September 19, 2025 • 63 mins
What is truth? Seemingly insignificant compromises can lead us dangerously astray. Jeremy Thomas delivers a compelling examination of biblical infallibility and the growing trend among evangelicals to claim that while Jesus never sinned, he might have made technical errors when speaking about science or history.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That sounds right.
I mean, it's true.
You've got the words of theBible God revealed Himself to us
there.
We've got the record of natureGod reveals Himself to us.
There we know, and these twointegrate.
So what's our mission?
To work rigorously to show howthe two integrate into a harmony
, right?
(00:30):
Well, let's look at the nextquote, Because see, this is the
deception.
You buy into this statement andyou think, oh, this is good
stuff.
And before you know it, you'reat the next statement.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
If I spent all afternoon baking brownies and
presented them to you, would youeat one?
What if I told you I mixed in atablespoon of dog poop?
Would you still eat them, eventhough I used the finest flour,
chocolate, milk, eggs, tookspecial care to make sure they
(01:09):
were baked just perfectly,knowing that there was just a
tablespoon of poop in there,would you eat them?
Well, that's a ridiculousquestion, isn't it?
Of course you wouldn't.
And yet we consume falsetheology, false doctrine, false
philosophy all the time.
And the same principle is truethere.
(01:31):
It might be 90, 95, or even 99%true, but it is that 1% lie or
5% lie that pushes us off thetruth of God and has us walking
down a path of human wisdom,falsehood and lies.
So we must be careful to weedout and think carefully about
(01:54):
what we're putting into our mind.
The old software programmingconundrum and saying garbage in
equals garbage out is true.
Guard your mind, people.
That's the message of today.
And saying garbage in equalsgarbage out is true.
Guard your mind, people.
That's the message of today andbe careful.
This is why doctrine isimportant.
The FBI doesn't train theiragents to recognize counterfeits
(02:17):
by looking at counterfeits.
They train their agents torecognize counterfeit bills by
looking at the real thing, sothat they know when something
isn't quite right.
Let's focus on the Word, andtoday Jeremy goes through many
examples of science andphilosophy and theology to show
(02:37):
why we need to be so verycareful.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You probably have a pretty good notion of what
infallibility means, but I wantto relate this to some of the
things we've been talking aboutin the last several months.
So, under the event we'vecalled the life of the king,
we've dealt with severaldoctrines.
Actually, hypostatic union wasunder the birth of the king, but
I'm bringing it forward becauseit's so closely related to
(03:01):
kenosis and impeccability.
But at any rate, just so wekind of have those in mind.
This is the background for theinfallibility discussion and we
really just finishedimpeccability.
But just to state these summaryconclusions that we came to on
the doctrine of the hypostaticunion, jesus Christ is
undiminished deity, meaning he's100% God right.
(03:23):
He's united with true humanity,meaning he's 100% man in one
person, without mixture orseparation, forever.
So his divine nature is notmixed with his human nature, nor
are they separated into twoseparate people.
We're trying to state what theScriptures say about his person
in hypostasis.
(03:43):
Then we moved on to kenosis,and this is dealing with the
difficult struggle point of whatdid Jesus Christ give up in his
earthly career, in theincarnation.
What did he give up?
Well, he didn't give up hisdivine attributes.
He still maintained them.
(04:04):
He was 100% God right, but hedid give up the independent use
of his divine attributes,meaning that the only time that
he would utilize his divineattributes is by permission of
the Father.
So the key passage there isPhilippians 2.
It's dealing with the kenosis,what he gave up, and then the
(04:24):
impeccability.
And this doctrine is reallytied to the question of was
Jesus really tempted in allthings as we?
We know the Bible says he wastempted, but how exactly was he
tempted in all things as we?
Since if he's God and God can'tbe tempted, james 1, then how
exactly was he tempted in allthings as we?
And this discussion throughchurch history has come down in
(04:47):
favor of basically a statementvery similar to the one I have
here that Jesus Christ was notable to sin in his divine nature
.
Emphasizing inability, able notto sin in his human nature,
emphasizing he was able to andtherefore, of course, temptable,
but as a person not able to sin, because the divine and human
(05:08):
natures are in one person.
So you must look at him,finally, as a person and not two
separate people.
So, at any rate, the questionof impeccability then is falling
in favor of him as a personbeing not able to sin.
But the next question becomesokay, we all agree that he
(05:28):
didn't sin, most Christianswould agree with this but the
next question becomesinfallibility, and that's the
question of could he maketechnical errors in things that
he spoke?
And so this has actually becomea very prevailing position in
evangelicalism.
So not outside of evangelicalismlike among liberals, but among
(05:52):
evangelicals, to claim thatJesus, while impeccable and
never sinned, nevertheless didmake technical errors with
respect to historical andscientific details.
And so I want to bring us intothe discussion a little bit that
has taken place now over thelast 400 years, but which has
(06:16):
really crystallized in the last100 to 150 years.
And so let me just state somethings about this doctrine.
First of all, then, thedoctrine of infallibility is
dealing with whether everythingJesus and the biblical author
said was accurate.
Most don't question whethereverything they said was
(06:38):
accurate when it comes to faithand ethics, but they highly
question whether everything theysaid with respect to historical
and scientific details wasaccurate.
So they make a split seebetween things of what they call
faith and morals or ethics, andthen, on the other hand, issues
of historical and scientificdetails, so infallibility.
(07:00):
Then we want to embark on thisdiscussion because it will
explain how we got ourselves insuch a pickle in the modern day
evangelical movement throughoutthe world and why we have such a
divergence among evangelicals.
Infallibility, of course, isbuilt on the doctrines of
(07:23):
revelation, inspiration andcanonicity that we all taught
back at the historic event ofMount Sinai.
Mount Sinai is where we hangthose three doctrines, because
that's where God spoke and overtwo million Israelites stood
there at the valley of MountSinai and they heard the voice
of God and they said hey, Moses.
They were afraid.
(07:43):
They said you go talk to him,find out what he wants to say
and come back and tell us right.
But that's a very visual sceneat Mount Sinai, where over two
million people actually heardGod's voice and he's speaking
from outside of history as thecreator into history in the
(08:04):
Hebrew language, such that ifyou'd been there and you'd had
your iPhone or your Android, youcould have recorded God's voice
and captured it and played itback as long as that digital
file existed.
So that's what we mean when wesay God spoke.
We don't mean they had afeeling.
We don't mean there was justsome thunder and lightning and
it sounded like a big God wasthere or something.
(08:25):
We mean God spoke in humanlanguage and these people heard.
So that's the doctrine ofrevelation and we also connect
to that inspiration andcanonicity inspiration.
So I have a short, you knowsummary at the end of point b
here that describes all three ofthese doctrines.
God speaks.
That's revelation through men.
Thatines God speaks.
(08:45):
That's Revelation through men.
That's inspiration in the Bible.
That's the canon, the canon ofScripture, the 66 books of the
canon of Scripture, what weconsider the rule or standard
for all matters.
So infallibility is going toadd to that statement without
mistakes, whenever it touchesany area of life or any matter
(09:12):
or subject to which it toucheson.
So God speaks through men inthe Bible, without mistakes,
whenever it touches on any areaof life.
That would be the doctrine ofinfallibility.
It would add that dimensionwhen it speaks to any area of
life.
That would be the doctrine ofinfallibility.
It would add that dimensionwhen it speaks to any area of
life.
So the real issue gets tied upin what we would consider the
(09:33):
doctrine of inspiration.
Because the question ofinfallibility and what many
evangelicals are now saying isthat, well, they did make
technical errors when it dealswith historical or scientific
details, and so what they'reholding to is a limited
inspiration.
The Bible is inspired, yes, onissues of faith and morals, but
(10:00):
these people were men of theirtime and they espoused a
worldview that had errors, andnow we know better, we know more
, and so they didn't mean to err, but you know, they were just
products of their own time.
(10:21):
That's sort of how thediscussion goes.
So infallibility, just as aword, if you look it up in
Merriam-Webster, means incapableof erring, unerring, not
misleading or deceiving.
And the third is veryinteresting.
I was actually surprised so Iadded it to the lesson Incapable
of error in defining doctrinestouching faith or morals.
(10:44):
Incapable of error in definingdoctrines touching faith or
morals.
In other words, even inMerriam-Webster's it limited the
extent to which biblicaldoctrines don't err.
It limited it to faith andmorals.
It didn't go beyond that in thedefinition to include
(11:05):
historical data information aswell as scientific information.
So the question becomes well,what about doctrines that don't
touch matters of faith andmorals, such as scientific
details like the length of daysor a day in Genesis 1?
What about issues the Bibletouches on, like the age of the
(11:25):
earth, which it most definitelytouches on?
These aren't just genealogies,many of them are actually
chronology, because they givebirth, of father, age at which
the father gave birth to a son,and then the number of years
that the father lived until hedied gave birth to a son, and
(11:47):
then the number of years thatthe father lived until he died.
So it gives genealogy, but itbuilds it in many cases into a
chronology as well, where youcan't sneak more time in there.
It locks things down, forexample in Genesis 5.
And the other thing is how manyyears do you think you can get
in there anyway to make theBible's timeline match that of
(12:09):
the modern theory of evolution?
How long have humans beenaround in modern evolution?
About 200,000 years.
Is there any way you can,without looking like an idiot,
try to get that much time?
I mean because in the Bibleyou're talking maximum 7,000 to
8,000 years that you can get inthere.
(12:30):
I mean, when does a genealogyreally not be no longer a
genealogy?
Because you snuck 28,000 yearsin there or something between
two people.
So on the face of it, you knowit looks silly.
But other issues what about thefossil record?
Would the Bible touch on thatif it's talking about a global
(12:52):
flood in Genesis 6-8?
I mean, how are fossils made?
Well, they have to be rapidburial and then sedimentary.
I'm sorry, water has to passthrough so you have mineral
replacement so that the bone isnow stone easy idea bone to
stone.
And this has to happen veryrapidly.
(13:12):
If the animal just dies andisn't buried rapidly, it's just
going to deteriorate.
In a few years there won't beanything left.
So it's got to be rapid barrelmineral replacement and this is
how they're made.
Now, with the global flood ofnoah, like would that, would
that cause any fossilization?
Uh well, yeah, I mean I thinkthere's a song that answers in
(13:33):
genesis put out, it's calledbillions of dead things, you
know, buried in rocks, you know,all over the earth.
So I mean, this is on everycontinent, you know, this isn't
that complicated, complicated tosee the fossil record.
So would the Bible haveanything to say about that?
Were Jesus and the biblicalauthors only infallible in areas
(13:55):
when they spoke about moralsand ethics?
But they made mistakes, youknow, when it came to historical
and scientific details.
Of course, not on purpose.
These people will say but theywere just products of their time
and we now know more than thembecause we've made historical
and scientific advances.
So this is a limitedinfallibility view that is
virtually overrun evangelicalism.
(14:16):
And, to just put it succinctly,they would say the Bible is
true in what it states aboutfaith and ethics, but it errs
when it comes to historic andscientific details.
In other words, what they wouldsay, if you just want to kind
of put it bluntly we believe theBible errors in all.
That's basically what they'resaying.
(14:36):
They wouldn't state it that way, but that is what they are
saying in the bottom line.
So here's Donald Bloch, just soyou can see someone who's a
scholar, who actually ispresenting this.
He says they, the scripturewriters, including Jesus, did
not err in what they proclaimed,but this does not mean that
(14:57):
they were faultless in therecording of historical data or
in their worldview which is nowoutdated of historical data or
in their worldview, which is nowoutdated.
So this is a scholar.
I'm not making this up right,you have to see that this is
actually the things that arebeing said, and so that's why I
quote a few people here.
Here's another one.
(15:18):
I couldn't find the source, butI did this years ago, so it's
got to be somewhere in my work.
Natural revelation is the basison which written revelation
rests.
We have to think about this one.
Okay, this was written in 1846,so this is over 160, 170 years
ago.
Right, natural revelation.
And we know God reveals himselfin nature, right?
(15:39):
I mean the Bible declares this.
The heavens declare the gloryof God.
The earth is handiwork.
We have no problem recognizingthat nature reveals who God is,
his power, his wisdom and soforth.
But he says notice what's beingsaid here.
Natural revelation is the basison which written revelation
(16:03):
rests.
So which comes first, naturalor written?
According to the statement?
The natural, in other words.
What is this statement reallysaying?
What this statement is reallysaying is that what we do is we
go out and we investigate naturethrough scientific efforts and
once we draw our conclusions,then we turn to the written
(16:26):
revelation and we interpret itaccordingly.
Did you see that we go out andwe use the scientific method and
we investigate nature and wecome to certain conclusions?
We come to certain conclusionsabout the age of the earth, the
age of the universe and so forthand so on.
Right, then what do we do Then?
(16:46):
We come to the writtenrevelation and we interpret it
accordingly.
In other words, we make theBible fit accordingly.
In other words, we make theBible fit.
So, if the universe is 14.6billion years old, the earth and
sun are 4.6 billion years oldand men have been around 200,000
(17:09):
years or so.
Then we interpret the Bible tofit this data, which is what we
call an accommodation strategy.
Now, is this the way it shouldbe done?
Here's Theodosius Dobzhansky.
He's a Russian theologian, sothis isn't just confined to the
(17:30):
West.
He says this is the way he saysit.
God has revealed himself tohumanity in at least two ways
the words of the Bible and therecord of nature.
Our mission is to workrigorously to integrate both of
God's revelations into oneharmonious picture.
Now, most of us would read that, I think, and we'd say, okay,
(17:55):
yeah, that sounds good, thatsounds right.
I mean, it's true, you got thewords of the Bible.
God revealed himself to usthere.
We got the record of nature.
God reveals himself to us there, we know, and these two
integrate.
So what's our mission?
To work rigorously to show howthe two integrate into a harmony
(18:18):
, right?
Well, let's look at the nextquote, because, see, this is the
deception.
You buy into this statement andyou think, oh, this is good
stuff, and before you know it,you're at the next statement.
Are you ready?
This is the same guy, russiantheologian, theodosius
Dobchansky.
(18:39):
I am a creationist and anevolutionist and when I taught
this at the previous church Iwas out years ago one of the
younger guys I think, he wasprobably like 18 or 19 at the
time and we went on this huntingtrip and I remember him saying
you were talking about this guyand quoted from him and he said
why didn't he just call himselfa crevolutionist?
That's pretty keen, I'll usethat.
(19:03):
I'm a creationist and anevolutionist.
Evolution is God's or nature'smethod of creation, which that's
kind of interesting, isn't itGod's or nature's?
Does that mean that God equalsnature, that God is nature,
which is what Einstein believed.
He said God doesn't play dicewith the universe.
(19:24):
Well, his whole point was thatthe only God there is is the
universe and everything'sdetermined by the specific rules
of physics and so forth thatare inherent to the universe.
That's what Einstein meant.
He didn't believe he believedin an infinite personal God by
any means.
He was talking about natureitself or the universe, which
sounds like what TheodosiusDabshansky believes.
(19:45):
Evolution is God's or nature's.
Notice the capital N and thecapital God.
They're equally, they'reequated.
This method of creationCreation, he says, is not an
event that happened in 4004 BC.
He's using Bishop Usher'schronology from the Bible.
(20:07):
He says it's a process thatbegan some 10 billion years ago
and is still underway.
He asks the question does theevolutionary doctrine clash with
religious faith?
It does not.
It's a blunder to mistake theHoly Scriptures for elementary
textbooks of astronomy, geology,biology and anthropology.
Now, there's a lot going on inthese statements.
(20:35):
There's a lot going on in thesestatements.
The last phrase we can all lookat that and say, well, yeah, we
know, the Bible's not a biologytextbook or an astronomy
textbook or geology, whatever.
See, but this is what we call astraw man.
I don't think any of us haveever said it's a biology
textbook.
I think what we're saying isthat if it touches on something
(20:58):
that relates to biology, it'strue, if it touches on something
related to astronomy, it's true, and so forth, right.
So I guess our question wouldbe should we pay attention to
the Bible when it touches onthese areas?
And if it does touch on theseareas, is it true?
(21:20):
Because the new modernevangelicals are saying, no,
jesus and the authors of theBible erred when it came to
those types of details and weknow more now and so we know
better.
We know better, ultimatelyreally than Jesus is what
they're saying more now, and sowe know better.
We know better, ultimately,really than Jesus is what
they're saying.
So this is where his approachends up.
(21:42):
See, let's do some relevanttexts that we might want to
consider.
Let's turn to Genesis 2, 1through 3.
So Shonsky says just to see hisquote again he says that
(22:02):
creation is not an event thathappened in 4004 BC.
In other words, it's not adefined event that took place
over six literal days, theseventh day of rest.
That's what he's saying, right.
He's saying, in fact, it's aprocess.
Creation is a process thatstarted some 10 billion years
ago and it's still underway.
So creation is a process that'sbeen going on for billions and
(22:22):
billions of years.
It's still going on.
So what does Genesis 2, 1through 3 have to say about this
?
Why don't you underline everytime in verses 1 through 3, at
least mentally, if you won'twrite in your Bible the number
of times that it sounds likeit's complete and it's not an
(22:43):
ongoing process, like it's over,it's done?
Thus, the heavens and the earthwere completed.
Does that sound like it'songoing or that it's done?
And all their hosts?
By the seventh day, godcompleted his work which he had
done, completed, had done.
Was he still doing it?
(23:04):
Was there an eighth day ofcreation, a ninth day, all the
way down to our own day, or isit done?
Verse uh he rested on theseventh day from all his work
which he had done.
Then God blessed the seventhday and sanctified it because in
it he what Rested, which meanshe's not doing anything in terms
(23:29):
of creation.
He's resting from that work ofcreation, from all his work
which he had created and hadmade right?
So if you count, there's aboutseven verbs in there that all
indicate he's not doing any morework of creation.
That that's done, it'scompleted.
It's not an ongoing process.
(23:51):
Okay.
So did Moses get it wrong?
This is the question we'd ask.
Did Moses get it wrong when hesaid that the creation processes
were turned off by the seventhday?
Did he not know?
Did Moses not know thatcreation is a continual process
that's been going on forbillions of years?
Poor Moses, he just didn't havethe modern insight that we have
.
If these processes were turnedoff on the seventh day, here's a
(24:15):
question how can we know whatthose processes were?
How can we know?
How could we investigate?
Can anyone go back.
Do you have a time machine?
This is what we would need,right?
You need a time machine.
You need to be able to go backto creation week and actually
(24:35):
make observations and doexperimentation, right, in order
to find out what the processesthat god used to make were.
And you, you'd even have to goback there and to find out what
process, what the biologicalprocesses in the world were,
what the chemical processes were, what the physics processes
were, because we, just frankly,we, we don't know, do we?
(24:58):
There's always the questionwhich came first, the chicken or
the egg?
I always conclude the chickenwith the egg in it, you idiot.
But I concluded that becausethe text also says on the third
day, when he made the dry landand all the plants, it says he
made plants with seed in them.
Which came first, the seed of aplant or the plant?
(25:20):
Yes, yes, the seed was in theplant.
In other words, we would alsogo further and say in a state of
maturity, wouldn't we?
Did God create like an infantcreation or did he create a
mature creation?
In other words, did he create acreation that looked like it
(25:43):
was brand new, or did he createit with apparent age?
Apparent age.
Now some people say, well,that's a deception because it
gives the appearance of timepassage.
Yeah, but he told us that,didn't he?
He said I created it with seedin it, so it's not a deception.
(26:03):
He told us these things, so hecreates.
This is all very interestingstuff, but the point here is
that those processes that wereat work during creation week, we
have no idea what they were.
No amount of scientificinvestigation can ever take us
(26:23):
back there and tell us anythingabout any of the processes at
all.
Could it have been verydifferent?
Yes, it could have been verydifferent.
Did the oxygen to nitrogenpercentage in our atmosphere
have to be the same then as itis now?
No, didn't have to be.
Could have been wildlydifferent.
We just don't know.
(26:46):
People don't like that that.
We don't know right, and sothey have techniques to try to
explain the distant past, butyou just can't go in there.
Another issue, very, verymodern issue gender marriage and
the universe.
Did you know you could putthose three words together in
(27:08):
the same sentence?
Gender marriage, yes, but theuniverse?
Mark 10, five through eight,let's go to Mark 10.
What I'm trying to show you isbecause you may be asking
yourself why are you bringing upthese texts?
I'm trying to show you thattexts that deal with very what
(27:31):
we might call issues of faithand morals, like marriage and
gender, are tied up withscientific texts.
What we might call issues offaith and morals, like marriage
and gender, are tied up withscientific texts or texts that
touch on scientific issues thatrelate to the universe.
And by showing you that, itshows you that it becomes.
It's very difficult to say yes,jesus was always right when he
(27:54):
spoke to faith and morals, buthe made technical errors over
here when it dealt with issuesof history or science, because
they're tied together in theBible.
So Mark 10, 5 through 8, andthis is a quote from Genesis 1
and Genesis 2.
So one of the passages hequotes is Genesis 1, 127, and
the other is Genesis 24.
(28:15):
So let's see what he said.
They're asking a question aboutdivorce, right?
May a man you know permit, orwould God permit, a man to
divorce his wife for any reason?
So in verse 5, jesus said tothem because of your hardness of
heart, he wrote you thiscommandment.
That's Moses wrote acommandment, verse six but from
(28:37):
the beginning of creation, godmade them what Male and female.
That's from Genesis 1, 27.
And then he says for thisreason, a man shall leave his
father and his mother and thetwo shall become one flesh.
So they shall no longer be two,but one flesh.
What, therefore, god has joinedtogether?
(28:58):
Let no man separate which verse7 and 8 there is from Genesis
2.24.
Here's the question.
Did Jesus not know that thereis no such thing as male and
female, but gender is fluid?
Well, he was just a man of histime.
He didn't realize that genderis a choice that you make.
In fact, that choice can changejust as night follows day,
(29:22):
because gender is fluid.
Poor Jesus, and you know, theworst thing about it is, jesus
built this whole doctrine ofmarriage and divorce on it.
Oops, but that's just a blunder.
Jesus just made a mistake.
He was a man of his time.
Well, evidently Jesus believedin cis or binary genders, didn't
(29:50):
he?
But they say well, that wasjust an error.
Another one age of the humanrace.
Let's go to Matthew 23, 35.
Matthew 23, 35.
This is a quote from Genesis 4.
(30:12):
So I did one from Genesis 1 andthen a 2, and now we're jumping
3 over to 4.
We could do something from 3,but we don't have time to do
everything.
Matthew 23, 35.
Where it says so that Jesussays so, that upon you, that's,
the Jews of that generation thathe came to, first century
(30:33):
Jewish people, upon you may fallthe guilt of all the righteous
blood shed on earth, from theblood of righteous Abel to the
blood of Zechariah, the son ofBarakai, whom you murdered
between the temple and the altar.
All these things, I say, willcome upon this generation.
Now it's interesting.
Two people are mentioned asbeing murdered here, right, abel
(30:55):
and Zechariah.
And he's saying you're guiltyof all the blood from Abel to
Zechariah.
In the Jewish canon ofscripture they arrange it a
little differently than our OldTestament is arranged in the
first.
Their first book is Genesis,though like ours, and who's ours
?
And who's the first personmurdered in the Bible?
(31:18):
Abel.
He's the first person inhistory.
This is what Jesus is saying.
The first person in historythat was murdered, abel.
You're guilty of that blood.
Now, in their Bible, the lastbook is what we would call 2
Chronicles, and the last guy inthe Old Testament who's murdered
is guess what?
This guy, zechariah.
(31:39):
So what does Jesus say?
He's saying you're guilty ofall the blood from the beginning
of history up to where we arenow in canonical history.
Okay, you're guilty of all thatblood.
Now, how long has the humanrace been around?
When did Abel live?
(32:02):
Did Abel live?
Modern people truly modern,really intellectual, very wise
academic will tell us that we'vebeen around for 200,000 years
or so.
Well, wouldn't that mean thatthere was some blood shed before
Abel, who was only about atthis time, 4,000, 5,000 years
(32:25):
before?
I mean, was anybody murderedfor the first 190-something
thousand years of human history?
Do you think any humans mayhave killed other humans?
I guess Jesus was just ignorantabout that.
Jesus just didn't know.
What an idiot.
We know so much more than him.
(32:45):
See, we've advanced the bible.
It won't permit that type ofchronology.
200,000 years, and the Bible isinsistent that this is the
first murder.
But according to other peoplewho are many evangelicals would
(33:08):
have to admit that there weremurders before that.
So it's inconsistent.
It has problems with the text.
How about the global flood ofNoah and the fossil record which
I mentioned to you earlier?
Matthew 24, 37.
I'll just turn one page over 24, 37 in Jesus' Olivet Discourse.
In verses 37 to 39, he'sdescribing the global flood as a
(33:35):
model for what it will be likewhen the second coming
transpires.
So he says in verse 37, thecoming of the Son of man will be
just like the days of Noah,whereas in those days, before
the flood, they were eating anddrinking, they were marrying and
giving in marriage until theday that Noah entered the ark.
And they did not understanduntil the flood came and took
(33:58):
them all away.
So will the coming of the sonof man be now?
In other words, did Jesus buildhis doctrine of the second
coming on the flood of Noah?
Yes, and he said there's anexact parallel.
He says it'll be just like inverse 37, which is a term of
identity.
It'll be identical in therespect that he's describing.
(34:21):
So maybe Jesus just made amistake by building the doctrine
of the second coming on theflood.
What do you think?
I mean, are we just going to?
Well, if you wipe away theglobal flood of Noah?
Right, and you say well, inthese modern times we know
(34:46):
better that there's been manylocal floods, you know over the
course of time, and thatexplains the fossil record,
which is what they basically say, then you're denying the global
flood.
But if you deny the globalflood of Noah, as an evangelical
, which many do, how can youhold on to the second coming?
How, in fact, those who havealready denied the local flood,
(35:14):
or a group known as preterists?
They say that the second comingalready happened in AD 70.
You say Jesus came back in AD70?
Yeah, they say yeah, he cameback through the Roman army and
that's all the second comingthere will ever be.
That's their belief.
Why?
Because they realize you haveto have the flood and the second
coming.
(35:34):
The events have to go together.
They said, since Genesis 6-8 isa local flood, then the second
coming was a local second coming.
It came through the Romanarmies.
That's all the second comingever is.
He's never coming back.
You didn't know.
You were already in the newheavens and new earth.
What's wrong with you people?
That's what thehyper-preterists believe.
(35:59):
You are in the new heavens andnew earth right now wild stuff.
But you can see that there's aconnection between the
universality of these two events.
If you've got a global floodyou know, actually Peter
universalizes it then you've gotalso a universal second coming.
But the point is I'm tying aspiritual truth, the second
coming coming of the Messiah, inwith physical reality.
He's coming in space and time.
He's going to set up hiskingdom, moses.
(36:25):
We didn't mention this one, butmaybe we should have, before we
got too far into this.
Luke 24, 27.
Luke 24, 27.
Who wrote Torah?
Who wrote the Torah?
Who wrote the first five booksof the Bible?
Well, you all say Moses.
But sorry, but you're not anacademic, you're not an
(36:47):
intellectual giant if youbelieve that, because, starting
with Wellhausen and the Germansin the 1700s on up to our own
day, they've come to realizethat Moses didn't write it.
Jesus, then, must have beenwrong.
Who wrote it?
J-e-d-p, you say.
Who's that?
Well, they all stand fordifferent so-called authors the
(37:10):
Jehovah author, the Elohimauthor, the Deuteronomistic
author and the priestly author.
That's who they say.
They divide the books ofGenesis through Deuteronomy up
and say these sections werewritten by some author J, and
these by E, and these by D andthese by P, and so forth.
It's a collocation orculmination of writings that
(37:33):
have come together.
So now we know, see, by thebrilliance of our analyzing text
, that the Torah couldn't havebeen written by one individual
named Moses.
But what did Jesus say in Luke24, 27?
Then, beginning with Moses andwith all the prophets, he
(37:53):
explained to them the thingsconcerning himself in all the
scriptures, beginning with Mosesand with all the prophets.
He explained to them the thingsconcerning himself in all the
scriptures, beginning with Moses, which would be the Torah.
Well, I guess the biblicalauthors were just wrong here.
They didn't know everythingthat we know about texts and
linguistics and analysis oflanguages.
Poor people in the firstcentury and that poor Jesus.
So let me ask you a question Doyou see where this is going in
(38:15):
the first century?
And that poor Jesus.
So let me ask you a question Doyou see where this is going?
This is where this is going.
Gc Burkauer.
Okay, now this guy, before Ilet you read the quote GC
Burkauer was an evangelical.
(38:35):
Okay, probably 97 to 8% of whatGC Burkauer wrote is good stuff
.
Good stuff, you know, ratpoison 99% of rat poison is food
, 1% is poison and it's the 1%that'll kill you, right?
(38:58):
Oops?
So, gc Burkhardt, just say, forsake of argument, 99% of what
he writes is really good, it'sevangelical.
I want you to read thisstatement.
I want you to think about thisstatement and think do you see
anything wrong with thisstatement?
Or is there anything in thisstatement that bugs?
Want you to think about thisstatement and think do you see
anything wrong with thisstatement, or is there anything
(39:19):
in this statement that bugs youa little bit?
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture in
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human writings.
Is there anything there?
Would you state it this way inall its humanity, all its
(39:41):
humanity.
You see, it's like now if wewere to follow this statement,
if this was the doctrine of thischurch or doctrine of most of
the churches, you'd think thatwhen you went to the bookstore
or you ordered a bible on Amazon, that instead of saying God's
word on the front, it would sayman's Word.
Because that's what thisstatement is about.
(40:02):
It's about the humanity.
Now, what Burkauer was doingyou have to understand.
Even in theological academia,those who are in this field want
to be published and recognizedamong their peers.
You want to be in good termswith your peers.
(40:24):
In academia, it's publish orperish.
I don't know if you've heardthat, but publish or perish, and
so you have to.
And all these are peer-reviewedarticles and journals that
you'd be writing and publishingin.
Burkhauer wanted to remain instep with the mainstream
(40:44):
thinking.
So, while he was, as I said,probably 99% correct in the
things that he taught, on thispoint.
What he's doing is he's writingin such a way to appease his
academic peers so that he canpublish and be accepted on a
(41:05):
large scale in academia.
Academia can be so enticing.
I remember standing before uh,charles ryrie, listening to him
speak one time, and one of my,one of the few times irie
listening to him speak one time,and one of the few times I got
to listen to him speak and hesaid that he was introduced.
He was speaking at Cambridgeand he was introduced as a
scholar by the professor whogave the mic to him and he said
(41:32):
I basked in that too long,someone calling me a scholar.
You know, academia ispowerfully dangerous to us
because it can totally eraseyour humility and bring in all
sorts of arrogance and pride.
(41:53):
And so you have to be socareful that you're not
concerned what people think.
You're only concerned with whatGod thinks right, and he's the
one who we are on display beforeAll the world's a stage right,
and God.
You know he's watching us, andif we live our lives that way,
(42:16):
even in academia, we'll be okay.
But if we're asked, will I getthe accolades of my fellow peers
?
We're asking the wrong question, a very dangerous question and
Burkhart, to the point ofdenying virtually the divinity
of Scripture, emphasized itshumanity.
He also said this verydangerous the purpose of the
(42:41):
Bible and Jesus is not at all toprovide scientific gnosis.
Notice how we got to throw afew words like gnosis in there,
greek words and stuff like thatto make us sound so smart.
It's not at all to providescientific gnosis or knowledge
in order to convey and increasehuman knowledge and wisdom, but
to witness to the salvation ofGod unto faith.
(43:03):
You see what he's saying.
Now, there's nothing wrong withthe last part of that.
We all agree that the Biblecontributes to the salvation of
God unto faith, right, sure.
But what's he doing?
He's making the split, right.
He's splitting between issuesof faith and morals and issues
of historical and scientificdetail.
And he's saying, ah, it's notat all the purpose of the Bible,
(43:27):
see, to provide any kind ofknowledge that might relate to
science.
It's just a book that's relatedto salvation and spiritual
issues.
So if Jesus erred on scientificdetails, for Burkhardt, see,
that's no big deal.
He thinks he can hold on to aJesus who provides salvation for
the world on one hand but errsin technical details of science
(43:48):
and history, see, but he's gotto do that to keep his academic
status, or he thinks he does.
What do we do with some claimslike Jesus made in John 3.12?
Let's look at John 3.12.
All this time I've beenbasically just trying to bring
you into the discussion oninfallibility and help us have a
(44:14):
good understanding of it.
In John 3.12, in the discoursewith Nicodemus, right, he tells
Nicodemus in verse 12, if I toldyou earthly things and you do
not believe, how will youbelieve if I tell you heavenly
things?
This has always been one of myfavorite verses because my
(44:34):
background was science, right,biology and chemistry mainly,
but some physics and whateverelse thrown in.
If I tell you of earthly thingsand you don't believe, how will
you believe me when I tell youabout heavenly things?
In other words, if I tell youdetails about things that you
can investigate, they're onearth.
You can, you know, check themout.
(44:56):
We would say, and you can'tbelieve me about what I say
about that.
How are you ever going tobelieve me about things in
heaven, like things like if youbelieve in me, you're forgiven
Anybody got a rocket.
You're going to go to heavenand check to make sure that in
heaven you're forgiven anyone.
How can you know that's true ifyou don't even believe the
(45:20):
things that he tells us thatrelate to this earth?
That can actually beinvestigated.
See, for jesus, like these twothings were tied together
earthly and heavenly things.
Whatever he, he said, it's true.
Right, it wasn't a splitbetween faith and morals, the
spiritual things and, over here,scientific and historic details
(45:41):
.
Jesus wouldn't be willing tomake that split.
Let's go on to Colossians 2.8.
To one of the warnings thatwere given by the Apostle Paul,
galatians, ephesians,philippians and then Colossians
(46:05):
Colossians 2, verse 8.
He says See to it that no onetakes you captive through
philosophy and empty deception,according to the tradition of
men, according to the elementaryprinciples of the world, rather
than according to Christ, whichhe goes on then to describe in
(46:29):
hypostatic union in verse 9.
The fullness of deity in bodilyform.
Static union in verse 9.
The fullness of deity in bodilyform.
How or has the church beentaken captive by human
philosophy by allowing thisconcept of erring on scientific
(46:51):
and historical details to creepin?
I'm bringing this up becausethis is exactly what has
happened.
Human philosophy, as I'm aboutto show you, crept in.
It got its foot in the door, soto speak.
And now we're in a load oftrouble.
Where we are today in thechurch.
(47:11):
What are the 11 most attackedchapters in the Bible?
Genesis 1 through 11, right, weall know the whole evolutionary
creationist discussion that'stranspired now over 240 years.
(47:32):
Why do we have a divide inevangelicalism?
Because of Colossians 2.8.
If you allow human philosophyto come in, as I've been
demonstrating it has, so thatnow what we're doing with the
Bibles, we're saying, yeah, it'strue in the spiritual things,
over here the heavenly things,but over here in the earthly
(47:54):
things, technical errors, thingslike that we can allow that
After a while.
If you realize what you'resaying, that the Bible does have
errors over here, why believeany of it at all?
I remember my mentor, charlieClough, became a believer.
He grew up in the Bronx.
(48:14):
I remember my mentor, charlieClough, became a believer.
He grew up in the Bronx,brilliant mind and he went to
MIT.
He got a degree in mathematics,kind of smart guy.
He became a believer when hewas on campus there.
But when he became a believerhe was in considering it,
considering becoming a Christian.
He was like he came to thisvery logical conclusion.
(48:35):
He said well, I mean, if thisreally is God's word.
There can't be any errors in itbecause God doesn't err.
So this is all true or none ofit's true, and don't mess with
it, it's a waste of time.
That's what he meant and ofcourse he became convinced that
the whole thing is true.
(48:56):
And that's the way it is.
You can't split and say well,the things it says about science
and history.
When it touches on that, that'sfalse.
But the rest of the spiritualthings are true.
That dog won't hunt, as StanleyToussaint used to say, that dog
won't hunt, as, uh, stanleytucson used to say that dog
won't hunt.
Um, how do we do independentinvestigations and stay true to
(49:19):
second corinthians 10, 3 through5 turn back to the left, second
corinthians.
What do I mean that by this?
Uh, independent investigations?
I mean you start with justyourself and your human reason,
independent of God's Word.
Isn't that what Dobzhansky, theRussian, said?
He says we've got the Word ofGod in the Bible and we've got
(49:43):
God's book of nature, and westart with the book of nature
and we find out throughscientific investigation various
things about the earth andnature, and then we fit the
Bible, we interpret the Bible tofit that.
Now can we do that and actuallymaintain our fidelity to God,
(50:05):
our faithfulness to Him,according to 2 Corinthians 10,
3-5?
.
2 Corinthians 10, verse 3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the
flesh, for the weapons of ourwarfare are not of the flesh,
but they are divinely powerfulfor the destruction of
fortresses.
What are we destroying?
He says we are destroyingspeculation and every lofty
(50:27):
thing raised up against theknowledge of God, and we're
taking every thought captive tothe obedience of Christ.
What are we doing?
We're destroying speculation.
We're taking every thoughtcaptive to Christ.
Where do we start with ourknowledge?
Do we start to build knowledgewith what we call, in modern
days, the scientific method thatstems back from Francis Bacon
(50:50):
and others of that era in thelate 15th and early 1600s Is
science?
Does it have the?
What do you say?
How do you say it?
Does it have the monopoly onknowledge?
Is it where we start?
(51:14):
And then we read the Bible tofit that?
Well, we all know where you'regoing to end up if you start
that way.
But can you maintain yourfidelity to these verses?
See that you're destroyingspeculations and everything
that's lifted up against theknowledge of God and taking
every thought captive to Christ.
Where do we start to gainknowledge?
(51:40):
Knowledge, it's calledepistemology, but again, we
don't need five dollar words,right, but how do you know what
you know is true?
Do you start with yourself insome investigation, or do you
start with god and his word?
That's the real issue.
One of my friends calls it abible.
First, epistemology.
You start with the bible.
This because the bible isrevelation from a god who
(52:02):
already knows everything.
It doesn't mean we knoweverything, but we start with
him and what he has revealed.
And if anything he has revealedtouches, let's say, on biology,
like you know, there's twogenders called male and female.
That's the starting point forknowledge.
What happens if we deny thatand we move to fluid gender?
(52:24):
Do we have knowledge?
No, this is imagination.
It's the sinful flesh run intoall sorts of imaginative schemes
.
That's all it is.
It's rebellion against God iswhat we would say at the
imaginative schemes.
That's all it is.
It's rebellion against God iswhat we would say at the heart
of it.
It's rebellion against God.
So we start with the Bible forknowing.
I don't think you can maintainyour integrity and fidelity to
(52:47):
God, as described in theseverses, and then start with
science.
Now look, I want to show youhow this trickled into doctrinal
statements.
This is our doctrinal statement.
It was the same, basically, asthe doctrinal statement on this
point where I came from.
Nothing critical.
But look, we believe theScriptures of the Old and New
Testament to be A God-breathedamen.
(53:08):
Plenary.
That means full, verbal in thewords themselves.
Every word inerrant, withouterror, in the original writings.
We're talking about theoriginal writings.
They are the supreme authorityand faith in life.
How did that get in there?
I'm not being critical, I'mjust saying how did that get in
there?
And just at that point, do yousee a limitation?
(53:29):
At the end, yeah, you shouldsee a limitation.
It's just a matter of faith inlife, like, what about other
issues, historical, scientific,etc.
This leaves the door open.
Now I'm going to do anotherquote right here.
This is from well, dewey beagle.
(53:50):
Now dewey beagle.
This guy was southern baptist.
He broke with the SouthernBaptists over this point.
He believed no, the Bible canerr in these scientific and
other areas like history.
He said it can err.
Here's what he said the Bibleis true in all essential matters
(54:11):
of faith and practice.
Are we any different than him?
No, no, in fact, this is whatthey're wanting us to put in
statements, because it willleave the door open for what?
For all sorts ofinterpretations of the Bible
that could be consistent withevolutionary theory.
That's why.
(54:31):
That's why you say this can'tpossibly be the game.
Oh, this is the game.
This is the whole game.
This is the whole game and it'sbeen going on for four
centuries and it snuck into allthe seminaries, it snuck into
all the churches because we'relike, yeah, I mean, if you read
that statement, you say, yeah,that sounds good, it is it.
(54:55):
Because we're like, yeah, Imean, if you read that statement
, you say, yeah, that soundsgood, it is.
It's essential for all mattersof faith and practice.
You can't disagree with thatstatement, but you do also have
to agree that it does leave thedoor cracked and allow all these
other things to come in.
Now here's the number one thingthat destroys people's faith.
Are you ready?
Genesis has errors.
Genesis 1 through 11 has errors.
(55:22):
It's wrong on the age of theearth.
It's wrong on the geologicalcolumn.
It's wrong on all these things.
So when you go to theuniversity, what happens?
They start telling you allthese other things that you
probably never heard.
But you're thinking all alongthis doesn't fit with Genesis.
If you're a Christian, soyou're thinking well, I guess
Genesis is wrong.
And then guess what happened?
(55:44):
The rest of your faith justerodes.
It erodes Because if you can'ttrust the first 11 chapters of
the Bible, are you really goingto tell me that you can trust
the rest of them?
You'd be an idiot to think thatyou could.
If it's wrong on page 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11,
what makes you think it's goingto be true on page 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, all the waythrough Jesus and the cross?
(56:05):
See it's dumb.
Anybody who's even thinking fora split second will realize.
If my parents raised me in thischurch to believe all these
things and now they're notreally true, I'm not going to
believe all these things.
It is that simple.
It happened to me.
I'm a prime candidate.
I could teach you the doctrineof evolution.
(56:25):
I could teach you accretiontheory of planets.
I could teach you all sorts ofamazing things that I think are
so interesting.
But it's all a lie.
It is all a lie.
I did teach it to people.
I did.
I was a TA for courses.
I held study sessions.
(56:46):
I trained people to believe inevolution.
I explained the details to themso they could make good grades
on tests.
And then it took years ofundoing by studying radiometric
dating and all these methods andtechniques, the presuppositions
under evolution and all thephilosophy that was underneath
these systems.
No, I mean you can do all thatyourself, or we can sit down for
(57:09):
years and we can talk about ityears and we can talk about it.
But this has crept in and ithas totally destroyed the church
.
The church today is sofragmented I mean it's
(57:30):
unbelievable, right, but it'sthis little point right here
that it's all it's like.
Once you crack that door, aflood just came through.
It's what's happened.
Now, this is endemic becausemost in the church had not been
evaluating the language, both inthe seminaries and local
churches.
It slipped in and once it gotin, see what tends to happen is
it just gets copied and pasteddown, you know, through time,
(57:53):
without careful thinking.
So this is in virtually everydoctrinal statement, even the
most sound Bible teachingchurches.
It shows that the church hasremoved itself from the public
square of ideas.
That's a very important point.
We have retreated.
The church has retreated fromthe public square of ideas, you
and I, because we believe inthings like a young earth and a
(58:13):
global flood, are consideredtotal kooks, total crazies.
I mean, you're never going tobe heard in the public square.
You're just not.
We're not why?
Because the Bible is true onlyinsofar as it deals with
spiritual things.
The church is where you go foryour spiritual things, but for
knowledge of the real world yougo to the academic university,
(58:36):
don't you?
Because they have a monopoly onthat knowledge.
Do you see how we've becomeirrelevant to most people?
We're just little obscurepeople in a corner.
The church allowed this.
The church allowed this in the20th century, particularly after
World War II.
After World War II it wasmostly over.
(58:58):
It retreated.
It said yeah, the church is allabout religion and spirituality
, but we have nothing to sayabout the age of the earth.
We have nothing to say aboutdeath and fossils.
We have nothing to say aboutthat stuff.
Well, sorry, but the Bible hasa lot of things to say about
those things.
It has a whole lot to say.
So next week, what I'll do iswe'll get, we'll go a little bit
(59:20):
further.
I want to take you back tofrancis bacon and his book novum
organum, which is where thisall came from?
Okay, because he said somethingcritical and if you just read
the statement, the second line,you'll see a key word.
In 1620, francis Baconpublished Nova Morgana.
In this work, bacon claimedthat all knowledge is gained
(59:42):
exclusively through experienceand experiment.
How much knowledge All?
Where's the Bible in that?
It's not there at all.
Experience and experiment.
I'll trace this down for you toa guy named John Dewey.
Do any of you know John Dewey?
(01:00:06):
How many of you have been to alibrary and you checked out a
book back in the day when theyhad the card catalog and the
system that was called the DeweyDecimal System?
That's the best thing JohnDewey ever did.
The rest of it is the nightmareof American public education.
(01:00:27):
The rest of it is the nightmare.
Between 1930 and 1950, hepublished 50,000 articles that
were circulated to every publicschool system in the United
States of America and he wentaround and conducted seminars in
all the major cities of theUnited States of America.
There's not one single personwho's had more impact on public
(01:00:49):
education than John Dewey.
And John Dewey is the logicalconclusion to Francis Bacon.
This man believed that if youdid not directly experience
something, it's not true for you.
Total relativism All truth isrelative.
(01:01:10):
If you did not experience whathappened between, let's just say
, in 1943 at Auschwitz, itdidn't happen.
It's not true for you.
You have to have directlyexperienced it.
He was an ultimate logicalperson, very, very logical.
(01:01:32):
I agree with his logic.
If your starting point is allknowledge comes from experience
and experiment, then you have toend up there.
You cannot escape it.
And this is the birth ofrelativity and no absolute.
And this is what has destroyedour country.
(01:01:53):
It's just literally utterlydestroyed it.
Now you can talk about Jesustill you're blue in the face
with people because from theirpoint of view, that's just true
for you.
You had an experience andthat's true for you, but I
didn't have that experience.
And they're not even convictedof anything until they have
(01:02:17):
their own personal experienceand it becomes true for them.
You see, this is what's makingit so hard to evangelize people
today, so so difficult, becausewe're talking about something
that's true.
Their concept of truth is truefor you.
So from the get-go, you can'tget anything through.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:03:02):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That sounds right.
I mean, it's true.
You've got the words of theBible God revealed Himself to us
there.
We've got the record of natureGod reveals Himself to us.
There we know, and these twointegrate.
So what's our mission?
To work rigorously to show howthe two integrate into a harmony
, right?
(00:30):
Well, let's look at the nextquote, Because see, this is the
deception.
You buy into this statement andyou think, oh, this is good
stuff.
And before you know it, you'reat the next statement.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
If I spent all afternoon baking brownies and
presented them to you, would youeat one?
What if I told you I mixed in atablespoon of dog poop?
Would you still eat them, eventhough I used the finest flour,
chocolate, milk, eggs, tookspecial care to make sure they
(01:09):
were baked just perfectly,knowing that there was just a
tablespoon of poop in there,would you eat them?
Well, that's a ridiculousquestion, isn't it?
Of course you wouldn't.
And yet we consume falsetheology, false doctrine, false
philosophy all the time.
And the same principle is truethere.
(01:31):
It might be 90, 95, or even 99%true, but it is that 1% lie or
5% lie that pushes us off thetruth of God and has us walking
down a path of human wisdom,falsehood and lies.
So we must be careful to weedout and think carefully about
(01:54):
what we're putting into our mind.
The old software programmingconundrum and saying garbage in
equals garbage out is true.
Guard your mind, people.
That's the message of today.
And saying garbage in equalsgarbage out is true.
Guard your mind, people.
That's the message of today andbe careful.
This is why doctrine isimportant.
The FBI doesn't train theiragents to recognize counterfeits
(02:17):
by looking at counterfeits.
They train their agents torecognize counterfeit bills by
looking at the real thing, sothat they know when something
isn't quite right.
Let's focus on the Word, andtoday Jeremy goes through many
examples of science andphilosophy and theology to show
(02:37):
why we need to be so verycareful.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You probably have a pretty good notion of what
infallibility means, but I wantto relate this to some of the
things we've been talking aboutin the last several months.
So, under the event we'vecalled the life of the king,
we've dealt with severaldoctrines.
Actually, hypostatic union wasunder the birth of the king, but
I'm bringing it forward becauseit's so closely related to
(03:01):
kenosis and impeccability.
But at any rate, just so wekind of have those in mind.
This is the background for theinfallibility discussion and we
really just finishedimpeccability.
But just to state these summaryconclusions that we came to on
the doctrine of the hypostaticunion, jesus Christ is
undiminished deity, meaning he's100% God right.
(03:23):
He's united with true humanity,meaning he's 100% man in one
person, without mixture orseparation, forever.
So his divine nature is notmixed with his human nature, nor
are they separated into twoseparate people.
We're trying to state what theScriptures say about his person
in hypostasis.
(03:43):
Then we moved on to kenosis,and this is dealing with the
difficult struggle point of whatdid Jesus Christ give up in his
earthly career, in theincarnation.
What did he give up?
Well, he didn't give up hisdivine attributes.
He still maintained them.
(04:04):
He was 100% God right, but hedid give up the independent use
of his divine attributes,meaning that the only time that
he would utilize his divineattributes is by permission of
the Father.
So the key passage there isPhilippians 2.
It's dealing with the kenosis,what he gave up, and then the
(04:24):
impeccability.
And this doctrine is reallytied to the question of was
Jesus really tempted in allthings as we?
We know the Bible says he wastempted, but how exactly was he
tempted in all things as we?
Since if he's God and God can'tbe tempted, james 1, then how
exactly was he tempted in allthings as we?
And this discussion throughchurch history has come down in
(04:47):
favor of basically a statementvery similar to the one I have
here that Jesus Christ was notable to sin in his divine nature
.
Emphasizing inability, able notto sin in his human nature,
emphasizing he was able to andtherefore, of course, temptable,
but as a person not able to sin, because the divine and human
(05:08):
natures are in one person.
So you must look at him,finally, as a person and not two
separate people.
So, at any rate, the questionof impeccability then is falling
in favor of him as a personbeing not able to sin.
But the next question becomesokay, we all agree that he
(05:28):
didn't sin, most Christianswould agree with this but the
next question becomesinfallibility, and that's the
question of could he maketechnical errors in things that
he spoke?
And so this has actually becomea very prevailing position in
evangelicalism.
So not outside of evangelicalismlike among liberals, but among
(05:52):
evangelicals, to claim thatJesus, while impeccable and
never sinned, nevertheless didmake technical errors with
respect to historical andscientific details.
And so I want to bring us intothe discussion a little bit that
has taken place now over thelast 400 years, but which has
(06:16):
really crystallized in the last100 to 150 years.
And so let me just state somethings about this doctrine.
First of all, then, thedoctrine of infallibility is
dealing with whether everythingJesus and the biblical author
said was accurate.
Most don't question whethereverything they said was
(06:38):
accurate when it comes to faithand ethics, but they highly
question whether everything theysaid with respect to historical
and scientific details wasaccurate.
So they make a split seebetween things of what they call
faith and morals or ethics, andthen, on the other hand, issues
of historical and scientificdetails, so infallibility.
(07:00):
Then we want to embark on thisdiscussion because it will
explain how we got ourselves insuch a pickle in the modern day
evangelical movement throughoutthe world and why we have such a
divergence among evangelicals.
Infallibility, of course, isbuilt on the doctrines of
(07:23):
revelation, inspiration andcanonicity that we all taught
back at the historic event ofMount Sinai.
Mount Sinai is where we hangthose three doctrines, because
that's where God spoke and overtwo million Israelites stood
there at the valley of MountSinai and they heard the voice
of God and they said hey, Moses.
They were afraid.
(07:43):
They said you go talk to him,find out what he wants to say
and come back and tell us right.
But that's a very visual sceneat Mount Sinai, where over two
million people actually heardGod's voice and he's speaking
from outside of history as thecreator into history in the
(08:04):
Hebrew language, such that ifyou'd been there and you'd had
your iPhone or your Android, youcould have recorded God's voice
and captured it and played itback as long as that digital
file existed.
So that's what we mean when wesay God spoke.
We don't mean they had afeeling.
We don't mean there was justsome thunder and lightning and
it sounded like a big God wasthere or something.
(08:25):
We mean God spoke in humanlanguage and these people heard.
So that's the doctrine ofrevelation and we also connect
to that inspiration andcanonicity inspiration.
So I have a short, you knowsummary at the end of point b
here that describes all three ofthese doctrines.
God speaks.
That's revelation through men.
Thatines God speaks.
(08:45):
That's Revelation through men.
That's inspiration in the Bible.
That's the canon, the canon ofScripture, the 66 books of the
canon of Scripture, what weconsider the rule or standard
for all matters.
So infallibility is going toadd to that statement without
mistakes, whenever it touchesany area of life or any matter
(09:12):
or subject to which it toucheson.
So God speaks through men inthe Bible, without mistakes,
whenever it touches on any areaof life.
That would be the doctrine ofinfallibility.
It would add that dimensionwhen it speaks to any area of
life.
That would be the doctrine ofinfallibility.
It would add that dimensionwhen it speaks to any area of
life.
So the real issue gets tied upin what we would consider the
(09:33):
doctrine of inspiration.
Because the question ofinfallibility and what many
evangelicals are now saying isthat, well, they did make
technical errors when it dealswith historical or scientific
details, and so what they'reholding to is a limited
inspiration.
The Bible is inspired, yes, onissues of faith and morals, but
(10:00):
these people were men of theirtime and they espoused a
worldview that had errors, andnow we know better, we know more
, and so they didn't mean to err, but you know, they were just
products of their own time.
(10:21):
That's sort of how thediscussion goes.
So infallibility, just as aword, if you look it up in
Merriam-Webster, means incapableof erring, unerring, not
misleading or deceiving.
And the third is veryinteresting.
I was actually surprised so Iadded it to the lesson Incapable
of error in defining doctrinestouching faith or morals.
(10:44):
Incapable of error in definingdoctrines touching faith or
morals.
In other words, even inMerriam-Webster's it limited the
extent to which biblicaldoctrines don't err.
It limited it to faith andmorals.
It didn't go beyond that in thedefinition to include
(11:05):
historical data information aswell as scientific information.
So the question becomes well,what about doctrines that don't
touch matters of faith andmorals, such as scientific
details like the length of daysor a day in Genesis 1?
What about issues the Bibletouches on, like the age of the
(11:25):
earth, which it most definitelytouches on?
These aren't just genealogies,many of them are actually
chronology, because they givebirth, of father, age at which
the father gave birth to a son,and then the number of years
that the father lived until hedied gave birth to a son, and
(11:47):
then the number of years thatthe father lived until he died.
So it gives genealogy, but itbuilds it in many cases into a
chronology as well, where youcan't sneak more time in there.
It locks things down, forexample in Genesis 5.
And the other thing is how manyyears do you think you can get
in there anyway to make theBible's timeline match that of
(12:09):
the modern theory of evolution?
How long have humans beenaround in modern evolution?
About 200,000 years.
Is there any way you can,without looking like an idiot,
try to get that much time?
I mean because in the Bibleyou're talking maximum 7,000 to
8,000 years that you can get inthere.
(12:30):
I mean, when does a genealogyreally not be no longer a
genealogy?
Because you snuck 28,000 yearsin there or something between
two people.
So on the face of it, you knowit looks silly.
But other issues what about thefossil record?
Would the Bible touch on thatif it's talking about a global
(12:52):
flood in Genesis 6-8?
I mean, how are fossils made?
Well, they have to be rapidburial and then sedimentary.
I'm sorry, water has to passthrough so you have mineral
replacement so that the bone isnow stone easy idea bone to
stone.
And this has to happen veryrapidly.
(13:12):
If the animal just dies andisn't buried rapidly, it's just
going to deteriorate.
In a few years there won't beanything left.
So it's got to be rapid barrelmineral replacement and this is
how they're made.
Now, with the global flood ofnoah, like would that, would
that cause any fossilization?
Uh well, yeah, I mean I thinkthere's a song that answers in
(13:33):
genesis put out, it's calledbillions of dead things, you
know, buried in rocks, you know,all over the earth.
So I mean, this is on everycontinent, you know, this isn't
that complicated, complicated tosee the fossil record.
So would the Bible haveanything to say about that?
Were Jesus and the biblicalauthors only infallible in areas
(13:55):
when they spoke about moralsand ethics?
But they made mistakes, youknow, when it came to historical
and scientific details.
Of course, not on purpose.
These people will say but theywere just products of their time
and we now know more than thembecause we've made historical
and scientific advances.
So this is a limitedinfallibility view that is
virtually overrun evangelicalism.
(14:16):
And, to just put it succinctly,they would say the Bible is
true in what it states aboutfaith and ethics, but it errs
when it comes to historic andscientific details.
In other words, what they wouldsay, if you just want to kind
of put it bluntly we believe theBible errors in all.
That's basically what they'resaying.
(14:36):
They wouldn't state it that way, but that is what they are
saying in the bottom line.
So here's Donald Bloch, just soyou can see someone who's a
scholar, who actually ispresenting this.
He says they, the scripturewriters, including Jesus, did
not err in what they proclaimed,but this does not mean that
(14:57):
they were faultless in therecording of historical data or
in their worldview which is nowoutdated of historical data or
in their worldview, which is nowoutdated.
So this is a scholar.
I'm not making this up right,you have to see that this is
actually the things that arebeing said, and so that's why I
quote a few people here.
Here's another one.
(15:18):
I couldn't find the source, butI did this years ago, so it's
got to be somewhere in my work.
Natural revelation is the basison which written revelation
rests.
We have to think about this one.
Okay, this was written in 1846,so this is over 160, 170 years
ago.
Right, natural revelation.
And we know God reveals himselfin nature, right?
(15:39):
I mean the Bible declares this.
The heavens declare the gloryof God.
The earth is handiwork.
We have no problem recognizingthat nature reveals who God is,
his power, his wisdom and soforth.
But he says notice what's beingsaid here.
Natural revelation is the basison which written revelation
(16:03):
rests.
So which comes first, naturalor written?
According to the statement?
The natural, in other words.
What is this statement reallysaying?
What this statement is reallysaying is that what we do is we
go out and we investigate naturethrough scientific efforts and
once we draw our conclusions,then we turn to the written
(16:26):
revelation and we interpret itaccordingly.
Did you see that we go out andwe use the scientific method and
we investigate nature and wecome to certain conclusions?
We come to certain conclusionsabout the age of the earth, the
age of the universe and so forthand so on.
Right, then what do we do Then?
(16:46):
We come to the writtenrevelation and we interpret it
accordingly.
In other words, we make theBible fit accordingly.
In other words, we make theBible fit.
So, if the universe is 14.6billion years old, the earth and
sun are 4.6 billion years oldand men have been around 200,000
(17:09):
years or so.
Then we interpret the Bible tofit this data, which is what we
call an accommodation strategy.
Now, is this the way it shouldbe done?
Here's Theodosius Dobzhansky.
He's a Russian theologian, sothis isn't just confined to the
(17:30):
West.
He says this is the way he saysit.
God has revealed himself tohumanity in at least two ways
the words of the Bible and therecord of nature.
Our mission is to workrigorously to integrate both of
God's revelations into oneharmonious picture.
Now, most of us would read that, I think, and we'd say, okay,
(17:55):
yeah, that sounds good, thatsounds right.
I mean, it's true, you got thewords of the Bible.
God revealed himself to usthere.
We got the record of nature.
God reveals himself to us there, we know, and these two
integrate.
So what's our mission?
To work rigorously to show howthe two integrate into a harmony
(18:18):
, right?
Well, let's look at the nextquote, because, see, this is the
deception.
You buy into this statement andyou think, oh, this is good
stuff, and before you know it,you're at the next statement.
Are you ready?
This is the same guy, russiantheologian, theodosius
Dobchansky.
(18:39):
I am a creationist and anevolutionist and when I taught
this at the previous church Iwas out years ago one of the
younger guys I think, he wasprobably like 18 or 19 at the
time and we went on this huntingtrip and I remember him saying
you were talking about this guyand quoted from him and he said
why didn't he just call himselfa crevolutionist?
That's pretty keen, I'll usethat.
(19:03):
I'm a creationist and anevolutionist.
Evolution is God's or nature'smethod of creation, which that's
kind of interesting, isn't itGod's or nature's?
Does that mean that God equalsnature, that God is nature,
which is what Einstein believed.
He said God doesn't play dicewith the universe.
(19:24):
Well, his whole point was thatthe only God there is is the
universe and everything'sdetermined by the specific rules
of physics and so forth thatare inherent to the universe.
That's what Einstein meant.
He didn't believe he believedin an infinite personal God by
any means.
He was talking about natureitself or the universe, which
sounds like what TheodosiusDabshansky believes.
(19:45):
Evolution is God's or nature's.
Notice the capital N and thecapital God.
They're equally, they'reequated.
This method of creationCreation, he says, is not an
event that happened in 4004 BC.
He's using Bishop Usher'schronology from the Bible.
(20:07):
He says it's a process thatbegan some 10 billion years ago
and is still underway.
He asks the question does theevolutionary doctrine clash with
religious faith?
It does not.
It's a blunder to mistake theHoly Scriptures for elementary
textbooks of astronomy, geology,biology and anthropology.
Now, there's a lot going on inthese statements.
(20:35):
There's a lot going on in thesestatements.
The last phrase we can all lookat that and say, well, yeah, we
know, the Bible's not a biologytextbook or an astronomy
textbook or geology, whatever.
See, but this is what we call astraw man.
I don't think any of us haveever said it's a biology
textbook.
I think what we're saying isthat if it touches on something
(20:58):
that relates to biology, it'strue, if it touches on something
related to astronomy, it's true, and so forth, right.
So I guess our question wouldbe should we pay attention to
the Bible when it touches onthese areas?
And if it does touch on theseareas, is it true?
(21:20):
Because the new modernevangelicals are saying, no,
jesus and the authors of theBible erred when it came to
those types of details and weknow more now and so we know
better.
We know better, ultimatelyreally than Jesus is what
they're saying more now, and sowe know better.
We know better, ultimately,really than Jesus is what
they're saying.
So this is where his approachends up.
(21:42):
See, let's do some relevanttexts that we might want to
consider.
Let's turn to Genesis 2, 1through 3.
So Shonsky says just to see hisquote again he says that
(22:02):
creation is not an event thathappened in 4004 BC.
In other words, it's not adefined event that took place
over six literal days, theseventh day of rest.
That's what he's saying, right.
He's saying, in fact, it's aprocess.
Creation is a process thatstarted some 10 billion years
ago and it's still underway.
So creation is a process that'sbeen going on for billions and
(22:22):
billions of years.
It's still going on.
So what does Genesis 2, 1through 3 have to say about this
?
Why don't you underline everytime in verses 1 through 3, at
least mentally, if you won'twrite in your Bible the number
of times that it sounds likeit's complete and it's not an
(22:43):
ongoing process, like it's over,it's done?
Thus, the heavens and the earthwere completed.
Does that sound like it'songoing or that it's done?
And all their hosts?
By the seventh day, godcompleted his work which he had
done, completed, had done.
Was he still doing it?
(23:04):
Was there an eighth day ofcreation, a ninth day, all the
way down to our own day, or isit done?
Verse uh he rested on theseventh day from all his work
which he had done.
Then God blessed the seventhday and sanctified it because in
it he what Rested, which meanshe's not doing anything in terms
(23:29):
of creation.
He's resting from that work ofcreation, from all his work
which he had created and hadmade right?
So if you count, there's aboutseven verbs in there that all
indicate he's not doing any morework of creation.
That that's done, it'scompleted.
It's not an ongoing process.
(23:51):
Okay.
So did Moses get it wrong?
This is the question we'd ask.
Did Moses get it wrong when hesaid that the creation processes
were turned off by the seventhday?
Did he not know?
Did Moses not know thatcreation is a continual process
that's been going on forbillions of years?
Poor Moses, he just didn't havethe modern insight that we have
.
If these processes were turnedoff on the seventh day, here's a
(24:15):
question how can we know whatthose processes were?
How can we know?
How could we investigate?
Can anyone go back.
Do you have a time machine?
This is what we would need,right?
You need a time machine.
You need to be able to go backto creation week and actually
(24:35):
make observations and doexperimentation, right, in order
to find out what the processesthat god used to make were.
And you, you'd even have to goback there and to find out what
process, what the biologicalprocesses in the world were,
what the chemical processes were, what the physics processes
were, because we, just frankly,we, we don't know, do we?
(24:58):
There's always the questionwhich came first, the chicken or
the egg?
I always conclude the chickenwith the egg in it, you idiot.
But I concluded that becausethe text also says on the third
day, when he made the dry landand all the plants, it says he
made plants with seed in them.
Which came first, the seed of aplant or the plant?
(25:20):
Yes, yes, the seed was in theplant.
In other words, we would alsogo further and say in a state of
maturity, wouldn't we?
Did God create like an infantcreation or did he create a
mature creation?
In other words, did he create acreation that looked like it
(25:43):
was brand new, or did he createit with apparent age?
Apparent age.
Now some people say, well,that's a deception because it
gives the appearance of timepassage.
Yeah, but he told us that,didn't he?
He said I created it with seedin it, so it's not a deception.
(26:03):
He told us these things, so hecreates.
This is all very interestingstuff, but the point here is
that those processes that wereat work during creation week, we
have no idea what they were.
No amount of scientificinvestigation can ever take us
(26:23):
back there and tell us anythingabout any of the processes at
all.
Could it have been verydifferent?
Yes, it could have been verydifferent.
Did the oxygen to nitrogenpercentage in our atmosphere
have to be the same then as itis now?
No, didn't have to be.
Could have been wildlydifferent.
We just don't know.
(26:46):
People don't like that that.
We don't know right, and sothey have techniques to try to
explain the distant past, butyou just can't go in there.
Another issue, very, verymodern issue gender marriage and
the universe.
Did you know you could putthose three words together in
(27:08):
the same sentence?
Gender marriage, yes, but theuniverse?
Mark 10, five through eight,let's go to Mark 10.
What I'm trying to show you isbecause you may be asking
yourself why are you bringing upthese texts?
I'm trying to show you thattexts that deal with very what
(27:31):
we might call issues of faithand morals, like marriage and
gender, are tied up withscientific texts.
What we might call issues offaith and morals, like marriage
and gender, are tied up withscientific texts or texts that
touch on scientific issues thatrelate to the universe.
And by showing you that, itshows you that it becomes.
It's very difficult to say yes,jesus was always right when he
(27:54):
spoke to faith and morals, buthe made technical errors over
here when it dealt with issuesof history or science, because
they're tied together in theBible.
So Mark 10, 5 through 8, andthis is a quote from Genesis 1
and Genesis 2.
So one of the passages hequotes is Genesis 1, 127, and
the other is Genesis 24.
(28:15):
So let's see what he said.
They're asking a question aboutdivorce, right?
May a man you know permit, orwould God permit, a man to
divorce his wife for any reason?
So in verse 5, jesus said tothem because of your hardness of
heart, he wrote you thiscommandment.
That's Moses wrote acommandment, verse six but from
(28:37):
the beginning of creation, godmade them what Male and female.
That's from Genesis 1, 27.
And then he says for thisreason, a man shall leave his
father and his mother and thetwo shall become one flesh.
So they shall no longer be two,but one flesh.
What, therefore, god has joinedtogether?
(28:58):
Let no man separate which verse7 and 8 there is from Genesis
2.24.
Here's the question.
Did Jesus not know that thereis no such thing as male and
female, but gender is fluid?
Well, he was just a man of histime.
He didn't realize that genderis a choice that you make.
In fact, that choice can changejust as night follows day,
(29:22):
because gender is fluid.
Poor Jesus, and you know, theworst thing about it is, jesus
built this whole doctrine ofmarriage and divorce on it.
Oops, but that's just a blunder.
Jesus just made a mistake.
He was a man of his time.
Well, evidently Jesus believedin cis or binary genders, didn't
(29:50):
he?
But they say well, that wasjust an error.
Another one age of the humanrace.
Let's go to Matthew 23, 35.
Matthew 23, 35.
This is a quote from Genesis 4.
(30:12):
So I did one from Genesis 1 andthen a 2, and now we're jumping
3 over to 4.
We could do something from 3,but we don't have time to do
everything.
Matthew 23, 35.
Where it says so that Jesussays so, that upon you, that's,
the Jews of that generation thathe came to, first century
(30:33):
Jewish people, upon you may fallthe guilt of all the righteous
blood shed on earth, from theblood of righteous Abel to the
blood of Zechariah, the son ofBarakai, whom you murdered
between the temple and the altar.
All these things, I say, willcome upon this generation.
Now it's interesting.
Two people are mentioned asbeing murdered here, right, abel
(30:55):
and Zechariah.
And he's saying you're guiltyof all the blood from Abel to
Zechariah.
In the Jewish canon ofscripture they arrange it a
little differently than our OldTestament is arranged in the
first.
Their first book is Genesis,though like ours, and who's ours
?
And who's the first personmurdered in the Bible?
(31:18):
Abel.
He's the first person inhistory.
This is what Jesus is saying.
The first person in historythat was murdered, abel.
You're guilty of that blood.
Now, in their Bible, the lastbook is what we would call 2
Chronicles, and the last guy inthe Old Testament who's murdered
is guess what?
This guy, zechariah.
(31:39):
So what does Jesus say?
He's saying you're guilty ofall the blood from the beginning
of history up to where we arenow in canonical history.
Okay, you're guilty of all thatblood.
Now, how long has the humanrace been around?
When did Abel live?
(32:02):
Did Abel live?
Modern people truly modern,really intellectual, very wise
academic will tell us that we'vebeen around for 200,000 years
or so.
Well, wouldn't that mean thatthere was some blood shed before
Abel, who was only about atthis time, 4,000, 5,000 years
(32:25):
before?
I mean, was anybody murderedfor the first 190-something
thousand years of human history?
Do you think any humans mayhave killed other humans?
I guess Jesus was just ignorantabout that.
Jesus just didn't know.
What an idiot.
We know so much more than him.
(32:45):
See, we've advanced the bible.
It won't permit that type ofchronology.
200,000 years, and the Bible isinsistent that this is the
first murder.
But according to other peoplewho are many evangelicals would
(33:08):
have to admit that there weremurders before that.
So it's inconsistent.
It has problems with the text.
How about the global flood ofNoah and the fossil record which
I mentioned to you earlier?
Matthew 24, 37.
I'll just turn one page over 24, 37 in Jesus' Olivet Discourse.
In verses 37 to 39, he'sdescribing the global flood as a
(33:35):
model for what it will be likewhen the second coming
transpires.
So he says in verse 37, thecoming of the Son of man will be
just like the days of Noah,whereas in those days, before
the flood, they were eating anddrinking, they were marrying and
giving in marriage until theday that Noah entered the ark.
And they did not understanduntil the flood came and took
(33:58):
them all away.
So will the coming of the sonof man be now?
In other words, did Jesus buildhis doctrine of the second
coming on the flood of Noah?
Yes, and he said there's anexact parallel.
He says it'll be just like inverse 37, which is a term of
identity.
It'll be identical in therespect that he's describing.
(34:21):
So maybe Jesus just made amistake by building the doctrine
of the second coming on theflood.
What do you think?
I mean, are we just going to?
Well, if you wipe away theglobal flood of Noah?
Right, and you say well, inthese modern times we know
(34:46):
better that there's been manylocal floods, you know over the
course of time, and thatexplains the fossil record,
which is what they basically say, then you're denying the global
flood.
But if you deny the globalflood of Noah, as an evangelical
, which many do, how can youhold on to the second coming?
How, in fact, those who havealready denied the local flood,
(35:14):
or a group known as preterists?
They say that the second comingalready happened in AD 70.
You say Jesus came back in AD70?
Yeah, they say yeah, he cameback through the Roman army and
that's all the second comingthere will ever be.
That's their belief.
Why?
Because they realize you haveto have the flood and the second
coming.
(35:34):
The events have to go together.
They said, since Genesis 6-8 isa local flood, then the second
coming was a local second coming.
It came through the Romanarmies.
That's all the second comingever is.
He's never coming back.
You didn't know.
You were already in the newheavens and new earth.
What's wrong with you people?
That's what thehyper-preterists believe.
(35:59):
You are in the new heavens andnew earth right now wild stuff.
But you can see that there's aconnection between the
universality of these two events.
If you've got a global floodyou know, actually Peter
universalizes it then you've gotalso a universal second coming.
But the point is I'm tying aspiritual truth, the second
coming coming of the Messiah, inwith physical reality.
He's coming in space and time.
He's going to set up hiskingdom, moses.
(36:25):
We didn't mention this one, butmaybe we should have, before we
got too far into this.
Luke 24, 27.
Luke 24, 27.
Who wrote Torah?
Who wrote the Torah?
Who wrote the first five booksof the Bible?
Well, you all say Moses.
But sorry, but you're not anacademic, you're not an
(36:47):
intellectual giant if youbelieve that, because, starting
with Wellhausen and the Germansin the 1700s on up to our own
day, they've come to realizethat Moses didn't write it.
Jesus, then, must have beenwrong.
Who wrote it?
J-e-d-p, you say.
Who's that?
Well, they all stand fordifferent so-called authors the
(37:10):
Jehovah author, the Elohimauthor, the Deuteronomistic
author and the priestly author.
That's who they say.
They divide the books ofGenesis through Deuteronomy up
and say these sections werewritten by some author J, and
these by E, and these by D andthese by P, and so forth.
It's a collocation orculmination of writings that
(37:33):
have come together.
So now we know, see, by thebrilliance of our analyzing text
, that the Torah couldn't havebeen written by one individual
named Moses.
But what did Jesus say in Luke24, 27?
Then, beginning with Moses andwith all the prophets, he
(37:53):
explained to them the thingsconcerning himself in all the
scriptures, beginning with Mosesand with all the prophets.
He explained to them the thingsconcerning himself in all the
scriptures, beginning with Moses, which would be the Torah.
Well, I guess the biblicalauthors were just wrong here.
They didn't know everythingthat we know about texts and
linguistics and analysis oflanguages.
Poor people in the firstcentury and that poor Jesus.
So let me ask you a question Doyou see where this is going in
(38:15):
the first century?
And that poor Jesus.
So let me ask you a question Doyou see where this is going?
This is where this is going.
Gc Burkauer.
Okay, now this guy, before Ilet you read the quote GC
Burkauer was an evangelical.
(38:35):
Okay, probably 97 to 8% of whatGC Burkauer wrote is good stuff
.
Good stuff, you know, ratpoison 99% of rat poison is food
, 1% is poison and it's the 1%that'll kill you, right?
(38:58):
Oops?
So, gc Burkhardt, just say, forsake of argument, 99% of what
he writes is really good, it'sevangelical.
I want you to read thisstatement.
I want you to think about thisstatement and think do you see
anything wrong with thisstatement?
Or is there anything in thisstatement that bugs?
Want you to think about thisstatement and think do you see
anything wrong with thisstatement, or is there anything
(39:19):
in this statement that bugs youa little bit?
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture in
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human writings.
Is there anything there?
Would you state it this way inall its humanity, all its
(39:41):
humanity.
You see, it's like now if wewere to follow this statement,
if this was the doctrine of thischurch or doctrine of most of
the churches, you'd think thatwhen you went to the bookstore
or you ordered a bible on Amazon, that instead of saying God's
word on the front, it would sayman's Word.
Because that's what thisstatement is about.
(40:02):
It's about the humanity.
Now, what Burkauer was doingyou have to understand.
Even in theological academia,those who are in this field want
to be published and recognizedamong their peers.
You want to be in good termswith your peers.
(40:24):
In academia, it's publish orperish.
I don't know if you've heardthat, but publish or perish, and
so you have to.
And all these are peer-reviewedarticles and journals that
you'd be writing and publishingin.
Burkhauer wanted to remain instep with the mainstream
(40:44):
thinking.
So, while he was, as I said,probably 99% correct in the
things that he taught, on thispoint.
What he's doing is he's writingin such a way to appease his
academic peers so that he canpublish and be accepted on a
(41:05):
large scale in academia.
Academia can be so enticing.
I remember standing before uh,charles ryrie, listening to him
speak one time, and one of my,one of the few times irie
listening to him speak one time,and one of the few times I got
to listen to him speak and hesaid that he was introduced.
He was speaking at Cambridgeand he was introduced as a
scholar by the professor whogave the mic to him and he said
(41:32):
I basked in that too long,someone calling me a scholar.
You know, academia ispowerfully dangerous to us
because it can totally eraseyour humility and bring in all
sorts of arrogance and pride.
(41:53):
And so you have to be socareful that you're not
concerned what people think.
You're only concerned with whatGod thinks right, and he's the
one who we are on display beforeAll the world's a stage right,
and God.
You know he's watching us, andif we live our lives that way,
(42:16):
even in academia, we'll be okay.
But if we're asked, will I getthe accolades of my fellow peers
?
We're asking the wrong question, a very dangerous question and
Burkhart, to the point ofdenying virtually the divinity
of Scripture, emphasized itshumanity.
He also said this verydangerous the purpose of the
(42:41):
Bible and Jesus is not at all toprovide scientific gnosis.
Notice how we got to throw afew words like gnosis in there,
greek words and stuff like thatto make us sound so smart.
It's not at all to providescientific gnosis or knowledge
in order to convey and increasehuman knowledge and wisdom, but
to witness to the salvation ofGod unto faith.
(43:03):
You see what he's saying.
Now, there's nothing wrong withthe last part of that.
We all agree that the Biblecontributes to the salvation of
God unto faith, right, sure.
But what's he doing?
He's making the split, right.
He's splitting between issuesof faith and morals and issues
of historical and scientificdetail.
And he's saying, ah, it's notat all the purpose of the Bible,
(43:27):
see, to provide any kind ofknowledge that might relate to
science.
It's just a book that's relatedto salvation and spiritual
issues.
So if Jesus erred on scientificdetails, for Burkhardt, see,
that's no big deal.
He thinks he can hold on to aJesus who provides salvation for
the world on one hand but errsin technical details of science
(43:48):
and history, see, but he's gotto do that to keep his academic
status, or he thinks he does.
What do we do with some claimslike Jesus made in John 3.12?
Let's look at John 3.12.
All this time I've beenbasically just trying to bring
you into the discussion oninfallibility and help us have a
(44:14):
good understanding of it.
In John 3.12, in the discoursewith Nicodemus, right, he tells
Nicodemus in verse 12, if I toldyou earthly things and you do
not believe, how will youbelieve if I tell you heavenly
things?
This has always been one of myfavorite verses because my
(44:34):
background was science, right,biology and chemistry mainly,
but some physics and whateverelse thrown in.
If I tell you of earthly thingsand you don't believe, how will
you believe me when I tell youabout heavenly things?
In other words, if I tell youdetails about things that you
can investigate, they're onearth.
You can, you know, check themout.
(44:56):
We would say, and you can'tbelieve me about what I say
about that.
How are you ever going tobelieve me about things in
heaven, like things like if youbelieve in me, you're forgiven
Anybody got a rocket.
You're going to go to heavenand check to make sure that in
heaven you're forgiven anyone.
How can you know that's true ifyou don't even believe the
(45:20):
things that he tells us thatrelate to this earth?
That can actually beinvestigated.
See, for jesus, like these twothings were tied together
earthly and heavenly things.
Whatever he, he said, it's true.
Right, it wasn't a splitbetween faith and morals, the
spiritual things and, over here,scientific and historic details
(45:41):
.
Jesus wouldn't be willing tomake that split.
Let's go on to Colossians 2.8.
To one of the warnings thatwere given by the Apostle Paul,
galatians, ephesians,philippians and then Colossians
(46:05):
Colossians 2, verse 8.
He says See to it that no onetakes you captive through
philosophy and empty deception,according to the tradition of
men, according to the elementaryprinciples of the world, rather
than according to Christ, whichhe goes on then to describe in
(46:29):
hypostatic union in verse 9.
The fullness of deity in bodilyform.
Static union in verse 9.
The fullness of deity in bodilyform.
How or has the church beentaken captive by human
philosophy by allowing thisconcept of erring on scientific
(46:51):
and historical details to creepin?
I'm bringing this up becausethis is exactly what has
happened.
Human philosophy, as I'm aboutto show you, crept in.
It got its foot in the door, soto speak.
And now we're in a load oftrouble.
Where we are today in thechurch.
(47:11):
What are the 11 most attackedchapters in the Bible?
Genesis 1 through 11, right, weall know the whole evolutionary
creationist discussion that'stranspired now over 240 years.
(47:32):
Why do we have a divide inevangelicalism?
Because of Colossians 2.8.
If you allow human philosophyto come in, as I've been
demonstrating it has, so thatnow what we're doing with the
Bibles, we're saying, yeah, it'strue in the spiritual things,
over here the heavenly things,but over here in the earthly
(47:54):
things, technical errors, thingslike that we can allow that
After a while.
If you realize what you'resaying, that the Bible does have
errors over here, why believeany of it at all?
I remember my mentor, charlieClough, became a believer.
He grew up in the Bronx.
(48:14):
I remember my mentor, charlieClough, became a believer.
He grew up in the Bronx,brilliant mind and he went to
MIT.
He got a degree in mathematics,kind of smart guy.
He became a believer when hewas on campus there.
But when he became a believerhe was in considering it,
considering becoming a Christian.
He was like he came to thisvery logical conclusion.
(48:35):
He said well, I mean, if thisreally is God's word.
There can't be any errors in itbecause God doesn't err.
So this is all true or none ofit's true, and don't mess with
it, it's a waste of time.
That's what he meant and ofcourse he became convinced that
the whole thing is true.
(48:56):
And that's the way it is.
You can't split and say well,the things it says about science
and history.
When it touches on that, that'sfalse.
But the rest of the spiritualthings are true.
That dog won't hunt, as StanleyToussaint used to say, that dog
won't hunt, as, uh, stanleytucson used to say that dog
won't hunt.
Um, how do we do independentinvestigations and stay true to
(49:19):
second corinthians 10, 3 through5 turn back to the left, second
corinthians.
What do I mean that by this?
Uh, independent investigations?
I mean you start with justyourself and your human reason,
independent of God's Word.
Isn't that what Dobzhansky, theRussian, said?
He says we've got the Word ofGod in the Bible and we've got
(49:43):
God's book of nature, and westart with the book of nature
and we find out throughscientific investigation various
things about the earth andnature, and then we fit the
Bible, we interpret the Bible tofit that.
Now can we do that and actuallymaintain our fidelity to God,
(50:05):
our faithfulness to Him,according to 2 Corinthians 10,
3-5?
.
2 Corinthians 10, verse 3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the
flesh, for the weapons of ourwarfare are not of the flesh,
but they are divinely powerfulfor the destruction of
fortresses.
What are we destroying?
He says we are destroyingspeculation and every lofty
(50:27):
thing raised up against theknowledge of God, and we're
taking every thought captive tothe obedience of Christ.
What are we doing?
We're destroying speculation.
We're taking every thoughtcaptive to Christ.
Where do we start with ourknowledge?
Do we start to build knowledgewith what we call, in modern
days, the scientific method thatstems back from Francis Bacon
(50:50):
and others of that era in thelate 15th and early 1600s Is
science?
Does it have the?
What do you say?
How do you say it?
Does it have the monopoly onknowledge?
Is it where we start?
(51:14):
And then we read the Bible tofit that?
Well, we all know where you'regoing to end up if you start
that way.
But can you maintain yourfidelity to these verses?
See that you're destroyingspeculations and everything
that's lifted up against theknowledge of God and taking
every thought captive to Christ.
Where do we start to gainknowledge?
(51:40):
Knowledge, it's calledepistemology, but again, we
don't need five dollar words,right, but how do you know what
you know is true?
Do you start with yourself insome investigation, or do you
start with god and his word?
That's the real issue.
One of my friends calls it abible.
First, epistemology.
You start with the bible.
This because the bible isrevelation from a god who
(52:02):
already knows everything.
It doesn't mean we knoweverything, but we start with
him and what he has revealed.
And if anything he has revealedtouches, let's say, on biology,
like you know, there's twogenders called male and female.
That's the starting point forknowledge.
What happens if we deny thatand we move to fluid gender?
(52:24):
Do we have knowledge?
No, this is imagination.
It's the sinful flesh run intoall sorts of imaginative schemes
.
That's all it is.
It's rebellion against God iswhat we would say at the
imaginative schemes.
That's all it is.
It's rebellion against God iswhat we would say at the heart
of it.
It's rebellion against God.
So we start with the Bible forknowing.
I don't think you can maintainyour integrity and fidelity to
(52:47):
God, as described in theseverses, and then start with
science.
Now look, I want to show youhow this trickled into doctrinal
statements.
This is our doctrinal statement.
It was the same, basically, asthe doctrinal statement on this
point where I came from.
Nothing critical.
But look, we believe theScriptures of the Old and New
Testament to be A God-breathedamen.
(53:08):
Plenary.
That means full, verbal in thewords themselves.
Every word inerrant, withouterror, in the original writings.
We're talking about theoriginal writings.
They are the supreme authorityand faith in life.
How did that get in there?
I'm not being critical, I'mjust saying how did that get in
there?
And just at that point, do yousee a limitation?
(53:29):
At the end, yeah, you shouldsee a limitation.
It's just a matter of faith inlife, like, what about other
issues, historical, scientific,etc.
This leaves the door open.
Now I'm going to do anotherquote right here.
This is from well, dewey beagle.
(53:50):
Now dewey beagle.
This guy was southern baptist.
He broke with the SouthernBaptists over this point.
He believed no, the Bible canerr in these scientific and
other areas like history.
He said it can err.
Here's what he said the Bibleis true in all essential matters
(54:11):
of faith and practice.
Are we any different than him?
No, no, in fact, this is whatthey're wanting us to put in
statements, because it willleave the door open for what?
For all sorts ofinterpretations of the Bible
that could be consistent withevolutionary theory.
That's why.
(54:31):
That's why you say this can'tpossibly be the game.
Oh, this is the game.
This is the whole game.
This is the whole game and it'sbeen going on for four
centuries and it snuck into allthe seminaries, it snuck into
all the churches because we'relike, yeah, I mean, if you read
that statement, you say, yeah,that sounds good, it is it.
(54:55):
Because we're like, yeah, Imean, if you read that statement
, you say, yeah, that soundsgood, it is.
It's essential for all mattersof faith and practice.
You can't disagree with thatstatement, but you do also have
to agree that it does leave thedoor cracked and allow all these
other things to come in.
Now here's the number one thingthat destroys people's faith.
Are you ready?
Genesis has errors.
Genesis 1 through 11 has errors.
(55:22):
It's wrong on the age of theearth.
It's wrong on the geologicalcolumn.
It's wrong on all these things.
So when you go to theuniversity, what happens?
They start telling you allthese other things that you
probably never heard.
But you're thinking all alongthis doesn't fit with Genesis.
If you're a Christian, soyou're thinking well, I guess
Genesis is wrong.
And then guess what happened?
(55:44):
The rest of your faith justerodes.
It erodes Because if you can'ttrust the first 11 chapters of
the Bible, are you really goingto tell me that you can trust
the rest of them?
You'd be an idiot to think thatyou could.
If it's wrong on page 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11,
what makes you think it's goingto be true on page 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, all the waythrough Jesus and the cross?
(56:05):
See it's dumb.
Anybody who's even thinking fora split second will realize.
If my parents raised me in thischurch to believe all these
things and now they're notreally true, I'm not going to
believe all these things.
It is that simple.
It happened to me.
I'm a prime candidate.
I could teach you the doctrineof evolution.
(56:25):
I could teach you accretiontheory of planets.
I could teach you all sorts ofamazing things that I think are
so interesting.
But it's all a lie.
It is all a lie.
I did teach it to people.
I did.
I was a TA for courses.
I held study sessions.
(56:46):
I trained people to believe inevolution.
I explained the details to themso they could make good grades
on tests.
And then it took years ofundoing by studying radiometric
dating and all these methods andtechniques, the presuppositions
under evolution and all thephilosophy that was underneath
these systems.
No, I mean you can do all thatyourself, or we can sit down for
(57:09):
years and we can talk about ityears and we can talk about it.
But this has crept in and ithas totally destroyed the church
.
The church today is sofragmented I mean it's
(57:30):
unbelievable, right, but it'sthis little point right here
that it's all it's like.
Once you crack that door, aflood just came through.
It's what's happened.
Now, this is endemic becausemost in the church had not been
evaluating the language, both inthe seminaries and local
churches.
It slipped in and once it gotin, see what tends to happen is
it just gets copied and pasteddown, you know, through time,
(57:53):
without careful thinking.
So this is in virtually everydoctrinal statement, even the
most sound Bible teachingchurches.
It shows that the church hasremoved itself from the public
square of ideas.
That's a very important point.
We have retreated.
The church has retreated fromthe public square of ideas, you
and I, because we believe inthings like a young earth and a
(58:13):
global flood, are consideredtotal kooks, total crazies.
I mean, you're never going tobe heard in the public square.
You're just not.
We're not why?
Because the Bible is true onlyinsofar as it deals with
spiritual things.
The church is where you go foryour spiritual things, but for
knowledge of the real world yougo to the academic university,
(58:36):
don't you?
Because they have a monopoly onthat knowledge.
Do you see how we've becomeirrelevant to most people?
We're just little obscurepeople in a corner.
The church allowed this.
The church allowed this in the20th century, particularly after
World War II.
After World War II it wasmostly over.
(58:58):
It retreated.
It said yeah, the church is allabout religion and spirituality
, but we have nothing to sayabout the age of the earth.
We have nothing to say aboutdeath and fossils.
We have nothing to say aboutthat stuff.
Well, sorry, but the Bible hasa lot of things to say about
those things.
It has a whole lot to say.
So next week, what I'll do iswe'll get, we'll go a little bit
(59:20):
further.
I want to take you back tofrancis bacon and his book novum
organum, which is where thisall came from?
Okay, because he said somethingcritical and if you just read
the statement, the second line,you'll see a key word.
In 1620, francis Baconpublished Nova Morgana.
In this work, bacon claimedthat all knowledge is gained
(59:42):
exclusively through experienceand experiment.
How much knowledge All?
Where's the Bible in that?
It's not there at all.
Experience and experiment.
I'll trace this down for you toa guy named John Dewey.
Do any of you know John Dewey?
(01:00:06):
How many of you have been to alibrary and you checked out a
book back in the day when theyhad the card catalog and the
system that was called the DeweyDecimal System?
That's the best thing JohnDewey ever did.
The rest of it is the nightmareof American public education.
(01:00:27):
The rest of it is the nightmare.
Between 1930 and 1950, hepublished 50,000 articles that
were circulated to every publicschool system in the United
States of America and he wentaround and conducted seminars in
all the major cities of theUnited States of America.
There's not one single personwho's had more impact on public
(01:00:49):
education than John Dewey.
And John Dewey is the logicalconclusion to Francis Bacon.
This man believed that if youdid not directly experience
something, it's not true for you.
Total relativism All truth isrelative.
(01:01:10):
If you did not experience whathappened between, let's just say
, in 1943 at Auschwitz, itdidn't happen.
It's not true for you.
You have to have directlyexperienced it.
He was an ultimate logicalperson, very, very logical.
(01:01:32):
I agree with his logic.
If your starting point is allknowledge comes from experience
and experiment, then you have toend up there.
You cannot escape it.
And this is the birth ofrelativity and no absolute.
And this is what has destroyedour country.
(01:01:53):
It's just literally utterlydestroyed it.
Now you can talk about Jesustill you're blue in the face
with people because from theirpoint of view, that's just true
for you.
You had an experience andthat's true for you, but I
didn't have that experience.
And they're not even convictedof anything until they have
(01:02:17):
their own personal experienceand it becomes true for them.
You see, this is what's makingit so hard to evangelize people
today, so so difficult, becausewe're talking about something
that's true.
Their concept of truth is truefor you.
So from the get-go, you can'tget anything through.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:03:02):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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