Equip 2024: Our Blessed and Boundless God #6 - Q&A | Steve Meister and Kofi Adu-Boahen

Well our father, thank you so much for all that we have been learning about you this weekend You are blessed boundless girl pray now that as we

Ask some questions and think through all that we've heard Pray that your spirit would be at work using this time as he has the rest of the time

Ask it in Jesus name of a hissing All right

First question I've got here says is there a difference between God's nature Character and attributes

Yes Yes So we have to remember with with all of these terms we're actually taking

Let me actually even go back to this is a good illustration of why classically Christians have said philosophy is a handmaiden to theology

Because all of these terms actually don't come out of the Bible itself They they come there are terms that were taken from the from human discourse and to try to apply to Describe who

God is. So for example being or nature essay. God says he is who he is

How do you describe that so we've said we've said well that describes God's being because To be because I am is just a form of the to be verb.

So God's being or his nature When we think of character and we think of personal characteristics or virtues and then attributes are

We talked a little bit about in during this first time first session today

Refer to what we ascribe the divide to the divine essence. They're not things in God.

They are Our description of who God is as he's revealed himself and his works and his word.

So each of these is in one sense Different in terms of how we conceive of and how we describe

God because we are finite creatures In another sense, the answer would be so the answer could be

No, they're not different in the sense that all that we're saying of God is God and so God is

God is not as we talked about in the first session again Unlike us as creatures who are composed we can lose love and kindness and we're still ourselves.

I'm still Steve. I'm still a man I'm still a human whether I'm a Rude, you know belligerent jerk or whether I'm a loving kind person.

My attributes can vary widely, but I've still have the same nature I'm still the same person Versus whereas God we're not talking about accidents or or attributes that God loses or characteristics that he loses

We're talking about who he is but we have to do it variously because we can't comprehend the single eternal essence and so With that in mind when we talk about God's nature or his being we're talking about who he is

Absolutely God in himself God apart from creation Sometimes the the fancy Latin phrase for that is

God at intra is God in himself Versus God at extra that is

God as he works and acts in his creation I'm including the act of creation and redemption and providence, so Those are those are

Labels we use the scribe they all have varying distinctions behind them God's character we typically will use to refer to the

Moral attributes of God or the that God reflects in goodness holiness

Mercy love and then the attributes again are what we ascribe to God and again It's an important sense that God does not have attributes.

God is his attributes So God's not a compilation of things But we have to describe

God variously as Gregory Panagia said because we can't breathe in the whole air ourselves So we have to sketch him by his various attributes

So that's nature character and attributes we can you want to push on that anymore No, I think that's a pretty helpful summary of the decisions there.

So yeah, yeah nice easy one to start us off. Sure All right. Next question. We've got here a

Little bit of a deviation from our topic, but I think still can get some helpful answers what's the difference between the

God of the Bible and the God of Islam essentially the God of the Quran.

What would you say are the major differences between the two? So, I mean the biggest difference of course would be the

God and father of our Lord. Jesus Christ. It's not the God of Muhammad And God as he's revealed himself to be triune father son and spirit

And then that is not a law now. There is going to be some superficial similarities

So a law is sovereign A law in the Quran. A law is simple in a sense of simplicity

So there are gonna be other things that we could say. Well, hey, there's some points of commonality and I think those are just reflected on the fact that we're

Living in the same creation and we can draw the same deductions from natural revelation That is as God's revealed himself through what he's made

But even there though there are some very important Differences that we want to that we would

Necessarily correct according to scripture and especially in the context of evangelism evangelizing

Muslim friends or neighbors The first let's just take God's sovereignty.

So Islam has a has a conception of the sovereignty of Allah the sovereignty of God But it is it is not married to The God we know who's revealed himself in scripture who is loving and who is wise and who is good

So Allah's sovereignty is very In one sense fickle.

I mean you're gonna you may be forgiven or you may not be it's all up to Allah And if you're

Muslim, you can't be assured whether Allah is gonna come down in your favor or not Yeah, capricious is a very good word

Allah is very capricious. So and so that the unders the Muslim understanding of sovereignty is very

Fatalistic It's it's a fatalism. That's a really important reminder for us as Christians that when we say

God is absolutely a sovereign We don't believe in fatalism We believe in an all -wise all -good all -loving

God who has a purpose and a will and is working all things Toward that will for his glory and our good in Jesus And so while you know, we would say yes

Well what everything that happens happens according to his will and we can trust his ultimate purpose

We're not resigning ourselves to faith sort of what will be what will be we're entrusting ourselves to all wise and all holy

God And his glorious purpose. That's a very different understanding of sovereignty than the

Islamic understanding and of course the biggest difference is that God has a son

The only true God the simple God and we didn't get into any Trinity stuff because we don't have time that's a whole nother at least six or seven sessions on God's trinity, but God the

Father God is God the Father God the Son and God the Spirit and of course Muslims reject that out of hand

And they do so because they don't understand analogy that we've talked about and they assume

Well, if God has a son, then he must have you know procreated with someone and and this is beneath God And of course we would say well, yeah, of course that's beneath God.

That's not what we mean And that's never what Christians have ever meant about God's trinity The eternal generation of the

Sun is a matter of an eternal origin The thus the father communicates the divine essence to the

Sun eternally Non -temporally non -sequentially non -physically. It's an eternal act

God is the Father begetting the Son and with the Son breathing forth the Spirit And because that's who

God is the Lord Jesus is not just a prophet He's not just another testimony to God.

He is God himself Who's assumed humanity to be our Savior? So of course that is the the the trinity of God is going to be the dividing line

Between the truth of God and Islam and so that's why we can never have any kind of sometimes

Christians Will want to have sort of caricatures of the difference between Christianity and Islam and say well

We're you know, it's the same God just different understanding of This or that and we have a fundamental disjuncture.

We do not worship the same God We would never want to give that impression to other Christians or certainly to Muslims and assume we have a commonality that we we don't the difference that amount that Ends in Jesus is all -significant in our understanding and of course everything to do with redemption

That's a massive topic, but that's like a short answer. Oh, it definitely is a massive topic Good job to kind of summarize tell your

Muslim friends to read the Gospels because it says in the Quran that they should read the Gospels the in G so So read the in G and the

Gospels present Jesus nothing like the Quran does we have a lot of Muslims in Sacramento We were one of the largest places that received

Afghan immigrants after After the war and so we have a lot of our church members work with Afghan and Iraq so before I get to the next written question.

I have one actually yeah benefits of having the mic So We've spoken this weekend pretty much about God as he exists in himself

Yeah, I know you said we're not talking about the Trinity because we would need a whole other weekend just to handle

Trinity issues But what are some ways in which we can relate? What we've been thinking about in terms of God in himself to how

God works in the Trinity if you can use that? so To use the complicated terms.

I had to learn How does what we've been thinking about relates to the economic

Trinity the Trinity as it's working Versus this God in himself or the ontological sure

So I'm not a huge fan of economic ontological. That's a modern. I was gonna be my follow -up question

Yeah, so you know the older older Christians would have talked about God in himself and God in his works

And because God is triune we can think of The the Trinity and the processions of God internal to God Versus the missions of God that is

God's saving acts that terminate in creation Particularly the incarnation of God the

Son and then the sending of God the Spirit to indwell and empower the church So I think

I'm just some just touch points without opening up then the whole of expounding the

Trinity everything we've said in all of our sessions is true of God the

Father God the Son and God the Spirit so as God is the one who is the great

I am is Father Son and Spirit so When we say that each person of God is co -equal co -eternal co -glorious

We're talking about all these actions so God the Son is impassable God the

Spirit is immutable Everything that we've said we would say of all of who

God is we've basically been describing the Quiddity of God the whatness of God what

God is Which is different from the trinity of God, which is who God is or how

God is so we'll use language when we talk about God's trinity that God's the mode of his subsistence or the manner in which he exists

God exists as Father Son and Spirit so his nature is what we've been largely describing and then his

Persons or the subsistence is of the Father Son and Spirit is the essence subsisting so we don't want to think of The divine essence that we've been describing is like a fourth thing so don't don't think of the nature of God as You know we've talked about eternal and passable immutable, and then the

Father Son and Spirit are like satellites Rotating around the nature of God no

God's nature is The Father begetting the Son and with the Son bringing forth the

Spirit. That's that's who God is that is his nature That's how his nature exists And then of course it reveals to us.

That's revealed to us in full light in the Trinity so So we're looking at describing the nature from the

Question or angle of manner or how it is or or the persons that who? We've been largely answering the what question in our

Sessions this weekend and then the Trinity answers the the how or the who question and if you can put it that way okay?

Oh helpful, okay? I Guess I'm gonna ask this for me. Why do you have an issue with the ontology economy language?

Well, it just gives you it gives the impression like there's two trinities So we start talking about the economic Trinity and the ontological

Trinity. I'm like I think it's can just confusing so it's it's historically

Christians talked about the Processions internal to God which is the

Father begetting the Son with the Son's fighting spirit which brings full life then to when we when we say things like God is blessed.

Well. What is the blessedness of God? How is God blessed in himself? well the blessedness of God is the mutual in being and joy of the

Father and the Son and the Spirit of all eternity and The love of God is the the Father's love for his son

Which is the bond of the Spirit in all eternity so we can unpack all of these things and start bringing them into sort of Trinitarian Lustre as we have further revelation and then the missions of God which is the acts of redemption are our extensions as it were of the processions so When God there's a reason that the

Son is incarnate and not the Father Because it's fitting for the one begotten of eternally to be the one who assumes human flesh and be begotten as a man

And there's a reason that the Spirit is sent to the church Not the

Father Even though the Father is spirit also because God is spirit Because the one who has been breathed forth between the

Father and the Son is now breathed upon the church You give life and breath to the church by his gifts and graces, so there's a there's a logic a divine one

In all that God does in redemption, and it what it really boils down to is we bring it to okay?

What's the rub here is that God is revealing himself and all that he does in creation and redemption

God saves us by the Son through the Spirit so that we would know the

Father Son and Spirit We would know God God is revealing himself to us, and so it's a it's a wonderful thing so it's nothing

I mean, it's nothing to go around like publicly correcting people like at a Q &A, but it But it's it can it can create confusing

You know like if we're talking two different trinities And and doesn't help us see I think the unity of the being and work of God if that makes sense

No, I'm helpful again. I was just thinking back to when I was first learning theology. Yeah, seeing those phrases and There was a moment for a while where I did think are we talking about two different forms of the

Trinity? Yeah, yeah, you know it took a while for me to kind of realize. Oh, they're talking about the same thing

Yeah, well the same being shall we say, but it's like I agree that I think the terms can be confusing yeah for sure

All right come back to our written question. Oh oh Okay, so when we talk about So when we talk about the

Sun being begotten, what do we mean? Origin the Father communicates divine essence in one eternal act to the

Sun so the so The really the key the key to the phrase begotten is the word that modifies it which is eternal

It's an eternal begottenness an eternal generation And so it's it's it's non -sequential.

It's non -physical. It's non procreative like us like humans it is it is a

Single eternal act there was never a time the Sun was not so the the Sun is

Had the divine essence communicated from the father, but it's true to say that the Sun has the divine absence from the father

And so that's that's the idea that begottenness Origin yep exactly right yep

You might need to get you back to do Christology at some point Speaking of Christology we've got a question here that kind of deals with that So the person said that you know as you read the

Old Testament you have this character the angel of the Lord Who I think we'd be in agreement pre -incarnate

Christ Or the maybe Oh Sometimes yeah, we should have that conversation over dinner

But in those instances where okay, it's more than like Some sort of you know divine appearing the person asked in relation to the

Jehovah's Witnesses Really whether the question was how can we explain to Jehovah's Witnesses that God is not part of creation

But the Creator, I think

I would just go to passages like we've looked at in already in in this in our sessions in Exodus 3 in Genesis 1 and Acts 17 you can go to all these texts that look at the

God as distinct From his creation and particularly if you look at the all things passages

This is where it becomes really significant, especially when we're talking about Jehovah's Witnesses and other air and their area their effect.

That's what they are the Aryans Which is an old heresy? When the really the conversation we want to show or what we're going to have with them if we're able to have

Calm and scriptural conversation is that? When the Bible talks about the

Son and talks about Christ according to his divine nature He's not in the category of things.

He's the one from whom all things come so that's really really important because they're all there is in existence is

God and all things and The Bible consistently puts Jesus in the

God category and not the things category. So in Colossians 1 He is before all things and in him all things hold together

Well, there's only one person you can say that of that's God That's giving creator status to Jesus all things come from him

Paul does the same thing with the Shema in 1st Corinthians 8 verse 6 Paul takes the

Shema Let me read this. My brain is too gone to recite it from memory but 1st

Corinthians 8 verse 6 Paul says for up for us.

There is one God the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one

Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist and What's significant is that he there distinguishes a father from the

Son the Lord Jesus? But he is taking the basic Jewish confession of the Shema the

Lord is our God the Lord is one and he's Opening it with further Trinitarian revelation

But the Lord Jesus Christ is on the side not of all things but of God The one

Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist

Jesus is on the creator category not the creature because all things is refers to what's created

Jesus is the Creator and when we think about we touched on it very briefly We looked at Genesis 1 3 and God said and we said

Oh God created the world by speaking Wait a minute. Does God have vocal cords? Does God have a voice like me?

What is speaking me? Well, we move further in Scripture We realize that God made through his word all things and that the

Sun is called the word So actually what's going on in Genesis 1 3 is a

Subtle outline and shadow of what will be fully revealed in the triune God and in Genesis 1 3

You have God creating all things the Spirit hovering over the face of the deep and the

Word of God bringing things to pass The trinity of God is there you don't see it until it's revealed later and you look back and go

Oh, oh, I know what's going on exactly now so it's it's seeing these kinds of things but but a real killer key indicator for our

Jehovah's Witness friends or others is that Jesus has never put in the category of a thing

He's always in the category of the creator of all things throughout Scripture and that's significant Yeah, that's super helpful.

Super helpful. I have all the written questions we go. Okay, but anybody have questions from the floor

Yeah, well, so So many things right so if you want a really good introduction to that Karl Truman's book a strange new world is a really good survey

That's a condensed version of a longer book the rise and triumph of the modern self And we had dr.

Truman with us at our church now three years ago and I have YouTube videos online of four sessions which breaks it down as well.

So these are just different same resource, but Really you have just the shift to a the

Enlightenment thinking where man became the measure of reality and where we independently sought to determine reality of our own volition and will and Once you do that, then you have to do something with our

Emotions and feelings and that gets merged through all kinds of different, you know

Philosophical and social streams to bring us to where we are today. We're now someone can say well like I may be biologically male but I feel female, you know, we've now given our emotions a

Almost creative force that they define reality and that's all downstream from things philosophically and things that were happening in the you know, 18th century or so during the

Enlightenment that was Effectively seeking to separate human thought and life from God and from the prior centuries of Christian assumption.

I mean, that's a very short story there's a lot there though, but you have the Romantic movement the

Enlightenment and so many things that made it now where We sort of take that It's taking our autonomy and our self -definition for granted

That's now the that's now taken for granted in society, right? It's it's the theme of every Disney movie

I mean every Disney movie is the the motive is all the authorities are wrong. All the all the

All the rules are wrong. You decide who you are for yourself And and that's the the basic assumption of Western society now and it's suicidal.

We're literally destroying ourselves on that assumption because it's insane But but that is the same that's the same sort of cultural philosophical

Milieu which has infected the church to the point where we now Authenticity is expressing what's in us and then

God must be as emotional as us if we're gonna have a real or authentic Relationship, but we're we've really got things upside down He's gonna have a bunch of follow -up questions, but none of them are

Topic I'll save that for another time. I guess any other questions from the floor Wrap up this afternoon

Sure. Yeah No, so So in the

Incarnation, right God the Son Assumes a human nature to be incarnate as our

Savior the Lord Jesus So of Jesus we confess that he has one person with two natures

So God is one nature in three persons, right he's one what and three who's

Jesus is one person in two natures one who with two what's So if you remember that that's how we you know

Keep things together because what we have in Jesus is God taking our nature to himself to be our

Savior So according to his human nature Yeah, Jesus weeps suffers as a man

But not according to the divine so that's why Christians historically in Christian Orthodoxy is confessing that Christ has two wills

And that we have to do what the fancy word we do we call it as partitive exegesis that is that we attribute things as we read in Scripture to either nature of Jesus because he is a

Uniquely single person with two natures, so when Jesus is asleep in the storm

He's asleep according to his human nature that we shouldn't think of God the

Son Like losing consciousness and going to sleep. God doesn't sleep and on the cross

The divine nature did not die Can't kill God, but God the

Son and human nature died as he died in his human nature So we have to make those kinds of distinctions throughout the life and ministry of Jesus To this point and so in the same way with impassibility we do the same thing the

God the Son is impassible always and always remain even when Jesus suffered in his human nature

God the Son was not suffering. He was impassible, but he suffered in his human nature

Yeah Uh -huh sure Any other questions are you asking whether The the death of Christ so God didn't determine it is is that what's being said?

Yeah, oh There's I mean we're very very confused today. It's sad We need to recapture our proper distinctions of who

God is so that we understand what he's done for our salvation And all of these things inevitably bring you to the gospel, and that's why it's so important That's why the early church fought so Tenaciously in our early creeds are about the being and character of God and of Christ Because they knew being precedes doing and if you get the being wrong you're gonna get the doing of the gospel wrong

Whenever we're talking about well something like The crucifixion there's multiple wills involved and you see that in Scripture And yet not at the same

Ultimacy it's different for a man to will than for God to will the God who is sovereign over all things

And so you take like even you know Peter's sermon in Acts 2 That where in verse 33 where Peter charges them that this this

Jesus you crucified at the hands of lawless men so the

It's true to say Jesus was killed by the Jewish leaders of his day and by the

Romans And that was done wickedly inexcusably that people are guilty of the sin of Rejecting that our

Savior and Lord and killing him was murder It's the most heinous act ever to happen because the only perfect man who's ever lived was put to death wrongly

And yet then Peter goes on, but this was according to the predetermined plan of God God intended for the

Son to die for us God the Son took a human nature to lay it down so If you're saying

God had no evil will in killing Jesus well, then you're absolutely right of course

He did he only wills all holy good things but he governed in over he oversaw the evil intention of the

Murderers of Jesus and the sham trial and every other evil that led to Jesus's crucifixion

That was governed by the sovereign holy will of God for good and holy purposes And so it boils down to a distinction between the the agents of those involved the secondary causes of people and the ultimate cause of God and his will and Keeping those distinct, and then we would have to deal with passages like Isaiah 53 it pleased the

Lord to crush him and He was obedient to the point of death even death on a cross therefore

God highly exalted him and all of the texts that refer To Christ's death as a willing obedient death

To the pleasure of God and his purpose was that and it's really important. We get that right because that is the

Demonstration of the love of God so that we can trust God's love in every other circumstance of our life

So I mean this is the logic that Paul draws for example in Romans 5 He goes from the peace we have with God by faith in Jesus having been justified by faith

And then he goes on and says therefore we rejoice in our sufferings And when you think about it first you're like wow, where did you get from there?

How did you get sufferings become joyful? He's like well because if I have peace with God effectively Paul's argument in Romans 5 if I have peace with God Then I can know that none of the suffering

I'm going through is because God's mad at me Because I have peace with him and so all of it must be formative and then he goes on to say that the

God who Demonstrates his love for us Having proven this that he has sent his son to die for our sins right that the son has died

And so the demonstration of the eternal love of God is in the cross of Christ So the reason that we can trust now that God is sovereignly orchestrating all things and even governing the evil wills and men over all things for good and holy ends is proven by the cross of Christ Because the most evil act and the most holy act on the face of the earth are the same act the crucifixion of Christ Humanity killed its maker and its maker redeemed humanity in the same act and so we can trust our

God and his sovereign will overall. I think that's a good place for us to call it an afternoon.

I Hope that's been helpful in clarifying Some of the issues that we've been grappling with I think grappling is a really good.

Yeah, it's good this weekend again I want to thank you all for coming Been a joy to organize this

I'll close this out in prayer and we'll call it a weekend Let's pray together

Blessed Father. We are so thankful that we've had this time to wonder at Marvel at be amazed by your greatness and your goodness

We thank you for all that you have shown us from your word and from your servants in the past who contemplated your word as we

Thought about who you are and what you have done why we can have confidence in that And so father my prayer is very simple that we would continue to have confidence in You and what you are doing in our lives

That we would trust you even when it seems difficult To us to understand what you are doing because we know that you are indeed good that you are indeed blessed within yourself and Therefore you act towards us in blessing

Thank you for this weekend pray for My brothers and sisters who are here that you're blessed the rest of this weekend bring us together again on the