CHRIS LARSON: 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 a 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?” R.C. SPROUL: Come on, Anthony. ANTHONY CARTER: How did I know you were going
to say that? SPROUL: Cause you know me! CARTER: Yes I do. SPROUL: You’re not just a pretty face. You’re
supposed to be up here answering questions. CARTER: 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 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 it our heart and somehow He finds
His fulfillment in us. SPROUL: Thank you. LARSON: “Would one of you address the difference
between justified through faith, and salvation by grace?” SPROUL: Can you say that again? LARSON: “The difference between being justified
through faith, and salvation by grace?” CARSON: Go ahead R.C. SPROUL: 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 word. We were being saved. We are saved. We’re 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. LARSON: “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.” SPROUL: You can what? STEVE LAWSON: You can take a shot at it too. SPROUL: Oh, good. I won’t need to if you
do it right. LAWSON: 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 one plus
one equals two, 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. SPROUL JR.: Dr. SPROUL? SPROUL: Well, I agree. The point is, is that
all truth is God's truth. He reveals Himself in the 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 law. 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 used as his metaphor, is the analogy, he says, 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 in 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. LAWSON: Thank you, Sir. LARSON: 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?” R.C. SPROUL JR.: 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? So, 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 – or if there's
an amillennialist and a post-millenialist and a pre-millenialist 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 on 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 of sin-problem,
not a God-problem, not a revelation-problem and Jesus came to solve the sin problem. SPROUL: 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 all 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. LARSON: “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? SPROUL: Reign of terror in Geneva? Wow! ALISTAIR BEGG: You tell them that the best
of men are men at best. Everyone has clay feet. They were fallen guys. They were regenerate,
but they didn’t get it all. That’s true in every generation. CARSON: 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. SPROUL JR.: I want to always encourage people
to look at the – 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, 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. SPROUL: I have to speak up in defense of Luther
and Calvin, though. That Luther earlier in his life wrote a significant essay in defense
of the Jews in which he said the Christian 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 I don't think he was as temperate that 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 exercised his tyranny in Geneva because
he was responsible for the execution of Servetus, where Servetus was burned at the stake. 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 offence 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 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 a 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
get him – and was lighting the match to burn him at the stake, which is what the enemies
of Calvin charge him with. And that’s ridiculous. Calvin wasn’t even a citizen of Geneva.
He was exiled from Geneva. If you want add 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, boy has he had a bad rap.
But anyway, I’ve said that to defend my guys. LARSON: “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 JR.: 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 9. And the Holy Spirit’s answer is “Who are you, O man?” LARSON: “Are all Roman Catholics going to
hell?” SPROUL: 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 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 sixteenth century Reformation with the advent of what
was called the “telohi nuvel” – the new theology, that blossomed in the western
wing of the church particularly in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as
across the 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 the new pope and
new speculations. Well, it’s time for a South America pope, it’s time for an African
pope, it’s time for United States pope. And all of this conflict between the two wings
is going to show up. My guess is it’ll be an Italian pope because of this split. But
you'll 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. It’s where the prelates
and 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, and Denzinger’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. LARSON: “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 the
account, of this giving an account?” BEGG: Well, we’re going to be giving 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 an 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 mean when I – 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 up in 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, so. SPROUL JR.: I don’t disagree with anything
that was said, all but I will 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. You 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
done. 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. SPROUL: In our – 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’s
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 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 – has 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 are, again, what Augustine called “splendid vices” – that there's a pound
of flesh in every one of our good works that we 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. Jr. said. LARSON: “How do I speak the truth to my
child, a professing believer, who is living in a homosexual lifestyle?” SPROUL: Very carefully. SPROUL Jr.: If it were me, I think the first
thing that I would want to do is recognize 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 Scriptures specifically says, that they’re not a believer.
Then this person’s 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 I Corinthians 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 sins, specifically in that text, sexual sin,
the text tells us we’re to have nothing to do with them. SPROUL: 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 to chastity. Just as a
heterosexually oriented person is called to 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 housetop “It's OK, it's
OK, it's OK, it's OK,” 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. BEGG: I mean it’s – that’s a tough question
at the level of family life and church life and interpersonal relationships, and, you
know, all that’s 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, we are 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. LARSON: “As a pastor of a church that seems
more interested in church growth and 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.” BEGG: This is the pastor that’s asking the
question? LARSON: As pastor of a church. BEGG: Well, how is it like that if he's the
pastor of the church? Who made all those decisions? SPROUL: JR.: Some of us are Presbyterian,
Alistair. BEGG: Well, confession is good for the soul.
No, no, I don’t want to take the fellow on, but I mean, if – 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. You know, how did it get like
this? Were you asleep? Did you go on vacation and they changed everything while you are
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’ll get it, you know, you won’t let them do that. LARSON: Dr. Lawson, Dr. Lawson you are 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 – I realized, 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 cokes
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
wine skin 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 in, 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. LARSON: Thank you. “Should baptism, infant
baptism, believer’s baptism be a reason to impede fellowship?” SPROUL JR.: No. LARSON: Could you expand on that? SPROUL: JR.: Well, fellowship is something
that is enjoyed among all the saints, and Baptists are saints too. BEGG: What is the question? Is the question
if 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 paedo-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 became – 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,
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 – SPROUL: Not necessarily. They’re not denying
fellowship; they’re denying offices in the church. For example, in our church – BEGG: OK. Yeah, but I’m – SPROUL: 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 presbytery 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 won’t let me join, unless I get baptized as an adult.
Isn’t that right? BEGG: 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. SPROUL: No, not to the fellowship though.
I can have the fellowship – BEGG: 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,
those – 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, R.C., would I let you, then, with all your crazy views 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 to seem to be true in coming, for example, to St. Andrews. SPROUL: Right. OK. We still have fellowship
though, don’t we? We don’t break fellowship over that issue. BEGG: No. No. SPROUL: Oh, OK. SPROUL JR.: 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. BEGG: Well, here, listen. Here – Marvin
Barter was the general manager of the Banner of Truth, OK? 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. SPROUL JR.: 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 Presbyterian view of baptism. So there’s a – if fellowship means being
able to teach and being able to be – 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. BEGG: 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 paedo-baptism before having dinner together or he’s talking with
everyone.” But I don't expect him to undermine the shared view of the leadership of the church,
and if you were going to do that then that would be bad form no matter what it was. SPROUL JR.: Amen. SPROUL: We agree with that. LARSON: Last question. “What is your view
of what heaven in the new earth will be like?” BEGG: Scotland. LARSON: Scotland. SPROUL: Does that mean you’re an ex-patriot
of the kingdom of heaven? CARSON: I was thinking more in terms of Augusta
National, because I know I’d have to die in order to get there. BEGG: That’s funny. That’s good. CARSON: 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 it’s wonderful,
it’s 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
the comparison to what the Lord has in store for those who love Him. LARSON: Let’s thank our speakers. Thank
you gentlemen so much. Thank you so much.
