- Welcome everybody to tonight's much anticipated debate
between Pastor Jonathan Shelley and Sean Griffin
on the important question,
can a believer lose his salvation?
My name is Donnie Badinski
and I'll be moderating tonight's debate.
This is one of my personal favorite topics
and I am excited to see what our debaters tonight,
Pastor Shelley and Sean Griffin are going to bring
to the table in terms of points and arguments.
Gentlemen, what I'd like to do is get acquainted
before getting into our debate openings.
And so, Pastor Shelley, let's start with you.
Firstly, this is your platform, so I appreciate you
allowing us to use it for this important debate
and tell us a little bit about yourself.
- Thanks so much for moderating our discussion.
Thanks to our opponent for agreeing
to the discussion as well.
This is the Baptist Bias.
We're looking forward to season four pretty soon.
I pastor a church here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
St. Fast Baptist Church.
I also pastor a church in Houston
called Pure Words Baptist Church.
But we're looking forward to ordaining a pastor
down there pretty soon, September 1st.
I'm really excited about this conversation
because I think it's necessary component of salvation.
Salvation is the most important topic.
And so I'm glad that we get to talk
about the most important things
and earnestly contend for the faith.
- Absolutely.
Pastor Shelley, I appreciate that introduction.
Sean, great to have you as well.
Thank you for doing this debate.
I'm really looking forward to this exchange.
Tell us a little bit about yourself
or anybody unfamiliar with who you are.
And also tell us a little bit about your channel
and ministry.
- Sure.
Donnie, thanks again for moderating this.
Pastor Shelley, thanks for doing this.
This is great.
Thanks for the invitation.
I'm Sean Griffin.
I've been a believer since 1997.
I've been voraciously studying the word ever since,
and we started our channel, Kingdom in Context,
because we just felt like the message
of the gospel of the kingdom was Christ's central message,
and that a lot of churches have gotten away
from actually preaching what that is
and all the details involved in that,
and we feel like it's very important
for the edification and discipleship of believers.
And so that's what we try to stress
and focus on our channel,
and that does blend into topics like this,
because when you get saved,
and the details of that does matter to the kingdom of God,
and the coming kingdom of God
is the Father's house, Tabernacles on the earth.
So it is an important topic.
- All right, Sean, thank you for the introduction.
Appreciate the introductions.
From the both of you gentlemen,
so let's get into the debate
everybody's been waiting for our Saturday night
soteriology showdown.
And I'm looking forward to a good clean fight here
in the debate octagon, spiritual fight that is of course.
And so we're gonna kick off the debate
with opening statements.
So these opening statements are going to be short,
sweet and to the point.
So the opening statements are going to be five minutes.
And what I'll do as I know five minutes flies by
is I will say time, audibly I'll say time
at the five minute mark.
And then from there, you gentlemen can take
roughly 10 seconds to wrap up your point
that you may be on and your thoughts.
And then after that, we'll move into the second phase
of tonight's debate, which will be the rebuttal round.
And so for now, let's move into our first opening statement.
Again, the topic for tonight is
can a believer lose his salvation?
Sean Griffin takes the affirmative,
and Pastor Jonathan Shelley takes the negative.
Therefore, Sean, we are going to give you
the first five-minute opening statement
whenever you're ready, go ahead.
- Okay, thank you so much, and let us begin here.
So my understanding is this topic and why this debate
is Christians are arguing about
when a person's actually saved.
Is it the point where they do an altar call,
come up front, confess Christ as their Lord and Savior,
or is it at the point of resurrection?
I'm positing it's actually at the point of resurrection.
Resurrection is when you get saved eternally.
In the meantime, you're discipling
and you must persevere till the end.
It's only modern traditions and philosophical interpretations
that celebrate confused, good-hearted believers
about what it means to have faith in Christ
and be his disciple.
So professing Christians will not reach the resurrection,
which Paul calls our blessed hope,
with lip service confessions.
Does require action.
Cowards who abandon the discipleship to Christ
and turn back to a life of sin and unbelief
will not inherit the paradise of God.
And Christ will judge us by our deeds and not our creeds.
And a great example of this is in Matthew chapter three,
John the Baptist is actually pointing out
the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to get baptized.
And he then admonishes them to produce fruits
in keeping with repentance.
So it's one to one correlation.
You produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
Not to presume to say yourselves,
we have Abraham as our father.
So in their culture, in their context,
Sadducees and Pharisees,
they just leaned on the laurels
of them being of a specific genealogy
to think that they had guaranteed salvation.
But their fruits in keeping with repentance
was still the admonition from John the Baptist.
And that is still the same today, right?
So this is why he goes on to say
the act that is righted through the tree,
every tree that does not produce good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Acts 26-20, Paul in the same way,
he declares you should repent and turn to God,
performing deeds worthy of repentance.
It's a one-to-one correlation throughout all of your life.
You must continue with deeds worthy of repentance.
And it is an ongoing.
Repentance is not a one-time thing.
It's an ongoing thing.
But to those in Deuteronomy 7, 9-10,
this is that the Almighty Himself,
through the prophet Moses,
"For those who hate him,
he repays their faces with destruction.
He will not hesitate to repay the one who hates him."
Job 34-11, "For according to a man's deeds, he repays him."
So the prophet preached Job.
He also knew and understood this idea.
Proverbs 24-12, "Retorically asking, 'Will not he repay a man according to his deeds?'
Of course he will."
Or Psalm 62, 11-12, which is actually repeated in Revelation 22.
Yahweh is also explaining, "He will repay each man according to his deeds."
1 Kings 8, Solomon's prayer, "In his prayer that you may forgive an act and repay each
man according to his ways."
This is the same, consistent, all throughout history.
Start to finish.
The same behavior of the Father, the same standard of judgment.
It is a lifelong discipleship that is expected of all mankind.
Ecclesiastes chapter 12, 13, and 14, "For God will bring every deed into judgment along
with every hidden thing, whether good or evil."
So if we do evil at the end of our lives, no matter how much evil we've done before,
you will be judged on that.
Now, I'm not the arbiter, only Christ is, as far as what that line is, but I do know
the actual moment of guaranteed eternal salvation is not at the resurrection because your life
is the evaluation process.
Jeremiah 17, 10, "I, the Lord, search the heart, examine the mind, reward a man according
to his way by what his deeds deserve."
Jeremiah 32, 11, or 32, 19, again, repeats the same concept, "According to your ways,
according to the fruit of your deeds, you'll be judged."
Matthew 16, 27, "Christ himself, the Son of Man, will come in his Father's glory with
his angels and will repay each one according to what he's done."
Romans Hall goes on to explain that in verses 5 through 8 and verse 6, he says, "God will
repay each one according to his deeds."
He's actually quoting Psalm 62, 12 right there.
He says, "To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality,
he will give eternal life."
Now this is one I think that is a beautiful passage for my particular argument, which
is you must endure to the end in behavior of producing fruit worthy of repentance.
You must endure in discipleship to Christ, and in that you persevere in doing good.
This is what he's saying.
So right on the tagging on the heels of according to Psalm 62, 12, God will repay each one according
to his deeds.
Paul says you must persevere in doing good, and he equates it directly to eternal life.
He will give you eternal life if you do good.
Revelation 2, 24-27, Christ also says to the one who overcomes and continues in my work
until the end, I will give authority over the nations.
So we can't shrink back, we can't change course, we can't abandon discipleship.
Revelation 22, 12 again, he's quoting Psalm 62.
So this is the idea that we must finish the race.
Matthew 5, 48, Christ tells us to be perfect.
Now a lot of people get confused on this.
They think that perfect means that you have to be without failure, but that's not the
definition of this Greek word or even the Hebrew even.
So in the Greek it's a word that teleo, which means brought to its end, finished, lacking
nothing necessary to completeness.
This is not having to do with you never making a mistake in your life.
This is you completing the race, running the race.
As Philippians 3, Paul talks about, he doesn't think he's already attained it.
In the context of verse 10 is the previous context about Paul getting to the resurrection,
he doesn't think he's already attained all this perfection.
He must press on.
Time.
Yeah.
All right.
That does fly by, man.
It does.
It does fly by.
Yeah.
I looked over and I saw four minutes and 50 seconds, so appreciate the fast-paced five-minute
opening statement there, Sean.
We're now going to hand it over to Pastor Jonathan Shelley.
And so Pastor Shelley, I'll reset the timer.
And whenever you're ready, you got five minutes.
Go ahead.
This verse in the Bible is John 3.16, and it says, "For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
eternal life."
The Bible makes it clear that salvation is simply by believing in Jesus Christ, and by
doing so, you have eternal life.
I believe there's many proofs in the Bible that describe how one can attain eternal life,
and that they can have it now.
The Bible makes it clear that in John 3.36, "He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting
life."
That's present tense.
So we're not describing something in the future, we're not describing the resurrection, we're
describing a present tense moment which one who has trusted in Christ, has believed in
him as Savior, has eternal life in that specific moment.
Additionally, John 1.12 says, "But as many received him, to them gave the power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."
So the Bible makes it clear when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can become a
child of God.
In 1 John chapter number three, it says, "Behold, now are we the sons of God."
It doesn't say in the future, it doesn't say at the resurrection, it doesn't say hope
so might so, maybe so, could be so, it says now.
So according to the Bible, when someone believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are born again
and they are now the son of God, meaning that they are already saved with a D at the end
because it's a past tense event.
Now that they're saved, they have eternal life, they're a child of God, and they cannot
change the fact that they're going to be a child of God for the rest of their life and
beyond death.
They are going to be a child of God forever.
The Bible also makes it clear in Ephesians chapter number one that when you believe in
Lord Jesus Christ, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest
payment, as the Bible describes it, and that you're sealed until the day of redemption.
That day of redemption is the resurrection, so it's not that I'm waiting to be saved,
I'm already saved, and I'm already sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and that
I'm already going to make known to everyone, including myself, that I have the Spirit of
God.
In fact, we know that we're the children of God by the Spirit of God, that's what the
Bible says.
Another point in John chapter number five, verse 24, the Bible says that we pass from
death unto life.
The Bible says that we cannot come into future condemnation, so it doesn't matter what I
do in the future, I can't come into condemnation, I already have everlasting life, and I've
already been passed from death unto life.
A fifth point is the Bible brings up in John chapter number 10 that when someone believes
in the Lord Jesus Christ that they're put in Jesus Christ's hand.
Not only are they in Jesus Christ's hand, they're also in the Father's hand, and the
Bible says that no man can pluck you out of either of their hand, and so I'm already secure
and sealed in the Father's hand, in Jesus Christ's hand, and so there's no way for me
to lose my salvation because I didn't deserve being in their hand in the first place, and
there's nothing I could ever do to get out of their hand.
No man can be plucked out of their hand.
Another addition is in Romans chapter number five, verses 15, 16, and 18, the Bible makes
it abundantly clear that salvation is a free gift.
It says it three different verses in Romans chapter number five, and in fact, it also
describes that it's by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men under
justification of life.
So according to the Bible, it's only by one person's righteousness that I get to go to
heaven, and that's the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
It's not my righteousness, it's not my actions, it's not my deeds, it's not my faithfulness,
it's not what I do, it's what I believed.
And by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm imputed His righteousness and His works.
And it's by the righteousness of one that I obtained the free gift of eternal life and
I could never lose that.
Another point is the Bible makes it clear that in Romans chapter number six, even though
we're saved and we're supposed to do our best to not sin and repent, we are never going
to be perfect.
Therefore, when we sin, grace will continue to abound and grace will continue to cover
our sin.
Now, of course, the questions asked, you know, should we do those things, should we continue
and sin that grace may abound?
And the answer is God forbid.
But the answer is that grace will abound and no matter what I do, God's grace will continue
to cover my future sin and I will still go to heaven because of grace.
Not because of faithfulness, not because I persevered, not because of my works, but because
of the grace of God.
Additionally, the Bible tells us in Titus chapter 1 that God promises eternal life and
that he cannot lie.
The Bible makes it clear that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting
life.
So the person who believes in Christ has eternal life, God cannot lie.
It's not conditional life, it's not temporary life.
They will be saved permanently.
Additionally, the Bible says in some more difficult passages, but it's a clear point
that in 1 John chapter number 3 and in Romans chapter 7 that you can't sin after you believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, of course, to clarify that point, it's not that I can't sin in my flesh, because
the Bible says that we're going to sin continually.
I can still lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, but it's no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells in me as the apostle Paul describes, and that actually in my new man, it's impossible
for me to sin because I've been born again spiritually.
And because of that point, there's no way for me to ever go to hell or lose my salvation.
Therefore, the Bible's clear you can't lose your salvation.
Okay.
Appreciate that five-minute, fast-paced opening statement there, Pastor Shelley.
Gentlemen, that concludes our five-minute opening statements for tonight's debate on the question
can a believer lose his salvation.
We're now moving into a rapid rebuttal.
The rebuttal is going to be three minutes, give us the opportunity to respond to each
other's points and arguments and further set the foundation for the discussion.
We got a lot of discussion time here, which is good.
It's what the audience wants to see.
So what I'll do is the same thing I did for the opening statements.
I'll say time right at the three minute mark.
And then from there, gentlemen, take 10 seconds or so to finish your point in thought.
And so okay, Sean, whenever you're ready, I'll reset the timer and you have three minutes.
Go ahead.
Sean.
Thanks for opening statements.
Am I off mute?
Okay.
Yeah.
Thanks for opening statements, Pastor Shelley.
I won't have time to screen share because it's only three minutes.
That's why I have time to put a lot of verses on screen, but we hopefully will get into some
of this with our discussion and cross, but just one thing.
You quoted John 3.16, "Believing isn't a process.
It's an action."
So that's literally by definition of the word.
Believing is not a thought process.
It's not mental assent.
This is not Gnosticism.
It's an actual action.
Believing is not believing if it's not qualified by repentance.
This is why I brought the verses up initially about deeds keeping with repentance.
John chapter 10, "Those who are in Christ's hands," that's those who are actually in
faith and belief.
So if you remove yourself from Christ's hands, which is what 60 of his disciples did in John
chapter 6, then they're no longer in his care, they're no longer under his discipleship,
they're no longer in his hands.
So obviously it's about a steward, a shepherd, which was what Christ was to his disciples.
That means it takes the willful action of his disciples to be there.
So this is, I don't know if you ascribe to forms of Calvinism, but there's still free
will involved in this process of discipleship.
So James 2, of course, would negate your proposed definition of belief.
James 2 says that your faith without works is dead.
So if you're describing faith as belief, John 3.16, that you think you're guaranteed
eternal life now, I hope it's not in this fleshly body.
I hope you don't have eternal life now in this corrupted flesh.
I hope you have to get your new incorruptible body like Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians
15 to actually be in the state of immortality.
Again, the same process that Paul is preaching, and this is the same Paul who already believes
in Christ as his Lord and Savior in Romans 2, like the verse I put on screen, those who
persevere in doing good will get eternal life from God.
So eternal life, there is an appointed time for the granting of the eternal life part.
A free gift, I love it, but a free gift, I agree, salvation is a free gift.
No two ways about it.
We don't deserve eternal life that God gives us through Christ Jesus.
But we must actually show him we are his disciple.
We can't go worship Bell.
We can't go worship Satan.
We can't go sacrifice children of Molech.
And then expect Christ to take us into his Father's house.
So this is very important that we must have repentance in order to this free gift to make
any sense to us.
I can't resurrect myself to eternal life.
I have to have Christ to do that.
Christ is the only anointed and appointed one in all of history that's going to be
able to do that for me through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 6, yes, grace does abound whenever we sin.
But we're not expected to be perfect.
This is why it tells us in 1 John 1, 8 and 9.
He who says, "Without sin is a liar, therefore if you confess your sins, his faith will just
cleanse you of all unrighteousness."
So there is a competent understanding of, yeah, you're going to make mistakes.
Peter made a lot of mistakes after he came to faith in Christ.
After he announced in Mark 8, Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God.
That's the most blatant confession of John 3, 16 you can have to which Christ rejoices.
He says, "Oh, Heavenly Father has revealed this to you."
So that's it.
Thanks.
Thank you very much for your three-minute rebuttal, Pastor Shelley.
The floor is now yours.
I'll reset the timer.
And you got three minutes.
Go ahead.
I do think my opponent correctly analyzes the situation that determining when someone
is saved will ultimately lead to the conclusion of can they lose their salvation or not.
Of course, I don't think anybody really argues that post-resurrection anybody can lose their
salvation.
But obviously, I believe the Bible clearly indicates that you can have salvation now
and that it cannot be lost as well.
He did bring up the fact that faith is not lip service in his opening statement and then
additionally in your rebuttal you brought up the idea of this being an ascent to knowledge.
I think that that's a strong man.
I don't think anybody argues for that.
I don't think a single person believes that salvation is by ascent to knowledge.
The Bible makes it clear that belief in Christ is a full trust and being persuaded and full
confidence in what Christ has done and that's what it means to believe in or to believe
on.
It's a trust.
So no one just simply merely acknowledges Christ's existence and is it gained entrance
into heaven or has eternal life.
The Bible makes it clear that you must put all of your trust and confidence in what he
did on the finished cross, the finished work of the cross and his death, bone resurrection
as the only payment for salvation.
That's how someone achieves salvation.
So if you believe you can lose your salvation, if you believe that it's by works in any
shape or form, you're not trusting in Christ, therefore you're not believing in Christ.
And so it's very clear that you must understand these core doctrines in order to even be saved.
It's what gives him all the honor and glory that Jesus Christ truly paid our salvation
and can offer us a free gift.
You brought up Matthew chapter number three and you brought up the "you shall know them
by their fruits."
In that same passage, if you compare that to other passages, I would say this, when
it talks about "you shall know them by their fruits," it says in Luke chapter number six
that we're talking about what comes out of their mouth, out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh.
And so I would argue that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were willing to justify themselves
as the Bible says, and they were pointing to their works to save them, they were not
pointing to Christ.
You brought up a lot of points where God is going to judge people according to their
works and that's found all over the text, but that's not in context of salvation.
And the Bible does say that we'll sit at the judgment seat of Christ and be judged
according to our works, but those that have gone to the judgment seat of Christ have already
been saved and redeemed.
So it's again, it's ignoring all the clear passages on eternal life, salvation, John
3, Romans, all the different passages that clearly describe eternal life to go to more
exotic passages that are bringing up nuanced doctrines.
To bring up the idea of perfect in Matthew chapter 5, I believe it does mean perfect.
It's just God expects perfection, understands it will never be perfect, and gives us grace.
Your definition would be so difficult to understand because you're saying you don't have to be
absolutely perfect, but you need to be good enough to basically meet that threshold to
where God will still give you entrance into eternal life.
But in James chapter 2, the Bible says in verse 10, "For his servant shall keep the
whole law."
And yet if in one point he's guilty of all.
So the standard in the Bible is to commit zero sins.
Okay, thank you Pastor Shelley for that three-minute rebuttal.
We've now concluded opening statements of five minutes and rebuttals of three minutes.
We got a good amount of points and arguments here to now engage in our discussion.
So with the discussion, we are going to be getting the best of both worlds.
We're going to start off with cross-exam.
And so this will be a little different than the open discussion that follows the cross-exam.
The open discussion will be a little more free-flowing and organic.
But for this round, for the cross-exam that we'll do two rounds each, and so 20 minutes
in total, we will want to go with more rapid questions and answers.
And so since Pastor Shelley just ended with his three-minute rebuttal, let's give the
floor to you, Shawn, to lead the way in the first cross-exam.
It'll be five minutes.
And so, Shawn, go ahead.
Okay.
Thank you.
Pastor Shelley, what do you define as belief?
I believe that it means to be fully persuaded or confident in trust.
And so, would your actions have to match what you're fully persuaded and confident in?
Would they have to match in what context?
Your discipleship to Christ.
They should, but they don't have to for salvation.
Okay.
So, if your actions don't match your actual confession of faith in Christ and who He says
He is and actually repenting, changing your life to be His disciple, how is your confession
then not just an ascent of knowledge?
People can have an ascent of knowledge and understand something that's true and completely
reject it.
So, there's a difference between believing that Kamala Harris is the vice president and
putting your trust in Kamala Harris.
Those are two completely different things.
Okay.
So, you're saying a person can put their trust in Christ for their resurrection, the glorification,
which is the John 3.16 promise, right?
The eternal life that you shall not perish, but you're saying they don't have to actually
change their behavior?
No.
In order to obtain eternal life, no, they should.
Why did Christ perpetually tell people to repent?
What do you think he was meaning when he said, "Repent?"
Yeah, in Mark chapter one, it says, "Repent, you who believe the gospel."
That was he wanted them to stop trusting in their works and in themselves and believe
in Jesus Christ.
So the word repent just simply means to turn or change, and the context defines what we're
changing from and to.
So it could be a change of mind, it could be a change of action.
You have to allow the context to define that.
Most of the time when Christ was asking them to repent, it was in the context of, "Stop
trusting in the works of the law to save you and trust in Jesus Christ to save you."
Are you familiar with first century Judaism and how they taught the oral Torah as the
works of the law and not the actual commandments of God?
No, because I don't think Judaism was invented until the fifth century.
Okay.
Do you know who Rabbi Akiva is?
No.
Okay.
In John 6.29, Jesus replied, "The work of God is this, to believe in the one he has
sent."
Is that a work?
Yes or no?
I think it's a wording that's used to kind of trip people up.
But in the context of what works are and faith, no, believing in Jesus Christ is not work.
So a murderer can still murder and then expect eternal life from Christ?
Yeah, I believe that David went to heaven.
I believe that Moses went to heaven.
David didn't perpetually murder.
I'm sorry?
David didn't perpetually murder.
He repented.
But you're just asking someone murder and go to heaven, right?
Right.
Yeah, because under the guise of what you've already answered, that a person does not have
to change their behavior and disciple after Christ.
You're literally telling me a murderer can just say, "Oh, it's the Son of God, actually
is the Son of God.
I believe it," and then continue to go murdering the rest of his life, and then expect salvation
from Christ?
Is that what you're saying?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you for your honesty.
In Romans 8, you talked about redemption, right?
You think that the moment you put your faith in Christ, I'm not saying this derogatorily,
just from your own answer so far, through your confession of faith, not your actions,
but as you said, through your own confession of faith, that you already are redeemed.
But yet redemption is defined by Paul in Romans 8 as the redemption of the body when the sons
of God are revealed, which is a future tense that the whole creation groans in eager anticipation
for.
Yeah, I think redeem can be meaning two different things in the sense that I can be redeemed,
but the redemption of my physical body hasn't happened yet.
So there's the soul and the spirit, and then there's also the physical body.
You mentioned that you didn't like my definition of perfect from Matthew 5.48, I literally
put on screen the Greek, so it's not my definition.
I gave you examples both Old and New Testament, but we don't have time to dig into that
too much.
Let's just address one of the things you did say in your rebuttals that you think that
a person, you think the Bible teaches a person has to sin zero times in order to be, I guess,
to be perfect.
No one's requiring that.
No one's preaching that, and the Bible doesn't preach that according to my understanding
of the Bible because you have the entire Old Testament that was built into the whole process
of a priest.
It's something ordained by God so that He can make atonement for your sins.
And Christ, our Messiah, is actually prophesied and is currently now our high priest of the
covenant.
Ministering in heaven's tabernacle, that's Hebrews 8, 1-2, Hebrews 5, Hebrews 2-17, a
whole bunch of other places say that He's actively doing the process which creates atonement
for our sins because the whole process given by the Almighty anticipated us to sin.
Were you aware that the Old Testament does not expect absolute perfection of behavior?
Before you respond, Pastor Shelley, that's five minutes.
So what we'll do is consider that the last question in the last few points, Pastor Shelley,
take as much time as you need to respond.
Go ahead.
I would say that the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament does put an expectation
of perfection and to never sin.
It's similar to how a parent expects the children to follow all of the rules but understands
that a child never will follow all of their parent's rules.
And when Jesus Christ was confronted by the young rich ruler, he literally asked him,
"If thou wilt be perfect," and then he says, "Go and sell what thou hast and give to the
poor, take up thy cross and follow me."
It was under the guise of the guy that has kept literally every single commandment perfectly
and he's following all of the works perfectly.
That was the context.
So, yeah, I think that perfect is pretty clear.
It's just perfect.
It's just that it's unattainable.
Okay.
Thank you, gentlemen, for that first five-minute cross exam.
I enjoyed that pace.
I liked the quick questions, plenty of time to answer, and it flowed well.
So let's continue with that for the next three five-minute rounds.
This time, I'll reset the timer, Pastor Shelley.
You get to lead the way in a cross exam for five minutes.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm hoping to ask some yes and no questions here.
Sean, do I have to repent of my sins to be saved?
Absolutely, 100%.
Is faith alone enough to save?
Faith defined as repentance and deeds worthy of repentance, yes.
According to the biblical definition of faith, yes.
Is faith without--
Because Christ evaluates your new deeds.
Let me ask this way.
Is faith without repent-- without repenting of my sins enough to save?
That's not the biblical definition of having faith in Christ.
If I believe that Jesus Christ paid for all of my sins and that He rose again from the
dead and that He has offered me eternal salvation and I call upon His name in faith, is that
enough to save me?
It saved the thief on the cross who repented, confessed Christ publicly, and then was guaranteed
entrance into paradise.
His belief--
Christ is ultimately the judge of how many actions qualify you.
I can guarantee you if you do not disciple after Christ and you-- you know, He's going
to-- I wouldn't want to stand before judgment in His face when 99% of my actions throughout
my life has spit in His face and not discipled to Him, even though I profaned Him by claiming
to people I was His disciple.
I mean, this is what Israel got in trouble for in the Old Testament, and God's not a--
God's not a respecter of persons.
So is a one-time trust in Christ without a change in behavior enough for salvation, yes
or no?
Depends on Christ, but I would say that you're-- you must have deeds worthy of repentance,
which is what Christ preached.
In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13, it says, "In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard
of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after that ye believed ye were
sealed of the Holy Spirit of promise."
Would you say in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13 that the word believe and trust mean the
same thing?
No, because like I said before, the word believe is associated with you actively discipling.
So this is where even, you know, first century-- or second century philosopher, Justin Martyr,
would claim that if you discount the ideas of discipleship, you are-- excuse me, I should
say second century Irenaeus.
He teaches in demonstration of apostolic preaching 200 years after Christ, that if you are no
longer walking in the commandments of God, you have left the faith and you no longer
are a believer.
Are works necessary for salvation, yes or no?
The work is to believe and disciple after Christ, not the works of Judaism.
We're not talking about ritualistic rote works.
I don't care what label, I'm just saying, are any works necessary for salvation?
Yeah, you must believe that Christ is the Messiah and disciple after him.
Do I have to endure to the end to be saved?
100%, yeah.
Christ's own words.
You almost quoted him.
If I don't change my ways, but I believe in Jesus, would that save me?
No, you must repent.
Are you saved, Sean?
Yes.
What are you saved from?
The second death.
How long are you going to be saved for?
Well, once you get eternal life, you have eternal life, and you're not subject to being
thrown like a fire, which is the second death.
Do you have eternal life?
Not yet.
Does anybody have eternal life?
Christ does, and the angels do.
Does any man have eternal life?
Christ, the resurrected man, does.
Just Jesus.
Christ, the resurrected man.
First Jesus.
First resurrection.
Not yet.
Apart from Jesus, does anybody have eternal life?
No, okay.
Not yet.
Okay.
If I lose my salvation and I go to hell, let me ask this, if you lost your salvation and
went to hell, what were you saved from?
If I lost my, well for one, how are you defining hell because that's translated several different
ways.
You talk about...
Okay, let me ask you a different one then.
If you lost your salvation and go to the second death, what were you saved from?
Second death.
I already answered that.
But you went to the second death, so how were you saved from it?
Well, you said I lost, the question was if I lost my salvation and went to second death.
Yeah, you said you're saved right now, and you said you were saved from the second death,
you said that a believer can lose their salvation.
So I'm saying if you end up losing your salvation, Sean, and you go to the second death, what
were you saved from right now?
No, I believe in faith and belief that I will get eternal life and not face the second death.
There's an appointed time when people would have to face judgment for the second death.
But you're saved right now, so what are you saved from, the second death?
So if you lose your salvation and go to the second death, what would you have been saved
from?
Yeah, this is a semantics, right?
So when I say that I'm saved now, that means I'm discipling in faith and belief after Christ
expecting Him to raise me to eternal life.
I'm holding on to the hope, the blessed hope that I have.
I'm actually doing 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 16, I'm persevering in my life and
doctoring because that is going to be what saves me.
Are you a child of God?
You have one more question.
Are you a child of God?
In faith and belief.
At the resurrection, you literally become raised by the Spirit, an actual born-against
son of God.
Very good, that is now ten minutes of cross exam.
I'll reset the timer.
We have ten more minutes, five minutes each.
Sean, you now get to lead the way in questions starting now.
Awesome.
So, I just want to make sure I'm clear, Pastor Shelley, you said earlier that if someone
puts their faith in Christ but then abandons that later, say like a year after they put
their faith in Christ, you know, they stop fellowshiping with believers, they stop going
to church, you know, they, I don't know, they become the new lead guitarist for, you
know, a rock metal band that glorifies Satan, they go off, have lascivious lifestyle, full-on
drug addicts, ruining their life and the lives around them of people for the next 50 years
of their life.
Will Christ still resurrect them and give them eternal life and let them live in His
Father's house?
Yeah, if they believe in Christ, then they were saved and they will go to heaven.
All right.
So what would motivate, in your view of this OSASS teaching, will it motivate someone to
actually live for Christ?
Well, the Bible is clear that if you break God's commandments, that you're going to
reap what you sow, that God's going to chastise those who break His commandments.
And so in fact, the Bible even says that there's a looking for fearful judgment of fiery indignation.
So the Bible says that God's going to judge His people, He's going to judge the house
of God.
And of course, you can go to jail, lose a death penalty.
God can curse you with blindness, madness.
He can cause you to obviously physically die.
He could cause you to be tortured.
I mean, horrible things can happen as a result of sinning.
Just because I can't change who my physical parents are, I'm not motivated to be a bad
person.
And just because my mama loved me no matter what, doesn't make me want to go out and become
an axe murderer.
So it's kind of a strange view to believe that I have to be tempted with the idea of
being thrown into hell to want to obey Christ.
In fact, the main motivating factor according to the Bible is love for Christ.
Okay.
Thank you.
In Matthew 12, verse 50, Christ, he's teaching and some of his disciples come and say, "Hey,
your mother and sister are outside, and your brothers are outside."
And he says, and he turns and says to them, "My family are those who do the will of God."
So you think that someone who, without changing their behavior, gives a verbal confession
that Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, then doesn't do the will of God, but they're
still considered the Son of God and will get eternal life.
Well, I think your question's flawed.
The Bible says, "For whosoever is called upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
The Bible makes it clear that the will of the Father in John chapter 6 is specifically
to believe on Jesus Christ.
So if someone believed on Christ, that would mean they did the will of the Father.
So isn't this literally what James chapter 2 talks about, like even the demons believe
and shudder?
Well, the devils believe that God exists, but that doesn't mean they trust in Jesus
Christ for salvation.
There's a difference.
But James is making this exact point of the conversation we're having.
He says, "The faith that works is dead."
So what kind of faith are you talking about if there is actually no behavioral change
to back it up and match it?
What kind of faith are you describing?
James does not want people to believe on Jesus Christ and get saved and then do nothing with
their life.
He wants them to actually have works that accompany salvation.
That's what Hebrews 6 brings up.
But that doesn't mean that he had to have works in order to go to heaven.
It's just that God is not going to be pleased with someone who's not having any works.
And additionally, it says that what does the profit, how can I profit someone if I personally
don't do any works?
I can't.
So the whole point is if I get saved and I don't tell anyone, that's selfish.
If I don't help anyone, that's selfish.
And so Faith Without Works is dead in the sense that it's not actively helping anyone.
First Timothy chapter number five brings up widows that are living in pleasure are dead
while they live.
But that doesn't mean they're unsaved.
It just simply means that they're not profiting anyone.
My cell phone, if it doesn't have a battery, it's dead.
But it doesn't mean that my cell phone doesn't exist and it couldn't profit me in the future.
I just need to charge it up and then start using it.
Thanks for your answer.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Thanks for your answer.
So you're saying that faith, a dead faith can still save you.
Maybe a dead faith saves because the Bible says in Romans chapter 3 verse 28, "Therefore
we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."
That's salvation by faith without the works of the law.
Again, I strongly encourage you to study Christian history and Judaism history pertaining to
the 1st and 2nd century AD.
So you can understand Paul's dichotomy, the guy who was a Pharisee of Pharisees,
when he talks about leaving his former life in Judaism in Galatians 1 and he explains
the difference.
He's addressing this conversation in Romans 2 and 4.
Yeah, and in verse 8, when he says that anybody preaches another gospel.
Yeah, again, the other gospel was that you didn't need Christ, you just needed Judaism's
traditions of circumcision in order to expect the world to come, which is false.
One more question.
You need Christ.
So in James chapter 2 verse 5, he encourages the brethren, reading, "Listen, my beloved
brothers, has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the
kingdom He promised to those who love Him?"
But you're saying your faith is not rich, it's dead, it's not vibrant because you don't
think any work should accompany your belief that Christ is the Son of God.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm not saying that my faith is dead because I actually do have a lot of works that accompany
salvation.
What I am saying is that someone who did have faith without any works, even if it's a dead
faith, would still save them.
Okay, gentlemen, that concludes round 3 and 15 minutes so far of cross exam.
Very good, fast-paced and engaging.
So we're now moving into our fourth five-minute round, this time Pastor Shelley.
You get to lead the way in five minutes worth of questions.
Go ahead.
So I want to follow up on a few questions that we had before.
You said, you know, I probably asked this before, but do you currently have eternal
life, Sean?
I get eternal life at the resurrection.
I believe in anticipation that I'm going to receive that type of salvation when the
time comes.
Okay.
So when the Bible says in John 3.36, he that believe in the Son, half everlasting life,
is that present tense?
Mm-hmm.
Again, how you've defined the word belief.
Yes, he that believes in the Son, he that disciples after Christ.
There is no just, oh, willy-nilly, oh, I believe that he is real.
I mean, the Pharisees believed that he was real, but 99% of them rejected him.
And so he gives them the big woes in Matthew 23 for all their unbelief, right?
So why is he preaching against their unbelief?
Let me follow you, I feel like you answered, I want to make sure.
You said it is present tense, so you're saying someone who believes in Jesus right now does
have eternal life.
No, I said the definition of belief is discipleship.
So yes, you absolutely should expect, because this is what Christ promised you.
He who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
So we have to have the hope of the resurrection, so that's the end of our discipleship.
We get the promise of God, the promise of the covenant.
You cannot just say, "Oh, Christ is real.
He was the son of God," and then go keep murdering people the rest of your life and expect eternal
life.
Is discipleship, is it fair to say that discipleship is defined by doing the works of God?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's literally, literally Paul's words.
So in Romans, in Romans chapter 11, it says, "And if by grace, then it is no more of works.
Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work."
So according to Romans chapter 11, saying grace and works cannot be the same thing,
the Bible says, "For by grace are you saved through faith."
If faith means works, if what you're saying believe means works, then how can salvation
be by grace without works?
Let me read the passage you're going off of.
What verse you in?
John's chapter 11 verse 6.
In the same way the present times are remnant chosen by grace, and if it's by grace then
the longer by works.
Okay, because the previous context in chapter 10 leading into chapter 11 is he's talking
about unfaithful Israelites of Abraham's descendency, whom are grafted out because
of their unbelief.
And again, this is that same conversation I've been saying.
First century Judaism taught these people, this is the John chapter 8 discussion between
the Pharisees and Christ when they said, "Oh, we're descendants of Abraham."
And Christ was like, "If you are descendants of Abraham, you do the deeds of Abraham, but
instead you're children of the devil because you do the deeds of the devil."
Like he immediately equates their dependency on being sons of the kingdom as being lineage
descendancy of Abraham in the same way Paul is also admonishing, or not admonishing, but
he's encouraging the new believers, "Hey, by the way, there's some unbelief in actual
blood-borne Israel that got grafted out.
You're now a wild olive shoot that's getting grafted in."
I don't think you answered the question.
Because of your belief.
Let me clarify.
Let me ask it differently.
You're not answering my question.
I'm trying to give you some context, because you're plucking something out of context,
so that's important.
I didn't plug anything out of context.
The Bible says that the election of grace is no works.
So is salvation by grace without works?
The Bible doesn't say the mantra that you repeated.
The Bible says that grace…
I'm just saying, just answer the question.
Is salvation by grace without works?
Hey, Pastor Shelley, I'm trying to answer it and you won't let me.
So in verse 5 and 6 of chapter 11 is at the end, because you know in the Greek there's
no verses and chapters, it's at the end of Paul already explaining, there's unbelief
in Israel that's getting grafted out.
What was the context of them in their unbelief, they're rejecting Christ because they trusted
in their traditions of the oral Torah of Judaism, that all they had to do was be circumcised
and be a descendency of Abraham and they were already good.
But that's not what the Bible teaches.
That was a false teaching of the Pharisees Christ and Paul reprimands them both for.
And he's teaching along that same line right here in chapter 10 and 11, verse 5 and 6,
the goodness and grace of God, which accompanies your belief, not your unbelief.
This is why he goes on to say in verse 8, he goes on to quote actually from the Old
Testament that God gave them a spirit of stupor their eyes cannot see, their ears cannot hear
even to this very day because they were in unbelief.
So that the new converts he's talking to in the Romans chapter 11 are in positive, rich
belief.
So that means they're actively seeking God.
They didn't reject Christ.
This is a comparison.
You're not answering the question.
He's a simple question.
He's salvation by grace.
So, here, Pastor Shelley, just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean you're
not answering it.
You didn't answer the question.
Fully answered.
There's plenty of answers you give and I didn't like, but you at least answered the question.
You just did not answer that question.
Fully answered.
And with that, gentlemen, that is five minutes, so we'll leave it up to the audience to objectively
analyze that cross-exam, not only that five-minute cross-exam, but the 20 minutes in total.
So gentlemen, we're now moving into a discussion.
So rather than a real strict cross-exam where it's just question-and-answer, question-and-answer,
this is going to be a little more free-flowing, a little bit more organic, and so you guys
can kind of bounce ideas off each other, continue asking each other questions, clarifying questions.
And so what we'll do since Pastor Shelley, you just finished leading the way, Sean, let's
allow you to kick us off in this discussion, and for the audience's sake, this discussion
will be 50 minutes in total.
So go ahead, gentlemen.
Awesome.
Pastor Shelley, do you think that you're saved right now?
Yes.
Okay.
And semantically, I'd actually agree with you.
It's actually called prolepsis.
We believe that Christ can resurrect us to eternal life.
But if you decided to abandon your position at the church, abandon your faith, publicly
denounce Christ, you think that He would still give you eternal life on the Day of the Lord?
No, I believe I already have eternal life, and I could not lose it.
Okay.
Obviously I believe I should be chastised.
You should be chastised.
Okay, so you'd be chastised for leading others astray and being reprobate yourself.
Yeah, consider Matthew chapter number 5 verse 19.
Okay.
Those who teach against the law of God and teach others to do so?
Yeah, so in Matthew chapter number 5.
Be leased in the kingdom of God.
It contrasts two different people, right?
Does it not?
Okay.
One person who says, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these lease commandments
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whosoever
shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Both, according to the verse, are in the kingdom of heaven.
Do you not agree?
No, I totally agree, but I understand the differences between a deceived person versus
someone that, you know, actually understands proper doctrine.
But both the deceived and the person with good doctrine actually both are admitting
Christ.
The entryway into the kingdom is that you must, John 6.29, you must believe in the
one he sent.
So my question to you was, the scenario I provided was that if you actually denounced
Christ publicly, you abandon the faith and live the rest of your life as a reprobate.
So this is a different, you're now outside of the context of Matthew 5.19.
So that's why I'm asking you, if you had denounced Christ, okay, let's go to the most
extreme example.
Do you think Judas is going to be in the kingdom?
Well, Judas is a devil from the beginning, according to the scripture, and so I don't
believe he ever believed.
But he was still chosen by God.
He was never saved.
He is just simply someone who is destined for hell because he chose never to believe
in Christ.
So no, he's not in heaven, he's in hell.
So in John chapter 6, Christ talks about, you know, you know, striking my body and drinking
my blood, you know, and then there was a hard teaching.
Many of them had to abandon and turn away because of this hard teaching.
At that point, 60 disciples left him.
So are they going to be receiving eternal life, those 60 that left and no longer discipled
after?
Yeah.
A disciple is one that followed Jesus.
It's not clear that all of his disciples from that context necessarily believed in
Jesus or not.
So obviously those who believed...
If they followed him for discipleship, he had 72 disciples at one point.
I'm just saying that I don't know if all the disciples were necessarily ones who had
trusted in Christ and got saved.
Obviously, Judas was a follower.
He was a disciple, but he was not saved.
So it's reasonable to believe there could have been others like him.
In that very passage, it says that he was the only one that's pointed out that Christ
knew from the beginning didn't believe.
So it's interesting.
He said some, I believe so.
In Revelation 2, 3, and 7, Christ says...
He says in verse 64, "But there are some of you that believe not."
And you brought up John chapter 6.
So again, obviously in the 12, I believe Judas is the only one who did not believe in Christ.
But amongst all disciples and followers of Jesus, there could have been others who also
did not believe.
I don't know.
So you're just saying this doesn't say out of the 60, some of them could have been, believed,
some of them could have not.
So even though they turned away in discipleship to them, even though in that very passage
at the end, I think it's verse, what, 40, 60, 68, where Peter's like, you know, "Where
would we go?
You have the words of eternal life."
Those 60 that left him no longer have the words of eternal life.
Peter's directly equating staying, discipling to Christ with eternal life.
Jesus Christ has the words of eternal life, those 60, it's not them having the words
of eternal life.
He's saying, "Who could we go to?
You're the one that has the words of eternal life."
So Jesus Christ is the Word of God.
The Word of God is what gives eternal life.
We're not born again of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God.
The Bible says in John chapter 1, I'm sorry, 1 John chapter 1, that the Word of God was
made flesh, and we see that in John chapter 1, we see that in 1 John 1, that it was the
Word of life and that they saw it manifested before them.
So it's just referring to the fact that Jesus Christ is eternal life.
That does not mean that those who have believed in Him didn't have eternal life that came
from Christ.
They're in the vine, they're abiding by Christ.
So I don't--
How are you not abiding if you abandon discipleship?
I think you're just making a weird point here.
It's not a weird point, but then--
Discipleship, discipleship is different than believing.
How is discipleship not abiding?
How is discipleship-- do you believe discipleship is abiding in Christ?
In that context, yes.
In all contexts or just in what context?
John 6 context?
I think that you could apply abiding in Christ as believing in him in some contexts.
No, no, I asked you specifically about discipleship.
Is abiding equating that?
Is that a one-to-one correlation with discipleship to Christ?
Depending on the context, that is what it means.
I think that they have the same meaning.
So in Revelation 2, 3 through 7, Christ is admonishing a specific church because he wants
them to repent.
So I'll just read the passage.
You can tell me how you feel about this because it seems to be what you're describing, right?
That someone's a believer at first, but then they stop doing the deeds they did at first,
and what happens to them after that, right?
So he starts in verse 3, he says, "Without growing weary, you've persevered and endured
many things for the sake of my name, but I have this against you.
You abandoned your first love; therefore, keep in mind how far you have fallen."
So Christ is saying they've fallen.
"Repent and perform the deeds you did at first, but if you do not repent, I'll come to you
and remove your lampstand from its place."
And then at the end of verse 7, he says, "To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right
to eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God."
I see this as Christ immediately equating the repentance back to their first behaviors
with getting the tree of life in the paradise of God.
How do you view this verse?
Yeah, so, again, you kind of skipped a few verses here and there, which made the context
seem different than what it is.
Yeah, I skipped the Nicolaitian stuff.
I skipped the Nicolaitian stuff.
It's fine.
Yeah, of course, if you read in chapter 1, you understand that the candlestick is the
church, and he's saying he's going to remove the candlestick, meaning that he's basically
going to, in a metaphorical sense, make it where they're no longer a church anymore,
because they're no longer doing the first works.
So you're saying previous chapters' context matters?
You're saying previous chapters' context matters?
Context matters? All contexts matters.
Oh, so like Romans 10 and 11, the context matters?
All context matters.
Yeah, it does.
It does, doesn't it?
So, in Romans chapter...
Okay, I agree with you.
The lampstand is metaphorized as the church.
The church is the seven churches in chapter one.
I agree with you.
Yeah, if you...
But he directly equates paradise and the tree of life, which is after the resurrection,
in the kingdom come, with their repentance.
Is that how you...
He says no.
Okay, so this is where you didn't let me finish.
In verse number six, then he brings up how they hate the deeds of Nicolaitans.
In verse seven, he's just completely changing what he's saying.
He says, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit sayeth unto the churches.
To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God."
But if I actually look at passages that describe how to overcome, it says in 1 John, chapter
number five, it says in verse four, "For whosoever is born of God, overcometh the world, and
this is the victor that overcometh the world, even our faith, who is he that overcometh
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God."
So the Bible says to overcome is one who believes in Jesus Christ.
It doesn't say who repents of all their sins or gives up all their sins.
You're not comparing overcome with overcome.
Yeah, a little bit of cross talk.
Just for the audience sake, Sean, I want to make sure that they can fully hear both sides.
Pastor Shelley, can you reiterate maybe the last five seconds of what you're saying?
And then Sean, we'll throw it to you for as much time as you need.
Yeah.
Use the word overcome.
If I use the same word overcome in 1 John chapter 5, it defines it as believing in Jesus.
You weren't comparing overcome with overcome.
You're comparing it with a completely different word, a few verses back, in a different context.
That's a completely fallacious claim.
Even in the 1 John reference, 1 John 5 reference you're saying, in 1 John 2, he talks about
those are, you have to know God, you have to keep the commandments of God.
So the context of 1 John 5 would negate the claim that you're making of 1 John 5.
But in Revelation chapter 2, he directly says in verse 4 that you must repent and perform
the deeds you did at first, because if you don't, I'm going to remove your lampstand.
And then he immediately ties it into the one who overcomes, I'll grant the right to eat
the tree of life.
Why would he threaten them with the tree of life if it was just, oh, you're going to lose
your congregational fellowship here in Asia Minor?
How did he threaten them with the tree of life?
I don't see him threatening them with the tree of life.
He says he would remove their candlestick.
He does not say he's going to remove the tree of life from them.
Right.
Because he's immediately talking about the works that they did.
So if I'm correct, then is that saying your first thing was wrong?
I'm going to explain better for you here.
He says, you've abandoned your first love.
I have this against you.
You have fallen.
Repent.
So how do you read this to think that, oh, they're not in trouble?
And then he reminds them of the promise, which is, hey, you want to get to the tree of life,
you must overcome.
Well, obviously, there's more to life than salvation itself.
Just like if my mom says, hey, you better get--
I thought you said this was the most important topic.
OK.
But that doesn't mean that every passage in the Bible is only addressing salvation.
And specifically, he's addressing a church as an entire congregation that's already saved.
If they're already saved and they can't lose their salvation, there'd be no point in bringing
up the fact that they need to be saved, which is why he's not bringing that up.
And specifically, they are committing a lot of sin.
And so he wants them to repent so that he doesn't have to punish them.
Just like my mom punishes me for breaking her rules, but you know what?
I don't have to follow her rules to be her son.
And so you're just conflating these two things specifically.
And in 1 John chapter 2, he brought up the idea of if you don't keep the commandments,
you don't know them.
Well, that's the same with my parents.
If I don't hang out with my parents, if I didn't talk to them, if I didn't follow their
rules, I wouldn't have a relationship with them and I wouldn't know them.
There are people who are born in this world who don't even know who their parents are.
That does not mean that they're not their actual children.
And here's the thing.
There are Christians who have believed in Jesus Christ and they're saved, but they
don't read the Bible.
They don't go to church and they're not following his commandments and they don't really know
who God is even though they are saved.
You're conflating discipleship works with salvation.
So Christ promises, thanks for your opinion, Christ promises that he will reject those
who he doesn't know and that he will reject Matthew 7.21, workers of lawlessness, workers
of the negative.
Whom he doesn't know.
He didn't say that you didn't know him.
He says that he doesn't know you.
I just followed up, "Depart from me, I never knew you," workers of iniquity.
That's behavior.
That's actions.
So in Revelation 14, he's also encouraging people not to take the mark of the beast.
I think you and I would probably agree that we shouldn't take the mark of the beast.
It's bad, right?
It's an immediate –
Only John MacArthur thinks he should.
It's an immediate torment.
Well, you and I though.
I'm talking about you and I.
Yeah.
We would not – because, I mean, the scriptures are pretty clear in Revelation 14.
You're immediately going to the lake of fire, which is prepared for the holy angels,
which is prepared for the devil and his angels.
So at the end though, it says in Revelation 14, 9 through 12, "A third angel followed
them, calling out in a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast, his image, and receives
his mark in his forehead or in his hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's anger,
pure and undiluted in the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented in fire and sulfur in
the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises
forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast in its
image, for anyone who receives the mark of its name. Here is a call for the perseverance
of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."
So if you, according to your hermeneutic of "once saved, always saved," if they're
already saved, why is he telling them to persevere and not take the mark of the beast if they
could be in danger of the second death, which is the Lick of Fire?
Why did your parents tell you what to do if you could never stop being their son?
Without the anecdote, could you address the scripture, please?
Sure.
Obviously, we're rewarded according to our works, and of course, God is going to preserve
those who are keeping His commandments longer than those who are breaking them.
In fact, God may even cause you to die or perish or to be punished severely for breaking
His commandments.
Of course, God calls us to have faith and to trust in Him and to follow all of His commandments
and turn from sin and to do all the works of the Bible.
The reality is, though, that's not the context of salvation or going to heaven.
That's the context of being rewarded according to the works that we have and the things that
accompany salvation, as the Bible describes.
There are things that accompany salvation, and then there's salvation.
You're constantly going to passages that talk about things that accompany salvation and
conflating them and resting them with the clear passages in the Bible.
When the Bible brings up eternal life, going to heaven, it's very clear, and you're not
going to these passages.
You're going to end times Bible prophecy.
I guarantee most people disagree on Revelation 14 as far as just their viewpoints.
There's all kinds of different weird viewpoints here, whereas we could just go to clear verses
in John 3, Romans, where it actually describes eternal life and is super clear on how salvation
is.
But you're not going to those passages.
You're going to these cryptic passages that have nothing to do with salvation.
Does Revelation 14 bring up the concept of eternal life?
Does it say eternal life?
Where?
What verse says eternal life?
Let me answer you.
Show me the verse that says eternal life.
The second death is you're not going to get eternal life.
The opposite of eternal life is second death.
Do you agree with that?
Yes, the opposite of something is not this something, is it?
So therefore, it's talking about your eternal state.
Therefore it's talking about your eternal state.
If he's saying watch out for the mark of the beast because those who take it are going
to the lake of fire.
Is that eternal life?
Pastor Shelley, can you abandon faith in Christ and be unrepentant for the rest of your life
and still receive eternal life?
Well, I would object to the idea that I could abandon faith in Christ because I can never
stop believing in Christ as my Savior.
It's impossible.
Just like I could never be convinced that two plus two is five.
So do you believe in Calvinism?
Is that your hermit attitude?
No.
I reject all five points of Calvinism.
But I do believe it's impossible for someone who has seen the light and the truth of the
gospel to change their mind on that point.
Just like I could never be convinced two plus two is five.
You could never convince me that Santa Claus is real.
You could never convince me that my parents are not my parents.
And that's not because of Calvinism.
It's because I've already known the truth of those things.
I've already known the truth of the gospel and that Jesus is my savior so I can't change
that.
My experience tonight is how you're defining discipleship to Christ.
You already believe two plus two is five.
You're already in mass confusion about what discipleship means.
So I'm asking you clearly, the lake of fire is the second death.
You and I both agree on that.
Why is he telling them they must avoid the mark of the beast?
You're saying that a Christian could take the mark?
No.
Okay, so then a Christian, those who must persevere, if you don't persevere, that
means you've turned back and you would take the mark in that context.
Now, I believe there's things that believers can't do.
The Bible says that someone who blasphemes the Holy Ghost never has forgiveness.
I don't believe a Christian could do that.
I also don't believe that a Christian could be a reprobate.
I also don't believe that a Christian can take the mark of the beast, because not only
do they have to take the mark, they have to worship the antichrist.
And I think that that's too objectionable, and it's not possible for someone to sincerely
do.
So I don't think that anybody...
So, you know, they're threatened with martyrdom.
They're threatened with not being able to buy solar trade.
So there's...
Many Christians would be killed.
There's life.
Exactly.
I, you know...
What does this have to do with a believer losing his salvation?
We're talking about the context of your hermeneutic, which is you believe you don't equate one-to-one
discipleship persevering until death with actually avoiding the second death and getting
eternal life.
You think that a person can still avoid the second death and they don't have to repent.
All you have to do is be ready in the last book of life.
That's the most unbelievable thing I've ever heard.
Okay.
Well, let's go to another passage.
Look at Ephesians chapter 2 and look at verse number 8 and it says, "For by grace are you
saved through faith and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works."
You've been saying repeatedly that faith and believing means works, means discipleship.
I don't know how this verse doesn't just completely debunk everything that you believe.
I mean it's saying very clearly that it's by grace which is no works as defined in Romans
chapter 11.
It's saying it's through faith and it has nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with what Jesus did and it's a gift.
So define to me how this faith in Romans 8, I'm sorry, in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8,
does this faith include works or no?
Yeah, literally the very next verse, brother.
First of all, for we are God's workmanship.
Hear me out.
For we are God's workmanship, creating Christ Jesus to do good works.
So let me answer this question, ask this question again, in Ephesians 2, it says, "For by grace
you save the faith."
Does that word faith include works?
Again, what's the context of...
I just answered you directly.
No, you didn't.
All you did was read verse 10.
You did not answer the question.
Verse 10 exposes your poor inferred definition of the word works in verse 8.
I didn't even ask you to tell me what you believe.
I did not infer anything.
I simply asked you, "Does the word faith mean works?"
I'm still trying to tell you, but you're just talking over me.
Okay.
So, in verse 8, "For it's by grace you've been saved through faith.
This is not from yourselves as a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.
For we are God's workmanship, creating Christ Jesus to do good works.
God prepared and advanced in our way of life."
So yes, there is works that accompany your salvation, but you're not saved by works.
And the first century background argument, the party of circumcision, they literally
have their own title in Scripture, that Paul, it's my understanding that it's literally
the thorn in his flesh, they went and they tried to take his converts from him all throughout
Asia Minor, of which Ephesus is one of the cities in Asia Minor that Paul evangelized.
They constantly came in there and said, "You don't need Christ, you need the work of
circumcision."
They were false, they were Judaizing.
And he is constantly battling this argument everywhere he goes, which is why he goes
on in verse 11 to say, "Though, remember, you formerly were Gentiles in the flesh,"
and they called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which was a status of Judaism.
If you don't know the cultural context of Ephesians, this is why you're inferring your
own definition into verse 8 and 9.
So you said, quote, "We're not saved by works."
Was that accurate?
By the works of Judaism, you're not saved.
John 6.29, this is the word that you believe in Christ.
Okay, let me ask it again.
You said, "We're not saved by works."
It's only works of Judaism, a religion that did not exist at this time.
In Ephesians 2, absolutely it existed.
What are you talking about?
Brother, do you know your Bible?
Rabbitic Judaism?
Yeah, again, like I said, do you know who Rabbi Akiva is?
You said, "No."
It tells me everything I need to know.
Okay.
You have no clue what you're talking about here.
So who is a liar, but he did deny it that Jesus is the Christ, he's anti-Christ, so
I'm going to trust a Christ-rejecting Jew to tell me what religion existed at the time
of Christ?
What are you talking about?
I'm trying to figure out what you believe here.
The Bible says, "For my grace be saved through faith, and that not of yourselves," it is
a gift of God.
When it says verse 9, "not of works," what does that mean?
Explain to me what verse 9 means.
What does "not of works" mean?
I highly suggest you learn some history here.
I told you, I just gave you a full breakdown with historical context.
Even showed you verse 11, which backs up what I'm saying.
Do you know who's called the circumcision and the uncircumcision?
You know who was making those claims of status in the first century?
Christ rejecting Jews, but that's a colloquialism for people that are of the region of Judah,
not a religion that exists in the sixth century Judaism.
You have to understand that Jews were dispersed after 70 AD into all of the world, and then
we have rabbinic Judaism from the Talmud.
When did the Talmud come into existence, in your opinion?
Well it was codified by being written down in the second century AD, but before that
they had what's called Oral Torah.
So here in Galatians 1, 13, and 14 we literally have the wording you're looking for.
But verse 13 says, "For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how severely
I persecuted the church of God, tried to destroy it.
I was advancing in Judaism beyond my contemporaries and was extremely zealous for the traditions
of my fathers."
Do you think that we can, I just want to ask, can we trust history?
Do you think we can trust mainstream history?
The scriptures are giving us the history, I'm reading it to you.
I know, I'm just asking, you keep bringing up Jews and Judaism, I'm just asking, do
you agree with mainstream history?
I just brought up Galatians 13 and 14, I just brought up Galatians 1, 13 and 14, the scriptures
are giving you your history.
But do you think we can trust history?
I'm just asking, generally speaking.
That's not the debate tonight, we're talking about the scriptures and I just brought the
history from the scriptures and what the scriptures profess as history.
You're bringing up a rabbi, how does the rabbi Kiev have anything to do with the scripture?
It's Akiva and he was specifically the Pharisee, the head rabbi that changed Judaism forever
in the first century AD as a response to Christ.
So when you want to, you can bring up rabbi, antichrist, but I can't ask you a question
of if you believe history?
All I said was are you familiar with him?
And then I moved away, I said never mind, I didn't ask you any more questions and I'm
going to the scriptures to give you historical context.
Do you understand why- You can bring up historical context, but
I can't even ask you about history?
You want to ask me about historical context, but I can't ask you about history.
So in Ephesians 2.11, who's the so-called circumcision Paul's referring to?
Those who are physically circumcised.
Okay, that's not the cultural context.
It's actually the party of circumcision by a class title.
You're either considered uncircumcised or circumcised.
Are you quoting the Bible?
Because this sounds like it's out of the scope of the Bible.
So in 1 Corinthians 7, it talks about- Are you allowed to-
Okay.
I can answer you from scripture if you- Okay.
Be patient and kind.
So in 1 Corinthians 7, he talks about those who are circumcised should not become uncircumcised.
So he's expressing classisms that were existed in the first century.
Same with, there's no Jew or Greek, there's no male or female.
He goes, even in Romans 2, he goes on to say those who are part of the circumcision, if
they do not do, the ways of God are considered uncircumcised.
So is Galatians dealing with physical circumcision?
Yes, 100%.
The whole context of the chapter.
But you don't believe the circumcision is a physical thing?
What?
You asked me to define circumcision and I said it was a physical circumcision.
No I didn't.
I said in Ephesians 2.11, who's Paul calling the so-called circumcision?
That phrase.
Who's he calling that?
Okay.
Well, obviously that would be people who...
It's okay if you don't know.
We can move on.
Okay.
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11, "The circumcision are those who are trusting in the works of
the law to save them."
That's what circumcision is referring to.
Yes.
The works of the oral Torah, technically.
Yeah.
You don't even know the Bible.
The oral Torah.
The Bible doesn't tell you you have to be circumcised to be in covenant with God.
It's something you do after you're in covenant, which is a sign that you're already in covenant.
How many works do I have to keep to be saved?
If I came to you and I said, "Sean, I don't know how to go to heaven.
What do I have to do to be saved?"
What would you say?
You've got to put your faith in Christ and disciple after him.
So that pertains to your life.
Brother, pastor, you should tell me what is discipling to Christ mean?
This is literally my opening slide.
Some Christians are so confused, they don't even understand what discipleship is.
I thought that earlier, correct me if I'm wrong, you said that faith is discipleship.
Are you defining those as the same word?
Yes.
You cannot have faith without discipleship.
So then why do I have to do both?
Should I have to do both or are you just being redundant?
Faith is defined by you discipling into Christ.
If you try to disciple into Christ because you don't believe who he is, you're just
covering your bets, your CYA, that's not faith and you're not going to get salvation.
Can I have faith in Jesus without discipleship?
Can it even exist?
Does it even exist?
The biblical definition of faith includes actions, includes discipleship of Christ.
So in James chapter number two, at the very end of that passage, because it's been contrasting
the idea of like not having any works with your faith, I'm sure you'd agree with me
on that, but it says in verse number, let's see, 17, "Even so faith, if it hath not works,
is dead, being alone."
So does that say that it doesn't actually exist or does it say that it's alone?
Well, it says it's dead, brother.
Let me read the passage.
"So too faith by itself."
But wait a minute.
You said it doesn't even exist.
I'm saying that it's alone.
I know it didn't.
And that's what the Bible says.
I never said that.
I said faith...
But you're saying it doesn't exist.
I said faith is just...
Let me answer you.
I said faith is...
Don't put words in my mouth.
Be honest and let me answer you.
I said faith is defined by discipleship.
I've been very clear this whole time.
Faith is defined by discipleship.
Just like 17 says, "So too faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead."
You said you have dead faith.
I claimed James admonishes us to be rich in faith, which is not dead faith.
Again, I disagree with your hermeneutic and your understanding.
Also, if you go back to James chapter 2.
No, no, I just want to understand.
Is verse 17 describing a faith that exists or not?
It's a faith that is dead, so therefore it doesn't exist.
It's without life.
So why does it say that it's being alone?
You have no faith because he's contrasting the ideas that faith is equated to actions.
He's saying exactly what I'm saying.
It says, "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom."
Do you agree with that statement?
No.
So in Romans chapter number four...
Oh, are you actually a Martin Lutherite?
I want to ask you this.
It says in Romans chapter number...
Do you think James should be inspired scripture?
All of James is the word of God.
In Romans chapter four verse five it says, "But to him that worketh not..."
It says, "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom."
You don't think that's a true statement?
You've asked several verses here.
I want to ask Romans chapter four verse five, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth
on him that justifyeth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
In Romans chapter four, it's saying someone that does no works, but believes.
How is that possible with your theology?
Which verse, man?
Verse...
Romans four, five.
"However, to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the wicked,
his faith is credited as righteousness."
Yeah, how does that interpret it in your...
Did you read the whole passage?
I memorized chapter four.
Yeah.
Okay.
So again, go back to the context.
This is what I even said.
I was trying to hear about the context of chapters two through four in Romans.
What verse?
I was expressing those who...
What verse do I go back to?
You said context.
That means with text.
Hey, Jonathan, let me finish answering that, okay?
Donnie, do we need to do moderated 30-second answers or 60-second answers or something
because this is getting bad?
How would you like me to proceed?
We could move to that.
Let me keep talking over him or...
Let's do this.
Sean, feel free to respond.
Take let's say max 30 seconds, then we'll throw it over to Pastor Shelley to do the
same.
Appreciate it.
So, we'll start, again, like I already said, chapters 2 through 4 in Romans, he's still
addressing the circumcision thing.
This is why all of chapter 3 he's addressing circumcision.
He addresses those of the circumcision party at the end of chapter 2 because they claimed
just because they're circumcised, they're good, but if their actions don't match it,
their circumcision means nothing.
So this is in the same context of all that.
Just like you went two chapters earlier in Revelation 1 to talk about chapter 2.
In the same context, he's talking about verse 4, "Now the wages of the worker are not
credited as a gift, but as an obligation.
However, the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the wicked, his faith
is credited as righteousness."
So just like he's going to talk about Abraham, if you believe your faith is credited to you
as righteousness, wonderful.
But your faith, that doesn't mean that you can't just go worship Baal for the rest of
your life.
You have to follow God.
It's that simple, brother.
You must follow God.
Your faith is credited as righteousness.
You must follow God.
This is why in chapter 3.31 he says, "Does this faith nullify the law?
No, we uphold the law, which is actions expected of you."
So I would go six verses back to Romans 3.31 and there's your answer.
Pastor Shelley, go ahead, take about a minute to respond.
In verse 27, it says, "Where is boasting, then?
It is excluded by what law of works, nay, but by the law of faith."
So in verse 27, it says, "It is excluded."
What is the "it" that is excluded?
Where then is boasting?
It's excluded.
You don't boast.
So, okay.
This is what he's talking about.
It's in chapter 2.
What am I not boasting in?
Well, go back to the context of the end of chapter 2 where he talks about this.
So he goes on.
It's actually in verse 14.
"Now if you call yourself a Jew, you rely on the law and boast in God.
If you know His will and approval is superior because you're instructed by the law, you
are convinced that you're a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness, an instructor
of the foolish, a teacher of infants."
He's talking about people that claim to have the law.
Verse 23, "You boast in the law of God.
Do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Because it's written, God's name is blaspheming the Gentiles because of you."
It's not that I'm brought up with my rebuttals.
Circumcision has value if you observe the law.
If you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
This is exactly the context of the conversation I've been trying to explain to you this whole
night.
I just want to make it clear.
The Jews boasted in the flesh, Galatians 6.13, "Those who boast in the flesh don't even keep
the law themselves."
Galatians 6.13.
So you're saying-
It's the same conversation, the same boasting.
They're boasting in the flesh.
They're boasting in the oral tradition of Judaism.
They claimed as long as they're snipped, they're good.
And that's a lie.
That's not scriptural.
I just want to make it clear.
So you're saying Romans 3.27, when it says, "Where is boasting then?" is referring to
Romans chapter 2 in verse number 17.
That's what it's actually referring to.
Yep.
17 and 23, the whole context of him explaining your circumcision only has value if you do
the commandments of God.
Check to study it sometime.
Why is Romans 3.27 not referring to verse 26, the verse before it?
Let's go back and read it again.
I mean, again, this is what happens when you take stuff out of context.
Alright, verse 26.
"It is to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so to be just and to justify
the one who has faith in Jesus."
I mean, this, I don't understand.
Could you try to rephrase your question maybe?
Yeah.
Verse 26, it's saying that we are declaring Jesus Christ's righteousness and that Jesus
Christ is just and that Jesus Christ is going to justify those who believe in Jesus.
And I think the logical question then is, okay, how can I brag or boast then if Jesus
only saved me by faith?
And then the answer is, it's excluded.
Is that not what it's saying?
Again, are you trying to say that verse 26 is soul doctrine and there's nothing before
it?
I'm saying that verse 27 is commenting on verse 26.
There's an entire three chapters before it.
He goes like in verse 20 of chapter 3, "Therefore, no one is justified in his sight by works
of the law, for the law brings awareness of sin."
This whole concept that we're talking about is verse 21, "But now apart from the law,
the righteousness, that means the right behavior of God has been revealed as attested by the
law and the prophets."
This comes through faith in Christ Jesus to all who believe.
There's no distinction.
There's no way that you can actually believe in Christ and not do right behavior.
Christ tells you to do the commandments of God to be righteous.
If it's impossible, then why does the Bible tell me to follow the commandments if all
I have to do is believe?
I didn't say that.
I didn't.
That's your claim.
I made the claim that you must accompany your actions with your claim of faith.
Well, you said it's impossible to believe and not do the works.
Is that correct?
I said it's impossible to have faith in God by a biblical definition and not actually
disciple after Christ.
Would you say there's a difference between the word faith and like being faithful?
Faith is, in the Greek, it actually is translated as faithfulness.
Okay.
Remember in Hebrews, in Matthew 9 when Christ, let me ask you a question now.
You've asked a lot of questions.
In Matthew 9, do you remember when he says, "Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy
not sacrifice."
Okay.
What's the question?
Have you ever taken Christ's advice and go and learn what that means?
Yeah.
So he's obviously comparing how the Pharisees didn't understand the spirit of the law, but
they actually followed the letter of the law.
That's the context of that passage.
No it's not.
In the Hebrew and in the Greek, it's that word mercy.
He's actually quoting from Hosea, chapter 6, verse 6, and in both in the Septuagint
and in the Greek and the Hebrew, that word mercy means covenant loyalty, which is faithfulness.
So you're saying that the passage means what then?
When he says, when he's quoting from Hosea and he says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice,"
he's talking about covenant loyalty.
Is it in the context of the disciples breaking the Sabbath?
No I'm asking you, he said go and learn what this means and then he gives you the this.
He's quoting from Hiep from Hosea chapter 6 and he says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."
The word mercy there is an English translation of a Greek word that means covenant loyalty
because I took his advice and I studied out what does it mean.
The context of Hosea 6 was people that were doing sacrifices without having a heart circumcised
to Yahweh and that's why Yahweh is saying, "I desire covenant loyalty and not just sacrifices."
So you think the word mercy means covenant keeping?
It is the Greek definition of that word.
Every time I word, I just want to make sure I understand.
Is it just in this passage or is it every time the word mercy is used?
It's translated, I think it's in the Septuagint, it's translated 150 different times as covenant
loyalty.
Covenant loyalty.
Yeah, his tender mercies towards Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Deuteronomy chapter 30
is him talking about his covenant loyalty of upholding his end of the covenant with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And in the same way he's telling the Israelites, "I desire covenant loyalty and not just for
sacrifices."
Okay, I just want to ask.
So when the blind man screamed at Jesus and said, "Thou son of David, have mercy on me,"
he was saying, "Jesus, the son of David, have covenant loyalty on me?"
No, I said, "It's translated 150 different times in the Greek in the Old Testament."
Okay, what about Luke 18.38?
Is that translated as covenant loyalty?
No.
To my understanding, in the context of that, that would be no, but that's not the context
of Matthew 9, is it?
That's the context of the Matthew 9 where he says, "Go and learn what this means."
You don't even know what it means.
I had to teach you that.
I will have covenant loyalty and not sacrifice.
What is the difference between covenant loyalty and sacrifice?
I just tried to explain the context of where he's quoting from Hosea chapter 6, "When
the Israelites were duplicitous and only bringing sacrifices, but their hearts were still worshipping
Baal and Ashtaroth and Molech and other gods at the same time."
They were not loyal to Yahweh.
They thought they could appease Yahweh by just continuing to bring in sacrifices, which
is what all the other pantheistic gods taught, that you didn't have to be loyal to one god,
you could just appease them all but with sacrifices.
And Yahweh is admonishing them in Hosea 6 that, "No, that's not what He wants."
So Christ, who's also explaining in Matthew chapter 9, as He's teaching discipleship,
He explains, "Go and learn what this means."
He desires covenant loyalty, not sacrifice.
So the point is, He's admonishing constantly the Pharisees, Mark chapter 7, Matthew chapter
23, He's constantly telling them, "You are neatly setting aside the commandments of
God for your traditions."
This is what I brought up in my opening statements, they rested on the laurels of their oral Torah
and their descendancy from Abraham.
They weren't doing the actual commandments of God, Christ is teaching the commandments
of God.
And so He's admonishing them here, "Look, He desires covenant loyalty and not just going
through the motions without a heart that's dedicated to Yahweh."
Because they're not doing the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, strength and mind.
They're being duplicitous, hypocrites, bird of vipers, whitewashed tombs.
Are they the children of God, then, if they're not following the commandments?
Christ said in John 8, "They're the children of the devil because they do the deeds."
Right.
He said in John 8, "They're doing the deeds of the devil, they're not children of Abraham
or of God."
Okay.
So is anybody today a child of God?
Those who do the deeds of God, the will of God.
So let's say you.
Are you a child of God right now?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
Could you stop me?
Could you stop me at all?
100%, I can abandon my covenant loyalty to him, I can abandon the offer that he gives
me of eternal life at the resurrection, and I can walk away of faith in him.
I just want to make sure I understand.
So you are a child of God, you said you could stop being a child of God.
After you stop being a child of God, could you become a child of God again?
I mean, I would pray that he would receive that work of repentance, that he would actually
receive the confession, and that he knows the heart, so he's going to judge you.
This is what Jeremiah 17 says, "knows the hearts and thoughts of every man."
Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, let's say, you said you're a child of God.
Let's say you are...
So you're playing semantics now.
No, I'm just...
Yeah, I hear you.
I know what you're doing.
I'm just asking you.
Can someone...
No, you're not.
Let me read you Ezekiel 18, 24 through 26.
How am I not asking that?
I'm saying, can someone lose their salvation and regain it?
How is that not a question?
Because salvation comes with the resurrection.
You're a disciple in the meantime.
This is in my...
But you said that you were saved right now and that you're a child of God right now.
I said previously in our cross when you asked me this already, I said I'm saved because it's
a faith and belief.
I believe I'm going to get resurrection so I proleptically with faith and belief believe
that I'm saved.
In 1 John 3, it says now we're the children of God.
How is that understood?
If you have faith in Christ and you're actually discipling after him, go to John chapter 3.
First John 3 is what I was referring to.
I know you were, but go to John chapter 3.
You mentioned John 3 16 earlier.
Is someone born again when they believe in Jesus or are they born again at the resurrection?
You're born again in faith when you put your faith in him and you repent, but technically
you're given a new body, a new heart at the resurrection.
Could someone be unborn then after they've been born again?
I'm going to ask you a question real quick.
Go ahead.
I'm going to just go to this particular passage here.
So as verse 36, John 3 36, whoever believes in the son is eternal life.
Whoever rejects the son will not see life, instead the wrath of God remains on him.
So can you reject the son even if you say with your lips you've already believed in
him at one point?
I don't believe you can do both because the verse doesn't even imply someone can do both.
Either you believe on him or you don't.
Exactly.
So if you don't believe on him, if you believe on him from one year of your life and the
next 70 years of your life you don't believe on him, you reject him, you will not see life.
Yeah, but could I convince you that Santa Claus is real?
Okay, that's irrelevant.
How is that irrelevant?
I'm saying, once someone believes in Jesus they're never going to change their mind.
Irrelevant.
If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same
abominations as the wicked, will he live?
It's a question to you.
The context is talking about, you know, in this life or in this flesh and it's a rhetorical
question, so there's no need in even answering it.
Obviously if someone-
None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered.
Because it's unfaithless.
Yeah, it's saying, it's saying, it's saying like if you commit sin-
Can I answer?
If sin is committed, he will die.
Okay.
So tonight-
If you go out and kill someone, Sean, you're not going to stand before the judge and be
able to clear your righteous acts of the past.
You're going to have to take an account for the murder that you did.
So just like no matter how good of a person I am, if I sin against God in the future,
all that righteousness isn't going to necessarily cover that future sin.
It's like David committing adultery, it doesn't matter how much good he did in the past.
Right.
I know it's a good try.
I've heard that argument before, but this is definitely not talking about corporal punishment
on the earth.
So this is Yahweh speaking about-
So Ezekiel's talking about eternal life.
100 percent.
Ezekiel 18 is somebody's eternal life.
He goes on to say if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices this
ongoing behavior, practices iniquity, you know the same Matthew 7, 21 that Christ said
get away from me, workers of iniquity, says he will die for this.
He will die because iniquity is committed.
Is the phrase eternal life mentioned in the Bible?
Is the phrase eternal life mentioned?
Yes, it is mentioned in the Bible.
Is it mentioned in Ezekiel 18?
No, it's not.
So we don't use, we're not going to use any verses that actually use the phrase.
We're going to go to passages that don't bring it up.
It's just, okay, so I wonder what it would be like if I mocked all of my opponents.
Not very effective.
Just like yours isn't, right?
So if I were to sit there, yeah, you're not Elijah, brother.
I didn't say I wasn't.
No way are you Elijah.
I'm not even close.
You're sure not.
But I am saved.
Because you know what?
Elijah believed Ezekiel's message and he understood the promise of eternal life, which is the
reward of the covenant.
But why would I not use those verses, like you're using all these passages, but you're
not using the passages that actually bring up eternal life or salvation or...
Yes, man.
You're just unfamiliar with them.
When did you...
I say I was unfamiliar with Ezekiel 18.
In Genesis 17, when Yahweh promises Abraham that he and his descendants will live in the
land forever, is it talking about eternal life, yes or no?
No.
Okay.
So again, you're unfamiliar with the promise of the covenant, which is to get eternal life.
Obviously he's describing that Jesus Christ is the seed and that he's going to be given
the land as according to Galatians chapter number three, and that we're heirs according
to the promise through faith in Jesus Christ, but--
Did Abraham live with his descendants in that land forever?
No.
Exactly.
Is Abraham going to get that land?
Is God's promise going to come true for Abraham?
Yes.
Okay.
You don't understand the resurrection then.
How do I not understand the resurrection?
Did you even disagree with me?
Because you just, by your answers, you just explained that you agree Abraham didn't get
the land, but he is going to live there forever, which means he has to get resurrected to
eternal life.
It's the promise of the covenant.
It even says so in Hebrews 11, "By faith all that go to a place he would later receive
as an inheritance he obeyed and he went without knowing where he was going."
Yeah, but if you, okay, if we're talking about Abraham, Romans chapter number 4 says that
he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving
glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to reform,
and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
So the Bible describes that the faith is being fully persuaded.
It doesn't say the faith was being disciple or doing the works or whatever.
It says that he believed by having been fully persuaded.
I just read to you, Hebrews 11, 4, it says he obeyed, he obeyed, yeah.
So basically you are validating my opening slides which is this doctrine has confused
modern Christians so badly you don't even understand the promise of the resurrection
brother and how it's replete throughout the Bible.
Hebrews 11, all the people in the hall of faith, it literally in verse 39 and 40 says
I'll read it to you.
It's beyond to say at the end of the chapter all the Old Testament people that it mentions
in there.
It says these were all committed for their faith yet they did not receive what was promised.
God had planned something better for us so that together with us, they, all the people
in the first 38 verses, would be made perfect.
Okay, let me ask you a question about Hebrews 11, because we're in this chapter.
Would you acknowledge?
Can I see your works?
At least acknowledge what I just said.
Sure.
Okay.
Hebrews chapter 11 is talking about the works of the faithful.
I don't want your reinterpretation.
I read Hebrews 11, 39 and 40.
Okay.
Would you mind addressing those verses, please?
Okay, in verse 39, "These, all having obtained a good report through faith, received not
the promise," meaning that they did not enter at the promised land, and it says in verse
40, "But God hath been providing some better thing for us, that they without us should
not be made perfect."
So it's just saying that they're not going to inherit the promised land without us, we're
all going to inherit at the same time.
I don't know what that has to do with losing a salvation.
It's defining when salvation happens.
It's also expressing to you, all these patriarchs in the Old Testament had the same promise
of eternal life like you and I do, because it's the same promise of God to all of mankind
who believes in faith, the words of the Almighty given through His prophets, and in these latter
days that were spoken through His Son, Hebrews 1.1.
Well, in verse 1 of this chapter, in verse 1 it says, "Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Can I see your works and your discipleship?
Absolutely, brother.
Absolutely.
Faith, now this is describing faith.
If faith means my discipleship, then how can I, it be something that's not seen, but then
you're saying that I can see it.
Right.
In the same way that the young rich ruler asked Christ how to get eternal life, he said,
"Actions, do actions."
Then he said, "Keep the commandments."
Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I'm giving you a summary, I'm expressing to you, yes, it's actions,
keeping the commandments is actions.
So you think that going to heaven is by keeping the commandments?
I'm constantly equating to you the concept of faith in Christ as discipleship.
So faith is the assurance, so discipleship, it's synonymous.
Replace the word in Hebrews 11.1 with discipleship.
Now discipleship is the assurance of what we hope for.
Discipleship is the evidence of things not seen?
Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for.
What are you hoping for?
It's what we call Paul call our blessed hope.
I just want to make sure I clarify, you're saying in the same verse we've been talking
about that faith can be interpreted as discipleship, you're saying discipleship is the evidence
of things not seen?
No, it says the certainty of what we do not see.
Read the verse, don't put your own words in there, read the actual verse.
I'm just reading a King James Bible, I'm not putting any interpretation on it.
Faith is the assurance.
What is faith?
Your faith without works is dead.
Faith in your discipleship, your actions are synonymous.
Faith without the assurance of what we hope for, excuse me, faith is the assurance of
what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.
You do not have faith if you do not have actions, it's that simple, Pastor Shelley.
If I lose my salvation, what did I have before losing it?
You already asked me this.
You want to get to another one?
We've got a few minutes left.
We've got less than 30 seconds.
It doesn't matter.
I just want to understand again what that is that I lost exactly.
Well, I told you.
Gentlemen.
If you...
It's okay.
We're a little bit over the 50-minute mark.
Time has flown by, but we do have closing statements and also live call-in questions.
Did you guys want to move into...
Yeah.
Put the number out there again.
Yeah.
There we go.
Yes.
To those in the live chat, I understand we're simulcasting as well.
We will be taking in your questions, your live call-in questions as soon as we're done
with the closing statements here.
Make sure to call in now and get in line, 231-227-8478.
Okay, so we got five minutes, gentlemen, to wrap up our thoughts, points.
We can possibly address anything we feel may have been left hanging and just give some
closing summaries for tonight's debate.
So Sean, you started us off in your opening statement and so we'll give you the first
closing statement.
And so whenever you're ready, let me know and I will start your timer.
You got five minutes.
Okay.
Thank you.
We'll begin.
All right.
So I appreciate this opportunity.
Pastor Shelley, thanks for being here.
Donnie, thanks for hosting.
In closing, Job 8, 3 through 9.
This whole passage here is just expressing someone that abandons the faith that God will
not judge them as righteous.
Job 8, 3 through 9.
Does God pervert justice?
Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to their rebellion.
So they were children, but then he gave them over to their rebellion.
But if you would earnestly seek God and ask the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and
upright, even now he will arouse himself on your behalf and restore your righteous state.
This was the question that was asked by Pastor Shelley to me just a few minutes ago.
Though your beginnings were modest, your latter days will flourish.
Please inquire of your past generations and consider the discoveries of their fathers.
For we were born yesterday and know nothing and our days on earth are but a shadow.
He goes on to say in verse 10 through 20, "Will they not teach you and tell you and
speak from their understanding?
Does papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Do reeds flourish without water?
While the shoots are still uncut, they dry up quicker than grass.
Such is the destiny of all who forget God.
So the hope of the godless will perish."
So now the hope, which is defined in the New Testament by the resurrection, will perish.
Your eternal life state will not be granted to you as a gift anymore because these are
those who forget God.
He goes on to say his confidence is fragile, his security is in a spider's web, he leans
on the web but it gives way, he holds fast but it doesn't endure, he's a well-watered
plant in the sunshine spreading its shoots over the garden, his roots wrap under the
rock heap, he looks for a home among the stones, if he's uprooted from his place, it will
disown him saying, "I never saw you."
Surely this is the joy of his way, yet others will spring from the dust.
Behold, God does not reject the blameless, nor will he strengthen the hand of the evildoers.
Again, God does not reject the blameless, that's people who are doing righteousness,
nor will he strengthen the hand of the evildoers.
He will not give eternal life, which literally is the strength promised to you in Isaiah chapter 40.
He will not give eternal life to you if you're an evildoer.
Very simple.
Does this mean that one sin keeps you out of salvation?
Of course not.
This is why we're told to confess our sins to Christ.
He knows the line.
Obviously, He knows your heart.
This is why we're told to persevere in doing good, persevere until the end.
Ezekiel chapter 18, I'm just going to read it again for good measure.
"But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity,
committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live?
None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered, because of the unfaithfulness
and the sin he's committed, he will die.
Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not just."
I lovingly, and I'm not saying this in a pejorative way,
I hear my opponent saying this tonight.
He's making the claim of this hypothetical antagonist in Ezekiel 18,
claiming that how dare God reject someone who's already at one moment in time with one lip service
confession, claim that Christ is the Son of God, but yet doesn't disciple after Christ.
How could God possibly not give that guy eternal life?
Ezekiel is having this type of dialogue in Ezekiel 18.
Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not just.
That's the antagonist's understanding of someone that turns from righteousness
and becomes unfaithful and Yahweh says they'll die.
The antagonist says, "Oh, that's not just.
That's everything I've been hearing my opponent say tonight."
He goes on to say, "Here now, House of Israel, it is my way.
Is it my way that is unjust?"
Again, Yahweh's always asking rhetorical questions.
He says, "Is it not your ways that are unjust?
If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity,
he will die for this.
He will die because of the iniquity he's committed."
So I just want to thank you guys for this opportunity.
And that's pretty much my closing.
Thank you.
- Thank you, Sean, for that closing statement.
We're now going to hand it over to Pastor Jonathan Shelley.
I'll reset the timer.
And whenever you're ready, the floor is yours.
You've got five minutes.
- Thank you so much for moderating this discussion.
And I wish it was possible for me to believe that Sean is saved,
but the Bible's clear he's not.
Because in order to be saved, you have to put 100% trust in Jesus Christ.
What it means to believe in Jesus means that you're trusting that His death,
burial, and resurrection paid for all of your sins.
And Sean unfortunately does not believe that. He believes that he has to follow the commandments,
follow the works of the law, that he has to continue in faithfulness and discipleship,
and therefore he's really just trusting in himself. He does not trust fully in what Christ
has already done. The Bible makes it clear once you believe in Jesus Christ that you're saved,
that you've become a child of God, that you're sealed to the Holy Spirit of promise,
that you've been passed from death on to life. And while our physical bodies have not been redeemed,
our spirit has been quickened, we've been born again spiritually. And we can't discern that
physically, but we walk by faith, not by sight. Of course, it's important to follow the commandments,
it's important to be pleasing unto God. But according to the Bible, salvation is a free
gift. And once you're saved, you're always saved because you're given eternal life,
because you're a child of God, because God will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
And specifically in 1 John chapter number five, the Bible says very clearly that you can even know
that you're saved. I'm just going to read a verse here for you. The Bible says, "These things have I
written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal
life." You can actually know that you have eternal life. And the reason why you can know you have
eternal life is because you believe in Jesus Christ. Not because you know you're going to
continue being faithful, not because you know you're going to keep the works of the law,
but because you know that Jesus Christ already paid for your sins in full and that you're
trusting in the righteousness of one and that one is Jesus Christ. And once you put your faith in
Christ and you've called upon the name of the Lord, as Romans 10 13 says, then you're saved.
And you're saved forever because there's a D at the end of it, it's done. The Bible also tells us
and gives us this assurance in Romans chapter number eight. It says in verse 38, "For I am
persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present
nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The Bible makes it abundantly clear that nothing
can separate you from the love of God after being saved. I wish that my opponent would completely
reject his workspace salvation and actually repent which means change what he believes
and put all of his faith in Jesus Christ who is the only one that can save him. He would give him
eternal life. He would give him clarity of mind. The truth would set him free from his bondage to
works and it would allow him to actually see clearly and understand that the gospel is truly
a free gift. It's good news. His message is not a message of good news. It's a hope so. It's a maybe
if you continue being faithful. Well, I'm going to try my best. Well, if I do good enough. Well,
if I'm a good enough disciple. But no one can ever know that. Only the prideful would think that they
could be saved by discipleship or works or keeping the law. The Bible's abundantly clear that there's
none good, no not one. The Bible makes it abundantly clear for all of sinned and comes short of the
glory of God. And Romans chapter number three just hammers the fact that salvation is only by what
Jesus did. It says being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus who God has set forth to be a perpetuation through faith and his blood to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which
believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law of works name but by the law
of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Sean is constantly justifying himself by his deeds, his works, his faithfulness. He is not
justifying himself by the works of Christ and by what he has done. And really, he's robbing Christ
of the glory of salvation. Our salvation is only by Jesus Christ and he gives it to us by grace,
which means no works. Sean constantly confuses all of these definitions and makes grace no more
grace. He makes works no more works. He makes faith no more faith. We must have a clear distinction
of these words. Grace is no works. Faith is not works. Salvation is by grace through faith
without works. That's what the Bible says and it says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9. Sean
wouldn't answer that question and he doesn't look at any of the clear verses of the Bible. He looks
at all the esoteric strange cryptic passages that have nothing to do with salvation and so therefore
unfortunately he's resting the scriptures to his own destruction and I would I would beg and plead
any of his disciples or himself included to change what they believe and to believe in Jesus Christ
who is the only one that can save them and give them eternal life. All right five minutes on the
dot thank you pastor Shelley for that concluding statement. Gentlemen that concludes our opening
statements, rebuttals, cross-exam, and a comprehensive discussion. Very good and concluding
statements so appreciate the engaging debate and thought-provoking debate. It's an important topic
nothing wrong with a little passion and liveliness at times and so I think it was definitely a debate
to remember on the topic or question can a believer lose his salvation. Okay so now what
we're moving into is live call-ins in terms of our Q&A period. As you can see we got the number on
the screen calling now you can engage directly our debaters tonight Sean Griffin and Pastor
Jonathan Shelley. I do want to let people know though that those calling in are not here to
debate the guests and so we are here as a questioner to end our sentences in a question
mark. So we are looking for questions not lengthy speeches and also a question regarding the topic
please. So okay let's let's get right into it then anybody who wants to join in for a live
call-in we've posted the the number and looks like we've got caller number one here if I'm not
mistaken who is Abraham and he has a question for Sean. Abraham if you're there. Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you to the Baptist Bias for taking my question. So my question is for Sean.
So Sean let's say that I have faith in a Serbian Olympian to win a gold medal. I tell you I believe
and have faith and I am fully persuaded in tennis player Novak Djokovic to win a gold medal. Are
you going to tell me that I don't have belief or faith in him since I didn't buy his merch? Don't
follow him on Instagram. Don't imitate his playing style and didn't buy the tickets to watch his
games. Are you going to say that my faith in him is nonexistent? Abraham, thank you for your question.
Sean, over to you. Go ahead. Sean might be muted. Make sure it's not on your end though, Sean, because...
Yeah, sorry. Thank you, Abraham, for your question. Unfortunately, it's a categorical error because
this Serbian tennis player does not ask for your discipleship like Christ does. Very big difference
as far as what God expects and asks of you. That's why I put Ecclesiastes chapter 13, excuse me,
chapter 12, verses 13 and 14 on screen. This is the conclusion of the matter. The whole duty of
man is to keep the commandments of God. It's for all mankind, not just for Jews, all mankind.
All of Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations to teach them the commandments of God
because everyone was expected to do it. Jeremiah is actually called a prophet to the nations.
I mean this is, you know, Jonah was sent to the Assyrians to go teach them the commandments of
God. It's the expected discipleship of all of mankind. Everyone under heaven is expected to do
the behavior of the father and the son. So that's why in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, Paul says,
"Imitate me as I imitate God." So I appreciate your question, but your tennis player doesn't ask
for your discipleship. Thank you. Sean, thank you. And what we typically do with the Q&A,
and I think we'll do it here, is we'll give the other debater a chance to respond and then the
one who the question's for, they get the last word. So Pastor Shelley, go ahead. Floor is yours.
I was confused if we were talking about the NBA player Nikola Jokic or who we're talking about,
but I would be surprised if that particular sport athlete had never asked any of his followers to
buy his merchandise because I'm sure he probably did and asked them to be his disciple. But
regardless of that, yeah, the question's great. It seems like Sean doesn't believe that this
definition of faith can even exist, but that's clearly what the Bible means in Romans chapter
number four that faith is being fully persuaded. In Ephesians chapter one, it contrasts it with
the word trust. And salvation is trusting in Christ, not being a disciple and being a follower.
Of course, we should, but that has nothing to do with being saved.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley and Sean. You get the last word. Question was for you. Go ahead.
Appreciate it. I'm good with my first answer.
Okay. Well, thank you, Sean and Pastor Shelley for your responses. Abraham,
appreciate you joining us and thank you for your question. Okay. So our next caller here
is Clay and it looks like it is a question for Sean, something to do with Romans 2. So Clay,
thank you for joining the show. Feel free to put in your question.
Yeah. So in Romans 2, we see an itemization of the deeds of the law. It says,
"Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man
should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery,
dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that
makest thy boast of the law, for breaking the law dishonest thou God?" And in Romans 3, just one
chapter later, it says, "Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law of works, nay, but by
the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the
law." Meaning that we're justified by faith without respect to infractions such as adultery,
idolatry, and theft. So in light of this, Sean, why are you teaching that we have to repent of
adultery, idolatry, and theft in order to have faith? Clay, thank you very much for your question.
Sean, floor is yours. Go ahead. Thank you, Clay, for the question. And I'm teaching that because
that's what Christ taught. That's what all the prophets teach. That's what the apostles and Paul
teaches as well. You better repent of those things. And if you think you're a follower of Christ.
But in your question, you actually, this is what happens when we take things out of context,
because you just, you read through verse 24 of chapter two, but you didn't get to verse 25,
which would give you the context, not chapter three, verse 26 and 27. But in two, verse 25,
it says circumcision has value if you observe the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision
has now become uncircumcision. So again, this is why I keep trying to stress this. The argument
that Paul is addressing was the Pharisees that literally the party of circumcision has put their
calls in this. They run around Asia Minor and everywhere he went evangelizing, even in Macedonia
and Rome, trying to steal his converts. And they do this by telling them you don't need Christ,
you just need to be circumcised, and we'll take you through Halakab, we'll take you through the
Nohittic laws, and then you can expect the world to come through the lens of Judaistic interpretation.
So that's why, verse 25, he starts going into the idea of being circumcised or uncircumcised
after he gives the atomization that you're talking about, because he's talking about hypocrites.
Just like you read, verses 21 through 24, how do you preach against stealing if you steal? How
do you preach against adultery if you keep an adultery? But he's talking about hypocrites,
and then he goes on to explain in the context of the so-called party of circumcision. This is why
in verse 28 he has to cap this off with saying, "A man is not a Jew because he's one outwardly,
nor is circumcision only outward and physical. A man is a Jew because he is one inwardly,
and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not by the written code."
So that he's not talking about the law of God that came down from the Almighty.
He's talking about the oral Torah, which they then tried to codify and tell people you have
to follow this. If you're not aware of Judaism, you have to study it. They believe the oral Torah
was given to Moses alongside the actual commandments on Mount Sinai. They do not believe Exodus. They
have their own interpretations that overimpose on the scriptures. And they teach that their
interpretation of the oral Torah, just imagine it like, you know, 18th century BC Calvinism,
right? Or any interpretation of Derby, right? That they just overimposed onto the scripture
because that was their man. So Judaism's Pharisees of party of circumcision claimed that the oral
Torah and all their personal interpretations of God's law was also given to Moses on Mount Sinai,
but that's not true. That's a claim of Judaism. That's how they pushed themselves onto the people
for power and control. This is documented. They still teach this in Judaism to this day. You just
have to learn the arguments that Paul's addressing in first century. But thank you for your question.
Great question. Okay, Sean, thank you very much. Pastor Shelley, over to you. The floor is yours.
I like the question. I think it's pretty funny that when I asked Sean about this question,
he told me specifically that Romans 3.27's context went directly back to Romans 2.17.
That's what he said. And then when the caller used that, he said it was out of context. So it's
kind of interesting how it's in context when Sean does it and it's out of context when the caller
does it. Additionally, it's very straightforward and it's asking the clear question, how can we
boast in salvation if all of our works are excluded? And the answer is we can't because it's
occluded. That's why it's a clear statement. It is excluded. What is being excluded is the works.
Sean does not provide an answer of what's actually excluded. He would say boasting, but then he just
doesn't really explain what the boasting is in. And so the Bible is really clear that we're boasting
in Christ, not what we do. Sean is constantly harping on the works of the law as opposed to
Christ dying on the cross and paying all of our sins because that's where his boasting is in.
So, you know, I think it's a great question. The Bible is really straightforward in this passage.
Thank you, Pastor. Sean, if you'd like, you get the last word. Go ahead.
Yeah. Pastor Jonathan Shelley loves to twist what I actually say and misrepresent me. Pastor,
it's a sin called slander. You should work on that. You should listen better.
So what I was actually talking about is the same answer I gave him is that I gave you
in our cross, which is the idea that in 327, when he's talking about why do they boast,
boasting is excluded. Why? Because, I mean, he goes on in the beginning of chapter three
to continue talking about circumcision. What then is the advantage of being a Jew,
verse one, or what is the value of circumcision? He goes on to say in verse two, he affirms it
much in every way. Again, he's not discounting the oracles of God that were given to his people,
which teaches righteousness to the whole world. He's not discounting those things.
He's literally saying, though, if you're a hypocrite and you claim to be a teacher of them,
yet you don't do them, then you're not abiding in them. Then your claim of being in the circumcision
doesn't mean anything. You actually are now considered uncircumcision in God's eyes,
because in Romans two, verse 28, at the very end, he says that our approval
does not come from men, but from God. Actually, verse 29. So therefore, in verse chapter three,
let's just go four verses after where he says he thinks boasting is about ignoring what Christ
said, which is the commandments, that we should ignore the commandments and just have faith,
a dead faith in Christ. Verse 31 says, "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Certainly not."
That means the law is not nullified, Pastor Shelley. Instead, we uphold the law. Positive
affirmation. Paul upholds the law. He teaches it everywhere he goes. It's the standard for
discipleship to Christ. Great question, caller. Okay, thank you, gentlemen, for those
responses. And our next caller is Angela. This time it is a question for you,
Pastor Jonathan Shelley. And it looks like it's a question dealing with the woman
caught in adultery. And so, Angela, thank you for joining us here on The Baptist Bias. Go ahead.
Thank you. First of all, I would like to make a couple of statements first. I would like to
tell you I was raised in a Baptist church my whole life. My whole life, I watched the Baptist
congregation adultery run wild. When I became a young woman and I started trying to find my mate
and let God do those things, I just started to mimic the behavior that I was taught in the
Baptist church. So, you know, if it didn't work out, get your divorce, go on about your business.
Once you're saved, you're always saved. If they cheat, if you want to cheat on your husband,
go right ahead. If it's okay, just get a divorce, go on about your business. Well, I spent my life
in the Baptist church being under this deception and then I come into the truth of what relationship
with Christ was really about. And let me explain something to you. The woman at the well, she came
in to believe of who he was. She recognized him. She recognized him. And then he told her, "Go and
sin no more." She had to start from that very day. She had to change her actions. She had to change
who she was. And she had to walk out that old Baptist mentality that you could just do what
you want to. And she started a new life. And guess what it did? It set her free. And my question to
you is how? In God's green earth, the Creator Yahweh, how could you lead people in such life
and dissension by telling them they could sin, do anything else? I want you to lead. Angela, I got to
stop you right there because I think we're taking a little too long to get to the question. So if
you could wrap it up in the next five seconds. Go ahead, Angela. Okay, so just explain to me,
how can you justify preaching sin is okay after salvation? Okay, and we'll hand it to Pastor
Shelley. Feel free to address or interact with anything Angela said. Angela, thanks for your
question. Go ahead. Yeah, obviously, if someone's been abused in a church or been under, you know,
some kind of teaching that's teaching against the commandments of God, then, you know, I feel
sorry for that person. That's obviously unfortunate. Just because someone says that
they're a Baptist doesn't mean that we all agree on things necessarily. There are bad Baptists out
there. If someone's teaching that you should get a divorce for any reason, I strongly disagree with
that. I believe that you should never divorce. Obviously, adultery is wicked. People should be
thrown out of the church for committing such grievous sins. But obviously, in this context
of salvation, people are still saved regardless of how wicked they may be. Just like 1 Corinthians
chapter 5, it deals with church discipline issues specifically in someone that's with their father's
wife. It brings up a handful of sins, idolatry specifically. It brings up fornication. It brings
up all these different sins and it even says that that person's wicked. But it says that they would
be saved. I'll read you. It's I believe it's 1st Corinthians chapter 5. It's probably like verse 5
specifically. The idea that someone is saved no matter what sins they commit in the future
is not to entice people to commit sin. I don't think that people even need enticing to commit sin
considering the fact that the vast majority of people who don't believe in Christ have no
problem sinning and even many Christians have no problem sinning. I don't think that teaching them
once saved always saved magically causes people to want to sin grievously. But in first Corinthians
chapter number five dealing with someone that's sleeping with his father's wife it says that he's
going to be punished. It says to deliver such and one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. I don't think that that verse motivated
people in the Corinthian church to go and live however they want knowing that they could potentially
be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. But he does caveat and say that their
spirit would still be saved. And it brings up a list of other sins. Specifically, it brings up
fornication, covetousness, idolater, railer, drunkard, extortioner. And it says specifically
that they should be church disciplined and they're a wicked person, but that they're still saved. And
you know, I personally go to a church where everybody in that church believes that you can
do anything you want and you could live however you want and you still go to heaven.
Yet they live very separated lives. They're very dedicated disciples of Christ. They love the Lord
Jesus Christ. They're not committing these grievous sins. They're not just going out
committing adultery and getting divorced and remarried constantly or doing these things.
So I think it's a strawman argument to teach that once saved, always saved leads to that.
I believe that it can for some people maybe cause them to get confused. But for the vast majority
of people I know that believe in once saved, always saved, they do not act like that whatsoever.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley, for that response to Angela's question. Sean,
we'll hand it over to you now for some thoughts.
Amen, Angela. Amazing call. Thank you for your testimony. Unfortunately,
out of both sides of his mouth tonight, Pastor Shelley has spoken. In one hand, he claims
how, you know, Baptist pastors shouldn't teach against the commandments of God, yet tonight,
tonight in this very conversation, he's told me it's okay if someone goes off to worship
Baal, goes off to do whatever they want for the rest of their life, deny Christ,
that they could still get eternal life. It's literally, and again, so let's go back to the
other side of his mouth, which he's continuing to speak out of both sides, when he tries to affirm
1 Corinthians 5 as an answer to you, he's also positively, proactively teaching the law of God,
because he writes in verse 9 of 1 Corinthians 5, not to associate with the sexually immoral people,
that's literally Leviticus 18-20 and Deuteronomy 22-13-30, the sexually immoral,
it's the commandments of God, they're described in great detail. In the same way, he says not to,
it's someone that's a drunkard, in verse 11, that's also in the commandments of God,
they were not supposed to be drunkards. In the same way, this says it's someone that's a swindler,
that's in Leviticus chapter 5, there's a specific offering you have to give and you have to pay a
recompense, four times of what you stole. He's literally affirming the commandments of God out
of one side of his mouth and the other side says it doesn't need to be done for discipleship
to Christ. So, I'm so ecstatic, Angela, that God has actually woken you up to the truth of his word
and I encourage you, sister. I love your passion. Keep following Christ and we'll see you at the
resurrection. Thank you, Shawn. Pastor Shelley, this question was for you and therefore you get
the last word. Go ahead. I would love to hear when I said that it's okay to worship Baal
in any of this discussion. I think it's funny that you accuse me of slander and then you
literally slander me in this passage or in this question. But it's super clear that I've said
that we should never break God's commandments. And you asked me in a hypothetical situation,
if someone did do that against my advice, would they still be saved? And I said, yes. But that's
a complete lie for you to say about me. But again, I feel sorry for someone that I did not
interrupt you in your response. I just want to make sure that pastor gets the last word. Go ahead.
Sorry, Donnie. Thanks. I feel sorry for anybody that's been abused in a church
and been taught something false. Obviously, I hope that Angela would realize that salvation is a free
gift and that yes, people should continue to follow God's commandments faithfully. If you're
in a church where they're teaching you to get divorced, just leave that church and go to a
church that's teaching correctly on that issue. All right. Thank you for the final word. Thank
you for the question and for joining the program, Angela. Okay. We're now moving into our next
question and caller and it looks like we have Charles and it is a question for Sean and it
looks like it's a question dealing with the children of God. And so Charles, welcome to the
program. Feel free to introduce yourself and pose your question to Sean. Hey, Sean. This is Charles
from the Lehman Seminary. You know, I don't know if this came up in our debate, but I heard it in
this one. I want to ask you, can you clarify your view about children of God and sons of God language
as it relates to eternal life? Do you believe that we are sons of God now and children of God now?
And do you believe that that's related to your discipleship or is eternal life purely future?
Hope that helps. Oh, and by the way, y'all are welcome to the after show. Thank you.
Charles Jennings from the Lehman Seminary. I should have known it was you. So you got
an after show. So it looks like it's going to be a soteriology showdown all nighter after this. So
appreciate the question there, Charles. And Sean, go ahead. The floor is yours.
Yeah. Yes. I talk about the language of considering yourself, calling yourself a
son or daughter of God now because you're a faith and discipleship to Christ.
1 John talks about this as well. When I said you're literally born again at the resurrection,
you're also literally becoming a born of God at that point. This is actually a previous
conversation I had called into your channel as we discussed 1 John 3, 9, about seven, eight months
ago, to where you're literally born of God at the resurrection. We proleptically, with faith speak,
right? We proleptically call ourselves sons of God now because we're discipling in the hope of
resurrection. And so, this is what 1 John 3 goes into depth about when it says, "Behold,
what manner of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God," because this
is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that they did not know Him. Why didn't they
know Him? Because they didn't do His behavior. This is, again, chapter two, which is what we
already talked about tonight. You have to do the behavior of God to be known by God and to know God.
And so, "Beloved dear, now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know
that when Christ appears, we'll be like Him, for we'll see Him as He is. Everyone who has His hope in
himself purifies himself." That's an active verb, "purifies himself." That's discipleship. "You must
purify your hands, sinners." You know, Isaiah. Like, this is, "You must disciple." So, equated
in the concept of calling yourself the Son of God, everyone who has that hope in themselves,
verse 3, 1 John 3, 3, "You must purify yourself just as Christ is pure." So, it's very simple.
Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness. And of course,
the big one, like, you know, 1 John 3, 7, "Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who
practices righteousness is righteous just as Christ is righteous, as the one who practices sin is of
the devil." So, this is where I can't get on board with Pastor Shelley's arguments tonight,
just like I couldn't with yours. You claim that, just like he, that you can do whatever you want
after one moment of confession of faith and time to Christ, and that you're okay, but that is not
what the Bible teaches. The wicked, the unrighteous will not inherit eternal life. So, that's simple.
Good question, though. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. And Pastor Shelley, go ahead, the floor is yours.
Yeah, great question. Once you're a child of God, you're always the child of God. The Bible says,
now we are the children of God. It's clear, it's present tense. Right now, I am a child of God.
I've already been born again. In the world, there's children of the devil and there's the
children of God. And so, you know, it's manifested through what we believe, not necessarily if we're
following the commandments as well as Sean is, apparently. But according to the Bible,
yes, it's important to continue to know God and follow the commandments, but Sean never answers
the question. The question was if we're the children of God now. He can't even answer it
as a simple question. He just uses flowery language to talk about other passages, ask if we
know God or purify himself. He just didn't answer the question if we are the children of God or
when we become. You just can't seem to just answer simple questions because you're just avoiding
what the Bible clearly teaches here. Thank you, Pastor Shelley and Sean. You get the last word.
Go ahead. Pastor Shelley, you can't be serious. Literally just read all those passages from 1st
John 3. That's what's called slander, bro. You got to repent. I'm done. Thanks. Okay,
gentlemen. Thank you for the responses to that question. Charles? Oh, I forgot. You don't want
to repent. Appreciate you joining, Charles, and offering up a question. Okay, so now it looks
like we got a good mix of callers who have questions for both debaters. We've had a good
diversity of views in both chats tonight. So next question comes in. The next caller is Matt,
and it is a question for Pastor Jonathan Shelley. And so, Matt, thank you very much for calling in
and feel free to introduce yourself and offer up your question. Hey, guys. My name is Matt. I'm
out of Florida. I just wanted to address, you guys have been doing great. I look forward to seeing
more of it. I kind of came in late to the party. I didn't see the entire debate, but I would like
to ask Pastor Shelley a question in reference to, I would think that you believe that Yeshua Mashiach
is our eternal high priest in the order of Machizedek. He would be the one who's going to
be redeeming us out of Sheol. He's going to be the one raising us to eternal life on the first
resurrection, one or two resurrections, depending on each person's deeds, according to the deeds
that they did, not according to their beliefs. It says there will be granted rewards. He brings
rewards according to everyone's deeds. But I would just like to see if you could speak to
Matthew 19, 16 and 17 when somebody had the opportunity to actually speak to Yeshua and ask
him, "How do I have eternal life?" And he didn't say, "Just believe in me," or "Believe that I came
to die for you," or "Believe in that." He said, "If you will enter into life, keep the commandments."
It was straightforward. And same thing with Matthew 7, 21-23. He says, "Not everyone calls me Lord,
Lord, not everyone that does these have gifts of the Spirit that can cast out demons. Not everyone
that does that will have eternal life, only those who do the will of the Father." And at the same
time, AEI says that, "He departs from me, ye that work iniquity." He doesn't say, "Ye that don't
believe in me, ye that don't have the right concept of the Trinity," or anything like that. He speaks
to commandments. He speaks to working iniquity. I would just like to hear your thoughts on how,
what you think the author of Eternal Salvation has to say about it himself. Thanks.
Thank you, Matt, for your points and your question. Pastor Shelley, the floor is yours. Go ahead.
Yeah, Matt, to address your questions about the passage, first of all, the Bible says in Matthew
19, 16, "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" He's asking to do something.
And the first thing Jesus responded with was, "Why callest thou me good?" He does not first
answer the question with, "Keep the commandments." He first asks a question of, "Why are you calling
me good?" And then he states, "There is none good." So it's making it abundantly clear in
Jesus's response that no one is good and no one has kept all of the commandments.
And then he responds after that by saying, "But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."
So it's a paradox that Jesus Christ is even presenting to this person and he's asking him
these questions. Then he clarifies and says, "Which." Then Jesus brings up some of the more
famous commandments mentioned specifically in the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not do murder,
thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness,
honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Which upon that
specific commandment hangs pretty much the entire law anyways. "And the young man said unto him,
all these things have I kept from my youth, what lack I yet?" This guy says that he's never sinned
before. Now, the Bible addresses that in 1st John, that if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. There is not a person that has never sinned before.
This person is lying. This person also denies who Jesus Christ is because when he even asked him,
"Why callest thou me good?" There's none good but one. You know, earlier he called him good master,
but when you compare this with other parallel passages, he doesn't continue calling him good
master. He doesn't use the same titling. So you can tell that he actually denies who Jesus Christ
is. He denies that Jesus is good and Jesus Christ is giving him this particular paradox of, "Well,
I guess if you want to go to heaven, you have to keep all the commandments." But unfortunately,
no one can do that. That's why he then later says in verse 26, "But Jesus beheld them and said to
them, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" Meaning that it's
impossible for someone to get saved through good works. But when you believe in Jesus Christ,
you're imputed Christ's righteousness and that's what gives you salvation. It's all the glory is
what Jesus did for us. It's by believing in him only. Hypothetically speaking, if someone
did keep all of the commandments, then they would go to heaven because there's no reason to go to
hell. They didn't do anything wrong. But there's a problem. We've all sinned and I'm sure the glory
of God. Therefore, this person trying to work his way into heaven, wanting to do some good thing,
cannot enter. We'd have to do is humble himself, recognize who Jesus is, that he's the only good
one and believe in what Jesus did as the only way into heaven. Sean thinks he can be good enough to
get into heaven and therefore this parable would confuse him. But I'm certainly not going to use
parables as my core doctrine of my faith. You know parables were meant to confuse people and
confuse the Pharisees and the unsaved. I'm going to use the clear verses like John 3 16 to let me
understand that salvation is by faith alone and then help me understand what these more difficult
passages mean. But I really appreciate the question. Thank you Pastor Shelley for your
response. Sean we'll hand it over to you now if you had a response. Go ahead. Yeah it's not a
parable for one. Two, no one claimed you got to be perfect. Scripture doesn't claim that. Three,
no one said you work your way into heaven. I've actually taught against that tonight. And four,
this is a wonderful question because it just reveals that Pastor Shelley is wholly unfamiliar
with the front of his Bible. That's why he added all that I see Jesus into this answer. He thinks
that this is about the imputed righteousness statement. He thinks this is someone that's
coming to the hard realization that his question is malformed somehow and that he can't actually
do anything to be approved by God. And that's just completely backwards to what Christ is
actually saying in the text. The man says, "What good thing must I do? Aside from there's no one
good but God." Christ answers him. He actually says, "Do these things." The guy says, "I've done
these since my youth." It doesn't say he didn't claim he was perfect without sin. Again, because
I said in my cross or my rebuttals earlier that a pastor should know that the Old Testament assumes
you're going to do sin. This is why your high priest is there to make atonement for you.
So if the pastor doesn't understand that about the front of the Bible, he's going to start making
up stuff to answer this question. So Christ addresses, "Hey, do these things. You know the
commandments. Do them," as it parallels in the Luke passage. And the guy says, "I've done all
these since my youth." And then what does Christ say? Christ doesn't go into this elaborate
Baptist altar call that claims that everyone's fallen short of the glory of God, so come down
and give your heart to Christ with lip confession, Romans 10, 9, and 10. He doesn't go into all that.
He simply says Deuteronomy 15. And if Pastor Shelley was aware of the front of his Bible,
which he seems to think is irrelevant to him as a disciple of Christ, then you would understand
that he's literally telling him, "Here's one more thing that you lack. Deuteronomy 15. Out of your
wealth, give to the poor. Deuteronomy 15. The same thing that Peter and James instructed Paul to do
in Galatians 2, 10. Keep the commandments of God. Give to the poor out of your abundance.
And the man went away sad because he had much wealth. Now we don't know what the rest of his
life was like. We don't know how that man turned out. But we know that Christ emphatically just
listed off commandment after commandment after commandment to get eternal life. The master
himself, literally, Pastor Shelley's judge just told him how to get eternal life and he seems
to ignore it. Thanks for the question. Okay. Thank you, Shawn. Pastor Shelley, the question
was for you. And so you get the last word on this one. Go ahead. I'll grant my opponent one thing.
This passage, I do believe really happened. I use the word parable in a loose way there,
and that's not accurate. But I would say this, I'm not ignoring the first part of
the Bible whatsoever. And he uses metaphors here like the camel going through the eye of a needle,
which is kind of a cryptic way to describe some of the things that he's explaining.
But what's funny to me is that Shawn is interpreting this passage that this rich guy
would have had to sell all that he has to actually go to heaven. And I would love to know
when Shawn is going to sell all that he has and give to the poor so that he can go to heaven.
And so, you know, it's pretty interesting that he said that this guy had to do that in order to go
to heaven. What did you say then? I'm pretty sure you clearly said that this guy needed to do that.
The reason you're continuing to slander me is because you've never read Deuteronomy 15.
Did you say that the rich man had to sell what he has and give to the poor?
No. I said the Deuteronomy 15 passage is out of the abundance of his wealth,
give to the poor. It doesn't mean you sell all that you have. It's out of your abundance.
What did Jesus say? You said you're a messiah. What did Jesus say?
Jesus said sell what you have and give to the poor. He's quoting Deuteronomy 15. He doesn't
tell him he has to sell everything he has. Christ does not command destitution like a 12th century
monk. So just his abundance then. So he had to give out of his abundance.
Deuteronomy 15. I'm giving you the scriptural citation. You can study it later.
It's okay. So have you sold all of your abundance, Sean?
Out of my abundance we give, but my behavior, my discipleship is not here on trial tonight,
brother. So just get to the question. Yeah, I know. It was a ritual-attempted mockery.
I know. But at the end of the day, we see that Sean
thinks you have to do something like follow the commandments to be saved. And, you know,
that's because he's ignoring all the passages, like in John, that clearly say you get eternal
life by believing and then using this one here in Matthew 19 to negate all the clear statements.
Whereas I gave, I gave an exit. We've already had basically an hour of banter with the discussion.
I made sure to be non-intrusive, let you guys go at it, duke it out, have some fun. Let's stick to
the format on this. We've got a lot of callers to get through. I'm good. Next question. Okay.
All right, guys. Let's just make sure to stick to the format for these questions. Okay. Matt,
if I remember correctly, that's who the question, the questioner was for this one. And so, okay.
Next question and the next caller is Dave. And so, Dave, we got two Daves, it looks like. One
Dave who's going to ask a question for Pastor, another one for Shawn. So, since Pastor just got
the last word, let's bring in Dave who's got a question for Shawn. So, Dave, thank you for
joining us here on The Baptist Bias. And feel free to present your question for Shawn. Go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Shawn. You guys are doing really good tonight, and I appreciate the way you're both
keeping your cool and not getting spun up where other people who weren't walking in the spirit
might. I just want to say that up front. Also, my question is back to Ezekiel chapter 18. And I want
to couch it in the form of the first death and the second death. And as a preface to the question,
I'll just kind of reiterate what the understanding was back when Messiah walked the earth and when
Ezekiel was written, is that they were looking forward to the resurrection and there is a first
death, which is the physical death, and there is a second death, which is the spiritual death,
which you cannot recover from. And my question, Sean, is specifically if you could iterate your
position on why Ezekiel 18 applies to the second death and not the first death, and there is a
follow-on question, a two-part question. The second part is rather than Ezekiel 18 being couched as
earning your salvation, do you believe it is more accurate to look at it as if it is trying to
explain how you would disqualify yourself from being chosen to not be destroyed in the second death?
Dave, thank you for your questions, and I agree. Our guests tonight have done an excellent job
keeping things healthy but also engaging at the same time. So Pastor Shelley and Sean,
I appreciate that. Sean, questions for you. Go ahead.
Yeah, I'll address the second question first, I suppose. I apologize. I don't think I quite
understood the nature of the second question very clearly. I'm going to do a quick attempt to answer
it but Ezekiel 18 is an admonition to rebellious Israel at the time. Ezekiel was a prophet who
preached repentance to the Israelites and Ezekiel was on both sides of Nebuchadnezzar's
invasion of southern kingdom and dispersion into exile of the southern house. And so they were
in mass rebellion, worshiping the idols, even to the point of putting up idols and false gods in
the temple of Yahweh as we see in Ezekiel chapter 9. And so he's telling them that, you know,
your previous works of righteousness aren't going to be anything for you if you stop doing that and
go into wickedness. I don't quite understand the nature of the second one, but let me address the
first one a little bit deeper if I can real quick. Basically, you think that you're saying that your
assumption, which a lot of churches teach this assumption, the Old Testament had no mention of
eternal life until Jesus got on the scene, but that's just absolutely untrue. This is what I
mentioned earlier about the Genesis 17, promised Abraham and his descendants that they'll live in
the land forever. You can't do that without eternal life. It's built into the covenant from day one.
It's built in. You can't have living somewhere forever without eternal life, right? So even
scholars in Ezekiel 18, I can go here to, there's a scholar, Professor Simon Jay on a book they
wrote in Torah life and salvation. They quote in early Judaism and in Paul, their understanding
of these passages from Leviticus 18.5, which is the same language of Ezekiel 18.9, which says
there's, he says that there's ample evidence of an understanding both pre and post 70 CE,
that's the fellow Jerusalem, of Leviticus 18.5 as talking in terms of eternal life.
And this understanding furthermore was on the increase during those days. But they all
understood. And it's even this is why the rabbis and Judaism would teach of a world to come,
your obedience to covenant or to the oral Torah, as I've been talking about, they kind of skip the
commandments part and just made up their own, their own law. But they would teach that your
obedience to the oral Torah guaranteed you a place in the world to come, which assumed the
resurrection. Remember, all dealt with the Pharisees who did believe in the resurrection,
but the Sadducees who did not. So you see that in Acts 24. So assumed all throughout the Old
Testament. And in fact, even in the wisdom of Solomon, which is a passage that used to be in
our Bibles, still in the Old King James, it's chapter 6, verses 17 through 20, it says this,
"For the first step toward wisdom is an earnest desire for discipline, and care for discipline is
love of wisdom. Love means keeping wisdom's laws. To observe wisdom's laws is the basis for
incorruptibility," that's your immortality, your eternal life, "and incorruptibility makes you close
to God. Therefore, the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom of God." So, it's right there,
Old Testament wisdom, Solomon chapter 6, 17 through 20. Great question.
Thank you, Sean. Pastor Shelley, floor is yours. Go ahead.
I don't want to spend much time on this question, but everything Sean said didn't really make any
sense. The first death is when someone's soul leaves their body and they would go to hell.
The second death is being cast in the lake of fire. Ezekiel 18 is not referencing the first or
the second death. I do agree the Old Testament brought up concepts of eternal life, second death,
all throughout it. In no way did he answer the question and really it was hard to pay attention.
Yeah, you should just give your own answer instead of critiquing mine, bro.
Oops. Sean, you get the last word if you'd like it.
Yeah, I'm sorry. He should give his own answer. Yeah, he should give his own answer instead of
critiquing mine. I'm satisfied with my first answer. Thank you. Okay. And just to note, for the
questions, let's say the questions for Pastor Shelley, he can respond. And then in your response,
Sean, you could rebut things that he said if you want to. It doesn't have to be... Especially if
the question is for someone directly, then there can be some interaction there. So let me move to
the next question then. That was Dave for Sean. So now we got Dave for Pastor. And just looking
at the list of callers that we have here. It's my suggestion, but it's up to you. Gentlemen,
you guys are the debaters tonight. I think we should do more rapid fire for the rest of the
callers because we do still have quite a few. And so maybe keep our answers between 30 seconds
to a minute. Keep it more rapid fire. Yeah, I like that. Okay. Let's do that. Let's stick with that.
So we got Dave for Pastor. So Dave, thank you for joining. And it looks like you have a question
pertaining to 1st Corinthians 6 verse 9. Dave, go ahead. Yep. Hey guys, thank you for this debate.
This has been great nature. I really enjoy this. So I'll keep this quick. John, I follow your stuff.
I've been in the last nine months here. So this makes sense to me where you're coming from. But
then Pastor, the one thing I don't quite understand is your statement in your closing argument. You're
discussing a book you believe along the lines of "Once saved, always saved." And you made a statement
that "Sean's not saved." I know Sean's testimony. Seventeen years old, he gave his life to the Lord,
accepting him as his Lord and Savior. And he's grown on this, you know, journey into this knowledge
of, you know, following the law and the commandments and the instruction that Torah's got.
But you're saying that he's not saved. But was he saved at 17? Now he's not. And that kind of
leads me to the 1st Corinthians 6-9. It doesn't really talk about if somebody believes in the works
of salvation. So if you could kind of clarify that statement of Sean's not saved, that'd be great.
Dave, thanks for the question. Go ahead, Pastor Shelley.
Yeah. In 30 seconds, it'll be hard to just both. But I would say this. My belief is that salvation
is by faith alone in Jesus Christ. That you have to trust alone in His finished work. That it's
not of works, lest any man should boast. So I believe that salvation has to be understood as a
free gift and that you're only trusting what Jesus did to save you. Because Sean does not believe
that what I'm saying, he kind of believes that it's something that can be lost or that you also
have to have discipleship. He kind of redefines the word faith. Then therefore my view of scripture
it would not allow him to be saved because he hasn't trusted Christ. He actually is trusting
in a combination of Jesus plus Sean's good work, Sean's discipleship, Sean's faithfulness.
And so he's not resting in the finished work of Christ but he's actually still trusting in his
good works in the future. 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 is saying that people who are sinful
are not going to get in heaven but it says in verse 11 they've been watched, they've been
sanctified, they've been justified. Meaning that in their new man because they believe in Jesus
Christ they are a new creature and their new man has never sinned even though in their flesh they
have sinned. And so, Sean would have to repent, change what he believes and put all his faith in
Jesus Christ alone as Savior, understanding he can't lose the salvation to be saved.
And since he doesn't want to do that, he's not saved yet.
Thanks for the response, Pastor and Sean. Floor is yours, go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, Kyle. I appreciate you watching us and, you know, thank you for your support and
everything. That's amazing. Nine months. If you haven't left after nine months, it sounds like
you're actually being a Berean and studying your Bible to check out what we're talking about. So,
that's amazing. Great question. And I think that it is a travesty. Your acknowledgement of what you
heard tonight is a travesty because even according to Pastor Shelley's admitted belief tonight,
someone who puts their, someone who knows nothing about God, knows nothing about the Bible, puts
their faith in Christ according to him, they're saved. That was me at 17, July 17, 1997. I knew
nothing about God. I didn't read the Bible yet, but my faith in Christ wholeheartedly. Radical
experience, lost friends, stopped cussing, stopped partying, started living for Christ,
went to church now taking notes, right? I'm all in. Lost relationship opportunities, I'm all in,
right? He would say I was saved if he was my youth pastor in 1997. But now suddenly,
because I disagree with his extremely unbiblical version of discipleship, the thing that he thinks
I redefined faith, he redefines Christ's finished work on the cross with his, because he completely
ignores Christ's own words, Matthew 28-19. Therefore, go into all nations and make disciples,
teaching them all that I've commanded you. Christ commanded everyone you ran in contact
with to repent and keep the law of God. So, yeah, it's a double standard and it puts our
Pastor Shelley here in the judgment seat of Christ, which is extremely blasphemous to Christ.
So, I just pray that he repents. But great question, caller.
Pastor Shelley, you get the last word. Go ahead.
Yeah, if I was his youth pastor, I would have asked him what he has to do to be saved. And he
would have said, "Well, look, I gave up cussing and sinning and I've changed my life radically."
And he would have been pointing to his works and not the finished work of Jesus Christ. And I would
have tried to preach him the gospel. And if he had continually repeatedly rejected it,
I would have told him he's unsaved and that he's not welcome at our church because he doesn't
believe in salvation by faith. And so, no, I would have never thought that Sean was saved even at
that age. He's clearly testifying of his works, not the finished work of Jesus Christ, and he's
boasting in himself and what he did. So, no, he's not saved. It's that simple. Okay. Thank you,
gentlemen, for the responses to the question from Dave. Dave, appreciate you joining us.
And just to the audience in general on both channels, simulcasting here, streaming,
I appreciate how engaged everybody is. It's been a lively live chat. And so, this has been a great,
great debate this Saturday night. So, okay, we got a question now from Evan. So, Evan, thank you
for joining us. Hope you're enjoying the debate as much as I am. And it looks like you have a
question for Sean, and it pertains to Ephesians 4. And so, Evan, go ahead. Evan, are you there, Evan?
Hello. Can you be heard?
Yes, Evan, we can hear you now.
Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. So, yeah, I go by Nephilim Tree on YouTube.
My question is about Ephesians 430, and in this passage, God uses a tool used by authors called
a literary device. And this literary device is the choice of words that is used to create an
image of something or an event, something that happens. Excellent authors use literary devices
like this. It makes real impact because you see in your mind what the author is saying.
And he's using the language of an attorney or a judge here, law language, legal language,
where he says that the judge is taking his signet or king taking his signet which has his royal seal
on it and he's pressing it into the clay on a document to create a belay. Now this seal
seals the document and whatever's in that document is now law according to the king.
It cannot be broken. Breaking that seal is breaking God's law. And so God says in this
passage, "And grieve not the Holy Spirit whereby ye are sealed until the day of redemption." This
is the language of an attorney. This is a law language here. God is saying legally unto God,
His law is that they are sealed until the day of redemption by the Holy Spirit.
Now the day of redemption is the day of resurrection. You're redeemed from the earth.
You've already been bought, but you're redeemed. Somebody already paid for the product. They go
to the customer service desk with a ticket and receive it. They've already paid for it. Christ
paid for it on the cross. You go to the customer service desk with the ticket says, "This is my
property. They gave it to you." That's when you're redeemed. This redemption is when you receive
from the earth, the day of resurrection. You die, you're going to the grave, you'll be awakened,
and you'll be resurrected. So if God is saying, using the language of an attorney, that He seals
you with the Holy Spirit, a legal seal, the seal of the king of kings, until the day that you're
received from the earth, resurrected from it, who is going to break that seal and who has the
authority to do it? In between the day that you die and hit the dirt and the day you're raised
from the grave. Who's going to do that, please? That's my question. Okay, thank you for the
points and also the question. There's kind of a lot there, so Sean, of course, if you need to take
more than 30 seconds, feel free to do so. No, it's okay. It's okay. Great question. I appreciate
you, caller. Yeah, there's legal language in all of the covenant of God, but people still have to
be willing participants. God's not forcing somebody to stay into this thing, get redeemed and live in
His house who doesn't want to live in His house. And we show Him if we want to live in His house
by our behavior. So just as Ephesians 4.30 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit in whom you were
sold for the day of redemption," the same author, Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5.19 says, "Do not
extinguish the Spirit." If you can't extinguish the Spirit, why would he even be admonishing
the people in Thessalonica, "Don't extinguish the Spirit." Just like he says previously up in that
chapter in 1 Thessalonians 5 that they're now children of the light and not the dark, right?
He's reminding them of what they've come into through faith in Christ. And so, I mean, clearly,
you can abandon the faith if you can extinguish the Spirit. So I understand the legal language
that's being used because all of the law of God is a legal unbinding contract with you to give you
eternal life upon the conditions of the covenant, just like all law has conditions. So this is what
I'm trying to explain is that Christ tells us the conditions. Paul repeats the conditions emphatically
everywhere. He tells us in Romans 3.31 that this faith we have doesn't negate the law. We uphold
the law. We uphold the conditions and the legal requirements for our wonderful resurrection which
is the promise of the covenant. Great question. Thank you, Sean. Pastor Shelley, any thoughts?
I think the passage was self-explanatory. Once you're sealed with the Holy Spirit,
you're sealed even under the day of redemption, which is the redemption of our body. Because our
body is not redeemed when we believe, just our soul and spirit. And so we have to wait until
the redemption of our body. But it's saying specifically not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
We grieve the Holy Spirit by sinning, by quenching the spirit, which is what the King James says
there. And so, you know, of course we can sin, disappoint God, and we can do things that upset
Him, but He'll never leave us nor forsake us. We're sealed. And so it's really a great proof
text of the fact that you can't lose your salvation because once you're sealed, it's a done deal.
Thank you, Pastor. Sean, you get the last word if you'd like it.
So I was saved in a Baptist church. I was saved in, while I was saved, I was actively going to a
Baptist church in high school. And my wonderful youth pastors encouraged me to turn from sin.
So they encouraged my works. So I'm not sure what kind of Baptist church Pastor Shelley runs,
but the Southern Baptist Church, part of the Southern Baptist Association that I went to,
absolutely told me to apply works to my now newfound faith and to start reading the
Scriptures. And they guided me in those things, and I give them a lot of thanks for that,
because they understood that I had to be grown in my discipleship. They, at that church,
they reprimanded publicly from the pulpit people that they would see partying and drinking at the
Oklahoma University games on the weekends, because I used to live in Oklahoma. So like,
they, 100%, I'm not, we must be dealing with the fringe pastor here. I'm not sure exactly
who taught him discipleship, but you must stay in the faith. Like, again, like I said, if you don't,
if the people listening don't even believe the words that are being put on screen tonight through
the scriptures, go directly to the second century bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus. He'll directly tell
you in his apostolic demonstration preaching, you must, the rule of faith is keeping the commandments
of God. Simple. That's all there is to it. But if you abandon them, that's when you extinguish the
spirit. That's how you're grieving the Holy Spirit. He's not going to force you to be in his house if
you want to go worship Bill. He'll let you die in your destruction. So great question, caller.
Okay, thank you, Evan or Nafilomfree. Thank you for your question and participating in tonight's
debate. Okay, guys, we've got about 10 minutes before we got to wrap things up. And so just a
reminder to the callers, we're looking for questions that are short, sweet, and questions
that end in a question mark. Not saying that any of the callers have done a bad job. Everyone's
done excellent. I appreciate it. We just got to make sure that we can get through these last
several callers here. So, okay, the next one we have is Justin. And so, Justin, thank you so much
for joining tonight's debate. Looks like you have a question for Pastor on 1 John 2. So, Justin,
go ahead. Welcome. Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the conversation, first of all. It's been really
edifying. The question's for Mr. Shelley. Could you give your opinion on the passage in 1 John
chapter 2, or on the one that I'm about to read, and basically if or how it connects to
belief or faith, as you understand it. So, 1 John 2, starting verse 3, it says, "This is how we know
that we know Him. If we keep His commandments, one who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep
His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But the love of God has most certainly
been perfected, and whoever keeps His word, this is how we know that we are in Him. He who says,
'He remains in Him,' thought himself also to walk just like He walked." Is this not just saying that
one's confession is a lie if they display a life that is against the Father's commandments?
Go ahead.
So again, 1 John is talking about fellowship with Christ in its context. So in 1 John chapter 1,
verse number 3, the purpose is that you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is
with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And He says, "In these things write I unto you
that your joy may be full." The point of 1 John in its broad context is specifically having fellowship
with Jesus Christ. In chapter 2, it transitions and it says that He's writing these things unto
us that we sin not. If any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous,
and He's the propitiation for our sins, meaning He's the payment for our sins. But at the same
time, you can be saved and not really know Christ, not have an active fellowship with Him.
And so those who are breaking His commandments and claiming that they have a great relationship
with Jesus or they know Jesus Christ are lying. And that is what the passage is saying. The passage
is saying that you are not being truthful, that you don't have an understanding really of who God
is or Jesus Christ, and you're not having great fellowship with Him. This is not negating the
fact that someone could be saved and not having fellowship with Jesus Christ. It's very possible
for that to be the case. Also, the most of this passage though is contrasting people that are
unsaved with the saved. That's mostly what 1 John is doing. In chapter two, it's differentiating
people who are anti-Christ and those who believe in Jesus Christ. And here's the thing, the Jews
would have said that they know God and they say they would know the Lord and all these things,
but they're actually liars because they didn't keep the commandments. They were hypocrites
and they denied Jesus Christ and so they were unsaved. And it's contrasting those people
with the true disciples of Christ and the true Jews who are those who have believed in Jesus
Christ and are the Christians. And so 1 John chapter two is addressing the idea of people
who are claiming they know God, but they're just breaking all the commandments. He's saying that
they're liars. This in no way has anything to do with proving you lose your salvation
or anything like that. It's just simply helping people understand who really knows God and who
doesn't and it's through keeping the commandments. Thank you. Sean, floor is yours. Yeah. Thank you,
Pastor Shelley. You just conceded the debate. You've literally just said people that are
claiming to know Christ, not doing the commandments are liars and they're unsaved.
So I guess you thank you for your concession. Great question. I agree with the caller.
I agree with this conclusion on the passage. We must walk as Jesus walks. This includes all the
teachings of Christ, which is keeping the commandments of God. Great question. Pastor,
you get the last word. Go ahead. Yeah, I certainly did not say that someone can lose their salvation
at any point of my response. Simply pointed out that someone can't know Christ and know the things
about Him intimately and have great fellowship with Him if He's not keeping His commandments,
but they could still be saved. So I'm done with the response. All right. Thank you very much for
the final word there, Pastor Shelley, and the responses from the both of you. Okay, next caller
is Gennaro, and it is another question for you. Pastor, looks like it has to do with Luke Warm
Christians. And so Gennaro, apologies if I'm mispronouncing your name. Feel free to introduce
yourself and offer up your question. Thanks for being here. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear
me? Yeah. Hello. Okay. I have a question for you, brother. I have a question for you, Shelley. So
when the verse says, "I wish for you were hot or cold, because you're warm, I will spit you out,"
I want to know what is your understanding of a lukewarm Christian? And by your belief, did Judas
not lose his salvation? Great question. It's addressing a church in the seven churches which
are in Asia. It's addressing a specific church that is neither hot nor cold. And so the Lord says
they're kind of lukewarm and he's going to spit them out of their mouth. Specifically he's just
talking about God chastising them, having nothing to do with them, even potentially even physical
death. It's also mentioned in Revelation chapter 2 how he's going to destroy Jezebel and all of
her children with death. So obviously God can kill people. He killed Ananias and Sapphira.
He killed many of the children of Israel in the wilderness. God can constantly bring all kinds of
horrible punishments on people that break his commandments, sin, just like my mother and father
could punish me severely as a child. But that doesn't mean that I'm not their child. And so
unfortunately for Shawn, he doesn't understand the analogy of a mother and a son or a father
and a son. He thinks that you have to like keep commandments in order to continue being a child
here. You know, once you're a child of God, you're always a child of God. But you could be a lukewarm
child, meaning that you're not really obeying your mom and dad and you're not really zealous.
You're not really doing anything and your parents could be very upset with you. You could even be a
lukewarm adult child that's living at home, lazy, playing video games, not getting a job. And so your
parents literally just pick you up and throw you out of the house. You don't stop being their child
and they don't even stop loving you necessarily. They're just sick and tired of you being a lukewarm
person. And so they're punishing you severely. When it comes to Judas, Judas wasn't lukewarm.
Judas was completely dead. He never believed in Jesus Christ. He was a devil from the beginning.
He had nothing to lose. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Judas never believed in
Jesus Christ. So there's nothing about him that's lukewarm. He was deceitful. He was an infiltrator.
He was a false prophet and a false teacher. So, you know, those are completely different concepts.
And so I would say that, you know, there's nothing about Judas that's lukewarm.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley. Sean Griffin, the floor is yours. Go ahead.
Donnie, could you repeat the full question, please? I'm sorry.
Yes. If we could get Gennaro, if you're still there, could you possibly reiterate your question
for us? He probably dropped. I believe that the question was about lukewarm in Revelation chapter
two. He didn't quote that, but he was bringing up the lukewarm. And if Judas lost his salvation,
so it was my best understanding of the question. I think Pastor Schell and I actually agree on this.
We even talked about this in our first rebuttals and cross that we both agree that Judas did not
ever put his faith in Christ. He was there for the wrong reasons. He was never considered one of
them. And even Christ knew this from the beginning. And so I don't think he was lukewarm. I think he
was just playing a part because he thought he was going to get something out of it later.
All right. Appreciate the responses, gentlemen. We now have our next caller who is James. James,
thank you very much for joining us. Looks like you have a question for Pastor Shelley on the
sheep and the goats. And so, James, thanks for being here. The floor is yours. Go ahead.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Pastor Shelley. Thank you, Sean, for doing the debate. Appreciate
that question. Well, didn't want to prefix in John 3, 16, this day is the Greek when referencing a
person it means obey unto, not just believe, but the sheep and the goats. It's, it really does
look like Jesus is saying that those who do not do the works of righteousness, feeding the hungry,
the sick, the thirsty, going to the people in prison, it looks like he's saying those people
go to eternal punishment if they don't do that. So it does look like some people will be taken out
of the kingdom and given to punishment. So how does that sit with once saved, always saved? It
looks like people can be thrown out and punished. Thank you for the question. And Pastor Shelley,
go ahead. Yeah, Matthew chapter number 25 is bringing up, you're bringing up the parable of
the sheeps and the goats. I would say that first of all, Matthew 25 is coming still in the context
of Matthew 24, which is talking about the return of Christ. And he kind of gives like three different
parables in Matthew 25 that are all very related. So he's talking about a point when he's going to
have two groups of people, the sheep's on one side on the right side, the goats on the left side.
And he says under the sheep on the right side that they've done all the good works. Essentially,
they visited people in prison and help people and the people on the left didn't do that. He's not
really isolating it to a singular individual. And so Matthew 25, I believe, is talking about two
groups, Christians and people that are not Christians. Christians, generally speaking,
are the people that have done the good works in this world. Non-Christians are the people
who have not done the good works. But I do not believe that every single individual has done
every single thing on this list. It's rather just a collective and the people that are saved are the
ones that do good works and the ones that are not are the ones that don't. But at the same time,
that doesn't mean there couldn't be someone in the crowd of the sheep that didn't really contribute
necessarily. But at the same time, if you kind of pay attention to the passage, he makes it also
clear that when he's talking about the good works that they've done, he's done it on the least of
these my brethren. So I think you have to understand Matthew 25 in the context of doing those
works unto a saved person or unto a Christian. Because I think even just the unsaved, they'll
visit their brother and sister in prison, they'll help people, they'll feed people and do things
just because they love their own brother and sister. But what Christ is contrasting is the
people that were actually ministering unto Christians who are God's sheep, who are Jesus
Christ's sheep. And when you did it unto his sheep, it's like you were doing it unto Jesus.
And that only the Christians are the ones ministering unto other Christians in that way.
And so it's just, it's a broad statement. This certainly would not contradict the rest of all
the clear passages in the Bible that say that salvation is by faith without works. Therefore,
we include that man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, like in Romans 3, 28.
So again, this is just a particular end times prophecy talking about two big groups of people.
It's not teaching you to lose your salvation.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley for that response. Sean, any thoughts?
It's directly equating eternal life and coming here at the King and prepare for you from the
foundation of the world with your behavior. Just like I put all the verses on screen tonight,
great question caller. Yeah, you were judged by our deeds, not by our creeds. Great question caller.
Appreciate it. Pastor, did you want a quick final word on that one?
Yeah, I want to say that there is a passage in the Bible that makes it clear that you were saved
by your creed. In Romans 6, 17, it says, "But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin,
but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." So in fact,
actually what saves you is having the right doctrine of heart which was believing in Jesus
Christ. Thank you. Doctrine. Okay. All right, gentlemen. Appreciate it. And looks like we've
now made it to our final caller. To the next day. No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah. We've made it. We got a 24-hour debate here. So, excellent endurance from the both of you,
Pastor Shelley and Sean. And okay, we got our laugh. If I endure to the end, will I be saved?
I hope it's according to Christ, yeah. All right. There we go. Appreciate it.
Okay. So, Jeremy is our last caller for tonight's memorable debate. That's for sure. So, Jeremy,
thank you very much for joining us and being willing to ask a question. Looks like the question
is for Pastor Shelley. And okay, Jeremy, feel free to introduce yourself and ask your question.
Okay. Thanks, Donnie, Sean, and Pastor Shelley again for your time. This question is for Pastor
Shelley. I was raised the son of a Baptist preacher and I was saved in third grade and was taught
once. They'd always saved me. And like a good Baptist, I went to church every Sunday morning,
Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. And then I rebelled for over 35 years until I got the fear
of God and I fell on my face and begged God to help me stop sinning. I believed in Jesus my whole
life and I've never stopped believing in Him. I'll never stop believing in Him. 100%. I don't deny
Him and I never will. You said in your closing statement that if I believe in Jesus, I have
eternal life. However, I knew I didn't have eternal life and salvation. I was convicted to my core
because my sin was absolutely not following God's ways or commandments. But at this point,
it seems I have two options. I can either repent of this misunderstanding because I really am saved
because I believe in Jesus and don't deny Him. And even if I go back to sinning, I'm still saved.
Or I can repent by fearing God and keeping His commandments. So which option should I follow?
Okay, thank you, caller. Pastor Shelley, go ahead.
Well, salvation is a free gift by faith. So if someone believes that they need to be saved,
then they need to put all of their faith in Jesus Christ. They need to repent of their works.
They need to repent of any false religion. They need to repent of any self-confidence.
And they need to put 100% trust in Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross and they would
be saved. After being saved, a person should be baptized. And after being baptized, they should
try to follow all the commandments to the best of their ability, understanding that they never will
be perfect. God's grace will cover that sin. They should daily crucify the flesh and walk in the
spirit. But that has nothing to do with being saved. You've already been saved. So perhaps
that you were saved as a child and got under some really bad teaching and confused, or maybe you
really never understood salvation was a free gift by faith. I'm not sure, but I would highly
encourage you to consider that salvation truly is a free gift. And even if you did sin later in life,
which many people sin worse in the later parts of their life, that didn't mean you lost your
salvation or weren't saved. And really what gives us the assurance of salvation, according to 1 John
chapter 5 verse 13, is that we believe in Jesus Christ. It says that you can know you have eternal
life and they may believe in the name of the Son of God. The Bible makes it clear that we
are the children of God by faith. It's his spirit that bears witness with our spirit that we're the
children of God. The Bible says, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they will not follow the
voice of a stranger." I believe also that you're going to hearken and resonate with people who
believe in salvation by faith alone. Whereas, unfortunately, people like Sean and people that
follow him, it's a different voice and it's not the right gospel. He mentioned he was in
a Southern Baptist church. Well, they teach that salvation is by repenting of your sins and you
have to turn away from all your sins in order to be saved. That's not what I believe. I believe
salvation is a free gift. That's not the voice of the shepherd. So one must recognize that salvation
is a free gift, humble themselves 100%, repent by changing their mind and putting all their faith
in Jesus Christ and that's what truly saves them. Once they've done that, they're saved forever,
they're child of God, they're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Nothing can ever take
that away from them and you can truly see the light. So I would hope that anybody who is not
confident in their salvation would put all their trust in Christ and rest in Him. He's our Sabbath
and He gives us that full assurance because He is the one that was righteous, not us.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley. Sean, over to you. Go ahead.
Yeah, Jeremy, thanks for the question. Great to hear your brother and good to hear your testimony
and how God has brought you along throughout your life. That's amazing. And I agree with,
I would recommend the latter, right? I would recommend that what you did, I would recommend
that, which is to repent of your dead works, which is what Paul calls it in Romans 6,
start being a slave to righteousness. This is what he follows up to say in Romans 6.
And that you're therefore now doing the behavior of Christ as 1 John 2 talks about you actually
walking as Christ walked. And so I do think that you came out of bad teaching. It's the same bad
teaching we're hearing tonight. And so I'm super grateful for that. And I want to bless
Pastor Shelley tonight with may God give him the message of wisdom as one of the gifts of the
spirit in Jesus name. Thanks for the question, caller. Okay. Thank you. And Pastor Shelley,
you get the last word. Question was for you. Yeah. Repentance from dead works is what Sean
believes in. He believes in his dead works to save him. He believes in being disciple,
being faithful, keeping the law, keeping the Sabbath. Um, I believe he has a lot of other
strange things that he observed rich in faith, rich in faith, according to the Bible, that's
dead works. So he's trusting his filthy rags to save him. And what he would need to do
is repent of that and put his faith in Jesus Christ as Hebrews chapter six clearly teaches.
So, you know, I would, I would hope that anybody out there that's, um, confused on this would go
to the clear passages, John three, 16 Romans three, 28 Romans four, five, basically the entire book
of Romans, Romans 10, nine and 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus and
shalt believe in thine heart that God have raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
So the Bible's clear, it's by believing, it's by faith, it's by trusting. God wants us to be saved
and he loves us and so he made it easy. Sean's form of salvation is not easy. It's difficult,
it's hard, it's confusing, it's unknowable. God, the God of the universe wants you to be saved so
much that he made salvation so easy and so simple and so free that Jesus paid it all.
And all you have to do is take simple faith and put it in Jesus Christ, just the faith of a child
in Jesus Christ and his finished work and you can know that you're saved. It's not by the works of
the law. And it's sad, but unfortunately, Sean and his followers are not saved until they
repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ. All right, gentlemen, that concludes our audience
Q&A. And I got to say, I had a lot of fun with that. That was an excellent hour and 15 minutes.
So this has been a great debate on the topic of salvation and whether or not a believer can
lose his salvation. We've had a great chat over 700 people between both channels that were streaming
this debate. So Pastor Shelley and Sean, I do appreciate the time that you both put into the
preparation for this debate and then also the time for the debate itself. You've definitely given us
a debate to remember on a very important topic, a controversial topic. Again, the question,
can a believer lose their salvation? And at this point, we'll leave it up to our audience to
analyze this debate and come to hopefully their own objective conclusions. And so with that,
we are going to officially wrap things up for tonight, God bless all.