James 1:19-27 A New Interpretation Pt 1

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Well, are you up for a very big challenge? Do you think you have the commitment to see through a very difficult challenge, one that's going to require a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of mental power. Are you willing to put forth that kind of effort? If you are, then what you need to do right now before I give my normal introduction, is you need to run somewhere. You need a notebook. You need a brand new notebook.

0:43 There can be no other pages written on and it needs to be blank. It needs to be empty. You need a brand new pencil. In fact, you probably need a box of pencils, right, an entire box of pencils. You need a pencil sharpener because you're going to be sharpening a lot of them. An entire box of pencil pencils, a pencil sharpener, and a notebook that's empty, that has nothing in it. Right, if it's got anything else in it, set it aside, because you're gonna fill up an entire notebook. You need You're gonna probably use up an entire box of pencils and you're probably gonna wear out your pencil sharpener, because we've got a lot of work to do. Because, ladies and gentlemen, what we are about to undertake is we're going to work to put forth a brand new interpretation of James Chapter one versus nineteen to twenty seven.

1:36 We're going to attempt to interpret James one nineteen through twenty seven, probably in a way no one else does, probably in a way that no one else will agree upon, probably in a way that will put us in the minority of the minority of the minority of the minority, and may even put us in the category that some people will say, we don't know what we're talking about, and we are ridiculous. But we're going to do so, and we're gonna begin that journey. This is not going to happen in one message. Okay, if you think that, that's why I told you to get an entire box of pencils, an entire empty notebook, right because you're gonna use up the end, all the pencils, all the notebook, everything. So this is going to be a long journey. I know you're like, but we're still working. In Isaiah forty through fifty five, and after four hundred hours of broadcasting, you can't get past the word comfort. What are you doing? Well?

2:28 I didn't want to be here, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, fate do we use that term? I know theologically we don't use that. But fate has placed me here. Fate has, or we can say, in God's divine providence, he has placed me here because it all started with a random sermon, and now here we are. So I hope you're ready. Pencils, notebook, pencil sharpener, commitment, effort, dedication, a desire for punishment, okay, a hatred for self. You loathe yourself so much you're like, people like, what are you doing? I'm going to listen to this painful five year journey through James one nineteen through twenty seven. Why do you do that to yourself?

3:17 Because I hate myself? The only people who listen to that podcast are people who hate themselves. Okay, maybe now I'm getting a little curried away, but are you ready? Okay, I guess I need to do this. Sorry, Good afternoon everyone. It is Wednesday, November the twentieth, twenty twenty four. Remember this date so you can always remember where you were on November the twentieth, twenty twenty four, when some lunatic on the Internet decided to try to put forth a new interpretation to James Chapter one, verses nineteen to twenty seven. You can remember this date, okay, all right, so let me state it again. Let me let me welcome everyone again. Good afternoon everyone. It is Wednesday, November the twentieth twenty four.

4:01 It is currently four oh nine pm Central time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. So on your paper you want to put Wednesday, November the twentieth, twenty twenty four, four oh nine pm Central time. You you wanna you wanna remember this right? You wanna you want to make sure that this is remembered forever. You can keep this notebook right, and and five years from now when you dig it out, you'll be like, oh, man, don't you I remember November twenty twenty four that that guy was an idiot? It was It was a complete Hey, kids, gather around, let me tell you the story of when I used to listen to this podcast that was hosted by this idiot. Look, kids, and you can pass the notebook around and they're all like, h that's ridiculous. Nobody would interpret James one, nineteen through twenty seven that way.

4:55 That guy wasn't idiot. Why did you ever listen to him? Well, I was on drugs back then. Kids, you can't blame me. Okay, However, it's going to go down. Write it in your notebook, Okay, put down the date so you can remember this, because I don't know if we're going to accomplish anything. You can look back over twenty twenty four and say, well, that podcast was didn't really do much, but maybe this will be of great significance. So are you ready. Let's begin with the text itself. Let's begin with the text itself James Chapter one, verses nineteen through twenty seven. Here we go. Let me read where four, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not here is only deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face and a glass. For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway. Forgetteth what manner of man he was. Verse twenty five, James, Chapter one. We're looking at verses nineteen to twenty five.

6:27 We've now I'll read verse twenty four, and then we'll continue. Right here we go reading verse twenty four again. For beholdeth himself, For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway. Forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful here, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain, pure religion, and undefiled before God.

7:10 And the Father is this to visit the fatherlessen widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. That is the text you need to write. What I would recommend is reading the text over it now. Now, okay, let me just do this when it comes to any text of scripture. Okay, I don't care if it's Isaiah forty through fifty five. I don't care if it's a Psalm eighty three. I don't care if it's James one nineteen through twenty seven. The question you really, really, really really really have to ask yourself. This is the question everyone who attends church really needs to ask themselves. How dedicated are you really to understanding the scripture? I mean, come on, honestly, I mean, do you just go to church.

7:58 You want a little sermon, You want a little bit of spirituality, you want to feel a little bit of talk, a little bit about God Jesus, have some nice songs, and make some good friends, have some activities, and it just gives you a sense of meaning. It gives you a sense of purpose in life, a sense of morality. You feel good about yourself and you're happy with that. And I think that's how most people are. Most people in the pew, they're not really I mean, come on, let's just be honest, they're not really that committed to the text and understanding the text, because if they really were, the what is required to truly understand a text of scripture is far far more commitment and far more work than almost No, I don't even think some pastors are really willing to put in the work. If you listen to some of the preaching, they're not really willing to put in the work. So let me ask you, are you really, really, really really committed to understanding the text?

8:55 Because if you are, here's what I would write. Here's what Here's That's not what I would recommend. This would just be the basic expectation. You need to start reading James chapter one, nineteen through twenty seven over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Then what you would want to do is create at least at a minimum, and observational outline. Right, so you read it over and over, you do an observational outline. Then you write out James one nineteen through twenty seven word for word, maybe three four times on paper. Why because all of that's just observation, so that you know the text. Then we go to work, Are you really willing to put forth that effort? Most people aren't.

9:42 I guarantee you most people would not be willing to do that. So I hopefully you're willing to put forth the effort and do some of the things I ask you to do, because if you are, I believe, then we can get somewhere right. Just see some of the things we've been doing in Isaiah forty through fifty five. It's just a lot this work that a lot of people would say, come on, just move on. But you can't just move on. Now. What is our approach going to be? Well, what we're going to focus on first, So just that you understand is we're going to focus primarily at the beginning of this. We're going to focus on if you look at James one twenty one, wherefore I lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the ingrafted word. And then in verse twenty five, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, Our focus is going to be the ingrafted word and law of liberty. That's what we're going to focus on first, and we're going to try to build we're gonna look at this is what we're gonna We're gonna look at an interpretation from a sermon. Now, if you listen to the last live broadcast, you'll notice we started reviewing a sermon.

10:54 I'm going to give you an entire analysis of that sermon, right, because what I did is I took the sermon and said, hey, Ai, put give me an analysis of this entire sermon. So we're gonna just look at the analysis of the entire sermon, get basically the hypothesis it put forth. We already have a pretty good idea, so we're not going to review the audio. I'm just going to give you the breakdown of really what the sermon was about. Okay, So then that's what we're going to do. Then we're going to look at AI's attempt to try to offer some kind of hermeneutical understanding of James One. Really the main focus of the ungrafted word and the law of liberty. Right. Then after we've done that, then we'll start putting forth some ideas of an alternative, a new interpretation. Now, once we have really exhausted all that we can about the grafted word and the law of liberty, then we will step back and then build a fuller interpretation of nineteen to twenty seven. I know, Oh, this is somewhat opposite of the way we should We should probably start with let's just get a basic breakdown of James one nineteen through twenty seven, do some observational stuff. Then we'll get into the specifics. But we're gonna start with the specifics and then work our way back out. All right, We're gonna do this in just an opposite way because all of the focus is on the ungrafted word in law of liberty. All right, so we've got the text. I've

12:27 already told you should read it, read it, read it, read it, do an observational outline, and then write out the text. That's if you really care to dig in. What I'm going to do is we're gonna start with the sermon. We've already reviewed part of it. I could continue the review, but that you'll just that'll take three four five hours and we're not gonna get We're at this point. It'll just start becoming repetitive. He'll say it, and I'm gonna be like, no, So that's not gonna get us anywhere. Now, Sometimes there's value in that sometimes, but in this case, I want to just jump right in. So I'm going to rely on AI's analysis of the entire sermon. Then I'm going to tell you what AI tried to do, and then I'm gonna start giving you my challenge to Ai. Then what I'm gonna do is I wrote out my own interpretation and I gave it to AI, and then I'm gonna have you how AI kind of argued with me, and then we'll then we'll try to clean it up, and then we'll try to summarize, and then we'll try to contrast my interpretation with the interpretation of this sermon. There's a lot of things, there's a lot of steps we're going to go through here. Okay, I'm going to attempt to do this in small segments, right because if I I could go an hour and a half, I could go in an hour and fifteen.

13:46 But I think by the end of it, first you're probably your hand's going to be broken, you're gonna have cramps, you're gonna be suing me for you know, all the physical damage I did to you, or you're gonna run out of pencils. So I'm just gonna go slower and then we'll see what we can get. So are you ready for this? Are you ready? Are you ready? So? Here we go it all so just so that we're all on the same page now, all right, That kind of gives you an idea of where we're going, what we're attempting to do. It all started because, as you know, we're doing the sermons two point oh app sermon challenge, right, just listen to random sermons. I chose a random sermon today entitled The Law of Liberty by Brandon neely n EA l y The Law of Liberty by Brandon Neely right, and we reviewed part of it. There were some things I agreed with, and then there were some things I started struggling with, and we kind of ended it with well to be continued, because I didn't really know what to do. I just knew that there something's just not I can't go along necessarily with what he's saying is so I had to do some work. So that's how it all started. In fact, i'll just let you hear remember it started with this sermon.

15:00 We'll start in verse twenty one, and I think we'll be done with chapter one today. We'll see therefore put away all filthiness and rampant weak, wickedness. All right, I want to try something new today, not for the whole time, just for a few minutes at the beginning. All right. So he wants to do something new, and so what he tries to do is take the people through the text in a very academic way, looking at the language, the grammar, the structure. And I love the way he tried to do that. I love the way he did that. And we got into an entire discussion about reading comprehension and remember all of that. So that is the sermon. Now, you may want to go listen to it, you may want to go download it, but that's the sermon that sparked everything he puts forth kind of his hypotheses, his thesis on how to understand this.

15:56 I immediately started some pushback, had some issues, and then we basically ran out of time. So after it was all said and done, I continue to think about it, and I like, you know what, I'm going to come up with a brand new interpretation because I think all of these interpretations, I just think they're flawed to some level. So we're gonna say, now when we're done, I'm just gonna how I'm going. This is what I'm going to do. Whenever I say I'm going to be giving you a new interpretation, I me make it very clear. I am presenting to you my hypotheses. Right, I'm not being dogmatic. I'm not saying if you don't agree with my interpretation, you're a heretic. I'm not doing that, right, I'm saying, here's based off all of my education, all of my study, here's the best I can come up with, and then you can tear it into shreds. Right. But I think there has to be really I like, not just oh, let's listen to a sermon that already agrees with my philological position and just no. I like to challenge things and question things. So I could review the rest of the sermon, as I've said. But I'm like, well, let me grab the text version of this sermon, right, and let me give it to AI and say, AI, please analyze this, analyze this, summarize this. So we're going to go through basically the teaching of that sermon. I'm going to explain it. Now. You can go listen to it.

17:18 I already told Look, we've already reviewed some of it. You should go listen to all of it, okay, because I don't want anyone to say that I'm misrepresenting it. That I mean, we already reviewed a section of it. I think we already got his hypotheses down pretty well. But you can go listen to the rest. But here we go, all right, interpretation of the ungrafted word and the law of liberty in this teaching. So what I wanted to do is I wanted AI to say, Okay, in this teaching, focus on how this sermon handles the ungrafted word and the law of liberty. As I said, that's where we're going to start. I know Hermaneutically, the best way to start is go nineteen to twenty seven.

18:02 Let's break it all down and start with the big picture. But we're gonna start in a sense, inside of the forest, looking at two things, and then we'll back our way out, Or maybe I should say it this way. We're gonna start right there in the midst of the trees looking at two things. This slowly but surely we're gonna back our way out of the trees, out of the forest, and then see the big picture. All right. I know it's doing it backwards, but I think it's the right way to handle this, okay, because we spent an hour really trying to figure out the ingrafted word and the law of liberty. So I wanted, okay that he spent a lot of time in his sermon talking about that.

18:47 So I was like, Ai, here's the sermon. Now what is the interpretation put forth by this sermon when it comes to the law to the law of liberty in the grafted words? So AI said this, this is what a gives me interpretation of the ungrafted word and the law of liberty in this teaching. So if you're going to create a notebook, you're going to be like, we begin with the text, all right, of giving you the text, second we examine a sermon. In fact, the sermon is called the Law of Liberty by Brandon Neely, and we're going to focus specifically on what this sermon says about the ungrafted word and the law of liberty. That's what we're doing. So first is the text, Second is the sermon.

19:34 All right? Are you ready? This teaching The Law of Liberty by Brandon Neely interprets the ungrafted word and James one twenty one and the Law of Liberty and James one twenty five as closely tied to the Old Testament law. Now, in my estimation, he basically identified the law of liberty as the ungrafted word. Basically made them the same thing. We saw that at least some say that these things overlap but they are separate. Well, we'll try to get into that a little bit more. But he definitely put them almost as the same right and grafted word. This is how the sermon handled it. Now, now you again, you make sure you put sermon and you put the name of the sermon. This is their interpretation, their hypotheses.

20:28 This is not my interpretation. We're gonna have to spend a lot of time before we get to my new interpretation because we because look, if I'm gonna give you a new interpretation, you got to know the old interpretation's, right, we gotta have a we gotta be able to contrast the two. Right. Really, what you're going to get is you're gonna get this sermon's interpretation. You're going to get AI's interpretation. You're gonna get how this has been interpreted in church history. Then we'll get to mine. All right, So you're gonna have a lot to compare and trastmind with. Now why am I doing that? Well, I'm going to do that so that because it's easy if I just come on and just say, hey, here's the correct interpretation, and just take my word for it. But that's not I hate that.

21:15 I want you to see all the different interpretations and then you can struggle and see which one you want to go with. So right now we're just considering this interpretation from this particular sermon. This is how he interprets the ungrafted word meaning. This is the meaning he gave to it. The ungrafted word refers to the Old Testament law, particularly as a source of guidance, conviction, and moral instruction. So he was basically, the ingrafted word is the law of the Old Testament. Now, okay, there's a lot we could say here, So I already want to start offering my critique, but okay, okay, So the ungrafted word basically is the Old Testament law, particularly referring to a source of guidance, conviction, and moral instruction. Please know the emphasis is on guidance and moral instruction. The teaching in this sermon emphasizes that the law must be received with meekness, implying a humble acceptance of its authority over life. So the way he puts it is the ungrafted word is the Old Testament law, and then we just receive it with meekness, and then it becomes the authority over our life.

22:33 You already know my problem. I got so many problems right here, right Well, okay, let me make it very clear. Whenever we read the law, whenever the passage is law, we may humbly receive it, but it's not that we can keep it. We cannot keep it. This is a fundamental part of my interpretation. You can not keep the law. I state this continually. This is a fundamental principle of my entire philological concept, and everything about it is this. My entire theological construct is this. You cannot keep the law, and I can prove it to you. God says, be holy as He is holy. You cannot be as holy as God as holy. Therefore you're in a perpetual state of sin and disobedience to the law of God. He says, love God with all of his heart, mind, body, and soul.

23:24 Love your love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. You never do that. You're in a perpetual state of sin. Be he perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. You never do that, do all things without complaining and grumbling. Have no other gods before him. I can go on and on and on and on and on. Die to yourself, deny yourself, just go. Scripture after scripture after scripture. You are in a perpetual stat of sin. You can't do it. I don't care how meekly you receive the Old Testament law. You can't keep it. You can't keep it. I want to hit something, I want to throw something. All right, So his argument is, say we meekly receive, and this implies a humble acceptance of its authority over life. It will never be the authority over our life, and the sense of keeping it now we may want to say it is. It's the authority of determining right and wrong. It's the authority of telling us when we're right and telling us when we're wrong.

24:28 I agree there, But if you imply at all any ability to keep it, everything falls apart. So that's kind of what how he defines in the sermon. That's how the sermon defined the ungrafted word. Now, the role the law is described as capable of saving the soul, not through works based justification, but as a means of sanctification and moral preservation. Now this becomes really confusing to me. So if you look at James one received with meekness and grafted word which is able to save your souls?

25:11 I got a problem here. Now, according to the sermon, according to how Ai analyzed the sermon, And again this is AI's analysis. So I'm not by any means being dogmatic that this is exactly how he meant it, but this is how Ai perceived it. And we were already starting to have a little bit of these problems with it in just the part we reviewed. But the sermon seems to imply, I'll say that imply that the law is described as capable of saving the soul, not through workspace justification, but as a means of sanctification and moral preservation. So we're going to connect sanctification and moral preservation to salvation. Uh, get a little nervous. It highlights how the law exposes since I agree there leading individuals to repentance dependence on Christ. Okay, now now we're getting somewhere. I do believe the law reveal sin and leads me to Christ because I can't keep it. See that My emphasis is you can't do it.

26:14 That's a very important distinction. Now, the practical application from this, according to this sermon, is that believers are to do the law, meaning they should actively live according to its moral and ethical principles. This is seen as evidence of having genuinely received the word. Now, of course, the sermon basically then is sating, how do you know you've received the word? Is because you keep it. If you don't keep it, you haven't received it. And therefore, what is the logical implication. I'm not saying the sermon would say this, but the logical implication would be, you are not saved. So if you've, if you've meekly received the word, then you'll do it. And so this implies that you can, well, the thing's already following. You cannot keep it. You can't prove salvation by your keeping of the law because you never can keep it. Therefore, you'll never be able to prove you're saved unless you create a new standard by which you judge yourself. And it won't be keeping the law.

27:19 It'll be like partially keeping it, keeping it some or trust. In fact, you'll water it down to ultimately it becomes meaningless. But anyone honest with themselves will say, no, I'm in perpetual disobedience to the law. So that's how the sermon kind of interpreted the ingrafted word. Now, the law of liberty, the sermon implied, or the meaning of the law liberty, refers to the Old Testament law as fulfilled and transformed by Christ. It is described as perfect, a perfect guide for living that brings freedom, not bondage. Okay, we got Now this is where it's going to get a little confusing, all right. So the ungrafted word is the law. Our keeping of that law shows that we've received the ungrafted word.

28:10 That's law base, that's action, that's works. That's almost a legalistic approach. The law of liberty, on the other hand, refers to that Old Testament law as being fulfilled. That's good because it was fulfilled in Christ, but it's being transformed by Christ. It is described as being perfect guide for living that brings freedom, not bondage. So now the law of liberty is the law of the Old Testament transformed, and now it's the perfect guide for living that brings freedom and not bondage. Now, what kind of freedom does it bring because once again, if you start implying that someone is free, well am I If you tell me I have been freed in any way, shape or form practically, well then I should be able to be perfect. And if I can't be perfect, then I'm not free because something is keeping me from perfection. I can't be holy as God is holy, so I'm not free. I can't love God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul, so I am not free. I am free positionally, I am not free practically. You see, I'm already starting to have some problems here. This teaching counters common views that the law is restrictive, has said, presenting it as liberating when rightly understood. So it's basically, hey, this law of liberty is the law transformed, and it's liberating. It's not restrictive,

29:43 it's not condemning, it's freeing. Okay, now I've already got some issues here, right. So then, according to this sermon, the law is portrayed as a mirror that reveals imperfections. By looking into it and acting accordingly, believers align their life lives with God's will, leading to blessings. So the idea is, hey, now you've been free. You look into the law, you see what to fix. The law says my hair is out of place. The law says I need to shave. Oh, the law says I need to fix this. Now I can do it, and I can be blessed. So once again, it's the idea that we can keep the law. That's the implication in the sermon.

30:24 The law of liberty, according to this sermon, liberates believers from guilt imposed by human traditions or cultural expectations, while grounding them in God's authoritative standard. The practical application from this is that adherence to the law of liberty is not about achieving justification, but living in alignment with God's design, which results in personal and communal happiness. Do you hear? Though, the idea on the sermon is that you can do it. So the ungrafted word, according to this sermon is the Old Testament law right, and that the is the Old Testament law transformed, and now you can do it. Basically, it's a guide, it's a mirror, and you can do it.

31:06 You can do it, ladies and gentlemen. Now the AI goes on and offers some of the ramifications of this interpretation. I'll just give you some of this. The interpretation highlights the practical application of scripture, urging believers to live out their faith in concrete ways. All right, now, what is some of the weaknesses of this interpretation that we've looked at. Well, it emphasizes adherence to the law as a guide. There's a danger of conflating sanctification with justification. The teaching attempts to avoid this, but may blur the distinction for some basically at risk legalism. It blurs the line between justification and sanctification, which is what the Protestant Church seems. It's their favorite hobby. Let's destroy any distinction between justification and sanctification.

32:00 And while basically returning you to Roman Catholicism, I'm not saying the sermon does it that bad, but it definitely seems to lead to this, all right, It says this interpretation could under emphasize the transformative power of the Gospel and favor of the moral function of the law. So and said, this sermon really kind of under emphasizes any transformation we get from the Gospel. It seems to be the transformation comes from looking into the law and just keeping it. All right, So there we go. So in fact, I, in fact, after I looked at all of that, in fact, let me go find it. It may give me a second here to find it. May go find where I included.

32:53 I didn't copy this down. I've got pages and pages of notes. I'm going to go back because I was concerned that maybe I was misunderstanding the interpretation. Okay, hang on, let me go up here. All right, here is the the sermon. Right. So, after AI gave me its analysis of the sermon, I was like, I got a problem. So I asked Ai, well, does this message seem to indicate we have the ability to keep the law? Because when when I what I mean, that's immediately what my thinking says. And so AI said this, the message seems to indicate that the believer has the ability to keep the law, but with some significant nuance and implication. Here's an analysis based on the teaching, so based on this sermon that has started all of this again, the Law of Liberty by Brandon Neely, which we spent an hour reviewing.

33:48 Now I'm just breaking it down. This is what the message seems to indicate. It indicates that the message suggests the ability to keep the law, emphasizes sizes on being the doer of the word. The teaching repeatedly stresses that believers are to do the law, implying that it is within their capacity to live and obedience to it. I cannot stress that enough. The sermon basically was, Look, the ungrafted word is the law. How do you know you've received it? You do it? You do it? What's the implication? You can well? If I can keep the law, then don't tell me I can't be perfect, because if I can't be perfect, then I can't keep the law because the law demands perfection. The statement blessed is the man who abides by the law of God suggests that obedience is achievable and leads to tangible blessings. The sermon teaches that you can do it. The message describes the law as a guide or a bridle that channels human energy and behavior, implying that individuals can follow when they submit to its authority. See if you'll just meekly receive the ungrafted word, which is supposedly the Old Testament law, then done done, Dundune. You can do it by calling the

35:20 Old Testament law a law of liberty. The teaching implies that following it is not only possible but also freeing, countering the idea that the law is inherently burdensome or impossible to keep. The teaching provides specific examples of how adherence to the law can save in a sanctification sense, such as resisting temptation controlling one's tongue. These examples suggest that the law is actionable in daily life. The entire sermon puts forth the idea, Hey, the ungrafted word is the Old Testament law. The law of liberty is the transformed law. And now you just look at it and you do it, and then you know you've received the ingrafted word. You know you're looking into the transformed law.

36:07 You're now set free. Basically, you can do it. You can do it. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it. You can do it. And that's where I have a million problems with all of this now at the same time, which is confusing, the message also acknowledges well human limitations, right, so it basically is like you can do it, but I mean, you can't do it perfectly kind of idea. All right, So what is some of the problems with this entire message. Well, it overestimates human ability. By focusing on the practical application of the law and the blessings of obedience, the teaching may unintentionally imply that believers have more capacity to keep the law than scripture actually acknowledges. We can't do it.

36:57 The teaching completely risk downplaying on the ongoing struggle with sin, which shows that even the most devoted believers fall short of the law's demands, and it's referencing Romans seven fifteen through twenty five. Paul's famous passages of the thing I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do it says this sermon downplays that struggle. It overestimates your ability. You can't you can't do what the sermon says you can do. The emphasis on doing the law as evidence of having received it could create confusion between the role of grace and salvation and the role of works. By suggesting that following the law brings happiness and blessing, the message could imply a works based sanctification, which might be discouraging for those who struggle with sin, which is everyone. By suggesting that the law is not only actionable but liberating, the message may lead some to place undue confidence. I just loss here undue confidence. My whole page changed undue confidence and her own ability to obey, potentially fostering a legalistic mindset. Another problem with the sermon is that it's at tension with human experience. For those who recognize their ongoing inability to keep the law, the teaching could create guilt or frustration if it is perceived as placing too high an expectation on human effort. So AI realizes, wait a minute. The message is basically saying you can do it, but human reality shows that you cannot do it if you have

38:29 any desire to really look at the law. So the sermon interprets the ungrafted word as the law of the Old Testament, and you receive it, and you do it, and if you don't do it, then you didn't receive it. And the law of liberty is that law transformed into you know something now that brings you liberty and freedom and all of it that now. In some ways I appreciate the sermon because well, one, it's sparked all of this discussion. Two, I do appreciate that it takes the ungrafted word and the law of liberty and at least connects it to Old Testament law. I think that's the only thing that makes sense within the context of James one nineteen through twenty four or twenty seven. As you will see as we go through this. So I have, you know, some some issues with all of that. So let's now consider so that that's the So number one, we've looked at the text. Number two, we've looked at the sermon that sparked all of this, and basically, how does it interpret the ingrafted word? The law? The law of liberty is that law being transformed, but basically what it has all turned into, keep the law, do the law, Obey the law, keep the law, do the law. Obey the law because you you can. Oh, I mean you can't, really,

40:03 I mean you can. I mean well you can't be perfect, but you can't. I mean you can, Well you can't, you can't. You just stop talking to me, all right. It reminds me of basic military training, right when you first get there to basic training and they're like, pick up your bags, drop your bags, pick up your bags. Who said you can pick up your bags? Drop your bag? Who said you could drop your bags? Pick them back up? Who told you to pick them up, you just drop them pick them up. And they're doing this to just try to break you and mess with you, and you don't know what you're doing. You pick up your bag, you get yelled at. You drop the bag, you get yelled at. You're like, you can't you can put it down? Who said you can put it down at ease? And you're who said you can stand it? You just told me what can I do? What can I do? And everything you do is wrong? And they just yell and scream and then they keep you up for like twenty four hours to try to break you with sleep deprivation. Okay, all the crazy things that they they'll do in certain parts of basic military training or in other forms of military training that play these mind games on you. That's what I think preachers do. You can do it, well, I mean you can't actually do it. You've been set free. Well, I mean you haven't actually been set free. You've got the power of God to overcome sin. Well, I mean you're still gonna sin. I mean you're a new creation and everything isn't well, I mean you still got to put away this and still well, I don't undert am, I can I what I could, I should, I what am I? I don't even know anymore, and you just start going and you don't just stop it. I don't want to hear any more preaching. I don't want to hear any more sermons. I don't want to get anywhere near a church. You people are crazy, and inevitably that's

41:40 where these teachings lead. They always over as. They always promise you basically that you can, but somewhere they kind of tell you really can't. And the persons, the people sitting in the pew always buy into this nonsense. But at least it connected this with the Old Testament. Now, if we go through church history, we covered this in the last one. I'll just try to do this quickly, all right, if we go with the the how the church history understands at least the law of liberty, right, if we go through church history, yeah, we probably could do well. We'll do well. This We've already covered this, so I'll go through this quickly. When it comes to the church, the early Church and throughout church history, they kind of take the law of liberty as being something.

42:34 In fact, let me do it this way, let me do this, let me do this way. Because now that I'm thinking about, we really need both, all right, How has let me do this? How has the engrafted word and grafted word and law of liberty been interpreted. Throughout church? I can typewrite church history, right, But because we've already kind of covered how the law of liberty has been covered in church history, let's see if we get both. Let's look at both. I mean that's a good thing because we just reviewed a sermon that try to handle both of them. So let's see how church history has handled it, all right. The ungrafted word James one twenty one and the law of liberty James one twenty five has been interpreted various ways throughout Church history, often reflecting philological debates about law, grace, and sanctification. Here's an overview of how these concepts have been understood across different periods and traditions. So we've got the sermon. It says the ingrafted word the Old Testament law, the law of liberty is that law transformed. But basically, when it

44:05 summarizes it, if we're just going to really simplify it, it basically points you to the law that you can do and you can keep, all right, which is majorly problematic. All right, but how is the early church? How did the early Church handle this? So let's start with the early Church from the second to fifth century. Let's do that. So we've looked at the text. We've looked at a sermon. All right, you've got the name of the sermon, the Law of Liberty by Brandon Neely. We've broken that completely down. Now number three, let's now look at how the church throughout history has understood the ungrafted word and the law of liberty throughout church history. I think that's a I think that's a fair way of breaking it down. And we have also looked at the fact, I mean, we were looking at the sermon that the sermon basically says you can keep the law, and which is already so I'm gonna reject the concluding principle of the sermon we reviewed because it says I can keep the law, and my fundamental principle is that we can't. So already I'm gonna be at odds with that sermon. Now, let's see what the church fathers did second to fifth century and grafted word moral law and the gospel. The early Church often saw the ungrafted word as the internalization of God's moral law or the Gospel message. Now that's a radically different approach, right, I just want you to see that.

45:32 That's like the Grand Canyon. Oh it's the moral law. No, it's the Gospel message. Woh, whoa, whoa, woah. Those are completely different. So whenever you get to the second to fifth century, you had madeor divide that's the moral law. No, it's the Gospel. It's the moral law. It's the Gospel. Where does that leave the person sitting in the pew trying to figure this out? The early Church often saw the ungrafted word as the internalization of God's moral law or the Gospel message. Again, how can it be both? Origin viewed it as the truth of God implanted in the soul, transforming the believer and leading to salvation. Please know what Origin did. It's the truth of God. It's put in your soul. It's implanted in your soul, and it transforms you. You see this transformative idea. Everyone's gonna almost every interpretation is gonna go with this idea. Right, Hey, the ingrafted word boom, it's gonna be the thing that changes you whatever however you define it, right, and it leads to your salvation. Augustine linked linked it to the grace of God, emphasizing that the word can only take root in the heart through divine action. So basically, no matter whether it was origin, no matter it was Augustine, the bottom line is, this is something put inside of you or it ends up inside of you, and guess what it gives you. Basically, it transforms you, it changes you. Basically, now you can somehow keep the law. This has been

47:03 the Oh, this is always the way Christianity handles these things. So that's the ingrafted word. Now I will go instead of going with the early Church, I go more with the sermon. I think the ungrafted word deals with law old Testament law. In fact, I think it goes to something else other than the Old Testament law. I think it goes to the law of God that is written on our hearts, that everyone has. So I say, I'm already going to distinguish myself. Some say it's the Old Testament law. Some say, well, it's truth or it's the Gospel. I just so that you know, no, no, no, no, it's the law written on everyone's heart. Everyone is born with the law of God written on their heart. Right that's because it's ingrafted, it's inside of you, all right, So we'll talk about that now, the law of liberty. How did the early Church and the second to fifth century handle the law liberty? Well, they interpreted this as the freedom through Christ. The fathers often interpreted the law of liberty as a moral law fulfilled in Christ, bringing freedom from sin and legalism. Now, okay, the law of liberty is the law, is the moral law fulfilled in Christ.

48:17 Now I say amen to that. Now, when you say freedom from sin, that's where I get problems. Freedom from sin? In what way? I'm free from sin? Positionally? I am not free from sin practically? Right. Augustine wrote that the law of liberty is the spirit's work and the believer, enabling joyful obedience to God's will. See, Augustine's going to go with that. Hey, now you can do it. You can do it. So the law of liberty is the spirit's work, and so now you can joyfully obey God. Well, then then that means that could be perfect. Right. Chrysostom emphasized that the law freed believers from the mosaic law burdens, but upheld moral obligations. Hey, the law of liberty. It frees you from the mosaic law of burden, but you still have a moral obligation. I don't know exactly what that even means, but okay, So the ungrafted word was either in church history was the moral law or the Gospel, but in either case they really emphasized that it changes you.

49:26 The law of liberty is somehow basically freedom through Christ, whatever it may be, you get freedom. Now freedom from what is not clearly articulated. Augustine would seem to say that freedom means you can do it. Well, the others just seem to articulate some form of freedom. So that's not super helpful. All right. How about so that's the second to the fifth century. How about the eleventh to fifteenth century. Now let's go to medieval period, eleventh to fifteenth century. What was the ungrafted word during that time? Well, the church and interpreted the ingrafted word as grace and scripture. Thomas Aquinas understood the ungrafted word as divine grace and revelation and planted in the soul, leading to moral transformation.

50:14 See how everything's going to go this direction. Whatever the ungrafted word is, whatever the law of liberty is, all it's all going to be described as doing the same thing. It changes you, it frees you, it empowers you. You can do it. But you know what was true from the second century all the way to twenty twenty four is we sin sen sin sin sin sin sin. But nobody ever seems to want to admit that he linked the ungrafted word to the written word of God, emphasizing scripture's role and shaping the believer's heart and life. I disagree with Thomas aquinas this is not the entire Bible.

50:55 It's not when James wrote, there wasn't even an idea. I mean here it's like forty forty two, forty three AD. There is no New Testament. So if it could refer to anything, it would only be the Old Testament. And then you would say, is the Old Testament and grafted in me? So now we get into all kinds of issues here, but just note so in this Medievil time, Thomas akwanis kind of is the main spokesman, and that this is somehow grace and scripture, that's what the ungrafted word is. How about the law of liberty, Well, they saw this and in that mid Evil period that it's moral guidance and freedom. The law of liberty was interpreted as moral law properly understood, freeing believers from sins dominion and guiding them towards virtue. So this gets weird. So now the moral law frees me from sins dominion. The moral law frees me from sins dominion. That's ridiculous. That's the idea. Here's the moral law. Just keep it and you're free. You can't keep it, that's the whole stinking point.

52:00 So see you can already tell where I'm already against all of these interpretations. A Quinnas highlighted the distinction between the ceremonial law and the moral law. It's binding and freeing. See all you got to do the moral law will free you. You just obey it. Obey it with love and dun dund tone. You're free. So you can see the sermon throughout Church history. No matter how they identify or define the ingrafted word or the law of liberty, they all basically say the same thing. This is something that will free you, empower you. You can do it, you can keep it, and you've got to keep it to prove it that you've received the word. No, so it all becomes do law, law, do this, do this, don't do this, do this. It's all about obedience. This has been and especially when you go to the Early Church, you got the influence of Roman Catholicism all over this stuff.

53:00 So what happens when we get to the Reformation sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Reformation and post Reformation. Well, the ungrafted word. How do the reformers handle this? Well, the ungrafted word now becomes the gospel. Reformers like Luther and John Calvin emphasize that the Gospel as the ungrafted word. So now they forget the Old Testament law here and now it's the Gospel. Calvin saw it as God's truth written on a believer's heart through the Holy Spirit, convicting and pointing to Christ. They stress that this word brings life not through works of law, but by faith. I got it. So now the ungrafted word is the Gospel. Now, in the early Church they would mention it, but they almost always went back to the law or the moral law, which would make more sense than the context of James.

53:49 But the Reformers were like, no, no, no, no, no, this is the gospel. This is the gospel. They stressed that this word brings life. So the ungrafted word is the Gospel. How did they handle the law of liberty? Well, the reformers distinguished between justification by faith alone and the believer sanctified life. Calvin argued that the law of liberty is the moral law has fulfilled in Christ, guiding believers and joyful spirit empowered obedience. So we look into the law of liberty and we now have the We have the freedom and the power to do it. Once again, it's going to turn into power. Lutheran Calvin rejected the idea that the law could justify, but affirmed its role as a guide for sanctification. So once again, no matter how whatever anyone does in church history, with the ingrafted word of the law of liberty, it all turns into what you can do, what you can do, what you can do, what you can do. So what happened in the eighteenth century to today, the Enlightenment to the modern era, Well, the ungrafted word is interpreted as word as gospel and scripture.

54:57 Many interpreters have emphasized the ingrafted world. It is the gospel message and planted into the believer's heart. Drawing from one Peter one twenty three. Others see it as scripture, broadly focusing on its transformative power when internalized and applied. So again, God, whether it's gospel, whether it's law, whether it's scripture, everyone says, look the ungrafted word it you can do it. It's going to help you obey, it's going to help you be obedient. I what about the law of liberty? Well, moral freedom and christ fulfillment. The law of liberty has been widely understood as the moral law interpreted through Christ's fulfillment. Evangelicals often stress the believer's freedom from sin's penalty and power, emphasizing grace rather than works.

55:48 But again, once again, even in the evangelical world, oh, the law of liberty shows you're free from the power of sin, meaning you can do it now. Holiness traditions, especially Wesleyans, emphasizes the spiritual and enabling believers to live out the law as evidence of sanctification. So, no matter how you interpret the ungrafted word, no matter how you interpret the law of liberty, throughout Church history, it always comes down to you can do it. You can, You've been set free, you have power. Now. If we come to contemporary views, the ungrafted word is often interpreted as God's truth, scripture or Gospel working internally to transform lives. Some modern scholars emphasize the moral convicting role, aligning with james practical focus on faith in action. But basically, again, whether it's the word, the scriptures, the Gospel, the law, it's all about change, personal transformation, and the law of liberty.

56:48 In contemporary times, the law of liberty is interpreted as a call to ethical living. Many theologians highlight the tension between freedom and the law's condemnation and the call to live in obedience as a response to grace. So what are the key themes across church history if we take all of these view Conviction and transformation. The ungrafted word has been consistently been seen as something that convicts of sin and transforms the heart. Whether it's the Gospel, whether it's the moral law, or whether it's the scripture. That's that's what everyone seems to agree on. It convicts and it changes you. The ungrafted word changes you. The law so, and the law of liberty frees you or changes you.

57:31 So that's it's conviction. So they everyone seems to agree on conviction and transformation. Number two, everyone seems to agree on freedom through obedience. The law of liberty has been understood as the freedom to live according to God's will. At liberty that comes from not abandoning the law, but from fulfilling it. And Christ so now you but see somehow christ fulfilling it frees you to do it. That's the weird thing. Hey, christ fulfilled it, but now you can so. Throughout Church history the sermon everyone see to go with conviction and transformation, freedom through obedience, and number three sanctification versus justification. A reoccurring theme is the distinction between the law's role and justification none and the role in sanctification guiding believers and righteousness. So there is an attempt to at least to straw a distinction, but I think the distinction typically gets obliterated. All right, So that's how church history has handled it. So what have we done when we've looked at the text James one nineteen through twenty seven. I've drawn your attention to two basic things, the ingrafted word and the law of liberty. You got that, We listened. We considered a sermon which took these two concepts and basically emphasized what you can do it. You can do it, you can keep it, you can obey it, and basically implied that you have the ability to do so, even though trying to pull it pulls back a little bit and tries to qualify it, but still the implication.

59:05 As you can. We've gone through a quick journey through church history looking at both how they handle the ungrafted word and law liberty. No matter how they define it, it becomes about what you can do it. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. And guess what all of those attempts, all of those approaches lead us to. It overestimates your ability. It's in conflict with reality. It denies the fact that if you look at the law of God, nobody's doing it, no matter how much people are pretending to do it. So what does all of that scream? All of that screams someone give me a new interpretation that makes sense not only textually, not only historically, but it also has some correspondence to reality, and ladies and gentlemen, that's what we are going to do. But we're not gonna do it now because it's been one hour. So in our next thrilling episode, we're gonna start, Well, what we're gonna do next is we've looked at a sermon, We've looked at church history. We're gonna give Ai a shot and see what Ai does. We're gonna give a little We're gonna get a little insight to what Ai does. And then well, then I'm gonna start putting together an alternative. Well, I do ask Ai from for some alternative interpretations. I do ask Ai, hey, give me some different interpretations. It tries

1:00:37 to give me some alternative ones, and then I start building my own because even Ai recognizes HM. When when you push Ai, Ai has to go, well, reality is, we don't act if people don't actually keep the law. If we understand God's law to be this demand for perfection internally externally, nobody does so. To emphasize, to say that this somehow says that we can is just logically wrong. It's just not true. Even Ai can acknowledge that if this is the law of God, nobody does it. If Ai can recognize that us as people should be able to look at our lives going, come on, now, we don't ever do this, all right, I think that's a pretty good start, right, the text a sermon history. Now where does that leave us, Well, we're going to consider ai attempts to interpret it. We're going to ask AI to come up with some alternative interpretations, and then we're going to come to a new interpretation. We're getting there.

1:01:46 But you don't just start with a new interpretation. You've got to see all of the twists and turns that this passage has been through throughout church history. Because I don't care where you open your Bible, there's a history. There's two thousand years minimum of history of people trying to interpret it. People have been trying to interpret the Bible, and nobody ever comes to an agreement. All right, we'll stop there. I hope your paid or your notebook is filled up already starting to be Well, it's not all the way filled up. You filled up a couple of pages. Hopefully you're ready to go. And the next time we're together, we're gonna go further. We're gonna go deeper, and we're gonna figure this out. We're gonna we're gonna at least come up with a different interpretation. I'm not saying you're going to agree with it. I'm not even going to say it's right, but we got to have something that makes more sense than basically saying, hey, whatever the ingrafted word is, whatever the law of liberty is, you can obey God perfectly. Well, let me take it back. Not perfectly, but you can do it. I mean, well, you can't do it. You've got power, Well you don't really, and all of that nonsense. I'm so sick of that. I am so sick of it. Everyone who goes to church, anyone who's been a Christian for more than fifteen minutes, you should be sick of it because it's contradictory, convoluted double speak that leaves people. It should leave you broken, frustrated, and wanting to start drinking heavily is where it should probably lead you. But somehow Christians convince themselves that it

1:03:17 all makes sense. I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they do it. I really don't. I really don't. And then we get what did we look at yesterday? And then we have all these statistics about how many Christians are looking at porn. Something contradicts all of your claims that you can do it. Yeah, you can do what sin Guess what you've always been able to do sin. Guess what you can still do sin. Guess what you do sin? You know why because you're still a sinner. So yeah, all right, we'll stop there. Thanks for listening, everyone, have a great evening. James one, make it come on, focus read. Think we're going to come up with some answers right now. We're left with a lot of non answers, but we're gonna come up with some good answers, all right, God bless