Duncan, MacArthur, and Sproul: Questions and Answers #2

first of all the term Herot heretic or heresy is used in two distinct ways historically on the one hand the term heresy is a somewhat benign term to describe any departure at any point from classical orthodoxy in other words a theological error as small and insignificant as it may be can be called a heresy but the general use of the term historically is to describe errors that are so serious and so severe that they cut at the very heart of the Christian faith like the heresy of Arianism that denied the full deity of Christ or the denial of the Trinity those are heresies upon which the whole structure of the Christian faith is determined now in the history of the debate of understanding the genre of the opening chapters of Genesis people who were profoundly committed to biblical orthodoxy and even to the inerrancy of the Bible have differed over the intent of the author in Genesis to describe the timeframe of creation so if somebody did not embrace a strict 24 hour day view of creation I may disagree with them I may think that they're in error but I would be very reticent to call them a heretic Thank You dr. MacArthur you gave us two scriptures that popped out to me the natural man cannot get to God in his unaided condition and then in acts God now commands all men everywhere to repent so does that mean God would help everyone to repent since he commands it even though the question you're asking is why would God command all men everywhere to repent if they can't unless he unless he helps aids them the answer to the question is I don't know why he chose to do it that way but that is the way it is so not everybody can everyone and everyone is held culpable and guilty for not repenting everyone is culpable for his own sin guilty before God for his own sins like in second Thessalonians passage God will deal out when Christ returns retribution to those who know not God and believe not the gospel this is the great ultimate question that you come to in the doctrines of grace is personal moral responsibility and the sovereignty of God however those two things come together clearly they are taught in Scripture clearly they are both taught in Scripture what you want to avoid is some kind of middle ground that that assaults both of those things but that's for God to fully resolve in his in his own mind all men are sinners all men are culpable all men are guilty all men are commanded to repent all men are in disobedience and violation of that command yet at the same time they are unable to respond apart from the intervening sovereign grace of God that is what the Bible teaches the resolution of that is I think clear to the mind of God but but difficult for us to understand I'd like to add to that that the very term responsibility carries within it the eye eeeh of the ability to respond and that said it's a normal thing to draw the inference that if God commands somebody to do something the implication is they must have the ability to do it without some kind of supernatural intervention I might add that that's exactly the logic that was used by the arch heretic Pelagius when he says you know the Bible says be perfect even as your heavenly Father is praised even it God commands you to be perfect you must have the ability to be perfect and so he rejected the idea that grace is at all necessary for anybody to do the will of God and and that's because of texts like the very one that says you've got to be very very careful of a rush to judgment and concluding that because God holds you responsible for something that therefore you can do it I like to use this illustration to describe the situation at the time of the fall God comes to a Adam and said look you're responsible to dress and keep until the ground here and make sure that this garden is well taken care of however there's this big ditch over here and you've got to stay out of that ditch because if you go into that pit okay you're not gonna be able to fulfill your obligations that I've imposed upon you do you understand that now it says sure soon as God leaves the garden Adam goes over and jumps in the pit God comes back and sees the mess there in the garden he says hey Adam where are you he's I'm in the pit well why didn't you take care of the garden like I told you to know how do you expect me to take care of the garden when I'm in this pit and I can't get out of the pit by myself that's our condition as fallen people we are dead in sin but we're responsible for being dead in sin we are unable to respond to God apart from the intervention of the Holy Spirit but we are still that's no excuse for not giving the response does that help almost I would that you were not almost but altogether convinced the this this question is a good question it comes up repeatedly not only from the time of Peleus it came up with a Wesley's but this was one of the John Wesley's arguments against Calvinism and Luther's little book the bondage of the will which I'm sure is in the bookstore is all about this question and don't think that you won't be able to understand it you'll be able to understand it perfectly if you pick up the book the whole book is devoted to answering this question my my question is distilling is that grace available to everyone and God's help to be saved you mean regenerative grace mm-hmm no okay you know that's what that's what the whole point is that God is not obligated to give saving grace to anybody and he sovereignly determines to be to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and that is his prerogative when Paul deals with this doctrine in Romans and he's anticipating the objections that people raise you know like that's not fair God is not being righteous by not giving everybody the same amount of grace God's not an equal opportunity Redeemer how can that be and then he has to remind them what God told him through Moses I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy God owes me no grace whatsoever that's the whole doctrine of election and not sure the other thing to remember is in Romans 9 if if Paul were teaching a doctrine of prevenient grace to everyone you couldn't get the objection which is raised against his teaching in Romans 9 which lets you know that's not what he's teaching in Romans 9 right okay I'm gonna ask a question for the ligand Duncan because nobody asks you questions and I'm I'm the dumb went up here you know so I give you give you room to speak well what happened I went out to California to visit a brother of mine and I know he's were struggling with some issues with the doctrines of grace and then soon as God illuminated it did to him about being dead in trespasses and sins it was like BAM you know he understood and but the problem was is that he's his marriage and his you know in-laws everybody goes to this fellowship and they all embrace everything contrary to that I actually they're really influenced by Dave Hunt and the brain call and all that and he wrote a book called what love is this and anyways I had a conversation with some of his family and you know basically saying that it you know it's blasphemous doctrine of demons and and this and that and I didn't purpose to go there to debate them on on doctrine and I I know that that's something God can only illuminate so even if I can explain it to a tee it's not gonna do anything good but my question is is that in an application if people are robbing our people robbing God of his glory and thinking that a wicked man can choose a righteous God and if would say I'm in a church setting like this and one of my brother's is an Arminian am i tolerating a false gospel and is that a fellowship breaker you know is that something I not to say that I would you know bash him because he doesn't believe the doctrines of grace but that it potentially leads people astray into thinking that they can choose God they can do this and go these steps and and they you know say the sinner's prayer and this and that and I know overall God is sovereign but when it comes down to the gospel and making your stance for regeneration and for the doctrines of grace how far are we willing to go and make that stand and where should our stance be when it comes to people preaching a false gospel should we tolerate it and I'm trying to understand as far as how to make this application within even the body of believers and you know because you know we should fellowship we should be a body but I'm just I just need a little bit of clarity on that and for my friend as well yeah that's it's a complex question I will say this I think John and RC and I are all in the same situation with regard to our local fellowships if you heard John answer the question last night about a church statement of faith and saying not you didn't have something that everybody had to say that they believed but you had a statement where you said this is what we teach RC and I are in the same situation as well our officers have to say yes we embrace the doctrines of grace you can't be officers in our church but our members have a much briefer statement of faith that they affirm and I probably do you use the five questions of membership that are traditional traditionally Presbyterians do not require every church member to affirm the Westminster Confession of faith or reformed theology or the doctrines of grace our church members have to affirm basically three things one they have to acknowledge themselves to be sinners in the sight of God justly deserving his displeasure and without hope except in his sovereign mercy two that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners and that they receive and rest on him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel and three that they will endeavor to live as becomes followers of the Lord Jesus Christ in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit and if you could affirm those three things you can be a member in good standing of RC Sproles church or my church and I'm sure something in equivalent in John's church at Grace Community but if a person is going to come in and agitate against the teaching of the church which we are upfront about is going to be in a court just like John has what we teach we are upfront about the Westminster Confession of faith that's what's going to be taught then obviously that person is going to be disturbing the purity and peace of the church and so the actually the the fifth vow is do you submit yourself to the government discipline of the church and promise to strive for its purity in peace so if you had someone in our myths that was agitating against the doctrines of grace they'd be breaking the the peace of the church so can people that struggle with the doctrines of grace be a part of a fellowship where the doctrines of grace are belief yes but not if they're inveighing against it and arguing against and certainly if they're calling it blasphemy and unbiblical like you would get out of the Dave hunt crowd was just a gross distortion of anything that remotely resembles historic Calvinistic belief I mean if you want to find out what Calvinists believe do not pick up what love is this you won't find anything out about galvanism in that book pick up a book that's written by a Calvinist if you want to find out a what Calvinism believes so can-can reformed believers and brothers that are still struggling with our minion beliefs get along sure they can and and how should how should reform believers relate to there are many and brothers wheat we ought to show the fruits of the spirit that we ought to adorn our doctrine with a life of service and love and grace and we ought to seek to serve those brothers and sisters in humility but should we equivocate on our doctrinal beliefs absolutely not we ought to be crystal clear grace and truth together in the way that we relate to others I'd have to say to that historically that the debate between reformed theology and Arminianism has always been understood at least by the reformed group as an intramural debate among genuine Christians it's not a debate over which you break fellowship however you get extreme forms of arminianism which may even reflect the logical consistency where you get to open theism where there your historic Orthodox doctrine of God is clearly under attack I would I would say that the open theism is a grounds for breaking fellowship but it's not your garden-variety are many in it thank you oh my question is on Romans 10:9 that says if you confess that Jesus is lower than you'll be saying since Lord has to do with complete sovereignty I was wondering if you thought that our minion could be safe no bro all of it and also I would say yes again arminianism historically believes in the doctrine of justification by faith alone and and in the essential truths of the Christian faith of the lordship of Jesus the atonement of Christ the deity of Christ all of those things they believe in now if I ask an Arminian why that person believes and their neighbor doesn't believe and I say to them is the reason you believe in your neighbor doesn't believe is because you exercised faith which was the right response and your neighbor made a sinful response so that the reason why you're saved and your neighbor isn't is because you did the good thing and they did the bad thing now when you ask an Arminian something like that they'll say no no no no I don't want to believe that I'm saved on the basis of my good deed now they should say that if they were consistent but there is a happy inconsistency built into Arminianism by which I believe the Armenian can and in most cases will be saved when I was saved as a Christian I was saved on the basis of faith alone I've never heard of the doctrine of justification by faith alone I couldn't have articulated the doctrine of justification by faith alone but in reality I was trusting in Christ and in Christ alone for my salvation and so you have to understand that not everybody who is in a genuine saving relationship to Christ has a correct theological understanding of how they got there or what it involves to keep them in there so yeah of course Arminians completes I would just add to that too to believe in the fact of the lordship of Christ not necessarily understanding the extent of it I think even I don't think there is a person or rarely would be a person who was saved at the point of their salvation fully understood the extent of the lordship of Christ so you understand the fact of it the reality of it that he is above every name just exactly how far above every name comes when you begin to understand the fullness of that there are noble reasons why people reject reformed theology the Arminian in many cases really believes that the doctrine of election as we teach it casts a shadow on the righteousness of God they are convinced that it makes God look unjust and unfair and they are in their mind fighting for the angels to defend the integrity of God against this awful view of his sovereign grace another thing that they often want to defend is the reality of human freedom often the doctrine of human freedom they're trying to defend is a secular one they don't know that and so their motives their intense may be altogether godly that's why this debate has to be carried out in a spirit of mutual trust and patience between the parties they're engaged okay and I had another one good morning first I just wanted to say praise the Lord for edifying us with your presence here this weekend you're blessed to be a blessing to us my two-part questions for dr. Sproul and it has to do with classical apologetics I was very blessed by reading the book you co-authored with cursor and Lindsley on this topic but often find myself alone in embracing the classical view I was wondering if you could name any rising stars in the reformed world who are carrying the torch for classical apologetics and secondly could you help me understand why presuppositional ism has come to dominate almost exclusively the Reformed Church let me start with the second question first I think I think you know I've asked that question myself how could a an approach to apologetics which I believe is inherently defective and represents a significant departure from classical reformed thought have such a overwhelmingly sweeping impact in the reformed community it's almost totally restricted restricted to that community and one of the problems was presuppositions when it is never shown its ability to cross the street into other communities but it within reformed circles it's clear in a way the majority report and the classical view held by not just by Calvin but by Warfield Hodge Thornwell you know and all the rest of the historic theologians of Calvinism is held in suspicion you know that okay so how in the world did it come to have such an impact well I think that the you know the the major voice for even presuppositional apologetics in America was Cornelius Van Til who was a wonderful godly man and a brilliant scholar and he took this Dutch approach from Piper and so on to apologetics and at the time the bastion of Education for reformed theology was Westminster seminary and so the stew out of Westminster seminary became the dominant influence in reform circles in America and they carried their van Tilian ISM with them then there's another reason and that is that I hate to say this but I'm going to that presuppositional ism is an easy approach to apologetics you never have to do your homework you're telling the unbeliever well you're just you have your own presuppositions if you want to come to the conviction that God exists you have to start with the conviction that God exists so it's really anti apologetics it is the death of a partner no apologetic there unless it's a very cryptic hidden kind of of ontological argument the way Greg Bahnson would present it Greg presented it you know I think David the the most credible defense of any anybody who's done it now you want rising stars in the reformed community that are not a presupposition but a classical there are people like ligand Duncan another young men who have adopted this view would include me I'm not as old as Gerstner does that help yes thank you okay my questions about double predestination so first I would want dr. scroll to define it and then I want dr. MacArthur to state his view on it and with scriptural support and then if either of you disagree with him I want you to state your view of Scripture is that all yeah that's all okay you know many years ago we published a fair if in honor of John Gerstner which included essays for men around the world and various points of theology including men like John Murray and John Murray's last essay by the way was in that fess review and I wrote the article there in double predestination and so let me give you my quick definition of double predestination double predestination historically teaches that in God's sovereign predestinated work it has two sides to it election and reprobation so double predestination initially rejects universalism it teaches that God in his sovereign grace saves his elect and those who are not numbered on the elect are numbered among the reprobate those who are not saved so if you believe in divine election and you believe in predestination the Luthor's to the contrary unless you're a a universalist you have to believe in double predestination that it has two sides not everybody is elect and the non elect are distinguished from the elect okay now however what that term usually refers to is a specific view of election which has been called historically asymmetrical view of election or a view sometimes called with a bad use of language equal altima see and the idea of of the symmetrical view of election is this that in the case of the elect god intervenes in their lives and creates faith in their hearts through the supernatural power of regeneration activated by god the holy spirit on the other hand in the case of the reprobate God also intervenes in their lives to harden their hearts to create as it were fresh evil in their souls to make sure that they don't repent and come to faith now that view of equal altima see or what we would call a positive positive view where God positively intervenes in the life of the elect and positively intervenes in the like of the record weight is a portent to Orthodox Calvinism that is not what reformed theology historically teaches in terms of double predestination rather predestination is a symmetrical it is positive negative God positively intervenes in the life of the elect and gives them mercy that they don't deserve and he leaves the rest of corrupt mankind to their own devices he does not coerce them to unbelief so that one group gets grace the other group gets justice nobody receives injustice okay now that's what we mean by double predestination in a nutshell now you'll have to see whether John agrees with oh I agree with that that's one of the reasons that you have to define your terms because that that's one of the reasons that we are criticized because people make assumptions about what you might mean by double predestination Jude opens up by saying there were certain men who have crept into the church who were long before ordained unto condemnation before they ever showed up in this world there was a divine ordination to condemnation so there's no question about the fact that when God chooses to give grace to some he chooses not to give grace to others but I think that that's the best explanation I've ever heard of what God does and does not do I agree with that thank you my question is for mr. McArthur we were discussing this after the last RC Sports Talk last night we kind of came to a conclusion but it was kind of sketchy I want to know what you thought about it yesterday you said that it's God's part of God's eternal nature to be angry at evil and sin did I understand that right it was part it was part of God's eternal nature to be angry with evil and sin would it would that be a accurate representation of your position okay sure um then I came to the question of what would God be angry at before the creation of angels and the world that would be sort of a manifestation of the evil but in asking that I assumed a timeline for God but then I found when I removed the timeline forgot it became basically impossible to say anything meaningful so what was your what do you things what are you looking at me for drawn I mean well you're asking me was God angry when there was nothing to be angry about well when there was when you say no i'm i guess not in God's foreknowledge it is eternal God knows from all eternity of the coming future ition of the manifestation of true evil he's rang about that from all eternity but when you say he's angry about coming evil that's that assumes he's within a timeline oh no it assumes he's not within a timeline that he's this is from the perspective of eternity okay now if you want to try to understand God in a super temporal way be my guest many many people have attempted that but it's a it's really a fool's errand because there's no way that you can think it apart from the categories of time and space well that's that's kind of the conclusion that we came to was some things you just you know you can't understand or communicate but it was sort of a letdown like like it God becomes a sort of big mystery like you know um maybe help you a little bit Christ was the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world so in eternity past in which there was no time in the present in the eternal presence the cross was already predetermined the solution to sin was predetermined before there was any so in the mind of God all of that existed as reality it's just that I can't you you can't really escape sort of a time when you when you speak about God in that way like pre means before and before implies time and then we found that when you remove time from the question when you try to speak of God as always present or whatever it became basically impossible to say anything really meaningful why does that follow well like we tried saying for example just a minute if you tried to say something meaningful and couldn't does that mean that it's not possible to say something meaningful because you guys couldn't do it in 15 minutes last night well cook well it seems to me that you're speaking meaningfully about the question right now but you can't well I all that John was saying is that God is what he is eternally is that give a problem that no I don't I don't have any problem with that and I don't want to take too much time up for like the other people's questions but look in in classic Christian systematic theologies the discussion of the relationship between God's attributes and his eternality and temporal sin is discussed regularly so for instance I'm sure you have sheds dogmatic theology in the bookstore the shed has a discussion of how you relate language in the Bible that reflects the activity of God's attributes in a specific situation language like wrath and anger to eternal attributes of God that are always there and I really do think that material will help you in wrestling with this question question it's not it's not just that it's not just anger what about compassion on whom God have compassion yeah or anything yeah there's nobody to have compassion for but there God always had all those attributes fully functioning and they attached to creation when creation was brought into existence okay thank you okay as a former Arminian I had sharing the gospel down it was so easy you know step 1 step 2 step 3 step 4 pray this prayer and out the door praise the Lord you're a Christian but now that God has granted me the Reformed knowledge you know of the truth of salvation I feel like I have this much information that I need to share in like this much time unless I feel like I can meet with this person an hour or set up weekly meetings you know I just don't know how to get it done in a short period of time and I don't feel like I'm doing it well can you help me I think in a very short period of time you can talk to a person about the holiness of God and at the bow if that God is holy and they are not if they have a serious problem and we say okay how do you expect as an unholy person to stand before a holy God on the last day you are manifestly unprepared and unequipped and obviously what you need and I need is a savior now how long does it take this to say that I don't think that you have to explain all of the complicated dimensions of predestination and all the rest when you are communicating the essence of the gospel to somebody in the early church there was a method if you look at it in the book of Acts you'll see the presence of what is called the charisma the proclamation the Apostles preached a summary of the gospel to people to Gentiles who didn't know anything about the book of Deuteronomy or of the history of David but they proclaimed to them the character of God the problem of sin the work of Jesus Christ and told them of the benefits of faith that would give them salvation and then when they were paid the profession of faith they were brought into the church and then came catechism then came the teaching or the didactic dimension of Christianity where they would go back and fill in all of the gaps but to try to give all the stuff at one time you know I just can't begun thank you just a footnote great illustration of true conversion is the thief on the cross that's the only person anywhere in the Bible that Jesus gave instantaneous assurance to nobody else did he say today you will be with me in paradise and for all the people throughout history who have struggled with whether they're saved or not that would be really good information coming from him he didn't he didn't say that to anybody else today you'll be with me in paradise that's a gilt-edged guarantee that you just got saved and what were the components of that it seems like out of nowhere he rebukes this other thief and he says don't you fear God and I think that's where it stood that's where it started to him far more threatening and he was crucified just the same way Jesus was suffering the same Agony's and realizing his crime and that he was getting what he deserved we indeed suffer just like he had a far greater fear of what was going to happen to him after this was over don't you fear God and I think when he turned to Jesus and said remember me when you come into your kingdom he was affirming the lordship of Christ the deity of Christ he was the Christ but I think he did that because he had just heard Jesus say immediately before that Father forgive them for they know not what they do and he realized that if there was forgiveness for the people that did this to him and he had been one of them you and Mark both tell us that he was also insulting Jesus that this is something he desperately needed so you have an awareness of divine judgment the tribunal of God you have an awareness of the availability of forgiveness you have a penitent heart you have a belief that Christ was the true king and when he said remember me when you enter into your kingdom nobody survived crucifixion so he knew Christ would triumph over death there was an awful lot of theology swirling around in that guy's head and whatever it was he even he even knew there was a coming Kingdom and he wanted to be a part of it all the elements were there in in in in some ways with very limited information by the way he probably heard the conversation because he was coming to the hill the same time Jesus was about cry for yourselves and what's coming on you so an awareness of judgment a fear of God a recognition of one's sinfulness and then an embracing of the reality that that in Christ there is hope in the kingdom and then you add of course the reality of the Cross which was unfolding to him and I think that's that's exactly right that's where you go with the sinner I've said this so many times to people who ask me what I do I tell people God will forgive all their sins would you be interested that is the issue so I think you start at that point not necessarily trying to defend everything you want to find out whether there's somebody under the weight of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit who convicts the world of sin righteousness and so when you go to the sin issue immediately it reveals whether that convicting work is going on you can help that if it's not going on but that's the place you're going to have to get to great thank you so much okay um for dr. MacArthur yesterday you spoke a little bit about Mormonism and today about how Jesus is the only way at my school and in places I encountered these people and yeah yeah we disagree but they say we basically believe we believe in Jesus too and we believe he died on the cross I was wondering how I can talk to them and how I would approach them without like I don't want to call them demon worshipers or anything like that you you may get to that of necessity just to talk about Mormonism for a moment because we all confront this I I've had a couple of personal private meetings with the theological brain trust of BYU who came down spent hours and hours with me Robert Millett I don't know that name who writes most of their stuff on theology and we have talked through all of these issues here's the problem they are polytheists they they have millions of gods just just millions of them and more all the time every time Mormons have a baby they potentiate another God so that this is anything but Christian in its view of God they have a Christ who is another Jesus and another Jesus is a way to reach another Jesus and you get cursed second John I have nothing to do with him or become a partaker of their evil deeds but what they said to me was we love Jesus in fact they said we love Jesus so much and we want our young people at BYU to love Jesus and so we've had our students in some of the classes read the Gospel according to Jesus that you wrote to help them to love Jesus more well I went into panic what did I leave out that was not a good experience for me but they said to me we also believe in grace and they do that they have this sort of you this massive grace concept that most people even though they don't become Mormons they won't get their three heavens in Mormonism and only one of them is is where you want to be the other two are you're stuck with being single forever there's a lot of weird sexuality and Mormonism as you know that it's part of it but there's there's this first heaven which is where grace operates and this is a kind of near universalism where just because God is gracious he'll let you into that place and it's better than hell most people will get to that place but you're stuck being single and you're stuck in a deprived situation but if you have any desire to get to the second or the third then you better crank up the works so in the end the wrong God wrong Christ wrong way of salvation they also say the Bible is corrupt you see that in all their literature the Bible has been corrupted it is not trustworthy it is not always right it is not correct and you have to you have to turn to them for the correct interpretation of it and all of that so I think you can start with the authority of Scripture you could start with the person of God you can start with the person of Christ or you can start with salvation by grace they even said to me I believe in in in salvation by grace and grace and I said well explain the full extent of that well God didn't have to give us a way to earn our way into heaven so it's a gracious thing that he allows us to do that but I think you can pick any one of those you want or try one and then try another but you need to you need to first distance them from Christianity this is the thing they're trying they're trying to close the gap this is their formidable effort you need to make sure they understand that this is more like Hinduism and paganism and false religion that it is anything to do with Christianity and so they need to understand that that they are anything but Christian they're they're seriously fatally and terminally non-christian John don't you think that they that there's a schizophrenia in Mormonism in the sense that in this kind of a context they desperately want to be considered as Christians but the whole rhetoric of Mormonism has been Christianity has been corrupted and we alone have corrected it so we only understand it but we want to be considered one of you two at the same time both of those sides are played that's right and the best can be said of us who are non Mormons is that we may get into grace heaven the lowest heaven and beings be stuck being single forever and with all the deprivations that also go along with that situation yeah good morning in Proverbs 31 and in Titus 2:4 through five married Christian women are both directed to be and portrayed as keepers at home wives and mothers are these passages to be understood as suggestions that are optional and seasonal if not does the husband's blessing or approval release the woman from her primary responsibilities in God's eyes anyone yeah I'm willing to know the answer is that they caught the command of scripture for a woman to love her husband lover children be a keeper at home is not a seasonal suggestion that is an explicit command in fact if you wanted to be a put on the list as a widow according to Paul's letter to Timothy you would have had to have Dem about the to have had it had to have demonstrated a life like that does that mean does that mean that the woman has to be in the house 24 hours a day you know barefoot and pregnant kind of approach no does it mean that she she can't be enterprising certainly proverbs 31 would work against that if she bought a field she left home to look at it at least so she and she also gets her food from afar so that would that would be a journey right so would working outside of the home at the time where you are raising young children would that be to me that seems I think that's it I think that's generally speaking a bad thing I think because the primary responsibility of the mother is the nurturing of those children a woman is saved from any second-class stigma that might have come out of the fall because Eve was deceived I think Paul is saying she is saved by childbearing that is to say saved from the lack of distinction that may come to her when she raises a godly seed and I think the priority for a woman is to love her husband and in those years when the little children are in the home that is to be her investment that's to be her life the husband exercises the leadership but she has the responsibility of the nurture of those children and I think that's exactly what Scripture is saying and that's what scripture models but you can abuse that you can be a stay-at-home wife and spend all your time and your SUV going from Malta Mall and that's not responsible either or dumping your kids off with a babysitter I think it is intent the intention of Scripture is that God made women to be in the home nurturing those children evangelizing those children catechizing those children as a as a as the highest opinon life if God gives her children and you make those investments in those little ones lives in those years and you have a lifetime of joy that comes back to you in return for that investment by the way we have a tape series at Grace to you and I mention this on the fulfilled family that deals with that issue rather extensively if anybody be interested in get that from our ministry it is a privilege to be here and and just want to thank you you all for your ministry it's been a tremendous blessing my question is for dr. Sproul we're regarding I recently heard a popular radio host claim that limited atonement is unbiblical and he cited first Timothy 4:10 and I know it's not right to say that just because you know it says that that limited atonement is not true but I don't know how would you respond to that I think that there's a lot of misconceptions out there about what the doctrine of limited atonement or what we call definite atonement means I've heard it expressed or explained this way that the death of Christ is sufficient for all but efficient only for some namely the elect or to put it another way it's efficient only for those who put their trust in them well every Arminian believes that every reformer believes that so I don't think that's what the issue is I think the basic question of limited atonement is really a simple one but the issue seems they get obscured in all of these debates the question has to do with the father's intent in sending Jesus into the world to die on the cross as the Redeemer of his people was God's intention from all eternity to make salvation possible for everybody but certain for no one or was God's purpose in eternity and in the Covenant of redemption in the godhead that God send Christ in the world to affect salvation for those for whom God intended salvation I think that's a no-brainer God knew from all eternity who was gonna believe and who wasn't gonna believe and he sent a savior to save those who would believe so that the atonement was limited to those who would believe always that is in terms of God's purpose limited see the argument against limited of time it seems like well in the reformed view God really isn't kind enough he's not gracious enough he's not doing enough he's not making salvation possible for everybody if all the atonement did was to make salvation hypothetically possible for people who in their death in their state of corruption spiritual death who would come to Jesus where Jesus says they can't anyway I would have no confidence that anybody would be saved but I think that the purpose of the atonement was to save the elect then with the purpose of the atonement was for Jesus to lay down his life for his sheep and in one sense it was for the world not just for Israel but for people from every tribe and tongue and nation and so that the Jewish could say that he died not only for us but for all those people out there that there's a multicultural direction in focus for the scope of the atomic does that make sense to do with God's purpose from eternity just a footnote to on the verse you're asking which for first Timothy 4:10 got a savior of all men especially those who believe that is not a good verse to prove arminianism because if God is in fact the savior of all men then you've got universalism and you can't explain the rest of the verse especially of those that believe what does that mean if so the way to understand that I think the best way to understand that verse is God is the savior of all men in some sense in what sense well he's not the spiritual eternal savior of all men because not all men are spiritually eternally saved I think it is just manifestly indicating to us that God by nature is a savior and that he has manifested that desire to save by not giving the sinner what the sinner deserves the moment the sinner deserves it in other words you could put common grace into that you can you can put the Sun the rain falls on the just and the unjust in that you know RC has done some great teaching in his series on the holiness on the fact that the question you ask in the Old Testament is not why did somebody die but why did anybody live so God is by nature a savior and and by looking at the forbearance of God Paul says in Romans two we should be led to repentance because we understand God is a savior he is proving it because sinners live and they smell the coffee and they kissed their wives and they have a baby and they see a sunset it is God says to Adam in the day you eat you'll die and he he lives to be 900-plus what is that it's the nature of God he it is a true expression of God's nature to be a saver he puts it on display temporarily and physically but especially is he the savior of those who believe eternally and spiritually and that's the way to see the distinction there that Melissa the little adverb makes thank you very much good morning and thank you for this opportunity in light of Genesis 1:28 being fruitful and multiplying and Psalm 127 in Psalm 128 which I'm sure that you know I don't have to quote them children are heritage from the Lord etc with couples waiting longer to marry and postponing their having children until later and having only one point eight children per family using all sorts of birth control could you please speak to that issue of birth control and being fruitful God's plan for the Christian family for you sir yes sir there's you know there's a lot of controversy but that and in the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to dress until and keep the earth and everything that does not preclude the opportunity for in the subduing of the earth to come up with medicinal cures to diseases some people take it to the extreme that's saying this that we're to live by nature and die by nature and so to use artificial meta medicinal remedies for our diseases is a violation of the creation mandate and so people will say no and so in response that they say contraceptive is a legitimate form of treating us from the potential ills of overpopulation and everything and so that we ought to be able to to use them on the Roman Catholic Church on the other hand has taken a very grim view and narrow view about contraceptive and we disagree with it because they say the only he's a legitimate use of sexual intercourse in marriage is with the view to the propagation of children I don't agree with that Luther didn't agree with that Calvin didn't agree with that and therefore then we jumped to the conclusion that therefore it's okay to use artificial means of contraception now there are many different kinds of contraceptive devices many today of which are frankly abortive I don't think there's any question in my mind at all about the the evil of using such things but you're asking now about legitimate forms I mean and not abortion but actually anti conception devices right now I don't die on this hill and I don't you know make this the central point of my teaching or preaching I personally have a big problem with contraception because part of it is the attitude that we have in our culture that since we're no longer in agrarian society where lots of kids helped economically on the farm now they're a tremendous burden to us to take care of them legitimately and so we ought to regulate the size of our family that's a value that I hear coming out of the secular world I don't find it in the Bible in the Bible a large family is seen as a tremendous blessing from God and the more arrows are you have in your quiver the better is the blessing and I don't know anything in history that has changed that value judgment that God has placed upon the family I'm in a minority on that and I may even be in a minority up here marieee this point but I've never been comfortable with artificial birth control yeah I think I would just add one very quick thing to that when God designed a woman so that there's only a certain period of time every month that she can become pregnant God handed to every couple the discretion of having children in other words if God expected you to have non-stop babies then women would be capable of that so I think the fact that God has limited that to a certain time and that that is manifestly obvious generally speaking that God has put that decision in your control and it's a decision you make mutually before the Lord as to how many children you want to have and I and I think that is the best methodology to just follow the pattern that God has designed I wouldn't be against the other things but but I think that's where we see the discretion indicated in the creative structure of the woman and how much how much time each month is time when she could be pregnant are in our hands now you're speaking to just the contraceptive idea what I wanted to see was after that we've thought about that now what's God's plan for the Christian family to not just enjoy the intimate relationship that we have with our spouses but the growth of our families and not to take the control ourselves and to allow God as you said that he has handed us a means or as you said to hand us a means of birth control in effect because there's only a certain period of time during each month the growth of the family seems to be limited in most families Christians too in the nature that they're all small families now shouldn't we be seeing large families during this time as Christians wanting especially when we've got Muslims having six point eight children per family I think I think statistically you do have larger Christian families than secular families if you run the numbers on that

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 159,735

Rating: 4.7734156 out of 5

Keywords: heresy, saving grace, effectual grace, irresistible grace, limited atonement, classical apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, wrath of God, evangelism, Mormonism, gender roles, birth control, FAL08, ligon duncan, john macarthur, rc sproul, sproul

Id: 8DM3AjBdTYM

Length: 60min 3sec (3603 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2013