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2:01 Hi guys, welcome to the church split. My name is Will and today we are talking about the collapse at the SPC regarding Matthew Bates's work on salvation by allegiance alone. Calvinist clutch the pearls once again. But anyway, before we do all that and discuss all that, do all the internet stuff. Links all in the descriptions and also like, subscribe, all those things. If you don't know how to do the internet by now, there's no hope for you in this new modern age. But first, before we jump into the video, I would like to introduce my good friend, Dr. Jonathan Bridget. He's been on the channel before. I've been on Trinity Radio before and uh yeah, he's the vice president of academic affairs at my seminary and all that good stuff. So, Jonathan, how you doing? I'm doing good. Thank you for having me. This is the the third day in a row we have in been each
2:46 other's company. Except yesterday was the best out of the three. I can guarantee you that because I got to babysit his kids last night. Yeah. And the kids preferred Misty, by the way. Misty helped. Yes. Yeah. We have a talk about that because I'm like, don't you steal my my prized place in the in Will's kids life. I'm Prince Rich and and I'm favorite and I'm gonna be Ari's favorite, too. So, we're That's It's true. Fight over it. Yeah. And people who don't know this that Yeah. My daughter uh we randomly started calling him Pritch Pritch. So, he is now officially Pritch. Yeah. I mean, but I'm I'm Pritch at Prime on YouTube apparently, but but I like Pritch Pritch. That's my favorite nickname ever because Elelliana gave it
3:32 to me. So, darn straight. So, uh yeah, Jonathan, you and I talked about doing this response, and that's because of course there's a lot of uh things going on in this video, and you and I are going to probably do a couple videos going forward in the future because there's a few things that you and I both have talked about that we're both kind of passionate about and want to deal with. Uh, this is one that happened right before I left for my North Carolina missions trip to Asheville, which was a great time. Actually, uh, there's a lot of stuff I could talk about. I'll probably do a membersonly video for that. Uh, but it's really cool. However, uh, this all happened right beforehand, so I didn't get time to do a video, so I'm hoping I'm not missing the boat on this, but I do know people were definitely curious about my thoughts and the fact that you had thoughts. I figured why not take our powers and combine them and just trigger half the internet. I think I think um
4:17 given the course of 2,000 years uh responding to theological topics doesn't have a like short shelf life despite our contemporary internet world that that moves on rather quickly. We don't have to move on that quick, you know, darn straight. So what we have here is this. Now I originally be busy, you know, doing like mission stuff. Yeah. like doing actual important stuff, not right. So, one of the things I wanted to talk about with this beforehand is for those who do I actually was trying to get all the key moments. I was like, okay, instead of always just responding by play, pause, play, pause. I would like to actually do just some solid edited like moments. And that was like my original plan with this. I was like,
5:02 this will be my first video of doing that like efficiently. And then I watched the video and realized I can't do that with this one. It's a gold mine. There's so many things that are said and done that I was like, you know what, never mind. We're just I'm going to go the oldfashioned way before I go into the new fashion way. But there's definitely some things I want to talk about here because uh as many people know, uh El Mohler, this is on his channel, El Mohler uh did not seem to like Matthew Bates's work on Beyond the Salvation Wars. Now, full disclosure, me and Dr. Pritchette here have not actually read Beyond the Salvation Wars, but we did read Matthew Bates's original work, which is Salvation by Allegiance Alone, and I actually thought it was really good. Um and I think that you says you know there could be quibbles but ultimately I agree
5:50 with his the central idea yeah the central thesis of it that we should understand the business this work group this duo and all that as more to do with like an allegiance than just belief which in English communicates just kind of mere ascent in a lot of ways. And this is actually important for apologists too because uh people when they hear just believe in faith uh apologists have to do a big job correcting that this is not just intellectual mere intellectual ascent without any evidence whatsoever because they're saying you just believe it. You just believe it regardless of and we're always having to counter that idea. And even in this video, we'll see they want
6:36 to they still want to say that faith is more than just mere ascent. Um but that that has to go somewhere and you can't give with one hand that you take away with the other. So uh this is an important topic and it affects not just how we understand things theologically but in the world of apologetics as well. So, correct. And, uh, one of the questions I got asked at the beginning of this because on the thumbnails that the SBC continues to collapse, um, and I do want to make sure I I people realize that it actually is decreasing in membership, but I think that that's due to not just their continual rejection of things like the Ning Creed, but also uh, stuff like this. Um, I don't know where you stand on that, but I'm just like, yep, this seems to be par for the course because I this response was not good. It
7:23 was it left a lot to be desired. Uh but just so people are aware, yes, it has decreased. Uh it lost like just in 2024 alone 259,000 members. So uh it's been a continual decline uh for the last several years now. Um so anyway, um now with that said, uh Bridget, is there anything you want to say before we jump in? Um no. Okay, cool. We'll go ahead and do that. Watching so no. Wait, Braxton's watching. Braxton, go away. We want to burn this to the ground. No, no, we don't want We don't want dad to monitor. Uh, no. Well, I will say this, uh, just based on what I read in, uh, Salvation by allegiance alone. Okay. So, I agree with the
8:11 central thesis, the implications of that. Like you said, we can quibble on on the difference of that, but Matthew Bates was not saying anything new. Correct. Um, and not only I mean if you want to get into this you can coming out of the Jesus seminar a group of scholars conservative moderate liberal whatever formed what's called the context group and they applied social science says to the study of scripture both old and new testaments and out of that grew thing now we see things like social science commentaries you know there's tons and tons of journal articles dealing with this material and then you it starts to bleed into the commentaries you see sociop rhetorical commentaries and all of this kind of stuff coming from like you know
8:57 different people taking different aspects of a serious social science in addition to the historical approach to understand the cultural anthropological um maleu of the first century you know the ancient Mediterranean world and so I had been seeing people understand faith as a loyalty or an allegiance or you know kind of a trust commitment or whatever you that's been around that's nothing do. But it seems like now Bates is is kind of correlating all of that data and then you know presenting his take on all of that uh and more to popular level evangelicals. So in that sense it might be new for some people in the same way that the new perspective on
9:43 Paul has been around since the mid70s or before some you could argue um precursors to that um you know Paul and the introspective consciousness of the west and things like that. Um uh what is it Stindall? Uh so but even with Sanders in the late '7s and and Paul and Palestinian Judaism, but it wasn't until Ent Wright even came around that it that kind of pers the new perspective so-called was decimated into you know more popular lay person audiences. So these things have a have a way of starting in the academy and then sometimes decades later getting disseminated down uh to
10:31 the pews. So, well, I said it for a while that the the academy tends the the ca the academy and the church that the church tends to be and this is what the studies have shown is oftentimes about 50 years behind on the academy. So, um people like this is brand new. It's like actually no it's not. We just the church doesn't pay attention to the academy and the academy does an abyssal job at reaching the church too. So, it's it's a two-way. Yeah. And that's one of the things that we do at Trinity College of the Bible Theological Seminary is taking that and presenting it in ways that our students can take this material from the academy to the church instead of learning all that stuff in the academy, knowing it as a pastor, but never bothering to teach it to anybody else. And I think that's where I will say the academy on the one
11:18 hand, but there are seminary students becoming pastors who do not, you know, decimate that information even if they don't agree with it, just to let people know what's out there that they could encounter, you know. So we try to do better at that with our students here and say, take this stuff seriously and take this and incorporate it into your teaching because it matters. Which is why you should sign up for Trinity College of the Bible Theological Seminary like at trinityim.edu. edu. There you go. I should add that in the description later. So, all right. Cool. Let's go and jump in and we're just going to start responding to this. And Pritchette, if there's anything you want to say, just go ahead and tell me to pause. I'll pause it on my end. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All righty. Let's [Music] roll. Have we been wrong about the
12:03 biblical teaching concerning salvation all along? Have we misconstrued the gospel for two millennia? All these issues uh come up from time to time and since we are gospel people, nothing's more important than our understanding of the gospel. So, we're going to be looking at a contemporary challenge to our understanding of the gospel and I have asked three professors to join with me. Tom Shriner, professor of New Testament, Jim Hamilton, professor of Old Testament, and Steve Well, professor of theology. I appreciate them joining with me. We're going to have a lively conversation. Brothers, thanks for joining me. Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. So, let me just put the question out bluntly. Is it plausible that the Christian church has misconstrued the gospel for two millennia? I would say no. Uh the gospel has been Stop that. Stop it right there. Okay. So, notice how they're framing this. They're framing it as, well, have we
12:49 gotten it wrong for 2,000 years. This is an absurd way to frame this because nobody is saying that we have. As far as I'm aware, I don't think that Matthew Bates has made that claim. Nope. Now, do we understand certain terms and phrases and ways of thinking about the gospel? Have have we gotten off track? Uh they'll actually concede that we have, you know, u here shortly. Um but this kind of framing is uh unnecessarily rhetorical. Uh I get why they do it. um we all do clickbay type things, but that's I don't think that that's an accurate representation of the claim that well Christians have misunderstood the gospel and salvation for 2,000 years. Um how we talk about
13:37 it, how we think about it, how we may understand certain words and terms. Um even if even if we have uh kind of fuzzy understandings of those things, it doesn't mean that the gospel has been misunderstood. It just means that certain ways that we think about it are misunderstood or how we should think about it are misunderstood. But that doesn't mean the church hasn't had the the right gospel about Jesus because that I mean that that is the gospel is of Jesus Christ. So also there is an irony here to me as well that it's like well have we misunderstood the gospel for you know 2,000 years? What's amazing to me is that these guys are all reformed, which means that they actually do believe that there was a loss in the gospel around the 16th century, and that's what demanded the Reformation even take place
14:23 to begin with, right? So, there's a hilarious double say like, "So, was this lost for 1600 years?" Okay. Yeah. We'll we'll point that out when they get there. It's like, okay, so you're saying, "Oh, how we lost it for 2,000 years?" Well, but then you're kind of implicitly admitting that, well, it was lost for at least 1500. So but but we'll I'll but but we'll highlight that when they say that I didn't you know okay sorry I want I was getting ahead of myself we'll keep trucking stood for 2000 years and especially uh we want to say that even in the Petristic era people were true believers in Christ believed in his finished work in it alone grace alone what was that they I love this is the attitude that you even in the petristic era they were still Christians well that's thank you for
15:09 allowing the early church father selfish. I know I'm being I'm I'm I'm being petty, but you but that's a problem. That is absolutely a problem. Even because and here's why it's a problem for people think I'm not just being needlessly petty. I am being kind of petty though, but not needlessly so. because I always hear from uh whether it's like the the 1689 folks or it's the you know Calispensationalists like John MacArthur camp you always hear this you always hear I mean you should I guess maybe read the church f you don't have to but if you do be very very very very and all these warning flashes be very careful when you read them because they're wrong
15:55 about so much you know compared and I'm just really did, you know, Al Al Mohler himself wrote a a book on the Apostles Creed a few years back where who who came up with that stuff you know the people that well they were Christians too but be very careful when you read them even though we affirmed their creeds and affirm their at least the first four count but be very careful this this attitude towards the petristics um you don't find that all in all Baptist circles um southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary folks t uh tend to be a little bit uh better about the way they talk about the church fathers. Yep. And the professors Malcolm Yarnell and other professors there at uh SWBTS have speak with a little bit more
16:43 um faith in their ability to understand uh between one and 300 years uh compared to ours 2,000 years later. Now we really know. So that that kind of attitude that they're displaying here is kind of annoying. Yeah. The uh So by the way, Brax is in the comments, so behave yourself. Um so but no, that's that always cracks me up when that sort of thing happens when Yeah. the whole Well, you know, the even the Petric Okay. All right. Yeah. So there's this weird thing as I've noticed it more in like certain Baptist circles and reform circles especially that sometimes they they will or will not grant the early church salvation. It kind of it just kind of makes me giggle. All right, we're going to keep trucking because at this rate, we're going to be done by 6 p.m. All right, let's go. Sometimes they didn't clearly say that uh the same way as in the Reformation, but particularly since the Reformation
17:29 and it's been clearly delineated all the great souls of the faith. That's it. So, I mean, it was fuzzy in the Petristics and then we're going to scrap at least a thousand years after that because of all the the Catholic stuff. Uh and then we don't even know anything about the Eastern Orthodox stuff. So, we're just going to leave out half the planet, a whole hemisphere start. But the reformation, the reformation is where we've clearly talk about the gospel. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and that and that again, right here, the whole like, well, then it was clarified at the reformation like, oh, so it really wasn't clear for 1600 years. Yeah, that's I mean they're really undercutting their their whole framing at the very jump was did we lose
18:15 the gospel for and their their answer has got to be given what he says here well at least for 1500 kind of yeah you know so anyway that's yeah it's hilarious and this is what I mean like this is why I couldn't just pick key moments because there's so many moments I was like what I started the first five minutes I was like wow there's a lot there to respond to so yeah it's just funny. So, we're going to just keep going. But this is this is uh I made a post a few weeks ago and this is the sort of thing I meant by it when I was like, you know, it's funny going back uh working on my masters going back into the academic journals and stuff. The amount of pearl clutching you'll find and this is what this this signals to me is this pearl clutching. So, anyway, all right, keep moving. That is the gospel and it hasn't changed. I think to assert
19:01 that is really to indict the Holy Spirit as though the Holy Spirit has failed to inspire a sufficient and clear word in the scriptures and then as though the Holy Spirit might fail to lead followers of Jesus to to regenerate their hearts so that they correctly understand the scriptures and then to lead them into a correct understanding of the scriptures. So I it really strikes me as a um an assertion very much open to challenge and the indictment for the last 500 years but not the 1500 we just yeah we just and then also like this is indicting of the Holy Spirit because man if you disagree with our position you must be disagreeing with the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Like there's this weird that's there's this constant like cup game being played where it's like they they put Matthew Bates in this little like thing and then they're constantly like oh find the truth find they're constantly moving the
19:47 goalpost around here a little bit and it's and but right here he's like you're indicting the Holy Spirit by saying that other people didn't aren't understand it with the regeneration. So essentially what he's saying here is that if you disagree with his position then you're indicting the Holy Spirit as opposed to going maybe you have a fuzzier understanding like there this is a straight up straw man in so many ways uh where it's like no we we all affirm the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit works in our hearts but we also can recognize the fact that sometimes we have a poor understanding of scripture or the cultural context or other things. That doesn't mean you're indicting the Holy Spirit. So anyway, it's a silly and yeah, that that charge is a claim that you will never find in Matthew Bates.
20:34 Exactly. I mean, I know that they would agree that Matthew Bates wouldn't phrase it like that, but I'm saying that is not an implication of what he's saying. That is kind of a caricature or a straw man because uh Matthew Bates would affirm that the spirit has been but oh and by the way to to him prior to the reformation most Christians never regularly read a Bible you know they didn't have a Bible right they didn't have Bible apps they didn't even have Bibles in print in their bookshelves at their homes you know for many many many many centuries because it just it wasn't available you know the the printing press wasn't a thing So yeah. Well, and again, that's why it's like it's like the cup game. They have they believe the work of the Holy Spirit is, you know, is
21:21 you're familiar with the cup game, right? Like where you put the ball in it and you move it around, keep keep an eye on the prize. Like they're like, "Oh, the Holy Spirit's under this and this is the way it works." But when they say the Holy Spirit, they mean regeneration, uh, preceding faith, and all these other things regarding that the Holy Spirit mechanic. And then they move it around trying to have you track it down as opposed to just I I'm just going, "No, you're framing it all incorrectly." So I'm not Yeah. And and so so the spirit wasn't not helping them understand whatever scriptures they would hear at corporate worship services, but even they would have to admit that the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox did not understand the spirit. So they are going to I mean you could just turn that around. You already you already indicting the Holy Spirit against the East and the Catholics,
22:06 right? for for getting all of that wrong and extending that to all of the people that were under their charges at that time. Absolutely. So, this is just I mean it's what it is is well poisoning which which you know that's that's uh less impressive than actually taking down his thesis because well poisoning is kind of facious and that's what they're doing. Exactly. All right. We're going to keep moving through here on theological grounds. Tom, and I think for someone to say after 2,000 years, I understand what the gospel is. I'm proposing a a third way. It's just historically, theologically,
22:53 very implausible. Yeah. It's important to note that no one's suggesting a third way. So, keep moving. Let's just say up front that if the church has lost the gospel, we want to recover it. No doubt. So morally and theologically with urgency, you know, we're we would read a challenge like this not not in order merely to dismiss it, but to to take it seriously, at least at face value. Um, and we've done that and and that's why we're going to have this conversation. I I guess the second question is, you know, just in a summary, what is the gospel? Before we turn to, you know, looking at uh at this author's proposal, what is the gospel? Well, when we think of the gospel, we think of the good news. What is the good news? It's what God has done. So, it's starts with him. is what he has done to redeem us. Right? So his eternal plan brought about in the work of his son all the accomplishment
23:39 of that work what Christ has done and its response to us that he brings us into relationship with him that what Christ has done for us by we receive by grace through faith that we are justified before God that is the good news the new life that we receive and all that he accomplishes and ultimately an entire new universe. Yes. Yeah. You know what I don't think that Bates would actually disagree with us. I was going to say I don't think anyone would really disagree with that. I would disagree. Yeah, I would actually add more more actual gospel to it. Like Jesus Christ is the king of the kingdom of God that has come like Jesus died, resurrection, new creation, Lord ascended to the right hand of the father. Okay, but he's going to say that's all in the all the things that pertain. the emphasis of the gospel, you know,
24:25 and they're going to get into Mcnite here, but the emphasis just, you know, even beyond death and resurrection, which I, you know, I want to talk about 1 Corinthians 15 when we at at a certain point later. Um, but the first thing, let's just say for the sake of argument, if the David Palmans of the world are listening, that Mark is the earliest gospel. I'm not married to that. That could be I don't care. But let's just say for the sake of argu the earliest gospel is Mark. Okay. What is the first thing that Jesus says in the earliest so-called gospel? He says the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel. So there's a gospel
25:13 to repent and believe in that is tied to a kingdom before Jesus died and rose from the dead. That's the first thing he says in the earliest gospel is that about the fulfillment of time and the kingdom of God and repent and believe the gospel and it so I would include the the the stuff about you know the kingdom and Jesus being the king of the kingdom and all of that if in in my description of the gospel. Uh and the reason that's confirmed is of what's most important is the death and resurrection of Jesus is confirmation that that that was the vindication of this message about Jesus as king and king of the kingdom of God that has come. Right. Exactly. And
26:01 if you go and if you go through the book of Acts, you're going to find that the majority of what is mentioned is not so much what he just said about bringing mankind right before God. It's it's actually about Jesus Christ's resurrection and ascension that it and about the kingdom being at hand. So repent now because the king is on the throne. That's like that's kind of the general idea here. And in fact um if you go like so from everywhere from like let's see Acts uh 2 3 4 all these different times uh here's the key themes. All right I have a list of it. Uh Jesus is Lord and Christ. Death and resurrection, fulfillment of prophecy, call to repentance. Uh Jesus servant and holy one. You killed uh that people killed him. God raised him. Repent. Uh
26:47 Jesus crucified and raised. Salvation is no uh is by no one else. I could keep going, but you get the idea. All this is every single time you see how Paul, Peter, Philip, uh Stephen, everyone in the book of Acts actually portrays the gospel, you're going to always hear those key themes. Yeah. And Luke Luke recaps his sequel in Acts with where he ended with with the ascension. Right. Exactly. Which is why it's important here soon because they're also going to start going after other things like some of my pet topics here shortly that this is what the Bible says is this is what the New Testament this is what the apostles proclaimed as the gospel. Cool. All right. They can summarize the gospel in four words. God, man, Christ response. And these four words, they map really
27:32 nicely on to the flow of thought in the book of Romans where Paul starts with the creator and and explains how everyone is accountable to him. And then he moves into how man all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so this is kind of tracking with the Romans road. And then uh Paul moves to the provision that God has made in Christ and the good news that he has conquered sin, overcome it, and triumphed over death. No, actually Paul starts Romans that he's he starts uh he thinks Romans starts on verse 18 apparently. Um but Paul actually gives a summary statement of the gospel and uh the first few verses um the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son who was born of a descendant of David that's king language uh according to the flesh who was declared the son of God in power
28:18 according to the spiritness of holiness by the resurrection of the dead Jesus Christ our lord that is a summary of the gospel now starting in chapter two and he he he He states that later on I think in in 15 what everything he's talking about in Romans. See those verses at the in the prescript is the a summary of the gospel. Everything that he says in the book of Romans is according to my gospel. Right. Right. That's not the gospel. Everything he's talking about justification by faith and and the engrafting of the Gentiles and and all of that. All of that stuff is in accordance with the gospel. It is not identical to the gospel. Right. Right. The gospel is not just God and uh man
29:04 and sin and response. There's something about Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news uh of Jesus Christ that the triune God has been working towards uh since creation. Uh that matters and the king the kingship of Jesus matters here. And they're kind of glossing all over that and they're talking about which is actually there's kind of some irony here too because actually the reformed crowd is pretty much known for lordship salvation. Like a lot of people talk about that as like the lordship or easy belieism. And it's funny because like they were so opposed to this allegiance idea but I'm like it literally goes into that lordship idea that many reformed people are pretty pretty okay with I thought but it's because we have sw but honestly here's here's my take. I think it's because they went from salvation by faith alone to salvation by allegiance alone. And
29:50 just the very thought of changing such a core idea of the of of uh the the verbiage of a key reformed doctrine that was not anywhere in B. Yeah. It it became so I mean I think this is one of those areas of uh where tradition is trumping uh tradition is trumping reality a lot of these individuals. But but but I think it we got to be clear on I I agree with Scott Mcnite when he says the gospels are the gospel. Right. Y now everything that Paul's saying in epistles are in accordance with that gospel. Right. There there are consequences of the gospel. There are operations that fall out from the gospel. But what essentially is the gospel and then what pertains to it? What is in accordance with it? And
30:35 everything that Paul says is in accordance with it. But that doesn't mean it has to be the thing itself. So justification by faith is not the gospel itself. The gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ, king of his kingdom, right? That has come. Repenting in light of the gospel, right? Repent and believe this thing. Repenting is not this thing, right? Your your your your right status is in accordance with that thing. It is not that thing. And that's basically the entire thing. And so nobody's saying anyone misunderstands. So I mean they get these four fellas get a lot wrong in their metaphysics about individual conversion and things like that especially being Calvinists. But so in my opinion I think they're wrong about metaphysics of how an individual
31:22 non-Christian converts to Christian all that stuff. But that's none of that's the gospel. Y exactly. All right, we're going to keep tracking by his resurrection uh paid for our senalties our penalties uh through his death on the cross. And then our necessary response to that is uh to repent and believe this this in this Messiah as our Lord and Savior. And yes, if that's if also you were elect from the foundations of the world. I that's I'm going to talk about that here in a little bit because there's a pastoral point they make and it's like I have a real pet peeve with that. But also everyone knows my thoughts on penal substitution. I'm not going to go down that right now. Maybe later. We'll see. Don't argue with me about it. I don't care about arguing with you. I'll smoke you on that and in the message of what he's done for us. Yeah, Tom. Yeah. You know, if we go back to
32:09 Isaiah where we have the good news being proclaimed to Israel, Israel is in exile. Why? What does Isaiah tell us again and again? They're in exile because of their sins. What is the answer to that? It's the suffering servant, which is who is Jesus Christ himself. And how do you avail yourself of the work of that servant? through repentance and belief. That is the gospel Paul preaches. Jesus begins his ministry by saying, "Repent and believe the good news. He is the one who has come as the son of man, the servant of the Lord to die for the sins of his people and to redeem them as they put their faith and trust in him." See, he he almost gets it. It's like he begins his ministry. Yes. And it doesn't and at the beginning of his ministry is is repent and believe. It it doesn't quite get to all of that stuff that he's
32:54 talking about. Everything that Paul says is in accordance with the gospel that Jesus preached before the death and resurrection and the gospel includes the death and resurrection as evidence that as vindication of the gospel. So it's like the totality of Jesus is the gospel and repenting and believing and being saved and regenerated you know and being filled with the Holy Spirit and sanctified are consequences of the gospel but they are not identical to the gospel. Right. Agreed. So he's almost there, but then he misses it then. Then yeah, just all right, we're going to keep moving here. And then there is an order of salvation revealed in scripture. And you know, quite honestly, it's the order
33:40 of salvation the reformers particularly clarified in theological controversy. And we don't believe they invented it. We believe they they in one sense rediscovered it in the scriptures and then reaffirmed it. And they rediscovered it, Jonathan. I thought it was discover it means it was gone. It was, but it was lost. How dare you assume it was lost. That's so funny. Like also the order saluted this whole device in the I mean in the foot. It's Anyway, it's so funny because also like Yeah. The order of salvation according to whom? Like you mean just John Kelvin and maybe Augustine Topps? uh like and even Augustine wouldn't I don't think go as far as Kelvin did in some of these things or Martin Luther. So it's just
34:26 it's so funny that they just have this obviously very narrow view of this like but let's keep talking. They're going to get into their order. Salute us here in a minute. Let's let them have their moment and then we'll just go ahead and or at least I'm going to pull out the flamethrower. So all right and um it is it is a simple to understand structure, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that this order of salvation is laid out for us nicely in Romans 8 when Paul speaks about about uh those whom God forneew he also predestined to be conformed and those whom he predestined he also called and those whom he called he also justified. Those whom he justified he also glorified. And of course there are some necessary components in there. Those who are called must respond in repentance and faith. And if you're chosen and I think that naturally leads to the idea that there is a power of God to call just like he can call creation into existence. He can speak light into our
35:12 hearts and open blind eyes and give life to dead people so that they see and believe in he can do it but he just chooses not to for multiple people in Christ Steve. All right. So, uh, Order Salutus, what do what is your take on that, my friend? Because I know we did a Roman study on Biblical Roads Gallery. You can go to the Trinity Radio. You could go watch our entire study through it. I was like there throughout the first half and then we had a baby and stuff. So, uh, I was not much present in the second half. But, but that whole like idea of the what is it the golden chain of redemption. So the uh Bates actually presents it as basically all happening at once that this is just the stuff that comes with uh faith in Christ. What would be your take? Uh my take is that why do we know
35:58 all things work together for good for those who love God according to you know why? Oh because the people that God knew prior to the time of Paul's writing were also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So that Christ himself would be the firstborn among the many brothers. Right. right? The preeminent one. Uh so what he's saying is there are people prior to the time of Paul's writing that God knew that were also a part of this redemptive program corporately by the way. Um those you know predest fashioned to change the language and they lose it all. Right. Uh you could say we're we're were fashioned to become the icon of the sun. Right. Right. this this shaping and that's why
36:44 you know that those called according to purpose uh when he talks about in Isaac your son your seed shall be named right you notice it in Romans nine the very next chapter he he he he he gives a historical account right uh from um the the patriarchs to the prophets um to the exile right I mean the exodus and then the exile so you got patriarchs exodus exile right and notice that Jesus is the preeminent one in Romans 8. And so it's secondborn patriarchs almost ex almost almost entirely if you read Kings and Chronicles uh and the genealogies. It's it's usually the second born, you know, or or not even the second born. David wasn't even the second born, right? So
37:31 it wasn't the firstborn. So I mean Paul's just making historical claims here. Uh it's not really but what they want to see is like the forno predestined call, justified, glorified. What they want to see is they want to see an ordo of individual conversions from non-Christianity to Christianity rather than those who are caught up as Christians um part of this Christ centered program of redemption, right? And we can know that all things work together for the good of those who love him, those called according to his purpose because it's been this way since prior to now, you know, right? And also program, the sweeping program of redemption all since, you know, Abraham. But I mean, even that like what Chris
38:16 Barrett says here in the comments, why does it matter that these to these guys other people get the gospel wrong when they believe most people can't get it right anyway? And that's actually kind of one of my things where it's like that's why I believe that kel like a Calvinist worldview cannot be lived within consistently because of this very sort of thing where I cannot consistently consistently live within my worldview because every time I object to reality I have to remember that that's the way they were not only predestined to be and agreed to be but also that's their nature to be. So I can't really complain about it because it's just things are happening beyond my uh preferences and control anyway. And yeah, so I agree with like um Joel Kurico and Leighton Flowers who who who take this view. Of course, we can quibble all day long about how to phrase um does God work together with
39:03 those who love him to bring about good? There's all different ways that you could construct that and there's a variant in the text and whatever with Romans 8, but I generally side with with their take on it. Um it is it super important? No. But uh and you can go watch the Romans uh biblical rogues gallery on on that passage at the Trinity Radio playlist for biblical rogues gallery. Um but I I don't think that this is giving us like an individual ordo saludas for converting from non-Christianity to Christianity. Um I think that's probably the least likely take. Yep. And this agreed. And this is about to get a lot more saucy here in a second too. So do we want to keep moving? Yeah. Okay. Okay. In order to describe this gospel rightly, uh we have used and do use language such as
39:50 imputation um of of substitution, even blood atonement. You know, are those negotiable terms or are those central to the gospel itself? Well, I would say they're central to the gospel because behind them, why do we need imputation? Why do we need blood atonement? Is because of who God is. He is holy and just. He is our creator and lord. Uh in Adam, we have fallen. We have sinned. We stand under his righteous judgment. We need a right standing before God. We we cannot come into his presence apart from uh the forgiveness of our sins, justification, a perfect righteousness. That's imputation. We need a substitution. We need Christ to pay for our sin to stand in our behalf. Without that, we have no good news. We have no relationship with God. We have no overcoming sins. We're dead in our sins.
40:35 So to to minimize any of those truths of substitution imputation justification uh we have no gospel. No. No. So no gospel without imputation. Yeah. So so the gospel was lost because the Catholics have been teaching infused righteousness instead of imputation of Christ's righteousness. Um well not only that but they so they equate imputation and substitution. So it's like so if you disagree with a substitutionary view of what Christ's work or if you disagree with the imputation work you suddenly don't have the gospel which is absolutely wild to me. Well I believe in like okay so justification is one of the things they mentioned now we can all differ on what justification means but nobody thinks that that's not central or
41:22 negotiable term. It's negotiable definitions depending on who you're talking to. And I think the Catholics and the reformers are both wrong on on infused versus uh imputation. Um, and I I'm not quite ready to settle on the incorporated righteousness camp either, but but I I I think the terms are non-negotiable uh at least with respect to justification or even a atonement I guess u however you want to define that. But it's how you define these things like but as far as imputation I mean sure Romans 6 gives us imputation of death and resurrection but nowhere does it give us the what they mean by imputation which is of course the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer as a legal fiction is is
42:10 even their language I say God pretending you're Jesus even though he knows you're not. That's a very straw man is a caricature but some views deserve one. So um yeah it well this is why I I don't take I don't take an imputation approach. I take a representational approach and I think that we are because we are in Christ we are adopted as part of his family. So now I'm part I am a child of the king quite literally because we're back to the king language. So if we're adopted into that group and that's why that sociological thing you talked about is important because they believed in kinship groups and they believed in honor shame culture. There's all sorts of things like that. So when we are adopted into him and it says the right we have the righteousness of Christ. When it talks about that it's because I am now his child and I am an heir to
42:56 that kingdom as the king. Right. So anyway uh it's almost like people don't read their Bibles sometimes. It's just funny especially the sol scriptura crowd which is ironic of course. Wow. 43 minutes and they're like what seven minutes into the video. I know we might have to we might have to I have some key moments that we can fast forward to if we have to. So, okay. Um, but yeah. All right, we'll keep trucking. Tom, so what is the order of salvation revealed in the scriptures? The ordo salutus. H how is it that salvation god-saving work uh is appropriated by a sinner? How does that happen? According to this Well, in terms of uh in terms of the order, I would say picking up on what Jim has said, we have we have election. God
43:42 elects us before the foundation of the world. I think it's very clear in Ephesians 1, Romans 9, that this election is unconditional. That election creates faith. It grants us faith. So we appropriate, right? We appro we we do believe we appropriate the salvation by faith as we believe. But we think the order of salvation is such that God God grants us that faith. Even the text that Jim uh mentioned, those those who are called are justified. That can't mean those who are invited to be saved are justified because we know Romans 5:1, you're justified by faith. Right. Right. So the calling has to create faith. All those calling there Romans 8 means means the calling there means named just like
44:28 it does in Romans chapter nine. It's naming or designation. And it doesn't even mean Paul's use of the claim language doesn't you know mean like this idea of inviting or summoned to which you can further delineate between a general and the in a like the general call and the the uh special call or whatever. A good example of this is like if you're talking about that that that form of calling is uh I am a youth pastor and that means there are times I call the children I call the students up to worship and have the lesson. Yeah but that's not what I know I know but let me get my example out and some of them respond and some of them I have to go down there and force them. Okay. Some of them don't respond but anyway as you're saying it's dealing with naming
45:15 language. So yeah name designate. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, William Klene, uh, has a article that you can find just online without having to like join a a journal subscription uh, on that that people might want to look up. And if somebody has a link to that uh, to Klein's article, Paul's use of uh, Colleen, that that'd be good. Okay, we're going to keep tracking. So the calling, the calling is an effectual call. It's a calling that creates faith. So let me ask you all three of you, is it plausible, let's just ask this honestly. Is it plausible that the Christian church has misconstrued the gospel for
46:00 2,000 or so years? Is he's saying, let's ask it honestly while he literally frames it dishonestly. But anyway, we're going to keep moving. Is it is it plausible that that's so? It's not plausible. I mean, if they've misconstrued the gospel, we have really no true saving faith, no relationship with God. I mean, the gospel is and haven't had for haven't had for 2,000 years. And and and Christians throughout the ages in our already backed with our credle confession or confessing rightly who God is, confessing rightly who the Savior is, rightly confessing his work, how we then receive salvation, forgiveness of sins. Think of all the way back to the apostles creed, the forgiveness of sins. That involves justification and our right standing before God. There have been through the history of the church uh muddying with obviously the Roman Catholic debate and Protestant debate. Yet in even in all of that there's clarity that's come in the reformation with justification,
46:46 salvation by grace through faith in all these areas. Yeah. I think to to to suggest that that that for 2,000 years we've been not quite right that really manifests chronological snobbery. It really assumes that ancient people were stupid and that we have finally come along and we've not Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Our grandparents can be wrong. Just saying. And it it would say something ultimately about God himself, right? That God has disclosed a gospel that we haven't understood for 2,000 years. That is so implausible and and unlikely. God God's revelation is Stop it. I'm sorry, folks. I know. But look, they're they're accusing Bates of chronological snobbery. Uh but which they they have to when they opened it up, we pointed it out. You know, the church fathers. Yeah. I mean,
47:33 they were Christian, too. Come on. But I mean really it was the reformation. So for 1500 years the petristics barely saved I guess didn't really know what to articul articulate you know just stuff about Christologology that doesn't matter to them apparently it's not important but um yeah they knew what they believed so they have the same chronological snobbery. You just can't have it um since Luther, right? Um probably even more Mealen or Calvin really for them. Yeah. Well, that's where the like again so so chronological is fine until you get to Cal. Right. Exactly. And then they suddenly they disagree with a ton of the early church
48:18 uh on a number of issues because of their own tradition and creed. So it it is funny and it's also worth noting that like why is scholarly re-examination so unwelcome in this group? Like that's one of the things I want to know. Like especially when it's seeking greater biblical fidelity like these Bates is just trying to get down to a little bit more of a deeper meaning. And by the way, remember they don't like that the wording, but I have salvation by allegiance alone right here. And I just wanted to quickly read this one one part from first Mcabes where we see the word pistus actually used in the form of allegiance. Uh this is first Mcabes 10:25-27. King uh Demetrius to the nation of the Jews, greetings. Since you have kept your agreement with us and have continued your friendship with us and
49:04 have not sided with our enemies, we have heard of it and rejoiced. Now continue still to keep faith with us and we will repay you with good for what you do for us. So keep faith does that mean just like just keep believing? Just keep believing we exist. No, he's talking about their fidelity and their allegiance. So they don't like it, but he actually has citations in his work that prove that faith clearly means also faithful. That's an example from second temple literature, but I mean if you go to the context group, they're going to they're going to marshall all of the examples uh from like the broader Greco Roman writings, right? Well, and I'm that's just one example in his book that he goes through multiple parts. you can find it uh in in just that cultural
49:51 maleu of whether it's second temple Jewish literature or just a broader Greek Roman literature. Well, we weing that because part of the problem is if you don't take a close enough look and you start with your native language and then you read how other people might have translated, read it back. It's same thing with grace that we talk about in the biblical rogues gallery all the time. But when you go back to the sources and pay much attent a lot more attention without your ideas and see what how they're using these words, you come away with an understanding that maybe our English words, even if they did once, no longer really encapsulate. And we've kind of added a lot of theological, you know, James Bar talks about this, adding a lot of theological baggage and freight to to to words that weren't carrying them at the New
50:37 Testament documents. And it's it's very likely as as we understand grace now's socioeconomics of of patron client reciprocity and benefaction. It's it's it's likely you go re-examine the same text where we can I mean we all have the lobe library or or whatever we can or the uh what is it the Pegasus library I think is freely available to everybody. You can go do word searches through all of that Greco Roman literature and start going back to those original contexts and see how these words were actually being used and did it really mean like just mental belief or was there something more to it there and the context group has been saying yeah this is a trust or fidelity uh which I or loyalty I like those words just as much as allegiance allegiance is one good word out of several and we know this
51:23 instinctively with faith itself as the noun because when You say um you have faith in your wife. I was about to bring that example up. Right. Yeah. You don't mean I believe she exists and it's true. I think Callie exists and I think Misty exists by the way. Right. So we don't we know instinctively that that. So I think the trouble actually comes up in the verbal form that that that and Thomas Tron will talk about this later. So I'll just save that for when we get there. All right, let's go. It's a revelation that communicates that's been effective right in the course of the last century or so and in a particular trajectory of English speaking theology English speaking biblical studies there's been
52:10 the uh there's been the rise of an attempt to offer an alternative reading of historic texts there there there's there's been even a an effort to try to say look you look at the Protestant Reformation you look at the Catholic Church and the Council of Trent this is all based at least in part on either a misunderstanding or a com and I won't say common but on both sides a misconr of the issues and I don't think it's an accident that this has arisen largely in English speaking theology because it it kind of fits a trajectory here but now we arrive at a recent book published um that's arrived on the scene the author is Matthew Wait who's now at Northern Baptist to Theological Seminary the title is Beyond the Salvation Wars: Why both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine how we are saved. Now, I want to say right up front, I find that implausible. And I I say that as as a as
52:58 a churchman, as a theologian, someone committed to history and historical theologies, it's implausible to me uh that Protestants and Catholics um are having a false argument on a false misapprehension or a false uh understanding of the gospel. Um but this has been going on for some time. We have intright and a number of others who it's plausible that the reformers were right and the Catholics needed to reimagine what they thought like the Protestants reimagined it 500 years ago. But it's not possible that the Protestants have to might have to reimagine a few things right and the Catholics because we agree that they're they get some things wrong too. I mean, I I have my quibbles with with Catholics, how they hash all this stuff out just as much as I do with the
53:44 Protestant reformers and how they hashed it out. But he would concede that the Protestants thought it was important to reimagine how we were saved. Not not not, oh, we got reimagine is actually a very good word. Let's rethink the way that we talk about this. It's not nobody ever got saved prior to today and here I'm finally going to fix that's not what Bates is doing. But he has to concede that that that the Protestants thought it was important to reimagine the way we speak about it because the Catholics are wrong. And the Catholics in their counterreformation efforts were saying no, you need to imagine it the way that we have been doing for a few centuries. I'm not going
54:29 to say since the beginning because that's not true either, right? Sorry Catholics, but Oops. Yeah. Uh but yeah, so I do I do not understand this approach that they're making as if it's so implausible that maybe the reformers didn't really reimagine it enough. So, right. So, I'm going to just uh jump to some key moments. I think that'll be helpful. That way, we could just keep some decent timing going on because there are I mean, we could be here. We This would actually probably be like a six hour stream if we want to say everything because they just keep saying so many absurd things, right? When you're wrong this much, sometimes you do have to spend six hours untangling. Well, just like Yeah. Whenever you're doing like journal articles or responding to things, uh, sometimes you're like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much wrong here now. It's going to be so
55:14 much harder and longer to just correct this." Yeah. So, all right, let's keep moving. Behind that are other historical issues. When I read Tom Wright, when I read Matthew Bates, we have u a whole rethinking of the doctrine of God, right? We have a whole redefinition of divine justice. We have a definition redefinition of the atoning work of Christ which are trends that you see uh prior to the reformation but post-reformation era where uh you had the Sinians arise and redefine all of these issues. You had the Armenian debates where quickly they left Arminius and went to governmental theories of the cross. They redefined uh these matters of penal substitution. That's what's really going on in this book. So that there's no amputation. There's no need for active obedience. there's no need for penal substitution. There's well
56:00 those are old debates uh that have gone on and they all absolutely postreformation debate. So it's tapping into new perspective but I've been convinced for a while that the new perspective behind that has been really a retinkering with the doctrine of God. Yeah. Which by the way he never demonstrates how it's a rethinking of the doctrine of God when I was listening to this I kept going what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? And he never does do that. He says redefining how we view God's justice. If by redefining God's justice you mean that God we don't believe in uh individual election or regeneration preceding faith then sure if you mean by that also that God you believe that God has to actually pour his wrath out and punish his son in the place of sinners then also yeah I could reject that because Ezekiel 18 and other places absolutely reject penal substitution as re defined especially by the reformers sorry right well that's
56:46 that PSA which I affirm entright's view of it so a form of it. So, the redefinition of it, that's not it. Got it. Okay. Um, but the the justice, I don't know about the whole doctrine of God, but as far as what they mean by justice is if you reject imputation, what they mean here is that you are rejecting the idea that God's standard to let you into heaven is is is sinlessness. And I I I reject that, too. See, see, because that's why the MC God has to pretend you're Jesus. so he can let you into heaven and God had to pretend Jesus was you on the cross so that your sins could be for and I don't think that that's biblical. Um so that's what they
57:35 mean by redefining God's justice. What they mean is God's justice is if you commit one sin you are never able to be welcomed into heaven or the new heavens and earth. Uh so you have to have God pretend you're Jesus with by imputing Jesus is you know Jesus is active and passive. He's talking about uh passive and active obedience there. U Jesus saves up all this money in the bank and then he puts it into your account kind of thing. He and God pretends that that was your your your works your so so they have a it's salvation by works of the law of Torah that Jesus fulfilled it's just by proxy
58:20 it's not it's not your works of the law it's salvation by Jesus's works of the law even though justification is not by works of the law according to Paul but okay you know and so yeah if you want to say it's redefining God's justice uh sure because maybe you got that wrong that you can that that God doesn't have to pre pretend, you know, in order to let you into the kingdom of God. He he'll just let those who are sanctified uh who are justified and being sanctified, right? And what's also kind of funny is that there's kind of this implicit uh thing they're saying here, which is basically like this is just repackaged old heresies almost like well is this beforehand and then these other guys tried to do it too. Uh but um this is just what because other people did it and perhaps they were heretics but this
59:05 is just guilt by association essentially as well. Uh again poisoning the well is a thing they do throughout this entire thing. This is why it's very pearl clutchy. I feel like when everyone's anyone's clutching pearls is just it's just poison the well half the time. Um but Bates is actually building on uh like trying to do solid biblical exogesis and not just a historical reaction uh based on his own tradition. So I again these guys are just these aren't serious people. All right, we're just going to keep moving. Well, I mean they're serious about their the I think they mean well. They they do mean well, but I'm just saying their their thinking it isn't serious thinking. I'll show you where they're not being ser Well, they're not serious with their framing device. They're not being serious people with with with that stuff. So yeah, I mean in that sense,
59:51 but I I don't want to be too mean, but I I will be mean when when appropriate. I think they they seriously think this is a problem, but they don't recognize that uh they are the Matthew Bates of 500 years ago, right? And if it was okay then, it's okay now. And I think that they're wrong about this stuff about amputation and legal fictions. And of course, there there is an irony as well to me that Al Mohler is the one who said that mankind doesn't know what good is. So how he makes a moral argument for God or or or anything like that is is nothing short of astounding to me. But if we don't know what good is then uh here we are. So uh when he's Al Al Mohler is a historical theologian
1:00:36 uh that's where his his specialty is. Right. And he wrote a book uh on the Apostles Creed that I received for free. Just full disclaimer. um uh but I didn't read it because the you can't judge a book by its cover but you can judge a book by its bibliography and it's about the apostles creed and I opened up to the bibliography and found almost nothing primary source from the early church fathers and said okay this I'm not going to read this because it'd be a complete waste of time right um and I know Michael Bird wrote a book about the Apostles Creed around the same time I haven't seen it yet maybe Nick will uh give it to me but if it doesn't have like a a bunch of early early church father stuff, you know, direct direct citation and engagement with the early
1:01:22 church fathers on that. Why read it? Why why just say, well, the reformers thought that this was a good because there's a lot of reformed uh and he did I think there was a quote from Augustine and Aquinus in there. I think he's like, well, these people affirmed it and all these reformers affirm it. So it this creed is okay is kind of the impression you get when you don't do serious engagement as a historical theologian with the theologians at the time that well who apparently weren't clear about a lot of things. This is why even even now my my audience is going to roast me but uh this is why even in my own book I had a committed chapter that was just basically quoting early church fathers and then like discussing what they said and that's because I didn't want people to think I was making stuff up when I was saying making certain claims throughout the book. And that's really important I think uh in these world in
1:02:08 these areas to read primary sources to understand what the primary sources are saying what they're getting at uh and not to just go by what somebody else says the primary source says because I have found many many many people do that and they don't do a good job. So right this why I like David D Silva and this why I like the context group scholars why I like Kenir and Witherington because what they will give you in the bibliography is a glut of ancient sources rather than just a glut of contemporary scholarship from the 1800s to now. Bingo late 1800s to now. So that's for those of you you want to know if a Christian theology or or commentary is worth reading. see how much they site and engage with uh primary sources from the ancient world rather than modern
1:02:55 scholarship. If it's not if it's
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