Group Study - Ichthys' BB1 Theology - The Study of God

Introduction - The Essence of God

Video

Summary

In this lesson, we are going to be kicking off our new study of BB1: Theology on Ichthys by starting to discuss the Essence of God. We’ll talk about how God is being (Exodus 3:14-15), as well as exactly what essence means as a concept.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:06 01:06 - The essence of God is being. He is the Great I AM
11:43 11:43 - The resplendence of God: light and glory
13:24 13:24 - Q: 1 Timothy 6:16 talks about God’s unapproachable light. It also says God alone possess immortality. What does that latter statement mean?
25:01 25:01 - Q: We say God dwells in this unapproachable light that no one has seen nor ever can see. What then of cases in scripture where people seem to have “seen God?”
35:52 35:52 - Comment: God’s glory as it relates to “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess”
49:16 49:16 - Essence, nature, character… ???
59:09 59:09 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

(Derived from https://ichthys.com/1Theo.htm)

The essence of God is being. He is the Great I AM

Tetragrammaton God > Name of God God > Externality to spacetime

The essence of something is what it really is. “Essence” and “being” are precise synonyms.

God tells us who He is in Exodus 3:14-15.

If you’ve ever thought about the question “Well, if the universe exists because God made it, then why does God exist? Did something or someone likewise make God?” then the answer is no—God exists simply because God is being.

Unbelievers scoff at that logic, but it is what the Bible says.

The resplendence of God: light and glory

God > Resplendence > Unapproachable light God > Resplendence > Glory

Loosely speaking, light captures the sense that God is sublime and unapproachable (compare squinting at the sun, being blinded by it), while glory represents the side that shines forth visibly to mankind.

God’s glory is most directly revealed to mankind through His Son, Jesus Christ. As Hebrews 1:1-3 makes clear.

Q: 1 Timothy 6:16 talks about God’s unapproachable light. It also says God alone possess immortality. What does that latter statement mean?

God > Immortality > Antithesis of death

Note

This is a video-only section.

When 1 Timothy 6:16 says that only God possess immortality, what about the fact that both humans and angels have eternal existence?

Is it that God owns immortality, but that he gives it to us creatures such that we too now possess it (some to eternal life, and some to eternal death, based upon that which we choose)? Is this another aspect of God’s Uniqueness?

Q: We say God dwells in this unapproachable light that no one has seen nor ever can see. What then of cases in scripture where people seem to have “seen God?”

Theophany Christophany No man may see God and live

Note

This is a video-only section.

Did Moses not see this light upon Mount Sinai? What about the Apostles present on the mount of transfiguration? What about Paul on the road to Damascus? What about John in His visions of God, recorded in Revelation?

Comment: God’s glory as it relates to “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess”

God > Resplendence > Veiled to preserve human free will Every knee will bow

Note

This is a video-only section.

The visible form of this glory was veiled in Christ’s first advent to make the choice for Him genuine. The glory was, however, revealed in His words and works.

Compare: “Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess.” That is not now, but eventually.

Essence, nature, character… ???

Essence > Essential characteristics Philosophy > Perils of getting off in the weeds

If you’ve ever been confused about what the difference between nature and essence is (and we may as well throw form and substance in the mix as well), you are in good company. Philosophers have been arguing about these things for a very long time (compare Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and others).

Arguments usually seem to hinge on how “inherent” something is to an object. For example, a triangle must have three sides, otherwise it is no longer a triangle. Things that are “essential” (compare the word essence!) are things without which the object is not whatever we are saying it is.

Compare this link: https://chrismlegg.com/2018/06/19/what-do-essence-and-nature-mean-a-simple-explanation/

So, on our topic, must God be infinite and perfect in character to be God? Are these essential characteristics of God?

It is my opinion that wandering too far in this direction rapidly leads one to theosophy (in the negative sense). God is infinite and perfect in character. So what were we arguing about again?

If someone were to whine that I am question-dodging and not defining terms, I would say that God’s nature deals with His infinite abilities, God’s character deals with His moral perfection, and both are fundamental parts of who He is as God.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

0:00 0:00 - all right guys so we are picking up here today in early July 2023 and we are
0:05 0:05 - kicking off a new study here in the Bible basic series on ichus and so we had previously gone through part 6A
0:13 0:13 - talking about the study of the Christian walk and we are now here picking up at the very beginning of the Bible basic
0:19 0:19 - Series going over theology so the study of God and in our first lesson here
0:25 0:25 - today we’re going to be picking up uh introducing the the concept of the essence of God and so here’s the things
0:31 0:31 - that we are going to be talking about here uh in this first one we’re going to be talking about how God is being he is
0:38 0:38 - The Great I Am we have this verse in Exodus chapter 3 where he tells Moses
0:43 0:43 - who he is his identity his Essence we’re going to be talking about the resplendence of God and what that means
0:50 0:50 - in terms of light and glory and then we’re also going to talk a little bit about the difference between Essence and
0:56 0:56 - nature you may have also heard the words form and substance character what are these things you know these
1:02 1:02 - Concepts that philosophers talk about so we’ll spend a little bit of time there as
1:08 1:08 - well all right so the first thing that we are going to be talking about is the
1:14 1:14 - essence of God specifically how God is being he is The Great I Am and so the
1:20 1:20 - essence of something is what it really is Essence and being are precise synonyms they come from this Greek
1:27 1:27 - participle UIA um there’s one in Latin is well very similar so Essence and being are essentially precise synonyms
1:34 1:34 - now this is the passage here in Exodus chapter 3 where God tells us who he is
1:40 1:40 - um so I’m just going to go ahead and read this uh God said to Moses I am who
1:46 1:46 - I am and he said thus you shall say to the sons of Israel I am has sent me to
1:51 1:51 - you God furthermore said to Moses thus you shall say to the sons of Israel the
1:57 1:57 - Lord the god of your fathers the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob has sent me to you this is my name
2:04 2:04 - forever and this is my Memorial name to all generations and so in the Hebrew this
2:10 2:10 - word is actually it’s got this really jargony technical name called the tetr Graton it means four letters in Greek
2:16 2:16 - that’s what the Greek word taton means um but it’s this unpronouncable name of
2:23 2:23 - God that’s how the Hebrews viewed it the holy name of God’s real identity and uh
2:30 2:30 - the the translates sometimes you may see it in English as Yahweh um you know the
2:35 2:35 - the four letters here um but that gets to the idea of being in Hebrew as well
2:42 2:42 - and so that’s where this I am comes from and so this is who God says he is this
2:47 2:47 - is the fundamental essence of God is caught up in this idea of existence and
2:54 2:54 - so moving on down a bit here in the first thing we’re going to talk about if you’ve ever thought about the question
3:00 3:00 - of well if the universe exists because God made it that’s what the Bible says
3:05 3:05 - well then why does God exist did something or someone likewise make god well the answer to that is no God exists
3:12 3:12 - simply because God is being God is existence so unbelievers kind of scoff
3:17 3:17 - at this but it is more or less what the Bible actually says all right aie so you
3:23 3:23 - had something else you wanted to say about God being The Great I Am okay yeah um I think uh the thing I’m
3:33 3:33 - particularly interested in is what unbelievers say about that when you argue you know um that the there the
3:41 3:41 - question who created God or where did God come from or where was God and all of that is actually nonsense um
3:49 3:49 - the the reason that that question is nonsense is just like you said that God
3:55 3:55 - is being right he is the is that which just is the I am what I am I am what I
4:05 4:05 - will be or I will be what I am however you you you you skew it the idea is this
4:11 4:11 - that I I am that which just is so the main thing I want to raise about that
4:17 4:17 - because of my um apologetic bent whenever I engage in these matters is
4:23 4:23 - this that there is there is in the very existence of anything the demand for
4:29 4:29 - something that has always existed and never had a beginning or an end that is
4:35 4:35 - a fundamental requirement for anything to exist if something has not always
4:41 4:41 - existed then nothing should exist this is exactly why currently in
4:48 4:48 - physics um those who have been who who are still holding on to the theory of
4:53 4:53 - the Big Bang are are trying to make the word nothing mean something other than
5:00 5:00 - nothing they’re insisting that nothing is not nothing that nothing is a
5:05 5:05 - compressed very weird they they get very esoteric with the definition of nothing
5:11 5:11 - and they they’ve been banding it around in in the halls of physics for a few years now at least that I know of
5:19 5:19 - everybody knows that in order to have everything that is you have to begin with something you have to so this is
5:28 5:28 - another reason why for us Christians the burden of proof that God exists is never on us because everything demands that he
5:35 5:35 - should exist it is either you have God or you have the universe and the
5:41 5:41 - universe is manifestly not God because the universe experiences change it
5:48 5:48 - transforms and that requires that something is acting upon it that is how
5:55 5:55 - change happens change is is is things that are are stable in nature do not
6:01 6:01 - change and that is why God is the is the is that’s another aspect of God being
6:07 6:07 - the is it means he never changes nothing can act on him and transform him in any
6:13 6:13 - way and nothing can compromise the quality of his
6:19 6:19 - existence but God can act on everything he can Will things into existence that’s
6:24 6:24 - actually how he created you know everything that is and can I for a a um
6:31 6:31 - the point that we’re making here is great um one of the other reasons why it just makes sense for us to speak of
6:37 6:37 - existence qu existence for us as humans is because we exist only within you know
6:43 6:43 - four dimensions right space and matter and time we are bound by them and our
6:49 6:49 - conception of existence is fundamentally linked to these properties which God is not bound by and so this is one reason
6:57 6:57 - why it can be difficult for us to talk with atheists or even agnostic people about this is just we we aren’t starting
7:04 7:04 - from the same ideas of what existence even is because when they talk about something existing before time what does
7:11 7:11 - existing before time even mean like we as humans have a very bad understanding
7:17 7:17 - of this because we are limited by SpaceTime um another thing just bouncing off points you brought up um this comes
7:24 7:24 - up in philosophy some of the arguments for God’s existence I personally I’ve always been more like well God exists
7:30 7:30 - because the Bible says he does and we trust the Bible and we take it on faith it’s a presupposition but philosophers
7:35 7:35 - do argue about this um there’s one particular argument that goes something about the need for an uncaused cause
7:42 7:42 - right the prime mover believe that’s what Aristotle calls it um the uncaused cause it is logically necessary if
7:51 7:51 - everything in the universe is this chain of cause and effect something has to set it off to begin with and like Audi said
7:56 7:56 - it can’t be the big bang because right now I don’t want to be mean but my understanding of the physics is that
8:02 8:02 - right now they say that before there was time and space and matter there was like a point charge of energy and the
8:07 8:07 - fundamental problem with this is that the point charge of energy is still not nothing so um that’s just me riffing on
8:14 8:14 - all the things you brought up um very good points here yeah yeah so I I want to say finally
8:22 8:22 - just to wrap up that the reason I’ve actually gone into this is not because I know that a lot of Christians really
8:28 8:28 - generally don’t want to deal with philosophy and all of that because they feel like it it goes against faith in
8:34 8:34 - some way um but that’s not the point I’m not even interested in addressing that specifically the reason I’m raising it
8:40 8:40 - is this to show that there is a reason that the Bible says first the fool says
8:48 8:48 - in his heart that there is no God second that everything that exists is Testament
8:54 8:54 - it’s a testament of God’s existence that’s Psalm 19: 1-6 and Revelation um sorry Romans
9:01 9:01 - 1:20 the Bible States it as an incontrovertible fact that the bare
9:07 9:07 - existence of of the universe as we see it is absolute incontrovertible proof of
9:15 9:15 - God’s existence there is in other words you have to deny reality to deny God’s
9:21 9:21 - existence because however you skew It Whatever argument you make you either
9:28 9:28 - end up with something that always has been and therefore brought everything else that exists about or you end up
9:36 9:36 - where you assume that something that obviously cannot always have been is that which has always been so you can’t
9:43 9:43 - really get away from the core definition of what God is that which always is yeah
9:50 9:50 - you can’t get away from it so you either accept that that definition belongs to
9:55 9:55 - the god that we find in the Bible or you ascribe it to the universe that you exist in or even ascribe it to yourself
10:01 10:01 - if you’re willing to go so far as to be a solipsist you will always ascribe that quality to something which means you
10:08 10:08 - cannot get away from deity in any philosophy that any human being has ever come up with so I will say there a
10:16 10:16 - branch of neoplatonic philosophers I wrote a paper on one of them in college there’s this guy named platinus um and
10:22 10:22 - so some of the neoplatonic folks they called for all intents and purposes what they called God we believe as is the
10:28 10:28 - Christian God and they they they had a similar concept again these are pagans not believing in judeo-christian God but
10:35 10:35 - they had the same problems with existence and the uncaused cause and all of this they conceptualized something
10:42 10:42 - and they didn’t Define it the same but it’s logically necessary is what we’re saying
10:48 10:48 - um and to tie this up perhaps a little bit this is why us grasping that God is
10:55 10:55 - existence God is being it is his nature is kind of a core fundamental part of us
11:02 11:02 - understanding who God really is um so it’s not minor maybe it seems kind of hard to wrap our heads around and it
11:07 11:07 - will be for us as finite human beings but it’s important in Understanding God’s kind of separateness from the
11:14 11:14 - universe he transcends it in a way that we can’t perfectly understand but it’s really important for us to kind of get
11:21 11:21 - that sense of how big God is and how separate he is from everything that has been created um he is the Creator and so
11:29 11:29 - how can he possibly be bound by his own creation that’s the idea here yeah yeah okay that’s so I think
11:38 11:38 - that’s where we’ll stop this point and we’ll about to pick up with the second
11:46 11:46 - one okay all right so the next point that we’re going to be talking about is we
11:52 11:52 - are going to be talking about the idea of the resplendence of God and this is a manifestation of his essence of his
11:59 11:59 - nature um and so uh the study on ikus here I know I pulled things out into
12:04 12:04 - slides but this is coming directly from the study talks about light and Glory so loosely speaking light captures the
12:11 12:11 - sense that God is Sublime and unapproachable and so you might compare squinting at the Sun and being blinded
12:17 12:17 - by it you can’t really see it while Glory represents this the side that shines forth visibly to mankind so we
12:24 12:24 - see the glory the effects of God’s of God’s existence and his work working in the world glory is what we can see uh in
12:32 12:32 - the metaphor here light is sort of what we can’t see the unapproachable of God um and so there’s this verse here in
12:39 12:39 - Hebrews chapter 1 um the Bible is very clear that uh the way in which God has
12:45 12:45 - manifested his glory most kind of visibly in the world is by speaking through his son so this is picking up
12:51 12:51 - right at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 1 it says God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets
12:57 12:57 - in many portions and in many many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all
13:04 13:04 - things through whom he also made the world so Jesus Christ is God’s primary
13:10 13:10 - message to humankind the primary manifestation of his glory um now we’re
13:16 13:16 - not going to get into verse three here uh interesting tangent perhaps but the idea is that Jesus Christ represents
13:23 13:23 - God’s glory most directly revealed to mankind um so before I kick us off and
13:28 13:28 - we start doing questions here um Lisa had brought up this quote here from 1
13:34 13:34 - Timothy 6: 16 um and so I should probably actually go find that I think I
13:39 13:39 - have it pulled up over here um so 1 Timothy 6:16 and this is a quote from or
13:45 13:45 - one of the verses that Dr duil uses in the ikas study um talking about the unapproachable light it says uh God who
13:53 13:53 - alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has seen or can see to him be honor and
13:59 13:59 - eternal Dominion amen so the question here was what does it mean for God Alone
14:06 14:06 - to have immortality given that both Angel and human will have kind of
14:12 14:12 - Eternal existence um so this is one of those places um where this is an English
14:18 14:18 - problem it’s not a problem in Greek so the Greek word here um you can see the Greek is up here for 1 Timothy
14:25 14:25 - 6:16 um is this one right here see the begin with an alpha and then a Theta right so athanasia is the word here and
14:33 14:33 - it means more literally translated it means like not dying undying and so the
14:41 14:41 - way in which God is different from us is human beings experience death God being
14:46 14:46 - separate from SpaceTime God does not die God is unchanging as we’ve just talked about because God is being God is life
14:54 14:54 - that’s one of the other things we’ll get to and so this word isn’t immortality in the sense of Eternal existence as it is
15:02 15:02 - lack of dying if that makes sense that’s kind of a separate concept so um I don’t
15:10 15:10 - know if that question and that answer makes sense but that is one place where we could start
15:15 15:15 - here okay yeah um I want to see that quote again God
15:22 15:22 - Alone possesses immortality okay so the first here in uh
15:27 15:27 - 1 Timothy chapter 6 yeah yeah okay okay so
15:34 15:34 - uh I think I think uh you you you captured it quite well we don’t possess
15:42 15:42 - immortality we in the sense of owning it God owns it it’s
15:48 15:48 - his and he shared it with us um when we read Ecclesiastes he says that he has
15:54 15:54 - set eternity in our hearts and then in another place few verses after that he before that it actually said that um
16:02 16:02 - everything that God does lasts forever which which kind of proves that he owns
16:08 16:08 - immortality um there are those who might argue on the basis of this passage uh
16:14 16:14 - First Timothy that this is why they believe that um unless God actually
16:21 16:21 - gives you life you won’t live forever so those who will not be with God in
16:27 16:27 - eternity will die and that’s it they’ll be gone from existence but that flies in the face of
16:34 16:34 - what Ecclesiastes says which is that everything that God makes lasts forever and that thing that very statement from
16:42 16:42 - Ecclesiastes actually explains what we are asking about how is he the only one
16:48 16:48 - who possesses immortality it’s because it’s his he is that which is everything
16:55 16:55 - else derives its aess from him MH so
17:00 17:00 - when he makes things and imbus them by the quality of just making them that’s
17:06 17:06 - just how God is the things he he he builds the things he makes are just like that they exist
17:12 17:12 - Forever by D of the fact that he is the one who makes them they are Immortal in
17:20 17:20 - that sense that’s one way to to appreciate the the question of who possesses immortality it’s that he
17:26 17:26 - possess it’s his and uh he gives it to wh whomever he pleases now um can I cut
17:32 17:32 - in with something here as well so I I kind of made the point that this word is getting at lack of death and so that
17:40 17:40 - kind of begs the question of well which kind of death if you are familiar with some of ichus teachings you’ll know that
17:46 17:46 - ichus generally speaks of three types of death so when the serpent tempts Eve in
17:51 17:51 - Genesis chapter 3 um the serpent says if you eat of the tree you will surely die
17:56 17:56 - and that verse if you don’t if you’re not careful in your hermeneutics when you interpret it well you know eve took
18:03 18:03 - a bite and she didn’t immediately get struck by a bolt from heaven for example so that statement was true with regards
18:08 18:08 - to physical death so there’s kind of physical death and then there’s spiritual death which we Define a
18:14 18:14 - separation from God and then there’s what we call the second or Eternal death which is life in the Lake of Fire after
18:21 18:21 - we die right and what a he was getting at is well when you die physically that is the destination for
18:27 18:27 - those who do not believe it is an eternal state of of existence and so you
18:32 18:32 - might also note that Jesus Christ died physically right but the death in view
18:38 18:38 - here is more complicated than just physical death right that’s not the only thing in view when we say that God is um
18:44 18:44 - you know described by this word athanasia right that God does not taste death well
18:50 18:50 - God is life right Jesus Christ was never separated from the father in what we
18:55 18:55 - would term a spiritual sense and of course any eternity he’s not going to the lake of fire and so it’s more than
19:01 19:01 - just physical death that is in view here it’s the whole shebang the whole Spectrum all three classifications of
19:07 19:07 - death because God is life fundamentally and he can’t like uh what’s the right
19:13 19:13 - word like uh reject himself right how could God die of God his life right it’s
19:18 19:18 - just a nonsensical concept yeah now the the reason that I
19:23 19:23 - started from where I started is just to make sure that um we capture the the the
19:29 19:29 - owning of immortality part the other side of things is what you’re talking about where the Death part comes in but
19:36 19:36 - death was actually just like you said I think I want to put a fine point on it
19:41 19:41 - in this way that death is the it is a
19:47 19:47 - description of our relationship to God in a particular state so physical death
19:54 19:54 - was not supposed to be a thing that was not how things were supposed to go
19:59 19:59 - although of course in God’s plan he knew what would happen and had written it in
20:05 20:05 - So Physical death the ending of experience in this physical
20:13 20:13 - body was the consequence of going contrary to God
20:19 20:19 - which of course is like well if you cease drinking from the Fountain of Life then obviously you start to die so
20:29 20:29 - when Adam and Eve’s relationship with God was cut off the next thing that happened was we’re not going to allow
20:35 20:35 - them access to the Tree of Life which they if they continue to eat they will exist forever right that was a very um
20:45 20:45 - uh dramatic or graphic way of demonstrating what had happened spiritually which meant if they were no
20:53 20:53 - longer taking their cue from God then they could no longer be
20:59 20:59 - living so in that sense that that deathlessness comes into play which also
21:07 21:07 - derives its meaning from the fact that God owns immortality nothing else
21:12 21:12 - possesses it except that he gives it to that thing and that’s the point that because God created things they last
21:20 21:20 - forever I I’ll try to demonstrate first of all we know from the scriptures that
21:26 21:26 - even if you’re an unbeliever you are going to be resurrected your Resurrection is not
21:32 21:32 - going to be the same as the res the resurrection of a Believer but you’re going to be resurrected in a body that
21:38 21:38 - is suited for Eternal condemnation there is no going out of existence forever for anybody because
21:45 21:45 - nobody was designed to go out of existence we have also in second Peter
21:51 21:51 - chapter 3 that everything we see the entire universe we see is going to be
21:56 21:56 - burned up and removed out of the way and yet we have cause to understand that
22:04 22:04 - that is not necessarily meaning that these things will cease to exist they
22:09 22:09 - simply will not exist for the purpose for which they had originally been made
22:15 22:15 - this is a a a universe that is Tainted with sin and for that reason it’s going to be sort of rolled away removed from
22:23 22:23 - its place and replaced with something better and that’s actually why we think
22:28 22:28 - about the new universe as a resurrection of God’s creation rather than rather than like he
22:37 22:37 - he deleted something entirely and put something else in its place in that sense so the what we’re getting at is
22:44 22:44 - God owns immortality and by by D of the fact that
22:50 22:50 - he does everything he creates is it it has it built into it in the sense that
22:57 22:57 - things possess the ability to exist forever not necessarily in the way that they God
23:04 23:04 - would have wanted them to but in the way that they have come to be used so um the
23:09 23:09 - deathlessness side of things makes absolute sense too when we start to think of the relationship of things to
23:15 23:15 - God that means he owns immortality if you turn against him then how can you
23:22 23:22 - actually participate in his immortality in that sense you are cut off from his life in some way it does not mean that
23:29 23:29 - you will cease to exist forever the unbeliever will still be in the Lake of Fire forever he still exists he has some
23:36 23:36 - form of immortality but he is cut off from the life that is God the fullness of life that is God the beauty of life
23:43 23:43 - that is God everything because all the there is nothing about goodness or or or
23:49 23:49 - life or beauty that is external to God you don’t find those things outside of God it’s
23:55 23:55 - like uh when people say that um it’s something that I believe Proverbs talks about that um stolen stolen bread is
24:03 24:03 - sweet stolen waters are sweet and the Bible says they end up as gravel in the
24:08 24:08 - mouth that’s true some people take pleasure in doing the wrong thing but
24:14 24:14 - yes that’s a warping of our nature but in fact true pleasure is with God that’s
24:22 24:22 - where it is so when God removes all that is actually him from a particular
24:27 24:27 - situation you have a husk of an existence there’s immortality there but it isely immortality it’s like yeah so
24:37 24:37 - that’s where the deathlessness side of things comes from but the reason I started from where I started is to make
24:42 24:42 - sure that we understand that what what Paul is saying to Timothy here is
24:48 24:48 - because God himself owns this thing that’s why we are close to him he owns
24:56 24:56 - it none of us can get it from anywhere else immortality is what God is
25:01 25:01 - about that’s his is to speak next thing probably I think we have covered this
25:08 25:08 - one pretty well although of course if anyone wants to ask more questions to clarify things that AI not have said
25:14 25:14 - feel free um the next one that we were going to talk about was the idea of the
25:19 25:19 - unapproachable light and so we said light represents the unapproachable sort of in the metaphor here and glory is the
25:26 25:26 - visible form of the presence of God that takes place in the world and so the question is well
25:34 25:34 - what about people like Moses on Mount Si the Mount of transfiguration Paul on the
25:40 25:40 - road to Damascus John in his Visions did these people see God right um there’s
25:46 25:46 - another verse kind of appropo here um that talks about how no one can see God and live if you guys are recalling I
25:54 25:54 - don’t remember exactly where that verse is I I know it’s somewhere in the old test Testament um but well when Moses
26:00 26:00 - was receiving the tablets of the law and he came back and his face was shining
26:05 26:05 - and I think that comes up in like second Corinthians somewhere Paul talks about us being MIRS reflecting Glory from
26:12 26:12 - glory to glory uh it’s a Greek idiom I don’t want to get off topic but this idea of light and did these people
26:20 26:20 - actually see God well if no one can see God and live well did they see God and uh if the light is truly unapproachable
26:26 26:26 - did they approach the that sort of question um and I’ll see what AI thinks but to me I think this comes straight
26:33 26:33 - down to the idea of christophanies um so this idea theophany uh you know it’s a
26:41 26:41 - technical jargon way of saying you know the god coming uh to Earth theophany is
26:46 26:46 - a seeing of of God and christophany is a seeing of Jesus Christ and so there is
26:52 26:52 - the idea of the like definite article the angel of the Lord in the Old
26:58 26:58 - Testament and that is actually a pre-incarnate Jesus Christ that is the second person of the Trinity the son the
27:05 27:05 - agent the one who created the universe um so if the father’s the architect the son’s the agent and the spirit is the
27:12 27:12 - empowerer so to speak and we’ll get to the Trinity and the roles they adopt a bit later in this study well these
27:18 27:18 - instances of people seeing and interacting with God in the Old Testament were interactions with the son
27:26 27:26 - christophanies um and the sort of veil of separation between the third heaven
27:32 27:32 - and the universe which is presently tainted by sin uh is to keep the presence of the father distinctly
27:39 27:39 - separate and there’s some symbolism in The Temple of the holy of holies also separated by a curtain that’s kind of
27:45 27:45 - the idea of God’s holiness cannot be be in the presence of man without destroying the sin um so aie do you want
27:53 27:53 - to Riff on anything I’ve said here about this question of what about these people who saw light or saw God but yet did not
28:00 28:00 - die you’ve you’ve really captured it I’m just going to unravel it a little bit more um so uh like you said it was a
28:08 28:08 - christophany and uh it’s important to remember I mean there are people who of course would argue that we we claim that
28:14 28:14 - Jesus Christ is God so what does that have to do with anything because we’re still talking about seeing God and we do
28:22 28:22 - know that where was that it was in John where where John said that they saw the
28:29 28:29 - god of Israel and ate and drank with him you know so it’s like did they see did
28:35 28:35 - they not see what which one is it and the Bible is this is where the the question of the Trinity begins to you
28:42 28:42 - know creep up um exes holds and it is actually something I’m very persuaded is
28:49 28:49 - actually true true as well that um uh the father presents as the face of the
28:55 28:55 - trinity in other words words he plays the role of the godhead the role of God
29:02 29:02 - in the Trinity so Creation in in in the way they and the
29:09 29:09 - roles of course overlaps overlap with each other the way that the the Trinity self assigned roles to themselves is
29:17 29:17 - that the father is actually the represent the representation of the deity of the Trinity to
29:24 29:24 - Creation so the TR the the father stays aloof from sinful creation does not
29:32 29:32 - interact with sinful creation and maintains a barrier of separation from
29:38 29:38 - sinful creation that’s why we talk about God being in the third heaven and not being on Earth even though we know as we
29:46 29:46 - will soon discuss that God is everywhere so if God is everywhere why do we say
29:52 29:52 - he’s in the third heaven it’s because the the father himself who is the represent of the deity of the of the
30:00 30:00 - Trinity is maintaining a perceptible separation from sinful
30:07 30:07 - creation but the holy spirit is currently right here on Earth he’s living in believers who are sinful he is
30:14 30:14 - working in a world that is sinful he is restraining evil in a wicked world is
30:20 30:20 - that in any way violating anything the Bible says now I would I would make a
30:26 30:26 - point in and say whenever we see these things we don’t think the way that a
30:32 30:32 - Believer should should go about it is not to think what is wrong here and rather to think what am I not
30:39 30:39 - understanding here so the holy spirit is in a sinful world the lord Jesus came
30:47 30:47 - and he lived in the world died on the cross was raised from the dead and after
30:55 30:55 - after he ascended into heaven heos is ended which meant his human nature and
31:01 31:01 - his divine nature were perfectly United in each other so when you consider all
31:08 31:08 - of that when you take all of that into consideration you we we come to understand that when the Bible says no
31:14 31:14 - man may see my face and let that’s in Exodus 33:20 by the way no man may see my face and and live you cannot see my
31:22 31:22 - face for no man may see me and live that’s how um the Lord said it what was
31:28 31:28 - being said is you are not permitted to see the representation of the deity of
31:34 31:34 - the Trinity that’s why the father is the face of the Trinity but then he told
31:39 31:39 - Abraham he told Moses sorry um I will put you in a c and when I have passed by
31:44 31:44 - and and place my hand on you so that you do not see my face but when I have passed by I will let I will let you see
31:50 31:50 - my back right so that’s that that one was interesting because in fact
31:57 31:57 - it would seem that the Lord Jesus would be this back so to speak because he is
32:03 32:03 - the one who is facing creation remember that he was someone was walking in the Garden of Eden and the Bible said it was
32:10 32:10 - the Lord God with Adam and Eve and just as we have what as we have said the
32:16 32:16 - Bible records that they saw the god of Israel and ate and drank that’s what the Bible actually records that this was
32:22 32:22 - referring to the 70 elders of Israel so all of these things tell that they saw somebody that was part of the
32:30 32:30 - Trinity but there’s someone they were not permitted to get in any contact with and that was the father we will see this
32:37 32:37 - playing out again when we talk about um the third heaven and uh Paradise when uh
32:44 32:44 - Believers before the cross would die they couldn’t go into the third heaven but they were in some place that was
32:50 32:50 - actually pleasurable that was delightful it was like a Garden of Eden of it Stone
32:56 32:56 - it was Paradise Jesus called it paradise and he also called it Abraham’s bosom it’s the place from where Samuel
33:03 33:03 - ascended when Saul um went to a a a uh a
33:10 33:10 - medium and asked to have him raised up to speak with him that’s the same place
33:15 33:15 - that um Abraham was found it’s the same place that uh Lazarus as the poor man
33:21 33:21 - the poor believer was also found it’s the same place that Jesus went to after he he died on the cross and the reason
33:29 33:29 - for this this separation was because sinful man may not enter the presence of
33:35 33:35 - the father even though they had communion with the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit fell on many prophets even before Jesus
33:42 33:42 - went to the cross and Jesus himself came and ate and drank and interacted with
33:49 33:49 - his disciples even though he was also God but the father nobody ever saw him
33:55 33:55 - that’s also the testimony of John no nobody ever saw him except the son that’s what he said so when when we
34:02 34:02 - think about these things that God dwells in unapproachable light and all of that we are supposed to understand the
34:08 34:08 - separation that exists between the father as a representation of the deity of the Trinity and sinful creation but
34:17 34:17 - this is why we look forward to Resurrection that’s why we look forward to the putting off of this body because
34:23 34:23 - when we put off this body of sin there is no especially because Jesus has now died on the cross for us there is no
34:29 34:29 - longer any reason we cannot enter into the presence of the father so that’s yeah I will say the the powerfulness of
34:37 34:37 - us not actually being able to commune with God in the third heaven is any believers who died until after the cross
34:44 34:44 - it makes sense when you think of things in terms of justification um before the
34:49 34:49 - cross people were saved essentially on credit looking forward towards Christ sacrifice so all human beings from Adam
34:55 34:55 - to the last person who who ever lived will be saved on account of their sin being paid for by Christ but the cross
35:02 35:02 - is you know thousands of years into human history so what about all the people before the cross well they were
35:08 35:08 - in this place that AI described but they could actually be in the presence of the father after Christ’s Resurrection
35:15 35:15 - because the resurrection represents God’s acceptance of Christ’s payment for our sins so after that point in a manner
35:21 35:21 - of speaking God didn’t see those people anymore he saw them through the blood of Jesus Christ and that’s why they could
35:27 35:27 - be in the presence of the father um because no longer was their sin tainting them because they’d been covered in the
35:34 35:34 - blood of Christ now also of course uh in the new heavens and the new Earth the father will come and live among us so
35:41 35:41 - it’s not just going to be um the son Among Us and the Holy Spirit indwelling us but we will be in the presence of the
35:47 35:47 - father but that’s only in the new heavens and the new earth once sin has be been completely
35:53 35:53 - eradicated right so yeah um one other uh comment we had here on light and Glory
35:59 35:59 - um to go over was uh this one here about how the visible form of Christ’s Glory
36:05 36:05 - was veiled in his first Advent to make the choice for him genuine um so the glory was revealed in his works and his
36:12 36:12 - words some of the signs he did definitely manifesting the glory of the almighty um but by way of contrast when
36:20 36:20 - Jesus Christ comes again I believe it’s in uh let me let me check myself on this whoops um I think it’s in Revelation
36:27 36:27 - chapter 19 um Revelation 19 is talking about the second coming of Christ um and
36:34 36:34 - when he comes the second time uh let me see if I’m
36:41 36:41 - right am I right maybe I’m not yeah here he comes coming on a horse horse right
36:47 36:47 - um so when Jesus Christ comes again you know defeating the armies of the Antichrist and Armageddon um and then
36:53 36:53 - judgment commences you know the the day of judgment so uh that Paradigm in scripture the day of the Lord Paradigm
37:00 37:00 - if you’re familiar with how Dr lugan Bill explains this in terms of Prophecy uh well on that day um then every knee
37:07 37:07 - will bow and every tongue will confess that’s a quote I believe it’s from Timothy Thessalonians I can I can look
37:14 37:14 - up the exact ver every KN every knee well that’s that’s in Philippians
37:19 37:19 - chapter two Philippians yeah okay you’re right Philippians 21-1 but that happens on the day of the Lord Paradigm um in
37:26 37:26 - ology this is the point in which yeah the veil comes off and we behold Christ’s Glory as it is and at that
37:33 37:33 - point even unbelievers will not by their own will but because it is they can’t deny it
37:41 37:41 - right you know God allows human Hardness of Heart to persist but they cannot deny the glory of God when he comes in this
37:47 37:47 - manner um so they too will bow and their tongues will confess the glory of God because it will be manifest it will be
37:55 37:55 - something that you can’t Harden your eyes to um and that will only happen at
38:00 38:00 - that point in time um until now God lets Humanity persist in Hardness of Heart
38:06 38:06 - but that will not be the case at that point in time yeah in in fact I I want to point
38:15 38:15 - out that okay this is an an argument I used to make a few years ago I when
38:21 38:21 - people would say why doesn’t God just show me himself why do a lot of atheists would argue
38:27 38:27 - why does God need me why does God need you the Christian to argue for his existence so that I can believe why
38:34 38:34 - doesn’t he just show me himself so one very strong reason for
38:39 38:39 - this is actually that the same thing that we started with the isness of God the God is Ultimate Reality that is to
38:49 38:49 - say when you think about math for example math is um
38:57 38:57 - an a way to reason abstractly about the physical world
39:03 39:03 - so you can talk all you want about x’s and y’s and calculus and
39:09 39:09 - whatnot it doesn’t really mean it doesn’t it doesn’t it doesn’t do much
39:14 39:14 - until you actually start to bring those things to bear on physical systems that you interact with and that’s the whole
39:22 39:22 - point math gives you a way of seeing those things mentally so that you can
39:28 39:28 - act on them physically a lot of the things about life as we see them is similar to math
39:35 39:35 - in that sense but God is the Ultimate Reality if anyone of us were to see God
39:42 39:42 - with his glory unveiled that is himself naked as as it can
39:48 39:48 - get we would fail to be able to resist his will that’s just how that
39:56 39:56 - it’s like when the Sun rises and the Darkness recedes and all Shadows flee
40:04 40:04 - that’s exactly what happens when the glory of God is unveiled this is also
40:10 40:10 - something I should have mentioned when I was talking about the unapproachable light issue that God veils himself in
40:17 40:17 - his interactions with with um with creation such that even even though the
40:22 40:22 - people of old were largely interacting with Jesus Christ himself he’s Glory as deity was still veiled which is again to
40:29 40:29 - tell to remind us that it is the father who plays the role of the deity of the representation of the deity of the
40:35 40:35 - Trinity the other two the the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit Veil their own Glory
40:41 40:41 - tremendously we have to understand that it’s like with the father he is the one who does not Veil it in that sense so if
40:50 40:50 - we were to walk into the presence of the father in sin we we would really die but
40:56 40:56 - we can interact with the son we can interact with the holy spirit because they have given us it’s like the Holy
41:02 41:02 - Spirit actually living in a human being in in a Believer sorry okay so um it’s like the
41:09 41:09 - Holy Spirit actually living in a Believer and um in that same believer he
41:14 41:14 - would be speaking and the believer can ignore what he is saying the miracle of that is sometimes beyond our ability to
41:21 41:21 - even perceive it’s impossible to resist God
41:27 41:27 - when God himself has decided that he will not be resisted can I can I read this verse from Isaiah 53 I just man
41:34 41:34 - this hit me when you were talking here um this is talking now Isaiah 53 is the prophecy of the suffering servant which
41:40 41:40 - we now know to be Jesus Christ but just listen to this for a second in terms of the veiled Majesty of God right so this
41:47 41:47 - is speaking of Jesus Christ as the suffering servant it says verse two he grew up before him like a tender shoot
41:53 41:53 - and like a root out of dry ground he had no stately form or Majesty to attract us
41:58 41:58 - no beauty that we should desire him he was despised and rejected by Men A Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief like
42:05 42:05 - one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him
42:11 42:11 - not just just no stately former Majesty to attract this right this is why it’s
42:16 42:16 - always been about faith for us because we G it’s not like Jesus Christ came and
42:23 42:23 - you know he was like a a Standing Tall among men you know with beauty outshining the rest and abilities So
42:32 42:32 - Glorious that people had to fall down before him right um you get some of this in fiction when people are talking about
42:38 42:38 - the Majesty of Kings you know Emperors maybe I maybe it depends on culture a bit because you know in the Far East
42:44 42:44 - some of them actually worship their Emperors as Gods but you know this idea of Regal Majesty that just people find
42:52 42:52 - irresistible yeah Jesus when in during the Incarnation Jesus did not have that
42:58 42:58 - and so when you think about those that followed him and were willing to die for him they belied who he was in his kosis
43:06 43:06 - um his Veil deity not because Jesus was so exceptional as a human being um yeah
43:14 43:14 - yeah so that’s that’s the thing the the the matter of of the glory of the Lord
43:22 43:22 - and this is one thing that actually struck me in uh the way that EX presented that God is light so if we
43:29 43:29 - were to actually speak of God in terms of substance that is what he is made of
43:34 43:34 - of course that that we should remember that that’s nonsensical language to speak there is no God is made of
43:39 43:39 - anything but he would be light that would be the definition of him and think
43:45 43:45 - about this when Jesus returns the Bible speaks of him as rising like the sun and
43:51 43:51 - when we go to Zechariah 14 and it talks about how the moment of his of his is returned to the Earth will be it says at
43:58 43:58 - that time will be neither day nor night the reason for this is that it’s actually in the middle of the day when
44:04 44:04 - it should be light out it would be dark like it’s midnight and then he rises and
44:11 44:11 - when he rises the Brilliance of his Rising is far brighter than anything
44:17 44:17 - anyone has ever seen of the sun now think about Jesus Christ being the Morning Star too right exactly the
44:25 44:25 - Morning Star yes and this this is yeah this is the glory of his deity we’re talking about
44:32 44:32 - the glory we’re talking about is visibly resplendant its light beaming through
44:40 44:40 - and this is actually what God is actually promising to every believer and it is the angels are already
44:46 44:46 - experiencing it at the moment and departed Believers are experiencing it too he shares That Glory with
44:52 44:52 - us that we too will shine like Stars this is what Daniel says or the angel
44:57 44:57 - told Daniel in Daniel chapter 12 that they will shine like stars in their father’s Kingdom so we are to understand
45:05 45:05 - that if we were to speak of God in terms of substance what he is made of again remembering that he is not made of
45:12 45:12 - anything but the substance of his deity is light and glory is the is The Shining
45:18 45:18 - forth of that light yeah and so that that is also to tell us how incredibly
45:24 45:24 - amazing and and Powerful f it is that that light could walk among men and not be seen as light I mean how about how
45:31 45:31 - about John chapter one right and yeah the light walked among the darkness and the Darkness did not recognize it right
45:38 45:38 - um yes exactly exactly yeah yeah so that’s that’s what I would say to to
45:45 45:45 - that yeah I just wanted to bring up the um the first U day of creation when
45:51 45:51 - there was no sun but there was light y yeah in that case I would always be care
45:57 45:57 - I would try to remind people that God God does not need to be the light himself he can create light without
46:02 46:02 - actually you know um having his son shining it through and there’s a
46:08 46:08 - difference between created light and the light that is actually God that’s that’s something we see creation but Lisa’s
46:15 46:15 - Point’s actually very interesting too uh not to get too far a few because we could get very off topic here but why was the universe dark right what we’re
46:22 46:22 - talking about is one of the strongest inferential Arguments for or uh Genesis
46:27 46:27 - being Recreation you know that teaching of the Gap theory on nius is because if God is a being of light as we’re saying
46:34 46:34 - it’s a substance you know waving our hand at what that means precisely but if God is light then why was the universe
46:42 46:42 - dark it doesn’t make sense unless the universe had been judged before um now I
46:47 46:47 - want to close this out I we’ve been on this man we have hit this one hard I am glad though this has been good stuff I
46:53 46:53 - want to read this passage here from or second second Corinthians chapter 3 so we are on this topic of light and glory
47:00 47:00 - and specifically this idea of bailing and what it means for us as Believers too so this is talking about the New
47:06 47:06 - Covenant picking up in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 7 so I’m just go ahead and read from verse 7 through Verse 18 I
47:13 47:13 - think it’s all pretty relevant here as you guys will see and I think that’s where we’ll close this section so we can actually get through the third one in
47:19 47:19 - this video um but all very appropo to our discussion of Glory here so 2
47:26 47:26 - Corinthians chapter 3 picking up at verse 7 says now if the ministry that brought death which was engraved in
47:32 47:32 - letters on Stone came with Glory so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its
47:38 47:38 - Glory transitory though it was will not the ministry of the spirit be even more
47:43 47:43 - glorious if the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious how much more glorious is the ministry that brings
47:49 47:49 - righteousness for what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with The surpassing Glory and if what was
47:56 47:56 - transitory came with Glory how much greater is the glory of that which lasts
48:01 48:01 - therefore since we have such a hope we are very bold we are not like Moses who would put a veil over his face to
48:08 48:08 - prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away but their minds were made dull for to this day the
48:15 48:15 - same Veil remains when the old Covenant is read it has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away even to
48:22 48:22 - this day when Moses is read a veil covers their heart s but whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away
48:30 48:30 - now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and we all who with unveiled faces
48:37 48:37 - contemplate the Lord’s Glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing Glory which comes from the
48:43 48:43 - Lord who is the spirit amen right um so we are being transformed to reflect
48:50 48:50 - God’s glory we are reflectors of God’s glory right through the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit now I think
48:57 48:57 - there is one more thing so we’re going to pause for a second and see if there’s one more thing to talk about and then we’ll finish off this section here all
49:04 49:04 - right well I think we decided that actually we talked a good bit about this topic so with this we’re going to go
49:11 49:11 - ahead and move on to the next thing here talking about the essence and nature of
49:19 49:19 - God all right so when we talk about some of these terms like Essence and nature
49:25 49:25 - and character and if you’ve ever read any philosophy you might have also come across form and
49:30 49:30 - substance um well what are these things what’s the difference between them and do we need to care about the fact that
49:37 49:37 - throughout history many philosophers and theologians who dabble in philosophy like Thomas aquinus is a famous one they
49:44 49:44 - argue about these things also comes up a lot in uh Catholic and Orthodox theology
49:49 49:49 - where they talk about uh the son being eternally begotten of the father in this
49:55 49:55 - Spirit eternally proceeding from the father and all of these other things that they talk about in terms of ontology I don’t really want us to go
50:02 50:02 - there because I feel like we get a bit off topic but um we’re just going to talk a little bit about what does it
50:08 50:08 - mean for something to be essential you know what is an essential characteristic of something um and so when you ask the
50:15 50:15 - question about well what’s the difference between nature and Essence right uh debate that people have had for
50:20 50:20 - a long time or substance or form or these other things arguments usually seem to hinge on how quote unquote
50:27 50:27 - inherent something is to an object so for example a triangle must have three sides otherwise it’s no longer a
50:33 50:33 - triangle so things that are essential and here this kind of blew my mind when I saw it if you compare the word essence
50:40 50:40 - to essential right essential things are things that you have to have that compose the essence of something right
50:46 50:46 - they have the same root coming from that Greek word here and so essential things
50:52 50:52 - are things without which an object is not whatever we are saying so if you want to use a fany jargony word that
50:58 50:58 - would be ontologically speaking right in terms of Something’s existence if it does not have the essential properties
51:04 51:04 - the essential characteristics it is not the thing that we are talking about so there’s this blink here um I certainly
51:11 51:11 - don’t know very much about this website I was just coming up with an example and I thought this page did a decent job um
51:16 51:16 - you know this guy saying he’s not a philosopher Etc um but he’s using the example of circles right so if you draw
51:23 51:23 - a circle over here like this one if you draw one on the other side of a page still a circle right location is what
51:30 51:30 - we’re going to call an accidental trait of a circle right it’s not something that where if you change the location
51:36 51:36 - something ceases to become a circle now if you draw one that’s blue right color is also not an essential trait of a
51:42 51:42 - circle because you can have circles that are different colors and they’re all still circles right um so circles can have a lot of different accidental
51:48 51:48 - traits but if you take this object right here this is not a circle right a circle
51:55 51:55 - with four Four Corners can you have a circle with Corners no now you don’t have a circle anymore you have a square
52:00 52:00 - because round is an essential trait of a circle so I don’t want to overly belabor the point I don’t want to stick it off
52:06 52:06 - in the weeds of philosophy but we’re just talking a little bit about well what does it mean for something to have essential characteristics what is
52:13 52:13 - Essence that sort of thing now where this kind of comes more on topic for us is when people argue about is God’s
52:21 52:21 - infinity and his perfect character are these essential characteristics of God that is God not be God if he didn’t have
52:28 52:28 - these characteristics now I’m mostly introducing this because people argue about this my opinion is that wandering
52:35 52:35 - too far in this direction rapidly leads one to something called theosophy which is usually kind of a pejorative way of
52:41 52:41 - saying you’re off in the philosophical Weeds about something in theology when you should just accept what the Bible says and move on right so God is
52:49 52:49 - infinite and god is perfect in character so why are we arguing about this stuff right does it matter what does it mean
52:56 52:56 - if this is an essential characteristic of God or not right I think a lot of the times people get off in the Weeds about this and it doesn’t do much productive
53:03 53:03 - that’s my n equals one opinion here now if someone in this were to wh that I’m kind of question dodging and I’m not
53:08 53:08 - defining my terms I’m just using things I would say that God’s nature deals with
53:13 53:13 - his infinite abilities and God’s character deals with his moral perfection and both are fundamental
53:19 53:19 - parts of who he is as God um I don’t know if that would uh
53:25 53:25 - you know if that would satisfy all potential critics and I’m quite frankly not all that interested in satisfying
53:31 53:31 - potential critics here we are talking about who God really is not whether it conforms to a specific philosophical
53:38 53:38 - framework or you know a definition of terms as this philosopher this
53:43 53:43 - philosopher say Plato or Kant or whoever else uses these terms we’re interested about who God really is and that is kind
53:49 53:49 - of what’s governing in our conversation here so um I’m sorry that’s maybe a little bit unsatisfying I’m more raising
53:55 53:55 - this to say we’re not going to go too far into some of the philosophical weeds
54:01 54:01 - here we’re going to keep it at the surface level about who God really is what his abilities are what that says
54:06 54:06 - about his nature and his moral perfection in his character um so nature his infinite nature and his perfect
54:12 54:12 - character those are the uh the next lessons that we’re actually going to do um but I’m just kind of opening up that
54:18 54:18 - that’s what we care about when we talk about the essence of God we don’t have to twist ourselves into pretzels trying
54:24 54:24 - to satisfy secular philosophers because what we’re interested in is who God is not necessarily the philosophical
54:31 54:31 - specifics and the technical terms and well how does this interact with Plato’s conception of the forms or whatever
54:36 54:36 - right we don’t need to go there because it’s not really useful for enhancing our understanding of God does that make
54:42 54:42 - sense a do you have more to say here yeah I’ll just say that um one problem
54:48 54:48 - with people like aquinus and all the others was was that they were doing philosophy they weren’t you know
54:55 54:55 - particularly engaging in Bible study they were trying to
55:00 55:00 - understand the scriptures they were trying to philosophize about God that’s a different thing Al
55:06 55:06 - together there is very much because the human mind is naturally arrogant um
55:12 55:12 - there’s always so much we think we can we can we can break God we can figure him out and all of that but what we do
55:19 55:19 - here is Bible study we’re trying to to you know um understand what the Bible
55:26 55:26 - says about God so we will be seeking to understand what the Bible says about
55:32 55:32 - God’s Essence and as far as that goes we’re not talking about essential characteristics we’re talking about what
55:41 55:41 - God is and that is this we’ve already talked about a big part of that that
55:47 55:47 - what God is at his core what and here’s the thing I I often like to use the term
55:53 55:53 - deity to to make sure that everyone understands that I’m not talking about the identity of the person that has that
56:01 56:01 - quality of deity I’m talking about the quality itself so what makes deity deity is what
56:09 56:09 - we’re talking about on the one hand which we have already talked about it’s the fact that deity is the is it it
56:16 56:16 - never began to exist it will never cease to exist now that very word that very I
56:24 56:24 - will be what I am I am what I am I I am what I will be all of these things they
56:32 56:32 - refer to the to the both the independent existence that is the self-existence of
56:38 56:38 - that which possesses deity and also speaks to a lot of there there are implications that is what I
56:44 56:44 - mean there are there are implications of this self-existence if something self exists
56:51 56:51 - it will necessarily possess certain qualities those qualities that it possesses are
56:57 56:57 - what we are going to discuss and we’re not talking about it from a philos philosophical standpoint what we’re saying um is this what it is is must it
57:06 57:06 - be so couldn’t it be no what we’re talking about is what the scriptures actually say about be that’s it I agree
57:13 57:13 - and I will say that as an occupational hazard I have read a fair bit of philosophy I was a Classics major I
57:19 57:19 - enjoyed it for my part kept in its proper place but I have bumped into problems time starting to question
57:26 57:26 - things about the mechanics of something or trying to fit it in a framework where I’ve pestered Dr lugan with questions
57:33 57:33 - and eventually he more or less tells me okay this thing that you’re trying to do you’re starting with this framework over
57:41 57:41 - here rather than starting with the Bible I mean he says it way nicer than that but more or less our responsibility as
57:47 57:47 - Christians as Believers is we need to start with the Bible we need to strive to understand and interpret the Bible we
57:53 57:53 - don’t start with a phrase fror and then try to like fit the Bible into that right like that’s going about it backwards right um this Probably sounds
58:01 58:01 - like well okay Stephen of course but it’s actually a lot easier than you think to kind of fall into a pattern of
58:07 58:07 - thought where you get hung up on things that you would never get from the Bible
58:13 58:13 - if you just read the Bible try to understand the Bible make sense of the Bible it’s because you’re starting
58:18 58:18 - somewhere else right and that’s when you get off in the Weeds about things and so I just wanted to emphasize this point up
58:24 58:24 - front that what we are talking about in all of this is who God is who the Bible
58:29 58:29 - says God is right and what that means and his his characteristics his abilities um speaking as deity right
58:36 58:36 - that’s as Audi said rather than getting caught up in all of these pointless debates where we’re not even really
58:42 58:42 - arguing about what the Bible says anymore now we’re just I don’t even know what we’re talking about right um so
58:47 58:47 - yeah we’re not going to do that and according to some people that will mean that we didn’t quote unquote do a thorough job or whatever but whatever
58:54 58:54 - because we’re starting with the Bible we’re going to stick with the Bible and we’re going to talk about what the Bible has to say in terms of God’s
59:00 59:00 - characteristics um both in his infinity and his moral perfection and that is all
59:05 59:05 - we’re going to talk about because that’s all that should matter to us
59:11 59:11 - um all right so that brings to a close this first uh lesson that we’ve done
59:17 59:17 - here so we started out talking about how God is being he is The Great I Am uh the
59:23 59:23 - one who is or sorry who was and is and is to come the almighty right God is separate God is existence and we talked
59:31 59:31 - about some of the implications of that for what it means to be a self-existing being um right God is the uncaused cause
59:38 59:38 - that comes up in these things that philosoph Phil philosophers argue about but from our perspective what we care
59:44 59:44 - about is that this is who God tells us he is God exists independent from the universe has always existed and his
59:51 59:51 - existence is not in any way conditional upon creation and then we talked some uh
59:56 59:56 - a good bit actually about light and Glory light as the idea of God being
1:00:01 1:00:01 - unapproachable AI articulated uh that the father is the face the the
1:00:07 1:00:07 - representational deity if you will in the Trinity and we talked some about christophanies in the Old Testament and
1:00:13 1:00:13 - how these things interact with the veiled glory of God and how there will come a time on that uh that great day of
1:00:20 1:00:20 - days so the day of the Lord Paradigm in interpretation when that will be removed
1:00:25 1:00:25 - and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess so talking about light and Glory as manifestations of God’s uh
1:00:32 1:00:32 - Essence his identity his deity and then finally we closed here kind of talking a little bit about how we’re going to be
1:00:38 1:00:38 - focusing our approach on scripture what the Bible says and so there are some terms thrown about here in terms of
1:00:45 1:00:45 - ontology uh that kind of get off in the weeds of philosophy um and so we are going to try to concern ourselves with
1:00:52 1:00:52 - what the Bible says and how the Bible Des describes God in terms of his characteristics and his Essence and only
1:00:59 1:00:59 - concern oursel with that and so this was how we kind of introduced oursel uh easing into this study here in Bible
1:01:06 1:01:06 - basics part one uh the study of God and in coming lessons we will be talking about God’s infinite nature and also
1:01:14 1:01:14 - God’s moral perfection uh God’s perfect character so those are the things that we will pick up with next

God’s Infinite Nature

Infinity God > Is infinite in nature

Video

Link to wider playlist View slides

Summary

This lesson, we are going to be talking about God’s infinite nature, and what that means in terms of His abilities.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
02:01 02:01 - Introduction: God’s infinite nature
02:57 02:57 - God is Spiritual
09:47 09:47 - If mankind is at present “a little lower than the angels”, why do angels desire physical bodies like ours?
16:05 16:05 - God is Eternal
23:40 23:40 - Angels are subject to time
24:28 24:28 - The relationship between future prophecy and the time continuum
30:03 30:03 - God is Immeasurable (in a spatial sense)
35:38 35:38 - God is Unique
50:17 50:17 - God is Omnipotent
51:20 51:20 - “Could God create a rock so big even He couldn’t lift it?”
01:08:16 01:08:16 - God is Omniscient
01:08:57 01:08:57 - God’s knowledge of hypotheticals
01:21:58 01:21:58 - God is Omnipresent
01:26:45 01:26:45 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

(Derived from https://ichthys.com/1Theo.htm)

Introduction: God’s infinite nature

Key point: God’s nature is infinite. Infinite.

God’s infinity – infinity in every way and according to any conceivable true standard – is a clarifying concept, illuminating His abilities.

God is Spiritual

God > Is spiritual Angels > Are subject to matter

God’s being transcends the physical universe. He is not limited or bounded by material issues or concerns. God is not subject to matter in any way. God is not made of matter – God created matter and employs it however He desires.

If mankind is at present “a little lower than the angels”, why do angels desire physical bodies like ours?

Fallen angels > Desire for physical bodies

Note

This is a video-only section.

Compare Hebrews 2:6-8.

God is Eternal

God > Is eternal

God’s being transcends time. He is not limited or bounded by temporal issues or concerns. God is not subject to time in any way. God is not constrained by time – God created time and employs it however He desires.

Angels are subject to time

Angels > Are subject to time

Note

This is a video-only section.

The relationship between future prophecy and the time continuum

Prophecy > mechanics of

Note

This is a video-only section.

Were prophets actually transported into the future (i.e., plucked from one point in the “river of time” and dropped at another as an observer), or did they just have visions of the future (i.e., see visions of it like a movie)?

God is Immeasurable (in a spatial sense)

God > Is immeasurable

God’s being transcends space. He is not limited or bounded by spatial issues or concerns. God is not subject to space in any way. God is not confined by space – God created space and employs it however He desires.

God is Unique

God > Is unique God > Is *de facto* ruler of the universe

Uniqueness comes from God’s infinite nature. No one else in the universe can reasonably be compared to Him. He is absolutely unique within His own creation, and therefore the one Person to whom all honor is due.

From the standpoint of His transcendence of the physical universe, He is unique by virtue of His spirituality, eternity and immeasurability. From the standpoint of His supremacy within the physical universe, He is unique by virtue of His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.

Essential Quality	Manifesting in creation as
Being spiritual (rather than bound by matter)	Omnipotence (God may affect material creation however he pleases)
Being eternal (rather than bound by time)	Omniscience (God knows everything in creation from beginning to end, and even what could have been)
Being immeasurable (rather than bound by space)	Omnipresence (God is ever-present in creation: as far as the East is from the West, nothing can separate us from God)

While we may not be properly able to fully grasp God’s true nature since we are small, finite beings bound by spacetime, it should nonetheless be clearly apparent that it is not possible for any created creature to compare with the Creator. Even creatures far more powerful than ourselves—Satan and the other angels—are bound and limited in ways God is not, leaving God completely alone and unique in His transcendence of and supremacy within the physical universe.

God is Omnipotent

God > Is omnipotent

God is all-powerful, irrespective of matter. He can effect anything He desires in the material realm, and nothing can transpire apart from His will. Therefore there is no deed (nor was there ever, nor will there ever be) which God is unable to do, small or great.

Sidenote

“Could God create a rock so big even He couldn’t lift it?”

Apologetics

You may have come across something like “So, could God create a rock so big even He couldn’t lift it?” This is (supposedly) pitting two aspects of omnipotence against each other: God’s ability to create anything He wishes ex nihilo, and God’s strength.

People argue that the two superlatives mandated by omnipotence contradict each other. Supposedly, if God cannot create an object too heavy for Him to lift, he is not omnipotent, because an omnipotent creature would be able to create anything. And likewise, if there would exist some object that God could create but was unable to lift, then He also would not be omnipotent, because an omnipotent creature would be able to lift everything. “See!”, they say, “either way, He cannot do something; therefore, He is not omnipotent!”

We can let people who wish to not believe on account such an argument go on their merry way. We needn’t take them up on the debate. For it is obvious that God can both create whatsoever He wishes, and also manipulate His creation in whatever ways He wishes. The idea of a material object He cannot create is definitionally impossible, and so too a material object He cannot manipulate. Put differently, there is no such thing as an object He could create but not lift, or an object He could lift but not create. So the entire objection is circular by assuming such a thing can exist to begin with. That is, they’ve already put God in a box from the very beginning, and then only proceed to smugly knock down nothing but a straw man.

My counsel would be to avoid all such nonsense. God can do “it”, whatever “it” may be. Always. We follow אֵל שַׁדַּי, El Shaddai, God Almighty, He who was, and is, and is to come—He who holds the strings of the universe in His hands, and can create or annihilate galaxies in the blink of an eye. And we’d better fear that power and majesty as we ought, to keep our lives in perspective. We are tiny compared to the vastness of the Earth, much less our solar system, much less our galaxy, much less the universe. But God is even bigger (infinitely bigger), and could snuff them all out in the blink of an eye if He decided to. That is the kind of power in view when we speak of God being omnipotent. Not that He will actually snuff out the universe on a whim, but that it would be nothing for Him to do so, since He is in complete control of matter, time, and space… and things only exist because He causes them to exist.

God is Omniscient

God > Is omniscient

God is all-knowing, irrespective of time. He can effect anything He desires in the temporal realm. Therefore God knows (has always known, and always will know) everything, the end from the beginning. As the Everlasting One (Ps.90:2; 90:4), His knowledge of every event that ever has or will or even could occur within His creation is comprehensive and absolute.

God’s knowledge of hypotheticals

Omniscience > includes knowledge of hypotheticals Molinism Middle knowledge

The “could occur” bit is important. God’s knowledge of all possible hypotheticals is sometimes discussed in terms of so-called “Molinism” and “middle knowledge”. I prefer to discuss it independent from all the baggage there, however.

Here’s an example: since the Bible says that God will never test us past what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13), then that implies He knows what we would and would not be able to bear. He wouldn’t be able to perfectly test us to refine our faith unless He knew all information like this.

Same deal with perfectly disciplining us, and plenty of other matters besides. Put simply, God’s perfect foreordination of all things logically requires that He know everything about all potential paths in the mind-bogglingly complex decision tree that spans the history of the entire universe. It has always puzzled me why people would ever think to argue against such a notion, but alas, some people do for some reason. Perhaps it is because such a belief requires one to appreciate how truly “big” and unlike us (with our very finite perspective) God really is?

For now, you should mostly ignore the fact that some people have again put God in a box in their minds, and content yourself with the sure confidence that God knows everything—absolutely everything, inclusive of our free-will decisions before we even make them—and is so infinitely wise as to have perfectly mapped out all of creature history before the universe was even created. There is a Perfect Divine Plan being worked out around us, and God knows very well what He is doing, rest assured.

God is Omnipresent

God > Is omnipresent

God is ever-present, irrespective of space. He can effect anything He desires in the spatial realm (Job 26:7). Therefore God has the ability (has always had, and always will have) to be anywhere and everywhere, local and universal.

Of particular note is that this means God sees all. Nobody can sneak anything past God, and on that Great Day of Days, all will be revealed. It also means it is completely futile to try to run away from God. Like Jonah, we will find that no matter where we go, God and His purposes for us will always be there too.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

0:00 0:00 - all right guys so this week we are picking up and we are going to be talking about God’s infinite nature so
0:06 0:06 - last time we met we were talking about the essence of God in general uh so I don’t have the slides up but we did talk
0:13 0:13 - about how God is The Great I Am God is being uh we talked about uh light and
0:19 0:19 - Glory as manifestations of God’s resplendant and we also talked about kind of the difference between nature
0:26 0:26 - and Essence and uh kind of waved our hands a bit and said you know what but we for the purposes of this study are
0:32 0:32 - just going to be explaining who God is from the Bible and we’re going to not worry so much about some of the technical terms and the arguments that
0:39 0:39 - philosophers have about these things we’re just going to talk about God in terms of how the Bible explains him to
0:45 0:45 - us and so picking up on that line this week we’re going to be starting out talking about God’s infinite nature um
0:52 0:52 - So within the study of IUS we have God’s infinite nature and God’s perfect
0:57 0:57 - character are kind of the subheadings that we’re going to be going through uh next in our sequence here and this week
1:02 1:02 - is God’s infinite nature so here are the sub points that we’re going to be going through we’re going to start out just
1:08 1:08 - the general introduction that he’s infinite and what that means for us going to talk about how God is spiritual
1:14 1:14 - Eternal and immeasurable in a spatial sense and then we’re going to talk about how these things uh essential attributes
1:20 1:20 - of God make God unique um and he’s also unique because of how they manifest in
1:26 1:26 - creation and so that’s where the omnipotence the omniscience and the omnipresent comes from and so that’s the
1:31 1:31 - general structure of what we’re going to go through here today and um as we go um this middle section here about how God
1:38 1:38 - is unique this is the transition between these first three which are the
1:44 1:44 - so-called essential qualities of God um this is uh uh you know God independent
1:49 1:49 - from creation if you will and then the latter three are how these qualities manifest in how God relates to creation
1:56 1:56 - and so that’s kind of what the middle section there uh is is going
2:03 2:03 - through all right so that first point for us to make is simply this that God’s
2:09 2:09 - nature is infinite and this is actually a decidedly difficult concept for us as
2:14 2:14 - humans to understand because we as humans are not infinite now God’s Infinity which is infinity in every way
2:21 2:21 - and according to any conceivable true standard so it’s not like God’s just really big he’s not a super creature
2:28 2:28 - he’s not you know something that we can honestly contextualize we don’t have a reference for a being that is truly
2:35 2:35 - infinite but God’s Infinity for us uh is a clarifying Concept in that it
2:40 2:40 - illuminates his abilities so uh when we talk about God’s character which is what we’ll come next in the study we’ll talk
2:46 2:46 - about how God’s perfect character illuminates his motives um the reasons behind how he operates in creation but
2:53 2:53 - God’s Infinity illuminates his
2:58 2:58 - abilities so the first thing that we’re going to be talking about is about how God is
3:04 3:04 - spiritual and so in being spiritual God’s being transcends the physical Universe he’s not limited or bounded by
3:12 3:12 - material concerns or issues God is Not subject to matter in any way he’s not
3:17 3:17 - made of matter because God created matter and employs it however he desires
3:22 3:22 - and so this is the first of these essential qualities that we’re talking about so uh spiritual Eternal and
3:28 3:28 - immeasurable those are the three we’re going through first and this one is talking specifically about matter and so
3:34 3:34 - when we say matter we’re talking about the things that are created in the material universe so the world and
3:40 3:40 - everything in it uh the second and third Heavens if you will that’s how the Bible describes them so uh you know our solar
3:46 3:46 - system the galaxies everything in the universe that has substance is what
3:51 3:51 - we’re getting at here and when we say that God is spiritual God is separate from that he is separate from that which
3:58 3:58 - has been created um the stuff if you will in the universe because he is a
4:03 4:03 - completely spiritual being now one thing that I thought maybe it would be good for us to talk about just a little bit
4:10 4:10 - is how God being spiritual is different than Angels being spiritual and so aie
4:16 4:16 - um I know that’s a little bit jumping ahead in the Systematic Theology uh Dr L has an entire section of the study
4:21 4:21 - dedicated to Angels but do you have anything you want to say on regards to God’s spirituality versus uh Angels
4:28 4:28 - which aren’t quite the same as us and how they relate to SpaceTime yeah I do um I want to say
4:36 4:36 - first of all that uh if anything is created it’s made of
4:43 4:43 - stuff and the Lord is not created so he’s not made of stuff so when we think
4:50 4:50 - in terms of spirit we might be feeling like this is other than material and there is some
4:57 4:57 - sense to that but it is not strictly correct MH because everything that
5:04 5:04 - exists is made of stuff so it is all really material in a sense of speaking
5:11 5:11 - and that’s actually why we’re not looking forward to a smokey hazy sort of
5:18 5:18 - heaven or oops well we’ll see if he comes back in a sec yeah it’s it’s smok
5:24 5:24 - sort of heaven or the new universe a place where you know things are not
5:30 5:30 - Material that’s not the idea we we saw that um Angels
5:35 5:35 - could take in food even though the Lord could as well you know when he um came
5:42 5:42 - to visit with Abraham with the angels we saw that they could interact with matter and um physical matter and uh they could
5:51 5:51 - eat food and they could have all of these experiences we have Genesis 6 that talks about um The Rebel Angels um creat
5:59 5:59 - the Nephilim with human women and all of that so that suggests to us that they’re
6:05 6:05 - made of a different sort of material than the rest of the universe
6:11 6:11 - is but it is still material that’s the idea but the Lord when we say that the
6:17 6:17 - Lord is spiritual we’re necessarily saying that he is not
6:22 6:22 - Material so the his spirituality is essentially in contrast to the Universe
6:30 6:30 - the spirituality of the Angels is not in contrast to the universe it’s in contrast to other material things other
6:37 6:37 - physical things and um the way that the Bible presents it it keeps using the word that is also translatable as wind
6:46 6:46 - we find that kind of issue with different um modern translations instead
6:51 6:51 - of saying Spirit they would say wind and in some places instead of seeing not just modern translations I think even the KJV have that issue so in some
6:58 6:58 - places you will see spirit in some places you would see wind because the word is not really
7:04 7:04 - distinguishable from each other the idea here is that just as wind does have an
7:09 7:09 - effect on matter around it and yet you can’t see it you can’t really touch it
7:15 7:15 - it’s not tangible that’s how these creatures are so the spirituality of
7:21 7:21 - angels is in contrast to the other material Creations in the universe in
7:26 7:26 - fact um this is one way to look at it that unless man had been created angels
7:33 7:33 - would have been the only thing of their kind in the entire universe every other thing had either Flesh and Bones if they
7:40 7:40 - were animals or they had a physicality to them that the Angels did not have it
7:46 7:46 - classed them separately from everything that existed so when Man was created note what the Bible says that he was
7:52 7:52 - made a little lower than the Angels that’s actually speaking to the fact that man was more like all creatures of
7:58 7:58 - the Earth that he was like the Angels so the spirituality of the Angels
8:05 8:05 - was essentially to set them apart from everything else that God had made and spirituality of God is to contrast God
8:12 8:12 - as a thing with the universe as a and so that
8:18 8:18 - was the essential point that we’re trying to draw a contrast between here and I think you did a good job explaining it that God’s spirituality is
8:25 8:25 - completely distinct from anything that’s created so humans are creatures angels are
8:31 8:31 - creatures both have been created by the Creator who is external to that which is
8:37 8:37 - created um and maybe that sounds really technical but I think ai’s done a good job explaining uh some of the points
8:43 8:43 - just a couple other things to bring up in regards to this um Angels this physicality aspect is one of the reasons
8:50 8:50 - why Genesis 6 was a thing it’s one of the reasons why Angels um inhabit some
8:56 8:56 - of the creatures in the gospels you know like going into the pigs um it uh you
9:01 9:01 - know that that word actually gets transliterated a lot of different ways but the gines or the gines um uh at that
9:09 9:09 - particular instance is angels have this desire for physicality um Dr lugan Bill
9:14 9:14 - um uh discusses this in various parts of his studies and the other point that I
9:19 9:19 - wanted to bring up in regards to this is that before humans were even created in the universe uh the universe had been
9:26 9:26 - created and was inhabited by angels and so this is the the sons of God as they’re called I believe it’s
9:33 9:33 - in job somewhere you know talks about how the sons of God Sayang during creation right a angels have this
9:40 9:40 - materiality to them even though they are different than us but God is completely separate all right so with that I think
9:46 9:46 - we’re gonna take a question here and we’ll pick back up in a second all right so a good question that we just got was
9:52 9:52 - well if angels are already kind of of this different state than us why are
9:58 9:58 - they kind of uh uh looking down so to speak and if humans were created a
10:03 10:03 - little lower than the Angels um aie was quoting that passage then why do angels want that um this physical experience um
10:12 10:12 - and I I think my answer just to start us off and like I said I’ll certainly let others jump in is just that uh Angels
10:19 10:19 - want things they don’t have and so if angels don’t have this the sensory
10:24 10:24 - experience the actual physicality now um I should note that it’s a little bit
10:30 10:30 - dangerous for us to get too off in the Weeds about saying well Angels did this for this and that reason you know the
10:35 10:35 - Bible doesn’t talk so explicitly about some of this um Dr lell has done a good job on this explaining um hypotheses for
10:43 10:43 - the motivations here um so for example uh before the universe was uh destroyed
10:49 10:49 - and remade um he hypothesizes certain things about angels kind of messing with the genetic code of the creatures the
10:57 10:57 - the fauna on the pre reconstruction Earth um as well as um Angels Desiring
11:03 11:03 - the bodies of of you know things generally speaking as it shows up in the gospels and uh my initial answer would
11:10 11:10 - just be because it’s something that they lack and sort of Grass Is Always Greener sentiment is because of that that’s why
11:17 11:17 - even though uh you know having this this Mortal coil to use that phrasing that
11:23 11:23 - the KJV does makes us weaker and less powerful we still have that sensory EXP
11:29 11:29 - ER and that’s something that the Angels wanted to experience themselves iose aie
11:34 11:34 - do you have thoughts to on top of that I think you really actually said what the
11:40 11:40 - issue is every time we’re tempted the idea is that what we don’t have is better than what we do have um so why
11:46 11:46 - would they want it well because they didn’t trust that God gave them what they should have that what they had was
11:53 11:53 - good and that God had you know put them in the right state for
11:58 11:58 - them to be and that’s why this whole fight we have is a fight of Faith a fight of trusting that what God does is
12:05 12:05 - good that that he loves us and that what he gives for us gives to us is good for us it’s exactly what happened with um
12:12 12:12 - Adam and Eve they had the Fountain of wisdom himself coming to walk with them
12:18 12:18 - every evening they had a perfect garden everything was great but somehow they thought that the
12:27 12:27 - one thing that God said that that’s not good for you was what they needed more
12:33 12:33 - than anything once Satan suggested it to them so the fact that anyone wants
12:41 12:41 - something no matter how wise powerful smart or whatever they might be does not
12:46 12:46 - in any way indicate that that thing was actually better for them than what they had it’s not at all a way to think about
12:54 12:54 - things so yeah the Angels wanted it simply because they could
12:59 12:59 - not because there was anything to suggest that they what what they had was not Superior to what they were looking
13:05 13:05 - for I mean to a certain extent this is the irrationality of sin I know I’ve
13:11 13:11 - explained it this way I don’t want to get super philosophical about it but when the Bible calls Jesus the Divine
13:17 13:17 - logos you know that word meaning reason I mean it means many things in Greek but
13:22 13:22 - God’s universe is ordered and logical and fundamentally all sin is irrational
13:27 13:27 - and so the question of why did the angelss seem to desire something that’s lower than the estate that they
13:33 13:33 - currently possess it seems kind of like mad right well why does Satan rebel
13:38 13:38 - against God why do any of us rebel against God um maybe that isn’t the most
13:44 13:44 - intellectually satisfying of answers but it really does get to the heart of this I think is that just because angels are uh you know
13:53 13:53 - bigger and smarter than us so to speak doesn’t mean that they don’t suffer from the same spiritual blindness than we do
13:58 13:58 - and that’s spiritual blindness causes us to do things that a more objective third party Observer would say are irrational
14:05 14:05 - um and in this particular case this is one such instance where by all accounts elect Angels don’t have this same uh
14:12 14:12 - desire temptation to do all of this and so it’s it’s just transgression of the
14:18 14:18 - created order in a matter that we would term irrational um so I think that is
14:23 14:23 - kind of the the way in which we ought to approach this issue um not so much that the angels are doing it for any great
14:30 14:30 - purpose like there there there isn’t more behind it in a plan as it’s something that they don’t have that they
14:36 14:36 - want and uh sin is always in some sense irrationally breaking God’s natural
14:43 14:43 - order yeah yeah I would say that I actually find the answer pretty intellectually satisfying myself because
14:50 14:50 - all it all it says really is we always want some because we think it’s better than
14:56 14:56 - what we have and that that’s just true we have that experience all the time it’s very rare for people to go I want
15:03 15:03 - something and that something is a change of of the order the state in which you are and it’s not because as you don’t
15:10 15:10 - think that what you want is better than what you’re what you currently have I mean it’s we have too many if we were to
15:18 15:18 - to go into all the experiences that demonstrate this we probably spend the whole night from this and there is no
15:23 15:23 - need for that so we could move on at I think
15:30 15:30 - all right so with that I think that’s where we’re going to stop on our initial discussion of how God being spiritual
15:36 15:36 - means he is set apart distinct from the universe uh he transcends it in a way
15:42 15:42 - that even angels do not even though angels are above us in station for the
15:47 15:47 - time being as Hebrews talks about is that God even more than that because he
15:52 15:52 - is not a created being because he’s not a created creature God is completely separate from matter and that makes him
16:00 16:00 - unique in this characteristic as we will see for all of the other things that we talk about
16:07 16:07 - next all right so next we are going to be talking about how God is eternal and so what we just spent time covering was
16:14 16:14 - how God uh is not bound by matter or the material Universe uh because God is
16:19 16:19 - spiritual and now we’re talking about how God is not bound by time so God’s being transcends time he’s not limited
16:26 16:26 - or bounded by temporal issues or concerns God is Not subject to time in any way God is Not constrained by time
16:34 16:34 - because God created time and employs it however he desires and so this is one of
16:40 16:40 - those things where again we as humans are just going to have a hard time wrapping our heads around exactly what
16:46 16:46 - it means to be outside of time because it’s not a state in which we have any personal experience in uh plus when you
16:53 16:53 - say something like before time even existed the concept of before is
16:59 16:59 - inherently wrapped up in time right um if we view time as kind of like a line then before is like more left on the
17:05 17:05 - line well for a being that’s outside of time there is no before there is no after because time is not something that
17:13 17:13 - that being is bound by and this is really hard for us to wrap in our minds um I would not feel discouraged if
17:20 17:20 - thinking about this sometimes causes you to get confused because it confuses me um it’s just not even something that we
17:27 17:27 - honestly need to worry ourselves about to the greatest degree we just need to
17:33 17:33 - understand that some of the concerns that test us and temper Us in life about
17:38 17:38 - not seeing how things are going to play out about this uncertain future about not knowing how the chips are going to
17:44 17:44 - fall God is Not constrained in that same way God’s plan sees from the very
17:50 17:50 - beginning to the very end of of the history of the universe it sees everything uh in in an instant God
17:56 17:56 - planned everything before the initial events of creation were ever set in motion and that is very foreign to our
18:03 18:03 - limited way of thinking because we think on imperfect information but God does not and so this is what we mean by God
18:10 18:10 - being Eternal is that he sees the beginning from or sorry the end from the beginning he is simply not bound by the
18:17 18:17 - constraints of time that we are a you have points you want to bring up in reference to
18:23 18:23 - this yeah sure um I think the very first thing that we want to know is what time
18:29 18:29 - is uh physicists are having a hard time actually explaining what time is especially since um
18:36 18:36 - Einstein basically blew everybody’s mind when he made it clear that time was not a constant when he discovered that time
18:44 18:44 - was not the constant it was thought to be well time is really the measure of
18:50 18:50 - change and God doesn’t change so obviously there was nothing to
18:57 18:57 - measure that change if time exists for a being that does not change it is
19:02 19:02 - actually a nonsensical concept it really does not mean anything you know so um
19:11 19:11 - the first thing I would say is that the very meaning of time does not apply to God since it’s actually the measure of
19:16 19:16 - change and um the second thing I would say is that God’s
19:22 19:22 - eternality is explained entirely by the fact that he is that which is
19:29 19:29 - so there is no was with God in the sense of him because if you look to God’s past
19:38 19:38 - what you see is the same thing that you see now and if you look to his future
19:43 19:43 - what you see is the same thing that you see now there is no transformation in the state of his existence but that does
19:50 19:50 - not mean that because God is outside and and when we use that that
19:57 19:57 - that word it’s it we have to construct we have to create mental constructs for trying to make sense of God so when we
20:04 20:04 - say outside of time we have this feeling like there is a box in which time
20:10 20:10 - operates and God exists outside of it but God is
20:16 20:16 - acting he is doing things and when he does
20:22 20:22 - things there’s a question um there’s a question how how does his doing things
20:30 20:30 - interact with the fact that time exists outside of or that time does not
20:37 20:37 - affect him is he not actually doing something create basically changing
20:42 20:42 - something and uh that is where I would bring in the analogy of uh the software engineer and his and his um software
20:50 20:50 - he’s he’s changing states without actually being affected in any way by those changes he might put create an an
20:58 20:58 - input in a particular program he has um designed and he gets a certain output he
21:03 21:03 - might make changes the state of the program and all of that but he himself is not in any way Changed by it
21:10 21:10 - so we we the creatures that God made have had to have a context within which
21:16 21:16 - we exist he does not need context he does not need anything in himself he is
21:22 21:22 - perfectly complete so eternity in fact
21:27 21:27 - is is just like um uh would I say space eternity is like
21:35 21:35 - an expression of him rather than something that that he exists within
21:42 21:42 - that is it it it is his own type of time no eternity is actually like this is an
21:48 21:48 - aspect of myself that’s what it is so likewise for us to appreciate God’s
21:56 21:56 - eternality we we first of all appreciate first that he does not change and
22:02 22:02 - therefore time is meaningless to him to the quality of his existence there’s no change to measure but in order to
22:11 22:11 - interact with us and to bring about the state of things that he wants he has
22:17 22:17 - created time to allow us to exist exist within a certain context and to work out
22:24 22:24 - what he has intended so time for us it is for our
22:30 22:30 - benefit otherwise we couldn’t make sense of life right and I think fundamentally
22:35 22:35 - the point is that time is created God created time right it’s not like it’s some aspect within which he works like
22:42 22:42 - you said um because it is fundamentally tied up with existence like you brought up time is something that was created as
22:50 22:50 - part of the creation of the universe you know bringing back up the physicist there’s this thing relativity is this
22:55 22:55 - idea of space is linked to time the two things are not unrelated it is very much
23:01 23:01 - part of creation and again we have a really hard time understanding exactly what that means for God not having that
23:08 23:08 - but it is just very important for us to emphasize that God is not bound by it
23:13 23:13 - because God created it um and really I think that is more or less the gist of
23:19 23:19 - what we have to say on this matter is simply that even though it’s hard for us to understand and conceptualize God is
23:25 23:25 - separate from time um and that means that how he approaches the sequence of
23:30 23:30 - events that happen in the material universe is very fundamentally different from how we as fly night creatures who
23:36 23:36 - don’t have that don’t have that externality to time can approach things
23:42 23:42 - um all right uh good question here well observation question um so first off
23:48 23:48 - angels are subject to time um we spent a good bit of the last uh point that we were discussing talking about how God’s
23:54 23:54 - spirituality is fundamentally different than angels and that angels are still material they’re in the material
24:00 24:00 - creation well so too with time Angels they don’t see the future um so to speak they are not outside of time they are
24:07 24:07 - within time space or SpaceTime time space isn’t a word SpaceTime just how we
24:12 24:12 - are and so that makes them again more similar to us than they are to God in this even though Angels uh have
24:18 24:18 - different capabilities than we do um uh they are different creatures with different Natures than we have they are
24:25 24:25 - nonetheless still created creatures within SpaceTime and an interesting observation also related to this idea of
24:34 24:34 - how time works and and God’s externality to it is this idea of future Prophecy in the Bible um and so uh sometimes it’s
24:42 24:42 - just people are told what’s are are told what’s going to happen uh God tells them
24:47 24:47 - what is going to happen sorry um future events but when we have this case of Visions um so uh we might think about
24:55 24:55 - John with the Book of Revelation for example was it just that John was given I don’t
25:01 25:01 - know like a movie so to speak of what was going to happen in the future or was John actually transported into the
25:07 25:07 - future thereby seeing the events that were going to happen uh I I I don’t want
25:12 25:12 - to like punt on the question to me it sort of doesn’t seem like the answer matters um because either way in the
25:21 25:21 - Book of Revelation we are being given um this description of future events
25:26 25:26 - whether that is John was simply given to see the manifestation of what would
25:32 25:32 - happen or whether he was actually somehow transported picked up from um if you view time as a stream picked up from
25:39 25:39 - one place in the Stream and put in a futured place in the Stream and then brought back I don’t think it really
25:44 25:44 - changes the the essence of the fact that the vision that Jon saw was the future
25:51 25:51 - um Audie do you think that it has an impact should should we take a stand on
25:56 25:56 - this yeah I I don’t I don’t think it really matters it’s it’s an interesting
26:02 26:02 - question and uh there there are all sorts of interesting questions out there even with us me personally and pro
26:11 26:11 - Robert has has also confessed to having questions of All Sorts that the Bible
26:16 26:16 - does not actually give answers to uh I do remember how Ezekiel said that um he
26:23 26:23 - the spirit lifted him by the the locks of his head and um took him to such and
26:29 26:29 - such a place and he saw this and he saw that and all of that so it’s almost like they were transported forward in time to
26:35 26:35 - see things happening as they unfolded now I don’t really know or particularly
26:40 26:40 - care the reason for that is this we know that God has control of time whether he
26:47 26:47 - can pick you up from the present and transport you to the Future so that you witness things happening or he actually
26:54 26:54 - shows you things as they will happen in the future before they actually happen I
27:00 27:00 - don’t think it makes that big of a difference we know that God controls
27:06 27:06 - time he controls it and we have two um demonstrations in the Bible of God’s
27:13 27:13 - control of time he W time back when he was uh speaking to ahaz the king who was
27:21 27:21 - an unrighteous king of Judah who didn’t want to listen to reason and uh Isaiah said well this is how God will
27:28 27:28 - demonstrate to you that what he has said will happen he caus the sun dial to go back 10° um then there was Joshua who
27:36 27:36 - was fighting um I think it was the amalekites he was fighting I don’t remember that whom he was fighting
27:43 27:43 - anymore but during that uh battle he basically paused time now how that could
27:51 27:51 - possibly happen that time would pause and everything would keep going as it was I mean
27:58 27:58 - go knock yourself out with the physics of it but it did happen that’s what the Bible says so all of that tells us that
28:06 28:06 - God does have the power to do whatever he wants with time and as for space the
28:13 28:13 - Lord Jesus could show up at any place whenever he wanted after he rose from the dead and you couldn’t keep him out
28:20 28:20 - with locked doors so when you take all of that into account there is nothing too hard for the Lord he could totally
28:28 28:28 - cause a profet to time travel but I’m not sure knowing that he did or didn’t do it is going to really make that of a
28:37 28:37 - difference to our understanding of the scriptures or of him we do know that his power is absolute so y I think that is
28:44 28:44 - probably the best answer for us on this is just either way I it does not really
28:50 28:50 - affect the fact that God is in complete control of time um and it’s not bad to
28:55 28:55 - ask questions what I would call questions of curiosity how how exactly does this work you know what does it
29:01 29:01 - mean for XYZ if the Bible doesn’t talk about it um there are certain things
29:07 29:07 - that we just can’t take hard firm positions on that doesn’t mean that they aren’t interesting in some respects but
29:12 29:12 - it also kind of means that maybe it’s not something that we’re given to know and that means that usually I would say
29:18 29:18 - as a rule of thumb it’s dangerous to spend lots of time on these things just because uh not that there’s anything
29:24 29:24 - wrong being curious or asking questions but if it was something that we needed to know God would have given us
29:29 29:29 - information on it right um simple as that so um I think it’s a very
29:34 29:34 - interesting question of were prophets actually transported into the future or did they just see visions of the future
29:39 29:39 - how does that work uh who knows either way God is in complete control of the flow of time
29:47 29:47 - um so I think that’s a good place for us here so just how God is in complete control of matter and uh all of the
29:53 29:53 - material things in the universe God is in complete control of time because he is Eternal and separate from it and next
29:59 29:59 - we’ll be talking about the same deal except for
30:05 30:05 - space all right so uh as we just said next we’re just going to be talking about the exact same sort of concept
30:11 30:11 - that we have been with matter and time except now with regards to space so God’s being transcends space he’s not
30:18 30:18 - limited or bounded by spatial issues or concerns he’s not subject to space in any way and again God is Not confined by
30:25 30:25 - space because he created it and employs it however he desires so we have the
30:30 30:30 - same idea of God being the Creator the one outside of creation who has the
30:36 30:36 - strings uh in his hand so to speak and so the idea that God is somehow Bound by
30:42 30:42 - this thing that he himself made is just completely nonsensical on the face of it um and so AI brought up an example uh
30:50 30:50 - when we were just talking about Jesus uh not being bound by space after the resurrection and so uh the the gospels
30:57 30:57 - are clear that the disciples were in a room with a locked door and then Jesus appeared among them um and so that’s
31:03 31:03 - just an one example here um but uh you know this is what we mean by God not
31:09 31:09 - being bound by space um also God uh can control things within space he can uh
31:16 31:16 - you know do you know and and this is where it gets a little bit fuzzy if you squint you hard at the physics behind it
31:22 31:22 - so uh matter and space and time they’re all related um in these equations that we don’t need to go into but the point
31:30 31:30 - is all of it is creation and God is not bound by his creation and if you were to
31:35 31:35 - summarize the three things that we’ve been talking about here matter time and space is that all of these things are
31:41 31:41 - part of creation and God is not part of creation God exists before creation um
31:48 31:48 - god well I I rather I should say God exists right that’s what his nature is
31:53 31:53 - and God created what we now have around us and he’s not part of it and that’s really
31:59 31:59 - the fundamental basis of all three of these is simply that God is not at all constrained by the things that constrain
32:06 32:06 - Us in creation because he is not himself a created creature um you have anything
32:12 32:12 - specifically related to space to bring up AI um I I I don’t think so but I
32:18 32:18 - think you uh you make a very a very solid Point once you say look we’re
32:26 32:26 - talking about that which isn’t created and I I like to make a bit of a
32:31 32:31 - difference between um the deity of the Trinity and
32:37 32:37 - the persons of the Trinity the reason I make that difference is this or the identity I think um the
32:45 32:45 - identity of Trinity the identity of God and the deity of God the reason I like to make that difference is the thing
32:52 32:52 - that makes a thing God is simply the isness of the thing the fact that
32:57 32:57 - it just is there is no explanation for its existence there is no agent that
33:06 33:06 - that speaks to why it exists nothing made it and nothing can affect its
33:12 33:12 - existence you can’t change it in any way can’t affect it in any in any way that quality of
33:19 33:19 - deity once we understand it makes everything make all the sense in the
33:25 33:25 - world because then it can’t be creation creation does not possess that
33:32 33:32 - quality and space does not possess that quality because black holes for
33:40 33:40 - example there are weird things that happen we’ve been talking about the expans the expansion of of of the
33:48 33:48 - universe because of how we are we are measuring um the red shifts I think
33:54 33:54 - that’s what they call it yeah it’s red shift yeah so we’re measuring those things that tell us that something is happening
34:01 34:01 - to the very fabric of the universe in which we exist everything that we see
34:07 34:07 - changes it and change is a response to something external to whatever is
34:12 34:12 - changing so if space itself is transforming then
34:17 34:17 - space does not possess the quality of deity and that which possesses the quality of deity cannot be subject to
34:23 34:23 - anything that is subject to change MH so
34:29 34:29 - therefore we can we can comprehend all these arguments are essentially to say
34:34 34:34 - look the Bible makes sense because when you think about it it makes sense that’s it so well consistent like you said with
34:42 34:42 - drawing this distinction between deity being fundamentally distinct from creation um and creation cannot be deity
34:51 34:51 - on this account um you know it’s sort of at least posted on the Forum you know I may get to that at some other point but this idea a that the universe is God is
34:59 34:59 - complete garbage because the universe changes and God doesn’t change like just on the surface of it it doesn’t work
35:05 35:05 - right um and that’s because God is being God is unchanging as AI has just brought
35:11 35:11 - up makes it fundamentally distinct from everything that is created in creation
35:16 35:16 - um including space right um so uh that’s a good that’s a good place to end our
35:23 35:23 - initial introduction to these so next we’re going to be talking about how some of these attribut that we’ve discussed
35:28 35:28 - here so the fact that God’s spiritual that he’s Eternal and that he’s immeasurable make God unique among
35:34 35:34 - beings and so that’s what we’re going to turn to
35:41 35:41 - next all right so when we say that God is unique this kind of might seem like a
35:46 35:46 - no duh teaching well of course there’s only one God right you know we don’t believe in a Pantheon in fact there only
35:53 35:53 - could be one God from a logical standpoint right um because if there are
35:58 35:58 - more than one well were they all equally existent you have all these other sorts of issues and uh interestingly like
36:04 36:04 - pantheons never seem to never seem to kind of handle that so well like do gods exist within other gods or they all kind
36:11 36:11 - of if you squint hearted them enough they have what I would call uh existential logical issues with how they
36:18 36:18 - work but not so for us because as we’ve just spent time discussing deity exists external to Creation God is not part of
36:26 36:26 - creation God is being he’s existence he does not change and so all that to say
36:32 36:32 - it should be sort of self-evident that well there’s only one being like that and that being is God and nothing that
36:38 36:38 - is created is at all like him because this characteristic of deity like AI has just pointed out that is what makes God
36:46 36:46 - unique um I mean among other things right it has all these consequences that we’ve been going through with the
36:51 36:51 - spirituality the fact that God is eternal God is immeasurable and the manifestations of those things in
36:57 36:57 - creation which is what we’ll look at next as we get through this section but the whole point is that all of these
37:03 37:03 - things together mean that there is no one and nothing else like God um and
37:08 37:08 - that’s what we mean when we say that God is unique um it comes from God’s infinite nature no one else in the
37:14 37:14 - universe can reasonably be compared to him he’s absolutely unique within creation even though God’s not bound by
37:21 37:21 - creation right uh as a person who acts within creation no one has the
37:26 37:26 - properties that he has no one has his infinite nature and therefore he is the one person to whom all honor is due um
37:34 37:34 - as the deao ruler of creation by existential Fiat it’s kind of a mouthful
37:40 37:40 - but it’s saying that on account of who God Is His Infinite nature the fact that
37:45 37:45 - he is the creator all creation owes him that honor and respect simply on account
37:52 37:52 - of who he is um because of these attributes that he has right right we’re saying that God’s Infinity illuminates
37:58 37:58 - his abilities that was kind of the intro slide that God is going on this they illuminate his abilities because of his
38:04 38:04 - abilities because of his uniqueness he is the de facto ruler of the universe
38:09 38:09 - and so from the standpoint of his Transcendence of the physical Universe uh God is unique by virtue of his
38:15 38:15 - spirituality eternity and immeasurability and so this is kind of going to be the bridge here and that’s why this section at least to my
38:22 38:22 - knowledge that’s why Dr lug has laid out this section as he has is because we’re now going to be going from these three
38:29 38:29 - characteristics which are the essential qualities of God right God is these things um now to our minds we kind of
38:36 38:36 - have a hard time thinking of them external to the universe but these are the the qualities of God who make God
38:42 38:42 - who he is um kind of not in reference to the universe and now we’re going to be shifting our attention um to the
38:50 38:50 - manifestations of these qualities as they relate to God’s actions within the universe within creation and so God
38:57 38:57 - transcends the physical Universe because he’s spiritual um he’s Eternal and he’s
39:02 39:02 - immeasurable but within how he relates to the physical Universe he is supreme
39:08 39:08 - within the physical Universe in that he’s omnipotent omniscient and omnipresent and those three if you think
39:15 39:15 - about them actually correspond to these other attributes that we’ve just gone over so God is omnipotent because he can
39:22 39:22 - affect whatever he wants in the physical Universe with m matter because he is
39:28 39:28 - external to it right he’s not bound by the laws that govern the rest of matter in the universe because God created
39:33 39:33 - matter same deal with omniscience if God sees the end from the beginning well of what consequences time to God and this
39:40 39:40 - is why God knows everything because from the beginning to the end and even that which was not has not been the
39:46 39:46 - hypothetical so to speak God knows it all because God is external to time and
39:51 39:51 - the omnipresence well if you can’t contain God in one place that’s what it means that God is everywhere because God
39:58 39:58 - is simply not a created creature he’s not bound by these these rules of the universe that govern all other created
40:04 40:04 - beings now I made this chart here um uh the study doesn’t have it this is just stuff directly out of the study and this
40:11 40:11 - can be helpful you know visual a can be helpful for us kind of having an easier way to track some of the things that
40:17 40:17 - we’re talking about here so when we say that God is unique we say he’s unique
40:23 40:23 - because he’s spiritual rather than being bound by matter and how that manifests in creation is that he’s omnipotent God
40:29 40:29 - may affect material creation however he pleases and when we say that he’s Eternal rather than being bound by time
40:36 40:36 - that means that God’s omniscient uh God knows everything in creation from beginning to end and even that which
40:42 40:42 - could have been um he’s immeasurable rather than being bound by space and that manifests is him being omnipresent
40:49 40:49 - he’s ever present in creation as far as the East is from the West so nothing can separate us from God and the the love of
40:56 40:56 - God is kind of the scripture I’m paraphrasing there and so all this together means that while we may not be
41:02 41:02 - properly able to fully grasp God’s true nature since we ourselves are small finite beings Bound by SpaceTime it
41:09 41:09 - should nonetheless be clearly apparent to us that it’s not possible for any other created creature to compare with
41:15 41:15 - the Creator um and that’s simply because no other creature is outside of these
41:20 41:20 - limitations like God is so even creatures far more powerful than ourselves so Satan and the other angels
41:26 41:26 - they are bound and limited in ways God is Not and so that leaves God completely alone in and unique in his Transcendence
41:34 41:34 - of and Supremacy within the physical universe and this right here this is why we say that God is
41:41 41:41 - unique so uh Audie do you have any points you want to say about kind of what we’ve gone through here um you know
41:48 41:48 - this kind of bridge the transition between these essential qualities of God we’ve been going to and then how they
41:54 41:54 - manifest within creation yeah um the first thing I want to say about that is the reason that there is
42:02 42:02 - even a a question or there is any any mention of God’s uniqueness is that that
42:08 42:08 - is actually the whole point of all the fighting so to speak the the war in
42:16 42:16 - creation because Satan essentially went why should he have it and I don’t get to
42:22 42:22 - have it and every sin that we commit
42:28 42:28 - everything that um all all the issues of sin that we
42:33 42:33 - have arise from a heart that says why does God get to be God and I don’t get
42:40 42:40 - to be God because the idea is what makes him so special I can also make my own
42:47 42:47 - choices I can also determine what I will be and we must remember that this is why
42:54 42:54 - we are in the image of God that we possess the ability to self-determine we
43:00 43:00 - have the ability to self-define so we can say this is what I want to be
43:05 43:05 - relative to God that’s what free will really is that we possess the ability to
43:10 43:10 - define or explain ourselves relative to God and because we possess that and this
43:18 43:18 - is exactly why the argument he just made for how there cannot be more than one God makes all the sense in the world
43:24 43:24 - creature Rebellion is AB proof that there can only be one God because if there are more than one creation would
43:31 43:31 - not exist there would be at loggerheads all the time and they would essentially
43:37 43:37 - either want to create multiple universes and if as long as they’re in Conflict they cannot have this they can’t let
43:45 43:45 - anything else exist they would be locked in Eternal conflict forever but we know
43:51 43:51 - that there are three Persons Of God and these three Persons Of God are in perfect Unity and that is also proof for
43:58 43:58 - why there is one God because if they if they are all in perfect Unity they cannot be multiple gods in the sense of
44:07 44:07 - possessing multiple Wills multiple desires multiple projections
44:14 44:14 - and expectations and whatnot the very essence of godhead of of deity is that I
44:21 44:21 - am that which is not affected by anything outside of myself and
44:26 44:26 - more than one God exists they would have issues with affecting each other yeah I
44:32 44:32 - mean I almost don’t think to a certain extent that we have to go worry ourselves with uh arguing against the
44:38 44:38 - concept because to some extent scripture is clear that there is one God right um
44:43 44:43 - you know even Old Testament got that so I I’m not saying we can’t talk about it it’s just to us that’s the important
44:49 44:49 - part yeah we’re not going into that the reason that this is actually raised is to explain the matter of the uniqueen of
44:56 44:56 - God while we’re even talking about it that uniqueness is the point of all the
45:02 45:02 - fighting we are having because as long as a creature can say I can be God too
45:10 45:10 - then what’s special about God and that’s why that’s why the Bible is shaped the
45:15 45:15 - way it is um I think I had a conversation yes I had a conversation with someone on my way back from church
45:21 45:21 - today and I had to tell her I don’t present and I don’t believe that the Bible is a manual of in instruction so I
45:28 45:28 - don’t teach you what to do and what not to do and what is right and what is not right I teach you who God is so that you
45:35 45:35 - see how different he is from you and from everybody else you get to know his plan so that you know exactly what he
45:42 45:42 - aiming to accomplish as a thing that’s different from what you are aiming to accomplish and what everybody else is
45:47 45:47 - aiming to accomplish in other words I’m showing you the uniqueness of God and
45:52 45:52 - that’s the point that’s the point Satan could say I will Ascend to and I will
45:59 45:59 - make my own place I will be like the most high as if you can be like him you
46:07 46:07 - are not like him not even remotely so and that’s the point so like you said um
46:13 46:13 - all of these uh other qualities that came into play um they they essentially demonstrate his uniqueness and all sorts
46:19 46:19 - of ways that is absolutely true they show his Transcendence over creation but more importantly they show his
46:26 46:26 - Transcendence over us that is me personally this is the difference
46:31 46:31 - between me and God and this is why he gets to say what should be and I get to
46:38 46:38 - say I’d like to go with you I agree with you I submit to what you want I will
46:43 46:43 - work with you to accomplish it because I don’t know half the things you know you know everything and I don’t have half
46:49 46:49 - the power you have you you have all the power whatever you don’t do doesn’t get done I I can’t
46:56 46:56 - um be everywhere at once to accomplish my this and and again look when he
47:02 47:02 - tested job these things are what he brought to bear he showed him look at the difference between me and you you
47:08 47:08 - think you’re so wise you think you’re so smart that you can even judge me now would you can you do this can you do
47:14 47:14 - that do you understand this do you know that have you been here have you been there do you know where the the snow
47:21 47:21 - comes from and all of that stuff he was essentially saying look at the the gulf the wide go between who you are and who
47:27 47:27 - I am and when you see that for what it is do you really think you can judge me
47:33 47:33 - can you sit in Judgment of God so this is why we’re interested at all in the
47:40 47:40 - talk about God’s uniqueness we’re essentially saying it is impossible for
47:46 47:46 - there to be more than one God we are certainly not candidates for that other God that be and Satan is most definitely
47:54 47:54 - not a candidate for the other God that ought to be there is only one every other claim to deity to godhood is a
48:03 48:03 - lie that’s what this is about because they can never have these attributes
48:08 48:08 - that we’re talking about only a being who created what currently exists who’s
48:13 48:13 - outside of it can have these attributes nothing that exists within creation can be spiritual truly like separate from
48:21 48:21 - creation right nothing that exists within time can be separate from time it just it doesn’t make sense right it’s
48:27 48:27 - impossible and so this is the madness the existential futility of Satan’s
48:33 48:33 - rebellion and uh you know as uh the satanic rebelling series on ichus talks
48:38 48:38 - about this this idea that humans have about you know I am like God God needs
48:44 48:44 - me that progression of self- delusion again the insanity of this as
48:50 48:50 - Audi is pointing out the reason why we talk about the uniqueness of God is because this this uniqueness that we’re
48:56 48:56 - talking about it means that we we owe God God is the one who controls the
49:01 49:01 - universe and because of that he’s the one with all the authority in the universe not us um we don’t control the
49:08 49:08 - things like God does and for that reason God’s uniqueness gives him de facto
49:14 49:14 - rulership and Supremacy within the universe because among other things no one can oppose him not really uh even
49:20 49:20 - Satan’s plan Satan’s only dancing in the palm of God’s hand because Satan can do nothing that God does not allow to
49:27 49:27 - happen um there is no battle between good and evil where you have Stakes that
49:33 49:33 - you’re not sure who wins God won from the time that history first started there is no competition so to speak and
49:40 49:40 - that’s because God is unique within the universe no one can compare to him no one has these attributes except for him
49:48 49:48 - so um I think that’s where we’ll conclude this I mean obviously uh this bridge that we’ve spent talking about
49:54 49:54 - here going from these essential qualities of God to how they manifest in creation as omnipotence omniscience and
49:59 49:59 - omnipresence but we’re going to be talking about those things next but that’s kind of how this section Works in taking us from the one to the other
50:06 50:06 - talking about how these things make God unique by nature and no one can compare to him on that account so I think that’s
50:13 50:13 - where we’re going to stop here and we will be picking up next talking about
50:20 50:20 - omnipotence all right so having just talked about how God is unique and he’s
50:25 50:25 - unique on account of his spirituality giving him complete dominion over material things in creation his
50:32 50:32 - externality to time his eternity giving him complete knowledge of things in creation and his immeasurability uh
50:40 50:40 - giving him the ability to be present at all places in etern or in creation um
50:45 50:45 - those latter three things that’s what we’re going to be focusing on now starting with uh omnipotence this idea
50:52 50:52 - that because God is outside of SpaceTime he can control everything within SpaceTime it’s his right um his ability
50:59 50:59 - to do this is because he can affect whatever changes he wants within the material realm nothing can transpire
51:07 51:07 - except that which God happens or allows to happen based on the Free Will decisions of others therefore there is
51:14 51:14 - no deed nor was there ever nor will there ever be which God is unable to do small or great within material creation
51:22 51:22 - um and so I wanted to uh start off a bit of the discussion that we have here
51:27 51:27 - talking about this question that you may have heard posed um something like so could God create a rock so big even he
51:34 51:34 - couldn’t lift it um sometimes this comes up somewhat tongue and cheek sometimes people are actually serious in raising
51:40 51:40 - this as an objection and so this is supposedly pitting two aspects of omnipotence against each other so on the
51:47 51:47 - one side God’s ability to create anything he wishes ex nilo that’s Latin it means out of nothing so for for God’s
51:54 51:54 - ability to create um versus God’s strength his ability to do things to manipulate material creation um and so
52:02 52:02 - the people who make this argument they argue that the two superlatives mandated by omnipotence contradict each other so
52:08 52:08 - supposedly if God cannot create an object too heavy for him to lift he’s not omnipotent because an omnipotent
52:14 52:14 - creature would be able to create anything and likewise if there would exist some object that God could create
52:19 52:19 - but he was unable to lift then he also would not be omnipotent because an omnipotent creature would be able to lift everything so people who make this
52:26 52:26 - argument they kind of say something like see either way he can’t do something therefore he’s not omnipotent now of
52:31 52:31 - course we don’t agree with this argument as Christians and I’m about to explain why and this is one reason why
52:36 52:36 - apologetics um just as a side tangent is best engaged in with those who have the
52:41 52:41 - gifts the requisite um gifting from God empowerment of the Holy Spirit and uh proper preparation to handle things like
52:48 52:48 - this appropriately because it’s easy to get confused and tripped up and maybe not give as convincing an answer as we
52:54 52:54 - ought as Christians when confronted with objections to the truth because this
52:59 52:59 - truth that we’re talking about this is an objection to the idea of God’s omnipotence that’s kind of why I’m bringing it up just to highlight no
53:06 53:06 - really God is omnipotent what we mean by that okay so how do we handle this this supposed situation of contradiction that
53:12 53:12 - people bring up so we can let people who don’t want to believe or we can kind of
53:18 53:18 - let them go on their way and this is kind of what I mean by we don’t always have to take up this debate especially
53:23 53:23 - if maybe it’s not the right thing for you to do in a second but also and more to the point here it’s not our job to
53:30 53:30 - convince people if people are going to not believe in God because of this there’s almost nothing we can do their
53:37 53:37 - hearts are already closed off to the truth and you’ll see what I mean in a second here and so to answer this it’s
53:42 53:42 - obvious I’m GNA emphasize it again obvious that God can both create whatsoever he wishes and also manipulate
53:49 53:49 - Creation in whatever way he wishes that’s what we mean when we say that God’s omnipotent so the idea of a
53:55 53:55 - material object that he cannot create is definitionally impossible right it just
54:01 54:01 - it cannot happen and so to is a material object he cannot manipulate that he cannot change he cannot affect within
54:08 54:08 - creation so lifting The Rock in this case so put differently there is no such thing as an object he could create but
54:14 54:14 - not lift or an object he could lift but not create that thing just doesn’t exist the entire objection here is circular by
54:22 54:22 - assuming that such a thing can exist to begin with and so when we say that that means that people who they raise this
54:29 54:29 - point they think they’re they’re so clever for this they’ve already put God in a box from the very beginning they’re
54:35 54:35 - already limiting what he can do just by the very way they phrase this and then they only proceed to smugly knock down
54:41 54:41 - nothing but a straw man so they’re not even addressing the real points in hand and again that’s because anything that
54:47 54:47 - God could create he could lift by definition there is no such thing as an object where he can do one but not the
54:53 54:53 - other and so I might say Okay step why are we why are we talking about this right I’m not that interested I don’t
54:58 54:58 - raise that objection so the reason is because it kind of helps throw into relief what God can do right this is not
55:06 55:06 - what we have in our heads we we don’t have these logic puzzles when we say that God’s omnipotent we know that God can do
55:13 55:13 - anything whatever anything might be um God can do it whatever it may be and so
55:18 55:18 - with that we follow El Shai God Almighty the the leader of Angel hosts he who was
55:24 55:24 - an is and is to come the person who holds the very strings of the universe in his hands and can create or
55:30 55:30 - annihilate galaxies in the blink of an eye that’s what we mean when we are talking about omnipotence not not this
55:36 55:36 - this hypothetical creature who might be able to create a rock right we’re talking about the king of the universe the creator of everything that exists
55:44 55:44 - and we’ better fear that power and Majesty as we ought to uh to keep our own lives in perspective and so uh just
55:51 55:51 - to use a progression here to emphasize the point so as human beings we are tiny
55:57 55:57 - compared to the vastness of just Earth much less our solar system much less our galaxy much less the universe itself but
56:04 56:04 - God is even bigger infinitely bigger in fact because he’s not bound by it than the universe itself and God could snuff
56:11 56:11 - out everything that exists in the blink of an eye if he decided to and so that is the kind of power in view when we
56:17 56:17 - speak of God being omnipotent not that he actually will snop out the Universe on a whim but that it would be
56:22 56:22 - absolutely nothing for him to do so because he is in complete control of matter time and space and things only
56:29 56:29 - exist because he causes them to exist it’s not like they exist independent from his will and so to ties back um I I
56:38 56:38 - don’t know if other people find this interesting or or satisfying on an intellectual level to knock down
56:43 56:43 - arguments like this but when we say God’s omnipotent God really can do anything within material creation
56:50 56:50 - because he controls it and so this idea that uh he couldn’t do something uh
56:56 56:56 - whatever skepticism or doubt that people might Express on this is just misplaced
57:01 57:01 - because God is not in any way Bound by material creation and so as in this example it simply means that people come
57:08 57:08 - in already thinking of God as a limited creature um as something Bound by the
57:13 57:13 - rules in which we operate and that’s just the wrong way to go about it because God is completely separate from
57:19 57:19 - the rules that govern all of creation so sorry I rambled a bit there but um this was something that I just
57:25 57:25 - thought it was worth us talking about as we examine this idea of omnipotence so a do you have anything you want to rip on
57:32 57:32 - from what I’ve said or or other points you want to make on omnipotence itself uh yeah um let me say first of
57:40 57:40 - all that regarding the question you addressed the first time I heard in 2012 I’d never heard anything of that sort
57:47 57:47 - and my fellow apologist then and I we used
57:53 57:53 - to kind of people used to mistake us for each other on nirand then um I used to
57:59 57:59 - call him my twin because it seemed like we thought exactly the same his answer to that question was that’s a word salad
58:07 58:07 - it means exactly nothing like you can’t explain you can’t Define what you’re talking about what’s a rck that God
58:13 58:13 - can’t lift so something so um I know I know what is
58:19 58:19 - behind it the idea is it’s it’s exactly like saying can God create a square circle because well God can do anything
58:26 58:26 - can do everything so he must be able to do something completely nonsensical so um the answer that I find
58:37 58:37 - in the scriptures for such things first of all is um there is nothing that God can’t do
58:44 58:44 - and the first person to find out how wrong he was about what God can do and
58:50 58:50 - can’t do was the wisest creature that God ever
58:56 58:56 - made the one who should have been telling everybody just don’t mess with him he knows he knows things you you
59:03 59:03 - don’t even begin to imagine like he’s already thought about what you you have not yet begun to imagine or conceive in
59:09 59:09 - your in your heart that’s the person who first thought I can box God into a
59:15 59:15 - corner I can I can put him in a catch 22 where he his his hands are tied he
59:21 59:21 - thought well I can’t beat God in an actual fight I can’t go to war with God and win he’s too powerful but I could
59:28 59:28 - outsmart him that was Satan and uh how did that turn out for
59:34 59:34 - him well you see this is where things get a little uh annoying for people like
59:39 59:39 - me we we live in in Trivial times that means Jesus has come and died on the
59:45 59:45 - cross the miracle has happened so it’s it’s it’s easy to trivialize we don’t
59:50 59:50 - see the the Marvel of this thing we don’t see the enmity of this miracle
59:57 59:57 - that God can forgive a sinner that God can forgive a sinner That’s what Satan said was
1:00:04 1:00:04 - impossible that he could put in a position where if he forgave a sinner he would be acting
1:00:09 1:00:09 - unjustly and if he punished The Sinner he would be acting he would be negating his character of
1:00:16 1:00:16 - love he thought he had won and then God did this Jesus thing and all of a sudden
1:00:22 1:00:22 - Satan is looking like a complete idiot now those who say he could he create a a
1:00:27 1:00:27 - rock that he can’t live they sound real smart and after all they’re speaking English most of us who speak English can
1:00:33 1:00:33 - make sense of the words that they just used and it sounds like yeah yeah I mean could he could he I mean he right if he
1:00:41 1:00:41 - creates a rock then and he can’t lift it well he can create a rock but now he
1:00:49 1:00:49 - can’t lift it where is it’s like oh why and your head is blown right like you’ve
1:00:54 1:00:54 - said you’ve just made so much sense you’ve boxed God into a corner now he can’t exist precisely what Satan thought
1:01:02 1:01:02 - like I can put him in a situation where he will be forced to abandon creation and I get to rule over
1:01:09 1:01:09 - it we really can’t win there’s something that God said that Paul said through the
1:01:14 1:01:14 - spirit in second Timothy Chapter 2 he said If you deny him he won’t deny
1:01:20 1:01:20 - himself so are there things God can do absolutely he won’t lie he can’t lie he
1:01:26 1:01:26 - can’t deny himself there are all sorts of things God can do none of them is a reflection on his power all of them are
1:01:34 1:01:34 - reflection on his character there are lots of things God can do but if we’re
1:01:40 1:01:40 - talking about what his omnipotence actually means it doesn’t mean he can he can create a rock that he can’t lift his
1:01:47 1:01:47 - omnipotence means there is absolutely nothing that God could want to do that he want he can’t do nothing
1:01:55 1:01:55 - like if God decided right now I want to create a sare circle he can create a
1:02:00 1:02:00 - square circle it doesn’t make any kind of sense to us but I wouldn’t bet against him so I don’t even want to I
1:02:06 1:02:06 - don’t even want to go there a roong that I can’t lift yeah that’s it’s another nonsensical thing to imagine but I
1:02:12 1:02:12 - wouldn’t bet against him if he decided that he wanted to do that that’s the well but the whole point of why I framed
1:02:19 1:02:19 - this how I did was that the question itself is circular that there is no such
1:02:24 1:02:24 - object right AB so so that’s the whole thing in this is that now I will say you
1:02:30 1:02:30 - know scripture that comes to mind when we deal with this again is this idea of answering fools according to their Folly
1:02:35 1:02:35 - I wouldn’t even give people who make this argument the time of day most of the time they’re not interested right no
1:02:41 1:02:41 - matter what you say they’re not going to listen to you but the whole point of this is that the point that I was trying
1:02:47 1:02:47 - to make when I brought this up was simply that we cannot in our thinking put God in a box and then speak of his
1:02:53 1:02:53 - power in terms of the boxed version of God um we need to appreciate how big God
1:02:59 1:02:59 - is right yeah that’s precisely right there is there is nothing wrong with the
1:03:05 1:03:05 - answer that you gave it’s actually where I’m starting from which is essentially this you don’t know what God can or
1:03:12 1:03:12 - cannot do so shut it that’s where you start then what is God’s omnipotence the
1:03:20 1:03:20 - Bible is very clear there is nothing that God could possibly want to do that
1:03:25 1:03:25 - he can’t do nothing can stop him in all of creation and this is what Satan keeps
1:03:30 1:03:30 - learning time and time again and everybody that wants to oppose God I mean right now they’re going bunkers
1:03:36 1:03:36 - because of Technology because of science for the past 500 years we’ve been doing Miracles that they didn’t think was
1:03:42 1:03:42 - possible now we’ve gone to the Moon we have launched all sorts of machines into
1:03:48 1:03:48 - space we exploring things that our great-grandfathers didn’t even know existed all sorts of things are
1:03:53 1:03:53 - happening in the the world today and people have lost their freaking minds they think now I’m God right because can God do all
1:04:03 1:04:03 - this stuff I mean they’re forgetting that all those things existed before they even learned how to you know put
1:04:09 1:04:09 - anything together and send it to the Moon the Moon was already there how did it get there oh it was Evolution right
1:04:15 1:04:15 - the nothing that exploded and became everything right so but for us who
1:04:21 1:04:21 - believe what we know from the scriptures is this there is nothing that God cannot do if
1:04:28 1:04:28 - he wants to do it so if you create a logical impossibility I wouldn’t bet on you
1:04:36 1:04:36 - winning against God assuming of course and what I’m assuming is that there is
1:04:41 1:04:41 - any kind of sense in what you’re saying now when Satan made his bet against the
1:04:46 1:04:46 - Lord and encouraged his fellow angels to to join him in that bed I’m absolutely
1:04:52 1:04:52 - sure that while he was persuaded he he would win and those the third of the angels that agreed with him thought that
1:04:57 1:04:57 - they would win was that they were persuaded that this was an actual logical
1:05:02 1:05:02 - impossibility if God is just and if God is loving well we can get away with sin
1:05:08 1:05:08 - because you can’t reconcile those two things well God did he did so again I
1:05:15 1:05:15 - would say I have no idea the limits and this is the most important thing I have
1:05:20 1:05:20 - no idea what the limits are to God’s power I have no idea so if you create
1:05:26 1:05:26 - something that sounds absolutely idiotic and you think this is where I’ve caught God I’ve put him in a box he can’t win
1:05:32 1:05:32 - in this one I’m not betting on you against the Lord I’m simply not now if you said well I I I bet you the Lord
1:05:39 1:05:39 - cannot lie yeah he said so I won’t fight you on that one he can’t lie if you say
1:05:46 1:05:46 - that um God God cannot um deny himself sure I’m with you on that I’ll bet I’ll
1:05:54 1:05:54 - bet on you any day of the week every day of the week everything I’ve got God cannot deny himself but you see if there
1:06:02 1:06:02 - is anything the Bible does not say God can do and that we can’t reason from the Bible that he can’t do and you think
1:06:08 1:06:08 - it’s some kind of logical impossibility yeah I’m not going with you on that
1:06:14 1:06:14 - I’m we have plenty of counter examples of that going real poorly like you said
1:06:19 1:06:19 - now I will say that these arguments that I’ve been that you’ve been bringing up like can God can God lie can God deny
1:06:25 1:06:25 - himself those are have a little bit different character um so the particular logical trap here this this whole Rock
1:06:32 1:06:32 - business I brought up as an example of one of those arguments that we don’t even have to wave our hand at like the
1:06:38 1:06:38 - argument is literally it assumes things and it’s circular in that regard that’s the point I tried to make some of the
1:06:44 1:06:44 - other things um this idea of well if God can’t sin turn into an all powerful
1:06:49 1:06:49 - being sin therefore God can’t exist sort of thing the problem with those is just
1:06:55 1:06:55 - that their definition of what all powerful is like where are they getting it from right this is always why
1:07:01 1:07:01 - defining terms is important now I don’t want to go down the Apologetics Rabbit Trail I didn’t want to get a super
1:07:06 1:07:06 - sidetracked again I was bringing this up sort of as as a point to examine this idea of boxing God and whenever we think
1:07:14 1:07:14 - that God is limited in some way we better revise our thinking and I think we’ve talked about it well right we’ve
1:07:20 1:07:20 - used good examples your example of Satan thinking that he he caught God in this in this way to uh that God couldn’t
1:07:27 1:07:27 - somehow reconcile Sinners to himself that was Satan’s PR campaign if you will it’s a great example of what not to do
1:07:35 1:07:35 - right of trusting somehow that God can’t do something uh whatever you’re thinking
1:07:41 1:07:41 - you’re probably wrong because God is in complete control he knows way better than we do about everything that happens
1:07:48 1:07:48 - in the universe so um with that maybe we’ll see if anyone has any questions
1:07:53 1:07:53 - questions on this before we move on to the next one so this again is on the idea of
1:08:00 1:08:00 - omnipotence all right so that’s probably where we’ll we’ll pivot from talking about God’s omnipotence to his
1:08:08 1:08:08 - omniscience and so we spent all this time talking about well what can God do and now we’re going to talk about what
1:08:13 1:08:13 - does God know that’s going to be the next thing that we focus
1:08:19 1:08:19 - on all right so as to omniscience uh here’s the text coming straight out of the study uh we have the idea that God
1:08:26 1:08:26 - is all knowing irrespective of time so again this is how this corresponds to
1:08:32 1:08:32 - God being Eternal and outside of time is that God knows everything irrespective of time he knows the end from the
1:08:39 1:08:39 - beginning he can affect anything he desires in the temporal realm therefore
1:08:44 1:08:44 - God knows always has known and always will know everything the end from the beginning as the Everlasting one his
1:08:51 1:08:51 - knowledge of every event that has or will or even could occur within his creation is comprehensive and absolute
1:08:59 1:08:59 - so specific phrase that I wanted to pick out here is this this could occur business so it’s not just knowing
1:09:06 1:09:06 - everything that has and is and will occur but everything that could have occurred as well so I do not want to get
1:09:14 1:09:14 - too off in the weeds of the the theological thing people give this a label the so-called molinism with a
1:09:21 1:09:21 - capital m m o l i n ISM um and this idea of middle knowledge um I that’s just the
1:09:29 1:09:29 - theological jargon here um I actually don’t particularly like bogging ourselves down in the theological
1:09:36 1:09:36 - arguments that have happened over this um uh there’s a a reasonably famous apologist in our day his name is William
1:09:42 1:09:42 - Lane Craig um he is a prominent proponent of this particular Doctrine um
1:09:48 1:09:48 - I kind of like to talk about independent from that so the example that I thought we’d bring up to talk about this idea of
1:09:55 1:09:55 - God knowing uh things that didn’t just happen or or that that like happened in
1:10:01 1:10:01 - the past or will happen in the future but things uh kind of that this would have could have hypothetical sort of thing is uh when the Bible says that God
1:10:09 1:10:09 - will never test us past what we can bear so that’s 1 Corinthians 10:13 you know I could actually read full reference here
1:10:14 1:10:14 - no temptation is overtaken you but such as is common to man and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted
1:10:20 1:10:20 - beyond what you are able but with the Temptation will provide the way of Escape also so that you will be able to
1:10:25 1:10:25 - endure it now the Greek word here that is translated as Temptation in the nasb is also translated as testing um
1:10:33 1:10:33 - depending on context is how you know whether it’s Temptation or testing um so this one can actually kind of go either
1:10:38 1:10:38 - way that God will not test us past what we were able to bear um but the idea is well how does God know what we’re able
1:10:45 1:10:45 - to bear and the verse here implicitly requires that God knows where our limits
1:10:51 1:10:51 - are how does God know that if it happens before we have actually done something and this is where you get into
1:10:58 1:10:58 - this idea of this knowledge that God has is so complete that it even covers these
1:11:04 1:11:04 - situations past that which actually has or will occur hence middle knowledge
1:11:09 1:11:09 - again I don’t particularly like bogging ourselves down in uh some of the history so to speak here but it’s necessary for
1:11:17 1:11:17 - God to know what what test we are and are not able to Bear he has to know
1:11:22 1:11:22 - whether we would or would not pass a test were he to give it to us right um seems kind of like common sense um another example you can use is divine
1:11:29 1:11:29 - discipline um how does God know what discipline is necessary for us right he
1:11:34 1:11:34 - has to know what discipline will best lead to Turning us back to him right to
1:11:41 1:11:41 - uh basically corresponding to the Free Will decisions we make in life well since we’re all different we have these
1:11:47 1:11:47 - different um uh you know makeups talents aptitudes opinions everything thing uh
1:11:54 1:11:54 - so the discipline with which now anyone who’s had kids can probably relate to this uh the way in which you discipline
1:12:00 1:12:00 - one child may need to be different than the way in which you discipline another so very encourageable little boys for
1:12:05 1:12:05 - example may need a much Sterner talking to than uh their more sensitive younger sisters for example um just not to
1:12:12 1:12:12 - generalize based on gender too much but uh you know sometimes people need a good bit more discipline uh because they’re a
1:12:19 1:12:19 - little bit more resistant to it so God knows all of this perfectly he knows exactly what we need and what would and
1:12:25 1:12:25 - would not work with each of us specifically um all of this knowledge that we’re getting at here this is God’s
1:12:31 1:12:31 - knowledge of that which could be of the hypothetical and uh I for whatever
1:12:37 1:12:37 - reason some of this is controversial theologically um so to me these examples
1:12:43 1:12:43 - I’ve raised 1 Corinthians 10:13 God will not test us past what I can bear seems just kind of like it makes sense for God
1:12:49 1:12:49 - to have this knowledge it’s necessary for him to uh act in this way way that everything is perfectly mapped out right
1:12:55 1:12:55 - we believe in the for ordination of all events before the beginning of human history and so uh God’s perfect for
1:13:02 1:13:02 - ordination logically requires that he know everything about all potential paths in the mind-bogglingly complex
1:13:08 1:13:08 - decision tree that spans the history of the entire universe so that’s a really jargony way of saying that all of these
1:13:14 1:13:14 - potentials that we’re talking about for God’s plan to be perfect he has to have already taken all of that into account
1:13:19 1:13:19 - so it’s kind of always puzzled me why people would ever think to argue against this um it’s just this is just how big
1:13:26 1:13:26 - God’s knowledge is this is what it means when we say he’s omnicient but alas some people do argue against this right and
1:13:33 1:13:33 - uh hypothesis Theory I don’t know I cannot look into the hearts of people but perhaps it’s because believing that
1:13:39 1:13:39 - God knows even these things requires us to appreciate how truly big and unlike us uh who with our very finite
1:13:46 1:13:46 - perspective that we have here within SpaceTime how unlike us God really is
1:13:52 1:13:52 - because for us this sort of knowledge is completely impossible for us to have we can’t know what would or could happen
1:13:58 1:13:58 - were this to you know were this event or that event to happen in our lives we can’t predict that we have no idea but
1:14:04 1:14:04 - God does because he’s God because he’s external to creation and so for now
1:14:09 1:14:09 - again another thing that I’m raising here you should just mostly ignore the fact in my opinion that some people have
1:14:15 1:14:15 - again tried to put God into a box in their minds right so we talked about this with omnipotence we’re now we’re
1:14:21 1:14:21 - talking about it with omniscience uh people who say well God can’t know that that’s you know it doesn’t make sense it’s not logical etc etc um uh well you
1:14:29 1:14:29 - should kind of ignore the fact that some people do put God In A Box in their minds and content yourself with the sure
1:14:34 1:14:34 - confidence that God knows everything when we say everything that is unbounded we mean everything absolutely everything
1:14:40 1:14:40 - inclusive of our Free Will decisions before we even make them it’s for knowledge and so and God is also so
1:14:47 1:14:47 - infinitely wise as to have perfectly mapped out all of creature history before the universe was even created
1:14:52 1:14:52 - God’s plan perfectly captures everything from beginning to end there are no mistakes there is nothing that could
1:14:59 1:14:59 - happen that would be better than that which has already been foreordained and so this divine plan being worked out
1:15:05 1:15:05 - around us God knows what he’s doing he’s not going to make mistakes and we need to have faith and trust in that so again
1:15:12 1:15:12 - kind of introducing a way in which people box God in which they’re not willing to accept that God knows everything and when we say everything we
1:15:19 1:15:19 - mean it everything um so a you want to bounce anything off of what I’ve said
1:15:25 1:15:25 - here yeah I think I think uh the real sum of it um is is really God’s
1:15:31 1:15:31 - knowledge is perfect the Bible bears that out and um whenever we go into a
1:15:37 1:15:37 - lot of the philosophy uh I know why molinism exists it’s one of the answers
1:15:45 1:15:45 - to trying to reconcile how God knows everything and
1:15:51 1:15:51 - yet we have free will it’s one of those um theologies like you said we there’s
1:15:57 1:15:57 - quite a bit of getting into for that but I think I can say rather simply here
1:16:03 1:16:03 - that first of all the Bible is absolutely clear that God’s knowledge is perfect there is no um need to
1:16:12 1:16:12 - accommodate some imperfection in God’s knowledge if he has imperfect knowledge he’s not God we should remember again
1:16:19 1:16:19 - that what God is by nature is that which
1:16:25 1:16:25 - is and that is why the Bible tells us that his name is I will be what I am or
1:16:32 1:16:32 - I I I I am what I will be he’s unaffected by time if his knowledge is
1:16:39 1:16:39 - affected by time then that definition becomes untrue if he has to learn things
1:16:46 1:16:46 - that definition becomes untrue if his knowledge depreciates loses value or
1:16:52 1:16:52 - quality over time that definition becomes untrue so he either has perfect
1:16:59 1:16:59 - knowledge or he is not God and this is actually how we can tell when something is not the true God it’s one of the ways
1:17:05 1:17:05 - we can tell that that thing does not have perfect knowledge that’s why we can know for example that even a suser who
1:17:12 1:17:12 - who can predict like it was happening with uh the slave girl who had the spirit of divination right we could
1:17:19 1:17:19 - still say even with that demon rtion of power that is beyond human ability that
1:17:26 1:17:26 - was still not God we can tell that because like God said through one of the prophets bring
1:17:33 1:17:33 - your divers find bring your Gods let’s see who can predict the end from the
1:17:40 1:17:40 - beginning like I can so God’s knowledge is perfect that’s not a question
1:17:45 1:17:45 - molinism and questions of hypothesis what could be what would be and all of that stuff my answer to that is still
1:17:53 1:17:53 - God knows everything and Jesus did demonstrate that matter of what could be when he talked about Sodom and Gomorrah
1:18:00 1:18:00 - and yeah that is one of the proof text and this is why I didn’t want to get into people argue about this very long
1:18:06 1:18:06 - and audite but the idea that we’re introducing here like Audi said is just that when we say God’s knowledge is
1:18:13 1:18:13 - perfect we we mean it every every down to the last drgs of the logical
1:18:18 1:18:18 - implication of that so to speak and yeah and here’s need we just need to speak as
1:18:24 1:18:24 - if we actually believe that because people people in their heads again they try to put God in a box they try to say
1:18:30 1:18:30 - well but but but and the answer is no like Audi said God’s knowledge is perfect and complete from the beginning
1:18:38 1:18:38 - to the end so I would say this a lot of times in in matters of discussing the
1:18:44 1:18:44 - Bible people don’t discuss the Bible they want to talk philosophy and here’s
1:18:51 1:18:51 - the thing we have to be look philosophy is good if it is good philosophy as a
1:18:59 1:18:59 - matter of fact what we consider good philosophy is the Bible so if the Bible
1:19:04 1:19:04 - says it it’s true the Bible doesn’t say it’s suspect at at best it’s suspect
1:19:10 1:19:10 - best so if someone shows up and starts going into the ins and outs about why
1:19:15 1:19:15 - this or that is logical I’m listening for yeah the Bible actually does say or doesn’t say if I don’t hear that I don’t
1:19:21 1:19:21 - really care what you’re saying so if you’re insisting that if he knew then this if he didn’t know then that
1:19:29 1:19:29 - what I I I really don’t care the question I want to hear or what I want to hear from you is the Bible says this
1:19:36 1:19:36 - or doesn’t say that that’s all so as far as I’m concerned the Bible is clear
1:19:42 1:19:42 - about God’s perfect knowledge and and complete knowledge there is no question
1:19:48 1:19:48 - about whether God knows everything or doesn’t know Peter himself said it to
1:19:53 1:19:53 - Jesus Christ you know all things you know that I love you so when God is asking us questions he’s not seeking
1:19:59 1:19:59 - information that’s very obvious so um having said that all questions that
1:20:06 1:20:06 - arise from if God knows we have to understand the answer
1:20:12 1:20:12 - is not in he probably doesn’t that’s not where the answer to
1:20:17 1:20:17 - that question is if the question is how do I reconcile the fact that God has perfect knowledge to this is then
1:20:23 1:20:23 - there’s a third piece that you’re missing you need to find that you cannot
1:20:29 1:20:29 - solve that problem by reducing what God knows because then you would make him less than God that’s the end that I can
1:20:36 1:20:36 - you know yeah no I mean and like I said not going to go down the full Rabbit
1:20:42 1:20:42 - Trail there um you you brought up the Sodom and gomorah passage there’s other arguments I mean I made mine using the
1:20:48 1:20:48 - testing passage here from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 uh more of the point is is
1:20:54 1:20:54 - that the people who want to limit God to say that God can’t know these things
1:21:00 1:21:00 - somehow that it’s logically impossible where are they getting that from right it’s it’s the same issue with the the
1:21:06 1:21:06 - whole thing that we talked about about the limits people place upon God’s omnipotence is that the limits that
1:21:11 1:21:11 - people who argue against I’m not even So Pro all the arguments that people use for this particular teaching in so far
1:21:17 1:21:17 - as it just means that when we say God knows everything we really do mean everything um everything that has and is
1:21:24 1:21:24 - and will or could or could have or everything in between right because he’s
1:21:29 1:21:29 - God um and we just have to respect that that’s all and so that is omniscience um
1:21:35 1:21:35 - God knows the end from the beginning God is in uh complete control of everything
1:21:40 1:21:40 - that that has and is and will happen in the universe because God’s plan is
1:21:45 1:21:45 - perfect it spans time from beginning to end because God knows all um that’s
1:21:51 1:21:51 - omniscience I think that’s where we’ll cut for omniscience and next we’re going to talk about
1:22:00 1:22:00 - omnipresence all right so now that we finished our discussion here of omniscience uh talking about how just
1:22:07 1:22:07 - like with omnipotent some people kind of put God In A Box in their minds they
1:22:12 1:22:12 - right from the outset don’t view him kind of as this being separate from
1:22:17 1:22:17 - SpaceTime but they try to contextualize him in terms of the way we might understand very powerful creatures that
1:22:25 1:22:25 - are still part of our universe well in the same way people might not always appreciate that God is absolutely
1:22:32 1:22:32 - everywhere within creation so God is ever present irrespective of space he
1:22:37 1:22:37 - can affect anything he desires in the spatial realm therefore God has the ability has always had and always will
1:22:44 1:22:44 - have to be anywhere and everywhere local and Universal and this is within creation within the universe uh now this
1:22:51 1:22:51 - note is me this isn’t directly from the study this is something I wrote I just say a particular note is that this means
1:22:56 1:22:56 - that God sees all he sees everything that happens within creation nobody can sneak anything past God and on that
1:23:03 1:23:03 - great day of days on Judgment Day be Before the Throne all will be revealed
1:23:09 1:23:09 - um this also means uh as a practical note that it’s completely futile to try to run away from God so like Jonah from
1:23:16 1:23:16 - the Book of Jonah we will find that no matter where we go God and His purposes for us will always be there too
1:23:23 1:23:23 - so because God is ever presentent in the world uh no matter where we might try to
1:23:29 1:23:29 - escape uh to run to hide from the things that God has for us we will never be
1:23:34 1:23:34 - able to because God is at all places at all times because he’s God so aie do you
1:23:40 1:23:40 - have any points you want to make um I think maybe this is among the more straightforward of the characteristics
1:23:45 1:23:45 - of God that we’ve gone over here um but interested to hear if you have things to
1:23:51 1:23:51 - say um I don’t think there is a much more to
1:23:58 1:23:58 - say there it’s just that God is not limited by space he created it he exists
1:24:06 1:24:06 - without it or he existed without it until he made it and he absolutely
1:24:11 1:24:11 - controls it so he can do whatever he wants with it and he’s not limited by it
1:24:18 1:24:18 - I think that’s um uh I wouldn’t say a more correct way to
1:24:24 1:24:24 - put it but a more um uh all embracing way to put it uh in the
1:24:32 1:24:32 - sense that God is not limited by space so one might be thinking in terms of if
1:24:39 1:24:39 - he’s everywhere is he in Hell uh but then we talk about the Lake of Fire
1:24:44 1:24:44 - being um uh God casting people away from his presence so what does that mean what
1:24:52 1:24:52 - we mean the Bible never uses the word omnipresent but it does say things like
1:24:58 1:24:58 - where can I go away from you if I if I make my bed in hell there you are as
1:25:04 1:25:04 - well but of course hell in that sense is show the place of the Dead um regardless
1:25:11 1:25:11 - the point is there is no place in the universe in all of creation that is
1:25:18 1:25:18 - outside of God’s reach MH so that’s what I would say I I think bringing up the
1:25:23 1:25:23 - point of so-called biblical geography um you know ichus has a chart I don’t remember exactly which study but of like
1:25:30 1:25:30 - the third heaven separated by the universe from like the waters above and
1:25:36 1:25:36 - then we have the universe and then um hell and the Lake of Fire you know uh
1:25:42 1:25:42 - Jesus went into sha like you said the grave um when he descended uh before he
1:25:48 1:25:48 - ascended on the third day and that’s different than the Lake of Fire where the devil and fallen angels and
1:25:53 1:25:53 - unbelievers will go at the end of time um so-called again biblical geography
1:25:59 1:25:59 - here um but regardless like you said the point is God’s not limited by space or
1:26:05 1:26:05 - spatial concerns and so uh for us practically as human beings well we don’t have to worry about any of that
1:26:11 1:26:11 - stuff that happens after we die at the moment in how we we in how we live our lives um it is just true that God is
1:26:17 1:26:17 - always before us um and we should actually view this more as a comfort than as a a bad thing is is someone
1:26:23 1:26:23 - snooping on us because this means that nothing can separate us from God we have this verse I I know Paul wrote maybe
1:26:31 1:26:31 - it’s Philippians I don’t remember like nothing can separate us from the love of God As far as the East is from the West
1:26:36 1:26:36 - that sort of thing uh God is always with us and that should be a supreme Comfort
1:26:42 1:26:42 - to us uh probably more than anything
1:26:47 1:26:47 - else all right so just to run through the things that we’ve talked about here in this lesson examining the nature of
1:26:55 1:26:55 - God so we have talked first about God’s essential characteristics how he is
1:27:00 1:27:00 - spiritual Eternal and immeasurable in a spatial sense um and then how that
1:27:06 1:27:06 - manifests within creation is him being omnipotent omniscience and omnipresent um and we spent a good bit
1:27:13 1:27:13 - of our time in the study talking about how God is unique and because no other
1:27:18 1:27:18 - being in all of creation um uh you know or outside of creation right because we
1:27:24 1:27:24 - believe there’s one God and that God made SpaceTime uh no one is like God no
1:27:30 1:27:30 - one in the universe can reasonably be compared to him he’s absolutely unique and therefore the person to whom all
1:27:36 1:27:36 - honor is due um and so he transcends the physical Universe um through these
1:27:41 1:27:41 - characteristics and within the physical Universe he is supreme within it because
1:27:47 1:27:47 - he is omnipotent omniscient and omnipresent and so this is how we view God
1:27:52 1:27:52 - with respect to his infinite nature and if you remember at the beginning of this lesson we had been emphasizing that
1:27:59 1:27:59 - God’s infinite nature illuminates his abilities what things God can do how he
1:28:04 1:28:04 - interacts with creation and in the next lesson we are going to pick up talking about God’s perfect character and what
1:28:10 1:28:10 - that says about his motives

God’s Perfect Character

Perfection God > Is perfect in character

Video

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Summary

This lesson, we are going to be talking about God’s perfect character, and what that means in terms of His motives.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:40 01:40 - Introduction: God’s perfect character
08:07 08:07 - Q: Why are we told to be perfect like God in Matthew 5:48 if we can never live up to that standard?
11:57 11:57 - Q: What does it mean for Noah to be called “perfect in his generations”?
15:54 15:54 - God is Good
29:56 29:56 - God is Holy
43:22 43:22 - God is Faithful and True
56:51 56:51 - God is Sovereign
01:18:42 01:18:42 - God is Love
01:34:00 01:34:00 - God is Just
01:53:12 01:53:12 - “How is it just for unbelievers to face infinite, eternal punishment for finite sins?”
02:17:18 02:17:18 - God is Life
02:23:43 02:23:43 - Contrasting eternal life and eternal death
02:32:50 02:32:50 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

(Derived from https://ichthys.com/1Theo.htm)

Introduction: God’s perfect character

God is perfect in His character, irreproachable and blameless in every possible way.

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Matthew 5:48 | NIV11

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:48 | NIrV

So be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

When firmly grasped, God’s perfection—perfection in every way and according to any conceivable true standard—is a clarifying concept, illuminating His motives. God’s perfect character will never be less than the highest, the best, and the purest that the human mind can comprehend.

Why are we told to be perfect like God in Matthew 5:48 if we can never live up to that standard?

Perfection > Is impossible for fallen mankind

Note

This is a video-only section.

What does it mean for Noah to be called “perfect in his generations”?

Nephilim > Satan's attack on the human bloodline

Note

This is a video-only section.

As in Genesis 6:9—if you’d like, here’s an interlinear for the verse.

God is Good

God > Is good

God’s character is good (Hebrew tov: טוב); it is the antithesis of evil. So how does goodness respond to sinful man? In His goodness, God always has our best interests at heart. Therefore His desire for us to be free from evil and devoted to good is genuine. Even though we are sinful and by nature unworthy of His blessing, in His goodness God has nevertheless found a gracious way to redeem us from sin without compromising His character, namely, by giving us the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.

God is Holy

God > Is holy

God’s character is holy (Hebrew qadosh: קדוש); it is completely separate from evil. So how does holiness respond to sinful man? In His holiness, God can never compromise His perfect standards for any reason. Therefore His commitment to condemning evil and rewarding good is inviolable. But even though we are sinful and by nature deserving of His judgment, in His holiness God has nevertheless found a merciful way to justify us in spite of our sin without violating His character, namely, by judging His Son, Jesus Christ in our place.

God is Faithful and True

God > Is faithful and true

God’s character is faithful and true (Hebrew: omen, emeth: אמת ,אמון); it is actively opposed to evil. So how do truth and faithfulness respond to sinful man? In His faithfulness and truth, God is entirely reliable and trustworthy in all that He promises to us and does for us. Therefore His veracity and dependability in offering us a way through Jesus Christ to escape the evil of death and embrace the good of eternal life are beyond reproach. So even though we are sinful and by nature objects of His wrath, in His faithfulness and truth God has nevertheless found a way to make peace between Himself and us and to remove the enmity between Himself and us, caused by our sins, without corrupting His character, namely, by reconciling us to Himself through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

God is Sovereign

God > Is sovereign God > Is *de jure* ruler of the universe

Sovereignty comes from God’s perfect character. No one else has a legitimate right to rule over the universe. He is the absolute sovereign within His own creation, and therefore the one Person to whom all honor is due. Sovereignty thus speaks to God’s moral authority and right to order the universe however He chooses.

From the standpoint of His transcendence of the moral universe, He is sovereign by virtue of His goodness, holiness and truth (essential qualities independent of His creation). From the standpoint of His supremacy within the moral universe, He is sovereign by virtue of His love, justice, and life (qualities applying to His creation which correspond to goodness, holiness and truth).

Only God is qualified to be the ultimate judge of the morally accountable creatures He has created, and thus to hold them responsible for their actions. As de facto ruler of the universe (through His infinite nature) and de jure ruler of the universe (through His perfect character):

God possesses the sovereign authority to demonstrate love to His sinful creatures out of His own goodness

Not ignoring their sins, as evil suggests He should, but paying for them Himself by the death on the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, in their place (redemption). We call the result of this act of His sovereignty grace (Hebrew chen: חן; Greek charis: χάρις).

God possesses the sovereign authority to administer justice to His sinful creatures out of His holiness

Not abandoning them to their sins, as evil suggests He must, but forgiving them Himself on the basis of the death on the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, in their place (justification). We call the result of this act of His sovereignty mercy (Hebrew chesed: חסד; Greek eleos: ἔλεος).

God possesses the sovereign authority to give life to His sinful creatures out of His truth and faithfulness

Not allowing them to die in their sins, as evil suggests He will, but reconciling them to Himself through the death on the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, in their place (reconciliation). We call the result of this act of His sovereignty peace (Hebrew shalom: שלום; Greek eirene: εἰρήνη).

Summary: God’s sovereignty in action

Essential Quality	Manifesting in creation as	Action God takes	God’s sovereign attitude towards us	Result
Goodness	Love	Paying for sin	Grace	Redemption
Holiness	Justice	Forgiving sin	Mercy	Justification
Truth	Life	Reconciling sinful man to Himself	Peace	Reconciliation

In this—God’s full plan for saving sinful man—absolutely everything relies upon the cross, the blood of Jesus Christ. One particularly memorable way I have heard it described is that “God’s Mercy and Justice intersect in the cross.”

God is Love

God > Is love

Having love for His creatures, is a natural consequence of God’s goodness. Out of the intrinsic goodness of His character, God loves us with a perfect love, desiring to help us in our sinful state. However, He does not overlook His holiness and justice in the process and forgive our sin without consequence (as evil suggests He should). Therefore God had to find a way to reach out to us in love without compromising His character, and did so through the gift and sacrifice of His only Son on our behalf. Grace is the biblical name for God’s policy of lovingly redeeming us from our sins through Jesus Christ. We accept and receive God’s gracious offer of love and redemption by accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.

God is Just

God > Is just

Demanding justice for His creatures is a natural consequence of God’s holiness. Out of the intrinsic holiness of His character, God must deal with us in perfect justice, righteously condemning us in our sinful state. However, He does not overlook His goodness and love in the process and abandon us to our sins (as evil suggests He will). For God found a way to treat us as righteous without compromising His character, and did so through the gift and sacrifice of His only Son on our behalf. Mercy is the biblical name for God’s policy of justly forgiving us on the basis of the death of Jesus Christ. We accept and receive God’s merciful offer of justification by accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.

“How is it just for unbelievers to face infinite, eternal punishment for finite sins?”

Unlimited atonement > Double jeopardy Hell > People are sent only because of unbelief Hell > There are no levels in hell

Note

This is a video-only section.

This question’s wording presupposes something that is simply not true: that unbelievers face eternal punishment in hell for personal sins they commit in this life.

As we go over in the video, hell exists not to punish unbelievers for their sins—as if they could somehow pay for or atone for them—but only because of unbelief (“blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”). That hell is not punishment for sins but the consequence of unbelief—of wanting to spend eternity apart from God—is a rather fundamental point about the nature of hell, but is nonetheless widely misunderstood.

Jesus paid for all human sin upon the cross, and, moreover, imperfect human beings are not even worthy sacrifices. That is, we could not pay for our sin even if we wanted to; we are not qualified since we are tainted and marred by sin. Only Christ—the true, blameless Lamb of God—can take away the sins of the world with His blood, and He already did so upon the cross some 2,000 years ago.

If God punished unbelievers for their sins in hell after Christ already took the judgement for said sins, the sins would be judged twice (“double jeopardy”)—obviously incompatible with justice. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that falsely believing that human beings are punished for their sins in hell is no less than a rejection of the efficacy of Jesus’ payment for all human sin upon the cross (or perhaps the Father’s acceptance of Jesus’ work). If you believe in unlimited atonement and so-called penal substitutionary atonement (both true things that are clearly taught in scripture), then the purpose (telos) of hell cannot be the punishment of human sins. It is simply theologically unworkable.

To pull us back to the present question:

The grace of the cross is positively scandalous:
That God would judge His own Son for human sin,
Even for the most gross and reprehensible sins of humanity.

That unbelievers refuse to accept Christ’s payment for them is tragic:
That God’s love will go unreciprocated,
Despite Him laying down His life for their salvation.

But that unbelievers accuse God of injustice is ironic:
That they scorn the God that loves them so much,
Who has already saved them from their punishment,
By taking it upon His own shoulders.

When unbelievers say it is not just for them to face infinite, eternal punishment for finite sins, they miss the fact that God already judged Jesus for all their sins upon the cross, and that people in hell are not there to punish them for their sins, but because they chose unbelief and separation from God. God has, out of His unfathomable grace, spared them the true consequences of their sins—Jesus bore these consequences instead, even for the most vile and unrepentant of unbelievers. Nevertheless, He will let all those creatures who choose of their own will to live apart from Him have their wish. And an eternity apart from God—who is everything good—will be utterly miserable.

The point is that hell is not miserable on account of punishment for sins committed, but miserable on account of separation from God.

Sidenote

All of this should make it clear why the idea of “levels of hell” (cf. the “Nine Circles of Hell” in Dante’s Inferno) is so problematic theologically.

Because all people in hell are there for the same reason (unbelief)—not to punish them for their personal sins—there can be no levels of hell.

That people find this unpalatable (“What do you mean Hitler will be no worse off in hell than my ’nice’ unbelieving neighbor?!”) does not make it any less true. As I have said before, the cross is truly scandalous grace—and what is even more scandalous is that God gives a real offer of salvation to every single human being who has ever lived… even those who—in our opinion—actually deserve a healthy dose of eternal suffering (e.g., those who rape and murder children). That is how far God has gone in offering a genuine choice to all mankind.

For people who still balk at this teaching (viewing it as too lenient upon the truly evil), consider Paul. If God made Paul (who—prior to his conversion in Acts 9—was a fierce persecutor of the Early Church) the Apostle to the Gentiles, then when you find fault with God for showing grace to sinners who you think are too evil, are you saying God made a mistake with Paul?

God is Life

God > Is life

Saving the lives of His creatures is a natural consequence of God’s truth and faithfulness. Out of the intrinsic veracity and trustworthiness of His character, God honors His gracious and merciful promise to restore us to Himself and thereby to eternal life, delivering us from the condemnation of death accruing to us in our sinful state. In doing so, however, He has not failed to resolve the competing demands of His goodness and love on the one hand, with those of His holiness and justice on the other (as evil suggests He must). For God has found a way in accordance with His character to eliminate the wall of sin and consequent wrath which separates us from Him, and has done so through the gift and sacrifice of His only Son on our behalf (He died that we might have life). Peace is the biblical name for God’s life-giving policy of reconciling us to Himself on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. We accept and receive God’s offer of life, peace, and reconciliation by accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Contrasting eternal life and eternal death

Believers > Live lives of eternal, spiritual purpose Unbelievers > Are already positionally dead

Note

This is a video-only section.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

0:00 0:00 - all right so right now we are going to be picking up with the next lesson in our series here on Bible basics part one
0:07 0:07 - theology proper talking about God’s perfect character so in the last lesson
0:12 0:12 - we were examining God’s infinite nature and what that tells us about his abilities and now we’re going to be
0:17 0:17 - picking up examining God’s perfect character and how that can help us understand his motives and so here are
0:25 0:25 - the things that we are going to be going through in this lesson we’re going to start out with an introduction of what
0:30 0:30 - it means for God to have perfect character kind of talking a little bit about the word perfect uh the Greek word
0:36 0:36 - as it shows up in Matthew 548 then we’re going to be talking about how God is good and holy and faithful and true um
0:44 0:44 - these uh very similar to when we were talking about God’s nature being essential characteristics of God that
0:49 0:49 - then manifest in the universe as love Justice and life um and so in the same
0:56 0:56 - way that we kind of had the section in the last lesson uh talking about how God is unique serving as a bridge between
1:03 1:03 - the essential characteristics of God and how they manifest in creation we’re going to have that same sort of
1:08 1:08 - structure here with this section on how God is Sovereign um in fact this is even a bit more fleshed out than the God is
1:15 1:15 - unique section from the last one and so you’ll see what I mean when we get there this will probably be one of the larger
1:20 1:20 - subsections in our examination of things in this study talking about um how God’s
1:27 1:27 - goodness Holiness and faithfulness and Truth manifest in terms of Love Justice and life and what that means in terms of
1:33 1:33 - God’s Sovereign control of all creation so these are the things that we are going to be talking about here in this
1:42 1:42 - lesson all right so the first thing that we are going to be doing here to introduce the topic of this lesson is
1:49 1:49 - talking about God’s perfect character which is irreplaceable and blameless and every way and so this is the verse here
1:57 1:57 - uh that we pull up uh to kind of introduce the topic Matthew 5: 48 says
2:03 2:03 - that you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect and the
2:08 2:08 - vocabulary here is the Greek word toos um so this is an adjective um and a
2:14 2:14 - little bit more than an English perhaps this word has the sense of completion of fullness of lacking nothing and so when
2:21 2:21 - we think of perfect in English um I don’t know if we necessarily have all those same connotations that go along
2:27 2:27 - with it but toos in Greek has this idea of something that has been uh fully
2:33 2:33 - accomplished something that has been done realized it’s at its end so to
2:38 2:38 - speak it is brought to completion and that is the quotative sense of this of
2:43 2:43 - this word meaning perfect here in Greek and so that is what God is um so when
2:49 2:49 - grasped God’s Perfection is perfection in every way and according to any conceivable true standard um and as we
2:56 2:56 - say this is going to help us understand God’s motives um as a moral agent God’s
3:02 3:02 - perfect character will never be less than the highest the best and the purest that the human mind can comprehend um to
3:08 3:08 - the nth degree and so just as God’s nature is infinite so too is his
3:13 3:13 - character uh unimpeachable he is perfect in the superlative sense of every
3:19 3:19 - positive moral characteristic and that is what we are going to be examining as we move forward uh talking about some of
3:26 3:26 - his characteristics of of goodness uh wow I’m forgetting them off the top of
3:32 3:32 - my head of goodness and then his Justice faithfulness and Truth moving into the
3:37 3:37 - applied characteristics as well so a do you have anything you want to say just about the idea of perfection in general
3:44 3:44 - as it applies to God um I would say uh as a sort of uh
3:52 3:52 - contextualization uh of of this discussion so far it is this um that uh
4:00 4:00 - uh in in discussing theology we’re asking the
4:05 4:05 - question why should we trust
4:10 4:10 - God that is um that is that is a okay let me see if
4:17 4:17 - I can get into it just a little bit hopefully you won’t see the minute um the subject of the Bible is really God
4:24 4:24 - and his plan which of course is centered around the Lord Jesus Christ so so uh
4:31 4:31 - what we are seeking to do is to is to get to know why we we are right to place
4:39 4:39 - our trust in God at least the one that’s revealed in the
4:44 4:44 - Bible and why that one is the right God because just like Paul says there are gods and Lords many but we know that
4:52 4:52 - there is only one God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ so when we are looking
5:00 5:00 - at um theology the study of God we’re looking at who first of all what is he
5:07 5:07 - and in fact those two components what is he and who is he are really um two parts
5:16 5:16 - of one whole what is a thing made of and what does a thing do so what is God’s
5:23 5:23 - nature what what is he at his core and what does he do as a rule these
5:33 5:33 - are the two things that tell us what a thing is and who who a person is so when
5:40 5:40 - we studied God is unique we were learning how he is deity how he is that which is that
5:50 5:50 - thing that separate from everything else that exists now when we’re looking at his character we’re coming to
5:57 5:57 - see this is also why he does different things than every
6:03 6:03 - everything else that exists so we discovering God as a person in his own
6:10 6:10 - right and his Perfection is a necessary part of that discussion because it tells
6:15 6:15 - us this is why we can trust him we know his abilities now we know his
6:25 6:25 - character so that’s um that’s what I would say about that
6:30 6:30 - it’s a it’s it’s a question of keeping our eyes on what on what the context is what we’re trying to uh um get to know
6:39 6:39 - so that we are confirmed in trusting the Lord as we come to discover what his
6:46 6:46 - plan is and are plac in that plan right and I think that’s why the
6:51 6:51 - focus on this section um as the study mentions is Illuminating God’s motives
6:57 6:57 - why does God operate in the way which he does and what is the reason behind it um
7:03 7:03 - you know what are his plans as it regards us as moral creatures in the universe um so again not so much what
7:11 7:11 - can he do because as we’ve established God can do anything within material creation but why God does the things he
7:19 7:19 - does especially as we’ll see in coming slides here as we go through this lesson
7:25 7:25 - especially as it relates to redeeming mankind um God’s relationship to us as Humanity the ways in which he has saved
7:32 7:32 - us from the just consequences of our sins through the sacrifice of his son on the cross um that is what we get at it
7:40 7:40 - when we talk about well why does God do what he does um what is his plan for
7:45 7:45 - Redemptive human history of mankind um so we will elaborate on all of this more
7:51 7:51 - as we go but for the first several slides we will be focusing on um God’s essential characteristics of goodness
7:58 7:58 - holy Hess and faithfulness and truth so I misspoke early it was Holiness not justice justice is the applied one but
8:04 8:04 - that is where we will pick up to begin this discussion in this lesson all right so we had a question here about
8:12 8:12 - basically why does this verse in Matthew Chapter 5 tell us to be perfect like god
8:17 8:17 - is perfect if we have absolutely no ability to live up to that standard um
8:23 8:23 - we cannot be perfect in the same way that God is right we said God is unique in his abilities he’s also unique in his
8:30 8:30 - moral perfection uh so I always view this as a standard um so we are supposed
8:36 8:36 - to be dead to sin as Christians that doesn’t mean that we are completely free from the grip of sin um so when we say
8:44 8:44 - uh when the Bible says that we are to be perfect this is what our goal should be
8:50 8:50 - um we shouldn’t make excuses for oursel we should not try to draw a line in the
8:55 8:55 - sand and say uh you know no further God this is as far as I will go this is as
9:00 9:00 - much as I’m willing to sacrifice but we need to press forward towards the standard that is complete Perfection
9:06 9:06 - because that is what God is um that is what we should strive to be um so um I
9:14 9:14 - don’t see a contradiction inherently in that being the standard that’s set for us even though we’ll never meet it
9:20 9:20 - because God knows that that’s why he sent his only son to die for us to make up that distance between us um the
9:27 9:27 - distance that just to be clear is there inherently we could not even if we were
9:32 9:32 - perfect which no human being can be because of the sin nature um uh this gets into a false Doctrine called
9:39 9:39 - pelagianism uh even one of us you know were we to quote unquote live a perfect
9:44 9:44 - life which is impossible we still have this distance between us and God a do you want to uh clarify this verse at all
9:53 9:53 - if you were talking you muted can you hear me yeah I can hear you now
10:00 10:00 - okay um I don’t know if if it’s just a network issues on my end you keep
10:07 10:07 - breaking up um but if you can hear me let me say this like you said and
10:14 10:14 - another way that Prof Robert actually puts this matter of Matthew 5:48 is that
10:21 10:21 - um it’s a job description so it’s like this is what you should be
10:26 10:26 - doing and if you’re not doing it right then you try to do it better you know
10:31 10:31 - it’s your job description it it doesn’t mean that we could possibly be that perfect uh Perfection is a gift that the
10:39 10:39 - Lord is going to give to us but our responsibility is
10:46 10:46 - to push toward it so it’s like working out just how the scripture say work out
10:51 10:51 - your salvation with fear and trembling so we are we we we are like him in in
10:59 10:59 - the sense since we have been born again we have the seed of God in us we are his
11:08 11:08 - children carrying his DNA so to speak so we should act like it is what this place
11:14 11:14 - is saying so we’re not supposed to um think in terms of first of all that we
11:20 11:20 - can be be that perfect by our efforts no that’s not what it’s saying at all and
11:27 11:27 - second of all that um we are somehow because there are people who hold that view too we are
11:34 11:34 - perfect simply because we are children of God no we will be made perfect we’re
11:40 11:40 - looking forward to that but the lord requires us to live like people who are
11:47 11:47 - aiming to be perfect so um in other words as long as we are not perfect we
11:54 11:54 - have work to do that’s it that’s the way we should be thinking about our lives um
11:59 11:59 - then regarding Noah exactly as uh Lisa said
12:08 12:08 - um that was that was speaking to his Humanity he was not an
12:15 12:15 - Neel he was perfect a perfect human being like a true human being not
12:21 12:21 - tainted in any way by the uh manipulations and uh what not of um the
12:30 12:30 - uh the rebel Angels at the time that’s what that was speaking to it wasn’t speaking to his character
12:37 12:37 - or well yeah it wasn’t speaking to his character where it spoke to his character was where it said that um he
12:43 12:43 - was upright or something of that sort I don’t remember the exact phrase used um
12:50 12:50 - so uh that was speaking to his Humanity we have evidence of the fact that he
12:56 12:56 - certainly was not perfect in character with the wine thing you know of course
13:01 13:01 - not that he was a drunk but then we should remember that Perfection is not that you do everything right when you’re
13:07 13:07 - cognizant of it it is that even when you’re not cognizant of it you’re doing the right thing so you can’t be wrong
13:16 13:16 - you can’t do the wrong thing unconscious of that the Perfection of Jesus Christ
13:22 13:22 - is how that was the Perfection of God is like is how that was so the fact that you didn’t know that something was wrong
13:28 13:28 - does not absolve you of guilt so likewise the fact that he did not know that he was
13:36 13:36 - about to get drunk when he planted a vineard and you know made juice from it
13:42 13:42 - and and had the juice and didn’t know it was going to do all of that to him his
13:48 13:48 - only proof that he was just like us like every other human being flawed in his
13:55 13:55 - character because he was flawed in his knowledge so um I just it wasn’t speaking this
14:01 14:01 - character not that we want to get too caught up in the grammar and things this is the Hebrew here my Hebrew is a lot
14:07 14:07 - rer than my Greek is um I did have a year of it in college but my Greek was much better because I had four years of that um so we have a prepositional
14:14 14:14 - phrase here um this is this word here in Hebrew Hebrew is read right to left of
14:19 14:19 - course so uh this is a masculine plural form uh that means over here if you want
14:24 14:24 - to look at the Lexicon uh I think you could get away translating either of
14:30 14:30 - like sort of times he was a man perfect in his times or his Generations um that
14:36 14:36 - KJV is quite literal um over here we see that KJV and KJV translate this as
14:42 14:42 - perfect in his generations and like aie has been clarifying this is with regards
14:47 14:47 - to the fact that he was uh not of one of the Bloodlines of the Nephilim um he had
14:55 14:55 - uh he and his forefathers you know to be fair it’s not just him had kept themselves uh set apart and pure in the
15:03 15:03 - corruption that was racing through the world at his time and that is more or less what we should take this uh to be
15:10 15:10 - what the text is getting at blameless or perfect in his Generations is getting at that sense not that Noah was an immoral
15:18 15:18 - person but that it wasn’t drawing some sort of distinction between his perfect morality versus US normal humans but
15:25 15:25 - that it was specifically getting towards that um I don’t know if that helps at all or
15:30 15:30 - just makes it more confusing but uh anything to add there Audi or is that how we can close off these questions oh
15:39 15:39 - no I think uh that’s that’s the wrap on that I think we can move on to the discussion now okay great well we will
15:46 15:46 - pick up then um moving on towards those characteristics like we said we’re gonna do the first time picking up with God is
15:56 15:56 - good so on the first first of these characteristics of God describing his
16:01 16:01 - perfect character we’re going to be talking about how God is good now before I pick up here I’m going to note that uh
16:08 16:08 - Dr lugan buil in the study since these paragraphs are coming out of the study has a few key vocabulary words that will
16:14 16:14 - keep coming back up so we talked about goodness Holiness faithful and true
16:19 16:19 - right those are essential characteristics of God part of his perfect character that will come to
16:24 16:24 - manifest in creation um as love Justice and let me see love Justice and life um
16:34 16:34 - and alongside those things we know that um the kind of mindset that God has
16:40 16:40 - towards us corresponding to his goodness is Grace corresponding to his Justice is
16:46 16:46 - Mercy and corresponding to his life the life that he has through reconcil
16:51 16:51 - reconciling us to him is peace and so uh before we get too far ahead of ourselves
16:57 16:57 - I do have a table uh that we’ll get through partway through this lesson that kind of maps all this out to kind of
17:02 17:02 - help keep it straight but you’ll notice that certain words here are kind of bolded or sorry uh italicized uh in the
17:09 17:09 - text of these and this again is done so on the study itself uh you know I just made the slides pulling from the study
17:15 17:15 - and that’s because Dr Lil is trying to get us to follow these patterns um of how these words relate to each other uh
17:22 17:22 - as as to how they relate towards uh God’s character and his uh sort of his
17:29 17:29 - um attitude towards us as sinful humanity and so uh starting out here um
17:34 17:34 - I know that was a bit of a a rambly introduction uh here specifically we’re talking about how God is good and so the
17:41 17:41 - Hebrew word for good is Tove here Tove and it is the antithesis of evil um so
17:47 17:47 - I’m GNA go ahead and just read this paragraph um uh this part of the study I will say has almost a very poetic bent
17:53 17:53 - to it I think part of that is just Dr Lille has taken care to arrange the paragraph
17:59 17:59 - so such that they’re very parallel to each other um so they they share a similar sentence structure in terms of
18:05 18:05 - how he organizes the terms and the concepts and you’ll certainly see that when we get to uh the summary section of
18:11 18:11 - this there’s a uh a grouping of how he he words it that really comes off very poetic um but in these paragraphs even
18:18 18:18 - here you’ll get this sense of The Wider scale behind the characteristics of God
18:24 18:24 - that we’re talking about um and this is why I kind of made the point that we’re specifically looking at God’s character
18:30 18:30 - to help illuminate why he takes the actions he does with respect to us as Humanity um God’s attitude towards us as
18:36 18:36 - sinful man um so I’m gonna go ahead and I will probably just read these uh as the way as we go through again uh keep
18:43 18:43 - in mind that the italicized words we will link those back up as important vocabulary here um as we make sense of
18:51 18:51 - the sovereignty of God and how he uh acts in the universe but going to go ahead and read this paragraph here so so
18:58 18:58 - it says so how does goodness respond to sinful man in his goodness God always
19:04 19:04 - has our best interests his heart therefore his desire for us to be free from Evil and devoted to good is genuine
19:12 19:12 - even though we are sinful and by Nature Unworthy of his Blessing in his goodness God has nevertheless found a gracious
19:18 19:18 - way to redeem us from sin without compromising his character namely by giving us the gift of his son Jesus
19:26 19:26 - Christ now as we go and we look at the other characteristics of God you’ll keep seeing uh kind of this closing remark
19:34 19:34 - come up over and over again God has resolved all of the sort of uh the
19:42 19:42 - manifestations of his character what his character demands of him in terms of love and Justice uh through the cross of
19:48 19:48 - Jesus Christ it was the move that the devil never saw coming uh the the move
19:53 19:53 - that completely won the game in a victory that cannot be turned back so Jesus Christ defeated sin and death once
20:00 20:00 - for all on the cross I mean it is the central turning point of human history where God won the battle not that there
20:07 20:07 - was any chance that he would ever lose but it was the action that God took that
20:13 20:13 - completely changed everything uh for his relationship with humankind and so that
20:19 20:19 - is how uh you know for this slide specifically that is how we are seeing God’s goodness uh this action that he
20:26 20:26 - took on our behalf a gracious way to redeem us but as you’ll see um as I’ve kind of been harping on here this will
20:32 20:32 - come up over and over again the cross is the action uh through which we can see
20:37 20:37 - God’s character working in his plan to redeem Humanity so opening this discussion aie
20:44 20:44 - do you have more things you want to say on the goodness of God I I just thought of uh James one
20:52 20:52 - where it said God is light and um uh there is
20:59 20:59 - no not there is no shadow of turning with him I think there’s um there’s no
21:04 21:04 - Darkness at all in him so I think that uh that is one of the things that
21:10 21:10 - Professor Robert is trying is is looking to get at with that section um so I I
21:16 21:16 - will say also that um yeah let me see if if I will find that that
21:23 21:23 - is I think it’s earlier in the chapter yes okay there there is no shifting
21:30 21:30 - Shadow mhm okay with him there is no shifting Shadow but there’s another place where
21:35 21:35 - it says God is light and uh you might be thinking of John the Gospel of John is
21:41 21:41 - that possible oh yeah you’re right first John one right or first
21:47 21:47 - John John the Gospel of John chapter one talks about how the light came into the world I think I know what you’re talking
21:52 21:52 - about have to I’ll have to look for the passage um I was thinking it was James chapter one
21:59 21:59 - um God is light and uh there is no Darkness at all in him is first John it
22:05 22:05 - is first John one picking up at verse five yeah yeah correct so in him there
22:11 22:11 - is no Darkness at all so I think I see where Professor Robert is going or
22:17 22:17 - looking to you know get to with uh what he’s saying there but every time that
22:26 22:26 - I’ve thought of discussing um the character of God I find
22:31 22:31 - myself uh wanting to speak from the perspective that God is love and then
22:37 22:37 - unfolding the characteristics of love you know um first uh 1 Corinthians 13
22:44 22:44 - where it says Love Is This Love is that and all of that because I I feel like um in exploring
22:51 22:51 - that we will come to probably when I say Fuller appreciation
22:58 22:58 - of what Professor Robert is trying to say there uh I I think um Lisa captured
23:04 23:04 - it correctly when she said that um theology is a bit dense because it it
23:10 23:10 - packs so much into so uh little really and if you come at God’s character from
23:19 23:19 - from the fact that he is love a lot of things will begin get to unfold I will say we will we will get
23:25 23:25 - there um that is one of the the applied goodness in creation um yeah it is a
23:31 23:31 - slide in this lesson but uh it is five or six in the future at this point yeah I the
23:39 23:39 - uh how he structured it basically is what I would change is what I’m saying I
23:45 23:45 - find myself wanting to do that but I’ve not explored it as fully as I want to yet suffice to say that when he’s
23:52 23:52 - talking about God’s goodness and talking about the antithesis the fact that it is
23:57 23:57 - the antithesis of evil um this this uh uh reading in 1 John 1 um is very very
24:08 24:08 - much what it reminds me of the idea that we’re still we’re still saying this that
24:15 24:15 - God is different than um Satan
24:21 24:21 - than I wouldn’t say just the universe because he made the universe to be good and then it got corrupted because of the
24:27 24:27 - reion of Satan and uh all other creatures that agreed to um join him in
24:33 24:33 - his Rebellion but the idea here is God is not just good in that um he he
24:45 24:45 - is not evil he is good in the sense that he cannot be
24:51 24:51 - evil that he is good so that you define good by him and
25:00 25:00 - everything that is not him everything that does not derive
25:05 25:05 - from him is evil so something of that sort is what we’re looking at when when
25:11 25:11 - when um Professor Robert matches good and evil in this way that he actually
25:17 25:17 - says God God is good and he says it is that is the antithesis of evil he’s
25:24 25:24 - saying that there is no way to find evil in God which is something that is
25:29 25:29 - speaking to the satanic Rebellion when Satan imputed God’s character with the
25:36 25:36 - accusations he made and he did the same thing with Adam and Eve when he said you
25:42 25:42 - will not surely die God is just trying to prevent you from becoming like him he’s trying to keep something from you
25:49 25:49 - he wants it all for himself so to speak now this is essentially
25:56 25:56 - attacking God’s character and saying it is not what it is but God cannot be
26:02 26:02 - corrupted at all in any way he it’s impossible to corrupt him is
26:08 26:08 - the idea of his being the antithesis of evil it is not possible at any point to
26:15 26:15 - find evil in God so when when that question has arisen in in apologetics um is something
26:23 26:23 - good because God decreed it or did God decree something because it is good
26:28 26:28 - the answer to that really is if God says it or if God does it then
26:36 26:36 - it is good that’s it yeah well because this to
26:41 26:41 - me he is all good I I think it’s another one of those things where we what Audi
26:47 26:47 - is is getting into is one of those apologetics questions um I is this not ether froze dilemma is that what it’s
26:54 26:54 - called um I think you hard named youth
26:59 26:59 - fro am I right or right yeah look at that um well we
27:07 27:07 - don’t need to get into this I I’ve heard this before um you know is uh whatever um it looks like it came
27:15 27:15 - up initially with Socrates or you know Socrates via Plato um but the whole
27:20 27:20 - point is uh God is UN Alena good right good by definition uh the metric upon
27:27 27:27 - which evil is defined comes through God’s goodness um so for us in
27:33 27:33 - practice uh this is another one of those things where uh sometimes we might be tempted to put God in a box again and
27:40 27:40 - say well how can we say God is good when there is suffering in the world or given
27:46 27:46 - this this kind of very obviously horrific thing on the face of it well how can we have a good loving God you
27:53 27:53 - know and we’ll get into this more as we unpack uh other aspects of God’s charactera character but how can we
27:59 27:59 - believe that if this happens um that is a very common doubt um that people have
28:06 28:06 - when it comes to the character of God um I don’t see the purpose in this suffering or in this evil in the world
28:13 28:13 - um and so how can we say God is good you know that is the sort of challenge that comes up but it it kind of we are once
28:21 28:21 - again when we do that we aren’t appreciating how big God is and how
28:26 28:26 - small our own perspective is in this um you know it’s sort of like uh a a child
28:31 28:31 - will say that um you know letting them eat lots of candy is good right it makes them happy but we know as adults that
28:39 28:39 - the thing that comes after eating an entire bag full of candies and upset stomach um that is the sort of shift in
28:46 28:46 - perspective that I’m getting at here um so we could very easily get off topic of talking about a whole bunch of aspects
28:53 28:53 - of of all of this but you know I think as we go we will continue to clarify more about some of the aspects of God’s
29:00 29:00 - character um and how we have to keep that perspective always in our heads about how much bigger God is than our
29:07 29:07 - own perspective um and some of that just involves the faith on our part to trust
29:12 29:12 - that even at the times when we don’t understand our default position needs to be to trust in God’s character rather
29:19 29:19 - than doubting it or feeling that it can’t possibly be so um because no
29:25 29:25 - matter what sometimes we may be pressured to feel by our emotions leading us astray we need to have that
29:31 29:31 - sure confidence that God’s character is perfect uh the Bible tells us so right
29:36 29:36 - right here Matthew 548 what we talked about and if the Bible tells us that then we need to trust that even when we
29:42 29:42 - have a hard time understanding it um that could be a tricky lesson for us but that is certainly the standard to which we are called so I think that’s where
29:50 29:50 - we’ll wrap our initial discussion here on God being good and we will pick up next with God being holy
30:00 30:00 - all right so the next aspect of God’s perfect character that we are going to be discussing is God’s holiness and so
30:07 30:07 - just as before Dr Lugo gives us the Hebrew word here uh Holiness here is
30:13 30:13 - kados um again Hebrew readed right to left um so when we say God is Holy he is
30:19 30:19 - completely separate from Evil he set apart so what this Hebrew word means the Greek word equivalent is hos I don’t
30:27 30:27 - have that up on the oops I don’t have that up on the screen here but uh equivalent word in Greek as well and so
30:33 30:33 - holiness means being completely set apart and separate from Evil so again I said I was going to be reading these
30:38 30:38 - paragraphs getting that kind of poetic tilt to it and again notice the italicized word here here being merciful
30:45 30:45 - and that’s what corresponds to God’s holiness So reading this paragraph we say so how does holiness respond to
30:52 30:52 - sinful man in his Holiness God can never compromise his perfect standard for any
30:57 30:57 - reason therefore his commitment to condemning evil and rewarding good is inviolable but even though we are sinful
31:04 31:04 - and by Nature deserving of his judgment in his Holiness God has nevertheless found a merciful way to justify us in
31:11 31:11 - spite of our sin without violating his character namely by judging his son Jesus Christ in our place so I said that
31:20 31:20 - this uh ending refrain was going to come up time and again that the solution to
31:25 31:25 - all of these apparent contradictions how God relates to sinful man are solved uh through the cross through his Judgment
31:32 31:32 - of his son Jesus Christ to take the place uh for the uh payment of our sins
31:38 31:38 - um and so this uh with regards to his Holiness God could not let sin go unpunished but in his Mercy Jesus Christ
31:46 31:46 - stood in the gap between us and he took the punishment on our behalf on that is
31:52 31:52 - Mercy uh satisfying the Holiness that’s part of God’s character um also his
31:58 31:58 - goodness um his love for us so um do you
32:03 32:03 - have thoughts you want to say on Holiness yeah sure
32:08 32:08 - um so when I don’t know if anyone else has thought about this but the feeling I
32:15 32:15 - had um the first time that I was going through Bible basics and I came to God
32:21 32:21 - is good and then God is Holy was I’m not sure I see the difference I mean
32:27 32:27 - God is good God is Holy and then you go on to say first of all the the statement
32:34 32:34 - he made with God is good is um it is the God’s character is good it is the
32:40 32:40 - antithesis of evil and then he says God’s character is Holy it is completely
32:47 32:47 - separate from Evil so it’s like I mean didn’t you just say the same thing
32:53 32:53 - in two different ways right so why why do you need to talk about God’s holiness
32:58 32:58 - as a separate thing from God’s goodness in the first instance we’re
33:03 33:03 - talking about how nothing that is evil comes from God
33:10 33:10 - at all like this evil by by very by by
33:16 33:16 - its very definition is an opposition to God so God cannot do evil there is no
33:23 33:23 - possibility that if anything is evil it has its roots or origins in God this is
33:29 33:29 - very important in our walk with the Lord because I mean when you get to a
33:36 33:36 - certain stage and not too far into your walk with the Lord you do you do start to see that it makes no sense to ascribe
33:44 33:44 - certain things to the Lord because they simply can’t be him he simply can’t be
33:50 33:50 - like that um but Holiness is that there’s a
33:57 33:57 - subtle difference here and the subtle difference is not just that nothing evil
34:02 34:02 - can come from the Lord but that if it is
34:10 34:10 - evil it has nothing to do with God so
34:15 34:15 - it’s not just that it does not come from him but he is utterly separated from it
34:22 34:22 - and the separation is not is not a small one it’s a wide
34:28 34:28 - golf so when you see
34:33 34:33 - goodness or something that looks good but does not derive from God and it is
34:40 34:40 - actually evil the better you know the Lord the easier it is for you to tell that that thing is not it has nothing to
34:47 34:47 - do with god so let’s talk about that in job it says that
34:53 34:53 - he he found fault with his holy ones now that’s a very big
35:01 35:01 - statement to make because Satan was so smart that it felt like his evil looked
35:07 35:07 - like good he could get away with what he was doing because God couldn’t condemn it but God still found fault with it and
35:15 35:15 - a lot of times in our own minds this is how sin actually seduces us we come to
35:21 35:21 - think that we can we can understand a certain thing as being well not so bad
35:27 35:27 - or well even good it’s we don’t have a
35:34 35:34 - problem as we are right now people who have been training in the scriptures for
35:40 35:40 - so long now in in Discerning that certain things
35:47 35:47 - are just not God we don’t have a problem Discerning
35:53 35:53 - that but look at the world around us there are those who are you might think
36:00 36:00 - of them as being mischievous when they say certain
36:06 36:06 - things but you you you might not actually see that they really do believe the things they’re
36:12 36:12 - saying some people really do believe that one of the most popular
36:18 36:18 - issues in the world today the LGBT thing is approved by God and they have
36:24 36:24 - intricate involved arguments to persuade themselves and other people that this is
36:31 36:31 - not really separate from God’s holy standard they they find it in consonance
36:38 36:38 - with God himself and yet there’s a wide Gulf that
36:44 36:44 - cannot be bridged between where they stand and where God is and the reason they can’t
36:52 36:52 - see that is because they don’t know God’s character to be holy
36:58 36:58 - okay so that’s one aspect of it that there is this massive separation between God and all that is evil the other thing
37:05 37:05 - about it too is because God is Holy there is no reconciliation between God
37:12 37:12 - and all that is evil so as we said with his goodness everything that is evil
37:17 37:17 - stands in opposition to who God is and what God is about everything that God
37:22 37:22 - does stands in opposition to all that is evil now we see that everything that God
37:29 37:29 - does or is about is separate like it you cannot find it in any agreement with
37:36 37:36 - things that are evil okay now this also means that every time there is evil
37:44 37:44 - being done it there is a condemnation already a Divine condemnation on that thing
37:52 37:52 - there is no possibility of reconciling it to God this is also why um
37:58 37:58 - those well in Psalm it actually says evil shall not dwell with God there is no possibility of God coexisting with
38:06 38:06 - that so that might raise a question for us which we have actually touched on uh
38:12 38:12 - in our discussions at some point how then does God interact with the world filled as it is with evil
38:20 38:20 - there’s such a separation between him and evil that there cannot be any
38:26 38:26 - reconciliation right up to the point that even before evil existed there was
38:32 38:32 - something there was a need for a cherub that covered a cherub that made a
38:38 38:38 - difference between who God is and what God is about and all that is not what God is about and even after the fall
38:46 38:46 - after Satan’s rebellion and after uh well after after Satan’s Rebellion after
38:52 38:52 - man’s fall we still see that there was a cherub or cherubim now that guarded the
38:59 38:59 - way to God and said essentially now that you are stained you cannot come close to
39:04 39:04 - me so how then is God operating in an
39:09 39:09 - evil world today so this this is a question we will
39:16 39:16 - explore a little bit but we get we get a clue in what
39:21 39:21 - um Roberts says when he says in his Holiness God has nevertheless found a merciful way to justify us now if you go
39:29 39:29 - to First John again chapter one it says that he that he he is faithful and just
39:35 39:35 - to forgive us so there is Justice a righteousness a
39:42 39:42 - goodness in the Lord actually forgiving Sinners when remember again there is no
39:48 39:48 - reconciliation between God and anything that is evil so now we are getting a
39:54 39:54 - hint at a mass mive miracle in God that
39:59 39:59 - makes it possible for him to forgive sin us so again I will say that the way that Professor Robert actually structure this
40:05 40:05 - discussion of theology is to make this point of the miracle of Jesus Christ for
40:11 40:11 - us I would structure it differently but I but the point here is he’s he’s
40:16 40:16 - driving at telling us Jesus is the point and Jesus is the miracle that would make
40:22 40:22 - it possible for a God who is utterly holy completely sep from everything that
40:27 40:27 - is evil to reconcile Sinners to himself that’s the miracle sure I mean I
40:34 40:34 - I definitely pointed that out that is the theme that is continually cycled back to in how he structures these
40:41 40:41 - statements on God’s character it’s all about turning us back to see how the cross is the thing that reconciles all
40:48 40:48 - these aspects of God’s character now I will say uh we probably don’t need to spend too much more time talking about
40:54 40:54 - how can a holy God dwell among uh you know sin because we definitely spent time talking about that with
41:00 41:00 - regards to light and Glory that was a couple uh a couple lessons back at this
41:05 41:05 - point but um one other thing to mention AI kind of brought up this idea of uh
41:10 41:10 - well if God is the antithesis of evil and we say his Holiness means he’s completely separate from Evil what’s the
41:16 41:16 - distinction um at risk of oversimplifying uh I think it would go something like God cannot sin because he
41:23 41:23 - is good but God cannot tolerate sin because he is Holy um so not so much his
41:30 41:30 - sin but the sin of other beings um Holiness has an intolerance for the sin
41:36 41:36 - the presence of sin in a way that simply not sinning oneself is somewhat different um so that’s how I view God’s
41:43 41:43 - holiness bril and that’s also what ties us all the way back to like Audi said
41:49 41:49 - the cross of Jesus Christ being a miracle right how we reconcile God’s
41:54 41:54 - holiness with sinful creatures is nothing short of miraculous it is the
41:59 41:59 - very thing that saves us uh that gives us our life here in the world is that
42:05 42:05 - God condemned Jesus Christ in our place and we need to view that and again I certainly there are you know there’s
42:11 42:11 - almost an infinite uh degree of ways to structure things to go about talking about who God is what his character is
42:18 42:18 - but like Audi said the way in which this particular structure is structured this particular study is structured is trying
42:25 42:25 - to draw emphasis that uh the cross of Jesus Christ is what reconciles these
42:31 42:31 - aspects of God’s character um so uh I don’t have too much more to say
42:36 42:36 - I think we have covered this one well um that is what makes Holiness um you know a distinct characteristic of God and I
42:43 42:43 - would say almost arguably the characteristic of God that poses the greatest challenge to us as sinful human
42:49 42:49 - beings right um you know yeah we we we have this huge Gulf like you’ve been
42:55 42:55 - saying between between us and God um this is the aspect of God’s character that challenges our right to Salvation
43:03 43:03 - um and that’s why the cross of Jesus Christ is such blessed good news for us
43:09 43:09 - um that God is the one who bridged that Gulf through his son yeah all right well I think that is
43:16 43:16 - where we will wrap on Holiness and next we will be picking up with how God is
43:21 43:21 - faithful and true all right so picking up with the
43:28 43:28 - next aspect of God’s character God being faithful and true so we have two Hebrew
43:34 43:34 - words here remember Hebrews right to left but this here is Omen and Emet
43:39 43:39 - these are other fundamental aspects of God’s character so God’s character is
43:45 43:45 - faithful and true it is actively opposed to evil um so God cannot sin God cannot
43:51 43:51 - tolerate sin God actively opposes sin and evil um God being faithful and true
43:58 43:58 - uh you know truth and lies um aie brought this up when uh he he brought up first John chapter 1 talking about light
44:04 44:04 - and darkness uh good and evil light and darkness truth and lies these are all
44:10 44:10 - binary distinctions and God is uh good and light and Truth as opposed to evil
44:16 44:16 - and darkness and lies um and so all of these are just ways in which we can
44:22 44:22 - conceptualize God’s character and his relationship to the world so uh just as for the last two going to go ahead and
44:28 44:28 - read this paragraph and note again how it always turns back to thinking in
44:33 44:33 - terms of Jesus Christ and the cross as the solution to reconciling us to God um
44:39 44:39 - so this paragraph says so how do truth and faithfulness respond to sinful man
44:44 44:44 - in his faithfulness and Truth God is entirely reliable and trustworthy in all that he promises to us and does for us
44:52 44:52 - therefore his veracity and dependability in offering us a way through Jesus Jesus Christ to escape the evil of death and
44:58 44:58 - embrace the good of eternal life are Beyond reproach so even though we are sinful and by nature objects of his
45:05 45:05 - wrath in his faithfulness and Truth God has nevertheless found a way to make peace between himself and us and to
45:12 45:12 - remove the enity between himself and US caused by our sins without corrupting
45:17 45:17 - his character namely by reconciling us to himself through the death of his son Jesus Christ so um God and and this kind
45:26 45:26 - of gets also to what AI said last time uh 1 John chter 1:9 says that God is
45:32 45:32 - faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and all unrighteousness right um it’s on the
45:38 45:38 - basis of the blood of Christ that God can do that but he has promised us
45:44 45:44 - Redemption he promised Adam and Eve Redemption right after the fall Genesis chapter 3 um I can’t remember if it’s
45:51 45:51 - verse 15 I think it’s verse 17 let me see how good my memory is the Proto evangelium
45:57 45:57 - um no yeah no okay not 17 my memory is not
46:03 46:03 - that great definitely Genesis chapter 3 though after the curse probably it’s
46:09 46:09 - it’s 21 it’s 21 um and the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife
46:14 46:14 - and clothes and this so-called Proto evangelium the First Gospel that we have here God promises Adam and Eve
46:21 46:21 - Redemption salvation right the shedding of blood for the Forgiveness of sins as symbolized by the animals um you know
46:28 46:28 - this uh the the blood sacrifice necessary to fulfill his justice as
46:34 46:34 - we’ll get to his applied Holiness in creation but this is what we mean by God
46:39 46:39 - being faithful and true to forgive us of our sins and all un righteousness is that through Jesus Christ God is Not
46:45 46:45 - only able to but it is just it is uh you know according to his faithfulness and
46:51 46:51 - truth that he can forgive us of our sins because Jesus Christ has TR truly paid for it all um and again this is just
46:58 46:58 - where we get a sense of the scale of the Cross of what it represents as the solution to our problems as Humanity to
47:05 47:05 - the sin and death problem to our that yawning Chasm between us and God is that
47:12 47:12 - God has actually done so much already in sending his son to die for us that it is
47:19 47:19 - the right thing to do to forgive us it is in line with his character it is in
47:25 47:25 - line with truth to forgive us of our sins because Jesus Christ paid for them that should blow our minds a little bit
47:32 47:32 - right because we know that we sin every day and yet the Bible tells us that God
47:38 47:38 - is just in forgiving us on the basis of his cross it is in character with you
47:43 47:43 - know him being the god of Truth to forgive us of our sins um that blows my
47:49 47:49 - mind um so are there things you want to say on these aspects of God’s character
47:55 47:55 - Audi yeah I I really like the way you’re putting it I think it’s very simple and
48:01 48:01 - very succinct um I I want to stretch the bit the faithful and true thing is
48:09 48:09 - specifically addressing the satanic Rebellion so uh like I said the approach
48:16 48:16 - that I would have taken or that I still want to explore for myself is more from
48:23 48:23 - you know God’s character independent of the satanic Rebellion but
48:28 48:28 - this is in the context of our experience as sinful creatures who need Redemption and all of that which is very critical
48:36 48:36 - because the Cross of Christ is really the whole point okay so when he speaks
48:42 48:42 - to faithful and true this is actually a challenge to the satanic Rebellion which
48:48 48:48 - essentially said God is Not faithful and he is not true he clearly is keeping
48:54 48:54 - things from us things that are good for us he doesn’t want any competition so he’s keeping the best things for himself
49:02 49:02 - um so this this is what um Satan essentially did imping God’s character
49:09 49:09 - and this this is the nature of sin so if anyone has a question what is sin sin is
49:15 49:15 - always imping God’s character and seeking to take things from him that he
49:22 49:22 - has not given because we believe we have a right to them and God is denying us of
49:29 49:29 - them so um when it speaks to faithful when we when we talk of God’s
49:36 49:36 - character being faithful and true it is that he can be relied
49:44 49:44 - on he can be trusted and this is critical to our walk
49:49 49:49 - with the Lord especially in a world such as ours remembering again that the whole
49:54 49:54 - point of sin is is that God cannot be relied on so in a world where we are
50:00 50:00 - facing the pressures that essentially tell us why listen to him why don’t you
50:06 50:06 - do what you what you want because after all you can’t trust him to be seeking
50:12 50:12 - out what is best for you now the response of the Bible to that is he gave
50:17 50:17 - his son for your sin and think about
50:23 50:23 - it um when we take into account what you’ve just said Stephen how God delivered us through the
50:30 50:30 - sacrifice of Jesus Christ it’s amazing it’s amazing
50:37 50:37 - how someone who cannot tolerate sin someone who has no truck with sin he
50:44 50:44 - himself cannot do anything evil and cannot tolerate it can still forgive
50:51 50:51 - people who do in order for him to forgive people who do he has to do something
50:59 50:59 - incredible something that Satan could not have known about because there was no occasion for that thing to ever arise
51:05 51:05 - that God would create a
51:11 51:11 - sacrifice in order to make it possible for the one who cannot tolerate
51:17 51:17 - evil to restore to friendship with himself people who are
51:23 51:23 - evil that’s a tri if we have any question as to God’s faithfulness and to
51:29 51:29 - his truth that is the answer to it and that’s how we can get through the
51:34 51:34 - hardships of this life and the tribulations that will come always thinking just like Paul said if he gave
51:41 51:41 - us his son how will how how will he not together with him give us all things so
51:48 51:48 - that is the Touchstone of think think of this contrast you brought this up I think this is a good
51:54 51:54 - example uh contrast the Serpent’s accusation imputing the character of God
51:59 51:59 - you must not eat from any tree in the garden right up here with God’s promise
52:05 52:05 - of redemption right verse 21 yes God promises them salvation through the
52:10 52:10 - animal skins Satan says God’s not trustworthy why would God tell you you can’t eat from that tree right he
52:17 52:17 - implies something with that that’s not a neutral question that is a leading question saying yeah you know God doing
52:25 52:25 - this is in some way making him not looking out for your best for your ultimate good whereas in fact God
52:32 52:32 - promises Redemption and you have to just keep in mind think about the thousands of years in between Adam and Christ
52:39 52:39 - right 4,000 gber take right um and and when you think about that 4,000 years
52:47 52:47 - was this promise there I mean you think about Abraham right we’re talking about God’s faithfulness and Truth God tells
52:53 52:53 - Abraham he will have an heir and through that air you know the his descendants would be like the grains of sand upon
53:00 53:00 - the beach shore right Abraham had to wait decades for that son of promise
53:07 53:07 - right for the son of the Covenant and this idea that we have here
53:12 53:12 - of God demonstrating his faithfulness despite the odds how about Noah too while we’re on the topic of waiting um
53:19 53:19 - what hundreds of years right Noah built the ark 120 Am I Wrong um I don’t know I
53:25 53:25 - have to go look but decades upon decades Noah was trusting God and God
53:31 53:31 - was faithful right um but notice in all these instances people many people the
53:38 53:38 - world in fact says that God is not um Satan says God is not scoffers in the
53:43 53:43 - world say God is Not faithful um and sometimes like Abraham and Sarah having
53:49 53:49 - doubt sometimes we doubt it as well we doubt that God is really faithful um that he’ll really come through for us us
53:57 53:57 - so you know just as with the other things if we doubt that God is good on account of evil well if we doubt that
54:03 54:03 - God is faithful because we haven’t seen Deliverance up until this day like AI said just think about what that will
54:09 54:09 - mean uh when the tribulation comes Upon Us in the world if God has already given us his son while we were yet
54:16 54:16 - sinners what are we afraid of you know why why don’t we trust God a little bit more than we do um this is not to say
54:24 54:24 - that this is easy stuff we’re talking about here uh trusting that God is faithful and true even in the face of
54:30 54:30 - immense suffering that is no easy thing that takes you know an immense amount of
54:36 54:36 - spiritual growth and character to Bear up under those tests and trust that even when we don’t see the point of Escape
54:43 54:43 - that like 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us um you know he will not test us past what we can bear but he will always
54:50 54:50 - provide an out a way for us to uh never never be put pushed past what we can
54:56 54:56 - actually handle um so it all comes down to Faith um it all comes down to our
55:01 55:01 - trust in the character of God that when the Bible teaches that God is faithful and true and we can trust his promises
55:07 55:07 - that we actually believe that um and uh you know this is um I’m trying to think
55:14 55:14 - about the best way to phrase it maybe one of those things where uh especially if you grew up in church you kind of know the church answer to this question
55:20 55:20 - uh yeah yeah God is good God is holy God is faithful
55:25 55:25 - but if you believe that it changes how you live your life it changes your relationship and you
55:32 55:32 - don’t doubt God because why would you doubt God if you actually believe that he was completely faithful um and so I
55:38 55:38 - this I’m saying this as a challenge to myself as a challenge to all of us as we think about this is that when we say
55:44 55:44 - that we believe that God is good that God is Holy that God is faithful and true if we believe those things
55:51 55:51 - shouldn’t it change how we act shouldn’t it change how we view God in our heads um
55:57 55:57 - we should give him the benefit of the doubt every single time there’s no instance in which we have just occasion
56:05 56:05 - to actually doubt god um so obviously kind of harping on the obvious here boy
56:10 56:10 - that was bit repetitious should say that what I’m saying should not be controversial we all know this but
56:17 56:17 - living it is a lot harder than just knowing it um so I won’t ramble more
56:23 56:23 - there um very important concept for us here to trust God’s faithfulness because
56:29 56:29 - he was faithful in delivering us from our sin as he promised how much more so will he not Del Deliver Us from
56:34 56:34 - everything else all the obstacles that come before us in life so uh I think
56:41 56:41 - that’s where we’ll end this one and we will pick up in the next section talking about God’s sovereignty um as it applies
56:48 56:48 - to his moral rulership of the
56:53 56:53 - universe so now we’re going to talk kind of about the bridge section here in our study of God’s character so just like
57:00 57:00 - when how we were studying God’s infinite nature uh we kind of tied um God’s essential characteristics to how they
57:07 57:07 - manifest in creation uh through his uniqueness no one is like God in the universe we’re going to do a very
57:14 57:14 - similar thing here with respect to God’s perfect character discussing how all of
57:19 57:19 - how all of the characteristics that we’ve been talking about in terms of his goodness his Holiness his faithfulness and Truth manifest in the universe um
57:27 57:27 - and so we are going to in so doing that be talking about God’s sovereignty um
57:33 57:33 - and so I’ll read from the slide here a little bit we’re going to go through several slides here in this one um
57:38 57:38 - talking about how all of these things kind of Link together and give us that uh that full picture of God’s Redemptive
57:45 57:45 - plan for human history which as we’ve noted a couple times here has been the way that Dr Lil has structured um this
57:52 57:52 - study of God theology proper at least this initial section on God’s nature and
57:57 57:57 - character so sovereignty um kind of a long word here sovereignty comes from
58:03 58:03 - God’s perfect character so just how on account of his uniqueness we said that no one else God is Du all the honor and
58:10 58:10 - the glory because no one else is like him in the universe well no one else has a legitimate right to rule over the
58:16 58:16 - universe and that’s what we mean by God being Sovereign he is the absolute Sovereign within his own creation and
58:22 58:22 - therefore the one person to whom all honor is due sovereignty thus speaks to God’s moral Authority and right to order
58:29 58:29 - the universe however he chooses so if God is the defao ruler of the Universe on account of his abilities that no one
58:37 58:37 - uh no one else is omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent well it’s
58:42 58:42 - because of his moral Authority that God is the deure ruler of the universe
58:47 58:47 - because no one else has the right to judge moral creatures in the way that God does from the standpoint of his
58:54 58:54 - Transcendence of the moral Universe God is Sovereign by virtue of his goodness his Holiness and his truth essential
59:00 59:00 - qualities independent of his creation those are the things we’ve just talked about and here’s where we get the bridge
59:06 59:06 - uh to the next things that we’re going to be discussing so those were the things that were his essential qualities
59:12 59:12 - independent of his creation but from the standpoint of his Supremacy within the moral Universe God is Sovereign by
59:19 59:19 - virtue of his love his Justice and life qualities applying to his creation which
59:24 59:24 - Corr respond to goodness Holiness and Truth um so this is very similar to how we had discussion in the first series
59:32 59:32 - how these things were linked together except now we’re talking about God’s sovereignty his moral Authority and right to order the universe from a moral
59:40 59:40 - standpoint only God is qualified to be the ultimate judge of the morally accountable creatures he has created so
59:47 59:47 - that’s us that’s Angels creatures with Free Will and thus to hold them responsible for their actions as day
59:54 59:54 - fact of the riverse the de facto ruler of the universe through his perfect
59:59 59:59 - nature and dejur ruler of the universe through his perfect character God can do
1:00:05 1:00:05 - these things and so that’s the next several slides that we’re going to talk about this is why I said all of this stuff all part of one cohesive whole so
1:00:12 1:00:12 - because God is the de facto and deur ruler of the universe through his perfect nature and his perfect character
1:00:18 1:00:18 - God can God possesses The Sovereign authority to demonstrate love to his
1:00:23 1:00:23 - sinful creatures out of his own goodness and so these slides are going to be showing you that relationship between
1:00:29 1:00:29 - these essential qualities of God and these qualities working themselves out in creation so here we have um God
1:00:37 1:00:37 - demonstrating love out of his goodness next we’re GNA have Justice coming from Holiness and after that life coming from
1:00:43 1:00:43 - truth and faithfulness but this first one God possesses The Sovereign authority to demonstrate love to his
1:00:49 1:00:49 - sinful creatures out of his goodness not ignoring their sins as evil
1:00:55 1:00:55 - suggests he should but paying for them himself by the death on the cross of his son Jesus Christ in their place this
1:01:02 1:01:02 - process what we just said there paying for the sins through the death of his son on the cross that’s called
1:01:08 1:01:08 - Redemption so we call the result of this act of his sovereignty Grace we are
1:01:13 1:01:13 - saved by grace through faith that’s commonly how you’ll hear it uh Hebrew word for this word is so that’s a a very
1:01:21 1:01:21 - difficult character for us as English speakers to pronounce um and the Hebrew true word here is Cardis um starting
1:01:27 1:01:27 - with a Kai um so Grace is the God’s
1:01:32 1:01:32 - attitude God’s Sovereign attitude towards man as a demonstration of his goodness and his love for us next one
1:01:40 1:01:40 - God possesses you know again God being the de facto deur ruler of the Universe
1:01:46 1:01:46 - um as the deao deur ruler of the universe God possesses The Sovereign authority to administer Justice to his
1:01:53 1:01:53 - sinful creatures out of his Holiness so not abandoning them to their sins as evil suggests he must but forgiving them
1:02:01 1:02:01 - himself on the basis of the death on the cross of his son Jesus Christ in their place so uh before we said that paying
1:02:09 1:02:09 - for our sins on the cross through the death of Christ was Redemption here we’re saying that forgiving our sins
1:02:16 1:02:16 - based on the death of Christ on the cross is called justification um these are important words in terms of what we
1:02:23 1:02:23 - would call atonement theory in terms of this progression of how God Saves
1:02:28 1:02:28 - mankind um so we call the result of this act of his sovereignty Mercy um again
1:02:34 1:02:34 - Hebrew word here and Greek is alos um important sort of technical theological
1:02:41 1:02:41 - vocabulary all over the place here um God forgives us and that is
1:02:47 1:02:47 - justification forgiving us on the basis of the blood of his son and God doesn’t
1:02:53 1:02:53 - have to forgive us that’s what makes this Mercy is that in no way did God have to send his son to forgive us out
1:02:58 1:02:58 - of our sins uh to get us out of our sins he did that because of his Mercy right
1:03:04 1:03:04 - he paid for our sins uh as an act of Grace he forgives of forgives us of our
1:03:09 1:03:09 - sins as an act of mercy and that leads us to this third one that as de facto and de Jer a ruler of the universe God
1:03:17 1:03:17 - possesses The Sovereign authority to give life to his sinful creatures out of his truth and his
1:03:23 1:03:23 - faithfulness not allowing his creatures to die in their sins as evil suggests he
1:03:28 1:03:28 - will but reconciling them to himself through the the death on the cross of his son Jesus Christ in their place this
1:03:35 1:03:35 - is what we call reconciliation we are reconciled to the father through the blood of Christ we call the result of
1:03:42 1:03:42 - this act of his sovereignty peace again Hebrew word and Greek word probably heard this one before Hebrew word is
1:03:49 1:03:49 - Shalom peace and the Greek word is a um and so these are all of these things
1:03:58 1:03:58 - speak of God’s Redemptive purpose in human history redeeming us to himself despite what evil says so if you compare
1:04:05 1:04:05 - across um these three slides making all of these points in sequential order here
1:04:10 1:04:10 - evil suggests that God should ignore their sins but instead God paid for them
1:04:16 1:04:16 - evil suggests that God should abandon us to our sins but God forgave us instead
1:04:22 1:04:22 - and evil suggests that God should allow us to die in our sins but instead God
1:04:27 1:04:27 - reconciled us to him um and so this is the powerful story of redemption that
1:04:32 1:04:32 - God has wrought throughout history this is why the cross of Jesus Christ was
1:04:37 1:04:37 - that winning move that we’ve been talking about in fact this is the very reason why human history is playing out
1:04:43 1:04:43 - as it is and that point that I just made is where a lot of Bible teaching on the subject they fail to make that
1:04:49 1:04:49 - connection they fail to realize that human history is a response resp to Satan’s Rebellion that God has created
1:04:57 1:04:57 - us in order to demonstrate that in fact sinful creatures can be reconciled to
1:05:02 1:05:02 - him despite what the angel said despite Satan’s PR platform saying God wouldn’t be able to do this that is exactly what
1:05:09 1:05:09 - God is doing and that is the reason why humans were created along with being created to demonstrate the glory of God
1:05:15 1:05:15 - but you know that’s sort of the the normal catechism answer but this is the wider meaning to human history all right
1:05:23 1:05:23 - so obious a lot to unpack there a lot to keep straight in our heads hence handy table right so we have been talking
1:05:30 1:05:30 - about God’s essential qualities manifesting in creation as certain things right so I’ve kind of titled this
1:05:36 1:05:36 - slide as God’s sovereignty in action um lots of technical terms here so God’s
1:05:42 1:05:42 - goodness manifests in his creation as love for us and through that love for us
1:05:48 1:05:48 - God has paid for human sin uh this is coming out of his sovereign attitude of
1:05:55 1:05:55 - Grace and results in our Redemption right so a lot there going to go ahead and go through this table and
1:06:01 1:06:01 - we may spend some time unpacking this as we go but God’s essential quality of Holiness manifests in Creation in his
1:06:08 1:06:08 - perfect Justice and the action God takes based on his Justice is Forgiven human
1:06:13 1:06:13 - sin um based on his attitude towards us of Mercy leading to our
1:06:20 1:06:20 - justification um so that is scratching out our sin in the legal record as it
1:06:25 1:06:25 - were that’s what justification is as to his essential quality of Truth this
1:06:31 1:06:31 - manifests in creation through god-given life um the action God takes is
1:06:36 1:06:36 - reconciling sinful man to himself out of his Sovereign attitude towards us of
1:06:42 1:06:42 - Peace resulting in our reconciliation with him so in all of these things you can
1:06:48 1:06:48 - see that God’s full plan for saving sinful man absolutely everything in this plan relies upon the cross the blood of
1:06:56 1:06:56 - Jesus Christ um so I actually really like this way phrasing it I don’t even remember where I came across this I
1:07:01 1:07:01 - think it was like when I was younger a kid maybe 10 12 um I’ve heard it phrased this way that God’s mercy and Justice
1:07:08 1:07:08 - intersect in the cross right the cross is everything as it relates to saving
1:07:14 1:07:14 - mankind out of our sins um so uh we may need to go through this a couple times I
1:07:19 1:07:19 - mean I sure had to uh make sure that I squinted at it and and got it all straight in the words in our head um and
1:07:27 1:07:27 - you know obviously these things that we’re talking about Redemption justification reconciliation um these are parts of
1:07:33 1:07:33 - that process that we go through as Christian and how we relate to God what God has done for us in a theological
1:07:39 1:07:39 - sense so um all sorts of places where we could take this but I know I’ve talked
1:07:45 1:07:45 - for a good few minutes here this is how we see God’s
1:07:50 1:07:50 - sovereignty uh play out in the universe God in sovereign in control of all events that happen but in particular we
1:07:57 1:07:57 - see God working uh for us for our Salvation uh through the sacrificing of
1:08:03 1:08:03 - his son Jesus Christ that we might be saved that we might be uh redeemed
1:08:09 1:08:09 - Justified um and reconciled to him not only now in time but also eternally
1:08:15 1:08:15 - forever more um so uh aie uh I’ll turn it over to you um
1:08:22 1:08:22 - what do you want to say um about all of this that we’ve gone through is there anything that jumps out at you uh that
1:08:27 1:08:27 - we kind of haven’t already covered here so um the satanic rebellion was a
1:08:33 1:08:33 - challenge to God’s right to rule that was what it was it was Satan
1:08:39 1:08:39 - saying I get why why don’t I get to be God too why don’t I get to rule over
1:08:45 1:08:45 - creation myself as well and um what Professor Robert presents is is an
1:08:51 1:08:51 - argument for Why God has has the right to rule he says that that right is a
1:08:57 1:08:57 - moral one and that it is rooted in God’s character and he goes on to explain how
1:09:03 1:09:03 - God’s how to argue how God’s character qualifies him to
1:09:08 1:09:08 - rule so that is a very solid argument and it actually is just as you said and
1:09:16 1:09:16 - as exis continues to unfold um in all of its studies
1:09:21 1:09:21 - that it it it is the point of human
1:09:27 1:09:27 - history human history is God’s argument for his right to
1:09:34 1:09:34 - rule in fact that is what First Corinthians 15 essentially says and then
1:09:40 1:09:40 - comes the end when he will hand over the kingdom to the father so the idea here is in the
1:09:47 1:09:47 - end all Rebellion is squashed all enemies are removed and God gets to
1:09:53 1:09:53 - exercise his full rights without any opposition to rule over the creation
1:09:59 1:09:59 - that he made I tend to think about God’s sovereignty in a in a
1:10:06 1:10:06 - multi-dimensional way on the one hand he has the right to rule creation because he made it I mean even if he was even if
1:10:15 1:10:15 - it were possible and it is not even if it were possible that to think of God’s character as anything but good he has
1:10:22 1:10:22 - the right to rule because made it well just almost think of it like intellectual property rights right you
1:10:29 1:10:29 - know exact we have that God can remix and modify because he’s the one who created it yes yeah so there is that
1:10:37 1:10:37 - right of ownership on the one half but the Bible goes beyond that which is
1:10:43 1:10:43 - actually you know it’s like when when God said to Israel in
1:10:48 1:10:48 - Mali um how did he put it that it’s in Malachi 1 but I’ll paraphrase the idea
1:10:55 1:10:55 - is this that even a donkey knows its master and will give due respect to his
1:11:01 1:11:01 - to its master and um a father has uh
1:11:07 1:11:07 - respect that is due to him so does a governor if I’m a father where is my
1:11:12 1:11:12 - respect I don’t get anything you you don’t treat me with any respect given my
1:11:18 1:11:18 - role my place in your life you wouldn’t be a nation unless I made you one that’s
1:11:24 1:11:24 - what he was saying to them and more than once in the prophets he told them your
1:11:29 1:11:29 - father was an araman was a Syrian and I I made him I took him out
1:11:35 1:11:35 - of Syria and made him into a great nation so basically I have the right to
1:11:42 1:11:42 - make demands of you because you exist because of me that’s the right of
1:11:48 1:11:48 - ownership and if anything were God that thing would have that right over the
1:11:53 1:11:53 - creation that it makes but beyond that the argument that um exus is particular focused on is the
1:12:00 1:12:00 - moral argument which is essentially this that God’s character is
1:12:06 1:12:06 - good and that he is he is loving he is perfect he does not do any wrong so
1:12:14 1:12:14 - everything that Satan has accused him up has been proven to be false see God
1:12:23 1:12:23 - cannot abide evil and he does not do evil and he reconciles the the evil
1:12:30 1:12:30 - person to himself if the if the evil person is willing to repent all of that is to say what better can you get who
1:12:38 1:12:38 - has your best interest at heart other than me in other words you are safest
1:12:44 1:12:44 - and Most Blessed under my wings this is the second argument on the
1:12:50 1:12:50 - one hand I have the right to rule over you because I made you on the other hand I have the right to
1:12:56 1:12:56 - rule over you because nobody wants better things for you than I do and nobody can provide those things better
1:13:02 1:13:02 - than I can like I am it for you if you’re ever going to have anything good
1:13:09 1:13:09 - it’s going to come from me that’s the second argument now that second argument is more important from the excess point
1:13:17 1:13:17 - of you because this is a fight um of free will we have to make a willing
1:13:23 1:13:23 - choice if we reject God’s right of ownership that’s fine he doesn’t rule
1:13:28 1:13:28 - over us for eternity but then we don’t end up in anything good for all eternity we are stuck in the Lake of Fire in the
1:13:34 1:13:34 - place of misery but that for that reason the main focus here is the moral
1:13:41 1:13:41 - right given the chance to make an existence for yourself rather than to
1:13:48 1:13:48 - accept one that I make for you do you do any better and we live in a world where
1:13:54 1:13:54 - again and again the answer to that is no that we don’t do better by ourselves we don’t do better away from God’s mercies
1:14:01 1:14:01 - and his Graces so we see that God’s right to
1:14:06 1:14:06 - rule is rooted in the Perfection of his character the true sacrificial nature of
1:14:12 1:14:12 - his love for us that he is willing to give the most to give
1:14:18 1:14:18 - everything even when we are in a position of enmity against him
1:14:23 1:14:23 - that is the Seal of his sovereignty the right he has to rule over us and that
1:14:29 1:14:29 - ends all of the satanic Rebellion it puts paid to all of Satan’s arguments because it
1:14:35 1:14:35 - says if you rule over yourself you don’t make anything better I can’t make bad
1:14:41 1:14:41 - things I can’t make an evil world I cannot and I can’t tolerate one and on
1:14:47 1:14:47 - top of that even if you have made an evil world I can reconcile you to myself
1:14:52 1:14:52 - and give you a perfect world I don’t think anything in the satanic rebellion
1:14:58 1:14:58 - in all the lies that we have b as human beings can stand up to this that’s the argument that exis is actually making
1:15:04 1:15:04 - now when we think of this in terms of sovereignty um in terms of the uh what we call de facto deur uh Authority that
1:15:14 1:15:14 - God has you might also sort of think of it like this if you view God’s abilities
1:15:19 1:15:19 - um in the same way you might view like an apex predator like a tiger right a tiger has might might makes right sort
1:15:26 1:15:26 - of thing right a tiger is the ruler of the Jungle simply because there is no one stronger than him right but a king
1:15:34 1:15:34 - is not necessarily a king because he’s the strongest right there might be
1:15:39 1:15:39 - Warriors or military leaders who have more military mind right or Scholars who
1:15:45 1:15:45 - have more intellectual Cloud a king is a the leader of a country at least
1:15:52 1:15:52 - throughout history right not that we have King so much anymore but you know let me let me go with my parallel okay
1:15:57 1:15:57 - um so a king is the king of a country not maybe because he is the strongest or the smartest but because he carries the
1:16:05 1:16:05 - scepter of rulership right um and when we think of in the Bible Jesus you know
1:16:11 1:16:11 - uh subduing the nations with a rod of iron making them the foot stol of
1:16:16 1:16:16 - God God is King of the universe by existential Fiat because he is the one
1:16:22 1:16:22 - with ownership right as we’ve talked about the one who has this uh not just
1:16:28 1:16:28 - because of strength but because of moral Authority um that is a level above just
1:16:35 1:16:35 - being the strongest that is having what we would call the moral right to control
1:16:42 1:16:42 - what goes on in his Universe in the same way that a homeowner for example might have the moral right to control what
1:16:48 1:16:48 - goes on in his home right or the citizens of a country
1:16:53 1:16:53 - having the right to self-determine what goes on in their country you see where I’m going with this right the universe
1:17:00 1:17:00 - is Gods to control by moral right um not just because he’s the strongest and he
1:17:05 1:17:05 - can impose his will upon others but because he has the right to do it um
1:17:11 1:17:11 - that’s God’s sovereignty yeah all right well uh you know
1:17:16 1:17:16 - obviously more to talk about in all of this um we will as you’ll see again uh as we turn to some of the uh what we
1:17:22 1:17:22 - would call as the characteristics of God manifesting in creation his love his Justice and his life here um we will
1:17:29 1:17:29 - once again uh see the essential qualities his goodness his Holiness and his truth as well as his Sovereign
1:17:35 1:17:35 - attitude towards us in grace mercy and peace all these things will recur as we talk about um how God manifests his
1:17:42 1:17:42 - goodness and his Holiness and his truth in creation um so those will be the
1:17:47 1:17:47 - topics that we turn to um in the next slides here um but this will kind of conclude the discussion that we’ve had
1:17:54 1:17:54 - here about God’s sovereignty so God is unique um on account of his infinite nature um his abilities that no other
1:18:02 1:18:02 - can match and God is Sovereign on account of his moral perfection he has the right by existential Fiat to order
1:18:08 1:18:08 - the universe as he sees fit because he is The Sovereign deure ruler of it these
1:18:14 1:18:14 - things together explain why God is due all obedience and honor and Glory
1:18:20 1:18:20 - because he is the ruler of the universe um both by nature and by character um he
1:18:27 1:18:27 - is the one that is in complete control of everything so we will pick up more as I say with these aspects of Love Justice
1:18:35 1:18:35 - and life on these parts of God’s characters they manifest in creation uh as we keep on going through the next
1:18:41 1:18:41 - slides in this lesson here all right so the first point that
1:18:48 1:18:48 - we are going to be going over now is how God is love and so this is kind of the
1:18:53 1:18:53 - manifestation of his essential quality of goodness as it relates to Creation
1:18:58 1:18:58 - for us in the universe and in the next couple sections we’ll also be talking about how his Holiness manifests Justice
1:19:05 1:19:05 - and his truth manifest his life uh but here talking first about how his goodness manifests his love I’m going to
1:19:12 1:19:12 - kind of read the paragraph This is again straight from the study on ichus here and then uh kind of go from there to
1:19:17 1:19:17 - elaborate on that so ikus says having love for his creatures is natural
1:19:23 1:19:23 - consequence of God’s goodness out of the intrinsic goodness of his character God loves us with a perfect love Desiring to
1:19:30 1:19:30 - help us in our sinful State however he does not Overlook his Holiness and Justice in the process and forgive our
1:19:36 1:19:36 - sin without consequence as evil suggests he should therefore God had to find a
1:19:41 1:19:41 - way to reach out to us in Love Without compromising his character and did so through the gift and sacrifice of his
1:19:47 1:19:47 - only son on our behalf um so this is very parallel to what we had been talking about uh in the last section uh
1:19:56 1:19:56 - talking uh kind of in this summary of God’s sovereignty and his Sovereign plan for human history as he redeems Humanity
1:20:04 1:20:04 - out of our sinfulness we talked about this this was this slide talking about how uh God possesses The Sovereign
1:20:10 1:20:10 - authority to demonstrate love out of his goodness uh so this should sound familiar is what I’m saying um because
1:20:16 1:20:16 - we just talked about that actually but um this is the same thing that we’ve been saying is that everything for us
1:20:23 1:20:23 - centers on the cross uh it is the inflection point in all of human history
1:20:28 1:20:28 - that that single winning move where death Was Defeated once for all and God does this out of his love for us so not
1:20:35 1:20:35 - contradicting his Justice he reached out to us in love through the sacrifice of his son that we might be saved um also
1:20:42 1:20:42 - building on that theological vocabulary we say that Grace is the biblical name for God’s policy of lovingly redeeming
1:20:49 1:20:49 - us from our sins through Jesus Christ um so this is his his loving kindness you
1:20:54 1:20:54 - may also see older translations like the KJV use that a bit wordy for us perhaps
1:20:59 1:20:59 - in Modern English but this idea of God’s good will his grace his attitude of
1:21:05 1:21:05 - Grace towards humanity is shown in this so we accept and receive God’s gracious offer of love and Redemption by
1:21:12 1:21:12 - accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior um so for Evangelical Christians this is nothing
1:21:18 1:21:18 - new right we have salvation by grace through faith not by works um but we accept God’s love in fact we reciprocate
1:21:26 1:21:26 - God’s love only by accepting Jesus Christ as our savior U by believing in
1:21:31 1:21:31 - him that is uh our act as Christians by which we demonstrate to God that we love him back um so that’s where we’ll start
1:21:39 1:21:39 - here um I should also say that there’s an interesting verse uh I think it’s in 1 John chapter 4 it talks about how God
1:21:46 1:21:46 - is love like uh I don’t know we don’t want to get bogged down in the philosophy of this but um you know that
1:21:53 1:21:53 - basically because God is love we need to love one another just how God loves us so there’s a lot of uh what I would call
1:22:01 1:22:01 - practical application that comes across from this point um the Bible in a couple places uh uses God’s sacrifice for us is
1:22:09 1:22:09 - this ought to be defining motivation for us to lay down our lives for each other uh the Brethren our brothers and sisters
1:22:16 1:22:16 - in the church uh because we ought to follow God’s example um so that’s where
1:22:22 1:22:22 - all open us I mean we could certainly go through more of this passage here in 1 John chapter 4 but because God is love
1:22:28 1:22:28 - so also we must love one another um uh you know in fact this is basically
1:22:33 1:22:33 - verbatim word for word what we just went over in that paragraph from the study was that in this love God was made
1:22:38 1:22:38 - manifest among us through his kind of through his attitude of Grace that he sent his only son that we might live
1:22:44 1:22:44 - through him um uh very traditional formulation of the Gospel itself so
1:22:49 1:22:49 - Audie do you have anything you want to pick up uh based on what we’re talking about here specifically with regard to
1:22:55 1:22:55 - how God is love um yeah uh I I want to
1:23:02 1:23:02 - say that first of all um like you said everything is
1:23:09 1:23:09 - centered around the cross of Jesus Christ and uh thought that that has uh
1:23:15 1:23:15 - caused me to um try to make sense of is why like what does what does that mean
1:23:23 1:23:23 - um we know from First Corinthians 15 that the goal of everything that’s happening in the universe in creation is
1:23:30 1:23:30 - that ultimately the kingdom will be turned over to the father we also know that what started all the rock the the
1:23:38 1:23:38 - rockus in in creation was that Satan aspired to God’s throne and wanted
1:23:45 1:23:45 - to well commit a to take over the universe from the Lord we know that that
1:23:51 1:23:51 - was happening so the whole thing really is about the fact that God is the rightful King of the universe and um I I
1:23:58 1:23:58 - believe I mentioned last Saturday that um um God has the right to rule by by
1:24:05 1:24:05 - right of creation he owns creation but Satan essentially did not challenge that
1:24:10 1:24:10 - R he did not challenge that r on the basis of like well um You Don’t Own
1:24:17 1:24:17 - creation because you made it he challenged it more on the on the basis
1:24:23 1:24:23 - of you don’t love creation enough to Merit ruling over it because after all
1:24:31 1:24:31 - creation um comprises as well creatures that have a free will that is they have
1:24:38 1:24:38 - the ability to respond to God’s Authority either in submission or in
1:24:44 1:24:44 - Rebellion um so basically was like just because you made me does not give you
1:24:51 1:24:51 - the right to rule over me was essentially what he was saying and when he went on his um on his uh uh campaign
1:25:01 1:25:01 - to win the hearts and minds of his fellow angels of course we know that he
1:25:06 1:25:06 - made Arguments for Why God was not really acting in their best interest he
1:25:11 1:25:11 - had denied them of an actual physical body and probably restricted them in some other ways who knows what arguments
1:25:18 1:25:18 - he made but the ex disposition of course is that he was particularly driving at the fact that Angels lacked physical
1:25:24 1:25:24 - bodies that makes sense judging by what we saw in Jesus’s Ministry how he often
1:25:31 1:25:31 - had to deal with throwing demons out of the bodies of human beings
1:25:37 1:25:37 - so the the what is at the root of creature Rebellion is this this feeling
1:25:43 1:25:43 - like God is not acting in my best interest he doesn’t love me enough to
1:25:48 1:25:48 - give me what I need to have or what is right for me to have he is denying me of
1:25:56 1:25:56 - things that are good for me to have so it is actually the love of God that is being called into
1:26:02 1:26:02 - question if I am being denied something I want then God’s love is
1:26:09 1:26:09 - either not there or it is insufficient and if God does not love me as I need to
1:26:16 1:26:16 - be loved why should I obey him why should I submit to him because I will just live in
1:26:22 1:26:22 - misery so why Jesus’s cross is at the
1:26:28 1:26:28 - center of everything is that it is the perfect the ultimate demonstration of
1:26:33 1:26:33 - God’s love for his creation because here is the thing there is no greater love that it
1:26:39 1:26:39 - is possible for any creature to show than just as you have just pointed
1:26:45 1:26:45 - out laying down your life for those who are your
1:26:50 1:26:50 - friends no no man can do better than that but God want went miles better than
1:26:59 1:26:59 - that Jesus laid down his life for his enemies for his father’s
1:27:04 1:27:04 - enemies for those who if if they had the ability to do it they would drive God
1:27:11 1:27:11 - out of his creation they would even kill God if that were a thing that was was even possible that’s what they tried to
1:27:16 1:27:16 - do with Jesus Christ anyway we can’t do it we are God’s
1:27:23 1:27:23 - avowed enemies and his response to our enmity against him is to offer a
1:27:31 1:27:31 - sacrifice to reconcile us back to him to forgive his enemies that’s the
1:27:38 1:27:38 - biggest thing in the universe nobody can do it and that put the light to
1:27:44 1:27:44 - everything Satan has said about God whether to his fellow to his fellow Angels or to or to human
1:27:50 1:27:50 - beings at the root of everything sin is God is denying me of something that is good for me to have so he cannot truly
1:27:57 1:27:57 - love me or his love for me is insufficient now we have seen that he has gone well beyond anything we could
1:28:05 1:28:05 - possibly ask for by saying even though you have spited me and wronged me and
1:28:12 1:28:12 - destroyed my creation and even though you deserve the worst from
1:28:17 1:28:17 - me I am offering you an opportunity to come back into my family and here’s the
1:28:22 1:28:22 - thing Jesus gave us an excellent example of this an excellent demonstration of this when he talked about the parable of
1:28:29 1:28:29 - the of the prodal son The Prodigal Son returned recognizing that he had no
1:28:35 1:28:35 - rights anymore in his father’s house he did not ask to be restored to sunship he
1:28:41 1:28:41 - said make me one of your servants one of these slaves of yours because after all they they their tummies are always full
1:28:48 1:28:48 - they may not be looking forward to any um inheritance anymore more but at least I will have a full tummy and I will have
1:28:56 1:28:56 - gainful work that is worth doing this is the position that
1:29:01 1:29:01 - we could hope for we had no right to even hope for that much and yet what God
1:29:07 1:29:07 - did was not just bring us back as
1:29:12 1:29:12 - creatures in his Universe he brought us back as his sons not just his sons but
1:29:20 1:29:20 - coair with Christ so the cross of Jesus Christ is very well and truly the point
1:29:26 1:29:26 - because it demonstrates exactly the love that God has for his creation so that
1:29:32 1:29:32 - now the argument for God’s right to rule is both that yes he made the universe
1:29:37 1:29:37 - and is entitled to it because it is his creation but now for the Free Will
1:29:43 1:29:43 - creatures in it who have the right to respond to him either willingly or to
1:29:50 1:29:50 - reject him now he tells them I have the moral right to rule over you because nobody wants
1:29:57 1:29:57 - better for you than I do that’s uh I know when we uh talked
1:30:03 1:30:03 - about this in the last section we brought up I think maybe we didn’t I don’t know if we didn’t we should I’ll
1:30:09 1:30:09 - bring up the the parallel of parents um so we know that the Bible speaks of how we are to honor and obey our parents and
1:30:17 1:30:17 - part of that is because our parents want what’s best for us they have this right
1:30:22 1:30:22 - to govern so long as we live under their roof uh to govern our actions as their children because of their care for us
1:30:29 1:30:29 - they have been entrusted uh with our well-being and of course nobody is uh
1:30:37 1:30:37 - more in control of the universe in God you know who who holds the lives of all
1:30:42 1:30:42 - of his creatures in his hands you know so while human parents may have the lives of their children in their hands
1:30:48 1:30:48 - so to speak I you know up to a certain extent and uh perhaps even public servants so we might think elected
1:30:54 1:30:54 - officials uh perhaps fancy themselves as having the lives of their constituents in their hands well God has the lives of
1:31:02 1:31:02 - everyone in the universe and his right Angel and and uh human being alike um so
1:31:08 1:31:08 - one other thing I I just thought this verse in Romans is always such a powerful verse you know talking about how God died for us while we were yet
1:31:15 1:31:15 - sinners right um this is love you know I I was thinking there’s a verse in the gospels too uh Echoes this about uh you
1:31:23 1:31:23 - know for a good person someone might possibly Dare To Die maybe or maybe it’s only here in Romans anyway point being
1:31:29 1:31:29 - um this is self-sacrificing love and Par Parable The Prodigal son’s actually really interesting in context when we
1:31:35 1:31:35 - talk about love as well because part of love the love that we’re supposed to have as Christians is we’re supposed to
1:31:41 1:31:41 - celebrate like how God celebrates when Sinners repent um and I think very often our tendency as humans is not to throw
1:31:48 1:31:48 - the party for the repentant sinner but be like the older brothers that says but look at me I have sacrificed so much why
1:31:54 1:31:54 - are we celebrating for him look at look at all I’ve done right what about me
1:32:00 1:32:00 - that pride and ego get in the way right so even though what we’re celebrating is someone coming from Death to life we say
1:32:06 1:32:06 - but what about all my hard work where’s my recognition um but God’s love wants
1:32:12 1:32:12 - what is actually best for all of us um and I don’t want to get too off too off
1:32:17 1:32:17 - topic here because I’m sure we could ramble for a while but you know Greek has all these different words for love you may have come across a teaching that
1:32:24 1:32:24 - that hits on this a bit too uh so the form of divine love typically in view when we talk about how God is love this
1:32:31 1:32:31 - love we’re supposed to show to one another within the body of Christ and even show to the world is is the Greek
1:32:36 1:32:36 - word for it is agape um and it’s typically described as divine unconditional love um Love without
1:32:43 1:32:43 - strings attached so to speak and that is the sort of love whereby we love our enemies um there’s also sto that’s kind
1:32:51 1:32:51 - kind of like the love between parents and children familial love um filia it’s
1:32:57 1:32:57 - not actually used directly in the New Testament like the Greek word for that isn’t a fet which is a a verb that comes
1:33:05 1:33:05 - up a bit more um and then there’s also AOS which is the um uh you know sexual
1:33:11 1:33:11 - passion um and so these are all translated in English with the same word but specifically what we’re talking
1:33:17 1:33:17 - about when we say God is love is that God is a he is this unconditional Divine
1:33:23 1:33:23 - love that wants the best for everyone and that’s why he sent his son to die for us and take our sins upon his
1:33:31 1:33:31 - shoulders um to save us uh again out of this policy of Grace that he has towards
1:33:36 1:33:36 - us acting in what is actually our best interest um redeeming us right that’s
1:33:41 1:33:41 - the theological term here buying uh us out of sin that’s what redeeming is we
1:33:47 1:33:47 - have been redeemed as slaves to sin um so all very good points anything else
1:33:53 1:33:53 - you want to say before we go on to the next one no I I think we can go on okay
1:34:02 1:34:02 - great so now we’re going to be talking about how God is just and so uh God
1:34:08 1:34:08 - lovingly redeemed us out of our bondage to sin uh but God is also just and the
1:34:14 1:34:14 - thing that should blow our minds about this a little bit is that when God forgives us on the basis of his Mercy
1:34:20 1:34:20 - because he sent his son to die Justice is being rendered this isn’t
1:34:25 1:34:25 - like God is somehow overlooking our sin is that Jesus paid for it um the debt
1:34:31 1:34:31 - has been paid the accounts have been settled uh I think sometimes maybe we get uh I don’t know quite how the right
1:34:38 1:34:38 - way to describe this might be but maybe we don’t we don’t feel that as impactfully as we ought that when when
1:34:46 1:34:46 - Jesus was on the cross he paid for that sin uh this uh in other words our forgiveness had a price that came with
1:34:52 1:34:52 - it it wasn’t uh just with an arbitrary wave of the hand that God forgives the far forgives forgives us of our sin boy
1:35:01 1:35:01 - hard hard to say I guess um and so that’s kind of what we’re getting at here when we talk about God’s justice so
1:35:07 1:35:07 - I’m gonna go ahead and read again coming right out of the study here on ikus so it says demanding Justice for his
1:35:13 1:35:13 - creatures is a natural consequence of God’s holiness so holiness is that essential characteristic of God we’ve
1:35:19 1:35:19 - been talking about before his need to be separate from sin um so out of the
1:35:24 1:35:24 - intrinsic Holiness of his character God must must that’s a mandatory must deal
1:35:30 1:35:30 - with us in perfect Justice righteously condemning us in our sinful State however he does not Overlook his
1:35:36 1:35:36 - goodness and his love in the process and abandon us to our sins as evil suggests he will for God found a way to treat us
1:35:43 1:35:43 - as righteous without compromising his character and did so through the gift and sacrifice of his only son on our
1:35:49 1:35:49 - behalf there’s that turning everything back to the cross again that’s been that central theme here as it should be right
1:35:55 1:35:55 - when we discuss everything in the plan of God um so God didn’t compromise his goodness and his love here because he
1:36:02 1:36:02 - forgave us but he did so justly he did so uh in concordance with Justice
1:36:09 1:36:09 - because Jesus actually paid the cost for our sins so again with the technical
1:36:14 1:36:14 - vocabulary Mercy is the biblical name for God’s policy of justly I going to
1:36:20 1:36:20 - keep emphasizing that just forgiving us on the basis of the death of Jesus Christ we accept and receive God’s
1:36:26 1:36:26 - merciful offer of justification by accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior um so uh this kind
1:36:33 1:36:33 - of pulls to mind a a kind of a reasonably famous verse here in 1 John
1:36:38 1:36:38 - chapter one that talks about um how God is actually just to forgive us our sins
1:36:43 1:36:43 - when we confess here if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from
1:36:49 1:36:49 - all unrighteousness um I don’t want to just keep harping on the same thing but what we’re talking about
1:36:55 1:36:55 - is important um because uh I I think sometimes uh it’s easy in uh our modern
1:37:03 1:37:03 - times where we talk about how God is love um God is forgiveness we think
1:37:08 1:37:08 - about all these things as maybe God just doesn’t take sin seriously uh you know maybe he can just kind of wave his hand
1:37:14 1:37:14 - and make it go away or whatever but that really isn’t how we ought to think about it because sin is a deadly sin leads to
1:37:21 1:37:21 - death it’s what the Bible says the wages of sin are death and it is really serious stuff because sin separates us
1:37:27 1:37:27 - from God and absent the blood of Christ that we know redeems us we would be dead in our sins eternally dead in our sins
1:37:35 1:37:35 - and so it’s only because Jesus paid for that that God is able to justly forgive us of our sins um and so uh you know we
1:37:44 1:37:44 - might think of this as paying our debt on our behalf if sin puts us in debt then a just judge wouldn’t let that debt
1:37:52 1:37:52 - be forgiven without cause and Jesus uh the his payment for our sins upon the
1:37:58 1:37:58 - cross is that just cause that allows for the Forgiveness of our sins um that’s kind of the emphasis here on God’s
1:38:05 1:38:05 - justice and this is why we should keep emphasizing uh how almost
1:38:12 1:38:12 - um word’s escaping me here it’s just kind of how astounding the crosses in terms of what it reconciles what it
1:38:18 1:38:18 - means for God’s love and his Mercy um and his justice to all be upheld by the
1:38:25 1:38:25 - sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf um is because God did all of this acting out of love but it also doesn’t violate
1:38:32 1:38:32 - his his Justice it does not violate the need for uh sin to be paid for uh in
1:38:39 1:38:39 - order to be uh kind of the record set straight uh the the books balanced so to
1:38:45 1:38:45 - speak um and again just to reemphasize that point that the only way in which
1:38:51 1:38:51 - our personal Ledger of sins and failures can be reset is to be washed personally
1:38:57 1:38:57 - in the blood of Christ and that only happens by us accepting and receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior um
1:39:04 1:39:04 - so uh that’s how uh you know we accept God’s Redemption his payment on our behalf that is how we are forgiven God
1:39:11 1:39:11 - can only forgive us his Justice only allows him to forgive us if we are
1:39:17 1:39:17 - covered in the blood of Christ if we have accepted his payment otherwise he cannot pay for our sin um he cannot
1:39:24 1:39:24 - save those who are unwilling to be saved because his Justice simply doesn’t allow it um so this is what we kind of are
1:39:31 1:39:31 - talking about when we say that God is just um and his Justice will not be denied um you know that’s something we
1:39:37 1:39:37 - also get coming into uh the accounts of Revelation when Jesus returns in glory I
1:39:43 1:39:43 - think this is like Revelation chapter 19 picking up at like verses 11 see how good my memory is revelation
1:39:50 1:39:50 - 19 uh yeah so Heaven opens Jesus returns
1:39:57 1:39:57 - and then hap then Armageddon happens right he completely Slaughters the enemies of wickedness so um that is the
1:40:04 1:40:04 - Just Desserts of sinful unrepentant sinfulness and so we can be thankful to
1:40:10 1:40:10 - God that through the cross he’s given us this way to avoid that fate um and that
1:40:15 1:40:15 - is by submitting ourselves to God receiving his forgiveness on the basis of the death of his son
1:40:22 1:40:22 - so a you have things to add here yeah
1:40:28 1:40:28 - um do I really have much to add is just his Justice is
1:40:33 1:40:33 - um um that’s one of the things that Satan uh attacked as well we we will
1:40:39 1:40:39 - notice that Satan was not interested in attacking God’s nature that is what he
1:40:47 1:40:47 - is in terms of his abilities in terms terms of his power uh as God he was he
1:40:56 1:40:56 - was attacking God on the basis of his character that is what he attacked was
1:41:01 1:41:01 - God’s character he doesn’t love us enough to give us the things that are
1:41:06 1:41:06 - right for us to have he’s denying us of things that are good for us to have and
1:41:12 1:41:12 - um if we do something about it he is not
1:41:18 1:41:18 - just because if he acts Injustice he’s going to violate something in his
1:41:25 1:41:25 - character so he has to either tolerate sin which means he is not just or else
1:41:32 1:41:32 - he will be forced to do something that is actually uh in violation of that love
1:41:39 1:41:39 - which will sort sort of um prove his point that God didn’t love them all that
1:41:44 1:41:44 - much so if God tolerates sin he’s not just if he um go goes after them and
1:41:52 1:41:52 - punishes them for what they have done then he demonstrates that he really didn’t love them he didn’t want them to
1:41:58 1:41:58 - have what was good for them to have um so God’s justice is important and I
1:42:05 1:42:05 - think the the most important thing to note about Justice when we’re talking in
1:42:10 1:42:10 - reference to kingship and in reference to rulership is that Justice underpins
1:42:17 1:42:17 - security if you don’t if imagine in the home for example if children start to
1:42:23 1:42:23 - feel like um their parents don’t they play
1:42:30 1:42:30 - favorites if so and so does this he doesn’t get the same thing that
1:42:37 1:42:37 - everybody else gets so if he’s mischievous the parents ignore the Mischief but if someone else is
1:42:43 1:42:43 - mischievous the person gets the weight of all punishment dropped on them um
1:42:51 1:42:51 - this person gets all the nice things the other person so we know what that does in the home it creates resentment and
1:42:57 1:42:57 - and stuff this is where Justice actually matters because it it underpins the
1:43:04 1:43:04 - peace the harmony the security in a system so if God is Not Just then God
1:43:12 1:43:12 - does not have the right to rule over moral creatures that’s it and we feel the same
1:43:18 1:43:18 - way about the Kings we have right now wherever whether it’s a president or it’s a governor or it’s a mayor or like
1:43:25 1:43:25 - we have here local government chairman or whatever it is we expect fairness because without it we live in constant
1:43:34 1:43:34 - misery so if God is not going to address
1:43:39 1:43:39 - himself to sin rightly that means if sin is committed it has to be
1:43:46 1:43:46 - punished and if someone does right the person should be rewarded if he does not
1:43:51 1:43:51 - do that that’s a moral argument for his loss of the right to rule over moral
1:43:58 1:43:58 - creatures yeah so of course where where I I I come at
1:44:04 1:44:04 - the argument a bit differently is that I don’t really make a difference between Justice and love I I I see God’s justice
1:44:10 1:44:10 - as a demonstration of his love because if you love the people over whom
1:44:16 1:44:16 - you rule you want to make sure they’re at peace with each other and at peace
1:44:21 1:44:21 - with you which means everyone gets what is their their due what is right right
1:44:27 1:44:27 - for them to have what is rightful for them to have so um the sense in which I
1:44:33 1:44:33 - would come at it is is something along the lines of
1:44:40 1:44:40 - because God is just he does not deny us
1:44:45 1:44:45 - of anything that is right for us to have he is absolutely fair to to all his
1:44:50 1:44:50 - moral creatures you might have heard in fact um earlier today I was watching a
1:44:57 1:44:57 - video um a discussion a debate between Alex o Conor uh also called The Cosmic
1:45:05 1:45:05 - skeptic um uh on YouTube and Twitter uh
1:45:10 1:45:10 - with Dr Jonathan M maachi or something I don’t remember his son his soname too
1:45:17 1:45:17 - well so part of that debate was along the lines this was this was the argument
1:45:22 1:45:22 - that Alex made Alex is an atheist it was like it seems that where you born
1:45:30 1:45:30 - determines exactly what your disposition to God will be because this country is
1:45:37 1:45:37 - skewed this way that country is skewed that way and it’s like well so it means I’m predisposed to be a Christian just
1:45:43 1:45:43 - because of where I born and that seems to be a mark on God you just you gave me
1:45:49 1:45:49 - a raw deal and if you gave me a raw deal exactly how are you worthy of my
1:45:56 1:45:56 - submitting to your Authority so again the question of justice is still addressing the fact that God um either
1:46:04 1:46:04 - has or does not have the right to rule over us as moral creatures this is exactly the nature of the relationship
1:46:12 1:46:12 - we have with God it’s always a question of what we think of his right to rule over us some people come at that
1:46:19 1:46:19 - argument from thep Ive of wisdom as well um well uh if we are smart enough to do
1:46:25 1:46:25 - this and that and that and we don’t need God to do it for us then why do we need him to rule over us you know but in this
1:46:31 1:46:31 - particular case we’re focused on Justice and the perspective of the Bible on that
1:46:38 1:46:38 - is everybody gets their due which which is when you read Ecclesiastes which is
1:46:44 1:46:44 - probably the one book of the Bible that addresses the unbeliever although it’s
1:46:50 1:46:50 - it’s actually more focused everything in the Bible is focused on the believer really and um even even Ecclesiastes is
1:46:57 1:46:57 - telling the believer this is what life really is about so don’t waste your time pursuing this and that and the other but
1:47:04 1:47:04 - the unbeliever should be able to relate very strongly with what um Ecclesiastes
1:47:09 1:47:09 - says and at the end of it it says that God will reward everything that’s done so that’s also speaking to the justice
1:47:17 1:47:17 - of God and we see the same thing in Revelation and even in the gospels where
1:47:22 1:47:22 - Jesus keeps promising that he is returning with his reward in his hand so
1:47:27 1:47:27 - the whole idea here is God saying look what you get is what is fair to you this
1:47:35 1:47:35 - is the truth whether it is a matter of the experiences we are having in this life the way our own tests have been
1:47:42 1:47:42 - structured I don’t get tested the way anybody else is tested and nobody else
1:47:47 1:47:47 - other people get tested in the way that I would will never be tested because I’m
1:47:52 1:47:52 - different and God addresses me as me he doesn’t address me as if I was someone
1:47:58 1:47:58 - else that’s Justice and how does he deal with sin same thing across the board
1:48:06 1:48:06 - Satan wanted to you know have his cake and eat it too we can do this and get
1:48:12 1:48:12 - away with it because God is not going to violate his love for us by carrying out
1:48:18 1:48:18 - his Justice against us but in fact love demands Justice that’s
1:48:24 1:48:24 - the thing and and like like the Bible says he corrupted his wisdom with his
1:48:29 1:48:29 - own wickedness so when his heart was um grew arrogant against God he became
1:48:34 1:48:34 - incapable of seeing precisely how his wisdom had become foolishness if God
1:48:42 1:48:42 - loves he’s going to be just now um when we sin there has to be Justice against
1:48:49 1:48:49 - that sin but because God loves us he provides a way for us to be rescued from that
1:48:56 1:48:56 - judgment but that means he has to place something between his Justice and us so
1:49:03 1:49:03 - that his Justice is s is satisfied and we are spared and that
1:49:10 1:49:10 - again is where the Cross of Christ comes in so we see that in all every time we
1:49:16 1:49:16 - talk about God’s character for us believers of course for the Angels by
1:49:23 1:49:23 - extension we see that God’s character is fully fully expressed and fully taught
1:49:31 1:49:31 - to us through the sacrifice of Jesus because without that sacrifice God could
1:49:38 1:49:38 - not carry out his Justice against sin and still Save The Sinner so yeah yes I
1:49:46 1:49:46 - think one thing to just elaborate on here a couple points is that first of all God’s justice is in stark contrast
1:49:53 1:49:53 - to what the world calls Justice Audi brought up a couple examples here of how God uh judges us perfectly at the
1:49:59 1:49:59 - individual level which is something that human Justice systems cannot do at least completely properly I mean we can do our
1:50:05 1:50:05 - best um but even if our rulers are imperfect in their application of
1:50:10 1:50:10 - justice so for example they might favor the rich and Powerful uh that has been a characterization of so-called Justice
1:50:18 1:50:18 - systems throughout all history is well if you enough money and power you can kind of wiggle your way out of
1:50:24 1:50:24 - consequences under the law right not so with God though um so that’s one point in God’s justice when we say God is just
1:50:31 1:50:31 - we mean it um in all circumstances part of this comes with God being all
1:50:37 1:50:37 - powerful is that God has the capability to enforce Justice um so uh you might
1:50:43 1:50:43 - have heard of of people called enforcers in gains right uh this is not a label we
1:50:49 1:50:49 - would apply to God per se but um God has the ab the ability he has the power to
1:50:56 1:50:56 - carry that sword to ensure that Justice is Meed out effectively um and this is
1:51:03 1:51:03 - no small thing because um if the other guy has a bigger stick than you how are
1:51:08 1:51:08 - you going to hold him to Justice right um but God will God wins in the end you know we’ve mentioned this Revelation
1:51:14 1:51:14 - chapter 19 when Jesus returns the world will face God’s righteous judgment and
1:51:19 1:51:19 - no one will able to stand against God um so that’s one important Point another thing so AI had mentioned kind of about
1:51:25 1:51:25 - how a lot of the satanic rebellion was the skepticism that God really loves uh
1:51:30 1:51:30 - because if God loved us why wouldn’t he give us these things that we think we want right that are good for us in our
1:51:35 1:51:35 - opinion um well people doubt God too you know another reason why people uh have
1:51:42 1:51:42 - shall we say less than uh uh happy thoughts about God or you know Desiring
1:51:48 1:51:48 - to go after him is that they view God as fundamentally unfair um so you brought up that point about well what happens if
1:51:55 1:51:55 - you’re born in such and such culture such and such life circumstances doesn’t that put you to disadvantage right I
1:52:00 1:52:00 - brought up on the screen when you’re talking about that I brought up Romans 1 famous passage about natural Revelation
1:52:06 1:52:06 - which we’ve talked about says that everybody knows that God exists from that which has been created so truly people are without excuse to begin with
1:52:12 1:52:12 - but even in those circumstances in which people are born uh maybe into a
1:52:18 1:52:18 - household with less money less education less opportunity God knows all these
1:52:23 1:52:23 - things and because he perfectly knows our circumstances Justice will be perfect um so I all of this I you know
1:52:31 1:52:31 - kind of preaching into the choir I’m assuming but when we say God is just we are talking from a kind of divine
1:52:37 1:52:37 - theological point of view in a way that human Justice systems cannot match um
1:52:43 1:52:43 - and uh this is kind of what we mean when this entire lesson we’re going through is about God’s perfect character um
1:52:50 1:52:50 - human systems that are you know some sort of attempted mirror on uh uh God’s
1:52:56 1:52:56 - moral Divine Law God’s justice are only imperfect representations um but God’s
1:53:02 1:53:02 - justice is actually complete so uh any any more thoughts there or shall we go
1:53:09 1:53:09 - on to the next one yeah I believe we can I actually I have a something to bring
1:53:15 1:53:15 - up regarding that so I recently um was speaking to a
1:53:22 1:53:22 - friend of mine and W witnessing to her and um she’s an unbeliever so she
1:53:28 1:53:28 - brought up God’s justice and basically what she said was
1:53:34 1:53:34 - um she didn’t under she didn’t understand and she’s being perfectly honest like I believe I believe in her
1:53:40 1:53:40 - when she said that she’s like I really don’t understand when people say Jesus died on the cross for my sins I don’t
1:53:47 1:53:47 - she says I don’t understand what that means so I tried to explain it to her um but she basically her argument
1:53:55 1:53:55 - was why should I even be punished eternally for sins that I commit when
1:54:01 1:54:01 - I’m like I only live to be like 80 years old or 90 years old why should I be condemned eternally for like when my
1:54:09 1:54:09 - lifespan is only you know tiny compared to Eternity so her
1:54:15 1:54:15 - her so she said from the very get-go God is unjust because I because I
1:54:21 1:54:21 - deserve hell why should I accept Christ’s sacrifice why should even accept God’s offer of forgiveness
1:54:28 1:54:28 - for a punish that I don’t deserve in the first place it’s not necessarily I’m good enough to get into heaven it’s like
1:54:35 1:54:35 - I’m not bad enough to go H the idea kind of different the idea here being that
1:54:41 1:54:41 - temporal actions have eternal consequences and that is the the point of attack is that correct yes correct
1:54:49 1:54:49 - all all right aie you want to you want to take a step at this one first I mean I certainly have thoughts but uh you can go first I’ll follow okay so
1:54:58 1:54:58 - I mean fundamentally with regards to this one of the things to understand is that God is eternal perfect right that’s
1:55:05 1:55:05 - one of the things we understand about God’s perfect character so to take that Romans one passage that we brought up um
1:55:12 1:55:12 - you know basically we the reason why um and I think probably the root of this
1:55:18 1:55:18 - misunderstanding is that hell is not to punish us right unfortunately this has
1:55:23 1:55:23 - permeated cultural understanding of hell for a very long time you know I I’d say even among Evangelical Christians among
1:55:29 1:55:29 - people who take the Bible seriously take inherency inspiration seriously a lot of people still think that God sends people
1:55:35 1:55:35 - to hell to punish them the only reason you are sent to hell um Jesus paid for
1:55:42 1:55:42 - the sin of all on the cross right there’s this teaching in theology uh so-called Double Jeopardy right if God
1:55:48 1:55:48 - judged Jesus for sins then if God judges people for those sins in Hell well the
1:55:54 1:55:54 - sins are being judged twice you see um and the misunderstanding here is that
1:55:59 1:55:59 - human beings are not qualified to pay for sin um this is why the Bible goes on and on about Jesus being the lamb
1:56:06 1:56:06 - without blemish a perfect sacrifice that’s why he had to be fully God yet fully man to pay for our sin Jesus is
1:56:13 1:56:13 - the only person who has ever lived and ever will live who could pay for sin who was qualified to pay for sin human
1:56:20 1:56:20 - beings are not qualified to pay for sin because we are ourselves stained we are
1:56:25 1:56:25 - in like unworthy sacrifices but more to this question specifically if you don’t
1:56:31 1:56:31 - view hell any longer as a way to punish human beings hell is simply the lack of
1:56:38 1:56:38 - acceptance of Jesus Christ the lack of this Redemption for sin then um I just I
1:56:45 1:56:45 - I feel like pun the punishment angle really gets in a gets in the way of people appreciating this point right when the Bible says that the only sin
1:56:52 1:56:52 - that cannot be forgiven is unbelief or blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which of course I this takes to be unbelief um
1:57:00 1:57:00 - that is people end up in hell because of that right because they choose not to accept God’s uh God’s offering his olive
1:57:08 1:57:08 - branch of forgiveness um so I don’t know if maybe if I’m not
1:57:14 1:57:14 - getting to the underlying root cause of temporal versus eternity but this kind of explains why human beings can’t pay
1:57:20 1:57:20 - for their sin aside from Jesus Christ um I mean you want to clarify it all I
1:57:26 1:57:26 - mean ises that help or do we need to talk more about well I think the whole okay so like she’s coming from a very
1:57:33 1:57:33 - just to give you a background on her she’s um really ended Theos gnosticism where she she like when she I
1:57:40 1:57:40 - was explained to her about Adam and Eve and how like death came into the world from sin and her perspective is well
1:57:47 1:57:47 - Adam and Eve were were perfect and they needed to sin in order to grow and become like God so she’s got this like
1:57:55 1:57:55 - like not like this view where sin is not you need sin to grow like she will never
1:58:00 1:58:00 - grow or be Sanctified unless well unless she makes mistakes and learns from them
1:58:05 1:58:05 - yeah and don’t agree but right I know like I know but like I think she’s
1:58:11 1:58:11 - viewing like I can see her perspective like if you’re a like a regular human
1:58:16 1:58:16 - being and you’ve never raped someone murdered someone like if I mean you sin but you’ve never really really hurt
1:58:23 1:58:23 - someone I can see where someone is like why you know other than like maybe Cara like oh I kind of like I was mean to
1:58:30 1:58:30 - this person today so then maybe someone’s mean to me three days later why should I why do I need someone to
1:58:36 1:58:36 - die for me that that that’s like why how are my sins so bad that I commit on this
1:58:42 1:58:42 - you know on this planet while I’m here so bad that I need someone to actually like be put to death for me that I think
1:58:49 1:58:49 - that’s where she’s coming from yeah I I when my niece um one of my
1:58:57 1:58:57 - nieces my brother’s children when they were here with with us uh we were having
1:59:02 1:59:02 - prayer session um one of our um morning prayer sessions and
1:59:08 1:59:08 - I I was trying to make a point and I asked whether I was asking each of them um do
1:59:16 1:59:16 - you have you ever sinned have you ever done anything wrong because I wanted to explain something about the cross and my
1:59:24 1:59:24 - niece my brother’s oldest daughter actually said no she’ never done anything wrong and I was like I mean
1:59:31 1:59:31 - she’s six so but I was so I mean I don’t I don’t think I had heard that in a long
1:59:38 1:59:38 - time that there was anyone who actually thought I’ve never done anything wrong I thought that was quite amazing to hear
1:59:45 1:59:45 - from anybody right but um some some people really just don’t count the big
1:59:52 1:59:52 - things like as long as I’m not doing yeah the Small Things They don’t count the small things so as long as I’m not
1:59:58 1:59:58 - doing some of those big things I’ve never raped never killed basically never murdered anyone
2:00:04 2:00:04 - and I’ve never um committed robbery if I pilfered it’s just pilfering it’s not
2:00:10 2:00:10 - that big of a deal if I told a white lie was just telling a white light it’s not like I actually went out there and and
2:00:17 2:00:17 - defamed someone or sland someone or something like that so if it’s all these
2:00:22 2:00:22 - small things well everybody does it can’t be that bad it’s not bad it’s just it’s just part of life and I mean I can
2:00:30 2:00:30 - imagine someone thinking that way but I don’t think I have come across anyone recently that has actually said it
2:00:38 2:00:38 - except for my six-year-old niece which was pretty interesting and when people
2:00:43 2:00:43 - say that if they would ever say it to my face I would tell them
2:00:51 2:00:51 - yeah if you were the one judging like if you were the lawgiver the law maker then
2:00:59 2:00:59 - I would say you have a point because you define what is right and wrong but since
2:01:04 2:01:04 - you’re not the one defining it and you’re the one responding to the definition yeah I don’t think I’m going
2:01:10 2:01:10 - to take your word for it that’s just the fact of it the Bible is actually pretty clear that God
2:01:16 2:01:16 - himself this is job that God found fault
2:01:21 2:01:21 - with his holy ones referring to the angels and that some that was something that didn’t register very well with me
2:01:26 2:01:26 - until I think it was even probably within the past few weeks that the thing that the import of that statement hit me
2:01:33 2:01:33 - which was essentially this Satan was smart enough that what he crafted seemed
2:01:39 2:01:39 - to be full proof that no one could find fault with it not even God that was the
2:01:45 2:01:45 - idea that God could not accuse him of sin in what he had just done he had
2:01:50 2:01:50 - basically essentially trapped God in a logical contradiction so how was God going to
2:01:56 2:01:56 - accuse him of sin that’s what he thought he had accomplished and that’s the arrogance of
2:02:03 2:02:03 - sin I I think one thing I want to Pivot to when we talk about this too is there’s the implicit assumption here
2:02:09 2:02:09 - that this punishment for like basically punishment fitting the crime is unjust
2:02:14 2:02:14 - um if you view that as a presupposition um this kind of comes into the Audie and I had briefly touched on this I don’t
2:02:20 2:02:20 - remember exactly when in our discussion of these things basically something good because God said it’s good or is does
2:02:28 2:02:28 - God just happen to conform to I don’t know goodness and Justice floating about there this in philosophy this is called
2:02:34 2:02:34 - the uer a dilemma um basically is it good and just because God wills it or does God will it because it’s good and
2:02:39 2:02:39 - just I I don’t you know for a lot of the time I think this is a pedantic distinction uh in practice however with
2:02:46 2:02:46 - regards to this question basically the Bible is pretty clear I pulled up this
2:02:51 2:02:51 - this verse here Romans chapter 6 saying that the wages of sin is death that’s very clear in Genesis chapter uh the
2:02:58 2:02:58 - early chapters of Genesis that um the the price for sin is death right um
2:03:03 2:03:03 - through through sin death came into the world sort of thing Romans chapter 5 talks about this as well contrasting how
2:03:09 2:03:09 - death came into the world through Adam with how reconciliation and uh I I can
2:03:15 2:03:15 - go pull up the context in Romans chapter 5 but how basically Jesus does what came through Adam right and and uh the many
2:03:22 2:03:22 - are saved through the actions of the one in Jesus um so where I’m going with all of this is that the Bible pretty clearly
2:03:29 2:03:29 - and unequivocally teaches that you know the the consequences of sin is death and
2:03:36 2:03:36 - separation from God um and so if someone comes to us and says well that’s
2:03:42 2:03:42 - unjust on where are they getting their their standard of Justice from right um
2:03:49 2:03:49 - you know basically because of the Bible teaches this and see this is one of those things where um it can be tricky
2:03:55 2:03:55 - to be convincing in an apologetic fashion in an intellectual fashion to someone who doesn’t want to believe um
2:04:01 2:04:01 - so if you say how this argument would work for us as a Christian probably goes something like the Bible clearly teaches
2:04:07 2:04:07 - that uh the consequences of sin is death um so not just physical death but spiritual death separation from God
2:04:13 2:04:13 - leading to Eternal and or second death is what we would call it um that’s the consequence of sin right and we all sin
2:04:20 2:04:20 - Romans 3:23 says that James 3:2 says that therefore absent uh accepting Jesus
2:04:26 2:04:26 - Christ as our Lord and savior that is the Eternal Destiny of all of us because all of us sin that’s the consequences of
2:04:32 2:04:32 - sin um where people get hung up is they say well murder is a quote unquote worse sin than white lies or something like
2:04:40 2:04:40 - that but fundamentally the the sin that we speak of here all of that has this
2:04:45 2:04:45 - consequence of separating us from God um and so for people who believe the Bible
2:04:52 2:04:52 - the verses I just quoted get you right there right but for people who don’t believe the Bible it’s going to seem
2:04:58 2:04:58 - like so much nonsense because they’re not looking with eyes of Faith they don’t have that spiritual perspective um
2:05:06 2:05:06 - so a rejection of God and it’s it’s kind of like if if you want to eat at my
2:05:11 2:05:11 - dinner table you’re going to have to take your shoes off and come into my house and sit down and if you don’t
2:05:17 2:05:17 - choose to do that take your shoes off you oh that’s not fair I want to eat with my shoes on then you know I’m not
2:05:24 2:05:24 - going to let you at my dinner table and it’s the same thing it’s a just rejection of the person of God it and
2:05:31 2:05:31 - them deciding know I’m going to do it my way which is fun with me go eat wherever you want but you’re not gonna eat a my
2:05:36 2:05:36 - tape that’s how God is looking at that’s an amazing analogy actually that’s like a really good
2:05:42 2:05:42 - analogy well if you want no part in God if you say you want no part in God and everything good comes through God I mean
2:05:49 2:05:49 - we believe that as Christians it’s self- selected right but where I’m going with
2:05:54 2:05:54 - this sometimes is it’s really tricky this is why it’s a spiritual gift apologetics is a spiritual gift how do
2:06:00 2:06:00 - we craft these things in a way that’s Winsome for the gospel without alienating our audience but we yet we’re
2:06:07 2:06:07 - not compromising on the truth and I don’t know I like I will confess you know even though I think Dr lugan Bill
2:06:14 2:06:14 - is actually rather Adept at it when he does engage in what I would term apolog and I don’t consider myself completely
2:06:20 2:06:20 - terrible at it either it’s just not where my strength is so I can give you the biblical argument I I laid out kind
2:06:27 2:06:27 - just back of the napkin sort of argument that I just gave you but when it comes to someone who will just reject that out
2:06:33 2:06:33 - of hand and say well I I just I don’t like I don’t believe that right I don’t
2:06:39 2:06:39 - have your assumptions I I I’m not willing to just listen to what the Bible says how do you convince them that what
2:06:45 2:06:45 - we’re talking about is just uh that God has the moral Authority that’s what we’ve been talking about in his
2:06:51 2:06:51 - sovereignty that this is how he structured the Justice in the universe
2:06:56 2:06:56 - that sinning against an infinitely uh just and holy God leads to Eternal
2:07:01 2:07:01 - consequences if someone doubts the justice of that what can you say to them
2:07:07 2:07:07 - in an apologetics context I mean good question off the top of my head I can’t give you an answer that I that I would
2:07:13 2:07:13 - assume they would find convincing and I think it’s important to note that they might not find anything convincing this
2:07:18 2:07:18 - point right right you know because something that I thought of too like like and I thought I kind of thought of
2:07:24 2:07:24 - this after the fact after I talked to her like maybe if I talk to her again I’ll bring it up but you know we we do
2:07:30 2:07:30 - live forever too like God doesn’t destroy us we don’t go to Oblivion we do
2:07:35 2:07:35 - like God created us to be forever so yeah so when we do sin it’s not yeah we
2:07:42 2:07:42 - we sinned while we were on this Earth but it’s still like kind of like an ET
2:07:47 2:07:47 - not eternal being sinning but I mean I mean I could see that part of it and then also like
2:07:54 2:07:54 - you see all the evil in the world and you see where sin leads like the wickedness of men and then I don’t know
2:08:00 2:08:00 - about you guys but when I sin like when I like yell at my mom and dad or lose my temper or something I can see like I can
2:08:07 2:08:07 - feel that emotion in me and I can see how like if it wasn’t checked how it
2:08:13 2:08:13 - could eventually turn into that wickedness and yeah and all of us too like you have no idea how much Holy
2:08:20 2:08:20 - Spirit restraint is on our lives like like the difference between a person who you know grew up in a loving family who
2:08:27 2:08:27 - like maybe when they get angry at their parents like you know nothing bad happens whereas maybe a difference
2:08:32 2:08:32 - between a person who had abusive parents like really abusive parents they get angry at their parents they might end up
2:08:38 2:08:38 - killing or hurting their parents like something like that where so yeah like
2:08:44 2:08:44 - even though we like it seems like we make we do small sins that don’t have a big consequence like those small sins
2:08:50 2:08:50 - and just that act of sinning the evilness is like in there you know what I’m saying like it’s yeah well and this
2:08:57 2:08:57 - is why this is why I was trying to emphasize that when you take the punishment equation out of hell because
2:09:03 2:09:03 - fundamentally the only reason why people go to hell is not because of sin it’s because right they reject Christ’s uh
2:09:10 2:09:10 - off you know God’s offer of Salvation suddenly this my sins are less bad than
2:09:15 2:09:15 - that other person’s sins goes completely out the window because that’s not why anyone Goes to Hell right yeah now I
2:09:20 2:09:20 - will say that I can’t speak for other Christians it’s uncomfortable when you
2:09:26 2:09:26 - when we teach about the scandalousness of Grace right the whole if Hitler repented would he have gone to heaven
2:09:31 2:09:31 - sort of thing biblically speaking salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ look at Paul who
2:09:37 2:09:37 - persecuted the early church I’m sure there were people in the early church who were not happy with God in God’s uh
2:09:43 2:09:43 - justice you know they probably put Justice in scare quotes who were offended by by the fact that God chose
2:09:49 2:09:49 - to use Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles right the one who had persecuted the church um but you know
2:09:58 2:09:58 - we’re getting right back to you know every single person is uh worthy of that
2:10:05 2:10:05 - condemnation right and so this idea that we want people who uh you know committed
2:10:12 2:10:12 - all these really terrible things in life to be punished more I mean people that computes in
2:10:18 2:10:18 - terms of people’s justice but this is this is when we say Jesus died for the sins of the world it is what makes that
2:10:25 2:10:25 - so scandalous um is that absolutely no one deserves that that sort of redemption um go
2:10:33 2:10:33 - ahead yeah I I mean um what you said uh
2:10:39 2:10:39 - there was something you said I wanted to get in on but I think something else was overtaken it if anyone is really
2:10:45 2:10:45 - measuring themselves against other people I would okay yeah it was what you said about
2:10:51 2:10:51 - Paul um that was it and I think that was a very very good uh point to make even
2:11:00 2:11:00 - ananas who was sent by the Lord to give Paul the gospel was reluctant to go
2:11:07 2:11:07 - because of how unfair he felt it was this is the man who’s been murdering us
2:11:13 2:11:13 - and you want me to go and preach life to him so that he will be saved yeah that
2:11:21 2:11:21 - doesn’t seem fair and we might remember was the same position that Jona
2:11:27 2:11:27 - took so um but you see each of these
2:11:33 2:11:33 - things whether it’s the it’s the question of how we think our own sins stack up against what what really
2:11:40 2:11:40 - matters in terms of what must be called sin and how we stack up against other
2:11:46 2:11:46 - people it’s still missing the point point we’re making ourselves the definition of the law we are saying if I
2:11:54 2:11:54 - think it’s bad then it’s bad if I don’t think it’s bad then it’s not bad what
2:12:01 2:12:01 - how how does that compute in our minds in the eyes of the Lord the
2:12:07 2:12:07 - smallest sin is no different than the greatest sin that’s it and the reason we don’t
2:12:14 2:12:14 - get that is that we don’t know what sin is where God is
2:12:21 2:12:21 - concerned sin is a rejection of his right to rule and exist as
2:12:29 2:12:29 - God it’s a rejection of him of his own very self if he were a creature like us sin
2:12:36 2:12:36 - would be murdering him because it it denies the essence of his
2:12:42 2:12:42 - being sin is not just something that um like it’s not not cosmetic at all it’s a
2:12:49 2:12:49 - cosmic failure we look at it as a small thing but it is actually an infraction of an
2:12:57 2:12:57 - infinite Justice we have violated the justice of an infinite God which means
2:13:03 2:13:03 - we have done something that is infinite in its very nature but because we are confined in this state where we know our
2:13:10 2:13:10 - lives are measured in days that take by and we are we are the the the effect of
2:13:18 2:13:18 - the things we do don’t seem to Ripple that far it’s like why is it that big of a deal but it’s not about us it’s about
2:13:26 2:13:26 - the person that says do not do or that said do that’s the person that’s the
2:13:33 2:13:33 - that’s the standard of Justice that’s the person we are measuring against and when we did something that violated his
2:13:41 2:13:41 - Justice that thing is measured by his Justice not by us so there is no small
2:13:47 2:13:47 - sin in the the eyes of the Lord if the only sin that was ever committed in
2:13:52 2:13:52 - human history was one small white lie it would have still taken the cross of
2:13:59 2:13:59 - Jesus Christ to save the person who committed it even if that’s the only thing they ever
2:14:05 2:14:05 - did so there is there is no small sin in the eyes of the Lord whether it’s big or
2:14:11 2:14:11 - small is only measured by us in terms of how it affects those around us and that
2:14:17 2:14:17 - is a very small measure really it’s about consequences you know this is why this is such a tricky I pulled up uh on
2:14:24 2:14:24 - the screen by the way the ichus has a we will get to it if we continue doing um
2:14:30 2:14:30 - Bible basics you know hom mariology the study of sin there’s a lot to it right I’m not saying oh you have to go read
2:14:36 2:14:36 - 500 pages otherwise you don’t really understand sin but the point we’re making here is that this is a worthy
2:14:43 2:14:43 - conversation to have um about what is sin um what are the effects of it how does it separate us from God how does
2:14:50 2:14:50 - God forgive sin the mechanics of it um all of that um but I will say and again
2:14:56 2:14:56 - I I tried to emphasize this earlier even if what we’re saying doesn’t come off as
2:15:01 2:15:01 - uh convincing to people that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t say it um you know so
2:15:07 2:15:07 - uh there there may be this tendency to feel like we have to win arguments it’s not about winning arguments it’s about sharing the truth right and when we say
2:15:16 2:15:16 - that uh when we sin against a a perfect infinite just God it
2:15:21 2:15:21 - has infinite consequences and someone scoffs and said well why I don’t
2:15:26 2:15:26 - understand that I don’t get that that doesn’t seem fair to me it’s not our job to change their mind per se we present
2:15:33 2:15:33 - what the Bible teaches and then we let the chips fall where they may I mean obviously some people are called to
2:15:39 2:15:39 - engage more or less than others but um I I I think we’ve covered a good bit
2:15:44 2:15:44 - of ground here I don’t know you tell us Abby are there more facets to this you want to go over or um not right now I
2:15:51 2:15:51 - mean there’s there’s a lot we talked about so many things we talked a long time but um I’ll bring up
2:15:58 2:15:58 - more things later okay great yeah you guys did a good job on this so this is one of those challenges to God’s justice
2:16:05 2:16:05 - that we think about um people I mean people have a hard time with it you know the problem of evil just generally
2:16:10 2:16:10 - speaking not even talking about uh the the this justice of sin or people’s perceived lack thereof but just you know
2:16:18 2:16:18 - why aren’t evil people punished more um you know how how can evil exist in the world if God is just Etc um people
2:16:27 2:16:27 - question God’s justice they have they doubt it and they because of that they say I can’t follow such a God right if
2:16:34 2:16:34 - God’s really like that then he’s not for me um it’s a very real issue in the
2:16:39 2:16:39 - church but again fundamentally we can only do our best presenting the truth as the Bible teaches it but we can’t force
2:16:46 2:16:46 - people to believe it um and so if people are determined in their minds to have such a low opinion of God and his
2:16:53 2:16:53 - Justice that they won’t even consider how some of these things might work or or how what the Bible says is actually
2:16:59 2:16:59 - true there’s not a lot we can do to make them do that um all right well good conversation so I
2:17:07 2:17:07 - think this is where we’ll cut our discussion of God being just and we’ll pick up with the last one in this
2:17:13 2:17:13 - particular lesson talking how God is life in just a moment here
2:17:21 2:17:21 - so finishing off uh kind of how God’s qualities manifest in creation we’re going to be talking about life now um
2:17:28 2:17:28 - this perhaps is one of the more abstract consequences here when we say that God’s
2:17:34 2:17:34 - truth leads to life sometimes people are like well I would seems like even people
2:17:41 2:17:41 - who are you know buying into lies are still alive right I think um part of
2:17:46 2:17:46 - what might help understand understand this is when we talk about uh spiritual truth right the truth about who Jesus is
2:17:52 2:17:52 - and what he did um Jesus says um you know he talking about uh the bread that
2:17:59 2:17:59 - comes down from heaven this is John chapter 6 Jesus as the bread of life this is what sustains us as Christians
2:18:06 2:18:06 - not even physical food I mean it’s a metaphor of course but you know the idea being that uh we man you know also when
2:18:14 2:18:14 - Jesus is tested uh Jesus quotes scripture saying man does not live on uh bread alone but upon every worth that
2:18:20 2:18:20 - comes from God um not paraphrasing but happens during the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness um this is what we
2:18:27 2:18:27 - mean by truth is what gives us life um you might also think of uh John chapter
2:18:32 2:18:32 - 4 uh with the woman at the Samaritan woman at the well I’m talking about living water that’s the truth that
2:18:39 2:18:39 - Springs up within us giving us life um this is all over the place in the Bible
2:18:46 2:18:46 - so as I say maybe it’s a little bit harder to wrap our heads around this one in particular when we say well how does
2:18:52 2:18:52 - truth give us life um in fact by just going from the Gospel of John here in John chapter 8 um uh truth will set you
2:19:00 2:19:00 - free there’s another another verse that talks about how um you will be free indeed right if you believe in the truth
2:19:06 2:19:06 - if you abide in the word of God the truth will set you free and uh truly how
2:19:12 2:19:12 - we think about this is that are we really living if our lives are in shackles and bondage right we don’t have
2:19:20 2:19:20 - real life we don’t have uh an actual appreciation for what living means until
2:19:25 2:19:25 - we submit ourselves to God and we do the things that he would have of us because that’s the only time when we are actually truly free as humans um so all
2:19:33 2:19:33 - of this to say this idea of uh the God is life and the life that he gives us
2:19:40 2:19:40 - being firmly cemented in uh God being truth right God being uh uh filled by uh
2:19:47 2:19:47 - truth and faithfulness this is God’s aspect of his character manifesting in
2:19:53 2:19:53 - True Life in this world right Freedom leaving on the words that come from God
2:19:59 2:19:59 - that speak to the life the Salvation that we have in Christ Jesus um as we talked about in John chapter 6 John
2:20:05 2:20:05 - chapter 4 um and other passages besides in the New Testament this is kind of what we’re talking about here so again
2:20:11 2:20:11 - going to read some of the ichus passages here um so uh I’ll read some of the
2:20:17 2:20:17 - paragraph and then we’ll go from there as we have the last couple of times so when we talk about God’s life we say
2:20:23 2:20:23 - saving the lives of his creatures is a natural consequence of God’s truth and faithfulness so out of the intrinsic
2:20:29 2:20:29 - veracity and trustworthiness of his character God honors his gracious and merciful promise to restore us to
2:20:35 2:20:35 - himself and thereby to eternal life delivering us from the condemnation of death accre to us in our sinful state so
2:20:42 2:20:42 - we say that he is faithful to that promise he made right recognize these words gracious corresponding to love and
2:20:49 2:20:49 - merciful corresponding to Justice when God promised to restore us to himself as
2:20:54 2:20:54 - he did Adam and Eve in the Proto evangelium that giving of animal skins
2:20:59 2:20:59 - to Adam and Eve in the garden at the end of Genesis chapter 3 God kept that promise he redeemed them from Death the
2:21:06 2:21:06 - consequence of their sin um right the condemnation of death occuring to us in
2:21:11 2:21:11 - our sinful State we just talked about this we spent a long time talking about how the consequences of sin or death
2:21:17 2:21:17 - even Eternal death and separation from God so in doing so he has not failed to
2:21:23 2:21:23 - resolve the competing demands of his goodness and love on the one hand with those of his Holiness and Justice on the
2:21:29 2:21:29 - other as evil suggests he must and again tying it back to the Cross we say that
2:21:34 2:21:34 - this is because God has found a way in accordance with his character to eliminate the wall of sin and consequent
2:21:41 2:21:41 - wrath which separates us from him he has taken down the barrier of Separation
2:21:47 2:21:47 - that separates Humanity from himself and he’s done so through the gift and sacrifice of his only son on our behalf
2:21:54 2:21:54 - meaning that Jesus died and was judged in our place that we might have life um
2:22:00 2:22:00 - and so peace that other technical term here Shalom IR in Greek peace is the
2:22:06 2:22:06 - biblical name for God’s life-giving policy of reconciling us to himself on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ we
2:22:13 2:22:13 - accept and receive God’s offer of Life peace and Reconciliation by accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as
2:22:19 2:22:19 - our savior so no different than um how we receive forgiveness how we are
2:22:26 2:22:26 - justified by accepting Jesus Christ and how we receive God’s Redemption by
2:22:31 2:22:31 - accepting Jesus Christ so we are reconciled to God through our belief in
2:22:36 2:22:36 - Jesus Christ and what he did for us um so uh hopefully that’s a good enough
2:22:43 2:22:43 - introduction here to get us talking about the subject here um but this idea of our fullness of life that we have um
2:22:51 2:22:51 - I think you might uh consider the passages in Scripture that talk about peace and joy these are characteristics
2:22:57 2:22:57 - that we ought to possess as Christians uh that true life living in the power of
2:23:03 2:23:03 - the spirit that we ought to have by following Jesus Christ is that we ought to be set free from the shackles and the
2:23:09 2:23:09 - bondage that characterize those who are enslaved to sin because we have the Holy
2:23:15 2:23:15 - Spirit living within us that that springing up to us as a well of living water based upon the truth in the word
2:23:21 2:23:21 - of God that is what we mean by the life that God gives us that peace and
2:23:26 2:23:26 - Reconciliation to him that we have through his truth um so uh a you want to
2:23:33 2:23:33 - pick up from there yeah um get cut off yeah I think I
2:23:40 2:23:40 - started talking but I don’t hearing H yeah uh how about could you contrast
2:23:46 2:23:46 - life eternal life life with eternal death hear everyone but it doesn’t seem like you can hear can you hear me okay I
2:23:52 2:23:52 - can hear you now yeah so Lisa just asked a question uh didn’t mean it cut off what you were saying but it’s a good
2:23:58 2:23:58 - question so you want to say something and then we handle it or you want to just jump straight into the question
2:24:03 2:24:03 - uh well okay he seems to be having connection problems here Soh I tell you
2:24:10 2:24:10 - what aie um I’m G to go ahead and talk and answer Lisa’s question and uh if you
2:24:16 2:24:16 - can sort out the ction problems will certainly give you the mic at the earliest convenience so Lisa’s question
2:24:23 2:24:23 - here was um can we contrast life with spiritual life with spiritual death um I
2:24:29 2:24:29 - think kind of as it relates to what we’ve been talking about here uh fundamentally spiritual death
2:24:35 2:24:35 - corresponds with with lies it corresponds with not believing the truth
2:24:41 2:24:41 - of what Jesus has done for the world um and um I think this kind of gets back
2:24:46 2:24:46 - into what we were talking about with uh God’s forgiveness of our sins uh being just uh is that when God gives us life
2:24:55 2:24:55 - he does so um out of out of Truth out of his faithful promise to restore us to
2:25:01 2:25:01 - himself um he he he doesn’t do it just because he arbitrarily promises things but there’s weight behind the promises
2:25:08 2:25:08 - of God because of his character because he’s perfect and so when he promises to do something that thing is sure and
2:25:15 2:25:15 - certain it’s not like humans who can be kind of flaky sometimes when God says he’s going to do something God will do
2:25:21 2:25:21 - it and he does it not arbitrarily you know it’s not like he promised to do it and therefore he did it even though it’s
2:25:27 2:25:27 - not fair he did it on the basis of his sacrifice so okay Lisa’s question about
2:25:32 2:25:32 - contrasting this to spiritual death when we live um a life kind of infected by
2:25:38 2:25:38 - death infected by sin um you know our sin nature within us we are separate
2:25:44 2:25:44 - from God and part of this life that we’re talking about here is not uh people would take this and this is I
2:25:50 2:25:50 - don’t want to say just an English thing I I bet the connotation very across language but we are really talking about
2:25:56 2:25:56 - fullness of Life on that Hebrew word that we’re talking about here Shalom is more than just being alive it’s more
2:26:03 2:26:03 - than just consuming air in your lungs and eating food and sleeping and our bodily functions as humans it is like
2:26:10 2:26:10 - the idea of truly living of having that peace that reconciliation between us and
2:26:15 2:26:15 - God and when you think about it unbelievers who are dead in their sins are dead men walking they don’t have the
2:26:23 2:26:23 - quickening of the Holy Spirit to give meaning to their lives um I know I talked about this I have that other
2:26:29 2:26:29 - series up on my site going through uh sr4 Satan’s World System talking about
2:26:34 2:26:34 - the vanity of the world one of the benefits we have as Christians is that everything we do has Eternal meaning and
2:26:41 2:26:41 - purpose behind it we are working out the kingdom of God here in the world we are
2:26:47 2:26:47 - being used as instruments in the hands of the almighty and so everything we do has meaning and purpose um as contrasted
2:26:54 2:26:54 - to those who do not put their faith in Jesus Christ where for them they are
2:27:00 2:27:00 - already dead in their sins the things that they do are not contributing to God’s kingdom they don’t have peace with
2:27:06 2:27:06 - God they don’t have reconciliation they don’t have freedom in the truth I don’t know if I need to keep
2:27:12 2:27:12 - going on and elaborating at least that you can tell me if that’s good enough but um it is night and day difference um
2:27:19 2:27:19 - and I think It ultimately boils down to what we are talking about is not just
2:27:25 2:27:25 - you know breathing air and eating food we are talking about the spiritual aspect of this we are talking about
2:27:31 2:27:31 - truly being alive being connected and one with God through our belief do you
2:27:36 2:27:36 - do you see it I mean everybody talks about this but that that Matrix movie and the right peel I can’t remember if
2:27:42 2:27:42 - it’s the red peel or the blue peel or whatever you to see things more realistically
2:27:47 2:27:47 - you think it’s more something like that well uh so even Matrix aside this has been a thing in Philosophy for a long
2:27:53 2:27:53 - time and yes aie I could hear you um when you asked just now um uh there
2:27:59 2:27:59 - Plato’s allegory the cave talks about this um and the metaphor used there is actually light and darkness um also
2:28:06 2:28:06 - commonly comes up in scripture um the the binary contrasts here but
2:28:12 2:28:12 - um so is is that what we’re getting at yeah I mean you could view it that way for sure um like we are alive because of
2:28:21 2:28:21 - the truth we have right um so in Plato’s allegory of the cave this corresponds to
2:28:26 2:28:26 - not being chained in place looking at a cave wall but actually being out in the world where the there is actually light
2:28:33 2:28:33 - for us as Christians to use that metaphor that is us actually believing spiritual truth having our eyes opened
2:28:39 2:28:39 - and living in it as opposed to being chained in place in Satan’s World System
2:28:44 2:28:44 - um and that’s getting kind of back to the John 8 verse talking about how the truth sets us free is that we won’t live
2:28:52 2:28:52 - fully we will not have complete fullness of life without belief in Jesus Christ
2:28:58 2:28:58 - um can you guys hear me now yeah I can hear you so I don’t know how much you caught
2:29:05 2:29:05 - of what we were just talking about leis had asked a question uh comparing Spirit like the life we have spiritually with
2:29:12 2:29:12 - spiritual death um and so we were talking about that a little bit um okay so spiritual life and spiritual death um
2:29:20 2:29:20 - we know that uh that no we lost him again ah how sad
2:29:29 2:29:29 - um you can’t hear me well we couldn’t for a second um I mean you said
2:29:35 2:29:35 - spiritual life and spiritual death and then kind of cut off after that um and we can’t hear you now either um I I tell
2:29:43 2:29:43 - you what having connection issues um maybe maybe we’ll just keep going here
2:29:50 2:29:50 - sort this out Lisa have we have we addressed uh what you were asking more again yeah I do want to give Audi a
2:29:56 2:29:56 - chance to talk but it’s hard if it keeps cutting out um all right well I tell you
2:30:02 2:30:02 - what I’ll finish this off here it’s unfortunate that we’re having connection issues um but hello hello yeah we can we
2:30:10 2:30:10 - can hear you but I mean the last times you’ve you’ve been talking and then you’ve just cut out um yeah can’t hear
2:30:17 2:30:17 - you now if you’re talking yeah yeah something is wrong I don’t know okay um
2:30:22 2:30:22 - well we’ll finish off here um I think we have been through uh the greater part of
2:30:28 2:30:28 - what there is to say on this particular matter um so uh because of our
2:30:34 2:30:34 - understanding of the importance of spiritual truth to give meaning to our lives uh to truly let us walk as we
2:30:41 2:30:41 - ought in Freedom as Christians um again passages I like to support the concept of what we’re talking about John chapter
2:30:47 2:30:47 - 6 where Jesus talks about him being the bread of life John chapter 4 where we talk about uh the truth of the word of
2:30:54 2:30:54 - God being this this spring welling up to Living Water within us right I mean empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit
2:31:00 2:31:00 - of course um these are the things this is what we mean by life when we’re talking about life we’re talking about
2:31:06 2:31:06 - spiritual life about being made alive spiritually with God as opposed to spiritually Dead uh through our sin and
2:31:14 2:31:14 - not being uh kind of connected to god um so that is the concept of of what we
2:31:21 2:31:21 - have been talking about here with this idea of God is life because God wants that for all of his creatures even those
2:31:28 2:31:28 - right now who are not willing to turn to him he has given them that option to
2:31:33 2:31:33 - turn to him receive forgiveness for their sins on the basis of the blood of Christ and live these full lives doing
2:31:41 2:31:41 - that which he has prepared for them um you know something else uh comes to mind here is uh in Ephesians chapter 2 uh
2:31:48 2:31:48 - after right after the very famous verses to talk about us being saved by grace through faith we have verse 10 that says
2:31:55 2:31:55 - that we’ve been created in Christ Jesus to do good works uh which God prepared in advance for us to do we have jobs as
2:32:01 2:32:01 - Christians again this is getting back to that whole meaning we have a place that we fill in the body of Christ and that
2:32:08 2:32:08 - gives everything we do spiritual value um that’s kind of what we’re talking about by being alive and all of this um
2:32:16 2:32:16 - from top to bottom is it’s all about the truth of God um as contained in the Bible in Jesus The Living Word of God
2:32:23 2:32:23 - like John chapter 1 talks about um talks about how Jesus is the Divine logos um
2:32:29 2:32:29 - the word who became flesh and dwelt Among Us um
2:32:35 2:32:35 - so all right well certainly more we could say there but I think that’s where we will uh that’s where we will close
2:32:41 2:32:41 - out discussion on this section and uh we’ll return with the summary of what
2:32:46 2:32:46 - we’ve been talking about in this lesson in just a sec
2:32:52 2:32:52 - here all right so that’s where we are going to wrap up now uh this discussion that we’ve been in in this lesson
2:32:57 2:32:57 - talking about God’s perfect character so we started out by uh talking about this
2:33:03 2:33:03 - introduction uh or sorry in the introduction talking about God’s idea uh God’s moral perfection the idea that he
2:33:11 2:33:11 - is without flaw he is the greatest that human Minds can possibly comprehend he
2:33:16 2:33:16 - has moral perfection um in in a way that we’re supposed to emulate as Christians so Matthew 548 says that we’re supposed
2:33:23 2:33:23 - to be perfect just how our father in Heaven is perfect we talked about uh the Greek word teos there is the adjective
2:33:29 2:33:29 - meaning perfect and it has this sense of completion that maybe doesn’t come through as much in that English uh
2:33:36 2:33:36 - English word here that is the sense of perfect as being full and complete um
2:33:41 2:33:41 - and that is what God is in every moral uh sense um he is completely morally
2:33:47 2:33:47 - perfect um and in that that naturally leads into uh essential characteristics
2:33:52 2:33:52 - of God God is good um the antithesis of evil God is Holy he has to be must be
2:33:59 2:33:59 - separate from Evil we talked a little bit about how these things are actually kind of subtly different is that God
2:34:04 2:34:04 - being good in like an ontological sense is a bit different than him needing to be separate from Evil um you know having
2:34:11 2:34:11 - to condemn evil um we also talked about how God is faithful and true his promises are sure and certain and then
2:34:19 2:34:19 - we spent a good bit of time uh in the bridge section talking about how all of these things translate into God’s
2:34:24 2:34:24 - sovereignty as de jur ruler of the Universe um the one who on account of
2:34:30 2:34:30 - his moral perfection has the authority to judge moral creatures so that’s
2:34:35 2:34:35 - humans and angels in the universe for their actions so we made all these sub
2:34:40 2:34:40 - points here that God possesses The Sovereign authority to demonstrate love to his sinful creatures out of of his
2:34:46 2:34:46 - own goodness to administer Justice out of his Holiness and to give life out of
2:34:51 2:34:51 - his truth and faithfulness um and you know we had this a chart that went through all of these things mapped the
2:34:57 2:34:57 - essential characteristics of God to their manifestations and creation that process of redemption justification and
2:35:04 2:35:04 - Reconciliation that happens uh through the working out of his love Justice and life for us as sinful Humanity um and
2:35:13 2:35:13 - then we closed by elaborating a bit more uh on on these on these aspects of God’s
2:35:18 2:35:18 - character working themselves out in the universe how God is love God is just and God is life and what that means for us
2:35:25 2:35:25 - as Believers um and as time and again we’ve emphasized all of this hinges on
2:35:30 2:35:30 - centers around the cross of Jesus Christ so we accept God’s offer of Life peace
2:35:36 2:35:36 - and Reconciliation that’s here this last Slide by accepting receiving the Lord Jesus Christ in just the same way that
2:35:42 2:35:42 - we are Justified we receive forgiveness for our sins through accept acting Jesus as our Lord and savior and we are
2:35:48 2:35:48 - redeemed uh out of God’s gracious love for us by accepting him um by believing
2:35:54 2:35:54 - in him and so that’s where we’re going to end this lesson here um so talking
2:35:59 2:35:59 - here about God’s perfect character after we have already come and discussed God’s
2:36:04 2:36:04 - infinite nature and in the next lesson we’re going to just be summarizing uh all of the things we’ve talked about
2:36:10 2:36:10 - here uh in reference to God’s Divine Essence um and so that would include his
2:36:16 2:36:16 - infinite nature and his perfect character as we’ve gone over just kind of pulling it all together uh maybe in a
2:36:22 2:36:22 - more easily digestible summary uh that can be referenced later as kind of shorthand for all of the things that
2:36:28 2:36:28 - we’ve gone here that we’ve gone through here so that’s what we will pick up with uh next time

Conclusions - The Essence of God

Video

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Summary

In this lesson, we are going to be summarizing what we’ve done in the last several lessons, sort of pulling it all together. This will then conclude our discussion of the Essence of God: both His infinite nature, and His perfect character.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
00:51 00:51 - A reminder of what we’ve been going over
05:50 05:50 - An overview in words
08:03 08:03 - An overview in picture form

Content (click to show)

Content

(Derived from https://ichthys.com/1Theo.htm)

A reminder of what we’ve been going over

We have been talking about the essence of God: His infinite nature and His perfect character.

An overview in words

Blood of Christ > Satisfies both God's love and God's justice

God’s goodness overflows with love, providing grace for sinful Man:
though evil says a loving God can’t condemn,
He did condemn His Son that we might live,
redeeming us in love with the blood of Christ.

God’s holiness overflows in justice, offering mercy to sinful Man:
though evil says a just God can’t forgive,
He did forgive us, by condemning His own Son,
making us righteous through the blood of Christ.

God’s faithfulness and truth overflow in life, producing peace with God for sinful Man:
though evil says that a God of integrity can’t restore us,
He did make peace between us through His Son,
reconciling us to Himself and granting us eternal life on the basis of the blood of Christ.

An overview in picture form

God > Essence

Overall Summary of the Essence of God

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

0:00 0:00 - all right guys so this lesson we are
0:02 0:02 - going to be summarizing much of what
0:05 0:05 - we’ve talked about here with reference
0:06 0:06 - to the essence of God going back through
0:09 0:09 - the various lessons that we have made so
0:12 0:12 - the introduction and then talking about
0:14 0:14 - the infinite nature of God and then
0:15 0:15 - talking about the perfect character of
0:17 0:17 - God and pulling it all together in
0:20 0:20 - perhaps a more digestible summary form
0:23 0:23 - here in this last lesson for this
0:24 0:24 - section on the essence of God so this is
0:28 0:28 - going to be the structure of what we
0:31 0:31 - talk about in this lesson first we’re
0:33 0:33 - going to go back over some of what we’ve
0:34 0:34 - already talked about then we’re going to
0:37 0:37 - kind of P all together in an overview in
0:40 0:40 - words almost coming out poetically here
0:42 0:42 - and then we’re going to have a picture
0:44 0:44 - form this more less a chart that kind of
0:47 0:47 - pulls together all of the various
0:48 0:48 - characteristics that we’ve been talking
0:53 0:53 - about so to go over what we have been
0:56 0:56 - talking about the last little bit we’re
0:58 0:58 - just going to go ahead and review the
0:59 0:59 - out lines for the lessons that we’ve
1:01 1:01 - already done in discussion of the
1:03 1:03 - essence of God so the very first thing
1:06 1:06 - that we talked about with the essence of
1:07 1:07 - God was we were just introducing the
1:09 1:09 - concept we were talking about how the
1:12 1:12 - essence of God is being he is The Great
1:14 1:14 - I Am it is in God’s very nature to exist
1:18 1:18 - and then we talked about the respondence
1:20 1:20 - of God so God is light and that light
1:24 1:24 - gets at the sense of his unapproachable
1:26 1:26 - ility uh just how you can’t stare
1:28 1:28 - directly at the Sun and how glory is
1:31 1:31 - that manifestation of his of his glory
1:34 1:34 - in the world um so sorry the glory is
1:36 1:36 - the manifestation kind of of that light
1:39 1:39 - in the world so God operating through
1:42 1:42 - christophanies that came up a bit um and
1:45 1:45 - how we see God’s glory manifested in the
1:47 1:47 - world uh very much as uh we can see
1:51 1:51 - sunlight um so this these as kind of
1:53 1:53 - metaphors to explain the resplendence of
1:56 1:56 - God and then we talked a little bit at
1:58 1:58 - the end about how there are are various
2:01 2:01 - philosophical positions that people
2:02 2:02 - debate in regards to things like Essence
2:05 2:05 - and nature and substance and forms and
2:08 2:08 - philosophers have these words and how we
2:11 2:11 - are going to mostly be limiting
2:12 2:12 - ourselves to discussing the essence of
2:14 2:14 - God in terms of what the Bible itself
2:16 2:16 - actually says and so we’re not going to
2:18 2:18 - necessarily get into the weeds of all
2:19 2:19 - that um so this was the introduction of
2:23 2:23 - some of the things we talked about in uh
2:25 2:25 - this first lesson in this particular
2:26 2:26 - part of the study and then next we moved
2:28 2:28 - on to talking about God’s infinite
2:30 2:30 - nature and so in this we talked about
2:33 2:33 - God’s abilities uh kind of what he can
2:36 2:36 - do and what uh his status as this unique
2:40 2:40 - being in the universe is so we started
2:42 2:42 - out uh talking about how God is
2:45 2:45 - spiritual God is eternal and God is
2:47 2:47 - immeasurable in a spatial sense and all
2:49 2:49 - of these things which are what we would
2:52 2:52 - call Essential characteristics of God
2:54 2:54 - independent from creation make God
2:56 2:56 - unique um and so this was the kind of
2:59 2:59 - bridging quality uh that takes us from
3:02 3:02 - these initial three to omnipotence
3:05 3:05 - omniscience and omnipresence which are
3:07 3:07 - how these things end up kind of
3:09 3:09 - manifesting in creation itself so
3:12 3:12 - because God is spiritual he’s omnipotent
3:14 3:14 - he can do whatever he pleases in the
3:16 3:16 - material realm because he’s Eternal God
3:19 3:19 - knows everything the end from the
3:21 3:21 - beginning and because he’s immeasurable
3:23 3:23 - he cannot be bound in a spatial sense he
3:25 3:25 - is omnipresent he is everywhere in the
3:28 3:28 - universe so again
3:30 3:30 - this uh this particular section uh this
3:33 3:33 - lesson in the study going over God’s
3:35 3:35 - infinite nature and how that kind of
3:37 3:37 - sheds light on his abilities and then
3:40 3:40 - finally we looked at God’s perfect
3:42 3:42 - character and how that kind of helps
3:44 3:44 - illuminate his motives and so for his
3:46 3:46 - perfect character we were looking at the
3:49 3:49 - essential qualities of God that God is
3:51 3:51 - good God is Holy and God is faithful and
3:53 3:53 - true and then our kind of bridge
3:56 3:56 - characteristic here was how God is
3:58 3:58 - Sovereign and so this was probably the
3:59 3:59 - longest section that we went over in
4:02 4:02 - these few lessons here talking about how
4:04 4:04 - God is deure a ruler of the Universe on
4:08 4:08 - account of being the Creator um so God
4:11 4:11 - possesses The Sovereign authority to
4:13 4:13 - demonstrate love out of his goodness to
4:16 4:16 - to administer Justice out of his
4:17 4:17 - Holiness and to give life out of his
4:20 4:20 - truth and faithfulness um and so we had
4:22 4:22 - a a handy chart um in this set of slides
4:25 4:25 - that kind of like pulled together um how
4:28 4:28 - all of this works in terms of what we
4:30 4:30 - might call a theological vocabulary of
4:33 4:33 - redemption um so these these words here
4:36 4:36 - Redemption justification and
4:38 4:38 - Reconciliation kind of describing this
4:40 4:40 - process of God’s saving sinful man and
4:43 4:43 - as we emphasize time and again
4:45 4:45 - absolutely everything in the plan of God
4:47 4:47 - for saving us hinges upon the cross in
4:49 4:49 - the blood of Jesus Christ um so this is
4:52 4:52 - what we were talking about with uh God’s
4:54 4:54 - perfect character and then uh we closed
4:57 4:57 - off talking about how these aspects
4:59 4:59 - manif EST in Creation in how God uh
5:02 5:02 - approaches sinful mankind so God’s
5:05 5:05 - goodness is worked out in love God’s
5:07 5:07 - holiness is worked out in Justice and
5:09 5:09 - God’s faithfulness and Truth is what
5:11 5:11 - gives us life in this world uh just as
5:14 5:14 - we have the metaphor of the water of the
5:16 5:16 - word in John chapter 4 um as well as
5:19 5:19 - Jesus saying that uh we must eat his
5:22 5:22 - flesh and drink his blood uh in John
5:24 5:24 - chapter 6 that’s what gives us life um
5:27 5:27 - so this is what we have been going over
5:29 5:29 - um the last several lessons here and all
5:32 5:32 - this is to help us describe God’s
5:35 5:35 - essence of who God is what it means for
5:38 5:38 - him to be God so this is what we have
5:40 5:40 - been talking about and now we’re going
5:42 5:42 - to turn to kind of pulling it all
5:44 5:44 - together uh maybe in a paragraph or two
5:46 5:46 - as well as in a chart to help us
5:48 5:48 - summarize everything that we have been
5:49 5:49 - talking
5:53 5:53 - about so this is the part of the study
5:56 5:56 - that ichus has that kind of pulls
5:58 5:58 - together all of these qualities of God
6:00 6:00 - that we have been talking about um
6:02 6:02 - especially this as it relates to kind of
6:04 6:04 - redeeming us as sinful man uh from our
6:07 6:07 - sins and so as I read this here you’ll
6:10 6:10 - notice that uh the paragraphs have kind
6:12 6:12 - of been set as start almost in verse
6:14 6:14 - form and that’s because the way that Dr
6:16 6:16 - lug M arranged this it sounds very much
6:18 6:18 - it has the parallelism uh so to speak of
6:21 6:21 - poetry I mean it sounds kind of like
6:24 6:24 - what you would slip into in some of the
6:25 6:25 - Psalms that sort of thing and it really
6:27 6:27 - is a very good description of how God
6:30 6:30 - has worked out our Redemption um so I’m
6:33 6:33 - just going to go ahead and read this um
6:35 6:35 - and then we’ll go look at after this
6:37 6:37 - we’ll go look at the chart the picture
6:40 6:40 - that kind of represents the same
6:41 6:41 - information but more in a table format
6:43 6:43 - but first we’re going to go ahead and
6:44 6:44 - read uh kind of the verbal
6:46 6:46 - representation of God’s Redemptive plan
6:49 6:49 - for us so God’s goodness overflows with
6:53 6:53 - love providing Grace for sinful man
6:56 6:56 - though evil says a loving God can’t
6:58 6:58 - condemn he did condemn his son that we
7:00 7:00 - might live redeeming Us in love with the
7:03 7:03 - blood of Christ God’s holiness overflows
7:06 7:06 - Injustice offering Mercy to sinful man
7:09 7:09 - though evil says a just God can’t
7:11 7:11 - forgive he did forgive us by condemning
7:13 7:13 - his own son making us righteous through
7:16 7:16 - the blood of Christ God’s faithfulness
7:18 7:18 - and Truth overflow in life producing
7:21 7:21 - peace with God for sinful man though
7:23 7:23 - evil says that a god of Integrity can’t
7:25 7:25 - restore us he did make peace between us
7:28 7:28 - through his son reconciling us to
7:30 7:30 - himself and granting us eternal life on
7:33 7:33 - the basis of the blood of Christ and so
7:35 7:35 - you’ll notice that just as before when
7:37 7:37 - we were going through uh all the
7:39 7:39 - mechanics of this in the character of
7:41 7:41 - God that absolutely everything here ties
7:44 7:44 - back to the blood of Christ um so his
7:47 7:47 - goodness overflowing in love Holiness
7:49 7:49 - overflows in Justice and faithfulness
7:51 7:51 - and Truth overflow in life and all of
7:53 7:53 - this happens um that Redemption the
7:55 7:55 - justification and the reconciliation all
7:58 7:58 - of that happens on the basis of the
8:00 8:00 - blood of Christ just as we have been
8:02 8:02 - talking about
8:06 8:06 - before all right so now that we’ve gone
8:09 8:09 - through the text representation of the
8:11 8:11 - summary here now we’re just going to go
8:13 8:13 - ahead and we’re going to try to pull it
8:14 8:14 - all together in the table here now
8:17 8:17 - you’ll note that this very much
8:19 8:19 - corresponds with how ichus has organized
8:21 8:21 - this initial part of the study talking
8:23 8:23 - about the essence of God and that this
8:25 8:25 - left column here uh organizes everything
8:28 8:28 - about God’s infinite nature and this
8:30 8:30 - right column organizes everything about
8:32 8:32 - his perfect character and you can see
8:34 8:34 - that the columns are split um into
8:37 8:37 - independent and applied and what we’re
8:39 8:39 - talking about here uh these are
8:41 8:41 - characteristics of God independent from
8:43 8:43 - creation and these are how those
8:45 8:45 - characteristics manifest within creation
8:48 8:48 - and even more specifically in regards to
8:51 8:51 - God’s relationship with Humanity uh here
8:53 8:53 - talking about his character um so the
8:56 8:56 - independent characteristics his
8:58 8:58 - spirituality his eternity and his
9:00 9:00 - immeasurability manifest as omnipotence
9:03 9:03 - omniscience and omnipresence and these
9:05 9:05 - things together make God completely
9:07 9:07 - unique uh there’s no one like him in the
9:10 9:10 - universe and his goodness and his
9:13 9:13 - Holiness and his truth manifest
9:14 9:14 - respectively as love Justice and life
9:17 9:17 - here in the universe and these things
9:19 9:19 - together make God Sovereign uh he holds
9:22 9:22 - the scepter of authority by existential
9:24 9:24 - Fiat he is the one to whom all honor and
9:27 9:27 - glory is due in the universe
9:29 9:29 - not just because he’s the biggest and
9:31 9:31 - the most powerful on account of his
9:33 9:33 - abilities but also because he is the
9:35 9:35 - creator he is the one who has the right
9:38 9:38 - to judge the Free Will decisions of his
9:41 9:41 - creatures and so all of these things
9:43 9:43 - together describe God’s Essence as we’ve
9:45 9:45 - been discussing it his infinite nature
9:47 9:47 - his perfect character which makes him
9:49 9:49 - unique and Sovereign and he is the one
9:51 9:51 - to whom all honor and glory is due uh
9:55 9:55 - kind of both dejur by his uniqueness by
9:58 9:58 - his his his power and his abilities and
10:00 10:00 - also or sorry that was de facto by his
10:03 10:03 - uniqueness and and his abilities and
10:05 10:05 - also dejur on account of his status as
10:08 10:08 - the Creator the one who has made us and
10:10 10:10 - the one who has the actual authority to
10:13 10:13 - rule over us as the moral Sovereign of
10:16 10:16 - the universe so this is as I say a
10:19 10:19 - summary of all that we have been talking
10:21 10:21 - about here in this first section uh of
10:23 10:23 - the study going over God’s Essence so in
10:27 10:27 - closing us out aie do you have anything
10:28 10:28 - else you want to say about anything
10:30 10:30 - we’ve talked about any other points to
10:32 10:32 - make to keep in mind uh before we move
10:34 10:34 - on to the other things in the
10:36 10:36 - study uh not really I think you’ve
10:39 10:39 - covered everything quite
10:41 10:41 - nicely yeah all right well with that we
10:45 10:45 - will kind of wrap up this section and so
10:47 10:47 - hopefully this this video here has just
10:49 10:49 - been a bit of a review of all that’s
10:51 10:51 - gone before maybe this is a good one to
10:53 10:53 - come back to and review uh moving in the
10:55 10:55 - future uh you know just kind of pulling
10:57 10:57 - it all together but now we’re going to
10:59 10:59 - turn our attention to the next section
11:00 11:00 - in the study uh going over the doctrine
11:03 11:03 - of the Trinity so that is where we will
11:05 11:05 - pick up in our next lesson

Introduction - The Trinity

Trinity > Definition

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Summary

In this lesson, we are going to be starting an examination of a new topic in our study of God: the Trinity. God existing in three persons yet with one shared essence is about as core a concept as any we have in Christianity, which is one of the reasons that heresies related to the Trinity have been among the most existential of all threats to truth in the Church. This being the case, it is very important for us to understand the ins and outs of this keystone doctrine, so that we may stand firm in the truth of the Bible and its teaching.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
02:23 02:23 - The core definition of the Trinity: God is One in Essence, Three in Person
09:42 09:42 - Is the terminology itself important in considering the development of this doctrine?
36:39 36:39 - Even at the time the Bible was written, there were already incipient challenges to the Trinity
38:30 38:30 - Not being able to fully understand the Trinity this side of heaven is a human universal equally applying to all
39:37 39:37 - Progressive revelation: The Trinity was veiled from believers in the Old Testament
42:12 42:12 - Spelling it out a bit more
44:03 44:03 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

(Derived from https://ichthys.com/1Theo.htm)

The core definition of the Trinity: God is One in Essence, Three in Person

We will examine exactly what this statement means as we continue in our study, but suffice it to say that this idea of “one essence / three persons” (or “three persons / one essence” if you prefer that order to the phrasing instead) is the central point, and what you should always keep in mind when thinking about the Trinity. These two statements together sum up all that is important about the triune nature of God.

Is the terminology itself important in considering the development of this doctrine?

Trinity > Scripture alone is sufficient for establishing the teaching Trinity > The teaching existed before the word "Trinity" was used for it

In short, no. The Trinity has always been there in the Bible, for those willing to open their eyes and ears to the truth. How later people came to label the idea is in no way related to the fact that this concept has been there in scripture from day one.

Revelation 4:8 | translation from Ichthys

Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord, God, the Almighty
He who was, and He who is,
and He who is coming.

No specific term for the triune nature of God occurs in the Bible. The inspired writers of the New Testament clearly felt that the existence of one God in three distinct persons, the doctrine which we now call “the Trinity”, was a relatively straight-forward concept and accessible enough (even with a cursory reading of the scripture) from passages such as the one quoted above.

Technical discussion

To flesh out a bit more why we might make the claim that Revelation 4:8 supports the doctrine of the Trinity, consider:

The threefold repetition of the adjective Holy (Greek: ἅγιος, hagios)
The three titles used: κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ.
- κύριος, kurios, means “Lord”
- θεός, theos, means “God”
- παντοκράτωρ, pantokrater, means “the almighty”. It is a compound noun formed from the combination of πᾶς and κράτος.
The three aspects of God’s eternal existence: He who was (ὁ ἦν), and He who is (ὁ ὢν), and He who is to come (ὁ ἐρχόμενος). The first two are, respectively, the imperfect active and present active participles of εἰμί (Greek’s “to be” verb), and the third is a present middle participle, from ἔρχομαι.

Perhaps someone might say that it is not impossible or even particularly uncommon for multiple adjectives and titles to be applied to the same person. Fair enough. But one might also point out this verse’s structure of threefold repetition of threes would be somewhat odd unless it were intentional, right? That is, why is it that we have three groups of threes (three Holy’s, three titles, and three aspects of God’s eternality) rather than some other structure like one/four (two non-three groups), or two/one/three/one (four groups, only one of which is a group of three), and so on?

The explanation that makes the most sense is simply that John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, put things this way intentionally. And therefore it ought not be ignored. QED.

The Apostolic Fathers, the generation that followed the men who actually penned the New Testament, also felt that merely quoting scriptures was an entirely adequate way of discussing the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Not until the late second and early third centuries did the term “Trinity” itself come into general use as a way of defending (against a variety of heresies which sought to deny various aspects of the unique triune nature of God) what earlier generations of Christians had taken completely for granted based upon their common-sense approach to reading the Bible: that God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all God, and that at the same time they are—in what we may call a “personal” way—also distinct from each other.

God is one. God is also three. And there is no contradiction between these statements.

Even at the time the Bible was written, there were already incipient challenges to the Trinity

Note

This is a video-only section.

Not being able to fully understand the Trinity this side of heaven is a human universal equally applying to all

Note

This is a video-only section.

Progressive revelation: The Trinity was veiled from believers in the Old Testament

Note

This is a video-only section.

Spelling it out a bit more

As we have said, the core definition of the Trinity is that God is one in essence, and three in person.

To put the doctrine in complete terms, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet at the same time the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

0:00 0:00 - all right so now that we have uh fully discussed the essence of God that’s what
0:05 0:05 - we’ve spent the last few lessons talking about we’re going to move on to this other section in uh Bible basics part
0:12 0:12 - one theology on ichus talking about the uh study of God and now we’re going to
0:18 0:18 - move into discussing the Trinity and so this is obviously an important topic for
0:23 0:23 - us um in fact it’s about as core a concept as any we have in Christianity and that is one of the reasons why it
0:30 0:30 - has kind of presented an existential threat to truth in the church um it came under attack early on in Christian
0:36 0:36 - history um several different uh flavors of attack you know people who would
0:42 0:42 - question the humanity of Christ or the deity of Christ especially in regards to the Trinity saying that Jesus Christ was
0:48 0:48 - just a human that he wasn’t actually god um and obviously that is a existential
0:54 0:54 - threat to our belief as Christians uh we believe that we are saved uh through Jesus Christ who is both full fully man
1:00 1:00 - and fully God and died for us on the cross to pay for our sins that is the essence of the gospel and so um attacks
1:07 1:07 - on the Trinity very very uh dangerous towards our understanding of the truth
1:12 1:12 - and so this being the case it’s important for us to kind of understand the ins and outs of this one um it’s not
1:18 1:18 - something maybe that we should gloss over so much uh because we need to be firm on this so that we can stand firm
1:24 1:24 - in the truth of the Bible and its teaching and so here in this lesson uh this is just going to be the introdu
1:29 1:29 - trory lesson for talking about the Trinity so we’re going to talk about the core definition of the Trinity how God
1:36 1:36 - is one in essence and three in person that is the the definition uh the
1:42 1:42 - simplest and most best way to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity then we’re going to talk about uh the terminology
1:48 1:48 - here and is the terminology itself important in considering the development of this Doctrine um or is it really not
1:56 1:56 - that relevant um so that’s a question we’ll be considering and then finally we’re going to kind of spell it out a
2:01 2:01 - little bit more kind of make more explicit what this statement here one in essence three in person means in terms
2:07 2:07 - of uh all three members of the Trinity are God yet all three members of the Trinity are not each other um and so
2:14 2:14 - you’ll see what I mean when we get there U but these are the introductory topics that we’re going to be talking about
2:19 2:19 - here as we dive into the doctrine of the
2:25 2:25 - Trinity so the core definition of the Trinity as we said is that God is one in
2:31 2:31 - essence and three in person and so you can’t leave off either one of those statements when you formulate the
2:37 2:37 - Trinity otherwise you run into heresy and so we’re going to be examining exactly what the statement means as we
2:43 2:43 - continue in the study but suffice it to say that this idea of one Essence and three persons or three persons and one
2:49 2:49 - Essence if you prefer to order it that way this is the central point and what you should always keep in mind when
2:54 2:54 - thinking about the Trinity these two statements together sum up all that is important about the Triune nature of God
3:02 3:02 - and so uh in talking about this in how we formulate it this is where we always
3:07 3:07 - want to start when we talk about the Trinity and I will say that obviously we
3:12 3:12 - could jump off from here and get into all sorts of discussions but just because we’re introducing things um you
3:19 3:19 - know any questions that come up um kind of my thought for what we talk about here is uh just maybe people have a hard
3:26 3:26 - time understanding like what this means and if we get too off in the weeds I’ll
3:31 3:31 - kind of pull us back and and just be like you know we have plenty more lessons in the study of the Trinity to cover what it means and so we don’t want
3:38 3:38 - to load everything up front here but Audi do you have initial thoughts on just this presentation of how we talk
3:44 3:44 - about it uh this simple definition uh that ichus presents as the starting point for discussing the doctrine I
3:51 3:51 - think that um the reason that uh that that
3:57 3:57 - statement is used is that it’s really very hard to describe what the Trinity is it’s it’s really hard even when you
4:05 4:05 - have a certain degree of understanding of it discussing it is very tough um
4:12 4:12 - because we’re talking about one God and we’re talking about three persons in in in our experience of uh of
4:20 4:20 - life as human beings it’s very hard to to to conceive of something of that sort
4:27 4:27 - it’s not in our experience at all so so that use of one Essence and three person
4:33 4:33 - is is a sort of Genius it’s a way of saying we’re still talking about one
4:39 4:39 - thing even when we’re talking about three persons um but if you don’t use
4:46 4:46 - that terminology in my experience when you try to explain it in any other way you keep running into all sorts of difficulties you end up trying to
4:54 4:54 - explain that you’re not talking about three gods or you try to explain that you’re not talking about one person you
4:59 4:59 - know um I’ve tried to make the analogy for example that there are if you were
5:05 5:05 - to compare it to being human beings You’ say that um well not just human beings but dogs anything that has a particular
5:13 5:13 - nature you’d say well all three persons have this same nature but the trouble
5:20 5:20 - with saying that is well they each have their own copy of that nature so to
5:26 5:26 - speak just like um I’m human Ste is human Lisa is human Abby is human these
5:33 5:33 - are all human beings right and we share
5:39 5:39 - Humanity it’s something we have in common but I have my Humanity Stephen
5:44 5:44 - has his humanity and Abby has high humanity and Lisa has her humanity and
5:50 5:50 - JD has his humanity and so on and so forth so when you when you look at it that way
5:57 5:57 - you see it doesn’t quite describe describe the Trinity because when it comes to the Trinity they all have the
6:03 6:03 - same Essence they don’t have similar Essence in that what the father has is
6:08 6:08 - similar to what the son has which is similar to what the spirit has it’s that they all have the same thing they have
6:15 6:15 - one thing that they share in common so in the end it just makes it’s easiest
6:22 6:22 - and and um probably most accurate to say that they have one essence even though
6:29 6:29 - they’re three person so that’s uh I I I think it’s it’s really the the only way
6:36 6:36 - to describe it without ending up in some really tough places sure and I think the
6:41 6:41 - way that ikas phrases it um I I actually kind of reward it a little bit just because of how I structure the slides
6:46 6:46 - but AAS calls it the simplest and best way to describe it um and I think that’s really getting to the heart of this of
6:53 6:53 - if you start here then it’s a matter of clarifying what exactly we mean by this
6:58 6:58 - right um that’s that’s a good place to start right not so much that that people are off in the weeds because if you
7:05 7:05 - start to try to explain it by analogy perhaps not that ichus does present several analogies as we’ll see so for
7:11 7:11 - example visible light the light spectrum right it’s all light yet it’s of different wavelengths for example um if
7:18 7:18 - you start with the analogies it just it’s harder to be there because then you have to explain
7:24 7:24 - all these things how it’s not really quite the same it’s just an analogy and so on and so forth and so agree um in
7:30 7:30 - terms of how we formulate this the reason why we start here um even though usually it will require some explanation
7:36 7:36 - because for example what does Essence mean exactly U we’ll get into that as we as we continue going on Lesson by lesson
7:43 7:43 - in our study of the Trinity here but the reason why we start with this formulation um and and we’ll get a
7:48 7:48 - little bit more to the end about another way to restate this right that uh sort of more full accounting of what this
7:55 7:55 - statement translates to in terms of logic but why we start here is just because it’s the best way for us to dive
8:00 8:00 - into this topic which as AI said is just kind of hard to explain um it’s just kind of a fact that we have to deal with
8:07 8:07 - here that it’s hard for us as humans to wrap our heads around this uh one particular thing maybe you might have
8:13 8:13 - more thoughts on this too is just understanding the unity that’s involved in this is not something that humans
8:20 8:20 - have a direct analog to in our experience and so um we we we can
8:25 8:25 - understand you know being united like as a team perhaps is humans or you know we’re in agreement as a group but it’s
8:32 8:32 - not the unity that you know the the members of the Trinity have it’s of a
8:38 8:38 - completely different nature than that and that’s why the one Essence bit is important here because uh if you don’t
8:44 8:44 - somehow convey that uh the unity uh you know the the sharedness if you will that
8:52 8:52 - the Trinity members possess then you end up with basically hand waving your way of well we have three people who are
8:59 8:59 - really somehow one person and then you become unconvincing um and so uh Unity is a big big part of what we need to
9:06 9:06 - focus on when we explain what the Trinity is and how uh the three members of the godhead function together is that
9:13 9:13 - they have a Unity completely unlike anything that we can conceptualize as humans at least Unity between human
9:19 9:19 - beings simply because they are all God um so I I don’t know if you want to rip
9:26 9:26 - on any of that as I say we’ll get into all of this much more as we explain uh in the coming lessons exactly what the
9:32 9:32 - Trinity is and what it is not um but anything more to say or shall we move on to the next Point yeah we can move on
9:40 9:40 - yeah okay great so now kind of having covered this
9:47 9:47 - initial definition of the Trinity that is that God is one in essence but three in person we’re going to be talking
9:54 9:54 - about the terminology here and kind of asking the question if the terminology itself is important when we uh consider
10:01 10:01 - the development of this Doctrine and what we mean by that is sort of how people talk about it um if it was
10:06 10:06 - formalized to kind of help argue against various heresies in the early church well what does that mean in regards to
10:13 10:13 - uh whether the doctrine existed in scripture before that you know it didn’t just come to exist when we made a label
10:20 10:20 - for it right um it existed before that and that’s going to kind of be what we emphasize here and so in answering this
10:27 10:27 - question uh is the terminy itself important in considering the development of the doctrine uh the general answer to
10:33 10:33 - that question is no uh because the Trinity has always been there in the Bible for those who are willing to open
10:38 10:38 - their eyes and ears to the truth um the Bible writes of this you might think um on the road to emus uh you know when
10:46 10:46 - Jesus explains uh to those he was walking with you know how the Old Testament spoke of him um a very
10:51 10:51 - fascinating conversation that we kind of wish we had right what passages exactly did Jesus use uh to talk about about
10:59 10:59 - himself right as displayed in the Old Testament you know we we might think maybe Isaiah 53 the suffering servant
11:05 11:05 - that’s a possibility um other plenty of there’s plenty of other references in
11:10 11:10 - the Old Testament uh that are christological in nature that’s the jargony way to say they point to Jesus
11:16 11:16 - Christ um and specifically Jesus Christ as God um but in any case how later
11:22 11:22 - people came to label the idea of the Trinity kind of isn’t really related to
11:28 11:28 - the fact that the concept of the Trinity has been there in scripture from day one in fact not just in the New Testament
11:34 11:34 - it’s been there even in the Old Testament from day one and so that’s kind of the important point for us to
11:39 11:39 - recognize here is that the Trinity is it’s an aspect of God’s existence right we talked about how God is existence God
11:45 11:45 - exists external to SpaceTime uh so he exists Before Time so to speak and God
11:50 11:50 - has always been Triune in nature so the Trinity is inherent to God it is in fact
11:55 11:55 - in no way conditional upon creation and in understanding that the fact that
12:01 12:01 - people kind of developed terminology to talk about it more doesn’t mean that no one believed in the Trinity before they
12:07 12:07 - started using these words um and you might kind of laugh and say well why are we even bothering to say that that’s
12:12 12:12 - kind of common sense right but you know there is this idea and I I couldn’t tell you why it seems like nonsense to me but
12:19 12:19 - it it’s there in um biblical studies Academia a bit um people talk about the development of doctrine that may be how
12:26 12:26 - they phrase it but the development of the Trinity like it just seems to me
12:32 12:32 - very silly and ich this is very clear um you’ll see in the formulation so this paragraph up here this was me but this
12:37 12:37 - is uh ichus specifically I’ll actually read this now it says uh that no specific term for the Triune nature of
12:44 12:44 - God exists in the Bible and this is where Dr Lugo kind of throws down his Gauntlet and says you know this is what
12:50 12:50 - we need to believe regardless of what other people say he says the inspired writers of the New Testament clearly
12:55 12:55 - felt that the existence of one God in three distinct persons the doctrine which we now call the Trinity was a
13:01 13:01 - relatively straightforward concept and accessible enough even with a cursory reading of the scripture from passages
13:07 13:07 - such as the one quoted above and then he quotes Revelation 4:8 which we’ll get to in a second but the point is is that
13:14 13:14 - it’s there in the Bible you know and so the fact that some people started talking about it in a certain way in the
13:19 13:19 - late second and early 3 Century doesn’t mean that no one before that actually believed in the Trinity it’s complete
13:25 13:25 - nonsense um but for whatever reason we actually have to make this because some people apparently think that uh quote
13:32 13:32 - unquote Doctrine was developed and I guess that people before that didn’t properly understand the Trinity or something like that which I just think
13:38 13:38 - is complete nonsense um so that’s why we’re spending the time here to kind of go over this point and so Dr lugan Bill
13:45 13:45 - uses uh this verse here in Revelation chapter 4:8 so I’ll go ahead and read it and then on the next slide we’re going
13:51 13:51 - to kind of go over well if we say this as a kind of evidence be it direct or
13:56 13:56 - indirect for the Trinity well kind of how does that work right I had this question when I first saw the verse and
14:01 14:01 - that Dr luging was using it as okay so if we’re using this verse um as one of those passages in the Bible uh that
14:08 14:08 - makes the Trinity a straightforward and accessible concept as we’ve been just arguing well how does it do that so the
14:14 14:14 - verse here uh Revelation chapter 4:8 says this holy holy holy the Lord God
14:22 14:22 - the almighty he who was and he who is and he who is coming so we’re going to
14:27 14:27 - split this down break it down to kind of go into a bit more detail how this verse
14:32 14:32 - which maybe doesn’t look on the face of it to have all that much relationship to the Trinity how does this support uh
14:39 14:39 - kind of a trinitarian understanding of God and so to flush all this out a bit more um I don’t want to get too bogged
14:45 14:45 - down in the Greek here but you know I just I included the Greek words uh just for people who know it who might be
14:50 14:50 - interested um the kind of the the core reason why we say this verse supports
14:56 14:56 - the Trinity and gives us that kind kind of the feeling of the trium nature of God is that in this verse we have we
15:03 15:03 - have three sets of Threes right so you know the Trinity obviously composed of three people but we have a three-fold
15:10 15:10 - repetition first off of the adjective holy in Greek so in Greek that’s the word hagios um we have a three-fold
15:17 15:17 - repetition of the adjective holy so rather than just holy we have holy holy holy the Lord God the almighty now of
15:24 15:24 - course repetition uh is used across languages for emphasis but we have three
15:30 15:30 - holies here uh next we have three titles used um so cuos Theos and Ponto right
15:38 15:38 - those are the Greek words cuos is the normal word for Lord Theos of course means God and this is the more
15:44 15:44 - interesting one Ponto is literally translates as the Almighty we kind of have an English word that translate this
15:51 15:51 - um but this is made from the Greek word for all and the Greek word for power so the all powerful one the almighty um
15:59 15:59 - three titles right so we said uh three repetitions of the adjective holy three titles here and then after that we have
16:06 16:06 - the three aspects of God’s Eternal existence right he who was this is the imperfect participle he who is the
16:13 16:13 - present participle and then he who is to come this one’s a middle participle so
16:18 16:18 - most people probably won’t be that interested in this but the point is you know God existed in the past he exists
16:23 16:23 - now and he is to exist in the future past present and future three aspects of Eternal existence so you’ll notice here
16:31 16:31 - we have three sets of thre and so someone kind of might say well it’s not impossible or even particularly uncommon
16:38 16:38 - for multiple adjectives and titles to be applied to the same person right so you might think of kings and Emperors
16:43 16:43 - throughout history were given epithets or if you’re familiar with uh like the
16:49 16:49 - Greek epics for example like Homer various heroes in The Iliad were given
16:54 16:54 - epithets you know that it’s a title um so different people can have multiple titles multiple adjectives appli to them and
17:00 17:00 - that doesn’t like break grammatical rules or anything so that’s fair enough point but you might also point out here
17:06 17:06 - that this versus structure of three-fold repetition of Threes would be somewhat
17:11 17:11 - odd unless it were intentional so why would we have three sets of Threes in this verse rather than for example uh
17:19 17:19 - you know two sets of things that weren’t threes so right what what what if we had like one adjective and four titles or
17:27 17:27 - what if we had two adjectives one title the three aspects of God’s existence and then one other thing right so having
17:34 17:34 - something that’s like 2131 rather than 3 three three so four groups only one of which is a group of
17:40 17:40 - three and so on you know you can come up with other examples here but the very fact that we have three sets of Threes
17:46 17:46 - in this verse it just means that the explanation that makes the most sense is simply that John inspired by the Holy
17:52 17:52 - Spirit put things this way intentionally and therefore we ought not to ignore it uh QED that’s how the general argument
17:59 17:59 - here goes is that why would this verse be structured uh in this very specific way with three sets of Threes all of
18:06 18:06 - which Echo the three-fold nature of God if we’re not supposed to read something into it um so uh hopefully that’s a
18:13 18:13 - little bit helpful in understanding why this verse here in Revelation chap 4:8 kind of helps point us to the idea of
18:19 18:19 - the Trinity Now by no means is this the verse on which the doctrine of the Trinity Rises and Falls this is just an
18:25 18:25 - example of where we get it in scripture there are plenty of other verses uh that are relevant in this discussion many of
18:32 18:32 - which we will get to as we continue studying this topic but I just to give you an example of Trinity in the Bible
18:38 18:38 - well this is one place where we can look as a passage that references it so kind of to turn our attention here back to uh
18:46 18:46 - you know the usage of terminology in the early church and what we should make of that uh so the apostolic fathers which
18:52 18:52 - is the generation that followed the men who actually Penn the New Testament so the apostles the apostolic fathers
18:58 18:58 - that’s what they’re called um also felt that merely quoting scriptures was an entirely adequate way of discussing the
19:04 19:04 - relationship between the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and so to translate translate that into more plain
19:09 19:09 - English they didn’t get very doctrinal and start building up all these systems and and argumentation about all this
19:16 19:16 - because they were just like yeah the Bible you know the Bible talks about the father and the Bible talks about the Son and the Bible talks about the Holy
19:22 19:22 - Spirit and they just kind of shrugged and they didn’t make a big deal out of it and so it’s not until the late second and early thirr centuries that the term
19:28 19:28 - Trinity came into General use as a way of Defending against a variety of heresies which sought to deny various
19:34 19:34 - aspects of what we now call the Trinity uh again one of the most prominent ones being that Jesus Christ wasn’t actually
19:41 19:41 - god um well they kind of developed this as a way to talk about these things to
19:46 19:46 - defend against people who were saying that things were not so um so they they
19:51 19:51 - came into all of this uh for what early Generations had taken completely for granted based upon their common approach
19:58 19:58 - to reading the Bible well now they kind of developed a system to talk about these things but as I emphasized from
20:04 20:04 - the beginning here that doesn’t mean that people before this point didn’t believe in the Trinity or didn’t
20:10 20:10 - understand the Trinity this just came about in a specific time and place in human history as a result largely uh to
20:16 20:16 - help argue against various heresies that were challenging aspects of the Trinity and so that is uh what we are talking
20:23 20:23 - about here this system came into place to make clear the fact that God the
20:29 20:29 - Father the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all actually God while at the same time uh in what we might
20:34 20:34 - call a personal way they’re all distinct from each other right that is the Trinity um and the challenge of this and
20:40 20:40 - also of course why there have been so many challenges to this is because in saying this we are saying that God is
20:46 20:46 - one and yet God is also three and that there’s no contradiction between these statements but people always want to see
20:51 20:51 - a contradiction there and that’s why the heresies arose and that’s why people started kind of um that’s right way to
20:58 20:58 - put this uh making a system in order to debate these matters to defend the
21:04 21:04 - doctrine against challenges to it and it got a little bit more formalized but that doesn’t mean that even before that
21:09 21:09 - point that people weren’t talking about it or believing in it and things like that so that was introduction here to
21:17 21:17 - this idea of terminology as it relates to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity so Audie do you have initial
21:23 21:23 - thoughts about what we’ve been talking about here in this section um yeah I I
21:28 21:28 - think just to strengthen what you already said that um Trinity is a is a
21:34 21:34 - word that was invented to capture what was actually in the Bible matter of fact
21:40 21:40 - is um it it it seems as if the Bible is less interested in telling you about the
21:49 21:49 - Trinity and More in just telling you you know about the persons that it’s talking
21:55 21:55 - about so it just starts talking about Jesus Christ Christ and just out of the blue starts talking about him as God
22:02 22:02 - same thing with the father same thing with the Holy Spirit it doesn’t seem to um be particularly concerned about the
22:09 22:09 - fact that someone reading that might go wait wait what’s happening the Bible just takes for
22:15 22:15 - granted that well Jesus is God the father is God the holy spirit is God
22:22 22:22 - there is one God get with the program you know so but people started to make
22:28 22:28 - an issue of that and that’s why just like you said they the word was eventually invented just to make sure
22:35 22:35 - that we could talk about these things and make clear what we are saying um we could also conceive of it as a try Unity
22:43 22:43 - that’s a the perfect Unity of three persons that the unity so perfect and so
22:51 22:51 - complete that it means that they are one God they’re not three Gods they’re in perfect unity in everything that really
22:57 22:57 - counts but they are three three separate individuals so um uh the the term itself
23:03 23:03 - the word itself is a word of convenience the Bible presents the whole thing as a
23:10 23:10 - matter of fact and does not really go into how and why and all of that just
23:17 23:17 - tells you well um like uh in Zechariah I
23:23 23:23 - believe chapter 12 where it said um uh they will look upon me whom they have
23:29 23:29 - pierced and you know the Lord God said to me the Lord God has sent me and so on
23:37 23:37 - and so forth you know it’s like it just says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world why does it confuse you you
23:45 23:45 - know so but the term itself is just for convenience yeah yeah I mean and I think
23:51 23:51 - to bounce off what you said a bit this is the problem that people have when they kind of approach the Bible with a
23:57 23:57 - precon notion of what it ought to say right so if you are and your faith is
24:02 24:02 - being attacked by this very convinced guy over here who says you’re wrong and you wish you could just find ammunition
24:09 24:09 - that directly proved him wrong in the Bible you might throw up your hands and say well why didn’t the Bible you know
24:14 24:14 - phrase you know very systematic uh you know basically a systematic study of the nature of God in the Trinity so that
24:21 24:21 - like with Point 1 B2 I might prove my interlocutor wrong well that’s just not
24:28 24:28 - the purpose of the Bible right and I mean we don’t want to get too hand waving talking about quote unquote the purpose of the Bible right but
24:34 24:34 - essentially God gives us everything we need to know but there’s a reason why he doesn’t give us more you know and some
24:40 24:40 - of that as the gospels make clear is that uh we are supposed to as Christians exercise our free will to want to dig if
24:47 24:47 - we do not dig to understand if we do not try we do not search we do not find
24:52 24:52 - teachers who can help explain things to us we will not grow part of this whole process of the reason why we have
24:58 24:58 - imperfect information so to speak is because it gives us the opportunity to choose um and so uh in this particular
25:06 25:06 - instance we would say that the Bible it’s not that the Bible doesn’t support the Trinity it’s that people who want to
25:14 25:14 - deny Christianity on account of the Trinity specifically are given enough room to do so right um and anyone who
25:22 25:22 - cares enough to actually read the Bible with an open mind and think and ask questions will come to the understanding
25:28 25:28 - that the Trinity is true and that the Bible teaches it and that it’s not like the Bible is vague or nebulous about it
25:34 25:34 - and you know we’ll go over some of the passages that maybe we’re just waving our hand now but we will be more convincing about this I promise but the
25:40 25:40 - whole point is is that the Bible is not systematic in its its outlining of these things right maybe perhaps not how an
25:47 25:47 - apologist would desire to May to go use his ammunition against people arguing against his position right and so we
25:53 25:53 - need to not read in our preconceived notions of what the Bible ought to say you know another example that comes
25:58 25:58 - directly to mind here is people want the Bible to talk about uh you know the creation of the universe as if it’s a
26:04 26:04 - science textbook right um and For Better or Worse a common argument trotted out
26:10 26:10 - in defense of that was that the Bible is you know it’s not a science textbook which is true but we don’t need to be
26:17 26:17 - like ashamed or feel dirty when we say that because the Bible is everything that God saw fit to give to us and if he
26:23 26:23 - thought we needed more information he would have given it to us so uh you know just basically like AI said and and like
26:30 26:30 - the early people said we can just shrug and be like well the Bible says this and the Bible says this and the Bible says this and and you know basically why are
26:37 26:37 - you getting so upset about uh you know you set up this system of Doctrine and you’re like well I see points a and
26:43 26:43 - points B and point C this doesn’t mean that we can’t be systematic and rigorous when we study things but we just need to
26:48 26:48 - understand what the purpose of the text that has been given us is right we need to study it in the in the manner and the
26:55 26:55 - way in which God intends for us to use it um am I being too vague AI do you want to bounce off anything I’m saying
27:01 27:01 - or you think the point is sufficient into itself I I think it is I think it is
27:09 27:09 - okay great well I don’t have too much more to say here um I do think this is an important point it’s why Dr lugan
27:15 27:15 - bille I mean I made me chuckle a bit when I was reading it you know the strongness that he comes you know about the here let me some specific words here
27:23 27:23 - right the straightforward and accessible nature of this Doctrine right because
27:28 27:28 - the reason why this makes me chuckle is because I can think of people specifically atheists or agnostics who
27:34 27:34 - would think that these statements are not true right that the Bible is not clear on this matter or at least it
27:40 27:40 - could be a whole lot more clear and therefore uh they find fault with God on account of this but this is one of those
27:47 27:47 - things where people who look with eyes of Faith it’s there you know um uh in in
27:53 27:53 - the same way that all of these other beliefs that we carry as Christians maybe even beliefs that kind of cut against the common grain well God gives
28:01 28:01 - us minds and he empowers us with his holy spirit to interpret his truth and if we believe we will see the things
28:08 28:08 - that are behind uh the material things in this world right we’ll see the spiritual realities behind them um and
28:16 28:16 - so in our particular example here all we’re saying is that the Trinity is in the Bible and that is sufficient unto
28:22 28:22 - itself um if people don’t like that if they if they say that we’re just a that
28:28 28:28 - and that uh I don’t know that we need to somehow prove it it’s kind of their problem um and and you know there it’s
28:34 28:34 - not to say that people who are gifted in apologetics cannot engage on this matter or that nothing more could be said or
28:40 28:40 - that we can’t even defend it from critics right because obviously our forbears uh you know one of the points we made was that they they came up with
28:46 28:46 - this terminology uh and ways of outlining and expressing the doctrine and our belief and and I mean not that
28:53 28:53 - they were perfect or anything but this isn’t something that we need to censure them for for right we’re defending the
28:58 28:58 - truth we’re standing up for the truth that’s a good thing however between us as Christians when we’re when we’re
29:04 29:04 - trying to explain this to other believers the point is is that the Bible talks about it it’s sufficient if you
29:10 29:10 - look for it and with eyes of Faith understanding that this is something that we need to believe about God it’s
29:17 29:17 - there you know you don’t have to go into mental gymnastic to do it but if you try to convince someone who’s skeptical who
29:23 29:23 - is set not to believe you’re probably never going to convince them no matter what verses you show right
29:29 29:29 - um all right so anything more to say on this topic before we move on to the next
29:35 29:35 - you’re quite right I I don’t think that um there is uh much in the way of like I
29:42 29:42 - I said before I I I think that it’s very deliberate on the part of the Bible that
29:47 29:47 - it just presents a lot of these things as statements of fact it’s more like
29:53 29:53 - um why are you confused it’s this it’s that it’s that end of story you know just take it take
30:00 30:00 - it as it is so if anyone needs to be persuaded that the Trinity is a thing
30:06 30:06 - that it is what the Bible teaches well let’s let’s just say you will never succeed at actually convincing them of
30:13 30:13 - it it’s one of those things the Bible says that we will know when we um uh
30:20 30:20 - when when we put off this body when we are we eventually come to be with the Lord because at that time we will have
30:28 30:28 - faculties that are better able to make sense of um spiritual realities of this
30:35 30:35 - sort but it’s sufficient to say he is God he is not a man he is not a creature
30:42 30:42 - he’s not like the universe he made so we should not expect him to be like the
30:48 30:48 - universe that we made we already talked about um the matter of his existence the
30:54 30:54 - fact that the way that God exists is different than the way way that the Universe exists we have no concept of
31:00 31:00 - how something could possibly self- exist it’s not in our experience things don’t
31:05 31:05 - just exist we we Trace things to their beginning and then we say before they
31:13 31:13 - came to exist something happened to bring them to exist we can’t make sense of God like that likewise we cannot
31:20 31:20 - really make sense of how he is in the composition of his presence so to speak
31:28 31:28 - we know that Jesus is God the holy spirit is God the father is God how do
31:34 31:34 - we know Bible says it we also know that the father is not
31:40 31:40 - Jesus that Jesus is not the Holy Spirit and that there is only one God we know that because the Bible says that we call
31:47 31:47 - it the Trinity because it’s a big thing to it’s a mouthful if you want to you know
31:54 31:54 - describe the whole thing what we just said now is something you would want to capture in um a few syllables to be able
32:03 32:03 - to use it when you have to speak of it and that’s why Trinity as a word exists
32:08 32:08 - so if people are not persuaded by that and I’ve had so many debates so many debates with atheists with agnostics
32:16 32:16 - with even fellow Believers about this that I’ve just realized it’s it’s really pointless to debate it because the
32:21 32:21 - statements are just obvious right on the bare face of it I I
32:27 32:27 - I think one of the ones that I just pointed out is that one was pretty mind-blowing when I when I eventually
32:32 32:32 - saw it where um Zariah was saying that the Lord God said to him that the Lord
32:38 32:38 - God had sent him and you know so it was a pretty interesting thing to say and
32:45 32:45 - there are people I think the the biggest experience of this that I had in my life
32:51 32:51 - was with um the Jehovah’s Witnesses who are adamant about the fact that Jesus is
32:57 32:57 - not God and they hate the very concept of the Trinity they believe that it’s a idea that was imported into Christianity
33:05 33:05 - so um when when you talk with such people you come to realize it’s like
33:11 33:11 - trying to convince an atheist that God exists my experience of such a thing is
33:16 33:16 - that it’s too obvious to argue and when this is one of the the things I have
33:23 33:23 - problems with the oldtimers for I mean the so-called Church fathers and church
33:30 33:30 - doctors and whatnot I have this issue with them that because they were trying to make sense of the obvious they ended
33:38 33:38 - up inventing philosophies that were actually alien to the Bible just to make
33:44 33:44 - sense of something the Bible says it is sufficient that the Bible said it if the person is not willing to accept the
33:51 33:51 - testimony of the Bible well what more can we say we have nothing more to say at that point there are doctrines in the
33:57 33:57 - Bible that require some work and that where you can say this is how and this is why but in the scriptures we don’t
34:04 34:04 - have the how and the why um uh the father is not Jesus and Jesus is not the
34:10 34:10 - Holy Spirit and and the three are individually God and yet there is one
34:16 34:16 - God we we don’t know how that is we don’t really know why that is but we we do know that it is because the Bible
34:24 34:24 - says that it is and I think that’s what we should be very satisfied within every conversation we have with people yep I
34:31 34:31 - mean I will say specifically if people are unfamiliar with kind of the debates that Audi reference shorthand there’s
34:37 34:37 - this concept of Eternal beginning you may have heard this it’s even in the Nan Creed right it gets formalized people
34:44 34:44 - say this I don’t think many people think about it but there’s also this idea that the spirit proceeds from the father and
34:49 34:49 - the son um you’ll hear this this come up from the mouths especially of perhaps
34:54 34:54 - Catholic folks or Orthodox folks where they try to explain the Trinity a lot more than what’s really there in the
35:00 35:00 - text right um that’s some of what we’re getting at here um and these systems of
35:05 35:05 - philosophy where you’re you’re trying to you’re trying to explain something that human beings can’t explain right this is
35:12 35:12 - a very very important concept I don’t want us to get super off topic but very important concept for us as Christians
35:18 35:18 - is basically learning when we need to like stop pushing on something and demanding an explanation from God right
35:25 35:25 - um this is one of those areas in fact I will say that many of the areas that we need to be kind of
35:55 35:55 - gunshy31 but then we will see clearly Right This Side of Heaven we have no
36:00 36:00 - chance of understanding certain things now that doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands in cases where we really can
36:07 36:07 - explain but we just need to be humble enough to say well the Bible said it in
36:12 36:12 - this case and I’m gonna stick with that even if the system you’ve invented you know it’s it’s a
36:19 36:19 - self-rationalizing
36:26 36:26 - I think that’s where we’ll cut this section and and the next we will pick up just kind of fleshing out a little bit
36:33 36:33 - more what that statement means and then that’s where we will close out uh this week here our introduction of the
36:39 36:39 - concept of the Trinity so right before we move on to the next bit we actually paused had a couple good good points
36:45 36:45 - brought up uh uh good things discussed so uh one thing to start with initially
36:50 36:50 - is just that um even in the Bible the time that uh the apostles Paul and John
36:57 36:57 - were writing parts of the New Testament we actually already had some of these challenges cropping up so you got to be
37:02 37:02 - careful exactly which corners of scholarship you lean into and so on but uh the Apostle John was writing about
37:10 37:10 - the Incarnation of Christ and emphasizing how Jesus Christ was actually a human being and it might seem
37:15 37:15 - kind of weird to us especially when we’re talking about the Trinity but this is combating an early form of what is
37:20 37:20 - typically called gnosticism this idea that Jesus was just somehow spiritual or something like that um and of course
37:27 37:27 - Paul is uh he does reason with people various places in his Epistles but he too is arguing against incipient
37:33 37:33 - challenges to a proper understanding of God and the thing to keep in mind in all
37:38 37:38 - this so for example when Paul upgrades the Corinthians and uh First Corinthians and so on is that he really got down on
37:45 37:45 - them for kind of their over intellectualization uh you know I say that that’s a really big word in my intellectual on their over
37:52 37:52 - intellectualization of certain aspects of of uh the beliefs that we have as Christians and so um you know if they
37:59 37:59 - try to make things conform to platonism neoplatonism Aristotelian logic you know
38:04 38:04 - are are they getting wrapped up in all of this uh intellectual sounding mumbo jumbo rather than understanding what has
38:12 38:12 - been passed down to us in the Bible um and so already at that point we kind of
38:17 38:17 - run into this idea that um it’s not that you know our understanding of the Trinity for example is illogical is
38:24 38:24 - simply that we can only go up to a certain point and because of that we
38:29 38:29 - just need to acknowledge our own limits as human beings and these limits another Point brought up during discussion these
38:34 38:34 - limits apply to all human beings it’s not like uh it is allowable for certain
38:40 38:40 - people who might consider themselves wise teachers or whatever to be like ah well you don’t really understand the
38:45 38:45 - Trinity just because you’re not wise enough unwashed masses of Believers that’s not how it works um all of us as
38:53 38:53 - human beings are limited in our perspective uh simply because we are bound by space and time and we don’t
39:00 39:00 - truly understand what all this means in the in the same way that we will in eternity when things are clear for us um
39:05 39:05 - but that applies to everybody and we just need to acknowledge uh in humility that we will only understand up to a
39:11 39:11 - certain point and again this doesn’t mean that this Doctrine is illogical it just means it’s super logical it exceeds
39:19 39:19 - the bounds of what we can know um and so those are just a couple a couple points to bring up here in closing out this
39:26 39:26 - discussion the early doctrine of the Trinity maybe how it was discussed so even at the time
39:31 39:31 - of the the Bible was being written there were already kind of incipient challenges to proper understanding of
39:38 39:38 - God and what he meant um I guess one other thing I kind of did this out of order relative to our discussion but we
39:43 39:43 - kind of talked about uh Believers in the Old Testament as well how some of these things um even though they’re there in
39:49 39:49 - the Old Testament you know we we argued that that these things have always been there in the Bible uh this was one of
39:54 39:54 - those things that was arguably kind of veiled so Judaism cons always considered
40:00 40:00 - to this day even to be a monotheistic religion a one God not Triune God just one God period um but people who read
40:08 40:08 - the new the Old Testament honestly AI brought up this example in Zechariah there’s also the Messianic Psalm Audi
40:14 40:14 - also brought this up in our discussion uh well I guess off the recording but a Messianic Psalm where uh David’s saying
40:20 40:20 - and uh the Lord said to my Lord right what does that even mean if it’s not trinitarian right um there would have
40:27 40:27 - been people in the Old Testament who were looking at the text and were wondering what does the say about God
40:33 40:33 - you know is there more here um but it was actually hidden from them um the so-called Divine Mysteries right this
40:39 40:39 - one of the benefits we have living in the time that we do is that those things which were once veiled are no longer
40:45 40:45 - veiled um and all this to say we don’t necessarily get to look down our noses
40:50 40:50 - at uh such great Believers as Abraham and David and uh you know maybe Isaac and Jacob and so on um because oh well
40:58 40:58 - they didn’t understand the Trinity so maybe I’m such a great person now or whatever is because they lived in this time in which they had the same defining
41:06 41:06 - faith that we have as Christians in their place and time and God had not yet unveiled all of these things uh perhaps
41:13 41:13 - even to the angels there’s this verse in First Peter that talks about how even the angels want to look into these things and so part of that obviously is
41:19 41:19 - the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and his death to redeem us on the cross but uh you know aspects of God nature and how
41:26 41:26 - it interacts with creation all of this we don’t know exactly but obviously for Old Testament Believers the fact that
41:32 41:32 - maybe there was a progressive revelation that’s the jargony theological term for this stuff that there was progressive
41:39 41:39 - revelation here as it came to manifes in God’s nature and character and the fact
41:44 41:44 - that he’s a Triune God doesn’t mean that the Old Testament Believers didn’t believe so uh that is some of what we
41:52 41:52 - discussed here uh to conclude this section good thoughts here and now we’re going to turn kind of to wrapping up uh
41:59 41:59 - this particular introduction to the doctrine of the Trinity before we jump into in future lessons uh some of the
42:04 42:04 - specifics of it or we’re just going to go ahead and restate the doctrine kind of with a little bit more specificity
42:09 42:09 - and that’s what we’re going to do in the next bit
42:14 42:14 - here so just one last thing to talk about here in our introduction to the topic of the Trinity we’ve said that the
42:21 42:21 - core definition of the Trinity is that God is one in essence yet three in person
42:26 42:26 - and so I kind of said that we’ we’d kind of wind our way back to this and aie actually he said this almost word for
42:33 42:33 - word uh in one of the things that he was talking about earlier in regards to the middle portion but to kind of put this
42:39 42:39 - in complete terms when we say that God is one in essence and three in person what that actually means is that the
42:46 42:46 - father is God the son is God and the Holy Spirit is God yet at the same time the father is not the son or the Holy
42:52 42:52 - Spirit the son is not the father of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the father the sun um so um I tell you
42:59 42:59 - what actually let me go find this I will we’ll we’ll we’ll get to this picture later on um so I’m going to go find the
43:06 43:06 - uh section in the study here on ichus where we have the picture of the Trinity
43:11 43:11 - um I know it’s somewhere here I mean like we’ll get to it some point here right this is exactly what we’re saying
43:18 43:18 - um that the father of the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God but they are not each other that is what three persons
43:24 43:24 - one Essence essentially needs um so that is all there is to it this introduction
43:31 43:31 - of the doctrine that is what we say we believe when we say that God is one in essence and three in person so Audi any
43:36 43:36 - clarifications to make here um anything else to say about what it is we say we believe um and like I said we’ll get
43:42 43:42 - into all the specifics of this um as we move forward in the lessons but yeah I don’t think I have anything
43:49 43:49 - further to see it’s okay great so that is our introduction here um introduction
43:55 43:55 - to the the doctrine of the Trinity and we will be going through um more specifics as we move on in the further
44:01 44:01 - lessons in this study here so these are the things that we
44:08 44:08 - covered here in our introduction to the doctrine of the Trinity uh first we talked about the core definition of the
44:14 44:14 - Trinity that God is one in essence and three in person uh then we spent some time talking about uh the terminology
44:21 44:21 - itself how the Bible itself speaks to the Trinity and even before people came
44:26 44:26 - up with some of the terminology that we now employ um people believed this and they believed it because it’s Common
44:32 44:32 - Sense from the Bible because the Bible says things like Jesus Is God despite
44:37 44:37 - what groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses might say you know it’s what it’s what John chapter 1 says and so because of
44:43 44:43 - this um we have these statements the scripture just presents as fact it doesn’t it doesn’t try to convince us of
44:49 44:49 - them or logic um logic them into something we ought to believe it just asserts them it just States them and so
44:54 44:54 - because of that people even before uh some of the so-called trinitarian
45:00 45:00 - controversies happened people believe the Trinity because that’s what the Bible teaches um and that is not
45:05 45:05 - entirely an uncont uncontroversial position for us to take but it is the position we should take because it’s in
45:11 45:11 - the Bible is what the Bible says it’s what people believed because the Bible clearly states it and so we’ll go into
45:17 45:17 - more of those places where the Bible clearly states it we did use as an example here Revelation 4:8 this verse
45:24 45:24 - here saying holy holy holy the Lord God or sorry the Lord God the almighty he who was and he who is and he who is
45:30 45:30 - coming this three-fold repetition of Threes that if you’re being kind of honest uh must be intentional and what
45:38 45:38 - that points to us uh uh John the writer of Revelation uh you know writing under
45:43 45:43 - the inspiration of the Holy Spirit included this and this is one such passage that we use that points us towards the Trinity um and then after
45:49 45:49 - all of that discussion of terminology and how people kind of believe it and understand it because it’s there in the
45:55 45:55 - Bible and so so we don’t need to get all worked up about uh you know did people only start believing it in the third
46:00 46:00 - Century or whatever after all that we talked about um just how what this
46:06 46:06 - statement of one in essence and three in person means is that uh the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God yet
46:12 46:12 - they are separate and distinct from each other you know we’ll come back to this picture uh in the future lesson where it’s actually referenced but um the
46:18 46:18 - three uh persons of the godhead the Father the Son and the spirit are all God and yet they are not each other
46:24 46:24 - that’s what one in essence three in person actually means and so this is where we’re going to this is where we’re
46:29 46:29 - going to stop our introductory video here and in the next videos we’ll actually be picking up uh first off by
46:35 46:35 - by stating some things that the Trinity is not um so we’re going to be kind of defining what it is um by showing some
46:42 46:42 - some things U uh also commonly debated uh in what we’d call historical theology
46:48 46:48 - things that came up um some things that the Trinity is not and that will help us understand better what it actually is
46:53 46:53 - and so that’s where we will be picking up in coming lessons here

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