August 14, 2018 Show with Phil Johnson on “Social Justice Warriors Doing Injustice to the Gospel of Jesus Christ” AND Dr. Tony Costa on “The Centrality of the Trinity in Christian Theology”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you,.

The listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host Chris.

Good afternoon.

Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at

ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 14th

day of August 2018.

I'm so delighted to have back on as a returning guest, probably my most

frequently interviewed guest of all time, Phil Johnson.

He's going to be on with us for the first hour only and today we are going to be discussing

social justice warriors doing injustice to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Coming up in the second hour, another dear friend of mine returns to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and that is

author, conference speaker and professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm speaking of Dr. Tony Costa.

He is going to be addressing during the second hour the centrality of the trinity in Christian theology

and will be also talking about an upcoming online course on the trinity that he is conducting with Toronto

Baptist Seminary.

But first of all, let me introduce to you my friend, author, conference speaker and executive director of

John MacArthur's media ministry.

Grace to you, Phil Johnson.

Hey thanks Chris, good to be with you.

It's always great to have you on and let me give our listeners our email address right away.

It is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question of your own

about our theme today, which is a very controversial theme, social justice warriors

doing injustice to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well, first of all Phil, I think it might be wise for us to start out with what is this social

justice that people are clamoring about constantly in the media today?

Well, social justice is one of those code words that is frequently used

to mean various things to various people, which makes it unfortunate because it's an ambiguous term that

is often thrown around but usually points back to some issue

having to do with civil rights or income equality or

suggesting that there are, and

there are, and yet the

term implies, usually from the people who use it, that they

want some sort of political or governmentally

sponsored

remedy

of the gospel and

more

have in

mind when they speak.

And one of the concerns I have with

evangelicals is their kind of

justice.

Well, when we

approach

God,.

Isn't it mercy that we want and not justice?

Well, that's the interesting thing though,.

The gospel says that the mercy of God comes to us not by overthrowing

justice but by fulfilling it.

I think a

lot of people

are ignoring the demand for

looking at the breaches of his law, and in fact that makes it totally different.

It defies the

ungodly.

That's an amazing statement, isn't it?

It defies the ungodly.

It sounds unsavory, except that in the context of the

repentance of sinners is free, and one of the ramifications of that is that therefore we are

obliged to forgive one another as we've been forgiven, and that means we can't be uh

we can't be constantly sort of drumming up resentment over past sins of past generations

trying to set people groups against each other.

That's so contrary to the message of the gospel that I'm amazed it ever got a footing in the

evangelical movement.

But it is all the rage right now, and a

couple of the largest

evangelicals,

primarily with racial injustice, and

I think to promote resentment and and division

than unity.

Well, judging from some of the things.

That you said, I'm assuming what you mean by as far as dredging

up past sins of the ancestors of many, but ironically not even

the ancestors of all white people, because let's face it, we're talking about white people

in general as a whole, as a group, because of the lack of melanin content in our skin,

we are told that we need to repent because we are automatically deemed as being guilty of

being racist, and yet those that are hurling the accusation make so much no such claim about

themselves in any way shape or form, and many of us who live in this country,

many of us pale -skinned folks, my ancestors never owned slaves, and

if my viking ancestors ever owned them, they were white.

My mother's parents came here from Poland in the early 20th century, escaping

the Nazi occupation of Poland, and my father's ancestors came here in

the 1860s, fleeing the heavy -handed

church state or state church, the Lutheran state church in Scandinavia.

My ancestors in Norway were Baptists, and non -Lutherans were being

arrested and fined for performing or participating in the

two ordinances of the church without a Lutheran minister's license, and so there was a massive exodus.

But anyway, so neither of my sides of the family were ever

slave owners of black Africans, and so therefore

why is it that I and multitudes of other white people, you might even have some first -generation

Americans that are being accused of this sin of racism, and it is...

Well, yeah, when you make that accusation, and in fact,.

I think it was Dabiti Anyobule that wrote an article on this.

You and I had a conversation about this on a broadcast a couple of months ago, where he said he believes

all white people need to confess their parents' and grandparents' complicity in the murder of Martin Luther King.

Yeah, I was offended by that, because neither my parents nor my grandparents were in any way complicit in that.

But, I mean, let's look at this from a biblical point of view.

I could talk about, well, none of my ancestors owned slaves either and all that, but

let's face it, all of my ancestors even know about.

But that's true of

all of us.

I don't know that

anyone, if you take a biblical worldview and understand that all

have sinned, and we're not guilty because of what they did, and

Ezekiel 18 is an entire chapter of Scripture devoted to that, that the Son is not guilty of the

sins of the Father unless he becomes a participant in those same sins.

And so this whole thing about generational sin and generational guilt is actually a

departure and a deflection from gospel truth.

The gospel's about forgiveness, and it does call for repentance, but it calls for

repentance for the things I'm guilty of, not the things that my great -great -great.

Grandparents might have been guilty of.

Right.

I don't see anything in the New Testament where the Gentiles who have become Christians

are demanded some kind of repentance against

their views of Jews before their salvation.

Of course, everything that they had as a sin in their lives needed to be repented of, but I'm talking about where that

uniquely was something that they needed to declare as a people group, and the Jews on the other

side were kept free from the responsibility of that,

when in reality we see the Jews being the ones, the very ones in the New Testament, being rebuked

for racism against the Gentiles, and in fact we have, you know, the Apostle

Paul, obviously, rebuking the Judaizers and the Galatians for really trying to

turn Christianity into a Jewish club, exclusively Jewish club, but...

See, even that,.

Even that, though, was in a context where Paul's concern was about the theology, not the sociology,

and if you just step back and look at the New Testament world, the Roman Empire at that point,

there were all kinds of atrocities and injustices going on in the culture, and you just don't see any

call in the New Testament for the Church to rally together and avail themselves of

legal means to try to, you know, new rulers or legislation

that's going to eliminate... that's just

not the thrust of the Gospel.

And in fact, I think the Church actually got off track.

People often say, well, but what about abortion?

You oppose abortion.

I do.

The Church

put her energies and resources to activism to try to change the laws.

That's not what we're called to do.

We're called to proclaim the Gospel.

Individuals, you can be involved in whatever political...

rally the Church for any purpose.

I think we've got the

law.

Then Christ died,

and those are truths that I think are being lost and obscured and even

denied in a lot of this emphasis on...

So in fact, John MacArthur has said all of the issues

that he's ever been involved in, polemics in defense of the Gospel, there was the Lordship debate,

pragmatismology and the sufficiency of Scripture and

the authority of Scripture and all of those things.

There's been numerous controversies that he's engaged in over the years.

He has said recently, the Church's energy and

resources to the issue of social justice and sort

of leftist...

Yeah, one

of the reasons I even

brought.

Up the Judaizers and the Jews that were indeed

showing favoritism towards their own kind and excluding Gentiles from even the dinner table

is that they were... Jews were a persecuted minority then, and

they did not have any prestigious right to harbor those feelings

of victimhood and anger and hatred and bitterness

towards the Gentiles, even though they were victims.

So therefore, unlike what we hear today, just because you may be of

a darker skin and just because your... especially your ancestors and perhaps your parents

and those preceding your parents may have been persecuted, and perhaps

even quite harshly, that does not give you a carte blanche liberty to

think that you cannot be guilty of the sin of bigotry.

Yeah, I think that's an important point, because one of the grosser errors floating around there today is,

I think, the idea that persecuted minorities cannot be

guilty of racism, because in order to be a racist, you have to be in a position of power.

And so what's actually... numerous evangelicals, loud evangelical voices on blogs and Twitter and

so on, parroting that, which is an idea that came, of course, from the secular left, in

order to justify... from

the exact same thing in the

opposite direction.

But the idea is, well, if you're African American or if you're a member of a minority, a persecuted minority, you

can't be racist.

That's a total fallacy.

Racism is simply hatred for someone based on the color of their skin or

their nationality or ethnic background or whatever, and it doesn't matter which direction it's going.

That sort of contempt is manifestly wrong, and it's a violation of the second great commandment to love

your neighbor as you love yourself.

And I don't see how any Christian can possibly defend that kind of thing and say it's not racism because it's a

persecuted minority.

It still is.

And that sort of moral imbalance in some of the

rhetoric and going on out there today is a

skewed moral perspective, and to hear that coming from evangelicals and

sometimes even from leading evangelicals...

Yeah, it seems as if we are seeing this relived in our modern

day from what we were warned about in Matthew 7, verse 5,

where you are supposed to pull the plank out of your own eye before removing a

speck from your brother's eye.

It seems that the people very often hurling the accusation of racism

against white people in general and even white Christians, they are not even recognizing that very often, if

not most often, their rhetoric includes racist and bigoted.

Attitudes from their own lips.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a fair statement, actually.

It's a shame.

But I think what has brought it about, a tendency

for the Church to imitate attitudes, the values, the

rhetoric of the world, this came from the world into the Church.

This is not a biblical person who has suddenly discovered fresh insight from the

pages of Scripture, and now, you know, we

really make this the champions of social

norm implying, and it's a total fallacy.

Now, Tucker Carlson is one of my favorite talk show hosts.

I don't know where he is theologically.

I know that he claims to be an Episcopalian.

I don't know if he is really a brother in Christ or not.

It's hard to say sometimes.

But he said something on the program recently, on his program, that

I thought had relevance and had a ring of truth to it.

He was talking about the fact that white supremacy is being treated as if this is a national

plague that dominates the culture in America, whereas he said, in America, you

could live your entire life and never really meet a person who is truly a white supremacist.

And do you think that he's accurate on that?

Yeah, I think it may be a bit of an exaggeration.

I've met a few white supremacists, and you can see them online, and there used to be, in fact, a

nest of Reformed racists at a website called

Little Geneva.

Do you remember that one?

Is that the Kinsmen Redeemer folks?

Well, they call themselves Kinnists.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

And so I know they exist out there.

I deplore that.

I think they are also a significant problem.

It's just that I don't see them having widespread influence.

But let me say this.

I think any time the Church imitates the...

See, I don't watch Fox News either, just so you know.

I'm not advocating a corresponding right -wing answer

to what I see as a sort of leftist intrusion into the Church's rhetoric.

I think either way would be bad.

I don't think the Church's message should be colored by secular politics on either side

of the spectrum.

Now, I deplore the racists as much as I deplore the race baiters,

that many of them.

I don't know of anyone in my circle

who would ever...

I don't

know of

anybody who defends that.

It is a very small minority.

And in that sense, what...

I think what he meant was a full -blown

supremacist, not somebody.

Who, since we all have sinned, we may all at times, in fact, we all do at times, think

more highly of ourselves than we ought.

We look down on others for no real legitimate reason at all.

Uh, so we may have... we all may have some kind of remnants of racism

in us to one degree or another.

But he's talking about somebody of the level of a Klansman or Neo -Nazi, I believe, as far as...

And that is being viewed and portrayed as being some kind of dominant.

Plague in our country.

Yeah, I don't think it is at this point.

But one of my concerns about this whole social justice movement is that it's going to unleash a backlash

that actually empowers the white racists and the, you know, these Neo

-Nazis and people.

I see them actually gaining influence because so many people react against

the obvious militancy and radicalism

language

all

about racism, by the way.

It also has to do with, you know,

gender roles and all of that.

It's all.

Together.

When you say it's all together, are you speaking about that element within even the

more biblically, theologically, and doctrinally conservative circles that this stuff...

you're really... the sex aspect?

In other words... I think it's coming together.

I wouldn't say...

I wouldn't say that everyone on the... it's obvious that not everyone on the... in the evangelical world who

is clamoring for social justice to

soften our stance against, you know, gay rights activists.

It's coming, and I see a drift in that direction.

And it wouldn't surprise me if a decade from now those things are so inextricably linked that...

in fact, there are people making the argument, evangelicals making the argument, that to marginalize

anyone because of their race or their sexual identity or their sexual preferences,

it's all the same.

And, in fact, the idea was sexual

minorities in the church.

That was the kind of language they used.

Are you talking about the MLK conference?

No, no.

I forget the name of it.

It was just a few weeks ago.

It was a conference on how the church should accommodate...

Oh, you're talking about.

The Revoice conference.

Revoice, that's right.

Right.

Well, we did discuss the issue of social justice gone wild

not long ago.

What, perhaps, have you learned since then, or what additional things,

perhaps, that Dr. MacArthur has raised that you would like to address today to further.

Expand our awareness?

Yeah, it's a timely question because just yesterday on the Grace to You blog,

and I think the thing that strikes me about it, most of the response we've gotten has been positive.

Lots of people saying, you know, it's about time someone like John MacArthur,

in a sensible way on this issue, and try to

re -center the compass of the evangelical movement, seems to be quickly going astray.

I would say maybe 15 of our response has been negative

pushback, and what surprises me about it,

Chris, MacArthur hasn't really even said anything very controversial,

and yet the... trying to hold

a different... to say in

their narrative, you know, and the narrative is everything in this.

You have to buy into the narrative, and if you're white and you reject the narrative, it's because you're a racist.

If you're black and you reject the narrative, it's because you're a sellout or an Uncle Tom.

You

know

this of an indiscreet tweet or something,

implying something, or use a word and

stick with you for life

to speak out against this, and therefore the narrative is just driving

forward like a juggernaut through the evangelical movement, and tons of people are jumping on the bandwagon

because there really aren't very many influential voices speaking words of warning.

About it.

Now, the thing that puzzles me is that I got saved

by God's mercy in the 1980s, and during those decades

leading up till now, I have seen, especially amongst the theologically

reformed or Calvinist or sovereign grace believers, I've seen a steady rise

of people of color becoming reformed and becoming not only reformed

individuals, but becoming reformed advocates in the publishing realm and in

ministry and pastoral authority, growing and growing, and all of a sudden,

this issue seems to have come out of nowhere, where you once had men like Thabiti

Anyabwile, only nine years ago on my program, talking about his book, The

Decline of African American Theology, and actually blaming the very

mindset that he seems to be echoing today, he was blaming that mindset for

the decline in the actual doctrine and beliefs and soteriology and on and on when it

comes to the black church at large.

What do you think it is that after all of this time where there was more of a harmonious

voice amongst black and white believers, especially in the reformed community,

why all of a sudden this tension and this war.

That seems to have erupted?

Well, partly I think it reflects what's going on in the secular culture.

I don't think the recent presidential election in America did anything to

bring Americans together towards the center.

I think there's no question that Thabiti's

mind, or at least has changed over the past decade.

I've pointed that out online.

He wasn't happy when I pointed that out, and he insists that he hasn't really changed his mind.

But I have to say, I mean, I have his book, The Decline of African

-American Theology, and it's an excellent book.

I recommended it, and yet now he seems to

have softened...

You know, James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology, which is a radical,

communistic, left -wing secular theology, really, if you can have

such a thing.

He died recently, and there were all these accolades heaped on him by evangelicals

who really ought to deplore that doctrine.

Black evangelicals, it's so politically incorrect nowadays to critique

liberation theology and those radical tendencies that grew out

of the communist approach.

They've at least softened their public stance on it, whether they've actually changed their mind about it or not.

I don't know what's going on in their minds, and I don't want to try to debate on that.

But I think the shift in rhetoric is dangerous,

and it points a wrong direction.

It's taking us off -message.

And it was really Thabiti himself's point, I think it was in 2008, at the

Together for the Gospel conference, where he was saying things then like, if you're talking about social justice

and all these racial issues, you're off -message.

I agreed with that.

I agree emphatically with that.

And I wish he still did.

I'm going to try and pray that I'm successful in getting Thabiti on the show eventually to have a

dialogue with someone who is concerned about the direction he has taken, because

I mean, Thabiti, in his book and on my program, in fact, I will email anyone who asks for it, the

free MP3 of my two interviews with him on the decline of African American theology.

But he was blaming the downfall of

African American theology, not only to the leaders of the civil rights movement in the

1950s and 60s that secularized the movement of civil rights,

but he also went back to the abolitionist movement, where when he said

that they became secularized, that was like a root of this decline.

And I can't even imagine him saying that today.

And the thing that does...

He might.

He might.

You know, it would be interesting.

I hope you can get him on.

I have to say, I love Thabiti.

Yeah, me too.

He's a delightful person in person to have a relationship with and all

that.

I've had good fellowship with him at times in the past.

We've spoken at conferences together.

And when he preaches the word, when he's preaching the gospel, there's nobody better.

He's gone off message, just

not just one or two things.

It's been a two or three year long campaign by him.

And it just seems to me to be pointing away from the gospel.

Yeah, we have to go to our first break right now.

And if you have a question that you'd like to ask Phil Johnson, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail

.com.

Please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private manner.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Phil Johnson right after these messages.

My name is Steve.

Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC.

They are a reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www

.ncc .nyc.

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching,

in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information.

Can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

James White here, co -founder of Alvin Omega.

Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January

17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme, A

Biblical Understanding of Missions.

Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Bodhi Balcombe, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe,

Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, yours truly, and many more.

I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event.

For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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And so keep praying for Mike Gaydosh.

We are now back with our interview with Phil Johnson.

He's on for the first hour, and we are discussing social justice warriors doing injustice to the gospel of

Jesus Christ.

Coming up in our second hour, we will be joined by Dr. Tony Costa, and we'll be discussing the centrality of the Trinity

in Christian theology.

Phil, before we go on with the social justice theme, I know that you are one of the speakers again

at the G3 conference, where I will, God willing, be manning an exhibitor's booth for the third year in a row,

and I know that the theme is the mission of God.

Do you have yet a specific theme under that umbrella that you are going to be speaking of?

No, I don't.

I'm thinking about the subject, and it's so big.

I'm looking forward to it, though.

I love that conference.

Yes, so do I.

Yeah, looking forward to it, and in fact, I know I owe you something about that.

Yes, you do.

I'm going to do that this afternoon, and as soon as we hang up, I have to go down for a recording session, and I'll do that.

Great,.

And Phil is talking about a commercial that he's going to do for the Iron Trip and Zion Radio program.

Let's see.

We have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,

who asks, Phil, what do you think the primary things that you need to warn the

Church at large about in regard to social justice and regards to what it is

deflecting us from actually concentrating our focus of attention

on?

Let me say this.

I think any time evangelicals find.

Themselves parroting the conversation that's going on on the cable news networks,

they are off topic, right?

That's not the substance of our message that we're given to proclaim.

In fact, I made a tweet today that I thought was linked to a statement by

Steve Lawson that I thought was just brilliant and insightful, but very simple.

Someone asked him, if you were going to preach on the subject of Obamacare,

how would you do it?

Steve Lawson, in his inimitable way, said, all right, get a pencil and take this down.

He said, first, I would preach through the Book of Romans, verse by verse.

He said, when you're finished with that, preach through the Gospel of John, verse by verse.

He said, are you writing this down?

Then he said, when you get through the entire New Testament,

as you go through those books, any time you find a reference to Obamacare, preach

on it.

And that's where I'm at on this.

And it doesn't mean twist the text so that you can work in your political positions and

secular views and all of that, but just teach what the.

Word of God says.

And the...

Well, I could go back to Exodus, thou shalt not steal.

Sorry about that.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, they're all of the...

But you see, biblical social justice, they're talking about income equality

and equal opportunity and all of those things, some of which do have a bearing on

principle evildoers.

And sometimes

the social justice rhetoric utterly omits that.

The biblical idea of justice is just far more balanced and

full -orbed than you find people are talking about when they use the term.

And so I think if you stay in the text, the balance is

there automatically.

If you...

Once you depart from the text, once you begin to preach topical messages rather than just doing

biblical exposition, you're going to get off message, you're going to be imbalanced, you're in some way or another,

twisting the truth to.

Suit your own preferences, and it's just not a good way to go.

Yeah, that is a definite...

One of the definitely solid reasons why

expository preaching is very valuable, because it doesn't...

It's not perfect in preventing hobby -horsing, because if somebody is determined to be a hobby horser, they're going to

do something to accomplish their goals.

Yeah, I know a guy who's.

Into preterism.

You can find a preterist message in any text you give him.

That's not what I'm.

Talking about.

Yes, and then of course we have the gift of John MacArthur, who is an extraordinary example

of expository preaching.

It's amazing how many people love John MacArthur, even outside of his specific theological orbit.

Can you think of anyone else in our generation who has pastored the.

Same church for 50 years?

He's coming up on his 50th anniversary, stayed in the text the

entire time, who has said the difficult things.

It's not like he tries to kowtow to people's preferences, and has at many times said things that

were deeply unpopular, and yet he's earned the respect, I think, and the right to be

listened to by evangelicals.

He's more conservative than most, and I see that, of course, as a good thing.

Not everyone would.

Regardless of your perspective, you have to look at his life and say, look, here's a man who's been

unstintingly faithful for 50 years.

His experience counts for something.

His steadfastness counts for something.

This is a voice that needs to be listened to.

One of the disturbing things was that when we posted that blog post by him, the first in a

series on this subject, where he barely touches on it, a well -known Christian leader

wrote a tweet saying something very hateful, really snide, like John MacArthur faceplants in a

pile of conservative rubbish.

Wow.

It's just disrespectful, and, but it shows the attitude that underlies so

much of that has taken place of the gospel,.

Which doesn't speak in a tone like that.

Right.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, I have heard you on

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio before, and I've also heard and read other things that you have said in this regard, so I think

that a clarification would be helpful for you.

I know that although you disagree with the church as an institution being politically

involved, you are not opposed to Christians as individuals being politically involved.

Am I right.

On that?

Right.

We all have a calling.

Some people's vocation is dentistry, and some people's vocation is

called to, and thankfully, I'm thankful for that,

but it's not the church's

calling to do dentistry.

It's not the church's calling.

Thankfully.

People who think, okay, we need to give some,

rally our thing, and I think that's always a mistake.

At the end of the day, politics, and at the

very best, a political remedy to any social evil or moral problem

in sin is

the gospel, and we have that message.

Why give it up for a lesser than temporary solution?

The church, every time the church has, for example, in the beginning of the 20th century,

the thing among evangelicals was to clamor

for the

history of

American politics.

It was.

Counterproductive.

It gave rise to anti -Semitism.

Yeah, and the end was worse than the beginning,.

And it's that way with everything.

I'm quite outlawable.

My energy, clamoring for

legislation, argue for it and all of that, I

don't see that as a solution to the abortion issue.

The only sufficient minds need to be

transformed by Jesus Christ, and until that happens, they're going to be sinners with sinful desires and sinful

actions that result in complications like unwanted pregnancies, and a law

against abortion isn't going to solve the root problem, the root issue.

But the gospel does, so why would we give up that message for a different one?

Now, don't you think, though, that there is a danger, because I have experienced this, I have heard people

who will take what you're saying but run way too far to the left with it.

They will take things that really transcend politics, such as

abortion.

The murder of an unborn child transcends a political issue or political discussion, and they will

say, since politicians talk about this, we're just not going to ever talk about it or

address it or condemn it.

That's politics talk, and they'll say the same thing about homosexual marriage, and on and on.

Right.

You know, again, if you're living your life in the scriptures and drawing your message from the

scriptures, you're not going to fall into those imbalances.

You can't do that.

You can't bleed scripture and yet be silent on the issue

of abortion or homosexuality or any of the other great moral issues of our time.

What I'm arguing, though, is that we should never think that getting a law passed against

these evils is a sufficient answer to the evil itself.

It isn't.

It won't be, and it won't put a stop to it either until people's hearts are changed by the gospel.

Now, it wasn't that long ago.

I don't know if it was during the first presidential race with

Barack Obama or not, but I remember Dr. MacArthur, though.

He gave a message about the evils of the Democratic Party.

Do you remember this message?

Yeah, I do.

I do.

He was pointing out that so much on the—I think it was shortly after the Democratic National Convention—he was just

pointing out that so much, so many of the issues on

that

platform.

It's another

thing

to

give up

the

concern

of mine

that a lot of

the evangelicals who were clamoring for anti -abortion law

were arguing that we needed to soften our stance against the Roman

Catholic errors in the war against abortion, and we

didn't want to offend our Roman Catholic partners in this political endeavor by preaching a

gospel that would offend them.

And that's the kind of thing that concerns me when Christians sell out or become so obsessed with

one issue that they forget the breadth of

the exact same thing that happened—you know, not to pick on Thabiti again,

but—.

Even late -term

abortion.

She even.

Defended it with a smile on her face.

But it's because he saw racism as such a.

Greater evil than abortion that—to

accept this

thing

for—.

I have a problem either way, and I'll vote for whatever candidate I think is best.

But if, in my rhetoric, the idea that

this man's immorality is a non -issue, or that this woman's advocacy of

abortion is really a non -issue, it's not something we should worry about, then you've given a

bad message.

You've damaged your own testimony.

Well, I heard a rumor, and this is one of the few rumors that I would

love to spread further, because it's a wonderful rumor.

I heard that Pyromaniacs has returned.

Yes, in a limited way.

I honestly haven't posted that much, but I did reopen the

doors of the blog, mainly because I'm concerned about this very issue, the

pressure to switch our message so that we're concerned with social justice rather than

divine justice, or social justice more than we're concerned with divine justice, or we talk about

it, whatever I say about that.

But it's undeniable that the language of the evangelical movement and our

leadership has shifted in the past five years so that people are talking more

about social justice than they are about divine justice and

redemption.

And I'm concerned about that.

I originally started my blog because I was concerned about the emerging

church, and no one seemed to be critiquing it.

And so I started the blog to just give a critique to something I thought needed to be critiqued.

And when the emerging church movement died as a movement, their ideas are still floating around

out there, but the movement died.

I felt like I kind of ran out of opinions, I had nothing else to say, and so I

stopped

to crank it back

up.

Well, how can our

listeners access the all

-new Pyromaniacs?

It's the same as the old one, same address.

If you have a link to the old one, it's a little long, so I won't give it, but I did buy a shortened

domain for it, so I think it's just pyromaniacs .net.

Great,.

Pyromaniacs .net.

And I know that the Grace to You website is gty .org, gty .org.

And I know that the G3 Conference, where you are on the very long and very impressive roster,

is g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

And I'm very much looking forward to seeing you again and sharing fellowship with you January 17th through

the 19th of 2019, which will be here.

Before you know it.

Me too.

That's going to be a good time, I think.

Amen.

Well, Phil, I know that.

You could only be on with us for the first hour.

I look forward to having you back again, especially when you could be on for two hours.

And I just thank you from the depths of my heart for being able to fill in today at late notice, because as you know,

my previously scheduled guest had to back out due to a church emergency.

So we look forward to having you.

Thanks for having me.

Hey, thank you, brother.

And please put a bug in Dr. McArthur's ear that I want to have him back on the show.

All right, thanks.

All right, well, God bless you, brother.

Yep.

Take care, bye -bye.

And coming up during our second hour, my dear friend Dr. Tony Costa will be joining us, God

willing.

We are going to be discussing the Trinity, so if you have a question on the centrality of

the Trinity in Christian theology, give us an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

This is our elongated break.

So please take this advantage of this opportunity to not only write down questions for Dr. Tony Costa on the

Trinity, but also to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can

successfully patronize them and do so more frequently so that Iron Trip and Zion Radio can remain on the air

longer because we depend upon their advertising dollars.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after this message,.

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And we just have a couple of announcements before we return to our discussion today.

Actually, we are going to be entering into a new discussion with our second guest, Dr. Tony Costa of

Toronto Baptist Seminary on the centrality of the Trinity in Christian theology.

But before we do that, we just have a few announcements to make.

This coming September the 7th, Friday, September the 7th, my dear

friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will be joined by Dr. Michael L. Brown

of the Line of Fire program and the Fire School of Ministry, and they are going to be

lecturing at the Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary's Jacksonville, Florida campus.

That's Friday night, September 7th, 6 .30 p .m.

The theme will be cross -denominational partnerships for the gospel, and if you want more

details about this, go to Switzerlandcc .org.

That's the website for Switzerland Community Church, who are one of the sponsors of this event.

Switzerlandcc .org and find out more details about this event at Gordon

-Conwell Theological Seminary, Friday, September 7th at 6 .30 p .m.

Also, in Jacksonville, Florida, the very next night, Saturday, September

8th at 6 .30 p .m., the Switzerland Community Church will be hosting a debate

between Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Dr. Michael L. Brown

of the Line of Fire and the Fire School for Ministry.

On one side, they are on the same team, and they will be debating two ordained ministers

and professing Christians who believe that homosexuality is acceptable in the eyes of God.

The debate theme is, is homosexuality consistent with New Testament obedience?

I intend to be there.

I helped orchestrate this event.

I hope you join me there.

That will be Saturday, September 8th at 6 .30 p .m. at the Switzerland Community Church in St. John's, Florida, which

is a suburb of Jacksonville.

The website is Switzerlandcc .org.

Switzerlandcc, for community church, .org.

And then, coming up in November, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

On the theme, the glory of the cross.

It will be held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray

Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

That is November 9th and the 10th, and if you'd like to join me there, I plan to be there as well with an Iron Sharpens Iron

exhibitors booth.

Go to AllianceNet .org, AllianceNet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

That's AllianceNet .org.

Then, coming up in January, you heard us talking about it earlier with Phil Johnson.

The G3 Conference is returning to Atlanta, Georgia, College Park, Georgia,

to be more precise, a suburb of Atlanta, and I am so pumped up about going to this for the third year in

a row.

The G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory,

and the dates, exact dates, are Thursday, January 17th

through Saturday, January 19th.

Tell your Spanish -speaking and bilingual friends that there is also an exclusively Spanish -speaking edition of the

G3 Conference on Wednesday, January 16th.

But the English -speaking conference, they have an enormous lineup, as always,

featuring Dr. James R. White, John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever,

Conrad M. Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, who is our first guest today, Josh Bice, the

founder of the G3 Conference, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.

Nichols, who is the president of the Reformation Bible College, founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many,

many more.

If you'd like to attend that event, and even if you'd like to register for your own exhibitors booth, like I

will be manning there, God willing, and they're expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people there, so it's a great

place to have an exhibitors booth, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

Please make sure you tell all these organizations, if you register for these events, that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio.

Last but not least, if you love this radio show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to ironsharpensironradio

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That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest, our second guest today, Dr.

Tony Costa, who is the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and we

are talking about the centrality of the Trinity in Christian theology, and it's my honor and privilege to

welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend, Dr. Tony Costa.

Dr. Costa, I'm sorry, I had you on mute.

Accidentally.

Well, I'm used to that.

No, I'm just saying it's always the pleasure is all mine and my.

Audience, brother, and before we go into the subject at hand, just briefly give our

listeners a summary of what Toronto Baptist Seminary is all about.

Toronto Baptist Seminary is Toronto in

Canada, the 1930s,

the late Dr. T .T. Shields,

and we are

men and women for missions, and we also train men for

young men and women, academic

and other colleges.

Now,

also, before we get into the heart of the discussion on

the.

Exciting upcoming online course they can take that focuses on one

of the pillars of the Christian faith, the Trinity, that is an eight -week

course, I understand.

Yes,

the

course

with

an online

school joining

in

the

Trinity

is lamentable.

I teach on this

course

like Aryans,

and of course, when you say

Aryans, you're not talking about neo -Nazis,.

You're talking about the stepchildren of Arius, one of the early

deniers of the deity of Christ,.

And therefore, obviously, the Trinity.

That's right, that's right.

So, it's Aryans.

They didn't know that the skinheads were around back in the fourth century.

Great.

Well, how can our listeners take advantage of this eight -week course?

Well, I

would

love to interview this Wesleyan pastor who's a Calvinist.

I can hear George Whitfield chuckling from heaven.

Actually, he is a Calvinist now, didn't you hear?

Oh, so you're actually

an assistant at this church?

Yes, I am.

Is that a new development?

About a year or so.

Graduates

do the ground and burn out.

Well, I would love to interview him, so try to set that up for me.

I'll definitely do that.

And we will repeat that website before we go off the air in regard to those, for the benefit of

those who want to take advantage of that online course.

And before we go to our final break, which is a very brief break, we have

a fellow Canadian writing in from Ponoka, Alberta, Canada.

Did I pronounce that right?

Do you know if that's...

I think that's correct, yes.

Okay, we have Sikali, who has a very unusual name.

He's already told us that this is a Dutch name.

Sikali writes, do you think someone...

He has very poor grammar in this, Sikali.

I guess you were probably doing this while you were driving or something.

Do you think someone be saved without believing in the Trinity?

Do you think someone can be saved, is obviously what he meant to say, without believing in the Trinity?

I hold to the Trinity, but at times wonder if it is detrimental?

I think, oh, determinal.

I think that's what he meant.

Thanks, and God bless you both.

Yeah, one of the reasons that I have, myself, a little bit of a hard time

thinking that is absolutely required for someone to believe in the Trinity to be saved,

because even Dr. James R. White says if you interview the average Christian, they're going to give

you a modalist answer when they are asked to define the Trinity.

I think there is a difference between the average Christian who is confused and a leader in

the Unitarian or Oneness Pentecostal movement or anti -Trinitarian movement or one of the cults whose one of

their life's goals is to tear from people a belief in the Trinity.

I think that those are two different categories.

What do you think?

I think you're correct, Chris.

The Trinity is definitely fundamental because if the Trinity is false, then the deity of Christ is false.

Right.

And if the deity of Christ could truly save us,

there are mere men who came to set a moral example.

Some of the young believers will think, I'm sure the people on the cross did not know the full details

of Trinitarian theology, but he put his faith on Christ as the Lord, as the King, as the promised

Messiah, and so forth, and the Lord Jesus promised salvation to him that very day.

So, as you rightly said, if a Christian is young and is a child, a babe in Christ, so to speak,

and comes to faith in Christ, we're not expecting that young Christian who's a babe in Christ to have a

full -blown theological understanding of the Trinity.

But if he is called by God, he's called by the triune God, it is the triune God himself who

calls his people to him, the young people in the faith, to have a

full understanding, a full -orbed understanding,

and

teaches others to do likewise, then yes, you're absolutely right,

he is a false teacher, and is leading others astray.

Well, thank you, Sika Lee.

Continue to listen to Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio, and continue to contribute to the program with your excellent questions,

and keep spreading the word in Pinocchio, Alberta, Canada, and beyond.

We're going to our final break right now, and if anybody wants to ask a question of your own, now is the time to do it before we

run out of time.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC.

They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www

.ncc .nyc.

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching,

in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

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James White here, co -founder of Alvin Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm so delighted.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

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If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

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We are now back with our final segment of our interview today with Dr. Tony Costa on the

centrality of the trinity in Christian theology.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Joe in Newville, Pennsylvania asks, is the Pope Catholic?

That actually used to be a funny punchline or a rhetorical question, but it's not such a

rhetorical question anymore, is it?

No, no, it's not.

It's funny.

I was just like,

even

though

I was an

atheist, the Pope also to go

actually around Christmas time

where in

light to these role

wise.

Yes.

And of course, that was a bit off of our subject today.

But thank you, Joe, anyway, for his question.

Let me go to another listener here.

That is a more serious question.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

And Harrison asks, do you think that those on both

sides of the current debate amongst reformed Christians regarding eternal

subordination are going too far in their rhetoric against one another, claiming

that those on each side are heretics?

I guess what he means is that those on one side are calling the

folks on the other side heretics when it comes to an acceptance or denial of eternal subordination.

If you could define that for us and let us know your answer to his question.

Yeah, I think that

the main word

here is and

subordination is usually attributed

to

nature

and being and to mean

that origin was saying that nature and in

their behead and

that the nature.

And I'm assuming those that are defenders of the

economic subordination of the son to the father are basing that on the

fact that historically, orthodox Christianity has taught

that Jesus Christ was always the son of God, even in all eternity past

that.

And there are some who have been viewed as heretics or

at least aberrant, who, although believing in the

eternality of the son and believe that the Trinity always existed,

that the son became the son, that he was not Jesus Christ.

The second person of the Trinity was not the son until the conception of Jesus in the womb

of Mary.

And that's right.

That's where they're.

And then, of course, you have the whole issue of egalitarianism being brought up, because those that

defend the economic subordination of view will say that if

we as we as complementarians can say

that man and woman are equal in the sight of God, even though they have different roles, should

not give anybody a problem with viewing the son and the Holy Spirit having a

subordinate function in the Trinity.

Right.

Yes, I think you're right, Chris.

And the big question is the question of creed, that he

is begotten, not made.

And so we talk here usually about what's called the eternal generation of the son, and this has led to some confusion.

But again, the fathers of the church and origin, himself included, were very clear that the beginning of the

son or the generation of the son is eternal.

It's not a finite beginning in time, it is an eternal generation from the father, and the Holy Spirit

eternally proceeds.

And so the idea here is that the Orthodox view is that the

son eternally existed as the son, as the eternal son, and then there were those,

like even Walter Martin, the author of the Kingdom of the Cults, argued for the view that Jesus Christ became

the Son of God in the Incarnation, and prior to that, he was just the eternal word.

Really?

Yes, that is not, in fact, when the Pentecostals threw that at him when they were debating him in the John Ankenberg

show, they actually threw that at him, that he actually agreed with

them.

But I think Scripture is very

clear

that

the

Son

himself is a

person, and he

has a

divine

nascent, eternal

origin taught that Jesus is

at the

nascent

creed,

the eternal generation of the eternal

Son.

Yes, well,.

That has to be the huge difference that, obviously, we need to make clear to

our listeners.

When you were discussing Walter Martin.

He did not agree with the Oneness Pentecostals that Jesus came into

existence in the Incarnation.

Correct.

Which is what they believe.

They do not.

Believe.

Yes.

Right.

And let's see here, we

have

Susan

Margaret in Newville, Pennsylvania,.

Who asks, what do you think is the best book outside of Holy Scripture that can help us

understand this very difficult and mysterious subject known as the Trinity?

Well, I would highly.

Recommend James White.

Yes, it was.

That's one of the reasons it is the most important book for you

to own.

It's not

because

of James White,

it's because of...

Yes, interesting.

And Wayne Grudem,.

To let our listeners know, he is not only theologically Reformed, but he is also charismatic.

Right.

Not that that should impinge upon his understanding of the Trinity.

Right, exactly.

Let's see, we have here Christopher in

Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

And Christopher says, how should we respond to our Roman Catholic friends when they

insist that we rely upon the Church of Rome, whether we realize

it or not, because issues like the Trinity were not hammered out until the

councils like the one at Nicaea and others, where we learned

the Trinity through the understanding of those assembled at these councils who

came to the conclusion through exegesis that this is what was true about God.

If it were not for these councils, we would never believe in the Trinity.

This is what I constantly hear from Catholics.

How do you respond to them?

Yeah, the Roman Catholics commit what we call an

anachronistic

fallacy in

bishops, but

the

Trinity

was

always

believed

to

be

interlocutor.

About

two weeks

ago, and you

name one

father, they

again

did not.

Now I'll throw in a question of my own in that regard.

A follow -up answer to that question that you asked

the Catholic apologist about naming someone at Nicaea who

believed in the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption or anything else that the Church of Rome claims as

their dogma.

I have heard, yes, they did believe it, but they didn't bring it up because it wasn't being attacked at that time.

How do you respond to that?

Yeah, well, I would say...

I mean,

you get

these

arguments,

but it's

not

really

until

you

get... and so it really is an argument from...

because no one actually believed it.

The Immaculate Conception

by the name of Edmer, he's the one who actually begins to talk about it, and then Don

Scottis is the one

who begins to... and also...

and others, an

anachronistic

fallacy, but we're

not even around at that time.

Arnie in Perry County says, I know this is not on the subject of the Trinity, but forgive me, but

because of the last question asked, I want to know if it is true that the

Catholic Church really teaches in regard to their understanding of the perpetual virginity of

Mary that, and forgive me for sounding crude, but that Mary never lost

physically her hymen in the process of giving birth to Jesus.

Yeah, I have heard that.

In fact, I heard that from Jerry Matitix.

Do you have any comment on that?

Yes, yes, this is an idea that actually is found in an apocalyptic...

Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners once again have this website for the eight -week course on the Trinity,

oakwoodwesleyan .org forward slash event one, and that's the number one,

forward slash.

Oakwoodwesleyan .org forward slash event one, forward slash, and I know that the Toronto

Baptist Seminary website is tbs .edu, tbs .edu.

Any other contact information you care to share, Dr. Tony Costa?

Well, if Tony Costa...

Well, I look forward to getting you back in Pennsylvania for another pastor's luncheon, and everybody listening, if you

want to keep in touch with me about that, we are going to try to get him out here, Dr. Costa, out here in Carlisle,

Pennsylvania for our next pastor's luncheon this October, God willing.

My email address is chrissorensen at gmail .com if you'd like to be put on an email list.

I want to thank you so much, Dr. Costa, for being our guest today.

I want to thank Dr., or should I say, my brother, Phil Johnson, for being our first guest.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who wrote in questions, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your

lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.