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Closing Statement by Rev. Rankin

BILL HOLDRIDGE: Now at this point, each of you have an opportunity to, just three minutes of final summation. You can do it sitting here if you'd like, or you can come up to the podium. It's up to you. And then we will have some concluding comments and that will conclude this evening's forum. JOHN RANKIN: Well I'll go first. It gives Carl the last word. We reversed the order from last time. But I think very simply what we have here is a great contrast between two ways of viewing the Bible. Carl, in all truth, I've asked some very simple questions about how does Genesis 1 through 3 view itself. And I have pointed out that it views the question of this evening, did Adam and Eve really exist? Genesis views it that way. It starts with the genealogy of Adam, traces it all the way through to the very Jesus who is the Messiah. Jesus treats it that way. Paul treats it that way. And therefore the Bible all the way through is the only basis for judging history and for judging science, and for judging what is moral. And the bottom line is that if we do not accept the Bible on its own terms, and you've given me no evidence that Genesis doesn't view the Garden of Eden as an historical place in time in which a real Adam and Eve lived, from whom we are descended. You've given me no evidence that Jesus did not regard it that way. No evidence that Paul did not regard it that way. In other words, every point where I've given the testimony of how Scripture views itself, what I've seen you do, Carl, is move toward experience, not move toward Scripture itself. And John Wesley, the great Anglican who died an Anglican, and after he died they invented the Methodist church in his name -- bunch of godly people -- but John Wesley as an Anglican talked about the quadrilateral basis of the faith: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Scripture on its own terms, and whatever is in church tradition or history that affirms Scripture we trust in. And we do all have our own traditions. Calvary Chapel is actually the outgrowth of the Jesus Movement. It's a more recent tradition than the Anglican one. We all have our traditions. But Scripture, tradition, then reason, the intellectual application, the love of hard questions on the basis of Scripture's own identification of truth. And then human experience. Now what's remarkable is the goal of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience is to produce the experience of the living God in our presence. But the reversal of that, and this is what I hear you doing tonight, Carl, is experience, then reason, then tradition, then Scripture. Whatever doesn't comport with your experience or reason or tradition in that order, I have seen you consistently move toward experience, not move to Scripture. And I think the final example was your belief in the doctrine of annihilation. You took a view that some people can find eisegetically, that means reading their own opinion into it, in half a verse. And I'll argue it's not there. And then you've got the overwhelming testimony from the promise of eternal death if we disobey, through Isaiah, and especially through the ministry of Jesus Christ who talked about eternal suffering more than anyone else in the Bible. So I think the bottom line for us is, that if we do not believe that Adam and Eve really existed, we end up being our own little gods judging what part of Scripture we accept and what parts we don't. If we do accept the Bible on its own terms, the historicity of Adam and Eve, then we submit to the God who created them, who revealed his Word through us. And if at any point in our life we are in conflict with the Word of God, we cannot bend it for our life experience, we must bend our life experience to the Holy God who made us. Thank you. [applause] Next