were specifically seeking to say, we're not that, or we're not this, or we're putting a special effort into making sure that all the language we're using here is exactly this and exactly that.

50:48

So it almost seems to me that for some folks, if you're going to hold to a confession, you have to believe it's infallible.

50:55

In fact, I heard about a discussion recently where people actually were defending the idea that confessions of faith can be infallible.

51:05

And I'm like, wow, okay. I do know people who believe that, but I ain't one of them.

51:12

You can have very accurate confessions of faith, but they will always, always, always be human attempts to summarize something that's much greater than can be summarized in a brevity of words, no matter how long you make it.

51:31

And so that was what

51:37

I was focused on last program. I'm sorry. So after the program was over, this was, this says

51:46

March 31st, Steve Meister from Sacramento, ministering up there in Babylon.

51:57

Well, maybe worse than Babylon. I mean, Sacramento, can you imagine? Some of the most evil people in the world

52:06

I can think of are in the state assembly in California. I mean, just given over to, we are going to try to corrupt as much of God's creation as we possibly can, as quickly as we can.

52:19

Destroy it, burn it all down. That's Sacramento. So in a tough area, and he's been one of the primary sub -tweeters for months.

52:35

So it's not like this just popped up. There had been a lot of sub -tweeting going on many times for months.

52:45

And so after the program, he posted this.

52:52

You do realize that worldview in quotes is a philosophical concept that developed quite apart from scripture, question mark.

52:59

And that's not the first time this has been said. Others in this group had been saying, well, you know, worldview is primarily associated with Kent.

53:10

And so if you, whoo, he's close.

53:19

I'm in a fairly narrow slot here. And so I'm at the back of the unit here and I'm right along the road.

53:29

So that they're a little bit. So Immanuel Kant, worldview issues, utilize that terminology.

53:39

Now, obviously he's using it a different way. Every philosopher wants to put his own spin, his own

53:51

ID on something. So his perspective is gonna be one thing.

53:57

Anyway, so there's a philosophical utilization of the term. We had talked about worldview on the program.

54:08

We had talked about it multiple times. I have defended the utilization of worldview.

54:16

Geisler used worldview. Everyone's used worldview. And we're obviously using it differently than Immanuel Kant did.

54:22

So it's not the same thing. We aren't, we don't feel any weight to define the rest of our system of theology based upon the perspectives that had been read into that term by people who went before us, whether you go back to Immanuel Kant or whoever.

54:55

Anybody even in between that, even necessarily certain Christians who have used terminology.

55:04

And that's what is so completely different than the central issue of the controlling authority of defining particular aspects of what is being called natural theology on the basis of Thomas Aquinas' fundamental assertions, which were deeply influenced by the philosophical categories of Aristotle.

55:42

And so it's not, it is a simplistically absurd argument to say that, well, if you use language that has been used before, then you're importing it completely because you're not.

55:57

That's a confusion of category. Worldview today is an extremely, it's a necessary term in our modern context, but a worldview based upon Aristotelian categories of accidents and substance,

56:17

Aristotelian categories of what even makes up what we would call matter today.

56:28

Causation, motion, which for us is a physics issue, but wasn't for Aristotle.

56:37

And then trying to track that into a baptized version in Thomas that then becomes fundamentally definitional of making the assertion that if you say that in your mind you can differentiate between the omniscience of God and the omnipotence of God, that makes them different things.

57:14

There are some big units in here right now. I realized you can't, you may see something in the light in the background, but if there had been a serial number on the side of that one,

57:26

I could have read it off for you pretty easily. And I mean, one of those little serial numbers. When you have the idea that our

57:39

Trinitarian orthodoxy needs to be defined and confessed based upon the idea that if the human mind can distinguish between two things, then that actually makes them parts.

57:59

It's, if you're familiar with the ontological argument, it's the idea of great making.

58:06

The idea of something of which nothing greater can be conceived.

58:13

You see that concept of conception? Concept being conceived in the mind. Make something real enough to be a part of a philosophical argument.

58:25

Now that's based upon philosophical presuppositions that are utterly unbiblical.

58:32

There's nothing in scripture that grounds that. That is coming through Thomas, from Aristotle.

58:40

And many of us have said, I don't believe that's true.

58:47

I can distinguish between God's omniscience and his omnipotence without creating parts in God.

58:58

That doesn't create parts. It doesn't tell me how God views these things.

59:04

These are not competing parts that you're putting a God together out of. None of those things are true.

59:12

But the fundamental assertions that are being made assume a metaphysical foundation that demands that these things be true.

59:21

And I go, why? And when you go, why? Then that's when the problems arise.

59:32

So there is a background to this tweet.

59:39

You do realize that worldview is a philosophical concept that developed quite apart from scripture. In Immanuel Kant, yes.

59:51

In Bonson's use of worldview, in Van Til's use of worldview, when you're specifically, when

01:00:01

I have contrasted the worldview of secularism with the worldview that comes from recognizing

01:00:07

God as the creator and definer of all things, and that that of necessity creates a worldview, that's a completely different thing, isn't it?

01:00:14

Yeah, it is. So here was my response. Let me see that hopefully it will queue up rightly.

01:00:29

It said, I'm sorry, brother, but I have to call this what it is, absurd. The confusion of categories rampant today amongst a certain cadre of reformed men is truly difficult to understand.

01:00:38

The meaning of worldview is clear and does not depend upon the acceptance of any, and why is this putting other people in here?

01:00:46

Okay, any particular ancient position, Platonism, Aristotelianism, realism, nominalism, et cetera.

01:00:52

It is a highly useful term in a day of a massive plurality of viewpoints, a situation that did not exist in the past, in the same way, especially due to a lack of global communication.

01:01:08

To speak of the Christian worldview as Christians of many different kinds have been doing for decades is to assert that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things.

01:01:16

His creative activity together with his lordship means there is a positive, coherent, vitally important worldview presented by the

01:01:25

Christian scriptures. I am left stuttering that a Christian minister, a fellow reformed

01:01:30

Baptist, says such an obviously biblical concept is a philosophical concept that developed quite apart from scripture.

01:01:37

What? What other term are you going to use to assert that believing the teaching of the Bible, that God is the creator of all things, that they exist for his purpose and his glory, that Christ crossed an empty tomb or the center point of history, and that everything else revolves around the reality that God will judge this world by Christ on the last day.

01:01:54

All this is the assertion that this world is God's, and to understand it, we must begin with his self -revelation.

01:02:02

That is not some philosophical conclusion. It is the necessary application of the biblical data to our present time.

01:02:10

In the very text that you and others have thrown about as a football, Colossians 2, we are told to be able to reject a view that is according to the elementary principles of the world and to embrace that which is according to Christ.

01:02:24

For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. If that does not give to us the very foundation of a

01:02:31

Christian worldview, I have no idea what possibly could. It would help a great deal, brother, if you fellows would start representing those of us who have pushed back against the fascination with Thomistic categories of metaphysics, you know, theories of motion, attraction, the nature of the created world, et cetera, with a modicum of accuracy rather than this railing against philosophical categories.

01:02:58

It is like you all are not even listening. And believe you me, a lot of people are noticing it.

01:03:07

So the response, there are two responses. Pastor Meister said,

01:03:16

I never said don't use worldview, I use it. My point is that it's etymology in initial use as a non -Christian source.

01:03:22

Now Christians use it, but we ditch the pagan suppositions. It's a recent phenomenon of an ancient practice showing philosophy as handmade into theology.

01:03:32

Okay, but that's not what the context has been all along. The context for months has been, you people are anti -philosophy.

01:03:42

As soon as any philosophical terminology is used, what you'll get from these guys is, oh, but philosophy is papist.

01:03:49

Or someone will be reading your Roman Catholic, ah, you're becoming a papist. Or, but Colossians 2 .8.

01:03:57

In fact, someone did a search on one particular individual, searched his name in Colossians 2 .8, and a screen, an entire screen full of tweets came up.

01:04:07

Oh, but Colossians 2 .8, oh, but Colossians 2 .8. The whole time, all along, and Steve Meister was a part of this, these people are quote unquote anti -philosophy, but we know, we know that our founders, our framers of our confession, they studied philosophy, and they call it the handmaiden of theology, and so on and so forth.

01:04:31

And of course, that then takes us to what the real issue here is. And that is, what's the role of natural theology?

01:04:38

What is natural theology? Is there such a thing as natural theology? I mean, you can make an argument that in the strictest definition of the words, there's no such thing.

01:04:51

Because if you're talking about the regenerate mind, which already therefore has scriptural categories, looking at nature outside of scripture, well, that's not gonna be natural, is it?

01:05:06

Because you're regenerate. So there's already a spirit, there's already spiritual categories that the natural man cannot have.

01:05:14

And if you're talking about the natural man who's unregenerate, he can't have true knowledge of God.

01:05:21

He knows God exists. He knows he should thank God and honor God. But you're always gonna have suppression.

01:05:28

You're always gonna have twisting. You're gonna have professing themselves wise become fooled. And so that's not gonna be theology.

01:05:38

And so the unregenerate is not gonna be able to do it. The regenerate, it can't do it naturally. So what is natural theology?

01:05:44

And so some say, well, all we're talking about is how can philosophy serve biblical theology?

01:05:56

And we're right back to where Justin Martyr was and Tertullian was, and what does

01:06:02

Jerusalem have to do with Athens? And what is the actual relationship of these things?

01:06:09

And how often in church history, starting with Justin Martyr, how often in church history has philosophy ceased being the handmaiden and become the mistress?

01:06:29

And the result being the subjugation of biblical categories and biblical revelation to an external standard that is not itself the honest.

01:06:41

That's the key issue. So what happened from there was, well, you need to come over here to California.

01:06:52

Other people have invited you to come over here and it's like, look, we are all speaking to this issue, some people a whole lot more than others.

01:07:10

And if there was a not in California get together of the leading individuals who are relevant to this subject, fine.

01:07:26

But just me, myself and I going to a state that I have no interest in going to at all, none, zero.

01:07:33

It's a socialist paradise. I don't want to go to California. I recently could have had the opportunity to go to California and just for rest and relaxation.

01:07:46

It's a beautiful state. I don't want to go to California. I don't like California anymore.

01:07:52

I'm sorry. It's been ruined for me. You could have mandates pushed back on California in five minutes and you all know it.

01:08:02

You all know it. The governor, the mayors, the people in Sacramento in five minutes.

01:08:12

And quite honestly, it's a very lawless place. In fact, wasn't it Sacramento where the shooting took place on early

01:08:19

Sunday morning? I think it was, if I recall correctly. That Biden's using, it was obviously gang related.

01:08:28

But now take everybody's guns away as if that's going to do something. Anyway, happens in California.

01:08:37

Someplace else with wide representation on the subject, not just one person and six on the other side, but wide representation of people who have made public statements in regards to this issue.

01:09:01

Sure, I mean, knowing who that would involve would be quite a challenge to find a time when everyone could do that, but it could be done.

01:09:11

It could be done. I mean, we got quite an interesting group of people together in a matter of what, four or five months for the

01:09:18

Dallas, what's been ended up being called the Dallas statement that I was a part of. But yeah, we did that ahead of time.

01:09:30

Is it that important? Well, it's far more important to the other side than it is to us, I can guarantee you that.

01:09:36

I mean, the only reason that I have become involved with this at all is once people started saying, this isn't just some new emphasis of ours.

01:09:47

If you're gonna be with us, you've got to agree with us on this. We know, we admit, none of us were preaching this in the past.

01:09:58

We've just discovered that we've been, what, misleading our people for decades?

01:10:08

I mean, how far back does this go? When was this quote unquote lost, I wonder? But it's obviously significantly more central to certain people than it is to others.

01:10:20

And so I'm like, yeah, okay, fine. Well, we can talk about getting a bunch of people together and having a discussion of what natural theology is about, the role of philosophy.

01:10:37

But I'll be perfectly honest with you, I have seen people of my own tribe gushing, gushing in their newfound love of Thomas Aquinas.

01:10:51

And that I will never understand, never understand. That I, anyway, should probably just leave that one there.

01:11:06

So that's what happened after the last program. And I felt that, given the context, needed to be addressed in a fuller and more appropriate way so that people would understand what's really going on and why it's central and why it's important.

01:11:26

Okay, thinking about the rest of the week,

01:11:33

Thursday is a travel day. I'm not sure how long, let me see here real quick.

01:11:41

I do love this thing here. So four and a half, almost five hours.

01:11:50

We'll look at Thursday, we'll see. Friday is possible.

01:12:00

I'll be doing something else online on Friday. So it is, the possibility does exist. I'm speaking that night, it's only 20 minutes away, so it's not a big deal.

01:12:08

So it could end up being Friday, I have a feeling it probably will be. But anyway, once again, my sincere thanks to everyone who makes this possible.

01:12:19

On my way up here, I did get stuck. Well, I didn't get stuck anywhere, but I stopped in a place that I've stopped at before to get gas on this route.

01:12:29

And I'm gonna have to think in the future about skipping that. It's a quaint little hole in the wall, but because it is a quaint little hole in the wall, $5 .69

01:12:39

for gas. I got back over I -40, it was $4 .69, which is still ridiculous.

01:12:48

But those little places know, if you wanna get gas there, you're gonna, we can charge you whatever we want and you're gonna pay it.

01:12:55

That's sort of how that works. But anyways, you're helping make this possible, we appreciate that. And so again, for the next few weeks, this will be our background.

01:13:04

Ultraman may wanna move around a little bit, I don't know, we'll see. But we'll be on the road and please pray for health.

01:13:14

I'm meeting lots of folks. Someday, I'm gonna come down with something.

01:13:21

It hasn't happened yet, but someday it'll happen. But pray that the

01:13:26

Lord would give us strength and health. And we'll see you later this week. Let's just put it that way, either

01:13:31

Thursday or Friday, depending on what the Lord opens up for us. Thanks for watching. We'll see you,