Johnny Mac's Legacy, Stupid Critics, Alex Jurado Situation, Response to Trinity Radio on 1 John 5:1

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00:29

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and we are coming to you live from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:36

Drove here today, a pretty uneventful drive, thankfully.

00:43

And so make sure this is silenced. Oh, well, it was silenced. Now it's silenced again. Anyways, we have got a lot to get to today.

00:53

We are on our way up to Dolores, Colorado. I'll get up there tomorrow.

01:00

And we've got a little mini -conference at a church there,

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Saturday. And this kind of thing we really like to get to do, and so that's why we're doing it.

01:13

And I haven't gone up this particular road before, so it'll be interesting. I went a different direction last time

01:19

I went there, so we'll see how all that turns out. But anyway, um, my goodness.

01:29

You know, most of us knew, could tell from what we had seen of Dr.

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MacArthur over the past, you know, year and a half or so, that, you know, his time was short.

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And so, when word came yesterday, I am thankful that 98 % of what

01:57

I've seen online, of course, I'm driving for five hours, five plus hours a day, but has been what should be tributes, people talking about how

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Dr. MacArthur had, you know, great impact upon their lives and their understanding of scripture and, um, fidelity to scripture.

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And, of course, there is the rest of it that, goodness, I logged onto YouTube to get a reference, to double -check a reference on one of the other topics we're going to talk about today.

02:33

And here is this African -American woman doing a video about Jeffrey Epstein and John MacArthur.

02:43

And it was just, you know, this, she believes whatever she's been told, she believes whatever she's read from certain female websites, um, where you only get one, half of the story, and, uh, you know, just putting this stuff out there to get clicks.

03:03

It's disgusting. It's vile. It truly, truly is. And maybe this wasn't as much social media activity when

03:16

R .C. went, but this has been pretty amazing. Um, obviously, some of the written stuff that I've seen, there's some guy with, what is it,

03:25

Baptist Global News, is that what it is? I saw it this morning. I didn't bother looking at it. And when

03:30

I looked at the picture of the author, this vile man, um,

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I went, I've seen this guy somewhere before. I have to wonder if he hadn't taken a shot at me sometime in the past or something.

03:44

I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent certain. I just didn't even want to invest the time in it. But obviously stuff like that was probably already written, just waiting to be posted.

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And it's, um, it's pretty amazing. So I'm not going to do, you know, what is, what is

04:02

John MacArthur's legacy from my perspective? Well, first of all, you know, the primary thing as I see it was

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John's commitment to the centrality and ultimate authority of scripture.

04:23

And you can disagree with his interpretations. There were things we certainly disagreed about.

04:29

I remember, I don't remember what year it was. Some of you probably will remember, but now

04:36

I've never been to Shepherd's Conference. I've never been to Shepherd's Conference. And some of you go, but I saw you.

04:42

Yeah. You saw me at the TMAI pre -conference speaking on Islam and a few other things when I was going overseas a lot with TMAI to Kyiv and other places in Europe teaching, loved doing that.

04:55

But I've never been to Shepherd's Conference. And so I wasn't there the year that John did the, if you're reformed, you need to be a premillennial thing.

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And, you know, I mean, that blew up pretty big, as he knew it would, that was, that was the intention of it, obviously.

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So you can look at something like that and go, really?

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And, you know, his leaky dispensationalism, yeah, it doesn't fit super well with the rather strong reform position, satirologically, that he came to over time.

05:32

I mean, it didn't start there. He started very much in the fundamentalist realm. But it was commitment to Scripture that brought him there.

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And that, I think, is going to be his long -term legacy. And on that level, we are fighting the exact same battle.

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And it's going to determine the outcome of the war, at least for the Church in our society, anyways, to stand firmly on unquestionable commitment to the nature of Scripture as God breathed, its consistency.

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And what that means is, when you do disagree with him on something, you knew where you could go. You could go to Scripture to make that argument.

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It wasn't, well, you know, you need to go cite these kinds of theologians, and these kinds of creeds and councils, and all the rest of that stuff.

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You go to Scripture. You knew you could do that with John. And so I think that's the long -term legacy.

06:32

The fact that, and this sort of talks a little bit to some of the critics, all the stuff that's being thrown about by certain people who honestly aren't going to have much to talk about at all anymore, and are probably really depressed today.

06:52

I've said many times that Grace Community managed to do something that the vast majority of megachurches do not.

07:01

I was in a megachurch from 1977 to 1989, so 12 years.

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And I saw the bad stuff that happens in megachurches.

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I saw—and Rich can confirm this—singles departments that basically became flesh markets, you know?

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It was just the singles dating scene. There wasn't enough sanctification going on there at the

07:39

Philistimble. And I saw how the

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New Testament pattern for teaching, authority, how elders are supposed to function, things like that, just didn't work.

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It wasn't even—they didn't even try for it. Grace Community has always tried for that, and in the vast majority of instances succeeded in doing that kind of thing.

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I mean, it's hard to have a church that large that actually functions like a church is supposed to function.

08:19

And I'm not saying I agree with how everything's done. That's not the point. The point is, the bigger you are, the more people are going to come and cause problems, really.

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And people who have not been in that situation, have not fought that fight, have no idea the amount of energy that John MacArthur and his fellow elders invested into that.

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And again, did they do it perfectly? No, nobody does. But my point is, they really tried. And I don't know what the future is.

09:01

I don't know where it's going, what's going to happen. I'm not even addressing any of them. I'm just saying that I have seen a lot of men's ministries they started off with a strong biblical commitment, but they didn't stay there.

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And a lot of the reason for it not staying there came from the pressures in the church itself.

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So that's going to be a tremendous legacy. And I'll leave it to others to write all the flowery stuff. Did I know

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John? Yes. Did I have dinner with him various times and have interesting conversations?

09:46

Yes. Did I get to partake of his 80th birthday cake in Dallas when we were getting together and that eventually led to what became called the

09:55

Dallas statement? Um, yeah, that was one of the best birthday cakes

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I've ever had. In fact, I remember, I think,

10:07

I'm not sure about, I'll have to ask Tom Buck. He was there. But I think

10:13

I sort of circled around and got a second piece because it was just delicious.

10:20

It wasn't, you know, you're going to do a birthday cake, do a birthday cake. Don't put that frosting on it that has like no sugar in it.

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It's a birthday cake. What are you even thinking? This was fully leaded.

10:38

Does not appear on any diet plan known to man. I can assure you that it was great.

10:44

But anyway, um, no, I, I had, uh, lunch with John and Phil a couple of times when

10:52

I came over and we did some recording for grace to you. And that wonderful time when

10:58

I came to Southern California to be on the Bible answer, man, that was the, uh, ambush program, uh, with George Bryson, um, can only be heard from Alpha Omega Ministries, uh, because they didn't make that one available.

11:13

But, um, anyway, so we, we had, you know, conversations and, and recorded stuff and things like that, but we weren't, you know, like buds or something that you're calling each other up or things like that.

11:29

Um, I did, I will tell you, and I've told people this story before.

11:35

I'm not going to tell you some of the stories I've told some people about some of the conversations that were had over some of those lunches.

11:42

Um, but somewhere around nine,

11:49

I think it was 1996. I think it was 96. The reason I say that is

11:55

Soleil Gloria publishers, and it's still warm in here. It's 84 degrees back here.

12:01

Hasn't cooled down yet. He got to understand this thing, you know, is going flying through the wind.

12:10

And if you're driving in the heat, that wind is blowing on it. So it's going to be the same temperature outside.

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So it takes a while for those poor little AC and it's up there to try to catch up. We're, we're thinking about replacing two of them, put more powerful units.

12:24

You can only go so, so far, but we'll, we'll see, uh, what happens all that. Anyway, um,

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I think it was 96. Soleil Gloria had put out Sola Scriptura.

12:36

It was a yellow book. It's now a black cover from whoever's publishing it now.

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And, um, I wrote a lengthy, and it was honestly the most scholarly article in there.

12:49

I'm not saying that. Ooh, pat on the back. What I meant was my topic was Sola Scriptura near the church.

12:56

So I was dealing with some technical stuff. And so it wasn't easy reading. I was dealing with, uh, what the, the nature of the

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New Testament, the, uh, early church's understanding of scriptural sufficiency and, and, uh,

13:13

Irenaeus's rule of faith and all that kind of stuff. So it was fairly complicated and fairly long anyway.

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Um, MacArthur had a chapter in it as well. And so I think it was 96.

13:28

That book was published. And so I was at the Christian Booksellers Association meeting. I wasn't brought there by them.

13:35

I was brought there by Bethany House, because I don't know which of my many Bethany House books had come out in 96.

13:42

Uh, I had been there in 95 for the King James only controversy. So I'm not sure what, 96 might have been their only

13:47

Catholic controversy, now that I think about it. Anyway, somehow I found myself, um, helping back in the olden days.

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I haven't been to a Christian booksellers thing in forever. And I don't even know if they do them anymore because everything's so electronic now.

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Um, but you would have book signings. So, you know, you'd schedule a certain time and people would line up and, uh, they'd hand you your book and you'd sign it and you'd talk to them and you'd just sort of get hand cramps and stuff like that.

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So I did that with the King James only controversy, Roman Catholic controversy, a couple of things like that. So we were doing it with the

14:29

Souls from a Torah book. And so I wasn't signing it. Uh, John MacArthur was, nobody would care if I signed it.

14:35

This is 96. Nobody knew me from Adam. Um, and so I'm just opening the book up and sliding it over to John.

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I'm just helping with it. Cause I mean, I was one of the authors and so they asked me to help. And so, you know, he's, he's doing his thing.

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And then he asks me a question. I mean, the book's on scriptural sufficiency.

15:00

So he asked me a question. He says, uh, so what's your eschatology? And I, I made a mistake.

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I made a mistake. Um, not that it matters now, uh, as of, uh,

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July 15th, 2025, but, um, this was not the proper answer to give to John MacArthur on that question.

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I think he would have, but at that point in time, I hadn't made a commitment to amillennialism, which is where I was for a while.

15:41

It was never a passionate commitment, but, um, I hadn't read or listened to that, uh, cassette tape series to where I would be able to say, okay,

15:50

I'm an amillennialist. And of course I knew what he was and that's what

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I had been raised. And I didn't think it was the place while I'm sitting here opening books and sliding them over to him while he's signing it to have some type of debate about this.

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So I used the phrase that I had, I used for a number of years during that time period.

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And I just sort of smiled and said, well, I'll be honest. I think I'm sort of a pan -millennialist. It'll all pan out in the end.

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Bad move. Really, really bad. Um, if dirty looks could melt steel.

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Uh, yeah, that, yeah, I don't think he really thought that was the best answer.

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So not that it matters now. I guess I, you know, I could have told people,

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Hey, don't respond. If John MacArthur asks you what your eschatological position is, um, the nice thing is

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John MacArthur knows the exact eschatological. Well, you know what? I'm not a thousand percent sure about that.

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I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure that you walk through the gates of heaven and go,

16:56

Whoa, I understand it all now. I, I'm not sure about that. I mean, how do you, how do you know that might not be in a sort of joyful process to be, you know, find the apostle

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Paul and go, what did you mean in first and second Thessalonians? What, you know, wouldn't that be more enjoyable?

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I think, um, I'm not sure if it'd be more enjoyable for Paul, but then again, we, time may not exist in the same way in, uh, in glory.

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And so Paul may get to do that all the time and it's enjoyable every time.

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Who knows? We, we tend to assume we know a lot about heaven when all we're doing is projecting what we want it to be like.

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And we can't even begin to imagine what it's really gonna be like. It's gonna be so much better than anything we can imagine.

17:56

So who knows? Who knows? But, um, yeah,

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I was, I've been seeing some absolutely disgusting stuff, um, online and, you know, some of this stuff,

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I, there was some, uh, yeah, some guy,

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TheDinch2 said, MacArthur was a heretic of the greatest magnitude.

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He worshiped the demonic God of Calvin, not Christ. He was not our brethren. No Calvinists, they are demon worshipers.

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So you've got the utter wackos out there, um, you know, living on an island by themselves, uh, doing their thing.

18:48

So you, you, you, you've got that. But then I, this redeemed

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Zoomer guy, could I just ask a question? Why does anybody listen to him? What has he ever done?

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Where did he go to school? Oh, when did he graduate? What has he taught?

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What has he written? Does he know the biblical languages? What has he done in church? My understanding is he's like in some ultra leftist church, but I mean,

19:22

I was talking to a dear, dear friend a couple days ago, trying to encourage him in how to handle, uh, criticism.

19:32

And I've said this on this program a thousand times before, I'm going to say it again. When I see people criticizing me or criticizing

19:45

Jeff, Apologia, Alpha and Omega, Rich, Rich just recorded his first new program.

19:54

Uh, and it's, he's, I'm not sure when it's going to be posted, but I'm sure we'll let you know on the, uh, Alpha and Omega app.

19:59

But, um, when I see people criticizing my friends, my brothers, things like that, uh,

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I say the same thing. When someone comes along, takes a shot at me,

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I look at them. They'll look, if they've got 37 followers on Twitter and they don't have a picture, it's just a little egg thing.

20:23

Um, delete, move on, block, move on. This is a troll.

20:29

It's a bot probably someone or someone who's been banned, blocked before. It's irrelevant.

20:37

Um, but from my perspective, what you do is you look at the person's life work and you give their criticism the weight that their life work requires you to go.

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So if this is a person who has walked the Lord for many years, consistent, a churchman, um, accomplished in whatever their field is, doesn't have to be theology.

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It doesn't have to be some theology professor, but someone, uh, you know, family man, someone who's demonstrating obedience to Christ and someone who's demonstrated that they want to do what's right before God.

21:24

Okay. Then listen to their criticism. But a rando on the internet should not even distract your time.

21:35

And I know we live in a society now where everyone's opinions need to be given equal weight. No, they don't.

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Nobody lives that way. Nobody lives that way. Well, maybe some purple haired freakazoids, but nobody lives that way.

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You, you, you do not approach the nut balls with the masks on the

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Antifa people to ask them about why you're having irregular heart rhythms, or you've just been diagnosed with cancer.

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You don't ask them about what the best, best plan of treatment would be.

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And you don't ask them, you know, I'm only a few years from retirement. What should I be doing for savings?

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You don't ask them any of those things because you know, they're clueless. Their opinions are not equal at all.

22:28

So coming back to this redeemed Zuma guy, what, why does anybody listen to what, what is his great, um,

22:36

I mean, he makes these sweeping, you know, I heard him say something about all the reformers agree that the sacraments are necessary, which ones, which ones?

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I mean, these are the guys that are pairing seven sacraments down to two sacraments, but they all, do you know what you're even talking about?

22:54

Have you ever taught a class in church history on a graduate level anywhere where you got paid for it?

23:00

You had to grade the papers. It's, it's one thing to show up and blabber for a while.

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Um, it's, it's another to write tests and grade tests and read papers and grade papers and answer questions and things like that.

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That's totally different. That's, yeah. Uh, if you don't do that, don't do that.

23:23

Um, double check here. Uh, I have no stream. Okay. Few.

23:29

Okay. So just, just making sure because the last program I did only got recorded.

23:34

We had to upload it later. Hopefully this is live. So, so Rich, why don't you just make sure that, that, you know, that I don't go into a regular heart rhythm and send me a message that says, yep, it's working this time.

23:49

We're good. I can hear you. I can see you. They need to see me. It's all good. There we go.

23:55

Okay. So I'm just, I'm just honestly lost. I mean, I see

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Keith Foskey debated him on something. I haven't seen that yet. I probably need to track that down though. I love

24:06

Keith, but again, who is this guy? You know, Keith's a pastor.

24:12

Keith has to work in people's lives on a regular basis. And he's done so for years and years and years.

24:19

Who is this kid? I don't know. Um, but he said, uh, he said, pray for John MacArthur, despite his theological problems.

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I truly hope he will be with us in glory. And he had all, he had said that was 14th of July on April 21st.

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He said, this is stupid. Pope Francis was a Christian if anyone was, and he's in glory right now.

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He has less confidence that John MacArthur will be in glory than Pope Francis.

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Um, can we talk about the gospel? Can we talk about a man who allows people to address him by the names of the

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Trinity? John MacArthur never did that. Can we talk about justification?

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Can we talk about the finished work of Christ? Can we talk about Mary and entrusting yourself to Mary for salvation?

25:25

Let me, let me take a wild guess. Redeemed Zuma doesn't have a problem with that either. I get that feeling probably.

25:31

Um, wow. I mean, what an ass. Uh, the PCUSA can have him.

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I think he needs to, that's yeah. Stay over there. Uh, that's, that's best.

25:45

So anyway, um, but then we had, uh, where'd this go?

25:52

Wait a minute. I thought I, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry.

25:57

It's in one of four dozen programs. The only disadvantage, you know,

26:04

I love doing the program on the road, uh, but I only have one screen.

26:10

Now I sometimes I do have another screen that I could put up. I just didn't put it up, especially because it's so warm in here. So trying to follow all of the, uh, stuff here and where everything was put.

26:21

Here it is. Steven Anderson. Good old Steven Anderson. Remember Steven Anderson?

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Remember, remember that two and a half hour interview we did? It was supposed to be for a movie. They used 30 seconds of it.

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Um, I think more people have seen that interview than ever saw the movie, but anyway, uh, you know, he started disappeared toward the beginning of COVID when all the censorship was really getting locked down and, you know, they kicked him off YouTube and did all that kind of stuff.

26:56

And then of course, last year, his adult children came after him and accused him of all sorts of stuff. And they were all telling the same stories and all his buddies in the new independent fundamentalist

27:09

Baptist movement abandoned him. So they're all alone now. And, um, you know, for a while he was hanging out with some reform sort of reform

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Baptist type guys, despite all the stuff that he said about Calvinism over the years and was learning

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Greek, modern Greek and all the rest of this stuff. And I'm like, well, that'd be a good thing,

27:38

I guess, you know? And so some people started suggesting maybe he's moderating, you know, nah, he's doubled back down.

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I mean, he's, he's back on social media. You look at his social media feed, it's just as insane and nutty and crazy as it's ever been.

27:56

It's all clicks and everything else. So he posted this comment, um,

28:04

John MacArthur was the number one worst pastor in America during my lifetime. Uh, he popularized the damnable heresy of Lordship salvation, denied the blood of Christ, and came out with the first mainstream

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English Bible to change God's name to the fake Judaizing made up word Yahweh. Now he's burning in hell.

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I would not want to be accountable for 99 .9

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% of the words that Steven Anderson has said, typed, everything else.

28:41

Um, you know, you know, the died, the blood of Christ, there's something I was gonna mention.

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My first sort of contact with John MacArthur is when I defended him against that attack.

28:54

A guy named Ross. There are two things he was attacked for. Remember, he came out of a real fundamentalist range, you know,

29:04

Bob Jones style, independent fundamentalist Baptist type stuff. And so there were two things he was attacked for.

29:11

One was he did hold an unusual view regarding the sonship of Christ, which he changed and came out and admitted he had been wrong and changed and stuff like that.

29:22

Uh, he changed on a lot of things and you got to give him credit for that. But this blood of Christ thing was a weird thing with fundamentalists.

29:31

Fundamentalists have this odd thing where instead of seeing the blood of Christ as referring to his perfect life, they sort of get all focused on the physical substance separated from the perfect life that is being given substitutionarily, um, for God's people.

29:59

And so he made some comments about it. It's not, it's not the physical substance.

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It's the, it's the perfect life that is being given in our behalf and all people, this one, he's denying the blood of Christ.

30:14

And here's how lies live for decades, even after you're dead. Okay. Um, you know, uh, the day after I die, some

30:25

Roman Catholics go someplace. Well, he knows Ignatius existed now. It just, you just, you just know it that someone's going to just continue that lie, just keep that one going.

30:37

And there's been other stuff in the past. I'm sure somebody will, you know, dig those up and repeat that stuff.

30:43

Uh, but there was a good example of it. That's what the blood of Christ was. And I, I wrote a rather full response to this guy who was attacking him.

30:51

And I think that's sort of the first time I came to his attention. Um, maybe through Fred, maybe

30:59

Fred saw that. I'm not sure. But, um, anyway, but then all this stuff, man, if you want to see how many absolute nutcases there are on the internet, start talking about the divine name, start talking about Yohei Wahe.

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Now 99 % of these people do not even read Hebrew. They could not open up a Hebrew text and start reading the

31:22

Hebrew and pronouncing it even semi consistently, but all they are experts on this.

31:29

And so the first mainstream English Bible to change God's name to the fake

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Judaizing made up word YAHWEH. What do you mean? So LORD L O R D in all caps is actually

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God's covenant name, a Greek term sort of kurios maybe.

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I mean, I've seen people just today in my feed arguing, yes, it's kurios,

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Greek is the original, not the Hebrew, and all the rest is idiocy. So Steven Anderson has not made any movement whatsoever toward, um, orthodoxy, sanity, anything like that.

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He's just as nutty as he's always been and will unfortunately, uh, continue that line.

32:16

Okay, I am in Albuquerque, and this is the hometown of Alex Drado. Alex Drado, the voice of reason,

32:24

Roman Catholic apologist, uh, debated last summer and a couple weeks ago on this program, we talked about the fact that he, uh, appeared on Pints with Aquinas with Matt Fradd, and I've seen some stuff since then.

32:40

I, I should have grabbed this. Someone, you know, maybe, maybe I do have it here.

32:46

Um, I think it might have been in the messages here. Uh, but yeah, but who sent it to me?

32:55

I don't remember. Um, there was this description in some,

33:04

I don't know where it went, but where someone wrote up, maybe it was him or something, here we go.

33:17

Is this it? No. Um, anyway,

33:26

I, I, it would have been interesting to read, but it was this glowing assertion that he had wiped me out in this debate and that the, it had been stunning and all the rest of the stuff.

33:39

And I was like, what debate are you watching? Um, I haven't gone back through that thing to, to point out the many problems that Alex had.

33:51

You know, what he said about Theanostas is not the official teaching of the church, right? It's just an imagination.

33:58

And he actually was supposed to be substantiating a position, and he didn't.

34:03

He asserted, but he didn't substantiate it. And so, I mean, on any honest debate level, the reason it was enjoyable is that he was entertaining, energetic, um, didn't throw things at me, uh, actually tried to debate the topic.

34:23

That's what made it enjoyable to folks and enjoyable to me. You know, I debated Roman, another

34:28

Roman Catholic guy later in the year last year, and it was just, it was a waste of time. He was just all over the place.

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He wouldn't really engage the subject. He wouldn't answer direct questions. It was, it was a waste of time.

34:40

At least Alex was in the match, but he didn't win that debate by any stretch of the imagination.

34:48

So it was, but, but he then spun it and tried to make it sound like they had, like we had gone for him because it was going to be an easy thing.

34:59

And, and we, we went through all the things. I read the pastor's statement where he corrected all this stuff and said, actually, we had tried to arrange an open theism debate, tried with an atheist, tried with other

35:12

Roman Catholics. Yeah, you were sort of the last one up, and we were running out of time. And he said, yeah, but the pastor of the church had left and become

35:19

Roman, yeah, seven years ago. Uh, so that wasn't the, the big shtick.

35:26

If that had been the big shtick, then why do we try to get open theists and atheists before you? None of it made any sense.

35:32

It was all a misrepresentation. So we went through that and I expressed at the time my disappointment because I really liked

35:38

Alex. I mean, you know, we had, we had lunch on my way home after all that stuff was over with a couple, a couple weeks later here in Albuquerque, not very far from where we are right now, where I am right now.

35:50

And, uh, so then just a couple of days later, well, just a couple of days ago,

35:55

I guess, all of a sudden this news breaks that, you know, all these screenshots of him sexting girls, evidently there's stuff about them being minors and all this kind of stuff.

36:16

I find out as people are sending me this material, that it looks like he had become associated with Catholic Answers because someone sent me information demonstrating that basically they have ghosted him.

36:36

Uh, if you go to the link that used to take you to his page at catholic .com, it's gone.

36:43

So, you know, just as they wish no one would remember that Jerry Maddix was ever with Catholic Answers, now they don't want anyone to remember that, at least briefly, evidently

36:55

Alex Dorado had been at least in some fashion associated with, uh, um, with Catholic Answers as well.

37:05

And so I, I did, I had not known that. I had not known that there was that, that association.

37:11

Now here's the problem. If these screenshots are real, then the young man's in trouble and his apostolate ministry, whatever you want to call it, is done.

37:27

I will be the only non, uh, he did debate an Eastern Orthodox guy, but that'll, that'll be it for Alex Dorado.

37:35

But here's the problem. I need to be consistent here. I have not heard anything from Alex Dorado.

37:44

As far as I can tell, he has gone silent. That can't, that can't stay that way. He has to come out and he has to tell folks yes or no.

37:57

Yes, that's me in those screenshots. Yes, I wrote those things. Or no, this is all fake.

38:02

It's a false accusation. Why do I say that? I have been saying for a long time, we live in the day of AI, we live in the day of electronic communication.

38:16

Um, I am very certain that the

38:21

United States government has hacked into people's personal computers, put stuff on those computers that those people never knew was there, and then used that to prosecute them.

38:31

Um, I think all of us should be afraid of that. Um, and now with AI, I mean, you don't even have

38:40

AI. I, I could almost make up screenshots. Okay. You don't need to have, you know, the, the

38:48

Google stuff, creating videos. Um, Microsoft Paint almost do a, a screenshot type thing.

38:57

And we all know screenshots are faked every single day. You know, we've all seen the one was Abraham Lincoln, you know, saying, uh, you should not necessarily believe everything you see on the internet,

39:09

Abraham Lincoln. It's a picture of Abraham Lincoln. So it must be him, right? Well, it's not, obviously.

39:17

And so I have said, you know, God's law says by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

39:26

And if the evidence against someone is purely electronic, given the state of forgery, fake

39:37

AI manipulation that exists today, I don't think as a

39:44

Christian, you can accept it. And you guys totally naive. That's just the future. Listen, that could be a really dark future.

39:55

Remember what they, what they did to the Supreme court nominee and going back 30 years and, and trying to destroy the guy.

40:03

Uh, that was a number that was a few years ago.

40:10

Now you could come up with alleged video to try to nail somebody for something like that, right?

40:18

You could create recordings to try to nail somebody with stuff like that. It's going to be a dark, dark, dark future.

40:27

If we start accepting as evidence that which is uncertain and no one can ever know whether it's heinous for an innocent man to be convicted of wrongdoing more heinous than a guilty man getting away with it in this life.

40:56

And that's where the issue it's in this life, not we don't, we don't function on the basis anymore of, yeah, right after this life, this thing, something called the judgment.

41:10

And it'll be according to righteousness and, uh, all the motives and everything will be right out there to be seen.

41:21

And no, there you go. Uh, that's, that's how that should be.

41:34

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Uh, distracted by a response on X anyway.

41:44

Um, let me see here. Oh, okay.

41:53

We have, we call them chat rats, uh, which I do not see during the program.

41:59

I would never be able to do the program if I was watching the commentary on the program.

42:09

I mean, just having Twitter up is bad enough. And I wonder why it's doing that.

42:15

My screen is, is safe. It's the government hacking into my computer, uh, taking, taking it down right now, trying to get that thing to stop, but I, I can't seem to, oh, there it is.

42:36

And quit. That's always a good way to do it. Okay. Um, so the chat rats posted this from Alex on his

42:48

YouTube channel, the voice of reason hours ago, I must address the accusations that have been circulating online over the last 24 hours.

42:54

First and foremost, the accusation that I was having inappropriate relation with a 14 year old girl is complete fabrication. I am treating an accusation as magnitude with the seriousness that deserves.

43:03

I've made my church aware of what's being said about me online. And we have contacted the authorities. I have all, I'm voluntarily cooperating and investigation that will allow the truth to come to light and we'll stop dispel this awful and vicious rumor.

43:15

I'm also prepared to undergo legal action against those who have defamed me. I must also sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt, shocked and scandalized with these rumors is of great importance that I also acknowledge all of my mistakes, failures, and sins.

43:26

I am a wretched center who is in desperate need of God's mercy, as well as the need of the forgiveness of those whom I've offended and sinned against.

43:32

I must also thank everyone who has reached out to me privately, their support and their prayers, as well as everyone who

43:38

I've seen defend me publicly. I ask for everyone's prayer in this very turbulent time. May God's mercy, love and truth always prevail and may guard all our hearts always and forever.

43:46

Okay. So I hadn't seen that hadn't. So thank you very much, uh, guys for posting that.

43:53

All right. So from, if I'm going to be consistent, this is, but he's, he's a

44:00

Roman Catholic apologist. I know if I'm gonna be consistent, you go, you wait to see what the outcome of all this stuff is.

44:09

Um, I would want to specifically ask what, which parts of the screenshots were fraudulent?

44:21

Are any of them true? Are any of them accurate? Did you have inappropriate relationships or conversations with non -minors?

44:33

Okay. People over 18. Um, stuff like that, because it's out there now.

44:39

I mean, it's a shame they have to go there, but that's the way it is. Um, so I, that, that's just how it has to be done.

44:50

And we have to be consistent about it. And you might say, well, okay, for Christians, but you know, no, it, the, the use of electronic entrapment and falsehood and lies, we can't stand for it.

45:10

Um, if, if you, if you remember what happened with the

45:16

Soviets, if you look at what's happening right now with the Chinese, um, authoritarian governments will do anything to their people to accomplish anything.

45:27

So no, if we're going to be consistent, if we're, if we're going to be able to respond to accusations against us, then we have to be the first ones to say, okay, he says it's fraudulent.

45:41

Then if authorities have been contacted, then you need to find out what's going to come out from that and leave it there.

45:49

Because I'm seeing, you know, all sorts of, this is already concluded.

45:55

This is already done. He's gone. It's stuff out there. But my whole point that was to bring up in this conversation was we just can't go there.

46:06

It's, it's inappropriate for anybody, um, in any context. Yeah. Chat rats.

46:12

So that's, that's what they are. Uh, okay. Now this will be a challenge because I have to somehow, um, do

46:29

Kindle and video all the same time. Well, not the exact same time, but I've got to pop back and forth between them.

46:37

Um, I listened to, and I need to back this up here, 2620 through into 29.

46:47

Okay. Um, I didn't watch this because I was of course, um, driving, which would be sort of suicidal to try to watch a video while doing that.

46:59

So I listened to this. And so a couple of days ago,

47:05

David Allen, uh, went on Trinity radio.

47:11

So Trinity Bible and seminary, it's, you know, um, Pritchett and latent flowers.

47:20

And, um, now I find out David Allen, evidently David Allen is on their staff now too.

47:27

I guess he teaches for more than one school. Um, this aside from one professor is a deeply anti -reformed school, a bit of,

47:39

I would say an echo chamber. I mean, these are the same guys who showed up for the Molanism debate with Stratton in Houston a couple of years ago.

47:48

So if it is anti -reformed, yeah, it's good stuff, uh, is sort of what we've got here.

47:55

And so three or four people sent me the same video that popped up on their feeds.

48:03

And so I started listening to, I was driving and I, I caught some stuff and I thought, you know, it would be useful on the program to go through what is asserted here and to listen to the language and then to provide a contrast because David Allen will not debate me.

48:23

He's made that very clear. He will not respond to what I've written. Um, if he wanted to do a book freeing

48:32

Romans from reformed interpretation or whatever, um, what's one of the most popular books that has introduced people to Calvinism over the past 25 years called the

48:44

Potter's Freedom. Their entire churches, there are entire churches that were founded by students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary when

48:55

David Allen was teaching there, who had, they were his students who became reformed through reading that book, which they had to keep in a brown paper cover because it wasn't allowed on campus.

49:06

And there are churches that exist that came out of Southwestern because of that book, but he won't, he won't interact with it.

49:14

I'm convinced he's never listened to the programs we've done. Uh, I think he gets secondhand reports from other people and then makes comments on programs.

49:25

I mean, I was, it was obvious they were talking about me at the beginning of this program, you know, have the guts to say it, but that's, that's what they were doing.

49:31

And so, um, what I wanted to do is let's provide a contrast.

49:39

Allen won't debate me. He's not going to debate any other reformed person on this stuff that it knows their stuff because his, he knows his position involves special pleading and the use of special language.

49:53

And so I heard this portion and yesterday

49:59

I was in Amarillo and I know there's a Chewy's in Amarillo. I love Chewy's, by the way. Um, if I'm ever speaking at a church in Texas and there's a

50:09

Chewy's nearby, their chips and salsa is to die for. I mean, I could just sit at Chewy's and eat chips and salsa.

50:15

I really could. It's that good. But, um, especially when you get both, both the creamy and the other, and, uh, the troublemaker from Texas says you should mix the two together.

50:28

I don't know. I sort of like to do one and the other, you know, but anyways, I went to Chewy's yesterday and I was checking out resources.

50:37

I was looking at books that had been referenced in this video clip and I'm, I'm reading this stuff on Kindle and I'm just going, wow.

50:48

Um, okay. So remember these are all professors at Trinity. I think one of these guys is the president, if I recall correctly.

50:55

Um, these are all professors at Trinity. Now there's more than one

51:01

Trinity. This is, there's a, you know, the Trinity in Dearborn has, you know, buildings and old style type seminary.

51:10

This is more online type stuff, um, going on there. And, you know, very strongly anti -reform.

51:21

So I want us to listen to about three minutes of the video here.

51:28

And then I want to look at the sources that were referenced, the assertions that were made, and we'll go from there.

51:37

So I'm, we ain't getting done at the top of the hour. I can assure you that, but from what I can see, we haven't had any hiccups, at least on my end.

51:45

You know, there might be a hiccup on YouTube's end, but we're, we're doing fine on my end.

51:50

And, uh, you know, if, if Rich says, nah, we probably need to do this at another time or something like that, let me know.

52:00

But, um, otherwise I'll, I'll press on here despite the heat, despite how warm it is.

52:08

So let's listen to this segment. It's about, uh, 26 minutes, uh, into, uh, an hour and 34 minutes.

52:17

Oh, wait a minute. No, an hour, almost two hours. Okay. So about 26 minutes in. Let's listen to what they have to say.

52:27

Hopefully you'll be able to hear this well. And then we're going to make some comments and read some stuff and go from there.

52:38

And by in a deterministic fashion, and then he has to grant them the gift of faith because they would never have it on their own.

52:45

And all of this is in order to preserve the fact that the will of God must always be accomplished for Augustine.

52:55

The will of God is everything. What overrides all every other attribute of God and all other definitions or explanations of who

53:05

God is and how God operates is Augustine's commitment to a deterministic worldview whereby the will of God is sacrosanct and is always done.

53:17

The will of God can never be not done or can never be thwarted. And so this is where the high, strong deterministic system comes into play.

53:28

Now, the later Augustine is borrowing that from Manicheism because that's exactly what

53:35

Manicheism taught. And what's funny about it is the early Augustine argued against it and stood with all of your early church fathers that there was legitimate free will, willing, uh, libertarian freedom.

53:50

They didn't use that terminology, but that's what they meant. Uh, but then the later Augustine after the end, after he got involved in his debates with Pelagius, he felt like Pelagius was not going far enough.

54:03

So Augustine went way too far and basically said, human beings can't bring anything, not even their faith.

54:10

They can't, they can't believe unless God essentially grants them the gift of faith.

54:16

And Augustine even uses language that comes very close to saying, you know, God believes for you, so to speak.

54:23

Now the reformed today don't use that language. They believe that your faith is your faith, but they believe that it was given by God or you would never have it.

54:32

So you have to receive the gift of faith in order to ever believe. And, and most

54:38

Calvinists, not all, but most Calvinists argue for pre -faith regeneration.

54:44

In other words, regeneration precedes faith. I have a chapter in here on that, why that, why

54:49

I think that does not comport with Romans or anywhere else in scripture. Uh, but of course, even though Augustine, we don't know for sure whether Augustine articulated pre -faith regeneration, but from a logical standpoint, he might have, he might have very well held to that.

55:08

Uh, all of this is in the book. People can look at the details of all of this, but all of this goes together in terms of what fed in, what was the contaminant at the headwaters?

55:21

And you see the contaminant is hermeneutical errors, hermeneutical errors, exegetical errors, theological errors, philosophical influence.

55:32

The, all of those contaminants came from Augustine into the reform stream.

55:39

And therefore, because Augustine got it wrong is what I'm trying to demonstrate. Reform theology today gets it wrong because in many ways, especially on unconditional election, reform theology today is just a footnote to Augustine.

55:54

I had a question. Now, wait a minute, Pritchett, before you go on, I just wanted to, that, first of all, we need to let that resonate because that's kind of a really strong, uh, point and claim.

56:05

But also I wanted to say that someone has asked, wait, JP and Nick are debating once saved, always saved versus determinism.

56:13

When is that? Yes, that's happening two weeks from today on this program. So I just wanted everyone to know about that.

56:20

Go on, Pritchett, with your question. That is not happening anywhere unless somebody, Hey, I was going to ask you that you address it.

56:27

You brought up the chapter where you addressed regeneration precedes faith. And I want to let everyone know that you wrote a wonderful set of commentaries on first John, uh, second

56:36

John and third John that people need to go by. But yet in your chapter, you didn't quote yourself, which you should have, but instead you, you quoted a

56:43

Calvinist Demarest, uh, on the proof text, uh, first John five, one that, that a lot of the regeneration precedes faith.

56:52

Yeah. And, and instead of quoting yourself, you just quoted a Calvinist who doesn't think that that text teaches.

56:59

Right. I see why you did that, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew that you, you actually have written on that.

57:05

Well, thank you. Yeah. I guess I'd forgotten that what I'd said about that in my own little commentary on first John, but, but I could have quoted myself.

57:13

Yeah. But you quoted a Calvinist. I do want to say, I'm proud to say that Dr. Allen quoted me.

57:21

Okay. All right. Um, go back and see if we can get the right camera here.

57:26

Okay. So a lot of stuff in there. Uh, there, there's a lot of, a lot of stuff in there.

57:32

Um, what caught my attention initially was the stuff about first on five one, but that was the last stuff.

57:42

So let me back up just a little bit. Um, two things that we want to catch.

57:50

If you download, I actually had my own computer create the transcript, but if you download the transcript from YouTube and look for deterministic,

58:02

Dr. Allen uses it all the time. I mean, notice Calvinists don't, uh, we don't run around describing our position with a pagan, mainly

58:14

Greek philosophical descriptor. When we talk, you know, he'll, he'll say, you know,

58:20

Augustine was dedicated to the deterministic worldview. He did say that in the section that we played deterministic worldview.

58:29

You, you mean like Daniel chapter four, God does whatever he pleases. God has a decree.

58:36

Um, Psalm 135, six, God does whatever he pleases in heaven, the earth season, all the deeps, um, if he's just one 11, is that what deterministic worldview means?

58:49

See, they won't use the terminology that we use, even though to be honest with you, we use very biblical terminology.

58:56

But what this illustrates, and I think unknowingly on their part is that the chief criticism that I have made of provisionism from the start is exactly what they are proving right here.

59:14

What have I said from the start? I have said that the difference between reformed exegesis and provisionist exegesis, if they get around to doing exegesis, it's fairly rare, but they do once in a while, it's real simple.

59:32

We start with God and move downward to his creation. They start with man and reason upward to God.

59:41

And they just proved it. They're criticizing Augustine because of his deterministic worldview.

59:47

He starts with a deterministic worldview. Well, translated into what he would have said, he starts with kingship of God.

59:54

He starts with God's sovereign rulership over the world. It doesn't start with the creature.

01:00:00

Let's start with mankind. He starts with God. And they're admitting, and he's wrong to do that.

01:00:08

You've got to start with man. That's exactly what I've been saying all along. Because what's obvious is they start with the autonomous will of man.

01:00:17

They start with man's free will, man's capacity, man's power.

01:00:23

And then God and what God can do, even in eternity past, is limited.

01:00:28

Especially if they're going to, like I said, these guys showed up for the debate on Molinism.

01:00:35

You know, maybe they're not totally committed or something. I don't know what Allen says about Molinism. I'm not sure that he understands it, to be very honest with you.

01:00:44

Um, but God's got to deal with the cards he's been dealt by middle knowledge.

01:00:49

That's what Molinism is all about. That's the essence of it. So here

01:00:57

I'm sitting here listening to these guys and I'm going, that's not how we, we don't talk about a deterministic worldview.

01:01:03

We talk about, if you want to talk about a worldview, it's a worldview based upon God's absolute auto -doxological freedom.

01:01:16

How's that for a nice Greek word, Greek combination? Self -glorifying freedom.

01:01:23

Yeah, we do start there. You start with God or you'll never understand the creature.

01:01:29

That's all there is to it. But I think it's great to hear them admitting that I've been right all along and somewhat unwittingly admitting that that is their position.

01:01:40

That's where they're coming from. Yeah, that's, um, that's what it's all about there. So then, um, all this stuff he's talking about,

01:01:51

I'm sorry, I don't believe David Allen has read the vast majority of the stuff that he cites.

01:01:58

I think I know the source of it, uh, some of the initials TB, um, but I don't think he's read the vast majority of it.

01:02:06

And what he says about Manichaeism is just, it's embarrassing because again, it's, it's taken from Wilson.

01:02:18

We have demonstrated the foolishness of this stuff and this, this,

01:02:23

Augustine got it from his, from his years of as a follower of many.

01:02:29

No, he didn't. No, he didn't. And Dr. Allen, if you knew diddly about Manichaeism, you could not make that stupid statement.

01:02:41

Do you really want to sit there? Does Trinity want to sit there and put out a video saying that Manichaeism is the root of Calvinism when the meaning of elect and Manichaeism is completely different?

01:03:00

Wilson's entire dupied d -u -p -i -e -d thing we demonstrated was complete foolishness.

01:03:06

And then we explain what Manichaeism actually believed. And I'll just put it real simply.

01:03:14

If you really want to believe that the root of reformed theology was a religious system, it was a mixture of Gnosticism and all sorts of other religious influences that believed when the elect eat certain kinds of food, they fart light.

01:03:34

And the light goes up and forms the Milky Way and goes into the realm of the light. If you really want to sit there and do that, more power to you.

01:03:48

You just keep blowing yourselves up, boom, boom, because you won't listen. You won't do, you know, during COVID, I'm sitting here and I'm getting interlibrary loan books and we're buying stuff and we're doing three -hour programs and we're on the air for four days out of the week and doing all this stuff.

01:04:06

And I'm reading you firsthand stuff from Manichaean sources and stuff like that. They ain't doing that.

01:04:13

And they won't do that. It's too easy to use secondary source and go, ah,

01:04:18

I like Calvin, I like Augustine, and it's just all about Augustine. That's why they won't debate the text because that's where it really comes from is the text and they know it and they can't handle it.

01:04:30

Now, let me give you an illustration of this. So what I did, and I know,

01:04:35

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle, Kindle, I know. But there are times when, especially when you're on the road, um, where Kindle is exceptionally, exceptionally useful.

01:04:53

So, um, let's see, cancel, bring it up. Here is, so what

01:05:01

I did, I'm going to read you the commentary on 1 John 5 .1

01:05:07

from that was just referenced. They didn't go into it. They didn't discuss it. You can go back, um, to, uh, programs we've done.

01:05:21

I'm sure there is probably a program where all we did was went through the syntax of 1

01:05:30

John 5 .1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the one who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of him.

01:05:41

That's the legacy standard. All right.

01:06:01

So, um, here's a proof text. Here's the basic idea.

01:06:07

Everyone believing, pas hapistion, hapistion, we have discussed that a number of times.

01:06:13

The one believing, everyone believing, present tense participle, that Jesus is the Messiah, is the

01:06:18

Christ, ek tu theu gegenetai. Now, gegenetai is perfect.

01:06:27

Gestion is present. And so you have a perfect middle indicative participle, um, gegenetai, um,

01:06:42

I'm, I'm sorry, um, perfectness, third perfect middle indicative, gegenetai, of gennao, to cause to be born again.

01:06:53

Well, to give birth. Okay. Let's, let's, let's start with the most basic move to the application.

01:07:01

So what's the relationship between the one believing right now, that's the person and has been born from God.

01:07:11

Now I made brief reference. I'm going to read the potter's freedom here in a second, but I made brief reference to the fact, and I was trying to think of a parallel and I came up with a good parallel.

01:07:26

Follow me here. Cause I've never talked about this before in first John, John uses this construction more than once.

01:07:40

And when you look at the parallel construction, the argument

01:07:46

I would make is look, if in one short letter, only five chapters, they're not long chapters. If only one short book, three times, the author uses the same construction with the same meaning, then you have to come up with a really strong reason to go.

01:08:06

Um, I don't think that's how we should understand one of the three, two of them.

01:08:12

Okay. But one, we're gonna need to understand differently. If you do something like that, the weights on you to explain why you're going against the common usage.

01:08:22

Let me give an illustration of that to show you. Let's get out of the Calvinism area for a second.

01:08:31

Some of you have seen presentations I've done on the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses. And I give a conversation, a discussion of 2

01:08:41

Peter 1 .1. So actually I do two of them together. I do Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1 at the same time, because these are examples of what's called

01:08:48

Granville -Sharpe rules, Granville -Sharpe constructions. In Titus 2 .13,

01:08:53

it's fairly easy to, to substantiate that Paul is identifying Jesus as God, our great

01:08:59

God and Savior, Jesus Christ, because of the language he uses in the next verse are all, is language drawn directly from the

01:09:08

Old Testament regarding Yahweh redeeming a people for himself. And this is Jesus doing the same thing.

01:09:14

So that's Yahweh doing the Old Testament, Jesus doing the New Testament. Pretty easy argument to make. You don't have that same context in 2

01:09:20

Peter 1 .1, because 2 Peter 1 .1 is the introduction of the book. But it still says, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

01:09:27

The helpful thing to recognize is that there are multiple Granville -Sharpe constructions in 2

01:09:34

Peter, at least four of them, possibly five. There's a question about whether one of them is, but there are multiple

01:09:41

Granville -Sharpe constructions. All the others in 2 Peter say our

01:09:47

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. They're exact in terminology. I could, don't have time to do it right now, but I could pull up my screen.

01:09:55

I just made this presentation at seminary and explain this very thing. So if you look at 2

01:10:00

Peter 1 .1, 2 Peter 1 .11, the word order forms, everything is identical.

01:10:07

The only thing that's different is God and Lord. So if it's our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in 1 .11,

01:10:13

then it has to be our God and Savior, Jesus Christ in 2 Peter 1 .1. So we would use that, and I would hope that Dr.

01:10:22

Allen and the guys at Trinity would make the argument that if you have all of these constructions being used, 2

01:10:36

Peter's about the same length as 1 John, even shorter, in one epistle, that you need to be consistent in how you render them.

01:10:44

And if you're going to say, like the New World Translation does, they translate 2 Peter 1 .1 differently.

01:10:50

Well, why? Because their theology doesn't allow it. Well, that's not a sufficient reason.

01:10:55

Right. But that's why they do it. And so there's,

01:11:01

I think, a really good parallel. We go to 1 John, and we find out that John uses this same construction, and yet our understanding of 1

01:11:12

John 5 .1 is going to be different than what we find elsewhere. Why are we doing that? But having said all that,

01:11:21

I suppose the best thing that we'd be doing to do here is, let me read you what

01:11:27

I said in the Potter's Freedom, okay? Then I'm going to go, and I'm going to read you what they were referring to in the video.

01:11:33

Now, Allen was saying, yeah, if you want to know about 1 John 5 .1, chapter in the book, go read it. We're going to look at it.

01:11:39

We're going to look at it. Not shockingly, what I write about 1

01:11:44

John 5 .1, the Potter's Freedom, is longer and in more depth than everything that Allen wrote in his commentary on 1

01:11:52

John and in his new book, self -published book. So, this is from the page, well,

01:12:08

I'd have to blow it up. I think it's 285. The scriptures tell us we are saved by grace through faith. Of this, there is no doubt.

01:12:14

But the question properly focuses upon the nature—I'd put it up on the screen, but again, print's too small. But the question properly focuses upon the nature of this faith and the relationship it bears to regeneration.

01:12:27

The previous considerations regarding man's deadness and sin point to the obvious conclusion that man must first be made capable of such a spiritual activity as saving faith, and the fact that the glory for salvation goes solely to a sovereign, life -giving

01:12:41

God bears upon this issue as well. But there are scriptural passages that bear directly upon the topic.

01:12:46

Then I quote 1 John 5 .1, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.

01:12:53

Generally, such a passage would be understood to present the following order of events. One, believe that Jesus is the

01:12:59

Christ, and two, you are born of God. Yet, the original readers of this text would not jump to such a conclusion.

01:13:05

In reality, the most literal rendering would be, everyone believing—present tense participle, hapistuon, emphasizing both the ongoing action as well as the individuality of saving faith, each believing person—that

01:13:17

Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. A perfect passive verb, hegenetai, has been born by the agency of God.

01:13:24

In John, the one believing is very common, hapistuon. And it is no accident the emphasis falls upon the ongoing action of faith.

01:13:34

The one believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. If a person is now believing that Jesus is the

01:13:41

Christ in a true and saving fashion, they are doing so because, as they completed action in the past, they were born again through the work and agency of God.

01:13:52

The verb to be born is passive. They were caused to be born by another, that being

01:13:57

God. They did not cause their own spiritual birth. And what is the inevitable result of being born of God?

01:14:03

Belief that Jesus is the Christ. Just as all those who are given by the Father to the Son come to the Son, John 6 .37,

01:14:10

so too all who are spiritually reborn through the work of God have as the object of their faith the

01:14:15

Lord Jesus Christ. Some Arminian exegetes might object to this interpretation. A means of testing the consistency of the exegesis offered of this passage would be to ask how such a person interprets these words from John.

01:14:31

Here, also in 1 John 2 .29, if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him.

01:14:45

Read it again. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of him.

01:14:53

Every consistent prophet would say the reason one practices righteousness is because they have already been born of him.

01:15:01

We do not practice righteousness so as to be born, but instead the birth gives rise to the practice of righteousness.

01:15:09

And such is quite true. But this means that in 1 John 5 .1, the belief in Jesus as the

01:15:15

Christ is the result of being born of him. The verbal parallel is exact.

01:15:21

In 1 John 2 .29, the one practicing righteousness is a present participle.

01:15:27

In 1 John 5 .1, the one believing is a present participle. In both passages, the exact same verb in the exact same form is used, gegeneitai.

01:15:37

Therefore, sheer consistency leads one to the conclusion that divine birth precedes and is the grounds of both faith in Christ as well as good works.

01:15:50

Okay? Now, there is also a similar construction,

01:15:58

I believe, in 1

01:16:03

John 4. And maybe the only way

01:16:10

I can find it real fast is do a quick search here.

01:16:18

Search for, man, it is so amazing what you can do with computers now.

01:16:23

There it is, 1 John 4 .7. Erasmus would have died to have accordance.

01:16:33

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows

01:16:41

God. Pascha agapon, everyone loving, ectutheu gegeneitai, as in born from God.

01:16:54

So, which comes first? Why are you loving? Or let's put it this way, do you have to be loving to be born of God?

01:17:04

Now, I'll be honest with you, I'm a little worried about some provisionists who are not very far from Rome going, yeah, you know what?

01:17:13

Doing righteousness, loving, yeah, you gotta do all those things to be born of God. Let's hope not, but it does worry me at times, to be honest with you.

01:17:25

But 1 John 4 .7 is another direct syntactical parallel. Present participle immediately followed by ectutheu gegeneitai.

01:17:33

All in the same epistle. Now, may

01:17:38

I suggest that for Dr.

01:17:44

Allen's response, 1 John 5 .1, to have any meaning, he has to get to this level.

01:17:53

He has to talk about the syntax, the relationship, present participle, perfect finite verb, and it's the same verb!

01:18:03

They're parallels with one another. It is directly parallel to the Granville Sharp instructions in 2

01:18:08

Peter 1 .1, which I would hope everybody at Trinity would go, yes, you're right.

01:18:16

That demonstrates that the translation of the New World Translation is in error.

01:18:22

Peter is identifying Jesus as our God and Savior. The parallel passages in the rest of Peter prove it, without a doubt.

01:18:33

I would hope they would say that, but if they do, then they have to go, well, we're still not going to interpret 1

01:18:43

John 5 .1 that way. But just admit you're being inconsistent. That the other two direct parallels in 1

01:18:51

John, you're going to go, yeah, the reason we're loving is because we've been born of God.

01:18:57

The reason we're doing righteousness is because we've been born of God. And to be consistent, the reason we're believing that Jesus is the

01:19:03

Christ is because we've been born of God. Right? Okay, so let's start with the commentary on 1

01:19:16

John that, you know, they said, oh, we could have just, you could have just quoted yourself,

01:19:24

Dr. Allen. You could just quote yourself, and everybody needs to go out and buy this book and do stuff like that.

01:19:32

Why isn't it just, there we go. So, well,

01:19:42

I, okay, this should be right where it is. Yeah, there it is. All right. One nice thing.

01:19:50

I read this on my phone at Chewy's. I just now brought it up on my computer and it opened it to the same page.

01:20:00

So you got to understand how preceding generations could never have understood the advantages we have right now.

01:20:15

And they'd probably be going, why aren't you guys doing a whole lot better than you are? Because you've got a whole lot better, more than we had back when we were doing all this work.

01:20:22

All right. The first birthmark John employs is love. John says in 5 .1,

01:20:28

everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him.

01:20:34

John also, John uses the example of birth again here to illustrate becoming a Christian. The birth of a baby is a common event.

01:20:40

Two things are always, two things are, are, are always are true.

01:20:46

Must be a typo. When babies are born. First, every baby is born to some family. It may not be a functional family, but that child is born into a family.

01:20:54

Second, the baby has certain physical characteristics of his or her parents. He may have the eyes of his mother or nose like his father.

01:21:01

Newborns have characteristics of their family and in time become even more pronounced and recognizable. The Christian life is like that.

01:21:07

A Christian is someone who has experienced a new birth. This birth is a spiritual birth. And it is one of John's favorite terms to describe what it means to become a

01:21:14

Christian. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Notice the tense, the verb has been born.

01:21:20

Physical birth cannot be undone or redone. Once you're born, you're born. The same is true with a spiritual birth.

01:21:26

The key to the new birth is faith in Jesus Christ. John is assuming this faith is genuine and more than mere mental assent.

01:21:33

That is the only kind of faith that results in the new birth. Belief is a sign of the new birth, not a consequence of the new birth.

01:21:40

John 1 .12 .13 makes it clear that faith is the condition of the new birth. That's it.

01:21:48

That's it. So he makes the assertion, he says that belief is a sign of the new birth, not a consequence of the new birth.

01:22:01

And then he refers to John 1 .12 .13 as his only proof text. Did he deal with any of the actual issues?

01:22:12

The 229, 4 .3, parallel, the relationship of the present participle to the perfect verb?

01:22:22

He mentions the perfect verb and then says you can't get unborn. Well, okay. But what's the relationship?

01:22:30

Is there any evidence in his commentary that he even knows what the argumentation from a reform perspective is?

01:22:37

That would be interesting. Let me look here. Copyright.

01:22:46

That's 2013, so it's after 2008. He should know. Makes no comment.

01:22:52

No comment whatsoever. So when he said he could have just quoted from his own commentary, what would he be quoting?

01:23:02

There's no interaction with the other side. There's no interaction with our actual argument.

01:23:08

So there must be in the liberating Romans from reform captivity. That must be where it's found, right?

01:23:17

Page 145. Excursus.

01:23:25

Does regeneration precede faith? Most Calvinists maintain the regeneration precedes faith. However, some Calvinists dissent from this view.

01:23:31

By the way, let me stop. It's maddening to me how many times, and again

01:23:38

I think I know what the source of this was, but how many times David Allen goes, well, there are Calvinists that disagree and they argue and stuff like that.

01:23:44

And then every once in a while he'll sneak it in. He'll say, moderate Calvinists believe this. Anyone else remember where moderate

01:23:51

Calvinists was used all the time by Norm Geisler to actually refer to Arminianism?

01:24:00

Yeah, moderate Calvinists. Well, what does that exactly mean? Anyway, the widespread affirmation of regeneration preceding faith seems to rest on two foundational reasons.

01:24:10

First, Calvinists generally define total depravity as total inability, meaning that a person, well, it's not the same thing.

01:24:16

One results from the other, but meaning that a person cannot exercise faith unless first regenerated. R .C.

01:24:21

Sproul, for example, commenting Ephesians 2 .5, when we were dead, wrote, dead men do not cooperate with grace unless regeneration takes place first.

01:24:29

There is no possibility of faith. Second, proponents point to key biblical passages such as John 1, 12, 13, 3, 1 -16,

01:24:37

Ephesians 2, 1 -10, and 1 John 5 -1, which are often interpreted to suggest regeneration precedes faith.

01:24:43

However, historical look reveals that prior to the Reformation, no one in church history appears to have argued for regeneration preceding faith.

01:24:49

Not Augustine, not the Council of Orange, and not Aquinas. Moreover, most of the 16th century reformers, Luther, Calvin, and Beza, among others, did not affirm this sequence.

01:24:58

And then he goes into discussing logical versus temporal priority. And so, and again, that's because the ordo salutis is a logical order, not a temporal thing, and he basically is arguing, basically arguing, no it doesn't.

01:25:15

And so, okay, Sproul's use of the word first suggests a temporal priority, even if he denies one.

01:25:27

No, no it doesn't. You're wrong. How could you discuss a logical priority without using the term first?

01:25:34

He doesn't tell us, so he doesn't know. Wayne Grudem contributed, yet there are several passages that tell us that the secret hidden work of God in our spirits does in fact come before we respond to God in saving faith, though often it may be only seconds before we respond.

01:25:47

If regeneration occurs seconds before we respond, then both a logical and temporal precedence exists.

01:25:53

However, this contradicts MacArthur's instantaneous claim. A difference of even seconds undermines simultaneity.

01:26:00

I think this is called grasping at straws. Bruce Demarest, and this is who they mentioned, this is who they quoted, a moderate

01:26:06

Calvinist, there it is, acknowledged the tension. Faith does not appear to be an effect of regeneration. Clear biblical text suggests that the act of faith logically precedes regeneration.

01:26:15

John 1, 12, 13 indicates that receiving Christ in faith results in new birth. According to John 7, 37, 39, faith proceeds to give the spirit regenerating sanctifying power.

01:26:25

1 John 5, 1. So, faith precedes the gift of the spirit in regenerating sanctifying power, dot, dot, dot.

01:26:33

1 John 5, 1. The notion that God regenerates prior to the sinner's response dependent faith logically appears to be biblically unwarranted.

01:26:43

Now, there is a footnote here, just the reference to Demarest.

01:26:51

That's it. That's it. There's nothing more on 1

01:26:58

John 5, 1. There's nothing here. There's not even an attempt to respond to long -published

01:27:08

Greek -based argumentation on 1 John 5, 1. Does David Allen even know about the parallels in 229 and 4, 3?

01:27:19

I don't get the feeling he does. I honestly don't. Now, are they going to come out with something now?

01:27:24

Oh, sure, sure, we just, you know, they didn't have time or room to place it in the book and stuff like that.

01:27:31

Something will happen. But there is nothing in the commentaries, there's nothing in this book that even starts to attempt to begin to interact with the argument that we have made.

01:27:45

I'm not the first one that made this argument. So, what are these guys from Trinity Center going, well, you could have quoted this, but you had

01:27:55

Demarest. But there's nothing there. It's empty. It's vacuous. I was just left going, what are you guys talking about?

01:28:08

And then I happened to keep reading down, and I'll make this short because I've already gone an hour and a half.

01:28:14

It's warming here. Then he goes to Ephesians 2. And when he talks about Ephesians 2a, it's the same shallow, simplistic, sorry, childish argumentation that has been responded to over and over and over again.

01:28:39

No, faith isn't the gift of God, because faith is feminine, and this is neuter.

01:28:46

And it's just like, you do know that we've responded to this for years, right?

01:28:54

Do you read the other side? Or do you just read about the other side?

01:29:02

There was nothing here, again. And that, not of yourselves, the neuter wraps up everything, both masculines and feminines, the preceding phrase.

01:29:14

Why not respond to that? It's because you didn't know that's what we were saying.

01:29:20

Because you don't actually read us, you read secondary sources. I mean, you're just left going,

01:29:30

I guess they find this convincing. But I hope you understand why we sit here on the side going, you don't expect us to believe what you're saying, because you're not really digging into this very deep, are you?

01:29:47

And they're not. But yeah, there you go. So I did not expect to go an hour and a half,

01:29:55

I really did not. And Rich is probably sitting there trying to eat his dinner or something like that.

01:30:01

And, you know, just to watch all this stuff, make sure that it's actually working.

01:30:07

But anyway, and I'll probably mess everything up as I close stuff up. Because everything else works fine.

01:30:14

And so, since everything else works fine, then I'll probably mess it up. All right, so my plan right now.

01:30:22

Now, we've had some interesting issues with the unit. I'm actually literally, after we get done here, going to put some more grubby clothes on.

01:30:32

And I will be crawling around underneath, right where I am right now. Because there's this rather thin, it's just a thin layer that keeps road grime from getting up into the unit.

01:30:44

It doesn't really provide much in the way of insulation, though they like to pretend that it does. It has detached from the end that's hanging down.

01:30:54

So we're gonna get that fixed. Where neat thing is, we go up to Dolores tomorrow. They have an

01:30:59

RV repairman in the area that works with them. And he's gonna come out. We also had a freaky thing happen with the control system.

01:31:09

It's, it put the slide about four inches out while I was driving. I mean, just, it's like, that ain't never supposed to happen.

01:31:17

That's supposed to be locked down, can't happen. It did. And so hopefully a control board replacement or something will make sure that doesn't happen anymore.

01:31:27

Because man, for a while, I'm just sitting here. Gotta watch what's in front more than what's in the back.

01:31:33

But you know, you're wondering. But then they'll replace this thing down there. I just need to cinch it up for the drive to Colorado tomorrow to keep it from falling down and dragging along the road and doing bad stuff like that.

01:31:44

So yeah. That's the life of the RVer. Get into the grubbies, get down on the ground.

01:31:54

Thankfully, I'm in an asphalt slot here. If this had been last night,

01:31:59

I'd be in gravel. And laying in gravel and reaching up and doing stuff is a little uncomfortable.

01:32:08

Especially when you don't have all sorts of stuff you can carry around to put down there and make things a little bit easier.

01:32:14

But anyways, so that's what I'm gonna be doing. But hey, it all worked. I'm excited about that.

01:32:21

And hopefully we covered a lot of stuff that will be of interest to you and helpful to you.

01:32:27

And so thanks for listening. We will try, depending on what happens with the repairs, to do another program from up there.

01:32:37

Probably on Thursday -ish or something like that. We'll see. I'm not sure when Rich is coming up.

01:32:43

And he hasn't even bothered to tell me when he's coming up. So I don't know.

01:32:49

And so we'll see. Maybe he'll be up there and be able to arrange it from up there or something.

01:32:57

I don't know. We'll find out soon enough. We'll let you know on the app when we're gonna do another program.

01:33:02

I want to do another one this week before we do the mini -conference on Saturday. So thanks for watching the program today.