June 6, 2025 • 58 mins
What happens when our view of God doesn't fully explain Him? What if our view explains some passages about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit but not all of them? Is our view wrong or is the Bible wrong?
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Take a lot for granted, as if we could have
just read the Bible one time orsomething and figured all of
these things out that we know tobe true, and that's simply not
the case when you have adisagreement with God.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Who is wrong?
When you read something in theBible and disagree with it again
, I'll ask who is wrong?
Well, the answer is prettyobvious it's you and I.
God can never be wrong.
He is never wrong.
If he ever was, he wouldn't beGod.
And so we must ask ourselvesthis very important question If
(00:48):
I don't understand something, ifmy viewpoint, my perception,
cannot fully explain the Bible,then is the Bible wrong or am I?
This is really important whenit comes to our view of God.
This is really important whenit comes to our view of God.
Is God one person?
Is God three persons?
Does God change over time?
(01:11):
You see, throughout history,people have struggled with
trying to explain who God is andhow he manifests himself, and
on the one hand, we can laugh attheir silliness for being so
wrong, but on the other hand, weshould be gracious toward them
because they did not have thefull knowledge that we have.
They were building upon theknowledge that we now get to see
(01:34):
, and so we come back to thisfundamental question Is God
wrong or are we?
Well, obviously, we, in ourlimited understanding, have to
take time, we have to strugglewith how do we describe and
understand the nature andmanifestation of God throughout
history.
Today, jeremy is going to lookat several models that attempted
(01:58):
to explain who God is, andwe're going to look at where
each one fell down and try andcome to a better, more complete
picture of how to describe God'striune oneness.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Last week.
What we did was basically gothrough the deity of Christ.
As you talk about the virginbirth, of course you're talking
about this event where the HolySpirit conceived the child in
the womb of Mary and this childis born, and so you're obviously
(02:33):
dealing with what we would sayis the most complicated person
who's ever come into the world.
His title in the Old Testament,emmanuel, means God with us,
and that's who he is.
He is God with us and in theincarnation.
This is the first time inhistory when God came among men
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and walked in this way among men, so that he becomes the highest
form of revelation of who Godis.
So we went through some of theevidences that he is in fact God
, evidences from Christ forYahweh.
Name substitutions this is theconcept that we showed.
Numerous passages in the OldTestament will be quoted by
(03:19):
authors in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, yahweh,the tetragrammaton what I call
the name of God is used in thoseOld Testament passages.
But when they are quoted by theNew Testament authors, christ
is substituted in place of theTetragrammaton in that quote.
So because Yahweh in the OldTestament is substituted for
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with Christ in the New Testamentby name, and name refers to
one's essence or being, then weconclude that Christ must be
Yahweh.
He must be God right.
Another form of evidence is tolook at evidences for the
function substitutes, for thefunction substitutes.
What we mean by that is thingsthat only Yahweh can do, as the
(04:08):
Old Testament discusses him.
Christ is said to do in the NewTestament.
So, for example, he forgivessin.
Christ forgives sin in the NewTestament and the Jews say a
reasoning in their hearts sayingwho can forgive sins?
But God?
They knew the Old Testamenttaught that only Yahweh could
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forgive sins.
Yet Christ is saying heforgives sins in the New
Testament.
So, because of the functionalsubstitution, christ must be
Yahweh again.
And lastly, I just showed somepassages right that are
evidences for the deity ofChrist, some famous passages
like 2 Peter 1.1, which uses theGranville Sharp rule in the
(04:48):
Greek.
Titus 2.13 uses the same rule.
Also, discuss with you a littlebit about John 1.1 and the
qualitative use of.
You know, in the beginning wasthe Word.
The Word was with God, the Wordwas the ideas was fully God.
That's the concept at the endof that verse.
It's a qualitative use, mostlikely.
(05:08):
And so it's saying that theWord, the Word that became flesh
and dwelt among us is fully God.
He's distinct from the Father.
In that verse the Word was withGod, but he is also fully God.
So this starts to point us indirections of our mind of
wondering well, if Jesus is God,right, but there's only one God
(05:31):
.
I mean, everybody knows this.
Right, there's only one God.
The Bible teaches definitely,there's only one God.
When we come to the NewTestament we find that Jesus is
God.
Then the question becomes well,how are the Father and the
Spirit also God?
You see, in our own minds wetry to wrestle with this seeming
apparent paradox.
How can this be One God?
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Jesus is God.
Isn't that the end of the story?
No, we also have the Fatherbeing God.
We have the Spirit being God.
We haven't discussed anypassages in this class on the
Spirit being God.
We'll do that later, but I'massuming you know some of these
things from the Bible so we canhave this discussion right.
So how can this be?
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Many theories have beensuggested, and church history
contains the story of how theTrinitarian model was accepted
at the Council of Chalcedon, andthat's about 451 AD, so let's
just say about 400 years afterChrist, right, that's when the
church council.
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A church council came togetherand tried to resolve the issue
of all the texts that relate toJesus being God, the Father
being God, the Spirit being God,the Spirit being God.
There's all sorts of texts.
We're actually going to look atsome of these texts.
In a few weeks we go to the OldTestament and we'll talk about
texts about the Trinity there,new Testament texts about
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Trinity.
But what I'm saying is, inchurch history it literally took
them about 400 years to ironout and articulate this
formulation we call theTrinitarian model.
The model states that God isone in essence and he is three
in person.
So there's still just one God,right, and yet in God there are
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three persons Father, son andSpirit.
So that's the Chalcedon model.
I'm going to show you today alittle bit of the story of
church history, about trying tosort through the passages and
other models that people came upwith.
We do this, on one hand, tosharpen ourselves, because these
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ancient models, as I will showyou, still persist today in
modern version.
So, just because I say a wordlike, let's say, arianism, which
we'll look at, it's named aftera man named Arius.
He has a model, a particularmodel of God in the early
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centuries of the church.
That's not something that'sirrelevant to us today, because
that is very, very similar tothe Jehovah's Witness model.
So just because it's ancientdoesn't mean it's not relevant.
These ideas have persisted andremain with us today, so we need
to understand a little bitabout it.
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So that's one reason so we willbecome sharper in our
understanding of who Godactually is.
Is it important to know who Godis?
Yeah, it's very important toknow who God is, because there
are a lot of differentconceptions of God.
For example, islam has a modelof God right as an absolute,
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solitary God with no diversityof person within himself.
So just because we use the wordGod doesn't mean that everybody
shares the same content in theword G-O-D, and so when we talk
with people, we have to be awarethat there are various ideas of
who God is, and if we want tohave a real discussion, we have
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to be on the same page with theother person as to what God we
are talking about or what Godthey are talking about, so that
we can have the conversation.
Another reason that I want to gothrough this is to show us that
it takes multiple generationsfor people to work out various
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doctrines, for people to workout various doctrines.
I feel like, as a 21st centuryChristian, we stand on the
shoulders of many generationsthat have preceded us, many
generations of Christians whostudied the Bible.
And the Bible, of course, isthe most studied book in the
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history of the world, mostpublished book and most read and
studied book, and so it hasobviously been thought about a
lot.
We come along, you know, 21centuries after Christ, and take
a lot for granted, as if wecould have just read the Bible
one time or something andfigured all of these things out
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that we know to be true.
And that's simply not the case.
If we didn't have the shouldersto stand on from many prior
generations, we would notunderstand or have the doctrinal
development and maturity thatwe have today in the church.
So it's very important not tobecome arrogant.
(10:29):
I sense in this currentgeneration a lot of arrogance,
even spitting on people in thepast who got things wrong.
I don't find that to be proper,because these people, they did
their best in their time to tryto iron out some details, and
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sure they got some things wrong.
I'll use an example.
I'm sure this man would notmind he's not with us anymore,
but even if he were, I don'tthink he might.
Martin Luther, he ironed outjustification by faith.
This was a key in hisgeneration.
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He was trying to show peoplethat you didn't need to give
indulgences to the church andpenance and all these things and
works were not involved.
It was Christ's work alone andhe was a proponent of pointing
people to the love of Christ.
And yet you know, he wasanti-Semitic.
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He wrote a book called Againstthe Jews.
That grew out of his experienceof trying to evangelize Jews
and Jews, rejecting andrejecting and rejecting.
And so he concluded that Godwas done with the Jewish people
and we can't commend him forthat.
But we don't throw everythingthat Luther worked on in the
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trash can just because Luthergot some things wrong.
It took more time and morepeople to come along and start
to really hammer out and workout the doctrine of Israel and
future things and what God hasin store.
So in our own generation, youknow, there's this type of
mentality that we kind of spiton people in the past who messed
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up in this one little area.
I don't want that to be a partof our experience.
I want us to be able to commendpeople where they got the truth
right and where God used themfor the truth, and not just
focus on the things that theymay have got wrong.
Because if history has anythingto say about us today, it will
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say this we have some thingswrong too.
And in generations to come, ifthe Lord tarries, they will look
back and say well, they gotthat wrong.
And do we want them to treateverything that we did in our
time as wrong?
Or do we want them to commendus for the amount of Bible study
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we did and the things that wegot right and the things that we
polished and became better?
And I think that's what we allwant.
We're doing the best that wecan.
But I like to think of thedoctrines of Scripture like the
most complicated puzzle you canever imagine.
I remember we used to dopuzzles.
They were all just a littleflat 2D puzzles, and then they
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came out with the 3D puzzle andI thought, oh, my goodness, what
is this all about?
You know, that seems a lot morecomplicated because it's a
whole order of more complicationand that's something like the
Bible more complication andthat's something like the Bible,
and it's putting togethersomething that is the most
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complicated thing in the worldto put together.
So it doesn't just take onegeneration.
It takes many, many generationsworking on the same puzzle, so
to speak, to bring us to wherewe are today.
And we're still working on somethings, some aspects of the
puzzle.
So I want you to appreciatethat as we look at working on
some things, some aspects of thepuzzle, so I want you to
appreciate that as we look atsome of these views.
Okay, so let's just make a fewcomments under here, under B, on
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the outline here.
The Trinitarian model that wasdeveloped at Chalcedon, that
says God is one, in essencethree in person, is charged by
Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonswith borrowing the language of
Greek philosophy, and thereforewe got the Trinity from the
Greeks.
That's what they're saying.
However, the categories ofGreek philosophy do not have a
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concept of Trinity.
That's not part of Greekphilosophy.
Greek philosophy is basicallyabout the forms of Plato.
So you had these two, a dualism, two levels of reality, the
real or pure ideal, pure ideal,and then down here, the real,
and we'll discuss more of thatlater.
But that's not a Trinitarianconcept, it's a dualistic
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concept, but the Trinity doesn'tcome from Greek philosophy.
A third point, just anintroduction, is the model was
developed really reluctantlywithin christianity because
other models that we'll look atdidn't seem to accurately
reflect all the texts that areinvolved.
And that's what you're tryingto do.
You're trying to get all thetexts together and ask what is
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the best way to organize allthese scriptures that makes the
best sense of all the passages,right?
Okay, so the first one we'lllook at is called ancient modal
monarchianism, sometimes alsoknown as Sabellianism, and a
related but different view iscalled protropassionism, which
is the crucifixion of the father.
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The father was crucified, notthe son.
That's related to this.
So those first three words,they're not necessarily all
synonyms.
They're either nuanced versionsor results of one of these
views.
But I don't have time to gothrough all the views.
There's probably 20 or 30.
So we don't have time for allthat.
But that's the ancient conceptand the modern concept is
oneness Pentecostals.
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So oneness Pentecostals arestill around, so they believe
something very similar to thisancient view.
So let me ask you about thisword monarch, see ancient modal
monarchianism.
If I just ask you, well, what'sa monarch?
What would you say?
Okay, one guy is the soleabsolute ruler or king.
Right, a monarch.
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So that helps you understandwhat this view is.
This view is basically sayingthat God is one, an absolute one
, an absolute monarch.
There's no diversity of personwithin himself, there's just the
one, god.
Their conclusions from thispresupposition were basically to
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look at the Bible successively,like you're moving from the Old
Testament to the Gospels andthen into the New Testament
epistles, and they said in theOld Testament the Father is God,
in the New Testament, gospels,the Son is God, and in the
epistles and on down to our ownday, the Holy Spirit is God.
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What are they saying?
They're saying that God hasrevealed him successively in
three different masks.
In the Old Testament, he worethe mask of the Father.
In the New Testament, gospels,he put on the mask of the Son.
And in the epistles andfollowing, he put on a different
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mask, the mask of the Spirit,but there's really only.
And following he put on adifferent mask, the mask of the
Spirit, but there's really onlyone God.
There's not three differentpersons, they are three
different masks of the one God.
So this view is based again onthe idea of God's solitary
oneness.
Right, there can't be adiversity of person in him, but
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he can reveal himself withdifferent masks to us.
So this is their idea, okay,jesus well, god is the Father
reveals himself in the OldTestament, the Son is a
manifestation of God in the NewTestament and the Spirit is now
the manifestation of God on downto our own day in the New
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Testament, and the Spirit is nowthe manifestation of God on
down to our own day OnenessPentecostals are very similar to
this ancient idea because theybelieve that Jesus is the Father
, the Son and the Holy Spirit,and they base this on Colossians
2.9 as their main verse.
So let's look at Colossians 2.9.
If you can't remember where itis Galatians, ephesians,
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philippians then Colossians.
As my daughter reminded me theother day, my way of telling
people to remember these fourbooks is to remember God eats
popcorn.
Galatians, ephesians,philippians and Colossians.
God eats popcorn.
Galatians, ephesians,philippians and Colossians.
God eats popcorn, which is awhole other question we could
discuss, since God is spirit.
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Has he ever eaten popcorn?
And we know he doesn't have abody, so he doesn't eat popcorn.
But then you ask the questionwell, does he know what popcorn
tastes like, since he never ateit, but he's omniscient.
So we have lots of questionsthere.
Colossians 2.9.
This is their main verse forsaying that Jesus is the Father,
the Son and the Spirit, for inhim, that is, in Christ.
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Right Into verse 8, christ InChrist, right Into verse 8,
Christ In Christ, all thefullness of deity dwells in
bodily form.
All the fullness of deitydwells in bodily form.
So, oneness, pentecostals, usethis verse as a key interpretive
verse to explain all the otherverses in the Bible and
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emphasize that Jesus is Father,son and Spirit, and emphasize
that Jesus is Father, son andSpirit.
So what are some thinking aboutthis model?
What are some problems withthis?
Okay, one of the problems isthat this model makes it very
difficult to explain text whereJesus is talking to the Father,
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since, well, he is the Father,or just a manifestation of the
Father, however they exactlyview it.
So, for example, look at John 17.
This is Jesus' high priestlyprayer, and you notice right off
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the bat in 17.1, jesus speakingthese things, lifting up his
eyes to heaven.
You might ask yourself eventhere well, is he looking toward
himself?
Oh, wait a minute, you see, ifhe is all that there is of God,
who is he looking at?
He said Father, the hour hascome, glorify your Son, that the
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Son may glorify you, even asyou gave him authority over all
flesh.
So you know like who is hetalking to.
If he's all of God that thereis, there's no one else to talk
to see.
So these types of passages getvery difficult to explain.
Another one, for example versefive here Now, father, glorify
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me together with yourself, withthe glory which I had with you
before the world was.
That doesn't make a lot ofsense.
If he's the only God there isand there's no one else there,
who exactly are you talking to?
You're, the only other personyou could possibly be talking to
is yourself, and you're tellingyourself to do something.
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So it doesn't make much sense.
And this whole chapter has anumber of those types of
statements throughout.
Another problem with thisconcept of God is it doesn't
explain how the Father is theFather of the Son.
If they're really the same see,just different manifestations
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of God.
So Father-Son passages don'teven make sense.
There have to be two distinctpersons for us to have a concept
of Father and another being Son.
They can't just be the same.
Father and son can't be thesame.
So this view, while itattempted and tried to explain
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the idea of God and somemultiplicity as multiple masks
that he puts on it doesn't do agood job of explaining certain
texts that seem to indicate twodistinct persons in God.
So that's one view.
It's ancient, but it's also gota modern counterpart oneness,
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pentecostalism.
Here's another one Ancient,dynamic monarchianism, not modal
Modes are masks.
That's the first view.
This is dynamic, also known asadoptionism, which I think is
more helpful when I explain it.
But it is a form ofmonarchianism, because monarch
means what?
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One solitary king or ruler.
So that is their presuppositiona solitary one, god, an absolute
one with no diversity inhimself.
That's the key presupposition.
We know the Bible teaches that.
We know the Bible teaches Godis one.
Nobody is surprised by that inthis room.
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Old and New Testament teachthat.
But the question becomes well,what about passages then that
teach a distinction betweenFather and Son in this God see,
or a distinction between Son andSpirit in this God?
That's what they're trying towrestle with in the early church
, also known as adoptionism, andin the modern day it's in
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Unitarianism, judaism and Islam.
Now, everything I mentionedunder the conclusions will not
be true of each and every one ofthose, but I'm just saying they
all share the samepresupposition that there's an
absolute oneness to God.
Does Islam believe that anabsolute oneness in Allah?
Yeah, they don't believe anydiversity exists within Allah.
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It's just a solitary one beingwith no persons of distinction
within himself.
Same thing for Judaism right,they're strict monotheists in
the sense there's no diversityof person within God.
The same thing for Unitarianismthey're called Unitarians
because they uni means one right.
Uni like the Unibomber,remember that guy.
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One right Like the Unabomber,remember that guy.
They're not Trinitarians, whichwould be three, a reference to
the oneness in a unified God, asingle God.
So they're Unitarian.
So those are modern forms ofthis.
Again, the ideas have not goneaway.
So the presupposition, againsolitary monotheism.
But it's different from theprevious idea where God put on
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different masks successively inhistory.
In their view, only the Fatheris God and God adopted Jesus.
That's why I say adoptionism isa good term to understand this
view.
God adopted Jesus, either athis birth, his baptism or the
resurrection.
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That's Bart Ehrman's view, bythe way.
Remember the guy who alwaysdebates Christians?
He used to say he was aChristian, but he rejected all
this stuff.
Or the resurrection and gavehim godhood at that adoption.
So, in other words, jesus isjust a man, okay, but God
adopted him and bestowed on himgodhood.
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That's what they're saying.
He adopted him, but he's reallyjust a man, because there's
only one God.
They say so because he wasbestowed the title or given
godhood.
He is a god, but he's not ofthe same essence of the Father.
He is a lesser essence.
Okay, he is a lesser essence,he's a lesser essence.
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So we're in John.
Go over to John 14, 28.
This is one of their favoritepassages.
To try to explain this or makethis claim Jesus' words himself.
Right, they're in red in redletter editions John 14, 28.
You heard that I said to you Igo away and I will come to you.
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If you loved me, you would haverejoiced, because I go to the
Father, for the Father isgreater than I See.
So since the Father is greaterthan I, since Jesus even said
that, they say that means thatJesus is less.
Since the Father is greaterthan I, since Jesus even said
that, they say that means thatJesus is less than the Father
and in some sense he is less.
In some sense the Father isgreater.
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But the question is in whatsense they are concluding that
he's less.
In essence, he doesn't sharethe same essence, he doesn't
have the attributes of God orthe functions of God or the
names of God and things likethat.
So he's less than God inessence.
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We would probably argue thatthis is an expression that
discusses subordination withinthe Trinity, that the Son took a
different role or a lesser rolethan the Father and came into
this world and took to himself atrue humanity, went through all
things as we tempted right, yetwithout sin, and gave himself
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up for us.
So it's subordination of role,and the greater lesser would
relate to a role distinction,not an essence distinction.
You know all of these passageslike this one.
He says the Father is greaterthan I.
We have to.
That doesn't clarify everything.
We have to ask the questiongreater in what way?
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Do you remember in Matthew,chapter 10, the Lord says about
John the Baptist that no one hasbeen born a woman who's greater
than John the Baptist.
Do you remember that no one hasbeen born a woman who's greater
than John the Baptist?
But you still have to ask thequestion greater in what sense?
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Like he's the greatest personwho ever lived, morally or
ethically, he's the greatestintellect that ever lived.
Like what do you mean greater?
So all these questions have tobe asked and answered in these
contexts to determine in whatsense was John the Baptist
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greater?
I concluded in my study yearsago on that that he was greater
in privilege than any otherhuman because he was the one who
prepared the way for the kingof the universe to come into
this world.
So he had the greatestprivilege he got to for the king
of the universe to come intothis world.
So he had the greatestprivilege he got to announce the
king and proclaim his arrival.
But the text goes on to saylater Jesus even says that
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someone who enters the kingdomis greater than John the Baptist
.
So the privilege of enteringthe kingdom is greater than the
privilege of announcing theking's arrival.
So all these passages that talkgreater, lesser or any type of
comparison like that have to beinterpreted in context of what
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the sense would be.
So we know things like if we goto John 10, for example, jesus
just said there in John 14, 28,the Father is greater than I.
But what do you do withsomething like John 10, 30?
This is also in the red letters.
He says in verse 29,.
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What we just read in John 14,28, my Father, who has given
them to me, is greater than alland no one is able to snatch
them out of the Father's hand.
And then he says I and theFather are one.
Probably this is a reference toessence.
They share the same essence,but as far as role, the Father
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greater because he sent the SonOrder of procession.
Father sending Son, son sendingSpirit.
So in that sense, as well asrole, you can have greater or
lesser within the Trinity, butof the same essence, the Father
and the Father are one.
So again, all these passageshave to be put together and the
best sense of them has toprevail, we would say what is
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most likely.
So what are some of the problemswith dynamic monarchism,
sometimes called adoptionism,this idea that the Father
adopted Jesus, who was just aman, and bestowed on him Godhood
?
First of all, it does notexplain how christ was with the
father before the incarnation.
I mean, if he's just a humanand he was born through mary,
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then he didn't exist before that.
But the the bible seems toindicate that he was with the
father before the incarnation.
You're still in john, so justflip back over to john 17, verse
18, to see that christ, the son, was with him before the
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incarnation.
Uh, 17, 18, as you sent me intothe world?
Now, wouldn't you have to bewith him before you got sent by
him?
As you sent me into the world,I also have sent them into the
world.
So that's an indication.
How about verse 24?
, father, I desire that theyalso, whom you have given me, be
(31:47):
with me where I am so that theymay see my glory, which you
have to have that object inexistence.
Or verse 5 again, we alreadyread verse 5, but we'll read it
again 17.5.
(32:07):
Again, we already read verse 5,but we'll read it again 17.5.
Now, father, glorify metogether with yourself, with the
glory which I had with youbefore the world.
Was that one's super clearright?
The Son was there before theworld was there and he shared in
the glory with the Father,right?
So this is a problem for peoplewho say that Jesus did not
(32:28):
pre-exist his incarnation andwas just adopted by God at the
incarnation or at his baptism orwhatever.
Number two it does not explainChrist for Yahweh name and
function substitutions whichwe've been over those last week.
If he's really just a man whomGod bestowed Godhood on, if he's
(32:51):
really just a man whom Godbestowed godhood on, then why
does he share the name with God.
Why is he substituted forYahweh in places?
Because he's really just acreature.
You do realize that in thisview, god is just absolute one.
Jesus is just a creature.
So how could a creature take onGod's names and titles and
functions?
So that doesn't seem to makemuch sense.
(33:12):
It does not explain the deityof Christ passages that we
looked at last week Our greatGod and Savior, jesus Christ.
Well, if he's our great God,then he's more than a man.
He's not just a man who wasborn and then adopted by God and
given a title Godhood.
And fourth, it does not explainwhy Jesus himself permits
(33:36):
himself to be worshipped.
John 20, 28,.
Here we are in John.
Isn't it so convenient?
We're just all in John.
John 20, 28, this is where welooked last week.
Thomas remember Thomas wasn'tthere at one of the appearances
of christ in his resurrectionbody and they told him about it,
but he didn't believe becausehe didn't see it himself.
(33:56):
And it says a few days later,and he was there and he appeared
in the midst of this room andthomas is there now, right, and
you see, in verse 28 or verse27,.
He said to Thomas reach herewith your finger and see my
hands and reach here your handand put it into my side and do
not be unbelieving, but bebelieving.
(34:18):
And Thomas answered and said tohim my Lord and my God.
Now what you would expect nextif Jesus was not God was to say
no, no, no.
There's only one God.
You should not call me God, youshould not worship me as God.
(34:40):
Right, that's what you wouldexpect.
But does he do that in verse 29?
No, he does not tell him he'swrong.
He says because you have seenme, have you believed?
Blessed are those who did notsee and yet believe.
Okay, so he does not deny thathe's God.
(35:01):
But if you looked at Acts 14,here's a place where turn to
Acts 14.
Paul is at Lystra with Barnabasand they make a man.
Well, they heal a man.
And that happens in verse 10.
(35:22):
It says with a loud voice standupright on your feet.
He leaps up, the man begins towalk and when the crowd saw what
Paul had done, they raisedtheir voice, saying in the
Lycianian language the gods havebecome like men and they have
come down to us and they begancalling Barnabas Zeus and Paul
Hermes, because he's the chiefspeaker, the priest of Zeus.
And it goes on.
And in verse 14, it says butwhen the apostles Barnabas and
(35:43):
Paul heard of it, they toretheir robes and rushed out in
the crowd, crying out and sayingmen, why are you doing these
things?
We're also men of the samenature as you and preach the
gospel to you that you shouldturn from these vain things to a
living god, the one who madethe heaven and the earth and the
sea and all that's in them.
We're not gods, we're just menof the same nature as you.
Anytime a godly person inscripture is identified as god
(36:08):
or worshipped as God, whenangels like John bows down
before an angel in the book ofRevelation to worship the angel,
the angel says no, no, no, getoff your knees, get on your feet
.
I'm not a god, I'm just anangel.
They don't permit the worship.
There is one place in Actschapter, toward the end of Acts,
chapter 11, one of the Herodspermits himself to be worshipped
(36:30):
as God.
And where is that?
Acts 12?
12, not 11.
The very end of the chapter,verse 20.
And following, herod is therein a large crowd.
And verse 21,.
(36:54):
On an appointed day, herodhaving put on his royal apparel,
he took his seat on the rostrum, he began delivering an address
to them and the people keptcrying out it's the voice of a
God, not a man.
And he didn't deny it.
He didn't say I'm not a God,but he accepted that glory as if
he was God himself.
And it says and immediately, anangel of the Lord struck him
because he did not give God theglory, and he was eaten by worms
(37:20):
and died.
See, but the Lord Jesus Christ,he's called God by Thomas, and
Jesus never says no, I'm not God, see.
So these types of views wherehe's just a human, really just a
creature upon whom God bestowedgodhood, don't really fit very
well with the text.
Let's go to the next view.
(37:40):
So that's adoptionism.
It's the easiest way.
Modern Unitarians are like that.
Judaism is like that.
Islam is like that no diversityin God, just a one solitary
being.
So.
This one's a different one.
This is like that no diversityin God, just a one solitary
being so.
This one's a different one.
This is ancient Arianism.
I mentioned it earlier.
It's also parallel to modernJehovah's Day witnesses.
(38:01):
Right, there's a presuppositionhere in their system too, and
their presupposition is actuallybased on Greek philosophy.
One of the ironies is that theycharge Christians with getting
the Trinitarian idea from Greekphilosophy, whereas there is no
Trinitarian idea in Greekphilosophy.
There's a dualism.
(38:24):
Plato was projecting, as helooked at the world, what we
call the real world, that therehad to be some universal forms
behind the things that we see inthis world.
Just take, for example, atriangle.
Everybody knows what a triangleis.
You've got various triangles,isosceles.
Whatever the idea was thatPlato asked, and other
(38:48):
philosophers at the time werestruggling with, was can you
make a perfect triangle?
And so you get your pencil andpaper out, let's say, and you're
going to make the perfecttriangle, 360-degree angle
corners, and you say, oh yeah,it looks really good.
But then you get a magnifyingglass and you look closer and
(39:13):
you see there are imperfectionson the lines of the triangle
because of the lead on yourpencil and the imperfections in
the surface of the paper.
And so you realize it's reallynot perfect.
And yet you have this thingthat's a triangle.
And Plato said well, this justimitates this real, the pure,
(39:38):
ideal triangle that must exist.
So he said there's a world ofthese forms, which is this pure
world that somehow exists?
And it was just a mentalprojection of Plato.
He says this world must existand that was what he was really
interested in.
And everything down here is.
We call it the real world, buteverything you're seeing is just
(40:00):
an imitation of the world, thispure ideal world.
So what happened was inJehovah's Witnesses and ancient
Arianism named after a guy namedArius was they projected this
idea of God as the pure ideal,very similar to Plato's
(40:21):
projections of this pure idealworld that must exist and God is
that pure ideal.
That's their idea of God.
World it must exist and god isthat pure ideal.
Okay, that's their idea of god.
So some of the conclusions thatresult from that are that jesus
christ is begotten, which bywhich they mean made, because we
we know the word begottenthat's used in the bible, right,
(40:45):
it's in our translation.
Question isn't isn't that isthat word used in a translation,
but what does it mean?
They gave the meaning tobegotten of made, meaning he was
created.
So Jesus Christ is createdbefore time, they said, by the
Father, and therefore JesusChrist is a creature.
God made Jesus Christ becausehe, as the pure ideal, could
(41:06):
only communicate with thenon-ideal real world that's down
here with us through anintermediary being so, jesus is
like an intermediary between thepure ideal and us down here in
the real world, as the son ofthe father, then he is less in
essence.
Okay, he is less in essencebecause he's a creature, he was
(41:26):
created.
So let's look at firstcorinthians 8 and now.
Then I'm going to show you whythis is very, very practical in
theology.
I'm going to hammer on this onepoint, for pure practicality,
of why the trinity why we getthis question right is
absolutely critical for yourwhole life.
Okay, I'm going to talk aboutmarriage, but in a few weeks I'm
(41:50):
going to actually talk abouteverything.
Okay, about everything, how youview everything.
So when we solve the one and themany, this great philosophical
problem that the holinesschristianity can resolve,
problem of the one of the many,so in first corinthians 8, 5
through 6, this was one of theirmain verses, to try to show
that the son is less in essencethan the father.
(42:10):
8, 5.
For even if there are so-calledgods, whether in heaven or on
earth, as indeed there are manygods and many lords, yet for us
there is but one god, the father, from whom are all things, you
know, we exist for him, and onelord, jesus christ, by whom are
all things and we exist throughhim.
So they centered on that partof verse six where it says
(42:34):
there's just one god, see, sojesus can't be god.
He has to be created by thisone god.
That's how they interpret this,this verse, okay, um, is that
the meaning of this verse?
(42:54):
Is Jesus really less than God?
Well, again, problems, right,and then we'll back up Problems.
Does not explain the Christ forYahweh, name and function
substitutions we could go everytime.
It doesn't explain that.
It doesn't explain the deity ofChrist passages and it doesn't
explain why Jesus permitshimself to be worshipped.
Right, as we saw, this viewalso cuts us off from truly
(43:19):
knowing God, does it not?
Because Jesus is just anintermediary between God and us.
He came to communicatesomething about God, but he's
not God.
So we really only know himpartially, maybe through the,
the intermediary, but we don'treally know him because he never
really came down here and dweltamong us.
See um john 118.
(43:44):
Let's look at john 118.
Back to the gospel of john.
Lots of good stuff in thegospel of John on this topic,
john 1.18.
Passage about the Word, the Wordbecoming flesh, all things
being created by the Word.
We'll look at things like that,john 1.18.
(44:06):
No one has seen God at any time.
Remember, moses was put in thecleft of the rock right so that
he only saw God's back, whichwould just be the concept of a
partial seeing of God, lookingthrough a filter or something.
The only begotten God who is inthe bosom of the Father and by
(44:30):
that they mean these people aregoing to say we'll see he's
created.
Begotten means made or created.
The only begotten God who is inthe bosom of the Father.
He has explained him.
But see, this word explained isthe Greek word exegeted, which
is the idea of drew out.
He drew out who he was.
He also says later if you'veseen me, you've seen who the
(44:54):
Father.
Now wait a minute.
In other words, how am Iunderstanding this word?
He has explained him.
Does that just mean he's anintermediary being?
You know, and he gave us aglimpse of what God might be
like.
Well, that doesn't fit withthis other passage that says if
you've seen me, you've seen theFather.
Right, because that means no,he's not just giving us an idea,
(45:15):
he's giving us exactly who thefather is.
John 10.30,.
I and the father are one, nottwo, not a creator and a
creature, but the creator.
How about Hebrews 1, 1 through3?
.
There are other passages.
I'm just showing you a few.
There's so many passagesHebrews 1, 1-3.
(45:38):
Hebrews 1, 1-3.
God, after he spoke long ago tothe fathers and the prophets, in
(46:01):
many portions and in many waysspeaking of the Old Testament
prophets, right In these lastdays he has spoken to us in his
Son, whom he appointed heir ofall things, through whom also he
made the world of all things,through whom also he made the
world.
So, agency, okay, father,source, son, agency of creation,
(46:27):
creating all things.
And he, that's the son, is theradiance of God's glory and he
is the?
What?
Representation of his nature?
Partial representation of hisnature?
No, exact, exact precision.
He is the exact, preciserepresentation of God's nature
(46:50):
and he upholds all things by theword of his power.
He's not an intermediary whokind of gives us an idea of what
God is like.
He's the exact representationof what God is like.
There was a in church history.
Have you ever heard this saying?
It doesn't matter one iota.
You've heard that right.
That came from Gibbon's book,the Decline of the Roman Empire.
(47:12):
In the book he talks about thesame thing we're talking about
here, this discussion in churchhistory, about Christ and who he
is and what he's like.
And there were people who saidthat he is homoousius and that
means homo means same right.
Everybody knows homo same, sosame nature as God, meaning
(47:36):
exact nature, homoousios.
There were another group thatsaid homoiousios, homoi, the oi.
There's a little iota on theend there that changes it from
homo to homoi.
Homoi means like, not same like.
Homoi means like, not same like, and Gibbon was reading this in
(47:57):
church history when he wrotehis Decline of the Roman Empire
and he said you know, he justgot fed up with all these
details and he said it doesn'tmatter one iota because of that
one little iota at the end ofhomoi.
That's the only differencebetween homo and homoi is one
iota.
That's where it came from, andhe's reflecting on this debate
about who Jesus Christ is.
(48:18):
Let me tell you something.
It matters.
That one iota matters a lot.
It's the difference between himbeing God and him not being God
, just being like a God.
Does it matter?
Well, yeah, it's the differencebetween our view of Jesus
Christ and Jehovah's Witnesses'view of Christ.
Okay, the one iota matters aton.
(48:44):
So it cuts us off that's thefourth criticism.
It cuts us off from trulyknowing who God is, because he's
just like God, he's not reallyGod.
Lastly, it does not explain howall things were created by
Christ.
They say he's a creature.
Right, I mean that's the view.
Jesus Christ is begotten, made,that is, created before time by
the Father, and therefore he'sa creature.
(49:07):
Okay, let's go to John 1.3.
And then I'll tell you why thisis practical and why this is
real.
John 1.3.
He's talking about the Word,right, and the Word was with God
and the Word was fully God.
(49:28):
That's the concept in verse 1.
He was in the beginning withGod.
Verse 2 and 3.
All things came into beingthrough him and apart from him,
nothing came into being that hascome into being.
Well then, doesn't that makehim the creator of all things?
How could he then be created?
(49:49):
He couldn't create himself.
Some people say, well, yeah,but it says anything that has
come into being and that doesn'tinclude himself, because he did
come into being.
So it's isolating and saying,well, he came into being, but
other things are counted there.
But let's go over to Colossians1, and there are other passages
(50:12):
on this topic Galatians,ephesians, philippians,
colossians.
So again, god eats popcorn.
At least now you know the orderof those books here, colossians
1.16.
In this exaltation of Christ,verse 15, he's the image of the
invisible God.
(50:32):
He's the icon.
It's basically like a well,that's what it is an icon.
He is the visible icon of whatgod is in his invisibility,
meaning exact representation.
He's the firstborn of allcreation, which makes him the
heir of all creation.
This has nothing to do withbeing created.
This has to do with thefirstborn in a family.
(50:54):
In the Old Testament, thefirstborn was the what, the heir
.
That's what this is talkingabout.
He's the heir of all creation,is what it's saying.
And then verse 16 explains why.
For by him all things werecreated, both in the heavens and
on the earth, visible andinvisible, whether thrones or
(51:15):
dominions or rulers orauthorities.
All things have been createdthrough him and for him.
He's before all things and inhim all things hold together.
See, he's the creator.
He's not created.
But Jehovah's Witnesses want usto think, and ancient Arians
want us to think, that he isbegotten, meaning made or
created, the first created thingof God.
But this passage seems tostrongly support the concept
(51:39):
that, no, he's before everythingand he created everything.
The way I divide it up, becausethere's three persons in God is
God is the source, christ is theagent and the Son is the
revealer of creation.
But they're all involved.
All three members of theTrinity are involved.
Why is this?
(52:01):
Practically, we won't go to thenext one.
Why is this practicallyimportant?
Why does this model, whereyou've got one, god, and in him
three persons of equal essence,but you do see subordination of
role, you know, you see theFather sending the Son, you see
the Son sending the Spirit, yousee the Son dying on the cross
(52:22):
for our sins, right, not theSpirit, not the Father.
You've got distinctions in roleand subordination in these
roles inside of the Trinity, butthey're all God, right, they're
the same essence.
I and the Father are one, soforth.
Why is this model important?
Why can't we have this conceptthat well, there's God, the
Father, and then Jesus Christ isinferior to him in his essence.
(52:46):
Why is that a problem to haveJesus Christ inferior to the
Father in essence?
Okay, because there are otherthings in creation that follow
the same type of pattern.
For example, in the chapter 2of Genesis, he tells the man to
(53:09):
leave his father and mother andto cling to his wife and the two
shall become one flesh, and tocling to his wife and the two
shall become one flesh.
Two, male and female are goingto become one flesh.
Now, wait a minute, how does itwork in a marriage?
(53:30):
Is the man superior?
Now, the man's the head right,he has headship.
But is the man superior to thewoman in essence?
Is the woman inferior to theman in essence?
(53:50):
Are women less than men and menmore than women?
No, not at all.
This is a reflection, in afinite relationship, of
Trinitarian relationship.
Just as the son is not inferiorto the father in essence,
(54:13):
neither is a woman inferior toher husband in essence.
They're both equally, fully,human, full.
All the capacities that a humancould have are shared equally
between male and female.
It's just that they havedifferent roles, just like the
father and the son, the spirit,have different roles.
(54:34):
It doesn't make one moreinferior to the other or one
more superior to the other, doesit?
This is why I say it's verypractical.
We also share this in workenvironments.
You have a boss, maybe, or youare the boss and you have
employees.
Is the boss superior in essenceto all the employees?
(54:58):
Sometimes they act like theyare, but no, but there are
relationships here that we sharein creation.
That model, or should mirrorTrinity.
The unbelieving world is.
They have no idea what thisstuff is about, but they do have
(55:18):
this problem.
I'm going to talk about it in afew weeks.
It's called the problem of theone and the many and
philosophers have dealt with itfor centuries and centuries and
centuries.
And I'm going to show you justas Riven and I are up here we're
trying to do rhythm and harmonyand melody or whatever.
I'm just saying music is one,but it has how many parts?
Three, but wait a minute.
(55:39):
Just music, yeah, it is, it'sall music.
One.
There's a oneness there,there's a unity, there's this
qualitative oneness, but there'salso diversity in the harmony,
the melody, the rhythm.
I mean there are hundreds.
I've got a list of over ahundred of these that we find in
creation.
I've got it in art, I've got itin music, I've got it in
(56:01):
theology, I've got it in math,I've got it in every area.
Every branch of thinking thatyou can get involved in always
has oneness and unity anddiversity, oneness and diversity
in it, and diversity, onenessand diversity in it.
And why?
You say well, why?
Why is it this way?
Well, because God is who he isin Trinity.
(56:21):
That's why the creationreflects and models him in a
finite way, in a finite way.
So we'll look at all that.
But it gets really practical.
For example, the marriageexample.
Right, because I hope you'renot, as a husband, leading your
wife as if you are a dictator,some solitary king or ruler.
(56:43):
You know sending down, you knowcommands to the wife.
That's not going to go verywell for you.
The reason it's not going to govery well isn't because she's
insubordinate, it's becausethat's not the model.
And anytime we try to doanything that's outside the form
God created, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
(57:03):
So a Trinitarian model isbehind all these things.
We're going to work with somemore next week when we look at
the other things I put on thelist, and then we'll get
specifically just into Christand his natures, his human
nature, his divine nature andhow he's only one person and all
of that.
So all these things have to bemassaged and very carefully
looked at because in the end, wejust want to reflect the
(57:26):
scripture, we want to know whoGod really is, we want to know
who Christ really is, as closeas we can okay, as close as we
can, and I hope you appreciatethat people have looked at this.
They have really tried andtried and while all these things
were condemned and said, no,that's heretical, that doesn't
fit, at least people wereworking on it, right, they were
(57:48):
working, and basically it'sthere, so we just need to
understand it better.
Thank you for joining us onBeyond the Walls with Jeremy
Thomas.
If you would like to see itbetter.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
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.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(58:13):
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, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Take a lot for granted, as if we could have
just read the Bible one time orsomething and figured all of
these things out that we know tobe true, and that's simply not
the case when you have adisagreement with God.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Who is wrong?
When you read something in theBible and disagree with it again
, I'll ask who is wrong?
Well, the answer is prettyobvious it's you and I.
God can never be wrong.
He is never wrong.
If he ever was, he wouldn't beGod.
And so we must ask ourselvesthis very important question If
(00:48):
I don't understand something, ifmy viewpoint, my perception,
cannot fully explain the Bible,then is the Bible wrong or am I?
This is really important whenit comes to our view of God.
This is really important whenit comes to our view of God.
Is God one person?
Is God three persons?
Does God change over time?
(01:11):
You see, throughout history,people have struggled with
trying to explain who God is andhow he manifests himself, and
on the one hand, we can laugh attheir silliness for being so
wrong, but on the other hand, weshould be gracious toward them
because they did not have thefull knowledge that we have.
They were building upon theknowledge that we now get to see
(01:34):
, and so we come back to thisfundamental question Is God
wrong or are we?
Well, obviously, we, in ourlimited understanding, have to
take time, we have to strugglewith how do we describe and
understand the nature andmanifestation of God throughout
history.
Today, jeremy is going to lookat several models that attempted
(01:58):
to explain who God is, andwe're going to look at where
each one fell down and try andcome to a better, more complete
picture of how to describe God'striune oneness.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Last week.
What we did was basically gothrough the deity of Christ.
As you talk about the virginbirth, of course you're talking
about this event where the HolySpirit conceived the child in
the womb of Mary and this childis born, and so you're obviously
(02:33):
dealing with what we would sayis the most complicated person
who's ever come into the world.
His title in the Old Testament,emmanuel, means God with us,
and that's who he is.
He is God with us and in theincarnation.
This is the first time inhistory when God came among men
(02:55):
and walked in this way among men, so that he becomes the highest
form of revelation of who Godis.
So we went through some of theevidences that he is in fact God
, evidences from Christ forYahweh.
Name substitutions this is theconcept that we showed.
Numerous passages in the OldTestament will be quoted by
(03:19):
authors in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, yahweh,the tetragrammaton what I call
the name of God is used in thoseOld Testament passages.
But when they are quoted by theNew Testament authors, christ
is substituted in place of theTetragrammaton in that quote.
So because Yahweh in the OldTestament is substituted for
(03:43):
with Christ in the New Testamentby name, and name refers to
one's essence or being, then weconclude that Christ must be
Yahweh.
He must be God right.
Another form of evidence is tolook at evidences for the
function substitutes, for thefunction substitutes.
What we mean by that is thingsthat only Yahweh can do, as the
(04:08):
Old Testament discusses him.
Christ is said to do in the NewTestament.
So, for example, he forgivessin.
Christ forgives sin in the NewTestament and the Jews say a
reasoning in their hearts sayingwho can forgive sins?
But God?
They knew the Old Testamenttaught that only Yahweh could
(04:28):
forgive sins.
Yet Christ is saying heforgives sins in the New
Testament.
So, because of the functionalsubstitution, christ must be
Yahweh again.
And lastly, I just showed somepassages right that are
evidences for the deity ofChrist, some famous passages
like 2 Peter 1.1, which uses theGranville Sharp rule in the
(04:48):
Greek.
Titus 2.13 uses the same rule.
Also, discuss with you a littlebit about John 1.1 and the
qualitative use of.
You know, in the beginning wasthe Word.
The Word was with God, the Wordwas the ideas was fully God.
That's the concept at the endof that verse.
It's a qualitative use, mostlikely.
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And so it's saying that theWord, the Word that became flesh
and dwelt among us is fully God.
He's distinct from the Father.
In that verse the Word was withGod, but he is also fully God.
So this starts to point us indirections of our mind of
wondering well, if Jesus is God,right, but there's only one God
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.
I mean, everybody knows this.
Right, there's only one God.
The Bible teaches definitely,there's only one God.
When we come to the NewTestament we find that Jesus is
God.
Then the question becomes well,how are the Father and the
Spirit also God?
You see, in our own minds wetry to wrestle with this seeming
apparent paradox.
How can this be One God?
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Jesus is God.
Isn't that the end of the story?
No, we also have the Fatherbeing God.
We have the Spirit being God.
We haven't discussed anypassages in this class on the
Spirit being God.
We'll do that later, but I'massuming you know some of these
things from the Bible so we canhave this discussion right.
So how can this be?
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Many theories have beensuggested, and church history
contains the story of how theTrinitarian model was accepted
at the Council of Chalcedon, andthat's about 451 AD, so let's
just say about 400 years afterChrist, right, that's when the
church council.
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A church council came togetherand tried to resolve the issue
of all the texts that relate toJesus being God, the Father
being God, the Spirit being God,the Spirit being God.
There's all sorts of texts.
We're actually going to look atsome of these texts.
In a few weeks we go to the OldTestament and we'll talk about
texts about the Trinity there,new Testament texts about
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Trinity.
But what I'm saying is, inchurch history it literally took
them about 400 years to ironout and articulate this
formulation we call theTrinitarian model.
The model states that God isone in essence and he is three
in person.
So there's still just one God,right, and yet in God there are
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three persons Father, son andSpirit.
So that's the Chalcedon model.
I'm going to show you today alittle bit of the story of
church history, about trying tosort through the passages and
other models that people came upwith.
We do this, on one hand, tosharpen ourselves, because these
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ancient models, as I will showyou, still persist today in
modern version.
So, just because I say a wordlike, let's say, arianism, which
we'll look at, it's named aftera man named Arius.
He has a model, a particularmodel of God in the early
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centuries of the church.
That's not something that'sirrelevant to us today, because
that is very, very similar tothe Jehovah's Witness model.
So just because it's ancientdoesn't mean it's not relevant.
These ideas have persisted andremain with us today, so we need
to understand a little bitabout it.
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So that's one reason so we willbecome sharper in our
understanding of who Godactually is.
Is it important to know who Godis?
Yeah, it's very important toknow who God is, because there
are a lot of differentconceptions of God.
For example, islam has a modelof God right as an absolute,
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solitary God with no diversityof person within himself.
So just because we use the wordGod doesn't mean that everybody
shares the same content in theword G-O-D, and so when we talk
with people, we have to be awarethat there are various ideas of
who God is, and if we want tohave a real discussion, we have
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to be on the same page with theother person as to what God we
are talking about or what Godthey are talking about, so that
we can have the conversation.
Another reason that I want to gothrough this is to show us that
it takes multiple generationsfor people to work out various
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doctrines, for people to workout various doctrines.
I feel like, as a 21st centuryChristian, we stand on the
shoulders of many generationsthat have preceded us, many
generations of Christians whostudied the Bible.
And the Bible, of course, isthe most studied book in the
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history of the world, mostpublished book and most read and
studied book, and so it hasobviously been thought about a
lot.
We come along, you know, 21centuries after Christ, and take
a lot for granted, as if wecould have just read the Bible
one time or something andfigured all of these things out
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that we know to be true.
And that's simply not the case.
If we didn't have the shouldersto stand on from many prior
generations, we would notunderstand or have the doctrinal
development and maturity thatwe have today in the church.
So it's very important not tobecome arrogant.
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I sense in this currentgeneration a lot of arrogance,
even spitting on people in thepast who got things wrong.
I don't find that to be proper,because these people, they did
their best in their time to tryto iron out some details, and
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sure they got some things wrong.
I'll use an example.
I'm sure this man would notmind he's not with us anymore,
but even if he were, I don'tthink he might.
Martin Luther, he ironed outjustification by faith.
This was a key in hisgeneration.
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He was trying to show peoplethat you didn't need to give
indulgences to the church andpenance and all these things and
works were not involved.
It was Christ's work alone andhe was a proponent of pointing
people to the love of Christ.
And yet you know, he wasanti-Semitic.
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He wrote a book called Againstthe Jews.
That grew out of his experienceof trying to evangelize Jews
and Jews, rejecting andrejecting and rejecting.
And so he concluded that Godwas done with the Jewish people
and we can't commend him forthat.
But we don't throw everythingthat Luther worked on in the
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trash can just because Luthergot some things wrong.
It took more time and morepeople to come along and start
to really hammer out and workout the doctrine of Israel and
future things and what God hasin store.
So in our own generation, youknow, there's this type of
mentality that we kind of spiton people in the past who messed
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up in this one little area.
I don't want that to be a partof our experience.
I want us to be able to commendpeople where they got the truth
right and where God used themfor the truth, and not just
focus on the things that theymay have got wrong.
Because if history has anythingto say about us today, it will
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say this we have some thingswrong too.
And in generations to come, ifthe Lord tarries, they will look
back and say well, they gotthat wrong.
And do we want them to treateverything that we did in our
time as wrong?
Or do we want them to commendus for the amount of Bible study
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we did and the things that wegot right and the things that we
polished and became better?
And I think that's what we allwant.
We're doing the best that wecan.
But I like to think of thedoctrines of Scripture like the
most complicated puzzle you canever imagine.
I remember we used to dopuzzles.
They were all just a littleflat 2D puzzles, and then they
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came out with the 3D puzzle andI thought, oh, my goodness, what
is this all about?
You know, that seems a lot morecomplicated because it's a
whole order of more complicationand that's something like the
Bible more complication andthat's something like the Bible,
and it's putting togethersomething that is the most
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complicated thing in the worldto put together.
So it doesn't just take onegeneration.
It takes many, many generationsworking on the same puzzle, so
to speak, to bring us to wherewe are today.
And we're still working on somethings, some aspects of the
puzzle.
So I want you to appreciatethat as we look at working on
some things, some aspects of thepuzzle, so I want you to
appreciate that as we look atsome of these views.
Okay, so let's just make a fewcomments under here, under B, on
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the outline here.
The Trinitarian model that wasdeveloped at Chalcedon, that
says God is one, in essencethree in person, is charged by
Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonswith borrowing the language of
Greek philosophy, and thereforewe got the Trinity from the
Greeks.
That's what they're saying.
However, the categories ofGreek philosophy do not have a
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concept of Trinity.
That's not part of Greekphilosophy.
Greek philosophy is basicallyabout the forms of Plato.
So you had these two, a dualism, two levels of reality, the
real or pure ideal, pure ideal,and then down here, the real,
and we'll discuss more of thatlater.
But that's not a Trinitarianconcept, it's a dualistic
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concept, but the Trinity doesn'tcome from Greek philosophy.
A third point, just anintroduction, is the model was
developed really reluctantlywithin christianity because
other models that we'll look atdidn't seem to accurately
reflect all the texts that areinvolved.
And that's what you're tryingto do.
You're trying to get all thetexts together and ask what is
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the best way to organize allthese scriptures that makes the
best sense of all the passages,right?
Okay, so the first one we'lllook at is called ancient modal
monarchianism, sometimes alsoknown as Sabellianism, and a
related but different view iscalled protropassionism, which
is the crucifixion of the father.
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The father was crucified, notthe son.
That's related to this.
So those first three words,they're not necessarily all
synonyms.
They're either nuanced versionsor results of one of these
views.
But I don't have time to gothrough all the views.
There's probably 20 or 30.
So we don't have time for allthat.
But that's the ancient conceptand the modern concept is
oneness Pentecostals.
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So oneness Pentecostals arestill around, so they believe
something very similar to thisancient view.
So let me ask you about thisword monarch, see ancient modal
monarchianism.
If I just ask you, well, what'sa monarch?
What would you say?
Okay, one guy is the soleabsolute ruler or king.
Right, a monarch.
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So that helps you understandwhat this view is.
This view is basically sayingthat God is one, an absolute one
, an absolute monarch.
There's no diversity of personwithin himself, there's just the
one, god.
Their conclusions from thispresupposition were basically to
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look at the Bible successively,like you're moving from the Old
Testament to the Gospels andthen into the New Testament
epistles, and they said in theOld Testament the Father is God,
in the New Testament, gospels,the Son is God, and in the
epistles and on down to our ownday, the Holy Spirit is God.
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What are they saying?
They're saying that God hasrevealed him successively in
three different masks.
In the Old Testament, he worethe mask of the Father.
In the New Testament, gospels,he put on the mask of the Son.
And in the epistles andfollowing, he put on a different
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mask, the mask of the Spirit,but there's really only.
And following he put on adifferent mask, the mask of the
Spirit, but there's really onlyone God.
There's not three differentpersons, they are three
different masks of the one God.
So this view is based again onthe idea of God's solitary
oneness.
Right, there can't be adiversity of person in him, but
(17:44):
he can reveal himself withdifferent masks to us.
So this is their idea, okay,jesus well, god is the Father
reveals himself in the OldTestament, the Son is a
manifestation of God in the NewTestament and the Spirit is now
the manifestation of God on downto our own day in the New
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Testament, and the Spirit is nowthe manifestation of God on
down to our own day OnenessPentecostals are very similar to
this ancient idea because theybelieve that Jesus is the Father
, the Son and the Holy Spirit,and they base this on Colossians
2.9 as their main verse.
So let's look at Colossians 2.9.
If you can't remember where itis Galatians, ephesians,
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philippians then Colossians.
As my daughter reminded me theother day, my way of telling
people to remember these fourbooks is to remember God eats
popcorn.
Galatians, ephesians,philippians and Colossians.
God eats popcorn.
Galatians, ephesians,philippians and Colossians.
God eats popcorn, which is awhole other question we could
discuss, since God is spirit.
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Has he ever eaten popcorn?
And we know he doesn't have abody, so he doesn't eat popcorn.
But then you ask the questionwell, does he know what popcorn
tastes like, since he never ateit, but he's omniscient.
So we have lots of questionsthere.
Colossians 2.9.
This is their main verse forsaying that Jesus is the Father,
the Son and the Spirit, for inhim, that is, in Christ.
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Right Into verse 8, christ InChrist, right Into verse 8,
Christ In Christ, all thefullness of deity dwells in
bodily form.
All the fullness of deitydwells in bodily form.
So, oneness, pentecostals, usethis verse as a key interpretive
verse to explain all the otherverses in the Bible and
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emphasize that Jesus is Father,son and Spirit, and emphasize
that Jesus is Father, son andSpirit.
So what are some thinking aboutthis model?
What are some problems withthis?
Okay, one of the problems isthat this model makes it very
difficult to explain text whereJesus is talking to the Father,
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since, well, he is the Father,or just a manifestation of the
Father, however they exactlyview it.
So, for example, look at John 17.
This is Jesus' high priestlyprayer, and you notice right off
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the bat in 17.1, jesus speakingthese things, lifting up his
eyes to heaven.
You might ask yourself eventhere well, is he looking toward
himself?
Oh, wait a minute, you see, ifhe is all that there is of God,
who is he looking at?
He said Father, the hour hascome, glorify your Son, that the
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Son may glorify you, even asyou gave him authority over all
flesh.
So you know like who is hetalking to.
If he's all of God that thereis, there's no one else to talk
to see.
So these types of passages getvery difficult to explain.
Another one, for example versefive here Now, father, glorify
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me together with yourself, withthe glory which I had with you
before the world was.
That doesn't make a lot ofsense.
If he's the only God there isand there's no one else there,
who exactly are you talking to?
You're, the only other personyou could possibly be talking to
is yourself, and you're tellingyourself to do something.
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So it doesn't make much sense.
And this whole chapter has anumber of those types of
statements throughout.
Another problem with thisconcept of God is it doesn't
explain how the Father is theFather of the Son.
If they're really the same see,just different manifestations
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of God.
So Father-Son passages don'teven make sense.
There have to be two distinctpersons for us to have a concept
of Father and another being Son.
They can't just be the same.
Father and son can't be thesame.
So this view, while itattempted and tried to explain
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the idea of God and somemultiplicity as multiple masks
that he puts on it doesn't do agood job of explaining certain
texts that seem to indicate twodistinct persons in God.
So that's one view.
It's ancient, but it's also gota modern counterpart oneness,
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pentecostalism.
Here's another one Ancient,dynamic monarchianism, not modal
Modes are masks.
That's the first view.
This is dynamic, also known asadoptionism, which I think is
more helpful when I explain it.
But it is a form ofmonarchianism, because monarch
means what?
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One solitary king or ruler.
So that is their presuppositiona solitary one, god, an absolute
one with no diversity inhimself.
That's the key presupposition.
We know the Bible teaches that.
We know the Bible teaches Godis one.
Nobody is surprised by that inthis room.
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Old and New Testament teachthat.
But the question becomes well,what about passages then that
teach a distinction betweenFather and Son in this God see,
or a distinction between Son andSpirit in this God?
That's what they're trying towrestle with in the early church
, also known as adoptionism, andin the modern day it's in
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Unitarianism, judaism and Islam.
Now, everything I mentionedunder the conclusions will not
be true of each and every one ofthose, but I'm just saying they
all share the samepresupposition that there's an
absolute oneness to God.
Does Islam believe that anabsolute oneness in Allah?
Yeah, they don't believe anydiversity exists within Allah.
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It's just a solitary one beingwith no persons of distinction
within himself.
Same thing for Judaism right,they're strict monotheists in
the sense there's no diversityof person within God.
The same thing for Unitarianismthey're called Unitarians
because they uni means one right.
Uni like the Unibomber,remember that guy.
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One right Like the Unabomber,remember that guy.
They're not Trinitarians, whichwould be three, a reference to
the oneness in a unified God, asingle God.
So they're Unitarian.
So those are modern forms ofthis.
Again, the ideas have not goneaway.
So the presupposition, againsolitary monotheism.
But it's different from theprevious idea where God put on
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different masks successively inhistory.
In their view, only the Fatheris God and God adopted Jesus.
That's why I say adoptionism isa good term to understand this
view.
God adopted Jesus, either athis birth, his baptism or the
resurrection.
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That's Bart Ehrman's view, bythe way.
Remember the guy who alwaysdebates Christians?
He used to say he was aChristian, but he rejected all
this stuff.
Or the resurrection and gavehim godhood at that adoption.
So, in other words, jesus isjust a man, okay, but God
adopted him and bestowed on himgodhood.
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That's what they're saying.
He adopted him, but he's reallyjust a man, because there's
only one God.
They say so because he wasbestowed the title or given
godhood.
He is a god, but he's not ofthe same essence of the Father.
He is a lesser essence.
Okay, he is a lesser essence,he's a lesser essence.
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So we're in John.
Go over to John 14, 28.
This is one of their favoritepassages.
To try to explain this or makethis claim Jesus' words himself.
Right, they're in red in redletter editions John 14, 28.
You heard that I said to you Igo away and I will come to you.
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If you loved me, you would haverejoiced, because I go to the
Father, for the Father isgreater than I See.
So since the Father is greaterthan I, since Jesus even said
that, they say that means thatJesus is less.
Since the Father is greaterthan I, since Jesus even said
that, they say that means thatJesus is less than the Father
and in some sense he is less.
In some sense the Father isgreater.
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But the question is in whatsense they are concluding that
he's less.
In essence, he doesn't sharethe same essence, he doesn't
have the attributes of God orthe functions of God or the
names of God and things likethat.
So he's less than God inessence.
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We would probably argue thatthis is an expression that
discusses subordination withinthe Trinity, that the Son took a
different role or a lesser rolethan the Father and came into
this world and took to himself atrue humanity, went through all
things as we tempted right, yetwithout sin, and gave himself
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up for us.
So it's subordination of role,and the greater lesser would
relate to a role distinction,not an essence distinction.
You know all of these passageslike this one.
He says the Father is greaterthan I.
We have to.
That doesn't clarify everything.
We have to ask the questiongreater in what way?
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Do you remember in Matthew,chapter 10, the Lord says about
John the Baptist that no one hasbeen born a woman who's greater
than John the Baptist.
Do you remember that no one hasbeen born a woman who's greater
than John the Baptist?
But you still have to ask thequestion greater in what sense?
(28:12):
Like he's the greatest personwho ever lived, morally or
ethically, he's the greatestintellect that ever lived.
Like what do you mean greater?
So all these questions have tobe asked and answered in these
contexts to determine in whatsense was John the Baptist
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greater?
I concluded in my study yearsago on that that he was greater
in privilege than any otherhuman because he was the one who
prepared the way for the kingof the universe to come into
this world.
So he had the greatestprivilege he got to for the king
of the universe to come intothis world.
So he had the greatestprivilege he got to announce the
king and proclaim his arrival.
But the text goes on to saylater Jesus even says that
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someone who enters the kingdomis greater than John the Baptist
.
So the privilege of enteringthe kingdom is greater than the
privilege of announcing theking's arrival.
So all these passages that talkgreater, lesser or any type of
comparison like that have to beinterpreted in context of what
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the sense would be.
So we know things like if we goto John 10, for example, jesus
just said there in John 14, 28,the Father is greater than I.
But what do you do withsomething like John 10, 30?
This is also in the red letters.
He says in verse 29,.
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What we just read in John 14,28, my Father, who has given
them to me, is greater than alland no one is able to snatch
them out of the Father's hand.
And then he says I and theFather are one.
Probably this is a reference toessence.
They share the same essence,but as far as role, the Father
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greater because he sent the SonOrder of procession.
Father sending Son, son sendingSpirit.
So in that sense, as well asrole, you can have greater or
lesser within the Trinity, butof the same essence, the Father
and the Father are one.
So again, all these passageshave to be put together and the
best sense of them has toprevail, we would say what is
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most likely.
So what are some of the problemswith dynamic monarchism,
sometimes called adoptionism,this idea that the Father
adopted Jesus, who was just aman, and bestowed on him Godhood
?
First of all, it does notexplain how christ was with the
father before the incarnation.
I mean, if he's just a humanand he was born through mary,
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then he didn't exist before that.
But the the bible seems toindicate that he was with the
father before the incarnation.
You're still in john, so justflip back over to john 17, verse
18, to see that christ, the son, was with him before the
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incarnation.
Uh, 17, 18, as you sent me intothe world?
Now, wouldn't you have to bewith him before you got sent by
him?
As you sent me into the world,I also have sent them into the
world.
So that's an indication.
How about verse 24?
, father, I desire that theyalso, whom you have given me, be
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with me where I am so that theymay see my glory, which you
have to have that object inexistence.
Or verse 5 again, we alreadyread verse 5, but we'll read it
again 17.5.
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Again, we already read verse 5,but we'll read it again 17.5.
Now, father, glorify metogether with yourself, with the
glory which I had with youbefore the world.
Was that one's super clearright?
The Son was there before theworld was there and he shared in
the glory with the Father,right?
So this is a problem for peoplewho say that Jesus did not
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pre-exist his incarnation andwas just adopted by God at the
incarnation or at his baptism orwhatever.
Number two it does not explainChrist for Yahweh name and
function substitutions whichwe've been over those last week.
If he's really just a man whomGod bestowed Godhood on, if he's
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really just a man whom Godbestowed godhood on, then why
does he share the name with God.
Why is he substituted forYahweh in places?
Because he's really just acreature.
You do realize that in thisview, god is just absolute one.
Jesus is just a creature.
So how could a creature take onGod's names and titles and
functions?
So that doesn't seem to makemuch sense.
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It does not explain the deityof Christ passages that we
looked at last week Our greatGod and Savior, jesus Christ.
Well, if he's our great God,then he's more than a man.
He's not just a man who wasborn and then adopted by God and
given a title Godhood.
And fourth, it does not explainwhy Jesus himself permits
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himself to be worshipped.
John 20, 28,.
Here we are in John.
Isn't it so convenient?
We're just all in John.
John 20, 28, this is where welooked last week.
Thomas remember Thomas wasn'tthere at one of the appearances
of christ in his resurrectionbody and they told him about it,
but he didn't believe becausehe didn't see it himself.
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And it says a few days later,and he was there and he appeared
in the midst of this room andthomas is there now, right, and
you see, in verse 28 or verse27,.
He said to Thomas reach herewith your finger and see my
hands and reach here your handand put it into my side and do
not be unbelieving, but bebelieving.
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And Thomas answered and said tohim my Lord and my God.
Now what you would expect nextif Jesus was not God was to say
no, no, no.
There's only one God.
You should not call me God, youshould not worship me as God.
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Right, that's what you wouldexpect.
But does he do that in verse 29?
No, he does not tell him he'swrong.
He says because you have seenme, have you believed?
Blessed are those who did notsee and yet believe.
Okay, so he does not deny thathe's God.
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But if you looked at Acts 14,here's a place where turn to
Acts 14.
Paul is at Lystra with Barnabasand they make a man.
Well, they heal a man.
And that happens in verse 10.
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It says with a loud voice standupright on your feet.
He leaps up, the man begins towalk and when the crowd saw what
Paul had done, they raisedtheir voice, saying in the
Lycianian language the gods havebecome like men and they have
come down to us and they begancalling Barnabas Zeus and Paul
Hermes, because he's the chiefspeaker, the priest of Zeus.
And it goes on.
And in verse 14, it says butwhen the apostles Barnabas and
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Paul heard of it, they toretheir robes and rushed out in
the crowd, crying out and sayingmen, why are you doing these
things?
We're also men of the samenature as you and preach the
gospel to you that you shouldturn from these vain things to a
living god, the one who madethe heaven and the earth and the
sea and all that's in them.
We're not gods, we're just menof the same nature as you.
Anytime a godly person inscripture is identified as god
(36:08):
or worshipped as God, whenangels like John bows down
before an angel in the book ofRevelation to worship the angel,
the angel says no, no, no, getoff your knees, get on your feet
.
I'm not a god, I'm just anangel.
They don't permit the worship.
There is one place in Actschapter, toward the end of Acts,
chapter 11, one of the Herodspermits himself to be worshipped
(36:30):
as God.
And where is that?
Acts 12?
12, not 11.
The very end of the chapter,verse 20.
And following, herod is therein a large crowd.
And verse 21,.
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On an appointed day, herodhaving put on his royal apparel,
he took his seat on the rostrum, he began delivering an address
to them and the people keptcrying out it's the voice of a
God, not a man.
And he didn't deny it.
He didn't say I'm not a God,but he accepted that glory as if
he was God himself.
And it says and immediately, anangel of the Lord struck him
because he did not give God theglory, and he was eaten by worms
(37:20):
and died.
See, but the Lord Jesus Christ,he's called God by Thomas, and
Jesus never says no, I'm not God, see.
So these types of views wherehe's just a human, really just a
creature upon whom God bestowedgodhood, don't really fit very
well with the text.
Let's go to the next view.
(37:40):
So that's adoptionism.
It's the easiest way.
Modern Unitarians are like that.
Judaism is like that.
Islam is like that no diversityin God, just a one solitary
being.
So.
This one's a different one.
This is like that no diversityin God, just a one solitary
being so.
This one's a different one.
This is ancient Arianism.
I mentioned it earlier.
It's also parallel to modernJehovah's Day witnesses.
(38:01):
Right, there's a presuppositionhere in their system too, and
their presupposition is actuallybased on Greek philosophy.
One of the ironies is that theycharge Christians with getting
the Trinitarian idea from Greekphilosophy, whereas there is no
Trinitarian idea in Greekphilosophy.
There's a dualism.
(38:24):
Plato was projecting, as helooked at the world, what we
call the real world, that therehad to be some universal forms
behind the things that we see inthis world.
Just take, for example, atriangle.
Everybody knows what a triangleis.
You've got various triangles,isosceles.
Whatever the idea was thatPlato asked, and other
(38:48):
philosophers at the time werestruggling with, was can you
make a perfect triangle?
And so you get your pencil andpaper out, let's say, and you're
going to make the perfecttriangle, 360-degree angle
corners, and you say, oh yeah,it looks really good.
But then you get a magnifyingglass and you look closer and
(39:13):
you see there are imperfectionson the lines of the triangle
because of the lead on yourpencil and the imperfections in
the surface of the paper.
And so you realize it's reallynot perfect.
And yet you have this thingthat's a triangle.
And Plato said well, this justimitates this real, the pure,
(39:38):
ideal triangle that must exist.
So he said there's a world ofthese forms, which is this pure
world that somehow exists?
And it was just a mentalprojection of Plato.
He says this world must existand that was what he was really
interested in.
And everything down here is.
We call it the real world, buteverything you're seeing is just
(40:00):
an imitation of the world, thispure ideal world.
So what happened was inJehovah's Witnesses and ancient
Arianism named after a guy namedArius was they projected this
idea of God as the pure ideal,very similar to Plato's
(40:21):
projections of this pure idealworld that must exist and God is
that pure ideal.
That's their idea of God.
World it must exist and god isthat pure ideal.
Okay, that's their idea of god.
So some of the conclusions thatresult from that are that jesus
christ is begotten, which bywhich they mean made, because we
we know the word begottenthat's used in the bible, right,
(40:45):
it's in our translation.
Question isn't isn't that isthat word used in a translation,
but what does it mean?
They gave the meaning tobegotten of made, meaning he was
created.
So Jesus Christ is createdbefore time, they said, by the
Father, and therefore JesusChrist is a creature.
God made Jesus Christ becausehe, as the pure ideal, could
(41:06):
only communicate with thenon-ideal real world that's down
here with us through anintermediary being so, jesus is
like an intermediary between thepure ideal and us down here in
the real world, as the son ofthe father, then he is less in
essence.
Okay, he is less in essencebecause he's a creature, he was
(41:26):
created.
So let's look at firstcorinthians 8 and now.
Then I'm going to show you whythis is very, very practical in
theology.
I'm going to hammer on this onepoint, for pure practicality,
of why the trinity why we getthis question right is
absolutely critical for yourwhole life.
Okay, I'm going to talk aboutmarriage, but in a few weeks I'm
(41:50):
going to actually talk abouteverything.
Okay, about everything, how youview everything.
So when we solve the one and themany, this great philosophical
problem that the holinesschristianity can resolve,
problem of the one of the many,so in first corinthians 8, 5
through 6, this was one of theirmain verses, to try to show
that the son is less in essencethan the father.
(42:10):
8, 5.
For even if there are so-calledgods, whether in heaven or on
earth, as indeed there are manygods and many lords, yet for us
there is but one god, the father, from whom are all things, you
know, we exist for him, and onelord, jesus christ, by whom are
all things and we exist throughhim.
So they centered on that partof verse six where it says
(42:34):
there's just one god, see, sojesus can't be god.
He has to be created by thisone god.
That's how they interpret this,this verse, okay, um, is that
the meaning of this verse?
(42:54):
Is Jesus really less than God?
Well, again, problems, right,and then we'll back up Problems.
Does not explain the Christ forYahweh, name and function
substitutions we could go everytime.
It doesn't explain that.
It doesn't explain the deity ofChrist passages and it doesn't
explain why Jesus permitshimself to be worshipped.
Right, as we saw, this viewalso cuts us off from truly
(43:19):
knowing God, does it not?
Because Jesus is just anintermediary between God and us.
He came to communicatesomething about God, but he's
not God.
So we really only know himpartially, maybe through the,
the intermediary, but we don'treally know him because he never
really came down here and dweltamong us.
See um john 118.
(43:44):
Let's look at john 118.
Back to the gospel of john.
Lots of good stuff in thegospel of John on this topic,
john 1.18.
Passage about the Word, the Wordbecoming flesh, all things
being created by the Word.
We'll look at things like that,john 1.18.
(44:06):
No one has seen God at any time.
Remember, moses was put in thecleft of the rock right so that
he only saw God's back, whichwould just be the concept of a
partial seeing of God, lookingthrough a filter or something.
The only begotten God who is inthe bosom of the Father and by
(44:30):
that they mean these people aregoing to say we'll see he's
created.
Begotten means made or created.
The only begotten God who is inthe bosom of the Father.
He has explained him.
But see, this word explained isthe Greek word exegeted, which
is the idea of drew out.
He drew out who he was.
He also says later if you'veseen me, you've seen who the
(44:54):
Father.
Now wait a minute.
In other words, how am Iunderstanding this word?
He has explained him.
Does that just mean he's anintermediary being?
You know, and he gave us aglimpse of what God might be
like.
Well, that doesn't fit withthis other passage that says if
you've seen me, you've seen theFather.
Right, because that means no,he's not just giving us an idea,
(45:15):
he's giving us exactly who thefather is.
John 10.30,.
I and the father are one, nottwo, not a creator and a
creature, but the creator.
How about Hebrews 1, 1 through3?
.
There are other passages.
I'm just showing you a few.
There's so many passagesHebrews 1, 1-3.
(45:38):
Hebrews 1, 1-3.
God, after he spoke long ago tothe fathers and the prophets, in
(46:01):
many portions and in many waysspeaking of the Old Testament
prophets, right In these lastdays he has spoken to us in his
Son, whom he appointed heir ofall things, through whom also he
made the world of all things,through whom also he made the
world.
So, agency, okay, father,source, son, agency of creation,
(46:27):
creating all things.
And he, that's the son, is theradiance of God's glory and he
is the?
What?
Representation of his nature?
Partial representation of hisnature?
No, exact, exact precision.
He is the exact, preciserepresentation of God's nature
(46:50):
and he upholds all things by theword of his power.
He's not an intermediary whokind of gives us an idea of what
God is like.
He's the exact representationof what God is like.
There was a in church history.
Have you ever heard this saying?
It doesn't matter one iota.
You've heard that right.
That came from Gibbon's book,the Decline of the Roman Empire.
(47:12):
In the book he talks about thesame thing we're talking about
here, this discussion in churchhistory, about Christ and who he
is and what he's like.
And there were people who saidthat he is homoousius and that
means homo means same right.
Everybody knows homo same, sosame nature as God, meaning
(47:36):
exact nature, homoousios.
There were another group thatsaid homoiousios, homoi, the oi.
There's a little iota on theend there that changes it from
homo to homoi.
Homoi means like, not same like.
Homoi means like, not same like, and Gibbon was reading this in
(47:57):
church history when he wrotehis Decline of the Roman Empire
and he said you know, he justgot fed up with all these
details and he said it doesn'tmatter one iota because of that
one little iota at the end ofhomoi.
That's the only differencebetween homo and homoi is one
iota.
That's where it came from, andhe's reflecting on this debate
about who Jesus Christ is.
(48:18):
Let me tell you something.
It matters.
That one iota matters a lot.
It's the difference between himbeing God and him not being God
, just being like a God.
Does it matter?
Well, yeah, it's the differencebetween our view of Jesus
Christ and Jehovah's Witnesses'view of Christ.
Okay, the one iota matters aton.
(48:44):
So it cuts us off that's thefourth criticism.
It cuts us off from trulyknowing who God is, because he's
just like God, he's not reallyGod.
Lastly, it does not explain howall things were created by
Christ.
They say he's a creature.
Right, I mean that's the view.
Jesus Christ is begotten, made,that is, created before time by
the Father, and therefore he'sa creature.
(49:07):
Okay, let's go to John 1.3.
And then I'll tell you why thisis practical and why this is
real.
John 1.3.
He's talking about the Word,right, and the Word was with God
and the Word was fully God.
(49:28):
That's the concept in verse 1.
He was in the beginning withGod.
Verse 2 and 3.
All things came into beingthrough him and apart from him,
nothing came into being that hascome into being.
Well then, doesn't that makehim the creator of all things?
How could he then be created?
(49:49):
He couldn't create himself.
Some people say, well, yeah,but it says anything that has
come into being and that doesn'tinclude himself, because he did
come into being.
So it's isolating and saying,well, he came into being, but
other things are counted there.
But let's go over to Colossians1, and there are other passages
(50:12):
on this topic Galatians,ephesians, philippians,
colossians.
So again, god eats popcorn.
At least now you know the orderof those books here, colossians
1.16.
In this exaltation of Christ,verse 15, he's the image of the
invisible God.
(50:32):
He's the icon.
It's basically like a well,that's what it is an icon.
He is the visible icon of whatgod is in his invisibility,
meaning exact representation.
He's the firstborn of allcreation, which makes him the
heir of all creation.
This has nothing to do withbeing created.
This has to do with thefirstborn in a family.
(50:54):
In the Old Testament, thefirstborn was the what, the heir
.
That's what this is talkingabout.
He's the heir of all creation,is what it's saying.
And then verse 16 explains why.
For by him all things werecreated, both in the heavens and
on the earth, visible andinvisible, whether thrones or
(51:15):
dominions or rulers orauthorities.
All things have been createdthrough him and for him.
He's before all things and inhim all things hold together.
See, he's the creator.
He's not created.
But Jehovah's Witnesses want usto think, and ancient Arians
want us to think, that he isbegotten, meaning made or
created, the first created thingof God.
But this passage seems tostrongly support the concept
(51:39):
that, no, he's before everythingand he created everything.
The way I divide it up, becausethere's three persons in God is
God is the source, christ is theagent and the Son is the
revealer of creation.
But they're all involved.
All three members of theTrinity are involved.
Why is this?
(52:01):
Practically, we won't go to thenext one.
Why is this practicallyimportant?
Why does this model, whereyou've got one, god, and in him
three persons of equal essence,but you do see subordination of
role, you know, you see theFather sending the Son, you see
the Son sending the Spirit, yousee the Son dying on the cross
(52:22):
for our sins, right, not theSpirit, not the Father.
You've got distinctions in roleand subordination in these
roles inside of the Trinity, butthey're all God, right, they're
the same essence.
I and the Father are one, soforth.
Why is this model important?
Why can't we have this conceptthat well, there's God, the
Father, and then Jesus Christ isinferior to him in his essence.
(52:46):
Why is that a problem to haveJesus Christ inferior to the
Father in essence?
Okay, because there are otherthings in creation that follow
the same type of pattern.
For example, in the chapter 2of Genesis, he tells the man to
(53:09):
leave his father and mother andto cling to his wife and the two
shall become one flesh, and tocling to his wife and the two
shall become one flesh.
Two, male and female are goingto become one flesh.
Now, wait a minute, how does itwork in a marriage?
(53:30):
Is the man superior?
Now, the man's the head right,he has headship.
But is the man superior to thewoman in essence?
Is the woman inferior to theman in essence?
(53:50):
Are women less than men and menmore than women?
No, not at all.
This is a reflection, in afinite relationship, of
Trinitarian relationship.
Just as the son is not inferiorto the father in essence,
(54:13):
neither is a woman inferior toher husband in essence.
They're both equally, fully,human, full.
All the capacities that a humancould have are shared equally
between male and female.
It's just that they havedifferent roles, just like the
father and the son, the spirit,have different roles.
(54:34):
It doesn't make one moreinferior to the other or one
more superior to the other, doesit?
This is why I say it's verypractical.
We also share this in workenvironments.
You have a boss, maybe, or youare the boss and you have
employees.
Is the boss superior in essenceto all the employees?
(54:58):
Sometimes they act like theyare, but no, but there are
relationships here that we sharein creation.
That model, or should mirrorTrinity.
The unbelieving world is.
They have no idea what thisstuff is about, but they do have
(55:18):
this problem.
I'm going to talk about it in afew weeks.
It's called the problem of theone and the many and
philosophers have dealt with itfor centuries and centuries and
centuries.
And I'm going to show you justas Riven and I are up here we're
trying to do rhythm and harmonyand melody or whatever.
I'm just saying music is one,but it has how many parts?
Three, but wait a minute.
(55:39):
Just music, yeah, it is, it'sall music.
One.
There's a oneness there,there's a unity, there's this
qualitative oneness, but there'salso diversity in the harmony,
the melody, the rhythm.
I mean there are hundreds.
I've got a list of over ahundred of these that we find in
creation.
I've got it in art, I've got itin music, I've got it in
(56:01):
theology, I've got it in math,I've got it in every area.
Every branch of thinking thatyou can get involved in always
has oneness and unity anddiversity, oneness and diversity
in it, and diversity, onenessand diversity in it.
And why?
You say well, why?
Why is it this way?
Well, because God is who he isin Trinity.
(56:21):
That's why the creationreflects and models him in a
finite way, in a finite way.
So we'll look at all that.
But it gets really practical.
For example, the marriageexample.
Right, because I hope you'renot, as a husband, leading your
wife as if you are a dictator,some solitary king or ruler.
(56:43):
You know sending down, you knowcommands to the wife.
That's not going to go verywell for you.
The reason it's not going to govery well isn't because she's
insubordinate, it's becausethat's not the model.
And anytime we try to doanything that's outside the form
God created, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
(57:03):
So a Trinitarian model isbehind all these things.
We're going to work with somemore next week when we look at
the other things I put on thelist, and then we'll get
specifically just into Christand his natures, his human
nature, his divine nature andhow he's only one person and all
of that.
So all these things have to bemassaged and very carefully
looked at because in the end, wejust want to reflect the
(57:26):
scripture, we want to know whoGod really is, we want to know
who Christ really is, as closeas we can okay, as close as we
can, and I hope you appreciatethat people have looked at this.
They have really tried andtried and while all these things
were condemned and said, no,that's heretical, that doesn't
fit, at least people wereworking on it, right, they were
(57:48):
working, and basically it'sthere, so we just need to
understand it better.
Thank you for joining us onBeyond the Walls with Jeremy
Thomas.
If you would like to see itbetter.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
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.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(58:13):
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, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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