Theology and Apologetics Seminar Part 2

The Ontological Trinity and Christian Theism

I want to tie up some loose ends before plowing on through the subject for today, looking at some of the subjects relevant to salvation. One thing I didn't mention as fully as I wanted to mention it last time around, I talked about Christian theism over and against other forms of theism.

Now I wasn't basically attempting to say that there are not other forms of theism. I mean, you've got Judaism, which is not Christian theism at all, and you've got Islam and things like that. But I am specifically referring to Christian theism, and I also don't think the things that we've said about God being the ultimate ground of being, God being the source of personality, God being completely self-sufficient and things like that, can really be maintained outside of Christian theism because of the importance of the doctrine of the ontological trinity.

That sounds like a nice big word. Ontological trinity.

Now what does that mean?

Well, maybe it would be best to describe that by saying that it's different than, but not completely different than, the economic trinity. Let me explain what those are. The economic trinity is basically how we see that God is tri-personal in how he relates.

To the world.

If you only hold to an economic trinity, you are in danger of being called a Sebelianist or a Modalist, because ontological, onto is the Greek word for being. So when you're reading your books, you run across a word that talks about ontology or ontological issues.

You're talking about issues of being. And so the ontological trinity is basically the idea that God in his being exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The economic trinity is how that relates to the world.

How we see God existing is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now that's why I mean in modalism, the economic trinity, we can understand that. That's sort of what they say. And there are a lot of modern theologians, quote unquote, and I use the term extremely loosely, who hold only to an economic trinity and not to the ontological trinity, the idea that God actually does in his being exist as triune.

The reason I bring this up is I think it is important, and I'm not going to really go into it right now because we've got another topic to cover today, but I'd like to suggest, if that's interesting to you, to do some reading on the importance of the belief in the triune nature of God to Christian apologetics and to this whole subject that we are discussing.

Because when we say that God is personal, and that he is the ground of our personality, and we are not in actuality, if we do not believe in a triune God, we talk about a God who is monistic, only one person, you start running into some real difficulties in explaining the ground of personality and things like that.

Schaefer will talk about it some, as will Van Til, so I just wanted to bring those up because I realized after I got done I hadn't talked about those things. One other thing before we go on with the topic today, if you've thought much about what I said Tuesday, you may have followed the line of reasoning down to the point of what might be called authoritarianism, or the idea that we accept what we believe on the basis of God's word and on absolutely no other authority, which in and of itself is correct.

But that could possibly be construed into saying that we do not utilize reason, for example, to substantiate the validity of God's revelation. I said that we should not try to sit in judgment of God's revelation.

You might take that to mean that, well, that means, that can be taken by a Mormon to mean that you should not attempt to substantiate the validity of the Book of Mormon. Or by a Jehovah's Witness for their revelations from the Watchtower, something like that.

That they are to be accepted on authority, you're to accept them because you're told to accept them and that's it, you're never to examine them, so on and so forth. I want to try to differentiate between the cultic idea of authoritarianism, the idea that you accept what you're told by someone as being it, and you never examine it for logical consistency or anything else.

I want to try to differentiate between that and saying that we do not judge the Word of God, we are judged by the Word of God, and that we base our entire system upon the Word of God and we do not attempt to place the Word of God into the creaturely realm and then stand over it as the autonomous man would do and to judge it in that way.

The Will, Predestination, and Election

I think the main difference has to do with our attitudes. The autonomous man wishes not only to examine the scripture for consistency historically and things like that, which I'm all for, I think that's great, I think that's wonderful and everyone who has done that with a semi-open mind has discovered that the scriptures are indeed exceptionally accurate and so on and so forth, but what the autonomous man wishes to do is to then look at the pronouncements of scripture and attempt to judge what the scripture says about himself by himself.

In other words, the autonomous man will look at the clear scriptural teaching that Jesus Christ is Lord and say, well, I'd like to think about that. I'd like to put that in my system and I'd like to sort of judge that on my own basis.

That is different, completely different than what I'm talking about when I'm saying we examine the Book of Mormon and we find out it's historically a fraud. I mean, if we were to examine the Bible and discover that it was historically a fraud and Jesus never existed and things like that, then we would have no basis upon which to make our pronouncements.

So I think there's a difference between looking at the text of the scripture and looking at the historical things and all that and realizing that, okay, that's fine, when the scripture says this historically happened, we can examine whether it historically happened or not.

There's a big difference between that and the attitude of the autonomous man that looks at scripture and says, I am going to judge the teachings of scripture as they relate to me on my basis rather than the basis laid down by scripture itself.

I see a vast difference between those two things. So since I know most of you, or at least many of you, are involved in counter-cult ministry, that thought may have occurred to you and so I wanted to sort of touch on that and to.

Do that.

Well, like I said, Schaeffer addresses it in The God Who Is There, Beyond Reason, other things like that. Just simply for some stuff, on the Trinity, you all are going to think that I'm just, have gone overboard.

But Calvin's Institutes has an excellent section on the Trinity and the deity of Christ. There's some stuff in there I haven't seen in any modern work relevant to the deity of.

Christ.

Excellent stuff. He strongly identifies Christ as Jehovah and brings up a number of instances of that in the Institutes. Of course, the Institutes are not exactly the biggest sellers these days, which is maybe why there's not as much knowledge of them, but that's excellent as well.

And I have on order a book that I think will really delve into it because I see a reference to it in Defense of the Faith. I have Van Til's A Christian Theory of Knowledge on order and I'm sure that he will go into a good deal of depth on the subject of the ontological trinity, the fact that God exists, his being is triune.

Now one thing that came up last time that I think we need to start with is talking about man's will, the definition of the will. Now I freely admit that I take my understanding of this basically from Jonathan Edwards via people like Dr. Gerstner, Dr. Sproul and others, even though actually I think Jonathan Edwards got it from Calvin and I think it goes all the way back to Paul, but anyways, wherever it came from, I freely admit that what I'm going to say you could pick up by reading Chosen by God or by reading a Predestination Primer by Gerstner or whoever, but the will is obviously a big topic that comes up in the discussions concerning these issues, especially predestination and election, which, may I submit to you, predestination and election is simply the application of what we have already said concerning the sovereignty of God in the universe, simply the application of that to man, that's all it is.

It's not something different and separate and new and stuff like that, it's just simply okay, the Bible says God is sovereign, he's sovereign over nations, he's sovereign over all the rest of this stuff, how is that applied by scripture to the individual person?

How does that happen? And that's really all predestination and election is. I mean, people tend to make it seem like this different thing, you know, that as someone who was here Tuesday night mentioned, causes all sorts of emotional responses from individuals and you bring it up and you try doing it to someone who's never heard of it before and you'll find out exactly what I mean.

And I was like, go away.

So anyways, when we talk about the will, what is free will? Well, that's a good question. Free will. What is the will? Well, without going into a whole lot of complicated discussion on all sorts of technical areas, the will is the medium by which we make choices.

It is our ability as men to make choices, and ladies, of course, I was speaking very generically there. Now, when we say free will, normally what most people think is that we are able to make choices without any outside influence upon what our choices are.

And normally what that is meant to do is to say, God cannot influence my choice. He better not anyway, he's a real step on my toes. That of course is the autonomous man's view. And unfortunately, many other people's view as well, at least from my perspective.

But the question is, is the will something that is never influenced by outside forces or even inside forces? I don't believe it is. We make choices based upon this, or should I say these, desires. The will will never ever choose something that is against the strongest desire of the individual at the time.

Now think with me on that. The will is faced with, sometimes two, sometimes many, different desires that frequently conflict with one another. The choice of the will will be that desire which is strongest at the time of the choice.

And this never changes. You say, well, you mean you never make a choice for a desire that is not the strongest? Yeah, of course not.

You don't.

Let me give you an example. R .C. Sproul gives a humorous example that I've used before, which I think does a good job because it's not quite as threatening as using some spiritual topic. But he talks about his love of ice cream.

And he can't pass a Baskin-Robbins without salivating. He just loves these certain kinds of ice cream. So he has a desire for ice cream. He also has a desire for a slim, trim body. And what his choice will be when he encounters a Baskin-Robbins or an ice cream store in a shopping mall will be dependent upon which of the two desires is the strongest at the time of the encounter.

If he had great difficulty getting into his suit that morning and his desire is very strong to have a slim, trim body, then that will be his strongest desire and he will pass up the ice cream store. If, however, his desire for a slim, trim body isn't all that strong that day and he manages to catch sight of a nice big double scooper in the window, guess what?

He's going to have the ice cream. So his choices depend upon desires. Now Gerstner brings up an example that I think takes it to its extremes and allows us to see this is true. What about the individual who walks up to you with a gun and says, give me your money?

Now you are faced with two desires. You are faced with a desire not to give this creep your money. If all things were equal, you would probably not donate to this man's cause at all. But your other desire is to not have your brain scattered about the surrounding landscape and so you're faced with two desires.

What you will do will depend upon which desire is greater. If your desire to not give this creep money is greater than not having your brain splattered out all over the landscape, you won't give him your money and you'll probably die.

But it was the greater desire at the time. Most of us, however, have the greater desire to live and therefore the choice of our will is to follow the strongest desire at the time. I think it's somewhat important to Christians as well, I think it's part of the reason that we are told to meditate upon God's law, that we are told to be conformed to the image of his son, that we are to read the word and be in it on a daily basis, because the fact that doing so strengthens our desires for Christ and for living the Christian life.

And therefore our choice will more often be, in fact if it's always the strongest desire, will always be to do that which is pleasing and honoring to Christ. But in reality, many times our desires are against Christ and they are more stronger than our desires for Christ and therefore we follow those.

Now, having said all that, free will then, I have no problem maintaining the idea of.

Free will.

I have no problem with that, simply due to the fact that what we're really discussing are desires and there's no one who will, well I won't say that, there's no one who being biblically aware could possibly say that it would be wrong or it would be out of character for God to place desires in our heart.

We look at the scriptures of the pastures last time, it clearly said God has placed this desire in the king's heart. And in fact, since the Bible tells us that the desires of man's heart are evil continually, for us to do any good at all requires God to provide for us the desires to do so.

Now let me also point out the importance of this relevance of sin. The scriptures tell us that man's will has been placed in bondage to evil because of the presence of sin. I mean, for example, in 2 Timothy 2 .26 where it talks about those who are in contradiction to God, who are going against his word, the scripture says, refute them so that God may grant them the gift of repentance and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do his will.

So the sinful man is held captive to the evil desires until being freed by Christ. Now, the result of this can be seen, for example, in Jesus' words in John 6 .44. In John 6 .44 Jesus says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day.

Now, the Greek phrase says, Udunatai, is unable, man is morally unable in the fallen state to choose by his will to accept Christ because he does not have the desire. The sinful flesh's desire to be an enemy of God is the strongest desire that he has.

And therefore his will will always choose against God. This is why Jesus says in John 6 .65, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him or made him able to do so.

Or I heard another interesting translation Tuesday night that says something about unless the Father gives the gift to him. By the gift of the Father, something along those lines, yes. So this ability to come to him is a gift of God and the reason is the presence of sin in man's life.

Now, we can see some of the other results of this and this will sort of lead us into the main topic of discussion this morning. And that is the total depravity of man. We talked last time about the fact that there is none that seeks after God.

We talked about the meaning of being dead in sin. And this puts us in a situation where we can now begin talking about what my soteriological viewpoint is anyways. It may not be yours and that's fine.

I don't mind. You need to understand where I'm coming from and I hope you'll be able to see or if not you'll be able to point out to me why my soteriological viewpoint, my viewpoint on salvation, is drawn from, based upon, and is demanded by my viewpoint on the nature of God.

The sovereignty of God. Now, that is a discussion, briefly, hopefully, but probably won't be, of the infamous, terrible five points of Calvinism. Actually I call myself a six point Calvinist. That's just simply to make me better than all the five point Calvinists, but not really.

I have over here the tulip and you know all about that, but I'm going to change it. I hope you all don't mind. It's not scripture. Srucep. I hope you don't mind that. Srucep. What does Srucep mean? Well, we'll find out here.

I say six points because this absolutely is the foundation of this whole thing.

Sovereignty of God. Must be.

It's not in that over there, but it is the foundation of it and we've already talked about it, so I'm not going to take a lot of time on it. The R is a different way of saying total depravity and that's radical depravity.

Radical depravity, I use that terminology, borrowing it from Sproul again, because the fact that many people, when they hear total depravity here, think that means that man is as bad as man could possibly be, and he's not.

He's not. No man is as bad as he could be, and I think I mentioned last time around that exact point. So radical depravity, I think, points out a little bit better the idea that depravity is radical. It has affected all of man's being.

We've already discussed that, so I don't need to spend a whole lot of time on that. The U is the same as over there, unconditional election. Now this, you will notice something. If you agree with this and this, you're stuck.

I honestly think you're stuck. You may not like the other four, but I think I can logically demonstrate that the other four are absolutely necessary if you believe in the first two. Now I know there are a lot of people, oh yes, I believe in the sovereignty of God.

Oh yes, I believe in the total depravity of man. Oh no, I don't believe in unconditional election. I go, wait a minute, wait a minute, whoa, time out. Aside from the scripture passages that teach this, and I suppose we should look at them.

First.

This is simply the logical conclusion, the only possible conclusion in my mind from those. But before we look at them, I think it might be good to look at some of the passages.

Agreed?

Okay, let's look at some of the passages. Let's just look at the most obvious, Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one, General Electric Power Company, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.

You haven't heard of that before?

Girls eat pie constantly.

Girls eat pie constantly, okay. No, I think it's George eats pie constantly, right? Okay, Ephesians chapter one, verses three through twelve. Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

For he chose us in him, in Christ Jesus, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves, in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to open Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

Now, I've actually heard people tell me that there's no such thing as predestination in the Bible, and I have to wonder if they've lost the book of Ephesians in their canon of scripture, because I noticed the word a couple times there who went by.

Words such as chosen and predestined are rather predominant in Ephesians chapter 1. And note that it says in verse 5, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Now, I realize there are some people who attempt to avoid the whole passage by saying that what he predestined was Jesus Christ, but who would be in Jesus Christ is unknown. It's up to man's will. That's one of the more popular ways of seeing and getting around this passage.

I see numerous problems with that in all the rest of scripture relevant to the nature of God and the nature of man, but I just wanted to throw that out for you so you can know how that is sometimes handled.

Notice verse 11. According to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. Now, that sounds very much to me like it was taken straight out of the Old Testament, because that wouldn't sound very unusual there at all.

It would sound very unusual in a lot of preaching today, but it would not sound very unusual at all in the Old Testament. So this being chosen, verse 11, this predestination is according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.

Very, very important. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. I'm just going to throw a couple of them in here real quick so that we don't have philosophy rather than scripture. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 13.

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the.

Truth.

Therefore, salvation takes place by or through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. That sanctifying work of the Spirit is not the result of our belief. It is the grounds or cause of our belief.

See, there's a big difference there. See, a lot of people say, well, because you believe, the Holy Spirit will sanctify you.

No.

We are saved, we believe, we are chosen through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. It is the Spirit's work that comes first. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 13. Now you say, oh, wait a minute. Now, that's just Pauline theology and Jesus never taught things like that.

Look at Matthew 11, 27. A rather important Christological passage, obviously, but one that has numerous implications in its teaching. In Matthew 11, 27, Jesus says, all things have been committed to me by my Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. That's very important. That's very important. No one knows the Son except the Father.

Now, obviously, that has great importance concerning the deity of Christ. It's a simple reason. How could any creature say, I am such a great being, I am such a massive being that only the Father knows me?

And then how could possibly a creature say, no one knows the Father except the Son? What blasphemy that would be for someone to say, I am the only one who knows completely the being of the Father. Indeed, since the Father's being is infinite, it takes an infinite person to fully know the Father in the way that the Son knew the Father.

And the only way that we can have knowledge of the Father is through the Son, and notice it is not simply, well, we look at Jesus and so we see God. This knowledge, he says, is to those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

So the question we must ask is, has the Son chosen to reveal the Father to all people? Keep that question in mind as we look at some of the other of Jesus' statements. Has God chosen to reveal Himself in this way, in this knowledge, this intimate way, to all people?

And I think we will find that He has not. Matthew chapter 6, numerous passages, excuse me, John chapter 6. Why did I say Matthew? Because I was looking at the page, I guess. Matthew 6 .37, thank you. John 6 .37, we'll get there eventually.

I'll read it. It'll be the right passage. Look at verse 36. Let's start with verse 36. This is rather interesting because this ties right into what I just said. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.

So simply seeing Jesus, I mean the Jews saw Jesus, but obviously that's not what he was talking about. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. All that the Father gives me will come to me.

That's a rather broad statement. Sounds to me a great deal like that is dependent upon God and Jesus can make that statement because salvation is God's work, not man's work. And when God saves somebody, He does it right.

He's sovereign in this situation. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, which of course has a good deal to do with the last point on the discussion, and that is preservation of the saints.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, Jesus said. Look at verse 44 and verse 46. We've already looked at those passages, but just remember them again. He talks about this idea of God's complete role in the bringing of saving faith and regeneration and things like this.

2 Timothy chapter 1. Let's look at just a couple more passages. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. 2 Timothy 1, 8 and 9 says, So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me as a prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace.

Sounds like purpose, sounds like Ephesians chapter 1 again. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. This grace was granted to us, this gift was given to whom? To us. Before the beginning of time, and how was it given to us?

In Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus. Now, think with me a second, but if Jesus is described as the Lamb slain from all eternity, and if scripture says with Paul in Galatians 2 .20, that I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

If we believe in our participation in the death of Jesus Christ, as taught by scripture, then we are going to be forced into the next section of our outline here, in understanding the atonement of Christ, which is the part that most people do not like.

So I'm just warning you ahead of time. These things are intimately connected with one another. At first glance it might seem like it's just a bunch of different concepts all strung together. They are not.

They flow from each other. But I still want to mention that. The last passage to look at is, of course, where else? Romans chapters 8 and 9. Romans, of course, I like to refer to Romans as the gospel according to Paul.

I think it's the fifth gospel. It's put in the wrong part of the New Testament, that's all there is. It is the thought out, systematically presented presentation of the gospel by the leading expositor of Jesus' teachings in the early church, the apostle Paul.

And so he says, beginning in verse 28 of chapter 8,. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. You cannot believe that passage if you do not believe in the full sovereignty of God.

God cannot promise that all things will work to your good if you don't believe that God is sovereign over the actions of this world. It's illogical. You can't do it. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those he predestined he also called, those he called he also justified, those he justified he also glorified. Now, immediate way around predestination. Foreknowledge. This is what I would call the cheap way of getting around, dealing with the difficulties presented by the doctrine of scripture of election and predestination.

Foreknowledge. This is how it was explained to me for years. And it's probably how the way you've heard it explained numerous times too. God, because he has foreknowledge, looked into the future, saw that I would accept him and on that basis elected me.

See any problems with that?

I sure do.

And yet that is undoubtedly amongst our own group. And with the exception of one individual in the room, two individuals in the room, we're all Baptists. That is by far the most common explanation for Baptists, is foreknowledge.

By far. And yet that makes no sense.

First of all, it makes the grounds my believing in God. Not God's election. God's election then becomes based upon my choosing of him. Which makes absolutely no sense when you start thinking about it.

My righteous act of repenting from my sins and accepting Christ becomes the basis of my salvation. Whoa, wait a minute. Got a lot of problems with that. Completely undoes this. Because that makes this to exist before God decides what he's going to do.

So like, you know, God makes man, whoops, made a boo-boo here.

Well, what do I do about this?

No, I'm not sure. Well, a lot of people have that idea of God because they don't have the idea of God as being eternal. Not only that, it completely ignores the meaning of foreknowledge in the New Testament.

Because you see, what I've just been talking about is the idea of God's knowledge of future events. Well, God has knowledge of all events simultaneously as we've already seen. So that really becomes inane.

But the point is, this specific word foreknowledge that's used in the New Testament is not used in that way. Foreknowledge in the New Testament borrows from its Hebrew underpinnings of to know someone.

And it is not just simply an intellectual endeavor of knowing factual data that's yet to occur. Knowledge is intimate. It is personal. It involves choice in the Hebrew mind. For example, how is it described when it says Adam knew Eve?

What does that mean? In the most intimate way. And foreknowledge when used in the New Testament is used in exactly the same way. For example, in Acts 2 .23, Jesus is described as being foreknown by God.

In Romans 8 .29 -30, it is the elect that are described as being foreknown by God. In Romans 11 .2, guess who it is? Israel is described as being foreknown by God. And the other usage, 1 Peter 1 .2, again, the elect.

Now let me just finish the discussion of the idea of election based upon foreknowledge, the idea that God simply looks in the future and sees if we're going to accept him, by pointing out that this very same word is used of Israel in Romans 11 .2.

Think with me for a second. Think with me what we would have to say. God chose Israel because God saw that Israel would accept him? Think about your Old Testament history for just a few seconds. And the inanity of such a statement will strike you very hard.

Israel never accepted him. They were a stiff necked people their entire history and remain that way today. God's choice if Israel was based upon his seeing that they would accept him, when he's sitting up there with his finger writing the laws on the tablets, they're down there worshipping the golden calf, God looks in the future and saw Israel would accept him?

No way. God chose Israel for his own purpose, for his own reason, and it was not based in any way shape or form upon the goodness or lack thereof of the nation of Israel. It had nothing to do with it at all.

At all.

So, when Paul says foreknowledge, those God foreknew, I believe he's simply referring to the eternal choice, the personal choice, God's intimate knowledge of us, as the psalmist said before I was even formed, you knew me, we read Jeremiah 1 when he talked about that, and in Psalms where he talked about that as well.

You knew me. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Then listen to the chain. Those whom he predestined, he also called.

Those he called, he justified. Those he justified, he glorified. There is a whole chain here. Now, I mentioned earlier, something that ties in with this, does God call all people in the sense utilized in Romans chapter 8?

Equally. Well, if you're going to say he does, then you must say that he must also, what? What's the very next one? Justify all people equally. And he must also glorify all people equally. And you have just fallen straight into the trap of universalism.