Synoptics: John 14:6-7

Well, you know, the average high for today is 70 degrees, so we're going to be 12 degrees below that for our high, so enjoy it while you can because before very long, you know, the sun's getting up a little bit earlier, a little bit earlier, staying up a little later and without a question.

It's coming again, so I do not complain about the cold too much, though Archie and I were complaining about it yesterday because without actually talking about it, we were having a competition as to how far we could ride in one week, just barely, just barely.

It's actually the first week above 200 miles since, oh goodness, sometime back in September, so unfortunately, we just weren't riding the same place and now we have to hook up.

I think you probably covered your distance a little bit faster than we did. I only averaged 17 .3

yesterday because it was 17 .3. It was windy. It was windy.

Yeah. I did 18 .6 on a couple of my 50s last week, so anyway, the reason

I was doing that has nothing to do with John Chapter 14, which is where we'll get to eventually, maybe.

But some of you might not know what happened last week. If you weren't here Wednesday night,

I think Pastor Fry probably mentioned Wednesday evening why I wasn't here. I was not sick.

I was deep in preparation. I had a very unique opportunity this week.

On Monday morning, I was in San Antonio over the weekend, last weekend, preaching at Providence Community Church in San Antonio.

I got back Sunday night, a little flight delay, but I got back eventually. This was already an incredibly busy month.

I leave this Wednesday morning for Charlotte. On Thursday, I debate Dr. Michael Brown on the doctrine of election at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

SES was founded by Norman Geisler, so it's not known for being overly friendly to that perspective. Dr. Brown is a very good friend of mine, but a very challenging opponent on that subject.

And then on Saturday, I'm doing a debate with the head of the Muslim Debate Initiative here in the

U .S., the new part of the MDI. I've debated a lot of MDI guys before, especially in London and down in Sydney, Australia.

We'll be debating, probably going to be Muhammad in the Bible, but I'm not sure that's going to work because Michael Brown is going to be debating

James Tabor on Jesus and Paul, and we're all supposed to get together and talk. I'm not sure what we're going to be talking about if Shadid Lewis and I are debating some completely different topics, so I'm trying to work on that.

But anyways, I've got two major debates this coming weekend, and then I've got a week home, and then

I actually leave a week from Sunday, 24th, for Dublin, Ireland, and I'll be doing two debates, one at Trinity College Dublin and one at UCD, with Adnan Rashid, one on the

Bible or the Quran, and the other on did Jesus and Muhammad preach the same message.

So, in other words, February is going to be a really, really, really, really busy month. Add up all the flight miles in February, and I'm about halfway to my yearly need.

This is the way things are looking with teaching textual criticism in Berlin in June and a trip to Hawaii sometime.

I may be at my record number of miles flown by the end of June, which would be really weird.

But, so, in other words, I've got lots of stuff going on. The book's coming out in April, whatever

Christians know about the Quran, and so I've got a million things going on. So, Monday morning, I get an email, and it's from Justin Brierley.

Now, some of you don't know who Justin Brierley is. You should know who Justin Brierley is. I would, if you do any listening to stuff, you know, for edification or for an interest in what's going on in the world,

Justin's program, Unbelievable in London, is well worth subscribing to. You can just subscribe to it as a podcast on iTunes, and each week, it'll drop into your folder.

And sometimes, the subject might not be of interest to you, but most of the time, it is. I've been on it, as of this week, 10 times, and he contacted me

Monday morning and asked me something that just chilled my blood.

As soon as I saw the email, I'm like, oh, no. Probably the most brilliant, widely read, intelligent man

I've debated up until this point was Warren Smith. No, I'm sorry. Just woke

Warren up, was someone that some of you may recall, because we actually listened to some of the things he said in the six months back in 2005 that I prepared to debate him.

A man by the name of John Dominic Crossan, and Dom Crossan is the co -founder of the Jesus Seminar, and we debated the reliability of the

Gospels. I had six months to prepare. So I read his autobiography, and I read his books, and I listened to his lectures, and I got into his mind, and that's how

I like to handle these things. When I take someone on whose IQ is 20 points above my own, I need some time to prepare.

So when I saw this email, I just about went, no, no, no, and part of me said, don't do it.

Part of me said, wisdom says don't do this. But Justin was saying, look, I can't find anybody to dialogue with N .T.

Wright this Thursday morning. Now, some of you may not have any idea who N .T. Wright is, and that's fine, but N .T.

Wright, Guy Prentice -Waters at RTS has described him as the single most influential New Testament scholar in Christendom today.

That's all of Protestantism, all of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, everything. He writes books that are 800, 900 pages long with 2 ,000 footnotes, and that may not mean anything, because I know lots of guys that do that and that can't talk their way out of a paper bag.

But he's also a world -class debater. He is fast on his feet. He can think. He's British.

He's a former bishop of Durham, and now he teaches at St. Andrews, and just a super, super sharp guy.

Well, I had been following Wright and listening to what he was saying back when

I was writing my book on justification, stuff like that, and he's one of the primary proponents of what's called the

New Perspective on Paul. But he's not like a lot of his friends. A lot of other people who's promoted, for example, say that Paul only wrote seven of the letters attributed to him and all the rest of this stuff, and so they have a much truncated canon.

They're very liberal. He believes in sola scriptura. He believes in the whole canon of scripture and all the rest of this stuff.

And so he's not nearly, you can't just dismiss the guy easily. So I had from Monday morning when

I finally decided, well, it's either have him on this program and no one's going to respond and he's just going to be able to present his viewpoint and Justin's going to have to say,

I tried to get all sorts of folks from the states and stuff like that, and no one would dialogue with him, or me.

So the reason I rode 265 miles this week is the only way I know to prepare is

I just started throwing all the books that have been published since 2004, well, since about 2004, specifically

John Piper's response to him, his response to John Piper, and then lectures, D .A. Carson's lectures and Guy Waters' lectures and all the stuff, you start throwing it on an iPod.

And that takes hours to listen to, so you put it on 2X, double speed, and I just start writing.

Just go, go, go, go, go. And so we had that encounter Thursday morning.

There is a link, one of my blog guys linked to it.

I guess I've been given permission to actually host it and put it on our site. I might be able to get around to that eventually, but you can you can listen to it there.

And it was only an hour and 10 minutes long, so you can barely describe the new perspective in an hour and 10 minutes.

But we got into most important stuff. I thought it went real well.

Evidently, he was not overly offended at the conversation because once we got off the air, he said, you know, the next time you're in London, you know, get in touch and we'll have a conversation over a beer.

And I was like, oh, Anglicans, I love it. And so I will probably take him up, probably not on the beer, but on the opportunity, because there's so many, many, many, many questions.

If I even tried to start telling you, try to explain on the dividing line, I spent an hour on Tuesday or on Thursday just sort of trying to summarize one,

I don't know, 10, 11 page article that he had written on the subject justification. And I only got halfway through in an hour.

So it's taking me two hours to even try to explain what the what the issues are, let alone get into the argumentation.

But it was it was quite the interesting experience. And if you listen to it, it sounds like I was in studio, even though I was on the phone.

And the reason why I'll get you saying the reason why is what we've figured out is

I record on my side and he records on his side. Now, I send him my recording and so then he takes everything

I say and drops it on top of my on top of me and his. So it sounds like I'm actually in studio.

That's a lot of work, but it sounds real good. So it sounds a lot better than a transatlantic phone call, which these days can sound better than they used to, but it's still, you know, diminishes sound quality and stuff like that.

So if you want to go to the blog at AOMEN .org, you can you can listen to that.

Yes, sir. Oh, did you? And I don't know if this is an experience that you've heard people have, but I was really excited about it, you know, a little bit and Justin Tyson's come up and said, you know,

Tom, this is kind of like he's coming up and he said, great,

I understand where he's coming from now. That sounds I understand that. That's great. And. Well, no, it is, but but part of it is because we, you know,

I understand. And by the way, it's not Warren and Bishop Wright are not on first the first name basis.

They called him Tom. But when we started, I said, sir, and he said,

I need to stop you right there. The name is Tom. So he sort of insists. I mean, the Bishop of Durham, Dr.

Wright, Reverend and all the rest of that stuff. Call me, Tom. OK, I said I was raised that way, but I forced myself to do it as much as I could.

It's one of the things that I discovered as I was starting to get confused,

I was listening to all these descriptions, I would hear people talking about what Tom Wright believes. Then I'd read

Tom Wright and he'd say he didn't believe that. And that worries me. As most of you know,

I'm very, very concerned about being accurate, representing somebody. And if someone says, look, when it all when it all boils down to when

I'm on my deathbed, it's going to be Jesus and Jesus alone. That's all

I trust him. And I believe the Bible's word of God. And I believe in Sola Fide. And I know that this guy is incredibly strong on the

Trinity, the deity of Christ, the resurrection. I mean, he's he's written books thick defending the resurrection. I got it.

I got to be careful. I can't just do the knee jerk reaction thing. And I'm afraid, sadly, a lot of people have.

I'm not promoting NT Wright. I'm just simply saying I think a lot of people just don't bother to listen to what he's saying.

And I think I started to at least the light started to come on. And it's just really hard, though, in a brief period of time to try to clarify what the issues are and yet have any exchange.

And that's what happened with us, I think. I mean, Justin asked some good questions, but I think that was probably the least

I've ever heard Justin speak on any issue of Unbelievable. I mean, he just sort of sat back and just let us, you know, go at it.

And so it was it was very, very interesting. I think it's very, very important because it primarily touches on the issue of what imputation is.

Is there such a thing as imputation? Can you get to the result of imputation without imputation? It's it's a it's a complicated issue.

I'm trying to explain it. If if if you listen to that last line, I did the one

I'm going to do on Tuesday. Hopefully that will that will help some as well. But so this turned out to be even busier because obviously from Monday to Thursday, I couldn't be preparing for next week with Michael Brown and Shadid Lewis or Adnan Rashid.

So now I'm just up to my eyeballs trying to catch up with all of that stuff. And so prayers appreciated.

It's a busy, busy, busy month. And then I don't think I debate anybody in in March.

In fact, I don't think I debate anybody in April, but I know I've got a debate with Justin Lee, who is a gay

Christian raised in the Southern Baptist family, wrote a book called

Torn recently. We're debating in Montana. Yeah, seriously,

I'm not making that up. It sounds you just say that and people know somebody in Montana would want to listen to a debate.

Yeah, you can fly to Montana. Yeah, I got to take a crop duster, but I'm going to I'm going to get there somehow.

Is it Billings? I don't know. I honestly it's Montana. I mean, you know,

I don't know. I really honestly do not know. It's it's it's wherever the

Reformation Montana conference is being held is that's where I'm going. I think

I think it might be Billings. I think it might be. I don't know. I just you know, when the when somebody sends me an email with the ticket information, then

I know where I'm going. Yeah, that's that's where I'm going.

So if his book is very challenging, very challenging, it's not like a lot of the rest of them out there.

I mean, here's a guy says, you know, look, I had a great relationship with my parents. This wasn't because of some distance between me and my father and anything else.

I just have same sex attraction and I was raised to believe it was wrong.

So for a number of years, I was willing to say I'm just going to have to be celibate. And then his struggles with that and the conclusions he came to and its challenge, it really is a challenging book.

So we'll be debating in in May. And so it's it's going to be an interesting, interesting year.

No, no choice about it. At least we still have the freedom to do these things. Yes, ma 'am. Torn, torn, it's called torn.

No, I've not had no, I mean, no, not

Matthew Shepard. I made that mistake. Matthew Vaughn, is that what it is? Vines. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I made I made that mistake recently. I said Matthew Shepard, which is not a not a name to say you refuted somebody or something like that, obviously, given what happened to him.

But yeah, Matthew Vines is the fellow. No, this is this is somebody else. So so just look at the topics.

New perspective on Paul. Election, Muhammad in the Bible or Jesus and Paul, I'm not sure which it's going to be.

The Quran, the Bible, did Jesus and Muhammad preach the same message? And can you be a gay Christian?

Nothing like stand on the same topic, you know, nothing like being able to be focused. In your study, meanwhile, writing a book with a with a

Muslim on the Trinity and Tauhid. So and then Bethany House wants a second edition of the

Forgotten Trinity. So, hey, you know, a lot of people tell you a lot of young people tell me if they ever say and ask my kids, they ever say

I'm bored. My response for decades now has been I haven't been bored since 1978.

And I don't understand how anybody can be bored. There's just there's a lot to be doing if you if you want to do it.

So with all of that, I think we're in John chapter 14. I think I'm hoping

I know in March it may turn out. I don't think it's going to. But it may turn out in March that the only

Sundays I'm here is when I'm preaching. I try not to let that happen. But there's when opportunities come up, especially, you know.

Someone says this person's coming. It's someone we've tried to engage for a long, long time. And you just get the opportunity of doing it.

Then you have to jump at it. I figure we've only got so long before freedom of speech is something you study in a history book anyways.

So you better take advantage of while you can. Last time we were together, of course, we were looking at the key text, the vitally important text of John 14, 6.

And I sought to encourage all of you to consider well the meaning of the text, that we might not use it as a proof text, that we might not just throw it out without a context, not having thought through what it means.

We certainly emphasize the fact that from Jesus, we looked at the background.

We looked at the fact that modern liberals like to assume that Jesus never said words like this and things like that.

I have to admit, yesterday I was doing a road for four and a half hours and I was listening to stuff relevant to what's coming up in Charlotte, some of which were sermons.

I listened to a Brother Martin preaching on Romans 8 and always a treat to listen to Al Martin preach.

But I was also listening to Jamal Badawi presenting on how the

Old Testament and New Testament prophesied the coming of Muhammad, which is just always so painful that, like I said many times,

I'm very tempted to drive off the road and face plant in a saguaro cactus to feel better. But I was struck once again by the fact that when you repeat words of the

Gospel of John to my Muslim friends, I'll say, oh, well, you know, we know the Bible's been corrupted, so on and so forth.

And yet, when it comes to alleged prophecies of Muhammad from John 14 and 16, man, every word is exactly the way that Jesus allegedly said it.

The level of inconsistency is just, you realize that the John 14 you're quoting from is right next to John 10, which is right next to John 8, and it just doesn't click.

So, there is a veil, there really is in that situation. But we looked at the text and we also,

I think, finished up looking at the plain statement that no one comes to the

Father but through me. We talked a little bit about the exclusive nature of the

Christian claim and the fact that if we're going to make any kind of claim whatsoever as to what

God has done, this type of thinking, though it is so foreign to so many in our culture and is contrary to the mindset that they have, you have to realize that the person you're talking to, it's not because they have seriously thought through their position.

It is just, it is so often a very facile conclusion they've come to that, well, we just need to respect everyone's viewpoint.

They don't live in accordance to that. They can't live in accordance to that. They violate that way of thinking every single day.

And so, we live amongst a people who just contradict themselves over and over and over again.

And our job is to not lose our minds in seeking to point these things out to them.

But to do so with gentleness and reverence, knowing that we could be in the exact same position.

But that the claim is very clear. No one comes to the Father but through me. Since this is the tremendous gracious act of incarnation that brings the

Son into the world, God has condescended to enter into the realm of his own creation.

I was thinking about, I forget, I was listening to one of the best works on the existence, well, it's called

The Existence and Attributes of God by Stephen Sharnock. I'm not sure if any of you ever had the opportunity of reading it. I would highly recommend it.

It's one of the great classic Puritan works. And I was listening to the section on The Existence and Attributes of God specifically in regards to his eternity and his decree.

Because that's the primary issue that we'll be debating Thursday at Southern Evangelical.

And it struck me, and again, it's funny, I remember exactly where I was on the road when I had this thought, sort of how

I index things. But it struck me that one of the things that's so offensive about thinking about the incarnation and the vast chasm that exists between God and man.

We may be the one created in the image of God. And I think a lot of times we go, yeah, I'm created in the image of God.

And that somehow makes us close to God. Well, in the sense that we bear his image as a creature, yes.

But you need to recognize that the chasm that separates the uncreated creator from the creature is nearly infinite.

And it's only crossed by Jesus himself. But one of the phrases that Sharnock used made me think about, this does happen here once in a while.

But if any of you are from back east where I grew up, when you'd have a big rainstorm and then it would stop raining and you're a kid and you go outside and the ground's still wet and the sidewalk's still wet and stuff like that.

You want to go run through puddles, you know, that's what guys do anyways. What would you find on the sidewalks?

You'd find earthworms. Earthworms. The water would drive the earthworms out. Now, it does happen here, but not nearly with the population or regularity of what would happen in, well,

I grew up in Minnesota and Pennsylvania. And one of the terms that Sharnock used was likening us, likening the difference between God and man as ourselves to the worm.

And you think about a worm and, you know, if you're riding your bike, you know, you couldn't avoid but run over worms and you'd see them doing their death row things and spinning around and, you know, things that earthworms do as they're dying,

I guess. And you'd look at that and you couldn't help but thinking of the fact that there really isn't any thought process going on here.

You consider how tiny the little nerve center is. And once I got into college, we dissected earthworms and stuff like that.

And, you know, there's this tiny little nodule, you know, that basically can only process not even light images, but light and darkness and a few things like that.

There's really not even a brain there in comparison to what we would consider to be a brain. And you think about that and then you think about the incarnation.

Can you imagine loving worms so much that you would enter into wormhood?

You go, oh, no. And we just recoil from that because, well, it's just so small, so insignificant in comparison to me.

And yet that's really what you're talking about when you talk about the incarnation. And when you keep that in mind, then you think about, well, no one comes to father but through me.

If there was that level of condescension in the self -limitation of the sun and entering into human existence, can you imagine truly the blasphemy that pluralism really is?

The demand on the part of man that God provide multiple ways, ways that might be more pleasing to us to enter into his presence.

What utter foolishness that is, what utter blasphemy against God that is. And yet that's what you have in so much of religion today.

And so we also remember that verse six is an answer to a question. Jesus said, he's going away and you know the way.

And Thomas answers, we don't know the way. He says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me.

And then he goes on, if you had known me, you would have known my father also.

From now on, you know him and have seen him. Now, first of all, we know that this makes perfect sense in light of the fact that in answer to the question of the disciples saying, we don't know, how can we know the way?

And Jesus' response is not a set of doctrines, it's not a set of laws to fulfill or things to do or moral principles to abide by.

But the answer is a personal answer. I am the way and the truth and the life. And so, again, the emphasis upon the fact that, you know, mere external observation without personal encounter is not what

Christianity is talking about. When we talk about salvation, we talk about relationship with Christ.

But then we automatically encounter immediately, and I think sometimes, at least for someone like myself,

I'm always, I have to have this filter going where when I look at a text, I'm running it against all of the errors that I know that are out there that I might be asked to respond to and so on and so forth.

And that is necessary, but it's also something you have to be aware of.

Because sometimes you can just miss the point, miss the text, because you're so concerned about other issues.

But you can't help but recognize that immediately the question is raised here of the relationship of the

Father and the Son and the identity of the Father and the Son. And I would have to say that John chapter 14 is probably the most popular section amongst those who promote the error of oneness theology in our land today.

Now, what is oneness theology? Well, there are groups simply called oneness.

The largest, best known, is the United Pentecostal Church International based in St.

Louis. That movement used to be a little bit more monolithic than it is now.

There was sort of a split, a fracturing, I guess would be a better way to put it, back in the 1990s, primarily because it had always been a very, very strict, very, very legalistic organization.

And it sort of, even though it was a Pentecostal organization, speaking in tongues required for salvation.

The only time I've ever gotten the leader to actually debate me was not on oneness theology, but it was on whether you have to speak in tongues to be saved.

We did a radio debate on that subject sometime back in the 1990s. But because of that, they almost sort of had a charismatic explosion.

And as a result, there were more, less legalistic, but still non -Trinitarian groups that sort of spun out of that and they're still out there.

Some of them, very interestingly enough, are churches where if you go on their websites and look at their statement of faith, when it comes to what they believe about God, they're not strict oneness, but they're not

Trinitarian either, and they basically say, we don't know. Which is a fascinating thing, when you think about it.

I mean, it's sort of a postmodern thing. I mean, a lot of postmodernists are like, oh, that's very open -minded of you.

We don't know who God is. We're a church, but we're not really sure. You know, and then I like that.

It says, I like a non -dogmatic thing, you know, why don't you go down to the Unitarian Universalist Church?

They're really open to pretty much anything down there. But it is interesting to recognize these groups that have sort of spun off over time.

Now, historically, this is called dynamic monarchianism or Sabellianism, all going back to literally, interestingly enough, this particular, what we would identify as heresy, came along before the far better known heresy known as Arianism.

Arius teaching that there was a time when the sun was not, the sun is a creature that he has been created.

He may be highly exalted, but he was a creature similar to what

Jehovah's Witnesses would believe today. But before that, before that, there was a struggle primarily in the

Eastern churches. This wasn't so much in the Western churches, but in the Eastern churches against those who, in essence, confused the father and the son.

And there's different ways of doing it. There's, you know, one way is to say that in the Old Testament, God was the father.

And then during the ministry of Jesus, he becomes the son and now he's become the spirit. So you have one person and the example would be someone wearing a mask on a stage.

Back in the olden days, you would have actors who would wear various masks as they stood on the stage to play different parts.

And maybe that might change their voice or something. But that is how it was done. And so there would be some who would say that that's what the

Trinity is like, is the one person. But sometimes he wears the mask of the father and sometimes the mask of the son and sometimes the mask of the

Holy Spirit. That's not exactly what the oneness, a term you can use, let's say orthodox oneness groups mean.

But from their perspective, the official, that's not the official oneness position.

And of course, you'll find variations even amongst them. But the position as expressed by the leaders is that you do have one divine person.

So they are Unitarians. We are Trinitarians. They are Unitarians. We are monotheist

Trinitarians. They are monotheist Unitarians. It's very important to keep those terms differentiated because they will accuse us of polytheism.

And our Muslim friends will accuse us of polytheism as well. Assuming that if you believe there's only one true

God, that one true God must be Unitarian. There can only be one person who shares the being that is

God. That's where we obviously differ based upon the scriptural evidence.

But their idea is that there is only one divine being and there is only one divine person.

So they are Unitarians. But the difference is, from their perspective, is that Jesus was two persons.

So from their perspective, the son came into existence at his birth in Bethlehem.

Now, he was eternally foreknown to the father, but so are you and I. And there might be a special way in which he was eternally foreknown by the father because of his centrality to God's plan.

But the fact remains that from their perspective, the person of the son did not exist as a divine person in eternity past.

He came into his existence at his birth in Bethlehem. He has been dwelt by the father. And I get a lot of confused looks and confused answers as to what the role of the son is today, because he's not a divine person.

So, what's his function today? Is there a non -divine person in the presence of the father representing me today?

It depends on the person you're talking to. There are certain areas of biblical revelation that it's extremely difficult for the oneness folks to deal with.

And obviously, any interaction between the father and son is very hard for them to deal with. The prayers of Jesus are very hard for them to deal with because it's basically

Jesus talking to himself. But it's the human side of Jesus talking to the divine side of Jesus. But it's still an internal monologue, basically.

And that area of intercession and things like that, very difficult. But now, that one divine person would primarily be identified as the

Holy Spirit. So, you have one divine person all the way through. The difference being that during the ministry of Jesus and thereafter, there's two persons.

But therefore, the son of God, from their perspective, is not divine. Only the

God who indwells him. And all of that to then take us back to the fact that John chapter 14 is one of their primary proof texts.

Generally disconnected from all of the material that comes before that has differentiated between the father and the son.

Just go back, it wasn't too long ago, certainly in Sunday school it was. But it wasn't that long ago,

I think within the last year that I did a full Lord's Day. On John chapter 5.

And think of the differentiation that is made between the father and the son. Now, they differentiate between the father and the son too.

But they do so in such a way that the son is not a divine person. Well, you look at the clear distinction that is made in John chapter 5.

And yet, everyone must honor the son even as they honor the father. The son gives life to whom he pleases and all the rest of this type of stuff.

It just doesn't make any sense. But you get to John chapter 14. And of course, you're going to get the strong assertion, if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

And that together with John chapter 10 verse 30 really becomes the heart of the argument from the oneness perspective.

We've looked at John 10 30, I and the father, we are one in the past.

Let me just again remind you that the verb there is plural. It's not I and the father, we is one.

You know, as it might be said down south or something like that. But the reality is in the

Greek language, even in that text, you do not have any basis for confusing the father and the son.

The distinction is still maintained. The distinction has been maintained in the immediate preceding context. They're in my hand, they're in the father's hand.

Doesn't mean that I am the father, but it means I and the father, we are one in the salvation of God's people.

Which is a reference to the deity of Christ. No mere creature could ever say that. But only by assuming

Unitarianism do you end up with Unitarianism. And that's almost always the case in almost any discussion you're going to have with the folks walking down the road on Saturday morning and coming to your door or whatever it might be.

They will assume Unitarianism and you have to challenge that assumption, especially in the interpretation of text of scripture.

So a oneness person looks at this. If you had known me, you would have known my father also because I am the father.

That's the thinking. From now on you know him and have seen him because you've seen me and I am the father.

That's the added element here. But what has been the theme from the beginning of the

Gospel of John, one that we've discussed many, many times before? From the very beginning, from the prologue,

John 1 .1, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God, prostanteon, face to face with God.

And the word was as to his nature, deity. And then verse 18, the end of the prologue, the book ends.

No one has seen God at any time. The monogamous theos, the unique God, he has made him known.

He has exegeted him. He has revealed him. And so the very beginning of the

Gospel gives you as its introduction. I mean, it's nice when a book is kind enough to start off and say, this is what

I'm about. This is what I'm going to prove to you. It doesn't leave you guessing. Well, John doesn't leave you guessing.

He starts off with that and finishes almost the very end with Thomas going, my

Lord and my God. It's pretty clear. But those who have a pre -existing structure find ways around that.

But one of the major themes of this Gospel is that the Son perfectly represents the

Father. That the Son, the monogamous theos, perfectly represents the

Father. Yes. I will ask the

Father and he will give you another helper. Yeah, of course, that's very difficult right there for the oneness person, because you have the

Son asking the Father about clearly a third person, which actually, in their perspective, is the same person.

Their normal response to that would be that Jesus is asking the Father to change the mode of interaction he has with his people.

Oneness folks are strong dispensationalists. And so, they would basically say that what

Jesus is asking the Father to do here is to, once he has left, take his role of being comforter of the people in a way different than he has done in the past.

And so, become the spirit of truth and the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.

So, you believers will know the Father because he will be abiding in you as the spirit.

I think that would probably be how they would put it. No, no, no, they would.

They're not docetic because they do believe that the Son has a physical body, that the

Son existed as a human being, died on the cross as a human being. Just that the

Son, as the Son, came into existence in Bethlehem and so has not eternally existed as a divine person.

The Son's not a divine person, but the Son was indwelt by the only divine person.

There's only one divine person, Unitarians. And that was he was indwelt by the Father. Any other?

I'm not saying that it's easy to follow. Yes, sir. That, of course, is one of the three major texts that I present in all of my debates with oneness apologists.

John 17, 5, Philippians chapter 2, and John chapter 1 are the three texts that I present to oneness individuals to demonstrate that the

Son, as a divine person, preexisted his birth in Bethlehem. And the responses are generally incoherent, to put it kindly.

And you might say, and that's not a nice way of putting it. I just asked you to listen, it's on YouTube, I believe, to the debate

I did with a man by the name of Roger Perkins, October of 2011 in Brisbane, Australia, where I presented

Philippians chapter 2. And the response is next to impossible to really comprehend and understand.

But yeah, that's one of the three key texts I strongly recommend that we use. All right? Okay, we're out of time.

Let's close with a word of prayer. And dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this day and for this opportunity, the freedom we have to gather together in peace and security to study your word and consider your truth.

We do thank you for this time. We would ask, as we go into worship now, you would lift up our hearts and our minds. We might be proper worshipers of you, that you might be honored and glorified in all things.