Pluto, Finland, the Evil Regime, and Scripture and Tradition

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, the last one here in the studios for a little while, going back on the road. Starting on Monday, we'll be up in Las Vegas, which we used to call Lost Wages.

And that's just never been an attraction to me at all. I've just a real big juicy cheeseburger for still a very small amount of money in places like that. But it just, I don't know, just the looks on people's faces, it's just so sad, to be honest with you.

It's just never, never been attractive to me. Anyway, did you notice the CDS on Twitter was mentioning something about razors and how I obviously don't need one anymore? And I said, oh, you noticed? He said, yes, I noticed.

Yeah, it's getting there. We'll see. Right now, it's all a matter of, once it gets long enough, can you control it? And can you do what you need to do with it so it doesn't look just like it goes poof all over the place?

And, but I want it to be nice and full for the debate with Doug Wilson on the 22nd of next month. Well, I guess it is March 31st, so that is next month, but that's only three weeks away. And yeah, in fact, I think it's three weeks from tomorrow, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, we're going back on the road and I will be speaking, we just updated the stuff on my calendar and I will be speaking in Las Vegas, Lord willing, Monday evening. And so, same place where I spoke last time, really had a great time with those folks.

And so that's where we're going to be again. And then Wednesday night, speaking in Cedar City, and then up to Salt Lake and Wade Orsini, pastor of Apology Utah, has posted a thing there, which I assume is on my calendar as well.

And so I'll be doing a lot of stuff with Jason Wallace and going down to Payson. I've never spoken in Payson, Utah before, Payson, Arizona too, but we'll be going down there on Thursday the 14th, I think.

So yeah, a lot of stuff going on in Utah and then I head north, pray for good weather. I'm hoping, for example, some of the fun stuff you deal with now when you don't fly, I don't fly, I don't have to worry about masked Nazis, TSA agents, any of that kind of fun stuff, but I do have to be concerned whether the water will be turned on in Missoula at the KOA by the time I get there.

Will it be warm enough to actually have water or will you have to go over to what's called the freeze-free spigot and fill your tanks up and then use your tank heaters to keep that from freezing overnight so you can get a shower in the morning or whatever.

So just little details that you have to play with. Anyway, so we're getting ready to go on the road and so your prayers for that and your support for that. Obviously, a little more expensive this time around, but that's what we'll be doing.

The next trip after that will actually be in August, which sounds like a long time from now, but it's not. End of July, actually, but into August, we'll be heading back up for Colorado, going to be doing, Lord willing, a seminar up there with Jason Wallace in the Denver area.

And so we'll be getting some information on that out as well. Why are you looking at me like that? Jason Lyle. Did I say Jason? I said Jason Wallace before. Too many Jasons? Okay. Yeah, no, Jason Wallace is not coming down from coming.

I'd be actually coming over. Jason Lyle. Yeah, the smart, the really smart guy. Jason Wallace is a smart guy, but Jason Lyle is like the uber smart guy. So yeah, there you go. What are you doing? Yes, poor Jason.

Well, hey, all of us in comparison to Jason Lyle are just sort of regular human folks. But anyway, anyhow, so yeah, that'll be then. And we are trying to work on a couple of other things in the process.

I can't really mention right now, but it could be really, really interesting. Speaking of Jason Lyle, I texted him, I think yesterday, about an article that I saw. It was a fascinating article about the confusion that has, and this will be interesting for our homeschool kids, the confusion that has resulted in the flyby a number of years ago of Pluto.

One of our probes flew by Pluto and got the best pictures. And of course, realize when we talk about pictures, we're not just talking about, you know, they stuck an iPhone in there and click, click, click.

The vast majority of those images would be infrared and everything trying to get through anything that would be in the way of getting a real good understanding of the surface of Pluto, which, you know, it depends on who you talk to is or is not a planet.

And that's simply because we have all sorts of stuff in the solar system, different sizes. And for example, I think if I recall correctly, I didn't look this up, I'm just going off the top of my head.

I think Pluto's moon is like 40 the size of Pluto. And my recollection is that there are moons in our solar system that are larger than Pluto. So that's why that's, I was taught it was the ninth planet too and all that kind of stuff.

But look, it's besides that, Disney is now gone. So we don't have to worry about Pluto. You know, I mean, we just need to flush Disney. That's just all there is to it. It's, Rich just said, it's all very goofy now.

So I'm not, let's, let's stop that track right now. Let's not take that one any further because it could get really weird. Anyway, we, the scientific community that will not simply go with data. I don't know, Rich can't see this.

I can see the cameras outside our offices here. And I'm watching something that most of you just would not be able to understand. There's a landscaping crew here right now and they are mowing what we generally call grass out.

And just the dust, the dust clouds that are not, not, not of shavings of just dust because it's more dirt than it is grass. And, uh, I just remember I, we first moved out here from Pennsylvania that you'd see stuff like that.

And you're just like, where have I gone? Why did we do this? And especially since we arrived here, July 31st, uh, from Pennsylvania, that was really not a, not a wise thing to do. You come down from Flagstaff, you open the door and it's like, what have we done?

Uh, yeah, it's, um, it's Arizona. That's how it works. Anyways, what are you talking about? Pluto? Yes. Sorry. Um, see what happens when Rich starts making jokes in the other room. Um, we just, we just blame him for, for everything.

It's, it's, it works. It's, it's well worth doing, uh, in my opinion, uh, uh, all the time. Okay. Um, Pluto, why, why is the world, why is the scientific community confused? Think about it. If, if the universe is billions and billions and billions of years old and our solar system is four, five, six, seven, it depends on where you get things started and the planet spinning and all the rest of this kind of theoretical stuff.

Um, given how far Pluto is from the sun, um, it should be a completely frozen, solid rock dead as a doornail. Uh, there could not possibly be any, um, thermal energies left after billions of years that far from the sun.

There's just not enough solar radiation getting out there to warm stuff up in the, in a sense of creating that kind of activity. So it should just be a, a dead rock. But what they discovered is, um, sure there's plenty of places in, on Pluto's surface that are pockmarked with all sorts of, um, craters from meteorites and things like that, which you'd expect.

Um, that you don't have that in, you know, in, on earth because weather erodes those things away, except for the few obvious exceptions, like the one we have here in Northern Arizona, uh, where there isn't enough rain to erode that away, obviously over time.

But what we have on Pluto, there is volcanic activity, not volcanic in the way that we would understand volcanic because Pluto's made differently than, than the earth is. And, uh, you have super hot magma coming up out of the earth and stuff like that.

Um, but you do have tens of thousands of kilometers of what is obviously very new surface on Pluto, barely marked at all by anything. Yeah. There's the, uh, there's the land, the landscapers outside my window right now, getting there, uh, blowing those things.

And it doesn't really do much. All it does is just blow dust around it. Just make sure that your car is covered. Uh, it's blowing it that way, right? Yeah. And I, the reason they showed up is I washed the car on the way in today.

So that's, and, and parked it right in front of where they're working. So it's doomed. Um, anyway, so here's all this evidence on the very surface of Pluto that says this planetoid planet, whatever you want to call it, this planetoid is not billions of years old.

Now, obviously scientists look at it and they go, well, there must be things happening that we don't understand. And we will understand someday and discover that yes, it's billions and billions of years old, but they're at a loss to explain this, uh, this data that's right there in front of them, which of course we could never have had until very, very, very recently, not only in sending probes out that far, but the communication that required that's required.

And then the imaging technology that we now have, um, there are really exciting missions planned for the future, but I'll be honest with you. I don't know how many of them are going to happen. We're, we're doing the same thing to NASA that we've done to the United States military.

Um, instead of doing the best to do the best science missions or military missions, you know, they're involved with transgender insanity and equity and equality and all the rest of the moral revolution and the silliness of the, uh, culture of death.

So I, I I'll be honest with you. I don't know, uh, what the future is going to hold along those lines, but there you go. So look it up, uh, look up, um, Pluto surface images, a few things like that. And you'll, you'll find the discussion out there.

It's a, it's fascinating stuff. And it, it, uh, is encouraging to me to see that kind of information out there, by the way, we should not, um, skip this, skip this because we, we were talking a lot about this in the past few months.

Um, but the, uh, case in Finland, remember, uh, Paivi Raisanen and you just can't even say these names, uh, Dr. Paivi Raisanen and Reverend Dr. Johanna Poyola, I think, um, were on trial for, well, the amazing thing is in one case for having written a book like 11 years ago, that simply states basic Christian belief on the subject of marriage.

And they were on trial, um, for hate crimes, uh, there in, um, Finland. And, um, they have on, yeah, as of yesterday, uh, they were fully acquitted, fully acquitted. They were not convicted. They were fully acquitted.

Now you might say, well, great. And on one level, yeah, but how, how, how many times have we, have we said the process is the punishment? The process is the punishment. And that's what we're seeing. Um, look at the political prisoners in the United States.

We, we have become a banana republic under the Biden regime, where we literally have political prisoners who are not afforded their constitutional rights right out front. Just everybody just, Hey, there they are.

These are the people who walked into the Capitol and then didn't do anything. And most of them stayed between the nice little velvet ropes and took selfies. Um, and so they are rotting in prison and being treated unlike the people firing fire bombs at federal buildings in Seattle, who will never be charged anything.

Um, these are political prisoners and why are they there? They are there. So the regime says to one part of the population, we will crush you if you dare oppose us. That's how banana republics are. That's how socialism, communism, the left works wherever.

Um, and that's what the Biden regime is without any question about it. And that's what was going on in Finland. People probably knew that the end they would, they would be acquitted, but that wasn't the point.

The point was you have to have attorneys and you have to shut down your life. And the whole thing is to say to everyone else in your group, don't do this. Don't think that you have freedom to believe these things.

Don't express these perspectives. That's what it's all about. And we will see that more and more and more and here. Um, as we are seeing just the, the rush into the fullest forms of leftist ideology, um, tyranny, totalitarianism as secular man, seemingly without any restraint, any longer expresses his detestation to his creator and to anyone who would still acknowledge that creator.

Um, that's, that's what we're seeing. That's what we're seeing. If you want to see that in its fullness, um, today I will try to get this up here. There we go. And I don't, I, whoop, I need to do the audio thing.

Sorry about that. Uh, I think that's it. Okay. Um, we'll see if it works today. I, today is, um, transgender day of visibility. I think a lot of people my age these days, just simply at times stop and pinch ourselves.

Is this real? Has this happened? This is beyond the worst dreams of the prophets of old. I mean, literally the United States today would owe Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, God's going to owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology is what's always been said.

If he doesn't bring judgment upon this nation, because Sodom and Gomorrah never dreamed of the level of evil of someone like, uh, Harari today's Dr. Mengele, uh, at the world economic forum. And especially now the empty suit of Joe Biden representing whoever it is.

That's actually running this country in the Biden regime. It's not an administration. It is not an administration. It's a regime. It's a regime that is flooding our country with non-citizens that they will then make citizens in the future by refusing to control the invasion across the Southern border.

This is a regime that pretends to be far more concerned about the borders of Ukraine than the borders of the United States. That's just, that's just a reality that is not even arguable. It stuns me when I see people on Twitter, I don't see any of that happening.

And it's like, must be a bot. I really have to wonder how many people you run into on Twitter actually just bots. Um, anyway, it's a transgender day of visibility and, um, the puppet in chief, um, stood in front of his teleprompters and just spewed evil.

It's the only way to put, if this had been done 20 years ago, the world would have been stunned, stunned at the level of evil, but now it's considered, considered to be a good thing. So let's see if this is going to work.

Um, here is, um, resident Biden on transgender day of visibility. It's only a minute and 42 seconds long.

Thanks, B. Uh, let's see if it works. To everyone celebrating transgender day of visibility, I want you to know that your president sees you. Jill, Kamala, Doug, our entire administration sees you for who you are, made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect, and support.

But we know it's hard when there are those out there who don't see you and don't respect you. For example, the onslaught of anti-transgender state laws attacking you and your families is simply wrong.

This administration is standing up for you against all these hateful bills, and we're committed to advancing transgender equality in the classroom, on the playing field, at work, in our military, in our housing and healthcare systems, everywhere, simply everywhere.

Today, we're announcing even more steps, but there's always more work to do to end the epidemic of violence against transgender women of color and girls of color, to ensure transgender seniors can age with dignity, dignity, and to finally pass a Bipartisan Equality Act to help transgender persons around the world live free from discrimination and violence.

Above all, to be there with you. To parents of transgender children, affirming your child's identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy. To any transgender American who's struggling, please know you're not alone.

To parents and children alike, please ask for help and know this, you're so brave, you belong, and we have your back. God bless you all. Be brave.

Every word that we utter will be judged righteously by the one appointed by the Father, and that is Jesus, the risen Savior. And that is what allows me to keep my sanity when you realize what this man's actually saying, because along with this video came a statement from the White House emphasizing the importance of early, providing for early surgery, the mutilation of fully functional bodies, the destruction of little girls, mastectomies, removing the sex organs of little boys, poisoning their bodies with drugs that will cut in half the length of their lives.

It is official child abuse by the government of the United States. There is no excuse. It is evil, and it will be judged. There is only one thing to call for in this situation, absolute repentance. This is not an issue where we consider, well, some people view it this way.

No, this is evil. This is you walk through the gates of Auschwitz evil and thinking that, well, but some people feel this way or feel that way. If you can't see what this is, you are morally dead. Your soul is gone.

It's astonishing. Let's think about some of the things that were said here. Let me, what I can actually do is I can click through this without playing it again because of the, yeah. So here's one quote, made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect and support.

Could we analyze this on a worldview level, please? This is what happens when you have an apostate nation, a nation that once acknowledged the existence of God, that promoted the knowledge of God's word and now has turned its back on that, but can't get rid of language made in the image of God.

How do you define that? How do you define that? We know how Jesus defined that from the beginning. He made the male and female from the beginning. He, the creator made them male and female. You don't get to change that.

So here is a man twisting what the image of God means, how it was defined thousands of years ago in the written scriptures and perverting it into its negation, into its negation. It's astonishing. That is, you cannot expect God to be mocked forever.

And yet how many who call themselves Christians are applauding what this regime is doing. That is astonishing in of itself. It truly is. Notice, for example, the onslaught of anti-transgender state laws attacking you and your families.

In other words, there are Americans standing up and saying, no. In Florida, I think I just heard here in Arizona yesterday, finally, always leading from behind, our pseudo-Republican governor, Ducey, signed a bill sort of following along in regards to sports in the schools and men pretending to be women and women pretending to be men, so on and so forth.

It's simply wrong. On what basis, Mr. Speechwriter for Joe Biden? Because we know even the press had to recognize Biden over the years had voted for all sorts of things, all sorts of bills that would now be considered anti-LGBTQ, right?

Of course. If the left did not have hypocrisy, they wouldn't have anything. But what's the foundation? Well, I would say it is more obvious that this regime is following the worldview of Harari, who says everything's natural, since there is no God, since there is no creator, it's all mythology.

Then his homosexuality, Harari's, his homosexuality, pedophilia, transgenderism, all the sexual perversions are natural. And therefore, to assert ethics and morals that would be objectively binding upon the human family in a culture, that's wrong.

That's wrong. But again, just think for a second. Let's use a day we all, well, those of us who are old enough all remember 9 -11. Can you imagine if any American politician had said on 9 -11, what Joe Biden says in a minute and 42 seconds here?

No one would have even understood what he was talking about. How is this even possible? That's how fast this has happened. So, this regime standing up against all these hateful bills, committed to advancing transgender equality in the classroom.

Oh, you better believe it. I'm going to tell you something. All you have to do, all you have to do is subscribe to the libs of TikTok on Twitter. That's all you got to do. And watch one video a day and you will realize how the public education system in the United States has been used as the means of bringing this nation to its knees.

It's astonishing. I just, one just popped up while I'm sitting here. I've got, I've got this thing on when I have Twitter up, I can set it to a certain amount of time and just refresh so I don't have to do it myself.

And here is some lesbian teacher, something talking about, oh yeah, she's, oh, she's crying too. Yeah. She's crying about the Florida bill. It is just the, the, the maturity, the emotional maturity level of our society is currently in the single digits when it comes to an ability to control emotion, to think rationally, to do any of that kind of, it's, it's gone.

It is, it's first grade level, I'd say probably about six years old, right around there. And it's being promoted, uh, as if that's a good thing. And then I don't know if you noticed, um, he repeated in housing and healthcare systems, you talk about the equity, the equality act everywhere.

He repeated it simply everywhere. Don't you think for a second, that doesn't mean your church, you, you, your Christian school, your church, totalitarians, big brother cannot allow any place where there is freedom of thought outside of what he demands people to think, you know, looking back, we all know what happened in 2020.

Now we all know that the Democrats freaked out about Bernie Sanders. And I had said, and I was wrong because I didn't see this. I had said, I just cannot possibly see how Joe Biden could make the general election that the man's non-composite menace.

He, he, he's clearly non-functional. And I was operating on the assumption that, and you need to have a functional precedent. Um, he is the old grandfather guy that is being put forward as the face of this evil, because it is evil.

No one will use this term anymore, but we have to. What do you call the things that nailed Jesus to a cross? Evil. And how do you define these things? Well, that's where the church is afraid of answering that question openly, God's law.

Well, unfortunately, a lot of evangelicalism has decided that I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. God hasn't expressed his moral desires for mankind in any way, because I mean, that was just, that was just Israel.

That was just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, and so there are just things that we, we need to be saying because this nation is not any longer stumbling, you know, slouching toward Gomorrah. Remember what was it Bork said?

Was that the term he used slouching toward Gomorrah or something like that? I thought it was Bork. Yeah. Anyway, um, someone will tell us, uh, Rich is looking. Anyways, we're, we're no longer stumbling, slouching or anything else.

We are running full tilt, slouching toward Gomorrah. Yep. All right. Well, brain still works once. Well, as long as it was more than 20 years ago, we're good. Um, we aren't, we are running full tilt and we're running directly into judgment and you only have to look at history.

You only have to look at the, the remains of the Roman empire. You only have to look at the remains of the ancient enemies of Israel that we find buried in the ground, uh, to know that God does eventually deal with nations that violate his law and we need to leave a testimony.

We need to leave a testimony to the world around us that if this nation disappears under multiple mushroom clouds and we don't fight back because people didn't know how to operate anything anymore because they were trained in gender inclusive stuff rather than how to actually do anything.

There was a reason. There was a reason. And it's this insanity. And like I said, I, I've been saying for a year and a half, two years now, we must be very clear in recognizing that we have a role at this time to prophetically announce to a people whose ears may be closed and hearts may be made hardened, just like someone named, uh, Isaiah.

But we have a prophetic role to fulfill, to make sure that our people will know why these things happened, why these things happened. Um, vitally important, vitally important. So like I said, he says everywhere, everywhere that includes your schools, your, your homes, your everything.

So here is the regime literally saying, um, that, uh, surgery, puberty blockers. Oh my goodness. Do you have any idea the devastating effect of these drugs upon a developing body, upon a developing mind, these people want to kill children.

They're already killing children in the, in the womb, Maryland and Colorado both have laws. They're passing laws right now that will allow for infanticide, absolute, not, not just abortion, not just late-term abortion, absolute infanticide.

The language is purposefully meant to say that if you deliver a baby and you don't want it, want it, let it die. And no one will even investigate you. No one will even investigate you. Just let it sit over there until it stops crying or hit it a few times.

It'll, it'll stop crying. It's it, the level of demonic evil is absolutely astonishing. Astonishing. So what you got happening is in some places we're, we're pushing forward with the light and the darkness just seems to get darker in other places to compensate for it.

The lines are clear. The lines are clear. The culture of death wants death and they're going to do everything they can to bring it and to bring it in plenitude, in plenitude. It is an amazing time. It is an amazing time.

All right. Well, sorry for the, any of the preaching that started there. There wasn't really, I don't know. How does anyone, how does any human who still has a soul talk about what people are doing today?

The, the, the, the murderous attitude toward children, puberty blockers, take the time to find out what this stuff does at the very, very, very least aside from just the incredible long-term permanent damage to that human being.

The massive, massively increased probability of suicide and death and cancer and everything else. At the very least, they'll never have kids again. And that's what they want. That's what they want. And to sit there and pretend it's because we're so caring.

If you refuse to love the truth, you'll be caused to love a lie. And man, are people loving lies these days. Amazing. Just amazing. All right. I'm going to try to shift gears. Try to shift. The foundation of the Christian worldview is God's holy word, the Bible.

Did I tell you? Did I, did I mention, I think I mentioned, I, um, I'm in line. I did not ask Jeffrey to bump me up or do anything like that, but I'm in line with another Jeffrey Rice rebind project. He has what's called the block, the blocks, the paper it's that's, that's this part here.

So he has the block and he'll let me know when he's getting to get to do the cover. I'm going to do one with this inside goatskin. So it's going to be an orange color with gold pages, but I've decided to go with the legacy standard Bible, the LSB.

Why? Well, it's simple. Many people have heard me for years reading from the old Testament. If I was reading from New King James, NASB, whatever I was reading from, when I got to the Tetragrammaton, L-O-R-D in all caps, what do I do?

I read it as Yahweh. And the LSB, that's what it has. So you don't even have to be making the conversion in your mind. Then at key Christological texts, I would criticize the NASB in certain readings, Romans 9, 5, sort of a clunky translation at John 1, 18.

And when you look at the LSB, it renders both of them in the exact way I render it. So I don't have to go now, the NASB says this, but the Greek would better be rendered this, et cetera, et cetera. It just has it there and you don't have to worry about it.

And so, I mean, most people know the LSB is based on the NASB and it just has these relatively small number, but I mean, well, of course you've count every place Yahweh appears, it's thousands of times, but still relatively small number of changes.

It's based on the 95, if I recall correctly. So yeah, I do like the, these endows in the 77. So, you know, but yeah, I'm getting an LSB done by, by Jeffrey Rice and I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be, going to be bright and it's going to be goatskin and it's going to be cool.

So those are my reasons for adopting that as my English translation when I use an English translation. We'll go from there. I will link to this, obviously, when we blog this program, but an article was posted March 31st, that's today, by Dr. Sam Waldron at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary on his blog called, Do We Still Believe in Sola Scriptura?

Do we still believe in Sola Scriptura? And I had the opportunity of reading the article a couple of days ago before it was, it was posted. And I think it is exceedingly important, exceedingly helpful.

I am hoping, to be perfectly honest with you, that many of the older and younger individuals in the Reformed Baptist movement who have adopted the mockery form of argumentation, maybe in light of Dr. Waldron's lengthy ministry and reputation, will rethink the utilization of their chosen form of argument in light of the concerns that he has raised in this particular article.

I think most regular listeners to this program will recognize that Dr. Waldron's concerns very much parallel my own. And in fact, in one of the points, he specifically links to one of the dividing lines where I was dealing with this particular issue, that one specifically in regards to Thomas Aquinas and the concept of Sola Scriptura.

I have yet, by the way, to hear anyone, including the Protestants who actually say that Thomas did function on the basis of Sola Scriptura. I've not heard anyone. And I may have missed it. I miss lots of stuff in social media, but I've not heard anyone respond to my discussion and citation of Aquinas in regards to his comment in regards to the discussion of sacred tradition in written and oral forms.

I've not heard anyone. I've heard people talking about everything else. But it's interesting when I quote Aquinas, it's like, no one wants to interact with that for some reason. It's back to the mockery stuff or some other subjects or just throw out Sola Scriptura and Colossians 2 .8 as if that's somehow meant to be an argument.

I will highly recommend to everyone the reading of the article. There is one particular section that I wanted to focus upon because I didn't know when this article was going to come out. And this is, to me, it was already on the list for today.

So before I saw this article, this is already on the list and it's covered. So under the section two, why I am concerned with such clear and crucial scriptural truth and confessional affirmation before us, it is nothing less than shocking to be confronted in recent years with assertions by reformed men that seem to me directly undermine the truth, the supremacy and sufficiency of Sola Scriptura.

That's what I've been saying. I've told a lot of people that I'm heartbroken, that men that I've preached for and whose schools I've taught are saying things that 20 years ago, I could not have dreamed would have been coming forth from the pens, the mouths, minds of Reformed Baptists.

And when I have attempted to speak about these things privately, been rebuked, just ignored. Yeah, you're just a biblicist, I guess. First troubling statement a few years ago, this statement troubled me when I heard it and it still troubles me today.

Quote, here's the statement. Semper Reformanda does not mean changing doctrine, but it means applying the doctrine to our lives. It is a clarion call to a vital experiential understanding of the truth in the lives of Christ's sheep.

So it's not changing our doctrine, but applying the doctrine that we already know to be biblical. That's the quotation that Dr. Waldron is responding to and finds troubling. And here's Dr. Waldron. The origin of the phrase Semper Reformanda does seem to emphasize bringing our practices into line with our confessional doctrines.

Compare W. Robert Godfrey's online article here, reference to a article by Dr. Godfrey. At the same time, it seems to me whatever Semper Reformanda originally meant, we must embrace the notion that our confessions are subject to being reformed on the basis of Sola Scriptura.

Even our confessions must be subject to being reformed by scripture. Yes, our practice must change, but sometimes our confessional statements need to be modified. The American Presbyterians had to do this with the Westminster Confession in and around 1788 to 1789 to take out of it the deadly doctrine of the union of church and state.

Let us not deny that our confessions are subject to the authority of scripture and subject to being reformed by scripture. Here is the issue, my friends. Here is where we have to think very, very carefully.

I listened to a sermon that was delivered this past weekend on the relationship of the London Baptist Confession of Faith and Sola Scriptura. And if there had been no background, if the past year's worth of conversation had not been taking place in regards to Aristotelian metaphysics communicated through and baptized by Thomas Aquinas, becoming the foundational background of understanding particular phrases in the London Baptist Confession and what has been called classical theism in regards to the doctrine of divine simplicity, and it's the extended assertion of what we might call mono-attributism, the idea that ad intra, that internally to God, there is no distinction between his omniscience or his omnipotence or his justice or his mercy or his love, that they are all to God the same thing, even though it is necessary ad extra for the glorification of God to his creatures, that his creatures make distinctions that he himself does not make.

And if that background wasn't there, I could have listened to this sermon and there were a couple places where I would have gone, interesting way of putting it, but probably wouldn't have necessarily thought too much about it.

But knowing that background, I realized that the key issue that was not addressed was when you talk about the great tradition, and this is a phrase that was first used in conversation to me by a scholar in reference to the mass of Byzantine New Testament manuscripts, interestingly enough.

But when you speak of the great tradition, when you have people who are Reformed Baptists who are saying that the doctrine of the Trinity did not receive its final and full formulation until the great tradition provided that in the medieval period, then we have to ask the question, what is the relationship between a confession and scripture?

And if we admit, well, the confession becomes the lens through which we read scripture, then we no longer have anything to say to the Roman Catholic who says the exact same thing because that's their argument.