June 24, 2020 Show with Dr. Curt Daniel on “The History & Theology of Calvinism” (Part 4)

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister, George Norcross, in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 24th day of June, 2020.

And it's always a joy to have on the program someone who has become one of my very favorite guests to interview.

That's Dr. Kurt Daniel. He is author and pastor of Faith Bible Church of Springfield, Illinois, and today we are having our fourth interview on his book, his 900 -page hardback,

The History and Theology of Calvinism. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for the fourth time,

Dr. Kurt Daniel. Thank you, Chris. Let's get started. Well, if you could, for the sake of our listeners who haven't heard you on the show yet, can you tell us something about Faith Bible Church of Springfield, Illinois?

Yes, I've been pastor here for 25 years. We're an independent Bible church, very similar to the

Reformed Baptists. We have about 100 in attendance, and we're Evangelical, obviously

Calvinistic Baptist, and we try to serve the Lord in all things.

Praise God. Well, if anybody has any questions regarding Faith Bible Church of Springfield, Illinois, you can go to faithbibleonline .net,

faithbibleonline .net. Well, we've covered a lot of issues over the previous three interviews that we've done on this book, and I'm sure that when we're finished, there's going to be a lot more that we haven't addressed that we wish we had, but we only have the time that is allotted to us.

But perhaps if we could start with biblical apologetics in the realm of the doctrines of Calvinism.

Okay. You want me to jump in? Yes. Got it. Apologetics simply means the defense of the faith, and all

Christians do that, Calvinists as well as non -Calvinists. But I do have a chapter on this, because Calvinists sometimes defend the faith a little different than others, obviously, other than liberals and Roman Catholics.

There are different ways that Calvinists and Christians have done this.

Some use what would be called rationalism or evidentialism or using proofs.

Jonathan Edwards used rational apologetics, and then more recently,

John Gerstner and R .C. Sproul very much use a similar approach as Jonathan Edwards. Also, there is another approach about the time of Jonathan Edwards, almost 300 years ago.

Thomas Reed in Scotland developed Scottish common sense philosophy or realism, and that was popular with Princeton theologians like Charles Hodge, B .B.

Warfield, and others. This was like the Christian alternative to empiricism.

Empiricism says we know only by our five senses what we can see, touch, taste, smell, and so forth.

Evidentialism is very popular. You may be familiar with Josh McDowell's book, Evidences that Demand a

Verdict. So this is a very common way of defending the faith by Christians and even many

Calvinists. But it's not specifically reformed. Many Armenians use this, such as Norman Geisler and others that are very definitely not

Calvinists. Then there are two other forms that are popular mainly amongst

Calvinists. There's what's called reformed epistemology. Epistemology means how do we know something is true?

This is popularized by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

It's more reformed, but somewhat on the left wing of the Calvinist movement, like at Calvin Seminary, Calvin College, Christian Reformed Church.

This is popular in those circles. One problem with this approach is that it's very, very philosophical.

Plantinga is a professor of philosophy, so it doesn't bring in the Bible very much and it's not too big on evidences and arguments.

It emphasizes warrants. For example, it says that you don't have to have absolute certainty of something, but if there's enough warrant to warrant the arrest of somebody or to convict someone on the bulk of evidence, it doesn't mean beyond the shadow of a doubt, but beyond a reasonable doubt.

Plantinga says belief in God is basic, and so it's like he's saying, well, it doesn't have to be proved. There are many things we know that we don't have to prove.

It's self -evident. Then an improvement upon this goes back about 150 years ago, what's called presuppositionalism.

Basically started by the great Abraham Kuyper in the Netherlands in the late 1800s, and then it developed there,

South Africa, and especially in the United States. Most popular exponent of this was

Cornelius Van Till. He taught at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia for many years.

It's still very popular today. John Frame, the teachers at Westminster Seminary, Greg Bonson, Scott Oliphant, and many others have taught this.

One advantage of this is that, as far as I know, only Calvinists believe in this presuppositional approach, and there are varieties.

The late Francis Schaefer taught a modified form of this, because he had studied with Van Till.

Then a rival form of it was taught by Gordon Clark, and the Clarkians and Van Tillians often argued, even until today, that Clark and Van Till are reconciled because they're both in heaven.

What this approach says is that while its proofs or arguments are not sufficient, what we do is we challenge the presupposition of those that are arguing against Christianity.

Presupposition is like an unproved, and often even unconscious, assumption you have.

So this approach says it's very antithetical. We don't use their arguments against them.

We use a different approach. Now, I held to that for many, many years, because it was still very common amongst

Evangelical Calvinists. But I came to see that each of these approaches still uses too much philosophy and logic and arguments and warrants and things like that.

In my book, I have a couple of pages on what I call biblical apologetics, and we can discuss that in just a moment.

So there's the groundwork. All of this is within an Evangelical way of defending the faith, but the approach

I put forth is saying, let's be more biblical. In fact, as biblical as possible.

Well, if you could start to explain that in a little bit more detail as to what makes biblical apologetics more biblical than, let's say, presuppositionalism to start with, because obviously all

Christian apologists would say that their version of apologetics would be biblical, or the most faithful to the

Scriptures. But if you could. Okay. Well, I came up with the term biblical apologetics, oh,

I guess about 30 years ago, and I've used it in various lectures. I found out that Clifford McManus also used the term and wrote a small, actually a larger book without title, and then he rewrote it and changed the title.

Voting Balkan uses a similar approach. He wrote a book called Expository Apologetics, and says we need to expound the

Bible and explain it when we're answering people that have questions and objections. What I'm basically saying is we use the

Bible to defend Christianity. We don't use arguments, proofs, reasons, warrants, presuppositions to defend

Christianity. The Bible is sufficient. It's our shield, it's our sword, and it's sola scriptura, apologetics.

Give you an illustration. About 50 years ago, J. Adams started a revolution in Christian counseling, because for many years pastors and Christian counselors had used an integrationist form of counseling.

In other words, they'd use the Bible, but they'd also use the findings of secular psychology, sociology, and so forth.

They'd borrow from Freud and Jung and all the rest of them. But what

J. Adams did was he said, look, we only need what the Bible says. It is sufficient for the needs of man.

It tells us the salvation. It tells us God's answer and grace for all the problems we face.

Yes, there's a place for medicine if there's physiological need, but all emotional needs are basically spiritual in nature, so the

Bible is sufficient. That movement took off, and it's still very popular in Christian counseling today.

Now, what I say is we need a revolution in apologetics to say we don't need to borrow from what is the popular philosophy of today, such as empiricism in the past or postmodernism today or relativism, existentialism, etc.

We don't need to use those weapons against them. We've got the weapons of the

Spirit, the Word of God. 2 Timothy 3 says all scripture is inspired and is profitable for reproof.

That's not just for you sinning Christians, but that's answering the objections of non -Christians.

So we use the Bible to defend Christianity. That's the approach I call biblical apologetics.

It's not simply sharpening the sword and proving the sword. It's using the sword not just in a defensive way, but in an offensive, aggressive, evangelistic way.

Great. We have a question from a listener.

And as you may have witnessed already over these previous three interviews we've done with you, brother, whenever I get a question from a pastor whose church

I feel very confident I can promote because I believe it's a biblically sound and faithful and valuable church,

I give more than a first name in city and state. I give the entirety of their name and the church and so on.

And that is the case with our first question, which comes from Dr. Jeffrey C.

Waddington, who is pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

And by the way, folks, if you ever want to look up that church and find out more about it, the website is faithopc .net,

faithopc .net. And Dr. Waddington asks, what is

Kurt's assessment of the Calvin versus the Calvinists debate?

Well, that's a different issue. I do address it briefly a few times in my book. It doesn't have immediate bearing on apologetics.

This is a debate that's been going on for a long time. Were the Puritans, for example, developing

Calvin's theology consistently, or did they take a strong turn in another direction?

I think by and large there was continuity, but a couple of points of discontinuity between Calvin and the later

Calvinists. I address that in my book, and basically I say that they're in agreement, oh, probably 95 % of the time, and the areas they disagree on are relatively minor.

Yeah, obviously an exception you might take would be with hyper -Calvinists, some who believe they're actually carrying on correctly the legacy of Calvin, and others who have gone so extreme in their hyper -Calvinism that they don't even believe

Calvin himself was saved. Well, there's a better case to be made for more disjunction between the hyper -Calvinists and Calvin than between mainline

Calvinists and Calvin. For example, hyper -Calvinism is defined as the denial of the idea of a free offer or a well -meant offer of the gospel.

And maybe that also says, well, in the revealed will, God doesn't desire everybody to be saved.

That's hyper -Calvinism. Some of them say there's no common grace. That's a position of the

Protestant Reformed Church. Or that there's no duty faith. Those that hear the gospel don't have the duty to savingly believe in Jesus.

That's what hyper -Calvinists, such as the gospel standard Baptists, believe. The thing is, Calvin believed in a universal saving will of God, the free offer, the well -meant offer, duty faith, common grace.

And I've collected hundreds of quotes from him on that, and that's going to be my next book,

Lord willing. So that's a different issue. Can we get back to the biblical apologetics?

Because someone's going to say, well, you say it's biblical, but how does it operate? Well, go ahead. Answer your own question.

We don't use philosophy. The Bible warns us about philosophy.

Colossians 2, 8, 1 Corinthians 1. Luther said philosophy is the devil's war.

There's no Christian philosophy any more than Christian adultery. Biblical apologetics is like this.

We hear an objection or a question, and then we boil it down to what do they actually disagree with us on.

Then we do a search in our mind and say, now, how does the Bible answer that objection?

And then so we find what is the most appropriate scripture. We quote it, we explain it, and we apply it to that specific question and objection.

And that we're saying, God says this. This is God's answer to your question. In effect, we're saying, it is written, or thus says the

Lord, or the Bible says. And that's how we answer them.

For example, I used to do a lot of open air straight evangelism and heard all sorts of objections.

Prove to me there's a God. Not say, well, God proves it himself. In the Bible, God says, quote,

I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no other. I am God. And I quote a few verses and I say,

God says this in the Bible. He proves his own existence. And then people will say, well, prove to me the

Bible is this inspired book. And I say, well, God proves it himself in the

Bible, and I'll quote verses that talk about it being inspired. So often when a person gives an objection, they'll say, well, for example,

I believe everything is relative or you make your own truth and other such postmodernist nonsense.

I will say, well, that's not what God says in the Bible. This is what God says in the

Bible. There are absolute truths. Thy word is truth, John 17, 17.

Ethics are not relative. The Bible says thou shalt not and thou shalt. These are moral absolutes.

So I keep quoting the Bible and say, this is what God says. You see, God's not on trial.

A lot of apologetics says, well, God's on trial and we have to answer the objections of non -Christians to their satisfaction in order for them to believe.

I say, it's the exact opposite. God's not on trial. They are on trial, so we turn the tables and that's part of evangelism.

We dare not say, well, apologetics is just squaring philosophical points. Unfortunately, Chris, a lot of Christians get involved in apologetics almost as a game to show that they know more, that they've won an argument.

We dare not lose the idea that we're trying to tell people the truth so that they could be saved.

It's evangelistic, biblical apologetics. So we answer the questions from the

Bible. If they say, well, stop quoting the Bible to me, that's like getting into a fight with someone and he says, hey, put that club down or put that gun or that knife down.

We do that. We're going to be at his mercy. Another thing is if we start using their philosophy against them, chances are they're going to know more about their philosophy than we do, especially if you come up against a scientist or a philosophy major at college.

They're going to wrap us around their little finger. So what we dare not do is set aside our primary method, the

Bible. That's the sword given to us. And so, you know, the illustration I use is that these other systems are saying you fight fire with fire and you've got to know all about their philosophy in order to disprove it and show its inconsistencies and so forth, to which

I say a fireman would say you don't fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water.

You don't answer their objections by turning their philosophy on its head. You appeal to something superior.

The Bible. The Bible says that is the word of God. So in essence, that's what

I call biblical apologetics. Not only that, it works because the

Bible is God's ordained means whereby he gives faith, he gives enlightenment, and he gives salvation.

We want to get the Bible as much as possible. Now to the OPC brother, I would say you probably learned presuppositionalism at a reformed seminary reading

Cornelius Vantill. But in one place, I quote in my book, Vantill said the weakness of his system was he didn't quote the

Bible or exegete it enough. Biblical apologetics brings in the Bible at every moment of the discussion.

Oh, that's an interesting admission from Vantill. Let's see here, we have

Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. And Christopher asks,

I know that you've made it clear that your approach to biblical apologetics is different from both evidentialism and presuppositionalism.

But would you say that either of them are closer to an accurate model? I know that there are great men of God from the

Reformed tradition who have disagreed over this. We have Bonson on one side being a presuppositionalist, and R .C.

Sproul on the other being an evidentialist. But were either of those closer to what you would call biblical apologetics?

Yes, by the way, those two brothers were reconciled in heaven, and they did a lot of great things for the kingdom of God.

Sproul and Bonson had a debate many, many years ago. I think it was in the 1970s down at Reformed Seminary in Mississippi.

And they disagreed on the methods of apologetics. And yet they were both strong Calvinists.

My opinion, presuppositionalism is better than evidentialism, or Reformed rationalism, or Reformed epistemology, but it still has certain weaknesses.

About 25 years ago, Greg Bonson had a debate with a famous atheist, and they called it the Great Debate.

And you know, in any debate, it comes down to one key question. And I remember when the debate took a special turn, and the person threw it to Bonson.

It's kind of like lobbing him a dunk shot and said, okay, thus and so. And Bonson says, why do

I believe the Bible? Because of the impossibility of the contrary. And that's what you keep finding in presuppositionalism, that the alternatives are all self -contradictory.

They don't match the evidence. They're inconsistent with themselves. They have unproven presuppositions and so forth.

But that's a philosophical argument. It has some validity. It's good so far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.

If that person would have thrown that, that atheist would have thrown the question to me, why do you believe the Bible? Why do you believe in God?

My answer would have been, because God says so. And then

I quote the Bible, because God says so here, God says so there, there is no argument greater than, thus says the

Lord. It is written, God says so in the Bible. Would you say that one of the dangers of philosophy is that the philosopher tends very often to take things that have apparent tension in the

Bible, or things that are hard to understand, and they find ways of explaining them that best satisfy their own presuppositions to the issue, rather than really searching the whole counsel of God for an answer?

Well, they're guilty of twisting the word of God, and the Bible warns about that. 2 Peter 3, verse 15.

They twist it to their own destruction. They'll try to point out alleged myths, errors, scientific errors, and things like that, to which we can just simply say, excuse me,

God says thy word is truth, John 17, verse 17. Jesus replied to the

Sadducees, you are in error, not knowing the truth of God or the power of God.

So we keep referring to the Bible. If they say it has mistakes, we say, sorry, you're the one that's made a mistake.

The Bible is inerrant, and you can keep quoting verses that say the word of God is true. Every word of God is pure.

It has no mistakes. So you see, in biblical apologetics, you immediately turn it on them and become aggressively evangelistic.

Now, I don't mean you run over them. You're very kind and patient with them, and it helps to smile. Valentine used to say, offer to buy them the first cup of coffee.

You need to be very friendly, but you dare not give up the word of God, or you will be at their mercy.

And it's like what that wicked witch said to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Don't ever let her have those shoes, or you will be at the mercy of the wicked witch of the east.

Don't ever surrender the word of God, or you will be at the mercy of those that are opposing

Christianity. They'll run all over you. You have to stick with the word of God. That's our shield and our sword, and it needs no proof.

Spurgeon used to say, prove the word of God. I'd sooner prove the existence of a lion. Let him out of the cage.

He'll defend itself. When we quote the Bible, we are, as it were, unleashing the power of God's power of God unto salvation,

Romans 16. And it's the chosen means the Holy Spirit uses to convict of sin, to enlighten us to the truth of the gospel.

He does not use philosophical arguments and proofs. He uses the word of God.

Since Christians believe it's inspired, why don't we use it more in our evangelistic apologetics?

And of course, there are philosophers, just to make it clear to our listeners, who believe strongly in the inerrancy of Scripture and would, even if one were to think that they are violating

Scripture with traditions of men or thoughts of men, they themselves would not view it that way,

I'm sure. So the issue may be a more delicate one as far as you don't want to go overboard in vilifying a brother in Christ who identifies himself as a philosopher.

Well, there's a place for learning about philosophy, but in biblical apologetics, one advantage is all you need to know is the

Bible. You don't need to know everything about the philosophical arguments. One apologist many years ago said, you cannot do apologetics until you've studied a lot of philosophy and its history and all the different schools and taken college classes.

And I'm thinking, does the average Christian have to do all of that? Isn't that kind of a waste of time?

All we have to do is say, what is your argument? Boil it down to a simple argument. And they can usually do that for us.

You can say, well, where do you disagree with us? And then we say, what does the Bible say? So the challenge isn't, we have to know all about their philosophy.

The challenge for Christians is, we need to know more about what we believe and what the Bible says.

By the way, Dr. Jeffrey Waddington from Thorn Grove, Pennsylvania, and also

Christopher from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, you have both won a free copy of The History and Theology of Calvinism.

So please make sure you get us your full mailing address so we can have CVBBS .com,

that's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship those books out to you. And once again, we want to thank our dear friends at Evangelical Press, also known as EP Books, for donating copies of this book to those who have questions specifically and only those with questions that have not already won one of these books during the previous three interviews.

And by the way, before we go to the break, I just want to, I've already read some of the commendations on previous programs, wonderful commendations from very prominent people for this book, but right now

I just want to list some of the great men who have given glowing commendations to The History and Theology of Calvinism by Curt Daniel.

We have John MacArthur, Senior Pastor of Grace Community Church, and also the world -renowned

Bible teacher on television and radio, and prolific author.

Stephen J. Lawson, President of One Passion Ministries, and Tom Nettles, a man that both my guest and I have grown to love, a professor of Church History in Louisville, Kentucky.

Michael A .G. Haken, here's another man I'd love to interview, I hope I get him back on the show soon, Michael A .G.

Haken, Chair and Professor of Church History in Louisville, Kentucky. Phil Johnson, the

Executive Director of Grace to You, John MacArthur's Media Ministry. Phil Johnson has been interviewed on this program more than any other guest.

And Ian Hamilton, Professor of Systematic Theology in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I've got to get

Ian on this program. He is the only one so far listed that I have not yet interviewed.

And another one in that category is Lance Quinn. I've wanted to interview Lance for years, Senior Pastor of Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks, California.

That's just some of the people who have believed, and who have had possession of the manuscript years before this came out in print as a hardback, and who have attributed much to this volume as far as their own growing in the knowledge of the doctrines of grace, and their own personal study.

But we are going to our first station break right now. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And as always, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. Welcome back.

This is Chris Armisen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little less than 90 minutes to go, is

Kurt Daniel. And Dr. Kurt Daniel is pastor of Faith Bible Church of Springfield, Illinois.

This is our fourth interview on his monumental 900 -page work, The History and Theology of Calvinism.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArmisen at gmail .com.

ChrisArmisen at gmail .com. Before I move on to another subcategory under the heading of Calvinism that we didn't address in great depth in the previous three interviews, which would be

Perseverance and Preservation of the Saints, I do have a question from Johnny in Queens, New York, on apologetics.

And Johnny starts off, Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ, Colossians 2 .8.

Would you say that Paul the Apostle was arguing against worldly philosophy and not all philosophy together, particularly biblically informed

Christ -centered philosophy? Well, Paul does warn about philosophy there.

It's the only time the word is used. Philosophers are mentioned over in Acts 7 .10.

Basically, the word means love of wisdom. But from the world's point of view, it's the love of worldly, human wisdom, their perspective.

True wisdom, and in that sense true philosophy, would be love of wisdom from God's point of view.

God is the ultimate source of wisdom. But the Bible says there's an enormous difference between the two of them.

I have reservations about what some call Christian philosophy. If they mean

Christian wisdom, Christian truth, what the Bible teaches about the cow's mouth and about the world system, that's one thing.

But to try to merge biblical wisdom with human philosophy is a very dangerous thing.

That's what Paul is warning about. He says it's empty, it's deceitful, it doesn't hold to Christ.

Beware. Beware of it. And, Johnny, just as a follow -up question,

Dr. Greg Bonson taught presuppositional apologetic as biblical apologetic, arguing the word of God as a precondition of all knowledge.

Could you help me understand your distinction of how you, of how you're understanding,

I think that he is, oh, here it is. Could you help me understand your distinction of how you're understanding biblical apologetics is different?

Bonson was a great man. He died young. I believe he was only 48. Died about 20, 25 years ago.

A little bit easier to understand than Vantel, his previous teacher. And he moved in the right direction.

And he would say, yes, we need to refer to scripture and so forth. The thing is, he didn't use it as much, like in that great debate that I mentioned.

He should have been quoting scripture a whole lot more. That's the advantage of presuppositionalism over the other systems, is that it does say we need to use scripture.

But I think that we need to use it even more than presuppositionalists do. Sorry about that.

I was pouring myself a cup of coffee. Thank you, Johnny. And you have also won a free copy of the book.

We are addressing the history and theology of Calvinism. So make sure we have your full mailing address in Queens, New York.

And now we are moving on to another of the subcategories under the heading

Calvinism that I mentioned just moments ago. Perseverance and Preservation of the

Saints. This is a highly controversial teaching, not only between those who are reformed and those who would be full -blown five -point

Arminians who believe that a truly regenerate, born -again person can actually lose his or her salvation, but also between those who, and I don't want to overstate the case or broad brush, but many within dispensationalism and modern -day evangelicalism who would prefer to use the term eternal security, which

I believe is a true description, but an inadequate and insufficient description, because there's more going on than just someone's salvation being eternally secure.

Because of the fact that, as you well know, Dr. Daniel, that many in that category, the latter category, would reject

Perseverance and Preservation of the Saints, in that we believe that those who are truly born -again will never totally surrender to evil, and if and when, and of course we all sin, but even if someone were to fall into a state of backsliding or a serious scandalous state of sin for a certain period of time, they will always repent and return to Christ.

That will be a hallmark of the truly regenerate person, is that they will repent and return to their first love.

But if you could tell us in your own thoughts why this is such an important teaching, and perhaps contrast it with those two other views,

Arminianism, which teaches you could lose your salvation, or the carnal

Christian theory, if you will, that a true Christian can even, according to Charles Stanley, in his book on Eternal Security, a true

Christian can, moments after coming to a true saving faith in Christ and being saved and being born again, moments afterward, they could totally abandon that faith forever on this earth, and they will certainly be in heaven nonetheless.

So if you could... Quick answer to that is that that is not what the Bible says. Amen. Now in my book,

I have three chapters on this whole question, has to do with what's called the fifth of the five points of Calvinism, also known as the doctrines of grace, based upon what the

Bible says. Now the fifth point has two sides to it.

There's the preservation of the saints and the perseverance of the saints.

Preservation of the saints is sometimes called once saved, always saved, eternal security.

Once you have it, you can never lose it. Now five point Arminians do not believe that.

John Wesley, for example, A .W. Tozer, they'll say you can lose it. You can be saved one day and lost the next day.

But I don't believe the Bible teaches that anywhere. There are many verses that say

God promises to keep us, to preserve us, to uphold us, and not to forsake us.

And God takes an oath in that. First Peter 1 .5, we are kept by the power of God.

Jesus said, he that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. The Bible says we are kept safe from Satan.

Remember, Jesus said to Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

The devil wants you, Peter, but basically he's saying, I prayed for you, he can't have you. And so Peter was restored, just like every other

Christian that occasionally backslides. Jesus prayed for this in John 17. Now the key verses that I always quoted,

John 10, 28 and 29, where Jesus said, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

That's a multiple negative in the Greek. They shall never, ever perish. They are in my father's hand and nobody will snatch them from my hand.

So there's a two -handed grip of the father and the son. Nobody can take the father of the son's hand.

The way I like to boil it down, Chris, is this. God not only promises eternal life, but eternal love.

He loves us too much to let us go. It's like he puts both arms around us and says,

I've got you, I'll never lose you, no one can have you, not the devil, not the world. I've got you and I'm not going to let you go.

And so that's pretty ironclad promise. Also, we've been predestined to be glorified.

Romans 8, the golden chain whom he foreknew, he predestined whom he predestined, he justified and so forth.

There's no breaking of that chain. We've been predestined to be justified and to be glorified.

And also, there's no double jeopardy. Romans 8, there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ.

Listen, we're not on probation. We've been granted a full justification and pardon that is irrevocable.

Now, that's a summary of the case for preservation. But what a lot of people forget is this fifth of the doctrines or graces, more than simply the preservation of the saints, it's the perseverance of the saints.

What does that mean? It means that God guarantees that we will not only not ever be lost, he guarantees that we will continue to repent and to believe and to obey.

For example, John 3, 16 is in the present tense, not just we'll believe once, that's all it takes, and you can go back to your life of unbelief.

No, no, no. The Bible says that whosoever continues to believe, and God not only demands that, he guarantees that a believer will continue to believe.

He will continue to repent. For those that happen to be Lutherans, I say go look up number one of Luther's 95 theses, where he said, when our

Lord Jesus Christ commanded, repent ye and believe, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, he did not mean that you repent once, but that the whole life of a believer is one of repentance.

So God not only demands it, he provides for that, he guarantees it, so that though we occasionally slip into sin and even backslide temporarily, it's only temporarily.

Bible frequently says that though the righteous fall, he gets back up. God picks them up again.

He puts us back on the straight and narrow. Key passage on this is 1

John 3, where God says it's manifest, who are the children of God and the children of the devil.

Children of the devil practice lives characterized by sin, unrighteousness, elsewhere no fruit of the spirit.

They're flagrantly living in perpetual sin. By contrast, 1

John 3 says the children of God live lives characterized by obedience, by righteousness, by faith, producing the spiritual fruit of the spirit.

In fact, we have to let you pick up where you left off there when we return from our midway break. This is the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle because the

FCC requires of them public service announcements and other local items that are aired during the show to identify

Iron Trip and Zion Radio with the local area of Lake City, Florida. So while they air their own public service announcements and other things, we air our globally heard commercials.

We urge you to please write down as much of the information as possible provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, which means they will likely remain our advertisers, and that will be necessary for us to remain on the air since the finances that come through their advertising are absolutely indispensable.

And so do that, and also don't forget to write in questions to Kurt Daniel on the history and theology of Calvinism.

And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Trip and Zion Radio here.

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Go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. And never forget folks, if you are without a church home, no matter where you live in the world,

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I need a church in the subject line. And that's also the email address to send in a question to Kurt Daniel on the history and theology of Calvinism.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Dr. Daniel, we interrupted you having to go to our midway break earlier, and you were in the middle of emphasizing the preservation of the saints.

Actually, that's just preservation, but perseverance. That's perseverance. I'm sorry. Yes. There we go.

Yes. It's what the Bible very clearly teaches and emphasizes, but it goes squarely against a very popular error that's rampant in a lot of evangelical churches.

It's a theory and practice called easy believism. Basically, that approach says, all a person has to do to become a

Christian is ask Jesus in his heart, maybe repeat this prayer, just believe in Jesus.

But this approach does not say you also have to repent, surrender, submit to Christ.

Consequently, a lot of people do this, especially young people. They think they're saved and they go to church and get excited and sing the songs and clap their hands.

Maybe this happens in VBS or a youth rally, but it produces a lot of false

Christians because it does not bring in repentance. And these people eventually fall away like in Christ's parable of the four soils.

And so what happens then? What does that hot shot youth evangelist do when he says all these converts he made aren't going on?

Well, they said, well, they're not going on, but they're still saved. Because once they're saved, they're preserved.

But so they're pronounced to be carnal Christians, even though they don't go to church.

They have no food of the spirit. They are always in flagrant, gross disobedience to God. How could you possibly say that as a true

Christian? Well, these people say, well, they're just a carnal Christian. But they were truly saved.

But I strongly disagree with that. According to the Bible, they're not a carnal Christian. They're carnal non -Christian.

And this can be proved in various ways. I already referred to 1 John 3.

It says, this is manifest. A person's lifestyle and the attitudes of his heart show whether he is a child of God or a child of the devil.

You can't be a child of God and think and live like a child of the devil all the time.

Those that are so -called carnal Christians were never truly saved to begin with.

They're only living like what they truly are. You mentioned Charles Stanley.

Well, another well -known theologian said, immediately after you believe in Jesus and ask him into your heart, you can become an atheist.

Others would say a practicing, unconfessed homosexual or murderer or any gross sin.

But you're truly saved. I strongly disagree with that. Now, this has practical applications,

Chris. For example, many Christian parents that are truly saved, they raise their children by the

Bible. They go to a Bible -believing, gospel -preaching church. Maybe they teach them a catechism.

The children go up in Sunday school and vacation Bible school, youth group.

And at some time along the line, those children maybe repeat a prayer, invite Jesus into their heart.

And they're all so happy. And then usually when they become teenagers or adults, when they leave the nest, maybe they go off to college or join the army.

Then they begin to live like what they really are. They never go to church. They get drunk. They live immoral lives, maybe do drugs, etc.

But the parents are still saying, but little Susie or little Joey is still a believer because he invited

Jesus into his heart. But he's just a carnal Christian. Those parents need to say, no,

I'm sorry. Your children were not truly saved. If they were, they would continue to follow

Jesus. They would not be in flagrant disobedience. They would continue to follow.

So you'd be doing them a favor by saying, Susie or Johnny, you really didn't believe in Jesus.

Sad thing, Chris, is that the world is filled with a lot of people that will say, I'm not interested in Christianity.

I tried, and it's for little kids. And I was duped by some evangelist or a pastor.

And those are hard to win because they think they once were truly saved. We need to tell them, no, you were only pretending.

And now you're honest to admit you're not a Christian. But you can become a true

Christian. So you see this easy believism goes squarely against the Bible teaching on the perseverance of the saints.

Want more? James 2. James 2 is saying, faith without works is dead.

Easy believism says, nope, you can believe and never have good works.

You can have very many bad works as a way of life, but you're truly saved. That's the very thing

James 2 is opposing. Chris, I've often found that people that still believe in this carnal

Christian easy believist era, when push comes to shove, they usually come up with a story like, well,

I knew someone that received Jesus, and I knew he was saved.

And I knew we can't lose it, but he's not living it now. So he is just simply a carnal

Christian. We answer that by saying we don't base our beliefs upon personal anecdotes and experiences and observations, but according to what the

Bible says. Now, we are not teaching sinless perfection. Curiously, many

Armenians teach sinless perfection. What we are saying is that as a general way of life, a

Christian will continue to believe, repent, and obey, bear spiritual fruit.

He may occasionally fall into sin. He may backslide temporarily, but it's only temporarily.

Another misunderstanding. Some people say, yeah, because you're once saved, always saved. You can live as a carnal

Christian for decades, flagrantly, but God will bring you back shortly before you die.

No, that's not what perseverance of the saints means. A Christian may backslide or fall into deep sin, but God will bring him back after a reasonably short period of time, a war conviction of sin, and bring that Christian back so he's not permanently backslidden.

Curiously, even godly Armenians like John Wesley and A .W.

Tozer that don't believe in the preservation of the saints will believe in the perseverance of the saints because they say unless you persevere, you're not going to make it.

And A .W. Tozer vehemently opposed easy believism in the carnal Christian era.

He had an interesting sermon on this called, I call it heresy, and he was right.

It's a very dangerous thing. Now, in light of what the Bible teaches on preservation and perseverance of the saints, there's a very encouraging note of this.

God will keep us. He has promised to do that because he really loves us.

He chose us. He's guaranteed we're going to make it to the end. He is guaranteed that a true believer will continue to follow

Christ. He will not only keep us, he will keep us following Christ.

Amen. And don't you think a lot of this confusion when we have friends and acquaintances and loved ones say that they are certain that a true

Christian can lose their salvation is that they may know people for decades, they may know somebody who has been a professing

Christian their entire lives and not until their golden years as a senior citizen fallen completely away.

And because they may love this person and they also may be saying to themselves, how could an unregenerate person be so faithful all those decades like Bill was, like Tom was, like Sally was.

This person sacrificed all that they had for God and you could go on and on.

They may have been even a faithful pastor and preacher. They may have been a missionary. It could, you could go on and on with the most stellar examples of Christianity that unbeknownst to us, they were charlatans and they fell away.

It's just hard for us to believe that we've been duped like that.

Well, last Sunday I preached on Christ's warning, beware of false prophets. There are phony

Christians that pretend to be not only Christians, but to pretend to be preachers, theologians, even missionaries.

But at judgment day, they will say, but did we not prophesy in your name?

Jesus will say, you are workers of iniquity. Depart from me into everlasting fire.

So this has very serious implications for today. We have an anonymous listener who says, since the

Bible never gives a timeline when a true Christian can fall into disobedience, backsliding as some call it, don't we have to be careful not to, with absolute certainty, label a person as a false

Christian when they are in that state, while at the same time, knowing that it is our duty as Christians to treat them as unbelievers.

Yes, you're very right. Think of David, which I read about my devotions yesterday, and with Bathsheba, and there was some period of time before he repented.

We need to give them the judgment of grace, but after some period of time that cannot be specified, it should be obvious.

Now, this has reference, for example, to church discipline. If a person's gross backsliding reaches a certain height, let's say drug abuse, certain sexual sins, beating his wife, things like that, then the elders can come and speak with the person with a view to restoring him.

After some attempt to restore a person, the person resists it. The Bible says you can treat them as an unbeliever, but we have to be very careful, and I think that your caution is well taken.

And by the way, Anonymous, if you give us your full name, of course, off the air, and your mailing address, you have won a free copy of Kirk Daniels' book,

The History and Theology of Calvinism. Thank you much for the excellent question. And we, let's see, we have another anonymous question.

And the anonymous questioner says, Are there any marks that a backslidden

Christian is truly saved? Or in other words, are there certain things that even a backslider would never do?

For example, we all know that a true Christian may commit adultery as long as that person repents of that sin, and even might commit murder in the heat of passion.

But can a true Christian be an apostate, actually reject and deny the gospel, or start proclaiming a false gospel?

Could there be... No, he cannot deny the true gospel, otherwise he shows his colors.

But a Christian can backslide and do things that he himself knows is wrong, and sometimes even caught in the act, like Peter when he was denying

Jesus. A story I once heard was about a backslidden deacon of a church that went to a strip joint, and he was...

And he went up to the bar and says, Hey, Joe, give me a sandwich. And he gets a sandwich, but out of habit, he starts praying for the...

Oh, thank you, God, for that sandwich. The bartender says, What are you doing praying at a place like this?

And the man looks up and says, For if I have it, I'm going home. In other words, sometimes a

Christian cannot... He can only backslide so far. I'm thinking of the Corinthians where Paul says,

Are you not carnal when you do this, that, and the other? But on the other hand, he says, But you are not lagging behind in certain spiritual gifts.

There's an example where even the best of Christians will commit certain sins, like David, like Paul, like Moses, these others,

Peter. But a true Christian will get back on the straight and narrow and say,

Lord, forgive me. And that's the Lord doing that in the person. He loves us not only too much to let us apostatize.

He loves us too much to leave us in perpetual backsliding. Kind of hard to say how far into sin or how long into sin, but after a reasonable time,

I like to say it's like holding your breath. You can hold your breath maybe 30 seconds, three or four minutes.

You can hold your breath for five hours or six months. You're dead. A Christian can only backslide to a certain degree, and then the

Lord brings them back. And of course, though, as the listener said, there is no exact timeline that is in the inspired

Word. It could be longer, but the point is it's not permanent and perpetual.

There's a noticeable difference. Now, as far as, just to clarify, you said that a true

Christian, even in the state of being backslidden, and I know that there is debate whether Christians should use that term.

It's an Old Testament term. I know that. But for lack of a better way of describing a

Christian, a truly regenerate person falling into scandalous sin, like adultery or something, or like I did with unrepentant alcoholism for a period before returning to my senses by God's grace and being restored into the faith.

Yes, every Christian probably has what the old timers called a besetting sin. With some men, it's lust.

Some men, it's a bad temper. They just don't get victory over. With some women, it's gossip or covetousness or self -centeredness on their beauty.

Every Christian has some weakness that we call a besetting sin. Often, God eventually gives them the victory over that, and that's just something in the past.

But that just proves that, though we're Christians, we still have sin within us that we have to deal with.

That doesn't mean we're not a Christian. It just means that we still have indwelling sin that we wrestle with.

No, as far as— Gone when we get to heaven. Amen. But as far as a true

Christian never being apostate, even in the midst of backsliddenness, what about, for instance, where we have the

Apostle Paul, when he's addressing the church at Galatia, he seems to treat the saints in Galatia, the brothers and sisters in Galatia, who have been deceived by the

Judaizers in a less harsh way. Although he does speak to them harshly, he speaks to them less harshly than the

Judaizers themselves. Like, for instance, he calls these people—

He says the Judaizers are heretics under the curse of God. Right. But this is a very strong warning to the

Galatians that if they believe that false gospel, they should examine themselves to see are you truly saved.

Right. That's the same thing with the Corinthians at the end of 2 Corinthians chapter 13. Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.

Well, could it be possible, though, that temporarily a person is deceived? Like, for instance, a person might be truly born again and be temporarily deceived into embracing the

Council of Trent's understanding of salvation. And then he later realizes, what am

I thinking? This is just totally contrary to the true gospel. Well put, if after a while.

But if he does, if he continues to hold to a false gospel, then you'd have to say, well, he's shown that he never truly was saved.

He might be toying with it, playing with it, but a true Christian will eventually spit it out as it were.

By the way, there's only one sin that a true Christian will never commit, and that's the unpardonable sin.

But as Spurgeon once said, if all of our sins have been forgiven, then that's proof a Christian will never commit the unpardonable sin.

But we can fall into liquor, adultery, other things.

It's totally disapproved by God, but he'll work repentance in us eventually. Amen. Amen.

We have to go to our final break. It will be much briefer than the last one. And if you have a question,

I would strongly advise you send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We'll be right back with Kurt Daniel after this message.

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We are now back with our final segment of our discussion on the history and theology of Calvinism with Dr. Curt Daniel, and we have reached a point in the interview where I'd like to ask you about the election of angels.

Interesting subject, isn't it? Yeah. I guess we can conclude our discussion today with a little icing on the cake.

The election of angels, that always gets people's attention. Well, the

Bible does teach that God chose some humans to be saved and he passed over others. That's election and reprobation.

Same thing is true with angels. This 1 Timothy 5 .21 mentions, elect angels.

Now, we can deduce a lot else from other places in Scripture. It's God that did the choosing.

It was done in eternity. It's settled. No more being added or subtracted.

The difference is that all humans have sinned and God chose some of those to be saved, but so far as the elect angels, none of them ever sinned.

So there's a difference there. They were chosen to be preserved from falling into sin.

Some have suggested they were put on probation, kind of like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, who were created holy, but failed the test, perhaps.

But the elect angels are all holy angels. They know that they're elect.

They know they will never fall, just like we can know if we are one of the elect.

They already know they are elect and they willingly serve God, and they are very happy that they will never, ever sin.

So those are the elect angels. But what about angels that are not elect?

Well, that would be Satan and the demons. Theoretically, God could have chosen all of the fallen angels to be saved, or He could have chosen some of them to be saved, just like He chooses some sinful human beings, or God could have chosen none of them.

And that's what the Bible teaches. There's no indication that Satan or the demons will ever be saved, none of them.

There's no salvation provided for them. Hebrews 2 says that Jesus became a man to save sinful men, not angels.

He didn't die for the fallen angels. We don't preach the gospel to them. We don't pray for them.

God foreordained their fall, unlike the elect angels. But then He passed over them and destined them to be punished for their sins.

Now, there's some misunderstandings. We are not chosen to replace them. We do not become angels.

Angels don't become men. Men don't become angels. There's, you know, never the twain shall meet. All the fallen angels are not elect.

They're all doomed to go to hell. Jesus said, Depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

And they know that they are reprobate. They know that they are doomed. Remember the demon -possessed man said,

Have you come to torment us before the time? And so they know that they are doomed.

They know that they are reprobate. But they don't want to believe. Instead, they want to take as many sinners to hell with them as possible.

Now, that's the election and non -election of other angels. And this is an interesting point because those that don't believe in election will say,

Well, that's not fair. And I'll say, Well, was it unfair of God not to choose the fallen angels?

And they've usually not even thought through that. Well, that's a summary of what the

Bible would teach about the election of some angels and the non -election of the fallen angels.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, Is there a possibility that like there are some false

Christians deceiving many, masquerading as Christians, and in reality, they are not of the elect, that there are some angels still who are not of the elect, masquerading as true angels in heaven?

Very definitely. Satan, number one. Second Corinthians 11.

He disguises himself as an angel of light. Of course, false prophets disguise themselves as true prophets.

So I would say yes. Well, the questioner, I believe, said still. Well, in other words, Yes, I believe that this is one of the devices that fallen angels use is to pretend to be good angels to lead us into sin.

You know, like saying, Well, God wants you to do this. Well, no, we should test it by the word of God. And let me ask another question of my own to follow up.

When we enter into glory at this point in history, those of us who are Christian, and there will no doubt be multitudes, innumerable numbers of angels, none of these angels will be able to sin because they are none of the aforementioned unelect masquerading angels.

Yes, the elect angels are called holy angels. We will be made holy in heaven, too.

We will rejoice with them. They will rejoice with us. And together we will worship God and our

Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll probably exchange testimonies about how God had worked wonderfully in our lives.

But the holy angels had never sinned. We were created lower than the angels, but we are exalted above the angels.

They are the servants of Christ. We are the bride of Christ. So we have a wonderful heritage facing us.

Well, I'd like you to take the next four minutes or so uninterrupted to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding the history and theology of Calvinism.

Well, it's not just theoretical knowledge. Bible truth must go to the heart.

And as I keep saying, and my people in my church know this is my favorite topic to preach on,

God's word should transform our hearts so that we not only hate sin, but we love holiness.

And mainly, all this should move us to love God more. That's the greatest commandment.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. An appreciation of these truths called the doctrines of grace should move us not only to live a more holy, obedient life, and it'll encourage us in our faith.

As Spurgeon said, it's a soft pillow we can put our head on when we come to die. But also, it should move us to love the

Lord Jesus. God elected us out of love. Christ died for us out of love.

The Holy Spirit puts the love of God in our hearts. Romans 5 .5. So it all gets back to a loving relationship with a loving

Heavenly Father. Well, Kurt, can you tell us about some projects you're working on now in addition to this book that's already in print?

This massive 900 -page monumental work of yours, The History and Theology of Calvinism.

What's next on your workshop? Well, I've submitted two smaller books to a publisher.

One would be a brief survey of basic Christian doctrines. Another one is 100

Proofs of the Deity of Christ. Those are small books. Hopefully they'll be out within a year.

I'm also working on a very large book, about as big as this other one, more scholarly on hyper -Calvinism, which

I've studied for well over 40 years. I did my doctoral dissertation on that. Then following that would be another large scholarly work on the complete discussion on the extent of the atonement.

The history of the debates. What does the Bible say? What are the objections? What are the proofs? By the way,

I do want to write more than one book on biblical apologetics as well. So those are some of the projects

I've been working on. Well, Ray, it looks like there's a lot more to look forward to from your pen and also a lot more interviews to look forward to with you.

I would love to have you back on in the very near future to address some other issue. I want to thank everybody who listened to this program.

If you had so many things going through your minds today, saying, oh, he didn't address this, he didn't address that.

Well, number one, you can go to the three previous interviews we've had on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the history and theology of Calvinism by going to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click past shows podcast, and then type in Kurt Daniel C -U -R -T

D -A -N -I -E -L in the search engine and all of Dr. Daniel's interviews will come up.

It will take several days before this one to be posted, but all of the other three are there on the website right now.

So you can listen to those if you have already missed them. Also, you can purchase the book,

The History and Theology of Calvinism, and I would strongly urge you to do it at cvbbs .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who sponsors this program. They are actually a primary hub in the

United States for evangelical press publications. They are the ones that publish the book,

EP books or evangelical press. So since they are in the UK, you can much more easily and affordably purchase the book from cvbbs .com

if indeed you live here in North America. And obviously, those folks listening who do live in the

UK, in Scotland more specifically, you can go to epbooks .org, epbooks .org.

Kurt, as I said before, it's been a joy having you on four times on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

I look forward to having you on 44 times. And don't forget, folks, you can look up more information for Faith Bible Church in Springfield, Illinois at faithbibleonline .net,

faithbibleonline .net. I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater