July 24, 2018 Show with Dr. Stephen J. Wellum on “God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ” (Part 2)

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 24th day of July 2018, and I'm so delighted that we have back as a returning guest

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Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, who earned his PhD at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he is currently the professor of Christian theology at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

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Today we are going to be entering into part two of a topic we began last

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Tuesday on the 17th of July, and that is God the

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Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, which is also the title of a new book by Dr.

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Wellam, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Stephen J. Wellam.

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Chris, wonderful to be back with you again. Oh, it is my pleasure entirely, and I want to give our listeners our email address right away.

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It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question for Dr. Wellam, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Well, first of all, let us give some kind of a recap on the overall view of the book,

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God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ. If you could start off by letting our listeners know or remind them, if they heard this part two of this discussion last week, but what it was that drew you to write this book, even though there are many books, both from centuries past and contemporary, that deal with Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God Incarnate, but you believe that this volume that you have created here, which is quite a lengthy book, quite a thorough approach, and quite a remarkably in -depth book, not remarkable because it was unexpected of you, but just a very remarkable book to definitely spread the word about to the body of Christ.

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But if you could tell us about this book and your overall reason for wanting it to be added to the volumes that we already have.

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Well, yeah, sure. As you said, a lot of good books have been written over the years on the person of the

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Lord Jesus, the nature of the Incarnation. I mean, that's what this book is dealing with, so why another book?

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And the reason simply is that in every generation there has to be a re -articulation, a defense of looking again at the foundational doctrines, and there's no more foundational doctrine than the person and work of the

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Lord Jesus at the heart of the entire Bible and the entire Gospel, that that has to be done over and over again, not making new doctrine, but restating the truth of who the

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Lord Jesus is to the issues of our day and to a new generation, and laying out for the

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Church in a succinct manner biblical foundations and what the

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Church has said and building on that and thinking through the matters and some of the theological wrestlings that we do today in light of the past, and then also taking on some of the challenges within the evangelical world.

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So this book is part of the foundation of evangelical theology, and it's trying to articulate doctrinal truths, in this case the person of Christ, for our generation in light of various issues that we face as the

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Church today in proclaiming Christ and proclaiming the Gospel. So that was the goal involved, and obviously in writing a book like this you depend upon those in the past, but hopefully faithfully articulate the truth for today in our context, in our generation.

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Well you have four major sections in the book. We start with part one, the epistemological warrant for Christology today.

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Part two, the biblical warrant for Christology today, and part three is the ecclesiological warrant for Christology today, and part four is a warranted

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Christology for today. If you could give us a summary of what those four major sections of the book are really all about.

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Yeah, really, the book as a whole is trying to illustrate, you know, how one actually goes about doing theology, drawing theological conclusions for the

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Church today, and in part one, what I was wrestling with there, there's many ways that you could tackle this doctrine.

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You can look at various theologians and just go immediately to the past and so on, but what I wanted to convey in this epistemological warrant for Christology is that what we say about the

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Lord Jesus is grounded in God's revelation of himself, it's grounded in Scripture, so that the debate today that we see in our society, and it's not a new debate, but as you go through the history of the

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Church, there's always been challenges to the faith and there's been those outside Christian conviction, but for the most part, as you go through all the

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Middle Ages and the Reformation and the post -Reformation era, there's been an agreement that Scripture is the basis by which we do theology, and in this case, what we say about the

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Lord Jesus is driven from Scripture. And in the 1600s, starting then, in what we call the

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Enlightenment period, and then morphing into the modern world, even within the

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Church, there was a massive criticism of Scripture and a move away from Scripture, and in that whole part one,

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I'm trying to show where our society is gone, where even in the

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Church, people have tried to not receive the full authority of the Bible, so the grounding that we have to speak anything about the

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Lord Jesus, and this would be true of any area of Christian doctrine, but in this case, it's who the Lord Jesus is, is grounded in Scripture itself.

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The knowledge warrant, that's what we mean by epistemological warrant, the knowledge warrant for saying anything true about Christ is the triune

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God who is there, who has spoken, who has made himself known, and so the conclusions we draw go back to Scripture and a proper reading and interpretation of Scripture.

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So in that section, I'm laying the foundation to Christian theology, Christian doctrine, the person of Christ, founded in Scripture, and a proper, then, putting the whole canon of Scripture together from Genesis to Revelation, that's our basis, that's the grounding by which we then say anything about Jesus, and then in part two, we then lay out, alright, what does the

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Scripture actually say? If we're going to read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, the whole Bible gives us who

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Jesus is, and the whole Bible is necessary to understand the Lord Jesus that shows up in the

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New Testament. He's built on the Old Testament, he's the Son from Eternity, and then the

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Church has reflected on this in part three, so that we lay out the biblical material, but what the Church has said in the

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Confessions and the Statements of Faith are consistent with the

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Scriptural teaching, so there's not a dichotomy or a difference between the

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Chalcedonian Creed that says the Lord Jesus is the Eternal Son, who's fully

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God, now fully man because of the Incarnation, one person, two natures, no, that's consistent with the biblical teaching, and so the

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Church has reflected on these matters, and we are to learn from the Church as the

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Church gets Scripture right, and then part four just applies these matters to current discussions today within the

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Church, within evangelicalism, and then answering standard theological questions about who

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Jesus is, and the nature of the Incarnation, and how we are to think about that. So that's sort of how the book is laid out, trying to show we go back to Scripture, we do so in light of the history of the

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Church, no doubt Scripture's still the final authority, Sola Scriptura in light of the history of the

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Church, and how we put these pieces together to proclaim Christ and Him alone.

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Now unlike what many people might think, there might be many modern evangelicals, or Roman Catholics, or others, who will tune in for a few minutes of a program like this, and they will say, oh this is just a bunch of egghead talk,

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I don't even know if they use that expression anymore, but you know this is a bunch of stuff that is equivalent to counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

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But this is completely wrong, I mean if you are going to worship something or someone, you have to be right about who this deity is that you're worshiping.

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This is not a trivial issue, and these are not trivial issues plural, this is very important things that we're going to be discussing, and that you have in your book here, that people really have to get right.

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I mean I'm not saying that people have to be geniuses or brilliant scholars or theologians in order to to be saved or get to heaven, but there are things that people get wrong about who

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God is, that might seem on the surface of secondary or tertiary importance, but they can really derail someone into an even worse understanding, a more heretical understanding of who

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God is, and basically you could wind up worshiping a false God, couldn't you not? Well that's exactly right,

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I mean any assumption that, you know, what we're talking about is, you know, non -important issues or angels dancing on the head of the pin, and even those questions, right, usually are much deeper and more profound than people realize.

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There is larger, very, very important debates even behind those, but on this issue here, anyone who thinks this is already starting with the assumption that God's Word isn't really that important to study, that what

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God has said about himself and particularly about the Son of God is not of eternal consequence, and of course that's very contrary to Scripture itself.

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God has given us his Word to know him. We are made as his image bearers and creatures to be in relationship to him and to know him, and the most important thing in our life is to love the

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Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then secondarily our neighbor as ourself, and we do that by attending to his revelation, his

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Word, and all that he has said, and when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to get him right from the

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Scriptures. All of these matters we're discussing in terms of the theology of the Incarnation and who

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Christ is is true to the Scriptures, and if you don't think through these areas, which the

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Church has carefully done through the ages, we end up with false Jesuses.

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We end up with Jesuses that aren't the Jesus of the Bible, and why is that serious? If you do not have the

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Jesus of the Bible, you have no Savior. You have no Redeemer. It's very interesting in the history of the

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Church that in every point of false teaching of Jesus, the concern of the

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Church was first to get the Lord Jesus right from Scripture and to leave us with the only

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Redeemer for God's people, and all other aberrations or other false views that veer off eventually rob us of the

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Jesus of the Bible, the glory of Christ, and the kind of salvation the Bible describes. So these are life and death matters, and there's no more significant person in the entire world we can talk about than the person of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, given that he is, as the book title tried to capture, he is the

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Son of God, he's God the Son from eternity, who has become incarnate. So all these matters have to be carefully, carefully thought through.

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Salvation depends on them. False views of Jesus lead to contrary views of salvation and contrary views of ultimately who

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God is. Now, if you leave or set aside the cults, as far as mainstream evangelicalism is concerned, are there any major speakers, authors, or televangelists that you believe, or movements or even denominations, that you believe are actually teaching a false

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Christ? I mean, there are many people, including the soundest of Christians, who may have errors in their teaching about Christ, but are there people that you know of or movements that you know of that are within the pale, or considered within the pale, of modern evangelicalism that actually have a false

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Jesus? Yeah, there's, I mean, we're looking at, when we think of evangelicalism, I mean, it can be so, so broad, so you throw in televangelists and this type of thing.

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Well, some of those televangelists, you know, are so far out of any kind of historic, you know, evangelical belief that you have to be very, very careful, right?

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So you have, you know, the Pentecostals, for instance, deny the

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Trinity, of course, with the denial of the Trinity, you have a denial of distinct Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there's what called modalism, so you have, you know, faulty there, and we wouldn't even consider that part of the evangelical world, or at least

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I wouldn't, and some unfortunately would. Within the evangelical world, and by evangelical, we're defining those who, you know, have its history back to the

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Reformation, the Protestant world that, obviously, there's different denominations that have come out of that, but the evangelical world, for the most part, has held, being evangelical, the full authority of Scripture, and some of the early great confessions of the

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Church, particularly the Trinitarian confessions of Nicaea, and the

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Christological, the person of Christ confession of Chalcedon, or sometimes called Chalcedon, in 451, and what happens here is that evangelicals, to be evangelicals, all give lip service to those great confessions, and that, to not do that, would put one either outside of the evangelical world, or a liberal theology, or a cult, or something else, but still, within the evangelical world, even though one confesses, say, in terms of Chalcedon, or the person of Christ, the confession summarized would be, who is

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Jesus? Well, he's God the Son incarnate. He is one person, the second person of the Godhead, who is fully

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God, who is fully man, one person, two natures. That confession is what evangelicals would affirm, but the problem is, as you probe deeper, that confession gets worked out in areas that can get us into trouble, right?

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So, there's where you have to look at the outworking of that. So, for instance, some will, in the evangelical world, so emphasize, they'll say, yes, yes, yes, yes, the

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Son of God is fully God, yet, when the incarnation took place, and what

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I'm describing here is what's called canonic views, or canonic views.

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This comes from Philippians 2, where you have the verb there that the

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Son of God emptied himself, and so some will say, well, the Son of God is fully fully

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God, yet in the incarnation, in adding a human nature, he emptied himself of, and you have some evangelicals will say, well, he emptied himself of certain divine attributes, which

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I would consider a heresy, a false teaching, where they would say that his all -power, his omnipotence, his omniscience, and so on, was set aside either temporarily or permanently.

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This is an old view that comes from the 19th century, but we have some who identify with evangelicalism that affirm that.

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That denies, really, it's very, very difficult to affirm the deity of Christ, so that's really a false view, but we have, more popularly, others who will say, well, no, the

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Son of God, in becoming human, set aside the use of his divine attributes, or some of his divine attributes, particularly his divine power, his divine knowledge, and this is the way they try to reconcile certain accounts of the scriptural teaching that the

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Son of God doesn't know the end, only the Father does. Well, the reason he doesn't know that is he set aside that knowledge in the

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Incarnation. This is called a functional, canonic view, and in my view, you can still say, you know,

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I hold to the Jesus of the Bible, but it's the outworking of the theology that runs into some serious problems, and then we would have to spell out some of those serious problems in terms of the lack of the use of his deity, which is not a biblical concept, even in the cross, you know, the redeemer that's achieving our forgiveness of sins, and so on.

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So there are certain things in the evangelical world that move in false directions that are being taught today, and so there are some dangers in the evangelical world.

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We all would say we hold to the full deity, the full humanity of the Son of God, yet it doesn't always show itself in the practical outworkings,

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I think, in the right way, and so I try to deal with some of those distortions today. And not to leave our

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Catholic friends out of this, I believe that, of course, there are many things about the

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Triune Godhead that our Catholic friends and our Eastern Orthodox friends share with us that are true historically, but at the same time, because of the false gospel, as defined by Trent, that the

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Roman Catholic Church has, for instance, I believe that they teach and proclaim and embrace an insufficient

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Christ. Is that too harsh in your opinion? Well, certainly the outworking of the work of Christ tied to who the

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Lord Jesus is in terms of his person is insufficient, there's no doubt about that. So that, this is a strange occurrence here, and there's a lot of factors that have led to this, but you're right on paper, right?

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I mean, Catholics, you know, what we mean by the Roman Catholic Church would be those who would hold to, you know, consistent

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Catholic doctrines. There's always liberals within the Catholic Church that depart as well. But those who have held to the confessions would say the

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Trinitarian Confession, the person of Christ in terms of fully God, fully man, one person, two natures, we would all have that in common.

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But when it comes to the work of Christ, the sufficiency of that work gets undermined, and what they insert here is the application of Christ's work on the cross, then is done through the mediatorial work of Church, and they would then have a whole view where Christ establishes the

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Church as the extension of the Incarnation on earth, the leaders of the

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Church represent Christ on earth, and they are the ones who are able to dispense grace and apply the work of Christ.

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And what they do is they insert between Christ and the believer, the Church, and this is a serious, serious error.

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This is why the Reformation took place, is that, no, by grace through faith in Christ alone, his work is sufficient, it is enough, and we are directly, by grace through faith, brought into faith union with Christ, and we receive the benefits of his work, not through the means of the

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Church. The Church is the people of God, but we receive God's grace directly in relationship to the

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Redeemer. And so that's a major, major mistake, and behind that, often in Roman Catholic teaching, is that there's a strong emphasis that even though they affirm the full deity of the

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Son, and in the Incarnation they would say the Son of God is, you know, the Lord Jesus is fully

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God, they would say that his work is done uniquely through his humanity, and so there's no sense, or sometimes within Catholic formulation, the strong emphasis that the

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Divine Redeemer is the one who is acting on our behalf, that gets pushed to the side a little bit, and the proper formulation of Christology is that the one who dies on the cross is

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God the Son incarnate. It's the Son of God, who is the Eternal Son.

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The reason why his death is so valuable, and he can pay for all of our sins, is because it's the

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Divine Son of God who acts on our behalf. He's able to do so because he takes on our humanity, but it's the

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Divine Son, it's God who saves us, it's God the Son who acts on our behalf.

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And that emphasis is not as strong in Roman Catholic theology. They would never deny it, but it doesn't show up always in their understanding of the

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Atonement. We have a first -time listener, Jordan from Wake Forest, North Carolina, and Jordan's question is, which model of anthropology best makes sense of the hypostatic union?

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Substance dualism, hylomorphism, materialism, or something else?

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Now, do you want me to answer this, or would you like to get this one? Well, if you want to take a...

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No, I do not, I was just joking! It's a great question, and you know, there is a whole discussion as to how we are best to understand, you know, a human nature.

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And of course that is very important when we speak about the Incarnation, because the

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Son of God from all eternity added to himself the word, the Son became flesh, and flesh we take in John 114 not just simply to refer to taking on a human body, but he took on a full human nature, and of course that raises a great question as to what is a human nature.

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And when we look at Scripture to answer that question, we broadly would say that a human nature involves a material element, or a body, and an immaterial element, and the

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Church has described the immaterial element in a number of ways, but the best way I would say is to speak of it in terms of a soul, or a spirit soul, and those are interchangeable words.

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So I would say that we have a body -soul duality, right? So that we know that these two aspects to us can be distinguished.

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We know that because at death the body is put in the grave, and we continue to exist consciously, and Christians then will be in the presence of the

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Lord. We don't just cease to exist. So that we are a body -soul duality, and then there's the various ways of trying to make sense of that.

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Substance dualism and hylomorphism are just ways of trying to make sense of this body -soul duality.

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We won't get into all that discussion, but we have to affirm that we are truly a body -soul duality.

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That's what a human nature is, and that is what makes sense of the

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Incarnation and what the Son takes to himself. He takes to himself a human nature, a body -soul duality, and even at his death, that body, like our death, is separated from the soul temporarily, but the hypostatic union, the person, is still that which subsists or has to himself a human nature in terms of the soul.

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That human nature never, never is separated from him, and at his resurrection, then there is a body -soul union again, in terms of the glorified resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus. So what we have to affirm here is, I think a substance dualism is probably the best way to go in this, but regardless, we would have to say that the

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Son of God took to himself a human body, a human soul, and that is a human nature, and he has now taken that to himself forever, permanently, and in that human nature he has brought about our salvation.

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He has glorified that human nature, and our glorified human nature will be patterned after his glorified human nature.

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Well, thank you, Jordan, in Wake Forest, North Carolina. In fact, you reminded me that I have to send in my membership fee this month for the

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Hylomorphist Society, but thank you very much, Jordan, and guess what?

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You have won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today, God, the Son Incarnate, The Doctrine of Christ, thanks to our friends at Crossway Publishing, and just make sure that we get your full mailing address there in Wake Forest, North Carolina, so that you can receive the book, cvbbs .com,

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one of our sponsors is going to be shipping that out to you once we get your full mailing address, and by the way, since you're a first -time questioner, you're also going to get a free

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New American Standard Bible, along with the book that we are shipping out to you,

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God, the Son Incarnate, The Doctrine of Christ, by Dr. Stephen J. Wellham. We are going to our first break, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air, you're gonna have to get in line, because we already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Dr.

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Wellham, but if you'd like to get in line, send us an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

29:37

don't go away, God willing, we will be right back, right after these messages, with Dr. Stephen J.

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Wellham. My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist Church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

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Dr. Stephen J. Wellam, professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of the

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Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. We are discussing part two of a discussion that we began last

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Tuesday, that is, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, which is also the title of a new book by Dr.

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Wellam, and if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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Please always give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, if you live outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private.

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We have, I usually don't give full names on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, but since this is a pastor that I know and respect, and I heartily recommend his congregation,

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Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, but Pastor Caleb Bunch has two questions for you, actually,

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Dr. Wellam. He says, I am very excited to read your Christology. I have recently encountered many young people who have been required to read

35:30

Bart Ehrman's books in college. Do you have a recommendation for someone who is not able or willing to read something as scholarly or extensive as your book?

35:41

I am interested in something accessible and accurate to point them to. Yeah, so I do think they could work through the book, and it's necessary for them to ultimately do so.

35:55

Some popular works that are out there, I mean, there's a number of apologetic books that deal with some of Bart Ehrman's materials.

36:03

I know one of my colleagues, Timothy Paul Jones, has written on some of this and deals with some of Ehrman's material.

36:12

It would all be, depends on the issue that you're looking at, right? So there's different aspects that have to be dealt with, so I'm trying to think of a book off the top of my head that would be most useful.

36:24

Eventually they have to get into the issues of apologetics, taking on Ehrman in terms of his entire approach, his rejection of scripture, and so on.

36:37

So Timothy Paul Jones that deals with Ehrman, some of the books, some of the radio shows of James White has taken on James Ehrman, done a good job there.

36:48

Some of the debates could be... You mean Bart Ehrman? Bart Ehrman, yes, and some of those areas could be looked at, would be helpful to young people to watch a debate between James White and Bart Ehrman, and others who have debated that on YouTube.

37:04

That would be a pretty good place to go. Plus, Caleb could work through some of the material of the book and teach them some of these foundational issues that the

37:13

Church has always known through the ages that have to be reaffirmed today. Well, Pastor Caleb has a second question.

37:21

Does your book, God the Son Incarnate, address the question of the transference of sin from generation to generation in regards to the sinless nature of the

37:31

Incarnation? I know there are multiple models theologians have developed ranging from purely genetic transference to exclusively spiritual transference.

37:42

I was simply curious if you had scriptural cause to lean in any particular direction on this very challenging question.

37:50

Well, I don't deal directly with the whole question of what we call original sin, right?

37:56

So, the relationship of Adam's sin to then the rest of the human race, all those who come after.

38:03

That's the whole discussion there of transference and imputation and so on. I assume that the answer to Adam to us would be what is best understood in the

38:17

Reformation and post -Reformation era as Adam acts as our covenant head, what is often known as a federal head.

38:26

He's not just the first man of the human race, but he is acting on our behalf as our representative so that his guilt is imputed to us.

38:38

We are guilty in Adam and there's also a corruption of human nature so that we come into the world both guilty, tied to Adam's representational work, and we also come into the world fallen or corrupted or polluted, different words that describe that.

38:59

And Romans 5 is the crucial text that deals with the imputation of Adam's sin to us as well as Ephesians 2 and other places that describe us as by nature, objects of wrath that we are fallen, that there is a depravity that is total or pervasive within us.

39:19

And then as it comes over then to Christology or the person of Christ, I do have a long discussion on the virgin conception or what we often call the virgin birth, but really it's the conception that is the most significant, and the issue then of the transmission of sin or how is the

39:41

Son of God in the Incarnation sinless? And I do argue that this has been the traditional position of the church.

39:50

I think Scripture teaches that when the Son of God took to himself a human nature that there was the unique agency of the triune

40:04

God, uniquely of the Spirit, who takes from Mary, right?

40:09

So there is no human father, there's a contribution from Mary that's fallen, yet there is then the sanctifying work of the

40:22

Spirit. So in Luke chapter 1 where it's describing the Spirit of God at work, that what is resulting is the

40:32

Holy One, is that there's a unique sanctifying work of the Spirit so that the

40:37

Son of God takes to himself an unfallen human nature, so that he remains not only not acting in sin, but he is sinless, he is unfallen.

40:49

And that is due to then the supernatural agency of the Spirit, as well as the fact that the

40:58

Lord Jesus does not come into the human race exactly the way we do, and this is the significance of the

41:06

Virgin Conception, a supernatural act in and through Mary so that Christ is not in Adam, in the sense of a representational union with Adam the way we are.

41:21

We come into the world in Adam, which means that we are guilty as well as corrupted and polluted and fallen.

41:30

In Christ he is not polluted, the pollution is not passed on due to the work of the

41:37

Spirit of God, and he is not guilty in Adam. He comes outside of the human race, yet unites himself to a human nature that is sanctified so that he is unfallen, he is sinless, and he is able to be our

41:54

Redeemer. So I do discuss at quite a bit of length the Virgin Conception, the importance of the

42:00

Virgin Conception, the relationship of the Virgin Conception to Christ's endlessness.

42:07

Well thank you, Pastor Caleb, and I'm also going to plug your website, redeeminggraceny .com,

42:14

redeeminggraceny .com, and remember there's two G's back -to -back because it's redeeminggraceny .com,

42:23

and because you are also a first -time questioner, Pastor Caleb, please give us your full mailing address, because not only have you won a free copy of Dr.

42:33

Willem's book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, you've also won a free New American Standard Bible.

42:39

So make sure that you get your full mailing address in Massapequa, Long Island to us so that we can ship that book out to you, actually so cvbbs .com

42:47

can ship that book out to you as soon as possible. We have another first -time questioner.

42:57

We have JB in Amarillo, Texas, and JB says,

43:04

Dr. Willem, can you give an understandable summary of the recent eternal subordination social media blow -up and clear up whether or not both sides fall within Orthodox Christianity, and if they are, why there was such a heated debate in the first place?

43:22

If this topic is so terribly important, why had I never heard a single sermon on it in nearly 50 years?

43:29

Was this debate actually Christological, or was it really about complementarianism and egalitarianism?

43:37

That's JB from Amarillo, Texas. I remember this issue was brought up in part one of our discussion last

43:43

Tuesday, but if you want to respond to JB about this? Well, the issue, yeah,

43:50

I certainly will, and it's a large issue, right, because nothing is so simple as anything looks by appearance, right?

44:01

So in the question there was an issue of, well, was this really a

44:07

Christological or Trinitarian debate, or was it more egalitarian and complementarian? Well, unfortunately, both of those things got bound up with each other, and they, in my view, need to be kept distinct, yet I think some, and this is generally speaking, some saw this as an opportunity to deal with the egalitarian and complementarian issue, others dealt with it purely in terms of, let's correct what was perceived as an inaccurate way of understanding how the persons of the

44:41

Godhead are related to one another. So it depends on who you're talking to in the debate and so on, but there are many factors that led to the blow -up a couple of years ago, and, you know, we have spent some time looking at that.

44:57

Now, in terms of debate itself, there is a difference of viewpoint, and this was a legitimate discussion.

45:06

Anytime we deal with these kind of matters, they're not just, again, esoteric or not important, and so on, they do have important ramifications, and I do think that all the parties,

45:21

I mean all, I have to be careful when I say all, but, you know, the main parties in the debate,

45:26

I do consider them brothers and sisters in Christ, that this was an in -house discussion among people who do affirm the doctrine of the

45:37

Trinity and who do have a high view of the Lord Jesus. That was not at stake, but it was really getting at larger discussions, and the larger discussion is, you know, how we understand the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

45:56

How do we define what it is for the Father to be a person and the

46:02

Son to be a person and the Spirit to be a person, and these are crucial, crucial matters that are with us through the whole history of the

46:09

Church and that we have to wrestle with from Scripture. And the classic position, those who went on the attack, are saying that the best way that we understand the persons is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are relations to one another, they share the same divine nature, yet they are distinguished by a person property, that's the language of the

46:37

Church, so the Father has fatherhood, paternity, the Son has sonship, the

46:44

Spirit has spiritship, if you put it that way, and how do we understand those relations? Well, the

46:50

Father is the one who is unoriginated, He is the one who is first in order of relations, not in sharing the divine nature more or having more divine attributes, but He is the one who is first, or who is

47:06

Father. The Son is the one who is eternally from the Father, so He's at the eternal generation, so the

47:14

Son has something the Father does not, namely He is the one who's from the Father, of the Father, and the

47:20

Spirit is of the Father and the Son, and those were the ways of distinguishing, you cannot distinguish the persons by appealing to divine attributes, they share the divine nature equally, they're

47:33

God equal with one another, yet they are distinguished by their person relations.

47:40

That was the classic way, and I think that's the best way of understanding how to distinguish Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there's an ordering between them, yet it's not an ordering of attributes or sharing of the divine nature or so on, they're

47:55

God equal with one another, yet the Father is the one who is Father, the

48:00

Son is from the Father, He is the eternal Son, and the Spirit is from Father and Son.

48:05

Now, the relational view, the eternal relational authorities subordination view or submission view, added something additional to what

48:15

I've said. They then said, no, the way you distinguish the persons is not only the

48:21

Father has fatherhood and the Sonship and the Spirit is from Father and Son, but that the

48:26

Father has the property or the person property of authority, so He has first authority, the

48:35

Son has a kind of derived authority, He has an authority from the

48:42

Father, and the Spirit has then an authority from the Father and the Son, so you have a kind of authority relations or authority hierarchy.

48:53

And they then said, no, this doesn't compromise the full deity of the Son or Spirit, because authority relation, they argued, is just simply the way the persons relate, so they're not denying anything of deity or each of the persons sharing the divine nature, but it was a different way of conceiving of how the persons related.

49:14

And they also maintain that the three persons of the Trinity are co -equal and co -eternal.

49:22

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. So that's why I say we're dealing with a kind of in -house discussion, no one is denying those foundational truths of the full deity of the

49:33

Son, the full deity of the Spirit, and so on, right? But the problem that came is, when we speak of, then, the

49:39

Son having a kind of authority from or derived authority, it's very, very difficult to conceive of authority, at least in my thinking, and I think the classic position of the

49:51

Church, it's very difficult to conceive of authority apart from some kind of divine attribute.

49:59

So when we think of God's authority, why does God have authority? Well, He's the

50:04

Creator, He is the All -Knowing One, He is the One who has all power, He is self -sufficient, and all of it, but now what

50:11

I'm describing is divine attributes. So if you say that the Son has a derived authority, it's almost as if He has less power or less knowledge.

50:22

Now, the people of the ER, you know, the eternal relational view would not go there, so you have to be very, very careful.

50:29

They're not saying any of that, but it would seem like, at least they were charged with leading in that direction, and that's why some were charging them with, you know, semi -Aryan views, and so on.

50:41

I don't think that was fair to them, and I've defended them, yet the way it was put together can lead to a misunderstanding, and I think the way the

50:54

Church has distinguished the persons in terms of the paternity of the

50:59

Father, the generation of the Son, eternal generation of the Son, the eternal procession of the

51:05

Spirit within the divine life, is the best way of distinguishing the persons, and that each of the persons share the same authority, power, knowledge, glory, yet the

51:19

Son exercises that authority from the Father, the Spirit from the

51:25

Father, but it's not as if there's a hierarchy of authority, and so that was the debate. It was a helpful debate, even though it got very loud and, you know, unfortunate things were said, it did help clarify some very, very important aspects of Trinitarian thought, and it also was

51:43

Christology, right? Does the Son have equal authority with the Father and the

51:49

Spirit? And I think the classic position that I would affirm would say, yes, he does, yet he is from the

51:56

Father, eternally generated from the Father, so that there is an ordering, but the ordering is not, in my view, best seen in terms of authority relationships.

52:06

In fact, I want to just pick up with a question of my own in regard to that when we returned.

52:12

By the way, JB in Amarillo, Texas, please give us your full mailing address, because not only have you won a free copy of the book,

52:21

God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, you've also won, since you're a first -time questioner, a free New American Standard Bible, and our friends at CVBBS .com

52:30

will ship out both of them to you, God willing, in the very near future, but we need your full mailing address.

52:36

We're going to our midway break right now. It's the longer the normal break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle so that they can air their own commercials and public service announcements.

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So please be patient during this break. Use this time to write down your own questions for Dr.

52:56

Wellum on God the Son Incarnate, and you can also use this time, and I urge you to use this time also, to please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them more successfully, and the more you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are to continue sponsoring

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Iron Sherpins Iron Radio and helping us remain on the air. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages, and our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist Church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Lending faith, finances, and generosity. That's the Thriving Story. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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01:05:37

Before we return to Dr. Stephen J. Willem on God the Son Incarnate, we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

01:05:44

First of all, don't forget that this Friday, July 27th, Morris Roberts returns to Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:05:51

He is the former editor of Banner of Truth Magazine and an author who has books published with Banner of Truth and other publishing ministries.

01:06:01

We are going to be discussing his booklet Finding Peace with God this Friday, so mark your calendars for that, what

01:06:08

I'm sure will be a fascinating interview. Then, we have a couple of very important and special events that are coming up.

01:06:17

We have from August 2nd through the 4th, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held once again at the

01:06:22

Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine. The speakers at this conference include

01:06:27

Pastor Tim Conway, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, Pastor Jesse Barrington, and Pastor Nate Pikowitz.

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That, again, is from August 2nd through the 4th in Portland, Maine at the

01:06:40

Deering Center Community Church. If you'd like to register for the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

01:06:49

Then, coming up in November, the 9th through the 10th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

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Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

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The theme this year is the Glory of the Cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

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If you'd like to register for the Glory of the Cross Conference, which is the theme of the

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Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, November 9th through the 10th in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, go to alliancenet .org.

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Alliancenet .org, click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:07:29

Then, coming up in January, my favorite of all the conferences that I attend and set up, an exhibitors booth there.

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This will be my third year in a row. I am so looking forward to the G3 Conference, which is being held from Thursday, January 17th to Saturday, January 19th at the

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Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

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They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people there in January. We're also having a special Spanish conference on Wednesday, January 16th, so make sure you tell your

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Spanish -speaking and bilingual friends about that. But the theme of the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory, the theme this

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January is The Mission of God, a Biblical Understanding of Missions. And the speakers include

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Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M.

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Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries, the ministry of John MacArthur, Josh Bice, who is the founder of the

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G3 Conference, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J. Nichols of Reformation Bible College, which is the college founded by R .C.

01:08:44

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more are on that roster. If you'd like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com,

01:08:52

g3conference .com. And while you're at it, if you have a ministry, a church, a parachurch ministry, a business, any kind of an organization that you want to be introduced to that crowd of between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people at the

01:09:07

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01:09:15

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God willing. Our email address, if you have a question for Dr. Stephen J. Willem, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:11:01

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Please, as always, give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

01:11:09

USA. And before the break, as you may remember, Dr.

01:11:14

Willem, we had J .B. in Amarillo, Texas, who was asking about the connection between complementarianism and egalitarianism and how it hinges, it seems, on this whole debate over eternal subordination and other issues involving the

01:11:31

Trinity. For those of our listeners who had some of that go over their heads, am

01:11:38

I correct in summarizing that connection in that those that would be on the side or in favor of eternal subordination of the son, they would say that if you believe in a complementarian understanding of gender roles, that male and female are absolutely equal in the sight of God, and the fact that a woman is to be submissive to her husband and that women are to remain silent in the church in regard to having teaching offices and they are not to have authority over men and so on, since that does not diminish a woman's value or her being in any way in the sight of God, no one should be in any way bent out of shape or in fear of viewing the son as in some way eternally subordinate, and that it is only a function of some kind where it shows submissiveness to the father, but it has nothing to do with him not being equal.

01:12:48

Am I correct in that summary, or am I leaving something up? No, no, you're correct. So that those who have held to this eternal relational authority submission, sometimes it's summarized as E -R -A -S, have made that kind of argument, but it's very, very important to see, and they would also want to say this as well, is that the complementarian discussion is not directly tied to their particular view of how the

01:13:27

Father, Son, and Spirit relate, so that they themselves believe that the

01:13:34

Trinity provides an analogy to illustrate how it is that at the human level you have males and females are equal with one another in dignity and significance and worth, they're both image -bearers, yet there can be role -authority differences, so they'll see the

01:13:57

Trinity as an analogy, but they would be quick to say that the

01:14:02

Scripture teaches a complementarian position of male to female, particularly in the church and in the home in terms of marriage, and if our view of the

01:14:15

Trinity is incorrect, the Scripture still teaches this in terms of the human relationship, so some on the egalitarian side, what they want to do is they want to bind or tie together the complementarian view of male and female with a certain understanding of the relations of the persons in the

01:14:35

Trinity, in authority relations, and thus if they think they can overturn the way that the persons relate in the

01:14:44

Trinity, they've overturned automatically complementarianism, and I think this is a mistake. So that, for instance,

01:14:50

I don't fully agree with the eternal relational authority submission view,

01:14:56

I think there's a better way, the church has found a better way of formulating how Father, Son, and Spirit relate, yet I am fully complementarian, so that there's many complementarians who would not adopt everything of the eternal relational submission view of the

01:15:14

Trinity. So I think we need to keep the two distinct, even though you're exactly right, those who do argue for the

01:15:22

Trinitarian view will often see in the human relationships an analogy.

01:15:27

So we need to treat the Trinitarian discussion and tie to that the person of Christ discussion, we need to separate that from then the complementarian, egalitarian discussions of what does

01:15:44

Scripture teach regarding that, and if there is an analogy, there's an analogy, if there's not, we then have to be very careful of making one.

01:15:52

So we have to carefully think through the issues, sometimes they get all lumped together, and people do that sometimes simply to dismiss views, and instead we have to carefully think through each of them on their own, see what the analogies are, and make sure that we are being fair to Scripture in, first, our whole doctrine of God, our person of Christ, and then in terms of the human relationships,

01:16:20

Scripture's our final authority here, and we just can't eliminate positions of what Scripture's teaching because we say, well, this view's wrong here, thus we'll reject the clear teaching of Scripture on the male -female relationship.

01:16:32

So we have to be careful of that. The two issues often get bound up with one another, but I think one of the conclusions of the debate was that they shouldn't get bound up with one another, and we need to talk about the

01:16:45

Trinitarian relations, the person of Christ, distinctly, and then relate it to what does

01:16:53

Scripture teach about the male -female relationship. And just as you were saying before, there are some on the classical side of this, the classical side of the understanding of the

01:17:05

Trinity, who unfairly make erroneous charges or broad -brushing charges against the other side.

01:17:13

And there are those on the eternal subordination side that have accused anyone of being in the classical position as being egalitarian in their understanding of gender roles, or at least having that as a hidden agenda.

01:17:28

Yes, I mean, those charges can go back and forth, and when those charges occur on either side, in my view, they're both sort of, as they say, a plague on both your houses type of thing, right?

01:17:41

I mean, they both shouldn't be doing that. They need to let each of the positions stand on their own.

01:17:46

So we have to be very careful that we don't just shoot, you know, take shots at one another on either side.

01:17:53

Theology, you know, and we talk about these theological issues, we have to treat them on their own, on their own terms.

01:18:00

If there are relationships and analogies, fine, but we have to let Scripture define those relationships.

01:18:06

So we're driven back, as we always are, in sound theology to what does

01:18:11

Scripture say, what does the whole counsel of God teach us, and make sure that we're grounding everything in Scripture alone.

01:18:19

We have another new questioner, first -time questioner, Chase, from Louisville, Kentucky.

01:18:25

That's your neck of the woods, Dr. Willem. Hello, Chris and Dr. Willem, thank you for speaking on our great

01:18:31

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am actually taking Systematic II with you,

01:18:37

Dr. Willem, this fall at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I am looking forward to studying with you and digging into this volume.

01:18:46

How should we seek to converse with our Catholic friends and lead them to the true, sufficient

01:18:51

Christ in His person? Yeah, I mean... I mean, that could take a week or a month of talking about that on the show.

01:19:00

Well, I mean, I think, you know, if I were to boil it down to key issues, and of course, obviously, you have to factor in, you know, the person that you're talking to, you know, what they actually believe as Catholics.

01:19:14

I mean, you can run into, you know, Evangelicals as well as Catholics who give lip service to being

01:19:20

Catholic and Evangelical and don't know anything about what either position is and what their churches teach and so on.

01:19:28

So, you know, with all of that said, we have to be very person -specific as we talk to people and find out where they're at.

01:19:34

But the two main issues that you always have to bring up in talking with Roman Catholics is, first, the authority issue.

01:19:43

Because theirs were the major divide. We would argue, and I think rightly, that God alone...

01:19:50

Obviously, they would say this too, God alone is our authority, but we come to know God through His Word, Scripture, the soul of Scripture.

01:19:57

Scripture alone is our final authority. So if Scripture does not teach these doctrinal areas, these implications of what the

01:20:06

Catholic Church is saying, it must be rejected. And of course, there's where the Reformation stood. So we have to get back to undercutting, right?

01:20:14

The magisterium of the Church. They do not... The Church is the people of God, but they live under Scripture.

01:20:21

They're created by Scripture. They do not have authority that is either equal to or an extension of Scripture.

01:20:30

We only have authority as the people of God, as we are true to God's Word. And then the second area, then, is the sufficiency of Christ.

01:20:38

So that as we then go to Scripture itself, we present, ultimately,

01:20:45

God is who He is in terms of the Holy One, the Just One, the Righteous One, the God who in grace has given us redemption in His Son, that we are sinners before Him, that Christ alone can save us.

01:21:00

The whole message of Christian salvation is that we need a divine

01:21:05

Redeemer, and there's only one that can meet our need. That is the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:21:10

He's perfectly suited to meet our need. He has done everything in His life, His death, His resurrection,

01:21:16

His pouring out of the Spirit. All that He has achieved for us is directly applied to us by grace through faith in union with Him.

01:21:25

And there's no mediatorial role of the Church. There's no mediation where we now receive grace apart from directly coming to Him.

01:21:35

And that's what we are now laying out for them, the person of Christ, His work of life, death, and resurrection, prophet, priest, and king, that He alone is

01:21:46

Lord and Savior, driving that home. And then also the promise of the Gospel. There's a surety that we are justified before God because of what

01:21:55

Jesus Christ has done alone, not what He has done plus then our receiving grace from the

01:22:01

Church. And going back to those crucial issues that are found in the New Testament, but it really comes to proclaiming the glories and excellencies of Christ alone.

01:22:12

Well, thank you, Chase. Please give us your full mailing address in Louisville, Kentucky, so that CVBBS .com

01:22:18

can ship you out a free copy of Dr. Willem's book, God the Son Incarnate.

01:22:24

And also, since you're a first -time questioner, you'll be getting a free New American Standard Bible, but we need your full mailing address, so get that to us right away.

01:22:33

We have Brandon in Franklinton, North Carolina.

01:22:40

And Brandon says, Does Dr. Willem believe that the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is the pre -incarnate

01:22:47

Son of God? Also, it seems fairly clear that John 12, verse 41 presents

01:22:53

Jesus as the one seen by Isaiah on the throne in Isaiah 6. With these examples in mind, could you ask

01:23:00

Dr. Willem to give his view on Christophany in the Old Testament? Yeah, it's a very important question.

01:23:08

The Church has wrestled with this through the ages. I myself think that there is

01:23:15

Christophany that's found in the angel of the Lord. I mean, the two dominant views is that the angel of the

01:23:23

Lord is a standard for the Lord and closely identified, yet it's just an angel. The problem is that some of the texts so identify that angel with the

01:23:34

Lord, it's difficult to see that it's just an angel, right? I think the

01:23:39

Church throughout the ages has rightly seen that there is a kind of Christophany that is found in the

01:23:46

Old Testament. John 12, referring to Isaiah 6, is another possible example of this.

01:23:56

John could also be referring to the glory of the Lord seen is in the whole display of what is not only there, but the whole prophecy of Isaiah that anticipates the coming of Christ.

01:24:09

That's possible too, yet I think that Christophany is there in the Old Testament.

01:24:15

What we have to be careful of, and the Church has been very careful with this, is making sure that in emphasizing

01:24:23

Christophany and trying to make sense of the appearance of God in the Old Testament, that we don't take anything away from the unique, singular, once -for -all incarnation that takes place in the

01:24:38

New Testament. This is a challenge, but we have to maintain this so that in the

01:24:44

Old Testament these are properly Christophanies. They're appearances, but they're not the incarnation.

01:24:51

The incarnation is unique in the New Testament era. When the Word becomes flesh, that is now permanent.

01:24:59

The appearances in the Old Testament are appearances. They're through created means.

01:25:05

They're sometimes difficult to get our minds wrapped around, yet they are not the same as the incarnation that takes place in the

01:25:14

New Testament. So as long as we keep that in mind, I do think the weight of scriptural testimony does seem to speak of Christophanies in the

01:25:24

Old. There's even other evangelicals who would say, no, no, no, it's just an angel. But I do think the

01:25:31

Church overall has been quite right in seeing this as a kind of anticipation of Christ to come, yet the incarnation in the

01:25:40

New Testament is unique. Now, would you say that these Christophanies are devoid of actual physical substance, that they would be spirit, in a way to differentiate between what seems to be

01:25:57

Christ in a body in the Old Testament as opposed to the actual incarnation? Well, that's the challenge, right?

01:26:03

I mean, that's why many have tried to avoid saying Christophanies, because what appearance is actually occurring here?

01:26:15

It looks like it's fairly physical, right? It looks like there is a kind of seeing, the angel, the

01:26:22

Lord, that appears with the three to Abraham and so on, seems to be able to be seen and looked at and so on.

01:26:30

And yet, this is where we, this is why I had sort of the care that has to be given, is that we cannot even say, even if we think of that as somewhat physical, it looks fairly physical, it's not the same as what we see in John 1 .14,

01:26:47

the word became flesh. So that's why, again, some will say, well, maybe it's a kind of spiritual or so on, right?

01:26:54

And there's where it becomes difficult to know exactly. There seems to be some way that the

01:26:59

Son of God appears, yet it's not the same kind of assuming a human nature, the physical, sort of the union that takes place, the person of the

01:27:12

Son adding to himself a human nature, like takes place in the New Testament. So we have to sort of work around the options here and sort of say, well, it can't be this, but it can be this, and that's why there is disagreement on this particular issue.

01:27:27

And so we have to say a couple of things at one time, but we do have to do justice. I think the text in the

01:27:32

Old Testament still seems to lean in the direction of saying, no, no, no, this really is the

01:27:39

Lord who appears, and what would make best sense of that would be the appearance of the

01:27:45

Son before the Incarnation. Yes, and of course we have the mystery of Moses seeing the hind parts of I Am, and there seems to be some disagreement and mystery as to exactly what he actually saw.

01:28:04

Well, and with some of those visions, too, we have to be careful that you don't push the language of such a sort that you sort of literalize it too much, right?

01:28:17

So you have to do justice to, say, John 118, where, you know, no one has seen

01:28:24

God, but, so you have that sweeping statement, you say, what do you mean no one has seen

01:28:30

God? Didn't Moses see the hind parts, and didn't Isaiah see the

01:28:35

Lord in the temple, and didn't Ezekiel see the Lord in Ezekiel 1 and 2 and so on?

01:28:43

Yet, even though the appearances in the Old Testament are so couched, they're so hedged, so what does

01:28:52

Isaiah see? Well, he sees the hem of his garment. Well, you know, when you see the hind part, whatever that is, there's a sense in which there's the presence, the

01:29:02

Lord is able to manifest his presence through these forms, through creaturely form, yet it's really not seeing

01:29:11

God in all that he is. No one has ever seen God, but, and then John 118 makes it very, very clear that in the incarnation of the

01:29:21

Son, we now, in and through his humanity, have now seen the

01:29:27

Lord, the Son of God, face to face, this one who is with God, who is

01:29:33

God, now, in and through his humanity, he can say, if you've seen me, you've seen the

01:29:39

Father, so that the incarnation brings about the full reality of now being face to face with the

01:29:45

Son of God, unlike even Moses saw, unlike even Isaiah in the temple, unlike even what

01:29:53

Ezekiel saw. So we have to keep sort of the lesser to greater, the movement from Old to New, so that there are appearances in the

01:30:03

Old, yet they're not in the same category and quality as what we have in the

01:30:09

New Testament. Well, thank you, Brandon. Please give us your full mailing address in Franklinton, North Carolina, so that you can receive a free copy of God the

01:30:18

Son Incarnate by our guests, Dr. Stephen Wellum, and cvbbs .com

01:30:25

will ship that out to you. We have another North Carolinian. We have Casey, originally from Davao City in the

01:30:33

Philippines, and I don't know if I pronounced that correctly, but he is now living in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and his first question is, when can we expect your new systematic theology textbook with B &H

01:30:45

Publishers? That's a great question. I'm working on it right now, and so I'm hoping that in a couple of years it'll be out.

01:31:00

I've got to get things finished, and then there's always a lag time with publishers and all that.

01:31:06

So I would say, Lord willing, by His grace, two years, maybe three years at the most.

01:31:14

And his second question is, what kinds of doctrinal distinctiveness will your systematic theology textbook have, and do you have any theologian friends who would peer -review your work?

01:31:27

Well, doctrinal distinctiveness, I try to, in terms of doctrinal distinctiveness, hold to the historic

01:31:35

Christian faith. So nothing new in terms of distinctiveness there, in terms of the great truths of the gospel, the great truths of orthodoxy.

01:31:48

As we then think of its distinctiveness through time, obviously it's going to be a

01:31:54

Baptist theology, so that will show up in understandings of the church and ordinances, but we'll interact with contrary views and try to do that fairly.

01:32:06

And what's going to be distinctive about it is I'm going to try, not always easy, but I'm going to try to, as each doctrinal area is laid out, to show how you work from what is called biblical theology to systematic theology, how you work from a whole canon, whole

01:32:24

Bible, the whole storyline of scripture, to then theological conclusions. And I try to do that in God the

01:32:31

Son Incarnate, in trying to, in the biblical section, work through the

01:32:36

Bible's own storyline, the Bible's own covenantal structure, the Bible from creation, fall, redemption, new creation.

01:32:43

Well, what's true of this doctrine is also true of every doctrine. And so try to do some sense of that in the systematic theology.

01:32:54

So that'll be a bit different or distinct than other areas, but it'll be reformed in terms of its larger commitments in theology,

01:33:03

Baptistic, trying to illustrate biblical to systematic theology. So we could get into other specific doctrinal areas, but hopefully it'll be that which is consistent with the position of the church, particularly the

01:33:18

Reformation and particularly in a Baptist direction. Well, we have to go to our final break.

01:33:25

And by the way, Casey, please make sure you get us your full mailing address in Kannapolis, North Carolina, so that we could have

01:33:30

CVBBS .com ship you a free copy of the book, God the

01:33:35

Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ. So please get that to us as soon as you can. And we're going to a break right now, our final break.

01:33:42

It's much briefer than the last one. And I've already, Dr. Willem, forwarded your question from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.

01:33:53

So this way you could look it over during the final break. And if anybody else wants to join us on the air, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're running out of time.

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.nyc. Have a great day. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today has been and will continue to be

01:40:56

Dr. Stephen J. Wellam. We are discussing his book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ.

01:41:01

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, do so now, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:41:07

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. chrisarnzen at gmail .com. You should have the question from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey in front of you,

01:41:17

Dr. Wellam. I forwarded it to you before. He says, last time I asked your view on the terminology of eternal begetting.

01:41:26

I appreciated your answer and agreed with it. I hope you can now comment on how you view the scriptural uses of begetting as applied to Christ.

01:41:37

Are they speaking of the same thing? For example, in Acts chapter 13, verse 33,

01:41:43

Paul seems to be using begotten to refer to the resurrection. Are there differing spiritual uses of begetting in regards to Christ?

01:41:53

Or is this a matter of interpretation as to what the proper singular meaning is when all the uses are considered together?

01:42:00

Thanks for your thoughts, Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. Yeah, well, Joey's got a great question again.

01:42:06

No, it's not a matter of just your interpretation on some of these things. Crucial to looking at each of these texts is putting them in their context, looking at how these texts function in the particular arguments of the text before us.

01:42:26

So what you have, I think I may mention this last week, and it's important to emphasize this, is that as you take

01:42:35

Scripture as a whole, when it comes to the Lord Jesus, from Old to New Testament, you have the

01:42:44

Lord Jesus is the Son of God. He's God the Son incarnate, but he's the

01:42:49

Son of God. And that sonship is worked out in two ways in Scripture.

01:42:57

So the first way it's worked out is he is the eternal Son, and this gets then at the question of the eternal begetting or the eternal generation.

01:43:06

So we see that most clearly in the New Testament, as the Son now appears, as he takes on our human nature, the

01:43:15

Word became flesh. We are now seeing the Son in relation to the Father.

01:43:21

All of the biblical teaching in the New Testament that speaks of the deity of the Son, that he is eternally.

01:43:27

So you think of John 8, 58, before Abraham was I Am, he takes on the very name of the

01:43:32

Lord or of Yahweh to himself, so that he is not just a human son, he's the eternal

01:43:39

Son, and he's from the Father. John 5 and following speaks of his relation to the

01:43:45

Father. From all eternity he's been from the Father. And the Church then thinks of that biblical material in terms of how do we make sense of this

01:43:53

Son who's always been the Son, who's always from the Father. And eternal generation is the way that we think of that eternal relationship.

01:44:02

And there's certain texts that have been famously used to try to speak of this, particularly where you have

01:44:11

John 1, 14, and other ones, where you have the term monogamous used or often translated only begotten.

01:44:20

There is some debate as to the best translation of that. Is that only begotten or is that unique one

01:44:27

Son? People go back and forth on that, but that's been a text that in that context speaks of the relation of the

01:44:36

Son to the Father, and even the eternal relation. And those texts then are speaking of the eternal

01:44:44

Son to the Father. Now, in Acts 13, the passage is quoting

01:44:50

Psalm 2. And Psalm 2 is a great Messianic text from the Old Testament.

01:44:56

It's tied to the Davidic covenant. It is the promise that each

01:45:01

Davidic king, as the king takes his throne, the Lord says to him,

01:45:07

I am your father. This comes right out of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7. You are my son.

01:45:14

And the king in the Old Testament is viewed as the Son of God. Son of God in that sense is tied to Adam to David, the covenants of Scripture.

01:45:26

And sonship is very much identified with image bearers, sons who take on a unique role.

01:45:34

Israel is the Son of God. The Davidic king is the Son of God. So it takes on the unique one who represents at the human level, represents the

01:45:45

Lord, represents him as the king, and so on. And there's how sonship is told.

01:45:51

Psalm 2 is referring to the Davidic king on his throne as he is then set at God's right hand and rules over the world.

01:46:01

Now, that is a stream of thought that the New Testament also applies to Christ, but it applies to Christ in terms of his incarnation and work, so that we would say that the

01:46:13

Lord Jesus is the Son of God eternally, and he's also the

01:46:19

Son of God by virtue of what he does. What does he do? Well, he first takes on our humanity.

01:46:26

He becomes human. He takes on our human nature. He then lives his life as the greater

01:46:35

Adam, the greater Israel, the great Davidic king, and in his life and death and resurrection, this is the context of Acts 13, in his resurrection he is appointed in his messianic work as the incarnate one, as the king of kings and the

01:46:54

Lord of lords. So he's eternal son who becomes son, and the becoming son is now tied to his humanity, tied to his work, tied to his achievement as our mediator and as our redeemer, and that's what

01:47:09

Acts 13. So the begetting there is tied to the appointment of the

01:47:14

Son. The word there is geneo, which simply means that he is the one who is the son of the

01:47:20

Father. He is now appointed instead of his right hand. It's the imagery of birth, but the birth imagery here is tied to his appointment.

01:47:30

He's appointed as king, and it is tied to the resurrection in Acts 13. So two ways the

01:47:36

New Testament describes the Son. He's eternally the Son who also in the incarnation and his entire work, his obedient work for us as our mediator, he becomes the

01:47:49

Son who achieves our salvation in order for us to be saved, to be justified, to be made right with God.

01:47:57

And so you have two senses of that in the New Testament, so you must keep them together, yet also distinct.

01:48:05

They're complementary ways of speaking of the sonship of the Lord Jesus. Well, thank you so much,

01:48:12

Joey. And Clifton, New Jersey continues spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in New Jersey and beyond.

01:48:17

And thank you for your honesty by reminding us that you already won Dr. Willem's book last week because we've already actually run out of books anyway, so good thing that you won a copy last week.

01:48:29

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. And Susan Margaret says,

01:48:37

I have heard from some of my Trinitarian brethren that the sin or the heresy of oneness

01:48:44

Pentecostalism is not so severe that we should exclude them from fellowship.

01:48:50

I have disagreed with these brethren who share my view of the Trinity on their light approach to the oneness heresy, because it is more than just a confusion on the

01:49:03

Trinity. It is also a denial of the eternality of Jesus Christ. If I'm not mistaken, they believe that Jesus Christ came into existence in his conception, and he has not eternally existed.

01:49:17

Am I correct in this criticism of oneness heresy? Well, I think it's correct.

01:49:22

That is correct. And there's probably a variety of ways that the oneness view gets presented, but any way it gets presented, it does not have a full triune

01:49:34

God. And the implication of that is that there is not an eternal

01:49:39

Father, Son, and Spirit who are distinct, yet share the same divine nature.

01:49:47

And Christologically, it then shows up in terms of a kind of oneness

01:49:53

Pentecostal, that there's a kind of modalist view, that there's not a distinct Father, Son, and Spirit.

01:49:59

And one who holds to that view cannot make sense of, first, who

01:50:04

God is. They cannot make sense, then, of God in terms of his entirety. They can't make sense of the

01:50:10

Son. The Son is the Son of the Father. If there's not a distinct Father, that whole relationship is not what the

01:50:17

Bible says it is, and it cannot make sense of the Spirit, and it cannot make sense of the Bible's doctrine of the atoning work of Christ and the salvation that is ours.

01:50:27

So that this view is not a minor view. It's a heretical view. It is not that which is affirming the

01:50:35

God of Scripture, the Christ of Scripture, or the atoning work, the work of the

01:50:41

Savior in Scripture. So it's not something that we can play lightly with. There's a different understanding of the doctrine of God, and uniquely then tied to the person and work of Christ.

01:50:53

And it needs to be rejected and put in its place a biblical understanding of Christ.

01:51:00

Yes, and in fact, for those of our listeners who think that that is a harsh way of viewing things,

01:51:07

I know that there are non -Trinitarian Pentecostals or anti -Trinitarian

01:51:13

Pentecostals today that are more ecumenical than those from history past, but the

01:51:19

United Pentecostal Church International, as far as I know, is still teaching that we, as Trinitarians, have a false god.

01:51:28

In fact, we have three false gods. So, I mean, they take it just as seriously as we should, the issue.

01:51:36

Well, and if you delve into their view, you can guarantee that this is such a fundamental mistake that they're going to have not only a different view of who the

01:51:46

Triune God is, and who God is, but they'll have a different view of sin, they'll have a different view of salvation and the work of Christ.

01:51:53

It's not just one matter. This is the heart of the matter, but it will have implications for every single doctrinal area.

01:52:01

I'd like you now to spend the next four minutes or so, uninterrupted, so you could summarize what you most want our audience to remember about this book,

01:52:10

God the Son Incarnate, today. Well, what I want everyone to know is that in this book,

01:52:17

I'm trying to lay out the biblical teaching of the Jesus of the Bible. There's many

01:52:24

Jesuses that we find around us, different religious concepts of Jesus in Islam and in Hinduism and other kinds of views.

01:52:34

There's contemporary Jesuses that are mixed with all kinds of things in terms of our society.

01:52:41

No, there's only one Jesus. He's a Jesus found in Scripture, and this Jesus is

01:52:47

God the Son Incarnate. He is the one who is the Son from eternity, who is fully

01:52:53

God with the Father and the Spirit, who's taken on our humanity, and He is our

01:52:58

Redeemer. And there's only one Redeemer. There's not many paths to God. There's only one

01:53:03

Lord and Savior who is able to save us, who is able to meet our need.

01:53:09

He's perfectly suited to meet our need because of who He is. And our problem of sin before a holy triune

01:53:17

God, and He alone can save us. And what comes through this work,

01:53:23

I would want people to know, is that you need the Jesus of the

01:53:28

Bible, as the Church, I think, has rightly put the biblical pieces together, so that the confessions of the

01:53:36

Church are simply unpacking for us the Jesus of the Bible. And the theology, then, of who

01:53:44

Jesus is, isn't something minor, isn't something unimportant, it isn't something just for interesting debate, is that each piece, understanding

01:53:54

His deity, understanding His humanity, understanding that He is the Sinless One, understanding that the

01:54:02

Person of the Son has added to Himself a human nature, and how He then acts as the

01:54:08

Divine Son in and through that humanity for our salvation, is absolutely important for our relationship to Him, for our eternal salvation.

01:54:19

This is at the heart of all of scriptural teaching and all of Christian theology.

01:54:26

We must come to know this Savior, this Lord, the way He is presented to us in Scripture, and I think accurately conveyed by the history of the

01:54:36

Church. So, nothing more important. This isn't just some interesting debating point. This is life and death, and this is the

01:54:44

Savior who has redeemed us, so that we should be those who love Him more the more we know

01:54:50

Him, desire to obey Him more, and serve Him more, and give our lives for Him, and He is the

01:54:56

One that we will know along with the Father and Spirit for all eternity, and the privilege and joy of grace to be able to come to faith and salvation in Him.

01:55:08

I mean, that's what I'm trying to convey through this book. He's worthy of our love, our service, our knowledge, our reflection, our obedience, now and forevermore.

01:55:21

Amen. We do have time for at least one more question, maybe two. Let's see here.

01:55:27

We have Ryan in Copeg, Long Island, New York, and Ryan asks,

01:55:37

What about the statement in the Apostles' Creed about Jesus descending into hell?

01:55:43

I know that the Word of Faith Pentecostals believe that Jesus actually was tormented by Satan and his demons in hell and became a born -again man in hell.

01:55:53

I know that is a heresy, but I don't know how to explain that sentence from the Apostles' Creed.

01:56:00

Yeah, I mean, there's been, you know, a different way. Some have said He actually descended to hell.

01:56:05

They appeal to 1 Peter 3 and speak about those who were in the dungeons.

01:56:11

I mean, that text there is very difficult to know exactly how to take it. I take it that the

01:56:17

Apostles' Creed is not so much giving us a whole theology of descent into hell and all that's going on there, but it's primarily addressing that He was put in the grave, that the

01:56:31

Son of God died on the cross for our sins, was buried and put in the grave in the tomb, and He then rose from the grave.

01:56:42

So a whole theology that has come out of the Apostles' Creed of His descent into hell, what

01:56:47

He was doing there, we do not have, other than possibly 1 Peter 3, much data on that, and I think what's being emphasized is that He lived,

01:56:58

He died, He was buried, and He was raised, again, in a glorified resurrection body, and that's the emphasis that the

01:57:07

Apostles' Creed is getting at. Well, I want to thank you so much,

01:57:12

Dr. Whelan, for being our guest today. I'd love for you to come back soon. In fact, I will email you another calendar of dates, and I hope that you will take advantage of one or more of those dates in return.

01:57:25

As our guest, you have proven to be extremely informative and fascinating, and I think of great value to our listeners in the body of Christ.

01:57:35

And I want to make sure that our listeners have all the information they need in regard to you and your ministry.

01:57:42

I know that the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, they have a website, which is sbts, which stands for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sbts .edu,

01:57:56

sbts .edu. I know that the folks at Crossway, who published your book,

01:58:03

God, the Son, Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, their website is crossway .org, crossway .org.

01:58:09

You can also get that book from cvbbs .com. In fact, I would prefer that you order it through cvbbs, because you don't hurt

01:58:17

Crossway at all, and you help one of my sponsors. That's cvbbs .com,

01:58:22

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And if they don't have it immediately on hand in stock, they will definitely get it for you very quickly.

01:58:30

Do you have any other further contact information that you could share? Well, I mean, through my email at southern, as you can easily get a hold of me, and if you've got questions that you'd like to be addressed,

01:58:47

I'll try to get back to you and help in any way, especially as it's related to the subject matter, not just any old topic in general, but related to this.

01:58:56

So my email address is just first initial, last name, so swellum at sbts .edu,

01:59:04

and that is fine to contact me at that email address. That's S -W -E -L -L -U -M.

01:59:12

At sbts .edu. Right. Well, thank you so much. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in.

01:59:19

I want to remind you to please pray for Mike Gadosh, the founder of Solid Grand Christian Books, as he is facing very serious, very delicate, and very complicated open -heart surgery.

01:59:30

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

01:59:37

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions tomorrow for our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.