March 2, 2004

Webcasting 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.

Roman Catholicism, the Passion of the Christ, and the Need for a Priest

Legend has it that in later years, St. Peter, the head of the Apostles, who was by that time the first Bishop of Rome, fled the city to escape the persecution of Christians taking place there. While on the road, he met Jesus coming from the other direction.

Peter asked Jesus, Quo vadis, which means where are you going? Jesus answered that he was going to Rome to die again for his people. Chastened, Peter immediately turned around and headed back to Rome.

Now we have arrived at similar crossroads, a moment of decision or delay, action or inaction, where you must choose whether you will act on what you know to be true about Jesus. This choice is not some small matter, but one of great importance.

The time is now to seriously consider and respond to his call to follow him. What can you do to respond to what Jesus has done for you? Here are three recommendations. Number one, purchase a Bible and begin reading the Gospels.

Remember, though, that while the Bible contains life-changing eternal truth, it is not always an easy book to understand. St. Peter stated as much when he said that some can twist the Scriptures to their own destruction, 2 Peter 3 .16.

So you need to be careful. It's one thing to break a man-made law. It's far worse to get one of God's teachings wrong. That could have eternal consequences. We need to follow the lead of the Ethiopian eunuch who realized that he needed a teacher when he said, How can I understand unless someone guides me? Acts 8 .31.

This leads us to the next recommendation. If you are a non-Catholic, find a local Catholic church and meet with a priest. The Catholic church has been given the authority by Jesus to teach in his name.

By following the church that Jesus established, you can be sure that you are plugged into the apostolic faith, the faith that has been given the gifts of the sacraments, divinely given leadership, and the promise of remaining faithful until the end of time.

While there are instances when individuals in the church fall into error and sin, we need to realize that the church is both divine and human. At no point, however, will the church teach anything but the truth, because it is protected by the Holy Spirit.

God has ordained that it will be here, with the Gospel fully intact, until the end of time. If you are a former Catholic, meet with a priest to be reconciled with the church through the sacrament of penance.

Confession, although a little scary to some, is liberating. Your confession is protected by the seal of confession, which means a priest can never reveal what he has heard. Quite simply, the confessional is the safest and best place on earth to ask God's forgiveness.

Three, after a period of prayer, study, and frequenting the sacraments, become active in your faith. A believing Catholic is an active Catholic, either through apostolic works or a life of serious prayer for the rest of the church.

Your new life of faith will be a fantastic journey. Be assured of the prayer support of your fellow members of the church. Although you may never meet the humble priests, sisters, brothers, and lay Catholics dedicated to prayer, know that they are praying for you.

Well, have I gone Catholic? People are asking. No. No. You know, that is pages 77 through 79 of the book that I said I would bring to you, that I would share with you, when it arrived, and yes, it arrived yesterday, A Guide to the Passion, 100 Questions about the Passion of the Christ, brought to you by the editors of the Catholic Exchange, published by Ascension Press.

If you go to the blog, you'll see the link that I have there to evangelization .com. You can take a look at the book yourself. This book is, in essence, as I see it, the Catholic counterpart to Piper's book, except, boy, the difference is striking.

One is exegetical and biblically based, the other is anything but. But that is the difference between biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism, I guess. I want to read you, that section I just read you, that is how the book ends as to what you're to do.

There is no call to repentance, to that conversion experience of placing one's faith in Jesus Christ and abandoning all efforts at self-righteousness. Instead, go find yourself a priest. Go find yourself a priest.

That's what you need to do. Go ahead and get a Bible, but be careful. Be careful. That Bible is a dangerous thing. You only need to understand it as it's interpreted for you by somebody else. And that's what we are told.

And that's completely different than how John Piper's book ends and what it's constantly encouraging us to do and things like that. I wanted to read you part of the introduction here. We already have two callers.

That's great, because I'm going to need a caller's date. 877 -753 -3341. Both questions look like they're smack dab on target, so I'm looking forward to those. But I wanted to read this to you first. As someone involved in the distribution and marketing of the film, this is talking about the Passion of the Christ, I noticed early on the fervor with which many Protestant communities were preparing to use the film for evangelistic purposes.

Websites sprang up featuring downloadable materials about Jesus and the Gospels. Marketing companies began churning out posters and flyers promoting the film in their own faith communities. Tracks poured into circulation, making the case for Christ as the key to peace and happiness in life.

Yet, for all the sophisticated evangelization strategies, the irony is that our Protestant brothers and sisters cannot adequately speak to many of the issues and questions the film evokes because the film is so distinctly Marian, so obviously Eucharistic, so quintessentially Catholic, as is the New Testament itself.

I stopped there for just a moment. The only reason that that statement is somewhat true is if the Protestant brothers and sisters being spoken of are those who have promoted this as being the greatest Gospel presentation ever placed on film, or ever prepared, or ever made, or any of that kind of stuff.

If someone like myself, who has discussed the nature of the film, discussed the origins of the film, and knows the theology of the film, that's different, because we can give an answer, and have given an answer, to its Marian, Eucharistic, and quintessentially Catholic nature.

I continue on with the introduction of the book. In terms of effecting conversions and motivating people to weed out sin from their lives, which is what meditating on the Passion of Christ is all about, our evangelical friends have been an inspiration.

But can their theology adequately or honestly mine such cinematic gems as the Last Supper flashbacks? Though the founders of some of the prominent Protestant dominations believed in and adored the Blessed Sacrament, this fact has been lost today in huge portions of American Protestantism.

And without an understanding of Mary as our model in true Christian faith, one cannot begin to understand her significant role in the film. Only a solid understanding of the Catholic faith can help us grasp these essential elements that figure so prominently in both the scriptural record and the apostolic tradition.

The film quite accurately links the sacrifice of the cross to the sacrifice of the Mass. I have had folks actually disagree with me, and say, you're just reading into it. Well, here's the Catholic book on the subject, saying the very same thing.

I wonder if those folks who have said I was jumping to wrong conclusions will apologize. In doing so, it faithfully depicts biblical and Catholic teaching. Yet the Eucharistic connections between the Passion and the Mass are not obvious to many Catholics today.

Well, if they're not obvious to Catholics,.

Does that mean I was one of five Protestants who picked that part up? Indeed, speaking out of my own experience as a clueless Catholic ten years ago, I can only say that it's highly unlikely that such connections are obvious even to those who have been born and raised in the Church.

This is not because the connections are not there, but because so many people have not received an education in the faith that equips them to see those connections, which are quite real and are, in fact, delineated for us in the teaching of the Church.

Well, if he's saying that's Catholic teaching, most definitely it is. And if the Catholics don't see it, the Protestants are going to see it even less. And if they do, they're going to have even less of a basis upon which to dialogue with it.

Therefore, we at CatholicExchange .com see a need for this book to provide answers to some of the many questions critical to a full understanding of authentic Christianity, questions the passion of the Christ will most certainly raise.

One hundred questions, very interesting. Many of the issues that we talked about before came up. I just wanted to read one, then we'll start taking our phone calls. I think we have two lines open, or at least one line open at 877 -753 -3341.

This one is interesting. Three lines open. Please explain the strange scene, this is question 84, please explain the strange scene in which the cross on which Jesus has just been nailed is flipped over but remains suspended above the ground.

Now, I had seen that, and because I didn't see any reaction on the part of the Romans, I didn't really realize that this was meant to be presented as a miracle. And now as I look back on it, the camera angle was such that you see Mary Magdalene, the woman from the Matrix, first underneath the body of Christ, and the camera pans up, and she has this amazed look on her face, like she's looking at something that's amazing.

And I just didn't see it. I didn't make a connection there. So anyways, the question 84, where does this come from? Well, the Venerable Maria de Agreda, a Spanish nun, included this startling detail in her mystical writings about the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The film borrows picturesque details from her works, and also from the meditations of Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich on Christ's passion. The visions of these two nuns sometimes have a symbolic rather than a literal meaning.

While the Catholic Church has never declared them to be supernatural revelations, it has allowed them to be published. For centuries they have inspired genuine devotion to the truths of faith. So I guess that's where that particular scene came from, from this Spanish nun.

So there were two such sources used in the film. I found that to be rather interesting. So it's an interesting book. Obviously for those who want to see the Roman Catholic side, that book is very useful in providing that, and providing some of the background information as well.

877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341. Let's go ahead and head back to the People's Republic of Massachusetts, the places of higher learning, Cambridge, where we'd like to talk with Micah. Hi, Micah.

Hi, Dr. White.

How are you doing? I'm doing well.

I have a question about the Eucharist for you.

Yes, sir.

Some of my Catholic friends have told me that their view of the Eucharist is such that every time that the Mass is offered, that it's actually the exact same event as Christ's initial sacrifice, rather than him being offered over and over again as that Father O 'Brien quote implies.

It's actually numerically the same event. So my question is, number one, does that make sense? And number two, how would you respond to that?

Well, that is the orthodox statement, and I'm sure that O 'Brien would agree with the assertion that there is only one sacrifice that is re-presented in the Mass. And so it is a part of dogmatic theology that there is only one sacrifice, but there is a re-presentation of that sacrifice in the Mass.

Now, does that really make any sense? Well, when you start pressing on that particular issue, the Roman Catholic apologist will in essence indicate and assert at that point that since Christ was an eternal person, then his sacrifice can take on non-temporal aspects and can be re-presented through time without it being re-enacted or re-done, or be there be more than one sacrifice.

Now, of course, the question then becomes, well, are you saying then that Christ's flesh is outside the realm of time? Was Christ's flesh outside the realm of time lacrosse? There's all sorts of stuff you get into that obviously is far beyond anything that the biblical writers ever gave consideration to, and we've discussed that a couple of times on the program in the past, especially when reviewing some of the discussions by Dr. Scott Hahn on that particular issue.

Now, I've responded to it a number of times, beginning in January of 91 in a debate with Mitchell Pacwa and in each of the debates that we've done since that period of time. And in essence, I feel that the strongest response to the issue of the Eucharistic sacrifice being the same sacrifice as the sacrifice upon the cross, and I'll warn you ahead of time, this response really requires a Reformed perspective, a Reformed understanding of the Atonement, and since I'm Reformed...

I've got that, don't worry.

Well, good. Since I'm coming from that perspective, that's the only way that I can really present this, and that is, well, if that is the case, let's go ahead and grant that the Roman Catholic assertion is this is the self-same sacrifice being represented.

What was the effect of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross, according to Hebrews chapter 10, over against the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church of the effect of approaching unto that same sacrifice in the Mass?

Well, according to Hebrews chapter 10, there's an entire article on this on our website dealing with this very issue. According to Hebrews chapter 10, that one-time sacrifice perfects forever for all time those who are sanctified, those for whom it is made, in fact, and we discussed the syntax of the Greek and all the rest of that stuff in the article on the website, and I'd recommend it to your reading if you haven't seen it before.

But that is in contrast to the reality of the Roman Catholic position, and that is, any Roman Catholic who really understands what they believe, if you say, can you go to Mass 5 ,000 times in your life?

Well, yes. How about 10 ,000 times?

Yeah.

Do you live a long enough life? Could you do it 20 ,000 times? Yes. All right. But did any one of those perfect you? And in Roman Catholic theology, none of them perfect you, because the effect of the Eucharistic sacrifice in your behalf is dependent upon your disposition as you approach it.

It is limited. You are not perfected by it. You gain grace by it. But when you leave that sacrifice, you are not perfected thereby. Hence, my argument has always been that it cannot be the same sacrifice because of the fact that it is so different in its effect than the sacrifice found in Scripture.

And then I do tie that together with the fact that right before Hebrews 10, 10 through 14, beginning at the end of Chapter 9, the writer there emphasizes to us and explains to us the fact that the repetitive sacrifices of the Old Covenant pointed to their imperfection, the fact they could not perfect you.

And even if you want to use the terminology, representation of the sacrifice in the Mass has the exact same effect. It becomes a reminder of sins. In fact, if you get a chance, you might want to listen to the debate.

The debate itself was not overly useful. Both of the debates of Deningus, Roberts, and Genesis in the Mass have not been overly useful simply because of attitude and behavior issues. But at one point, in one of the two of them, I think it was the first of the two, Mr. St. Genesis makes the assertion that yes, the Mass is a reminder of sins.

And the writer of the Hebrews says that the repetitive sacrifice of the Old Covenant were an anamnesis, a reminder of sins, but our anamnesis, our reminder, our memory in the New Covenant is not of sins, but of a Savior who bore those sins in our place.

And so there's a vast contrast between the two. And so that is how I respond to that assertion. And in doing so, I attempt to present to the Roman Catholic the biblical concept of the completed work of Christ, the finished work of Christ.

And of course, that does really require you to believe in substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary atonement is a Reformed concept. And hence, it really is not the type of response that you would hear in most of Evangelicalism that is non-Reformed because you really can't offer that kind of response.

It doesn't fit with your system because you've already agreed with Rome that in essence, the atonement creates a hypothetical situation rather than an actual substitutionary one.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Is that useful?

It is useful. I was going to tell you, in a number of Catholics that I've talked to, it seems that they rail against that Father O 'Brien quote. They really don't like it because it seems to speak of Christ being offered again and again or a thousand times.

Well, you know, it's interesting. I was listening, and I understand that, and he's writing about 50 years ago. Do most of these folks listen a lot to people like Scott Hahn? Yeah, precisely. Yeah, there you go.

And that's why. That was not really the emphasis 50 or 60 years ago. And I remember I was teaching over at Golden Gate, I think this was about two or three years ago, and I was there for like two weeks, and so you'd stay in the dorms and stuff, and I was in this nice little room, and I had the radio on because there wasn't a TV in the room, and I had found a local Catholic radio station.

I was just sort of listening in as I was writing something. And they had, oh, what was his name? He wrote a shorter category.

Oh, Hardin.

Father John Hardin was on. And I about dropped my whatever it was I was doing as I listened to him finishing up a devotional, talking, and he specifically said, and people would say, oh, you can't say it because you can't document it.

Yeah, I could not track down the tape or anything else, but I heard him say it. And it was an older tape. You could tell it had been recorded a long time ago. And he was simply saying, he was talking about the beauty of seeing Christ's death in the sacrifice of the mass over and over and over again.

And now, you know, that was the voice of an older Catholicism. Now the voice of the apologetic Catholic is one sacrifice, which is dogmatically the assertion, represented, not re-sacrificed. And so, you know, I've been very careful.

If you look at the Roman Catholic controversy, I bring that out. I let them define that that way. Fine, that's wonderful. But the fact remains it does not accomplish what the one sacrifice did. And it is hard to understand the nuance that's being placed upon it when you really understand the doctrine of transubstantiation.

When you look back in church history, look what happened when transubstantiation entered into the thinking of the church at the end of the first millennium, the beginning of the second millennium. You see all the discussions coming up in regards to stuff about what to do if you drop a piece of the consecrated host and the wine.

That had never been a discussion in the church in the first thousand years. But all of a sudden it enters in, and when you understand transubstantiation, that becomes a sacrificial event unto itself. So the idea of it just being a representation of that one, like I said, I will allow them to say that, but I don't know that it really addresses the issue.

It just requires us to be more precise in our phrasing of our objection to it.

I see.

Alrighty.

Cool, thanks.

And there are a number of people here at MIT who are definitely benefiting from your ministry.

Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

God bless. Wow, I've got to stop doing that British accent if we've got people at MIT listening. I mean, those are smart folks. And they are. And I hope they can appreciate a little bit of humor once in a while.

I need it myself. It's been a rough day. It's been a long day. It's not been a good day. But, you know, if every day was a good day, would you even be thankful for them? I'd probably not. Did we lose?

I saw something scroll by there about someone falling off the line.

No?

We're okay?

All right.

We're fine. Okay, we've got plenty of room, however, at 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the toll-free phone number. And so let's see. Yes, some of the 24 listeners go to MIT. Let's go ahead and talk with Jeff in South Jersey.

Hello again, Jeff.

Hey, Dr. White. How are you doing?

Doing pretty good.

I'm actually in Valley Forge right this second.

Valley Forge.

Yeah, that's where I work.

Oh, all right.

So you're sort of hoping that your boss isn't one of the other 23 people who listen?

It's a toll-free number.

He doesn't care.

Oh, so he doesn't mind that you're not working at the moment.

It's 730 at night. I hope he doesn't mind.

What are you, a bank security guard or something? Hey, there goes the guys. They're carrying the safe out right now. But I'm too busy. I'm on the dividing line. Leave me alone. Yes, sir.

Well, anyway, just a comment on what the last caller was saying. It seems to me more that for that, the Catholic apologists kind of got caught with their figurative opinion. They had their beliefs, and then it's like, oh, that's...

Well, obviously, all of us seek to... I know that I take the time and listen to what someone else is saying. I try to listen. If I'm going to be debating, if Scott Hahn would ever debate me, then I would obviously seek to make my presentation the most effective in opposition to Scott Hahn's presentation.

I mean, that's one of the things I don't like when I have to debate someone where they've never recorded something on the subject, they've never written something on the subject, because then I cannot craft my opening to be most effective in regards to that particular individual, to use their terminology, you know, stuff like that.

And so I understand that part. But yeah, there is... It is obvious to me, anyways, that the emphasis upon that one-time aspect is meant to short-circuit the common evangelical or even fundamentalist objection at that particular point.

The problem is, many of those in that camp, because they will not think through or face difficult issues concerning the nature of substitution, the issue of pre-destination election, things like that, they end up short-circuiting their ability to really provide a fully-orbed response to that particular issue.

Gotcha. I had a quick question about Full Scriptura. Because of my Braveheart joke last week, I wasn't able to get to. I know you have an upcoming book about that.

Just about done with it.

And I enjoyed very much Keith Matheson's book, and he was very nice to me online.

Keith's a wonderful guy.

He is a very wonderful guy. I was kind of curious, since you had some of the same concerns I had regarding views...

Specifically the idea of Tradition Zero, Tradition One, Tradition Two, right?

Tradition One, Tradition Two. One of the things I always liked with, vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic Church, and kind of see...

Right.

You know, that kind of thing. And I was wondering if you knew how Jesus uses Scripture.

Yeah, I did address briefly Christ's view of Scripture. It is limited primarily to 225 pages. So, there's only so much you can do. And what I'm trying to do is, in reality, use this book as a primer, a means of exciting someone.

So they'll go out and get the Webster King set. They'll go out and track down people like Salmon or Whitaker or Good. Track down some of these older works and really dig into them. But most folks aren't going to do that.

So, I want to try to do something to where these individuals are going to be excited about this subject. At least get a good grounding in it. Even if they're not going to go far beyond that into some of the deeper stuff.

So, it is somewhat limited. I did specifically interact with Keith's assertions in regards to the issue. And, in fact, I sent, I believe, I'm trying to remember, I think I sent... Well, I know I sent something on the Canon to him.

I'm not sure if I sent that particular section. I will, one way or the other. Anyways, I did specifically, by name, make reference to his position. And pointed out that, in reality, what he says against solo Scriptura.

I had said, much earlier, in 1995, 1996, in my Roman Catholic Controversy book. In saying what solo Scriptura is not. And I had, likewise, said those in debates going back to 1993 and earlier than that.

So that, clearly, I agree with him and his concerns. The Scriptures were not given to us to be set off in a hyperbaric chamber someplace. And have an existence all of their own that's not a part of the Church.

The Church is given these Scriptures. There's a purpose in the Church, so on and so forth. But, I then took exception to the assertion that there is a, quote-unquote, apostolic tradition. That, seemingly, originates from the Apostles.

That, as far as I can tell, from Keith Matheson's perspective, is, in essence, what Irenaeus said. And that is, it's a really, really boiled down apostolic creed type thing. In regards, there's one God, created all things.

Jesus Christ is his Son, and died on Calvary's cross. And rose again the third day. Maybe that's the extent of what this is. But, somehow, this becomes necessary to properly interpreting the Bible. I did address, for example, the fact that if a Mormon comes to the Scriptures with an external authority that says plurality of gods, and then they slap that on top of the Scriptures, they're obviously going to misread the Scriptures.

But the problem is, the Bible is very clear on the fact that there's only one true God. Every one of these traditions that the early Church Fathers talk about are actually sub-biblical. They're derivative from Scripture, and I don't believe that they existed outside of Scripture.

And I basically just took umbrage with, or disagreed with, the formulation that, in essence, says there is any kind of extra-biblical, whether you want to call it revelational or not, tradition that is required to make Scripture understandable.

I think that Scripture, in and of itself, speaks with God's authority, and that it does so in such a way that does not require that external witness of some sort of tradition. So I do, by name, deal with that.

It's only probably six or seven paragraphs, but I do recognize that that position's out there, and try to make some helpful distinctions between what I'm saying and what he's saying, and, of course, what he's really representing in that is a popularized view of Heiko Obermann's viewpoint.

Yeah, I know it gets to the purse. You'll have to help me with this word.

Perspicuity.

Thank you. Scripture.

I thought something had just gone wrong with the phone line there. I was going to let you go right off.

That's why I needed a little help. But I do remember reading a review of Webster King from him where he highly recommended it.

Yes, uh-huh. Theirs came out after his, and I would be interested in knowing if he would make any adjustments in light of their work. I don't know if he would or wouldn't. I do not want to take on Keith Matheson.

I don't want anybody to think that somehow I don't think he's a wonderful guy and that there's not great stuff in his book, as there is. I just disagree with him on that point. And in regards to that particular issue of the tradition, and it sort of goes back to some of the stuff that I'm hearing from these quote-unquote reformed Catholics, and I'm not saying he's one of them, but there are those who are really developing that to a point where I'm starting to really wonder if many of them actually do believe in solo scriptura.

Well, I asked him about, say, Martin Luther, and I didn't get any impression that he didn't want the Reformation to happen or that it was unwarranted. Right, right.

Oh, no, I don't think so. I'm referring at this point to other folks where there's much more discussion of that.

And I consider myself reformed and Catholic in a small-c sense, if that meant connected to the ancient church. If it means, you know, I don't know what that means anymore, maybe I'll, like,.

Well, I'm referring to the...

I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah. I just want to make sure everybody understands. I'm referring specifically to a movement along those lines.

Well, I was excited about the movement for a little bit, then it kind of, I'm like, I'm in grad school right now, and this guy is weird, so I'm going to, you know, just move on to other things.

All righty.

Well, I appreciate your call, sir.

All right.

All right, God bless.

God bless you.

All right, bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341. We'll be going to Drew in Idaho after we take our break, and after you call 877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back.

Homosexuality, Mary as Co-Redeemer, and Church Support

Such a rarity today. So many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality. Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans.

Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at almin .org.

Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co-redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic. He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed Queen of Heaven, viewed as co-mediator with Christ and now recognized as co-redeemer by many in the Roman Catholic Church.

Mary, Another Redeemer, is fresh insight into the woman the Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single-minded devotion to God's truth. You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at almin .org.

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26-GRACE.

If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Now the pilgrim's progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to that day. And welcome back to the dividing line.

My name is James White. We are taking your phone calls today 877 -753 -3341. Let's go up to Boise, Idaho and talk with Drew. Hi, Drew.

Hey.

How are you?

Good to talk to you. I had a comment, I guess, about something in debating Calvinism. I just got one of your signed pre-order copies. It's been good. But on page 212 and 213 it's in the book Grace. I noticed the first time I read it.