July 1, 2025 Show with Dr. Thomas J. Nettles on “Defending John Gill Against the Charges of Hyper-Calvinism”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this very first day of July 2025.

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And I want to make a special announcement that today's program is brought to you in part by two very special book publishers with very similar names.

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They are hidden treasures. They're not the most well -known publishers, but they have extraordinary books that they have brought back into print.

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Particular Baptist Heritage Books, and that website is particularbaptistbooks .com,

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particularbaptistbooks .com. And God willing, we'll be announcing those websites a little later on.

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But today, I have a dear friend that I've known for decades, and I'm thrilled to have him back on the program.

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He was just on very recently on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I can never interview this brother enough.

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Always love having him on the show. He's one of the most brilliant guests that I've ever had on the program, and especially in the area of church history.

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And I'm sure that many of you who listen regularly will recognize the name

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Dr. Thomas J. Nettles. In fact, the last time

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I had him on the program, you've got to look up the archived recording of this interview as soon as this live show is over.

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I interviewed Dr. Nettles on June 17th of this year on the theme,

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Living by Revealed Truth, the Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, which is actually the title of one of Dr.

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Nettles' latest books, a biography of the great Prince of Preachers Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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But today we have another controversial theme that we are going to be addressing.

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It's controversial because the figure we are going to be highlighting today from church history has raised up controversy in the minds of many, especially those who are theologically

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Reformed or Calvinistic, and even more so if they are Baptists. There are many evangelicals outside of the

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Reformed faith that may have never even heard this name before. But first of all, let me tell you who

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Dr. Tom Nettles is. He's a renowned Baptist historian and prolific author with 38 years of teaching experience, including his 17 years at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, as professor of historical theology.

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And today we're going to be addressing the theme,

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Defending John Gill against the Charges of Hyper -Calvinism.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Dr. Thomas J.

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Nettles. Tom Nettles Yes, well, it's my honor and privilege to be here. Thank you for letting me participate in this, and I look forward to our discussion.

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Well, I think it's wise for us to start the interview by you giving us not only a little background first of who

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John Gill was, and then perhaps you can give us a definition of hyper -Calvinism, because that is the charge laid at the feet of John Gill by many, even some of our friends and people that we highly respect and agree with on most issues.

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I know that Ian Murray disagrees with you on this subject, and I believe

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Dr. Michael Hagen disagrees with you, although it's interesting that Dr.

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Hagen is involved in an organization seeking to revive interest and popularity of John Gill.

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So he obviously doesn't think that Gill was such a severe hyper -Calvinist that it would exclude benefiting from him.

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But please tell us who this giant of Christian theology, and perhaps even more so particular

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Baptist theology, John Gill was, and tell us about when he lived.

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I know that he is a predecessor of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, but tell us about John Gill.

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And then after you're finished, the description of who Gill was, tell us what an accurate definition of hyper -Calvinism is.

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Yeah, well, all that background is certainly very important to know. Gill, he was born in 1697, and so just right before the beginning of the 18th century.

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He was converted when he was 19 years old, then he began preaching when he was 23 years old after he had been tested in his local church.

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He had led a Bible study on one occasion, and then he preached a message on another. And then a church in London called him to fill their pulpit some, and there were many in the church that wanted to call him as pastor.

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There were others who did not. And so actually his first pastorate came as a result of something of a church split.

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He was pastoring, the group who did not want him eventually left that building.

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And so Gill and his congregation went back to the building in what was called the Goat Yard. And this eventually became the church that was pastored, as you mentioned, by Charles Spurgeon.

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And of course today, Peter Masters is pastor there, became the Metropolitan Tabernacle after it was the

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New Park Street pulpit. But there was a line of pastors, probably beginning with Benjamin Keech, that served as pastors of that congregation.

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Also John Rippon was a pastor of that congregation. And so Gill was there for close to 50 years.

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Rippon was there for, I think, about 60 years. Spurgeon was there for 34 years. And so they've had some very long pastorates there.

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And then Peter Masters has been there for a few decades too. But Gill was within this very difficult century theologically, this 18th century, while religion had become stagnant in England, Anglicanism was giving itself over to high degrees of sacramentalism.

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And also some of their leading pastors were toying with the ideas of deism and what is called latitudinarian theology.

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They would hold to orthodox understandings of the early councils of the church, but as far as sin and Augustinian theology and Reformation theology of sola fide and justification, they had blended a kind of moralism in with it that made them very ineffective in their evangelistic preaching.

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And the antidote to that was a series of writers who began to present apologetic literature that was very sophisticated and convincing at a highly philosophical level, but was incomprehensible from the standpoint of the people in the church, and it did not produce very sound gospel preaching, at least not in the original stages.

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Eventually someone like John Wesley was convinced by this, and he became a very plain and passionate preacher of the gospel to people.

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But then there are also some of the example of the early of the stewards, the monarchs.

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There was a very immoral example that they gave. And so the 18th century in which

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Gil lived was just plagued with all kinds of things. And so Sinianism, which is a denial of the deity of Christ and the denial of those orthodox understandings of the

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Trinity and of original sin, and once you deny the deity of Christ so forth, you make him a totally insufficient savior.

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And that was beginning to take root within many of the denominations, within Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, but general

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Baptist life was basically swallowed up by so Sinianism until Thomas Grantham and Dan Taylor actually began what was called the

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New Connection of general Baptists, and they became more evangelical, but of course maintained their

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Arminianism. Particular Baptists also were declining, but not for theological reasons.

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There was a sort of an unbending autonomy of the local churches.

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They refused to come together in any kind of associational structures to propagate the gospel on a wide scale.

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Their understanding of the call to ministry and of the fact that they must be taught by the Holy Spirit made them cast suspicion on an educated ministry.

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There was, beginning in the early part of the century, a propensity toward what is called antinomianism, which we'll try to describe later, and then there were those who were genuinely hyper -Calvinist that were a part of the early century.

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It is into this kind of situation that John Gill comes and seeks to present an evangelical witness there.

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I think that John Gill is suspected of hyper -Calvinism for two reasons, some of those preceding him and some of those succeeding him.

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He had great respect for a man named John Brine, who actually was converted under the ministry of Gill, but John Brine did adopt some of the leading traits, the distinguishing characteristics of hyper -Calvinism.

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And Gill remained his friend and recommended his writings at many levels, and so Gill has been tied in with Brine on that standpoint.

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Also there was a man named Lewis Wayman, who was a hyper -Calvinist and really defended hyper -Calvinism, but he also had some very fine sermons, theological sermons, and Gill would at times recommend

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Lewis Wayman. So because of those that were preceding him and his friendships with some of them,

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Gill has been seen as the one who perpetuated their doctrines. Now after Gill, of course, you have the phenomenon of hyper -Calvinism that was characterizing many of the particular

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Baptist churches, and Andrew Fuller was reared in one of these churches.

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And the group of Andrew Fuller and William Carey and John Sutcliffe and John Ryland Jr.,

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in which they burst out of the resistance that hyper -Calvinists had to extending the gospel through the use of means and through human effort, in order to defend that, there are many people who look back to the most prominent theologian prior to Fuller and prior to Ryland and Carey and that group, and they saw

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Gill as the one who they think perpetuated the resistance to the expansion of the gospel into the world.

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But my opinion about that is that that is judging

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Gill by other historical circumstances and is not paying close attention to his own writings and to his own ministry.

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And on the other hand, it is a misjudging of some of the vocabulary that he uses.

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So, before we get into just the particular issues related to hyper -Calvinism and antinomianism in themselves, there are a few things that I think would be good for us to know to appreciate

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John Gill. I have a chapter on him in a book I did called By His Grace and For His Glory, and the name of that chapter is

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A Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I see Gill as the reason that particular

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Baptists did not go the same way that Presbyterians did or the Congregationalists did or that the general

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Baptist did in being engulfed by Socinianism. So he was active in his confrontation of doctrinal infidelity.

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He wrote against deism. He wrote against Socinianism. He wrote against the sort of the non -evangelicalism of the

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Latitudinarians in the Anglican Church. He exposed the anti -supernatural implications of the moralism of the times that was beginning to become dominant within Congregationalism and Anglicanism.

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He was very careful in his exposition of the doctrines of sin, original sin, the necessity of condemnation because of sin, the corruption of sin, and the absolute necessity of divine grace to rescue us from not only the ravages of sin in our lives, but the eternal condemnation that came from it.

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He talked about the necessity and the certain efficacy of grace, and then on top of that, he argued for the absoluteness of the gospel in a relativistic age.

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He did not give in to relativism and to the Latitudinarianism and the moralism, but maintained the necessity of moral transformation in order to bring about saving faith in Christ.

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Also, in his preaching, this is something that I think is necessary for us to know, that he addressed the same message both to those who could be considered as sensible sinners and those who might be considered as not sensible sinners, both the cold and the unregenerate, as well as those who appeared to be under conviction.

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He would address the same message and he would address the same certainties of salvation for those who exhibited faith in Jesus Christ.

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During the time of the evangelical awakening in England, he approved much of it as to what he could.

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He approved the preaching of Whitefield, the theology of Whitefield. In fact, there are some ways in which

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Whitefield might have been more radical than Gill in his affirmation of the absolute deadness of the sinner and the fact that the sinner cannot be responsive to the preaching of the gospel.

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But Gill was approving of Whitefield and his message, and there are some aspects of Wesley that he approved, even though he engaged

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Wesley very rigorously on some of the mistakes that he thought Wesley made.

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He also answered the questions of Baptists in New England. When Baptists began to experience awakening in New England, they were beginning to be repressed.

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They wrote to John Gill to give some statements about the nature of Baptist life and theology and so forth.

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And so he responded to that in order that they could defend themselves against the accusations of some who did not like the idea that Baptists were growing in New England during this awakening.

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So there are many things that I think we can thank John Gill for during this 18th century that was so devastating in its critique of supernatural

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Christianity and particularly of Calvinistic thought. And do you want to perhaps give a working definition of hyper -Calvinism and also, in doing so, not only tell us what it is, but tell us what it is not?

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Because as you know, there are a multitude of Christians, including many

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Baptists, that would call you and I hyper -Calvinists just because we're Calvinists, just because we believe in the five points.

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All Calvinism is hyper. I mean, there are some even today that are coming out with books and are making critiques in which they think that Calvinism as a system always implies some degree of hyper -Calvinism.

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But hyper -Calvinism is a very distinct system. It has identifying characteristics that are not consistent with historic

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Calvinism. So one of the things that I think needs to be seen in defining hyper -Calvinism has to do with their understanding of the relationship between the powers, the spiritual and moral powers present in man in his unfallen condition and the powers that are present in the fallen condition, that which he is called upon to do in the unfallen condition as related to what he is called upon to do in the fallen condition.

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So, in the unfallen condition, Adam and Eve, and particularly

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Adam because Adam was the federal head of the race, as well as the moral head of the race,

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Adam was called upon to obey the command. He was given by God's providence the ability to obey the command, but he also was fallible and he could disobey the command.

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But his relationship to God and his moving to a state of invincible morality or invincible security in his relationship with God was to be dependent upon his obedience to the law.

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He did not have any powers to exhibit special gracious belief.

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He did not have any powers to repent of sin because he was not a sinner.

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He did not have powers to believe in the saving efficacy of Christ because it was unnecessary for him to believe in the saving efficacy of Christ.

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All those things that were unnecessary for him in his unfallen condition were therefore not to be required of him in the fallen condition.

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So, since Adam did not have powers to believe savingly in the atoning work of Christ or to repent savingly of sin because he was not a sinner, these are not obligations then that come upon him once he is fallen.

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He is not required to have more powers than he actually had in the unfallen condition.

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So there's a sense in which the Hyper -Calvinists were seeking to present a theodicy, a justification of God in not condemning the unregenerate for their lack of faith in Christ.

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The fact that they do not believe is not a part of their condemnation and they cannot be called upon to exhibit belief because they have no power to do it.

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So, the theological foundation of Hyper -Calvinism has to do with the powers of man in the unfallen condition compared with the requirements placed upon a gospel preaching, those calls in gospel preaching for, and those assurances given in gospel preaching for salvation to those who will believe and repent of their sin and believe in Christ.

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Those are impossibilities in the fallen condition and they were never powers that Adam had in his unfallen condition.

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Therefore, they are not requirements now. So that is the fundamental principle of Hyper -Calvinism.

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Now, the thing that we have that is sort of an unusual juxtaposition of ideas is that both

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Arminianism and Hyper -Calvinism have the same assumptions.

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The assumption they have is that that which a man has no ability to do, he is not required to do.

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So, the Hyper -Calvinist says man has no ability to believe in Christ and therefore he is not required to believe in Christ.

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The Arminian says if man has no ability to believe in Christ, then he has no power to believe in Christ, therefore he has no obligation to believe in Christ.

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Therefore, since man is required to believe in Christ, he does have the power to believe in Christ.

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So the Hyper -Calvinist says no power, no obligation. The Arminian agrees, no power, no obligation.

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But he does have obligation, therefore he does have power. So those, they share that assumption of no power, no obligation, but they come out in entirely different places in it.

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Another characteristic of Hyper -Calvinism is that only those are required to repent of sin and believe in Christ who are sensible that they are the elect of God.

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They become sensible by special operation of the Holy Spirit that Christ has died for them.

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And once they understand that, through some sort of, I suppose, special revelatory work of the

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Holy Spirit upon their consciences and in their affections, that they are the elect of God, then it becomes their obligation to believe in Christ, and only then.

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If a minister of the gospel is aware, somehow is sensibly aware, that a person is the elect of God, then he may call upon that person in that moment to believe in Christ, because then it becomes his obligation, because then he has the power.

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However, Gill does not fit in any of those categories.

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He does not fit in the category of thinking that the obligations of the unfallen man in Adam did not include those same requirements of repentance and faith that we now have under the gospel.

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Although he used the term sensible sinner, he did not believe that sensible meant that a person had become aware by special revelation that he was of the elect of God.

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By sensible, he meant a person was under deep conviction and aware of his sinfulness and the necessity that he has of a saving action of God upon his life, and his awareness that if he will go to Christ, Christ will receive him.

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So, there are contextual reasons that Gill is called a hyper -Calvinist, and there are some vocabulary that he uses, leads people to say that, but I think that a careful reading of his commentaries and of his sermons and of his body of divinity would convince a person that he does not meet the criteria of hyper -Calvinism.

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Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question about John Gill, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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particularbaptistbooks .com. We have a question for you,

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Dr. Nettles, from Jake in Middleburg, Florida.

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And Jake wants to know, I seem to recall having read somewhere that Charles Haddon Spurgeon referred to John Gill, his predecessor, as a high

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Calvinist. Did that mean that Spurgeon believed John Gill was a hyper -Calvinist, or is that just another way of saying a strong and committed

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Calvinist? Okay, high Calvinism. I don't think that Spurgeon meant that Gill was a hyper -Calvinist.

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High Calvinism means one thing, that as Chris has already indicated, that he's a person that is theologically and systematically committed to the five points of Calvinism and puts them together in a very coherent way, and he uses that as the means for his exegesis.

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He would see his theological system, his confessional system, as something that governs the exegesis of many passages.

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Spurgeon was a strong Calvinist, but he was willing to say things like, you can't let your confession govern the plain meaning of Scripture.

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There are some times when we need to recognize that we simply might not know the meaning of the text of Scripture.

41:44

And whether you're a Wesleyan or a Calvinist, sometimes you need the letter Scripture just say what it says and realize that you cannot tie up all the loose ends in it.

41:56

And so I think by high Calvinist, he did not mean hyper -Calvinist. I think Spurgeon understood clearly what hyper -Calvinism was, because he was assaulted by the hyper -Calvinists of his own day, simply because he had such success evangelistically.

42:12

And he read their writings, he knew what they believed, he knew their understanding of the obligations or the lack of obligation of people to exhibit repentance and faith, but he did not think that Gil fit within that category.

42:30

So that would just might be my opinion at this particular point, that when Spurgeon calls

42:36

Gil a high Calvinist, he's not saying that he is of the same order as those hyper -Calvinists that opposed

42:43

Gil. Now did Spurgeon, with any frequency, quote

42:49

Gil favorably and refer to him? Oh, yes. Good.

42:55

Yeah, he recommended the writings of Gil, he recommended his commentary, he recommended his body of doctrinal divinity.

43:06

He was very, very high on John Gil. He recognized that there were people who considered him as somewhat responsible for the decline of particular

43:20

Baptists in the 18th century, but Spurgeon did not share that kind of attitude or that opinion.

43:31

And he was quite clear that he was willing to advocate

43:40

Gil's body of divinity. In fact, at the opening of the

43:45

Metropolitan Tabernacle, one of his first words was, one of our former pastors has left an admirable body of divinity, which it would be well for us to resurrect and to understand and so forth, and he talks about it some.

44:01

He said, however, I want to declare to you that our body of divinity is Christ, his person and his work, and that alone.

44:10

So, he was just trying to emphasize the Christ -centeredness of his ministry there at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, but he was not putting

44:18

John Gil down for having a body of divinity, calls it admirable, and he recommends that people read it and understand it.

44:26

Well, great, excellent answer. By the way, Jake, you have won, by virtue of your question today, a free copy of an exposition of the gospel according to John by John Gil, reprinted by Particular Baptist Press, and again, their website is pbpress .org,

44:55

and I hope that you enjoy that. You're going to need to give us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com,

45:05

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that book out to you in Middleburg, Florida. We need your full mailing address.

45:13

So thank you very much for the excellent question. We have

45:19

RJ in White Plains, New York, and he says, over the years,

45:26

I have gotten to know a number of Christians who are in the Netherlands Reformed denomination, and they seem to have a peculiar teaching that sounded very similar to what you were describing before about people not having the confidence that they are of the elect until they have some kind of supernatural extra -biblical revelation of this.

45:49

Have you ever heard of this? Yes. As a matter of fact,

45:55

I have heard of this, and that is a very strong confessional

46:01

Calvinistic group. There are Netherlands Reformed people even here in the

46:07

United States, and one of the things that is remarkable about them is this particular view of assurance, that a person can never have assurance in this life unless it comes by means of some sort of special revelation.

46:27

I might be speaking out of turn here. I'm not sure. I think that Joel Beakey was in the

46:33

Netherlands Reformed group. Yes, he was. I've known Joel since the 1990s, and that is indeed the case.

46:40

In fact, when I first became acquainted with Joel and was trying to sell him radio time for his own program on WMCA radio, 570

46:51

AM in New York, where I used to work as an account executive, Joel wanted to purchase air time to have his own program, but the denomination would not allow him to because they didn't believe in using radio.

47:07

I think they viewed it as an Arminian tactic to do that because it's not specifically mentioned in the

47:15

Bible, obviously. It wouldn't be since the radio wasn't invented until a millennia later.

47:22

But yes, he left there and started the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Church, which is today known merely as the

47:32

Heritage Reformed Congregations, and he actually wrote his doctoral dissertation on assurance because of the fact that that was a troubling time in his life with the

47:44

Heritage Netherlands Reformed Church when he realized that they were robbing the people of God the assurance that they should be rejoicing in.

47:55

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you know all that background because that was what

48:01

I had learned. Of course, I've heard Joel Beakey preach many times, and he is a strong confessional

48:08

Calvinist, but he does not have those distinguishing traits of hyper -Calvinism, and he believes that the biblical doctrine of assurance is set forth for us very clearly in Scripture that we can be assured that the

48:21

Apostle John wrote in 1 John, these things I've written unto you that you may know that you have eternal life.

48:28

And so if an apostle wrote evidences by which we could know that we have eternal life, then this means that apostolic theology and apostolic revelation affirms that assurance is possible, and it's possible on the basis of those particular signs that John wrote about.

48:46

And so I think just that sort of simple biblicism convinced

48:51

Joel that the whole idea that you could not have assurance was not theologically sound, nor was it sound from a standpoint of biblical exposition.

49:03

Now this doesn't mean that Netherland Reformed people are to be shunned and to be rejected and all, they're pious and they preach the gospel and so forth, but there is just that little quirk, and I think that they also hold to some of the distinguishing traits of hyper -Calvinism.

49:21

And it would be so that a person not only for assurance needs to have some sort of revelation, but in order to have the right to believe, the obligation to believe, they need to have a revelation that they are included in God's elect.

49:38

Yeah, I've even heard that you could have a Netherlands Reformed church in areas where they have congregations that are really large, because they're not obviously a dominant presence in the

49:53

United States, but in those areas like Michigan and other places where you might have a church with over a thousand people, you could have a

50:02

Lord's Supper celebration where only a small handful of people receive the supper, because everybody else doesn't have the confidence that they're even saved or of the elect.

50:15

Yeah, and they would be saying they were eating and drinking damnation to themselves. Yes. Well, thank you,

50:22

R .J., and guess what, you've also won an exposition of the gospel according to John by John Gill, thanks to our friends who brought that fine work back into print, particular

50:32

Baptist Press, whose website is pbpress .org. And please make sure you send us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com,

50:43

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that book out to you. I don't know about you,

50:48

Dr. Nettles, but I can think of a few other books of the Bible that are so rich with the doctrines of sovereign grace—I should say, a few of the books of the

51:00

Bible that are more rich with the doctrines of grace than the

51:05

Gospel of John. And one of the primary books that Reformed Christians return to over and over again, not to say that we don't love the full counsel of God and believe in expository preaching where we're going to every book of the

51:25

Bible through, you know, the years of preaching, but John and Romans and Ephesians and Galatians are probably the four books that we would readily use when trying to convince a brother in Christ about the doctrines of grace, or even evangelize a lost person.

51:54

Yeah, I have been told at times by people who are very active in personal evangelism, and I have agreed with them, that one of the things that is good to do is just following up personal witnesses, give a person a copy of the

52:10

Gospel of John and ask them to read it and then come back with any questions that they may have about it. Because John said, didn't he, that he wrote this in order that you may believe that Jesus is the

52:21

Christ and that by believing you may have life in his name. So John wrote a book about assurance, and he wrote a book about evangelical belief to come into salvation.

52:35

Amen. And by the way, R .J., just to let you know that this book is no cheap little insignificant book.

52:45

It's a $29 book, so this is quite a blessing that you are going to be receiving.

52:51

Make sure we have your full mailing address. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now.

52:58

And once again, if you would like to ask a question of Dr. Tom Nettles on John Gill, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:10

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

53:16

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Dr.

53:26

Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

53:35

Every Christian who's serious about the deformed faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the

53:43

Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity, by Dr.

53:50

Joseph Khmorkraft. It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

54:03

Dr. Khmorkraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

54:15

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

54:22

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

54:31

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Khmorkraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr.

54:39

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. I'm Dr.

55:06

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and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We have

01:09:23

Quentin in Aloha, Oregon. That's an interesting name. I wonder if there's a connection to Hawaii with that city.

01:09:31

And Quentin says, I have become familiar with the primitive

01:09:38

Baptists, and I know that they have their own brand of hyper -Calvinism, although there are some

01:09:45

Orthodox primitive Baptists among them. I don't mean DeBroadbush. But I have heard that they believe that there are many among God's elect who will never come to faith in Christ on this earth, and they will still, nonetheless, be in eternity with us.

01:10:06

Is that true, and is that a unique kind of hyper -Calvinism? Yes, that is true.

01:10:15

They think that visions is not necessary because God will save His elect no matter where they are, no matter what they hear.

01:10:22

And you cannot neither increase nor diminish the number of the elect, and you cannot make them more savable by preaching the gospel to them, nor can you condemn them by not preaching the gospel to them.

01:10:35

And so that is not characteristic of historic hyper -Calvinism. That is an implication that is drawn by a particular group, and that's not even the kind of thing

01:10:49

I think that John Gill is accused of. So like you say, there are among them many who are

01:10:58

Bible believers who preach the gospel, who want to honor

01:11:03

Christ, who want to live holy lives, who want to be obedient to what the Word says, and who have absolute confidence in God's character and His benignity toward the human beings.

01:11:19

But they have that little, I think, what is something of false implication in their theology that makes them overlook both the practice of the apostles and the commands of Scripture.

01:11:38

So that is the kind of thing that I think Spurgeon was talking about when he says, if you run across a

01:11:45

Scripture that does not fit precisely within your confessional predispositions, just let the

01:11:54

Scripture say what it says. Let it sort itself out in the end, but believe what the Scripture says rather than seeking to tweak it or change it or even dismiss it according to your confessional commitments.

01:12:08

So I think that's the kind of thing Spurgeon would be talking about there. That certainly is not what

01:12:13

John Gill believed. Yes, and they would be a brand of hyper -Calvinist that would be a polar opposite of the

01:12:27

Netherlands' Reformed hyper -Calvinism because they have a much broader gate to heaven than the

01:12:36

Bible would allow whereas the Netherlands Reformed Church has a much more narrow gate than the

01:12:42

Bible attaches. So they're not all the same. By the way, is it appropriate...

01:12:50

Go ahead, did you want to say something? No, no, I would say I think you're right.

01:12:56

Is it appropriate to identify a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace, a hyper -Calvinist, if they believe all

01:13:09

Arminians and evangelicals outside of those who believe in the doctrines of grace are damned?

01:13:18

I don't think that has anything to do with hyper -Calvinism, personally. That's just...

01:13:24

That is sort of a narrative of theological perspective that I think is not warranted in Scripture.

01:13:33

That is... That's making Calvinism as a theological system a tantamount to saying that you have to believe our theological system in order to be saved.

01:13:46

I think that there are people who are saved genuinely upon their first hearing of the gospel who have no theological system at all.

01:13:54

They may be reared within a church that causes them to grow in grace that does not have a confessional

01:14:00

Calvinistic system. They may not know what it is. They may not understand all the implications that are present within Scripture as far as developing a system and interrelationships of doctrines and synthesizing all these issues together, which is a very healthy exercise for anyone to do.

01:14:21

I think that there are many people that genuinely believe in Christ and know their sinfulness and know that Christ has died for their sins and they trust in Him, but they don't have a system.

01:14:35

I think that particular view, just from my personal standpoint, would not stand up either to the biblical test of how people we see were converted in Scripture and certainly not to the experiential test of what we experience in Christian fellowship within our own kinds of living conditions.

01:15:05

Anyway, yeah. Before I go to any more listener questions, I'd like you to lay out some benefits to our listeners for reading and studying

01:15:20

John Gill, something that may be unique to Gill that they may not get even from other great men of the past and present that might motivate them to investigate purchasing some books by Gill.

01:15:39

Yeah, well, I'm working right now on a presentation I'm going to make on John Gill, Lord willing, in October or November at Southern Seminary.

01:15:51

We have what is called the Andrew Fuller Center there. And this year we're looking at the 1700th anniversary of the

01:16:00

Council of Nicaea, which was 325. And I'm presenting a paper on John Gill and Nicaea.

01:16:08

So I've been working through his commentaries and his body of divinity and some of his sermons looking for references to the

01:16:17

Nicene Creed and to the vocabulary that was used there. And it's quite, it is amazing.

01:16:27

In one of his polemical writings where he is defending the historicity or the reality of the personhood of Christ, what is the personhood of Christ?

01:16:39

And of course he's arguing for the Orthodox understanding that Christ is a single person and his personhood is built upon his eternal personhood as the

01:16:48

Son of God but at the incarnation, at the conception of by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the

01:16:54

Virgin Mary, he assumed to himself a full human nature. And so he is fully human, fully divine in one person in a way that cannot be separated or divided.

01:17:07

And this kind of language goes throughout his exposition, throughout

01:17:13

Gill's exposition of the Old Testament in Proverbs and in the Prophets and in all of the prophetic material that we have in the writings of Moses and in the

01:17:24

Psalms. And it's just, it is beautiful to see the way that he ties this matured kind of theological understanding of Christ into his exposition.

01:17:38

And he will say this is a reference to the person of Christ, to his atoning work and also to the fact that he would be both a man and he would be

01:17:48

God of the same nature as God and so he uses these historic doctrinal affirmations in his exposition.

01:17:58

And especially we were talking about the Gospel of John a moment ago. When you go through the Gospel of John like chapter one, in the beginning was the

01:18:06

Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by him, without him was not anything made that was made.

01:18:13

And then verse I think 14 he was

01:18:20

God is not, no man has seen God at any time but the only begotten of the Father he has revealed him and the

01:18:28

Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the

01:18:33

Father, full of grace and truth. And the way that Gil uses orthodox language and orthodox confessional history in his exposition is just to me is exciting.

01:18:43

It's very beneficial and so I would say read

01:18:49

Gil's commentaries and see the way he operates within the confessional framework of orthodox

01:18:57

Christianity. To show both on the one hand how orthodox

01:19:04

Christians in their confessional statements were using the

01:19:10

Scripture in a viable in a healthy way in producing a synthesis of Scriptural thought to present us with identifiable doctrines.

01:19:23

I think Gil is a master at that. So that's one thing that I would recommend.

01:19:30

Also I would recommend going to those passages of Scripture that people have that advocate calling upon people to believe in Christ and see how

01:19:42

Gil handles them. And I think you can see very quickly that Gil was not a

01:19:47

Hyper -Calvinist. For example the man who actually is the father of Hyper -Calvinism was a man named

01:19:57

Joseph Hussey. He was a Congregationalist and he wrote a work called

01:20:02

Operations of Grace but No Offers of Grace.

01:20:08

Now Gil rejected the idea that grace could be offered and this is one reason that he's identified as a

01:20:15

Hyper -Calvinist by some because he rejected the concept of offers of grace and he did this in a work that he wrote against John Wesley.

01:20:25

But the reason he rejected offers of grace is because grace is an active operative thing that effectuates the thing that it is aimed at doing.

01:20:39

You cannot offer grace. But he says what we do is we preach the gospel and we tell people the gospel says believe and you will be saved.

01:20:47

We set forth the gospel in a way that calls upon people to repent of sin and to believe in Christ but we cannot offer them grace.

01:20:55

And so because of that very technical way that Gil dealt with the concept of offers as opposed to proclamation, some people have counted him as a

01:21:06

Hyper -Calvinist but he clearly departs from Joseph Hussey.

01:21:12

In his writings Joseph Hussey says that when Jesus says come unto me you know come and follow me and he has these invitations for people to come.

01:21:24

Joseph Hussey says Jesus was just inviting them to come and follow him historically and to hear him teach and so forth.

01:21:32

He was not actually inviting them to come to him for salvation.

01:21:38

He was not telling them that and so Gil rejects that.

01:21:44

In fact here's a quote from Gil in which I think that he is purposefully distancing himself from the view of Hussey in this.

01:21:55

Gil says when Jesus says come to me Gil says by which is meant not a local coming or a coming to hear him preach nor is it a bare coming under the ordinances of Christ.

01:22:11

This is what Joseph Hussey said. Just come under the ordinances of Christ because in seeing the ordinances and hearing the gospel that is the way you will be converted.

01:22:20

He says it is not a bare coming under the ordinances of Christ but it is to be understood of believing in Christ the going out of the soul to him in the exercise of grace on him of desire after him love to him faith and hope in him believing in Christ and coming to him are terms synonymous.

01:22:45

John 635 those who come to Christ aright come as sinners to a full suitable able and willing

01:22:54

Savior venture their souls upon him and trust in him for righteousness life and salvation which they are encouraged to do by this kind of invitation which shows his willingness to save and his readiness to give relief to distressed minds.

01:23:14

So that's that's Gil and he takes these invitations to Scripture very seriously without in any sense compromising his understanding that it is only by the effectual calling of the

01:23:28

Spirit that anyone truly comes that anyone truly believes that anyone sees the fullness of Christ but nevertheless that is something that the

01:23:39

Scripture says and Gil fully believes it. So I think those are two things. See how

01:23:44

Gil uses exposition to set forth these historic systems of thought on soteriology and on Christology and on pneumatology and on the doctrine of sin and so forth.

01:24:01

See how he uses exegesis in leading us to embrace those systems but also to understand historically how people develop those systems out of their own exposition.

01:24:13

And then the second thing that I said was look at the passages of Scripture that have evangelistic importance and just see how

01:24:23

Gil handles those. Excellent. By the way,

01:24:29

Quentin in Aloha, Oregon, I think that I forgot to tell you that you have also won a free copy of an exposition of the

01:24:40

Gospel According to John by John Gil, published by Particular Baptist Press and their website is pbpress .org.

01:24:50

Please give us your full mailing address in Aloha, Oregon, so that cvbbs .com,

01:24:57

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that commentary on John by John Gil out to you.

01:25:07

We have Stevie in St.

01:25:12

Francisville, Louisiana, and Stevie says,

01:25:19

I attend a conference where sometimes they make use of the

01:25:26

Gadsby hymnal, and I absolutely love it. Someone told me that William Gadsby was a hyper -Calvinist, but I don't recall any of the lyrics to the hymns in his hymnal reflecting the ideas that you are discussing.

01:25:42

Was William Gadsby a hyper -Calvinist, and should we sing his hymns? You know,

01:25:50

William Gadsby was a Gospel standard which is a hyper -Calvinist group, but I agree,

01:25:56

I love his hymnal. His hymnal is just really wonderful, and I have an anecdote to tell about that.

01:26:04

When I was at Ted's Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I was in charge of putting together a worship service one time, and I had the congregation close with Gadsby's hymn,

01:26:18

Oh, What Matches Condescension. Then it goes something like, Oh, What Matches Condescension, The Eternal God Displays, Claiming Our Supreme Attention, In His Boundless Works and Ways, His Own Glory He Reveals, In Gospel Days.

01:26:33

Then it has some wonderful Christological ideas in it, and there was a man there, a very noted professor of preaching named

01:26:44

David Larson, really an energetic guy. I loved him, we were friends, but he was clearly not a

01:26:50

Calvinist. He was an Arminian. But he sang that hymn robustly, and he came down after the service, and he says he was singing the lines that Gadsby has,

01:27:02

Worms approach him, worms approach him, and rejoiced in his dear name.

01:27:09

He says, that's what we are, we're worms. And I said, you know, this is a moment, an existential moment in my life that I yearn to be able to share, and that's why

01:27:20

I'm doing it now. Here is an Arminian singing a Gadsby hymn, and absolutely rejoicing enthusiastically in the content of the hymn.

01:27:33

So, yeah, Gadsby wrote some great hymns. There may be implications of hyper -

01:27:38

Calvinism just now and then in some of the hymns, but I think it's a wonderful hymnal, and I think there are some hymns in there that if they are lost to posterity, we will be all the poorer for it.

01:27:51

So that is the identification, that little anecdote is the identification of an Arminian with the spiritual content of a

01:27:59

Gadsby hymn in the way sinners have to come to Jesus Christ for salvation.

01:28:07

Worms approach him, worms approach him, and rejoice in his dear name. And Gadsby, he was both a 18th and 19th century figure.

01:28:20

He overlapped the two centuries. I think so, yes.

01:28:25

Well, thank you so much for the excellent question that led right into some obvious passionate defenses of the

01:28:36

Gadsby hymnal from my guest. And guess what? You've also won a free copy of the book that we have been talking about,

01:28:45

The Exposition of John, The Exposition of the Gospel According to John, by John Gill, published by a particular

01:28:54

Baptist press, and their website is pbpress .org,

01:29:00

and please give us your full mailing address so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, can ship that free book out to you.

01:29:09

We have, let's see here, Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, was

01:29:19

John Gill the only pastor in his geographical area that held to Reformed Calvinistic theology, and therefore new to believers in that region, obviously he's speaking of in the 18th century.

01:29:36

No, no, he wasn't at all. The particular Baptists were, had been up and running for about 140 years by that time, and they had significant churches all over England and especially in London where Gill was.

01:29:55

The Second London Confession was written in 1677 and then adopted publicly by 100 ministers in 1689, and Gill wasn't born until 1697.

01:30:08

So there were many Calvinistic Baptist churches there in London at the time that Gill also was preaching.

01:30:20

Well, guess what, Seth? You have also won a free copy of an exposition of the

01:30:25

Gospel according to John by John Gill. Thanks again to our friends at Particular Baptist Press, whose website is pbpress .org.

01:30:36

And give us your full mailing address so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com

01:30:42

can ship that book out to you. By the way, before I forget to ask you, since this is the 1700th anniversary of the

01:30:52

Council of Nicaea, would you be willing to return to speak about that for two hours?

01:31:00

You're asking me in front of everybody? Yes, you're more likely to say yes if you're put on the spot,

01:31:06

I guess. I know it, I know it. Yeah, I mean, that's just one of the greatest sort of began the history of confessional orthodoxy.

01:31:20

The Council of Nicaea 325 and Athanasius, Athanasius Against the World. It showed how people could be so opposed to truth set forth in a very consistent, coherent, systematic way.

01:31:37

And Athanasius did stand up against the world in that. Exiled at least six times by the

01:31:43

Roman emperors, fighting against both Arianism and Semi -Arianism.

01:31:49

And then you have all the Orthodox councils after that. I think it's a pivotal moment in the history of confessional development, theological development, of biblical orthodoxy, and of learning how to do exposition that presents us with a system of truth that's to be believed.

01:32:15

So sure, yeah, I would be happy to talk about that. Well, when we get off the air, I've got to look at my calendar and have you pick a date.

01:32:26

All right. And one issue that I have brought up in the past on the show is

01:32:36

John Gill's friendship with a Seventh -Day Baptist named

01:32:42

Samuel Stennett. And I brought that up because I like to share that with my fellow

01:32:52

Reformed Baptists, because sometimes we can be far too isolationist.

01:33:02

I have a sinking feeling that there are very few Reformed Baptists alive on the planet

01:33:08

Earth today that would welcome into their pulpit somebody who shared their belief in the doctrines of sovereign grace and Reformed theology, but who worshipped on a

01:33:20

Saturday. And I understand that Gill and Samuel Stennett did pulpit exchanges there in England.

01:33:30

And he also, Samuel Stennett preached at John Gill's funeral.

01:33:39

Do you have anything else to say about that friendship? I think what you have said is as much as I know about it.

01:33:48

I think that is true. He knew that Samuel Stennett was a very effective minister. He believed the doctrines of grace.

01:33:54

He just was not convinced that the day had changed. He thought the Ten Commandments were clear that it has to do with a

01:34:02

Seventh -Day rest of God. And he didn't interpret the idea of it being in any sense a relative to salvation history and the fulfillment of the rest by the resurrection of Christ.

01:34:20

But he stayed with what he felt the literal meaning of the commandments was. But otherwise, Samuel Stennett was an effective minister.

01:34:28

And what was it he wrote? Bless me the tide that binds our hearts in Christian love. Is he the one that wrote that?

01:34:34

That could be one of his hymns. I'm not sure. There's another one about the storm.

01:34:43

Oh, I can't remember right this second. Yeah, it's just scraping my mind right now, too.

01:34:49

He wrote at least a couple of hymns that we all sing in our Baptist churches now.

01:34:58

I don't think Gil was inconsistent theologically. He had a little broader sense of toleration for exegetical convictions, perhaps than some of us do nowadays.

01:35:16

Yes, and the funeral sermon that Samuel Stennett preached for John Gil was brought back into print by our friends at Chapel Library.

01:35:37

That's a ministry of Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida. Sovereign Grace Believing Baptist congregation.

01:35:48

I give them credit for doing so.

01:35:55

The Chapel Library is just an enormous treasure trove of phenomenal booklets that are so inexpensive and a lot more attractive than they used to be.

01:36:08

Now they're full color, and the taper is higher quality.

01:36:14

Just a really great ministry. ChapelLibrary .org if anybody would like to look them up.

01:36:20

ChapelLibrary .org Samuel Stennett.

01:36:28

Samuel Stennett wrote Majestic Sweetness Sits in Throne upon the

01:36:34

Savior's Brow. And he wrote On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand. Remember I said storm?

01:36:41

Remember I said storm? There you go. On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand and Majestic Sweetness Sits in Throne.

01:36:49

Those are about two as good hymns as you can get and they're sung by generations of Baptists.

01:36:56

And if you want to look up that sermon brought back into print at the

01:37:01

Chapel Library website, Stennett's last name, Samuel Stennett is

01:37:07

S -T -E -N -N -E -T -T. Well, we are going to our final commercial break, and if you want to get in line and ask a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:37:23

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:37:36

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:37:41

Let's say you disagree with your own pastor or denomination over some theological issue that we are discussing, or you're a pastor yourself and you disagree with your fellow elders and perhaps even your denomination over something.

01:37:59

Well, feel free to remain anonymous, but if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

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Botafuco and Associates from Chris Aronson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Dr.

01:46:38

Nettles, can you think of a figure from history, perhaps even specifically

01:46:47

Baptist history, who like Gil, in your opinion, has been wrongly accused of hyper -Calvinism by other

01:46:58

Calvinists, by the way, because we know that nearly every non -Reformed

01:47:05

Christian on the planet Earth calls all of us hyper -Calvinists, so who other

01:47:11

Calvinists would identify as a hyper -Calvinist, but you think in error? Well, no,

01:47:20

I can't. I don't know about any that have serious accusations of that other than people who have become part of real hyper -Calvinist denominations and that sort of thing.

01:47:35

But as far as a person who is prominent in Baptist history, who wrote as much as Gil did, who had as much influence as he did, and who was as useful in a positive way for preserving orthodoxy within Baptist life,

01:47:50

I can't think of anyone who has had these kinds of serious accusations made against him and on the basis of some of the circumstances that I've already talked about.

01:48:02

So I think that he pretty well stands out. The historians identify him as sort of the central hyper -Calvinist, even as late as Leon Macbeth in his book on the

01:48:16

Baptist heritage, and then the early works of people like Ivor Me, and then 19th century works like Vedder and so forth said that he was a hyper -Calvinist.

01:48:34

They repeated different kinds of anecdotes. One anecdote was from Robert Hall where Christmas Evans said,

01:48:42

Oh, I love the works of Dr. Gil. I wish the Welsh people could read them. I wish they had been written in Welsh.

01:48:49

And Robert Hall responded, Yes, I wish they had been written in Welsh too, for then I should never have had to read them.

01:48:59

So he has been just sort of the official whipping boy of hyper -Calvinism, and I think completely unjustly.

01:49:10

I think it's because people don't understand the historical context of his language, the relationships he had, and one of the things he's accused of is antinomianism, but I don't see how anybody could maintain that if they just read what he actually wrote.

01:49:29

He discusses the ceremonial law, the civil law, and the moral law.

01:49:34

He relates them all in their proper context. He talks about the fulfillment of the ceremonial law fully in Christ.

01:49:41

He talks about the civil law and its relationship particularly to Israel and the moral aspects of it that should still be operative in nations today, and then the moral law is the whole foundation of justification by faith.

01:49:57

I just don't see the justification for this except an occasional remark like that he makes on authors, or he might say something like it is not the obligation of people to have evangelical faith, but then he'll go right on to say, but if that cannot be demonstrated, it is true that their lack of ability is clearly a moral perversion and not something that is a natural inability.

01:50:33

They should be held accountable for it. Even at the same time that Jonathan Edwards was writing his

01:50:43

Freedom of the Will, in which he makes this clear distinction between moral ability and natural ability, John Gill was doing the same thing.

01:50:52

So, yeah, I don't know of any person who has had the lasting and the serious accusations of hyper -Calvinism against them as much as John Gill, especially one whose material is so abundantly available to disprove any kind of credibility to such an accusation.

01:51:18

Now, I said it earlier that my friend Michael Haken, who I absolutely love interviewing, he disagrees with you on this, but, nonetheless...

01:51:30

He's changed a little bit. He's changed somewhat. Go ahead.

01:51:36

I was just going to say, I wonder if it has anything to do with his cooperation on the John Gill project. That his change or his...

01:51:46

That his softening to Gill. I think it does, and I think one of the things is, what

01:51:54

I've heard him say and seen him write, even, in an article of Gill, is that he credits

01:52:02

Gill, the same way I do, with actually saving particular Baptists from becoming prey to the latitudinarianism, to Socinianism, to the developing liberalism in that time.

01:52:18

He sees that Gill was instrumental in that, and so I think his attitude toward Gill has softened on the basis of the powerful and clear reality that Gill held to the faith in very tumultuous times.

01:52:36

By the way, folks, you can hear two past programs that I've conducted on John Gill.

01:52:45

One of them is when I had Garrett Walden on to discuss the aforementioned

01:52:53

John Gill project, which you might find fascinating. The work that even

01:53:01

Dr. Michael Haken is participating in, that took place on August 29, 2022, and also in that same month, earlier in that month, on August 10, 2022, my very dear friend,

01:53:18

Roger Salter, who is a thoroughly Reformed and thoroughly

01:53:24

Protestant Anglican minister, Roger Salter spoke on John Gill and Augustus Toplady, two compatible

01:53:35

Calvinists. So you might find those both interesting.

01:53:41

If you type in John Gill in the ironsharpensionradio .com search engine, both of those programs will come up, and then fairly soon, so will today's interview with Tom Nettles.

01:53:56

Well, we have an anonymous listener who is an extremely generous supporter financially of Ironsharpensionradio, and he has two questions, and I'll read them one at a time.

01:54:14

The first question is, if the strict Baptists were, as you say, hyper

01:54:22

Calvinists, then why is it that they seem to be the only ones publishing the works of John Gill?

01:54:28

Well, obviously, brother, they're not the only ones, because we have the two publishers that I just mentioned, in fact, have been mentioning throughout this entire broadcast, particular

01:54:44

Baptist press and particular

01:54:50

Baptist heritage books, but they are publishers of,

01:54:58

I think, the entire set of Gill's commentaries, the strict

01:55:03

Baptists. I don't see the strict Baptists as hyper Calvinists. There may be some among them that are, but strict

01:55:12

Baptist life basically has to do with the relationship of communion, and that they are very closed communion people, which

01:55:27

I think is the right view to take, but nevertheless, I think it has to do more with communion than it does with hyper

01:55:36

Calvinism. I could be wrong. I'm willing to be corrected on that, but my experience with strict Baptists and what

01:55:42

I've known about them is that that's one of the major distinctions that they have.

01:55:51

Spurgeon had a lot of friends among the strict Baptists, but he did not hold their particular view of communion.

01:55:59

Now, were not the strict Baptists getting on Spurgeon's case, as it were, in the same way that for different reasons that those involved in the downgrade controversy were getting on Spurgeon's case?

01:56:25

I think that the only reason that they would be hesitant about Spurgeon and getting on his case about anything would be that he had communion.

01:56:34

When he gave communion, he did not exclude people from other denominations that wanted to take communion with them.

01:56:45

Okay. I'm fuzzy on that, so I can't make any kind of clear statement based on a certain knowledge.

01:56:54

And the final question from our anonymous listeners, can you please give us a final powerful reason why every listener should read

01:57:02

John Gill? You should read

01:57:07

John Gill because you, even though you may find yourself differing with some expository point, you can trust him always to relate his interpretations, his theology, his polemical literature to a very closely reasoned understanding of divine revelation.

01:57:27

He did not any time conscientiously waver from divine revelation. He did not call into question the

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Scripture in any sense. And so his interpretation is always built upon a full confidence in the revelatory nature of Scripture, its authoritative nature.

01:57:46

And he believes strongly that it was to be systematized into...

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He defends his systematic theology in this way. In fact, he didn't write his systematic theology until he had done his entire exposition of the

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Bible. And then he does his systematic theology. So you can look for, with confidence, that John Gill is going to give you his best shot at the real meaning of the text and how it relates to other texts.

01:58:18

I find him edifying in every way and instructive in every way within that context.

01:58:24

Well, guess what, Anonymous? You have won a phenomenal prize today.

01:58:30

The only person we could give this to. The three -volume hardback set of the works of John Gill, volume 1, 2, and 3, valued at $120.

01:58:44

And we want to thank Particular Baptist Heritage Books for that wonderful donation.

01:58:53

Particularbaptistbooks .com and make sure you give us your full name and your full mailing address so that cbbbs .com

01:59:02

can ship that three -volume set out to you. Well, Dr. Nettles, I am thrilled to have you return to this program anytime you'd like.

01:59:11

You have an open door here, as long as we don't have somebody booked on a particular date that you want. Thank you so much for spending so much of your valuable time with us today.

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It's been my pleasure, and I've really enjoyed re -engaging with Gill on this occasion.

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I want everybody listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater