NT Framework - God and Son as One?

If your view of God can't fully explain and reconcile all of the passages about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, maybe, just maybe your view is 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. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today a smaller, bite-sizedpiece from the larger lesson.
We hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
So this one's a different one.
This is ancient Arianism.
I mentioned it earlier.
It's also parallel to modernJehovah's Day witnesses.
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

(00:33):
the Trinitarian idea from Greekphilosophy, whereas there is no
Trinitarian idea in Greekphilosophy.
There's a dualism.
There's a dualism Plato wasprojecting, as he looked at the
world what we call the realworld that there had to be some

(00:57):
universal forms behind thethings that we see in this world
.
Just take, for example, atriangle.
Everybody knows what a triangleis.
You've got various triangles,isosceles, whatever the idea was
that Plato asked, and otherphilosophers at the time were
struggling with, was can youmake a perfect triangle?
And so you get your pencil andpaper out, let's say, and you're

(01:19):
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
you see there are imperfectionson the lines of the triangle
because of the lead on yourpencil and the imperfections in

(01:40):
the surface of the paper, and soyou realize it's really not
perfect.
The imperfections in thesurface of the paper and so you
realize it's really not perfect.
And yet you have this thingthat's a triangle, and Plato
said well, this just imitatesthis real, the pure ideal
triangle that must exist.
So he said there's a world ofthese forms, which is this pure

(02:09):
world that somehow exists, andit was just a mental projection
of Plato.
He says this world must exist.
Okay, and that was where whathe was really interested in and
everything down here is we callit the real world, but
everything you're seeing is justan imitation of this other
world, this, this pure idealworld.
So what happened was inJehovah's Witnesses in ancient

(02:29):
Arianism, named after a guynamed Arius, was they projected
this idea of God as the pureideal, very similar to Plato's
projections of this pure idealworld that must exist.
And God is that pure ideal.
That's their idea of God.
So some of the conclusions thatresult from that are that jesus

(02:56):
christ is begotten, which, bywhich they mean made, because we
we know the word begottenthat's used in the bible, right,
it's in our translation.
Question isn't isn't that?
Is that word used in atranslation, 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

(03:18):
Father, and therefore JesusChrist is a creature.
God made Jesus Christ becausehe, as the pure ideal, could
only communicate with thenon-ideal real world that's down
here with us through anintermediary being.
So, jesus is like anintermediary between the pure
ideal and us down here in thereal world.
As the son of the father, thenhe is less in essence.

(03:42):
Okay, he is less in essencebecause he's a creature, he was
created.
So let's look at firstcorinthians 8 and now.
Then I'm going to show you whythis is very, very practical in
I'm going to hammer on this onepoint, for pure practicality, of
why the Trinity why we get thisquestion right is absolutely

(04:03):
critical for your whole life.
Okay, I'm going to talk aboutmarriage, but in a few weeks I'm
going to actually talk abouteverything.
Okay, about everything, how youview everything.
So, when we solve the one andthe many, this great
philosophical problem that theonly Christianity can resolve,
problem of the one and the many.
So in 1 Corinthians 8, 5 through6, this was one of their main

(04:26):
verses to try to show that theSon is less in essence than the
Father.
8, 5, for even if there areso-called gods, whether in
heaven or on earth, as indeedthere are many gods and many
lords, yet for us there is butone god, the father, from whom
are all things and we exist forhim, and one lord, jesus christ,

(04:46):
by whom are all things and weexist through him.
So they centered on that partof verse 6 where it says there's
just one God.
See, so Jesus can't be God.
He has to be created by thisone God.
That's how they interpret thisverse.
Okay, is that the meaning ofthis verse?

(05:14):
Is Jesus really less than God?
Well, again, problems, right,and then we'll back up.
Problems does not explain theChrist for Yahweh, name and
function substitutions we couldgo every time.
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

(05:38):
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
intermediary, but we don'treally know him because he never
really came down here and dweltamong us.

(06:02):
John 1.18.
Let's look at John 1.18.
Back to the Gospel of John.
Lots of good stuff in theGospel of John on this topic,
john 1.18.
Passage about the Word, theWord becoming flesh, all things
being created by the Word.

(06:23):
We'll look at things like that,john 1.18.
John 1.18.
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.

(06:45):
The only begotten God who is inthe bosom of the Father.
And by that they mean thesepeople are going 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, xis is the greek word exegeted,
which is the idea of drew outthey.

(07:06):
He drew out who he was.
He also says later if you'veseen me, you've seen who the
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 a glimpse ofwhat God might be like.
Well, that doesn't fit withthis other passage that says if

(07:28):
you've seen me, you've seen theFather.
Right, because that means no,he's not just giving us an idea,
he's giving us exactly who theFather is.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
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.
Under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in

(07:58):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
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And until next time, we hopeyou have a blessed and wonderful
day.