Biblical Apologetics Defined

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good afternoon.

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Welcome to the Dividing Line. A little bit of a rookie mistake there, but that's okay, we'll get things started here.

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For by him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and him all things hold together.

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He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything.

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This text from Paul's epistle to the Colossians describes the relationship that Jesus holds to all created things.

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The apostle exhausts the Greek language to attempt to communicate the fact that there is nothing outside of the creative work of Jesus Christ.

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Listen to what he lists. All things were created. Now, you would think that would be enough, but mankind has an amazing ability to find ways around even the plainest statements.

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And so Paul explains what he means by all things. He means things in the heavens and on earth.

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That's pretty much everything. He means things visible and invisible. He means things such as thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.

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Sometimes we just catch the first part that everything's created through him. He is the one who is the direct instrumentality of creation itself, but also for him.

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God had a purpose in creation, and Jesus is central to that, and all things created for him. He is before all things.

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That can be temporal, that can be in importance. He is before all things so that nothing precedes him temporally, and in him all things consist or hold together.

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All the created universe is dependent upon him for its consistency, for its existence, for holding together.

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He holds all things together. This is a description of the creator.

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In its original context, it was a description of the creator in such a way that the Gnostics, the proto -Gnostics, those early heretics coming into the

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Lycus River Valley where Colossae is located, they could not in any way, shape, or form agree with what this was saying.

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They believed in a Jesus who, while he was a major person in their system of thought, he was himself a part of the mechanism of creation as one of the eons.

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And we're, I just need to break everyone, we're not taking phone calls for at least first half hour. I'm sorry, but I have a subject here and we need to address it, so we'll be taking phone calls for at least first half hour.

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They had a Jesus, the proto -Gnostics, who, simply put, was a sort of divine being.

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He was a part of those emanations from God that was pure and holy, and that's why they didn't believe he could really have a physical body, because that which is physical is evil and that which is spiritual is good.

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But he was not the creator of all things. He himself was an emanation from God. And so the

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Apostle Paul uses their very language to make sure they could not make this confession of faith.

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They could not make this confession of faith. He knows what they believe and he wants to make sure that the believers in Colossae know what the truth is and that they will not be deceived.

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But that issue aside, that's very, very important in talking to Jehovah's Witnesses and others, but I'm asking more that you step back from the immediate use of this text in apologetics context in that way and consider what it means that we

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Christians actually believe that this is Scripture. Now, if you don't happen to believe in the inspiration and authority of Scripture, then what

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I'm saying will not have much impact upon you. And in fact, most of what

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I say won't have much impact upon you. But if you believe that this is

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Scripture that comes from God, a revelation from the God who created us as communicating beings, he himself must therefore be a communicating being to be able to communicate those things to us and give us that ability, that capacity.

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Then think with me for a moment, please, what it means to believe this text.

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What does it mean to actually confess before the world that a man who for many years worked as a carpenter, now, by the way, being a carpenter in that day and time was not a low rank.

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We know that there's a lot of city building going on nearby and so there would have been a lot of demand for carpenters.

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Carpenters were actually more middle, upper class. A lot of people think, oh, you know, just, you know, some type of poor peasant type person, but no.

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But he worked with his hands and he attended synagogue. And when he walked down the road, animals did not come running up to him and make noises and he didn't have a halo and glow.

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He was particularly pious. No one had ever seen him do anything that would violate

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God's law, but he lived quietly. And we actually are telling the world that this man that lived in the land of Israel, not in Athens, not in Rome, not in the great metropolitan areas.

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We are actually saying that this man created everything, that everything was created through him and for him, that he is before all things.

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And in fact, in this one, all things hold together, obviously, unless the spirit of God does a work in someone's heart, that is absolutely absurd.

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It is a radical claim. It is so radical.

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I want you to think about what it means. How can anyone have true and accurate knowledge outside of this one, if he is the one in whom all things hold together?

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If you reject this one and his revelation, then I ask you, how can you have true knowledge of the universe that he himself created?

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That really becomes the entire point of what

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Paul says just a few verses later. Notice what he says when he returns this discussion of who

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Jesus is in Colossians 2. When he is talking about how he wants the believers to have their hearts knit together in love, attaining all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is

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Christ himself. You want true understanding? As a believer, you want to have true understanding?

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You want to have the full assurance that comes from understanding, having a true knowledge of God's mystery?

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Well, that mystery is Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Paul, are you sure? In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. For the apostle Paul to know the mystery of God, to have true knowledge of God's mystery, that is

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Christ himself, is to become impervious to being deluded by people with persuasive arguments.

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There is something about knowing the centrality of Christ that grounds you. It makes you steadfast and immovable.

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For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.

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We honor people that have a stable faith in Christ, but why do they have a stable faith in Christ? Well, Paul goes on to say, therefore, as you have received

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Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude.

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See to it that no one takes you captive. How? Through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

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Do you see a constant theme here? First of all, it is amazing what the apostle is saying here.

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We should be absolutely surprised to the depth of our being if the world does not find our proclamation to be foolishness.

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Because we are telling the world that a carpenter from Nazareth is not only the creator of all things in him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found and outside of a true knowledge of him, you will never have true knowledge of this universe or you may have knowledge of this universe, but it will always be disjointed, inconsistent and not grounded in reality.

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That is an amazing statement and we can never back away from it without abandoning our own faith, without abandoning our own scriptures.

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But notice the connection that Paul is making between who Jesus was and is and our interaction with the world.

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See to it no one takes you captive. Through how? Philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

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What Paul is saying is, if Jesus is who we claim he was, then he is the standard in all of human knowledge.

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You may be familiar with the term epistemology, the study of knowledge, how we know what we know.

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And you see for so many Christians today, philosophy, history, science, epistemology, it's all over in that realm and then

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Jesus is over here. That is not biblical

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Christianity. Full -orbed biblical Christianity recognizes the absolute

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Lordship of Christ in every aspect of our lives because Christ is

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Lord in all of the universe and over everything because he created everything.

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In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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That is an amazing statement. And if you're going to defend the faith, you have to defend the whole faith, the biblical faith, not a cut down, watered down, simplified, minimalized, just a few facts faith.

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Try to trick somebody into accepting a skeleton of Christianity and then once you get them in, hope you can sort of convince them of the rest of it over time.

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That is a certain form of apologetics, but it's not a biblical form of apologetics. Keeping that in mind, let's move from Colossians chapter 1 over to the classicus locus, the primary text on the subject of apologetics and that is 1

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Peter 3 .15. Listen carefully.

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You've heard it so many times that the danger is that you turn your mind off when you hear it.

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Try to hear it for the first time and I'm going to render it and translate it literally and in a different way than you've maybe memorized it so that maybe you'll hear it again with fresh ears and a fresh heart.

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The first word of the verse is Lord, but sanctify, set apart.

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It's the term hagiadzo, to make holy. Sanctify Christ as Lord or sanctify the

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Lord Christ. Both are possibilities, but you need to see the word kurios there because this is actually

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Peter taking from the book of Isaiah chapter 8 where Yahweh Almighty is the one that you should treat as holy and he draws this in and he says, sanctify, set apart

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Christ the Messiah as kurios, comes straight out of the Old Testament, as Yahweh, as Yahweh Almighty in your hearts, always being ready, pros apologion, always being ready for a defense, to give a reason defense to every person asking you for a reason for the hope that is within you but always, always with gentleness and respect or fear, gentleness and respect, keeping a good conscience.

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Now let me ask you a simple question. How do you set the

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Messiah apart as kurios in your heart?

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First, here is the Lordship of Christ based upon the same theology we saw in Colossians.

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He is the kurios. He is Yahweh. He is the Lord Almighty. The Messiah is actually

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God incarnate and therefore you are to treat him as holy.

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You are to set him apart as holy in your hearts. Now what does that mean?

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How many of us got up this morning and said, I desire to treat the

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Messiah as kurios, set him apart as kurios in my heart this day?

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We should, but of course to be able to do that, we have to know what it is we're being told to do.

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You will note that the result of this action is a readiness to give an apologetic response to anyone who asks us about the hope that's within us.

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Now notice they're asking us, that means there has to be something about this action that changes our hearts, our lives, our behavior, our words so that people will know to ask.

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If we're acting like the world, thinking like the world, speaking like the world, who's going to ask us a reason for the hope that's within us?

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So there's something about this action that results in the demonstration that there is a hope in us that the rest of the world does not have.

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I think part of the answer is found in where this action takes place. It's in our hearts. And that's not some little silly sentimental phrase coined by Hallmark.

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In our hearts means in the very center of our experience, the very center of our being, there is to be an enthronement, a setting apart as holy.

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Nothing else is to be holy in this place except Christ the

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Lord. To set him apart, to sanctify him in this way is to make all of our priorities line up with his

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Lordship. This is the Lordship of Christ. He is worthy of being the priority, the enthroned one, the one that determines the shape of all that we do in the very innermost part of our being.

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That's why we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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It is a lifelong calling. And when we have him enthroned as Lord in our hearts, guiding and directing all of our words, our actions, our priorities, our thinking, our epistemology, our philosophy, our philosophy becomes

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Christ -centered. Our worldview is Christ -centered.

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Our words are Christ -centered. Then we understand Paul's words, he is our all in all.

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And when he is, then we will always be ready to give a reasoned defense for the hope that's within us to anyone who asks.

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Because you see, we will think with clarity with Christ the creator as the center of our view of the world.

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That's why we can make a defense. We're not making this up. We have not been left to our own devices.

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With Christ as Lord in the heart, the truth will be seen and it will be seen to be consistent.

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Now keeping that in mind, very quickly I turn to one other text and I want to make application. I've been talking about Christians, how we should view the world, the radical nature of the

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Christian claim about the centrality of Jesus Christ. This is the faith we must be defending.

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We cannot water this down, we cannot minimize this. You cannot pretend that what you're defending in apologetics is just a minimal set of facts and this, well this is just too much.

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Can't defend this. Well, if the Holy Spirit isn't the one by whom you are making defense, well that would be true.

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And if you have capitulated the way the world thinks, then yeah, you can defend any of this stuff.

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But see, I'm talking about biblical apologetics. I'm talking about the biblical gospel. And that biblical gospel is explained for us by the

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Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, the word of the cross. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

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Notice the same message. Not one message preached to one group in a different way than another group. Not a minimalized message to one group and a maximalized message to another.

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No, it's one message. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. And my friends, it will always be so.

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If you try to change that message into something that is no longer foolishness to them, you are no longer preaching the message of the cross.

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The reason that it is foolishness to one group and the power of God to another group lies within them and their spiritual nature.

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And you have no control over that. You are not God. You are not the Spirit. For it is written,

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I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever. I will set aside. Where is the wise man?

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Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? If God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, then why do we pursue it?

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If we pursue worldly wisdom, I'm not talking about true knowledge, but I'm talking about wisdom, knowledge outside of the lordship of Jesus Christ.

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If we pursue the wisdom of the world, we are pursuing foolishness.

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We are wasting our lives and our time. For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know

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God. God was well pleased the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

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Do you hear what the scriptures say? It is God's wisdom that the world's wisdom is not the means by which anyone comes to know

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God. But man in his insufferable arrogance believes he can put

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God in the dock, put God in the position of defending himself and bring in his own pitiful standards that God allegedly has to live up to.

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And how many Christians are there who not knowing the scriptures, not knowing these texts, have been fooled into seeking to defend

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God on the standards of man's own foolishness.

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And the result is frustration. The result is false profession. The result are heretics who have been brought, quote -unquote, into the church, not by the work of the

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Holy Spirit in their hearts, but because someone was willing to accept something less than full

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Christian profession from them. It is the wisdom of God that the world through its wisdom does not come to know

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God. But God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached, the kerugma, the gospel, to save those who believe, not those who demonstrate themselves to have great understanding of the wisdom of the world.

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Now, Paul knows this is not popular.

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He knows what he says, for indeed, Jews ask for signs, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews, a stumbling block in the

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Gentiles foolishness. Think about it, folks. Paul fully understood what his audience wanted.

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Paul could have started an emergent church. Paul could have started a seeker friendly church. He knew what people wanted.

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He knew what their desires were. The Jews seek for signs.

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The Greeks, they seek wisdom. They want Sophia. But Paul says we don't give them what they want.

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We do not edit the gospel according to the desires of our audience.

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We preach Christ crucified to Jews. We know this is a stumbling block.

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We know that a portion of our audience will find this to be offensive.

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They will find it to be a stumbling block when we preach to Muslims.

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We preach Christ crucified, but he didn't die, Sir, 41527. Also, we shouldn't talk about that.

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No. No, we proclaim Christ crucified. To the

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Jews and the Muslims, a stumbling block. To Gentiles, a crucified carpenter from Nazareth is somehow the very means by which

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I am supposed to have eternal life, the creator of the universe. That's foolishness.

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Morion, moronos, moron. That's where we get the term, foolishness.

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But here is where theology matters. And here is where theology determines apologetics, because apologetics is the defense of the faith.

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Therefore, the faith determines the apologetic. What does Paul say? But to those who are the called.

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To the kleitos, the called. Both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

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One message which is not to be changed. One message which has been entrusted to us as a great possession.

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One message that God has promised by his spirit to bless the salvation of his people.

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One message to those that are not called.

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Stumbling block. Scandalon. Offense.

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Foolishness. Moronic. But to those who are called, the same message.

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Unedited, undiluted, the same message. To Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

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This explains why there can be two men standing in a crowd, hearing a

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George Whitfield preach. One is pierced to his heart.

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His life is changed. He's changed from being a

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God -hater to a God -lover. The other walks away unchanged. It's not because the one was better than the other.

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It's the calling of God. But to those who are the called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now, why did

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I start the program off in this way? To this point,

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I have not used either term to my knowledge, evidentialism or presuppositionalism.

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What I have provided to you is a biblical discussion of the key issues that should determine how we seek to glorify

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God. In obeying the command to be ready to give a defense for the hope that's within us.

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But you see, the reason I did this is because there are so many today who have no earthly idea.

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How theology relates to apologetics.

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Theology matters because theology determines the very form of apologetics that we will use. And if we believe the radical claims of the

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Christian faith that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, then how can we engage in any kind of seeking a neutral common ground with a rebel sinner against God?

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Because either a person is a rebel against God or he has submitted to God.

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Those are the only kinds of people there are. You're either a God lover or a

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God hater. There is no neutrality in that area. And yet there are many today who would say we need to find a neutral ground with the unbeliever.

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And so they're willing to abandon the lordship of Christ. And say, you don't have to look at the world as being created by God, being created by Christ for his purposes.

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No, no, no, no. We can reason together on the basis of philosophy and what's common between us.

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And maybe later on, hopefully I'll be able to convince you that Jesus is

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Lord. Is there such a thing?

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In light of Colossians chapter 1, is there such a thing as moral neutral ground between a believer and unbeliever?

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The answer has to be no. If all things are created by him and for him, then any fact that is a fact is a fact because he made it to be a fact.

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There are no morally neutral grounds. There's no neutral facts in the world.

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Every fact is a fact because its creator is Jesus Christ. And to begin by pretending that you can ignore that, put yourself in a position of never being able to honestly come to the point of asserting the true deity of Christ.

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So you end up having to abandon the unique and central elements of the very

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Christian message to try to pretend to be something you're not, someone who isn't really under the lordship of Christ, to try to quote -unquote reason with them.

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But doesn't that demonstrate you really don't believe what Paul said to the Corinthians? That it's not worldly wisdom?

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Worldly wisdom is foolishness. God has made it foolish. God has chosen not to use that path to bring people into knowledge of himself.

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He's chosen to use the gospel and the spirit of God, making that word to come alive in people's hearts.

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How can any person who has sanctified Christ as Lord in their hearts for even a moment reason in such a way to where, well,

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I'll stop doing that for purposes of reasoning with you, talking with you.

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What I'm talking about here is the whole reason why

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I'm a presuppositional apologist. If you listen to my debate with Dan Barker on the existence of God, I never allowed

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Dan Barker to think that he has the right to judge his creator. I will not grant to the creature the autonomy to judge the existence of his creator.

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That's as foolish, that's as foolish as trying to deal with rebellious pots and pans who are insistent upon demanding that there be a debate over whether they have a maker.

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Pots and pans, cups and saucers are created things. They're created for a purpose by their maker.

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And to allow the rebel sinner the autonomy to demand that God use his reasoning and his standards is to allow the rebel creature to crawl up upon the throne of the universe and gather the robes of the judge around himself and say,

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I will now determine what evidence will or will not be allowed in this case of me versus God.

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And what's going to be the result of that? Well, it's what we see every single time we see an evidentialist apologist go into a debate with an atheist.

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Well, I just don't know if I accept that. I'm not sure that I accept this over here. Any real compelling evidence you bring forward, and there is so much of it, will simply be dismissed by the rebel sitting upon the throne, wrapped in the robes of the judge that he has no rights to be wearing, and every bit of evidence you bring forward that demonstrates not only the existence of God, but that he is a rebel creature, is simply dismissed.

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That's why I believe to be consistent with the Bible, you have to address the starting presuppositions.

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You cannot simply abandon a Christian epistemology for the sake of trying to convince somebody to listen to what you have to say.

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That's the spirit's job. So to me, the difference between presuppositionalism and evidentialism, and evidentialism, as I would define it, involves the presentation of evidences with the understanding that the unregenerate sinner has the capacity and the willingness to actually examine the facts with some kind of fairness.

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I would suggest to you that if you read Romans 1, that is impossible.

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Because as Paul says in Romans 1, the unregenerate man is suppressing the truth of God.

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He possesses it. He knows God's there, but he holds it down. Catechonto, an active participle, he is suppressing the knowledge of God.

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What's going to happen if you give him more evidence? He's going to suppress that too.

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I do not see evidentialism as having any meaningful biblical basis in light of what the

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Bible teaches about the radical nature of Christian epistemology, that the only way we can have true knowledge is to begin with our creator.

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The claim we make that God is the creator of all things, the determiner of all things, in the person of Jesus Christ, and then the biblical teaching of the slavery of man to sin.

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These things force me to follow the apostles in not capitulating to a worldly way of thought, but standing firm on a

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Christian worldview and the lordship of Christ, and demonstrating not only the consistency of that worldview, but the absolute impossibility that any other worldview can have any meaningful consistency in the universe that has

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Jesus as king. And I suggest to you that a lesser methodology of apologetics is a methodology of apologetics that does not take seriously the kingship, the lordship of Christ over all areas of life, and simply doesn't trust the

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Holy Spirit of God to do what the Holy Spirit of God says he's going to do. Now, I looked at the two or three paragraphs that were provided in a book on apologetics co -authored by Ergen Kanner on presuppositionalism, and it's used as a textbook at Liberty.

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And no student who has read that book would have any idea whatsoever that presuppositionalism is what

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I just described it to be over the past 40 minutes. And that's a shame.

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Of course, it's not just at Liberty where that would be the case. But you know what? While we can decry that, and we can try to help those in that situation to learn and to know better what the real issues are, that does not frustrate me.

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Because what I've discovered is that when people purposefully seek to misrepresent key elements of God's truth,

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God's not frustrated by that. The people who do it will answer for that, but God's not frustrated by that.

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God still leads his people to the truth. They may come through the back door, they may come through the woods, but they're going to get there.

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He's going to reveal his truth to them. And when they find it, having been led away from it by others, guess what?

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It's all the more precious to them. It's all the more precious to them. And so to the

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Liberty students who have been told that presuppositionalism is the limited atonement method of defense,

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I hope that you will continue your studies and that you will allow your studies to cause you to see the whole truth, all of the truth.

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Because I have absolute confidence that if you will pursue that subject with a heart that seeks first and foremost to honor

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God and his truth, his truth will be more than clear enough to lead you and to guide you and to ground you and to equip you.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And let's take our first phone call and talk with Steve.

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Hi, Steve. Hey, James, how you doing? Doing pretty good. Hey, I have a question for you concerning Anthony Buzzard in Psalm 110.

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He said that nowhere in Scripture in regards to the second Lord or Adonai is the phrase,

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And in your debate, I believe it was a radio debate with him, he said that wasn't true.

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There were other places where my Lord or my Adonai or my Yahweh were used.

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I was trying to find some sort of reference, and the word my obviously is not in any concordance since there'd be a trillion my's.

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And I was wondering if you could give an example of a couple other examples in Scripture where my

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Adonai or my Yahweh is used. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that's easier to answer in an email because I don't have to sit here.

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I recall one, if I recall correctly, I had these with me in the studio, and just off the top of my head,

44:16

I believe one was in Psalm 32 crossed my mind, and yeah,

44:29

Psalm 16 -2 I think might be one here. I'm looking here, but that's the kind of thing that's a whole lot easier to answer when

44:40

I can double check the references. Okay, I'll email that to you then.

44:46

Yeah, that would be the way to do it. Yeah, I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, I have no good besides you. I'm looking at, yeah, kuriosmu is found there in the

44:59

Greek septuagint. Let me bring up the Hebrew here.

45:06

Yeah, yeah, Adonai is used there, and that's Psalm 16 -2.

45:11

I think there's another one in Psalm 32, as I recall, and I had those lined up.

45:19

Unfortunately, by the time we got to that point, Justin was giving me the hurry sign.

45:28

In other words, we've totally lost the audience at this point, and so we need to move along to some other subjects, and that's one of the problems with doing radio stuff.

45:39

Yeah, drop me an email, and I'll double check those, but I think Psalm 16 -2, and I think there's one in the 32nd

45:45

Psalm. I'll take a look at it. Okay, and one real quick question. Don't Arminians also believe in presuppositional apologetics, if I'm not mistaken?

45:53

I'm not aware of any. I know of Reformed folks who are not presuppositionalists, obviously.

46:02

I would recommend everyone listen to the debate between R .C. Sproul and Greg Bonson on that. But I suppose what the problem is, at least the presuppositionalism that I would espouse, is based upon not only the recognition of the calling of God and the elect, but also the deadness of man and sin.

46:21

So I suppose someone could philosophically embrace a form of presuppositionalism, but I can't see how it would be consistent with their position on the biblical teachings regarding the autonomy of man and a lack of a creative decree.

46:38

So I'm not sure how that would work. Do you know of one? No, I hadn't really given it much thought until I listened to what you said.

46:46

I've been an evidentialist for a long time, and then I read Bonson's book of radio defense. I put it down, and I was like, well,

46:52

I guess I'm a presuppositionalist. Pretty obvious. Well, and hopefully only because the scriptural testimony is so consistent and so overwhelming that there's no other way to go.

47:04

Yeah. Yeah. The new book that A .V.

47:09

put out with Joel McDermott as the editor, the book that was found by – actually,

47:18

Greg Bonson wrote it, and the manuscript fell down behind a filing cabin and was not found until just a couple years ago.

47:26

They just put it out, and Joel McDermott is the editor, and it is a great book.

47:33

It's well worth getting. So if you enjoyed that other book, you might want to track that one down too. Do you know what it's called?

47:39

For the publishers, you said A .V.? I think it's American Vision, A .V.

47:45

American Vision is the publisher, McDermott is the editor. It's in Amazon. That should be enough to get it for you. Okay.

47:50

And I think it's a positive defense of presuppositional politics, something like that.

47:57

Okay. Maybe if somebody posts that for me in channel, I'll mention it here in a few moments. Okay. Hey, great.

48:03

Thanks. I appreciate your time. All right. Thanks, Steve. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -33401.

48:10

Let's talk with James over in the United Kingdom. Hello, James. Hey, James. How are you doing?

48:16

I'm doing good. I was just wondering, being a sort of young reformed guy in the

48:21

UK, can you think of any good seminaries in this country? Well, you know,

48:27

I go over there and, you know, I've lectured at the church at the

48:37

Metropolitan Tabernacle, at the school there at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, stuff like that. But the best way for me to answer that would be to direct you to some of the pastors there in the area that would have much more contact with the schools as to who the teachers are and things like that.

48:55

I mean, London Bible College, obviously, I'm aware of a number of people from there and things like that. But since I'm only over there for a short period of time and normally busier than a one -armed paper hanger when

49:03

I am there, I'd want to get you in touch with a couple of the pastors there.

49:10

Are you in the London area, or where are you? I'm close to London, yeah.

49:15

Okay. I don't think they'd mind my mentioning them on the air. They may mind being associated with me and my calling them friends, but I would recommend you talk to two pastors in the

49:26

London area, and you should be able to track down their information fairly easily. Roger Brazier is the pastor of the

49:33

Edmonton Baptist Chapel, and they have a website, and hence you could contact him directly.

49:40

And then Doug McMasters at Trinity Road Chapel in Upper Tooting. Likewise, when

49:48

I was over there this last time, I was with Doug, and hopefully Doug and I are going to be doing a manuscript trip in February, Lord willing, to visit some of the important biblical manuscripts for a project that I want to work on.

50:00

So I would direct you to both those gentlemen as far as having a far better insight than I would on that.

50:09

Okay. Thank you. Also, one other thing. I called a while ago asking about the Book of Enoch.

50:14

Do you remember that? I'm sorry, I don't. Okay. Well, you were surprised that the

50:20

Ethiopian Orthodox Church had been their canon. Oh, okay. All right. Yes. Uh -huh. And you said if they're being consistent, they should include things like the

50:27

Assumption of Moses. It turns out they actually do. So they actually have second -century

50:36

Gnostic works in their canon? Yeah. They have a picture of the Ark of the Covenant. Well, that would make sense then,

50:43

I suppose. If you're that far off the beam, then I guess that would make sense. But that's totally news to me.

50:52

Why they would have anything from the second -century Gnostic Gospels or how they make heads or tails out of that, I do not know. But that is an interesting piece of information.

51:00

I appreciate that. So I was just wondering, because I've heard so very little actual scholarship on this, dealing with it, because the

51:08

Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded in 1969. Well, that would make sense, too. I mean, so it really has less historical authority than the hippie movement.

51:20

Or Bill Clinton, but anyway. Yeah. So, I mean, I was just wondering, maybe one day you could do –

51:27

I'd really appreciate if you could do a sort of show talking about these sort of less -dealt -with books. Yeah.

51:34

Yeah, there is a real need to sort of walk through the

51:41

Gospel of the Egyptians and stuff. I played a brief portion, remember, of my

51:46

Kindle reading the Gospel of the Egyptians to me when it started speaking in tongues. I don't know if you caught that dividing line. But yeah, it would be worth going through a lot of the second -century stuff, because people see quotes from the books, but they rarely actually read the books themselves and go, whoa, that is really weird.

52:06

So you only have a very small range of scholars that are constantly promoting their own work in that area, and the result is a general ignorance of the subject and of the actual content and all you hear is, well, this indicates that early quote -unquote

52:24

Christians believed this or the other thing. And when you really get into them, they contain just some amazingly wild stuff, so far removed from the biblical canon that it's obvious why the early church never even gave consideration to these things.

52:40

But yeah, we'll think about doing that. Thank you. I blame the Internet for most of it. That's true.

52:45

That's true, yeah. All right. Thanks, James. Appreciate it. Thank you, James. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. All right, we've only got a few minutes left in the program today.

52:54

Let's talk with Chris. Hi, Chris. How are we doing, James? Doing all right. I've got a question for you.

53:01

I've watched your debate with Greg Stafford about three times now, and one of the things that I've found dealing with Unitarian and things

53:09

I've seen come up in the forums is they'll bring up John 526, where it says, "...as

53:14

far as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have life in himself."

53:20

And they also quote John 657. It says, They use this as an attack against the ontological trinity and talk about how

53:37

Christ is dependent upon the Father for life. And I know you used this at the end of your debate with Greg Stafford in his closing statements, and I was just curious on how you would answer that, if you had the opportunity to maybe give a response on that.

53:56

Well, the way to answer any utilization of John 5, or really any biblical text at all, is to once again challenge the fact that the heretic, the false teacher, the antichrist, will never be able to allow any text of Scripture to stand within its own context.

54:19

They will never be able to allow a contextual reading, whether it's John 5 and the sovereignty of God, John 6 and the sovereignty of God and salvation,

54:28

John 5 and the unity of the Father and the Son. And so 526 is coming after an entire discussion, and this is where I've tried to be consistent on this all along.

54:43

I think down through the years I have been pretty consistent in exhorting Christians to have a knowledge of the

54:50

Scriptures that allows them to recognize a contextual abuse of a particular passage of Scripture.

54:57

And so if we know what John 5 is about, then we know what has prompted the discussion that leads

55:03

Jesus to say the words of John 5 .26. And what is that? Well, it is what has happened in regards to the

55:10

Sabbath and Jesus' statement in John 5 .17 that my Father is working until now, and I am working.

55:17

And the result, and I understand the Jews, that he was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

55:23

And then beginning in verse 19, then, you have this lengthy discussion of the relationship of the

55:30

Father and the Son. Now, Unitarians who just have to tear the

55:35

Gospel of John apart, whether they be Muslim, Jehovah's Witness, or anything else, completely miss the point of Jesus' response.

55:43

He is not denying that he is making himself equal with God. He is denying that he is some separate deity who is in disharmony with the

55:54

Father. The entire emphasis of 5 .19 and following, and of course 5 .26

55:59

is a part of that, is to talk about the absolute unity of the Father and the Son. The Son does nothing off ha 'altu, of himself.

56:08

He's not some separate deity that's off in competition with the Father. There is perfect unity between the two.

56:14

They can't see that because they have their external sources, their watchtowers, their cults, whatever it is they're going for.

56:20

But they are missing the fact that what Jesus is saying is, he's going to say, you have to honor the

56:26

Son just as you honor the Father. If you don't honor the Son, you don't honor the Father. The same writer is going to tell us in his epistle, if you don't have the

56:34

Son, you don't have the Father. It's the unity between the two, and when you see that, then what's being said in 5 .26

56:41

makes perfect sense. If Jesus has life separately from the

56:47

Father, off ha 'altu, if any of the divine persons have life separately from one another, you're forced into tritheism.

56:56

If John 5 .26 was not true, we would be tritheists. The Muslims would be right. But you see, people don't see that you have to have the same affirmation of monotheism as you have of the existence of the divine persons, and as long as you don't care about holding to the balance of Scripture, as long as you don't allow the

57:16

Scriptures to speak for itself, well, then you can isolate one text and say, ah, this means this to me.

57:24

But if you are trying to handle the Word and allow it to speak for itself, then very clearly what would be necessary in a situation like this would be the absolute affirmation of the unity of the

57:37

Father and the Son, absolute monotheism. The Son is not some separate deity that has life unto himself.

57:45

In fact, I don't know if you saw it, but we did an Aramaic Broadcasting Network program called

57:52

Jesus or Muhammad. I posted them on my website last week. And one of those, we went through the text in, it was

58:04

John 14 or John 16, one of the two, where the Spirit does nothing of himself, exact same phraseology used of the

58:13

Son in John 5 .19. And what is all of that emphasizing?

58:19

The absolute unity, monotheism, one God, the very things the Muslims say we're denying is right there.

58:26

But at the same time, when you find those truths, the Unitarians will use them to promote their viewpoint at the expense of other things.

58:33

That's why I've said many, many times, we need to recognize Christian truth is a whole. It is found in all of the text of Scripture.

58:43

And it is found not just in one text, but in the unity of texts coming together with that.

58:49

I think the music's up, and so have fun. But thank you very, very much for your phone call. God bless you.

58:55

Thank you, sir. And thank you for listening to The Dividing Line. We will be back, Lord willing, sort of back into the routine, starting on Tuesday.

59:05

And, yeah, maybe I'll talk about what happened with Sheikha Wall and things like that. I just wanted to get into the text. I wanted to get into the

59:10

Word of God today, talk about why we do what we do. Hopefully that was useful to you in grounding you in the truth of God.

59:16

That's what we're all about around here. Pray for us. Thanks for listening. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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