Ninety Minutes of Biblical Exegesis and Theological Ruminations

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:32

Well, greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Here we are in our old haunts.

00:39

It's good to be here, though it's a brief time home, less than two weeks.

00:46

And to be honest with you, it just feels like I'm stopping briefly. It's just a little while.

00:52

And then we're off to G3, and we're off to Conway to teach early church history, and we've got

00:58

Chris Arnzen's pastor's luncheon in southern

01:04

Pennsylvania, and all sorts of other stuff we're going to do along the way.

01:10

I'm not getting to do quite as many stops and doing churches, because I've got to get all the way across the country.

01:20

And so those are long days, and so I can't do shorter stuff and then have time to be doing too much other things along the way.

01:29

But anyway, still going to be very, very, very busy. And I should mention that on the 10th of September, I'm going to be at Covenant Grace Church where I always am, and will be the first weekend

01:48

December as normal, Lord willing. But I'm just gonna be there for one quick evening as I'm coming through.

01:57

And we're going to do, I do this little thing, I've done it a number of different places. I always do it a little bit differently, because there's so much you could do.

02:06

But it's an evening with ancient

02:12

Christians, Christians you never heard of. I just draw different things out of the early church, and talk about people who sealed their testimony with their blood.

02:26

And sometimes people we don't know almost anything about. Maybe we'll find out more about them someday in the future.

02:34

But just to get people's appetite whetted a little bit for reading and church history.

02:45

And that will be at Covenant Grace Church on the 10th.

02:52

Yes, the 10th of September, that's when I'll be getting through. That all assumes that I don't drive off a cliff, get run over by a semi or anything else in the process.

03:07

But if you're in the area, look that up, and I'm looking forward to that.

03:13

So, so many things to look at. I want to start off just like I most enjoy doing, looking at a text of scripture and asking us to go back in the days of when we all thought we were on the same page, and we could talk about our faith in biblically defined truth without having to go, oh, have

03:53

I checked what that famous writer said, that famous writer? Oh, I don't know.

04:00

What if they take a different perspective? I mean, yeah, back when we could just, we thought that we were all in agreement that, you know, if it's scripture, then it's what we need to believe.

04:17

And just take us for a moment to the little book of Jude, and look at just a couple of verses, because there's some stuff in Jude that is highly challenging.

04:35

Who were the angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode? You look at 2

04:42

Peter, you look at that, you look back at Genesis. There's some interesting, interesting stuff to think about there.

04:57

Guess I should have checked that before the program started. I think I made that about a month ago.

05:06

And there ain't nothing I can do about now. Ain't nobody here to grab me a cup of water, so we'll see how that works.

05:14

Anyways, Jude 4 and 5, very interesting text.

05:24

And you know that, really, starting with Jude 3,

05:30

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, which is, by the way, is koine, koines soterios, koine

05:40

Greek, you've heard of koine, common Greek? That's the terms used. Our common salvation, I felt the necessity, the extreme need to write to you exhorting that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

05:57

Literally, the once for all handed down to the saints' faith. And over the years, we've often referred to this, this is one of the key apologetics texts, especially when you look at epagonizami, to contend earnestly, it's a command to believers to recognize that the faith will always be under attack.

06:32

Every generation will have different forms of how that attack comes.

06:39

And we have to remember, looking back in history, that when someone spent their life in a particular dispute, there is a high likelihood, and this is the case for all of us, that that might have produced some level of imbalance amongst them.

07:03

When particular Baptists were being persecuted for being

07:08

Baptists in the post -reformational period, is it possible that that could become such a common, everyday part of the battle that there could be some imbalance that might slip in?

07:27

Well, yeah, I think all of us recognize that that's the case. We can give so many examples of people who live in a context that are constantly dealing with Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism.

07:43

The danger is you're pulling one direction, and it's next to impossible to remain perfectly balanced when you're constantly pulling one particular direction and not multiple other directions that would allow you to remain more balanced.

08:02

But here Jude is telling us that there needs to be an earnest contention, an earnest battle.

08:16

For what? For the once -delivered -to -the -saints faith.

08:24

Hoppox is the same term that the writer of the Hebrews uses to refer to the one -time sacrifice.

08:31

He either uses hoppox or ephipox, the strengthened form of it, but has the same meaning. And so part of the apologetic is a recognition that the faith has been once for all delivered to the saints.

08:53

And so while we can recognize the need for the faith to be expressed in a wide variety of ways, when the gospel goes out into the world, it needs to encounter all of the changing vicissitudes of culture and language and time that God in his providence has decreed we would need to face and proclaim the gospel to individuals.

09:29

That doesn't change the fact that it is a once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith. And so I would suggest that we think very seriously about how to define the once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith and to be able to separate the apostolic proclamation of that once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith, which is found in Scripture, from the explications and developments of theology so as to answer particular questions that would mark how that faith has been proclaimed in different cultures, and especially how we in the

10:17

West have inherited a certain set of theological questions.

10:26

And we have to be very, very careful that we do not redefine the once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith as something that no one in Jude's day could have even recognized.

10:38

So if you want to talk about apostolic faith, if you want to talk about this faith from Jude 3, then it needs to be something that Jude would have recognized.

10:56

And if you're defining as necessary to the

11:01

Christian faith things that were utterly unknown to the apostles themselves, you need to explain how that works and how you can avoid basically saying that the once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith was not enough, that there needed to be more, if that's where you're going.

11:27

It's in the context of the assurance that the faith has been delivered.

11:34

Now, you need to understand what was the first and greatest, well, not so much the first, but in the first three centuries, what was the greatest external theological threat to the church?

11:53

Gnosticism. There were heresies internally. It was how to handle persecution and the results of persecution and things like that.

12:05

But externally, it was Gnosticism in all of its forms, whether it's the more esoteric general form of Gnosticism or the specific form,

12:18

Valentinian Gnosticism, which was specifically designed to look like Christianity as much as possible. When you consider that God knew that he was going to bring that testing against the church, he had a purpose and intention for that.

12:37

Then you understand that one of the key issues was, has the faith been once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints, or is there more to be delivered?

12:46

And that is relevant in every generation of the church, but it's especially relevant then because these people are coming along, oh yeah, some of them would claim that it was actually apostolic, but they couldn't.

13:00

They came up with second -century wackadoodle gospels to try to make it sound like it was, but the reality was that it was not apostolic.

13:11

So, there's something very important in that hapax, the once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith.

13:19

It didn't come forth from them. It is something brought to them and given to them by God.

13:29

And so, it's in that context, it says, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

13:38

God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. It is

13:45

God's intention that the church not simply experience her pilgrimage on earth on flowery beds of ease.

13:56

Instead, just as there had been certain men who had crept in to Galatia, to the churches in Galatia, here certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.

14:12

I'll try this again. If the eyes roll back and bad things happen, what is that taste?

14:32

This could be a very important video someday. Make sure we have it copyrighted,

14:38

Rich, so that the day that James White drank whatever it was that either made him pass out on the program or start spouting sonnets.

14:53

Who knows what the result could be? I have no idea. Anyway, long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.

15:06

Doesn't sound like this is something that's catching God by surprise, and he's like, oh, I just had no idea this was going to happen.

15:12

This is terrible. No, there is a purpose in this testing, and they're ungodly persons.

15:19

God has a reason for them. They're ungodly persons, and they turn, oh, okay.

15:34

I don't know what any of that means, but I did receive your message, and I don't get the connection.

15:42

But anyway, they turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only

15:48

Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. I wish I could put this. Oh, now we know why women live longer than men, because a woman would have tasted it and said, yeah,

16:02

I'm not going to go with something that I actually concocted four weeks ago.

16:08

Okay. Anyway, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only

16:15

Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, there are some textual variants in verse 4, especially if you're reading the

16:24

King James Version, but I want you to notice the phraseology that's used there.

16:36

Deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. There is a denial of who

16:41

Christ is when you pervert the message of the gospel, which of course is to turn the grace of our

16:49

God into sensuality or licentiousness. That is a denial of our only

16:57

Master and Lord, Jesus Christ, which would mean that the vast majority of what we watch on Twitter today of all the rainbow -stoled women and homosexual men, and then everybody who is not even sure what their sex is, but are pretending to be

17:17

Christians, you turn the grace of God into sensuality, into licentiousness, into homosexuality, transgenderism, gay mirage, etc.,

17:26

etc., etc. You are denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. It is a denial of the Christian faith. They do not exist together.

17:33

I was so thankful last—was it last evening on Tucker Carlson? Evening before. It was evening before.

17:40

There was a fellow, a black fellow, well, more of a brown fellow with a big old afro, somehow associated with formal church.

17:53

I didn't quite get what the conversation was about there as far as his relationship to the

18:00

Church of England, but he was spot -on, unapologetic, clear.

18:11

It was wonderful. He was talking about these groomers and these pedophiles, and he just did not pull any punches at all.

18:21

Again, when you're British and you've got that accent, it just sounds so much more intelligent than when the rest of us say it.

18:28

You can say the exact same words, but as long as you put it in that lilting tone, it sounds so much more erudite.

18:37

Anyway, so I was very thankful for that, brother. I don't know what the connection there was, but I'm just really glad that Tucker Carlson had him on.

18:46

But the point was, you turn the grace of our

18:52

God into sensuality, you will be denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

18:57

And that term despotain, that's master. It's a strong term.

19:06

Kurios is as well, but you put the two together, and there is a clear emphasis upon Jesus as having judicial reigning authority in the church, in one's relationship.

19:23

The only way to turn the grace of God into licentiousness, into sensuality, is to fundamentally undercut the clarity of the revelation of Scripture in regards to sexual morality, and hence, undercut

19:37

God's law. And so, there is a connection between what the law of God says and the lawgiver who is our

19:49

Master and Lord Jesus Christ. And so, it is right there at the end that you have certain interesting variants, and it seems to me that it was probably due to the presence of nōmena sacra, the abbreviations of divine names, in the early papyri that led to this.

20:22

But we've got even our

20:27

Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, and then just Jesus Christ.

20:36

So, there's clearly numerous possibilities presented by the appearance of the textual variant there at the end of the verse.

20:47

But what's interesting, then, is to deny the despotain kaikōrion, the

20:58

Master, the sovereign Lord, our sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, to deny him is to do so theologically.

21:09

It is to pervert. When you pervert God's grace, it turns into sensuality.

21:14

That is a denial of who Jesus Christ is. A lot of people want to try to separate that kind of stuff off and say, oh,

21:21

I honor Jesus. I just am a homosexual or believe in transgenderism or whatever else.

21:28

You can't do that. That is a denial of his rights as despotain kaikōrion.

21:40

And then it's right there that we have this other variant that's so fascinating. Now, I want to remind you, though you know all things, that Jesus, having once, hapak, same term used in the giving of the once for all faith, having once saved a people of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

22:09

Now, we've known about this variant for a very, very, very, very long time.

22:19

It's been listed in the critical editions, the Greek New Testament. Interestingly enough, it won't be listed in the

22:27

Texas Receptus, though it's an ancient reading. And that's one of the problems in having that kind of perspective.

22:44

A large, and again, just as in verse 4, this is an incredibly complex variant.

22:51

And some people say, and we shouldn't have to talk about that. Okay. You can ignore the reality of the situation and just glom on to whatever text you've decided to embrace and call it good if you want.

23:13

But here's just the

23:18

Nestle on 28th edition. Kurios, let's see, the

23:32

Kurios, Kurios with an article, Kurios without an article, God with an article.

23:42

Then you can, some of the words get transposed,

23:49

Lord, God, Lord again, Hati Theos Christos.

24:00

That one's really interesting because that's P72. That's the corrected reading of, no, the original reading is, oh, okay,

24:15

I see. There's even been a correction within P72. But P72 has Theos Christos, which is fascinating.

24:24

Jesus, another form of using

24:32

Jesus, and then Lord Jesus, and then just Jesus without the

24:37

Lord. There's a lot of different readings. And I've mentioned a number of times before that the

24:46

CBGM analysis of Jude, this was really the first, I would say, communicable, important outcome of the

24:57

CBGM analysis was the Nestle Allen 28th went from using

25:03

Lord to Jesus. What's important about this is if you just consider the textual variants can actually have relationship to other textual variants.

25:21

If we read as the LSB has, which is what I was reading from, well, I was reading

25:26

English as I was reading. Deny our only

25:32

Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. And the very next sentence is, I want to remind you, though you know all things, that Jesus, who was just described as Master and Lord, having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

25:52

That fits perfectly with the description of Jesus as Master and Lord.

26:03

Now, if it just simply said that the

26:09

Lord, having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, it probably would still be referring to Jesus as the

26:17

Lord who saved the people out of the land of Egypt. But it's so easy to see how a scribe would be like the normative way of expressing the

26:25

Lord saved where people would use the term Kurios. Jesus would be unusual.

26:33

And you see that in all the plethora of variants that occurred as a result of that at the end of the end of the verse.

26:41

But there's a consistency. And so, to deny

26:47

Jesus's Lordship, that's turning the grace of God into sensuality.

26:53

That's the denial of Jesus's Lordship. And then you have to realize that means that Jesus will judge those who deny his

27:01

Lordship. And that's the illustration it's then given. Because what did the people of Israel do?

27:11

They turned the grace of God into sensuality. What? Moses comes down from the mountain with the

27:16

Ten Commandments, and what are the people doing? They're engaging in sensuality. So, there is a place for comparing the variants in regards to the flow of the argument of the text itself.

27:37

All of that to say, this is an incredibly high

27:43

Christology passage. You can't fit most of the marshmallow views of Jesus that are prevalent in progressive churches today into this text.

28:04

They're not going to like this. The ladies with the rainbow -colored stoles are not going to be reading this text as part of their sermonettes for Christianettes.

28:17

Because there is power here. There is authority here. There is Jesus reigning in his church.

28:23

There is Jesus as only Master and Lord. Jesus as the one who saved a people out of Egypt.

28:29

And that was, oh yeah, Yahweh. Creator God.

28:36

The only God that exists. Yeah. So, very strongly presenting an understanding of the deity of Christ, even in the context of dealing with a situation in the early church and false teachings that were coming against them.

28:55

Now, why start here and spend the first half hour of the program? Well, it's been a long time since we've done this.

29:02

I mean, it's probably been six or eight months since we talked about Jude 5, just as an example of CBGM.

29:08

We haven't really been discussing CBGM much, unfortunately. And certainly, when the next volume of the current work coming out of Munster, or if it's the one that's coming out of Birmingham, the

29:25

Gospel of John, that will change. We will have much to discuss when that happens, to be sure.

29:33

But here we have a text of Scripture, and I benefited greatly many, many years ago in Bible college from reading a book called

29:49

The Lord of Glory by B .B. Warfield. And when

29:57

I was driving back from Colorado, I listened to a lecture from about six, seven years ago by Scott Swain, who is now the president of RTS in Orlando.

30:14

And it was a lecture where he was disagreeing with, laying out and disagreeing with B .B.

30:23

Warfield, specifically in regards to Warfield's concerns regarding the biblical evidence, basically.

30:43

Is there a truly biblical foundation for certain commonly used theological conclusions that have developed, especially post -Nicaea in the

30:59

Christological controversies and period after that? And as most people know,

31:06

John Calvin, likewise, looked at the post -Nicene doctrinal development and felt that there were imbalances, that there were certain directions you could go that would inevitably lead to bad conclusions.

31:32

And almost all the discussion when it comes to these things is more of a that could lead to this than it is if you just held that and didn't go to this, it's not really a big problem.

31:51

But for a lot of people, the emphasis is upon, well, we can't go there because someone might do this.

31:59

Well, the reality is there is not a single element of sound Christian theology that has not been taken out of balance by somebody at some point in some time.

32:13

Unitarians or modalists, they'll all argue that we could actually really be able to reach the

32:19

Muslim people if we just didn't have this Trinity doctrine in the way. Well, okay, that still goes to the very essence of what the

32:32

Christian faith is. And so, yeah, I'm sure Muslims would like it if Christianity was more like Islam, but we can't go there.

32:42

So, the question really is, what was that once -for -all delivered -to -saints faith? And are there answers to speculative questions that are not addressed in Scripture that believing

32:57

Christians can disagree on in regards to, well, let's speculate about this.

33:07

And as long as it's not a part of the once -for -all delivered -to -saints faith, then that becomes the issue because there will be some people who will say, once there is a consensus.

33:29

I'm starting to wonder if maybe some of that apple cider fermented or something. That would be funny.

33:36

That would be, you know, by the end of the program, yeah, okay. It's just a very different taste.

33:45

You're all gonna be able to say you watched as the man killed himself with the bad stuff out of the refrigerator.

33:53

Anyway, there have been differing emphases that did not involve any kind of actual denial of apostolic or biblical truth.

34:13

The problem is that a lot of people want to identify their emphasis with the whole of the faith so that if you question that, then they will accuse you of a lack of orthodoxy on everything.

34:33

And so, I remember in seminary realizing that Calvin had pushed back against certain traditional

34:46

Trinitarian formulations. So, the aseity of the son, that he is autotheos.

34:56

I was aware of the fact that that was outside of the mainstream of post -Nicene orthodoxy.

35:10

That in post -Nicene orthodoxy, the son's participation in the divine being is mediated to him from the father.

35:22

And Calvin's like, but that fundamentally demands a form of subordinationism that biblically is not possible because the son is identified as Yahweh.

35:40

You can't divide that up to where one

35:48

Yahweh becomes the source of the other's

35:54

Yahweh -ness. Doesn't make any sense. And so, he emphasized the fact that the son is autotheos.

36:04

He is God in and of himself, not by extension or participation. And that's the other thing is, what terminology do you use?

36:12

Everybody likes to come up with new terms to pretend that they're actually protecting some kind of orthodoxy.

36:24

Yet, anyone who reads early church history knows that so much of the dispute and condemnations and everything else was over people using the same words and meaning different things.

36:41

East -West, Greek -Latin, all this kind of stuff that unfortunately became deeply connected with politics as well.

36:57

It's funny how many people today will glibly throw out their alleged fidelity to, for example, the

37:06

Council of Chalcedon, and they don't know diddly about the political background and forces that were involved, even in the choice of words.

37:22

And the question really becomes, if there are certain words in especially the later creeds that were put there specifically for political advantage and compromise in the ancient

37:42

Holy Roman Empire, shouldn't that be something that we're aware of?

37:49

And wouldn't it be appropriate to say that those formulations then need to be understood first and foremost in a scriptural context?

38:05

And if there are concepts that have no scriptural foundation, that we should not be bound by them?

38:17

Because, I mean, no Protestant that I know believes that they're bound by the canons and decrees of Chalcedon, but only by the creedal statement.

38:29

And the creedal statement's vitally important, again, because of its biblical fidelity, but certain terms that are used in it are there because there were these different parties, and these different parties had different political people behind them.

38:52

And y 'all had to get in. Do you really want the House and Senate of the

38:58

United States to have to get together and come up with a compromise statement of Christian theology?

39:07

You don't think that there was the same kind of politics back then? Sure was.

39:13

Of course there was. So, these are important questions for us to be considering.

39:25

And for me, when I see one of the followers of Christ find in the inspired word these descriptions of Jesus, that's the foundation that I want them to have.

39:43

Not what a bunch of men who gathered wherever and historically we look back and we favor this and disfavor that because of our particular predilections.

40:03

And so you get different understandings of these things, and you've got

40:09

Ephesus, and you've got the robber's synod, and you've got rampaging monks beating the snot out of each other.

40:19

I mean, even killing people. People died from mobs of rampaging monks in the early church.

40:29

They did. They were on the wrong side of the dispute. Well, I can guarantee you something.

40:34

Rampaging monks do not determine Christian theology. And to any extent where they ever did, you better go, hmm, look at that pretty closely, to be sure.

40:50

But it's finding in the supernatural,

40:57

God breathed, this is the word of Christ, my sheep hear my voice, scriptures.

41:04

That is the foundation that will allow anyone to stand firm in the coming days of trial and difficulty.

41:16

And so this is just one text I would look at. Now, all of that then, I truly prefer to spend my time in scripture.

41:30

But I listened to a webcast while driving back, and it was an interview of Carl Truman.

41:43

Now, Carl Truman is interviewed pretty regularly, especially after his book from last year or a year and a half ago, whatever it was, that was fairly popular.

41:58

But Carl has been interviewed for a long time, and this interview was helpful for me to hear because now

42:05

I understand that since the years, years and years ago, when we would do conferences, and we did a number of conferences back east, and we were saying the same things, there wasn't any issues.

42:27

And then I'm sensing a change, and he talks about it. He talks about the shift in his understandings over the past, about the same period of time as it's been going on amongst

42:39

Reformed Baptists as well in regards to Aquinas and classical theism and things like that, whatever classical theism is.

42:48

I mean, by any definition that I've seen of historic classical theism, we're all classical theists other than just a few people out toward the fringes.

43:02

In fact, well, anyways, I'll leave that alone. There was a lot in the interview that was very interesting to me because it was very ecumenical.

43:13

The two interviewers, one was Roman Catholic, one was Eastern Orthodox, and they're both formerly

43:19

Reformed men. That's interesting.

43:28

I mean, I have a hard time not wanting to ask any person who has left the

43:40

Reformed faith and embraced Rome especially how they can explain abandoning the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

43:54

It did come up a little bit, and I should say that both the other guys put the most

44:02

Reformed spin on both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy I'd ever heard.

44:10

It's easier to do with Eastern Orthodoxy, to be honest with you, but yeah, as it may.

44:22

It was really interesting, but there was one section, and I managed to find it, and I want to play it for you.

44:31

It's just a brief section here, but I want you to listen to what Carl Truman says because, well,

44:39

I think it sheds light, or at least it should force all of us to think very seriously. I may have to put this in because I'm not going to be able to hear it in the other room, but here we go.

44:53

I have to say, just going to say personally, this is something that, you know, I'm glad you invited me on the program, but it's something of a personal challenge for me because coming from a very traditional evangelicalism where, you know, because Catholics didn't believe in justification by grace through faith, they were at best very, very second -rate

45:11

Christians, probably not Christians at all. Discovering that a lot of the theologians

45:18

I respected on the issue of justification are fundamentally wrong on the doctrine of God has raised for me personally a whole host of questions about, well, how do

45:28

I relate to Catholic friends who agree with me about who God is, even if we disagree on the mechanics of how he saves?

45:38

Because in the 17th century, if you disagree, you know, those who repudiated the classical doctrine of God, they were not even considered

45:47

Christians. They were beyond the pale. So this raises very, very interesting ecumenical questions.

45:58

So let's think about that for a moment. This just crossed my mind, and I forgot to announce it earlier, but I will be on CrossPolitik tomorrow.

46:14

I'm not sure if it's gonna be live, but we're recording at five o 'clock my time, so I don't know.

46:22

It may be the one that appears over the weekend, so I'm not sure.

46:28

But yeah, I'm gonna be on the program tomorrow. So on the whole

46:36

Baptist transgender dust up and everything that's come after that, and we'll see if we can come to any conclusions on things like that.

46:46

But just a programming note while I'm passing. If you think through, one of the big disappointments that I had in the interview was that section because he said that many of the men from whom

47:04

I had learned the doctrine of justification by faith were wrong in the doctrine of God. Who? In what way?

47:15

This morning, I don't have it in front of me right here, but this morning

47:22

I saw a tweet from Richard Braselis recommending a book by Father Wynandi, and I recognized the name because Karl Truman said that he had interviewed the same man primarily on the doctrine of God.

47:49

I've seen stuff about angels and demons and so on and so forth. And of course you have Credo Magazine editor

47:55

Matthew Barrett recommending people watch a video from a Roman Catholic priest on angels and demons and exorcism and stuff like that.

48:06

You just have to start wondering if Credo Magazine isn't trying to get the impromptu, the seal of approval of doctrinal correctness from the

48:19

Vatican. It's not really a big of a deal these days. It used to be really important, but anyway. And so you have this ecumenism taking place, and I want you to think about what

48:37

Karl said here because in the current situation that we're in, what we're seeing rapidly, only six months ago, there were still many people saying, no, no, no, no, no, no.

48:59

The only reason we're making reference to Thomas Aquinas is for his doctrine of God.

49:08

You're going to agree with 88 % of what Thomas Aquinas says, and we're not talking about anything else.

49:18

And now it's just so transparently obvious from Credo and stuff like that, that that's just not the case.

49:24

That there's a whole bunch more of Aquinas' theology that is being promoted amongst

49:32

Protestants, and it's stuff that is very much relevant to the

49:40

Reformation and to soteriology. Aquinas did not make the differentiation that we so glibly make between his doctrine of soteriology and his doctrine of the sacraments.

49:56

They are one for him, especially the Eucharist. In fact,

50:04

I'll circle back to this, but I forgot to pull this up, and I apologize for that.

50:15

I wanted to have it queued up and ready to go, and I'm not sure how fast the system will...

50:22

Oh, that was instant. Thank you very much. Let me read you something.

50:29

Let me read you something. Oh, most holy

50:34

Jesus, who are truly hidden here, grant me to desire ardently, to search prudently, to know truly, and to carry out perfectly in praise and glory of your holy name, everything that pleases you.

50:46

Command, oh my God, the state of my life. Grant that I may know what you want, and that I carry out what is proper and needed for my soul.

50:53

Grant me, oh Lord my God, that I never fail between prosperities and adversities, so I don't become proud in the ones nor rejected in the other.

51:03

That I may not have joy nor sorrow, except from what takes me to you or takes me away from you, that I desire to please or displease no one except you.

51:12

May all transitory things be vile to me, but very precious, the eternal ones.

51:18

May I dislike, Lord, all joy without you, and may I not be ambitious about anything outside of you, and may become pleasant to me any work for you in disgusting my rest without you.

51:31

Give me, oh my God, that I may lift my heart to you frequently and with fervor, that I do everything with love, that I take for dead anything that does not belong to your service, that I don't do things out of routine, but referring them to you with devotion.

51:48

Make me, oh Jesus, my love, my life, obedient without contradiction, poor without going low, chaste without corruption, patient without dissipation, mature without affliction, diligent without inconsistency, fearful of you without desperation, true without bending.

52:02

Make that I practice what is good without presumption, that I correct my neighbor without pride, that I build with words and deeds without falsehood.

52:11

Give me, oh Lord, my God, a vigilant heart that does not go away from you for a curious thought. Give me a noble heart that does not deviate for any sinister intention.

52:20

Give me a firm heart that does not break for any tribulation. Give me a free heart that will not be dominated by any violent passion.

52:27

Grant me, oh Lord, my God, understanding to know you, diligence to search for you, wisdom to find you, behavior that you will be pleased with, perseverance that hopefully will wait for you, and hope that finally will embrace you.

52:38

Grant that I may be afflicted by sorrows here as penance, and the way of my life I use your benefits for grace, and that in heaven be happy with your joys for glory.

52:47

Lord, you that live and reign, God forever and ever, amen. Now, at Apologia, we start each service reading a prayer out of a book called

53:00

The Valley of Vision, which is a collection of Puritan prayers, and I doubt that almost anyone would be able to consistently differentiate between this and a prayer that you would find in a collection like that, with one exception.

53:24

There was one little clue. Right at the beginning, it says, O Most Holy Jesus, who are truly hidden here.

53:34

This is not a prayer to Jesus. It is a prayer to the Holy Sacrament by Thomas Aquinas.

53:44

Because Jesus is physically present by transubstantiation in the

53:49

Eucharistic sacrifice, then you can have prayer to him in the transubstantiated elements, just as any

54:00

Roman Catholic genuflects toward the altar or toward the monstrance, tabernacle, etc.,

54:07

because consecrated hosts are kept there, and since transubstantiation, therefore, that's where God is. So, you bow to God.

54:21

Again, if I didn't even start with that first little hint, you probably wouldn't be able to even recognize it.

54:30

But then you put it in its context, and you realize what's really going on, and this is a prayer to consecrated elements.

54:41

Does that mean anything? Well, the context always means something. And were there true believers who would have shared with Thomas this kind of religious fervor?

55:03

Yeah. But this was part of the tenebrous, the darkness that we used to believe the

55:18

Reformation brought us out of. It gave us the vantage point of Scripture to be able to recognize the traditions that created this context.

55:41

And so, a serious Christian is going to want to recognize how this all took place and what the context was and the result of it, because Dr.

55:57

Truman was saying that in classes he's taught, he's exposed his students to the prayers of Thomas Aquinas.

56:06

Well, R .C. Sproul, certainly, we, months ago, we went through portions of an article that he wrote on Aquinas that was just filled with hagiolatry.

56:20

Stuff that probably didn't happen, but is reputed to have happened. You know, a crucifix allegedly spoke to Thomas, and he was in the same place celebrating

56:34

Mass when he had the supernatural experience that caused him to say, everything

56:40

I've written is straw, and three months later he's dead. All that kind of stuff.

56:50

If we accept the idea that this was, in fact, the greatest theologian the church has ever known, and if we embrace the idea, as Dr.

57:11

Truman expressed it, in his own words, that, and this is what we're being told by all the new confessionalists, and that's why they don't have any problem in directing us to primarily

57:29

Roman Catholic works on the Trinity, on theology proper, and he says, hey, the people that get

57:41

God right are their own Catholics, and the people that got justification right were wrong about God.

57:50

That's why I'd like to know, in what way? How were they wrong about God? And unfortunately, what it's becoming very clear is, they're wrong about God in that they did not go as far into the application of Aristotelian, Platonic, and Thomistic metaphysical categories as we demand that they go, and therefore they got

58:21

God wrong, which inevitably means that the apostles never got

58:27

God right, because they didn't have those categories, did not utilize those categories, and yet they believed they had passed on the once -for -all -delivered -to -the -saints faith.

58:36

They claimed it was once -for -all -delivered, but if you've got the wrong

58:41

God, because you don't have Plato and Aristotle or Thomas, then pick your new ultimate authority.

58:55

It's not going to be Scripture. It's not going to be Scripture, but what is the inevitable result of all this?

59:03

If we start telling an entire generation of theological students that the greatest theologians of God are just missing it on an element of the doctrine of salvation, they've conflated justification and sanctification, and we think that you should make a distinction there, how big a leap is it for someone to go, is that?

59:55

That's backwards. If they're right about God, then we should accept their conclusions from what flows from that, and the reality is you have your own new perspective on Paul, guys, and so now there's great uncertainty amongst the academic and intellectual elite about whether what

01:00:25

Calvin and Luther even said about justification is even relevant. It's been pretty much,

01:00:33

I mean, N .T. Wright's conclusion was that justification isn't about soteriology, it's about ecclesiology.

01:00:40

It's about who gets included in the church. It's not about anything else, and so if you've got that, and then you've got the

01:00:53

Roman Catholics get God right because they embrace these metaphysical categories and talk about a whole bunch of stuff the apostles never talked about, but they got it right, it doesn't sort of inevitably result in, well, if they're right about that, then their authority goes downward to the lesser issues and therefore should accept that, and so the

01:01:23

Reformation was a big whopping mistake, right?

01:01:29

Now, I mean, that'll probably be joined with, and Rome responded to it all really badly because of the corruption of the papacy, and they'll be willing to say there was corruption in the papacy and stuff like that, sure, as long as it comes back to a nebulous concept of the church standing in the mists of time that you can never really identify exactly what it's teaching, exactly what it is, but hey, we need to have something that provides us with, well, what

01:02:00

Scripture clearly can't. What Scripture clearly can't. How else do you handle that?

01:02:11

I don't know. I already gave my answer at the beginning of the program.

01:02:17

How do you ground people in God's truth? God's Word. You Biblicists! It's amazing the venom that comes forth from people today when they spit that word out.

01:02:32

You Biblicists. It's astonishing. So, I quoted from Matthew Barrett.

01:02:48

He was referring to a book on Reformed Scholasticism. He was directing to those, that book.

01:02:56

Someone even said, well, you put it in quotes because it was a book title. I would have quoted him directly, but of course,

01:03:03

I and anyone else that would dare to challenge him gets blocked.

01:03:17

I said, Matthew Barrett is directing people to Reformed Scholasticism in light of the, quote, the reincarnation of Socinian theology and hermeneutics today, end quote.

01:03:32

Socinian theology and hermeneutics today. I've missed any of the emails from the

01:03:40

Socinian Reincarnation Society or which churches that were

01:03:49

Trinitarian a few months ago are not Trinitarian, don't believe in the pre -existence of Christ and stuff like that.

01:03:56

I missed all that. So, I said, have the new confessionalists produced a list of these Socinian theologians threatening the church?

01:04:04

Anyone have a link? Well, the Reformed Arsenal responded. The Reformed Arsenal responded and said, those who subvert historic

01:04:17

Trinitarianism, William Lane Craig, Strand, Owen Strand, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, and Doug Wilson, he decides that all these people subvert historic

01:04:31

Trinitarianism. Well, William Lane Craig certainly does openly.

01:04:38

There's no question about that. He, I think, even accepts the description of Neo -Apollinarianism for his

01:04:50

Christology anyway. He actually, that's actually broken into a second one where he says

01:04:57

Christology, Craig and White. So, I'm being accused of subverting historic

01:05:06

Christology and theology proper, White, Frame, and Oliphant. Theology proper.

01:05:14

I would assume that that is limiting simplicity to biblical categories rather than Thomistic ones,

01:05:25

I guess. Those who adopt their

01:05:30

Biblicist hermeneutic, there it is, Biblicist. It's the hiss of Satan.

01:05:39

This is who I've met when I've used the term. So, he's using the term of Socinian.

01:05:47

I responded by saying, the use of Socinian is slanderous, absurd, and just plain stupid. Sorry, that's the fact.

01:05:54

I would ask you to substantiate use of my name, but I won't bother. But the term Socinian has an established historical meaning.

01:06:00

To be a Socinian, you must deny the trinity and the pre -existence of Christ. This is just definitional. If you believe in the trinity indeed of Christ, you're not a

01:06:06

Socinian. If you don't believe in the prophethood of Joseph Smith and the eternal law of progression, you're not a

01:06:16

Mormon. If you don't believe in the prophethood of Muhammad and the

01:06:21

Quran, you're not a Muslim. If you don't believe the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is

01:06:27

Jehovah's faithful and discreet slave, you believe that Jesus is Michael the

01:06:32

Archangel, then you're not a Jehovah's Witness. There are definitional doctrines that define these things.

01:06:42

I said, to identify me as a Sinni is to bury one's credibility in the deepest trench of the sea.

01:06:49

I have zero respect for any person so foolish. Josh Smith said, people making the connection between certain folks and Socinianism are noting key similarities.

01:07:07

Yeah, that's the point. The Socinians rejected creedal formulations just like Calvin and Luther did.

01:07:22

They rejected the creeds of the various lattering councils that had taken place before then, a council of Constance.

01:07:35

We all reject the second council of Nicaea, and so that makes

01:07:42

Calvin and Luther proto -Socinians, right? Logically, yes, but that's absurd, and that's because this is a simple logical thing.

01:07:57

These men have not taken logic, or they failed it, or they're not applying it, something, I don't know.

01:08:18

There would be these sort of photocopied, they weren't really bound, they were sort of folded over and stapled, books that would help you to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:08:30

I remember on the back of one of these was this wheel, and on one side, the top side it would say,

01:08:39

God is this, God is this, there would be verses, and then you follow it across, and Jesus is this, Jesus is on the other side.

01:08:46

So, this was tempting to prove the deity of Christ by connecting these things.

01:08:52

The problem was, the problem with a lot of those, is it would say something like,

01:08:59

God is our rock, and Jesus is our rock. The problem is, being a rock is not definitional of God.

01:09:11

There can be other things that are rock -like. Being a king is, you know,

01:09:19

God is king, but there are lots of kings below God. So, simply saying,

01:09:25

God is king, Jesus is king, therefore Jesus is God, is insufficient, because kingship is not peculiarly definitional of God, because there are other kings.

01:09:39

And so, as I have taught people over the years to especially effectively deal with Jehovah's Witnesses and get them to start thinking about important things,

01:09:51

I have emphasized that, for example, when we compare

01:09:59

Psalm 102 with Hebrews 1, what you're emphasizing is the unique character of God as unchanging, and you elicit from the

01:10:14

Jehovah's Witness a confession that, right, only God is unchanging.

01:10:20

So, once you then go to Hebrews 1, and the author quotes from that exact same text and applies it to Jesus, now it's a meaningful identification, because it is uniquely true of Yahweh that He is unchanging.

01:10:37

And so, when you take that text and apply it to Jesus, then the author is saying, Jesus is

01:10:42

Yahweh, assuming the consistency of Scripture, which you can with Jehovah's Witness, you can't with a progressive.

01:10:52

But the point is, I learned that a long time ago in dealing with the best

01:10:58

Jehovah's Witnesses, that the proper argument is to make the identification based upon that which is definitional and uniquely definitional.

01:11:13

What is uniquely definitional about Socinianism is anti -Trinitarianism and a rejection of the preexistence of Christ.

01:11:22

Now, do they have other problems? Sure. But the problem is, as I pointed out, well, the

01:11:31

Socinians did this, or the Socinians did that. In fact, I was having a conversation with someone months ago about the extended assertion of attributional sameness ad intra to God.

01:11:50

And the individual said to me, well, you know, the

01:11:55

Unitarians made the same argument. And I'm like, so? If a

01:12:01

Unitarian says the sky is blue, is the sky not blue? Can people who are in error in other areas make true statements?

01:12:11

The issue is whether the statement is true. And the issue is whether the statement is true in each context, whether it's true in Unitarianism and Trinitarianism and so on and so forth.

01:12:23

This is just logic 101 stuff. And it just seems to me that a lot of these guys are so into reform scholasticism now, and the reform scholastics were primarily referring to the

01:12:35

Socinians, were refuting the Socinians, that therefore they now see Socinianism under every bush.

01:12:42

That's all they see. They're not getting out dealing with the people I deal with regularly. Nope. I haven't seen one of them in a mosque or any place like that at all.

01:12:51

No, no, no, no. But if you and your buddies are talking, are just, you know, consuming

01:12:58

Turritan in your Facebook group, and he's taking on the Socinians, all of a sudden there are

01:13:04

Socinians everywhere. See the problem? I think that's where this is coming from.

01:13:12

It's not that there isn't any renaissance of Socinian theology at all.

01:13:21

But so, so I responded to Josh, and I pointed out that I could call him a neo -Mormon.

01:13:33

It would be a silly thing to do, but I'm using that argumentation. The Reformed Arsenal responded to that particular tweet and said, the point is that we are saying that you are a neo -Socinian precisely because of affinity in the unique aspects of what

01:13:50

Socinianism is, not in some generalized area that they share with Orthodox Christianity. So here we have the

01:13:57

Reformed Arsenal. At least they're straight up front now. They're identifying me as a neo -Socinian.

01:14:02

I'm getting, you know, I got this morning word of, well, a former friend,

01:14:09

I guess former friends, who were slandering me, lying about me in a particular context.

01:14:17

It's pretty normal now. It does seem that Reformed people, though Reformed people are supposed to know the

01:14:26

Ten Commandments in order, and be able to sing A Mighty Fortress without words.

01:14:32

The first few lines in German really make you fully Reformed, but anyway.

01:14:39

That they've forgotten the Ninth Commandment, and they are more than willing to bear false witness, and they get to answer before God for that.

01:14:50

But here is the assertion. Because of affinity in the unique aspects of what

01:15:00

Socinianism is or was, because there is no one

01:15:05

Socinianism, obviously. I mean, these guys just sort of assume that kind of stuff, just like they assume they're the

01:15:11

Orthodox. But there is no

01:15:18

Socinianism that is Trinitarian and believes in the full deity of Christ, his free existence. There isn't.

01:15:25

So they're trying to make connection to other things. What are the things?

01:15:31

I suppose that part of it is the radical fact that I have emphasized that the

01:15:44

Council of Nicaea, for example, is true because it is true to the biblical revelation.

01:15:52

Rather than saying that the Council of Nicaea is a necessary traditional lens through which to interpret

01:16:00

Scripture. Maybe that's it. Or they're just going with lies, or they're creating lies.

01:16:08

I don't know. I don't have any respect for a person who can be so daft, so committed to to a traditional system that you would look at 30 years.

01:16:28

Nobody, I don't know anybody that can present as many examples, video examples, audio examples, written examples, of arguing against what

01:16:41

Socinianism is as me. None of these guys have done anything like that. Nothing. But oh, they are so wise.

01:16:51

So they can just shove the definitional stuff out of the way and go, yeah, but you know, in my theological determination, you have an affinity over here.

01:17:08

He made specific reference at one point, and I'll start wrapping up with this.

01:17:14

He made specific reference at one point to his real disagreement with what

01:17:29

I've said about Matthew 24, verse 36. And it's so funny that, again, for years and years and years, these guys, you know,

01:17:39

I've been having to do with Matthew 24, 36, which in kingdom halls, ward chapels, with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and constantly with Muslims around the world.

01:17:57

None of these guys have done any of that. None of it. And I suggest you don't try, because your answers are going to get nowhere.

01:18:05

You can't be consistent at this point. And that's an important issue. I've been doing this for ages, and they were recommending my work back then.

01:18:14

Everything was fine and dandy, but now they have become, oh, so wise. Oh, so wise.

01:18:23

And so when I would deal with Matthew, when I would talk with Christians, I'd have people come up to me after talks and things like that, and they'd raise this because, you know,

01:18:39

Jehovah's Witness friend or their Muslim friend had brought this up. And what

01:18:45

I would say, you know, this is a tough text. It's a hard text.

01:18:52

No one ever said, that's what a Sassanian is. No, everybody understood.

01:19:01

It's a difficult text. There's a textual variant involved that is interesting, even though you've got similar text and mark.

01:19:17

But it, you know, it specifically says, the

01:19:22

Father alone. And so I'm not going to take the time to go back over all the stuff that we did on the last trip, no, the trip before last, where we talked about all this.

01:19:38

But I want you to what's going on now. People have come to conclusions about what

01:19:43

Matthew 24 -36 must say, not on the basis of Matthew 24 -36.

01:19:50

This is what's really concerning me. These are ostensibly Reformed people, and they have come to very clear conclusions about what

01:20:00

Matthew 24 -36 says, but not because of exegesis, but because of a theological commitment to a paradigm that overrules exegesis.

01:20:13

No one's gone and said, well, actually, it says this. And all

01:20:19

I've said about Matthew 24 -36 is that we have to be very careful to not say more than the text itself says.

01:20:28

So when someone comes along, and you see, again, I have a different standard. I have to explain this to people who are unbelievers.

01:20:36

People who spend their lives in Facebook groups, you can develop a theological vocabulary and yammer back and forth with each other and never have to worry about that.

01:20:50

But you see, I have to not only be consistent in the exegesis that I'm using here, but it has to be the same method of exegesis everywhere else.

01:21:01

And when I am responding to either their misinterpretation of biblical texts,

01:21:08

I have to be consistent in the exegesis I use in responding to that, pointing out their errors. And when dealing with their own sacred texts,

01:21:17

I cannot be inconsistent on any of these aspects.

01:21:26

And so that has certainly resulted in my saying, we need to be very, very careful how we handle this text and what we say it is or is not saying.

01:21:40

And I cannot special plead this. I cannot say, well, in light of this confessional statement, it must mean this, because that means they can then look at any passage of scripture and say, in light of this statement, it means this, and now we're at an impasse.

01:22:02

There's no place to go from there. Because I've abandoned Sola Scriptura, they won't embrace

01:22:10

Sola Scriptura, and now you've just got dueling external authorities, and you can't come to any conclusions at that point.

01:22:20

So what we're being told is, well, when it says, nor the sun, you have to take the fully developed later definitions of Christology, read them back in here, and do part of exegesis.

01:22:46

And that's the easy way to do it. The easy out to Matthew 24 -36 is to say, well, that's the humanity and not the deity.

01:23:01

That's the easy way out. And that's normally how people try to respond to critics.

01:23:07

And the critics go, can you show me that from the text? Especially since it says,

01:23:13

Uday, it says, neither the angels in heaven, nor the sun, but the

01:23:30

Father only. But you're saying, it's not the

01:23:37

Father only. It's the Father, and the Son, and the

01:23:43

Spirit. Right? That's what you're saying. So you don't believe the monos part.

01:23:50

And there are people on the other side that are sharp enough to catch you on that. Because you're going to have to deal with the use of monos over in John 17.

01:24:00

It's this consistency thing. I know it's a bit of a pain, but it's this consistency thing.

01:24:07

So if you want to say, well, to protect my formulations,

01:24:16

I'm going to go beyond what the text says. And I'm going to say, this is speaking of the

01:24:24

Son only in His human incarnation. And I'm just going to sort of ignore the use of the term monos.

01:24:36

It's just not there. He didn't really say that. There is a variant, but it just says, my father said, doesn't make any difference.

01:24:56

You can do that. And you may come to the conclusion, that's necessarily what it's saying, but you're not going to be able to prove it from the text.

01:25:07

And so I simply go, look, the Son, speaking as the Son, at this point in His incarnational experience, makes this statement.

01:25:26

Matthew is not trying to address the stuff you're trying to address. Matthew is not trying to say the things that you're trying to make me say, that you're accusing me of errors in Christology for.

01:25:38

You're going beyond the text. You're reading stuff into it that ain't anywhere near it.

01:25:43

You couldn't exegete that if your life depended on it. But you've got your external, systematic theology, and it tells you what the text says.

01:25:55

And since I have dealt with Roman Catholics who left the

01:26:01

Reformed faith, and I've taken them to texts that are clear and perspicuous on the peace of God that comes from justification, and their response has been, but that's not what it means, because, and then they bring in the external authority.

01:26:22

Maybe you don't do that kind of stuff. I don't know. But I just simply can't contradict myself.

01:26:28

I can't be that inconsistent. And so I just go, that's what the text says. It's not making those applications.

01:26:36

You're pushing it too far to go there. And there was a day when we all went, yeah, it's a tough text.

01:26:46

Now, not a tough text at all. But was that because of exegesis, or because of the adoption of an external authority?

01:26:58

There you go. There you go. So, I hope and pray for the day when those who have decided to start making these absurd allegations, the truly, truly, truly

01:27:23

Orthodox Reformed, the people who seriously think that there's something pastorally necessary about teaching your people about attributional, mono -attributional intraconceptions.

01:27:44

I just hope and pray that y 'all recover your balance before it's too late, and that someday there will be...

01:27:56

Really sorry we did that. Really sorry that we used that type of language.

01:28:04

Because it would be really easy for me to reciprocate. It really would be. I'm trying as hard as I can not to.

01:28:13

Because I could make really, really bad arguments about what this actually means. I'm just going to try not to.

01:28:20

Try not to. But I will tell you this, you are accountable for every single person that will not receive the assistance they could have received from this ministry or from myself in dealing with Mormons or anybody else, because you have decided to go scorched earth, heresy, assertion.

01:28:42

You will be responsible for that. Not me. You will. God will judge.

01:28:48

I will be glad to let God judge. Be glad to let God judge. Accusing me of Sasanianism is the end of your credibility.

01:29:00

You should just simply shut down your social media stuff and find something better to do with your time.

01:29:07

But there you go. There you go. So, again, tomorrow at five o 'clock my time,

01:29:17

CrossPolitic, simple assertion on my part.

01:29:25

The real reasons for transgenderism are obscured by making assertions about Baptist theology and sacramentology.

01:29:39

And if we're going to actually respond to the transgender movement, that foundation will be found in the creation order and not in a complaint about calling anyone, child to old person, to repentance and faith in Christ as if that gives them the right to determine their sexual identity.

01:30:07

There is no connection. And if we really want to respond to transgenderism, got to do it right.

01:30:18

Got to go the right direction. Really do. All right. Thanks for watching the program today. My goodness.

01:30:23

We went an hour and a half, but we covered a lot of ground and hope it was useful to you.