James White Interview (2014)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Introduction to James White and His Books

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. I�m your host today. I almost forgot who I was for a second, and that�s because I�m thrilled today to have a guest on No Compromise Radio.

Our theme is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. And our guest, I think, pretty much operates by the same principles, maybe with a different kind of nomenclature. James White, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

It�s good to be back with you again. James White, for those listeners who are not familiar with this ministry, is the Chief Operating Officer, or I don�t know your technical title, James, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, AOMin .org, that�s AOMin .org.

And for the New Englanders here, if you could not understand what I was saying, that would be Alpha and Omega. So, James, the top four books that I have appreciated the most, if our listeners want to read some of your books, in no particular order, the King James Only Controversy.

I also love The Forgotten Trinity, use that very regularly in ministry, Potter�s Freedom, and The God Who Justifies. And, James, maybe it�ll be a good segue just into some general conversation. In your book, The God Who Justifies, you use the Luther, Dung, Snow illustration.

And since you go to Germany regularly, and so do I, tell our listeners about that.

Justification, Sanctification, and the Luther Dung-and-Snow Illustration

About going to Germany, or the illustration? Either. Either one, yeah, they�re both fun. Well, you know, we don�t, we�re not actually 100 certain that Luther actually used that. There are so many things attributed to Luther that you can�t actually find in Luther�s works.

We can at least say it�s a possibility. But the whole point of the illustration, and it�s an illustration that Rome�s apologists have focused on for a long time, was that he would speak of the fact that at the end of the year, you would, for the next growing season.

It was a common thing, and a vast majority of Europe was still, you know, piles of snow. If you have a little Indian summer at the end of the summer, and it�s smelly. As you all in the back east have discovered, there�s this thing called snow, and you get that first, the dunghills, and when you�ve got a good, it no longer looks repulsive, the flies are gone, it doesn�t smell anymore.

And it has been taken away, a pile of dung, and you change of that dunghill into something that�s no longer just a pile of dung. Here is why this is, it is not real, it�s still a pile of dung, etc., etc., etc.

And what I like to do is turn the story around, which I know Luther, now Rome understands things. When you are baptized in the Roman communion, and you have that transfer of grace, you are justified, and hence, in the analogy, the pile of dung, instantaneously.

And because the reason you go to Heaven, is because you are intrinsically pleasing to God. You are something that is pleasing to God, that He wants to have in His presence. And to play from, at least, the description of the heavenly Jerusalem is a good thing.

So you get to go to Heaven. So that�s what justification is. Problem is, of course, that within Roman Catholicism, you have different kinds of sin. You can commit a mortal sin, and now turn it into forgiveness, and gain the grace of justification, and poof, you turn back into...

The problem is that, as Roman Catholic theologians have pointed out for a long time, one can never know for sure if it�s necessary to obtain the state of grace, to be in the state of grace, to be justified.

It�s a pile of dung. In fact, many would call it the sin of presumption, if you were to think that it�s a pile of dung. There�s the venial sin, which is not what 99 of everybody does, but it�s pleasing to God.

It�s the atonement of the dung from the pile of gold, and that�s how you enter into the presence of God. It�s the work of God and God only, and if only God is going to receive the glory for it. It�s a kind of justification in such a way that they are connected.

I think Reformed folks have the best answer and balance in presenting that, God in the elect of God, and it�s God who�s accomplishing these things. But you have to distinguish between what justification and sanctification is.

And that justification is the declaration of the fact that a person is right with God based not on who they are, but based upon who they are, and it is that union of that person with Christ, and the purpose of God in conforming them to the image of Christ, that is then in view when we talk about sanctification, and it certainly is God�s work.

It�s a pile of dung into a pile of gold, and it�s not an issue of the intrinsic value of the soul. It is their union with Jesus Christ, and the standing they have before God is solely based upon His righteousness, that initial perfect covering of snow, which is made up of the merits of Jesus and Mary and the saints and yourself.

Why James White Would Not Speak at the Vatican

Talking to James White today, Alpha and Omega Ministries. I love talking to James for lots of reasons. He is smarter than I am, he�s more studious than I am, and he answers questions in such a fashion that out of the 25 I have prepared, I just only have to ask three, and then I think I�m listening to the dividing line.

So it works out perfectly. James, if you were asked to go to the Vatican and talk about marriage, would you go? And if you would go, what would you talk about? No.

Monosyllabic answer, that way we can get to some of your other questions. No, no, I wouldn�t for one simple reason. You know, I hear what Russell Moore said, that he�ll go anywhere he�s asked to speak about Gospel issues, but I just cannot convince myself that the Apostle Paul would have attended a marriage ceremony, or a marriage seminar or conference, that they didn�t agree on issues regarding, identified them as pseudo-Devil.

Well, you know, that�s over there. Let�s all get together and convince myself that that is actually what he would have done. And I know, see, years and years ago, I was involved with Operation Rescue.

And I did, because I was a good debater, and so I�d go on with the, that was very enjoyable to do. But it became very clear, and I continue to do, because what was being assumed as a part of the Gospel in that context with Roman Catholics, that I would, I was the one who claimed, whether I believed in the Gospel and taken away from the Gospel.

It makes what the Judaizers did in Galatia look like child's play. Say we did not put up with them for even a moment, people would abide with you. I think it�s just a matter of priorities as to the Gospel for something else.

I just simply, personally, cannot put myself in a position in the Gospel because of some I�m going to have to a, or something along those lines. And I�m not going to, I�m not going to condemn somebody else.

I�m just going to say, this is where I am, this is my reasoning, and if they can explain where that�s wrong, great, fine, wonderful, otherwise, Anders, Gott helfen mir, ja?

Ja. Ja. James, I asked our mutual friend Carl Truman a couple weeks ago on No Compromise Radio, I asked him the question, if you could tell anything, if you could say something to your Reformed Baptist friends, your Baptistic friends, what would you tell them?

Something nice, something encouraging, convicting, and he gave me an answer. And so, you�re friends with lots of Presbyterians, if you could just say something to the Presbyterian brethren out there, what would you tell them?

A Word to Presbyterian Brethren on the Covenants and Listening to Reformed Baptists

Stop it!

Well, look, on many topics, I�m friends, and I have a lot of my Baptist friends. And so, you know, when we stand side by side on issues regarding the Gospel and things like that, it�s a great thing. Obviously, when we talk with each other about what�s separate, we�re looking for something encouraging.

Tremendous connections we have, and the fact that, you know, Reformed Baptists seem to be the most similar to one another. I�ve died of sins that may bear our name, but we recognize that there are actually people that don�t bear the same name, but those are actually much closer to us in their practice.

Peter Enns, and boy, they did a good job getting rid of him, given where he�s gone and taking place, that we always have to be fighting, no matter what side of the fence we�re on. But, you know, just in an exhortative phrase, I guess, I would just take some time to listen to what some of our best guys are saying when it comes to the issue of the covenants and things like that.

I�m frustrated by the fact that we read far more about what our Presbyterian brothers say than about us. Most of them just don�t think we have anything meaningful to say, and the reality is, people like Sam Waldron, and Fred Malone, and Richard Bursell is, I think, very meaningful stuff, and I�d love to see a little bit more.

Standing for Righteousness Against Sin and Satan

Talking to James White today, Alpha and Omega Ministries, AOMin .org, Dr. White, I love Jay Gresham Machin for lots of reasons. One is that he was a bicyclist, and so I know you�re a bicyclist as well.

Yes, he loved to ride around Europe, he loved to ride around even New England on his bicycle. And when I think about Machin, Machin is saying in Galatians, as he would talk about it, �Paul, Apostle, not.

He�s saying we�re going to stand up against these things. What do we do with our Christianity when everybody keeps telling us we have to be positive all the time, we�ve got to be known for what we�re for and not what we�re against?

And I was listening to you talk about Galatians earlier, and I�m thinking, don�t we need men who say, �Well, if we�re for righteousness, we�re against unrighteousness, we�re against sin and Satan. And how do we navigate the minefields in modern evangelicalism where people just only want kind of positive K-love information?

That what we have in so many of our congregations is a, we�ve brought people in, what we�ve, well, what you win them with is what you win them to. We bring people in with a clear understanding that the Gospel and against the culture, that it is, what the Gospel really stands for, what it has to say.

When we bring people in through entertainment and things like that, we�re sowing the seed of our own downfall in this issue, because we�re sowing the world, and these people buy into it, we�re allowing the world to set the standards of the conversation.

So they�re starting to talk about how, well, you�re just being known for what you�re against. Well, if we�re talking there about, for example, the big issue of our day, homosexuality, to God is about fulfillment, this is what brings out life, denial of the culture, modernism, and their parents, and a lot of our people just don�t really create a worldview upon which to think on these things.

I encourage our listeners to go to AOMin .org and pull up the Gay Christianity issue that James has there. I think you�ll find it informative and helpful. James, thinking of Machen again, I�m reading his biography at the moment.

He goes to Germany and almost becomes a liberal based on the kindness and niceness and some of the exegetical prowess of some of the theologians there. But God protects him and he comes back to the United States.

Fuller Seminary, Liberal Theology, and Seminary Training

You got your PhD at Fuller. Was there anything.

No, no, no, no. No? My first math, just an MA, please do not hang that one on me. Oh, I didn�t know that. Okay. But I am a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. Not the current Fuller, the 1980s, but not nearly where it would be today.

How did you navigate that school then? Was there anything in it with the professors that seemed alluring to you? You might want to change your views, or were you already so mature in your faith that you easily could cut through the issues?

Well, you know, that�s interesting because I even referred to myself then as Fuller�s token fundamentalist, and it was a battle when I did start that. And I went to Fuller because it was the only graduate level program of study in Phoenix at the time.

There just wasn�t anything else. None of the other extension seminaries were here in Phoenix in town, and it�s where I graduated. And so they drew a lot of their teachers from Grand Canyon, and so the extensions were not nearly as liberal as they were.

There were many times that I�m a hard von Radskalisch on Deuteronomy. And so we�re supposed to write a pro in the whole thing, and I wrote my review. And on the pro side, I said, �This book has a tremendously nice cover.

And then I went into the negatives from there. And I got a 98 on the review because he gets disappointing and troubling. But you weren�t punished. In an ethics class, one of the last classes I took, the professor who did come from the main seminary and flew in to the podium, we turned our chairs to each other, and everybody surrounded us, and we debated abortion.

I was against it. He was for it. And again, I still got an A in the class. So I really didn�t know why I was having to do this stuff. But years later, now that I�ve had to take on religious liberals, I know the liberals.

That was going to be useful to me, but I figured out over time. I certainly would not recommend that for the vast majority of people. I don�t know that seminary should be a time on a fundamental level.

I think you should be challenged. I think you should have your toes in something, or you�re just having everything you�ve already thought you knew read at the same time. I don�t know that it should be something where you�re having to raise your hand or writing line there.

Current Projects: South Africa, Mosques, Trinity, and Teaching in Kiev

Dr. White, tell us a little bit. We�ve got about a minute and a half left. Are you working on any projects now, book projects, anything we should be looking forward to in terms of debates or future ministries with James White?

Yeah, well, you know, I just got back from South Africa. We�re continuing that work down there. Mosques. It�s just an amazing historical opportunity there. I�m an apologist in the world on Trinity and Tawhid, and I�m supposed to be working on that.

And we�re a little caught up eventually. That�s going to be an extremely unusual book. There are almost no books out there where you have Christianity co-op sometime next year. And so that�s really the focus right now, that and teaching, teaching in Kiev.

Today we�re talking to James White. James, thank you for your ministry. Thank you for your partnership, for many things that we�ve done in the past. I appreciate you and your desire for truth, the desire to extol Christ Jesus the Lord.

I can�t talk, but I am a radio host, and if anyone wants to go hear some of James White, the Dividing Line, pick up some sermons, Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, aomin .org. That�s aomin .org. Thank you, Dr. White.

It�s been great to be with you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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