Radio Free Geneva: Leighton Flowers, Brian Abasciano and Biblical Exegesis (and Plain Fairness)

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00:09

The mighty fortresses are gone, but where is he?

00:18

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

00:24

They're following men instead of the Word of God. I'll never be happy, but where is he?

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And I'm gonna be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died for all!

00:46

Those who elected were selected! Well, first of all,

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James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think

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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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For God so loved the world, that He gave

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His only begotten Son, that whosoever... Ladies and gentlemen,

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James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

02:07

It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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Read my book. And now, from our underground bunker deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for His own eternal glory.

02:52

Well, greetings and welcome to Radio Free Geneva. I got up very early on, let's see, it'll be

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Wednesday morning. Now, when I say early, I think three -something is fairly early in the morning.

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Headed out on a long, long ride out around the backside of the

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White Tank Mountains, actually, outside of Phoenix. And I had a couple things

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I needed to get to. I needed to listen to the unbelievable radio broadcast.

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Richard Balcombe was on with Bart Ehrman, and everybody was talking about it, and I wanted to hear that, and found that very interesting.

03:37

But I had been informed of the fact that Leighton Flowers had responded to the dividing line, the last

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Radio Free Geneva we did, back in March, where the first half hour or so,

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I responded to that Dear John Piper song. Which, you know,

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Radio Free Geneva is where we respond to the worst, as well as the best, and everything in between.

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And that was one of the worst. And then, I had responded to some

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Facebook messages that had been posted by Leighton Flowers to other people, and had been sent to me.

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And they were specifically on the subject of the relationship of faith and regeneration.

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Remember, as Leighton Flowers himself admits, and in fact,

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I think I've got a quote down here. Let's see if this is the quote.

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I've claimed that I'm not an Armenian, but in a lot of ways, I'm definitely more Armenian than I am Calvinist.

04:56

Yeah, that's Leighton Flowers on the program. The reality is that the traditionalists, as they like to call themselves, whatever terms they want to use for themselves, are synergists.

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And the dividing line is between monergism and synergism. So, on the synergistic side, you have those who oppose the

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Protestant Reformation, and those who today live on the capital of that Reformation, while denying its heart and its essence.

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And if you don't believe that, then go read Erasmus and Luther on the freedom of bondage to the will from the middle of the first decade.

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Well, not the first decade, depending on when you mark the beginning. But from the 1530s, and you will discover fairly quickly that that was in fact the case.

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And so, you can be a synergist with all sorts of things you have to do to gain salvation. You can be a synergist with only a few things you have to do to gain salvation.

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But the point is, salvation is focused upon what man does. God makes it all available.

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Couldn't do it without God. That's the semi -Pelagian aspect of it.

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Grace is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Man -centered versus God -centered.

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That's the dividing line. It always has been, always will be. There's no way around it. You can try to fluff prevenient grace, whatever in the world that is.

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There certainly isn't a biblical way of defending something like that. But you can do all that you want, but the dividing line is still between monergism and synergism.

06:35

The discussion was on, once you recognize the biblical teaching on the nature of God, His eternality,

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His perfection, His kingly freedom, His sovereign decree, His absolute sovereignty over all things, once you recognize the biblical teaching about man's deadness and sin, his inability to do what is right, his inability to submit himself to the law of God, once you recognize the biblical teaching on the nature of faith as the gift of God, repentance as the gift of God, etc.,

07:13

then it's painfully obvious that, as Paul said in Romans 8, those who according to the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God, obviously having saving faith in God is something that is pleasing to Him, and so God must act first.

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Not in some fake, prevenient grace that brings some fake regeneration that really isn't regeneration, it's just sort of a, well, who knows what it is.

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But anyways, regeneration, that sovereign work of God, results in the lifelong saving faith, the lifelong repentance that is ours.

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This is the Reformed position, and this is the position that Layton Flowers and others like him simply reject.

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And so the issue was my statement that in presenting the full -orbed biblical picture, and anyone who has taken the time to read through The Potter's Freedom knows that when

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I addressed the issue of regeneration, I didn't base it on one text.

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I didn't base it upon one type of grammatical construction, but I mentioned the fact that when you look at the biblical witness as a whole, when you look at it in its completeness, that there are certain texts that just jump out to you in light of their consistency with the entire biblical narrative.

08:37

1 John 5 -1 is one of them. It describes the one believing that Jesus is the

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Christ, and that is not a mere intellectual thing. Obviously, in John's context, in Paul's context, no one can say that Jesus, no one can say

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Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. There's something spiritual there. And in 1 John, the one believing that Jesus is the

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Christ, this is just as much a spiritual thing. It's not just simply some, I've examined history, and I believe

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Jesus is the Messiah, but there is something much more to that, is described as having been born of God.

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And so I made the argument that it is consistent with biblical argumentation to see that what is being said here is that my ongoing faith, my ongoing belief that Jesus is the

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Christ, is due to something else, and it's the action of God in having begotten me to eternal life.

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Now, I mentioned in the book that there is a consistent construction in 1

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John, and I mentioned the specific text, 1 John 2 .29, 1 John 4 .7.

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I didn't go into a lot of detail in the book. I wasn't trying to overwhelm someone with, well, as I'll be accused in this, what we'll be listening to, going microscopic and trying to impress people with that Greek, you know.

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So what I did on the last Radio Free Geneva is I took the time to open up Accordance, and starting about 38 or 39 minutes into the last

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Radio Free Geneva, I spent 40 minutes laying a foundation, discussing such things as the use by a particular biblical author of a particular construction, and how it is important to recognize the big picture, not only the big theological picture, sovereignty of God, His decree, deadness of man and sin, but in this case, and the biblical picture concerning the nature of regeneration, man's incapacity to do anything that's pleasing to God, et cetera, et cetera, but in this case, exegetically, to look at John.

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Now, I imagine someone's going to raise the question, by the way, in light of the unbelievable webcast.

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I already saw one person mention it. People like Richard Baucom believe that a different John wrote the epistolary literature and revelation than wrote the gospel.

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Now, I don't accept that. I don't think it makes any huge, major difference, but one of the reasons I don't accept that is that there is a very natural, intimate connection between the grammar and syntax of the gospel and that of the epistolary literature.

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Now, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John are very simple, but it still seems to me that the constructions are consistent between them, especially the emphasis, something we've mentioned many times before, on the ongoing nature of saving faith for John.

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Remember how we've talked about in Gospel of John, Chapter 2.

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Gospel of John, Chapter 8. You have references to faith there that are not present tense.

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And in both of them, Jesus does not entrust himself in 1st, I'm sorry,

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Gospel of John, Chapter 2. People saw what he did, and they believed in him, Arist. And Jesus does not believe himself to them.

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He does not entrust himself to them, because he knows what's in the heart of man. And Arist faith is not saving faith in the

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Gospel of John. And in John, Chapter 8, people hear his words, and they believe, but then once Jesus presses his claims upon them, they're picking up stones to stone him.

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There is a false faith, and a false faith is identified with the Arist, with its non -continuing nature in John.

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But you also have in John the use of the one believing.

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Now this is called a substantival participle. It is a generally, generally, you can make the bald statement that a substantival participle may not have emphasis upon the time element, whether it's a present or whatever, may not have an emphasis upon that at all.

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Unless you can trace such a use in a particular author.

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And so I made, now remember, I'm laying a foundation upon which to deal with Leighton Flowers' claims.

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And I'm using that opportunity to discuss hermeneutics, exegesis,

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I'm putting material on the screen, I'm explaining things, so that once I get to Flowers, it's not just, well he's wrong because I say he's wrong.

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I will have laid the foundation in consistent exegesis of the text, demonstration of that consistency, so that when you make application, it's not me versus somebody else,

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I'm driving people to the word, rather than to, well he says this and he says that, and he's got his scholars and he's got theirs, and nobody knows.

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Rather than doing it that way. Forty minutes. Then I finally got to his assertion, the primary assertion

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I dealt with was where he was claiming that 1 John 5 10 is a counterexample to the interpretation

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I gave of 1 John 5 1. Well why would that be relevant? Because my assertion was that John's 1

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John, the epistle of John, has a consistent utilization not only of an articular present participle, the one doing, the one loving, the one believing.

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Which is something, again it's Yohannin in its nature, which you can also find in the Gospel of John.

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But also the fact that, you know, when you're talking about regeneration, it's nice to actually have the term there.

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Now that may sound silly, but there aren't all that many references to regeneration, especially to Genao in a spiritual sense and specifically the act of God in regenerating someone born of God.

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There are only so many places that that phrase is used and a lot of them are in 1 John. And so the fact that you have

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John taking these present participles and then tying them to the perfect tense finite verb form of Genao and then saying of God, born of God makes these central texts.

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It's funny, well it's not funny, it's sad. Professor Flowers has been posting, you can go to his

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Facebook page and see for yourself a bunch of other texts saying, well how about looking at these, how about looking at that.

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None of them have anything to do with Genao. They're just, well look at that over there, look at that over there and it's all scattergunned all over the place and you're just like, wow

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I was actually dealing with texts that use Gegeneitai. Um, you know,

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I just again, I really have to trust that serious minded people can go back and listen to our debate.

16:48

I think Professor Flowers is still smarting over that. I certainly got that sense from listening twice to the entirety of his podcast which as we'll see in a moment is something that he doesn't do for me.

17:00

Um, I think he's still smarting over that. I think he's still smarting over the fact that anybody who watches it knows that one of us simply opened the text and exegeted it didn't need to have notes or anything else and the other one was reading from a notebook with laminated pages and not really interacting with the other side.

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Had a presentation and what I was doing, I can do my thing, but you know, that's sort of how it went.

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And he admits, as we'll hear in a moment, to having a minimal capacity in the biblical languages.

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He admits having two years of Greek. Well, that's better than nothing, I suppose. But, um, that ain't much.

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And so what happened after I presented this material and after I demonstrated his statement in 1

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John 5 10 um, especially because there was no reference to 229 47 is not a counterexample.

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It is not a meaningful counterexample in light of the Johannine usage. Well, I heard that he did a response and that what he did was he didn't go and get the big names at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Didn't go get them. He didn't go get the big names in the traditionalist movement. No, he went to Brian Abbaciano.

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Now, he, uh, is the president of the

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Society for Evangelical Armenians. Teaches at Gordon -Conwell.

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Adjunct at Gordon -Conwell. Up in the northeast somewhere. And I sort of smiled because I think

18:44

Leighton Flowers realizes that those big names at Southwestern aren't up to dealing with this.

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They're just not. Um, I think he realizes that he had to go someplace else and he couldn't do it.

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So, isn't it strange if you're telling people on Facebook stuff about Greek syntax and then I challenge you on it and you can't respond and have to go get somebody else.

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Um, what does that say? I mean, it's just a question

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I think that needs to be addressed. What does that say? So, I had heard that this podcast had been done.

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I put it on the list of things to be gotten to and I wasn't sure when

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I was going to get to it, but I decided you know, Wednesday's ride is a long ride, 103 .5

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miles actually, so five and a half hours worth of time to listen and to get some stuff done.

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At first, by the way, just on a technical level, it was extremely hard to listen to this podcast.

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Um, the reason being that, and for openness here, we have edited this sound file, not by changing anything in it, but by running filters on it and running

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EQ stuff on it because the guest was almost undiscernable.

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Just, I can only describe it as muddy. Just no clarity to the pronunciation or anything.

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It's not his fault. Um, package coming, um, but I'm watching the video.

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Um, I'll hang in there, yeah. It was really hard to hear, especially when

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I've got some wind noise as I'm riding. And it was hard.

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I had to end up listening to it twice because the first time through I was like,

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I didn't quite catch that part or it got really hushed here. And so we have cleaned it up.

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We have done the best we can to make it more understandable because I honestly figured, playing it, so now you're getting it second hand, you're listening to it through a podcast or something like that, podcast sound quality isn't always all that great.

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Um, we've tried to clean it up so you can understand when we do play the actual sound file.

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So, I said, let's get to it. Let's listen to it. So I start listening to it.

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The first thought across my mind is, poisoning the well. First thing. I'm like,

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I hear the first quote and it's from the end of my presentation. It's from 40 minutes into my argument.

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It ignores everything I've done before. And I start listening and I realize, they're not going to play my argument.

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And in fact, it's nearly an hour into it. It's toward the very end before doctor, before the guest himself, before in other words,

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Leighton Flowers never brings up my argument. Never plays it. His guest has to mention it.

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His guest has to and evidently because he has looked at the

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Potter's Freedom and it almost sounded to me, and again, it was difficult to hear, but it almost sounded to me like he was going, well, you know, the better argument is this.

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And then he mentions 1 John 2, 29 and 4, 7, which I had spent 40 minutes on, on the program.

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So, once I got done with it and there were numerous things during the course of the program where it just, it was so obvious why

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Leighton Flowers had chosen to do this. And I'm going to play it for you here in a moment, but once I got done with it, moved on to other things, the first thought that crossed my mind on the ride was, once I get home,

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I'm writing to Brian DeBasio and I'm asking him, why didn't you deal with my argument?

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Why, why, why, well, you dealt with it briefly at the end, but why start with the end of my argument?

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And then accused me, ignoring context, you didn't lay a foundation for doing this, you're,

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Leighton Flowers, dogmatic, dogmatic, dogmatic, and he skipped every foundation that I laid.

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I mean, just misrepresentation, straw man, false argumentation, which didn't have to happen if they just bothered to actually listen to what

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I said. So, what's going on? So I write, and he writes back a while later saying, well,

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I was just sent a time index and was asked to respond from time index so -and -so.

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You didn't listen to the program? You didn't notice there was something before that?

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No. So I ask Leighton Flowers, why didn't you tell him to listen to the whole thing, or give him, well, that's just what was sent to us.

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Oh, that's just what was sent to you. So you didn't do your homework? You didn't check it out?

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You didn't, you know, they've got this little thing you can click on with the mouse and sort of slide along and you can see stuff, and you can sort of stop and start and see what someone's saying and all, and you might have seen all these

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Greek screens with Greek up, first on 5 .1, and 4 .7, and 2 .29, and you might have seen that stuff, maybe?

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In -depth research here, oh yeah, that's good stuff. I have to point out something that somebody in our

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YouTube chat just suggested, and that is that he's being consistent, because if you notice in the debate, he started at the end there, too.

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He tends to start at the end. Yeah, well, that's what we did here. So, I asked on Facebook, what's going on?

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Oh, well, we didn't know that you had spent 40 minutes on the subject.

25:26

It's just what was said to us. It really doesn't impact anything. Really? It doesn't impact anything.

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Let's listen. Starts off at the beginning. I'll play this one for you in a moment, but starts off at the beginning telling his guest that I attacked him because I disagreed with his citation of an article about 1

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John 5 .10. So, that's attacking him. That assumes that Leighton Flowers actually understands the articles he's quoting, and I have no reason to believe that anymore.

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None. None. So, he's poisoning the well from the start, jumps in at the end of my argument, but despite all that, let's listen.

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I marked a few things here. Let's just listen to some of Leighton Flowers' comments. Now, I'm going to play this at 1 .2.

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Again, a little faster so we can get through it a little more quickly than we do. Listen to Leighton Flowers.

26:30

Now, Brian, if you were really a real convincing debater, though, you would come on this program and you would say with dogmatism, this absolutely supports your

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Arminian perspective. And if you're going to be, if you're diehard trying to support and to hold up what you call traditionalism, or your traditional perspective, and put the evil effects with that, if that's your goal, then it seems like you wouldn't sound so scholarly in your approach.

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In other words, I'm being facetious here, but what we hear from guys like Leight is this dogmatism.

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They just say, this is what the Greek absolutely has to mean. No questions asked. By the way, you won't find any of that in what

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I said. There is no questions asked. None of that. I talked, we'll talk about it more in a moment.

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Calm about it. And they have to put up this almost, I would say, fake facade of absolute certainty, that this is what the

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Greek has to mean. Versus when I talk to guys like you and Dr. Harwood and Dr. Lemke and Dr.

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Allen. Who he didn't invite on the program. So many others who are versed in Greek as well. They always sound just like you.

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Where you say, well, no actually, the Greek has several different options here. You could understand it this way, and it could be best understood this way, depending upon the structure and the context of this.

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In other words, you don't speak with... In other words, what I had done in the 40 minutes that they didn't actually play.

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Dogmatism. That's kind of a blind dogmatism. That it has to be understood my way or the highway kind of approach.

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Which to me, sometimes internet folks, internet theologians, they glob on to anybody who comes across with certainty in their perspective, regardless of what it is.

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And I think that's where some of White's followers are. And I'm not trying to be mean by saying that, and I know they're not going to like hearing it, but I really honestly think that's what's happening.

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They hear his certainty. They hear him using these big words. And they think, oh my goodness, he's certain, and he's using big words.

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It must be right. There's no other options here. Do you agree? Do you see that kind of what's taking place here? Yeah, okay.

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Let's keep going. He was more concerned with trying to be consistent with the scriptures than being consistent with his tradition.

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His systematic. That's what I think we see guys like White doing. Though he's accusing us of doing it, ironically.

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He's the one who's, whatever it takes to be consistent with that system, that tulip systematic. I'm going to do whatever it takes to make every passage say what the system consistently holds to.

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So there's an accusation that I will do whatever it takes. I will twist the scriptures. I'm abusing

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Greek. I'm being dogmatic. I don't mention when there's ambiguity in the text.

29:19

All these things are false of course. We all know that. Anybody who's listened to this program, which he evidently does not, but everyone who does knows these are complete falsehoods.

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So why is he doing it? Like I said, I think this goes back to last year in Dallas, to be very honest with you.

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I think this is just sort of his way of getting a little revenge here on webcast.

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But there's more. If you say it dogmatically enough though, then it must be true.

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And I think his guest was a little uncomfortable with how many times he stuck himself in there saying things like that to turn into little shots.

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He's trying to take shots. Take shots. Turn something that somebody's saying into shots. But remember, they haven't addressed my argument yet at this point.

30:12

Took him a while. And then finally, this was the section that got the guest to bring up my actual argument, which he had not heard, but knew was in the book, 1

30:27

John 2 .29 .47 and the parallels and so on and so forth. Even while you're describing that, a pattern kind of came to mind in these discussions is when we try to point out the bigger picture of the text, the context of what the author is talking about, in this situation would be talking about the marks of a true believer, the marks of one who's truly been born of God.

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Now remember, everything that I had done for 40 minutes that they did not play.

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Just keep that in mind in this criticism. In the context of Romans 8 or 9 or those kinds of things, what's the context of what he's talking about with Israel and what's the bigger picture stuff?

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Almost always in these kinds of discussions, and I'm not trying to lump everybody in with just Dr. White, but especially with Dr.

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White, what I've noticed is he'll go microscopic. We'll be talking big picture, bird's eye view, because that's where you start in hermeneutics, with the setting.

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He'll go to the microscope. He'll look at this present participle indicative and start throwing out different grammatical things about the particular word and the particular verse.

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And there's nothing wrong with eventually getting to the grammatical arguments, because the grammar tells you ultimately what's allowed to be understood in the text.

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In other words, the grammatician can say, yeah, that interpretation would be allowed by this structure. We may not know for sure which of the two options is the intention of the author, but both, but the grammar allows for both.

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What tells you the true intention of the author is backing out to say, well, what's the context of this? What's the bigger picture? What's happening?

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Yeah, like how does John use the exact same form and the exact syntax and does so consistently and, you know, little stuff like the previous 40 minutes.

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What's being addressed right now by the author originally. And when you know all of those things, it seems that the option between the two things becomes very clear.

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But oftentimes, at least with White, he doesn't want to focus on the bigger picture. What's the question of the setting?

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What's the question of the author? Instead, let's go microscope first, because I can speak dogmatically about that and keep confusion of those who don't know

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Greek. I'm trying to use the confusion of those who don't know.

32:41

Do you have any idea how insulting that is from someone who is barely even conversant with the subject?

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I mean, wow. Wouldn't it be easy for me to say, hey, maybe this guy is trying to confuse people by misrepresenting the people he's talking about.

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Maybe. Hmm. Interesting. And keep confusion of those who don't know

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Greek as my weapon. I speak very dogmatically and very assured of myself.

33:15

This is obvious. Construction right here is the only way it could possibly mean. And this is it. I don't even want to look at your bigger picture arguments.

33:21

I don't even want to look at your setting arguments. Let's just look at this one word and see its construction. Is that a fair estimation of how he's approached this?

33:29

No. Of course it isn't. It's absurd, especially in light of the reality that has now been demonstrated to you all that you all skipped the argument, which would have demonstrated that everything you just said was a complete canard and a straw man.

33:47

But... You know, sometimes I'm a person who tries to, especially working with students, tries to take the complex and make it simple.

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And a lot of what you're talking about, there is some complexities, especially when you get into the participles and all those kinds of things. We understand that. And that's sometimes what some people are relying on to the strength of their argument, is that they rely upon the complex so as to cloud it from anyone who would know any different.

34:07

And so you only have a percentage of people within the United States who would even be qualified to question what

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White is saying. And so he can speak with dogmatism about something that's complex. So...

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I think that has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what the real intention of Leighton Flowers was here.

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The problem is, everything we just listened to is grossly false.

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In light of just, I mean, just the dividing line they're responding to.

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Just with that 40 minutes of discussion, all this stuff. I dealt with context.

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I dealt with all those things. All this stuff about being dogmatic and all the rest of this stuff.

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It wasn't there. That's what makes this just so amazing.

34:56

Now, I do want to before I start playing some other stuff here, I want to point something out. I made some previous comments.

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But I've got a little graphic here. And I just want to illustrate

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I've put up here First John the relevant phrase, First John 229 the relevant phrase from First John 4 -7 and here's

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First John 5 -1. The relevant phrases. And I want to point out a couple things once again.

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First of all, I stand by my refutation of the assertion that First John 5 -10 is directly parallel to First John 5 -1 and is hence a counterexample.

35:46

It is not. These are, however. Each one of these constructions is using pos followed by a singular, articular, present participle.

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So, pos ha poyon, pos ha agapon, pos ha pision.

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So, everyone doing, everyone loving, everyone believing. Now you have righteousness, everyone doing righteousness in 229.

36:32

There's a textual variant. Remember I did note, I recall doing this. There is a textual variant where an object is provided for the object of love, but it doesn't have real strong manuscript support.

36:49

So, it's just simply the one loving. There is an object to this belief, the one believing that Jesus is the

36:55

Christ. Then each one either has ek tutheyu, ek tutheyu, or ex autu, no difference in meaning, whether it's ex autu, from him, or from God, from God, and then they all have the exact same form of the verb.

37:17

It's a finite verb, but it is a perfect. Has been born from him, has been born from God, has been born from God.

37:30

Now, as I mentioned, and as you can look up, if you, this is the one that most people have today.

37:41

It's Dan Wallace's grammar. And see, one of the problems here is

37:46

I was concerned on a couple levels with Dr. Basiano's presentation.

37:55

This is a specific construction. So, the only thing that's going to be relevant is asking the question, is the use of the perfect tense finite verb, genao, with a present tense articular participle, singular participle, especially in constructions using pas, a relevant construction, and is there information in that construction as to the logical, causal, or temporal relationship between being born of God and the resultant doing of righteousness, loving, or believing that Jesus is the

38:38

Christ. That's the issue. You can wander off into Hebrews someplace, and find a participle and a some type of verb that says something else, but that's irrelevant.

38:56

It doesn't matter here. Only if you're talking about the general, broad range of the time of participles connected to that of finite verbs do you need to get into all of that.

39:09

In fact, I'll be perfectly honest with you, if you want to go listen to the podcast, I think most folks are not really going to understand what the response was.

39:20

Even when talking about this exact issue toward the end, I don't think most people are going to understand what the response was.

39:28

But what we have here, and this is, again, and no one seemed to understand why

39:35

I pointed this out, I pointed out a parallel construction called the

39:41

Granville -Sharp construction in 2 Peter. And I said, and Dr.

39:50

Baciano said, I don't even know why he brought that up. Okay, well, let me explain. I think it's pretty obvious, personally.

39:59

When people try to get around the Granville -Sharp construction, when

40:06

Aryans tried to get around the Granville -Sharp construction in 2 Peter 1 .1, identifying

40:11

Jesus our God and Savior, or Titus 2 .13, our great God and Savior. When they try to get around that, they will very often make reference to counter examples that are not specifically parallel.

40:24

For example, in 2 Peter, there are four Granville -Sharp constructions, and no one questions the translation of three of them as Lord and Savior, because that doesn't mess up their theology.

40:35

But when you get to God and Savior, that messes up our theology, so all of a sudden we come up with a different way around it.

40:41

And my point was that people like Leighton Flowers are not consistent. They won't let people run off to other types of things and say, no, no, no, that's not parallel.

40:52

Okay, I may have been being too kind. I don't know that Leighton has enough knowledge of the original language to actually be able to detect when someone's changing, when someone's going to a non -parallel.

41:04

But my point was, if he was consistent and had that knowledge, he wouldn't allow this.

41:10

But that's what Abashiano was doing. He was talking about these general categories, rather than my argument, and that is the use of present singular participles, present tense singular participles, with pos in Johannine literature is relevant.

41:31

It's not just some general category. It's something that he does to communicate something. And you want to know an example?

41:39

And then, of course, being born of God three times in 1

41:46

John, it is absolutely relevant that it is clear that the reason we are doing righteousness is because we have been born of him.

41:59

You see, the synergist presuppositionally cannot accept this, because they believe that we can do what is good and right in God's eyes without being born from God.

42:11

We can bring about our own regeneration by what we do. God makes it possible.

42:18

Can't do it without God's grace, but God can't do it without our cooperation. So it's a presuppositional thing.

42:24

It can't be done. So when you encounter a text that says it can be done, well, you have to find a way around it.

42:33

The reason we are doing righteousness, 1 John 2, 29, is because we have been born of him. The reason that we are loving is because we have been born of God.

42:41

And the reason that we are believing that Jesus Christ is because we have been born of God. You cannot argue that that is a least a possible interpretation of what

42:52

John is saying. You can't do it. And in fact, since you cannot provide a single counter example in the

43:00

Ohanian literature, which is why I focused upon 1 John 5, 10, it's not a counter example.

43:09

Then you have a hard time arguing against the idea that given the consistency of John's own usage, that's what he intends to communicate.

43:18

The only way around this is to say, well, you know, I just don't think the text is clear enough to really tell us this.

43:25

And that's what we're going to get. That's what we're going to get when we finally get around to playing this stuff.

43:30

I'm sorry, I've been going far too long here. But I do like to provide background information and actually listen to the entirety of the programs so that you don't do face -plantingly silly things.

43:44

So with all that said, we need to get to this or we'll never get it done. Let's listen in.

43:53

Quick comments, but let's listen in. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you on is because you kind of got attacked in the last couple of episodes, well, two episodes ago or so, indirectly, because he actually quotes from me, but he may or may not know that I was actually quoting from an article that references you.

44:11

So you were indirectly attacked this last time. That's called poisoning the well. You were attacked. No, I wasn't.

44:17

I simply responded to what he posted on Facebook and refuted it.

44:24

That's all. If you want to call that attacks, if you want to get the, you know, poison the well, get the emotions going,

44:31

I know you're attacking me, but I just played enough of you doing that to sort of prove that that was the case.

44:38

To tell your guest that I was attacking him assumes that you understood and accurately represented what he said, and I don't,

44:44

I can't assume that, and I don't think anyone else should assume that with you either. Instead of my feeble attempt to defend within the original languages, though I know original languages.

44:55

I've taken, you know, a couple years of Greek, and my wife's a Greek tutor, and so I wish I could have all of her knowledge.

45:01

As we, when we became one, I really wish I had that kind of ability that she has, but I am not, I'm not the level of scholar that you are in the original languages.

45:09

Well, thank you very much for that confession that you are going on second -hand information here.

45:17

And so what I want to do, if it's okay with you, is for us to listen to White in his critique of the article and let him just speak for himself.

45:26

Sorry. And then just get your feedback, and I know you could say whatever you want to say in response to him and give your feedback from the

45:35

Greek perspective, as well as just from your own estimations of what his argument is. And so, without any further ado, here is

45:42

Dr. James White on 1 John 5 .1. To Ron Christensen, Jr.,

45:48

Leighton Flowers said, I agree with this quote from the article referenced earlier, 1 John 5 .10, this passage has the same construction, but clearly puts the participle logically prior to the main verb.

45:56

The one who does not believe God is not believing, present participle, has made perfect him a liar, 1

46:01

John 5 .10. The construction is the same, a present participle followed by the main verb in the perfect tense. Obviously, the making a liar of God has made perfect.

46:09

Did not precede the not believing. Rather, it is because one is not believing that he has made God out to be a liar. So with the exact same construction we have as in 1

46:16

John 5 .1 and 2 .29, we have the participle present, taking logical precedence over the main verb, perfect. So the argument just doesn't hold water.

46:22

John wasn't giving a theological discourse on the ordo salutis. He was giving various markers for identifying those who truly belong to God and are his children.

46:29

God's children can be identified by their righteous acts and their faith. Now, I want people to understand when your tradition and synergism as a human tradition becomes your ultimate goal, you will end up perverting the scriptures in a dangerous fashion.

46:44

Now, again, just so you remember, this is 40 minutes into the presentation.

46:53

This is not the start of my argument. I would not start out with that. I'm not going to make some assertion about your slavery to tradition without laying the foundation first, which

47:06

I had. I had laid the foundation very clearly long before this.

47:15

So jumping in at this point and going, you're just, well, as we're going to see.

47:24

All right. What do you think about that? I think what's very strange about it is he seems to show no awareness that he could possibly be operating on human tradition.

47:33

No awareness. I have no awareness that I have traditions. None. I'm just like Dave Hunt. He just seems to assume that you are operating on human tradition and it seems to me because you disagree with his interpretation of scripture.

47:49

I've never debated this guy. We've never had interaction. This is just the first thing

47:55

I've ever said about Leighton Flowers. A Christian approach would be to assume in good faith we're trying to understand scripture and that you're not necessarily putting tradition over scripture, but you're trying to see what scripture says.

48:10

I don't know. I think that good faith thing would include actually playing what my actual argument was. Don't you think? Every time

48:17

I've responded to Dr. Baciano I've actually represented him accurately by actually citing him.

48:23

I think his comments on Acts 13 and 48 are just out in the woods. But I didn't just jump to his conclusion and ignore his arguments in dealing with that.

48:36

Interpreting scripture and trying to make a case for what you believe scripture is saying. It just seems to be a bit of poison in the well.

48:43

It's interesting that White takes a couple different approaches with me. Part of the time he's saying... This is embarrassing to me.

48:51

You bring a scholar on. He is a scholar. And then Leighton starts doing the well, you know, and by the way he makes references to me about this.

49:01

As if this guy either cares or would even know about these things. I really don't know that he has much interest in the traditionalist movement among Southern Baptists that much.

49:14

Maybe he does. He didn't seem to really be overly interested in that.

49:20

I am representing Southern Baptists today and I'm representing the views of synergists in this area and this area.

49:28

Other times he says that I'm all by myself and nobody holds these weird, strange views. It's hard sometimes to take that seriously when on one hand you're saying this guy is representing a long -held tradition and defending the scriptures at any cost for that tradition and on the other hand trying to marginalize me as somebody who doesn't hold the view that's held by scholarship throughout generations.

49:51

Now, major category errors here. What he's conflating here is

49:56

I'm talking about the tradition of synergism and Arminianism. But then he conflates that with his odd readings in either

50:06

Romans 9 or John 6. I'm not sure which one of the two he's referring to, but he takes rather odd viewpoints as a number of other people have pointed out.

50:14

So he's putting them together and trying to get this guy to say yes, bad,

50:20

James. Bad. Bad man. It seems to go back to this idea of you're just going with tradition and I guess would want to alert people to just to hear realize what's going on with that as he says that.

50:37

It seems to be, again, like a poison of the well suggesting that you're just going by tradition and it's almost a way of trying to negate any substance that you have to what you're saying because if it's all just painted as, oh, that's just being controlled by your tradition, then it seems to have that.

50:53

I call it catchall. I call it catchall argument. It's a catchall argument. It's like I don't want to deal specifically with those actual arguments that he made so I'll do a catchall argument, which is well, this is another example of someone who puts tradition first.

51:07

So it's a catchall argument because I don't want to actually deal with the substance of Layton Flowers' arguments.

51:14

That's even hard to say without laughing because I had spent 40 minutes doing that prior to that, laying the foundation.

51:22

But I'm just bringing up this. My whole argument is that you are blinded by your tradition.

51:32

Which, of course, wasn't my whole argument at all. It's a catchall argument so if I can't deal with an actual perspective,

51:38

I'll just say he didn't exegete the text or I'll say he's just defending his tradition. So I can't deal with Layton's arguments so I just say he doesn't exegete the text.

51:48

Just watch the debate for yourself, folks. I saw some pretty good nasty comments on the

51:55

Facebook page, on Layton Flowers' Facebook page. He evidently allows folks to post nasty grams like that. As Rich pointed out, we wouldn't have allowed that on ours even if they were about somebody else.

52:05

But, you know, different strokes, different folks. But there's the assertion.

52:12

Whether it's truthful or not, I'll have to leave that to you to decide because it seems pretty obvious to most of us.

52:18

The weak argument. I don't know that his closest followers will call it that or think of it that way. Of course, it wasn't an argument.

52:24

I was making an assertion about the fact that yeah, my argument on 1

52:32

John 5 1 was not, well, they're wrong because of tradition. Do you have a reverb in there?

52:38

We can do tradition too. No, let's not even bother. That wasn't an argument.

52:45

I was making a statement that tradition causes people to pervert the scriptures. But that wasn't my argument.

52:51

My argument had been going on for 40 minutes before that. More misrepresentation.

52:57

But it's probably one of the weakest of argumentation as far as in a discussion or debate over a particular interpretation.

53:03

Yeah, well, if I used that argument then that would be relevant, but it's not. 1 John 5, 10. Ha, Pissed you on.

53:09

Okay, where's Posse? Then they play me. This is, again,

53:15

I'm just simply, I've laid the foundation for all of this for a long time before this.

53:23

And now they're playing the conclusion of this. But listen carefully to what

53:28

I say. Listen carefully to what I say because I didn't catch, sometimes when you listen to yourself you sort of just zone out because you know what you had said.

53:39

At least you think you did. Listen to what I say here. But Posse, so there's one difference.

53:45

The one believing in the son of God has the testimony in himself. The one not believing, so now we have a negative.

53:53

We have a negative may in God. A liar has made him because he has not believed in the testimony which

54:01

God has testified concerning his son. Now, the only thing, we can take it down, the only thing that is parallel here at all is the use of a articular participle and the use of a perfect finite verb.

54:15

If someone tried to go to 2 Peter and overthrow the Granville Sharp construction in the same fashion,

54:23

Leighton Flowers would never accept it. But he will here because he has a tradition. And his tradition takes precedence over the scripture itself.

54:30

This is not a syntactical parallel. This is not parallel to 1 John 2 29, 1 John 4 7 and 1

54:35

John 5 1. We've just seen that. We've just seen that.

54:42

We've just seen that. Where? If either one of these men had actually taken the time to seriously listen to what

54:51

I was saying, wouldn't the first thought across your mind be, where? I think

54:57

I might need to back up the tape a little bit here. Well, okay. Back up the

55:02

MP3 a little bit here. Back up the YouTube video here. Whatever. Whatever. And then they would have gone, oh golly bob, there's 40 more minutes of stuff here.

55:14

But they didn't. And I have every right to say to quote a source of information that is absolutely final in arbitrating disputes like this,

55:29

Captain Hook. Bad form. Bad form. Straight from Peter Pan.

55:35

Yes indeed. I remember when my kids were listening to that. But anyways, it was right there.

55:42

Guess we just sort of skipped that part. Didn't really listen, didn't really catch that. Good job.

55:48

But what if you use this? What if you believe this? You have now just given safe harbor to those who say that by doing deeds of righteousness in the sacraments of the church, you cause yourself to be born again.

55:59

By doing love through the sacraments of the church, you cause yourself to be born again. It's right there, right?

56:06

Those are quotes from what? 1 John 2 .29, 1 John 4 .7. What I just said there is absolutely non -understandable.

56:16

Unless what came before, came before. But they didn't catch it. Neither one of them.

56:24

There you go. By the way, real quick. I want to show you something.

56:32

And I'm going to have to change input here for a second. I have to go over to accordance real quick here.

56:48

And I want to show you something. If we look at 1 John 5 .1

56:59

and should be fairly familiar to us now. Everyone believing that Jesus is the

57:07

Christ has been born from God. Pascha Pisteun. Everyone believing. Now one of the arguments that they're going to use here is that Pascha Pisteun is just simply it just means believers.

57:24

It just means believers. It's just describing people. This is meant to communicate attributes of believers.

57:37

Now I want you, you see this phrase here? Pascha Pisteun. Right there. I want you to emblazon that in your mind for a moment.

57:47

Because what is the favorite verse of the traditionalists?

57:56

Well, let's take a look at John 3 .16

58:03

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever right?

58:12

What's the whosoever? Pascha Pisteun.

58:20

Absolutely identical. So which is it?

58:28

Is it whosoever or is it actually a description of believers? Because if you take their interpretation of it in 1

58:35

John 5 .1 and make it consistent with John 3 .16 then

58:41

John 3 .16 is talking about believers and there's now a specificity in John 3 .16 which is what they fought against forever.

58:49

I just sort of thought that was humorous. It's like well we're going to get them over there and in the process you end up getting yourself back over there because it's your tradition doing your interpretation rather than your actual ex -Jesus.

59:09

Just wanted to mention that before I forgot to do it. And Thomas Collings on Twitter just posted the picture of oh why can't

59:20

I remember that guy's name? Who played Hook? I can see him.

59:27

Are you looking at me? No that's not him. It's the other guy. Oh man. Somebody in the channel is going to have to mention that because I'm just really bad with names of actors in the first place but he posted a picture of bad form on Twitter so I appreciate that.

59:44

You're looking it up on Google aren't you? Yes. We're sort of stuck here. I can't go back to playing audio until we figure it out.

59:52

Who played Captain Hook? Dustin Hoffman. Thank you. There. See? Knox finally got to it but too late.

01:00:00

Beaten by Rich to Google. Dustin Hoffman going bad form. And yes.

01:00:08

Now everybody's coming up with it but a little late. Now it's coming up on Twitter.

01:00:15

Dustin Hoffman is now absolutely going to flood my feeds, the channel, everything.

01:00:22

Dustin Hoffman's going to be everywhere. And everyone's going to wonder how Dustin Hoffman got into Poshopistion anyways.

01:00:27

I would say if Dustin Hoffman believes he will find Jesus to be a perfect savior. So we will invite Dustin Hoffman to do that.

01:00:34

But we go back to the sections of the thing here that I wanted to play for you.

01:00:40

The Greek grammar there is not definitive on that question. It doesn't solidly indicate that.

01:00:47

There may be some things that are more likely and how should

01:00:54

I put that? Let me just kind of address the issue. Now, Dr.

01:01:03

Baciano wants to talk about generalities of Greek grammar.

01:01:11

Great. Fine. If I had not done the 40 minutes beforehand and just simply said this, that, and the other thing, fine.

01:01:24

Even he admits at one point that I admit it. I'll take that back. He has written something for on Facebook because obviously

01:01:35

Flowers has gotten back in touch with him and said, Oops. Could we look at that?

01:01:42

What he actually said. And so he's written this little thing. And it's all just, you know, let's cover our heads here because we put out an entire podcast arguing against someone, accusing them of all sorts of things, of deceiving people and trying to confuse people and everything.

01:01:58

And we just didn't do our homework. We just face planted it big time. But one of the things he admits is that I even said in my presentation the options that are there, if you didn't have a consistent usage, if you didn't have parallel usage within John, then these are the possibilities.

01:02:26

And in fact, let me just, you know, just so you all know, to quote from Dan Wallace in his, probably the best known syntactical grammar right now, pragmatically the participle of manner,

01:02:48

I'm sorry, wrong section, present participle, which is what Hoppe's theorem is.

01:02:55

The present participle is normally contemporaneous in time to the action of the main verb. Now, not even a discussion here of, because see a lot of the general discussions will skip over the fact that if you have a perfect tense verb rather than a present tense verb, you have to somehow be able to fit that into your translation, and you have to interpret the relationship of the action of the participle with that of the verb.

01:03:27

You have to. If you leave it untranslated, it's going to be a mess. This is especially so when it's related to a present tense main verb, which is not what we have in 1

01:03:37

John 5 .1. Often, in fact, it follows a present imperative as a participle of means. Not here.

01:03:43

But this participle can be broadly antecedent to the time of the main verb, especially if it is articular.

01:03:50

This is articular. And thus, adjectival, but not really. As well, the present participle is occasionally subsequent in a sense to the time of the main verb, which is what we have here.

01:04:05

This is so when the participle has a telic purpose or result flavor to it.

01:04:11

But here's the point. And I know this, and I everyone who listens to this program knows

01:04:17

I have taught this every single time that we've dealt with issues like the deity of Christ, or the

01:04:22

Trinity, or all sorts of issues like that. And our Arminian friends don't raise any arguments then because, well, they happen to agree with us.

01:04:31

But it's only we get here that well, that might indicate a tradition issue. Yeah, I guess it does. Anyway, you interpret texts in their context.

01:04:41

Now, context can be the micro context. It can be a sentence. It can be a paragraph. In this case,

01:04:47

I primarily looked at a letter and an author. Authorial context, and specifically literary context, the context of that particular book.

01:04:56

And I made an argument that Leighton Flowers is not even capable of addressing, and Dr.

01:05:03

Basciano does not refute based upon authorial intent and literary usage in 1

01:05:11

John. I fully recognize that. And you have to take into consideration not only the perfect tense of the verb here, but what gennao means.

01:05:20

And what John means by being born of God. And what the results of being born of God are.

01:05:28

And the reason that there is a present tense love, the reason there is a present tense doing of works of righteousness, and the reason there is a present tense believing that Jesus is the

01:05:38

Christ is because we've been born of God. That's why. It's God's work.

01:05:45

That's why I continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ. That's why I continue to believe God. That's why I continue to love

01:05:50

God and love the brethren. That's why I continue to desire to do works of righteousness. It's because it's all divine.

01:05:58

That's his message that's consistent with John 6. It's consistent with John 8. It's consistent with John 10.

01:06:04

It's consistent with John 17. This is why

01:06:09

Arminianism will always remain a man -centered position that cannot stand in the debate forum.

01:06:24

Because it has to bring in external authorities to overthrow plain biblical teachings.

01:06:34

So, I'm going to skip down here, and I'm going to get to where he actually by accident addressed my argument because it was mentioned in the

01:06:48

Potter's Freedom. And I'm going to let you all listen. And here's my invitation.

01:06:55

Here's my invitation to anyone in the audience. Go back. Listen to the last dividing line.

01:07:05

Radio Free Geneva. Listen to the presentation. I've repeated some portions of it today, but not all of it.

01:07:15

Listen to what I said. And then listen to this. And you tell me who has clarity on their side.

01:07:25

You tell me who has gone to the text and explained it in a meaningful fashion.

01:07:32

Okay? Let's listen. Well, actually he does, and this is where the best

01:07:39

Calvinist argument is for 1 John 5 .1. He does point to some other parallels in 1

01:07:45

John. And so this is the thing. Grammatically, that grammatical argument that faith, that regeneration precedes faith in 1

01:07:53

John 1 is utterly baseless. It just does not, the grammar does not indicate that.

01:07:58

The best argument from Calvinists and from White would be by pointing to there are two other passages in 1

01:08:06

John that use the same construction as 5 .1. The past plus present plus the perfect passive indicative.

01:08:13

And that's in 2 .29 and 4 .7. Where they do seem to, they do refer to characteristics that we would normally think are the result of regeneration.

01:08:24

So the sub -societal power school seems to indicate a quality of a person that you would normally think, just theologically, that's the result of regeneration.

01:08:33

So in other words, he's referring to the one doing righteousness and the one loving. Those are the results of regeneration is what he's referring to there.

01:08:41

So that's the best argument to make. The grammatical argument, though, is completely bogus, so the argument that White should want to make or Calvinists would want to make is to go there.

01:08:50

Which is what I had done for 40 minutes before they jumped in and didn't do their homework. I think that there are a number of considerations that make that, because what they want to say is, in those passages then we see regeneration, we would have to assume or believe that regeneration causes those characteristics and so when we get that same statement about being born again, we have to assume that regeneration is what causes being born again.

01:09:12

Now, that's a better argument. It's not compelling, though, because Okay, so finally, we are, where are we?

01:09:22

We are 51 minutes. 51 minutes into the program, before 51 minutes where I've been accused of trying to confuse people, misusing

01:09:35

Greek, dogmatic statements that weren't even my argument, over and over.

01:09:40

51 minutes in, we're finally going to get to why the argument is not compelling.

01:09:47

Ready? ...contextual considerations, but the point to be seen is, this is not a contextual argument, and you have to go from context.

01:09:55

And so, I don't know if you want me to say why I don't think those are compelling, if we have enough time for that, or I'll skip down to where he continues.

01:10:02

...follow that because first John identifies other phenomena as the result of regeneration that every phenomena it connects with regeneration is its result.

01:10:09

Now, I don't know if you can tell this, but I can tell this. He's now reading. He's not giving this, he's not doing what

01:10:17

I did for 40 minutes. He's not interacting with the text directly that way.

01:10:24

He's reading. Right now. So evidently he's written something about this, and now he's going to read us something, and it...

01:10:33

Okay, so here's why it allegedly doesn't work. I would say there's several reasons. One, it does not follow that because first John identifies other phenomena as the result of regeneration that every phenomena it connects with regeneration is its result.

01:10:46

It could equally be that another phenomena associated with regeneration is actually the cause of regeneration, or without any causal relationship to it.

01:10:53

So, what does that mean? Let me summarize it for you, because I evidently can summarize arguments better than other people can.

01:11:03

Here's the argument. The argument is first John 2 .29 and 4 .7 are different than 5 .1.

01:11:11

That even though John just, you know, it's John's fault. He went and used the same construction, he used the exact same pass, and he did all this stuff, but he didn't mean us yeah, in 2 .29

01:11:26

and 4 .7, yeah, yeah, regeneration precedes that. But, he didn't mean, he just messed up in 5 .1.

01:11:34

I mean, they don't say that, but what they're saying is in 5 .1 is yeah, in the other two, there is that relationship, but there isn't here.

01:11:48

Why? Well, because that would contradict their theology is what I would say, but I'll let you try to figure out why from his explanation.

01:11:58

So that's one thing. Second, that argument, I think, again, as I mentioned, is based on context, but there's a specific key contextual factor involved in each of the other passages that suggests some sort of causative role for regeneration, but it's not present in 1

01:12:11

John 5 .1. So, what he just said is there's something in 2 .29

01:12:18

and 4 .7 that's not in 5 .1. And what is it?

01:12:24

That God has a certain quality, whatever it is in each specific case, and that therefore, the one who has forgotten of him, his child, will be like his father.

01:12:31

It's the issue of family resemblance, so to speak. Like the old saying, like father, like son. Did you catch that?

01:12:39

So, God is love, so we're to love. I guess

01:12:44

God works righteousness. I mean, everything God does is descriptive of Him. I mean,

01:12:50

God is righteous, just as God is faithful. Oh, but that's 1 John 5 .1. I can't go there.

01:12:56

No, no, no. Just because God's consistent, no, no, no. We've got to build a wall here.

01:13:05

And so, the idea is, in 2 .29 and 4 .7, God is loving, and God is righteous.

01:13:14

And so, we're to look like Him, and so once we're begotten of Him, then we'll look like Him.

01:13:20

But that's not what 5 .1's about. Being begotten of Him doesn't have anything to do with the ongoing nature of our faith.

01:13:30

And being trusting children of God and trusting God's character, no. That's, no, there's a wall here.

01:13:37

We all saw that wall. None of us saw that wall, and you know why. So central to each of the passages indicating regeneration as the cause of some quality in the believer is the notion of causal similarity between father and child.

01:13:49

But this is not the case of 1 John 5 .1. The issue there is not the believer being like God the Father in believing in Jesus.

01:13:55

The Father does not believe in Christ in a saving way as humans do. So that's just a different context. And, you know,

01:14:01

I think you've mentioned this, I don't think I've mentioned this. So, the Father doesn't believe in the Son, but we should, and so there's a difference.

01:14:13

So faithfulness, consistency, you can put all that out. I'm sorry, but this is one of the most artificially shallow things

01:14:21

I've ever seen. And it clearly is not drawn from the text.

01:14:27

You are seeking to avoid what the text indicates. But, that's what

01:14:34

Arminian scholarship is about, so this is about the best you're going to get. This is what should have been the entirety of the response.

01:14:42

This is what, this is the best they've got. But, so you need to hear what it is.

01:14:48

You need to understand what it is. Accurately represent it. I love that point.

01:15:12

This is what they've got to try to do. They've got to try to break any link between what

01:15:20

God has done, sovereignly, in causing us to be born again, with the continuation thereof.

01:15:29

Now see, we've got it easy here. The reason we love is because God has caused us to be born again.

01:15:37

The reason we do righteous is because God has caused us to be born again. The reason we continue to believe is because God has caused us to be born from above.

01:15:45

Since they cannot allow God that level of freedom, then they have to build an artificial wall, separate 1

01:15:53

John 5 1 out, your continued, now for an Arminian, a true Arminian, continued belief and faith, that's something you bring up within yourself.

01:16:02

It's not that there is a saving faith granted by God as a gift from God. No, no, no. But, what if you stop loving

01:16:13

God? Huh, I'm not sure how that really works out either. I can't really figure out how to be consistent with this from an

01:16:21

Arminian perspective because Arminianism is not overly concerned about that other than being consistent in affirming the autonomy of man over against denying the autonomy of God.

01:16:32

But you've got to build this wall and separate two of them out. Again, isn't this exactly what

01:16:39

Jehovah's Witnesses do to the Granville Sharp construction in 2 Peter? Yes, identical. Identical argumentation right down the line.

01:16:48

They try to build a wall between the other uses of the Granville Sharp construction and the one in 2

01:16:54

Peter 1 1. To say, well this is why we don't do it. No, the reason they do not translate 2 Peter 1 1 that way is because they don't believe what it says.

01:17:01

That's why. Indicated as such because whatever regeneration causes serves automatically as sure evidence of regeneration, giving assurance of sonship and eternal life to the one possessing the qualities produced by regeneration.

01:17:15

But the cause of regeneration would serve the same function. If faith causes regeneration then faith is a sign of being born again and belonging to God.

01:17:25

You know what I mean? If faith causes regeneration and then you see that someone has faith then you know that they're born again and that they belong to God.

01:17:31

And so there's no traction for... By the way, did you notice in 1 John 5 1 there is an object to faith?

01:17:39

Everyone believing what? That Jesus is the Christ. It's not just a nebulous faith.

01:17:45

It is an acceptance of the specific core claim of the Christian faith, just like saying

01:17:51

Jesus curios. ...argument to say that there's no purpose for him to indicate faith as if it's something that causes regeneration but there is because the point of these statements in John is to give assurance of salvation.

01:18:10

It's not about, like I think you said earlier 1 John 5 1 isn't about trying to pin down the relationship between faith and regeneration.

01:18:18

It's really because faith is a sign of regeneration. And I would say theologically we see that, we get that from other texts.

01:18:25

What's the relationship between faith and regeneration? 1 John 5 1's not really addressing that but other texts do. And when they do we find out that that life comes by faith.

01:18:35

That faith brings spiritual life. So it doesn't go that grammar doesn't, you can't build he's had to admit that the parallel context in 1

01:18:48

John we've got to dismiss them as being relevant. This is evidently a unique construction in 1

01:18:54

John that goes against the two other uses and we have to go to other texts to understand the actual relationship.

01:19:04

Because this isn't telling us anything about it. Just a couple more minutes left but this is the best they have.

01:19:12

The other thing I want to say about 1 John 5 1 and the idea of faith relating to regeneration is that faith is relatively unique among the other phenomena related to regeneration in the epistle.

01:19:21

Because it's also depicted as causing these other qualities, not to mention additional ones. So in other words, faith is just a pervasive reality in 1

01:19:30

John that causes all sorts of, or brings all sorts of other spiritual reality. John depicts faith as yielding righteousness, obedience, saving knowledge of God, love, victory of the world and spiritual life.

01:19:41

And so John himself presents faith as the means by which believers receive spiritual life. And regeneration is the beginning of spiritual life.

01:19:47

So if faith brings spiritual life, and regeneration is the beginning of spiritual life, faith then brings regeneration.

01:19:55

And this is a prominent theme in Johnian theology. Not to mention the New Testament generally, that faith brings life.

01:20:01

That God gives eternal life. Have you noticed that they're having, this happened earlier, they're having to play games with gegeneitai versus life.

01:20:12

You know, we have, present tense, eternal life. But obviously there is a point in time in which we enter into that, when we translate out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

01:20:22

So they're playing, they're equivocating. Playing games with that, to try to make them equal, to try to get around what the text is actually saying.

01:20:30

Through faith. By faith. But, the thing is, if spiritual life is received by faith, then that place is faith, at least logically prior to the bestowal of spiritual life, and thus logically prior to regeneration.

01:20:40

And so, I think... So logically prior, despite, despite the fact that in two of the three constructions in 1

01:20:48

John, it says the opposite. We put in a wall and say, no, this isn't about that, and we're going to say that faith brings regeneration and we're going to go to other texts.

01:21:03

We're not going to Romans 8, which actually completely contradicts that. I mean, 180 degree black and white contradicts that.

01:21:09

Those who are quarrying the flesh cannot submit themselves to what God's law demands. And God's law says you'll believe and repent.

01:21:16

Right? Ah, we don't have to worry about that. There's always an explanation. Because if your ultimate goal is libertarian free will, there's always a way to explain it.

01:21:28

...expected readers familiar with his teaching that spiritual life comes by faith, to know that regeneration is granted by faith, and to understand 1

01:21:34

John 5 -1 accordingly. Though his intention, again, was not to specifically make this point, but to give assurance of sonship and eternal life to his audience of believers.

01:21:42

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome, what you just read. What did it mean?

01:21:49

Don't bother getting your theology from XGing the text. Create your theology up here.

01:21:55

Make the text fit. Now, they accused me of that. I'm now accusing them of that. Who's proven it?

01:22:02

Who's actually played everything the other side had to say? That's everything he said about my actual argument.

01:22:08

In the program. That's everything. Leave it up to you to decide that.

01:22:14

Was there anything else down here? Not really, other than just further documentation of the fact that Layton Flowers is an

01:22:21

Arminian, by his own confession. What have we learned from this?

01:22:27

Obviously, we've learned from this that the internet causes us all of us at times to be lesser researchers than we should be.

01:22:47

Instead of Layton has said, I'm sorry if you felt misrepresented.

01:22:53

That's one of those great apologies where I'm sorry if you feel insulted that I said your mother wears army boots or something like that.

01:23:06

No. The reality is that the argumentation was ignored and when you actually listen to it and then listen to the best they have in response to it

01:23:22

I think it's really clear really obvious what's going on here.

01:23:33

I was taken aback I was taken aback by Layton Flowers response to my pointing out the rather major blunder that they made

01:23:45

Some people said you're actually going to address them again because does that mean there's going to be months of this now?

01:23:50

No, not really. It does strike me as a really good illustration of the difference between a consistent methodology of hermeneutics that can not only address the relationship between regeneration and faith in the

01:24:13

Christian life of 1 John 5 .1 but can also defend the deity of Christ in Titus 2 .13

01:24:19

and 2 Peter 1 .1 That's the difference. That's the issue. My Arminian friends will defend the deity of Christ the same way

01:24:28

I will but then they jump ship when it comes to these other issues.

01:24:34

If you never have to jump ship you're in the right exegetical boat. If you gotta keep jumping from boat to boat to boat that's a sure sign of tradition.

01:24:46

That's a sure sign of tradition. It really is. Well, we've gone nearly an hour and a half and I hope it's been useful to you

01:24:55

I certainly hope that you have a really good idea now of what the issues are in regards to 1

01:25:02

John 5 .1, 1 John 2 .29 1 John 4 .7 and the fact that Poschopistion in John 3 .16

01:25:10

is specific. It is identifying a specific group in order that the ones believing might not perish but have eternal life.

01:25:19

There is specificity in John 3 .16 and yet many people think that there isn't.

01:25:29

But hopefully it's been helpful to you think next week should be should be normal as far as I know should be normal so we'll see what happens.

01:25:40

See I told you on Tuesday, I said who knows what can happen between now and lo and behold something did.

01:25:47

Who knows what will happen between now and next Tuesday is the New York primary. Who knows.