December 21, 2004

Asking around the world 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, it's nice morning here, isn't it?

Yeah, well I'm thinking ahead. Looks like I may be taking a 12 -hour journey today.

I'm really excited about that, trying to sort of figure out how I can redeem 12 hours of driving time and get ready for preaching on Sunday and everything else.

So it's just sort of like, wow, cool. Anyway, 877 -753 -3341, those of you who follow the blog, and if you want to keep up with what's going on around here and if you want to keep up with apologetic stuff, that's what you need to be doing.

In fact, for those of you who sort of wonder, one of the neat things about the new blog, the fact that it's a real blog, is that it has what's called an

RSS feed. Now what is an RSS feed? Well, that is the, it makes it possible for you to use wonderful technology and keep up with the appearance of articles without having to sit there and fire up your browser all the time and then put in the address or do whatever it is you do.

You can keep up with what's going on on the blog through other things.

You can use Mozilla Firefox, which of course is the best browser out there. It makes

Internet Explorer look really bad. And it has an RSS feed feature where it can update those things and there are plugins you can put into that that will actually function as a reader.

I use a little freeware program called RSS Reader, which will allow you to,

I've got, I think as of last night, I had 11 RSS capable blogs on my list and each hour it goes out and it grabs whatever's new and then tells you, this one, here's the new headlines.

You can go look at them. You can read them right in that. Open them up in a browser, so on and so forth.

And that's a really neat way to do it. I've got some interesting blogs on there and some of them are rather technical and things like that, but that's an excellent way of keeping up with stuff.

And certainly, I've been spending a lot more time blogging. Some of you remember a couple years ago where it would be three months between a new front page article and now people are saying they can't keep up with what's on the blog.

So you might want to look into doing that. I try to have a fairly wide variety of things there, mainly theological,

Christian worldview stuff. But especially if you are like following, for example, the meltdown of the

Berean Call and if you'd like to find out about non -existent

Hebrew text prophesied in the Dead Sea Scrolls and how to steal bibliographies from Celtic Yaoists, oh man,

I can tell you. There's some wild stuff out there, that's all I can say. So it's just amazing.

And I found out yesterday that I can tell my little software, post this at such and such a time.

So like last night, I wrote about five articles, but I didn't want to just throw them all up there at once. And so I told it to post the fourth article at midnight and the fifth article at 2 a .m.

And so it slows down the rush, shall we say, of stuff going out there.

And I've got a blog article. I've got one sitting in the editor as we speak and hopefully get a chance to get that up because like I said,

I may be looking at a little trip here this afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning.

We'll see what happens. But anyway, so that's what's going on. And you might want to, like I said, keep up with it.

I love doing it. I mean, this is how I'm getting to communicate with folks. This is how we can communicate about stuff much more quickly.

And oh, thank you very much, Scott. But I just love sometimes watching the channel, you know, and I see something go by.

That giggle has to go. Well, OK, I will promise not to laugh whatsoever during the course of the rest of the program.

I'll slow things down and we will not allow any joy or happiness to take place on the dividing line on this week before Christmas because we don't want to be happy and we don't want to be ourselves.

No, we need to be someone else. And so that's what I will do. Thank you ever so much,

Canadians. Good grief. Anyway, that will get me about 47 nasty emails.

Anyway, what are we talking about here? Oh, yes. I didn't even have a chance actually to load this up.

That's how busy things have been today. Yeah, everybody pick on Scott. I think

Scrooge is a good. I think Scott needs to change his nick to Scrooge and he needs to keep the oh, oh,

OK, OK, all right. But see, someone just banned him. Poor Scott just said, not your giggle, a sound in my

IRC client. Everyone, every time someone posts a smiley face. OK, you know,

I thought Scott was nicer than that. I just didn't think he would be so crass as to as to do that in channel.

Oh, and Sam Fear is spelled F -E -A -R. There's an A. I'm sorry,

Scott. I always thought you were a nice guy, even though you're Canadian. You're one of the few that have a sense of humor.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, I didn't even get a chance to sort of queue this up because I forgot. If you all want to see behind the scenes of the dividing line,

I have various programs here on my little computer in front of me. It's funny. There's this other odd Canadian running around.

Other odd. That was sort of a shot there. But this other odd Canadian out there who seems to think that we're rolling in dough and stuff like that.

Actually, most of you already know this. I'm sitting at my desk. OK, this is where I write my books. This is where I write the blog, everything.

I'm looking at the same computer screen, which I love this screen. The only thing that would make my experience even better is if somebody out there owns a computer store and has like a 23 inch

LCD. I've got a 19 right now. It's gorgeous. I love it.

It's great. And if it's all I ever have. Next thing you know, you want a widescreen. I, you know what? One of those things.

You know, you know, given, given, you know, I come in here in the mornings and sometimes

I'm sitting here blinking away trying to read that stuff. Anyway, I love this little screen.

But anyhow, what was I saying? Oh, I, the sound, the stuff that I play,

I'm playing myself. I've got Adobe Audition up. Sometimes I'm stuck using

Music Mac jukebox, which, by the way, for music is just awesome. I love it. But playing clips like we've been playing the

Patterson stuff and we will be later on that is in Adobe Audition in front of me. And I have the waveform and I can sort of go through and pick which sections and bookmark stuff and things like that.

I was trying to get, I had recorded the Catholic Answers program that Jimmy Akin mentioned on his blog.

And Coach chuckles at all the rabbit trails Dr. O is taking today. Yes, Dr. O is, Dr. Oakley is my, my nick and channel.

And yes, I always chase rabbits. It's, it's, but it's even more fun to chase them the week before Christmas, especially when it's going to get nice and cold today.

Did you feel, did you feel the chill in the air, Rich? Did you, it's, you can tell it's coming.

You know, I got down to 47 this morning. 47. Well, it's going to get, it's going to get colder. Yeah, if you can feel it out there, there's, there's, there's air moving in and it's going to, they're, they're only talking upper fifties tomorrow for a high.

So upper fifties. I heard lower sixties. I, I'm, well, you know, I've got a little, little weather thingy here.

You know, I got rid of weather bug. Did I tell you that? Did I give you the new thing? I still like weather bug. I like it.

Well, you know, you know me, I get something I like and I want to hang on to it. You know, you're always,

I know that is not, that is not true. I used weather bug for a long time and I subscribed to it, but then it stopped working after this, that windows update.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. And when it, and you know, the revenge of bill, the revenge of bill. And when you try to tell these people that you know what you get, they, they, they've got these email filters.

It catches keywords and it sent me back how to install weather bug. I know how to install weather bug.

That's not what I was asking. You can't get human beings to respond to your questions. So you call and you get, you end up talking with a guy named

George with an Indian accent. His name isn't George. Come on.

And he still doesn't know what you're saying. So I just, I gave up on it. And besides a irrational who is an

American Canadian, don't ask me to explain that. Uh, gave me the heads up on this thing and it works really well.

And this is talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday showers. Really Monday, 55, 57.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. And it's talking to 64 on Christmas day. I wonder if there'll be snow, snow up north.

I bet there will be. Yeah. Yeah. But they're talking 59 tomorrow, 56 on Thursday. You know, no one really cares about this, do they?

The, uh, alpha omega ministries, um, desert metropolis weather update has been brought to you by Kellogg's.

Yes. Well, anyways, they don't, no one would want to bring this to you because they wouldn't want to sponsor this cause they'd be offending everybody.

Anyway, what in the world was I talking about? Oh, um, I was recording the

Catholic answers program because Jimmy Akin mentioned that he, they had a call about me.

So I've, I recorded it. But the problem was I forgot I was recording it and I was recording it using total recorder, recording real audio so that I could then have a

MP3 waveform to look at. And I could look at various parts of it and I forgot about it.

So I kept recording for some reason, total record just kept on going. And so I'm sitting here before the program, trying to load this thing.

And I noticed the wave file was 1 .4 gigabytes. So I, I trans,

I converted to MP3 and it was still massive. And finally, when it opens after like taking five minutes, so it opens like two minutes before the program starts here,

I see that it's 66 % of nothing. It's just blank. So I've deleted that.

I haven't saved it yet. Cause if I save it, we're going to be sitting here and I'm going to be singing for the next five minutes while I was trying to save this poor thing.

So that, that's what was good. So I haven't had a chance to, to actually get the, the little pointer to where it needs to be to only catch the call that asked about me.

So we're going to have to sort of just listen to it together and, and, and see what, what happens.

So if you're ready over there, Mr. Soundman person, let's see if we can find this.

Is that the faithful can perform a penance and thus make reparations and all what their own inclinations are.

As far as try to vary it based on the gravity of what you're confessing, um, something nine, three, eight, seven, 7 ,200 or call the show in the future.

Yeah. I like your, uh, show. I've been listening to it while I've been up here at school in Moberly, Missouri.

Very good. Anyone. I often say there are no bad questions, only bad answers. I think we're about there.

Thank you very much. I bless you today. Blessed, blessed Christmas to you, Nathan. Merry Christmas. All right. So based on what you said,

Jimmy, if I tell the priest that an hour of laying out on the beach is more conducive as a penance for me.

Well, there are, there are limits. All right, let's go to, uh, let me see here.

Where is he? There's Todd in Galveston. Todd, we've got about a minute or so. We want to help you out. Go ahead. Yes, sir.

Thank you very much for those ministry. I really appreciate that. You're welcome. What, what is y 'all's opinion on, uh, the arguments of, uh,

James White? Well, I'd say it depends entirely on what arguments, uh, you have in mind.

Um, if you mean his arguments against, uh, King James only ism, I think there's considerable more merit to him than his arguments against Catholicism.

Um, so I would say that it, it depends on what subject we're talking about. Well, I'm not,

I'm not very impressed with those. I hate, um, because I think that he proceeds from a, with respect to Catholicism, he proceeds from a position where he doesn't fully understand what he's critiquing.

And he, he has, he does not give the benefit of the doubt to Catholics on any subject.

I think what he does is he, or I should say he seldom does, uh, what he tends to do in my impression is, um, he reads

Catholic books looking for ammo, not looking for understanding. And as a result,

I don't think he has a very deep understanding of Catholic, uh, theology and practice. And consequently, um, he, his arguments suffer.

I also think his arguments suffer because he fails to recognize the degree of flexibility in biblical language.

And he tends to treat biblical texts as if they're mathematical equations that can be decoded and yield one rigorous interpretation.

And, uh, and I think that there is considerable more flexibility in language than that.

And there's considerable more mystery than that in the Bible. And we have to acknowledge that. Todd, that's all.

So there were the comments, um, gotta admit, uh, long on assertion, very, very short on specifics, but let's, let's try to be as, uh, charitable as we possibly can be here.

Uh, Jerry Usher did say we have about a minute. And so that means I'm assuming that just as I do,

I, I sit here and, uh, if someone calls into the program with, uh, and you know,

I'm looking at a clock. I, I know I have time on it. That's, that's part and parcel things. And so I can't be overly picky about the fact that no specifics are provided, but it also makes it next to impossible to respond to it.

I mean, I could say all those things about James Aiken. Okay. I could say, uh, that, uh, that I don't find his argumentation to be at all biblically oriented.

It, it tends to be, uh, uh, non -exegetical. His, his comments about the original language is not, to my knowledge, you know,

I've been seeing much more about James Aiken suggesting language resources and stuff. But most of you know that the only interaction we've had, at least recently, uh, regarding biblical languages had to do with his claims about John six.

And for years I had been pointing out that Catholic apologists were using his material and his material was wrong.

It was just bad in his claims in a radio debate that we had done. And it was actually a radio debate where he had equal amounts of times and stuff.

Uh, many, many years ago on KIXL in, um, in Austin, Texas, I believe is where it was.

And I had pointed out in writing years ago that he was wrong in identifying, uh, some verbs in John six is inceptive eras.

And I had pointed, I'd gone into the language and explain how these doesn't fit into the category.

And yet I would see amateur Catholic apologists all the time on the web repeating this stuff because it was posted on his website.

And even just a couple of years ago, a guy who used to come into channel, we eventually had to ban him because he couldn't, uh, avoid using four letter words, which seems to be endemic these days for many people, not just Catholics.

Um, and that he used the, the, uh, the Nick Savant in, um, in the, in the channel, he called in and he asked, uh, the, uh,

James Aiken about it. Jimmy, it was, I think it was before the Jimmy change, but anyway, he asked about it and, uh, didn't get much of a response then either.

Finally within the past year, I sent the audio file of that call to Mr.

Aiken and I explained on my blog again, the problems with his position and his response was to go, wow, was

I completely wrong about that? And so the only time we've actually had interaction where it got down to dealing with syntax and things like that, he's, he's had to admit he was completely, totally wrong, which means the primary argument he used against John six and our debate was he now admits completely wrong.

So I guess he must now admit he completely lost that debate. But what is he referring to as far as the language?

I don't know. I don't get the feeling that he's read most of my material in any way, shape or form.

The only thing I can think about, uh, that he may be referring to would, would be, for example, the, my pointing out that justification, we have been justified in Romans five, one, that's another place where there's been a little bit of give and take through another person with him, especially regarding the textual basis of, um, uh, whether you have a indicative or a subjunctive in Romans five, one with Ekerman and things like that.

But anyway, maybe that's what he's referring to. I don't know. Maybe he's, he doesn't feel that you can actually determine that an action is in the past in Romans five, one, by looking at the grammar, maybe he feels it should be a mystery or something.

You know, it's odd that Rome can see such incredible, uh, detail in something like the protevangelium in Genesis three, that results in the immaculate conception or something.

But we can't look at the, uh, at the actual verb in Romans five, one, and come up with any meaningful, uh, idea of what it's actually saying.

So I don't know what he's referring to. He doesn't give any examples. I would love to hear some examples of this alleged misuse of the languages on the part of someone that to my knowledge is self -taught, uh, which you can do.

I, I helped actually sort of, uh, there's a fellow who's a, uh, a minister working on his, uh, doctoral degree, uh, back

East and, um, contacted me before he went into a seminary and said,

I want to learn Greek now. So I don't have to learn in seminary. I can just, I can move forward and go farther.

And I said, man, I'll tell you, not many people do that. There, the fact of the matter is I would say that a nine and a half out of 10 of the people who try to do that are going to fail.

95 out of a hundred ain't going to make it because they just don't have the discipline. There needs to be discipline. There needs to be scheduling.

And a lot of us just aren't disciplined in our personal lives in that way, but it can be done that the resources really, honestly, there are more resources today for learning the original languages than, uh, there ever has been the past, uh, the computer programs and, and online stuff.

And, and, you know, Bible works 6 .0 has flashcards and almost any decent, uh,

Greek program today does, uh, have a flashcards and parsing programs. And, and there's just a lot of stuff out there.

I had, I had suggested to my friend that he uses, use mounts as grammar and a workbook and, uh, get the tapes of, of Dr.

Mounts presenting the material and so on and so forth. And he did, he tested out of Greek and did two master's degrees at master's seminary in the time that you normally do one.

And, uh, so it can be done, but like I said, for, for every one story like that,

I have got zillions of other stories of people that tried, bought the books.

The books look very nice on their bookshelf, but, but they never, they never got anywhere.

So it is quite possible. James Aiken is obviously a very intelligent man. Uh, and he does have time.

Uh, he has time on his hands and, uh, uh, and I will tell her, babe, right? If I read his blog, he's one of the 11 blogs

I have in my RSS feed. And, uh, uh, there are many times there are a lot of things that Jimmy Aiken and I, Aiken and I agree a hundred percent on.

Um, I mean, there, if you want a good example of where, you know, people say, well, you know, uh, we, we can stand side by side on the pro -life issue.

Well, here's the situation. Yeah, we could. In fact, it would be scary. I think, uh, if, if, uh, you know, if there, if I could,

I could just imagine someday some situation happening where there is some person promoting, uh, abortion and, uh,

Aiken and I ended up on at the same time against the guy, it would be ugly. I mean, we'd tag team him probably very, very well because we see very much the same things and we come to the same conclusions and argue in a lot of the same ways.

Um, so I read what he has to say. I also like his science fiction stuff and, and I'm a

Trekkie. And so I, I like reading stuff like that. And, uh, he, he obviously has a lot of time to do a lot of reading that I don't get to do, uh, because at least he doesn't deal with a lot of the areas that I, I unfortunately have to deal with, uh, or do deal with by simple choice, but be that as it may, uh, he's an intelligent man and maybe he has taught himself the language, but I don't think that puts him in a position to make that kind of a comment, at least without providing specifics.

I would not want, if, if someone asked me a question with one minute to go, I don't know that I would answer the way that he did without immediately making sort of an apology by saying,

I'd like to get into specifics. I'll get into specifics next time. I'll, I'll post specifics on my blog. I'll do something along those lines, uh, because that's a, this is sort of a general shot that, uh, you know, uh, really doesn't accomplish anything, especially since we,

I can't, how am I supposed to respond to that? You know, it's, it's extremely difficult to do. So I would like to invite, uh,

Jimmy Akin to be a little more specific, uh, maybe from, uh, my published works where he would like to demonstrate that, uh, that I have done this.

Um, it's odd because I believe it was Jimmy Akin who wrote the first review.

Catholic Answers has only acknowledged the existence of a couple of my books. Um, everybody, but King James only people love my

King James only book. Uh, but, uh, uh, they've only acknowledged like the fatal flaw.

They've responded to maybe a grand total of two and a half paragraphs, the Roman Catholic Controversy. And I was told back in 1991, probably

January of 91, maybe a little after that. Now that I think about it, that they were going to respond to all of my books.

All of my books were going to be reviewed in, uh, this rock magazine and that that didn't happen, but I believe it was

Jimmy Akin back then, James Akin, who wrote the review of the fatal flaw for Catholic Answers.

And one of the things he said was, this is not your standard anti -Catholicism. It's not your standard

Jack Chick type stuff. This is on a completely different level. So, you know, maybe over time, his opinions changed.

I don't know. But, uh, you know, that's, uh, that's the way, the way it is. So anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and try to save this thing.

That's, that's, that's, uh, it's only telling me 38 seconds. That's, that's not too bad. It's a whole lot better than 1 .4

gigabytes. Can you imagine the fragmentation factor I'm going to have on that drive once I get all this cleaned up?

What a mess. But anyways, I'll remember in the next time to delete all the dead air.

So we're going to continue on with looking at Dr. Patterson's presentation on the

Doctrines of Grace. Um, I, well, let me just mention just in passing for those of you who are on the

RBDL Reform Baptist discussion list, or you're familiar with, um, you know, sometimes people will, will cross post things, will mention things that, uh, uh, that are there.

Um, I will be responding, uh, to the material that appeared on RBD, on, there was a reference in RBDL to a post made by Paul Kayes of Discerning Reader on Derek Webb's web board.

And, uh, that is the, uh, the, the blog article that is in the works right now. I'll be posting that hopefully, uh, shortly after the dividing line, if not sometime tomorrow, uh, because I haven't,

I actually believe it would be possible if I had the technology to blog while driving, but seriously, uh, because there is blog software for the, uh, the

Tungsten T3, there is a client that will work. And so it'd be a matter of getting the connection between my

T3 and my new mobile phone, uh, which would allow for the digital connection.

It is possible. Uh, however, I also happened to know that if I have to take this trip this afternoon,

I will be driving on, uh, one of the most dangerous roads in America, uh, based on...

I was going to say, I just assumed you didn't do that. You know what

I'm talking about. That's a tough road to drive. There's a lot of white crosses on the side of the road. A lot of white crosses between here and Las Vegas.

Oh, did I just mention where I had to go? Uh, well, don't worry folks. Just picking someone up who's going to be stranded there.

Anyway, um, yeah, it's a tough road to drive. That's, uh, that's going to be, but, um,

I may be driving a fairly new vehicle up there, which handles quite nicely.

Uh, just need to make sure that we're well within the speed limit because of the color of the vehicle sort of tends to attract it.

Um, uh, you're going to start posting links to the Divine Line on the blog today. Okay.

Well, I need to agree to the form of these. That's what, that's what we need to... Well, it's just going to be what we post at the, uh, on the other page, except it's going to have the hyperlink to the

RAM file and the description of the program. Good. That's all. Good. I, I just, we just need to make sure that it fits in with, with what everything else is.

But the nice thing about that is, is that folks who use the RSS reader, uh, technology... Well, no, when it's finally, when it's finally actually available.

When I get it up there, eventually, they will be notified.

But you know what happens? You, you upload the file and then you get busy and you don't upload the link. And this would actually show you how simple it is.

And if I get in that condition and you can't find me, uh, you could post it yourself pretty easily.

I've wanted to be able to do that. But my understanding was that was a PHP, uh, thing, isn't it?

Uh, this would, this would do an end around. Good. The PHP thing. Then I can do that. That's fine.

It just, I, I just didn't figure you wanted me touching your PHP stuff. And no, my, my SQL on the, on the website,

I sort of figured that you would scream and, uh, and arm yourself and it would be ugly. Well, those of us who've been developing the, uh, the new technology you're using, uh, we didn't want to tell you this, but you're actually using, uh, my

SQL every time you post. Oh, I know that. I happen to know that. Yeah. I happen to be learning things.

I understand that all my blog articles are going into a database and the database is searchable. And yes, I know.

Cool. Thanks. Nice to the disembodied voice. Once again, leaves 877 -753 -3341.

Um, what's happened to the phone calls? We used to have lots and lots of phone calls. Have I just been, uh, talking?

I can't possibly be that, that what I'm saying is, is of, uh, that level of interest actually.

Uh, oh, look at that. Um, I can now, I, I'm just looking at stuff that you can, you can get for your handheld.

I just got an email in. It is amazing what is out there. It truly is. The, the, uh, the Bible stuff's getting better and better all the time.

We can talk about the Aussies. Yeah, I mentioned, I mentioned what happened down there with that, that lawsuit.

And man, this one dude down in Australia. Woo. I get some very, very, very interesting.

Uh, what can I say? Um, we're paranoid. No, these folks are, why are people, why would someone like that guy that was writing to you all day yesterday even read my blog?

That I don't understand. I didn't understand because he ended up being anti -reform didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. What?

I don't get it. Why? I don't understand. That's really very odd. Oh, I just got another really interesting one.

I'm sorry, but someone who really, really, really, really, really, really detests me and is really nasty about it.

Um, someone just sent out an email saying that their website disappeared. And he's, he's sending out emails to everybody.

Uh, help me, help me find my website. Where'd it go? I don't know.

I probably shouldn't laugh at it. Yeah. That happened to us once. What do you mean? Don't you remember years ago? Two weeks we were down.

Yeah. That's because we got, uh, kind of conned by a reseller and the reseller wasn't paying his bills and all the resellers, uh, accounts got deleted.

And then the people who actually own the site, um, kind of left us hanging. Uh huh. It was ugly.

Oh, well, I kind of commiserate with that. I don't remember recommending that person, that reseller to this guy.

But who knows? Who knows? It's been so long ago and I'm, I'm old and I forget things.

Uh, yes, this show has turned into a real time discussion of my inbox, which is an interesting thing.

Actually, uh, my inbox is fascinating. And I, for those of you who are wondering about whether you should get a spam filter type thing of a

Bobby. Now I know some of the purists like Shamgar and channel do not like my spam filter because it's the challenge type and you have to, and it increases mail stuff.

I understand that. However, since February 7th of last year, uh,

I, I could bring up the saying, but it might, might slow down our feet. It's got to remember we're using a single feed here just to, to, to throw this stuff out there.

Uh, let, let me look here real quick. Since February 7th, then we have a call. I have a call from the UK. I'm going to be heading over to the

UK very soon. And, uh, then I'm going to have even a better accent than I do now.

So, uh, let me see here. Um, uh, overview. It is night.

Oh, goody. Today I pass a landmark. Since, uh, February 7th, 19 ,909 spam emails rejected.

6 ,172 messages were forwarded. That's a total of 26 ,000 email messages since February of last year.

That's in 10 months. That's 2 ,600 emails a month. However, 76 % of them are not real.

There we go. So in fact, in my, my unverified thing right now,

I mean, I cleaned this out this morning. Oh, check this out. Someone from ailmen .org

has sent me something, but it's no one who was really at ailmen .org. So they're spoofing the, uh, the, uh, the website address.

Isn't that great? I just love this stuff. Uh, oh, cool. Well, that means the phone calls have gotten started.

So we can go ahead and get started with them. So let's talk to our friend over in the United Kingdom first.

Hello, Jason. Hiya. How you doing? I'm fine. Did you know I'm heading over there? Uh, yeah, yeah.

When, when was it the year going again? Is it March? It's in March and I'll be in, uh, mainly around, uh,

London and then up to Edinburgh, you know, and, uh, uh, preaching a number of times.

We'll be able to put something up on the website soon. So that'll be good. Do you live close enough?

We might be able to see you. Uh, well, I'm actually, uh, at university at the moment in, uh, in Ayr.

Oh. I could get to Edinburgh pretty well. So the university is in the Ayr. Is it, like, elevated or what?

Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Higher education, yeah. Yeah, higher education.

Yeah, that's very good. That's very good. And we always thought Monty Python had all the humour left in England. Yeah, well, anyways.

Yeah, I'm doing my teacher training there. Oh, yes. You're going to be working for the government, aren't we?

Uh -huh. Yeah. Teaching, uh, I'm going to teach religious education. So I have to teach about all the different world religions and...

Oh, and how do you plan on doing that without going insane? Well, it's, uh, there are certain things that, um, you know, that I think that I can still promote, you know, that, you know, that truth is important and, you know, we've got to, you know, examine things carefully and I think you can, you know,

I think that, and I, you know, I can also make sure that my own position is represented fairly because, you know, it is true.

That's true, but you're going to be a lot of pressure, you know. Yeah. So anyways, what is your question today?

Uh, yeah, I was going to ask a question related to baptism. Baptism? Yes, you know, um, a little while ago

I went to that, um, conference, the, uh, the Protestant Reform Church, and they had a little question and answer session and it turned into a bit of a

Baptist bashing session. Um, and one of the things that they said...

They bashed Baptists in Britain. Quite a lot. And one of the things that they said was that, um, uh, the problem with baptism is that it doesn't take into account the, uh, you know, the covenant.

Yeah. Because, you know, as they see it, the children of believing parents, uh, you know, are part of the covenant by virtue of the fact that they're, you know, the children of believers.

And, uh, and if you, um, you know, don't believe in paedo -baptism, then you're actually cutting them off from the covenant.

And let me explain something for those of us here in America. Paedo -baptism for you is pedo -baptism for us, which is infant baptism.

I just want people to understand what you're saying. Okay. Um, but the question

I was going to ask you is, as Baptists, um, you know, can we believe that the children of, you know, of believing parents are in what some sense, uh, you know, part of the covenant by virtue of being, you know, um, the children of believers?

Let me get real serious here for a moment after I noticed this note that someone on channel has said for $47, you can get a real player filter that removes bad

British accents. So not yours, mine. So I really appreciate Sam for pointing that out.

Uh, you're of course dealing with the, the primary area of discussion and area of discussion that comes up,

I would say probably monthly in Prosepolis Gion in the chat channel. The reason it does, of course, is because we have a mixture there of primarily

Presbyterians and, and, uh, Calvinistic Baptists, Reformed Baptists. And so that's one of the biggest areas of discussion.

Well, I'm sure that they did. And, uh, I'm, I'm very accustomed to that. Most of the folks who use that kind of attitude, to be perfectly honest with you,

I discovered they have never, ever interacted with any serious

Reformed Baptist publications. For example, there is a, uh, a new publication that, uh, the next edition is going to be shipping within the next couple of weeks called the

Reformed Baptist Theological Review. And in the current, uh, edition of that, and then in the next one,

I have, uh, a two -part article on what I think that the primary issue here is.

And the primary issue that, that separates, uh, my Presbyterian brothers, and notice

I use the term brothers there, ancestors, sorry, don't want to be sexist here, especially when talking to a

Brit, um, uh, in, and they're, they're Reformed Baptist, hopefully brothers and sisters, is the nature of the covenant.

What covenant are we talking about? Uh, we're not talking about the covenant of grace. Because even from a

Presbyterian perspective, the covenant of grace is with the people who will experience

God's grace and are going to be saved, unless they're going to assume that every child of parents who are in the, it's the new covenant, are automatically saved.

That wouldn't be the case. Besides, when you look at the covenant of grace, which a Reformed Baptist believes in, a Reformed Baptist believes, a

Reformed Baptist is a covenant theologian. A Reformed Baptist believes in the covenant of grace.

That is, that, that God has acted from Adam onward in a gracious fashion, in a covenantal fashion, that there's this covenant of grace.

It takes different forms. Uh, in fact, some of the older, uh, language even used the term different dispensations, though that was before dispensationalism came along.

But we would point out that the covenant of grace has never had, as a constituent part of its constitution, the giving of the covenant signs to all children.

Think about it. If you start with Adam, from Adam to Abraham, what covenant signs were given to the children of members of the covenant of grace?

Oh, that would be circumcision, was it? Uh, I said from Adam to Abraham. Oh, yeah.

Of course. There wasn't any, right? No, there wasn't, no. Now, from Abraham to the inauguration of the new covenant, circumcision was only given to males, right?

Yeah. Not to females. And so, the question becomes, if giving covenants, those covenant signs to your children, is a constituent element of the covenant of grace, why, all the way to the new covenant, do you not see it being given to all children?

Because it never is, up until paedo -baptism, which is given to both males and females.

So, we would say, look, we believe in the covenant of grace. The problem is, we believe that the new covenant is a better covenant, with a better mediator, based on better promises.

And that's why the article that I have in the Reformed Baptist Theological Review deals with the nature of the new covenant, based upon Hebrews 8 and 10, the new covenant of Jeremiah 31, and it goes into this very issue, and fundamentally, when you boil it all down, the argument is, is the new covenant a mixed covenant, like the old covenant was, where you have both elect and non -elect members within it?

Yeah. Or, is it a covenant that is only with the elect, that is, I believe,

Hebrews 8 is very clear in saying, that everyone who's in the new covenant knows

God, and has remission of sins. And the only people I know of who know

God, and have the remission of sins, are the elect. And so, I see the new covenant as co -extensive with the invisible church with the elect, and a

Presbyterian sees the new covenant as like the old covenant, having a mixture of the elect and the non -elect within it, and that's why the covenant signs, as they see that, can be given to people that they would admit they do not know are elect, or given the evidence thereof.

They said they like to assume that they are, until they see evidence to the contrary. Yeah. Which is a bit presumptuous,

I thought. Well, that presumptive regeneration is sort of the Northern Presbyterian view.

You've got Southern Presbyterians who say, no, no, no. Even though they're in the covenant community, and this is sort of the terminology that's used by some, they want to talk about the covenant community, which becomes equal to the external church, which is different than the actual membership of the covenant.

And the problem is with that, that sounds interesting, I just, the problem is that it creates confusion. I don't see that anywhere in the

New Testament. And so that's different. So hopefully you recognize that when

I'm talking about Northern Presbyterians, Southern Presbyterians, I'm talking about here in the United States, not their kingdoms today.

But anyways, so that to me is the issue, is what is the nature of the new covenant? And the vast majority of the folks who give you the kind of terminology they gave you, and they won't call me a

Reformed Baptist, I get what I call the Presbyterian Pat, where I get pat on the head, and someday you'll understand.

No, I do know what the arguments are, and I don't accept the arguments having reviewed them.

That's the situation here. But the vast majority of them have never, ever, ever taken the time to listen to a counter argument that would point out the nature of the covenant, and as a result of that, bring in issues like I bring in.

That is, how is Jesus the mediator of the new covenant to a child that receives the covenant signs, but is not of the elect?

How does Jesus, how is he the mediator? How does he intercede on behalf of non -elect individuals?

I mean, I don't know what distinctions they make. Well, I don't get a lot of clear answers to that kind of statement, to be perfectly honest with you, because it's normally not the kind of discussion that takes place.

I found that they were sort of almost sort of saying one thing and then saying another.

It was very, very confusing. Well, you know, I think it's something that needs to continue to be discussed.

It can be discussed in a way that's honoring to the Lord, but let's face it, it also is very difficult.

We've had problems in the channel because, look, both of us, both sides,

Presbyterians, Mefore and Baptists, are very committed to what we believe, and we're all sinners, and so sometimes we end up stepping on somebody else's foot, and there can be some hard feelings that result.

But we have discussed it. We've tried to do so on a biblical basis, and we do so fairly regularly because it keeps coming up.

And really, there's no question that the

Presbyterians have Reformed Baptists beaten completely on the level of how much literature they've published.

Okay? There's no question about that. But I think if you would take the best that Reformed Baptists have to offer and the best the

Presbyterians have to offer, one of the problems you'd immediately have, immediately, that right there, is figuring out, well, which of the many different Presbyterian views are you going to make representative of Presbyterianism?

There's a lot of unity on the Reformed Baptist side on this issue. A lot of unity.

You look at Fred Malone's The Baptism of Disciples alone. You look at what Richard Burcellos writes. Look at what I write. You look at what

Jim Renahan writes. Greg Welty. We're on the same page. But there are,

I mean, look at a book like the one edited by Greg Strawbridge, Infant Baptism, A Covenantal Defense of Infant Baptism.

There are, within chapters that are right next to each other, there are contradictions.

Clear, completely different views, for example, what the New Covenant is. How do you respond to that?

That's not easy. Because if you respond to the view of Richard Pratt, then you've got another view over here.

You've got the people who see the New Covenant and end times fulfillment. And the New Covenant's this. The New Covenant's that. What's the nature of covenant children?

You've got Northern Presbyterian versus Southern Presbyterian. And I mean, that's why there's the whole Auburn Avenue controversy, is because of differing ways of interpreting these things.

Oh, thank you very much. Might want to turn my thing down there. That, by the way, is the

RSS reader telling me that I have a new blog entry to read somewhere out there on the internet. But you might want to turn the computer down so that we don't have that happening.

Anyway, that's a nice little, nice little, you call them doorbells over there.

Are they just ringers? They're bells. What are they? Sorry? You know, a doorbell. What do you call that in Britain? A doorbell.

Oh, there you go. Well, you see, you don't have a subway. You've got a tunnel, right? We call them subways as well sometimes.

Oh, well, we're slowly working on you. There's more of us than there are of you, you know. But anyway, so that'll give you some idea of what some of the issues are.

I would highly recommend comparing something like the

Strawbridge book, which is put out by PNR. It's a reputable Presbyterian and Reformed publishing house. And the

Baptism of Disciples loan. Read both of them. Check them out. Listen to the arguments and check it out for yourself.

It's well worth the investment of time. Okay. All right, sir. Thank you very much.

Well, I hope something works out to where you'll be able to maybe say hi when

I'm over there or something. Maybe you'll have to go into the city or something. I don't know. Well, I'll go down to London if I'm free.

London. All right. Thanks a lot. Okay. Sorry, that was just too much.

That's RSS reader. That's a little ding dong. It was telling me that someone somewhere has and it was on.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, look, everybody. I never thought

RSS reader just about had a heart attack because the new article.

The new article is on E Nielsen's blog. Wow. That's three.

That's three blog articles in December on Eric Nielsen's blog that.

Wow. Can we take a moment just simply to just just wow, man. I'm it says happy holidays.

I have a tear in my eye right now. I do. I really do. I'm sorry.

I love E Nielsen and I fear his wife. I have to tell you the story someday about how

Eric found out he had an appendix problem. But that's that's either here or there.

We have fun here, especially when you're when you're staring at a 12 hour, 12 hour round trip that you might be doing.

Anyways, let's we have hopefully have time to talk with Pierre. Hi, Pierre. Hello, Pierre.

Hi. How are you? I was going to I had actually a series of questions.

All right. To ask you what to define some of your terms just so I can have a better understanding of where you're coming from.

All right. And I wanted to. Ask you to define what your define what your definition of justice is.

Justice is justice to you. What is and justification? Are they the same? Are they related?

Well, justification is a specific term. And if we're talking about justification in the context of of Paul's discussion,

Romans or Galatians and how a man is justified, obviously it is related to justice in the

Old Testament. The Old Testament teaches that God's throne is built upon justice and that it is an abomination for a judge, for example, to declare just a man who is not just, who is unrighteous.

So there is the legal or forensic sense of being right in regards to the law and the necessity of judges judging properly in accordance with the law and not taking bribes and not being corrupt and so on and so forth.

That lies behind what it means for God as the judge, God the Father, to declare someone just or righteous based upon the work of Jesus Christ in their behalf.

As in Romans chapter 8, where Paul says, who will bring a charge against God's elect?

And that, of course, you know, that's legal language. That's law court language. Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

And then the answer is no one can because God is the one who justifies. And Jesus Christ is the advocate, the one who died and rose again.

He stands in their place. So there is no ability for a charge or condemnation to be brought against those that God justifies because Christ has died in their place.

And I think you're probably aware, Pierre, I'm sorry, in passing that that was something

Joseph Smith did not understand because he altered the text without any basis in the text of the

New Testament itself, where it says in Romans chapter 4 that God justifies the ungodly.

He put in the word not. God does not justify the ungodly. He did not understand the entire central core of the gospel at that point, that it's only the ungodly that hear the message of grace and faith.

Those who think themselves to be righteous are the ones who don't understand it. It is the ungodly who are declared right on the basis of what

Christ does in their behalf. So that to me is one of the major, major differences between at least

Mormonism, as Joseph Smith presented it, which is not necessarily what we have today, and the biblical presentation.

As far as God being just, by the way, as that goes, God is the very standard of justice.

And every person will either receive justice or mercy. Those are the two parameters.

Those are the two categories. You will either be held accountable and receive the penalty that is due to your sin.

Either you pay the penalty of your sin or a substitute pays the penalty of your sin. That's where mercy comes in.

You equate then justice really with punishment, it sounds like. No, justice will always result in punishment where sin is involved.

And sin is a universal element in man's experience. What about the principle of fairness in the whole concept of justice?

You don't think that plays a role? Well, it depends on what you mean by fairness. If it is the application of law, then of course.

And God is always fair at that point outside of having mercy.

Mercy and grace have to be free. It's not an issue of fair. If you want fairness from God, everybody gets the same thing, condemnation, because we're all sinners.

So we don't want that. The issue... Go ahead. No, go ahead. I think that you're quite wrong on that issue here.

I think that God will ultimately be proven to be fair in his dealing with all his children.

Looking at it from the reformed position, though, this is where I wanted to discuss that with you.

It sounds like there is no fairness in God, and therefore there is really no justice, at least in the way that most people understand the concept of justice.

Well, what is unfair about God condemning sinners and having mercy on whom he will have mercy?

Because number one is our circumstances in which we're born. First of all, let me point out that John Calvin made it very clear that our judgment actually came before we were even born.

We're all, those of us who end up in hell, end up there because God has just simply decided he's not going to save us.

He's not going to make an effort to save us. He has created us as vessels of wrath. John Calvin never said anything even remotely like that.

I can quote him for you. I'll have to figure it out, but I have his... Feel free to do so. But the problem is,

Pierre, I know Calvin better than you do and have read him a lot longer than you have. Next time I call,

I'll quote him for you. You go ahead and do so. Pierre, let me just correct you. Do you want to be corrected or do you want to remain in your ignorance?

Go ahead. Okay, good. Um, he did say that God's judgment is eternal, but you then added the common humanistically based idea that God does this solely, and that's where you're wrong.

That's what he didn't say. You see, he clearly and repeatedly and with emphasis defended the justice of God in regards to our sin, and he never used the only phraseology that you and Dave Hunt and others try to use to misrepresent him.

Now, you probably do that simply because you don't believe it and you don't understand it and it's a rhetorical device.

I know he said that we were judged from eternity, but it was your interpretation that followed it that he would look at you and say, man, you've been reading my books.

Which part of my books have you been reading? That's what immediately catches my attention, because you're not the only one that's done it.

I mean, at least you have, I'll give you this, Pierre, at least as a Mormon, you have every reason in the world to take the position that you do.

I mean, I don't know if you ever heard the radio discussion. You know who Van Hale is, right? Yes. I don't know if you ever heard the radio discussion he and I had on Reformed Theology.

Have you? I did. You have it on, it was on your... I don't remember. Believe me, my website's big.

What do you call the other ones you have, where you archive your... Yeah, but it was just he and I that were, it was just he and I.

There weren't really any phone calls. It was very calm. I don't know if that's, if we make that one available.

I don't know. I'll have to look myself. But if you have heard that, then you've heard me say to him, look, given what you believe about God and about Scripture, I can't possibly see how you could believe what

I believe. And remember what Van said. Van's response was, well, given what you believe about the

Bible being inerrant, and you're starting presuppositions, what you believe makes perfect sense.

So the conversation can take place. At least you have a basis for doing that. It's the Armenians I don't understand, because they say they believe in a completely different God than you do.

Pierre, we'll have to continue it next time around. Thank you for calling. We'll continue talking about God's justice and justification and things like that.

Gary, sorry we didn't get to you. I think it was Glenn, sorry. But we will be back on Thursday evening, four o 'clock our time,

Lord willing, taking your phone calls and continuing on the Vining Line. Thanks for listening. God bless. We need a new

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