Imputed vs. Infused

0:00Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Well, I guess today is response day, right? The last broadcast I responded to a voicemail, and now we respond to email. Okay, I know who prints out their email, not me. This is just a piece of paper I use for sound effects. So it's hot off the press. Okay, not that hot off the press. You get the idea, all right? Are you ready? Oh, I need to see something really quick. Do I have the emails open here? Hang on. Oh, I've got them open up on the other one. Okay, give me a second. I just realized something. Wait a minute. I don't have. I like having, I've got, I've copied and pasted the email into some notes that I took. But I like having the original email right there next to me just to make sure that I didn't

1:02copy something wrong or I quote something incorrectly because you know, you can't trust copying. Okay, all right. Never mind. We'll get back to the doctrine of inspiration. Hang on. Let me reach down here. I'm just going to unplug that. I think I have it. Where is it? Hang on. Yep, I have them right here. Okay, or at least I have the first one. Okay. You need it. I will check it when I don't. I'll turn off the power. Okay. There we go. Now, are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, today is response day. As I'm responding to a voicemail now in email. And I guess I'll do that right after I say good afternoon. It's almost evening time here. It is Thursday, September the 17th, 2026. There goes a B1 bomber. Yep, that's definitely the B1. All right. September the 17th, 2026. It is currently 5.48 pm central time. And I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in

2:03now, bullying, Texas, the home of Dias Air Force Base, which is the home or one of the homes. There's a couple of bases that have them. A B1 bomber and one just flew by my house. And don't think I'm some kind of, you know, military genius when it comes to planes. I was stationed at Dias. You basically have C-130s or the B1 bomber. I think there's some other planes there. And I think there's a new one coming in. But there's a big difference between a C-130 and a B1. All right. There we go. All right. Are you ready? Let's do this. Enough about military or Air Force planes. Let's do this. Ladies and gentlemen, today, this very moment, fast approaching evening here in Abelene, Texas. We're going to work through an email conversation that I've been having with someone about the doctrines or the, well, real, we'll say the doctrine of imputed righteousness versus

3:06infused righteousness. Imputed versus infused. Now, if you've ever listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know I talk about the difference between imputed and infused righteousness about 700 billion times, right? I mean, you could probably just, you could probably just look at all of my past episodes or you could go to the theology central AI and just, hey, what everything he has said about imputed versus infused righteousness, you could probably get a small book. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what actually what would show up. There should be a lot. So I talk about it all the time. But you don't need me to talk about it. You could pull up the London Baptist confession of faith. They talk about it. You could talk the Westminster confession. I mean, come on. Imputed versus infused righteousness. It's kind of like the issue that's, you know, at the very heart of the Protestant Reformation. So it's a big thing, all right? So we're going to talk about this and we're going to work through it. Now, I don't think the person who emailed me really understands my approach.

4:14I don't think they understood what I was doing. I tend to approach things in a very logical way. And I think sometimes when people ask me question, people who, people who were a part of my church, they caught on. I don't think people who listen to me always understand. I think when they email me, they're sometimes confused by my response because you may ask me a question. And rarely do I give you a direct answer, right? I may do this or do that because in many cases, I'm trying to take you through the logical progression. So in a roundabout way that you find the answer yourself, what, what value is it for me just to go, duh, duh, duh, there you go. It's just my stupid opinion. Who cares? But if I say, okay, let's follow this logically and then as you're working through it, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I got the answer now. Then I didn't give you the answer. You found the answer. And that is more valuable than just some stupid podcaster giving you an answer. Who cares what I have to say?

5:15But we have to think about things logically, if that makes sense. And so I hope you'll follow my logic. Maybe you'll see it, maybe you'll get it, maybe you don't. I did take all of my responses and I did give it to AI and AI understood my logic immediately. He said, oh, AI, I was like, I know, I see what you're trying to do. And then broke down my logic and I'm like, okay, good, thank you for understanding. So, but maybe it will make sense. Maybe you'll be like, you know, you could have just given a simple answer. And I would be like, then why are you listening to the theology central podcast? This is not a podcast that gives simple answers. This is a podcast that loves to, I don't know, wrestle with things, you know, create hypotheses and question and struggle. So are you ready to work through this? Now I guess what we have to do this is I guess I need to explain this. Before we talked about imputed or infused at least at the beginning of this, this is not going to be an episode where I simply turn on the microphone going, here's what the

6:19Protestants believe, here's what the Catholics believe. And here's the theological team you should join. Because if you think that's the way I operate, once again, you're completely, I don't do that. In fact, I hate theological teams because theological teams will only answer a question that corresponds with their theological team. I don't care about your teams. I'm not bound by your team. I'm not committed to your team. I'm not wearing your team's jersey. I don't care about any of your teams. So I don't care if I offend the Catholics, the Protestants, I don't care. What I try to pursue is biblical understanding, theological understanding, but not worried about which team I offend or don't offend. And at the same time, look at things logical and with a understanding of reality. All right. And just note, if you want to compare some between the imputed and infuse side, ladies and gentlemen, they're literally everywhere. There's been a billion books written on the subject. If you want to know the difference between imputed and fused, the difference is stated

7:23everywhere. Okay. It's literally everywhere. Okay. So, but I'm interested in something far more fundamental. All right. I don't care about which team. I want to know what is true. Anything. Is that a cool goal? I think that's a cool goal. I think we should all be want that, right? So what we're going to do is we're going to take claims apart. We're going to examine the assumptions. We're going to compare them with scripture and we're going to test logic and we're going to ask whether they correspond to reality. You know, kind of what we do in every theology central episode. Okay. And I think here's a cool principle. Whenever someone emails me or even if someone's talking to me, I'm always looking for the assumption. Let me try to, let me see if I can explain it this way. Sometimes someone can ask a question, but that question contains an assumption that has

8:27to be examined before the question itself can be properly answered. Sometimes to someone will ask a question, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I can't answer your question because your question already has a presupposition built in and already has an assumption. So I'm going to go after the presupposition and the assumption because until we can fix that, we can't get to the question. All right. So does that make sense? All right. So here's how the original email, or the original emails started. All right. That's a helicopter. I don't know if you can hear that. All right. So, here we go. They, yeah, I'll start with this. This is how the original email began. I received it on, I think it was Wednesday at 9.44 pm. I think it was, I think it was Wednesday at 9.44 pm. If I have the date and time, or the day and time wrong, I apologize. And it begins this way.

9:28I have been trying to understand the difference between imputed righteousness and infuse righteousness. And I understand the basic definitions. Okay. Now, I think at that point, okay, I got you, I see what you want to do. You want to understand the differences. Okay. Then it says this, I understand the basic definitions. I think they give a pretty accurate summary of the basic distinctions. All right. As I understand it, the Protestant position says that Christ's righteousness is imputed, or credited to the believer. The Catholic position says that God's grace is infused into the believer and actually begins to make the person righteous inwardly. All right. So far, so good. But then comes the part that immediately like, whoa, back that up.

10:32All right. Whoa. Now settle down, Sally. Okay. We got, we got a problem here. We got a talk here. Okay. Because here, oh, here we go. All right. But here comes the part. All right. So they go on to say what I'm struggling to understand is why this distinction ultimately makes such a major difference. Now I'm a little perplexible. You don't understand why this, why this makes such a difference. Like, I don't, that's kind of, to me, that's just baffling. Like the whole Protestant Reformation. One believes you were saved by an infused righteousness and one's imputed. Do you not infused does not make you righteous. It does not transform you. It does not change you. It just is accredited to you infused. Well now you're infused with a righteousness. That begins to change you. So now that can be tested. That can be proven. That can be qualified, quantified.

11:33It can be tested. All right. So there's a massive difference here, right. All day long, but they go on to say it seems to me. All right. Here we go. All right. Next to me, that both sides are saying that salvation comes through Christ and God's grace, that God forgives the sinner, that the Holy Spirit changes the believer and that a Christian should not continue living deliberately and serious sin. Now if you've listened to this podcast for, I don't know, 14 seconds, you would be like, whoa, hey, that theology central guy, he's going to flip out right there. He's going to get in his car and drive to the liquor store. As soon as I read that, I'm like, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, both sides are claiming this. Okay. Well then that means I'm not on either side. We got problem. We got problems right here in River City with a capital T. We got, we got, we got trouble. We got, it would be a capital P if it's problems.

12:33It would be a capital T if it's trouble. Okay. You get the idea. I'm destroying the music man. All right. The point is anybody who knows me is like, he's not going to like that paragraph. He's going to lose his ever living mind. All right. So, and eventually the question basically is, so what is the real practical and biblical difference between saying that Christ's righteousness is imputed to me and saying that God's righteousness is infusing to me. If both positions ultimately affirm that salvation is by God's grace through Christ and that the believer must be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Oh man. Okay. Now, that may be an excellent question. I mean, again, I, I, we could, we'll try to get into all of this, but I, I couldn't answer the question. I can't answer that ultimate question. And here's the real, well, if you know me, you know why? I'm already giving it away. All right. I'm, I'm, I'm destroying my lead here. Okay.

13:34Because something extremely important has already been placed into the question. As though it's just kind of an established fact. It's just there, the, the email already is front loading the argument, the question with a presupposition with an assumption. And I'm like, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, again, all right. Let me, let me read it to you again. I'm going to read it two times. He says it two different times. The Holy Spirit changes the believer and the believer must be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Oh, no. So I immediately, I'm like, oh, boy, no, we, we can't, we can't, we, I don't even want to talk about imputed versus infused. I want to destroy this whole presupposition because if we, if we work through this presupposition then logically you should be able to see something. So here's my, my response. Okay.

14:34I respond with, I said, let's start with this. Now please note what I do there. Let's start with this meaning be, because now what I'm getting ready to talk about, I'm not going to immediately go, oh, you're asking about the difference between imputed versus infused. Well, let me explain the difference. That's how probably every other pastor or the, a theologian would have responded. But I'm not like everyone else. I'm not going to do that. Because you're, the email has a presupposition built into it. And so I, I care more about that presupposition than what you, whether you think there's a difference or don't think a difference. In fact, I'm confused that you don't see the difference between something simply accredited to someone's account and something literally infused into someone. It's night and day difference. It's not even the same thing. It's two radically different things. Okay. And then if I, if I'm, if I'm saved by an imputed righteous, I'll just, I'm going to go ahead and give this away a little bit. Well, then guess what? How do I determine if I'm saved by the righteousness given to me that's, that's accredited to me.

15:40Has nothing to do with what I do? Hey, are you saved? I believe in Christ and his righteousness is imputed to my account. So where's the proof of my salvation? What Christ did? What's the proof of my salvation? His righteousness. Now, has nothing to do with mine. You can't even look to my righteousness. No, my salvation is proved there. But guess what? His imputed righteousness doesn't make me righteous. So I'm still going to be unrighteous, but I'm going to be declared righteous. But if I believe that I'm saved, that salvation or justification comes by an infused righteousness, then ladies and gentlemen, how do you know you're saved? Show me that infused righteousness. Test the infused righteousness. Let's look for infused righteousness. Show me. If I don't see infused righteousness, then you're not saved. Or in the Catholic position, you've committed a mortal sin or a venial sin, and you're destroying that grace and that righteousness. And so then, okay, you get the idea. But infused righteousness, the proof is going to be measured.

16:41It's going to be tested. It's going to be visible. Imputed. You can't test it. You can't. There's nothing you can do. His righteousness is imputed to my account. But I don't see it because it's imputed. It didn't do anything because it's imputed. I mean, I don't even understand the difference is night and day. They're not even on the same. They're in like two different universes. Sorry, these people are saying by imputed righteousness. Okay, well, all right. Do you believe in Christ? Yeah. Do you believe in His finished work? Yeah. Are you trusting in anything else? No. Okay. Well, you're saved. Well, but they're not living right. They believe in Christ. It's saved by imputed righteousness. No, no, it has to change. Imputed righteousness doesn't change. Impused righteousness does. So the entire basis of your salvation becomes completely different, right? So, but I responded with this. I said, let's start with this. And I don't start with imputed and infused. I don't because I mean, that's like we've got to get to this.

17:42So here's what I start with. Holy spirit changes the believer. What do you mean if the, if if he changes us, why aren't we perfect? That would be omnipotent power working in us. I said, anybody who knows me, you already know what I'm going to say. Anybody who's listening to this podcast or any knows what I'm going to say, all right? Um, if we can't get to perfection, whatever stops me from getting to perfection, obviously it's greater than the power that is supposedly working in me. Massive logical problems begin emerging almost immediately. So you're over here wanting to talk about imputed and infused. And I'm like, we got a bigger problem. You're making a claim that the Holy Spirit changes us. Well, if the Holy Spirit changes us, okay. Now, already you already see what's happening. You're not talking about imputed anymore. You're more over here in the world of infused and we, and you've already superimposed

18:44this into the question. So you're already presupposing an infused idea before why, why am I going to try to tell you the difference when you've already presupposed the infused ideas right? And so I mean, maybe it got, okay, if the Holy Spirit is changing me and the Holy Spirit is God, uh, that's omnipotent power. So why can't I get to perfection? Now you can make 900 excuses, but those excuses are going to be majorly problematic. So we got to a drink and if the Holy Spirit is changing us, then why are Christians? So I mean, there's a million questions we could come up with. I won't get into all of them, all right? But I want you to notice what I did not say here. I didn't say, here's the Protestant answer because I don't care. Here's the Catholic answer. I don't care. I didn't even answer the imputation versus infusion question. I said, let's start here because I don't, I don't know how about everyone else.

19:46I'm going to approach things following a logical process, a logical process. Before we determine what category this alleged inward change belongs in, I want to establish what this change actually is or isn't. Wow, see that's pretty smart. I think that's pretty logical, okay? But I get a response bag, all right? I get a response bag, all right? This response comes here. Okay, so I got to try to go through all, I'm doing this in kind of reverse order and I'm looking in the centfold or instead of trying to go through my inbox, all right? So here we go. This person responds with this, nothing is stopping God or overpowering the Holy Spirit.

20:55Wow. Now, immediately you know where my brain goes, nothing is stopping or overpowering the Holy Spirit, well then I should be perfect. Now, if I don't get to perfection, either, now we're going to come down to two options. If I, well, actually we're only going to come down to one option. If I'm not overpowering God, well then God doesn't want me to be perfect. And if God doesn't want me to be perfect, then why is he telling me to be holy as he is holy? But yet he doesn't do any, but supposedly he's working in me, but he doesn't want me to be perfect. What in the Holy Spirit want to do the will of God, the Father, which says be holy as he is holy? Well, I mean, I don't understand, okay? Well, all right. So I respond or they respond, nothing is stopping God or overpowering the Holy Spirit. Your argument assumes God is trying to make us perfectly sinless now and failing. So God is not trying to make us perfect. Now, see, this is where it gets weird.

21:56Like, I don't see how Christians don't realize this. Well, God is not trying to make us perfect. Well, then what is God doing by changing us? God just wants to change me 20%. I don't really want you to be perfect yet. I'm just going to change it. Now, just remember, if God doesn't want me to be perfect, then any imperfection, then is God's will for my life. So if I sin, then everyone can back off. God doesn't want me to be perfect. But my Bible says, no, you've got to be holy as he is holy. And if you commit certain sins, you can be excommunicated, disqualified, and the whole world will be a scandal. Why? God doesn't want me to be perfect. Well, I mean, he tells me to be perfect, but he's working in me, but he doesn't really want me to be perfect because I've got to somehow explain why no Christian is perfect. So I have to say, and I quote, your argument assumes God is trying to make us perfectly sinless now and failing. Christianity does not claim that. It claims that God is progressively changing believers. What does it mean? He progressively changes me.

22:57Hey, I'm going to change you 5%, 10%. But hey, if you, if we're on those areas, you're not changed, you get to feel guilt and you get to feel shame and you could be chastised for not being perfect. Wait a thinking minute. If you're the one changing me and you're not changing me to perfection, then it's your fault. I don't get the Christian logic sometimes blows my mind, all right? It claims that God is progressively changing believers while still allowing real human choices. Right. So now we get into, does God decree everything that takes place or does God not decree everything that takes place? Now we can go to the Westminster Confession of Faith or the London Baptist Confession of Faith and we now have an entire theological argument that we just walked into. Does all things work according to his will? With all things to work according to his will and I'm sinning and God has not changed

24:00me to perfection, then my sin is God's will. Sometimes I think Christians perceive theology as so black and white and simple. It's a complete, it's like taking theology as like someone buys a puzzle with 20,000 pieces and smashes them and just scatters them all over the floor and you spend the rest of your life going, well, here's one piece. I don't know. Is it a corner piece, middle, but I don't know. I don't even know how to do the puzzle. I'm just going to throw it down. Okay, here's another piece that they fit together. Well, no, I'll throw it over there. It is a mess trying to figure out because guess what just happened? He started by asking a question about imputed and infused righteousness. Without even realizing it, he's already giving a presupposition about us supposedly being changed. And now he's inevitably now walked into now another theological issue, which is, well, this God want me to be holy or not holy.

25:00This God changing me, you're not changing me. The argument as well, the reason nobody is perfect is because God is only progressively changing people. Okay, well, then that means he doesn't want me to be holy now. If he doesn't want me to be holy now, then why does he demand me to be holy? And then you come and say, well, at the same time, he still allows real human choices. Well now this comes down to wait. Does God decree everything to take place? Or does he not decree? Now we're getting into God's decrees. See, now you're just going from one theological problem to another theological problem. And then it goes on and says, and complete perfection comes later. Now I am in complete agreement with you. There will come a time. There'll be no more sin, no more sinful flesh, and we will be perfect. We can agree that in eternity, perfection awaits all of us. The issue is, why are we not perfect? Now you claim it's not because God lacks power. You're claiming that it's because God's purpose is only to progressively make me better.

26:05What does that even mean? You talk about making something so vague. Hey, well, nobody's perfect. Well, then obviously God doesn't want people to be perfect. Well why wouldn't he want us to be perfect when it's God himself who says be holy as he is holy? It's a literal command. And the sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. He literally condemns sin. There's even the possibility of being chastised for sinning. So if I can be chastised for sinning, but God is only going to progressively make me better and I can't get better without God's help. Now either one, you're now arguing that I can stop God's progressively making me better by my own ability. Well then that means I'm greater than God's ability to change me because God could change me so that my... I don't know how Christians just... They say this was such a straight face. They don't go. You know, this is like a convoluted mess.

27:06Yeah, I know it is. But hang on, they continue. So our present imperfection shows that the work is not finished. Not that God lacks the power to finish it. God doesn't like the power to finish it. It just hasn't finished it. Oh my goodness. This is like kids playing a game. Have you ever been outside when kids are playing a game and they just automatically in the middle will change the rule? The rule is this. Oh no, that's not a rule. And you're like, what are you kids doing? Can you just agree upon the rules and then stick to them? No, you're going to change them. Well, you've got to have the ace up to sleep. I want you to be holy, but God doesn't really want you to be holy because God's playing now is for you not to be holy now, but to be perfectly holy in the future. So in the meantime, he only progressively makes you better, but you have your own choices. So you can explain that God is perfect and God is holy and God has power, but you can

28:07also explain why that power doesn't get everyone to perfection. And you can also get God off the hook because you can then blame us. It's like going to Vegas, the house is always going to win. You've got the game, you got the card stacked against any, and there's no way to even argue with this stuff. And it's like at this point, I don't even know if we believe in the same religion. Now, if you listen to that response, oh my goodness. Notice what is happening. We started with the Holy Spirit changes believers. I asked why an omnipotent Holy Spirit never produced perfect holiness in believers. And now we are given, I don't know what do we call this, additional propositions. God is progressively changing us. God is allowing real human choices. God is producing perfection yet. Perfection comes later.

29:09Our perfection somehow now doesn't indicate failure. It just indicates an unfinished process. So if I, if I, hey, ladies and gentlemen, I am the host of the Theology Central Podcast. I would like to tell everyone, I just got back from Vegas. I slept with four prostitutes. I snorted about three lines of coke, shot up a little bit of heroin. I stole $50,000 from the casino. The mob is now currently out looking for me, but just no. It's not a finished process. There's everybody's going to be like, yeah, you know, the process not finished yet. God's progressively changing him. Now you're not going to do that. If I was to turn on this microphone and go, hey, guys, I'm a homosexual. Boom, that'd be the end of it. Nobody would even listen to me anymore. You wouldn't go, well, you know, it's a progressive change, you know?

30:14And it weird how that works. Progressive change sounds so good if someone's like, I'm struggling with a little bit of gossip and slander and I can't really forgive my parents. Well, you know, brother or sister, it's a, but if you name a certain sense, not you don't finish the end, crucify him, drag him to Salem. Let's get a rope and hang the witch. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's progressive. It's just not finished yet. I'm an unfinished product. Well, I'm sorry, you should have had more, you should be more finished than that sin. It's such a game, man. All right. Okay. So, and I'm going to ask this whole thing that God is progressively changing as he's allowing real human choices. He hasn't producing perfection yet and all that. How do you know any of that? See, I'm not interested in whether a theological system has developed terminology of trying to explain every possible outcome.

31:15I want to know what scripture establishes, what logic allows us to conclude and what reality actually demonstrates because there's an enormous danger of constructing a theological claim that can never, that can never lose. And that's what Christians like to do. We like to construct a theological idea and then it can never, it can never be defeated because we've got an excuse, we've got an escape hatch for every possible question. Well, what about this? It doesn't matter. Hey, but I still said, well, God, God, it's progressive. Look at what you've got as long as you've got an escape hatch for everything, that drives me crazy. Instead of acknowledging, man, this is a little confounding. We feel like we always have to have an escape hatch and that drives me crazy. All right. It does. See, now just think of the way the game has played. If a Christian dramatically improves, the Holy Spirit transformed him. He went from homosexual to heterosexual.

32:17He went from drug addict to in the choir. Okay, whoo, the Holy Spirit did it. He's been transformed. A Christian only improves slightly. It's just like, what's going on? I mean, Bob over there went from homosexual to heterosexual and Susie over there. She keeps having a problem sleeping with her boyfriend. Well, you know, sanctification is progressive. Christian, Christian struggle with the same sin for 40 years. Well, you know, sanctification takes a lifetime. Christian, some Christian commits a horrible sin. Well, he resisted. He grieved the Holy Spirit. It's his fault. He may not even be saved. An unbeliever appears morally superior to Christians because I don't know if you know this. You can find atheists are very moral.

33:18You can find people who've experienced dramatic transformation and alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous. You can find Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, dramatic changes in their life. In fact, they may even appear to be morally superior to many Christians. I've worked with Christians. My goodness. Marriage falls apart, porn, adultery, law. You know, all kinds of things. And then I've worked with Muslims. Never a problem, never an issue. Okay. It's like, man, but guess what? If that happens, they'll be like, well, you know, Christians are perfect. I mean, Christians are still sinful. And then all of a sudden you've got an explanation for that. Or you'll say, they're not saved because that's always the ultimately go to. If someone really starts making Christianity looks bad, we just throw them out of the kingdom. If someone really makes Christianity looks bad, well, they're probably never saved. They're just a can't come out. Get out. You're making us look bad. We only want people who make us look good.

34:22At some point you got to ask, wait, so what conceivable observation would count against the claim? And guess what? There's no conceivable observation because a Christian is going to have an answer for they got a contingency for every question. And so then you're just like, you know what? Play your games, man. I don't have time for this nonsense. Okay. All right. Ultimately here's the thing. You cannot point to ordinary human moral improvement and simply announce that we have demonstrated that it's the Holy Spirit's changing people. Okay. And I'm just going to kind of be repetitive here. I'm going to double down here. People change. That's indisputable. At least outward actions can change. We don't ever really know what's going on on the inside. Okay. I know this. I know what will never change on the inside.

35:22You're always going to be a sinner on the inside. I don't care what you do on the outside. So let me just say it again. Now, alcoholic can walk into an AA meeting and experience enormous change in his life and never touch a bottle again and never drink ever again. A drug addict can enter in A and become completely clean. Be completely clean and never do a drug again. And guess what? Neither one of those things require that some God or the Holy Spirit or anything changed at them. Someone can enter a counseling program and become a better spouse. Someone can learn to control their anger. Someone can become more patient, more disciplined, more generous, more responsible, responsible. And none of those things require Christianity. That don't require the Holy Spirit. People who belong to other religions change. Atheist change. No with no religious commitment whatsoever changes.

36:25So just because you said, well, the Holy Spirit is changing someone, they changed. No, there's a logical problem. All the observation proves is that a person changed. It does not by itself establish the omnipotent Holy Spirit is supernaturally producing that change. You're just assigning the Holy Spirit to that change. And once you assign the Holy Spirit to that change, well, if the Holy Spirit can change that, he seems completely not willing to change these other things. So how do you get out of that? Well, the Holy Spirit wants to, but John over there doesn't want to. The Holy Spirit is controlled by what John wants or doesn't want. And what about Christians who are like, I want to be changed. Transform me. Make me perfect. I've only been saying God make me perfect since the day I got saved. I'm still not perfect. So are you going to blame me?

37:28If you're going to claim that something supernatural is occurring inside a Christian, then you have to ask, well, what distinguishes that supernatural transformation from well, all the other ordinary forms of human moral development that occur everywhere and has throughout history? But see, this is where things get really complicated. All right. Now, put your thinking caps on. Let's go to theology class. What does the law of God require? Oh, snap. I'm going there. Yeah, I am. The law of God does not require improvement. It does not require progress. It does not require, hey, I'm better than I was five years ago. Jesus says you therefore must be perfect. As your heavenly Father is perfect.

38:28The book of James says whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. So if someone comes along and says, hey, I used to commit 10 terrible sins. Now I only struggle with five. That is wonderful from a human standpoint. And I mean that that's wonderful. Maybe the five you struggle with are not going to destroy your marriage. It's not going to embarrass people. It's not going to cause scandal. Maybe those five or more of the publicly acceptable sins, maybe a little gossip, a little lying, a little slander, a little unforgiveness, a little bitterness. Okay, maybe a little laziness, you're slothful. Okay, I got it. Maybe you don't really love God the way you should. Maybe you don't really read the Bible the way you should. You haven't memorized a scripture in 17 years. Okay, nobody cares.

39:28So from a human perspective, hey, I mean it. Get on you. It's good. You're not committing the sins. It's going to hurt and destroy people. Find the sins that you can get away with and do those. But guess what all of that? What is that established? What is that established regarding the law of God? Are you righteous? Do you perfectly love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Do you perfectly love your neighbor? Do you perfectly obey God's commands? Do you fail to do what you ought to do? Do you ever think what you shouldn't think? Do you ever desire what you shouldn't desire? Do you ever speak what you shouldn't speak? Then you are still a sinner. You are unrighteous. You are unholy. We can compare ourselves horizontally and say, well, I'm better than that person. Well, congratulations. Or you can say, I'm better than I used to be.

40:31Congratulations. But God's law does not ask whether you're morally superior than you were in 1996. The issue is whether you are righteous and according to the biblical standard, you are not. So I don't know how you're measuring change. If change is not perfection, it's just changed on a human level. And it does not, but that change means nothing in the light of God's law because God's law demands perfection. So you know what your change will show? Man, I've changed. Oh, I'm still a wretched sinner who deserves hell and all I can do is fall at the foot of the cross and plead for God's mercy and grace because I'm still a sinner. The minute you will look to the law of God, you're gonna say, well, with me, I'm undone. I don't care how much you've changed. You're gonna realize all your good deeds are nothing but filthy rags before a perfect and holy God.

41:34Now we return back to the original proposition. The Holy Spirit is supposedly working inside Christians to make them holy. See, now we're not talking about a therapist, we're not talking about a support group, we're not talking about a filtering app, we're not talking about an accountability partner, we're not talking about a small group, holding your hand, trying to help you. We're talking about God, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, holy God, who's omnipresent. And according to scripture, that same God, no, he doesn't suggest, he commands holiness and he condemns the slightest violation of his law as complete sin. So if God is personally working within me or perfectly working within you to produce holiness,

42:36why does that work never produce perfect holiness? And you say, because it's progressive, but you can't even measure the progress. And why is it necessarily progressive? Well, because we resist. Well, okay, so now we resist, okay, wait. So with me versus God, and my resistance stops God, God's like, I wanna make you holy, oh snap, he doesn't wanna be holy again. I'm just gonna have to go back home. Can human resistance ultimately prevent omnipotent power from accomplishing what God intends? Well, because God allows human choice, then explain precisely how human choice relates to the effectiveness of God's transforming activity.

43:37Well, because God doesn't intend to make us perfect until glorification. Now we've reached something. Now, and if you continue, push this, you almost, this is where you can ultimately end up. Okay, God possesses the power to do it. To make us holy. God will make us holy. God, and a present time, he commands you to be holy. He will condemn your failure as sin. He's supposedly working in us to produce holiness, but God has chosen not to produce perfect holiness until later. Hey, that may be a great theological theory. To me, it just sounds like a bunch of theological excuses, because you know you have to admit. Nobody's gonna be perfect. And if you compare everyone to the law of God, you gotta say everyone's completely messed up. So you gotta make it excuse. Well, God doesn't want me to be holy yet. Well, if he doesn't want me to be holy yet, then why does he command me to be holy?

44:39Oh. All right. Then there's a little bit more in the emails, but I'm just trying to walk through the basic issues here, okay? I think I received this email today. They say, we're talking about two different points. I think this is what you're saying. If God gives us a new, or maybe this is not the one from today, I'd have to go here and look through. Let me pull up the emails again, because I wanna make sure I got them in order. Let me go back here. Here we go. If I can get it here. Okay, yeah. So this is the email I did receive this today at 4.35 PM, suggest a couple of hours ago. They may have already responded to the next one. If they do, I'll try to pull it up, all right. But here we go. Says, we're talking about two different points.

45:40I think this is what you're saying. If God gives us a new heart, if God gives us a new heart, gives us the Holy Spirit, freezes from the slavery to sin, commands us to be holy, and provides a way of escape from temptation. Why are Christians still expected to sin? Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me just say this. If God has given us a new heart, giving me the power of the Holy Spirit, giving me the Holy Spirit, and freed me from sin, there's no other way than I, the probability and the possibility would be perfection. It would be what's, it would be expected. If I have a brand new heart, and I've been freed from the bondage of sin, I would be perfect. And if I can't get to perfect, then ladies and gentlemen, then I'm still in bondage. If I'm not in bondage, then I can be perfect. If I can't get to perfection, what's keeping me from that perfection? I'm obviously still in bondage. This is just basic, okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, but this person says,

46:42my point is that if both sides believe God forgives us, because of Christ, and then really changes us by the Holy Spirit, what practical difference does it make, whether that interchange is called part of justification or sanctification, imputed versus infused? Oh, man alive, okay. This is where I think the misunderstanding becomes obvious. We're not talking about two unrelated things, okay. Look again at that sentence. If both sides believe God forgives us because of Christ, and then really changes us by the Holy Spirit. See, there's the premise again. He's now repeated the same premise at least three times, all right? Really changes us. See, and now I'm being asked where that change should be placed in our theological system. Hey, where do we place that change in justification or in sanctification? Here's my response. We aren't talking about two different things.

47:44I don't think you're understanding. I am following a logical process. You want to understand the difference between imputed and infused. However, you keep making a statement like this, the Holy Spirit changes the believer. I can't get to the other until we establish if that is even true. That's the entire point. I'm not avoiding the question. I'm refusing to let the answer be smuggled into the premise. After all of that, I think we're finally getting into a position where the original distinction can begin to mean something. What does impute me, all right? It means something is reckoned. It means something is credited or accounted to someone, all right? See, the astonishing claim, I'll say it this way, the astonishing claim of imputed righteousness

48:45is not, well, God gradually makes me sufficiently righteous and therefore accepts me as righteous. That's not the astonishing claim. The astonishing claim of imputed righteousness is that the righteousness upon which my justification rests is not any inherent moral righteousness at all. To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. That's Romans chapter 4 verse 5. Notice it's a scandalous word, all right? To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the, are you ready for it? He justifies the ungodly. God justifies the ungodly.

49:52Philippians 3, not having the righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, then we have Romans 10, 3 through 4 for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. That's all scripture, okay? Now, see, now we're getting somewhere. The righteousness which we all desperately need cannot be located, cannot be found, cannot be tested by any moral progress. It cannot be seen, it cannot be tested because it's imputed righteousness.

50:53Because even I'm justified, by an imputed righteousness, but if I look to myself, if I stop right now and I say, all right, I'm the host of the Theology Central podcast, let's compare me to God's law. You know what I'm gonna find? You are a piece of human garbage, you're sin. Well, whatever change supposedly has happened to me, whatever maturity you may be able to try to find in me, whatever destructive behaviors I'm no longer doing, I may be better than I once was, but the question is whether it is the perfect righteousness required by God's law. And if I'm gonna look for the righteousness that that's gonna, that is required by God, I cannot point to myself. This is why imputation is radically different from just merely arguing over theological vocabulary. It's about the fact that I'm declared to be righteous,

51:53even though I'm not. Change doesn't prove anything, because change does not come from imputed righteousness. Imputed righteousness says, hey, hey, stop looking inside yourself. Okay? That's not where you're gonna find the righteousness. You have to look to God and the righteousness that comes to you from Christ. I am not saying Roman Catholicism bad, Protestantism good. Westminster wins discussion over. I'll, I, I'll subject Protestant claims about sanctification to exactly the same scrutiny. I don't care if you're gonna, I'm gonna put it over in the sanctification column. I'm still gonna be like, where does it come from? Where does the sanctification come from? I'm gonna put it over in the sanctification column. Where does it come from? Where does the sanctification come from? And then all those problems we've already discussed, I'm gonna still question it. I don't care what Protestants say.

52:55I don't care what anybody says. Imputed righteousness does not transform or change, because it's imputed. And the minute you start talking about some internal change, where does it come from? Now you've got something infused. Well, is that righteousness? Is some kind of righteousness now inside of me? Well, now I'm walking back over to the infused camp. If a reformed theologian tells me that Christians are necessarily being progressively transformed into greater inherent holiness, I'm gonna ask him the same questions. Show me, define the transformation, show me the biblical standard, explain why they continue to sin, compare them to the law of God. Tell me what distinguishes a supposed, supernatural transformation from just moral change is that are observed in the life of an unbeliever. I am not protecting anyone's theological team, because I refuse to join any of your theological teams.

54:02If Protestant theology makes an assertion that doesn't survive scripture, logic, and reality, then Protestant theology is the problem, and I don't care. If Catholic theology makes a claim, and it doesn't meet logic, reality, scripture, then Catholic theology has a problem, and I don't care. If something I believe does not survive those tests, then I have a problem, and I will throw out what I believe, and I've got tangible proof of it happening in the middle of a sermon. When I was working on covenant theology, and I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't work. I've changed my positions. I used to hold to a hard Lordship salvation, and now I believe in many cases that walks to an infused righteous understanding. I will change my view, and here's the thing.

55:02Truth doesn't need me to protect it. So I haven't finished answering this email yet, okay? But I'm not avoiding anything. We're actually discovering why the question is far more complicated than it's just, so tell me the difference between imputed and infused. Now, if you emailed anybody else, they would give you the answer. I'm not anybody else, because we've already seen just trying to work through that basic assumption that was front loaded into the question raises nine million theological questions. That's how theology works. You pull one string? Oh my goodness, you just realize that an entire ball of yarn just blew up, okay? See, your original formulation is, if everybody agrees that Christ forgives us, and then the Holy Spirit really makes us

56:03increasingly righteous inside, why should we fight over whether the inward righteousness belongs under justification or sanctification? And my answer is, we don't get to start there. We have to establish this supposed inward supernatural transformation. You're asking me to categorize, define change, define righteousness, establish the standard, compare the claim, compare it with what we actually observe, explain why ordinary moral improvement constitutes evidence of supernatural transformation. See, I'm gonna go, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, I'm not even agreeing with you that people change, okay? I, you want to me, you want me to qualify it? I believe this is where I constantly say that ultimately, and what do I say? I say this all the time. So many times Christians who claim they believe in imputed righteousness actually teach and infuse righteousness.

57:03I say that like a million times. So you should know that immediately when you start talking about change, you're gonna go, whoa, you're already presupposing an infused righteousness idea to a certain level. You're already talking about some inward change, some inward transformation, some, whoa, I'm not even, I'm not even accepting that premise. Because imputed righteousness does not make that claim. So when I stand before the law of God, I don't need a, a theological theory to tell me that I'm making progress. When you stand before, when I stand before the law of God, you know what I don't need? I don't need to go, oh well, I used to do this, but I don't do this now. And I use, oh, I'm getting a little bit better. I'm 20% better. No, because that does not work.

58:04When you stand before the law of God, your, your supposed change is complete and it's stinking garbage. Who cares about a stupid change when you stand before the law of God? Because the law of God says, don't show me your change because your change is inadequate. It's not enough. You fail. The wages of sin is death and you're a sinner and you do not meet the standard. When I stand before the law, I need righteousness. I need a perfect righteousness. Not a, oh, I'm doing better. I'm getting a little bit better. It's progressive. I'm getting a little bit better. I don't know what that means because in the light is standing before the law of God, my little bit better just burns up. It's like, it's like, man, I'm getting really good at basketball. I'm doing really, really good. Man, I'm doing good. I've been going down to the basketball courts down the street. Woo, I'm dropping some good shots.

59:05I'm ready for the NBA and I go to an NBA player, smack boom, boom. I get beat 100 to zero. My change doesn't mean anything in light of that. Now, if I go play some fourth graders, I may be able to talk some smack. Well, when I get before God's law, oh, I'm changing. I'm doing really good. I'm giving it the good college try. I'm at least 50% better than the idiots in my small group. It doesn't matter. I need righteousness. I need perfect righteousness. And when I look at my life and I look inside my heart, I do not find that righteousness. So now the question is, where will that, where does that righteousness come from? Where can I find this righteousness? Do I find it inside me? I've got the Holy Spirit. He's making me righteous. That's the answer. Oh, wait, maybe it's outside of me. Maybe it's produced in me.

1:00:06Maybe it's credited to me. Wait, maybe it's something I progressively become. Or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, okay, right? Kind of sound like a seal, okay? Or that perfect righteousness? That perfect righteousness comes from Jesus Christ. And it's accounted to me while I am still a sinner. I'm still ungodly. And it's accounted to me by faith apart from works. Now you should begin to see the difference is about as clear as day and night. These people over here, I'm infused. I'm changing. I've got to cooperate with it. Ooh, I could, I could, I could mess it up. I could prevent it. I could hurt it. Oh, man. And so you're over there and you're all looking at yourself.

1:01:07I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing better. I need to try harder. I'm doing this. I'm gonna do this. Ooh, oh, oh, oh, no. I don't even know if I'm safe. Oh, wait, MacArthur, just, uh, he just put out a, a 10, a 10 question test to see if I'm really safe. Oh, no. Jonathan Edwards has one. I don't know. You can go over there. You guys play your little infused game. I'll be like, hey, man, I don't know what your problem is. I am declared to be perfect. Holy, righteous, obedient, godly, never committed us in because I have imputed righteousness to credit in my account. So I am perfect and holy and righteous. And nothing I do, nothing I don't do can change that because it's a righteousness given to me by faith alone apart from works. It's a completely different, it's a completely different religion. Now you say, but does change take place? Well, once again, change takes place. Why? If you're gonna ask me now, now I'll try to really get to, where do I think change takes place? Well, here's where I would start.

1:02:08We repent and believe. Now I believe repentance and faith is both a gift of God, okay? But if I'm granted repentance, what happens? What at its most basic level repentance is what? A change of mind. I change my mind about God. I change my mind about sin. I change my mind about right and wrong. I change my mind about the Bible. I change my mind about some eternity, life. There's a change that takes place. And the more I grow and learn as a Christian, the more that change will, I will learn things. So then guess what will happen? There's gonna be things I want to do. Now I still gonna end up doing the things I don't wanna do. But there's now a what to there because I've changed my mind about sin and God. And there's gonna be things I don't wanna do. I'm still gonna do, see Romans chapter seven for this reality. So there's gonna still be this struggle and failure. But guess what changes take place. When you begin to change your mind about things, when you really begin to change your mind about things,

1:03:09some kinds of changes take place. But it's because we've changed our mind. Our minds have now changed. That's what repentance is. You say, well, God is working in us. You can make that claim all day, all right? But you just gotta acknowledge and then you can try to make all the exude. Well, God's working inside. I mean, He doesn't want me to get to a whole perfection. Okay, just remember, if God is the one doing the changing inside, if God is the one supposedly getting me closer to whatever I'm supposed to be, any failure in my life would be directly, at least God would play a major part of it because He did not change me in that particular area. So if a homosexual changes their mind and says, okay, I'm gonna believe that homosexuality is a sin, and I'm gonna try to live my life. But guess what? They still struggle with same-sex attraction. They may just like heterosexuals may commit fornication or adultery or whatever. That homosexual continues to struggle and change.

1:04:09Our struggle and continues maybe to fall back into homosexual activity. Are you gonna be like, well, you know, it's progressive, you know? You know, I mean, you know, God just doesn't want him to get rid of that completely yet. No, most likely, most Christians will not give them that benefit of that. No, God changes, God transforms. You should be different than how come the heterosexual doesn't change and no longer commits lust, fornication or adultery. If you're gonna demand that change happens for one, then you gotta demand change happens for all. But you'll backtrack and give some people an excuse, well, nobody's perfect and it's progressive. And I mean, God doesn't want us to get us all the way there yet. Well, then okay, then that's true for everyone. And ultimately, what does that mean? Don't know, nobody's gonna get the perfection. So everyone's gonna be in sin. But there's gonna be some kind of change.

1:05:11Based off what? How do you define it? How do you quantify it? How do you even know what's causing the change? And just know external change doesn't prove anything internally. I could stop sleeping with prostitutes and then 14 hours a day be filled with lust and who knows what I'm doing in private? I may not be sleeping with a prostitute. So that doesn't mean anything. Remember the people, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this, this, this, all these external actions like, depart for me, I never knew you. External actions don't even prove salvation. External action does not prove internal change. And at the very minimum, if the Holy Spirit's inside of me changing me, you think at the very minimum, it could just change me so that I don't ever want to sin again. And what's he changes that I never want to sin again? Then there would be no, no, so all he would have to change

1:06:13is my want to. But you know what, he would have to do to, he would have to get rid of my sinful nature. And as long as the sinful nature remains, guess what I'm going to want to do? Sin. But if I just say, well, I'm say by an imputed righteousness, okay, well, then imputed explains why I still want to sin and why I still struggle and why I still fall. Infused, then there's got to be some definitive way to measure it and test it. And even within Roman Catholicism, well, you, you, you have to cooperate with it and you could ultimately lose it because they've got to explain the fact why some people who supposedly are saved then fall completely away. Well, you either say they lost it or you do the other way to get out of it. Well, they were never saved in the first place. Everyone's got a way to explain everything. So now I'm going to look here really quick.

1:07:26I'm going to go to my inbox. Okay, currently I have not received another email. All right, I probably will because I probably still not agree with me. And listen, I just want to make this very clear. And I'll end with this because people are going to start emailing me. You want to argue for change and transformation and power and set free. Don't argue with me. Just go prove it. Go be perfect. But do me a favor. Don't compare yourself to the drug addict laying in a pool of their own vomit. Don't compare yourself to a prostitute. Don't compare yourself to the bad people. Compare yourself to God. And then you'll see how that change doesn't look like much change in light of what God demands. A perfection that's internal, external,

1:08:29that covers everything you think, everything you say, everything you do, everything you desire. And then you know what you'll do? You can join me at a Lutheran church on a Sunday morning and you can stand with all the rest of us as we say, Lord, we have sinned and thought, word, indeed, by what we have done and what we have left undone because every Sunday we can confess the same thing. We're all sinners. Well, I sin less than Susie over there and what how do you define sinning less? Because the Bible says if you could broken one law, you're guilty of all. So how do you even measure progress? Now you're bringing a human measurement and you're comparing yourself to other humans. Stop, that was the whole problem with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I thank the God that I'm not like these people. Yeah, they were comparing themselves to others.

1:09:31But someone had enough sense to say, Lord, could not even look to heaven. I'm unworthy. I'm a sinner. Yeah, if you look to God, all you're gonna see is your sin and any so-called progress. Now, that progress from, I wanna make it very clear. Progress from a human standpoint is of utmost benefit. Man, if you can stop sleeping with prostitutes, that's probably pretty good for your life. Moving forward if you wanna be married, okay? If you are struggling with drug addiction and you can get clean, that's positive for your life. Okay, I can go on and on and on and on and on and on. So I'm not saying that change is not good from a human standpoint, but just, no, that those kinds of changes happen in all kinds of people's lives. You're testimonies from other religions, from people who came out of counseling or therapy, or they read a book that transformed their life, stories of transformation and dramatic change

1:10:33and dramatic being delivered from some kind of bondage or addiction, there are a dime a dozen and they show up in every walk of life. You don't need God for that to happen because it happens. Now, you could say that's common grace. Well, that's a different thing. Then it would be like, well, why would God give common grace to this person? Now we get into a whole different theological issue. But infused, I don't know how you don't understand the difference. It's a completely different reality imputed. Guess what I still am? A sinner, a by nature, a sinner and thought, were deed in practice. I'm just declared righteous. Oh, Johnny over there has an infused righteousness. Well, then I'm gonna look for change, transformation, power. I mean, something has been put inside of them. They should be better than everyone else. I know people who believe in infused righteousness and guess what? There are no better than people who've never even been saved.

1:11:35It's like when a cat, when a symbol or charismatic, oh, if you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then you'll get power and you'll be set free. I worked with people who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They had visions and spoken tongues and all this stuff. And you come to find out you're like, oh, wow, okay, you did what? Okay, whoa, you got busted doing what? Wow, I thought the baptism of the Holy Spirit gave you power and gave you, it sounds like how many people in the charismatic world pastors have been busted for all kinds of scandals. What, they spoke in tongues? They had power. What, where's your power? And it amazing, all the talk of power has only produced one thing and 2000 years of Christian history, sin. Now, it may not be the same sin. It may be a different sin, but there's gonna be nothing but sin because if you compare yourself to God's law,

1:12:37you're in perpetual sin. Be holy as God is holy. Are you as holy as God is right now? No, you're not. And if you think you are, then we need to stop theology and we need to get you admitted to a mental health institute right now, okay? So therefore, you're in perpetual sin. Do you love God with all your heart, my body and soul? If you think you do, you're out of your ever living mind. So guess what? You're in perpetual sin. Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Do you do all things without complaining and grumbly? Are you content in every situation? I can go on and on and on and on and on. The more of God's law you see, the more you're like, man, I don't do this unless you start pretending that you are. Then you're delusional and you're a liar and that means you're still in sin. All right, it's now seven o'clock at night. I am, I have blown my voice completely out today. I do get frustrated by this because I just don't, because I feel like I've only addressed this topic.

1:13:40I don't know, 750,000 times. And I say it again, a lot of my problems started when I was a student at a Catholic university and they were basically like, you know, that whole Lordship salvation thing, you guys kind of believe in an infused righteousness. You kind of believe that there has to be a change or a transformation. You know, in some ways, you're more Catholic than Catholics and I was a, whoa, no, I don't believe that. And they're like, well, if you really believe in imputed righteousness, and then when I started thinking, well, I'm puted right, and then the London Baptist confession, I'm like, you know what, we hold up to the London Baptist confession. What does imputed really mean? What means I'm declared to be that which I'm not? I'm declared to be a saint, but I'm actually a sinner. And then when you start,

1:14:41if you've been a Christian for a very long time, you start realizing your own sinfulness, you realize your own failure, your own weakness, and then when you've been around Christians for your whole life, you're like sin, scandal, sin, failure, this, unforgiveness, this is where I'll end. Someone who used to go to my church, all right? They stayed there the whole time. So when the church ended, they were faithful. They were there from the very beginning and they were there the last day. And I'm always appreciative to them because those two individuals always allowed me to be me. And I really appreciate that. They gave me freedom to preach and question and challenge and sometimes she would make a joke. She's like, I don't know what to believe this week. And so sometimes she probably got bothered by it, but they allowed me to be me and I will always be appreciative of that. Well, they now attend a Baptist church in Tuscala, first Baptist church to school, or the church I got saved in, all right? So that's where they are. Her father attends a church of Christ church in Tuscala, all right?

1:15:45He had, I can't remember, I don't remember the, I don't want to say there was something happened to him medically that was going to prevent him from being able to get to church. He could not drive. He only lived a couple of blocks away, Tuscala small, but he could not walk. So she contacted the pastor of the church of Christ church and said, hey, can you pick up my dad and get him to church? Because the time they have to be at church did not correspond to the time he would show up at the church of Christ. So it wasn't going to work out. So hey, call the pastor and said, hey, can you pick him up? The pastor's wife is in the background like, no, no, no, we can't do that. And the pastor's like, no, according to my wife, you know, we can't do that. You had a pastor and a pastor's wife refuse to go out of their way by a couple of blocks to pick up a man who's a member of their church to bring him to church. That is succinct in Christianity.

1:16:47And I can give you millions examples of things that happen in churches. Talk to pastors who talk about how they're treated, how they're lied about. It Christians are sinful. I don't know why we have to pretend. Now, imputed righteousness explains all of that sinfulness. It explains all the failure. But we want to play this game. No, we've been set free. We have power. We'll then explain the failure. So then you play this game. Well, you know, God doesn't really want us to be perfect yet. Okay. Well, then it's on God. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's on you. How dare you try to tell me that there aren't millions of Christians who have begged God, pleaded with God, just help me stop this sin. Help me stop. I don't want to sin ever again. There have been Christian men who've laid on the altar

1:17:48pleading with God to get rid of sin in their life. There's been women. There's been teenagers. That doesn't, then that's not them stopping it. It's God not doing anything to help them. There's been people who've become saved, struggling with homosexuality. They beg God to take away same sex attraction, pleaded with God and it doesn't happen. And guess what they walk away thinking? Christianity is a fraud. Christianity is a lie. There's no power in it. No, you know, what you got sold was a bunch of garbage by Christians who promised something that they themselves, that they even were halfway honest, would be like, hmm, this whole power free thing doesn't quite work the way we sell it. I know. Stop your info commercial and let's dig into reality. We are saved by an imputed righteousness. That does not change us or transform us.

1:18:49Change can happen, possibly more driven by a change of mind, but guess what? No matter how much I change my mind, my sinful nature is still gonna be there. That's why Paul says that things I wanna do, I don't do the things I don't wanna do. Those are the things I do. Oh, now that describes Christianity. The more I study, the more I learn, the more I know I shouldn't do that. And so therefore I don't wanna do that. But then there's another part of me that ends up wanting to, because my sinful nature is still present. So that demonstrates that the Christian life is gonna be a never ending struggle with failure and sin. Oh my goodness, what do I do? I gotta run to the cross and rely on an imputed righteousness. Because practical righteousness is going to fail me every single time. Now that makes a lot more sense and it doesn't lead people with a false idea. But I was told my whole Christian life, you're a new creature, old things are passed away. You've been given the power of God, you've been changed, you've been transformed, don't, don't, don't, don't!

1:19:52And I was a teenager as a Christian. I was 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Yeah, you don't think I committed some sin and struggled? Oh, talk a big game, so did you. Oh, and you probably are still struggling today. Now if you're 60 or 70, you may not be struggling with the same things. See, a lot of times Christians love to do that. They're 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, single, dating. They're having all kinds of sin problem and they're struggling. Then all of a sudden they get married and they're in the honeymoon and they're like, don't, don't, don't, don't, I've been transformed. Now I can talk trash and tell other people they're probably not saved. And I don't know what's wrong with them. God changed me. The only thing changed is now some of the things you couldn't do. Now you can do and you don't have to feel guilty about it. Wow, what a big, you've really been changed. Here's a novel idea. Don't ever get married, stay single, remain celibate and don't ever struggle with anything.

1:20:53Oh, now things got different. Oh, now they snap. Don't ever gossip, don't ever slander. Forgive everyone, love God perfectly and be holy as he is holy. Come on, talk your big game now buddy. Oh, now you can't, can you? And when you're 75, you know, oh, you know, you're up five hours a day because you're tired and your body's broken down. Oh, I don't commit sin anymore. I wonder why. Okay. Oh my goodness, man, the games Christians play. It's such, it can be maddening sometimes. All right. So there's the different, I think I've answered everything. I think I've done imputed, infused. I've talked about everything, all right. Now, I made myself a lot of friends today. If anyone still likes this broadcast, you may want to support it because I guarantee you, when I look at YouTube tonight or tomorrow,

1:21:54I'm going to lose subscribers and I'm going to lose supporters. But let me make it very clear. I've been talking about these things for 20 years. So don't get all shocked or surprised what I'm saying today, because I've been saying these things forever, all right. Okay, now, let me go here, I'm letting the page refresh and then I can think some people. Arizona, thank you for tuning in. Indiana, thank you for tuning in. Kentucky, thank you for tuning in. North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas. Oh, the Canadians came out and forced today. We got Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, Ontario, there's two. Wait, I think Indiana, I get, there's two people listening to me in Indiana. Well, I'm ready. I'm going to go to Indiana, start a church. Okay, no, I'm joking, not starting a church. I just want to be a podcaster, right? People can only leave me mean voicemails. If you don't know what I'm talking about,

1:22:55go listen to the email, the program I did earlier today where I played the voicemail that was left for me, okay. All right, so I'm probably going to get some mean voicemails. I know I ticked everyone off, but man, I just, the games we play, man, I just don't get it. All right, man, I'm tired. Whew, I need, I need it. You know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a Coke and some strawberry pop tarts. That's what I'm gonna get. And I'm gonna go find something to watch. That's what I think I'm gonna do, all right? Okay, and I'm probably gonna retire and give up. All right, we'll see, we'll see. All right, and you know what I forgot to do? I forgot to call the dentist to find out if anybody has gotten my VA paperwork because if I don't get this thing removed from my mouth, which is causing an infection, which is leading to these attacks, I'm not gonna make it, okay? I almost had an attack earlier today. That's why my voice is shut. And because I've been screaming now for three hours.

1:23:56All right, thanks for listening. Look, man, I, all right, I don't know. I want to plead for mercy, but nobody's gonna get me any mercy. I don't care if you don't like it. I don't know, look, I'll just say this. If you want to believe on all the just dramatic transformation or change, just go live it. All right, okay, just go live it. And just compare yourself to God. Don't compare yourself to other people. All right, thanks for listening. Everyone have a wonderful night. And I retire, God bless.