Philippians 2, the Carmen Christi, and Accusations of Kenotic Heresy

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00:31

And greeting and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is the last program for the week.

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And I know that, well, I don't know that. We could sneak one in on Saturday if the world came to an end or if the

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Pope became a Reformed Baptist or something really fascinating happened like that,

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I suppose. But as far as the schedule looks, this should be the last program of the week because tomorrow's gonna be very, very busy.

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By the way, I will be on CrossPolitik tomorrow morning. I'm not sure when that airs, if that would be live or not,

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I don't know. But last time I was on when I was here in Moscow, that was the episode that got them kicked off YouTube for like three months.

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So I'll do my best to get them kicked off YouTube again.

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If something controversial comes up, I might have to say something. Like the new study

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I was just reading about myocarditis and pericarditis with Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

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But documentation, huge, multi -million people studies. And it's just all right there.

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It's all documented now, but nobody cares. Anyway, and then of course, tomorrow afternoon,

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Doug Wilson and I will be debating paedocommunion. And then we'll be recording an after debate thing.

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I do not believe it will be live streamed. I've not heard anything about that.

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And my gut feeling is knowing how Canon does stuff, they want to put out a little quality type thing, edited with the post -debate discussion and stuff like that.

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So probably on the Canon app. I'm not sure if it'll be on YouTube or not.

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Probably it will. But anyways, eventually. And so it's gonna make for a very long day on Friday.

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And Saturday morning, Doug and I are doing Man Rampant on, the title is

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Apologetics with a Spine. I'm wearing my sweater vest because Doug and I did two sweater vest dialogues today.

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And the first one is titled Doubting the Thomists. I'm not good.

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I'm not good at titles. But Doug is very good at titles. So Doubting the Thomists was the first one.

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And I don't know when it'll be posted, but it'll be very useful.

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It's very, very enjoyable. Okay, so in our program this evening, and do excuse me,

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I have a small bit of an almond that is giving me an issue at the moment.

03:23

You know, if something ever were to happen where I would like choke to death on screen, what

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Rich should do immediately is re -monetize that particular video.

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Then he could retire. I guess everybody would wanna watch that one over and over.

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There he goes. And I can think of a few people who'd really, really enjoy that.

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But anyways, we'll see you next time. Anyway, sometimes you gotta laugh.

03:55

It's better than crying. All right, so let's do what we did yesterday.

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And let's go into the word. I remembered my pen.

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This actually, by the way, I should thank Summer. I have no earthy idea why

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Summer bought me this nice pen for writing on touchscreens.

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And it was a long time ago. I didn't even really know what to do with it at the time. It was probably six, seven, eight years ago.

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I don't know. But it works on the screen we're using here. And so thank you,

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Summer, appreciate that. You were thinking way, way, way, way, way, way ahead when you got that for me.

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If you wish to follow along, I will be projecting some things on the screen.

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But we need to start, as we did yesterday, with the scriptures, with the word of God. We do not believe in fettering access to the

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Bible to anyone, as certain martyrs of the faith in the past have said, that the plowman needs to have the scriptures in his hands.

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And anyone, let's put it this way. Anyone who fears the availability of the word of God, fears, does not trust, does not trust the spirit of God to communicate divine truth to Christ's sheep.

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Christ's sheep hear his voice and they hear his voice in his word. And so the word of God will always be the first foundation not one foundation amongst other foundations, but the foundation of anything we do in this ministry and any church

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I'm associated with, have any leadership role in. And so that's where we go first.

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That's where we lay the foundation of what we're saying. Philippians chapter two is one of the great

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Christological passages of the New Testament. You have the opening, the prologue of the gospel of John.

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I would argue Jesus's conflation of Psalm 110 and Daniel seven in his trial in Mark 14 would also be a real high place in Christological passages.

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Then we have Colossians one, obviously, and we have Hebrews chapter one, again, obviously.

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And there are others, first Corinthians eight that are extremely significant as well.

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But Philippians chapter two is known as the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as to God.

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And what is fascinating is that verses five through 11, which comprise the hymn, probably six through 11, technically, most scholars, not all, most scholars believe that this is a fragment of an ancient hymn of the church.

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Maybe Paul composed it. Maybe he was simply repeating to the Philippians what they would already know as one of the hymns of the church.

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But it is a sermon illustration. It's fascinating.

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Paul's expansion of the Shema in first Corinthians chapter eight, it's part of an illustration.

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It really is interesting that some of the highest revelations in scripture are actually parts of sermons and sermon illustrations and things along those lines.

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And in Philippians chapter two, the preceding portion of the text is referring to what really on a practical pastoral level is the solution to church division.

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And it is humility of mind. I have, now, by the way,

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I am well aware that I have addressed Philippians chapter two many, many times before.

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By the way, the lighting today will be changing over and over again because the sun is setting here in Moscow and so we'll probably get, it just went behind a cloud.

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We'll probably get some more sun and then darkness and so it's gonna be different.

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But hey, we're live. We are on the road, road trip dividing line. And we're just thankful to have these types of opportunities.

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Anyway, I'm well aware of the fact that I've addressed Philippians chapter two for decades.

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For decades. I have preached on this passage all around the world. There is a entire chapter on the text in the

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Forgotten Trinity. I wrote an article for the CRI Journal, which by the way, earlier today,

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I suggested to people if you want to be prepared for today's program that you might wanna take a look at that article and I gave the link.

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Another ministry has posted it, but it was originally in the CRI Journal.

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And in that article, I provide my own translation of that particular text and commentary there too.

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So what I will be saying today is what I have said, again, for many decades.

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And interestingly enough, critics today who 25 years ago were recommending the book either didn't read the book, or as is the reality, did not believe the things back then that they believe now.

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And in fact, I was just sent the documentation that one of the primary promoters of the new

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Baptist Thomism as little as six years ago was utilizing language that now

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I'm being identified as a heretic for using. So it's interesting to note the inconsistencies over time.

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But the point is what we're gonna go through today is nothing new. And normally what is new is not all that great anyways, but I know the response on the other side would be, oh, but ours goes all the way back to 1200.

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Well, mine goes back to about 50 AD, because we're gonna look at what Paul said. So here in Philippians chapter two, as I said, the beginning,

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Paul is saying to them, fulfill my joy that you think the same way by maintaining the same love, being united in the spirit, thinking on one purpose, doing nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves.

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So some have identified the epistle of the

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Philippians as the epistle of joy. The term appears, for example, there in verse two, fulfill my joy.

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And it's not anything like Galatians with a strong condemnatory language and things like that.

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And so here, though there were imperfections, you could tell a couple of statements there in the church of Philippi, they were doing it right.

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And Paul wants them to continue doing it right. And he knows that one of the greatest dangers to the fellowship is selfishness, self -centeredness, self -promotion, and that the greatest antidote to all these things is humility.

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Doing nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves.

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This is everyone who has worked in the church any period of time at all knows that there are certain people in your fellowship who are just gonna be there and they're gonna do what needs to be done.

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And they're the backbone of everything. And they help keep the peace. And you pray for them and you thank

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God for them. I think of our deacons at Apologia. I think of one in particular,

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Jason, who just embodies, in my experience, and many of them do, all of them do.

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But Jason's been around longest, just constantly regarding one another as more important than yourselves, not merely looking out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

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That really should be descriptive of what every deacon is, really. I mean, when you think of what deacon means, a deaconess, a minister, a servant.

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But this is the focus of Philippians chapter two. And Paul will return to that in verse 12.

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And that means that what comes in between is an illustration of what he is seeking to teach the

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Philippians regarding humility of mind. Now you might say, why are you spending so much time on this? Because as you will see, at the key interpretive juncture of dealing with the

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Carmen Christi, the fact that it is a sermon illustration about humility will be absolutely central.

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So keep that in mind as we turn to the actual text itself.

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Now, allow me to read. I didn't have this queued up, but I'm going to do this.

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I'm gonna read you the translation that I provided as I get, again, I said, this is a

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CRA journal, I think was 99 or 2000. And the only reason I say that is because I make reference to Dan Wallace and Dan and I had an extensive conversation,

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I believe it was in November of 1998, because that's the only

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ETS thing I've ever gone to was I think in November of 98. And so this would be 99 or 2000.

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Dan and I stood there at ETS and had a lengthy conversation about how we understood and we have different understanding of a certain aspect of the

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Carmen Christi. And it was one of the only enjoyable experiences

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I had at that particular ETS. But so this is how

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I translated this many years ago. And in fact, now that I think about it, it was a few months after this came out in the

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CRA journal that I was on issues, et cetera. I should have looked that up. I bet you if you threw issues, et cetera, out there and looked at the archive and you could probably find the program where I discussed this article and the

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Carmen Christi. Again, many years ago. That would give me a more firm date on this.

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But here's translation that I provided. You must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who although he eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality he had with God, the

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Father, there's something to be held on to at all costs. But instead he made himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave by being made in human likeness.

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And having entered into human existence, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

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Even the death one dies on a cross. Because of this God the Father exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.

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So at the name of the exalted, so at the mention, excuse me, at the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven, on earth and under the earth bows the knee and every tongue confesses

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Jesus Christ is Lord, all to the glory of God the Father. Now there are some words in italics there that I will try to bring out as we look at the text directly.

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But there is a translation that I provided for the Carmen Christie, for the CRI Journal many, many, many moons ago.

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So let's, as they say, go to the big board. And I'm going to try today to once again make this all work for you, for everybody.

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Boom. And share screen and desktop too, and share.

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We should be there. Hopefully that is showing up for you. So the

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English I have on the left is not my translation. Of course, that is the Legacy Standard Bible and the

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Nestle -Allen 28th edition on the right -hand side of the screen. So have this mindset or this way of thinking amongst yourselves.

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And it is not working for me there. Well, that is, okay.

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That's interesting. Have this mindset amongst yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. So this is, there we go.

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Jesus is being made our example here. And the assertion is, this is how he thought, this is the mindset that he had.

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And it's plural here, amongst yourselves. So in the fellowship of the church, this needs to be the way that you think.

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And Jesus Christ is then described as, and I've turned this off just simply so that it displays better for you all.

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But in the Nestle -Allen 28th edition, starting in verse six, this would be in poetic form.

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I've turned poetic form off because it ends up causing real problems when I'm basically trying to use this on the big board there at the office or things like that.

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So, but keep that in mind that many modern translations will actually have this in poetic form because they view it as a hymn.

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Has en morphe theu huparkon, who existing in the form of God, in my translation,

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I put eternally existing because of the form of huparkon, pushing this back into time.

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That is into time in the past. Who, although existing in the form of God, in the past, in John 1 .1,

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the use of the imperfect aim there, pushing the beginning as far back as you wish to go.

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And notice it's morphe theu, form of God. And down here, you're gonna have the same term used, taking the form of a servant.

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So very important that the very same term is being used in both places.

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I believe that what's being said here is that Jesus, not in the incarnate state, but as the son of God, was existing eternally in the very morphe theu, in the very form of God.

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But while existing in the form of God, uke harpagman he geseta.

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You can notice there's sort of a little extra space here, a little extra space here. That's where the poetic form would be coming in and where the lines would be breaking.

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Did not consider.

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That's very important that this is the action of a person. This is not the action of a plan.

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This is the action of a person. Did not regard, consider, think about and come to a conclusion about.

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Ta ainai isa theo. Ta ainai isa theo.

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So you've heard of an isosceles triangle, equal, equality with God, with the infinitive.

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To be equal with God, he did not consider this harpagman.

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Now, the translation in the LSB, and most

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English translations, a thing to be grasped is a little,

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I guess we could call it wooden, but that that's probably the best way to render it.

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And there is disputation amongst

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Orthodox believers as to what exactly is being said here.

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And there is disputation amongst unorthodox believers along the same line.

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Did he possess equality with God or did he not possess it and did not, in fact, the

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New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, if you want a bad translation, going off of my memory here, it's did not give consideration to a seizure, namely to be equal with God.

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So their interpretation, of course, is that Jesus, who in his pre -incarnate state was

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Michael the Archangel, according to Watchtower Theology, did not give consideration to seizing equality with God, but emptied himself and taken on the form of a servant, so on and so forth.

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So one of the key issues is harpagmas in its lexical form, is that something that is already possessed and is being held onto or something that is not possessed and one is seeking to grab for?

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The grammar will not answer this issue.

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I know that bothers some people. Some people feel like there should be a gee whiz

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Greek answer to everything. I can't say how many people have come up to me and said, well, what does the

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Greek say? And generally, the response is pretty much what the

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English says, actually. Not always, but sometimes. But I do believe that the context will answer that question for us, but I would like to ask leave of you to just mention what the issue is and we will come back to it and answer that as we get to it.

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But what's important for now is that this term right here is the action of a person.

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And it's in reference to another divine person, specifically the

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Father. This is a divine person considering and really regarding a relationship issue.

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And whatever you do with har pogmon, that's what it's about. That's what it's about. So then you have the adversative form of Allah, but in opposition to what comes in verse seven, but heotan ekenosen.

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Now, kenao is a verb that Paul utilizes a number of times, but he never utilizes the verb in a literal sense.

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He always uses it metaphorically. For example, that my labor amongst you would not become empty.

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Well, he's not talking about a tank of labor spraying a leak and becoming empty.

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It is meant metaphorically, to have no fruit, to become worthless.

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Now, this is a verb, to empty. And please notice right here, heotan.

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Now, if you know a little bit of Greek, you know heotan, but heotan is a reflexive pronoun, reflexive pronoun.

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So, but he emptied himself, he emptied himself.

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So what do we have with ekenosen and this word right here, egesatan?

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We have personal actions of a divine person, and they are in reference to another divine person, and they're taking place prior to the incarnation.

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Now, the Lutherans actually disagree with that. And if you want a response to all that, you can read the article that I mentioned on Twitter.

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The article I wrote for the Sierra Journal, because I did engage that. And I even engaged Robert Raymond's interesting views on this as well in my article.

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But the point is, these are personal actions. And why is that relevant to us? Well, if you ever put yourself in the position, and very, very, very, very, very, very, very few

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Christians are ever put in the position of doing this, of defending the existence of divine persons against someone who specifically denies the divine persons exist, such as one of his

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Pentecostals, then you need to find those passages of scripture where the son, as the son is active as a divine person prior to the incarnation, because this is what they deny.

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One of his Pentecostals, Jesus is two persons. He's the father and the son. The son is just the human nature.

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And human nature is not eternal, even though they will try to say, well, God had always planned that. And so there's a sense in which you could say that.

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Well, okay. But plans do not consider equality with God, and plans do not empty themselves, do not make themselves of no reputation.

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And so it's important to recognize that and to see what that means.

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Now, here's the important part. In my translation of this particular text,

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I rendered it, but instead he made himself nothing.

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And then in two descriptive sub clauses, using the term by to introduce each one,

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I rendered it by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness.

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And so what I'm saying in that rendering is that the mechanism of the being made of no reputation is by taking on the form and by being made in likeness of men.

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So what's important to see then is that the incarnation is the mechanism of the verb ekenosen, the being made nothing.

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That means that it's a positive action. It's a positive action.

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These are things that, now you could look at Laban, taking the form of a slave, being made in likeness of men.

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Now, it's possible that you could see a difference between the two where ekenosen is active,

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Laban, could also be seen as Jesus doing that.

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And yet then genomenos, maybe is this, now the father doing this in a sense?

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It's possible that that's behind that. It's really sort of hard to prove, but it is interesting to note the shift in what is being said from by taking on the very form of slave to by being made in human likeness.

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But the point is, it's not a diminishment of deity. It's not a destruction of divine power or a alteration of the divine being.

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It is a veiling that comes from receiving the morphane dulu, the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.

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So the divine essence is not being altered.

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The divine essence is not being diminished. There is nothing in the deity of the son that even could possibly be destroyed, let alone put aside.

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But the incarnation is the taking on of that morphane dulu.

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And remember, if morphane here really means a true servant, then morphane dulu in verse six means truly

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God, right? And so there is a veiling.

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There is a taking on of the perfect human nature is that whatever akenoson means, whatever it means to be made nothing, it is done positively by taking on the human nature.

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And so there has been over the past couple of centuries the development amongst some theologians of a kenotic theory, kenosis theology, riffing off of this particular

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Greek verb that has led to forms of subordinationism, to assertions of a fundamental inferiority that comes about by these actions.

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But that's certainly not what is being communicated here at all. As we will see when we put the whole text together, that would fundamentally alter the teaching of the text and that's something to be rejected and something of course that I've rejected for longer than some of my critics have been alive.

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And if they would take the time to actually do some homework, they would know that. But whatever kenosis is, it's a positive action.

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And obviously what it is therefore is a veiling of the divine in Christ so that he may do what he has been tasked to do by the

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Father, which it goes on to say, and being found in schemati, having, and I rendered this, and having entered into human existence.

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That's a little bit of a free translation, it's not literal, but literally being found in appearance as a man is the literal rendering of that phrase, being found in appearance as a man.

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So he has truly become man. Here is absolutely key.

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He humbled himself, again, reflexive pronoun, heaoton. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, and I rendered this last phrase thanatu de staru as even the death one dies on a cross.

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But another way of rendering it would simply be even the cross death, thanatu staru.

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And the reason being that staru, staros, starao, these, this group of words relating to crucifixion, there were many people in the

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Roman world that would not even use this language. It was so vile. It referred to such a vile way of dying that in some context, it would not even be said in polite company.

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That's often missed with us because we see the cross so differently after the resurrection.

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We know what it's about. But up until that time, and in that first century context, the proclamation of the cross, to them, they're perishing foolish, a stench of death.

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But the point is that the son, having taken on human likeness, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto the point of death.

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So what was the context here?

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Let's go ahead and go back and figure out what Harpagmon was all about up here by looking at our context again.

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Before we go to the exaltation that comes beginning in verse nine, we don't wanna skip that, obviously.

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We don't wanna just stay at the cross. We want what comes afterwards. But I'll illustrate this by telling you a story once I can find where in the world

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Zoom went. Too many, there it is. Too many things on the screen here.

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Oh, it went over here. I'm not sure why I did that. Okay, so stop share.

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There we go, there we go. Hey, too many things running on the computer at once.

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Okay, let me tell you a story. This isn't story time with Uncle Jimmy, but it's a beautiful story.

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Back before YouTube allowed us to communicate with one another in wonderful ways, and so I am very thankful that we've had these years.

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Lord has done tremendous things with these videos and debates and everything else. I would have much more opportunity back in those days to meet with people that were involved with false religions.

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I met with, well, I've met with over 5 ,000 LDS missionaries over the years, not met with in the sense of somebody's home, but at the

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Easter pageant in Salt Lake City. But in people's homes as well. And I can tell you some amazing stories from our years of doing that.

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But I also got to meet with a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses. Christians here, well, Christians in Phoenix, the

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Arizona area would contact me and would ask me to come over there.

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Some witnesses were coming over in such and such a day. And so I'd have the opportunity to sit down and to talk with people.

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In those days, a pioneer Jehovah's Witness was a witness that would spend 30 hours a week going door to door.

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You gotta admire the zeal and at the same time, feel the deep sadness when you realize what

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Jehovah's Witnesses really believe and how empty that faith is. It should move your heart.

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And two pioneer women showed up at this house.

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I don't know why, I remember what it looked like where I was sitting, where they were sitting, but I do.

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This would have been mid -90s maybe, somewhere around there.

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And very quickly, we were talking about the Trinity and the deity of Christ and that's where they want to go.

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And that's where I wanted to go too. And so I took them to Philippians chapter two.

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And you need to see these two probably middle -aged, late 30s, mid 40s, maybe.

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To me, I started young actually. These Jehovah's Witness ladies, they have their

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New World translations, they have their bag, things like that. And they have their answers.

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If you have not actually witnessed to good Jehovah's Witnesses, then you would be astonished.

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You really would at how prepared they are. They spend, in those days anyways, they would spend 10 hours a week preparing to deal with you.

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And most of us wouldn't spend any time a week preparing to deal with them. So even the women would be really able to put up a strong argument.

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And so we went to Philippians chapter two and the New World translation, as I said, has strange rendering.

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Very odd rendering, did not give consideration to a seizure and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But we walked through it and I allowed their version to be read and I made comments along the way.

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But here's what I did. Once we got through it and we got to this point, no, he was not trying to become equal to the father because he's

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Michael the Archangel. So he was just trying not to become equal. I said, okay, let's read the context.

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We read the first four verses. I said, what is it that is being said here?

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Well, we're to act in humility of mind toward one another. And I don't remember what the

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NWT rendering of it was, but it was close enough to at least make some sense of it. I said, okay, what is humility?

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Well, it's not boasting. I said, well, okay, but in the congregation, we are to, as it says, we are to consider others as more important than ourselves.

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We're not only to look to our things, but look to others. So would you agree with me, humility would be having certain rights, but laying them aside in the service of others.

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And they're like, yeah, that's what's being said, good. And it says, have this way of thinking yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus, right?

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Right, so Jesus had humility of mind and it's being illustrated in what takes place in this text.

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Right, all right. So what would be humility of mind?

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You're telling me that humility of mind is

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Michael the archangel, who's a creature, not trying to become equal with Jehovah God, right?

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Are you saying that it's humble when you are merely a creature to not try to become equal to your creator?

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They didn't say anything. I said, let me suggest to you that if humility of mind is having certain rights and laying them aside in the service of others, then here you have

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Jesus who eternally existed in the very form of God, not considering that equality a thing to be grasped onto, but instead he lays that aside in service to others.

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He makes himself of no reputation. He makes himself nothing in service to others.

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So he may be the Messiah. He may give his life for his people in obedience to the father.

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And because of that, you then have the exaltation stuff we haven't gotten to yet. I'll get to it in a moment, but I also then point out that Isaiah is quoted there and it's in reference to the deity.

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It's in reference to Yahweh himself. I'll never forget this.

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I pray that God did something in their lives.

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You have no way of knowing, but I hope and pray because one of the two women,

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I happened to be watching her when I got to the point where I said, how would it be humility for a mere creature not to try to become equal to God?

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And she has her Bible in her lap and she physically moved back like it had become a serpent.

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She saw it, it communicated and she's like, and then she realized

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I'm looking at her. So she immediately, they're under so much pressure. They can't let that other person sitting there know that they've heard anything, that they're troubled by anything.

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They can't, they can't do it. But she saw it. She recognized.

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The only way for this text to be presenting to us anything that would be actual humility is if the son possesses ta 'anai isatheo, equality with God.

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That is my argument that harpagmas is to be taken in the sense of something already grasped, already in possession, rather than something that is being considered to be grasped at.

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Which again, grammatically, syntactically, you can't prove that one way or the other, but the context does.

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And that's the context in which it does it. And I would hope that if nothing else, there will be someone in this audience who hasn't heard me go over this before, who will go,

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I'm gonna share that with Jehovah's Witnesses when they come by. Just make sure you know the text well, but do so, do so.

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And may God grant light and understanding to those who've been walking in darkness so as to learn these things.

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So he becomes obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

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So we go back to our text here.

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There we go. And so, therefore, because of that submission, humility of mine,

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God, and I went ahead and rendered this in my translation,

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God the Father. I put the Father in italics. God the

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Father exalted him and gave, same root as grace, gift, gave to him the name ta 'anima ta 'huper pon anima.

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I think that's fascinating. The name, the above every name. Bestowed on him the name which is above every name, but in a poetic sense, it's gave to him the name, the above every name.

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In order that, at the name of Jesus, pon ganu kompse, every knee would bow, those in the heavens and upon the earth and under the earth, and every tongue would confess.

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Say out loud. That, and this is, Hathi frequently functions as a, our quotation marks.

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Here is what every tongue confess. Kurios, Jesus Christos. Kurios, Jesus Christos.

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Lord, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord. But the first word is kurios.

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Kurios, the Greek septuagint rendering of the divine name, Yahweh. Kurios, Jesus Christos.

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But again, never in isolation, never out of balance, unto the glory of God the

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Father. Now, you know that when you look at, and when you look at, you see something like this right here.

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The italics, Isaiah 45, 23. By myself

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I have sworn, for my mouth has gone out in righteousness, a word that shall not return. To me, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.

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This is where Paul is getting this citation from Isaiah 45, 23, and it is

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Yahweh speaking. Yahweh says that every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.

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So that becomes all the more significant that kurios is used here. Very plainly, in the early church, in the early church, you have right there the recognition on the part of the first generation of Christians.

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This is not some development down the centuries. This is the primitive faith of the church that Yahweh has entered into human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

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And remember, these are experiential Trinitarians. The disciples hear the

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Father speaking from heaven at the baptism on the Mount of Transfiguration. They've walked with the Sender now and dwelt by the

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Holy Spirit. They're experiential Trinitarians. And so they confess that Jesus Christ is kurios to the glory of God the

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Father. There you have the exaltation. Because of his obedience, because of his humiliation, therefore

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God highly exalted him. God the Father highly exalted him.

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And you have the one who laid aside the exercise of divine privileges.

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He takes that perfect human nature and he is exalted. Now, with that said, let me mention something about the concept of the veiling of the glory of Christ.

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I mentioned on the last program this reality.

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And as we'll see here in a moment, I have been formally accused of heresy by individuals who are pastors in similar churches to my own.

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I'm gonna refute that charge and demonstrate that it is vacuous and very foolishly leveled.

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And hope and pray that those who would engage such activities would find the wisdom to repent and to correct their ways.

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When Jesus takes on human flesh, he does so for a purpose.

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Become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So there has to be a true incarnation for there to be a true atonement.

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The divine Son of God, according to John chapter 17, and by the way, I did not see anyone even attempt, even try, pretend to respond to the exegesis of John 17.

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Five, it was offered on the last program. The divine

53:34

Son of God had to be a true man.

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And therefore there are aspects of his divine being that are veiled.

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We all know, of course, that man cannot simply look upon God. God tells us to Moses, you cannot look upon me.

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I will put my hand over you, I'll hide you in the cleft of the rock and I will pass by and you will see my back.

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And we know he's a consuming fire and that the full glory of the

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Son of God would consume anyone. Now, how could

54:26

Jesus fulfill the prophecies of the meek and mild? The one that is the suffering servant if the

54:44

Shekinah glory of Yahweh is displayed in him. As I've often said, if Jesus and the disciples could walk through the streets of Jerusalem at three o 'clock in the morning, they don't need torches because Jesus is glowing so brightly.

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This would have fundamentally impacted his ministry. And so does the second person of the

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Trinity become less glorious in the incarnation, in the veiling?

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Well, it's not like glory disappears. It's not like it's extinguished or done away with. And the fact that it's still a reality of the second person's existence is seen in the transfiguration.

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But even then it's still not to the level of what we would see in Revelation, for example, or even really in Isaiah 6, because we know the one seen in Isaiah 6 is the son, if we can even distinguish between the father and the son anymore, but anyway.

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And so veiling, laying aside for the purpose of the incarnation and functioning as a

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Messiah is an obvious biblical reality. It is not a diminishment of the divine being.

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It is not a cessation of these capacities, these attributes of divinity that are the sons by nature, any of these things.

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But it is a purpose. He makes himself nothing. It is literally an exercise of divine power, veiling that divine power.

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Sort of, when you think about it, when the resurrected Christ meets the disabled in the road to Emmaus, their eyes are hindered.

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There is a force that is placed upon them so that they will not recognize who he is. For what?

56:57

For a purpose, for a purpose. So he might open the scriptures to them. And so for a purpose and for a time, there is a veiling of the glory.

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And in the same way, you then have the very difficult, challenging text where Jesus says that only the

57:19

Father, not the Son, nor the angels in heaven, no man, knows the day of the hour, only the Father in heaven.

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And you could understand that if, as some people have understood that, as being only in reference to the human nature,

57:33

I suppose. But I think it follows very much along the lines of what we just discussed.

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There are certain aspects of the glory of the Son that are veiled during the incarnation.

57:49

And so at that point in time, in the incarnate state, it's not that the Son did not know before the incarnation, it would not know at his exaltation or anything like that, but that there was some reason why, at that point in time, it was profitable for the

58:07

Messiah, the Son, to not know. Those are his words, you've got to deal with them.

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If you have to look at the words written by Matthew and come up with an interpretation that could not have possibly been what

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Matthew intended or anyone Matthew wrote to intended and could not have been known for centuries, millennia, after the point of writing, you're no longer, we're no longer dealing with the scripture being any kind of meaningful foundation of our beliefs, right?

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Can we agree with that? I hope we can, because that's pretty obvious. And so with all of that having been said,

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I need to respond here and, wow, we've gone hours, so I will try to just finish with this.

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There's another quote in the same individual that we'll get to at another point in time, I suppose.

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But let me move this over here and we will make it big and we will share this so that you can see

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I'm not making any of this stuff up. This is

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Pastor Josh Sommer. I think it's Victory Baptist Church, as I recall. He's a graduate of the

59:43

Spurgeon College at Midwestern and a very vociferous new

59:54

Baptist Thomist. And sun is right down at the horizon now.

01:00:02

Pull that down for the moment. Not that that's affecting what you're seeing right now, is it? Here is today's tweet from Josh Sommer.

01:00:15

Just a few fundamental articles of the Christian faith currently under revision by some, quote, big names, end quote.

01:00:24

I'm really not totally certain why these folks just won't use names.

01:00:31

They're talking about me. Maybe they're taking some shots at Jeff Johnson's stuff too, but right now it's me very clearly.

01:00:40

Number one, the immutability and simplicity of God. Number two, the consistent consubstantiality of the divine persons.

01:00:47

Number three, the incarnation of the person of the son, wherein he takes a human nature to himself without setting aside his deity, that he laid aside his deity or divine prerogatives in the incarnation is a heresy called kenosis.

01:01:03

God is one. This one God is father, son, spirit. The father is of none.

01:01:08

The son is of the father. The spirit is of both father and son. The son is God with the father always and forevermore and does not lay aside deity and taking upon himself the fullness of a human nature.

01:01:21

This is the only sure and stable ground of Christian faith, Lord help us. Now, again, sounds very pious, but here are the errors and quite simply the lies that Josh Sommer is putting out.

01:01:41

The immutability, when the new Thomists, the new

01:01:47

Baptist Thomists speak, you must understand that they and only they get to define the meanings of terms.

01:01:58

They and only they, no one else. Their definitions are the definitions. And if their definitions are extremely extended, if their definitions could never have been understood in the first century or in the first millennium, it doesn't matter.

01:02:15

They get to define it. And if you do not cross their T's and dot their I's, then you're denying everything.

01:02:22

So I can write an article defending monotheism, the simplicity of God, and that's not enough.

01:02:31

It doesn't matter. I can say God is not made up of parts, but you see,

01:02:39

I don't embrace an Aristotelian Thomistic metaphysic that says that if you can conceive of a difference between things, then those things become different things in reality and therefore become parts.

01:02:53

So add intra, you have to make all the attributes of God one thing and pretend that you can know what

01:03:00

God himself, how God himself views his own attributes internally.

01:03:05

Even though we have no divine revelation of this, but hey, if you don't do that, then you don't believe in simplicity.

01:03:11

You can defend it. You could have defended it longer than Josh Summers has been alive. It does not matter. You don't really believe it.

01:03:19

A unit has pulled in next to mine, and right now I'm just simply thankful that my unit automatically levels itself.

01:03:29

The poor fellow next door is having to use a power tool to do that. So you might hear something in the background.

01:03:34

Hopefully the microphone is gonna get rid of most of it, but hopefully. So no one is denying the immutability and simplicity of God, but people are questioning the extended assertions of Thomistic metaphysics that were not a part of our discussions only a decade ago.

01:03:55

But hey, as long as you can make the argument, then you have to go with what's being said.

01:04:05

Two, the consistent consubstantiality of the divine persons. Now, I don't know what exactly

01:04:11

Josh has in mind here. There was a lot of very vague, and this is something else about the

01:04:22

Thomists. They seem to think that they have the right to just simply throw out undefined statements as if they have some type of meaning, and we're just left trying to come up with the application, what exactly does that mean?

01:04:35

How is the consistent consubstantiality of the divine persons being denied by anything I've said? My guess is that this has to do with inseparable operations.

01:04:47

And so my guess is that if the son, as the son, because Josh Sumner has denied that the father can love the son eternally.

01:04:57

I've got the quote right here. He's put it out there. And so that's my guess is that where he's, because he didn't flesh it out here, but that's my guess is where he's going, is that you don't believe in the consistent consubstantiality of the divine persons.

01:05:10

Well, it's easy for me to respond to that by simply going, I'm not sure you believe in divine persons. If the father can't love the son in eternity, then

01:05:19

I'm not even sure you believe in divine persons anymore. That's easy to do, right? But then number three, the incarnation of the person of the son, which

01:05:31

I just got done going through. And again, anybody can go to published articles, books that have been around for decades.

01:05:41

And what I just said, when I went through Philippians two with you is what I said in the 1990s.

01:05:50

So consistency over time. And so many of these people had recommended my work in these areas back then before Baptist Thomism began.

01:06:03

The incarnation of the person of the son, wherein he takes a human nature to himself.

01:06:09

By the way, just in passing, I've recommended many, many times. My favorite debate with a

01:06:14

Muslim is my debate with Abdullah Kunda on the incarnation. Can God become man?

01:06:22

And we were so focused, had to become so focused on what the nature of the incarnation was and the perfect human being, the perfect human nature that Jesus takes on.

01:06:32

I do not believe any of these neo -Thomas, these Baptist Thomas could engage that debate with any level of success at all.

01:06:40

No one, none of the Muslims in the room and most of the Christians in the room would have no earthly idea of what they'd be talking about.

01:06:48

Because as far as I can tell, these people don't take this stuff out into the world. It's in the classroom, but it's take it out and talk to a bunch of Muslims on the street in London.

01:07:01

Who would do that? Well, I would and have. Wherein he takes a human nature to himself without setting aside his deity.

01:07:12

No one has ever said that. I didn't. And we know this is aimed at me and that's a lie. It's just a lie.

01:07:18

I would demand if Josh Sommer, if you're talking about me and you said big names and this was posted within less than 24 hours after my discussion of these very things, you know who you're talking about.

01:07:32

I demand you document this or you apologize, withdraw it. It's slanderous, it's sinful, it's a lie.

01:07:40

I've never said it, never came close to saying it. And no honest person who has read my articles or listened to my words would ever say that.

01:07:47

You're lying, young man. Repent of it, just admit it. Without setting aside his deity, that he laid aside his deity or divine prerogatives in the incarnation as the heresy called kenosis.

01:08:02

Well, thank you very much for telling us what kenosis is, but you don't seem to understand that there is a difference between the kinetic theory.

01:08:10

Because see, I went to Fuller and I had to read liberals who believe in the kinetic theory.

01:08:17

And they're not talking about the veiling of divine prerogatives such as in the divine, for example, the veiling of the divine glory of God so that the son may function as the

01:08:28

Messiah. Not talking about that. They're talking about a substantial, not just subordination, but really a denial of real incarnation.

01:08:41

In some instances, it's almost a Uticchian confusion of natures. And there's all sorts of different takes that I've read over the years.

01:08:50

But I'm not saying this. I have never taught the kinetic heresy. I've taught against the kinetic heresy.

01:08:56

And to simply point out that Jesus did not glow as he walked through the streets of Jerusalem is not the kinetic heresy.

01:09:02

If you think it is, sir, you need to go back to school. You didn't get a good education. Okay? So, God is one.

01:09:14

This one God is father, son, spirit. The father is of none. The son is of the father. The spirit is of both father and the son.

01:09:21

Speaking of ad intra relationships, the son is God with the father always and forevermore, and does not lay aside his deity.

01:09:32

No one has said, I never said it. Again, to affirm this is a pure lie. I repudiate it.

01:09:38

I refute it. I have refuted it. It stands refuted. Does not lay aside his deity and taking upon himself the fullness of a human nature.

01:09:46

And in fact, if he had bothered to read what I've written on this subject, he would know that as I emphasize today, as I emphasized 20 years ago, it is by the positive taking on of the human nature that the kenosis takes place, that the making himself nothing takes place.

01:10:07

It is not a change in the deity. It is taking on that human nature so that he may function as the

01:10:14

Messiah. This is the only sure and stable ground of the Christian faith. Lord, help us. Yes, Lord, help us.

01:10:22

When men who are supposed to believe 99 .95 % of what I believe will engage in this kind of libelous, slanderous misrepresentation.

01:10:30

Lord, help us. Lord, help us. And why? Because of this.

01:10:38

It just, I'm seeing it over and over again. This Baptist Thomism creating a

01:10:46

Baptist scholasticism and it creates just an incredible attitude.

01:10:56

You say anything about Thomism, you just don't understand Thomism, but we do. But what about the scripture?

01:11:03

Well, you know, in fact, did I close that?

01:11:08

I, yeah, here it is.

01:11:15

The troublemaker in Phoenix sent me this, this afternoon after I got done with recording the sweater vest dialogues.

01:11:30

Same Josh Summer. Does everyone who confesses sola scriptura perform the exact same exegesis to the exact same degree as the fathers, such that they would be led to necessarily conclude sola scriptura?

01:11:48

If not, sola scriptura is traditionary for at least some people.

01:11:53

Now, I will be honest with you. I've run this by a few other professors and they're like, what?

01:12:00

And I'm like, I don't know either. But I'm pretty certain that this man had as a professor, an individual who recently tweeted that the reformers did not give unbridled access to the scriptures to individuals.

01:12:19

There had to be this theological education first so that you'd know what the scriptures are speaking, what the scriptures are saying, which of course is the exact Roman Catholic argument at the time of the

01:12:30

Reformation. I mean, word for word, boom, straight on. So it seems to me like Pastor Summer is trying in some sense to turn sola scriptura into putting it into a category of tradition so that you can say, well, we need to have the great tradition.

01:12:53

We need to have this tradition derived from the fathers that becomes the lens through which we examine these things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

01:13:00

Seems to be the same thing. And maybe people who have that attitude seem to feel like, hey, if anyone pushes back against us, then we can pretty much say anything we want about him.

01:13:11

We can say that you're saying that Jesus set aside his deity when no one said anything like it, even close to it.

01:13:18

And anyone who had even taken a moment to try to be honest with no other ones, even a moment, it's amazing.

01:13:27

It's amazing. So my hope is that for our

01:13:33

Baptist Thomists, that you will recognize something really important here.

01:13:42

The future is not bright for you. Right now, you may be getting new converts and getting people excited, but let me tell you something.

01:13:51

There is nothing in Thomism that has lasting attraction, not to the sheep of Christ.

01:14:00

Anything you can find that's true in Thomas, you can find with significantly more balance and significantly more joy and significantly more clarity in others.

01:14:12

And the problem is, guys, once you start doing this, you need to parse every single statement, every single word according to our standards.

01:14:23

Guys, you're gonna turn on each other eventually. You're gonna turn on each other eventually.

01:14:29

I've seen it before. This isn't the first woo -woo movement I've seen come along. And the people who have this attitude that if you don't just walk lockstep with us, we are gonna cancel you, we're gonna warn people about you, we're gonna try to get you silenced, they will turn on you.

01:14:54

Because someday you may come up with an idea that they don't like, and they will turn on you.

01:15:01

Mark my words, write them down now. I hope that 20 years from now when it happens, you're gonna go, oh,

01:15:09

I was warned. I was warned. And I'm just gonna tell you, I don't believe that there is a long -term soundness to anything that is going to put this kind of emphasis upon Thomistic categories and metaphysics.

01:15:28

Now, as I've said before, I'm not interested in kicking any of you out of the kingdom. I'm just trying to warn you about what's coming.

01:15:35

And I'm trying to ask you for maybe a little bit of grace. Stop lying about the rest of this, huh? Maybe. Stop all this sub -tweeting and all these vague tweets and just, if you don't agree, get into the text.

01:15:49

Get into the word. Tell me what I said was wrong about Philippians 2 today. I'd like to know.

01:15:56

Show me. Where were the errors? And I don't get that.

01:16:02

What I get is, yes, but Thomas said, oh, but if we apply this standard and we use this lens, and that's just proving the point over and over and over again.

01:16:19

And that is why many of us are going, do we really believe solo scripture?

01:16:25

Not the misrepresentations, not solo, not nuda, not don't give people unfettered access, not any of that stuff.

01:16:34

Real solo scripture. Solo scripture based upon a recognition of the nature of scripture as Theotokos does.

01:16:44

The only thing that where God speaks, God did not speak in Thomas Aquinas.

01:16:49

God did not speak in the baptism of Aristotelian categories of accidents and presents.

01:16:57

That's not God speaking. Solo scripture, we're standing on it.

01:17:05

We're not gonna stop standing on it. Vitally important thing. All right, well,

01:17:10

I've gone an hour and 15 minutes. There are some other things

01:17:17

I'd like to talk about, but after something as heavy as that, I really don't know that that would be wise.

01:17:25

Oh, the sun's still up. Wow, look at that. So I am a little concerned about next week as far as programs are concerned, because I'm getting home relatively quickly.

01:17:43

It's a long drive. That means those are long days. And we might be able to do something in the evening, but I'll be honest with you, sometimes

01:17:53

I'm just exhausted. If you've done six, seven hours driving, you don't necessarily wanna just sit there and go, oh, hi.

01:18:05

You're just sort of worn out at that point. But there you go.

01:18:12

Hopefully that's helpful to you. I hope that I really do, because I've had people come to me and say, I listened to you presenting the deity of Christ in Philippians chapter two, or Hebrews chapter one and John chapter 12, these ways of dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:18:29

And I did that with Jehovah's Witnesses and man, for the first time in my life,

01:18:34

I actually felt like we got somewhere. That's exciting stuff.

01:18:44

And now I'm bright. Sun's just about to disappear. And so am I. Thank you very much for watching

01:18:51

The Dividing Line today. Thank you, Rich, for making it happen once again. Lord willing, we'll try to get something in next week, but if it's delayed to the later end of the week, please recognize it's just gonna be a long travel week and we'll do the best we can.