The Trinity Part 1

We're going to open with a word of prayer and we're going to get into the book of Genesis and it's going to take us

About nine years to get through it Luther lectured in Genesis for a better part of two decades.

So, you know, I promise I won't take that long Yeah, although reading

Luther's commentary on Genesis is at times is a scream, but I'll explain that as we go.

Let's pray Heavenly Father we pray that you would bless us with the reading of your word feed us open our eyes as to what you would have us believe

In what you've revealed regarding our origins the problem that we face as human beings in the solution that you have provided for us

To your glory we ask this in Jesus name. Amen Okay, we are in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and I Must let you know ahead of time that there is a very small chance that we're going to get past chapter 1 today

In fact, it's there's a small chance that we're going to get past chapter 1 verse 1 There's so much going on in verse 1 and by the way

If if you take notes in Hebrew Okay, when we do the final when we have the final in the class you get extra points

If you can actually communicate to me in Hebrew some of the points that I'm making. I'm joking. I Speak it so Okay now

Sentence number one of the Bible is a one of the most fascinating sentences in all of Scripture because the

Bible begins with something that as English speakers get we don't get the full import of what's going on here

Something is lost in translation and we're gonna have to tease this out now I don't expect you to know this but I'm going to point this out to you the way the

Hebrew reads it says better sheet Elohim at Hashem. I am va at hot air.

It's Translation in the beginning God Created the heavens and the earth

Here's the problem. This word right here is the word Elohim Does anyone know what the word

Elohim means? Now in Hebrew the word for God is

L Singular the word for God's plural is Elohim Now here's the weird thing better sheet in the beginning

Bara This is third person singular and it's a verb Now if you were to translate this literally it would be in the beginning

God's He created the heavens and the earth now we're either dealing with some really bad grammar or We're confronted with something unique regarding God and in the first sentence of the

Bible we are confronted with a God we could have never expected and This very first sentence begins to hint at the doctrine of the

Trinity Now I anyone here can can you just give me some of the finer nuances of the doctrine of the

Trinity? Anyone here understand that doctrine I don't

Okay How many of you if a Jehovah's Witness showed up at your doorstep this afternoon while watching?

Minnesota lose I'm joking. I'm joking Yeah, the

Indianapolis lost last week So I'm still kind of bitter about it But how many of you if a Jehovah's Witness showed up at your door?

Claiming that the doctrine of the Trinity is a pagan doctrine not taught in the Bible that you could open up your Bible and easily Demonstrate to them that the scriptures teach that there is one

God who exists in three persons Anyone up for the task? You're up for it

Okay, you do Yeah, yeah, see this is

Genesis 126 also hints at this where God says let us make man in our image

What's this us stuff, right? So this again hints at the doctrine of the

Trinity So as we study scripture, this is kind of an important thing one of the things I'm going to be teaching you and I'm going to hammer you guys on is this idea that when scripture speaks we

Speak when scripture silent we stay silent And if you don't understand a biblical text the first place you go to understand what the

Bible is teaching is the Bible The Bible interprets the Bible scripture interprets scripture.

Does that make sense? So in this first sentence, we don't see it in English But if you read Hebrew you get it there's something funky going on here.

And how are we to reconcile this? Well this first sentence then begs us to deal with the doctrine of God.

Who is God? What's he all about? And what can we learn about him from scripture?

So we're gonna do a little bit of a survey We're gonna hop around the scriptures a little bit and take a look at different passages now

Who knows biblical passages that say explicitly that there's only one God? Hero Israel the

Lord our God the Lord is one that the Shema Shema Israel, right? Okay, so that's Deuteronomy 6 4

Hero Israel the Lord our God. The Lord is echad. He's one Now that becomes a little bit of a challenging verse because the question is what is meant by echad by one?

Echad could mean one in the sense of a plurality. It kind of hints at that but it's not always that case

Does that make sense? So but that is a place that you would go hero Israel the Lord our God the Lord it is one that's

Deuteronomy 6 4 How about anyone else? Ephesians 4 what's it say?

Ah one God Okay Give us the reference again.

Okay So in order to reconcile this grammatical issue where it says that there's

Elohim Okay, we have to look in other passages of scripture. The Ephesians passage is one of them

Let's take a little bit of a survey here. And if you have your Bibles, let's open up to the book of Isaiah the prophet and Let me real quick check my notes to make sure

I'm going to the right address Yeah, we're gonna go to Isaiah 43

Verse 10 is the verse that we're going to look at But we're going to apply our three rules for sound biblical interpretation

Does anyone know what the three primary rules for sound biblical interpretation are and Stephen you have to keep your hand down That's right context context context.

You remember when you're selling a house, you know, or you're buying a house location location location Whenever you're studying

God's Word or you're having somebody teach it including me Context is an important thing.

So what's going on in the book of Isaiah here and And we need to understand what's going on.

And that is as well people of Israel have once again Started worshiping other gods

When you read the Old Testament You're going to find that the God who was revealed in the Old Testament is not the same kind of God that you see on The bumper stickers being touted by certain people.

Yeah, I'll ever seen that coexist symbol okay, where it says coexist and like there's the C is like the

You know the Islam symbol and then you got the Buddhist symbol and and then the cross and and all this kind of stuff the idea behind coexist is that somehow all

Religions are true or as they like to say, ah, there are many trails to take you to the top of Mount Fuji, right?

Well, the thing is we're not climbing Mount Fuji and the God of Scripture has revealed that there are no other gods besides him

So in other words a law of Islam doesn't exist period

Shiva of Hinduism does not exist these are man -made deities and back in the day

Israel prior to Christ's birth they kept struggling with Temptation to worship false gods and so God sent prophets

Isaiah being one of the prophets and the prophets generally had messages that went along the lines of this repent repent repent of your idolatry

Return to the Lord. He is merciful. He will forgive you repent Turn from these worthless idols worthless is the way they talk about it, right?

And of course Israel responded by generally killing those guys. They were not well liked

They did not just blend in and try to get along they were particularly obnoxious

So we're going to look at Isaiah 43 and I'm going to start at verse 8

Lead out those who have eyes but are blind who have ears but are deaf

All the nations gathered together the people's assembled Which of them foretold this and proclaimed to us the former things let them bring in their witness to prove they were right

So that others may hear and say it is true and then God says this You are my witnesses declares the

Lord Servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am

Hey, ah, I am he before me. No God was formed Nor will there be one after me.

I even I am the Lord and apart from me there is No Savior How many gods were created before the

Lord zero how many will be created after him Now this is going to step on some toes this rules out

Mormonism Why? Mormonism teaches let's talk about this

Mormonism teaches that God's name is Elohim, which is kind of funky It means that Joseph Smith didn't know

Hebrew, but they claim that God's name is Elohim and Elohim lived on a planet

Long time ago and he was a man and he followed his

God and by being obedient to his God his God exalted him so that he became a

God himself and Now Elohim lives on a mysterious planet near a star named

Kolob He and his his spirit wives they are procreating and creating spirit babies and those spirit babies are being sent to earth when people conceive and They are given of the choice as to whether or not they want to become gods themselves in Mormonism they teach was called the law of eternal progression the law of eternal progression states and this is a direct quote from Mormon doctrine as man is

God once was as God is man can become as man is

God once was as God is man can become that's called the law of eternal progression

So all the Mormon missionaries who come to your door and they wear this special underwear and they're doing their missionary work, right?

They have as their ultimate goal for themselves to become gods I'm not making this up all in the name of Jesus and Jesus is different to Jesus.

They're Jesus. Although they use the word Jesus Jesus is One of the firstborn children of Elohim his brother's name is

Lucifer So Jesus is a creature just like you and I are this is what

Mormonism teaches Isaiah 43 cent 10 says let me read it again

You are my witnesses declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen So that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he before me.

No God was formed Nor will there be any after me What does that mean about Mormonism? You're gonna notice something as you study your

Bible. The Bible makes truth claims and We as Christians are not to challenge those truth claims were to understand them and believe them

This is what Scripture commands us what God commands us through his word to do So if you say, you know

Chris The God I believe in wouldn't be so exclusive as to say something as exclusive as that To hurt people's religious sympathies and feelings by telling them that their deities don't exist and before him

No, God's existed. Isn't it? Okay. Isn't it just good that people believe in a God and that they're good people

No No, if the

God you believe in is not the God revealed in Scripture you believe in an idol You believe in a

God of your own making harsh words, right But this is most certainly true

So we learn that God makes exclusive truth claims now. I need to introduce you to a word here

This word right here The word is Yahweh Y H wh

Okay, whenever you see in your Old Testament the words capital L capital

O capital R capital D what that is is that is the divine name of God Yahweh and There's a certain thing that's picked up in our

English translations That kind of goes back all the way back to the Jews and Here's the idea.

The commandment says you will not take the name of the Lord your God in vain so kind of a

Jewish tradition whenever God's Actual name showed up They wouldn't pronounce it.

They would pronounce the Hebrew word Adonai Lord Why well because if you're not saying his name you can't take it in vain now, can you?

Right, I don't particularly like that tradition. I Don't particularly like it

So oftentimes when I'm reading through the Old Testament and I come across the word Lord capital

That's all capitals. I will put in the word Yahweh God has revealed his name and we can use his name, but we cannot use his name to deceive people

Does that make sense? Remember what Luther said in the small catechism? What does it mean to take the Lord's name in vain?

Let me pull up my catechism here Second commandment you shall not misuse the name of the

Lord your God Luther asked. What does this mean bassist us? Yeah, we should fear and love

God so that we do not curse swear You satanic arts lie or deceive by his name, but call upon it in every trouble pray praise and give thanks

Now this kind of on a little bit of a tangent because we're talking about the divine name here Yahweh What it means to take

God's name in vain God's name is taken in vain when a Mormon says

That you can become a god in the name of God When somebody says if you send a thousand dollars to my ministry

God's going to send you give you a hundredfold blessing That's deceiving by using

God's name So using God's name in vain literally means to hijack

God's name his brand if you would and use it to sell cheap knockoffs of sound doctrine if you all ever been to New York Anyone been to New York City and been accosted by the people trying to sell you, you know

Like, you know Gucci bags and you know and Rolex watches and stuff like that on the street, right? You know,

I Funny story. I used to have a boss who he wanted a

Rolex in the worst way And of course who can afford such a thing, right? Okay anything.

Why do you want a Rolex? And so he actually made a trip and when he came back from the trip, he was wearing a

Rolex I'm thinking where'd you get the Rolex and then I took a closer look at it I didn't quite have the sweep the secondhand kind of stopped right?

I think that's a cheap knockoff Where'd you get that thing? It's like he's I bought it.

I bought it from a vendor, you know, he's a you know And and so what was funny is is that we were getting ready to go into a meeting and okay

And the way he had his sleeves rolled up Okay, he wanted he wanted you know The the guy that we're having a meeting with to see the

Rolex, but he wanted to be far enough away So he couldn't see that it wasn't sweeping. Okay, like really?

Okay And then ultimately his wrist turned green and he had to get rid of the thing

Kolex, huh? Kolex Kolex, so the idea of taking God's name in vain is like taking the

Rolex name or brand or logo and Throwing it on to a cheap knockoff. The cheap knockoff is never going to be the original, right?

So when you take God's name you hijack his name and then you tack it on to a theology that you've invented

That's what it means to take God's name in vain so the the word is

Yahweh and Let me pull it out for you here We'll do it this way so that you can so from time to time

You'll see me actually put this on the overhead and it reads this way

Okay, the Hebrews got it all backwards. So yod. Hey, wow

Hey, and it's pronounced Yahweh Right. So whenever you see

LORD all caps in the Old Testament. It's referring to that Yahweh, right now you can do it this you can do it this way

Y -a -h -w -e -h Yahweh Yeah, let's take a look at some other passages here.

Isaiah 43 10 makes it painfully clear that there is only

One God no God's formed before the Lord. No God's formed after the Lord I'm gonna read some other passages for you that I've Pulled out and I'll read them to you

Deuteronomy 4 verse 35 To you it was shown that you might know that the

Lord Yahweh is God there is no other besides him.

There's no other God besides him Deuteronomy 4 39

No, therefore today and lay it in your heart that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on earth beneath there is no other

So if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster, he doesn't exist It's kind of a current cultural thing up here.

I don't know if people know what that is if you're praying to Vishnu If that was a phone call you'd hear doo -doo -doo

We're sorry, the number that you're trying to reach has been disconnected or it's no longer in service. Please try again

Right. He's not there. All right, Deuteronomy 32 39 Here's what it says see now that I even

I am he and there is no God beside me This is the Lord speaking. I kill and I make alive

I wound and I heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. All right

We already looked at Isaiah 43 10. Let's take a look at Isaiah 44 verses 6 through 8 Here's what it says thus says

Yahweh the king of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts I am the first and I am the last

Besides me there is no God who is like me Let him proclaim it let him declare and set before me since I appointed an ancient people

Let them declare what is to come and what will happen Fear not have I not told you from of old and declared it and you are my witnesses

Is there a God besides me? There is no rock. I know not any

It's pretty emphatic It's unambiguous So polytheism is ruled out period

Okay, Mormonism claims that Joseph Smith received a revelation from God. The problem is the revelation.

He received is contradicted by Scripture Whenever somebody comes to you claiming prophetic revelation

You are always to test what they say against Scripture if they contradict Scripture You know with certainty that they did not get the information from God That leaves two other possibilities either they made it up or They received it from the devil or one of his demons straight up So if someone comes to you and says hey, there's lots of gods out there

Doesn't matter which God you believe in It's not what Scripture says We as Christians we believe what the what the scriptures say

Isaiah 45 verse 5 I am the Lord. There is no other besides me. There is no God I equip you though.

You do not know me Isaiah 45 14 Thus says Yahweh the wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the

Sabians men of stature Shall come over to you and be yours and they shall follow you

They shall come over in chains and bow down to you They will plead with you saying surely God is in you and there is no other there is no other no

God besides him Over and again, we have these very exclusive claims now, does anyone remember from?

Your Bible the name of the God that Israel would sacrifice their children to Manassas the tribe.

What's the name of the God? Molech That's the name in Hebrew Molech mem

Lamed cough Now what people don't know is that that Molech is not that God's name it's not

That's the Hebrew word for King Melech. Now, you notice Hebrew doesn't have vowels It's pointed in the

Masoretic text so that you can read it But what's fascinating is is that no Jew in the time of people worshiping?

Melech would ever call him Melech because to call a false god a king is an abomination

So they changed the vowels They changed the vowels rather than it being

Melech They called him Molech Changed it to an O Melech means

King Molech means shame Shows you a little bit about how the worshippers of the true

God Came off as kind of being subversive They refused to call that God by the name that his worshippers called him by they couldn't do it

So, you know a worshipper of Molech would come up to a Hebrew and say, you know Hey, we're going over to a

Melech temple tonight and we're gonna be sacrificing some children and the Hebrew would say

Oh, you mean Molech? No, I worship Melech. Oh, yeah Molech. Stop it.

Knock it off. His name is Melech No, it's not. It's Molech Shameful that you would sacrifice your children in the altar like that That's how these you know, it's kind of fascinating how they get these little think these little tidbits when you start understanding

Scripture shame Melech means

King Molech means shame though. The consonants are the same the vowels are different Let's do a little bit more work here

So we're still looking at Genesis in the beginning gods. He created the heavens and the earth

Now here's the question I have for you Is Jesus God? Yes Truly you are the son of God.

Yeah, this is the you are my son whom I am well pleased Okay.

Yes, John 1 1 which is a perfect parallel passage to what we're what we're looking at here

If you have your Bibles open up to John 1 1 and let me pull this up here

In fact, we'll spend a little bit of time in John because John is the gospel that you go to when it comes to understanding the deity of Christ, but this is only gonna we got to keep certain things in order here because Remember, there's a plurality within the one

God Here's what it says in the beginning was the Word The Word was with God and the

Word was God. He was with God in the beginning How's that for a sentence?

Who's the Word? Jesus Jesus is the Word the Word became flesh this is what

John says and yet the sentence says in the beginning was the Word and The Word was with God and the

Word was God. How can you be a God and be with God at the same time? I Have no idea.

I Have no clue Yeah, I believe this because scripture says it could

I explain how this works? No, I couldn't do it The best the best

I've seen on this is that since we're dealing with all these exclusive claims in scripture that there is only one

God That a good way to kind of look at it is is kind of like this and let me see here

Okay, how many triangles are up there? Who know one it was a trick question.

There's only one triangle. There's not three right? No good. Very good So here here's kind of a diagram that helps us with this that within the one

God there are three persons So we'll say top. Here is the Father over.

Here's the Son and over. Here is the Holy Spirit Now we know from scripture that there is only one

God. So There's one God and the Father he is

God Right anyone anyone think I know the Father ain't God no one ever challenges that one which is kind of fascinating here now we also believe what scripture says that the

Son is God and We also believe that the Holy Spirit is God But here's the fun part

The Father is not the Son the

Holy Spirit is not the Son and the

Holy Spirit Is not the Father Does that make sense now, how do we know this?

Well Jesus when he's baptized Heavens open up the

Spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven says this is my son in whom I am well pleased Jesus when he's in the

Garden of Gethsemane. He's sweating blood and he's praying father If it be your will let this cup pass from me, but not my will your will be done, right?

Who's he talking to God the Father, but is he God? Yes, see this is where you

Basically, you gotta keep in mind what we do is we affirm what scripture says and we don't push beyond it

I don't know the mechanics of this Don't know the mechanics of this at all. Now in history.

There was a heresy known as the Arian heresy Which is alive and well today Which taught that the

Son is? God's first and greatest creation a divine like Creature is that what scripture says?

In the beginning was the Word the Word was with God and the Word what was God? So the

Arian heresy and it was determined. It was a heresy Denies the deity or the eternal deity of the

Son So if somebody is believing that heresy today, are they believing in the true

God? No Then this is where our sinful flesh is tempted Our sinful flesh goes thinks along these lines.

I can't understand that God. He doesn't make any sense to me How can you have one

God in three persons? That's crazy talk. It can't be that So I'm gonna come up with a clever solution to get rid of this

Rationalistic problem that I have here and the Jesus I believe in he wasn't he isn't really

God. He's a godlike critter That's more reasonable.

And then also keep in mind at the time the Arian heresy pops up you have Gnosticism and Platonic philosophy running through the

Mediterranean culture of the time and Platonic philosophy teaches that this stuff matter is

Yeah, not so good Okay, it's the spirit. That's the big thing. So if matter isn't so good

It's kind of an accident according to the Gnostics and the spirit is the good thing this idea that God would take on human

Flesh, it's unthinkable That's crazy talk. We can't have that happening so we can have a critter taking on human flesh.

That makes sense We're okay with that but God himself. No, and so what you see is is that Human beings impacted by their sinful nature and the culture around them are often tempted to deny what

Scripture Says what God has revealed about himself Do you know what you say to a person who's doing that?

repent That's what you say. You say repent brother. You're believing falsely.

This is not what God has revealed about himself in Scripture Here again these passages

Remember a few weeks ago I preached on the story of Jesus walking on the water and at the end of that little event where Peter ended up sinking they worshipped

Jesus and They said truly you are the Son of God To worship any other thing than God That's idolatry and yet Jesus received human worship.

So who was he? Who is he? Well, if he's not God Then he is the biggest con man on the planet right

That's what's at stake with us. If if Jesus isn't who he claimed to be If he really isn't

God in human flesh we're guilty of idolatry and We are the biggest dupes on the planet

Straight up, but what does Scripture say? So yes, ma 'am

Um, oh you want to see this in Greek hold on And RK and halaga sky halaga stain pros tone down.

Okay, the Greek word here for God is Tone thing it's the chaos.

So this is the accusative. This is the nominative form and RK in the beginning was the word and the word was toward or face to face with God and God was the word is what it says

You well you're getting a hint at the plurality, aren't you? So the law goss is with God and the law goss is

God How can you be with and God at the same time? So there's a plurality even kind of hinted at here

Remember the baptismal formula Go ye therefore into all nations baptizing in the what name of the

Father Son and Holy Spirit Notice it doesn't say names baptized in the name of The Father Son and Holy Spirit Singular the one name

Father Son Holy Spirit. Let's take a look at some fun passages here and I don't know if you know this but Jesus had this really bad habit of upsetting people and We're going to take a look at the

Gospel of John and I think we're in chapter 8 and We'll do a little bit of cross -referencing and all of this by the way is dealing with that first verse that first sentence

In Genesis chapter 1 John chapter 8 we're gonna start at verse 12

When Jesus spoke again to the people he said I am the light of the world

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life Jesus sounds like he's got a

God complex doesn't he? He's the light of the world So the Pharisees they may they picked up on this their little radars are going off ding -ding -ding -ding -ding

Blasphemy blasphemy, right? So the Pharisees challenged him here. You are appearing as your own witness.

Your testimony is not valid Jesus answered All right Even if I testify on my own behalf my testimony is valid for I know where I came from and where I am going

But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going you judge by human standards I pass judgment on no one, but if I do judge my decisions are right because I am not alone

I stand with the Father who sent me That's what he's doing here

He's talking about himself as if somehow this this is going with John 1 1 word was with God word was

God In your own law, it is written that the testimony of two men is valid I am one who testifies for myself.

My other witness is the father who sent me so then they asked him Where is your father? Do you not know me or my father

Jesus replied if you knew me you would know my father Also, he spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the place where the offerings were put yet No one seized him because his time had not yet come

Once more Jesus said to them I am going away and you will look for me and you will die in your sin

Where I go you cannot come Now this made the Jews ask is he gonna kill himself?

Is that why he says where I go you cannot come But he continued you are from below I am from above You are of this world.

I'm not of this world. I Told you that you would die in your sins If you do not believe that I am the one

I claim to be you will indeed die in your sins bad Translation and let's clean this up a little bit here better way to say this is that he says if you do not believe that I am

You will die in your sins in the Greek here It's it's emphatic because in Greek a verb can actually carry the subject that it works with it

So a me is first person singular of the verb to be so he's saying

I am You can just if I were to in Greek just say I am I would just say e me but he adds to a go

Which is saying I I am he's very emphatic about this if you do not believe that I am

You will die in your sins What's Jesus saying?

Yeah, well, yeah, but where What's this I am stuff? Well, hold on Marilyn, right

Exactly. Let's take a look at our cross -reference here. If you would open up your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3

Here's the story now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father -in -law the priest of Midian now Moses is at this point

He's a fugitive. He's already left Egypt. He's murdered an Egyptian Taskmaster hidden his body and it was found out.

And so now he's fled to Midian which is actually in Saudi Arabia and On television there in Egypt.

He was on Egypt's Most Wanted Okay Yeah, if you've seen this man, send us a carrier pigeon with you know

This before telephones right and TVs too all right so Moses at this point is like 80 years old and the text says he led the flock to the far side of the desert and Came to Horeb the

Mount of God and there the angel of the Lord Lord appeared to him in flames of fire within a bush

Moses saw that though the bush was on fire. It did not burn up So Moses thought

I will go over and see this strange sight why the bush does not burn up when the

Lord Again, notice Lord Yahweh when Yahweh saw that he had gone over to look

God called to him who called to him God did God called to him from within the bush

Moshe Moshe that's Moses in Hebrew and Moses said Here I am.

Do not come any closer. God said Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing as holy ground

Then he said I am the God of your father the God of Abraham the

God of Isaac the God of Jacob at This Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God Yahweh said

I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land a land flowing with milk and honey the home of the

Canaanites the Hittites the Amorites the Perizzites the Hivites the Jebusites the uptights and the ballet tights and Now the cry of the

Israelites has reached me and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them So now go

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt Moses said to God Who am

I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt God said

I will be with you and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you when you have brought the people out of Egypt you will worship

God on this mountain and Moses said to God All right Suppose I go to the

Israelites and say to them the God of the father your fathers have sent me to you and they asked Me what is his name?

And what shall I tell them? God said to Moses I am

Who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites.

I Am has sent me to you with that in mind who was speaking

God Let's go back to John chapter 8. We were at verse 24

Where's the question? Yes By capitalizing it they're trying to draw attention to it

Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Jesus here is in he's kind of he's invoking the divine name get that God gave himself in the burning bush

So let's read this again, and we'll read it correctly from the Greek. I told you that you would die in your sins

Exclusive claim if you do not believe that I am You will indeed die in your sins

Jesus isn't saying you're gonna die in your sins if you don't believe that I exist He's saying you're gonna die in your sins unless you believe that I am

Yahweh of the Old Testament That's what he's saying. So the Pharisees they pick up on this verse 25.

Who are you they asked they know what's going on They get it. So just what

I've been claiming all along Jesus replied I have much to say in judgment of you But he who sent me is reliable and what

I have heard from him I tell the world now they did not understand that he was telling them about his father

So Jesus said when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one

I claim to be no, actually it says you will know that I am and That I do nothing on my own but speak just what the

Father has taught me The one who sent me is with me He has not left me alone for I always do what pleases him

Even as he spoke many put their faith in him to the Jews who had believed him

Jesus said if you hold my teaching you are really my disciples

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free Listen to what he says about his word if you hold to my teaching

Wow, Jesus is saying his teaching is like on par with Scripture and You will then know the truth and the truth will set you free

Well, they got upset and they said we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone

How can you say that we shall be set free? Here's the answer Jesus replied

I tell you the truth everyone who sins is a slave to sin Everyone who sins is a slave to sin sin is slavery.

It's not freedom Let me pause right there anyone who tells you oh, listen that gospel is such great news

I'm a sinner. I love to sin Jesus likes to forgive sins match made in heaven That person is in dire danger

Because we have not been set free by Christ to be slaves. That doesn't make any sense.

It's a category error We have been set free from sin by the gospel by what Christ has done.

We are never free to sin Christ forgives sins freely But as ones who have been brought from death to life who've been set free from slavery to sin death in the devil

We never turn the gospel into a license to sin that makes sense. So he says

I tell you the truth Everyone who sins is a slave to sin now a slave has no permanent place in the family

But a son belongs to it forever. So if the Sun sets you free you will be free indeed good gospel.

I Know you are Abraham's descendants yet. You are ready to kill me because you have no room for my word

I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence and you do what you've heard from your father now

Jesus is getting real snarky You're doing what your father taught you to do wait a second who's our father and so they said

Abraham is our father they answered Jesus's reply if you were

Abraham's children said Jesus then you would do the things Abraham did as It is you are determined to kill me a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God Abraham did not do such things.

You are doing the things your own father does Their father is the devil

That's kind of the punch line here. So they get a little bit upset. We are not illegitimate children.

They protested Stronger word than that if you want to give to give it a little translation we can use the

B word here We're not bees, right? The only father we have is

God himself Jesus said to them it well if God were your father you would love me ouch

For I came from God and now I'm here. I have not come on my own, but he sent me

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you're unable to hear what I say you belong to your father the devil and you want to carry out your father's desire

He was a murderer from the beginning not holding to the truth There is no truth in him when he lies.

He speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies Okay, so much for precious moments,

Jesus He could rock it right?

Yeah All right. So yeah, he gets right to the point The devil is your father

He said now I want to make a point here and I'll remake this point when we get to Genesis 3

Notice that Jesus says the devil was a liar and a murderer from the beginning The beginning there is referring all the way back to the beginning of creation.

And this is kind of the important part he's a liar and a murderer

If you think about the crime that took place in the Garden of Eden it began with a serpent questioning the woman

Did God really say? Create doubt in her mind regarding the goodness of God and what he said to somehow make

God look like he's evil, right and the whole goal was to get Eve to sin and Because God had said and the devil knew full well what

God said the day you eat of that tree you shall surely die So here's how the crime was supposed to take place

Adam and Eve sinned God would be the one who put them to death But it was Satan who was the one who committed the murder and he wanted to make

God the instrument of his murder That is how sick that puppy is

Satan wanted to murder humanity made in the image of God and he wanted God to be the one to pull the trigger nasty stuff

Nasty stuff and all of us each and every one of us when we were born and conceived

We were born dead in trespasses and sins and under the power of the devil each and every one of us figuratively speaking and in some ways literally we're all children of the devil now and This is the wonderful thing about being in Christ.

We're adopted into God's family. We're taken out of Satan's family were made alive and we are now treated as sons and daughters of God Not children of the devil, but the

Pharisees because they refused to believe Jesus and to believe his word

Jesus pronounces a condemnation on them and says you belong to your father the devil and you want to carry out your father's desire

He was a murderer from the beginning not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him when he lies

He speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies Yet because I tell you the truth.

You do not believe me. That's why they don't believe him because Jesus is speaking the truth Right. Can any of you prove me guilty of sin if I'm telling the truth?

Why don't you believe me? He who belongs to God Here's what I what

God says the reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God So the

Jews answered him aren't we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon possessed Now just so you know for them to play this card is like this is about the ultimate insult remember back during the days of segregation

African -americans there was that that word the n -word We don't we don't utter it in polite company anymore, it's just too offensive

For the Jews to say of Jesus, aren't we right in saying you're a Samaritan? And demon -possessed they're basically using the n -word.

That's what's going on here That's kind of the strength of what's going on. So they Jesus says you're of your father the devil so they retort back

With kind of a racial epithet and that he's demon -possessed. So Jesus says I'm not possessed

By a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me Do they not realize who they're talking to?

Right, they don't realize who they're talking to I'm not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it and he is the judge

I tell you the truth if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death Good promise

Jesus again speaking as if he's God at this the Jews exclaimed now We know that you are demon -possessed

Abraham died and so did the prophets yet you say if anyone keeps your word

Remember the prophets whenever the prophets would come read you ever read through the minor prophets or Isaiah or Jeremiah? It says the word of the

Lord came to the Prophet Jeremiah the word of the Lord came to Isaiah the word of the Lord Came to the Prophet Malachi It doesn't say the word of the

Lord came to the Prophet Jesus. Jesus says if you keep my word See the difference he's speaking with divine authority and this is really cheesing them off Now we know that you're demon -possessed

You keep saying if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father

Abraham? He died and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are? Jesus is not into the coexisting thing.

Jesus replied if I glorify myself my glory means nothing My father whom you claim as your

God is the one who glorifies me though You do not know him. I know him if I said

I did not I would be a liar like you But I do know him and I keep his word Your father

Abraham now, here's the fun part this little sentence right here Jesus is talking kind of in a way that's very familiar

He's speaking as if he knows Abraham and what he's saying here is not found in the

Torah He's got extra biblical information regarding Abraham and he's talking about Abraham as if the two of them have met

Here's what he says your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day.

He saw it and was glad Which verse says that not one? Where did

Jesus get this information, right? So the

Jews they know they immediately catch pick up on this You are not yet 50 years old the Jews said to him and you have seen

Abraham I tell you the truth

Jesus answered before Abraham was born I Am there he goes again

He just said he's God before Abraham was born I Am at this they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself slipping away from the temple grounds.

So Genesis 1 1 Hints at the doctrine of the

Trinity and what we've covered today is just kind of the tip of the iceberg Scripture teaches there's only one

God yet. The father is called God Jesus claims to be God and the Holy Spirit is also called

God The Holy Spirit is not Jesus because Jesus said he's going to send the Holy Spirit and the father is

God But the father is not Jesus because Jesus prays to the father It's so difficult being that age, right?

Yeah Yeah, it's the whole enchilada

Right now keep this in mind every Human analogy will break down at some point including the egg analogy if you remember st

Patrick he used a clover, right? Okay, the three petals on the clover every human metaphor every human analogy will break down at some point

So you have to whenever you use an analogy that's based in our creation You have to say it's kind of like this

Some people say it's kind of like water because water exists as a vapor as a liquid and as a solid

But see again, it's a metaphor But the reality is this nothing in the creation is like God nothing is like him and scripture has revealed so clearly that there's one

God three persons and That our salvation was won not by a critter not by a creature

But by none other than God himself and that's what I read this morning in Philippians chapter 2 that your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing taking on the form of a servant and becoming obedient to God Even to the point of death on the cross, right?

So and therefore God has exalted him so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess

This is a mystery. It's a mystery. It's a profound one And yet it is extremely comforting that God himself would go to such great lengths to save somebody as wretched as myself

And to save you as well He's not like us But we do reflect him in some part because we were made in his image

But also keep in mind when we get to the story about the fall after the fall the image of God is shattered

It's broken. And so each and every one of us is born dead and trespasses and sins you can still see glimpses of the image of God and each of us kind of differently for each of us, but It's Christ himself who ultimately is going to restore that image on the last day when we are resurrected

We see Jesus face to face and we spend eternity with him world without end

Finally we go from Walking by faith to walking by sight. Oh, can't wait for that day to come.