CAREY HARDY: So, several questions have been submitted. There's no way we can get to all of them. We tried to categorize them and take duplicate questions and only ask them once, of course. So, we'll start with an easy one to the men this afternoon, just to get them rolling.

And that is, would you give an overview of the doctrines of grace? That is a phrase that's used – the doctrines of grace.  What doctrines does that phrase refer to and what do they mean?

JOHN MACARTHUR: RC, that's you.

RC SPROUL: I suppose that that refers to the central affirmations of the Protestant Reformation, the first of which is Sola Fide – the doctrine of justification by faith alone – where Luther, in his response to the diatribe of Erasmus, in his book on De Servo Arbitrio, responded that unless you understand the Augustinian doctrine of Sola Gratia, you haven't really grasped Sola Fide. Because the underlying theme for the gospel by which we are saved by grace through faith, is that even the faith that is the instrument by which we are linked to Christ and receive the benefits of His atonement and the imputation of His righteousness, is based upon this prior gift of grace that is given to us.

And so, when the Calvinists speak of the five points – total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, and so on – those are usually seen as a summary of the so-called doctrines of grace. Because the idea in each of those is that because we, our depravity so vitiates any moral strength within us, that in his debate with Pelagius, Augustine taught the moral inability of fallen man that even the offer of the gospel cannot be responded to unless grace first intervenes and changes the disposition of the heart of the person who hears it. So that, historically, in the order of salvation from Augustine through Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, the idea was that regeneration precedes faith.

Whereas, today in America, in evangelicalism today the order is reversed and the idea is faith causes regeneration or must precede, it's a necessary condition for the Holy Spirit to change you. Where the classic Augustinian position would be that, left to themselves, apart from the intrusion of the Holy Spirit, monergisticly in our souls, nobody would ever say yes to the gospel. And so, the doctrines of grace basically are based on the premise that salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end.

HARDY: Now the Roman Catholics also say they believe in God's grace. What's the difference between their perspective that we're saved by grace and what you've just articulated?

SPROUL: Well, the Roman Catholic position is that we're saved by Christ, by faith, and by grace. All three of those are necessary conditions for salvation. At the Council of Trent, however, it made it very clear that not one of those is a sufficient condition for salvation. That's why you have the Solas of the Reformation. For Rome, it's always faith plus something else – faith plus works. It's grace plus merit. It's Christ plus inherent righteousness within us. And so, though both sides believe in Christ, faith and grace, what's missing in Rome is that watershed word “alone.” Okay?

MACARTHUR: Just a comment on that. I've been in correspondence with essentially the gatekeepers of Mormon theology at BYU. In particular, Dr Robert Millet who is appointed by the apostles, the Mormon apostles, to articulate and propagate the Mormon faith. And their latest effort and his latest letter to me, which I received, I think, a few weeks ago, you probably saw it Carey, is a plea for me to understand that they believe in salvation by grace. They believe that it is all of grace and that there wouldn't be any salvation if God didn't graciously provide that.

HARDY: That sounds awfully good, then.

MACARTHUR: It sounds very good. And you know what they're trying to do, of course, is mainstream themselves and get the Evangelical, sort of the, I should say, ignorant consensus to just embrace this. But as I begin to press it a little more, of course, they have a different god, a unitarian god. They have a different Christ, a created creature. And when you get down to salvation by grace, I wrote back a rather extensive letter. I got back another plea to please understand, this a big thick paper. When it's all said and done, what they're saying is God is gracious to let us work our way to heaven. He didn't have to do that.

But it's a huge trapdoor for many people who won't go beyond that. So, Sola Gratia, back to the reason all the Solas are there, Sola Scriptura, nothing but the Scripture, etc. is crucial.

HARDY: Before Dr Mohler comments on that. Just a request from the panel here, to not use the flashes on the photos and the cameras, if you don't mind. It becomes a little bit like a lightning storm from our perspective. So, if you need to take a picture, be sure you do that without the flash and I'm sure Dr Sproul would appreciate that very much here on the stage. Thanks so much. Dr Mohler.

AL MOHLER: I just want to make one comment about the phrase, the doctrines of grace. I think that one misconstrual of reformed theology is to believe that these alone are the doctrines of grace. Every single doctrine that is a Biblical doctrine is a doctrine of grace. The knowledge of God's wrath is a gift of grace to us. And so, we need to be very clear that when we speak the doctrines of grace, we're kind of telescoping in on soteriology. But we recognize that, not only is salvation all of grace, revelation itself is a gift of God's grace.

The late Dr Carl Henry, who died just before Christmas, defined revelation as God's gracious forfeiture of his personal privacy so that His creatures might know Him. There's grace in that. There's grace in every aspect of true doctrine. And so, I understand the shorthand of calling them the doctrines of grace. But we need to make clear it's grace in the beginning, grace in the middle, and grace in the end. And it's a comprehensive understanding that reorients the structure of theology itself along the first principle that all is of grace, even the beginning point of the knowledge of God.

SPROUL: And the beneficiary, of course, are you all. It's grace to you.

MACARTHUR: Now, did we pick the right title?

MOHLER: That’s wonderful.

MACARTHUR: I take a lot from him, you understand that.

HARDY: So, there's a companion question to that and it is this; does one need to believe them to be saved?

SPROUL: I don't think so. But if you persist in the denial of them, your soul may be in jeopardy, seriously. But when I became a Christian, somebody told me about Jesus. I didn't have the first word of theology. I had never read the Bible at all. But what I knew, I was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. I knew I was guilty before a holy God. And I got down on my knees before my bed and I said, “Jesus, you know, save me.” It was, “Lord have mercy.” It was, “Father forgive me.” It was like the publican in the temple who couldn't even raise his head. And the publican in the temple who didn't raise it said, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner” did not have to wait until he understood the doctrines of grace before he went home justified. Again, you're not saved by correct doctrine. And you can get in big trouble with incorrect doctrine. But believing the right creed is not the same as putting your personal trust in Christ and in Christ alone for your salvation.

MOHLER: Just before Christmas, I wrote an article and got in a great deal of trouble (and some media folks really didn't appreciate it) dealing with the question: can a Christian deny the virgin birth? I carefully phrased the question, and I answered it in the negative. You can't possibly deny the virgin birth and confess the Christ of Scripture. That's an impossibility.

But I realize there are persons who come to faith in Christ who do not yet know of the virgin birth. That's a matter of coming to know the fullness of who Jesus is – that there are persons who hear the proclamation of God's word and are regenerated by the power of God. And the Holy Spirit opens their eyes, and they can understand and they respond in such a way that they receive the grace of God. They confess Christ.

My argument is, it's an altogether different thing to be ignorant of a biblical doctrine, and yet on the other hand, to deny it. But what we're dealing with here, I think, is not so much, do you have to believe in these things to be saved. That would be an incredible addition to the presentation of salvation in the New Testament and would, in itself, make fiducia something other than what it is. But to deny the doctrines of grace is, I think, to assault the gospel itself. And then that raises the question, if that isn't the gospel, then what is? And then you've got huge problems.

But as I hear the question, I think it's not as I hear it so much, just about the ignorance of these doctrines, but the deliberate, intentional rejection of them. And I take that with grave seriousness. Although, I recognize there are many true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who do not understand and would not articulate their understanding of salvation in this way. But we have to pray that the convicting power of God's word would call them to an understanding, again, that all knowledge of God and all God's dealing towards us and all that we know about God is grace.

SPROUL: People ask me all the time if Roman Catholic people can be saved and I said yeah, I believe so. And I believe there are probably hundreds of thousands of people in the Roman church who are in a regenerate state, in a state of grace. I say to them, if you are in that condition, you need to leave and leave immediately for the welfare of your soul.

And I also would say this, but if they understand the Tridentine doctrine of justification, the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on justification, and believed that, then they can't be saved. Because they would have to be trusting in their own inherent righteousness rather than the imputed righteousness of Christ. And that would disqualify them because the object of faith is not Christ but themselves.

But thanks be to God, there are millions of people in Roman Catholic Church that don't know Roman Catholic theology. It's just like, you know, in Presbyterian churches, we actually have Arminians in our churches. They sneak in there somehow.

MOHLER: If I might offer one further thought about that. It is certainly true of those committed to reformed theology that we may find ourselves inconsistent in our application of what we know to be true – the outworking of God's truth from one doctrine to the next. It's also true that there are very few consistent Arminians. And most of the people we meet in evangelicalism at large are very inconsistent. They all pray like Calvinists. Even if they don't preach like Calvinists.

In other words, there's usually a place at which there is at least at the very essence of what they understand when they pray, a knowledge that God is sovereign. And ultimately, salvation is going to be all His work or it's not going to happen. And that's a place to begin this conversation. Because there certainly are some 5-point Arminians. There's some 55 point Armenians, I've met a few of them. But there are very few people who can genuinely be consistent and so I think there's some good places to pick up a conversation here.

HARDY: Now some have said that you really can't affirm just one or two or three of those doctrines when referring to the five points, but they really all go together. If you're going to affirm them, you affirm them all. Would you agree with that?

MACARTHUR: Well, I would just say as soon as you affirm that God is sovereign and everything is by grace, that's where you have to go. Otherwise, you're saying that God is not sovereign in some of those elements.

SPROUL: You start with the acrostic tool of the “T” for total depravity, which really translates to the moral inability concept of Augustine. If you understand “T” and embrace “T,” there's no way off that train. You can't deny any of the other five. I used to teach at college, and I would labor the “T” with my students in the class. And when I was done with the “T,” I would say, “How many of you affirm this?” I had 30 kids in the class, and they all raised their hands. And so, on the left-hand side of the blackboard I wrote the number 30. And then I underlined it and asked to the janitor, “Please do not erase.”

And so, we went to “U” – unconditional election. And it was like, we started with 30 little Indians and it was 29, 28, 27. Before we went the further we went down, then saw the implications of total moral inability, the more they had to retract their initial affirmation. Now, I hear people tell me all the time they’re four-point Calvinists. And I say, well, we call those “Arminians.”

Although, I have to say that I've had many conversations with people who identify themselves as four-point Calvinists. And the one in which they deny, of course, is definite atonement or particular redemption, or what we call limited atonement, which, of course, is the easiest one, I think, to affirm.

But every time I hear somebody say that, I make the assumption that if they really believe the other four, they just don't understand this doctrine. And so let's take some time to unpack it. And if I ask them what they really believe about God's intent in the cross – did God intend, from all eternity, to save every person in the world?

And, I mean, it's rare that a person will say to me, well, no, they don't believe that. He knew from all eternity that not everybody was going to be saved. And He didn't sovereignly decree that all would be saved. If He did, everybody would be saved. And so, did Jesus fail on the cross to fulfill the task that the Father had given Him? Well, no, we wouldn't want to say that.

They just didn't understand the doctrine. Once they saw the implications of it, then they said, “Oh, I guess I really am a 5-point.” But again, to be a Calvinist, as Al's already said, it's not a matter of arithmetic – adding one to five. I wrote a book called Grace Unknown, really it’s something to help our elders and lay people to understand the essence of reformed theology. I labored the point that the five points are five points of historic controversy. But if you embrace every one of the five points, you still don't have the reform faith because reform theology embraces Catholic doctrines as well as those five points. And even justification by faith alone is not in the five points. So, there's a lot more to reform theology than those five particular distinctives.

HARDY: Along those lines is a question about the doctrine of God's foreknowledge. Could you comment on your understanding of that doctrine and is there a difference between foreordained and foreknown? So, I guess in a general sense, explain what that means – God's foreknowledge –and is there a difference between those two terms?

MACARTHUR: I don't think there's any difference. I think you can come at that from the text standpoint that foreknowledge is a predetermination to establish a relationship with. You have a statement in Amos, “Israel only have I known.” You have John 10, “My sheep hear My voice and I know them.” Cane knew his wife and she bore a child. Mary was with child and Joseph had not known her. We even talk about that kind of knowledge. You know, we use the phrase carnal knowledge or whatever, that we understand that there is a metaphoric use of the word “know” that speaks of intimacy.

And I think that's the way that's intended. It’s a predetermined relationship. It's essentially the same as to predestine, or to predetermine, or to preordained. As opposed to God, looking down, as you've often heard, some corridor and seeing what's going to happen. And based upon the knowledge that comes to Him through some anticipated empirical experience or reality, some virtual reality, He then reacts and says, based upon what I know is going to happen, this is what I'm going to do.

I think it's not that at all. I mean, that would undo the entire reality of God as sovereign. That would make man completely sovereign and capable of doing whatever he wants to do, which we've already talked about as it flies in the face of moral capability. So, foreknowledge is simply God's predetermination to establish a relationship with a person, as I see it, the way it's used, in the text.

MOHLER: I would only add to that, in full agreement, that we come to these questions from an anthropological frame of reference. Given the way we live, given the operation of our finite minds, knowledge and will are separate issues for us because we can will something to take place that doesn't take place. I think it's very dangerous in dealing with God to separate knowledge and will, because the Scripture, I would argue, makes no such separation in that sense.

And so, to foreknow or to foreordain is basically the same thing in His perfect knowledge of Himself and His own will and all things created. So, I would just be very reluctant to draw an etymological distinction there that is too sharp when it has to do with the operations of the infinite divine mind.

SPROUL: I would agree with both of these things, with one just additional technical point. The two words, however, still can be distinguished. When we talk about foreknowledge, we're talking about what God knows before it happens. And when we're talking about His ordination, we're talking about what He decrees.

But at the same time, where we all come together, is we believe the reason why He knows everything is going to come to pass is because He's ordained everything that's going to come to pass. And I quite agree with Al here, that you can distinguish between the mind of God and the will of God, but you can't separate them.

I mean, I agree with Edwards that what will is, is the mind choosing. And so, but again, the majority report among evangelicals, with respect to election and predestination, is the pressing view. The idea that what all election means is that God looks down at time, He knows who's going to say yes to the gospel and who's going to say no to the gospel.

And on the basis of what He knows beforehand, He says, “Okay, everybody that I see down there, that's going to say yes, I'm going to choose. And everybody that says no, I'm going to pass over. And there's nothing of God's ordaining and enabling the elect to say yes. And so, in the final analysis, the sovereign one in our salvation, is man, not God. But I'm going to talk about that tonight; going to talk about Romans 9.

MOHLER: The only problem with that – I'm in full agreement – but the only problem with trying to make the argument, which you held up as one commonly made, is that it still leaves God as the one who willed the world in which He foreknew those limited circumstances.

SPROUL: I’m not agreeing with the person.

MOHLER: I understand that. That's what I'm saying, is that, you know, when we hear that argument, which was well articulated by Dr. Sproul, we need to come back and say, well, you know, unless God is shocked at some point in this process, He's still responsible for the creation, the actualization of this world in which these foreseen issues would take place, and these foreseen persons will come to faith in Christ. If you start with the actual God of the Bible, infinite in all of His perfections, you, by definition, can't get behind that God in order to ask a question. And once you get that down, this is where we are.

SPROUL: Let me climb further on that tree. That’s wonderful. When I teach in the seminary on the doctrine of God – which is one of the things I always teach, is systematic theology, I mean, theology proper. I say, when people ask me, “What is the distinctive aspect of reformed theology?” I said, with respect to the doctrine of God, I'll say, “I'm going to sound Neo-Orthodox to you for a minute, like I went to school at the feet of Barth or Brunner.” Then I said, “But please be careful.”

On the one hand, (it's like Fiddler on the Roof) on the one hand, there's absolutely nothing distinctive in reformed theology about our doctrine of God. All the classic creeds affirm that God is the infinite, eternal, simple, omniscient, omnipotent, and all the rest of the attributes. And there's nothing novel to reformation creedal statements about the doctrine of God.

I said, “Now on the other hand, if you ask me what I thought was the most distinctive aspect of reformed theology, I would say it's our doctrine of God.” And they say, “Wait a minute! You just said there was nothing distinctive about it.” I said, “Well, here's where the distinctive is: that once we start with the Reformation doctrine of God, which every other Christian shares, we keep that all the way through our theology. We don't get off of that train because our understanding of God determines our understanding of justification; determines our understanding of sin; determines our understanding of Christology; it conditions our understanding of soteriology. Because all of the issues that we encounter with the so-called doctrines of grace always end up back at a discussion about the character of God.

It's not a mistake that open theism, that Clark Pinnock, you know, first espoused; I was so grateful that Clark said that he was actively searching to create a doctrine of God somewhere between the finite God of process theology and the orthodox view of God. See, he was trying to create what he called free will theism. And he self-consciously said at the beginning, in order to do that, he had to depart from Catholic, not Calvinistic, but Catholic Orthodoxy with respect to our doctrine of God. And that's where we've come in open theism.

MACARTHUR: Yeah, I think openness shouldn't shock us. I think it's where Arminianism ultimately goes in trying to rescue God from some indictment that He's somehow responsible for what's going on in the world. And if you start out with the fact that God looks down and sees things and reacts to that, then you wind up where Al has wound up, with the statement he made, which is so good. So, God created a world in which that's the way it would be. And now you've still got a problem. So, you've got to back up yet and redefine God. So, you have to reinvent God as this person who's anything but sovereign who's trying to sort stuff out, just like we are and make the best out of the mess that occurs.

SPROUL: Pacing up and down the corridors of heaven, wringing his hands, hoping that everything's going to come out all right. If that's what God is and who God is, I'm going to sleep in tomorrow morning.

MACARTHUR: Well, I think it's important to say that openness theology is a logical extension of an Arminian view of God that just keeps trying to rescue God from people who don't think things are the way they should be. And somehow God has invaded the human world, robbed us of our autonomy and we don't want God to be the bad guy. So, let's just make Him virtually impotent and ignorant. And what level of idolatry is that? I mean, that's pretty basic idolatry.

HARDY: It does seem that people tend to pick the attributes of God that they want to affirm, whether they're affirming God's love but not His omnipotence, or affirming His omnipotence, but not His perfect love and some sort of motivation to protect God – which is what it sounds like you're saying there, John. I suppose it could be that alternate motivation of pride. You alluded to that too in the sense of trying to keep some of our autonomy. Is that what you meant by that?

MACARTHUR: Well, I think that’s, you know, that's the primary, you know, wretchedness of the human heart is self-will and pride. And I think what I was saying the other day is anybody who comes up with a view of God that's never been held in the past has a level of audacity that I can't even comprehend. I mean, really, we might let you put a different spin on history. You might tolerate your revisionist history book on some event in history. But for you to stand up in your little time and space in the universe and say that, historic, as he put it, Catholic or Universal Church understanding of the doctrine of God is wrong and you've arrived to straighten us out. I mean the level of audacity is beyond belief. I mean, I've said that to our people, if I ever say something you've never heard before, yank me out of the pulpit. I see that as, that might be the epitome of human pride, in trying to save human pride you become so proud that you'll tell people who God really is in spite of the way God has revealed Himself.

SPROUL: In a non-theological, simple, personal way, when I talk to my friends, I'll say to them, “You're a Christian?” “Yes.” “You have friends or relatives that aren't Christians, right?” And, I say, “Are you a Christian and your friend isn't because you're better than that person?”

Now, I've never had in Arminian look me in the eye and say, “Well, yeah, that's why I'm a Christian, because I'm better.” I said, “Are you a Christian and your buddy isn't a Christian because you're smarter than they are?” “Well, no.” Because they know if they say yes, I'm going to say, “Well, where'd you get your intelligence in the first place? You got a greater gift of intelligence? You know, when God was passing out brains, your buddy thought He said ‘trains’ and he missed his?”

You know, and I'll say, well, let me ask you this, “Is there a right response to the gospel that God commands? Does God command all men everywhere to repent and to embrace Christ?” “Yes.” I said, “Now your neighbor over here has rejected that command and disobeyed God. Has he done something wrong?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “But you've done the right thing. So, ultimately, the reason why you're in the Kingdom and that guy isn't in the Kingdom, is because of your virtue, as distinguished from his vice.” “Well, I don't want to…” I said, “I know you don't want to say that. You'd rather cut your tongue out before you say it.”

But this is what we say, the felicitous inconsistency of Arminianism. This is what they have to say if they really believe that in the final analysis, the thing that gets them in the Kingdom is their right choice, which was the good thing to do rather than the bad choice that the reprobate made. And I'm saying to you what you need to be saying the rest of your life is, “Thank God I said yes,” not, “thank me that I said yes.”

HARDY: Could you comment on how we are to recognize a false teacher? What makes a false teacher a false teacher?

SPROUL: Usually by the hairdo. Seriously, if he's got a bouffant you run for your life.

MACARTHUR: And a funny suit with a gold patch on it. I've just been going through all of that – Second Peter 2, Jude, and First, Second, Third John, you know, the essential tests, they're all essentially doctrinal tests. And you go back to the doctrines of grace. Of course, you go back to the drivetrain of our faith; a Trinitarian God, an understanding of the doctrine of sin and the helplessness of man, the incarnation, the perfect life of Christ, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, the perfect understanding of the God-man, all man and all God at the same time in sort of the incredible incarnation reality, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, imputed righteousness.

I think that just the drivetrain of those doctrines of grace that we're talking about are what mark the true teacher. And John points out repeatedly that they start with an assault on Christ. There's either an assault on the humanity of Christ or assault on the deity of Christ. And Paul talks about if anybody preaches another gospel which would include perhaps some aberration regarding Christ or some addition of works to grace. I think anybody who tampers with that is, for certain, a false prophet.

I mean, it would be categorically in the place of a damning lie, a hypocritical liar, as Paul writing to Timothy calls him, hypocritical liar, somebody who is espousing doctrines of demons at that particular point. There are a lot of ways people can be false and hypocritical and driven by money and pride and power and all of that. But at the core of it is some aberration of the gospel and the elements that are necessary to the gospel.

SPROUL: Because we all have false ideas invading our thinking. We have to lay that on the table right away. The question not is whether those false concepts that invade our thinking are of the essence of true Christianity. You know, I had a teacher that said, “There are three kinds of people in the world, those that can count and those that can't.

Now that was somebody else. They said, that in terms of theological systems, there are three great generic systems of theological thought throughout history. The first one is sheer Pelagianism, ala Pelagius versus Augustine, and its resurrection of Socinianism in the 16th century, and the liberalism of the 19th century; neoliberalism of the 20th century. Those doctrines are so far removed from the core of biblical orthodoxy that we would regard Pelagianism, in its pure sense, as not only sub-Christian, but anti-Christian and false, you know, demonic doctrine.

Then the second group would be the Semi-Pelagians. You know, with Pelagius’ cousin, Semi, who lived in Antioch. He sought a middle position between Augustine and Pelagius. And that's where Arminianism comes in, and other branches of Christendom.

And then Augustinianism would be the third group. And I would say, historically, that there's been great disagreement between Semi-Pelagians and Augustinians, Arminians, and Calvinists, if you will, and so on. But that they are still intramural debates among true Christians. I don't think that if you embrace Arminianism that you've necessarily stepped out of the faith and into apostasy. I think the errors can be grievous and consistent Arminianism, such as open theism, you know, I think does take you outside the fold. I would put open theism within Pelagianism more than Semi-Pelagianism, but those are the generic things.

MOHLER: I think we ought to be very careful when using words that are of extreme importance, especially to us. Liberals don't believe in heresy. They don't even believe it's possible because there is no such thing as Orthodoxy. But when we use the word heresy, we ought to be very clear in identifying a heresy as that which is in direct violation of the integrity of the gospel – that which violates the Church's orthodox understanding of the person and work of Christ.

Now, there are aberrant teachings on any number of issues, but we ought not to call them heresies. I think another distinction is made in Scripture between, and I go back to what we were talking about earlier, ignorance and willful denial. And also, a distinction can be made between a willful false teaching and an unintentional false teaching. And I appreciate what RC said about our own frailty.

In Acts chapter 18, when you come across Apollos, it is mentioned that he was ”instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.” And then, later we are told that “Priscilla and Aquila heard him. They took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” And that's a great model right out of the book of Acts for correcting an inadequate teaching. Apollos obviously did not mean to misconstrue the issue of baptism.

And so, I think in terms of our responsibility for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to identify heresy where it exists and without compromise – name it for what it is. We need to expose false teachers who willfully and intentionally are attacking the very foundation of the Gospel itself.

SPROUL: Apollos did what, you know, with the best of his knowledge until Priscilla and Aquila told him to baptize babies.

MOHLER: I was just reading this book of Acts.

But the third category I would mention, before losing complete control, it is the one who does need to be more instructed and, folks, that's true of all of us. That's why I think a teachers accountability needs to be to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to be mutually accountable to each other.

I appreciate what Dr MacArthur said. We need to listen to each other. The best intended among us; we are finite, frail creatures. We may say something we do not even mean to say; imply something we do not even mean to imply. And then again, we may mean something and have to be confronted with the fact that that isn't biblically sustainable and biblically right. And there's grace in that. Though we're back to the doctrines of grace.

MACARTHUR: I do think that there are both self-deceived and non-self-deceived false teachers. I think there are false teachers who are so deceived by the enemy that they buy into what it is they say. And then, I think there are those false teachers who don't believe anything they say. They have just fabricated it as a way to make money, get power, move through the world to whatever ambitious fulfillment they want. And they are ultimately, of course, the most seriously deceived because they have put themselves in the position of the greatest eternal jeopardy possible. But I do think there are many, many of the most dominating media false teachers who know they’re false teachers. They are not self-deceived. They know the scam is on and they're milking it for everything they can get out of it.

HARDY: It actually touches on the next part of that question, and it was this: can false teachers or do false teachers know they are false teachers? So, you're saying that it's possible that they can be deceived and not know that. But most of what you were running into, especially in the media, they know very well what they're doing.

MACARTHUR: Yeah, I mean I have no way of knowing the mind of a person. But there are those people who are false teachers because they've been taught falsely and they've perpetuated what they've been taught, as if it were truth. There are those people who, against the backdrop of incessant truth pressed upon them, continue to teach lies and deception without the fear of God in their lives at all, who know what they're doing.

I mean, I think back in the early days of the charismatic movement, my dad was preaching in Hollywood – he had a church there. And there was a little boy, there was a little boy preacher named Marjoe Gortner and Little Marjoe was a media darling. I mean, the guy was on all the news of film deals they used to show in theaters. He was in the newspapers. He could preach up a storm at the age of eight. And eventually they made a movie about him. You probably saw the movie, called Marjoe, where he's sitting in his hotel room throwing money in the air. Raised in a Christian environment; exposed to all of the Christian truth. It was a joke to him. It was a mockery to him. It was a scam from start to finish. 

That’s the Elmer Gantry approach. Sinclair Lewis saw that and he dies, you know, a drunken alcoholic in a third-rate clinic somewhere outside Rome. You know, basically a victim of his own skepticism toward truth and toward God. But I think that the world is full of those who are very intentional, ambitious liars, and they know it. They are hypocritical liars. That's what they're called in First Timothy 4.

MOHLER: And I think we need to face the fact that the New Testament is very clear about warning about these intentional false teachers. Last night preaching from Acts 20, I mentioned Paul's characterization of these men as savage wolves preying upon God's people. Second Peter and Jude deal with this. In Jude, we read that “these men also by dreaming, defile the flesh, reject authority, revile angelic majesties... They revile the things they do not understand, and the things which they do not know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed,” he goes on and on.

These are those who intentionally prey upon the church. And let's face it, this is not just a first century reality. We’re witnessing this on our own times, and I think we need to be very straightforward. There is the category of the charlatan. And then I think we as human beings have an enormous capacity to deceive ourselves. And I think there are many people who, just because of a desire for sordid gain or popularity or whatever, have deceived themselves on these things. But the intention is, articulated or not, to harm the church of God.

MACARTHUR: Yeah, and Jude makes a statement that they crept in unnoticed. This is intentional; this is the savage wolf who comes in, hopefully under the radar. He says later on in the epistle, that they are hidden reefs in your love feasts, they're below the surface they're under, but they tear up the hull of the ship.

I see intentionality in all of that. They’re, you know, clouds without water. They stir up like a foam on the surf.  They’re after you with lascivious intentions. They're greedy. Then he goes on to talk about the influences of these kinds of people being so devastating and disastrous and ultimately denying the Lord that bought them. That's where it all comes down to.

So, they have some knowledge of what the whole thing is about. These people today, that are these media false teachers, I don't see these people as poor, deceived souls, in general. They're in an environment where they're exposed to the truth constantly. They're not in some third world country coming out of animism or something where they haven't got anything to connect with. I mean, this is very intentional and destructive kind of things, And, of course, I see also the lack of any integrity in their lives about what they teach by the by the blatant materialism in which they engulf themselves. Which would be the out, you know, the sort of the outward manifestation of the driving motive behind all this.

SPROUL: John, I agree with that. And for the most part, these guys that you see out there, they have to know that they're frauds. They have to know it. And yet, on the other hand, the depths to which we can deceive ourselves is unbelievable. There's a common thing that I see on television. It's one particular televangelist who will have a season of prayer. And he has the word of knowledge. And he'll say, “Right now, there's somebody in the southwestern United States who's, as we're praying, is being healed of a goiter. Thank you, Lord, that goiter is vanishing right this second. There's a woman with leukemia in the northeast, perhaps Boston. And that leukemia has just gone into remission.”

HARDY: You’re good!

SPROUL: And the thing that amazes me, as I see this time after time after time, is that God supernaturally reveals the specific disease and the general area of the country, but never gives the name and address! And in that case, the miracle can never be verified or falsified. Now, how long can you keep doing this and really continue to believe that you're getting supernatural information? How can you deceive yourself to that degree? But there's a whole theology out there that says that such is possible. And if you close your eyes right now and just let your mind wanders, see how many diseases you can think of. And how many parts of America you can think of? You have the gift now.

I mean, it's silly. It really is silly. But it sells like crazy and pretty soon that person has to know. I was on one of those programs while that very thing was going on. And immediately after I got off the program, I went back into the makeup room where they were taking my makeup off. And I'm sitting like in a barber chair and they're taking my makeup. And one of the hosts that was involved in this – it was a woman, I won't mention her name, to protect the guilty – she came in and she was furious at her secretary, who was there in the room. She's really giving it what for, because she failed to get her appointment for the doctor to that afternoon, She says, “My back is killing me and you let that slip through the thing.” And I said, “Why don't you go back out there and get the word?” It's more like Barnum and Bailey, you know, P.T. Barnum. 

MACARTHUR: I will tell you about a situation that happened here a couple of months ago. Pastor Jack Hayford, who's here at The Church on the Way. And Jack and I have had fellowship through the years and I appreciate his love for Christ. But his son-in-law, Scott Bauer, has been pastor of The Church on the Way for about four years.

And there was, in a certain week at the church, just a couple of months ago, a prophet came to town and a prophet laid hands on him and announced to the church that Scott would be receiving some gifts for miracle signs and wonders and healings and would take this to the ends of the world. This, I think, was, if I remember correctly, was on a Wednesday night and that same night he had a brain aneurysm and died and he was 42/43 years old. Immediately after the prophecy, he collapsed in the church and died. And I went to the funeral.

Now, it’s a sad, tragic thing. He was loved by his people. But, I mean, if I'm sitting there, I'm saying, “So much for prophecy!” And then I'm asking the question, what do they do with a prophet who doesn't tell the truth? You know, it just seems to go right on by. And I think there's another side of it. I’m just kind of backing up what RC said. I think if you keep saying it long enough and saying it long enough, you figure a way to make it real.

And I think that's more the part of the people and people who are in that, then the people who perpetrate that kind of thing. I think there are good people, these people, of course, love the Lord and believe the gospel and all that. But if I were in a situation like that, I mean, I guess my analytical mind and whatever.

If somebody says this is a word from the Lord and the very opposite happened instantaneously on the spot, I would tend to cancel the whole operation. But it's amazing how that's not what happened. And some people actually said to me that the prophecy was so strong, the devil killed him. Now there's a frightening way to live.

SPROUL: John, during the 60s, when the charismatic movement hit the main line, I was teaching college and all my Presbyterian students had become charismatic and I didn't know what happened. And they would come down my house and we would pray together and we literally had prayer meetings that would go all night – you know, pray for 10 hours. And I thought to myself, “These are people who are the most devout group of Christians I've ever met.”

And so, I prayed with them to receive the gift of tongues. And I got it, right. Then I was slain in the Spirit by Katherine Coleman, of all people. She made a lot of hay out of that on national radio. So, I was in the charismatic movement for a year or two. And I probably heard 100 prophecies that were time specific, not like the studied ambiguities of the Oracle of Delphi – specific things that would happen to specific people in a specific time. And like, it was over 100.

Not one of these things came to pass, and I finally just said, “Wait a minute. I can't stay with this,” I said. Because the one thing I'm positive of is this. If I want to know the leading of the Holy Ghost, here's where it is. Not laying hands on my car so I won't run out of gas because I'm going to drive for 500 miles. I mean, it became that frivolous. And I have said ever since then, if you want somebody to and you ask him to pray for you and you can trust that they will ask a charismatic. But sooner or later, you're going to have to make a decision between these internal neo-gnostic impulses that you have or the word of God.

God wants us to live by this. I mean, there was a point where I just grabbed the Bible and I held it to my chest and I said, “I believe that the Spirit works per verbum and cum verbo and never sin eum – with the word, through the word, and never against the word!”

I had so many people tell me that they were justifying their sin because the Spirit told them to do it. And I warned them how perilously close they were coming to the unforgivable sin. And I said, “That's tragic!” But again, to those who were at the thing last night, this is what people want. They want power. And this is where New Age invades the church with the promise of being able to manipulate your environment; to visualize world PEAS, P-E-A-S, you know, and have it happen. The only place that really works – stop me if I'm lying Peter – is on the golf course. When you stop and you see that pond between you and the green and the last thought that goes in your mind before you swing is “don't hit it in the water.” What happens John?

MACARTHUR” It goes in the water.

SPROUL: You hit it in the water. Sorry.

MOHLER: It’s alright.

SPROUL: Oh, that's that one – the believer's baptism Bible.

MOHLER: That's right.

HARDY: We do have concerns about extreme ecumenism. The question is asked by some of these men here: how can we determine with whom we share the pulpit based on everything you've said about; now false teachers. We don't want to go to some extreme. There are intramural debates. Understanding that, again, how can we determine with whom we share the pulpit in our church? Someone else, good.

MACARTHUR: Al.

MOHLER: Well, I would center, first of all, on the gospel. And I guess this raises the whole question of what the pulpit’s about and how it should be shared in the first place. The pastor, the elder Bishop of the church, I think, ought to take this with an incredible sense of stewardship. That no one should be in that pulpit who would not declare the truth of the gospel – a biblical message perfectly consistent with God's revelation and would consider that a stewardship. A preacher who would be afraid lest he speak wrongly and would rather die than preach that which is not true.

And now that's, when you think about it, pretty restrictive right there out of what passes for Christianity in America. I'm not sure that there's any laminated card you can put in your wallet that says this list and then not that list. I think it is a situation in which the bar ought to be so high in the pulpit of your church, remembering that this is someone speaking to the people who are under your charge, that you would not do anything to have them led astray.

You know, I'm not sure that this gets to the whole ecumenical issue. It's a deeper issue than that because generally when people meet ecumenical, they're talking about institutional, denominational and other lines. You know, frankly, there are a lot of Baptists I wouldn’t have in a Baptist pulpit. At least they call themselves Baptists, and so that's not the issue. The issue is fidelity to the truth – the consensus fidelium; the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

MACARTHUR: I would just add to that, because obviously we have people preach here, like yourselves. It is fidelity to the gospel, to the core of the gospel, to the absolute unequivocal essentials of the gospel. There's another component as well to me, and that is this high view of God and Scripture. Nothing, to me, is more upsetting than a low view of God and triviality in dealing with the text – playing fast and loose with the word of God.

You know we labor very diligently in our ministry here to give our people a high view of God. Psalm 138:2, “He's exalted His word even to His name.” So, here is God, and here is His word. And whoever it is that occupies this pulpit needs to be consumed with the honor of God and the honor of His word. So that there's not any kind of shallow or superficial or surfeited approach to the sacred things of the text.

That’s not to say we can't enjoy, I mean, we're having a great time. And God has given us laughter like a medicine, the Bible says. We love it and we have that to share and the joys of these days together, and that should be in the life of our church. I hope our church is just loaded with joy.

My dad used to say, “Don't ever use humor in the pulpit.” I used to always think he was wrong. And finally he got the picture, that it was a great place to use humor. I'm not saying it needs to be stiff, but I am saying there needs to be a treatment of the word of God that’s elevated and lofty. And you need to have somebody who knows what they're talking about when they talk about the word of God.

So, we set the standard as high as we can. And yet, on doctrines that are not essential to salvation, there has to be some room. I find frankly, I mean, these guys come from different backgrounds than I do; all three of us do. And yet you can sense that we love each other. We love the truths that matter. We love the word of God from front to back. We understand, as RC said, I know there are errors in my theology. I’m not under any illusions. I know that. And I said that one time and somebody said, “Well, why don't you change them?” And my response was, “I just don't know where they are.” I know they're there, but I don't know where they are. Show me where they are. I'll change them. I mean, that's not a problem, but…

SPROUL: Stop! Stop the music! I think I’ve told you this in front of yourself, but I've said it behind your back probably 100 times. I said, “You know, I love to listen to John MacArthur preach.” And I said, “I'll tell you about John MacArthur. When I hear him preach, I know he's been in the text. I mean, it’s obvious that he has worked on the text and he's just not just having a pretext to take off on.” And I said, “I can tell you something else about John MacArthur. If John and I ever disagree on even a minor point or miniscule point of Scripture, where I think he's wrong and he thinks I'm wrong – here's what I know about John MacArthur, is that if I can go to the text and show John MacArthur that his understanding of the text is incorrect, that he'll change his view in a heartbeat.

Because he would rather be accurate, you know, to the word of God than to have his ego massaged. And I've never met anybody more open to correction in righteousness with respect to the text of Scripture than this man. And I hope he feels the same way about me; that if he could show me where I'm wrong, because I believe the Book. You know, we laugh about we have different understandings of what the Book says. But if I have a misunderstanding of the Book, I want to correct it immediately. Not next week, but today.

You don't have to listen to a preacher for very long to know whether or not he spent time in the text.

MACARTHUR: Yeah, the text is the corrective. If your life is in the text week in and week out, and men, I would say this to you, you are so underestimated. You know the travelling guy with 10 suits and 10 sermons, he doesn't even know what it's all about. You know, he's got his bag of tricks, his sugar sticks. He yanks them out, pops them out, gets the crowd to clap. That isn't even close to what you do. Slugging it out week after week after week.

SPROUL: John, I'm getting to number three tonight.

MACARTHUR: No, I know better than that. You’ve been pastoring now for how many years? How many years?

SPROUL: Six years.

MACARTHUR: Six years. Six down, 29 to go right?

SPROUL: I've recycled those 10 sermons, you know, a lot.

MACARTHUR: Oh well, we were talking to Al at lunch a couple of weeks ago or somewhere, talking about the short stay of pastors and churches. And somebody asks you, “Why? Why do Pastor stay such a brief time in churches?” What did you say?

MOHLER: I said, “They have two years’ worth and after 104 sermons, they're out. And so they have to move on.” And that's an unfortunate reality that we see. And there's just no discipline in that. There’s no love for the word. There's an abdication of the pastor's responsibility. You know, again, a man's either going to see that pulpit – that used to be up here and is now down there.

There you go. I want one of those.

A man ought to see that pulpit as the greatest test of his life every time he stands into it. And someone who sees it as less than that, forbid entry. There is the test.

MACARTHUR: You know, and even in Al’s case, we all sort of marvel that, I don't know if it's every single day that you write an article. Or how many times a week?

MOHLER: About five days a week.

MACARTHUR: Five days a week, coming out with insightful things drawn out of the Scripture and constantly preaching. You know, it’s not hard to pick those kind of people. There's not a lot of them. But when we think about people to preach here, inevitably, inevitably, it's those kind of people who have a lifetime involvement in the text of Scripture. Because everything's tested all the time by the text.

It's what I told those Russian pastors. I said, “You know, you sit there and criticize John Calvin. Don’t criticize him until you've spent your entire life executing everything in the Old and the New Testament, testing your doctrine against everything that's written on the pages of Holy Writ. And so, that's what we look for.

Another related issue to that, of course, is the difficulty sometimes of being invited to speak at an event, where the assortment of people there is so confusing and convoluted that you know they're trying to pull your niche in. They're trying to get the whole evangelical pie. And so, they've got somebody from every section. That's hard for me.

It's not necessarily true that I affirm all the rest. But I have the sense that, in some secondary fashion, I'm putting my stamp of approval on it. And I find that there are some of those kinds of situations where I just can't go. I just say, “I'm sorry, I can't be there.” I think it would send confusing signals, and it would establish some kind of affirmation, would be outside the realm that I'd like to affirm. So those decisions are made frequently, you know.

HARDY: The panel has asked this question: Can you comment on the method of determining from Scripture and in Scripture what is strictly cultural in the New Testament and what is for today? Common examples are things like head covering in First Corinthians, women in the ministry is on the list here, comment on that; First Timothy. But how do you go about determining what is something that is cultural and what is still for today?

SPROUL: First thing you do is you go out and you buy a book called Knowing Scripture, because it has a whole chapter on principle and custom, and how you deal with it. Because there's a biblical principle that addresses that decision, and that's whatever is not of faith is sin. Now, obviously you admit that there are certain things that are customs. You know, when Jesus tells the people to go out and He sends out the 70 throughout the villages of Israel, you know, not to wear shoes. This is not a universal mandate, cross-cultural mandate for shoeless evangelism in every generation, obviously.

There are certain things that are clearly customs tied to the culture of the time. And there are other things that are clearly principial that transcend time. But what you have to do, there are times when it's not immediately apparent to determine what is principal and what is custom. And I say this principle is the burden of proof is always on the one who says it's custom rather than principle. Because the principle applies that if I'm going to err, I'd rather err on the side of being over scrupulous of treating something that was a local custom, as if it were a transcendent principle, rather than ever being guilty of taking a transcultural principle of almighty God and reducing it to a first century custom.

And you know, you take that business about the covering, the head covering. I use that as the illustration in there. And I'm a voice crying in the wilderness. Because if you go and get ten commentaries on First Corinthians, you'll find 10 commentaries, commentators that were quick to point out that in Corinth – which was a seaport city, a sin city, the sailors coming there, big red light district – and that the sign of the prostitute was the uncovered head.

And so, Paul, obviously gave this mandate to the Corinthian community for the women to keep their heads covered, so as not to scandalize the community. And there is a case where this New Testament scholar studies the Sitz im Leben – the life situation – in which the letter was written. And says, “Aha! This must be why Paul told the women to cover their hair.”

I said, “No, there's an exegetical principle here. And the principle I would like to suggest to biblical scholars is that when the apostle Paul gives a reason for instructions that he imposes upon the church, you never, never, never, never, never substitute a different one! And Paul, in this case, doesn't say to the Corinthian community, “Have the ladies cover their heads because the prostitutes are walking around with their bare head.” And in fact, he appeals to creation! And if anything transcends local customs and boundaries, it's creation ordinances.

So, I said, “Those are certain things you look at.” Now, you take that whole question of covering your head. The reason he gives is for the woman covers her glory, shows her submission to her husband, and you can say, some texts say, that they are covered by a veil or whatever. So, the question is, well, is the submission of the wife to the husband, is that cultural? First century only? A lot of people think so.

And so, they would say, the fact that the woman is to be submissive, is a custom. And you show that submissiveness by the custom of the hair covering. And the customary hair covering is a veil, or the hair – however you translate that.

Then the next possibility is, well no, the submissiveness of the wife to the husband is transcultural. It’s a principial matter. But it varies from culture to culture how you display that willing submission. And in the first century, the way it was, was with a woman covering her hair. My mentor, John Gerstner, believed that the submission was principial; the hair covering was customary. And so, that's that.

Or you can go the whole hog and say it's all principial – that submissiveness is principial, head covering is principial and it should be with a veil – not with a kerchief, a babushka, or a hat, like, Hedda Hopper. I would say, it doesn't matter what the woman covers her head in. I think that what type of covering is customary. But I think the head covering is transcendal and principial, and I'm probably the only guy left to teaches that.

MACARTHUR: Yeah, and I would add to that those comments, which are very helpful, God has given the woman a covering. And that's another consideration. It's a creative covering in her hair being her glory. But I hear this talked about generically a lot. But nobody ever goes anywhere but First Corinthians 11 and First Timothy 2. I mean, I never heard anybody bring up anything else except those two things.

I really don't think you're asking a broad, sweeping, difficult issue here. It does come down to creation clearly in First Timothy 2. There's not any debate there. And there are creative elements to the First Corinthians thing, which would lead us to conclude that God has given women. I remember reading a medical report one time that says women's hair grows faster than men's generally, which I felt was very interesting. This wasn't written in any defense of that text. It was some deal, I don't know, showed up, somebody sent to me.

But I just don't think it's a big issue. You've got the clear abrogation of ceremonial law from the Old Testament in the New Testament, which deals with a lot of the issues there. So, I think you work your way through these passages. They’re not that ubiquitous. I mean, they're not all over the place everywhere. And where you come to these passages, you deal with them individually. And I I don't think that's there's a lot of mystery about doing that.

HARDY: Now you might comment further then, on that passage in First Timothy 2. You're obviously saying that that's not something that's a custom that that's something that goes all the way back to creation. Go ahead and summarize what that passage is saying about the role of women in the church when it comes to church leadership.

MACARTHUR: Well, I permit not a woman to teach or to take authority over a man. That's not vague. There's nothing obscure about that statement. And it fits perfectly with the fact that you have 66 books in the Bible, none written by a woman. You have 12 apostles, none of whom is a woman. You have elders or pastors in a church who have to be a one-woman man, according to the text of Scripture.

Spiritual leadership is male, from front to back. There are women who on occasion spoke for God – Deborah, Huldah. No woman in the Old Testament had an ongoing prophetic ministry. No woman in the New Testament had an ongoing apostolic, prophetic or teaching ministry. Aquila and Priscilla, we know in a personal, private way. You know, helping Apollos was commented upon earlier.

So, it all comes together in the simple statement: I permit not a woman to teach or take authority over a man. If she has anything, she wants to know anything, let her go home and ask her husband. I think that's in the due constitution of the church when it gathers together. And the rest of the passage flows down, “she shall be saved through childbearing.” That, of course, has troubled a lot of people, because there are a lot of, you know, approaches to that text.

I think you have to find the context which delivers to you the reason why he says that. She should be saved from what? From whatever stigma of second-class status you might draw from the creative order and whatever stigma you would draw from the fact that she was deceived and Adam was not. In other words, that seems to be the turning point in the text to reinforce how much a woman needs to be under a man. When she got out from under a man, she got deceived by the enemy, and led the whole race into sin.

And, “she shall be saved” seems to me, to work well toward the idea that having been stuck, as it were, with the stigma of an independent act which sends the whole race catapulting into sin. She is delivered from that if she, being godly, raises a generation of godly children. So, you know, the husband is the teacher, but the wife is the influence or the godly influencer in the family. I think God's balance is perfect.

I always think of preaching in Bucharest, in Romania to about a thousand pastors and their wives in a Romanian Church. And they were asking me questions. Somebody asked the question about what does it mean to be safe through childbearing? And I gave essentially this answer, “It sure doesn't mean you're going to get to heaven because you have babies.” And the place went dead silent – just absolutely dead silent.

And the moderator leaned over and whispered to me, “But that's what they believe.” They believe you can lose your salvation and the way a woman can lose her salvation is if she does anything to prevent having a baby; becoming pregnant. And so all these pastors have anywhere from 9 to 15 children. And so, I'm completely ignorant.

So, I said, “Well, I probably needed to explain it even more so they understand it and I'll help them.” And so, I went through this detailed explanation trying to work my way carefully through the text. And afterwards, he said, you know, you could just see those women looking at their husbands, saying, “Of all the Bible verses that you had to get wrong!”

MOHLER: I would just offer this. People often ask me, “How did you come to where you are theologically?” And of course, no man knows even his own mind and heart as well as he would like. But there's certainly a process of coming to know biblical truth that I can trace in my own life. And I trace a lot of it to the exercise of becoming a theologian and dealing with historical theology.

Certainly, the Scripture is the convicting power of Scripture, and the authority of Scripture is the first issue. But the Lord used in my life several things to help draw my attention to the crucial issues where truth and untruth were discerned from each other. You're going to come and you're either going to stand with Arius or with Athanasius. You're going to be with Augustine or with Pelagius; with Calvin or Sadoleto. You're going to be with Gloria Steinem or the Apostle Paul. That's just about how clear it comes to be.

And when you understand that this issue is not incidental, we're talking about principial and custom issues. I want to step back a little bit further from that and come at this with a perspective that asks, “What is at stake here in terms of God's glory?” And what we have in Scripture is a revelation that God created men and women in His image, male and female created He them. There is God's glory in the gender distinctions between men and women.

Now, once you start in Genesis one, with that distinction being an important signal of God's glory in creation, then you are departing from the postmodern feminist mindset. And you are locked into a certain hermeneutical understanding that you will expect from Genesis 1 onward – a pattern revealed of how the distinctions between men and women are going to bring glory to God, in the right relating of these genders to each other before God, men and women.

And so, we should expect after Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 that we will come to First Corinthians 11 and First Timothy 2 and any number of other passages. How can we be surprised? Gender doesn't become important all the sudden when you get in the New Testament age. It's important all along.

In Deuteronomy, you have the repeated injunctions that a man ought not to even dress like a woman, nor a woman to dress like a man because it robs God of His glory in the difference He made between male and female. And we come across, and of course, you have similar warnings. We have First Corinthians, not only 11, but you've got 1 through 10 that gets before that, to make very clear that one of the inherent issues of sinful rebellion in the human heart is to rebel against the distinctions that God has put here, in making us male and female.

And so, let's go to First Corinthians 11. Let's go to First Timothy 2 and let's understand that God here is being specific about how He intends His glory to be displayed. And in the teaching – an authoritative responsibility in the church – God's glory is in a man doing it. And I think a part of the reason why (I do not mean to psychologize the text), but I think a part of the reason why we see this is because God calls men to be men.

And God calls men to take this responsibility. And being slovenly, sinful creatures that we are, we wouldn't do it if God didn’t tell us to do it. And it's our responsibility to do it. And for a woman to usurp that authority violates not only the direct order of God's word, but also the order of creation, and instead subverts God's glory that is demonstrated in a man taking this responsibility in the church and in the home.

And thus, we have to have a hermeneutic that doesn't get to gender, just where gender is mentioned. And I understand some English professor’s going to be upset I used the word gender rather than sexes, but I promise you in the media it's harder to use the word sex and make clear you're talking about male and female. And so, I'm just going to use the word gender. But it's a part of God's glory, brothers. If it is, then we must rejoice in it. And find our place in it. And find our place under God's authority in Scripture.

HARDY: Well, I want to thank the panel for their willingness to give us their time this afternoon. Great questions and great answers for all of us. And I think it's appropriate that we thank them for their time with us this afternoon here.

SPROUL: We’re done with that.

MOHLER: It was fun. Thank you.