I thank you for the ministry of my brothers and sisters in prayer, Lord, what a blessing it is to hear them pray. We commend our class time to you. Teach us. We pray concerning matters that we confess are beyond us, are trying to understand what you did before the creation of the world, but Lord, help us to stick to your word. Illuminus, I pray, help us to understand as much as we can and to believe your truth. Work in us, we ask for your honor through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. We concluded last time our study as brief as it was concerning the doctrine of God, the Holy Spirit. We move now to three classes on the doctrine of election. Our goal tonight is to lay a foundation with Bible study and to present the classic debate from the Armenian and Calvinist perspectives. Remind me if I forget to talk about two good books on each side, in the interest of fairness of presentation and some balance there. You have a Birkhoff reading to you next time, and then a quiz on the following Monday. So don't be low to sleep, if there's not much work next time you can be sure, the work is piling up somewhere in the future. I'll give those quizzes out next Monday night, Lord willing, and let's turn to Romans chapter eight and jump right into Bible study. If I were to put the doctrine of election in its big biblical context, then I would say something like this, if we consider salvation in its broadest terms, then we would consider it as planned, accomplished, applied, and consummated. Our interest right now is in studying salvation planned. This is a panorama of the Bible's teaching on salvation. We can view it as planned, and here we're talking about the doctrine of election or predestination. Accomplished would be the doctrines of the person and work of Christ, applied, the ministry of salvation, especially the Holy Spirit. All of these, of course, involve the Trinity, since the Trinity is inseparable. But planning is most especially the work of the Father. The accomplishment of salvation is most especially the work of the Son in his cross and resurrection. The application of salvation is the work of the Trinity, but especially the work of God, the Holy Spirit. We did that in an overview fashion previously. And consummated is the work of the Trinity here. We're talking about the resurrection of the dead, the final glorification and entire sanctification of believers and so forth. But here is our immediate concern, the doctrine of election. So God has planned and worked out our salvation from beginning to end. Now we're talking thinking about and moving in our thinking to the beginning. I'm going to work with some of the great passages that deal with this. There are many, many references, as you saw in the notes, to these matters. But I am choosing passages that are extensive passages dealing with these subjects. That is certainly a good way to go. And not an incidental reference to election or predestination along the way. But the great passages whose subject is these particular matters. There are three of them, at least Romans 8, 28 through 30, is our first one, Ephesians 1 in the context of verses 3 to 14 and then the famous passage in Romans 9. The context here of Romans 8, let me read 28 to 30 before we go any further, Romans 8, 28. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God for new, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called. Those He called, He also justified, those He justified, He also glorified. The immediately preceding context talks about present sufferings. The readers were suffering for their faith. And Paul puts those present sufferings in the context of future glory. I'm referring, of course, to Romans 8, 18 through 27. We need that future dimension in order to see God's perspective on the matter. It doesn't make their present suffering go away, their hard lives, but it does help them gain a much broader perspective on those matters. And the Apostle could say that I consider verse 18 of Romans 8. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us and so forth. He does not minimize their hardships, but He wants them to consider their hardships in light of what God will do for them in salvation, consummated to use the terms that I just had outlined on the overhead. Here's the immediate context now. Verse 28. We know that God works together all things for good for the ones who love Him, even those called, according to His purpose. This is an important principle. I once had a friend who devoted 100 hours, I think it was. There was many, many hours anyway, to studying this verse and he's kind of a practical fellow. He was taking an MA in theology from the school back east where I was teaching at the time. And Gary is a professor of mathematics, he understands a real pragmatic fellow who likes definite answers and so forth. And I said, oh that's wonderful, I have never studied that in such detail. What did you conclude? What did you find out? He said nothing, he said. I find out that what we always thought it meant, it means. I said Gary, that's nothing bad about that. You just saved me 100 hours of work. Thank you, brother. Novelty is not our goal. Having the here to for unheard of explanation of a verse or a doctrine is not our goal, although it's possible. The church has been wronged before and we're right. I'm somewhat suspicious of that approach, but that's possible. Our goal is to be faithful to what the Bible says and Gary found out that the all things, as we've already hinted at, even includes present sufferings, hardships, difficulties. And we know that in all things God works for the good. There are minor differences in the text that are really insignificant for our purposes. Whether it says he works all things together for good or the name of God is actually used or all things work together for good, more of a passive idea, leaving God's name out or even a pronoun referring to him, because certainly even in that construction all things work together for good. The Bible's not teaching a fatalism, but they only work together for good because it would be assumed now that the providence of God stands behind that working. There's no other possibility in the apostles thought. So this is the essential sense, no matter how we translate it in particular. And we know Paul writes that in all things, even present sufferings and hardships God works for the good. Now he specifies, he works for the good of those who love him. Here the people of God are described, and Paul could have done it many different ways. He could have said, for the saints, for the believers, here he describes the people of God as lovers of God. And he qualifies that description when he says the good of those who love him, namely of those who have been called according to his purpose. There's some idea here of calling. And it literally says according to purpose, but the NIV certainly has it right. Certainly the implication is according to God's purpose. There's no notion of calling ourselves, and who has a whose other purpose could possibly be. But God's, so Romans 8.28 says, and we know we're confident of this fact, that in all things, even present difficulties and tribulations, God works for the ultimate good must be the sense of those people who love him. And let me describe them further, he says, in effect. That is those who have been called according to the purpose of God in self. The Bible knows of two kinds of calling. There's what Hukama calls the gospel call. The older terminology was the external call, and it speaks of the gospel falling on the ears, and it may or may not be believed. There's the effective or effectual call, sometimes called the internal call. I like Hukama's terminology, gospel call, effectual call, better than external, internal call, because the internal call of old, that designation was really technically an external slash internal call. The meaning was not that people were saved apart from the gospel. The meaning it was when the gospel fell on the ears, the spirit of God, invisibly of course, and sovereignly, worked on the heart of many people to actually bring them to the Lord. Here, it must be that special call because it's those who actually love the Lord, who have been called according to God's purpose, he said. The word purpose speaks of God's will points us to verse 29, but the first thing we want to notice about that verse is it starts out with the word four, or because we know that God works even present tribulations for our ultimate good, because here's how we know that, he explains further, those God for new, he also predestined, let me give you the bare bones of 29 and 30. Here's how we know it, because those God for new, he also predestined, skipping the 30, and those he predestined, he also called, those he called, he also justified, those he justified, he also glorified. We have five verbs here, each of them is in what tense in English, yes, that's right, in Greek it's the simple past tense. Five verbs in the past tense, four new, predestined, cold, justified, glorified, actually, these are five variations on a theme, there are five different ways of saying saved, but instead of saying saved, saved, saved, saved, saved, saved, we have this richness that the Lord uses to describe our salvation, question, before we get to a different views and so forth, let's just do some analysis and try to be fair about it, so tell me if you think I'm pulling the wool over your eyes, it's not my intention, who is the subject, what or who is the subject of the five verbs? I thought I heard an answer out there, what was it? Sure, God is the subject of the five verbs, it's indisputable, God for new, God predestined, called, God justified, God glorified, he is the doer of the action, whatever the action is, my suggestion is, it's means saved, five different and five different pictures or ways of talking about being saved, so it's talking about God having saved people, if my suggestion is right, that remains to be proved, five verbs in the simple past tense, the erist tense we call it in Greek, God is the subject of the five verbs, another important question and be careful, stick with the text here, what is the object of the five verbs? You could say this in different ways, those who are called according to his purpose, those who love God, saints, Christians, the people of God, however you want to say it, it means the people who are saved, thus we have again the past tense, these five statements, God for new is people, God predestined his people, God called his people, justified his people and glorified his people, are you with me? Simple, but it's basic information that we really need to keep in mind, so a few minutes from now if you're going to tell me, oh for knowledge means God for new people's response I'm going to tell you, you just told me a minute ago it was God for knowing people, not their response, so let's think about what we're saying, I think this is exactly right, notice that the object is consistent throughout, it is the same people whom God for new predestined called justified, glorified, now I'm going to have to get into a debate here and I feel unclean criticizing such a godly Christian man as John Wesley, let me say right off the bat, I have great respect for him, he was a wonderful evangelist and mightily used of God, if I were privileged to know him, I would be an honor to know him, I would fellowship with him in a moment, having said that, he wrestled with his passage and I don't like what he did with it, for one thing he said, it is not certain that those who come in the front come out the other side, well I'm sorry but that is a mistake, a tremendous book is written by a scholar named Judith Gundry Wolf, the OLF, Paul and Perseverance, she studies this passage among many others and here she notes that that comment of Wesley is a mistake because he missed the figure of speech that is called climax, climax involves kind of a reaching back to grab hold and a reaching forward, tying things together, sort of in a chain that is exactly what is going on here, in the original language it is even more specific, so for example first 30, and whom he predestined these also he called, whom and then these also, understand it goes back and it plugs in and it takes it in the other direction as well, and whom he called these also, he justified and whom he justified these also he glorified, I stick to my guns, Wesley's opinion notwithstanding that the object is consistent throughout, it is the same people of God, whom God for new all the way through to glorified, by the way I should say that before we go on, it is a remarkable thing that he could put glorification which is certainly future salvation from the vantage point of his readers in the past tense, and if you ask me why he could do that it seems to me the major thrust of verses 28 to 39 is to teach God's keeping of his people and it's one of the four ways by my analysis that Paul says you are safe in the love of God, God keeps you, you will not fall away from his grace, this is not a security that should lead to laxness or sinful living that would be a terrible lack of disrespect for God's grace, but it is a keeping of God, keeping by God of his people, furthermore if the object is consistent without if that analysis is right unless you are an absolute universalist and you hold everybody is saved in the end, that's very hard to believe the Bible and to hold that since in Matthew 25, 31, 2, 46, Jesus teaching about the sheep in the goats, he teaches that which fits with other scriptures as well that in the end there will be a great separation of the human race into two groups, the saved and the lost, so all those who are glorified are not, it's not every single human being okay, there is thus a large number no doubt, but it's not talking about everyone so my thesis if indeed it's the same object the people have got all the way through is that not everybody is foreknown on the front side unless somehow you can make that number greater than those who come out the other end which doesn't seem possible, one last thing before we turn to another overhead and get ourselves into controversy which is one reason you came tonight anyway, is that God's plan of salvation stretches from whenever he did his foreknowing and predestining unto glorification on the other side, Ephesians 1 is very plain, God chose us in Christ Paul writes there before the creation of the world, we're not told here a time indicator but if we compare Romans 8, 29 and 30 with Ephesians 1 it's around verse 4, we were talking about something God planned before the creation of the world, so it's a panorama from before creation unto final glorification in the space of just two verses, by the way we never really explained I suppose the because how does verse 29 give a real foundation for verse 28, we know that all things work together for good for the people who love God, we know it because God, because the people God for knew he also that that that glorified, the meaning seems to be something like this, we know all things work together for good because God has planned the greatest good for his people and they will not fail to be glorified, said differently, we need to put your present sufferings in light of future glory, that's what he said before, here he says it in another way, God will work all things for our good because here is what he has done and is doing for us, he is saving us from beginning to end, I'm going to give you a time for questions but let me go a little further and present the controversy, the key here is the meaning of the word for no, tell me what for no means and we can go a long way toward understanding the passage, there are two main suggestions as to what it means in this particular passage, for those God for knew he also predestined and so forth, one is the notion that it means foresight, it means intellectual foresight on God's part, another way to say it is pre-cognition, God knowing facts beforehand, another way is the word I put up there, prescience, which is the same as the other two words, just a different vocabulary variety, so the thought is and Wesley and other godly Christians have held and taught and confessed this idea when it says those God for knew he also predestined, the meaning is God looked forward from before the creation of the world and on the basis of his foresight, his knowledge of the response of the gospel beforehand, he chose some and he didn't choose others, that is he is the ratifier of human decision, when the Bible says God predestined or chose people, the meaning is he in effect foresaw what they would do with the gospel and he either chose or didn't choose accordingly, so that ultimately and the teaching goes like this, God who is free relinquished either some of his power or domain or something else so that it would be set up that way, that is this is all of God's sovereign grace and good pleasure, that's how he set it up and he has chosen to base his choice upon his foreknowledge in that sense of human choice, is this notion of foreknowledge correct, almost all theologians say it is, not that it's the meaning of the passage here especially Calvinist and Armenians are divided on that but it is only a few people who would deny to God knowledge of the future okay so although Calvinist disagreed that's the meaning of this idea here that you not disagree that God knows the future like that, Clark Pinnick is an example of one Armenian theologian who who denies that God knows the future like that, he says we cannot possibly hold that viewpoint because if we say God knows future responses like that the only way he could know them is to control them and we're playing into the hands of the Calvinists but I would quickly say Pinnick isn't in a distinct minority in denying God's knowledge of the future and to good thing because Isaiah and other places teach that God doesn't know all things including the future so if Pinnick is right then Wesley is inconsistent but I would applaud Wesley's inconsistency in the name of believing the Bible when it says God knows the future so that the debate here is not whether God knows the future or not for most of us he does the debate is is this notion of foreknowledge understood as precognition as God knowing the facts beforehand the response of the gospel is that the basis of election that's a debate Armenian say yes it is Calvinist say no it isn't if that is the meaning here then we have a doctrine of conditional election and I need to get into a historical debate to explain to you what that means but just real briefly before I switch overhead transparencies to that debate conditional election means God's choice of his people is conditioned upon there's where the word comes in his foreknowledge understood as preciates of their response that is there's a conditionality a contingency based upon the creature's response understood I understand conditional or unconditional with what the language unconditional pretty soon means either conditional or unconditional vis-a-vis the creature you say where did this terminology come from where do we even get these terms Calvinist and Armenian I've heard here and there in my life the so-called five points of Calvinism did John Calvin really concoct those is that why his name is associated with them let me try to answer some of those questions many questions don't know including people who espouse the five points of Calvinism that historically the five points of Armenianism were first they occurred before the five points of Calvinism skip the five points is for a moment and come down here the name comes from a Dutch pastor a godly man who loved people who worked hard in his parish ministry to explain the Bible and who reacted against when he considered a hyper Calvinism in the Holland of his time I tend to think he was right it was pretty hyper we're talking the early 1600s the first decade of the 17th century the party he became a professor at the University of Leiden and he began teaching a new doctrine because previous to him the Dutch theologians and the Dutch church was pretty staunchly not pretty staunchly was staunchly Calvinistic or reformed in its understanding of salvation the party that followed him were called by their enemies most of the names in Christendom including Lutheran Calvinist Methodist Baptist all these names were at first negative slurs used by their opponents it's not really good testimony they've come to become badges were proud to wear however the way things work out but first of all Armenian was not a real pleasant term it met followers of that rascal as with the enemies men they were called remonstrants protesters Protestants if you will Protestants and remonstrants over lacked in meaning and in 1610 they presented a formal protest or remonstrants remonstrants is the protest remonstrants a NTS are the protesters to the government since religion and government were tied in to the church and the civil state of Holland in 1610 here are the five points of Armenianism number one although the fall severely crippled human nature we are able still to choose God sin has affected us in many and grievous ways so that we are born corrupt and we're sinful but we retain the ability to believe the gospel point number two the numbering is actually a later numbering and i use this order i'm not making it up at all it's pretty historical it's not technically technically their own numbering enumeration what you'll see it sets up the five points of the one over against the the other in a very neat way number two is the bible teaches a doctrine of predestination we do not deny it it teaches a doctrine of election god is its author but he has conditioned his choice of his people upon his foreseen foreknown knowledge of what they would do with his son offered in the gospel thus election is conditional in terms of the creature's response understand we're back right through our passage with that one although i'll put these things in i'll follow through in order to give you the whole picture the work of christ is universal that is jesus died to save every human being so called unlimited atonement or universal atonement jesus died to save everyone his death thus technically is not a ransom that secures salvation because if it were everyone would be saved and the arminian party did not believe in absolute universalism they believed in a relative universalism that is god gives everyone an equal chance to be saved and those who he foresees will believe remember we have the ability to believe he chooses and jesus dies for them and everyone else that each might have an opportunity to be saved god provides a universal atonement grace is wonderful and is necessary for salvation we cannot save ourselves but grace is universally given again and it can be resisted that is god doesn't overpower the sinner or save him against his or her will remember we're able to believe point one you detecting a harmony between these points a symmetry they make good sense and i'm trying to present them fairly a few times in the evening school i have presented them apparently so fairly that the class thought i held these i object to every one of these points but that's the subject of a number of courses i'll say a little bit about them i do believe in trying to present things fairly that's what i'm trying to do perseverance is with a question mark it's not a mistake at the at the presentation they made the remonstrants the remonstrants that the remonstrants brought they sound the same to me too they made it a question they said there are many and powerful passages that seem to teach god keeps his people to the end on the other hand there are apostasy passages they singled out some in Hebrews chapter six and ten come to mind that seem to teach the people of god can fall away from god's grace and be unsaved again we will not be dogmatic we encourage the church to study this point further was their conclusion the five points of armenianism notice that they preceded the five points of Calvinism historically and the five points of Calvinism are exactly a response to the five points of armenianism which tells me one thing right away how would you like your views on anything politics religion anything uh your favorite uh football team and how it runs its off answer whatever in the world you want to talk about how to how to grow a garden how would you like the epitome of your view to be your answer answers to your opponents best case you wouldn't like that at all you'd say no i'm back fendling i'm on the defensive that wouldn't be the summon substance of my view no let me set set set my own view fourth positively oh i need to answer the other persons but in that way the five points of Calvinism have been misunderstood they are not the essence of Calvinism uh the the summon substance of the reform faith no there are slice of it given in terms of a debate that the Calvinists didn't really start except by teaching their Calvinism over the years pretty consistently and sometimes in an extreme fashion that brought forth the opposition of armenius and others the five points of Calvinism number one total depravity this is a terrible term even as most of these five are just terrible terms because it sounds like every human being is as bad as he or she could be everyone is a child molester something like that not not at all intended total who can we use the word pervasive it means the effects of sin pervade the human being and the human life so there's no part of man that's not affected by sin especially the Calvinists said uh it is the mind of man that is singled out by the apostle Paul as the center of their depravity i should say this uh summary was given at the synod the big church meeting at a city called dork trek in holland or dork is another name for it as it comes into english and we're talking 16 18 16 19 so the five points of Calvinism really did follow historically the five points of armenianism although the dutch church taught these things pretty consistently before the armenian protest but now they formally answered the armenian so if that sounds too like a denial of the ability to believe that's exactly what it is it is a forthright denial of the notion that sinners have the ability to believe they don't have that ability they have lost it in the fall and they need god's grace in order to be saved we cannot do bible study to determine all of these things tonight but all of them should be studied uh biblically indeed election is unconditional in terms of the creature oh god knows the future the way the armenian say of course god knows everything he knows the future like that but that is not the basis of his choice if he really did look down the corridors of time and to see who would choose him and base his choice upon that it would be an empty set nobody would choose him we would all be lost no we're worse off than that so that we need stronger grace than that so election is unconditional in terms of the creature oh it's not without rhyme or reason within god himself and ultimately it's because of god's will and his grace that he chooses a people for himself so we do have a debate on our hands don't we and you're starting starting to detect a symmetry on this side too limited atonement terrible expression so like something is lacking in the work of christ the dutch Calvinists insisted that god's grace is universal in the free offer of the gospel to all people but it is not universal in the work of christ christ did not work at odds with god the father's work in election his plan no he worked in harmony the trinity is not divided with itself the father chooses the people the son makes atonement for those people the spirit draws those people to the son as he's offered in the gospel that is the work of christ is not just the provision for the sins of people for the salvation of people that would do us no good we need more than a provision we need an actual atonement that saves an atonement that actually accomplishes salvation now if he accomplish salvation for every individual like the arminian party wants to say then everybody would be saved in the end it's not the bible presentation so christ must have died to actually purchase the salvation of the elect it is not to deny that some of the benefits of his work extend to all of god's creatures and all of the people all people unsaved as well as saved but in terms of saving efficacy the cross was designed by god that's the key what was god's plan it was designed to save the people of god god's grace well it is resistible in a sense it is resisted every day but and by some it is resisted unto death but god's grace is never successfully resisted by any other people of god god brings his people to himself yes unsafe people resist god's grace even the people of god resist god's grace until god brings them to salvation but god is like this is my terminology now not theirs and you'll tell why in a minute like the royal Canadian Mounties of old they probably have gone soft to with the rest of the world today god always gets his man or his woman he brings his people to himself here he systems a terrible expression too sounds like people get saved you know against their will no please god don't save me anything but that you know too bad you're getting saved anyway that's not the thought uh the thought is uh it's invincible grace it's unconquerable grace our our hearts are so set against god that if he did not work in us by his sovereign grace we would never choose him that's why that foreknowledge business won't work because again god would look forward in all he sees unbelief no but he gives his spirit to his people and he quickens them he gives them spiritual eyes to see spiritual ears to hear he takes out the heart of stone and gives him a heart of flesh to use some biblical pictures of this matter so that when christ is offered to them in the gospel they embrace the Lord Jesus Christ they say what a two-legged donkey I have been all my life how foolish I have been Jesus is precious he is the pearl of great price that is it is not uh that they come kicking and screaming although I've got to tell you our student Larry Slater cracked me up by saying well maybe most people don't come kicking and screaming into the kingdom of god he said but I did I said what do you mean Larry he said wherever I went I was never able to get away from Christians he said I mean dynamic witnessing in your face kind of Christians he said that's why I finally said god I give up so sometimes there's that notion but not usually usually god lose us according to his own good pleasure and according to our own need and situation in life the fifth point of the five points of Calvinism is the perseverance of the saints this is the in involves two ideas number one that god saves his people and keeps them to the end preservation I call it it also are as Roger Nicole calls it gods perseverance with the saints he puts up with us he keeps us and the corollary of that which is the the perseverance of the saints themselves is because god keeps us we keep keeping on that is true believers don't utterly quit believing in Christ loving god or living a basically holy life not a perfect life but a godly life so that first John could say that the people of god those born of god practice righteousness here are the five points of Calvinism set over against the five points of Armenianism we can't solve all these things tonight but I think we're better prepared to go back and look at Romans 8 but before we do are there questions or comments in understanding these notions yes sir okay the question is what was the historical impetus for Armenians's move for his movement in the direction of a new theology well I alluded to this earlier it was a Calvinism that was very extreme that in the in the teaching of certain professors at that same university he went to teach at at Leiden in Holland there was what I would call hyper Calvinism that drove Armenians to the other extreme although in his own bible study to be fair to him studying Romans 9 it's been a great deal of time there he had reached other conclusions already but it fortified him it pushed him further away gomaris is one such teacher g-o-m-a-r-u-s gomaris taught a Calvinism that went something like this in terms of his presentation of god's own plan of salvation in the first moment god decreed to damn the reprobate it's talking about eternity now in the second moment god decreed to create the reprobate because he needed to have reprobate to condemn in the third moment god decreed to permit the fall so he could justly damn the reprobate well that had a one-sidedness to it that seemed to Armenians to deny the gospel that seemed to Armenians to be so one heavily freighted in a direction of divine sovereignty even over the fate of the lost that he just couldn't go to bed at night by the way that's what drove John Wesley he said he came within a hair's breath of Calvinism I would say it was a pretty big hair but I respect him on that and love his preaching of the gospel as I said but he just recoiled because he said you can't have a double you can't have a single election or predestination without a double predestination that double business is just demonic in Wesley's estimation so he had to redefine even the single election so it was extreme it was extremes in the Dutch teaching that didn't I don't have a good word here balance is not the perfect word but that did not put side by side god's control of all things and genuine human responsibility which I'm going to try to do when I work with Romans 9 because I think it's exactly what Paul does in Romans 9 and then in Romans 10 and those complementary perspectives are very helpful indeed yes sir question is the Armenian position of throwback to Catholicism in some ways that is a good question the Catholic tradition is sufficiently diverse so Augustine who certainly qualifies as a I mean saint Augustine sainted by the Roman Catholic church certainly qualifies as a good Catholic teacher likewise Thomas Aquinas they both taught unconditional election but other other strains of Catholic teaching denied that in fact in the late middle ages it was the teaching of William of Arkham and other Catholic teachers that Luther was rate was taught and that caused him to react and to reject again it was an extreme form of emphasis upon the freedom of the will and Luther saw it as a denial of god's sovereignty a practical denial of the sovereignty and Luther went the other way and taught what we have been calling unconditional election good questions other comments your question Jesser your comment is that the crux of the matter is the nature of god's choosing okay the crux of the matter is am I chosen or not I must suggest since the Bible teaches predestination and election I might be a good time just to briefly mention books because some of the writers arguing from the Armenian side feel a need to say first of all we believe in predestination why do they say that because sometimes Armenians have said they don't don't even believe in it in the interest of fairness in our master of divinity program which I have can give more hours of reading I have the future pastors read grace unlimited a book edited by Clark Pinnick at least key chapters in here such as the one on predestination in the Old Testament by David Clines a very capable British Old Testament scholar and predestination in the New Testament by the world famous Howard Marshall a well-known Scottish New Testament scholar and other ones as well grace unlimited is the best book I know of from the Armenian side the bookstore probably has some I try to keep it stock because that's a crucial issue and I do want students to have both sides of it I encourage you to read those chapters too although I can't assign it with the way our hectic schedule goes in this class grace unlimited edited by Clark Pinnick was followed up by the grace of God the will of man also edited by Pinnick the grace of God the will of man and this contains other essays following up topics that weren't presented in this one they both present essays that are biblical theological historical the methodical handling all kinds of angles just wrapping up here before our break there's been two response volumes edited by Bruce Weir and Tom Schreiner the grace of God the bondage of the will it sounds like they're playing off of this other title they definitely are two volumes grace of God the bondage of the will that also have godly and capable writers writing from a Calvinist perspective this time including our own Bobby Arbro contributes one article in here concerning divine election in the gospel of John we need to take our book and we'll come back in 10 minutes and I'll be happy to take some more questions then as we continue our study