August 28, 2025 • 13 mins
Do you have the capability to do something, or sometimes more difficult, the ability to resist temptation and NOT do something?
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today a smaller, bite-sizedpiece from the larger lesson.
We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And what he's trying to protect, then, is that Jesus
is just one person.
We can't.
We've got to be careful.
You know, talking about hisdivine nature and his human
nature, before we know it, we'retalking like two people, and
he's not.
He's only one person.
And so my conclusion is, ofcourse, we want to do justice to
both, both of these ideas thatthese men set forth, which are
both of these statements here,these phrases.
(00:34):
Now, I'll just introduce this.
I don't know if we have time toresolve it, but the difficulty
is this this is the difficultyI'm really I've ever given you
to understand.
Okay, are you ready?
The word able in those twosentences means something
different in each sentence, andit has to.
(00:56):
It cannot have an identicalmeaning.
The first phrase right, notable to sin.
We said that applies to God,james 1.13.
Second, able, not to sin.
That applies to man, at leastAdam and Christ.
Now, are God and man the same?
(01:17):
Everybody will say no, god andman are not the same.
God is the creator and man is acreature.
When we make a sentence aboutGod and then we make the same
sentence about man, do those twosentences mean the same thing?
I'll give you an example Godloves.
(01:40):
Does everybody like this?
I love this statement.
God loves Now.
God loves Now man love.
Do those two sentences mean thesame thing?
Does the love that God has andthe love that man has?
(02:04):
Are they identical?
If they are the same, let's saythe word love means the same
and God's love is equated withman's love, then isn't man God?
Because we express the sametype of love exactly as he
expresses.
See, that's the problem.
The problem is that we knowthat God's love is infinite, but
(02:28):
we know that man's love isfinite.
So they can't be the sameexactly.
They have to be similar, or wewouldn't know what it was
talking about God's love orman's love, we wouldn't even
know what that meant.
So they have to have asimilarity, but they can't be
identical, because if they'reidentical, then we love in the
(02:49):
same sense that God loved.
And what we've done is we'veproduced a universal category of
love and we put God and manunderneath that universal
category.
And you can never, ever, ever,ever do that, ever, ever do that
(03:10):
.
What does Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 say?
My ways are not, my thoughtsare not your thoughts, but my
ways, he says, are higher thanyour ways and my thoughts higher
than your thoughts and you saybut I don't understand and I
said amen, yes, we do notentirely understand this because
(03:31):
ultimately, god isincomprehensible.
But when you see these twostatements not able to sin, that
word able in that sentence is aword reserved for the creator,
a word reserved for the creator,and its entire meaning is
filled by his nature, in essence, not our idea.
(03:55):
The second one, that word ableable not to sin, able there has
the concept that is among us ashumans.
Are the two words similar inmeaning?
Yes, they must be similar, orwe have no connection point.
But they're not identical.
Okay, they're not identical.
This is the only way topreserve both of those two
(04:20):
statements as true.
It's the only way, but it isthe way that we understand it.
Okay, jesus Christ is both Godand man.
Okay, so the problem iscomplicated because of our
inability to comprehensivelyunderstand what God is like.
You just can't, sorry, for alleternity, you're still never,
ever, ever, ever, ever going toknow God as God knows himself,
(04:44):
because he's an infinite beingand we will never be infinite or
have infinite understanding.
You just can't.
We'll always be creatures.
The two phrases are similar, youknow right.
So we have an idea of what Godis like.
But again, if they're identical, then God and man would be
identical, and we know that'snot true.
Everybody knows that's not true.
So the bottom line is that bothphrase one not able to sin and
(05:07):
phrase two able not to sin aretrue of Jesus Christ.
And phrase one refers to hisdeity right, it's looking at him
from the deity side.
And phrase two refers to hishumanity.
So we can look at him in histwo natures and say phrase one
applies to his deity, but phrasetwo to his humanity.
But then the question becomeswell, what about him?
(05:28):
He's only one person.
So how would we speak aboutthis in terms of his one person?
Well, because of the hypostaticunion, because his deity and
humanity are inseparable.
They're not mixed.
Remember, they're not mixed,but they're not separated either
.
They're just, let's just say,touching.
Okay, because of that phraseone, not able to sin.
(05:53):
Now, because I wanted to finish, I'm going to take you to the
last statement.
Okay, again, we can'tcompletely explain this.
God can.
Let me use an illustration.
Assume a battleship was builtthat was impervious to every
(06:13):
weapon known to man.
You've got this ship.
It's impervious to anyprojectile that man knows the
enemy can fire as many of thoseprojectiles as he wishes at the
ship right, yet no projectilewill sink it right Because it's
impervious right projectilewhich sink it right Because it's
(06:34):
impervious right.
In the same way, the enemycould fire as many temptations
at Jesus as he wished, yet Jesuswould not succumb to the
temptation.
Would he have been genuinelytested?
Yeah, yes, yes.
Just like the ship would havegenuinely been kissed, so
(06:54):
there's he could, and yet notsuccumb, not be able to succumb.
Um jesus christ, thoughgenuinely tempted beyond
anything, any other creatureever experienced, could not sin
as the one having true humanityand undiminished deity
coexisting in one person.
(07:14):
Forever, christ would always bevictorious, even though canonic
, during his life on earth, hewould always be victorious.
That is what is so interestingabout Luke 4.
I spent all this time on thisdiscussion just so I could take
you to Luke 4, so you could seeone little phrase, because
(07:34):
without all this, this phrasewill probably never even get
noticed by most of us as readers.
Luke, chapter 4.
The first verse Jesus, full ofthe Holy Spirit, returned from
the Jordan and he was what, ledaround by the Spirit in the
(08:01):
wilderness for 40 days, beingtempted by the devil who was
leading him around in thewilderness?
The Holy Spirit was leading himaround in the wilderness, the
Holy Spirit.
What is the Holy Spirit doingby leading him around in the
wilderness?
He's taking Jesus to the fight.
He's taking him to thetemptations.
(08:24):
He's leading them into thebattle.
He's taking him right to thefront lines.
You say, why would he ever dothat?
To show that he's impervious.
It is to show that he could notsin.
Satan waited 40 days, duringwhich he was, he was tempting
him through the 40 days, andthen, after the 40 days, it says
(08:48):
what it says he ate nothingduring those days.
When they had ended, he becamehungry.
In other words, it's anopportune time to break through
this seemingly imperviousindividual, and that's when he
brought the three, what we callthe three temptations, these
great temptations.
(09:10):
But the point is that the HolySpirit was taking him to the
fight to show who he was inimpeccability.
Jesus Christ could never sin,yet he was, at the same time,
tempted to sin, just like youand I were.
(09:31):
And you say but I cannotunderstand that.
Good, if you could, you wouldbe God, and you are not and I'm
not.
But we are supposed to beimpressed with this.
There's one other occasion inthe Gospels we'd probably miss
if we didn't talk about it, andthat's that later in Gethsemane,
(09:51):
when he has everybody prayingright, I'm sorry, they were
asleep, they couldn't even forone hour and he says behold, the
betrayer is at hand.
And that's not all it says.
It says and he went in thatdirection, he went to the fight,
(10:14):
he went to be arrested.
Why?
Because it's not my will.
He says it's thy will be done.
Now, is this the way you liveyour Christian life?
I have to say many, many, many,many, many times, most times, I
don't.
If I don't face this, if Idon't look at these truths, I
(10:37):
don't get convicted and I don'thave the humility that I need to
be exalted by God.
And you don't either.
You know, without him you'renothing.
Until we recognize that eventhe Lord Jesus Christ recognized
this.
Without him I'm nothing.
(10:57):
If he will do that, will younot do that?
No, I'm something.
That's what we think.
I'm somebody.
It's when you become nobodythat you actually become
somebody.
It's when we are weak that heis strong.
His power is made perfect inour what Weakness.
(11:21):
That is what the wholeChristian life is about.
It's not about being the topdog on the block.
It's about being least of all.
Matthew 18, he who becomes likethis little child will be
greatest in the kingdom.
He who is servant of all willbe greatest in the kingdom.
How do you get greatness?
(11:42):
You become servant of everybody.
You become a nobody.
Are you going to be great inthe kingdom?
This life's going to pass.
The kingdom is forever.
Which one's more important, nowor then?
These things cannot compare,paul says, to the glories to
come.
All I'm trying to do is makeyou think like the Bible.
That is all I'm interested indoing.
These things cannot compare,paul says, to the glories to
(12:02):
come.
All I'm trying to do is makeyou think like the Bible.
That is all I'm interested indoing, because I don't think
most Christians want to thinklike the Bible, even though they
sit there and listen to it Someof them.
Whatever the preacher has to saythat Sunday Hopefully something
deep like this.
You need this stuff.
You need it Because I'll tellyou why.
Eternity is forever and he whois least in the kingdom is
(12:28):
greater than anyone in thisworld.
But he who is greatest in thekingdom is greater than John the
Baptist.
You realize that.
Jesus said that You'll begreater than John the Baptist in
the kingdom if you become leastof all and servant of everyone.
That's the way to live yourlife, just like the Lord, jesus
Christ.
He showed us All right.
Next week, a little bit moreabout impeccability, and then
we'll start applying it and talkmore about how this works in
our own practical Christian life.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
You can find those on Rumbleand on YouTube under Spokane
Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(13:10):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app.
No-transcript.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today a smaller, bite-sizedpiece from the larger lesson.
We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And what he's trying to protect, then, is that Jesus
is just one person.
We can't.
We've got to be careful.
You know, talking about hisdivine nature and his human
nature, before we know it, we'retalking like two people, and
he's not.
He's only one person.
And so my conclusion is, ofcourse, we want to do justice to
both, both of these ideas thatthese men set forth, which are
both of these statements here,these phrases.
(00:34):
Now, I'll just introduce this.
I don't know if we have time toresolve it, but the difficulty
is this this is the difficultyI'm really I've ever given you
to understand.
Okay, are you ready?
The word able in those twosentences means something
different in each sentence, andit has to.
(00:56):
It cannot have an identicalmeaning.
The first phrase right, notable to sin.
We said that applies to God,james 1.13.
Second, able, not to sin.
That applies to man, at leastAdam and Christ.
Now, are God and man the same?
(01:17):
Everybody will say no, god andman are not the same.
God is the creator and man is acreature.
When we make a sentence aboutGod and then we make the same
sentence about man, do those twosentences mean the same thing?
I'll give you an example Godloves.
(01:40):
Does everybody like this?
I love this statement.
God loves Now.
God loves Now man love.
Do those two sentences mean thesame thing?
Does the love that God has andthe love that man has?
(02:04):
Are they identical?
If they are the same, let's saythe word love means the same
and God's love is equated withman's love, then isn't man God?
Because we express the sametype of love exactly as he
expresses.
See, that's the problem.
The problem is that we knowthat God's love is infinite, but
(02:28):
we know that man's love isfinite.
So they can't be the sameexactly.
They have to be similar, or wewouldn't know what it was
talking about God's love orman's love, we wouldn't even
know what that meant.
So they have to have asimilarity, but they can't be
identical, because if they'reidentical, then we love in the
(02:49):
same sense that God loved.
And what we've done is we'veproduced a universal category of
love and we put God and manunderneath that universal
category.
And you can never, ever, ever,ever do that, ever, ever do that
(03:10):
.
What does Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 say?
My ways are not, my thoughtsare not your thoughts, but my
ways, he says, are higher thanyour ways and my thoughts higher
than your thoughts and you saybut I don't understand and I
said amen, yes, we do notentirely understand this because
(03:31):
ultimately, god isincomprehensible.
But when you see these twostatements not able to sin, that
word able in that sentence is aword reserved for the creator,
a word reserved for the creator,and its entire meaning is
filled by his nature, in essence, not our idea.
(03:55):
The second one, that word ableable not to sin, able there has
the concept that is among us ashumans.
Are the two words similar inmeaning?
Yes, they must be similar, orwe have no connection point.
But they're not identical.
Okay, they're not identical.
This is the only way topreserve both of those two
(04:20):
statements as true.
It's the only way, but it isthe way that we understand it.
Okay, jesus Christ is both Godand man.
Okay, so the problem iscomplicated because of our
inability to comprehensivelyunderstand what God is like.
You just can't, sorry, for alleternity, you're still never,
ever, ever, ever, ever going toknow God as God knows himself,
(04:44):
because he's an infinite beingand we will never be infinite or
have infinite understanding.
You just can't.
We'll always be creatures.
The two phrases are similar, youknow right.
So we have an idea of what Godis like.
But again, if they're identical, then God and man would be
identical, and we know that'snot true.
Everybody knows that's not true.
So the bottom line is that bothphrase one not able to sin and
(05:07):
phrase two able not to sin aretrue of Jesus Christ.
And phrase one refers to hisdeity right, it's looking at him
from the deity side.
And phrase two refers to hishumanity.
So we can look at him in histwo natures and say phrase one
applies to his deity, but phrasetwo to his humanity.
But then the question becomeswell, what about him?
(05:28):
He's only one person.
So how would we speak aboutthis in terms of his one person?
Well, because of the hypostaticunion, because his deity and
humanity are inseparable.
They're not mixed.
Remember, they're not mixed,but they're not separated either
.
They're just, let's just say,touching.
Okay, because of that phraseone, not able to sin.
(05:53):
Now, because I wanted to finish, I'm going to take you to the
last statement.
Okay, again, we can'tcompletely explain this.
God can.
Let me use an illustration.
Assume a battleship was builtthat was impervious to every
(06:13):
weapon known to man.
You've got this ship.
It's impervious to anyprojectile that man knows the
enemy can fire as many of thoseprojectiles as he wishes at the
ship right, yet no projectilewill sink it right Because it's
impervious right projectilewhich sink it right Because it's
(06:34):
impervious right.
In the same way, the enemycould fire as many temptations
at Jesus as he wished, yet Jesuswould not succumb to the
temptation.
Would he have been genuinelytested?
Yeah, yes, yes.
Just like the ship would havegenuinely been kissed, so
(06:54):
there's he could, and yet notsuccumb, not be able to succumb.
Um jesus christ, thoughgenuinely tempted beyond
anything, any other creatureever experienced, could not sin
as the one having true humanityand undiminished deity
coexisting in one person.
(07:14):
Forever, christ would always bevictorious, even though canonic
, during his life on earth, hewould always be victorious.
That is what is so interestingabout Luke 4.
I spent all this time on thisdiscussion just so I could take
you to Luke 4, so you could seeone little phrase, because
(07:34):
without all this, this phrasewill probably never even get
noticed by most of us as readers.
Luke, chapter 4.
The first verse Jesus, full ofthe Holy Spirit, returned from
the Jordan and he was what, ledaround by the Spirit in the
(08:01):
wilderness for 40 days, beingtempted by the devil who was
leading him around in thewilderness?
The Holy Spirit was leading himaround in the wilderness, the
Holy Spirit.
What is the Holy Spirit doingby leading him around in the
wilderness?
He's taking Jesus to the fight.
He's taking him to thetemptations.
(08:24):
He's leading them into thebattle.
He's taking him right to thefront lines.
You say, why would he ever dothat?
To show that he's impervious.
It is to show that he could notsin.
Satan waited 40 days, duringwhich he was, he was tempting
him through the 40 days, andthen, after the 40 days, it says
(08:48):
what it says he ate nothingduring those days.
When they had ended, he becamehungry.
In other words, it's anopportune time to break through
this seemingly imperviousindividual, and that's when he
brought the three, what we callthe three temptations, these
great temptations.
(09:10):
But the point is that the HolySpirit was taking him to the
fight to show who he was inimpeccability.
Jesus Christ could never sin,yet he was, at the same time,
tempted to sin, just like youand I were.
(09:31):
And you say but I cannotunderstand that.
Good, if you could, you wouldbe God, and you are not and I'm
not.
But we are supposed to beimpressed with this.
There's one other occasion inthe Gospels we'd probably miss
if we didn't talk about it, andthat's that later in Gethsemane,
(09:51):
when he has everybody prayingright, I'm sorry, they were
asleep, they couldn't even forone hour and he says behold, the
betrayer is at hand.
And that's not all it says.
It says and he went in thatdirection, he went to the fight,
(10:14):
he went to be arrested.
Why?
Because it's not my will.
He says it's thy will be done.
Now, is this the way you liveyour Christian life?
I have to say many, many, many,many, many times, most times, I
don't.
If I don't face this, if Idon't look at these truths, I
(10:37):
don't get convicted and I don'thave the humility that I need to
be exalted by God.
And you don't either.
You know, without him you'renothing.
Until we recognize that eventhe Lord Jesus Christ recognized
this.
Without him I'm nothing.
(10:57):
If he will do that, will younot do that?
No, I'm something.
That's what we think.
I'm somebody.
It's when you become nobodythat you actually become
somebody.
It's when we are weak that heis strong.
His power is made perfect inour what Weakness.
(11:21):
That is what the wholeChristian life is about.
It's not about being the topdog on the block.
It's about being least of all.
Matthew 18, he who becomes likethis little child will be
greatest in the kingdom.
He who is servant of all willbe greatest in the kingdom.
How do you get greatness?
(11:42):
You become servant of everybody.
You become a nobody.
Are you going to be great inthe kingdom?
This life's going to pass.
The kingdom is forever.
Which one's more important, nowor then?
These things cannot compare,paul says, to the glories to
come.
All I'm trying to do is makeyou think like the Bible.
That is all I'm interested indoing.
These things cannot compare,paul says, to the glories to
(12:02):
come.
All I'm trying to do is makeyou think like the Bible.
That is all I'm interested indoing, because I don't think
most Christians want to thinklike the Bible, even though they
sit there and listen to it Someof them.
Whatever the preacher has to saythat Sunday Hopefully something
deep like this.
You need this stuff.
You need it Because I'll tellyou why.
Eternity is forever and he whois least in the kingdom is
(12:28):
greater than anyone in thisworld.
But he who is greatest in thekingdom is greater than John the
Baptist.
You realize that.
Jesus said that You'll begreater than John the Baptist in
the kingdom if you become leastof all and servant of everyone.
That's the way to live yourlife, just like the Lord, jesus
Christ.
He showed us All right.
Next week, a little bit moreabout impeccability, and then
we'll start applying it and talkmore about how this works in
our own practical Christian life.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
You can find those on Rumbleand on YouTube under Spokane
Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(13:10):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app.
No-transcript.
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