June 13, 2025 • 54 mins
The Trinity and the Incarnation are truly complex and intricate topics that require a lot of knowledge and ability to see how the various passages from the Old and New Testaments work together; it's no wonder that there have been so many different views throughout history.
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.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here's a hint of what's to come.
They did this because you knowPlato did this.
Plato was no dunce, plato waskind of a smart guy.
But you don't take Plato intotheology, by the way.
You don't do that.
You need the Bible.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Jesus Christ is just an illusion.
He was never a real man.
Jesus Christ is just anillusion.
He was never a real man.
You know, jesus Christ he wasactually two people he was a man
and he was a spirit, but hewasn't one person.
(00:41):
These are views that have beenheld by the Church in years past
, and we can start to understandwhy people might view these
things, because it is difficultto take every passage of
scripture, compare it to otherpassages in scripture and
understand them in a coherentsystem.
God has revealed all that weneed to know, and yet what he
(01:03):
has revealed that we do need toknow is sometimes difficult, and
so we should not look down uponpeople for having wrong views
on God, but we need tounderstand that it is very
possible for us too to havesimilar wrong views Because, at
(01:23):
the end of the day, we're notany smarter than the theologians
and believers that have gonebefore us.
And so today we come and lookat various views of Jesus Christ
and God that the church hasheld, so that, with greater
humility, we can approach theBible and the God that wrote it
(01:43):
and the God that is describedtherein.
We want to know Jesus, we wantto know the Father, we want to
know the Holy Spirit and we wantto know them as accurately as
we can.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We're going to look back at the Trinity and, I guess
, really more focus on thehypostatic union, because we're
dealing with Christology due tothe birth of the king.
So our event has been the birthof the king and the doctrinal
outworking of that is in thearea of Trinity.
(02:15):
Hypostatic union and then theissue of peccability or
impeccability.
You know Christ's temptations,his ability or inability to sin,
things like that.
So we haven't got to that yet,but I'm going to take that off.
It's just too hot.
You're not breathing yet, areyou?
I asked you about 20 minutesago if you've held your breath
(02:37):
all this time.
You're Navy SEALs, right?
Okay?
So let's get in fellowship withthe Lord and then we're going
to go back to some of thesediscussions about Trinity.
Let's pray.
Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,we ask that you open our eyes to
behold wonderful things fromyour Word.
As we look through churchhistory, try to look at how the
church wrestled with statementsabout Christ and his
(03:01):
relationship to the Father andto the Spirit, in his
relationship to the Father andto the Spirit, and his own
person and his human and divinenature, and how this works, and
help us to have a properunderstanding of you and of your
Son, the second person of theTrinity.
So help us to have anappreciation for the shoulders
(03:22):
that we stand on in churchhistory of others who've gone
before us and who have searchedthe scriptures, studied them
very carefully and sometimescome up with misguided
conclusions, but still it's apart of the process of the
church coming to understandbetter and be more accurate.
So we ask for that, of course,in our own time too, that we
(03:45):
would, as we wrestle with thescriptures, become more accurate
.
So we ask for that, of course,in our own time too, that we
would, as we wrestle with theScriptures, become more accurate
in our understanding of you andyour intent with the Scriptures
.
So we thank you for all you'vegiven us, and even the Spirit to
teach us you've given us, andwe ask all these things in
Jesus' name.
The good thing about goingthrough some of these aberrant
views of Trinity and this is noteverything I need, but whatever
is that while we do so, we doget to look at a lot of texts
(04:10):
that relate to the Trinity.
So I want to discuss a littlebit about why this is so
important.
As I mentioned last week, it'svery important to just follow
the discussion in church history, because we can get the
arrogance built up in us that wefigured all this out, when in
fact we really didn't figure alot of stuff out.
(04:31):
Most of us were taught a lot ofthese things, almost all of
these things, and we did notdevelop them from our own
personal Bible study.
We are all supposed to have aspirit and dwell and taught by
the Spirit, but God has alsogiven teachers to the church.
Teacher is one of the giftsthat the Holy Spirit gives, so
(04:53):
these teachers God specificallyraises up in each generation to
convey truth, to articulatetruth to God's people.
At the same time, believersindividually are supposed to be
studying the Scriptures on theirown.
There is a process, though, thathas now been going on for 2,000
years, when the Holy Spirit hasbeen teaching the church
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individually, through generalbelievers as well as those who
have the gift of pastor-teacher,to develop an understanding of
correct teaching or doctrine.
And so, for example, james Orrwrote a book many years ago
called Progress of Dogma.
In this book, what he did wastrace the development of
(05:36):
doctrinal understanding throughchurch history so that we
understood how it unfolded andhow many generations it takes to
articulate and develop doctrine.
They don't just drop out of thesky in one generation.
So a lot, really, everythingthat we believe most of it has
been developed and now of coursewe're currently developing and
working on a few things, buteach generation really only
(05:59):
takes up a very small number oftopics to really work with and
to try to clarify.
I think we're personally veryclose to the end of this process
because I think there's a logicto church history in the order
in which doctrine was developed.
So things developed very earlyaround Christology who is Christ
(06:19):
, things about the Spirit,pneumatology Then the Trinity
was developed and then you movedinto a period of church history
which there wasn't a lot ofdevelopment until you really get
to the concept ofsubstitutionary atonement.
So the atonement, the work ofChrist, was really developed in
the 11th, 12th century.
(06:40):
And then you come to theReformation time and this is
when they're really clarifyingsalvation, justification is by
grace alone, through faith alonein Christ alone.
Then you move into a periodwhen the church is dealing with
ecclesiology who is the church,what is the church and what is
the church's relationship toIsrael.
(07:00):
And finally the church afterthat began to work on
eschatology or last things,prophecy and things like that.
So this is a logical order andbecause we're kind of at the end
.
That is eschatology.
It stands to reason that we'removing close to the end and in
fact, you know, anyone who looksout their window and sees that
(07:22):
there's this place called theState of Israel that's been
there for about 75 years nowshould say eschatology is at
work as far as the preparationor stage setting for things to
take place that are described inbooks like the book of
Revelation.
So we are hopefully nearing theprocess of completing,
(07:45):
articulating accurately doctrineand in our study.
Of course, I wanted to emphasizethat Trinity was quite a
discussion and it still goes onaround the world.
So if you meet IranianChristians, they'll sometimes
hold different views of theTrinity and that's why it's
important for missionaries, whenthey go into an area, say Iran
(08:06):
or anywhere, to know that thereare pockets of these beliefs
that we're studying in thosecountries that are still held
very near and dear to theirhearts.
So they need to understand thatnot everybody holds, maybe, the
exact views of Trinity that wein the West hold.
So that's one thing I wanted toemphasize.
Another thing I wanted toemphasize today and pick up on
(08:26):
is this word that I keep usingevery time we look at a view For
example, in this view, ancient,modal monarchism, which is
similar to modern oneness,pentecostalism this word
presupposition.
In each one of these, as Ievaluate, I say this is the
basic presupposition of theseancient and modern views that
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are aberrant views of thetrinity.
What do I mean by apresupposition?
Well, here I don't mean anassumption, okay, so I'm using
the word in a very particularway.
A presupposition is when youinclude your conclusion in a
statement.
You include your conclusion ina statement.
(09:08):
See, the presupposition here,for example, is solitary
monotheism, that is, god issolitary oneness to him.
There is no diversity of personwithin him, like Father, son
and Spirit.
There's just a oneness to God.
Now, that's actually aconclusion.
It's a presupposition, it's adeeply held belief.
(09:31):
So when I talk aboutpresuppositions, I'm not talking
about something that is easy to, let's say, get rid of.
These are deeply held beliefswhich form the basis for all of
your thinking about a topic.
(09:55):
So, in this case, what is thedeeply held belief that these
folks hold, which is actually aconclusion?
It's that God is an absoluteone, with no diversity in
himself.
With no diversity in himself.
We would want to challenge thatpresupposition and discuss the
concept of unity, meaning oneGod.
But can you have diversity inthat unity?
(10:16):
Is that possible biblically?
So rather than start with thisconclusion, we would want to
back up and challenge thepresupposition underlying it,
because our view does not comefrom the idea of a solitary
monotheism.
Our view is monotheistic there'sone God, but there is diversity
(10:37):
of persons in this God, and sothe problem with presuppositions
is they're kind of likeflypaper.
I used to work in the lab withplants and of course you've got
to keep the little fruit fliesoff the plants.
It's this yellow paper and ifyou grab it it's sticky on both
sides.
If you try to get it off thathand with using the other hand,
it's now stuck on this hand, andthat's kind of how
(10:59):
presuppositions are.
They're very difficult to getrid of because they are a
person's core belief and theyare really unchallenged and
unchallengeable beliefs, and soit's difficult, like getting rid
of flypaper, to get people todrop their presuppositions and
start from another viewpoint.
(11:19):
I'm talking with someone thisweek about the church being Jew
and Gentile in one body, thebody of Christ.
We all know this.
This is not that complicatedthing to say, but this person
wants to say that if a Jew hasbelieved he's no longer Jewish,
(11:48):
and I can't get him to drop thatidea and accept that.
There are passages thatdescribe Jewish believers like 1
Peter is written to Jews of thedispersion who are believers.
The olive tree in Romans 11,which has natural branches and
it has wild branches.
The natural branches are Jewishbelievers.
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They're the natural recipientsof the benefits of this olive
tree.
And then you have wild branchesand these are Gentiles who have
been grafted into this tree andthey're the unnatural
recipients of blessings from theJewish covenants, unnatural
recipients of blessings from theJewish covenant.
So but I can't get convincedthis person that you can have
Jewish believers and Gentilebelievers and we're all united
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in the church.
They say no, if you're in thechurch, you're neither Jew nor
Gentile.
You know Galatians 3.28.
But Galatians 3.28 isn't sayingthere's no Jews or Gentiles.
It's saying there's no Jews orGentiles.
It's saying Jews and Gentileshave equal spiritual privilege.
It's not saying you become anon-Jew if you're a Jew and you
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believe in Jesus, any more thanit's saying if you're a Gentile
and you believe in Jesus, you'reno longer a Gentile.
It's no more saying that if youbelieve in Christ you're no
longer a Gentile.
It's no more saying that if youbelieve in Christ, you're no
(13:15):
longer a man.
Or if you're a woman and youbelieve in Jesus, you're no
longer a woman, becauseGalatians 3.28 says that too
right.
Neither male nor female.
It's not saying that if you'rea slave and you believe in Jesus
, you're no longer a slave.
Or if you're a free man and youbelieve in Jesus, you're no
longer free, but you're a slaveor something else.
It's not saying that.
It's just saying all thesepeople have equal spiritual
privileges, no matter theirstation in life.
That's all that it's saying.
(13:37):
But the point is I'm trying toget across is I cannot
communicate with this individualabout this very important topic
biblically, because they have apresupposition and it's really
unchallenged and unchallengeable, and so every time they go to a
passage, they have to interpretit to fit their presupposition,
because it's a deeply held,unchallenged and unchallengeable
(13:58):
truth to them.
So this is the challenge is tomake sure our presuppositions
are the correct ones and tochallenge them personally,
individually.
So we've gone through some ofthese.
If you start with thispresupposition, an ancient modal
monarchianism also known asSibelianism, for its founder,
sibelius, and one of thederivatives of that was a
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concept of patropatianism, theidea that the Father was
crucified, as well as modernoneness, pentecostalism.
You start with this one idea ofGod, this absolute one.
Then you have to come to certainconclusions, because as you
read the Bible, you say well,who's the Son and who's the
Spirit and who's the Father?
How does this all relate to theone God?
So the way that theyhistorically have done it is
(14:43):
they said well, in the OldTestament God revealed himself
as the Father, in the GospelsGod revealed himself as the Son,
and in the epistles and on downto our own day, he reveals
himself as the Holy Spirit.
And these are three masks thatGod puts on, because there's one
God.
And he puts a mask of theFather on, then later he puts
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the mask of the Son on, thenlater he puts the mask of the
Spirit on, because there's oneGod, and he puts a mask of the
Father on, then later he putsthe mask of the Son on, then
later he puts the mask of theSpirit on.
We said well, that doesn't workso well, because there are
texts where, for example, jesusis talking to the Father, for
example in his high priestlyprayer of John 17.
It's a dialogue.
Is Jesus just changing masks.
So he puts on his Jesus maskand then says something, and
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then he switches masks and putson the father mask and he
receives what Jesus said to him.
See, this doesn't work.
It doesn't make much sense ofthese texts in the Bible.
It also doesn't explain how thefather is actually the father
of the son, if they're reallyjust the same person with two
different masks on, does it?
So you go through these and youwrestle with them, but in the
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end you say nope, that's notright, that doesn't fit what the
text says.
Another one that starts the sameway with a presupposition of a
solitary monotheism, is easiestto understand in the term
adoptionism.
But it's also held by modernUnitarians right down here in
the street in Spokane.
It's held by Judaism, it's heldby Islam.
(16:11):
So people hold this pretty muchexact view today or similar
views In this concept.
The conclusion is well, only theFather is God and Jesus.
He was given the godhood, or hewas bestowed godhood at his
birth, at his baptism or hisresurrection.
So he is a god, they will say.
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He's just not.
So he's less.
In essence.
He's not sovereign, righteous,just loving, omniscient,
omnipresent, omnipotent,immutable, eternal.
He doesn't have thoseattributes of God, he has
another set of attributes thatare unique to him, that make him
less than the one true God, theFather, See.
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So we have to ask ourselves,well, does that fit?
Does that fit what the Biblesays?
Well, it doesn't explain howChrist was with the Father
before the incarnation.
I mean, if he was created andborn, you know then how was he
with the Father before his birth?
That doesn't fit.
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It doesn't explain the deity ofChrist passages.
It certainly doesn't explainwhy Jesus permits himself to be
worshiped or will accept worship.
I mean, let's think about it.
Okay, if there's one true God,he's the only one who should be
worshiped, right?
I mean, would you worship acreature?
Isn't that against one of theTen Commandments?
You don't worship anything increation.
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Well, if Jesus is less than theone true God and he's a
creation and he was justbestowed godhood and we worship
him, or he accepts worship,wouldn't that be idolatry?
Well, of course it would beidolatry.
You would only worship the onetrue God.
You wouldn't worship JesusChrist because he's less than
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God.
That would be idolatry.
So again, this is a point.
You see, this doesn't work,this will not fit with the Bible
.
So, this one's important right,because we've got ancient
Arianism named after a guy namedArius and modern Jehovah's Day
witnesses.
These are basically verysimilar views.
Arianism, by the way, was theprevailing view in the day of
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Arius.
It dominated the field.
In other words, it's what mostpeople believe.
Field, in other words it's whatmost people believe.
By the way, can most people bewrong?
Usually, most people are wrong.
How many people got on the ark?
Only eight.
Do you think there was lesspeople than that off the ark?
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No, most people were not on theark, and most people were what
they were wrong.
Most people are wrong inhistory, not most people are
right.
And so in this day, arianismwon the day, so to speak, but
then, of course, it began tolose.
But the presupposition here isthat God is the pure ideal.
This comes right out ofNeoplatonist philosophy.
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It's the idea that there isthis world that we have to
project from our minds to exist.
We have to claim this, whatthey call the ideal world.
The pure ideal world exists.
They did this because Plato didthis.
Plato was no dunce, plato waskind of a smart guy.
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But you don't take Plato intotheology, by the way.
You don't do that.
You need the Bible.
Van Thiel wrote a book one timecalled Jerusalem versus Athens,
and it's a discussion of wheredo we get our presuppositions
from Jerusalem, which stands forthe Bible, hebrew thought
categories, or Athens, whichstands for Greek categories of
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thought?
Where do we start?
Hopefully, our presuppositionsare rooted in Jerusalem, that is
, the Hebrew categories ofthinking.
That's where we derive truecategories for thinking.
If we get them from somewhereelse and then we try to import
them and put them on the Bible,well, we're going to misread the
Bible again.
So what has happened here is aborrowing of neoplatonic
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categories, where you have thispure ideal world.
Well, that's what Plato wassaying.
Now, plato was smart, okay,like I said.
So, for example, let's take achair.
What Plato was saying was thatI want to be able to say look at
a chair and say that's a chair,and look at that and say that's
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not a chair.
This is what he was trying todo.
He said well, how can I do this?
There has to be this pure idealconcept of a chair, and what he
was trying to do was make aworld of universals or absolute.
But they were a mentalprojection of Plato.
They were just a mentalprojection, and once he created
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this world out there there wasthis pure ideal of a chair and
this chair, whatever it was, ithas the characteristics that all
chairs in the real world downhere fit into.
By the way, that was absolutelybrilliant, because he was
absolutely right.
If you do not have an absolute,universal.
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You can never say that's achair and that's not a chair,
because everything blendstogether.
For example, let me ask you aquestion Are you sitting in a
chair right now?
You're like well, I need toknow exactly the characteristics
of a chair.
We call this thing a pew, butis it a chair?
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So the only way you can saythat is if there is an absolute
concept of chairness, and onceyou know what that is, then you
can categorize something as achair or not.
Right, what that is.
Then you can categorizesomething as a chair or not.
Right, so in one way it wasbrilliant.
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But you cannot say now, god isthat pure ideal, because that's
just a mental projection.
Okay, it's just an idea thatsomeone has projected.
The conclusion, in this view,was that Jesus is begotten or
made before time by the Father,therefore he's a creature.
Jesus is begotten or madebefore time by the Father,
therefore he's a creature.
And the point was that God madeJesus Christ because God is the
pure ideal and he can onlycommunicate with this world down
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here through this intermediarybeing named Jesus, which is why
he had Him created.
He wanted to communicate withus.
So he created Jesus as thefirst being as an intermediator
between him and us, but as theson of the father, then
obviously as an intermediarybeing, he's less in essence.
And they use 1 Corinthians, 8, 5, and 6 to support that, their
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interpretation of it.
Because they're working from apresupposition.
They explain that the son'ssubordination to the Father.
You know, like things like whenJesus is on the cross and he
says my God, my God, why haveyou forsaken me?
And everybody says, well thenhe can't be God, he's calling
him God.
Jesus must not be God.
That's one way people look atpassages like that.
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But that's not talking aboutJesus being less in essence.
Jesus was talking aboutsubordination of role,
subordination of role.
Subordination of role Becauseother passages say that he is
God, he's our great God andSavior.
Jesus Christ, titus 2.13.
Other passages in Peter,hebrews 1.8.
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All sorts of passages talk aboutthe deity of Christ.
So when he says my God, my God,why have you forsaken me, he's
speaking of Him from asubordinate role, not someone
who has less essence.
The Spirit for these folks isjust an impersonal power or
force of God, goes out from Godto accomplish things.
So the Spirit isn't even aperson.
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It doesn't explain when Christfor Yahweh's name is substituted
or functions are substituted.
It doesn't explain a lot ofthings.
It doesn't explain how allthings were created by Christ.
I mean, if he's the first thingthat's created, but he created
all things, does that mean hecreated himself, since he's a
part of all things that wascreated?
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See, this is illogical, itdoesn't work, um, it just, it
just won't work and really itcuts us off from truly knowing
god.
Point four because if you onlyknow jesus christ, you only know
an intermediary being.
You don't know the one true god.
But the bible says we know godand it says that jesus christ is
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the exact representation of thefather in his being.
He says I and the Father areone.
He says if you've seen me,you've seen the Father.
He didn't say if you've seen me, you've seen a shadow of what
the Father looks like.
No, he didn't say that Ifyou've seen me, you've actually
seen him.
So these are very importantideas.
Now we come to this new one.
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This has some interestingrepercussions.
We didn't look at this one lastweek, but this is ancient
docetism.
Does anybody know what docetismmeans?
From the Greek doceo, it meansillusion.
So the ancient view of Jesus'shumanity being simply an
illusion.
That's the idea.
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So, and modern extreme Calvinism.
I don't mean to step onanybody's toes, but watch,
because these presuppositions,they seep into everything and
you have to unearth these andfind them, otherwise you may be
beholding to some of these andnot knowing it right.
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You pick these things up likeyou pick up gum on your shoe.
You don't even realize it tilllater.
And they're sticky, they'rehard to get off, they're a mess.
So watch what happens here.
Presupposition again God is thepure ideal, just like
neoplatonic idea of a projectionof God, this ultimate ideal.
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But look at this.
There's something added here heis the only reality.
Well, if he's the only reality,then everything down here is
just what An illusion.
It's just an illusion.
That's the key to these twoviews, views.
The conclusion of this view wasthat, well, jesus, he only
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appeared to be human.
He wasn't really human, hishuman form was only an illusion.
Now, most held this becausethey viewed him as so divine.
They said, well, he can't behuman.
He's so holy or divine, he's soGod.
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So everything of his humanitywas just an illusion.
Now, extreme Calvinism.
Why do I say this is similar?
It's similar.
Because, in extreme Calvinism,why do I say this is similar.
It's similar because in extremeCalvinism the sovereignty of
God is so great that history isdetermined and human freedom is
really just an illusion.
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I mean, you know their view.
I mean all extreme Calvinistswould say, no, there's no such
thing as free will.
They might discuss things, likeyou know, possibly we're free
agents, but they would never saywe have free choice or free
will, right.
They are violently opposed tothat free will concept.
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Why are they so opposed to that?
Well, because God's sovereign.
I mean, if you hold a free will, you're rejecting God's
sovereignty.
This is the way they think, andin their view then all of
history is totally determined.
Well, in that view, do wereally have any say in any
matter at all?
I mean, no, it's alreadytotally determined.
So if you're sitting thereright now thinking about what
(27:39):
we're saying, or listening orgoing to sleep, that was all
just determined, okay, by Godsovereignly.
Now they try to talk around it,I know, and try to explain.
It gets really complicateddiscussions in their books.
But to try to somehow basicallyjust talk around it, okay, to
satisfy people intellectuallythat well, there's something
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there and this really works orsomething, but it's really just
a lot of hot air and talk.
History is totally determinedin this view, and so any concept
of you having free will orfreedom or making genuine
choices is really just anillusion, and that's why I link
this concept to ancient docetismabout Christ's humanity.
(28:24):
But docetism doesn't explainhow the Word was made flesh.
Let's look at 1 John 4.2.
One of the early tests fororthodoxy was does the person,
the teacher or the prophet saythat Christ has come in the
flesh?
If they denied it, they werenot a true teacher or prophet.
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So 1 John 4, verse 1, saysBeloved, do not believe every
spirit, but test the spirits tosee whether they are from God,
because many false prophets havegone out into the world, and by
this you know the Spirit of God.
Every spirit that confessesJesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God.
(29:09):
I mean, was it just an illusion?
Was his human form just anillusion, or is this verse
saying that he actually came inhuman flesh?
See, but there were a lot ofpeople in the first century who
were already denying this.
This is probably Gnosticism orpre-Gnostic ideas, which
developed later into what wascalled Docetism.
(29:31):
So these were popular views atthe time, and so this is written
in the Spirit of God.
Okay, how about John 1.14?
John 1.14.
(29:52):
We'll just look at one more.
Was Jesus Christ?
Did he have a true human body?
You know, physical flesh?
John 1.14.
So this gets us into someinteresting passages.
John 1.14, the whole discussionof the Word, which we know is
(30:16):
the second person of the Trinity.
He's the one through whomeverything came into being verse
3.
And in verse 14, it says theWord became what?
The illusion of flesh.
Right, he looked like flesh.
Isn't that what it says?
No, of course.
It says he came in the flesh,talking about the actual flesh,
and he dwelt among us and we sawhis glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, fullof grace and truth.
(30:38):
Okay, so another passage isshowing for sure that he came in
the flesh.
In Colossians 2.9,.
All the fullness of deitydwells in him in bodily form.
That one could be questioned,because it says form.
But I've shown you otherpassages that say he came in the
flesh, so they'reunquestionable.
It doesn't explain that he wasactually touched.
(30:59):
I mean, if he was just anillusion, can you touch an
illusion?
1 John 1, 1-4.
1 John 1, 1-4,.
1 John 1, 1-4, which I'll readwhat was from the beginning,
what we heard, what we've seenwith our eyes, what we have
looked at and we touched withour own hands concerning the
(31:21):
word of life and this life wasmanifested.
We have seen and testify andproclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father andmanifested to us.
So we saw it, we touched it.
What did they see and touch?
They touched eternal life.
Well, who's eternal life?
Jesus Christ, this is the trueGod and eternal life.
Jesus Christ himself is eternallife.
(31:41):
When we believe in him, see,his life is given to us.
What is that life?
It's eternal life.
That's what we're receiving.
We're receiving him his life.
When we believe in him, see,his life is given to us.
What is that life?
It's eternal life.
That's what we're receiving.
We're receiving him his life.
They saw it, they touched it.
That's not an illusion, that'sreal.
Right.
You said I didn't know eternallife could be touched.
Yeah, the person of JesusChrist is eternal life himself.
(32:03):
So if you saw him and youtouched him, you were seeing and
touching eternal life.
That is how close it was andthat is how accessible it is to
you and us when we believe, wereceive this life his life him.
So this doesn't work.
So this one is called ancientNestorianism and what we're
going to get into now is more onthe concept of the hypostatic
(32:26):
union.
Okay, this issue, this wasnamed after Nestorius, a guy
named Nestorius.
Aren't you glad you're notnamed Nestorius?
Okay, that's the ancient viewand the modern view is
neo-orthodoxy.
I'll mention a name of someonewho is neo-orthodox so that it
(32:49):
shocks you a little bit.
There's been a book just writtenabout him, bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer.
I hope you don't follow histheology.
It's not very good.
Nothing he did at World War IIas far as showing resistance to
the Nazis was a necessaryconnection to his theology.
(33:10):
It was what any moral humanbeing would do at that time.
His theology is not very good.
If you read it, he's calledNeo-Orthodox.
So Neo-Orthodox isrationalistic, experiential
theology.
They don't believe that theBible is the Word of God.
Did you hear me?
(33:33):
They do not believe that theBible is the Word of God.
They believe it contains theWord.
What does that mean?
They mean that it contains itin the sense that when it
becomes true for you, it's theWord of God to you, but it's not
(33:53):
objectively the Word.
In other words, all these wordsare not God's Word.
They become the Word of God toyou when you have an experience
with so neo-orthodoxy.
It's not where we are, but thisreally erupted around World War
II and became more and morepopular and has been with us, of
(34:18):
course, down to this day.
So, in this view, thepresupposition I'm just going to
put, the precept is that God islimited by creation.
Now everybody should be goingno, wait a minute, how could God
be limited by his creation?
That doesn't even make sense,right?
(34:38):
But they had certainconclusions that come from that
presupposition.
The main conclusion is that theSon's human and divine natures
were only loosely connected.
What does this mean?
(35:01):
This mean?
Well, it means that he couldnot get his divinity and his
humanity you know together closeenough so that he was only one
person.
Instead, they're loose, and soreally what you have the two
natures are two people.
(35:22):
He's not just one person, buthe's two people.
He's not just one person, buthe's two people.
Now, is anybody shrewd enough,and way smarter than me, to
catch right off the bat wherethis is going to go?
If Jesus Christ is not oneperson but he's two people,
actually, if he's two people andthen the father is a third
(35:44):
person that makes the spirit the.
What fourth person?
We're not talking about trinityanymore, we're talking about
quadrinity.
Okay, that's exactly where thisgoes, because the two natures
in christ were not close enoughtogether.
(36:05):
He couldn't be one person.
He ended up being two peoplethe divine logos and the human
jesus.
And now you've got four people.
So this one is very easy to see.
The problem with it.
The problem was is is that?
Well, wait a minute, we don'thave three people anymore Father
, son and Spirit.
We've got Father, divine Logos,human Jesus and the Spirit.
(36:28):
We've got four.
And does the Bible teach aquadranity?
And then we all very quicklysay, well, no, that doesn't work
.
So that was the problem withNestorianism, and in some senses
, neo-orthodox holds thisconcept too, because they keep
the divine and the human soseparate.
Okay, and then the last onewe'll look at is ancient.
(36:55):
These are.
So I put these up here so youcan look them up.
Meophysitism Put these up hereso you can look them up.
Meophysitism Now, these are notthe same, because these two
words I'm just putting them nextto one another because they do
have some similaritiesMonophysitism and modern-day
(37:16):
Krishna incarnations.
Have you heard of that in theEastern religions, krishna
incarnations, which is really anevolutionary thing.
So you can see this is going tobe an evolutionary type of
Jesus.
Okay, also held by liberal andpagan theology.
So this one is, let's just say,the farthest away from the
(37:40):
biblical concept, because whenyou look at their presupposition
, you'll realize, or you shouldrealize right off the bat, this
won't work.
Okay, god and creation are one.
This is known as monism.
You know one, everything is oneand obviously you know.
(38:05):
The very first thing that shouldcome to your mind is Genesis
1.1,.
Right, in the beginning, godcreated the heavens and the
earth.
They're not him, they're thecreature or creation.
It's separate from him.
The creator this is the veryfirst thing we taught in this
whole framework class, I don'tknow, a year and a half ago
right, was the creator-creaturedistinction.
Okay, now, hopefully, all thisis going to start to make sense.
(38:28):
I told you you have to do thewhole Old Testament before you
can really really get andunderstand the New Testament.
The very first truth that youlearn in the Bible is the
creator-creation distinction.
We put the creator in the openbox.
We put creation in a closed box.
Why do we do that?
We're just saying, by the openbox, that the creator is
infinite, right, he's notlimited.
(38:49):
And we're saying creation islimited.
Now, this is the first truth inthe Bible.
I mean, you learn it in Genesis1.1,.
Right, in the beginning, godcreated the heavens and the
earth.
So we've got the creator, andthen we've got the creation,
which is the heavens and theearth, and then he begins to
form and fill you know thecreation during creation week.
So this is the most fundamentaltruth in the Bible.
(39:13):
What is happening in JesusChrist?
Isn't the creator taking tohimself the creature?
What do we have?
Let's just draw a line here.
You know like we're talkingabout the, we still have the
creator.
He is the creator.
Right by him, all things weremade.
He sustains all things.
He's the creator.
(39:33):
He took to himself the creature.
And look how I've drawn them.
Notice that the creator and thecreature are distinct from one
another, not blended together.
They're not overlapping, butthey're together.
In other words, they'retouching, so to speak, not mixed
, not separated.
(39:54):
And he's one person and this iswho he is.
Now, do you see, go back tocreation in your mind's eye, god
makes Adam and he makes him inhis own.
What Image and likeness.
Why?
Why did he do that?
(40:16):
Because one day he knew hehimself would become and take to
himself a creature.
The model for Adam was theincarnation of Jesus Christ.
God didn't say, let me see whatwould I do here.
No, he knew one day he wasgoing to become incarnate and he
(40:39):
made after that model.
Looking at Christ, he made Adam.
This is why I'm insistent thatAdam I wouldn't be dogmatic, but
Adam is made in God's image, inhis whole person body, soul and
spirit.
You say, but God doesn't have abody.
I know I'm not a Mormon, Idon't think God has a body.
(41:00):
I'm saying that the body thatGod made Adam, just as the body
that God made Jesus Christ, isrevelatory of who God is, which
is why God can come along laterin the Bible and say God's
nostrils flared, or God's armbrought deliverance.
You say, well, does God have anose then?
(41:20):
And does God have an arm?
No, it's conveying something tous through the human nose and
the human arm about what God islike that, for example, with his
nostrils flaring, he gets angry, that with his mighty right arm
he brings deliverance andjudgment on his enemies.
(41:40):
So the human form is revelatoryof who God is.
God didn't make it randomly, inthat the human form is not a
chance form.
That is a result ofevolutionary processes.
It is very specificallydesigned to teach us about who
God is.
(42:03):
Man also has a spirit, which isthe immaterial aspect of man
that is also made in God's image.
We have such things as theconscience.
Is that something that you cansurgically remove?
No, it's not a physical thing,is it?
It's a part of our spiritualmakeup.
There's this thing that we docalled love.
(42:26):
We love People, love oneanother.
Is that just a chemical processin us?
Now, lust may be, but is truelove?
Is that something chemical inyou, or is it more than that?
Is it something that's relatedto your human spirit?
(42:47):
I think it's tied to the humanspirit.
It's not something.
Can you take it out of a personand weigh it on a scale in a
laboratory and mean how muchlove someone has?
No, you can't do that, becauseit's not material, it's not
chemical Chemicals.
(43:07):
Material it's.
It's immaterial, it's part ofthe human spirit.
All of jesus christ.
First of all, god is spirit.
Right, he's a spirit being.
He's not physical, uh, but man,we have a spirit.
We have a spirit, we have abody and we are souls.
We're living souls.
(43:28):
So did Jesus Christ have allthese going on as a creature?
Yeah, he had a body.
We already talked about that.
He had a real flesh.
You could touch it.
People saw it, touched it.
He said to Thomas reach hereand touch my side.
See, that is his eye.
He ate Spir, it is his eye.
He ate Spirits don't eat Bodies, eat.
(43:49):
He ate in his resurrection body.
So he has a body, he has ahuman spirit, he has a human
soul or person, and he's unitedwith, but not mixed with, the
Creator and his divine nature.
So this is where everything atcreation starts to come together
(44:09):
in Christ.
This is why we'll get to it.
But see, when he does miraclesin the Gospels, like, let's just
say, he makes water out of wine.
Now, what is water for anybodywho's a chemist in here?
Yeah, you have two hydrogens,right.
(44:32):
You have one oxygen at certainbond angles, right, that form
due to the construction that Godmade.
What's in wine?
Water, but what else?
Carbon.
Well, where did that come from?
Carbon, well, where did thatcome?
From Water to wine?
Where did the carbon come from?
Who is he?
What is he saying when he turnswater into wine?
He's saying I'm the creator.
(44:53):
I make things out of nothing, Imake carbon out of nothing.
I just speak and it's there.
And, by the way, in the miracle, he keeps on making it.
Every time a glass is poured,not just once in a barrel.
Every time a glass is poured,the sense is given that he's
doing the miracle.
That's the sense.
(45:15):
Now, then you read other thingslike this he became tired, he
became thirsty, he became hungry.
What became thirsty?
He became hungry?
What You're God?
How can that be?
Well, he's also what.
He's also a creature.
(45:35):
See, he's a true human.
He has a true human body thatgets hungry, gets thirsty, he
gets tired.
Right, you're seeing the twonatures.
Right, you're seeing the twonatures?
Okay, you're seeing the divinenature.
You're seeing the human nature,but you're seeing them in one
person here.
Okay, one person here.
But there's no way you can everget to that unless you know
(45:58):
this back in Genesis, can you?
You've got to know this becausethis is what sets the stage for
that.
This is, the whole bible is asetup.
Each page is a set for the nextpage.
I remember john whitcomb, who'sa great creationist and a hebrew
scholar, said this, and it, it,it basically humbled me.
(46:18):
He said, every verse in thebible presupposes that you know
every previous verse.
And, of course, at that point Iwas just demolished, you know,
because I realized how little Iunderstood, how little I really
knew, and so you know, it setsyou on a track to okay, I've got
(46:43):
to learn and understand everyverse in the Bible, and that, of
course, takes more than alifetime, I would say, at this
rate.
So this view, ancientmeophysitism, monophysitism and
modern Christian incarnation,they deny all this.
See this creator-creature stuff.
(47:03):
No, no, no, god and creationare all one, everything is one.
Well, in this case, what youhave, the conclusion is that the
Son only had one nature.
I mean, if all is one, right, Imean how can he have two
(47:26):
natures?
Everything's one.
So it was a fusion of the humannature with the divine.
Okay, not like my picture whereyou have a creator and you have
a creature and you havecreature and they're connected,
you know.
So they're not separated butthey're not mixed either,
(47:49):
they're just together in oneperson.
Not like that.
We've got here a fusion of thehuman with the divine, or an
absorption of the human in thedivine.
And that's kind of how theythought of it, as like a step in
evolution where humans arebecoming divine and Jesus is
like the most evolved human.
Okay, so that's what they'rekind of thinking.
(48:14):
This is the thing about thisview which I mean you would say
well, obviously, this is wrong.
But this does not explain, as Idescribed before, distinct
expressions of Jesus' humanity,such as I'm tired, I'm thirsty.
Okay, if his human nature isabsorbed into the divine, then
(48:35):
here's the thing he's neitherGod nor man.
He's neither God nor man, buthe's a third type of being
that's not God or man.
Now, does that fit the Bible?
And if he is this third type ofbeing, neither God nor man,
could he actually die for man,since he's not one?
(48:57):
No, no.
So this has radicalrepercussions for the
crucifixion and salvation andall that.
Can he actually take us to Godif he's not really God but a
third type of being?
No, he can't take us to Godeither, because he's not God.
See, all these ideas have,let's just say, radical
repercussions.
That's why it's so important toget Trinity right and to get
(49:30):
the hypostatic union right.
We're going to start talking, ofcourse, more about the
hypostatic union, but these wereall heretical views that were
thought about by people.
Many people held to them.
At some periods of history theywere ruling or the dominant
view.
But then people reflected moreon the Scriptures and they said,
no, wait a minute, that's notgoing to work.
(49:52):
And we can look down on thesepeople and say, well, fools, you
know, but they're not fools.
It just takes time and theSpirit teaches over generations.
He doesn't say, oh, I'm going toteach this pastor who
absolutely knows nothing,everything in his lifetime.
Well, he is, but he's going todo it in a different way than
(50:13):
just directly teaching me.
He's going to teach me throughpeople who he's already taught.
He's going to say you know,I've already taught these men.
Maybe you could learn somethingfrom them.
I'm sure you've sat underpastors or teachers or scholars
and you thought it's just greatto sit under them because they
bring this wealth ofunderstanding and put scriptures
(50:33):
together in a way.
I'm like that totally makessense.
I never really understood that.
Right, that's the right way,that is God's design for how we
are to learn.
So we're going to go more intowell, both of these things,
because I'm going to take you tothe Old Testament and now we're
going to start to look at allthe Trinitarian passages in the
(50:54):
Old Testament.
You're going to say there'sTrinitarian passages in the Old
Testament.
There are strong hints ofTrinitarianism in the Old
Testament.
They're not where you know thestrongest passages, but if you
have to know every otherprevious verse to really get the
later verses, that's what wehave to do.
It's what we have to do.
Here's the thing.
(51:15):
If you do this, you betterwatch out.
You better watch out every oneof you.
If you do this, because God isseeing it, he is interested in
those who are interested in him.
He is interested in those whoare interested in him.
If you do this, he could changeyour life.
(51:37):
He could change your life.
You say but what does that looklike?
It doesn't matter, he's the onewho's going to do it and
everything he does is good.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants all of us to belooking at him.
And if we're looking at him, heis interested in you and he
(52:06):
will do things in your life.
He will do things in your life.
You say what thing, don't worryabout it.
Trust in the Lord with all yourheart.
Lean not on your ownunderstanding In all your ways,
acknowledge him and what he willmake your path straight.
How many of you want a crookedpath, a crooked, rough path
through life?
How many of you want a crookedpath, a crooked, rough path
(52:28):
through life?
How many of you want a straightpath?
You can even raise your hand.
Why?
Why do we want that?
Because it's the most direct,because it makes the most sense,
because we know it's the mostefficient and the most
beneficial.
That's why we want a straightpath because it doesn't come
with all the horrors.
(52:49):
Did I say it's going to be easy?
No, didn't say that.
We know he's got trials for us,james chapter one.
But what are we doing if we'refocusing on him?
When the trials come, we'retrusting in him and what?
What happens?
Then he gets us through and hegives us strength.
The other way to go through itis without his strength and to
do it all on your own and tojust be frustrated and stressed
(53:11):
out and all that.
Now, which way?
The straight path or thecrooked one?
It's an easy choice.
So we're going to do this,we're going to go through these
passages because we want to lookat him.
I hope this is some help, eventhough I know you probably will
not remember meophysitism,monophysitism, historianism, you
know, and all of that.
We have got to look at passagesand we have got a better
(53:34):
understanding of who God is.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
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
(53:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here's a hint of what's to come.
They did this because you knowPlato did this.
Plato was no dunce, plato waskind of a smart guy.
But you don't take Plato intotheology, by the way.
You don't do that.
You need the Bible.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Jesus Christ is just an illusion.
He was never a real man.
Jesus Christ is just anillusion.
He was never a real man.
You know, jesus Christ he wasactually two people he was a man
and he was a spirit, but hewasn't one person.
(00:41):
These are views that have beenheld by the Church in years past
, and we can start to understandwhy people might view these
things, because it is difficultto take every passage of
scripture, compare it to otherpassages in scripture and
understand them in a coherentsystem.
God has revealed all that weneed to know, and yet what he
(01:03):
has revealed that we do need toknow is sometimes difficult, and
so we should not look down uponpeople for having wrong views
on God, but we need tounderstand that it is very
possible for us too to havesimilar wrong views Because, at
(01:23):
the end of the day, we're notany smarter than the theologians
and believers that have gonebefore us.
And so today we come and lookat various views of Jesus Christ
and God that the church hasheld, so that, with greater
humility, we can approach theBible and the God that wrote it
(01:43):
and the God that is describedtherein.
We want to know Jesus, we wantto know the Father, we want to
know the Holy Spirit and we wantto know them as accurately as
we can.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We're going to look back at the Trinity and, I guess
, really more focus on thehypostatic union, because we're
dealing with Christology due tothe birth of the king.
So our event has been the birthof the king and the doctrinal
outworking of that is in thearea of Trinity.
(02:15):
Hypostatic union and then theissue of peccability or
impeccability.
You know Christ's temptations,his ability or inability to sin,
things like that.
So we haven't got to that yet,but I'm going to take that off.
It's just too hot.
You're not breathing yet, areyou?
I asked you about 20 minutesago if you've held your breath
(02:37):
all this time.
You're Navy SEALs, right?
Okay?
So let's get in fellowship withthe Lord and then we're going
to go back to some of thesediscussions about Trinity.
Let's pray.
Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,we ask that you open our eyes to
behold wonderful things fromyour Word.
As we look through churchhistory, try to look at how the
church wrestled with statementsabout Christ and his
(03:01):
relationship to the Father andto the Spirit, in his
relationship to the Father andto the Spirit, and his own
person and his human and divinenature, and how this works, and
help us to have a properunderstanding of you and of your
Son, the second person of theTrinity.
So help us to have anappreciation for the shoulders
(03:22):
that we stand on in churchhistory of others who've gone
before us and who have searchedthe scriptures, studied them
very carefully and sometimescome up with misguided
conclusions, but still it's apart of the process of the
church coming to understandbetter and be more accurate.
So we ask for that, of course,in our own time too, that we
(03:45):
would, as we wrestle with thescriptures, become more accurate
.
So we ask for that, of course,in our own time too, that we
would, as we wrestle with theScriptures, become more accurate
in our understanding of you andyour intent with the Scriptures
.
So we thank you for all you'vegiven us, and even the Spirit to
teach us you've given us, andwe ask all these things in
Jesus' name.
The good thing about goingthrough some of these aberrant
views of Trinity and this is noteverything I need, but whatever
is that while we do so, we doget to look at a lot of texts
(04:10):
that relate to the Trinity.
So I want to discuss a littlebit about why this is so
important.
As I mentioned last week, it'svery important to just follow
the discussion in church history, because we can get the
arrogance built up in us that wefigured all this out, when in
fact we really didn't figure alot of stuff out.
(04:31):
Most of us were taught a lot ofthese things, almost all of
these things, and we did notdevelop them from our own
personal Bible study.
We are all supposed to have aspirit and dwell and taught by
the Spirit, but God has alsogiven teachers to the church.
Teacher is one of the giftsthat the Holy Spirit gives, so
(04:53):
these teachers God specificallyraises up in each generation to
convey truth, to articulatetruth to God's people.
At the same time, believersindividually are supposed to be
studying the Scriptures on theirown.
There is a process, though, thathas now been going on for 2,000
years, when the Holy Spirit hasbeen teaching the church
(05:15):
individually, through generalbelievers as well as those who
have the gift of pastor-teacher,to develop an understanding of
correct teaching or doctrine.
And so, for example, james Orrwrote a book many years ago
called Progress of Dogma.
In this book, what he did wastrace the development of
(05:36):
doctrinal understanding throughchurch history so that we
understood how it unfolded andhow many generations it takes to
articulate and develop doctrine.
They don't just drop out of thesky in one generation.
So a lot, really, everythingthat we believe most of it has
been developed and now of coursewe're currently developing and
working on a few things, buteach generation really only
(05:59):
takes up a very small number oftopics to really work with and
to try to clarify.
I think we're personally veryclose to the end of this process
because I think there's a logicto church history in the order
in which doctrine was developed.
So things developed very earlyaround Christology who is Christ
(06:19):
, things about the Spirit,pneumatology Then the Trinity
was developed and then you movedinto a period of church history
which there wasn't a lot ofdevelopment until you really get
to the concept ofsubstitutionary atonement.
So the atonement, the work ofChrist, was really developed in
the 11th, 12th century.
(06:40):
And then you come to theReformation time and this is
when they're really clarifyingsalvation, justification is by
grace alone, through faith alonein Christ alone.
Then you move into a periodwhen the church is dealing with
ecclesiology who is the church,what is the church and what is
the church's relationship toIsrael.
(07:00):
And finally the church afterthat began to work on
eschatology or last things,prophecy and things like that.
So this is a logical order andbecause we're kind of at the end
.
That is eschatology.
It stands to reason that we'removing close to the end and in
fact, you know, anyone who looksout their window and sees that
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there's this place called theState of Israel that's been
there for about 75 years nowshould say eschatology is at
work as far as the preparationor stage setting for things to
take place that are described inbooks like the book of
Revelation.
So we are hopefully nearing theprocess of completing,
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articulating accurately doctrineand in our study.
Of course, I wanted to emphasizethat Trinity was quite a
discussion and it still goes onaround the world.
So if you meet IranianChristians, they'll sometimes
hold different views of theTrinity and that's why it's
important for missionaries, whenthey go into an area, say Iran
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or anywhere, to know that thereare pockets of these beliefs
that we're studying in thosecountries that are still held
very near and dear to theirhearts.
So they need to understand thatnot everybody holds, maybe, the
exact views of Trinity that wein the West hold.
So that's one thing I wanted toemphasize.
Another thing I wanted toemphasize today and pick up on
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is this word that I keep usingevery time we look at a view For
example, in this view, ancient,modal monarchism, which is
similar to modern oneness,pentecostalism this word
presupposition.
In each one of these, as Ievaluate, I say this is the
basic presupposition of theseancient and modern views that
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are aberrant views of thetrinity.
What do I mean by apresupposition?
Well, here I don't mean anassumption, okay, so I'm using
the word in a very particularway.
A presupposition is when youinclude your conclusion in a
statement.
You include your conclusion ina statement.
(09:08):
See, the presupposition here,for example, is solitary
monotheism, that is, god issolitary oneness to him.
There is no diversity of personwithin him, like Father, son
and Spirit.
There's just a oneness to God.
Now, that's actually aconclusion.
It's a presupposition, it's adeeply held belief.
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So when I talk aboutpresuppositions, I'm not talking
about something that is easy to, let's say, get rid of.
These are deeply held beliefswhich form the basis for all of
your thinking about a topic.
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So, in this case, what is thedeeply held belief that these
folks hold, which is actually aconclusion?
It's that God is an absoluteone, with no diversity in
himself.
With no diversity in himself.
We would want to challenge thatpresupposition and discuss the
concept of unity, meaning oneGod.
But can you have diversity inthat unity?
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Is that possible biblically?
So rather than start with thisconclusion, we would want to
back up and challenge thepresupposition underlying it,
because our view does not comefrom the idea of a solitary
monotheism.
Our view is monotheistic there'sone God, but there is diversity
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of persons in this God, and sothe problem with presuppositions
is they're kind of likeflypaper.
I used to work in the lab withplants and of course you've got
to keep the little fruit fliesoff the plants.
It's this yellow paper and ifyou grab it it's sticky on both
sides.
If you try to get it off thathand with using the other hand,
it's now stuck on this hand, andthat's kind of how
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presuppositions are.
They're very difficult to getrid of because they are a
person's core belief and theyare really unchallenged and
unchallengeable beliefs, and soit's difficult, like getting rid
of flypaper, to get people todrop their presuppositions and
start from another viewpoint.
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I'm talking with someone thisweek about the church being Jew
and Gentile in one body, thebody of Christ.
We all know this.
This is not that complicatedthing to say, but this person
wants to say that if a Jew hasbelieved he's no longer Jewish,
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and I can't get him to drop thatidea and accept that.
There are passages thatdescribe Jewish believers like 1
Peter is written to Jews of thedispersion who are believers.
The olive tree in Romans 11,which has natural branches and
it has wild branches.
The natural branches are Jewishbelievers.
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They're the natural recipientsof the benefits of this olive
tree.
And then you have wild branchesand these are Gentiles who have
been grafted into this tree andthey're the unnatural
recipients of blessings from theJewish covenants, unnatural
recipients of blessings from theJewish covenant.
So but I can't get convincedthis person that you can have
Jewish believers and Gentilebelievers and we're all united
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in the church.
They say no, if you're in thechurch, you're neither Jew nor
Gentile.
You know Galatians 3.28.
But Galatians 3.28 isn't sayingthere's no Jews or Gentiles.
It's saying there's no Jews orGentiles.
It's saying Jews and Gentileshave equal spiritual privilege.
It's not saying you become anon-Jew if you're a Jew and you
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believe in Jesus, any more thanit's saying if you're a Gentile
and you believe in Jesus, you'reno longer a Gentile.
It's no more saying that if youbelieve in Christ you're no
longer a Gentile.
It's no more saying that if youbelieve in Christ, you're no
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longer a man.
Or if you're a woman and youbelieve in Jesus, you're no
longer a woman, becauseGalatians 3.28 says that too
right.
Neither male nor female.
It's not saying that if you'rea slave and you believe in Jesus
, you're no longer a slave.
Or if you're a free man and youbelieve in Jesus, you're no
longer free, but you're a slaveor something else.
It's not saying that.
It's just saying all thesepeople have equal spiritual
privileges, no matter theirstation in life.
That's all that it's saying.
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But the point is I'm trying toget across is I cannot
communicate with this individualabout this very important topic
biblically, because they have apresupposition and it's really
unchallenged and unchallengeable, and so every time they go to a
passage, they have to interpretit to fit their presupposition,
because it's a deeply held,unchallenged and unchallengeable
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truth to them.
So this is the challenge is tomake sure our presuppositions
are the correct ones and tochallenge them personally,
individually.
So we've gone through some ofthese.
If you start with thispresupposition, an ancient modal
monarchianism also known asSibelianism, for its founder,
sibelius, and one of thederivatives of that was a
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concept of patropatianism, theidea that the Father was
crucified, as well as modernoneness, pentecostalism.
You start with this one idea ofGod, this absolute one.
Then you have to come to certainconclusions, because as you
read the Bible, you say well,who's the Son and who's the
Spirit and who's the Father?
How does this all relate to theone God?
So the way that theyhistorically have done it is
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they said well, in the OldTestament God revealed himself
as the Father, in the GospelsGod revealed himself as the Son,
and in the epistles and on downto our own day, he reveals
himself as the Holy Spirit.
And these are three masks thatGod puts on, because there's one
God.
And he puts a mask of theFather on, then later he puts
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the mask of the Son on, thenlater he puts the mask of the
Spirit on, because there's oneGod, and he puts a mask of the
Father on, then later he putsthe mask of the Son on, then
later he puts the mask of theSpirit on.
We said well, that doesn't workso well, because there are
texts where, for example, jesusis talking to the Father, for
example in his high priestlyprayer of John 17.
It's a dialogue.
Is Jesus just changing masks.
So he puts on his Jesus maskand then says something, and
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then he switches masks and putson the father mask and he
receives what Jesus said to him.
See, this doesn't work.
It doesn't make much sense ofthese texts in the Bible.
It also doesn't explain how thefather is actually the father
of the son, if they're reallyjust the same person with two
different masks on, does it?
So you go through these and youwrestle with them, but in the
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end you say nope, that's notright, that doesn't fit what the
text says.
Another one that starts the sameway with a presupposition of a
solitary monotheism, is easiestto understand in the term
adoptionism.
But it's also held by modernUnitarians right down here in
the street in Spokane.
It's held by Judaism, it's heldby Islam.
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So people hold this pretty muchexact view today or similar
views In this concept.
The conclusion is well, only theFather is God and Jesus.
He was given the godhood, or hewas bestowed godhood at his
birth, at his baptism or hisresurrection.
So he is a god, they will say.
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He's just not.
So he's less.
In essence.
He's not sovereign, righteous,just loving, omniscient,
omnipresent, omnipotent,immutable, eternal.
He doesn't have thoseattributes of God, he has
another set of attributes thatare unique to him, that make him
less than the one true God, theFather, See.
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So we have to ask ourselves,well, does that fit?
Does that fit what the Biblesays?
Well, it doesn't explain howChrist was with the Father
before the incarnation.
I mean, if he was created andborn, you know then how was he
with the Father before his birth?
That doesn't fit.
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It doesn't explain the deity ofChrist passages.
It certainly doesn't explainwhy Jesus permits himself to be
worshiped or will accept worship.
I mean, let's think about it.
Okay, if there's one true God,he's the only one who should be
worshiped, right?
I mean, would you worship acreature?
Isn't that against one of theTen Commandments?
You don't worship anything increation.
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Well, if Jesus is less than theone true God and he's a
creation and he was justbestowed godhood and we worship
him, or he accepts worship,wouldn't that be idolatry?
Well, of course it would beidolatry.
You would only worship the onetrue God.
You wouldn't worship JesusChrist because he's less than
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God.
That would be idolatry.
So again, this is a point.
You see, this doesn't work,this will not fit with the Bible
.
So, this one's important right,because we've got ancient
Arianism named after a guy namedArius and modern Jehovah's Day
witnesses.
These are basically verysimilar views.
Arianism, by the way, was theprevailing view in the day of
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Arius.
It dominated the field.
In other words, it's what mostpeople believe.
Field, in other words it's whatmost people believe.
By the way, can most people bewrong?
Usually, most people are wrong.
How many people got on the ark?
Only eight.
Do you think there was lesspeople than that off the ark?
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No, most people were not on theark, and most people were what
they were wrong.
Most people are wrong inhistory, not most people are
right.
And so in this day, arianismwon the day, so to speak, but
then, of course, it began tolose.
But the presupposition here isthat God is the pure ideal.
This comes right out ofNeoplatonist philosophy.
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It's the idea that there isthis world that we have to
project from our minds to exist.
We have to claim this, whatthey call the ideal world.
The pure ideal world exists.
They did this because Plato didthis.
Plato was no dunce, plato waskind of a smart guy.
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But you don't take Plato intotheology, by the way.
You don't do that.
You need the Bible.
Van Thiel wrote a book one timecalled Jerusalem versus Athens,
and it's a discussion of wheredo we get our presuppositions
from Jerusalem, which stands forthe Bible, hebrew thought
categories, or Athens, whichstands for Greek categories of
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thought?
Where do we start?
Hopefully, our presuppositionsare rooted in Jerusalem, that is
, the Hebrew categories ofthinking.
That's where we derive truecategories for thinking.
If we get them from somewhereelse and then we try to import
them and put them on the Bible,well, we're going to misread the
Bible again.
So what has happened here is aborrowing of neoplatonic
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categories, where you have thispure ideal world.
Well, that's what Plato wassaying.
Now, plato was smart, okay,like I said.
So, for example, let's take achair.
What Plato was saying was thatI want to be able to say look at
a chair and say that's a chair,and look at that and say that's
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not a chair.
This is what he was trying todo.
He said well, how can I do this?
There has to be this pure idealconcept of a chair, and what he
was trying to do was make aworld of universals or absolute.
But they were a mentalprojection of Plato.
They were just a mentalprojection, and once he created
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this world out there there wasthis pure ideal of a chair and
this chair, whatever it was, ithas the characteristics that all
chairs in the real world downhere fit into.
By the way, that was absolutelybrilliant, because he was
absolutely right.
If you do not have an absolute,universal.
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You can never say that's achair and that's not a chair,
because everything blendstogether.
For example, let me ask you aquestion Are you sitting in a
chair right now?
You're like well, I need toknow exactly the characteristics
of a chair.
We call this thing a pew, butis it a chair?
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So the only way you can saythat is if there is an absolute
concept of chairness, and onceyou know what that is, then you
can categorize something as achair or not.
Right, what that is.
Then you can categorizesomething as a chair or not.
Right, so in one way it wasbrilliant.
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But you cannot say now, god isthat pure ideal, because that's
just a mental projection.
Okay, it's just an idea thatsomeone has projected.
The conclusion, in this view,was that Jesus is begotten or
made before time by the Father,therefore he's a creature.
Jesus is begotten or madebefore time by the Father,
therefore he's a creature.
And the point was that God madeJesus Christ because God is the
pure ideal and he can onlycommunicate with this world down
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here through this intermediarybeing named Jesus, which is why
he had Him created.
He wanted to communicate withus.
So he created Jesus as thefirst being as an intermediator
between him and us, but as theson of the father, then
obviously as an intermediarybeing, he's less in essence.
And they use 1 Corinthians, 8, 5, and 6 to support that, their
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interpretation of it.
Because they're working from apresupposition.
They explain that the son'ssubordination to the Father.
You know, like things like whenJesus is on the cross and he
says my God, my God, why haveyou forsaken me?
And everybody says, well thenhe can't be God, he's calling
him God.
Jesus must not be God.
That's one way people look atpassages like that.
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But that's not talking aboutJesus being less in essence.
Jesus was talking aboutsubordination of role,
subordination of role.
Subordination of role Becauseother passages say that he is
God, he's our great God andSavior.
Jesus Christ, titus 2.13.
Other passages in Peter,hebrews 1.8.
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All sorts of passages talk aboutthe deity of Christ.
So when he says my God, my God,why have you forsaken me, he's
speaking of Him from asubordinate role, not someone
who has less essence.
The Spirit for these folks isjust an impersonal power or
force of God, goes out from Godto accomplish things.
So the Spirit isn't even aperson.
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It doesn't explain when Christfor Yahweh's name is substituted
or functions are substituted.
It doesn't explain a lot ofthings.
It doesn't explain how allthings were created by Christ.
I mean, if he's the first thingthat's created, but he created
all things, does that mean hecreated himself, since he's a
part of all things that wascreated?
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See, this is illogical, itdoesn't work, um, it just, it
just won't work and really itcuts us off from truly knowing
god.
Point four because if you onlyknow jesus christ, you only know
an intermediary being.
You don't know the one true god.
But the bible says we know godand it says that jesus christ is
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the exact representation of thefather in his being.
He says I and the Father areone.
He says if you've seen me,you've seen the Father.
He didn't say if you've seen me, you've seen a shadow of what
the Father looks like.
No, he didn't say that Ifyou've seen me, you've actually
seen him.
So these are very importantideas.
Now we come to this new one.
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This has some interestingrepercussions.
We didn't look at this one lastweek, but this is ancient
docetism.
Does anybody know what docetismmeans?
From the Greek doceo, it meansillusion.
So the ancient view of Jesus'shumanity being simply an
illusion.
That's the idea.
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So, and modern extreme Calvinism.
I don't mean to step onanybody's toes, but watch,
because these presuppositions,they seep into everything and
you have to unearth these andfind them, otherwise you may be
beholding to some of these andnot knowing it right.
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You pick these things up likeyou pick up gum on your shoe.
You don't even realize it tilllater.
And they're sticky, they'rehard to get off, they're a mess.
So watch what happens here.
Presupposition again God is thepure ideal, just like
neoplatonic idea of a projectionof God, this ultimate ideal.
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But look at this.
There's something added here heis the only reality.
Well, if he's the only reality,then everything down here is
just what An illusion.
It's just an illusion.
That's the key to these twoviews, views.
The conclusion of this view wasthat, well, jesus, he only
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appeared to be human.
He wasn't really human, hishuman form was only an illusion.
Now, most held this becausethey viewed him as so divine.
They said, well, he can't behuman.
He's so holy or divine, he's soGod.
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So everything of his humanitywas just an illusion.
Now, extreme Calvinism.
Why do I say this is similar?
It's similar.
Because, in extreme Calvinism,why do I say this is similar.
It's similar because in extremeCalvinism the sovereignty of
God is so great that history isdetermined and human freedom is
really just an illusion.
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I mean, you know their view.
I mean all extreme Calvinistswould say, no, there's no such
thing as free will.
They might discuss things, likeyou know, possibly we're free
agents, but they would never saywe have free choice or free
will, right.
They are violently opposed tothat free will concept.
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Why are they so opposed to that?
Well, because God's sovereign.
I mean, if you hold a free will, you're rejecting God's
sovereignty.
This is the way they think, andin their view then all of
history is totally determined.
Well, in that view, do wereally have any say in any
matter at all?
I mean, no, it's alreadytotally determined.
So if you're sitting thereright now thinking about what
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we're saying, or listening orgoing to sleep, that was all
just determined, okay, by Godsovereignly.
Now they try to talk around it,I know, and try to explain.
It gets really complicateddiscussions in their books.
But to try to somehow basicallyjust talk around it, okay, to
satisfy people intellectuallythat well, there's something
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there and this really works orsomething, but it's really just
a lot of hot air and talk.
History is totally determinedin this view, and so any concept
of you having free will orfreedom or making genuine
choices is really just anillusion, and that's why I link
this concept to ancient docetismabout Christ's humanity.
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But docetism doesn't explainhow the Word was made flesh.
Let's look at 1 John 4.2.
One of the early tests fororthodoxy was does the person,
the teacher or the prophet saythat Christ has come in the
flesh?
If they denied it, they werenot a true teacher or prophet.
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So 1 John 4, verse 1, saysBeloved, do not believe every
spirit, but test the spirits tosee whether they are from God,
because many false prophets havegone out into the world, and by
this you know the Spirit of God.
Every spirit that confessesJesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God.
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I mean, was it just an illusion?
Was his human form just anillusion, or is this verse
saying that he actually came inhuman flesh?
See, but there were a lot ofpeople in the first century who
were already denying this.
This is probably Gnosticism orpre-Gnostic ideas, which
developed later into what wascalled Docetism.
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So these were popular views atthe time, and so this is written
in the Spirit of God.
Okay, how about John 1.14?
John 1.14.
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We'll just look at one more.
Was Jesus Christ?
Did he have a true human body?
You know, physical flesh?
John 1.14.
So this gets us into someinteresting passages.
John 1.14, the whole discussionof the Word, which we know is
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the second person of the Trinity.
He's the one through whomeverything came into being verse
3.
And in verse 14, it says theWord became what?
The illusion of flesh.
Right, he looked like flesh.
Isn't that what it says?
No, of course.
It says he came in the flesh,talking about the actual flesh,
and he dwelt among us and we sawhis glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, fullof grace and truth.
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Okay, so another passage isshowing for sure that he came in
the flesh.
In Colossians 2.9,.
All the fullness of deitydwells in him in bodily form.
That one could be questioned,because it says form.
But I've shown you otherpassages that say he came in the
flesh, so they'reunquestionable.
It doesn't explain that he wasactually touched.
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I mean, if he was just anillusion, can you touch an
illusion?
1 John 1, 1-4.
1 John 1, 1-4,.
1 John 1, 1-4, which I'll readwhat was from the beginning,
what we heard, what we've seenwith our eyes, what we have
looked at and we touched withour own hands concerning the
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word of life and this life wasmanifested.
We have seen and testify andproclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father andmanifested to us.
So we saw it, we touched it.
What did they see and touch?
They touched eternal life.
Well, who's eternal life?
Jesus Christ, this is the trueGod and eternal life.
Jesus Christ himself is eternallife.
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When we believe in him, see,his life is given to us.
What is that life?
It's eternal life.
That's what we're receiving.
We're receiving him his life.
When we believe in him, see,his life is given to us.
What is that life?
It's eternal life.
That's what we're receiving.
We're receiving him his life.
They saw it, they touched it.
That's not an illusion, that'sreal.
Right.
You said I didn't know eternallife could be touched.
Yeah, the person of JesusChrist is eternal life himself.
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So if you saw him and youtouched him, you were seeing and
touching eternal life.
That is how close it was andthat is how accessible it is to
you and us when we believe, wereceive this life his life him.
So this doesn't work.
So this one is called ancientNestorianism and what we're
going to get into now is more onthe concept of the hypostatic
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union.
Okay, this issue, this wasnamed after Nestorius, a guy
named Nestorius.
Aren't you glad you're notnamed Nestorius?
Okay, that's the ancient viewand the modern view is
neo-orthodoxy.
I'll mention a name of someonewho is neo-orthodox so that it
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shocks you a little bit.
There's been a book just writtenabout him, bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer.
I hope you don't follow histheology.
It's not very good.
Nothing he did at World War IIas far as showing resistance to
the Nazis was a necessaryconnection to his theology.
(33:10):
It was what any moral humanbeing would do at that time.
His theology is not very good.
If you read it, he's calledNeo-Orthodox.
So Neo-Orthodox isrationalistic, experiential
theology.
They don't believe that theBible is the Word of God.
Did you hear me?
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They do not believe that theBible is the Word of God.
They believe it contains theWord.
What does that mean?
They mean that it contains itin the sense that when it
becomes true for you, it's theWord of God to you, but it's not
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objectively the Word.
In other words, all these wordsare not God's Word.
They become the Word of God toyou when you have an experience
with so neo-orthodoxy.
It's not where we are, but thisreally erupted around World War
II and became more and morepopular and has been with us, of
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course, down to this day.
So, in this view, thepresupposition I'm just going to
put, the precept is that God islimited by creation.
Now everybody should be goingno, wait a minute, how could God
be limited by his creation?
That doesn't even make sense,right?
(34:38):
But they had certainconclusions that come from that
presupposition.
The main conclusion is that theSon's human and divine natures
were only loosely connected.
What does this mean?
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This mean?
Well, it means that he couldnot get his divinity and his
humanity you know together closeenough so that he was only one
person.
Instead, they're loose, and soreally what you have the two
natures are two people.
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He's not just one person, buthe's two people.
He's not just one person, buthe's two people.
Now, is anybody shrewd enough,and way smarter than me, to
catch right off the bat wherethis is going to go?
If Jesus Christ is not oneperson but he's two people,
actually, if he's two people andthen the father is a third
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person that makes the spirit the.
What fourth person?
We're not talking about trinityanymore, we're talking about
quadrinity.
Okay, that's exactly where thisgoes, because the two natures
in christ were not close enoughtogether.
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He couldn't be one person.
He ended up being two peoplethe divine logos and the human
jesus.
And now you've got four people.
So this one is very easy to see.
The problem with it.
The problem was is is that?
Well, wait a minute, we don'thave three people anymore Father
, son and Spirit.
We've got Father, divine Logos,human Jesus and the Spirit.
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We've got four.
And does the Bible teach aquadranity?
And then we all very quicklysay, well, no, that doesn't work
.
So that was the problem withNestorianism, and in some senses
, neo-orthodox holds thisconcept too, because they keep
the divine and the human soseparate.
Okay, and then the last onewe'll look at is ancient.
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These are.
So I put these up here so youcan look them up.
Meophysitism Put these up hereso you can look them up.
Meophysitism Now, these are notthe same, because these two
words I'm just putting them nextto one another because they do
have some similaritiesMonophysitism and modern-day
(37:16):
Krishna incarnations.
Have you heard of that in theEastern religions, krishna
incarnations, which is really anevolutionary thing.
So you can see this is going tobe an evolutionary type of
Jesus.
Okay, also held by liberal andpagan theology.
So this one is, let's just say,the farthest away from the
(37:40):
biblical concept, because whenyou look at their presupposition
, you'll realize, or you shouldrealize right off the bat, this
won't work.
Okay, god and creation are one.
This is known as monism.
You know one, everything is oneand obviously you know.
(38:05):
The very first thing that shouldcome to your mind is Genesis
1.1,.
Right, in the beginning, godcreated the heavens and the
earth.
They're not him, they're thecreature or creation.
It's separate from him.
The creator this is the veryfirst thing we taught in this
whole framework class, I don'tknow, a year and a half ago
right, was the creator-creaturedistinction.
Okay, now, hopefully, all thisis going to start to make sense.
(38:28):
I told you you have to do thewhole Old Testament before you
can really really get andunderstand the New Testament.
The very first truth that youlearn in the Bible is the
creator-creation distinction.
We put the creator in the openbox.
We put creation in a closed box.
Why do we do that?
We're just saying, by the openbox, that the creator is
infinite, right, he's notlimited.
(38:49):
And we're saying creation islimited.
Now, this is the first truth inthe Bible.
I mean, you learn it in Genesis1.1,.
Right, in the beginning, godcreated the heavens and the
earth.
So we've got the creator, andthen we've got the creation,
which is the heavens and theearth, and then he begins to
form and fill you know thecreation during creation week.
So this is the most fundamentaltruth in the Bible.
(39:13):
What is happening in JesusChrist?
Isn't the creator taking tohimself the creature?
What do we have?
Let's just draw a line here.
You know like we're talkingabout the, we still have the
creator.
He is the creator.
Right by him, all things weremade.
He sustains all things.
He's the creator.
(39:33):
He took to himself the creature.
And look how I've drawn them.
Notice that the creator and thecreature are distinct from one
another, not blended together.
They're not overlapping, butthey're together.
In other words, they'retouching, so to speak, not mixed
, not separated.
(39:54):
And he's one person and this iswho he is.
Now, do you see, go back tocreation in your mind's eye, god
makes Adam and he makes him inhis own.
What Image and likeness.
Why?
Why did he do that?
(40:16):
Because one day he knew hehimself would become and take to
himself a creature.
The model for Adam was theincarnation of Jesus Christ.
God didn't say, let me see whatwould I do here.
No, he knew one day he wasgoing to become incarnate and he
(40:39):
made after that model.
Looking at Christ, he made Adam.
This is why I'm insistent thatAdam I wouldn't be dogmatic, but
Adam is made in God's image, inhis whole person body, soul and
spirit.
You say, but God doesn't have abody.
I know I'm not a Mormon, Idon't think God has a body.
(41:00):
I'm saying that the body thatGod made Adam, just as the body
that God made Jesus Christ, isrevelatory of who God is, which
is why God can come along laterin the Bible and say God's
nostrils flared, or God's armbrought deliverance.
You say, well, does God have anose then?
(41:20):
And does God have an arm?
No, it's conveying something tous through the human nose and
the human arm about what God islike that, for example, with his
nostrils flaring, he gets angry, that with his mighty right arm
he brings deliverance andjudgment on his enemies.
(41:40):
So the human form is revelatoryof who God is.
God didn't make it randomly, inthat the human form is not a
chance form.
That is a result ofevolutionary processes.
It is very specificallydesigned to teach us about who
God is.
(42:03):
Man also has a spirit, which isthe immaterial aspect of man
that is also made in God's image.
We have such things as theconscience.
Is that something that you cansurgically remove?
No, it's not a physical thing,is it?
It's a part of our spiritualmakeup.
There's this thing that we docalled love.
(42:26):
We love People, love oneanother.
Is that just a chemical processin us?
Now, lust may be, but is truelove?
Is that something chemical inyou, or is it more than that?
Is it something that's relatedto your human spirit?
(42:47):
I think it's tied to the humanspirit.
It's not something.
Can you take it out of a personand weigh it on a scale in a
laboratory and mean how muchlove someone has?
No, you can't do that, becauseit's not material, it's not
chemical Chemicals.
(43:07):
Material it's.
It's immaterial, it's part ofthe human spirit.
All of jesus christ.
First of all, god is spirit.
Right, he's a spirit being.
He's not physical, uh, but man,we have a spirit.
We have a spirit, we have abody and we are souls.
We're living souls.
(43:28):
So did Jesus Christ have allthese going on as a creature?
Yeah, he had a body.
We already talked about that.
He had a real flesh.
You could touch it.
People saw it, touched it.
He said to Thomas reach hereand touch my side.
See, that is his eye.
He ate Spir, it is his eye.
He ate Spirits don't eat Bodies, eat.
(43:49):
He ate in his resurrection body.
So he has a body, he has ahuman spirit, he has a human
soul or person, and he's unitedwith, but not mixed with, the
Creator and his divine nature.
So this is where everything atcreation starts to come together
(44:09):
in Christ.
This is why we'll get to it.
But see, when he does miraclesin the Gospels, like, let's just
say, he makes water out of wine.
Now, what is water for anybodywho's a chemist in here?
Yeah, you have two hydrogens,right.
(44:32):
You have one oxygen at certainbond angles, right, that form
due to the construction that Godmade.
What's in wine?
Water, but what else?
Carbon.
Well, where did that come from?
Carbon, well, where did thatcome?
From Water to wine?
Where did the carbon come from?
Who is he?
What is he saying when he turnswater into wine?
He's saying I'm the creator.
(44:53):
I make things out of nothing, Imake carbon out of nothing.
I just speak and it's there.
And, by the way, in the miracle, he keeps on making it.
Every time a glass is poured,not just once in a barrel.
Every time a glass is poured,the sense is given that he's
doing the miracle.
That's the sense.
(45:15):
Now, then you read other thingslike this he became tired, he
became thirsty, he became hungry.
What became thirsty?
He became hungry?
What You're God?
How can that be?
Well, he's also what.
He's also a creature.
(45:35):
See, he's a true human.
He has a true human body thatgets hungry, gets thirsty, he
gets tired.
Right, you're seeing the twonatures.
Right, you're seeing the twonatures?
Okay, you're seeing the divinenature.
You're seeing the human nature,but you're seeing them in one
person here.
Okay, one person here.
But there's no way you can everget to that unless you know
(45:58):
this back in Genesis, can you?
You've got to know this becausethis is what sets the stage for
that.
This is, the whole bible is asetup.
Each page is a set for the nextpage.
I remember john whitcomb, who'sa great creationist and a hebrew
scholar, said this, and it, it,it basically humbled me.
(46:18):
He said, every verse in thebible presupposes that you know
every previous verse.
And, of course, at that point Iwas just demolished, you know,
because I realized how little Iunderstood, how little I really
knew, and so you know, it setsyou on a track to okay, I've got
(46:43):
to learn and understand everyverse in the Bible, and that, of
course, takes more than alifetime, I would say, at this
rate.
So this view, ancientmeophysitism, monophysitism and
modern Christian incarnation,they deny all this.
See this creator-creature stuff.
(47:03):
No, no, no, god and creationare all one, everything is one.
Well, in this case, what youhave, the conclusion is that the
Son only had one nature.
I mean, if all is one, right, Imean how can he have two
(47:26):
natures?
Everything's one.
So it was a fusion of the humannature with the divine.
Okay, not like my picture whereyou have a creator and you have
a creature and you havecreature and they're connected,
you know.
So they're not separated butthey're not mixed either,
(47:49):
they're just together in oneperson.
Not like that.
We've got here a fusion of thehuman with the divine, or an
absorption of the human in thedivine.
And that's kind of how theythought of it, as like a step in
evolution where humans arebecoming divine and Jesus is
like the most evolved human.
Okay, so that's what they'rekind of thinking.
(48:14):
This is the thing about thisview which I mean you would say
well, obviously, this is wrong.
But this does not explain, as Idescribed before, distinct
expressions of Jesus' humanity,such as I'm tired, I'm thirsty.
Okay, if his human nature isabsorbed into the divine, then
(48:35):
here's the thing he's neitherGod nor man.
He's neither God nor man, buthe's a third type of being
that's not God or man.
Now, does that fit the Bible?
And if he is this third type ofbeing, neither God nor man,
could he actually die for man,since he's not one?
(48:57):
No, no.
So this has radicalrepercussions for the
crucifixion and salvation andall that.
Can he actually take us to Godif he's not really God but a
third type of being?
No, he can't take us to Godeither, because he's not God.
See, all these ideas have,let's just say, radical
repercussions.
That's why it's so important toget Trinity right and to get
(49:30):
the hypostatic union right.
We're going to start talking, ofcourse, more about the
hypostatic union, but these wereall heretical views that were
thought about by people.
Many people held to them.
At some periods of history theywere ruling or the dominant
view.
But then people reflected moreon the Scriptures and they said,
no, wait a minute, that's notgoing to work.
(49:52):
And we can look down on thesepeople and say, well, fools, you
know, but they're not fools.
It just takes time and theSpirit teaches over generations.
He doesn't say, oh, I'm going toteach this pastor who
absolutely knows nothing,everything in his lifetime.
Well, he is, but he's going todo it in a different way than
(50:13):
just directly teaching me.
He's going to teach me throughpeople who he's already taught.
He's going to say you know,I've already taught these men.
Maybe you could learn somethingfrom them.
I'm sure you've sat underpastors or teachers or scholars
and you thought it's just greatto sit under them because they
bring this wealth ofunderstanding and put scriptures
(50:33):
together in a way.
I'm like that totally makessense.
I never really understood that.
Right, that's the right way,that is God's design for how we
are to learn.
So we're going to go more intowell, both of these things,
because I'm going to take you tothe Old Testament and now we're
going to start to look at allthe Trinitarian passages in the
(50:54):
Old Testament.
You're going to say there'sTrinitarian passages in the Old
Testament.
There are strong hints ofTrinitarianism in the Old
Testament.
They're not where you know thestrongest passages, but if you
have to know every otherprevious verse to really get the
later verses, that's what wehave to do.
It's what we have to do.
Here's the thing.
(51:15):
If you do this, you betterwatch out.
You better watch out every oneof you.
If you do this, because God isseeing it, he is interested in
those who are interested in him.
He is interested in those whoare interested in him.
If you do this, he could changeyour life.
(51:37):
He could change your life.
You say but what does that looklike?
It doesn't matter, he's the onewho's going to do it and
everything he does is good.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants you to look at him.
He wants all of us to belooking at him.
And if we're looking at him, heis interested in you and he
(52:06):
will do things in your life.
He will do things in your life.
You say what thing, don't worryabout it.
Trust in the Lord with all yourheart.
Lean not on your ownunderstanding In all your ways,
acknowledge him and what he willmake your path straight.
How many of you want a crookedpath, a crooked, rough path
through life?
How many of you want a crookedpath, a crooked, rough path
(52:28):
through life?
How many of you want a straightpath?
You can even raise your hand.
Why?
Why do we want that?
Because it's the most direct,because it makes the most sense,
because we know it's the mostefficient and the most
beneficial.
That's why we want a straightpath because it doesn't come
with all the horrors.
(52:49):
Did I say it's going to be easy?
No, didn't say that.
We know he's got trials for us,james chapter one.
But what are we doing if we'refocusing on him?
When the trials come, we'retrusting in him and what?
What happens?
Then he gets us through and hegives us strength.
The other way to go through itis without his strength and to
do it all on your own and tojust be frustrated and stressed
(53:11):
out and all that.
Now, which way?
The straight path or thecrooked one?
It's an easy choice.
So we're going to do this,we're going to go through these
passages because we want to lookat him.
I hope this is some help, eventhough I know you probably will
not remember meophysitism,monophysitism, historianism, you
know, and all of that.
We have got to look at passagesand we have got a better
(53:34):
understanding of who God is.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
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
(53:57):
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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