Episode 26 - monergism vs synergism

Speaker 1 00:00:07 Hello, and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts. AJ mark, and Tim three guys discussing the one true gospel. We hope you enjoy today's discussion. Let's dive right in. Speaker 1 00:00:24 Hello, everybody. And welcome to the unveiling. This is our 26th episode and it was titled monism versus synergism. Now I hope some of you came just to find out what those words meant, and I hope we didn't push too many of people away by using such big words in our title. But I think that we're gonna find that this isn't as confusing or complexing as it may seem on the outside. We're talking today about gods and our roles in our lives from salvation on. So let me, let me define three terms upfront, cause we're gonna be focusing mostly on what God does for us in our sanctification. So we wanna make sure, you know, that sanct sanctification is the action of making and or declaring something who or the, and the action or process of being freed from sin or purified. Now I did use the Noah Webster's dictionary for that one. Speaker 1 00:01:28 I found it contained the least Christian and kind of made it clear. And I think through the rest of this, you'll understand what it means. So now let's look at monism and synergism monism, which comes from a compound word in Greek means to work alone and synergism, which comes from another compound, Greek word means to work together. So as we look at this in light of say, our sanctification, what we're trying to determine is who's responsible for our sanctification is that God alone or God <affirmative> we're God and us. So I know that we've been talking about this for a long time, mark and we, I believe stand firmly in the modernistic camp when it comes to everything from salvation to sanctification from beginning to end. Why don't you take us from there? Speaker 2 00:02:30 Sure. I think that's a good point. You just made Tim that we have been talking about this pretty much since day one of the unveiling, even though we didn't at that time had not heard possibly the terms monism, we've all heard the terms synergy used in regular everyday language, but we never had heard of the theological debate that's been going on for centuries. And really even before they gave it those labels it's been going on since Christ walked the earth, there were the camp, uh, of early Christians, Paul among theirs, among their number, one of the chief, probably the chief Mons of everybody. And it's basically Christ alone. That's just another word for monism all Jesus all the time. And we just respond to his goodness, love him, but love him back if we can't even, that's not a qualification though, because none of us can love perfectly. Speaker 2 00:03:31 But, um, I digres. So really I just, when I started, when I first heard this term was about a month ago, and I didn't realize that there had been this debate going on, but then as I started studying, getting into what I, I saw, oh, this is just fancy way of saying, is it by faith alone? Or is it by faith in works combined. So that's just a very simple way of thinking of it. And that's what we've been talking about from the beginning. And, and, and I agree with you completely, Tim, that we, and what we think doesn't matter. The reason we think we are Mon just is because the preponderance, the overwhelming total of scripture tells us that a part. We can't do anything. It's all Jesus, he's done it for us. What do you think of that, AJ? Speaker 3 00:04:27 Yeah. You know, we all agree that it is all monistic and uh, we can end the podcast now. <laugh> <laugh> yeah. So, okay. Yeah. So I, I remember our conversation, right? We always, you know, there is this, uh, saying within Christianity, it's by grace alone through faith alone, through Christ alone. Right? So many Christians believe that. And nobody, many of them, uh, do not question that at all, right when it comes to salvation, but when it comes to sanctification or walking in the power of the spirit, right. You know, more and more, uh, having the power or the dominion of sin and Satan, when it comes to sanctification, they don't really, uh, believe that it's by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone. So they talk about, you know, okay, now we have to cooperate or now we have to do something like mark. Speaker 3 00:05:21 You said, you know, it is not just by faith and not just by grace, but it's faith, it's Christ. Plus me, it's not all of Christ star. We can also say that, you know, it is Christ effort and our effort, or at the least, you know, they'll say, okay, Lord is willing to work in you, but you have to cooperate. So all this kind of fall in the same category. And we have been, uh, talking about it for a while. It is all by grace, or it is not by grace at all. So it goes down to one of my favorite scriptures, Romans 11 success. If it is by grace, it cannot be by works. Otherwise grace is no longer grace. And if it is by works, it cannot be by grace. Then works is no longer works. So I think everybody agrees and there's no confusion that our righteousness is by grace through faith. But when it comes to sanctification, there's a disagreement, but there are numerous scriptures that, uh, say that just as, uh, uh, our righteousness is by grace through faith. Our scientification is also by grace through faith Speaker 1 00:06:23 Before we get into those AJ. And I can't wait to dig into 'em cuz there are so many, let me just add one more thought to the idea of this synergistic way of becoming sanctified. And I think one of the reasons might be once we've accepted Christ, we want to be, we want to be better people. We want to do better things. We want to express our love to God by expanding our energy, to, you know, to show him and to show others, to give that outward appearance. But what ends up happening with that all too often is it becomes an item that it becomes, um, competitive is, oh, I'm better than that person. You know, cuz I'm measuring things now, what am I doing? How much am I doing? You know, I'm at, I'm at church 12 times a week and you only come on Sunday mornings or whatever it is. You know, some of it may come from a true heart wanting to love and, and to show God, but it gets warped over time. I think. Speaker 2 00:07:27 Yeah. I, I agree with that, Tim RJ, you used the word, their cooperation. And as I studied on what synergists believe they use that word a lot. And to me that's just the euphemism cuz they don't wanna come out and say that I have to do this. They try to kind of soft soap it and say, well it's cooperating with the holy spirit, but when the rubber hits the road, what does that mean? Cooperating with the holy spirit? Does that mean you have to read two chapters of the Bible every day. You have to give 10%, you have to be in church unless you're too sick to, you know, when the rubber hits the road, the word cooperate loses all meaning. It really just means you're gonna have to do this, that and the other to cooperate. And we're gonna spiritualize and say, well, it's really the spirit doing it. We're just cooperating. But there's just not a lot of meaning to that word. And cooperation is doing something. And as we talked in our private conversation, how good are we all really at cooperating? You know, our flesh is not good at all. In fact it really can't cooperate and is at war with the spirit. The mind of the flesh is death. It says the mind of the spirit is life and peace. Speaker 3 00:08:50 Yeah. I think, um, this confusion kind of comes from not understanding what happened at the cross, right? If you go to Roman chapter six, you know, this is a chapter that is, uh, known as the chapter on, uh, sanctification. How do we walk in newness in the Lord? Jesus Christ. It says in Roman chapter six, what shall we say then, shall we continue to sin that Grace May bond? Certainly not. How shall we, who died to sin live any longer in Naar? Do you not know that as many as of us were baptized into Christ, we're baptized into his death. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism unto death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the father, even. So we should walk in the newness of life. If we were United together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be United in the likeness of his resurrection. Speaker 3 00:09:48 And this is of verse. I was looking for Romans chapter six and six, knowing that our old man was crucified in him, that the body of sin might be done away with that. We should no longer be slaves of sin. So I think it comes down to knowing that our old man is crucified. So what happened was when the lodge Jesus Christ died on the cross, he not only died for us. We died with him. So we all were born into this world in Adam, right? That's also referred as a natural man. But when we believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, not only our sin forgiven, not only we receive the work of Christ on our behalf, the Bible also says that the old man, whatever we used to be that was crucified with Christ. And the Bible also says, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. Speaker 3 00:10:34 All things are passed away and all things are become new. So I think it comes down to who you are identifying with, right? So once we have become new in Christ, the old man Bible clearly says it's dead and gone. And the new man is created in righteousness and true holiness. So the new man is exactly like Lord Jesus Christ, right? So there is no struggle between the new man and the holy spirit. You know, sometimes we think the reason this whole cooperation is coming because we think that, okay, holy spirit tells us something and we struggle to listen to holy spirit because they're still identifying with the old man. So the old man will never do what the holy spirit tells. And the new man is always in sync with the holy spirit. Right? So because they're identifying with the old man, they're thinking, okay, holy spirit is telling me something. Speaker 3 00:11:24 Now I have to do it. I have to deny myself and I have to do what I hate in essence, right? Because a old, natural man doesn't really like what the holy spirit tells, but that's problem is coming because they're identifying still with the old man. But when we realize that we are made a new creation in Christ and this new creation is exactly like Christ. It's like, you know, whatever the holy spirit tells, I want to do it too. There's no, it's not a matter of cooperation. It's a matter of union. And the holy spirit works within, right. He writes his laws on our heart and it gives us a new nature. And also he leads us through intuition. It's not like, you know, holy spirit is telling me, then he comes back tomorrow and tells, Hey, I tell you this, you know, what do you think about it? But the new man, it's not like that. It's like, what are the holy spirit tells immediately? He's in sync with the holy spirit. So I think some of the confusion comes because we are identifying ourselves as the old man, rather than the new man, Speaker 2 00:12:19 AJ, that's such a core issue. You brought up there. The question of what happens to us at salvation. So many, just don't understand all that happens to 'em. They know their sins were forgiven and they've got a ticket to heaven. They don't understand that they've made the righteous. They've been made the righteousness of God, that they can try as hard as they want the rest of their lives. And they're never gonna be more righteous than the moment they put their faith in Christ. And he gave them the gift of his righteousness. And as I read some of the arguments from the synergy, this is one of their arguments. They, they, they propose this. They say we are on dangerous ground. If we imply that we are passive in sanctification in the same way we are passive in regeneration. No we're not. We're not on dangerous ground. Speaker 2 00:13:18 If we rely completely on the spirit of Christ in us, this is the same argument of tho of those that attack the gospel by saying it's a license to sin the answer. It is no, it's not. Are you crazy? <laugh> I don't mean to be disrespectful, but, but the gospel of grace is not a license to sin. In fact, it's the law. The apostle Paul tells us that arouses sin, well, look, they're 180 degrees wrong, which we've talked about many times. So what to me at the core is like knowing everything that happens to us at salvation, but it's also trusting that what Christ did is enough that the finished work of the cross, the fact that he came to us in the holy spirit and now dwells us, that's enough. You know, we don't need to add anything. And in fact, when we add one thing, the apostle pollen, Galatians tells us that's a perversion and we're really not adding we're subtracting from the work of the spirit in our life. In fact, second Corinthians three said, we're rear erecting, a veil between us and God that dims our vision of him and dolls, our mind and our understanding. Speaker 1 00:14:39 So ending. So we're saying we have no part in our sanctification, which we all pretty much agree on. So how does the spirit sanctify us? And I'm gonna start you off with your favorite book marks, uh, first Corinthians three 18, but we all with unveiled faces, beholding it as in a mirror of the glory of the Lord are being transformed, being transformed, not transforming ourselves, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the spirit of the Lord. Speaker 3 00:15:13 So I'd like to, I'm sorry, you, you addressed to mark, but I would like to jump in real quick to clarify something. So I know we are, when we say we are being sanctified or being transformed, I think it is relation to our experience in this old body, right? And with this old thoughts, we there's a renewing going on and we are walking in more and more of his grace and more and more, uh, in Christ. But when it comes to actual sanctification, it is a done deal. We already talked about it, right? So the Bible says the old man is crucified. He's not, no longer being crucified. And the new man is already resurrected and seated in Christ Jesus. So the new man in heaven, seated in Christ is not being sanctified anymore. So I just wanted to clarify that. So the process of sanctification we are talking about is learning to not live by the old man that is crucified and learning to live more and more by the new man that we are already made, made in Christ. Jesus. So I just wanted to clarify that. Speaker 1 00:16:23 So let me clarify one thing and tell me if I'm right, cuz I wanna make sure, yeah. Salvation is instant. Sanctification is a process and it's it. It's a process because E even though we know the goal is already one, so to speak, we still are transformed from glory to glory. We're still being brought through this. Speaker 3 00:16:46 Well, I think they're also, I understand, I think our walk with Christ and walking in grace, I think we learn more and more, but I think when we talk about sanctification, even that was being transformed, we are not being transformed from sin to glory. It says we are transformed from glory to glory. So we are learning to experience more and more of Christ. So I just wanted to point that Speaker 2 00:17:12 I, I like that, AJ. I, I, I don't know if this is a hair split or not. Most of the times when we split hairs, we found out the end, we're actually agreeing with each other. So I think that's probably the case, but there's definitely a done deal. Past tense to our being sanctified in may. Holy scripture, after scripture says that we've been sanctified by the holy spirit, by the sanctifying spirit of Christ. It says we've been sanctified by faith in Christ that, and in God, in Ephesians, one says that he chose us in Christ before the creation of the world before the beginning of time to be holy and blameless in his sight. So in his sight, the moment you put your faith in Christ, you were sanctified, done deal. You've been seated in the heavenly realms already. If you weren't sanctified, you would not be seated in heavenly realms. Speaker 2 00:18:09 There's also an aspect of, we are still in this world and whether sanctification is the right word or the word is growing in grace, or the word is the spirit producing fruit in our lives, or whether it's going from glory to glory. Another one of the biblical translations and I V says with ever increasing glory, we're being transformed. So there is an earthly growth that takes place. But the point is, that's not us. We have no part in that. That's the spirit of Christ in us. So both our, like the one in we're already a done deal, as far as God's concerned. And in this world, he's already the one, how many, how many, how many of these scriptures you hear pastors quote, he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. Well, what does that mean? You know, <laugh>, the righteous will live by faith from first to last. If he's the one who started it and he's the one who completed and we live by, by faith from first to last, how can it be synergistic? It's not, yeah. We have a dumbness to the deal in his eyes. And even on earth, his spirit is continuing to take us from glory to greater glory. Speaker 1 00:19:28 And I think that's where a lot of people wanna mix their works in with it is because it does sound in parts. Like it's a process and it's taught a lot as a process. And so they wanna be involved in that process, but it's not, you can't be, it's done. You're already sanctified. You're just walking into it and walking it out. Speaker 3 00:19:48 Yeah. So I think mark, it's not a hair split. I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. I think in fact, this view of monism is our view of synergism is coming because they do not understand it's a done deal it's already done. It's not only in the ice of the Lord, but actually, uh, in reality, our new man is already perfect and sanctified and righteous. So I think, but the predicament we are in, if we, for lack of better words, is that the new man, we are a new creation, still living in the old body and old mind, right? So we have the, as long as we are on this earth, we have the, um, ability to either participate in the new man on the inside by faith. Or we can still continue to live like the old man, right? Uh, still living by our old memories, old habits. Speaker 3 00:20:40 We can still fall back to that, but that doesn't mean that we are not, our spirits are not completely, uh, signified. In fact, uh, Hebrew chapter, uh, uh, 12, it says, you know, you have come to Mount Zion and you'll come to spirits of just men made perfect. And Bible clearly says many time, you know, we are a new creation. And then the Bible also says in efficient chapter, uh, for, I believe it says, you know, put on your new self, created to be like God, in true righteousness and holiness, right. It Bible says our new man he's already created in true righteousness and holiness. And he's like, God. So he cannot be anymore holy than what he's already, but in this life, because we are still in our old bodies, right? And these bodies one day, how to perish. In fact, our new bodies are being made in heaven right now. Speaker 3 00:21:33 And the only part that we did not receive in our salvation is our new bodies. So until we get those new bodies in heaven, until we are on this side of heaven in our old bodies, we have the ability to live like our old man. So I think that's where it is, right? It's not that the other way to put it is we have this old man that is already dead and we have this new man already seated in Christ Jesus. And, uh, the new man is not going to be made any more holy than what he is. And the old man also is not being made. Holy because the old man is already dead and gone. But for us in the middle while we are in this body, right, we have to decide who we identify with in our daily walk. We can identify with our new man and live by the new man by faith. Are we identify with our old man and continue to live like the old man under the law. So I think that is a difference, but the sanctification is not in a process is not a process in the sense that the new man is being made more holy, but it is a process in the sense we are learning to not live by the old man, but learning to live more and more by the new man that we are already in Christ Jesus. Speaker 2 00:22:47 And first, uh, great scripture here. First Corinthians six 11 after Paul gets done talking to Corinthians the Corinthians and kind of laying out there, all the warts and all the blemishes of who they were before they came to Christ. He just lists the whole litany of sin. He says, but you were washed, you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And by the spirit of our God, those are all past tense, all past tense. Yeah. At the moment of putting faith in him. In fact earlier on where's that scripture here, it says that we were, we were sanctified through faith. When we came to Christ and were saved, we couldn't have been saved unless we were first sanctified by the spirit. Second Thesalonians two, th 13 to 14 says that God chose you to be first fruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the spirit and through belief in the truth. Yep. So to be saved, you were actually saved through the sanctification. The holy spirit gave you. Speaker 3 00:24:03 In fact, you know, we talked about before, also when we are saved, the holy spirit comes to live in us. And holy spirit is holy. He cannot live in unholy places. So he had to cleanse us first, you know, EF sorry. And Asiel, it says when we were saved, we receive a new heart and a new spirit that new spirit we receive is perfectly holy. And then he says, I'll put my spirit in your spirit. So in the old dead spirit, that is defiled, holy spirit cannot live in that. So during our celebration, we have to be sanctified. First, we have to be made holy and we are given a new spirit. And then in that new spirit, the holy spirit comes to dwell in. Speaker 2 00:24:45 So let me ask you this. And I'm sure there are listeners out there asking this too. All right. That's what unbelievable, awesome truth that is. And thank you Lord, but what do I do now? What do I do? If there's nothing for me to do, what do I do? <laugh> Speaker 1 00:25:03 And that's just it, right? That's the, uh, argument about works. And what I think I want, we want to say about works themselves are, is we do good works, but they're not our effort. They are a result of God's work part of the outworking of the sanctification of the spirit. If you will. It is not an effectual cause, but a result. Does that make sense? Speaker 3 00:25:28 Yeah. In fact, to answer that question, I think, uh, Tim, you, you, you said it well, I just wanted to add to that a little more. So the Bible says right in Galatians chapter five, towards the end, uh, from verse 19, it talks about the works of the flesh. And from works 22, it talks about the fruit of the spirit. Again, not that it is not the fruits, but the fruit of the spirit. So, but the fruit of the spirit is love joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness, self control against such. There is no law. So to answer the question, what do we do? Right. You know, when we are talking about the fruit, we are talking about a tree and a branch bearing the fruit, right? So what does a branch do in order to bear the fruit simply ABI in the wine? Speaker 3 00:26:12 Right? So our part is to simply rest in Christ and understand that we are in Christ and we are made righteous and perfect in Christ. And then we'll let the life of Christ flow in us. And just as a SAP from the root flows, through the branch and bears fruit, we also, as we rushed in Christ and rest in his finished work, the fruit will come automatically. We don't produce a fruit, we bear the fruit and this is a fruit. The whole world is hungry for right love, joy, peace, goodness, long suffering, gentleness, self control. And of all these things is love. Right? Love is a thing that we do now, but it is not our work as a simply rested in the finished work. The, the fruit will, uh, come out through the holy spirit. Speaker 2 00:26:56 You know, Tim, um, all roads always lead back to second Corinthians three. Um, and, and I'm gonna just repeat the, uh, the verse you read to me, this is my favorite conclusion of the Christian life that Paul gives us after doing this brilliant and beautiful comparison of the old covenant works of the law earning compared to the new covenant, which is the ministry of the spirit and righteousness. It's an eternal covenant. Paul concludes by saying, as you said, and we all who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory. And now here, he's gonna tell you whether it's monism or synergism, he says, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. I don't see anywhere there where it says, who comes from the Lord and you working, helping him. <laugh> that's not what it says. Speaker 2 00:28:03 So to me, it's, it's just the turning, you know, the, the word repent is so often misused, but in this case, it's such a beautiful word. It just means to rethink and turn the Christian life is just setting the gay. As toes are beautifully wrote, setting the GS of our soul on our savior. It's resting in Christ. It's just thinking about him and how the love he has for you and how much the father loved you to sacrifice his own son. Thinking about the glory of the cross and the promises of God. It's just reveling at being a child of God and even much more a child, an heir of God and a COA with Christ. There's no work involved if, if loving and, and, uh, having hearts filled with gratitude is work. <laugh>, I guess there is some work, but I don't consider just looking at Christ and marveling at him as work. It's just, it's just freedom and joy. Speaker 1 00:29:07 It makes Hebrews four 11 a lot clearer. Let us therefore labor to enter into that rest because it is hard for us not to put down our works, to put down our ego, to put down all those things that make us want to, or to actually think that we have some part of that. It it's freeing yourself from that. And that can be difficult. Speaker 3 00:29:29 Yep. Speaker 2 00:29:29 And it's yeah. And as, as scripture says there, it says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but only leads the Des destruction. It seems right to all human beings to work, to follow rules, to do this, not to do that, look at all the religions of the world. They're all based upon that, because it seems right to them in their own eyes. They're thinking, this is what I gotta do to please God, you know, but that's why Christ stands alone in the midst of all that darkness, cuz none of us can do it well enough. And he just says, come to me for my yolk is easy. That yolk, I think the three of us know, cuz we impose that yolk upon ourselves as Christians for years before we came into the understanding of the one true gospel of grace. And I'd really very soon love to have a podcast. Once again, it just focuses on exactly what is the gospel, cuz there's a misunderstanding by so many. And it just, it's just a, it's just one of the worst things in existence. I gotta believe it's some type of spiritual attack <laugh> that the church so many don't even understand what the true gospel is. Speaker 3 00:30:51 Yeah. I want to revisit your favorite verse. Uh, again mark mine too. And I'm reading for new K J V um, second current in chapter three, verse 18. But we all with unveil face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the spirit of the Lord. So here it says, you know, beholding as in a mirror, when we look in a mirror, what do we see? We see ourselves, right? So here the image is when we see Christ, we see ourselves. And then when we see ourselves as Christ is right, you know, our actions line up with, you know, who we really are. In other words, who you identify with, right? You know, like we talked about, you can identify with Christ beholding as in a mirror looking at Christ or you can identify with the old man, Adam, and you can walk accordingly, right? Speaker 3 00:31:42 Whatever you identify with, eventually you end up walking like that. So the more and more we look at our Lord Jesus Christ and the more and more we identify ourselves with him, the more and more we'll act like him. And the other thing, you know, beholding us in a mirror, what are we beholding? Right. So we cannot really literally see the face of Lord Jesus Christ. What we are really beholding is a finish work. Just we talked about, you know, we are looking at the finish work. We are beholding the cross and we see the old man crucified on the cross. And then we are also seeing Christ, resurrected Christ and seated in heaven. And we are also seeing ourselves seated with him in Christ. So when somebody is seated with seated, what are we doing? Right? What are they do? What do they do? Speaker 3 00:32:21 They do nothing they're resting. So we see ourselves seated in Christ, Jesus resting. And the Bible says, you know, sit at my right hand until I make my OUS, uh, your foot store. So our part is to rest in Christ. Our part is to see ourselves seated in heaven. And then God's part is to bring all the enemies, right? One by one, make them our foot tool. And as we are resting in Christ Jesus, right? You know, we are also able to flow with the holy spirit and bear the fruit of the spirit. And the fruit of the spirit obviously involves all the good works. We don't work. Those work. Those works in cooperation with the spirit. But as we are resting in Christ, Jesus, the works will flow automatically in us and through us by the holy spirit. Speaker 2 00:33:06 And it's, it's such a wonderful man, the gospel it's it, it's simple. You know, it, it wasn't easy for Christ. Obviously it was hard for him to buy that for us. But, uh, he was because of the joy set before him at draw drawing so many sons and daughters to the father, he was willing to endure that. And so many just have such a problem with not adding their own stuff. And it's not enough for them usually, unfortunately, just to say, you know what? I really feel like that's not true. And I need to add my own religious activity. They attack, they attack those who are relying on Christ 100% ally and trusting in him completely. So that's why I just think it's so important that, you know, there's a, there's a scripture that Paul calls those that he calls there is a remnant saved by grace. And that that's also from the old Testament where, where a lot thought he was like the only one who believed in God and, and God says, no, I kept for myself a remnant. There are those in the world that believe in me. Now it's a remnant saved by grace, grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone period. Speaker 1 00:34:32 So there is nothing we can do to add to either our salvation or our sanctification. It is all the work of the holy spirit turning us basically into the image of Christ. As in your, that verse. We've said so many times tonight, uh, beholding as in a mirror, the, the glory of the Lord and being transformed into that same image, it seems to indicate that our degree of Christ likeness is directly proportional to our beholding Christ glory. And that's not work. That's not an act. That's not something, you know, something we do, you know, do is just keep your eyes on Christ. Focus on Christ Speaker 3 00:35:17 Very well said Speaker 2 00:35:19 What it comes down to is do you, or don't you believe the cross is enough when Christ said it is finished, did he mean it's finished? Or did he mean it's finished now, I'm gonna send you my spirit and you better cooperate with him and do this, that, and don't do this. And don't do that. It's finished apostle Paul said he was not ashamed of that gospel of what we're talking about here. He's not ashamed of trusting in Christ alone and not having his own works because he knows that the gospel is the power of God. God has put his spirit in habits that gospel, and it's a spirit job to work in us and through us, not our job. In fact, when we try to add, we just get in the way and short circuit, his perfect gospel. Speaker 1 00:36:11 Well, we're running close to the end and I want to give you guys each a last chance to add comments. But before I do, I want to add one. I found an interesting correlation this week, mark, you opened us up with the, uh, idea that this has been something that has debate been debated for centuries. We are kind of new to the, this particular terminology, but as you pointed out in a text at one point, mark, this debate of monoism versus synergism is really the same argument is spirit versus flesh and is really the same argument as new covenant versus old covenant. This isn't something that people have been discussing forever. It's not, it's not new. It's not news. We, we found the new word <laugh> or two, but, uh, yeah, this is something we really hope people can get clear. Cuz the, the less you try to do stuff, the less you try and make yourself holy, the more room God has to work in you and do it for you. So AJ, you wanna go first this time? Speaker 3 00:37:20 Yeah. You know, we already talked about, you know, beholding the Lord, Jesus Christ is all we need to do. You know, the scripture says the same thing in a different way in Galatians chapter three, this is also one of my favorite scriptures. Therefore he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you. Does he do it by the works of the law or by hearing of faith just as a Abraham in God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness, therefore know that only those were of faith are the sons of Abraham. So here it's clearly says, right. You know, we have the spirit working in us, working miracles in us and through us, how does he do it? Does he do it by the works of the law or by hearing of faith? So even as we hear the gospel, we behold the Lord Jesus Christed right. So all we need to do is simply hear the gospel and believe the gospel, the same gospel that made us righteous is the same gospel that will also sanctify us. In fact, we, as we said, we are already sanctified the same gospel that will cause us to walk in holiness in a greater measure every day. So it's all by faith and it's all by hearing of faith. Speaker 1 00:38:33 Thanks a Jake. Good points, mark. Speaker 2 00:38:35 Yeah. I'll just finish with two points here. First of all, just think of it in, in terms of logic. If we couldn't do it well enough to earn our salvation, that we were completely help us. What makes us think we can do it well enough to sanctify ourselves? If we could have done that in the first place, we wouldn't have need salvation because we would've made ourselves holy and wouldn't have needed a savior. And the second and most important point is that the preponderance of scripture, the weight of scripture tells us that it's the Spirit's job to sanctify us that in the spiritual realm, as far as God is concerned in his sight, we are already sanctified. We are the righteousness of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We are the fragrant aroma of Christ to him. And in the earthly realm, he's put his sanctifying spirit in us to bring us from glory to glory. So let's just rest in that and, and just be a people filled just with joy and freedom and love and just reveling in all that our father's done for us. Speaker 1 00:39:52 Thank you, mark. Well, I don't know about you guys, but tonight just seemed to fly by. I'm surprised. I think I, I blinked and uh, we were almost done good conversation. I enjoyed a lot hope everyone else got something out of this too. As always, if you have any questions, comments, let us know our email, our Facebook page, whatever we look forward to talking to you again, the next time We would like to thank you for listening to the unveiling. We hope you have enjoyed it enough to consider subscribing and sharing with others. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can reach us via email@theunveiledgospelatyahoo.com or find our Facebook page at the unveiling podcast for IJ, mark and myself. God bless. And we will talk with you next time.