The Trinity (Part 3 of 3): The Trinity is Relevant

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The Trinity (Part 3 of 3): The Trinity is Relevant Pastor Jeff Kliewer May 29, 2016

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Apologetics Session 8 - The Bible - Part 4

Apologetics Session 8 - The Bible - Part 4

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Hello and greetings. Unfortunately, we had a technological glitch on Sunday and we have lost the sermon that I preached on the relevance of the
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Trinity. Now, I say unfortunately, but I don't really mean that because I believe in providence and I think it was providential that we lost that particular message.
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Not because it was that bad, but because I think it was kind of a meteor sermon.
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It was one that requires a little bit more time to think about. And so, I think the reason for losing it was that I would then make a video that goes over the material a second time and allows us to process it a little better.
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And also for those who missed the sermon, you can get the material for the first time. But for those of us who've been through this material one time, let me go through it again using different words.
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And hopefully, be able to explain the main ideas in a different way that will help us process it even better than the first time through.
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So, for those of you who are really into the Trinity, that's a good thing. And for those of you who want to go deeper into the
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Word of God and truly grasp what the teaching is and come to terms with it, it's worth the investment of time.
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So, we began last week, and I will read this quote. I won't use all the same analogies, and I won't spend as much time on each point.
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But to review the material, I want to begin with this quote from Melito of Sardis and remind you that Melito was a second century
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Christian living in Turkey prior to when
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Tertullian, living in Africa, had coined the term Trinity. You know, many groups will say that the
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Trinity is an invention of man, and Tertullian made up the term, and Nicaea was the inventor of the doctrine.
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Truth be known, the Bible teaches the Trinity in unmistakable terms. And Melito, in the second century, was sounding forth a
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Trinitarian trumpet. He was preaching the Trinity even without the term.
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The concept was there in what he said. So, I'm going to read that to you. It goes like this.
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He wrote this probably around the year 170
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A .D., and he wrote about Christ. And so, he was lifted up upon a tree, and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed.
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Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling.
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But listen, as you tremble before him, on whose account the earth trembled. He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
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He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place. He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
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The sovereign is insulted. God is murdered. The king of Israel is destroyed by an
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Israelite hand. This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and for mankind in the beginning.
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The one proclaimed by the law and the prophets. The one enfleshed in a virgin. The one hanged on a tree.
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The one buried in the earth. The one raised from the dead, and who went up into the heights of heaven. The one sitting at the right hand of the father.
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The one having all authority to judge and save. Through whom the father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
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This one is the alpha and the omega. This one is the beginning and the end. The beginning indescribable, and the end incomprehensible.
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This one is the Christ. This one is the king. This one is Jesus. This one is the leader.
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This one is the lord. This one is the one who rose from the dead. This one is the one sitting on the right hand of the father.
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He bears the father and is born by the father. To him be the glory and the power forever.
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Amen. There is no way to understand the words of Melito of Sardis without acknowledging that he has a trinitarian view of God.
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That God exists as father, but also as son, and that the son is fully divine.
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There's really two elements that need to be preserved when preaching the trinity.
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Number one is that there is distinction between the persons of God. So the father is not the son, is not the spirit.
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Each person is distinct from the other. Think about John chapter 1 verse 1.
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In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. That's distinction.
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But secondly, there needs to be a unity of essence, and the word was
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God. Here Melito says that God is murdered, referring to Jesus.
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The king of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand. He's the king. He's called the lord. He's the
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Christ. Born of the father, bears the father. To him be the glory and the power forever.
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So there's one who deserves glory, power, dominion, and rule, and that is God. To God alone be the glory.
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Jesus is here presented as God. There's a distinction from the father, but there's equality in essence or being.
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That in truth, there is only one God. So this doctrine of the trinity that we preach, and that was preached from the beginning, it was revealed to us.
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How was it revealed? Well, we talked about that in earlier sermons, and we won't go into that in detail now, but to say that the scriptures clearly teach the trinity.
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Matthew 28 verse 19, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
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That's a revelation of the trinity, but it assumes the trinity. It doesn't unpack it or explain the doctrine or how the persons and the being are different in that sense.
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It doesn't unpack the doctrine, but it assumes it. So where was the trinity revealed? In historical time, when
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Jesus came, when he was born to the virgin, but declared the son of God by an angel.
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So he's fully human, fully man. When he was baptized, and there the trinity is revealed in that, that holy spirit comes in the form of a dove.
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The father speaks, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased, and the son is present there being identified as the son of the living
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God. In his teachings about himself, I am who I am. Before Abraham was born, I am.
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He claims deity for himself, and yet distinction from his father. And then in John 14, claims that there's coming a holy spirit who is yet another counselor, another helper.
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And so the third member of the trinity is introduced in the teaching of Jesus. And then finally, in the, the act of the holy spirit coming upon the disciples in Acts chapter two, the day of Pentecost, the trinity then could be said to be fully revealed because the third person of the trinity has come.
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He's called God in Acts chapter five. To Ananias and Sapphira, you lied to God.
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You lied to the holy spirit. A plus, A equals B, B equals C, A equals
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C. The holy spirit equals God in Acts chapter five. Point being, the trinity is revealed in the scriptures.
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Okay. Now what does this mean to us? Is this just something that we need to know? Is this a stale academic doctrine?
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No, it's relevant to all areas of our Christian lives. And really there are 10 points of relevance that we need to talk about.
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And each one very briefly. Number one, the trinity is the simplest handle for grasping the
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Christian faith. It's the meaning of our faith encapsulated in a word.
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Trinity, what Tertullian coined, father, son, and holy spirit. The name
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Jehovah was known to the Israelites as the one true God. Deuteronomy 6, 4 was repeated in their homes every day, was written on their walls.
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There is no God, but Jehovah. How does it say?
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Behold, O Israel, the Lord, our God is one God, the
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Shema of Israel. Well, this Lord, our God, Jehovah Elohim is one
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Jehovah. Jesus, when commissioning his disciples says in Matthew 28, 19, baptize them in the name of, and now whatever follows that of needs to be the one true
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God baptized in this name. It's unthinkable to say that you'd be baptizing in the name of God and his angel,
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Michael. No God, unless you're going to replace the God of Israel with a strange deity and read
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Isaiah chapter 40 through 48, the trial of false gods to rule out the possibility that another
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God could be inserted in this place. No, it's not possible.
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Matthew 28, verse 19 says, father, son, holy spirit.
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The name of God now is identified and that must be the same God of the old Testament. And so he then has given us a simple handle for grasping what the
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Trinity is. B .B. Warfield says, this is the distinguishing characteristic of Christians.
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And that is as much to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is according to our Lord's own apprehension of it, the distinctive mark of the religion, which he founded.
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Christianity is distinctively Trinitarian of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, the
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Trinity that is what makes Christianity what it is.
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It's the distinguishing mark. So that's the handle that we have. Who are we?
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What is it that Christians believe? We believe the Trinity. It's the easiest and simplest way to express our faith.
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Number two, this then becomes the dividing line with false religion.
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False religion denies the Trinity. So Muslims make up 20 % of the world's population.
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In Surah chapter 4, 171, it says, say not
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Trinity, desist, it will go better for you. Thus says
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Muhammad. In the fourth Surah, verse 159, it says, it is supposed that they crucified
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Jesus, but really they crucified him not. It only appeared that way, but of a surety, he was not killed.
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So that's the teaching of Muhammad, that there is no Trinity, that Jesus was never crucified.
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Therein is a dividing line. We cannot say that Islam is yet another path to the same
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God. Our God exists as Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That is his revealed essence.
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You see, we couldn't just know this by looking out. I'm looking out at the stars, you know, not stars, it's daytime, looking out at the trees and the clouds.
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And I couldn't just look out here at the world around me and say, God exists as Trinity.
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General revelation is not enough to bring me to that knowledge. But God has spoken, he's given his word.
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And that special revelation, which is his word, it's foolishness to the world, but it is the power of God to us who believe.
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God has revealed himself to be Trinity. And those who reject that revelation are rejecting not only the
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Son, who's revealed to be the Son of God, but also the Father as well. This is the dividing line.
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Those who believe in the Trinity, who accept the Trinity, are following the true
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God. Those who follow a different God than the Trinity are following a false
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God who is not the true God who made all things. Because God does exist as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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He's revealed himself that way. That's who he is. So Jehovah's Witnesses say that Jesus is an archangel.
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He's the Archangel Michael, a created being that God made to be a sacrifice. Mormons say that Jesus is the descendant of Elohim, the
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Father. But Elohim himself had a father and a mother. And each of those deities had a father and a mother, and each of those a father and mother.
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So that there's an endless progression, or who knows how far this progression goes back, this regression goes back, or how far the progression continues to go as we are
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Elohim's offspring just like Jesus. He's kind of our older brother. We then can exalt and become gods, and the process goes on and on.
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That's a different God. There's a dividing line between Mormons and Christians, which is, it's clear.
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It's a line in the sand that either you believe the Trinity or you reject the Trinity. It's not intolerant to say that, by the way.
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This is the revelation of the true God in his Word, and wisdom begins with the fear of the
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Lord. Those who fear the Lord accept his teaching. Those who don't fear the
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Lord can invent their own teaching, or say that whatever anybody's teaching is is equally valid or good for them.
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But wisdom accepts the teaching of the Lord, and it divides.
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This message of the Trinity isn't in this sense divisive. Those who believe in the
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Trinity are following the true God. Those who reject the Trinity are rejecting the true
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God by definition. It's important for us, therefore, to understand the gravity of this issue.
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It's very relevant. Eternity hangs in the balance. The Trinity matters.
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Number three, the Trinity is the knowledge needed for true worship. The Father desires those who will worship in spirit and in truth.
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James White rightly points out, our desire must be to grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
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Growth requires this grace and knowledge, and we must always remember that Jesus taught that eternal life was the possession of those who know the true
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God. Knowledge does not save. That's the era of Gnosticism. But true worship does not exist without knowledge.
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So worship involves loving God with our heart, soul, but also our mind and all of our strength.
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John 4 .24 is a reference for that. So worship requires knowledge of the
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Trinity to come to Him according to who He is and bow before the true
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God rather than an idol fashioned by our own mind. Number four, the
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Trinity is the key to deep and stable relationship with God, one of trust, devotion, and joy.
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We talked about this in the second sermon in the series about how relating to God requires knowing
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Him as He's revealed Himself to be. If you really want a relationship with God, you have to know Him as your Father in order to trust
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Him, to be devoted to Him wholeheartedly. We need to see Him as the Son of God and see
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His crosswork on our behalf, which inspires our devotion, sets our eyes on Christ in order that we would remain devoted.
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And then to live this Christian life and to have the fruit of the Spirit requires knowing the Holy Spirit. To be spiritual means to be filled with the
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Holy Spirit that He would control us. Our relationship depends on our Trinitarian view of God.
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It's how we relate to God. Moreover, in the Upper Room Discourse, John 14 -16, this was the last time that Jesus had an extended period of time to teach the disciples.
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And we have these three amazing chapters, really the fourth chapter as well, His prayer, His high priestly prayer in John 17.
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But what does He give them prior to their great trial? When the disciples, their world is about to be rocked, their
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Messiah is about to be cut off, according to the Daniel 9, 24 -27 prophecy, cut off from them.
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They're going to be scattered like sheep. What's that foundation that will hold them? It was
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Trinitarianism. John 14 -16 is the clearest revelation of the
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Trinity. That's why one week in our study, we just read John 14. The Father, the
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Son, the Holy Spirit. This was the rock on which they could stand when everything around them was being shaken.
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And that's true of us too. When our world is shaking, how do we remain in a deep and stable relationship with God?
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It's to know Him as the Triune God who never changes. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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It builds our relationship with Him to understand Him as Trinity. Fifthly, prayer.
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We come to God in a Trinitarian fashion. We pray to the
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Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. We need to be Trinitarian in how we pray.
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Also, as we think about the love of our Father, to whom we go in prayer.
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We go to our Father in prayer. We recognize that this is the Father who gave
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His one and only Son. And if He would freely give us His own Son, how will
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He not also give us all things? And so, a Trinitarian prayer warrior goes to the
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Father with an expectation of answers to prayer. Not a passive acquiescence to some providence which is beyond us.
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Providence is beyond us, but we live in the here and now. And as we understand our world and we encounter our world, we go to a
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Heavenly Father who loves us so much that He gave His one and only Son. How will He not also give us all things?
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So we come praying in the name of the Son, believing that our Father will give us whatever we ask for in prayer.
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So a Trinitarian prayer is one that trusts the Father, goes through the Son with an expectation, as the
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Holy Spirit works in us and gives us faith that we can lay the hands on the sick and they will be made well.
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That we can pray for miracles and God can part the skies and open up a storm or move a mountain.
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We pray as Trinitarians with expectation. It's an important aspect of believing in the
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Trinity. Sixth, the Trinity is the basis of our love and unity amidst diversity.
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We live in a diverse world, especially after the division of humanity at the Tower of Babel, so that there's different races and languages and people groups.
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But that is a beautiful mosaic in the mind of God. God has always existed as Trinity.
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Diversity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three diverse persons and yet in perfect unity, such that the love that is the essence of God is between three persons that eternally existed, so that God could be love.
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We talked about in a previous sermon that love is only possible in terms of it being the essence of who
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God is. God is love. If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally existing persons, if it was a monotheistic,
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Unitarian view of God, who is there for God to love? But in a
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Trinitarian view, Father has always loved the Son, always loved the Spirit. There was a perfect unity amidst that diversity and love is the essence of who
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God is. In the same way, we in the church can love despite our differences.
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The Trinity inspires love and unity in the midst of diversity and that can be socioeconomic, that can be racial, that can be all different ways that we are divided as a humanity and especially a new humanity in Christ as Christ is the new
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Adam, the second Adam, the last Adam. This new humanity is diverse and yet our characteristic as Christians, they shall know us by our love.
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So we should pursue unity even amidst diversity and value diversity in our unity.
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So that's an important teaching. Ephesians 4, 4 -6 talks about this, that there's really only one
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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father over all through all. This picture of unity, but it's there the tearing down of the dividing line,
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Ephesians 2, between Jew and Gentile who are culturally and ethnically different and yet unified in the one true
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God. So we in the same way as a church can find unity amidst diversity. Now the last four points get into a theological issue.
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The Trinity matters for not just how we pray or how we love or all the practical aspects of what we do, but also how we think about God and it matters for how we think about His saving work on our behalf.
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I believe that the Trinity clearly leads us to a definite view of the atonement, that Christ particularly died for the elect.
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Use Augustine's words to explain it. Augustine says in his book
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On the Trinity, he says, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so the works of the
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Trinity in the economy of salvation are indivisible. What do
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I mean by that? Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons are indivisible in their essence.
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There is truly only one God. So in their purpose, in their work of saving sinners, they are indivisible.
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The work of the Father, the activity of the Father, the activity of the Son, the activity of the
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Holy Spirit are indivisible. One cannot be pitted against another.
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There is a tradition which stemmed from a teacher who rebelled against what was the teaching of the
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Reformed Church. The Reformed Church, beginning with Luther in 1517, who began to debate the
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Roman Catholic Church, the teaching of this movement was that God elects
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His children and salvation is by grace alone. Not just that grace is necessary.
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Everybody agrees that grace is necessary. In fact, the cults believe that in Roman Catholicism, has always believed that grace is necessary for salvation.
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But the teaching of the Reformation was that grace is sufficient for salvation.
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In the Reformation teaching, Martin Luther began to debate, Erasmus took the Roman Catholic position and argued that the human will is free and autonomous.
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Martin Luther wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will. Erasmus wrote a book in response one to another.
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It was a written debate. Erasmus wrote The Freedom of the Will. And Luther understood something.
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He said that Erasmus, being a better scholar, and he was truly,
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I mean, he translated, he gave us the Textus Receptus, the TR, which formed the basis of the
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King James Version. He was a tremendous scholar. He gave us our first Greek New Testaments as he compiled and did some textual criticism to come up with a
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Greek New Testament based on the manuscript evidence that he had, which was really only five or six manuscripts that he was working off of, including
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Vaticanus. All this to say that Erasmus was a tremendous scholar, but he took the
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Roman Catholic position on salvation and wrote the book
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The Freedom of the Will. Luther argued that grace alone was sufficient to save, and he commended
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Erasmus for understanding what the Reformation was all about, the sufficiency of grace.
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He said to Erasmus, you above anybody else have put your finger on the crucial spot, the hinge upon which everything turns.
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So issues like indulgences and the real presence of the body and blood in communion, transubstantiation, and all those issues were peripheral to the heart of the
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Reformation teaching, which is the sufficiency of grace. Now, of course, we all know that this doctrine came to be associated with John Calvin.
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Why? Because Calvin was the one who led the Reformation forward for a hundred years, from that 1530s period all the way up until the early 1600s when a teacher,
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Jacobus Arminius, rejected what the schools of theology were teaching.
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Jacobus Arminius began to oppose that. He was a professor, he had his role, and he began to oppose it, and then he died, and his followers around the year,
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I think around 1609, issued what was called the Remonstrance. The Remonstrance is a forceful protest.
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They were forcefully protesting the teachings of their own Reformation tradition, and by their tradition they came up with five points which focused on the freedom of the human will, very much in line with Erasmus and other teachers who had similar traditions.
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Their teaching gained some ground, but not much until in 1619 through 1621, right around that time, there were councils called the
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Synod of Dort, where probably the largest ecumenical movement within evangelicalism at the time was the
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Reformation leaders coming together from England. The French weren't allowed to come, they were prohibited, not by the
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Reformers, but by the Roman Catholic Church. So you had a huge ecumenical movement to the
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Synod, and from that came a statement of what we call Tulip, the
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Calvinism of Tulip, but it was a response to the teachings of Jacobus Arminius, the
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Remonstrance, the five points of the forceful protest against the Reformation. These doctrines are total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.
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So you have this Tulip response to the Remonstrance, and these doctrines are nothing other than what the
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Reformers had always taught. It was a reinforcement of the gospel of the
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Reformation, what the Reformers were teaching. Well, as time progressed from 1620 following, there were many other
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Jacobus Arminiuses to come. John Amarat is probably followed more than almost anybody.
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The Amaraldianism that we have in our churches today, the person who holds it may not even know the term, but their tradition is represented by Amaraldianism, hypothetical universalism.
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Even if they don't know that they're following a tradition, they are inheriting a tradition from the
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Second Great Awakening and the Evangelicalism as we have it in America today. But it's a tradition nonetheless.
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And so if somebody says, well, you're a Calvinist, you follow John Calvin, I follow the
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Bible. Well, you have a tradition too. You just don't know what your tradition is.
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So don't accuse me of following John Calvin because if that were the case, you would think I probably would have read
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John Calvin at some point, which I would love to do. And I haven't done, but I would be honored to spend some time because I don't have the time right now.
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I'd love to read Institutes of the Christian Religion. I haven't done it yet. But I'm not a follower of John Calvin.
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I'm a follower of the scriptures and I came to reform doctrines, not by following a man, although I'm aware of how the traditions around us influence us.
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I came to Calvinism by reading the scriptures. For me, it was when
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I wrote a book on Romans. I wrote a commentary to help people understand the book of Romans. When I got to the ninth chapter,
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I realized that some of what I was interpreting there was tradition and not the clear exposition of the text.
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So Romans nine led me to Calvinism, if you will.
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It wasn't Calvin. In fact, Calvin was only an interpreter of the Bible.
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And Augustine, a thousand years before him, was saying the exact same things as he was systematizing what the text has to say.
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Spending a lot of time on this, but hey, you can turn the video off anytime you want. I figure, let's go for it.
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Let's talk about limited atonement. What does the Bible say? If this is something that interests you, then dig in, open up your scriptures and see if that's what's being taught.
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Well, I'd like to read a couple of quotes before we open up Ephesians chapter one, you can get your
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Bible and turn there and you can listen to a couple of quotes while you do. What have
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Calvinists said about limited atonement, which I prefer to call definite atonement or particular redemption.
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Jonathan Gibson calls particular redemption, the glorious indivisible
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Trinitarian work of God in Christ. It's glorious because he receives all the glory.
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He is the active one from beginning to end. The father is active in the first moment of salvation.
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The first moment in predestining and elect people to glorify him for all eternity.
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The father is active and receives the glory for that unmerited merciful choice of his.
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That's what it means to be chosen, that God chose us. It doesn't mean that we chose him and God learned that by looking down the corridor of history, but rather that God chose us.
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The son then accomplishes redemption by dying on a cross to atone for the sins of those same elect people that were elected by the father.
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The son dies for those the father elected. The spirit then in real time in our lives,
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I'm dead in my own sin and my rebellion.
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The spirit applies the work of the son, the accomplished redemption to my life and regenerates me, makes me alive together with Christ.
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He applies redemption to me. He becomes a deposit which guarantees my inheritance.
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One day, there's coming a day when Christ returns, when this redemption will be fully consummated.
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The Holy Spirit will remove from me even the ability to sin.
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The sin nature itself will not be with me in heaven. It's not possible that six million years from now,
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I will have been rocking and rolling for six million years, but then in the freedom of my will,
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I will rebel against God and so be lost. No, the spirit has keeping power.
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He has that keeping power even now, guaranteeing my inheritance. He can guarantee it because it's his work.
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He consummates it when he removes my sin nature altogether. And guess what goes away at that point?
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Any ability for me to freely choose to rebel against my
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God, so much for free will, certainly doesn't exist into eternity future.
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But what is it now? Well, we have a creaturely will. We have the ability to make choices now, and these choices are real, but I'm controlled by sin.
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Apart from Christ, I have no ability in and of myself to come to Christ. I need the regenerating work of the
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Holy Spirit to change me on the inside, to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, to resurrect a dead man, that I would come to life and believe in the one that God has sent.
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Because apart from the drawing of the father to the son, as the Holy Spirit draws me to God, I cannot come.
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It's what John 6, 37, John 6, 44, John 6, 65. That's what's taught in John chapter six.
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So this particular redemption is the teaching that there is no discontinuity or disharmony in the
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Trinity. The tradition of the Amaraldian, the hypothetical universalist, the Arminian, the
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Wesleyan, is that God the
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Father has elected only by foreknowing, we're looking down the corridor of history, the
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Son dies universally for all mankind, and pleads with his
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Father equally for all in the same way. Sometimes the Father accepts the pleading of the
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Son, the mediation of the Son, and a person is saved. But other times, the pleading of the
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Son is turned away and fails. There is a disharmony in a hypothetical universalism.
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The mediation of the Son doesn't always work. Some get saved, some don't.
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His intercession on behalf of, let's say, Adolf Hitler, has failed. Jesus died for Adolf Hitler, but behold, that salvation turned out to be weak.
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That redemption turned out to be ineffectual, because the mighty will of Adolf Hitler resisted the grace that Christ was truly and freely offering him in the same way that he truly and freely offers grace to me.
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But there was something different in me, something more humble, perhaps, that caused me to accept grace, whereas a next -door neighbor rejects grace.
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You see, in the hypothetical universalism, where Jesus dies for all in the same way, there is a disharmony in the
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Trinity. There is a failure on the part of the Son to effectually save and accomplish redemption for anyone.
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Someone just, I think it was Lorraine Bettner, who's a
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Calvinist, talked about how this Arminian view is like having a very wide bridge, but it only goes halfway across the stream, only halfway across the stream.
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But the Calvinist view has a narrower bridge, but it makes it all the way across.
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In the Arminian view, the bridge is wide.
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It's offered the same for everybody, but it cannot fully bring anyone to salvation. It would require the building of another half of the bridge on the part of the sinner that he, by his own free will, would exercise faith from someplace inside himself, complete that bridge, and make salvation possible, make salvation happen.
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Christ makes it possible, but it needs to be completed by the sinner.
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In the Calvinist view, Christ accomplishes salvation on our behalf.
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Christ redeems us from the curse of the law. Christ dies and by his blood makes intercession before the
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Father, an intercession that is mighty and powerful and glorious and never fails, so that the intercession of the
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Son is his priestly work, and the work of the priest is to be the sacrifice.
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The priest is the lamb. He lays down his life. His blood is shed on Calvary's tree, and that blood perfectly atones for the sins of those for whom the blood was offered.
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For whom was the blood offered? For whom did Christ die? The great high priest took the sin of a particular people on his shoulders.
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He redeemed a people. He bore their sin. He was a representative substitutionary penal sacrifice, penalty.
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A penalty was born in his body. He, as a representative, substituted for a people.
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Therefore, in the death of Christ, I died, and in the resurrection of Christ, I was raised to life.
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It was an accomplished redemption. In his dying, he died a death that I deserved, and he took a penalty that I deserved.
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Therefore, there is no double jeopardy. I won't pay that penalty at any point.
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If the Arminian view is right, why do people suffer in hell? Jesus died for their sin.
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He died for their unbelief. Why are they in hell suffering a penalty that Christ has already satisfied?
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What is propitiation? It is the turning away of wrath, God's wrath against sin, being satisfied in the cross work of Christ.
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Jesus died on a cross to satisfy that wrath, so none of it remains against his people.
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Jesus bore the sins of the many. Who are the many? The many are the chosen.
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Matthew 26, verse 28. He bore the sins of the many. Isaiah 53 says the same thing about the substitutionary atonement, that Christ paid the penalty of sinners.
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Isaiah 53 talks about the many. So is this particular redemption?
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It is a theological position. See, I'm speaking theologically. I don't want to introduce disharmony between the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Where the Son is interceding but failing, the
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Father is electing but only an ambiguous group, and the
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Spirit is trying to apply redemption and failing because of the almighty, autonomous, free will of man.
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That is a fundamental disharmony in the Trinity. So this teaching is theological.
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It's Trinitarian to say that those whom the Father elects, the
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Son atones for, and the Spirit regenerates and ultimately consummates that redemption by taking away our sin nature and glorifying us.
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That's a golden chain of redemption. Romans chapter 8, got to get there real quick, sorry.
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Romans 8, 28 is a familiar verse, but keep looking at verse 29 and 30.
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This is God active in salvation. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
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Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called.
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And those whom he called, he also justified. So all of the called, who are effectually called in this way, drawn, are justified because he also justifies those whom he calls.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Redemption is
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Trinitarian, and redemption cannot have a disharmony or a disunity in the work of the
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Trinity. Just as Augustine said, in the person of the Trinity, there is no disunity.
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And in the work of the Trinity, he is indivisible as his work is also indivisible.
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You can't have these discontinuities theologically. So that's a theology, especially in this kind of systematic way, is drawing multiple texts to bear on a particular subject.
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So that we're taking the full counsel of God into consideration as we form our thinking on any one given subject.
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For whom did Christ die? You cannot answer that question without understanding the priestly work in the
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Old Testament, as the priest would carry the sins of a particular people before the
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Father, even bearing their names on the ephod. If you read Hebrews to understand how
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Christ has fulfilled that, he is completing a work that is effectual.
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That the high priest in Hebrews is accomplishing redemption for a people.
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He's the great high priest. The sacrifices of Israel were not offered universally for all mankind.
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They were offered particularly. In fact, Jewish people would bring the sacrifice.
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They would lay their hands on the head and impute their sin to the animal who would then carry their sin away.
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It's the scapegoat running off into the desert. Or the sacrifice that is brought by the sinner to atone for the sin of the sinner.
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So all of these theological pieces have to come together to form a theology, if it be biblical theology.
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But are there particular texts that answer this question explicitly? For whom did
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Christ die? I am the good shepherd, says the
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Christ. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
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He lays down his life for his sheep. In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25,
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I think it is, referring to how husbands are to love their wives. We read something about Christ and how
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Christ being the example of that has laid down his life for the church.
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Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, his bride.
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Jesus has laid down his life for his bride, for his church, particularly, definitely atoning for the sin of his bride, for his sheep.
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There are many other passages we could look at. John 17, 19. He doesn't pray for the world.
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He prays for those that the Father has given him out of the world. He intercedes in that way, just as his blood is offered as an intercession, propitiating the wrath of God against a particular people.
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So he prays in John 17, 19. Matthew 26, 28.
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We read Romans 8, 29 to 30. I think the clearest way to understand the the indivisible
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Trinitarian work of God in Christ is from Ephesians chapter 1.
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Verses 3 to 14 are actually only one sentence in the
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Greek, one sentence. In our English translations, it's broken up a little more, but it moves from the work of the
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Father to the work of the Son to the work of the Spirit. We find that it's the
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Father who predestines, the Son who through his blood accomplishes redemption.
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It's the Spirit who applies that redemption, sealing us for the day of redemption, and then ultimately completes that work or consummates redemption when he gives us the inheritance that we're promised.
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There is no opposition of one member of the Trinity to the other, but I'm going to read, and we'll finish here in just a moment,
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I'm going to read Ephesians 1, 3 to 14. I want us to pick up on these four moments of redemption.
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There's redemption predestined, redemption accomplished, redemption applied, and redemption consummated.
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The Father is active in redemption predestined. The Son is active through his blood in accomplishing redemption.
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The Spirit is active in applying that redemption and in consummating that redemption.
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This is the Trinitarian work of God in Christ. Blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
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In love he predestined us, or adoption, as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
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In him we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
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In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised
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Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
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Notice that from the very beginning we are regarded as having been in him, in Christ.
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This idea of union with Christ pervades, I think it's 11 references in that one long
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Greek run -on sentence. 11 references. See, it's a run -on sentence because this is an indivisible work of God in Christ, in Christ.
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We are united with Christ in the electing, in the accomplishing, in the application, and in the consummation of redemption.
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We are in Christ. Got a question for you.
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When Jesus died on the cross, did he save anyone or did he only make men savable?
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A hypothetical universalism. Jesus accomplished redemption on the cross.
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Jesus died for a particular people and he definitely atoned for them.
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Therefore there is no disharmony in the work of the Trinity. God the
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Father, predestined, God the Son accomplished redemption. God the Holy Spirit applies redemption and consummates that redemption for those who are in Christ.
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The sufficiency of grace. This is God's grace from beginning to end. There's no merit on any sinner's part that completes the work or participates in the work in the sense of giving some effort, some humility, something in us that would make us the elect.
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No. Who is the elect? According to chapter one of Ephesians, verse five, it's according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.
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This is grace. His glorious grace and to his praise that he would save any of us.
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All of us who are sinners deserve his wrath, but in his mercy he has rescued us and saved us, a particular people.
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This is the theological implication of the Trinity with regard to the saving work of God in Christ.
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The Trinity is an important doctrine for how we worship, how we pray, how we unite with people who are different from us.
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It's important for when we divide from some who have divided from the doctrine of the
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Trinity. We must divide from those who deny the
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Trinity. Doesn't mean we don't love all people. We do love all people, but we cannot accept as brothers and sisters in Christ those who claim that there is no
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Trinity according to Surah 4 or that Christ was never crucified. The Trinity is this handle that we have, which is the essence of our faith.
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Hold on to it. It's relevant to your entire life, to how you remain stable in the midst of a storm, how you have joy in the midst of difficulty, how you pray, how you worship, how you devote your life to God.
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Everything comes from who God is. We are a dependent being, not independent.
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We're made in the image of God. We need God for satisfaction and completion in this life.