Road Trip DL: Stream Died in the Wilderness; Tuggy and Flowers Comments, More John 6.

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. Get over to the picture of me there. There you go. We are coming to you from sort of out in the boonies, to be honest with you, in Kerrville, Texas.

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And I left from Houston this morning. We've had another issue with the roof.

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The repair we had done in Houston was worthless. It lasted 135 miles.

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When you're traveling, you don't know who you can trust. And I'm certainly going to inform the

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RV park that had this company taking calls and stuff like that.

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We got royally ripped off, lied to directly. Just how it works, you know, if you're not up there watching them.

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So we were able to find a fellow who came out on short notice, very short notice, and worked late.

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And hopefully, it doesn't look like we'll be running into any weather between here and Phoenix.

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You never know. But hopefully I won't be hearing flapping roof parts as I was today for at least half the trip.

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Anyways, here we are. I was going to try to do a little bit more as far as graphically to talk about some of the stuff we'll talk about on the program today.

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I wasn't able to do that. Had to be meeting the guy. The pollen in Texas is, wow.

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At least I hope that's what it is. Either that or I'm just simply dying of one of the two, which is possible too.

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Anyway, so first program after the events in Houston, first program after the

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Dale Tuggy debate, which most everyone will tell you that I talked to about it.

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I pretty much outlined exactly what was going to happen. Dale Tuggy is, if anything, consistent and predictable.

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Since we'd exchanged opening statements, I knew that he was going to wait to make any type of comments in regards to the key texts

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I was presenting until the rebuttal period. And that his opening would be his standard,

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Jesus was just a man. The Bible says he was a man. And you hear that from Jehovah's Witnesses.

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You hear that, by the way, he said Jehovah's Witnesses are anti -intellectuals. He didn't like being compared to a

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Jehovah's Witness. And of course, the Muslims quote, you know, Jesus is a man.

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And so that just, that's all it was. It was just a man. And of course, no one disputes that Jesus was a man, except for some really weird groups.

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But I knew it was going to be the standard presentation on his part.

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I had forgotten until I looked at the schedule, until I looked at the bulletin, the debate bulletin, that he had refused to allow us to do the amount of cross -examination that we normally do.

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We normally do a total of 40 minutes. So 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes each, a total of 40 minutes of exchange.

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He was not willing to do that. And so we had had to give in to that to make the debate happen.

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There was only 10 minutes each of cross -examination. I think you can see why. Dale Tuggy is very, very much connected to a manuscript and to a script.

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And he does not like getting off of that. And in cross -examination, and I had commented on this on the program a number of times.

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I commented when we played segments of his cross -examination with Chris Date. He doesn't know how to do cross -examination.

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He'll ask a question, you'll respond, and then he'll comment on your response, but not expect you then to comment on what he just said.

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And that's not how cross -examination is done. And he did it again.

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And of course, I wouldn't let him get away with it every single time that he made a comment afterwards. Sometimes I couldn't even understand what he was saying.

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It was sort of mumbling. But I would just respond, is that a question? No, it's not.

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Then he'd go on. And it's like, so finally, what I did was he said, no, it's not. He tried to go on.

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It's like, well, I'm gonna respond to his question anyways, because this is cross -examination. And then I did. So everybody who debates him has to do that, because he simply refuses to behave.

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He just doesn't do it. It's just how it works. He just doesn't, he does not know how to do a follow up.

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And to argue a point during cross -examination. You can do that if you just know how.

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And he doesn't know how. So that's the problem. Most of my commentary in regards to that debate would basically be what you hear from Unitarians.

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The form of philosophical Unitarianism, so Sinianism that he represents, is a very shallow, there's just no spirit to it.

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There really isn't. And it's just very rationalistic.

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And so what you do, what you saw happen in the cross -examination, when

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I started trying to get into the text, all he can basically do, and in the rebuttal he said this, is say that the texts that we turn to, the texts that we point to, in this instance, the

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Carmen Christi, Philippians 2 .5 -11, the introduction of the book of Hebrews, John chapter 12, these are obscure passages, you see.

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So any passage that teaches the eternal nature of the Son, the identity of the

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Son as Yahweh, the identity of the Son as God with equality to the

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Father, anything like that, these are obscure passages. All of their passages are clear passages.

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But everything else is obscure. And they just feel like as long as you can find some scholar who disagrees, and folks, there is nothing in Scripture that you can't find a published scholar who disagrees with what the

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Bible says. The Bible says, I want you God. You can find all sorts of scholars who will say otherwise.

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The Bible presents a resurrection. You can find, what was that guy named Andrew Lincoln, a

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New Testament scholar, wrote a book, I don't know, 10 years ago now, against the virgin birth.

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Anything, it doesn't matter. There's probably a scholar someplace that has disputed 1

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Chronicles 26 -18. That's easy to do.

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And I just, I've just always refused to get into that. I mean, you can, it's easy to do.

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But I, I think that if you're gonna, if you're gonna bring in a site, a scholar, then you need to actually cite and give the reference to the text, not just vague references to, well, there's an article by such and so and, you know, he thinks different, because there's, you can't cross examine that.

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You can't, you know, deal with that in a, in a meaningful fashion. And so, when we got into the cross examination, and that's, that's what we were hearing, is what, you know, these are obscure texts.

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And the, the, the incredibly shallow, wow, very, very shallow attempt to get around Hebrews chapter one.

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And if you didn't really catch it, it was, in essence, the idea that he literally tried to say that when it says, you know, but of the

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Son, he says, and then, then it says, and the beginning of verse 10, tried to say, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's still addressing the

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Son, okay? He knows that is a ridiculously tiny minority position.

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And it, but they have to come up with something, because clearly, the, the writer of the

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Hebrews did not just all of a sudden go, you know, I'm sitting here talking about the

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Son, and I'm talking about his supremacy, and his supremacy over the angels, and how you know, everything holds, you know, it's really, again,

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I think it's Paul being written by Luke. And it's, it's the same theology that Paul presents in Colossians one, you know, in him, all things hold together, creator, sustainer, you know, all this, this stuff, let all the angels of God worship him, and, and all this stuff.

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But then all of a sudden, in the middle of it all, the writer goes, you know,

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I think I'll quote from Psalm 102 about the immutable nature of God, and then immediately next verse,

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I'll switch back to talking about the supremacy of Jesus to angels. It's just so ridiculous. It's just so bad.

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Oh, man. And you can see why you only want 10 minutes of CrossEx instead of 20, when you're throwing out stuff like that, which is just, you know, truly amazing, the shallowness of it.

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But it's all they got, you know, you have to feel, feel somewhat sorry for them along that line.

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So he did, you know, make a lot of, you know, little digs, little shots, stuff like that.

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But it was so different than Thursday night.

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Because even when he took digs and shots, Dale Tuggy always sounds like he's making a presentation on life insurance.

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That's just, there's just no, I don't know how to describe it. I don't understand it.

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But it's just, even when you take shots, you're sort of sitting there going, Oh, I think he just took a shot.

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But it's just, you know, anyway. So I'm glad that it went well.

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I didn't like using all the tech stuff. I just don't know that really helps all that much.

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I hope it does for some people. But he chose to use, you know, continue to use it in his rebuttal and stuff like that.

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That only left, honestly, 15 minutes, so 30 minutes grand total between the two sides, where you weren't just looking at slides and, and things like that.

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And, like I said, the pastor of the church, Evan McClanahan, he had told me he really wants these debates to focus upon oratory, the old style of moving an audience by what you're presenting and the force of the argumentation, not the not the cool graphics on your slides.

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And that's why for the vast majority of them, I chose not to. And the only reason I had to on Saturday was because Dale Tuggy had demanded that I give him my opening presentation.

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So I had to use slides. And even then, you know, it's just the slides.

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I don't have, I generally don't use notes. It depends.

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I mean, if it's a super technical subject or something like that, maybe, but most of the time, I just much prefer to speak to people directly.

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And I think people appreciate that when you do it that way. So I think, and I don't think he'd ever do it.

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I'm just gonna throw this out here. I'd be willing to debate Dale Tuggy again, but I would want to debate

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Dale Tuggy on his own published at least one article,

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I think there's there's others. And I'm pretty certain he gave a presentation at a

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Unitarian conference or something like that. I've seen anyways, that's my recollection on John 1 .1.

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Maybe just the prologue of John, John 1 .1 through 18. A focused, exegetical debate on whether John 1 .1

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through 18 presents Jesus as the eternal Logos, who has eternally been

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God. I just don't think he'd do it. And I and I don't think he would do it, especially if he said, and with a minimum of 15 minutes of cross examination, not just 10.

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I don't think he'd do it. But I'll throw it out there. Because I have a feeling the church in Houston would be willing to do it.

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And maybe some others that would be willing to put the effort in because it does take a lot of effort.

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First Lutherans just become so good at it that it's, there's no exact how to do it.

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And so again, my sincere thanks to Evan. He, by the way, posted a blog article today, responding to the accusation of Layton Flowers, that I hid behind him.

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At the beginning of the second part of the cross examination in that debate. And if you haven't seen that, he makes the accusation.

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He did a video, again, childish graphics. This is third, fourth grade level stuff. Childish graphics, and the whole idea being, you know, they had started this controversy about the subject of infants and God's judgment.

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And they started it purposely. I am absolutely convinced that that whole conversation began purposefully to lay the foundation for Layton Flowers to, again, hijack.

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He thinks it's part of the debate, but it's called hijacking the subject of debate to another subject of debate, which he did in the

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Romans nine debate, which he did in John six debate. And he just, that's what he thinks debate is. That's why I don't think anyone should even bother because he doesn't use a meaningful definition of debate.

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He won't behave in that way. And so there's just no reason to even invest the effort. It's very disrespectful, not only to the person doing the debate, but the audience and the people that put the effort in to put the debate together and stuff like that.

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But they had done this purposefully. And you can tell by the fact that he began the second cross -examination period with a question on infant damnation and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

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And he's literally tried, and will for the next 20 years, defend the idea that in a debate on the teaching of John six 44, that that's a perfectly valid thing to dive into.

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It doesn't matter if the other side can't even begin to define terms, make a presentation on the subject, as if I ever would.

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I wouldn't. It's a pastoral subject. The Bible does not address it. It is abject childishness and foolishness.

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And it's disgusting, by the way. Again, I've done too many funerals for children to play with topics like this as pieces in a game you're playing online.

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No, it's pastoral. You discuss it within the context of the family of faith.

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And that's not a conversation I can have with Layton Flowers. He's functioning on a very different foundation.

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And so you go have that conversation with whoever you're going to have that conversation with. I don't know who it's going to be.

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But yeah, no. So they purposefully began that controversy.

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It was completely made up. And all just to have that as the background for the hijacking of this debate.

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And it didn't happen properly so. And so, you know, they're jumping up and down and screaming and whining about that.

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A couple other comments about that debate. Since the fascinating thing is,

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I've seen almost no commentary. Now, Rich says he has. It could be that I just don't see the same feeds and things like that.

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But I haven't seen the real, almost any commentary whatsoever since the debate with Dale Tuggy.

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Certainly nothing compared to the continuing lobbing of various bombs my direction by the provisionists, which, you know,

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I don't know what to how to interpret that. I don't know. But since Thursday night, we did have and I think

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I mentioned this on Friday, the amazing posting of a

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AI interpretation of John Six. I did mention it, and I'm still astonished.

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You know, you just decide that you're not going to put the effort and the work in to become an exegete and to be able to handle the text.

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And so you ask AI to do it for you. I suppose it's coming.

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I suppose that's one of the things that we're going to be dealing with a lot in the future is, well, you can't be right because the computer says this.

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And that is, like I said, that's frightening. That is absolutely frightening. The one thing we should be absolutely making a commitment to now is the only use of a computer is to verify foundational, grammatical, maybe historic, not even historical, just grammatical realities.

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You know, like CBGM. CBGM is not AI. CBGM started functioning, what, 2010 -2014 in that timeframe.

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It was a little bit before AI. And I could see a future version of CBGM utilizing some kind of AI algorithmic interaction,

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I suppose. But the idea of actually interpreting the words of scripture in the context of scripture, to ask that of AI is to fundamentally capitulate to a extremely dangerous perspective.

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And I will see, I'm going to see it happening. And I'm going to tell you right now, as soon as you see somebody doing it, rebuke them and refuse to accept that.

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It's, yeah, that's bad stuff. So I think it was yesterday, may have been

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Saturday. I don't remember right now.

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Anyway, over the past couple of days, a webcast was done, a conversation was done that Leighton retweeted.

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He wasn't involved with it, I don't think anyways. And, you know, when he retweeted it, he says, here's a real scholar, you know, correcting

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White's misapprehensions and all the rest of this kind of stuff. Because Leighton can't do that. He does not have the capacity to do that.

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The AI didn't have the capacity to do that.

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Some pastor who's interviewing an ex -Calvinist, that really helps. And this is the stuff that Leighton's put out.

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So I'm like, well, all right. I would like to hear someone try to actually interact with the text on a level that clearly

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Leighton Flowers is not able to do. None of his minions have shown themselves capable of doing.

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So I'd love to see what someone would come up with. And so I started listening to it on the drive out of Houston today before the roof fell apart.

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That was slightly distracting. And what

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I hear is this guy starts off, again, don't even remember his name, never heard of him.

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And he says, I'm probably undercutting myself here, but I'm not a theologian. Okay, well, you're an ex -Calvinist.

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I already proved that. But anyway, I'm not a theologian. I'm a biblical scholar.

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Okay, all right. Um, but then he says his expertise is in the

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Greek Septuagint. Hey, Bible of the early church, which reminds me, what is with Dale Tuggy and his referring to the

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Greek Septuagint as simply an ancient translation? It's the

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Bible of the early church. It's what the New Testament writers were quoting 90 % of the time, at least.

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I haven't figured that one out. But anyways, just mentioning that he, this guy, claimed to be an expert in the

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Greek Septuagint. Okay, good thing to be an expert in. We need experts in the Greek Septuagint.

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It's very, very important. And the Septuagint section of my library is one of my favorites.

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It's interesting stuff in there. I would like to spend more time in it. But anyway, but then he says, and I was looking forward to listening to this debate, because I haven't done much work in John 6.

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Okay, so you're an ex -Calvinist, but you haven't done much work in John 6, which makes me go, uh, you were a

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Calvinist, but you really haven't dealt with John 6. But you're an ex -Calvinist now, which, you know,

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I think that if you're, you know, leaving the Reformed faith, John 6 would sort of, anyway, so I'm going, this is getting weirder.

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And so they played their first clip. And it included my, just in passing, making reference to the presence of two present participles.

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And they stopped the clip. And he goes, no, I want to be nice here.

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But I still get the feeling that White really understands languages at all, because there's lots of different ways to say things.

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And later on, he says, I'm getting ahead of myself here. But at the end of the debate, when he, when he criticizes

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Leighton Flowers for what he said about, um, when talking about active verbs, and when he talks about, participles, it's just really clear.

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He just does not understand linguistics. And I'm sitting here going, reach forward, click, no reason to continue.

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Why? Well, a couple of things. Um, I explained the importance of the present participles in John 6 in my book, drawn by the father, um, 33 years ago.

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And it was painfully clear that neither of these guys have ever taken the time to read anything

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I've written on this subject. Potter's freedom, drawn by the father, God's sovereign grace, nothing.

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Um, and so he's sitting here going, wait, it just doesn't understand linguistics when he hasn't done the homework enough to know what he's even talking about.

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And if he hasn't done work in John 6, then how could you,

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I guess he just missed the idea. Um, that, uh oh, the cache is, the cache is picking up.

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That's not good. I don't know if it's going to catch up or not. And if it gets up to 90%, then everything's gonna crash and die.

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And I'll just have to record this and, and we'll just stop the live stream and go from there. So I apologize if that happens.

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We are out in the boonies. Um, I just now looked up and saw that happening. So, um,

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I'll continue on here, but once it gets up to a certain level, there's no reason to do that.

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I'll, uh, uh, go off air and, uh, record and we'll upload it.

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I apologize for that, but it worked fine up until, up until this point in time, but it happens when we're traveling.

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Um, but anyway, uh, if you've not done work on John 6, then maybe you don't realize, um, the fact that the

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John uses the aorist when he's talking about false faith and that the present participles are emphasizing true faith.

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So the one, the one believing in me, uh, the one gazing upon the sun, um, these types of things, you're not even aware of it, but that's my ignorance, not your ignorance, because you didn't do your homework.

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And then the representation of my correction of Leighton's error was just a complete misunderstanding.

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He just, he didn't even bother to listen carefully to the debate. So it's like, why bother?

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There's, there's no reason to do so. Um, so I'm going to go off live stream now.

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Sorry, we'll get it uploaded later on. Thanks. All right.

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Uh, so we continue on, uh, we'll just have to upload it and, uh, and get, well, we had, we had 815 views.

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We had a lot of people watching and then the feed died. So I apologize. We'll, uh, um,

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Rich, if you could jump on the, uh, uh, Twitter feed and just let folks know that we will, um, we'll be back.

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Uh, we'll, we'll get it uploaded as soon as we can. Uh, that will, that will help a lot.

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Um, and just our, our apologies. Don't know why that happens. Um, you know, um, it's just the way it works.

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So that's a long, long way of saying, you know, I started listening to this thing and it's like, they're not, they haven't, they're not even taking it seriously.

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They're not, they're not representing it seriously. You got somebody who's really not, not done any work in John chapter six and it, why even bother?

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I just turned it off. There are other more important things to do even while driving. So this is the kind of stuff that's being thrown out there.

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So what I would like to do, um, and I, you know, it crosses my mind.

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Let's, let, let's see what happens. Um, if I just, if I just go back on air, uh,

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I'm not, I'm not sure if that'll work or not. The cache is working. I'm not getting anything back.

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I'm not getting any responses from Rich. I think, I think Rich has fallen off the planet, but the, the cache is looking okay.

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Um, so well, let's try. Uh, the, the, uh, the stream died.

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I shut it off. I've just gone back to it and it seems to be working.

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So, but, um, Rich isn't, so I'm just going to press on. And if I hear anything back from him, um, great, we'll press on.

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So, uh, what I wanted to do in the rest of the program, uh, this evening, and again, if the cache starts rolling up, then we'll not worry about it.

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Um, I set up my, my extra screen here.

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So let's see what happens if we do that. So I have my second screen up and, um, let me see.

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Yeah, we can, we might, we might be, uh, and there goes the cache again. Sorry about that.

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Um, we tried, we, we did try. Um, we'll, uh, we'll just record it.

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Sorry, sorry about that to keep, uh, promising and then can't deliver. Uh, so anyway, excuse me.

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Um, so, um,

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I'd like to walk through this text and you go, John Six again. Here's my concern.

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I have a feeling that a lot of folks have, have not been in the conversation because they feel like you need to have some level of knowledge of Greek to even engage us.

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And I don't think that's the case. I think that the vast majority of believers, even if you've not had that opportunity, um, can follow what the arguments are now, you know, when, when they are about a specific element of Greek grammar or something like that.

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Okay. I understand it. I get it. Um, I'll try to try to explain things, but I think this is the, the, the beauty of the consistency of John Six and the fact that very obviously, um, the

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Lord is seeking to communicate to people, um, certain truths about how salvation takes place.

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Can't just be dismissed. And so what I want to do, I'm going to, uh, again, uh, use, uh, what's called

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Presentify. Uh, I'm not sure I'm going to be sort of over here like this. So it's going to look a little bit goofy, but it's what's on screen is what's, what's most important.

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Um, John Six 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.

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Now, if you see, and hopefully this will work, um, let's see here.

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It definitely worked before. And so, yeah, there we go.

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He who comes to me and he who believes in me, these are participles in the original language.

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And so it's, it's the one coming or the one who believes.

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And over in the Greek, you will see, um, you can see the articles, the one coming and the one believing.

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These are the article before, here's the participle here and here. So these are relevant to what

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I was just saying about the Septuagint scholar thinking this means I don't know anything about Greek or something.

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I don't know the one coming, the one believing this type of language is absolutely vital to understand in the gospel of John, not only in chapter six, but in eight, 10, 17.

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Um, also in other parts of John, hearing likewise becomes like, uh, seeing with the

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John chapter nine with the blind man, but being able to hear, why don't you hear the words I'm speaking to you? Um, John uses these forms to talk about true saving faith.

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So the one coming to me will never hunger, not the one who comes to me looking for, uh, food, uh, looking for miracles, the, the feeding of the 5 ,000, uh, but the one who comes to Christ as his source will never hunger.

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And the one who believes in me will never thirst. So these descript descriptors, these ways of describing true saving faith are in contrast to, for example, in John chapter eight, um, there are people who believed in him,

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Aristence. And by the end of the chapter, they're picking up stones to stone him because when he presses upon them, the claims of who he is, they rebel against that because they've, they've seen, they're impressed by his words.

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They're impressed by his miracles. They're impressed by something, but they're not looking to him as the bread of life.

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And so when he then presses, for example, in John chapter eight, when he says to them, if you continue my word, then you're my disciples.

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Indeed, you should know the truth and what the truth will set you free. Well, you know, you can find out real quickly if someone is coming to Christ for salvation, if they're, are they offended when

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Jesus says, you will need to be set free. These men were, by the end of the chapter, they're picking up stones to stone

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Jesus. So that's something to keep in mind. Um, because then verse 36, but I said to you that you have seen me.

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You have seen me. It's in the perfect tense. It's completed action in the past, the abiding results of the present.

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You have seen me, but you're not believing. You're not believers.

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You are, you are unbelievers. You've seen me, but you're unbelievers. And he's explaining how that can be, um, in regards to what is taking place.

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So that then takes us to verse 37. And this was not, uh, really a disputed section on a

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Thursday night because what the provisionists do is they say, this is all true, but they introduce a presupposition as to who the father gives the son.

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So verse 37 says, all that the father gives me will come to me.

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And so by going, by jumping down to verse 45 and reading that text, that's why it became the central aspect of the, of the debate, by jumping down to 45 and, you know,

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Norman Geisler did that by jumping down to verse 40, but jumping out of the order of discussion.

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So leaving Jesus's sermon, his talk, and, you know, sort of in a sense saying, we, we don't need to follow

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Jesus's order of things. Um, we we're wiser.

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Uh, they jumped down to verse 45, uh, think that there are people who have the capacity in and of themselves to, uh, hear and learn from the father.

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They then come to the father by their own free will.

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And when they come to the father, they're the ones given by the father to the son. So you go back up to verse 37.

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So all that the father gives me will come to me. And just as in verse 44, we really didn't get a clear answer as to how it is that someone can have the libertarian freedom to come to the father without any kind of, uh, special grace being given to them, but they don't have the libertarian freedom to come to the son.

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Um, I don't understand that. And maybe the explanation,

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I suppose the explanation that would be given here is that they had to be hardened to bring about the crucifixion.

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And since crucifixion is now taking place, but then again, John 12 was also before the crucifixion, but they would say, well, when

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I am lifted up, then I will draw all men to myself. So that's why I asked at the beginning, are these verses still relevant today?

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And I, he said, yes, but I think the answer is actually no. Um, because it was, and I'm just,

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I'm just trying to figure this out from their perspective and piecing together things that Flowers said, it seems like what they're saying is that at that time, because of judicial hardening to bring about the crucifixion, the only way you could come to Jesus was if you had already come to the father and then he would give you to Jesus.

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But that that's not the case anymore because Jesus is now drawing people to himself directly without all the rest of this stuff having to happen.

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So it just, it just seems to me that John six just doesn't really matter any longer.

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Uh, what's being said here doesn't matter any longer. It was only back then.

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And, and where do you, where do you draw that line? Because the will of him who sent me is that, is that of, uh, in verse 40, everyone looking to the son and believing to have eternal life.

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Isn't that true now? And wasn't it true then?

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Uh, trying to find a consistent hermeneutic being practiced here is just next to impossible.

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That's why I kept pushing during the cross examination and asking, okay, so how do you understand this?

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And how do you put this together with that? So most of the time, the controversy is actually in passages like verse 37, all that the father gives me will come to me.

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And please note, um, will come to me.

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Okay. And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. Okay.

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So keep in mind that idea, this is someone who's coming to Christ.

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This is someone who is looking to Christ, someone who's believing in Christ. And the result of this is that everyone the father gives me will come to me.

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And I, I really would ask if the provisionists are at all consistent here.

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Um, it, it, it, it really seemed to me like flowers was struggling to try to say, well, the father and the son are one.

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Well, one in what way? If you, if you can freely come to the father, but you can't freely come to the son, how, how does that work as far as free will and autonomy and everything like that goes?

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And since then, uh, if you want to say things have changed now that the crucifixion has taken place, and now

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Jesus draws every single person to himself, so can't, does that mean that every single person can come to Jesus without the drawing of the father?

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Because wasn't that just back then before the crucifixion? Why would the drawing of the father be necessary?

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Why would the drawing of the father be different than the drawing of Jesus? So it just doesn't seem to me, no one is able to come, verse 44, no one's able to come to me unless the father sent me draws him.

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That doesn't seem to be the case any longer in that system. Um, so the one who comes to Jesus, uh,

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Jesus will never cast out because he's come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who has sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me,

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I lose nothing but raises up on the last day. So notice, um, the phraseology here, and I'm sticking with the

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English as much as possible, because again, like, like I said, I just feel like some people sort of tuned it all out because there was so much emphasis on the original language stuff, but he will lose nothing of what has been, um, given to him.

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So he is going, everyone the father gives him will come to him, he will lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

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Now keep that phraseology in mind, raise it up on the last day.

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That is synonymous with what we see in the next verse. For this is well my father that everyone who sees the sun, and here again, it everyone seeing, okay, uh, everyone who sees the sun.

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This is not just a glancing. Again, this is a present participle.

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It is a substantival participle. So the looking one, the one who is looking in opposition to the one who just glances, the one who just believes for a moment, um, because the next one is

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Pistuon and believes in him. And again, substantival participle, the article before Theron is functioning with Pistuon.

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So everyone looking, everyone believing, true saving faith is an ongoing thing.

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It is not a mere glance. It is not a mere tipping of the hat. The, um, free gracers who try to say that, yeah, you can just tip your hat, boom, you're saved, that's it.

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There's no abiding nature to saving faith. It's not what the New Testament teaches.

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The New Testament plainly says that in order that everyone looking upon the sun and believing in him, what?

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Will have eternal life. And I myself will raise him up on the last day.

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Being raised up in the last day, receiving eternal life, they're synonymous. Now they're not necessarily identical if you just talk about what the role of the resurrection is in the future and stuff like that, but, um, if you are raised up by Jesus, you have received eternal life.

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Why is that important? Well, let's get down to, uh, the brass tacks here as time's going by and the feed crashed anyways.

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We had a lot of people watching again. I'm sorry about that. So we have the grumbling of the

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Jews who get by their Gungus mooing and we get down to the key text. And if there's anything that I'm thankful for, uh, from all of this stuff is we have a much, um, stronger,

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I think we've all been forced to think this through, um, more completely because synergists who, who do the

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Norman Geisler type thing, um, that standard sort of Arminian response, um, they're not presenting as, as, as strong a case, or at least as interesting a case.

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The provisionists are trying to turn the text upside down. They're going to verse 45 and they are giving you an a contextual interpretation that then allows them to read back all the way up to verse 37, a free will autonomy understanding of what comes afterwards.

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And it changes the entire meaning of the text. So no one can come to me unless something takes place.

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Verse 44, unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him.

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These are the same hymns. I know we've gone through all this before, but more and more people are listening. So, um, these are the same hymns and I will raise him up on the last day.

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Did we just not hear raise him up? Yes. That's receiving eternal life.

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And so all who are drawn by the father are raised up to eternal life by the son.

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That's why you, if, if, if this text just stood on its own, there's no way to be a provisionist synergist.

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Um, because it's, it's not the case that the father draws everyone and everyone who is drawn is raised up to eternal life.

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And if this is dependent upon the father's action, that's the sovereignty of God in, in, in election and salvation.

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So what can they do? Well, they go to verse 45.

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It is written in the prophets, they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. And what's

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I think neat now is we have been forced to, um, respond to a new kind of argumentation here that I think helps us to understand the text even more consistently and deeply.

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So it is written in the prophets. Uh, let me, uh, I, I need to have both sides up here.

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So, um, come on. There it is.

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That's how we want it. It is written in the prophets. Now, when, when Jesus, when

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Jesus has, is, is teaching and he goes to the old

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Testament text, he, he provides the foundation. He is demonstrating that, that what he's teaching is consistent with what has been revealed from the beginning.

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And as we know who he is, he himself was involved in revealing it. It is written in the prophets.

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Now it's interesting that that is plural. Because that could refer to the idea, sometimes the plural of prophets is used.

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The scrolls, you didn't have a separate scroll for every prophet. Uh, you had the major prophets and then sometimes you'd have minor prophets that were the end of that scroll.

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And so if you talk about the prophets, it could be a sort of a general generic way of referring to, um, the prophets rather than a specific name.

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Um, uh, and the minor prophets were all considered one book and they were normally, you know, the major prophets were easier to get to because they're at the beginning of the scroll.

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If you're, if you're getting to one of the minor prophets and like that, you've got to go through a lot of turning, it's not turning pages.

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Because remember, these are scrolls. To get to the end of the scroll, you know, you had to have

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Popeye forearms, uh, to be able to be able to get there. So maybe that's what that's referring to.

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The other possibility is this, um, the, the phrase, and you can see it's in, in all caps here in the, in the

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LSV, uh, and they shall all be taught by God. It's just three words,

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Pontus Deductoi Theu. So this is the genitive of agency.

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Um, the, the agency by which someone becomes taught is by God.

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God is the one doing the teaching here. So this, Jesus is taking this text from either

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Isaiah 54 or Jeremiah 31, both of which, go read them. Beautiful passages.

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You should know the Jeremiah 31 one. That's the new covenant text, Hebrews 8. We've gone through that rather thoroughly on the last road trip, uh, responding, uh, to our friends up in Moscow on, uh, that was right after reformation day.

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Remember, excuse me, man. Like I said, either the bronchitis is coming back and I'm dying of something else, or it's just simply, you know,

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I've got the windows open and the,

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I haven't taken, uh, any antihistamines, uh, since, since yesterday, um, both passages,

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Isaiah 54, Jeremiah 31 are about the new covenant and the finished and completed redemptive work of Christ.

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And so the, the people that are in view, this teaching that is being done by God is not the teaching of the whole world.

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It's of a specific people, just as the drawing of verse 44 was of a specific people.

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And so what you have in verse 45 is Jesus's biblical commentary saying, see in the prophets, we already had a reference to the fact that God would be the one making learners.

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That's what did our toy. It's a, it's an adjective, but it's functioning, uh, substantively.

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So they are taught, they are, they are the learners of God and the means by which this is happening is

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God. God's in the genitive and there's, you can, you can use, uh, the, the dative to talk about instrument means by which something happens, but when there is a special personal element to that, very frequently the genitive will be utilized.

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That's what's used here, but it says they will all be taught by God.

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This is the old Testament citation that Jesus uses to define the drawing of the father.

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The father draws people to Christ and that infallibly results in their being raised up in the last day.

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This is described as the father teaching. He's teaching about who

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Jesus is. He's revealing Jesus to these people, this all, all that the father draws the son, the father teaches as to who

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Jesus is. So it then says, and everyone hearing from the father and learning comes to me.

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So where have we heard that before? All the father gives me comes to me when looking, the one believing comes to me, raise them up in the last day.

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And from this group that is defined by Jesus, all will be taught by God.

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These are those that are drawn. That's the group, just as you had up in verse, um, 38 and 39, you had this group as a group.

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I will lose none of it. Here you have the same group. This is consistent reading all the way through.

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You're starting up here. You're going down here. You're not jumping around. You're allowing the terms to define themselves in the context without turning things upside down sideways, whatever you're trying to do.

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Once people do that, you know, that's the indication of their traditions. It shall all be taught of God.

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Everyone hearing para to patras, hearing from the father.

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So if you, if you are the recipient of this divine action on the part of God, you're part of that all that is being made to learn by God.

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You are hearing from the father. That's what it means to be drawn.

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You have heard from the father and you have learned that's montano, didactoi, the whole, the concepts are,

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I'm sorry, uh, uh, learning and being taught.

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Those are the Greek words, um, are connected concepts. And I think the reason that it goes to the singular, everyone hearing from the father, everyone learning comes to me, comes to me.

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That, that coming to me is a, is a personal thing as, and we've already saw it.

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We saw it up above seeing, believing, coming, everyone given by the father comes to me.

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These are all divine actions and descriptions of those who have received this divine, gracious act of the father revealing the son resulting in our coming to Christ.

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So the consistency throughout this text from beginning to end is not only

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God's sovereign power to work in this way, explaining the unbelief of the Jews, but it's also central in laying the foundation of what

01:00:01

Jesus is going to say after this. Because it's only in coming to him, what is eating his flesh?

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What is drinking his blood? What is looking upon him? What is believing him? What is trusting him for spiritual food and drink?

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What is, what is all of that other than a clear teaching of the centrality of Christ, absolute exclusivity, the only way of salvation.

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And at the end of the chapter, when Jesus is repeating over and over again, and I, and I, I'll go ahead and, and pull that up here.

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I know we've gone an hour and it doesn't matter. We're not live streaming anyways. But when you get, when they get down here to, to the end and Jesus has said, the spirit is the one who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.

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The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and our life. He says, but there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were, who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.

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I'm not sure how our open theist friends, you know, they'll do anything to get around stuff like that.

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And then verse 65, and he was saying, for this reason,

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I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father. He was saying elegant, elegant is the imperfect form of Lego.

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And that refers to a continuous action in the past.

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In this case, it doesn't have to be continuous. There's different kinds of imperfect, but I think this is what's called an iterative imperfect.

01:01:51

He was repeatedly saying to, he was saying, for this reason, I have said to you, no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father.

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And so that exalts the son. Do you see that?

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What, what prophet could Isaiah have ever said this? Could Abraham, Moses, could any of them have ever said, no one can come to me unless it has been granted to you by the father.

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And what provisionism tries to do is say, but the father has no choice in that because it was your free will, your autonomy, your humility, your righteousness, your spiritual sensitivity that allowed you to come to the father, which then allows him to give you to Jesus.

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I don't, again, I couldn't figure out whether that's relevant today or not. It is.

01:02:57

The truth is relevant today, but I don't know if in provisionism that that's the case at all today.

01:03:06

I really just, it didn't make any sense to me. Um, but Jesus was repeating the very thing that the men found offensive, because notice what it says, as a result of this, most of the time, you know, most interpreters have missed that and have said, well, um, you know, the disciples, they, they, they didn't, they went, they went back and it already said, these are hard words.

01:03:40

Um, but Ectutah, when, when you have this first thing, and he was saying, for this reason,

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I've said to you, no one is able to come to me unless it has been granted to him for the father. For this reason, many of his disciples went away.

01:03:55

They stopped following him because he kept emphasizing

01:04:02

John 6, 44 and John 6, 65. And people find that offensive.

01:04:10

And that's why provisionists find it offensive. Even to this day, they are offended by the very same thing that caused the disciples to walk away.

01:04:19

That emphasis, which they clearly saw had nothing to do with their controlling

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God, the father's choices by their own choices. But instead Jesus was saying, unless the father draws you to me, unless it has been granted to you of the father, you do not have the capacity to come to me.

01:04:45

You don't have it. And that was true then. And what

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Jesus said about looking to the son, believing in the son, all those things are still true today.

01:04:57

They are still descriptive of what a Christian is today. It is still necessary for the father to draw someone to the son.

01:05:09

That's still required today. So the complexity of the discussion has been introduced by those who are seeking to find a way around this particular text and its testimony to what it says about the father, the son, us as dead sinners who are in rebellion and we don't want to come to Christ so as to have eternal life.

01:05:50

That's what it says in John 5. We fellow, we desire to fulfill our own lusts.

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We don't desire to die, to climb up on the cross with Jesus.

01:06:07

That requires the work of the spirit of God within us. There's no question about any of those things. So my apologies for the crash on the feed.

01:06:20

I don't know why it happened. I had reset the modem before, but sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

01:06:29

Depends on where you are. And I'm out, sort of out in the middle of the boonies right now. So that's probably why that happened.

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But we will get this uploaded as quickly as we can and hopefully it will be of use to you.

01:06:42

I really do appreciate your continued support. I had to spend some more money on the roof today.

01:06:49

Travel fund and prayers as I'm heading home. I really want to get home as quick as I can, but I have to do it safely.

01:07:01

Be silly to go too far and end up wrapped around a tree someplace.

01:07:06

So we try to do things in the appropriate fashion that way. So with that,

01:07:12

I will say good evening and we will see you next time on The Dividing Line.