Conversations with "Church of Christ" EXILES w/ Paul Day @ReformedOudeis ...examining Acts 2:38!

Well, hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace.

And we do that by standing on the word of God. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 verse 20 to guard the deposit that was entrusted to him and avoid pagan philosophies, irreverent babble, and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

And so The Apologetic Dog is Christians, the Christians of the world that are not only defending

God's truth, but also are contending for the faith that has been once delivered to the saints.

And so if you've liked The Apologetic Dog ministry, I just wanna encourage you to like and subscribe to the channel.

You can support The Apologetic Dog really through prayer. That's something I would firstly like to ask.

And you can go to The Apologetic Dog website if you'd like to support the ministry in other ways.

I would greatly appreciate that. But your prayers, your words of encouragement, many of you that have done that over the past year and a half or so have meant the world to me.

And we're in this together. And so today we have a very special episode on interviewing

Church of Christ exiles. Because one of the major emphasis of the ministry of The Apologetic Dog is interacting with the

Church of Christ. I believe that they have deviated from the faith. They have added works to the gospel of grace.

And a lot of times that begins with being baptized. But they will also add that you have to be baptized into the right church that apparently has the

Church of Christ name on the church building. And that you have to continue to live a holy life.

And if you don't, then you can't be made right with God. And so today

I have a very special guest with me, Paul Day. How are you, sir? We've been chatting through social media, mainly

Facebook and YouTube chats. And so this is pretty awesome to finally have you on The Apologetic Dog.

Yes, sir. It is a privilege and an honor. I'm always grateful to be associated with anyone who has a heart like I do to try and reach our friends and neighbors who are in the

Churches of Christ. Well, Paul, if you don't mind, please introduce yourself a little bit more in length and tell people where they can maybe find some of your content and things like that.

As we said earlier, my name is Paul Day. And I make a lot of content on YouTube.

The channel name is, you can look it up as Reformed Udace or just simply search as Paul Day and Church of Christ and my channel will come up.

I'm a former member of the Church of Christ. I was in it for over 20 years, born and raised.

Fourth generation member of the Church of Christ. And as I was coming out of growing up in that movement,

I saw a lot of problems and I made a decision to leave that movement for biblical reasons, not for anything personal or anything like that.

My journey strictly a task of following the path that was laid out to me in scripture.

Yeah, so tell us a little bit more about that journey. Was there any influential people in your life?

Was there any particular Bible passages that really gripped your heart or other resources like that?

What really helped you kind of make your way out of the Church of Christ world? I think the biggest reason would be my parents.

My parents educated me not through the material promoted through the

Church of Christ to begin with. My education was strictly a diet off the word of God.

My parents made sure that I was intimately familiar with the scriptures as soon as I was able to understand.

And by that, I mean one, two, three, four, five years old. There was never a night that did not go by that we did not discuss scripture.

It wasn't allowed that we would end our day without discussing scripture.

So scripture has always been the foundation of my experience since I was a kid. It's the biggest blessing that I've ever had in my life.

And when I became more, I guess you could say, indoctrinated in the movement, that part of me never really went away.

When you start off in that movement, you're pretty much, the particular branch that I was part of was very much an exclusivistic group.

There are different branches of the conservative Church of Christ. The one that I was associated with would be what you would call a non -institutional

Church of Christ. And they pretty much held that any church that did not follow with them along with all the different issues and arguments of the day were not saved.

So if your church supported orphan homes or benevolent causes, that was enough to send you to the fires of hell.

So it was pretty strict. But once you're fed that type of worldview, you see everyone who goes by the name of Christian as being suspect, being frauds.

It's difficult to explain. It seems like, from my experience, there's really no other way to explain it.

We were the only Christians and those who were like -minded with us were then that very small group of people.

But the biggest thing that helped keep me from going completely and totally devoted to that was that foundation that I mentioned earlier, that being tied to Scripture.

I first started having really hard time putting

Scripture with our doctrine. I can remember quite clearly when we were in a teenage

Bible study class and we were discussing the account of Cornelius in the book of Acts.

And here we were going through the Scriptures and here was a man who received the baptism of the

Holy Spirit before he was baptized. The mark of the new covenant, as we also learned in other

Scriptures, and it was an arresting moment. How is that possible that somebody could receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit, the mark of the new covenant before baptism? And the approach and the answer that I received was, well, if that were true, then what about Mark 16, 16,

Acts 2, 38, Acts 22, 16? You're saying this one little story overturns all the rest of it.

So at that point, it was like, I'm gonna file that away and look at that later.

But as I started growing up a little bit more in there, we became introduced by the evangelist of the congregation to what we call the restorers.

And for those who are outside of the Church of Christ movement, the restorers are the initial movers and shakers of the restoration movement that began the

Churches of Christ in the 19th century. And so the evangelist presented lessons on people like Alexander Campbell, Barton W.

Stone. And so I heard these stories and then I started to read their books.

And when I read their history and what they stood for and compared that to what we stood for,

I was shocked to discover that the Churches of Christ are an evolving institution.

There's always a new version of what the restored church looks like every generation.

So when I put these differences to the evangelist in question, he said, well, we don't follow men, we just follow the

Bible. But here's these great men that they were lauding as these infallible interpreters of Acts 2 .38

coming to these vastly different conclusions on different, these side issues that are salvific for them.

And especially the most shocking thing that you can read about the restorers is that none of those four men,

Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell, Barton W. Stone and Walter Scott, none of those men were ever baptized in order to obtain their remissions of sins, none of them.

They all came to that conclusion after giving a testimony of personal faith and trust in Christ later on down the road when they accepted the message of the

Restoration Movement. So the question becomes, how can unsaved, unbaptized men restore the

Church of Christ? And from there, it just kind of snowballed. Paul, do you have any good recommendations like resources people can look into to kind of look more back to those restorationist roots?

Oddly enough, read their books. Okay. The easiest work that you can read is a book called

Christianity Restored that was compiled by, I believe, it was Alexander Campbell's son -in -law, Robert Richardson, after he died, where several of Campbell's most important essays were compiled as a book.

I believe one of the most important works that he gave was his

Sermon on the Law that gave the Churches of Christ their entire interpretive framework of how to read the

Old Testament and the New Testament. It was the catalyst for his being removed from, of all places, the

Baptist Association for which he was a part. A lot of people don't know that. But yes, even

Alexander Campbell was associated with the Baptist Church on his way to make the

Church of Christ. Yeah, was he a Presbyterian for a time before that, maybe? That is correct.

His father, Thomas Campbell, was a Presbyterian minister. He was caught up in a lot of very, truthfully, there were some very serious sectarian controversies within the

Presbyterian Church at that time. Thomas Campbell wanted to do be more accepting of people of different opinions within the

Presbyterian Church, which led to his being removed from the Presbyterian Church. Alexander Campbell quickly followed suit.

He was coming to some of the same conclusions at the same time. But that one action made

Alexander Campbell the man he was. He was so enraged at the treatment of his father, that color, the tenure and outlook of his entire life.

Had his father not been removed from the Presbyterian Church, there would be no Alexander Campbell.

There would be no Church of Christ. Yeah. Well, I appreciate. I'll definitely list that book in the show notes when this video releases.

Just so people, I like the advice you gave. Just read the books. Challenge the consistency of what's being said.

Because really, the Church of Christ movement finds its roots with Thomas and Alexander Campbell.

Back in, is it around 1811? I feel like I remember that date kinda around the birth of all the

Church of Christ movement. Does that sound about right? That's a pretty good date, yeah. If you wanna get a short summary of everything that they were involved in, you can also check out some of Bob L.

Ross's books, like Campbellism is History and Heresies. And the

Restoration Movement. Bob Ross was a force to be reckoned with, with Church of Christ apologetics.

He just recently passed away. But his resources are invaluable.

You can find many of his resources today on a YouTube channel called See Answers TV.

That's run by Larry Wessels. So that's another good resource if you wanna have a good primer on the history of the

Church of Christ. Definitely. No, that's great. I'll definitely list some of that in the show notes as well.

And so I'd like to go back to something you said, because back when you were in the Church of Christ, your daily diet was taking in the word of God and looking for this overall harmony.

And I'd like to go back to Acts 10, so you can kind of tell us some of the problems that you were seeing at Cornelius's household.

I can pull up the scripture here. Can you see it okay on your end? Yes, sir.

Okay, well, I'll go ahead and read a portion of this passage and then just kind of walk us through how this passage started making you question the harmony of Acts 238, the sermon that Peter preached at Pentecost along with other passages like Mark 16, 16.

I've been following you on social media, Paul, and I love all of your input, your in -depth study of the

Greek, the original languages. And so I would like to kind of hear your take in a lot of these proof texts that kind of emerged out of interacting with the

Church of Christ, because there's almost a canned script, I've noticed. And we all need to appeal to the word of God to base our beliefs on.

But to me, every time I've met with a proof text, context is the thing that at the apologetic dog,

I always try to push back with, because if you take a single verse and build a theology on that, you can essentially twist it and make it say anything you want.

And so this is a very interesting passage. I'll go ahead and read it for our viewers. But the Apostle Peter just got done preaching at Cornelius' household, the gospel.

And in fact, I'll even read the last verse here in verse 43. To him, Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him, and this is so key in my conversations,

Paul, with Acts 238, in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.

The one that believes in him by faith in his name. And so we go on to read, while Peter was still saying these things, the

Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word, and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the

Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speak in tongues and extolling

God. We'll come back to that phrase, that's really important. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the

Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Then they asked him to remain for some days. So go ahead and tell us some of the things that you were having trouble reconciling.

I know you kind of alluded to it earlier, but maybe there's some more details in here in those conversations that you were having back when you were in the

Church of Christ. Well, the biggest thing is not just the historical details, it's when the

Council of Jerusalem happens in Acts 15, how they interpret how all of that came together.

And when Peter stood up in Acts 15, he mentions what happened and how he was involved with the conversion of the

Cornelius. And he says in verse eight there, and God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the

Holy Spirit just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

So Peter says what happened to them, the apostles and everyone there in Acts 2 also happened the same way to them.

So the reception of the Holy Spirit was God bearing witness to them.

He knew their hearts. It wasn't the standard line where they try and say, well, they're just trying to say that the

Gentiles were accepted too. Though this was a statement of God knowing their hearts and he bore witness to them by giving them that same gift, being cleansed in the same manner.

And with Peter and everyone there in Acts 2, they received it after baptism.

And here, Cornelius receives it before baptism. So God bore witness to them before the act of baptism.

That's so good. I went ahead and pulled up the passage here in Acts 15, the retelling. And I think this is an important point.

I try, in all the debates that I do, I'm repping Marlon's channel, by the way, The Gospel Truth. Please go check out that brother's channel.

But that phrase, and God who knows the heart. And so, Paul, tell me what you think about this.

When I'm talking about the differences between faith and works, something I've noticed in the

Church of Christ, maybe it's not everyone, but every time I mentioned the word faith with pistis, they wanna say it's kind of intellectual knowledge, believing.

And sure, there are certain contexts where it does mean that. But my understanding of pistis is firm trust, faith that's immaterial and of the heart.

And the point is, you can know your own heart, right? And more importantly, God knows your own heart.

And so I try to really say pistis is something internal and of the heart and God knows. And if it's real, if it's truly

Holy Spirit wrought, then justified faith will necessarily produce works.

So what do you think? Is that a good way of understanding and kind of highlighting the word when we're looking at the heart?

I would agree with that. Their particular way of framing this issue is that they will insist that anyone who disagrees with them is simply stating that one is being justified by a mere mental assent, just a bare acceptance of facts.

And they do that on purpose to bring the conversation immediately to James 2.

But also in this passage - I would love to go there with Church of Christ, but in a lot of my debates,

Paul, I try to bait him into James 2 and it's as though they wanna run away from it. But they typically don't want to, they only wanna cite a few passages in there.

In my experience, when I've given a very careful, detailed exegesis of the passage, they ignore it.

I've had them laugh at it. They just think, look, he's just pretending like he knows all this stuff and he's just trying to override the plain statements of Scripture.

So it's disturbing, but they would rather, for them, power is kept in their assemblies by the appeal to ignorance.

The less that they know about the Scriptures and the less that they know about the church history itself, the more power that they have over individuals.

So - And we're not being mean by pointing that out. I don't know if this is a good appeal, but Phil Robertson, I think

I'm saying his name right, off Duck Dynasty, I've seen interviews with him of saying that he's like, look, you gotta explain it to me because I have a

C average, right? And the whole point is, let's go to Acts 2 .37,

what must we do? And then they repent and were baptized. And his appeal is kinda like you're saying,

I'm a simple man. It says repent and be baptized. That's what they did at Pentecost.

That's what we must do today. And I don't want us to sound rude by saying an appeal to ignorance or, cause you hear me always say, well, context is everything, right?

And I know that's what you do too. And so we know our labors are not in vain when we simply try to broaden these verses.

And I like what you did. We were in Acts 10 and saying, hey, Acts 15 relates heavily to what we're looking at here.

So I just don't want anybody to think that we're trying to be mean by saying that there's an appeal to ignorance because you lived it, you know what

I mean? And maybe not everyone has the exact same experience, but it sounds like you were that guy that had a lot of questions.

And when you asked questions and made points, you were met with like, oh, you'll figure it out one day.

Yeah. There's a lot of looking down on my youth.

There's no way that a young man could challenge the established authority.

So that's, I would just, as I was going through that stage of things, I would table it because I would get that pushback.

But yeah, that was the initial thing. I was having a really hard time making their viewpoint of baptism jive with the win of justification as it was clearly spelled out in the

New Testament. Yeah, you said back when you were a young man, you're still a young man. You're about 29 years old or so, right?

Not hardly anymore. Well, I wanted to go back real quick to Acts chapter 10 with the account of Cornelius, because something that when

I'm talking with Church of Christ is the point that a person is justified and regenerated to be consistent on the

Church of Christ view, it's when you go into the watery graves of baptism. You come out a new creation, you're regenerated.

And so I ask, is it possible for someone who's unregenerate to worship and praise

God? And if anybody's familiar, only the heart of faith can please

God, Hebrews 11, 6. Romans 14 talks about anything done apart from faith is sin, right?

So most people understand, well, no, you gotta be regenerate. You gotta be indwelt by the Spirit in order to praise and worship and extol

God. And so what's interesting is the gospels being preached here with Cornelius' household, and the

Holy Spirit is already at work in and through the word. And to Peter and them were amazed because the gift of the

Spirit was being poured out even on the Gentiles for they were hearing them speaking in tongues, and here's the key, extolling

God. Okay, when we look into this word, this essentially carries that heart of worship, right?

And all this is happening before they were baptized. And so I've noticed, or in my opinion, this is really hard to reconcile on the

Church of Christ view because it's clear they've not been baptized into water yet. And yet these people who have received the word in faith and have the

Holy Spirit, they're extolling God. The writer Luke is pinning the book of Acts telling us that they are in fact worshiping and extolling

God. And so I think that poses a problem. What do you think, Paul? Yeah, for me, when

I try and have a meaningful discussions with my friends and neighbors in the Church of Christ, I appeal to the differences in the covenant.

There is a difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. The prophecies of the new covenant are quite specific that no longer would there be people who were gifted by God who were not at the same time in the right with God.

There would be no person in the new covenant who was not also justified, who did not also possess such gifts.

So, and the time of the new covenant to possess a gift of the

Spirit is an indication of one's membership in the new covenant. The circumstances are now different than they were in the old covenant.

So if you realize the difference between the covenants, there's no way one could possess the gifts of the

Spirit or be baptized in the Spirit and not be a member of the covenant.

So do you think this is a good point to make here in Acts 10 about you have people that have received the

Word, have the Spirit extolling God before they're baptized, because essentially the Church of Christ need you to receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit, right? After one has been baptized. Yeah, there's a difference of opinion, as you may know what that actually means, receiving the gift of the

Holy Spirit among the Church of Christ. The group that I was involved with claimed that this was only something promised to the people at that time, and that it was the actual pouring out of the

Holy Spirit. But the more slick and more sophisticated, we called them in our groups, change agents, where they didn't accept the status quo and the orthodoxy of the past.

So they try and reinvent it. They try and say, well, the reception of the gift of the

Holy Spirit is the forgiveness of sins. So problem resolved, we don't have to address this issue anymore.

But they do a lot of jumping through hoops to prove that, but it's really easy to see that the argumentation on that is really bad, and it's out of sync with their own history.

Okay, well, before we leave Acts 10, I actually wanted to ask you a question about a phrase that we read here.

And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. So the

Church of Christ that you were at, did y 'all baptized in the name of the Trinity, or was it in the name of Jesus Christ?

They really, see, at this point, this illustrates something we probably need to bring out.

The Churches of Christ, historically, as far as the

Trinity goes, are very wishy -washy. They have a very poor record when it comes to the

Trinity. They would view it, you don't have to say it, as a formula.

Some people would say, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Ghost. Others would just, they would just exact your confession, and then dunk you in water.

For them, it's just, the standard way we would approach it was, it's not a formula, it's the authority behind what you're doing.

So saying in the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost, or in Jesus was inconsequential.

It was, as long as one was baptizing with the view of the authority of God, with the background of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, there wasn't the insistence on any type of verbiage.

You just had to know that you were doing it in order to obtain remission of sins. If you didn't know that part, it was all in vain.

Yeah, well, it's just interesting, because when I have those conversations about me trying to contextualize

Acts 2 .38, because it also mentions in the name of Jesus Christ, and it also talks about the forgiveness of sins, those phrases that we see back there in Acts chapter 10.

It's funny, because when I try to interpret in light of context, I get told, Jeremiah, you're disobeying

Acts 2 .38. And I'm like, okay, because I thought for a while, well, surely they baptized in the triune name, the way that Jesus prescribed back in the

Great Commission. But I'm starting to realize that there are Church of Christ that baptize in Jesus' name only.

And if I wanna apply their own standard back to them, I wanna say, why are you disobeying what Jesus said back in the

Great Commission? And so maybe there's just different stripes, like you're saying, as long as you're doing this act for the forgiveness of sins, whether it be in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Spirit or Jesus' name only, as long as it's for the forgiveness of sins, that's the thing that matters most, right?

Yes, you have to have the knowledge and understanding that what you are doing is in order to obtain the remission of sins.

Well, I wanted to transition to Acts 2 .38, everyone's favorite

Bible verse. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on this, because I love talking with Church of Christ, because they've had to wrestle with this verse.

I jokingly say, this is the SBC John 3 .16 for the Church of Christ, and I have so many

SBC brothers out there, so I say that in love. But I want your help to kind of see how you would expand the context here.

This is very Jewish context at Pentecost. And so verse 37 maybe helps set the stage a little bit.

Now, when they heard this, the gospel that Peter just proclaimed, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. So Paul, what say you? I mean, it's so clear, right? The Bible says what it says, and it means what it means, right?

And we're supposed to speak where the Bible speaks. Well, the linchpin of this entire argument is that they believe what is being said here is that the

Greek preposition ace must of necessity mean in order to obtain or something like unto, something of that sort.

That interpretation was given to them directly by Alexander Campbell and his associates.

So it's not something that they came up with on their own. A lot of times they'll say, well, if you just gave the regular person a

Bible and then told them to read Acts 2 38, what would they come away believing?

So you have to, as part of this, you can get into,

I think there's a nuance here with the actual grammar, because there is a difference between the commands.

Repent is a second person plural imperative. The be baptized switches to a third person singular imperative.

And then you have the preposition and then the object goes back to a second person plural.

So it would connect the unto, the remission of your sins to the actual repentance.

And then the baptism command becomes what you could say an important parenthetical command that the weight is on repentance.

And then the idea of the immediate, you must be baptized in response to this.

So I believe that is how the original audience would have interpreted that.

There are some people who do push back on that grammatical argument, like they will focus on how in Greek, there is oftentimes a switch between second person plural and third person singular, which it does.

And it's not to say it's referring to different people, but just one thing you have to remember,

Greek is a highly inflected language. It doesn't behave like English. If you wanna make a point, you can arrange the verbiage how you want to arrange it.

And so the sermon here arranges the emphasis on what you see the rest of the

New Testament placing the emphasis on. For example, if you go back to the first volume of this, like I believe it's in Luke 24, where Jesus was talking to the apostles and with this particular discussion, he says that the repentance was a means of forgiveness of sins, how be first be preached among all the nations.

So you would think there would be a continuity between both volumes if this was so important, if it was a formula for salvation.

But even still, the big kicker is they insist that salvation is a five -step process.

Where is the five -step process in Acts 2 .38? It's not there.

Right. You can't find a command like the insistence of being a confession.

You have to infer belief in their perspective. So there's no issue of consistency.

You have, literally, you would have to argue that every time an apostle came across somebody, they gave a different message to different groups of people.

So for me - Real quick, I want to read this verse that you said, because I want to highlight what you said about the continuity.

Luke's the writer of both the Gospel of Luke and Acts. And so, you know, Jesus is spelling out the gospel that he's illuminating to the disciples' minds.

And in verse 47, he says, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

Now, you're highlighting on the point of, they're gonna say, well, yeah, you need the five -step formula, right?

Repentance, or help me out, you gotta hear the gospel, you gotta believe, you gotta repent, you gotta confess, and then you gotta be baptized, and then a hidden step.

Oh yeah, you gotta join the right church, and then you gotta continue to live a holy life. And if you don't, then you'll lose your salvation.

Yep, I would agree. But one thing too, I think one thing that supports that grammatical argument of the repentance being linked to the forgiveness of sins, the best one is definitely with Luke, with the continuity between both volumes.

But when you look at the way baptism is discussed in the gospels, where it mentions the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, let me pull that up here.

Which verse do you want me to turn to, just so our audience can see? We're looking at, yeah,

Mark 1 .4, yeah, Mark 1 .4, I believe. Yeah, John the

Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Clearly the term, the same terminology there appears not after baptism, but it's after repentance.

That baptism was associated, related to the concept of repentance that resulted in the forgiveness of sins.

And as a way to further prove that point, when you actually read in Josephus in his antiquities in the passages where he discusses the baptism of John the

Baptist, he specifically says that it was the position of John the baptizer that the baptism did not remit the sins, it was the repentance.

So I have a question here, because I love this. I try to appeal to John's baptism, and I capitalize on similar points, but something else

I wanna get your thoughts of. I'm not familiar if the definite article here is for the forgiveness of sins.

I know the definite article is not back in Acts 2 .38, but what I try to tell people is the way that Peter is saying this definitely links it to repentance like you're talking about, but what is necessarily presupposed in the forgiveness of sins, whether with the definite article or not, is the forgiveness of sins that was accomplished at Calvary by Jesus.

And so what's important about this is you see this same phraseology for the forgiveness of sins here with John the

Baptist, and he's paving the way for Messiah. So do you think that in any way the forgiveness of sins here is kind of pointing forward to the work that Jesus is going to accomplish?

I would believe so because he also commanded as recorded by the apostles that he commanded that they were to later believe on the one who was coming after him.

And he made that very clear that he would be the lamb who would take away the sins of the world. So yes, there was a direct correspondence between the ministry of John the baptizer and Jesus himself.

And it's my particular viewpoint that Jesus carried over that concept of baptism direct from John the baptizer.

It had, when you compare it, like for example, when you read in the

New Testament about like 1 Peter 3, 21, baptism now saves us. If you take the viewpoint as I do that it literally is referring to water baptism, you can make the argument that water baptism does save the believer.

But the question is how? With John the baptizer, he came on the scene preaching first a baptism related to the concept of repentance that resulted in the forgiveness of sins.

He laid out the requirement of baptism so he could preach the gospel. So in that sense, baptism has that salvific power because it becomes a catalyst for the preaching of the gospel and the gospel is the means by which faith and repentance are granted.

That's how justification occurs. And that's how I take that particular passage. Yeah, and there's a lot of,

I've heard a lot of good Orthodox ways of looking at 1 Peter 3, 21.

And a lot of my own testimony was one where I saw one of my friends being baptized and something was real about his faith, right?

I was just a fan of Jesus and I was going through the motions, but seeing his faith put on display and hearing the baptizer contextualize what was going on with the gospel of grace, man, that was powerful to me.

And that's contradistinction to baptismal regeneration. But what I like to emphasize to people is, look, baptism declares the gospel.

You know what I mean? And so I think sometimes, I'm of the Baptist persuasion.

Sometimes we get a bad rap like, you can be saved, you can say the sinner's prayer and baptism just doesn't matter as an afterthought.

It's like, man, I do not see, in fact, in order for someone to become a member at 12

Five Church where I serve as pastor and elder at, you have to have a legitimate baptism. We talk about baptism as like a passport that you carry around in order to be a member of the local church.

In order to become a member of the universal church, that's by faith. But to be a member of the local congregation, biblical church, you have to be baptized biblically.

And so I'm with you. I think baptism is so important in so many ways.

And I like to emphasize that baptism is necessary for our sanctification, not regeneration, not our justification, but someone who loves

King Jesus and desires to be obedient to all that he's commanded us, like in the Great Commission.

Well, that belongs in the category of our sanctification where we continue to grow in holiness. And so I wanted to switch gears back to the word ice.

We're talking about for the forgiveness of sins. And so in Acts 2 38, I always try to say, look,

Peter had already been pointing back to Calvary with his sermon to these Jews and basically was like, y 'all are the ones that killed him, right?

So he's pointing back to Calvary where Jesus accomplished redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

And so that's what's buried in the forgiveness of sins with John the Baptist pointing forward.

And I also like to point out this verse. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too. The night before the crucifixion at the institution of the

Lord's Supper. It's interesting because I'll have Church of Christ take me to verse 28 and I'm over here like, thank you, you beat me to it.

I was wanting to go here too. Jesus says, drink of the cup, drink of it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

And so they're just saying, see, it actually produces an effect like in the causal sense.

I'm saying, look, Jesus is not at Calvary, right? He's instituting the Lord's Supper with the elements of the wine and the bread.

And this is, not to get into a full blown debate on what does it mean with the ordinances and or sacraments, but this is all pointing to what's about to take place the next day.

And so the forgiveness of sins with John the Baptist was pointing forward. What Jesus was saying the night before the crucifixion was pointing forward.

And Acts 2 .38 is Peter's sermon pointing back to what Jesus did.

And I take the same approach you do to Acts 2 .38. The forgiveness of sins is linked to repentance.

And so before I continue to kind of build on repentance being linked to the forgiveness of sins, do you have any points here in Matthew 26 .28?

When you were charged with Christ, did you wanna go to this passage to prove a particular point? Yeah, we were trained specifically to do that.

We really weren't, that's one thing in my experience, we weren't really trained to exegete scripture. We were trained how to give arguments.

This was one of them. We were told that every Baptist on earth always says that ace always means because of, and they said, they told us to go to this verse in Matthew 26 .28

and show them, say here's the exact same Greek phrase, and it is.

And then they'll say to insist that that means because of, then you will have to say that Jesus shed his blood because sins had already been remitted.

And for a second there, if you hold the ace means because of, that is a problem.

But if you look at this phrase, I don't really think that they even consider that this backfires on their own position.

If ace forgiveness of sins here means in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins, what does baptism do that Jesus hasn't already done?

If it's the exact same phrase, you would have to give baptism the exact same power as the act of Jesus Christ.

One thing that I really respect Bob Ross for in his work with the churches of Christ, when this exact argument was used in one of his debates, he said, please do not equate the act of baptism with the act of Jesus Christ.

Baptism did not die for your sins. To try and say they mean the exact same thing, you are giving the ordinance of baptism the exact same power and efficacy as the sacrifice of Christ.

But even then in their own perspective, did the sacrifice of Jesus actually cause the forgiveness of sins or simply bring about the possibility where one might be forgiven of sins?

So even in their own perspective, it cannot mean the same thing. Jesus's sacrifice did not actually accomplish the forgiveness of sins.

It did not obtain eternal redemption. It only attained the possibility where one maybe could be forgiven of their sins.

Maybe could be saved. So even if you hold them to their own standard of the argument, they don't even hold the same interpretive grid for both verses.

I really appreciate your insight on that. Like we've been saying, you lived it for, how many years did you grow up in the church of Christ?

I believe it was 23, 23. Wow. So I used to take the because of argument in Acts 2 .38.

It was really more for pragmatic reasons. It's simple, right? And you can prove how

I can mean at or because of. And on one hand, you could just talk about what

Jesus is saying at the Lord's Supper is a different context in Acts 2 .38, which was kind of your appeal to saying, well, baptism and what

Jesus did are not the same. And so to me, that's still a valid point. I still like to say with the same phraseology, it's all pointing back to Calvary, right?

With John the Baptist and Jesus is pointing forward, and then Peter, it's pointing back. But it's this passage in Acts chapter three, which it's

Peter's second sermon essentially. This to me kind of says, okay, echoing what he said in Luke's gospel that it's repentance and continuing throughout

Acts. It's always repentance linked to the forgiveness of sins. And I don't know where you're at on this, but anytime we read about saving faith, repentance is always the backside of faith.

They're two sides of the same coin as far as like I understand it. And so here in Peter's second sermon, he's not gonna contradict what he said at Pentecost, just one chapter earlier, but he's talking about faith in his name, faith in the name of Jesus.

And then just a few verses later in verse 19, he says, repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.

And I believe in the verse 19, there's a similar construction of like you're talking about in the second person.

Is it plural? Can you remind me on the construction of Acts 2 .38 like you were saying? The command in Acts 2 .38

initially begins with a second person plural command. And then the baptism becomes a third person singular command.

It emphasizes the individuality and the importance of the baptism and a lot of repentance.

Any idea if this is the similar construction of Acts 2 .38 with a second person plural?

Because I know repentance here is linked to that your sins may be blotted out.

Let's see, Acts 3. Sorry to put you on the spot. You probably didn't know I was about to take you through the ringer of all the proof texts.

Well, yeah, in Acts 3 .19, both of the commands are second person plural in this case.

You have the second person plural for repent and turn. They're both in second person plural.

So it's not the exact same thing, but the audience is being told to repent and turn in order that their sins may be forgiven.

Right, which is so important because it's kind of emphasizing that theme of its repentance that's linked to the forgiveness of sins.

Or Peter and Paul later in Acts will talk about believing in his name for the forgiveness of sins. And so were you the kind of Church of Christ that would say, well,

Jeremiah Sinaiticus. That's just, that's a part that represents the whole. Yeah, Sinaiticus is the answer for everything that does not have water.

That is what we were trained to do. In my debate with Gavin James, we talked about justification and how it relates to baptism.

I said Sinaiticus are self -defeating because I can appeal to a different part of the whole to prove my case.

Because I would say baptism is a type of Sinaiticus. It's a sanctifying means of our, it's a sanctifying means of our salvation that points back to our justification by faith.

Or I could say baptism is a sanctifying part of my salvation that points back to being regenerated by the

Holy Spirit. And I'm saying Sinaiticus. And so I'm just saying, I don't think Sinaiticus can make or break anyone's case.

So I get how that's maybe a rescuing device, but I'm over here saying, I can appeal to Sinaiticus the same way and show how it's a double standard.

Yeah, Sinaiticus can be used to prove anything, much like a necessary inference. It's more of an argument that's designed to corral your own group that you already have.

To give them an interpretive way of smoothing out that difficulty. Of course, they would turn around and say that we're actually doing the same thing in reverse.

One particular thing that they're known for saying is that we take all of the verses, whereas the

Baptists and everybody else, they only want us to focus on belief. And that's not the case.

It's not that one reads John 3, 16 and say, well, that's it, that's my theology. There's much more to it.

For example, when we were discussing earlier, they insist that biblically, there is a difference between repentance and faith.

That repentance and faith are two entirely distinct separate actions. But yet you can read in Acts 20 and verse 21, where they are tied together.

And it's specifically done so in the actual Greek language. It's called a

TSKS construction, where you have the article, and then you have a substantive, and then you have chi and then you have another substantive.

It's the author wrapping it all together as a one item. So in the biblical worldview, repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin by definition, by exegetical derivation from the text.

So it's not something that we impose upon the text to try and get out of a situation.

We get this direct from the text. It's not a pick and choose thing. We're trying to find out what the scripture says on everything.

So it's not the easy way out, it's the hard way. So you pointed out how there's a chi here, right?

Paul testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I remember when we go back to Acts 2 .38, you got repent and be baptized.

And the always point is Jeremiah coordinating conjunction. They go together and you're trying to separate.

And so my big push is always context is king. And just looking at this context, I'm with you just with the

English saying, we can see how faith and repentance are always two sides of the same coin and how I continue to expand on that.

And I love how you're more equipped with the Greek syntax. But what I say is knowing the definitions of faith and repentance, you know that they're intertwined together because repentance, repent is metanoia, change the mind, right?

And it's not just a mere intellectual ascent. If the heart is engaged, which pistis is, it's firm trust.

Not only do we have that in the Greek word pistis itself, but that is the functional understanding of Hebrews 11 verse one, that it's assurance, firm trust.

And so that necessarily means it engages the mind, but it's a heart disposition.

And so my point, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so when we go back to Acts 2 38, repent and be baptized.

Jeremiah, see, they go together. I'm saying, yes, they go together in this way. Justification, which is by a repentant faith.

And then Peter is calling them to demonstrate that repentant faith in the ceremony of baptism.

And so that's another definition that's been very helpful for me in debates is saying, well, what is baptism?

What is a baptizo? It literally means to be in a ceremony, a purification rite, which signifies, and that's the key word, signifies a relationship with God.

So what do you think about the appeal to the coordinating conjunction back in Acts 2 38? Well, one thing you have to keep in mind with the churches of Christ, like going back to the synecdoche issue, for them, they equate faith to obedience.

They will literally equate faith to obedience. But when, like for example,

I brought this up in a discussion I had not too long ago, and my friends in the church of Christ acted like this was the first time they've ever heard this verse.

In their mind, they think repentance includes the following actions. But if you look up in any lexical source, it's always a change of mind that leads to a change in action.

And you can find proof of that when you go to Matthew 3 8 and other passages in the gospels.

That the people were told to repent and to do works that are worthy of repentance.

So the biblical text itself, not my theology, not what I'm trying to advocate, the

Bible advocates a difference between repentance and what you do after.

The works that are worthy of repentance are necessary. They are a necessary consequence, but you cannot confound them.

And sadly, in their perspective, they want to confound the issue here, where the text makes a distinction between the two.

Paul, you're one of my favorite people. I do the same exact thing, because there's a given assumption in many people's mind, not just church of Christ, but repentance is the works itself.

And it's like, no, no, no. John the Baptist is one of the best examples saying keeping in the fruit, the byproduct of repentance, right, with a changed life.

And so I'm of the persuasion, and I really feel like I'm within the bounds of not only orthodoxy, but just saying, look, baptism is a work, but it's a sanctifying ceremonial work of obedience.

It's not a means of earning favor with God, but it flows out of a justified heart, somebody that's looking to Jesus Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, and that leads to works of obedience.

And what usually is the first step of this demonstration of one's faith and repentance is the ceremony of baptism.

So do you think I'm okay with saying, yeah, baptism's a work, but it's a means of sanctification, right?

It's conforming us more into the image of Christ. And as Baptist, I contend that it's an act of faith.

And so that's where Philippians 2, 12, and 13, this is me working out my salvation with fear and trembling in the sanctification context, but it's

God that's working in and through me for his good pleasure. So what do you think about some of that?

Well, typically, we were trained to immediately fire back with Titus 3, that baptism is defined as not being an act of righteousness.

But this is where the faultiness of having a proof text theology comes into play big time, because I can read in Matthew 3 and verse 15, where Jesus called his own baptism, submitting to it that it was necessary for them to fulfill all righteousness.

That's Jesus Christ calling the act of baptism an act of righteousness. So if Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, the person who they believe is the founder of their restored church calls baptism an act of righteousness,

I'm going with Jesus Christ. And that's why I prefer to approach that particular issue.

So I did a debate on, I think it was Standing for Truth. No, might've been on Marlon's channel, but this verse obviously gets brought up.

And I did a backdoor way of trying to prove our side that this is by grace alone, which

I believe it's kind of verse seven that talks about being justified by his grace.

I asked the gentleman I was debating, it was on Marlon's channel, The Gospel Truth.

I asked him, I just said, is baptism a practice of righteousness, right?

A pattern of behavior that's glorifying the God. What I was doing was

I was articulating the definition of righteousness. I can't remember the exact definition for it, but they're in this pickle because you can't say no, because baptism is something you participate in that is a pattern of, that's what it is, a pattern of right behavior.

And I asked him, is baptism a pattern of right behavior? And he says, well, of course it is.

And I'm like, great. Well, we read here, he saved us, not because of works done by a pattern of right behavior, but according to his own mercy, by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit. And so it's not hard to say, look, you believe that baptism belongs in the righteousness category.

It just comes after justification by faith alone. And so, Paul, I don't know if you've gotten in trouble like me, but when

I say faith alone, then everybody is just like, oh, that doesn't say it anywhere in the Bible.

Yeah. Yeah. This works really good if you're trying to keep the sheep in the fold.

All you have to do is say, okay, who is giving book, chapter, and verse to everything that I believe?

And then like, for example, a person we all know uses a Bible program and says, here's where faith alone is in the

Bible. And then the Lord types it in, and all of a sudden you hear a ding. See, nothing. See, it's made up. But they seem to misunderstand that this is a summation of a theological conclusion.

Our assertion is that literally everybody agrees that salvation is by faith.

The question is, is faith the alone instrument of justification?

So this is an assertion that faith is the alone instrument of justification.

So it's not helpful for them to start quoting James 2 and then trying to go down that road.

But for me, this is another reason why I came out of the church of Christ. When I see explicit examples in scripture that there is no way to get out of the, from coming to the conclusion that faith is the means of justification.

For me, the death blow was when trying to put together James 2, and that citation of Genesis 15, six, and you go into Romans four, and then you follow

Paul's argument. If what the churches of Christ say is true, that justification is by faith, but not by faith only, it includes what you do, then

Paul's argument in Romans four is flipped on its head. And for me,

I knew that was the moment that what

I was being associated with was not the faith of the New Testament. Because the citation in Genesis 15, six brought up in Romans four, the insistence is of the apostle, that was the point he had righteousness.

And he goes on to say that circumcision had nothing to do with it, not because as they would say, it was a different system or whatever.

The circumcision was a seal of the righteousness that he already possessed.

That was the assertion of the apostle. So the apostle took out of the equation circumcision altogether.

For them, they say that the issue was systems of justification in the

New Testament. Which system do you follow? Do you still follow the Mosaic system or now are you under the law of Christ, as they would put it?

But in this case, circumcision was a command that Abraham had to follow in his quote unquote system of faith.

But his system of faith, that circumcision did not put him in the right with God.

It was a seal of the righteousness that he already possessed. So circumcision in his time had nothing whatsoever.

His obedience did not contribute to his right standing with God. It was a sign and a seal of something that he already possessed.

So what happened in Genesis 15, six was something that Abraham settled in his heart, not with what he worked with his hands.

Yeah, because what I get met with is, Abraham was justified by faith, but not alone.

It was an obedient faith. And so something I've found to be helpful, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is the word obey and obedience means to hearken unto, to listen, to submit.

And so I've often said, of course you can obey from the heart. That is faith.

That's what Abraham did from the heart. He obeyed, he trusted in the promises of God.

And that doesn't require any works of human hands or human effort.

Because I try to draw a contrast between faith and works. And I think we really see this bared out in verses four and five.

I'll go ahead and read it. I'm sure much of our, can you see it? I don't know if it went away.

Okay. Yeah, let me read these two verses and we can definitely go back up to more of the context.

But, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So much can be said. Me and you, we've talked about this passage, this whole context in chapter four.

But clearly, faith and works are not the same thing. Now I would say genuine saving faith leads to works, but faith is the empty hand that comes to Christ and says,

I have nothing to offer of my own accord. No accomplishments of my own, none of my own efforts.

Faith is a recognition that I am spiritually bankrupt and I'm looking for God to make atonement and appeasement on my behalf.

And so, when I get into this whole obedient faith context, I'm saying, yes, obedient faith trusts in the promises of God.

And then that leads to obedient works. So, I don't know if you were the kind of church of Christ that says, well, you disobeyed the gospel.

That was kind of the, you gotta obey, you gotta obey. I think there's a quotation from Hebrews chapter five, but obey, 2

Thessalonians chapter one, those that did not obey the gospel. Am I close? You gotta think,

I didn't grow up COC. Yeah, that is how we approach the issue.

They would say, the people who say that all you have to do to believe, that they would say, see, the scripture says you have to obey the gospel.

They're not doing anything. And when I hear this, I can't help to get, to keep myself from getting upset, not angry upset, but from weeping.

Oh, I see, yeah. When I read in like, for example, like in Mark one verses 14 through 15, repentance and belief are not suggestions in the gospels.

They are commands. Here it says in Mark one 14, that after John had been handed over,

Jesus went into Galilee preaching the what? The gospel of God.

See now, even with them, they don't think the gospel was preached until Acts 2 38.

Yet here is Jesus preaching the gospel of God and saying that the time has been fulfilled.

The kingdom of heaven has drawn near. Now watch it, repent and believe in the what?

The gospel. Both of those are present tense, second person plural imperative commands.

This wasn't a suggestion. Jesus was commanding people to have a response from the heart and not a one time thing.

This was something he was calling as a lifestyle. This is a present tense imperative.

He expected that to be, to begin at that point and to continue throughout their lifetime.

Repentance and faith are the acts of obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, to piggyback on that, I wanna say in Romans chapter one,

Paul preached the same gospel of God in the opening verses. Paul, servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures.

And so my point is the Hebrew scriptures prophesied of this gospel.

Jesus preached this gospel and all the apostles. And so Acts 2 38 is not inconsistent with trusting in the promises of God.

And I'm really sensitive to works creeping in the gospel of grace.

I mean, we go back to Romans chapter four, that's why the promises rested on grace.

It was gonna be received through faith and not anything else that we bring to the table. That's why

Abraham is such an important paradigm example of saying, look how Abraham was justified.

And later on in Romans four, it talks about it wasn't for his sake only, but for all of us.

Paul identifies the justification of believers being justified the same way

Abraham did. So I think me and you could go on for days talking about this.

So for you, Romans chapter four, that was kind of one of the linchpins you said that really persuaded you saying, man, the church of Christ have not reconciled

Paul's argument here with Abraham. I believe it completely turns it on its head.

It sets Paul in their mind. It was their viewpoint. It was set Paul against James. And that was one thing that was brought out in the book of Acts, that James and the apostles gave

Paul the right hand of fellowship. They did not preach different messages. They just had different audiences. So I want you to speak to this because this gets brought out in all my debates.

I know how I would handle this, but in verse two, for if Abraham was justified by works, what

I get told is, Jeremiah, Abraham wasn't justified by works of the law.

And I'm over here saying, okay, well, I mean, you're supposed to speak where the Bible speaks. And I get that works of law has been mentioned earlier in Romans one, two, and three, but here

Paul is making the point that Abraham, who's the father of us all, Jew and Gentile, he has to exist in a category that transcends and precedes works of Mosaic law.

And so they interpret the works here to mean, oh, well, Abraham wasn't justified by the

Mosaic law. So what would you say to that response? They need to keep reading because they discuss his circumcision and circumcision as Jesus also talked about in the gospel of John was not something that Moses gave to the fathers.

It was received by the patriarchs, which preceded the law of Moses.

So the bringing up of circumcision here is goes to Paul's direct point that he was arguing against the idea that physical effort could be in any way associated with one's justification before God.

And that's why it's his assertion there in Romans four is what did Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh find out in regard to this matter?

And then he quotes Genesis 15, six. Because not only do they say, well,

Jeremiah, the works of law did not justify Abraham. All of us say, of course it didn't because he existed so much before.

And then they say, why are you trying to connect this to baptism? I wanna say, look, ceremony did not justify

Abraham, his effort of getting circumcised and neither does your ceremony of baptism.

And if somebody wants to say, well, that's just your man -made interpretation that it's a ceremony, that's literally a baptizo.

It signifies a relationship with God. And here's the thing, this to me takes the cake as well.

Baptism is an act of faith. And so when I debate those that are in favor of paedo -baptism, it's a totally different argument of who gets to take on the covenant sign.

Because I'm willing to say those that baptize infants, they are not doing any efforts in order to receive the baptism, right?

But adult converts, it's an act, it's a work of faith. And so circumcision, ceremony of the old covenant sign didn't justify

Abraham, it was his faith. And the whole point is you don't add to faith, right?

Because to add to faith is to add to not only trusting in the promises of God, but you're trusting in what you can accomplish.

And you don't get to just cloak that under the word obedience, right? I would actually say those that are trying to add works to faith with a misunderstanding of James chapter two, they are the ones that are disobeying the gospel because this is the gospel of grace.

And the whole point of Galatians with the Judaizers, if you add anything at all, then you are cut off, accursed, and you have fallen from grace, meaning that you have departed from the gospel of grace altogether.

So what do you say to that? That's one thing I like to bring up, like particularly in the book of Galatians.

For them, they say that the error of the Jews was they were insisting on the wrong system of faith.

But like in Galatians, there's never once an argument made that they were following the wrong system of faith.

It was always pointing back to the, they were insisting upon the ergon, the physical effort.

And one thing that they like to insist upon here is that they will say that the message of the

Jews during the time was that they were preaching that one had to perfectly obey the law of Moses to be saved.

And then they weren't regarding on leaning, telling people to lean on grace or anything of the sort.

If there's anything that the new perspective on Paul has taught us is that it has highlighted that the canard that the

Jews were trying to merit their way to heaven, it's completely a mischaracterization.

Their literature of the second temple period that survives is replete with references to that the covenant was founded upon grace.

It was all on grace, but it's maintained by what you do.

That was the key. For them, grace was necessary, but it wasn't sufficient.

That was the scandal of the gospel. That's why Jesus Christ and him crucified was a stumbling block for the

Galatians. There's no evidence that anybody in the book of Galatians denied the substitutionary nature of the atonement of Christ, zilch.

They were insisting that the keeping of the law had to be added to one's faith in Christ.

Faith could not be good enough because faith is a Band -Aid. Christ is a

Band -Aid. It fixes a problem. You have to do your part, God does his part.

And this is not something that I'm making up or I got from a theological book.

That worldview of the Jews is preserved in scripture because when you can read in Luke 18 and nine about the parable of the

Pharisee and the tax collector, a very well -known parable, but overlooked for some very important details.

Jesus said also to those, the certain ones who had confidence upon themselves that they were righteous and they looked down on the rest.

He spoke this parable. There were two who went up into the temple in order to pray, the one a

Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now watch this. The Pharisee stood to himself praying these things.

Oh God, I thank you. Stop. The first words out of his mouth was

I thank God. Not look what I did, it's

I thank God that I am not as the rest of men. And he lists all these great things, these evil things, or even as this tax collector.

He goes on to say all of this stuff that he does. So the

Pharisee mindset was the first thing out of your mouth should be the grace of God.

But don't you forget what you have to do. The gospel of Jesus Christ is contrasted between the worldview of the

Jew at the time and what the gospel was in verse 13. The attitude of the tax collector was entirely different.

He stood far off and he would not even dare to raise his eyes up into heaven, but he was smoting his breast saying, oh

God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And at this point,

Jesus basically says, this right here is the gospel. He says in verse 14,

I say to you that this one went down to his house. What does it say?

Justified, perfect participle. It went into his house that day.

And then he says, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

To me, that parable encapsulates the entire debate. Nobody is saying that grace is unnecessary.

No Jew would ever disagree with the gospel of Christ if all it was was grace in what you do.

The offense of the gospel of Christ was Jesus and him crucified and nothing else.

Real quick, Paul. So if your message that you call the gospel of Christ does not fit this paradigm, it's outside of the worldview of the

New Testament. Yeah, I wanted your thoughts real quick. I love the sermonette that you're preaching there.

I'm a fellow preacher. The word merciful, God be merciful to me.

I believe this is not the typical word we get mercy for like in the Beatitudes, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

But here kind of carries the deeper meaning of make appeasement or make atonement on my behalf.

And it's so beautiful like you're saying because saving faith looks to Jesus and says, hey, it's your finished work that I need.

I need your perfect righteousness imputed. That's Paul's word, right? And that's Old Testament language on my behalf because I can't accomplish.

I've fallen short of the standard of God, right? In Adam, we've all sinned and are ultimately condemned.

And so I love the point that you're making here in this parable. Jesus taught that justification comes to the one that doesn't look to their own merits, their own efforts or accomplishments, but looks to God and his promises.

And so I love how you're tying this back to not only the Pharisaism of Second Temple Judaism, but this is the whole premise of the

Judaizers with Galatia. And so in my debate a year and a half ago with Brock Kendall, I brought, this was my last question in cross -examination.

I just said, because I really wanted to capitalize on what Jesus mentioned earlier.

Let's see here. Those that trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

And so the big fallacy of the Pharisees is not just that they were adding to God's law, but they trusted in themselves.

They were not trusting alone in the finished work of Christ, which

I know was to come, but they weren't trusting alone in the promises of God. And the

Church of Christ typically just says, oh, well, Jeremiah, this is under the law. This was before Jesus at Calvary.

And when we go back to Romans 4, I just say, look, Paul appeals to Abraham, who's way before the law.

But then after Abraham, he quotes from King David, who was under the law. And then

Paul also talks about his justification with Christians that come after the law's fulfillment.

Justification has always been by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone.

So my point is the Church of Christ will dismiss this parable as not pertaining to us.

And I just like to point out, au contraire. And it's the same problems that the

Pharisees had back in Jesus' day is, in my opinion, the Church of Christ are the modern -day

Pharisees of our time with other self -righteous groups like the Roman Catholics. And you can put in whatever other group you want, but I mean, you really have all the religions of the world that are by human achievement, human effort, or by divine accomplishment.

What do you think about that? I definitely agree with you. You're like, yes. I definitely agree. Yeah, that one point

I should have emphasized, too, in verse nine, all of that is tied together.

The trusting in themselves, the thank, but then they turn around and say, they thank

God for everything that they did, and then what they did and they did not do. And the concept of justification is simply that person with that repentant faith.

He didn't have anything to offer. There were no works that he could offer to God, but Jesus said that the one who went justified that day was not the person who was relying on grace in what he did.

It was simply the person who was crying out for that atonement, like he had brought out, that it's related to that word group, the helosmos, like the atoning cover for the

Ark of the Covenant. That's the difference. That is the issue. I wasn't gonna pull it up on the computer, but I was also thinking about another parable that Jesus gave, and it's escaping me if it was

Mark chapter three, or perhaps Matthew chapter three, but it doesn't matter.

He talks about how new wine is incompatible with old wineskins, or how new garments can't be sewn together with old garments and washed.

I was so confused by that parable, Paul, because I just thought, as he's saying, the old covenant's not compatible with the new covenant.

No, he's talking about the corruption of Second Temple Judaism in the works of righteousness that they are reinterpreting the

Torah as a means of earning God's favor. That is incompatible with the gospel of grace that Jesus brings, but it goes hand -in -hand with here in Luke chapter 18.

I have friends that are Jewish, and we do get into these things, and so one of their critiques is that Jesus and Paul taught different things, and I'm like you.

I'd go right back to Luke chapter 18 here of saying, no, no, Jesus taught on justification, and when

I say by faith alone, we can kind of see the verbiage bears out that he says, be merciful to me, right?

Apart from anything that I can do, you have to make atonement on my behalf, and that's the one that was justified as where the other one essentially was not any trusted in themselves.

So, Paul, man, I think we could keep going and going and going, but I really want to respect your time, and thanks so much for coming on, the apologetic dog.

Are there any final thoughts that you would like to leave with our viewers? Yeah, I think one thing that people, they tend to not know about the formation of the churches of Christ.

The churches of Christ have two, one of the biggest reasons why they are in existence is because churches of the day in the 19th century did not do their job in protecting the gospel and the purity of the message of Jesus.

That we literally, if you go back and look at the history, there were Reformed Baptistic groups that gave these people a platform, and that platform was used to destroy and ravage the church.

I believe since historically a link could be made that Reformed Baptistic groups helped create this problem,

Reformed Baptists can end this problem. And coming from that perspective of being in the movement and coming out of the movement, that is what

I want to do is to take that perspective and use what

I know to help right the wrongs of church history.

The errors that produce this movement do not have to exist in perpetuity.

We can use it to strengthen our own faith and the church at large.

And it doesn't mean we have to study debate books or creeds or all the rest of it like we're accused.

The best defense and the best offense against people who oppose the gospel of Jesus Christ is for each and every one of you to be daily absorbed in the word of God.

In our day and age, there is no excuse whatsoever why anyone cannot be thoroughly drenched with the word of God.

That is the best antidote to heresy. That is the best protection for you and for your family and for your church.

These experiences, I'll say this, the people who have left the church of Christ, these experiences do not have to destroy you.

As so many people I've seen, it's wrecked their lives. People think they're the only game in town and if the church of Christ is wrong, well,

I'll just be an atheist. This does not have to destroy you. It can rebuild you and make you a person 10 times better than you have ever been.

And I hope that when people see people like me and the material that I produce and the passion for what

I try and speak about and the depth that I try and go to to address these issues, you can come out a better Bible student than you ever were before.

You can choose to let it destroy you or make you better. And I hope people can see that this experience has only made me better and has set me on the path that I was supposed to be on from the beginning when

I was a little boy and I was sidetracked, diverted into the claims of this movement.

So, and if you've never been involved in it, be thankful that you're not, but use what we share to help your own self out in the future.

And that's my prayer. I really hope that you're benefited by everything that Jeremiah does, everything that Trey does.

I appreciate so much all the efforts, the renewed efforts to try and address this, what sometimes is a very small niche in the apologetic world.

But like we said, we could go on forever, but thank you, thank you, thank you. Paul, we're just gonna have to do it again.

That's just all there is to it because there are so many other proof texts. I would love to have you back on and us address those contexts.

And I'm sensitive to what you said a second ago about it's reformed theology and specifically reformed

Baptist theology with how we understand the covenants. I think that packs the punch of harmony, the totality of scripture coming together in such a way where we can see the beauty of God's sovereignty, working out salvation, all things together after the council of his will, back to the praise of the triune

God. And I'm over here like, what a beautiful message of redemption. So Paul, I'm with you, brother.

We gotta lock arms together. And I just wanna encourage people. We have a

Facebook group called the Church of Christ Exiles. I'll post that in the link below where people that are coming out of the

Church of Christ, which are a lot of them, they're losing their community and they don't know where to go. And so that's where my heart is to, this is my

Nineveh, essentially, as Trey Fisher has said too, that I wanna, those people that are being saved by God's amazing grace, pointing them to communities and biblical churches that understand the right gospel and can flourish in their discipleship.

And so Paul, I'll have to have you back on again real soon and so we can get into more of understanding the proof text.

And so thank you again, brother, for all your hard work that you do. Yes, sir, thank you so much.

All right, God bless. So thank you so much for joining us today on the

Apologetic Dog with Paul Day. He has blessed my heart to just hear his testimony and how God has saved him by his amazing grace.

And so Paul, you are valuable to the saints, your insights to the word of God.

And so thank you so much for all that you do. And we'll have to do this again like we've been talking about. If you've enjoyed this episode of the

Apologetic Dog, I just wanna encourage you to like and subscribe. That really helps the ministry to be able to circulate through the algorithm for more people to be able to see this content.