December 1, 2005

1 Peter and the Purpose of the Program

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Upcoming Teaching in St. Charles and the New Perspective on Paul

Welcome to The Dividing Line on Thursday afternoon, the beginning of December. Those of you in the St. Charles area, St. Louis, I was just looking at the weather. It's going to be nice and cold. I'm looking forward to it.

Only one day it's going to crack into the 40s and that will be in the 30s and the 20s. And that means I'll probably go walking around outside just for the fun of it. Since I don't feel temperatures like that very often.

I will in February when I go to England. But I'm looking forward to that as well. Anyway, those of you in that area, I'm going to be at Covenant Grace Church again. Look on the blog and the calendar page.

Yes, a calendar page that actually exists. And I'll be discussing the new perspectives on Paul in a little bit more of an informal fashion. Not so much just standing up there like a seminary professor yammering away.

But I would like to discuss it in a little more, I don't know, edifying way, shall we say. I guess that would be the way to describe it. But I'll be doing that starting tomorrow evening and then three times on Saturday.

And then I'll be speaking on Sunday morning for both the Sunday school and then the morning service. And so you are certainly welcome to come along to Covenant Grace Church there in St. Charles. The address and so on and so forth are on the calendar page.

At least I think they are. I seem to recall having put them there at some time in the past. No one's saying no, so I think I did. I know I put it on the blog at one point, so hopefully it'll be there.

877 -753 -3341. You may recall that during the last dividing line we went over a number of clips. I didn't even play all of them. There was one, a couple of them that I wanted to get to, didn't have a chance to get to, from a debate that Sam Shamoon did on Pal Talk with Nadir Ahmed.

I sent him the program, the link to the program, and said, again, if you feel that there's anything I have misrepresented or, you know, if you have a response, here's the number, feel free to call him.

A few hours ago an individual came into our chat channel and basically asked would he be treated fairly if he came on the program. And I said, look, we've been doing this program on and off for the better portion of, well, over 20 years.

Started on KXEG, went to KHEP. We've been on PXQ, and we did it on radio. We've been doing webcasts, I don't know how long now, for quite some time. And over two decades' worth of evidence that when people call in who have a differing viewpoint, they are treated respectfully.

And, of course, there would be a great advantage to this gentleman because I've already played his comments. I mean, I've already played many minutes' worth of his statements and interacted with them already.

And so at one point this gentleman said, well, he wouldn't just call in unheralded. He would want a formal debate. And I'm like, wait a minute, I am leaving town tomorrow. I'm in Tampa the weekend after that.

I'm going to the U .K. I've got a number of presentations prepared for that. I have books to write. I have already more than enough debates for all of 2006 for any human being to do properly anyway on a wide range of subjects, not just one range of subjects, but a wide range of subjects.

And so, no, I don't see any reason to do that. We have open phones. You will be treated fairly. If you feel that I've in some way, shape, or form misrepresented, have not given proper information, whatever, here's your opportunity.

Certainly if someone had played one of my presentations and responded to it and said, hey, feel free to call in, I would. Not even an issue there at that level. So we ended up having a nice conversation.

It was a calm conversation with this Muslim gentleman. I assume it was a gentleman. I didn't ask. I just assumed so. And he asked a number of common questions that I was able to answer very clearly. For example, at one point he said, look, you know, the early Christians would not even have the concept of the Trinity.

And I said, really? And this was in our chat channel. Some of you have visited our chat channel. And I use a client for the channel called Merc, M-I-R-C. And I have a number of, I have a lot of materials that over the years, since 96, nine years of being in the channel, I have developed over the years.

And I am able to just simply, with the click of a button, come up with various citations on discussions that are fairly common in an apologetics chat channel. And so I had quotations from Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, ready to go on the subject of the deity of Christ, his view of the Godhead, so on and so forth.

I had my translation of Melito of Sardis, his Passover sermon, one of my favorite quotes, ready to go. And so I provided these. And the gentleman was kind enough to say, I've never seen anything like that before.

I was unaware of that. Okay, that's fine. And I was able to address a number of these issues. And so we had a good conversation. It wasn't one of those things where someone stalked off all mad or you had to kick somebody out because they got all nasty or anything like that.

We had a good conversation, and the gentleman left. And I said, please, you can call in. He said, well, maybe I'll get someone from answeringchristianity .org to call in or something. And I think, well, at that point he left, and I didn't see that he had left, and I tried to make the comment before he left, that it would at least be nice if whoever would call in had actually listened to what I've said over the past number of weeks, where we have played in context the statements of Islamic apologists and responded to them in context, so that at least the discussion that would take place would be one that is based upon what's actually been said and so on and so forth.

And so the phone lines are open. It would be best to call now so that we have the most amount of time in which to dialogue. I have all of the clips that I played last week and some others ready to go, ready to play.

If you wanted to have them played, we could go over those things. We discussed some of the issues in channel a couple hours ago. It was right at 2 o 'clock my time this conversation took place, a little bit before and after.

We discussed some of the issues. One of the questions I didn't get answered, and if there are some Muslims listening right now, maybe you'd just like to answer this question. One of the things that was said was, why are you trying to make it look like we're mean and nasty?

By quoting, I quoted from, where was that? Surah 4, was it 449? Somewhere around there where it said that the sin of shirk would never be forgiven because the Muslim had quoted from Surah 269, I'm doing this off the top of my head right now, about people of the book receiving their reward.

I said, well, people recognize that there's a difference between the Meccan surahs and ayahs and the Medinan surahs and ayahs. Of course, I believe that the Quran is self-contradictory in its viewpoints on certain things.

I do not consider it a consistent book. Of course, a Muslim will. But I made that reference, and so I asked the question, how do you put together the promise of a reward for those who follow the people of the book, Christians, and the fact that you believe that the doctrine of the Trinity is an example of shirk and that that can never be forgiven?

So, how do you put those two together? I did not get an answer to that outside of, well, not all Christians believe in the Trinity, to which I said, yes, all Christians do believe in the Trinity. That would be like saying you can be a Muslim and not believe that Muhammad was a prophet.

It's definitional, and I certainly stand behind using that as definitional to what the faith is, and I didn't get an answer to any of that. And so I even said, you know, we could do this a whole lot faster when you talk than when you type.

I mean, I'm a good typist, but still, it takes a whole lot longer to accomplish things. And so the phone lines are open, 877 -753 -3341. You can call in. We can have a conversation, chat about things here during the course of the dividing line.

I'll keep my eyes on the phone bank over there, and we'll see what happens. Let me just play one little thing here, a couple of things, and then if those invitations are not taken up, you may see on the blog that lots of other stuff's going on in regards to Reformed theology, and so we will take a look at those things.

Having certainly made a good faith effort, I believe, in providing opportunity for individuals to fairly air their position and their responses to what we have said, and if they choose not to take us up on that, there is absolutely positively nothing we can do about that other than just simply make note of it and move on from there.

The Deity of Christ, the Humanity of Jesus, and the Word Made Flesh

One thing I didn't get to, for those of you who have listened to the debate that I did against Hamza Abdu 'l-Malik in 1999 on the deity of Christ in the New Testament, I have often mentioned that the last portion of that debate, which encompasses the audience questions, is without a doubt one of the most educational portions of that debate.

And what I mean by that is the audience questions were primarily those of Muslims. The Christians in the audience, a couple of them, did ask some questions, but the majority did not, simply because they could already tell the debate was over.

That my opponent had taken the debate simply to attempt to argue the idea that the Bible was contradictory to itself, that he admitted that the New Testament as it exists today does teach the deity of Christ, he just doesn't accept those portions.

And so for most of the Christians, they figured, well, the debate's over. Most of the Muslims had not even heard my opening presentation. They had left for prayer time and then had come back in all during my presentation, interrupting things and so on and so forth.

So they were getting up and asking questions, and the questions are not the standard questions you're accustomed to answering in regards to the deity of Christ, most certainly. And they were all based upon some real confusion concerning the issue of the deity of Christ and concerning the issue of what the doctrine of the Trinity is and things along those lines.

And so an example of that came up at one point. And this was not the subject of the debate between Nadir Ahmed and Sam Shamoun. But listen to this statement, because it demonstrates once again, I have yet honestly, and it doesn't mean they're not out there, they're just not the ones that their debates end up on the Internet to be able to be listened to.

I'm sure there must be somewhere Islamic apologists who actually understand the Christian faith. They actually seek to represent it accurately. There's got to be someplace. I've not met one yet, however, who actually does represent the doctrine of the Trinity correctly, shows any real understanding of what the doctrine of the Trinity is, that there is this very simplistic dismissal of it without even trying to understand what it is.

Maybe that's because they associate it with shirk and they don't even want to think about such things. I don't know. But listen to this comment, and I'll comment on the other side.

If you read the Bible, you're not going to come out with a Bible saying, oh yeah, there are other gods other than Allah, or that there are human gods and stuff like that. Because the Bible, there's so many places that show that Jesus was a human being, and that's the point on that.

Again, both points were addressed by Sam Shamoun, and he jumped up and said, oh my God, it's the uncorrupted Word of God. This doesn't prove that it's the uncorrupted Word of God. It's simply pointing to a specific truth mentioned in your book, and it's telling you to act upon the truth which is in your book.

Now, let me play just this one section right here again.

Because the Bible, there's so many places that show that Jesus was a human being, and that's the point on that.

Jesus was a human being. That would be like saying, I object to Islam because Muhammad was a human being. Well, that's not an objection to Islam. Well, why is it an objection to Islam? Because Muslims believe that Muhammad was a human being.

Exactly. And Christians believe that Jesus was a human being as well. Do you think we believe that Jesus was a ghost or something like that? We believe he was a God. No, we believe that he was the God-man.

We believe that he was God, the second person of the Trinity entering into humanity. But we believe that Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God. He was a human being. If he wasn't a human being, there's no gospel, there's no redemption, there's no substitutionary atonement, there's no forgiveness of sins.

He was truly man. He lived, he was born, he lived, he died, he ate food, he was truly a man. And I recognize that that's one of the big problems in Islam is that Allah lacks the ability to enter into mankind.

He cannot become a man. He cannot enter into his own creation. He can create it. He can't enter into it. For some reason, once he's made it, he can't enter into it. He cannot perform the miracle of incarnation.

And my God can. That's one of the differences is that the Bible says the Word became flesh. The Word which had eternally existed. The Word which was in personal communion with the Father through eternity.

That Word became flesh and would be held as glory. The glory is of the only begotten Father, full of grace and truth. He was truly man. So, there's no objection there. And if you have someone in a debate, throwing something out that's an objection to the side that they already believe, the only thing that can mean is that debater doesn't know what the other side believes.

And is debating on a basis of ignorance. That's the only conclusion I can come to. And I know that we have Muslims listening right now. And I'd like to know why you think that that kind of statement would be an objection.

Where is the objection here? I've listened to, I believe it was the first name by Sabil. Was it Sabil Ahmed who debated Sam Shimon? And he kept saying, well, you know, the Trinity can't be true. Can't teach the deity of Christ because that would make two gods.

Well, no it doesn't. In fact, that's the whole point of John chapter 5. Is the perfect unity between the Father and the Son. They are not the same person. But they share the one being that is God. Unless you're going to say that God's being is finite and limited and cannot be shared by more than one person.

You really haven't even started to engage the debaters yet. And if you'd simply take the Bible for what it says. If you allow it to speak with a unitary voice. It's teaching on the subject of the nature of Christ is quite compelling.

And in fact, extends across the entirety of the inspired text itself. And so, that's not an objection. And that does, I think, indicate a real problem on Mr. Ahmed's understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

I would be very happy to be able to explain why that is. I had made one little clip as well to illustrate one problem that comes up over and over again. You may recall when we listened to the Shabir-Ali debate against Sam Shimon.

At one point he says, look, I don't treat the Bible the way you treat the Bible. I don't have to take all of it. And I don't have to take it in context. And I said, you know, there's the end of his credibility as far as providing any exegetical commentary right there.

And at one point during the debate with Nadir Ahmed, he misspoke. When you listen in context, you can tell he misspoke. But you see, if we don't have to apply context to the Bible, why do we have to apply context to anybody else?

And so I had made this little quote, this little clip here. And this is actually what he said in the debate. The Quran is corrupted. There it is. Those are his words. You can tell it's his voice. The Quran is corrupted.

There it is. Now what happened was, in context, he meant to say the Bible is corrupted. But he switched Bible and Quran. But see, that requires you to use context. And if you're going to go to the Bible, for example, go to Jeremiah 8 .8, and ignore its context, then why can't we go and say that's what he says?

Because that would be untruthful. That would be doing something that is in error. And I was going to use that as an illustration if we had an opportunity. But I looked down upon the phone lines there.

And how did Gutenberg get in channel? Gutenberg's not supposed to be able to be in channel, is it? Hmm, that's odd. Anyways, our channel BibleBot just got in. I'm not sure how the channel BibleBot managed to get in, because I thought it couldn't get in right now.

How did it do that? Oh, well. Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341. I guess the silence of the phone lines indicates that in light of the fact that there is no documentable evidence that we do not treat our callers fairly, that that is an admission that what we have said on the program over the past number of weeks is true and accurate, and that we can move on from that particular point in time.

The New Perspective on Paul, Scripture, and Justification

I mentioned on the blog this morning that there has been an explosion of what I called anti-Calvinism out there in the Internet. The phone lines are now blinking. Good. I am thankful that they are. There is an explosion of anti-Calvinism out on the Internet over the past number of days.

Oddly enough, what I mentioned this morning was a Lutheran explosion of anti-Calvinism, which I found... I don't know. I know it was always there. I have seen that kind of stuff before. But I don't know.

It still seems to me different than the Dave Hunt style. I'm not sure why. Maybe because there were a number of Lutherans I went to seminary with or something. That shouldn't make any difference, I suppose.

I don't know why it is, but it just strikes me as being quite different than... If I sound quite distracted, it's because I'm seeing phone lines blinking, but I have no information as to what they are.

I'm just sitting here on pins and needles, waiting, just like everybody else. Relax. Great. Do I continue with this subject or do I go elsewhere? Start some music here. Oh, okay. Line two would be somebody else, I assume.

So I guess the callers are on different subjects. Okay. Well, that makes sense to me. So I can continue with this and we'll start picking up our other phone callers on other subjects. I guess they were just waiting until we said, oh well, nobody's going to be calling.

All right. Sorry about that. A fellow by the name of Paul McCain. I confess I've only seen him on the World Magazine blog, which I like. I like the World Magazine blog. It's one of the first things I look at in the morning.

I really do like seeing what's up there and things like that, so it's not like I have any bias there. I just could not believe the stuff I was reading. I quoted the poem this morning. And at the same time I'm looking at this, Dave Hunt comes out with his new Berean call, and what are we going to do with this guy?

He just, he is so dogged. He can be refuted over and over and over and over and over again, and he'll just keep saying the same things. There's just, there's no, it's so incredibly frustrating. I need to try to find some time, even while traveling, to get some blogs up on what he has in his current newsletter.

Trying to get another fellow who will remain nameless at the moment to actually debate and trying to get Armenians to debate is, well, it's very difficult to do. All of this all at once, and it just really bothered me, because I guess for some reason I would expect, out of someone like Paul McCain, I would expect a higher standard.

I'm not sure why. I don't know the man. And I guess tradition can be extremely strong for anybody. But it was just so, the poem that was posted, it's on the blog, is just so ridiculous. Who are you trying to convince with these things?

That's what I'm wondering. Who are you trying to convince? You're certainly not trying to convince us. I mean, that's one of the reasons that I wonder about folks who engage in apologetics without studying the other side.

Who are you trying to convince here, anyways? Why are you engaging in debate at all if you don't study what the other side says and you misrepresent them, you know, are you not, that you are going to be driving them away?

They are going to, I mean, when someone misrepresents my beliefs, their credibility suffers. And stuff like what I have read on Mr. McCain's blog tells me the man doesn't know anything about what I believe, or if he does, he doesn't want to represent it accurately.

That doesn't help me start off going, well, let's have a nice conversation here. Because I'm not going to do that to him. You know, I look at, I don't, how often have I discussed Lutheran theology and the dividing line?

I don't know that I have. I'm sure it's come up in some call at some point or some other. And what I've probably said was, well, in my reading anyway, it seems like you have the Luther of the 1517 to 1521 area.

You have the same Luther pretty much of the freedom of the will, bondage of the will debate. And I think a lot of folks will admit that 1525 changed Martin Luther. Changed Martin Luther a lot. And the Peasants' Revolt and what happened during that had a tremendous impact upon him.

And the later Luther, I don't think you can create a real consistent picture of Luther's theology if you take it all at once. There's too much change, there's too much development over time. And there are many things I can agree with Luther on.

And the areas where I don't agree with Luther on are generally areas where I would say that I give him tremendous amount of credit for going as far as he did and accomplishing what he did. But I would also say that, you know, I don't know that I would have been able to go as far as he did even.

But that doesn't mean that he went far enough. There was other things to be dealt with, and I don't think that he necessarily dealt with them. And those things come up in these conversations. We have four lines full now.

I think we're totally full up on lines now, all on completely different subjects. I'll get to those calls in just a moment. But it would never cross my mind to post a poem, a mocking, inaccurate, strawman-filled, absurd poem like that, about Lutheranism, even though I don't agree with a lot of modern Lutheranism at various and sundry points.

It would never cross my mind. I don't understand it. I just, I throw my hands up and go, don't get it. So you'll notice on the blog today I invited Mr. McCain, Paul McCain, let's do exegesis. Let's go to the heart and soul of Calvinistic theology.

Let's go to the text. Let's go to John 6. Let's see how your Lutheranism impacts your exegesis. Let's go to the inspired word. I haven't gotten a response to that yet, but I've also been busy with other things.

And so we will see what goes from there. Let's start taking our, my goodness, a whole bank of calls. We can only take one more call, but we can't because I'm using that line for the Internet right now.

So we need to get some phone lines taken care of here. Let's talk with Scott. How are you doing, Scott? Hello, Dr. White. How are you doing?

I'm doing pretty good. It's pretty cold out here in Nebraska. That sounds really good to me. Last night I was at Bible study, and it's a campus Bible study here. And he went over, we were talking about the Holy Spirit, and he brought up John 3, 5, which says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And I was wondering, he explained what he felt water meant. That was the physical birth. And I wasn't really sure about that. And I was just kind of wondering.

This might be a simple question. Yeah, well, that's a common understanding, is unless a person is born of water, physical birth, and the Spirit, spiritual birth, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. I think there is a better explanation than that found in the Old Testament background to Jesus' entire conversation with Nicodemus.

And that is found in recognizing that the symbols and the language that's being drawn from is found in Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 25 and following, which says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

And so this sounds to me like the exact fulfillment of that in the description of what it means to be born again, being described in Ezekiel 36, parallel in Jeremiah 31, the concept of the New Covenant, and what will take place in regards to the New Covenant, the sprinkling of clean water, the giving of the Spirit, the taking out of the heart of stone, the giving of the heart of flesh.

This is all what lays behind, I believe, Jesus' language in John chapter 3. So I would, at one point prior to my seminary education, that was how I viewed John 3, 5, was the way that your Bible study teacher did.

But it was in seminary that I found the parallel passage in the Old Testament background, and so I would suggest that as a stronger foundation for looking at it. Okay? All right. All righty. Well, you stay warm up there.

I'm looking forward to the cold starting tomorrow. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Dr. Michael. All right. God bless. Bye-bye. Bye. All right. That opens up one line. Let's go to Bo over in California. Hi, Bo.

Hi. How are you doing? Doing good. Good, good. I'm the guy that was emailing you. Yes, sir. I know. Uh-huh.

Okay. Acts 17, verse 27, in contrast with Romans 3. Uh-huh.

Could you talk about that a little bit? Sure. Acts chapter 17 is talking about, this is Paul's Mars Hill Sermon, he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined a lot of periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him, yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your poets have said, for we indeed are his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think the divine image is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

So what Paul's doing is he is starting from the idol that he saw as he was passing by to an unknown God, and he is seeking to use that as an apologetic stepping stone to introduce to these individuals, who are not worshippers of one God, they are pagan worshippers of multiple gods, to introduce them to the one true God.

And so he is speaking in very general terms in regards to the fact that God made man and he put his, he determined the families of men and where they would dwell, so on and so forth, and there is a general responsibility that is a part, well indeed the entirety of the law is responsibility, because that law is written upon the heart of man, for man to do those things that is right before God.

We notice for example that Paul says in Romans chapter 1, that even though men knew they should give thanks and they should honor God as God, they refused to do so, instead they turn that and they worship and serve the creation rather than the creator.

Sure, so there is in general revelation sufficient knowledge for man to know that he is to honor God, he is to give thanks to God, the same type of concept here that we are to seek after God, but the question is who is going to do that and in fact can the fallen children of Adam truly outside of an act of grace in their heart that frees them from the slavery of sin, do that which they are required to do in this general revelation of God, where God has made man in his image, so on and so forth, and Paul's answer to that would be no, because they are in Adam, they have fallen in the federal head of the race, that they lack that capacity to even do the most basic things that would be considered pleasing in God's sight, seeking after him, honoring him as God, giving thanks for all the things, and they become corrupted in their activities, corrupted in their minds, corrupted in their thoughts, that's the whole description of Romans chapter 1, and so it's two different contexts that are being addressed there, one is the general requirements that God has for man, and the other is who is able to do these things, who is able to actually fulfill the requirements for man, before God, on man's part, and the answer is, well, man can't until that change has taken place in his heart, and he has been made capable of, well, as the passage I just read to the other caller, Ezekiel chapter 36, I've taken out that heart of stone, given you a heart of flesh, that heart of stone doesn't want to be taken out, it's perfectly happy where it is and doesn't want to change, so two different contexts as far as that phrase, seeking God, and hence the, I guess, apparent contradiction is not a contradiction at all.

Okay. Okay?

Awesome, thanks for sharing, James. All right, thank you very much. We look forward to hopefully seeing you down here sometime. I'm hoping for May already. Okay.

All right, thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Indeed, we are working on hopefully being at Biola in the L .A. area in May of next year. Pray that a debate will work out. We're working on a very important debate topic and subject there.

It's not set in stone yet, and so pray that that will, in fact, take place, because I certainly want it to. I'm looking forward to it, and it would be, I think, very, very, very useful, and from my perspective would be one of many debates on the subject I would like to do.

I'll let you guess from there what that would be. Oh, okay. Moving lines around on me is really going to leave me confused here. Let's talk with Jeff. Hi, Jeff. How are you doing? Hey, Dr. White.

How are you? Doing good. Good. You're like the Calvinistic Bible-answer-man today.

You know, we're sort of covering not quite as broad a range. Sometimes some of the calls Hank gets leave me going, I'm glad no one asked me that one, you know, especially the does my kitty go to heaven one.

That one just would leave me going. Anyway.

I had a couple of quick questions for you. I know you've done a lot of work with the, or at least some work with the New Perspective on Paul. In fact, that's what I'm speaking on this weekend. Okay, cool.

I have been, as you know, I deal a lot with, you know, Jewish believing circles, and I've kind of been telling them that the New Perspective on Paul is probably going to, they're probably going to start encouraging people.

And a lot of the resources I see, and understandably so, deal specifically with justification, and I was wondering if there's resources you would probably recommend for dealing with the question of, you know, that Jews don't need Jesus, and that kind of seems like a consistent theme with at least some of New Perspective, like Gager or.

Well, good question. Actually, you know, it's odd. This is not my favorite subject, not because I don't like talking about justification. I do, but so much of this is put into a context where you have to go over so much foundational information concerning the theory of this particular writer.

So you need to look back at W .D. Davies, and you have to look back at Sanders, of course, who was Davies' son-in-law, and you have to look at previous stuff to that. Sometimes you even have to go into the 1800s and 1900s.

You have to do all this stuff with all that. It's very hard to be overly passionate. In fact, the result of all of this, in my estimation, especially in many of the churches, is a dramatic drop in, as if there was much before, but a dramatic drop in passion for the doctrine of justification because most people are left going, look, no one really knows.

It's so complicated. I don't want to open my mouth and have someone walk up and smack me upside the head with some 500-page book that says what I just said is completely out to lunch on something like that.