Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tony and Jesse discuss John 1:9-13, receiving Christ, and Christmas evangelism.

Jesse Schwamb 0:09
Welcome to Episode 167 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.

Tony Arsenal 0:16
And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast that puts Brothers in the hood.

Hey, brother.

Jesse Schwamb 0:32
Hey, brother. I'm pretty sure that's mostly what people think.

Tony Arsenal 0:35
Yeah. Yeah, the secret is we're talking about hooded sweatshirt though. We're both very white. And we live in suburban areas. That is actually a rural area, which is even less diverse and less suburban. It's true, less suburban.

Jesse Schwamb 0:51
Yeah, that's factually correct.

Tony Arsenal 0:52
So in case you can't tell reformed brother and listeners we are in the same room, which is always a little interesting. We're doing the traditional Sit next to each other on the same couch like awkward prom dates arrangement, because that's how we have to record but we're excited. It's it's midwinter. No reason time, which is my favorite time of year to record podcasts.

Jesse Schwamb 1:14
Yes. I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on the promenade or

Tony Arsenal 1:20
Yeah, yeah. cheek to cheek. Is there like an old song about like dancing cheek to cheek?

Jesse Schwamb 1:29
Yeah, Lady in Red?

Tony Arsenal 1:31
Just got really awkward

Jesse Schwamb 1:32
It did, listen, this podcast it this time of year is always the most awkward of the year. And

Tony Arsenal 1:39
it's hard because you would think it'd be easier to podcast together when you're in the same room. But actually, if you're used to podcasting, over Skype, like we usually do it actually be a little bit difficult.

Jesse Schwamb 1:48
You know, some of the greatest compliments that we've received are people thinking that we do get together every week. Yeah, person to podcast. It's true. So it's funny that when we're in the same room, we're like, Where's my personal space.

Tony Arsenal 2:00
Yeah, like Get away from me.

Jesse Schwamb 2:01
And actually, in keeping with that theme, we've decided to go with joint.

Tony Arsenal 2:07
Yeah, so by the time we're done, I'm going to be like, Get away from me Get away from my affirmation. I guess I'll start with my affirmation. So I'm affirming even though I make the jokes about No, no reason midwinter. I'm affirming Christmas time. And I don't mean that in necessarily the sense of the religious celebration of it. I mean, we've talked about how I like Christmas hymns, but I don't like sappy Christmas songs. But you know, you and I went to a local production called the Christmas rebels, which is not just a local thing. It's actually a national event that different production companies put on these Christmas revelry plays. And, you know, it's funny, because in the middle, and I think this is part of the nationwide thing in the middle, they do this song, called the Lord of the dance. And the Lord of the dance in the song is Jesus and he's basically going through this Gospel story. And then there's this refrain that the whole crowd joins in on and they sing dance, then wherever you want to be, I am the Lord of the dance, said he, and I'll lead you home, wherever you may go. I don't remember the rest of them. But either way, I'll have to look it up. But either way, like, this song is clearly, you know, the character of the song is Jesus. He's talking about how he was born in a manger, and then he danced for the scribes. It's, it's overtly Jesus. And then the entire crowd joins in, and they don't even realize and it's funny because I leaned over to you and I was like, surprised you're worshipping Jesus. And they don't even realize it. But what I'm affirming is common grace, I guess, if you really boil it down is that this time of year, there's this exceptional awareness and openness to things that the faith that people might not even recognize is going on. And even you know, this the rebels is interesting because in one sense, it's very pagan production like it's, it's there's this weird little play they do in the middle And it's about, you know, St. George and he dies and then comes back to life. And it's supposed to symbolize like the dying of the year and the room like the leaving of the light and then the coming back of the light. They do this weird like antlered dance thing that's about like the hundreds. We've got all this like pagan symbolism, and it says it's supposed to be a Solstice celebration, yes. But as hard as they seem to try to make it about the solstice, no matter what they do, they can't get away from singing traditional Christian Christmas hymns and songs, right? So So on one level, it's almost a little frustrating to sit there because you're like these, these people don't know what they're missing. But I know for a fact that there are people who have come out of that hungry for something and they don't know what.

Jesse Schwamb 4:43
Yeah, you're right. It was a really interesting experience. Because it's like, here's the lesson in people not being able to get away from the regimes that are central to God's narrative, this idea of death and resurrection of being reborn. And so I was struck by the same thing. Yeah, it's not even Is the Christmas time theme. It's just idea the revelry the sense of rejoicing in something was actually this rejoicing in this kind of supernatural. Yeah, willingness that takes place over all of humankind. And that results in a joyous restoration of the things die light is brought back into the world. And through that light, there is a birth that results in New Living. So even though the fates involved always still like you, they're just borrowing Christian themes. Because those are the things that bring us joy now, because there's the themes that are necessarily particularly interesting or the most entertaining, but it's the things that we all long for him because we long for them. We find that our hearts gravitate towards them and they become something special to us. So really was interesting, like in the Lord of the dance part, like people actually get up in his participation, like they dance in that. Yeah, and even though there's almost like I was thinking back to Daniel that Daniel, David, maybe Daniel also got down with it. Yeah, but David rejoicing dancing before the Lord had that same kind of vibe of just being happy in with the Lord of the dance. Yeah. So it was like a really special interesting thing.

Tony Arsenal 6:02
Yeah. And you know, it's, it's funny because they also have all of these. Part of I think the appeal of this is it becomes a very community driven event. For sure. It's the community in terms of the people, most of the people who are in the production are not professional musicians. There, people from the community usually have a fair amount of musical talent, but they're not professional musicians. But then throughout the course of the play, you know, I was explained to you like, you really have to go to the rebels more like a couple years in a row to sort of get an understanding of what's happening in this weird little play and the dances and the like symbolism, but there's several times where they have the crowd join in singing and the there's several songs that are they do every year so there's the Lord of the dance, there's don't an obese, which the Latin lyrics are just give us peace is like he was saying give us peace, repeatedly in different choruses. And then the last, the last song is is part of a song called the Sussex Carol, and it's God bless the master of this house. God bless the Mr. Sellers house. God bless, you know, everyone and it's you begin the play you the middle of the place focus on Jesus. And then the last part of the plate is essentially a benediction. So like, the whole thing really is structured like a worship service in a sense. And you know, it's interesting, because I know I know we back on Christmas and like, we have some covenant or listeners who are like, I can't believe you're talking about Christmas, and I'm with you right there. Like it's funny when someone on on the internet the other day posted that article about x Miss and how we shouldn't be offended by the accent x men, because it's really, it's really the chi it's just a shortened form of Jesus name. And I said, well, the part about Christmas should offend us is the mass part. Right? But But even though all of that's true, there's still this awareness and openness this time of year that I think Christians would do well to take advantage of a group and I don't think even even just taking advantage of it in the form of praying for the people. are exposed to Christmas, even at work. It's funny because people try really hard to say Happy Holidays, but they almost like can't get it out like they forget. And they say Merry Christmas. And that's an opportunity to stop and pray for that person to say, you know, this person has Jesus names on their name on on his lips, they don't even realize why they're compelled to say it. And that's common grace, right. And all common grace will eventually become a source of judgment for those who are far from God is that every gift that God has given us temporarily, we call it common grace, because you don't really have a better way to talk about it. But eventually, all of those common graces will be used as evidence in a person's kind of nation. So we should pause and pray that God would take that common grace and use it to call his elect to him in a redemptive sense as well.

Jesse Schwamb 8:50
Yes, yeah. What's interesting is that we I think you and I talked about this that particular area where this play took place isn't presently liberal area. Yeah, for sure. This is one of the I would say, the last bastions, where you can come in and hear these words proclaimed publicly. Yeah. And there is a beauty in that that will get were drawn to want to at least this time of year speak those words, put them on our lips. And I was just thinking anybody who seems like any of these old carols, they're so rooted in Trinitarian theology tell you what I think the Godhead Jesus Christ. And it's not like it's not the LG light. So the fact that people are at least having their tongues tied as it were to the name of Jesus Christ gives us good reason and pause to speak evangelistically this time of year and to be perhaps a little bit more bold, and sometimes that can just be asking, you know, do you know what you're singing? Like? Philip, did you know what you're talking about when you're saying these things? Yeah, but there is a beauty that it's almost like Christians get to walk in this time of year and hear words even like while they're shopping. That should be a bomb to us. Like what a joy to go to Kohl's or target. Yeah. And to hear the songs and to hear Jesus proclaimed in a way that's almost proud like yes, we're going to listen to Christmas music Yes, we're going to play it. And we're going to be joyful in it even if we don't know why that's at least a really good excuse to just enjoy it.

Tony Arsenal 10:07
Yeah, it's almost like a little bit of an oasis in the air it is where you can just sort of step back and actually, like, be a Christian outwardly without any sort of concern. I mean, like, you have to be concerned for all the same stuff you normally are. And it's not as though we should ever hide our Christian faith. But it's the one time a year where you have a good reasonable expectation that if you express your Christian faith outwardly, you're not going to get like, mugged. Like you're not going to get like spiritually assaulted or, like, you're not going to face the same kind of repercussions you may face other times a year, right? Like if you if you take a minute to, like talk about the meaning of Christmas at a staff party, right? It's not an uncommon thing for people at staff parties to sort of that conversation come up like, well, what's Christmas we need what do you do with your families? It's a perfect opportunity to say well, you know, we we give each other gifts in order to recognize the gift of salvation that that Christ is and that's what we're celebrating when we celebrate Christmas, not some special, special holy day. But it is an annual way for us to have a heightened focus on this particular element of the Gospel story. We gather on Christmas Eve to sing songs about the light of the world. I mean, there's all this rich symbolism that yes, there's a lot of unbiblical symbolism that happens, almost an umbilical that's not right on biblical symbolism that happens around this time of year. But there's also still this tremendous amount of biblical imagery that gets that gets brought into this celebration that we should capitalize on. Right. It's our capital that we should use. I agree. We've said before, you can't judge something by its abuse. And I think that also speaks to Christmas. And maybe what we're saying is like you just get built in excuses as a Christian, this right here

Jesse Schwamb 11:50
and there's a little bit more latitude. If Linus can do it. Yeah, surely. Then there's almost some expectation that somebody can speak to like what's the real meaning of Christmas? I think you're right. Like that's a great deal of common grace. Yeah. And I'm also the persuasion how you feel about this. I agree with you like that, as Christians the mass part that the overtly Catholic portion should be the piece that we get offended by perhaps the commercialism as well. However, there is still good work for Christians to be done to re appropriate this right. I'm we're not the people saying like, this is the day Jesus was born. And we're not saying that we're also acknowledging that this has been in our culture appropriated from celebration. Yeah, even with all that said, Why don't we take advantage of this time of the year where everybody, at least in some sense, is being pointed toward thinking about incarnation? Yeah, why would we step away from that and say, well, because it was it's also been appropriate in such a way from pagan celebration, and we're just gonna do away with it all together. I think that is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Tony Arsenal 12:48
Yeah, just like we make the joke about like I celebrate Easter 52 times a year. Like in a certain sense, we should be people that celebrate Christmas 50 times a year too, but just like it's a came in, you know, late spring to have a particular focus on the resurrection. It's also okay in midwinter to have a particular focus on the incarnation. As long as it's not becoming implicitly or explicitly obligatory,

Jesse Schwamb 13:14
or across as though it's more for me like, Hey, listen, all these people who normally don't think about it are being prone to think about it. We think about it all the time. So let's introduce it, let's say then, yeah, definitely, you should think about this. We think about it all the time, because it is the source of our life. He is the light of the world, but he's that same way. And on December 26, is he is in the 25th. Right? And so come be aparts Come dance with the Lord of the dance. Yeah. And while you're thinking about it, we want to take advantage or not take advantage. But this is like the entry point. Yeah. And you're giving it a massive entry point into people's lives in a way that you know, on like June six, they're not thinking this way. So why would we not take advantage of what the God has given us our own culture? To speak of him prominently?

Tony Arsenal 13:57
Yeah, so now that we've had our shared affirmation, why don't you Is with our shared denial.

Jesse Schwamb 14:02
Yes, we have a shared denial that's really like, again, this is all themes. Yeah,

Tony Arsenal 14:06
it is. We're on brand today.

Jesse Schwamb 14:08
Yeah, listen, we can't stop won't stop. So apparently, and I only just learned this and it sounds like you would also just learned this. There in speaking of the incarnation, we're denying against an upcoming video game release that's titled I am Jesus Christ, which allows players to take the role of Jesus and reenact stories from the New Testament. So the game is designed by a company called play way and it's going to be available if not now very soon. On the online gaming platform, it's steam.

Tony Arsenal 14:38
Steam, it's gonna be on Steam. Yes, he doesn't even know what that is. But that's actually a really big deal. It

Jesse Schwamb 14:43
is a big deal. Yeah, I mean, no various.

Unknown Speaker 14:48
Just saying like,

Jesse Schwamb 14:49
yeah, definitely calling me out on that. Yeah, that's true. I probably got a good appreciation for that. So here's, here's like a little quote from I guess, the developers who they say, become Jesus Christ. The famous man on earth in his highly realistic simulation game pray like him for getting super power performed famous miracles like came from Bible like casting demons healing and feeding people resurrection and more in I am Jesus Christ. Do you say anything else about this?

Tony Arsenal 15:18
I'll speak for itself I mean you can file this in the if you don't laugh you'll cry section of the podcast I mean, you know we we don't usually pregame our show too much but we talked a little bit about this and and it really, this kind of thing boils down in this case it seems like somebody who is really trying to do something right that is reverence like they're not making fun of Jesus like this comes on the tails of this like the same time of year as like this gave Jesus like Netflix film that's out everybody's freaking out about rightfully so. They're not this isn't that like they're not trying to make fun of it. It reminds me I don't know if you played this. Do you have a Gameboy when you were that age? They had this game called the was it called the armor of faith?

Jesse Schwamb 16:03
I don't remember that one. I remember another one for like, original Nintendo Bible ventures or something. Yeah,

Tony Arsenal 16:09
there was this game called armor of faith. And I never got past that, like, the first thing you get is called the fruit of the Spirit. And what it is, is you throw apples at people and when you hit a bad guy, they fall down to their knees and pray and it's only biblical. Yeah, that's exactly how I do evangelism too. But like, it's in that same vein, it's like a, a well, meaning developer, I think, I mean, I can't see a person's heart. Yeah. There's nothing about this that seems like it's mocking, trying to connect the next generation to the biblical story and to Jesus in a way that's going to reach them. And like it's, it's well meaning but it's so misguided. Yes, because otherwise what it boils down to a second commandment violations aside, although it's really related to this, of course, you should go back listener and listen to our second commandment episode because it's really tied to this is there's this understanding that like the Bible, is not enough. Like the the scriptures, the written word of God is not sufficient, right. But there's, there's God ordained ways for us to explain the Scripture. So all those people are like, well, you're not against preaching. Like, there's, there's a biblical command for us to explain and teach the scriptures and to preach. But all of these, you know whether it's Christian art, whether it's set storybook Bibles with second commandment violations with pictures of Jesus or pictures of God in it, maybe this is a little controversial, but storybook Bibles are like on their own, even without pictures of Jesus. All of these things are basically a way of saying that the word of God is not sufficient, the written word of God and the Word of God preached is not sufficient to connect with and teach people. And really, you know, Westminster Confession, one two ish, three ish not to that's just the list, chapter three. Sorry, section three of chapter one. The Word of God is self a testing, right because of the Holy Spirit's act of commune convincing us That it is the word of God. And unless the Holy Spirit does that no one will ever be connected to the script, right? No matter what, whether we make a video game, whether we do a Christmas pageant, whether we throw apples at people that have scripture verses on I mean, I remember one time we went to the I grew up in Minneapolis, that means we went to the Mall of America. And we did this event. I'm doing air quotes. You guys can't see what this evangelism activity where we each went to the ATM and we got $20 out. And we went up to the high level of the Mall of America, they have all these like walkways that go across the thing. And we wrote verses on them with the phone number to our church, and we dropped the $20 bill. This was our evangelism exercise. And the premise was like, Well, if we give them money with verses on it, yeah, they're going to call our church and become Christians. Right. But it was 50 kids that dropped $20 that's a lot of money. We had zero phone calls back. Yeah. So I guarantee you all 20 of those dollars ended up being spent at the mall that day, right? But we have to or a phone call. So like all of the gimmicks and the tricks we use. Now, content aside, there's nothing wrong with using art in a way that attempts to engage people for the gospel, of course. But if we ever get to the point where we implicitly or explicitly think that we have to have that in order to accomplish the purposes of God, we've now functionally denied sola script Torah.

Jesse Schwamb 19:22
Right? I agree. And of course, what makes this really unique in addition to all those things, it bothers me is it's a first player role playing game series Jesus. Yeah. And that is just fraught with even if you're going to use that in a way that's Reverend it's just fraught with all kinds

Tony Arsenal 19:38
of problems. Yeah, I mean, even the way they describe it

Jesse Schwamb 19:40
and the superpower thing, which we've talked about before, but you can see like that's where people tend to go, let's make it supposed to be of course, at the end of the day, some kind of form of entertainment right? So it's turning this the spiritual ism into some kind of way where you especially like, I don't get the part like can you pray hard enough like staring the superpower that you need from God? Even if we can say, Well, this is harmless because it's just good, clean fun, which I think is what they intended with it. It's so damaging with respect to the kind of theology that it's impounding into the person who's playing. And primarily, it's going to be children playing this right thing.

Tony Arsenal 20:15
Yeah, pretty much on supervised by their parents, right.

Jesse Schwamb 20:17
So it's just a strange, really strange thing. But I like what you said. Because when we talk about these things, I think sometimes people just think like, we're old men with a chicken or fish off our lawn. And really what we're saying here is these things are really damaging. We're seeing the outflows of poor theology. Yeah, we're good theology doesn't make this game. It just doesn't. Right. And so we need to think about the stuff that we consume, even when it's like good, you know, kind of Christian clean fun. Yeah. So it just seems so wild to me. It's right. It's kind of thing you should just laugh at. And not But

Tony Arsenal 20:49
yeah, I mean, there's a there's an element of it almost being like a like a cheater shortcut of what they're trying to do, too is, is it certainly possible and You know, you can do this in movies, you can do this in writing and like fiction stories CS Lewis comes to mind. Although there's issues with CS Lewis theologically, and then the whole pursuit of I mean, as land himself in the way that you have to describe him in the books is already for some people on verdell a second command violation. But that aside, there's a way to do art well, that incorporates gospel themes or the gospel itself this in a way that is appealing and winsome, and serves to bring attention to the gospel and draw people to the Scriptures to find out more. This is not that like this is it? This is a cheater shortcut of that, right? This is the equivalent of the Passion of the Christ, versus like a movie with gospel themes that really draws you to the scriptures. It's like it's just it's cheating. I can't think of another way to say like, it's just saying instead of being artistic and careful and strategic and using skill to draw people to attention to something. It's like they just throw it right in your face. It's like, it's like if I was gonna say I would really love a great cheeseburger, I was just thinking this I would get so hungry. It's must be lunchtime. And you're like, all right, and you came back from from McDonalds. Like there's a time and place for McDonald's, right? But when I say I really want a great cheeseburger, that's not McDonald's. And this is kind of the same thing is like, if this developer wanted to do something that glorifies God and draws gospel themes and draws attention to the Scriptures, that's certainly a possible and worthwhile endeavor. But this is this is just not that. And I like I said, I don't want to impugn this person's motives, I have no idea what their motives are, maybe they maybe they're not Christians, and they just think this will sell which somebody in your department if they think this is going to sell, don't look it up because you're going to find all sorts of second commandment violations and stuff. I mean, you can probably try to find a text on the article, but even that, like there's not more to the story than what we're giving you. But it's it's just not it's just not the No matter what the motives are like this, you're right. Good theology does not make a video game like this.

Jesse Schwamb 23:04
And this is good because it actually does legitimately for ones transition us into what we wanted to tell you guys today. But we've used this metaphor, lots of times, I think of the calorie intake. And you're right, if you let's say you want to eat healthy, you need certain number of calories, you can get all the calories from Oreos, or you can eat well balanced meals. And I think this is predominantly why we look to the scriptures. For instance, we find no physical descriptions of Jesus, of course, we find, of course that he mature, he actually got bigger. But beyond that, and I think the reason why is because any description, and God is so wise in this age description he would have given us would fall flat of the reality. And this is not to take away from the fact that disciples did actually see him right. They did live with him, and that was appropriate for them because they were seeing Jesus in the flesh. But for us, that'd be having a good physical description, which God knew trying to represent in some kind of way, is to say that he understood we would always fall short every description would fall short. So this is why the Bible speaks so predominantly, on the other hand, that of seeing him by faith, right? And so I think when we do these other things, but we're actually impeding is the process that God gave us to see him by faith, because this is the cheap substitute this is the McDonald's hamburger, it is the sleeve of Oreos, right? What we really need is the killer content that comes through a seeing him by faith because faith is much harder. And that's something is given by God to exercise that faith to see God and to see Jesus Christ reflected in that way is something more difficult. So what you said resonates with me, good art is really thoughtful. It is really nuanced. It's difficult to even think about this, like when we try to speak about these concepts. We try to speak in a way that's faithful and nuanced. And I don't always do that because we're speaking off the cuff. But it takes more mental effort in order to in a closer fidelity to the Scriptures to speak that way. But that is good Christian discipline. Yeah. With the ones that we love, we want to speak accurately about them. We don't want to be kind of loose tongue about how we describe our relationship with them or who they are as people. We don't want to be, you know, just impetuous with our language. Yeah. And so when we're tied to the Scriptures, by way of saying we're not going to speak loosely, we're not going to reflect Jesus in a way that is inappropriate part of that is the way in which we actually depict him or the lack of depiction that we use for him.

Tony Arsenal 25:21
Yeah, and you know what, we'll get into our specific topic here in a second but this time of year, it's so important for us to be charitable and gracious to other people. I mean, we should be charitable gracious to everyone all the time. But for for Christians, this time of year is rife with pitfalls in this area. Sure. Because whether it's whether it's the cheesy Christmas him that is maybe a little soft on theology, like it's real easy to like, just get mad about. I mean, we joked around a little bit about like some of the Christmas show set at Christmas. Yeah, that's the one thing you like to set at Christmas hymns. Right? Right, like Silent Night. Yeah, for sure. Even if even if we're talking about the silence of marriage. She gives birth like, that's bad theology like Mary had a normal Christian, a normal human pregnancy and a normal human birth. She didn't like teleport Jesus out of her womb in some sort of like, super easy birth, where we have no reason to think that her birth was any easier or difficult than an average couldn't. That couldn't write, even child bear. But at the same time, it doesn't really benefit the church for us to like, stand up in the Christmas service and be like, that's dogmatism. How dare you saying that? Like, it's okay to sing that and recognize that it's not 100% accurate. So there's a time for us to be super careful and meticulous with our speech. And I err on the side of that, if I'm going to make a decision, and I'm not 100% sure which way to go. I'm going to err on being meticulous and cautious. But there's also a time to sort of and this goes for I think, worship music in general. Yeah, for sure to step back, recognize that art is not always photorealistic. Like that's that's not the point of art, most of the time. point of artists communicate something true even in ways that may, on a technical level be false, right? But we have a there's a we're sitting in my my family room and there's a painting that my wife has painted. That is not a photo. It's not photorealistic. It's not even actually have a real scene. But it's actually quite beautiful and, and communicate something true about nature and about, about art and beauty, even though it doesn't actually represent something real in real life. And I think sometimes our Christmas hymns although we always have to be careful in our worship music in general, we always have to be careful not to say something false. We also have to recognize that you can say true things in ways that are not entirely proper is the technical, the technical term, we I mean, that extends to how we always talk about God, we talk about proper and improper analogies, and almost everything we say about God is an improper analogy, very little that we can say about God. It's a proper analogy, right? So we should be cautious and gracious. But then again, like sometimes things go too far. This Video Game is too far too far. Christmas shoes is too far. Way too way too far. I don't care if last Christmas, you gave me your heart and the very next day you threw it away. I don't care. The heart

Jesse Schwamb 28:11
is deceptive. So why would you

Tony Arsenal 28:16
give it away and then throw it away? Throw it away? If you have it.

Jesse Schwamb 28:19
Yeah, throw it away. So in that vein, let's get to today, the topic for today's episode, the clock

Tony Arsenal 28:25
is shining to tell us to get going. The things you realize are making noise in the room you're recording and when you don't

Jesse Schwamb 28:31
resist real life. So let's get to what we want to talk about on this episode. And speaking of describing God in ways that are appropriate, let's go to the scriptures. Then. Let me read a couple of verses. And we chose this passage, because this is one that is often focused on this time of year and it's absolutely glorious. Yeah. So let me read from the beginning of john, I want to read the first couple of verses. And then nine through 13. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was In the beginning with God, all things are made through him and without Him was not anything made that was made in Him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, get the world did not know him, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But you all who did receive Him who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not a blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Tony Arsenal 29:39
Yeah, five podcasts over. We'll just keep reading. We'll just keep reading john that that'll be the podcast with this has now become a live audio Bible podcast. I mean, what, on one level, like what can you say about a verse like that? Like, it's so rich, it's so beautiful. And like rightfully so like this is the Holy Spirit's with Words. But this passage is important because this time of year, like we talked a lot about how like this time of year people are open to it. In Christmas at the Christmas rebels, right? Jesus comes to his own people, right. And most of those people did not receive Him. Most of the people at the play that we went to, they sang about Jesus. They sing worship songs about Jesus, they clapped when actors on the stage gave glory to God, right? But then they walked out of there, and they ignored every bit of it. So so we have to understand like, how do we account for that? How do we account for the fact that Christ is the light of the world? And the scripture very clearly says gives light to everyone? Like it's not ambiguous, right? But how do we also reconcile that with kind of our Calvinistic theology that people still remain in the darkness

Jesse Schwamb 30:52
and that's the unique juxtaposition of these series of verses which I love because you hit it right on, especially this time of year in different traditions and You have the at the same time, the idea that Jesus is the light in the darkness has not overcome that light. And then you set that over and apart against, but those that he came to his own did not receive, right. So the one time there is this light that is purposeful and abundant, and is there prevalent for all to see. And at the same time, there's some kind of nuance here, where there was a rejection of that light, right? There's no judgment of innocence and rejection at the same time this absolutely profound.

Tony Arsenal 31:31
Yeah, and I think you know, when we when we understand this, of course, you always have to take the Scripture and put it into context. So it's, it's great that you read, you know that this whole passage, or at least the most pertinent parts. And you see here in verse five, it says, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it out. One of the things that's important to remember is that the Bible wasn't written in English. And this is actually a passage this verse here it says the darkness is not overcome. It is actually a really difficult word to Define and to translate and I don't know off the top my head which translations use this but another way to translate it is the darkness did not understand it. Right and and the idea is that the darkness did not grasp it, it did not lay hold to the light. And there's a combat like a combat metaphor going on where the darkness cannot overcome the light meaning the light overcame the darkness. But there's also that element of grasp that the darkness did not cling to or didn't hold fast to the light right so there's there's the darkness that does not receive the light and it can't receive the light because it can't understand it because it can't understand it. It also can't overcome it. Yes, but at the same time now we have to account for why is it that some who legitimately are darkness, right? Christ came into a dark world. It's not like there were these pockets of regenerate people who apart from God's grace, were were able to comprehend or understand Christ. He came into a world that was filled with darkness, all men I mean, john is very clear. With with The idea of total depravity like there's a portion where it says that Christ did not trust himself to them, because he knew what was in the heart of men, right. And it's a universal statement. He's not talking about just those particular men. I mean, the text is highlighting a specific group of men. But then john comments on the fact that Christ knew what was in the heart of men universally, right? So we have to account for Well, how is it that some do actually received? Yes,

Jesse Schwamb 33:24
that's the part that I really appreciate about this passage. And that's what drew me to it is, there is this theme here that we can sense where there's a struggle between faith and unbelief. Right? And the question is, how do we understand that struggle? What is that war like? And so when we get to the letter verses, and john is basically saying, Listen, here's the deal. The natural man cannot receive Christ. It's essentially as if there is historicity, embedded in this of course, he's saying that when Jesus came in the flesh, his own people, the Jews themselves, for the most part, rejected him, but I read this also as well as this is the continuing saga right? That Jesus comes his presence is known he's the one who has come and sit in the place of mankind and even still now there is a rejection because the natural man cannot comprehend them. And even though that darkness can be overcome, but it's only by the installation of faith that is by God's hand Yeah, it's not as if like what we need to do is just work ourselves up into a frenzy here and some that will be able to receive him if we preach the right sermons if we give the right words if we have the right $20 bills with the right

Tony Arsenal 34:28
verses written on make the right video game on

Jesse Schwamb 34:31
Yes, if we hit people with the right Bible, banana is a fruit or whatever. Which by the way, I have this image now to talk about Mario Kart of like the Bible banana

Tony Arsenal 34:39
Yeah, there you go. And you throw it out you somebody needs to convert Mario Kart into evangelism like

Jesse Schwamb 34:44
that's that's the fruit the spirit of like patience because you could slow down yeah, you kind of like you didn't win but really you want in the end is now you're more patient and kind.

Tony Arsenal 34:52
But this idea, I think it's clear to me that you haven't played Mario.

Jesse Schwamb 34:57
Does this bring you out the banana?

Tony Arsenal 34:58
Yeah, it slows you down. Yeah, I guess

Jesse Schwamb 35:02
I could encourage you to be patient because like, you get here with a band and say, Oh, this is awful. But you know what God's teaching us to slow down

Tony Arsenal 35:11
I think really encourages me to cos I try not to cuss but Mario Kart sometimes brings out the worst in me.

Jesse Schwamb 35:19
I can't wait to play this game with you. That's gonna

Tony Arsenal 35:21
be amazing. We should we should really live recording. Should we? Maybe we shouldn't. We should fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience and not

Jesse Schwamb 35:30
cussing something to come. Yeah. So I'm really, I've really been drawn into this verse and speaking about being born. And so it seems to me how can we read this where it says being born not of the blood, or of the will of man, and that seems very direct to us, in the context of this battle between faith and unbelief, that we have to look at this, these verses and say, when the light comes into the world, we have such a clenched fist within us that we want it immediately even though we see the light deny it, yeah, we don't want to believe it, and so on. Then if that wasn't enough, john says, Oh yeah, by the way, it comes by the will of God. Right? That's where the that's where this birth comes from.

Tony Arsenal 36:07
Yeah. And you know, just because I posed the question earlier before we kind of get into more of a, like a personal reflection mode.

I've talked a lot about how sometimes when you run into a verse or a passage that is particularly like when it gets thrown at you by a person from a different part of the Christian tradition is trying to undercut your theology. So in this case, it's not uncommon for Armenians or Roman Catholics or some kinds of Lutherans that don't really understand their own theology and are actually just Armenians to throw verse nine at you and say, like, see, the light was enlightening. All men all means all right. But if you just read a little bit more of the scripture in context usually clears itself up. And, you know, on one level theology is about this is the rule of faith. analogue of faith, right is you take the verses that are clear, and you understand what they're saying. And then the verses that are unclear, you interpret those in light of the clear verses. Right? Right. It's not as simple as just like lining up which verses you think are clear and comparing who has more clear verses in their favor, but it's kind of that simple like on a grand scheme it is. And so sometimes we we come up not we like me and you Although me, maybe more than you. Sometimes Christians. Reform Christians come off as a little arrogant because they look at a verse like this and they go, Well, how else could you possibly read? who were born out of blood, nor of the will of man, come on? Like on one level, that's, that's the reality. Yeah, laser. Like if you look at the Scripture, and you read it comprehensively, and you look at the passages that are radically clear about how it is that a person comes from being an enemy of God, to being a person who trusts in God and is now a friend of God. It's the will of God like God. is the first actor in that equation. So when we we get it thrown at us the true light which gives light to everyone else means all? Well is it all means all in light of the fact that this is the will of God. Yeah, right. And then of course, you have to get into systematic conversations about what it means that is the will of God but, but on the surface of this text, you know, when you get that verse that gets thrown at you by an Armenian or someone from a different part of the tradition, who you just can't quite figure it out. You know, like I think of the passage in first john, where he says, He died to forgive all people or sins or however exactly, it's phrased. Like, if you just read a little bit more, just read a little bit more that usually solves it. But I do I love this passage. And you know, this, john is such a brilliant writer. It's really clear to me when you read john in comparison to the other gospels, not not that Matthew, Mark and Luke were dumb people, or anything like that, you just call out the other gospel. No, but like they're doing something Different right there writing with a different purpose in mind, whether we can retrieve that purpose, I guess this is a matter of debate. But john is clearly being written at a point where the theology of the church has come to a further stage of development then mark or Matthew, right, right. And this prologue demonstrates that because not only do we have a basically fully fleshed out trinitarianism Christology, but we have a fully fleshed out doctrine of election and predestination. Yes, we have a doctrine of illumination with the light of the I mean, we've got almost all of the doctrines of systematic theology, all of the main low side of systematic theology are embedded in john one, right? So if you're going to memorize a whole chapter of the Bible, john one is a really good one to do because it's got everything there. But it's so clear to me because, you know, we talk a lot about justification, or form. Christians tend to be really obsessed about penal substitution and double amputation and these are super important categories. But we don't always spend as much time thinking about and talking about adoption in Christ as we should, even though our confessions have a whole chapter on it, we don't always spend as much talking about that. And what I think is really profound about John's Gospel. And the prologue to John's Gospel is that when he wants to give in this, this prologue form, right, the prologue of a book is designed to give you a summary and a thesis statement for the whole book, which john confirms, in the end that you might believe that you might have life in his name, right? it nicely closes this up. The name is the key here, trusting in Christ and His name is the key. He doesn't focus on justification. He doesn't focus on turtle substitution. He focuses on being made a part of the family of God being adopted and having the right the legal right to be called the children of God. Yes. And then all that comes with that. Yeah. And that's, that's why it's important in chapter one here to establish the fact that the word is the Son of God, right? Because if you don't know what The Son of God is if you don't have a fully a fully robust understanding of the Trinity, then adoption doesn't really make any sense, right? It becomes this weird Mormon idea where like, somehow we become deified. But in john here that that word, the right or the authority to become children of God is important because we're talking about a legal right and a legal status change of we were once enemies of God. And now we are not only just friends of God, but we're children of God, right. And we've got all of the privileges and benefits that goes into it really interesting exercise is if you take john chapter one, and you take Ephesians chapter one into and you kind of like, synthesize them together, they flow so nicely together, because Paul starts out talking about, you know, election in Christ before the foundation of the world and then he flips over into being given the rights to a co inheritance. And Paul and john are saying the exact same thing in very different ways, but they're saying the exact same thing.

Jesse Schwamb 41:54
Yeah, you're right. When you get adoption, you're automatically getting justification and rational sanctification So what strikes me having a talked about this with you is that at Christmas time, we're often celebrating halfway and you need the full scope. So to me when I look at this, this passage, it's in two parts. And if you only get halfway, actually all you get is judgment. Right? So to celebrate just Jesus coming into the world and stopping there, even if you say he is Savior, and he's Messiah, and he's manual, which is all true, and that he's living and perfect obedience to God, dying on the cross, transferring our debts into himself, paying that rising from the dead as our brother, the only way he becomes a brother, he is just halfway there we stop there. The only way is if we are made adoptive sons by which are children by which God opens our hearts through faith right to him. Yeah, you need both. It's not just enough to say Jesus kind of like, is that a gift in a sense, but it's also kind of mission and result in future judgment. If all we get to is just that Jesus came, right, what we need is the second part which is to Who believe you have been given faith, not of the will of man, but of the will of God? That itself is just as great a gift might I say, like, in a sense, almost a greater gift as Jesus coming in flesh? Yeah. Because if Jesus just came in the flesh, but God does not regenerate our hearts, all we've done is we're sitting in condemnation. Yeah, we need that kind of regeneration. That's why we talk about it so much. That's why it's not just a matter of, you know, saying the right words coming to the altar, giving a matter of confession, where we don't have the fruit of the spirit that's grown into our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need both of these things. And it's nice at the end of the day, actually, it's a blessing at the end of the day, to rest in the fact that when you are adopted, it's not because you chose the parents and somehow manifested all of the paperwork and brought everything together. It's that someone else chose you, right? It's where you rest in the fact that there's nothing then that I can do to earn that and there's nothing that I can do to lose that sense of adoption.

Tony Arsenal 43:58
Yeah, yeah. You know, that is not at all to undercut penal substitution? Right? I mean, we did a whole atonement series on the different models of the atonement. And I think our conclusion you can correct me if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I think our conclusion was mostly, you can't really isolate any of the atonement theories from the others if you don't have absolutely if you don't have all of the different atonement theories, in some measure, then you have a weird, a weird non biblical version of what what Jesus did for us even things like moral exemplar theory, we we still have to incorporate. But at the same time, you're exactly right, that if all we have at Christmas time, if all that we celebrate at Advent is the coming of Jesus. That's actually terrifying. Right? Sure. when when when Adam celebrated the first coming of God after the fall, right, the reverse advent of God after the fall, he hid himself, right, right. And you got to think about the fact that like Adams naked He's hiding in a bush like that can't be comfortable. Right? Right. But his his fear. I mean, I don't say that to be funny. But like his fear of God outweighed his fear of this new sensation of pain, sir, right, his fear of God that in his recognition of his own sin and guilt and his lame attempt to cover himself with fig leaves, right? His recognition of that is what you get if you don't have the gospel added to the coming of Christ. Right and so that's that's where I think we we need to understand this passage because here here's where the passage flips over. Right? There's there's all these different spots in the Scripture, where we see this law gospel preaching exemplified, yeah, so people, people who want to sort of come out like gospel preaching like it's somehow not a biblical thing is when you think about the way you're talking about it, right? There you were became, there was the Word the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. It was like the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not grasped it, right. That's not that's What a happy statement. Right? It's not. On one level, there is an element. As I said, there's an element of delight, overcoming the darkness, that sort of a combat motif, that it's good that the light didn't overcome the dark or the light overcame the darkness. But that's not good when you're the darkness. Right? Right. And so the rest of this is talking about how we become part of the light, how we are enlightened by the sun in a salvific way, as opposed to this general enlightening that happens to all men. And here's where it is. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father and here it is full of grace and truth and if you want it and anyone ever wants to say, No, no, that's not law gospel. The very next passage here just

Jesse Schwamb 46:45
stole this from me I was

Tony Arsenal 46:46
just gonna say that. But first verse 17, right, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth through Jesus Christ, like john is literally contrasting the line that God Dare you Sir, how dare you?

Jesse Schwamb 46:58
That was gonna be like, my big Reveal but

Tony Arsenal 47:00
but like I got I don't know, like I didn't intend to go this way. But like I don't understand how people can look at the scriptures, right, whether it's this section in john, or whether it's Paul in Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians, Paul. Yeah, Paul wrote second in Ephesians. Right? You were once children of wrath following the prince of the air, like all this terrible stuff, but God rich and mercy, like there's these spots where the text flips over. And usually there's actually a word that is contrasting Yes, like there's a literal grammatical phrasing that shows you linchpin. This is a huge contrast. And and people just miss it. And I think at Christmas time, that's what it is, is people mistake, the law for the gospel in celebrating the coming of Jesus apart from what he's done, and why he had to do it.

Jesse Schwamb 47:46
Right. And this is not john saying, well, Moses was all about law when Jesus came, he's just love. This idea of grace and truth is essentially extension of the law saying, grace in the sense that here's like, the divine on merited favor and blessing of God, would you not deserve because you've disobeyed the law. So it's almost as if he's bifurcating the saying, If Jesus comes, and you do not receive Him, again, by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, all you've got is what Moses wrote for you, right? If you receive God by the will of God, then what happens is now you have that favor of God. Yeah. Now the law which you should have obeyed, has been obeyed on your behalf in perfect submission. And that is this beautiful truth. Yeah. So like, I love this idea, of course, that Jesus comes and he's like us, he's wrapped in flesh. He's He's a baby, just like us, Mary would have gone through all the birth pains because that was the curse and punishment that happened in the beginning of in Genesis. And yet at the same time, I push against these ideas of like, well, let's just come in like, look at the cute little baby Jesus like he is a baby. I'm sure he was super adorable because babies generally are adorable. But here also is the King of glory. Right? Here's the one a nation Is it going to die down to here's one of the people should fear and there's a sense at least in the New Testament in the gospels when we see in of course the three wise men come and Wiseman rather come to see him that there is this is a at least understand partly the idea and we ought to too, because there's something we've talked about this before. I think there's something dangerous about Jesus. Yeah, even as a child, there's something dangerous about him. There is a combat combating that happens here. It's both spiritual and physical. Because then not long after this, of course, we're gonna have Herod come and wipe out all these

Tony Arsenal 49:29
now You stole my reveal. I was gonna go there.

Jesse Schwamb 49:33
You're welcome.

Tony Arsenal 49:34
I was just gonna say like, on one level, Harry gets it. Like he really gets it. Yeah, he understands that Jesus is going to be his undoing. Yeah, like he gets it that when the Messiah comes his ability to live, however he wants and to retain his tiny pathetic little power in this postage stamp size Kingdom in the Middle East. That that's done. It's all done right? There's no more King hair. In the grand scheme of things, right, and he had a choice, you know, he's got the scriptures in front of them, he has a choice to go with the wisemen. Right? And it's, there's, there's this interesting sense of irony in that passage, right? Is that Herod tells he tells them exactly the right orthodox thing. Tell me where to find him, I'd love to go worship Him. Right, right. But then he doesn't, right, the darkness did not understand the light and could not overcome the light. So the matter what Herod did, he tried his best to hang on to his authority and ability. And in the grand scheme of things, it was him trying to hang on to his own sin, right and not being able or willing to grasp on to Jesus as the as the light of the world as the Messiah. And the the theological explanation for why that happened is both and that God did not will him to do that, but also that he had hardened his own heart against the truth of the gospel. Yeah, so so we have to understand, you know, again, there's these contrasts in Scripture. JOHN is not saying that the will of God somehow overrides undoes the will of man. Right, right. The reason Herod didn't obey and follow Jesus is because Herod was a sinful man who didn't want to obey and follow Jesus. He wanted his he wanted to retain his power more than he wanted to follow Jesus. But that's that's part of the beauty of the gospel is that when Christ comes in, and he wants to overcome the darkness in our hearts, there's there's no fighting yet. Yes, that's what we mean when we say irresistible grace, right? Not that we not that we somehow are going to kick and scream. And but we can't resist it because it's that much stronger than us. It's irresistible because of what God does in making us not resist it. Yes, that's how it becomes irresistible, is that it's, it is itself the things that the thing that makes us no longer resist it. It's like, it's like the most compelling convincing argument isn't something that you have to kick and scream against, because it's convinced you Yes, and of course This is a different thing. It's but it's an infallible, ineffable convincing, that overcomes us by making us no longer resistant to it. Right. So So yes, it's the will of God, but the will of God functions by grace and truth, overcoming our objections in many cases, right, that there's still a reason for apologetics. There's still a reason for us to go to that. Yeah, play and blame the story of the gospel to people. But at the end of the day, this is it's so freeing also, to recognize that I am not responsible for being that compelling force. Because if someone does not believe it's not because ultimately, I was a failure, right. It may secondarily be because I didn't do what I needed to do, but that was ordained by God. So this this passage, I think, is such a beautiful way of kind of unpacking those themes. And at Christmas time, like this is a perfect way to introduce someone to the gospel. Yes, right. If you are, I don't normally think that. This is a super effective way to do evangelism? I don't think street preaching is typically going to be the most effective thing you can do. I think one on one personal evangelism not in the sense of like, I'm going to become best friends and they'll just see I'm different and they'll just that I don't think that that's normally the way God does things. He he operates by us verbally proclaiming the gospel but he does it in predominantly a one on one. Exactly. This is a perfect passage, whether your street preaching outside of a gospel play or outside of the Christmas pageant, right? If I was the kind of person would do this standing out on the green in Lebanon, New Hampshire, as people fall out of the out of the Christmas rebels and saying, Do you want to know the Lord of the dance? Do you want to know what that songs about? You want to know why you have a strange calling? Why that song stuck with you more than the random song about the factory workers did right? why that is let me tell you, because your darkness and Jesus's light and you can't overcome him if he wants. If he wants you all whether you're doing that personally. This passage takes you all the way through that it's a perfect Christmas. evangelism passage and we don't even always think about this as a Christmas passage because it's not the traditional Nativity baby in a manger kind of passage that we look to. But this is the christmas gospel and like distilled rarified theological form.

Jesse Schwamb 54:13
Yes, I totally agree. So let me turn us now, as we kind of move toward the close to poor metaphors for things that we've just spoken about. So I thought about this for a long time in terms of coming up with a metaphor for this idea of this irresistible grace. So let me throw one at you. All right, let's do it. So this is going to be broken because in this in metaphor, I'm going to use just physical health as an example. We know that sin of course impacts physical health, but setting that aside for a moment, think about the fact that for the most part, our normative position our body wants to be well God is created, I bought bodies to fight disease right most part now, if you get like bronchitis, if you get some kind of bacterial infection, and you are sick, as we start out in our own spiritual lives, what we need is a massive intervention at some point, right? And if that intervention occurs, there's a sense where we're that there's an irresistible recovery that happens. So here's the wild thing, if you're sick and you're bacterial infection, you go to the doctor, he hooks you up your sinus infection, let's say, he hooks you up with some good old antibiotics. The thing about antibiotics is, most of them, the ones that are commonly prescribed, they don't actually kill the bacteria, they prevent it from multiplying, right? And so what happens is that gives your immune system an opportunity then to move in and destroy it, because now has the upper hand on it. So here's the sense of like, once there's a radical intervention, this regeneration in the physical composition of your body, so to speak, with respect to the introduction of this force, which is, in this case, to antibiotics, your body is mood irresistibly to wanting to heal move toward that healing. This is super broken. I regret this actually now. But this idea, like you said that normatively we resist God so in other words, like to your point, it's not that like God is override The wheel because where we want to be is hard hearted toward guide but it's also almost like if you have like a delicious Piece of cake I'm scrapping the metaphor now if you have a delicious piece of paper most people don't say like oh I hate that sugar I just like it's overrated. My will like all I wanted to do is eat healthy and necessary me. There were toward it. It's like It's delicious. I'd like to have a piece of cake. Yeah. So it's this idea that Yeah, God is not like taking us and just trampling us down like, this is something beautiful but the way Jesus comes he comes as the baby King of glory, Lord of all. And yet what he does is in transforming us, he wins us he wins as for himself and yes that combative language but it's it's a winning where we're just like, why was I ever like that? This is what I want to be God new best. Yeah. And it's gracious because everybody has the hard natural heart. So for like we said before for him to save one. Is that grace and truth?

Tony Arsenal 56:54
Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe to try to rescue your metaphor a little bit. It's it's more like I think like, the heart wants to be, right. That's what it's designed to do for sure and left uninjured or unimpeded, it will beat, right. But then someone dies. Right? Right and, and their heart stops beating. And all that's required, I say all that require, like, it's a simple thing. But if they get that heart beating again, if they do something, if there's some intervention, that that allows it to beat again, the heart is going to start beating again, right? And the reason that this metaphor works is because this is the metaphor scripture use, of course, when you have a heart of stone, which isn't necessarily trying to say like a physical heart of stone, right? It's talking about a dead heart, right, a dead spiritual heart. Well, when when God puts a new heart in it, that heart beats, I mean, it's interesting, you know, used to work in kidney transplant. And one of the things that's interesting about heart transplant, they don't hook the heart up to the nervous system, right? In a normal heart, a normal person's heart is connected to the nervous system. And there's an electrical impulse comes from your brain that helps regulate it. But in a transplanted heart, they don't do that. Right. It's all based on enzymes and metabolism. And that's the interesting thing is when they put that new heart in that person, they don't need to tell it to be. It just does what it's designed to do. Right. And our spiritual regeneration is the same thing is that in our, in our I say, natural and kind of quotation marks in our post fall natural state, which is actually our unnatural state. Our hearts don't work. And then God regenerates us and gives us that new heart. He doesn't have to continue to tell it to be. I mean, he he he does private. But he upholds it. But but at the same time, like the miracle is the new heart and then the new heart does what the new heart does. And that's where we talk about irresistible grace. Yeah, that new heart and the transplant he irresistibly beats.

Jesse Schwamb 58:53
So in other words to bosmer language kind of like this. We were made for an unnatural state right? It should have been natural. It wasn't the beginning but because of sin, it's become corrupted to such a degree that now the state where we want to be in which is complete oneness with God relationship with him is now an unnatural state, right? If somebody could kick us out from the natural state of unnatural, we would at the end of that be like, yeah, this is what I wanted all along. Yeah, it's just that we are stupid children that are hard hearted and stiff necked because of sin. And we need somebody to spiritually kick us in the face or throw the banana fruit through the Bible fruit at us. Yes, spin us around. And then once that happens, where there's never going to be a point where I think anybody's gonna be like, well, I want to go back to that not right. Yeah, that would never happen. To me. There's no this sense of like, what God is now as God's making robots, right? There's a bang him because he's not only overwhelmed, read in your will but he's overpowered to such a degree. If that's what it is, Why say God overpowered me every time because like a good parent that knows what the children needs when the children is he Young, and it's just stupid and foolish. I want that parental guidance and yeah,

Tony Arsenal 1:00:04
yeah, you know, and then I think we can wrap up with this is, you know, the common Armenian trope of like what God's gentlemen. Right. And it actually really frustrates me because they apply. They apply, like grotesque language to the gospel when they talk about how God, God won't rape people and you know, talking about how God God is a gentle lover who only only moves for when you consent. And yeah, when you posture it that way that makes all the sense in the world, except that That's not at all what we're talking about. We're talking about salvation, you know, and if you throw back, you know, if I was on a bridge, and I was going to commit suicide, I'm standing on the edge of a bridge over a large body of water, and I'm about to jump in my sameness, looking back on it after I've been rescued. I don't want someone to I want someone to overpower my will. I want them to tackle me to the ground and I want them to hold me there until either they can take me somewhere safe, or until they can convince me that I've gone insane and that I need to change. And that's what we're talking about when we talk about irresistible grace, is we're not talking about God doing something violent to our wills. But But even if he did, right, tackling some of the ground is violence, right? cutting a tumor out of someone in a surgical operation is vital it is. But at the end of the day, sometimes that's what's required. And that's the loving, kind gracious thing to do. And so if you reframe it that way, like irresistible grace, you can, you can overpower me all day long if it means that I get to be with Jesus forever. And for for an Armenian or a Roman Catholic or someone who denies that that monetarism or even even a Lutheran to a certain extent, although we'll get into that in a different episode sometime, I'm sure. Even for them in their really, if they're being really honest, I think they would agree with that. But they also have to realize that at the end of the day, what they're saying is my my autonomy is more important to me that being with Jesus, right and it means that I don't make the right choice that God values my autonomy more than he values my salvation. That's, that's literally and I'm sure, and you're immediately hears that, Oh, that's a straw man. But that's what they're saying, right? the autonomy of the believer is more important than their salvation, because God won't violate their autonomy in order to ensure their salvation. That's that's the Armenian gospel. And to me, it just doesn't make any sense.

Jesse Schwamb 1:02:21
And without putting too fine a point on it. I think that's what john is saying here. He talks about these wills. I think it's exactly why he uses that type of language. So would you say in summary of this conversation, this has been the definitive Christmas episode, at least the most effective that we've ever done? I think so. Yeah. Very Christmasy. Honestly. Yeah,

Tony Arsenal 1:02:40
we uncharacteristically. So Merry Christmas, everyone, we don't, we don't usually say Merry Christmas, we make a joke about mid mid season or mid winter. No reason. But there is a reality that Jesus Christ became men and we should and must celebrate that. So maybe we need need to find a better way to say it so don't say mass. I don't know. I don't think that's

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
I was just thinking the same thing.

Tony Arsenal 1:03:04
Yeah, I don't know. But, but this episode is, I don't know what only happened every eight years or something like that. This episode is gonna launch on Christmas Day. So Merry Christmas

Unknown Speaker 1:03:14
from the reformed brotherhood. Merry Christmas.

Tony Arsenal 1:03:16
Honor everyone. Merry Christmas.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:21
We've ruined our tagline. I don't know. Did you see that was ready to say it? I know.

Tony Arsenal 1:03:25
It's like Pavlov's dog.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:26
Yeah, just happens. Let's do it for real estate honor everyone loved the Brotherhood.