The Laborers' Podcast- Theology Proper 2

Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. Tonight we're going to be talking about Theology Proper, Part 2,

The Doctrine of God. We hope you will stick around and join us. Thank you for joining

The Laborer's Podcast. Remember, Jesus is King. Live in the victory of Christ, speak with the authority of Christ, and go share the gospel of Christ.

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Facebook user. Love you brothers, leading at an FCA event tonight.

Preach it. I think that's somebody that we know. Jonathan, you think?

It sounds like Jonathan. Let us know if we're right.

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Tyler, Andy, Matt, how you guys doing? Doing very well. Well, happy to be here.

Fantastic. Yes, Jonathan, Pastor Jonathan Foster, praying for you at FCA tonight, an

FCA event. That sounds fantastic. Love you, brother. Appreciate what you're doing for the Lord.

All right, guys, we talked about, before we jump into theology proper, we talked about, we had a little conversation off the air, and I'm gonna throw a little curveball at you and see if you guys are ready for it.

I want you guys to respond to this video. You may have seen it. You may have not seen it.

I don't know if it's airing everywhere. This is a commercial that I saw recently, and I had some initial thoughts, so I'm gonna,

I don't think it's that bad, but I want to get your thoughts.

So here's the commercial, and you guys tell me your initial thoughts after we finish it.

A caring man took a walk. He saw people suffering.

Anxiety ran high. Hatred rose. I'll prepare a feast and bring them together, he thought, but some refused to join him.

He was heartbroken because he wanted everyone to be filled, not with food and wine, but with compassion.

He gets us. He gets us, all of us.

Who wants to go first? Well, this is kind of building off of last week, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Have at it, Tyler. Yeah, go ahead, Tyler. Well, I think, first and foremost, we have to recognize that the

He Gets Us ministry does not hold that Christ is

God, that they overemphasize Christ as a good person, as a good teacher, and a good man, and not as the incarnate

God who calls people to repentance, but He's just a guy. So I think we have to jump off with that point, that when they're talking about He Gets Us, they've taken what the

Bible tells us Christ is, and they've put him in a smaller box so he's more relatable, that he's just a guy.

He has anxiety. He has this. He struggles with lust, fill in the blank.

And this is the jumping off point for He Gets Us, is he's just a person like us.

And so when we see phrases like this, and we see commercials like this about being filled with compassion and stuff, that's all good stuff.

Don't get me wrong. Absolutely compassion. I'm not anti -compassion by any means. We're saved by a biblical

Jesus. We're not saved by the Jesus we necessarily want him to be, or who we think he ought to be, but Jesus is who he is, whether we like it or not.

And sometimes who Jesus is rubs me the wrong way, because I'm not

Jesus. I will never be quite like Jesus. And so the challenge is,

I'm not Christ. I'm not the Son of God. And it may be tempting for me to try and bring him down to my level so that he's more relatable to me.

But rather, he is pulling me up from the dirt, from my own filth, and bringing me to fellowship with him.

And that's uncomfortable. That's hard sometimes. But this is the biblical

Jesus, one who brings us up, who doesn't necessarily forsake being

God to get to us, because he was still a God the whole time we read about him in the

Gospels. But his compassion didn't negate the fact that the sinners have to come.

So it sounded like you are familiar with this ministry. Yes, I've seen some of the discussion about this ministry over the last couple months here.

Okay, see, I know nothing about it. I was gonna say, I think I agree with everything

Tyler said. I had seen probably three to four months ago, a few of these commercials and just seeing them, something just didn't sit right with me.

But when I started to really look into them, a lot of information came out when the

North American Mission Board partnered with this ministry.

And some people exposed, I think the first thing that came out was, I mean, you go to this ministry's website or ministry, if you want to call it that.

And the big thing that was exposed was basically on the website, it says, the doctrine of Jesus' perfect sinless life, you can take that or leave it, that doesn't really matter, basically what their website says.

So that was a huge deal on Twitter. I know, ultimately, the

North American Mission Board pulled their partnership with that under a lot of scrutiny, put out a memo basically saying, yeah, we should have looked at it more.

It's just a little more broad than we want to get involved with. I don't think they condemned it like they should have.

It never should have gotten to the point where they should have even considered partnering with such a ministry.

Because, again, you start digging into their website, and there's multiple things in there, like Tyler said from the get -go, that points to a non -biblical

Jesus. To me, it's nothing more than a social justice movement trying to, in some way, capitalize on the name of Jesus, but not a biblical

Jesus at all. I'm glad you guys have heard of it, because I had not.

I was basically going to examine just what was said on the video.

But I'm glad that you guys had knew all that. I was unaware of the controversy. There was a whole media circus on Twitter about this a couple months back.

I'm sure there's a lot of people like me that this is good information for them. It's good information for me.

Do you have any comments on that, Andy? Yeah, I'm not as familiar with them as Tyler or Matt are, but I have surveyed their site.

I saw the Twitter circus, and what it ultimately comes down to is whoever's behind this, it's a worldview issue.

It is a leftist organization that utilizes biblical and Christian language to put themselves off as, this is classic first John.

They went out from us to show they weren't part of us. This is how you know you have fellowship with us. This is not necessarily the same type of Gnosticism John was talking about, but it's a worldview issue that's trying to claim fellowship with Christians.

But as you start to really go through their site, you find that their Jesus has nothing to do with the biblical

Jesus. For example, on their About page, they reference the fact that Jesus came to earth, died, resurrected, went back to heaven.

There is zero in there about why he had to die, why he was resurrected, about the sin that he had to pay for, about the need of man.

From what I can tell, there's zero biblical gospel on their website. Now, you see a whole lot of Black Lives Matter style social justice and a lot of leftist rhetoric, so I can only conclude, based on the evidence available to me, that they have a desire, everyone that names the name of Christ, to only utilize their work as a means of what not to say and do.

I don't see anything there that's biblically redeemable. Well, that turned out really good.

I'm thankful for you guys who were informed a lot more than I am on that. I appreciate that.

Let's jump into theology proper. These questions, there's so much more that we could look into when it comes to theology proper, the doctrine of God.

These are just some things that I hope that will help people in the congregation.

It's not too, too shallow, but it's not too, too deep, and so it's just helpful.

And maybe we'll say some things, ask some questions that maybe you've had in the past. So the first one, kind of starting where we left off, going to the next one in the podcast guide.

I've heard this before. It was a long time before I heard a pastor use this terminology.

Of course, there was a lot of things that I was unfamiliar with for a long time, but a pastor said this in a sermon that we worship a thrice holy

God. Can anybody explain that, what they understand that to mean, that for God to be a thrice holy

God, and why we would use that terminology? So in Isaiah chapter 6, there is a vision that Isaiah has in the temple.

He sees a physical manifestation of the glory of God, and there's a little bit of debate as to what exactly is going on.

Is this a dream? Is he in some kind of third space? We don't know, but bottom line is he's witnessing

God in all its glory, as best we can describe that. And there are angels, and they're saying, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts. The earth is filled with his glory. And when we look, when we survey the

Bible as a whole, we'll get into this a bit later with the attributes of God, but of these different attributes that we see given to God through the biblical text, the holiness of God is the only one we see laid out in threes.

Holy, holy, holy. And we see that one time in the Old Testament and one time in the

New Testament in the book of Revelation. And so what is implied by that phrase thrice holy is that God is so holy that we can say that three times, that it is necessary to put that extra emphasis on it.

Either, what do you guys want to jump in? Any other thoughts on that? I don't have much to add there.

I think that's very, very good. Some of these things, too, we have to remember there's not going to get a whole lot of depth in the sense of multiple passages dealing with some of the same types of things.

So Isaiah is a very good place to look. I want to say Revelation, too. I believe it's

Revelation 4. I think they use the holy, holy, holy, if I'm not mistaken. But, you know, it's obviously speaking to and referencing the fact that we worship a thrice holy

God. We worship a God that is perfectly holy. And Isaiah's picture there in heaven, the majesty there, and an understanding that when he talks about the earth being full of the glory of God, that's the post -millennial hope that the entire world will be covered with the knowledge of the

Spirit of God, knowledge of Christ, the obedience to his law. Nations will worship him. And what we do as his people now, one day the whole world will do.

And so there's a lot of beauty there, and especially in that passage where you see, you know, Isaiah in a sense getting the curtain pulled back for him.

And it's from my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, the repetition is a way that they would use their language for emphasis.

Is that correct? And that Jewish context, repeating words, was like how we would underline things or italicize them.

If you guys, and this is a little rabbit trail, just because we're talking about the word holy.

If you were to define the word holy, how would you define it? And I've got a reason for asking, and I'll let you know.

But how would you guys define holy? Well, it means set apart.

If you look at, bear with me just a second as I pull up. I always, my first go -to is always the beginning of Colossians.

When I've taught through Colossians at my church, and I'm almost there on Bible Hub.

But okay, so it's in verse 2, I think it is. Saints and faith brethren.

Where is that? I can't find it. But let's just go to the

ESV here. Maybe I'm thinking wrong book, but you see it.

When you see holy referred to in Scripture, it's set apart. It's always with indication of set apart to God for some reason.

And when we are set apart as holy in the sense of our justification, we are set apart as being holy and righteous in Christ Jesus.

We are set apart from the world unto Christ. And then in what we refer to as sanctification, as a babe in Christ matures and is discipled in Christ.

And in the discipleship that comes from a growing and a deeper knowledge of His Word and obedience to Christ, you see your life and your obedience and your ability to mortify the sin in your own body is a continual making yourself more holy in your thoughts and in your actions and things like that.

So we demonstrate God's or Christ's holiness as children of light, as we grow in that holiness in a sense of our soul and our eternal justification, we're as holy as we ever will be.

And we're doing it because we're obeying God that is that perfectly. That should be the mind -boggling thing is that what we could do certainly in part now,

He has always been that. It's a beautiful thing. Well that's what

I said. I would have said everything that you said and I think that's probably what most people have heard and that's what most people would say.

This comes from my former pastor and I think from him it came from one of his professors. And I'm gonna have to try to find this sermon and share with you guys.

He did a sermon and he was trying to explain it to me leading up to the sermon because he was asking me, how would you define holy?

What are your thoughts? It intrigued him. He dove into it and then he presented a sermon on it.

But he said holy means dedicated. And it's slightly different connotation than set -apart.

He kept trying to make a distinction between set -apart and dedicated. And it's not something we have to dive into right now, but I wanted to share that with you.

And hopefully I can find that sermon and share it with you guys and then get your thoughts on it later. It was a really good sermon.

Same thing though. I mean when you think about the Old Covenant when they would set apart clean animals or set apart this for the temple or this type of clothing or whatever it is, you were setting apart and dedicating those things as specifically for a function for the

Lord. And the difference is our entire lives are to be set apart for God now.

I think that was part of my argumentation too. I see them as not that dissimilar, but he was trying to make a slightly different connotation or meaning.

And I can't recall. It's just something that come to my mind since we're talking about it. And I'm gonna have to try to find that sermon, listen to it, and share it with you because it's really...

and I didn't have anything against it. It's really good. Well, Martin Manzer, in his dictionary

Bible themes, he defines holiness as or the holiness of God as the moral excellence of God that unifies his attributes and is expressed through his actions, setting him apart from all others.

There's that set apart. That's how he set apart. He set apart from all others. And I'm like you guys.

I see very similar understandings between dedication and set apart.

What do we believe? Why do we believe God is Trinity? Who wants to give the easy answer to that one?

Matt, why do we believe God is Trinity? As we've discussed before, the totality of Scripture screams that to us.

Yeah. As we've discussed before, you look throughout Scripture, the

Father, the Son, the Spirit, they all have the same attributes.

And there are certain parts of Scripture that clearly say obviously

God the Father, but that the Son is God. And just again, totality of Scripture leads to no other finding than that,

I believe. Yeah. So how would you, and Tyler, if you want to,

I know you had the confession up there, if you want to give us the confession answer about what the

Trinity is. You know, Matt, and you may have encountered this on the streets when you're, you know, talking to people.

That's one of the things people want to throw at you. They'll have this concept or this belief, and you'll say, well, that's not in the

Bible. And they'll say, well, the Trinity is not in the Bible. The word Trinity is not in the Bible either. So how do you answer that type of person who has an unbiblical belief, and your response is, well, that's not in the

Bible. And they come at you, well, the word Trinity is not in the Bible. What's your response to someone like that?

I've never specifically encountered that on the street, I don't think, personally. But I think you obviously agree with them.

Yes, this specific word is not in there, but again, you, by reading and all the information there,

I mean, there's plenty of things that, I mean, just extra biblical stuff that you gather information and come to a conclusion that may not specifically be stated in the data you've gathered.

So I just think it's a poor argument. I mean, you gather information from the entire scripture, and just because a specific word is not mentioned, doesn't negate that the idea is clearly there.

Yeah. So I think you just, you have to, I don't think you can really go into a deep argument with somebody on that.

You, again, just point to the scriptures, and again, take that information as a whole, as a cohesive unit, and show that, yes, just because the exact specific word is not there, does not negate the idea.

Yeah. Go ahead. Chase that rabbit a little bit.

Like Matt said, there's not a word trinity in the New Testament. That's not something we see.

That is true. And while that may not be in the Bible, that is a word we've come up with to synthesize this idea of what it means that I and the

Father are one. And some of these ideas, the Westminster Confession doesn't get into a lot of detail on this in comparison with some of the massive volumes that have been written on this.

But in chapter two of the Westminster Confession of Faith, it says, God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself.

That's the opening line there of the second article. And then in the third article, it says, in the unity of the

Godhead, there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity. God the Father, God the

Son, and God the Holy Ghost. And if we look at Mark chapter one, which is includes the account of the baptism of Jesus by John the

Baptist, it says immediately upon coming up out of the water, he saw heaven torn open, literally schizo, torn open.

That is a violent word. And the spirit descended upon him like a dove. And then a voice came from heaven.

You are my son in whom I am well pleased. And the common theme here is we have heaven tore open, and then from that tearing open comes the spirits like a dove, and comes the voice of the

Father. Same place. All three are present right here.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So however we understand that relationship,

God presents himself as being three simultaneously. And neither one of these is any less

God, or is more God than another, but it is...

how do I want to put this? He reveals himself in a way that doesn't make sense to us.

We wouldn't have come up with this if you had paid us. But the reality is, this is what the

Word of God says. This is how he... this is how God has revealed himself to us. And the best way we can understand this in our human terms is with words like Trinity, with phrases like three and one, and one and three, because we have

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. And that's three persons in one substance, one existence, one power.

When you have a passage like that, it just... it makes me wonder, how can a oneness think that he just shows up in one manifestation at a time?

You know, there's not three persons. He just reveals himself in one manifestation at a time.

How do they come up with that? How do they get around that passage? I don't get it. That makes sense.

Did you have any thoughts on the Trinity, Andy? Yeah, and since we're talking about theology proper, we're obviously talking about the most

God -centered thing that we need to start with, because theology proper is...

since it's the study of theology of God and who he is, to be God -centered in that equation, you have to start with God and come down to man.

We can't start with... and this is the video you played earlier, heiswithus .com

or whatever it was. They're starting from man, and either what they want

God to be, or what they think he is based on their own finite observations, and then are reasoning back up to and making

God out of their own creation. We call that idolatry. There's a Ten Commandments...

I believe it's the first and second commandment deal very strongly with this. So if you start with God, you have to allow

God to define himself and reveal himself on his own terms, and he's chosen to do that, obviously, through general revelation, you know, the creation, so on and so forth, but through special revelation.

And Dr. White in his book on the Trinity, which is back there on the...

back below where you can't see, it's back there, talks about how we see the

Trinity most clearly in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.

And then, of course, with the complete canon of Scripture, we have a more full view of the understanding, and Scripture is not a dictionary.

Scripture is not something where you go down and find a word, and then it gives you the definition. Now, there are some cases where Scripture will define or explain itself in that manner, but it ultimately is not a dictionary.

So we derive our doctrine of the Trinity through a consistent, normal reading, interpretation of Scripture, which reveals

God as one essence, as Tyler pointed out with the way the Confession puts it. One essence, one being who has revealed himself to exist with three persons, three personalities.

We are one being, one person. If we have more than one person, that's called multiple personalities disorder.

And so the way Dr. White puts it, he says, the best way to understand it is, if you want to know if you have being, I'll pick up this rock, and I'll throw it at your head, and you're gonna find out that you have being really fast, because it's gonna hurt.

You exist. You cannot deny your existence when you get hit with a rocking head, because it's gonna hurt. And our personality is those things that gives us personhood.

Our emotions, our ability to think, our sort of internal existence, understanding of our existence, and, you know, thinking through those things.

And so you see, as Tyler pointed out with Mark 1, I believe, was it Mark 1? Yeah, Mark 1, and then you get a very clear picture there.

But you see all throughout Scripture interactions between at least, at a minimum, two persons of the

Trinity. I think of John 17 with the high priestly prayer. You see instances where Jesus clearly claims deity for himself.

The Holy Spirit clearly claims deity for himself. Maybe not claims in the same sense of Jesus being on earth, but deity is attributed to the

Spirit, I should say. So it's very clear in Scripture that these three persons, one named the

Father, one the Son, one the Spirit, are clearly identified as all three of them being God. And at the same time, it's very clear in Scripture that it's not simple modalism.

It's not God taking on different forms or shapes. And so what we always tell people, I would say in conclusion, is if you've got people in your church or people you interact with, and they understand the

Trinity through the lens of modalism, and they're doing it from an honest, ignorant place and haven't been taught, be very gentle.

Walk them through it and help them understand. If you've got somebody that knows better and is persistent in their denial of the clear teaching of Scripture, well, you're probably dealing with an unregenerate person at that point.

So we just need to be careful. And also, too, even with my understanding of the

Trinity as it's grown over the years, I'm like Tyler. In a finite capacity,

I don't know what it's like to have three persons sharing one being, but that's what Scripture says God is.

Yeah. I just thought about an ongoing conversation I had quite a few years ago with a

Jehovah's Witness, and we were talking about the deity of Christ. And it's only

God that can raise someone from the dead. Only God can do that. And so when I was looking this up,

I found that the Scripture gives credit to all three persons—God the

Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—for the resurrection of Christ.

And I was trying to use that as part of my argument, but I researched that and saw that in Scripture, and I found it so fascinating that the

Scripture attributes the resurrection to all three persons of the

Trinity. Yeah, and that gets a little confusing because I was actually in a Bible study one time where—I don't have a reference off the top of my head—where it actually says that the

Father raised him from the dead, but then you also have other indications, like you're saying, where it talks about Jesus raising himself from the dead.

And it's like, you've got to be careful to not force Scripture to have to be to where you could understand it through your finite capacity.

There are times when you simply have to let Scripture just say what it does and say, yes, that is true.

So we understand that from the Triune perspective of the understanding, well, since they're all God, obviously God has that same power.

But then we see the Trinitarian harmony in redemption would play out in a sense of what

Scripture tells us, that Jesus Christ makes the atonement for sin. He propitiates and satisfies the wrath for sin to the

Father, so therefore the Father raises him from the dead to show that he is accepting of that.

So there's a lot wrapped up in there that you could really mesh with your mind if you go too deep with it.

So sometimes you just need to pull back a little bit and just say, this is what Scripture says, it's true.

Yeah, that's right, that's right. Let's go to the next one, the attributes of God, and this could be a series in and of itself.

Let's look at the big ones, and Matt, we'll start with you and do a little circle. Just basically look at the big ones.

So the first one I'm thinking of would be the omniscience of God.

How would you define the omniscience of God? Just the word is all -knowing.

God has knowledge of all things. He's never not known everything.

There's nothing he will learn. It's just a complete knowledge of all things from eternity past to eternity future.

Nothing takes him by surprise. He doesn't have to change anything.

Like I said, nothing catches him off guard. He knows these things. So just the all -knowing attribute of God.

And one thing I wanted to say too, just in a general sense, is kind of along the same lines of the

Trinity with God. He's not, as far as the Trinity goes, not one -third the

Father, one -third the Son, one -third the Spirit. I think the same with the attributes.

Even more, I think we can get into that mode where we think, oh, God, he's 20 % love.

He will throw in 5 % justice, 10 % mercy, whatever.

Well, we can't do that. God is completely all of these. Whether we can't wrap our minds around that again in our finite human minds, but he is completely all of these attributes in one.

He doesn't, again, he's not partially any of these where one is compartmentalized over here and another one over here.

So I think that's something that probably not too long ago, I think it was when

I watched a series by Steve Lawson on the attributes of God through Ligonier, excellent series.

I think he went through about 15 or 16 different attributes, about 25 to 30 minute episode on each one.

So I would recommend that to anybody. And also, I just started the other day. I'm only a couple chapters in, but The Attributes of God by A .W.

Pink. If you've not read this, pick this up. It's been excellent so far.

Yeah, that's on my list. I need to get that one. But Matt brings up a really good point because we're probably not going to get too deep into this because we try to balance between we want to be thorough, but we also want to keep in mind, we want this to be, as we talk about for the network, in a meaningful, understandable way.

But there's debates about divine simplicity and all these things. It's very simple, as Matt was touching on.

When it comes to attributes of God, He is, and this wording probably isn't even enough to fully explain it, but it's the only thing we have available to us with our finite human language.

So I would say He's 100 % of all those attributes at all times. I don't even know that language does it justice per se, but it's a way we can understand it.

So what does it mean then that when we see God demonstrating, say, His mercy over and against His justice or things like that?

For some of those theological inerrantists, that's a hard word to say, online that think you just have to simply believe everything the way they do,

I'm never going to be satisfactory to some of them. It's like Pastor Jonathan said many times. He didn't fit in any camps.

My understanding, and I'm open to correction if I'm wrong, because I recognize that some of these things we are laboring over, pun intended.

My understanding is that, yes, it's true to say that God is all of His attributes in perfect harmony at all times, and therein barring a turn at all times.

He exists outside of time. And at the same time, He can choose to demonstrate one over against the other after the counts of His own will, based on whatever situation is in front of Him, based on His own decree, based on those things.

So you can say that He could be measuring out justice at one point at the expense of mercy and grace and love, because He has,

I mean, specifically in Zephaniah, when it talks about the Babylon's coming, God's saying, this is going to happen.

And they would say, oh, well, He's suddenly not mercy, grace, and love. So I'm like, no, He's still those things.

He has the ability and the only being that is in existence that has full autonomy to use and demonstrate

His attributes at His discretion for His own purposes. And I think that's a lot of what

Matt was getting at. It's not that He is some variation of 100%, and at times

He's 80 % this or 10 % that. To me, that's bringing God down out of His heaven and trying to put

Him on man's understanding and level. I was going to say real quick,

I think you kind of described that well, Andy. I think from our human perspective, when we are just looking at a particular incident in its own context, and see a certain attribute displayed, well, in our mind, we just kind of go, okay, that attribute is taking over in this moment.

And all the other ones are kind of taking a backseat, the attributes that kind of seem to play against each other, that one of them's got to take a backseat, because this one is on display.

But again, our human minds can't comprehend the way God works and His essence and how

He can be all of those at the same time, even if one is being in a particular moment on display to us in a more prominent way.

Well, think about it. We're made in the image of God. We demonstrate those attributes of God that we can demonstrate.

There are certain things like God's omnipresence, His omniscience, things like that that we don't possess and can't demonstrate.

But things like grace, mercy, love, we can demonstrate or enact justice.

In fact, God Himself instructs the state to wield that sword on His behalf.

And the state, countries, world leaders are deacons of Christ in that manner.

So we, in our lives, at times, I take my child, for example, there are times where I have to demonstrate certain attributes towards her.

And it may seem from her vantage point that I've just ceased to be loving or something.

That's why you've got to find a way to have that measure of that blended. And I want to give a really good example of this.

Dr. White talks a lot about the error of equal ultimacy. You say, well, what does that mean?

When we're talking about salvation and the differences, you know, unconditional election versus conditional election, you know, man's will versus God's will in salvation.

A lot of times people say, well, you know, if the Calvinists are true, this is true or this, that, and what

Dr. White says, people engage in the error of equal ultimacy that the same level of effort and action is taken to ensure that the reprobate goes to hell as he does to save his people.

So think about it. He had to demonstrate different actions and desires to be willing to take on human flesh and actually come to earth.

And then within that, as it pertains to his attributes, think about this. If God saves all people, he's only demonstrating grace, mercy and love.

If he saves nobody, he's demonstrating holiness, justice, righteousness, but no grace, mercy and love.

It's only in saving some that he demonstrates all of his attributes. So we can look to salvation and redemptive history as an example of how

God demonstrates all of his attributes in his work in time.

So I think that's a really interesting way to or I think for me, that's a really good example to try to wrap your head around it.

I think, too, the reason that we have to to categorize these attributes and put measurements on these attributes is just because of our the fact that we're finite beings, we're limited beings and very limited in this in the same way.

We can't understand the the omnipresence of God, him being, you know, everywhere.

I think we can't understand all these attributes working equally to their fullest extent, you know, 100 percent all the time.

So it's just what I was going to say just a few minutes ago, and I appreciate your answer there. It was excellent.

Just a personal experience and why studying these attributes for me may be helpful for somebody else.

How it's helpful is if you're ever laying in bed and you're you're trying to logic your way into some kind of internal peace when you're when you're contemplating the universe and the vastness of it and your your eternal destination.

And it just begins to blow your mind. And logic just goes out the window because you think about the vastness of the universe and and what happens after death is just mind blowing and you can't comprehend it.

What brings me back down to earth in a way is

God. What brings me that peace is God himself and and these attributes, because for all this stuff to exist and to hold together and and make logical sense at all.

There has to be him out there and and without him, it doesn't exist, it doesn't hold together.

And so learning about these attributes, knowing that they're his and he's he's outside of us, outside of time and all those things.

For me, that's where a lot of the peace comes from is, you know, he's there and he's holding it together.

And that's where it comes from, because if he didn't exist and his attributes didn't exist, you know, we would have calls for concern for our eternal destination or life after death and all those things.

Puritan Thomas Brooks once wrote that if any amount of goodness could satisfy us,

God will. Yeah. And speaking speaking about looking at or trying to understand the attributes working together and his omnipresence,

Tyler, if you want to if you want to look at the omnipresence of God and try to give an explanation of of that.

So the word omnipresence basically says what we says very plainly, omni is all and presence is presence.

And so what we mean by this phrase is that God is everywhere simultaneously.

He does. He's not bound to physical space. He's not he doesn't have a body in the sense that I do.

He's not composite. He's not made up of parts because that brings the question of if God is made of parts, if he has a body with parts, who made the parts?

Who brought all that stuff together? But if God is a non composite being, if he's not bound to physical existence like that, then he's a bigger

God than me. And if he's not bound to physical space, that means that if God has business in in Chicago, he doesn't cease to exist in Miami.

That he can be actively working as God in Chicago and Miami simultaneously.

So when we read about him walking in the garden in Genesis one, that is us understanding in a sense that God is with us.

But at the same token, we're not implying that God is not walking somewhere else, that God's presence is not bound in the same way mine is.

That if that makes sense. Yeah, that's always one I've struggled with, too, is I don't know that and I could be completely wrong on this, but I don't know that there is scriptural evidence to say that the walking in the garden would be one of those

Christophanies or whatever term is for when God would take on human flesh in the

Old Testament. Is there anything to suggest that that's possible, that there was some human form in the garden or is it when you take it as he was spirit but was present with them in some way?

And I think one thing we have to recognize with Genesis is it's largely poetry and it's written by humanly by Moses.

And so we've got that that genre we've got to grapple with a little bit.

But regardless of what we do with God walking in the garden, one thing I think we have to be cognizant of is that Moses, under the guidance of the

Holy Spirit, was comfortable portraying God as walking in the garden, as asking

Adam and Eve questions. Yeah. As Matt said, he is omniscient. He didn't need to ask questions.

Nonetheless, Scripture shows him as asking questions, as walking in the garden. And so I think there's a complexity to these attributes of God that we will never grasp the sight of eternity because you do see

God walk in the garden. You do see God asking questions. And sometimes he portrays himself to us in that sense as we try to wrestle with this idea of God that is bigger than us, more complicated than us.

And like I said earlier, we would not come up with this if you paid us. Like if we all sat together in a room and decided to create a religion, who here would have come up with the

Trinity? Well, think about what has been come up with, like with Joseph Smith. Look at the religions that were started by man and look what they look like.

They're all man serving, you know. But yeah, I see what you're saying because you got to think about the fact that since God is so...we

talked about this last week, sort of the incomprehensible nature of God, but also the fact that he can be known. We have to recognize, as you were saying,

God utilized these human authors, but these human authors are still human authors in the sense that they could only write in language that is consistent with what a human could write and understand and so that his readers would understand.

So when you say, Tyler, that there's a complexity to his attributes that we just simply don't understand, you might have said it this way, but even if you didn't,

I would even take it a step further to say that we don't have the capacity to understand it.

I mean, we probably understand it. As good as we can through the means of God utilizing human language to reveal himself to the point that he has revealed himself.

And that's the thing. We are not aware. Let's just just for simple math, let's take 100 percent.

We have no way of knowing what percentage of God that is knowable that we know.

We only know what God has revealed. And that's that should be a very humbling thing. Yeah, I believe in heaven, there will be letters we didn't know existed, there will be colors we've never seen.

And jazz we never heard. And jazz we've never heard. I was thinking the exact same thing,

Andy. Oh, Andy, what you talked about us not even being capable, having the capability of understanding these things, but yet sometimes we we contemplate on these things.

And we should. Yeah, and we should. It makes me think about this just because it was so fascinating to me.

I don't I don't know if you guys have have ever seen it before, but it's the only movie that I've ever seen that where anyone has ever attempted to try to portray.

I won't say explain, but portray these first two attributes, at least the

God being all knowing and God being everywhere omnipresent.

But it's not a religious movie and it's not about God. They were they were attributing these attributes to aliens.

As a movie called Arrival in 2016. Have you guys seen it? Was this the one with Amy Adams?

I can't remember that. I think it is. Is it? I think I think it's one with Lois Lane.

I think I think it's maybe. Um, but she was called in to crack the language code.

Yeah, that's Amy Adams. Yeah. Once she began to understand the language code and she delved deeper into their communication, it began to show their ability and how they were able to see all things at one time and and they they could work and work in those circumstances.

And it and then it just it made me think reflect on God. And and it was just interesting to me how somebody at least tried to tackle that concept.

So and even in doing so, that's probably woefully limited. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I want to touch on one quick thing about the whole omnipresent thing that almost my entire life

I very commonly and almost as a auto reflex with these things like, you know, we're presenting the gospel.

We say, you know, all those that aren't saved are going to be separated from God for all eternity and never stop to think about the fact that's just simply not true.

It's not people in hell are not going to be separated from God. God is omnipresent. There is not one thing that is in creation that God is not present in.

So the question to be asked is not whether God will be there in hell is in what way will he be present in hell?

You know, just as Tyler was talking about, you know, in the garden, in some way, Moses can understood

God was with them walking. So we have to recognize there will be some in some way there will be a presence of God in hell, obviously, probably in judgment and things like that.

But you cannot say that you will be separated from God in the sense that there will be no presence of God in hell.

He's omnipresent. You know, I can't find no scriptural evidence to suggest that there now what there may be some well -intentioned people that what they mean is separated from God in the sense that we will be present with him.

And that would make more sense. But there I've heard many a sermon talking about you'll never see

God, never, you know, know his presence. And it just doesn't fit with omnipresence.

He is all places, all times, at all times. And that's just something I thought about sitting here.

You know, I've heard that. And it's just not true. That's right. That's right. Yeah. R .C. Sproul's touched on that.

I've heard him talk about that. It is you're not separated from God, but you're separated from the goodness of God.

And those people there, they could only wish that they were separated from God at that point.

I think I read an article by Michael Horton first time I come across that he writes a book called For Calvinism.

I think I came across an article he had written one time and I was just like, huh. You know,

I love those times when you're studying scripture or something and the Holy Spirit actually gets you to go, huh, because then you're finally ready to start learning because you have the first almost.

I hate to have to bring the Star Wars stuff, but as you can see, there's Star Wars back there. But as Yoda once said, you have to unlearn what you have learned.

Well, Andy, there was a there was a there was a medieval writer by the name of Dante and he wrote a book that I would love to read sometime on the subject of hell.

And he wrote he's taken some some liberties, as I understand. But he wrote that the bottom most portion of hell is not hot, but it's cold in the sense that it is deprived of something.

He's illustrating this this lack of something in that. That presence, not like what

Matt was saying about being separated from the goodness of God, that there is a coldness, not as he's taking some poetic liberties, but he's trying to illustrate what some of what

Matt's fleshing out with with theological terms. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Oh, yeah. For the sake of time, Andy, let's let's do one more attribute, the the omnipotence of God.

And then I wanted to tackle one more of these questions, because I think it's important before the

Labor's podcast itself takes a big break. And we'll talk about that at the end. But I wanted to talk about the difference between God's decree,

God's will and God's providence, because those are some big words. Sometimes they get mixed up and not understood.

So we'll talk about those three different things right after we talk about the the omnipotence of God.

Yes, it's the all powerful nature of God. He and I mean, there's many different ways to explain it.

My most basic view that I explain it as God is the one anything that can be done.

God is the only one that can be said to do those things. God can do all things. But we need to be careful to balance that with God does have the power to do all things that are consistent with the reality that he's created.

So the very classic thing we talk about is, can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?

You know, these silly things like that. So when we talk about the power of God, he has all power to do everything in reality and in time that he has created it to do and how it is to function.

Now, could he have created a reality that's different than one we have with different laws? Things certainly could have.

This is what he's chosen to do based on and we'll get deeper into this in a moment based on his decree, based on his desire after the counsel of his own will, he's created this universe to function a certain way with certain physical laws, science, biology, all of it.

And then there's on top of that, his purposes and having humans and redemptive history.

So God is all powerful because he can do anything he wants to do. But you balance that with the understanding that he will do all those things that he has desired to do.

So if you go to these literal extremes of, you know, could he make a rock so big he couldn't lift it?

That's those are not the kind of discussions we're talking about when we're looking at the power of God. Right, right.

Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, and we're moving on to this this last question. So correct me if I'm wrong. I think it may be

OK to lead into these questions about the God's decree, God's will and God's providence with this and combining some of those other questions.

So we kind of get them all together. So. You'll get this argument, you'll get this, have this conversation when you you're talking about free will and you're talking about Calvinism and Arminianism and such.

So these questions will come up like, did God create evil and and double predestination?

Did God predestine some to be saved and some to go to hell? So so there's there's the question.

And then that leads us into God's decree, God's will and God's providence. I think is that is that an

OK way to approach? Those when you're dealing specifically with the whole double predestination thing, people make, as I covered earlier, the error of equal ultimacy.

They're assuming that in God's choice of the elect, there's the same matter of fact, determinative choice in the non -elect is just simply not what's revealed to us.

It's not the case in the case of the non -elect. And if God had chosen it, he'd be perfectly justified doing so.

He could save nobody if he had chose to. And he'd simply just have to pass over everybody in humanity in the unregenerate heart is going to be in rebellion against God and never exercise faith or repent over sin.

He doesn't have to do anything to cause that in a human being. There's simply that by nature. The key to it is, is that he makes the choice to regenerate a people for his name.

There's a far different measure of action involved in what it takes to send the son to die, to redeem his people than there is to just simply let man die in a sin.

So I'll tackle that part of it and I'll stop and let others kind of chime in on the rest. The Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter three, it opens with God for eternity did according to the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and immutably, that is unchangeably, for ordained whatsoever cometh to pass.

And so in that, that phrase, again, we're talking about words that are not necessarily in the biblical text, but these are words that we've crafted to help synthesize the ideas of scripture.

We're talking about decrees and the will and providence and things. But the reality is that God from, from before the beginning, decreed what he was going to do.

And then he set out to do that according to the most wise and holy counsel of his own will.

He didn't have to consult HR about this. He had everything within himself.

And so according to his most perfect wisdom, he created the world.

And it was good. Six days, it is good, it is good, it is good.

And then sometime after that six day, we have what we call the fall. And that brings in all these kinds of existential questions as to how

Adam and Eve, who didn't know sin, were incapable of, were equally capable of sinning and capable of not sinning.

How they, how they decided to sin, that's something that continues to befuzzle our brains until our brains smoke and you can smell the bacon.

But regardless of how it happened, evil enters the world, not because God made evil, but because God allowed it.

And not in the sense that he was passive, but he allowed evil and then provided.

A remedy and he brought good out of that, that evil, the shorter catechism asks the question, how does

God execute his decrees by the works of creation and province, by making things and by providing things?

So he makes the world and the world becomes corrupted by sin. So he provides a remedy.

He provides Christ piece by piece, layer by layer through thousands of years of history pointing to a coming redeemer.

And he brings that redeemer and that redeemer dies on a cross and points us to the way to be saved, the way by which things will be made right and beckons the sinner to come.

It's beautiful. I'll take that one step further, not just as he, the redeemer, but also we see in Christ and his teachings and in his, obviously through his word, because he is the divine author of scripture, we see how that summation of all things will happen.

We, you know, not everybody that is on our program, I don't think it's possible, and I don't think anybody would interact with us is that we don't require that.

We don't besmirch anybody that's not. But I happen to be, and I believe that same gradual nature of time to the redeemer is in the same way.

It'll take a long, gradual time, but there'll come a point where it blossoms and it'll fill the whole earth with the knowledge of God.

And, you know, Tyler really nails that in a sense that I usually use the term permissive decree when

I'm talking about what he allows. You know, he permits for these things to occur because it's part of his decree.

And Tyler's right. You know, there was a sense in which Adam and Eve were tested that we can't be tested because we already are born with a sin nature.

We already were born in an unregenerate state, whereas Adam and Eve clearly had a choice.

And so it's really difficult because we can't experience that same type of whatever it was they were.

And so, you know, the whole objection that somehow the Calvinist God believes

God is the author of sin, I don't want to be unkind towards anyone that thinks that out that may be watching this.

But if you deal with enough people that say that, it honestly is just a lazy misrepresentation of what we're actually saying, because Tyler handled that correctly.

And so. I always try to liken it to this, and you have to tread carefully here because it's not apples to apples, but to try to help people understand this, if you were to write a book, a fiction book, you would determine the setting, the place, the characters, what the characters would do, how it would pan out the end, beginning, middle, and end.

It's all up to you. It's your world. In some sense, it's similar in that God's decree determined,

I'm going to create a world. I'm going to have these humans created. I'm going to redeem these people to myself and all these things that go on.

But there is also a vast distinction between what God has done and what we would do if we were to write a book. So you have to be kind of careful, just like I am.

There is no analogy for the Trinity. Just stop with the analogies of Trinity. There are none. So in this sense, in a way,

I'm almost as adamant that you almost can't have a human analogy for God's decree.

But it's the best way I've come to understand it. It's God's story. He doesn't, as Tyler said, he does not have to come and counsel with us to get our permission to do anything.

And I think a lot of people think they're, quote unquote, letting God off the hook when they talk about free will because they'll say, well, you know, weren't

God's fault. It was so and so didn't choose. I'm like, well, the final arbiter of your faith is

Christ, not you. Yeah, that's right. And if I try to quote this pastor,

I totally forget his wording and what he said, I would butcher it. But the concept

I want to share with you, if you're trying to understand and think about the bigness of God and how big he is in this conversation of how can how can

God do this and also man do this, you know, you have that conversation.

If you want to know the bigness of God, he's so big that both can happen in his decree and in his plan.

God is so big that Proverbs 69 is true. The mind of the mind of man plans his way, but the

Lord directs his step. So God is big enough that both can be true. It is true.

The way I always put it is you say it very simply like this. It is true that God has his decree and that God's purposes will be carried out in this world exactly as he wanted it to, based off the counsel of his own will.

It's also true that man clearly makes choices based on his will in concert and inconsistency with his nature.

So that's why at the essence of man to be regenerated and to be made a child of light and be adopted into the family of God, you have to have your nature changed and be given one that is alive in Christ because otherwise you love your sin, you pursue your sin, and you will die in your sin as a rebel enemy of God.

There are no neutral worldviews. You are either a slave of sin or you're a slave of Christ. And I obviously believe that regeneration precedes faith, that no one will repent of their sin and place their faith in Christ without first being made alive in Christ.

Pre -salvation and post -salvation, I'm still making choices consistent with my nature and with my desires and with my will.

And the difference is pre -salvation, I'm a slave of sin that will only choose those things consistent with that nature.

After salvation, I've been given new desires. I've been given a new heart and a new will. And so while we make choices, it is not true that we make choices with the same level of autonomy that God does.

God is the only being in existence that has a truly free autonomous will. Matt, did you have any last thoughts?

Yeah, I was going to say as far as I'm thinking about God's will, I think most of a lot of my theological knowledge that I've got over the years come from R .C.

Sproul, but he lays this out great. He talks about the, I guess if you want to say the different types of God's will.

We can look at his, as we kind of talked about a little bit, his decreative will, or also we could call it his sovereign will.

It's these things that from eternity past, he has decreed, he is sovereignly put in place.

These things will take place according to his will, no matter what.

No man will thwart these decrees. They will come to pass.

We can also see what's referred to as God's preceptive will. We can look at the

Ten Commandments. He's given us these rules. It's his will that we would follow these rules or these other rules that he's laid out, but obviously we don't always follow these rules.

So in a sense, we are resisting God's will in this area.

He permits that. If he didn't permit it, then we wouldn't be able to do it.

I think that's where a lot of people, kind of as Andy was touching on, fall into this trap of, hey, we see it every day that we do have the ability to go against God's will.

So therefore, God can't have this irresistible call that the

Calvinists, that the Calvinists of reform talk about, because man in his free will has the choice to resist

God. And we see that take place every day. So I think we have to separate, in a sense, the types of will that God has and to gain a better understanding of other subjects, such as Andy said, as soteriology and other things.

But for those things that God has sovereignly decreed, no man is going to stop that.

But in his purposes and in his plan, there are things that he does permit us to go against what he would desire for us as well.

Well, we are over an hour, and I think the Lord blessed us tonight.

And he blessed me by what you guys have shared. And so I'm very grateful.

I'm very appreciative for what you guys have shared. And so here's the announcement about the podcast.

We are going to take an extended break. The Laborers Podcast is going to take an extended break. This is our last live show of the year.

I'm going to do my best to try to replay on Thursday nights until we come back shows that we've done in the past.

So we pray and hope that you all and each of us have a very blessed

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, that you're safe, that you are seeking to glorify

God in your family gatherings, in your services, and in your life, and that you will just be more and more enriched in the

Word of God and applying it to your life and to your family, and that God just becomes more glorious to you over this time, this holiday season.

So we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and all that good stuff.

While you are during this holiday season, as busy as it is,

I want to remind you, and you guys help me remember everybody, go to Bread of the

Word Podcast, listen to Tyler, watch Tyler. Go to By His Grace and listen and watch

Andy. Matt, I don't know if you want to advertise for your church, the sermons that are online.

I know Matt was a part and is a part associated with Claude and the

Here I Stand Theology Podcast. So we want you to go visit the Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

Matt, anybody you want to recommend church sermons? I would love for people to check out my home church.

It's First Baptist Powell, our lead teaching elder. Don't think he would mind me mentioning his name.

His name is Perry Garrett, excellent expositional preacher. A few weeks ago, we just finished up about a year -long series.

Going verse -by -verse through Deuteronomy. Last couple of weeks, he's kind of done a little topical series on the marks of a true church.

And I think as we finish up that in the next week or two, he's going to begin preaching through the book of Acts.

So I'm looking forward to that. But First Baptist Powell, Powell, Tennessee.

I'm going to check that out on Facebook. There's links to the website as well. I think excellent messages there.

Absolutely. If you go, we have the new website, TruthAndLoveNetwork .com. What you need to understand, there's navigation where you can find these things, but I have everything on the homepage as well.

If you go about three -fourths of the way down the homepage, you'll see two sections. One for special series, and there will be more coming as I'm able to get them on there.

But there's already a pretty good range of special series there. You can go back and rewatch. And also there's a section there for network ministries.

These are for all the existing ministries within our network family. And I don't have everything up there that I want to yet, but there is a good representation there already where you can find things from conversations with the

Calvinist, Keith Foskey, you can find Claude's stuff here. I stay at Theology Podcast, Tyler's, myself. And as our brothers send me information and links and things for their stuff,

I'm getting it up there as fast as I can. So there's plenty of stuff on the website already for you to utilize and use.

That's right. I would also mention, I don't know if he's sent you any stuff for the website, but if you're looking for sermons specifically, check out

Claude at Reformata Baptist Church on Facebook. He puts his sermons on there every week.

So another good thing to listen to there with Brother Claude.

Yeah. Claude with Here I Stand Theology Podcast. He's a pastor at Reformata Baptist Church. Check out his sermons.

We don't want to forget Jesse, the Chicano Knox and Bible Theory Podcast. Check those guys out.

A guy that's not been on here in a long time that I want all you guys to meet is

Deontay. He's in our chat group, and I hope you guys can meet him one day. But he lives in California, Rio Linda.

And so the time frame just doesn't work out too well for him. But he is a pastor in New Beginnings there.

His sermons are online. I try to share them as often as I can. But check out Deontay if you're in California, in that area,

New Beginnings. I need to get his information so I can get him up there on the site. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And hopefully, we were talking about this before the podcast started. We want to get some gospel presentations on the website as well.

Maybe all of us do an individual gospel presentation. Great idea. On the website.

So yes, please check out our website. And we pray that it will be edifying and helpful to you.

And we hope that you'll enjoy it so much that you'll share it. I think that's it.

So Tyler, if you don't mind, would you share the gospel? And when he finishes, Matt, would you pray for us tonight?

Yes, sir. I'm going to speak from 1

Peter chapter 2 to answer that question for us as soon as I find it.

So we've been talking about the character of God, the nature of God, the preexistence of God. And one of the beautiful things about the existence of God is that he's always been, always will be.

But at the right time, he revealed himself to the world in the form of a human being.

It says that the Word became flesh, that God himself took on flesh and became a human being.

He didn't set aside being God, but he added being human to that mix.

And he lived a life that you and I couldn't live because of sin.

Because we've all, none of us are perfect. Ever since Adam and Eve, we have missed the mark.

We have missed the point. I'm sorry. And it says in 1

Peter chapter 2 that when this guy, when God became flesh, when he was insulted, he didn't retaliate with insults.

When he suffered, he didn't threaten, but he handed them over to him who judges justly, that he handed himself over to God, the righteous judge.

Not because he'd done anything wrong, but because Jesus set himself in our place to do what we couldn't, to make things right in a way that we couldn't.

And it says that he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. So that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

That Jesus Christ, God the son, came down, lived the perfect life, fulfilled the whole law, lived the perfect life that you and I couldn't live.

And he died in the place of sinners intentionally. Not because he was a sinner, but he died, he offered himself in our place as a ransom.

And he rose from the dead, having paid that penalty in full.

And he now beckons all of us to come unto him, to repent and believe that he is

Lord, and that he has accomplished all that is necessary to be reconciled to the God who created us.

Thank you, Tyler. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you again for this time to come together tonight.

And what better topic to discuss than the doctrine of God, the doctrine of you.

We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us through your word, through your creation as well, but specifically in your word.

And although we cannot fully comprehend you, that you have revealed to us what you want us to know about you.

And I just pray that we would continue to, as a group and as those that are watching and listening, that we would be driven to your word to study, to learn more about you.

And as all of our discussions we've had and all the studies that we do, that ultimately what that would do would lead us to love you more, to desire to serve you more, to share more about you, dear

Lord, to a lost and dying world. Again, we thank you for who you are. Just the few attributes that we discussed tonight, we thank you just for how perfect you are, dear

God, that you are a holy and righteous God. And again, that you have revealed yourself to us and done so much for us, as Tyler just described in the presentation of the gospel that we don't deserve.

So we thank you again for this time tonight. We thank you for this group of brothers.

We thank you for those who watch and listen, dear Lord. And as Robert said, in this time that we have coming up, taking a break, just pray that you would use that time in each of our lives just to, again, continue to focus on you, but also may you just give us some times of rest as well, dear

Lord, just to pause from the busyness of life and just reflect on your goodness, dear

Lord. And it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching.

We really appreciate it. And we hope that you will come back and rejoin us again after the new year.

Have a good evening and we hope to see you soon. Jesus is

King. Live in the victory of Christ. Speak with the authority of Christ. And go share the gospel of Christ.