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In this episode, Trent sits down with fellow apologist Joe Heschmeyer to critique Gino Jennings’ attack on the doctrine of Mary being the mother of God and show how the denial of proper Mariology leads to heretical Christologies like those of Pastor Gino.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Counsel of Trend Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Happy New Year everyone. Happy 2024, and also Happy Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, feast of the Theotokos, January 1st. I’m currently taking some time off to spend with family through this part of Christmas tide. Yes, it’s also the Feast of Christmas, until epiphany. Today, I wanted to share with you an older episode that I did on the topic of Mary, the mother of God, specifically rebutting a oneness Pentecostal preacher, Gino Jennings. I really love this episode, because I got help from my friend and colleague, Joe Heschmeyer. Joe has a YouTube channel called Shameless Popery. I’m going to link to it below. Please check it out.
Joe is an awesome Catholic apologist. I’m so grateful we have him on at the team. It was wonderful to do this episode with him. Please go check out his channel below. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to this video as well. Yeah, I’m just so grateful for everything you guys have done to support the channel, and I’m really looking forward to all of the topics and discussions and debates we’ll be having in 2024. Without further ado, here is my rebuttal with Joe Heschmeyer against Gino Jennings, on the dogma of Mary, the Mother of God.
Today we’re going to be rebutting a video from Pastor Gino Jennings, on Mary being the mother of God. Now, at first, I didn’t think it’d be necessary to respond to a 40-minute video from a Protestant pastor on Mary being the mother of God, but actually, while this may appear to be a Protestant pastor, this is not even a Christian pastor, which is why I found this so interesting to respond to. Also, this is a highly entertaining video. Normally I do these myself, not necessarily with a live rebuttal style, but today, I just couldn’t help myself, and you’ll see why, with the entertainment value. But what makes this video really interesting is that Pastor Gino Jennings is a oneness Pentecostal.
So oneness Pentecostals deny the Trinity. They believe that there is one God, but God is not three persons. They think he’s Father, then he becomes the son, then he becomes the spirit. I know it’s confusing. We’ll break it down a lot later, but just suffice it to say, this is a very old heresy that is still around in the church today. I think it’s important that on the question of, is Mary the mother of God? If you deny that, you end up with these kinds of heresies. We’ve got an educational opportunity and an entertainment opportunity.
Well, as I’d say also, because of the unique way he’s approaching the question, the standard Catholic responses to a Trinitarian Protestant who says these things, where you just say, well, look at these absurd conclusions. It doesn’t work with him, because he’ll just say, yeah, I believe all those absurd conclusions.
That’s right, so it’s good for us to introduce you to… And oneness Pentecostals, I think there are more Oneness Pentecostals than Mormons. It’s not a small sect. This is something that we need to be able to confront, that it’s a heresy that has been around for a long time, and so we need to know how to respond to that. I think this is also instructive to share with Protestants, that if you deny Mary’s the mother of God, you quickly spiral into this kind of stuff. Let’s just jump right in. This is going to be fun. Oh, by the way, this video, Catholic Church Challenge Pastor Gino Jennings, it was recorded back in 2008, but it was uploaded to YouTube a month ago, and now it has over 100,000 views.
Right. This is not some weird fringe, in that sense.
No, it is not.
Even though he rejects what 2000 years of Christians have said, a surprising number of people seem to be 100% on board with what he was saying,
Which means it merits a response, so let’s take a look.
This method comes from the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.
All right.
All right. Do they say Pastor Jennings, or just plain Gino?
Gino would do fine.
Amen. The term mother of God is justified by Catholic or Orthodox Christians, by new chapter one, verse 43.
Be sure you get his book, get his chapter and his verse.
Oh yes, the term Mother of God.
Mother of God.
Is justified by Catholic and Orthodox Christians, by Luke 1:43, in which Elizabeth greets the Virgin Mary as, “The mother of our Lord.” Please read this on your television or radio program, this person says. Please keep in mind that your previous remarks about the Catholic Church, this person says, has angered many.
Thank God for that.
Amen. It’s angered many, and will not be tolerated at all.
Let me tell you something, you ain’t got no choice but to tolerate it.
That’s right.
All right. So Pastor Gino Jennings is a character. We’ll be getting into more of him. So the person there, responding to a letter from somebody in a Catholic diocese in Wilmington, they seem to talk about it as if it is the official diocesan response.
I noticed that. I somehow doubt that the bishop wrote… Just said, please send a letter to…
I think this is just a random person from the diocese, who’s objecting to Pastor Gino saying that Mary is not the mother of God, and they’re appealing to what Elizabeth says to Mary.
And she says, why is this [inaudible 00:05:07] the mother of my Lord should come to me.
Right. And so people say, well, how does that show that Mary is the mother of God? Lord can mean a lot of different titles in the ancient world, but here, it’s very specific how Elizabeth is. This is a parallel to what David said when the Ark was brought to him. How is it that the ark of the Lord should be brought to me?
Exactly. It’s like in Samuel six. And in Samuel six, you’ve got David bringing the Ark of the Lord from the hill country of Judah, for three months, and saying, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? And Luke one marries in the hill country of Judah for three months, and Elizabeth says, how the mother of my Lord should come to me. The parallel there is really striking.
Right.
And notice that in Lord, we’re talking about the same Lord who’s [inaudible 00:05:52] in the Ark of the Covenant. This is going to become really important, because he’s going to make some interesting distinctions.
Right.
The ark parallel shouldn’t be lost.
Right. And so it just seems very clear here, even if you only relied on logic, you’d say, well, if Jesus is God, Mary is his mother, so therefore Mary is the mother of God. Unless you’re heretic, like Pastor Gino, and I don’t throw that out lightly. He denies an essential feature of the Trinity, which is heretical.
It’s really fascinating Christology too.
Oh, yes. It does turn into that. But the important point to remember is, we’re going back to, Elizabeth is saying that, how is it that she’s calling Jesus Lord, the mother of my Lord. Not just any kind of customary title, like how you might… When the woman at the well, for example, refers to Jesus as, my Lord, which is like saying, sir, like a customary greeting.
Right, right.
That’s not the context here. So this is a good text to offer and let’s see his response to that, as well as his response to the Catholic challenge in general.
Zoom in on me.
That’s right.
I give them props for control over the camera. Zoom in on me.
Please notify the Pope.
Please.
Notify all the Catholic believers.
Amen.
That are watching me now.
Amen.
I said, to declare Mary as the mother of God, is a lie.
That’s a lie. Amen. It’s right.
It’s a lie.
It’s a lie.
Did you hear what I said?
That’s right.
God.
God.
Has no mother.
Without a Father. That’s right.
God has no Father, he is Father.
Yes, that’s right.
We associate none with him.
Amen. Amen.
So I mean, this is the classic one though, that I hear a lot of Protestants say. It’s like, well, Mary can’t be the mother of God because God has no mother. And here, we’re equivocating on what the term God means.
Oh, yeah. And you notice it even more in his next line, where he says God is Father.
Right.
Because it doesn’t make any sense to the Son is Father, the Holy Spirit is Father, unless you’re a oneness Pentecostal.
Right. And so just to be clear, so people understand, why Pastor Gino Jennings rejects that Mary is the mother of God, is because he does not believe that Jesus was always God.
Right.
That’s what it seems. He seems to hold an adoptionst view that there was this human being named Jesus that the spirit of God went into.
Yes.
And so that seems to be how… Basically, this is also the heresy, is called modalism. So it’s like God is Father and then he pours himself into this human, Jesus, and then comes back again as the Holy Spirit, and returns as Father. It’s very confusing, but there can never be under the oneness view. You can’t have the Father, son, and Holy Spirit be three distinct persons, each of which is equally divine.
Yeah. Maybe it’s worth just saying at the outset, what should we say in response to that? Why would someone believing in the Trinity, say that view’s wrong? And you can give just one passage people can look to, John 14.
Right.
The last supper. Jesus says, get in verse 16, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. Now, what has he just said there? The son is going to ask the Father to send the spirit. So clearly there are three distinct persons here.
Right.
And you already have the indwelling of God. So if all that makes Jesus special is that God dwells within him, then he’s no different than the apostles.
Right. So we just want to lay this framework, because you’ll hear Pastor Gino just say things just off the cuff, wondering, what is he talking about? That’s the framework he’s using. There’s not three distinct divine persons, there’s only God. He’s one person, but he takes different modes. And so that’s why he would say Jesus is not always God, Mary’s not the mother of God. The other point I would raise before we continue, is that when Protestants say this too, well God has no mother. Well, if by the word God, you mean the Trinity.
Right.
Sure. But if by the word God, you mean divine person. If Jesus is a divine person, then Jesus has a mother.
Yeah. We got to make a person nature distinction here, because he’ll say, oh, well Mary’s the mother of Jesus’s humanity. And they seem to mean, by that, that she can’t be the mother of Jesus, a divine person, because she doesn’t pre originate him.
Right.
And that just conflates a whole lot of things. Your mother and Father aren’t just the mother and Father of your humanity, they’re the mother and Father of your human person.
Right. And so the personhood, Mary did not give Jesus his divinity.
Right.
But she is… A mother is someone who gestates a person in her womb, and then gives birth to that person.
Right. When someone is pregnant, they’re pregnant with a person, not with a nature.
Not with a nature. And if Jesus is all… And that’s where Pastor Jennings will disagree. And Protestants, if they deny Mary is the mother of God, if they say Mary is not the mother of God, then they’ll have to embrace Pastor Gino Jennings view that, well, Jesus became God later. He wasn’t always been God.
Yeah. You end up with, at best, nestorianism, and at worst, just kind of an adoptionism. And he flirts with both.
So let’s play with that, and we’ll explain those terms in a bit.
You just can’t quote a scripture in a passage in Genesis and get away with it.
No, no.
When you quote a scripture… Whenever you quote a scripture to the truth of God, the intelligence of the highest step in.
That’s right. That’s right. [inaudible 00:11:27].
Dive into that.
That’s right.
[inaudible 00:11:34] You get what I’m telling you?
Amen.
Whenever you quote any scripture.
Go ahead.
For the truth of God.
Go ahead.
Guarantee the intelligence of God adjusting the wings waiting.
Oh, yes.
God is a back catcher.
That’s right.
Waiting for it.
That’s right. Go ahead.
All right, let’s get this.
All right. When I give a talk though, Joe, can you be in the background just saying, that’s right and amen?
I like the guy behind him, who leans in to get in the shot, and then just cheers and collapse. It’s nice. We’re now more than three minutes into the video. And all he’s said is, I disagree, but he said it was such charm and such theatrics and bravado that you just want to be like, I hope he’s right. I mean, he’s really building up, building up, building up. Let’s see what he has to say.
All right.
[inaudible 00:12:22] in the book of Luke, let’s analyze it and strip it back, and see, is Mary God’s mother?
Luke chapter one, and we’ll begin at verse 42.
Listen.
And she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, blessed art thou among women.
Blessed art thou among women.
Holy.
Now that right there.
That’s right.
Right there, I got you.
That’s right there.
Because you said that Mary is blessed above.
That’s right.
Women.
That’s right. That’s right.
You said the book said that she’s blessed above.
That’s right.
The book says, among.
Among women. Right along with the rest of the women.
Among women. Along with all the rest of the women.
That’s right.
You get what I’m talking?
No I don’t, but I’m giving him points to originality here, because I’ve never heard this objection before.
Yeah. If Mary’s blessed among women, therefore all women are blessed, or all women are the mother of Jesus?
Or that she’s not special, because she’s not above women. She’s blessed among women. Pastor, the whole point, is that blessed among women means Mary is a human woman, but unlike any other human woman, she gave birth to God. And so she is blessed among them. Just like when Jesus says that among those born of men, there is none greater than John the Baptist. Among them, he has a high stature, and that’s true for Mary.
Yeah. I think in some ways he’s responding to kind of a fictitious version of the Catholic view, that we don’t think Mary’s a woman anymore because she’s above women. No. No one believes that.
Right.
So you’re responding to a view held by nobody.
Spoke out with a loud voice, and said, blessed art thou among women.
Yes.
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And once is this to me.
Yes.
That the mother of my Lord should come to me.
The mother of what?
The mother of my Lord. [inaudible 00:14:11].
The mother of what?
The mother of my Lord. All that. Amen.
These two are like a comedy duo. They got a good bit back and forth.
They do.
That’s right.
It’s time to do the science.
That’s right. That’s right.
[inaudible 00:14:24] There was a word in front of Lord.
Yes, it was.
Actually overlooked.
That’s right. That’s right. Amen.
You better get… The Lord.
They Lord.
Said.
In Matthew.
Let’s break down the meaning of my Lord.
That’s it. That’s it.
Listen. Come on, let’s go to work.
Passage chapter 22, we’ll start at verse 42.
Start wherever you like.
Saying, what think he of Christ?
What?
Do you think of Christ, whose son is he?
Whose son is he?
You would think I’d be sick of the repetition bit, but I still am amused by it.
No, he’s got a great cadence. It’s really pleasing to listen to.
Really pleasing to listen to.
Really pleasing to listen to.
Go back and read that again, saying, what think he of Christ?
What do you think of Christ?
Whose son is he?
Whose son is he?
They say unto him.
In other words, we’re trying to find a Father.
That’s right.
They said to him.
The son of David.
David is his Father. He says unto this. They respond, David is his Father. He is the son of David. So now that respond resurrects a question.
That’s right.
Well, how then David-
In spirit.
In the spirit.
Call him Lord.
How would David call his son Lord?
That’s right. That’s right. That’s Jesus talking. That’s right.
How in the world? If David is the Father, how will David call his son, Lord?
Lord. That’s right.
The Lord. The Lord said. The Lord. The Lord said.
Unto.
Unto.
My.
My.
Lord.
Lord.
We’re going to go in a little bit, but if you’re utterly confused, and that’s understandable, pastor Gino is trying to make hay of the fact that Elizabeth says to Mary, the mother of my Lord.
And that is the mother of the Lord.
That if Jesus were truly God, Elizabeth would say, how is it that the mother of the Lord has come to me instead of the mother of my Lord? As if there’s some difference between saying that Jesus is the Lord and my Lord, as if only true God would be the Lord. My Lord means something completely different. And then he hearkens back to the psalm, the messianic prediction that Jesus himself references of David to talk about his own divine messianic status. How does the Lord said to my Lord? And so we’ll get into that. But first, just the distinction between the Lord and my Lord, well, you go back. You look John 2028.
Exactly. St. Thomas, after seeing the wounds on the side of Jesus on divine mercy Sunday, says, my Lord and my God. So if you’re going to say, my Lord doesn’t mean God, what about the rest of that sentence? My God.
Yeah.
Does my God mean God, or does that mean something else too?
Right. So what you’ll see, is that I think sometimes people can be taken in by this, because they’ll hear someone with extreme confidence.
Yes.
And that’s what’s really hard, is a lot of people will judge a claim solely by the confidence of the person making it.
And notice, by the way, the New Testament passage that he’s breaking open, is Jesus stumping his [inaudible 00:17:40].
Right.
In other words, he’s purposely taking a confusing part of the Old Testament, to show them that they don’t get it.
Right.
So Pastor Gino has no such qualms, he’s just confident he does get it. But when you’re starting with something that’s highlighted as confusing, and using that to explain something clear, your method is all backwards.
Right.
You should use the clear parts to interpret those parts that are less clear, not start with the parts that are intentionally opaque, and use your own misunderstanding to misinterpret the clear parts.
Right. So now we understand that there’s no distinction between the Lord and my Lord, right?
Right. I mean, there is in the one particular passage you’re looking at, but it doesn’t mean the rest of the Bible, every time the Lord is-
That’s right. Just because my Lord is, in that passage where David is speaking of, the Lord said to my Lord, we see the Father talking to the divine Son, who is the Messiah, who are separate persons, not one person. There’s a distinction there, but that doesn’t mean it applies to the rest of the New Testament. So we’ll listen more.
Sorry, one last thing to add.
Sure.
Because one of the things Jesus is pointing out is, how can we say the Messiah is the Son of David, when David it treats him as already existing, and is distinct from the Father, back in the Old Testament.
Right.
In other words, he’s actually answering the heresy of oneness Pentecostals, because it’s showing that the Messiah is both the son of David, which Jesus readily affirms, which the New Testament readily affirms.
Right.
And isn’t newly created in the first century. That the Son of David preexists. And we can already, in the Old Testament, say the Lord is speaking to my Lord, because led by the Spirit, David is having this encounter of the Father and the Son. It’s deeply Trinitarian and all of this passage is getting lost while he gets hung up on the different article between the, versus my.
Alrighty.
Sit down on my right hand.
Until what?
Until I make thy enemies, thy footstool. If David then-
If David then.
Call him Lord.
Call him Lord.
How is he his son?
How is he his son?
That’s right. Amen. [inaudible 00:19:45]. That’s right.
Let’s take it apart.
Take it apart [inaudible 00:19:49] Go ahead sir.
The Lord say to my Lord.
My Lord. That’s right.
The Lord, know ye, the Lord. Know me that the Lord. Know ye that-
You hear this in Psalms 100 and verse three.
Know ye that the Lord, he.
Is God.
Is God.
That’s right.
Know ye that the Lord.
The Lord.
He is God. The Lord.
That’s right.
Said unto my Lord. When you say the Lord, the God.
That’s right.
The Almighty.
That’s right. W.
When you say my Lord, that mean my son.
That’s right.
My servant.
That’s right.
Mary birthed, like she said, my Lord. That’s right.
That’s right.
But she didn’t birth the Lord.
That’s right. Amen. Amen.
That’s right.
The look of triumph.
Yeah.
And the problem here, is I would agree with him, right, Mary did not give birth to the Father.
Right.
She gave birth to the Son. And this is a similar tactic that Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah’s witnesses, what they’ll often do all throughout scripture, because oftentimes there’ll be comparisons made in the New Testament, between God and Christ. Christ is in God, for example, and we’ll talk about this. And so the word God, Theos, or [inaudible 00:21:08] in Greek, is often used to refer not just to the Trinity, but to the Father specifically. And so what they’ll do though, is they’ll take from these comparisons where Theos, God, refers to the Father, and then make the conclusion that Theos only means the Father. That it only means…. And so that’s something like what Jehovah’s witnesses, Iglesia ni Cristo do. They’ll say, oh, well only the Father is God and Jesus is lesser.
And that’s what they’re doing here, to say that, in some respects… At least for him, when Jesus is born, he’s a mere servant, the Messiah, whatever you want to call it. But he’s not the God, the Lord said to my Lord, as if only the Lord can be the God, which is… He’s already assuming God…. And that’s the other thing Jehovah’s witnesses do all the time, and others, they assume God can only be one person, and interpret the Bible accordingly.
Right. And so then you’re left with this problem, as we just saw, when Thomas says Jesus is my Lord and my God. Is he saying there are multiple gods? Is he saying Jesus is the Father? Neither of those work.
Right. And to me also, if you want to rebut oneness Pentecostalism, hopefully we will get to this as we go through, is to point out, if Jesus is praying to the Father, who is he talking to? Especially Jesus, after his baptism, supposedly he’s filled with the Holy Spirit, and now he would call him God. Who is Jesus… Who is he talking to? Otherwise, when atheists say that Jesus saved… God is talking to himself, or there’s an atheist meme where Jesus praised to himself or to his own Father. No, we don’t believe that, except for the oneness folks, if they think the Father and the son are the same person.
And also, I mean, notice in Luke one, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit while she cries out.
Right.
How is it that the mother of my Lord… And so if she’s filled with the Holy Spirit and that’s the thing that makes Jesus distinctly God, then we’d say Elizabeth is God.
Right.
If God just means being filled with the Holy Spirit, and that’s this adoptionist heresy that Jesus becomes God, but not in the sense, Father’s God. Then Elizabeth would be God.
Right.
So something more is going on in Jesus Christ, even in the womb of Mary, that Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit is crying out.
Right.
That she’s being blessed just to be in the presence of Mary and Jesus.
Right.
See, the title the Lord.
The Lord. Makes a difference.
Is greater than the title, my Lord.
That’s right.
Because the Lord means the highest.
That’s right. That’s right.
When you say my Lord, that means my son, my servant, my flesh, my minister.
That’s right.
My man.
That’s right. That’s right.
My Lord does not mean my servant. There’s no version of the phrase, my Lord, that means my son.
And this logic doesn’t make sense. It’s like saying the President is different than my president.
Yes.
Well, I couldn’t say the President, he’s my president. He’s the president. It’s the same person. It’s both equal in stature.
So the flesh that she birthed was my Lord, and what was in that flesh was the Lord.
That is the adoption of heresy.
Yeah. Although, it’s really fascinating that apparently he finds-
Or Nestorianism.
Well, Nestorianism would say that there’s a divine person, a human person, and Christ. And so here I thought he was historian. I thought he was just going full on, because there was a reason Nestorius didn’t want to call Mary Theotokos, God bearer or mother of God, is because, no, she’s only the mother of the human Jesus, and the divine Christ just lives inside him.
But here, let me try to… Can I go back, just…
So the flesh that she birthed was my Lord, and what was in that flesh was the Lord.
So it sounds like we’re talking about two persons.
It does, but I think it’s even bigger than that, because he’s going to go on throughout about how he’s going to take… There’s several examples where he says flesh and blood this, there’s flesh and blood that, and so it does seem like maybe he just has this radical separation from the humanity and the divinity of Christ. But at least Nestorius believed in the Trinity. At least Nestorius believed that the divine person living in the human person of Jesus.
Is a separate person from the Father.
Exactly.
Right. So this is weird how these different heresies are mashed together, that he’s… Because that’s what we say to a Protestant. Look, if Mary’s not the mother of God, where is God the son, right? When Jesus is in the womb of Mary, where is God the Son? If Jesus and God the son are not identical, if they’re not the same person, then you have a big problem. So he’s trying to say, well, we have Jesus, unborn Jesus, and that’s the flesh. And somewhere in there, is also the true God. But it sounds like we have two persons, which is… It’s condemned to [inaudible 00:26:04] that is close in historianism. But let’s keep going.
[inaudible 00:26:07].
So listen, let me break it down and analyze it.
Amen.
The Lord.
The Lord.
Overshadowed Mary.
Go ahead. The Lord.
The Lord.
Go ahead.
Created the holy thing.
Listen.
The Lord created my Lord in Mary.
That’s right. That’s right.
And then after my Lord-
So, created. According to him, the Lord created my Lord. The Father creates the Son in Mary, in which case, how is it that David, in the Old Testament, is already talking about the interaction between the Lord and my Lord?
Right. When he’s talking about… He’s quoting David, who’s quoting the Psalms, how is it… And this is Jesus stumping his opponents.
And this is actually Jesus’ point, is how do you make sense of the fact that the son of man is both the son of David, and David’s God, back in the Old Testament.
Right. Because David says my Lord, and he’s the son of David. The only way you could rectify that, would be if he’s fully human. And so he’s the son of David, but he’s also fully divine. And so he’s David’s Lord, and that would be Jesus. All right? And so that makes sense of it. But when you try to strip away the trinity or the deity of Christ, you get into these kinds of confusing explanations that don’t make sense.
Right. That Jesus is merely a creature. He’s merely created.
Right. That God just made Jesus in the womb, the Father, and then sent his spirit into him later. And so he’s not really the God, man.
And so David has no reason to be calling-
Yeah. Why would David be making that assumption at all? He hadn’t existed yet.
My son was created in the house of David.
That’s right.
In the tribe of Judah, that after my son was made, the Lord got in my Lord.
That’s right.
I love the shimmy.
He got in.
He got the title God, and man.
That’s right. Go ahead.
Man was my Lord.
That’s right.
God of him is what was in the man, the Lord.
That’s right.
So, yeah.
So yeah, he really clarifies it there. He says, my Lord equals man, which is a terrible biblical exegesis. No where does my Lord simply equal man.
Or human. Yeah.
You might refer to a man as Lord, in terms of his governorship, et cetera.
Right. Like we said, the word Lord in the ancient world, was not identical to God, because it could mean master.
Right.
It could just be the way how we say sir today.
Right. But curios is used for [inaudible 00:28:33] to avoid saying Yahweh, that out of respect for the divine name of God, the Jews in the Old Testament would… When they were reading it, they would substitute the Hebrew word Lord. And this happens again in Greek. And so you have… When the Old Testament passages didn’t mention Yahweh are quoting, in the New Testament, they don’t say Yahweh, they say curious. They say Lord.
Right.
And so Lord is being used as a divine title, even though it isn’t exclusively or explicitly a divine title, in that sense.
Listen. Listen to him. Read it.
But notice, if my Lord is just a man, in what sense is he David’s Lord?
Right. He can’t be.
Especially a man who doesn’t even exist. A man who won’t exist for centuries.
Right.
If that’s all David’s seen, what in the world is that Old Testament passage about.
Right.
This is bad exegesis. But go on.
When you say Mary was the mother of God, then you say Mary was back there when God didn’t make nothing. Mary was dead.
That’s right.
Not the mother of Trinity. God became man, and he’s born of a woman.
And Mary doesn’t give Jesus his divinity.
Right. Mother and creator are not synonymous. Mother means you gestate a person, and give birth to them.
Exactly. I mean, a human mother isn’t even the originator of the male portion of your DNA.
Right.
And so conflating those two things, it is just bad. That’s bad biology, bad biblical Jesus.
Let’s keep track. Bad biology, bad theology, bad philosophy. Bad.
You saying Mary is before creation.
That’s right. That’s right. That’s what they’re saying though.
That’s what you’re saying.
That’s right.
Mary is before creation.
That’s right. Amen.
No, not here.
Blessed art thou.
Listen.
In Luke chapter one, nine verse 28.
Blessed art thou.
Blessed art thou among women.
Among women.
And when she saw him.
When she saw him.
She was troubled at his same.
Troubled at his same.
Cast in the mind when manner of salutation this should be.
Yes. But this is Mary having the conversation with Jabril.
That’s right. That’s right.
Gabriel.
And the angel said unto her, fear not Mary.
Fear not Mary.
Thou has found favor with God.
You found favor with God.
That’s right.
If she’s already God’s mother.
That’s right. That’s right.
She should know what’s going on.
That’s right. That’s right.
None of that follows. She’s not already God’s mother, and being the mother of someone doesn’t mean you totally know everything about them.
Right. But this is what’s interesting. I can make a parallel here to some Protestant arguments, because some Protestants will say, well, if Mary was immaculately conceived, then wouldn’t she have perfect knowledge of the divine plan, and wouldn’t she have complete knowledge of herself and what God was calling her to do? And as soon as Gabriel arrives. So what’s interesting, is that-
Sorry. Adam and Eve are the obvious counter example.
Right.
Adam and Eve are immaculately conceived, so to speak.
Right.
They’re created without any sin. That doesn’t mean they have perfect omniscience.
Right. So I think that’s a good point to raise, because these objections, there are similar ones among Protestants, and so what he’s saying, is that if she was… And notice the confusion here. Already the mother of God, Gabriel’s arrival. The enunciation doesn’t show up to say, hey, letting you know you’re already pregnant. Hey, FYI, BTW, you’re going to give birth, as if it had not happened yet. The point was that Mary’s fiat, she consents to this.
Yes. I think he’s got this idea that if Mary’s going to be the mother of God, she has to have given birth to the trinity from all eternity, which doesn’t make any sense. And it should be enough to say, isn’t it weird that a billion plus Catholics and a ton of hundreds of millions of Orthodox call Mary mother of God, and don’t think that she existed from all eternity and gave birth to the Trinity. How do those people harmonize those beliefs? A little bit of curiosity would’ve been enough to answer this objection.
I’m not sure Pastor Gino gives a lot of thought to what other people think, but we’ll let him keep going.
Lack understanding, sir. That’s right.
If she’s already God’s mother.
Amen.
Then she don’t need to ask no questions.
No, no. [inaudible 00:32:39] She was troubled. That’s right.
She was troubled. [inaudible 00:32:43] why would the angel have to come tell her about her own child?
Amen.
She was not the… Mary was not the mother of God.
Not yet. And then she’s told she will be, and she says, let it be done to me according to thy will. And she becomes a mother of God, but that doesn’t mean you get omniscience along with it.
She was the mother of flesh and blood.
That’s right.
Mary was the mother of the Messiah.
That’s right.
Mary was the mother that was predestinated to come to take away the sins of the world.
And behold.
Behold.
Thou shalt conceive in thy wound. Amen. And bring forth-
She didn’t conceive God.
No way.
God has no mother.
That’s right.
God is not begotten. God has no beginning.
That’s right.
Except in the gospel of John, which says Jesus is the only begotten son, and the word is God.
Yeah. So that is the thing that’s really fascinating. John one says both the word was with God, the word is God, and the word became flesh. Not just the word coexisted with flesh, but the word became flesh.
Right. So he keeps making a distinction that there’s God and there’s flesh and blood.
Right.
As if God is hiding within the body of Jesus somehow, but is not actually the body, within Jesus’s physical body. And he’ll do this later on. Hopefully we’ll get to this, where he’ll juxtapose flesh and blood just means mortal and human, and spirit and divine, that they’re these completely separate things. It’s actually kind of gnostic way of looking at the world.
It very much is a gnostic way of looking at it. But given that I assume he thinks we can have the spirit of God within us, given that scripture, especially the Gospel of Luke, regularly talks with people filled with the Holy Spirit, the question worth asking is, what is going on with Jesus that’s different from going on with all the other people filled with the Holy Spirit?
Right. Because that’s what he’ll say, that Jesus becomes God later, as he’s filled with the Holy Spirit.
Right. But he’s still, in his humanity, is not God.
Right.
He’s just two separate persons throughout.
Right.
Beginning of days, no end of life.
Amen. God.
God was with the children of Israel when they come out the land of Egypt.
That’s right.
But the flesh of blood of the Son of God, that wasn’t there.
And behold.
Behold.
Thou shalt conceive in thy womb.
Thou shalt conceive in thy womb.
And bring forth a son.
Bring forth God.
And shall bring forth a son.
No, bring forth God.
Bring forth a son.
Bring forth God.
Bring forth a son.
I say, wait a minute, what about the scripture of the book of Isaiah 9:6? Unless a child he is born.
That’s representing the birth of Christ.
[inaudible 00:35:08] our son is given.
That represent the death.
This is also similar to objections Muslims will make. They’ll say Jesus never says he’s God, and that it’s not explicit. Jesus is God. He is God. Even though we do have explicit points, like in John 2028, in Titus 213. We wait for the manifestation of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. But they’ll just point out-
But our God, not the God.
Not the God. Not the God.
If he’s our savior, how could he be the savior?
Right. Yeah. Just because it doesn’t say explicitly what you want it to say, doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean-
It’s holding a very strange view of the Bible, that you’re saying, God, you have to say it this way, my way. And if you don’t say it my way, I’m not going to believe it.
Right.
[inaudible 00:35:53] shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, everlasting Father. Yes, he was called that.
Called that. That’s right.
But notice, he just quotes Isaiah, where it’s this prophecy of the virgin birth saying that one she gives birth to will be called mighty God.
Right. And he just glosses over it.
Yes. It’s fascinating what he does here.
Called That.
That’s right. All that belonged to him.
But those titles make reference to spirit and flesh.
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.
Those titles don’t make reference to all flesh.
No way.
Better backtrack and give me Isaiah 9:6 so I can analyze it. [inaudible 00:36:26] Listen, let’s get in reverse and then I go back and drive. Come on.
Unto us, a child is born.
That’s not God.
Pop the clutch and get in reverse from my exegesis.
That’s not God. Unto us, a child is born. A few verses later he’s going to be called mighty God.
Mighty God. Isaiah 9:6.
And what verse is he basing that on? None. He just is declaring that’s not God.
What he seems to be saying is, when Isaiah 9:6 says, unto us a child is born, he should be called mighty savior, wonder counselor, mighty God. Some of the titles refer to Jesus’s flesh, and others refer to the divinity inside of him. That’s really the Father. That seems to be what he’s saying.
Yeah. But it’s worth noting that he will be called… It’s a reference to his person.
Right.
So if you want to parse that out, you can say, in his humanity, some of these divine titles don’t apply. In his divinity, some of these human titles don’t apply. There’s an orthodox way you can distinguish some of the titles given to Christ.
Right.
But he is a reference to not only nature, but a person.
Right.
And so you’d have to say, okay, one person has two natures. And then you’ve gone in reverse and gone into drive into orthodoxy. You’ve backed out of Nestorianism and realized you can’t say Jesus is two people, one human and one divine. Because then you’d have He, and then that other one. Not He for both.
Right.
That’s right.
God of the spirit that get in child.
That’s right.
God never was 12.
That’s right. Never. Go ahead brother.
God never was 12.
Never. No, no. Never. Go ahead.
[inaudible 00:37:54] start his ministry, about.
About the age of 30.
The age of 30.
That’s right. 30, sir.
Talk about his flesh.
Right, right.
God don’t have a birthday.
No, no.
My Lord have a birthday.
That’s right.
The son has a birthdays.
That’s right. Amen.
God, everlasting.
Everlasting.
God’s perpetual.
That’s right.
God’s eternal.
That’s right.
Except of course in Revelation, when Jesus was referred to as the alpha and the Omega.
Absolutely.
Jesus is the beginning and the end. Even though Jesus was born, and he died, he is referred to that. I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Just like Alpha and Omega is ascribed to the Father.
Yeah. I mean, it is worth pointing out, Jesus is the Christ. It’s not Jesus and Christ coexist. They’re not sharing an apartment, they’re not sharing a body. They’re one person.
Right.
God, no relative.
Amen.
God, without Father, without mother, without [inaudible 00:38:54].
That’s right. Our generation, sir. That’s right. Amen.
Another point I want to bring up here is, so he’s trying to make this distinction that there is the son, there is Jesus, the flesh, that which is born of Mary in the first century. All right? And then you have God the Father, who is everlasting from beginning to end. And so what will kill his position, is if we show that Jesus the Son, Jesus, we’re talking about Jesus in particular, pre-exists the first century. And so I think of John 1:14, they talk about how they beheld his glory. [inaudible 00:39:31] We have beheld his glory. Glory as of the only son from the Father. Then that takes us back to John 12 verses 37 through 41, that where he’s engaging with the Pharisees. And so in verse 39 he says, therefore they could not believe, for Isaiah, again said, he has blinded their eyes.
He has blinded.
He. So they’re talking about in Jesus here, the Pharisees cannot believe in Jesus. And it says in John, they could not believe, for Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, les they-
Who? Who?
See, I love this. We got a back and forth. He has done it. See with their eyes, proceed with their heart, and turn for me to heal them. John 12:41, this is where the kicker. Isaiah said this, because He saw his… his. Saw his. Because Isaiah saw his glory and spoke of him.
Of Jesus.
Right.
Isaiah, like David, sees Jesus.
Right. So it cannot be the case that Jesus is only filled with God, or only is divine in the first century when he is adopted, or all that nonsense. The point here, is that in John 12, verse 41, Isaiah… Sorry, John is speaking of Isaiah and interpreting here, the prophet Isaiah, that Isaiah be held not just the Father’s glory. He’s saying here, of Jesus, that Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory and he spoke of Jesus. We know him. The pronoun verse 41 must refer to Jesus, because in verse-
36, 37.
Yeah. Well not just there, in what it’s talking about him, but in verse 42, and spoke of him Jesus. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him.
Who?
They believed in Jesus.
Exactly.
So right there, when you show that God the Son, that Jesus existed prior to the first century in divine glory, as a separate person from the Father, oneness Pentecostalism, it’s dead. It’s dead on arrival.
He said, there’s no God with me [inaudible 00:41:51] It’s not a second.
That’s right.
Have no beginning of days and no end of life.
And look, we want to affirm that, right? God the Son is not a separate God from God the Father.
That’s the typical Jehovah’s witness and heterodox and orthodox Christian argument. There are not two gods.
Right.
But we don’t affirm that. We believe God is more than one person. You guys assume God can only be one person, and the evidence says otherwise
It’s Alpha.
That’s right.
And Omega.
Amen. Amen.
Beginning and the end.
That’s right. Amen.
Well, who is?
Yeah, this is a great… So this line, Alpha and Omega, or Alpha and Omega, depending on how you pronounce the word Omega, is from the book of Revelation. And it’s really clear it’s referring to Jesus in his divinity, Jesus as both divine and human.
Right.
So Revelation chapter one, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. Absolutely unambiguously, this is a divine title, being said of the Lord God.
Right.
Not just my Lord, the Lord. But then you jump forward to Revelation chapter 20, and begin in verse 12, behold, I am coming soon. [inaudible 00:42:59].
Who is coming? Who is coming soon?
Yeah. You’re going to find out, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Who is speaking? Well, jump forward, that’s 12 and 13. Go forward a couple verses, and he identifies himself. He says, I, Jesus. Jesus, have sent my angel to you.
Have sent my angel to you.
So explicitly, unambiguously, without a doubt, the Alpha and the Omega refers to Jesus, who is God. He is the beginning, he is the end. He’s the first and the last. If Jesus didn’t exist before the first century, he’s not the Alpha.
Right.
If he’s not a divine person from all eternity, he’s not the Alpha and the Omega.
Listen.
And so without a question, we can use the exact verses he’s referencing, but not reading here, and say, look, these are unambiguously about Jesus Christ.
Right. Amen.
Amen. Go ahead brother. [inaudible 00:43:54].
Tell me, Mary was the mother of God.
He even agreed.
I’d make the pope lick it up.
That’s right.
I’d make the pope, every arch bishop.
Tell them.
Every priest, every monk. Did you hear what I said?
Tell them. Amen.
I said I’d make your tongue lick it up from Rome, right here to Philadelphia.
Steve Harvey, calm down a little bit. I can’t believe it’s taken me almost nearly an hour. But he does bear a somewhat striking resemblance to Steve Harvey, from Family Feud. Steve Harvey, why’d you become a heretic attacking the Pope? Come on.
I have your tongue on the step of Frankford Avenue.
Amen. [inaudible 00:44:27] brother, go ahead.
You challenge me, I’m game.
Oh, yes.
I challenge you, the diocese of Delaware. You started it.
That’s right.
Now I’m going to finish it.
That’s right.
It was a random guy who lived there, who sent a letter.
Exactly.
It’s a random guy.
If you are not able to back up what you said, you take all your Catholic churches and shut them down.
Shut them down.
Yes. I challenge not only the Catholic Church, but for anybody.
Go ahead.
That make Mary God’s mother.
That’s right. Amen.
24th, 31 Frankfurt Avenue. If you can’t come here, we’ll come you. We’ll come to you.
That’s right.
It’ll be a blast from the past [inaudible 00:45:02].
That’s right. Amen.
Listen, for to unto us-
I kind of wish more theological disputes were settled. We’re going to have a debate, and the loser shuts down their churches.
Child is born.
A child.
Child.
God is no child.
No way. No way.
A child. A child is born.
Is unto us.
You don’t breastfeed God.
No. No sir.
That flesh that came out the tribe of Judah, was simply some working clothes.
That’s right. Camouflage.
That’s why Pastor Paul-
Camouflage, working clothes, that’s what they describe the incarnation as.
We’ve got so many… This is like a heretical-
The bingo card of ancient heresies is totally full.
Yeah. Now we have docetism, the idea that Jesus didn’t really have a body. It was like a costume that’s put on.
Yeah, clothes. I mean, when the woman touches him and he says, who touched me? He didn’t say, who touched this camouflage that I’m wearing? No.
Yeah. Who touched my costume?
Right.
No.
It is incredible. It really is tragic though, because he’s missing… He’s so close. What I love about this, is he’s capturing what you might call the scandal of the incarnation. The idea that Mary breastfeeds God is shocking. And so good on him at least for minding us that Christmas is pretty incredible.
Well, actually, I should grab it back here. I’m going to…
Hold on everybody. I’ve got another book.
There was something similar here in… This is Eric Swenson, who’s a Protestant author. his book, Evangelical Answers. And I’ll flip through and see if I can find it, but he was saying… Because he was objecting to the title Mother of God as well, and he had a line in here, saying, well, we worship Jesus but we don’t worship his body. And I was like, what?
It’s so anti-incarnational.
Yes. And that’s a Protestant critic of Catholicism. Like I said, if you have these… Now I got to write a new book, when Protestants argue like oneness Pentecostals, or Jehovah’s witnesses. That yeah, that you get so… I’m going to include that as a bonus in my, when Protestants argue like atheist book. That when you reject something like Mother of God, you’re going to reject sound christology with it. And you’re going to have heresies where you say that the divinity of crisis found is found in his spirit, not in his flesh. And you just get all of it wrong.
Yeah. I mean, John refers to this as antichrist.
Right.
This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. One John 2:22. Two John one, verse seven. Many deceivers have gone out in the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver in the antichrist. When you screw up-
In the flesh. In the what?
Exactly.
Coming in the what?
Exactly.
Coming in the flesh. In the flesh.
It’s not just clothes, it’s not just camouflage, it’s the majesty and mystery of the incarnation.
Listen.
Without controversy granted the mystery of God. God was manifested in the flesh. In the flesh.
In the flesh.
So how did the flesh come about? Through the creating power of a spoken word.
That’s right.
I guess what he’s trying to say, if God is manifested in the flesh, it means you have flesh, and then God comes into it later, which does not mean that.
Yeah. It’s really kind of-
That seems to be what he’s trying to say. You have already flesh, and God just animates it with divinity.
Right.
Probably after his baptism.
Exactly. The idea that the flesh is just there, and then God makes it his. And this is one of the issues, even with historian, and this is one of the issues… All this stuff about the Hypothetic Union, is these attempts to distinguish between Jesus’ humanity and divinity. If you do them wrong, you end up saying that the humanity kind of co-exist and pre-exist, and then God just, yeah, chooses this body, this soul, and then just takes a habitation in it. That’s not Christology. That’s bad. That’s totally wrong.
Oh. Oh my gosh. Here it is from Swenson, by the way, to read this here. He’s been going after Catholic apologetics for a while. It’s page 179 of his book. The conclusion that Mary is the mother of God does not follow from our premises. Some of Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of some of Jesus, for Mary could very well be, and indeed is the mother of only the non God part of Jesus.
Some of Jesus is God.
Yeah.
Jesus is partially man and partially God. No, he’s fully man and fully God.
So in other words, God is merely descriptive of one of Jesus’ natures.
So that’s terrible, because when you say God, you’re not referring to a nature, you’re referring to a person.
Yeah. He says here, put it another way, Mary gave birth to a person who is both God and man.
Fair enough.
She did not give birth to the pre-incarnate form of the logos.
She did give birth to the logos in the flesh.
Right.
John 1:14, the word, the logos, became flesh. Not the logos.
Yeah. She did not-
Happened to be there while the flesh was picked.
If he has the phrase pre-incarnate form. Yeah, you can’t give birth to that which is pre-incarnate, because obviously birth makes you incarnate.
Right. Not the pre-incarnate form of the logos, sure. But the incarnate form of the logos, that is the word became flesh.
Right.
Where did that happen?
So if you… Bad maryology leads to bad Christology.
And this is why the early church cared so much about maryology.
Right.
It wasn’t that she was a rival to Jesus, it’s that, when you screw up Mary, you necessarily screw up your understanding of Christ. You necessarily screw up your understanding of the trinity. Either or both. You can’t have a good Christology and a bad maryology.
Right. All right. I want to jump ahead here, because I think we’ve covered a lot. It’s a lot of just basic mistakes, similar to what Protestants make. Mary’s not the mother of God, because she’s not the mother of the Trinity. God has no mother. Mary didn’t exist before creation. That’s not what we mean by mother. So we’ve covered that well, but we’ve also covered a lot, where he’s trying to say that… Because a lot of Protestants will begrudgingly say, yes, Jesus is God, even in the womb, he was God, and try to get around Mary being the mother of God, like Spencen does, trying to say, well, she gave birth to his body, not to the divine part, which ends up separating.
I mean, you could do this with your own mother. Be like, happy Mother’s Day, God. God. Happy Mother’s Day, mom, thanks for giving birth to the feminine portion of my DNA, and none of my soul. The other part was just there, and you weren’t the mother of that.
Right. Thanks for giving birth to my body, but not my mind. You didn’t give birth to that, or my person. So we’ve covered a lot of that. But I want to talk to them more about the oneness Pentecostal view, because he’ll want to try to affirm Jesus is God, but it’s only because he becomes God later, when the Father pours himself into Jesus after his baptism. But all of that doesn’t make… Another verse that really kills oneness Pentecostalism, is John 17:5, when Jesus is praying to the Father. So right now, we have Jesus is praying to another person. They’re not the same person, and he’s talking to the Father. Bring that up here. You got that right here.
I do.
Let’s see. John 17:5. He prays, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence. Listen. With the glory which I had with thee, before the world was made.
Boom.
Yeah. So John 1:75, Jesus is saying to the Father, glorify me with the… So Jesus is not glorified now, during his earthly ministry. That won’t happen until after his resurrection. We tasted it-
You get a foretaste of the transfiguration. Right.
But he is saying, glorify me. And with what glory? John 17:5, with the glory I had with you, the Father, before the world was made.
Before the world was made, who was there?
Jesus was there.
And who else?
And the Father was there.
Are they the same person? No.
No. And so what oneness will say, that it seems very clear here, that the son, Jesus the Father, they’re at least distinct. They’re not the same. And so what they’ll try to… And when there’s these passages, they’ll talk about Jesus existing before his birth, and the son existing before his birth.
Which is how David and Isaiah, and so many others in the Old Testament.
And so what they’ll try to do is, they’ll say, well, he did exist, but as a plan or as this vision in the Father’s mind.
Which is another way of saying he didn’t exist.
Right
Because all of us were foreknown by God.
Right.
And that doesn’t mean we all pre-existed before the world was made. Because by definition, if we already existed when the world was made.
So let’s hear Pastor Gino say it, and then we’ll explain it a little better.
[inaudible 00:53:47] as of a lamb without-
As a lamb, without blemish.
And without spot.
And without spot.
Who [inaudible 00:53:52] was for ordained before the-
Oh, just a minute now. [inaudible 00:53:57] Let’s think on these things.
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. For ordained.
For ordained, predestinated.
Predestinated.
How long?
Before the foundation of the world.
That’s how long the Son of God was in the will of God, or I’m in the Father and the Father is in me. I’m in the Father. Where were you located, man?
Amen. That’s right.
If you was in the Father, where were you?
Where were you? That’s right.
I was in his predestinated will.
That’s right.
I was in his mind, in his thoughts, for if he predestinated a son.
Amen.
Then the whole function of the earth was preordained to be.
That’s right. Great plans. Wonderful.
It was all the plans.
All the plans. Amen.
It was all a setup.
All a setup. Wonderful.
Well, yes. Once again, we have a small kernel of truth wrapped… A little truth meatball wrapped in a bunch of spaghetti of lies and errors to get through, that God predestined everything. It doesn’t mean that he planned out all our freely chosen actions, but catechism paragraph 600, that God’s eternal plan is known to him, and takes into account our freely chosen actions. But God has a plan for all of creation. And so what he seems to be trying to say with his others, is that, well, Jesus is just a part of that. He existed before his birth, but just as a part of that predestined planned.
Yeah, the way your plans for the future exist. They exist notionally.
Before they happen. Right. But as you brought up a good point, if that is how… If we say, oh, Jesus is special because he existed with the Father, as this predestined plan, we all existed that way.
Yeah. Romans eight, this is the part that Calvinists especially love to quote, verse 29. Those whom he for knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. In other words, the elect, those chosen by God from all eternity, he what? He for knew them. He predestined them.
Right.
If that’s all you’re saying about Jesus Christ, again, how is that different than the saints? How is that different than anyone else?
Romans 8:29 makes it clear that we are predestined to be conformed to something that is beyond all of that which is being created.
And God, before he created you, knew you.
Right.
And he says that, before I formed you in-
But I didn’t exist.
Exactly. That is not referring to the preexisting.
And that’s the error that Mormons make. We have a grab bag of ancient heirs.
What I’m saying. My bingo card of every known heresy, he checks off so many of them. It’s amazing.
Because if you try to say… Because that’s what Mormons will say, is that when it… Because Mormons believe that all of us are… There are eternal intelligences. And so we all had existed. We’ve all existed for past eternity, and that we are sent into these material bodies, and we have amnesia and forget about this eternal existence. And Jesus is an intelligence and eternal intelligence like us, but he’s given a special act of creation by the Father. So we are all over the place. I love it. Let’s just show… I’m going to wrap this up just to see one challenge from Father Gina. Father Gina. Well, maybe he’ll be Father Gina.
Future Father Gina.
Let’s see. Let’s see it, let’s see it.
You’re able to prove by the book, that Mary was the mother of God.
God. Amen.
And the book says God of the Spirit.
That’s right.
I will cease to pastor.
Amen. Cease.
And I, and all of us.
Amen.
Will join the Catholic Church.
That’s right. That’s right. Amen.
Please send to everyone you know in this congregation.
Right?
We look forward to a really big [inaudible 00:57:42] I
Stronger than that.
Amen.
Okay, here he goes.
Now, if you are a Catholic priest, you can’t get married.
Yeah.
So that mean I got to give all this stuff up.
That’s right.
If you are able to prove, in this discussion, that Mary is the mother of God, the creator of the universe.
Yeah.
Right then, I agree to be a Catholic priest.
Single.
I’ll give up.
That’s right.
His poor, poor wife.
Amen. Glory to God.
We should maybe tell him about the pastoral provision, when Anglican priests were already married, compared to-
Pastor Gino, I’m sure we could make an exception, that if you became Catholic and wanted to become a priest, I’m sure we could work something out where you don’t have to divorce your spouse. We already do that to Anglicans who convert, and make those provisions. So yeah, so if we can prove Mary is the mother of God, he’ll close down all his churches, divorce-
All of them will become Catholic.
They’ll become Catholic. And he’ll divorce his wife and become a Catholic priest. You don’t have to go down that far, but if you all want to become Catholic, that would be swell. So maybe we could do a debate with Pastor Gino on, is Jesus God? Well, he believes Jesus is God, but are the Father and son distinct persons? If you would like to engage… Or just, is Mary the mother of God? I think that’s a great resolution right there, because if you don’t affirm that, you get all of all these kinds of errors. So Pastor Gino, if you’d like to have a debate, we’d be happy to come out to Philadelphia and have some fun with that. Joe, it was so fun to have you here today.
Yeah, my pleasure to really be out here with you in person, in the flesh, so to speak.
In the what?
In the flesh.
In the what? Listen to him, in the what?
In your working clothes.
Yeah. Right. I have my working clothes,, and then under them my other working clothes around my nebulous spirit person. Yeah, it’s been great. So Joe’s been visiting me out here in Dallas, along with John Sorenson. It’s been a real blast. So we didn’t get through all the video, but I think we covered all the salience points.
It gets a little repetitive in the second half.
Totally.
They didn’t miss a ton of interesting stuff.
No, no, not at all. And so, I still think that this ticked off my boxes of something to cover, that it has popularity, certainly entertaining, and it covers a belief system that is… It’s fringe. But I mean, there are millions of people who believe this oneness theology, and so it’s important to address it. We have to address all the errors. And it’s interesting that it’s such an ancient error, but… I thought about writing a book called Zombie Heresies, that you kill them in the fourth century, they always come back in a different form. Arianism becomes Jehovah’s Witnesses. Civilian is [inaudible 01:00:53] becomes oneness theology. We have been dealing with this for almost 2000 years.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the weird offshoots of the reformation. The reformers never intended any of this, but once you get rid of the authority of the church, which slayed the original heresies.
Then it’s everybody-
It’s a windswept house.
Right. Because if you say, well, yeah, but that violates the creed. Well wait, but the creed loses its authority if you affirm Sola scriptura.
All of the doctrinal guardrails become optional.
Yeah, weird.
And you can go full-fledged early heretics.
Yeah. And we don’t want to do that. We want to are against full-fledged heresy, any kind of heresy, here at the Council of Trent podcast. Joe, thank you much for joining us. By the way, if you guys want to check out what Joe is doing, so you have a blog, Shameless Popery.
And I’m launching a podcast with the name, get this, Shameless Popery.
I love it. I love it. I can’t wait to be on it. So definitely be on the lookout for Joe’s blog. I’m sorry, Joe’s podcast, when it comes up. But in the meantime, check out his blog, Shameless Popery. Thank you guys so much for being here today, and I hope you all have a very blessed day.
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