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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. 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.

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

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

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

James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line.

My name is James White. This is the only Dividing Line for this week. I am flying to Atlanta on Thursday.

We'll be speaking there Friday night and all of Saturday morning, in essence.

And, in fact, I'm not sure if one of my hosts is going to be able to make it to Atlanta this week, but I'll be at the

Faith Community Church, 659 Arnold Mill Road in Woodstock, Georgia.

I'm going to be down in Georgia. I don't have to worry about most of my vowels or consonants this week.

And we'll be talking about, oh, well, I didn't know who was who.

And so, why don't we go ahead and talk with the poor man who has to fight through Atlanta traffic to drag me out of the airport.

That sounds odd and strange. Hello, Jeremy. How are you? How are you, Dr. White?

I'm doing just fine. And what's that? I'll try to make it. I'll try to call as quickly as I could before you started that Georgia accent.

Save us all a little, you know. Well, I'll be coming back with it, and maybe next week from tonight, having spent a number of days with fine

Southern gentlemen and ladies, I will be speaking the true language. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I heard a little bit. I think you've already pretty much announced it.

But for those who haven't, if you go, do visit the calendar on AOMN .org.

And if you can call the church, you know, really by tomorrow is what they're asking for.

You don't have to, but if you do, what it does is it puts your name in for a drawing for maybe one of the 20 copies of Debating Calvinism that they will have at the conference.

Of course, those have all already been signed by Dave Hunt. I don't know how that's going to go.

Well, I'll sign them, too. We'll get both of them going. Those might be worth a lot of money someday.

With both signatures in there. No, I'm only kidding. Yeah, actually, somebody in channel was saying right before we came on the air that they had gotten their copy from us, and he said,

I've got my copy of Debating Calvinism, five points, 1 .3 views. And I said, wow, you lost two -thirds of a view in shipping, huh?

But we won't go to what he then said after that. But anyway, well, good. There is a number, a name and a number on the website that you want folks to get in contact with,

Joel Teague. And the number's there on the website if anyone wants to follow up.

This is on the calendar, yes. I know this is a link that many of you are not accustomed to clicking on, because generally our calendar is actually sort of living history of two years ago.

But this one is actually up to date, and therefore you can click on it.

Information on directions from Atlanta, and registration, and when the sessions are going to be.

Basically, we're going to be doing the King James Only issue on Friday night, Bible translations, issues relevant to that.

I'll be bringing my digital projector along and doing that. And then on Saturday morning, those who are hearty and able to survive getting up on a

Saturday morning and explaining to the wife why you're not going to be doing any of your chores around the house.

Or if you need a reason to explain to the wife why you're not going to be doing any chores around the house. Or if you know that your wife is going to be doing chores around the house, and therefore you wish to escape.

And whatever those scenarios fit you, we get started, doors open at 8 .30. We get started at 9 .00.

And we're going to be going all the way until 3 o 'clock in the afternoon, the subject of justification. There's a lot of material there.

There is a lunch, thankfully, in there someplace, too. But we're going to be going at it for quite a time there.

So then on Sunday, also, the same church on Sunday or a different church on Sunday?

The same church. I'm not sure they were going to make a major announcement about Sunday because they were worried about room.

But I tell you, anyone who comes is welcome to join us on Sunday, as well. I keep trying to tell you, I'm not a draw.

So this is irrelevant, okay? We're already pretty packed.

We've got plenty of room for more. They've got plenty more chairs to put out. And what you said earlier, we don't want to discourage.

I mean, the wives are invited, too. So maybe they want to escape the housework, as well.

So you can bring the women, but no children, to this one. There's no child care. Okay.

All right. Well, okay. Absolutely. All right. Well, look forward to seeing you Thursday. And looking forward to a great time in the

Lord. I think we're going to have a good time. And just everybody's welcome.

If you're close, we've got people coming all the way from, I think, Nashville and maybe even Greenville. Nashville. Nashville, Tennessee.

Greenville, South Carolina. Well, the South is going to rise again this weekend.

Absolutely. If the South would have won, we'd have had it made, I think, is what we're saying out there. But anyway. But God bless you.

We'll see you Thursday. Okay. We'll see you then, sir. Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks for calling, Jeremy. God bless. All right. Well, that's what's coming up this weekend.

And so that's, if you want to blame anyone for why I won't be doing a

Thursday dividing line, it's because they will not allow me to have my cell phone on at 30 ,000 feet.

That is the basic reason. And maybe someday they'll stop doing that, and then we can do that live as we're flying along.

That would be sort of interesting, wouldn't it? I mean, it's obvious they work up there. But anyway. So that's why we're not going to be doing the dividing line this

Thursday. But Lord willing, we come back Sunday evening. And hence, next week, we should be back on our regular schedule

Tuesday evening and Thursday morning. And of course, next Tuesday evening is the 24th.

And that means the next day will be the release of the

Passion film, which everybody's talking about. I don't want to act like I was prophetic, but boy, it's just a huge, huge, huge subject.

Saw it coming a couple of months ago, and other people thankfully saw it coming long before that and have already provided us some good information.

We'll talk a little bit more about that. But before we do that, let's go ahead and move to another subject.

A little bit later today, hopefully tonight or tomorrow morning, somewhere around there, you will see that a little link that you probably got used to seeing on our website will reappear at the top of the index page when you're looking at the blog.

Right now, if you look at the blog on the main page, you can look over to the right and you will see Coming in February.

We probably need to change that because it's here. And the

Debating Calvinism book and things like that. And you probably got accustomed over time to see over there at the top the information about our cruise, which took place in December.

Well, this is somewhat unusual. I'm not really sure what the reasons for all of this were, but we're doing the next cruise in less than...

We've been doing, what, about 15 to 18 months, somewhere around there between cruises, I think. And we're going to be doing our next cruise, actually, in November of this year.

And so we will be putting the link up with all the pictures and all the information. And since we're not going to be doing a program on Thursday and we're going to be putting that stuff up there, we wanted to ask...

You know, he doesn't look anything like Captain Steubing. But we wanted to ask

Michael Fallon to join us. And is Mike there? Hello, James. Oh, hello,

Mike. How are you? Good. Hey, thank you for having me on and giving me a chance to announce the debate between you and Mel Gibson and the salvation of his wife.

No, just kidding. You know I'm going to get emails about that. When is it going to happen?

Where? You know. Well, you know, I was thinking last night as I was watching that.

You know, did you ever see the movie He Was In Conspiracy Theory with Julia Roberts? I didn't see it, no. He was exactly like the character.

I mean, he seemed fidgety, paranoid, you know. Well, she even made reference to that.

Was that what she was making reference to? Was something about that issue of conspiracies?

Yeah. Yeah. But anyway. Well, he got very focused, however, when she started talking about his father.

Right. And if you've read that article that has been circling around for quite some time now and now is appearing everywhere, he had the ability of utilizing numerous four -letter words whenever that issue would come up.

Yeah. Including, what was the, he wanted that guy's intestines on a stick? Yeah.

Eaten by a dog or something like that. No, beat the guy's dog. Oh, that's right. And then he said, shoot the guy's dog, and then he said something like, and by the way,

I would never hurt the dog. When is he going to be speaking at Thinks Reform?

Well, you know, when the Lord is gracious enough to convert the man,

I'm sure that that could be arranged sometime down the road. But that is the issue, isn't it? You know, it's fascinating to hear all the different takes and viewpoints on the interview last night and the film, and that was the most

I've seen of the film by a long shot. I mean, they showed a lot there. It gives me quite an interesting insight into what's going to be going on there.

But anyway, that really is not why you called, is it? No, I'm calling to announce for this coming year, 2004, the

Alpha Omega Ministries Apologetics Crews, and I'm just finding out right now that I cannot multitask because I cannot look at the chat room as I'm talking to you.

It's pretty difficult what I do, isn't it? I mean, I've kicked people out of here while talking.

No, well, I'm not quite as able to divide my brain in so many sections as you can at one time, so I'm just going to turn away, folks.

Sorry about that. But what I do want to talk about is what we have coming up. And I think this year,

Jim, I don't know if you'd agree, but I think we have possibly the most incredible one -two punch as far as conference and crews that we've ever had.

It certainly looks like it's going to work out that way. We have some things that could be happening for a debate directly before the crews.

We could be having a conference, which I'm already putting together, and we have several folks that have already said that they would be loving to join us.

For the conference, that could be speaking that are just, I mean, folks that are right on the front battle lines right now for the whole of Christianity, and all pretty much dealing around the subjects of justification, dealing also with the subjects of New Perspectivism, Auburnism, and some other, shall we say, a little less than orthodox views of the covenant.

Yeah, we would love to have all that nailed down, but as most people know, it takes time to arrange such things and to make sure that everything is, in fact, set in stone.

So we are, in essence, negotiating right now to establish exactly what the parameters of the debate and conference are going to be, and who's going to be there, and so on and so forth, and I think that will continue developing.

Some of those things do not develop until fairly close to the events at times, but we're on the other side of the nation, however, this time, correct?

Yes, sir. This will be the first year that we're going to be sailing out of Los Angeles, California. We are going to be sailing, and I am right now going to go ahead and chat room and post up the link to see our ship.

We're going to be sailing on the Vision of the Seas, Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas. Absolutely beautiful ship.

It's a mega liner. It has just about everything you want on board from several different eateries all the way to an 18 -hole miniature golf course in the back of the ship, a virtual reality center for the team, et cetera, and most importantly, it has

Dr. White on board. It doesn't right now. It doesn't right now.

Lord willing, we include that. Hopefully a healthy one.

That would even be better. Yes, sir. We also have commitments from several great speakers that are affiliated with Alpha Omega Ministries, as well as I have a verbal right now from Steve Camp, from Phil Johnson, also from a guy by the name of Skyman that we call him.

Yes, indeed. I think if anybody was on the cruise last time, it's not just coming and hearing

Dr. White speak, which is one of the highlights for everyone, getting a chance to be in close fellowship.

Jim is certainly going to be preparing some things for this year's cruise that are going to be really exposing some of the heresies that surround some divergent views of justification.

But as well, the best thing about this, I think, is after Jim is done speaking and all of us break off.

Yes. The best thing is after. It's actually better. No. But would you say,

Jim, and I know you were a little under the weather this morning, but after you had spoken and all of the folks that are in chat, or a lot of our other guests and so forth, we would all gather either in the half -moon key room at this past cruise or up in the back of the ship by the pool.

Sometimes these conversations would go until 3 o 'clock in the morning. Yes. I wasn't at any of them until 3 o 'clock in the morning, because the next day

I would then be spouting heresy, even at my best. But they did, and we still hear about some of those conversations and some of the friendships that developed out of that.

I've mentioned the fact that I was very touched myself.

One of the things I will remember most about the cruise, other than our beautiful cabin, and the beauty of the sea and so on and so forth, was my own kids' involvement in those things.

Obviously for a father, it's a tremendous thing to see your children interacting with others on matters of the faith.

Just Saturday night, I was driving home with my daughter, and she had started reading the Dave Hunt debate book.

She was saying, she said, you know, I think I understand it, but I'm not sure if somebody asked me if I could really fully explain compatibilism.

Could we go over that again? I mean, it was a half -hour drive home, and all the way home we were doing compatibilism and Genesis 50.

I can honestly say that my daughter knows more about Acts 427 -28 than certain authors I know. Wow.

Anyway, that is part of the fellowship and getting to see the interaction and stuff like that.

It's a very important part of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that we have a lot of folks that made lifelong friends and folks that still are keeping in contact.

Some people that have just joined us in chat recently that were on the cruise that really weren't aware of that sort of thing to listen to the

Dividing Line and Archive. We got a chance to meet a lot of us, and certainly we've had friendships as well as apparently some relationships that have started or have continued through the cruise time, some that are not consummated in Marriott, unfortunately.

We just really had a fantastic chance to bond. If you've seen any of the pictures of us together, the folks that were in chat, we got a chance to all get together as well as a lot of folks.

Bill Johnson, let's say. Yes. He had an opportunity to meet some folks such as Eddie Delcor and Sam Shimona.

They had some conversations that were just phenomenal. It's like you need to go and just bring a tape recorder for just some of the things that we did hanging around eating ice cream or going to the buffet line or whatever.

That's when we had just definitely some memories that you're never going to forget. Steve Camp and a group of us jumping in our 4x4s and going in places we really shouldn't go, all over St.

Martin, on tops of mountains and things and down to beaches. You ain't going to be doing that in Mexico.

See you later. Nice to have you. The Ferraris love you. Bye -bye. Anyway, let me get down to the brass tacks of this real quick.

Yes. I don't want to take up any more of our valuable time here. Yes, we're putting out the big bucks for this. Let me tell you something.

Well, I know when I look at the dividing line, I appreciate getting right to the meat of the theology.

Listening to you talk, and I don't think anybody's really enjoying this, so let me get down to the brass tacks here and just tell you what's going on.

First of all, I think you folks did get a chance to see the photos of the

Division of the Seas. Once again, I'm going to go ahead and post those back up here again, if you haven't seen them.

If you are listening to this in an archive, sorry, but you'll need to go ahead and take a look at the page. It's probably already up.

It'll be on the ad section on the right -hand side. Exactly. Now, let me tell you folks, you can join us per person for seven days in the

Mexican Riviera, in the Pacific Ocean, from Los Angeles, seven days. You can join us on this cruise with all your meals included and your drinks included, unless you're

Presbyterian, of course, with all your drinks included for $490.

That's seven days. If you think about that, folks, that's less than $100 a day for your vacation. In fact, $490 is exactly $70 per day.

Correct. Thank you, Jim. Anyway, yes. As a matter of fact, we can even get you into a window cabin, a cabin with a large picture window and so forth, for $570.

Folks, if you think about the prices that we've had in our first three cruises, you'd understand that that is just an incredible deal.

Oh, yeah. We couldn't touch that when we were back on the Imagination and Carnival. Oh, there's no way. Yeah. If you think about it, this past year, we were telling everybody, hey, look, guys, you're never going to see prices like this again.

We were correct. We had some very low prices, but these are not that much higher. Right. We are on a phenomenal ship, just an enormous floating resort, and everything's going to be taken care of for you.

Yeah. The young kids are really looking forward to this because they were, like Summer and stuff was going, you know, this beautiful ship, but I feel like the average age is about 67.

Yeah, the average age on a Holland America ship is unfortunately, well, they call them, you know, like floating nursing homes.

Yeah. I actually like Holland America a lot. Royal Caribbean has a little bit more of the younger edge to it.

Right. But the ships are fantastic. The time that we're going to have is going to be fantastic. If you consider the price, folks, there's really no way you can beat that.

Combined with the fact that Dr. White will be having a phenomenal debate right before the cruise.

That's right. And we're going to be, I think Richard Pierce is going to be slaving away in Los Angeles this weekend, checking out some of the reports there for us.

I'm packing my bailing wire as we speak. Yes. He's going to be suffering for the Lord this weekend and looking at some things.

But we're going to come up with, hopefully, a great hotel with a low price, and it's going to be a weekend and a week that you just don't want to miss.

I'm looking forward to it myself. I know our plans are already being made, and so many folks have already talked to us and said, when are you going to post it?

When are we going to get everything done? And just to let you folks know that we're on a cruise with us. We were previously on another ship that we had contracted.

Unfortunately, though, when we started looking closely at the photos, we noticed that the theme of the ship happened to be the human figure.

Shall we say that it was celebrated without clothing? It was rather Renaissance. Yes, it was very

Renaissance in many ways. They had an anatomically correct statue of David in the dining room over everybody.

Thankfully, as Dr. White said, it was not found. It wasn't that bad.

Come on. But anyway, we are going to be on a beautiful ship with Dr.

White, certainly with some of our favorite friends from Alpha and Omega Ministries. This will be an

Alpha and Omega -only cruise, to let you know. We're going to be striking out kind of on our own.

Folks, if you were with us one of the 150 -some -odd that were with us last time, you'll know this is something that you can't wait to do again.

We haven't mentioned the dating. November the 7th is when the cruise is going to be leaving.

We'll probably be posting our debate. We'll either be on November the 5th or the 6th, and we'll be having a conference along with that.

But we'll be posting all that here within the next few hours. So look for that on the front web page.

If you are listening to us in Archive, you've already seen it probably. But just to let you know, this is going to be something you don't want to miss.

Chance for you all to... I think a lot of people look up to you, Jim. You'll get a chance to rub elbows with Jim.

Hey, everybody who was on last time discovered that the newness of that wore off about five minutes into the cruise.

Thankfully, everybody else was cool. I am going to be planning to put you at a table with some people.

Hey, there you go. We put Jim and Kelly, unfortunately, at a table for two.

There's all these great conversations and roaring laughter coming from these tables and everybody enjoying it.

Jim and Kelly were having a very romantic dinner. Anyway, we were looking to have a fantastic time.

What he doesn't know is we were all sitting there laughing at them. Well, actually, no,

Rich, I was looking over at you going, man, is Rich okay? Oh, that was the first night, yeah.

You saw me come in the first night. The ship moves. We hit, I think, in the

Caribbean last time, the latest tropical storm I think I've ever seen. It was just departing the area, so we had some heavy swells.

But that ship was actually a lot smaller than the ship we're on this time. The ship we're on this time will be the largest ship that we've taken so far.

So it's going to be fantastic. Jim, I'll leave it to you, man. Okay, sir. Love to come on some time in the future, but definitely want to hear your show, sir.

Okay, thank you, sir. God bless. Thanks for calling. All right. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

You can join in the program today. And like I said, if you're listening on the archive, just look over on the right -hand side of the page at the top.

We're putting tremendous pressure upon the only person who can post the web page concerning the cruise.

And so I'm sure that it will be done in just a brief amount of time, and you'll be able to look there and see all the prices and do all the stuff you need to do.

Obviously, this time around, you know, we learn each time as we go along. And there's going to be a little – there's going to be a form that you're going to need to read and sign, because we really need to make sure that everyone understands that when you put down a deposit and stuff, you know, you can't wait until like the day before the cruise and go, you know what, you know, my goldfish aren't going to make it, so I can't go.

Give me all my money back. It doesn't work that way. Nothing works that way. So we just want to make sure everybody understands exactly how it works.

And so we've taken steps to do that. So that's all going to be there. So please take time to take a look at it, and it's not that far away.

It really isn't. And I like the date on this one, because I'll be honest with you, doing it between Thanksgiving and Christmas was really hard.

It sort of threw my schedule way off as far as the holidays. I mean, we were down in the

Caribbean. It was warm. It was really warm down there. I mean, I live in Phoenix. It's 81 degrees outside right now.

But anyhow, take a look at that. And we're going to be taking your phone calls here today.

There's lots of stuff that we can talk about. There's lots of stuff on the plate today. If you would like to talk about the

Mel Gibson interview last night, that's what everybody's talking about. My blog page discusses that.

It's short and to the point, but I think it makes the point hopefully clearly.

And there is also a little thing I'd like to discuss, depending on calls, a just disgusting example of yellow journalism here in the

Phoenix area last night. And I do mean disgusting. I think we can expect to see more of it in the future.

As normal, it comes from ABC, but it was the ABC local affiliate. They decided to do a hit piece on a

Christian group that seeks to share with Mormons. Just horrible. I mean, this was below reprehensible.

The people who put it together could no more actually engage in a rational dialogue on their worldview than man on the moon, but they did it anyways.

And so there's lots of stuff to talk about there. The Sola Scriptura book is getting close to completion.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And for those of you who know, I think

I may have even mentioned at some point that we were having some discussions concerning the title of the book.

I've never had a lot of discussions about the titles of books. A lot of folks think that authors come up with those titles themselves.

That's not the case. In point of fact, publishers primarily do the choosing of titles, and that based upon a theme with the cover and the art and what quote -unquote grabs attention.

In fact, we have a gentleman. I don't know why he hangs around the chat channel. We have a gentleman who is a bookstore owner.

And for some reason, part of it's because he invites it. It's sort of his persona, but he gets picked on constantly.

I shouldn't say this publicly. I happen to like him. He seems to be a pretty cool dude.

But we pick on him all the time. And he was looking at the title that they had suggested, the cover art and things like that.

And as he pointed out, I said, you know, that may not be what your book's about because that was my objection. The title that was suggested to me by my publisher,

I said, to be honest with you, that's not what the book's about.

That's not what I'm about. That's not what the book's about. That's not what the subject is.

And, of course, I feel rather badly if a book of mine is titled in such a way, make somebody buy it, and then they get home and it's not about what they thought it was about.

I think there should be some direct connection there. So anyway, he was pointing out that, yeah, well, you know, the point is that that probably would get picked up more quickly than the title that I had been pushing for.

In essence, you know, in a bookstore, sadly, the book has to somehow advertise itself.

It has to catch attention. Very few people go into bookstores today actually knowing what they're looking for.

They're just wandering up and down the aisles, and if something jumps off the shelf, it gets their attention. Well, let's face it.

Most of my books, that's why they don't sell all that many, is because of the fact that people have to be looking for them to get them.

And so I made my case. I argued my case. I sent everything that I had of the book done in, and in essence, it came back with a perfect title from my perspective.

I'm very excited about it. It's going to be called Scripture Alone, and I pointed out to them that that was the original title

I had suggested back in the 1990s when we had first discussed doing this book many, many, many years ago, and they said, yeah, we know.

And so that's what it's going to be like. So I'm looking forward to seeing the cover hopefully next week or something like that, and I'm at that point where I can see what the book's going to look like.

I can see the form of it, and I've been posting segments of it, just paragraphs on the blog. If you've been in channel, you've seen a whole lot more than that, and people keep saying, wow,

I'm looking forward to this. So I'm excited about the book and excited about getting a chance to finish it, move on to the next project, and so on and so forth.

So that's that information. We have three folks online already with lots of good questions, lots of good subjects, and I think we have one line left open at 877 -753 -3341.

You know what? Since somebody's calling all the way from the U .K., why don't we skip the break, if that's all right with you?

Everybody knows, by the way, hopefully, that Debating Calvinism is available on our website for $13 .50, and please remember – well, let's put it this way.

My daughter took her copy to school, and she goes to a Christian school, and in two different classes, the teachers took the book from her and read it during the class.

I guess they were taking tests on both of them, and they saw it on her backpack or on her books, took it, and both of them ended up buying the book.

So maybe the bookstore owner will hire

Summer to sell books or something like that. Oh, everybody's going crazy because we have someone from the

United Kingdom calling in, and I believe his name is Jason. Jason, hello. Good evening.

Oh, good evening. Oh, yes, it is good evening. What time is it there? No, actually, I should say good morning. Good morning.

It's actually half -past twelve. Half -past twelve. Oh, my. Well, good morning to you, too, then, sir.

Yeah, I have a question about creedal orthodoxy. I was reading a book by Keith Matheson.

Yes. I don't know if you've heard of Keith Matheson. I've not only heard of Keith Matheson, I've read the book.

Unless it's one I haven't read. He's written more than one. Well, this one is, I know you don't like eschatology, but this is a book called

Postmillennialism and Eschatology of Hope. At the end of his book, he has an appendix where he responds to hyper -praterism, and he comments specifically on their rejection of creed.

Now, is hyper -praterism what we Americans call hyper -preterism? Well, it's the view that there won't be a physical bodily return of Jesus Christ, and the creeds affirm that, and so they reject the creed on that point.

I'm sorry, Jason, I really should not pick on you as much as I do, especially when I'm doing an accent like that.

I'd never heard of praterism before. It sounds something like the Vulcans have, actually, or the Romulans.

Yes, we refer to it as hyper -praterism here. You are correct, it is the view.

Now, they call themselves consistent preterists or full preterists, but it's the idea that everything was fulfilled in A .D.

70 and that there is no physical return of Christ or resurrection or things like that. Stop that!

Kill it! Well, that wasn't really the issue that I wanted to discuss.

I'm really more interested in how Keith Matheson answers them, and I was wondering if I could just quote a short paragraph from his book.

Sure, go ahead, that'd be fine. It says, If creedal orthodoxy is not maintained as a boundary, biblical interpretation necessarily sinks into the sea of subjectivity and thereby loses any claim to absolute authority.

It becomes impossible to declare anything to be heresy. Unitarianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, and a host of other false doctrines become viable alternatives within Christianity once again.

Yeah, actually, you'd probably find a longer discussion, and in fact, let me look really quickly here, because there was a discussion of this amongst some of my friends over the past last week or so, and there was a

URL where Keith Matheson has a discussion. Let me see here.

No, I'm not pulling it up real quickly here. Keith's article on the subject, very much related to what you were talking about there, is online, and of course, if you've read his book, he has a book on the subject.

It's called The Shape of Sola Scriptura, and the issue that's being raised here by Mr.

Matheson, I would like to say, since I do disagree with some of the formulations here, that in the few times

I've had contact with Keith, he's been tremendously gracious, very, very quick to correspond with me and to discuss any issues, and seems to just be a wonderful guy.

So I want to say that right off the top, that he seems like a wonderful fellow.

But the issue that is being raised here really does go back to an assertion that he makes, and that is, he contrasts

Sola Scriptura with Solo Scriptura, and he does this based upon a mechanism that really goes back to some other writers, one who used to teach church history down at the

University of Arizona, Heiko Obermann, and it's Theories of Tradition, Tradition 1,

Tradition 0, Tradition 2, and in essence what he's saying is that there was a form of apostolic tradition, which was a summary of the beliefs of the apostles, which existed prior to the canon of the

New Testament, and that that tradition is vitally important because without it, you have what he was just saying in essence in that particular quotation, you open the door to just this wide open realm of things.

Now it would seem that if in dealing with that in the context of eschatology, and the resurrection, and the coming of Christ, so on and so forth, that he would say that that apostolic tradition, that Tradition 1, that it included not only the issue of the fact there's only one true

God, the deity of Christ, the person of the Holy Spirit, but also a coming judgment after AD 70, and the resurrection, and hence it's a fuller tradition than some of the most basic examples of the use of tradition in the early church fathers.

And so I would assume, I do not have that particular book, it's not that I don't like eschatology because of hyper -preterism,

I've mentioned in channel, good grief we have 62 people in channel, I've mentioned in channel that probably sometime this year,

Lord willing, maybe actually next year, but sometime in the not overly too distant future,

I will probably be announcing my eschatology and establishing it more fully, because of the fact that I have been doing reading on the subject of quote -unquote full preterism and things like that.

That will be really interesting to see. Yeah, so I'm aware of both of the issues, both the context, because I've read

Keith Matheson's book on the shape of sola scriptura, and then the issue of preterism and the things related to that.

What I have a problem with is the idea that outside of an extra -biblical tradition, the words of scripture themselves are not perspicuous, clear, capable of being understood and properly applied.

I don't think that the presentation of this kind of tradition actually ends up solving the problem that it allegedly is presented to solve.

That is, well, if we don't have this creedal orthodoxy, then interpretation becomes subjective.

Why? Did the actual grammar of the text, the meaning of the words, the syntax, the sentences somehow cease to exist because we don't have this tradition?

Did the words, when Paul wrote them, have the same meaning we can determine today?

It seems that there are those who are coming to the conclusion that, well, actually we can't know what scripture...

Yeah, I suppose that's sort of giving out ammunition to people who deny sola scriptura. Well, yes, very much so, and who, by basically arguing that outside of tradition we can't know what the apostles intended.

We cannot rid ourselves of our presuppositions. We cannot rid ourselves of our context.

In other words, basically saying exegesis cannot allow you to know what the apostles intended people to understand.

Exegesis cannot free you from the confines of living 2 ,000 years later. And in essence,

I would argue that fundamentally what that means is the actual meaning of the text of scripture died within a generation of the writing of that, and now we become dependent upon this developing tradition over time, and I don't agree with that.

I do not believe that the meaning of the text of scripture is in any way, shape, or form under some sort of control of an overriding tradition.

Further, who gets to define what it is? I mean, let's say we agree, we look at Irenaeus, and I actually address this in my book.

I actually scrolled this section in channel just a couple hours ago because this subject came up, and I scrolled the section where I specifically address this in my book, and one of the issues is, who gets to define this?

Irenaeus gave us a tradition. He says, here's his tradition. It's a very brief, very simplistic, sub -biblical summary, similar to the

Apostles' Creed, but not even that long. It's a summary of Christian belief. Well, are we actually to believe that this was somehow passed along outside of scripture, and who gets to define it?

Did it include something about the judgment? Did it include something about eschatology? Who gets to determine this?

The theory sounds nice, but functionally, it breaks down at every point because no one can tell us what group or what individual or what version of this is the final version that we're supposed to be using in this process of exegesis.

Just one other thing, though. Is it still legitimate to use argumentation taken from church history,

I suppose, when discussing a particular issue? For example,

I was talking to a friend of mine a little while ago about the pre -tribulational rapture, and one of the arguments

I used against that was that it's a very new view.

Until the 19th century, nobody really believed that. And I said, well, that should cause us to be suspicious of such a doctrine if it's never been taught before.

Well, yeah, but that's not the same thing as saying, well, there is a tradition that I'm going to utilize that becomes the lens through which

I'm going to examine the text of Scripture. That is one of the great dangers. That's what exegesis is, the rules of hermeneutics are designed to do, is to help us to identify when we are, in fact, utilizing a lens through which to view

Scripture so that we only see it saying, or shall we say hear it saying, what we want it to hear.

Once we accept the inevitability of a lens, that lens becomes our final authority.

Now, I think it's quite right to factor into the examination, especially of an issue like eschatology where there are numbers of different views that can be held that do not deny the central teachings of Scripture.

Looking at church history and looking at what people have or have not believed is important, though it's not as important as an exegetical argument.

I mean, let's look at the atonement. There were all sorts of views of the atonement held throughout church history that had no exegetical basis whatsoever.

So you have to really weigh the sources that you're using.

But my concern really is this idea, though, that the Scriptures exegeted within their own context, understood within the context of the purpose of the authors, the context of the recipients, that somehow that is not enough.

That's what concerns me. I do not believe in solo Scriptura because God has given the Scriptures to the church.

His purpose is fulfilled in giving the Scriptures to the church. I don't have any question about that.

But it's the church that is listening to the voice of Christ in those

Scriptures. It's not the church that then becomes somehow the lens through which she then views the

Scriptures. That ends up in what we see in Roman Catholicism with this infallibility issue and everything else.

So it does concern me. I understand, like I said, I've read

Keith Mathen's book, and I understand his objections to solo Scriptura. And I personally had mentioned, and anybody can go back to my 1996 book,

The Roman Catholic Controversy. And when I talk about what solo Scriptura is not, in fact, go back to 1993 when

I debated Patrick Madrid in San Diego. I went over almost everything, almost, not quite, but almost everything that Keith Matheson mentions in regards to what solo

Scriptura is not. And so I'm against very much the misuse of the doctrine.

But I don't think that that then means that you have to embrace some kind of quote unquote apostolic tradition, which we really can't identify, which we really can't be specific about, that somehow makes

Scripture accessible to us. I think that Scripture is accessible to us in the fact that it is inspired by God, and it is recorded for us in a language that we can understand, and we can examine, and communicates to us efficiently.

So that's how I'd respond to that. Okay? Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. God bless.

Thank you. Bye -bye. Did you hear that little British thing on him? I won't start it.

Okay, let's talk with Andrew. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Dr. White. How are you, sir? Good. How are you doing?

I'm actually doing quite well today. All right. Great. I just had a question about the

Passion of the Christ. I saw your blog just 15 minutes ago, and I listened to your sermon that you gave at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and I really appreciate that, too.

Was that the sermon, or was that the Bible study? I think it was the sermon. Not everyone can actually figure out which one it is when

I'm doing it, unfortunately. But I actually did a Bible study

Sunday morning, because it was going to be the last chance I had to talk to my folks there at the church, and both the links are on the blog site.

So anybody who was looking for that, there's a bunch of them there. Okay? Yeah, I appreciate that.

It was really good. My question was just about, well, I watched the interview yesterday, and I found it interesting, actually, that he talked about, sometime in the beginning, he talked about how

God ordains everything. Yes. He ordained this movie.

He planned this movie. I thought that was interesting, because later he said, as you are probably well aware of, is just what he said about, you know, that we all, as mankind, killed

Christ. Right. And I know that Christians, I mean, I've seen it on Newsweek Magazine.

I know Christians have said it. I know that he said it. And I think,

I know that you are right about God killing his son, and that the

Jews and the Sanhedrin and those people in those days were the material agents by which that occurred.

But I was just wondering, how do we explain the

Reformed position when people talk to us about, you know, all mankind killed us, killed his son?

Because I know from the Reformed position, Christ died for the elect, and Mel Gibson seemed to equate

Christ died for all mankind with we, mankind, killed

Christ. Right. So I was just wondering, is it accurate for us as Christians to say that, you know, the elect killed

Christ and no one else, besides, you know, the Jews there? Yeah, see,

I wouldn't use that terminology. As I mentioned on the blog, Acts 4 .27

-28 tells us that what those men did, Herod, Pontius Pilate, Jews and Gentiles, they did whatever his hand and his purpose predestined to occur, and that was in the prayer of the early church.

And so my point there, of course, was that the main issue is being missed, and that is when people are all concerned about anti -Semitism, or this person did it, or that person did it, or Mel Gibson's hand is sitting there holding the nail when it's driven into Christ's hand.

All of that is missing the point because we're talking there about secondary causes, not the primary purpose.

And that's really what's missing from the film, is what the whole purpose of the atonement was, and that's why

I'm trying to get folks to see it from that perspective. And it is interesting to hear, you know, the citation of Isaiah 53, right at the beginning by Mel Gibson, but then to recognize that in his faith, that element of substitution that you and I are assuming in those words and reading in those words and even exegeting out of those words because the text makes reference to it, is not a part of his thinking, at least in the sense that we use it.

That is, he will... You may have heard him waffle when they hit him with the, well, what about your wife?

What about non -Catholics? What about Jews? So and so forth. Well, I've got a better ticket. Well, that's not what he's said before, and that's not really what his group believes.

He does believe in extra -ecclesial and moral solace, outside of the church there isn't a salvation. He may allow for some issues of ignorance and things like that a little bit, but that's really not what his perspective is.

He waffled a bit on that, but he was pretty firm on everything else. But when this issue comes up, I think we don't want to say, well, the elect killed him.

What we want to say is the death of Christ was ordained by the Father to accomplish the redemption of God's people.

It was necessary for God to perfectly accomplish his purpose in Christ Jesus.

It was necessary because the wages of sin is death. And so that allows us to really discuss the necessity, the purpose, the intention, and, and this is the part where we're about the only people that are really going to be saying much of this stuff, and the fact that this is a perfect work on God's part.

It is not a work on God's part that is dependent upon man to be perfected or to be completed.

This is where I think, unfortunately, many people who are glomming on to Mel Gibson and the film and so on and so forth have completely missed the boat.

We can proclaim a powerful Savior who actually accomplished his purpose.

We need to cite the passage that says, He set his face toward Jerusalem. He said it is necessary that the

Son of Man go and be betrayed and to die and to rise again the third day. It is necessary. We can emphasize that where many people cannot emphasize that because it's inconsistent with their own theology, which they've created based upon other considerations rather than exegetical considerations in the text.

So, you know, when we say who, who, who did it? God did it to perfectly redeem his elect people.

As Jesus said, those the Father gives me, I lose none of them. So I think that would be the way that we want to respond when that issue comes up because then it allows us to go to passage after passage after passage to be able to explain that to other people.

Right. Yeah, that answers my question. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. God bless. All right.

Let's see if we can get everybody snuck in here real quickly. Let's talk with Steve in San Antonio. Hi, Steve. Hi, Dr.

White. Can you hear me okay? I can hear you great. Listen, as a Roman Catholic, I have a bunch of your debates, and I really admire your religion.

I admire your intellect. But I've always wanted to ask you a couple of questions, and this goes along with what you were saying to the caller before me.

Okay. About, you know, the doctrine of assured salvation. All right. Okay.

So it's always been like a negative to the

Catholic faith that their salvation is a mystery. They don't know for sure whether they're going to be accepted into heaven or not.

Okay. Well, Christ, you know, but everybody has the same hope of that. Well, are you referring to, for example, what

Ludwig Gott says when he says, the reason for the uncertainty of the state of grace lies in this. Without a supernatural revelation, you cannot know with certainty whether you have accomplished everything that's necessary for obtaining justification.

Right. By the way, who is this Ludwig Gott? He wrote a book called Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, which has been used in the training of priests and seminarians and theologians for many, many years.

It's sort of the equivalent of a systematic theology, in essence. Yes, yes. And I've heard you quote

Gott in your debates, and I always wondered, you know, we have our crackpots in the

Catholic Church. Well, he's not considered a crackpot. Just like the Protestants do. He's not considered a crackpot in any way, surely. But he said a lot of derogatory things about, you know,

Christ bowing his head in humble obedience. No, you're confusing Ludwig Gott with Father O 'Brien at that point, in the

Faith of Millions. Okay, but still, with Gott, he said a couple of things that made my head spin as well.

But here's the situation. Like I said, the Catholic needs Christ for salvation, just like the

Protestant does. The only difference is once you accept

Christ, once you're baptized, okay, there are certain things that he expects out of you.

And the only thing that would make you lose your salvation at that point is the state of mortal sin, which is just a few very serious things.

How do you know that it's just a few very serious things? The Church defines what a mortal sin is.

Murder, fornication. And I would, like, let me ask you straight out.

Let's say a Christian loses it one day and goes and rapes somebody or murders somebody.

Do you really think that Christ is just going to, you know, open up his arms and take him in?

Well, first, the Church has never defined infallibly what a mortal sin is or is not by a list like you just did.

I mean, your priest may tell you that. But historically, the Church has not defined specifically every possible mortal sin.

I just think that should be recognized. And secondly, the difference between us, at least between you and I, there are sadly many, quote -unquote,

Protestants who are closer to your understanding of salvation than they are to mine today.

But the difference between us primarily is the fact that I believe that salvation is fully centered upon God's glory and God's accomplishment.

And it's not dependent upon what I do for its accomplishment or for its completion or its continuance.

So that in answer to the question you just asked, there are obviously some parts missing.

You seem to think, well, baptism, you go into a state of grace and you do these things, and will Jesus embrace me with arms wide open?

Well, see, I don't even see salvation within those terms in any way, shape, or form.

I see salvation from what's called a theocentric perspective, God -centered perspective.

And I see it as something that involved my union with Christ. At His time,

He brings about regeneration not through my baptism, but through the work of the Holy Spirit within me. I am made a new creature in Christ.

And I am at peace with God because the righteousness that is mine is an alien righteousness.

It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to me. I have a new nature, which is a nature that does not live in sin in the sense of continuously committing sin and enjoying sin.

And having that as the pattern of my life, there is conviction when I do sin. And it's something that the

Lord always brings to my mind, and I am always trusting in the finished work of Christ in my place.

But when you say, well, could theoretically a Christian, quote -unquote, lose it? Well, Paul was a murderer, and his sins were forgiven by Christ.

If you're asking, is Jesus' sacrifice sufficient for all sins, yes.

There's no question about that. There are many people we can look at in Scripture.

Paul gave us a list of people who had committed very serious sins.

He says, such were some of you. The problem between us is that I believe that all of my sins were imputed to Christ upon the cross, not just those in my past.

And so that some future sin, from the Roman Catholic perspective, can destroy the grace of justification and make me the enemy of God.

Right, but isn't there not Scripture for that? I mean, you know, as Father Stravinkas says,

I don't have my gizmo, okay, to give you a chapter and verse. But isn't there a certain amount where he talks about when he comes back and he looks at the people on the left and the right hand, and he says, you know, when

I was naked, you clothed me. When I was hungry, you gave me to eat. When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink.

I was in prison, you visited me. Then he turns to the people on the other side and said, you didn't do this, you didn't do this.

Isn't that terms and conditions? Well, it's interesting that you'd use that. It's actually not the Sermon on the Mount, that's Matthew chapter 25.

But it is interesting that you would use that, because would you consider any of those things mortal sins? You probably wouldn't, would you?

And so, obviously, Matthew chapter 25 is talking about description, not prescription.

In other words, you're hearing that and you're hearing the prescription as to how

I am and make myself acceptable to God's sight by doing those things, and that I'm not acceptable if I don't do those things.

I see description. That is, in the hearts and lives of those in which the

Holy Spirit is active, then there is a description of what they are then about.

And in whom the Holy Spirit is not active, you have the description of what they are about. So it's descriptive or prescriptive, but one thing is very clear.

And that is, if I, by doing those things, enable Christ to save me, and I know the

Roman Catholic idea is, well, Christ merited this grace, and I obtain this grace through the sacraments, and I do these good works by the power of this grace.

But still, if I don't do them, they're not going to get done, and Christ is not going to be able to save me.

I see that as completely backwards. How could Christ be glorified?

How could Christ even teach in John 6 that he would lose none of those that are given to him, if, in point of fact, my fulfillment of doing these things is, in the final analysis, what allows

Christ to save me? See, we're coming from two completely different perspectives at that point.

Well, you know, when he says that he will lose none of them, okay, when you're in Christ, no one can take you away from him.

He can't lose you. But he's giving you the warning that once you're in there, it's like that parable of the wedding feast.

He invites the close friends. Nobody shows up. He opens up the door for everybody in the village. It's packed. But then what does he do?

He throws people out that don't have the right attire. Well, actually, that's an excellent illustration, because, you see, two things.

When Jesus says, I will lose none of them, he doesn't say I will lose none of them except those who, by their free will, choose to be lost.

He says, I will lose none of them, and this is put into the past, that we were given to Christ in eternity past, and that's long before you and I could accomplish anything in and of ourselves.

And secondly, the parable of the wedding feast actually illustrates the opposite of that, because, you see, the reason the individual was cast out of the wedding feast is because he did not have the wedding garment.

Your position would be, your position would demand that in history, it was your responsibility to bring a wedding garment.

Historically, that's not the case. The individual who called the wedding feast was the one who was responsible for providing the wedding garment.

Therefore, the reason the man was cast out was because he refused the provision that was provided by the king.

He tried to do his own thing. And what I'm saying is, that's what Roman Catholicism does, because, you see, there is only one righteousness that is going to avail before God, and it's the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Well, that would be true, but go back a step. Then why were they invited in the first place? You see?

What do you mean? You're assuming, remember, the parable is talking about the fact that Christ has come to the people of Israel, and they came up with all these excuses as to why, now that the

Messiah is there, they've got other things to be doing. They're more interested in their little lives and their little religious kingdom that they have created.

And so the message is now going to go outside the borders of Israel. Jew and Gentile alike are going to be invited in.

But the point is that you cannot get into the kingdom with your own righteousness.

You have to accept only the righteousness that is provided by the one who invites you in.

Well, that is true. And I would agree with that. You could do good works between now and the end of your life, 100 years from now, and that does not swing open the gates of heaven.

Only Christ's sacrifice, supernatural sacrifice, is what opened up the doors.

But it does not. It may open the doors up, but it doesn't get you in. See, the difference between us, and that's why

I don't believe, even though there are Roman Catholics who say they believe in sola gratia. That's not what I mean by sola gratia.

The sacrifice of Christ does not merely make the atonement, the salvation, a theoretical possibility.

It actually accomplishes eternal redemption. Remember, Hebrews 9 and 10 tells us when he went into the holy place, he had obtained eternal redemption.

He didn't just make it a possibility, and now we cooperate with grace, and we do these things, and we fulfill conditions.

The doors have been swung open, but now we've got to do our best, and we've got to cooperate, and we've got to do this. That's not what it says.

He entered into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption. Sure, and nobody's disputing that, but it goes back to my original question about assurance.

The Catholic that is in the state of grace that dies is assured of salvation. But on the other hand, you're right.

I mean, there could be some doubt as far as loving your neighbor and mortal sin. From the

Calvinist perspective, okay, your thought is that it is a fixed number of people that the

Lord has given salvation, and everybody else is just going off into oblivion.

So if you have a Calvinist, you personally, okay, you've done great things in the name of Christ.

How do you know you're part of the elect? Your whole life could be for naught, because he didn't choose you.

Okay, two things. A, I would dispute what you said concerning your own position, and that is that, well, if you die in a state of grace, then you have assurance.

But you don't know that you're in the state of grace. As Ott himself said, you don't know that you've fulfilled the conditions necessary for achieving justification.

You don't know that you have not necessarily committed a sin that has, in point of fact, excluded you from the state of grace.

That's not correct. Because one of the things for mortal sin is you have to have full consent of the will.

It has to be fought out. You have to deliberately do it, knowing beforehand that it was going to offend

God, and you don't care. You do it anyway. And where do you get that dogmatically? Or is that something a priest has told you?

Well, yeah. I mean, I went to Catholic school for a number of years, and I do a fair amount of reading. Well, what was taught in Catholic school 50 years ago and what's taught today are two very different things, are they not?

I mean, you've got to admit things have changed. Okay, but that is... Okay, well, let's move on to what you said, because you don't understand what

I believe in light of what you said. Yes, I believe that the number of the elect is fixed and must be in light of the exegesis of Ephesians.

Ephesians 1, Romans 9, John 6, and other passages. But you said, well, then how do

I know? I might be doing all this stuff, and it's completely irrelevant. The problem is you're separating

God's eternal decree of election from the fact that that decree takes place in time.

That is, that decree results in regeneration. It results in giving me a new nature.

It results in my having faith in Christ. And it results in all those things we see descriptive, not prescriptive, but descriptive of what it means to live the

Christian life. And so I have embraced Christ. I love Christ. And in point of fact, I love those aspects of God's nature that are the most hateful to the unregenerate man.

The very things that people say, I would never believe, I would never worship God if he's like that, even though the

Bible clearly teaches that he does these things. Those are the very things that I love. Those are the very things that it is my nature to embrace and to believe in.

And so what you're saying is, well, you might love Christ and believe in Christ, do all these things, but since you're not of the elect, no, what

I'm saying is no one is going to love these truths about God who isn't of the elect.

That's the result of that sovereign decree taking place in time. And so you can't divide out the decree itself from then the application and accomplishment of that decree in time itself.

That's where the problem is. But, hey, you know, I really appreciate the conversation we've been able to have. We actually held off the end of the program there for a while just to give you a little more time so we could discuss that fully.

Thanks for listening. Keep listening. I hope you listen to the debate. We're going to have May 20th with Gary Machuta on the subject of the

Apocrypha. And I appreciate your listening to The Dividing Line. To everybody else in channel, we have 64 people in channel right now.

I think that's a new record or something like that. Thanks for listening. No program on Thursday, but Lord willing, next

Tuesday evening we'll be back here on The Dividing Line. Thanks. God bless. We need a new

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