The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602-973-4602 in the metro Phoenix dialing area, or toll free across the United States at 1-866-550-3915. That's 866-550-3915. And now, with today's topic, here is James White. And good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is Rich Pierce. We've got a little bit of a... we have wires, folks, running through Dr. White's office like you would not believe. I have to tell you that one of the things that we are notorious for here at Alpha Omega Ministries is... well, let's just call it bailing wire and chewing gum, okay? Those two things are staple items in this ministry. And we have put together a show today where it is Bailing Wire, it is Chewing Gum, it is me, Rich Pierce. If I didn't introduce myself in the panic of the beginning of the show here, as I couldn't hear myself. But I am joined today by Simon Escobedo and Michael Porter. We're going to be discussing some issues today in reference to, shall we say, the old Arminianism versus Calvinism discussion. And we're going to specifically focus in on some comments that were made in a debate a while back with James, Dr. White, and a pastor, Jim Barker. in New York, and the one thing I found interesting about him, and I think he made some valid points that we need to put up right away, and you're going to hear some of it in the remarks, because we're going to actually air some clips from that debate for you folks, and one of the things that I think he was right on was an insistence that he not be referred to as an Armenian. And some people may look at that and go, wait a minute, the dude's Arminian to the core. I have for a long time maintained that we need to give what is popular today in the church a different label. And because James Arminius and his followers believed things that folks today who claim allegiance with that, more along the lines of that, don't believe. And in fact, they're a good bit more inconsistent than Arminius was and his followers. And I think that kind of stems or can breed a more dangerous form of heresy. a more dangerous thing, because it's what I call shopping cart theology. Nothing I really believe really belongs to me. I go to the theology store, and ooh, this looks cute, and this looks nice, and this looks palatable. And so I throw it into my shopping cart, and find that by the time I hit the checkout stand, I just kind of mix it all together, bag it, and take it home. And now it's mine. And I refer to what is commonly claimed today, I think the position that Pastor Barker takes, is really more of a neo or pop Arminianism. I think that's really what we have that is prevalent today, that is prevalent in the land where we see all these seeker-friendly churches and all this stuff going on. it's really a pop armenianism because it is really something that stems from pop culture in the church well of course he denies emphatically as we will listen to the fact that he holds any kind of semblance to armenius' position yet as we begin to unfold his presentation we will see that everything that he really does believe he presents and the objections that he has with regards to calvinism is completely consistent with the major tenets of Armenian theology, with the exception, of course, of eternal security. And as we have noted many, many times, there are quite a few people who love to borrow from Calvinism those things they like, such as eternal security or substitutionary atonement, although they don't think that through, and reject the other things they don't like, such as divine sovereignty and so forth. Now, I'm not quite sure, I'm trying to think of a way to shorten or abbreviate Rich's newfound term of Neo-Papa-Arminianism. That would be, what, Neo-Papa? No, I guess what I'm saying, it's really a Neo-Arminianism. It isn't the genuine article, and I think if one is going to be a consistent Arminian, if you're going to be consistent with the previous four points that preceded it, It is very consistent to deny eternal security. Absolutely. And I think that's something that we've got to bring into the mix and recognize that someone who claims that they would, as Pastor Barker will present, claims the first four points in harmony with Arminius, for the most part, and then goes and swings clear to the other side and grabs up eternal security, is inconsistent. And so I really see it, my phrase is more, it's the pop-Arminianism because it stems from the pop culture that is man-centered. It really is. Well, I think one of the things that we can observe, and of course we will see this and we'll be sure to highlight it, is the fact that one of the things that he does is he uses and borrows concepts and phrases straight from Arminian thought and then tries to synthesize them with you can almost call it almost Calvinist thoughts with internal security. He tries to sort of mix and match certain concepts and then when he is called on the carpet for what those concepts actually are he's never actually holding to them in the first place. The logical conclusion of his belief is that he is actually more Arminian than he would care to admit That's probably a fair assessment that he is Pop Neal, if you want to call that. Yeah, I'm sure that they love to perhaps use the term non-reformed, or as he likes to call himself, a fundamentalist Baptist, in the traditional sense of the word. But again, as we will see, that he basically lines up pretty consistently with the major tenets of Arminianism. And I think it's important to note, although we'll discuss this more in detail, that he goes after Calvinism as a quote-unquote system. And yet, in doing so, he forgets that he's contradicting himself at that point because he holds to an element of a system as well. I think the term is process. Process. Yes, in reference to faith coming before regeneration and so forth. But he does reject the system of Calvinism, per se. And yet, unfortunately, as he will show, that he holds to some kind of a system himself. I also think it needs to be stressed at this point, Rich, that as we were trying to look around some of the debates that we had that we could air, especially on this particular topic. You would agree, we didn't have quite a few, we didn't have that many to go to. In fact, you had stated when we chose the Barker debate, this is James Barker, that there have been some in the past who have written to you. and have suggested from the Armenian position that Barker is not really a strong proponent of their position. In fact, I think you used the word, a joke perhaps has been stated, but we really don't have others to go to. It's not like there's a lot of people out there from the non-reform perspective who are willing to engage this issue with Dr. White. Of course, the most recent was Dave Hunt, and we didn't really want to go that direction because Dr. White had exhausted that one, both in his discussions and in his comments after that on other divide-and-wine programs. Yeah, it did occur to me yesterday that there is one debate that I hadn't thought of that we could have let enter into this discussion, and that would have been the one that he did with the Church of Christ minister. I believe it was last May, if not the spring before that. But yeah, the basic conservative Christian who would stand in the fundamental ranks. There's not a lot of them out there who would want to engage Dr. White on these issues. So we didn't have too many topics to go to in terms of trying to secure for this program a really sound presentation from the non-reform perspective. But again, as you have noted, that while Barker does seem to go a little bit left from even his own opposition, he does present basically the same arguments that others of the non-reform perspective present, they're just not quite as polished. Yeah, and the other thing is that, and you mentioned the complaints that I've gotten, I actually have one gentleman who actually was seeking to have his money returned to him, the donation that he gave to receive that debate, Simply because Pastor Barker, as you'll hear, is also KJV only. And I think when you listen to his comments, and we need to get to those here pretty soon, when you listen to his comments, you need to kind of listen through the preacher in him. Because he's not a debater. He's a preacher. But I think overall, he does articulate the major scope that is I think in all and all this is the professional way to basically say we're sorry that we couldn't find something better. This is what we have. Well it would be nice if someone by the name of Norman Geisler might step up and get in there. Right, absolutely. so we want to go ahead and uh... and and listen to the uh... the first opening remarks and then uh... simon if you want to jump in there make some comments we're gonna listen to pastor barker now and uh... let's go ahead and do that let's uh... present now uh... let's set the format for this debate so the folk know what we're doing uh... initially this debate consisted of two twenty minutes opening presentations the first was given by doctor why the subject of the debate is the nature of the will. Now, you will see very quickly that James Barker, obviously representing the non-reform position, deviates from that, and of course, Dr. White will go after him for that, and really goes out and on to the subject of the election, doesn't really deal with the nature of the will, per se. But two 20-minute opening presentations, which was followed by a five-minute cross-examination, and then concluded with two five-minute closing comments from both speakers. I think what we chose to do today, and hopefully Dr. White will not frown on us too much, is we're just going to play the opening presentation by Mr. Barker, and then we will have some comments, because obviously with a five-minute cross-examination, there was absolutely no way that Dr. White could really cover all of the misrepresentations that were clearly evident in Barker's opening presentation. Now, can I give my best Rush Limbaugh impersonation and say, stop the tape! Stop the tape! And so we'll do that occasionally, so that we can interact with what Barker is presenting, and then Hopefully we will be of help to those who are listening. And just for the sake of those who are listening, I am sitting here at the Master Control Center at Alpha Omega Ministries, and this is the first time that some of our software that we are using to play these clips from, so I may, I'm hoping I won't faux pas here and screw it up. If I do, I'll just start it over and we'll get going through it. So we're going to go ahead and start that clip now. Let's do it. And if you feel that sense of power, that's because all this electricity running through this room is creating enough radiation to probably power even California. There are some Christians who like to identify themselves as 4-point or 3-point Calvinists. And usually the reason they do so is because they shy away from limited atonement. And we'll deal with that in a few minutes. And I think it's a good thing to shy away from a little moment. The Bible doesn't teach it. But nevertheless, I believe the whole system is in error. And I think upon close examination, it'll be quite clear that total inability is vitally important to the system. And I think total inability should be discarded with all the other unscriptural theories of Calvinism. If all men are unable to repent, and believe the gospel, then it logically follows that if the elect are to be saved, then God must first irresistibly overcome their so-called inability by regenerating them first in order for them to be able to repent and believe the gospel. Therefore, the system is interdependent. It either stands together or falls together as a unit. And I think under the examination of the Bible, we'll see that it falls short As a Bible-believing Baptist, as a fundamental Christian, I think we should avoid the extremes of both Arminianism and Calvinism. And by the way, I'm really glad that tonight, so far, no one's calling me an Arminian. I appreciate that. I do believe once you're saved, you're always saved. I believe in the eternal security of the believer. I don't follow the systems of Jacob Arminius. As a matter of fact, I never even read his books. I don't follow the teachings of John Wesley. I just follow the Word of God. And I might add the King James Version also. Now, I believe that John Calvin was a great man in many ways, but I believe his system was in error. And I do believe any system which denies or minimizes the free will of man is wrong. Just like any system that minimizes the sovereignty of God is wrong, on the other hand, any system that minimizes man's responsibility to believe the gospel is wrong. The Bible teaches both. Now I want to stop at this point and emphasize that I do believe in the doctrine of total depravity. However, I believe the biblical doctrine of total depravity is significantly different than the Calvinist doctrine of total inability. I believe there's a vast difference. For example, the prophet Isaiah says, the whole head is thick. The prophet Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? David wrote, they've all gone aside, they've all together become filthy. There's none that do us good, no not one. And as has already been quoted from Romans 3, the Apostle Paul summarizes by saying, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now by total depravity, we mean that there's nothing good in man to please a holy God. That is different, considerably different than the Calvinist doctrine of total inability. Which teaches that man is so dead that he is unable to even hear the word of God. You see there is a big difference there. Now, the Bible doesn't, when we say total poverty, we don't mean there is nothing good in man at all. We mean there is nothing good in man to please a holy God. There are some good things in bad men. And there are some good things in unsaved men. I'll give you one example. In Acts chapter 10, verse 2, the Bible says that Cornelius was a proud man... Okay, okay. Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Okay, let's make some comments. Now, that was a very good Rush Limbaugh impersonation. Yes, yes. You did him proud. Well, we don't want to let him get too far, and then we're not able to provide some continuity for some of the things that he's already, I think, misrepresented terribly. As I stated early, and i don't know if you caught this uh... rich uh... he went after calvinism as a system and then went on to defend the fact that uh... he's not an armenian although he holds to uh... eternal security obviously contradicting himself at that point because uh... within his own quote-unquote system there are crews that are banned together that stand or fall together did you catch that and then further i don't know uh... mike you probably heard this did you notice that He seems to be wanting to use synonymously the terms free will and human responsibility as if they mean the same thing. Yeah, I caught that. And I think also, grossly misrepresenting the Calvinistic position, if you heard him, he pretty much suggests by innuendo that we deny free will in any sense and that we deny human responsibility. I think he used the term any system that minimizes free will or human responsibility is an error. I think it's at this point that perhaps we can have some interaction here and discuss the fact that there is a distinction, obviously, between free will and human responsibility. And when we discuss free will within the Calvinist understanding, of course, what we mean by that is not that men are moral agents capable of making free choices, but that within the sphere of their nature, that is, they are spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, they are not free to behave or to act inconsistently with that nature. Hence, they are not able to respond at all spiritually to God. And of course, responsibility, therefore, is a completely different thing. That is, of course, our accountability before the law of God. We are responsible creatures because we have violated God's law. We have sinned against His commandments. Do you have anything you want to add on that, Matt? Well, yeah, when he was talking about, of course, we say adding on, but going on a little bit from that, he starts talking about total depravity, and he acts as if the total depravity does not really have any effect on the desire or the will of the person in the first place. If we're trying to create the distinction between human responsibility and human will, the fact is, it is by their own will that they have rebelled against God in the first place, and therefore they never desire to turn to Him, but they are responsible for the rebellion and their actions in the first place. And I think that's a point that he grossly misunderstands or misrepresents in the first place. I think he defined his own position of total depravity as something that we have nothing actually that we can bring to the table to please God. And I guess the question that I have at that point then, what does it mean that we cannot please God? Of course, we would think of quickly the text found in Romans 8. but i don't know that he's actually thinking through his statement because if we have nothing that can please god and how in the world can we put them except slash slash slash faith belief repentance whatever you want to put it in fact uh... he admits and uh... and he admits there's no good in the meant to please god now is not repentance something that's a good now here's kind of a little station of uh... of what i was thinking of first of all It seems like what he's trying to say is that man is good by some standard. That there is some distinction between God's holiness. He says no man is good by God's standards. But then he almost presents a separate standard altogether that basically says, well, yeah, there is good by God's standards, but there is some good in some people altogether. He has disqualified God's standard. and then he creates a separate distinction all of himself. It'd be almost as if we were trying to say, you know that guy over there? He's getting a really bum rap. I mean, he's good from a certain point of view. I know that he hates God, he worships the devil, he sacrifices children to Moloch, but boy, he sure gave me a good deal on that church band. I mean, what does he mean by good? He seems to be confusing social goodness of mankind with somehow, some kind of a salvific holiness or goodness that God decides in the first place. Well, I think also the challenge is coming back to where Simon started with the comment, and that has to do with how he understands where we're at in the first place, and we can't bring anything good to God. That assumes something that I think is a major distinction here in how he looks at total depravity and how we look at total depravity, and that is that I think he sees mankind starting with a zero-sum game. And so instead of starting at a negative put the whole world on that shoulder and make it just that entire huge weight that just can't possibly be overcome by no matter how much you want to put at it when god looks at all of the luther's done he Okay. I don't think that he would agree with Luther's dung heap. I think in his vernacular, the snow is on level ground. So there's no negative impression. There's no positive impression. So as we start this life off and we lead our way through it, yeah, we start hitting the negatives. But when it comes to total depravity, the extent of it is a zero, not a negative. Right. And when you consider that all our righteous deeds are as Filthy rags or vanilla ice cream? Which is it? You know, it's filthy rags before God. Then the best things that in our experience we're able to perform or do are filthy rags before god exactly but in other words uh... i know that there is none of the righteous but that doesn't really mean that there's none righteously really you know that he's he confuses social goodness you know that's the subjective standards that we would get for people uh... versus the uh... spiritual goodness that is required for uh... for anything spiritual for god he went on to say i think that as we cut him off that he was trying to create the uh... impression, at least I thought so, that by total depravity the Calvinist means that all men are as totally depraved as they can possibly be, because he went on to suggest that there are some good and bad men, as if somehow we denied that. And I think it's important to define our own terms. What is it that we mean by total depravity? And, of course, by that we do not mean that all men are as totally depraved as they can be. That is, we make a distinction between extent and degree. Men are totally depraved in extent. That is universal. We're all spiritually dead sinners before the Lord gets a hold of us and enables us to believe and so forth. However, that doesn't mean that all sinners are, how shall I say this, depraved to the same degree. And the best illustration I can think of is one that I gave to my young people. And that is, if you have two dead bodies, and you have one dead body that has been dead for a week and especially out here in the desert where it can get pretty hot and of course we've had to hear many a news story where these kinds of things have happened where a body's been discovered in the desert or whatnot but have that body after a week laying out in the Phoenix sun and give it an opportunity to decompose and forgive the graphic here decompose and to rot and to be filled with all the stench that that would involve And then you had another person who just died within a matter of minutes, and you had the two of them side by side. One is not more dead than the other. They are both dead. They cannot in any way respond to any physical stimuli. They are corpses. The expressions of death are more clearly seen in the one that obviously has been decomposing for a week than the one that's only been dead for a few minutes. Obviously, a serial psychopath killer, the expressions of spiritual deadness are more clearly seen in him than the lost grandma who is faithful with her grandchildren making cookies every week. They're both spiritually dead, they're both lost, they both need Christ, but the degree of that depravity is clearly seen in the serial psychopath than it is the grandmother. And I guess that's where we need to make the distinction. Because I think he seems to suggest that we're trying to say that by total depravity we mean that all men are as depraved as they possibly can be. And there are people that are religious by nature. They believe in a God concept or they believe in perhaps what the Bible says about God to a degree. They do not submit to his ultimate authority. They might Go to church. They might recognize their need to be obedient to the law And two different things like that that in and of itself does not make them Regenerate converted believers or anything of that nature. It just simply makes them a person who goes to church every Sunday you make come to mind the person that was in the chat room during last week's show that both of you We're trying to reason with while we're listening to a show on grief. Remember the subjectivist fellow that Oh gosh, I mean he was almost existential in his application of God's love and the whole nine yards, and he was just absolutely offended that the folks in the chat room would take the position that, you know, God is just. Right. God punishes sin. Absolutely. And it was a very foreign concept to him. And I think at this point it needs to be stressed, and of course we'll stress this later on, that obviously the presentation that Barker's giving and that all non-reformed folk give as a whole typically have a pretty high view of man, and obviously they do not really understand the nature of man in sin. They don't understand his spiritual condition. This causes much of the problem, because if you have a flawed foundation, then obviously from that you're going to have a flawed theology, and they don't have a proper view of God either. And hence, here's where we encounter all kinds of problems as we continue the discussions between a monergist And a synergist. So why don't we play some more tape, Rich, so we can have some more things to respond to. Well, actually, we're going to take a break before we start doing that. And just be a moment here to take care of some business. And then we'll be right back here on The Dividing Line. answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God. James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611. You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy by going to our website at www.aomin.org. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with us this coming Lord's Day. Our morning Bible study begins at 9.30 a.m. and our worship service is at 10.45. Evening services are at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday and Wednesday prayer meetings is at 7. We are located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 26 Grace. Or look us up on the web at www.prbc.org. And we're jamming out to the tunes of John Tesh here. Yeah, having a little good time here. And you know, it just occurred to me, guys, that I really hope that I didn't just lose in our little discussion here as we're playing Pastor Barker's comments all over again, which we really want to suggest to our listeners to have your opening again. But we will make an attempt here to try to get to that spot. I guess we had a little bit of a technical, well we had a couple of technical glitches during the break there. We didn't realize that the WAV file on the main server here that broadcasts uh... we had the wave file selection open and so somebody in the chat room over there uh... i guess throughout the uh... what was that darth vader what is thy bidding my master and uh... it went over the air but uh... were we're getting control of things and folks just to see if we can get a visual image here alright the three of us are not at a radio station we are sitting in the office of uh... doctor james white who is still on the road. We hope to have him back in our midst late Monday night. And we are sitting here live, basically playing it by ear and seeing what happens as we try to put this program together. This is the first time that the three of us, well actually any of us, have actually done a live program other than Dr. White. And so we've got our little wrinkles to iron out. So if we need some filler time, we can have a discussion of professionalism under panic. Okay, so let's go ahead and hope that we can find our place with Pastor Barker, and if not, then I'll try to guess at where we left off. And by the way, Rich, I'm a Baptist, okay? I was not jamming to John Testa. I was doing Christian aerobics. That's right. I believe he was about to say there are some Christians who like to devote man, and one that is mad about heaven and hell. And the death of Christ is an insult to us. And the Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing. Here's the word of God. Repent of a sin, believe that Christ died on the cross for a sin, and is converted. And that's when he is regenerated. Regeneration and conversion take place simultaneously. To insist otherwise is to make salvation a process. To teach otherwise is to distort the gospel. It's also illogical. Think about it. If sinners are regenerated before they're converted, why do they even need to be converted in the first place? If they're already regenerated, they're already born again, why bother even getting saved? Salvation is not a process. And by the way, the Roman Catholic Church teaches salvation is a process. The Bible teaches salvation happens Instantly, the moment a person trusts Christ as their Savior, that's when he's born again. That's when he transfers from death unto life. The moment he receives Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Now for the Calvinist, sinners are not born again by the Word of God. To them, sinners are dead and therefore incapable and unable to hear the Word of God. The Bible teaches that salvation comes through faith in Christ. But how does one come to believe? To teach them a lost synergy generated before he hears the gospel and before he believes in the Lord is unscriptural. The fact is there is not one Bible verse which teaches this. The Bible teaches that as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. How does a person become a son of God? How does a person become regenerated? How is a person born again? But as many as received Him, to them gave you the power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Now some might say, well you're teaching that a sinner has to do something to be saved. Believing is not doing something. Repenting of your sin is not doing something. When the Bible speaks of works, It teaches about some religious rituals, keeping these rules and laws and so forth. Believing is not a work. Repentance is not a work. That's the way God saves sinners, through faith and repentance, you see. Now Calvinists are fond of quoting John 1.13, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. However, to properly understand this passage, we must read the verses that precede it. We have to look at the context. And these verses don't teach what they say it teaches. The Bible teaches that Jesus was the true light, which lighteth every man. Notice those words, every man. And by the way, every man means every man. Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came into his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. The new birth is a spiritual birth. Yes, man cannot regenerate himself by his own efforts. We're regenerated, we become the sons of God, we are born again through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, through trusting in Him. The thrust of John chapter 1 is not how God mysteriously and arbitrarily regenerates certain individuals against their will. The thrust of John 1 is that Jesus is the light that has come into the world and men have rejected Him. The Bible goes on to say, and John, stop the tape. Stop the tape, stop the tape. Okay, we've given him more than enough time. I can see you over there, Gobbler, starting to sweat. You were absolutely frustrated in your seat, about ready to launch off that chair and grab me by my throat because I let him go on a little longer than we wanted to because he probably rattled off, oh, I don't know, maybe eight or nine, possibly 20 misrepresentations in that brief segment there. But let's start with his first clearly misrepresentation of the Calvinistic position and that is he basically stated, and correct me if I'm wrong, that by innuendo, by suggestion, that we believe that men are regenerated apart from the Word of God. Is that not what he said? It was not implication, it was a direct statement. I thought as much, but I wanted to make sure that I'm hearing correctly because it's amazing that any person could enter a debate like this so ignorant And I excuse the word, but it fits, of the other person's position. And I don't think we're going to be able to air this, and I think it needs to be stated, because it was a part of some of the comments that Dr. White had in his cross-examination. And that is that it needs to be understood that Mr. Barker was sent Many of the works that James has written on this very issue. Well, it was sent, uh, drawn by the Father, God's sovereign grace, justification by faith, uh, and during the cross examination, I think the very first question James asked him was, I sent you all these books, did you read them? Or did you get them? Didn't I send them to you? And he said, yes, I did. I did get them. And he said, did you read them? And he said, I didn't have time to. I didn't have time to. And of course, it's been my experience and I wouldn't say this across the board because I'm serially quite a few non-reformed folk who have actually taken the time to read reformed writers, but most of the conversations I've had with non-reformed folk, generally they rely on second-hand information. They rely on what people have told them about Calvinism, or they will only read that literature that's written by Armenians against Calvinists, but very few, very few hardly actually read reformed writers themselves, and hence the misrepresentations, the caricatures, Just, I mean, amazing that he could make a statement like that. And I don't know, Mike, if you want to comment, but before you do, I just want to make sure that everybody understands. He must have said at least two or three times that we believe that regeneration occurs apart from the Word of God. He made an emphasis that to hear the Gospel is essential to our salvation as if somehow we denied it. Again, he stated that we believe some kind of a process as if he doesn't. on and on and on. But Mike, what do you have to say? I think his misunderstanding here plays into much of his later argumentation. We'll pick up on that. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But the idea is that there seems to be this misapprehension or misunderstanding that people are regenerated apart from hearing the Word of God in the first place. Not only that, but he emphasized again the idea that there was some sort of a process, if you caught that, that there was a process within our salvation that there is regeneration and then there is conversion and of course he confused, did you catch that he confused regeneration and conversion as being one and the same thing. And if you, when he started giving his interpretation of John 1.12, He started talking about, he started getting into his preacher mode, how does a person become born again, how does he become, you know, by receiving, and then, and if you count his emphasis there, and I think he does this a couple of times in his presentation where he puts emphasis on, in his own theology, you have one action, belief, or, well, he calls it a non-action or something like that, and then a result. Well, I see how Ray stated that belief or faith is not a work. It's stated that that's not something that, you know, as you were saying, a non-action. Well, he said believing and repenting are not something we do. And last night I had the opportunity of speaking with Warren, who is one of my Greek students, and I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and he looked back at me with a raised eyebrow, and we both looked at each other and said, what does that mean? If believing in repentance is not something we do, then if it's not something we do, then what is it? Is it active? Passive? Yeah, but frankly, that's a cornerstone in pop Armenianism and pop culture thought is that, you know, when it comes down to our doing this faith thing, it's not an action in and of itself. And the whole reason that they make that statement is because the ramifications of it. We've just added a work to the work of Christ, and they recognize it, and so therefore they have to make that argument. I want to make one more point, and I want to make it clear here. So those of you who may be listening to this under Archive or live right now, you may go, wow, we're really picking on Pastor Barker here. We're not picking on Pastor Barker, okay? We have this in our Archive, and the fact of the matter is, for the most part, His argumentation and line of thinking is reflective of a lot of folks who are in that culture today, who follow that line of thinking. And so I think to a degree he typifies it, even though he may not articulate it that well, his line of thinking is very much the same. And I have to tell you, being the person that gets the phone calls here, that I get phone calls and, you know, I went to so-and-so famous, and I'm not going to mention names, but, you know, famous leader in the Apologized Communities Bible Study, and Calvinism is getting ripped up one side and down the other, and you need to debate these people, and yadda yadda yadda, and the thing that I find in talking to these people as we're trying to get things clarified is they have in this isolated environment where it's just a Bible study, there's nobody to stand up and say, excuse me, but you have totally misrepresented this belief system. Okay, they're able to continue unchallenged and go through this scenario where they're able to set up an attack, a hyper-Calvinistic position, but a non-Calvinistic position, however you want to put it, and they can set up these straw men. And I want to say something here that I think everybody should be clear on. The point of this matter is, and the folks that I'm thinking of right now, if they were dealing with a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, they would bend over backwards to make absolutely sure that they properly represent the system that they're addressing. Exactly. Okay? They want to make sure that they don't get accused of lying about the system lest they lose their credibility. All right? And this is the thing when it comes to, all right, if we're going to have a disagreement with Arminianism and Calvinism, one of the things, and in this show we're doing it, we try to bend over backwards to do is to try to properly and accurately represent the view that we're taking a look at and disagreeing with. Okay? And the biggest problem, the most frustrating thing that I come across all the time is that I find that Calvinism by its critics is being misrepresented in a way that these people would never treat any other system, even a cultic system. Right, and we have seen this over and over and over again. Perhaps we didn't tie up the string here, but the books that were given to Mr. Barker He made it absolutely clear he did not read the books. Oh, look at Dave Hunt and Dave Hunt's debate with James, where James outright asked Dave Hunt, have you ever read Luther? Have you read these guys' comments? And their whole approach is, well, I just want to read the Bible. Exactly. Okay, well, wait a second here. You know, do you give these guys credit for having any independent thought on their own at all and ability to look into the same Bible and see things that maybe you haven't seen? Would you at least want to give yourself credit for being able to go in and see what their rationale as they looked at scripture was? Right. I mean, certainly they don't give that illustration when they're getting up there trying to preach. They don't get up there and simply read from the Bible. They get up there and they try to teach what they believe the gods were to sing. Well, that's not really any different than these men of God who have written the scripture or have said the scriptures. and have written these things down absolutely it's imperative because we have to interact with what men of god have written we cannot simply dismiss them simply because they just disagree with our preconceived ideas right and so in this particular debate that we're analyzing um... right we're trying to be careful not to uh... be uh... demeaning or insulting obviously he's not having the capacity to be able to respond back to us but i think it's at least a fair uh... a fair game for us to be able to uh... make comments on what is being said because there is so much in an opening statement that you can make that can never be addressed in a debate. Granted, it is certainly fair to just simply present the debate as it is, because that's exactly what we're doing, but it is also fair for us to make some comments on it, because we'd like to make some points. First of all, There are gross misrepresentations that, of course, later in the debate, James tries to point out. And then there are various things that we need to be able to say and clarify that maybe he does not understand what it is that we believe on something. Obviously, the fact that he has not even read his opponent's work Let's be fair. Let's say that he does not understand what James' position on something is. Let's say that that's all we're saying. That's at least fair to say, because he did not take the time to read James' works. Right. And again, he's not alone on that. In fact, you were mentioning Dave Hunt a minute ago, Rich. It wasn't long after that discussion that we had here in the local radio program that I received a number of emails, a few emails, I think I sent them to you, from one of Dave Hunt's followers, I guess if you want to say, I don't know that he's a part of this ministry per se, but he certainly was defending Hunt. And he as well, in his opening comments to me, made it absolutely clear that he had not read any really good Reformed stuff, that he was pretty much relying on what was shared, discussed on the discussion, obviously relying on much of what Dave Hunt has written about the subject. And over page after page after page, I constantly kept seeing misrepresentations, misapprehensions, misunderstandings, and it's just it's just a very difficult thing to respond to something like that because you have to go back and you can't really respond to anything substantively because you have to spend so much time clearing up all the misunderstandings and the exhortation to give to these folk is get a hold of some reformed writers and actually see what we believe, not a caricature of it. Now, I think a parenthetical note is justified here, guys, and that is As we talked before, we even discussed this program. This is an in-house discussion, at least I hope we would think so. We're not in any way trying to suggest that folk who are struggling with these issues are somehow apostate or outside the church. I have many, many friends, people that I love dearly, some even with my own family that are struggling through these things. And we want to be patient with them. Obviously, all of us have had our journeys in grace. and so forth, so we don't want to make this discussion seem as if we're getting the Louisville Slugger out and blasting non-reform folk out of the ballpark. Right, but speaking of Louisville Slugger, I think all this has been parenthetical aside, hasn't it been? So let's break out the baton. I mean, let's lovingly discuss the issue. Actually, what I What caught my attention was one of the comments that he had made with regard to Cornelius. Now, of course, there is much discussion on that and far more than could even be broached in this brief time. Maybe some other time would be great. But again, one of the things that I think that is misunderstanding in his particular perspective is he is taking words that are used of men in a certain context or in a certain style in a certain way, meant in a certain way, and applying them far greater than they are. For example, in Acts 10-2 when he's talking about Cornelius, refers to him as a devout man, one who feared God with all his household. The idea that he wants to give, and of course you catch him praying, he sees a vision and he is considered great among the Jews and so forth. The idea that Marker is trying to give, that Pastor Marker is trying to give, is that somehow he is a good man before he is a believer. And of course, even Pastor Marker brings up that in Acts 11-14, that's where there's a discussion of the purpose of Peter visiting him was to bring words of salvation to him. Well, what is important that you can refer to a Jewish person as being devout. You can refer to them as being God-fearers. In fact, there was an entire sect, it's a different word used, but there was an entire sect of people who were followers of God, Saboamai, I believe, that they were followers of Judaism. But they were not necessarily good people. They were just simply followers of a particular religion. When Christ comes, when the gospel is preached, the Spirit comes down upon them and then they are believers. That is a vastly different thing. But of course we also note that it wasn't this man's action that caused his death. the regeneration of God. The Spirit came down upon him. We look at that in 1044. So there are just certain things that Barker assumes to be true within these passages and then tries to capitalize, and of course we see this later on as we go down the line, but I thought it was important at least to begin to address back into what he was talking about right before we left. And then I think the final comments that he made, and I think we'll just touch on this lightly, is uh... with reference to john one twelve john one thirteen right now if anybody conscious but if you notice he dismissed john one thirteen and did not provide any exegesis at whatsoever that would be in any way consistent with his position again why is it that uh... uh... they received why is it that they didn't get there it can be called the the sons of god because nothing in them there was no human effort not of the will of the flesh or the will of man or any of that motherhood clear adversity of their allah but because they were born of god doesn't address that at all what does that mean It's not that obviously this is a divine action and this gave rise, this gave result to the fact that they were able to receive. And one of the things he begins to touch on, and I want to expound on this a little bit later because he does go on a little bit when he starts citing from Isaiah, but he begins talking about people, Calvinist believes that people cannot hear. Well, that is a very biblical point because the ministry of Isaiah was very much that. Who will go for us? God says in Isaiah 6, and Isaiah says, send me. And God's ministry to Isaiah is, okay, I want you to go, I want you to preach, I want you to teach, but they're not going to hear you, they're not going to understand you, they're not going to follow, they're not going to believe, they're not going to do anything, because I'm going to make it so. Uh, what kind of a ministry is that? Well, we'll talk about that a little bit later when we get, when, when he actually starts citing from, uh, from Isaiah. Well, roll the tape rich, because now we get to hear the non-reformed position trying to define what spiritually dead means. Okay. And I'm hoping that I'm going to actually hit the actual spot in the tape this time. And I want to remind you, you can call us and talk with us today. We don't have a whole lot of time left on the show as we're sitting here kind of, uh, you know, Rambling on and usually we have a lot more information than we think we do but 1-800 or 1-866-854-6763 is what you can give us a call on. That's 854-6763. Whoa! That's not right. No, I don't think Barker would... This is professionalism under fire, I think. There are some Christians who like to Identify them as a holy God. How is it possible to gather thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings? And ye would Not true, because he hath not believed in the only begotten Son of God. That's what the Bible teaches. The sinner is condemned because of his unbelief. Not true, through hearing the Gospel and believing the Gospel. James goes on to say in verse 21, Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and stupidity of naughtiness, and receive the engrafted Word which is able to save your souls. You have to receive the Word of God in order to be saved. That's how a person is regenerated. Now, at this point, someone might say, well, don't forget Ephesians 2.1. Brother White has mentioned Ephesians 2.1. Yes, and you have been quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Yes, we were quickened the moment we trusted Christ. I was quickened when I believed in Jesus. I was a dead sinner. I was lost. I was on my way to hell. I was quickened through faith in Christ. That's what the Bible says. Now, some would say, but Brother Walker, dead people can't believe. Dead people can't repent. Yes. Physically dead people can't, but spiritually dead people can, and do, all the time. Amen? The Bible uses the word dead in many different ways. It doesn't mean a person is so dead he's unable to believe. That is foolishness. That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says, he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Why is the sinner condemned? Because he's dead? No! Because he hath not believed in the only begotten Son of God. That's what the Bible teaches. The sinner is condemned because of his unbelief, not because he's dead. He's dead because he doesn't believe. He believes the gospel and then he's saved through trusting in Christ. You see? I've been to quite a few funerals, and I've been asked to preach quite a few of them. I've yet to see someone scold the corpse for not doing something. Have you? Have you ever seen someone go up to a corpse and say, look at you, lazy bum lying there, why don't you get up and do something? Ask your uncle and aunt over there, go up and say hello to them. No, I've never seen anybody do that. Why? But we're to believe that God is going to punish dead sinners for not believing when they're incapable of even believing in the first place. That makes a mockery of the gospel, and makes a travesty of God's plan of salvation. According to Mr. White's theology, God has predestined the majority of mankind to hell, and Christ didn't even die for them. According to Brother White, these poor, damned souls are so dead in their trespasses that they're unable to even believe. According to those of the Reformed persuasion, God has prearranged everything in such a way that these unfortunate wretches are incapable of even hearing the gospel, and so he'll now condemn them to the fires of hell for doing something they're incapable of even doing. Stop the tape! Stop the tape, okay. Now just for everybody's edification here, that was at 11.22. 11.22. Help us remember, 11.22. I don't think our Reformed brethren, especially those in the chat channel, want to hear Barker's opening comments all over again. Bad theology is bad enough you don't want to hear it a second and third time. Mike, what does So Dead mean? I am waiting for him to explain what in the world that means. I mean, of course, he gives that example about dead people in the grave. Well, before he even went that way, he started, of course, he got on his little soul box and you can tell this is a fundamentalist, Baptist, fire and brimstone kind of preacher. He was really moving at that time in the pulpit. But he made the comment, I think, no, physically dead men can't, but spiritually dead men can and do all the time. Amen? Amen. The Calvinist believes that we are so dead, and again I ask the question, what does so dead mean? Obviously, dead means dead, and he doesn't understand at all, obviously, the nature of man. Now, didn't we some time ago, and you were on the program at the time, Simon, back when we were back at the studios, didn't we discuss this, and we had a caller call in. and she actually as I'm trying to recollect James used the example of Lazarus yes and making a choice you know Lazarus is in the tomb and you know how is it that Jesus stands outside and says Lazarus hey Lazarus come on out buddy you know and unless he's made Lazarus alive and even in that And even with that example, which is a perfect example of being dead, apart from God, you can't be alive. I mean, it's very black and white here. Even in that example, she said, well, I guess he could have chose not to respond. Amazing response. It was obviously, she hadn't thought through what she was saying, but to be consistent, I guess she had to respond that way. But spiritually dead, men do all the time. Amazing statement. If you know that he provided an illustration of these funerals that he's been to and how he's gone up to a corpse and if you direct some commands at it, it's not going to respond. Did you notice? that the very illustration he's using to try to prove a point only demonstrates what we're saying and that he's dead. Why is it this person can't get out of that casket? It's because he's dead. He doesn't realize that even in the using of his own illustration to prove a point... And of course he used another passage of scripture that seemed to prove his point, but I guess we'll be getting back to that once we come back from a break. And we're going to take a break real quick here, our second break in the show, and you can bring that up a little hotter than that, Warren, and We'll be right back here on the Divine Line. Again, it is 866-854-6763. When the Roman Catholic apologists insist that the principle of Sola Scriptura has resulted in over 25,000 denominations, we should in turn insist that the principle of Scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of religious cults. Pastor Rob Zins addresses the evangelical romance with Rome. There was not a Roman Catholic Church in the first five centuries. There was, to be sure, a Catholic Church, but this is the universal designation of the body of Christ. It is not Romanism. Pastor David King, the impact of Romans 117 on Martin Luther. How is one himself to have that righteousness which God requires, yea demands, and which is utterly indispensable to salvation? It is by faith, and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we lay hold of the Lord Jesus by faith alone. And Dr. James White examines the veneration of saints and images. Do you think if such a person were brought before Moses, having just been caught bowing down before a statue and lighting candles and rocking back and forth in prayer, do you think Moses would have accepted the excuse, I wasn't giving Lotria, Moses. I was only giving Julia. Other topics addressed in this tape series. Is there something about Mary? Scripture sufficiency, the Roman versus Protestant view, canonizing the Apocrypha, an assault on scripture, Rome's sacraments, an assault on Christ's gospel, and purgatory, an assault on Christ's perfect atonement. Look for this tape series and many others at AOMIN.org. That's A-O-M-I-N dot O-R-G. The Conference on Rome. Oh goodness gracious it is one of those days that if anything can go wrong it will and at the worst possible moment. Well we are going to get a handle on this and I want to give Warren kudos here though I mean he's over there running the board doing master control all by himself that is normally a two-man job and I'm in here sitting in the big chair and we're discussing The debate that took place with Pastor Barker and James White over Calvinism and the issue of man's free will, and that's kind of where we left off. We interrupted Mike in the middle of a thought. I don't know if he's lost that thought. It's right there on the tip of his tongue, and he is ready to go. So let's just go ahead and let you pick up where you were. Well, I thought that it was very interesting that one of the passages that he was citing was James chapter 1 verse 18. Now, James chapter 1 is a verse that many Calvinists love. We adore this passage because it's very clear it speaks forth of our message. It says, in the exercise of His will, this is from the New American Standard, in the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the Word of Truth, so that we would be made a kind of firstfruits among His creatures. Now, He cited that one. Remember I said earlier that one of His misunderstandings, misrepresentations, is that we do not believe in the preaching of the Word in order to create regeneration. This person, he cites this passage, and if you look very clearly what it says, He brought us forth. What did He bring? He brought us forth. God brought us forth. How did He do it? By the Word of Truth. So God is the one, in fact, who brought us forth. It didn't say anything about our will. It didn't say anything about our choosing. It didn't say anything about our faith. It was God who brought us forth. It's almost as if He simply did not think through the implications of this passage. Obviously, He has not done enough reading on our arguments to understand that this is a passage that we would use to defend and assert what we're trying to say in the first place. And of course you look in the preceding passage it talks about how every good gift comes from above and of course we assert that faith is in fact a gift of God as well. This being the case, then the whole process of regeneration the whole aspect of regeneration, the gift of faith and repentance, the Lord gives these to us, comes from Him in the first place. So this is really the Calvinist message in a nutshell. But one of the other things that I thought was very interesting to to mention, of course, he repeatedly made certain comments about how people were not able to hear. Now, I did touch on, and we're going to go into a little bit later when we get to the passage that he speaks of, but we did touch on the fact that men are not able to hear. Well, we need to understand, we need to keep this in mind. God brought them forth by the Word of Truth. And that is the mischaracterization that he gives very frequently in this debate. And with that, I want to mention something here as we're on a roll here. We actually have a caller. Oh, okay. And in a day where everything is going wrong at the worst possible moment, if it can, we're going to hope and pray in the sovereignty of God that Pierre is there hello pierre how are you i i i i am i was wondering if maybe you could address the issue which i think you kind of skirted that the minister on the program was was raising and and which is a to me for me anyway a point that is uh... very bothersome about the reformed theology and that is that how can god possibly expect someone to respond who has no capacity to respond unless regenerated first by God. How can God condemn someone to hell without, when the individual has no recourse but to do what he's doing? Pierre, if I may ask you the question, why are men condemned to hell? If they're condemned to hell, it's because they have failed to take the opportunity which God gave them to repent. Actually, the reason they are condemned to hell, Pierre, is because they are sinners. Well, I would ask you, why are they sinners? Well, I want to ask you, what makes you think that they actually have, or God has an obligation to recognize their repentance? I mean, just because they repent or you say they didn't repent, there's something else there that affects the problem. I'm not sure I quite caught that. Do you want to rephrase that? Well, what I'm getting at is how is it that you're saying that they're condemned to hell because they didn't repent. Yes. Well, how can you be condemned to something because you didn't do something? You're condemned to hell because of something you did do. Well, that's true. Not repenting is keeping yourself out. What caused you to get there in the first place? Well, I agree with what you're saying there, but my point being is that in Reformed theology, man has no capacity to repent until God pushes their button. And what I'm saying is that how can a just God condemn someone who has no capacity to obey his commandments. Okay, Pierre, let me try to do it this way. Salvation, of course, you would agree, is a gift of God. It's not something that is required for Him to give you. Correct? Well, yes. To some extent, I would agree with that, yes. Well, to some extent. Do you believe that mercy and grace is something that we can demand of God? I don't think we can demand of it, but I think that we would expect it of Him because that is His nature. But are we owed it? Is God required to give it to us? Regardless of what our sinfulness may desire, does God owe us anything but justice? Let me put it this way. We are the ones that violated God's will. We are the ones that violated God's holiness. Well, I'm not so sure that's true in your theology. Well, it is true in our theology, but let me give you Romans 3.19. Paul says just after that whole discourse on man's sinfulness, man's evilness, right on the tail of Paul saying that no man has fear, or they have no fear of God before their eyes. He says this, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed, and that the entire world may become accountable to God. Do you believe that the entire world is accountable to God? Absolutely. Okay, so the entire world is accountable to God. What does God owe us? Does God owe us mercy, or does God owe us justice? According to His holiness. I don't know. I guess you're being an all or none position. I'm not so sure that I can quite accept that position. understand the kind of being that God is. Well, we certainly believe that we understand what the being of God is based on what the scripture says. I'm understanding, Pierre, you're a Mormon, is that correct? Yes, I'm a Latter-day Saint. Okay, so then we obviously have a distinction and a disagreement as far as what the being of God is and the whole nature of God in that respect, correct? Well, we do, but I think... My point in calling was mostly to defend what I consider to be one of the most heinous positions of the reform position because it makes God out to be an individual who creates, and this is what this minister pointed out, he creates people with the sole intent of sending them to hell. What kind of being is this that you believe in? How can you say that this is a a just God or a merciful God. He's certainly merciful to those whom he saves. What about the rest of us who end up in hell? I mean, we never even had a chance. Okay, Peter. Well, first of all, you know that there's an entire discussion on this, but we could go all the way back to Adam, who represented mankind in the very first place. That all man, that sin came through Adam, correct? I mean, isn't that what Romans 5.12 teaches? Say that again? That sin came through Adam. Adam sinned and Noah was transmitted to us, Romans 5.12. No, I don't accept that. You're certainly welcome to look at the passage. Well, I'm familiar with the passage. I think you're misunderstanding what Paul is saying. I believe I understand what Paul is saying, but let me point out something, Chair, that you and I have a great chasm of distinction that we're going to have to talk about. You're saying that God cannot do these certain things. That would not be a just God. God does not give us a chance to repent. That would not be a just God. And one of the points that I was trying to get to you in the first place is that, in the first place, man sins on the basis of his own will. He is evil. Man does evil. When man is doing something that is wrong, that violates the holiness of God, God is not required to do anything but to give them justice. Now, the fact that anyone has the ability to stand and live a life, even if it's ungodly, is a demonstration of His mercy. But the fact that anyone is saved at all, Pierre, is a demonstration of His grace in the first place. And that is a distinction. That is something that is not required. So if God does not give his salvation, if God does not regenerate anyone into faith, that is his prerogative. If God chose to save no one, God is the creator. Who are we? We are his clay. That is what Romans 9 talks about. Yeah, but again, I think you're missing the kind of being that God is. That's where you're so caught up in your philosophy that you have missed the weightier matters of the principle of salvation that has to do with justice, which in my opinion implies fairness. and also the principle of mercy. Define fairness up here, obviously we recognize that there is a great gulf between us because ontologically you have a completely different God and so therefore it would seem... I don't think it has anything to do with the ontology. Absolutely, because your theology and the ontological perspective that you have of Elohim is completely incompatible with the Biblical truth that God is sovereign and controls all things. The ontology of God has nothing to do with His character. Absolutely, it's all a part of it. I would disagree with that wholeheartedly. It doesn't matter whether... You need to substantiate that. I think the important point that needs to be made, though, is the fact that you're talking about A God who basically, again, creates people with the intent of sending them to hell forever. Pierre, the wonder of wonders, okay, is not that God condemns sinners in demonstration of His wrath and justice. That's Romans 9.22. but that he would demonstrate his grace and mercy on those equally deserving of wrath prepared beforehand for glory. I think you seem to be suggesting that in order for God to be truly just, he must offer his mercy to all, which, by definition, is antithetical to biblical mercy. For mercy to be mercy, it must be free, For grace to be grace, it must be free, and God would be perfectly just, Pierre, if he sent everyone to hell, because we are all sinners, and we go to hell not because of any other reason than that we are sinners and condemned as a result of violating God's perfect law. Pierre, I think that there's one point that I wanted to ask, or one question I wanted to ask you, just to get an understanding. Do you believe that God possesses wrath? To the wicked who failed to respond, yes. Okay, so then there are people that deserve the wrath of God. You agree with that, correct? Yes. Okay, why do they deserve that? Because they have not repented, basically. They have not repented. Okay, and so you would agree, then, that they are deserving of it. Now, you're saying that the reason why they are guilty is because they have not repented, but there is something that they need to repent from. What is that? And it is their sin that has caused the justice and the wrath of God upon their lives, correct? That is correct. Okay, so then we would say that it is on the basis of their rebellion, it is on the basis of their violation of God's holiness, that God has condemned them and sent them to hell. Okay, so the reason why then we can say that God does not owe anyone mercy, he does not owe anyone grace, is because it is not something that is owed to us, the only thing that is owed is his wrath, otherwise there would be a violation of his holiness. Pierre, I'm curious, this is rich. Are you familiar with something that happened on the last evening of President Clinton's term? Yes, I mean the way he forgave He pardoned, he expressed mercy on 140 people that didn't deserve that mercy. And even though there are some people who are a little bit outraged by whom? He expressed this mercy. Everyone has basically sat up and said, as President of the United States, he had a right and he had it within his sovereign power over this land to do that. Now, here's an example of an unjust man expressing mercy. and he had a right to do that. Every one of those people deserves to either be, on the one hand, be prosecuted for their crime or serve out the entire sentence of their crime and be completely punished in order to satisfy the requirements of the law of this land. This is an unjust leader doing this. Now, nobody has sat up, nobody, I haven't heard anybody sit up and say because Bill Clinton pardoned 140 people, he was unrighteous because he didn't pardon everybody else. Well, there's two problems with your argument or your example. Number one is that There's a difference between Clinton, who is not a righteous man, and God, who is a righteous God. That's number one. Number two is the fact that those individuals who committed crimes did so of their own free will and choice. And the people that sin in this world don't? In your theology, yes. That is correct. Well, then you don't know our theology. Well, I'm sorry, but I just finished listening to Van Hale and Dr. White discussing it and Van Hale brought this up, this type of situation several times. And Dr. White seems to be that, well, this is God's right to do that. It is, as I just pointed out, the President of the United States' right to pardon anyone he wants to, whether they're on death row, no matter what they did, their record is expunged at that point in time. In the same way, God has the right to pardon or have mercy, as Romans 9 makes it clear, He can have mercy on whomever he chooses to have mercy, and it is his sovereign right to do so. It doesn't mean he owes it to anybody else. I almost get the impression as well, Pierre, and of course the minister that we're airing mentioned this, he referred to those in hell as poor damned souls, unfortunate souls, poor wretches, so forth. There's this high view of man and such a low view of God's holiness and standards. But it almost sounds as if you're suggesting that there are these multitudes of people defined biblically as spiritually dead. who would certainly believe if God only didn't prevent them from believing. There's a vast difference between understanding what we believe as Reformed folk in man's deadness and sin, and the concept that seemingly you're presenting that these people, if they only had the opportunity, would certainly believe, and God is just preventing that from happening. Men love their hatred and their position against God. They are rebels. They delight in that. They do not want God. That is consistent with their nature. You cannot defend that men are able or capable to do that, which is inconsistent with their nature. I would disagree with that. I think that's one of the fundamental differences. You need to be able to substantiate your disagreement here, not just say, well, I disagree. Well, I think that the scriptures make that very clear, that God gives us a choice. Where? Name me one scripture. Well, in Joshua, choose you this day, O sir. There's a big difference between that and choosing you this day, okay, and what you're talking about, okay? The point is, you're talking about a free will choice. That is a command of God that He requires, okay? And the point is, is that the people who stood at the foot of the cross, when Jesus Christ was hanging there, bleeding, alright? Did they stand up there and go, oh my, shall we have pity shall we recognize what we've just done to the God of the universe who created us. No, they gnashed their teeth, they wagged their heads, they hurled curses at him, they spit on him. They did what was their nature. They chose that day what their natural choice was to be. You can't show me anywhere in scripture where man has the ability in and of himself to make a free will choice. He will always choose against God if he's left to himself. I don't think so at all. I mean, we're all given choices. Okay, but I keep asking you to give me a passage that brings that out. God's requirement is that mankind submit and serve Him and worship Him. But man, as we pointed out, as Romans 1 makes very clear, man's nature and his inclination is bent on being a rebel, guilty sinner. There's no question about it that the natural man is an enemy to God. But that does not mean that some of them are capable of responding to God of their own free will and choice. John 6.44 obviously would disagree with you at that point Pierre. Clearly our Lord presents for us in that one text the inability of man. to believe, to come, obviously coming there being used metaphorically to believing, apart from divine drawing, unless you want to suggest somehow that the drawing in view in John 6, 44 is non-salvific, in which you're going to have a hard time demonstrating that, and it's all who are drawn are raised. That text speaks specifically of the inability of man, Pierre, which is what you're trying to present, is the ability of man to make free choices inconsistent with his nature. He is a spiritually dead man. Now, when we said earlier that when we deny free will, what we are saying by that is that man is able to make a choice that is inconsistent with his nature. Certainly men make choices all the time, but those choices are always consistent with their nature, and they are spiritually dead sinners. Hence, the choices they make are consistent with that nature. A bird is free to swim to the bottom of the ocean. But is it able to do that? So while it may be free, is it able to do that which it's free to do? The answer is no, and I think that a just individual would not condemn that bird for not being able to do that which it's not capable of doing. But see, what you're doing there is you're bringing God down to the bar of human judgment. No, that's what, you gave me a human example, so that's... No, no, what you're saying is you're again setting yourself up as the person. who is determining whether God is righteous or not based on your own understanding. In fact, when Rich gave the illustration of President Clinton, you went right away to the fact, well that's not fair because President Clinton is an unjust man and God is just, so that really doesn't fly. I think you missed the point. The point wasn't what is the character of Bill Clinton. The point was in relationship to the law. Was he right or was he not? Did he do something illegal? I don't disagree with you as far as that God has a right to make the judgment. What I am saying is that he judges it on the basis of righteous reasons. And he bases it based upon men of their own free will and choice You keep using that expression, but you're not defining your terms. I just got through telling you that we believe that men have free will, that is, they are able to make free choices that are consistent with their nature. But they're not free as pertaining to their salvation, are they? Because that is not consistent with their nature, Pierre, and therein lies your big problem. You do not understand the biblical teaching on the nature of man in sin. What does it mean to be spiritually dead? What does it mean when Jesus says, no man can come to me except the Father which sent me draws him? What does that mean? Here, let me ask you one. I want to read a verse to you and I want you to pass a description. I want you to give us your Mormon understanding of this passage. OK, is that fair? This is from scripture. This is from the New American Standard. You're welcome to look into the King James Version if you like. John 12, 37. But though he, that is Jesus, performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah, the prophet who spoke, Lord who has believed our report, and who has the arm of the Lord believed. For this reason, they, and I'm going to underscore this, could not believe. For Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes, He has hardened their hearts, so that they would not see with their eyes, and perceive with their hearts, and be converted, and I heal them. Now, let me ask you this, two questions. First of all, what is meant by they could not believe, and who is the one that hardened? Who is the subject in that sentence? It's quoted from Isaiah chapter 6. starting at verse 8 and following. Okay, there's a pause there. The answer is, they could not believe because God hardened their hearts. Who did He harden? Well, at the time He hardened Israel, that was in the time of Isaiah. But, Jesus is here, they are in the presence of Christ, Okay, they're in the presence of the Messiah, and he just performs miraculous miracles that he feeds them He does all these things, but they did not believe on him They could not believe in him why because that blinding still existed from whom from God and specifically from Jehovah from Yahweh Okay So do you see where we're coming from? Do you see the passage? Well, I certainly understand that there are certain passages that are going to be difficult to understand because of the way they're worded. How is that difficult? There are other passages which certainly militate completely against the concept of Calvinism. Which ones? You're making statements and saying, well, it seems this way or it seems that way. Can I give you an example? Go for it. In Peter, and I don't have the reference right in front of me, but I'm sure you're familiar with it, where Peter says that God is not desirous that any man should perish, but that all should be saved, all should come to salvation. I mean, if that is in fact a true statement, then it clearly militates against the concept of Calvinism, because God desires to save individuals, but He cannot. He does not because they choose not to. They do not follow the plan that He has outlined. Well, where does it say that He cannot because they choose not to in the text? Well, I'm saying that. Well, obviously then you've deviated from the passage. I think you need to define your inclusive terms here. When you say that God is not willing that any should perish, Don't you think we should allow Peter to define what any means from his own writing? Why are you importing a universal application to the text without first defining what Peter means by it? I don't know how else you could define it. Well, define it in the way that Peter uses it. When he refers that the Lord is not slack concerning us, when you read the epistle and the opening words is to address to the elect, I seem to think that we would perhaps think that Peter is addressing believers here and to import a universal application to the passage, of course, dealing with pronouns all over the place that clearly define who he is, and that is that the delay of the parousia, the coming of Christ, is such because the gathering of the elect must take place first. Again, I think that you need to go back, Pierre, and read the passage, and avoid allowing what you have perhaps understood from traditional thinking, and import that into the text, again, to somehow suggest that when Peter says any, that he's referring universally, as opposed to the inclusive terms he uses directed towards believers, not towards everyone without distinction. Right, you brought up a classic passage here that teaches eternal security of the believer. That's what the passage teaches. Well, I know that's obviously the way you interpret it, that's not the way that I would have thought it. Again, the text says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness. but is long-suffering toward us. Who is the us in the passage, Pierre? I think the us refers to us as people universally. Universally? Yes. When Peter has already addressed the first verse in the letter to the elect, how can you then make that application? If I write you a letter addressed to Pierre, and I in the letter say, now Pierre, when we get together, we're going to do such and so, would you automatically assume by that that I meant that every single individual on the planet, or would you automatically limit my inclusive term to you and I? He may have started his letter to the, in general, to the saint, because that's obviously who he's writing to, but I think it's very clear from the overall passage that he is referring to everyone. And you have to connect that with many other passages that deal with the same issue. Pierre, just a brief comment. We make universal statements all the time. But if I say the statement all the time, that doesn't mean that every second of the day I'm using a universal statement, okay? In the context, exegetically, we've given you two, three, four, five solid passages that you really need to take some time. Why don't you give us a call next week and maybe we'll be able to discuss it further, okay, sir? Thanks for calling Pierre and again, this is Rich Pierce, Simon Escobedo and Mike Porter sitting in for Dr. White this week. He will be back with us next Saturday afternoon right here on The Dividing Line. And please don't let that go to dial tone, Warren. We hate it when that happens. 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