Malcolm Yarnell/Corporate Election/Bart Ehrman Review Continued

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and greetings and welcome though I can't see anything right now I'm not sure whether hey there we are technical difficulties our technical people are distracted by live studio audience today obviously concerned about nervousness and things like that people looking over the shoulder that's what happens when you normally don't have a studio audience and we were gonna

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I played with the idea of starting off with the RFG theme just because that excites certain people so much and makes them very happy we are gonna we are gonna start off with something that would fit into radio free

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Geneva as I mentioned last time the troublemaker in Dallas who

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I guess was sick yesterday I'm sorry to hear about that I pointed out he pointed out that Dallas wins and he gets sick and I said well you're you're overwhelmed by shock since that was the first time in eight games that that happened but anyway the troublemaker from Dallas had linked me up to a presentation

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I'm not sure where this sermon was but dr. Yarnell did a sermon on corporate election it was associated in some way shape or form with the primary promoter of corporate election you know that the

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Southern Baptists who are fighting reform theology and its general promulgation in Southern Baptist circles are focused primarily in at Southwestern and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and it's a it's interesting the directions they've been willing to go to try to cobble together some kind of a defense and so you've got the

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Molinus running around doing their very weak

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William Lane Craig impersonations and then you've got the big corporate electionists and what is corporate election well corporate election is the idea well obviously when you say for all of these you're going to get spins and variations but in general corporate election is the idea that Christ is the elect one that the focus of election is

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Christ many will say he is the elect one specifically and that the actual selection if there if you could even use the term of election selection on God's part is only to save in Christ and hence how you get into Christ is left up to man's free will so the election is no longer of individuals but of a nameless faceless group or of a plan

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Geisler presented something like this in chosen but free the idea that God chooses to save he elects to save in a particular way and that is in Christ and you know unfortunately a lot of folks are are taken in by that they they go oh yeah well there's there's an election there is a choice well that sounds good it's good it's good way to get around this problem stuff of of individual election but many people don't recognize the tremendous cost at which this escape is made and when you think about it instead of there being an intimate personal knowledge based upon God's foreknowing and gate based upon God's choosing in love to enter into relationship with his elect people that's gone no no again they depending on how they deal with foreknowledge and how

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God has foreknowledge and where they just do the it's all just a mystery we don't know you don't know we're not we're going to make assertions that would demand us to hold certain positions but we recognize we can't defend those positions so we're not going to go there and so we're called all mystery there's a bunch of this bunch of folks are doing that number now that are basically saying you know we can't know how

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God knows but God knows differently than us but God can go without causing things to be known and you know they the main thing they've got to get away from is

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God's sovereign decree that there can't be a decree he's not working all things at the council as well or that all things have to be very very limited and kept far far away from the true center of the system of every synergistic system and that is the free will of man so whatever whatever

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God's working out it has to stay over here and not cause a problem for the autonomous will of man over here so but you'll go from Molinism to corporate election and the cost of that corporate election is the personal nature of election itself because now what you do is you instead of having you know

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Paul can say he endures all things for the sake of the elect well that is now a a nameless faceless amorphous group that is not formed by the sovereign choice of God only its existence is formed by God's choice instead the content of this amorphous group is determined by man and if God has knowledge of who that is it is accidental knowledge it is knowledge that he comes to by having some ability of foresight or whatever else

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I mean you may come up with very you know maybe you'll use middle knowledge to come to that to provide

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God with that knowledge but soon as you start using middle knowledge you're still left with who's the one putting out the cards you know

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God's got a deal with the hand he's been dealt with and so we want to know who the dealer is and it goes back to all of the lengthy discussions we've had in the past of the subject of Molinism but all of these are attempts and not overly consistent attempts to get around the fundamental issue and that fundamental issue is the freedom of God to deal with his creation as he sees fit with the corollary of that being that you and I as human beings are a part of that creation and therefore

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God has the right to do with his creation as he sees fit now the problem here

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I'm just making a connection here before we go to listen to some of what dr. url said the problem here is

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I hope that as you're thinking about what's going on the world right now as you're thinking about the collapse of Western civilization on a moral and ethical level and once the morals and ethics go everything else could go along with it but when you think about the massive explosion of the claim of self -autonomy

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I have the right to determine my reality my goodness now we have people that are so wildly immature that they think they have the right to live their lives without ever encountering a thought other than their own lest they be offended oh my goodness if I've said it before let me just say it again what you're seeing in that ridiculous university movement that I have the right to a safe space where I will not be offended is the institutionalization of infanthood of infanthood

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I'm seeing that right now no offense to my my dear my dear first born granddaughter but she's at that age where she communicates oh does she communicate just like her mommy who was doing that communication thing early on vocabulary just exploding and an ability to express herself very clearly but when the world is still very small to us primarily mommy and daddy and some friends and maybe some neighbors and some people at church but the world is very very small it's still you know she's not three yet and when you offend and that offense may simply be bringing discipline to bear saying no we're not eating the 14th piece of candy or whatever else it might be when you offend oh my goodness the the explosion of tears and expression of dismay and and that's exactly what

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I'm seeing from 21 year olds and I have no society can possibly exist that is run by infants and no society can possibly exist that will for even a moment give in to the demands of infants and yet that's what's happening we've got people resigning right and left because infants are throwing a fit on the floor shocking absolutely shocking

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I I have zero sympathy and zero respect for an adult who thinks and acts like an infant none whatsoever and you can say

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I make you a hater well that just demonstrates where you are in your lack of maturity but anyway moving beyond that the explosion of self -autonomy in Western culture runs directly up against Christianity in what way if your biggest emphasis is upon the autonomy of man's free will if your biggest emphasis is that God that God's sovereignty is to be limited to his sovereignly choosing not to be sovereign which we've heard people say on Radio Free Geneva more than once then your less than biblical theology is fundamentally crippling your ability to even meaningfully engage with the cultural situations that we're facing today theology matters and if you believe that God has kingly freedom over his creation to do with it as he sees fit then that means he has the right to determine the parameters of human sexuality and marriage and relationship and what is morals and what is ethics and his law and everything else he has the right to do that and we do not have the power or ability as his creatures to circumscribe that or to change that but for a lot of folks that's just really not where they are that's not where they are because they for other reasons in a completely different area of theology have decided that well we just don't like that Calvinism stuff so we want to we want to go someplace that we don't like them newfangled things as someone said just recently and so it has an impact it has an impact so I'm going to play this a little fast actually 1 .4

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for those interested so we can get through a little bit quicker but I found this sermon or this presentation troubling it was difficult to follow at times at one point it would sound like I'm in I'm in agreement with what's being said and then 10 or 15 seconds later it's well no he didn't mean what

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I thought he was saying okay now he just said God is sovereign and but now he's saying that doesn't mean this and it just struck me what

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I was hearing was someone who is struggling with the text and is very concerned that the text might say something that he does not want it to say and so he's dancing right along the line and what it reminded me of to be perfectly honest with you what it reminded me of is when

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I hear somebody speaking and I know their boss their employer someone who has extreme authority over them that could make things really difficult for them is listening and they know there are certain places they just simply can't go

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I don't know who is in this audience but I have a feeling

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Paige Patterson was there and if he wasn't there are plenty of folks who know him and who would report to him and so I just got the feeling

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I'm not sure whether you'll get that feeling but I just got the feeling that the it seemed to be nervousness now nervousness can be also created by playing it too fast

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I suppose but there seemed to me to be a nervousness and I didn't listen to it all that fast when

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I first listened to it so it's probably not that but a an energy that whenever you'd start because Ephesians 1

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Ephesians 1 I mean it's like you know Ephesians 1 Romans 9 John 6

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John 10 you know these passages are very compelling and it just seemed to me like there was a concern on Yarnell's part about going somewhere that he might have to explain in a way he didn't want to have to explain okay so that's we're looking at just program note

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I don't know what Friday looks like it's a no right out not leave in town huh might as well be okay so that's why we're front load in the week again so for those of you wondering well why'd you do

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Monday Tuesday why do you keep changing things well that's just how it works you know what can

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I say most of you listen by podcast anyway so why are you complaining so have a wonderful Thanksgiving and we'll be back next week so let's get to Malcolm Yarnell here and I'm skipping

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I'm gonna skip through a few few things but we'll get some of it here and then I'm actually not intending to use the whole hour on this

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I hope to get to do some other stuff but we'll see all right let's jump in and that means that you are the object of his election

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God really cares about you this is a blessing you are the object of his election now many of you are beginning to think I'm the object of his election particular election particular election followed by particular reprobation double predestination and all of a sudden like the

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Enlightenment person you are who thinks everything in a mechanical sense you have decided that God is this great computer in the sky who's decided that there are zeros and ones and he's assigned everybody to one of those or another now

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I actually slowed it down to 1 .2 it sounded sound way too fast there to begin

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God is the great computer in the sky personal election reprobation and he's he's he's at verse 4 of Ephesians 1 and so I guess the idea is that if you believe that election of individuals unto salvation is in view in Ephesians 1 then you need to view

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God is the great computer in the sky that that you're a post was it post Enlightenment thinker was that the term let me let me let me catch it again

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I want to I want to get exactly that means that you are the object of his election God really cares about you this is a blessing you are the object of his election now many of you are beginning to think

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I'm the object of his election particular election particular election followed by particular reprobation double predestination and all of a sudden a sudden like the

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Enlightenment person you are who thinks everything in a mechanical sense you have decided that God is this great computer in the sky who's decided that there are zeros and ones and he's assigned everybody to one of those or another

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Enlightenment person that you are if you believe that election is personal then you believe that God is the great computer in the sky with zeros and ones and it's you're either a zero or you're a one it's binary thing and it's all very two -dimensional nothing more to it yes no on off you know

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I remember I remember oh man this was still and we still lived in Pennsylvania I think

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I think it was when we still live in Pennsylvania I remember getting a Radio Shack remember those any of you old enough to remember because I loved getting these things

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Radio Shack would have these electronics kits remember these

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I remember this big one that I got that would have all these transistors and diodes and and stuff in it and then they'd be hooked up to these little spring things and you'd use wires you know it came it came with a book and you use wires to connect things up in different ways to create you know it have some lights on it and stuff like that and I remember one year

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I got this one where you would you could make a microcomputer that was binary you know and so light on light off it had some lights and stuff like that and and most people in the audience have absolutely no idea yeah

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Radio Shack battery the month club I do remember that I was also part of that too but I thought these are yeah hundred yeah

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Theophilus had a hundred fifty and one electronic that's what that's what I had the hundred fifty and one one that was so cool

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I bet you do that I bet you don't have things like that anymore I mean I mean it's not gonna be long before we won't have

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Radio Shack am I understanding well I understand that too but I mean I mean this generation just plays video games and my generation understood how to make things work is it's different anyway um pack lids yes we've well who is the paclet us or the us of the next generation that's my next generation ah okay things go all right things go fast yeah all right um

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I've been missing the the tweets here and the the day the day the day the day the day retirement home or any

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Radio Shack still has them according to Jake Cole anyway the idea being

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I remember making this one and you know the light was either on or off in answer to whatever input you made and that's what

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God is you either elect you're not elect it's just this simplistic yes -no thing and I suppose

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I suppose there's a Calvinist someplace that has presented things like that I guess but that's certainly not the the general understanding of the very personal nature of God's interaction with his people and time at all but there's the idea the idea is if you think that's what this is about you're missing the whole point the whole point is that this is all about Jesus well he's gonna emphasize that as in Ephesians 1 for just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we might be holy and blameless before him in love and no one is going to suggest for a second that affirming that the verb has as its direct object us not

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Christ it does not say he chose Christ it says he chose us in Christ in him now what does that mean does does that mean what the corporate electionist is saying is that what is the most natural grammatical understanding and that is that the choice of election has a personal direct object a personal direct object not not in person it's not that he chose a nameless faceless group to be in Christ but that the realm of his action of choosing is delimited by Christ now see my assertion is is that the natural reading of the text is that you have an action on the part of God the

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Father that has as its direct object the people of God personally and specifically and that the assertion is that this is a triune action and dr.

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Arnold emphasizes I appreciate the fact that he emphasized the reality that this text is

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Trinitarian and it is I mean don't you and he was right you don't even have to wait for verses 13 and 14 where the

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Spirit as the Arabon the down payment comes into Paul's discussion you don't you have to wait till then there are other places where the work of the

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Spirit is properly to be understood and seen this is a triune text but it seems to me that for all of his recognition of what the text is saying there there's this strange artificial fear of one unacceptable conclusion one unacceptable reading that he's constantly having to struggle against in his exegesis and what

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I'm saying is God the Father chose us that's personal election the identity of the elect the the elect exists because of God's choice to choose them as the people of God and the idea that he his sovereign choice was to make a group and then leave it up to humanity to identify the group involves such a massive reading into the text it does not that's not what flows from the text what does flow from the text is that the choice of this elect people is absolutely exclusively here's where inclusivism goes out the window exclusively in Christ the point is that the triune

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God has acted decisively in history and that that action in the incarnation death burial resurrection of the

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Son of God means that that grace of God that power of God that gift of eternal life is found only in the way that God intends it to be found and that is in Jesus Christ in no other way there is no other name and so it is the exclusive nature of the

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Christian message which flows from the amazing self giving of the

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Sun how could it be any other way if if you even grasp for a moment the awesome humiliation humbling self giving voluntary nature of the act of Jesus Christ when you realize that that God has given his own son when you realize how amazing that act is then you can recognize well of course that has to be the only way because if there could be any other way than what

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God did was absolutely foolish if there could be any other way of salvation then

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God's own self giving upon the cross would be would be ridiculous it would be far beyond what would be necessary if mankind could do it himself why would

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God be doing this why would God to go to such extreme ends so when people try to make you feel badly because you're not an inclusivist you exclude people no you exclude any options that turn

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God into a fool you're simply excluding any options that deny the

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Jesus Christ was who he said he was and did what he said he did that's all you're excluding you're not excluding anyone you're excluding options to make

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Jesus a liar the world generally doesn't put it quite that clearly but that's why we do what we do to make sure that you understand that's exactly what they're demanding of you so the an alto in him in Ephesians 1 for provides to us the the context in which the choice of the father is made it is made only in the

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Sun that's also said in the rest of verse that this this is this took place before the foundation of the world before the foundation of the world so this is one of the reasons why we insist upon unconditional election it is more clearly stated in in providing the negative in Romans 8 9 especially

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Romans 9 not because it was not because of the solely because and it's positively given to us here because when it says he predestined us verse 5 to adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his praise of his glorious grace so there's the positive statement and that is if you want to know the basis if you want to know the reasons fundamentally if you are not if you are not satisfied with that phrase at the end of verse 5 according to the kind intention of his will to the praise of his glorious grace then you're not to be you're not to be satisfied with any other answer that is going to be truly biblical if you want something more than that if you want to delve into the mind of God beyond the fact that he chose to express the kind intention of his will and he chose to bring about the praise of his glorious grace if that's not enough for you and I I'll be perfect honest with you

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I I can see I think I could make a strong argument that any unregenerate heart would find that insufficient an unregenerate heart would find that answer insufficient now of course what

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I'm also saying is as a Christian you should find that a sufficient answer and if you don't you might want to do a spiritual gut check or heart check in this case if that's not enough for you but unconditional election from our perspective flows from the reality that this election on the part of the triune

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God is not based upon what we do it's not based upon looking at our lives for seeing what we're going to do demanding that we fulfill certain things any of that kind of stuff it is a demonstration of God's kingly freedom and power over his own creation he chose us in him before the foundation of the world and here is where another very important element comes into place now and dr.

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Arnell said it said it correctly let me see if it comes up in this next section let's listen a little bit more and I want to make an application and your mind falls into this mode and you know what the text doesn't say any of that it says that he chose us and then notice the qualification in him in Christ in some way is used 39 times in the book of Ephesians this is important the focus is on Jesus Christ the founder of this seminary said it in this way when he's expositing

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Ephesians chapter 1 if you want to know who is among the elect then have faith and get in him and then you will know you were among the elect by the way

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I wouldn't disagree with that statement because we don't know the identity elect that the best knowledge we can have is by profession of faith so from a human perspective that would be true but if you limit the extent of what

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Ephesians 1 is saying to only what human beings can recognize that's where you got this text of its transcendent value and treasure because it's telling us that there's more to it than that that what happens in time is reflective of what

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God is intending to accomplish from eternity past so you know okay it's a cute little statement and it's true so far as it goes the problem is when people take that and say that's as far as the truth can go that's when it becomes problematic the focus is on faith in Christ election is focused on the place and Christ is the place now

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I haven't seen the word faith here it does come eventually when it talks about you are the first to believe but that's the result of all this stuff that took place before the foundation prop before the foundation of the world so I don't disagree that Christ is absolutely central to everything's being said here no question about it but notice something got snuck in there without a foundation being provided for it because now all of a sudden it's faith in Christ well how do you get that from Ephesians 1 for I mean it's true that what he's chose us unto is going to result in our believing in Christ but the problem is these folks are going to eventually want to say that the reason we're in him is because of our autonomous choice to believe in Christ which the text is not addressing

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Ephesians will address that in chapter 2 pretty clearly but we go on the father is focused on the son and that's why he keeps repeatedly inspiring by his spirit the

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Apostle Paul to talk about everything being summed up in Christ I struggle a little bit with that I I would say

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Christ the fact the exclusive nature of the father acting in Christ central to Ephesians 1 but I don't think the focus ever leaves the father

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I don't think the focus ever leaves the father it's the father's intention to sum up all things in Christ but the father doesn't just simply disappear here and become a background player the very first what's the very first word of the sentence blessed be

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ so I I would struggle with that most of us are thinking when we begin thinking about particular election we are not thinking theologically we are thinking anthropologically

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I'm not I'm not I'm thinking theologically I am thinking about the nature of what election is about and that's why what

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I want to get to here in a moment he's going to somewhere along here accurately say that if your election does not result in holiness you've got the wrong election he's exactly right but that's the point the point is that everything we're going to find in here forgiveness of sins holiness adoption what's that all about how can that be anything other than absolutely central to what salvation as a whole is and the experience of each individual person who makes up the elect as a corporate body the elect as a corporate body only experience forgiveness adoption holiness as individuals and then the body as a whole as they experience it individually you don't have a a corporate forgiveness of sins because those sins are of different natures of different types and and so on and so forth so that's

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I think where the corporate thing falls apart is that you what is intimately connected with election here is the forgiveness of sins adoption indwelling the

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Holy Spirit redemption is mentioned etc etc these are all the things that we as individuals experience and so I'm not thinking anthropologically

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I'm not starting with man at all in fact I would argue that the system that Yarnell is presenting if you step all the way back and look and see what starting origins are the synergist has to start with man only the consistent monergist can start with God and when the synergist is struggling with a monergistic passage it can get a little brutal it can get a little tough for them to remain consistent in what they're saying and notice that our election is in Christ for what reason that we would be holy and blameless before him in love

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Wow God has determined that he wants you to be holy and if your doctrine of election fights against holiness let me tell you it's not the right doctrine of election there that was the phrase

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I was looking for agree a thousand percent I agree a thousand percent but what does that mean what does that mean it it means are you saying that God's election is simply a statement that he desires the elect as a impersonal group to be somehow holy or is the text saying that this is personal now he makes the personal application he says

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God wants you to be holy but what he's saying is if you choose to put yourself into the elect then the overarching idea is

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God wants you now that you're part of the elect to be holy I believe that to be consistent with Paul that you need to recognize conformed the image of his son

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I can't imagine something that's any more personal than being conformed the image of Jesus Christ and when you turn that into some sort of impersonal corporate election thing it loses it loses everything that it's really supposed to be communicating but then the last thing and I'm gonna stop here there's a lot more to look at but I really did want to yeah choices on the fly it's what

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I'm doing here well let me just talk about this before I forget it if you want to try to keep maintaining this idea of a non personal aspect what do you do with the last two words this verse at least as it appears in the

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English blameless before him in love aren't you the folks that really emphasize omnibenevolence and the personal nature of love so are you saying that God has love for nameless faceless groups seems to me that what

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Paul is saying is this love if it's going to be love has to be personal and the cost of embracing corporate election is the cost of losing the assertion that God set his love upon you know

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God didn't says upon you the open theist is already given that up the open theist admits

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God didn't even know you're gonna exist so there's no way his love could have been set upon you from eternity but how can the synergistic non open theistic corporate election is talking grief how can that person give a consistent argument for a personal nature of love in this context that would be interesting to hear how that would work what basis for the certainty of God's knowledge and again it keeps taking us back to who

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God is what his decree is does he have a decree keeps going back there listen listen to my debate with Michael Brown it it kept going back to that point because that really is no pun intended or advertise intended that really is the dividing line whether you believe that God has a specific purpose and intention he's accomplishing in this world and whether it is more than just simply yes his specific intention is to save a people but he leaves it up to us as to who that people is going to be that's very different than saying he has a specific people and that he chose them and that they are his because he chose them not because they chose him and he saw they're gonna do that so I'm actually just gonna mark that and might come back to do some more with it might come back to do some more of it there there's a couple of sections that might be might be worthwhile looking at that but I I feel like sometimes

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I am skipping and jumping too much you know I suppose we did this program every day which would be impossible to do

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I might be able to get through things a little bit easier

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I like to be able to respond to stuff that's coming up things that happen talk about things and when they're still fresh on people's minds or not talk about them other fresh people's minds because their emotions are too crazed but I would like to get back to Bart Ehrman before we completely forget about Bart Ehrman and we still have about 15 minutes left in the program so we can make a little progress

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I think this is important I saw somebody on Twitter just recently saying that they had watched the debate listen to how far we've gotten the reviews found it very very useful we try to provide useful information that you might not be getting regularly someplace else so we are for those of you who have the download we're 46 minutes and 37 seconds

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I believe into the recording we are in Dr. Ehrman's presentation he is explaining why he does not believe

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Jesus believed that he was God and I'm not gonna go back over all the foundational things can't do that obviously we've done that in previous programs but let's get back to what

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Bart Ehrman was saying and continue our response okay this is his this is his standard

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Erminite inoculation of uncertainty this the standard

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Erminite inoculation that would be an s -e -i -u isn't there isn't that a union that's a liberal

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Union and we've got okay that works haha the standard Ermin inoculation of uncertainty routine oh that's that's that spells sewer that's that's fairly close anyway this is where he runs through all the stuff in the resurrection accounts that he in a very flippant simplistic manner indicates is contradictory now remember contradiction has a very specific meaning and very rarely when people accuse the

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Bible of contradiction do they even know what the definition of that term is let alone how to apply it properly

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I'm expressing things differently giving different details looking at it from a different perspective is not saying the thing is contradiction contra is not the different is not the same as a law in Greek or heteros in Greek country

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I think is Latin but the point being contradiction has a much narrower definition and he's saying well the

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Gospels give us different stories well I hope so unless they are our our photocopies of each other they're going to express things differently that does not make them in contradiction to one another and we had sort of stopped our review at that point

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I just want to know where he is in his presentation right now now again we could stop at each one of these and we have in the past I think

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I mentioned whole presentation put together once where I went through his standard urban inoculation of uncertainty routine on John and the synoptics as to the the day of the crucifixion

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I did it Matthew Mark and Luke have in a one day John for theological reasons moves it to another day so Jesus is lamb of God and he's being sacrificed same time the lamb the

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Passover blah blah blah blah blah blah and and again it's it's I didn't come up with these refutations on my own this this is stuff that people

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I mean by the fourth century there was a tremendous amount of study being invested in the relationship of the canonical

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Gospels in fact it's isn't it fascinating I just thought of this I had never thought of this before but any any of you who have studied the

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Greek New Testament you know that's the Alan text you know Bible cited text modern printing the

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Greek New Testament are familiar with what are called the Eusebian canons the the divisions that were introduced in the very very very early period in many of the early manuscripts you see being canons that goes back to the fourth century maybe even into the third century what does that tell you well first of all it tells you that the

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Christians were already struggling with issues of harmonization and and the parallels between the synoptic

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Gospels and all that kind of stuff it's nothing new it's it's not that people hadn't been thinking about this but what else does it tell you no other

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Gospels were ever involved it's only Matthew Mark Luke and John that have these the idea that Ehrman loves to promote out there there was all these other

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Gospels and all this great confusion and blah blah blah where's the evidence of where why don't the

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Eusebian canons include the Gospel of Thomas or any of these other Gnostic Gospels well because the early church that they were not apostolic they did not come from the first century they did not come from the apostolic circle they breathed an atmosphere and a worldview utterly unlike any of the

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Gospels that had any meaningful chance of having come from the actual circle that surrounded

50:55

Jesus in the first century so it's realize the connection between between those two now

51:11

I'm not sure what he means there but I have a feeling when he says the one gospel he's talking about mark but that's because it just it just ends there but again when so you're saying one gospel says and the women never said anything to anybody and the other gospel said and the women did say something to someone is that is that what you're saying or are you saying one gospel records them going away and does not record their communication with anyone well another gospel records them going away and does record their communication with someone those are two different things what one is not a contradiction you see and it just you know

51:57

I look at the expression on his face and it it just strikes me this is not a stupid man and I have to sit back and I have to go

52:11

I think it's fair I think it's appropriate when someone has had a major change in their theological or religious orientation major change not a minor change not you know not having understood you know not having you know

52:36

R .C. Sproul I think at one point or another in his life has held to all three of the major millennial views okay

52:44

I think it was historic pre mill for a while it was on mill he's been post mill I don't know where he is now but I think he's you know that's that's not what

52:52

I mean that's not a major change you know people can people can do things like that that's okay some of you think that that's not okay but I have a problem with you anyway and I'm not even talking about necessarily denominational change you know

53:08

I was you know someone's a Presbyterian they became Reformed Baptist that's the only logical way to go but anyways it's another issue but Ermin went to Moody went to Wheaton went to Princeton and claimed to be an evangelical born -again

53:30

Christian and he's now an agnostic he is now by all proper identification an apostate that is a that is a reality he does not hide that is a reality that has made him hundreds of thousands of dollars let's just be honest here

53:56

I mean his academic works are not the works that have made him a wealthy man it is his popular works misquoting

54:08

Jesus Jesus interrupted blah blah blah blah blah these are the popular works that Ermin has presented and they are definitional to who he is and definitional to what makes him the special person that the media wants to pursue and so I look at someone as obviously intelligent and rich you might well look outside there's someone waiting for you just like you know obviously as intelligent as Bart Ehrman presenting such childishly simple arguments that he must know

55:02

I mean the thing about Passover John something you know where I got a refutation of that what the one of the best refutations that I know of that I got that from a

55:16

T Robertson's Harmony of the Gospel it was in an appendix in the back and so think about it that was a long time ago that was information fully available to Bart Ehrman and see if Bart Ehrman has a compelling refutation of what

55:42

AT Robertson mentioned along there if he has a compelling refutation it doesn't come out in his presentation and remember we're talking about someone who in earlier debates admitted he hadn't even read

55:58

Jesus and the eyewitnesses by Balcom so I don't get the feeling that he would be one who would necessarily have taken the time to look at those things so I think it's fair to go is it possible that maybe some of the reason for the inconsistency lack of depth of these arguments might have something to do with where he's come from what's really important to him now

56:32

I I personally think that that may be the case immediately so this man holds to a where Matthew has access to at least mark and maybe other traditions and that there's been editing and redaction and yet why did they leave these obvious glaring errors if they are obvious glaring errors and not just simply one gospel giving one aspect of the story and one gospel giving another aspect of the story and what why did they leave these things there

57:28

I don't get the feeling from what I've read about dr. Erman at places like SPL and things like that that he really invites a lot of that kind of buddy -buddy chit -chat maybe when he's sipping lattes with French textual critical scholars as he happened to mention our debates maybe that's when they have all those interesting discussions maybe maybe

57:55

French textual scholars don't even raise these issues I don't know what is this strange things on Twitter blah blah blah blah is the better Bart Ehrman book

58:07

I don't even understand that that that's but what does that what does that mean I don't I don't get that you know it's what what people put on Twitter is is very very strange very very odd you know especially when there's in the studio audience it's you wonder what's going between here and out there you know there's it's just it miscommunication somewhere along the lines and I'm not sure how that that works well we want to get a little

58:34

Bart Ehrman in there and we did I hope you have a wonderful specifically

58:41

Christian holiday this week I'll be honest with you I was fighting to keep myself from a mini -sermon on the fact that Thanksgiving as it was established in our country says something about what our nation was and our nation is today there has to be someone to give thanks to and if you're a secularist you're an atheist agnostic do not pretend to give thanks to a