Shawn McCraney and Ephesians 1 on Radio Free Geneva

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00:15

Our mighty fortresses are God's, above all that cannot be.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

00:30

They're following men instead of the Word of God. I'll ever be amidst the flood of mortal history.

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And I'm going to be the one, standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all those who were elected, were selected. For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe.

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His grave and our flit through the lake.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not an easy foe.

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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

01:40

Ladies and gentlemen,

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James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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The other day in class said,

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I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism. It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist.

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Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

02:29

And now, from our underground bunker, deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

02:50

Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for His own eternal glory.

02:59

We're going to have to be thinking about moving the bunker eventually. I'm not even sure there's anyone at Bruton Parker anymore, other than the groundskeeper.

03:08

I'm not even sure they're still open. So, we may have to find another place that we can have a little more fun at, because I'm not sure.

03:18

Anyways, welcome to Radio Free Geneva. We may have another

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Radio Free Geneva coming up next week. I mentioned on Twitter this morning the video that's floating around.

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It's been posted to me about 47 ,000 times on Twitter. The Achilles heel of Calvinism.

03:45

Just a basic misunderstanding in regards to the meaning of the word work.

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Some category errors. We can clear them up fairly easily. But, from a pastor who also just recently had a conversation with Saiten Bruggenkate, I've put both of those on my iPod for closer review on a very, very long ride coming up this weekend.

04:14

So, we'll review that, get that taken care of. I'm currently editing the sound file.

04:24

I recorded the Kindle version of a book that was recommended to me by one of the gentlemen who contacted us about the

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Uyghurs in China. And so, I purchased the History of Asian Christianity.

04:39

It's pretty long, and there's just so many notes.

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Thankfully, they were end notes. But, there's so many. I mean, one section I cut out was half an hour. Can you imagine listening to half an hour of end notes?

04:53

Just too much. So, I'm actually going through the sound files. It's taking some time, but it'll save me time in the long run to cut those out so I can listen to that whole thing.

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That's definitely an area that we need to expand upon.

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There's not nearly as much information. That's the problem. Anyway, I'm going to be looking at that and putting that in the running, cycling.

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That's when I do my studying, basically. And so, we'll be doing that.

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But, this morning, on a fairly brief run, only a four -miler this morning,

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I listened and kept up a race pace. So, maybe there was something good about listening to someone ripping and snorting at you that keeps your pace up fairly good when you're running.

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But, I listened to, well, a portion anyways. I had to keep listening once I got back. Good old

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Sean McCraney. Actually, Jeff Durbin contacted me last night and sent me the

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URL to the YouTube of Sean's Tuesday night program.

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And, he started telling me some stuff. And, since I hadn't listened to it, I really wasn't following exactly what he was saying.

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He searched through his emails and he found something that he had written to him like two years ago and misspelled his name and stuff like that.

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Because he was saying that Jeff won't respond. He was challenging Jeff to come on his program. I think that would be a whole lot of fun, personally, just to watch.

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I'm not sure if it's worth Jeff's time. But, hey, we can get you a standby ticket up to Salt Lake pretty easy.

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And, not that you'd want to do that, but go up to Salt Lake City and be on the program.

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I wouldn't worry too much about Jeff. He's a ninja, so he can take care of himself.

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But, it would be interesting to observe. But, he was just going on and on and on.

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I'm going to play it, but he's talking about Kwaku L. And, how

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Kwaku destroyed Jeff and I. And, it's just so painfully obvious. He didn't listen to it.

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He's going with what somebody else told him. But, he's repeating it as if it's fact. How could you not hear

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Kwaku? I mean, we said it clearly enough times. And, I think it was even put up on the screen and stuff like that.

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And, it was just really clear by the alleged quotes he gave.

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Well, someone said that they said, he's going on second hand stuff.

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But, we were destroyed by him. And then, what made me choose to do the program today,

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Radio Free Geneva. And, I'm really surprised. I guess I need to explain it. People keep asking, what's the difference between the dividing line,

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Radio Free Geneva? Well, obviously, Radio Free Geneva is a program. It is the dividing line, obviously.

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It's just simply a special edition where we deal normally with really bad arguments against Reformed Theology.

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We've taken on some of the best. There aren't many of them. But, we've taken on what the world considers to be some of the best.

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But, normally, I mean, when we first started doing Radio Free Geneva years and years ago, we really did focus upon really bad straw man argumentation stuff.

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Because, there's just so much of it. I mean, if I wanted to do this pretty much all the time, it wouldn't be all that difficult to do.

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And, sadly, we would be able to do that. But, today, it is a really bad version.

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It is a misrepresentational version. I did specifically write to Sean.

09:07

I did so through, I didn't do it in email. I did it in Facebook.

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And, so, I don't know whether he got it or not. Obviously, we'll archive this. But, I certainly invited him to watch and to listen.

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And, what got me going to decide to do this was he took the time to make an argument from Ephesians chapter 1.

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And, I thought this is worthwhile because of a couple things. Before I start playing his material here,

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I'm going to start with him denying solo scriptura. Saying that solo scriptura is one of the greatest problems in the church.

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Remember, he's not really Trinitarian. He doesn't understand the doctrine of Trinity. Even though it's been explained to him by three different people who have come onto his program to lay it all out for him.

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So, you've got those issues. And, then, he's a hyper -preterist who doesn't believe the church exists any longer.

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The church has been removed from Earth. So, non -Trinitarian rejector of scriptural sufficiency who doesn't believe there's a church today.

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Confused? Nah. How long can that excuse be used?

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I mean, there's a huge amount of confusion in Sean's teaching. There's a question about that. But, it just does seem, you know, he's talked about a calling of God on his life like Joseph Smith had.

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And, to be honest with you, I'm not going to play this portion, but after he did the Ephesians 1 thing, he went on for at least half an hour.

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Asking the question, why do people hate me? I have to ask myself, why do

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Christians hate me so much? And, I was on my return lap, return leg of the run.

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And, I didn't want to say this out loud because I am running behind some houses. So, they probably wonder who the weirdo running out there yelling things is.

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But, I wanted to say, it ain't about you. That's the problem. You think it's about you. It's not about you.

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You are not the center of all things. There's a real problem because you really do wrap things around you.

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Which, I guess, maybe you can't avoid it once you've adopted the, you know, no eternal punishment, no church today, we're in the eternal state.

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Once you get there, what else do you got? You're now disconnected from the history of the church.

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You're disconnected from other churches. You don't have elders.

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You don't have deacons. You don't have the Lord's Supper. You're just out there on your own. You're just, you know, he actually ended up saying the best way to look at things is, the best way to view

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Christianity is artistic Christianity. That, you know, each one of us is an artist.

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And, we're sort of painting our own faith type thing. It's like, well, that's pretty much all you got. You've denied solo scriptura.

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You reject the funda. I don't know why you pretend to be Martin Luther at the beginning of your thing there.

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Because, like I explained to you when I was there, you're misrepresenting Martin Luther even. But, all those things, you put them all together.

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We have a very, very, very, very confused presentation. But, what's interesting is he did try to work through Ephesians chapter 1.

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If you reject solo scriptura, I don't know why. You know, how come

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Ephesians chapter 1 has authority? Because it's obvious, as the day is long, you reject the authority of all those texts that talk about the importance of the didaskalia, the doctrine, the teaching.

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Oh, it's just back for them there. You know, you've turned the Bible into a pile of play -doh that you get to artistically make whatever you want.

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So, why don't you just artistically get rid of Ephesians 1? Which, after I demonstrate his many errors in Ephesians chapter 1, he may end up doing.

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That is a possibility. But, it will be useful to work through Ephesians chapter 1.

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And, once again, demonstrate that consistent exegesis is the mechanism whereby you honor the scriptures of the word of God, allow them to speak for themselves.

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And, it's also a means of exposing those who are introducing falsehood. But, first, let's listen to some of the introductory material here before we got to the

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Ephesians 1 stuff. Okay, maybe we won't.

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I have the thing plugged in. I've done shows on solo scriptura, so I'm not going to repeat all of it now.

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The problem didn't really start in the 1500s. It didn't start with Constantine. It didn't start really with the early church leaders, or fathers as they call them.

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The problem started, listen carefully, the problem started in the faith when

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God took his apostles from the earth. Along with his church bride, took them away as a means to protect it from the gates of hell.

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Which would surely have overcome it if it was allowed to tarry. Surely. God knew that after that happened in 70

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A .D. Okay, so here's the, and I'm not sending video. This is audio, no taker, doesn't have video.

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So, there you have your hyper -preterism. The church has been taken away, A .D. 70. So, you know, what's written wasn't written to you anyways.

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It was written to these people back then. This is part of the heresy of hyper -preterism.

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And no hyper -preterist can ever produce any meaningful ecclesiology or anything else.

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Once you've bought into this stuff, it's just all pick and choose what you want. But so, the problem starts by the way

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God designed things. And of course, the biblical teaching is that God the Father be glorified in the church throughout all ages.

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The apostles taught that the church would be there until the coming of Christ and not in A .D.

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70. That it was his purpose for this message to be preached around the world.

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And if you want to try, well, you know, at least to Spain, that's good enough. It wasn't preached around the world, and there is a bigger world than people knew back then.

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Anyways, you can see how all these things come together. You might actually be able to say, well, how could he ever have an orthodox thought given all the flaws in his foundation in the first place?

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That may be true, but remember, he's coming from the Calvary Chapel background,

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Calvary Chapel College. And while we obviously have lots of problems at Calvary Chapel College, they're not this whacked out by any stretch of the imagination.

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And so, he does know better. He has been taught better, but has rejected all of that stuff for all sorts of other personal reasons, which we won't get into here.

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But you start seeing some of the issues here. When he took his, when Jesus came and took his bride and saved it from imminent destruction, and all the apostles are then killed off and dead,

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John the Beloved being the last one, God knew that there would be people from that point forward who would spend their lives flailing about trying to recreate brick -and -mortar religion in the name of what the

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New Testament says. On out to the present, folks. The victory was had.

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That book, the New Testament, is a wonderful summation of what God did in that age to have victory.

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Catch that? In that age, not today, but in that age. Three over all things so that we could live in an era where we don't have to hate.

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Yeah, that's the era we live in. Obviously, you know, the greatest obvious problem with hyper -preterism is to say that we are in the eternal age.

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What a bummer. That's a real letdown. That's not really what the apostles taught about that.

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We don't have to get angry over doctrinal disputes where we don't have to have denominations.

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So we had to have that for only 30, 40 years? That did have to happen then?

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What's all this emphasis in the New Testament on doctrine and standing firm and passing things on to the next generation when they all knew there wasn't going to be a next generation?

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Well, no, they actually did know. We are to live in the expectancy of the coming of Christ.

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It is this idea that, well, yeah, he came and it's all wrapped up, leads to this kind of stuff.

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It is necessary in an age where the spirit and the fruit of love of that spirit should abide among believers.

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But sola scriptura and this idea that we need a brick -and -mortar church is what has led to the situations that we're in today.

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So, sola scriptura, the sufficiency of Scripture, the idea that Scripture is sufficient in and of itself to reveal everything we need for life and godliness.

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This is a bad thing. It's a terrible thing. So we know automatically that we're not going to get any orthodoxy out of Sean McCraney.

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It's impossible. It's not going to happen. But then the brick -and -mortar church, in other words, a church, you know, as Paul described it, as Paul went around establishing it,

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Why in the world did he say to Timothy, Timothy, pass these things on to the next generation and the next generation, no, the second generation, no, you don't need to do any of that.

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I mean, he would have written that to Timothy within a matter of years when it's all wrapped up anyways.

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So why worry about this? You know, here's the qualifications for elders.

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Here's the qualifications for deacons. This is only going to be for a little while longer, so don't worry too much about it, Timothy. It's not what's there.

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But when you can blame the inspired Word of God and the

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Church of Jesus Christ established as the primary problems, you're the problem. Not those things.

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That's, yeah, there's, there's, yeah, this is a big problem. Speaking of Sola Scriptura, I'm going to keep rolling forward.

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Our show tonight is going to talk about a very sinister theology called

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Reformed Theology. Dun, dun, dun. I need,

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I need, I need better, better sound effects and I should have, I should have looked for some kind of organ thing.

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Reformed Theology. Yeah. Calvinism.

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I'm not going to talk about Reformed Theology in the tulip, what is known as Calvinism to some,

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Five Point Calvinism. I embrace all Reformed Theology. Now here, here is, Sean McCraney is nothing if not an absolute collection of contradiction.

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Just, just one huge, massive, I'm going to contradict myself and I'll do it in one sentence and I'll do it five times and I'll do it on, while doing a handstand.

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I mean, this is, this is Sean McCraney all over the place. And how many times when

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I was on, on the program that, Whoa, Sean, you dude, you just, didn't you just, Hey, but you know, you know, it's just what

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I'm feeling. Five Point Calvinism.

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I embrace all Reformed theologians and believers as brothers and sisters. It's heinous.

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It's horrible. It's disgusting, but you're my brothers and sisters. But I think it is my view, just as I believe that if LDS people want to say that they, their view of God and the gospel is theirs and they love

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Jesus as the Lord, I'm going to say, hands off, go ahead, have at it. I'm not. Because there, there is a truth about who

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God is. And there is a truth about who Jesus is. And there's a truth about what Jesus has done. And there's a truth about how you get to know him.

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And once you say there isn't, you become an enemy of the faith.

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That's certainly how the apostles understood it. And I try to follow them. To the Calvinist, I say, go ahead, have at it.

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But in my estimation, the Calvinistic God is far more heinous than the Mormon one.

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So, so, so remember folks, the non -Trinitarian, anti -sola scriptura, conditionalist, hyper -preterist, shockingly, thinks that the sovereign

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God, who does according to his pleasure, the sovereign God of Psalm 135 .6,

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the sovereign God of Daniel chapter 4, that Nebuchadnezzar came to understand, the sovereign

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God all through Isaiah, the sovereign God of Ephesians 1 .11, which, interestingly enough, listen carefully, if I forget, he goes through Ephesians 1 .11

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real fast, doesn't deal with what it says, because it says what he thinks is just so terrible and heinous and terrible.

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But that sovereign God is more heinous to him than the man -become -God who dwelt on another planet, who is one

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God amongst billions and, well, an infinite number of deities, God, of Mormonism, who cannot create anything, who is sovereign over absolutely nothing, who has to get his elder children to vote on what he wants to do with the world that he has organized out of pre -existing matter.

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Yeah, that's more heinous. You tell me, when you think of what is necessary for the

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Spirit of God to do to bring someone to spiritual life, what's going to be more attractive?

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The God that looks like a big man who doesn't, you know, is dependent upon us, or this sovereign

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God? You know, it sounds a lot to me here like what you hear in Romans 9.

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Who can he blame? How can he blame us? I mean, this is just terrible. And you're going to hear that over and over again.

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I mean, I cannot relate to Calvin's God at all. I relate to the

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Mormon one far more, and the Mormon one is reprehensible relative to Scripture, so don't get me wrong. See, it's just a walking contradiction.

24:05

Who cares relevant to Scripture? Scripture doesn't matter anymore. I mean, well, the principles, not solo scriptura, but it's heinous according to Scripture.

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The man has so many influences, and he's just, you know, picking something here and picking something there, and you put together into this messy thing, and you wonder why people respond to him.

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It's because this kind of stuff is absolute soul poison to anyone who falls under his influence.

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That's why godly men who, shockingly, read the

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Scriptures and come to the same conclusions about the key issues of the faith warn and warn again and warn again about teachers like this that lead many astray.

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Now, apparently there was a recent debate at Apologia Studios in Arizona.

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It's a reform -based studio, and what makes the debate interesting is that there's a reformed debater named

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Jeff Durbin who's very popular online. I've invited Jeff to be on the show, but he doesn't respond to any of my invitations because I think he knows that his stances would be proven foolish.

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That's a challenge to you, brother Durbin. Come on, let's talk. Not debate, talk. Now, what do you mean, not debate, talk?

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You can't prove someone's perspectives foolishness, and believe me, Sean, I know

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Jeff, you don't stand a chance, brother. Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that as a fellow believer,

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I can't accept you as that, but you don't stand a chance. You don't stand a chance.

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You're being foolish. If he takes you up on this,

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I'm going to end up looking like the nicest guy who's ever been on your program.

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That might be where, can we get a round -trip ticket for Jeff? Rich says,

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Jeff, we're sending you, bro. Not only that,

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I know how to get to Motel 6 downtown, or the other Motel 6. Either one, I can give you direct directions.

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I've stayed at both of them many, many times. Many, many times there in Salt Lake. We can get you there.

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You know how much they're charging at those Motel 6s up there now? Oh my goodness. It's like $69 .95.

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We were up there, was it $24 .95 in those days? Or $19 .95, something like that.

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Anyway, we'll get you up because the result would be such a wipeout that I would end up looking like, remember that kindly old

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Christian apologist man who was on with Sean? He was very nice in comparison to that mean ninja man.

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Wow. Sean, dude, again, you're a walking contradiction.

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Absolute walking contradiction. A discussion, not a debate. No, you're talking about a debate. Don't tell me you're not talking about a debate.

27:16

It's exactly what you're talking about. You sure caught yourself, but you just can't sit there and say his views are so ridiculous, but we'll have a nice discussion about it.

27:27

No, you want to debate it. You think you can answer it. Now, maybe after this program, if you're smart, we'll rethink it.

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But dude, come on. It was with Jeff Durbin and Dr.

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James White, who's been on the show, spent a lot of time with us, and I thought that was really good.

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His people are saying he won, and my people say they're not sure what to think. I wanted to stop that so I could see

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Rich's reaction. I don't waste too much time looking around what people said one way or the other, anything like that.

28:08

I just know that there are people who watched that who had leanings toward Sean that after that didn't anymore, and I think that's what he's referring to.

28:24

Well, I think we think you won, but there is the element of we didn't know what to think either.

28:30

Won what? I mean, I don't know. You can lead the horse to water, but holy cow.

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No, no way. But nevertheless, I thought that was a good time spent, and there was another debate that's out there, and it was with another apologist, reformed apologist,

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Aaron Shafafalov, who also has turned down, if I mispronounce your name,

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Aaron, I'm sorry, but he also turned down an opportunity to be on the show because he's just mad at me.

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Now, Aaron will admit that his last name does not exactly flow off the tongue or off of anything.

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It's not easy, so I'm not going to pick on him for that because I could mess it up myself.

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What he doesn't mention, because I don't think he knows this, he's going on secondary stuff here, is that Kwaku, and he's about to completely mispronounce his name,

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Kwaku El is one of the three Mormons, and, well, was.

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You're not supposed to call yourself Mormons anymore, so I don't know what they are anymore, but anyway, there's a rather extensive

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YouTube channel, and they're presenting what

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I would call nouveau Mormonism, the new Mormonism.

30:08

Kwaku, I guess, is the head of the, we didn't know this at the time, but the head of the Young Democrats at BYU.

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I didn't even know there were any Democrats at BYU, but there are, and there's going to be a lot more of them in the future, and the cultural transformation and shift in Utah is going to be amazing.

30:28

That state is going to go blue so fast, you won't know what happened.

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And the result is going to be places like BYU, U of U, the split's coming.

30:45

The split is coming. Well, don't forget the, don't forget the, of our youth, the politicians,

30:54

Mormon politicians, who were Democrats in our youth.

31:00

Morris Udall was a Democrat in the Mormon, and so. Yeah, the Democrats back then were not Democrats today.

31:05

Yeah, it's a whole different animal. I mean, let's be honest, Democrats today are socialists. Yeah. That's just straightforward. But, you know, there's a history of the tradition.

31:16

Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, so he doesn't seem to, Sean doesn't seem to know anything about the three

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Mormons, or have watched any of their materials, or anything like that, so he doesn't mention that the whole reason that he's done this is because he has a social media platform, and there are certain, you know, if you want to reach young Mormon people with a message they've never heard before, then this would be someone that you would want to interact with.

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Doesn't seem to be aware of that. Anyway, these Calvinists who have all the answers and have put

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God in this heinous box that is unbelievable to me. Who are they debating?

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Durbin and White against this guy, and then Shoffloff against this guy? A young black

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LDS man boy, I'm going to call him a man boy because he is young. He's a man child.

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He is a young kid. And his name is Kwatu L. Now this

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Kwatu L. I'm glad I got his name right, because I'm the one that had to make sure it was put on the

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Bible and spelled right. Can you imagine if we had done what, you know, the level of research that Sean McCraney has done here and, you know, put the wrong name on that?

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I think Sean may be a little bit upset that Kwatu L, which by the way is a very good

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Ghanan name, that he got a really, really, really cool

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Bible and Sean didn't. Now, I didn't know

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Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding at that time, but it wouldn't have mattered because I don't think we would have done that in that context.

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But maybe there's some jealousy there that, you know, you didn't, Sean, you didn't get to, you know, the really...

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Well then again, you don't know about the Bible because you didn't watch the program. We gave him a super nice Reformation Study Bible that had been rebound by Brother Jeffrey over there at Post -Tenebrous

33:20

Lux Bible rebinding. It was beautifully done. And so I can't tell you how many people have had come up to me since then and say, hey, how much serious heresy do

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I need to get involved in for you to give me a Bible like that, if I debate you, you know?

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Pretty desperate folks, pretty desperate folks. Now this Kwatu L, by the way,

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I invited him to be on the show. He won't be on the show because he looked us up and he saw the man in white.

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That was the LDS guy who painted his face white and wore the temple clothes on the show years ago. He saw that, wrote me back and said,

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I saw you dressed in our temple clothes and painted your face white, so I'm not going to be on the show. I wrote him back and said, that wasn't me.

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That was an active LDS guest who is on the show. I'm not going after you that way, Kwatu. He didn't care.

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He won't be on the show either. But in any case... Could it be that you didn't get his name right each time you wrote to him too?

34:15

Maybe that might've had something to do with it. You didn't notice when he wrote back that you probably didn't misspell his name.

34:25

There was a tag team debate with White and Durbin against Kwatu and then a single debate with Shafafaloff against Kwatu.

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Which had been, I don't know, was that earlier this year? I forget what the date on that was, but it was months before ours, at least.

34:45

I don't remember what the specific date was. That kid, he did a remarkable job in making them look like fools when it came to Calvinism.

34:58

Now, I would ask him, because he doesn't bother to say why.

35:03

I would ask him, how was it that only one side ever cited a single biblical reference and that all

35:15

Kwatu could do would go, I just can't believe anyone would believe that. In other words,

35:21

Kwatu did the best impersonation of the objector from Romans 9 I've ever seen.

35:28

I can see why you would find that convincing, because you're doing the Romans 9 objector too. But for people who sit back and go,

35:35

I don't want to object to the apostle like the guy in Romans 9 did, that sort of impacts things, but again, when you start making comments about something you actually didn't watch yourself, that's where the problem comes in.

35:53

I find that ironic that you can take an LDS black man, child, young guy, just say a young guy,

36:04

I don't mean disrespect, and he can go in with the big way -end shooters of the faith in the west coast,

36:12

James White and Durbin and Shofeloff, and he can hand them... Now listen, listen to what he says here, because he sort of betrays.

36:21

He's going on secondhand information. ...heads to them. Apparently, I have a good friend, and Kwatu got

36:28

Durbin and White... I have a good friend. It's sort of like one of those situations like, doctor, what do you say about someone with this?

36:36

I'm asking for a friend. Yeah, uh -huh, Sean, we got you.

36:44

Yeah, good research there. Good research. ...who are just pounding the gavel...

36:50

Okay, then he goes on to make some grand observation about what's going on in the way...

37:01

So he's talking about people who have doctrinal content, specific, clear doctrinal content to their beliefs, these terrible, horrible people.

37:13

God is crushing them. He's crushing them with unbelievable things that are telling other people that this dogma is ridiculous, and it never should have been.

37:27

I really think that we are in an age, it's probably been going on for a hundred years, where enlightened thinkers who love

37:33

God have been saying, you know, this doesn't make sense. But it's the loud voices and the pointing fingers of these

37:41

Calvinists who say that you are not predestined to heaven, but are going to have eternal hell.

37:47

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's happened over and over again. Again, one of the things

37:53

I said in my Facebook message to Sean was, it's really sad that you just refuse to accurately represent the other side, because our beliefs would not allow us to have any knowledge of who the elect are.

38:06

I can't look at somebody and say you are predestined or you are not predestined. I don't have that information.

38:13

So this kind of, you know, I guess

38:19

I should probably, you know, have this guy standing on the computer or something like that.

38:24

I got a straw man here, and I left the lighter, but I can get it quick enough, because this guy is in deep trouble when it comes to Sean McCraney and his misrepresentation.

38:43

He survives another day. Yeah, I think he would light up pretty well, the way he feels there. All right, so let's get to Ephesians 1, shall we?

38:53

Because that was the primary useful thing. It's one thing to listen to Sean railing at folks.

39:00

It's another thing to, what struck me was, hey, you know what? What was neat here is it was all in one section, and it was coherent.

39:12

Now, it's contradictory to what he says elsewhere, because I don't know. See, this is the

39:19

Calvary Chapel side of him popping out, which he hasn't quite figured out.

39:27

He's abandoned any foundation for doing this in this way. He's still trying to use grammatical historical interpretation, whereas once you deny sola scriptura and start adopting some of the stuff that he's adopted, there's really no reason to do that anymore, and there's all sorts of more interesting ways of doing things.

39:52

So it's massively inconsistent, but it's there.

39:58

I'm going to speed it up one click, just so we can get through it a little bit faster. What? Oh.

40:06

So, well, if you're going to do that, then I'm going to put that over there and bring the text up over here.

40:14

There we go. You might want to turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 1, and we will be starting with verse 1, because he starts with verse 1.

40:25

But please note something. So let me just point out what one of the very first errors he's going to make right off the bat.

40:32

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our

40:42

Father and Lord Jesus Christ. For some reason, he really strongly emphasizes the alleged distinction between the father and the son.

40:51

Again, the use of theos for the father and kurios for the son, standard

40:57

Pauline usage, but there's still this Trinitarian confusion that exists there.

41:03

But what's important to see is that this is not written to apostles.

41:10

It is written tois hagiois, to the saints who are in Ephesus.

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I'm aware that an epheso is a textual variant, and it's a fascinating textual variant, but that's not relevant really at this particular point in time to our interpretation.

41:27

To the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. And so you have a specific audience.

41:34

And so when Paul then goes to the first person, plural, he's already addressed a plural subject, which are the saints and the faithful in Christ Jesus in Ephesus.

41:52

And so when he goes to the first person, plural, we or us, he is including his audience, not excluding his audience.

42:03

And if Sean wants to say he's excluding his audience, he has to come up with something positive from the text that does so.

42:10

But since it starts off with the address to the audience, the natural reading of the text is going to be to recognize that Paul is now including himself in with the audience.

42:26

You can't find anything where you say, well, I think this is just the apostles. Show me from the text.

42:33

You're importing it. There's nothing here. Where is apostoloi in Ephesians 1?

42:41

Could you show that to me? No, you can't, because it's not there. So let's keep that in mind, and let's listen to what he had to say.

42:51

I went to Calvary Chapel School of Ministry. It wasn't accredited. I didn't learn a bunch of stuff to make me smart. I just read the

42:57

Bible with my own eyes. So go with me to the first chapter of Ephesians. And in Ephesians chapter 1, we come upon some really interesting views that so many

43:07

Calvinists have used on unsuspecting people to say, we are predestined. God has predestined us from the foundation of the world to be his followers.

43:17

And they use Ephesians chapter 1 to prove it. Well, I want to use Ephesians chapter 1 to prove they're full of it. Okay, so the standard here is they're full of it, all right?

43:29

Sean does not have a sanctified tongue, evidently does not believe in the authority of scripture, the book of James, and even the title of this particular episode was slightly vulgar.

43:45

But at the end, he's going to say that in 10 minutes, in the 10 minutes he presented this, that he shot in the head the reformed understanding of Ephesians 1.

43:55

So the bar here is all the way at the top. It's not, here's another way of possibly looking, not shot in the head and full of it, do not leave you in a position of saying, well,

44:05

I think mine is at least equally as likely to yours or something like that. No, you're saying yours is right.

44:11

The reformed one is wrong, which it goes against his whole thing. Oh, you reformed people.

44:16

You all do your thing. I'm fine with you. No, you're not. No, you're not. If you can use language like this, what you're saying is there's a right way of reading this wrong way.

44:27

Now you won't defend the hermeneutical or exegetical foundation because you can't because you've already abandoned all those things with all these other wacko beliefs that you've adopted over the past number of years to get your little group going.

44:41

But I'm just going to keep pointing out the massive contradictions and say to you, contradiction is not something that a person who is truthful and loves the truth wants to embrace and live in.

44:58

It is the mark of falsehood, not truth. So we keep that in mind.

45:04

And I want you to test and challenge it. Don't believe me. Get your Bible out and read it along with me. So it's all about free will.

45:10

Let's start. To catch that, it's all about free will. Can't help but thinking of good old

45:18

Norm Geisler at that point when he says John chapter six is all about free will. I mean, just because the phrase doesn't appear anywhere might not mean anything if it's just demanded.

45:34

But of course, well, you know, let me take, let me take that back. You know what? Sean is exactly right.

45:40

It is all about free will. God's free will. Not man's free will. It's about God's free will.

45:47

So Sean, you know what? You're exactly right. Since you didn't say whose free will it was, we'll give you a mulligan on that one and say the

45:56

Holy Spirit reached down and made you say something you didn't intend to say. You're right. Ephesians one is about free will.

46:04

God's free will to do as he predestines and as he chooses.

46:10

It is, it talks all about the kind intention of his will. The one will that is involved here is the divine will, that powerful will.

46:20

You are right about that. You just did not intend to be right about that. So it's all about free will.

46:27

Let's start in Ephesians one and learn together. Ephesians one one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, he says, to the faithful saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Jesus Christ.

46:38

I just, I just stop and go, by the will of God. Okay, so there's your will. Was Paul an apostle by his will or by God's will?

46:51

Because Paul doesn't say by the will of God and my will. By the will of God as enabled by my will, he says by the will of God.

47:01

God is the one who placed me in this position. I am an apostle of Christ Jesus.

47:07

So was that a synergistic will? Was it a free will will somehow?

47:15

Questions that people have that I think are appropriate. Standard opener for Paul and most of his epistles, except this one, he does open it up to the faithful in Jesus Christ.

47:24

You might say Ephesians is to everybody. Could be wrong on that one. Maybe it's to everybody. Yeah, and in fact, one of the interesting things is, if N -epheso is a later amendation that shows that the first church that received this, it was meant to be a circular letter that was to be read by all the churches in the

47:48

Lycus River Valley, and I think that is quite probable, personally. And in fact,

47:55

I think that this is the epistle that Paul refers to over in Colossians 4 when he says, read the epistle that's coming from Laodicea.

48:03

I think it's this one. So yeah, it is to a wide number of people. It's written to all believers in those churches, which is why it remains just as valid and relevant to us today, because it's

48:20

God's intention that that church continue to glorify Christ Jesus throughout all ages, and not just that one generation up in heaven.

48:31

No. But I think it was primarily first to the people of Ephesus. And then he says, grace be to you, another standard opener, and he writes, and peace from, he says,

48:41

God, our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'll say no more, but Paul emphatically calls

48:49

God the Father and our Father. God. And he refers to Jesus almost always as the

48:56

Lord or the Savior Jesus Christ. Always that. God, the Father, Jesus Christ.

49:02

Okay? Let's go to verse 3. Well, okay, not sure why the observation is being made unless you are trying to say that Paul never uses theos of the

49:13

Son, which he does. It is not the normal usage. Kurios is a high term.

49:21

It's the term used in the Greek Septuagint to take the place of the Tetragrammaton.

49:28

But theos is used in the Son by Paul, for example, in Titus 2 .13, and possibly

49:33

Romans 9 .5 as well. Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our

49:39

Lord Jesus Christ. He does it again there. Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

49:47

Now, at verse 3, we learn that God is the Father who blesses with all spiritual blessings, and we come upon something really important here.

49:54

Our first us is mentioned by Paul. Okay, and that's why

50:00

I emphasized ahead of time the reality that in any other situation, any meaningful reading of the text, when you go to Romans, when you go to Galatians, when you go to any place else in Paul, you're going to have the audience identified first, and then if you go to the first person plural, if you go to Hamas, which is the term here, the one who blessed us,

50:36

Hamas is the accusative, it's because the very term there has action to it, the one who blessed, the one who blessed us, it is simply understood that unless there is something where he immediately identified, for example, the apostolic band in contradistinction to the church at Ephesus or something along those lines, that what has happened is the plural is the joining of Paul to his audience.

51:11

And it happens many times. And there are only a couple of times, especially when a discussion of apostles in 1

51:20

Corinthians comes up, that you can make an argument because you have the false apostles in Corinth, and so you've got, and you have the super apostles, which are also basically false apostles.

51:35

But anyways, in those contexts, later on down the road, the context tells you what it is.

51:43

That's not here. And Sean gives us no argumentation whatsoever to accept what he's about to say in regards to the nature of the we.

51:55

Our first us in these passages, he says, lest we be God the Father Jesus, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

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Now, most readers of the Bible today will say, that us is me. I'm reading the Bible, Paul says us,

52:09

I'm an us, it's me! Well, it would be us if we are described as who?

52:17

What did it say up above? To the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus.

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That's the audience. And he's a saint, and he's faithful in Christ Jesus, so that's the us.

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So if you are called and believe in Jesus Christ, if you are hagiois and pistois, then yeah.

52:43

Obviously, historically, immediate application to every saint and believer in that day, but given the gnomic character of Ephesians 1, that is, he's not stating, now this is only true in regards to you guys at Ephesus, I wouldn't say this ever to the

53:01

Romans, or I wouldn't ever say this to people at Thessalonica but just to you Ephesians, no, he's not saying that.

53:07

And he's talking about overarching, top -level theological concepts that result in the salvation of human beings, but he goes all the way back to eternity to lay these foundations.

53:25

And so, you've got to find something in the text to try to limit this, as he's about to do, but he doesn't.

53:33

He's going to limit it, but he's not going to do that because the text limits it in any way. Right? And then they apply everything else that's said in the first verses of Ephesians 1 to themselves, thinking they're the us.

53:45

It's wrong. I'm going to prove it, okay? He's going to prove it. He's not going to offer another perspective.

53:54

He is going to prove it. Prove it. So, there you go.

54:01

The standard here is way, way high. So, when we read us, we're so self -centered, we think it's me as a believer.

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That's not a matter of self -centeredness. That's not a matter of the world revolves around me.

54:20

There's a theological recognition that the Church is made up of all those who are called out from every generation.

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And the relationship, the redemption that has been provided for me is the same redemption that was provided for them and for the generation before me and the generation after me.

54:47

That's consistency of the body. Here, this us is speaking not of us now, nor was it speaking of the believers then.

55:01

Now, catch that? It's not talking about the believers then. Okay? Then you can explain then, and you'll be able to demonstrate from the text, where the disjunctive took place, because we have the saints and faithful specifically identified in verse 2.

55:19

And now, when you go to Hamas, the natural way of reading this, in the rest of the

55:27

Pauline corpus, if you weren't trying to get around something here, it would be

55:33

Paul and his audience. But you're going to say it's something else. What?

55:38

What are you talking about? Paul, when he writes us here, is speaking either about the

55:44

Jews or he's speaking about Apostles. Just the 12 Apostles. And— Jared What?

55:51

Jews? What? He's talking about the Jews at Ephesus?

55:59

Ephesus isn't a Jewish city. The vast majority of the people in Ephesus are going to be

56:05

Gentiles, not Jews. If I, just to make it simple,

56:10

I think he's talking about Apostles alone. He says us, and he's talking about the Apostles.

56:15

Paul So, there's the assertion. Where's the foundation? Where's—is this sort of revelation or something?

56:26

I don't know. But this is how teachers like this, you know, he says, well, these

56:36

Calvinists who, you know, they convince people who've not had a chance to study the Bible. Okay, well, we're studying the

56:42

Bible, and right now you're just making a wild claim that's going to become the foundation of your entire rereading of the entire text.

56:49

What's it based on? What's it based on? Jared Well, every time we read us or we, in the next passage, you try to hear who you think he's talking to, but hang with me till the end.

57:01

So, he goes on to verse 4, and he says, speaking of God, according as he, God the Father, have chosen us—this is the second us he's used—in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

57:16

That must be talking to me! I'm supposed to be holy and without blame before God, so it's speaking to me.

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It's not. Again, most people today apply the us or we to themselves, referring to them, but they are not.

57:27

God has chosen in himself before the foundation of the world the Apostles. To be what?

57:34

Holy and blameless before him in love? So, you're really suggesting that what

57:42

Paul is doing is he's writing to the Ephesians, and he's saying, let me tell you about our special relationship we have.

57:54

Now, we've been chosen to be holy and blameless before him in love, but you haven't.

58:06

Notice the contradiction here, because if you look at the root of holy—now, this is where, to my knowledge, the gentleman,

58:19

Sean, does not read the original languages. He is dependent upon English translation.

58:25

If he could read the original languages, then he would recognize that the term twice hagiois, the saints—this is where the

58:38

English translation is a little bit misleading, unless you know the original language—twice hagiois, and what is the term here in verse 4, to be holy?

58:51

Hagios. It's the same term here being used descriptively, but it's the same root.

59:01

And so, if he's writing to the hagiois, and he talks about that we should be hagios, the only logical result of that is that this is

59:14

Paul and his audience. Paul and his audience. That's the reading. And now, with the terminology being used here, he's going to tell the

59:24

Ephesians, and later on when he starts talking about the Ephesians and the one body, they're going to be blameless, same terminology.

59:32

Everything he's going to be talking about, about the Jews and Gentiles together in the one body later in Ephesians, is based upon what he said in chapter 1.

59:39

You limit this only to the apostles, and you're making this irrelevant to the rest of the book. It is eisegesis to the nth degree, and when you find somebody messing with the scriptures like this, twisting the scriptures like this, it's because there is a belief being taught by the scriptures that they don't like, and they're in rebellion against it.

01:00:02

It's what Joseph Smith did, it's what Sean McCraney does, and they sound a lot alike.

01:00:08

They really sound a lot alike. Sean, you do. I have a calling on my head like Joseph Smith did.

01:00:16

Really? Sounds just like Joseph Smith did in his day. You've still got a whole lot more connections to him than you want to admit, and that's a problem.

01:00:29

That they should be holy and without blame before him and love. He is still talking about them.

01:00:34

He goes on, verse 5, having predestined us, everyone who reads that thinks it's talking about Christians, the whole body of Christians.

01:00:42

Yeah, because it says unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto himself.

01:00:47

Are only the apostles adopted? Where do you get this stuff? Where do you get this special apostolic adoption that is different or better?

01:00:57

What about Romans 8? Who is adopted? Golden chain of redemption, same term. Who's adopted?

01:01:05

Only the apostles? No, all those who are justified. So, I mean, you are absolutely tearing

01:01:15

Paul's own theology apart. Paul would have no idea how you came up with this. What are you doing?

01:01:21

Didn't you read what I read? I mean, come on, didn't you read what I wrote? You're completely messing with everything here.

01:01:28

But I say, having predestined us, the apostles, unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise and glory of his grace wherein he has made us, the apostles, accepted in the beloved.

01:01:43

Verse 7, in whom we, the apostles, have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Again, redemption, forgiveness of sins.

01:01:51

The apostles have a special redemption? A special forgiveness of sins? No. The we is all the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus in Ephesus.

01:02:04

It's the people he's written to along with himself. This is the common experience of all believers.

01:02:12

This is the theological foundation of our relationship to God. According to the richness of his grace, verse 8, wherein he has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

01:02:22

Verse 9, having made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself.

01:02:29

You got all that? That is, again, Paul has mentioned us or we crowd in the last six verses six times.

01:02:36

He's talked about an us and a we. That's a group of somebody. God the Father has elected, chosen, predestined from the foundation of the world,

01:02:44

I am telling you, the apostles according to the good will of his pleasure to be redeemed in the precious blood of Jesus.

01:02:51

Why? When? Yeah, why? That is a good question because what you just described is what

01:02:57

Reformed people believe about all Christians. So if that's only about apostles, then you have different means of salvation for different people.

01:03:07

The apostles had one special mechanism and then the rest of us have some other mechanism.

01:03:15

Is that how this is supposed to work? Verse 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him.

01:03:31

Verse 10 tells us that the reason God has chosen and predestined the apostles, the us and the we's, was so that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he,

01:03:42

God, might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him himself.

01:03:51

The dispensation of the fullness of times phrase has been misread and misinterpreted for ages by Christians and religious groups who think that the dispensation of the fullness of times started at Jesus' birth and continues out to our day today, or the dispensation of the fullness...

01:04:07

Okay, this is where your hyper -preterism is going to come in, is going to mess everything up, and whoever is sending me text messages, please stop.

01:04:17

I know that you're trying to be helpful with the specific information about exactly how to pronounce

01:04:23

Ghanaian names. We're past that. We're in Ephesians 1 now, so I don't know how to turn that off.

01:04:30

Maybe if I quit that, that might help, but appreciate the help, but that's neither here nor there right now, and it is interrupting everything else we're trying to do.

01:04:43

Back to 10, the hyper -dispensationalism... not dispensation, hyper -preterism, where there's no church any longer, allows you to accomplish this kind of thing, where you are trying to avoid the fact that, well, if this is just the apostles, it seems really strange that he would say, you know, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, because, oh, the summing all things in Christ must be just what happened back then.

01:05:18

Christians have seen that this is so overarching, and involves everything that God is doing in drawing the elect into himself, and the building of the church, and all these things.

01:05:28

This hyper -preterism just is... it's a different religion. It's a different faith. It just ends up giving you something that looks completely different than anything that the apostles ever would have been able to present.

01:05:41

And, by the way, I might note, the things in heaven and things upon earth, it's possible, the

01:05:49

New American Standard does translate that in him, we have obtained an inheritance, goes with the next verse, possibly.

01:06:00

There's multiple ways of looking at that. ...times was the restoration of the gospel through the

01:06:07

Mormons. They called the Mormon Church since 1820 till now the dispensation of the fullness of times. It's been misappropriated by many people.

01:06:13

Not so. The word dispensation is oikonomia in the Greek, and it means an economy. Those who are...

01:06:19

Now, if you're gonna play the Greek game, then you need to play it all the way.

01:06:25

Because you can look a word up, but if you can throw it out there, then you're responsible for noting the other things that are so obvious to anyone who actually does read the

01:06:34

Greek. So, if you're throwing Greek in there now, then why didn't you notice the relationship between saints and holy, which connects the two together, and you said, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, can't be.

01:06:48

But the, you know, right there, I mean, on my screen, and I sort of got the window a little bit smaller, they were both right there, you know.

01:06:55

If you're actually reading it, then you see that. That's one of the reasons it's good to learn the language, so just keep that in mind if you could throw it out there.

01:07:38

So this has happened? This is done? Seriously? We're having this disagreement, and yet,

01:07:45

Christ is all in all? I certainly hope not. That almost sounded like universalism there, didn't it?

01:08:23

That sounded like some kind of, are we throwing universalism in with the hyper -preterism?

01:08:29

I mean, phew, so many noxious fumes, theologically, here, that I don't know how you'd survive it.

01:08:36

In Him. That's called victory. That's called total victory right there, all right?

01:08:42

All heavenly inhabitants and earthly into one common denominator. That's why I hate denominationalism, because it creates many denominators.

01:08:50

No. So that is the victory Christ had already, where He has gathered together and won all things that are in heaven and earth into Himself.

01:08:57

We're not waiting for this to happen. Jesus isn't waiting to have the victory. He has had it, and it all happened in the dispensation of the fullness of times, in and through Himself and His apostles who, from the foundation of the world, were predestined to come in and do that very thing.

01:09:14

And so we read the next line where Paul says at verse 11, speaking of... Now listen carefully here, because, all right, even if you bought all of that, even though we've demonstrated it has no foundation and goes against the text, even if you bought all of that, verse 11 still says, describes

01:09:33

God as predestining according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.

01:09:46

Now, I think Sean had described this as a heinous box that those terrible, horrible

01:09:56

Calvinists put God into. It's going to have to explain pretty clearly, especially in light of all those

01:10:06

Old Testament texts we can go back and grab and go, yeah, it says it pretty straightforwardly there, that it's not saying that God works all things after the counsel of His will.

01:10:18

He's got to tell us what He means is God works all things in the economy, which includes free will.

01:10:25

I mean, that might be some... I mean, it's not what the text is saying, but the text doesn't teach what most people teach, so they've got to come up with something.

01:10:33

And so something like that, listen as he zips by this, sort of like whistling in the dark when you're going by the cemetery.

01:10:45

I'm nervous here. God, and He uses another we, in whom also we, the apostles, have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will.

01:10:59

Now, hold on. He's reading it very, very fast. I may go back. Inheritance.

01:11:05

Hmm. Does Paul use that anyplace else? Like the third chapter and the fifth chapter about, oh yeah, all believers?

01:11:14

Hmm. Isn't that a part of exegesis to honestly represent what the author himself, how he uses terminology?

01:11:24

You really want to try to twist chapter three and chapter five, verse five, and we've obtained an inheritance, but it's just us apostles who've obtained the inheritance.

01:11:35

No, it's not. The whole... over and over again, Paul will talk about the inheritance that is that of the believers.

01:11:45

Oh, but this is a different inheritance. Really? You want to substantiate that? That's a positive affirmation. You want to substantiate that from the text?

01:11:51

Good luck. You can't do it. You know you can't do it. And that's just the way it is.

01:11:58

Being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will, that we, the apostles, should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted

01:12:08

Christ. That's the end of the we's and us's in this introduction of the Ephesians, all right?

01:12:13

The we's and the us's, the apostles were predestined, not believers, just them.

01:12:19

Okay, we've already totally torn this apart. I mean, refutation -wise, been refuted, it's done.

01:12:27

Whether he can see it or not, everybody else can't, but did you notice right past verse 11, right on into verse 12, nothing about the description of God as the one who works all things after the counsel of His will.

01:12:41

It's just like, what? Was there something I needed to say? I didn't see it.

01:12:48

Just right on by it. I understand why. It's a pretty clear description, but there's the problem.

01:13:00

Whether you agree with my assessment or not, it is now where Paul makes a shift. You ready?

01:13:06

He's been talking about them as apostles, predestined from the foundation of the world to bring in the dispensation of the fullness of times. And at verse 13, he then says, in whom ye, he's been talking about us and we the whole time.

01:13:20

Now he turns his attention to his audience, the reader, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the

01:13:36

Holy Spirit of promise. Okay, now in verses 4 through 12. Okay, now let's think that one through a second.

01:13:43

First of all, if you have the critical text, you know that every pronoun in verse 13, well, there's two plural pronouns, enhokai, whomais, and ta euangelion te seterias, whomon, have variants.

01:14:09

And in, for example, the first whomais, you have haemais.

01:14:17

In second corrector, sinaiticus, alexandrus, kl, psi 326, 629, etc.,

01:14:23

etc. And you even have a whomon in some other, and then the second one is whomon in k, psi 323.

01:14:34

So there's some interesting textual variants. I think the selections in the critical text are correct, and it is a you, because Paul is now talking about their experience in coming into Christ.

01:14:49

You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in which also you believed, you were sealed with the

01:14:59

Holy Spirit of promise. Okay, so the description here is now applying what happened in eternity past has to interface with time.

01:15:13

And so if you're chosen in eternity past, then God chooses the very time at which you are going to hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and upon hearing and believing in that, you are sealed with the

01:15:32

Holy Spirit of promise. So with regeneration, the Holy Spirit raises you spiritual life, and you receive the seal of the

01:15:41

Holy Spirit of promise, who is the, verse 14, the arabon, the down payment of our what?

01:15:50

Do you notice it? Kleronimia, our inheritance. Wasn't that just what only the apostles had just a few verses ago?

01:16:01

Well, no, because in Paul's understanding, now they come to understand what their inheritance is, but it's not some different inheritance.

01:16:09

It's not that the apostles have a different inheritance and they've got a lesser inheritance or whatever else it might be. There's no inconsistency because the error was made by ignoring the connection that the text itself made in the audience right up at the beginning.

01:16:26

There's where the problem comes in for Sean. Paul speaks of a special apostles who were predestined from the foundation of the world to bring in the dispensation of the fullest of time.

01:16:37

He clearly explains what they were called to do. That is not applicable to all Christians, like the insipid

01:16:43

Calvinists try to suggest. But at verse 13, Paul shifts into another group, the ye's and the yours.

01:16:50

You mean Paul did not believe and was sealed having heard the gospel of his salvation?

01:16:58

Paul hasn't been sealed by the Holy Spirit? Paul doesn't have the Spirit as an arabone? Paul doesn't have a clear anemia?

01:17:06

No, of course not. These things are all things that Paul and his audience shared together. He is simply now taking the discussion out of what

01:17:14

God, the source of blessing in God, the Father in eternity past, and that meant and resulted in the experience of salvation in time to those to whom he is writing.

01:17:28

It's really not that difficult to understand if your ultimate desire is to understand what

01:17:35

Paul intended to communicate to his audience back then. If your ultimate intention is to hide from doctrines and dogmas you don't like, then

01:17:48

I guess it could, you know, you just got to do what you got to do. And that's exactly what is being done by Sean McRaney.

01:17:55

The Gentiles in that day, who Paul refers to as the ye's, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

01:18:05

Nothing about predestination here, anymore. Anymore. There was before I skipped over it, and at least predestination is true for the apostles, even in his own view at that point,

01:18:16

I guess. I guess the apostles' free will doesn't matter. Paul couldn't have said no, or Peter couldn't have said no,

01:18:22

I guess. I guess that's the cost of all these things. But no, just, you know, you have the same dynamic here that you have in John 17, where in the high priestly prayer,

01:18:33

Jesus is talking about the apostles, and he says, I don't just pray for them, I also pray for those who believe because of their word, because of their testimony.

01:18:42

He sees the ongoing nature of these things, that they may all be one as we are one. He makes that connection.

01:18:48

You have the same connection going on here, except Paul had included himself. He had to.

01:18:54

From the eternal perspective, the small time difference between Paul's conversion and the conversion of the churches under his ministry, from the eternal perspective, is meaningless.

01:19:06

And so when he's talking about the elect of God as a whole, then he includes himself in there, and then when he comes to their particular experience, and he is one of the primary people through whom that came in his ministry in Ephesus, then he switches pronouns.

01:19:25

Makes perfect historical sense, and it does not interrupt the audience that was introduced at the beginning.

01:19:33

This is why you do exegesis, not eisegesis, which is what Sean McCraney's doing.

01:19:38

Because he's talking to believers now, and they are the yees he's speaking to. Five times he refers to the non -apostles as the yees and the yours, and nothing about predestination.

01:19:52

And then finally, he brings both groups together, the apostles and the believers, verse 14, which the

01:20:00

Holy Spirit of promise is the earnest of our inheritance. He does bring them all together because there's only one inheritance.

01:20:09

It makes perfect sense. There was no reason to divide it up above. There is only one

01:20:15

Spirit that indwells all of them. There is only one Arabon, one down payment, and it is our inheritance.

01:20:24

And so the inheritance of the previous verses, then the inheritance, it's all the same. It's all the same.

01:20:29

There's not a bunch of different inheritances. It's not, well, the apostles get, none of this is true.

01:20:36

There's no reason to complicate the text in this way, unless you don't like what the text teaches. And that is what it did teach.

01:20:44

Back there in verses five and six, he chose us in him.

01:20:50

If you are in Christ, if you're adopted, if you have the Holy Spirit, you've been chosen by God in eternity past in Christ.

01:20:59

Nowhere else there is no salvation in any other name in Christ, but Christ is not the chosen one.

01:21:05

We were chosen in him. Our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory.

01:21:14

Now, having now walked through this, listen to these final words.

01:21:20

In the past 10 minutes, I've explained to you the scriptures that reformed theologians use to convince people, unsuspecting people who haven't been able to study the word, that predestination is a concrete biblical tenet that you must understand in order to understand

01:21:37

Calvinism. And in those last 10 minutes, it was shot to hell. There you go.

01:21:45

That's the voice of arrogance. That's the voice of ignorance.

01:21:52

That's the voice of a man who refuses to submit to proper authority and just picks and chooses what he wants to believe.

01:22:04

And now he takes what he was taught at Calvary Chapel Bible School, and in service of something they never would have accepted, obviously.

01:22:15

We need to give them kudos for that. In service of something they never would have accepted, he now uses that kind of argumentation to present this twisted interpretation of Ephesians 1 to avoid the teaching of the very text itself, which is such a, you know, can you imagine?

01:22:40

How would Ephesians 1 be a... First of all, its relationship to the rest of the epistle goes out the window, but how would this be an encouragement to those believers in Ephesus?

01:22:55

Well, we apostles, we were chosen from eternity, but you all weren't. We're the only ones.

01:23:02

He just chose us, and once we're gone, then, you know, it's just all up in the air.

01:23:10

I don't know. There's no coherence here. There's no coherence in Sean McCraney's teaching. It's all over the place, and he revels in that.

01:23:19

He thinks that's great. Sure, you can't make heads or tails out of it, but hey, that's what makes it so fun.

01:23:28

Well, it's not fun. It's misleading, and it's dangerous, and it's just simply not biblical by any stretch of the imagination.

01:23:40

So, like I said, he went on from here to go, you know, I was sitting around pondering, and I was wondering, why do people hate me so much?

01:23:51

And he starts going through, and what he does is, you know, and like I said, my first response when

01:23:57

I heard this was, it isn't about you. It's not about you,

01:24:03

Sean. Um, quit putting yourself in the center, but then he starts going through, well, then

01:24:12

I started asking, well, what is Christianity? Why is it that Christians dislike me so much? And he ends up giving us, you know, we've talked about the mere

01:24:24

Christianity movement here. Mere Christianity is a full set of dogmatic decrees in comparison to what he comes up with.

01:24:37

Basically, love God, John 3, 16, believe in Jesus.

01:24:42

Don't ask what any of that means. Don't ask about why you'd have to, don't ask who Jesus is. No, no, no, you can't ask anything like that.

01:24:50

And he comes up with these little statements, and then the fourth statement is, and there's more to it than just that, because there's revelation, there's more revelation, and there's other things in there.

01:25:01

And, and, you know, basically the simple recognition that we've been given an entire

01:25:07

Bible, um, and we've been told, uh, stand for sound doctrine, don't be deceived.

01:25:13

There's going to be people who teach this, that, and the other thing, and don't be misled. But you see, that was just all back for then, and Jesus came, and that's all, that's all over.

01:25:24

So what do we do now? I don't know. And neither does he. Once you have

01:25:31

Jesus returning back then, and there's no more church, and there's no more, uh,

01:25:37

Lord's Supper or anything like that, it's, uh, you get to sort of, well, it's the eternal state,

01:25:43

I guess you sort of make things up as you go along. Um, but his idea is it's those people, those people that add that up.

01:25:50

See, if we just stuck with this artistic Christianity, where you, you, you've literally, honestly, the, the mere

01:26:01

Christianity stuff that we've talked about before, where you've got Trinitarian, you know, believe in the

01:26:07

Trinity, and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, deity of Christ, of course, person, Holy Spirit.

01:26:13

And then Christ, you know, you know, the, the cross, and the empty tomb, and the resurrection, and that's pretty much it.

01:26:21

That's a whole lot more, because his simplified statements, you can't even ask what they mean.

01:26:29

You know, John 3, 16, there's a lot of theology in there. People don't even, well, I don't want to ask what, you know, what believe in him means, and I don't want to, you know, that starts getting too, too complicated.

01:26:37

So can we be, you know, and so you end up with this Christianity that has, it's just, it is the sloppy agape, amorphous blob stuff that has, has no power in it.

01:26:54

It can't challenge anything. It can't change anything. Why would anybody die for something like this?

01:27:02

Why would anyone die for a message that is absolutely vanilla paper thin?

01:27:10

I don't know. Why did the apostles bother with all this stuff? It was, it was just for that generation.

01:27:17

I mean, did that one generation really need all that information? And then the rest of us are just going to go, whatever.

01:27:25

I don't know. So there you go. What an amazing, amazing, and, and, you know,

01:27:38

I've been told, well, good luck. If you respond to this, he's a good go ballistic. Well, I don't know.

01:27:44

I don't even know if he'll bother listening. He actually didn't listen to the, the, the Paul Gaius stuff.

01:27:50

That, that was obvious. So I don't know. And, and I, I don't determine what

01:27:57

I'm going to address based upon what that guy's going to blow up.

01:28:02

Okay. Believe me, if I was looking for the easy way to just, you know, get around all the little explosions and stuff, there's a lot of dividing lines that never would have aired and never would have gotten recorded in the first place.

01:28:21

That's, that's not how we, how we do things. But I just felt like, Hey, he actually read through the text.

01:28:29

Yay. Hey, you got to give him credit. How many times have we dealt on Radio Free Geneva with people who would not have even read every verse from 1 to 11 or 1 to 14?

01:28:46

Give him credit for that, at least. It's about all we can give him credit for. We can give him credit for that. Because how many people have it?

01:28:52

Well, I'm going to pick a part of it here. And, but that's what Norm Geisler did. The fact is,

01:28:58

Sean, after everything I've said and torn your position to shreds, at least I'm thankful you read the whole thing in such a way that you could actually interact with it.

01:29:08

You could actually interact with it. That was, that was actually helpful. So your position is completely whacked.

01:29:16

But, but it was, it was, notice I say it was completely whacked. I didn't say it was shot to, shot in the head or whatever else.

01:29:26

So, so, so there you go. All right.

01:29:34

Hopefully it's just been my experience that one of the most useful things that people have gotten out of Radio Free Geneva is when we go through texts, we go through it in the original languages, we go through it and apply meaningful exegetical and hermeneutical considerations to it.

01:29:50

And when you're responding against claims, you get to see how people bring in stuff from outside that ends up changing the text, but they never grounded where it came from.

01:30:02

And the problem is, this is a little secret, when you, when you start seeing that in the context like this, you end up seeing it all over the place.

01:30:14

And it's not just from the weird folks out there that have lots of, lots of problems, theologically speaking, but you start hearing it in good churches too.

01:30:26

And if, if that's your experience, don't, don't become, don't allow a root of bitterness to develop.

01:30:34

You, you might need to find a place where there's a more consistent teaching, but you might not be in a situation where you're going to be able to find that.

01:30:41

So you need to be patient with the Lord and take that to him and handle it in the best way that that you can.

01:30:49

So if any of you are saying, well, I tell you, you just have to, you're pretty, pretty hard on him.

01:30:55

Remember, he's the one that said that our reading of the text is full of it.

01:31:01

And he just shot it to Hades. He didn't.

01:31:07

And it was not our perspective that was full of it. Um, we went through the text, responded fully and completely, and I'll just be perfectly honest with you.

01:31:19

I don't believe that Sean has the depth to even begin to respond to what we just said.

01:31:26

I'd invite him to try to, um, and I don't know what's going to happen.

01:31:32

You know, Jeff was talking to me, uh, so do you think I should do this? What do you, you know, what do you think? Um, and I hadn't listened to it yet.

01:31:40

And look, in every one of these situations, it is a judgment call based upon your ministry priorities.

01:31:52

And obviously at one point I felt it was appropriate to go on the program and try to explain the doctrine of the

01:32:03

Trinity. Um, in the process, I got to explain that to a much, to an audience that otherwise would not have heard.

01:32:15

If Jeff could get to an audience that otherwise would not, um, hear an explanation of these and unpoison the minds of anybody toward the glorious truth of God's grace, well, there you go.

01:32:36

Uh, then it would be worthwhile doing if in the full spectrum of the ministry that Jeff is doing, that that's a good investment of time and funds, something that you and people in the ministry, you and your elders, if it's part of the church, have to decide for yourself.

01:32:56

So we'll see what happens. Um, but, uh, as soon as I heard that this morning, and I haven't had any contact with Jeff today.

01:33:05

Uh, I hope it doesn't feel like I, I jumped the gun on him or something like that to respond to this. But as soon as I heard that shot it to heck line, um, and I recognized that he had stayed focused on his argument from Ephesians 1.

01:33:25

In situations like this, it, it's so hard at times and it takes so much time when you spread your argument out over 40 minutes for me to sit there and I've got,

01:33:38

I love this program, uh, Audio Notetaker, but still I just have one big red blob in the middle of that sound file, which is his

01:33:48

Ephesians 1 section. I didn't have to break it up. I didn't have to skip anything. It was just stop, start, stops. That makes it a lot easier.

01:33:55

So I do appreciate that. And as soon as I heard that, I'm like, that's, that's what my people want to hear is let's get into the text.

01:34:05

Let's hear someone saying, no, that's not what, what you were informing people. You're wrong. You're all wrong about that.

01:34:10

And here's why. And then let's demonstrate where the problems lie. And, uh, that's what, what we did, uh, today.

01:34:19

So there you go. Um, there's Radio Free Geneva. We will, um, like I said, um, look toward next week for maybe another edition, cause then

01:34:28

I'm going to be gone for a lengthy period of time. So, uh, we'll maybe, who knows, maybe be able to sneak an extra one in next week.

01:34:36

We try to do that for the view addicts that get all angry and antsy and depressed and things like that. Uh, when

01:34:41

I go on these multi -week, uh, overseas trips, which is what I'm doing. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll see, but Lord Welland, we'll see you next week.