Radio Free Geneva: Augustine and the Early Church, then John Lennox and John 6

Augustine, Church History, and the Influence of Controversy

You literally hear people that are Calvinist harp on this.

Bwaah! Bwaah! God's suffering! God's suffering! Bwaah! Suffering! Suffering! Suffering!

They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a Biblical truth.

Inside the tomb of Lazarus, she says, Lazarus, come out! And Lazarus said, I can't. I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. Do you mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ?

For still our age and for...

And then you take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin. It shows in this kind of sequential format.

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things? Um, no.

New Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

Verse like that to him, you know what it would sound like if he were listening to it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't make any sense to him.

A self-righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk.

You need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism. Now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge.

Don't, uh, beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

You're not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat. There's a reason to have the choice of that meat.

From our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Safe from all those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

Ladies, welcome to Radio Free Geneva. We have much to get to today. There's always a ton of stuff you can do on Radio Free Geneva. People always ask, what is Radio Free Geneva? I don't know when we started, it was quite some time ago.

We respond to, well, there's three categories of objections to Reformed theology you can respond to. You can respond to the really good stuff, which is fairly rare as far as it being expressed. You can respond to the most popular stuff, and then you can respond to the really, really bad stuff.

Unfortunately, the really popular stuff and the really, really bad stuff are frequently pretty much mixed up with one another. So, we take the opportunity to respond to attacks upon the freedom of God to save in his own revealed fashion.

We live in a very man-centered age, and the idea of confessing that God is God and we are not is not all that popular today. And so, as a result, there is much to talk about. There are, of course, those who do not believe that we ourselves are Reformed, because they expand the definition, or contract it, depending.

I mean, I've honestly said that those people who would basically say that you have to hold certain ecclesiology, a certain sacramentalism to be truly Reformed, and yet themselves, do not hold the highest expressions of God's freedom and salvation, his self-glorification, the perfection of his work in Christ, it really makes you wonder how you're defining what it means to be Reformed, to be perfectly honest with you.

But be that as it may, we don't worry ourselves too much about those folks. We want to remain focused upon what's important, and that is, there is a fundamental impact upon your worship, your belief, your ecclesiology, and, in our context, your apologetics.

If you maintain and defend the truth that God has predestined whatsoever comes to pass, as the Westminster Confession, London Baptist Confession would say, as Ephesians 1 .11 says, as Ephesians 1 says in Romans 9, and so on and so forth.

And so we do these programs every once in a while. The opening gives you an idea of some of the range of materials that we deal with. I will not be dealing today with any of the reality that certain folks at Soteriology 101 spent two and a half hours responding to 30 minutes worth of a discussion on what about those who have not heard.

The reality is that that movement is spinning faster and faster and faster off into full blown unquestioned Pelagianism, and you have to sit back and actually need to take a few steps back so when it explodes you don't get any Pelagian goo on you, because it's just going to go everywhere.

And Pelagian goo on... Don't get Pelagian goo on you! There's a meme, there's a meme. Don't get Pelagian goo on you! It's sort of like Ghostbusters, you know, when they would zap those things and that's what happens when you go full bore Pelagian.

But hey, you know, once you've gotten to the point of saying, hey, you don't even need... You know, we've often criticized, actually made fun of, the Arminian concept of prevenient grace as the equivalent of theological scotch tape.

I've told a story about how when I was a kid, patience has never been my strong suit. Some people say, really? In debates? Evidently, what happened was God knew that I was going to be doing debates. I didn't know that when I was a kid, that I was going to be doing debates.

And so he had me save up all my patience for use in later life, and I didn't have it when I was a kid, trust me. So I would make these plastic models. Remember plastic models? Doesn't anybody do that anymore?

Sad. This was before video games and things like that. I made model rockets, and then I'd also make plastic models. But I couldn't... I wasn't patient enough to let the glue dry. And so I'd put scotch tape on it, hold it together.

That did not work very well. Did not work very well. So we've called Prevenient Grace the theological scotch tape. Hey, when you get to the point where you don't even need that, I mean, where you're actually criticizing the Armenians for affirming the concept of Prevenient Grace, that's...

You're really getting out there. You're getting out there fast. So that's there, but we're not going to be going there. I want to start with some real general comments on the subject of Augustine, and then transition into a much more textually based discussion based on John chapter six.

I'm going to be looking at John Lennox's ninth chapter. Just go look at chapter nine. I have it up in Kindle. We'll put it up on the screen along with the biblical text next to it. And we're just going to walk through the chapter and deal with the argumentation that Dr. Lennox provides there.

But before we do that, I would doubt, honestly, that these recordings still exist, or if they do, they're on a cassette tape someplace or who knows. But I remember... When would this have been? Mid -90s, I think.

I was at a conference someplace. I remember what the room looked like, but I can tell you I've only been in that room once, so I don't remember where it was. I think it was in Arizona. And I gave a presentation on what we can learn from the internal contradictions of the great Augustine.

And basically the outline was I was teaching church history. So this was... Now that I think about it, I'm pretty certain I was a scholar in residence at Grand Canyon University for a couple of years.

I think it was during that time period, because I seem to recall my mind's making a connection between what I was teaching at that time and this presentation. So anyway, I basically attempted to help people to understand that we are all influenced by not only those who came before us, but also by, and especially by, the current controversies that we are engaged with or that are engaging the people around us.

Sometimes we're dragged into things that we don't necessarily want to be dragged into. And of course, I recognize that I couldn't have known at that time how social media would broaden the applications of these thoughts, as well as in some ways, cheapen them.

But my desire was to help people understand that there are many influences that determine how we do theology and the conclusions we come to. And we need to be aware of the fact that the language that we use has been formed and shaped over time.

The more we know about the influences that shaped our theological language and the parameters of the meanings of words, the more we're in a situation to be able to analyze in a meaningful fashion how biblical our expressions really are.

The less we know, then the less tools, in essence, we have in our hands to be able to go, well, you know, am I really seeking to live in the light of, apply, and honor solo scriptura, the sufficiency of scripture?

Many people in the history of theology did their work without that desire. That's something you need to keep in mind. And the number of people today who have a sufficiently high view of scripture, in other words, a view of scripture as high as Jesus' view of scripture, is diminishing in Western culture.

I don't think it's diminishing in other cultures, which may be a blessing from God upon those other cultures. Let's just put it that way. Anyway, the more we know about those who've come before us, who have given us the tools by which to speak.

Now, there are people today, this is one of the issues with the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement, things like that, they don't recognize church history. They think they're a blank slate, it's just them and their Bible, and they don't have to even think about the history of the language they use.

And of course, they are the most controlled by tradition as a result. I remember Dave Hunt, James, I have no traditions. Well, those who think they have no traditions are the ones who are enslaved to their traditions.

We all have our traditions, and the more you are aware of them, and the more you're aware of their historical provenance, where they came from, the better position you're in to be able to recognize the influence of tradition and to filter for that tradition when you're seeking to handle the Word of God.

So with that said, what I was illustrating in talking about Augustine was that here's a man who the vast majority of church historians recognize had a massively outsized influence upon not only the theology of his day, but the next 1500 years.

And I didn't mean to say outsized in the sense of he shouldn't have had that, but I think given that he was one of the last great lights going into the medieval period, and especially difficult period very shortly, I mean, he writes about the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire, so you have the next few hundred years are going to be rough.

I think that may have something to do with how he had so much influence, is he's one of those last people before a period of rather deep darkness. But a large portion of Christendom, not so much Eastern Orthodoxy, but a large portion of Christendom has great respect for Augustine.

A large portion of Christendom has never read much of Augustine, and the reality is most modern Christians were they to read almost anything other than the Confessions would be going, because there are clearly influences in Augustine's thinking that are not overly present in ours today.

And so as a result, sometimes trying to follow his reasoning can be difficult. So probably no other early church father has been studied as much as Augustine as to what influences there were, especially in his philosophy, his Manichaeanism and the old battles against Gnosticism and all the forms of Greek philosophy prevalent in his day, which had been retooled, sometimes revived, revised.

There are lots and lots and lots of studies on these particular issues. And for most of us who are Calvinists, we go, okay, that's interesting, but I'm most interested in the biblical foundation of things.

And that's where there are some problematic issues with Augustine. He had a very, very minimal knowledge of Greek and no knowledge of Hebrew. And as a result, there is not as much of a balance in what we would be looking for.

I'm looking for someone giving me consistent, sound, compelling exegesis. And there are times when some of Augustine's most compelling theological statements are surrounded by exegesis that isn't all that compelling.

Let's be perfectly honest, sometimes you'll find a quote from Charles Spurgeon that just knocks your socks off, but it didn't really come from the text he was preaching on either. So that's happened. That's a reality with a lot of some of the greatest men.

They sort of go off on their own and say some great stuff, but it wasn't necessarily what the text was saying. But the primary thing that I focused on in that presentation, and I think I've given that presentation more than once, in fact, I know that I have, and I've talked about it in the program before, but it's been a while, is that you can see a fundamental contradiction in Augustine's writings that evidently he couldn't see.

And I've often wondered, when I'm dead and gone, not that anyone's going to care, but if someone takes the time to work through what I've written and what I've done, will the same situation prevail for me?

And obviously I don't want that, but at the same time, we live in a fallen world, got traditions, got limitations. There are things I don't agree with John Calvin, Martin Luther, Oleg Zwingli. I don't know of any theologian where I go, yep, crosses every T, dots every I exactly like I do.

And I learned a long time ago to still greatly esteem those with whom I have disagreements. That's a capacity that, evidently, social media eventually sucks out of the brain of anyone who is addicted to it.

Anyway, so I wanted to illustrate that we need to have a level of humility. If someone as universally acclaimed, as bright as Augustine could have a rather glaring contradiction right in front of him, what about us?

And so I drive the illustration from the fact that in the Reformation, both sides, of course, appealed to Augustine. You had to. Luther was an Augustinian monk. And so there was no possible way for the debates between the reformers and their Roman antagonists.

There wasn't any way for that to take place outside of an appeal to Augustine. And the reality is both sides could do so in context and appropriately. Why? I think the reason, you know, I've quoted it many times.

There's a tremendous quote from B .B. Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, who said that the Reformation inwardly considered was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church.

And I think that is a very insightful and appropriate conclusion. The Roman Catholics could quote Augustine on the doctrine of the Church, and the Protestants could quote Augustine on the doctrine of grace.

And the primary reason both could do it is that there is a fundamental contradiction between the two. Why? Because of the two great controversies that Augustine dealt with in his life. And the fact is, if you are drawn heart and soul into a great controversy, where you become convinced that God has put you in this place at this time, this is his truth, there can't be a compromise.

So, let's use somebody else's example, Athanasius, Athanasius Contramundum, Athanasius Against the World. He's kicked out of his church five times for refusing to compromise in his defense of the deity of Christ, the full deity of Christ, the Nicene Orthodoxy, even when Nicene Orthodoxy was no longer Nicene Orthodoxy.

And we honor him because of that today. We go, hey, here is a guy who just wouldn't give up. And, but no one's going to tell me that having that battle for so long did not fundamentally influence Athanasius' entire theological outlook.

When you are pulling on a rope for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it's hard to stand up straight afterwards. You know what I mean? Ever played tug of war? And you're pulling and you're pulling and you're pulling.

And then you try to stand up straight afterwards, and it's a little difficult because your muscles have become accustomed to a different slant on things. That is a danger for all of us. It really is. I mean, we live in a day where there are certain attacks that come against the faith.

And as a result, the danger is that we will become imbalanced in our handling the Word of God because we're constantly having to deal with objections to these things, but not to their opposites. And so what happens with Augustine is he has two great battles that he has to fight.

The first battle, the earlier battle at the end of the fourth century, which is formative for his view of the Church, is the Donatist controversy. You'd had the earlier Novatian schism, and then you had the Donatist schism, and during Augustine's day, there is a gathering of the people that he's in opposition to.

They have 700 bishops. That's a lot of churches in North Africa that have split off from Catholic Christianity, as it would be called, kata halos, according to the whole. And it all had to do with sacramentalism.

It all had to do with the doctrine of the Church. It all had to do with what had happened during persecution. It's an excellent story. I'm not going to take the time to do it today, but it's an excellent story to go back and talk about what happened in regards to the ordination of a bishop.

And one of the bishops that ordained him was said to have been a tratator, a person who gave up the Christian scriptures. And so an ordination he would do would not be correct, and so they couldn't follow that individual or anybody he ordained afterwards.

And so it was focused upon the efficacy of sacraments. I mean, when you set aside a bishop, this was considered to be a sacramental act. And therefore, if one of the people engaging in the sacramental act is himself an apostate, then the act that he would engage in would not be considered valid, or would it?

That became the argument. And from this, we have the two terms ex opera operanti and ex opera operato. And so the Donatists believe in ex opera operanti. The one performing the operation operanti has to be in the state of grace, or the sacrament's invalid.

Whereas, ex opera operato is the action itself, the operation itself, contains the authority, not the person performing it. So the eventual understanding of ex opera operato sacramentalism, as initially championed by Augustine against the Donatists, he inherited this.

He wasn't around when it started. He inherited this battle. And so he finds himself in a position of authority. He's now got to deal with it. It's the old, you gotta deal with the cards you've been dealt.

He was dealt a controversy regarding the nature of the church, regarding sacramentalism. And so he defended ex opera operato, ex opera operato, and it would become the Orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church, and would eventually lead to the idea that a Buddhist can baptize you properly, as long as he does so in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now I find that absurd. I argue against any form of ex opera operato sacramentalism. The gospel is the power of God and the salvation, not the forms of sacraments. And when you confuse the forms of sacraments with the gospel itself, you've completely lost what's going on.

But this was central to Augustine's experience. It was the letters he was writing and everything else. This was what he was fighting in the early part of his ministry. And Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation could rightly, and in context, quote him on their side in issues of church authority, sacramentalism, even though he certainly didn't have the full seven sacraments that Rome eventually came up with.

But they could quote him. So what's the problem? Well, because the Protestants quoted him all the time too, on all sorts of things, not just Calvin quoting him in regards to predestination and election.

And they could quote him in regards to grace and the nature of grace. They couldn't quote him quite as well on justification, because he had one fundamental misunderstanding in his mind. Because he didn't know Greek and he was based upon the Latin understanding of justificare rather than the dikaio word group in Greek, we would not consider him to be exactly on board with us.

Now we would like to sit there and go, well, if we had a chance to correct his misapprehensions, well, maybe, but that's what dealing with theology in church history is all about. That's the problem, is we can't sit down with him.

I'd love to think that if I could sit down with Calvin and actually have a meaningful conversation and remove him from the context of having lived during Munster, because Munster poisoned his mind against even listening to what anyone who would have Baptist anywhere in their designation cannot listen to them, cannot hear what they're saying, just can't do it.

I'd love to think that if we could do that, we could sit down, we could have an interesting conversation, but that's for heaven. That's not this life. That's not going to happen in this life. And so the same thing with Augustine.

So we have to recognize where the problems came from. He accepted the Apocryphal Books. He thought they were part of the Hebrew canon. He was wrong. He didn't read Hebrew. He didn't have access like Jerome did to the Jews in the Holy Lands.

And so we have to be able to look at someone and go, I disagree with this, this, and this. This is why they believe this. This is why I believe that. And yet still greatly appreciate not only the influence they had historically, but how they themselves were influenced.

Augustine was influenced in the first place by the Donatist controversy, the schisms in North Africa. And then his second great battle was against Pelagius. And so he is battling against someone who is making each person a new Adam.

And so he is defending the freedom of grace. Now there is a book that I just recorded. It's not very long. I had seen a number of people referring to it months back. It's not a subject of any of the debates I have coming up over the next number of months.

And I have a number of them. We're working on a debate in August right now that a lot of you are going to find very, very interesting with a well-known atheist. But Doug Wilson and I are debating on paedo-communion and paedo-baptism.

We've got the dialogue at BYU. We're working on a debate up there in Salt Lake on are ethics possible without God? And with humanist scholars. And none of this has anything to do with this particular subject.

And there's just only so many subjects that you can address in a meaningful way in a short period of time. And so I just didn't have it on the list. But since it is making more and more of an impact, I'm going to work through it probably on my rides this weekend.

Because like I said, it was only 145 pages. And once it was recorded, it was only like three hours or something like that, maybe four. I don't remember. I'll have to look at the sound file. But that's a Friday-Saturday ride easy right there.

Well, last Friday, I would have gotten it done in a single ride. Anyway. Oh, I mentioned that, and I'm sure someone will talk about that on a blog post someplace very soon. Happens all the time. Anyway.

And so the work is the work is specifically anti-reformed. It says so in the opening. It says so. I read the introduction. Its intention is to argue against Calvinism, which I found a little bit interesting because it was being promoted as this super scholarly thing rather than having a particular agenda to it.

And one of the things that immediately caught me and so let me back up. What I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you right now what I expect to encounter. And then once I read it, I can tell you whether I was completely on or completely off.

Of course, like I said, I read the prologue, so I have some idea. But the standard argumentation that reformed scholars have been dealing with for, well, since the Reformation, is that you have a strong emphasis in the early writers of Christianity upon the freedom of the will.

So if you want to see how this plays out, read Erasmus and Luther. They knew it. This was this is not something new in any way, shape or form. And of course, I went to a non-reformed seminary, but I had a really good church history professor and I started reading church history immediately thanks to him.

And so I have always, I guess, assumed that everyone else was aware of the fact that the issues of soteriology are not the fundamental focus of the first four centuries of the Christian faith in the most popular writings that have come down to us.

Remember, there's all sorts of stuff that did not come down to us. For example, the first full treatise on the atonement is in the fourth century. It's not that the atonement hasn't been referenced, it's that the atonement has not been systematically dealt with.

And when it is dealt with, it's dealt with in very unbiblical categories. And so when people want to find something in the early church writings, you can find it. I mean, if you read the Epistle of Barnabas, which is not the Gospel of Barnabas, two different things, Gospel of Barnabas, medieval forgery, Epistle of Barnabas actually in the second century.

When you look at books of the Shepherd of Hermas, and these were popular amongst some Christians in the second century, deeply sub-biblical, deeply sub-biblical. And people go, wait a minute, they were closer to the apostles than you are.

But they didn't have a completed canon. Some of them barely had any access to the Old Testament. A lot of these people are literally running on about one fiftieth of what we have when we hold a Bible in our hands.

So, there's a lot of bad stuff in the early church, there really is. And there are, and again, you look at these writers, historically, you learn to appreciate the good and filter out the bad. And when it comes to satirological issues, you find that Greek philosophy and those forms of Greek philosophy that specifically emphasize the ability of man, or let's put it this way, that specifically emphasize the lack of a divine decree, which then determines human autonomy.

Vastly prevalent. But here's the problem. I started reading this book, and the first thing that it talked about was the universal perspective of the church prior to Augustine. There is no such thing. There is one thing that is universal in the church for Augustine, monotheism.

That's it. That's it. I'm sorry. I know this guy is well-read, Oxford and everything else, though I'm not sure these days that's quite as important as it once was. But that is a major, major overreach.

It's a major overreach for a number of reasons. It's a major overreach because there's so much we do not have from the early church. I would love to have the rest of the epistle of Mathetes, that simply means the disciple, to Diognetius, which is so rich in Pauline theology, but we only have a portion of it.

Did he address these issues elsewhere? Would that not have ended the quote-unquote universal consensus on free will? Of course it would have if it was there. We don't have it. So as soon as someone talks about some universal consensus in the early church, I know they're not being fair.

They're going for something. They're going for an agenda. So if you ever hear anybody saying that the universal perspective of the early church was in support of Calvinism, well, they're just as wrong.

That's just playing with early church history. Just... Is there a majority, a majoritarian influence of a Greek philosophical perspective in regards to some form of human autonomy? Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Are there in-depth, exegetically-based discussions of this that deal with the important texts, especially, and here's the key, as those important texts are found in harmony with the Old Testament revelation of the God of Israel?

No, not that I'm aware of. Not that I'm aware of. So in other words, one of the great negative developments... I was not going to go this long on this. I was going to do about 10 minutes. One of the great negative developments in the early church was the disconnection, not only physically, but mentally and knowledge-wise between the church and the synagogue.

So that beliefs like Origen's destruction of the Old Testament text, his allegorical reading, which is really based upon a view of the Old Testament text as having significantly less authority and relevance to the church than the New Testament writers viewed it, could arise.

And I believe one of the greatest powers of Reformed theology is that it took shape at a time when that early and medieval... If you want something that even becomes a consensus in the medieval period, you've got that diminishment of Old Testament authority and Old Testament teaching.

That's being overthrown at the time of the Reformation, and that's wonderful. Because to me, the God who chooses Israel and brings Israel into the Promised Land and promises to bless the nations through this little nation that finds itself constantly caught between global powers, between Egypt and Babylon and Assyria and all the rest, that God says, I'm accomplishing a purpose, and I'm going to accomplish that purpose in bringing the Messiah into the world in a particular place at a particular time.

You cannot make heads or tails out of a meaningful reading of the Old Testament if you do not believe in God's sovereignty. You can't. And the early writers, the New Testament writers, I should say, the writers of the New Testament, are fully on board with this.

This is what is behind everything they say. That is not the background of Greek philosophy. That's not Justin Martyr's background. Justin Martyr knows the Old Testament. He has to because he's dialoguing with Trifo the Jew.

But he's still more deeply influenced by Plato and Socrates than he is by Moses. And that's true with Tertullian. That's true with many of the apologists are having to deal with Greek objections, and so they tend to go that direction.

It's really not until Augustine that you have a belief arising that requires you to bring different threads together soteriologically in a unique context. The Church has been focused upon Christological issues, Trinitarian issues, all the rest of that stuff, and that's still ongoing.

I mean, Chalcedon is still in the future at that point. But that's where the energy has been. And with Pelagius, you have a shift that requires new thought that has not yet thoroughly been vetted. And so as a result, my understanding is that what this book presents is that Augustine broke with a consensus, which evidently would mean that's the view of the apostles, which of course could only be established exegetically, not by anything else.

He broke that consensus. And my guess is going to be this had to do with Manichaean influences or various philosophical influences. And of course, everyone, Athanasius, Justin, Tertullian, you start going through the big names.

They are all deeply influenced by a muddled, muddled Greek philosophy. You can find, I mean, you can have human autonomy in Greek philosophy, but if you have multiple gods, what does that mean? And when a god overrides a human decision, that's not a divine decree that establishes the framework of time.

I mean, Greek philosophy just didn't even have what you can derive from reading Isaiah to be able to be a foundation upon which to build anything. That just needs to be understood. And so I'm hoping, this book may not even try to do the biblical thing.

And let's put it this way. If you are reformed because of historical figures, you're reformed for the wrong reasons. If you're reformed because of Augustine, if you're reformed because of Gottschalk, fascinating fellow, read up on him.

But because of Gottschalk or Luther or Calvin or Zwingli or the Westminster divines or whatever, that is not going to be a sufficient reason. The only reason to be reformed is if you are truly convinced, A, I keep reaching back here, and I keep grabbing my first really super, it still moves.

I mean, what's the date on this one? This is my, it's a Schofield, believe it or not, 1979. So 40, 41 years, and it's, and that's in great shape. This is, this was, this is an Oxford. This is, yeah, God's word.

Yeah, God's word. This was, this was the one I read through for the first time, you know. So obviously back then my eyes were much better than they are now. Um, if you don't believe that this is a divine revelation that is consistent with itself, not on a surface level, but on a deep thematic, revelational level that no human being will ever fully plumb the depths of in this life, then I don't think there's any reason for you to be reformed.

Because what have I said all along? If you apply the same standards of exegesis and hermeneutics to the text of the Bible, that we apply on the deity of Christ, monotheism, resurrection, whatever else, to the key soteriological passages, to the passages that talk about our relationship to God, his purposes and redemption, everything else, I believe you will be reformed.

If you don't believe that, there's, I don't believe there's any reason to be reformed. Just like I don't believe there's any reason to be a Trinitarian for that matter, if you do not have that view of scripture.

So we'll see. I'll report hopefully next week. I mean, something could come up. I could get sick. I get run over by a truck. Um, who knows? Um, Rich could be sitting here next week. Um, and he's, he's jonesing to do it.

I'm, I can, I can just tell he's, he just like, he's sitting, he's sitting out there going, I could have done all that. Man is boring, right? No, you're actually listening. You're enjoying that church history lesson.

I love, I love, I love church history lessons. They're, they're fun. They're, they're a lot of fun. Uh, we have my screen. I hope good. Uh, because I, I set it up just to do this. Um, I have mentioned a couple of times, um, move this over here.

There, uh, that I wanted to look at John Lennox's Dr. Lennox's book. Now, may I start off by saying, I believe John Lennox is, uh, uh, a servant of Jesus Christ. He's a brother in the Lord. Um, and I pray for his health and God's blessings upon him.

Okay. Can, can we, can we say from the start that we can disagree with someone? We can believe that someone, I think in this instance, you have another follower of Jesus who I believe is influenced by a certain set of presuppositions that very frequently are derived from philosophical considerations.

Um, and that those drive the exegesis in such a way that it doesn't remain consistent exegesis and that that does not mean you're not a Christian. In fact, I'm going to be doing iron sharpens iron in a couple hours, uh, with Chris Aronson.

And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the sunny Hernandez's of the world, um, who basically promote a form of theological perfectionism, uh, to be a Christian, you have to believe this massively expanded, not just the core, but you have to be, I mean, you have to believe in limited atonement, you know, and boom, boom, boom.

And we're going to talk about how that would have resulted in the fact that there weren't any Christians for about at least 1500 years, um, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, but they were there secretly though, uh, living somewhere in a cave, but anyhow, um, so we are not taking that perspective, but at the same time, we do not buy into the spirit of the age, which says that, Hey, if John Lennox does great stuff, then you shouldn't ever criticize him.

You shouldn't ever respond to what he puts in print. Well, what he's put in print is an exact contradiction to what I've put in print. So what do you do? Well, some people would say, and I say, that's not how you handle it.

Um, I'd love to see a debate. I debate John Lennox on this. You bet. Of course I go to London all the time. Easy to do. I don't think it's going to happen, but just like I've said, I debate William Lane Craig on this handy day of the year, but that ain't going to happen either.

Um, so one side's willing to go there and, and one side is not, I'm not saying we have not specifically contacted Dr. Lennox. So I'm not saying that, that he would never, ever do something like this. I just haven't gotten the feeling I've gotten sort of the William Lane Craig air as far as this particular subject.