Let's see, the Baptists are outnumbering
the Presbyterians tonight, so. How you feeling, R.C.? Feeling
all right? Is this working? If there are more Baptists than
Presbyterians, that's good, because that makes it more of a fair
fight. Well, let's just get rolling,
okay? The first question. comes from Rachel, who's 13 years
old, and she asks, if God can do anything, why can't He lie? Now we're not going to everybody
chime in on each question, but is there anyone who would like
to answer this for Rachel? Don't be embarrassed. Don't be
shy. If you don't, I will. I'm not going to waste time.
This is an easy one. This is a slow pitch right down
the middle. This is an easy one, and he looks
at me. It's very comforting. There are
lots of things that God can't do. God can't do anything that
is contrary to His nature. His will is bound to His nature. So, God cannot lie because He
cannot do anything that is evil. God is pure perfection, and for
God to even be capable of lying would mean that He would be capable
of imperfection. Very good. And the premise that
is mistaken here is the first premise, if God can do anything. But the Bible doesn't say that
God can do anything. When we say that He's omnipotent,
that means He always has total power over His creation. But there are things He can't
do. He can't lie. He can't die. He can't be God
and not be God at the same time. So when we can't think that omnipotence
means that He can do anything. But thank you, Rachel, for that
insightful question. Now this one I'm going to ask.
Steve to answer because he's the only one up here who will
know the references. How do you reconcile verses such
as John 3.16? Are you familiar with that one?
Am I going too fast? With Psalm 5, 5 to 6. Stop right
there. Do you know what Psalm 5, 5 to
6 says? Sure. I called the right guy. What? Well, I think the key,
first of all, is you've got to go to Romans 9, what is it, 13,
Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated. There is a distinction in God's
heart as it relates to redemption towards His elect and towards
His non-elect. So, I would take Psalm 5 to be
God's righteous indignation towards those who are in sin, and even
the elect before they're regenerated are in sin and under the wrath
of God, Romans 1 verse 18. And so, they are in a state of
being under divine vengeance before they come experientially
into Christ by the new birth. John 3.16, I think that speaks
of not every individual in the world is the object of God's
redeeming love, but speaks of the sphere of mankind that as
the scope of it, not particularly, but just in general, the scope
of the world. All those who believe are those
who show themselves to be the object of God's eternal redeeming
love. Okay. Would you suggest approaching
or discussing controversial issues of faith, for example, predestination
in God's election with a, quote, Christian family member who avoids
such issues? If so, if you do approach these
discussions, how do you do it?" Alistair? Excuse me, sorry. The person
wants to have the discussion, or the individual feels the person
needs to have the discussion? I think that says, would you
approach a person in the family who doesn't want to discuss issues
like that? Would you still… No. You wouldn't
approach them? Not necessarily. I like to… I
mean, it depends what the motivation is. If the motivation is because
the person is lacking in assurance or doesn't have an understanding
of God's sovereign overruling over things in their life, and
that's your motivation. That's one thing. If it is that
you've just been reading a bunch of books about predestination
and you want to, you know, fill somebody's head with that, it
may not be necessarily the right time or the right way to go at
it. And so the context would really determine it, I think.
I think there's a lot of pastoral wisdom in what Alistair just
said, and frankly a lot of kind of evangelistic wisdom there
as well, because the first thing that strikes my mind is the picture
of someone sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner and the weird uncle wanting
to talk about predestination. You know, there are ways to make
doctrines more and less winsome, and that I think is probably
not the best way to help win persons to a deeper understanding
of the gospel. But I think that there are moments in which you
can help… you can help persons to understand what you believe
more clearly. That's a good humble way to be
involved in a conversation with someone. I'll make sure you do
understand what I believe and you don't misunderstand. You
know, we hold what the Scripture teaches and what we come to know
about the gospel passionately. It's going to come out of us.
It must come out of us, but it needs to come out of us winsomely,
especially with those such as family members that we have a
relationship with, we pray for a long time. Don't think you
need to win this argument over the Thanksgiving dinner. Establish
relational credibility along with the biblical and theological
credibility to say at the appropriate time, let's talk about this.
Here's one, does human responsibility eliminate irresistible grace? Who would like that one? Well, let me just say that let's
admit that irresistible grace is not the way we would choose
to express this. Effectual calling is a far more biblical way to
express this because irresistible grace sounds like a cartoon setup
in which there's someone saying, I do not want to be regenerated.
I do not want to be born again. I do not want to love Christ.
yet, they're being overruled such that it gets their will.
What kind of love is capable of being constructed out of being
overruled with one's will? No, it's effectual calling that
reminds us that what God begins in terms of the order of salvation,
He always finishes. And when that work of genuine
faith begins in the believer, the work of God, He will bring
it to full fruition. You're going to see it when the
operations of grace becomes evident in the individual, because they
do love Christ, and they do desire the things of Christ. They desire
salvation. And so we just need to get rid
of the straw man. There are two horrific, cartoonish
straw men we need to be rid of. The first is the righteous sinner
who desires to be saved but just can't because he's, when I say
righteous and desiring salvation, because he's not among the elect. And the other is the person who
desperately does not want to be among the elect, but has been
elected anyway. Neither of those persons is found
within the Scriptures. The other thing I don't like
about the term irresistible grace, although I believe the concept
historically, of course, is that it suggests that God's saving
grace in election is irresistible. On the contrary, we resist it
with all of our heart. What is meant by irresistible
grace is not that It's incapable of being resisted, but rather
it is effectual, and God's sovereign grace overcomes our sinful resistance. Are you ready to move? We're
moving. We're trucking. Was King Saul
regenerate, or was he simply empowered by the Holy Spirit
as a tool for God's glory without salvation? I never met him, so I can't answer
that. What was the question? I knew King Saul. You're no King
Saul. Mike? I never met him either. I told
you to go down that side. We just realized that we don't
have an answer. I don't know that I've got the
last word on that. I think… R.C. Sproul, Jr.: :
Does anybody have the first word? Never mind the last word. I can't squeeze
one word out of these guys. Lawson. I'm going to go with
no. R.C. Sproul, Jr.: : You're going to go with no. Why don't
you flip a coin while you're at it? What do you think, Al? Al Mohler. I think it's a question not answered
in Scripture. and a question nonetheless that
does have a context in the grand narrative of Scripture in which
Saul is an antitype to David, who is, of course, the great
king upon whose line the Davidic Messiah is established. I think
in terms of covenantal history, Saul is presented as out, and
David as in. and they are presented that way,
but at the end of the day, the precise way that question is
asked is simply not answered in Scripture, which is true for
many of the saints of the Old Testament. When we come to Hebrews
chapter 11, there are some who are named, but most in the Old
Testament are not named, and we will find out in due time. The problem is, as Dr. Miller says, we don't get a definitive
answer in the narrative about Saul's condition. But I think
the reason why we struggle with it is because when he is made
king, he's anointed by God, and he's anointed by the Holy Spirit. And one of the things we're asking
theologically is that anointing of the Spirit and simply a charismatic
empowering for a particular office to be fulfilled, or does it carry
with it the implication of being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? If He was regenerated by the
Holy Spirit, then we see an example in the Scripture of somebody
who has had a very radical and serious fall away from that regeneration
and could be used as an exhibit in the argument against those
who say you can lose your salvation. we could excuse his actions by
saying he became mentally imbalanced and that he was still in grace,
but excusably bizarre in his behavior. Or we
could say, as the question suggests, that the anointing or empowering
of the Holy Spirit to carry out a particular office does not
carry with it the necessary implication that He was regenerated by the
Holy Spirit. The Scripture gives plenty of
evidence of the radical character of His fall, gives us not very
much evidence of any restoration from that, which would lead me
to believe that He wasn't regenerate, but I don't think we know for
sure. And there's no restoration in Israel's memory. Do we need to be concerned or
study deeply the differences between beliefs of the church
and Israel and beliefs about believer's baptism versus infant
baptism? Do we need to be concerned about
these things? This takes a Presbyterian to
answer. You're not even Presbyterian,
are you, Mike? I'm Reformed. Of course, we're Presbyterian,
Reformed. We're all the same family. Yes, I do think that it's important.
I think it's important mainly because it is grounded in the
way we approach the Scriptures as a whole. And I think that
we have often more agreement among Calvinistic Baptist and
Presbyterian folks on this than outside our circles. But I think,
for instance, when you come to the question of baptism, if it
is the work of God signifying and sealing His covenant pledge
in the covenant of grace, then we come to the Bible looking
for continuity, assuming continuity. a continuity of Old and New Testaments,
one Abrahamic covenant that the New Testament says is fulfilled
in Christ. And if we do that, then we're
going to see baptism replacing circumcision as the sign and
seal of that Abrahamic covenant. If we come to the Scriptures
assuming discontinuity between the Old and the New Testaments
on various levels, then I think we're A tendency is going to
be perhaps to say, well, the Old Testament was interested
in sacraments and physical visible things. And the New Testament
is not as concerned about that. It's more concerned about individual
personal faith in Jesus Christ. And I think that that's not true
of the Old Testament or the New. I think we would all agree with
that. And that the promise is still God's promise to us and
to our children, and it's a… it's a wonderful, I think, not
just theological idea, it's a wonderful comfort, speaking as a… on the
Presbyterian side, it's a wonderful comfort to know that our children
are included in God's precious promises. And so we raise them
as those who are rightly entitled, and as believers in the old covenant,
raise their children with the expectation that they would profess
faith in Christ, with the same obligation to do so, so to we
have the same exhortations in the New Testament, don't be like
that wilderness generation. They heard the gospel too, but
didn't combine the hearing of it with faith. Well, we heard
some discussion earlier about being tolerant and intolerant
and all of that, and we live in a time of the relativation
of truth. And I've always said in this
discussion with respect to the debate between infant baptism
and believer's baptism is that the first thing we have to understand
is that the New Testament nowhere explicitly commands the baptism
of infants, nor does it anywhere explicitly forbid the baptism
of infants. And so whichever side we come
down on has to be dealt with on the basis of implications
drawn from the biblical text. And though we differ on this,
I think that the judgment of charity requires that when we
do have this discussion, that we understand that those who
think that babies should be baptized really are convinced that it
is the moral duty of the Christian to have their infant children
baptized. And on the other side of it,
those who don't believe in infant baptism truly believe that it
is not the proper way to exercise the sacrament. and that both
sides have to respect that the other side really wants to do
what is pleasing to God. We just differ with respect to
what we think is most pleasing to God. Now, since both of us
want to be pleasing to God and we differ on what is pleasing
to God, Should we discuss it? Should we debate it? Of course, without rancor, without
division, but with an honest inquiry and discussion, acknowledging
I think my Baptist friends want to please God, and they don't
think infant baptism pleases Him. I think it does, and so
we differ on that point. But it is important because every
article of truth is important. It's not the most important thing.
Obviously, we differ on that here in this panel, but what
we believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides
us. That's why we're standing together
on these things. Well said. Well said. If I might begin by saying, first
of all, inviting a Baptist to speak about baptism succinctly
is a dangerous thing. Asking a Baptist if talking about
baptism is important is an insane thing, but nonetheless, here
we are. I want to stipulate one thing
at the beginning. Everyone on this panel believes
in believers' baptism. The Roman Catholic Church believes in believers'
baptism. The question is not should new
believers be baptized who have never been baptized. The question
is should infants be baptized. And so with that clarification,
let me just say that, you know, we got our name the hard way.
by taking a stand on this one. And when I talk to my Presbyterian
and Reformed brothers and sisters, and by Reformed I mean in those
denominations, you know, I always begin by saying we should be
thankful of several things. First of all, we may be the last
people on earth who could have an honest disagreement. We don't
believe in the relativity of truth. We believe the Scripture
is important. We want to be obedient to the Scripture. So where we
differ, we really think that's pretty important, just as R.C.
said. And so, yes, we need to have this conversation. We don't…
We're not having this conversation as adversaries across, you know,
a table where we need a mediator to come in and negotiate. We're
having this conversation as persons who desperately desire mutually
to be in submission to the Lordship of Christ and in obedience to
the Word of God. Baptists believe that Those who should be baptized
are those who have come to a personal faith and knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ and have professed Him as Savior and Lord. This is not a new argument, nor
is it detached from what I would simply say are, and R.C. used
the word implications, are implications of the gospel. And I'll just
say as a Baptist, it is far easier for me to live with believers'
baptism and the baptism of believers only, understanding that there
remain questions, because I believe that that is most faithful to
not only my understanding of baptism in the New Testament,
but to the picture of what baptism represents and to the gospel.
And so for that reason, it's something I do have to talk about,
but I really like to talk about it among friends. And that means,
with those of you in this room and in the larger conversation,
where those who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and in
the integrity of the gospel and justification by faith alone
can come in the room and have the right kind of conversation
with the right spirit. Okay. Now, this question is specifically
directed to Dr. Horton. Are you familiar with
the Theophostic prayer, and would you consider it a form of Gnosticism? This is distinct from Theophon
the Recluse? From what? Theophon the Recluse? I don't
know. I've never heard of the Theophostic
prayer. I don't know what it's talking about. Is this the Hesiodic
group of Byzantine monks? I have no idea. Wow. Is this from Theosophy or not?
No. No, this is… Gregory of Palamas.
I wasn't asked the question. Do you think it's talking about
Gregory of Palamas? No, I think it's talking about
the modern movement that emerged in some evangelical churches
where it's known as theophastic prayer, and I think the answer
to the Gnosticism is yes. Okay. Then you answer it. Thank you, Dr. Horton. I can't answer these questions
when I don't know what they mean. I have no idea. Okay, good. For anyone. Hang on, can I ask? Oh, go ahead. Do we have any…
Who's into this? insofar as I can track it. I've
had several calls to the radio program and other things about
it. It emerged in some evangelical circles where it's, you know,
quite frankly is, I think Gnosticism is about the best word for it,
in which one is drawing certain inferences supposedly from the
Spirit and the reading of Scripture that are applied in this way.
And it is not a large movement, at least thus far I think as
verified by the fact that we're not ready to have an extended
conversation about it. Here's the next question. If
there is one Holy Spirit guiding believers, why are there denominations
and so many varied interpretations? Can I jump in there? Sure. Jump
right in there. You know, why are there so many
interpretations of science? Why are there so many interpretations…
a sign of a living discipline? is the amount of debate and discussion
and even dissension that it generates. People don't walk around getting
all hot and bothered about things that don't matter. And Scientists form schools and raise
their voices at each other over particular interpretations of
things that would seem to most of us lay people as pretty arcane,
but they're important, and it's a sign of vitality. that there's
enough there to work on. There's enough there to generate
for 2,000 years, still generating controversy. I think there's
a positive evidence of fruitfulness there
from controversy. At the same time, I think that
the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth by His Word. The Word
is not the problem. God has spoken clearly our ears
are dull, our hearts are still confused, our minds are still
drawn to all sorts of confusions, and we're finite besides being
sinful. In this… In this age, we're pilgrims.
I love… One of the… One of the recurring titles of the old 16th
and 17th century Protestant systems was a theology for pilgrims on
the way. And so we don't see our theological
systems as nailing it down. Not in this life or in the next
will we know the truth as God knows it. Not even in heaven
will we know anything the way God knows it. But God has revealed
in His baby talk kind of way what He desires for us to know
for our salvation. And I do think it's significant
that for 2,000 years, in spite of all of our disagreement, in
spite of all of the controversy, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene
Creed have remained core agreements for churches that otherwise don't
even recognize themselves as faithful churches. The Bible
has to be clear enough to get that out of it, and that is a
pretty remarkable clarity. Well, we have to realize that
the Bible is infallible. The Holy Spirit is infallible
as He illuminates the text of Scripture to us and as He assists
us in our understanding. Today we looked at ten principles
or rules of biblical interpretation. But remember that those who apply
the rules of biblical interpretation and who benefit from the illumination
of the Holy Spirit and have the presence of an infallible Bible
in front of us are still fallible fallen creatures. And we still
have all kinds of ways in which we come to the text of Scripture
and miss what it is saying. One of those is bias, love lines. You know, my grandfather believed
this, my father believed this. I'm not going to change my mind,
because if I do, I'm going to have to admit the familial error
that's gone for at least three generations. Is that about infant
baptism you're talking about? You could apply it to that. I mean, we do have those love
lines. There's no question about those love lines will often cause
us to be biased with respect to certain elements. We have
the problem of what we call eisegesis, reading into the text things
that aren't in the text. I gave a… I was invited to give
a convocation address at a major evangelical seminary several
years ago in which you usually give an academic lecture of sorts,
and I lectured on the necessity of having an introductory course
of logic as a required course in the seminary curriculum. I
was about stoned after that. And the reason I said it is that
when we're so zealous to understand the Scripture that we go back
and learn the languages, Hebrew and Greek, we learn the Zitz
and Laban, the life situation in which this text was given,
the original historical context and all of that. And yet the
number one reason for misinterpreting the Bible is drawing inferences
from texts that are illegitimate inferences. just learning the basic rules
of immediate inference from a basic course in logic will help correct
our errors in interpretation. But as long as we come to that
text with bias, with muddle-headedness, with a lack of discrete intellectual
inquiry, we are vulnerable to misinterpreting it and building
entire denominations upon it. So it's not really surprising
that we have this. Now here's the next question,
and I have to think it's addressed to me. If God has ordained evil,
because I said He has, how is He not the author of evil? A legitimate question. What I
didn't say this morning was that what we call the supreme biblical
a priori, that is the single most important stipulation when
we come to do theology from the Bible, is that God is not the
author of evil. But yet I said that God ordains
evil, but I said, quoting Augustine, He ordains it in a certain sense,
not in the sense that he coerces the creature to do evil. If he did that, then he would
be the author of evil. This may be a weak analogy, but
I've written a lot of books in my lifetime, and I'm responsible
100% for what I say in those books that I author. I carry
a certain culpability for what I say. Now, when I write a book,
I don't publish the book. The publisher enters into an
agreement with me and asks me to write a book on a certain
subject, and that publisher doesn't always agree with what I write
or what I say. But the certain says, humanly
speaking, the publisher has ordained that this task be carried out. without themselves being immediately
culpable for what I do or say. When I say, remember this, that
if God is sovereign, what a stupid thing to say. Since God is sovereign,
I mean if He's not sovereign, He's not God, and we don't have
to have this discussion at all, that anything that happens in
this world in a certain sense has to be ordained from God,
or it couldn't happen, because God knows what I'm going to do
before I do it, and He has both the power and the authority to
prevent it. He knows what I'm going to do
before I do it. He can vaporize me. If He doesn't
vaporize me, if He removes the restraints and allows me, not
in the sense of sanctioning it, but He lets me do it, does that
make Him evil? Of course not. He allows us to
commit sin where He could have stopped it. Now if God allows
it to happen, for Him to allow it to happen, He has to choose
to allow it to happen. And if He chooses to allow it
to happen, then obviously His will is that it should happen
rather than it should not happen, or it couldn't happen. And that
is not only respect to the fall, but that's with respect to whether
I make a six-foot putt or don't make a six-foot putt. I plead
with Him for help on those cohesions. But does that make sense? We
say that He's ordaining it in a certain sense, but that doesn't
make Him the doer of it or the author of it. You guys want to
say anything about that? You know, I just think of B.B.
Warfield's little book, The Plan of Salvation. It's such a succinct
statement, and in one page he says, in the end, the Creator
must take responsibility for His creation. But that is with
respect to its ends. And he defines what those ends
are, and he defines his own character as he sovereignly sees this through
to the end. And as Warfield says, in the
end we will not have the question. R.C. Sproul, Jr. stated that
the bigger question is that Christians don't care about the fact that
they are sinning. What is the answer to that question?
Why don't Christians care that they are sinning? And obviously
implied in this, why don't they care enough? Alistair? Because we don't truly understand
the nature of the atonement and what has happened in Christ bearing
our sins and taking upon Himself all the heinous nature of who
and what we are, I think that a low view of the atonement goes
directly in line with an easygoing view of sin. And in the same
way that when people take sin seriously, they usually have
a pretty solid and clear grasp of what has happened in Christ
dying for us. You know, I suppose we should
be encouraged to recognize that this wasn't a moot question for
Paul when he was penning Romans. Otherwise, he wouldn't have launched
into chapter 6 after chapter 5 because the same question was
present for him then. He anticipated it. the doctrine
of justification by faith being misunderstood and misapplied
could so readily lead to the approach that he counteracts
there in Romans chapter 6. And I think the answer actually
lies in the gospel, you know, that an understanding of what
has happened in the gospel, that if we don't preach the gospel
to ourselves all day, every day, then we will fail in some arena. And one of the areas of failure
is a fast slide into antinomianism. And so people then, under the
disguise of a super abundant concept of the grace of God,
answer the question with which Romans 6 begins and answer it
wrongly. Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Answer yes. And so off they go. And so they answer that question
wrongly. And I think that's part of it,
at least. Also, I think in terms of the social context of contemporary
evangelicalism, the sort of downgrade in relation to just about everything,
standards, general perspective on morality, language, respect
for elders, fastidiousness in relationship to punctuality,
Keeping short accounts in questions of did it happen at three in
the afternoon, or did it happen at three in the morning, or does
it really matter? Teaching your children these things. These
things are all constituent elements in taking seriously, letting
your yes be yes and your no be no. And in one sense, I think
ultimately, that question of honesty or dishonesty before
God is directly tied again. to look in a way to who Christ
is and what Christ has done. You know, shall I take my body
and join it to a prostitute? What kind of question is that?
That's a question for a Christian. Because the Christian has been
united with Christ. The Christian is in union with
Christ. And it is because of our, now
I've got the answer to my own question. I'm finally getting
the answer. The reason is that the believer does not understand
the notion of union with Christ. And when we don't understand
what it means to be united with Christ, then all we'll be left
with is either legalism on the one hand, or lawlessness on the
other hand. It is since then you have been
raised with Christ. You seek those things that are
above. And it is because of who you are in Christ, because your
nature has been changed, because your status has been changed,
because you've been raised to the heavenly places, that these
things are not impossible, but they are now. incongruent, and
I think part of the problem is that people do not know who they
are in Christ. I think also that there's a hidden
premise in the question that can be very distorting. When
we ask the question, why do Christians – the real question is why don't
Christians care about their continuing sin? It is absolutely impossible for
a person to be regenerate by the Holy Spirit and not care
at all about sin. In that sense, there's no such
thing as the, quote, carnal Christian. who can receive Christ and be
regenerate and have no repentance. That's impossible. That is as
unbiblical as it gets, okay? I think what's implied in the
question is why don't we care to the degree we ought to care?
We care, but we don't care enough, and it's because our hearts are
still less than fully sanctified. God the Holy Spirit in His convicting
power has not fully revealed to us the sinfulness of our sin. Thank God. Exhibit A is David
after his ghastly act of adultery and proxy murder of Uriah, was
trying to cover it up, was at ease in Zion. He's a believing
man, and he's down in the dregs of evil, and yet he doesn't really
show a whole lot of concern until God sends that prophet to him
and tells him the story. And when the light dawns, when
Nathan says, thou art the man, wow, David sees the evil of his
sin and writes Psalm 51. Psalm 51 could never have been
written by a human being who didn't care about his sin, or
an unregenerate man as far as that goes. But here's the blessing. If God revealed to me right now
the full measure of the continuing sin in my life, it would destroy
me. God is gracious and gentle in
correcting us. That's one of the things that's
nice about progressive sanctification, because if He gave it all at
one time, we'd be dead. Yeah, I would just add to that
I think some Christians are not as sensitive to their sin for
a couple of reasons. I think on one side of the spectrum,
there is a lack of exposure to the light of God's Word, and
it is the Word of God that shines the holiness of God, that light
into our hearts And when we are distant from the Word of God,
I think there are hidden sins in the heart that are not being
brought out into the light to be exposed. And so I fear for
Christians who are not in a Bible-teaching church and having regular, constant
exposure to the pure light of revelation that brings out into
the open my sin. And I think that's why some people
just stay home and watch on television or whatever, because it's a safe
way to live the Christian life without having to come face to
face with the light of God's holiness. I think on the total
other end of the spectrum, there are people who have much exposure
to the Word of God, but it's just intellectualism. It's just
a mind game for them, and it never really stirs the heart,
and the affections, as Edwards would say, are never really touched,
and so it's just all cognitive in the head, but it never affects
the heart. I also think that people digress
into such a state one, when they're not under red-hot preaching of
the Word of God. I think that you can have exposure,
again, in an intellectual way to the truth without there being
the conviction of the Holy Spirit that comes through penetrating,
heart-searching, sin-exposing preaching. Also, I would add
that if one is not regularly coming to the Lord's The Lord's Table is very discriminating,
and as you just spoke of the atonement – or I guess that was
Alistair speaking of the atonement – I mean, there needs to be on
a regular basis, you're coming face to face with the substitutionary,
sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing, freely justifying death of Christ
upon the cross for us. and confessing my sin to God
as I come to the Lord's table. I mean, this isn't just a routine
or a ritual I'm going through. It is a spring cleaning session
in my heart as I come to the Lord's table. and humbling myself
under the mighty hand of God and asking Him to bring out into
the light those sins that I have not yet confessed and acknowledged
to the Lord. I have not yet repented of these
sins, and I have not yet truly become broken in some degree
over my sin. I mean, Jesus did say, blessed
are those who mourn. for they shall be comforted."
And so I think it's important to be preaching the Beatitudes,
and not only blessed are the poor in spirit, but blessed are
those who mourn, and that is a mourning over my own sin and
the hard-heartedness and the thick-headedness of my own sin. And I think there are things
that contribute to that as well, such as being out of fellowship
with other Christians who are contagious in their love for
the Lord, in their excitement for the Lord, in their pursuit
of holiness. And if I am not being interwoven
into a local body of believers who are pursuing holiness, Hebrews
12, 14, then the Puritans used to say, Satan will always attack
the ship that does not sail in convoy. And so when we're just
a lone ranger Christian out there without other brothers and other
sisters and elders and pastors around me and nurturing my heart,
then there is… that is going to contribute to my own heart
growing as Ephesians 2, 4 says, but I have this against you.
You have left your first love. And so I just think the key is
the Word of God, the Lord's Supper, other contagious Christians who
are dynamic in their faith, their pursuit of holiness, as well
as my own personal reading of the Word of God and prayer. and even just taking like the
Psalms, for example, and just praying those verse by verse
back to the Lord, prayers of repentance that are in the Scripture
themselves. Without these ordinary means
of grace, then I am susceptible to seasons or times in which
I don't care as much as I really ought to care. But I totally
agree with you, R.C., if you are regenerated by the Spirit
of God, then you are a new person in Christ, and the old things
are passed away, and behold, new things have come, and you
will have a heart that is sensitive to the things of God, and to
some degree, you hate sin, and you hate it in your own life.
Thank you, Steve. How can I, parenthesis, a Baptist
reconcile the sola fide message, that is justification by faith
alone message, of the Reformers with their seemingly inconsistent
doctrines on baptism and regeneration? I think what's behind this question
is the justification is by faith alone. Why is it that you have
the Lutherans believing in baptismal regeneration, and why do you
have the Reformers, Galvin and Zwingli and Knox, practicing
infant baptism where the sign is given to people who are not
even capable of having faith? You want to try to answer that,
Mike? Let's see. Well, in the Reformation,
you had a spectrum of views, Zwingli on one side of the Reformers
saying that heavenly things are not given through earthly things,
and Luther on the other side of the Reformer… the spectrum
of the Reformers saying No, the incarnation is an example of
the fact that God becomes flesh, and God works with material things. But in that emphasis, Luther
and Lutheranism preserved a sort of medieval idea of an infusion
of habits that transforms one at least to give them a disposition
to believe. Now Lutherans believe that you
have to believe in Christ to be justified, but that that disposition
to believe, regeneration, occurs in baptism. And Calvin and our
Reformed confessions hold that the sign is united to the reality
that it signifies. Over against Zwingli, but that
it cannot be absorbed into the reality signified. So in the
Old Testament, you constantly have a distinction between, well,
especially the way the New Testament interprets the Old Testament,
being circumcised in heart and merely being outwardly circumcised. The same would be true of baptism
or the Lord's Supper. And Lutherans are very reticent
to talk about that inward and outward distinction. because
they smell zwingly. We're not saying what zwingly
said. We're not separating the sign from the reality signified.
Now, in their defense, Lutherans do not believe that this regeneration
is a work that we perform. Quite the contrary, it is something
that God does. Even Roman Catholics do not believe
that baptismal… that the grace supposedly infused in baptism
is the work of the infant. That's all of grace. So that's…
that's not the bone of contention. The real issue is whether the
sign is always accompanied by the reality signified, or whether
in the words of the Westminster Confession, the grace, the reality
signified is not necessarily attached to the moment of its
administration. That's Calvin's position, that
the experience of the benefits signified by baptism may occur
before the baptism, as would be the case of an adult who's
baptized after he comes to faith and receives all of the benefits
of his justification that's signified by his baptism. And in the case
of an infant, he has the sign before he has the faith. That's
one of the parallels with circumcision in the Old Testament, which included,
among other things, a sign of faith and the benefits of salvation. Abraham, of course, has faith.
then receives the sign. Isaac receives the sign, then
he has faith. And so Calvin emphasized at that
point that there is no temporal connection necessarily between
the sign and the benefits that it signifies. So therefore, what
Calvin would teach, and particularly Calvinism, that justification
is by faith and by faith alone. It's not by baptism. It's not
by the Lord's Supper. These things are important signs
and seals of the promises of God, but those promises are only
realized by faith. So in their theology, at least
in Calvinistic theology, there's no inconsistency. Yeah, and the
big difference between Zwingli and Calvin on this point, where
he did side with Luther, is in saying that these are not signs
and seals of our decision and works. These are signs and seals
and pledges of God's decision and work. And that's… that's
where Calvin did believe, yes, God works through physical means,
but He is… He is not bound to them. The Holy Spirit works when
and where He wills, even though He has by His Word pledged to
work through earthly means. According to Romans 9, 14 to
18, God is not unjust in electing some on whom to have mercy and
some to harden. Some would say that though God
is not unjust, He nevertheless appears to show favoritism, which
seems to be contrary to Scripture passages like Romans 2.11 that
state that God does not show favoritism. You want to take
that one? Well, let's think about the big
picture of Scripture before we go to any particular text. Does
God relate to all human beings in exactly the same way? And
the answer is profoundly no. In fact, no sane or intelligent
person before ever getting to this question can imply that
God is disposed towards all persons equally, gives unto everyone
the same material blessings, the same parents, the same cultural
context, even before you get to salvation. is God obligated
to treat all human beings in all places at all times in exactly
the same way? Well, let's look at the Old Testament.
Is God obligated to treat all nations, all peoples, all tribes
in exactly the same way? We don't seem to ask that question.
We don't… we don't usually focus on that. We wait until we get
to Romans chapter 9. But God relates, before we ever get to
the question of His eternal predestination, God relates to human beings,
to different tribes, to different peoples, to different individuals
in different ways. It comes down to whether we actually
believe that God accurately and truthfully reveals Himself as
sovereign, omnipotent, holy, righteous, and perfect, infinite
in all of His perfections. If so, and this is His Word,
the inerrant and infallible Word of God, He tells us right up
front that He does not relate to all persons in exactly the
same way. He does not relate to Ishmael the same way he relates to Isaac. He does not relate to the Amalekites
the same way he relates to the children of Israel. When we come
to our salvation, and we know to say this, and so we, when
we're evangelicals and get together, we remind ourselves to say this. We just do not hear ourselves
say this. No one is worthy of salvation. God is obligated to
save no one. He, for reasons that are hidden
in the counsel of His own will, before the creation of the cosmos,
determined to save a people through the blood of His Son. And that
was not an undefined, unspecified people. Israel was not an undefined,
unspecified people. nor is the redeemed people of
God. We are left with many questions
we cannot answer. We're absolutely obligated to
every single word of Scripture. And to treat God as if He must
be accountable to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is to
fundamentally misunderstand what it means for God to be God. The
reality is that God is not fair. I speak about this so often.
The fairness doctrine is a lousy doctrine. That works for three-year-olds
in a sandbox, because about the most you can expect of little
kids in a sandbox is that you can encourage them to be fair.
That's why when you have two kids and one piece of pie, mom
says one will cut and the other will choose, okay? After Genesis
3, we're stuck with that. God is not fair in that sense. He is perfect. Perfect is not
accountable to fair, and God's purpose to save is not accountable
to our moral questions. We understand why these questions
arise, but what makes Christians Christian is that we understand
that those questions are answered in Christ, who, for instance,
in the Gospel of John makes very, very clear that there's a distinction
between the elect and the world. And to the glory of God, it is
what it is. But that does not negate the
passage that God is no respecter of persons. because the reason
why he loves Jacob and not Esau is not because of something that
he sees in Jacob that is lacking in Esau. That's what the whole
point is, that the favoritism that God shows to the elect is
purely gracious. not because he notices that one
of these people should receive this particular blessing. And I don't think anybody in
this room really wants fairness. God forbid. Don't ever ask God
for justice. You might get it. Here you go. After postmodernism,
what's the next big intellectual challenge? to the Christian faith? Someone has said, like, intellectual
Velcro dragged across the landscape of our culture right now. It
just gathers the lint. Whatever it picks up is postmodern. And I think there's a tendency
right now to sort of demonize or lionize postmodernism. And
I have to always ask people, when either they're attacking
postmodernism or hailing it, what do you mean? What are you
talking about when you're talking about postmodernism? Because
some postmodern writers, I think, have a lot to teach us, and I
think there is a little… more than a little modernism running
in our veins, even among conservative evangelicals. That's great. We
need to hear that. Modernism certainly did us no favors. And
if somebody is talking about being postmodern, we ought to
listen. What are you talking about? If
it means that rationalism, which smothered claims to supernatural
revelation, are over and now we can examine those claims again,
that's one thing. If it means that examining anything
doesn't matter anymore because there is no truth or ultimate
meaning. That's a problem. So I think that you have to…
we have to always ask people, what do they mean? For instance,
Paul Ricoeur is… was a very important postmodern philosopher. He was
also a sort of Bardian French Reformed layman who attended
church all of his life. And has a lot of his thinking
anchored in the biblical text. Now, we can disagree with a lot
of his… his… his arguments. I have been challenged by some
of the ways he talks about preaching, drawing us out of the narratives
of this world into the strange new world of the text, of Scripture.
While he's a postmodern philosopher, who has something to teach you.
I still think he has problems, but I think a lot of modern philosophers
have problems. So I think that we have to… I'm
really concerned that the culture war is determining how we use
these terms instead of what particular arguments are being advanced.
And I think Al does a good job of pointing out the differences
between relativism, for example, and the critique of modernity.
There are some fantastic postmodern critiques of modernity that we
ought to read and be appreciative of without swallowing the… I
have to say, I think a lot of my friends, evangelical theologians
and philosophers, are sometimes just as all-embracing of everything
postmodern as their parents are rejecting everything postmodern,
and those are both mirrors of each other. R.C. Sproul, Jr.: : If I might say,
I really appreciate the way you approach that, Michael, because
You know, if indeed postmodernism begins with the death of the
metanarrative, we need to recognize it had to happen because a whole
lot of metanarratives crashed in the 20th century, and we saw
them crash and burn. Marxism, you name it, so many
of them crashed and burned. When it comes to truth being
socially constructed, well, we see that happen all the time.
The question is, is all truth socially constructed? There's
a prophetic critique there. But, you know, in the academic world,
we get a filter-down system. First of all, postmodernism emerged
in France. It had to be translated into
English. It showed up first in architecture,
and then in the literature departments. Theology got to it late, and
by the time most people are talking about postmodernism, the French
moved on to something else, and it's already moved to a different
set of challenges. Postmodernism, in retrospect,
wasn't postmodern. It is an artifact of modernity,
but it does recognize and reflect a serious turn. You know, in
the academy, as you would well know, the preferred term now
is late modernity, with the larger understanding that postmodernism
fits somewhere in this massive turn that is happening right
now in late modernity, and we're going to find out where this
goes, and that's where you better keep your eyes open, and we will
find out what comes next. They don't send us a postcard
from the future to tell us what comes next. Yeah, when you read
people like Brian McLaren and the leaders of the emergent movement
who sort of lionize postmodernism as the great new age, the third
age of the Spirit, it's so modern. I mean, it's like right out of
Lessing's The Education of the Human Race, an Enlightenment
text. It's a passage right out of that.
And people like Jacques Derrida the sort of poster boy of French
postmodernism, he readily admitted that it was modern. This is a
long conversation. I have a letter from him, in
fact, where I was bringing up some of the things on Kant. He
says, I readily admit that my conversation is with Kant and
Hegel. This is a continuing conversation within modernity, and I think
a lot of it's romanticism. Modernity has always had this
pendulum swinging between rationalism and sentimentalism. And I think
that's in part what we're still seeing today. All right. In reference to our justification,
is there a reward for the elect according to their works? I haven't
heard from you here lately. I fell asleep on the last question. You fell asleep on the last question. This is the only time I got in
an argument with Brian Chappell. And it wasn't a bad argument,
it was just a discussion. But he was arguing that there
were no rewards, and I was arguing that there were rewards. Trouble
is, I can't remember why I was arguing that there were rewards.
And I don't remember his argument against it. So I'm not going
to answer this question. This person cites two passages. I think we could find about 25
passages in the New Testament that teaches very clearly that
our rewards in heaven will be given according to our works. And how does that square with
the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Well, Augustine
once said that The distribution of rewards in heaven according
to works is not because there is some kind of inherent merit
in the works that we perform that impose an obligation upon
God to reward them. Rather, he used the phrase splendid
vices. He said our best works, even
after our regeneration, are so tainted by the ongoing sin in
our life that they are at best splendid vices, not real virtues
that are worthy of reward. Nevertheless, though our works
or our relative degree of obedience does not merit for us particular
rewards. God has graciously determined
to distribute rewards in heaven according to our works." And
Augustine again called that God's crowning His own gifts, because
any good works that we perform, tainted to whatever degree they
are, are also of grace. But the basic point is that we
are justified, we are declared just by God and enter into our
reconciliation and at peace with Him right now on the sole instrument
by which we receive the benefits of the work of Christ is by faith.
And after we are justified, sanctification begins immediately upon our justification. and that whole lifelong process
of sanctification will yield real rewards in heaven. There's
no real contradiction there. Our dear brother, Jim Boyce,
who died ten years ago this week. 10 years ago, yeah. He spoke of
this in a way I'll never forget because he rightly said any of
us looking at incommensurate houses today, for instance, or
incommensurate estates would say, there's something morally
dubious about this. I mean, this looks like Genesis
3 to us. Somehow the inequality, the distinction
that doesn't look right Well, in heaven, to the contrary, to
the glory of God, whatever distinction there is in rewards, as depicted
in biblical imagery, is going to actually make every glorified
believer see the glory of God even more abundantly. No one's
going to say on that side of our glorification, there's something
morally dubious about this. everyone's going to say, yes,
that's exactly right, most perfectly to display the glory of God.
That's about all we can say, and once it's said, we probably
ought to stop. And if I could throw in dangerously after… say
that's where we should stop. If… Paul says, who has ever given
Him anything that He should repay Him? God is not repaying us as
you… as everyone said so far. But when we're holy, When I'm
really holy, am I going to begrudge Corrie ten Boom's celebration,
coronation? I don't think so. I think when
I'm really holy, part of the party is going to be watching
that woman receive more crowns than I receive. Good. Did we wake you up? Yeah, I just came around. Disturbed you for your dogmatic
slumber? I'm back, I'm back, I'm back.
All right. Knock him back. Yeah, yeah. It's, um... No, if you go to the Cleveland
Symphony, and you've got a pretty poor seat, 55 rows back, than
just to concur with what Al's saying. You say, I'm going to
have to try harder next time, or I'm going to get in touch
with somebody. But finally, in our glorified condition in heaven,
even if I am in row 86 underneath the balcony, it will seem perfectly
right, and especially I'll even be able to rejoice that Al is
sitting right up in the dress circle, you know. And that would
certainly be a whole lot better than having to be at a Cleveland
Browns football game. Yeah, there's no… there's no
analogy there. But really close… but really close to a recent
Lakers victory. R.C. Yes. Can I just read a verse? Of course. Oh, of course. Let's hear a verse. Well, I think just the simplicity
of this verse answers it. Revelation 22, 12, and it's mentioned
there's 25 of these verses, but the text speaks very clearly
to this. Behold, I am coming quickly,
and my reward is with me, to render to every man according
to what he has done. I mean, it's hard to put another
spin on that ball. There will be rewards, and Christ
is bringing them with Him. We are saved by grace, but we
are judged by works, and there will be a judgment. And we will,
as a steward before His Master, give an account for what has
been entrusted to us, and greater faithfulness will merit greater
– or wrong word – but will bring about greater reward, and well
done, thou good and faithful servant, you will be over ten
cities." And the next one is given over five cities, and so
there is some distinction there. And I think also when we see
that the saints are casting their crowns back before the Lord,
it is emblematic that this crown doesn't belong to It belongs
to the Lord. I mean, He chose me, He predestined
me, He redeemed me, He called me, He regenerated me, He indwelt
me, He sanctified me, He preserved me, He has now glorified me,
He empowered me. And Paul said, I am what I am
by the grace of God, and all good that is accomplished in
and through our lives is solely of grace. And so I think even
in that moment, as we would hold a crown or whatever it would
be like, we would realize, I can't put this on my head. I mean,
this isn't mine. I mean, it's all of grace that
I'm even here. It's all of grace that has enabled
me to serve Him faithfully, and a casting back to the Lord. It's like Romans 11, 36, that
from Him and through Him and now to Him. are all things, and
just even this worship in heaven of casting our crowns back at
His feet, but you're going to want to have more crowns than
fewer crowns to cast at His feet in an act of eternal worship
to God. And so I think that the text
speaks very clearly that there will be reward, and it will be
on the basis of what we have done. Thank you for, Steve. Our time is up for this Q&A. Before I ask you to thank the
men on the panel, let me tell you that we weren't able to get
to all the questions that we've collected, but we have a new
process at Ligonier. Whatever questions are submitted
at our conferences that we don't have time to answer here at the
conference, we give them to John Duncan. who is the producer of
Renewing Your Mind. And we have from time to time
Q&A times on the radio. And we'll try to get to these
questions at some time on Renewing Your Mind. So I can give these
to you, Chris, right? In the meantime, let's thank these people
for being with us.