CHRIS LARSON: Well, we're going to jump right
into the topic and the flow of this conference, and we have a good number of questions that
have already come in from our guests out here, related to the topic but, as the Q&A's
go, we open it up in terms of a theological and biblical free-for-all at times. And so
we'll move the questions around in variety, and try and involve each of you. So the first
question, and first person to jump in, press your button. "Was salvation provided after
the fall and before Christ? Was salvation provided after the fall and before Christ?" STEVEN LAWSON: Yes. Abraham believed God and
it was credited to him as righteousness. Obviously, people were saved. Am I hearing the question
correct? Was there salvation after the fall and before Christ? Of course! I mean, people
were saved in the Old Testament same way they were saved in the New Testament. By grace
alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They were saved by looking forward to the
coming of Christ, as we're saved by looking back at the coming of Christ. But there's
only one way of salvation. And anytime anywhere anyone is saved, at any point on planet earth,
it is by the Lord Jesus Christ, and by grace, and faith in Christ. LARSON: "If God gives faith, and He wants
everyone to be saved, why does He not give faith to everyone?" R.C. SPROUL: There's a false assumption in
there somewhere. If He wants to give faith to everyone, He will give faith to everyone.
And if He does give faith to everyone, then everyone will be saved. The Scriptures make
it clear that not everyone will be saved, therefore He doesn't give faith to everyone.
Therefore, He doesn't want to give faith to everyone for His glory. LARSON: "Does the Bible preclude the
existence of life elsewhere in the universe?" ALBERT MOHLER: The answer is no; that's speculative.
What it does make very clear is that the entire cosmos was created for the drama of redemption,
as Calvin said. The cosmos is a theater of God's redemption; what would take place in
here, in order to save sinful humanity. So we have no reason to believe there's any other
story out there. There's nothing in Scripture that says there can't be some form of life
somewhere, but what we are told is that the cosmos was created in order that, on this
planet, Jesus Christ, in space and time and history, would come to save sinful humanity. ROBERT GODFREY: In fact, we know there's extraterrestrial life. They're angels. Don't they count? Why do people never talk about the angels? MOHLER: You just did. SPROUL: You know that the New Testament
word for angel, angelos, appears more frequently than the word for sin, and for the word for
love. So there's no excuse for not talking about angels. GODFREY: Would you like to put in a
good word for the angelic doctor? SPROUL: Yes. LARSON: "Dr. Mohler, would you comment
on the relevance, influence, significance of traducianism as relating to creation?" MOHLER: Yes. It's significant. There
is no doubt that when God says, "Let there be life," there's life. And without God's
active will that there be life, none of us would be. We are all created in that sense.
Traducianism has within it a very important answer to how sin is transmitted, in such
a way that it appears not only that there is biblical evidence for how this is transmitted
by that means, in terms of the soul, you know, being explained in its existence in a sinful
state by that way. But it also appears to have something to do with, with why Christ
is presented in terms of the virgin conception. Now, it's not tied -- I'm not sure exactly
how you asked the question, to be honest. It's not tied just to the existence of the
soul and what we would call "original sin," but it's also tied to how indeed -- it's not
just creation, it's the historicity of the Genesis account that would include creation
and fall. Am I missing something in that question? LARSON: I believe it's a general question.
Influence, relevance, significance, as it relates to creation overall. MOHLER: Well, let's put it this way:
If there -- there have been long debates over these issues and neither of these answers
gets to a matter of orthodoxy. So long as all that is affirmed in the Scripture is affirmed.
One could conceivably come up with an explanation for the transmission of sin that would not
require traducianism. I just think it's not the easiest way to get there -- not the you
know, it's following Occam's Razor. It's not the easiest way to answer the question with
the biblical evidence. LARSON: "Are there degrees of punishment
in hell?" SPROUL: Of course. GODFREY: We're going to be able to
answer a lot of questions today. SPROUL: I think the New Testament makes
it clear. There's at least 25 references in the New Testament that speaks of the various
degrees of punishment and reward, and or reward in heaven relative to the degrees of sinfulness
of sin. Even though all sin is sin, there's still a clear distinction in the New Testament
between those sins that are covered, the multitude of sins that love covers, that the Roman Catholic
distinction between "mortal" and "venial" is not something that we would hold, but it's
a distinction that we would agree with in part; that at least there are, there is a
difference between less and greater sins. And the New Testament follows that again,
again, and again. And the point that we're talking about here is that we are heaping
up our sins against the day of wrath, heaping up wrath, piling it up, treasuring it up,
according to the apostle Paul. And so it's not like if oh, if I commit one sin, if I
-- I've heard a guy say, "Well, I've lost it after I've already committed that sin, so
I might as well go ahead and finish the action." No, no, no. You're just entering into a more
egregious violation of that previous sin. I once heard a psychiatrist speak a refutation
of the ethics of Jesus because Jesus said that every sin is equally heinous, he says.
And then anybody know better than that. And I said, "Jesus never said that every sin is
equally heinous. Jesus said that every sin is real sin and violation of the character
of God," and all the rest. But even when He says, in His explanation of the Sermon on
the Mount, that if you lust after a woman in your heart, He doesn't say that's as bad
as actually committing adultery but He, what He is pointing out is that even if, even if
you refrain from the actual act does not mean that you have been totally obedient to the
commandment. And so Jesus expands the implications, and repercussions, and consequences of the
commission of sin. So that the Pharisees in their oral tradition had a simplistic understanding
of the prohibitions of God. But Jesus never said that all sins were equally heinous. LAWSON: Just to add a couple of verses,
Hebrews 2:2 and 3 says, "Every sin shall receive a just recompense." So each individual sin
would have the proper consequence to that sin. Some sins are greater, and there is a
greater condemnation than others. And we see that established in the Mosaic law -- "An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." It means that the punishment fits the crime.
It's not an eye for a tooth, or a tooth for an eye, but an eye for an eye; meaning, if
you take out someone's eye, then you must replace that eye, so to speak. Or a tooth
for a tooth. And it's a matching up of the punishment for that sin, and in the, under
the Mosaic Law, there were, I can't remember the exact number but it's 21, 23, something
like that, sins deserve the death penalty where other sins did not deserve the death
penalty. So there's a distinction in God's justice as He metes out the punishment for
the crime. What is true in time will be true in eternity. MOHLER: Yeah, Paul tells us about God's
judgment being "to each according to his deeds committed in the flesh." If it's according
to each, that would indicate an individual judgment, in which there would be some variation.
No one, no one found guilty -- innocent of anything less, is guilty of an infinite assault
upon the holiness of the righteous and omnipotent God. But I think R.C. put it exactly right.
Even in the Sermon on the Mount, you know, it's false to say, "Jesus said this is all
the same." LARSON: "Dr. Godfrey, what would you
say to a health care worker who must work on Sunday and so never attends a service on
the Lord's Day?" GODFREY: Well, our Reformed heritage
rightly has always taught that we're to rest on the Lord's Day, except in cases of necessity
and mercy. Now, some of the really rigorous Reformed churches used to have three services
on the Lord's Day and I suspect, if there are three services on the Lord's Day, a health
care worker might well be able to arrange schedules so you could get to one. I think
Christians, even those very seriously involved in works of mercy and necessity should certainly
be trying to arrange their schedule so they are not permanently barred from worship. There
may be a small group of people who really can never get there for legitimate reasons,
but worship, fellowship with God's people, rest on the Sabbath Day ought to be such a
high priority that we really pursue that as a goal, actively, and not be content to find
reasons to avoid finding a way to do it. LARSON: "We hear from many sources that
Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God. They don't listen to Renewing Your
Mind obviously. How should we respond to that assertion?" MOHLER: You know, this frustrates me
because it comes back again, and again, and again. You know, famously, someone observed
years ago that we live in an age that is supposed to be marked by harmony. Obviously it's not,
but nonetheless the elites keep telling us everybody's got to get along, and you have
to say whatever and believe whatever is necessary to get along, and harmonize everything. And
the Western secular elites are in a particular urgency of their own collapsing worldview
to try to argue that there's no theological claim, claim that could be taken seriously,
which is why they can't understand a resurgent Islam. They have no intellectual equipment
with which to understand a theological truth claim. So they just can't believe, so far
as they're concerned this has to be by politics, or sociology, or something else. And repeatedly,
we're being told, you know, you've got to somehow, you know, smooth out the theological
rough places, and so you hear people saying, obviously the controversy recently at Wheaton
College and elsewhere, you know, who say, "Christians and Muslims worship the same God."
Well, we don't. And, it's not a question of linguistics. It's not a question of, of Allah.
Allah was a word for "god," simply, you know, the word used for "god" before Muhammad ever
came along, so it's not "Are Allah and God the same?" Actually Allah and God might be
the same if you're talking with an Arab-speaking Christian who means the Trinitarian God revealed
in Scripture. But the Allah taught of Islam, that Allah, which is what just about everybody
means, is incompatible with the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have as testimony
for this Jesus Christ who just, for one example, in John chapter 9, says, "If you don't know
me, you don't know the Father." And He was speaking to Jewish leaders who came to rebuke
Him. And, so here's this: Islam teaches -- you see this on the dome of the rock mosque, the
Al Aqsa mosque, you see it says, "There is only one God, Muhammad is his prophet, and
he has no son." The central -- one of the central truth claims, one of the first three
statements made to define Islam is that God has no son, that Jesus Christ is not the incarnate
Son of God, or what we would go on to define as the second Person of the Trinity. That
-- and that's where, here's the question: Can one reject Jesus Christ as the Son and
truly know the Father? The answer to that, fundamentally, logically has to be no. But
biblically, we've got Jesus saying it Himself in John chapter 9. We don't have to extrapolate
this. All you've got to do is read the Gospel, and Jesus makes that clear. And then I have
people come back to me all the time and say, "Well, then you are saying that Jews do not
worship the same God." And I say, simply, "I don't say anything." Jesus said that if
you reject Him and you do not thereby know Him then you do not know, and in another place
He says "never knew" the Father. I'm with Jesus. I don't know anything to say other
than what Jesus said, and I think it's abundantly clear. SPROUL: The difference though is that
Jesus didn't live in our day, where our culture is defined by relativism and its twin, pluralism.
And the thing that's most politically incorrect in our day is to declare exclusivity for Christ
or for Christianity, or to say there's only one Way, or for the Bible to say there's only
one Mediator between God and man and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So we run right up
against that in the culture. Everywhere we go, we hear the "tsk, tsk, tsk" of disapproval.
It's one thing I've found, and you've all found this, that, in this culture, it's
OK for an individual to affirm his own beliefs. That's alright. But you cannot deny the antithesis.
If you deny the antithesis, then you're in cultural hot water. That's why, even in our
Christology statement, we have to have affirmations and denials. Not only do we affirm this, but
we deny its contrary. And, that puts us on a collision course with the pluralism and
relativism of our day. But to ask a question like "Do Muslims and Christians worship the
same God?" really, it shouldn't take more than five minutes to answer that question.
As you said, just look at the opening pages of the Quran and compare it to the opening
statements of the New Testament and you see that antithesis jump right out at you. You
can't eat your cake -- have your cake and eat it too. That's a straight theological
proposition. MOHLER: Got to answer one other thing,
because I talked to a reporter about this the other day and, and she was completely
scandalized. I could just see, you know, the blood was just -- she'd met one of these,
finally she'd found one. And she'd heard we existed, but now she found one. And so I decided,
"I've got to, I've got to -- " No, these reporters have this National Geographic moment with
evangelicals who really believe in orthodox Christianity and all of sudden go, "Wow, they
do exist! Fascinating species!" But, at one point, I simply thought, "OK, I've got to
go ahead." I said, "I want you also to understand that I don't think Unitarians worship the
same God. I don't think Mormons worship the same God." And I, I said, I went on down.
I said, "This doesn't, this isn't a list in which we don't think Muslims worship the same
God. We don't think anybody worships the same God unless they come to Him through Jesus
Christ our Lord. And then there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism." It's pretty exclusive. LARSON: Related to this, several different
questions coming in about Islam and Christianity. "How should Christians think about Muslims,
given the constant threat of Islamic terrorism?" Another question that expands that a little
bit more: "As image-bearers glorifying -- who desire to glorify Christ, how do we respond
to this terrorism? How does the individual Christian, the church, reconcile the kingdom
of the cross with the kingdoms of -- the kingdom of the sword?" GODFREY: That's a big subject. SPROUL: It is a big subject, and it has
to do with our understanding of the role that, under God, government has to play. And we
as individuals do not have the right to seek vengeance, but God has not only ordained a
church, but He also ordains government to protect from the evil-doer and from unrighteousness,
and has given the power of the sword to them, not to us. But He has given the power of the
sword to them. And it is the duty, I believe -- even a non-Christian government, I said,
it certainly has the responsibility to maintain, protect the sanctity of life, which our government
certainly doesn't do. We know that. But it still doesn't excuse them from their responsibility
under God. As long as we sanction abortion on demand, we're not operating under God.
We're operating in outward defiance of God, and for the very purpose for which any government
is established. And we need to understand that. MOHLER: Can I come back to the first
part of that, because I do think it's really important that we come back and say, look,
when you see someone who may be dressed or otherwise presenting as a Muslim, our first
thought shouldn't be "potential terrorist." We should be thankful that the vast majority
of Muslims in the world are not engaged in an active jihad against us or against the
West. But, as I mentioned in The Briefing just recently, you know, this massive study
came out saying we should be thankful that 90 to 95 percent of Muslims around the world,
country by country, say they don't support ISIS. But that does leave ten to five percent,
which means tens, and tens, and tens of millions of people who are are given to this. The other
thing we have to recognize is that theology matters. We just come back to that again and
again. And there is no form of Quranic Islam -- and by the way, there's no other form of Islam, essentially, like biblical Christianity. But in the Quran, holy war is built in as
a central animating purpose; geographical conquest and the bringing of conquest to -- the
world is separated between the world of Islam and the world of war. And, and that's why
we have to understand that we should be thankful. Most are not actively involved in terrorism,
though we can understand, given that theology, how many would be; even their eschatology.
But we do have to recognize that the distinction between Muhammad, who was revealed in the
Quran and bragged about in Muslim tradition as "a warrior with a sword bloodied by many" is in direct contradiction to Jesus as the Prince of Peace who told Peter to put away
his sword. And it is an opportunity for the preaching of the gospel in an age in which
the thesis and the antithesis have perhaps never more dramatically been separated and
made distinguished in the headlines of every day. GODFREY: We have had, at our seminary
in the past, a student from Turkey. And he told us the story of a missionary couple who
had been working in Turkey, which has historically been regarded as one of the safer, slightly
more secular, more tolerant Muslim societies. And the man was out witnessing for Christ,
and someone jumped out of the crowd and cut his throat and killed him publically. And
the television carried this story, and interviewed his widow shortly after this had happened,
and asked her what she would like to say to the nation. And she said, "I would like to
say, in the name of Christ, I forgive my husband's killer." And the Turkish student said, "That
one sentence did more to communicate the essential nature of Christianity to the Turkish world
than any number of books and missionary activities might have done." Because Turkish culture
is a revenge culture, and to have this testimony to forgiveness was arresting, perhaps baffling.
And that's why our Savior said to us that we're to turn the other cheek, that we're
to love our enemies, however difficult that is personally. Whatever cost that might lead
to, that's what we're called to do and to be. It's not what the American government
is called to do and to be. They are to promote justice. They are to maintain order. They're
to protect citizens. But we, as Christians, have to bear a different testimony. So however
fearful we are, however angry we are, we have to try to let the words of our Savior live
in our hearts, that we're to love the enemy and turn the other cheek. And we have to labor
for that because that will be the path to see conversions among Muslims. It'll be the
Word of Christ's grace that converts them, not, probably, a Christian version of the
sword. In fact, their sense that, in the Crusades, Christians were just as bloody as Muslims
were is one of the great impediments, to this day, to the conversion, or to even hearing
the gospel on the part of Muslims. LARSON: "As a believer, and also a
woman who is post-abortive, how can we as a church combat against the mentality of some
sins being too great or unforgivable? The most negativity and hatred I've experienced
is inside my church walls." GODFREY: I think that's such an important
question to stop and ponder because, again, we are called to be clear in recognizing sin
as sin, and never compromising the law of God, the holiness of God, the truth of God
by saying sins aren't sins. But the gospel equally says there is no sin that cannot be
forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Ghost. And we have to create an environment
where we can both speak against sin, but make clear there is mercy for the sinner, that
there is an appeal to the sinner to come. And I think those of us in leadership in churches
need, particularly, to think about that. As we think about the things we say in church
and from the pulpit, we have to ask, "Would a homosexual visiting here feel any love,
any concern, any compassion?" The same is true with the woman who's gone through abortion.
There's, the same is true with so many different sins. And I think we, as Christians, have
to really think about it, not for a moment to compromise the holiness of God, the
truth of God's law, but to always try to be thinking how will we be heard and how can
we be heard in a way that would actually draw the sinner to Christ instead of drive the
sinner away. And I'm not saying that's always easy, but certainly we want to say to any
woman here who's had an abortion, there's mercy and forgiveness, full and complete,
in Jesus Christ and that you should be a loved member of His forgiven community. LAWSON: Yeah, Chris, I think some verses
to add to that, at the end of Romans 5 -- "Where sin does abound, grace does much
more abound." I think of James 2, that "God's mercy has triumphed over His justice," that,
in 1 Timothy 1, that even the chief of sinners has been converted and saved. If we had said
anyone in the world would not have been saved, we would've said Saul of Tarsus. Yet, he became
a trophy of God's grace, and God's grace was put on display in extraordinary measure because
of the greatness and the depth of his sin. And so we in the church must preach the fullness
and the freeness of God's grace, the height, the depth, the breadth and the length of it
that Ephesians 3 talks about; that we would come to know the height and the depth and
the breadth and the length of the love of God in Christ; that it's so deep it reaches
all the way down to the depths of the sinner. The length of it, it extends to eternity.
The breadth of it is wide enough to gather in whosoever. And the height of it, it transcends
our sins. So it's in the preaching of the fullness and the richness of the atonement
of Christ, how He has placated the wrath of God. "There is no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus." And He's taken our sins and placed them behind His back. He's taken
our sins and buried them in the depths of the sea. He remembers our transgressions no
more. We just must preach that and apply that and pastorally extend that to those who have
created, committed sins that they feel cannot be forgiven, as well as for those in the church
to hear as they interface with other people who have committed extraordinary sins, to
receive them as a brother and sister in Christ. SPROUL: Could you read the -- that question
again for me, the beginning of that question? LARSON: "As a believer, and also a woman
who is post-abortive," comma. SPROUL: OK, go on. LARSON: "How can we as a church combat
against the mentality of some sins being too great or unforgivable?" SPROUL: OK. Was there something else
in there about -- LARSON: "The most negativity and hatred
I've experienced is inside my church walls." SPROUL: Alright, "The most hatred and
negativity I've experienced is inside my walls, the walls of the church." I hope the strongest
sense of disapproval about abortions that is ever experienced anywhere is inside the
church. Abortion, ladies and gentleman, is a monstrous evil. And if a woman has had an
abortion, she needs monster repentance. She can still be saved, but I just wonder if,
if she's mistaking hatred for disapproval because, you know, at the abortion clinics
here in Orlando, you know, you hear every day, women that come every day and say, "I'm
a Christian. Jesus is going to forgive me. And I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to
abort my child." And we hear people constantly making this mantra that, "If you really believe
in love, and if you really care for us, and really believing in the mercy of Christ, you
cannot speak against abortion so strongly." And that scares me to death. Because I believe,
just as everybody else has said here, that the, that abortion, the sin of abortion is
not unforgivable, but it must have true repentance for that forgiveness to be realized. And,
again, if that person who's asked that question is really experiencing hatred among the people
of God, that's a dreadful thing. It's a horrible thing. It's a horrible testimony against any
church if what we communicate is hatred. But I wonder if they're confusing hatred and serious
disapproval. I can disapprove of something without hating somebody. I mean, if God loves
me but then He disapproves of all kinds of things I do, then I don't come to the conclusion
that He hates me. And this is one of the reasons why preachers are afraid to preach about this
gross and heinous sin in our culture, that's accepted by our culture, and actually glorified
in our culture, even by presidential candidates, and sitting presidents, and so on, who exalt
this kind of behavior. And there's this bandwagon that, if you don't get on it, you're really
politically incorrect. But we have to say, as loudly as possible as Christians, we care
about you, we love you, and all of that, but if we love you at all, we have to tell you
that this can send you to hell forever! One abortion can send to hell forever, and will
send you to hell forever if you don't deeply and seriously repent. MOHLER: Chris, can I just add something
to that quickly, because I appreciate so much where we are in this question at the moment
and I have, in the church of which I'm -- have been a part, a woman who had an abortion is
now living as an incredible testimony to Christ and very actively involved in a local pro-life
ministry, taking a very courageous stance. But here's what repentance looks like in that
case. Our confession of faith that the seminary based upon, Westminster, says it's an evangelical
grace wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit which leads to a repugnance toward sin, a
detestation towards sin. And I saw a sign of this when this woman, who'd had an abortion
and who has, who repented, came to Christ, repented of her sins; this is a part of what
she tells everybody about why they must not have an abortion, because not only is this
what an abortion is in terms of the baby, this is what an abortion is in terms of me.
Not only the murder of an unborn human life, it also means that I have -- I've got to tell
you this right now. But this is what she said, and this is what's so powerful. I wish every
preacher were here, this, she said, "Repentance means I need to demand my preacher preach
on this, lest anyone else might follow the same way." I think that's true for divorce,
it's true where evangelical scandals, too many preachers are afraid to preach about
divorce. It should be the people who have genuinely repented of sinful behavior who
tell the preacher, "You need to preach on this." And I agree, if there are people in
the church who responded with hatred, that's a form of moralism which is themselves -- which
questions their own repentance from their own sins. But I'm just always afraid the church
is going to find a way not to tell the truth about sin, and to call people to faith and
repentance. LARSON: "Should Christians even use the
word 'marriage' to refer to same gender legalized unions, or is that giving a way to new word
definitions?" MOHLER: I'm going to jump on this because
this is my everyday life. I would wish not to use the word "marriage," and I will often
speak of the "legal fiction" of same-sex marriage, or "so-called same-sex marriage," etc. But,
now that the Obergefell decision is handed down, we have a reality in which I don't believe,
ontologically, a man and a man can be married. I don't believe morally, ontologically, theologically,
in reality a woman and a woman can be married. I do have to concede that, even though I believe
it was unconstitutional and a judicial usurpation of politics that was also in violation of
the constitution and of natural law, the Supreme Court has created a legal reality known as
"same-sex marriage." And we don't get to say everything we want to say every time, so same-sex
marriage, sometimes we're going to have to say "same-sex marriage" with -- while we don't
mean the same thing as "marriage," but we don't get to say, we don't get to put in all
the footnotes if we're answering a reporter's question, or someone like that. And that is
one of the haunting moral realities of this horribly confused age. I had to tell two men
the other day that they think they're married. That didn't go over too well. Amongst other
things, it didn't go over too well. But I mean, they really do believe they're married.
They're using the name and now, horribly, our government is affirming them in believing
that they're married. There is now a legal reality of same-sex marriage. It goes by the
name "marriage." I mean, I was living in a state where the county clerk, you know, just
became a massive thing because of this very issue. So it isn't real, but the law says
it is. We're living in Alice In Wonderland. LARSON: "How should a Christian witness
to a transgender neighbor who asserts that gender is subjective?" GODFREY: Can I ask, because I've been
curious and too lazy to find out on my own, but Al knows everything so, what percentage
of the American population is transgendered? MOHLER: It's estimated about 0.4. That's
0.4. That's four tenths of one percent. Yeah. GODFREY: One percent. MOHLER: Now, there's a whole range (it's a spectrum)
from those who have been -- who have "transitioned," by their own definition, all the way, or someone
who's just dressing differently and presenting differently or at times presenting differently,
but transgender is about estimated at 0.4 percent of the population. GODFREY: Because just looking at the
question kind of historically and sociologically, it is intriguing the amount of time and energy
that, that the opinion-makers of America are investing in their concern for the rights
and fair treatment of 0.4 percent of the population with complete indifference to any kind of
respect for maybe 20 percent of the population who happen to be Christian. When certain presidential
candidates reel off their support for the rights of varying groups, somehow we never
seem to get mentioned. And I wondered if you have any thoughts about that. MOHLER: Well, just in terms of that
-- in terms of the question being asked, -- and you know, Bob, I would simply say this: the
way a moral revolution happens, and I love the way Theo Hobson describes -- and he's
a liberal -- how he describes a moral revolution. He says a moral revolution only takes place,
you can have moral change, you know, things can change, you can change morality, but a
revolution requires three things to take place. That which was condemned must be affirmed.
That which was affirmed must be condemned. And the ones that will not now affirm must
be condemned. And that's where we are. So, whereas homosexuality was condemned, now it
is opposition to homosexuality that's condemned, and the people who will not affirm homosexuality
are condemned. And there was a banding together, it's LGBTQ and that's going to be an
alphabet soup, just keeps going, in terms of what's going on here. And so the relative
percentage in their moral and legal case doesn't matter, because it's all part and parcel to
this moral revolution. The transgender issue's going to be much more pastorally difficult
for the church than homosexuality. And it is because, if you think about it, a confusion
at the end, at the level of personal identity, with gender is so basic, it's prior to sex.
It is prior to anything else. And you know, on "The Briefing" the other day, I was talking
about the fact that the New York Times had an article about the difficulties of transgender
people getting medical care, and it pointed out that -- and forgive me, I'm going to talk
biology here for a minute. Don't worry. But it pointed out, and I love this, it said that
personal physicians to transgender women must remember they have a prostate gland, which
means they are not women. But we are being called into this mass confusion. And look,
there are people who would ask a question like that who genuinely believe that gender
is merely a social construct, but every cell in the body says otherwise. The entire genetic
structure of the human being as male and female says otherwise. That prostate gland says otherwise.
And that's just reminder of the fact that we are in a sinful rebellion. We should expect
it to take very sophisticated ideological forms. And that's what we see. Very persuasive
in the courts. Why is it not persuasive among us? It's because we operate on the basis of
the Word of God where the creator defines us, and where He has been very specific about
His intention for us as male and as female. And we, we have to be heartbroken and pastorally
sensitive, but this is an issue in which the church is going to have to tell people, "Your
confusion here is not just about gender; it's about who decides who you are. And here's
good news: you were known before you existed, and God had a plan for your life in making
you male or female, and you will never ever achieve wholeness and happiness apart from
coming to terms with that as God's gift, and then understanding that God's ultimate concern
is that you come to be His by means of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is going
to vex us. It's going to be very difficult. We're going to be heartbroken over and over
again. And we've got to risk being heartbroken over and over again because, if we're to preach
the gospel to anybody, we're to preach the gospel to everybody. And we are sinners as
are they. We know how much they need Christ. GODFREY: Have we got time for just
one more? As a word of encouragement, in a Calvinist sense, so don't get too excited
-- I read an absolutely fascinating book entitled From Shame to Sin by an ancient historian
-- that is, a historian of ancient history -- who traced, in the later Roman Empire,
the shift from pagan sexual morality to an increasingly Christian sexual morality. And
he said there were two prime areas in which the Christian message resonated with pagans
in the ancient world. And that was: pagans believed sex was determined, and pagans believed
that sex could quite properly be coerced. And Christian testimony against sexual determinism,
and against sexual coercion is -- MOHLER: You've got to define "sexual
determinism." GODFREY: Well, that the gods had made
you desire what you desired. You had no control over that. And I thought how fascinating,
because we live in a world where people are telling us all the time about the biological
determinism of sex, and about how it's right, in effect, to coerce people into sex. People
are being coerced all the time, because they're told, "If you're not having sex, there's something
wrong with you." And the Christian message broke through that paganism. That's the good
news. And changed the culture. That's the good news. The Calvinist part is it took about
300 years. So, let's settle in for the long haul. Let's not lose heart. And if the Lord
tarries, let's keep at this, because our message is a liberating, joyful message, not a message
that's going to harm people. LARSON: Amen. Thank you all. Would you
thank our panelists this afternoon?
