1689 Class Session #3

Covenant Baptist Church

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All right, so I took the first, what I thought was going to be the first round because I wanted to beat

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David, but then I didn't get to go first anyway, so had I really looked at what

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I was doing, I probably would have picked something else. Not because it's bad, just because it's a lot. So I got

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Chapter 1, which is the Holy Scriptures, so we'll start there. So it's got 10 points, and I'm just going to break it down point by point and kind of cover it that way.

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So the first point covers that the Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

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The Lord has revealed himself throughout time in different ways to different people. However, he has chosen to put in writing as a way to stop corrupting of it and allow churches to be unified in his word.

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In doing so, he has since ceased revealing himself in the former ways. And point two, you cover what is

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Scripture, what is the Holy Scriptures, basically what we have to hold in the New Testament, which is 66 books of the Bible that we call the

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Bible today, and these are the inspired word of God given as a standard of faith and life.

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And three, we cover what is not included in the Bible, which would be the extra -biblical text, which is the

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Apocrypha, and the main reason is that it's not divinely inspired. How we come to that conclusion is it's not part of the

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Hebrew Bible, they didn't have it in their Bible, it's not accepted by the early church fathers, there are historical and doctrinal inaccuracies, and there's no claim of divinity in it, it doesn't actually claim divinity in it, so that's why they are not included in there.

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Point four addresses that being the word of God, that it is

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Holy Scripture, and in fact irrefutable truth, being that they are authored by God Himself, who is truth.

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And point five, we cover, shows that the church, shows the church and helps us see that the

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Bible is special and should be respected. The Bible message is a beautiful, true, powerful, and all about giving glory to God.

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It clearly shows how we can be saved and has many perfect qualities that proves it is God's word. But the real reason we can truly believe and trust the

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Bible is because the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts to show us and know that it's true. Point six is that everything we need to know about the

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Bible, about God's glory, how to be saved and to believe, and how to live life is found in the

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Bible, either stated clearly or taught through its meaning. We cannot add to it or take away, there are no new revelations or human traditions that change anything in it.

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However, we need the Holy Spirit to help us to truly understand and believe what the Bible teaches there. We know that some things about how we worship and run the church are everyday matters, so we handle those using common sense and biblical wisdom while still following the

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Bible's general rules. Point seven covers that things of Scripture are hard to understand, or not, sorry, things of Scripture, sorry, yes, things of Scripture are hard, there is

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Scripture that is hard to understand. However, all things concerning salvation are clear to the uneducated and the educated alike.

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They can be applied to both. If it is related to salvation, you'll understand it, whether you're a

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Bible scholar or just a Joe Blow on the side of the street, it's not overly confusing. Though the original text was in a different language, it's been kept pure over time and translated to many other languages that all might read and understand and worship

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Him and bring hope to His people. So, obviously, you have a lot of, the

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Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek, so we don't read Hebrew and Greek, so it wouldn't do us much good, so God has so graciously allowed translations over time into common language so we can actually read it and understand what it means.

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But we know that within those, that there is still purity because it is still His Word. Now, you could go into Houston stuff and turn into some crazy

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Catholic stuff and how they changed it and polluted it and made a bunch of different stuff, but that was a different day.

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We may only interpret Scripture through Scripture itself. We can't make assumptions based off our perspectives, we must seek clarity in supporting passages if the questions arise.

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You know, if there's a question we have about Scripture, we seek other Scripture that help clarify what that is, we don't just jump to conclusions.

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All Scriptures only have one meaning, there's not, we can't say that this means this to this person, this to this person, it has a set meaning.

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All Scripture has one divine meaning, what it says, the text, you can't twist it or misinterpret it.

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Now, you may apply that differently in your life, but the true meaning of the passage is singular.

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It says that all, in point 10, which is the last one of the first one, it says all religious disagreements and issues are solved through Scripture by Scripture.

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So like the confession stated in point 7, the simple things of salvation, or sorry, the things of salvation are simple and easy to understand, however, there are more complicated issues and we have to look back at history and through the doctrine and look at the people who came before us to find exactly what some of those things may mean through different revelations, through the

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Holy Spirit, through different people. We also, like I said, we also, like I said,

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Scripture can only have one meaning, though it can be used in different ways and facets of life, we are also told to seek clarity when we, in Scripture, through the

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Holy Spirit, as sometimes we need divine revelation. So now we're going to get into the bigger, meatier chapter, which is the

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Trinity. And it basically, in paragraph 1, it covers, pretty much captures much of the biblical data of doctrine of God, so simply restating what

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Scripture says, that God is defined as uncreated, eternal, self -existent, infinite, and unchangeable.

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Whoever has these attributes is God. According to Scripture, there is only one such being, and that is

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God, the God of Scripture. This is true and very important, as it is foundational to understanding the proofs of the

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Trinity. If the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit share these essential attributes, then they must also be fully divine.

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It talks about God as a spirit, describes Him as a category of His being, so simply

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He's not a person, it's a non -material being. God has no body or bodily appetites and is immortal and cannot be destroyed.

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He's a living being, a being with facilities in mind, a will, emotions. He's a moral being, a being with personality and self -awareness.

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Josh asked me the question, he said, basically, if God has no changeable attributes, emotions or passions, why does the

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Bible say that He regretted or His anger is kindled? We use what's called anthropomorphism, which is basically we apply human attributes to God in order to understand

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God, because He is beyond our comprehension. We can't figure out something that's beyond our comprehension, and the

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Lord is very clear that His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. So then we get into the second part of the confession, which is explicitly that God's knowledge is complete and independent of a creature, so there's nothing that is uncertain with God.

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His knowledge of the future is based upon His degree, which has most certainly come to pass.

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It is not ultimately based on the choices of a creature, although man does have real choices. We do make decisions, but God's will will always come to pass.

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And that gets us into the bigger portion of this, which is the Trinity itself. It says, so we look at this, it says, the doctrine of Trinity is not formally proven in the

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Bible. The Bible doesn't say the word Trinity anywhere. We come to that conclusion based off a lot of things. We can note that the

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Old Testament has glimpses of the doctrine of Trinity, and the New Testament assumes it. The New Testament is

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Trinitarian at its core, yet never seeks to prove it or demonstrate it. Rather, it more or less takes it for granted.

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This is because the Trinity was revealed in deed rather than word. For example, the Incarnate Son and the giving of the

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Holy Spirit at Pentecost display the Trinity. At the baptism of Jesus, the voice of the Father, the

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Lord Jesus in the water, and the Holy Spirit descending from heaven are seen together at the same time, so you have

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God in all three at the same time, but not as one, but also as one, so it's kind of confusing.

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The New Testament does not consider the teaching of the Trinity a novelty, but a given fact. The New Testament, therefore, does not set out doctrine systematically or explicitly, but rather assumes it and gives free expression of it.

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This is especially important to bear in mind when a cult accuses the biblical Christianity of inventing the doctrine of the

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Trinity. We didn't invent it, we just came to that conclusion through studying the Word. So the

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Old Testament is crucial when you look at the Trinity as is stated above. It does not set out, either comprehensively or systematically, the doctrine of the

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Trinity. It places a strong and sustained emphasis on the uniqueness and singularity of God, and then when you get in the

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New Testament and examine it concerning the deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the only conclusion is that it is the doctrine of the

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Trinity. So when you see in the Old Testament, it really emphasizes God as God, but when you get in the

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New Testament, you see God is in three forms, and it's, so you have this, here is God, but these are also

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God, so then you have this overarching thing of if they're all God, then they're one, but they're not the same,

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I don't know how to explain it really. It's a concept that is beyond comprehension, really.

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So, without the emphasis of the Old Testament, and really the New Testament for that matter, on the truth that there is only one

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God, we might conclude that there are three gods, but like in Exodus it says,

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Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesomeness in glorious deeds and wonders?

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And Isaiah 54, 5, and 6, it says, I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I equipped you, though you do not know me, the people may know.

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From the rising of the sun, from the west, there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.

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Clear states that God is unique and singular. They emphasize the I, like I am the

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Lord, and not we. The idea therefore that there are three gods was kind of unthinkable, and this is not to say that the

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Old Testament does not contain hints of the Trinity, just that was the emphasis of the Old Testament was the singularity of God.

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But we have examples in the Old Testament of God saying that he was,

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God uses plural when he talks about himself. I mean, even in Genesis 1, he says, Let us make man in our image and our likeness.

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So obviously there was more than just the singularity there. The New Testament evidence of doctrine is overwhelming.

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We have the Father, the deity of the Father is self -evident from the scriptures, and at no point of contention in that, pretty much most texts demonstrate the abundance, demonstration of the deity of the

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Father. I mean, Christ prays to him, obviously he is there. The Son, the deity of the

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Son has been consistently, persistently attacked throughout the history of the Church, yet the evidence of the deity is abundant.

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Christ's self -testimony of Christ, he claimed to be God, explicit statements of the

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Son as the deity, such as John 1 and 3, 1 through 3, In the beginning was the

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Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

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All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

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So obviously he was with God, so he was God. I don't know how you really get around that one in the

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Trinitarian argument of if Jesus wasn't God, then how was he there? He has divine attributes such as eternity, self -existence, omnipotence, this must mean that he is

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God as well, because those are qualities of God, and only God has those qualities. He's given divine honor and worship, he is identified as the

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Creator, like I said, he was in the beginning when the Word was there, he was there. He was with God whenever he said, let us create man.

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So now we get into the Spirit, the personality of the Holy Spirit. He is a he, everywhere you read it, it's like he is a he, it's not a it, it's not a thing, he's clearly a person.

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It can be clearly shown in the passage of Matthew 28, 19 through 20, the singular name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is used. It is beyond dispute that the Father, Son are persons, the

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Holy Spirit, in context, must also be a person. In Matthew 3, 16, 17, which says that there is only one

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God, displayed in different modes at different times, it's kind of contradicting. The Psalmic page revelation of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit indicates that they are separate persons, and we note in John 14, 16, and 17, that the

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Lord speaks to another helper, further proves that the personality of the Holy Spirit. So we have Jesus saying,

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I'm going to send the helper for you. So what do we know about the Holy Spirit? Well, the Holy Spirit uses, He uses for us

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Him, He, Him, the helper. His works affirm His personality,

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He teaches, He restrains, He guides us, His attributes of will, intellect, and emotion affirm

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His personality. We see that in Corinthians, He is, He's with the

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Father and the Son, He's, I used a word that's a stupid word, juxtaposed, juxtaposed, juxtaposed, yeah, juxtaposed with the

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Father and Son, and also with the elders and apostles, all whom were persons.

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So He's, you know, contradictory but comparable, it's kind of, it's kind of a unique word, everywhere

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I look that's what the word is said to use. So He is distinguished with His power, He clearly shows

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He is not a mere force of power, the deity of the Spirit can clearly be proven from the New Testament. Divine honor is given to Him, in Matthew 28, 19, 20, all three persons share, share the name, the singular name, and therefore divine honor is given to the

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Spirit. Divine, He has divine names, He, when you look through Scripture, in Hebrews 7 -9,

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He's described as Jehovah, it's God with us. In Corinthians, the

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Holy Spirit is identified as God. The Spirit is defined as authority and sovereignty over the affairs of the church, we see that in Acts and also in 1

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Corinthians. So based off all of those different points and facts, the conclusion is the only possible reconciliation of the strong monotheism of the

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Old Testament and the clear personality and deity of the distinct persons of the Son and the Spirit is the doctrine of the

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Trinity. The evidence is abundant, clear, and beyond dispute, the church rightly excludes any who affirm the doctrine of the, who do not affirm the doctrine of the

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Trinity. So now we get into marriage, which is an easy one, I think. We talked about this this morning, like we figured it'd be a little bit longer because of the, but it's pretty short and brief.

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So chapter 25 is on marriage and there's only four points to it, so they're not too crazy.

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The first one covers that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that you should only have one spouse. Throughout the

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Old Testament, obviously, there's a lot of kings that had multiple wives, however Scripture did always warn against having multiple wives.

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It never was like, you should have multiple wives, and you should have all these concubines. It was always like, you should have one wife.

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The three primary reasons given for the ordinance of marriage, firstly, is for mutual help and companionship, secondly, is for increasing mankind, being fruitful and multiplying in a way that's righteous and holy, and thirdly, is to prevent sexual immorality.

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In 1 Corinthians 7 and 2, and also in 9, it says, husband and wife and Mary are explicitly used to define the relationship which sexual satisfaction can be enjoyed without sinning.

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So it's the one place that it talks about that, you know, that can happen and it's not an abomination to the

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Lord. So part three talks about anyone can marry anyone else as long as the first point is honored, but there are, and they're considering age and communal capacity, however, it goes into detail, that Christians should always be evenly yoked, and a

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Christian should never marry a non -Christian, and there's some reasons for that. The first one is that you can't be in fellowship between light and darkness, so if you're in Jesus and they're not, you can't really be in true fellowship with each other because you don't believe the same things.

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A believer can have no real part of an unbeliever. You're not on the same wavelength. If you are in Christ and they're not in Christ, there's going to be some hard reconciliations that you can't come to.

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God is a jealous God and he doesn't like to share, so there can be no big agreement between God and idols. We belong to God and believers belong to whatever their

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God may be, whether it's money or whatever idol they may have, but you can't co -mingle those things because we are gods, therefore we are bound by what we believe.

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It says, marriage is a union between two people who become one flesh. This represents the closest of intimacy, fellowship, and agreement of any relationship that God has given.

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If marriage is excluded from being equally yoked, it is difficult to imagine the relationship that Paul refers to in Corinthians, referring to what would be more intimate and closer than marriage.

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Believers are therefore only free to marry other believers. Me and Cooper have this conversation on a regular basis about what would you prefer your daughter to marry.

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I think it pretty much clarifies that you're kind of obligated if you're a believer to marry another believer.

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There are some harsh realities to that in today's world, but I think that's pretty clear.

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I don't think it has much room for conversation there. I think it's pretty much straightforward. So in point four, it says scriptures all place natural restrictions on marriage.

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Leviticus 18 includes a list of them. These include both close family based on blood relations, so like a father -daughter, and then close family based on like a brother can't marry his sister -in -law.

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So even though two individuals may consent to marry, it is sinful and unlawful for them to marry in God's sight.

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A question that then arises is how was the human race propagated from the offspring of just Adam and Eve?

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We obviously know that if there were just two people, then obviously there were some incestual things happening, but we don't actually get the law for,

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I don't remember how many generations it was, that that was deemed inappropriate. I think that in God's design, knowing that they were going to populate the earth, there were some,

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I don't want to say concessions, but there were some things that happened that allowed that to happen that were later on taken away.

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Many generations after the events recorded in the first chapters of Genesis, so I want to say, it doesn't give,

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I looked at that, but I don't remember how many generations it was, but obviously now we know the consequences of that, but apparently it wasn't a consequence then.

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The confession doesn't actually talk any about divorce whatsoever, which is kind of odd. I guess we just assume that in 1689, divorce wasn't a big issue, and it's a big issue for us today.

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The only thing it actually says in the scripture references is that if your husband dies, the wife can remarry, which is kind of funny in the sense of like you figured divorce is such a prevalent thing, and when you talk about it in Mark just recently, and it was a big issue within that culture, but in 1689, they're like, yeah, we're not going to, the

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Bible pretty much clearly states what it did, what you need to know. So now we're going to get into chapter 31, and so this is man after death and the resurrection, so what happens to people after they die?

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So it's been, when you die, before the great day of judgment, this period is often called the intermediate state, so we're dead,

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Jesus hasn't come back. Did I skip something here, no, pages got out of order or something, yep, okay, that makes more sense now.

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So firstly, death is the separation of the body and spirit, so after death, our body turns to the ground, our spirit returns to God.

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Secondly, the spirit of believers and unbelievers go to two different places. Believers go directly into the presence of God, Paul, it says that Paul anticipated being in the presence of God directly after death, in 2

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Corinthians 5, 1 through 8. The spirit of unbelievers goes to a place of torment called hell, where they wait for the day of judgment.

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So then thirdly, the departed spirits of both believers and unbelievers wait for the day of judgment, on which their bodies will be resurrected.

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So that's pretty much what it covers in the first part. So when you die, you go to heaven, if you believe.

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If you don't believe, you go to hell, and you wait for judgment. There's no purgatory that's not, that originates from the

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Apocrypha, but it's not widely accepted by anybody other than really the

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Catholic Church, and they just use it as a means to make money. So we get into point two, and we've got really two questions that need to be addressed.

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This one says, what happens to those who are alive when Christ returns on the last day? Scripture indicates that those believers will not die, rather they will be caught up to meet the

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Lord in the air. So I don't know exactly what that means, but that's what it says, they'll meet the

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Lord in the air. For those believers during this event, their bodies will be transformed into the resurrected bodies without them experiencing death.

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So they won't actually die and then go to heaven and come back, but they will just go straight into their new bodies.

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So for those who have already died, Scripture teaches that both the bodies of the believers and unbelievers will be resurrected. The resurrected bodies of the believers will be transformed from corruption, dishonor, and weakness into incorruption, glory, and power.

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It will be a spiritual body, yet it will still be the same body, even though we have decomposed, which is really weird.

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You get into some really confusing ideologies here. But it should be noted that Christ was raised from the dead in his own body.

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He bore the scars. Now, obviously, he didn't look like he did when he died. He wasn't beaten, battered, but he still had the scars from his hands.

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So it's assumed that we will have some characteristics that we had before. What exactly we will look like is totally speculation.

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And what age you will be and all those things. There's lots of theories and thoughts and ideas, but nobody knows the answer to those questions.

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So that was point two. So you get into point three, it says believers will follow the pattern of Christ in the resurrection.

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He was erected in the same physical body, yet transformed into a spiritual body. After his resurrection, Christ could walk through walls, yet he could also physically eat and drink.

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It is his very same body that he had with Mark's crucifixion. The bodies of believers will follow the same pattern.

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They will have their same bodies resurrected and transformed. The resurrected bodies of unbelievers are not described as bodies of glory and power.

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They're not the same as those who believe. They will be resurrected, but in dishonor. So then we get to...

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So that's... Now you're back. You're resurrected. So now what happens after that, which is the last chapter. So you see...

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You start reading about all this stuff, you get a gambit of different theories and ideas.

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But the confession implies there's just a single judgment. There's not multiple judgments. There's not the three judgments.

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Which means that the Lord will return on the last day. The dead will... And Christ will be resurrected. Secondly, Jesus will be the judge.

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Jesus Christ himself will be the judge. It says, thirdly, the wicked angels, believers and unbelievers, will appear before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account.

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This seems confusing with regard to believers standing before the judgment seat of Christ. We figured we'd be in a kind of separate little section to ourselves, but that's not what

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Scripture teaches. We will go into judgment with Christ, but we will not be judged in the same manner.

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We'll have to... We'll still have to give an account for our actions as well, even as believers. And the second point of the last one, it basically says,

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God, you kind of come up with the two goals of the last judgment. The first goal is to display the glory of His grace and mercy and the salvation of the elect.

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They will be presented holy and blameless before God, through their great high priest and Savior, through their great high priest and Savior, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. They will receive eternal life, as well as rewards for their labors. The Scriptures indicate that at least some of the sin of the believers will be revealed.

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It says you have to give an account. Now what all are you accounting for? I don't know. I don't know how that works.

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If everybody had to recount their entire lives all on the same day, it would be a really long day for everyone, if you're going to go through 80 years of stuff.

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Yet these will be revealed as forgiven sins through the blood of Christ, emphasizing God's graciousness. And the second goal you can come to within judgment is reveal

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God's glory, justice, holiness, and anger against sin and the punishment of the wicked. The punishment of the wicked consists of eternal conscious torment in hell.

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Some people like to say, well, you're in hell and you're just away from God, but it says that you will be in constant torment. There's no rest from the torment.

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And the last point is that God has given certain purposes in revealing the truth that there will be a day of judgment at Scripture.

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One is to console the godly in their persecution and to strengthen their faith.

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One reason that you see the judgment day explained out is to give people who are persecuted basically give them hope in their persecutions and strengthen their faith and resolve to persevere through those things.

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The other is to deter people from sinning. The confession says that the truth of judgment should deter all men from sinning.

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This includes believers. The warnings of judgment are the ones that one of the means of God uses to keep believers walking in righteousness.

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The exact time of judgment is not revealed in Scripture, so people would be ever watchful and vigilant in their faith, not becoming complacent or careless.