Micah Coate

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

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

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

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

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

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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line Jumbo Edition.

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If you're just listening to the debate that took place between Mr. Reeves and Mr.

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Perkins, which we just aired in its entirety over the past four and a half hours, if you heard the very last statement that Mr.

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Perkins made, you heard the essence of the error of oneness

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Pentecostalism. You really did. You heard the essence of the error of oneness

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Pentecostalism, specifically what you heard was his absolute refusal to allow for the distinction between being and person.

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That is the fundamental thing. He will use the distinction when talking about Jesus. He recognizes it as a valid distinction.

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We talk about all sorts of other things, but when it comes to this one thing, the absolute overriding presupposition of Unitarianism, I'm just going to ignore the fact that you're entire position is based upon that distinction and just repeat my objection to it.

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And that's all they have. And that's why demonstrating that Jesus, the

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Son, as a divine person, preexisted his birth in Bethlehem, differentiatable, distinguishable from the

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Father, is the end of oneness Pentecostalism. That's just the way that it is.

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So we'll be talking more about that in the Jumbo Edition. We have 90 minutes with you today. What I want to do at the start here is

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I want to finish up what I said I was going to do. Last Friday, we did a, if I recall, a mega

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DL, I've forgotten now, but it was a long one on Michael Coates' book,

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A Cultish Side of Calvinism, a book recommended, endorsed by people who should know better.

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Let's put it that way. And one of the things I was doing is I was going through all the references to yours truly in the book.

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There are a number of them. I didn't finish that. And so I need to finish that. I will finish it as quickly as I can.

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And then we will go back to the Fernandez -Comas debate. And then we have the

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Abdullakunda material to look at, as we were yesterday, and also the Perkins material that we were just listening to but didn't get a chance to respond to and have started that response already.

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Hopefully now that you've listened to that, you have a much better appreciation of what the whole context of the discussion actually was.

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So I go back to Mr. Coates' book in Kindle, and I had guessed, because I didn't take the time to go back and listen to the old program and find out right where I was.

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I had guessed as to where I was, and Preacher Bill in Channel was kind enough to actually go listen and verify what the last position number

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I gave was. And I had guessed correctly. I am very happy with myself, given how many hours of the

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Dividing Line I've done since then. So we are at location 3944 in the

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Kindle edition. And the quote here is,

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Norman Geisser has also identified how Calvinist leader James White redefines certain verses in his book,

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The Potter's Freedom. And so once again, we have Coates quoting from an appendix that has been thoroughly refuted.

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Coates shows no knowledge whatsoever of the refutation, does not take into consideration the refutation, the many errors cited in it, some of which are humorous.

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Remember, I pointed out one of the places where Geisser's appendix attacked me for misquoting him was actually where I had found a typo in the original edition of Chosen but Free.

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And since I am a Bethany House author, reported that to Bethany House, they fixed it in the second edition. And so Geisser uses the second edition to accuse me of misquoting him when actually it was now fixed because I found the error, that kind of thing.

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But Coates doesn't know anything about that. So he just quotes from this uncritically and doesn't show any knowledge of what's going on behind it.

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And the quote is, yet Potter's Freedom repeatedly reads some men into passages that clearly and emphatically say all men, pages 140 and 142.

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Now, in other words, this is a situation where, for example, on page 140,

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I'm making an argument. I am actually exegeting something that Norman Geisser skips doing most of the time in Chosen but Free.

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I'm actually exegeting the text and I say, who are kings and all who are in authority? They are kinds of men, classes of men.

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Paul often spoke of all men in this fashion. For example, in Titus chapter 2, when Paul speaks of the grace of God, which brings salvation appearing to all men,

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Titus 2 .11, he clearly means all kinds of men for the context both before and after speaks of kinds of men.

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In the previous verses, Paul addresses such groups as older men, verse 2, older women, verse 3, younger women, verse 4, young men, verse 6, bond slaves, verses 9 through 10, and rulers and authorities, 3 .1.

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No one would suggest that in fact Paul is speaking of every single older man, older woman, etc. He speaks of kinds of men in a particular group, that being the fellowship of the church.

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Likewise, rulers and authorities are obviously generic classifications that everyone would understand needs to be applied to specific locations in specific times.

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The same kind of usage, all kinds of men being in view, is found elsewhere in Paul, such as Titus 3 .2, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.

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So there you have it. There you have what I said. Now, was there anything in there that was in error?

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Was there anything that could be refuted? I don't believe that there was. But you just have this uncritical reciting of this,

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I believe, class project. I don't believe Norman Geiser wrote it. I believe it was a class project. It's very sophomoric, very surface level, filled with errors, page errors, logic errors.

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It's cobbled together, and yet it has found new life. Even though it's been removed by the publisher from the current edition of Chosen But Free, it has found new life in its false accusations in Michael Cote.

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And of course, Michael Cote will not even respond to this information. The phone lines are open for Mr.

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Cote if he'd like to. I'd say he has at least 50 questions that have been placed to him so far that could require a great deal of explanation.

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And he knows the number, 877 -753 -3341 is the number, toll free. And he could call in, and there aren't any storms in Tucson that I'm aware of right now, so I think we're pretty good.

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And so, you know, if he'd like to explain this type of thing, but we don't really expect that to happen.

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It insists against the context that 2 Peter 3 .9, where God desires that all men be saved, is not speaking about salvation.

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Now, that in and of itself is just not even a semi -accurate summary of the pages of exegesis that I provide of 2

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Peter 3 .9. And it's ironic that this is in a book written by a man who never exegeted 2

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Peter 3 .9. He just simply quotes it and assumes that you're just going to agree with his use of it. But that's not even what

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I said. What I said is that it is talking about salvation. So it's backwards.

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It's not even accurate. What I said was, if you follow the pronouns, it's a specific people that are being referred to.

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Again, the class project. It seems like it was done in a big hurry, too.

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Like you're only given five minutes with the book and then you had to, they didn't want to buy more than once, they had to pass it around the room or something,

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I don't know. It distorts the word saves to saves himself, page 64.

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I wondered about that. You know, it's been a number of years since I took this information apart and demonstrated all of its errors.

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So I wondered about it. So I went to page 64 and I found what is being discussed here on page 64.

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There's a quotation in Romans 3 .11, and there is no one who understands, no one who seeks

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God. I said, again, the words are specific. God initiates, God pursues, God persuades, God gives saving grace, but despite it all, the final decision is man's, without which no one will ever will to be saved.

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God wills to save men, but unless man wills to save himself, he will not be saved. This is thoroughgoing

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Arminianism. So I was responding to the comments of Norman Geisler, and specifically in regards to his statement, whatever else may be said,

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God's sovereignty over the human will includes his initiating, pursuing, persuading, and saving grace, without which no one would ever will to be saved.

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For, quote, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, Romans 3 .11. And so my response was to accurately represent what he said.

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Again, the words are specific. God initiates, God pursues, God persuades, God gives saving grace, but despite it all, the final decision is man's, quote, without which no one would ever will to be saved, end quote.

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God wills to save man, but unless man wills to save himself, he will not be saved.

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How is that in any way, shape, or form a misrepresentation of what Norman Geisler said? Geisler didn't explain it.

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One of the reasons he will never debate me is because he knows he can't explain it because he didn't write it. One of the students who had no clue what we were talking about put that there, and he was irresponsible enough to put it into print.

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And now Michael Coate has been irresponsible enough to repeat it in print without checking out his facts.

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So there you go. And so on, Potter's freedom is permeated with logical fallacies and reveals an adequate comprehension of...

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Why did it go that far? An adequate comprehension of the unjustified theological and philosophical underpinnings of extreme

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Calvinism, Potter's freedom futilely attempts to make the implausible sound plausible and the unbiblical seem biblical.

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Now, given that no examples that were given in this appendix stood up to examination, then all you have here is mere assertion.

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You have whistling in the dark, and you have, again, it's just, it is irresponsible to repeat this kind of information.

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Position, location number 4081, Calvinists might say that pride is one of the most heinous and palpable sins.

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I guess that's actually, this is one of the problems of using Kindle. Though Calvinists might say that pride is one of the most heinous and palpable sins, their typical sense of doctrinal superiority cannot help but foster conceited actions.

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It's not conceited to do what Michael Coate has done here, to just simply draw from other people's books and don't do your homework and just uncritically throw stuff out and that kind of thing, putting the absurdity in print, that's not conceited.

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Geisler notes this in James White's book, The Potter's Freedom, throughout The Potter's Freedom, the author takes great pride in his exegetical skills.

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Now, as I pointed out in my response to that in The Potter's Freedom, second edition,

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I'm not really sure how Dr. Geisler got his degree in mind reading from a distance, but that's all that is, that's just ad hominem mind reading that has really nothing whatsoever to do with reality itself.

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Location number 4320, and there's not too many left. James White says, quote, since we do not know who the elect are, we are to preach the gospel to every creature, trusting that God will honor his truth as he sees fit in the salvation of his people.

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May I say, end quote, amen. John Calvin said long before, since we do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined and who does not, who does and who does not, it befits us so to feel as to wish that all be saved.

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So it will come about that whoever we come across, we shall study to make him a share of peace. Even severe rebuke will be administered like medicine, lest they should perish or cause others to perish.

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But it will be for God to make it effective in those whom he foreknew and predestined, end quote. Now, you'll notice we said the exact same thing, but it's a little bit harder to follow

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Calvin at that point, because, of course, he was writing a long time ago, and this is a translation from the

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Latin. I was a little smoother, I think, at that point, but we said the exact same thing. He goes on, though these answers may sound legitimate, this is

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Micah Cote, though these answers may sound legitimate. They're really nothing more than double talk. If the doctrines of Calvinism were true, then a life lived in spraying the gospel message while it might be pleasing to God would have no influence upon the number of people who are saved.

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And I stop. So a life lived obeying

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God and being used as the instrument by which he draws his elect unto himself, since it would not, quote unquote, change the number, influence,

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I'm sorry, influence, it would have no influence upon the number of people who are saved.

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Now, think about that for just a moment, because, again, we want to ask ourselves a question. Do our critics even understand the system?

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Do they even care enough to be accurate in their analysis of the system that they're willing to identify as presenting a different God, small g?

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And the answer is no. Now, I've been told, I've had a number of people contact me, that I should be looking past Michael Coate to certain professors at Phoenix Seminary as the primary source of this rabid anti -Calvinism and this gross caricatures that are presented.

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And maybe that's the case. Maybe he certainly shows absolutely no critical thinking capacity in the sense of examining his sources.

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Nothing, nothing, even to listen, just like Dave Hunt, no critical thinking capacity to listen to the other side and go,

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OK, that's a good point there. They have a good point there. And I need to understand that they're saying this here and, you know, and accuracy in your representation of others.

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You don't get any of that. But here's the statement. Would have no influence upon the number of people who are saved.

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In relationship to what, Mr. Coate? I mean, from your perspective, does

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God know the future? Are you an open theist? So if you live your entire life preaching the gospel, and yet God knew at creation exactly how many people are going to be saved, or if you're a

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Molinist, same thing. He actuated the world that had the most number of people saved. Unless you're an open theist, how is this not an objection to your position?

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It is an objection to your position, because God knew exactly how many people were going to be saved when he created the world, unless you're an open theist.

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And then he didn't know what was going to happen. So which is it? Why is this an objection to us?

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I go on. According to Calvinism, trying to save the unsavable would be directly against the will of God.

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And let me stop. Both quotes, my quote and Calvin's quote, refuted this very caricature.

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We don't know who the elect are. We don't know their identity.

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Therefore, we get to preach the gospel to everyone. I'm not trying to save the unsavable.

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I am putting myself in God's hands to be the instrument by which he saves those that he will save.

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And by the way, there aren't any that are unsavable. Maybe if you're a Molinist, there are. That's your problem.

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You got to deal with that. I mean, you're the ones with the unsavable people. If you're a good

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Arminian, you think God is doing his best to save everybody, but he fails, then that means there are unsavable people.

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God chose to create people who could not be saved. And you want to turn around and say, oh, you're sending people to hell.

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Your God's mean and terrible and horrible, and he's a tyrant and all the rest of that stuff. But see, that's why the only consistent

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Arminian is an open theist. At least they can say, well, God created, didn't know what was going to happen.

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The problem is that's not the God of the Bible. And no one can really ever turn the

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God of the Bible into that God. And so you have to answer the same questions. And that's the problem with this kind of rhetoric.

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According to Calvinism, trying to save the unsavable would be directly against the will of God and for all intents and purposes would be a wasted life.

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Ironically, Piper's Don't Waste Your Life is wildly popular among Calvinists, mainly because they claim that they can still remain passionately evangelistic.

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Don't Waste Your Life has grown in popularity along with Piper's book Desiring God, which has sold more than 275 ,000 copies.

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John Piper is a popular Calvinist who is passionate about soul winning and being effective, quite the opposite of what the doctrines of Calvinism concede.

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So here you have Micah Coate saying, well, all those

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Calvinists that are passionately evangelical, they just don't have any basis to doing that. But he has absolutely no earthly idea, the consistency of what it is we do.

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And that's why we didn't run into Micah Coate and people like that up in Salt Lake City. But we were there and there's a reason why we were there.

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Position number 4383, we're getting to the end here. White believes that if God uses the aid of man to bring about regeneration, it actually gives man the ability to control

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God's free and sovereign work and salvation. Yes, I do believe that. If God's trying to save everybody equally and it's all up to man, then man controls.

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Yes, that's exactly right. Despite their deterministic theology, when it comes to evangelism, Calvinists seem to do away with their idea that God is monergistic.

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Now, here's some more incredible confusion when it comes to categories on the part of Micah Coate.

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In spraying the gospel message on believers, Calvinists seem to believe that God does require some human effort.

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This begs the question, is Calvinism's God monergistic or synergistic? So, he confuses monergism and synergism, which is a discussion of whether when

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God saves, he does so by his own power alone or in cooperation with the idea that God uses means in his decree to bring glory to himself, that is, the proclamation of the word that is then blessed by the

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Spirit of God. So he takes two completely different areas, two different categories, and squishes them together and goes, oh,

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I see a contradiction, because he doesn't seem to understand the category distinctions between them.

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This begs the question, is Calvinism's God monergistic? And it's, by the way, God is not capitalized here. Monergistic or synergistic?

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For the Calvinists, the practical answer is, whatever makes Tulip stay alive. Concerning the regeneration of the sinner,

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God is monergistic, and concerning evangelism, he is synergistic. Confusion of categories. If God can be synergistic in regards to evangelism, why can he not be that way in regards to salvation?

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Well, maybe because man's dead in sin, Micah? Possibly? Maybe? Yeah, I think so.

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That's probably why. Position number 4417.

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We're almost there. I'm going as fast as I can, but time is passing me by here. 4417 says, contemporary champions of Calvinism, men like R .C.

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Sproul, John Piper, James R. White. I got my R back there. John MacArthur and a host of others are not simply promoting

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Reformed theology among those new believers that they have led to Christ or have come to them for spiritual guidance.

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Oh, we don't do that amongst those folks. Well, actually, we do. Instead, as noted earlier,

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Calvinists are zealously proselytizing with the Reformed faith, which means we tell every Christian that this is the consistent teaching of the

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Bible, and we show them these verses like John 6 and stuff and things like that. We shouldn't do that. If you are a part of a non -Reformed evangelical

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Christian church or affiliation of churches, it is very likely that Calvinists have their sights set on winning you.

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Ready or not, they're coming for you and your church or church group if they have not already arrived.

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Get the guns out. Likewise, those who herald

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Calvinism today do not practice what they preach, while on the outside, Calvinists claim that their gospel is for all people.

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Their doctrines clearly declare otherwise, which, of course, is why we don't preach the gospel to all people.

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Oh, wait a minute. We do. Oh, I'm sorry. To win the minds of those around them, you got to laugh sometimes.

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It gets so silly. To win the minds of those around them, their doctrine of limited atonement is not openly addressed.

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Oh, it's not openly addressed. I never wrote that track called The Terrible Horrible L.

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We never sent that out. It's not on our website. We didn't pass out stuff about particular redemption to Mormons and Mesa.

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Oh, no. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just, when you're a walking, talking contradiction, when you've been contradicting what this guy's saying back when he was playing with G .I.

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Joe's and he just hasn't been careful enough to do his homework and has now put out a book demonstrating that he is not a careful writer.

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Well, what can you say? Calvinists, as with all cultists, are not straightforward about their message.

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It's just a lie. I mean, what else can you call it? It's just a lie. If they were straightforward, there would be no need for Calvin expositors like Pink, White, and Sproul to malign the intended meanings of simple words like world.

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So, I'm maligning the simple word world to just point out that, well, any

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New Testament scholar would tell you that even in the Ohanian corpus, there's at least 14 different uses of the word world.

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That's why he's not calling in because I'm going to go, Mr. Coat, Mr. Coat, love not the world nor the things in the world.

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Could you explain how that's the exact same meaning as John 3, 16, please? And he can't, and he knows it, and that's why it'll never happen.

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But the question is, will he have the integrity and honesty to withdraw this silliness from publication?

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And so far, the answer is no. Malign the intended meanings of simple words like world, there would be no need for Calvinist teachers to make unfounded distinctions in words like love, grace, and calling, and there would be no need to change the tulip labels.

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So if you recognize that there are different kinds of love, who's the disciple that Jesus loved,

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Mr. Coat? Who is? Does that mean he didn't love the others? Oh, wait, wait a minute. If you're going to answer that question, do not make a distinction in the word love, because you just said that we're wrong for recognizing that there are distinctions in the use of the word love.

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Grace. So every use of the word grace is identical. The grace that teaches you to live, to eschew ungodliness in Titus 2, is the exact same grace that's mentioned everywhere else in Scripture, right?

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So the grace of sanctification is identical to the grace of salvation, right,

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Mr. Coat? Honestly? How about calling, Mr. Coat? Many are called, few are chosen.

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Those whom he called, he justified. Make your calling a lexicon, sure.

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And then Paul talks about his calling to ministry. There's a bunch of uses of the word calling, but they're all mean the same thing, according to Micah Coat.

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Is that what this, is this what they're teaching at Phoenix Seminary? Is this the kind of exegesis that is being taught at Phoenix Seminary?

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Really? Wow. That's, that's troubling if it is, because that's, that's, that's just bad.

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The last thing we have here, 4734, is the absurdity, which we have completely taken apart.

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It's, it's actually, it's not the last slide. We just jumped over it. I'm sorry. We have already addressed the absurdity. It is one of the clearest demonstrations

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I've ever seen in light of George Bryson's continued defense of it against the most obvious facts, just, just pure dishonesty.

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And if Mr. Coat will not remove that from his book, then he joins with Mr. Bryson in just showing himself to be unworthy of the name

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Christian, because, look, if you're a Christian, you don't lie about people like that. And Mr.

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Bryson never said those words. I never responded to those words in the way that I'm said, said to have been responded to.

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And it's, the facts are facts. We've provided the audio. There's, there's not even room for debate.

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It's a lie. You're either going to continue to publish a lie, or you're going to be honest and be a Christian and withdraw it, keep publishing it.

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Then, you know, there's something about the father of lies and stuff like that you might want to be thinking about. Location number 4824, contemporary theologians supporting

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Calvinism, such as Sproul, Piper, White, Grudem, and many more. Interesting, he mentions

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Grudem, who is a professor at Phoenix Seminary, are writing scores of books ranging anywhere from devotionals and footnotes and Reformation study

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Bible to 1200 -page treatises of systematic theology. These are all helping to form not only the church, but the world's theological view.

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Whether indirectly or not, promoters of Calvinism are bisecting those who align themselves with Calvin's theology from those who do not.

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Oh, Mr. Cote, you're not bisecting us from your position in the theology?

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You're claiming that you represent Orthodox Christianity? Your position doesn't have to be defined and defended.

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You can just lay it out there. This is just historically the Orthodox position. That's not bisecting

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Christian theology and cutting us off? Really? I just love consistency, don't you?

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I find it very ironic, position number 4903, that Christians abhor, and this one was really dumb,

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I'm sorry, this was, I shouldn't say that, but he quotes from some profane, disgusting

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James Maynard Keenan as a songwriter and singer with a large and loyal cult -like following. He currently sings the band's

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A Perfect Circle and Tool. Sorry, never even, never even heard of any of this. Anyone familiar with music knows of his hostile lyrics towards God and particularly

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Jesus. In one song called Eulogy, Keenan sings about the death of Jesus and then he gives the stuff and he has to, he has to asterisk out the

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F -bomb and everything else, okay? So that's, we're talking about some pagan who hates

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God. And Keenan concludes that Jesus' offer to die for him is not trustworthy.

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This perception of Jesus' atonement can only be ascertained by Calvinism's theology. I find it very ironic that Christians abhor these lyrics while seeming not to care that Sproul, White, Piper, and other leading

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Calvinists not only preach the same message, sparing the curse words, but also cloak it in scriptural quasi -truths presented as pure biblical

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Christianity. That a Christian with any admiration for Calvinism might think James Keenan's lyrics are wrong is inconsistent.

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Sir, you cannot think straight. I am amazed at such perversity of thought.

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Do you not understand what the genetic fallacy is? Do you understand what category errors are?

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I am just, I am just left flabbergasted at how basic means of thought get sacrificed with stuff like this.

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And you had a book, Mr. Coates, sitting on your table that gave you chapters of not scriptural quasi -truths, but exegesis of the text of scripture, and you ignored them.

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And yet you have the temerity to dismiss that as scriptural quasi -truths without even providing the first bit of refutation?

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That's why that phone's never going to ring, because Mr. Coates knows, he knows that there is no way on God's green earth he could get his three favorite professors from Phoenix Seminary that taught him this silliness, and they'd still not have a chance to defend this kind of foolishness.

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And you would think that those guys would have said to him, Micah, you're going to be way beyond where you need to go.

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Man, you are making statements here. You are writing checks that your mind and what we've taught you could never cash.

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And yet they've endorsed it. Shame on every single one of them. And you can go to the endorsement page and see who from Phoenix Seminary has endorsed this book, and you'll figure out who's who.

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It's pretty obvious. It's pretty obvious. Then we had your standard

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Cervetus stuff and all that kind of stuff. Is that the last bit of me,

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I think? Yep. I think that is the last part of me.

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So yay. And we got done right in half an hour, which means we've only got an hour left. So that's

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OK. So I have now looked at every reference to me. There were numerous other absurdities to examine in the book.

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But I think we've all, just by looking at the references to me, we've seen so many jaw -dropping faceplants that I think you all can understand why

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I have put that up as a nominee for one of the worst anti -Calvinism books ever published.

31:30

It's right up there with Dave Hunt, right up there, even better than George Bryson, it seems, even though Bryson is continuing to make an absolute fool of himself right now in defending the indefensible.

31:43

And so, folks, just look at how these men respond to this criticism. If they do not deal with the facts that have been provided, the refutation has been provided, the documentation of the incredible errors, then what's the only possible motivation they really have?

32:01

It cannot be a godly motivation. You cannot promote lies and have godly motivations in doing that.

32:08

You can be ignorant, but Mr. Coat is no longer ignorant. And now he knows.

32:14

And if he does not make a change, if I do not hear from him saying, sir, I've removed these references now that you've provided the documentation, that this paraphrase is not even a paraphrase, and so on and so forth, we'll see if that happens.

32:29

I'll write to him again and say, Mr. Coat, listen to the beginning of the dividing line. We spent half an hour dealing with your material, further documentation of your errors.

32:38

They require your attention. And if you do not respond, that in and of itself is saying a lot.

32:45

I'm going to continue on. I'm going to do about 20 minutes with the

32:51

Comas Fernandez stuff because it's been a while. I keep putting it off. And so I'll divide this next hour into three parts.

32:59

And that's shorter, won't get as far, but it's the best we can do because I need to get that done.

33:04

I had promised to do so. We jump back into where we were. For those of you who have, it's been so long as you've forgotten, we're listening to debates took place between Mr.

33:13

Comas and Dr. Phil Fernandez. We're listening to, we had listened to Dr. Phil's opening statement, and then we're getting into the rebuttal period.

33:21

And the rebuttal period has a little bit more give and take. And so it's a little bit, I think, more useful along those lines.

33:28

I have hope far from God and no access to the Father. It's like Gina said, apart from me, you can do nothing.

33:34

Being spiritually dead means we are separated from God, but through the drawing power of Jesus, John 12, 32, and the conviction of the

33:42

Holy Spirit, John 16, 7. Now, I just stopped again. John 12, 32 has already been misused a number of times.

33:54

I will draw them into myself. What does that mean? We need to ask our

33:59

Arminian friends, and I consider Phil Fernandez a brother. So I'll say, I will ask, even though he's not answering my emails anymore either.

34:09

You know, I can guarantee you something. Phil, if he knew about the absurdity, he would join with me in calling for these men to apologize.

34:22

I do not believe for a second that Phil Fernandez would ever engage in that kind of thing.

34:28

I think he's doing the best he can, understanding Mr. Comas's position. I just think that he's very wrong, and he has said, this is not my big area, okay?

34:38

So keep that in mind. I do, unlike our opponents who do not make distinctions between Calvinists and recognize differentiations and things like that, and who falsely identify people as hyper -Calvinists and things like that, even when most of them have never met a hyper -Calvinist, we attempt to be very careful in recognizing the differences in those who criticize our perspective and so on and so forth.

35:06

Through God's prevenient grace, we are enabled to say yes to God. There is prevenient grace again, but if you're waiting for the demonstration and foundation of preven...

35:16

I've lost track. We're up around 10, somewhere around there, the uses of prevenient grace.

35:22

You're waiting for the documentation demonstration of prevenient grace. That's not going to happen. That is one of the major drawbacks here.

35:29

Man left to himself will never seek God, but God draws us and enables us to believe. Still, we have the ability to resist

35:36

God's grace. Now, he seems to be confusing Paul, even when he quoted from Romans 11, 6.

35:43

When Paul condemns works salvation, he puts grace against works and faith against works.

35:51

He doesn't put grace against faith. Faith works with grace.

35:58

So, uh... But the question, again, is where does this faith come from? Is there a difference between saving faith and false faith, for example?

36:06

And what is the difference? Is that difference to be found only in us? This is what Mr. Comus was trying to get across.

36:12

I don't think that he effectively did, or at least Dr. Fernandez did not understand it.

36:17

But the issue is, what is the nature of saving faith over against the false faith that we see, for example, in 1

36:23

John chapter 2? And what... Where does that come from? Is that just simply something that is representative of us?

36:32

Those are the questions we need to understand. Uh, non -Calvinist evangelicals, at least the ones that I know, do not teach works salvation.

36:42

Works salvation is the view that a person earns their salvation by works. Faith in Jesus does not earn

36:48

God's favor. We still deserve hell. That's true. Well, I've taken some issue with that statement if we're in Christ, but that's not the point.

36:59

The point is initiation and the difference between saving faith and non -saving faith.

37:05

It's not an idea of earning, but it is asking the question, why do some accept and others do not?

37:15

The answer is not to be found in God. The answer is to be found in those persons. And so those persons then are not meriting salvation, but there's something better about them that allows them to respond to this mythical prevenient grace in a way that other people don't respond to the very same prevenient grace.

37:39

So if this prevenient grace is the same, then the answer to the question, why is one saved not to God himself?

37:51

That's really the issue. Faith accepts God's salvation as a free gift. Still, salvation is not deserved.

37:59

So it's not works salvation. Paul did not pit grace against faith. Instead, he puts grace against works and faith against works.

38:11

Let me see here. I think we could ask the Calvinist, is salvation by faith? He said he talked about making

38:17

Calvary unnecessary, justification unnecessary. Well, everything is solved in one big unconditional election if Calvinism is true.

38:27

So who makes those doctrines unnecessary? If Calvinism is true. I didn't get that either.

38:34

Sorry, I got lost because it seems that if I guess the idea was if God has a decree, then the means he uses to bring about that decree is irrelevant.

38:46

And that's where I go, no, the decree in God's interaction with his people in time is just as much a part of his purpose and self -glorification than anything else.

38:56

In fact, it is the decree that makes those actions in time real and meaningful.

39:04

That's just a vast difference, Trina. Then we are not really saved by faith. Salvation is solely...

39:10

No, we're saved by grace through faith. We're not saved by faith. We're saved by grace through faith.

39:16

By God's election. In Calvinism, faith is not actually the instrumental cause of our receiving salvation.

39:23

Instead, faith would be an effect. It's both. It is the effect.

39:29

And notice the category errors here. And this is very common. The books that he's been reading,

39:34

I'm sure, do this. Geisler does it. They will use generic major terms that have numerous subcategories like salvation.

39:44

Think of just some of the subcategories of salvation. Regeneration, adoption, forgiveness, sanctification, etc.,

39:49

etc. And do we not make distinctions between those terms? We do. So they use the major overarching term, but what they really mean is regeneration.

40:01

And then when you point out that, then they can retreat back to the term salvation.

40:08

What's being said here is to have saving faith, which is the instrument by which justification takes place, one needs to be raised to spiritual life by the sovereign work of the

40:21

Spirit of God. And so it is my saving faith is the result of God's decree.

40:31

It is the result of regeneration and is the instrument by which I receive justification.

40:36

It is all of those things. And I would just ask

40:42

Dr. Fernandez, how do you explain that? Again, because remember,

40:47

Dr. Fernandez believes in the perseverance of the saints or some form of that. So there must be something special about saving faith.

40:54

The faith that those who will not be lost has to be different than the faith of those who fall away, right?

41:02

Well, what's the difference? These are questions that, unfortunately, did not come up in the debate.

41:09

...of salvation. Let me see, there's a few verses

41:17

I'd like to view, it's like about 80 pages of verses here. I'm afraid that as soon as I heard that,

41:29

I was reminded of Patrick Madrid in our debate in San Diego in 93. I could bury him under all these pages.

41:38

Look at all this stuff I've got is not really a valid debating argument, because everything you've got in that pile of paper might be completely irrelevant at the point in question.

41:48

It's just, again, it's just a debater thing on my part. So in 79, John 16, 7 to 11,

41:55

Jesus says, but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, then the helper will not come to you.

42:01

But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he, and he, when he comes will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

42:14

Okay, and we believe that. We just don't think that that restraining work and convicting work of the

42:22

Holy Spirit is made of peanut butter. And I'll stop there for a moment, because people who are doing other things might want to stop and go, what, what do you mean?

42:35

Well, you know, I had a youth teacher back in the big, big, big

42:40

Southern Baptist church I was in when I was a youth. And when I was a youth, and he would talk about peanut butter prayers, which were these generic, just slap it on there, confessional type things, type thing that you get done real quick and no specificity.

43:00

You know, you don't put peanut butter on a particular part of the piece of bread. You just slather it all over the place.

43:06

And when my son was at, my son was at home, for some reason, the peanut butter would end up on the knife, on the peanut butter jar, on the counter, on the refrigerator door, on the clothes, on the cat.

43:20

That's, that was, that was Josh and peanut butter. I love you, brother. Love you, love, love my son,

43:26

Josh. But I wonder if he's still like that, or if his wife has, wives have a way of doing more for you than dad ever could, or mom.

43:37

I've learned that. But anyway, you know, and I listen to The Divine Advisor.

43:42

I laugh a lot on this program. I'm not sure why people think of me as this, this mean, nasty, but maybe it's because sometimes

43:49

I'm laughing because of the dumb arguments that someone just gave. Maybe that, maybe that's where it is.

43:54

He shouldn't laugh at that. But anyhow, peanut butter, non, non -specific, non -specific, that's, that's where we differ.

44:07

Let me, let me, let me back this up here just, just a little bit. Make, make, make the application.

44:13

Concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me.

44:20

Okay, so the Spirit brings conviction. Does the

44:26

Spirit ever convict anyone that the Father, Son, and Spirit together have not decreed to save?

44:33

Could there ever be a reason why God's Spirit would bring conviction of sin outside of seeking to bring regeneration?

44:44

I would imagine many Arminians would say no. And yet it seems very obvious to me there are many instances where exactly that took place.

44:55

And that the restraining work of the Holy Spirit of God, restraining man's evil, if he wasn't engaged in that activity with the non -elect, we would all be in big trouble.

45:07

And in fact, I'll bet you anything that Dr. Fernandez and many of those who would view things the way he does, prays that God will restrain the evil of, of the leaders of communist

45:20

China, the leaders of communist North Korea. And would any of them say, well, he really can't do that unless he actually saves them?

45:30

No, they would, I bet you they would confess a general providential activity of God by his

45:36

Spirit whereby he restrains the evil of men. I bet you anything that they would confess that.

45:42

Whether they allow for that in their theology or not. Second Peter 3 .9,

45:48

the Lord is not slow about his promises. Some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

45:58

Isaiah 45. No commentary. No commentary. No seeming recognition of the counter -exegesis or any of the issues related to that as to what

46:11

Second Peter 3 .9 means. Now, the difference is Dr. Phil is not claiming to be an expert in these things.

46:20

And Michael Cote had the book with the pages of discussion of the subject right there on his table.

46:27

And in fact, he quoted an unfair and inaccurate attack upon me about Second Peter 3 .9

46:33

from Norman Geisler, but didn't bother to even go read my book as to whether the attack was correct.

46:39

That is what's reprehensible. That is what's irresponsible. That's the difference. And I believe

46:47

I've asked Dr. Phil, hey, be happy to send you Potter's Freedom. And I'm still waiting to hear back.

46:53

And I sent another, you know, it must be on an extended vacation or something. At least I hope that's what it is because I really, really,

47:00

I really do. I really hope that that's what it is. Okay. So we are at 107 .58

47:07

there. I'm going to put that. I've got a little notes file that I keep on here. It tells me where I am in each one of the debates.

47:14

And if those ever crash, we are going to be in big trouble. So let's go back to the debate with Abdullah Kunda and Samuel Green.

47:26

We'll do about 23 minutes on this and then finish up. See, I'm giving you all a little bit of a break because I know there are people in channel that were listening to the

47:38

Reeves -Perkins debate. I've given them a break, switch their mind away from oneness stuff and that kind of stuff.

47:45

I've given them a break, get their minds on other things before I go back to the oneness topic. So I'll do that last and maybe that way they won't melt down and just automatically turn us off and stuff like that because I can understand why they might.

48:00

All right. Let's go back to what Abdullah Kunda was saying in his opening statement on the subject of the

48:06

Trinity and Tawhid debate with Samuel Green took place. I think earlier this year, maybe late last year.

48:13

Got to look that up. I'm sure they'll let me know. And we just dive back in.

48:23

Okay, I forgot.

48:29

What he's doing is he's going through the Gospel of John amazingly as if these are evidences.

48:34

Remember, he says that the Bible is ambiguous as to the doctrine of the Trinity. And again,

48:39

I just simply go, even Bart Ehrman recognizes the Gospel of John says these things very, very clearly.

48:45

But again, this does give us an insight into the role of the interpretive glasses that you put on and what you end up seeing or not seeing.

48:53

Because I think if Mr. Kunda would just be fair with the Gospel of John, he'd have to address the many references that directly talk about the deity of Christ.

49:03

Is he going to say, oh, those are textually suspect and these others go back to Jesus? Then show us a manuscript of John that shows that corruption.

49:11

It is the earliest and best attested book of the four

49:17

Gospels and probably of the New Testament. So you just need to be fair there.

49:24

And what it's demonstrating is that when Abdullah sees distinctions between the Father and the

49:30

Son, which the doctrine of the Trinity is based upon, that's what I love contrasting. You'll hear similar arguments between Abdullah and Roger Perkins, but then you'll see these wildly 180 degree different arguments because they're going for 180 degree different conclusions.

49:48

But you see in the Gospel of John distinctions between the

49:53

Father and the Son. It's not the Father who's become incarnate. No matter how hard Mr. Perkins tries, it's not the

49:59

Father who became incarnate. There is a clear distinction between the one who was sent and the sender.

50:08

And so you have this material here. But when Abdullah sees that from his Islamic Unitarian, not just monotheistic, but Unitarian monotheistic perspective, then it's interesting to see which ones he picks up on and goes, ah, see, this is against the

50:26

Trinity when it actually is a part of why we believe the Trinity. Of whom you say he is our

50:31

God. This is very important because when Jesus is speaking to the Jews, he is indicating that the

50:37

Jews at the time had the understanding that the Father is God. The Jews at the time had the understanding that the

50:43

Father was God. Well, actually, there was an understanding between Jesus and the Jews that the one that Jesus was referring to as the

50:50

Father was Yahweh, the one God of Israel. There's no question about that, which is what makes it all the more significant,

51:00

Abdullah, that the same writer will identify Jesus as Yahweh in John 12, 41.

51:08

That he can actually say to his people that the one that Isaiah saw sitting upon his throne, lofty and lifted up, was in point of fact,

51:19

Jesus, the pre -incarnate son. Even though if you asked

51:24

Isaiah, who did you see? He would have said Yahweh. And hence, when

51:30

Jesus rises from the dead, something denied by Islam against all sound historical methodology and anything relevant in the first hundred years out of the time of Christ, when

51:43

Jesus rises from the dead, what is the confession that Thomas makes? Hakodiasmu kaihathayasmu, my

51:51

Lord and my God. And there's no blushing. But in the same chapter,

51:58

Jesus can talk about his God. I ascend to my God. You see, it's not either or.

52:06

If you take the one to the exclusion of the other, you end up as an Aryan. Jesus is just a, you end up as a

52:11

Muslim or an Aryan. You take the other to the exclusion of the other, you become a oneness.

52:17

You take all of it and you're a Trinitarian. That's why I'm going to be pointing out when

52:22

Roger Perkins, you know, one of the fundamental ecstatical errors that Roger Perkins makes, four thousand singular pronouns and you've only got six or nine plural pronouns.

52:32

I take the four thousand. I take the four thousand and nine. You don't, it's not a,

52:39

I put mine versus yours. That's not how you do exegesis. You have to take all of it. And that's why

52:46

Trinitarians are Trinitarians is because you take all of it, not just parts of it.

52:53

It's not a very powerful point.

53:01

It's a very powerful point in demonstrating that Mr. Clinton is understanding the Trinity isn't very deep, but it's not a powerful point because it is, well, it's a powerful point for the balance of Trinitarian exegesis.

53:13

We are trying to take into account everything scripture says. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, what, what, what do you mean by quoting from John chapter 10?

53:31

My father who is given to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

53:36

I and the father are one. Now, again, beautiful balance, beautiful balance.

53:48

Let's, let's take a look at this because I think this is important and I love having the opportunity of proclaiming the truth.

53:58

John 10 25, Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me.

54:08

Verse 26, but you are not believing because you are not of my sheep.

54:15

And I just make application here to our Arminian friends. That's backwards from the way you think, but you are not believing because you are not of my sheep.

54:29

You think that by believing you become one of Jesus' sheep. You have it backwards. There are many places,

54:36

John 8, John 10, you have to read the text upside down to make it say what you're saying.

54:44

My sheep are hearing my voice and I know them and they're following me.

54:52

Man, I'm never, I'm never going to get all this stuff done before October at the way I'm going. But I just had to stop here.

55:00

For those of you who are listening to the Perkins -Reeves debate, one of the things that Mr.

55:06

Perkins does is he pretends that gnosko, and some word that I'm assuming the lexical form is oida, but he's destroying the pronunciation of it because he doesn't seem to understand what lexical forms are.

55:22

That's why he confuses haismi and hen as if it's three different words. And he keeps repeating gnosko is partial knowledge and this other word, ido,

55:33

I think is what he calls it, which probably I'm assuming in the lexical form is oida. That means real knowledge.

55:43

We really know. So look at verse 27, John chapter 10, because I switched over to the

55:48

Greek. I was reading the American scenario. I said, let's just translate straight. I know them, gnosko, which according to Roger Perkins means that the good shepherd has partial knowledge of his sheep.

56:03

No, that's one of the problems with Mr. Perkins is on a lexical level, we have a

56:10

Trinity student who either has finished up or is finishing up a master's and his specialty is in Hebrew.

56:21

It's been enjoyable to have him in Channel, to have somebody in Channel who knows Hebrew better than I do now.

56:26

I haven't taught it in 10 years. And we don't teach something for that amount of time. It's good to have somebody else to bounce things off of.

56:33

And both of us during the debate were just shaking our heads at Mr.

56:39

Perkins' uttering capacity to deal with lexical semantics and lexical materials and linguistic issues on any level at all.

56:47

It's just not there. And here's a good example of it, is saying, oh, this word always says such and so.

56:57

Oh, the debate between—they've done a number of—December 12, 2009.

57:03

That sounds a little bit early. They've done a number of debates. But it's not an old debate.

57:09

It's not like it's 20 years old or something, the one we're looking at. Anyhow, there's a use of gnosko, which clearly is not only full knowledge, it's divine knowledge and it's perfect knowledge, just mentioning that.

57:20

But my sheep hear my voice. So why did I hear and believe? Because of God's sovereignty and making me one of his sheep.

57:30

And they're following me. And I give—verse 28—and

57:35

I give to them eternal life. Can any mere prophet give eternal life, Abdullah? I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

57:46

And no one can—Harpazo—can snatch them from my hand.

57:53

My father who gave them to me—John 6, 44, 37—my father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

58:06

I and the father are one. Ego kai ha -pater, hen esmen.

58:16

Plural verb. We are one. One in what? In the salvation of God's people.

58:22

Which is the central act of self -glorification of the triune

58:27

God. No mere prophet, no mere human being could ever say these words without uttering utter blasphemy, which is why the

58:40

Jews pick up stones to stone him. And you're going to be—and Abdullah is going to mention this in just a moment.

58:48

We'll look at his response. But we need to understand, very frequently, John 10, 30 is abused even by Orthodox Christians.

58:57

Because there is this ignoring of the context and it's like, oh, well, see? I and the father are one and ontological unity and blah, blah, blah, blah.

59:05

That's not what he's talking about. The evidence of the unity of the father and the son and the deity of the son in John 10, 30 is based upon a recognition of what's actually going on in his statement.

59:18

But we need to be honest with the statement. And unfortunately,

59:25

John 10, 30 is often just cited as meh, you know. There it is. And you move on from there. The context is no one can snatch them out of my hand.

59:34

No one can snatch them out of the father's hand. The father has given them to me. What had he already said in John chapter 6?

59:42

It's the father's will for him that he lose none of those that have been given to him. He raised them all up, give them eternal life.

59:49

And that means he has to have the power, the capacity and the authority to be a perfect savior.

59:57

And that is the savior, indeed, that I worship. And I hope that you worship as well.

01:00:02

And we would love and pray that Abdullah Kunda will come to know him as well as that powerful savior.

01:00:09

The father is greater than I. I return you to my father and your father, to my God and to your

01:00:15

God. And all of these are just for one gospel. I return to... Okay, then

01:00:21

John chapter 14. Why should the disciples rejoice? John 14, 28, when

01:00:26

Jesus says the father is greater than I am. Why should he say the disciples rejoice? Because Jesus is here on earth.

01:00:33

He's walking amongst people who are trying to catch him in his every word. He's amongst the sick and the lame and the halt. And he's going back to the position of exalted authority that he had before.

01:00:42

Does Abdullah believe that any of these words are true? Could the

01:00:47

Muslim Jesus say the words that he's quoting from John?

01:00:54

And if these are perversions, why are you quoting them? Just one of my questions. I mean, unless you say,

01:00:59

I don't believe any of these things, but even the perverted form leaves us with questions. Okay, I can understand that argument.

01:01:06

Then we can get into textual information and demonstrate they're not perverted. But I'm wondering, exactly where is the consistency in the

01:01:16

Muslim use of these texts? I don't find it. So you found one of December 10th, 2010.

01:01:24

Trinity or Tawhid. Okay, so this is within the past year. I thought it was fairly recent. Okay. We have our entire staff of internet researchers out there, which is rich.

01:01:40

Beating away to try to get that information that I obviously can't come up with. It's one thing,

01:01:46

I'm not bad at multitasking, but that's a little bit beyond I think what anybody can do. Listening, looking up texts, and trying to find the data on the internet.

01:01:55

Sorry, there may be some people who can do that. I ain't be one of them types of folks.

01:02:00

From the Gospel according to John. Is there more? There certainly is.

01:02:06

Jesus is portrayed as being ignorant. No one knows about the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father.

01:02:14

Jesus is portrayed as being ignorant. Well, Jesus is also portrayed as being hungry, and the

01:02:19

Muslims have a real problem with that. The idea of any self -limitation. I mean, there had to be some level of self -limitation in the incarnation, didn't there?

01:02:29

I mean, if the full glory of the pre -incarnate son was allowed to just flow forth from him, so that when he walked, can you imagine?

01:02:41

As a 10 -year -old walking down the streets of Nazareth, and everyone in Nazareth has had to develop an early form of sunglasses, so that when that Jesus boy walks by, we're not blinded by the glory.

01:02:54

You don't think they might have taken notice of something like that? Okay, there's one time in Jesus's ministry where his glory is allowed to be seen on the

01:03:04

Mount of Transfiguration, the presence of the father, Moses and Elijah. But other than that, it's veiled.

01:03:10

So does that mean he's not God? Because he's veiled himself in that? Because he makes himself depend upon the

01:03:16

Holy Spirit? Because there are certain things that in his human existence, for purposes that are obviously appropriate to the father, son, and spirit, he is unaware of at that time?

01:03:28

I mean, it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and read the scriptures, the very one who authored them.

01:03:37

And yet there were times when by the power of the Holy Spirit, he has supernatural knowledge. The Muslim objection is based upon the fundamental

01:03:49

Muslim assumption of the impossibility of the incarnation, which hopefully is what

01:03:54

Abel and I will be debating, because that really is the bedrock. God could never enter into his own creation.

01:04:04

It is too much of a violation of transcendence. That really is the fundamental Islamic objection.

01:04:22

Now that's just a simple error, and I am very—since the date is

01:04:30

December last year, I don't think I had sent the book by then. I would encourage

01:04:35

Mr. Kunda to look up, in the Forgotten Trinity, the discussion of Prototokos in Colossians chapter one.

01:04:43

There is a couple of pages where I give the background meaning of Prototokos.

01:04:49

I exegete the text in Colossians and demonstrate that it does not mean first created, and that text is not stating that Jesus is a created being in any way, shape, or form.

01:05:01

And in fact, to take it that way, as Jehovah's Witnesses try to take it that way, not only violates its background usage, but it also turns

01:05:11

Paul's argument against the Proto -Gnostics on its head in Colossians chapter one.

01:05:18

So basically, Mr. Kunda would have to agree with the mistranslation of Colossians chapter one in the

01:05:24

New World Translation, where they put the word other in brackets. By him were all other things created, etc.,

01:05:30

etc., because he's just misunderstood the term Prototokos, a position of exaltation of the

01:05:39

Son, as if it means that the Son himself is created. That is not the meaning of the term.

01:05:46

It's not saying that he's forgotten of eternity. Jesus sits next to the mighty God. The Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty

01:05:55

God. And the Son of Man in Daniel, in the book of Daniel, is worshipped.

01:06:02

And so I simply have to ask, in light of the fact that Daniel existed long before the Koran came along, unless he's going to say, well, that's all been messed up, and that doesn't make any sense either.

01:06:13

But all those issues aside, Mr. Kunda, do you believe that the Son of Man is worshipped?

01:06:20

Latruo is the term that is used in the Greek Septuagint. Do the nations bow down before him?

01:06:27

Doesn't the Koran say he's a mere Rasul? So you have to take all this into consideration.

01:06:34

Christians, in working through the doctrine of the Trinity, did. But could a

01:06:39

Muslim who is faithful to the presuppositions provided by the

01:06:44

Koran, could the Muslim ever really be fair with the sources that brought us to the conclusion of the doctrine of the

01:06:53

Trinity? That would require the Koranic representation of the

01:07:00

Trinity to be accurate and full. And it is neither. And that's one of the big problems.

01:07:06

Throw the right hand of the Father at the right hand of the mighty God. Okay, so, and what is the assumption?

01:07:14

What do you have to assume to think that saying that since the Son of Man is at the right hand of the mighty

01:07:21

God? What's your assumption that makes that an argument against the Trinity? So you got to recognize these things, folks, because everybody, the oneness people make the assumption, the

01:07:31

Jehovah's Witnesses make the assumption, the Muslims make the assumption, all to different ends. But they all assume the same thing.

01:07:40

They assume Unitarianism. They're assuming it, not proving it. They're just assuming it.

01:07:46

Well, it has to mean this because, well, Unitarianism is true. Not monotheism, because all those groups would claim to be monotheists.

01:07:56

Well, Jehovah's Witnesses seem to be really henotheists, but be that as it may. Uh, wow, thank you,

01:08:03

Mr. Pierce. We, you're quite proud of yourself. We sent that book April 29th of 2011.

01:08:09

This debate was in December of 2010. Therefore, you know the one person who couldn't understand that?

01:08:15

Will Kinney. Will Kinney would still be going, uh -uh, it's in your book.

01:08:22

So he's wrong. Okay, even though he didn't have the book at that time. And even though those Greek manuscripts didn't exist when, when, uh, isn't that a good illustration though?

01:08:33

It's a perfect illustration of, uh, and so anybody who doesn't know the

01:08:41

Will Kinney call and the background to is going, what is he talking about? But I thought it was pretty funny. And it's, it's quite true.

01:08:48

And that's, that's very interesting. Okay, uh, we will, we will pick up, uh, with the

01:08:56

Cunda -Green debate at that exact point. Uh, the next time around, uh, that's assuming that I don't close these things now without writing down the proper dates and dates, times, so on and so forth.

01:09:07

Uh, okay. I have to have a lot of stuff open on my, on my computer at one time here.

01:09:14

We've given you enough of a break. We've, we've allowed you to, you know, wrap your mind around some other things, the meaning of prototokos and, uh, how many misrepresentations of Reformed Theology can

01:09:24

George Bryson and people like that cram into one paragraph and, and, uh, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

01:09:31

And, uh, now listening to Abdullah Cunda and the doctrine, the Trinity and stuff like that. So with all of that, you've gotten a bit of a break.

01:09:39

And so the last 20 minutes of the program, actually 19 minutes of the program, because I know when the sound, the music starts, uh, we will look at the, the

01:09:50

Perkins Reeves debate. And if you listen to all of it, you're going to go, okay, now I remember. But you know, we did that so you could have the context.

01:09:58

You could hear why Mr. Perkins was making the arguments that he was. You could hear, uh, what

01:10:04

Bruce Reeves was saying and how he responded. And, and a couple of you I saw on channel had a few criticisms for Mr.

01:10:11

Reeves. Well, people have criticisms for me too. I thought in general, he did a very good job. And in fact, uh, his, he refused to be dragged into the, the, the taunting that, uh,

01:10:25

Mr. Perkins presented to him primarily in the second half of silent, silent as a tomb.

01:10:31

So we had the silent as a tomb stuff. And I'm just going to tell Mr. Perkins right now, don't do that. That's a violation of the rules.

01:10:37

It's disrespectful to me. It's disrespectful to the audience, disrespectful to the subject. Okay. I, I, uh,

01:10:43

I will, I will claim one thing here. I've done a few debates and I have proven my ability to do respectful scholarly debates with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of contexts.

01:10:57

And that's disrespectful. I've never done it to anybody. I'm not, I'm not going to do it to anybody. Okay. So don't even bother doing it.

01:11:03

Secondly, we need to dismiss the turkey boo argument and the, you're not sober enough to be here arguments.

01:11:12

Those may go over real well down South. They will not go over well in Brisbane, Australia. I don't know if Mr.

01:11:18

Perkins has ever been outside the United States to debate, but I'm just giving him a little heads up, little friendly advice right here.

01:11:25

It's not easy to do, especially when you get wound up. And when this Pentecostals tend to get wound up,

01:11:31

Pentecostals as a whole tend to get wound up. But when you leave the nice, comfortable shores of the

01:11:39

United States, or even if you were to just go up to New England or Portland or something like that, turkey boo, and you're not sober enough to be here tonight, just doesn't work anymore.

01:11:56

The language changes, the culture changes. And it's like,

01:12:02

I warn everybody that goes over to the United Kingdom, men do not wear suspenders in the

01:12:08

United Kingdom. Suspenders are what keeps a woman's stockings up. They're called braces over there. And I've told the story many times of how

01:12:16

John MacArthur just embarrassed a man to death because he wanted to ask a question during Q &A.

01:12:21

He goes, you and the suspenders. And the guy wanted to crawl under rocks in place because he, you know, he took off his and MacArthur didn't know, knows now, but didn't know then.

01:12:32

So I'm just, Mr. Perkins, for your own benefit, you got to be a little more careful along those lines.

01:12:41

Don't be turning to me and asking me to start interacting with you during your time of presentation. That's a violation of the rules.

01:12:47

We'll talk about this beforehand. We're going to have cross -examination and that's when the cross -examination takes place.

01:12:53

That's when there's interaction. It's not during any other time. And it's inappropriate to talk about silent as a tomb.

01:12:59

Yeah, he was following the debate rules and you weren't. And he should be silent as a tomb. And congratulations to Mr.

01:13:05

Rees for for doing that. So got that out of the way. Let's dive back into the debate.

01:13:14

You know what? You cannot have a three -minded God, each of whom is not the same as the other, each of whom are omnipresent and still have one

01:13:23

God. That's the presupposition of oneness theology. He wants to use the term mind.

01:13:29

The Greek term is nous. As I said last time, if the father is to love the son and the son is to love the father, then there has to be some word we're going to use to describe the localization, the centralization of consciousness whereby the son recognizes the existence of the father as someone other than himself.

01:13:56

And so you can call that what you want. But the fact that you have persons communicating with one another and talking about how before an event in history, they had shared a particular relationship,

01:14:12

John 17, 5, you have to use terminology that makes some sense there.

01:14:18

And you may not want to do it. The irony was in the second part of this debate, he's going to use all the terminology that he mocks us for using, person and ontology and everything, when he's defining his own position, he gets to do that.

01:14:30

That is, you know, I think I'm going to coin a phrase, inconsistency. It's a sign of a failed argument.

01:14:37

You like that phrase? I just came up with that just now. Well, actually, OK, it was 2006, but that's

01:14:46

OK. It's interesting to me that whenever he uses the word three, he says that is numerical.

01:14:53

Then when we come to word one of the number one, all of a sudden it shifts. And that's not numerical. Or we have something called categories and the oneness category, the category of the unity and oneness of the being of God is just that his being that which makes him

01:15:11

God, which defines God, and then the category of three, the persons who fully share that one being.

01:15:20

We differentiate between being in person and fundamentally. Mr. Perkins does, too, but he will not admit it.

01:15:30

He he differentiates between being in person. In other areas, it's just his tradition will not allow him to see that this is what the biblical evidence demands.

01:15:41

So when we have one God, it says over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, that's not numerical.

01:15:47

But then when it says, well, it don't say three. So I guess we can't do that. No, when it says there's one

01:15:52

God over and over and over and over and over, we believe that. We believe there is only one true

01:15:58

God. We just don't stop there. And we recognize that that can be true.

01:16:03

In reference to the being of God and untrue in reference to the persons who share that one being.

01:16:11

That's all. I'm not going to go look up when you first said that. Oh, it was 2006.

01:16:18

It was it was in the Shabir Ali debate. That's where I coined the phrase inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.

01:16:25

I actually coined it in the preparation for the Shabir Ali debate and then used it in the debate,

01:16:30

I think, about three times. And it is now become it's all over. It's sort of like the white question as far as, you know, the

01:16:37

Roman Catholics and stuff like that. Yeah. So it's interesting. Boo turkey is the expression.

01:16:43

Boo turkey. But he said turkey boo. There are people, there are people, they're actually looking up the urban dictionary as so there's boo turkey.

01:16:53

But he said turkey boo. And so I just don't.

01:17:01

I just hope we don't have to deal with that in Brisbane. Turkey boo. The proposition says three.

01:17:06

All of a sudden that shifts and that's numeric, you see. Now, each divine person is omnipresent, he said, and omnipotent.

01:17:14

Each divine person is omnipresent in the fact that each divine person shares fully in the divine being, which is omnipresent in the sense of not experiencing limitation.

01:17:26

That would be true. Now, of course, there are questions as to exactly what omnipresence means.

01:17:34

We don't mean omnipresence in the sense of the pagan who says, well,

01:17:40

God is in this tree and God is in this flower and that kind of thing.

01:17:45

As if there is an a necessary extension of the being of God that makes him monistically present throughout all of creation in his being without any possibility of being able to say something like God is upon his throne.

01:18:04

God rules from the heavens or God looks down upon the children of earth or anything like that.

01:18:10

We have to allow for the full spectrum of discussion. There's no place that I can go from his presence as a created being.

01:18:19

But again, you have to allow both of those statements into your understanding of what omnipresence means.

01:18:27

So when Jesus said the father is greater than I, is the almighty omnipotent?

01:18:32

And he's got one that's greater than him? Again, it's pretty simple once you understand what the issues are, to see that Mr.

01:18:41

Perkins is rarely arguing against the doctrine of the Trinity. He's just repeating his same objections.

01:18:48

When Jesus said the father is greater than I, you have an omnipotent saying someone's greater than me? Jesus voluntarily over against the

01:19:00

Merv Griffin illustration, which we haven't gotten to yet. But did you hear it today? Oh, isn't that the worst thing you've ever heard in a debate?

01:19:08

Merv Griffin was Jewish? I didn't know that. I didn't know that. But he will emphasize the son was sent.

01:19:20

Yes, the son was sent. But Jesus voluntarily came. That's the

01:19:26

Carmen Christi. I will be asking him to explain to us reflexive pronouns in his interpretation or attempted interpretation of the

01:19:39

Carmen Christi. That's going to be one of the things I think is going to be the most useful here next week, probably, I think, because I think it's coming right up.

01:19:45

We might even hit it today. And I'm not sure if we do, then we're going to have to just start it and then hold off till next week.

01:19:51

But that is going through the Carmen Christi and his attempts to deal with that. What an incredible, incredible text that is.

01:20:02

I just love walking through that with people. I'll never forget those two Jehovah's Witnesses, two pioneer ministers at Benny Diaz's house all those years ago, when

01:20:13

I was able to walk them through that and they saw it. They understood exactly what he was saying.

01:20:18

It was like a snake had materialized in their lap. It was, it was, it was, it was something else.

01:20:26

Anyway. A person is greater than a second person, each of whom are co -equal. The point is,

01:20:31

I forgot to complete my response. The point is, Mr. Perkins, that the second person made himself of no reputation.

01:20:41

And he did so for a purpose. He did so, yes, at the behest of the father, but he did so freely. That's why he's exalted and given the name, which is above every name.

01:20:50

And so I just have to ask Mr. Perkins, here's, here's a counter question. Someone needs to write this one down.

01:20:55

Maybe Turret and Fan can make sure I don't forget this one. Because he never forgets anything because he's a computer program. Um, in the

01:21:02

Carmen Christi, the name, which is above every name is given to the resurrected

01:21:08

Jesus. Not to the spirit, but the resurrected Jesus.

01:21:15

How can that be from a oneness perspective? How can that be?

01:21:21

How can every knee bow and every tongue confess to a human nature? Because he's clearly distinguished from the father here.

01:21:29

And every time in oneness theology, that the son is distinguished from the father, the son is a human nature.

01:21:37

He's not divine. And yet clearly the son in the Carmen Christi is divine. Even in the interpretation, the oneness folks give, which some

01:21:45

Lutherans take as well, Robert Raymond took as well, that the humiliation is in Jesus' human life.

01:21:52

We'll deal with that. I've, I've, I, you know, if you really want to read something on that, I wrote a feature article for the

01:21:59

CRI journal a number of years ago on the Carmen Christi. I interacted with Raymond. I interacted with Dan Wallace.

01:22:05

I interacted with oneness. A beautiful article, even though Philippians was misspelled, in the beautiful artwork that was put on it.

01:22:13

And the poor editor of the CRI journal wanted to jump out of a window because of that. But, uh, you know, that's just the way it worked.

01:22:18

It was still very, very well done. Uh, the artwork, I'm sorry. I'm not going to sit there. Yeah, my article was really well done.

01:22:24

Though one of the highest compliments Todd Wilkins of Issues Etc gave me when they had me on to talk about that particular article was,

01:22:35

I was very pleased when he said that the translation, I provide my own translation of the text.

01:22:41

And he said he found that to be one of the best translations, most understandable and usable translations he had ever seen. I was like, hey, that made me feel good because I put a lot of work in on that.

01:22:49

But we will definitely be talking about the Carmen Christi. No two ways about it. Yet the second person says that the first person is greater than I am.

01:22:59

Let me, uh. Yes, the second person had taken physical form.

01:23:05

He had humbled himself. The father did not. Therefore, since the father was not self -limited and had not humbled himself, the father was in a greater position than the son.

01:23:18

Straightforward, pretty, pretty simple. Um, it's not an argument against my position. Let me plainly clarify our distinctive positions.

01:23:27

And Mr. Reeves, I'm not trying to take away from you this. You're affirmative tonight. I'm not.

01:23:33

I realize that I'm to follow you and tomorrow night you'll be following me. But there's a lot of people that don't really understand our distinctive positions.

01:23:40

And then I'll be dealing with your arguments at length. My position is that the one

01:23:45

Old Testament God loved humanity enough that he manifest himself in the flesh for the sake of our redemption.

01:23:51

First Timothy 3 16 said God was manifest in the flesh. Even if you take that textual variant and the

01:23:59

King James reading at that point, none of that is an argument against the Trinity. We only have one

01:24:04

Old Testament God. He's assuming Unitarianism. And we do believe that Jesus was

01:24:10

God manifest in the flesh. The point is that the one that was manifest in the flesh was the son, not the father.

01:24:19

That's fundamentally what the difference is. John 1 and 1 said the word was with God. And I don't see how in the world you're going to get persons from here.

01:24:28

Really? It's how do you get plans from here?

01:24:36

In the beginning was the word. The Logos has eternal existence. The Logos is prostantion, with God.

01:24:46

And you have to say, oh, the natural reading of that is that the Logos is a plan existing in the mind of God.

01:24:55

That is what you're really suggesting. The natural reading of the original audience would have been.

01:25:02

Why then say that the word was God? As to his nature, our plans as to their nature divine.

01:25:12

Aren't all plans in the mind of God divine then? Wasn't I in the mind of God?

01:25:19

So was. Could we put my name in for the Logos? Of course not.

01:25:26

Of course not. Be ridiculous. But he said the word was with God and the word was

01:25:32

God. Not a second person in the Godhead. He talked about what the text says. Not a second person in the

01:25:39

Godhead. Why not? You've had an assertion in John 1, 1a about the eternal nature of the

01:25:47

Logos. You have had an assertion in John 1, 1b about the relationship between theos and the

01:25:54

Logos that is expanded in the bookend, which is John 1, 18. And now you have in the original language a description of the essence or nature of the

01:26:08

Logos as being divine. And you're assuming some sort of identity at this point.

01:26:16

In fact, what would be required? And this is interesting. Here's a good illustration for folks. We'll probably wrap it up here.

01:26:23

For Mr. Perkins to be right here, Logos and theos would have to be interchangeable if he's trying to make identity of person.

01:26:31

And that would mean both of the nominatives in the text would have to have the article.

01:26:38

And one of the things that you teach when you teach through John 1, 1 is that the

01:26:43

Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong when they say theos, which is anarthorous, it does not have an article, is to be translated as a god.

01:26:52

Because if it said, Kai, ha theos, ein ha Logos, then Logos and theos would be interchangeable. And we wouldn't know which is a predicate nominative and which is the subject.

01:27:02

And so you could translate it in God was the word or the word was God, because it means all of the word was God and all of God was the word, which is pretty much the argument that Mr.

01:27:11

Perkins gives based on Colossians 2, 9 and his misunderstanding of theoditos, which we'll get to at another point.

01:27:17

But observe the glorious balance of the text. By placing theos before the verb, the writer tells us that the nature of the

01:27:28

Logos is truly God, not theos, Wilkenny, but theos,

01:27:35

God. But by putting the article only with the Logos, he does not confound the persons and confuse us in the process.

01:27:45

What beauty is found when we look to the word of God and we allow it simply to speak for itself.

01:27:53

Well, there you go, folks. Five hours of dividing lines this week.

01:27:59

We are helping that Wayback Machine to take longer and longer and longer.

01:28:05

Lord willing, we will be back on Tuesday. Don't ask me how long the program is going to be. I don't think that far ahead.

01:28:13

Probably at least a jumbo, but we'll see. Who knows? I need to prove I can do a regular -sized one again someday.

01:28:19

Who knows? A ginormous. We're going to have a ginormous one someday. It's jumbo, mega, and then ginormous.

01:28:27

Okay. All right. Hey, thanks for listening, folks. I hope it was a blessing to you. We'll see you next week. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

01:28:39

Let this momentous flow away We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new reformation day

01:28:51

It's the sign of the times The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm

01:28:58

Won't you lift up your voice Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise

01:29:05

I'm not a wimper I'm not a wimper I'm not a wimper

01:29:19

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