Reviewing "the Church of Christ" DEBATE!!

Well hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog. This is an apologetics ministry where a heart's desire is to contend for the faith.

And The Apologetic Dog is grounded in 1st Timothy 620 that talks about how we are to guard the gospel deposit.

And we do this by warring against pagan philosophy, irreverent babble. And we also war against false knowledge that contradicts itself.

And so this is very presuppositional. We want to take all thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. And so this is

The Apologetic Dog. Thank you again for tuning in. I also serve as a pastor and elder at 12 .5

Church. 12 .5 actually comes from another Bible passage, Romans 12 verse 5, which is a reference to the church body.

Even though we're individually one of another, we are also one together in the body of Christ.

So please check out our church website at 125church .com. And so you can check out our sermon series and our teaching series there.

I want to tell you a few announcements coming up pretty soon. Actually in just a couple days,

Dr. James White is coming to Jonesboro, Arkansas. He is actually going to be talking about justification by faith alone.

And so Dr. White is not new necessarily to 12 .5 Church. He actually came here last year and talked about the

Trinity. And he talked about Reformed Theology. And so we're excited for him rolling through our neck of the woods.

We're looking forward to that. That's December 5th coming up. And we have limited seats.

We're only able to hold about or seat 130 people. And so we are almost at the maximum mark of reserving seats.

So if you really want to come and have a seat, reach out to me on social media. There's multiple ways of contacting me.

We can reserve a seat. And you know what? Last minute, if you would like to come and you haven't reserved a seat, still come on.

There's going to be plenty of standing room. And we'd love to get to know you and meet you. So I'll be looking forward to that.

Also what's coming up is we are releasing me and Trey Fisher.

There's an episode on Cultish being released about how we were examining the

Church of Christ and a lot of the dangers and how we actually see the Church of Christ as a cult. And so that episode will be released in January.

I believe it's January 24th. So please be on the lookout for that episode on Cultish. And so my last announcement is

I'm actually participating in a debate coming up in just a couple weeks. I believe it's December 16th.

I will be debating with a Lutheran on the doctrine of baptism. And so I love my

Lutheran brethren. We share so many things in common being Protestant and affirming

Sola Scriptura and affirming Sola Fide. And so I'm really looking forward to talking about baptism.

And that'll be on a different YouTube channel, Standing for Truth, hosted by Donnie. So please tune in over there when the time comes.

And I'm excited. I'm also excited to tell you that this is a very special episode where I have a guest with me,

Adam Carmichael. Adam, how are you sir? I like your shirt by the way. Thank you, Pastor Jeremiah.

Thank you for having me on. I just look forward to getting into this conversation that we're going to have.

Absolutely. Now this isn't the first time you've been on the Apologetic Dog. What happened last time? I had my first debate ever with Travis Thomas.

He's a Church Cross, he says, preacher somewhere in Tennessee. And we are categorically different.

They have a different gospel, a works base, a works righteousness gospel. And so the spirit within me that dwells in me just couldn't allow somebody to talk against the grace of God.

Yeah, and we love Travis. We love people that are in the Church of Christ churches, but we do believe that they're holding to a false gospel.

And what that really means is they're not actually a church, right? They call themselves that. They even call themselves the Church of Christ, and they're referring to Romans 16 16, which is interesting because this is a sticking point.

I even noticed this in the debate. We're trying to be charitable when we say you got the Church of Christ over here, or you have a

Baptist, or Reformed Baptist, or someone else over here. And we recognize there's different denominations, right?

But when they say Church of Christ, they get offended it seems like because they say, no, no, we're a member of a Church of Christ.

And I almost want to be like, well, wait a second. We're not really talking about the nature of the church and who's actually members.

We're trying to be charitable identifying what types of beliefs we have, right?

Because I don't say, well, I'll call you a member of the Church of Christ if you call me a member of the true church, right?

Because that's not what the debate's about. And I try to remind Church of Christ, and I understand what they want to be called a member of the

Church of Christ. Look, we're not going to get into all that. You identify as being a part of the Church of Christ in some way, right?

And so Romans 16 16, that is a reference to what the Church of Christ is.

It's the Lord's Church, right? We are the called -out ones, but we have a different definition than the guy that you debated,

Travis Thomas, of what the church is. We believe the church is those who are called out by faith, apart from works, called out by the

Spirit who's regenerated us and given us new life in Christ. And so that's a whole separate thing. And so I just want to encourage people, don't get lost in the jargon of when they get mad and say, well, it's grammatically impossible to be a church.

That's not what we're talking about, right? And actually, if you're not a part of the church, then there's a problem, right?

And sure, does that mean you're a member and there's a universal body manifested in local congregations? Yes. And so I've just noticed with interactions with Church of Christ, they try to just, they make a big deal about how you're even addressing the situation.

So y 'all were debating sola fide. You know, are we justified by faith alone? And so I noticed that Travis did not appreciate us continuing to say

Church of Christ. And I pick up on that, and I understand what they're saying, but I'm not gonna budge.

I'm not gonna let them define terms. And us even just referring to them as Church of Christ is us actually trying to be charitable.

Oh yeah. Yeah, because remember, I gave the definitions for the words that were actually in the text that we were, that I brought to the table, justification by faith.

And he agreed to those and then tried to run and say that what context determines.

Well, if he would have known, I got those definitions specifically for the verses we were debating on justification by faith, and those definitions come from BDAG.

So it's one of the most highly regarded source to go to for definitions. Yeah. Well, I love how you said you really wanted to define terms because I think that's what the whole debate is then.

We war for definition of terms and for context, right? And those definitions have a wide range of definitions, and so context determines how a word is being used.

I've noticed with the Church of Christ, which they would say there are members of the Church of Christ, but people understand what we're saying.

And yes, we do recognize denominations. And what we mean by denominations are people that hold to a particular set of belief.

That puts everyone in a kind of denomination. Even people that are non -denominational are a kind of denomination.

But the real issue is, are you orthodox? Are you within the fall? Are you believing the right gospel in an orthodox denomination, or are you outside and in a heretical denomination?

And so that's a little bit deviating, but I just let people know we understand why they do not accept us referring to them as the

Church of Christ, because we do think denominational, and we're saying, and it's a heretical one, right?

There are some people, when I was on Cultish, they actually wanted to say the Church of Christ are not a denomination.

And I understand where they're coming from, because usually denomination is reserved for people within orthodoxy.

And so to me, as long as you qualify what you mean, if you say the Church of Christ are not a denomination and they're outside the fold and are a cult, that works.

Or if you're just saying that they're a heretical type of denomination, I think it's communicating the same thing. And so y 'all talked about a number of things in the debate that I would like to cover, but this was your first debate, right?

So how did that go? Well, I was very nervous. Like I said,

I was in war. I went to Iraq, and I suffered from post -traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

So my anxiety was kind of through the roof. So it may have looked like fear or something like that, but it wasn't.

It was just out of my realm. But like I said, I'm called to give a defense for the hope that I have in my heart as Cross Ben Lord.

Honestly, you didn't seem nervous to me. Like we got to talk and pray beforehand, and I was just excited.

You know, I wasn't debating like you were, but my name got tossed around in the ring a little bit. And you know, when people say my name and you know say something disparagingly to you or to me or to a 12 -5 church, it's like, you know,

I'm not gonna get offended. Like I don't have to defend my Lord. Like He's working out all things together after the counsel of His will.

And so when I hear Travis making remarks like saying that Reformed theology or people that hold to certain kinds of doctrine are like Pinocchio, you know, it causes me to chuckle because I refuse to get mad and let it bother me.

You know what I mean? And so it is what it is, and I want to be careful. I don't want to come across mocking and mean towards Travis or people within the

Church Of Christ church. Like I really do want them to know that while we're taking our time to talk about these things, it is out of love as we are trying to be obedient to contending for the faith, the correct gospel of grace.

So the debate proposition was the Scriptures teach justification by faith alone.

Why is alone such an important word in this conversation? Well, because if you just look at the text of Romans 5 -1, what we mean by alone boils down to only.

There's nothing else qualified in the text that says we're saved by anything else. So we're justified at one point in time, and God alone does that.

And we're not, we're separating that from sanctification. And we see that the Church Of Christ have a problem just like the

Roman Catholicism, that they tie both of them together. Well, that's crazy.

I mean, because they're distinct. Justification is what God does. Sanctification is what we do as we walk with the cross and are transformed to reflect

His image. Yeah, Pastor Nathan, if you would, please cue up Romans 5 -1.

Let me read that real quick, Adam. The Apostle Paul says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Church Of Christ, Travis is gonna say, oh, we believe that verse.

And my experience with the Church Of Christ is they don't necessarily want to interpret.

Not every single one. I've even come across men like A .K. Richardson. I've been very impressed that he doesn't speak the lingo of Church Of Christ that just says, it says what it says, and it means what it means.

And what they're doing is just saying, you know, Acts 2 -38 is so clear, I don't have to try to explain context or anything.

It says what it says. And so Travis would agree with Romans 5 -1, right?

He would agree that we are justified by faith. He's even said that he would not have agreed to the proposition that says the

Scripture states that we're justified by faith. And so what I want people to understand is, when we say alone, we are making an interpretive theological conclusion, right?

Now, because, you know, we say things like we're justified by faith alone, but justified faith is never alone, right?

It produces work. So the word alone just has to be understood in a particular context, and you know, we're

Protestants, right? We are a part of a historical faith, and so the five solas, which is

Latin for the five alone statements, Scripture alone, or saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone, those have a particular context in history, right?

It's combating the Roman Catholic Church and the sacramental works that they were teaching at the time, right?

Now those principles apply for us today, but we would say we're justified by faith alone, meaning apart from our works, right?

And so when Travis says Adam, Adam failed to show a single verse where we're justified by faith alone, in my mind, you know,

I'm an unbiased moderator, right? You know, unbiased. I'm at least trying to keep my mouth shut and manage time.

I don't think he understands. Like what we're getting at, because we're making a theological conclusion.

You don't see the word Trinity anywhere, right? But what does the Trinity mean? It means there's one

God, right? You got triunity, so the one God speaks to the unity, and then the three speaks to the three persons.

Well, that's biblical. We can demonstrate that, and I've heard Travis before say, well, that's why you should say Godhead, and it's like, well, we look past the

English language and what the King James says, and we're looking to what the Greek says, you know what I mean? And so we shouldn't rest our case in a

King James translation of the word Godhead. We need to be able to defend the Trinity and what that means biblically.

Well, my point is, so that's what we're doing with Sola Fide, or how we're justified by faith alone. What do we mean when we say that?

Well, we're justified by faith apart from works on this table. If we had works and we had faith and we take works off the table, we'd say, well, faith alone is what's

You've heard Matt Slick make that point before. So I just wanted to say, yeah, we believe that we're justified by faith alone, but that faith will produce works, right?

Do you want to add anything to that? No, because we always see, if you look at, I know

I'm not a Greek scholar, but... You're pretty close, though. Mark 115, the repent and believe, those are written in active tense.

So it's something that produces repentance and produces faith. So it's faith that's given by God is never alone, because that's what, the distinction is never made with the

Church Cross. They think faith, knowledge, head knowledge, that man I have faith in something, that's what God's talking about.

Well, that's not what God is speaking about when he's talking about faith. A faith that saves is a faith that works.

So I think this gets down to the crux of the whole issue, because you talked about defining words earlier.

So we have to understand what faith is from the Greek pistis, right? And there's a semantic domain.

And then works, ergon, is a different word, right? Are they related? Is James 2 important for this conversation?

Absolutely. And so, you know, I heard Travis one time say that he didn't like the dichotomy of us saying they believe in faith plus works.

He says no, that's not true. We believe in faith, but that faith, in order to be a live faith, has to work itself out.

And we're over here saying amen. So here's the point. Are you justified the moment when you have faith and when

God sees your heart, or are you justified at a particular point in time where that faith has worked a particular action, like baptism?

And so that's why we're saying faith plus works, right? Because they're saying that in order for it to truly be in a live faith, works have to be present.

And we're saying that's not what James 2 is talking about. It's talking about a mere said faith is a dead faith, right?

Because when I was listening to him, in a minute we're gonna be talking about what a dead faith is.

You can't have a true living faith from the heart and works not flow from that. God just knows if that's true or not, right?

But from a human vantage point, we are a lot of Christians that say that they love Christ, that they follow Christ, right?

But if it's in word only, then we see that that's giving evidence to a dead faith. So we'll get more into that.

But before we delve into some of the clips that we have, I just wanted to point out that Paul is saying pistis, faith.

The person that's not looking to themself and trusting in the only Savior, that's the whole argument that he's been building in Romans chapter 4.

And you brought a little bit of that out in the debate, if I remember. Yeah, I tried to highlight several specifics in Romans 4, because we look at Abraham.

He wasn't, he was justified when he believed, or credited as righteousness. So, man, they want to talk about it being simple.

Scripture is very clear that when we believe, and that's when we become justified before God.

I'm glad you said, we do believe Scripture is simple in terms of it being perspicuous.

It is clear. That's actually distinctive that we have differing with Roman Catholic Church, right?

Because their whole critique is, how do you know you have the right interpretation? You don't have an infallible arbiter.

You need the magisterium. You need the Pope to infallibly speak. And we're saying, no. Scripture interprets itself, and it's very clear.

I would say, Adam, that Scripture is so clear people just don't like what it says. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, I was a heathen at one time, and man,

I love living in sin. I mean, I didn't see no reason to come to God.

Coming to Christ wasn't a thing that I ever desired. So, sitting here talking with you about Christ being my

Lord and Savior, and just the whole clearness of what Scripture says, it blows my mind, just, and anybody else that knows my past.

But, like I said, I want to touch a little bit, just before we move forward, because I watched a little bit of their after -show, and he started talking about how

I said that my life is like the mark. No, it's a mark that says

I'm a Christian, because we see that those that have a love for God, a love for the brethren, there are many marks that prove that I am a

Christian, so I don't fall back. Okay, well, my life reflects that. Jesus says in John 4 that the

Father is looking for true worshipers that worship in spirit and in truth. And so, yeah, there's a lot of people that have a type of transformed spirit, that have a zeal, that have a certain type or form, but it's not always coupled in truth.

And so, that's what you're making case for. You're just saying, this is what the truth is. My life just testifies to what the

Scripture already teaches. Amen. Yeah, so, it kind of bothered me a little bit, like my wife told me, just bear with it, you just absorb those things.

That's right. You weren't alone either. He wasn't just saying things at you. I felt my name being brought up a few times, and I'm just like,

I'm just a moderator. Yeah, I mean, I got a love for the Church of Christ, because like I said,

I went there. It was one of the first churches I got invited to. You have a history. Yeah, so, me and my wife, we love the people there, but like I said, love is not the litmus test to salvation.

Christ on the cross is. His blood is a litmus test, and like I said, they can love you to death, but that'll be all it is, is just an outward affection and love.

So, I'm glad God called me out of the Church of Christ. Like I said, I wasn't never a member there, but I got baptized by a guy there, and they hold two baptism sages.

So, when I come here, I was drawn here by your apologetics ministry. Let's go.

Yes, I love apologetics. I mean, I never saw myself being able to do that, but I mean, we got to defend the faith.

We got to give that defense. You can hold your own. I think you showed that on debate night.

Well, I loved engaging with him, and like I said, my mind was kind of scatterbrained, because everything he brought to the table was scattered.

I mean, he agreed to the definitions, but said afterwards the context determined it, but yet they apply the same definition to all the context.

So, I mean, they're very inconsistent, and like I said, he gave 25 different things. It says saved, and so the context was...

You did get him to agree with you on two key definitions that I don't think they can hold to consistently.

You got him to agree to the term justification. Mm -hmm. In works. Oh, yeah. And Roman Catholics won't agree to our understanding of those words either, because of what it necessarily entails.

And so works is such important, because he says it's things that you do, right? And that's so interesting to me, because when you start pressing them on Romans 4 -2 or Romans 4 -4, when it starts bringing up works, they don't say it's just what you do.

They want to say, oh, it's talking about the law of Moses. It's talking about the works of the flesh, which is talking about Jews.

And so, I think the battle has to be when you establish a definition of works, then we're seeing examples of those works, right?

All of those examples, if not understood that it's in light of the finished work of Christ, and we're justified, and we're living in sanctification, all different kinds of works are boastworthy.

Oh, yeah. Because to the Jew, the best kind of work was the works found in the

Mosaic Law, and that's the precipium of any types of quote -unquote good works that you could possibly do, and what

Paul is saying here, and that's not going to cut it. So anything else you can dream of, even the

Christian later to come, you can't rest in your ability to perform works of baptism or going to church and trying to do good works of obedience in order to to stay in a right standing with God, you know?

I've had a lot of people reach out to me through email, through other avenues, and just talked about the heavy yoke within the

Church of Christ world because it's straight legalism, right? You know, they had their five -step formula of salvation, but when you ask them about, is that only it, right?

Do I have to continue to live a holy life? Well, that's number six, right? Oh, well, what if I do all these things?

I get baptized, I continue to live a holy life, repent, confess all these things, but I'm in a Baptist church. Oh, no, you got to be a part of the

Church of Christ. And what they really mean is the church that has that name on it. And so you're like, oh, there's more steps going on that I didn't get in their five -step formula.

In the history of Alexander Campbell, they actually had less steps, but they wanted to be able to communicate in five points because you have five fingers.

And so I'm just saying there's been inconsistency of how they even talk about how you even become saved to begin with because you have to be a member of their church, which they called the

Church of Christ, which we reject. So like I said, we're being charitable by just calling them Church of Christ. But we do see it as either a denomination that's heretical, or some people say, oh, it's not a denomination because it's outside the bounds of orthodoxy.

So you got those two definitions that I thought you did a great job at. Getting him to agree with the word works.

He's not going to be consistent in Romans 4 .2. To me, this is one of the best verses to try to say, look, this is not just talking about works of law.

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

Well, Abraham lives in a time way before the Mosaic law. So he did works.

He did works like left the land of the Ur of Chaldean. That was an obedient work. We later see him willing to circumcise

Isaac, or he did, and he's willing to even sacrifice his son. And so he did so many works, and what

Paul is saying is, and none of those works would actually justify him before God, which assumes being justified in front of people, which we'll get into maybe a little bit later, but it's talking about James 2.

So I'm just saying, that's the context for how verses 4 and 5 talk about the one who works, well, he's earning a wage for himself, right?

And Ergon is anything you do. And so even if you have a task in mind, it's talking about works, and you can put anything in that box, right?

And so we apply this to baptism, right? If you think you are able to get up and please

God with your work of baptism, well, I would appeal to Luke 18 with the

Pharisee and tax collector. If you believe that, then you're trusting yourself like the Pharisee did, right? Do you want to say anything to that?

No, I mean, that's pretty good. It's a little bit of the apologetic dog coming out of me.

Yeah, like I was telling Pastor Nathan, if I just get up here and just look pretty, you've got this theological view of,

I mean, it's so beautiful, and that's what I was drawn to 12 .5 for, is because of y 'all's ability to stand on God's Word and exposit the text where we're drawn to God.

Not necessarily y 'all, y 'all are just messengers that bring God's Word and bring it clearly through expository baptism.

I was telling Brother Keith, the only infallible thing that can be said in the pulpit is when we read Scripture, right?

Everything else, Lord, please guard me from error, right? So works is an important definition to bring up like you did, because I think they're going to fail at being consistent with that, because they want to leave that definition and quickly talk about examples of works.

They're gonna say works of righteousness, works of merit, works of flesh, and we're saying, yeah, those are all examples of works, and you've already conceded the very definition of works is anything that you do, right?

And I've actually talked to Travis on the phone. He said to me, if you have that type of understanding, then the

Scriptures contradict. And I'm like, okay, so you understand where we're coming from, and it's their understanding of James 2 that kind of throws everything out of whack.

And I get it. We're Protestant. Martin Luther had trouble with understanding

James 2. When Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount just says, you'll know them by your fruit, right?

Talking about from that human vantage point, that's what James is talking about. And you can see so much context clues of how that works out, and the fact that he brings up Abraham, I think, just strengthens that case, right?

Yeah, so he's talking about the fruit there. It just brings my mind back to Matthew 7,

I believe it's like 15 through 20, talking about a tree that bears good fruit. Well, I've heard a lot of conversations like,

I hope you don't mind me calling him out, but little Clint Little, he says that we are... He's one of my favorites.

Yeah, we sin because we are sinners, or yeah, and he doesn't take advantage that we were born in sin, we were conceived in sin.

That's Psalms 51 5, where David's talking about... Speak a little bit why this is so relevant in communication with Church Christ.

What do they hold to when it comes to sin? I know, forgive me for saying this, but it's like a

Pelagian view, where they think they can just come on to Christ. I mean, you see all these texts where Jesus says, come to me all you weary and heavy laden.

Well, they think that everybody has an ability to come to Christ. They confuse ought with can.

So, well, we're called to be perfect, so we can't be perfect, so we have to trust and rely on the one that is perfect, and that's

Christ. So, they deny original sin. They do. Well, let me add this caveat. They say they don't deny it because I've talked to several that says we're image bearers who were created in God's image, so they use that as a way to get out of original sin.

So, well, we can't, but we can. So, they're very inconsistent with that. Which kind of ties to the other important word to define, which is justification, because the way you understand justification, if you actually believe it's just as if I never sinned, right, to declare righteous, this actually touches on the doctrine of original sin.

Do you want to speak to that, Innie? Yeah, that was why I drew my opening statement from Genesis 3, to show that there was actually a fall with the

Genesis 1, where God created everything and saw that it was very good, and we see that as it progressed in Genesis 3, the fall of Adam, and it wasn't after she ate, we saw that in Genesis 3, 7, it says now, after he ate, then both their eyes were open, they saw they were naked.

So, we see that a fall of mankind happened when the man, the covenant head of the old covenant, and that was imputed not just to man, we see in Genesis 3.

Now, you said another key term there, imputed. Yes. Do you care to touch on that a little bit? Well, the thing about imputed is, when we look at the whole judicial system, we stand before God's sinners, so he's not making us a different creature, he's declaring us, so we're standing before God with an imputation of cross -imputated righteousness.

So, I think it's 2 Corinthians 5 21, he made him that knew no sin, become sin for, so we may attain the righteousness of God.

So, we see that imputation of cross -takes our sin, and we are imputed with his righteousness.

So, because imputed is a judicial term, and this is to me where the battle has to be fought, right?

Because if Paul is using judicial courtroom terminology, think about what's going on.

Adam represents all of his posterity, right? And God declared

Adam to be guilty, and so by effect, we are all declared sinners, right?

And that's the kind of language that he brings out later in Romans chapter 5, and so you have this understanding of federal headship, right?

I think you brought that out a little in the debate, because you're either gonna be under your federal head, Adam, or covenant head.

Is that the better way of saying it? Well, I'm engaging, yeah, because I've engaged with several church crosses, and they despise that word federal head.

Why is that? I have no idea. Is it because there's not the word federal in there? Yeah, because you don't see that in the text, so it's the same thing.

And to be fair, we're just saying, look, when we go to Romans 5, you see Christ and Adam, and you're either in one or the other.

So, if you call it federal, if you call it covenant, which is more of a biblical word, tomato, tomato, right?

Semantics at that point. And that's where I've noticed with my engaging is you just, you have to define your terms.

And some people, depending on the severity of how they've been trained and reared, it's like you can only use the words contained.

It's like, look, we can do that, right? But we still have to define what we mean we're saying words. And so justification is judicial, meaning that it's a courtroom term, right?

Because if we have Adam's imputed sin nature onto us, right?

He was declared, you know, separated from God as a sinner. And so we, he's representing us, right?

Now, we're gonna be held accountable for our sin, but there's something to that federal or the covenantal headship that when we are born, we desire to be.

So we're not in a neutral state, right? Because that's a big sticking point with the Church of Christ.

They're just like, What about babies? And we're like, hey, there are many passages that talk about for such are the kingdom of heaven.

What does that mean? Scripture's not super clear, but we know we're gonna trust in the just judge of the earth to always do right, right?

And I do hold a view that God in his sovereign grace has got it covered. And I think that potentially covers all children and many mental handicapped children.

I'm kind of just trusting God in that, right? But he's sovereign, right? He's going to choose whomever he chooses, right?

And so the big point is justification is judicial, right? And so we need a righteousness that's not our own, and it has to be imputed, credited to us in terms of judicial language, right?

And so this is how the 1 Corinthians 5 21 verse and verses go is an exchange happens.

When you look to Jesus Christ in faith alone, meaning apart from any accomplishments that you could possibly do, that would include your baptism, that would include your ability to be nice to other people, to go to church, read your

Bible, to pray a certain amount of times, anything that you can accomplish and do by your ergon, right? You have to say,

God, all that is tainted by sinful motives, right? I am looking to Jesus, the perfect Savior.

And so the promise of the gospel is when you look to Christ and trust in him alone, then his perfect righteousness, his perfect obedience to the law, and his perfect, you know, not sinning, right?

All of his perfect life gets imputed to your account, right? And judicially, you stand right before God, and he's judge, and he bangs the gavel and says, innocent no longer guilty, no longer condemned, right?

And so our sin gets put on Calvary, and then in exchange we receive the righteousness of Christ, and that's accomplished by faith.

And so one objection I have with people is saying, oh, I guess you can just go live however you want. And we're like, no, the

Holy Spirit's involved. This is where the fact that I even desire to look to Christ in faith to begin with, that is a work of the

Holy Spirit in my life when I was not searching after God. And so he who begins that good work in you, regenerates you, he's gonna carry you along through sanctification.

And yeah, are we gonna stumble and sin? Absolutely, but we're not gonna stumble away, as Jude talks about, right?

And so we work out our salvation and fear and trembling in terms of our sanctification, but the

Holy Spirit's gonna carry us and mold us and conform us more and more into the obedience of Christ.

And so you gotta have those proper distinctions, and I think you brought that out well when you got him to agree to justification, to be judicial, and just as if I never sinned, and the judge is saying, you're not guilty, right?

And guess what? God's not gonna lie. He's not gonna say, well, I changed my mind, right? And so I think the language back in Romans 4,

I love how the Apostle Paul quotes from, I believe it's Psalm 32, it's of David, and by the way he says, blessed is the one whom

God counts righteousness apart from his works, right? Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count sin. And so in the

Greek, there's like a double negation, the emphatic, right? And it's like, and never will be imputed to your account.

And we can understand that contextually because Jesus is a perfect Savior with a perfect righteousness, and so if that's imputed onto you, well then there's no more room for being condemned, right?

And so we don't abuse grace. Paul goes on to say in Romans 6 that why would we go back to sin so grace may abound?

It's like, no, we've died to that old way of life. What do you think? I think it's beautiful.

Man, I can, I hate going back to my life, but I didn't want to ever live for Christ, and I'm like a walking picture of faith working itself out in fear and trembling because I'm looking to the

Lord for... You mean you believe in some type of works going on? Well, after sanctification, yeah, we do work out our salvation with fear and trembling, like Philippians 2 is talking about, but it also qualifies as God who works in you both to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

That's important. So that's a deep understanding where not everybody has the

Spirit of God, and they get that conflated over in the Church of Christ where they think, I mean, we're image -bearers, so therefore we can come to Christ, so they have a false understanding of who the

Holy Spirit is and what he does. Which I want to touch on that briefly because I've had ongoing conversations with Travis and he told me in the

Church of Christ world there's two views of the Holy Spirit. You either have a what he calls a literal understanding that the

Holy Spirit is in you, which we believe that the Holy Spirit is with us in the children of God.

Like, we have the Holy Spirit. He is the one conforming us more and more into the image of Christ. It's not me, right?

Thank God it's not me, right? I couldn't do it. He has to do it. So yes, God, and I think there's something beautiful and mysterious to this, but somehow the

Holy Spirit indwells believers actually. And so a lot of the

Church of Christ, they reject that. And I'm thankful for this, actually. And the more and more

I've talked with them they're more so in agreement, and Travis rejects that. He said he actually had what he called a literal view for a while, but now he holds to a representative view of the

Holy Spirit. And I got clarification. He's like, don't explain it to where we think the Holy Spirit is the

Bible. That's not ever what I thought they meant. But what they mean in the metaphorical representative view is that when you read the

Scripture and meditate on the Word, that is representative of the Holy Spirit in you.

That's different, right? That's definitely crazy. I mean, because then that means you would only be sanctified when you read your

Bible. Something that you do and you accomplish. And so to me that typifies exactly what we've been saying from the get -go, that that is a man -centered salvation.

You must pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I've heard Nathan Hargrave say, soulless bootstrapped -us before.

He likes to add to those soulless a little bit. But we're not trying to be mean.

We're just saying we have totally different worldviews. We believe different Gospels. They have a different view of the

Holy Spirit. And so I think we're highlighting that very thing. Travis, at least, to just talk about him and not talk about all

Church Christ, right? They don't all share it. But Travis does not think he possesses literally the ontological presence of the

Holy Spirit. And I'm saying, we do. We believe that believers that are saints are being sanctified by the work of the

Holy Spirit in us, actually, right? So yeah, what did you think when he brought up the point, well,

I guess I'm just gonna sit here. He did it mockingly, but hey, I'm glad he gave arguments and didn't just sit there for 15 minutes, right?

And just say, well, this debating Calvinist, I just gotta wait on the Holy Spirit. What'd you think when he brought that point up?

I thought he was being very sarcastic, and I believe he even said that he's not trying to be sarcastic, but he was.

I mean, if you ever find a Calvinist that holds to a view that we just sit around waiting for the

Holy Spirit to do the work, then they didn't hear my opening statement where we're looking to Scripture being the means by which

God calls his children out of darkness and into the wonderful light of his son. Well, Adam, I guess that means that we can't be persuasive with our speech.

Yeah, so that's another thing. Our speech, even Paul talks about that he doesn't speak with eloquence because he don't want to water down the gospel.

So it's not about our speech, it's the gospel of the power of God unto salvation. So he brought this up in one of his aftershows about Paul was pleading with people trying to persuade them to Christ, ultimately.

What are the proper categories for us to try to be persuasive? Always read

Scripture. Like Paul says, he becomes the person. So, I mean, like me,

I'm dumb, so I can relate simple terms, but then as I've grown in Christ, I mean, you really want wherever our soul is going, you want to know that more detail.

And R .C. Sproul, he kind of gives a good illustration.

When you go to the doctor, you don't want the doctor just to say, well, your stomach is messed up. Well, doc,

I knew that before I come here. Give me the details. Give me the precise, and he's gastrointestinal, blah, whatever.

He gives this long -term definition. So that's what we want. We want to dig into the Scriptures and kind of cultivate our soul with God's Word.

Right, so we understand we can give facts, we can give details, and we can even do so persuasively by saying, hey, this is what the text says, and this is the context of what it means and how it applies.

We can do that persuasively, but we still carry this understanding that, wait, it's still ultimately

God that grants repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. So both can be compatible, right?

We can plead with people to repent and believe the gospel. In fact, all men everywhere are commanded to repent, and we do so persuasively, but knowing that it's not our ability to be able to ultimately convince them.

Does that make sense? That is a work of God. Yes, and so I just I heard a little bit of that in the debate.

He's just like, why are Calvinists trying to be persuasive, or people that hold to Reformed theology?

We're saying, we ground our arguments in Scripture, but it's the Holy Spirit that turns the light bulb on, right, to be able to see their sin and their need for the

Lord. That's something we can't do. Now, we can point to the doctrines that teach that, but really, I thought Travis proves exactly what we believe, that he's hostile to the sovereignty of God and the gospel of grace.

If he's not able to be able to achieve and do some type of work, and under the umbrella of saying,

I'm just being obedient to the commands, that's exactly what the Pharisees did, right? But if you start talking about a gospel that is all grace, a grace that is sufficient, they don't want anything to do with that.

I'll tell you another experience that I had that only confirmed this with me. I had a debate back in February.

You were there, right? You asked the question. I loved that whole experience and opportunity, by the way.

But I had many conversations with the two gentlemen. I debated Brock, but he had debate partner

Aaron Dodson, and so I remember we got together at Panera Bread, and Aaron told me, he said,

Jeremiah, if the things that you believe are actually true, he said, I would just prefer to be an agnostic.

I remember just thinking, of course, right? Because this is all about, all of creation, all of history is about God and His glory, and it's not about us, right?

The natural man, the person that does not actually have the Holy Spirit, rejects these things, and they can't understand them.

So, of course, they would be in agnostic land, right? Suppressing the truth in their love for sin.

So, I just hear points like that. I'm just like, that confirms what we believe. You know what I mean?

So, we talked about a lot there that I thought was very important. We've defined the word faith, which means firm trust, and we understand this is a category of the heart internally.

We've talked about works being ergon, things that we do. You brought that out, and he agreed with you. I think the inconsistency comes out when they start appealing to examples of works rather than sticking to the definition, right?

And then you talked about justification being judicial, and this is key because you can find judicial clues all throughout

Romans. God being a judge. Who can bring a charge against God's elect.

You talk about that word impute or to credit. That's a judicial term, and there's more, but all this can be found in the

Old Testament, literally in courtroom settings. These are the types of words that Paul is quoting from, from the

Greek Septuagint, which is a translation of the Hebrew. And so, to me, there's just too much evidence of what

Paul is saying, and what I want to encourage the viewer is that you don't have to know all that to just simply let

Paul's argument develop on its own. You know what I mean? And so, I think somebody that reads

Romans 5 .1, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. Not this kind of peace that if I go, if I sin and I make mistakes, somehow

I'm not gonna have peace with God anymore, and then it's gonna be a war all over again and be an entity. That's not peace.

No. I just don't get how you don't see them wet all the time, because they also believe that you can lose your salvation, so why they're not always getting re -baptized and...

They have arguments, but I'm with you, because once again, with the main -sinner -ness is, they'll just say, we just see one baptism, and then we get into Acts 19 with a re -baptism.

They got a few lines, but their whole deal is, you just gotta repent and confess your sin. Yeah. The problem is, what if you forget to confess your sin?

Well, it's only the sins that you know about. Oh, so when you sin and you don't know about it, it's not sin? Oh, well, yeah.

You know what I mean? So you get into this, well, if it's back on you to repent, you better confess every sin, and you can just feel this weight of bondage again.

You know who did a really good job of that? The Pharisees. They put on that mask and let people know, look how great we are.

We've even come up with more laws to make sure that we don't get close to breaking the law of God. Oh, yeah. You know what

I mean? Yeah. And so, something else was brought up in the debate. Travis brought up Colossians chapter 2.

Oh, yeah. And so, I know that you wanted to address this, and I believe we have a clip of that.

Pastor Nathan, do you care to cue up that clip for us real quick? Play around with sin, but one thing that I don't think he quite understands,

Colossians 2 .14 says the law was nailed to the cross, alright? Ephesians 2 .15

talks about it's abolished. Hebrews 9, 16, and 17 says that we're not under the old covenant, alright?

We're under a new covenant. So, he said you didn't really understand Colossians 2.

Maybe you've had some time to look at that, and maybe now you do have a proper understanding of it, Adam. Yeah, and I just want to reach out to the people.

When I said that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, it wasn't sarcasm. It was literally the dumbest thing

I've ever heard. Because on a surface level, he said that the law of Moses, is what he's getting at, was nailed to Calvary.

And so, just on the surface level, there's no way that that's what the Apostle Paul is actually talking about here.

Oh, yeah. I actually looked for a couple of verses just kind of refute that.

If you look at Romans 3 .31, it says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? He says, by no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law. And then Romans 7 .13 says, so the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good.

Then Matthew 5 .17 says, I did not come to abolish the law, or the prophets, but to fulfill.

And so, I mean, that's why my mom instantly went to, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Because he said it, you know.

Now, I anticipate a future response by him saying we're twisting what he said. But he said it, right?

That the law was nailed to the cross. And we're over here like, no. Yeah, and I tend to take people for what they say, and not for me trying to read in, to interpret.

My heart, I know I misspeak all the time, so I really try to apply a level of charity with people.

But with Travis, it's a different story. I've tried and tried to communicate with him, and then he puts out these odd videos just blasting me.

And so, we'll get into more in a little bit of how long do you keep going down that road. So, I'm glad that you're going to point this out, because maybe a lot of people actually believe that the law was nailed to the cross.

And they might actually go to Colossians 2 to try to prove that. So, what is this passage actually getting at?

Alright, so I'm gonna read the passage from 9 to 14, so we can get to context. Made with our hands.

Concentrate on that. That's a key term, too, the circumcision of Christ.

And you, specific here, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God made alive together with him. God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us and its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. I just want to focus in on that, nailing it.

What is it? Well, the syntax, because we believe in the grammatical, historical, hermeneutical method, we let the sentence structure determine it.

Well, it is neuter singular. And the only other thing in that passage is a certificate of debt or record of debt.

And the Greek is chorographon. The Latin word is hypoxlegomenon.

It's one time in Scripture. So, it's a beautiful thing. And let me pause you, because everything you're saying is awesome and true.

And you can even see that just in the context of just being able to read English, that what's being nailed is a sin debt, right?

Your offenses, your sin, your trespasses against God, that's what's being talked about at Calvary, because we were talking about that great exchange, right?

Those that are in Christ, that look to him in faith. Well, your sin goes somewhere, right? It's no longer, you know, on your own account.

It's at the cross of Calvary. That's right. And Paul's not the only apostle preaching that, because if we look at Peter, 1

Peter 2 24, that he bore our sins in his body, where? On the cross. So, it's not just limited

Paul here. All the apostles taught that. Isaiah 53 is one of the clearest passages in all the

Scripture, which is even Old Testament. But even, I think there's so many details found there that the Old Testament is like pointing us back to go read because of its clarity.

Amen. And so, when you start, I know a lot of people don't hold to a particular redemption, but Scripture teaches it.

So, I kind of hold firm to it, and I can testify that, because I didn't want no part of being a

Christian, well, that goes to show God's working all things after the counsel of His will, not my will, as we see in John 1 12 and 13, not by the will of man, but by the will of God.

Which further removes us to say that God's working all these things out.

Amen. He's putting His glory on display, and so I think particular redemption really highlights that, that Jesus is a perfect Savior.

He loses none that the Father gives to Him, and He has a particular task that He's trying to accomplish, and He's not going to fail.

Amen. He not only dies for those He intends to save, but He's raised on our behalf, and He's a perfect high priest who continues to intercede.

Amen. I think that's Romans 8, you know what I mean? And so, going back here, I want to hear more thoughts on 14, but like you said, sentence structure matters along with the earlier context, because this is actually a favorite verse, one or two above, with the

Church of Christ. I want to get your thoughts on this too, and then we'll definitely continue tight back to verse 14. But just the verse before,

So my debate with Brock Kendall back in February, and our proposition, which was super wordy,

I didn't want him to back out of the debate, so I'm just like, yes, you know, we'll roll with this thing.

But he talks about, and all the Church of Christ hold this, I'm pretty sure, they talk about our past sins are forgiven at baptism.

And so, you know, I'm in constant conversations online, and I believe for someone to say that only our past sins were forgiven is a direct contradiction of what is said here, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

And then my follow -up question is, does God not see your future sins? And we kind of have them, because you know, unless they're gonna be more consistent with their theology and say that God doesn't know the future, and that's a little bit more compatible with free will, you just got a whole host of other, you know, problems if you go that route, you know what

I mean? But I don't know if you want to speak to that. It says all of our trespasses are forgiven in this context.

Yeah, that's a beautiful passage. I think it stems back to the problem that they have a poor view of God and a high view of man, because I've talked to a church across it, say

God can not remember things. And they phrase it like this,

God is so sovereign that he can choose not to know certain things. Oh yeah. And you know what

I say? Can God be so sovereign that he can create married bachelors? And I always get weird looks like, what are you talking about?

It's like, well, a married bachelor is a contradiction in terms, right? God is logical.

He's the God of truth, and we're to think his thoughts after him. We're supposed to be logical, right? We're to hold fast to that which is good and corresponds to the

Word of God. No lie is of the truth. God cannot deny himself. Well, these are talking about logical categories, and so you can't just say

God is so sovereign or God is so omnipotent that he can do logically incompatible things, right?

And so to say that God is so sovereign that he can choose not to know, well, that undermines his omniscience, right?

You're saying God can know and not know in the same way, and you're just trying to appeal to his sovereignty to do that.

You know what I mean? And so Church of Christ go that route. It's happened to me a lot, and that's kind of my response to them is, can

God be so sovereign that he can create married bachelors? Yeah. And then usually I get the, what? Well, they actually kind of use that same thing,

God creating a rock that he can't lift. Well, they insert that, and it's not just them.

It's anybody that hosts that pagan free will. God created something that he can't thwart.

So that's that rock that God created. And if I could speak to the camera, we believe in free will, but we understand free will as the

Bible describes, right? We would say this is a compatibilistic free will, a creaturely will.

You choose according to your heart's desire. That's right. It's the, like you said,

I think it's pagan. I think it comes not from Scripture. I think it comes from man, right? But their kind of will is a categorical ability to choose to do otherwise, and what that means is apart from God's any foresight, foreordination, any eternal decree, no, no, no, none of that stuff.

So that's really what that kind of libertarian free will is getting at, disconnected from God's intention and purpose in all things.

And so I'm with you. I try to be super charitable with people and say, we believe in free will, you know, but you have to have a right view of God first in order for that to even work, right?

So something that we're real intentional, especially at 12 .5, is who is God. That's right. Let's go back to the holiness of God.

Let's look at the God who has revealed Himself. And so the God that we read in Scripture is the one who is working all things together after the counsel of His will.

The Old Testament even talks about this same God who there is no other. He is declaring the end from the beginning so that all of His counsel will come to pass.

That's right. That's a sovereign God. That's an absolutely sovereign God in all things.

You know what I mean? And we could go more and more on that. So I was trying to add that to say, I think you're right. I think there's a lot of presuppositions that are already faulty trying to understand this verse.

And understand, this is one on its surface that they...Paul clearly is talking about all of our trespasses, right?

But they want to qualify all to mean just the ones in the past, when God sees our entire life.

Yeah. And the biggest thing, that's why I was so upset when he said the law, what distinguishes

Christianity from any other religion on the planet, well it has to be crossed by grace through faith you've been saved.

Because if it's by works, then we're just like all the other religions out there just trying to get to God and won't never make it.

I've heard Dr. John MacArthur, Pastor John MacArthur, say that you have two religions in the world, right?

You have divine accomplishment, which is by grace, or human achievement. And so Christianity alone stands over here under a divine accomplishment.

Jesus' works paid it all on Calvary. His life before the cross, and then what he did on Calvary.

You know what? He even resurrected after his death to show that he's Lord, and that death could not even hold him back.

Showing that he's God in the flesh. And so we are a system of works, but it's the works of Christ alone.

And so when people say, well you've got to be baptized, you've got to pray a sinner's prayer, you've got to do this, you are adding your works to the already finished work of Christ.

That's what's at stake, right? So I want to continue to tie this into verse 14 like you've been talking about, but the verse before it.

This is another verse talking to Church of Christ that's important. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith, that's key, in the powerful working of God.

So Adam, you don't understand. Baptism is not a work that you do. It's a powerful working of God.

What do you say to that? Well I do believe that's a beautiful picture of what the

Holy Spirit's already brought in your heart, because we see that it's who also raised with him through faith.

Faith is that role by which we are raised in Christ, and it's baptism there is merely,

I don't want to say merely, because it's a beautiful picture of what the Holy Spirit has already done in your heart.

So I'm sure you're going to back it up and see the verse 11. That's the

Holy Spirit's work of regeneration that says, in him you were also circumcised with his circumcision made without hands, putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

That's key there, because the circumcision of Christ is Paul's language that he's talking about over in Romans 2 29, but a

Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the

Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not by man, but of God. So we see the

Holy Spirit working in severing the flesh, circumcision of the heart.

So salvation is never by an outward thing, it's just a reflection of the

Holy Spirit's work in our heart. That's good, because he's talking about a circumcision made without hands, right?

Which this is a circumcision of the heart that the Old Testament talked about. And so it goes on to say, putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, right?

God's involved here. And so I believe what happens next is Paul is making the same point, but he's just using different terms to drive this point that it's a circumcision made without hands.

It's in Christ, right? God is doing it. I think that's what the powerful working of God is. You got this Ezekiel 36 language where God, He is the one taking out that heart of stone, and He is the one giving us a heart of flesh, giving us that desire to be obedient to all that He's called us.

And so he says it in different words in verse 11. In verse 12, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith.

And so did you want to speak to this word baptism? Because I've looked at the Greek word here too.

It's in the plural. So how is that meaningful here in the context? Well, we could fall into the same program where the water ain't in before, but baptism, we see the structure of it.

You were buried with Him. So it's giving us a picture of when we come into a ministry and we're being buried, we're laying down the old flesh and being raised with Him through faith.

So that's why I say, and Scripture is teaching that, that's a picture. If we look at Romans 6, 4, the same thing there.

A beautiful picture of the gospel, that we are mortifying the flesh and saying, okay, hey,

I've been identified. I'm a Christian now. I'm gonna walk in this newness of life. Adam, you keep saying picture, and that's not in the text.

So that's what I get. I just can hear it. We speak where the Bible speaks. We speak the oracles of God, and they quote 1

Peter 4. It's like, we are too. We're dealing with the texts, and we're talking about interpretation and what it means, not merely with what it says.

We care about what it says, but we build from that. So tell me what you think about this. So this is baptism in the plural, and so when you look at baptizmos, you have baptize and baptizo, and they're very related, but they're not identical, right?

And so when you look in the lexicon, the writer of Hebrews uses this a couple of different times.

This is actually referring to purification rites that Jews were very familiar with, and a lot of people don't know this, but baptism does not originate in the

New Testament, with Christians. Baptism was something that the Jews were already familiar with.

We even know this with John the Baptist preceding a Christian baptism, right? And so what

I love about the understanding of Jewish understanding of washings is when you look to maybe the best, the quintessential example at Yom Kippur, is you have many accounts of washing.

The Levitical priest would do washings, but it's always pointing to a spiritual reality. It was figurative.

This is in the same context where they would send a goat into the wilderness as a scapegoat, representing that we need our sins to be taken away, right?

And so the Jews would understand what the Apostle Paul is saying here.

He used baptizmos. They immediately are thinking about ceremonial rites, which they had already been baptized into Jesus in his authority in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and he's talking about this powerful working of God in regeneration, being united with him in such a way where we are cleansed from the inside out, and Romans 6 talks about, and to walk in newness of life.

The Christian baptism, I think, is so much better of an ordinance given to the church because it not only entails regeneration, but also the sanctifying work that we now have the

Holy Spirit indwelling with us. Old Testament saints, circumcision talked about regeneration, that heart change, but the

Holy Spirit didn't indwell them. He was with them, right? And that's why they had ceremonial laws.

And so I just I love how he is using this language, and then he even qualified, like to me this makes so much sense.

Having been buried with him in baptizmos, washings, Jewish understanding, in which you were raised with him through faith.

And you know I can already hear Travis now saying, well it can't be a dead faith. We say, of course it's not a dead faith.

It's a real heart that trusts in the Savior, and all

I can describe to someone is real trust means only you and God knows if it's real. If you're really looking to Him, or if it's just something merely you're telling other people, and there's nothing in there, right?

Just a mere said faith. That's a dead faith that is useless that James kind of goes on to say, right?

The body without the soul is dead. It's useless, right? So a mere said faith that has no internal conviction is useless, right?

So is there anything else you want to say in this passage? No, I just want people to know when they read this, it's a declaration of what

Christ accomplished on the cross. Do we know who Christ died for?

Absolutely not. We're commanded to spread the gospel to all creatures. So I mean that's our command to share

God's Word with everybody, and God will work out those that are dead in sins.

That's His work. We're called to share it with everybody. Absolutely. Well thank you for saying that.

We have another clip. I wanted to bring up another point in this discussion, and as the moderator it was like, man,

I can't speak, but I'm so glad Adam was in there. And so if Pastor Nathan will please roll the clip.

We have him talking about a passage from Luke chapter 5, and it's in the context of what he calls a dead faith.

So if we can play that clip please. And behold some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they that were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus.

But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the mist before Jesus.

And when he saw their faith, no, it was faith alone. They had a dead faith.

No, he saw what they were doing, and Jesus says it's their faith. See, baptism, confessing, is an act of faith.

Jesus saw what they were doing, and He said, I see their faith. Thank you for playing that,

Pastor Nathan. The man over there just hanging out. He said so many things.

I may have him play that again because I remember hearing it for the first time. I was just excited over there, you know.

I'm only the moderator though. He said a lot of things. I don't think he captured how you were defining faith earlier in the debate, right?

Because you think their understanding of James 2 is faith without works is dead, meaning it's only alive when you see certain works, right?

And so that's the big difference between what we're saying and what they're saying. Both of us are really saying true faith works.

Like I get that. But we're saying God knows if faith is real in your heart, and if it is, which

He knows, then you're declared right before God. Now, if we hear someone say, oh,

I'm a Christian. I have faith, you know, and it's like, okay, I hear that. But then there's no evidence of their life.

I suspect that that's a dead faith and a mere said faith only, right?

And there's more to that, but there's a semantic domain. You brought this out in the debate.

There's a few different definitions of faith, pistis, or pistuo for believe.

I want you to speak to this because you got intellectual ascent and fiducia. Did I get that right?

Oh, yeah. Fiducia and assentia. What is it? Ascentia. Ascentia. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. The ascentia is a mind, intellectual, like we see in James 2,

I think 23, somewhere around there, where even Satan believes there's one God.

219. Yeah, 219. Well, that's what we call an ascentia, a mind change, and I mean, they know he's

God, and they don't confess him. And if you look up the word pistuo, it literally says to ascent to facts, to know facts, and so what you're getting at is the demons know that you believe that there is one

God you do well. Guess what? Even the demons believe that. They're monotheists, right?

But they have a, they don't have trust in Christ.

So speak to that. Yeah. So trust is, any reborn

Christian knows that trust comes from the heart, like Paul says in Romans 10, that from the heart we believe.

So the difference between an ascent faith and a faith that comes from the heart, if we look at Galatians 5, 22 through 25, the fruit of the

Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self -control.

Well, faithfulness there is pistis, it's faith, so that's a fruit of the Spirit, and Paul makes that clear in other passages like 1

Corinthians 2, 14, we are not able to accept or understand the spiritual things of God because they're spiritually discerned.

You've got to have the Spirit. And Travis says he doesn't have the Spirit. That's right. Like he admits that on his own view.

Now he says he does through this representative, but we we understand Paul saying, no, you need the

Spirit to be able to understand the things of God. That's right. And so I think that's a huge problem, but I'm actually kind of glad that there is a line being divided because we're saying without actually having the

Spirit, you can't know these things. That's right, because there's lots of spiritual truths that people just can't understand, like the

Trinity, atonement, justification. These are things that are wrought to believe from the heart.

You may be able to categorize it in your head, but to be able to believe it is something totally different.

Yeah, now it's interesting because we're looking at this passage in Luke chapter 5, right?

This is where Jesus heals the paralytic. When you look more into that word, this guy was basically a quadriplegic, right?

He was not able to move. He had to have his friends do it. That's right. And it's interesting because when

I heard, you know, Travis bring up this passage, I'm like, I was thinking, keep reading! Keep going! Because if we just pick up, like we understand that the paralytic is with, you know, his either friends or family, those with him, and they are basically bringing him down, you know, through this ceiling, right?

And so Jesus says in verse, we read here in verse 20, and when Jesus, and when he saw their faith, he said, man your sins are forgiven you.

Now I want to ask you, Adam, whose faith did

Jesus see? According to just what this verse says, right?

He says he saw their faith, right? It's a collective group, right? So it would be the paralytic and those that were with him, right?

Definitely. And so Travis's point is they had to do something, right?

He saw their faith working, right? And so he's talking, so what

Jesus is saying, he saw their faith collectively as a group, but there's only, only the friends, we'll call them, they were the only ones doing something.

Oh yeah. They were the ones bringing him down through the roof, right? What did the paralyzed man do?

He just rode for the ride. He did nothing. That's right. He was along for the ride, but he had faith, right?

So this is a collective, he saw their faith, but only the friends, we'll call them, they're the only ones doing something, right?

And we can even say, yeah, because faith works love. That's what Galatians said, and Travis thinks that that somehow negates our position.

We're saying, no, true saving faith works love, right? And that love is really talking about loving acts, acts of kindness, acts of mercy, because we would even say a repentant faith is a loving repentant faith that manifests itself out with works,

James 2, right? And so of course, that's what they're doing. They're demonstrating their faith by saying, we believe in this guy as the

Savior to be able to heal our friend, but here's the key. The rest of verse 20,

I'll read it again, and when he saw their faith, he said, man, this is a reference to the paralytic who did nothing, and even

Matthew 9 verse 2, he even addresses to the paralytic, not to be confused who he was talking to, and he said to the paralytic, man, your sins are forgiven you.

There's no works that he did in the text, right? He was a paralytic. He couldn't, and so for anyone else to say, well, he maybe could have talked and said something.

Not in the text. You're supposed to speak where the Bible speaks, but here's the point, because we can still interpret it, and I think this is so awesome, because Jesus being the

God -man, you brought this out in the debate, he sees past the works. He sees the pistis.

He sees the faith, and so, and I love how he says it, because I really do think that he's looking past the works, because you could have people in the

Gospel accounts seeking after Jesus that did not have faith, and he knew their hearts, and he did not entrust themselves to them, because he knows the heart of man, and so this is an affirmation of our position.

Jesus looked past the externals and saw the heart, but it gets harder for their position without just reading their theology into it.

We all are supposed to be doing systematic theology, by the way, but the man that did nothing, his sins are forgiven, and if we keep reading in the context, and when the scribes and Pharisees began to question, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies?

Who can forgive sins but God alone? This is the key, and I think you mentioned this in the debate. When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, why do you question in your hearts?

So Jesus sees past the external works that we do. He sees past our posture.

He saw the legitimacy of these individuals' hearts, and healed the paralytic, and then conversely, with the

Pharisees, he sees past their austere, how they present themselves as holy, righteous people.

He saw the intentions of their thoughts, and he was referring to their hearts. Why are you doubting in your heart?

And so you're dealing with the God -man that sees past works, right? And so the point is, if Jesus can heal physically, then you should believe that he can heal spiritually.

And so you see so many accounts where Jesus heals people where they only had faith and didn't do any works, like the paralytic, and then you can also see how true saving faith that justifies is never alone and always demonstrates itself before the world and before man.

That's what you see with his friends. So what'd you think? I heard him bring that up, and I was like, oh, let's go.

Yeah, I wasn't very knowledgeable in like that whole passage, but I'm very knowledgeable because God is knowable.

We have a knowable God, and he's revealed himself in a way that we can know him, and scripture after scripture, he looks at the heart and minds of men.

So for us to say that we had to work something out in front of him for him to know that we're actually believers goes against Colossians 2 .14.

I mean, he died for a particular people, so he knows them people are gonna work that faith out.

And I really think that's the key issue. So we all say, if we're speaking Christianese, we all say faith that justifies, but are we talking about pistis?

Are we talking about faith or faithfulness? Right? Because we all believe true living faith will work, but are you justified at the point of a particular work, or are you justified the moment when you actually have faith?

Right? So to me, it's a it's a word game of how do we understand James 2 and Romans 4 and other various texts, but as you get the scope to be bigger, we need a perfect righteousness, one that's not our own, and we look to the perfect Savior.

And so as we kind of close down, how we doing on time, Pastor Nathan? Okay. Yeah, so as we kind of wind down,

I've been thinking about this and praying and talking to Pastor Nathan and you a little bit.

What do you think about when it's time to kind of disconnect from people that just belittle the true gospel and the

God that we worship and adore? What do you think? Well, we've made an attempt, and I'm trying to remember where the scripture says.

I mean, you can probably go to where Jesus says, stop casting pearls before swine.

So I mean, there does come a time where we shake the dust from our feet, and Travis has definitely presented himself in a way that,

I mean, there's no edification to God's Word, and he's mocking Calvinism, and sure,

Calvinism, we stand by that because it's a methodology that points to Christ. So we don't agree with everything

Calvin stands on, it's just... And even people that don't hold to Calvinism, you can still be saved if you believe in the true gospel, and like you said, that's just a methodology that we think is biblical, right?

But that's not the gospel. No, no. We're not tying the gospel to Calvinism.

We're just using that methodology to kind of brighten the picture, because we're still...

Scripture is the ultimate authority, and you don't have to be a Calvinist. I mean, you can be an Armenian, unfortunately, but yeah, there's different views.

As long as you hold to by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone, and if you hold to that, yeah, you're in the fold because the

Holy Spirit brought something in your heart that man can't do. I love how you put that. You don't have to hold to particular points of Reformed theology.

We believe it's the most consistent and biblical, but my heart breaks with Travis. We're going to continue to pray for him, but I think for me, it's time to dust off my feet and move on.

I just see what he does after you call into his show or you debate with him.

I mean, he just roasts you to no end and doesn't even come close to representing what you actually said or meant.

No, in my opinion, there's not a level of charity being applied, and so I didn't tell you this before the debate, but the day before, he messaged me and was like, hey, if you don't think

Adam's ready, then you can debate for him, and I can give you some more time, and I just thought...

I didn't respond because I know he's wanting to kind of divide us, you know, and after it's all over, he can just say, see, they had to bring in the pastor and all these things.

So to me, I don't appreciate those type of, you know, mind games attempting, but then after the debate, somebody tagged me and him and was, you know, basically showing how they don't agree with his teaching, and I pointed out

I've been trying to get Travis to debate me on original sin or talk about the sovereignty of God or these other things, and I've called him on the phone, and he just told me he didn't really think it would be worth his time.

He's got some other things going on, and he's told me repeatedly that he is not interested in debating me, and so when he kind of...

I didn't even take him serious when he said this, but he's just like, oh yeah, if you want to fill in for Adam, then I totally understand.

Well, that's not accepting my challenges to debate him, and so, you know, after I made that comment to be like, yeah,

I've been trying to debate him, and he won't do it, but he'll debate other people at 12 -5 that I know, he got so mad and just calling me a liar and all these things, and a part of me is like, what do

I expect from someone who, by their own admission, does not have the Holy Spirit in them, really, you know, and so there comes a point to where I think you love on them best you can.

You try to contend for the truth, but there does come a point to where it's like,

Lord, please help me not to cast my pearls before swine, because what's gonna happen, they're gonna trample the gospel pearl, get mad, and attack you.

So that's kind of... that's gonna be my take from this point on, is truth with proof.

Travis Thomas, I'm just departing at this point, but I thought y 'all had a great debate.

Both y 'all were kind and followed the rules, and so I appreciate you coming on to the

Apologetic Dog. Well, I appreciate you having me on, and thank you for having me back on to do a review, especially

Colossians 2 .14. I mean, people out there need to know that God's not trying to put a yoke on you.

He's removed the yoke in His Son, Jesus Christ. When are we gonna line up another debate? I look forward to any debate with a

Church of Christ, specifically, not Travis, because like I said, uncharitable, but if we can have a conversation with other

Church of Christ down the road, because, I mean, they're, like Jesus says, they're making people twice fit for hell than they are, and we're trying to call people to repentance and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you for tuning in to the Apologetic Dog, and like you heard from Adam, I want this

YouTube channel to be a platform where we specifically evangelize the

Church of Christ. Now, I don't mean this, but we really believe that since they deny faith alone, then they believe in a different gospel, a gospel of faith plus works, meaning a faith that doesn't justify you the moment you have faith, but you're not justified before God until you do a particular work like baptism.

And so this is one of my major areas of emphasis that I want to be a voice for, to help other people that have questions.

I've already seen and met with many people that have come out of the Church of Christ movement, this restoration movement that began with Alexander Campbell, and so I want to encourage people,

I'll list in the show notes, Trey Fisher and I have a Facebook page that is called

Church of Christ Exiles. So if you're somebody that is struggling by trying to leave the

Church of Christ and realize that you won't have the same community, your family may not look at you the same way, and where do you go now?

We want to provide a community where we can come alongside and help people like them. So thank you for joining us.