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

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This is Chris Arntzen, 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, Dr. Stephen J. Wellam who earned his PhD

at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and he is currently the professor of Christian theology at the

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

Theology.

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

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

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

and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron.

Radio, Dr. Stephen J. Wellam.

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.

It's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

If you have a question for Dr. Wellam

that's chrisarnzenn at

gmail .com and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of

residence if you live outside of the USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a

personal and private matter.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Well first of all let us give some kind of a recap on the

overall view of the book 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 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 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.

Well yeah sure, as you said a lot of good books have been written over the

years on the person of the Lord Jesus, the nature of the incarnation, I mean that's what this

book is dealing with so why another book 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 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 Lord Jesus is to the

issues of our day and to a new generation and laying out for

the church in a succinct manner biblical foundations and what the

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 also taking on some of the challenges within the evangelical world

so this book is part of the foundations 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 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.

Well you have four major.

Sections in the book, we start with part one the epistemological

warrant for Christology today, part two the biblical warrant for

Christology today, and part three is the ecclesiological warrant for

Christology today, and part four is a warranted Christology for today.

If you could give us a summary of what those four major sections of the book are really

all about.

Yeah really the book as a whole is trying to illustrate

how one actually goes about doing theology, drawing

theological conclusions for the church today and in part one what I

was wrestling with there, there's many ways that you could tackle this doctrine,

you can look at various theologians and just go meet.

What I wanted to convey in this epistemological warrant for Christology is

that what we say about the 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 church

there's always been challenges to the faith and there's been those outside of Christian

conviction, but for the most part as you go through all the 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 Lord Jesus

is driven from scripture, and in the 1600s starting then in

what we call the Enlightenment period and then morphing into the modern world,

even within the church there was a massive criticism of scripture and a move away from scripture, and in that

whole part one I'm trying to show where our society

has gone, where even in the church people have tried to not receive the full authority of the

Bible, so the grounding that we have to speak anything about the Lord Jesus, and this would be true of any area of

Christians, who the Lord Jesus is, is grounded in scripture

itself.

The knowledge warrant, that's what we mean by epistemological warrant, the knowledge warrant

for saying anything true about Christ is the triune God

who is there,

so in that section I'm laying

the foundation to Christian theology, Christian doctrine, the person of Christ,

founded in scripture, and the 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, all right, what does the scripture actually say?

If we're going to read scripture from Genesis to Revelation, the whole Bible gives us who Jesus is, and the whole Bible is

necessary to understand the Lord Jesus that shows up in the New Testament, he's built on the

Old Testament, he's the son from eternity, and then the church has reflected on this in part

three, so that we lay out the biblical material, but what the church has said in the confessions and the statements of

faith are consistent with the scriptural teaching, so there's not

a dichotomy or a difference between the Chalcedonian creed that says the Lord

Jesus is the eternal son, who's fully God, now fully man because of the incarnation,

one person, two natures, no, that's consistent with the biblical teaching, and so

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

gets scripture right, and then part four just applies these matters

to within evangelicalism and

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 should no

doubt scripture in light of the

history.

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, 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, 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.

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.

I mean, I'm not saying that people have to be geniuses or brilliant scholars or

theologians in order to be saved or get to heaven, but there

are things that people get wrong about who 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 God is, and basically you could wind up

worshiping a false god, couldn't you not?

Well, that's exactly right.

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.

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 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.

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 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 word, and all that he has said, and when it comes to

the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to get him right from the

Scriptures.

All of these matters we're discussing in terms of the theology of the incarnation and who Christ is is true

to the Scriptures, and if you don't think through these areas, which the Church has

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

We end up with Jesuses that aren't the Jesus of the Bible, and why is that serious?

If you do not have the Jesus of the Bible, you have no Savior.

You have no Redeemer.

It's very interesting in the history of the Church that in every point of false teaching of

Jesus, the concern of the Church was for the Lord Jesus right from

Scripture and to leave us with the only Redeemer for

God's people, and all other aberrations or other false views that veer

off eventually rob us of the 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 Lord Jesus Christ, given that he is, as the book

title tried to capture, he is the 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.

Salvation depends on them.

False views of Jesus lead to contrary views of salvation and contrary views of

ultimately...

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

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.

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.

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?

So you have, you know, some of the oneness Pentecostals, for instance,

deny the Trinity, of course, with the denial of the Trinity.

You have a denial of distinct Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

There's what's called modalism.

Right.

So you have, you know, falsies there, and we wouldn't even consider that part of the evangelical world, or at least 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 Reformation world that, obviously, there's different

denominations that have come out of that.

But the evangelical world, for the most part, to be an

evangelical, the full authority of Scripture, and some of the early great confessions of the

Church, particularly the Trinitarian confessions of Nicaea, and the

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

Jesus?

Well, he's God the Son incarnate.

He is one person, the second person of the Godhead, who is fully 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?

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 Son of God is fully God, yet when the incarnation took

place, and what I'm describing here is what's called

canonic views, or canotic views.

This comes from Philippians 2.

Some will say, well, the Son of God is fully

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,

certify with evangelicalism,

that's really, we have more

popularly others who will say, well, no, the Son of God, in becoming human,

he

doesn't

know that, as he

said, a

incarnation.

In my view,

the Bible, but it's a trilogy that runs into some serious problems,

and then we would have to spell

a concept, even in the cross, the main redeemer is,

certain things in the evangelical world that move in false directions, that

are being,

people would say, we hold to the full deity, the full humanity of the Son of God.

And not to leave our Catholic friends out of this, I believe that,

of course, there are many things about the 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 Roman Catholic Church has, for instance, I believe that

they teach, proclaim, and embrace an insufficient Christ.

Is that too harsh, in your opinion?

Well, certainly, the outworking of the work of Christ, tied to

who the 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?

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

hold to, you know, consistent 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 Trinitarian confession, the person of Christ in

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

But when it comes to the work of Christianity, that work

gets undermined, and what they insert here is the application

of the cross, then is done through the mediatorial work of Church, and they

would then have a whole view where Christ establishes the

extension of the Incarnation on Earth, the leaders of the Church

represent Christ on Earth, and they are the ones who are able to

disly the work of Christ, and what they do is they insert between

Christ and the believer, the Church, and this is a serious, serious error, this

is why the Reformation took place, is that, no, by grace through

faith, in Christ alone, his work 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 Church.

The Church is the people of God, God's grace directly in relationship to

the 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 Son, and in the Incarnation

they would say the Son of God is, you know, the Lord Jesus is fully 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 divine

Redeemer

is the proper formulation of Christology is that the one who dies on the cross is God the Son

incarnate, it's the Son of God.

The reason why his death is so valuable and he can pay for all of our

sins is because it's the divine Son of God who acts

in our humanity, but it's the divine Son,

and that empathy, they would never

deny it, but it doesn't show up always.

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?

Substance dualism, hylomorphism, materialism, or something else?

Now, do you want me to answer this,.

Or would you like to get this one?

Well, if you want to take a...

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 a human nature, and, of course, that is very important when we speak about the

Incarnation, because the Son of God, from all eternity, added to himself the Word, the Son

became flesh, and flesh we take in John 1, 14, 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 question as to what is a human nature, and when we look at scripture to

answer that question, we broadly would say that a human nature involves

a material element.

Describe the material element in a number of ways, but the best way I would

say is body -soul duality, right?

So that we know that these two...

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 Lord.

We don't just cease to exist.

So that we are a body -soul duality, and then there's various ways of trying to make sense of that

substance, or just ways of trying to make sense of the...

We won't get into all that discussion, but we have to affirm that we

are truly a body -soul human nature is,

and that is what makes sense of the 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,

the hypostatic union, the

person

never,

never is in

this, but

the human

nature, and he has now taken that

to that human nature.

He has brought about our salvation.

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

Well, thank you, Jordan, and Wes Wake.

Forest, North Carolina.

In fact, you reminded me that I have to send in my membership fee this month for the Hylomorphist

Society.

I'm like, can I?

But thank you very much, Jordan, and guess what?

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.

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 New American Standard Bible, along with

the book that we are shipping out to you, God, the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, by Dr. Stephen J.

Wellam.

We are going to our first break, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air,

you're going to have to get in line, because we already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Dr. Wellam,

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

.com.

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

My name is Steve Lawson, founder and.

President of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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

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

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 New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs

a pastor.

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 Dr.

Stephen J. Wellam, Professor of Christian Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky, and editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

We are discussing part two of a discussion that we began last Tuesday,

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

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

chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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.

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,

Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, but Pastor Caleb Bunch

has two questions for you, actually, 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 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?

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.

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.

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

material.

It would all depend 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Church has always known through the ages that have.

To be reaffirmed today.

Well, Pastor Caleb has a second question.

Does your book, God the Son of Man, address the question of the transference of sin from generation to

generation in regards to the sinless nature of the Incarnation?

I know there are multiple models theologians have developed ranging from purely genetic

transference to exclusively spiritual transference.

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

challenging.

Question.

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

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

come after.

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 Reformation and post -Reformation era

as Adam acts as our covenant head, what is often known as a federal head.

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.

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.

In Romans 5 that deals with the imputation of

Adam's sin to us as well as Ephesians 2 and other places that describe by

nature gravity that is

total or pervasive within us.

And then as it comes over then to Christology or the person of Christ,

I do heption,

that is the most significant, and the issue then of

the transmission of sin of God in the incarnation

endless.

And I do argue, I think

scripture teaches that when the human

nature that there was the unique

triune God uniquely of the Spirit from Mary,

right, so there is no human from Mary that's

fallen, yet there is then the sanctifying work

of the Spirit.

Chapter 1 where it's describing the Spirit of God

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

the 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.

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

fact that the Lord Jesus does not come into the human race

supernaturally through Mary so that Christ is not

in the sense of a representational union with Adam the way we are.

We come into the world in Adam which means that we are guilty as well

as in

Christ.

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 so I do discuss

the Virgin Conception, the relationship of the Virgin

Conception.

Well thank you Pastor Caleb,.

I'm also going to plug your website redeeminggraceny .com, and

remember there's two g's back to back because it's

redeeminggraceny .com.

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. Willem's book, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of

Christ, you've also won a free New American Standard Bible.

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 can ship that book out to you as soon as possible.

We have another first -time questioner.

We have JB in Amarillo, Texas.

And JB says, 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?

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

years?

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

egalitarianism?

That's JB from Amarillo, Texas.

I remember this issue was brought up in part one of our discussion last Tuesday.

But if you want to respond to JB about this.

Well, the issue,.

Yeah, I certainly will.

And it's a large issue, right?

Because nothing is so simple as anything looks

by appearance, right?

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

really a 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 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 would have to spend some time looking at that.

Now, in terms of the debate itself, there is a difference of viewpoint.

And this was a legitimate discussion.

Anytime we deal with these kind of matters, they're not just, again,

esoteric or not important or so on.

They do have important ramifications.

And I do think that all the parties, I mean, all, I have to be careful when I say all, but, you know, the main

parties in the debate, 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 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, how we understand the

relations of Father, Son, and how do we define

what it is for the Father to be a person and the 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 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 to one another.

They share the same divine nature, yet they are distinguished by

a property.

That's the language of the Church.

So the Father has fatherhood, paternity.

The Son has sonship.

That way, and how do we understand those relations?

Well, the 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 Father.

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

So the Son has something the Father does not.

Namely, he is the one who's from the Father or of the Father, and the 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 God equal with one another, yet they are distinguished by their person relations.

That was the classic way, and I think that's the best way of understanding how to distinguish Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit.

Yet it's not an ordering of attributes or sharing of the

divine nature or so on.

They're God equal with one another, yet the Father is the one who is Father.

The Son is from the Father.

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

Now, the relational view, the eternal relational authority subordination view or

mission view, they then

said, no, the way you distinguish the persons is not only the Father has fatherhood and the Sonship

and the Spirit is from Father and Son, but that the Father has perty

or the person property of authority.

So he has first authority.

The Son has a kind of, it's, he has an authority

from the 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.

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

in sharing the divine nature, but it was a different way of conceiving of how the persons.

Related.

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

And co -eternal.

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 Son, the full

deity.

But the problem that came is when we speak of then the 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 Church, it's very difficult to conceive of

authority apart from some kind of divine attribute.

So when we think of God's authority, why does God have all authority?

Well, He is the 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 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.

Now, the people of the ER, you know, the eternal relational view would not go there,

so you have to be very, very careful.

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.

I don't think that was fair to them, and I've defended them, yet

the way it

was put in

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

Spirit in the divine life, is the best way of

discovery from the Father,

the Spirit from the Father,

but it's not as if there's a hierarchy.

That was the debate.

It was a helpful debate, even though it got very

unfortunate.

Things were important aspects of Trinitarian thought, and it

also was Christology, right?

Does the Son have equal authority with the Father and the Spirit?

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

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.

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

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, God the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of Christ, you've also won, since you're a first -time

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

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

announcements to make.

First of all, don't forget that this Friday, July 27th, Morris Roberts returns

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He is the former editor of Banner of Truth magazine and an author who has books published

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We are going to be discussing his booklet, Finding Peace with God, this Friday.

So mark your calendars for that, what I'm sure will be a fascinating interview.

Then we have a couple of very important special events that are coming

up.

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

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And the speakers at this conference include Pastor Tim Conway, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, Pastor Jesse

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

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So if you'd like to register for the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

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The theme this year is the Glory of the Cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard

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

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the USA.

And before the break, as you may remember, Dr. Willem, we had J .B. in

Amarillo, Texas, who was asking about the connection between the complementarianism and

egalitarianism, and how it hinges, it seems, on this whole debate over

eternal subordination and other issues involving the Trinity.

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

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, so 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 Father, Son, and Spirit relate, so

that they themselves believe that the 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, right?

So they'll see the Trinity as an analogy, but they would be quick to say that the

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 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 Trinity, in authority relations, and thus if they think

they can overturn the way that the persons relate in the Trinity, they've

overturned automatically complementarianism, and I think this is a mistake.

So that, for instance, I don't fully agree with the eternal relational authority

submission view.

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

Trinity.

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

argue for the Trinitarian view will often see in the human relationships an

analogy.

So we need to treat the Trinitarian discussion and

tie to that, we need to separate that from

then the complementarian, egalitarian discussion, so what does 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.

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, and then in terms of the human

relationships, 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.

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 Trinitarian relations,

the person of Christ, then relate it to what does

Scripture say, 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 Trinity, who unfairly make

erroneous charges or broad -brushing charges against the other side.

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.

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?

I mean, they both shouldn't be doing that.

They need to let each of the positions stand on their own.

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

either side.

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

terms.

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

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

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

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

That's your neck of the woods, Dr. Willem.

Hello, Chris and Dr. Willem, thank you for speaking on our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am actually taking Systematic II with you, Dr. Willem, this fall at

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

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

Christ in his person?

Yeah, I mean...

I mean, that could take a week.

Or a month of talking about that on the show alone.

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, I mean, you can run into, you know, evangelicals

as well as Catholics who give lip service to being Catholic and evangelical and don't know anything about what

either position is and what their churches teach and so on.

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

at.

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

the authority issue, because theirs were the major divide.

We would argue, and I think rightly, that God alone, 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.

Scripture alone is our final authority.

So if Scripture does not teach these doctrinal areas, these implications of what the

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, the magisterium of the Church.

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

They're created by Scripture.

They do not have authority that is, or an

extension of Scripture.

We only have authority as the people of God as we are.

And then the second area, then, is the sufficiency of Christ, so that as we then

go to Scripture itself, we present 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.

The whole message of Christian salvation is that we need a divine Redeemer, and there's

only one that can meet our need, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's perfectly suited to meet our need.

He has done every mediator,

where we

now

receive

coming to him, and that's what we are now laying out for them, the personal

life, death, and resurrection, that he alone

is Lord and Savior, driving that home, and then also the promises of the gospel

justified before God because of what Jesus Christ has done alone, not what

he has done plus.

Well, thank you, Chase.

Please give us your.

Full mailing address in Louisville, Kentucky, so that cvbbs .com can ship you out a free

copy of Dr. Willem's book, God the Son Incarnate, 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.

We have Brandon in Franklinton, North

Carolina, and Brandon says, Does Dr. Willem believe that the angel of the Lord in the Old

Testament is the pre -incarnate Son of God?

Also, it seems fairly clear that John 12, verse 41 presents Jesus as the one

seen by Isaiah on the throne in Isaiah 6.

With these examples in mind, could you ask Dr. Willem to.

Give his view on Christophany in the Old Testament?

Yeah, it's a very important question.

The Church has wrestled with this through the ages.

I myself think that there is Christophany that's found in the angel of

the Lord.

I mean, the two dominant views is that the angel of the 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 Lord, it's

difficult to see that it's just an angel.

I think the Church throughout the ages has rightly seen that there is a kind of

Christophany that is found in the Old Testament.

John 12, referring to Isaiah 6, is another possible example of

this.

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.

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

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

that in emphasizing 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 New

Testament.

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

are properly Christophanies, they're appearances, but they're not the incarnation.

The incarnation is unique in the New Testament era.

When the Word becomes flesh, that is now permanent.

The appearances in the Old Testament are appearances.

They are through created means.

They're sometimes difficult to get our minds wrapped around, yet they are not the same as the

incarnation that takes place.

As long as we keep that in mind, I do think the weight of

scriptural testimony does come from Christophanies in the Old.

There are other evangelicals who would say, no, no, no, it's just an angel, but I do think

that the kind of anticipation.

Incarnation in the 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 Christ in a body in the Old Testament.

As opposed to the actual incarnation?

Well, that's the challenge, right?

I mean, that's why many have tried to avoid saying Christophanies,

because what is actually, what appearance is actually occurring here?

It looks like it's fairly physical, right?

It looks like there is a kind of seeing, the angel, the Lord that appears with the

three to Abraham and so on seems to be able to be seen and looked at and so

on.

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 114, the Word became

flesh.

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

And there's where it becomes difficult to know exactly.

There seems to be some way that the Son of God appears, yet it's not

the same kind of assuming a human nature, the physical

union that takes place, the person of the 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 here.

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

really is the Lord who appears, and what would make best

sense of that.

Yes, and of course we have the.

Mystery of Moses seeing the hind parts of I Am,

and there seems to be some, you know, disagreement.

And mystery as to exactly what he actually saw.

Well, and with some of those visions, too, we have to be careful that, you know,

you don't push the language of such a sort that you sort of literalize

it too much, right?

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

has seen God.

So you have that sweeping statement, you say, what do you mean no one has seen God?

Didn't Moses see the hind part, and didn't Isaiah see the Lord in the temple, and

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

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

hedged there, so what does 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 Lord is able to manifest his presence through these forms,

through creaturely form, yet it's really not seeing 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 Son, we now, in and through his

humanity, have now seen the Lord, the Son of God, face to face.

This one who is with God, who is God, now, in and through his humanity,

he can say, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, so that the incarnation brings about the

full reality of now being face to face with the Son of God, unlike even

Moses saw, unlike even Isaiah in the temple, unlike even what 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 old, yet they're not in the same

category.

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 Son Incarnate by our guests, Dr. Stephen Wellam, and

cvbbs .com will ship that out to you.

We have another North Carolinian.

We have Casey, originally from Davao City in the 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 Publishers?

That's a great question.

I'm working on it right now, and so I'm hoping that, you know, in a couple of

years it'll be out.

So, you know, I've got to get things finished, and then there's always a lag time with

publishers and all that.

So I would say, Lord willing, by His grace, two years, maybe

three years at the most.

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?

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

the historic Christian faith, right?

So nothing new in terms of distinctiveness there, in terms of

the great truths of the gospel, the great truths of orthodoxy.

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

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, 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 Bible, the whole storyline of Scripture, to then theological conclusions.

And I try to do that in God the Son Incarnate, in trying to, in the biblical section,

work through the Bible's own storyline, the Bible's own covenantal structure, the Bible from creation, fall,

redemption, new creation.

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.

So that'll be a bit in other areas, but it'll be reformed in terms of

its larger commitments in theology, Baptistic, trying to illustrate biblical to

systematic theology.

So we could get into other specific doctrinal areas, but hopefully it'll be that which, you

know, is consistent with the position of the Church, particularly the Reformation, and

particularly in a Baptist.

Well, we have to go to our final break, and by the way,.

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

.com ship you a free copy of the book, God the 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, it's much briefer than the last one, and I've already, Dr. Willem, forwarded

your question from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, 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.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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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 Dr. Stephen J. Willem.

We are discussing his book, God the Son Incarnate, The Doctrine of Christ.

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.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

You should have the question from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey in front of you, Dr. Willem.

I forwarded it to you before.

He says, last time I asked your view on the terminology of eternal

begetting.

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.

Are they speaking of the same thing?

For example, in Acts chapter 13, verse 33, Paul seems to be using

begotten to refer to the resurrection.

Are there differing spiritual uses of begetting in regards to Christ?

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

considered together?

Thanks for your thoughts,.

Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.

Yeah, well, Joey, you've got a great question again.

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.

So what you have, I think I made mention of this last week, and it's important to

emphasize this, is that as you take Scripture as a whole, when it comes to

the Lord Jesus, from Old to New Testament, you have

the Lord Jesus is the Son of God.

He's God the Son incarnate, but he's the Son of God, and that Sonship is worked

out in two ways in Scripture.

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.

So we see that most clearly in the New Testament, as the Son now appears,

as he takes on our human nature, the Word became flesh.

We are now seeing the Son in relation to the Father.

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

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

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

and he's from the Father.

John 5 and following speaks of his relation to the 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 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.

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

particularly where you have John 1, 14, and other ones where you have the

term monogamist used, or often translated, only begotten.

There is some debate as to the best translation of that, is that only begotten, or is that

unique one?

Fourth on that, but that's been a text that in that context speaks of the relation of

the Son to the Father, and even

the eternal Father.

Now in Acts 13, the passage is quoting Psalm

2, and Psalm 2 is a great messianic text tied

to the promise that each Davidic

king, you are my

son, and the king in the Old Testament is viewed

as the Son of God, and that sense is tied to Adam

to David.

The covenants of sponsorship is very much identified with image,

take on a unique role, Israel's 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 Lord, represents him as the king,

and so on, and there's how sponsorship, and so 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.

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 Lord Jesus is eternally, and he's also

the Son of God by virtue of what he does.

What does he do?

Well, he first takes on our humanity, he becomes human, he takes on our

human nature, he then lives his life as the greater

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

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

admirer, and

that's what Acts 13 simply means, that

he is the one who is the Son of the Father, he is now appointed and set at his right

hand, it's the imagery of birth, but it's the birth imagery here is tied to his appointment,

he's appointed as King, and it is tied to the resurrection in Acts 13, so two ways the 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 Son who achieves our salvation in order for us to be

saved, to be justified, to be made right with God.

And so that's, you have two senses of that in the New Testament, so you must keep them together,

yet also distinct.

They're complementary ways of speaking of the Son.

Well thank you so much, Joey, and Clifton, New Jersey continues spreading the word about Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio in New Jersey

and beyond, 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.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and

Susan Margaret says,.

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

heresy of oneness Pentecostalism is not so severe that we should exclude

them from fellowship.

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 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.

Am I correct in this criticism of oneness heresy?

Well, I think 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 God, and the implication of that is that there is not an

eternal Father, Son, and Spirit who are distinct yet share

the same divine nature, and Christologically, it then shows up, you know, in terms of,

you know, a kind of oneness Pentecostal, that there's a kind of modalist view, that there's not a

distinct Father, Son, and Spirit, and one who holds to that view cannot make sense

of first who God is, they cannot make sense then of God in terms of his entirety, they

can't make sense of the Son, the Son is the Son of the Father, if there's not a distinct Father, that

whole relationship is not what the 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,

so that this view is not a minor view, it's a heretical view, it is not

that which is affirming the God of Scripture or the atoning work,

the work of something that we can play lightly with, there's a

different understanding of the doctrine of God, and uniquely then tied to the pre

-rejected,

and...

Yes, and in fact, for those of our listeners who.

Think that that is a harsh way of viewing things, I know that there are non

-Trinitarian Pentecostals or anti -Trinitarian Pentecostals today that are more ecumenical than

those from history past, but the United Pentecostal Church International, as far as I know,

is still teaching that we, as Trinitarians, have a false God, in fact we

have three false gods, so I mean, they take it just as seriously as we

should, the issue.

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 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, it's not just one

matter, this is the heart of the matter, but it will have implications.

For every single doctrinal area.

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, God, the Son, Incarnate, today.

Well, what I want everyone to know is that in this book, I'm trying to lay

out the biblical teaching of the Jesus of the Bible, right?

There's many Jesuses that we find around us, different religious

concepts of Jesus in Islam and in Hinduism and other kinds of views, there's the

contemporary Jesuses that are mixed with all kinds of things in terms of our society,

no, there's only one Jesus, he's a Jesus found in Scripture, and this Jesus is

God the Son Incarnate.

He is the one who is the Son from Eternity, who is fully God with the Father and the Spirit,

who's taken on our humanity, and he is our Redeemer, and there's only one Redeemer.

There's not many paths to God, there's only one Lord and Savior who is able

to save us, who is able to meet our need, he's perfectly suited to meet our need because

of who he is, and our problem of sin before a holy triune God,

and he alone can save us, and what comes through this work I would want people to

know is that you need the Jesus of the Bible as the Church, I

think, has rightly put the biblical pieces together so that the confessions of the

Church are simply unpacking for us the Jesus of the Bible, and

the theology, then, of who Jesus is isn't something minor, isn't something

unimportant, it isn't something just for interesting debates, is that each piece,

understanding his deity, understanding his humanity, understanding that he is the Sinless One,

understanding that the person of the Son has added to himself a human nature, and how

he then acts as the Divine Son in and through that humanity for our salvation is

absolutely important for our relationship to him, for our eternal salvation,

this is at the heart of teaching in all of Christian theology,

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 Church, so nothing more important, this

isn't just, you know, some interesting debating point, this is life and death, and this

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

desire to obey him more, and serve him more, and give our lives for him, and he is the one that

we will know along with the Father and Spirit.

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 forever.

Amen.

We do have time for at least one more question, maybe two.

Let's see here, we have

Ryan in Copeg, Long Island, New York, and Ryan asks, what about

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

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.

I know that is a heresy, but I don't know how to.

Explain that sentence from the Apostles' Creed.

Yeah, I mean, there's been, you know, a different way, some have said he actually descended to hell, they appeal to

1 Peter 3, and speak about those who were in the dungeons, I mean, those are,

that text there is very difficult to know exactly how to take it.

I take it that the 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 Son of God died on the cross for our sins,

was buried and put in the grave, in the tomb, and he then

wrote a whole theology that has come out of the Apostles' Creed of his descent into hell,

what 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, he died, he was

buried, and he was raised again in a glorified resurrection body,

and that's the emphasis at the Apostles' Creed.

Well, I want to thank you so much, 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.

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, and I want to make sure that our

listeners have all the information they need in regard to you and your ministry.

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, sbts .edu.

I know that the folks at Crossway who published your book, God, the Son Incarnate, the Doctrine of

Christ, their website is crossway .org, crossway .org.

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 Crossway at all, and you help

one of my sponsors.

That's cvbbs .com, 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.

Do you have any other further contact.

Information that you could share?

Well, I mean, through my email at Southern is you can easily get a hold

of me, and you know, if you've got questions that you'd like, you know, to be addressed, or

I mean, I'll try to get back to you and help in any way, especially not just any

old topic in general, but related to this.

So my email address is just first initial, last name, so swellum

at sbts .edu, and that is fine to contact me at that email.

Address.

And it's s -w -e -l -l -u -m.

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.

I want to remind you to please pray for Mike Gaydosch, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, as he is facing

very serious, very delicate, and very complicated open heart surgery.

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

far greater 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.

God bless.