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

All Members of the Trinity Are Deity

Trinity > All members are deity

Video

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Summary

In this lesson we kick off a series of discussions we will be having about what the Trinity is not, to help throw into starker relief what it actually is. This lesson’s main focus is examining the point that God is one in essence, but that does not mean that only one person of the Trinity is deity.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:38 01:38 - Our next several discussions: understanding the Trinity in terms of what it is not
03:19 03:19 - Key point: God is one in essence, but that does not mean that only one person of the Trinity is deity
30:14 30:14 - What does it mean for God to be Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is just one member of the Trinity?
43:44 43:44 - Why wasn’t the Spirit sent to indwell believers before He actually was (i.e., only after Christ’s ascension)?
56:29 56:29 - Revelation 1:4 - What is going on with the mention of seven Spirits?
01:02:42 01:02:42 - What exactly does being baptized into God (becoming united with Him, as part of the body of Christ) actually mean?
01:17:29 01:17:29 - The Father is God
01:27:51 01:27:51 - A deeper dive into the interpretation of Ephesians 3:14-15
01:42:17 01:42:17 - The Son is God
02:18:31 02:18:31 - The Holy Spirit is God
02:51:55 02:51:55 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

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

Our next several discussions: understanding the Trinity in terms of what it is not

Last lesson we gave the basic definition of the Trinity: “three in person / one in essence” or “one in essence / three in person.”

We can better understand what the Trinity is by first considering what it is not in terms of the definition given above, so that will be our focus for the next several discussions.

Key point: God is one in essence, but that does not mean that only one person of the Trinity is deity

Trinity > What it is not > Only one member possessing divinity

God is three in person, and all three persons of the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) are divine. Heresies of the past which have challenged the divinity of members of the Trinity include adoptionism (asserting that Christ is the Son of God only in the sense of adoption), the Ebionite heresy (teaching that Christ had only a human nature empowered by God’s Spirit), and Unitarianism (which asserts the uni-personality of God, denying the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit).

But the Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity are deity. Compare: Is.63:9-14; Matt. 3:16-17; 28:19; Jn.14:16-17; 1Cor.12:4-6; 2Cor.13:14; Eph.4:4-6; 1Pet.1:1-2; Rev.1:4-6.

What does it mean for God to be Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is just one member of the Trinity?

God > Is Spirit, but in a way different from the spirits of humans and angels

Note

This is a video-only section.

Why wasn’t the Spirit sent to indwell believers before He actually was (i.e., only after Christ’s ascension)?

Holy Spirit > Has always been present upon the Earth Holy Spirit > Indwelling ministry of Spiritual gifts > Given after Christ's ascension

Note

This is a video-only section.

Revelation 1:4 - What is going on with the mention of seven Spirits?

Interpretation > Symbolism > Numbers

Note

This is a video-only section.

Things mentioned in video:

Quote from Ichthys

[T]he seven eyes are said to be “the Seven Spirits”, and the Seven Spirits are described in Revelation 1:4-5 as the Holy Spirit, occurring as they do in-between the Father and the Son (please see the link: in CT 2B, “The Seven Lamps of Fire”). Although it is true in scripture that angels are sometimes described as spirits, these seven angels are said to be stars, but not spirits, whereas in the context the term seven-spirits is a synonym used for the Holy Spirit, demonstrating His perfection. The seven eyes on the stone I take to be the Spirit’s anointed of the Messiah (the Rock), as in Is.11 (where the Spirit is likewise described in seven-fold fashion):

Isaiah 11:2 | translation from Ichthys

(2) And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him (i.e., the Messiah), the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

In Revelation 5:6, the seven-spirits are said to be 1) “of God” (an odd representation for angels who of course belong to Him, but an important identifier for this otherwise potentially confusing designation for the Spirit), and 2) to be “sent out into the entire earth”; only God can be omnipresent; seven angels, no matter how energetic, would be hard pressed to keep track of all that is going on in the world at all times, even with large a group of subordinates.

Finally, and perhaps decisively, Revelation 3:1 states: “These are the words of Him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars”. This verse distinguished carefully between the two, so that ipso facto they cannot be the same.

What exactly does being baptized into God (becoming united with Him, as part of the body of Christ) actually mean?

Baptism > Is not of water, but is fundamentally spiritual in nature Baptism > We are baptized *into* the person of the Trinity, spiritually

Note

This is a video-only section.

The Father is God

Trinity > Divinity > Father

See: Matt.6:9; 1Cor.8:6; Eph.3:14-15.

Revelation 1:8

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord who is God, “He who is and was and is coming, the Almighty.”

A deeper dive into the interpretation of Ephesians 3:14-15

Family of God > Derives its name from the Father Interpretation > Context often directly limits how words can be translated

Note

This is a video-only section.

Interpreting Ephesians 3:15 correctly depends upon translating the phrase πᾶσα πατριὰ as “whole family” rather than “every family”. (Within its normal usage as an adjective generally, πᾶσα can mean either “whole” or “every.” But when interpreting Ephesians 3:15 correctly, it is “whole” not “every” in this specific usage). And so it is that we understand that our global family of believers (i.e., the universal Church—the bride of Christ) “derives its name” from the authority of the Father, just how human families carry the names of their earthly fathers.

The Son is God

Trinity > Divinity > Son

See: Jn.5:18; 10:30; 10:33; Rom.9:5; 1Cor.8:6; Col.2:9; Heb.1:3.

John 1:1-2

The Word existed in the beginning: the Word was both present with the [Father] God [before creation] and the Word was God [in His own right]. This same One was present with the [Father] God in the beginning.

The Holy Spirit is God

Trinity > Divinity > Holy Spirit

See: Gen.1:2; Ps.139:7; Acts 5:3-4; 1Cor.12:11; and compare Heb.3:7-11 with Ps.95:7-11 where the LORD is speaking.

2nd Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:00 00:00 - hey guys so this lesson we are going to be talking about how all members of the Trinity are deity they are all Divine uh
00:09 00:09 - partaking of the shared Divine Essence and so uh in the last lesson we had finished our kind of introduction to the
00:18 00:18 - doctrine of the Trinity uh you know that God is three in person one in essence or one in essence and three in person
00:24 00:24 - whichever order you want to take it those two things together are the fundamental definition of the Trinity
00:31 00:31 - and so while the father is God and the son is God and the spirit is God the father is not the son or the spirit the
00:38 00:38 - son is not the father or the spirit and the spirit is not the father or the son that is the definition of the Trinity um
00:44 00:44 - and to help us kind of flesh out our understanding of it what we’re going to be doing here um is kind of
00:52 00:52 - going through some things uh discussing about what the Trinity is not um so we’re going to be talking about what it
00:58 00:58 - is not and that will help throw into sharper relief what the Trinity actually is at least that’s the idea so this week
01:05 01:05 - here we’re just going to talk a little bit about that about why we’re doing that and then we’re going to hit the
01:09 01:09 - first point here about you know how the Trinity does not function and so that is that God is one in essence but that does
01:16 01:16 - not mean that there’s only one person in the Trinity um or sorry that only one person in the Trinity is deity or Divine
01:24 01:24 - in essence um so we’re going to be talking about as sub points here that the father is God the son is God and the
01:29 01:29 - Holy Spirit is God um so they are all Divine um they all share in that essence of deity and so that’s going to be
01:36 01:36 - mostly what we talk about this time all right so before we get any further we’re just going to talk a
01:44 01:44 - little bit more about this idea here um so as we kind of started with in the introduction here last lesson we did
01:51 01:51 - give the basic definition of the Trinity that three in person one in essence or one in essence and three in person and
01:57 01:57 - we shared the illustration of kind of the triangle Le here explaining how the Trinity Works in terms of its mechanics
02:04 02:04 - and so in discussing it uh later on we’ll get to some of the analogies that Dr luginbill uses um imperfect as they
02:12 02:12 - are um you know we will be examining the Trinity from multiple different facets but here to start uh having gone over
02:18 02:18 - the basic definition what we’re going to do next is try to understand the Trinity better by first considering what it is
02:25 02:25 - not in terms of the definition given above and so hopefully this will kind of help us Flex out what we mean when we
02:31 02:31 - say that God is three in person and one in essence um rather than just stating that and like I don’t know that’s great
02:38 02:38 - maybe we can say you know repeat those words but we kind of have to understand what it means for us to believe it
02:43 02:43 - properly and so that’s going to kind of be what our focuses in the next several discussions flushing out this
02:49 02:49 - understanding of what three in person one in essence means um in terms of uh particularly some false beliefs in the
02:56 02:56 - past or or heresies that have come up to challenge uh the Orthodox understanding of the Trinity um and so that’s kind of
03:03 03:03 - what we are going to be focusing on in the next little bit here um a do you have any thoughts on this approach or
03:10 03:10 - shall we just go on and get right into it I think we can go on and get into it all right
03:21 03:21 - great so the first one of these uh things that the Trinity is not or how the Trinity does not function um so the
03:29 03:29 - of the first Counterpoint that we’re going to be arguing against to help us illuminate what the Trinity actually is
03:35 03:35 - is this one here uh the key point being that God is one in essence but that does not mean that only one person of the
03:42 03:42 - Trinity is deity um or has a divine nature um so God is three in person and all three persons of the Trinity so that
03:50 03:50 - is the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit are Divine heresies of the past which have challenged the Divinity of
03:56 03:56 - the members of the Trinity include adoptionism this is a a past uh teaching or false belief of certain people and
04:04 04:04 - adoptionism asserts that Christ is the Son of God only in the sense of adoption so just how human beings have adoption
04:11 04:11 - well Christ was adopted as the Son of God rather than being God of course that is a dangerous false Doctrine because
04:19 04:19 - you know our Salvation as Christians depends upon Christ being fully Divine and fully man paying for our sins upon
04:26 04:26 - the cross as our substitute um and that can only happen if Christ was fully god um because um you know there’s some
04:36 04:36 - mechanics in the atonement there maybe we won’t get off in the weeds but you know this is very important stuff right
04:40 04:40 - you can’t you can’t get these things wrong um so that’s adoptionism um and then there was also something called the
04:47 04:47 - ebionite heresy uh teaching that Christ only had only a human nature empowered by God’s spirit um so we’re not going to
04:53 04:53 - get into the nitty-gritty of some of these things you’re certainly welcome to uh you know research them on the
04:59 04:59 - internet find some some past teachings past a certain point they’re mostly only useful for us in terms of uh kind of
05:07 05:07 - discussing what the Trinity actually is so uh Jesus was not adopted by God and Jesus didn’t have and Jesus didn’t only
05:14 05:14 - have a human nature that was somehow kind of specially empowered he had a full divine nature as well um so those
05:21 05:21 - are the the things that kind of help us describe what we mean by uh you know all three members of the Trinity uh share in
05:28 05:28 - the divine nature or they’re all deity it’s well it’s not these things right and there’s a third one here as well
05:34 05:34 - that we’re going to just briefly touch on that’s called Unitarianism which kind of asserts that
05:39 05:39 - uh there’s one personality of God um denying the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit um and so uh there are probably
05:47 05:47 - other heresies besides you know this is just a sampling that ikus had here to kind of make this point and emphasize
05:54 05:54 - that God is one in essence but that does not mean that only one person in the Trinity is deity because they all share
06:00 06:00 - in the same Divine Essence um so we’re going to go ahead and read some verses here um there is you know quite a lot of
06:07 06:07 - scripture that we could probably pull in here uh we’re certainly not trying to be exhaustive and that’s going to be true
06:12 06:12 - for all of the scripture we read for uh much of the support that we have in this lesson and the following ones here um
06:18 06:18 - but we’re just going to go ahead and go through some uh Ai and I may discuss some of the passages if we think them
06:23 06:23 - noteworthy um or maybe harder to line up with the points we’re trying to make but um it’s just good for for us to get in
06:30 06:30 - that habit of just tying everything directly back to the Bible so that’s what we’re going to do here um there’s
06:36 06:36 - quite a list here but you know there’s nothing wrong with us keeping the focus directly on the Bible so that’s what
06:41 06:41 - we’re going to do for the next little bit here as we go through these lessons so I’ll start here with Isaiah chapter
06:47 06:47 - 63 um I’ll probably open these in a separate window just so I can see the full passage here um so Isaiah chapter
06:55 06:55 - 63 picking up at verse 9 UM and again this is establishing the point here that um all members of the Trinity are Divine
07:05 07:05 - so Isaiah 63: 9 through 14 so says in all their Affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them
07:14 07:14 - in his love and his Mercy he redeemed them and he lifted them and carried them all the days of old but they rebelled
07:20 07:20 - and grieved his holy spirit therefore he turned himself to become their enemy he fought against them then his people
07:26 07:26 - remembered the days of old of Moses where is where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the Shepherds of his
07:33 07:33 - flock where is he who put his holy spirit in the midst of them who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand
07:39 07:39 - of Moses who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name who led them through the depths
07:46 07:46 - like the horse in the wilderness they did not stumble as the cattle which go down into the valley the spirit of the
07:51 07:51 - lord gave them rest so you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name so um this is Isaiah one of the
08:01 08:01 - Major Prophets um you can certainly see references in this passage to the spirit of of God and remember this is the Old
08:08 08:08 - Testament um and uh we have discussed a little bit last time about how the Old Testament does speak of the Trinity you
08:17 08:17 - know the Shadows are there it’s supposed to lead us to question um to maybe have a sliver in the back of our mind that
08:24 08:24 - there is more to this than you know there just being uh one God you know um uh uh in terms of monotheistic religion
08:33 08:33 - that there are there’s something there right Ai and I kind of expressed that last week um so aie do you have thoughts
08:40 08:40 - on this passage and how we’re tying it into um the point of all three members of the Trinity sharing in Divine Essence
08:49 08:49 - yeah um not not much right now because I think this one is um it’s it’s almost as if it’s focused
08:59 08:59 - but particularly on the Father the angel of his presence is um not very he is there but he’s not prominent
09:08 09:08 - the angel of his presence is is spoken of as you know essentially a messenger but a special messenger obviously we
09:15 09:15 - know that from other scriptures um then the his holy spirit of course the angle from which I’m looking at things is
09:24 09:24 - there are people who um are are very big on how there is just one person in the
09:33 09:33 - godhead and he wears so many hats you know so once we are looking at such people this passage may not be all that
09:40 09:40 - convincing to them um ex except for the the fact that we talked about the angel of his presence and they dismiss that
09:45 09:45 - angel as being a separate person from God himself so but yes this is one very solid passage that tells you that the
09:52 09:52 - Trinity was involved in what happened with the Deliverance of the um The Exodus generation
09:59 09:59 - of the of Israel so definitely there is much that is said right here um but it will take a bit of getting into tying in
10:10 10:10 - with other passages to demonstrate very clearly what we’re talking about I mean and it’s one of those things where you
10:17 10:17 - can see the trinity in scripture but you can also see where people throw it out right if they don’t if they don’t
10:25 10:25 - interpret passages so for example here in verse 11 when we say he who put his holy spirit right um does that mean that
10:33 10:33 - it is you know we as Believers in the Trinity um and we’ll get other passages isn’t like it you know Rises and falls
10:41 10:41 - on this passage alone but we would interpret this as you know the father sending the spirit right um and people
10:48 10:48 - who believe in a more monotheistic interpretation you know one person and the godhead would say well it’s not a
10:55 10:55 - separate person it’s just his Spirit we’ll get into this more um and part of the problem is it’s kind of hard to talk
11:00 11:00 - about all this in terms of like right Doctrine without hitting all the facets at once this one specifically we’re
11:05 11:05 - trying to argue that they’re all Divine we do have another lesson that we will be going through talking about how they
11:10 11:10 - are actually all distinct persons they’re not just modes or aspect of a single person um we’ll get to that
11:18 11:18 - that’s a next lesson but um you we’ll keep going I I don’t want to get blocked but I just reading lots of scripture is
11:24 11:24 - the correct approach to help us kind of get that context here so this one from the New Testament Matthew chapter 3 um
11:32 11:32 - so um very clear passage here for the the um uh sort of divine sunship is what we would say right this is Jesus’s
11:41 11:41 - baptism by John the Baptist the spirit of God uh descending right so again this is mention of the spirit specifically
11:50 11:50 - but also Jesus is described here as the Son of God and we mentioned that there is this concept
11:56 11:56 - of adoptionism um but but this passage doesn’t say um you know actually I don’t want to get
12:03 12:03 - too far off topic but there’s this other passage in the Bible that talks about like this day I have begotten you do you
12:09 12:09 - know what I’m talking about aie um yes Bo it’s very vexing because people who get into some of the trinitarian
12:16 12:16 - heresies talk about the Eternal beginning of the Sun and all that nonsense and what that passage is
12:21 12:21 - talking about is the Incarnation right but you can see here in the baptism that what we’re actually getting at is that
12:27 12:27 - Jesus is the son of God did become the Son of God he is the Son of God um so yeah I don’t know if there’s too much
12:34 12:34 - more to say here but definitely a passage where you see the spirit of God descending like a dove uh you know very
12:40 12:40 - uh strong visual imagery here but also of course that well Jesus is the son of God you know very clear proof text right
12:48 12:48 - um so I believe Matthew 28:19 this next one this is the Great Commission um you know baptizing them into um I this this
12:56 12:56 - will come up again in one of the other lessons ich this uh talks about this preposition here being into um and then
13:03 13:03 - the idiom of the name of or the person of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we’re talking about spiritual
13:07 13:07 - baptism here although of course many people in the church teach that this is water baptism but what we’re actually
13:14 13:14 - talking about is baptizing them into the person of God um the the the Trinity uh in United um as the three persons um so
13:24 13:24 - it’s stronger the trinitarian connection is stronger when you understand that actually because you’re saying that
13:30 13:30 - you’re baptizing them into God as a singular person right they’re all God um and that’s different than just like it
13:38 13:38 - being some magic incantation you do when you baptize people with water um indeed
13:46 13:46 - indeed all right keep going so that there’s that that um equation of the father to the Son and the spirit in that
13:55 13:55 - passage which is very significant if if the the if the other two as some people like to say were subordinate to the
14:03 14:03 - father then why why is it the name or the person of the three rather than the name or the person of the
14:11 14:11 - father that’s yeah and actually in Greek this is what we would call probably I don’t know like a Distributive
14:18 14:18 - construction I don’t want to just make up words I don’t know if that’s an actual grammatical term but you can take
14:22 14:22 - the name of um you know the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit the name goes kind of all three
14:29 14:29 - right it’s not like you have the name of the father and then the Son and the Holy Spirit are separate it’s the name of the
14:34 14:34 - father and they kind of implied the name of the son and the name of the holy spirit this is why we get that that
14:39 14:39 - preposition being into is so important um from like it’s not a a wrote formula we’re talking about the mechanics of of
14:48 14:48 - becoming part of the body of Christ baptism into god um and so you know like you said this passage will come back up
14:57 14:57 - um it’s actually used in one of the other lessons is talking about the equality between the members of the
15:02 15:02 - Trinity like you were saying but I it’s hard to discuss all this without getting to all of the bits but um we shall we
15:08 15:08 - shall carry on um so John chapter 14 this time um so this is Jesus asking the father for the helper right here you
15:17 15:17 - actually see again all three members of the Trinity this is one of those passages that’s really hard to explain
15:24 15:24 - of if there’s obviously Jesus In this passage who we know clearly to be God in fact Jesus in my opinion is one of the
15:31 15:31 - easiest members of the Trinity I think the spirit is harder to see sometimes because you know in John chapter one you
15:38 15:38 - know the word being God is like it’s it’s right there right Very Yes um but here you actually see that Jesus who we
15:45 15:45 - know is God from that passage and others is asking the father um obviously separate from him right to give another
15:53 15:53 - helper which is the spirit right and verse 17 says it is the spirit right right and the father can’t be the Helper
16:01 16:01 - because that doesn’t make any sense and Jesus can’t be the Helper because he’s asking for it right you see this is
16:06 16:06 - where it comes from um and I feel like sometimes people kind of what’s the right way to say this they like they
16:13 16:13 - make light of the evidence that we have right in the Bible and so if you remember last time one of the points we
16:18 16:18 - made um that I said ikus makes is that ikus is very dismissive of this idea that like you can’t get the Trinity from
16:25 16:25 - the Bible you know that it was like something that took for people to understand and believe or whatever like
16:31 16:31 - basically like no one actually believed in the Trinity until like the Council of Na or something I think that was 325 my
16:37 16:37 - days could be a little long but like that’s just nonsense because like if you read this verse and I mean like does it
16:44 16:44 - help that we have church Traditions helping inform us of the doctrine of the Trinity okay fine sure but like it’s
16:50 16:50 - right there in scripture you know we’re not making huge jumps in logic to get there
16:56 16:56 - um this is one of those it’s right there yeah exactly as a matter of fact um I think I don’t know if it was this
17:06 17:06 - passage or another but I faced off with someone some years ago who was insisting that Jesus is the father and the Holy
17:14 17:14 - Spirit is is the same that you know he was going off of God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in
17:22 17:22 - spirit and in truth so he was like well if God is Spirit the father is the Holy Spirit and Jesus is the father and so on
17:28 17:28 - and so for it was I I faced off with when I was like when you look at this passage it’s pretty it’s like very
17:34 17:34 - straightforward was this passage and probably another one I will ask the father you it’s not I
17:42 17:42 - won’t ask myself I’m going to ask somebody outside of me and that person will give another helper that’s helper
17:49 17:49 - that’s not me and very clearly if I’m asking this person for another helper I’m not asking
17:57 17:57 - this person for him himself yeah I’m asking for somebody else so if if nothing else this passage should make it
18:05 18:05 - very clear that there are three persons in view not one certainly not two so we have we never I think it’s like when
18:16 18:16 - when Muslims would would quarrel with the fact that the Trinity is not in the Bible it’s like why does it have to be
18:22 18:22 - in the Bible we did not smuggle it into the scriptures this is what you read out of the scriptures
18:30 18:30 - and for ease of communication we just named it the Trinity but it is a thing that’s evident in the Bible itself it’s
18:39 18:39 - hardly worth a lot of talking about and I think this is why theology as a study on EES is so short because it’s like
18:47 18:47 - these things are too obvious they are manifestly obvious once you look at look into the Bible for
18:53 18:53 - yourself yeah all right onwards you know what we will touch on all of this again you know
19:00 19:00 - uh this first section I guess this section will be a little bit long as we go through but it it’s not bad to repeat
19:06 19:06 - ourselves some in establishing the points um so right uh the parallelism here this is uh the passage in Ephesians
19:15 19:15 - chapter 12 that talks about how even though we all have gifts our Ministries may be different actually important in
19:20 19:20 - not shoehorning people into like for example um in the modern Church uh people think that pastors have to be a
19:27 19:27 - very specific way that’s just not there in scripture um but if you look at this we have three-fold repetition here right
19:35 19:35 - Same Spirit same Lord same God right who works things in all persons um you know I I would say strongest evidence is that
19:44 19:44 - we have spirit and Lord here um separate Divine um yeah the second Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14 um this is one of
19:55 19:55 - those uh kind of I’m not sure if this is the very end of second Corinthians but it’s kind of like one of the
20:00 20:00 - benedictions here very common uh you know like I think Peter starts with one too that talks it mentions all three
20:06 20:06 - people in the Trinity right um so beginnings and ends of a lot of the Epistles you’ll see this um the grace of
20:12 20:12 - the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all right all three
20:18 20:18 - of them are mentioned here directly um yeah yeah and again if you just think about this in terms of the analogies are
20:26 20:26 - imperfect but if you’re kind of name not name dropping what’s the right way um if you’re talking about someone in terms of
20:34 20:34 - their titles and their attributes it doesn’t make sense to like mention the same person like three times like this
20:39 20:39 - right um you know like it would just be like uh it just is nonsensical the only way that this sort of uh this sort of
20:48 20:48 - greeting or this sort of um um it’s the opposite of greeting like I’m thinking of like the the Latin word for I can’t
20:57 20:57 - think of the English one valuations valuations huh um but whatever what you say to people when you’re telling them
21:02 21:02 - goodbye um uh that this formula comes up so often it just doesn’t make sense unless you have the Trinity there um
21:12 21:12 - yeah yeah all right just several more um Ephesians chapter 4 verse chapter verses four through six um
21:24 21:24 - so you know one body and one Spirit one Lord One Faith one baptism one God and Father of all this one’s actually
21:32 21:32 - probably worthy of a bit more discussion because it seems to be emphasizing the Oneness here right um shared Divine
21:39 21:39 - Essence um but just because there’s one Spirit doesn’t mean that God is one in the sense of not having three persons um
21:52 21:52 - it’s it’s just one of those places where it’s stamped again like all the other passages we saw one one common
21:58 21:58 - denominator of all the passages that we saw is the fact that in in one piece of text you see three persons or at least
22:08 22:08 - three times The Mention Of God in several different ways so you have like in this case one Spirit one Lord one God
22:20 22:20 - and Father you know you could make of that whatever you want but in the end there are three mentions here
22:28 22:28 - and these three mentions follow the same largely the same formula May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and uh the love
22:38 22:38 - of God and The Fellowship of the holy spirit so we when you compare that to what we just saw in Ephesians 4 it goes
22:47 22:47 - um one Spirit one Lord one God and Father you you go back to Matthew 28 as well and it said in the name of the
22:57 22:57 - father father and which we see in Ephesians 4 again where it says one God and
23:04 23:04 - Father of the son and we see the sun replaced by Lord and of the spirit the spirit is a constant factor in all of
23:13 23:13 - these so it’s like you keep seeing this it’s it’s there and it’s telling you see this and understand it it’s right in
23:21 23:21 - your face it’s not hidden anymore not like it was in the in the Old Testament it’s right there glaring so yes not so
23:29 23:29 - far a field yes just just a point of clarity the word Lord here in the Greek is the Greek word cuos um so I pulled it
23:38 23:38 - up here here’s a concordance that shows it and of note here specifically in terms of the parallelism that ai’s
23:43 23:43 - noting is that this word here definitely referring to Jesus Christ right Spirit Christ God the father right like you
23:50 23:50 - said right there um now of course this word can actually be applied to God proper so for example up here uh you
23:58 23:58 - know as the Angel um you know uh like you see it used it where it’s less clear that is is Christ
24:07 24:07 - but um it is used very clearly of Christ and you know in context here that’s what we would understand this to be um so
24:14 24:14 - yeah I mean like you said it’s right there right um yeah I believe this is First Peter I think I actually mentioned
24:21 24:21 - this passage this is another one of those another one of those things in salutation mentioned all three members
24:28 24:28 - of the Trinity just super clear right why would you word it this way if they were all the same person you wouldn’t um
24:37 24:37 - yeah yeah it doesn’t it doesn’t make a lot of sense to word it that way especially given all the repetitions
24:43 24:43 - that we keep seeing I mean this is a lot of passages and they’re all written by different people Matthew was written by
24:52 24:52 - Matthew we just read Paul we now see Peter there was John as well and all of them are following largely the same
25:00 25:00 - formula y there is God who is also called the father there is Jesus Christ who is every every now and then in in
25:11 25:11 - different places replaced by the word Lord and then there’s the spirit that’s always the spirit so it’s like I mean if
25:19 25:19 - this whole thing is puzzling to you it’s got to say well there is something being said here that you should notice that’s
25:27 25:27 - one definite thing about it all right and last we’re going to pick up this is another one of those greetings here you
25:35 25:35 - know mentioned the greetings and the whatever the opposite of greetings are called I think there’s a word for it in
25:39 25:39 - English it’s escaped me um but um we have Grace and peace from him who is and he who was and who is to come right um
25:48 25:48 - from the seven spirits before his throne from Jesus Christ and his God and Father right yeah yeah right there again
25:58 25:58 - um so um yeah this has been an excellent introduction you know we’ll probably hit these passages they will come up as we
26:05 26:05 - make other points about the Trinity but you can just see um by way of introduction even to these this concept
26:12 26:12 - of things the Trinity is not it’s all over the place in the New Testament um for sure you know that first passage we
26:18 26:18 - read that was in Isaiah too um it’s it’s more there in Shadows we talked about that right something that leaves a
26:25 26:25 - question mark about how exactly what is it mean for Elohim to be plural right is it just a plural of majesty or When God
26:31 26:31 - says let us make man in our image you know it’s plural you know it’s there it leaves that it leaves that tendency to
26:39 26:39 - be like what exactly does this mean um and then in the New Testament boom right here everywhere we see this this talking
26:47 26:47 - about God in terms of Threes it’s just all over the place um yeah yeah all right well that is our
26:56 26:56 - general introduction here to pull this back maybe it seems like I don’t know that not all of these passages are so
27:02 27:02 - directly hitting this one about how uh God is all you know all three members of the Trinity are uh share the the same
27:10 27:10 - Divine Essence they’re all deity um one of the stronger arguments uh just to kind of close this out in summary is
27:15 27:15 - probably that that the one from the Great Commission you know we mentioned they’re all mentioned uh if we expected
27:22 27:22 - that one of them weren’t Divine or that there was subordination within the Trinity they’re they’re kind of like all
27:28 27:28 - in the same breath here right the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit you know just you know one right after the other
27:34 27:34 - not the father and then I don’t know exactly how else you would say it in the Greek if you were trying to show
27:39 27:39 - subordination but not this right um I mean I think anyone who who has issues with actually seeing the equality of the
27:48 27:48 - three can see that how ridiculous it would be to go baptizing them in the name of the father and of Angel Michael
27:54 27:54 - and Angel Gabriel because at that point you instantly see the the Ridiculousness of what you’ve
28:00 28:00 - just done you’ve equated two wellknown subordinates of the father of God to God I mean right you wouldn’t put them on
28:10 28:10 - the same level as the father but here we have the Bible actually saying it’s like um when Paul says uh just like the
28:19 28:19 - greeting we saw in Revelation just now um grace to you and peace from God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ like um
28:27 28:27 - okay would you say that would you replace Jesus with any other name there and have that make any sense you you
28:33 28:33 - know what I think reminds me of this reminds me of a little bit um in history you know like when kings knighted people
28:39 28:39 - or whatever there’s kind of like this ritual the formula that goes along with it or whatever or they’re giving people
28:44 28:44 - rewards so they’re like in the Name of the King you do this or in the Name of the King you do that now just imagine
28:50 28:50 - there’s this dude off the street who walks in and says in the Name of the King and in my name you know well take
28:57 28:57 - seriously you know it’s just like it doesn’t carry the power and the authority and you know we talked about
29:02 29:02 - this when we were talking about God’s Essence as the de facto and de jur ruler of the universe he is the king the king
29:09 29:09 - of kings and Lord of lords that’s what we’re talking about here right and so yeah when we have this sort of and
29:16 29:16 - especially like I said the the argument we’re making here in Matthew chapter 28 hits so much harder when you understand
29:23 29:23 - that what we’re talking about is spiritual baptism into the body of Christ not just a ritual it is uh yes I
29:32 29:32 - want to use the word ontological that’s pretty strong philosophical Jaron but you know it’s a matter of our who we are
29:38 29:38 - our being um our station how we’re connected with the body of Christ you know it’s a it’s a big powerful thing
29:44 29:44 - and for that to be something that happens with all three members they have to be divine they have to be God that’s
29:51 29:51 - the only way it works um yes yes all right well I think we have discussed a lot of good things here but
30:01 30:01 - this is where we’ll leave this bit and uh you know the next ones is not that we haven’t already had passages here but
30:06 30:06 - we’re just going to go establish that uh all three members of the Trinity are in fact Divine um that’s where we’ll turn
30:13 30:13 - our Focus the next little bit all right so uh before we move on actually to the next slide in this
30:20 30:20 - series uh we had some good questions about just clarifying certain aspects of the verses that we’ve just been going
30:27 30:27 - through um so one of the first questions here um kind of getting at that concept that we talked about maybe people have
30:35 30:35 - an easier time kind of intuitively understanding how the son is separate from the father um but the Holy
30:41 30:41 - Spirit can kind of be tricky for us to wrap our heads around um you know we see these passages where he’s discussed as
30:47 30:47 - you know the third person but what is it what does it mean for you know God to be spirit and yet you know we have God the
30:56 30:56 - Holy Spirit and you know how exactly does that work I think one thing that will help us here is that God
31:03 31:03 - fundamentally is not like us he’s not like the Angels either so when we talk about human beings we say that we have
31:09 31:09 - um the Flesh and the spirit um right we at least ik this teaches as do I um that we are dichotomous beings we have flesh
31:17 31:17 - and spirit um we are souls biblically speaking that word that we translate as Soul can also be translated as mind or
31:25 31:25 - life um and so we are uh flesh and spirit together compose uh who we are as individuals and that is what the soul is
31:34 31:34 - not to get too often the WS there but um point being when we talk about human spirits that is like the part of us that
31:40 31:40 - is not physical fleshly um but human beings are composed of both flesh and spirit in fact um it’s an important
31:48 31:48 - Doctrine in terms of our resurrection that we will be resurrected into bodies rather than um being
31:54 31:54 - incorporeal uh boy that’s a big word um God fundamentally is God God’s not like this right Jesus actually has a human
32:04 32:04 - nature it’s very one of the things that ought to blow our minds about the Incarnation and the Dual nature of
32:09 32:09 - Christ being fully God and fully man is that he actually does have a human nature um but he also has the Divine
32:16 32:16 - Essence of God and that’s what we’ve been talking about here um so maybe all of this doesn’t maybe it doesn’t help
32:22 32:22 - right but what I’m trying to get at is that God doesn’t have like I don’t know like his his Spirit as something that’s
32:30 32:30 - like separate from his being generally not in the same way that we as humans do because our beings are not composed just
32:37 32:37 - of spirit um and also I’m trying to think about the right way to phrase this too we talked some
32:44 32:44 - about how God isn’t part of SpaceTime um and so when we say that Angels Are Spiritual they’re also Bound by
32:51 32:51 - SpaceTime and I I I think we spent some time a you might remember better than me we spent some time talking about that
32:57 32:57 - right um a angels are not as constrained as we are in certain ways but they’re also like they’re not like God too um
33:07 33:07 - and so Angels Are Spiritual yes but they’re also not spiritual how God is spiritual so I don’t know if I’m helping
33:14 33:14 - much other than just saying God is very different than us right um and I think how we talk about it kind of conditions
33:21 33:21 - maybe how hard it is for us to understand so a how about how about you go for a bit here see if you
33:27 33:27 - it so I want to assure you that the way you you describe it is exactly right um the the spirituality of God the reason
33:37 33:37 - John John chapter 4 talks about God being a spirit is to was specifically to tell the woman at the well of
33:46 33:46 - SAA that God was not limited by location the woman had been asking are we supposed to Worship in the
33:56 33:56 - temple in Jerusalem or on the mountains and Jesus was telling her it makes no difference to God where you
34:06 34:06 - worship because he himself is not bound by any location that was what he was saying to
34:13 34:13 - her so it wasn’t so much that God is a spirit so that you start thinking well that must mean that God is the Holy
34:24 34:24 - Spirit and the father is is the holy spirit Jesus is the holy spirit because the holy spirit is spirit it’s talking
34:32 34:32 - about what type of being so to speak and we have to be very careful about that word what type of being God is that’s
34:41 34:41 - what it’s saying and that is to say strictly speaking the father is a spirit the son is a spir is a spirit the holy
34:54 34:54 - spirit is a spirit so it’s not that that God is a spirit and somehow we have to equate the father and the son to the
35:02 35:02 - holy spirit for that reason now holy spirit is a title that the Bible has given to us for the third person of the
35:12 35:12 - Trinity it is not in any way a description or a definition of the type of God’s being it’s just the title given
35:21 35:21 - to the third person of the Trinity as a matter of fact the only name personal name that we have for God at all in the
35:30 35:30 - scriptures is Jesus Christ Jesus not well Christ Christ is the title too and think about it that name is speaking of
35:40 35:40 - the fact that God is the savior of the human race we don’t have a name in the scriptures just as my name is Odie and
35:51 35:51 - Steven’s name is Steven we don’t have one for God in the Bible apart from Jesus Christ we have
35:58 35:58 - titles for God we have descriptive um uh names too like we the the closest you can get we have the the
36:09 36:09 - you know the tetragramaton in that’s what I was just talk about we have the the I am name but that I am name is
36:18 36:18 - speaking to what deity is and basically that was God saying to Moses I am the true God because I am
36:27 36:27 - that which is and will always be and will never change that was he was made basically making a claim to Moses I am
36:37 36:37 - the true God so when you go to the Israelites tell them that the true God sent you to them that’s the the name by
36:44 36:44 - which I will be known that is I’m laying claim to deity and everything that calls itself deity is alive before me so we we
36:54 36:54 - get to hear God make a claim to what it is which is self-existence that he he exists entirely on his own will that he
37:02 37:02 - is not subject to any external influence he will never change has never changed will never and and is not changing
37:10 37:10 - that’s what he was saying to um Moses at that point and once once you you you understand all of this you come to
37:18 37:18 - appreciate for example when um Jacob asked the Lord when he was wrestling with him what is your name and he said
37:25 37:25 - why do you ask him my name saying it’s too wonderful for you you you you can’t know me that intimately just yet because
37:34 37:34 - that that degree of intimacy is too much for you to bear and and it’s true we can’t bear it in the flesh it will take
37:40 37:40 - our actually um being removed from this body or being in the resurrection body we basically have to be outside of this
37:48 37:48 - flesh to be able to experience God in that degree of intimacy but the point is that when the Bible talks about God
37:57 37:57 - being a spirit it’s not saying God is the holy spirit it’s saying that that is the type of being that he is now just as
38:08 38:08 - Stephen has said too there’s a difference between God’s spirituality and spirituality of everything that
38:13 38:13 - exists and we have to be very clear about this apart from Flora I think that refers to plant life everything else on
38:22 38:22 - Earth has a spirit that’s that’s one thing we have to pay attention to Ecclesiastes is very
38:28 38:28 - clear that even animals possess a spirit so um angels are spirits human beings are spirits that live in in bodies you
38:38 38:38 - know can I cut in here for a sec I think this will really help it’s because spirit in the Bible I pulled up both the
38:44 38:44 - Hebrew word here ruak and the Greek word Numa both of these and this is such a such a huge thing and it’s you can’t
38:52 38:52 - miss it because the same word used for Spirit in both the old test and the New Testament they have the same
38:58 38:58 - connotations even across the two languages and Greek and Hebrew are very dissimilar languages right Hebrew is
39:02 39:02 - Semitic Greek is indoan etc etc um but it means breath as well things that are alive have Spirits spirit and breath are
39:13 39:13 - synonymous now um Audie has been talking about the title and the the you know sort of this distinction between names
39:19 39:19 - and titles the Holy Spirit as we’ve said it’s a title and what it gets to um and this is one of those critical things
39:26 39:26 - when we talk about the roles in the Trinity uh the adopted roles that how we relate to the Trinity um in their plan
39:32 39:32 - for mankind the spirit is the Unseen empowerer right just how the wind has its effects it’s not for no reason that
39:41 39:41 - this title was chosen is what we’re saying exactly exactly that’s an excellent way to to describe that I
39:48 39:48 - think that actually puts P to that question so um bottom line is when we see in John chapter 4 God is a spirit
39:55 39:55 - it’s not telling us in any way that we should restrict the understanding of the godhead to just the Holy Spirit um I was
40:04 40:04 - going to point out too that there are different types of spirits so to speak there Angelic Spirits there are human
40:10 40:10 - Spirits there are animal spirits and then there is God God is a spirit in the sense of not being part of the creation
40:18 40:18 - that he made he is not anything like the universe so his spirituality and the spirituality of angels are
40:27 40:27 - Worlds Apart they’re not even similar in that sense because the spirituality of of angels was created the spiritually
40:35 40:35 - the spirituality of God is what he is it’s an uncreated thing I will also say that I think yeah I I think one other
40:44 40:44 - point to make here um I’m just trying to put my finger on what I was trying to say earlier was that it God doesn’t have
40:51 40:51 - anything other than Spirit right and I made this point with humans right but it’s not like you talk about the spirit
40:57 40:57 - of God as if God exists you know as if it’s just like part of God right um you know like God has some other thing and
41:04 41:04 - then God has his Spirit right God is Spirit you know in the in the Divine spirit that we’re talking about here as
41:10 41:10 - distinct from the other types that Audi’s mentioned um I don’t know if that if that helps
41:16 41:16 - but like you can’t disentangle it is the thing and when we talk about the capital T Holy Spirit yeah that was a very good
41:24 41:24 - point particularly too because of when people say that the father sends his Spirit as if he has something other than
41:31 41:31 - Spirit yeah he is spirit so if the father is sending the spirit it is Spirit sending Spirit that’s just how it
41:39 41:39 - how that works there is no other but in terms of what we would call Essence or ontology or whatever to use the big
41:45 41:45 - words but like but that’s not even what those pastors are getting at when we say the father sends the spirit what we’re
41:50 41:50 - talking about is the father sending the third person of the Trinity as the helper exactly and that’s the point
41:56 41:56 - that’s the point that is just to say that it’s not like the father is like the body something and the spirit is his
42:05 42:05 - Spirit I’ve heard those arguments and what you said really gets at the heart of them which is God is not made up of
42:12 42:12 - multiple parts and and one part of his is is the spirit that he sends forth or something of that sort what we are
42:18 42:18 - saying essentially is that the definition of God in terms of type of being is Spirit that’s what the Bible
42:27 42:27 - tells us so we should stop thinking in terms of oh because the Bible says God is a spirit there must be some way of
42:35 42:35 - reconciling the fact that he is called Holy Spirit and he is called father and he’s also called Jesus Christ it must be
42:42 42:42 - that the holy spirit is the spirit of the father as if the father were an empty husk that has a spirit like we
42:51 42:51 - human beings we have a spirit or we are a spirit living in a body or something we are made of two comp components or
43:00 43:00 - something of that sort well just to just to rip on it even more it actually makes no sense from a I want to say
43:06 43:06 - philosophical point of view maybe that’s not quite the right word but if God is being and we just use this point that
43:12 43:12 - things that are alive have breath you see where I’m going with this right yeah how can God not be alive you
43:19 43:19 - know it doesn’t make sense that’s why God has to be spirit I hope I’m not pushing the the the words connotation
43:24 43:24 - too far here but you see where going right that there’s no way in which God is somehow not Spirit you know because
43:31 43:31 - that’s that’s what defines existence that’s what defines being um yes at least in the Eternal sense um so yes um
43:40 43:40 - yes so that that that that makes a that makes a a great deal of sense okay um it looks like Lisa had a follow-up question
43:51 43:51 - so her follow-up question here was why couldn’t the Spirit come while Jesus was here if they’re separate beings so I I
43:58 43:58 - don’t think it’s a matter of couldn’t as this is more a question of why didn’t the father send the spirit until after
44:05 44:05 - Jesus was ascended and that’s not a matter of could or could not that’s a matter of God’s choice in perfect timing
44:13 44:13 - right because God go ahead sorry I’m sorry I’m cutting in but the Holy Spirit was actually here on Earth with Jesus at
44:22 44:22 - the same time not only was he he actually I mean the Bible tells us the spirit of God came to rest upon Jesus at
44:29 44:29 - at the baptism there was also the fact that the disciples were sent forth with a portion of the spirit on them there
44:38 44:38 - was John the Baptist at the same time whom of whom it was recorded in Luke that the spirit of God was upon him from
44:48 44:48 - the womb so I’m not sure I’m not sure we have any basis on which to say that the Holy Spirit was not here at this same
44:56 44:56 - time that Jesus was they were both on Earth I know I know what the question is getting at though right why didn’t the
45:03 45:03 - Holy Spirit personally indwell most humans until after Pentecost right I it’s more along the lines right because
45:10 45:10 - even people in the old test like David had the Holy Spirit right um Samuel right prophets and we know that the
45:17 45:17 - restraining Ministry of the Holy Spirit has always been present since the beginning and when it’s removed I think
45:22 45:22 - it’s what second Thessalonians talks about it first Thessalonians maybe you know the remove
45:27 45:27 - yes yeah um the removal of the Restraint of the Holy Spirit things will go south real quick and that is the impact of the
45:34 45:34 - spirit being here spirit’s always been here right but I I I mean I can’t speak for Lisa but I’m guessing that the
45:39 45:39 - question is more what about you know like when we have these passages that says that um Jesus is asking the father
45:47 45:47 - to send the helper right um why why wasn’t the helper sent before that maybe that’s more where we’re going here um
45:57 45:57 - okay can we confirm confirm that uh although we will of course discuss that question as well but yeah Lisa says Lisa
46:05 46:05 - says that’s what it is yeah okay so go on then uh well more to me I think this gets into the wisdom of the plan of God
46:15 46:15 - um you know uh could people have been indwelt by the holy spirit before Jesus ascended answer to that seems to be
46:26 46:26 - well I mean we certainly had people who acted under the influence of the holy spirit before this point right um I I
46:33 46:33 - think part of it is that you know it’s the whole Paradigm Shift of we are no longer under the law we’re we’re
46:40 46:40 - dwelling under grace Christ has ascended we are positionally our sin has been blotted out in the Book of Life we are
46:47 46:47 - right with the father reconciled to God and we have that Unity um I see the think I’m not sure that the phrasing
46:55 46:55 - could could not is necessarily the right way to look at this so much as it’s a uh being sealed with the Holy Spirit under
47:02 47:02 - the New Covenant is the sign of reconciliation with God maybe that’s too hand wavy but um I’m interested to see
47:10 47:10 - what you say um okay so um there’s John chapter 7 verse 39 and it goes but this he spoke
47:20 47:20 - concerning the spirit whom those believing in him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given
47:26 47:26 - because Jesus was not yet glorified okay so um the answer is right there might take a little bit of
47:34 47:34 - unpacking to actually you know see what it’s saying but the answer is right there on the face of it Jesus was not
47:41 47:41 - yet glorified therefore the spirit was not yet given we know that in fact Jesus said to the disciples um the Holy Spirit
47:49 47:49 - who will be in you he is with you now but he will be in you later that’s what he said to them just before he went to
47:57 47:57 - the Cross that’s in John chapter 16 I believe it’s somewhere between John 14 and John 16
48:03 48:03 - so what is this um he’s not yet being glorified talking about let’s remember what’s going on in the
48:14 48:14 - story We Are by Nature God’s enemies we’re Rebels and while some of us don’t quite
48:24 48:24 - well not some of us General we just don’t really get what’s happening the the relationship that God’s Free Will
48:32 48:32 - creatures were supposed to have with him is one of intimacy it’s symbolized by marriage the same way that a man and a
48:40 48:40 - woman come together and become one flesh that is literally there’s no difference between the two of them they’re in such
48:47 48:47 - Perfect Harmony that they are one thing and this is also what we see in the Trinity which is why Jesus said the
48:55 48:55 - prayer he said in John 17 that they may be one as we are one that they may be one with us so the idea is that we will
49:02 49:02 - have this same Unity with with with the Trinity that the Trinity has in itself that’s what God is aiming for he’s
49:11 49:11 - dwelling in us and Us in him that’s what he’s pushing for now because we were his enemies on what basis then would he
49:23 49:23 - grant us that Unity so when his Spirit was actually operating on uh prophets and kings and you know Believers of the
49:33 49:33 - old times it was more like I’m doing that in view it’s like a uh what would you call it like a credit a credit line
49:42 49:42 - or something there’s I’m giving you this because of a promise that has been made so Jesus was yet to come and die but
49:52 49:52 - because that was a certain thing the Lord granted those uh uh bounds those experiences of him to those who believed
50:04 50:04 - but in fact that Unity that Binding Together that relationship that was going to be found by the Holy Spirit
50:13 50:13 - coming into us to live in our bodies to share Fellowship in such an intimate fashion with us essentially
50:22 50:22 - saying to us you are like you are mine and I am yours that situation was never going to
50:30 50:30 - be a thing in that way unless Jesus had paid the price for our sins and the the way we could know that that that um
50:40 50:40 - sacrifice had been accepted was that Jesus was going to be glorified that meant he had been restored to the place
50:46 50:46 - that he gave up in order to pay that price that is God saying I accepted what you’ve done and it’s wonderful come
50:55 50:55 - let’s go back to the fellowship we had you know I don’t want to get off topic because we don’t we don’t want to go too
51:02 51:02 - far field here anyway but um there’s this interesting idea in terms of atonement Theory um that’s the word used
51:09 51:09 - when we’re discussing about what exactly is it that God did to reconcile us to himself how were our sins paid for um
51:17 51:17 - there’s this interesting verse um I don’t remember exactly I think it’s somewhere in Romans that talks about how
51:23 51:23 - you know if if Christ maybe it’s not right I don’t remember if Christ had not been raised we would have all believed
51:28 51:28 - for nothing right well if you say well if Christ already died for our sins on the cross wouldn’t we have been saved
51:34 51:34 - even if he wasn’t raised from the dead I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of that um it’s one of those things where
51:39 51:39 - if you if you look at it and you aren’t careful with how you phrase your question and how you understand what it
51:46 51:46 - means the glorification of Christ his the ra his raising from the dead and his Ascension to the father and and sitting
51:54 51:54 - at his right hand this is God’s acceptance of the payment of the Cross right and so um you know God is just
52:03 52:03 - it’s not like he couldn’t have not accepted it right um in the same way that a just judge would you know render
52:08 52:08 - Justice in a case if if a crime had been paid for or whatever um or someone who holds a loan right a just person who
52:17 52:17 - holds a loan once it is repaid is not going to exact more from the person and so on um but the glorification of Christ
52:25 52:25 - is that stamp of approval on the work of the Cross and um just to kind of maybe round out this question a bit more the
52:32 52:32 - Holy Spirit indwells us after the point of spiritual regeneration once we have become part of the body of Christ we are
52:40 52:40 - you know United with God through the indwelling of the holy spirit that happens on account of what Christ did
52:46 52:46 - for us on the cross um so AI mentioned the whole credit thing with the Old Testament Believers um I don’t even know
52:52 52:52 - how profitable it is for us to compare the you know the ministry of the Holy Spirit
52:57 52:57 - upon Believers in the New Testament with the ministry of the Holy Spirit on Believers in the Old Testament I mean we
53:01 53:01 - know that it’s mentioned is having some of these folks having the spirit of God do they have it in the same way that we
53:08 53:08 - have it does it does it really matter you see what I’m saying like I mean like what exactly are the differences Etc is
53:16 53:16 - that important for understanding I mean like it maybe it’s interesting to speculate about but I think the key not
53:22 53:22 - speculate when you look at Ephesians chapter 4 it’s actually pretty straightforward that when he um ascended
53:29 53:29 - he gave gifts to men right those gifts did not exist prior I mean yes there were prophets but there were no Apostles
53:37 53:37 - there were no Pastor teachers there were Levites who were supposed to interpret the law and even among those Levites
53:43 53:43 - they you you saw that it was a special case that you would see that the Holy Spirit came upon someone now consider
53:50 53:50 - this fact consider this that Saul first king of well not the first King but still when the when the kingdom was
53:57 53:57 - established as a thing after Samuel he was the first king um Saul was a Believer right up to the end of his life
54:06 54:06 - but there was a point at which the Holy Spirit was taken from him that’s a very important difference
54:13 54:13 - between Believers of that time and Believers of today if you don’t have the Holy Spirit now in this dispensation in
54:21 54:21 - this era you’re not a Believer any M but he was a Believer who had to
54:28 54:28 - function without the Holy Spirit and remember Paul David’s very stringing cry in in Psalm 53 when he asked the Lord
54:37 54:37 - not to remove his Spirit from him we have never we Believers have never seen what it is like to love the Lord and not
54:46 54:46 - have his spirit in us we don’t know what that is like it’s a horrible existence it’s a very painful miserable existence
54:52 54:52 - being because this world yeah I just going to say you know I I don’t want us to get we we’ve already talked a good
54:59 54:59 - bit here um hopefully we’ve answered the gist of the question I mean I’m sorry to cut you off a bit here sure sure sure I
55:04 55:04 - have up on the screen here the verse this is exactly what Audi just said this is how we know New Testament that if
55:09 55:09 - anyone doesn’t have the spirit of Christ they’re not Believers um Romans 8 uh chapter 8 verse 9 but more what I was
55:17 55:17 - getting at was it that we can’t know certain things about I my point was we don’t need to go exercise our minds
55:22 55:22 - about what exactly was different you know because one difference like you pointed out is that the spirit could be
55:27 55:27 - removed like it was removed from Saul and it can’t today well that’s a difference right but I mean I I don’t
55:33 55:33 - know how how how how like useful it is to go compare and contrast what their version you know like how having the
55:41 55:41 - Spirit uh the blessing of the spirit or the anointing of the spirit um as David had for them is different than what all
55:48 55:48 - believers have now it’s just the point is is that regardless for us the spirit was given because of Christ’s
55:55 55:55 - glorification because of the acceptance of his payment that’s kind of the the answer to the the underlying question I
56:02 56:02 - think so let’s pause for a sec make sure we we kind of got all the uh points hit on that one so that’s where we’re going
56:11 56:11 - to close out here this conversation about um uh the spirit of God and and how does God have the spirit and is that
56:18 56:18 - different from the Holy Spirit and also why wasn’t the Holy Spirit sent um until the Ascension um and now we’re going to
56:25 56:25 - turn to discussing the Sevenfold spirit of God as it’s mentioned in Revelation so this was kind of where we
56:33 56:33 - were going to pick up next um in the verse that we were reading in Revelation which we were focusing primarily upon uh
56:41 56:41 - the aspect of three persons of the Trinity mentioned in this verse but one of the questions we had here when we
56:47 56:47 - paused was um we have this mention of the seven spirits who are Before the Throne and this is here in Revelation
56:54 56:54 - chap 1 1 veres 4-6 um of the seven spirits who are before his throne um and so the question was we kind of had a
57:03 57:03 - feeling that we recalled other places where we had these sevens come up um they come up in Zechariah Chapter 3
57:11 57:11 - Verse n talking about seven eyes on the stone and then in the next chapter as well Zechariah Chapter 4 um several
57:19 57:19 - places if we search for the word seven you’ll see that it shows up here um and uh as well you know we just went search
57:25 57:25 - so if you’ve never done this before you can actually search for things on ikas specifically using this search parameter
57:31 57:31 - you know you limit it to the site specifically and yeah verily there was a email question and answer on this and so
57:38 57:38 - um Audi I don’t know if you wna you want to give some conversation before um but ichus does talk about this point you
57:44 57:44 - know it talks about uh this passage here Revelation chapter one where we were um it cross references it with Isaiah 11
57:52 57:52 - verse 2 um you know here seven the seven old Spirit of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 2 um and then in Revelation chapter 5 as
58:01 58:01 - well um yeah um I mean you could actually go to uh
58:09 58:09 - ct2b that particular uh discussion he had there because that’s where he went into the discussion but um it suffice to
58:17 58:17 - say that the seven spirits are not seven spirits they it’s it’s the Holy Spirit in the seven roles you might say he
58:29 58:29 - plays or the seven works that he he does so he has seven Ministries it’s like how do I you could think of it this way that
58:39 58:39 - the holy spirit is doing one work one perfect work and in seven different Ministries and Ministry Services as as
58:51 58:51 - we know uh he he perfects this this work it brings it to Perfection so the the you would see that Revelation starts
59:01 59:01 - with talking about the seven spirits Before the Throne of God and then proceeds in chapters uh the same chapter
59:08 59:08 - one it talks about the seven lamb stands and the seven spirits of the seven churches then in chapters 2 and three it
59:16 59:16 - talks about the seven churches there’s a reason that it’s talking about things like this it’s referring to the
59:22 59:22 - Perfection of a plan that God has that the spirit is working out so this is what the seven spirits of God is really
59:33 59:33 - about it’s not that there are seven Holy Spirits we should remember what we’re talking about we’re talking about God
59:41 59:41 - and God is the infinite one you don’t need seven of anything of him that’s just the fact so we’re talking about
59:50 59:50 - seven things that the spirit does to bring his perfect work to fruition not seven Holy Spirits it’s not a really
59:59 59:59 - difficult concept to grasp unless we get often the way Weeds about it it says seven it says seven here and it’s the
01:00:08 01:00:08 - only the only place in the Bible where it actually states that explicitly and in fact in some translations you will
01:00:15 01:00:15 - see um the thing written as Sevenfold spirit of God we all have a spiritual appreciation a common sense appreciation
01:00:21 01:00:21 - of the fact that we’re talking about the Holy Spirit and um as we see from uh Professor Robert’s discussion of this
01:00:29 01:00:29 - and I think this uh Q&A he says what I have up here we had up the Q&A here which links to the part of part 2B of
01:00:39 01:00:39 - the coming tribulation which we were at here which talks about the seven lamps of fire showing up in Revelation it’s
01:00:44 01:00:44 - actually also in uh here let me go let me go back it’s also also in uh part five of the Bible basic series which is
01:00:54 01:00:54 - uh the study the the Holy Spirit you’ll see there’s the section of the sevens here seven spirits lamps eyes seals same
01:01:00 01:01:00 - thing if we go back to this this is in that section lots of discussion about this
01:01:06 01:01:06 - this concept as well so I will probably go ahead and post these links when I post the notes for this week because
01:01:13 01:01:13 - these are all good places to look um yeah yeah okay so it’s bottom line we’re not
01:01:22 01:01:22 - talking about multiple spirits of God we’re just talking about the um Perfection of the thing that the holy
01:01:29 01:01:29 - spirit is doing to realize the plan of God that’s it the reason the seven is in view is because of what John is about to
01:01:39 01:01:39 - teach that’s the the point in in Revelation 2 and three we kind of see it because uh the seven churches are
01:01:48 01:01:48 - actually seven divides in time of the progression of the church how the church is not really iterating but developing
01:01:58 01:01:58 - you could say and in each of these eras so to speak we see the Holy Spirit doing something specific at a specific time in
01:02:07 01:02:07 - preparing this Bride for the Lord and remember that the focus of all the work that God is doing before the return of
01:02:18 01:02:18 - the Lord Jesus is to replace the angels that rebelled that’s the plan he has and what the holy spirit is doing toward
01:02:27 01:02:27 - that is his ministry that’s the work he is doing and it’s captured in this Sevenfold description that we find in
01:02:35 01:02:35 - the Bible that’s that’s all there is to it yep I think that’s a good way so that’s where we’ll wrap up this
01:02:44 01:02:44 - one so last question here from this initial set of questions we had after going through a lot of the scripture uh
01:02:52 01:02:52 - to bolster the point we were making uh was this question kind of about how uh when we say that we are baptized into
01:02:59 01:02:59 - the person of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and Matthew chapter 28 verse 19 in the Great Commission well
01:03:06 01:03:06 - what does that mean exactly how can we be put into the person of God if God is divine and has all these attributes as
01:03:13 01:03:13 - we talked about in God’s Essence before um we are not deity we can never be deity not in the way that God is and so
01:03:21 01:03:21 - what does it mean for us to become part of the body of Christ Christ um I think let’s start off by uh the wrong way of
01:03:29 01:03:29 - looking at things kind of how we were doing with the Trinity here um so there are certain branches of of uh
01:03:36 01:03:36 - self-professed Christians who talk about us becoming like God being transformed to be like him there’s this word in uh
01:03:44 01:03:44 - particularly Orthodox theology called theosis um you may have heard that um some of this is more or less
01:03:51 01:03:51 - objectionable because we are supposed to be transformed formed uh to follow after our our you know Jesus Christ as the
01:03:58 01:03:58 - firstborn of the Resurrection we’re supposed to reflect his glory so in a certain manner of speaking yes we’re
01:04:03 01:04:03 - going to become like God but not in you know ontological being not in nature um we will only ever be human uh even in
01:04:12 01:04:12 - eternity um now uh the book of Hebrews is very clear that uh once humans are resurrected and exalted at least Jesus
01:04:21 01:04:21 - as the human Paul goes out of his way well if you take Paul to be the writer of Hebrews which I do U Paul goes out of
01:04:27 01:04:27 - his way in Hebrews to show how Jesus is superior to the angels um in the resurrection State um but Jesus Is God
01:04:35 01:04:35 - we won’t be God um so I don’t want to ramble um to the the main thrust of this question uh when we are baptized into
01:04:43 01:04:43 - the person of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we are baptized into the body of Christ we become indwell by the
01:04:50 01:04:50 - Holy Spirit um this metaphor for us as as acting as one body gets to the unity of the church it does not mean somehow
01:04:59 01:04:59 - that we become I don’t know this sounds super technical but we don’t become like
01:05:05 01:05:05 - partakers of the Divine Essence in what some people mean by that um uh by a certain way of description that is what
01:05:13 01:05:13 - we do as Christians by communion we are washed clean in the blood of Christ through his body and his blood but not
01:05:20 01:05:20 - in the way that people talk about that um you know it’s not like we live upon I don’t know eating the
01:05:27 01:05:27 - literal Flesh and Blood of God because people have very wrong ideas about communion and that um so I know I’ve
01:05:33 01:05:33 - gone a lot of different directions a you want to pick up any of the the threads I’ve introduced here and go with it yeah
01:05:38 01:05:38 - um I think you’ve really hid the nail on the head because when we think about well we’re we’re going to be made one
01:05:46 01:05:46 - with God but we’re not going to become deity how does that make sense well think about marriage for
01:05:51 01:05:51 - example um we we become one with our spouse and if the Bible says that it doesn’t really matter what anything else
01:05:59 01:05:59 - in the world says when you get married you become one with your spouse but the woman does not cease to be a woman and
01:06:08 01:06:08 - become a man and the man does not cease to be a man and become a woman we don’t lose our personality we don’t lose our
01:06:14 01:06:14 - makeup we just find ourselves in this very and it it doesn’t matter how perfect that relationship is even if it
01:06:21 01:06:21 - was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the the fall we still see that in that position Eve was Eve and Adam was
01:06:32 01:06:32 - Adam even though they were one flesh so it’s the same thing in our relationship with God when we are brought into this
01:06:41 01:06:41 - Unity this Oneness with him we don’t become God and we should keep that we should keep in mind that it’s impossible
01:06:49 01:06:49 - for anything that is not God to become God it’s it’s impossible plain and simple to be become God because God is
01:06:56 01:06:56 - that which is that’s it it it does not become and it did not used to be it is so we will
01:07:07 01:07:07 - never become God and God is not never going to be other than God so it’s not like God will become us he’s always
01:07:16 01:07:16 - going to be God but the thing is we will enter an a perfect intimate relationship with
01:07:24 01:07:24 - him where things that he has he can share very freely and fully with us that’s this is
01:07:33 01:07:33 - also where something that I’ve I’ve puzzled over for a little while starts to make sense I I thought for example
01:07:41 01:07:41 - how how does one how does this thing that Paul said that in that day we shall know as we ourselves are are known today
01:07:51 01:07:51 - we see dimly we see darkly as in the Mir era but then we will know as we ourselves are know when you think about
01:08:00 01:08:00 - that this is actually hinting very strongly as at something that sounds very much like omniscience that is crazy
01:08:10 01:08:10 - how could we possibly contain that much information but this is and now I don’t want to speculate on what that might
01:08:18 01:08:18 - actually mean in terms of how we possess knowledge of that sort but it will be perfect knowledge is what it is it is
01:08:24 01:08:24 - actually saying that we possess perfect knowledge but I don’t know if it’s perfect knowledge of all things or
01:08:29 01:08:29 - whatever but we will not have the difficulties that we are having today in understanding what God is about and what
01:08:36 01:08:36 - where we are headed with the Lord so here’s the question then how do we have that only as a gift from the Lord now
01:08:45 01:08:45 - imagine this that um you were adopted into a home they’re very wealthy they have loads of books and they have loads
01:08:54 01:08:54 - of cars and all sorts of things it’s all there right now that you’ve been adopted into that home you have rights to all of
01:09:02 01:09:02 - that you can pick up anything you want to read you can get in any car and drive you can sit at any table have any meal
01:09:10 01:09:10 - you want it’s all yours now you have equal rights to it but it doesn’t mean that you have ceased to be you and
01:09:18 01:09:18 - you’ve become the people that adopted you or that the people that adopted you cease to be themselves and became you so
01:09:25 01:09:25 - it’s the same way we can look at this that we have been brought into an intimate relationship with the Lord such
01:09:32 01:09:32 - that he shares himself with us without losing himself or us becoming something other than what we are you know I think
01:09:41 01:09:41 - I think maybe the best way to get to this and this is kind of what I was trying to put my finger on when I
01:09:46 01:09:46 - started was that it’s it’s a metaphor it’s not literal um and and I mean I’m laughing a bit here because this is the
01:09:54 01:09:54 - same problem that people have with the communion passage in John chapter 6 about eating the flesh and blood of
01:10:00 01:10:00 - Christ and they say well you see the Bible says is so therefore it must be somehow that we are consuming the
01:10:06 01:10:06 - essence of God or whatever you know which we we think is complete nonsense right we are memorialists it’s a
01:10:11 01:10:11 - metaphor well so to is us being the body of Christ we are not literally ontologically speaking the body of
01:10:18 01:10:18 - Christ whatever but like where people get wrong is by that’s a
01:10:27 01:10:27 - metaphor it’s what it’s supposed to be we are the you know we are the bride of Christ we’re also the body of Christ
01:10:33 01:10:33 - these things are metaphors right um marriage is supposed to teach us about sub uh uh submitting to Christ you know
01:10:40 01:10:40 - that that is a direct analogy it’s one of the reasons why the Bible uses this metaphor it’s is very helpful in
01:10:45 01:10:45 - structuring our understanding but fundamentally it is a metaphor we are not ontologically speaking the body of
01:10:51 01:10:51 - Christ whatever that would mean um the fact that some people go there well I mean they’re missing the point that it’s
01:10:59 01:10:59 - not it’s not a technical description of God’s existence his being that we’re talking about here it’s how we function
01:11:07 01:11:07 - with that Unity what our relationship to God is um collectively as a group is as a wife properly submits herself to her
01:11:15 01:11:15 - husband in marriage and the husband uh that is Jesus in this analogy uh you know loves his wife in a
01:11:21 01:11:21 - self-sacrificing way it’s supposed to teach us something right but it has nothing to do with about like God’s
01:11:27 01:11:27 - being or us somehow becoming one with God’s essence or whatever else people kind of like get up to be right I mean I
01:11:37 01:11:37 - will add I will add this to that that um today we understand that we we want as children of God as Christians
01:11:48 01:11:48 - those who believe in Jesus Christ to be instruments of God’s will that’s literally what we want
01:11:54 01:11:54 - to be Servants of his will and if he wants things done this way or that that’s what we want to do now if we
01:12:02 01:12:02 - appreciate what that means that is precisely what it means to be the body of Christ we are agents of his will now
01:12:11 01:12:11 - in in the in eternity when we have Resurrection bodies and God has filled all things just as Colossians says the
01:12:21 01:12:21 - idea here is that we are in such perfect harmony with God that what we want is aligned with what he wants so that the
01:12:32 01:12:32 - actions we carry out the interactions we get involved with the way we treat the universe in which we live is an
01:12:40 01:12:40 - expression of himself so we are not him but we become like
01:12:48 01:12:48 - um not just you could think of conscious tools you could you could think think of AI or but AI is a very bad analogy for
01:12:57 01:12:57 - this well not a bad analogy it’s a good analogy but still it has limits the idea here is that we are conscious creatures
01:13:05 01:13:05 - who are very happy being in ourselves the means of carrying out God’s will in the creation
01:13:16 01:13:16 - that he makes that’s what we are trying to do today in our spiritual growth we’re learning to align ourselves with
01:13:22 01:13:22 - the Lord and walk diligently with him every day that’s why the Bible talks about our our
01:13:29 01:13:29 - being changed in the way we think so that we become like the Lord in the way we think so that he does not have to
01:13:36 01:13:36 - dictate to us as external things for himself but rather that because we are in such close um connection to him the
01:13:46 01:13:46 - way he thinks and the way we think are the same so what we want to do is what he wants done and we we become we become
01:13:55 01:13:55 - the conduits the means through which he exercises his will in the creation that he made so this again leads us back to
01:14:04 01:14:04 - what Jesus said that he will be in us and we will be in him that’s the idea this this very tight connection of
01:14:13 01:14:13 - Hearts is essentially what this is how Moses and I mean there was a relationship between Moses and Aaron but
01:14:21 01:14:21 - uh just going to to Moses Moses was to do what God Said and he did until yeah did until he didn’t and so that’s the
01:14:29 01:14:29 - that’s the body what you’re talking about what Moses was doing in obedience and what Jesus actually was doing in
01:14:36 01:14:36 - obedience is the body we we need to be no okay yeah exactly now Jesus in his kosis I would say that is a good way to
01:14:46 01:14:46 - look at it um in his divine nature he was always completely United with the father in essence but in his kosis
01:14:53 01:14:53 - Jesus submitting himself perfectly to the father’s will is exactly the unity that we’re getting at here um I also say
01:15:01 01:15:01 - one other point if we are getting hot and bothered about this idea of uh you know us being united with the Divine
01:15:08 01:15:08 - Essence of God well what about the taking it the other way you know this is perhaps an easier more falsifiable thing
01:15:15 01:15:15 - if we say that we are one body meaning that we are all perfectly United with each other well like just look around a
01:15:23 01:15:23 - little bit and you’ll see that what some people seem to mean by that can’t be true right um yeah because if if we take
01:15:32 01:15:32 - this thing as we collectively as a church are the body of Christ whatever whenever people get into making more out
01:15:39 01:15:39 - of that than the metaphor it is well in as much as we are one with Christ in that we are also one with each other and
01:15:46 01:15:46 - if you just look around I mean sure we as Christians are supposed to be more united than many other people in the
01:15:52 01:15:52 - world that is a trademark characteristic of the church when it is functioning properly but it is not whatever those
01:15:58 01:15:58 - people mean right um so that’s very true very true that’s a very good test yeah all right well I think that’s
01:16:08 01:16:08 - a good place to leave this um when we are baptized spiritually into the body of Christ you know not the ritual of
01:16:15 01:16:15 - water baptism but the the meaning of spiritual baptism such that in Romans 8:9 it says that anyone who does not
01:16:21 01:16:21 - have the spirit is not of God um what we are getting at is that we are made spiritually alive we have that
01:16:28 01:16:28 - connection that the close relationship with God such that we submit to him and we respect his will and he loves us in
01:16:36 01:16:36 - that self-sacrificing love uh that Jesus laid down his life for us but we have that tightness of connection and also
01:16:43 01:16:43 - that Unity with one another in the church all submitting ourselves to Christ that is what we’re getting at for
01:16:50 01:16:50 - us to be part of the body of Christ um not that we are somehow you know like becoming God or um
01:16:58 01:16:58 - you know like linked to God in our being or whatever um you know past what it means for all of us to be created and
01:17:05 01:17:05 - dependent upon God for existence but um it it’s just that idea of the unity we have with one another and with God
01:17:12 01:17:12 - through our submission um right all right well I think that’s probably where we’ll leave this one um
01:17:21 01:17:21 - good questions good discussion here on um clarifying some of the concepts that have come out in these passages as we
01:17:28 01:17:28 - discuss the Trinity so having spent some time talking through some of the questions we
01:17:37 01:17:37 - had after going through initial passages talking about how all the members of the Trinity are deity now we’re going to
01:17:43 01:17:43 - turn and look at some specific passages for each member of the godhead so first we’re going to start with the father um
01:17:51 01:17:51 - so uh obviously the point of uh this particular lesson that we’re going through is that all three members of the
01:17:57 01:17:57 - Trinity are deity all of them are Divine they are all God and so starting with the father uh we’re going to look at
01:18:04 01:18:04 - some passages uh that kind of establish the Divinity of the father then the Divinity of the Son and the Divinity of
01:18:10 01:18:10 - the Holy Spirit I’m just to bolster that point that all three members of the Trinity are God so we’ll start here in
01:18:19 01:18:19 - Matthew chapter 9 or sorry Matthew chapter 6 verse 99 um which says uh this is uh Jesus in The Lord’s Prayer
01:18:26 01:18:26 - teaching us how to pray says Our Father who is in heaven Hallowed be your name um should be pretty familiar to most
01:18:32 01:18:32 - Christians I’d think but the point here is that God the father is in heaven he is God right um because beings in heaven
01:18:41 01:18:41 - I mean I suppose we’d say angels are in heaven too but very clearly this is an indirect support for the father being
01:18:48 01:18:48 - Divine um the father being God uh so a do you have much to say there I mean I think that one is pretty straightforward
01:18:55 01:18:55 - honestly um yeah like you said pretty straightforward um I think the key thing is our father yeah he is in heaven um so
01:19:04 01:19:04 - are the Angels but our father and then the next thing is May your name be holy yeah or May the Holiness of your name be
01:19:13 01:19:13 - preserved or something of that sort and that is particularly speaking to the uniqueness of his person right now we’ve
01:19:22 01:19:22 - talked about this the last couple times but when we talk about God’s name the Holy Name Of God you know as in Exodus
01:19:28 01:19:28 - chapter 3 that completely gets to God as deity AI has I think done a good job explaining this uh several times we’ve
01:19:37 01:19:37 - talked about it is that God is existence right is the very thing that makes him God is that quality of isness and that’s
01:19:46 01:19:46 - the name we’re saying is Holy right uh God’s God’s name God’s existence as the being that simply is um so in terms of
01:19:55 01:19:55 - the characteristic or quality of deity we might say um that is in fact entirely what is in view
01:20:02 01:20:02 - here yeah we we we should keep in mind too that hot speaks to the fact
01:20:10 01:20:10 - that God’s name is unique that is Holiness is speaking to separateness being aart being not like other
01:20:19 01:20:19 - things so this is acknowledgement of the deity of the father yep all right next verse
01:20:27 01:20:27 - here that Dr lugan bille uses is in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6 says yet for us there is but one God comma the
01:20:36 01:20:36 - father comma from whom all things and for from whom are all things and we exist for him and one Lord Jesus Christ
01:20:45 01:20:45 - by whom are all things and we exist through him um so this is what is in grammar known as apposition um this this
01:20:53 01:20:53 - this phrase with commas kind of uh giving another way of re restating the thing that comes directly before it um
01:21:01 01:21:01 - so there is but one God the Father you know from whom all things are made like I you literally cannot make this verse
01:21:09 01:21:09 - say anything other than the father is god um it’s what the verse directly says um this is I I should I should interject
01:21:19 01:21:19 - here that of all of the members of the Trinity I think the father is the easiest to support as being God right no
01:21:25 01:21:25 - one ever thinks the father isn’t god um most heresies in fact I can think of off the top of my head in the past we went
01:21:32 01:21:32 - through several adoptionism for example or aryanism most of them deal with members
01:21:37 01:21:37 - of the Trinity that aren’t the father I I can’t think of too many heresies off the top of my head where somehow people
01:21:43 01:21:43 - think the father isn’t god um but nonetheless we’re just going through dotting our eyes crossing our tees this
01:21:50 01:21:50 - is another Bible verse and I’m sure there’s others besides the ones that we’re going through that clearly
01:21:56 01:21:56 - supports the idea of God the father being deity of being Divine anything to say there Audie or shall we just go
01:22:04 01:22:04 - ahead and go on to the next one yeah nothing much to say either I think what you said is exactly right I don’t think
01:22:11 01:22:11 - there’s there’s ever a question whether the father is God I mean you could say the father is Jesus you could say the
01:22:18 01:22:18 - father is the Holy Spirit you could say the father is the god from whom whom the Holy Spirit and Jesus proceed a lot of
01:22:26 01:22:26 - things have been said but I don’t know of anyone who has a question about whether the Bible teaches the father is
01:22:32 01:22:32 - God it’s pretty straightforward so so like you said dotting eyes Crossing teas yeah we just say here are the places
01:22:40 01:22:40 - that the Bible says the father is god well so I I remember we we made this point um introducing this uh Dr lugan
01:22:49 01:22:49 - Bill stated and I agreed with him that the trinity is obvious from the Bible right um we spent some time and breath
01:22:56 01:22:56 - discussing how it didn’t just come about in the thir Century you know 325 Ad Council of NAA this wasn’t like the
01:23:03 01:23:03 - first time that people had like understood the Trinity from scripture um it’s right there it’s in the text it’s
01:23:09 01:23:09 - the common sense understanding of of how God is discussed in the New Testament and so what we’re doing here is showing
01:23:17 01:23:17 - you well here’s where you get it right these are some of those passages by which the early believers would have
01:23:22 01:23:22 - understood that God is Triune in nature right from the text of the Bible uh we don’t need tradition or church councils
01:23:29 01:23:29 - to get this point because the Bible itself teaches it um that just is an important thing for us to keep
01:23:35 01:23:35 - emphasizing as we go here is that we believe the Trinity not because a council of old men sat and voted about
01:23:42 01:23:42 - it but because the Bible teaches it um now a lot of people probably wouldn’t say they believe it because of the
01:23:49 01:23:49 - church councils but I don’t know um we just need to be very careful in how we uh uh basically justify our belief in
01:23:58 01:23:58 - things because we know that the only true basis for our belief as Christians is scripture itself so-called solos
01:24:05 01:24:05 - scriptura right that’s a pretty fundamental Canon for us as Evangelical Protestants you know those are the
01:24:10 01:24:10 - labels that people would apply to us um and that’s why we’re kind of emphasizing this point so all that said uh next one
01:24:19 01:24:19 - here in Ephesians chapter 3 um so eans come on I’ll click on the more link Ephesians
01:24:27 01:24:27 - chapter 3: 14- 15 um so says for this reason I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on
01:24:36 01:24:36 - Earth deres its name um so you know another pretty clear straightforward um how could every
01:24:45 01:24:45 - family in heaven on Earth derive their name if the father wasn’t God it just would not make sense um this one might
01:24:51 01:24:51 - be helpful to get a little bit more context to see what is in view here in Ephesians chapter 3 um so it’s Paul
01:25:00 01:25:00 - beginning a prayer here um praying for the Ephesians the church in Ephesus um so uh this isn’t quite I don’t think
01:25:11 01:25:11 - title is quite the right word it is a um uh Paul Paul using this phrase here um as a a description a qualifier of who
01:25:23 01:25:23 - we’re talking about who God is and particularly how that affects us as humans here um so this isn’t the only
01:25:30 01:25:30 - place in scripture where this comes up um reasonably common actually you know for Paul or one of the other Apostles
01:25:36 01:25:36 - you know Peter John writing to be you know God uh who has done this for us or who has affected these things um that
01:25:45 01:25:45 - God that’s the one we’re talking about actually I think pretty commonly comes up as God uh the god of your father’s
01:25:51 01:25:51 - Abraham and Isaac and Jacob right you know that kind of set aside this is the god this is the being we’re talking
01:25:58 01:25:58 - about that sort of thing but here just inferential evidence again that the father whom we are talking
01:26:06 01:26:06 - about is most certainly god um I mean if if all the family in Heaven and Earth derives its name from him you
01:26:15 01:26:15 - know how we have family names that’s to speak to his authority over Heaven and Earth so
01:26:23 01:26:23 - that is pretty I mean it might not seem immediately apparent to people who are looking
01:26:30 01:26:30 - for things to quarrel about but it’s a pretty straightforward statement if if all the family in Heaven and Earth is
01:26:38 01:26:38 - deriving its name from the father then the father is the head of all this family yeah and that position is God’s
01:26:48 01:26:48 - position now I will say that the English words father and family don’t seem that related right um but uh you know Lis had
01:26:56 01:26:56 - mentioned this earlier when we were talking before the recording today well that is an English problem so to speak
01:27:03 01:27:03 - um in Latin and Greek actually at least those are languages I’m familiar with family is intrinsically tied to the word
01:27:09 01:27:09 - for father so um you know Latin P Patria right um this is what we speak these things are dead related to
01:27:19 01:27:19 - each other in the text it’s right there um so if hit stronger in Latin and Greek is what I’m saying um this connection
01:27:26 01:27:26 - between God the father and us as his family the family is the members belonging to the father so to speak
01:27:33 01:27:33 - right that’s how it works biblically in the biblical understanding of family and when we say that God is our father the F
01:27:41 01:27:41 - the family doesn’t exist apart from the father I mean I don’t want to get into like philosophy or whatever but you know
01:27:46 01:27:46 - like that is the connection we have to God the Father um it’s pretty strong is what I’m saying
01:27:52 01:27:52 - um can you address can you address the name part of this deres its name aie you want to you want to take that or oh yeah
01:28:02 01:28:02 - okay okay um like I said it’s like having a family name um most families are identified somehow like I come from
01:28:11 01:28:11 - the AR wo family in fact I come from the Isaac Car World of family so my family deres its name from my
01:28:21 01:28:21 - father the larger Clan deres its name from um our patriarch uh like my grandfather and
01:28:31 01:28:31 - then we have the Uki Clan which is my great-grandfather and so on and so forth so when we talk about the the derivation
01:28:41 01:28:41 - of a name we’re saying who is it by whose identity a family is known that is the
01:28:49 01:28:49 - head of the home the head of the clan and um that is that is God in this in this
01:28:58 01:28:58 - sense we are Christians that’s what the world calls us or called us back in the days of uh Paul in
01:29:07 01:29:07 - Antioch but you could call us Believers you could call us followers of Christ you could call us followers of the way
01:29:15 01:29:15 - you call us whatever you will but in the end you’re saying we belong to God’s family and that is true of the angels as
01:29:24 01:29:24 - well and of those who have gone before us so that identity that we possess as members of that family derives from the
01:29:35 01:29:35 - father and that is actually an argument or a statement of you know presupposed fact it’s like well that’s obvious since
01:29:45 01:29:45 - he is God I mean I think this gets back to what philosophers would call the uncaused cause or the prime mover you
01:29:54 01:29:54 - want to use that word from philosophy you know people get their names from somewhere right and if you think of the
01:30:02 01:30:02 - human uh the the tree of humanity you know starting with Adam and Eve throughout history um families derive
01:30:10 01:30:10 - from you know an initial starting point again after the flood um where Noah and his family survived and repopulated the
01:30:17 01:30:17 - Earth well even all of those people didn’t come from nowhere they came from God
01:30:22 01:30:22 - all of existence um and I I mean I don’t want to stretch it right this passage is clearly talking about the idea of family
01:30:31 01:30:31 - what does that mean for us to be the family of God right we are not literally like I I don’t you know like how uh for
01:30:39 01:30:39 - example like baby deer are still deer right well even though we are God’s children we are not like baby Gods so to
01:30:46 01:30:46 - speak um we we are in some ways you know we have the image of God we have choice we are Godlike in our Capac to choose
01:30:53 01:30:53 - but we are not like God in nature um we spent a long time um in kind of the first core part of this series talking
01:31:00 01:31:00 - about how God is completely separate from everything in creation um but where I’m going with this is that God is the
01:31:07 01:31:07 - one being who doesn’t himself have a father so to speak right the one being from whom all of the other families
01:31:15 01:31:15 - derve um it’s the uncaused cause now one thing I wanted to mention here I I I have a a family twist on this as well um
01:31:22 01:31:22 - so you’ve probably heard of last names like Johnson or Jacobson right in my own family I have a lot of relatives from
01:31:29 01:31:29 - Norway there is a group of folks on my dad’s side who still live in rural Illinois and they are the spencon and so
01:31:37 01:31:37 - there was someone in my family history named Sven and then his family were Sven and his sons the sons of Sven Svenson um
01:31:46 01:31:46 - and so I don’t know I I I find it funny because I know it’s like my great great grandfather or something his named Sven
01:31:52 01:31:52 - spencon um anyway um that is an example here of the family name being derived from uh uh sort of the the leader of the
01:32:02 01:32:02 - family um I was that is that helpful Lisa um did we kind of get to the core of what
01:32:08 01:32:08 - you’re asking like why your names coming up here um yeah no I guess I’m still a little fuzzy because it’s every family
01:32:14 01:32:14 - it’s not just the Believers it’s every right in heaven and in Earth and now the the Heavenly they don’t marry so they
01:32:21 01:32:21 - don’t have like cousins and brothers and sisters I would be right I mean we we there’s a lot we
01:32:31 01:32:31 - don’t know about for example how angels are organized um so we know that there are clans of angels um you know the 24
01:32:37 01:32:37 - Elders Before the Throne um Aus talks about in its Systematic Theology part 2A of angels talks about the Angelic
01:32:44 01:32:44 - hierarchies and stuff um this verse like not to I I I don’t think we need to go all that far down in the week reads
01:32:52 01:32:52 - there um the verse is getting at that all groups of organizations right everything that we would call a family
01:32:59 01:32:59 - and of course we have a human idea of what that means but all organizations derive back to God um he
01:33:07 01:33:07 - is the one in whom everything exists everything has been created um I get that with the uh Authority structures
01:33:16 01:33:16 - that he set up you know I think it’s Romans that tells us to obey authorities so I can see that that is also implied
01:33:22 01:33:22 - here yeah I think I think that um this passage is actually speaking Yeah I I don’t like how the NIV puts it because
01:33:34 01:33:34 - um well could you could you take a look at the Greek and tell me what it says exactly please sure let me let me first
01:33:41 01:33:41 - I’ll pull up a different translation so this is nasb here says from whom every family in heaven and on Earth derives
01:33:49 01:33:49 - its name I I kind of what I’m curious about is what this word is um so we are looking at Ephesians 3 verse
01:33:57 01:33:57 - 15 Ephesians 35 this is uh site that easily lets you pull up intral linear there are multiple sites
01:34:06 01:34:06 - um Blue Letter Bible is one free online site that quickly lets you pull up an Interlinear or reverse Interlinear here
01:34:14 01:34:14 - so we are looking at this verse here so starting here this is in heaven or actually it’s in the heavens plural
01:34:23 01:34:23 - stative plural and upon the Earth Earth singular um interestingly article here this
01:34:32 01:34:32 - word I’m more interested in the every family part okay
01:34:39 01:34:39 - so this right here that’s the every family um Passa is uh adjective here for all and Patria this is a singular noun
01:34:51 01:34:51 - meaning family so from whom this is this is the relative this is the relative Clause from whom every family in the
01:35:01 01:35:01 - heavens and upon the Earth and then here’s the verb um if if I wanted to say all the
01:35:11 01:35:11 - family right if I wanted to say all the family in Greek how would I say it so okay this this word here pass pass upon
01:35:22 01:35:22 - this is the adjective in Greek it can mean all or it can mean every depending on context here let me pull the
01:35:29 01:35:29 - adjective um so individually um each every any all um so okay that’s precisely why I wanted
01:35:36 01:35:36 - to find out because I don’t like those translations now I think it is defensible uh you know not to get too
01:35:42 01:35:42 - far off in the interpretive weeds here it is defensible to translate this because it is family singular right it
01:35:48 01:35:48 - depends if you distribute this adjective or not um you do you make it each or every or do you make it all or the whole
01:35:55 01:35:55 - because if you were to translate this verse here as from whom the whole family in heaven and on Earth
01:36:02 01:36:02 - drives I I actually I see where you’re going with this and I think that is probably the better translation there is
01:36:08 01:36:08 - one single family of God right yeah and it’s not it’s not every every family on Earth there is just one family is it’s
01:36:17 01:36:17 - the family of see nasby actually footnotes it here um the whole um so if you take it in a Distributive
01:36:23 01:36:23 - sense it’s every if you take it in a uh you know emphasis of the unity sense it’s the whole um and this is why side
01:36:31 01:36:31 - tangent not to get you off the weed this is why translation is tricky business right both of those things are valid
01:36:39 01:36:39 - meanings for that word in Greek which one is meant well that is up for you as the
01:36:45 01:36:45 - translator now this is why um there is a pretty famous quote from a guy named I think it’s tacitus in Latin basically
01:36:53 01:36:53 - the translates to English is all translators are traitors um in English we don’t have a word that can mean both
01:37:02 01:37:02 - every or the whole like the same word means both we don’t have a word that has that connotation both of them so we have
01:37:08 01:37:08 - to pick one in English you don’t have to pick one in Greek because the same word means both things
01:37:16 01:37:16 - um go ahead you were gonna say something oh yeah uh I think you’re make very solid Arguments for the idea that
01:37:25 01:37:25 - um there are multiple uh meanings being held together in that one word so it doesn’t have to
01:37:32 01:37:32 - be an either or the reason I actually come down pretty strongly on the um the whole or the all the uh family um
01:37:43 01:37:43 - interpretation is that um this is where we get yet another
01:37:52 01:37:52 - uh insight into what God is trying is doing what God is accomplishing in creation there’s
01:38:00 01:38:00 - a family that he wants it’s his family and as we saw right from Genesis most people wanted their own identity
01:38:09 01:38:09 - separate from him and that of course is what led him to or what led to the creation of Israel as a nation and we
01:38:19 01:38:19 - know that Israel is the church and the church is Israel and ultimately we are going to be sorted into the family that
01:38:26 01:38:26 - is Israel you know and so on and so forth so when Paul says this he is speaking to the God of all believers in
01:38:36 01:38:36 - Jesus Christ essentially pointing out that it’s both the angels and believing humans who belong to this family who
01:38:47 01:38:47 - derive their name that is their identity from this father so he’s speaking it’s it’s kind of again it’s not like he’s
01:38:58 01:38:58 - arguing for this is uh this is how the father is God it’s more like he’s he’s making a forgone conclusion man he’s
01:39:05 01:39:05 - obviously God because after all the the the whole family of Believers which is the point of all of creature history
01:39:15 01:39:15 - right derives from him so I I agree you know I I don’t think anything we were saying before was
01:39:22 01:39:22 - wrong but I would translate this if I pick one in Translation and footnote the other one see that nasb here translated
01:39:30 01:39:30 - is every and footnoted the whole I would translate the whole and footnote every um that’s how I would do it because it
01:39:36 01:39:36 - makes a lot clearer that point that Audi just made that we’re talking about the the definite article family of God which
01:39:45 01:39:45 - is composed of both humans and Angels uh the elect you’ll hear scripture use that word as well people who chose for god um
01:39:53 01:39:53 - in who we have our identity um we derive our name we derive our identity from being part of that family the Eternal
01:40:03 01:40:03 - family self- selecting for god um so I really would rather we not go ahead I like it thank you you got it okay yeah
01:40:14 01:40:14 - uh let’s go back to the passages we’re talking about um so that we say at least mostly on topic here um so um we here
01:40:25 01:40:25 - have now covered several passages supporting um the oops wrong side of slides here supporting the Divinity of
01:40:32 01:40:32 - God the father and like Audi said um you know we did a tangent a little bit there it was a good question I’m not
01:40:38 01:40:38 - discouraging questions um but the reason why we were talking about this verse um uh aie said something to the fact that
01:40:45 01:40:45 - Paul wasn’t using this particular thing as an argument to prove God’s deity like that’s not the point of this passage
01:40:52 01:40:52 - this is completely a tangential aside I mentioned it’s kind of similar how uh people when referencing God will
01:40:58 01:40:58 - reference you know God the the father of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob it’s like that it’s just in a side of this is the
01:41:06 01:41:06 - God we serve and this God we serve is from whom the whole family of God deres its name um it’s just that’s who we’re
01:41:14 01:41:14 - talking about here so Paul very much takes it for granted that the father is Divine and eternal and you know the the
01:41:24 01:41:24 - person from whom we all self-organize into the family of God like it’s just it’s he’s not proving it he’s not
01:41:31 01:41:31 - arguing for it it’s just taking as brute fact um that was ai’s point and I think that is the right way to look at this
01:41:37 01:41:37 - passage all right any closing thoughts here on this idea of God the father being god um not
01:41:46 01:41:46 - really I think I think you satisfied the point in the the discussion quite well and to be very clear like we said this
01:41:54 01:41:54 - is the easy one so to speak um people throughout history do not get tripped up by thinking that somehow God the father
01:42:01 01:42:01 - is not God um or that he’s not deity he’s not Divine um it’s the other members of the Trinity which have had
01:42:08 01:42:08 - more heresy traditionally in trinitarian theology so we will now turn to talk about the sun next and then we’ll get to
01:42:15 01:42:15 - the Holy Spirit after that next we’re going to be talking about the Divinity of the Sun so the
01:42:24 01:42:24 - second member of the Trinity here and just like the first one going to go ahead and be uh reading uh some verses
01:42:31 01:42:31 - here to support this um one uh passage that really comes to mind you see this is the uh the verse used uh you know
01:42:38 01:42:38 - kind of on the slide itself or in the in the study itself is in John chapter 1 uh the word becoming flesh and dwelling
01:42:45 01:42:45 - Among Us the Incarnation of the word the Divine logos who we know is the son um because through him all things were made
01:42:54 01:42:54 - going back here looking at this um uh this passage from 1 Corinthians chapter 8 that we just talked about you know
01:43:01 01:43:01 - where this passage does say very clearly that the father is God you know just says it straight out but also talks
01:43:07 01:43:07 - about how um in you know by whom are all things all things were made through him you’ll see that used other places in
01:43:15 01:43:15 - scripture well that’s what John chapter 1 says the Gospel of John the very beginning part of the go goel of John
01:43:21 01:43:21 - says that the world was made through him second member of the Trinity the agent Jesus Christ um he is the Divine log us
01:43:29 01:43:29 - he is the word this same one was present with the father in the beginning or was present with God in the beginning
01:43:36 01:43:36 - talking about God the Father Here in context of this passage now of course there are people who they don’t
01:43:43 01:43:43 - translate this passage correctly right we got into a little bit about translation in our previous discussion
01:43:49 01:43:49 - just now about how um you know different words in Greek maybe we don’t have an exact English
01:43:55 01:43:55 - equivalent for the word and so you have to pick translating it one way or the other way well commonly in this
01:44:00 01:44:00 - particular passage in John chapter 1 uh there’s this thing called a definite article which is where we put the God so
01:44:06 01:44:06 - people will say Jesus is not God as in the god definite article he is a God uh group of people who does this is the
01:44:13 01:44:13 - Jehovah’s Witnesses or jws well so happens that I’m not going to get into the the specifics of GR
01:44:21 01:44:21 - but obviously we’re talking about God the Father here um in context um they are a group of people who don’t think
01:44:29 01:44:29 - that but they like their interpretation of this passage is heavily colored by presupposing that somehow Jesus isn’t
01:44:35 01:44:35 - God this is not the only place in the Bible too um so log rambley preface aside this passage here in John chapter
01:44:41 01:44:41 - 1 this is the second person of the Trinity this is who we are talking about uh through him was the world made right
01:44:49 01:44:49 - I mean he was God in his own right you know obviously this translation we have up on the screen this comes from ichus
01:44:55 01:44:55 - what you see in Brackets is not present in the original Greek these are words or phrases that Dr lugan bill has added
01:45:02 01:45:02 - that he views as implied and this is clarifying the meaning of this passage now if you read these verses with the
01:45:08 01:45:08 - added bits the things in Brackets it becomes very very clear what the text is saying um if you read the Greek without
01:45:14 01:45:14 - this or the English which comes from the Greek without this it’s not maybe quite as clear but
01:45:20 01:45:20 - this is what the text means when we interpret it properly so some of those other passages this is why I say it
01:45:26 01:45:26 - doesn’t rest upon this one alone that talk about Jesus being god um we’ll start with uh John 5 Verse 18 here um so
01:45:39 01:45:39 - this is a pretty clear assertion in the gospels in John chapter 5 the Jews were seeking to kill him because he was not
01:45:47 01:45:47 - only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own father making himself equal with
01:45:53 01:45:53 - God now this is a report but people were seeking to kill him because Jesus was claiming God as his own father making
01:46:03 01:46:03 - himself equal to God now if you read the words in the gospels you see this too but you know uh it’s what Jesus claimed
01:46:12 01:46:12 - um with his own mouth and uh just as an aside from a argument for probability Jesus wouldn’t be making this argument
01:46:20 01:46:20 - wouldn’t be putting himself equal to the father I don’t know to like gain followers or something um you know so if
01:46:26 01:46:26 - you think about where’s the motive in it if Jesus were lying about this he got crucified essentially
01:46:34 01:46:34 - because of this because he claimed to be the Son of God remember a you uh pilate put up on the gravestone you know here
01:46:40 01:46:40 - lies the king of the Jews and the Pharisees got really angry and they said no he’s not he says he’s the king of the
01:46:46 01:46:46 - Jews right um well this gets to that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God he claimed that you know he and the father
01:46:54 01:46:54 - were one that’s another verse that we’ll get to and it made no sense for him to claim that unless he actually was
01:47:01 01:47:01 - because if he was trying to claim that to get money or power or fame what it got him instead was it got him crucified
01:47:08 01:47:08 - so that is not a good argument um anything to say here on this point aie um this passage in John 5 and just
01:47:16 01:47:16 - generally speaking Jesus claiming to be the Son of God and equal to the father just in his words and the gospels
01:47:23 01:47:23 - generally yeah this is this is actually a passage that uh most people I have run into who have debated uh me on the
01:47:33 01:47:33 - matter seem to have issues believing I mean how is claiming to be the Son of God making
01:47:42 01:47:42 - himself equal to God is is a person equal to his father simply because he is his father’s son but
01:47:51 01:47:51 - but the point here is that the two are of a kind and then you think again about how how prophecy
01:48:02 01:48:02 - Works they knew that what he was saying was that he had come from God so that meant that he was
01:48:15 01:48:15 - essentially claiming to be the Savior who was I I don’t think I remember the passage well it’s in Isaiah
01:48:24 01:48:24 - where he said I am God your savior your only savior something of that sort I’ll try to remember it but my brain is
01:48:31 01:48:31 - glitching a bit so the idea here is if he was from God he was the Christ and the Christ was weird he was not a normal
01:48:42 01:48:42 - person by their estimation that was why um the disciples I believe it was Peter who said it uh said uh well we know that
01:48:52 01:48:52 - when the Christ comes oh maybe it wasn’t the disciples when the Christ comes he will remain forever that is he will
01:48:58 01:48:58 - continue forever because he’s not supposed to die he’s he’s not like the rest of us who who are subject to death
01:49:06 01:49:06 - they didn’t see death happening to the to the Christ the Messiah because he had to be God or something very like God and
01:49:16 01:49:16 - now Jesus was claiming to be from God that’s the idea of being the Son of God he Pro he came from God just like a a
01:49:25 01:49:25 - man would come from his father right well and it helps to appreciate uh the term that Dr Lugo commonly uses for this
01:49:33 01:49:33 - is prophetic foreshortening the idea is the perspective like artists might have this if you have a mountain range you
01:49:41 01:49:41 - only see the first mountain in the range you can’t see the ones behind it right this getting to the suffering servants
01:49:48 01:49:48 - versus the Conquering King thing all of the people at the time when Jesus came were waiting for the king to come
01:49:54 01:49:54 - in and kick out the Romans but instead they got the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and so you may hear this kind of
01:50:02 01:50:02 - poetically phrase stumbling over the cross when reaching for the crown right um for the Jews they didn’t want their
01:50:10 01:50:10 - Messiah to get crucified they wanted their Messiah to go beat the Romans right um sorry I don’t want to get off
01:50:16 01:50:16 - on a tangent but it’s very interesting point of Prophecy here um and it does characterize what Jesus was claiming um
01:50:24 01:50:24 - like Audi was saying he was claiming to be the Messiah the Christ and exactly what the Jews of the first century
01:50:30 01:50:30 - understood that claim to mean we are you have to understand we are culturally removed from this as well right um we
01:50:38 01:50:38 - aren’t under the oppression of Rome for one thing but we are also not culturally Jewish we didn’t grow up hearing you
01:50:46 01:50:46 - know stories read about the Messiah as you know the the person come to rescue our people
01:50:53 01:50:53 - specifically um this is one of the things that will make the regathering of Israel so powerful during the end times
01:51:00 01:51:00 - is that the the witnesses the 144,000 the Revelation mentioned are for God’s family for Israel eological Israel we
01:51:08 01:51:08 - are God’s family now as Believers you know Israel and the church are one like Audi said Romans chapter 11 for example
01:51:14 01:51:14 - um but it is strong stuff what Jesus was claiming when he said he was the Messiah um
01:51:20 01:51:20 - and you know so that point that aie made here about how is claiming that God is his father making himself equal to God
01:51:27 01:51:27 - it is as AI said it’s because he’s saying this is where I am from um God sent me um that is the claim here uh you
01:51:37 01:51:37 - know and actually it’s interestingly um you may hear this phrase in the New Testament kind of like um you know is is
01:51:43 01:51:43 - he of God or is he of his father the devil you know the uh Pharisees would say he was doing his Signs by the power
01:51:52 01:51:52 - of Satan right um you know let me actually I I don’t I I’m trying to think of the verse right off the top about his
01:51:59 01:51:59 - father there’s a very specific verse I’m thinking of um so this is Jesus talking about how Satan is a liar and the father
01:52:07 01:52:07 - of Lies devil um let’s John 8:44 I I’m thinking of it people
01:52:16 01:52:16 - accusing Jesus of having his power come from sat um do you know what I’m talking about
01:52:22 01:52:22 - aie um or am I just yeah I do um yeah um he Stephen is it is it the one where um Jesus replies to them that Satan can’t
01:52:35 01:52:35 - drive out Satan is that right right right right right well that’s not quite I want that
01:52:45 01:52:45 - context here let’s try Matthew 12 so it’s Matthew 122 27 or Luke 11:15 also Mark 3 yeah 2 to 27 I believe
01:53:00 01:53:00 - yeah so yeah okay maybe maybe it doesn’t have the word father there I thought it did um by Prince demons
01:53:11 01:53:11 - but you know like the idea being that if Jesus were sent from Satan he would be employing Satan’s power he’d be an agent
01:53:17 01:53:17 - of Satan more or less and this is the opposite of who Jesus actually is right but it was kind of it was kind of
01:53:26 01:53:26 - driving home the point that to the interlocutors being sent by the person being an emissary um you know this is
01:53:34 01:53:34 - another thing that boy we just have a hard time with the language here in English in our culture um you know in
01:53:40 01:53:40 - the Gospel of John how how you have all this stuff about Witnesses and Jesus goes on and on about how he was sent and
01:53:48 01:53:48 - the one who sent him do you know what I’m talking about and like it seems kind of strange to us reading this in English
01:53:54 01:53:54 - like why is he why is he saying this why is he emphasizing this point and the reason why he is is because of what that
01:54:01 01:54:01 - claim means um so in English we’d be like you know if I I don’t know like let’s say I have a you know like a a
01:54:10 01:54:10 - young boy who’s running an errand for me you know I gave him money I say hey go buy me bread and milk at the grocery
01:54:14 01:54:14 - store or something right he’s been sent by me that is not the sense that Jesus means when he’s sent by the father
01:54:22 01:54:22 - right he’s not he’s not like an errand boy he is an emissary the very boy you know like best I I can’t think of
01:54:29 01:54:29 - putting it better than Hebrews chapter one right um God’s you know like in these last days he’s spoken to us
01:54:37 01:54:37 - through his son right this is the son is the radiance of God’s glory the exact representation of his being sustaining
01:54:44 01:54:44 - all things through his powerful word it’s the Emissary of God’s power right it is not Jesus as Aaron boy it is Jesus
01:54:53 01:54:53 - as the standing for the deity of the father um I know AI has made the point that within the Trinity which we’ll get
01:55:00 01:55:00 - to a little bit further on in the study the father is seen as the representation of deity within the godhead Jesus is
01:55:09 01:55:09 - that deity represented to us upon Earth as the messenger um but it is the messenger carrying the scepter of the
01:55:16 01:55:16 - king so to speak not like an under um so I don’t want to ramble but this is important stuff in on on on Luke 11
01:55:26 01:55:26 - verse2 it said but if I cast out demons with the Finger of God surely the kingdom of God has come upon you right
01:55:33 01:55:33 - you said Luke 11:20 or 20111 1120 okay yeah I flip the references there mine’s NK nkjv on mine yeah I think that’s the
01:55:45 01:55:45 - parallel passage to the one that we were we were looking at in Matthew chapter 12 right all right anything else you want
01:55:53 01:55:53 - to you want to say aie um I mean I I I do think the language of sent and being sent and the one who sent me um we could
01:56:00 01:56:00 - go look at some references in the Gospel of John uh to examine that concept but it’s very interesting and it gets to
01:56:06 01:56:06 - this point of what Jesus is claiming when he says he was sent by the father as the Son of God um yeah I I think uh
01:56:16 01:56:16 - that’s um that word was they like like we said they knew exactly what he meant to us today it would be a bit ridiculous
01:56:24 01:56:24 - but they knew what he was saying because I mean while they in Jewish system they
01:56:34 01:56:34 - would have understood that we ultimately come from God because he made us they also knew that the Angels could be
01:56:42 01:56:42 - called sons of God in the sense of their activity on behalf of God and their power and the domains and spheres of
01:56:51 01:56:51 - authori that they maintained for God but this one was not a son of God he claimed to be the Son of God the one who was the
01:57:03 01:57:03 - true representation of the father’s will so like they they knew what it meant they knew we today it’s not really the
01:57:12 01:57:12 - way we think but it was the way they thought and they knew the the scriptures they knew prophecy they knew exactly
01:57:19 01:57:19 - what he how about the definite article Angel of the Lord from the New Testament or sorry
01:57:24 01:57:24 - from the Old Testament it’s the same thing um why shall we say cultural implication what he was claiming was
01:57:31 01:57:31 - clear so that to tie us back into the QED here so that when Jesus called God his father that’s why they equated it in
01:57:41 01:57:41 - context in cultural context they read between the lines and know and they knew that that claim was that he was equal
01:57:47 01:57:47 - with god um that’s why the things are equivalent sorry we take a little bit of a round about path to get there but
01:57:54 01:57:54 - that’s this verse um all right next one we’re g to look at um John chapter 10 verse
01:58:03 01:58:03 - 30 pretty straightforward I and the father are one right Jesus claims it as well it’s not like we just have to read
01:58:12 01:58:12 - between the lines um so uh recall that we had just estblished that the father is God and if
01:58:21 01:58:21 - Jesus says that he is one with the father then Jesus Is God too that’s how that works logic wise um so this is just
01:58:29 01:58:29 - well beyond what a a typical Prophet would have said right sure I mean we would say that folks like let’s say
01:58:37 01:58:37 - famous Old Testament prophets Elijah Samuel maybe they were given the words of God but what we mean by that is not
01:58:46 01:58:46 - equivalent to them being God or basically they can’t act like as if they have the authority of
01:58:52 01:58:52 - God they have not been delegated that Authority right so you might think about this of uh in Warfare times and places
01:59:00 01:59:00 - throughout history the king might send an emissary a representative to conduct like an alliance for example with
01:59:08 01:59:08 - someone that person is acting with the authority of the King right but not every messenger has the authority of the
01:59:16 01:59:16 - king see what I’m saying um there’s this there’s this sense of who is the represent in fact it’s even stronger
01:59:23 01:59:23 - than that in the parable of the vineyard you remember how the owner of the vineyard sends people to try to reason
01:59:31 01:59:31 - with the tenants and then they they kill these people and then he sends his son saying certainly they will listen to my
01:59:37 01:59:37 - son right we have this idea of the son being literally the family representative right um you know in a
01:59:47 01:59:47 - way that that people who simp simply work for you or not you know God sent his one and only son to us that is
01:59:54 01:59:54 - stronger than God sending a beloved servant to us right although the Bible is very clear that Jesus perfectly
02:00:00 02:00:00 - followed the father’s will right that that adopted kenosis Etc um you know like the Jesus’s status as fully
02:00:09 02:00:09 - submitting to the father’s will but the point is is that Jesus had this Authority he was the representative of
02:00:17 02:00:17 - the father um yeah the full representation of the father’s Authority they knew they knew um um in this case I
02:00:27 02:00:27 - and the father are one um whatever you think of the father is applicable to me whatever you do to me you do to the
02:00:35 02:00:35 - father they knew precisely what he was saying that’s why they tried to Stone him Jesus made the the claims based on
02:00:42 02:00:42 - this other places where anyone who Rejects My Testimony rejects the father’s testimony right again again
02:00:49 02:00:49 - Gospel of John uses this language a lot um when Jesus says that it’s because he has been given the authority right
02:00:57 02:00:57 - that’s that’s why he says this is because his words carry the very weight of
02:01:03 02:01:03 - God uh you know to use a close contrast I mentioned the Old Testament prophets Lisa had asked well this is definitely
02:01:10 02:01:10 - stronger than just the prophets right consider uh the John the Baptist um you know we use this phrase sent from God
02:01:19 02:01:19 - you know this was something that the Pharisees went you know they were afraid that the people thought that John had
02:01:24 02:01:24 - been sent by God right this comes up in the gospels and so was John the Baptist asking or operating on God’s power the
02:01:31 02:01:31 - answer to that question is yes of course but he was not the Messiah you know in fact John the Baptist goes well out of
02:01:38 02:01:38 - his way to make that clear I am not even worthy to untie his sandals right um that’s the difference in yeah St so to
02:01:49 02:01:49 - speak of those we talking about yeah good stuff so next one um also John
02:01:58 02:01:58 - chapter 10 ver 33 you know this is making it very clear that Jesus was claiming to be God um you know if they
02:02:08 02:02:08 - were stoning him and he wasn’t actually saying this he would have been like wait hold up guys um well I mean I say that
02:02:15 02:02:15 - but there are other places like in John chapter 6 where he talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood where
02:02:20 02:02:20 - everyone takes him completely the wrong way and he doesn’t correct them right because the idea is people who are
02:02:26 02:02:26 - actually interested will ask what it means rather than just assuming and picking up Stones um but Jesus really
02:02:33 02:02:33 - did claim to be God as the thing um and so you know just another verse making it very clear that that’s what everyone
02:02:42 02:02:42 - understood this to be um it it it wasn’t like they got this out of nowhere right um that they were picking up stones to
02:02:52 02:02:52 - Stone him for his claims of being one with the father making himself out to be equal to God just like that they like
02:02:59 02:02:59 - they got them all wrong basically and that’s why they were doing this right um now of course you know we don’t want to
02:03:05 02:03:05 - get too reductionistic in it but they knew this in a way that maybe like we’ve been saying isn’t as so clear to us in
02:03:11 02:03:11 - our cultural context but it is very much what Jesus was claiming um yeah and they understood it as such
02:03:20 02:03:20 - um yeah and so basically the testimony of the of the actions of the Jews was to
02:03:28 02:03:28 - say we know what you’re saying and we reject it and those of us today who go well um he didn’t say it that’s how they
02:03:36 02:03:36 - understood it and they were wrong in understanding it that way but kind of missing the point I I I don’t know if
02:03:43 02:03:43 - you guys know but there are people who are making an issue that um Jesus never claimed to be God in any part of the
02:03:51 02:03:51 - scriptures well uh this was one of those places where he did make that claim and when they made this accusation against
02:04:00 02:04:00 - him that he was claiming to be God his response was not oh you got that wrong I wasn’t making that claim but he actually
02:04:08 02:04:08 - told them well if the scriptures call those to whom the word of the Lord came Gods because you know
02:04:17 02:04:17 - the scriptures say are Gods he says how much more the one whom the father has Sanctified set apart for himself the one
02:04:26 02:04:26 - who is not like any other human this is I will tell you this is one of those things where it is the hardness of heart
02:04:33 02:04:33 - that God gives us so much room to reject him because all these people are like like come on man just answer the
02:04:41 02:04:41 - question are you God yes or no and Jesus says for the Bible says ye are gods and how much more you see what I’m saying
02:04:48 02:04:48 - like he doesn’t answer yes or no um and he he does this on purpose though um this is the rhetorical strategy of Jesus
02:04:58 02:04:58 - so to speak um he answers this he doesn’t say it like that because it is supposed to get us to think about what
02:05:08 02:05:08 - this means to give people that opportunity to turn away um so yeah and and and even even further he did tell
02:05:16 02:05:16 - them that he was God he told them I am the father or one you know this is actually it’s it’s the same the same
02:05:24 02:05:24 - chapter this is the same two two verses before um yeah yeah he had told them I am the father of one and they picked up
02:05:33 02:05:33 - stones to Stone him and he asked them what did I do which good work are you stoning me for not for a good work it’s
02:05:40 02:05:40 - because you’re claiming to be God well why is that a problem when God calls some of you Gods to whom the word of God
02:05:49 02:05:49 - came I mean if he could call some of you Gods how much more the one whom he has set apart for himself the one who is
02:05:57 02:05:57 - unique among all human beings that will ever exist right this was one person of all the mass of humanity that God had
02:06:06 02:06:06 - set apart for himself there was no one like Jesus Christ before him and there will never be anyone like Jesus Christ
02:06:13 02:06:13 - after him this was the one person who was both God and man at the same time that’s what was actually saying it is
02:06:20 02:06:20 - very clear like actually this reading this passage together right these two verses Dr lugan is citing them you know
02:06:26 02:06:26 - one after the other here but this passage they were stoning him because they said that it was blasphemy that he
02:06:32 02:06:32 - was claiming to be like it is that’s what that claim says Jesus said that that’s what they thought it meant that
02:06:37 02:06:37 - is what it meant right exactly exactly exactly and of course I love I love the way that Jesus phrases this right um
02:06:46 02:06:46 - they pick up stones to Stone him and he ask for which good thing I’ve done are you starting me um you know it is uh
02:06:54 02:06:54 - yeah try but you know um anyway um John chapter 10 real clear right um next one we’re gonna look at Romans chapter 9
02:07:06 02:07:06 - verse 5 right this one’s a little bit harder um I don’t know how well this comes
02:07:14 02:07:14 - through in the English but um who’s are you know here let me I’m going go look at the full context
02:07:21 02:07:21 - here Romans nine it’s talking about Israel yeah being yeah but this this version let’s
02:07:31 02:07:31 - see this is NIV um let’s see what what version did we pick it up is nasb 95 probably a
02:07:37 02:07:37 - little bit more literal here it’s probably closer to what the Greek says but NIV brings out the meaning more here
02:07:44 02:07:44 - that they’re saying that the Messiah is God right um like this is is a I can actually check here if there’s a
02:07:51 02:07:51 - relative pronoun in the Greek um let’s check it’s Romans but I’m just curious that’s all um yeah so it
02:08:02 02:08:02 - depends what you take the antecedent of this pronoun to be right here so this is the Greek relative pronoun ha which is
02:08:08 02:08:08 - we would translate in English as who it’s called a relative pronoun it starts a relative Clause right uh relative
02:08:15 02:08:15 - pronouns have what are called antecedents that means they point to something that came before um and the
02:08:22 02:08:22 - question here is what does it point to well this noun right here hristos this is the Messiah Christ right um so
02:08:33 02:08:33 - something along the lines of um Christ you know according to the flesh right who pointing back to Christ is how you
02:08:42 02:08:42 - should translate this this is where the relative pronoun points to which means this text I you know I Sor I don’t want
02:08:49 02:08:49 - to get super technical there but the point is that this translation when the NIV here translates that the Messiah is
02:08:54 02:08:54 - the antecedent of this relative pronoun so that s we saying that Messiah is God that is the correct way to translate
02:09:00 02:09:00 - this um so yeah yeah and again that’s not the point of
02:09:10 02:09:10 - this passage it’s just there um you know like a just an aside about the Messiah the Messiah who is the messiah
02:09:18 02:09:18 - God overall um and Jesus claimed to be the Messiah therefore Jesus claimed to be God read yes
02:09:27 02:09:27 - exactly all right 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6 this is this one we saw the last time
02:09:35 02:09:35 - too we said from whom all things exist and we exist for him that’s the father and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are
02:09:43 02:09:43 - all things it’s what we were talking about in John chapter 1 and we exist through through him we exist for the
02:09:50 02:09:50 - father exist through Christ you know clear reference here to John chapter 1 um
02:09:56 02:09:56 - yeah yeah yeah so just as all things um sorry what was that
02:10:06 02:10:06 - passage again sorry uh 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6 yeah just as all things all things exist for the father
02:10:16 02:10:16 - and from the father all things exist by Jesus Christ and through through him so that’s that’s quite an equation to me
02:10:27 02:10:27 - yeah and like I said I in my mind this is a very clear reference to the agency of the Sun in creation um right if we
02:10:36 02:10:36 - say in whom when Paul says in whom all things hold together other places in in the Bible we kind of get the sense that
02:10:42 02:10:42 - he has the father in mind there but we know that Jesus Christ is said to be the agent in creation it’s what John chapter
02:10:50 02:10:50 - 1 says um yeah yeah yeah all right Colossians chapter 2 verse 9 I don’t
02:11:01 02:11:01 - know this is why I’m chuckling I don’t know how people somehow don’t believe this right um just just read it
02:11:10 02:11:10 - Colossians 2 verse 9 talking about Jesus Christ here by the way for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily
02:11:17 02:11:17 - form I mean like that’s what we’re talking about right um yeah yeah the fullness of
02:11:27 02:11:27 - deity that means he’s God yes I mean like how else let me ask you people who oppose the deity of Christ what else
02:11:37 02:11:37 - does this passage mean if not that Jesus is god um you know and I’m sure they have their they have their their the
02:11:44 02:11:44 - ways in which they twist scripture to make it not so right I mentioned the Jehovah’s Witnesses in John chapter one
02:11:50 02:11:50 - earlier squabbling over the definite article when it’s very clear that the passage says that Jesus is god um so too
02:11:56 02:11:56 - here I’m sure people have their arguments all of which are complete rubbish I’m sure but this verse says
02:12:03 02:12:03 - that Jesus is god um full stop end of story um or we could look at a bit more of the context it’s not
02:12:12 02:12:12 - confusing yeah I mean a lot of what we’re reading doesn’t require this is actually one Reon that the Trinity the
02:12:19 02:12:19 - the the teaching of the Trinity is not really that advanced it’s not even an advanced Doctrine it’s not something we
02:12:26 02:12:26 - need to you know know so much to understand it’s pretty straightforward all of these things are claims that the
02:12:33 02:12:33 - Bible is making explicitly about the members of the Trinity how each of them are God in this particular case um um
02:12:43 02:12:43 - sorry I I need to see that passage again uh we are in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9 it’s right here says for in
02:12:52 02:12:52 - Christ all the fullness of the deity Liv for yeah that’s that’s just not the
02:13:01 02:13:01 - experience anyone else has this is unique to Christ that the fullness that is everything that is deity everything
02:13:09 02:13:09 - that is deity lived in a bodily form it was well not contained but it was fully expressed right well this
02:13:19 02:13:19 - is theology terms which we’ll get to probably if we did if we ever get to christology we we’ll get to this it’s
02:13:26 02:13:26 - called the hypostatic Union right um that’s the theological jargon for fully God yet fully man how does that work
02:13:36 02:13:36 - it’s what that teaching is about yes important I heard this girl say that um one time somebody asked her about God
02:13:45 02:13:45 - and she said well if you’ve seen me you’ve seen my father and she was going off the you know that the spirit of God
02:13:53 02:13:53 - dwells in her as a Believer but this is very different and that was wrong for her to claim
02:14:00 02:14:00 - that I mean here’s how I view it first Corinthians I think second Corinthians chapter 3 talks about us reflecting
02:14:06 02:14:06 - God’s glory we mirrors right Jesus Christ was not a mirror he radiated God’s glory actively see the difference
02:14:15 02:14:15 - we reflect he radiates completely different things I don’t know if that’s a helpful analogy but um yes
02:14:22 02:14:22 - you know like Jesus Christ is a light source we merely reflect light those are two completely different things um like
02:14:30 02:14:30 - Moon does the sun right good analogy too um but yeah you you’re we are correct when we say that the fullness of deity
02:14:40 02:14:40 - living in bodily form for no one else does the fullness of De live in bodily form right that’s not what it means for
02:14:46 02:14:46 - us to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit that’s not what this is getting at this is getting at the second member of the
02:14:52 02:14:52 - Trinity taking on flesh becoming a human being to die for us that’s what we’re talking about here um all right one more
02:15:02 02:15:02 - and good stuff yeah um Hebrews chapter 1 verse3 I think I quoted this before right this is talking about Jesus being
02:15:10 02:15:10 - God’s last message to humanity I love Hebrews chapter 1 um these first few verses of Hebrews are some of my
02:15:16 02:15:16 - favorite just because of how strong they are this is the epicness of human history if you will right so we’re
02:15:22 02:15:22 - speaking of Jesus and why God sent him and he says he is the radiance of his glory his being God God’s glory and the
02:15:29 02:15:29 - exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power when he had made purification of
02:15:36 02:15:36 - sins he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high so words here exact representation of his
02:15:45 02:15:45 - nature this is another thing that is quote unquote Jesus only so to speak right we as human beings are indwelt by
02:15:53 02:15:53 - the Holy Spirit but we are not the exact representation of God’s nature right um so and actually you know that that
02:16:02 02:16:02 - that metaphor where we just using about Jesus radiating the glory of God and US reflecting the glory of God look at this
02:16:09 02:16:09 - right here says Jesus is the radiance of his glory let me pull that passage up from 2
02:16:16 02:16:16 - Corinthians chapter I think this is talking about like the veil in Moses as well
02:16:22 02:16:22 - um uh you know we talked about this when we were talking about lightting Glory right
02:16:28 02:16:28 - um I don’t know if this there’s another passage I think that talks about going from glory to glory maybe that’s here um
02:16:34 02:16:34 - anyway point being Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God um the radiance of his glory that is different than us um
02:16:45 02:16:45 - Jesus here is expressely said you know we could go look at like I said I love Hebrews chapter 1 um but he’s explicitly
02:16:52 02:16:52 - said you know first off to be sent by go oops Hebrews 1 not 11 um right now actually verse two very good reference
02:17:02 02:17:02 - for this too Universe was made through Jesus Christ right um yeah it doesn’t work unless he’s God uh but yeah
02:17:14 02:17:14 - yeah yes there really isn’t much to say about all of all of this I agree I mean I
02:17:21 02:17:21 - don’t it is not a waste of time for us to go through the passages though it’s why we’re doing also note also note
02:17:28 02:17:28 - we’ve talked about this before uh compared to some of the other parts of this study in uh Bible basics theology
02:17:35 02:17:35 - is kind of short and if you look it’s not like I just skipped paragraphs I like I didn’t copy into the slides for
02:17:42 02:17:42 - the points that we’re doing here these are the points this is all that the study says um it just is literally a
02:17:48 02:17:48 - list of Bible references right because we have talked through some of this we’re trying to explain to fill in a
02:17:55 02:17:55 - little bit maybe get a little bit more picture of what these passages are saying but it’s right there in the
02:18:03 02:18:03 - passages right we we aren’t we aren’t going through a complicated set of steps to no you know find evidence for that
02:18:10 02:18:10 - which we are discussing um yeah all right well yeah uh I think that’s where we will wrap this one um this has been
02:18:19 02:18:19 - establishing that the sun is divine the sun is god um so we started talking about how the father is God now we’ve
02:18:26 02:18:26 - talked about how the son is God next thing we’ll talk about is how the spirit is God as
02:18:34 02:18:34 - well so now we are going to talk about how the holy spirit is God so having talked about how the father is God and
02:18:43 02:18:43 - the son is God we’ve gone through many scripture passages to help support these points we’ve made we are going to be
02:18:50 02:18:50 - doing the same thing for the spirit and in some ways as I know we have noted in our past discussions this is perhaps the
02:18:58 02:18:58 - one that trips people up the most that has a tendency to perhaps not seem quite as straightforward as the other two
02:19:07 02:19:07 - members of the Trinity but as we’ll see there are a number of passages that make the point clear enough that we don’t
02:19:14 02:19:14 - have to guess at this it just like the other two members of the Trinity is something that is right there in
02:19:20 02:19:20 - scripture if we just have eyes to see so with that we’re just going to go ahead and go through the passages just how
02:19:26 02:19:26 - we’ve done for the last couple starting with uh the actually the second verse of the Bible here in Genesis chapter 1 um
02:19:35 02:19:35 - now for those of us who follow ikus uh this is a familiar verse because this is the primary verse uh when you interpret
02:19:44 02:19:44 - the Hebrew here for uh kind of translating formless and void uh also you know shows up in the book of
02:19:51 02:19:51 - Jeremiah uh the Hebrew here toou Vu can translate as ruined and despoiled and we have the the was here uh the Earth was
02:20:02 02:20:02 - um if you translate it a certain way based on the disjunctive Clause that comes after you can also translate it as
02:20:09 02:20:09 - became and so if you translate this as the Earth became ruined and despoiled suddenly that’s a lot
02:20:15 02:20:15 - different right um so this is how ikus explains the Genesis Gap that’s what this verse comes so not to get too off
02:20:23 02:20:23 - on a tangent there but the operative Point here is that the spirit of God shows up in the creation narrative here
02:20:29 02:20:29 - in Genesis chapter 1 um and in fact if we go look at the rest of Genesis you know it is very clear that uh God is in
02:20:39 02:20:39 - view oops Genesis one uh God is in view during the creation narrative um so in the beginning God created the heavens
02:20:46 02:20:46 - and the Earth and then in the very same breath as that statement then we have the spirit of God
02:20:53 02:20:53 - coming in the next verse and then in verse three we have just God again and so it would be kind of strange here
02:21:01 02:21:01 - within the narrative for us to go from God to spirit of God who would somehow not be God and then God again uh you
02:21:09 02:21:09 - know in terms of what we would call narrative structure even if you have like a narrator or characters in a book
02:21:17 02:21:17 - not that the Bible is a novel per se but you you just don’t switch subjects like that uh especially going from one to the
02:21:25 02:21:25 - other and then back to the the initial one in just a sentence later uh so this is what I would call strong inferential
02:21:32 02:21:32 - evidence that the spirit of God is God that they are one and the same um now of course we know from the Gospel of John
02:21:41 02:21:41 - in John chapter 1 that the agent in creation was the son um there are other passages in the Bible that talk about
02:21:48 02:21:48 - how through him all things were made um or maybe that’s in John too at any rate um the son is the agent of creation but
02:21:57 02:21:57 - within the context of recreation at least that’s what we would say Genesis chapter 1 is if you believe in the
02:22:05 02:22:05 - Genesis Gap or the idea that we have the world has been restored after the Judgment that God rendered upon the
02:22:12 02:22:12 - universe for the rebellion of Satan and the angels um that the spirit of God is involved here in this chapter within the
02:22:22 02:22:22 - same breath within the same breath as God you know in verse one and verse three immediately preceding and
02:22:29 02:22:29 - immediately following um so AI do you have thoughts on this verse as it supports the point of the spirit is
02:22:39 02:22:39 - god um uh not not really I think it’s a pretty straightforward thing there is an
02:22:48 02:22:48 - an agent so to speak someone who is actually doing something and then um we see someone else in view which seems to
02:22:58 02:22:58 - suggest that just like you said uh it certainly has to be well if we don’t say the same person
02:23:07 02:23:07 - well they they are of a class they’re of the same class um some God is doing the creating something happened to the
02:23:16 02:23:16 - creation and God is still featuring we don’t see any other person here so if the spirit
02:23:23 02:23:23 - of God is here then um it’s a pretty strong uh uh correlation being made here that’s that’s it’s pretty much what you
02:23:33 02:23:33 - said so I don’t really have anything for to add and I think maybe just to riff I know we’ve talked about this before I
02:23:38 02:23:38 - don’t remember in exactly which segment but how God is not some sort of husk that is inhabited by a spirit right we
02:23:45 02:23:45 - talked about the differences between our makeup as humans where we have flesh and spirit combined we are dichotomous
02:23:53 02:23:53 - beings uh spirit is what gives us life the word for Spirit in both Greek and Hebrew actually means breath uh we
02:24:01 02:24:01 - talked about all of this for the makeup of humans and then we said God is Not B uh God does not have this second part
02:24:08 02:24:08 - like how we do as humans God is Spirit but when we talk of the spirit of God it’s not as if the father is somehow the
02:24:16 02:24:16 - shell that Spirit resides in or or any sort of wrong-headed idea like that so uh you know just reiterating that point
02:24:25 02:24:25 - that we’ve made before when we talk of the spirit of God it is not as if we say the spirit of God is to the human spirit
02:24:33 02:24:33 - in a onetoone sort of correlation um it’s not the same thing and of course Angels Are Spiritual but they are
02:24:41 02:24:41 - different from both us as humans and from God so um I think we talked Over All that in the past but just making
02:24:48 02:24:48 - that point again so in my opinion actually there were there’s obviously quite a few passages here this was one
02:24:54 02:24:54 - of the ones that I don’t think it’s maybe quite as clear it’s inferential is what I would say um if you say somehow
02:25:00 02:25:00 - that the Spirit In this passage is not God then you have some explaining to do um I don’t think it’s as logically
02:25:05 02:25:05 - airtight as some of the other passages which we’ll go through in a moment here so next one we’re going to look at Psalm
02:25:13 02:25:13 - 139:7 um we have established previous L that one of the characteristics of God is omnipresence we talked about how
02:25:22 02:25:22 - running away from God is futile just like Jonah because no matter where you go God is there um so
02:25:29 02:25:29 - omnipresence is this idea that within material creation God is everywhere um and here in Psalm 139 we see that the
02:25:40 02:25:40 - spirit here of God has this quality which as we have argued in the other section is what we would call an
02:25:49 02:25:49 - essential characteristic of God um at least in applied with respect to Creation you know the essential
02:25:55 02:25:55 - characteristic I suppose we would say is immeasurability but within creation that manifests as omnipresence and so if that
02:26:02 02:26:02 - is something that characterizes God and the spirit has that then the spirit is God QED sort of how this verse supports
02:26:10 02:26:10 - the idea um anything more you want to you want to add um not really I think that’s exactly the argument um we cannot
02:26:21 02:26:21 - escape from the spirit of God wherever we go his presence is there so that that is essentially saying that the spirit is
02:26:32 02:26:32 - God I mean it’s not saying it explicitly but it’s right there you know
02:26:40 02:26:40 - y all right good deal um this one somewhat clear right I mean that’s still a couple hops in logic to get there but
02:26:48 02:26:48 - once you understand that immeasurability and omnipresence are unique characteristics of God as in God is the
02:26:54 02:26:54 - only being to possess those then that’s how you get there um so that’s these two now we’re going to
02:27:02 02:27:02 - get to one of the ones that I think is dead clear um you really really have to do explaining away if you try to make
02:27:09 02:27:09 - the spirit not God In this passage and this is in Acts chapter 5 uh with ananas and saf withholding some of the sale of
02:27:17 02:27:17 - their land now this passage uh I won’t get on a super big side tangent here but uh people sometimes interpret this one
02:27:25 02:27:25 - wrong so this idea that um basically if we don’t give all our money to the church then God’s going to strike us
02:27:32 02:27:32 - down dead is not quite the point of the passage um the point is lying to God uh deception uh basically and specifically
02:27:42 02:27:42 - to cement the apostles Authority and this is one of the things that makes this passage kind of tricky to interpret
02:27:48 02:27:48 - uh from what we might call a hermeneutic point of view is like what are we to get out of this how are we supposed to apply
02:27:54 02:27:54 - to our own lives that sort of thing is that the apostles were given a good deal more Authority even than Pastor teachers
02:28:00 02:28:00 - today and they did signs and uh God empowered them to cast out spirits and things like this um and here in this
02:28:09 02:28:09 - context this is tied up in that to a degree so we see a little bit further on in the passage that the people are given
02:28:16 02:28:16 - to fear on account of this um so ananas and his wife struck down on account of deceiving um or attempting to deceive
02:28:26 02:28:26 - rather the apostles and as we see here um because fundamentally it is an affront to God himself um but doesn’t
02:28:35 02:28:35 - quite apply in the same way today so we’re going to kind of leave all that aside of just a little bit of background
02:28:39 02:28:39 - on this passage right so I’m going to go ahead and read this this is Acts 5: 3 to 4 says uh but Peter said in IAS why has
02:28:47 02:28:47 - Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land while it remained
02:28:53 02:28:53 - unsold did it not remain your own and after it was sold was it not under your control why is it that you have
02:29:01 02:29:01 - conceived this deed in your heart you have not lied to men but to God so in verse three we have lying to
02:29:10 02:29:10 - the Holy Spirit and then in verse four Peter said that you lied to God slam dunk right there is very little way that
02:29:19 02:29:19 - you can interpret this without going to Great contortions to somehow say that you know that Peter is saying that
02:29:26 02:29:26 - Anan Li to two separate people here um the by far the clearest way to interpret this text is that Anan eyes lying to the
02:29:34 02:29:34 - Holy Spirit dwelling within him and that the subject or sorry the person being lied to in verse three and verse four is
02:29:41 02:29:41 - the same and that the holy spirit is god um questions on how that fits fits together or aie do you have anything
02:29:48 02:29:48 - more to say for this one no not nothing to say on this one right like I said in my opinion this is
02:29:56 02:29:56 - one of those ones that is this is one of the slam dunk ones this is the one where even if people
02:30:03 02:30:03 - don’t buy the other ones maybe you can’t get out of this um this is very very clear yeah all right Acts chapter 5
02:30:13 02:30:13 - verses three to four um this one is a little bit a little bit less clear in my opinion this is another one where we we
02:30:19 02:30:19 - have some work to do here um so this is 1 Corinthians chapter 12 um now well it opens up in not a very pretty view here
02:30:29 02:30:29 - let me this is logos um Bible study software um so uh picking up at verse 11 we are talking about the distribution of
02:30:38 02:30:38 - spiritual gifts within the body so 1 Corinthians 12 uh one of the primary passages in the Bible talking about the
02:30:47 02:30:47 - analogy of the church as one body and uh you know Ephesians 4 mentions gifts distributed to different people in the
02:30:55 02:30:55 - church but Ephesians 12 also heavily hits that uh Verses 4 through six actually hit all three members of the
02:31:03 02:31:03 - Trinity I’m not sure if we actually went over this bit but it’s another one of those places where all three show up and
02:31:09 02:31:09 - Audi and I previously made the argument that once you start seeing the threes all over the New Testament the the only
02:31:17 02:31:17 - good way to explain it is that the three members are God that they are the Trinity you know this is why we’ve
02:31:24 02:31:24 - continue to argue all all during our discussion here that the Trinity is is in the Bible we don’t have to rely on
02:31:31 02:31:31 - church councils or later people to uh somehow say that we didn’t understand intell then or whatever because uh
02:31:38 02:31:38 - scripture itself obviously speaks of this Doctrine um so Verses 4 through six talk about how there’s a variety gifts
02:31:46 02:31:46 - but the Same Spirit variety of Ministries and the same Lord and a variety of effects but the same God who
02:31:51 02:31:51 - works all things and all persons so we take God there to be the father um so once we hop down you know in the context
02:31:58 02:31:58 - of this passage um you know I’ll just read actually picking up at verse 7 just so we get the context right before verse
02:32:05 02:32:05 - 11 so it says but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good so we’re talking about
02:32:11 02:32:11 - spiritual gifts here for to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit and two another the word of knowledge
02:32:17 02:32:17 - according to the same spirit and to another Faith by The Same Spirit and to another Gifts of healing by the one
02:32:22 02:32:22 - spirit and to another the effecting of Miracles into another prophecy and to another the distinguishing of spirits to
02:32:29 02:32:29 - another various kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues now some of these spiritual gifts that
02:32:35 02:32:35 - we just went through those verses 7 through 10 uh were what we would call the transitional gifts During the period
02:32:43 02:32:43 - of Acts uh this is what ichus teaches that during that time before the close of the Canon and before widespread
02:32:50 02:32:50 - copies of scripture were available uh certain gifts prophecy tongues and the interpretation of tongues were used sort
02:32:58 02:32:58 - of in an overtly Supernatural way to communicate God’s truth in the absence of the closed Cannon or the availability
02:33:04 02:33:04 - of the closed Cannon um okay so leaving that aside that’s when we get to our verse here that Dr
02:33:11 02:33:11 - lugan Bill’s reference verse 11 which says but one in the same Spirit works all these things Distributing to each
02:33:18 02:33:18 - one individually just as he Wills um so I am not exactly in Dr lug Bill’s head um you know it took me a little bit
02:33:27 02:33:27 - to try to figure out why is he using this verse to support uh you know the spirit’s
02:33:32 02:33:32 - Divinity here um I think one of the clearer things is that um the spirit has agency here um and I know we’ve talked
02:33:42 02:33:42 - about uh the spirit sort of being the impersonal member of of the Trinity the one who is in the background empowering
02:33:50 02:33:50 - things but he’s the direct subject in the sentence as in um he has a verb coming I’m trying to think about the way
02:34:00 02:34:00 - that doesn’t sound super grammatical here um like like he’s the agent you know he’s doing something here actively
02:34:06 02:34:06 - um and uh a do you do you have thoughts um you know I I don’t want to sound unconvincing but this was one of those
02:34:12 02:34:12 - verses where I mean I think the entire passage in context supports the Trinity but on this one supporting the spirit
02:34:20 02:34:20 - being God directly I was kind of curious why Dr luganville pick first 11 um oh okay um I think you just if if you take
02:34:30 02:34:30 - the whole thing together you know it makes sense that um 11 would be would stand out the way that it
02:34:38 02:34:38 - does the we have we have um where does it talk about the father
02:34:47 02:34:47 - Yes varieties of effects the same God varieties of Ministries same Lord Rises of gifts Same Spirit this is this is a
02:35:00 02:35:00 - it’s like a how do how do we express it it’s more like these three are are of a Kind they’re of a
02:35:08 02:35:08 - class if if there are no varieties of gifts there will be no Ministries and there will be no effects so the this is
02:35:16 02:35:16 - a connection of equals and then in verse 11 one and the Same Spirit works all these things Distributing to each one
02:35:24 02:35:24 - individually just as he himself Wills that’s the sort of language that you would actually apply to God you know so
02:35:31 02:35:31 - I think I would actually look at it a bit more obliquely instead of um thinking in terms of these passages
02:35:38 02:35:38 - support the the Trinity it would be more like this pass these passages essentially you know they they they
02:35:46 02:35:46 - assume the Trinity that’s essentially the point but because um is is the spirit you know Distributing to each one
02:35:56 02:35:56 - individually as God Wills as the father Wills as you know as basically he is not doing so on his own authority as God but
02:36:07 02:36:07 - he does it on his authority as God he distributes to each one exactly as he pleases it’s it’s not as if he needs to
02:36:14 02:36:14 - be told who to give what so he distributes the gifts according to his own will that’s a very significant
02:36:22 02:36:22 - statement to make about the spirit of God you know so for those who struggle with um I I don’t think it needs to be
02:36:30 02:36:30 - exactly clinical you know to speak to what we’re saying the Bible just assumes it
02:36:38 02:36:38 - does not actually you know profer um what would I call it it doesn’t profer an explicit teaching of
02:36:46 02:36:46 - the Trinity just as it does a lot of things it’s more like well here it is it’s it’s just it’s just something it
02:36:53 02:36:53 - assumes and and presents in so many different ways that it essentially says don’t you see it I mean it’s kind of the
02:37:00 02:37:00 - point I mean don’t you see it it’s it frames the entire thing it’s trying to say or it is saying it’s it doesn’t
02:37:09 02:37:09 - focus on it as a thing so um yeah that’s what I would say about this verse 11 I think it’s actually a pretty it’s a it’s
02:37:19 02:37:19 - a it’s each one that that we mention is even even when it seems to be a bit uh obscure is
02:37:29 02:37:29 - actually by itself so enough because how would you say that the one and the Same Spirit works all these
02:37:38 02:37:38 - things and it distributes to each one individually as he Wills I mean we’re talking about
02:37:46 02:37:46 - um what God is looking to accomplish in the church and the spirit is acting on his own will you know that’s a very
02:37:52 02:37:52 - significant thing to say so you know I guess you know how we had one of the other ones basically obliquely
02:37:59 02:37:59 - referencing omnipresence right yeah you remember I I made the argument when we were talking about omniscience uh when
02:38:07 02:38:07 - it comes to molinism and this idea of how does God know best before things have happened that requires for
02:38:13 02:38:13 - knowledge and omniscience I I suppose you could you could say that this verse is very much getting at omniscience
02:38:20 02:38:20 - right how could the spirit possibly know what gifts to distribute perfectly according to God’s plan if he was not
02:38:27 02:38:27 - God um I I don’t know necessarily if that’s exactly what Dr lug and kind but you
02:38:35 02:38:35 - know you can get there you know as you say um it if the spirit is not God what does this verse mean that is a fair
02:38:44 02:38:44 - question yeah you know I mean I I I really and you know that’s one of the things where
02:38:50 02:38:50 - um we are not necessarily teaching this Doctrine from the perspective of what I might call an apologetic fashion um as
02:38:58 02:38:58 - in if I were talking to a skeptical crowd and I was like and they want me to show a verse where like it’s logically
02:39:06 02:39:06 - inescapable that the spirit is God I would lead with Acts chapter 5 that passage because in that particular one
02:39:12 02:39:12 - it’s like I said it’s more of a slam dunk Passage in this particular one it’s it’s more evidence right
02:39:19 02:39:19 - because the most clear straightforward way to interpret this is that the spirit is God because he’s taking this action
02:39:26 02:39:26 - in this way which would have to perfectly align with the plan of the other members of the Trinity for it to
02:39:31 02:39:31 - make any sense and that just if he’s not God why does it happen like this right suppose you could make an argument that
02:39:39 02:39:39 - he was just doing as he commanded but then why does it say as he Wills rather than as the father Wills for example you
02:39:45 02:39:45 - know I mean you can get there it’s just you know yeah I I get it I get it I suppose
02:39:52 02:39:52 - I just um I I don’t particularly uh uh you know frame it with respect
02:40:00 02:40:00 - to um people who want to see it literally stated it’s it’s more like we much as we are looking at each passage
02:40:09 02:40:09 - in isolation in the end we’re really looking at the Bible as a whole so each passage is part of you know the context
02:40:16 02:40:16 - it’s part of the um whole thing so it’s essentially saying look here it’s mentioned again here is it’s imp passing
02:40:23 02:40:23 - you know it may not be in your face or or explicit as you might expect but all of these passages only make sense when
02:40:32 02:40:32 - you assume the Trinity once you don’t assume the Trinity meaning is lost the thing does not make sense anymore so
02:40:42 02:40:42 - what would it mean if you say that the spirit one one and and the same spirit is is is giving these gifts and
02:40:51 02:40:51 - distributing them entirely as he pleases as he himself Wills what does that mean for those who
02:41:00 02:41:00 - say oh to make sense of the spirit of God you have to think of him as a force well what force is willing anything what
02:41:07 02:41:07 - force is having a pleasing a a sense of this pleases me this is what I would like to do that an impersonal Force have
02:41:15 02:41:15 - that sort of thing okay so let’s not talk about an impersonal Force this is the spirit of the father well you still
02:41:22 02:41:22 - have have to deal with the context of this particular statement one and the Same Spirit Works in all of these things
02:41:27 02:41:27 - well yeah that’s like saying um uh Aima um there are there are varieties of gifts but the same Aima and there are
02:41:40 02:41:40 - varieties of Ministries but the same here noi basically it’s the same person is referencing just using different
02:41:47 02:41:47 - words for emphasis okay great let’s work with that then when when you make these arguments and you put in the rest of the
02:41:56 02:41:56 - of of of the statements from the scriptures does it make sense no you find yourself still having to deal with
02:42:04 02:42:04 - things that don’t fit together but once you just when you’ve taken all of these things together you you you come down to
02:42:13 02:42:13 - there are three persons here and one of them is the spirit you it’s just a natural Fallout of the reading y I mean
02:42:22 02:42:22 - specifically this passage uh you know we’ll get to the other thing uh soon enough talking about how there are three
02:42:28 02:42:28 - distinct persons in the Trinity right we are not Mists as Christians we don’t believe there’s one God with three modes
02:42:34 02:42:34 - or aspects this is a good passage for that actually because the passage makes no sense interpretation wise if you say
02:42:41 02:42:41 - it’s all just the same being right um yeah well you know sufficient there too is our discussion I think um one more of
02:42:51 02:42:51 - what I would call the slam dunk references that we’re going to go through here um this involves a passage
02:42:56 02:42:56 - from the Old Testament being quoted in the New Testament and you’ll see why this is important in its reference
02:43:05 02:43:05 - so this is Hebrews chapter 3 so the writer of Hebrews says therefore just as the holy spirit says today if you hear
02:43:13 02:43:13 - his voice do not Harden your hearts as when they provoked me in the day of trial in the
02:43:17 02:43:17 - wilderness uh and then so on talking about the hardness of Hearts of the generation that wandered in the
02:43:24 02:43:24 - wilderness for 40 years so this is Hebrews chapter 3: 7 through 11 says therefore just as the holy spirit says
02:43:30 02:43:30 - and then this is quoting Psalm chapter 95 and uh you know verse seven in Psalm
02:43:38 02:43:38 - chapter 95 says for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the Sheep of his hand today if you would
02:43:44 02:43:44 - hear his voice his being uh definite having the antecedent of God here um do not Harden your hearts as in marah as in
02:43:53 02:43:53 - the day of mass in the wilderness so here his voice is said to be God and then when Paul quotes it or the writer
02:44:00 02:44:00 - of Hebrews if you don’t take HEB to be Paul um says that the holy spirit says this the holy spirit is directly equated
02:44:08 02:44:08 - with god um because it’s directly quoting uh this Psalm here like the wording that you see
02:44:15 02:44:15 - here is like it it is I mean so Hebrews the book of Hebrews is written in Greek um Psalm 95 would have been written in
02:44:23 02:44:23 - Hebrew whether it’s a direct quote from the seant or whether the writer of Hebrews paraphrased from the Hebrew
02:44:29 02:44:29 - directly um either way I actually don’t know off the top of my head for this one which one it is um but either way this
02:44:36 02:44:36 - is a very clear quotation of Psalm 95 and so that’s where we get the direct equivalence made between uh God’s voice
02:44:44 02:44:44 - here uh in verse 7 of Psalm 95 and the Holy Spirit being the one speaking in verse chapter 7 of Hebrews chapter 3 or
02:44:54 02:44:54 - sorry verse seven of Hebrews chapter 3 so uh this is actually one of my favorite passages for defending the
02:45:03 02:45:03 - Trinity whenever I’ve had to engage with uh atheists and others about the Trinity I would always say especially those who
02:45:12 02:45:12 - insist that the holy spirit is not a person and like well makesense you know right Mak sense of this and
02:45:21 02:45:21 - again we we are not even close to exhausting all the references and scriptures to the persons of the Trinity
02:45:29 02:45:29 - and you know all the all basically all the references that have anything to do with with the Trinity these are just a
02:45:37 02:45:37 - sampling and some of them are really a very strong obvious sampling we if we correlate um Hebrews 3 with Psalm 95 we
02:45:47 02:45:47 - can I think Psalm 97 sorry which one is it it’s Psalm 95 here yeah that’s Psalm 95 yeah so um if we if we were to put
02:45:59 02:45:59 - them side by side we can see oh at least Paul takes uh the the the psalm to be referring to the Holy Spirit but you
02:46:10 02:46:10 - know then you have people who have absolutely no respect for the Bible saying well Paul might have been wrong
02:46:17 02:46:17 - there or we know that Hebrews has this problem or that problem so we can’t admit it as evidence or you know they
02:46:24 02:46:24 - come up with all sorts of excuses for rejecting that um bottom line is in so far as you accept Hebrews as part of the
02:46:32 02:46:32 - Bible you have to accept that the holy spirit is speaking with the authority of God and he’s speaking as a person there
02:46:41 02:46:41 - so but then I what I found um really first of all I don’t like making I’m not interested really in persuading people
02:46:50 02:46:50 - about what the scriptures teach and what they don’t teach I want to lay out exactly what I’ve seen in the Bible and
02:46:56 02:46:56 - each person can make their decisions as say please but I’ve seen that when when I had to deal with arguments that were
02:47:06 02:47:06 - about for example the um personality that that is that that the holy spirit is a person
02:47:15 02:47:15 - when I’ve had to deal with that okay no when I’ve had to deal with the argument that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are
02:47:22 02:47:22 - separate persons from the father it has been very very tough because if you were to present this passage to such a person
02:47:29 02:47:29 - they would be like sure it’s still the father speaking we’re not saying that the spirit does not speak we’re saying
02:47:34 02:47:34 - that the father and the spirit are the same so of course the spirit can’t speak well that that makes no difference you
02:47:39 02:47:39 - know so those who are models so to speak wouldn’t have any problems dealing with these passages the spirit is speaking oh
02:47:48 02:47:48 - sure the spirit speaks so what we’re not saying he doesn’t speak we’re just saying that he’s the father was saying
02:47:54 02:47:54 - he’s the same as as the son and I’ve actually argued with someone I’ve debated someone who actually said look
02:48:02 02:48:02 - that when Jesus went into the water and Rose up out of the water it was himself speaking from Heaven to himself and also
02:48:13 02:48:13 - a lighting from heaven upon himself it was like how can you make this how does it work in your head all of this stuff
02:48:23 02:48:23 - you can put it together in one mind and it works for you but that’s exactly how people can get when it comes to the
02:48:31 02:48:31 - truth we have we can’t we can’t underestimate people’s um capacity to reject the truth and to make up their
02:48:39 02:48:39 - own excuse their own um uh contortions and and Replacements and substitutions for the truth so what we
02:48:49 02:48:49 - can say definitively without any doubt is that the Bible presents the Holy Spirit here
02:48:54 02:48:54 - as speaking and as having a will of his own because he is reacting in a way that I mean a lot of people who like to think
02:49:01 02:49:01 - of the Holy Spirit as retiring and shy and all of that would be pretty shocked when they actually see that what is
02:49:07 02:49:07 - being said in Hebrews 3 is that he was angry with his generation and swore that they would never enter his into his rest
02:49:14 02:49:14 - some something that seems to fit more um with the personality of the father than you would expect of the Holy Spirit and
02:49:22 02:49:22 - yet this is the holy spirit of whom it is being spoken so um yeah everything we see here speaks to what we have seen in
02:49:33 02:49:33 - the Bible that there are three persons and one of them is the holy spirit that’s that’s it yep well uh sort of
02:49:42 02:49:42 - interesting aside here we know from Hebrews chapter four actually that the rest of God you know the continuous
02:49:47 02:49:47 - Sabbath rest we actually enter that through the indwelling Holy Spirit now that we are all indwelt by the spirit in
02:49:53 02:49:53 - the New Testament I’m not so far I’m not so sure I would go so far as to say that that is explicitly in view but you know
02:50:00 02:50:00 - it does come right after Hebrews chapter 3 so interesting side note there um when he talks about my rest holy spirit is
02:50:08 02:50:08 - the gatekeeper of that because it is through the spirit that we in the modern day um indwelt by the spirit re go into
02:50:17 02:50:17 - that continual Sabbath rest of God that Hebrews chapter 4 talks about um so fun fact um so I’ll leave these verses up
02:50:25 02:50:25 - we’ll come back to them um as we go through uh the next uh the next study which will be that there are three
02:50:34 02:50:34 - persons in the Trinity but this was the last passage that we had here for um supporting that the idea that the holy
02:50:43 02:50:43 - spirit is God I’m actually we have a verse from 2 Corinthians up on the slide as well 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that the
02:50:50 02:50:50 - Lord is the spirit and where the Lord’s spirit is there is freedom um uh interesting that the Lord is the spirit
02:50:57 02:50:57 - so modus would be cool with that but then the way it’s worded is that we have you know uh the Lord being possessive
02:51:05 02:51:05 - here um so be probably genitive in Greek um before spirit so the Lord is the spirit and where the Lord’s spirit
02:51:13 02:51:13 - is makes no sense unless they’re both God right um so all these verses as we have been
02:51:21 02:51:21 - saying is not completely representative of literally all the references to the trinity in the Bible you know we’ve gone
02:51:27 02:51:27 - across quite a few here with respect to the father and the son and the spirit um but the point is the Bible all over the
02:51:35 02:51:35 - place supports this notion that the members of the Trinity are God um so uh a you have anything else else to say on
02:51:45 02:51:45 - the spirit specifically uh before we close out this lesson uh no I think I think it’s it’s
02:51:52 02:51:52 - it’s quite enough so far yeah okay good deal so now that we have finished discussing the spirit we have gone
02:52:03 02:52:03 - through all three members of the Trinity talking through many verses supporting each so in this lesson we have been
02:52:11 02:52:11 - talking about how all three me members of the Trinity are deity so God is one in essence but that does not mean that
02:52:20 02:52:20 - only one person of the Trinity is deity or is divine or is God and so we’ve talked about how the father is God the
02:52:26 02:52:26 - son is God and the Holy Spirit is God actually the very first thing that we had opened with was talking about how we
02:52:34 02:52:34 - are going to be kind of examining what the Trinity is by pointing out things that it is not and so in this first one
02:52:41 02:52:41 - the thing that we were pointing out that the Trinity is not is that just because God is one in essence doesn’t mean that
02:52:47 02:52:47 - only one member of the Trinity is divine um or is deity and in the next lesson we are going to be picking up arguing that
02:52:56 02:52:56 - even though God is one in essence he is still three in person so God is not one in person but three in person that is
02:53:03 02:53:03 - going to be what our next lesson focuses on

All Members of the Trinity Are Distinct Persons

Trinity > All members are distinct from one another

Video

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Summary

This lesson’s main focus is examining the point that God is one in essence, but that does not mean that the Trinity is only one person (merely displaying three modes or aspects of Himself).

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
02:01 02:01 - Key point: God is one in essence, but that does not mean that the Trinity is only one person (merely displaying three modes or aspects of Himself)
05:32 05:32 - The Father is a unique person in His own right (for He is distinct from the Son)
10:55 10:55 - The Son is a unique person in His own right (for He is distinct from the Father)
19:28 19:28 - The Holy Spirit is a unique person in His own right (for He acts as a distinct person)
29:30 29:30 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

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

Key point: God is one in essence, but that does not mean that the Trinity is only one person (merely displaying three modes or aspects of Himself)

Trinity > What it is not > Only one person with multiple modes or aspects

God is three in person, and all three members of the Trinity (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit) are distinct persons rather than manifestations of a single, multifaceted person.

Heresies of the past which have challenged the distinct personalities of members of the Trinity include modalism (the idea that Christ and the Spirit are mere “modes” of the Father’s personality), and docetism (the notion that Christ only seemed real and was in reality merely a phantom of sorts representing the Father’s plan). But the Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity are distinct persons.

The Father is a unique person in His own right (for He is distinct from the Son)

Trinity > Distinctness > Father

Daniel 7:13

I was looking during my vision of that night, and behold – with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming up, and He approached the Ancient of Days [i.e, the Father] and they brought Him before Him.

The Son is a unique person in His own right (for He is distinct from the Father)

Trinity > Distinctness > Son

Hebrews 10:7

Behold, I have arrived – in the scroll of Your book it is written about Me – to do Your will, O My God.

(See Psalm 40:7-8)

The Holy Spirit is a unique person in His own right (for He acts as a distinct person)

Trinity > Distinctness > Holy Spirit

Romans 8:26

And the Spirit helps us in our weakness in a similar way. For we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us also with anguished supplications which words cannot express.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:01 00:01 - all right guys so in the next lesson of our study of the Trinity here going through Bible basics part one theology
00:09 00:09 - we are going to be talking about how all three members of the Trinity are distinct persons so in terms of the
00:17 00:17 - essential points we’re going to be going over we’re going to be introducing this General Point uh talking about how even
00:23 00:23 - though God is one in essence it does not mean that the Trinity is only one person merely displaying three modes or aspects
00:31 00:31 - of himself um and so that is the point that we are making here um and if you recall we had discussed how the practice
00:39 00:39 - that we are going through right now is kind of talking about what the Trinity is in terms of what it is not and so uh
00:46 00:46 - this particular aspect um or this particular point in that uh sort of way of thinking about things that we are
00:54 00:54 - organizing our study with uh is basically making the point that God is not just one one being God is three
01:01 01:01 - distinct well I gotta be very careful how I say this God is one in essence so he is one being that’s what one in
01:06 01:06 - essence mean but he has three persons um God is not one person um so if you recall the general definition of the
01:15 01:15 - Trinity that we argue for is three in person one in essence or one in essence three in person and this is defending
01:22 01:22 - the three in person part and so uh we don’t have quite as many verses this time as we did in uh the last section
01:28 01:28 - going over all three MERS of the Trinity being God we just kind of have a one for most of these points here but we’re
01:36 01:36 - going to be talking about how the father is a unique person is own right for he’s distinct from the son the son’s unique
01:42 01:42 - person’s own right for he’s distinct from the father and the Holy Spirit is a unique person in his own right because
01:48 01:48 - he acts as a distinct person so these are the points that we’re going to be going over as we establish uh The Wider
01:54 01:54 - point that just because God is one in essence does not mean that the Trinity is only one
02:03 02:03 - person so when we say that God is one in essence but not one in person um kind of what we’re getting at here is that
02:14 02:14 - God uh sorry is that all three members of the Trinity are distinct rather than all being manifestations of a single
02:22 02:22 - multifaceted person so um typically in theology um you’ll hear this referred to as modalism the idea that the son or the
02:32 02:32 - spirit are somehow just modes of God um so uh that believe is is down here right here modalism um there’s another one
02:42 02:42 - docetism the notion that Christ only seemed real and was sort of a phantom of sorts representing the father’s plan
02:49 02:49 - probably not not quite as common um something that you might come up against in terms of the Trinity it is a
02:56 02:56 - historical heresy relating to uh this particular point that we are making here but by far most common challenge to
03:04 03:04 - proper understanding of the Trinity is this idea of modalism that Christ and the spirit are just modes of the
03:09 03:09 - father’s personality rather than being separate persons in their own right um and just to take a step back and talk a
03:16 03:16 - little bit about why do we even have to do this it’s because it’s really hard to think about how United the three members
03:24 03:24 - of the Trinity are without getting the notion that they’re one person and the reason for that is because for as humans
03:30 03:30 - if you take three people and you stick them together and even if they agree on so many things they do not have the sort
03:39 03:39 - of unity that the Trinity has um the Bible’s very clear about that human beings we don’t share an Essence we are
03:45 03:45 - not one in the same being even people like identical twins right um so the scientist would say that they have
03:52 03:52 - identical genetic code yet it’s very obvious to us as humans that they are not the same they don’t have the same
03:59 03:59 - way will if you will um so they don’t have the same human spirit is what we would say um they are separate beings
04:06 04:06 - very obviously separate beings because they choose different things um they do not have that Unity of will that God is
04:14 04:14 - said is having and so why we kind of have to spend some breath arguing this point that we’re making here is because
04:20 04:20 - God is described as having one Essence being perfectly United in will and yet not just being one person and so we have
04:29 04:29 - to spend some time on that not one person thing because for us as humans we don’t have a good analog in the human
04:35 04:35 - world for this because anytime you have multiple persons you do not have the unity of will that God has said to have
04:41 04:41 - and so it’s why it’s just kind of hard for us to kind of metabolize and why it’s worth spending some time talking
04:47 04:47 - about it’s not just because there were some people in the past who didn’t believe this and and you were trying to
04:53 04:53 - lead everyone away in heresy or whatever it’s it’s not as if this is just a historical thing that we’re kind of
04:58 04:58 - covering because gwiz some people in the past were wrong it’s because it is actually difficult for us to
05:04 05:04 - conceptualize in our head properly what it means for God to be three in person but yet have that Unity uh uh unity in
05:12 05:12 - action that the Trinity manifests so this is the topic that we’re going to be covering here Audie do you have initial
05:20 05:20 - thoughts on this point that we’re going to be making here before we jump right into establishing it for each member of
05:26 05:26 - the Trinity not really I think we can okay great so picking up we are going to be
05:37 05:37 - talking about how scripture is very clear that the father is a unique person in his own right because he’s distinct
05:44 05:44 - from the son so I did kind of mention how we don’t have as many passages um given as support here for the last point
05:51 05:51 - that doesn’t mean that these are any less certain uh truths that we ought to believe it’s just just we don’t we
05:58 05:58 - haven’t listed as many here here um so the passage that we are going to be using here to support the notion that
06:03 06:03 - the father is unique in his own right because he’s distinct from the son is this passage from Daniel chapter 7 verse
06:10 06:10 - 13 so I’ll go ahead and read this and then we’ll talk about it a bit so Daniel 7113 says I was looking during my vision
06:17 06:17 - of that night and behold with the Clouds Of Heaven one like a son of man was coming up and he approached the Ancient
06:24 06:24 - of Days that is the father and they brought him before him well first him is Son of Man second hym is the Ancient of
06:33 06:33 - Days so why are we using this to establish that the father is separate from the son is because the son of man I
06:42 06:42 - mean I suppose you have to do some interpretation to get there um now Daniel is one of those eological texts
06:48 06:48 - this is this is specifically prophetic here um but the son of man is Jesus Christ um when you interpret it when you
06:56 06:56 - interpret it correctly that’s definitely who the son of man is um so the son of man is Jesus Christ the son in the
07:02 07:02 - Trinity and the Ancient of Days when you interpret it correctly um again I suppose you have to do some L work to
07:08 07:08 - get there but the Ancient of Days is very clearly the father um and so how can the son come before the father if
07:17 07:17 - the son is the father it just makes no sense to say that um this doesn’t stop people from saying it but they’re just
07:24 07:24 - wrong is the thing um because no matter how they try to explain this it always ends up getting all twisted and messed
07:31 07:31 - up because it just doesn’t fit with what the text is saying how can you have one being who comes before himself in two
07:39 07:39 - separate forms it just that’s not how that’s not how we say a being has that Unity right
07:48 07:48 - um so how is one being split in actually two separate beings uh you know like for example when we face when we Face
07:56 07:56 - ourselves in the mirror we understand that’s just the reflection of light we aren’t actually two separate beings but
08:01 08:01 - what you would have to argue that God is one person it has two separate aspects of himself here is that there are one
08:11 08:11 - being kind of manifesting in two ways at the same time which is kind of the very definition of what we would call
08:18 08:18 - different persons right um so uh I don’t know maybe I’m not doing a very job in terms of like philosophical jargon
08:26 08:26 - saying the right things in like a formal flow of logic but that’s the idea here that’s why we say the son cannot be the
08:34 08:34 - father because it just doesn’t make sense given what this passage says aie would you like to add any points to what
08:40 08:40 - I’ve started with um Can can you hear me yeah I can hear you can you all hear me yeah I can hear you can you hear
08:50 08:50 - us okay um so uh I don’t I don’t I don’t think there is much to say actually in the previous discussion we
09:01 09:01 - were having I think um many of those passages actually present this same discussion uh father being unique in his
09:10 09:10 - own right being distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit um that’s actually how we know
09:18 09:18 - because as you read through the Bible you keep seeing these things that don’t make sense when you think of God as a
09:25 09:25 - single as a single person in his personhood you know some things that are said of him wouldn’t uh line up then um
09:36 09:36 - so that we see that the father uh is demonstrated to be a person um by himself that makes sense the passage in
09:46 09:46 - Daniel 713 um may not be very popular among Believers but it’s um there are many things in that Gem of a story
09:56 09:56 - including how the Leake of fire is formed formed and all of that stuff but critically there was one who was like a
10:04 10:04 - son of man who was brought to this Ancient of Days we know that the son of man being spoken of there was the Lord
10:10 10:10 - Jesus himself and um the the ancient of these is is presented as being separate from this son of man so yeah it there
10:23 10:23 - are other passages too in the Bible that that lead us to these um appreciations that um the father is a unique person
10:32 10:32 - separate from the other two members of the um Trinity
10:38 10:38 - yeah all right well that’s where we’ll do as I say just a single passage here for each member so this is the father
10:46 10:46 - being distinct from the son um next we’re going to talk about how son is distinct from the Father which you kind
10:51 10:51 - of get from this one we’ll look at another passage in just a moment so just as we talked about how
11:01 11:01 - the father’s distin from the son well kind of it goes both ways but we’re going to look at another passage here
11:07 11:07 - also on this particular uh Point saying that the son is unique person for he distinct from the father so uh for this
11:15 11:15 - we’re going to look at Hebrews chapter 10 verse 7 um it says behold I have arrived in the scroll of your book it is
11:22 11:22 - written about me to do your will oh my god um so and we open up more of the surrounding in context here in Hebrews
11:30 11:30 - chapter 10 uh Hebrews chapter 10 verse 7 is where we are uh so the person speaking
11:37 11:37 - here is Christ because that’s what verse 5 in Hebrews chapter 10 says so I’ll actually go ahead and read this whole
11:41 11:41 - passage it says uh chapter uh chapter 10 verse 5 therefore when Christ came into the world he said sacrifice and offering
11:48 11:48 - you did not desire but a body you prepared for me with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased then
11:55 11:55 - I so I being Christ said then I said here I am it is written about me in the scroll I have come to do your will my
12:04 12:04 - God so how would we say it makes sense for
12:11 12:11 - Christ because Christ is the one Speaking here um to speak about so actually interestingly this is
12:20 12:20 - NIV um in the translation here which I suppose comes from ichus we have a y
12:29 12:29 - it might be pronoun there I could go check the Greek I suppose but basically either way I’m sorry that was just me
12:36 12:36 - getting curious um the point being is that it’s very clear that Christ is saying that he came into the world from
12:42 12:42 - the father’s will right the will of another we would say um although of course there’s one you know the unity of
12:49 12:49 - the members of the Trinity means that when things happen they all will it because of that Unity but um this is
12:55 12:55 - another passage supporting that idea that the personhood of the members of the Trinity sort of is just essential to
13:04 13:04 - make the passages make sense because as soon as you start trying to argue that Jesus Christ is simply an aspect of the
13:12 13:12 - father what does this passage in Hebrews chapter 10 even mean if you believe that um and uh you know more to the point if
13:22 13:22 - we were supposed to understand it that way a lot of parts of the Bible just become really impenetrable um so so uh
13:29 13:29 - there is a sort of uh risk we would say to trying to apply aam’s razor to interpretation large because there are
13:38 13:38 - some points of biblical truth that are very complicated um so I’m going to use as a smear word here this is not a
13:45 13:45 - positive term I’m going to say that things that seem really esoteric or mystical as in all people throughout
13:52 13:52 - history have like misinterpreted this passage and only I have the correct interpretation when people say that sort
13:58 13:58 - of thing especially if it bounds into something that we would sort of call mysticism or this idea of very special
14:06 14:06 - knowledge this this new way of looking at something and yet no matter how much you press them they can’t like formulate
14:12 14:12 - it in terms of propositions it’s always sort of vague and hard to understand and and impenetrable is a good word yeah you
14:20 14:20 - shouldn’t believe that sort of thing right and here the point I’m making is that trying to interpret this passage
14:26 14:26 - trying to interpret the passage that we had just read um in the previous section talking about Daniel chapter 7 trying to
14:34 14:34 - interpret these passages with the father and the son being literally the same person it just doesn’t make sense um so
14:42 14:42 - people like I said they may try to talk circles around you and explain thus and so and and you know basically and not
14:50 14:50 - that I have had very many serious debates uh among Christians or you know people at least claiming Christ about
14:56 14:56 - this because to be perfectly honest nowadays there aren’t that many Mists I mean they’re out there AI has has said
15:02 15:02 - that he’s actually had serious conversations about it before but what I’m trying to boil this down to is that
15:08 15:08 - when you try to interpret these passages while making them the same person it just makes everything so complicated and
15:17 15:17 - so not straightforward so that everything requires explanation that it is just obviously not the right
15:22 15:22 - interpretation um so uh hopefully that’s not too handwavy um I think this is quite clear just how I think Daniel
15:30 15:30 - chapter 7 is quite clear um aie do you have further thoughts on this
15:37 15:37 - [Music] um not quite I think that this passage um always appealed to me
15:45 15:45 - because of um how uh in uh the reference the the part of the law that this was taken from um we have a different
15:57 15:57 - rendering there yeah instead of um uh okay it was from the PS actually in
16:05 16:05 - the sum it said that my did it say a body you had prepared for me my ears you have pierced that’s
16:14 16:14 - what it said and uh when you when you look at the part of the law that it was referencing it says that a servant who
16:22 16:22 - says that he does not want to leave you no he he is very happy to be part of your family and he wants to
16:31 16:31 - remain so for the rest of his days um you’re supposed to pierce his ear uh with an all um and that would be uh like
16:41 16:41 - a way to tell anyone who sees him that he belongs to a particular house even though he’s not related to that house by
16:48 16:48 - Blood maybe something of that sort so um what we see is this uh a body you have prepared for me that used to stump me a
16:57 16:57 - bit but then when you relate these two ideas it really comes down to um you get um this body that I have is meant to be
17:08 17:08 - used in service to you so like this person opted for Lifetime slavery this Jew who had his ear pierced
17:21 17:21 - um here the Lord Jesus is is expressing the same thing which of course I think should be rather
17:31 17:31 - obvious as to uh how it it says that um he is not the father that he’s a separate person from the father I mean
17:40 17:40 - there are still those who do believe that since it is God anything is possible so he can um be a sleeve to
17:46 17:46 - himself but then yeah I I don’t see how that fits yeah I I will say I don’t know why I I must have missed it or something
17:54 17:54 - because the slide obviously says your will right I I must have just misspoken earlier
18:00 18:00 - because this has your too and I checked the Greek this is the second person pronoun here your um it makes the
18:07 18:07 - argument real straightforward because the will that Christ discusses In this passage here is not his right it’s not
18:16 18:16 - my will it’s your will right second person it literally you know how we have persons in grammar it is using a
18:24 18:24 - separate person in grammar um hence more than one person in the Trinity right um yeah you know like it it’s it’s really
18:32 18:32 - that simple um because if Christ can speak of the father’s will as being not my will not his own
18:42 18:42 - will they simply cannot be the same person um it’s it’s I I don’t know what I was getting at earli I must have just
18:50 18:50 - like been looking at something that was wrong but it is the second person pronoun which makes that argument real
18:56 18:56 - straightforward um yeah yeah all right now as we’ve said before um just as in the other section these are not the only
19:04 19:04 - passages we could pull to support these things we’re just kind of making the points as we go along here so this was
19:10 19:10 - establishing that the son is distinct person from the father right we’ve done that um so we did that in Daniel chapter
19:17 19:17 - 7 we were I guess kind of coming at it from the perspective of the father Hebrews chapter 10 coming that from the
19:22 19:22 - perspective of the sun next we will be talking about the spirit and the spirit’s distinct personhood
19:32 19:32 - so now we’re going to talk about how the holy spirit is a unique person is well in his own right for he acts as a
19:39 19:39 - distinct person so the passage this time again we got one verse per these points here uh just in this part of the study
19:47 19:47 - passage this time Romans chapter 8 verse 26 um says the spirit helps us in our weakness in a similar way for we do not
19:55 19:55 - know what we ought to pray for but the spirit himself self intercedes for us also with anguish supplications with
20:01 20:01 - which words cannot express right um so passage this actually comes right before the uh uh for knowledge you know like
20:09 20:09 - the end of Romans chapter 8 I think it’s like verses 29- 31 talk about you know like uh God’s for knowledge and calling
20:17 20:17 - justifying glorifying that that passage but talking about how the spirit prays for us he intercedes for us and when we
20:25 20:25 - pray you know we we pray to the father in the name of Jesus Christ I could go find verses to support that what I just
20:31 20:31 - said um but when we pray we pray to God um addressed to the Father the spirit is interceding for us how can the spirit
20:42 20:42 - intercede to the father shall we say if the spirit is the father you see what I’m saying like it
20:50 20:50 - again this is one of those situations where you start trying to argue for a modalist position and it just doesn’t
20:57 20:57 - make sense because you ask someone what does that mean
21:02 21:02 - precisely like basically redu you ad absurdum is what we would call it in terms of logic if you say that the
21:09 21:09 - spirit is the father and the father is the spirit and that there is you know one God and one God means one
21:16 21:16 - person what does this verse mean then if you interpret it that way and you will just never get a satisfying answer out
21:24 21:24 - of someone if you press them on that because there isn’t a satisfying answer like they can go through all the
21:30 21:30 - gymnastics as I’ve been arguing and you know um you know it might have been good if I went and actually tried to find an
21:36 21:36 - argument here so that it wasn’t just me saying oh some people actually say this but you know like I had a representative
21:42 21:42 - argument from one of them but the point that I have been making and uh maybe maybe it sounds like I’m straw Manning
21:48 21:48 - here but the point is if people try to do that presumably they have some way to say that this verse doesn’t mess up
21:55 21:55 - their interpretation but no matter what they say it’s going to be overly long and complicated and just obviously not
22:01 22:01 - right is the point now uh because again uh I feel like the spirit is one of those that
22:09 22:09 - sometimes it’s perhaps the one that we struggle the most with um when we talk about aspects of the Trinity um I pulled
22:16 22:16 - up this verse this is one that we talked about um at the very beginning of the last lesson as well when we were talking
22:21 22:21 - about how all three members of the Trinity are God here um so this is when Jesus is asking the father
22:28 22:28 - uh for the holy spirit so he’s telling the people in John chapter 14 uh verse 16 so I will ask the father and he will
22:36 22:36 - give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever that Advocates the spirit Jesus is asking the father to
22:44 22:44 - give another person I feel like if there’s one verse in the Bible that makes clear that there are three persons
22:52 22:52 - in the Trinity it’ be this verse right um for the reasons that we been saying before right if if there’s one person in
23:02 23:02 - the Trinity what in the world would this verse even mean then yeah one person I am asking myself to send myself how does
23:11 23:11 - that make sense right yeah um yeah of course uh as we said there are those who would essentially say that because he’s
23:20 23:20 - God we won’t understand one mysteries of God and all of that stuff it doesn’t have to make sense to us but um like we
23:30 23:30 - said this this is not something we see in isolation the rest of the Bible speaks to it but this is a demonstration
23:37 23:37 - of the um uh personhood of the of the spirit as a separate thing from the personhood of
23:44 23:44 - the father and the personhood of the spirit of of the son sorry so he essentially says just as we we we the
23:53 23:53 - Bible tells us that that he intercedes that is he prays for us he prays on our behalf he makes requests on our behalf
24:02 24:02 - to who to himself just as Paul as Stephen pointed out that
24:11 24:11 - is insane to think that he would be making requests to himself but some people are fine with uh Insanity when it
24:20 24:20 - comes to God because they believe that because he’s God nothing makes sense with him and everything is acceptable of
24:28 24:28 - everything makes sense no matter how ridiculous it is but this is the Bible’s one of the Bible’s
24:34 24:34 - demonstrations of uh the personhood of the spirit as a separate thing from the personhood of the other persons of the
24:40 24:40 - Trinity yeah yeah I mean I would say not to get off on too big a tangent but we are right to hold philosophy at arms
24:49 24:49 - length a bit I know we talked about this in some of the the first lessons in this series here in in bb1 theology uh making
24:57 24:57 - the point when people split hairs about nature and Essence and what essential characteristics are and things like that
25:02 25:02 - right would God be God if he wasn’t ex right or you know what I’m talking about like that sort of thing where
25:10 25:10 - philosophers they they they make certain boxes about things and I’m not trying to bash philosophers here right um uh or
25:18 25:18 - philosophy large as a practice of being Analytical in how we think about the world and things like this but we as
25:24 25:24 - Christians we submit to the Bible not to the Wom of professional secular philosophers and there is something to
25:33 25:33 - be said for not swinging too far the other way which is submitting to what we would call a mystical understanding
25:40 25:40 - where you know for lack of a better word God’s elogical but we just say well that’s just that’s fine you know because
25:47 25:47 - we can’t understand him um this is the whole you know I’m trying to think about the right way to say this you know
25:54 25:54 - perhaps uh certain very well educated atheists might might think that Christians are kind of dumb right they
26:00 26:00 - are anti-education they can’t talk intelligently about topics because they just say oh have faith and then they
26:07 26:07 - never even articulate their own positions um I am not trying to bash our brothers and sisters here because the
26:14 26:14 - Bible says we are we ought to have childlike Faith right for lack of a better way of putting it childlike faith
26:21 26:21 - is not dissertations in analytic philosophy right um you see what I’m saying um yeah so we don’t need to be
26:28 26:28 - ashamed of being like well the Bible says so so there um you know however where I’m going with this is that this
26:38 26:38 - idea that we have to believe nonsense because that’s what it is right fundamentally what we’re talking about
26:44 26:44 - here where these people say that the spirit intercedes to himself it’s just nonsensical on the face of it it’s like
26:49 26:49 - a contradiction on the face of it right um yeah so we ought to have childlike faith in the Bible but we don’t turn off
26:57 26:57 - our brains to believe whatever someone says the Bible says um you know you know Audi and I have had a conversation quite
27:06 27:06 - recently actually I’m talking about in interpretation when we talk about we need to take the Bible at its word right
27:13 27:13 - and we need to be reasonable um uh you know I I won’t pull in the whole context of that P other
27:19 27:19 - discussion but basically when we interpret the Bible we have to interpret it reasonably and the
27:26 27:26 - point here is that how just how other people get offended when you take their words out of context and you try to make
27:33 27:33 - their words mean something that they obviously don’t mean well we need to stake down our flag and call people out
27:39 27:39 - when they do that to the Bible too right because there are certain lines that we just can’t cross when it comes here and
27:47 27:47 - saying somehow that the spirit interceding to himself because the spirit is is the father and the father’s
27:54 27:54 - the spirit it’s one of those lines where when when people start going there I mean like you got to stick down
28:02 28:02 - a flag somewhere right and like I said God does not submit us he God does not have us believe nonsense um despite that
28:09 28:09 - being a strawman argument that atheists might use against Christians is that I don’t know we don’t think things through
28:15 28:15 - maybe we don’t hold intellectually rigorous positions their straw man in
28:19 28:19 - Christianity is what’s happening there um yeah yeah all right so um perhaps more we could about um holy spirit’s
28:29 28:29 - distinctness as well so we talked about Romans 826 we pulled up this verse in John chapter 14 as well talking about uh
28:36 28:36 - Jesus Christ uh you know asking the father to send the spirit and how honestly this verse kind of hits all
28:42 28:42 - three of them right is that the only way in which this verse makes any sort of sense is if all three of them are
28:47 28:47 - persons um because otherwise you have you know the son who is the father asking the father for to send the father
28:55 28:55 - right if you view them all in terms of one person it just what does that even mean right it doesn’t make sense it
29:01 29:01 - contradicts itself on the face of it it’s why that interpretation is unworkable um
29:07 29:07 - so that’s probably where we’ll wrap our discussion here of the idea that the spirit is well is a unique person in his
29:16 29:16 - own right for he acts distinctly right he intercedes for us before God when we pray which wouldn’t make any sense if he
29:25 29:25 - wasn’t a distinct person so as promised this lesson a little bit shorter here not going to go belver too
29:37 29:37 - much of what we talked about uh but just in review we have talked about how all three members of the Trinity are their
29:45 29:45 - own unique persons so even though God is one in essence that’s this main point we’re talking about here God is one in
29:51 29:51 - essence that does not mean that the Trinity is only one person but it has as three persons and we’ve talked about
29:59 29:59 - these passages that just on the face of it clearly support this idea that even though God has this Unity of will this
30:07 30:07 - single Essence um he cannot be the same person because then how could the son of man approach the Ancient of Days as a
30:16 30:16 - separate person how could um Jesus Christ in Hebrews chapter 10 be talking about the father’s will right um how uh
30:26 30:26 - things about Christ were written in your will um and how could the Holy Spirit here be interceding for us when we pray
30:34 30:34 - if the holy spirit is the exact same person as the father for example um so those were some of the passages we
30:40 30:40 - brought in to support this topic but the general overarching idea and as we said this is not meant to be completely
30:47 30:47 - exhaustive um you know I guess I should also mention this verse that we talked about in John Chapter 14 verse 16
30:52 30:52 - another one where the son asks the father for the spirit to be sent all of these all of these things point to the
30:59 30:59 - clear conclusion that even though God is one in essence God is not one in person um and so that’s where we’ll wrap this
31:08 31:08 - and uh in future lessons we will be examining a couple more of these uh of these statements about what the Trinity
31:15 31:15 - is not so that once we finish it all we will have that clear understanding of exactly what the Trinity is

All Members of the Trinity Are Coequal, Coeternal, and Consubstantial

Trinity > All members fully and equally share status, activity, and substance

Video

Link to wider playlist View slides

Summary

This lesson’s main focus is examining the point that God is three in person, but that does not mean that there is any inferiority or disparity of status, activity, or substance between the members of the Trinity.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:24 01:24 - Key point: God is three in person, but that does not mean that there is any inferiority or disparity of status, activity, or substance between the members of the Trinity
06:16 06:16 - They all possess a full and equal share of the status of deity
13:29 13:29 - They all possess a full and equal share of the eternal function of deity
42:26 42:26 - They all possess a full and equal share of the substance of deity
57:35 57:35 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

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

Key point: God is three in person, but that does not mean that there is any inferiority or disparity of status, activity, or substance between the members of the Trinity

Trinity > What it is not > A union with inferiority or disparity between members

In any human association, there is always inherent inferiority and disparity present—in practice, if not perhaps on paper. People are separate beings, and these are the simple consequences of that. However, this is not the case for God; the Trinity shares completely perfect unity and equality.

God is one in essence and all three members of the Trinity (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit) are coequal, coeternal, and con-substantial partners in one and the same essence. Heresies of the past which have challenged the coequality of members of the Trinity include subordinationism (which alternatively asserts that either Christ or the Spirit is by nature inferior to the Father) and Arianism (which teaches a Christ not entirely equal in divinity to the Father). But the Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity are coequal partakers of the same essence.

Trinity > Share > Status of deity

As seen from the equal rank accorded to each in the formula for profession of faith at the point of spiritual (not physical) baptism into the body of Christ:

Matthew 28:19-20

Then Jesus came over and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, so go and make all nations my followers by baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.”

Trinity > Share > Eternal function of deity

As seen from their joint participation in creation:

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our pattern.

Trinity > Share > Substance of deity

As seen from the attribution of goodness to all three members in the apostolic benediction of 2 Corinthians, where grace (the policy of the goodness of God), love (the natural consequence—or “emanation”—of the goodness of God), and fellowship (the ultimate result of the goodness of God) are respectively attributed to the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit:

2 Corinthians 13:14

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God [the Father], and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:00 00:00 - all right guys so this lesson we are going to be talking about how all members of the Trinity are co-equal
00:07 00:07 - co-eternal and consubstantial and so in other lessons we have talked for example about how the
00:15 00:15 - three persons in the Trinity are distinct persons um so uh the father is not the same person as the son is not
00:23 00:23 - the same person as the spirit and having established that what we’re going to be talking about now is primarily that
00:29 00:29 - there isn’t any inferiority or disparity of status activity or substance between members of the Trinity so that is in so
00:38 00:38 - far as we have three persons in the Trinity there isn’t any sense of uh what we might term inferiority between them
00:47 00:47 - and so we’re going to be establishing this as we say through status activity and substance so uh kind of in that
00:54 00:54 - order we’re going to be talking about how they all possess a full and equal share in the status of deity a full and
01:00 01:00 - equal share in the Eternal function of deity so that would be the activity and then a full and equal share in the
01:06 01:06 - substance of deity and so we’ll get into a little bit more what we mean by these things maybe they sound a little bit
01:12 01:12 - abstract as we go through Point by point but first we’ll be starting off talking about the general concept here that
01:18 01:18 - there isn’t any inferiority or disparity between the three members of the Trinity so as we say starting out with
01:29 01:29 - here the key point for this lesson is that even though God is three in person that does not mean that there is any
01:37 01:37 - inferiority or disparity of status activity or substance between the members of the Trinity now just by way
01:44 01:44 - of introduction and I believe we’ve raised this point before in our past oops in our past discussions um this is
01:52 01:52 - something that is very difficult for us as humans to understand because within Human Society human relationship ships
02:00 02:00 - anytime you have two humans humans do not share the same Essence I think we talked about this a
02:06 02:06 - little bit humans are dichotomus made up of body or flesh and spirit and so whenever you have two humans in the
02:15 02:15 - world they are inherently not United in the same way that God is um and they have what we would call disparity right
02:24 02:24 - maybe they have peculiar strengths and weaknesses um you know they have their personal tendencies in the same way that
02:30 02:30 - we have three persons in the Trinity but unlike Human Relationships the Trinity does not have um any hint the slightest
02:38 02:38 - hint of uh unequal relationships between the members um and as I say this is just sort of a hard concept for us as humans
02:47 02:47 - to wrap our mind around because it’s so very different from how we relate to each other um so I saying that that’s
02:54 02:54 - also what is here on the slide so I’ll just go ahead and read this it says in any in human associations there’s always
03:00 03:00 - inferiority or disparity of status activity or substance always people are separate beings and these are the simple
03:07 03:07 - consequences of that however this is not the case for the God because the Trinity shares completely perfect unity and
03:14 03:14 - equality um and so breaking that down a little bit more um as we will get uh more into next time so we’ve already
03:22 03:22 - talked about the distinctness between the persons um and in the lesson after this one we’ll be hitting this point
03:27 03:27 - here about uh sharing the Essence more um but on account of sharing that Essence the three persons in the Trinity
03:35 03:35 - are co-equal co-eternal and consubstantial Partners um and what that means um obviously equality meaning they
03:44 03:44 - are all uh you know there is no inferiority between them um co-eternal they are all equally existent outside of
03:51 03:51 - time they share in the attributes in the nature and character of God that we kind of opened this study in uh uh part one
04:00 04:00 - of Bible basics going over theology in uh so that would be the infinite nature of God and the perfect character of God
04:07 04:07 - and consubstantial sharing the same substance the same Essence which is what we will continue to go through all of
04:15 04:15 - these three things um are true even despite the members of the Trinity being their own persons um so as we’ve gone
04:25 04:25 - through um some of the other things in our progression here of explaining the trinity in terms of things that it is
04:31 04:31 - not we’re also going to mention a couple heresies on this particular topic um specifically the notion of equality um
04:40 04:40 - heresies of the past which have challenged the co-ee equality of members of the Trinity include so-called
04:46 04:46 - subordinationism uh which alternatively asserts that either Christ or the spirit is by nature inferior to the father so
04:54 04:54 - just so happens and uh most of these uh positions of false teaching or heresy that the person who is elevated is the
05:02 05:02 - father and the person who is uh reduced in status would be the son or the spirit now of course that none of these are
05:08 05:08 - true that just happens to be the consistent pattern of the false teaching and aryanism specifically came from a
05:16 05:16 - guy in history named Arias uh and aryanism teaches that Christ was not entirely equal in Divinity to the father
05:24 05:24 - um so uh kind of depending how far you take that that’s either he is Divine but somehow not equal um in status or he
05:33 05:33 - simply isn’t Divine at all um so he for example believing he was just a human being um but as I say these are the
05:41 05:41 - false positions and we are defining our understanding of the trinity in terms of what these are not so unlike these false
05:48 05:48 - positions we believe that the Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity are co-equal partakers of the
05:54 05:54 - same Essence that is there is no difference in status between the three persons of the Trinity so this is sort
06:02 06:02 - of the point that we’re setting out to discuss in this lesson here and uh kind of given that introduction Audi is there
06:08 06:08 - anything you want to say um as we get into this topic no I think you covered it pretty well all
06:18 06:18 - right so perhaps the easiest of these uh Notions to grasp is this idea of status and so as seen in the rank accorded to
06:30 06:30 - each in the formula for profession of Faith the point of spiritual baptism into the body of Christ it’s kind of a
06:35 06:35 - mouthful but this is the Great Commission at the end of Matthew chapter 28 um that is when Jesus Is Telling um
06:44 06:44 - the disciples uh kind of how to baptize people into the body of Christ spiritually speaking um so in that
06:51 06:51 - profession here um which is very very clearly deal dealing with the concept of authority um that is um this
07:00 07:00 - uh it’s the right way to say it it’s not like a a magic incantation um but this formula through which uh baptism was
07:09 07:09 - rendered um and again we’ve emphasized continually that the preposition in these verses is into not in um so not in
07:17 07:17 - the name of but into the name of into the person of God that is the focus is on spiritual baptism into the body of
07:24 07:24 - Christ rather than uh merely being cleansed with water physically um well in this profession which turns very much
07:33 07:33 - on Authority the father and the son and the spirit are given completely equal billing um and so that is basically uh
07:41 07:41 - the purpose of including these verses at the end of Matthew chapter 28 is showing that when we uh are discussing the three
07:50 07:50 - members of the Trinity um here in context for the purpose of uh kind of like in the authority of of God um
07:58 07:58 - that’s how we are saying we um are rendering a person uh United with the body of Christ you know it’s not on our
08:06 08:06 - own authority um but it is on the authority of God that we do this well all three members of the Trinity are
08:13 08:13 - spoken of as basically having equal status here um they are spoken of as having the authority uh by which this
08:21 08:21 - action is performed AI do you have anything you want to add to this yeah um not much really
08:30 08:30 - um sorry um I think it’s uh it’s quite sufficient
08:37 08:37 - to say like you said that uh the Matthew 28 verse um vers 19 to 20 uh
08:50 08:50 - uh passage really does speak to um spiritual baptism we have Ephesians 4 I think verse two or three um guaranteeing
09:04 09:04 - that because it essentially says there’s one baptism only and uh we have to decide whether that is the baptism of
09:10 09:10 - water or it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Acts chapter one tells us through the words of the Lord Jesus
09:19 09:19 - himself that um we are um although although John’s baptism was the baptism of water his baptism was that of the
09:30 09:30 - spirit um so we have multiple places in the Bible that tell us that the baptism that Jesus was speaking to had to be the
09:40 09:40 - baptism of the spirit and that’s critical to understand Matthew 19 verse Matthew 28: 19 and 20 um if we
09:50 09:50 - appreciate that there is just one baptism and that that is what the Lord Jesus is speaking to then we will know
09:56 09:56 - this is not um three of course this is hardly an issue I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone uh being confused about
10:06 10:06 - whether Jesus was saying were to have three separate baptisms obviously he was talking about one and he said it’s it’s
10:14 10:14 - in English in the name of the father and of the son and of the spirit I mean if we were to go with the English we’ still
10:20 10:20 - say it’s one name of the father and the son and the spirit um not one name of the father another of the son another of
10:28 10:28 - the spirit it’s one name and then again if we deal with it according to the Greek and at least the old way of
10:39 10:39 - understanding the word name um we would know it’s talking about the
10:45 10:45 - person persons of the father and the son and the spirit and what that would point out to us is that Jesus is saying that
10:56 10:56 - essentially you are baptized into three persons now if they’re not all equal it would be demeaning to have one
11:05 11:05 - associated with the other two inferior ones so it seems pretty straightforward that
11:13 11:13 - uh this baptism of the spirit essentially means that we are being associated with the Trinity with three
11:23 11:23 - persons who are utterly equal to each other and there is no you said inferiority between them yeah that’s now
11:33 11:33 - I think this point of the name here being singular uh we’ll get to that like I said all of these things that we’re
11:40 11:40 - talking about they’re all related to each other and it’s not like we need to draw artificial barriers of separation
11:47 11:47 - between our discussion of the Trinity we’re just looking at it from multiple angles um but just to rip on this a bit
11:54 11:54 - the fact that there’s one name goes right in accordance with this point that just brought up about uh if one member
12:01 12:01 - were above the others it would be demeaning um for this profession to be kind of stated in equality here well but
12:09 12:09 - even more so if they share the same name if they share the same name because there’s one name here name in Greek in
12:17 12:17 - this verse is singular it’s not plural and the name is obviously shared between the three members of the Trinity because
12:24 12:24 - the word for name is not repeated three times in the Greek um that is it’s not the name the father and the name of the
12:29 12:29 - son and the name of the Holy Spirit as if there were three names there is one name here and for God to be represented
12:37 12:37 - by the single name how could it be that one member of the Trinity um were greater than the
12:46 12:46 - others yet they all share the same uh the same name the same identifier um I just you know I I think that’s
12:55 12:55 - another inferential argument you know especially in so far as as I mentioned that this verse is talking about
13:01 13:01 - Authority right um you know we are yes we are baptizing them into the person of God and and through that teaching them
13:11 13:11 - um you know like after they become members of the body of Christ teaching them to observe everything um you know
13:18 13:18 - as we’ve said before um the Bible presupposes these things it states these things it doesn’t argue for them um and
13:25 13:25 - this is a prime example of that very true so the next topic that we are going to
13:34 13:34 - discuss here uh sort of on the shared equality and Eternity and substance of God is kind of talking about this idea
13:44 13:44 - of Eternal function of deity uh the actions that God takes within creation so the verse that Dr luginbill uses in
13:52 13:52 - the study uh is talking about creation um and you know what you can actually see typo in the slides here I copied the
14:01 14:01 - scripture quotation here and then I changed the verse but I didn’t change out the verse up here so this is wrong
14:06 14:06 - this is in Genesis of course um here let me Google this real quick and uh I’m sure it’s Genesis one probably 126 yeah
14:16 14:16 - so that’s what that header should be I’ll fix that before I post them um so quoting Genesis chap 1 verse 26 not
14:26 14:26 - Matthew 28 again um when God says this let us make Mankind in our image in our likeness so note the first person plural
14:36 14:36 - here um and of course Audie and I have discussed this before in our recordings here on the Trinity uh this is one of
14:44 14:44 - those things uh where God being plural in the Hebrew Elohim um not God singular um you know perhaps the the Jews or the
14:54 14:54 - early Jews thought of it as a plural of majesty you might have heard that grammatical notion before uh is made
15:01 15:01 - plural to show how great and Majestic God was but it also kind of leaves that question mark at the back of one’s head
15:08 15:08 - of well what does it mean for God to be plural um and then that’s of course where the Trinity and the explicit
15:15 15:15 - teaching of the New Testament helps fill this in for us but where we’re going with this in terms of the Eternal
15:21 15:21 - function of deity in terms of the activity of deity is that the three members of the trinity all participated
15:29 15:29 - within creation um in fact we can see this um uh if you recall in the first couple verses of Genesis you know in the
15:38 15:38 - beginning God created the heavens and the Earth um we know from various places in Scripture that Jesus Christ was the
15:44 15:44 - agent in creation that’s what John chapter 1 uh the first few verses of the Gospel of John tells us um so Jesus
15:52 15:52 - Christ was the agent but then we have and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters first several verses of
15:57 15:57 - Genesis still spirit is involved too um you know especially in so far as he is the one uh within creation who is
16:07 16:07 - presently restraining evil um so when the Restraint of the holy spirit is removed I believe it’s first
16:15 16:15 - Thessalonians or second Thessalonians I don’t remember which one um that talks about the removal of restraint um well
16:23 16:23 - things are going to happen on account of that um Holy Spirit active role in maintaining the order within creation
16:31 16:31 - and of course everything handled under the authority of the father uh the planner the architect um so this is an
16:40 16:40 - example here in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 ignore this um talking about the creation of man specifically but it also
16:48 16:48 - holds for creation generally it also holds for uh God’s plan in the Redemption of mankind um so just as
16:57 16:57 - another example um the when Jesus Paid for human sin upon the cross obviously um the son in the Trinity fully God yet
17:08 17:08 - fully man um Peter tells us that he bore our sins upon his body on the tree um but that was only made possible through
17:16 17:16 - the Holy Spirit and the father was the one who accepted the payment so um we might aduce multiple other examples
17:24 17:24 - where all three members of the Trinity play this crucial active role in the working out of God’s plan throughout
17:34 17:34 - human history throughout creation um and so this is what we mean by they have an equal share in the Eternal function of
17:41 17:41 - deity um they are all uh God in so far as and and they all share equality in so far as when God
17:51 17:51 - affects his plans all of them have an equal role to play even if it is not the same role um so so in this way there
18:00 18:00 - isn’t any difference in status there isn’t any difference in the activity of deity um as if for example one person in
18:08 18:08 - the Trinity uh has to do all the things while the other people in the Trinity aren’t involved somehow um and just to
18:16 18:16 - keep pushing this idea of how different this is for us as humans right no matter what within Human Relationships there’s
18:23 18:23 - kind of a give and take maybe it in any given point in time um so anyone who’s ever worked on a group project in school
18:30 18:30 - knows exactly what I’m talking about um does everyone completely equally pull their
18:36 18:36 - weight you know even if we do our best even if the other members in your group are not lacking in their
18:43 18:43 - motivation inevitably it’s just it doesn’t happen however that is because we are humans not God and God in his
18:52 18:52 - plans always operates in unity between the three members of the Trinity um mm
19:01 19:01 - yeah so the passage you mentioned earlier was actually 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 um about the working of the
19:10 19:10 - holy spirit so I don’t think there’s very much else to say the Bible does annunciate on every I mean I think that
19:18 19:18 - that passage in Genesis chapter one is it’s it’s a brilliant light on it let us make man in our own image I’ve heard
19:27 19:27 - Jo Witnesses argue that that was God speaking to the angels which was very interesting very interesting argument to
19:34 19:34 - make that God would essentially be what um enlisting the angels in the creation of man but then it goes along with their
19:44 19:44 - own um conception of Jesus Christ as a god even though of course they don’t publicly wed themselves to polytheism
19:55 19:55 - they don’t believe in multiple gods except that Jesus has to be one in order for John chapter one verse one to make
20:01 20:01 - some sense to them so I I think um the Bible enunciates on every page I mean uh I think it’s um
20:14 20:14 - Isaiah chapter 9 where it talks about the spirit of God the spirit of this the spirit of that and all of the all of
20:21 20:21 - that being upon um um
20:28 20:28 - the anointed one so we see multiple things multiple places in the Bible I I think it’s worth
20:40 20:40 - repeating that we’re not we’re not making uh would I say an argue on I don’t know how to put that but
20:51 20:51 - because yes we are making making an argument yes that that teaching is being developed but essentially
20:58 20:58 - this is this is the say the Bible says this and that and that and that’s why we claim this so it’s not like oh there’s a
21:07 21:07 - trinity and now we have to go to the Bible to make a case for it it’s more like if you read the Bible it basically
21:17 21:17 - presents the Trinity as a given and in functionality we see the same thing it it takes a lot of work like um I think
21:26 21:26 - that there is there are probably better ways that one can demonstrate how much work it takes
21:33 21:33 - to dismiss this than what the Jehovah’s Witnesses had to do they basically had to retranslate the Bible to eliminate
21:43 21:43 - evidence of the Trinity and to recast basically a number of doctrines
21:52 21:52 - but particularly the Trinity that’s one thing that they take a lot of issue with and you find that even with their
21:59 21:59 - retranslating of the Bible they can’t get away from it they still have to deal with it I should add
22:06 22:06 - that this translation business that we’re talking about it’s not merely that they made some different interpretive
22:12 22:12 - choices here they mistranslate according to objective principles of grammar shall we say you know they do violence to the
22:22 22:22 - translation and like AI said still kind of has to be like that to make things work Con
22:28 22:28 - um and we pointed this out before um you know and I think it’s very good that we’re emphasizing it that the Bible
22:35 22:35 - speaks as if it is true in fact the better way to put it is if any of these points that we’re going over in this
22:41 22:41 - entire series uh you can kind of prove them through what is typically known as redu you ad absurdum if you say this
22:49 22:49 - point is false and then you go try to read passages in the Bible it just doesn’t work um so this point that we’re
22:56 22:56 - on right here if if you try to say that somehow uh all members of the Trinity are God and they’re all somehow equal to
23:04 23:04 - each other but they aren’t equal to each other in the Eternal function of deity in the salvation of mankind in the
23:12 23:12 - working out of God’s plan throughout human history then in what sense can they be said to be equal how how do all
23:17 23:17 - these passages that talk about the various things that the members of the Trinity have done throughout human
23:22 23:22 - history how do those work then um you know and of course there are things we don’t know like so for example um just
23:31 23:31 - as we humans have a hard time seeing in human relationships like for example that between a commanding officer in the
23:38 23:38 - military and his soldiers is there equality there uh given that one of them has adopted in their position the one
23:46 23:46 - giving orders right um and I think maybe this is maybe this is something worth discussing a bit um in so far as within
23:54 23:54 - the roles of the Trinity the father is typically seen as has put it before as the representation of deity um as the
24:02 24:02 - one who plays the part of deity uh to the world um so that’s why he is in the third heaven separated from sin um
24:11 24:11 - because he is the face of deity shall we say um but these roles that do exist um it’s not uh one of a difference in
24:22 24:22 - status um it is merely a role um and we will talk about rol of the Trinity more that is a future topic of conversation
24:31 24:31 - so we sh get too sidetracked here but where we’re going with this again is simply that if you start removing uh
24:39 24:39 - kind of like I think the game’s called Jenga right where you remove blocks and once you remove enough blocks the tower
24:45 24:45 - just inevitably falls down um most of these things that we’re talking about you don’t even have to remove a bunch of
24:52 24:52 - them before it stops working you just remove one or two and suddenly large parts of the Bible spe specifically the
24:58 24:58 - New Testament just don’t make sense anymore there is no way to reconcile the passages uh I mean you can do your best
25:05 25:05 - to go through interpretive gymnastics to explain how this actually means that and whatnot but it just it just obviously
25:12 25:12 - doesn’t feel right and that’s what happens when you start trying to Monkey around with fundamental conceptions of
25:20 25:20 - three persons one essence or one Ence three persons it just makes large parts of the interpretation of New Testament
25:27 25:27 - Passage that that mentions the members of the Trinity just no longer work
25:34 25:34 - yeah yeah and I I I I I don’t think we can go through every single instance um where the Bible demonstrates the um
25:46 25:46 - Eternal function of each member of the Trinity but like he just said if anyone
25:55 25:55 - bothers to do the the SoCal well the scientific test of um trying to falsify the arguments that we are making
26:08 26:08 - essentially and we go okay the spirit is not he’s not um a member of the Trinity because
26:19 26:19 - his function does not fit or something like that then you start to interpret everything that the Bible says that the
26:28 26:28 - spirit actually does in terms of that the whole Bible becomes nearly chaotic and
26:39 26:39 - insensate that’s what would happen do the same to the Lord Jesus and this is actually why this is one way that you
26:45 26:45 - can very quickly tell what um um uh religions or sects are really not Christian even if they claim to be
26:58 26:58 - let’s use the ones we’ve named for example jov’s Witnesses they reject the Holy Spirit as a person refuse to accept
27:07 27:07 - the Lord Jesus as God so let’s talk about how that works in terms of the work of
27:16 27:16 - Salvation who what are we being saved from sin against to God and how are we to be saved from sin do they accept that
27:28 27:28 - the Bible says essentially that we’re in helpless situation we cannot redeem our own selves we are
27:36 27:36 - all have fallen short of Grace there is no we cannot fix what we have broken it’s broken it’s spilled milk there’s
27:45 27:45 - nothing we can do about it okay so if we accept that to be true and I believe the translation of the
27:51 27:51 - Bible does next thing we have to ask is how then is this um um damage in our relationship to God
28:02 28:02 - to be fixed well God has to do something himself according to the Bible I am your savior and there is no
28:16 28:16 - savior besides me that’s what the Bible says God himself claimed that he is the only one who is the savior that makes
28:22 28:22 - sense it makes sense because who else is going to save us now they claim that some Angel was able to save us
28:31 28:31 - okay how is an Angel going to be able to save us exactly what is the sacrifice that
28:39 28:39 - require to save us it has to be a sacrifice that matches the sin talking about from God’s
28:47 28:47 - perspective there is nothing nothing that we can do nothing that we can offer the way that the Bible puts essentially
28:56 28:56 - is that a man can not save himself by with his own life or and he cannot pay the price for
29:02 29:02 - another that’s how I think it’s in some I don’t remember the the chapter now so we are in a very bad a very bad spot and
29:12 29:12 - essentially we have learned whatever needs to be done is going to be massive an ordinary human being can do
29:19 29:19 - it why do we think an angel would be able to pay the price for our set especially given that there is only
29:29 29:29 - one Savior and there is none discip so Jesus comes and he dies on the cross and somehow that is
29:40 29:40 - enough we are still looking at the part of the Bible that I think is also translated correctly in their own Bible
29:47 29:47 - which says that there is no savior besides me God how then do we reconcile the fact that someone’s sacrifice was
29:56 29:56 - able to save us if that person is not God we start to have craziness and of course the enter the
30:05 30:05 - gymnastics which is essentially oh no no no no he’s not the the Savior it’s because someone else sent him that that
30:11 30:11 - person is the real savior he’s just the tool for the Salvation okay so he can’t claim to be the Savior what about
30:17 30:17 - Matthew chapter 1 Matthew chapter 1 essentially says he will be called Jesus because he will save his people from
30:24 30:24 - their sins so essentially he’s going to be called SA that’s literally what his name is okay
30:30 30:30 - so how do you make sense of that no no no no it doesn’t really mean this and that so basically let’s forget what the
30:36 30:36 - Bible says to accommodate what you say what about the holy spirit Bible tells us that it is through him that this
30:44 30:44 - eternal sacrifice was offered I think how how was it put who through the eternal spirit offered himself up that’s
30:51 30:51 - how the Bible said it was not Eternal sacrifice it was through the eternal spirit this sacrifice was made the
30:57 30:57 - eternal spirit what a word what a term to use now remove the spirit from this
31:05 31:05 - picture remove him as a person now you’ve already come into a lot of trouble just by doing that the claim of
31:12 31:12 - the holy spirit is not even a person much less a member of the Trinity so if we were to adopt that mindset that he is
31:20 31:20 - not a person he is not um uh a member of the Trinity then what about everything that the Bible
31:30 31:30 - says about his part in Salvation the fact that he convicts us of sin now this is an impersonal Force
31:39 31:39 - somehow able to persuade us that we are sinful very interesting thing to do but of course they try to use the loophole
31:49 31:49 - that he is God’s Force so he’s not a a person he’s just something that God us uses to mess with with our consciences
31:58 31:58 - and get us to appreciate that we’re sinful people and then Jesus himself was going to pay a terrible price on the
32:08 32:08 - cross and he was going to do it through this Force I mean at a certain point we are
32:15 32:15 - in sci-fi land where things don’t seem to be what they are they they they don’t make sense so that’s what happens once
32:25 32:25 - we start looking at things from perspective of trying to falsify the Trinity once we
32:32 32:32 - remove the the claims of the Bible that the that Jesus is God that the holy spirit is not only a person but also God
32:42 32:42 - himself all of a sudden a lot of things that would otherwise have made sense become
32:50 32:50 - nonsensical and that is why the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t really believe for all their claim and they do
32:58 32:58 - claim it they don’t really believe that reconciliation to God results from the sacrifice of Jesus they believe it comes
33:07 33:07 - from the works that they do now there’s another set that works exactly the same way the Roman Catholic
33:16 33:16 - church talk a good game but because they don’t appreciate exactly who did what they end up in a place where they talk
33:25 33:25 - about Grace as if it were asert would put it angel dust that is sprinkled on you to make you look good so essentially
33:36 33:36 - it’s it’s this thing that that that is sprinkled on you it’s not that God has given you a gracious gift that is an
33:45 33:45 - extremely generous person who has brought you back into fellowship with him in spite of the fact that you have
33:51 33:51 - done everything wrong and caused yourself to be out of fellowship with him no it’s this sprinkling of angel
33:59 33:59 - dust on you to make you good and what you’re supposed to do is continue to take the sacraments and do this and that
34:07 34:07 - to keep the grace flowing once you cut out the functions that is essentially saying what this
34:16 34:16 - person does as God Almighty everything starts to fall out and just basically enter chaos and
34:27 34:27 - Madness it doesn’t make sense anymore it doesn’t matter that you claim to believe that your your sin was paid for by
34:33 34:33 - Jesus’s sacrifice you don’t even know who Jesus is you don’t even know who made the sacrifice possible and
34:38 34:38 - therefore in the end you assume a lot of responsibility for something you are completely unable to do I mean let me
34:45 34:45 - just jump in I don’t I don’t want to completely interrupt your flow but just say a couple sentences what we’re
34:51 34:51 - talking about with respect to atonement Theory salvation itself this is one of of those Eternal functions of deity that
34:58 34:58 - human beings uh you you’ve gone through this um in the way that you’ve approached talking about how these sects
35:05 35:05 - they get things wrong here right but one of the things that’s so pervasive about legalism is that human beings somehow
35:14 35:14 - are claiming that they have the function of Salvation just think about how insane that is right and this is why we call it
35:20 35:20 - the the magic Grace dust that somehow by what we do we can have that Grace flowing from God rather than it being
35:30 35:30 - God himself and and and like we said for all appearances for all accounts people will say this with their lips but then
35:37 35:37 - it’s a matter of what do their positions imply how do they have to read certain passages in the Bible to make it not
35:44 35:44 - contradict actually it’s one of those things that sometimes I never understand because some of what we’re talking about
35:49 35:49 - like you said even though the Jehovah’s Witnesses butcher certain parts of their translation it still gets you most of
35:56 35:56 - the way there like you know like you can argue with them in their translation and you can still get to the point where you
36:04 36:04 - kind of need the Trinity same deal you know the Roman Catholics they don’t even mutilate the Bible um it’s one of those
36:10 36:10 - things where all these verses well Roman Catholics for the most part have those same verses in their Bibles too right um
36:17 36:17 - yeah how does it work you know that but you know people manag to twist it somehow or another and it’s part of that
36:25 36:25 - is by imputing some of these things that are functions of God Alone to things other than God right to sacraments or
36:34 36:34 - salvation or priests although the Catholic church is like less blatant about that nowadays like as in they’ve
36:42 36:42 - backed off a little bit from you have to be a member of the Catholic Church otherwise you’re not even saved and you
36:47 36:47 - have to take Catholic mass every Sunday otherwise you’re not even saved and things like that because you know that’s
36:52 36:52 - bad PR but um that sort of thing yeah what does that have to do with our record Being set straight in the eyes of
37:00 37:00 - the almighty it just doesn’t of course of course that’s that’s exactly the point that once we we lose sight of of
37:08 37:08 - the function of the persons each person of the holy of the of the Trinity what what essentially results is that Madness
37:16 37:16 - and that chaos one thing that just occurred to me as you were speaking was also the fact that when it comes to to
37:25 37:25 - what scientific this is another place to that you see what a world view of the Trinity can do to you now we we hear
37:35 37:35 - this in the Bible he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world right that is really really big thing to
37:43 37:43 - say and in fact this is why being a believer in these days after the cross is such an amazing thing that for the
37:50 37:50 - first time um since human history after Jesus died we know have God basically residing in US permanently that’s a very
38:01 38:01 - big deal so you have God in you but because obviously the holy spirit is not God you can see what what results from
38:12 38:12 - people just ignoring His function the fact that he is God is why Bible says that he works in you that’s a very
38:21 38:21 - interesting thing it actually puts it this way for it is God who works in you both to Will and to do of his own good
38:27 38:27 - pleasure so you have God himself residing in you working with you to Will and to do of his good pleasure but now
38:36 38:36 - it’s not God it’s just some Force residing in you and what results from that well if I’m going to do good things
38:45 38:45 - it’s up to me if I’m going to get anything right it’s up to me you’re not relying on him because after all that’s
38:53 38:53 - not God I mean it just but just think about it for a second you know this verse that you quote here on the face of
38:59 38:59 - it you could argue that maybe the Holy Spirit was a created thing that just happened to be greater than Satan okay
39:07 39:07 - you know like philosophically it works but like you said other places in the Bible talk about God working within us
39:13 39:13 - so now you have to argue that God is in us and this other person who’s not God but is yet greater than Satan is also in
39:19 39:19 - us right you have to because both of those things are said in scripture right that’s the position you have to take if
39:27 39:27 - you don’t believe that the holy spirit is God and then how do you know it’s one versus the other you know like again as
39:33 39:33 - we’ve been emphasizing these problems are inescapable the second you start going down that path you bump into them
39:39 39:39 - head first um yeah yeah that’s the bottom line really y so you know I’m not we have
39:48 39:48 - gone through some good examples I mean I should emphasize that Ai and I we could probably keep going all day here right I
39:54 39:54 - know you gave a couple good examples off the top of your head you know of various uh people going down
40:00 40:00 - this path to one extent or another but this is the consequence of not accepting the all three members of the
40:09 40:09 - deity in full all three members and how they all interact to do these things in the plan of human Redemption um so
40:18 40:18 - whether that was uh the sacrifice on the cross sanctification those are two examples we brought up now all three
40:25 40:25 - members of the are integral to these things that affect human salvation um and so we can’t be
40:34 40:34 - wishy-washy on this right um this is why the Trinity is rightly and properly considered one of the core doctrines of
40:42 40:42 - Christianity um there are certain things that maybe we call debatable that you get wrong you can still be a Christian
40:50 40:50 - right understanding who Jesus was what he did and the nature of God how is sacrifice was on this is some of the
40:58 40:58 - fundamental stuff right yeah so and that is one reason I should emphasize why uh getting one of these things wrong makes
41:07 41:07 - a whole bunch of scripture not work right because to a greater or lesser extent right uh we know that everything
41:13 41:13 - in the Bible should be interpreted by everything else in the Bible that is the contextual approach we need to take when
41:19 41:19 - we interpret scripture but there are certain doctrines when if you get them wrong it messes up a whole lot more
41:25 41:25 - things than other right this is one of those that yeah if you get the Trinity wrong it messes up
41:31 41:31 - all sorts of things in a way that some other doctrines maybe you get something wrong
41:37 41:37 - and it messes up two or three places not the entire New Testament um that’s why we call this core and Central though so
41:45 41:45 - yeah that’s true that’s true all right well good discussion here this is why it’s important for us to acknowledge the
41:54 41:54 - full share of the activity of God the Eternal function of deity that the members of the Trinity possess because
42:01 42:01 - all three are integral so creation is the example in Genesis chapter 1 Dr luganville used we’ve talked also about
42:07 42:07 - as I’ve said um about Redemption on the cross as well as sanctification and there’s others as well where God works
42:14 42:14 - together the three members of the Trinity to affect his plan for human salvation um so that is where we’ll wrap
42:22 42:22 - this one and in the next one we’ll be talking about substance so the last point that we’re going to be
42:32 42:32 - making here in this lesson is talking about the equal share in the substance of deity so thus far we’ve talked about
42:39 42:39 - status and the Eternal function or activity now we’re talking about substance we don’t want to get too
42:45 42:45 - bogged down here in uh maybe what we might call the technical jargony specifics um but the verse that Dr
42:54 42:54 - lugabill uses for this one comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 13:14 and this is one of those
43:01 43:01 - benedictions now those of you who’ve watched this series all the way through um might remember it might be more
43:07 43:07 - recent in your memory where some of the verses that we included upfront in our discussion of the Trinity we talked
43:13 43:13 - about how it comes up in uh the benedictions as here um and kind of the salutations the the greetings and
43:21 43:21 - letters um you know so for example in the very first part of 1 Peter chapter 1 um we hear a mention of all three
43:30 43:30 - members of the Trinity um chosen according to the for knowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work
43:36 43:36 - of the spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ all through members of the Trinity right um but here specifically
43:42 43:42 - looking at this idea of substance of deity this is what Dr L bill says so as seen from the attribution of goodness to
43:50 43:50 - all three members in the apostolic benediction of 2 Corinthians so um if you recall one of the so-called
43:57 43:57 - essential characteristics of God that we discussed previously was that God is good uh that is a characteristic of
44:06 44:06 - deity um of the essence of God and so this verse is talking about what we shall call manifestations of goodness so
44:15 44:15 - Grace is the policy of the goodness of God right we talked about that already love is the natural consequence or
44:22 44:22 - emanation of the goodness of God and fellowship is the ultimate result of the goodness of God all of these are
44:29 44:29 - respectively here attributed to the son the father and the Holy Spirit and the benediction so the grace of the Lord
44:36 44:36 - Jesus Christ the love of the father um I guess we’re saying that that is implied right um because we have Lord God and
44:45 44:45 - then Spirit right we like you know cuos is the word for Lord in Greek and that refers to Jesus Christ and I’m assuming
44:52 44:52 - I don’t have the Greek in front of me but I’m assuming this is Theos and this is is numos the the word for Spirit um
44:59 44:59 - sorry Numa it’s neuter um and so those probably be the words here but all three members of the Trinity have this
45:08 45:08 - characteristic goodness that Define them as God of all sharing that Essence uh which has as one of its characteristics
45:16 45:16 - goodness um as an essential quality of deity um so if this sounds familiar it kind of should um because as I said all
45:25 45:25 - of these things are uh kind of uh they all support each other right we’re not trying to say new things here we are
45:33 45:33 - just coming at this discussion of the Trinity from all the angles we possibly can and so when we talked about the
45:39 45:39 - essence of God before we were establishing what the essence of God was what we are now doing in this particular
45:45 45:45 - lesson that we’ve been going through this time was establishing that all three members of the Trinity now that we
45:51 45:51 - have uh determined that there are in fact three persons in the Trinity well all of them equally share in the
45:58 45:58 - consequences uh in the essential characteristics of the essence of God because as we’ll see in the next lesson
46:05 46:05 - that we go through all three of them are equal partakers in that Divine Essence so that’s where we get the three persons
46:12 46:12 - one Essence from right now we’ve been going through how all of them have the same status Eternal function or activity
46:19 46:19 - and substance coming about because they all share that same Essence which is what we’ll cover in the next one but on
46:26 46:26 - account of that this verse goes right through and says that all three members of the Trinity um have this eternal
46:34 46:34 - quality of goodness um in the way that Dr lville has kind of filled in here and that’s why we say that all of them
46:41 46:41 - possess that equal share in the substance of deity any points to Riff on here
46:48 46:48 - Audie I’ve been trying to think um I’ll admit this bit is a bit more complex for me but it it does make sense how he laid
46:57 46:57 - things out that Grace is the policy of the goodness of God it’s the generosity of God
47:03 47:03 - um I mean God did have the right as God to withhold his generosity I mean essentially because he is God the
47:13 47:13 - creation he makes exists at his whims so he didn’t have any need whatsoever to do anything for anyone was not under any
47:22 47:22 - obligation to do so but Grace essentially is saying um even if I’m not obliged to do anything for you now we’re
47:31 47:31 - talking whether just in the in the business of first creation or it is um in the business of redemption
47:42 47:42 - Redemption was after sin the business of first creation was before sin um we see that Grace play out in the particular
47:50 47:50 - way for example that God even caused us to exist in the first place was an act of generosity if we didn’t exist we
47:58 47:58 - wouldn’t have any opportunity whatsoever to enjoy and experience the Marvel that is God and God is marvelous and he is an
48:09 48:09 - amazing gift that you know to be given um so if if he did not create us and share
48:19 48:19 - himself with us or offer us this opportunity to be with him then I mean he didn’t have to and he did it anyway
48:28 48:28 - and we sin we fall short of that generosity of his and he does not deem it necessary or even right to just wipe
48:40 48:40 - out creation he could do that doesn’t have to tolerate our sinfulness but he still goes on to
48:47 48:47 - redeem us to offer us again an opportunity to be part of his eternal family to enjoy him forever which is
48:57 48:57 - amazing right so all of this um it’s the goodness of God in the sense that that is how God actually defines his goodness
49:05 49:05 - as deity himself it doesn’t have to be that way so but as we know if deity was not like this then nothing would exist
49:14 49:14 - that’s actually how that works so um then the the the love of the father I actually tend to find myself edging in
49:23 49:23 - the direction of how God is love and basically I Define all of God’s character in terms of his love but it
49:30 49:30 - does make sense too to see um love as a natural consequence of the goodness of God so instead of being the call from
49:38 49:38 - which this goodness is actually demonstrated it’s it’s a consequence of that goodness because God is innately
49:46 49:46 - good because he is innately good I don’t think there’s any other way I mean and of course the purpose of this particular
49:54 49:54 - one was to show how all three members of the Trinity possess the goodness characteristic of
50:00 50:00 - God um they possess it equally right um and how it works out so that we can say that there isn’t there’s no inequality
50:08 50:08 - there is no one person of the Trinity gets it while the other doesn’t that is kind of the purpose of this lesson in
50:14 50:14 - the series yeah that that’s that’s the point here I think that the reason like I said what I’m actually exploring is
50:20 50:20 - the complexity of this uh passage in my mind you know well is God good because he loves us or does God love us because
50:30 50:30 - he’s good I mean you know it’s one of those things where you’re right the Bible says that God is good and the
50:37 50:37 - Bible says that God loves us and so yeah you know a very human thing to try to start to to go through right but yeah
50:45 50:45 - but but when when the the point that um you know the grace of the Lord Jesus the love of the of God and The Fellowship of
50:52 50:52 - the holy spirit all come together is that that is uh pretty obvious because again it’s like the name of the father
51:00 51:00 - and the son and the spirit thing when you associate three persons in this manner
51:07 51:07 - you’re essentially putting them on a level it’s very hard to say things like um uh May the kindness of the president
51:16 51:16 - and um the generosity of uh maybe the the chief of Army staff or something I mean by the time you start counting down
51:26 51:26 - it’s like why are you putting all these people together I mean if I have the kindness of the president I don’t need
51:33 51:33 - to have the generosity of the chief of Army staff because the president covers that right so but when you have um the
51:43 51:43 - love of of of the Lord Jesus and you have the the um sorry the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God the
51:51 51:51 - Father And The Fellowship of the holy spirit is essentially saying all the these three have to agree and they they
51:59 51:59 - they have to agree in the sense that the three of them are separate persons and their Authority is equal to each other
52:07 52:07 - so it makes sense to think of it in that way well let me not do too much exploration of this but it’s something
52:14 52:14 - that has been playing out in my head for a while yeah now I will say of course as we we went through a good bit in the
52:21 52:21 - last one how everything falls apart uh in interpreting the trinity you know in finding in scripture if you ignore
52:27 52:27 - certain bits of it but this one I think is so false just on the face of it imagine if you were to argue that one
52:34 52:34 - member of the Trinity was not inherently good just think about it right it’s complete nonsense how how how can that
52:42 52:42 - even work given what we know from scripture right that absolutely if only the father and the son wanted the best
52:48 52:48 - for us and somehow the spirit didn’t you know like come on who who would Empower everything right and and of course it
52:54 52:54 - would not make sense and light of the scriptures given what the spirit has done sure you know I don’t think people
53:01 53:01 - that’s not their Vector of attack most of the time right but that’s what we mean when we say they share the
53:05 53:05 - substance of deity right because the same thing holds for all of the other characteristics of God that we talked
53:11 53:11 - about if you say that I mean for example that the father and the spirit are Eternal but not the son because the son
53:18 53:18 - took on a human nature that’s actually a much more common attack that is getting at this one here right that they are you
53:25 53:25 - know consubstantial because what this is getting at is that the son is co-eternal
53:29 53:29 - with the father and the spirit right you know again that’s what we’re going through here co-equal co-eternal
53:34 53:34 - consubstantial if you say that the son doesn’t have the same substance as the father and the spirit he’s not God in
53:41 53:41 - the same way so to speak then people start throwing out eternity you know like the the um eternality of the Sun
53:50 53:50 - the second person of the Trinity and then you get all sorts of theological problems so yeah um sort of they’re not
53:56 53:56 - made of the same substance I think that was why I was actually interested in complexity of this thing because but I
54:03 54:03 - think the point that he is making essentially is that if we were to describe God in terms of a substance he
54:10 54:10 - is good that’s his substance his goodness and we see that through Grace Jesus is is is associated with that
54:19 54:19 - substance he he has it and through love the father has it through fellowship and all of these things are like three
54:28 54:28 - emanations or three sort of like like I mean he used the word policy in another place examination and in another place
54:36 54:36 - he says the result but all of them are like the outworking in some way of this goodness of God this substance this
54:43 54:43 - thing and it makes sense too given that Jesus did say no one is good but God that is like at the core definition of
54:51 54:51 - what God is in terms of his substance there’s also life of course but then I think this makes sense you can use this
54:58 54:58 - to see like you said that all three of them um share in this substance and you cannot speak of God being good and
55:08 55:08 - somehow remove Jesus from that okay I think that that that that has called something back to mind for me um there’s
55:17 55:17 - often that argument that Jesus never claimed to be God because there’s this passage where he said no no one is no
55:25 55:25 - one is good except God and they say well if he was God he would have said there that he you know except me or accept God
55:34 55:34 - and me or something but then Jesus didn’t say he wasn’t good he said no one is good but God and once you once you
55:45 55:45 - you you take into account another thing too that he said in another place which of you can accuse me of sin that was a
55:52 55:52 - very big claim he was making I don’t have any sin so I am good there you go too so when you put these things
56:01 56:01 - together it does lead to the fact that to the extent that we’re seeing that God’s substance is this goodness Jesus
56:10 56:10 - shares in it so does the spirit so does the father and if you were to eliminate any of them from this like you said a
56:19 56:19 - lot of things in the Bible would no longer make sense would on the particular passage of Jesus saying that
56:26 56:26 - only God is good it’s actually it’s kind of fun to think about it now that you brought it to mind Jesus could it would
56:32 56:32 - have been factually correct to say that he was himself good because he was because he’s God but from a theological
56:38 56:38 - perspective actually his statement is very true in that God all three members of the Trinity are good right absolutely
56:46 56:46 - and we see that right there right now um so it would have been fine if Jesus had said that he was good because that’s a
56:50 56:50 - true statement it’s also a true statement that God is good what’s interesting is that God is good is
56:56 56:56 - actually broader than Jesus is good because all three members of the Trinity are God um so exactly
57:03 57:03 - exactly yeah okay that’s my spio right all right well that’s where we’ll cut here so just as with the
57:12 57:12 - function Eternal function of deity the activity of deity all three members of the Trinity possess equally this so we
57:19 57:19 - have them being co-equal co-eternal and consubstantial there isn’t any difference in status in terms of how
57:27 57:27 - they function in terms of the characteristics of God they share that has been the focus that we’ve had in
57:34 57:34 - this lesson so just to recap the lesson that we’ve gone over this week we have been
57:42 57:42 - talking about how even though there are three distinct persons in the Trinity that does not mean that there’s any
57:49 57:49 - inferiority or disparity of status activity or substance between them um that God shared s in all of this the
57:56 57:56 - members of the Trinity are co-eternal and co-equal and consubstantial um and so in this we’ve
58:03 58:03 - gone through the status of deity um they all have the authority of God they are all mentioned here in the Great
58:11 58:11 - Commission um as being the person in whom we are baptized mentioned in the same breath um we went over how Genesis
58:20 58:20 - 126 um uh when God talks about the creation of man that it is something that all three members of the Trinity
58:27 58:27 - have this hand in so too with our Redemption and also our sanctification and other processes of Salvation shall
58:36 58:36 - we say uh within God’s plan for creation all members of the Trinity have this core part to play um and we also talked
58:44 58:44 - about how all three members of the Trinity share the same substance they have those essential characteristics um
58:50 58:50 - goodness was the example we used here um but some of the things relating to God’s nature as well for example his Infinity
58:58 58:58 - um so his his omnipotence his omnipresence his omniscience all three of those things apply to all members of
59:04 59:04 - the Trinity and that’s what it means for them to be consubstantial to have the same substance so this is what we have
59:10 59:10 - been going over in this lesson here in the next lesson we will be talking more specifically about this one Essence bit
59:19 59:19 - so we have now talked about the three person bit right that was the lesson before this one establish ing that there
59:25 59:25 - are three distinct persons in the Trinity the next time we’re going to be talking about how they share one Essence
59:31 59:31 - uh AKA why we don’t worship three Gods but why we worship one God in three persons that is what we are going to be
59:39 59:39 - talking about next time

All Members of the Trinity Are Joint Partakers of the Same Essence

Trinity > All members share the same essence

Video

Link to wider playlist View slides

Summary

This lesson’s main focus is examining the point that God is three in person, but that does not mean that the Trinity is composed of three (or more) different “gods”.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:54 01:54 - Key point: God is three in person, but that does not mean that the Trinity is composed of three (or more) different “gods”
15:37 15:37 - The Father is revealed to be uniquely God
18:57 18:57 - The Son and the Father are revealed to be uniquely God
24:06 24:06 - Regarding the notion of us being “small G gods”, what words are used for such in the Greek and Hebrew?
30:32 30:32 - The Holy Spirit and the Son and the Father are revealed to be uniquely God
41:24 41:24 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

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

Key point: God is three in person, but that does not mean that the Trinity is composed of three (or more) different “gods”

Trinity > What it is not > A pantheon

God is one in essence, and all three members of the Trinity (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit) are the sole, joint partakers of that same essence rather than three similar beings of similar essence. All so-called Christian sects which elevate saints and angels to the status of divinity essentially belong to this heretical category (after the manner of pagan pantheons, which also possess numerous “deities” of lesser and greater rank). But the Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity alone share the same unique essence:

The Father is revealed to be uniquely God

Trinity > Jointly partake in one single essence > Father

Deuteronomy 4:35

You were shown these things so as to know that the Lord, He is God, and there is no other besides Him.

The Son and the Father are revealed to be uniquely God

Trinity > Jointly partake in one single essence > Son

John 10:30

I and the Father are one.

Some things I’ll add here in addition to this one verse Dr. Luginbill quoted, to emphasize even more that the Son is One with the Father and the Spirit, being God:

Colossians 2:9
Philippians 2:6

Regarding the notion of us being “small G gods”, what words are used for such in the Greek and Hebrew?

Image of God > We are godlike in our free will/ability to choose

Note

This is a video-only section.

It is elohim in Hebrew (see אֱלהִים), and theoi in Greek (see θεοὶ).

The Holy Spirit and the Son and the Father are revealed to be uniquely God

Trinity > Jointly partake in one single essence > Holy Spirit

John 14:16-17

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another comforter to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, for it neither sees Him, nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He abides with you, and will be in you.

Some things I’ll add here in addition to this one verse Dr. Luginbill quoted, to emphasize even more that the Holy Spirit is One with the Father and the Son, being God:

2 Peter 1:21
Acts 5:3-4
Matthew 28:19 – “name” here is singular, not plural. And it is also not repeated for the Son and the Spirit; i.e., there is one name and it equally applies to all three.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:00 00:00 - all right guys so this week we are going to be going over uh this topic here about how all members of the Trinity are
00:09 00:09 - joint partakers of the same Essence so all three members of the Trinity share the same Essence the same being and that
00:17 00:17 - makes them United in a way that means basically that they aren’t three separate Gods they’re not three separate
00:24 00:24 - beings and so these are the points we’re going to be going through here in the summary um just as a reminder we been
00:30 00:30 - going through uh some points basically establishing things that the Trinity is not and that is throwing into sharper
00:38 00:38 - relief what the Trinity actually is so we’ve kind of been uh knocking down some of these heresies that have cropped up
00:44 00:44 - in the past examining uh all this scripture that supports the points that we’ve been making uh to kind of throw
00:51 00:51 - into sharper relief what the Trinity actually is and so this particular point we are noting that God is three in
00:59 00:59 - person um we’ve established that that was a a past week we did uh that the three members of the Trinity are
01:05 01:05 - actually um separate personal or the three three separate persons um but that does not mean that the Trinity is
01:11 01:11 - actually composed of three or more different gods three separate beings and so that’s because they share the same
01:18 01:18 - Essence and that’s what we’re going over this week so we’re going to be looking at how the father is revealed to be God
01:23 01:23 - the Son and the father are revealed to be uniquely God and then all three are revealed to be uniquely God um and so
01:30 01:30 - this will overlap a good bit with the lesson in the study that we did where we established that all three members of
01:38 01:38 - the Trinity are God because well all three are God and God is one so it’s kind of the same thing but nonetheless
01:46 01:46 - we’re going to hit this to establish the point that just because God is three in person does not mean that we have three
01:53 01:53 - separate Gods so this is the overview point that we’re going to be making here that God
02:02 02:02 - is three in person but that does not mean that the Trinity is composed of three or more different gods and so
02:10 02:10 - again as we’ve gone over the traditional definition of the Trinity is that God is three in person but one in essence or
02:16 02:16 - one in essence but three in person and so that means that all three members of the Trinity so the father and the son
02:23 02:23 - and the spirit are the sole joint partakers of the same Essence and that’s a big
02:30 02:30 - uh technical perhaps but what that means is that they are all they all share the same being the same Essence rather than
02:37 02:37 - being three similar beings of similar Essence and uh we talked a little bit in our last lesson about how these
02:45 02:45 - attributes these characteristics that are part of God’s nature so God’s infinite nature and God’s perfect
02:52 02:52 - character uh those are things coming from uh the the essence of God that we went over
03:00 03:00 - in the earliest lessons in this study of theology proper and we’ve argued that um all three members of the Trinity have
03:07 03:07 - equal share in those uh last time we were talking about how there’s not any inferiority or disparity in status um
03:13 03:13 - activity or function um uh because all three members of the Trinity share this Essence and those are characteristics um
03:22 03:22 - of the essence of God and because all three members of the Trinity share that Essence all three members of the Trinity
03:28 03:28 - are characterized by these things um and so that’s what we mean by them having the same Essence rather than having
03:34 03:34 - three similar beings of similar Essence um and so among other things uh some of these attributes like infinity and
03:42 03:42 - omniscience and things like this um something that makes our conception of God very unique among world religions is
03:50 03:50 - that there really only can be one God um from a logical sense the uncaused cause if you will how can you have more than
03:58 03:58 - one uncaused cause um so we don’t want to get super philosophical about it but this idea that uh God is this unique
04:07 04:07 - being um you know we emphasized his sovereignty and his uniqueness um in our past studies of his Essence all of this
04:13 04:13 - is rolled up into the idea that God there can only be one um being of this of this sort however there’s three
04:21 04:21 - persons but they all share the same Essence and so maybe it just sounds like we’re asserting things here we’ll get to
04:27 04:27 - some scripture in some of the slides here but um throughout history uh many sects or
04:34 04:34 - uh groups of people you know maybe who even profess Christianity have elevated other things so either human beings
04:42 04:42 - Saints or angels to somehow maybe they don’t even call it Divinity like they would not put them on equal footing with
04:49 04:49 - God but they they put them on higher footing than normal human beings and this is not okay it’s not good because
04:57 04:57 - we know that only God is good that human beings You know despite uh May the fact that maybe some human beings make good
05:05 05:05 - choices and are exceptional Believers they’re still just human beings right um and so uh we want to flee far away from
05:14 05:14 - anything that smacks of pantheons of maybe demigods or elevating Angels worshiping Angels worshiping other human
05:23 05:23 - beings I mean how about worshiping Mary uh you know like as certain Cults have done throughout history
05:30 05:30 - uh none of that is okay because there’s only one God and he’s the only one whom we should worship um so in saying this
05:39 05:39 - where we are going with this particular point this week is that even though the Bible teaches that the Trinity has three
05:46 05:46 - persons we are not saying that there are three gods that there’s multiple gods and there’s no room for there to be
05:53 05:53 - anyone other than the three members of the Trinity um kind of as part of this as part of the being who we worship so
06:03 06:03 - that’s my bit of a rambly introduction here a do you have any other initial points you want to make on what we’re
06:08 06:08 - talking about this week okay just to jump off of what you’re saying and U I think it is it is worth um getting a
06:19 06:19 - tad bit philosophical about this because the Bible is very very emphatic about the fact that God is one um when it says
06:29 06:29 - that it seems like an assertion and this is of course for us as Believers we take what the Bible says as true so if it’s
06:38 06:38 - Asser things that’s fine but other people would say well how do we know that there is one God and this is where
06:48 06:48 - the philosophical reasoning might come into play and the sense the the reason that that might matter is this God is a
06:56 06:56 - very unique um entity very unique the very state of the
07:04 07:04 - universe right now the state of creation right now is because someone decided that one person
07:12 07:12 - or there couldn’t be just one God that he too could be God that is why there can’t be one God because there can’t be
07:19 07:19 - more than one God if there is more than one God what results from that is a clash of wills and when you have two
07:28 07:28 - entities that are Omni poent omnipresent Omni everything they have all the qualities of God but they have
07:38 07:38 - differing Wills differing desires differing if you will visions of what existence should be what’s going to
07:48 07:48 - result from that is chaos catastrophe it would be an eternal state of chaos and catastrophe
07:57 07:57 - that’s what would happen as it is we have just one creature who happens to be the most powerful creature that God
08:05 08:05 - created and we are in the mess that we are in what if it was actually just another
08:11 08:11 - entity that was actually God that’s that’s why it makes sense that no matter what we we might think or let’s put it
08:20 08:20 - this way no matter what other people might think about the fact that there is a trinity and therefore this must mean
08:26 08:26 - that there are three Gods we know that these three persons must be fundamentally United it makes sense for
08:36 08:36 - the Bible to assert that they’re fundamentally United in essence so that they can’t actually be
08:43 08:43 - opposed in any way to each other that’s the the uniqueness and the Oneness of their godhood there are three persons in
08:52 08:52 - the sense that you can see their individuality the fact that the son is not the the father for example and the
08:59 08:59 - the spirit is not the sun you can see these things demonstrated in the Bible but there is no um no difference
09:09 09:09 - whatsoever in their if you will aspirations not they don’t have aspirations or desires or will or what
09:15 09:15 - whatever they might be wanting to accomplish they perfectly United in these things that’s that’s where the
09:22 09:22 - their Oneness in essence has to be understood now I will say that through throughout history many of the heresies
09:31 09:31 - relating to this and even in other religions that have pantheons there is not equality among the people in the
09:38 09:38 - pantheon so um to use a classic example just take Greek mythology in the Greek pantheon Zeus was seen as being the head
09:47 09:47 - of the pantheon right and you might have other people like Poseidon or Hades and Hera and Aphrodite and Athena and so on
09:55 09:55 - um the the gods and goddesses that were part of this but they did to have um what we would call equal Authority equal
10:03 10:03 - nature um and specific to us I pulled up this chart here was from the earlier lesson in our study talking about the
10:10 10:10 - essence of God where even if someone wanted to assert um that the members of the Trinity were actually separate
10:19 10:19 - beings so they didn’t share an Essence they would have to be asserting because we’ve established already from points
10:25 10:25 - we’ve already gone through in this series that the members of the Trinity exhibit these characteristics right um I
10:32 10:32 - mean we could go look at the specific verses you know where we went for each one but if the members of the Trinity
10:38 10:38 - exhibit these characteristics and this is what Dr luganville meant when he said three beings of similar Essence um right
10:46 10:46 - so they share the same Essence that’s the correct teaching but the only other teaching that even has the patina of
10:53 10:53 - possibility to it is if all three beings shared fundamentally similar Essence um so even if they were separate they would
11:03 11:03 - still share many of these same attributes now ai’s kind of gotten to the heart of the problem with this is
11:08 11:08 - that um even even among uh separate beings who have um you know separate Wills if you will there there will
11:17 11:17 - always be tension there will always be disagreement and conflict um and the uniqueness of God is that we have
11:25 11:25 - separate persons who share the same being the same will not that they aren’t separate persons but that there is a
11:33 11:33 - Unity that completely exceeds and transcends human understanding in a way that isn’t possible if they weren’t
11:40 11:40 - United in one Essence um so uh just trying to point out here that even when we talk about uh heresies in this regard
11:50 11:50 - uh you can basically just categorically ignore anything that doesn’t at least start with the assumption that they’re
11:56 11:56 - three beings of fundamentally similar essence you know in the manner we’ve talked about here um
12:03 12:03 - because you know that you have to start there um and but some of what we’re going to be talking about this week is
12:10 12:10 - basically just how the Bible in how it talks about these things simply asserts that the three members of the Trinity
12:17 12:17 - are God um not that this one’s a God and that one’s a God and that one’s a God but they are all God um and for that
12:24 12:24 - reason that’s why we are saying that they share the same Essence they are the same being
12:29 12:29 - because they are all God while at the same time being distinct persons yeah I would even um sort of mention that in
12:38 12:38 - the pantheon that you talked about like the Greek for example there was constant conflict so there’s right right right
12:47 12:47 - right well I mean you know and and certainly I mean I I took a couple mythology classes it was related to my
12:53 12:53 - major um in college because I was a Classics major and so this isn’t just a unique facet of Greek mythology in the
13:00 13:00 - Norse pantheon as well for example where you have Odin and Loki and Thor and and Freya and so on like you said conflict
13:10 13:10 - and but there was also disparity and Status there there there was not this sense of equality um and also and both
13:16 13:16 - of these pantheons not to get too off topic here but um both of those pantheons they kind of the gods were
13:23 13:23 - portrayed as very human in a way that God for us as Christians is not and this isn’t to say you know like how when we
13:30 13:30 - talk about how um the the wine press of God’s Wrath we call that an anthropopathism um you know we’re
13:38 13:38 - attributing this human emotion to God in a way that God really doesn’t have that in the same sense that we do whereas for
13:45 13:45 - the Greeks and the Norse and and you know plenty of other pantheons throughout cultures and history the gods
13:51 13:51 - were basically just really powerful humans so they magnified um they magnified human Humanity in all of its
13:59 13:59 - good and bad parts and so for example in The Iliad which is a famous uh War epic written by the Greek poet Homer call it
14:08 14:08 - Circa 800 BC um you know uh aliot is all about uh you know glory on the battlefield uh this is the siege of Troy
14:16 14:16 - by the Greeks and um Zeus comes off looking kind of like a big meanie um you know he’s he’s kind of sitting back and
14:23 14:23 - watching the Greeks and the Trojans destroy each other um and you know there isn’t this sense of fundamental justice
14:31 14:31 - but basically Zeus gets angry um Zeus is capricious in the way that humans are they don’t transcend you know the the
14:39 14:39 - flaws of humanity but okay so all that you know I guess I don’t want to get to off topic but our God is not like that
14:47 14:47 - right our god is perfect and just and infinite so that he is Nothing Like Us right in our fallen sinful State um and
14:59 14:59 - more to the point among the people in the godhead among the Father the Son and the spirit they share this this Unity of
15:06 15:06 - perfect will of perfection in a way that we can’t even comprehend um so it’s not even like you know siblings or friends
15:15 15:15 - who know each other really well who tend to you know agree more than they disagree it is perfect unity and that is
15:21 15:21 - fundamentally different than relationships that we can understand as humans because we don’t have those in
15:26 15:26 - our own lives there is no equivalent to this and this is another way in which God is completely
15:35 15:35 - unique right so the first place that we are going to turn here um in establishing
15:45 15:45 - this again we are talking about how God being three in person does not mean that we have three different gods well we’re
15:51 15:51 - g to again be focusing on this sense that the father is God and the son is God and the spirit is God so they’re all
15:58 15:58 - gods which means that they share the same Essence they’re all the same being and
16:03 16:03 - so this is uh one of the the classic verses in the Old Testament that talks about um God being one um and so uh
16:12 16:12 - something that Audi had actually brought up off the recording you know in between time here I just thought it Bears
16:17 16:17 - mentioning here is how unique this is among world religions um so for uh the unity that we have um you know this mono
16:28 16:28 - theism is what you know the sociologists and historians will call it um is such a a different Force than all of the
16:36 16:36 - religions around them and so it always put Israel in conflict with the Canaanites or the Hittites for example
16:43 16:43 - because you know the Israelites were at least they’re supposed to be monotheistic versus these other cultures
16:48 16:48 - which were not it is a fundamental incompatibility right and in that um in this verse in Deuteronomy chapter 4 so
16:58 16:58 - uh we are given to know that he is God and there is no other beside him um you know I think there’s other places in
17:04 17:04 - Deuteronomy um in uh you know the pentti the earliest books of the Bible that make it real clear that um you know as
17:11 17:11 - God had revealed himself to the Hebrew people there was one God and only one God and that made him very distinct from
17:19 17:19 - you know all of the other people groups around them um in Canaan even in Egypt um so you know
17:29 17:29 - with other things that we’ve talked about before the father is usually pretty easy here right when we say the
17:34 17:34 - father is god father being the the representation of deity as AI has put it before well yeah you like we don’t have
17:42 17:42 - to try too hard to show that one um so this is one example as in other places we could aduce verse after verse after
17:51 17:51 - verse that would support this point as well um in fact we already have more or less and this none of this should seem
17:56 17:56 - like completely new to us because we’ve already gone through and established that the father is God and that the son
18:01 18:01 - is God and the spirit is God but the point that we’re kind of emphasizing now is that because they are all God they
18:07 18:07 - are united in essence it means that they’re not three separate persons that’s what we’re getting at now
18:14 18:14 - but anything more to say on the father specifically oh no I don’t think so yeah I mean like I say this one probably the
18:24 18:24 - easiest of the members of the Trinity to get behind how the father is god um because the father is the one who acts
18:31 18:31 - as the representation of deity the one um who is separate from the world now uh stands behind that Veil um the one who
18:40 18:40 - kind of manifests the authority of the godhead so well we’ll leave this here and uh we will pick up talking about the
18:48 18:48 - Son and the spirit also being God meaning that they are also uh joint partakers of the same Essence rather
18:56 18:56 - than being separate beings so next we’re going to be talking about the father and the son and in fact this
19:05 19:05 - verse right here this is John chapter 10 verse3 where Jesus says I and the father are one um you know to the point that
19:14 19:14 - people sometimes say that Jesus never claims to be God you know I don’t I don’t know exactly what they make of
19:20 19:20 - this verse then but um this is very literally the point that we are talking about right now where Jesus doesn’t say
19:29 19:29 - I am a being of deity on equal status with the father you know so if that were the case you know if we were speaking of
19:40 19:40 - three separate beings who had similar Essence right the the not uh God is made up of three persons who are joint
19:48 19:48 - partakers of the same Essence but if we were actually talking about three separate Gods so to speak this verse
19:53 19:53 - makes absolutely no sense because Jesus would have to instead claim that he was a being on par with the father you know
20:02 20:02 - that he and the father had equal abilities uh equal character you know that they were similar but that they
20:09 20:09 - were not the same but Jesus doesn’t claim that Jesus says that he and the father are one he is God and in fact
20:17 20:17 - getting this point wrong it it you know like you can’t you can’t responsibly interpret when Jesus claims this when he
20:23 20:23 - claims to be God um in the Gospel of John and people want to Stone him it it no sense unless his audience understood
20:31 20:31 - what he was claiming right because the very fact that they got so enraged about this was because Jesus wasn’t claiming
20:39 20:39 - to be you know like someone God sent or you know another being he was claiming to be God to be in Union with God and
20:47 20:47 - that’s what affronted the Jews so much was that they understood exactly what he was claiming but he was claiming to be
20:55 20:55 - one with God you know like that’s what got them so so angry um and that’s what this verse says so yeah yeah in fact
21:04 21:04 - he he they he actually he actually appealed to Psalm 82 where it says um you are Gods so because of of you know
21:16 21:16 - how the sorts of gymnastics that people have pulled on that passage I’m trying to say yeah he really meant this no he
21:24 21:24 - really meant that he didn’t really mean this and that and so on but he actually said to explain what he said that if
21:34 21:34 - those to whom the word of God came where Gods how much more the person that God himself Sanctified and sent into the
21:43 21:43 - world that is to say he’s saying I and the father are one is actually more than just being told you are Gods he was
21:52 21:52 - saying what the father is I am too yeah that’s that’s pretty tic so his deity is declared
22:03 22:03 - without we we were looking at um let see this particular verse was uh you know verse 30 I and the father are
22:12 22:12 - one so they wanted to Stone him she says I love this she just asked him for which good work are you stoning me you know um
22:21 22:21 - and they say and this is what I mean about them understanding what it was he was claiming they say we’re not stoning
22:26 22:26 - you for any good work but because because uh you’re blaspheming you a mere man claim to be God that that sentence
22:34 22:34 - there doesn’t make sense unless they understood what he was claiming and they understood that he was claiming that he
22:39 22:39 - himself was God right it’s not that he was a God that he was a creature sent by God but that he was God um and that yes
22:48 22:48 - you know it’s exactly what we’re establishing here right I mean and then here’s what AI said Jesus reasoning with
22:53 22:53 - them about the quote from Psalm 82 um so why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I Saidi not God’s son do not
23:01 23:01 - believe me unless I do the works of my father but if I do them even though you do not believe me believe the works that
23:06 23:06 - you may know and understand that the father is in me and I in the father right now I should say just by point of
23:14 23:14 - reference that when we talk about being indwell by the Holy Spirit and we say the spirit’s within us that that’s
23:20 23:20 - different than what this means you know in yeah to use the philosophical jargon in an ontological sense this is a
23:27 23:27 - different claim than that claim right yeah yeah and so maybe a bit pedantic but the point is is
23:34 23:34 - that Jesus very explicitly In this passage in John chapter 10 is claiming that he is not like a being on par with
23:42 23:42 - God that God sent or whatever that he is God he and the father are one they have complete Unity which ontologically
23:50 23:50 - Speaking means that they share the same Essence they are the same being it’s what it has to mean because if Jesus
23:55 23:55 - refers to the father as a separate person yet says he is one with him that’s where
24:01 24:01 - we get different persons but same Essence from um yeah yeah all right what is what is the word for where he’s
24:10 24:10 - saying that uh you are Gods you’re all gods is that l so in the Hebrew it would be Elohim
24:19 24:19 - plural probably in the Greek I’m assuming it’s the plural here if you’re talking because this quote in John 10 is
24:25 24:25 - a quote um even if a not a word for word quote from the suant I’m guessing that this word
24:31 24:31 - here now I me here I can look it up so what is this this is verse John 10:34 I bet it’s the plural of Theos
24:41 24:41 - um that would have to do with um the nature right our ability to choose the image of God Genesis
24:52 24:52 - 1:27 talks about that um we are Godlike in our choice at least that’s certainly how ikus takes it um well the English
25:00 25:00 - uses it as a little G that’s what I say the little G Gods the little little G Gods indeed
25:07 25:07 - um there there’s also it is the plural of Theos so yeah there’s also um the bit that yes we have the power to choose and
25:21 25:21 - to respond to God’s Authority but we all the people specifically to whom this was said in p
25:28 25:28 - 82 and um to whom Jesus was referring um in John 10 were God’s deputies you know the rulers in the world those you know
25:39 25:39 - like when the Bible said in is to God sits in his Council you know and um he is saying to them uh basically be be
25:51 25:51 - just be fair in in your conduct don’t oppress and so on and so forth he was speaking to
25:58 25:58 - the the rulers in the nations of the world so when Jesus says um you are gods in that sense he’s speaking to people
26:08 26:08 - it’s just like some of the conversations that we’ve had about uh um uh submitting to governments and all
26:17 26:17 - of those in authority and stuff like that because essentially they have this divine right to command so to speak to
26:28 26:28 - expect to be obeyed so that’s the sort of thing that Jesus is referring to if these ones to whom the word of God came
26:36 26:36 - were gods and the scriptures cannot be broken he said how much more the one whom God sets apart for himself for him
26:46 26:46 - as his very own and sent forth into the world that is to say if those ones are Gods you should know that I’m more than
26:55 26:55 - they are I am actually the same as the father is they are gods in a derivative sense because they are
27:03 27:03 - sharing in Divine Authority I’m not just sharing in Divine Authority I own it just as the father does mine is not
27:13 27:13 - derivative is what he was saying and the works that he was doing Pro proved it that his word was
27:22 27:22 - true yeah yeah right indeed um so couple other verses here that I
27:30 27:30 - had added these this was the one I mean none of this that we’re talking about is completely distinct from anything we’ve
27:37 27:37 - talked about before uh which is why you know we’re not maybe just not like paragraphs and paragraphs for each point
27:43 27:43 - I had pulled in just a couple other verses um there’s this verse in Colossians chapter 2 that talks about
27:49 27:49 - how in Christ uh basically is the full the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form within the person of Jesus Christ
27:57 27:57 - right um whatever that means it it does not mean that Jesus is a separate God from
28:03 28:03 - the father right um if you hold that point of view then what in the world does this verse mean it just doesn’t
28:10 28:10 - make sense right um also Philippians chapter 2 ver 6 um this says Jesus existed in the form of God and did not
28:20 28:20 - regard equality with God a thing to be grasp right if Jesus were a separate God rather than being himself God you know
28:28 28:28 - being a joint partaker of the same Essence as the father why how could we say that he exists in the form of God
28:35 28:35 - what would that even mean it just doesn’t make sense um so yeah just establishing the point here that once
28:43 28:43 - again we’re back to that interpretive um what I would say the principle of if you start trying to Monkey around with the
28:49 28:49 - definition of the Trinity suddenly a whole bunch of passages in the Bible no longer make sense you know you have to
28:55 28:55 - go through great gymnastics to explain a way the fact that they seem to contradict
29:00 29:00 - whatever interpretation you’re pushing is these are just several examples of what in the world does John 10:30 mean
29:07 29:07 - if Jesus is you know a being distinct from the father you know how can he be one with the father if he’s a separate
29:13 29:13 - being from the father it just doesn’t make sense uh these other two verses that I pulled in here as well again
29:18 29:18 - these weren’t in the study directly I just thought they were good cross references neither of these really make
29:23 29:23 - sense either if you say that Jesus is somehow a being with similar Essence to but not the same Essence as the father
29:29 29:29 - that he’s not one with the father he’s just like the father then how is there one deity then
29:35 29:35 - it just it doesn’t compute it doesn’t make sense and and we’ve argued before in this series that we’ve been going
29:41 29:41 - through that that’s the problem anytime you change around anything with a three person’s one Essence bit of the Trinity
29:48 29:48 - you you suddenly all these passes stop making sense and yeah that is like the clear message that you can’t do that
29:55 29:55 - that that’s just not true and that’s why this idea that the Trinity somehow like is a derivative thing that we just like
30:02 30:02 - made up after the fact or whatever just it it doesn’t fly because the Trinity is all over the place in the Bible
30:08 30:08 - Understanding the correct nature of the trinity in terms of what the Bible teaches isn’t something that a church
30:14 30:14 - Council like voted was true four centuries after the fact or whatever it’s been true since the very beginning
30:20 30:20 - since the New Testament was first penned and in fact since beginning of creation because God has always been this way and
30:27 30:27 - the B clearly speaks of him in this way so yeah yeah so uh now we’re going to be talking
30:38 30:38 - about adding the Holy Spirit to the mix here so we had previously just argued that the Bible makes it real clear that
30:45 30:45 - Jesus claims to be one with God he claims to be God in a way that is very distinct from somehow being like a
30:52 30:52 - separate a separate God like on the same level as God the Father um but that Jesus claimed to be God um ontologically
31:01 31:01 - speaking so to say um and so now we’re going to be talking about the same concept as it applies to the Holy Spirit
31:07 31:07 - and so uh the passage of the Bible that Dr lugan bille quotes here in the study is John chapter 14 vers 16 and 17 uh
31:16 31:16 - which says I will ask the father so this is Jesus speaking I will ask the father and he will give you another comforter
31:21 31:21 - to be with you forever the spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive for it neither sees him nor knows him him
31:27 31:27 - but you know him for he abides with you and will be in you um so to the point that we are establishing that the spirit
31:36 31:36 - is one with the father and the son um you know we’ve used this passage previously um in our lessons here to
31:42 31:42 - establish that the spirit is a different person from the father and the son right because how can the son send himself or
31:50 31:50 - how can you know or sorry how can the son request himself be sent and how can the father send himself you know so that
31:57 31:57 - that’s what we mean by the spirit’s a separate person um there are some some other verses here that I brought up um
32:03 32:03 - but First Peter chapter 1 verse 21 is talking about inspiration and uh the inspiration of prophets uh it says that
32:12 32:12 - no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from
32:17 32:17 - God equating the Holy Spirit and God right um also Acts chapter 5 um we we’ve talked about this passage before when we
32:26 32:26 - were discussing that all three members of the Trinity were God which is really not a different point than what we’re
32:32 32:32 - talking about in this lesson I mean sort of I suppose in how you phrase it but um all three members of the Trinity being
32:38 32:38 - God implicitly means that all three you know members of the Trinity share the same Essence um but this is where um uh
32:46 32:46 - when ananas and saf were holding back the proceeds from the land that they sold um it basically equates lying to
32:54 32:54 - the holy spirit with lying to God um directly and so again direct evidence that the holy spirit is God he’s not
33:02 33:02 - he’s not a being similar in essence to the father and the son but he is God in the same way that the father is God and
33:10 33:10 - the son is God but they are not each other um and finally uh this other verse that we’ve also talked about repeatedly
33:18 33:18 - in our lessons here um uh the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28 talking about how we are baptized in the name of
33:26 33:26 - the father so we’ve talked before about how there’s a single name it’s one name in the Greek but it applies to the
33:32 33:32 - father and the Son and the Holy Spirit so it’s not the name of the father and then like a separate name for the son
33:38 33:38 - and a separate name for the Holy Spirit but that same name applies to all three of them and it applies to all three of
33:43 33:43 - them equally without disparity here right they share this name which only makes sense if they are of the same
33:51 33:51 - Essence if they are the same being um so um it’s sort of like an amalgamation here of of points of verses that support
34:01 34:01 - this concept but again this is not some great thing that we’re establishing you know like we are completely turning
34:08 34:08 - interpretation on his head or anything this is literally no more than just like the son the holy spirit is God he you
34:16 34:16 - know he shares the same Essence with the father and the son they are joint partakers of the same Essence that’s the
34:22 34:22 - terminology that you’ll hear used and therefore they are all God they are all uh beings with the they
34:30 34:30 - are one being with the same Essence um even though as this verse in John 14 makes clear they are different persons
34:38 34:38 - um so do you have anything to add to any of this or like that’s not much I mean I think we we
34:48 34:48 - could go through a laundry list of of passages in the scriptures that show this the Holy Spirit acting as God being
34:56 34:56 - addressed as God and speaking as God it’s it’s it’s hardly I mean when these things actually begin to you know um
35:08 35:08 - really come into their own is in the face of opposition that’s when we start to see that it makes no sense when you
35:16 35:16 - read the Bible with some conception that the holy spirit is not God we’ve talked about um earlier how even if you were to
35:27 35:27 - go and use extreme translations of the Bible that were made specifically to attack the Trinity among other things
35:36 35:36 - that that Christians believe for example the new world translation from Jehovah’s Witnesses you will keep seeing that if
35:47 35:47 - you were to try to eliminate biblical evidence for the deity of the Holy Spirit or of Jesus
35:57 35:57 - Christ you end up in an intractable position where very little in the Bible makes sense and you find yourself
36:04 36:04 - preaching things you don’t actually claim to believe so for example in the matter of the sun they would say we
36:12 36:12 - don’t believe we’re talking about the Jehovah’s Witness we don’t believe in uh polytheism there is only one God but
36:20 36:20 - then they go right ahead and make Jesus a God in John 1 verse1 because they can’t stand John 1 vers1 actually
36:28 36:28 - reading that Jesus is God right so they have to make him a God now if you were to go to Hebrews where we have the Holy
36:36 36:36 - Spirit speaking as God Hebrews chapter 3 I believe it was where he said um they may um how do they put it something like
36:47 36:47 - um uh don’t be like your fathers in the day that they had they they annoyed me or something like that he was speaking
36:56 36:56 - as if he was God now they don’t even believe that the holy spirit is a person now how would they translate everything
37:05 37:05 - that actually presents the Bible everything in the Bible that actually presents the Holy Spirit not only
37:12 37:12 - speaking as a person but speaking as God I don’t know how they would manage it when he is not even a person in their
37:18 37:18 - view so we find that whenever you go to such extremes just as as um Steven has said you will find that a lot of things
37:27 37:27 - in the Bible seize to make sense so it makes sense to take what the Bible says on its face that the father is God the
37:38 37:38 - son is God the holy spirit is God the three of them are distinct individuals they are distinct persons in their own
37:47 37:47 - right but they are not three different gods because the Bible declares without question that there is one God
37:57 37:57 - so we have um a very solid uh proof in the as far as the scriptures go if we are taking the scriptures word for it
38:07 38:07 - then the Holy Spirit definitely is God just like the father and the son both are as
38:15 38:15 - well so just to that’s the wrong one this set of slides here so this section that we’ve been going through today
38:22 38:22 - talking about how they’re all joint partakers of the same Essence um I just want to be C in case any people coming
38:28 38:28 - behind in these lessons are wondering this this past lesson we did where we established that all three members of
38:33 38:33 - the Trinity are deity is actually the basically it’s the same point that they’re joint partakers of the same
38:39 38:39 - Essence because when we say they are all God what we mean by that is that they are all the same being you know they are
38:46 38:46 - all deity in the sense that they are God right so all these verses that we went through before are really you know like
38:53 38:53 - all of these that teach the Trinity the father is God the son is God the holy spirit is god well all of these claims
39:00 39:00 - that you know the father is deity and the son is deity and the Holy Spirit is deity that they’re all God that they are
39:05 39:05 - all addressed as God proper all of those really apply here as well um yeah um it’s not it’s not like um what I would
39:16 39:16 - to say like the the mechanism is different here or whatever um so the reason why we’re wording this this way
39:23 39:23 - is the lesson right before this one we were talking about how they’re co-equal co-eternal
39:27 39:27 - consubstantial they share that Essence right um and we’re just basically this section has been worded in such a way
39:35 39:35 - that we are opposing the notion of pantheons we are opposing the very idea that um the members of the Trinity are
39:45 39:45 - separate Gods um but it’s not really a fundamental different teaching than that all members of the Trinity are God it’s
39:52 39:52 - the same thing it’s just opposing sort of a a different heresy um because the heresy that this this first set was kind
40:00 40:00 - of getting at was for example saying that the son wasn’t even God to begin with it’s kind of a different way it’s
40:05 40:05 - kind of a different heresy than saying that the son is a God but just a different God than the father see what
40:10 40:10 - I’m saying um yeah and and so that’s kind of why the study was set up how it was I mean actually I can’t pretend to
40:16 40:16 - speak for Dr luging bill that’s my guess because most of these sections have been of kind of organized in terms of
40:21 40:21 - combating past heresy on these matters um but basically saying that all three members
40:28 40:28 - of the Trinity are are deity is what the other section was getting at and that was dealing with for example Jesus
40:36 40:36 - Christ was actually God not just a human being and he you know like the holy spirit is God as in you know like rather
40:44 40:44 - than not being god um versus what we’re talking about now are is that the father and the son and the spirit are all of
40:51 40:51 - the same Essence which is also saying that they’re all God but it’s saying as a opposed to the son somehow being a
40:58 40:58 - separate God from the father it’s just a little bit of a different thing is all but all of the evidence to get us to the
41:05 41:05 - right interpretation that the father and the son and the spirit all share one Essence and they are all God it’s the
41:10 41:10 - same it’s the same general thing that’s what I’m trying to say yeah yeah all right anything else on the spirit or is
41:18 41:18 - that where we’ll kind of cut it here for this point yeah I’m
41:25 41:25 - done all right so this lesson we have been examining how God is three in person but
41:33 41:33 - that does not mean that the Trinity is composed of three or more different gods and kind of as I just closed on and the
41:40 41:40 - very last thing we talked about was pointing out how this is a little bit of a distinct thing from talking about the
41:46 41:46 - Divinity of Jesus Christ in the spirit for example in that we have been arguing that um we are not merely talking about
41:54 41:54 - um you know like the capability and status of the Son and the spirit but that they share the same Essence and
42:00 42:00 - that’s sort of arguing against a different heresy than that Jesus wasn’t even Divine to begin with like the arens
42:06 42:06 - might say um so in this lesson we’ve gone through been establishing how uh the father is uh you know said to be God
42:14 42:14 - as particularly uh you know even before we had more explicit Revelation in the New Testament um the Jewish people being
42:22 42:22 - monotheistic made this such a shocking claim in the culture around them and then we talked about how Jesus very
42:29 42:29 - obviously claims not to be a God but he claims to be God and this is part of the reason why um the crowds in John chapter
42:36 42:36 - 10 you know sought to Stone him because they knew exactly what he was saying they knew what he meant and he was
42:41 42:41 - claiming that he was God that he and the father are one so what John 10:30 says and then finally we talked about how um
42:49 42:49 - the holy spirit is obviously God as well um verses that we’ve gone over before that establish the fact that he is god
42:55 42:55 - um and how all of this ties back together to give us this notion that rather than being three separate beings
43:02 43:02 - three separate Gods the Father the Son and the spirit are all the same being they are joint Partiers of the same
43:10 43:10 - Essence right that’s kind of what I titled this section joint partakers of the same Essence which is just kind of
43:15 43:15 - theological jargon for saying that they are one person United in essence even though they are three separate persons
43:23 43:23 - um and so that is kind of where we are going to be wrapping up um the last uh of these lessons where we’ve been going
43:31 43:31 - through uh kind of some things that the Trinity is not to kind of help throw into sharper relief uh what the Trinity
43:38 43:38 - actually teaches so that we can make better sense of that three person’s one Essence um so we’ve been on that for uh
43:44 43:44 - maybe three or four lessons now you know we’ve been going through some of these points about um the nature of the
43:49 43:49 - Trinity and next we’ll be moving on to kind of examining the Trinity a bit more in scripture and how God operates and
43:56 43:56 - things like that so this is kind of a a uh soft uh not stop but a transition point for us in our study um as this
44:05 44:05 - lesson kind of closes this section where we’ve been talking about um basically these these points uh about what the
44:12 44:12 - Trinity is not so with that um I hope um everyone picks up next time when we start diving a bit more into how the
44:20 44:20 - Trinity shows up in the Bible specifically

Introduction - The Trinity in the Bible

Video

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Summary

In this lesson, we go over how the Trinity can be a tricky concept to understand and explain, which makes it very important to keep our focus on the Bible when discussing it. Otherwise, we might otherwise end up off in the weeds, which is certainly not where we want to be in our understanding of this core doctrine of Christianity.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
01:16 01:16 - Review
03:12 03:12 - The Trinity can be hard to explain properly
12:16 12:16 - So keeping the focus on the Bible is necessary
25:35 25:35 - Is Jesus “the Father’s seed”? Is the Holy Spirit “the Father’s spirit”?
36:24 36:24 - Summary and outro

Content (click to show)

Content

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

Review

Trinity > Definition

The definition of the Trinity which best does justice to the biblical statements on the subject is the one we have previously stated, namely, that God is one in essence and three in person. We get an even clearer picture of what the Bible has to say about the Trinity when we combine this traditional definition with the four corollaries we’ve just gone through:

All three members of the Trinity are divine persons.
All three members of the Trinity are unique persons.
All three members of the Trinity have coequal and coeternal essence.
All three members of the Trinity share the same divine essence.

The Trinity can be hard to explain properly

Limited human perspective > Makes some teachings hard to understand

As can be seen from the numerous heresies (touched on some in our previous lessons) that have sprung up to challenge orthodox statements about the Trinity, the doctrine can be a difficult one to state in a proper, biblical way. This is especially true the further any definition of the Trinity moves away from actual statements contained in the Bible (which, as we have already stated, were felt to be sufficient by the Apostles and Apostolic Fathers).

It should be noted here that even the terms “essence” and “person” were felt by some theologians of the early church to be controversial. We may talk of Man’s essence (we are all cut from the same spiritual cloth), and Man’s personality (we are all unique individuals), but the essence of God is different from the essence of Man (for one thing, all members of the Trinity share the same divine essence), and the idea of personality in the Trinity is different from that of human persons (to take but one example, the absolute unity of agreement and purpose of the Trinity throughout all eternity is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively beyond human experience).

So keeping the focus on the Bible is necessary

Philosophy > Perils of getting off in the weeds Central doctrines to the Christian faith > Satan attacks more fiercely

The lesson here is that rationalistic speculation—always dangerous when expounding the Bible—is even more to be avoided in the case of the Trinity, a doctrine that was only fully revealed with the arrival of the New Testament. What God has chosen to reveal about this doctrine, He has revealed carefully and gradually. We will cover the subject of the Trinity in the Old Testament more fully in future lessons, but it may be said here that a large part of the reason for this guarded revelation of the doctrine (beyond our human limitations in comprehending it) may be the all too obvious fact (see our prior discussions) that wrong ideas about the nature of the Trinity have historically posed such a dire threat to the entire basis of our Christian faith.

Just a little leaven in the loaf, and Satan can make the Trinity seem as an association of “gods” (and so no different from paganism) or one “god” with three hats (thus completely eliminating the importance and efficacy of Christ’s incarnation and sacrifice).

In His loving wisdom, God has told us what we most need to know without giving us either information that could be misinterpreted, or less than accurate illustrations that might do more harm than good.

Is Jesus “the Father’s seed”? Is the Holy Spirit “the Father’s spirit”?

Incarnation > It is only Jesus' human nature that was created/begotten Trinity > All members share the same essence

Note

This is a video-only section.

With respect to His humanity, Jesus is the Son of the Father. With respect to His deity, He is of equal standing with the Father. The titles Father and Son are tied to the roles that the members of the Trinity adopt in their redemptive plan within Creation.

The Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son rather than somehow ontologically originating from them. He is “theirs” in the sense of being related to them/sent by them, as opposed to be related to someone else. Think of it in terms of grammatical apposition—“the Spirit, the one related to Jesus and/or the Father” (as opposed to some other spirit).

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:00 00:00 - all right so right now we are going to be picking up with our next lesson in the series talking about the trinity in
00:06 00:06 - the Bible as a concept now we have already been talking about the Trinity for a while now uh you know the members
00:14 00:14 - of the Trinity the definition of the Trinity basically uh three persons one Essence and some of what that means but
00:20 00:20 - in this lesson we are going to be going over a little bit more specifically about uh how the Bible discusses or
00:28 00:28 - rather does not discuss the concepts so explicitly and what that means when we go about talking about it for us as
00:34 00:34 - Christians and so we’re going to first off just be reviewing what we’ve already gone over so this is the more
00:40 00:40 - definitional side of the Trinity I’m going over three persons one Essence and some of the kind of uh features of a
00:47 00:47 - correct understanding of the Trinity that we’ve been going over in the last few lessons then we’re going to be
00:52 00:52 - talking about kind of why the Trinity can be hard to explain properly and then why that truth means that we really need
00:59 00:59 - to keep our f focus on the Bible when we are talking about it so rather than man-made analogies or rational
01:07 01:07 - explanations from uh philosophy and things like that we need to keep our focus on what scripture says so that’s
01:14 01:14 - what we’re going to be discussing in this lesson so the first thing that we’re
01:21 01:21 - going to do here is just review what we’ve been talking about in the last few lessons probably won’t overly belabor
01:27 01:27 - things here because we’ve already been through all of this but we’re just going to go ahead and hit the highlights just
01:32 01:32 - to remind ourselves of exactly what the Trinity is so that when we’re talking about uh you know how the Bible views it
01:40 01:40 - we kind of know what’s in view so the definition of the Trinity which best does Justice to the biblical statements
01:46 01:46 - on the subject it’s the one that we’ve already kind of been repeating over and over uh is that one in essence and three
01:52 01:52 - in person or three in person and one in essence that is the core definition of the Trinity we get an even clearer
01:58 01:58 - picture of what the Bible has to say about uh this topic when we combine that traditional definition that we just said
02:05 02:05 - kind of with the four cories that we have gone over in the last few lessons and so just to recap those uh we said
02:11 02:11 - that all members in the Trinity are Divine persons all members of the Trinity are unique persons all members
02:18 02:18 - of the Trinity have uh co-equal and co-eternal Essence a consubstantial and then this third point is that all
02:26 02:26 - members of the Trinity share the same Divine Essence so these should sound familiar these are the points that we’ve
02:32 02:32 - gone over in the last few lessons kind of defining the trinity in terms of some things that’s not right and we have
02:39 02:39 - discussed some heresies involved in some of these things in the past so for example one heresy denies that Jesus was
02:48 02:48 - God aryanism uh you know that would be this first topic here going over the Divine persons and you know various
02:55 02:55 - other heresies besides dotism some other ones as well um so this this is what we have done already been defining the
03:02 03:02 - Trinity um three persons one Essence and then discussing some cories to that definition that help us kind of flesh
03:10 03:10 - out the topic uh in a little bit more depth so as to the First new point that we’re going to be going over this week
03:20 03:20 - having just done this review of what we have been talking about we’re going to be talking about how the Trinity can be
03:26 03:26 - kind of hard to explain properly um and one in point that that should kind of make this uh have an intuitive basis for
03:35 03:35 - us when we consider past history is that there have been a lot of heresies in the past that have sprung up to challenge
03:42 03:42 - Orthodox statements about the Trinity um and there are other areas that are somewhat comparable in scripture but
03:49 03:49 - this proposition that we’re kind of putting forward here that the Trinity can be kind of hard to explain properly
03:55 03:55 - well it makes intuitive sense when you compare this history that people have in the past understood it in various
04:02 04:02 - problematic ways which kind of wouldn’t be the case if it were uh perhaps more clearly delineated and we have already
04:09 04:09 - argued the point that the Bible just presupposes the Trinity it’s there in scripture um you know the fact that that
04:16 04:16 - word isn’t used doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t teach it things like that but the point that we’re making is that
04:23 04:23 - people wouldn’t have problems with it uh you know if it was like stated in one sentence you know just like that um now
04:31 04:31 - we have to be careful because this this line of what I would call inferential thinking about I don’t know how direct
04:37 04:37 - or objective the Bible might be about something it gets complicated when you consider that Satan probably sinks more
04:43 04:43 - of his resources towards challenging things that are really important and specifically the Divinity of the son the
04:50 04:50 - Divinity of Jesus Christ is a very very important Doctrine for us as Christians you know Salvation hinges upon
04:57 04:57 - understanding who Jesus was and what he did for us for us and so it’s no surprise that Satan has also sunk
05:03 05:03 - resources in his world system in empowering heresy empowering errors and Doctrine towards attacking this point as
05:11 05:11 - well so it’s not only uh and we should just be clear about that it’s not only that the Trinity can be kind of hard to
05:18 05:18 - talk about and explain it’s also that Satan has been trying to uh get people to stumble in this area because it’s so
05:25 05:25 - important um but the main point uh just to pull us back back towards the text of the slide a bit here is that um this
05:34 05:34 - challenge that we have sometimes in explaining exactly what it is you know stating in a proper biblical way um this
05:41 05:41 - is true especially the further any definition of the Trinity moves away for what the Bible actually says um and
05:49 05:49 - that’s because this topic is inherently hard for us to think about as humans the second that you step off of that path of
05:56 05:56 - what the Bible actually says is really easy to start more is just making things up because when we try to make sense of
06:02 06:02 - it in our heads we we try to fill in blanks and and what we put in those blanks if it’s not based directly on the
06:10 06:10 - Bible is just inherently suspect because of this um and um you know this is just reiterating what we’ve already said here
06:18 06:18 - that um uh the statements of the Bible were taken to be sufficient by the apostles and Apostolic fathers that’s
06:24 06:24 - why we don’t get a lot of discussion about the Trinity and you know combating heresies involving it until those
06:31 06:31 - heresies actually pop up in more like second third Century sort of thing um now it should be noted that the
06:38 06:38 - definition that we use here for the trinity in terms of persons in essence well you know what’s a what’s Essence
06:45 06:45 - and what’s a person you know um these terms were felt by some theologians of the early church to be controversial now
06:53 06:53 - just because some people say that doesn’t mean that they really are I at least not in my opinion but nonetheless
06:59 06:59 - people people do present challenges based on what we would call defining terms here and just to give an example
07:06 07:06 - here of why the Trinity is hard for us to discuss as human beings is that well if we talk about Essence in terms of
07:13 07:13 - human beings man’s Essence um we are all cut from the same spiritual cloth that is um you know my spiritual makeup is
07:21 07:21 - the same as AI is the same as other human beings in the church uh we all have this similar spiritual composition
07:29 07:29 - our Essence is of of a Kind right we are like one another in this way spiritually and we all have um personalities as well
07:40 07:40 - we are all Unique Individuals I am not the same as someone else but when we kind of start turning this same this uh
07:49 07:49 - uh looking at this uh in terms of God rather than man well the essence of God is just fundamentally different from the
07:57 07:57 - essence of man so just how we have um similar Essences right but um the important points were not the same well
08:05 08:05 - all of the members of the Trinity actually share the same Essence there is no human correlat for that that’s just
08:11 08:11 - not how human beings are composed right so I have um you know a unique nature given to me by God um you know the
08:19 08:19 - spirit and the flesh compose me as a human being same deal with all other human beings but we are we don’t share
08:25 08:25 - that unity in essence that God does and with regards to persons or personality in the Trinity that’s different than
08:33 08:33 - human persons as well because the persons of the Trinity have absolute Unity of agreement and purpose to a
08:41 08:41 - degree that just completely boggles that of humans um so even people who agree for example religiously or politically
08:49 08:49 - or even married couples who tend to agree with each other uh even those sorts of relationships don’t have
08:56 08:56 - anywhere near the same Unity as is present in the Trinity um and so it’s not only quantitatively it is also
09:04 09:04 - qualitatively Beyond The Human Experience uh God is fundamentally different from us so maybe that was a
09:11 09:11 - little bit rambly but the point of all of this is that the Trinity um you know even despite saying that um you know the
09:18 09:18 - statements in the Bible are sufficient unto themselves we don’t have to go try to build a huge framework around it we
09:23 09:23 - can be open and honest in saying that the Trinity can be difficult to talk about sometimes that is just facet of um
09:30 09:30 - this particular Doctrine for us and that doesn’t trouble us theologically so much because we know that sometimes God lays
09:37 09:37 - things out in such a way that we need to be persistent in seeking the truth uh to come to full understanding um and
09:46 09:46 - it’s uh sort of set up in the manner that um it rewards those who seek him um and we have a necessary part in that we
09:54 09:54 - need to do our homework to actually do that seeking and that’s why uh we can kind of simultaneously say that the
10:01 10:01 - statements in the Bible are perfectly clear especially once you take the time to kind of line them up and and look
10:06 10:06 - into them and see how it fits together yet at the same time uh it can be easy to get off the right path if you’re not
10:13 10:13 - careful in how you talk about it so um that is kind of this this introduction here uh towards what we’re
10:21 10:21 - going to be talking about this week aie do you have any follow on points to anything I’ve said here
10:27 10:27 - um just like said it’s just essentially to reiterate that the point of discussing it is
10:35 10:35 - to um sort of uh cut offut cut the ground from
10:45 10:45 - under the feet of any of the crazy ideas that people have had about Trinity that’s really the bottom line it’s not
10:55 10:55 - so much to try to give a proper exhaustive explanation that’s impossible to derive from the scriptures but
11:05 11:05 - certainly to make sure that those who are choosing to walk with the Lord know that no it’s not this and it’s not
11:15 11:15 - that it’s something that we will fully appreciate when we stand before the Lord but um for now this is what we do know
11:25 11:25 - and what we can live by so that’s that’s just what I would reiterate yep and you know that point of
11:35 11:35 - what I would call knowledge for this point in time um we know that on the other side we will know more fully you
11:42 11:42 - know not as through a glass Darkly but we will know as we are known um that’s how scripture phrases it and so some of
11:51 11:51 - this we will have a much better appreciation of once we’re no longer so Bound by time and space um not that we
11:58 11:58 - will ever cease to be completely Bound by those even in eternity but we will have a better
12:03 12:03 - appreciation for how this works once we aren’t so finite ourselves um once we aren’t so limited as we are in these
12:11 12:11 - bodies down here in Satan’s World um so yeah given everything that we just talked about about how the Trinity can
12:23 12:23 - be hard to explain properly uh not so much that we can’t explain it or that scripture has to say or that those
12:30 12:30 - things aren’t basically self-evident in themselves so we don’t need Church councils to talk about this all of that
12:36 12:36 - aside the main point is that it’s one of those things that’s kind of easy for us as Christians to get wrong um and part
12:42 12:42 - of that um as we’ve gone over some is just because of how different God is from us and so the lesson that we take
12:50 12:50 - from this should be something along the lines that if we try to speculate about these things what we might call
12:57 12:57 - rationalistic um philosophically we try to wrap our heads around it in terms of human logic that
13:04 13:04 - is sort of always a dangerous Paradigm because God is super logical we might say or theological um it doesn’t mean
13:11 13:11 - he’s he’s illogical but just that he exceeds some of the assumptions of presuppositions we might have or that
13:18 13:18 - might apply to us as humans well it’s even more to be avoided in the case of the Trinity um and we also have to
13:26 13:26 - remember and this makes the Trinity distinct from of some points of biblical Doctrine is that it was really only
13:32 13:32 - fully revealed with the arrival of the New Testament um so what God has chosen to reveal about the doctrine of the
13:39 13:39 - Trinity he has revealed carefully and gradually so not to get too off topic but this thing that we’re talking about
13:46 13:46 - here is typically called in theology progressive revelation um this idea that God didn’t give Humanity all truth up
13:54 13:54 - front you know he didn’t just drop the book from the sky at the beginning of human history but details have emerged
14:00 14:00 - over the course of human history um as God has seen fit to uh to basically give additional prophecy additional Insight
14:08 14:08 - additional um inspired scripture to mankind because the Bible was compiled over a period of many centuries um so
14:16 14:16 - this idea of progressive revelation he has revealed details about the Trinity carefully and gradually over time so
14:23 14:23 - we’re going to talk more about the trinity in the Old Testament uh kind of separate set of lessons in the future
14:29 14:29 - here um you know this this idea of uh theophanes and christophanies and things like that um but we may nonetheless say
14:37 14:37 - here that a large part of the reason for this guarded revelation of the doctrine um just aside from our own limitations
14:43 14:43 - as human beings and comprehending it because God’s infinite uh well one of the other guarded or sorry one of the
14:50 14:50 - other reasons for this guarded Revelation may be the all to obvious fact that wrong ideas about it have
14:57 14:57 - historically posed such a threat to the entire basis of our faith as Christians so basically that um sometimes the
15:06 15:06 - details here aren’t you know what we might say uh uh like they’re not all over the place because people might take
15:16 15:16 - uh some of those things you know a verse here a verse there and then run with them in a way that would cause lots of
15:22 15:22 - theological problems um and that is as we just kind of finished going over that is somewhat due just to the nature of of
15:29 15:29 - this doctrine that we’re talking about that’s just kind of the way it is um because God Is So separate from us his
15:34 15:34 - existence is is fundamentally different God is existence whereas we exist is limited beings tied to space time and
15:41 15:41 - things like this it’s just really easy for people to get off in the Weeds on this one and so some of why the Bible uh
15:48 15:48 - speaks in the way it does may be to give people less ammunition to go get off in the Wheats um and some of that is an
15:57 15:57 - inference you know we don’t like there is no verse in the Bible that says that directly but it makes good logical sense
16:03 16:03 - and um just to elaborate a little bit on the dangers here just a little bit of Leaven in the loaf right using that that
16:10 16:10 - biblical metaphor here just a little leaven in the loaf and Satan can make the Trinity seem as an association of
16:16 16:16 - gods and so basically no different from paganism or Pantheon or no different from one God just wearing Three Hats so
16:25 16:25 - modalism and that completely eliminates the importance and the efficacy of Christ’s Incarnation sacrifice so Jesus
16:32 16:32 - Christ taking on a full human nature alongside his divine nature in theology that that fully God yet fully man and
16:40 16:40 - one being typically called the hypostatic union it’s the jargony way to say it but the Incarnation is very
16:46 16:46 - different um it doesn’t work with what we would call this one being wearing Three Hats it’s just different they’re
16:53 16:53 - different persons um different H Hy I can’t say that word whatever you know that’s what hypostasis means um
17:00 17:00 - different persons and so you know all of this is just going to say that just being a little bit off here just you
17:08 17:08 - know that one detail that you you flip bits on that you get wrong and suddenly you’re you’re right you know you laid
17:15 17:15 - the axe at the base of the tree of salvation for us as Christians because you get stuff here wrong and it kind of
17:23 17:23 - ruins the entire loaf um and so in his loving wisdom God has told us what we most need to know without giving
17:31 17:31 - us either information that could be misinterpreted or that would be prone to overt misinterpretation or less than
17:38 17:38 - accurate illustrations that might do more harm than good so if you read some of what the Bible does say on the
17:45 17:45 - Trinity you know all of the discussion that we’ve already had in our past lesson uh where we talk about some of
17:51 17:51 - what scripture does have to say you know all these passages that seem to just assume three members of the Trinity and
17:56 17:56 - that they’re all co-equal and Co Eternal and things like this they all have the same Authority and therefore God exists
18:03 18:03 - as a triing god QED and some of that um some of the arguments we’ve made the evidence we’ve given forth for um the
18:10 18:10 - the Trinity as it comes from scripture well if you’ve ever wondered why doesn’t God just I don’t know Tred to explain it
18:16 18:16 - to us by analogy well we’re g to get to that a little bit more fully in our next lesson but it’s because nothing he gives
18:24 18:24 - us is inaccurate he he’s not he’s not trying to imperfectly explain himself to us he’s just asserting that it is um and
18:33 18:33 - this is why we say in his wisdom God has told us what we most need to know without giving us information that could
18:39 18:39 - be misinterpreted or without giving us imperfect illustrations or analogies or things like that because he doesn’t need
18:45 18:45 - to because if we seek with the hearts that we ought to as Christians we will eventually come to learn and understand
18:52 18:52 - and comprehend uh what the Bible teaches about this and God doesn’t have to do these things for us to get there
18:59 18:59 - so all of this to say this is why we need to keep our focus on what the Bible actually does say about the Trinity we
19:05 19:05 - don’t need to fill in the gaps here we don’t need to try to come up with these imperfect explanations to explain a
19:11 19:11 - doctrine that will always have that tinge of what I would call impossible to understand for us as humans not that we
19:18 19:18 - can’t understand the points you know as we’ve been hammering home over and over again three persons one Essence we don’t
19:24 19:24 - need to be uncertain about that but the point is what is exactly does it mean for a being to exist external to space
19:31 19:31 - and time well as human beings we don’t have good perspective on that you know we can kind of maybe grasp it
19:36 19:36 - intellectually but we don’t really have a full sense experientially of what that is that sort of thing is what I’m
19:42 19:42 - getting at here but we don’t need to fill in any of the gaps for this we don’t need to try to explain it
19:48 19:48 - imperfectly or uh I don’t know like basically uh just basically say more than what is there and that’s why we
19:56 19:56 - have to stick so closely to exactly what what the Bible says because you go any further than that and you open yourself
20:02 20:02 - up to getting things wrong to misinterpreting to pulling things out of context and because heresy in this
20:08 20:08 - particular area is so damaging to a proper understanding of just the core mechanics of who God is and and how he
20:16 20:16 - saves us we just need to be really careful not to do that um that is the gist of what this slide is talking
20:25 20:25 - about aie you have anything you want to add um just first a slight correction um I I
20:33 20:33 - believe the hypostatic union is actually describing um the uh Union of
20:42 20:42 - two Natures in one person that is uh Jesus was both truly God and truly man that’s what the hypostatic Union as far
20:51 20:51 - as I can remember actually speaks to I me I don’t know exactly what I said but I agree with that so
20:59 20:59 - yeah yeah I just I just wanted to point that out um but everything else you say is exactly on point sticking to what the
21:09 21:09 - scriptures say about um and and this is actually why uh for example just to give us a clue as to as to why it is
21:20 21:20 - important to just stick to what the Bible says and try not to get off in the Weeds about this the Roman Catholic
21:28 21:28 - Church made the business of the Trinity like pretty much their everything in the early stages it was they were they they
21:37 21:37 - essentially seemed to be the Defenders of the Trinity and everybody else everybody who in any way disagreed with
21:45 21:45 - this doctrine of the Trinity was anema an excommunicado and whatnot so there was all sorts of there were all sorts of
21:54 21:54 - things going on with respect to that but these this group of people we talked about have serious trouble with the
22:02 22:02 - business of Salvation accepting that the the cross of Jesus Christ is how we are saved they are also the ones who are
22:11 22:11 - associating Mary with godhead with the godhead in some weird way too so all that tells us there is a degree to which
22:21 22:21 - you will peer at this thing and it will really damage you it is best to stick with what the script have to say
22:29 22:29 - whenever we talk about the analogies involved and whatnot they’re supposed to be teaching AIDS like you can you you
22:37 22:37 - can understand this aspect of it in this way that aspect of of it in that way but it’s not quite like anything in our
22:46 22:46 - experience what God is is very different than anything that we have in our experience so but but
22:54 22:54 - understanding what the scriptures themselves actually say which is this it’s pretty
23:01 23:01 - straightforward in scriptures the father is God the son is God the holy spirit is God the father is not the son the holy
23:12 23:12 - spirit is not the Son and the Holy Spirit is not the father that’s it that’s really all there
23:19 23:19 - is to it for us how this is possible how these three persons are all God and we’re not talking about three Gods is
23:31 23:31 - the stuff we cannot quite W wrap our minds around it’s not what we would expect to find in creation but creation
23:40 23:40 - is different from God so sticking with what the scriptures say and not going beyond what is written which is where we
23:49 23:49 - find um a lot of the denominations that fight over this stuff a lot of the uh Cults that fight over this stuff the
23:58 23:58 - modern day Aran that’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses and all the there is the Jesus only that Jesus is the father and he’s
24:06 24:06 - the Holy Spirit there are crazy all sorts of crazy um interpretations and whatnot for us just stick with what the
24:15 24:15 - scriptures say about this and what they don’t say we don’t need to stress to to stress ourselves about one day we will
24:23 24:23 - be with the Lord and we will understand these things fully now I will say uh bringing up some of the the going Beyond
24:31 24:31 - bits especially with regards to some of these other groups like the Catholics and the Orthodox folks so something that
24:36 24:36 - they get very exercised about is what we might call the origination of the son in the spirit and so you all hear all this
24:45 24:45 - discussion about the Eternal beginning of the sun and the Eternal procession of the spirit and if you don’t know what
24:52 24:52 - those things mean well that’s great because the Bible doesn’t talk about this I mean they they fancy that the
24:57 24:57 - Bible does and they they misinterpret some things to get there but that is what happens when you go beyond that is
25:04 25:04 - what we mean by going Beyond is you know the Bible asserts in in more more or less you know we’ve gone over some of
25:11 25:11 - the places here that the three members of the Trinity are all God they’re all Eternal right why do we why do we bother
25:18 25:18 - figuring out does the son come from the father like what what does that even mean right they’re all God they are
25:25 25:25 - injecting stuff here that doesn’t need to be um that’s what we mean by not going
25:31 25:31 - beyond what is written because as soon as you do you open yourself up to all these problems so we’re gonna actually
25:38 25:38 - pick back up here um in this section with a question and so someone asked uh is it appropriate for us to think about
25:47 25:47 - how the three members of the Trinity are one by thinking of uh Jesus is the Father’s seed and the Holy Spirit is the
25:55 25:55 - Father’s Spirit um and so Audi I’ll give you uh the opportunity to go first and and I’ll I’ll go from
26:05 26:05 - there okay sure um so there is an angle from from which the second appelate applies the first
26:17 26:17 - one never applies in terms of deity that mean that’s the father’s seed that never applies in
26:25 26:25 - deity because the second person of the Trinity is called the son only with respect to his
26:33 26:33 - humanity and when I say that um it’s it’s a bit of it’s it’s something that we might struggle a little bit with
26:44 26:44 - because the Bible does not really would I say make this delineation so to speak but the son is not the son because he
26:55 26:55 - was in any way orig originated by the father that’s not the idea of his sunship it’s the role he plays within
27:05 27:05 - the plan of God for uh creation and the Redemption of human beings and whatnot that’s the role he is associated with
27:16 27:16 - that’s why he’s called the son so if we think of the unity of the godhead and try to explain it in terms of um the son
27:26 27:26 - being the father’s seat that would be not just inappropriate but quite dangerous that’s where the whole
27:35 27:35 - um uh eternally begotten nonsense really comes into play but the father’s spirit that applies if we understand that each
27:47 27:47 - member of the Trinity claims the other so the holy spirit is the Father’s Spirit just like you how would I put it
27:56 27:56 - in a family we would be claiming each other as belonging to each other that’s how we would I mean I don’t want to cut
28:03 28:03 - you off but I I feel like it’s not that I disagree with that but I think when people ask that they may be thinking of
28:10 28:10 - it more from an ontological sense you know like how human beings have flesh and spirit right and we would say the
28:16 28:16 - human Spirit the holy spirit is not like God and we’ve talked about this before in our past lessons it’s not like God
28:22 28:22 - exists as like a shell and then the holy spirit is what gives Spirit to God if that is the sense that that’s not quite
28:30 28:30 - right either but because because equally we could say that the holy spirit is the spirit of
28:36 28:36 - Christ right he’s the spirit Spirit of God and because the father is God and the Christ is God you know like you can
28:43 28:43 - do that equivalency but it’s not like the father or Jesus exist as husks that the spirit gives life to you know it’s
28:51 28:51 - it’s that it is the spirit of God the third member of the Trinity is properly the spirit of the I mean like it you
28:59 28:59 - know I I suppose it really depends what what is being asked there that’s that’s why I said that there’s an angle from
29:06 29:06 - which we come where that makes sense to the to the extent that what we’re saying just like you you pointed out we could
29:13 29:13 - say that the spirit is the spirit of Christ as well we still saying that he belongs to
29:20 29:20 - Christ just like he so the thing is is that I just feel like there’s clearer ways to say it is all yeah that but but
29:28 29:28 - then the thing is it’s not technically wrong because the Bible does point that out the Bible does bear out that this is
29:36 29:36 - the spirit of the father this is the spirit of Jesus so the the when when it says that it’s speaking in terms of
29:43 29:43 - possession in the fact that this is my person this is my family member this is my you name it that that’s the point
29:54 29:54 - it’s not saying as I would speak of my own Spirit as something that is really intrinsically me that’s not what’s
30:03 30:03 - happening there so it’s it’s not it’s not necessarily inappropriate but it can be misleading I think perhaps thinking
30:11 30:11 - about the sending of the spirit helps here when we say the spirit of the Father the of you know we would think of
30:18 30:18 - as possession here it’s in the same way that you might have a messenger of a king right not that the spirit is a
30:25 30:25 - messenger he’s also God but it it’s not God’s spirit as in the spirit part of the nature of God or something like that
30:35 30:35 - it’s like influence right right it is you know the spirit the one sent from God right like if you put that in
30:43 30:43 - apposition um yeah right in same way the spirit of Christ is not so much the thing giving animating Force to the
30:51 30:51 - person of Christ as it is you know the spirit of not of sent by but you know like Christ spirit that one as opposed
31:00 31:00 - to a different one right um yes so yeah so that that’s that’s the point um so to speak to the question then I would say
31:11 31:11 - the unity of God is not to be understood in quite that way that is the Oneness of the Trinity that’s not that’s not how we
31:21 31:21 - understand it it’s in the fact that I know the word essence is technical but it really means what it normally means
31:29 31:29 - that all of them are sharing one thing an isness the thing that we call Humanity
31:39 31:39 - for example is an Essence but we each have our copy of that Essence but the essence of deity is not
31:47 31:47 - in copies there is only one such thing only one such thing does not exist in multiple copies there’s just one of it
31:55 31:55 - and these three persons share that one thing that’s why the Bible is absolutely clear about the fact that there is one
32:04 32:04 - God so I think maybe one way to think about this is you know how a you use the word copy here if you have three human
32:13 32:13 - beings and one of them dies the essence of humanity is still fine for the other two right they don’t they don’t impact
32:21 32:21 - each other when we say that the three beings of God have share one essence that situation just it simply does not
32:30 32:30 - make sense right the the three members of the Trinity if like you can’t have one of
32:36 32:36 - them cease to exist because they all exist together right um it’s not separate in the same way may maybe
32:44 32:44 - that’s not helpful um it’s certainly we should be sacrificed here for or sorry we can be forgiven here
32:52 32:52 - for looking at that and thinking for a second and being like man you know what it’s still kind of hard to understand
32:57 32:57 - um that’s because it is we should we should we should not forget the fact that this is one of those things that we
33:06 33:06 - will only see very dimly very Darkly we don’t fully get it in fact we barely get it if if we were to State again what the
33:16 33:16 - Bible says about this matter it is one there is one God two the father is God the the son is God the spirit is God
33:24 33:24 - three the father is not the son is not the spirit the son is not the spirit is not the
33:29 33:29 - father the spirit is not the son is not the father these three concepts are what we call the Trinity when you put them
33:37 33:37 - together they add up to the Trinity but how this actually works the mechanics of it how there is one God and there are
33:45 33:45 - three persons who are that God does not fit into our experience as human beings in creation it just doesn’t fit we can’t
33:55 33:55 - make sense of it and we will not make sense of it of it until we actually stand before the Lord insisting on
34:02 34:02 - spelling it out exactly is where we’re going to go beyond what is written and that is the points that we brought it
34:09 34:09 - before about the what I shall call the Eternal beting and the Eternal procession of the spirit that is exactly
34:16 34:16 - what we’re talking about here that is make attempts for people to make sense of it in a way that the Bible just
34:21 34:21 - really doesn’t use you know they’re they’re taking some words that have certain emology and then they’re like
34:27 34:27 - fixing a cookie cutter on top of it but it’s because they’re trying to say how can you have three persons that exist as
34:35 34:35 - one being how does that work and they try to make it work but we can’t because the Bible doesn’t go there that’s the
34:42 34:42 - point yeah yes it’s simply so appr propo to uh to the question that was asked I would say um we can say authoritatively
34:52 34:52 - that the Oneness of God is not because um Jesus Jesus is the Father’s seed with respect to his Humanity
35:02 35:02 - certainly he is God’s son with respect to his deity he’s of equal standing with the father father and son are simply
35:10 35:10 - titler roles here neither of them is the originator of the other that’s not how that works and the father is the spirit
35:19 35:19 - is the is the Father’s Spirit sure if you’re speaking to their relationship with each other in the sense that
35:27 35:27 - the if if you were to change the the word father if that were possible and we don’t really have another word for it
35:33 35:33 - the Bible simply gives us the identifier father the identifier son and word and the identifier Spirit but if you could
35:40 35:40 - change these identifiers we would be saying this person belongs to this person this person belongs to that
35:47 35:47 - person that’s the the spirit of the father Spirit of Jesus kind of relationship but when you speak of the
35:54 35:54 - spirit as originating from the father either something that comes from him in the sense of coming out of him being
36:03 36:03 - generated by him or that it is the animating force of the father you’d be wrong that’s not at all what the
36:11 36:11 - scriptures are saying about the spirit and that’s not what the unity of the of the Trinity is really about that’s the
36:20 36:20 - answer that I have to that question I agree so that’s where we’re going to wrap for
36:29 36:29 - today and uh just to go over A Brief Review we first uh basically identifi the definition of the Trinity that we
36:37 36:37 - have been laying out the last few lessons so three persons one essence or one Essence and three persons and then
36:42 36:42 - the four corollary points that we talked about before how the members of the Trinity are all Divine persons unique
36:48 36:48 - persons co-equal and co-eternal and they all share the same Essence those are things we’ve talked about in the past
36:54 36:54 - lessons and then the rest of this lesson we have spent discussing about how the Trinity can just be kind of hard to
37:00 37:00 - explain properly and uh God didn’t uh necessarily give us uh you know you know the way in which god um
37:10 37:10 - communicated this Doctrine to us in the Bible was intentional right he didn’t like forget to add things to it or
37:15 37:15 - whatever um he has told us what we most need to know without giving us either information that could be misinterpreted
37:22 37:22 - or less accurate illustrations that might do more harm than good and so uh because eternity is kind of hard to
37:28 37:28 - explain properly it’s hard to understand it is something that is a bit heresy prone um but we shouldn’t seek to grasp
37:35 37:35 - after um what we might term rationalistic or uh philosophical explanations for it we should just stick
37:43 37:43 - with what the Bible says about it that’s the only safe path here uh to keep us uh kind of within uh uh the path of what
37:51 37:51 - the Trinity is without falling into the ditch on either side of the road so that’s what we’ve talked about this time
37:57 37:57 - in our next lesson we will be picking up talking about illustrations for the Trinity and uh if you are wondering well
38:03 38:03 - didn’t we just say that uh you know God doesn’t give us these illustrations you’d be correct so a lot of what we’re
38:08 38:08 - going to talk about next time are illustrations that have been used by people in the past um but also some of
38:14 38:14 - the problems that go along with them so that’s where we will pick up uh in our next meeting

Illustrating the Trinity

Trinity > Illustrations

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Summary

In this lesson we discuss illustrations that seek to help explain the Trinity. Since nothing in this created universe is truly like God, all of these illustrations are necessarily lacking in one way or another, and it is for this reason that we need to be quite wary of reading too much into them. If they help us better wrap our minds around the core teaching of the Trinity (namely, that God exists in three persons sharing one essence), then all to the good. However, we ought not ever build doctrine on top of things that are merely analogies, and analogies that are not even in scripture at that.

Timestamps

0:00 0:00 - Intro and outline
02:40 02:40 - Perils in attempting to use illustrations for the Trinity
16:27 16:27 - An illustration from the early church: the Trinity “triangle”
21:10 21:10 - The illustration of the family of Man
30:16 30:16 - The illustration of the human mind
38:03 38:03 - Illustrations from the world of nature
48:31 48:31 - Illustrations from the physical realm
54:57 54:57 - Conclusions: these illustrations are only the loosest of analogies at best
01:03:42 01:03:42 - Summary and outro

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

Perils in attempting to use illustrations for the Trinity

Trinity > Illustrations > Perils of

As we discussed in our last lesson, attempting to illustrate such a carefully protected doctrine as the Trinity has the potential of doing more harm than good. The fundamental problem with illustrations of the type we will consider in a moment is that they all necessarily contain potentially dangerous and untrue points of comparison, which, if too much stress be placed upon them, run the real risk of leading to heretical conclusions, a danger that far outweighs any good they may do in attempting to shed some light on the subject.

The number one objection to such illustrations is that God is divine, and since nothing and no one else is, any illustration will needs be imperfect and inaccurate (a fact which may well explain why no such illustrations occur in the Bible: Is.40:18). And there is more. Historically, Satan’s attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity – a teaching crucial to the integrity of our Christian faith – have focused on the three-fold sovereign personality of God and/or His deity in three persons. But this reality of divine, triune personality is precisely the point that all illustrations of the Trinity miss (of necessity, since there is nothing “like” the Trinity).

An illustration from the early church: the Trinity “triangle”

Trinity > Illustrations > Trinity triangle

This oldest of the Trinity illustrations is also in many ways the best, because the non-doctrinal point of comparison (i.e., the triangle) merely serves to organize visually the meaning imparted by the words: all three members of the Trinity are God ("one in essence"), yet they are distinct from each other ("three in person"):

The Trinity Triangle

The illustration of the family of Man

Like the Trinity, mankind has multiple members, all possessed of similar, spiritual essences. But the Trinity share a unique, divine essence, and their triune unanimity of purpose is unlike anything in the realm of humanity.

The illustration of the human mind

Like the Trinity, the mind can be said to be at once one thing, yet at the same time several things (intellect, emotion, conscience, etc.) and can dialogue with itself, and even be at cross-purposes with itself. But the Trinity is composed of distinct, divine personalities to which the inner-workings of our psyches make a poor comparison.

Illustrations from the world of nature

There are many things in the natural world that consist of distinct, multiple parts that at the same time constitute one complete whole. For example, distinguishable branches, roots and trunk are all part of one and the same tree, and eggs have three distinct parts (yolk, white and shell) without any of which three you would no longer have an egg. None of the illustrations of this sort really help to explain the unique personalities of the Trinity or their shared divine essence.

Illustrations from the physical realm

This category of illustration contains some of the more interesting examples that have been used to explain the Trinity, though all suffer from the same objections that were lodged against the former category:

Light is one yet distinct (and cf. God “being light”—1 John 1:5): radio is heard, visible light is seen, and infrared is felt
The universe is one yet distinct: time, space, and matter
Time is one yet distinct: past, present, and future
Space is one yet distinct: length, breadth, and height
Matter is one yet distinct: energy, matter, phenomnea

Conclusions: these illustrations are only the loosest of analogies at best

The most that can be said for the best of these illustrations is that to the extent that they remind us of the awesome wisdom and power of God in creating these complex, wonderful things (often taken for granted), they may also help us to realize that the Maker is likely to be even more complex and wonderful, and so accept what we know to be true about the Trinity (“one in essence, three in person”), even if it seems too complex and wonderful to fully grasp.

As we have said, however, care must be taken to see that none of these illustrations is taken too far, lest by attempting to understand “beyond what is written” we be led instead to dangerous and extra-biblical rationalizations based on these loose analogies. For the Trinity is often a good “litmus test” for our Christian faith. To accept it, one must accept not only the existence of God, but the distinctiveness and divinity of Jesus Christ, the true touch-stone principle that divides believers from unbelievers (1Jn.2:22-23). By distorting our understanding of the Trinity, the devil ultimately seeks to destroy our faith in Jesus Christ, the real focal point and rationale for satanic attacks that seek to confuse the issue of “one in essence, three in person”.

Transcript (click to show)

Video/audio transcript

00:00 00:00 - all right guys so this week in our lesson we are going to be talking about illustrating the Trinity so
00:06 00:06 - illustrations for the kind of the concept and the doctrine of the Trinity and so these are the points that we’re
00:14 00:14 - going to be going over today we’re going to be talking about kind of how attempting to use illustrations for the
00:19 00:19 - Trinity is always somewhat perilous just because uh the Trinity is God God is divine there is nothing like him in this
00:28 00:28 - created world so that means just simple what’s the right word uh uh kind of process of elimination if
00:38 00:38 - there’s nothing like God well then necessarily all illustrations will lack some comparative power all of them will
00:45 00:45 - be necessarily imperfect um and so on account of that we just need to be very very careful that we don’t Place Focus
00:52 00:52 - here on these and we don’t try to draw doctrinal conclusions off of it and things like that and so actually this
00:59 00:59 - this section in the study it’s not so much teaching it’s not so much trying to explain the trinity in terms of these
01:06 01:06 - illustrations as it is trying to show how these illustrations are sort of necessarily insufficient and so um we’ll
01:14 01:14 - kind of see what that means a little bit more as we go on today but we’re going to start off with a very early
01:19 01:19 - illustration this comes up in the early church the so-called Trinity triangle which is just a visual representation of
01:25 01:25 - what we have already said that uh the father is God Jesus is God the spirit is God but the father is not the son or the
01:33 01:33 - spirit the son is not the father or the spirit and the spirit is not the father or the son um you know so the is and is
01:40 01:40 - not relationships now we’re going to talk about the family of man so uh mankind the human mind illustrations
01:48 01:48 - from the world of nature so this is like physical nature per se uh illustrations from the Physical Realm like light for
01:56 01:56 - example or the universe and then at the end we’re going to kind of come back and touch on uh this point that we started
02:03 02:03 - with that basically well there you go there are some of the illustrations that have been used across times and places
02:09 02:09 - in history to try to help explain the Trinity and uh you shouldn’t be very impressed basically um that is you know
02:17 02:17 - we’re going to kind of end where we started on this and uh not so much that we need to like look down our noses at
02:24 02:24 - you know anyone who tries to say well just as God is three yet one so to in this other area maybe maybe it helps
02:32 02:32 - right but the point is it’s very dangerous to build Doctrine on it that’s going to kind of be the fundamental
02:37 02:37 - point that we try to make today all right so the first point uh that we are going to be starting with in
02:47 02:47 - our discussion here of illustrations for the Trinity is the kind of initial caveat the initial warning that I
02:53 02:53 - mentioned going over how all of these illustrations are sort of going to be necessarily imperfect and so we did kind
03:01 03:01 - of touch on this in our previous lesson here that that all attempts here to kind of illustrate such a Doctrine as the
03:09 03:09 - Trinity which is so core and Central to our belief um uh just because of the importance of this there is the
03:17 03:17 - potential there that this does more harm than good um so if your illustration is even a little bit off-center and people
03:24 03:24 - read into it more than they should suddenly you might have harmed their understanding of the trinity because of
03:30 03:30 - how important that is that is kind of a very bad thing and so the fundamental problem with illustrations of kind of
03:38 03:38 - the type that we’re going to be going over today is that if you take them too far if you put too much stress upon them
03:45 03:45 - you do run the real risk of leading to heretical conclusions um and it’s not going to be so direct uh in as much as
03:54 03:54 - the second you look at one of these suddenly your entire understanding of God is going to become like overly
03:59 03:59 - complicated you’re not going to know heads from tals anymore it’s that basically if you start reading into it
04:06 04:06 - if you start trying to make the analogy fit that’s when you’re going to run into problems and so the basic idea here is
04:14 04:14 - that uh it’s it’s really more like um we want to make sure that we don’t do more harm than good right that Do no harm
04:21 04:21 - principle that doctors sometimes um try to abide by um that is the sort of idea that we are going to be going into this
04:30 04:30 - discussion with and uh the fundamental problem kind of mentioned this a little bit in the introduction there was that
04:37 04:37 - um the illustrations here are trying to illustrate a Divine being using things from the created realm and nothing in
04:47 04:47 - this creation is it all like God we have talked about this previously in discussing God’s Essence um so uh uh his
04:56 04:56 - uniqueness um his sovereignty within the material Universe there’s no one else like God there is no other being no
05:03 05:03 - other created thing that is at all like him um you know and that’s in regard to his infinite nature and his perfect
05:09 05:09 - character as we have gone over in the past here and so that simply means Again by process of or the process of of
05:17 05:17 - elimination here that there is absolutely nothing that will serve as a good parallel as a truly good analogy
05:24 05:24 - for God is that all of these things will necessarily fall short that doesn’t mean that they’re evil it just means that
05:29 05:29 - they’re insufficient and there’s kind of more to this even um Satan attacks the Trinity he always has um Satan’s always
05:38 05:38 - looking for ways to kind of interfere with our understanding of of God’s truth and attacking the Divinity of Jesus
05:46 05:46 - Christ the Divinity of any members of the Trinity or just the teaching of the trinity in general The three-fold
05:53 05:53 - Sovereign personality of God and and the deity of the three persons all of these have always been kind of uh important
06:00 06:00 - attack vectors in Satan’s plan because if Satan can compromise someone on these issues they’re just hop skip and a jump
06:07 06:07 - away from compromising on what makes us Christian in fact depending on exactly what we mean by compromise getting
06:14 06:14 - people to stumble here already uh kind of messes with the core beliefs that we need to hold as Christians and so the
06:23 06:23 - problem with all this is that this Triune personality this is exactly the point that illustrations of Trinity Miss
06:30 06:30 - like they cannot in any way do this right and so it’s a little bit subtle here right you know rather than Satan uh
06:38 06:38 - coming right up to someone and being like the Trinity is false and then most Christians would be kind of uh I guess
06:47 06:47 - we we’d be primed to look at someone and say no it isn’t because and and then you know go into an explanation of how the
06:53 06:53 - Bible talks about it like we’ve been talking about right it is we’d have a knee-jerk reaction to this but but when
07:00 07:00 - someone else instead says the Trinity is like and then presents some example they’re not so much attacking the
07:07 07:07 - Trinity headon as they are making this comparison and see this is why it’s a little bit more subtle because if they
07:15 07:15 - were attacking the Trinity headon we would recognize it for the challenge to correct doctrine that that such a thing
07:21 07:21 - would be but when people instead give what I would call an imperfect comparison maybe we give them the
07:27 07:27 - benefit of the doubt more or we don’t recognize it as being dangerous to our own understanding but if we buy into it
07:35 07:35 - it is still coloring our understanding of God because fundamentally if the first things out of our mouth are not
07:41 07:41 - something along the lines of God is divine and outside of SpaceTime and nothing is like him therefore we
07:50 07:50 - basically um trying to think about the right what it says you don’t want to come off as hyper legalistic either the
07:55 07:55 - point needs to be nothing can truly compare to God so we need to discuss this Doctrine uh what I would call
08:01 08:01 - theologically we need to treat it without kid gloves without trying to rationalize it as this thing that is
08:08 08:08 - fundamentally incomprehensible in some sense to us as finite humans and we shouldn’t apologize for that that’s just
08:13 08:13 - how it is that’s what it means for God to be an infinite being outside of SpaceTime while we are finite beings
08:20 08:20 - within SpaceTime like we’re just never going to completely get it and we need to make peace with that rather than
08:25 08:25 - trying to explain it all way so we need to always come in to discussions when such a thing would come up with that
08:32 08:32 - being the starting point and we again we shouldn’t we shouldn’t like shame people for it we should just stand firm on the
08:38 08:38 - truth and the point that I’m saying here is that the comparisons due to the imperfection that is present in them we
08:46 08:46 - need to recognize them as dangerous we need to accept that if we actually look to them for teaching they can mislead us
08:54 08:54 - and that is just kind of a different starting point than where some people may land on this thing and that’s why
09:00 09:00 - we’re trying to make this point kind of more explicitly up front a do you have any thoughts you want to jump off of
09:06 09:06 - anything I said okay so yeah um I think that the bottom line is to keep in mind the
09:18 09:18 - danger of using any illustration but as with pretty much anything else in the Bible our job is to
09:27 09:27 - learn what the truth is and for us who are teachers our job is to teach and sometimes to teach you have to use
09:33 09:33 - imperfect analogies I mean Lord Jesus was always doing that his Parables he would he would talk about things that
09:41 09:41 - weren’t exactly the thing he was talking about but there was something in those things that resonated with the realities
09:47 09:47 - of which he spoke so for example he would say that the kingdom of God is like um uh Mustard Seed how about
09:56 09:56 - mustard seed or I think particular one I was interested in is uh a bit of Leaven that you put in a loaf and it leavens
10:05 10:05 - the whole lump you know something like that and you know you could push that really far and you’d have all sorts of
10:13 10:13 - problems with it I mean there are people today who are thinking and probably not necessarily because of that um uh that
10:21 10:21 - analogy that the kingdom of God is supposed to expand and keep expanding and basically they have this thing we
10:28 10:28 - call Dominion theology which is essentially that the world is going to get better and better and the church
10:33 10:33 - will eventually consume it before the Lord Jesus will return Lord Jesus will return to a world that has turned to God
10:40 10:40 - essentially that’s what some people would make of that but in fact what he was saying was a completely different
10:45 10:45 - thing which was it might be small at the moment when he was talking about the population of people who actually were
10:53 10:53 - you know walking with the Lord there has always been a very small minority of people throughout the the
10:59 10:59 - ages who have been walking with God but what he was saying is that now there was going to be an explosion and what was
11:07 11:07 - hither to seemingly confined to Israel was going to spread throughout the entire world that was what he was
11:13 11:13 - essentially saying but of course when you use that analogy you have to accommodate the fact that that analogy
11:19 11:19 - is not the thing itself we will need these analogies we will need these illustrations just to get to wrap our
11:26 11:26 - minds around something that would otherwise be inconceivable to us and the Lord has actually he built the world he
11:33 11:33 - built this universe that we live in to tell us about himself that’s a very important thing Psalm 19 and Revelation
11:41 11:41 - and and Romans 1 both attest to this that the world in which we live tell tells us something
11:48 11:48 - about what and who God is of course it doesn’t give us the entire Revelation the Revelation it gives is very limited
11:58 11:58 - but for someone who loves the truth and wants to know about the Lord you can use things in the world around you to
12:06 12:06 - appreciate and understand the Lord a bit more and for someone whose job it is to communicate the truth about the Lord to
12:13 12:13 - others you can use things in the world that people can relate to to understand some more about the Lord but we have to
12:21 12:21 - never forget that an analogy is no more than an an analogy and when you’re comparing anything to God himself that
12:30 12:30 - is a necessarily flawed comparison because just as Steven said there is nothing in the universe that is quite
12:40 12:40 - like God so we can only say in this way and in that way this thing could throw some light on something about God but we
12:49 12:49 - should not take the thing too far and come to to think of it in ways that are inappropriate that do not fit the
12:57 12:57 - Revelation that we have of the the Lord in the scriptures so um again not demonizing using
13:05 13:05 - illustrations but certainly being cautious and reserved in our use of them I mean I just Ed Kind of a Funny
13:15 13:15 - anecdote I’m sure many folks are aware of kind of the parable the of the sheep and the goats right talking about the
13:22 13:22 - separation and last judgment there is nothing inherently evil about one or the other right as if one animal is like on
13:31 13:31 - account of this physical characteristic or that physical characteristic you see what I’m saying like that is pushing the
13:38 13:38 - analogy quite a bit too far there’s it’s just the point is there will be a separation in the final judgment um yes
13:46 13:46 - and yes I mean a lot of this things you would think would be common sense of no that’s just an analogy it doesn’t mean
13:53 13:53 - what you’re saying it means but people do go there so you know that is just Why we have to head off that sort of thing
14:00 14:00 - now I will say just as perhaps giving a bit of intuition to why ought we be cautious in this you
14:07 14:07 - know like maybe you say what’s the harm you know maybe maybe if it helps us so uh we we have touched on a little bit
14:13 14:13 - how basically giving too much ear here it it tries to what I would call like physicalize God too much we try to fit
14:22 14:22 - him into a box that we can understand but the thing is you shouldn’t put God in a box because he doesn’t live in one
14:28 14:28 - right he’s Unbound um there’s this interesting interplay this was brought up by someone when we paused briefly for
14:35 14:35 - a sec also with the idea of no graven images it’s one of the Ten Commandments here right um what we do when we try to
14:44 14:44 - conceptualize God in a way that basically we have not been given leave to is we are trying to make an image of
14:51 14:51 - him um maybe it’s not as obvious as I don’t know you know like making a statue and calling it God but to the extent
14:59 14:59 - that we try to make him physical we we make him bounded in the sense that we can then feel like we actually
15:07 15:07 - understand him we have actually taken God and reduced him to something he is not um and yes that’s the severity of it
15:16 15:16 - right it is you’re breaking one of The Commandments here you know like it’s not it’s not like an oh shrug who cares sort
15:22 15:22 - of thing it’s a we need to respect God as we ought as the omnipotent creator of the universe who cannot be put into a
15:31 15:31 - physical box you just can’t um if you if you call a physical box like that God you don’t really understand well not
15:39 15:39 - that we will ever perfectly understand who God is but basically whatever conception you think you have is just
15:43 15:43 - woefully insufficient right um yeah and that’s just why it’s not legalism here it’s not legalism to say that we really
15:52 15:52 - got to be careful not to go too far we really have to be careful what we say and what conclusions we draw it’s not
15:58 15:58 - just cu we’re trying to be pedantic or audite or academic and look down our noses at people it’s because we do not
16:05 16:05 - want to get in the habit of trying to make God physical trying to make him something that we can perfectly
16:12 16:12 - understand and metabolize because that’s not God it’s just it’s just not accurate um and the Bible itself weighs in
16:20 16:20 - against it so we don’t need to be super shy about it is what I’m saying um yeah yes
16:27 16:27 - great so the first of the actual illustrations that we are going to be using here comes
16:35 16:35 - from the early church you know it is attested in in various places and in many ways this one is the safest of all
16:43 16:43 - illustrations you might use because it’s basically just a visual way to represent the information that we’ve already gone
16:50 16:50 - over so I stole this picture off of VI this I did not make this picture um and you know it looks much the same no
16:56 16:56 - matter where you get it from um but if you see God in the middle of the triangle um well the father is God the
17:04 17:04 - son is God the holy spirit is God but you can see here based on these sides you know like the sides of the triangle
17:10 17:10 - the father is not the son the father is not the spirit the spirit is not the father there spirit is not the son and
17:16 17:16 - then the son is not the spirit and the son is not the father so it just represents all of the
17:21 17:21 - relationships that kind of get to what three persons in one Essence means you know that is that all three members of
17:28 17:28 - the trinity are God but they are not each other by personality so hence three persons one Essence um and so as I say
17:36 17:36 - this is sort of the safe illustration um because it is visually representing the points that we need to teach when we
17:45 17:45 - teach the Trinity um that they are all God and yet they are distinct from each other and it just puts it in a picture
17:51 17:51 - basically so I’m a little bit I what’s the right word it’s not that this isn’t an illustration because well it is kind
17:58 17:58 - of a visual representation of it but I don’t quite think of this in the same terms as I think of some of the rest of
18:04 18:04 - the things that we’ll go over and you’ll see a little bit more what I mean by that in in a moment but I actually think
18:10 18:10 - this one is absolutely fine I even think it’s a good thing for us to bring up when we teach on this just so that
18:15 18:15 - people can see it all in front of them you know maybe rather than reading three or four sentences they just look at the
18:21 18:21 - picture and they say ah that is what we mean when we say that the members of the Trinity are all God but they’re not each
18:28 18:28 - other um aie do you have thoughts on this initial
18:33 18:33 - one yeah my my thought is exactly that I wish I had your optimism about people people are very interesting um there is
18:43 18:43 - a very popular um symbol so to speak out there in media in during the Illuminati Madness that the entire world
18:56 18:56 - got engulfed in for a bit um that that that picture was very very big they had it’s actually in in your in your dollar
19:05 19:05 - bills I I don’t know if it’s just the $1 bill or the higher denominations but there was a pyramid with an eye on it
19:14 19:14 - right so exactly so people get caught up in things like that and you would be very surprised how people could make a
19:23 19:23 - triangle that’s just explanatory it’s not even there’s nothing about it that should be special they can turn it into
19:30 19:30 - something that it is not the human heart is very idolatrous incredibly idolatrous and that’s what we’re warning about
19:38 19:38 - really we’re saying the illustration is not the thing itself the illustration is not the Trinity illustration is not God
19:46 19:46 - so don’t get it into your mind that oh maybe because this is such a good representation of God triangles are
19:52 19:52 - somehow mystical Divine yeah actually you know I know teaches about other places but you know
19:59 19:59 - how the holy of holies in the temple is this perfect Cube we got more we got more evidence for that than we do
20:05 20:05 - triangles is what I’m saying but even that is like not it’s supposed to show the perfect equality of the three sides
20:12 20:12 - in physical space it’s still just it’s still just an illustration right there’s no power to it but exactly just for
20:20 20:20 - example another three-dimensional object that is mentioned in scripture doesn’t mean that that is God right or that
20:27 20:27 - cubes are somehow holy and like I don’t know trapezoids or or what’s a I guess trapezoids are two dimensional not
20:34 20:34 - threedimensional aren’t they but whatever you get the point that spheres are not holy because cubes are holy you
20:39 20:39 - see what I’m saying like that it’s nonsense but yeah so we should we shouldn’t get caught up in all of that
20:46 20:46 - is the point it’s it’s just a very good illustration it it doesn’t mean anything more than that yeah all right well I
20:54 20:54 - think that is mostly what we have to say on this one you know this one has less potential to lead astray I suppose
21:00 21:00 - unless you get thinking that triangles are somehow Godly um but as long as you avoid that for the most part you’re not
21:07 21:07 - gonna get off in using this one so in terms of the first what we might call actual analogy here um
21:19 21:19 - previously we’ just been talking about the Trinity triangle as a visual representation well we’re going to be
21:24 21:24 - talking about the illustration of the family of man so of humanity or humankind here so like the Trinity
21:32 21:32 - mankind has multiple members all possessed of similar spiritual Essences but here’s the difference the Trinity
21:39 21:39 - shares a unique Divine Essence and their triun UNAM unanimity of purpose is unlike anything in the realm of humanity
21:47 21:47 - and so we are of a kind as humans so my spiritual composition is like that of everyone else on this call is like that
21:55 21:55 - of everyone else in the world you know some s bil people over but the thing is we do not share an Essence so even
22:04 22:04 - though we are similar and how we are made up spiritually we do not have a Unity of purpose we do not have a Unity
22:10 22:10 - of agreement asent our plans no matter how you slice it two human beings even identical twins who grew up in the same
22:19 22:19 - set of circumstances with the same parents everything and they share the same goals they work at the same company
22:25 22:25 - you can you can stack as many variables as you want and those two human beings will still not at all be United in the
22:35 22:35 - way that gets us even close to how United the members of the Trinity are um and so hopefully you can see in some
22:43 22:43 - senses all of us are human yet all of us are not the same is kind of sort of like you know there are three members of the
22:52 22:52 - Trinity but they’re all God right but the problem where this one falls apart is that they’re not not like they don’t
22:59 22:59 - all share you know similar makeup and are yet somehow distinct because the problem with this analogy in terms of
23:07 23:07 - some of the specific Doctrine we’ve talked about previously is that the whole concept of a Pantheon of three
23:14 23:14 - Gods would kind of work with this one too right um but yet we know that is false and
23:20 23:20 - heretical so in some ways this analogy kind of gives us the wrong idea right aie you have anything you want to
23:29 23:29 - say yeah um you’re right you’re right the fact that um we human beings have certain qualities similar to the Trinity
23:43 23:43 - or that we can talk about the fact that the Trinity is made up of different persons just like mankind is made up of
23:50 23:50 - different persons ultimately leads to you know questions about why there are not three Gods I mean there are so many
23:58 23:58 - different human beings and we can say human beings so if these are persons in their own right individuals in their own
24:07 24:07 - right and forgive me if I’m not exactly hitting on what you were saying um but if when we see that dispar or
24:18 24:18 - when we try to make that comparison it does lead to that disparity human beings are distinct from each other and not
24:24 24:24 - just distinct from each other we’re not bound in that unit that we find in the Trinity so it leads people to eventually
24:33 24:33 - when you start making those comparisons it can lead someone to you know getting the wrong idea of what the Trinity
24:39 24:39 - really is like they may be made the Trinity may be made up of three different individuals three distinct
24:47 24:47 - individuals just like humanity is made up of so many different individuals but they’re they share an
24:55 24:55 - Essence in a way that we human beings don’t share an Essence so we again we can get lost just making that comparison
25:07 25:07 - looking at things in that light we should you know beware of it it’s enough to say that the same way that I am a
25:16 25:16 - different person from Step my thoughts are my thoughts they’re not Steven’s thoughts the things I want to do may not
25:25 25:25 - be anything like what Stephen wants to do this is how we understand our individualism it is possible to carry
25:33 25:33 - that analogy too far and expect to find the same thing in the Trinity if they are necessarily distinct
25:40 25:40 - individuals but no what you will find in the Trinity is more along the lines of they share the same desires and
25:50 25:50 - whatnot they they are different individuals distinct from each other and yet there is no daylight between what
25:58 25:58 - the father wants and what the son wants and what the spirit wants there is no difference between the way they perceive
26:06 26:06 - reality so the father sees things the way the son does and the way the spirit does that would be difficult for us to
26:14 26:14 - wrap our minds around considering that human beings are not like that no human beings no two human beings are exactly
26:20 26:20 - the same in their reasoning about anything in their conceptions of reality or in their aspirations life yes I think
26:29 26:29 - you can get closer in some situations so I know it’s two people not three but if you think about the love and care that a
26:36 26:36 - mother and a father have for their child like let’s say it’s about saving their child from certain harm they’d probably
26:43 26:43 - be pretty United on that but all it takes to see that one fall apart so that’s going from the family of man you
26:50 26:50 - know with large to perhaps the family of man in a nuclear family but when you think about disagreements parents have
26:56 26:56 - about how to raise their children that Unity goes out the window immediately right but you could sort of
27:02 27:02 - see you can see flashes of it right you know because the loved care that a mother and a father have for their child
27:10 27:10 - you know it’s not like the Trinity is exactly like that but it is a more accurate reflection than some other
27:18 27:18 - analogies right you know it’s closer um that’s the unity right um yeah and it’s it’s sort of a shadow of it I would say
27:28 27:28 - yes yes and but but like you said when you look at that it it if if if we go I like the way that someone
27:37 27:37 - actually put it on clubhouse he was saying to another person in a debate that the person was using anthropology
27:43 27:43 - to interpret theology which which is just wrong God is not like man you could say man is like God because a lot a lot
27:54 27:54 - of our quality a lot of what makes us human is based on what and who God is right so you could you could see how
28:03 28:03 - we’re modeled after God but God is Not modeled after us so we’re going to find very quickly that a lot of things that
28:10 28:10 - might apply because of our individuality because we are separate individuals from one
28:17 28:17 - another things that apply to us don’t apply to God in terms of his own individuality so that’s that’s where we
28:25 28:25 - have to be very care careful about um the the connections that we have with each other but like you said it is true
28:36 28:36 - that we can have things that look very similar to the unity that they have the a mother and a father having a child and
28:44 28:44 - wanting the best for their child they want to raise their child right and all of that they can synchronize in their
28:50 28:50 - thoughts through discussion and whatnot but we should not think that because they can do that that they Unity
28:57 28:57 - of the Trinity is similar to that that the father and son and and the spirit sit down in a conference and try to
29:03 29:03 - marry their thoughts with each other and figure out how I basically reach some compromise over how things ought to be
29:11 29:11 - it doesn’t work you know what maybe the best way to say this hopefully this gets a chuckle out of people is that the
29:16 29:16 - universe is not ruled by a committee let’s put it like that right exactly that is the wrong way to think about it
29:24 29:24 - um yeah so the Trinity is not a comedy that it’s it’s it’s certainly not that’s one thing we should keep in mind yeah
29:32 29:32 - yeah so now this is what we mean um and we’ll kind of return to this point as we go through these you know all of these
29:39 29:39 - illustrations but I hope you can see how you can sort of see bits and bits and flashes and shadows here of maybe kind
29:48 29:48 - of how we can see parallels but it should be clear I hope that this cannot capture really who got is what God is
29:58 29:58 - because it’s just not complete right um yeah the information is not complete that’s just it we don’t have all of it
30:07 30:07 - yeah yeah we can’t handle it if it were so there that goes yep so that is our first example
30:18 30:18 - here so now we are going to be talking about the illustration of the human mind so like the Trinity the mind can be to
30:27 30:27 - be at once one thing yet at the same time several things such as intellect emotion
30:33 30:33 - Consciousness and C sorry Etc and can dialogue with itself and even be it cross purposes with itself but the
30:41 30:41 - Trinity is composed of distinct Divine personalities to which the inner workings of our psyches make a poor
30:46 30:46 - comparison now in this particular one we as human beings we are individuals so we are made up of Flesh and spirit but if
30:56 30:56 - you ever read galatian chapter 5 ought to be pretty clear that you know the Flesh and the spirit are it polar you
31:04 31:04 - know they’re always at each other’s throat that’s Galatians 5:17 um you know they oppose one another what Unity right
31:12 31:12 - um so even when you think about this um one tension that you will see come up quite a lot um in what we might term
31:20 31:20 - philosophy it’s just it’s a theme in literary writing is what we might term intellect and logic versus emotion right
31:27 31:27 - um uh unfortunately sometimes this tends to get stereotyped across gender lines more than is probably appropriate uh I.E
31:36 31:36 - men are not always terribly logical and women are not always terribly emotional to the point that it interferes with
31:41 31:41 - logic but this tension there does exist within us as humans um and you know we know as Christians that we ought not let
31:50 31:50 - our emotions lead and you know at the same time we know that you know certain things that might seem on the surface to
31:57 31:57 - be logical are in fact great evil right so Eugenics for example we’re say we’re only going to let the really smart
32:04 32:04 - people reproduce does not lead to Ideal Utopias right that is a very immoral sort of
32:12 32:12 - thing to believe in um and so that’s what we mean here by the human mind you know we are composed of these multiple
32:20 32:20 - elements um well in as much as I don’t know psychologists and stuff name certain aspect of what they call the
32:28 32:28 - human psyche all of them together they don’t have a Unity of purpose um and you know I would say of illustrations this
32:38 32:38 - one I think sort of self-evidently um how do you even identify uh the people in play here
32:46 32:46 - shall we say um you know intellect and emotion I just gave a couple examples of kind of the two sides of the road both
32:53 32:53 - leading to a ditch when it comes to that but conscience for example um you know all of these
33:00 33:00 - other things that compete desire perhaps would be another one or will or I mean philosophers have all sorts of names for
33:10 33:10 - philosophy of Mind type Concepts but um a you want to go on anything else before I say anything
33:16 33:16 - more yeah um yeah the like you said the human mind is a composition of multiple things all
33:26 33:26 - of us have feelings we we we experience emotion all of us also experience thought um and we know it as a separate
33:34 33:34 - thing from feeling because I mean you might not feel very you might not have much in the way of feeling when you are
33:43 33:43 - trying to make some mathematical computation or something you’re thinking when you’re doing that and sometimes you
33:49 33:49 - have to make a lot of dispassionate decisions that where your emotions don’t really come into
33:55 33:55 - play but we you know that when you have feelings and emotions there are still you know qualities of the mind that you
34:03 34:03 - express and then when you have to weigh um moral situations that’s still something that your mind you know does
34:12 34:12 - so all of these things are aspects of our like you said psyche that in that same way we can we
34:19 34:19 - can say that the the Trinity is multiple people but one
34:27 34:27 - just like the mind is one you don’t think of your emotions and your thoughts as maybe being from
34:37 34:37 - different sources like it’s not your mind one is your mind and the other is something else we talk about the mind
34:43 34:43 - and the heart that’s some that’s poetical and whatnot but we do know that whether you’re talking about the mind or
34:50 34:50 - the heart we’re talking about something the seat of human being the person of the human being this is
34:59 34:59 - where all of this stuff goes on our moral judgment our our our thinking our intellect our feeling and whatever else
35:08 35:08 - happens in this place this is it’s all one thing happening in one place right so we get that all of this somehow
35:17 35:17 - speaks to what the Trinity is like and The Trinity is multiple people multiple persons but also one
35:27 35:27 - it’s one it’s it’s not a divided thing because it’s multiple persons but of course the analogy breaks down when you
35:36 35:36 - see that in fact your intellect and your emotions are not always aligned I mean you can be for example in love with the
35:45 35:45 - wrong person and you know it’s the wrong person because all you have to do is think about it for a second someone who
35:52 35:52 - is absolutely wrong for you in every sense of that that word and yet your emotions
35:58 35:58 - go like I don’t care that’s the person I want end of story you’re going to die from this but yeah so what I still want
36:08 36:08 - it that happens and then your moral judgment I think everybody knows this point you know that your moral judgment
36:14 36:14 - is telling you this is just not the thing for you to do it’s just wrong on all levels and you’re like yeah but I
36:22 36:22 - still want it and you can actually set your intellect against your your moral judgment so when you consider this this
36:28 36:28 - is still one mind the human mind where all of this conflict is occurring so even though it’s one thing that has
36:38 36:38 - multiple Expressions if you will or multiple aspects to it it’s still in Conflict a thing that is not the case
36:46 36:46 - with the Trinity there is never any conflict in the Trinity contrast I think a good word to
36:54 36:54 - use here is peace right we understand that the only way we get peace is through the indwelling of the Holy
37:01 37:01 - Spirit when we submit to God but it’s like a sharp contrast right we our minds are fundamentally without God are not at
37:10 37:10 - peace you know like we literally call it the battlefield of the heart yeah so tell me people who use this analogy do
37:18 37:18 - you want to say that the members of the Trinity are at war with each other you know you can see I’m being somewhat
37:24 37:24 - vicious here but like this is again it’s like well if we can’t say that then what uses the analogy right past a certain
37:32 37:32 - point yeah it just it isn’t because it’s not descriptive of God it doesn’t work um and
37:38 37:38 - so yeah there’s multiple things that are at the same time distinct yet one but not like the Trinity is um so and we’re
37:48 37:48 - just gonna we’re gonna harp on that over and over again as we go through these just because that is the core Point here
37:52 37:52 - is that you can see bits and flashes but it doesn’t completely work um yeah yeah that’s the
38:05 38:05 - point next we’re going to look at illustrations from the world of nature so we’re not talking so much about the
38:12 38:12 - physical Universe in terms of what we might call Natural laws and phenomena here as we are talking about like I
38:19 38:19 - don’t know think like forest trees waterfalls that sort of thing um so there’s many things in the natural world
38:24 38:24 - that consist of distinct multip parts that at the same time constitute one complete whole so distinguishable
38:31 38:31 - branches roots and trunk are all part of one and the same tree for example and here’s a pretty famous analogy uh eggs
38:39 38:39 - have three distinct Parts yoke white and shell without any which of the three you would no longer have an egg none of
38:46 38:46 - these illustrations really help to explain the unique personalities of the Trinity or shared Divine Essence so what
38:54 38:54 - we might say by that is that you know if we were to say that uh yoke is egg and white is egg and shell is
39:04 39:04 - egg it kind of doesn’t work perfectly because technically speaking the yoke is only like one out of three parts of the
39:12 39:12 - egg right and so I don’t know how far you want to push that so you say is God God if he’s not try you I mean like what
39:20 39:20 - is the essence of deity but where I’m going with this is that even even if you accept okay you know what these things
39:28 39:28 - at least get to that idea of multiple components each making up one hole it says absolutely nothing about
39:36 39:36 - the persons in the Trinity right so uh just not to put you fine a point on it but if you say God is like eggs people
39:44 39:44 - are gonna look at you and be like what do you mean you know like you see what I’m saying because like it just it that
39:52 39:52 - particular statement is not what I would call didactically helpful right if you say God is like an egg and you say it as
40:00 40:00 - though it means something Grand someone’s gonna ask you but Mr teacher sir what am I supposed to get out of
40:08 40:08 - that you know like and see that’s the problem here because the second is now you have to start explaining Divine
40:15 40:15 - personalities eggs don’t have Divine personalities right um eggs don’t have any personalities at all because eggs
40:21 40:21 - are immaterial objects um it just like it it’s not I I should say that you know some of the other things we’ve been
40:29 40:29 - talking about I think actually like can really like like they don’t fit because of what we might call serious comparison
40:40 40:40 - problems like the mind that we were just talking about the battlefield of the heart is really really different from
40:45 40:45 - the unity that the members of the Trinity share these aren’t so much really really different as it’s kind of
40:51 40:51 - like trying to explain something with an analogy that doesn’t really work you know so I don’t know if you’ve ever had
40:58 40:58 - a coworker or a friend or something you know they’re like telling a story or they’re trying to use an example and
41:05 41:05 - they just like pick a really bad example so that whatever they’re trying to explain like just doesn’t follow from it
41:12 41:12 - um this happened to me before you know or they they just like or in an argument someone is making an argument and they
41:19 41:19 - pick something to support their evidence that just like does not follow right um so today is today is Tuesday therefore
41:30 41:30 - it will rain you know like those two things are causally unrelated it it doesn’t doesn’t make sense right um and
41:38 41:38 - and to me that is closer to what this is than anything else is that not so much that these things are
41:44 41:44 - like like they’re not gonna give you the wrong idea so much as that you just don’t get any idea at all because like
41:49 41:49 - they’re just not the same you know like eggs to be to be very clear eggs are not like human beings either because eggs
41:56 41:56 - immaterial objects they don’t have personality or will right yeah it’s non- living things and you know like it’s
42:02 42:02 - just not the same um so how the analogy might help when we’re talking about eggs for example is still speaking to the
42:11 42:11 - fact that God is one you know so it’s it’s not it’s not the best analogy but you can see
42:19 42:19 - how something that has multiple Parts is still one it’s it’s it’s not multiple things it’s one thing but of course
42:30 42:30 - where the analogy breaks down as all analogies break down I mean anyone who has written anything in this world would
42:37 42:37 - would say that it’s it’s a very common thing on all analogies breakdown so this is not one of the best possible
42:43 42:43 - analogies you could make but it still points to one thing where you have multiple things and those multiple
42:52 42:52 - things are one thing now the analogy breaks down in that neither of them is really the
42:58 42:58 - complete egg so uh if if you were to remove the yolk is the yolk the egg well the yolk is part of an egg without the
43:08 43:08 - yolk do you really have an egg um the white without the white do you really have an egg without the shell well do
43:18 43:18 - you really have an egg all of these things together you know speak to the egg the egg is all these things and none
43:27 43:27 - of these things but but then that’s where the analogy breaks down the father is God the spirit is God the son is God
43:36 43:36 - they’re all individually God they’re not parts of God so clearly the analogy here breaks down in that the yoke is not the
43:48 43:48 - egg but without the Yoke you don’t have an egg so we see I mean I’m not even sure I
43:55 43:55 - would go so far as to dive into the specifics here in terms of what we might term ontology just because when you do
44:02 44:02 - that you’re kind of already going down this path of philosophizing the egg into a being with what what we would call UIA
44:11 44:11 - that’s the Greek word for being like it’s just they like I said it’s two things of a different class so it’s like
44:17 44:17 - if you’re playing 20 questions with someone and you say mineral but you’re thinking of a carrot right like it’s not
44:24 44:24 - I’m just saying that they’re not they’re not too things of a kind is what I’m saying yeah they’re not even close um
44:30 44:30 - there’s a point I’ve been wanting to make for a little bit but I I kept I kept forgetting it it was essentially
44:36 44:36 - this that when we are making these analogies um I hope I I haven’t forgotten it again when we’re making
44:44 44:44 - these analogies when we’re talking about these things the goal is to is to show us what we have talked about once that
44:53 44:53 - even though a lot of things about God super logical in the sense that they are beyond our ability to reason they’re not
45:02 45:02 - illogical in that they don’t even you know fit into what makes sense so to speak they
45:13 45:13 - do make sense but the thing is we don’t have enough information to fully comprehend it to fully understand it so
45:21 45:21 - um besides we don’t have the ability to even understand that information if we had it so likewise the argument that one
45:29 45:29 - could make with respect to any analogy we’re making is it’s not out of place to conceive of something like the Trinity
45:38 45:38 - it’s not an an illogical concept it’s just not one we can fully grasp because when you look into our experience as
45:46 45:46 - human beings limited by time and space and Immortal body we can see things in our experience that say oh something
45:55 45:55 - like like this is possible even though clearly it is not this so we can say this thing we’re talking about is not
46:06 46:06 - beyond the limit of of possibility it’s not one of those things that are absurd it’s just too much to fully comprehend
46:16 46:16 - well so yeah it doesn’t derive a logical contradiction perhaps a way and I would say that the problem is if you word
46:24 46:24 - things a certain way that’s where people run into trouble they say God is one yet God is three but what do they mean by
46:31 46:31 - God is one and what do they mean by God is three because that’s why you can’t omit the persons in the essence from the
46:37 46:37 - definition of the Trinity because if you say God is one yet God is three that’s the that’s the definition of the Trinity
46:44 46:44 - you’ve omitted The crucial information that the teaching of the Trinity is that God is one in essence and three in
46:51 46:51 - person and you can’t leave those things out because yeah otherwise like what what you’re saying
46:59 46:59 - what depends what you mean right because that statement actually one does not equal three in terms of numerical Logic
47:06 47:06 - for example but that’s not what we’re claiming is the thing we’re not claiming that God is one person and three people
47:13 47:13 - that is the equivalency that would derive a logical contradiction right yes yes exactly the two things are not the
47:20 47:20 - same we’re not talking about the same thing on two sides of an equation right we’re not talking about God has one
47:26 47:26 - Essence yet God has three Essences or God is one person yet God is three people we are saying neither of those
47:32 47:32 - things we are saying that God has one Essence but he is three persons see what I’m saying and therefore there is no
47:39 47:39 - logical contradiction not inherent in logic it’s just hard to understand that’s all um because there is nothing
47:47 47:47 - else that is multiple persons from the same Essence in all of existence right that’s that that’s
47:54 47:54 - literally all there is to it but ai’s point is very important and we should emphasize that reemphasize it the
48:00 48:00 - Trinity is not an illogical Doctrine it is just outside the scope of human experience and understanding because we
48:07 48:07 - are finite beings don’t really understand what an eternal existence is much less Eternal Unity of will things
48:16 48:16 - like this we just kind of can’t sink our fingers into it past a certain point because it’s outside the scope of our
48:22 48:22 - experience but that’s very different from it being iCal in a formal logic sense yeah
48:34 48:34 - yeah all right so the next type of illustration we’re going to be talking about here that people sometimes use in
48:41 48:41 - discussing the Trinity uh is the illustrations coming from the Physical Realm so this category of illustration
48:49 48:49 - for the Trinity contains some of the perhaps more interesting examples that have ever been used when people have
48:55 48:55 - tried to map things from the material Universe uh onto the Trinity to help us kind of understand it contextualize it
49:03 49:03 - uh in material terms but they all suffer from the same objections that were lodged against the former category that
49:10 49:10 - is you know when we were talking about things from nature like an egg which has the Yol the White and the shell for
49:16 49:16 - example um any of which three you would no longer have an egg but the problem with this sort like we had said was that
49:24 49:24 - none of these illustrations really help explain the personalities of the Trinity because while it is true that without
49:30 49:30 - any of those three things you no longer have an egg which is good you know because that’s true of the Trinity as
49:35 49:35 - well if you don’t have Jesus it’s not the Trinity if you don’t have the father it’s not the Trinity if you don’t have
49:39 49:39 - the son it’s not the Trinity but you know an egg yoke doesn’t have personality so um it it it’s limited in
49:46 49:46 - its power to describe exactly how the Trinity works and like we said this is just true across the board for all of
49:53 49:53 - our illustrations because none of them them can properly capture you know the Divine being of God who external
50:00 50:00 - SpaceTime they just can’t um so these illustrations here unlike nature where you know the egg was one of the examples
50:07 50:07 - we used we have several examples here so uh maybe starting out with an easy one uh light is one yet distinct and we
50:17 50:17 - might also compare actually God being light coming from 1 John 1 verse5 um that God is light and in him there is no
50:25 50:25 - Darkness so God has actually described as being light but you don’t want to push this one too far in saying that uh
50:31 50:31 - so when we say that light is one yet distinct we’re primarily talking about wavelengths here so if anyone remembers
50:38 50:38 - back to their physics class we know that a radio is you know uh a electromagnetic radiation of a specific wavelength on
50:47 50:47 - the Spectrum Radio is heard or well I mean we don’t hear it with our ears but you know like you know E Equipment can
50:57 50:57 - uh you know take the radio waves and convert them into sound um because sound waves are a different type of wave than
51:01 51:01 - electromagnetic but radio is heard visible light is seen so you might think uh across the rainbow Spectrum uh so red
51:10 51:10 - light on one end and blue light on the other actually have different wavelengths um so unless I’m M I believe
51:17 51:17 - I’d have to actually go look but I think red wav is like a longer wavelength and blue is uh shorter wavelength maybe blue
51:24 51:24 - is higher frequency I don’t remember blue light has more energy I remember that from physics um but infrared is
51:30 51:30 - another type of electromagnetic radiation so all of these things we can call light yet no one of them has like a
51:40 51:40 - monopoly on light right they’re all equally light yet they’re not the same uh like they’re not equivalent to each
51:47 51:47 - other right so that’s in the same way this is where the analogy part comes in the father is God and the spirit is God
51:54 51:54 - and the son is God but they are not each other in the same way that radio is light visible light is light and
52:01 52:01 - infrared is light or electromag electromagnetic radiation if you prefer but all of those things are not each
52:09 52:09 - other um so uh just more examples here we say the universe is one yet distinct in that the universe is composed of time
52:18 52:18 - space and matter and all of those things are the universe but time is not space and space is not matter and matter is
52:24 52:24 - not time right um time is one yet distinct past present and future and all of those
52:31 52:31 - things are time yet past is not present and present is not future and future is not past same thing with space length
52:39 52:39 - breadth and height all of those things are dimensions within space but length is not breadth and breadth is not height
52:45 52:45 - and height is not length and also with matter itself so this one I don’t know again physics if you recall in your
52:54 52:54 - heads you know there’s an a very famous equation from Einstein e equals mc² right um You might remember this um so
53:02 53:02 - energy and matter are related to each other in terms of the physical universe and the well I misspelled that word
53:09 53:09 - there that should be phenomena not phenomia that’s that’s not a word phenomena um so matter is one yet
53:17 53:17 - distinct energy matter and phenomena and energy is not matter matter is not phenomena phenomena is not energy
53:22 53:22 - there’s three things right all of these examp here they get at this sense that the
53:29 53:29 - father and the son and the spirit are all God but yet they’re not each other but just like we talked about before
53:36 53:36 - with nature the problem is is that none of these things are personal they’re not individuals like it’s not like time
53:43 53:43 - space and matter have Personalities in the same way that the members of the Trinity do they don’t have Personalities
53:50 53:50 - in the sense that we humans have personalities but they have a will they are person
53:56 53:56 - um and so that’s where these analogies kind of fall down just like the past on we’ve talked about a you have anything
54:03 54:03 - you want to contribute uh in this discussion here okay um not not much really I think you have covered the
54:10 54:10 - grounds like we’ve said before that all illustrations that we make about the Trinity are necessarily going to be
54:19 54:19 - flowed they’re all illustrations they cannot be anything other than illustrations so in some way they will
54:26 54:26 - give some insight into how the Trinity works but um beyond that we might we will find that those illustrations like
54:34 54:34 - every other analogy will break down so that is um what we need to know but like like we said they’re very useful to
54:43 54:43 - understand some aspect or other of the Trinity I don’t think there is much more to say or do regarding um how the whole
54:53 54:53 - thing works but you have covered it pretty nice all right so before we get back to
55:02 55:02 - the outline to kind of go over all that we’ve talked about we’re just going to close out kind of uh ending where we
55:08 55:08 - started talking about the basically some of the caveats to bear in mind when we are discussing these illustrations for
55:15 55:15 - the Trinity and kind of the just the concept in general of coming up with these analogies to try to help us
55:20 55:20 - understand so the most that can be said for the best of these illustrations is to the extent that they remind us of the
55:27 55:27 - awesome wisdom and power of God in creating all of these things that we’re talking about um and we may often take
55:33 55:33 - this for granted as we go through life uh you know just thinking about the enormity of the universe and the
55:39 55:39 - magnificence of God’s creation you know we probably ought to ponder that a little bit more just generally speaking
55:46 55:46 - however all of those things you know in as much as they may help us realize that God is going to be even greater than
55:56 55:56 - what he has made you know that’s a positive thing they can help point us to him this is in fact very much what
56:02 56:02 - natural Revelation generally is you know as talked about in Romans chapter 1 vers 18 and following or Psalm chapter 19 uh
56:11 56:11 - we know God we know certain aspects about uh his character and his divinity through that which has been made um and
56:19 56:19 - so in as much as these things point us to God and we know um you know we can refer things based upon that just
56:26 56:26 - through the natural world and some of these created things you know we talked about nature here and uh just things
56:32 56:32 - from the Physical Realm uh creation generally um well these things can be good in as much as they point us to God
56:40 56:40 - as the Creator um and so um they may help us realize that God is going to be even bigger even more complex even more
56:49 56:49 - wonderful than the things that he has created um and so if they help us accept what we already know to be true about
56:55 56:55 - the Trinity and again as we have kind of hammered home time and again the doctrine of the Trinity is basically one
57:03 57:03 - in essence three in person or three in person or one in essence whichever order you prefer those things together compose
57:09 57:09 - the teaching of what we say we believe and so if these things help us grasp that or accept it more easily what we
57:17 57:17 - know to be true from what the Bible tells us then okay that’s fine right basically this is best case right right
57:25 57:25 - um and so we’re never going to completely grasp this you know we’ve been over this before too um even if it
57:31 57:31 - seems too complex and wonderful for us to fully grasp as humans that’s a limitation of our flesh of our Earthly
57:37 57:37 - perspective given that we are very finite beings in SpaceTime on the other side we will know more as we are known
57:44 57:44 - the terminology the Bible uses but nonetheless right now we have this very limited perspective that we are going to
57:50 57:50 - be kind of stuck with until uh we join God and Jesus on the other side and all of our brothers and sisters who’ve gone
57:59 57:59 - before us um however and again that was best case scenario however uh you can run into problems here as well we have
58:07 58:07 - to take care that none of these illustrations are taken too far we have kind of been over this before uh when
58:13 58:13 - you think about the interpretation of Parables so you have the parable of the wheat and the tears well we are not
58:19 58:19 - actually literally wheat you cannot take certain physical properties of wheat and start making suppositions and hypoth
58:25 58:25 - based on them um and that’s sort of the same thing here um and the idea is basically if we go beyond what is
58:33 58:33 - written uh we can be led to dangerous and extra biblical rationalization based upon analogies we cannot reason about
58:41 58:41 - the nature of God based upon characteristics of eggs you know just to go back to the nature example God is not
58:48 58:48 - an egg right in as much as we use the egg to try to explain how there are these three parts any one of which if
58:54 58:54 - you take it away is no longer an egg you know if we try to use that to help us understand the Trinity maybe you know
59:01 59:01 - like we said best case maybe it helps us appreciate the complexity and the Majesty of God but you can’t you know go
59:07 59:07 - start trying to put God in a box based on characteristics of eggs that’s kind of what we’re getting at here um and The
59:14 59:14 - Trinity here um this is kind of taking a step back into the wider context the Trinity is very often a good litmus test
59:21 59:21 - for our Christian faith um because to AC the Trinity you have to accept not only the existence of God but also the
59:29 59:29 - distinctiveness and Divinity of Jesus Christ that is he’s a different person than the father but he is also God and
59:35 59:35 - that’s kind of the true Touchstone principle that divides us as Believers from unbelievers that Jesus uh fully God
59:42 59:42 - yet fully man came down into the world um paid for our sins upon the cross that we might have redemption and forgiveness
59:49 59:49 - through his blood you know that’s the essence of the Gospel message and so this is why Satan spends so many
59:56 59:56 - resources attacking this Doctrine in particular is because by distorting our understanding of the Trinity the devil
01:00:03 01:00:03 - ultimately seeks to destroy our faith in Jesus Christ uh you know specifically we would say who he is the who he is part
01:00:09 01:00:09 - of Jesus Christ but you know our entire understanding of redemption of how Jesus Paid for our sin it doesn’t work if he
01:00:17 01:00:17 - wasn’t God and this is why this is so so so important for us as Christians because the Divinity of Jesus and how he
01:00:24 01:00:24 - was God is God and yet he took on a human nature to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins it’s as
01:00:31 01:00:31 - foundational as you get in Christianity basically and so that’s why Satan spends time attacking this um and again this is
01:00:40 01:00:40 - just Why well you know by way of warning we are saying we have to be careful not to go beyond what is written not to push
01:00:47 01:00:47 - analogies and and by the way these have going against them that most of these aren’t even biblical analogies they’re
01:00:52 01:00:52 - just analogies people have come up with which you know in as much as they’re not even in the Bible they’re not even
01:00:57 01:00:57 - inspired and we just have plenty of um danger in going too far with this that doesn’t mean that you will inherently
01:01:05 01:01:05 - you know the second you look at one of these that I don’t know that you’re going to mess up your understanding the
01:01:09 01:01:09 - Trinity it’s just we have to be really careful and one of the other reasons why we need to take such care is just
01:01:15 01:01:15 - because of how critical and how important this Doctrine is generally for our faith and practice as Christians so
01:01:21 01:01:21 - that’s kind of where we’re going to leave off here just all of this should help point us to you know okay so maybe
01:01:27 01:01:27 - if some of these things aren’t the best way for us to understand so we we’ve talked about three persons one Essence
01:01:34 01:01:34 - well what does that mean how does that work in how God interacts with creation it’s kind of where we’re going to turn
01:01:39 01:01:39 - next but this was just an introduction to the fact that we can use certain phenomena in the Physical Realm to try
01:01:47 01:01:47 - to help us wrap our heads around how this works and things like that and it’s not necessarily bad but we just really
01:01:53 01:01:53 - need to be careful when when we do it so that we don’t get tripped up a you have anything else you want to share before
01:02:00 01:02:00 - we close out this section of the study not really I don’t think there is uh much else to say it it does bear
01:02:09 01:02:09 - repeating and emphasizing that um every every bit of the Bible is important and some parts of the Bible
01:02:18 01:02:18 - are like you said foundational to our faith you don’t need to understand the mechanics of the Trinity to be saved but
01:02:26 01:02:26 - if you don’t understand the Trinity and how it works there’s a chance that you have a
01:02:33 01:02:33 - greater potential to have your faith threatened than if you did um because just as as
01:02:42 01:02:42 - Stephen very aptly pointed out um the the the business of the Trinity the truth of the Trinity affirms The Who
01:02:52 01:02:52 - part of what of of of the whole business of Jesus who is he and what did he do what did he do is what saved us but who
01:03:02 01:03:02 - he is is what made what he did possible so if we if we don’t get the who part then that’s where we are weak that’s
01:03:09 01:03:09 - where Satan is going to attack and we we have seen it has been a potent attack in the history of the church visible for a
01:03:17 01:03:17 - long time so um getting it right is not an academic thing it’s not a hobby we don’t do it just for fun we do it in
01:03:28 01:03:28 - order to make sure that there are no gaps in our faith in our understanding of the Lord there are no chinks in our
01:03:35 01:03:35 - armor that’s why what what we do it for it’s not just an academic [Music]
01:03:44 01:03:44 - endeav so that’s where we’re going to cut this section in the study here I just briefly going to go back over uh
01:03:50 01:03:50 - the things we’ve talked about here in discussing illustrations for the trinity we opened up talking about uh how you
01:03:57 01:03:57 - know there are some perils there’s some risks here especially if we’re not careful in keeping these things
01:04:02 01:04:02 - contextualized you know making it very clear that you know this isn’t you know the formal teaching about God at best
01:04:09 01:04:09 - these are just ways to help us better conceptualize him to put him in a human frame of reference so that maybe we can
01:04:17 01:04:17 - wrap our heads about how three can be one and one can be three in terms of three persons one essence or one Essence
01:04:23 01:04:23 - three persons um but we just have to be really careful when we do this that we don’t get lost in translation um and so
01:04:30 01:04:30 - then after that we talked about uh the Trinity triangle this illustration that has been around since the very early
01:04:36 01:04:36 - church and how really calling this an illustration is is maybe not quite the same as some of the other ones because
01:04:42 01:04:42 - it’s just sort of a pictoral and image way to represent the doctrine of the Trinity which is that the father and the
01:04:48 01:04:48 - son and the spirit are all God but the father is not the Son and the son is not the spirit and the spirit is is not the
01:04:54 01:04:54 - father right um and you can see those relationships represented here in the triangle and so um that uh early
01:05:01 01:05:01 - illustration we said you know if you keep it to the picture you know there’s nothing special about triangles for
01:05:06 01:05:06 - example but you know it it can be helpful and just showing us in a visual representation of what the doctrine of
01:05:13 01:05:13 - the Trinity is then we talked about the illustration of the family of man the illustration of the human mind
01:05:20 01:05:20 - illustrations from the world of nature like that example of the egg and illustrations from the Physical Realm
01:05:27 01:05:27 - like light the the you know the electromagnetic radiation the Spectrum there with different wavelengths but
01:05:33 01:05:33 - they’re all light and space and time and matter and so on um all of these things can help kind of uh maybe help us get
01:05:42 01:05:42 - some intuition for how can three things be one you know how can they all be the same yet different um in the same way
01:05:49 01:05:49 - that um the three members of the Trinity are all God yet they are distinct persons that’s kind kind of where these
01:05:55 01:05:55 - analogies these illustrations are trying to help us go um but again we kind of closed out here just saying that because
01:06:00 01:06:00 - of how important this Doctrine is because none of these illustrations are really in the Bible either we just have
01:06:06 01:06:06 - to be careful that we don’t take any of this too far that if we do any of this which um you know we’re kind of going to
01:06:13 01:06:13 - argue in the next part of the study that the best way to actually understand the Trinity is to look at how the Trinity
01:06:19 01:06:19 - operates in creation as uh recorded for us in the Bible That’s the best way for us to understand how this works in
01:06:26 01:06:26 - practice uh probably more than trying to uh reason with these illustrations or analogies so that’s kind of where we’re
01:06:33 01:06:33 - going to be turning now we are going to be turning to the roles of the Trinity as discussed in the Bible so there’s a a
01:06:39 01:06:39 - future section that’s going to kind of hit more the Old Testament specifically we’re talk about the concept of
01:06:44 01:06:44 - christophanies some but right now we’re just going to be introducing the roles in the Trinity generally speaking so
01:06:50 01:06:50 - we’re going to be talking about the father and the son and the spirit and uh names for God as it’s involved in the
01:06:56 01:06:56 - roles in the Trinity so that’s what the next lesson we’ll be going over

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