I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the Word of God. 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 those who elected were selected Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists. Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper-Calvinist. Now whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper-Calvinists. I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper-Calvinism and Calvinism. 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. 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 Calvinist Dave Hunt fans and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for His own eternal glory. And with that, everyone tuned back to the Kavanaugh hearings, having listened to the opening theme, which was the only reason they tuned in in the first place. And don't I know it. Oh, see you later, Rich. Bye. OK, he's gone, too. It's just you and I. Talk about bad timing. Yeah, well, what can I say? Nothing we can do about it if I want to get another program in this week, believe you me. Who knew this was even coming? Okay, I will say this before we get to the Radio Free Geneva. I don't remember which people I told. But as soon as Justice Kennedy retired, I remember telling a couple of people, I said, this is going to be thermonuclear political warfare. I said, this is going to be the worst we've ever seen. I told people, they sort of looked at me like, well, even I couldn't have predicted this stuff, but I did say there is There is no bottom to this well. No, there is no, nothing too low for the totalitarian communists and the party of death to engage in. Anyway, but we, you've got plenty of that on every channel currently on television. I think HGTV had it on. So the Cartoon Network I think is playing it. Some of it rather fitting for there. We are the only place that's actually going to be talking about theology at this point in time, and some of you might just want a break from that. And the rest of you are watching at another point and saying, just get on with it. So we certainly will. But I recognize we are going to have a very small live audience today, and that's perfectly fine. I don't know how many times people send this to me, even after I said on the program, okay, we're going to deal with it, I'm going to talk about it, we'll do a Radio Free Geneva, people keep sending me, sending me, sending me, obviously showing they're not actually listening to the program, probably aren't going to hear what I say anyways, but kept sending me the link to Pastor Winger's video on the Achilles heel of Calvinism. If you've read The Potter's Freedom, I would just simply say, if you read and understood The Potter's Freedom, this video should not cause you any problem at all. You should easily see where Pastor Winger has missed what's being said, has confused categories. This is not a valid argument. It's not a really strong argument. We'll definitely deal with it, but if you've read sound reformed material and this threw you a loop, you need to do some more reading at a little deeper level because this is not really challenging if you've got a good solid foundation. In the same way, I, after listening to this, I then listened to Pastor Winger and Saiten Bruggenke discuss presuppositional apologetics, which was very, very interesting and useful. And interestingly enough, The Romans 1 passage came up, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to deal with that. Well, we dealt with that in the last program. Not with what he said, but with Romans 1, and I would assume that would be a sufficient refutation of what I heard in this context. Anyway, I want to start off, though, sort of in 21 minutes into the video. You say, why would you skip? Because he plays a section for me. I want to play that section. and point out a few things. Basically, what we have here is the argument that because we are not saved, because we are saved by faith and not by works, the Calvinist argument that the synergist makes faith a work is invalid and therefore there's no reason to believe in Calvinism. what Pastor Winger has done, as he has confused work as in a meritorious action that earns salvation with work as in an autonomous act of a human being outside of the decree of God, apart from which God can save no one. Now, those are two obviously completely different things. And have there been Calvinists who have inappropriately made the argument, you're earning your salvation. I'm sure there have been. But if you stick with major sources, serious-minded people, the argument is that in synergism, you have two forces. They're not equal forces, but you have two forces. And the second, God's the one, the second is the will of man aided to one degree or another by grace, you can have a strong doctrine of prevenient grace or a weak doctrine of prevenient grace. There is no prevenient grace in scripture anywhere, but you can, you know, it's the, it's, I've said it before, prevenient grace is the scotch tape that holds Arminianism or Synergism together. There's just nothing in scripture that says God gives everybody X amount of grace, which allows you to then make a free choice. There's just nothing there. It's a complete misunderstanding of what grace is, the purpose of grace, the power of grace, the deadness of man and sin, all the rest of that stuff. It's just a made-up doctrine that has no foundation anywhere in the Bible. But a lot of people believe it anyways and utilize it. But the idea is that you have an autonomous, it's not decreed by God, it does not flow from the decree of God, it is not something that only the elect, a specific people, chosen by God before they even come into existence, not based upon foreknowledge, not based upon any foreseen marriage or anything else, that somehow these individuals who are the elect that this autonomous act that they can produce in and of themselves is absolutely necessary for salvation, and God cannot save them without that. That is synergism. Now, you can add a bunch of stuff to that in the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and you can just, you know, add all sorts of things there. But the point is, the difference between monergism and synergism is whether God can save in and of himself or whether God can try to save, but that the autonomous action of man, not the issues of merit, worth, value to the action, irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is that there is an autonomous action of man that is outside of God's control, outside of God's decree, that is absolutely necessary the bringing about of salvation. That God could want to save somebody, but unless they do this thing, merits are relevant to this, it has nothing to do with it, unless they do this thing, they won't be saved. So, is it a synergistic cooperation, or is it a monergistic resurrection from the dead? That's the issue. and so i want to play this is straight out of the uh... What I said, the quotation that was given of me, and you'll see that I've been rather consistent with what I just said. So, have grace upon me. What binds all synergists together is that God is not the one who saves. He makes salvation possible. He aids by some kind of grace. whether it's a prevenient grace or whatever else, but unless you're a full-on Pelagian, you will at least acknowledge the necessity of some level of God's grace. And so, What binds everyone together is that if you're a monergist, God can actually save. If you're a synergist, God can only try to save. And you can give him all the credit in the world and say, I've never been able to save myself. That's true. But you also have to turn it around if you're a synergist and say, and God could not have saved me without me. That's the issue. That's the fundamental issue. Okay, I gotta come in here and... Okay, so that's what I just said. And you'll notice I said nothing about works being meritorious or earning something from God. It's all the question of whether God can save, He has the power and authority to raise someone to spiritual life, whether he can save or whether he has designed it in such a way that he wants to save and maybe wants to save everyone. Not all synergists are universalists in that sense. There could be a synergist who says, no, no, God only desires to save a certain number of people or a certain kind of people or whatever else and still make it synergistic. But, generally, the standard argument is that God wants to save everybody and makes it available to everybody. The deciding factor is not God's election, it's my act of faith. And so, when we say, well, what that means is, when we get to heaven and you look at those who are condemned, God tried to save the two of us absolutely equally. I'm here, they're not, therefore I have something to boast of. No, no, no, you don't have anything to boast of because it was just a gift. You can't boast about a gift. But wait, that's not what I'm saying. I didn't say that I added something. What I'm saying is I was better or smarter or wiser. Look, if God puts out the exact same effort to save me, and my next door neighbor ends up in hell, then the only thing that distinguishes us is not grace, it's not mercy, it's not anything God has done. I'm the one that makes the distinction. I'm in heaven because I got it, he didn't. I was willing, he wasn't. It's all... So where's the final deciding factor there? Right here. That's synergism. has nothing to do with merit, has nothing to do with purchasing anything, and hence all the texts in the New Testament about not works of the law, works of Moses, merit, anything, Romans 3, irrelevant to what's being talked about. Not even in the same planet. It's a different issue. And if you think it is, then you're not actually going to be dealing with the real issue and the real question. uh... that that that is being uh... dot net here so uh... we're gonna go back and so He starts off saying, you know, I think this is Achilles' heel of Calvinism, and then he spends a bunch of time in Romans 3, and it's not by works, and justified by faith, Romans 4. Again, all texts that every Calvinist, every foreign person believes in, preaches, teaches, defended it. wrote a whole book on the subject back there, the guy who justifies, been there, done that, got the t-shirt, we know all about all of this stuff. And as I just said, obviously Pastor Winger believes this is extremely relevant, but it's not. So I'm just going to sort of jump in here and we will start interacting with stuff where hopefully it'll be relevant. Which one is it? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now Abraham doesn't get a boast, you don't get a boast, you don't get any credit. Faith equals grace. Faith equals no boasting. Faith equals all credit to God. All credit to God. That's what faith means. But in the Calvinistic system, this is very quickly changed, and this is one of the reasons again why I cannot be a Calvinist. Now, if any... Well, it's not changed. It's just not true. Pastor Winger has a misunderstanding here. I hope he will accept correction. The problem is, if you accept correction, now you're going to have to go, so what reason do I have not to be a Calvinist again? But that's just, it's just simply not true. wondering, like, Mike, why are you covering this topic? I just want to throw it out there. I did a poll on my YouTube channel where I asked you guys, what do you want me to talk about? And I brought up two issues, the Passion Translation that's coming out, do a review of that, or deal with faith as a work in Calvinism. And over 900 people voted. 500 of them specifically said, hey, we want to see this Calvinist issue unpacked and dealt with, and so I'm dealing with it today. Actually, because so many people voted for the Passion Translation, I'm going to do that next week. About 400-something voted for that. Now, by the way, I think that's great. I haven't had time to look into it. What I have seen has been very, very troubling. Not only its connection with Bethel, but its reliance upon Aramaic manuscripts and stuff. And folks, just in passing, anybody who starts doing the Aramaic stuff is normally trying to avoid something that's very clear in Hebrew and Greek. That's just that's just been my experiences. Well, we couldn't find it in the actual Bible So we're gonna pretend we can read Aramaic and because you don't have we have nothing in Aramaic that is before the Greek and Hebrew So it's all speculation So just be aware of anybody who tries to pull that stunt. They're probably trying to sell books. Obviously there's a lot of interest in that. That's not him. He's against it. I'm just saying he's against that translation from what I heard him saying. I'm not saying he's trying to sell books. I'm trying to say the people that are. You get it. I'm doing my work on that and I'm actually, it's funny, with Calvinism I'm so willing to disagree that I'm actually more passionate about dealing with this passion translation than I am about this issue of Calvinism. But I think for the sake of loving biblical truth and seeking biblical clarity that this is a good thing to talk about. And I do think that the Bible is very clear on this issue and Calvinism muddies it for us quite a bit, actually starts changing definitions and moving things around. And as I've pointed out, we're not doing that. The confusion is on Pastor Winger's part, not on our part. So, here we go. Two things that we've got so far to these passages. I should say three things, really. Works, as in earning salvation, we hate that. That's unbiblical. Nobody gets that. There's no such thing as works for salvation. It will never happen. All have fallen short of the glory of God. All are condemned and can only be saved through Jesus Christ. It's through believing in him, that's my action, I believe in him. But that's not a work in the sense that it merits anything. It is a gift, and we will get into that later on. He attempts to deal with Ephesians 2, doesn't do it appropriately. I don't think he brought up Philippians 1.29. And we will get into the passages, Acts 13.48, John 6, where Sorry, brother, but you did not provide a meaningful response. We will demonstrate that in this program. No, he merits it all, and when I believe, I don't now have a reason to boast. I don't have any credit that goes, oh, I believed, I trusted, I did a good job. Which is exactly true, because faith is a gift, and it's part of the work of God in regenerating us, as is repentance for that matter. But in the context where you have prevenient grace, And in the context where God's trying to save everybody equally, then it is, there is a reason for you to pat yourself on the back. Not because you're married to something, but because you evidently are more spiritually sensitive, smart, or something, than the people who got the exact same help from God as you did. You got it right, they got it wrong. Therefore, the only difference between the two of you is you. That's where there is a problem there. Because it's by faith, you can't boast. So, don't tell me I'm boasting in that regard. So, works we don't like, works are bad. Faith is not a work, that's the second thing. Faith is not a work. In fact, faith establishes grace, and faith gives no reason to boast. You can't boast if all you had was faith. The Bible's very clear. So, let's move forward. How does Calvinism treat faith as a work? Well, if we're going to talk about this issue, we're going to need to quote some Calvinists. So here is R.C. Sproul, and he deals with the issue here of synergism and monergism. Now, hold on, let me come back to that in a second. I'm not going to, for those of you, I'm hoping you're at least a little familiar with Calvinism, you're watching this video. This is probably not the video for introducing you to the topic. This is a video for helping you understand it. By the way, what gave you the idea to put all blue lights on your library? I was just sitting here, you know, looking at the books and, you know, everybody always looks at everybody else's library to see, yeah, I've got that book, oh, I've got that book, oh, that's that edition of that one, and da-da-da-da. And then I'm sitting here going, they're all blue. You don't want to put blue lights in here? Not going to do it, huh? I think some blue lights with the Enterprise or something would be really cool. I've wished that Enterprise's lights could light up without the sounds, but unfortunately... I could probably go in there and disconnect the speaker, I suppose. But yeah, the blue lights are... I like the blue lights. They're pretty cool. Do you only turn them on during... Anyway, sorry. Rabbit. think a better way, in a more simplistic and clear way. But you've got to know at least these terms, synergism, monergism. So I'm just going to teach you these. I think this is it. These are the only two fancy words. If you don't know these words, you need to know them for the sake of this discussion because they come up constantly. So what is synergism and what is monergism and how does it relate to this issue? So here's a quote from R.C. Sproul on monergism and synergism. Again, he is, of course, one of the proponents, well-known, well-respected proponents of Calvinism and went to be with the Lord recently. I love R.C. Sproul. I recommend listening to his stuff. Catch this. I recommend it. I think it's a good thing. Boom. Look at that. Hi, everybody. Okay, let me... Okay, there we go. So here's what R.C. Sproul says about monergism and... In his own words, this is a Calvinist, right? He's going to he's going to take everybody and lump them in two categories. You're a synergist or you're a monergist and I'm going to argue with that. So and of course, I agree with R.C. Sproul that yeah, all systems break down into those two categories. There's going to be lots of differences between them, but they break down those two categories. The doctrine of justification by faith alone was debated during the Reformation on the deeper level of monergistic regeneration. Meaning that our initial point of salvation, regeneration, that happens monergistically with only God working. So let's explain the term. So in other words, God has the power to raise dead sinners to spiritual life, grant to them a new nature, the gifts of faith and repentance, unites them with Christ, and God can do all of that. It's not our action that allows Him to do that. It is His divine action, as many as were appointed into eternal life believed. Acts 13, 48 is one of those passages. This technical term must be explained. Monergism is derived from a combination of a prefix and a root. The prefix mono is used frequently in English to indicate that which is single or alone. Just kidding. The root comes from the verb to work. So we have a mono, which means alone, and we have synergistic, or synergy, or an ergistic. This is the idea of, I'm sorry, I just confuzzled it. Ergistic, that second. The term is ergon, to work. It has to do with work or labor. So the root comes from the verb to work. The erg of monargy comes into our language to indicate a unit of work or energy. When we put the prefix and root together, we get monargy or monergism. So monergism is something that operates by itself. It operates by itself or works alone as the sole active party. Sole active party. Monergism is the opposite of synergism. Synergism shares a common root with monergism, but has a different prefix. The prefix syn comes from a Greek word meaning with. Synergism is a cooperative venture, a working together of two or more parties. common greek prefix it's sunago gay the synagogue to gather together um and the the point is you either have a singular power that is capable of accomplishing a task or that power either isn't capable of accomplishing a task and needs an external power outside of itself synergism of two Or in this case, God could have simply chosen to do it that way. It's not that he couldn't have done it differently, but that he has set it up that it is necessary to have that secondary power. Either way. If I lost anybody there, I will now just summarize what I just read from R.C. Sproul, super genius, brilliant guy. But he says basically right, monergism is when only one person is doing all of the work, all of the labor, all of the effectual things happening. Only one person does it. Synergism is when more than one does it. So synergism, if two people are rowing a boat, that's synergism. But if one person's sitting in a boat and the other person is rowing the boat, that's monergism. One guy's doing all the work. So how would you describe salvation? Well, every Christian's going to go, well, it's monergism. Obviously, it's monergism, right? God does all the work. Now, I didn't hear this because I was writing when I listened to this, so you can't hear background noise. but i'm just thinking back to the days in the garage uh... because some some sort of air con heater or something, probably air conditioning this time of year obviously the air con just kicked on in the background and yeah that was just reminded us of our old days in the garage you know i just do nothing he does everything for me and here is where the switcheroo is going to take place calvinists are going to start to say that because you believed if you think you believed based upon a decision you made, and I don't even mean without the help of God, right? With God helping you, with the Holy Spirit working in your heart, with the gospel being proclaimed to you, and God drawing you, but you made a free will choice, like you could have accepted it, you could have rejected it. See, that terminology is very important, you catch that? You could have accepted it, in other words, it's autonomous. The source and origin of this act of faith is not found in the work of the Spirit of God, in a new nature. It is found in the will of the unregenerate man. And it is an autonomous decision outside of God's decree. It might have happened, it might not have happened. God may know because he can look down the corridors of time, but that raises all sorts of questions, too. That really isn't consistent, either. As we've said many, many times, the only real consistent Arminian is an open theist. But, bit as it may, there's the issue. Right there is the nature of that act. Not meritorious, not earning anything, that's irrelevant. It is the nature of that act. Is the unregenerate person outside of the decree of God, which of course we would say no, and is the unregenerate person capable in and of themselves of performing the act of saving faith? That's the issue. Notice the confusion. And this is really... I could stop here. Once I make this point one more time, we could literally stop right here and say, that's it, because that's just all you're going to get over and over again. Because as I said last week sometime when I first announced I was going to do it, it's a simple category here. He is confusing the biblical category of seeking meritorious works before God, of circumcision and fulfillment of the laws of Moses, or whatever else it might be, He is confusing that category of meritorious action that has to be added to faith, which is condemned in scripture, with the real issue, which he just mentioned, which is really interesting. And that is, what is the nature of this act? Is it an autonomous act that flows from the dead enslaved will of man, which of course it couldn't given what we're told about man at that point and his nature as being dead in sin, but it is the nature of the act as autonomous, as something that is not the result of the exercise of the will of God. It is the result of the exercise of the will of man. It has nothing to do with merit. Stop with the merit stuff. That's not the argument. The argument is, is that autonomous act of the will of man necessary for the success of the efforts of God, or does God's action in saving his people result infallibly in the exercise of saving faith only because God has brought about regeneration, removed the chains of slavery, granted the gifts of faith and repentance, two completely different positions, but has nothing to do with the arguments in the text of scripture, because that's addressing something completely different. So we can stop right here, because there is no Achilles' heel, because the Achilles' heel is just simply Pastor Winger's misunderstanding of what the topic is, and the difference in the categories. But there's a lot more to be said, I think, in dealing with the video. So don't say that my choice to believe makes me a synergist in regards to salvation, because it starts to be a switcheroo. You start to act like the act of believing is a work Remember the two, sin, erg, two people or more, working. I'm working for my salvation. Faith is now working for salvation. That is not biblical. It is not biblical, but that's not what we're talking about. See, the switcheroo here is on his part because he's either just not read enough and reformed. Did you read Luther and Erasmus on this? I mean, it was the first written debate of the Reformation. So, you know, on the bondage of the will, sort of, I mean, goes a long ways back, and Luther himself said to Erasmus, you alone of all my opponents have put your finger upon the central issue, the hinge upon which all turns, which was the Reformation itself, which was the bondage of the will. And so, you're missing the point here. We're not saying you're Judaizers. What we are saying is you ascribe to man a capacity and ability that he does not have. That's the issue. This is a unbiblical definition of faith, an unbiblical definition of choice. That is not That is not true. So let me share with you now a quote from a guy who I hate to quote right now, and I'll tell you why. This is James White on the topic of synergism. Here's the reason why I'm hating to quote him. I love James White, and I've never played any of his videos except this first time, and now it's to disagree with him, and that kind of makes me sad. I really love James White. I highly recommend you listen to his content, and I just think he's wrong about Calvinism, but specifically I want to play quote where he defends Calvinism and he does this synergism monergism thing and I think it's worth us listening to to talk about. So I'm going to play a quote now from Dr. James White whom I love and respect and whom I'm about to say I think is wrong. So have grace upon me. Okay, we're trying to have grace trying to be, you know, we've had to say you've misunderstood things and you have and I hope you can accept that and move forward from there. I'm not going to replay it, but I will try to watch it here enough to see where he popped himself in and pick it up from sort of around there. So let's do that. Okay, I've got to come in here and I'm actually going to play this again now. You've heard everything he said and I think I gave enough context so that you can understand what he's talking about. This is a long video, it's very long, where he talks about synergism and other things. In James White's view, synergism includes not only Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, and even Catholicism, in that they all have one thing in common. They all appeal to God giving some measure of grace, but they also all say that man has to do certain works to be saved. The point is, this is a dividing line. This is a dividing line. The amount of things you attach to human capacity and ability will vary amongst all of these groups. But the dividing line, what cuts things here, and is the clearest dividing line, is between monergism and synergism. Because once you get into synergistic systems, you literally have a complete spectrum. all the way from those who say it's only faith and it's faith alone and faith is not meritorious. So what, what, what Pastor Winger is saying? But then you have those who would say, well, actually, it's a little bit more than that. So you start getting maybe some of the Church of Christ people start acting, adding acts of obedience and expanding the capacity of man to do certain things. And it is a spectrum. And I don't know of any gaps in the spectrum. It just goes all the way out to Pelagianism. And you could say, well, I want to draw the dividing line here, but what is the first, biggest, most definitional dividing line? Whether God can save in and of himself, or whether he has chosen to limit his ability to do that, if you want to go that far, and say that man has to do X, Y, or Z. Not to merit, but to appropriate. Let's put it that way. And so, yeah, I hope it does make you a little uncomfortable when you hear Roman Catholics or Mormons using the same arguments against me that you're using. I hope that makes you uncomfortable. You should be uncomfortable. Because you and I absolutely agree on justification by faith alone, but here's the problem. What the Reformation proved is that if you don't understand that in the context of God's sovereignty and man's deadness and sin, you are not being consistent and you will not be able to survive the onslaught of the Jesuits. So, you know, the dividing line, the way I put it in other contexts, is the Reformation was never about the necessity of grace. It was about the sufficiency of grace. Rome said grace, absolutely necessary. But Rome said grace is not sufficient apart from, and as long as you have just one thing on the apart from side, that's where the division is. That's where the difference between modernism and synergism is. I say grace can save completely, because it's God's grace and it's all powerful. And it's God's intention to glorify himself, so sticking man in there with his autonomous decisions is problematic. I'm not sure what just happened, but all I've got up on the screen is Is the video and I disappeared. Oh, there you go. Oh So you're you're are you are you saying there's too much of you leaning over the thing there to uh I'm wearing a different shirt just didn't fit and and I just got a little old goatee in the other one and Now I've got this this is I think since we went on Started doing video. I think this is the longest my beards ever been since we've been on video. So And I'm not ain't trimming it while I'm gone. So I The wife says, no way, but, you know, I'll just forget to put the trimmer in my bag as I'm gone for almost, you know, for two and a half weeks. And, well, one of the places I'm going, it was sort of helped me to blend in when you think about it. So, but more on that another point in time. Sorry, another rabbit, squirrel, whatever it is. To me, that's synergistic in the true sense of the word. Man is doing works, and God did works, so we both work together so that I can be saved. Now, notice, that's where the misunderstanding is. He's assuming works are meritorious and are earning something, rather than the idea that we're talking here about whether God can save in of himself autonomously, or whether he can't. and that man can autonomously determine the success of God's efforts to save him. That's, it's the nature of saving faith, and all of this is going back to, does God work all things after the Council of His will? Does He have a divine decree? Were we elected individually and as a group together before the foundation of the earth? Were we talking about unconditional divine election? Are we talking about class election? He says he's got a video someplace else on it, I'm sorry. I listened to a number of hours, but I don't have many hours to just dedicate to one particular person. Maybe he's got an interesting view on that, too. I don't know. you are lumped in with them because of what I just pointed out, and that is what you're saying is there is no divine decree that will infallibly bring about the salvation of God's elect, and God's effort to save you is dependent upon that autonomous act that God does not bring about through regeneration. That's not relevant to the, well, the roman catholic and i appreciate what you're about to say here the roman catholic sacramental system is absolutely wedded to synergism which is why luther rejected it and calvin rejected it and the other reformers rejected it and you reject the full system of sacramentalism while embracing the foundation that made it possible that's why i say that my non-Reformed, non-Roman Catholic brothers and sisters have a hard time dealing with the best that Rome has to offer. Because on that one issue, you've stuck your toes in the Tiber River. You've rejected what the Reformers said on monergism and synergism. And you've embraced something else. series on that if that raises your eyebrows to hear me say that. I'm not attacking Catholics. I have a series on that. Go look up my series on Catholicism online. But I'm lumped in with them, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and every other false belief system. So I'm going to play this again, and I want to pause it a little bit to kind of respond to some of the things that James White says here. all synergists together is that God is not the one who saves. Okay, pause. This is, of course, a big, bold statement here, right? All synergists, again, it includes me. I'm considered a synergist even though I'm firm, like, grace alone, salvation. Now, James wouldn't demonize me. He would say that I'm just, I have inconsistencies, and he would... Exactly. You do have inconsistencies. But, if what you're saying is that God did not elect you, or all of the elect, as individuals. So if you hold to one of those impersonal, just sort of a group type thing, you get in by your own free will act or whatever else it might be, I don't know. But if that's what you're saying, then yes, I recognize validly all the other differences that you have. There are people that are closer and people that are farther away. But on this issue, what you're saying is God can't save alone He has to save in light of your having given him permission to do so. Your autonomous action makes all of his previous action, which you may say he did 99.99% of it, and somebody else may say he only did 80% of it. That makes you closer than them, but the line is still That 99.9% will not avail unless I do the last bit thing, which is an autonomous act. Not an act that merits or anything else, but it is an autonomous act that could, if not undertaken, make everything else that God has done fail. That was the issue. They'll accept me as a brother and I appreciate that. But God alone doesn't do the saving. So the implication is that me just by believing, me just saying, I trust you Jesus, I'm doing some of the saving. You are making it possible for everything God has done to come to fruition. And so I just have to ask you, do you believe that God has undertaken to save every single individual in the same way. Therefore, if people are lost, and I'm assuming you're not a universalist, if people are lost and there are also people who are saved, then what's the distinction between them? It's not the grace of God. You want to say it's the grace of God, but think about it. If we've all received the exact same grace of God, and then you accepted, they rejected, then grace isn't what distinguishes us, is it? No, it's your autonomous act. How do you get around that? I've not ever heard anybody explain other than just simply begging the question. The categories are clear, that's why I wanted to do this program because this really helps to flesh these things out and really force people to think about it. That's not biblical, is it? The verses we read are very clearly saying that you just believing means you did nothing, and God gets all the credit, all the glory, and it was by grace. Let's keep listening. And it is by grace. But again, he's not actually addressing the real issue here. And that is, can grace save completely without your autonomous faith act? That's the question. He makes salvation possible. He aids by some kind of grace, whether it's a prevenient grace or whatever else, but unless you're a full-on Pelagian, you will at least acknowledge the necessity of some level of God's grace. This is, I think, an incorrect view of, say, myself, a non-Calvinist who would say, I recognize that I entirely need God's grace. Like, I fully, 100% need God's grace. There's no grace or no work that I do, I just believe. But the assumption that's underlying what he's saying is that my belief itself, my choice to trust in Christ, that itself is a work that I do. Now, did you notice I didn't use that term? I'm talking and I'm saying what we're saying right now, and he's reading it through this lens he's constructed that this somehow is a problem with Calvinism, that we are making meritorious works, New Testament concept, equal to this autonomous faith act. But again, I just pointed out, and if you think I'm wrong, then you're going to have to address this one issue. If it's 100% of grace, And if God gave the exact same grace to the person who ends up in hell, then the distinction between you and the person in hell is not a matter of grace. The only difference between the two of you is your autonomous act. That becomes the distinguishing factor. Yes or no? Yes or no? I think the answer is obvious. And that's where the confusion here is. Even if I believe that the Holy Spirit did a work in me to help me to do it, that I didn't even do that alone, right? Like, God called out to me, reached out to me, His Word preached to me, the Gospel impacted me. I'm believing all this stuff, but that still means I'm getting some credit. But that's not biblical. Let's keep listening. Yeah, I didn't—it's not about credit. It's about the nature of saving faith. What binds everyone together is that if you're a monergist, God can actually save. If you're a synergist, God can only try to save. He's going to say more. Actually, let me play the rest of what he says here. I don't want to cut him off. You can give him all the credit in the world and say, I've never been able to save myself. That's true. But you also have to turn it around if you're a synergist and say, and God could not have saved me without me. That's the issue. That's the fundamental issue. So that's the end of that video from James. So the fundamental issue is, monergist is believing that God saves you entirely, and that includes making you have faith somehow, whether he gave you the ability to only choose faith. It's called regeneration. It's called being raised to spiritual life, made a new creature. being given the gift of faith, you know, Philippians 129, Ephesians 2, the text that describes faith as a gift, but it's the radical work of regeneration. He is the one, it's by his doing that you're in Christ Jesus, not by yours. And so, if it's just simply, here's the offering, And anyone who will repent and believe can have this. That's how most people believe it. They ignore the stuff about man's incapacity and stuff like that, but here it is. Then it is your autonomous faith act, which is not the result of the work of the Spirit of God, Because if your faith is the result of the work of the Spirit of God, then why does that other person not believe? Because if the Spirit of God can bring about faith in your experience, why can't it bring about faith in the experience of the other? The point always is, no, it's free will, God's a gentleman, he'll never force himself on anybody, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, that's the topic. I'm trying to fairly represent Calvinism here. But then the synergist view, what they call synergism, is the view that I just chose to trust. That's it. But that's not synergism, right? The Bible explains God's doing all the work in that exact scenario. No, he's not. Because in your scenario, God does all the work would mean that everybody gets saved, because everybody gets the same grace, grace saves, that's it, everybody's saved. But you don't believe everybody's saved. So since there's a distinction, we have to ask the question, what makes the distinction? And if you don't have a specific, unconditional election of the elect personally, That is, he knows not only the elect as a group, but he knows who is in the elect, and they are chosen from eternity past, Ephesians 1, which we went over last week in response to somebody else in a completely different context, but we did. Either you've got that, or you have some kind of general redemptive call that is given equally to everybody, and does not result in salvation except in those who have this autonomous faith act that is not a part of God's electing grace. So, it doesn't have anything to do with grace. So, it's not all grace. That's the problem. There's the issue. I'm thankful that you profess it's all of grace. I'm just trying to encourage you, go the rest of the way, brother! Because the only way to say it's 100%, the only way to go with Spurgeon, all of grace, is to believe, to be a Calvinist. Yeah, that's just, that's what I believe. If you're following the reasoning here, you see what's going on. So, that's the James White thing. To suggest that this means God tries to save and can't, this to me, I'm going to call that fluff. That's rhetoric. That's not accurate. I don't think that that's accurate. It's perfectly accurate. It's a thousand percent accurate. And the fact you don't see it demonstrates you're not really tracking with what the real issue is. Has God not tried to save every person equally? If he only gives certain kinds of grace to certain kinds of people, upon what basis does he make the distinction? I mean, now you're introducing election on God's part! And if you have to have God's grace to be saved, which you said you do, and God doesn't give sufficient grace to everybody, then God has chosen by election to not save certain people, right? So if you're saying it is up to us and anyone can be saved, then you've gotten rid of grace again as the sole factor. You either have to introduce election on God's part or Or you have to say, God has tried to save everyone equally. This is not fluff, and the very fact you thought it was fluff is indicative of the fact that you haven't really dealt with Reformed theology on a meaningful level yet. You haven't really been challenged by what it's actually saying. And that's why you're not giving a response that is overly compelling on this. Appreciate the brotherly nature of it. I hope you're hearing my heart. but you're not addressing the issue properly and not seeing it. Now, I'm going to try to find here... There were quotes that he gave from other folks, some of whom I don't have a clue. Then, Cy's in the channel right now. Hi, Cy! But he goes after Cy's stuff on the Tulip Test, and I just saw Cy drop that in channel. So, www.proofthatgodexists.org slash tulip-test slash. So if you go to proofthatgodexists.org slash tulip dash test slash, then you can bring this up and look at it yourself, um, and see that as he critiques Sai's thing, um, and I think, Sai, did he record this after you all, um, because I think he made reference to your discussion of I think he made reference to your discussion of presuppositionalism, so I think this was made afterwards. After that, I think. So, in any case, yes, well after. Okay, all right. How long ago did you all have that conversation? See, I've got to fill. There's a 30 second delay or more between when I ask a question and anybody can even begin typing, so it's a little bit slow when someone's in the chat channel. But everybody always asks, what's this chat channel thing? Go on, go at aomin.org, you'll see, does it say chat room, chat chat? Just says chat, up above. And it'll, about a month, okay, so about a month earlier. Okay, thank you. I highly recommend the conversation with Psy, love Psy. It was a really good conversation, and especially with last week's conversation, or the last program's conversation about presuppositionalism, I'm very thankful. that people like Cy and Dr. Bolt and Brother Whips and others are stepping in, because I'll just be honest with you, I don't have time to. And this is sort of more their area, and so they're stepping up to do their thing, and I appreciate that, and providing good answers. So let me go through here. And what I wanted to do was to get to the Q&A, because that's where we can get into some of the text, because I really felt... Brother... This is... The reason I am Reformed is because I must apply the same exegetical methodology, the same hermeneutics, to soteriology that I apply to defense of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, the inspiration of scripture, the historicity of scripture, everything else. So all the stuff that I do with Muslims and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and atheists and whatever else, I have to be consistent. And when you apply the same exegetical standards to this area, The New Testament was written by a bunch of raving Calvinists. Now, obviously, that's a huge anachronism, but that's the case. Use the same hermeneutic, yet use the same exegesis. If I recall correctly, someone actually asked a question later on, would you debate James White on this? And he was like, oh, well, maybe. And the reason for that is in doing these debates, I've built up a reputation over decades now. We're going to get into the text. And during the cross-ex, I'm going to be asking you, direct questions. I don't mean like that non-debate with Brother Tassie a few years ago, but much more like the meaningful exchanges that I had with Michael Brown on the program than with something like that. And hopefully you would be much more in that realm than the other. But the answers you gave these questions were not good. uh... i mean let me find here he brings uh... are there was the dvd dvd dvd all right i think i'm pretty close to let's see how i did and uh... let's bring those verses up splash of my uh... myself we're going back and forth there is so acts thirteen forty eight And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Okay, so this is where, I mean, this passage doesn't say anything about... Brother, you're struggling. Okay, all the Calvinists in the audience are going, yes, go ahead. And there's a reason for that. because it says what it says. Now, I am thankful you don't do the Dave Hunt thing, or some of these other people, and you look at it and go, well, you know, the word for appointed here could be chose themselves. That's what Dave Hunt did, borrowing from the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm glad you didn't do any of that. But let's just be straightforward. After the preaching of the Gospel, uh, when the Gentiles heard that they were presenting the gospel to the Gentiles, they rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord and epistouson hosoi eison tetogmenoi ais zoen ionion. and believed as many as were appointed unto eternal life. Now, epistison, pistuo, to believe, and believed, hasoi. Now, hasoi, I think we just, I'm teaching an online Greek class right now, only have a few students left, but they're I keep dangling First John in front of them as the carrot, come on, keep going, keep going, and they've got three weeks off now to get sort of caught up on their homework and stuff like that since I'm going to be gone. But. Hosoi is a correlative pronoun that. It's hard, it's hard to give a specific translation of it because it's always used in some some kind of a syntactical category that will sort of give a nuance to it here. and believed as many as were. So, it's limiting the range of the act of belief. And it's limiting the range to a participial phrase. Tetogmenoi, believe it or not, the root of tetogmenoi is tasso. And Well, okay, that's the lexical form. The root would be tag, and then tasso. People who know Greek know that the present tense root is normally the most changed root of any of the roots. And so the lexical form that you normally learn in vocabulary is actually probably an altered verbal form from the root. You have to learn the root as well. And the root of taso is tag. Tatagmenoi is, teaching Greek helps refresh everything. It's good. I need to do that every once in a while. It tends to get rusty after a while if you don't. Anyways, it means to a point. to set, to appoint, and so since it's a perfect passive, now it could be a middle, and so that's where the Jehovah's Witnesses come up with appointed themselves. Yeah, I'm sorry, that is... Once you start going there, you're demonstrating, I just do not want to believe what this says. As many as were appointed unto eternal life believed. So there is a direct plain scriptural statement that appointment, passive, which means somebody else is doing the appointing, appointment to eternal life results in belief. That's the statement of the text. Luke does not expand upon it, it is not some lengthy discussion, this is not one of the first places I would go to prove this. What it does prove is that the Apostle Luke can make this reference and can say what God has done and he doesn't feel the need to stop and prove it. He doesn't need to feel the need to stop and explain it. It is simply a part of how Christians understood these things. That God appoints to eternal life and the result of that is our faith. That is consistent Christian theology. So, that's what you have in Acts 13, 48. Let's, um, let's, let's, well, um, okay. God being the catalyst for belief, except that God's ordination, God's election of those people from before time is there. And I believe in election. I have a video called Calvinism, Arminianism, Predestination, and Election. That's the title of the video. And actually it's linked in the video description because I kind of anticipated this might come up. So you're welcome to check that out and see how I answer that in more detail. I'll say though, off the cuff, what I want a scripture to tell me is, uh, man makes no decision, um, about believing God or, I mean, we... Okay, now see, immediately there's a problem. We don't believe that. We, God's not believing for me. I do believe. But I believe because I was appointed to eternal life. And if I wasn't appointed to eternal life, I'm not gonna believe. It doesn't make my belief any less real. It makes it more real because it is the result of God's work. He's freed my will. He's changed my will. He's turned me from a God-hater into a God-lover. So, yes, I believe. But why don't other people believe? Remember how many times, and we even look at this, and we forget it. But I just want to remind folks that this comes up in Jesus' own teachings. For example, in John, let me see here. How far back was that? Okay. In John chapter 8, verse 43, why do you not understand what I am saying? Verse 43. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You lack a specific capacity to be able to hear what I'm saying. Now, that's apologetically relevant, and that's theologically relevant. But people read that and they turn it upside down. There's a sort of filter that runs. It's because you won't hear my word. No, it's because you cannot. It's because you cannot hear my word. And he talks about, you're of your father, so on and so forth. And in verse 47, he who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear them, because you don't choose to? No, because you're not of God. You have to be of God to hear God's words, to even believe in the first place. That's what Jesus taught. And it's amazing how many people will read through something like that and their mind just filters it, and switches it upside down and says, for this reason you don't hear them, because you don't choose to be of God. That's not what it says. That's not what it says. to get into libertarian free will and compatibilism and things like this, but the Bible doesn't talk clearly about those issues. Oh, yes, it does. And this is where the problem lies. Yes, it does. There is so much. I just read two passages from John chapter 8. There's many, many more we can get into about man's incapacity, inability, Genesis 50, Isaiah 10. It does. It does. Seems to imply, like, you make a choice to believe, and I'm going to trust that, unless I have some good, clear scripture that says something otherwise. You've got plenty. You need, brother, you need to do some more reading in this area. And you may not have the desire to, but you need to. So I believe God is working in me, and I'm making a choice to believe, and he elected me from before the foundations of the world, and my belief is involved in all that. So John 6, 44. Yeah, your belief is involved in all of that as the determinative factor. You can say God's working in you, but if God's working in everybody equally, then your autonomous faith act is the determining factor. That's the whole issue once again. John 644. Hey, folks, those of you who have... I saw that. Those of you who've listened to maybe a few editions of Radio Free Geneva in the past, going back, when did we do our first Radio Free Geneva? That was, that was back when Adrian Rogers, was that 2001? How do you know that? Oh, because you were doing all that stuff on the... all that database stuff. That's right. Because I'm sitting there going, I don't remember that! But that's because I wasn't putting all that stuff back into the blog. That gives you an advantage on the historical aspect. No two ways about that. So if I am nominated to the Supreme Court, I will need your memory help, because I don't remember when that was. Okay. So basically, for the past 17 years, as we've been doing Radio Free Geneva, we've covered John 644 a bunch of times. And we've looked at some pretty pathetic excuses for John 644. And we've run into some complicated ones, and stuff that you've got to run all over the Bible to figure out where this person's coming from. John 6 just stands like the rock that it is. And we're about to hear a man who, I am certain, wants to handle the Word of God aright, just not allow it to speak at all. Just sort of, ah, it doesn't really say that, and you move along. When someone says it doesn't say something, but does not give you a compelling case as to what it does say, then you got a problem. This always comes up in the debate with Calvinism. It says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. Now, by the way, I would just simply say in passing, I don't think John 6, 44 should be dealt with as a singular text. The statement of divine election, the statement of God's utter capacity to save infallibly in Jesus Christ, beginning in verse 37, is so strong And it provides the context that makes John 644 unanswerable. But, in the vast majority of situations, and we shouldn't allow this, this is a tactical error on our part, but in the vast majority of situations, people do allow for the atomization of the text, the versification of the text, as if you can just look at one sentence, or two sentences. and really come up with a meaning for them without looking at everything else that is around them or before them, so on and so forth. But, with that said, with the fact that John 6, 37, all the Father gives me will come to me, the one that comes to me I'll never cast out, all the Father gives me will come to me. That's divine election. It's absolutely divine election. And coming to Jesus is saving faith. There you've got saving faith as a result of the divine work of the Father in drawing people to Him. Um, then you have Gius, he's not going to lose anyone, because he is perfectly able to save. He is powerful to save. Um, so. Okay, so, um, I would say... God, as I've kind of hinted at, shared already, God does a work in my life, right, through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit and the Bride say come, you know, through the conviction of sin, righteousness, judgment to come, through the preaching of the gospel, because the gospel goes out with power, and so on. So is this the drawing then? Are what you're saying is the preaching and the conviction, is this the drawing? No one can come to me unless the Father of the Holy Spirit draws him. So, do you believe that no one can come to Him? So, man in and of himself lacks the moral capacity, the spiritual ability to turn to Christ unless this drawing takes place, whatever this drawing is. I just want to know. where you are on this. These things are drawing me, and when I assent, and I do think I have to assent, and I think God ordained that, and that's that part of believe or don't believe, then I am drawn. That drawing has been, has come to completion, you know? Okay. So, he draws you, and then you have to assent to it. There's nothing in John 6 about assent anywhere. But then, when you ascent, then the drawing comes to fruition and completion. What most people try to do is try to jump over John 12. Uh, if I be lifted up, I'll draw a man unto myself, and the whole point is, between draws him and I will raise him up in the last day, they have to, they have to insert some kind of free will act in there. There isn't anything there, in the original language. If you're doing exegesis, what it says is, no one has the ability in and of themselves, no autonomous will, this, this, no one can come to me. unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day." It's the same him, brother. Draws him, and I will raise him up. We've talked about this many times before, but in the Greek, ὁ πέμψας με ἔλκουσε Ἀλτάν, draws him, καγώ ἄναστεσο Ἀλτάν, and I will raise him, Ente Escate Hemera on the last day. Same hymn. If you're drawn by the father, you're raised up by the son. What you're doing is inserting an entire concept of libertarianism into this text and overthrowing it. It's not there. Where'd you get it at? Well, some people say, well, you know, it's verse 45, it is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God, and so you need to be taught by God, and hear and learn from the Father, and those are all free will actions. No, they're not. Verse 45 is a continued explanation of verse 44. That saying, they will all be taught by God, means that it is necessary to receive from God this information, this is part of the drawing, and the hearing and the learning is not something we do. Those are passive results of God's action, and so everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Everyone! Just as in verse 37, all the Father gives me will come to me. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Can you hear and learn from the Father, be partially drawn, your partially drawn theory, and not come to the Father? See, once you interrupt the text here, I just have to ask, brother, why? You wouldn't do this on the resurrection. You wouldn't do this on the inspiration of scripture. You wouldn't do this on the nature of the church. But here, because you have this tradition of autonomous free will, you just, I think this is saying, no, you're not being obedient to the text, and so you're inserting something into it. that changes its meaning. You wouldn't do this anywhere else. When you catch somebody doing this, that's the biggest sign of tradition you'll ever find. And you do have a tradition. I know Calvary Chapel doesn't have a tradition. Yes, Calvary Chapel has lots of traditions. Lots of traditions. And this is evidently one of them. So God, there's a reaching out to all people, but he does not draw all people to himself entirely. Entirely? Where is this partial drawing, entire drawing thing? Can you show that to us in the text? No. You're making it up out of whole cloth. There's nothing in this text that says that. This would disrupt Jesus' answer. Because Jesus is answering a specific question here. He's identifying these people as unbelievers. Verse 36, but I said to you that you have seen me, yet you are not believing. All the Father gives me will come to me. The one coming to me, I'll never cast out. And they grumble about this. Because it says, I am the bread that came down from heaven. And they're saying, is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, his father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down out of heaven? And Jesus' response is, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father. No one can come to me unless the Father draws them. You don't need to be grumbling. Their unbelief has a reason. and the reason is found in God's not having chosen them. That does not mean that they are not accountable before God for that. Everybody goes, well, if God's got to do that, be careful because that's going to lead you to end up rejecting your relationship to Adam and federal headship and therefore the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. It undoes the entire gospel. That's the American interpretation rather than the biblical interpretation. And that's... okay. EJON644 doesn't pose a problem here. So I'll let someone else bring up another issue there, but... Okay, that wasn't an answer. I'm sorry, bro. Given how strong that text is, and how deep that text is, and how consistent that text is, that wasn't... I think you know you've got more work to do on that. And I would just really challenge you to don't just dig into one verse. Do what you do in every place else. Walk through the text verse by verse. It's what you were taught to do. Do it there and lay everything aside and believe what it says. That's how confident I am of John 6. It is that strong. Okay. Christopher Jank says, I'm a Calvinist. How does one explain scriptures like Peter 2, 8 or other clear teachings of double predestined I'm trying to remember, is that 1 Peter 2 way? Yeah, okay, so they stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do. So, okay, this is getting... Or interestingly enough, New American Standard says, beginning of verse 7, this precious value then is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. So, in other words, the concept is that you find... It's the same concept that Paul gives us in the preaching of the cross in 1 Corinthians 1. To those who are perishing, foolishness. Those who are being saved, power of God, Jesus. Those who believe, source of salvation to those who disbelieve, stone crushes you. Okay, that's his point. A stone of stumbling rock of offense, for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed. It's literally ais ha kai et teteisan, tetemi, unto which also they were appointed. Doom is somewhat of an expansion there. And then, but you, verse 9, are a chosen race over against those who have not received that electing grace. So, wow, there it is from Peter. We have John and Luke and now Peter. Topic. I'd like to deal with this issue sometimes. People have asked me, like, do a video on Molinism, Mike. Okay, so yeah, this is going to deal with some other things like that. I think I'm trying to think of how to not make this too much information, right? I think that from my perspective, I can look at God's ordination of events and I can say, yes, God ordains events and man makes free will choices. I believe both of those things are true. So when it says God ordained it, that doesn't somehow controvert people making free will choices. Well, that's very nice to say. Um, but it's about the same thing as saying, I am not partial to the smell of blue. Now we have somebody in our channel named blue and we might not be partial to the smell of that blue, but, uh, the color blue, well, color blue doesn't have a smell, doesn't have an odor. And so it's a non answer. And you can say, I, you know, I, um, I don't have any problem with, uh, God ordaining and, uh, man having autonomous will, but you can't have them both at the same time. I mean, you can't. It's real easy to say, well, you know, and I hope when you said, you know, not getting into Molinism here, that what you meant by that is that you'd be critiquing Molinism, because, oh, please, don't tell me you've got the divine, you know, card player up there, you know, like William Lane Craig, God's got to deal with the cards he's been dealt. Please. I know that there are many non-reformed that find Molinism as a sort of a cheap and easy way, but it's both cheap and easy. But it's not biblical by any stretch of the imagination. It does not derive from any meaningful biblical exegesis. Its defendants are always forced to only be going well, you know over here We might if we looked at it this way sort of see something here that maybe possibly it is not forced upon us by any kind of biblical Jesus and it doesn't answer the question by positing some kind of Middle knowledge between free and natural knowledge in God's being that comes from someplace else and restricts God's actions it is a It may be the cheap way out for people today, but it is not a meaningful answer. It really, really isn't. So I hope that's not where you're going there. But to say free will, decree, they're all true at the same time. It's just to say, I'm just going to skip dealing with this. That's not really an answer. At all. And so the first Peter passage first Peter 2 it's specifically talking about How when Christ came the rulers and the people they didn't know and God had a hand in that he ordained that Jesus would be Rejected by the people of God or the Jewish people I should say That Jesus would be crucified under Pontius Pilate and that Judas himself would betray him But that yeah, you know, that's that's all part of God's absolute predestination According to Acts chapter 4 what they did what your hand predestined and those were sinful actions Those were sinful actions on the part of Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Jews, and the Romans, right? And they were the result of God's predestination. There's God's decree. The cross could not have failed, could not have failed to happen, could it? I hope you would say that no, it couldn't have, no. You mean that Judas didn't make a choice, or Pilate didn't make a choice? Nobody's saying they didn't. Of course they made a choice, but it wasn't an autonomous free will choice. in that sense. It was a choice for which they will be held accountable. It was a choice consistent with their nature. But, for example, if the Jews had chosen to try to kill Jesus before taking Him, let's say the Jews in the Sanhedrin, in the mock trial, decided that, you know, If we take this guy to the Romans, they may not execute him. He's under our power now, let's do it now. Let's stone him now. Could the entirety of the whole thing have been messed up? All those messianic prophecies about how Jesus was going to die? Could that have all been messed up by the free will autonomous actions of the Jews? They had power over Jesus, they could have done it. I say, nope. No way. So, their actions are what God predestined, they are accountable for them, will be punished for them, in accordance with their desires, and I bet you some of them want to kill Jesus right then and there, and he restrained them. God has the right to restrain our evil, to keep us from committing evil. Yep, yep, that's what the Bible teaches. I don't think it changes my view on this issue. So that's my understanding. Thomas Risa? But that wasn't an answer. Were they destined to that? Again, just simply saying, I don't see it as a problem only means you're not seeing what the problem is. It doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist. says Mike, I'm a Calvinist and I appreciate your videos and I'm very thankful for your exegesis of scripture. I would just ask if you would have a good in-house conversation with James White. We'll go ahead and finish with this. Does this seem like an appropriate, have a good in-house discussion with James White. Yeah, we should hold a hearing and have the FBI, oh wait a minute, we're all confused here. So yeah, okay, this is a good way to wrap this one up. We've gone a full hour and a half anyways. But it's funny how many people act as my representative and volunteer me for things without asking me first how many people are willing to do that. Not complaining about Thomas Risa or whoever it was he said it was. But I would be willing to do that with someone like this brother, because he is a brother, and it would be a useful, edifying, non-food fight. It would not be the highest priority in my list of things to do, Um, because, well, A, I just have to be really prioritizing that CBGM project right now, um, for lots of reasons. Um, but at the same time, um, I think we've sort of demonstrated that there, there are some fundamental misunderstandings and sometimes just debating someone's misunderstandings isn't as useful as someone who has an understanding of what the issue is and is just taking a completely different position. I just think that the brother is really inconsistent in his application of exegesis, so it might be useful. It would certainly be respectful. uh... but terrified to talk to james whiteman uh... james why i love james whiteman and and and he said he's an experienced and skilled debater be totally scared to go against him uh... in a conversation like that which the goal would be to prove me wrong uh... but i would consider it just because i'm scared doesn't stop me from doing it okay there you go so he he would consider it so You know, if you look at the response I gave, and you go, I think I can refute that. I think I can do better with Acts 13, 48, and John 6, 44, and I can... You know what I didn't get to, and I'm sorry. Let me just mention it quickly in passing. He did try to deal with Ephesians chapter 2. Let's just do that. He didn't deal with Philippians 1.29 or anything like that. And brother, if you've not read the Potter's Freedom, I'd really challenge you to do that. And to interact with its exegesis to the point where you'd be able to demonstrate where the exegesis is in error. Because if it's not in error, don't simply be comfortable with a, well, I don't feel that way type thing. I would highly recommend that you do something with that, but he did rightly point out that in Ephesians 2.8, he points out that Tutah For by grace you have been saved through faith. Cai tuta uk ex humon, and that not of yourselves, the utah doron, is a gift of God. Uk ex ergon, not of works, lest anyone should boast. And so, tuta is a neuter. And everything in the preceding sentence, the preceding clause, is either masculine or feminine. Chorus, sessus menoi is a paracyble of sozo, and pistos, which is feminine, and this is neuter. And the neuter is just wrapping up the preceding phrase. It's just saying it's all of God. Exactly. All of it. every bit of what was in the preceding line. So, the grace, the salvation, but what you basically did was said, you know, but it doesn't specifically say faith. No, it's saying all of it. And you know why I'm so confident of that? Because of the final phrase, so that no one may boast." And that takes us right back to the point here, and that is, if you believe that God's trying to save everyone equally, we've all had equal access to grace, and yet, some are saved, some are not, and the distinguishing difference between them is not the grace they've received, But their response to that grace, their autonomous response to that grace, then it's no longer an issue of grace or not. It's now the distinguishing difference is us. And that's why in Romans chapter 8, those who are according to flesh cannot please God, they cannot subject themselves to the law of God. Is it not God's law that you repent? So, how could you do that which is pleasing before God? in the flesh. Regeneration is necessary. There is a reason why we believe in regeneration as the necessary act. Resurrection, freeing from the slavery of sin, new creature. God can do that. And that person then believes and repents and those are real actions and those are, he's not doing it in our place, but he has made it certain that we will do so to his honor and glory. That's the system that you're saying isn't biblical. And do you really, do you really, brother, think that if we had equal time and that we could do cross-examination? Not the stuff we've been watching today. Serious cross-examination. That what you said would be able to withstand the questions that would be asked of it. There's the question. Well, there you go. There's Radio Free Geneva for the four of you who watched. Thank you very, very much. I'm hoping that Rich somehow found a way to record things or something in the other room. I have a feeling that 10 years down the road, he's going to remind me of his sacrifice at this time in American history in having not been able to finish watching what was going on. But, you know, we have to have our priorities, and so we did. So thanks for watching the program today. I'm going to be gone for a while. I mentioned previously that... Did you start the music? Oh. I'm going to be gone for a while, so we'll see if we do something from wherever I am. Probably not, but we'll see. God bless.