Dr. Begg, thank you for joining
us this afternoon, and you'll be speaking to us this evening. And to my left here is Pastor
Anthony Carter from East Point Church. Thank you for joining
us as well. Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr., settled
there between Dr. Lawson and Dr. Sproul, welcome.
It's a wonderful time for Q&A for us to be able to bring your
questions to our speakers, and we're going to just dive right
in. And the first question comes, what is your opinion of the invitation
given in so many contemporary evangelical churches, quote,
invite Jesus into your heart, unquote? Is this a true presentation
of the gospel? Come on, Anthony. How did I know
you were going to say that? Because you know me. Yes, I do. You're not just a pretty face.
You're supposed to be up here answering questions. Yeah, keep it simple. Unfortunately, I think what has
happened over the years, we've moved away from what is the major
emphasis of the Bible, the gospel, and even the ministry of Christ.
It's not so much that we ask Christ into our hearts as much
as it is that Christ compels us and invites us to come to
Him, that He compels and He invites to His kingdom. You know, whether
it's with the disciples who he tells to follow me, or whether
it's with the parables. When he invites people to come
to the feast, it is always God who initiates. It's always God
who does the inviting. It is the kingdom of God that
we invite people to, and what happens in that presentation,
though at most instances, it probably has good intentions,
it actually does violence to the ministry of Christ and the
Spirit because it is not so much of us inviting Christ into our
lives as much as it is hearing the voice of Christ calling to
us, come, come. As Isaiah tells us, come without
money and without price. Come. You come and buy and find
the kingdom for you and find your fulfillment in it rather
than us inviting Christ into our heart and somehow He finds
His fulfillment in us. Thank you. Would one of you address the
difference between justified through faith and salvation by
grace? Can you say that again? The difference
between being justified through faith and salvation by grace. Go ahead, R.C. Me? I have to
speak on justification again? I just passed Luther. Luther's
now in second place. Salvation is the broader term. It's used in every tense of the
Greek verb. We were saved from the foundation
of the world. We were being saved. We are saved.
We are being saved. We will be saved. Salvation is
the whole package, which includes our justification, our sanctification,
our glorification. And so justification is a step,
a crucial step towards the whole fullness of salvation. And in
fact, all those who are justified will certainly receive the fullness
of salvation. Now in the way in which people
use the language, there's no significant difference in the
terminology. To be justified by faith is to
be justified by grace. and to be saved by grace is to
be saved by grace through faith. And so, in a sense, they're interchangeable. And that's my story, and I'm
sticking with it. Dr. Lawson, in your message you
said, there is no truth outside of Jesus Christ. So how do we
make distinctions between the truth revealed to us in Scripture
versus truths or facts we discover in natural revelation or through
human experience, for example, laws of logic, scientific discoveries,
etc.? And this questioner says, you
can let R.C. take a shot at it too. You can take a shot at it, too.
Oh, good. I won't need to if you do it
right. Kicking the one-liners. Well,
we might as well just save time and you go ahead and answer it. Well, all truth is in Jesus Christ,
no matter what the truth is. Today, as I spoke from John 18,
I think principally and primarily it's talking about redemptive
truth and truth concerning the spiritual kingdom of God. Certainly,
all truth is, though, from God and from Christ, and even in
the larger sense, But by my statement, any statement that is outside
the truth that is in Christ Jesus is not of the truth. That is
true. Christ has a monopoly on the
truth. He has an exclusive monopoly on the truth, and that which
does not square with what Christ teaches is a lie. Now, I realize 1 plus 1 equals
2 and things like that just out of common laws of mathematics
and science, etc., but all of that has been created by Christ
Himself. And so Christ has even set all
that into motion. So, Christ is the gospel. Christ is, you know, not only
the sacrifice for the gospel, but He is the greatest teacher
and prophet of the gospel who proclaimed the terms by which
people enter into His kingdom. Dr. Sproul? Well, I agree. The point is that all truth is
God's truth. He reveals Himself in a special
way through Scripture, but He also reveals Himself through
nature, which we call general revelation. And all truths that
are discoverable through an examination of nature, the circulatory system
of the body, the laws of logic and so on, are all rooted and
grounded ultimately in the one source of all truth, who is God
Himself. Two things quickly. Logic, for
example, when Aristotle wrote of logic, he didn't invent logic
any more than Columbus invented America. He discovered the laws
of logic that were already there. They're God's laws. And secondly,
Augustine said, and I think he was right, that all truth that
we discover, whether in nature or grace, in this world, we discover
because of God's revelation, that revelation is just as much
a requirement to learn the principles of mathematics as it is to learn
the way of salvation. and that what he uses as his
metaphor is the analogy, he says, is just as light is necessary
for us to be able to perceive anything in this world. There
are objects out there, but without light shining on them, they just
remain an utter darkness to us. So the medium by which we are
able to perceive objects in the external world is light. And
likewise, Augustine said, divine revelation is that medium by
which all truth can be perceived. So I'm just seconding the motion
there, Steve. This person asks and comments
initially that they're struggling to reconcile all of the different
interpretations or opinions Christians have on so many issues, for example,
creation or end times, etc. If we have one God, one Bible,
one Holy Spirit, how is it we are so different? And then a
follow-on, is it only the gospel that matters for us to agree
on? It's my habit to correct those
questions that begin with if and then are followed by unassailable
truths like this one. I'm perfectly happy to look at
the question, but since we have one God, one faith, one truth,
one book, why do we have so many disagreements? I'll take a shot
at that. The answer to that is because,
going back to what was just said, communication is a two-way street,
that in order for something to be understood, it has to be spoken
in an understandable way, and it has to be understood by the
hearer. All the varieties of different
beliefs in no way impugn the clarity of the revelation of
God in Scripture or in nature. God is perfectly clear. And every
one of those issues, God has told us the answer to, and we
won't hear Him. The problem in short is that
God is speaking to sinners. Now, that is not to say that,
you know, that whoever disagrees with the right… if there's an
amillennialist and a postmillennialist and a premillennialist sitting
in front of us that one of them is righteous and two of them
are wicked. One of them is right and the
other two are not. The point is that disagreement. It's like any other failure on
our part. It's a result of sin. And in heaven when we're all
perfectly glorified and sanctified, we won't have this problem anymore.
We're all going to agree. And we're all going to agree
about everything that we know, not just the gospel in this narrow
sense. So I would want to suggest that
the gospel is the answer to the question about all the questions
we have where we have disagreements. We do have to make distinctions
about issues that are part of the necessary being of the church,
the article in which the church stands or falls. and recognize
that there are other issues that are of secondary importance,
which does not mean not important. And at the end of the day, remember
and embrace and rejoice that there is a truth that God has
revealed. The fact that we disagree is a sin problem, not a God problem,
not a revelation problem, and Jesus came to solve the sin problem. And there are other essential
truths besides the gospel, the atonement. Well, that's all part
of the gospel, but the atonement, the deity of Christ, and that
sort of thing, those are essential truths. It's not like there's
only one important truth to die for, justification by faith alone.
But there's a compendium of essential truths that we don't ever want
to trivialize. But we don't want to take the
trivium and elevate it to the level of essential. How should I respond when other
Christians, or even non-Christians, bring up the blemishes of Luther,
for instance, his anti-Semitic writings, or Calvin, his quote-unquote
reign of terror in Geneva? Wow. You tell them that the best
of men are men at best, and that everyone has clay feet. They were fallen guys, they were
regenerate, but they didn't get it all. And that's true in every
generation. Yeah, and that's interesting
enough. That's a question that I often
get, because young African Americans often struggle with trying to
understand how to embrace a theology that was often advocated and
held onto by slaveholders. And the fact of the matter is,
you still come back to the same reality that the best of men
are men at best. You know, that all of us have
clay feet. All of us have blind spots in
our theology. And the sin of the theologian
does not negate the truth of the theology. I want to always encourage people
to look at Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, his first
letter, and what you see there is an absolute train wreck, a
spiritual train wreck, every conceivable kind of wicked sin,
in fact a particular wicked sin that was too vile for the heathen
to do. And Paul says, to… He writes to the beloved saints,
to the redeemed, and it gives us a sense, it should give us
a sense of just how bad we are, so that when we look at Luther's
anti-Semitism, or we look at the owners of slaves, our response
should not be, how can a Christian do this? It ought to instead
be, what kind of things am I as a Christian doing that are just
like this, that I'm blind to, like they were blind to? That
is, it's not enough to have the grace to say, well, those people
were sinners. We need to be able to say, we
are men at our best, and at our best we're men. I have to speak
up in defense of Luther and Calvin though. But Luther earlier in
his life wrote a significant essay in defense of the Jews,
in which he said the Christians should never be arrogant or have
a spirit of anti-Semitism, because we are all dependent upon the
Jews for our salvation, because salvation came through Israel
and through the Jewish nation. And he goes at great lengths
to speak on that point. Now in his later attacks against
Judaism in Germany, there were two reasons for it, apart from…
Well, and let me just say, I don't think he was as temperate as
he should have been, but he was rarely temperate in anything.
But the two things that he was most concerned about was, number
one, the radical denial of Christ by Judaism. And he did not hold
the position that all religions are equally valid. He was not
a relativist or an American pluralist. And so he spoke out strongly
against Judaism as an ism because of its rejection of Christ. The
other issue that moved him to speak at times so harshly about
the Jews in Germany was because of the serious cultural problem
and economic problem of the day of usury. the extremely high
interest rates that were being charged by the bankers that for
the most part were controlled by Jewish owners, and that they
put such a burden on the peasants that Luther was furious with
those violations of biblical principles against usury. So
keep that in mind that that's part of the context in which
he spoke. And the rap against Calvin that he exercises tyranny
in Geneva because he was responsible for the execution of Servetus,
where Servetus was burned at the stake. In the first place,
Servetus was a wanted man. He was wanted by the Roman Catholic
Church for his public denial of the Trinity, and in those
days, gross heresy was a capital offense in most of the countries
in Western Europe. And what Servetus did was that
he fled France and other places to avoid the death penalty imposed
by Rome, and he wanted to come to Geneva for refuge. Calvin
wrote him and told him not to come, because they had the same
laws in Geneva that they had elsewhere, and warned him that
he would not be safe if he came to Geneva. When he came to Geneva,
he was captured, and the council that Calvin did not control,
sentenced Servetus to death by being burned at the stake. Calvin
appealed to the council in Geneva to exhibit, to have them show
mercy to Servetus. the mercy being by having him
beheaded rather than burnt at the stake. And we look at that
and we say, well, that's not so nice. But it's not like Calvin
was on the prowl trying to find Servetus and was lighting the
match to burn him at the stake, which is what the enemies of
Calvin charged him with. That's ridiculous. Calvin wasn't
even a citizen of Geneva. He was exiled from Geneva. If
you want any more of that, read Steve Lawson's book on it, but
Calvin and Calvinism is one of the most despised varieties of
Christianity in church history. In any way you can vilify Calvin,
do it. That's what his enemies want
to do. When I have my students read Calvin's Institutes, I make
them first read his chapter on prayer so that they can get a
glimpse of the man. before they wrestle with his
theology, because here was one of the most humble students and
servants of God the world has ever known. And, I mean, boys,
he had a bad rap. But anyway, I've said that to
defend my guys. Okay? Why is God angry and wrathful
toward those He never predestined to be saved? LAWSON Well, because they're
in sin, and God is a holy God who hates sin as well as hates
the sinner who is in sin. And that's just the nature of
God's holiness. So God cannot be something other
than what He is, even towards the non-elect. SPROUL Let me
see if I understand the question. I agree wholeheartedly with what
you said, Steve, but the objection may come, well, he's a sinner
because he was born that way. He didn't choose that himself.
He was born that way, and yet God is sovereign over all of
this. God has ordained that this should come to pass, and yet
when the sin happens, God still finds fault. So why would God
ordain all this to happen and still find fault? Well, what
I don't understand is why someone would ask us that question when
you could ask the Holy Spirit that question, who answers it
in Romans chapter 9. And the Holy Spirit's answer
is, who are you, O Are all Roman Catholics going
to hell? I answered that this morning.
I said I thought there were hundreds of thousands if not millions
of Roman Catholics that were true believers in spite of Roman
Catholicism, in spite of their theology, not because of it. Just like there are multitudes
of people in Presbyterian and Reformed churches that are rank
Arminians, they don't embrace the theology of the churches
they join or attend. And so. There are what we call
crypto-Protestants all over the place. And one of the things
that people don't understand historically is a serious split
has occurred in the Roman Catholic Church, and it occurred back
in the decade of the 60s, that some theologians were afraid
would be as volatile as the 16th century Reformation. With the
advent of what was called the theologie nouvelle, the new theology
that blossomed in the western wing of the church, particularly
in Germany Switzerland, and the Netherlands, as well as across
this pond in Canada and the United States. This was the so-called
liberal wing of the church, and it was on a collision course
with what's called the Latin wing of the church. which would
be Italy, France, Spain, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and
so on. And that's always the interesting
question when a pope is going to be succeeded. And it's in
the newspaper every day this week since Pope Benedict has
announced that he's finished in the next couple of days. So
there's going to be an enclave to elect a new pope, and the
speculation is, it's time for a South American pope, it's time
for an African pope, it's time for a United States pope. And
all of this conflict between the two wings is going to show
up. My guess is that it will be an
Italian pope because of this split. But you will find Roman
Catholic priests all over the West, all over America, that
will affirm the doctrines of grace, that will affirm justification
by faith alone. But when I speak about Roman
Catholicism, I'm not talking about American Catholicism or
Berlin Catholicism. I'm talking about Roman Catholicism,
whose headquarters is in the city of Rome, where the prelate
to the pontiff of the church is found there, and the dictates
of the church are conceived and printed there and are found in
the edicts and the conciliar statements and the papal encyclicals
in Denziger's Enchiridion. And so I'm recognizing that there's
a wing of the church that doesn't follow the Roman church. But
they should. If they don't follow it, they
should get out of it. But they don't. In Romans 14 and 2 Corinthians
5, Paul mentions that we will all have to give an account of
our lives before God. If justification by faith alone
is sufficient for salvation, what is the purpose of this account,
of this giving an account? we're going to be given a reckoning
for the deeds done in the body. We're not going to be examined
in relationship to our eternal destiny. But whatever you want
to do with the notion of rewards in the Bible, There's something
that is going to take place in that context that will determine
how things will be for us in eternity. So, we would never expect that God
has planned to do something that would be in irrelevance in any
shape or form, and therefore his wisdom and his purpose in
it is in order, I think, to in part remind us that although
we have been set apart in Christ and that our righteousness is
in Him, that, nevertheless, our words and our deeds and our
actions post-conversion still bear significance and will be
taken into account in some measure in terms of how things will be
put. I had a pastor who used to, you
know, scare us with that kind of thing. I don't think we should
be scared by it. I think, you know, that nobody
will end up being disappointed by God's final decision. You
know, whether you've got a seat right up on the back row there
or a seat down in the front row, you'll just be so glad that you've
got a seat that you won't be complaining about it. I don't disagree with anything
that was said, but I want to push maybe a little harder on
the non-fear in this event. I'm afraid that the reason that
we fear this event is that we really don't understand the fullness
of the gospel message. See, when we came into the kingdom
here on earth, we stood before God, and we told God what we
are. We told God what we've We've
told Him we're at the end of our rope. We have nothing. It's
all of grace. And when God tells us what we've
done, it should not be occasion in this context of shame for
us, but an occasion for rejoicing for the grace of God in Christ.
He's going to be telling us what He rescued us from. He's going
to be telling us what Jesus died for, so that every sin is not
going to make us wince it's going to make us weep for joy that
Jesus died for even that, which is again the perspective we ought
to have now. One of the main fruits or consequences
of our justification is that now there's no condemnation.
So we don't ever have to worry about being exposed to the punitive
wrath of God. The condemnation is over. Christ
took the condemnation. But then people are puzzled because
the Bible says that God has cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness,
and we remember them no more against us. It's not that God
suffers from amnesia after we're justified. His knowledge is omniscient
and immutable. So He will always know the sins
that I have committed. So it's not that He forgets them
as Alzheimer's or something. He doesn't remember them against
me. Now what you're getting at here
is that our entrance into heaven is based on faith alone, but
the rewards that we receive once we're there, the Bible tells
us at least twenty-five times, are distributed according to
our works. And Augustine said even that
is gracious, because the works that we perform at best or as
again what Augustine called splendid vices, that there's a pound of
flesh in every one of our good works that we live, have even
after our conversion. And so there's no reason for
God to be compelled to give us any reward in heaven. Nevertheless,
in His mercy and in His grace, He's established our obedience
and our works as the basis upon which He will distribute those
works, even though they don't deserve rewards. Augustine said this is a case
of God's crowning His own gifts, which I like his saying of that. But we still have to go there,
and we'll still have to be called into account, but we don't have
to fear it, like R.C. How do I speak the truth to my
child, a professing believer who is living in a homosexual
lifestyle? Very carefully. If it were me, I think the first
thing that I would want to do is recognized that ultimately
this is not my conversation to have. I would want my child's
elders who are responsible for him to face that sin in calling him to repentance
and bringing to bear the power of the keys that have been given
to the elders of the local church. Now suppose he's not a member
of a church, or suppose that the church that he's a member
of determines that his behavior is not an affront to the holy
God. Now I would encourage the parent
to recognize that without the elders affirming
Without elders sufficiently faithful to recognize that gross and heinous
sexual sin is a sign, as the Scripture specifically says,
that they're not a believer, then this person is not a member
of the church. And because they're not a member
of the church, their profession is not credible. They can say
what they want. But the Bible says those who
practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. The worst part about the story,
though, is that in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, the Christians are
told there, look, you don't need to worry about what the heathen
are doing at night. It's the believers that you need
to worry about. And then when you have someone professing the
name of Christ and living in gross and unrepentant heinous
sin, specifically in that text sexual sin, the text tells us
we're to have nothing to do with which would also be true of the
heterosexual adulterer, serial adulterer. Again, we're under
God's judgment for behavior, and if a person is inclined in
a homosexual direction, he's still called a chastity. Just
as a heterosexually oriented person is called a chastity if
they're not married. So we're not allowed to be engaged
in sexual activities outside of the institution that God has
provided for it, which is marriage between a man and a woman. And
what's so hard about that? But then again, if a person is
struggling with this and struggling with their Christian convictions,
they live in a culture here that's screaming from the household,
it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, and if you dare to
speak against it, You're hating them. You're a gay basher. You've
committed a hate crime and that sort of thing. This goes right
back to your whole message about truth. You know, how do we evaluate
this other than on the basis of God's truth? The Word of God
gives a completely different view of this kind of behavior
than the culture does. That's a tough question. At the
level of family life and church life and interpersonal relationships
and, you know, all it said is accurate and true. But I guess
I just… Whoever asked the question, you know, I think pastorally
we respond empathetically and would want to encourage boldness
and compassion and forthrightness and everything else. But it is
a hard issue, and it is an increasingly prevalent question as a result
of the infiltration of a culture that is vastly being absorbed,
very quickly being absorbed in a church that is just unprepared
to recognize that the commands of God are commands of God. that,
you know, that we're to obey them perfectly and perpetually,
that whatever God commands, whatever God says we mustn't do, we mustn't
do, and whatever He says we must do, we must do, and we have to
let the chips fall where they are from there. But it doesn't
make it any easier when you are confronted by that. I find that
one of the hardest things in dealing with members of our own
congregation, when You know, just out of the blue they're
confronted by that. So, that doesn't really add anything
to it, except if I can speak on behalf of us pastorally, we
care. As a pastor of a church that
seems more interested in church growth, in gimmicks, fads, and
quick fixes, and that for the most part this church is not
interested in expository preaching, do I stay and watch members quit
attending or look for another church to pastor? I am so discouraged. Please help." This is the pastor
that's asking the question? As pastor of a church. Well,
how is it like that if he's the pastor of the church? Who made
all those decisions? Some of us are Presbyterian,
Alistair. Well, confession is good for the soul. No, no, I don't want to take
the fellow on, but I mean, you have a voice in it. You're with
your fellow elders. I believe in the parity and plurality
of the eldership as well. But no, I mean, that would be
my first question. How did it get like this? Were
you asleep? Did you go on vacation, and they changed everything while
you were gone? I mean, what happened? You obviously, you've contributed
to it either by default, presumably by default. Leave! Yeah, should
I look for another church? Yeah, yeah. And maybe the next
time you get it, you know, you won't let them do that. LARSON. Dr. Lawson, you were ground zero
for something for this very situation in your own ministry. Could you
share a brief word of testimony? LAWSON. Certainly. Yes, I inherited
a church just like this, and it's You know, I realize, first
of all, that the church that tries to grow through gimmicks
and techniques and entertainment and showbiz and all the rest,
you really are pastoring an unregenerate church. You are pastoring just
a religious country club. It's a crowd. It's not a church. It's not a congregation, and
so it's virtually impossible to push a rope uphill, and it's
impossible to lead an unsaved flock to pursue a biblical philosophy
of ministry when they have not even the mind of Christ. And
so, that was the challenge that I faced. You keep them the way
you get them. And so, if you get them with
jokes and coax and superficialities, then you're going to have to
continue to do that to keep them. In fact, you're going to have
to, the law of diminishing return, you're going to have to keep
pushing the fence out further and further because you lose
a certain shock value that you had the last time. And so, it
really becomes layers of carnality on top of a carnival. So, you
know, I would leave such a situation if there was no reasonable hope
that this battleship can be turned around, because you're basically
firing your bullets up into thin air, and you're not hitting anything.
Now, as I stayed, there were hundreds of adult conversions
that took place, church members being saved, and it becomes a
matter of time. Can you hang in there long enough
with the support of people to preach the gospel and win the
day before you're run out of the church on a rail? And so
there comes a tipping point. at which perhaps you realize
that I'm not going to be able – it's like a lion tamer, and
that lion turns on you – that you're not going to be able to
preach long enough to win enough people to Christ to turn this
around. So I think it's one of the more
impossible challenges that a pastor would face. I would want to be
with like-minded people. I would want to be with people
where we hold certain core values together. Old wineskin cannot
contain new wine, and the truth cannot be contained in a place
where basically the leadership, those who would support you,
are either unregenerate or so extraordinarily immature that
instead of running a sprint, you're running the high hurdles
at best. So each situation is different, and so what I've said
certainly is not a one-size-fits-all. And there are men in church history
who have stayed, like Charles Simeon, and who just dug it out.
And it doesn't mean we're looking for an easy place. We're just
looking for a place where the Word of God can have a hearing.
and for God to begin to win people to Himself, bring people to Himself. So, I don't know what else to
say at that. Thank you. Should baptism, infant
baptism, believer's baptism, be a reason to impede fellowship? No. Could you expand on that? Well, fellowship is something
that is enjoyed among all the saints, and Baptists are saints
too. What is the question? It's a
question that somebody holds to one particular view of baptism
and comes to… One of the most famous controversies in the Presbyterian
church in Scotland while I was there was over this very issue. because an elder in a church
of Scotland in Lanarkshire changed his view from being a pedo-Baptist
to believer's baptism. He then was called up before
the court because he was no longer in the correct frame of mind
And I'm assuming now—and it's a long time past, it's over,
it's almost forty years ago now—I'm assuming that he then made an
issue of his change of perspective, thereby violating the nature
of genuine fellowship within the church in which he served. But it went right to the highest
courts of the Presbyterian church, and I went and listened to the
debate as it unfolded. But it was that very debate,
and it's the question of whether a view of baptism and a perspective
on baptism You know, in one of the fellow's introductions, in
McLaren's introduction to the Westminster Confession, he says
that we ought not to make a prerequisite for church membership what Christ
has not made a prerequisite for salvation. And he's saying that
in relationship to… I don't know who he has in mind. But many
churches do, so that if people came from a Presbyterian church,
let's say, to a bona fide Baptist church, they may be denied the
opportunity of fellowship. And I presume that's the question
that's being asked. Is there a legitimacy in that? And the answer ought to be, It's
an understandable response on the part of the congregation
that believes a certain way, but as to its legitimacy… No,
I don't think so, because it comes back to the previous question
about the primary issues and the secondary issues, that we
would be entirely agreed on baptism as one of the two sacraments
of the church. We would disagree on the mode
of baptism. So I've served in churches where
if you came as a Presbyterian, you would not be allowed to join
the church. or if you joined the church,
you could never serve in the church. And so those churches
are actually making baptism something that denies the opportunity of
fellowship. We had… SPROUL JR.: : Not necessarily.
They're not denying fellowship. They're denying offices in the
church. For example, in our church, we're
confessional, and for a guy to be ordained in the Presbyterian
church, he has to affirm the Westminster Confession of Faith
and the substance of the Westminster Confession. Now, if he has a
place where he disagrees, then the Presbyterian will determine
whether that's an acceptable disagreement or whether it's
not part of the substance of historic Reformed theology. But
like in my church in St. Andrews, You don't have to believe
in paedo-baptism to become a member or to enjoy the fellowship of
the church, but you do to become an officer because that's part
of our confessional standard. And it's the same thing in most
Baptist churches. If I go, they'll let me fellowship, but they won't
let me join unless I get baptized as an adult. Isn't that right?
Certain ones, yeah, that's what I'm saying, that they do make
it an issue. They deprive you access to the fellowship of the
church. No, not to the fellowship. Well,
we're using fellowship in two different ways here. I don't
know what you mean by fellowship, but when I'm talking about fellowship,
I'm talking about entirely organically engaged in the body life of the
church so that no opportunity is denied to me. So I can serve
in eldership, or I can serve in teaching, or I can do whatever
it is. That would be the nature of comprehensive fellowship.
Anything less than that is subpar fellowship as far as I'm concerned.
So yes, baptism is an issue like that. throughout this entire
country. And it is such an issue in certain
cases that if you haven't been baptized in that particular church
by that particular fellow, then you may have to go and do that
as well. So that the whole notion of re-baptism comes again and
again. And the real question is, if
you came to join Parkside RC, would I let you then, with all
your crazy views, become become not just a member of the church,
but an elder in the church, and would I allow you to teach and
do everything?" The answer is yes, providing you determined
not to make an issue of your view of baptism within the context
of a congregation that doesn't share that same view. And I would
expect the same to be true in coming, for example, to St. Andrews. We still have fellowship though,
don't we? We don't break fellowship over that issue. Yeah, I just
wanted to be… For anybody that might get upset at me, when I'm
saying… My answer was based on what he means by fellowship,
and not what Dr. Begg means by fellowship. Well,
here's… Listen, here… Mervyn Barter… was the general manager of the
Banner of Truth. Okay? Sinclair knew him very
well. So did I. As godly a guy as you could have. In the church in Edinburgh to
which he came, he was never able to enter fully into the fellowship
of that church, by my definition of fellowship, because of his
view on baptism. That, from my perspective, was
a major mistake on the part of the church. and an emphasis on
a sacrament that places it higher than that which is justifiable
in terms of the nature of our relationships with one another.
But, Dr. Begg, while it's certainly a much smaller
limitation, even what you described has some level of limitation
on fellowship because you don't want, if my dad came to join
your church, you don't want him teaching the church a Presbyterian
view of baptism. So there's a… If fellowship means
being able to teach and being able to be and serve in the office
of elder, but he can't do that and teach what he believes about
baptism, and he certainly can't rule in light of what he believes
about baptism. And so even there, there's some level of limitation
on the fellowship. I agree. So I'm actually answering
yes to the question, and I'm only illustrating it. I'm not
saying that it doesn't affect fellowship. I'm saying it does
affect fellowship. And in certain cases, if that
is a case in point, I would go with your dad's definition of
fellowship and say, no, R.C. doesn't have to deny his view
of pedo-baptism. If we're having dinner together,
he's talking with everyone. But I don't expect him to undermine
the shared view of the leadership of the church. And if he were
going to do that, then that would be bad form no matter what it
was. We agree with that. Go ahead. Last question. What is your view
of what heaven and the new earth will be like? Scotland. Does that mean you're an expatriate
of the Kingdom of Heaven? I was thinking more in terms
of Augusta National because I know I'd have to die in order to get
there. That's quiet. That's good. It will, in all seriousness,
I recall a message that R.C. gave years ago on the beatific
vision, and it just reminded me of how beyond description
heaven really is going to be, as awesome and as wonderful,
as glorious and magnificent and beautiful that we can conceive
of heaven and as it is described in the Scriptures. At our best, at our best, we
are only talking in shadows. And it is so much more beautiful
and glorious than anything that the sinful mind could ever conceive. And it is that which we long
for because we know it is somehow wrapped up in us that what we
see and what we know just isn't all that there is. and the most
beautiful thing or thought that you can have or vision that you
could see in this world pales in comparison to what the Lord
has in store for those who love Him. Let's thank our speakers. Thank
you, gentlemen, so much. Thank you so much.