Definite Atonement (TULIP part 3)

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Definite Atonement (TULIP part 3)

March 21, 2021

“Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all.”

― John Owen, The Death of Christ

My guest joining me this week on the Sunday series is my brother Bryce. Bryce is getting his undergraduate degree in philosophy and hopes to get his MDiv. from a seminary after he completes his undergrad. He hopes to be a pastor shepherding Gods people one day.

Scripture: 1 John 2:2, 4:7-12, John 17, John 10:11

Transcript

This is an extremely quick preface to the following episode. I want to recognize my friend Alex. The comment in Apple Podcast is very kind and I appreciate so much what he had to say there.

So go check that out and give that a look. It's the comment left by Albro. And then I also want to recognize, I don't know who exactly this is, but they go by Big Dog Fresh.

I guess they're trying to be funny or something. And they left also a really kind review as well. So I really appreciate that rating and review from both of you too.

I also want to say my friend Alex is starting a blog that as he gets enough content out that I'm probably going to promote and help build this platform. And my friend Zach as well listened to the end of the episode. But Zach that was on the MagiStar episode is also starting a blog and he has a few posts that he's actually comfortable for me to promote now.

So look in the show notes for Zach's blog and I hope you guys really enjoy that. Enjoy this episode.

(music) Yo todo te esa! Ya, the atonmenta de limitada! The atonmenta is limited folks.

It's limited. Give it to your thick skulls. Limited, yeah.

It's limited to a series with me and my brother. That's me. He's my brother.

(laughter) Okay, that was, we were doing something a little different for you guys this week. Alright. We need to publish that.

We should, yeah, maybe we need to get, we might need to copyright that. We need to make sure nobody steals that. We need a record label.

(laughter) Okay, so, welcome to this week of the Sunday series with me and my brother. Last week we ended off with talking about unconditional election. So that is the second point in the whole tulip out of the Senate of Dort that was like about 100 years after Calvin wrote his institutes and all that stuff happened in the Senate of Dort.

They came up with these five points of contention between Arminians and people that are more aligned with what Calvin taught about the Scriptures. So, we're on the third point now, limited atonement, which is probably the most contentious point of all the five in terms of in the theological world. Bryce and I are actually going to adopt along with R.C. Sproul in the book, Chosen by God.

He also redefines a lot of these terms. So, we're going to redefine limited atonement as definite atonement. It's a more accurate term.

It still kind of gets the point across of what we're really trying to clean from the Scriptures about Jesus' atonement, atoning sacrifice on the cross and propitiatory work. It's just misunderstood. It is.

It's just misunderstood. So, definite atonement helps articulate exactly what the understanding from Scripture is, if that makes sense. Cool.

So, that's what we're going to talk about this week. Go listen to the unconditional election total depravity and propitiation one would actually be really good. The wisdom series don't really tie in as much to this one.

Go listen to the propitiation and atonement one. And then the first two in the two-up series, those would be helpful to get you guys started on what we're about to talk about. Okay, great.

So, we left off in Ephesians last week talking about how God has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. That's verse four of the very first chapter of Ephesians. So, this whole reformed understanding of Scripture, it's all like a, again, it's like a cascading waterfall from one point leading into the next that culminates in some doctrinal truth that we can get from Scripture.

So, unconditional election last week that God only chooses some and He passes over others that they would not be saved and they would just remain doing what they love to do anyways, which is to sin. But He does actively create fresh good in believers unconditionally and elects them and chooses them to believe in Jesus. But He passes over others and they remain in their sin.

He does not create fresh evil in them. So, because of that understanding of how God chooses people, logically the next step is, well, then if God only chooses some and passes over others and the whole point of God saving sinners is by sending His Son to accomplish the work on the cross, then who exactly did Jesus die for? That's like the next, the question that's being begged by the whole logic of what we see in Scripture and what's being argued all throughout Scripture. And again, this is Old Testament stuff too that God chooses certain people.

We rooted it in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God chooses Jacob, one individual out of this lineage, all these things of God choosing people in the past and also corporate bodies as well. And we see this now culminating in Jesus coming for His people.

That's been the story all along of what God has been doing. He was working with Israel and He did have a point eventually to bring in the Gentiles, which He also had people, because that's, we talked about also last week how a Jew is not one. That's one outwardly based on circumcision or whatever.

It's you're a Jew inwardly. So there were Gentiles such as Rahab, who had the prostitute, and Jericho, when the spies come in and Rahab helps them out. She was a Jew, although she was a Gentile God, even before, you know, Rahab was one of the moms all throughout the lineage in Matthew, when she was one of Jesus's physical ancestors.

So we see God even engrafting Gentiles from the beginning. So God had a certain people that He was going to work with and save. So we want to argue that it was definite and not just universal, that it's for just every single human being in the world.

It's definite. There's a certain people in mind that Jesus is doing this work for. And that's why you would see a very beautiful foreshadowing of it in the book of Exodus with Moses foreshadowing Christ with a person coming and saving a particular definitive people.

So Jesus is the better Moses, and we are in captivity, and Jesus comes and He sets the captives free as it talks about in Isaiah. So yeah, we see a clear imagery. Egypt is what? Left in their sins.

Some were taken out, some were not. So this clear imagery is very much so repeated all through our Scripture. Yeah.

Okay, so the big point in Ephesians that kind of shows this doctrine of definite atonement, that Jesus was atoning for only a certain people group, certain amount of people. Also in verse 4, I guess part B, part A is He chose us before the foundation of the world, that what? We should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.

So only through Jesus and His atoning work on the cross are we adopted into God's family and made holy and blameless before Him. So the Arminian would say that this was done for the whole world. And there are verses in the Bible that literally say that Jesus came and died for the whole world.

So how do we reconcile this? We're going to go through those texts too, but let's start on a strong foundation of looking at Ephesians that we have very affirmative teachings all throughout the scriptures that say that Jesus was dying and making holy, making blameless by declaring them righteous and being justified through Jesus' atoning work on the cross. Yeah. And it was, that's the only way by which we are adopted and have Jesus' work available to us.

And it's only that it's accomplished by the Holy Spirit, which is why in Ephesians He ends saying, "We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. And we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit," verse 13, "who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory." So it's accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and that is not granted to everybody like we established last week. It's an unconditional footing.

You are quickened in your spirit and made alive for Jesus' work on the cross to be infectious for you. Right. Yeah.

And that's even in the context with Ephesians. He also says in verse 7, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses." So He's still talking about the atonement all throughout that passage. And when we say that, well, here's what we're not saying.

We're not saying there's problems in the Bible with these other passages that's kind of contradicting what we're saying, and we have to reconcile them to fit our framework of theology. What we're saying is we're going to tell you exactly what the author meant when he wrote these words. And people misconstrue it.

People misconstrue it, right? There's a mishandling of the text, and we're going to help you guys to see what is the right way to handle these texts. Yeah. So it's not that there's a problem, there's a contradiction, and we just form it through our theology.

Exactly. That's not what's going on here. What's going on here is we're giving a biblical exposition of these texts.

Yeah. There's no contradictions in Scripture. Right.

There are just paradoxes and words that are used that would be hard for us to grasp, and it's immediacy when we read it. Right. But given enough time and study and actually understanding what's being articulated in the surrounding context of the past, we can actually understand that none of these texts actually mean what the Arminian would propose that they mean.

Right. So... Oh, sorry, I finished. Yeah.

Well, I was just going to say one last thing is that's why the chief rule for how you interpret Scripture is Scripture itself. So we always go to the most simple text to understand hard texts. Yeah.

So Scripture is what guides our interpretation. It's not any theological framework on our mind. We're trying to match everything up within the whole scope of Scripture, the whole counsel of God.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool.

So let's go to what Jesus considered himself doing by coming into this world as incarnate flesh man, God incarnate, and let's see what he thought he was doing. Yeah. So let's go to... Do you have... Yeah, I have a couple points.

We can go... We definitely want to go to the high priestly prayer, but we can go to Mark first and get some stuff from Mark. Yeah. So Mark 10.45 says, Jesus says this, "For even the Son of Man came not to serve, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." So he already had in his mind, he was giving a ransom for many people.

He doesn't say every person there. He says many. His life is a ransom for many.

We also see later on... Let me get it pulled up. Sorry, in John chapter 10, Jesus says something very similar once more. And he says this in John chapter 10 verse 11, "I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." He lays down his life for his sheep. So we have to ask the question, who exactly is his sheep? And he says this later on in verse 13... Sorry, verse 14, "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them in also, that they will listen to my voice." This is talking about the Gentiles being brought in. The world.

Yeah, right. The world. The world.

Yeah, ethnically the whole world. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life and then I take it up again.

So this is talking specifically about the toning work of Jesus. He's saying this is what I'm going to do. I lay down my life as a ransom for my sheep.

That's exactly what Jesus is teaching right there. It's for his sheep alone that he has died. It's not for the delt, it's for the sheep only.

Yep. And the sheep are those that would be good in Isaiah. Yeah, in Isaiah 53, which is known as this great text, which is foreshadowing the coming death of the Messiah, it also even limits the scope of who Jesus is dying for, a particular definitive people, when it says this.

It says this in Isaiah 53, verse 11, "Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied, by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities, the many." Not all, he bears the iniquities of those many who will be made righteous. And later on at the end of verse 12 it says, "He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressor." So that's clearly limiting the scope of it. Yes.

It's clearly particularizing it. Yeah. Okay, so let's go to the high priestly prayer.

Sound good? Yeah. Oh man, I flipped way past. I can start reading if you want.

Yeah, you start going. So, and this is in John chapter 17. Jesus again is praying and is what's known as the high priestly prayer.

This is his intercession as our high priest for his people. That's what the priest does. He's going in about to make atonement, and he's praying for the people who he's about to die for.

And he says in verse 2, "Since you have given him authority over all flesh," this is talking about the Father giving the Son authority, "over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him." And this is eternal life, that they would know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So this is clearly, he's talking about a particular people. It's those who, even though he has authority over all flesh, it's these people who the Father has given to the Son.

Yeah, read verse 6. Verse 6 says, "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world." Out of the world. Out of the world. "For yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and I have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them.

I'm not praying for the world, asterisks right there, world, but for those whom you have given me for their years. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." Yeah. And that's just such a big statement right there.

Why would he not pray for the whole world there? It's because that's not who he's interceding for. He's not interceding for every single individual person on the whole face of this planet from all time past to all time in the future. He has the specific people that he's praying for, and it's the people he's coming to die for.

It's his bride. He's coming for his sheep. He's coming to ransom his people, just like Moses did.

He's coming to set the captives free in Egypt. Yeah. Exactly.

I think that's a very telling text. Just go and read John chapter 17, and look at all the times Jesus says "world" and how he has a people that's set apart from the world, that are his sheep that he lays down his life. He lays his life down for his friends, and who do you call his friends? His disciples.

He has people that believe in him. He says, "I don't call you servants. I call you friends because I let you know what the Father's doing." Jesus calls us friends.

He lays down his life for his friends. He doesn't lay down his life for his enemies. Right.

Well, technically, I guess we are while we were still sinners. I guess we were technically his enemies. That goes back to the whole point of unconditional election, that God chooses us out of the world, that even while we were enemies, he makes us his friend.

Yeah. Makes us. He creates fresh good in us.

He reconciles us. And that's the whole point, that when Jesus comes, that he definitively dies for those people that are his sheep. Where was I going with that? Oh, with reform.

Sorry. With the whole logic of unconditional election. He only dies for those that he chooses.

And it's not a gift. It's a gift that's been paid for, but it's not a gift that you wait for somebody to just reach out and receive on their own, as an Arminian would put it. Or as a lot of people would say, "Come and ask Jesus into your heart.

Come and do this." It's actually Jesus comes into your heart whenever he wants to. Yeah. You don't ask him into your heart.

You don't say, "Jesus, if it's okay, I allow you now to come into my heart." You're allowed to now. But prior to that, I was obstinate towards you, and I actually resisted you, and I was more powerful than you because you're not allowed to come in here until I let you. The way I heard one preacher say it, he said, "Even one thing Jesus can't do, he can't override your unbelief." Yeah, Stephen Furtick.

Yeah, Stephen Furtick, heretic. Don't listen to Stephen Furtick, guys. He's no good.

Elevation Church. Yeah. Yeah.

Not good. Not good teaching. But Jesus can override your unbelief whenever he wants to.

Right. That's super easy for God. Yeah.

That's a super easy thing. If a king's hand, as it says in Proverbs 21, is like water in the hands of God, how about a lowly person like you? He has no power at all. Yeah, God can... What's it say? They're like rivers.

He directs them wherever he wants to. Yeah. He can direct kings.

A king's heart is like water in his hands. He directs them everywhere. Yeah, so if God can... Arbitrary decisions like who to make your cabinet as a president or whatever, if that is directed by God, what about the decisions such as following Christ? Right.

If your free will is very obviously, quote unquote, "violated" in a lot of arbitrary things, then why do you have to hold on so tightly to your own salvation when we've established very... in a very easy way that we're totally deprived in the first episode? And we're not saying... We're not saying you don't have free will. We're more getting at you can do things, but you've never chosen God. Exactly.

That's why it follows from total depravity to unconditional election to now this limited atonement. Yes, exactly. Or definitive atonement, right? No one seeks for God.

That's what it says in Romans 3. So what has to happen? God has to come and intervene. Exactly. You need to be born again.

And that's a work of the Spirit because you don't know where it comes from or where it goes, just like the wind does. Yeah. So let's go to 1 John now.

Let's wrap this up because we don't want to do too long of an episode. Let's just wrap this up real quick. 1 John is where a lot of people go.

Like, okay, a few other texts just that says the world, that make people think that it's the whole world. John the Baptist, when Jesus is coming, says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." Yeah. You know, logically, guys, if every single sin has been taken care of in Christ, then nobody should go to hell ever.

It really doesn't make sense. Yeah. Really doesn't make sense to think such a way.

And where's the other one I was looking at? Can you start talking about 1 John while I look for this? Yeah. 1 John is just pretty much where most people who don't believe in particular atonement go to. And the reason they do is because it's explicitly mentioned that, like, let's just go to the text.

Oh, sorry. The other one I was going to bring up was John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his son. How do you forget that one? I'm sorry.

And then another one... Oh, I just had it. Whoops. You're insane.

Here, you keep going. I'll cut you off when I find it. So 1 John, so 1 John chapter 2 says this, verses 1 and 2, "My little children, I am writing these things to you all..." To you... Yeah, what? How did I mess that up? "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and here's the kicker. He is the propitiation of our sins." And then he goes on to say this, "And not of our sins only, but also the sins of the whole world." Uh-oh. Everybody, our first episode about propitiation, Jesus has done that for everyone apparently.

Yeah. So clearly everything we just mentioned is wrong because of this text. Uh-oh.

So how about instead of going to one text and building a biblical basis of what the Scriptures mean, let's take this into context with everything we've already read, everything in Scripture that always points to a definitive atonement. Uh-huh. If he's saying that you have an advocate before the Father if you sin, and he's meaning that Jesus died for literally every single individual on the face of the planet, then that means every single person has an advocate before the Father, so that means everybody is saved.

Yeah. So that means the... We really want to stray away from universalism here. Yeah.

Universalism is not true. How come Jesus can say there's a narrow path and a narrow way and few enter it, but broad is the pattern. And who's the gate? Who's the gate? It's Jesus.

Jesus is the only way to follow... Did Jesus die for everybody? No. Yeah, absolutely not. No.

So what this text is meaning, and I'll go to later on in John when... If you don't interpret it like this, then he contradicts himself in two chapters. Um, but what John is meaning here is the whole ethnic world will be reached and will bow the knee to Jesus Christ. Yep.

That's a constant theme throughout all of Scripture. So... Can I bounce off that real quick? Um, so 2 Peter 3 and 9, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, as some counsel on this, but is patient towards you not wishing that any should perish, but all should be repented." So God obviously wants to save people. He wants to save all people.

I mean, um, this... This is part of God's, um... What's the will... permissive will? I'm trying to out of sovereign will. The fact that God wants all to come to repentance does not mean that, uh-oh, is God not powerful enough? Because he wants something to happen. He wants something to happen.

Can he not pull it off? He says he wants all to come to repentance. Why can't that happen? And it's because that it's... This is God's... Oh, oh, it's his, um... Decretive will. So, like, just like God gives us the law, and he wants us to follow his law.

I mean, God's not powerful enough to keep us from following the law or whatever. Um, you know, by no means, God can... Obviously he... Again, he has the kings in his hand, his water, he directs it wherever he pleases, that kind of thing. So, what it is is it's God's decretive will.

It's what he decrees, but because of... Again, we do have a will. We do have a free will, except our free will, we only do what's evil. We're freely to do whatever evil thing we want, right? Because Adam and Eve sit in the garden.

So that's how that works. God wants all to come to repentance, but because God gives us the freedom to make decisions, and our will is bound to evil at this point in time, unless God comes and doesn't define that act. He could change everybody's hearts, obviously.

But I just want to establish that, and then what Bryce was just saying about the whole ethnic world... Um... Oh my gosh. Man, you're having a bad time picking text messages. There's just so many.

Uh, there was... Give me one second. There was a really... One. Um, give me two... One, two, three, four.

What in the world? Oh, here we go. Um, Revelation 5, 9, "And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation.'" This is more what's being articulated when we see in Scripture that, um, Jesus is dying for the world. Because Jesus literally says, like we led her, like, sorry, like we read earlier in John, in the high priesthood prayer, He was not dying for the world.

In that sense, Jesus is literally meaning, I'm not dying for every single person. That's why He says, "I chose them out of the world." I have specific people out of all the other people. Right.

Now, what did Jesus do? He did come to die for every tribe, nation, and tongue, because they're all... The nations are gonna be called back to... Called back to Jesus. And that's why there's... This goes back to Genesis, uh, 12, 15, and 17 with Abraham, and you will all the nations be blessed, right? Yeah, exactly. So this is why Jesus is the seed of Abraham.

So because of that, we see that all the nations will be blessed in that, and that's because they're all brought in. The gate is open to all of them. Yes, exactly.

Right. So this is not talking about every individual person, but what's happening in 1 John is they have grown to a pride of their own salvation toward their not willing to extend it outward, right? So what John's doing is he's correcting them, saying, "No, no, no, it's not for you guys only." That's what he's saying. It's for the whole world.

It's for the whole world. Every single nation, go out and proclaim the gospel. That's what's being articulated.

It is not a statement about the atonement of Jesus, because Jesus defines his own atonement earlier in the high priestly prayer. Right. John is not making a point about the atonement when he says that.

He's making a point about evangelism and who Jesus is calling back to himself, which is all the nations that went astray in the Talmud Bible, and even prior to that. Yeah, exactly. And the reason that's true is because if we take that interpretation of what he's saying, then now he's not dyslexic.

In chapter four, he almost says the same thing, but it's a little different. So this is in the section where he's talking about... First John chapter four. First John chapter four.

This is in the section where it's talking about God's love. And he ends up saying this in verses 10. Let's start up at nine.

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world." Okay, so there it is again. "The world so that we might live through him. And this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also want to love one another. No one has ever seen God.

If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." So there he's very much so particularizing the atonement. He's saying it's for us, right? Even though he brings it in the context of the whole world, he ends up saying it's manifesting the whole world. The Son was given for the whole world.

But he says that the propitiation is for our sins. So then he goes straight back to them. It's us, those who are in Christ Jesus.

And then he goes later on in verse 14, he says, "And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world." There it is again, the Savior of the world. And then it says this in verse 15, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he is in God. If God does not abide in you, you will be damned forever.

God must abide in you. You must be cleansed from within and born again." And he's saying right there, unless that occurs, you will be damned. He qualifies it.

He makes it definitive. Right. So he's defining what the atonement is.

And he's saying, if you confess Jesus is Lord, God abides in you. And if God abides in you, you're not going to be damned. So John is not dyslexic here.

He's building up. He knows exactly what he's saying. We have to always read things in context.

Read the whole book. Don't just look at it in verse and say, there it is. Jesus died for everybody.

It's actually not correct when you do evangelism. Like I was with a ministry in college and we would do evangelism in the frats and sororities and stuff and there'd be Greek students walking by and there'd be people that would say, "Jesus loves you." And it's like, "Great. I'm going to stay in my son." Exactly.

Yeah. Oh, sweet. Jesus already loves me.

I'm perfectly fine. There's no call to repentance there. You're just saying, "Hey, Jesus died for you." And if you, it's up to you to accept it or not, you know, that kind of thing.

It just kind of, you know, it... Wow. Thanks. Yeah.

In a sense, it's like, "Oh, he already died for me. Great." I accept it. Thank you.

I accept it. Boom. Done.

And it's like, there's no actual call to repentance, no call to live a transformed life. And it's just very misleading to say that Jesus loved you. You know, like, he very well may have loved you in a special way.

It just depends on if you come to saving faith in Christ or not because it's not based on any condition, right? God just chooses people that... He came for his bride. He came for his bride. Yeah.

He ransomed his sheep. Yeah. He's not a bad shepherd that goes and starts taking care of other people's sheep.

Yeah. Or goes into another farm that's not his own. Yeah.

Right? It's like the same thing. You don't discipline a child that's not yours. You discipline your kid.

Yeah. So he's worried about his sheep. Exactly.

So yeah, we just want to labor that point today that definite atonement is the best way to understand what we're trying to articulate here, that Jesus did not die. And not everyone's sins are dealt with on the cross. Now, is it possible? Yeah.

Because blood is sufficient to atone for every single human sins on the whole earth. But we know that there's some. If you go back and read the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, he says, "I pray for them, Lord, that you would keep them.

I haven't lost one except the son of destruction." Now, who's that? Judas. Before the foundation of the world, Judas was destined to betray Jesus, play an instrumental role in getting him to the cross, that God was going to use him. And he was destined to go to hell forever.

It was better that he had not been born. Now, that's a really tough teaching. That's hard.

Judas seems like he didn't have a fighting chance. He had no other way. But who are you, piece of clay, to talk back to God? Right.

So it should well up out of you, thanksgiving that God would so choose you, and atone for your sins, even though, again, while we were still sinners, it's unconditional. It's not anything inherent in us. It's just based on God's good pleasure to choose whoever he wants.

Right. He did not choose Judas. He was the one that God was going to use to betray Judas.

Right. So, Jesus did not die for Judas. It's not just a bunch of pawns, either.

This isn't just fatalism. There's a will that's enacted Judas willfully and intentionally went against the Son of God. Yeah.

So, the only reason he did that is because God knows what humans will do. So, all God had to do was just leave him to his own devices. Yeah.

God didn't, I technically didn't do anything. He just left Judas to his own devices, and Judas was a greedy man, so he chose money over Jesus. Like, it's just, it was still Judas that did it.

God didn't make him do it. He didn't cause fresh evil. Judas was already evil.

Men become their worst when they're left out to themselves. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's okay.

Yeah. Amen. Well, thanks for listening, guys.

Hopefully, we walked you through that, and we were reasonable. There's a ton of people that disagree with us, but we think if you read the Scriptures, you will come out seeing... Most biblical scholars who are faithful to the Scriptures agree with us. The people who aren't faithful to the Scriptures are the ones who disagree with us.

Yeah, but there's well-meaning Christians disagree with us. There's well-meaning, for sure, but most biblical scholars... Yeah, but most people I interacted with in college disagreed with me when I would bring stuff like this up. Yeah.

But they... They were scholars, though. Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

They weren't scholars, though. Neither am I. But we do agree with the scholars. Yeah.

So I think that's pretty much it. Thanks for listening, guys. There's more text, obviously, we can go into, but this is just a 30-minute podcast.

We gave you guys some of the surface-level stuff to get you started. I'll put some resources in there. Please go check that out.

I'm also going to put a blog in the show notes that my brother in Christ, Zach, that was on the MagiStar podcast started. He's got some really good articles on there, one titled "Christ or Chaos," another one "Win or Lose." Really good stuff. Go check it out.

I hope you guys are encouraged by that. And please support him as well. Obviously, I approve of the things he says and what he thinks.

And he's a very faithful brother in Christ. And let's go give his stuff a little check out and let me know what you guys think. I'm still developing a website.

Hopefully, that's going to be done eventually. But I'm in school right now, so I got a lot going on. And he's leaving a rating and review.

I would really appreciate that on the Apple podcast or just share it on social media if you guys like the podcast. I would love for this to just get more following and just proclaim the truth and have more people listening. I really enjoy it.

So thanks so much for listening and supporting those of you that do listen. I appreciate it so much. You guys definitely don't have to do this.

And I'm just so smug. So I'm glory to God. All the things that I know is just from God teaching me through his Holy Spirit and opening my eyes to what's been true.

But I'm not special. God does this with a ton of people all over the world. He shows people what his word is.

So thanks for listening, guys. Love you. I'm sorry to end, Gloria.

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