28 - Foundations of the Trinity

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Seems like a long time ago, but Wasn't all that long ago. I guess it was a month ago pretty much.

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We were together last and It's it's going to be see the end of end of April.

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I've got something and then three weeks May June Yeah, it's going to be a busy busy busy year, so that's why even though I am

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Speaking this morning and this evening. I'm doing Sunday school as well So we can somehow make some progress in the in the church history

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Series before we make too much more church history to be able to even catch up Basically at the speed at which we are which we are going though.

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It will be interesting to see how the future if the Lord Terry's Writes the history of today

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It will be it will be an intriguing chapter in a book Someday I would imagine, but we are not anywhere near today in what we are covering you may recall last time

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We were together we were looking at The nature of God and we actually sort of weren't doing necessarily a so much history as looking at the fundamental truths

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I Drew a Triangle on the board. I hope you all Jotted that down Where you have the foundational doctrines that are given to us in Scripture specifically at the bottom bottom monotheism

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And then the other two legs are made up of the existence of three divine persons and the quality of those persons

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When you then deny one of those sides the triangle the other two point to the resultant error

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That comes and I emphasized at that time it is important I think to think along these lines because the fact that when you enter into a conversation with someone

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Who is an error on the subject of the biblical teaching on the nature of God it is very helpful to be able to identify?

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Where it is specifically Biblically their error lies and unless you think of the doctrine of God in a biblical fashion the constituent

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Biblical doctrines that make that up You're not going to be in a position to be able to readily identify where you need to go with that person in providing

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Insight to them they they may have never heard the truth you have to recognize It's you know

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I'm I'm facing this situation right now The end of this month

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Literally like in about oh three four weeks. I'll be flying up to Rapid City, South Dakota, and I've never been there before This will be the first time to Rapid City Now why would

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I go to Rapid City? I was just teaching in Potches through Johannesburg in London and In May we'll be teaching in Wittenberg at the

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Shepherds Conference and If you think about this when the Shepherds Conference is in Germany, you know what that makes it the

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German Shepherds Conference and So every time we've talked about that with the past couple years the

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German Shepherds Conference Which is very different from the liberal Labrador conference, but anyway, that's another that's another place.

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Thank you for laughing Sean I appreciate that no one else dared to but you did and that's why

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I like you Both Of my wife is not even not even smiling not even grinning

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Just just it looks like that a look of shame like I I'm just I can't believe that he did that but yes anyway but anyways being

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Wittenberg and then a Couple hour hour and a half north of Prague in the

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Czech Republic and then in Kiev again So what in the world am I doing in Rapid City, South Dakota?

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I thought I was in Iowa. Anyways, so it's it's up in that part where there's not that many people and The reason is we're going to be doing a debate.

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I Can guarantee you it will not be a boring debate If this debate were taking place in the

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Philippines this religious group is the third largest religious group in the Philippines right now I'd be trying to raise funds to take

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Josh with me and even he'd be in a bit of a Tough spot because This group tends to be rather aggressive

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It's called Iglesia Nectisto the Church of Christ, but It's not the historic, you know, or the

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Campbellite Church of Christ. It's an anti Trinitarian group and in some of the debates they have in the

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Philippines the people they debate get beat up And Even outside the

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Philippines. It's it's real obvious to me and listening to the debates. I've listened to That there are sort of a cultic mindset that they sort of follow

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And I'm going to try to close that down as much as possible with the rules of the debate Itself, but we will see where they will follow those rules of debate and that we've been told that there the place only seats 300 and they're bringing 300 so it could be an

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Interesting experience, but I I would identify Iglesia Nectisto as bad

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Jehovah's Witnesses in the sense of their argumentation and so Their their arguments are rather surface level.

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They're they're very similar to what you'd get from Muslims who don't really know the doctrine.

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There's a lot of misrepresentation a Lot of focus on John 17 3 or or something along those lines

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Well, Jesus said the father is the only true God and you know Just ignoring the rest of the testimony of Scripture things like that.

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But it's I have to remember even in the midst of Listening this folks what they'll do is they'll you know, their speaker will cry out, but there's only one true

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God and they'll As if that was actually Part of the debate it's not both sides believe there's only one true

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God the issue isn't about that at all And it's it's easy in a situation like that to slip in the mindset that all these people are knowledgeable willful rebels against the truth

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Some of them are some of them are but I don't know who they are Some of them never heard anything else if you were raised within a group like that That's all you'd ever heard if you had never heard the truth you have to keep that in mind and so when speaking to someone and if you want to bring correction if you want to be used as an instrument of leading them to a

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Knowledge of of the truth then from my perspective the most effective way to do that Is to bring them to the

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Word of God and unfortunately a lot of Christians What they tend to do is that well you know the

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Council of Nicaea said and the Nicene Creed says and and so on so forth well the vast majority of them have already been taught to have a fundamental distrust of anything creedal in that sense

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And the reality is the the doctrine of Trinity is a revelational doctrine I know there are many people today believe

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It's just something it came at a later in church history, and you'll find many many people in the Academy Teaching that it's a later development etc.

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Etc. But as Christians. We believe this is a doctrine of revelation and therefore To bring people to that revelation to let the

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Word of God to speak to them. I think it's the most effective way of Communicating these truths whether it's the doctrine of the

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Trinity I've certainly found that to be a case in presenting people with the doctrines of grace you go to the scriptures

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It's not your clever arguments. It's it's not your ability to Produce gotcha moments.

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I think it's it's bringing the Word of God to bear and so if you remember those three foundational doctrines, then you will be able upon talking with someone to Take them back to what those fundamental issues are and go right into the scriptures now that assumes

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That we know where the scriptures teach those foundational doctrines, and this is a church history class and so I'm not going to Spend the time that I have in another context going through the fundamental revelation of Monotheism for example, but it really should be something that as students of scripture

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We are aware of that we know about that we can present to people and so as I mentioned last time

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I would Highly recommend you're reviewing for example the trial the false gods in Isaiah 40 through 48

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It was interesting when I was teaching out of pachastrum a couple weeks ago pachastrum is about 60 miles outside of Johannesburg and I Happen to mention in the lectures before that That I think it was a

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Thursday night. We were having a get -together at a at a ratio Christi meeting which is a

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Campus ministry apologetics campus ministry Christian philosophy campus ministry type thing that's worldwide certainly it's here in the

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United States, and they have their have it there a potch and And For some reason they asked me to address the subject of Mormonism Know a little something about Mormonism, so I said to him

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I said by the way Make sure to contact the local Mormon mission and let them know that we're gonna be talking about Mormonism They'll send missionaries, and they're like they will oh yeah, how you bet they'll send us and that not to debate

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But they'll send missionaries to check out What's being said and and to show the nice side of Mormonism if we're demonizing them or something like that?

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but for us it's a it's a great opportunity to witness the missionaries, so they sent four missionaries and So I did my whole presentation on Mormonism, but it was interesting how it changed a little bit

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It was different than it would have been if they had not been there because I had

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Mormons listening and so I wanted them to hear an accurate presentation of what they believed and then we talked about what the

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Bible actually says about each one of these these beliefs and So when we were talking about the

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Mormon doctrine of God, which is a primary focus that we had It was like well Now we know that the

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Bible says and then I went to the trial of false gods and Isaiah 43 10 before me There was no

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God for him. There should be none after me as a 44 24 Jehovah Says that that he alone stretches stretch stretch abroad the heaven found the earth by himself

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Any Mormon who is an elder who's gone through the temple has seen? Pictorially either by actors if they went to the

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Salt Lake Temple Or on video if they went through any other temples in the world and there are many of them now has seen it presented

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That Elohim who's God the Father sent Jehovah in company with Michael down to organize the earth

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But Isaiah 44 24 Jehovah does this alone? So there's a complete contradiction between these these presentations and so the trial of false gods

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Isaiah 40 to 48 Jeremiah chapter 10 I do want it.

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I do want to just just I want to show you some because I this has always excited me

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But if you could if you if you could turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 10 for just a moment I think you'll find this to be rather interesting

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Did he did he did he did he Jeremiah chapter 10 now notice

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Well, let's well, let's let's go

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Let's start verse one was gonna do this, but I think this is wrong Here are the word which

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Yahweh speaks to you a house of Israel and again, I'm I know we have visitors just I Always emphasize this because I think it's one of the little tools

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That every Christian needs to have and be aware of that many evangelicals are not when you see LOR D in all caps

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That is the Hebrew tetragrammaton. Yod. Hey, wow. Hey Yahweh, which we slaughter in English as Jehovah and so I'm Simply rendering it in it.

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You don't say that to a Jewish person. They are very Offended if you use the divine name, but that is a tradition that developed well after the

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New Testament So it's really not binding upon Christians But it is important to recognize God's covenant name

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And It'll be especially important in dealing with Mormons who believe Jehovah is a separate

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God from Elohim Which is normally translated as God 535 times in the

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Old Testament. It's Jehovah Elohim Yahweh Elohim So the Old Testament writers had no concept of this but Joseph Smith had no concept of the

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Old Testament either So that's sort of what happens But that's why I render it that way the word of which

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Yahweh speaks to you a house for Israel That says Yahweh do not learn the way of the nations and do not be terrified the signs of the heavens although the nations are terrified by them for the customs of the peoples are

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Delusion because it is wood cut from the forest the work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool

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They decorate with silver with gold they fasten it with nails with hammers So that it will not totter like a scarecrow and a cucumber field are they and they cannot speak

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They must be carried because they cannot walk do not fear them, but they can do no harm nor can they do any good?

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I Love the absolute acidic sarcasm That God uses of the idols of the peoples

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That are fashioned by man and then bowed down to and worship there is none like you Oh Yahweh you are great in your name and great is your name and might who would not fear you a king in the nations

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Indeed it is your due for among all the wise men the nations and all their kingdoms There is none like you, but they are all together stupid and foolish in their discipline of delusion their idol is wood

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Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Ufos the work of a craftsman of the hands of a goldsmith violet and purple are

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Their clothing they are all the work of skilled men, but Yahweh is the true God he is the living

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God the everlasting King at his wrath the earthquakes and the nations cannot endure his indignation now again We I've emphasized this when we went through the law

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This was a radical concept this idea of monotheism the people the world had never developed a coherent

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Concept of monotheism you had the God of your nation they had the God of their nation and the gods fought with each other and The gods came forth out of the out of the primordial ooze and all the rest this kind of stuff

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So this is a radical and to many people extremely offensive Concept that your

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God is the only true God Thus you shall say to them The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens now

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I'm not sure how your translations render this but up until this point

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At least new American Standard had everything in poetic form and then verse 11 goes to prose form and Then verse 12 goes back into poetic form it is he who made the earth by his power who established the world by his wisdom

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And by his understanding he has stretched out the heavens when he orders his voice There is too much so on so forth so it continues out.

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Why would verse 11? be taken out of poetic form and Put into prose form well.

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What's fascinating here is There are two primary languages in which the

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Bible was written Hebrew in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament, but there is a tertiary and third

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Language and it's called Aramaic now Aramaic is very closely related to Biblical Hebrew, it's a

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Semitic language and It would be the language in which the people of Israel would be communicating with the

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Babylonians and the Semitic peoples around them and so what's fascinating is you get to verse 11 and And Jeremiah switches from Hebrew to Aramaic and So it says thus you so say to them and then in Aramaic The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens then back into Hebrew Now why in the world would that be?

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well here God is giving the very apologetic the very

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Mechanism of defense of monotheism That the people are to use and speaking to the Babylonians to them in the language the

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Babylonians would understand The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth the

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Babylonian gods came forth from the heavens and here They were derivative from the creation around them

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The gods that did not make the heavens the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens So if your

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God ain't big enough to as to have made the heavens and the earth your God's gonna perish because your

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God isn't real and In the very language they would understand that's given to them. I think that's pretty cool most people have not seen that before is there's

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I'm not sure if you may have a note in any of your translations if it mentioned that but Now you now, you know and I think what illustrates to me

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Anyways is the fact that God does want to communicate to his people how they? can then communicate to others and provide that information to them and so passages teaching that there is only one true

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God I mean I think most of us are aware of The fact that every

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Jewish person each morning, and we talked about this at the beginning of the church history class

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But I'll remind us once again Every Jewish person would get up in the morning and according to What's the collection of the

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Jewish traditions that was gathered together around 250 years after the time of Christ?

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What's it called? Talmud is actually the about 500 years later

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That's the commentary on this book Mishnah the

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Mishnah is the first so So about 250 years after Christ you find dead pens and throw them away you have the

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Mishnah and then you get commentary on the Mishnah over the next number of hundreds of years called the

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Gamara you put the two of them together and that becomes what is known eventually as the

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Talmud So we know from the the

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Mishnah this collection of Traditions most of which go back to days of Jesus you have to be careful

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You can't just assume if it's in the Mishnah that it was necessary contemporaneous of Jesus, but it's an important source

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That there are numerous rules Already established this time for how you are to say

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The defining Jewish prayer, what is the defining Jewish prayer? That's that's first two words.

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That's good and the first words the name Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Echad.

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Here O Israel Yahweh is our God Yahweh is one Again, don't say it to a Jewish person

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They don't say that they say they say Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad They will change

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Yahweh to Adonai which means my Lord That's a again a later a later tradition, but there are all these rules as to how are you to say this so on so forth and it is definitional of The Jewish people to have that that statement and it right there.

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It says Yahweh Echad Yahweh is one There is only one Yahweh and the

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Trinity does not deny that that I'm gonna have to be pounding that April 21st

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Up in Rapid City because the assumption of the Iglesia Ni Cristo is that we are saying that there's more than one

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God We are not saying that there is more than one God there is only one God Yahweh, but the fact the

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Bible identifies the Father the Son the Spirit as Yahweh is obviously directly relevant to the proof of the doctrine of the

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Trinity. Yes, sir Echad Echad Can be a number it can it can be a numerical one or it can be a composite one

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It depends on how it's being used. So there is only one God Yahweh But that does not and see this is again and this is sort of might might help me transition back to church history here eventually

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One of the things that I will be explaining to our friends up there is

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You have monotheism and that means there is one being of God but then you have

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Unitarianism Now the problem is that in In our modern period there is a

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Unitarian Universalist Church and Those words end up taking on meanings that they didn't necessarily have historically so the

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Unitarian Universalists About the only way to describe their theology is woo -woo

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Because there's no other substance to it. It's just It's it's it's You can't even get to the point of talking about well if you're a unit if you're a

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Universalist That means you believe everyone's going to be saved. Yeah, that's what you got in the shack. For example, everyone's going to be saved

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Universalist But they've gone way beyond that into New Age Woo -woo ism and so it's it's just way out there, but Unitarian Has a historical technical meaning which is how we're using it here.

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It's not a denomination These are not this this is not an equal sign you have to say no

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Because we're monotheists, but we're Trinitarians. So what's what what are these things referring to monotheism is referring to the being of God There is only one being of God.

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This is referring to persons so Unitarianism would be one person

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Trinitarianism three persons There are some people if you read scholar literature today, it would say that the the

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New Testament originally was Benetarian Two persons

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I think they're wrong about that. But again if you're reading that type of thing and so on and so forth, so Almost every group that you'll meet especially if it's a cultic group and Iglesia Ni Cristo is about as cultic as they come

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In fact it was interesting when I was in POTS There is a cult developing right now in South Africa brand -new one.

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It's only four and a half. Not yet five years old and a fellow

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PhD student of mine there at POTS And I were having lunch and he's doing his dissertation on this group and I'm like dude you realize that you're at the period of greatest doctrinal development in the history of most cults

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Which means you could write half your dissertation and by the time you get half of it written the whole group has changed theology

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Could could be a bit of a challenge for you and he didn't take that real well. But anyway Well, I was just I mentioned the dividing line there was a book written in 1834 1835

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Called Mormonism unveiled by E .D. Howe and it was the first Christian book written against Mormonism and it was right at that early period well

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Joseph Smith developed his wildest theology What? You know about two or three years after that so what

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E .D. Howe's book does is it sort of gives us an insight into what the earliest Mormonism was before all the wildest development took place and So all of these but all these groups all of these these cultic groups

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Will Assume certain things that are proving them and when you're dealing with Muslims I'm not including

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Muslims in a term cult that would destroy the word cult. That's a another world religion Whether it's

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Muslims Jehovah's Witnesses the way international and all the fragmentary groups that have split off from that Iglesia Ni Cristo this group down in South Africa calls

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Christ in me all these groups assume but never prove this they assume

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Unitarianism they just assume it and They demand you assume it and every interpretation of every verse.

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They'll give you will assume Unitarianism and the end of the reason that you will

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Experience tremendous Frustration In talking with these groups is

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Because of this assumption and that means you will constantly be having to challenge them on this very issue

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I'm going to be doing it in a few weeks myself Let me give an example

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Any place where Jesus Is distinguished from the father and the father is called

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God means Jesus and God Because you assume Unitarianism so Blessed be the

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God and the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ well since God is Unitarian and The father is

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God that means Jesus is what can't be God Can't be deity. It doesn't matter if he's called courios doesn't matter if courios is used as for the name of Yahweh throughout the

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Old Testament That's what it naturally would have communicated to New Testament people that doesn't matter if you're assuming Unitarianism Then that's how you think if in John 17 3

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Jesus says It prays to the father and calls him the only true God there.

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It is Jesus isn't God now of course My immediate response to me. What do you expect him to call him one of many gods?

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He was a monotheist believes only one God the issue is One sentence later when he talks about his being glorious in the presence of the father

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In eternity past how do you deal with that? And they don't really have an answer to that so anyway this

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Assumption of Unitarianism Jehovah's Witnesses do it constantly the the Muslims do it constantly and you have to say look

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Before you can assume that you have to ask the question does revelation itself

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Give us an indication Whether we're all we're monotheists. We leave them

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Mormons out at that point We are monotheists But are we to be Unitarian Benatarian Trinitarian and the evidence then and now we step back to those three foundational issues the evidence shows us

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Trinitarian you have three divine persons they're distinguished from one another that's you want to go into John 14

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John 16 Etc etc Clearly distinguished from one another so you don't want to go the one this perspective remember we talked about modalism last time

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But then you have to demonstrate the equality of The divine persons which would be the text on the deity of Christ the edification of Jesus is

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Yahweh things like that yes, sir I Guess you could argue that nobody thought that there's a trinity right well.

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What did I? Maybe I maybe I didn't say this last time because you have to forgive me, but I Landed in Joburg on Sunday.

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They had me teaching six out lecturing six hours on Monday and Tuesday so at times

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I forget where I've mentioned things, but Where is the doctrine the

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Trinity revealed is it let me show you you must you want to see the revelation of the doctrine of Trinity No I'm surprised

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I haven't done this This is that's the beginning of Matthew, and there's the

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There's the end of Malachi right there See the gutter That's what the doctrine of Trinity's revealed

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No No, no, I guess I haven't covered this and shame on me for not having done so I Think it's very very important some people disagree with me, but I think

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I can make a pretty strong argument here I am NOT for a second denying that there are not clear prophetic indications of the outlines the doctrine the

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Trinity in the Old Testament I am NOT denying that for a second when you look at Isaiah 9 6

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I don't think you can doubt that when you when you follow the Emanuel passages

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Isaiah 6 through Isaiah 11 every single chapter has references that are clearly

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Cited by New Testament writers as being a reference to Jesus etc. Etc. So don't get me wrong I'm not saying that there are not prophetic indications, but those prophetic indications

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No more brought the Jews to a Trinitarian theology than the prophetic indications of the cross made them

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Expect the Messiah to be a suffering Messiah It's there, but without the light of the actual historical reality of who

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Christ was That's not the conclusions that they had come to the reason I say that the

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Trinity is revealed right there in the gutter between Malachi and Matthew is there's 400 years between those two that's not the intertestamental period where it's revealed the fundamental revelation of the doctrine of the

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Trinity is in the Incarnation ministry death burial resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit That's where the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed think about Peter Peter was an experiential

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Trinitarian Peter stood on the Mount of Transfiguration. He heard the father speak.

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He had walked with a son He was now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He was an experiential Trinitarian the

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Revelation takes place not in the New Testament. The New Testament is the record that comes after the revelation and That's why the

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New Testament reads the way that it does You see if the if God intended to reveal the

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Trinity in the New Testament You'd expect him to do it very differently than he did When he wants to reveal he's one true

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God you sort of belabor is the point in the Old Testament Okay, you know over and over again in the law.

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I am the one to get you to worship me. It's it's very very explicit But that's not what you have in the

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New Testament in the New Testament Isn't it odd that most of the strongest texts are said in passing

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They're said in passing I got to preach on Titus 2 11 through 15 at Antioch Bible Church in Randburg, which is suburb of Johannesburg and I pointed out in that in that sermon that in Titus chapter 2 verse 13

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Paul identifies Jesus as our great God and Savior Jesus Christ Now Wow our great

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God and Savior Jesus Christ does not give a word of explanation Doesn't say now.

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Let me stop and explain what this means. Let's talk about the hypostatic union and monotheism. He doesn't do any of that He's he's actually exhorting them to live a righteous life

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It's the grace of God has appeared to bring salvation to all men Teaching us to to reject ungodliness and and worldly lusts and to live godly and soberly so on and so forth

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Looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who will redeem the people unto himself and he gives

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All these Old Testament texts about Yahweh Redeeming of people unto himself, but he never explains any of the rest of it

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Why why is that because he doesn't need to the revelation of these things was already the common possession of the

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Christian people And so the vast majority of the texts that prove these things are simply said in passing

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What it Paul can Paul can use in Philippians 2 5 through 11 the great Carmen Christi Referring to the pre -existence of Christ and his humiliation and his exaltation and all the rest of stuff and it's a sermon illustration

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It's not the central point of what he's saying. Why is that? Why are the Trinitarian passages that the love of God the

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Grace Lord Jesus Christ the fellowship the Holy Spirit be with you all It's just said in passing because it's already the common possession of the church

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The revelation has already taken place in the incarnation of Jesus Christ the outpouring of the Holy Spirit The New Testament now is being written within the milieu of that revelation

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It's not trying to to mediate that revelation or to explain something new. It's never been heard of before It's now expressing these things and that's why the

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New Testament has the form that it does And that's why I say the revelation takes place historically in the incarnation the outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit and that explains The nature of the New Testament evidence itself in regards to the doctrine of the

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Trinity now, I didn't come up with that on my own That's primarily if you if you want to read a if you want to read the best stuff

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I've ever read on that subject. His name's BB Warfield Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield his studies on the doctrine of the

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Trinity Extremely helpful extremely helpful. Yes, sir The attributes of God must necessarily

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Belong exclusively to him Especially the most important attribute of God that it is unacquast without beginning

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Yes or no Because must be only one being in the universe that always existed and had no beginning

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Now if we can prove I mean really in the open

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Maybe from the Old Testament also Without being able nobody to refute that that Christ Had no beginning that would make him no creature as a divine person.

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Yes And if you didn't they don't have a beginning that would mean

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It's I mean Wouldn't that mean that he was God? Well, if there's only one

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Thing in the universe that has no beginning yes, obviously, but At that point you have to be able to explain to people why there are

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Texts referred to Christ's birth So in other words, you have to be able to go those texts

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Christ says I've come down out of heaven the pre -existence passages to be able to Differentiate between Christ because the word became flesh at a point in time

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Jesus physical body did not eternally exist But the son the second person in the

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Trinity did eternally exist and that's why we go into John 1 1 We talked about the fact that John uses one verbal form for all of creation a different verbal form for the logos until verse 14

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Where the word becomes flesh where he uses the same form that refers to an origin in time

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Whereas before that he never refers to an origin in time There are all sorts of places that you can you can go and address that but yes,

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I think that's that's directly Directly relevant to the truth. Yes Okay, but I just want to make sure you understand what

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I'm what I'm saying when I talk about how the doctrine the Trinity is Revealed. I remember I remember sitting a Sunday school class at Probably 19 years of age 18 19 years of age at a very large

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Southern Baptist Church, which a number of you are familiar with and Someone asked the question.

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Well, why do we believe in the Trinity? and We were literally in that Sunday school class looking in the concordance for the word

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Trinity Now you may be going ha ha ha and people around you going you mean it's not there

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No, it's it's not there and There's There's a lot of questions that people have that have been addressed literally for millennia

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But unfortunately, they're not the stuff of most Sunday morning Sunday school classes in in a lot of a lot of evangelical churches

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But that's why we're covering it covering it here And so like I said, if you really want to read some excellent material on that on that subject

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BB Warfield one of the great Princeton theologians. This is back when Princeton was a believing institution which it sadly no longer is but His work on the the

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Trinity Fantastic stuff just not easily read through but you will notice you read my book on the

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Trinity. I quote him Because he he does an excellent job, especially in the appropriateness of using non biblical language to express biblical truths

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He does a very good job in in addressing that subject. So anyway Unitarianism Yes, sir

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They believe that the Messiah That's what vast majority of Jews are barely theists any longer to be perfectly honest with you if you're talking about the difference between a a

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Jewish person by ethnicity and a Jewish person by faith By faith if you're talking about an

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Orthodox Jew they are going to be very strongly Unitarian Yahweh is is is

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Unitarian is one and so Even though you can Provide especially intertestamental sources that indicated a

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Plurality there was an exaltation of the word of Yahweh and things like that in their intertestamental sources

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But today especially because of the reaction against Christianity down through the centuries there could be strongly

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Unitarian Yeah, they're not expecting Messiah to be Large number of Jews obviously a

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Jewish person who's a believing Jewish person and Has engaged Christians before and has some knowledge of their

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Approaches will be familiar with Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 9 things like that many

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Many are not and many are really not familiar with those texts to any any deep way at all, so With all that said when we come to The subject of the

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New Testament, I'm sorry the Council of Nicaea New Testament Thank you very much 325

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AD There is a There is

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Development that has taken place up to the time the Council of Nicaea now sometimes people get a little itchy

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When you talk about doctrinal development How can something be a revelation if there is development in the understanding of it well?

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Let me point out. I think a very good counter Balance to this or counterexample that again this might make you uncomfortable, but you need to realize the reality of church history

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It took Over It took 300 years in church history before someone actually wrote an entire book on the atonement 300 years and it's not because everybody just oh we all we all believe the same thing about the atonement no in Fact when

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Irenaeus at the end of the 2nd century is fighting the Gnostics. He comes up with a recapitulation theory that is

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Anything but biblical in its understanding of the doctrine of the atonement the means the atonement and Ransom to Satan theories and when we talk about Atonement theories in church history, it's depressing so What does that mean that?

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There had to have been a full understanding in the theology of the first two centuries and anything past that it's just well

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It can't be considered to be apostolic remember many of those people didn't even have the entire New Testament Many of them were running for their lives

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Just trying to survive doesn't give you a whole lot of time to be doing meaningful system work on systematic theology You know it's looking.

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It's like looking at the early Anabaptists a few of them lived more than five six years it takes a while to put stuff together and so Yes, there is doctrinal development

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That doesn't mean that the church then becomes a source of theological revelation And does that mean that the results of that development are either inspired or not inspired the standard remains?

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The only source of divine revelation we have and that is that which is the honest us that which is

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God breathed which is Itself scripture, and so that will again lead us to consideration of the authority of councils

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But we need finally to get into the Aryan conflict in the Council of Nicaea now that we've sort of laid a little foundation

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Theologically in regards to some of the issues that led up to that period and so next time hopefully we will dive into the actual

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Who laid the egg that led the Aryan controversy I already told you anybody remember who laid the egg that eventually hatched into Aryanism Origin How'd origin do it?

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Origin referred to God the father is ha they us and to the son simply as the us he wasn't trying to lead the

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Aryan controversy, but he did and We'll see what came of that next time around okay?

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All right, let's let's close the word prayer Father once again, we thank you for your word.

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We thank you for this opportunity We've had to consider it and to consider your truth We ask that you would make us sharper instruments in your hands to be used to your honor and glory