The Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ: Karlo Broussard of Catholic Answers Refuted

So agrees to welcome to the dividing line right is that we start the program of Babylon the tweeted and, they've got this a young man saying for the service standard church looking building and it says the cutting edge church attempts to he's smiling and he's holding the old AOL CD.

The only reason I know that AOL still exists is because my dad's still on it. That's still his his email address, which is yeah. Yeah, it's it's sad. But anyway, welcome. Welcome to the program today.

I mentioned on Twitter this morning that I was going to at the top of the hour deal with an article that was just published today. So I will do that and then move on to a couple of other things and hopefully get to phone calls later on in the hour as well.

And that is a Catholic answers article that was linked to that. Actually, it's interesting. This says August 6. So maybe we're a maybe we're a day behind in getting this. But I only saw the link this morning and it's another Carlo Broussard article.

We have taken apart a number of Carlos articles over the over the over the years and maybe someday they'll allow him to debate. I don't know. We'll see I you know, I sort of got the feeling after we had our debate in 2017, I guess January of 2017.

Yeah, that maybe we'd be seeing more debates going on. But I if that's been happening, I've missed it. I haven't. Yeah, I don't I haven't seen seen anything seen anything going on. But yeah, but anyway, this is an article published August 6 called righteous comma or reckoned and the reckons in single quotes question mark and a cute little baby picture.

I'm not really sure what that's all about. But this certainly takes us back to foundational basic issues in regards to Roman Catholicism and the fact that we have been convinced for a very very long time and have attempted to convince other people as well that the primary issue.

Once again, when you look at the Reformation you had the material principle and had the formal principle. The formal principle is solo scriptura. This is the fundamental departing place as far as ultimate authority goes.

And if you want to see what happens when you abandon solo scriptura because Rome all you know, every day on Catholic radio, you have Roman Catholics saying we'll see if you believe in solo script scriptura.

It leads to all these denominations, which is not what leads to all these denominations. It is the abandonment and non-practicing of solo scriptura that leads to all those denominations. But if you if you want a really really good reason to believe in solo scriptura Pope Francis, it's pretty easy.

You know it you almost feel badly. I remember when Michael Brown and I were debating Anthony buzzard and Joseph good during the break. I went out and my daughter was in the audience. And so I said so how you think it's going and she says, oh dad.

I feel sorry for the heretics and I'm like don't feel sorry for the heretics. That's not that's not how you're supposed to feel. Well, we almost we can almost feel sorry for Catholic apologists today because the spin and the contradictions and the headstands and the contortions that they are having to do to explain.

Francis on on so many levels not just the the change on the death penalty thing and going against centuries of well, not only centuries of recent centuries of Roman Catholic jurisprudence, but the fact that Rome's hands are soaked in blood and having used capital punishment for centuries.

I mean there is no debate or argument for example that a number of Popes were just basic military leaders. That's all they were. I mean one of the things that scandalized Luther when he went to Rome in 1510 was the sight of the Pope riding his horse through the streets of Rome in full armor.

These these were violent men and you know, you can I know the excuse while it's actually the church didn't wait. They don't let the secular powers do that baloney. We all know without question. What the Roman Catholic Church did and the utilization of the death penalty against heretics and other people for a very very very long time.

So even aside from all of that then you've got what what the Pope did with the young boy in assuring him that his father would be in heaven, even though he was an atheist because he'd had his kids baptized.

Yeah, that's enough to that's enough to get a person saved. Sure. Yeah, he's minimally inclusive as probably Universalist. I mean, there's just there's just so many things you can point to and it's obvious and it's plain and and you have to there's a part of you that wants to feel badly because you think back on on the confidence with which an earlier generation of Roman Catholic apologists made reference to the unity that they have because of the Pope and and you know, we don't have all the divisions that you protest.

Since have because all you've got the Bible we have Christ Church and blah blah blah blah and now every Roman Catholic you talk to has their own understanding of why we are wrong to think that Pope Francis is a refutation of their position.

They're all just run around like and and so so part of you feels badly for him. The other part goes. No, I'm not feeling badly at all. I'm glad this is really obvious and just hope and pray that the Spirit of God will cause people to realize.

Yeah, this is a this is this is a dead-end road there the the alleged doctrinal certainty and Unity and all the rest that stuff. It doesn't exist. It's not there and in fact, oh, I don't think I saved that or did I let me let me look here real quick.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad I remembered this. Let me just rub rub salt in the wound here. That's what I'm doing right now. I'll confess May 29th 2015 Catholic answers Tim Staples good old Tim Tim Staples.

Here's how it starts years ago. My wife and I were to fundraiser for a candidate who was then running for president United States and I struck up a conversation with a Catholic attorney who does great work for various pro-life causes.

I'll call him John the conversation hardly turned from small talk about family and children to pro-life matters when John made the claim anyone who is pro-death penalty cannot make the claim to being pro-life because the two positions are oxymoronic.

Oh boy, I thought here we go. I point out to John what too many Catholics simply do not know the death penalty has always been and always will be upheld as a legitimate and potentially just punishment in Catholic tradition as well as in scripture this teaching italics cannot italics change Tim Staples Catholic answers.

May 29th 2015. Well, I would imagine I didn't catch it. I'd imagine old Tim has already has already addressed this and maybe not this particular article, but it is amazing the number of all their excuses.

They're being offered and so many of them are completely contradictory to one another. But no, I've got there. No, no, this is the right way to sit. No, this is the way. No, this is the way to they're really unified.

No, they're not but I run into that and just this teaching cannot change at least for another three and a half years. That's what happens when your ultimate authority is this nebulous undefined form it into whatever you want to look like thing called tradition, which you can't tell us what it is no matter how I've had Roman Catholic.

You want tradition look at the catechism. Well now it's not the catechism. That's must be something else who knows. I'm just thinking of how many conversations how many debates over the years if anyone knew what was going on right now and then watch those old debates go.

The entire Roman Catholic position has been refuted by what the Pope has done. It's done. So with so they're coming up with with other other responses, but yeah, that was that was that one. So anyway, going back to Carlo Bussard's article from yesterday, you know, I just simply have to point out.

Well, you know, this is this is the teaching now. And in fact at one point he quotes from the Catholic catechism and I'm just sort of like that's what it says now who knows who knows what the future may hold but and this again.

This is why the you know, we've been yeah. Yeah, we've been we've been saying this all along and no, no, no, no that can't change. Yes, it can. Yes, it can once once you make the Pope your final Authority.

Yes, it can change and you can you can stick your head in the in the sand all you want. All you could do is get a mouthful of sand because it's not going to change the reality of what's what's going on around us.

So anyway back to righteous or reckoned the Council of Trent taught that through baptism believers quote are made innocent immaculate pure harmless and beloved of God the catechism of the Catholic Church concurs currently justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification renewal of the interior man 1989.

Yeah, you need to start putting those numbers in because you know, that's going to be changing down down the road now, but please notice something let's let's focus upon that particular that particular issue justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man, but hopefully if if you are a church history studying Reformed person and we have a larger than normal percentage of our audience that would fit in that category you immediately hear one of the key issues in the Reformation in that phrase you read again.

This is from the catechism of the Catholic Church justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man. So in Romanism justification and sanctification are conflated in the Bible.

They are intimately connected and yet clearly distinguished. So that failure to distinguish between justification and sanctification part of the one work of God same Foundation same spirit same purpose and yet if you do not differentiate them, you will end up with all of the errors that Rome promulgates today in regards to the concept of the gospel justification, whether it's by grace alone faith alone all that stuff right there in that one sentence by putting them together.

There's the problem. But Protestants argue that the Bible contradicts this idea of interior renewal. No, we don't. We deny that justification is the interior renewal. Fully confess that it is God's purpose to conform us the image of Jesus Christ fully confess that it is our desire as new believers in Christ that the Holy Spirit of God within us places within us a desire for that interior renewal to live in godliness and to live in such a way that honors and glorifies Christ and to do good works in the name of Christ because this is what we have been predestined unto according to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10, but that is not the whole issue and the real issue that you have to deal with.

Of course is first of all making sure that the sounds turned off even though your phone still charging not sure why the battery went down so fast. So anyway, sorry about that. Specifically, we need to see that even by the way, this is put, you know, it might be helpful for the guys at Catholic answers to do a little more interaction with people outside their their their circle because just to put it that way, but Protestants argue the Bible contradicts this idea of interior renewal.

No, we don't. That that is a horrific misrepresentation of our position a view commonly referred to as metaphysical righteousness or ontological rights righteousness labels that signify how God's justifying grace transforms the soul and gives an objective holiness that was not there before.

Now again, God does conform us the image of Christ. God is making us holy. However, and here's another one of the major differences between biblical teaching and Roman Catholic teaching and that is the grounds of our acceptance before God is not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us.

This is a fundamental difference and you could truly argue, I think, properly that the entire sacramental system can only exist because this error, this soteriological error exists. That is when you do what Rome does and basically say you go to heaven because you are pleasing to God because you yourself God has infused grace into you.

He's made you pleasing before you. That's why you before him. That's why you go to heaven. That's why there's a place called purgatory, for example, because you may still be pleasing to God, but you have temporal punishments of sin upon your soul.

And so therefore there needs to be a place, a mechanism of cleansing before entering into the presence of God. Well, again, that means that the basis of your entrance into God's presence is your own personal holiness, your own righteousness, and it is not the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And so the very basis of your relationship to God is fundamentally different between classical Roman Catholic teaching. And again, when dealing with this type of stuff, we're dealing with Roman Catholics who still believe that what the church teaches is true and unchanging.

There are many Roman Catholics that don't think any of this stuff is overly relevant anymore. And it's not difficult for us to go, man, in light of what the Pope said, that little boy, how relevant is most of this stuff?

I mean, if you can have an atheist who himself was never baptized, was never put in a state of grace, who from any historical perspective in Roman Catholic theology, from Innocent III to John Paul II, would have been seen as someone who was fundamentally in opposition to God and his purposes and therefore under God's wrath.

Now, all of a sudden, if that person can have eternal life solely based upon having superstitiously had his children baptized, everything's up in the air. It's hard to even see how to keep all this together and call it one religious movement.

It's not. This idea of unity, not there. Anyway, so he goes on to say, for example, Paul teaches in Romans 4 .3 that when Abram believed God, it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Paul then says in verse 5, and to one who does not work, but trust him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.

For Protestants, these verses show that rather than God infusing righteousness into a person's soul, making it righteous, God merely—always catch this, it's part of the misrepresentation of Rome—very few Roman Catholic apologists have any serious understanding, especially of Reformed theology.

But it's almost like they take special classes to twist things as they represent things. And it's been the way Catholic Answers has done things from the days of Carl Keating. And we've pointed this out, literally, for decades.

I mean, you can go online. We're working on getting all the old, old, old stuff available in a better way through the search engine. You go back to stuff we were writing a long time ago, and we're documenting these kinds of errors on—very same errors.

Catholic Answers just keeps making them over and over again. They don't refute the refutation. They just ignore the refutation. So, God merely reckons a person righteousness as a judge might legally declare the accused not guilty.

No, of course not. That's not even close. I mean, I'm sorry, Carlo, you're a really nice guy, but you are a horrific representative of other perspectives. It's almost like you're on the Dean Show, and you're bringing on the people that just don't give the best presentations at all of the other side.

It would really do you good to start doing some debates. It really would. Find out what's really out there. God doesn't merely reckon a person righteousness. He imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to them.

It is Christ's righteousness by which they stand before God. He goes on, It doesn't make the person truly innocent on the inside. It merely puts him in right relationship with the law. In the case of the sinner, Protestants argue, God simply no longer holds the sinner condemned by the law.

There is a change in the sinner's relationship with God, but not a change in the sinner himself. How you can even pretend to try to represent the Protestant position here without even making reference to the righteousness of Christ, I can't begin to understand.

This is horrible. Just very surface level, and does not show a meaningful understanding of the topic at all. And so having given this surface level, shallow representation, He says, what are we to make of this Protestant challenge?

Here's a few ways that we can meet it. Well, let's see how Carlo meets a poorly represented challenge to begin with. First, just because the Bible uses the language of God reckoning a person is righteous, it doesn't follow there is no ontological transformation, a change in what the sinner is.

There is no reason why God's declaration of our righteousness and our transformation by grace must be mutually exclusive. The two can be harmonized. Well, again, if he had accurately represented the Protestant position, and that is the biblical position, and that is that the righteousness that we're speaking of here, that is the believer's possession, is the righteousness of Christ, that changes everything.

We're talking about substitution. We're talking about our sins being imputed to the sin bearer. His perfect righteousness being imputed to us. So now all this sacramental increase of the grace of righteousness and all the rest of that stuff, you're increasing Christ's righteousness?

You're making it better? What are you talking about? See, it wouldn't make any sense if they were actually responding to what it is that we're actually saying and what Paul was actually arguing. For example, God says in Isaiah 55, 11, that his word shall not return to him empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the things for which I sent it.

God's word brings about the effect that he declares his word to bring about. This is manifest in God's declaration, let there be light. What his declaration signifies, light is made actual. Similar in the Catholic view, God reckons or declares us righteous, but that declaration affects what the declaration signifies.

Namely, our objective metaphysical righteousness. It makes us actually righteous, just like his declaration for there to be light actually made light actually exist. This is why we believe with St. Paul that anyone who's in Christ is a new creation.

Ah! And here is where the problem comes in. As soon as you go to 2 Corinthians 5, the wheels fall off. And that's why, again, debating Carlo would be wonderful in the cross-examination period because we'd get to focus upon this.

But 2 Corinthians 5 is not where you want to go. Why is that? Well, because he's going to try to get around the meaning of legitimae, to reckon or to impute, in the second challenge. Well, actually, the very next paragraph, actually.

2 Corinthians 5 is just simply one of the best places to go to demonstrate what the biblical teaching here is. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.

And all these things are from God, the one who's reconciled us to himself through Christ Jesus and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Specifically, that God was, by means of Christ, by the way.

That's the best way of understanding that. It's not a locative of space. It's by means of Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Not what? Logizaminos. Not imputing or counting their trespasses against them.

So, this is a text that utilizes the term logizamai. And it does so in regards to reconciliation and sins. And that's the context that Paul is speaking of. And as ministers of reconciliation, they beg you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

And then we have the great exchange passage. Now, just quickly, I realize that some of you out there are real big N .T. Wright fans. N .T. Wright's a brilliant guy. But, the problem is, there are certain verses that N .T. Wright has to read in an extremely unnatural fashion to shoehorn his doctrine of justification into Paul.

And this is one of them. He has to limit this to the apostles and to the apostolic ministry. This is much wider than N .T. Wright's understanding of it. The one not knowing sin, in behalf of us, he made sin.

In order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Here is the great exchange. Here is how sin is dealt with. Here is the imputation. This is in the context of reconciliation. This is salvific text, etc. etc.

Here you have the description of Christ as the one not knowing sin. And he is made sin in our behalf. There you have substitutionary atonement. There you have the whole purpose of a people being in Christ.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf. In order that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Not that he by some divine fiat will just simply say, Be, and we are, and we are changed into something that is righteous and is therefore pleasing to God and will go to heaven because we are pleasing to God.

No, there is an exchange here. What does it mean that Christ was made sin? Was there an ontological change in the Son of God that actually turned him into sin? Or did the Father deal with the Son as a perfect substitute and therefore reckon him, logizimai him, as our substitute in our place?

You see, if you want to follow Broussard's argument here, or the general Roman Catholic argument here, then Christ must have been ontologically turned into something that was evil. There's some serious theological problems there.

Because the other side is, we might have made the righteousness of God in him. And if you're trying to say, what that means is, we are changed. That this is sanctification. This is our being internally changed.

Grace is infused into us. Our soul is made pleasing to God. Well then, evil must have been infused into Jesus. And he must have been turned into something that was evil. But no one suggests that. No one should suggest that.

And so, when we look at the two sides here, what we understand then is that we are made the righteousness of God in him. Because our sins have been imputed to Christ. That's what Romans 4 is all about.

So, there you have the language from the text. Alright, going back to the article. Well, the Catholic view is correct is another question, but at least the idea that God reckons us righteous is not mutually exclusive from God making us righteous.

If he was presenting the Protestant position, which has as its central affirmation the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, then this entire article wouldn't have been written. It is horribly deficient on that level.

And as such, just misses the boat over and over again. As such, Romans 4, 3 -5 poses no threat to the Catholic view of justification. Well, you know, when someone says, and so that one over there doesn't really, that's not any problem for us.

You might want to go look at it because it probably is. And it is. Let's see why. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, Genesis 15 -6. And then you have in verses 4 -5.

And by the way, I know we've gone over this a thousand times before. I've got an entire book written, wow, almost a decade and a half ago now. It came out in 2004. The God Who Justifies. That goes through this and we've done it in debates.

I realize that, but the audience is growing all the time. Thanks be to the Lord. And these are basic fundamental things. And you know what? The great confidence that I have is that when I speak to Roman Catholics, I know that their gospel does not bring peace.

Now, if for anybody, a secularist, a Buddhist, a Muslim, it doesn't matter. If the Spirit of God is not bringing conviction of sin, I'm talking to the wind. But when that conviction comes, then the same gospel message that we've been proclaiming all along is what the Holy Spirit of God will use to bring peace to people.

And so we can just keep going back to these texts and we can keep explaining this and yeah, there's going to be people that go, no, no, no, and they're satisfied in their self-righteousness and there's nothing you can do about that.

But for the others, there's nothing that the other side can do to keep them from seeing the beautiful truths of what the gospel is all about. And that's why we're focusing upon these things. So, what does it mean that Scripture, when the Scripture says it was credited to him as righteousness?

Well, verse 4. Now, the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. So, you don't necessarily see what's there, but when you put verses 4 and 5 in parallel to one another, just write them out right underneath one another, they start off with the identical words, except for one.

To the working one, verse 4, hamestos, which means the wage, is not lagedzitai, reckoned, same word we were talking about before, is not reckoned, katakarin, according to grace as a gift, but according to debt.

So, if you work with expectation of receiving something from God, then what you get is not a gift, it is not reckoned as grace, it is instead something that is owed to you. It is a debt. He's using standard terminology here.

Mestos, normal word for wages, aphilim, a regular word for what is owed to you. These are words that anyone active in commerce or business or anything would have known about. Anybody who did trading, that's pretty much everybody back then.

You had to sell your little farm goods. But verse 5, but to the not working one, so it's the exact same as the beginning of verse 4, you put the word not in. To the not working one, but believing upon the one justifying the ungodly, his faith is logizitai, reckoned, imputed, as righteousness.

And so there is a completely different attitude that brings one righteousness, and it's the non-working one, not the working one. Not the one doing things in expectation of receiving something, but over against that, the empty hand of faith that looks away from oneself, looks to the sufficiency of God in Jesus Christ.

It's that empty hand of faith that is the one that receives righteousness. And then kathaper, just as, and so this is his saying, this isn't something new with just me, this is just as David speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God logizitai, it's logizimai, it's reckoning, imputing, reckons or imputes righteousness, chorus, ergo, without works, apart from works.

So this, there's a blessing upon a man to whom God imputes righteousness outside of works. And that's not just mosaic law. You know, Rome tries to get around this problem today by saying, all that means is apart from the mosaic law or anything like that.

That's not even what David's going to say here in the citation. But when he does cite this, notice something. I mean, if you were a Jewish apologist, and it's interesting, Rome frequently has to borrow Jewish apologetics at this point, because they don't believe, they just simply are not teaching what Paul taught.

Their tradition precludes them from being able to do so. But if you were a Jewish apologist, you might go, well, that's not what Romans, that's not what Paul was talking about in Psalm 32, in our reckoning of the Psalter.

Because, look at what it says. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered over. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will never. It's ummeh, it's a strong negation.

The Lord will never lagesetai, future form of lagesetai, will not impute sin. Now, was Paul misinterpreting something here, or can we see by his interpretation something that's really important that Rome has missed?

Notice Paul's citing this as evidence of what he just said about David. David spoke about what? The blessing, and that's the same term, Makarismon in verse 6, Makarioi verse 7, Makarios verse 8, so that's where the connection is.

The blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works. That's the positive aspect, and then he gives as evidence of this from the Psalter the negative aspect which is the forgiveness of sins, the covering over of the forgiveness of lawless deeds, the covering over of sins, and then verse 8 then you still have the same term, lagesetai and what it says is blesses the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

So that's one aspect that's a in a sense a positive thing, but it's a non-imputation fulfilling Paul's interpretation that that is the positive affirmation of the positive imputation of righteousness apart from, separate from works of obedience.

Chorus Ergon. Because remember the whole issue of Ergon goes back to Abraham and he's going to make the argument a little bit in just a few verses. How is this righteousness imputed to Abraham before or after circumcision?

It's before. And so this has to be the Genesis 15 incident because that takes place before the giving of the covenant of circumcision. So is Romans 4 4 -5 and actually all the way through 8 contradictory to the Roman Catholic view of justification?

Oh, it most definitely is. It most definitely is. Most definitely is. Going a lot longer in this than I expected to. So I'm not did you I didn't know why you were wearing that. Oh, okay. Alright. I want to press on with this.

I want to provide a full response to this. I hope you don't mind. This is sort of important gospel stuff. There are some other stuff I want to get to, but we'll just see. I only have a certain amount of time.

I've got something I've got to record after the program today. So I may have to put a few things off. A second way to meet this challenge is to point out that the Greek word for reckon, legitimi, actually serves the Catholic view of justification.

Okay, this is a real stretch now. Paul was well aware of this term and used it quite frequently. And when he did so he used it in the sense of making a mental evaluation or calculation about something having a certain quality.

You can always tell I'm sorry, Carlos. You can always tell when someone does not do much in the way of New Testament studies. Because legitimi does have a wide semantic domain. It can be used in that particular sense.

But please don't try to tell me that that's what's being used in Romans 4 or 2 Corinthians 5, which we were just looking at. This is such a transparent attempt to insert a completely different realm of usage into these texts where you have very specific language and you have specific groups being used together.

Not only the dikaioh terms but you have sin and you have the noun form, dikaiosune, you have righteousness, you have reconciliation all of these things. And that's not the same thing as these more broad uses of legitimi.

This is a very poor attempt to empty a word of specific meaning by making reference to other places where it's used without that specific meaning. That would be like pointing out that logos can mean a lot of different things and therefore John 1 1 can't really mean that the logos that eternally existed in the very form of God.

So consider for example Romans 4 8, which is where we just were, where Paul quotes Psalm 32 2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon, Greek legitimi, his sin. David wrote these words in the context of having confessed his abominable sins of murder and adultery for which he was forgiven.

He writes in verse 5 of the same psalm, I acknowledged my sin to thee, I did not hide my iniquity, I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. For David this is why God didn't reckon his sin.

Now stop right there and recognize once again how often Rome has to argue against Paul. Rome has to argue against Paul. Rome does not teach Paul's doctrine of justification. It can't as long as it remains faithful to Trent.

Like I said, I know a lot of leadership in the church, this is irrelevant anymore. This whole area of dialogue and debate is irrelevant anymore. I get it, but we still have to deal with folks like this.

We still have to deal with folks who take seriously for some reason they take seriously what Rome has taught in the past, even though the current leadership of Rome doesn't. Which in and of itself is confusing, but we just have to pray.

When Rome tries to get around Paul's teaching they always end up destroying Paul's own arguments. I think sometimes they're not even aware they're doing this because they don't think about what Paul was arguing against.

It's sort of like when JWs try to interpret Colossians chapter 1, the term prototokos there, and try to turn Jesus into a creation. They don't realize that if that's what Paul had been saying, then he was actually in agreement with the Gnostics and not arguing against the Gnostics.

He'd be cutting the ground out from underneath his own argument and they don't know that. They're ignorant of that. Many Roman Catholics, I think, not recognizing what the issues were with the Judaizers and things like that will end up coming up with ways of interpreting Paul that turn him into a self-contradictory guy.

That's the problem. What Paul is illustrating in Romans 4, 8 remember we looked at? It's interpreted for us by verse 6. Verse 6 tells us what the positive affirmation is and that is that God reckons righteousness apart from works.

So, all your sacramental forgivenesses and all the rest of that kind of stuff, Paul says, no. God the blessings upon a man to whom God reckons righteousness chorus ergo apart from works. That's the point of Romans 4, 7 -8.

Now, if you want to go back to Psalm 32 and say, well, later on it says this and therefore it must mean this up here. Who are you arguing against? You're arguing against Paul. You're saying he misinterpreted Psalm 32.

Had a guy on Twitter do that today. You are arguing against the apostolic interpretation in the name of alleged apostolic tradition, which tells you which one's really apostolic, huh? It ain't the tradition.

It is sad to hear people in their zeal cutting the ground out from underneath Paul himself. It just strikes me that if these individuals did broader exegetical work, if they responded to some other issues and things like that, they might start seeing the arguments I use over here don't seem to work over there and yeah, that's a major problem.

But God's forgiveness of David's sins was not merely a legal declaration without some existential effect on David. To the contrary, David describes God's forgiveness of his sins as being made clean and whiter than snow.

And herein lies the key to God no longer reckoning David's sin. The objective guilt of those sins had been removed. God's reckoning was an evaluation that correctly corresponded to the objective reality of that which was being reckoned.