Twitter Indulgences?

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

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

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

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

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

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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line. I don't know if I've ever had a shorter break between having been on for the past hour as I did just there.

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Some of you may have been listening on the Marty Minto Show. And I just got done doing a number of minutes there, almost full hour.

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And as soon as we're done here, we're going to do an hour and then I've got a half -hour break and I'm going to be on a program in Portland.

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I wish I had that information right in front of me. I apologize, but I'll be on in Portland. So we are working at it pretty quick.

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Hardly even got much of a blip because we all knew it was coming.

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But Britain legalizes same -sex marriages after Church of England backs down, as if anyone was shocked that the

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Church of England backed down in England. The Evangelical Alliance of the

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UK, which represents thousands of churches and Christian charities, says the new law turns marriage into, quote, a fluid, gender -neutral institution defined by consumer demands and political expediency, end quote.

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Amen, that's true. The Church of England, which holds 26 seats in the House of Lords, previously backed down its opposition against the bill, prompting criticism of recently installed

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Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. According to Jorge Conger, I would assume, an analyst for the

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Church of England newspaper, African church leaders rebuked Welby for, quote, compromising the

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Christian faith in an attempt to curry favor with secular Britain and with the liberal Anglican churches of North America, end quote.

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And amen, thank you for our brothers and sisters in Africa who still read a

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Bible once in a blue moon. The continuing—I will say it,

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I've said it before, I will say it again—the legalization the redefinition of marriage, the profaning of marriage, is a fundamentally anti -life, anti -society, anti -morality, anti -ethical thing.

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And its continual progress in Western nations is nothing more than an act of defiance and rebellion against the history of those nations influenced by Christianity.

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And that's all it is. There's no question about it. It is a very, very sad thing.

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Of course, we also—I don't know how many people sent this to me. I do not know how many people sent this to me.

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In fact, if I said I do not know how many people sent this—that's a repetitive thing.

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I do not know how many people sent this to me. But yes, to everyone who's asked me, hey, did you see this?

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Hey, did you see this? The fact of the matter is, yes, I did see the fact that you can get indulgences from Twitter.

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I had—now, I thought I had in here—no, I must have saved the wrong one. Many apologies.

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I was going to read you. The actual Vatican radio article, but I saved the wrong one.

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I apologize. OK, well, that's—I think

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I can still find it here as long as my internet connection is fast, which sometimes it is and sometimes it's not.

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Social media—well, couldn't track it down. Anyways, did you know

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Rome has a new pope? Thanks, Algo. I appreciate that, that I was not aware of that, that there was a new pope.

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That's shocking. I was just now looking at the picture going, boy, he's changed. No, I did know that. Thank you,

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Algo. I think I might send you to Siberia after this. But anyways, at least I've got the Guardian one up here.

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Look, World Youth Day is coming up, and indulgences have been given for all sorts of things, and now indulgences will be given for following—if you don't go to World Youth Day, you can follow the events by electronic media, including

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Twitter. And so if you go and you go to confession and you do the things you're supposed to do and pray intentions for the pope and so on and so forth and follow him on Twitter, then you can get indulgences.

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It's not just like most of the news reports have been, well, all you got to do is fire up Twitter and all your sins will be forgiven.

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That's not exactly what is being said. Got to be careful, got to be at least somewhat fair.

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However, at the same time, I wonder how many people really, really understand what indulgences are all about.

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It's been a long time since we have discussed indulgences. So let's remind ourselves of what's going on here, because at least a few

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Protestants, as soon as they hear the term indulgences, go, oh,

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Martin Luther. Sadly, the vast majority of Protestants would go Martin Luther King.

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But a few Protestants left in the world, even a few citizens of Wittenberg, though they would be in the small minority,

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I'm sure, would go, hmm, indulgences, yes.

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When a coin in the coffer rings a soul from Purgatory Springs, yes.

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I remember a little bit of the history. Well, thanks,

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Figge. Here I am. I'm trying to get into a topic. And what are the people in channel doing? They are trying to distract me.

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And so what happens here, but Figge drops a URL, and it's one of those

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URLs where you can actually see what the title is because the URL is so long.

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You know those? It's not just a bunch of numbers, which wouldn't make any sense. But here

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I am trying to talk about indulgences. And what does he do? But he drops one that says,

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Fuller Seminary allows first LGBT campus group. And here's a picture of Fuller.

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Fuller Theological Seminary in California has approved an official student organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.

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The decision sparked debate in the larger world of Christian colleges, though other Christian schools have approved similar organizations.

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Fuller is the first evangelical seminary to do so. No, no, no. You need to understand. This is CBN .com.

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You need to understand something. This proves that Fuller isn't evangelical anymore, A, or B, it proves the term evangelical has no meaning anymore.

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But remember, Mel White was at Fuller. So this is not overly shocking.

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It's just further evidence of the degradation that's taken place that certainly

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I observed when I was there, but it wasn't nearly to the point where it is now. Since you've been totally taken off the track.

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Totally. Where is Figge? Okay. Since Fuller was discussed,

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I thought you'd be interested in that little tidbit I learned on the radio the other day. You know the religion professor back east who has declared that God is a white racist?

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No, I don't. Oh, she's, this has been in the news, of course, you've been writing all over the mountains and stuff like that, so you've been kind of out of it a little bit, but she is a graduate of Fuller.

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Oh, that doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me in the least. What, you're shocked about this?

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You shouldn't be. Fuller, you know, I've said many, many times when

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I was there, I, people have asked, you're a graduate of Fuller Seminary?

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Well, yes, I am. With honors, in fact, in 1989.

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But I was, there's two things that were good about that. I think that it was, obviously, it was

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God's. Well, that I suffer through Fuller Seminary for a couple of reasons.

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One, I did it in the Phoenix Extension primarily, which allowed me to have more conservative professors.

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And those that flew in from Fuller were also tended to be more conservative, even though the last class

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I took from Fuller was an ethics class. And at one point, the professor left the podium, came down, sat down in the class, turned his desk toward my desk, and the rest of the students gathered around us, and he and I debated abortion.

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And I was, of course, the pro -life guy. So, and that was 89.

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So that was a little while ago. But I think the reason that I ended up going to Fuller Seminary, I think, you know, in hindsight, you know,

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God has his own, God can answer these things, is that I was exposed to theological liberalism in its fullness while going to Fuller Seminary.

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And that has been one of the greatest advantages I've had. I mean, when I debate Shabir Ali and Shabir Ali starts quoting liberals, hey,

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I'm back in seminary, I've been there, done that, got the t -shirt, you know, I had to read

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Gerhard von Rath's commentary on Deuteronomy and write a paper on its pros and cons. And I was the only one in the class that got an

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A on it, even though the only thing I could say positive about it was that I had a nice binding. I've told that story before.

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But that was extremely important. I did not know at the time how important it was.

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But that is, I think that's why I did. So anyways, seeing this article,

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I mean, I am saddened by it. But it is just evidence that the path that Fuller has, well, certainly, you all recognize, remember, how long ago was it?

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About a year ago that I reviewed the Mormonism comments from the president of Fuller Seminary, where they met at, you know, they met at Zondervan or one of the big publisher places.

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And he's been very involved in helping to mainstream Mormonism and just completely lacked all discernment capacity whatsoever.

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So I mean, when you've got a president like that, you hardly should be shocked that the seminary has just has just fallen off the cliff into something like this.

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But that's that's not overly shocking. So do you think I should keep looking at the channel?

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Like people talking about, you know, Detroit becoming America's largest city to file for bankruptcy, which, again, is someone shocked?

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Is there is there anybody out there? I've been to Detroit. I'm surprised that there is anybody who realized that they had a city government in Detroit.

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Their entire sections you avoided in Detroit. You have to. I mean, it's it's it's it's a war zone.

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Ever seen that graphic where they they show a picture of Hiroshima and then they show a picture of Detroit and they ask who really won the war?

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It's true. It's true that that actually has nothing to do that has everything to do with socialism and nothing to do really with anything else.

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But no, I am going to I am going to try to ignore people in channel who are doing their best jumping up and down to distract me and get back to what

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I was talking about, because there are other people in the audience who very much want to hear what I was about to say. What was

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I about to say? Thankfully, I have things on the screen. And so it reminds me of the things

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I'm supposed to be talking about. OK, I got

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OK, I got I I will have to admit that was a good effort.

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That was a very good effort. Sam, we in channel. Did you see what is? Are you watching channel? Look at this.

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I'm not distracted in here. I'm doing my work. Look at this. It's URL channel CBD news dot com from underline bikes underline to underline

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Detroit underline. So underline Sam underline gets some underline a underline mentioned

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APX, which I can guarantee you if you click on it, it 404s. But he knew he knew that I would see that being the

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Tour de France aficionado that I am. I would know that it would be impossible for from to bike to Detroit.

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But it's very, very good. Very smart. Since you are just totally I'm going to get back to this.

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Eventually, this is what Marty Minto does to you. No, no, no, no, not really. No, not really.

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But, you know, we're working on all kinds of neat new things on the website.

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Yes. And you are diligent. Our website will be doing that soon. Biking to Detroit.

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The word underline next word underline word underline. OK, OK. All right.

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I wondered why just so I'm at the website's going to be declaring bankruptcy. Oh, let's see.

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Then again, we could raise a lot of money that way. No. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

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There you go. Anyway. Anyway. OK. I am. I am. I am not looking.

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I'm put see what I'm doing. I'm putting my hand in front of the channel here. So I cannot see. What were we talking?

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We were talking about indulgences. And we were talking about the fact that, let's be honest ourselves, most people have no earthly idea.

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Most Roman Catholics have no earthly idea what an indulgence is. I'm reaching over here, hadn't done this, but here is the

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Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is a beefy little book. How many pages is it? It's just over 800 pages long.

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And many, many moons ago, I went through this

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Catholic Catechism, which I think most Roman Catholics would admit is about it is the authoritative compendium of modern

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Roman Catholic belief and teaching. Obviously, there are conservative Roman Catholics that would rather look at older sources than this,

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I suppose. But anyways, I went through this, and I looked at everything it said on the subject of indulgences.

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Because you run into many Roman Catholics today, and they say, ah, purgatory, indulgences. Vatican II got rid of all that.

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Well, let me tell you something. Vatican II did not get rid of all of that. Vatican II nuances things.

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Vatican II tries to use more biblical language. But Vatican II got rid of nothing as far as that is concerned.

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There are numerous sections in the Universal Catholic Catechism of the

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Roman Catholic Church on the subject of indulgences and purgatory, for that matter, which are closely related to one another.

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Let me explain the historic doctrine of indulgences so that you can understand why it is that despite the fact that it marginalizes me and my ministry, is one of the reasons why

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I'm frequently not at the big conferences, will never be a part of the big boy league.

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Because though many of them are very strong in Roman Catholicism, I have actually engaged in more debates with Roman Catholics than anybody else

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I know of anyways that's active in apologetics today. Not as many recently. I mean, a couple years ago we did five in one year, but mainly because Roman Catholics are the ones not doing very many debates anymore and certainly are not seeking me out.

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Do you get dozens of calls per day from the leading Roman Catholics asking me to debate and you just keep tearing them down?

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No, but have I mentioned the ones wanting money? No. Yeah, if you do get on the

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Catholic Answers mailing list, you will get that kind of call. There's no doubt about that.

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But anyway, it would be a lot easier if I just focused upon all sorts of other things.

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You know, talk about Mormonism or Islam or something like that, though Islam's not really popular either. But I deal with Roman Catholicism and those especially who present the mere

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Christianity perspective where the gospel does not define things, find me scary.

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They find me too radical. I'm too radical. I'm too far out there.

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Because I say we must evangelize Roman Catholics. I do not believe that the

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Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth, and in fact, I do not believe that the

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Pope represents a Christian profession. And there are many within what calls itself evangelicalism that, oh, he's just so wonderful.

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I mean, I don't necessarily believe everything he claims, but oh, it's just so wonderful.

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And they ignore the fact that he actually bears the names of the

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Trinity, Holy Father, Vicar of Christ, allows people to kiss his ring, and all the rest of this kind of silliness.

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But anyway, the result is that when it comes to indulgences, there are very few

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Protestants that have any real idea what this is all about. They have some idea that Martin Luther didn't like them and that Rome got rid of them.

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Well, no. Let's start back in church history with the development of the concept of what one

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Protestant apologist mistakenly called super -irrigation once, which is when you leave your hose running too long.

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But super -irrigation, which is related to the concept of merit.

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And basically what happened during the medieval period is people like to speculate on things.

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I guess without ESPN, you had a lot of time to think about stuff. And when you rarely traveled more than seven miles from where you were born your entire life, the world could be a rather small place.

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And so this led to lots of speculations about how many angels danced on the head of a pin and things like that.

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And the idea was developed that one drop of Christ's blood would have been sufficient to redeem the entire world.

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But he shed a copious amount of blood. So if one drop was enough to redeem the world, then what happens with all this excess merit that comes from the shedding of a copious amount of Christ's blood?

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This is the idea of super -irrigation, the idea of excess merit, which led to, over time, and you've got to remember this stuff didn't happen overnight.

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It wasn't, you know, frequently you'll see these books or pamphlets that'll put a date on, you know, purgatory developed in 1215 or something like that.

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That's just a naive view of Church history. That's not how stuff worked.

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It took time. And there would be different strands. I mean, when you look at the different strands that had to come together to form the doctrine of purgatory over time, then you can see why there were people who believed a part of what became the doctrine of purgatory without actually having believed in purgatory itself, because it took time and there were different elements that had to come together and form the various threads that are finally woven together by later people into the final dogmatic definitions of things such as the doctrine of purgatory.

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Well, the idea became that if there is an excess treasury of, if there's excess merit from Christ's sacrifice, then what about saints?

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Saints are individuals who, in essence, now there's different kinds of saints.

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There are saints the Church defines, like John Paul's about to become a saint, and the

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Church defines these as saints. But the Church will tell you, the Roman Catholic Church will tell you, there are many people that were saints that the

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Church doesn't know about. And what does that mean? Well, it means that when they died, they had less temporal punishments for their sins and their soul than they had positive merit to their good works.

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And so they do not have to go to purgatory. They do not have to have any cleansing.

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They go directly into the presence of God. They are saints. Well, okay, what if they, if it's a matter of balancing the temporal punishment of sin versus the positive merit of their good works, then could it be possible that they have a lot more positive merit than they have temporal punishment for their sins?

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Well, yes. And so that becomes even more excess merit from the saints.

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And what about Mary? I mean, wow, Mary would have all sorts of excess merit because she never sinned.

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And yet she was perfectly holy, according to Rome, in the modern era anyways. And so what did you do with all this excess merit?

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And so what was developed over time was the concept of the thesaurus meritorum, the treasury of merit.

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And basically, you know, God keeps an account, keeps an account of this merit stuff, whatever it looks like or however you measure it,

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God can do it. And eventually the idea develops that this is stored up.

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And of course, since this is Rome we're talking about, this treasury of merit becomes something that is under the control of the

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Roman Catholic Church and specifically, of course, under the control of the

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Bishop of Rome via the power of the keys. This then becomes the foundation of what happens during the

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Reformation with Martin Luther. Because what happens is you've had by the beginning of the 15th century the rather full definition.

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I mean, I looked at the channel again, someone says, you're so uncharitable.

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No, so far all I've done is just define stuff, actually. You have the development, the definition, dogmatic definition of purgatory, the concept of the necessity of the suffering of satispatio before entrance into the presence of God.

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And in that context, very, very clearly, and there's no question about this, someday

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I'm going to have to do a program just on this because if any of you remember one of my, certainly one of my favorite debates, it's certainly one of Red Gauti's favorite debates and it's one of Algo's favorite debates, the debate that I had on the subject of purgatory with a certain

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Father Peter Stravinskis, Dr. Peter Stravinskis, two earned doctorates, one of the most glorious examples of Roman arrogance ever seen.

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I mean, he just walked in there, he had never read a word I had ever said, he just didn't think that anyone could mount a meaningful criticism.

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It's nothing outside of Rome that's worth even looking at. And he just got crushed and is angry about it this very day because if you search on his name on the internet, the first thing that comes up are the sections from that debate.

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But anyway, if you look at that debate and the concepts presented there, very, very illustrative of what all this is about.

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So you have, and during that debate, I asked him about a particular, what was it called?

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The Sabatine Privilege. Sabatine Privilege. It was the idea that if you wore the scapular that, what was it, on the

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Friday or Saturday after your death, Mary herself would descend into purgatory and release you. And I was basically asking him, what about this concept of time in purgatory?

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Because it's just so painfully obvious, so painfully obvious, that the understanding of the entirety of the church at that time was that you experienced suffering over a period of time in purgatory.

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And it just doesn't make, you cannot make heads or tails out of what was said at that time if you don't see that.

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I mean, what does it mean for Mary to descend on the Saturday after your death if there's no

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Saturdays in purgatory? And if you've got a Saturday, that means there's got to be a Friday before it, and there's got to be a

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Thursday before that. And indulgences were measured in hours and days and weeks and months and years.

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So, you know, you could go to the castle church in Wittenberg and pray in front of a feather from Gabriel's wing and, you know, get three months out of purgatory, three months indulgence.

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Well, what did that mean to the poor person that dropped the coin into the thing so they could go pray in front of Gabriel's wing feather or in front of the vial of Mary's breast milk?

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Yep, that's what they had in those places. It's been a while since we've done much on church history here, and we'll have to do that again sometime.

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But what did it mean to them? Are you going to tell me that the church leaders didn't know what it meant to the people, and that they were just profiting by these things?

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Because see, what was going on was that once this doctrine took hold, imagine what it was like to live in the days when the plague was in Europe.

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When the major infestation of the plague struck Europe, a third of Europe died. Can you imagine if one third of the people you know died horrible deaths?

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I mean, everybody, everybody knew death.

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They knew their own mortality. Every day you wondered if this was going to be your last day.

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That's why issues of heaven and hell and judgment were fresh on people's minds in those days.

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Not so much today. Not so much today. We don't even think about death. We do everything we can to not think about it.

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And so, because of that, then the doctrine of purgatory became a means by which the church absolutely abused its people.

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Absolutely abused its people. I have stood in St.

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Peter's Basilica in Rome. I have looked up inside that dome, and I have seen the gold letters of the

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Petrine Promise around the inside from Matthew 16, and it's real gold.

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It's the real thing. Where do you think that came from? Where do you think all that marble came from?

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The Roman church fleeced its flock through the sails of indulgences to build that building, and everybody knew it.

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It's not an arguable issue. The Reformation started because there were a lot of people in Germany that recognized it was completely wrong to take money from starving people in Germany whose one of their kids just died, and they're afraid that that child is suffering in purgatory, and so they give their last dime to the church to buy indulgence to try to get this person out of purgatory, and that money leaves

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Germany. It doesn't feed the poor. It doesn't do anything there. It goes from Germany down to Italy and buys a little more gold for the

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Petrine Promise up in St. Peter's. I've never seen an apology for that, by the way.

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When they start cutting the gold down from the Petrine Promise and using it to feed poor folks, then, okay, you know, that's a step in the right direction anyways.

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And that was part and parcel of what brought about the Reformation, was a recognition of the other corruptness—corruption, excuse me—of the

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Roman system. So the idea of indulgences, then, fit perfectly with this concept of purgatory.

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And given the amount of infant mortality and just mortality in general, it would be very easy to understand why

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Johann Tetzel and his ilk were so successful in raising money for the building of St.

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Peter's in Rome. Because they would come in, and they would preach, and they would have the

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Pope's authority, and they would proclaim that there is this treasury of merit, and if you buy this indulgence, you will be given this indulgence letter.

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And there were different kinds of indulgences—a plenary indulgence, a full pardon for the temporal punishments of your sins.

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Obviously, some were sold in a way that even Rome would say at the time was inappropriate.

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There were many people within the Roman Communion that found the idea reprehensible.

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I mean, Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic when he wrote the

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Ninety -Five Theses. He didn't—if you had said Protestant to him, he wouldn't have had the foggiest idea what you were talking about.

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He was a Roman Catholic, and he was not alone in his detestation of what he saw as the absolute violation of anything that's good and proper in the sales of indulgences.

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And so, the theology behind it was that the

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Pope, via the power of the keys, has control over the thesaurus meritorum, the treasury of merit, and that in essence, what happens is in an indulgence, there is a withdrawal of some of this excess merit.

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Remember where this excess merit come from? The excess merit comes from Jesus, Mary, and the saints.

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Now, just stop there for just a moment. Think about that with me for just a moment.

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When I listen to these—I don't know how else to describe them, but wide -eyed childlike converts to Rome talking about the glories of the

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Magisterium, and then I asked them to read—and

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I did this with a recent convert, I'll let you figure out who it was—I asked them to read a document you can find online, easy to find, it's on the

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Vatican website, numerous copies of it around, called Indulgentiarum Doctrina, spelled like it sounds.

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If you have some Latin background, Indulgentiarum Doctrina. Read it.

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It is a modern, post -Vatican II, apostolic constitution on the revision of indulgences.

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It's the one that is quoted most often in the Universal Catholic Catechism, so I don't believe that anyone can question the citation of it as being representative of official

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Roman Catholic theology. No question about it. When they read that, you can get a real quick, easy understanding of whether this person has just completely abandoned all semblance of Biblical thought whatsoever if they go, well, you know, if the church says so.

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Because any person who has, well, who has the Holy Spirit and hears someone talking about the mixture of the merit of the sinless

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Son of God with Mary and the saints as something the church controls and can dole out to people, it's blasphemy.

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It is absolutely satanic blasphemy. That's the only way it can be described.

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Don't sugarcoat it. It's disgusting. It's reprehensible. Anybody who can promote that has no earthly idea about what it means to actually trust in Christ's merit alone.

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None. Never did. Never did. And I say to you call to confusion people who are trying to use words of wisdom and men's philosophies to entrap people into that kind of blasphemy,

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God will judge you. He will judge you severely.

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This kind of teaching is a blasphemy against Christ. Now, you might say, oh, but as you yourself admitted, indulgentiarum is an apostolic constitution on the revision of indulgences.

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Yes. You can't buy indulgences anymore. Well, not in the crass way that Tetzel was selling them.

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No, you cannot. There are all sorts of ways now that you can get indulgences by doing certain things on certain days and praying certain numbers of prayers and all the rest of these things.

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But the theology of the thesaurus meritorum, the theology of the excess merit of Christ and the excess merit of Mary and the excess merit of the saints has not been denied.

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How could it be? That's the horrible thing about transferring the infallible authority of the bridegroom to the bride.

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Because you see, once you proclaim that the church, once you proclaim that the church is infallible, there can be no reformation of that church.

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Because once that church has placed falsehood into the status of dogma, then it must be defended.

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It must be defended. So the idea then, at the time, was that by purchasing this indulgence letter, you were providing for the forgiveness of your sins.

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And we know about the story that's told and whether it happened or not, I don't know. But the idea of—well, there was a sliding scale, by the way.

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There was a sliding scale of payment depending upon your status in the society. So a knight would pay one thing and a peasant would pay a very small amount, but a lord would pay much more.

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I mean, the people at the upper end would pay much more than the people at the lower end. It was a—well, it was similar to how the

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IRS does things today. Same level of corruption and unfairness. But anyway, so the story was told of a well -off

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German who bought an indulgence and said that—he asked if he could buy an indulgence for a sin he had not yet committed.

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And Tetzel allegedly said that he could, especially seeing that he was a well -off man. And so he purchased the indulgence.

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And then when Tetzel left town, he and his knights attacked Tetzel and beat him severely.

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And as he left, he said, this was the sin that I was contemplating committing. So hey, you know, there you go.

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So that kind of gross sales of indulgences were done away with at the

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Council of Trent. And further revisions are taking place over time. But the fact is, the theology remains.

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Oh, now it has been softened, made a little less offensive by only in its statements.

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But it's still there. In fact, there are more sections on indulgences in the catechism than I can find on justification.

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It's still there. The whole concept. And here you have Pope Francis, the great evangelical pope.

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He washes people's feet. He still believes in indulgences.

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What about Galatians 1 and 2?

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False brethren crept in, didn't put up with them for an hour. So few today who have

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Paul's eagle eye to the purity of the gospel. The truth of the gospel.

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So many who call themselves evangelicals today. Oh, Pope Francis, he's our friend.

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Don't agree with everything he says. Amazing.

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So, yeah, I know. If you, you know, pray the prayers, go to confession, follow the

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Vatican, which includes following on Twitter, then that's part of the process of gaining indulgence.

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And I say to you, any person who feels you need to gain indulgence does not know

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Christ. And I repeat the words as solemnly as they were said by the apostle himself.

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If you seek to be justified by circumcision, if you think there's something you can do to add to what

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Christ has done, he will be of no benefit to you. None.

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Stop playing. Stop playing. So a lot of people just got a chuckle out of the

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Pope on Twitter. Indulgences on Twitter, really? Yeah.

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Indulgences on Twitter. But what it really tells us is that Rome continues to not understand the gospel and not present the gospel and to enslave the millions who follow after its false gospel.

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No question about it. All right. Well, didn't know how long that would take, but I figured

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I would start preaching eventually once we got around to it. And the people in the channel stopped distracting me.

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I'm going to try to literally have maybe six or seven minutes of the

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Calvinist call -in show left play. Let's see if we can get through a little bit of it here. Going back to the

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Calvinist call -in show with Michael Brown, starting right where I said that I was going to start before.

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In fact, in Nehemiah, the ninth chapter, there's a specific word that's used for God's drawing.

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And it's actually a word that the same word is used in the Greek there that's elsewhere used for God's drawing and that people would try to argue for irresistible grace.

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And God specifically says he drew his people, and they refused. He drew his people, and they refused.

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Now, I had never heard that argument before. I think that it had been a part of a real fast portion of our debate, maybe.

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But at least when I heard it here, I was able to look it up. And what

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Michael is referring to, and unusually he didn't give the reference, just gave Nehemiah 9. I had to look and look and look and eventually came across it.

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It's Nehemiah 9 .30, both in the Masoretic text and in the

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Greek Septuagint. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets, yet they would not give ear.

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And what he's referring to is Chalcusos.

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Chalcusos et altus et te paula. So, the term that he's making reference to here is

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Chalcuso, which is found in John 6. No one come to me unless the

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Father sends me draws him. Chalcuso is found in John 6. And then that form is then found in the

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Septuagint in Chalcusos. But there it's referring to drawing, not to drawing in any way, but to bear with them in the sense of not having brought judgment upon the individuals and upon the people.

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Now, I would like to suggest that there is a completely different understanding in regards to the context here.

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Now, the Timshach, the Hebrew term that is used there, refers to pull and is translated as bore in the

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ESV. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets.

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So, what's that referring to? Is the context the same as in John 6? No, it is not.

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And I would suggest to my friend Michael, given that he likes to say, look,

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I'm into lexical materials, you know, syntax, the original language, may

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I suggest that that was an inappropriate connection. An inappropriate connection because of the fact that the context, even from the parallel, you bore with them and warned them by your spirits, how?

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Through your prophets. Now, is that what Jesus is saying in John 6?

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If you try to make the connection that it is, that the meaning of the

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Greek Septuagint use of Chalcusos there is the same as Helcuo in John 6, now you've got a real problem because it's not going to make any sense at all.

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It's not going to make any sense at all. Because the use in John 6, 44, Notice what it says.

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Unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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You cannot introduce a distinction between the Auton that is the direct object of Chalcusos, of drawing, and the

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Auton that is the direct object of Anastasios. But clearly, the bearing in Nehemiah 9, 30 was in not bringing judgment while prophetic warning is given.

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That's not what's going on in John 6. What's going on in John 6, 44 where Chalcusos is used is clearly, when you look at Anastasios, resurrection,

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I will raise him up in the last day. There is no question that in the immediate context and the wider context of the

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Gospel of John, that is to eternal life. That's not what Nehemiah 9, 30 is about. So I would suggest that that is a very inappropriate application at that point.

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And if Michael and I ever get a chance to dialogue about these things again, that's one question

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I'm going to have to bring up. I would say the big questions that need to be dialogued about again are,

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Michael, do you believe that God is attempting, and this came up in the debate, I can't see how he can't answer this way, but Michael, do you believe that God is attempting to save every single individual equally?

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That every individual receives the same level of prevenient grace? Because I think if he says yes, much of what he said, it doesn't hang together, it can't.

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And then secondly, I definitely bring this up and say, now really, are you really saying that Helcuso doesn't mean effectively bringing about the salvation of God's people in John 6 because of the

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Greek Septuagint translation of Nehemiah 9, 30 and the idea that Timshoch somehow is not being defined by the parallel of the warnings of the prophets?

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I mean, I just don't think that he would make that argument. At least I would hope he would not make that argument.

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Folks, look at all the verses about predestination, and it's always corporate, it's always about a people.

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There could be an individual chosen for a mission, but that doesn't mean that individual is going to respond positively to the mission. Now, that's interesting.

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A couple things. I disagree vehemently. Ephesians chapter 1 does speak of the elect people corporately, but it does so in terms that can only be understood if God knows those individuals personally.

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Does God adopt a nameless, faceless group, or does He adopt us as sons?

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Does He know each of His sons? Of course He does. Of course He does. So I believe it's a canard to say, well, it's all about groups.

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Well, that's right. God has decided to save more than one person, therefore it's always going to be a group, isn't it? But that doesn't change the fact that when

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Paul addresses the Ephesian believers, he addresses what God does in predestination election in the context of the personal salvific experience that is theirs.

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It was them that was chosen, not a group. They were chosen to individual holiness.

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They were chosen to adoption and the forgiveness of sins. And I suggest to you once again, it is this vast difference between a very impersonal concept of salvation and a very personal concept of salvation.

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I think it's an important point. But a simple question for my Calvinist friends, when God commands us to humble ourselves, when

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God commands us not to harden our heart, when God commands us to repent and believe, do we have the power to say yes with His help and grace, or are we powerless to if we are powerless?

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Now, with His help and grace, what does that mean? Why would we need His help and grace? Why did

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Lydia need to have her heart opened if she has the capacity and the power to fulfill the command?

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Why would I need help and grace? And does everyone get the same level and kind of help and grace?

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That really is the big issue. It keeps coming up, and I keep hearing this, and I go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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What do you mean help and grace? Is there such a thing as salvific grace? I can't see how you could affirm it.

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Because if there's salvific grace and then there's non -salvific grace, then who gets to choose which one's which?

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Or, and this would be frightening, is it all the same kind of grace, and my decision determines whether it becomes salvific grace or merely prevenient grace?

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Now, there is another dividing line. There is another dividing line.

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Because if it's all just the same grace and God's trying to save everybody equally, and it's my response to grace that makes it either salvific grace or non -salvific grace, well, does that take us right back to, well, who makes man to differ?

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Man. Not God. That's important. Powers to respond, and he's the one that makes us respond, or doesn't allow us to respond.

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Where is... Doesn't allow us to respond. That is not the language that a former

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Reformed person is going to use. Does not allow us to respond.

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What is the assumption of that language? The assumption of that language is that there would be someone who wants to respond, who wants to do what's good, wants to do what's right, but God says,

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Nope, you're not my elect, so I'm not going to allow you. What is the

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Reformed understanding? That there is no one. There was... It's like saying, well, you know,

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God's not allowing that valley of dry bones out there to become people. I mean, what is wrong with him?

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I think I saw a femur over there that wants to be alive again, and God's not allowing it to happen.

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Really? No, of course not. I'm not trying to be mocking.

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I'm trying to give you a clear illustration of just how far off the idea is. No, you're not allowing him to respond.

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All right, allowing him to respond. No, that's not how a Reformed person would ever speak.

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Or doesn't allow us to respond. Where is the consistent picture of God's justice, fairness, and goodness as it is revealed throughout the entire

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Bible? And then how does human language even convey what it seems to be saying? Well, again, how does that...

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I guess when you have the idea that God is not allowing people to respond, or that there are going to be people who would want to respond, but God does not enable them to then do something.

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If you've got all those misapprehensions of what we're saying, then I guess you could see that as being unfair or something.

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But when you're consistent in your understanding of man's deadness and sin, consistent in recognizing that Romans 8 says that those who are according to flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God, those issues just do not come up at all.

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I'm not a Calvinist, but of course some of my positions would have to line up more on that side, and I don't just consider you like Arminian as well.

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I love your eschatology. The question, just to make it a little bit interesting if I could, is how then...

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I mean, as far as free will would be, would Judas Iscariot have free will to not fulfill the

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Scripture, or was the Scripture only predicting from foreknowledge? So if that be the case, the

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Scriptures that speak about Jesus, was God just saying that Jesus was going to be put up on a cross, or was it foreordained from the foundation of the world to happen?

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And of course that was. But was Judas Iscariot, or Esau for that sake, predestined from the foundation of the world to be in the position that they were in the

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Scriptures? And if not, then what's the difference between the two, and how can we exegete between what is actually predestined or foreordained, or just was foreseen?

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Right, very good question, and of course... Now that is a very good question. Really, people keep forcing

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Michael back to this, and I think he's struggling with it, and unfortunately, I just looked at the clock and realized I probably shouldn't have played that.

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But I'm just going to mark that as the start, and we're going to start back with that. Honestly, that's a yellow block, there's a purple block, a red block, and a blue block.

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That's it. That's all that's left of the thing. People are like, well, just keep going on!

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You're only going to be on the Portland radio station at 4 .30 your time. You've got half an hour. Yeah, well,

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I've been sitting here for an hour already. I'd like to have a little time to get up and get a drink and do other things necessary to the continuance of life before we, what, two?

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Yeah, I've been here for two hours. Yes, I know that. So that's what I'm going to be doing. So if you're listening up in Portland live, you probably know what station to listen to.

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I think it's Genevieve or something like that. Somebody up there? I don't know. There's too many in one day.

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I'm sorry. But I'm going to be up on a program in Portland, so you tune in if you wish to do so.

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We will be back, Lord willing, probably regular schedule, I think next week. I can't think of anything that's in the way.

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But follow me on Twitter. That's the way you find out fastest is on Twitter and on Facebook.

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Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. God bless. It's a

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Saturday night. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:56

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