Calvary Chapel's Pastor's Perspective

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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 good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, a little bit early today, going for a jumbo edition, just a jumbo edition for people like Ralph, who can just never be satisfied no matter how much extra we do.
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But just one of the crosses we have to bear and, you know, we know that eternity is coming when there'll be no disappointments whatsoever.
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Anyway, three subjects to get to today, that is if my audio program decides not to crash as it did just a few moments ago, right before the beginning of the program.
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I mentioned on Twitter and I also mentioned, did
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I mention on the blog? I guess I mentioned on the blog, who knows? I mentioned it in an electronic way that I was sent over an email from referencing a phone call on the
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Pastor's Perspective program. And I went ahead and took the time to download it on iTunes and take a look at what was there.
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And I did find it rather intriguing and worthy of a quick listen.
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I don't know that we're going to spend too much time on it, but I think it's rather illustrative of the kinds of responses being offered to Reformed theology out there.
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So we'll do that. And then we will get back to Harry Knox and we will also get back to Abdullah Kunda.
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And we will make little noises as we are trying to find the locations where everything is.
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And we'll get there eventually. So I think I've got everything queued up again, even though I did it only in the past last 90 seconds or something like that.
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But hopefully everything is there. So we're going to start off. This was a program from the 21st of May of this past month.
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So it wasn't all that long ago. And let's just let's dive in, take a listen to what happened.
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Hey, Don. How are you? I'm fine. How are you doing today? Good. Thank you. Okay. I had a question designed for both
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Chuck and you, but I'm just going to go ahead and go with the question in 1
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Corinthians 1 .26. Now, I'm having an extended and exhaustive discussion with a brother in the
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Lord who in simple terms basically says that the gospel is, you know,
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God has done what he's done. Right. Now it's your choice. You choose, heaven or hell. Basically, you know, your salvation is up in the air and it's your choice.
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Are you going to accept it? And I think you have that view that if that man is making the decision whether he will be saved or not.
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Yeah. Well, yes and no. God, the Holy Spirit convicts. That's the job of the
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Holy Spirit. John 14 through 16, Jesus said, I'm going away. It's necessary I go away. The Holy Spirit, the
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Comforter will come in my place. And John 16, where he tells us he will convict the world of sin for the need for Christ.
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So no one can come to the Father except for the conviction of the Holy Spirit unless the Holy Spirit draws him.
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That's very clear. But we believe God in His sovereign choice and His sovereign will has given human beings the responsibility of responding to that call.
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And so, yeah, we've got both things going on. God certainly has to call the person. God certainly has to woo them.
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But we have to respond to that. There's a personal responsibility there. So yes, we do believe that.
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Well, that's interesting that you put it that way. I mean, I understand what he's saying.
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But we just had calling and wooing made identical things.
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So that almost sounds like general call and effectual call are the same thing as the
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Southern Baptist statement. And I wish we didn't call it the traditionalist Southern Baptist statement, put it, that we talked about last week.
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And the people continue to talk about it, even Roger Olson keeps talking about it. But the confusion of the specific call and the general call that was a part of that document sounds like is present here as well.
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And I think the caller is going to bring that up. Okay, so you believe he gave that equal calling to everybody?
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Well, he gave the calling to everyone, yes. So now, notice the caller said an equal calling.
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And then Stuart says, well, the calling, yes. Well, I would love for someone to ask the question, does
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God try equally with every person? Because I think everybody,
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I don't care how advanced or non -advanced you are in your theological thinking, if you're familiar at all with the narrative of the
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Bible as a whole, you're going to go, well, obviously not.
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I mean, clearly the Jews had advantages that the
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Babylonians did not, that the Egyptians did not, that the Nigerians did not.
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And even today, there are certain nations in the world where there is much more opportunity to hear the gospel than in others.
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So it's obvious that if God's trying equally with everybody, that's not working out real well.
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And so upon what basis does he distinguish? And I think one of the reasons that maybe they don't want to go there is because no matter what, you end up with God having to choose, and once that's introduced, if that has anything to do with the final result, that doesn't work well for the synergist.
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Okay. So going down to the Scripture then. 1
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Corinthians 1 .26. Yeah, I'm looking at it. Okay.
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Right. Now, I would have suggested to the caller to continue on, even though it becomes a long section, especially on a radio program, so that no one, no one may boast before the
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Lord. Literally, it's no flesh. So that no one living may boast before the
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Lord because ex autu de humais este in Cristo, because it is out of him or by him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, or the justice has been written, let him who boasts boast in the
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Lord. So this is very, very clearly in context, talking about being in Christ Jesus, and it's very, very clearly in context, talking about how this is why we cannot boast of anyone but the
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Lord, because it's by his doing that we are in him who has become to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
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These are all, obviously, salvation words, and that's the context.
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But if you don't get that far, then you leave yourself open for, well, what happens.
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Is that God, for his purpose to confound the wise, has particularly chosen to save the weak and the foolish ones and not many of the wise and the mighty.
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So that indicates to me that this is God's sovereign choice of choosing who is going to be saved.
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So do you see what I'm seeing in this passage, that there is not a, you know, a random roll of the dice in the composition of what the
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Church is, but God seems to, you know, singularly be choosing here.
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Do you see what I'm saying? Well, I see what you're saying, Roy, but I don't see that all in the passage. God has basically, Paul's saying this, look, he's talking to the
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Corinthians there. Let's remember who they are. They are the crummy Corinthians. They are the chiefs of sinners there. You look at the composition of the
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Church, they have come to Christ. And what we're reading here is that, look, you people, he has chosen.
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You don't see the kings, many of them. And it didn't say not any, it said not many. Let's make that distinction there. Not many of noble birth, born into privileged positions, have as he chosen to do that.
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And that's just been the thing throughout history, Roy. Now, why is that the issue? It's because of pride. Proverbs 6 .16,
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six things the Lord hates, seven things are an abomination to him. A proud look is numero uno, number one.
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And so, basically, where God gets his glory, Roy, is using simple people. Not, you know, not the kings, the leaders, the presidents.
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They're not the ones for the most part. Now, there have been exceptions to that, and we thank God for them. But part of the problem is the position these people are in.
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Now, it says nothing electing to salvation. It says to confound the wise, the wisdom of the world.
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In other words, the world system is looking to people who are in leadership, looking to people who are in positions of authority.
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And what God has chosen, what God has placed in the church is anybody can come to him, anybody. Any lowly people, people who have basically no educational background, they can know
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Christ in a personal way, and they can, you know, like the twelve apostles, turn the world upside down, as it were.
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Now, as we saw, that is not an exegesis, that's an excuse, because he's ignored what follows immediately thereafter.
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It's just a matter of reading in context. Once again, demonstrates that synergists don't read in context.
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But anyway, but even then, he's still forced, even though he says, well, there's nothing here about election to salvation, he then talks about what?
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Election to salvation. There are all these people that are not in great positions and all the rest of that stuff.
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So he's even not consistent at that point. And again, if they'd just gone on, so that no flesh may boast before God.
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And this is because of pride. Wait a minute, pride isn't a part of the sinners.
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But this is God's action. Look to your calling, brethren. Just look at verse 27.
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But the foolish things of the world, God has chosen.
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That's God's action. God is the subject. He's the one performing the action of the verb.
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So are you saying that God's action was dependent upon the pride of men? That God can only do what the pride of men allowed him to do?
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I mean, it always ends up turning the text on its head. That's what synergism does.
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It always turns the text on its head and turns it upside down and makes the message the exact opposite of what it's actually seeking to communicate.
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And so that's what he's arguing here in 1 Corinthians, because we've got to, again, keep reading the whole thing in context.
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What came before, what came afterwards. What came afterwards, right? That talks about justification, sanctification.
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That's the very next part of the text. He's rebuking a church that's in sin, and he's making an observation here.
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You guys aren't the cream of the crop, as it were. God's using you to get his word out. You're preaching
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Christ and Christ alone, but it's not because of any great noble stature that you have.
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So that is his argument there in chapter 1, not choosing for salvation and ignoring the others.
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You've got some huge problems, Roy. Not choosing for salvation, but the very next two verses said, for by him, ex alto, by means of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
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It's right there. I mean, the blinders of tradition that are on the faces of the synergists is just absolutely positively an amazing thing to observe.
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If you say that God selected certain people, then salvation wouldn't be by grace through faith, as Paul says in Ephesians 2.
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It would be by God's decree, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be the case? Now, catch that. Did you catch that?
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I had never heard anyone use this objection before. I mean, it's totally vacuous. It's purely based on semantic games, but I'd never heard anyone.
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If what you're saying is true, then salvation wouldn't be by grace, it would be by decree.
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Now think through that for just a moment. What is that supposed to mean?
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What is the fundamental, flawed presupposition that is being smuggled in here that needs to be challenged?
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That there's somehow a contradiction between God's having a decree to save by his grace or some other kind of decree?
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Or no decree at all? I mean, it really makes me wonder, does the synergistic
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God have any decree? Well, he's got a plan, but it's a very vague plan.
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He's just got a general plan. Well, so if he has a plan, then salvation is by plan, not by grace. No, that's ridiculous.
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Obviously, salvation by grace means that God extends his gracious love and mercy to those who not only do not deserve that love and mercy, but actually demerit that love and mercy.
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They actually merit his wrath properly and justly. But that is descriptive of what
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God has chosen to do, the means by which he has chosen to act toward his creation to his own glory.
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But there is no contradiction. It's not, well, it's either by decree or it's by grace. Well, do you believe
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God has a plan? Yes, God has a plan. Oh, so you're contradicting it, too, because you think God has a plan, but it either has to be by a plan or by grace.
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Well, no, his plan is by grace. Oh, so your presupposition doesn't actually follow through for yourself, right?
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These kinds of trite answers are not meant to clarify the truth of the gospel.
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They are meant to confuse it. That's what bothers me when people say, well, you know, this really isn't an important issue.
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We just need to put it over to one side and we can all just get along. The problem is this is foundational.
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It absolutely defines how you're going to view God, how you're going to view evangelism, how you're going to view the church, how you're going to view worship, how you're going to view life and death and callings in the church and the inspiration of the
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Bible. It's at the ground of everything. It really does touch on everything, and you see it right here.
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Well, it's by means of faith, but that doesn't negate the possibility that God can still make the choice.
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Everybody knows and agrees we all be that repentance and faith is the action that brings us into salvation.
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Then why does he say, whosoever will may come? I didn't. And the caller is going to try to explain to the gentleman what the term whosoever means.
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He's going to go to John 3. But again, as we have said so many, many times before, the emphasis upon the biblical text, and he doesn't give us a specific text to even examine in context here.
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The caller assumes John 3 .16. I'm not really sure that that's what he was assuming.
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But he tries to explain it, and it's hard to do when you're calling into a radio show.
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I almost never do that because, look, I'm normally on this end of things, and I know that the caller is at the disadvantage no matter what.
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And so it's much better to be on a program or something like that. I understand that.
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But anyhow, let's listen to how that went. The Greek says everyone. Yeah, whoever will.
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The world that everyone believing in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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There seems to be, I read it all my life the way you're talking about, but I see the particularity side of that passage.
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Okay, let me see if I get it straight. So you believe, and, you know, a lot of people out there believe the same way, that before this world was formed, before it was created,
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God chose certain people for salvation and others for damnation. Now, here again, you get the air of equal ultimacy.
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You would think, and we've talked about these folks before, and they've made comments about things
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I've said, so you'd think that they might do some reading or at least listen a little bit.
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But it seems that synergists are content to read, well, secondary sources primarily.
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Let's put it that way. And as a result, maybe they just don't hear what we're actually saying.
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I suppose that's a possibility. But we have corrected this error many, many, many times.
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But we'll correct it again. The concept of equal ultimacy is the error that the positive decree to graciously save a people in Christ Jesus is identical in nature and identical in content to the decree of reprobation.
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That's obviously not the case. There is no extension of the powerful mercy and grace of God involved in the second act.
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It is an act of pure justice, whereas the other is an act of pure mercy and grace.
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They are two completely different things. And obviously, mercy and grace transcends justice.
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But the synergists, and the Calvary Chapel is struggling with this, it's very, very hard for them to deal with this because they're caught between a rock and a hard place.
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The more they talk about it, the more people read books about it, the more they realize that their answers don't hold any water and that they're burning straw men.
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So if they try to ignore it, then people still listen to the radio and they hear R .C. Sproul and people like that.
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And if they talk about it, then people listen to the radio and they hear people like R .C. Sproul. And since they don't have any meaningful, they don't have a solid biblical response, they have to come up with these straw men, and that is a little bit of the problem that they're facing.
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Is that correct? Yes. In Thessalonians it says that God from the beginning has—
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I don't—too bad I didn't memorize it. We're out to give thanks for you, brethren, for God has, from the beginning, chosen you unto salvation.
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Forgive me, I need to quote Scripture. That's okay. Just as a gesture, Roy, the point is simply this.
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So why then would he say, 2 Peter 3, 9, it's his sincere desire that none should perish but that all should come to repentance.
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Why did the Lord say that if these people have no chance? Why did Jesus say over the city of Jerusalem, how often
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I wanted to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks or her brood under her wings, but you were not willing?
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Catch it? There it is again! Yes, folks, I am starting to come to the conclusion that there is a new
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Calvary Chapel edition of the Bible that has a major textual variant in it.
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How often I would have gathered your children— that part's gone. Evidently, at least in the
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Bibles found in the studio of Pastor's Perspective, the actual text of Matthew 23, 37 is not actually available because they can never actually quote it correctly.
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And I laugh, but it's sad, isn't it? How many times during the course of Radio Free Geneva's have we documented over and over and over again synergists mis -citing
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Matthew 23, 37 because their tradition has told them what it means, not the words of the text.
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They never exegete it. They just say, it means this. Same thing with 2
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Peter 3, 9. I mean, we have— And here you have one of the leaders of the
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Calvary Chapel movement, one of the top dogs, one of the most recognized names, and clearly he's never read the chapter in the
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Potter's Freedom dealing with the Big Three. And you go, well, you're certainly thinking a lot about yourself, that somebody should be reading your book.
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Do you have any idea how many people today are in Reformed churches that used to be in Calvary Chapel and they did read the
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Potter's Freedom? I would just think on a basic level that if your movement is losing people in one particular direction all the time, you might want to familiarize yourself, just a little bit, with why.
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But we don't see that. We don't see that. And I remember the other thing I wanted to get to on the program today,
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I had it queued up just in a different window, and it's going to be the same type of thing. We're going to take a look briefly at some comments from the
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Catholic Answers forums. It's the same thing. It's the same mindset, sadly, that we're hearing here.
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You just keep giving the same answers and don't in any way, shape, or form press forward and sharpen your answers and engage in what's being said.
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No, no, you don't want to do that. That just leads to more problems.
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Why did he say something like that if they had no choice in the first place? Well, I've listened carefully to those that are well -studied.
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On the other side, you gave two passages. The first one answered is that God is not willing that any of the elect should perish.
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Wait, wait, wait, hang on. He doesn't say that. He says anyone should perish. There's no qualification there.
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Okay, well, I could argue then Christ would never come back. If God is not willing that any should perish, then all should come to repentance.
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He'll never come back, forgive everybody. I'm sorry, the caller missed that one.
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The response in 2 Peter 3 .9 is to point out what the context is. He is patient toward you, not wishing any of you should perish.
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Who is the you in the context? Follow the pronouns back. He changes from second to third person.
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They are mocking the promise of the coming. The you he's addressing is not mocking the promise of the coming.
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You follow the context. If this was some other subject, if this was a subject about the resurrection, if this was a subject about the deity of Christ, these
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Calvary Chapel guys would do that. They know how to do exegesis.
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I've heard Chuck Smith and other people do a good job on Orthodox issues, but when it comes to where their traditions are, they're as bad as the
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Roman Catholics. They have a tradition, but since they don't see it's a tradition because they're a non -denominational denomination, then that tradition can never be examined.
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And boy, if you want to get yourself in trouble, be a Calvary Chapel pastor and say that openly. Say, you know what?
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We really have traditions. And you know what? I think if we're going to be consistent with ourselves, we need to examine our traditions.
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We need to look really closely at our traditions. But oh, that'll get you into a lot of trouble.
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Well, there are people actually that argue that too. In fact, some Calvinists argue universalism because God's will, none should perish, all will eventually be saved.
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And you've got a Calvinistic universalism, too, that everyone will want to be saved. Calvinistic universalism.
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Well, if you can come up with moderate Calvinism, which is nothing but Arminianism, why not just put two words that are completely contradictory to one another together?
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I've got to go to some more calls. Well, you're welcome. We appreciate your perspective.
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We can discuss this. I'm glad we can discuss this nicely, admirably, and that kind of thing.
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We don't want to argue and yell at each other or something like that. We just have a different perspective on this. We believe that Christ died for the whole world.
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People are human. God in His sovereignty made us humanly responsible. In other words, at the end of the day, we have a choice, and we're going to be judged on that particular choice.
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Christ died for sinners. The Holy Spirit woos us to come to Him. But at the end of the day, we can choose whether to accept
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Him or reject Him. Whosoever will may come. That is the gospel message. That's what we preach.
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So everybody has the capacity. Everybody has the ability, even though none of those texts, and he didn't even cite any texts.
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Where is that? Give us a context here so we can actually look at it.
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Are we talking about John 3, 16? What are we talking about? We're not told, but everybody has that ability, despite the fact that Jesus plainly said no man has the ability.
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So we preach, every man has the ability. Jesus taught that no man has the ability.
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Okay, there you go. So we're not telling people out there, sorry,
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God did not choose you before eternity passed. Ah, whoosh! There goes the straw man.
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Whoosh! As if anyone is telling anybody that. Nobody is telling anyone that, because what would you have to be able to do?
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You'd have to be able to say, I have knowledge of who the elect are. So there's a huge straw man, gross misrepresentation of the other side, always comes out eventually.
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Even though we give a message for everyone to come to Christ, anyone can come. If you're listening to my voice right now, and you haven't believed in Jesus, the good news is you can believe right now and become a
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Christian. You can have faith in Christ, even today, by trusting Him as your Savior. That is showing how you are indeed one of the elect, one of the chosen, by you choosing
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Him. So then, after saying that there really isn't any elect, now, basically
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I think what he was saying is, by your choice, you enter into the chosen. You determine who the elect are, not
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God. As if there is any text of scripture that even begins to suggest such a wild and crazy thing.
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Well, there you go. It's disturbing to me.
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It really is disturbing to me, that these guys will continue to say what they say, but they will not take the time to actually listen to the other side.
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As I said, that's not unusual. But it's more disturbing to me to see it amongst people that I would identify as Christians than upon people that I would identify as being a part of a false religion.
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And that's the perfect transition into a thread that appeared on the
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Catholic Answers forums. And someone by the name of Arizona Sampson, I have a feeling
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I know who that probably is, posted my challenge, evidently taking
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Turretin fans, he typed out what I said last week in challenging the
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Call to Confusion guys to debate the issue of the bodily assumption of Mary.
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And posted it. And the responses were very, very interesting.
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It didn't take long before the responses were almost all just completely ad hominem. Just how mean and terrible and nasty
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I am. And one guy, let me see which page it was on. One guy said that he saw me debating two
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Jewish guys and I was rude, rude, rude. I needed an attitude adjustment, is what he said.
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Yeah, here it is. This is Nicaea 325. It says, precisely why I stopped listening to Mr.
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White. He is rude and I once saw him debating two Jewish men. Same attitude, rude. The guy needs an attitude adjustment.
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I'm sitting here going, two Jewish men. I've never debated two
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Jewish men. And then I realized what it was he was talking about. It was a Jewish Voice broadcast. It was me and Michael Brown versus Anthony Buzzard and the other fellow whose name
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I can never remember because he really didn't show up in the debate. But there was one little problem there.
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Neither one of them were Jewish. The only Jewish guy in the panel was Michael Brown for crying out loud. And we weren't debating
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Judaism. We were debating Unitarianism. I was defending the Trinity. But these guys are just so massively biased.
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Well, the term is bigoted. The Catholic Answers forums are filled with bigots. What is a bigot?
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A bigot is a person who has an irrational incapacity to fairly listen to or deal with someone because of their prejudices.
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And that is a perfect description of almost everybody in the Catholic Answers forums
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I've ever seen. They're willing to believe anything. They went after my doctorate in Columbia and all this stuff.
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Once again, that's all they can do. They can't respond to the argumentation. And I think it's funny. Let's see.
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That was 1998. And so it's been 14 years.
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Isn't it amazing that all these people who run around calling Columbia a degree mill.
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In 14 years, no one's plunked down what they call their 75 bucks to get a degree from there.
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You know why? Because not one of these people could pass the first class. They couldn't do it. And it was thousands of dollars and numbers of years of work.
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And they couldn't do it. And they don't know that because they don't care enough about that. But there was a fascinating statement.
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There was all sorts of stuff about, well, you know, all he wants to do is debate. Just a word of remembrance.
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How did I get into debating? How did I get into debating? I was challenged by Catholic Answers to debate for the first time in August of 1990.
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And my first debates were with Catholic Answers. And all my first debates were on the subject of Roman Catholicism.
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I'm not the one that started it. They challenged me. And now they don't seem to be doing any debates at all.
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In fact, isn't it weird? I've debated Tim Staples. Where do you find the
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Tim Staples debates? On Sola Scriptura? Or Papal Infallibility? Or Purgatory? Only here.
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You don't find them from St. Joseph's Communications that record the first two of them. They don't make those available for some odd, strange reason.
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And it wasn't all that long ago that I debated Tim Staples in a formal format right here on The Dividing Line.
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And nobody that listens to Catholic Answers has ever heard of that. Oh, they've heard about a lot of Tim's debates.
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But for some strange reason, that one no one ever makes mention of. Just in case they may have lost the audio,
34:32
I'd be more than happy to send them a copy. You know what? I'll make that offer. Because maybe they just lost our email address and haven't been able to ask how to get hold of it again.
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That must be the only reason that they would not even mention the debate on Purgatory.
34:49
Because, I mean, everybody in this thread would believe that it would be impossible for Tim Staples to have lost a debate on 1
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Corinthians 3 and Purgatory. I mean, that just couldn't happen, especially since I'm such a rude hack.
35:05
Right? Yeah. Okay. But, yeah.
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Then you had a few folks. But here. BizCathCanter.
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Regular member, prayer warrior, and forum supporter. Dun, dun, dun. Is it my imagination, or are these
35:31
Sola Scriptura types getting more militant by the day? Frankly, there is no need for debate.
35:39
If you read the challenge rant, it is clear that it is ego and not zeal for truth that drives this individual.
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We pray for his soul. So, when JerryMatix and CatholicAnswers first contacted me,
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I wondered... Oh, never mind. That's looking for consistency, so we don't want to go there.
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But, here was the line. On this specific subject,
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I would only say that he who denies the mother also denies the son, and leave it at that.
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Again, we pray for his soul. So, listen to that. Listen to that. I challenge men who are subverting the faith of individuals by a not -so -subtle attack upon the perspicuity, authority, and sufficiency of the inspired
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Word of God, the very Word that Jesus directed us to. I challenge them to debate the dogmatic assertions of the
36:47
Roman Catholic Church the infallible dogmatic assertions.
36:52
Now, I was just sitting here thinking, you know how I bet you they get around that? The only part of...
36:59
Was it Munificentibus Deus? I don't have it up in front of me, but I was trying to remember the
37:07
Latin, but I think that's what it is. I think that's the name of the definition of the bodily assumption. I bet you what they'll say is, the only part of that decree that is infallible is the actual definition and not the statements leading up to it, which included the lies.
37:29
And they are. There's no other way to put it. I mean, it's a lie on the level of saying
37:35
Lee won at Gettysburg. Okay? The lie, and there's some people in the audience going, well,
37:47
Danny, well, wait a minute. I'm assuming knowledge of history here might not be a good idea.
37:57
Lee Majors? That's right. He's that old? I thought we fixed him.
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Wasn't he the six billion dollar man or something like that? Turretin fans saying
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Lee did win at Gettysburg, and it was Corporal Lee on the northern side,
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I guess. What? No, no, no. Be careful. You see, you went too far back. People listening who would have a problem thinking
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Lee Majors is a bionic ear. Yes. Anyway, it's a lie to say that this has been the belief of Christians from the most ancient times.
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It's a lie to say this dogma is grounded in scripture. It's just not true.
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And you would have to be completely unprepared and not be a student of scripture or history at all to lose a debate like that, which is why it's not going to be accepted.
38:55
Now, there is some guy in this thread who's like, I'll do it. Who's that? I have no idea who in the world the guy is, but if you'd like to send us some information as to who he is and why he would be a worthwhile person to debate.
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Anyway, here I am addressing that, challenging them to debate on a simple factual matter, really.
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And here is a Byzantine Catholic cantor who in response to that says,
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He who denies the mother also denies the son. Now, why does that phraseology sound familiar to us?
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Because it's actually based upon 1 John. If you deny the son, you do not have the father.
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And that's a vitally important assertion. It's vitally important in how we evaluate
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Judaism today. It's vitally important in how we evaluate oneness theology.
40:04
It's vitally important to our understanding of the centrality of the doctrines of Trinity and the fact that Trinity is not some secondary thing that is just sort of tacked on later on in history.
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But that it's part and parcel of divine revelation and the object of our faith has been revealed clearly enough in Scripture for us to know who it is we believe in.
40:27
But to take that and pervert it, and my friends, it is nothing but a perversion, a blasphemous perversion to take the words of Scripture, to profane the
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Virgin Mary by elevating her to a position that, as I've said so many times before, I guarantee you she has no idea.
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She has no idea that there are millions of people on this planet mumbling her name.
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She has no idea. It would break her heart.
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And to take that precious scriptural truth and to pervert it in this way so that to question the clearly ahistorical, unbiblical teachings of Roman Catholicism is to actually deny the
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Mother. It's to demonstrate that there is a part of Roman Catholicism that has a completely different God. You may be
41:33
Trinitarians, but for many Roman Catholics, Mary has been made a part of the Trinity. She really has.
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Not in the official teaching, of course not. But functionally, anybody who has ever read
41:47
Alphonsus de Liguri's The Glories of Mary knows, knows that a person who could write that, and a person that could pray like that, and a person that could believe like that is a person who has another
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God. And I've read you some of those amazingly disgusting quotations that are found all through Liguri.
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And so, it's amazing to me to see this kind of sigh, it's just,
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I don't know. Do I even have to repeat some of these statements that have been said down through the years?
42:40
Especially some of the Liguri quotes? I suppose,
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I'll just read one of them. On this account it was, says St. Bernard, that the
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Eternal Father, wishing to show all the mercy possible besides with giving us Jesus Christ, our principal advocate with Him, was pleased also to give us
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Mary as our advocate with Jesus Christ. There is no doubt, the saint adds, that Jesus Christ is the only mediator of justice between God and men, that by virtue of His own merits and promises,
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He will and can obtain us pardon and the divine favors, but because men acknowledge and fear the divine majesty which is in Him as God, for this reason it was necessary to assign us another advocate to whom we might have recourse with less fear and more confidence, and this advocate, and more confidence, catch that?
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And more confidence. Less fear and more confidence in coming to Jesus, and this advocate is
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Mary, than whom we cannot find one more powerful with His divine majesty or one more merciful towards ourselves.
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The saint says, Christ is a faithful and powerful mediator between God and men, but in Him men fear the majesty of God.
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A mediator then was needed with the mediator himself, nor could a more fitting one be found than Mary. I submit to you, anyone who could believe that is not saved, does not know the
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Gospel, does not know Christ, does not know grace, and I say to any person who has ever stood before a congregation and proclaimed the truth, the word of God, and now you have decided to join this group, if you believe that, sir or ma 'am, you are an apostate, as described in Hebrews chapter 6.
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People keep telling me, you'll never ever get the big speaking engagements, because you talk like that.
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And my response to you is, if I ever, ever get to the point where I will not speak that truth with that clarity, you don't want me speaking at your function anyways.
44:50
So, I wanted to comment on that thread and I saved all the pages here in my browser because I figured it's probably been closed down by now.
45:01
But yeah, as it may. All right, with that, we're sort of halfway through right now, right?
45:11
We're halfway through the program, aren't we? So you could probably queue up a quick break, couldn't you? And we will go on to other subjects while people ponder what
45:24
I just got done saying and then we'll be able to move on from there. How's that sound? So, we're going to be looking at,
45:32
I want to make sure this is the right sound file. I was opening and closing sound files so quickly that, yeah, this is the right one.
45:42
So I know where I am here. Which one do we want to go to? Do we want to go back to Abdullah or do we want to go to Harry Knox is the question.
45:49
We will make the decision during the break and keep you sitting on pins and needles.
45:56
So we'll be right back right after this. More than any time in the past,
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They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements and many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition and grandeur of the
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Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org. And welcome back to Dividing Line on a
48:35
Thursday afternoon Jumbo Edition. Got 45 minutes left in the program. Well, not quite. Now this is interesting.
48:41
I've got I've got people in Twitter telling me to go both different directions.
48:50
I've got the fellow who debated Abdullah saying, go to Abdullah. And I've got my daughter saying, go to Harry Knox.
48:58
And that really puts me in a rough situation here. But during the break,
49:04
I had actually queued this up. And so I've got to go with what I've queued up. So I'm sorry, my dear daughter.
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But we're going to Abdullah. She can take that out on me when we have dinner or something tomorrow evening.
49:18
But this is very dangerous because, as I've mentioned, I'm hopefully going to be a grandpa come
49:26
December. So I don't want to cause anybody any problems there. But we are in the middle of a section, a very important section, where Abdullah is doing his rebuttal.
49:36
And he's basically saying, look, Chalcedonian orthodoxy is a later development.
49:43
It's not primitive. And I started last time to argue directly against that.
49:49
And let me once again remind us of just some of the early citations.
49:56
And Abdullah argues that the citations that we provide...
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Oh, my son just said, let me be the tiebreaker, whatever Summer said. So both my kids say I should go the opposite direction
50:07
I'm going. Sorry. I didn't see those before I queued up what I queued up.
50:13
So we're going this direction. But what Abdullah is going to be saying is, well, why don't you have anything 20, 30, 40 years after Jesus?
50:21
Well, what do you have 20, 30, 40 years after Jesus? It's called the New Testament. It's called the
50:26
Carmen Christi. It's called Philippians 2, 5 through 11. It's called Paul saying they would have crucified the Lord of glory.
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That's all you have. You don't have anything outside of the New Testament at that time period. So it doesn't make any sense to be saying, well,
50:43
I want stuff outside. I don't want to deal with the New Testament. I want stuff outside the New Testament, but only in the time frame where the only thing you have is the
50:50
New Testament. That's historically, I think, stacking the deck. But Ignatius clearly is, well,
51:01
Ignatius is within the first century of the Christian faith. Not the first century from the time of the birth of Christ.
51:10
Actually, it would be really close because you're talking his death in 107 -108
51:15
AD. So you're talking about the first he's closer to the first century than we are to the last millennium.
51:25
And most of us can remember very, very well 2000 and Y2K and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
51:32
So that gives you an idea. He's even closer. So Ignatius is writing and he writes to Polycarp and he says,
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I mean, that is incredibly elevated Christology.
52:08
And yet it is in the very early days of Christianity post -apostolic writings.
52:17
So what does that tell you? It tells you that this belief is very, very primitive and is therefore consistent with the biblical narrative.
52:30
It's right there. So that's what we were talking about. We go back to Abdullah's rebuttal.
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They did not understand many of the things that Jesus said, but those very same synoptic gospels record for us the promise of the
53:00
Spirit. And then we have the New Testament recording of the day of Pentecost and the coming of the
53:05
Spirit. And Jesus' promise in John 14 was that the Spirit would guide them into all truth.
53:11
So you have to remember that to recognize that there is a progressive nature to not only the revelation of all of Scripture, but especially a progressive nature to Jesus' revelation to the disciples of who he was and what his purposes were.
53:25
And part of that progression was due to the fact that they had many traditions which got in the way of their having a proper understanding of what the
53:33
Messiah was to be and what the Messiah was to do. And so it was necessary.
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I mean, I'm glad that we educate our children in a progressive fashion. You don't take your kindergartner and throw them into a high school level math class.
53:50
They don't have the foundation. It takes time to build those things up. The same thing during the ministry of Jesus. So, I mean, really,
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I'm not sure where this early evidence is coming from, but that's the first question that I'll put forward to him.
54:05
The early evidence comes from the New Testament. I really think that Abdullah needs to deal with the depth of the
54:12
New Testament revelation on these particular subjects. And we got into, and we'll get into more, and I just realized
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I don't have this up unfortunately, but I gave the reference before. The I Am statements of Jesus.
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Clear, vital information that I just don't get the feeling that Abdullah is dealing with this type of information or is maybe not familiar with this type of information or something along those lines.
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I don't know, but the information is definitely there, and I would suggest that he needs to take a look at it and consider that.
54:57
But anyway, I go back to his comments here. The second question, or I guess challenge that I'll put forward is that ultimately the whole idea relies on a reduplicative argument.
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The idea that we're affirming two separate things about one thing or one person.
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So I could, for example, say that I am a licensed driver and I'm a brother. Now this takes us back to Abdullah's confusion on the subject of the person of Christ and our assertion, and it's really just brought about by the fundamental fact that the
55:35
Muslim says, God cannot take on a human nature, period, end of discussion. Therefore, I refuse to allow for any categories that will allow for this.
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That's all there is to it. And so what he's going to be saying is you're affirming contradictory things about one person.
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You're saying he's infinite, but you're also saying he's temporal. We are because he has two natures and we recognize that the two natures are not the same nature.
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They differ from one another. We are saying he's one person with two natures. And you're saying that's impossible.
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Well, that takes us back to the presuppositional nature of the Islamic argument, but that is not an argument for the
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Islamic argument. It's just a restatement of the Islamic argument. Why is it that God can't do that?
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When we examined Abdullah's argumentations that in our debate it was based upon equivocation.
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He said, well, God can't take on anything that's imperfect. I said it's a perfect human nature.
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Well, anything that's not God is imperfect. And so what's the final result?
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God can only be God. He can't take on anything else because we define anything else as imperfect and therefore it'd be imperfection.
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And we say God can create a perfect human nature and if he wants to redeem human nature, he can take on that perfect nature.
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So it's not an argument. It just doesn't carry any water because it all goes back to just the presuppositional nature of God wouldn't do that or couldn't do that one of the two.
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I hold both of these attributes. Now I don't get to drive a car legally because I'm a brother and I don't have siblings because I am a licensed driver.
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These are mutually exclusive attributes. The problem with using that in the case of Jesus and his divinity, that style of argument, is that the attributes themselves are contradictory.
57:41
The attributes themselves are not contradictory. The only way they could be contradictory is if we were saying that the divine nature is both eternal and non -eternal.
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We're not saying that. We're not saying that the human nature is eternal and non -eternal. We are saying that one person with two natures has natures that are distinguishable from one another and are not identical.
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That is not illogical. That is not irrational. Whether you accept it or not, you can't say that it's a contradiction because it's not.
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Which is not contradictory. We're not saying that the divine nature is a human nature or the human nature is a divine nature.
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We're talking about one person with two natures and we distinguish between the two.
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We do not mix them together You know, the hypostatic union. It's a term that Abdullah uses but refuses to allow it to have its actual meaning the way we define it.
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There's a reason why there's no mixture between the two, because then these things would be true because we'd be creating a demigod, an in -between being that's not fully divine or fully human.
59:04
And that's the very thing To say that I'm a brother and a licensed driver, yes, they're separate attributes, but they don't contradict one another.
59:12
I can be a brother and be a licensed driver simultaneously. So this reliance on reduplicative argument is not only quite false in the end because it's not correctly using the style of argument but it means that ultimately the whole concept of God comes down to affirming mutually exclusive things.
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About one nature. One person? Yes, because that person has two natures.
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We make the differentiations. Why? Because the scriptures made those differentiations.
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Which I think is a little bit difficult for Christians to maintain, but I'll be very interested in what
59:57
Jason has to say about that. Now, Jason also said that if indeed the
01:00:03
Chronic understanding of Jesus, i .e. that he was purely human with no divine attributes is true, well then he was one of the most failed and unsuccessful teachers in all of humanity's history.
01:00:14
Well, I think some of the lecturers here would beg to differ or at least their students would anyway. But having said that, the reality is, as I said, the
01:00:23
Gospels themselves affirm that the disciples did not understand. Now, this isn't a statement that's made once or twice and in one
01:00:29
Gospel account and not in the others. It's made in all four Gospel accounts. I think this is just a misapprehension on Abdullah's part.
01:00:39
Because while the Gospel accounts do say that the disciples did not understand a number of things.
01:00:46
They did not understand the nature of Jesus' mission. They did not understand the necessity of his death. They did not understand the nature of the
01:00:53
Messiah because they already had all these traditions. It does not say they stayed in that position of confusion.
01:01:01
It says the Holy Spirit came and opened their minds. In fact, Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
01:01:06
And it's taking only one part. It's sort of like when Muslims take the one statement of Jesus, I am not sent but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
01:01:15
And take that and come up with the idea that Jesus is only the
01:01:20
Messiah for the Jews, ignoring everything else that those very Gospels, those very writers said.
01:01:29
That's not how you deal with the Quran, is it? So why would you do that with the New Testament?
01:01:35
Again, it's an inconsistency. It's made repeatedly that the disciples themselves did not understand.
01:01:41
So what the followers of the disciples thought is kind of irrelevant to me. Because the very accounts that were apparently written by them or written by their students indicate that they themselves did not understand.
01:01:50
Okay, this is just... This level, and I like Abdullah, but this level goes to...
01:01:58
This argument goes to the level of bogus. Because the very same texts go on to say that that confusion was temporary until the coming of the
01:02:13
Holy Spirit and the opening of their minds to understand the things of God. So, I mean,
01:02:20
I'm sorry, but to say, well, I don't care what their disciples... Even from an Islamic viewpoint, that doesn't make any sense.
01:02:27
Because doesn't the Quran say that God would make the true followers of... That Allah would make the true followers of Jesus victorious until the end?
01:02:37
So, I'm sorry, but that is not a meaningful argument. You know what was being taught?
01:02:44
Likewise, just because the teaching does not carry on does not mean that the teacher themselves failed.
01:02:51
It means that the students failed. When I get up and lecture some kids on basic HSC chemistry, if they all then go and fail the
01:03:00
HSC exam, that's not my fault. If they didn't put in the study, if they didn't understand...
01:03:05
Unless, of course, the teacher also says, my purpose for being here is to cause you to pass that exam.
01:03:11
Whatever that exam is they're talking about. And what did Jesus say? I'm going to build my church. My gospel is going to abide with you.
01:03:19
I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. He will lead you into all truth. If Jesus taught these things and then that didn't happen, then it would follow that he failed.
01:03:28
That's an indication of their failure, not my failure. So, again, I'd say that linking this idea of failure to Jesus because the disciples allegedly and the followers of them didn't get that he was purely human is a fallacy.
01:03:43
Now, coming back to the Qur 'an and why this is a false exegesis.
01:03:49
Now, this is the problem in doing it. We try to tackle some big stuff in short periods of time on the program.
01:04:01
At this point, you just need to go back to the last time that I commented on the subject of Surah 5 and listen to what
01:04:13
I said at that particular point in time. I cannot repeat it here, but the key issue, the key text to remind you once again for people who are not writing books on the subject of the
01:04:27
Qur 'an right now, which is probably pretty much everybody in the audience, but not for me. I was writing about Zaynab bin
01:04:33
Josh today all afternoon. And let the people of the Gospel, Surah 547, and let the people of the
01:04:42
Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
01:04:49
And the question that had been raised in the context of the debate was fairly simple. And that is, how are the people of the
01:04:58
Gospel to judge? How are they to judge by what
01:05:03
Allah has revealed therein? The only therein is the Gospel. They must possess the
01:05:08
Gospel to be able to fulfill the command. If we don't want to be called those who are the defiantly disobedient, then there must be a way for us to avoid that, right?
01:05:22
Okay. Then that means that the people of the Gospel in the day of Muhammad possess the
01:05:32
Gospel. Or these words are meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.
01:05:40
Okay? Note something, because this is going to come up,
01:05:45
I think, at this point. We read it last time. But what it says is, it does not say, let the people of the
01:05:54
Gospel judge by a book. It says, let the people judge by what
01:06:00
Allah has revealed therein, and that is in the
01:06:06
Gospel. Okay? So, with that in mind, then we listen to what
01:06:15
Abdullah says. Okay?
01:06:48
I just wonder, again, Abdullah, if you're allowed to do this with the Quran, how come you won't do this with the
01:06:55
Synoptic Gospels? Is it only because you believe the Quran tells you that the
01:07:00
Gospels have been corrupted? I think that's got to be the only reason.
01:07:35
Okay? Now, I wish you would tell us what these texts are.
01:07:48
Because, I mean, I'm familiar with texts similar to that. But the one that had been brought up in the debate, that's not what it says.
01:08:02
And there seemed to be some confusion here. Jason Cibalo had specifically brought up Surah 5.
01:08:11
And I've read you Surah 5. Surah 5 doesn't say, look to the book between your hands. There is the text before that that says, confirming that which came before him in the
01:08:27
Torah. But when it addresses the people of the Gospel, it doesn't say anything about between your hands.
01:08:35
It talks about the Gospel and says we're to judge by what is contained therein. And then, even when it does use the term and we revealed to you,
01:08:46
O Muhammad, the book and truth confirming that which preceded of the Scripture and as a criterion over it.
01:08:53
Well, there's some questions as to exactly what Muhammad means. But that's the text that's being referred to there.
01:09:02
But there is a little bit of an expansion, I think, in Abdullah's rendering of that text. We need to put all of these three verses together to come up to the understanding of what the
01:09:10
Qur 'an is actually saying. You can't just pick one. The equivalent to that would be me quoting Jesus when he's saying in a parable that a king said, bring those who do not recognize my kingship before me and I'll kill them.
01:09:24
I'll kill them before me. Jesus said, whoever doesn't believe in him, he wants to kill him.
01:09:30
And I've had many a Muslim make that very argument. I'm going to have to take that sound file stick it on my computer and the next time someone like Osama Abdullah makes that type of argument,
01:09:40
I'll just play that and he won't care. I perfectly agree at this point you have to allow the
01:09:56
Qur 'an to interpret the Qur 'an. But look, on the previous portion of discussing this particular debate, that's exactly what
01:10:02
I did. And this raises the issue of what is exegesis? How do you do exegesis of the
01:10:09
Qur 'an? Do the words have meaning? Does context have meaning? Is there flow of thought? There are some portions of the
01:10:16
Qur 'an I don't think you can exegete. I mean, there's a section, I think it's Surah 96 I don't think anybody has a clue what it's about.
01:10:24
It just does not make a lick of sense. And I just don't know how you could even begin to exegete it.
01:10:32
One thing's for certain we're on a very, very, very, very different level when we're exegeting
01:10:38
Romans than when you're exegeting the Qur 'an. Now, I think, if I recall correctly and Jason can correct me on this,
01:10:52
I think, because I know he's listening but I think more of the
01:10:57
Surah 5 thing came out during the cross -examination because I think Jason actually asked him a question to try to say hey, could you clarify this?
01:11:09
Where do you think I was wrong in what I said? And I think that's where some of the really to me confusing statements from Abdullah came out because of all the texts in the
01:11:22
Qur 'an I'm probably most familiar with in the original languages language, excuse me,
01:11:29
Surah 5 and Surah 4, verse 157. Surah 4 and 5 together contain some of the key texts when it comes to the
01:11:37
Christian faith. He says he asked several questions on that point and that was my recollection.
01:11:43
So I think we're going to get to more of this when we get into the cross -examination period and be able to dive a little bit more into it.
01:11:51
I just was surprised at what Abdullah said in response to some of the questions.
01:11:59
But now we get into the Agawami stuff. John Agawami has just read for I Am or I Exist, My Existence.
01:12:10
Now to link this to the quotes in Exodus and Deuteronomy is a very big stretch indeed and I'm quite surprised that Christians continue to do it.
01:12:23
What's really surprising indeed to me is the fact that we sent across the ocean a book called
01:12:30
The Forgotten Trinity, which has an entire chapter called I Am He in it, beginning on page 95 of this little book.
01:12:42
And one of the things that I specifically, here's a subtitle.
01:12:48
The subtitle is Old Testament Background of Agawami. And let me just read what it says in the book.
01:12:57
It happens all the time. We are in a hurry to make a point, so we jump from one point to another quickly, skipping a few necessary points in between.
01:13:03
There's always that one person in the bunch who stops you and makes you go back and trace your argument step by step rather than allowing you to condense things a bit and make better speed.
01:13:11
When dealing with theological issues, we often condense things and make connections that in reality take a little more proof than we have offered.
01:13:17
This is nowhere better illustrated than the connection that is alleged to exist between Jesus' words in John 8 .58 and the words of Yahweh in Exodus 3 .14,
01:13:24
I Am That I Am. You will find references to Exodus 3 .14 in most commentaries on John 8 .58.
01:13:29
Yet those who deny the deity of Christ cry foul and argue that such an immediate connection can't be made. The strongest argument they can present is that the
01:13:38
Agawami portion of Exodus 3 .14 isn't really the assertion of divinity. The Ha 'on portion is.
01:13:43
Ha 'on being translated as the being or the one existing. And as far as the argument goes, this is true.
01:13:50
However, the claim that Jesus' words in John 8 .58 and the other passages should be connected to Exodus 3 .14 does not exist in a vacuum.
01:13:56
There is a line of argumentation, a very solid one, that leads us from John 8 back through Isaiah to Exodus 3.
01:14:02
We need to trace that path before we can make the statement that Jesus is in fact using a name of deity of himself in John's gospel.
01:14:10
And then I go through and I make that argumentation and in fact, in just a few months ago, or back in, what was it,
01:14:20
December, November, when I debated
01:14:25
Unitarian on this subject, we went into great depth and I posted a great deal of material on the blog from the
01:14:35
Greek Septuagint demonstrating that there was even more that I could have crammed into the footnotes of that particular section of that chapter demonstrating that Agawami is used as the name of God in the book of Isaiah numbers of times and that Jesus purposefully draws from this in, for example,
01:14:59
John chapter 13. And so, Abdullah says,
01:15:05
I'm surprised Christians keep doing this. And yet, one Christian, who he's debated and has sent him this information, has argued in his published works a much more serious and in -depth presentation on this that specifically doesn't make the leap that he's now accusing
01:15:26
Christians of making. So, I found that odd and strange that he would ignore that argumentation.
01:15:36
I'm not sure if he's assuming that Jason has not read my book. I'd be willing to ask since, again, he's listening and I'll have a 45 second to one minute delay.
01:15:48
But, Jason, did you read The Forgotten Trinity prior to your debate with Abdullah Kunda? And I'll see how fast
01:15:56
Twitter gets me a response to that particular question. But it does strike me as a strange argument to say,
01:16:05
I'm surprised Christians keep arguing this when it's a real stretch. And yet, my book says that it is a stretch and we don't need to stretch because there is a very strong connection that is to be found by going to Isaiah and some of the minor prophets.
01:16:21
And that's what stands behind what we have in the New Testament usage. And what's then said in the
01:16:39
New Testament. I'm combining it all together and saying that it's linked. It's not. In the scripture again, God said to Moses, I am the one.
01:16:49
In the Masoretic text, the closest that we have to the original Hebrew, God says to Moses, I am what
01:16:57
I am. I will be what I will be. Now, what we then do is get the
01:17:03
Greek, ego, I, me, ho, on, I am the one. And then, I, asher, I, I, I am what
01:17:08
I am. Combine them together and then say, well, when Jesus said, I am, that's what he meant.
01:17:14
Well, no, you're combining two different translations and hoping that it draws a conclusion. I think that that is a very big fallacy as well.
01:17:22
I guess... Now, a very big fallacy is to miss the actual argumentation that we're making.
01:17:31
For example, I have often pointed out that Jesus' use in John 13, 19 of ego,
01:17:37
I, me, comes directly. And I provided, I provided the original languages in the
01:17:45
Forgotten Trinity at this point to Isaiah 43, 10. And that very language appears in John 13, 19 used by Jesus of himself in the same context of the revelation of future events which is part of the demonstration of who
01:18:17
Yahweh is in the trial of false gods in Isaiah 40 -48. And this is not the only place.
01:18:25
There are numbers of other places where even ego, I, me, is used twice in a row as the name of God. And again,
01:18:32
I already pointed to the extensive discussion we did of this back in November, December in a previous edition of Radio Free Damascus and I linked to all of that.
01:18:46
So, the leap here is for Abdullah to ignore the Christian argumentation on this.
01:18:52
Now maybe he's just not, he's just not familiar with it, didn't read all the book, only read certain portions of the book that he thought might be relevant to the debates that we were going to be doing.
01:19:00
I don't know. He hasn't been in channel for a while for me to ask, but I would imagine he'll probably take time to at least listen to this.
01:19:10
But Jason just did confirm that he had read it several times and he says, you can tell your
01:19:17
Catholic detractors that at least one Roman Catholic apologist thinks it's a great book. Actually, I know a number of Roman Catholic apologists that rather begrudgingly must admit that the book is very useful in providing a biblical defense of the doctrine of the
01:19:31
Trinity. But I appreciate that. But I can't assume that Abdullah was aware of that.
01:19:41
Maybe he was, I don't know. But the argument, the response offered here was not really a good response to the presentation that Jason had made.
01:19:52
And a much stronger case than merely jumping back to Exodus 3 .14 has been made and Abdullah just didn't respond to it.
01:20:02
Ultimately, the challenge that one would have to face in order to answer this question from the
01:20:08
Christian perspective to demonstrate evidence for it would be to do exactly that. My contention and the contention of Muslims is that Jesus was a man.
01:20:17
Now, I don't even need to provide much evidence for this because the reality that men were born in Palestine 2 ,000 years ago is historical fact.
01:20:24
You know, I don't know, I cannot possibly accept, and he's not the first one that I've heard using this.
01:20:31
Shabir Ali says the same thing. We don't have anything to prove about Jesus. There are lots of men born at that time. Lots of virgin -born men.
01:20:41
Lots of men who raised the dead and created clay birds and breathed into them life and they flew away.
01:20:53
Yeah, I'm talking specifically about the miracles that the Qur 'an attributes to Jesus.
01:21:00
But the Qur 'an says he raised the dead. The Qur 'an says that he did these miracles.
01:21:06
So, I don't think it's fair. And I don't think it's a real defense of the
01:21:13
Muslim position. And I've not heard anyone, unfortunately, challenge the
01:21:18
Muslims who have made this argument. Well, we just believe he was just a man. No, you don't. You believe he was a prophet sent from God who was virgin -born and could raise the dead.
01:21:30
There is a special nature, even to the Risa bin
01:21:35
Maryam of the Qur 'an that it doesn't seem that you really want to defend.
01:21:45
Or maybe recognize that from a merely historical perspective you couldn't defend. Because certainly if you have already gotten to the point of accepting whatever the
01:21:55
Qur 'an says, Jesus says, Jesus did say that. Well, you recognize that's not a historical stance to take.
01:22:03
That is thoroughly a stance of faith. You accept the
01:22:08
Qur 'an as the word of God therefore Jesus said these things. But you know from a historical perspective, since there is no evidence prior to the
01:22:17
Qur 'an that Jesus said the things you attribute to him, you then turn around and question the accuracy of the documents that do come from the first century.
01:22:30
And yet you believe what a document from the 7th century says, Jesus says. There's a massive, massive, huge purple elephant in the room here of self -contradiction.
01:22:46
And you've just I can see why they might shy away from giving a fuller response.
01:22:53
I don't need to provide evidence for that. But if you want to support the concept that a man was born who also had a divine nature
01:23:01
Or was born of a virgin. Doesn't that make his nature in and of itself different than other men?
01:23:12
He had no human father. You confess that. You believe that. In fact, you seem to believe he's sinless. Of course,
01:23:18
Abdullah seems to believe that Muhammad was. The whole statement about his sins being forgiven to the side.
01:23:24
You need to provide some significant evidence for that. And at the moment... How about some significant evidence for the claims of Muhammad?
01:23:32
How about some significant evidence for the claims of the Quran about Jesus? Are you willing to operate on the same standard?
01:23:42
And I just don't get the feeling that most of my Muslim friends are up to that. I'm not saying much, but logical fallacies and quotes from scripture which at best are ambiguous.
01:23:54
Are at best ambiguous. When Jesus utilizes the language of Egoimy.
01:24:05
Do you think that's ambiguous? Evidently, for a lot of people today, well, there are people who deny that that was relevant.
01:24:12
Yeah, there are. You can find a scholar who believes anything.
01:24:18
That doesn't mean that what the scholar is confused about is actually confusing. But when someone like a
01:24:27
Bart Ehrman will just almost glibly admit yeah,
01:24:35
John presents the deity of Christ. No, he's going to say Matthew doesn't, Mark doesn't. I'll argue those points.
01:24:40
But even he, with his bias, goes oh yeah, well John, clearly, that's obvious.
01:24:48
How do you explain that? How is it not ambiguous to him? And would you really, maybe this will be the next time someone down there in Sydney wants to start working on getting me back down there again.
01:25:02
I'm starting to know my way in and out of the Sydney airport fairly well. Maybe we can debate something really specific like this.
01:25:13
Did Jesus claim deity? Get right into the text. Make sure we've got enough time to get into the original languages and everything else.
01:25:19
I'd be happy to do it. Because it's clearly right there. And I think
01:25:26
Abdullah especially, because of his knowledge of the Greek Septuagint should be able to see this.
01:25:31
I would challenge him to go back, look at the documentation that I have provided. Not just in the Forgotten Trinity, but then in the debates that we did back in November.
01:25:41
And the huge, wasn't that a mega I think it was a mega dividing line we did.
01:25:46
I think it was a two hour dividing line we did. Where we went through each of these sections and we went through in depth not the kind of thing you generally get on webcasts.
01:26:00
And you can see it right there. I'd love to see how he would substantiate the assertion that there is ambiguity to those things.
01:26:07
Thank you very much. I believe that we then had a few moments of further rebuttal if I recall correctly.
01:26:19
And then we got into the cross examination after that. So we'll pick up with that. I don't want to try to dive into anything further on that.
01:26:29
And I keep getting distracted by looking over at Twitter.
01:26:38
It can be very distractive. Look, that guy still got hair. Someone just posted a picture and it says every time
01:26:50
I see my local Kroger manager I think of Dr. Oakley 1689 they look alike and so I clicked on it.
01:26:56
And this guy still has hair and he does not have a white beard.
01:27:03
So I look a lot like bald people with goatees. There's no way around that.
01:27:09
But all bald people with goatees look alike, I think. But anyways, I get a little distracted when
01:27:16
I look over at those things. So anyway, we'll continue with that and I want to try to sometimes
01:27:27
I get too many irons in the fire. So we really need to try to finish up both the Abdullah Kunda and the
01:27:33
Harry Knox thing and so we'll see what happens next week in being able to do that. And we'll go on from there.
01:27:42
But I appreciate the opportunity to be able to do these things and I hope Abdullah will come by and say howdy, hello to us and maybe
01:27:53
I'd be more than open to having him come on the program once I'm done with the review and to respond to anything
01:27:59
I've said. We can handle that. He's called in before. We can use Skype. Actually, right now, that is all we could use would be
01:28:08
Skype. But yeah, looking at the phone, that ain't working too well. But it'll be back someday.
01:28:13
We'll be able to take phone calls again someday. Hey, thanks for listening to The Vagabond today. We will be back on Tuesday. Lord willing, we'll see you then.
01:28:21
God bless. We must contend for the faith above us fought for We need a new reformation day
01:28:49
It's a sign of the times The truth is being trampled in And do we bear it down Won't you lift up your voice
01:28:59
Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise I'm going back home
01:29:05
I'm going back home I'm going back home
01:29:14
I'm going back home