December 6, 2023 Show with David Reece on “Defining the Image of God”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this sixth day of December, 2023.

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As always, I am absolutely thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who has proven to be one of my favorite guests, and a growing number of my audience members reflect that opinion.

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His name is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reform Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

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He is also a conference speaker and the CEO of Armored Republic.

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And today, we are going to be addressing defining the image of God, also frequently described as the

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Imago Dei. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor David Reese.

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Brother, thank you for having me on. It's an honor to be here. I'm excited to be able to talk about the image of God and how it relates to knowledge, holiness, and righteousness.

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And I hope it's of great practical use to our audience and is an honoring discussion for the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, as we always do when we have you on, please, for the sake especially of our listeners who have not yet heard you on the show, give us an explanation of Puritan Reform Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Yeah. Puritan Reform Church is a church that holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith. We believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

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We believe that every jot and tittle is inspired and preserved. And our desire is to teach the whole counsel of God to disciples and to evangelize.

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And our goal is to make sure that we are teaching right doctrine, have right worship, and that the government of the church is ordered in accordance with the appointment of the

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King of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our desire to apply all those things carefully and to see disciples raised, not just by having sort of a let's gather as many as we possibly can to get together, but rather to see the law order of Christ used and to see people discipled and to see that in depth and not just having kind of the gathering of people, but instead trying to disciple the people that have been given to us by the

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Lord. And if anybody wants to find out more about Puritan Reform Church of Phoenix, Arizona, you can visit their website, puritanphx, an abbreviation for phoenix .com,

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puritanphx .com. Now tell us about Armored Republic, the company for which you are

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CEO. Yeah, Armored Republic is a business that we manufacture body armor.

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Our desire to manufacture body armor, the way we think about it is body armor is a tool of liberty. So we think about wanting to honor

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Christ in all of life. And so the mission statement of the company is to provide tools of liberty to free men to defend their

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God -given rights to the honor of Jesus Christ. And we think about the idea of your rights being something that can be taken by criminals, whether they be petty or whether they be grand tyrants and everything in between.

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And so the concern is to get into the hands of individuals the equipment they need to be able to resist evil.

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And I think in particular, heads of household have a duty to defend themselves, but also to defend everybody under their charge.

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And so I would encourage men to be ready to be able to rally around the lesser magistrate to resist tyrants and also to be able to be ready to resist petty criminals if anything were to come up.

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One thing that just, this is not meant to be some sort of a crazy reality, but I think sometimes people forget that something like 1 % of people in the country have to deal with a violent crime or some sort of a threat of violence on a yearly basis.

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So if you just take that out over your life, you think about the reality that there's a majority probability that in your lifetime, you're going to have to deal with some sort of a violent crime or a threat of violence.

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And so having tools to be ready to deal with that makes it so that you have a greater preparedness and it's a reasonable risk to prepare for.

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And so I would just encourage people to be ready and equipped to defend themselves and those whom they love. And the website for Armored Republic?

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ArmoredRepublic .com. It's ArmoredRepublic .com. And if you want to, it's easy to find both by simply checking me out on X, formerly known as Twitter, at real

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David Reese. So that's at real David Reese. Great. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address if they have any questions.

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If you would like to join the conversation with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Well, if you could please define for us the historically accurate definition of the image of God, and we have to obviously be careful not to abuse this glorious biblical truth by arriving at the conclusion that all men, regardless of whether they are saved or lost, are the children of God, and that all men and women are our brothers and sisters, even if they reject

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Christ and his gospel. But if you could give us this definition. Yeah.

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So the image of God, if we're going to get the shortest possible definition, the image of God is reason.

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So reason is the ability to think, and thinking is distinct from just having some sort of an awareness or having feelings.

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Those things are distinct. So animals, for example, have feelings or a sort of awareness. They operate off of innate structures that we could call instincts.

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And so there's a distinction between simply being aware or what you might call sentient, being sentient, you have feelings, and that's distinct from being a thinker.

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And so the image of God is rationality, and when we think about humans, humans are the image of God, and this ability to think.

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I want to run through a couple of things in Scripture that would help you to see that the image of God is reason, and I also want to explain what this means in more detail.

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So there's a lot to say here, and I think that if we spend some time meditating on it, we will find that it is highly practical.

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But when we think about, for example, in the beginning of Genesis, it talks about man being the image of God, and then there's also the giving of authority, the dominion mandate is granted near there.

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And there's a commission to subdue the earth, to work and to keep, these things are associated.

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So sometimes people have talked about dominion being the image of God, and dominion is not the image of God.

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Dominion is authority, and authority, when exercised with power, is the exercise of dominion.

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And so we are to subdue the earth, and it's necessary that you be rational, but on the other side, if you are rational, it does not necessarily imply that you have authority.

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So you could be— And unfortunately, my guest is beginning to break up a little bit.

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We apologize for the technical difficulties. Are you back now, Pastor Reese?

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Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, so the image of God is rationality, and it's not dominion.

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People often associate it with dominion because of the fact that in Genesis chapter 1 and 2, when the image is talked about, there's a close association with dominion, there's a grant of dominion, but dominion is authority.

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And it is the exercising of authority, but subduing is how that's accomplished.

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So we subdue the earth, we work, we keep. The working is the positive building.

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The keeping is the preserving of the gains that have already been attained. And so dominion presupposes rationality, but being rational does not necessarily mean you have authority.

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So those things are distinct. For example, the fact that I have rationality is sometimes used by people to say, therefore,

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I should have authority over animals. Well, God owns all the animals, and He defines the authority that we have.

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And for example, Chris, if you own a dog, I don't have authority over your dog just because I'm rational. It's your property.

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Right. Of course, you have authority over it if it's attacking you. Of course, right.

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That's right. But you think about, like, for example, man was not granted the right to eat animals until Genesis 9.

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So, you know, in the beginning of Genesis, there's no, in the garden, there's no eating of animals.

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That's because one thing is there's no death. Right. And so this idea that then after the fall, there's still not an immediate grant of the right to eat animals, even though animal sacrifice is instituted.

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And so it's not until Genesis 9 that we have the right to eat animals. So this authority is still defined by God.

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Dominion is not just a broad grant to do whatever we want with the things that God has made.

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It is a specific defining of power, a defining of rights that we have. So image of God is not dominion.

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The image of God is rationality. And one of the things that's really helpful to see this is, for example, in both the

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Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek test of the New Testament, you have places where people that are equated to animals or to unreasoning beasts.

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And the idea here is that when somebody begins to go against the law of God or if somebody is doing something that is destructive to their own good, it is irrational.

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And so, for example, in 2 Peter 2, 12, heretics and people that are engaged in gross sin are equated to brute beasts is how the

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English is normally translated. But that word brute is actually a logo, which is which is unreasoning.

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The logo like like logos and a being like not like atheist, like an atheist is somebody who believes in no

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God, right? A being no. So this idea of a logo is is the the brute beast, the unreasoning beast.

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So we have animals on one side that are unreasoning. When Nebuchadnezzar, for example, has his reason taken away, he becomes like a beast.

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So we have the difference between man and and beast being shown for us in terms of this idea of reason.

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Furthermore, we find other texts where in the New Testament we are told that we are being renewed after the image of Christ.

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And what we're told in those passages is that we are renewed after the image of Christ in knowledge, holiness and righteousness.

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And you could find that being listed, for example, in the Westminster Shorter Catechism or Larger Catechism when the image of God is discussed.

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And so man is made after the image of God. Man is the image of God.

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And that image is rationality. And rationality implies knowledge, holiness and righteousness.

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I want to unpack that some. But but the idea here on a basic level is that if you're rational, you inherently are someone who has thought content.

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You have beliefs. And so if those are rightly formed beliefs, it's going to be knowledge. If they're wrongly formed belief and to be ignorance or error.

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If and you froze again, you're thinking about you can't be a thinker without thought content.

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Furthermore, if we deal with the idea of holiness, holiness is purpose. When it's rightly formed, its purpose is holiness.

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Improperly formed purposes are unholiness. And so to be unholy and then we deal with choice.

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So rational beings necessarily have thought content that they're thinking about.

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They have purposes they're pursuing and they have choices that they make.

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And this choice. The purposes they have rooted in the knowledge or the thought content that they have.

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So the choices and if they are improperly formed, they are unrighteous.

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I'm sorry, Chris, are you here? Am I cutting out? You cut out a little bit, but they were very short cutouts.

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OK, and so these are again, knowledge, holiness and righteousness are properly formed rationality.

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If you have if you have knowledge, it's because you have thought content that's properly formed. If you have holiness, it's your purposes that are properly formed.

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If you have righteousness, it's choice properly formed. And so righteousness is going to be applying the means that God has given in terms of the law.

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Holiness is the goal of glorifying God. And knowledge is truth that you believe that you can show to be true.

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And that that showing ultimately comes down to showing it from the word of God. And so that's the properly formed image of God.

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And so what we want is to be renewed after the image of God in knowledge. So we want to learn what the scriptures teach in holiness.

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We want our goals to be focused on the glory of God and in our choices. We want in righteousness.

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We want to make choices that are rooted in glorifying God based upon what he has revealed.

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And so that would be the matured, the renewed man after the image of Christ.

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And so the goal is for every Christian to manifest that maximally in this life.

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And also that when we are glorified, that will simply be the way it is. And we'll just be growing in knowledge more and more and be finding more and more effective ways as we mature further in the glorified condition.

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And as we are resurrected, we will be able to then exercise in the new heavens and new earth in that consummate form.

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We'll be able to enjoy a labor that has no toil, no strife, and no old age, sickness or death.

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And so that is sort of what we have to look forward to is this constantly enjoyable, fulfilling work, glorifying

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God in enjoyment together in the presence of our Lord brother Christ. And that is,

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I think, a glorious thing to think about. So there's more to go into in detail on these, but that's sort of the flyover. Now, going back to something that I said at the outset, how do we biblically make sure and differentiate between the fact that all of humanity universally is made in the image of God against, or distinguish it from, the error that many have come to conclude by that fact, that we are all brothers and sisters and that God is the

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Father of all of humanity? Yeah. So in one sense, we can talk about the idea that God is the

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Father of all humanity in the sense that he's the creator of all. But he's obviously not the

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Father of all humanity in the sense of he has not adopted every human being. And so we need to differentiate between creation and adoption.

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And so the image of God is an important thing for us to realize, you know, this is about the nature of man. Man is a rational creature with a body.

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And that differentiates us from angels, who are rational creatures without bodies. And obviously, that differentiates us from God, because God is a rational spirit.

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The three persons of the Trinity are rational spirits, but they are not created. And so they are without body and also without being created.

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But yet the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are rational spirits. They're rational minds. And so rationality being shared by God and the angels and by men.

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Now, we have to realize that when we look at, for example, the angels, there are the righteous angels and there are the fallen angels.

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And both are rational, but the fallen angels suppress their rationality and suppress the knowledge of the truth.

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And they have rejected truth and have rejected

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God as the highest good and have lied to themselves and they deceive themselves even in their pursuit of their own divination.

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And that's why they seek their own worship, for example, that worshiping idols is demon worship. And so when we think about this idea of the race of man, we need to remember that there are elect and reprobate men, just as there are elect and reprobate angels.

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And though rationality is shared, that rationality is not the basis of God's election.

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God elects and reprobates and holds us all accountable using our rationality as a part of our accountability.

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But he does not elect everyone who's rational. And so just being the image of God is not sufficient for our salvation.

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Salvation is not by being human alone. Instead, what we find is that it is being human is that makes it so that we are able to be held accountable.

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But what we find is that God has made all men, but he has adopted only those who are represented by Christ in the covenant of grace who are given faith by the work of the

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Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit gives faith to all the elect. Christ has paid for the sins of all of the elect.

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And we are all adopted. All of the elect are adopted after they are given faith.

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So they're given faith, and that instantaneously results in them being justified, counted righteous in the sight of God, and in them being adopted, counted as sons in the sight of God.

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And so there's a legal possession, a legal right, a legal inheriting of the good things of God.

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And that would include, for example, our renewal. A part of our adoption is a promise that we will possess the renewed, restored image of God, that we will be renewed after the image of Christ.

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That's one of the glorious things there. So hopefully that makes clear the difference, the image of God versus adoption. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break right now.

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And if you'd like to join the conversation, send in your email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back with David Reese right after these messages. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

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That's RoyalDiadem .com. We're now back with our guest, David Reese, pastor of Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, conference speaker and CEO of Armored Republic, and we are discussing the image of God.

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And we do have a listener in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, who is actually asking a question about something that you and I, Pastor David, briefly discussed before the show started.

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Fitz in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, says about four or five years ago,

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Chris Arnzen had a two -part interview with a Reformed pastor in Northern Ireland who is trying to make the case that only the elect of God are made in the image of God.

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How do you respond to that? Yeah, so I would say that in one sense

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I agree, in one sense I disagree. So let me explain that. So first of all, in the sense that I disagree, I disagree that only the elect are the image of God because everybody has rationality, but then there's this deforming of their rationality in the following senses.

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The content, the thought content people have, there is, we're told in Romans 1 that the eternal power and divine nature of God is a part of general revelation.

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And so what happens is the definition of God, the divine nature, is something that we suppress, and we take the attributes of God, and we take them and apply them to other things.

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So we might worship the universe, we might have some ridiculous demon false god besides that, whatever.

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And we take the attributes of God and apply them, we attribute them, we impute them to something other than God.

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Now, in that way, we are both the image of God, we're being rational, we're thinking, and then we're also destroying the image of God and that we are destroying knowledge.

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And so our purposes, if we're pursuing the glory of God, we have holiness. If we're pursuing something else, we're unholy.

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And same with righteousness, we have our choice. Unrighteousness being breaking the law of God, righteousness keeping it.

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So if we are, if we are, you know, if instead of knowledge, we have error, instead of holiness, we have profanation or vulgarity.

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And if instead of righteousness, we have unrighteousness, we've obviously, we don't have the image of God there in that sense, right?

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We're not, it's a deformed or suppressed or devolved or broken version. It's corrupted.

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That would be the corruption of the nature. And so there's this, the idea of man as the image of God has been corrupted in that way.

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And so in that sense that we don't have the properly formed image of God there, sure, only those who have been regenerated are actually renewed after the image of God.

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But in the sense that everybody has rationality and that our accountability depends upon that rationality, the image of God applies to everybody.

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And so in the general sense, there's a, there's the image of God is not destroyed. It is corrupted.

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And our guest froze. Are you back, Dave? I am.

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We were doing speed tests and stuff on the, on the break and everything, and everything was looking great. So I don't know what's going on. I'm really sorry.

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Everything seems theoretically looks great over here. The last word you said that was audible was corrupted. Okay. So there is a corruption of the image of God in, in everybody who has fallen and there is in the reprobate, no restoring of that corruption in the elect at the time of regeneration as a restoring.

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And then there is also furthermore in the process of sanctification, a further renewing after the image of Christ, after the image of God.

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And so that is the way in which you can, you can say, I can say yes or no, but hopefully it's been very clear that, no,

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I disagree that even the reprobate are the image of God in a corrupted way because of rationality.

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Whereas the elect, once they are regenerated, they are renewed and then they are further renewed through sanctification and fully renewed at glorification.

35:13

So to clarify for our listeners unfamiliar with the term reprobate, because that term is probably rarely used outside of reformed churches, but reprobate would be, would be describing someone who is not of the elect.

35:28

And we can really only know that someone was reprobate after they die and are known to have died rejecting

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Christ. Am I correct? Because obviously we can't know who God's elect are and who his non -elect are unless, of course, we can have confidence who his elect are when they come to Christ and make professions and, you know, and, and repent and live a believable life that is spirit filled and an obedience to Christ.

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But we cannot really in confidence declare somebody a reprobate while they're still alive, can we?

36:08

Right. So I would say that what we're given in the scriptures is, first of all, the most important application of whether you know somebody's elect or not is to yourself, right?

36:17

And you want to figure out, am I elect? And so anybody who believes the gospel is elect.

36:23

And so you should, you can have assurance of salvation on the grounds of what Christ has done. So if you look to what the gospel says about Christ, who he is and what he has done, and you believe it, then you know that you are elect and you have, you have assurance of salvation.

36:39

And an election gives you a grounds knowing that God is never going to let you go. He's not going to cause you to, to fall.

36:46

He's going to uphold you. So there's the perseverance of the saints. The second one is when you're looking at other people, the only, you know, if supernaturally

36:53

God can reveal somebody's elect, for example, as he did about Judas, you know, it was prophesied beforehand that Judas was reprobate.

37:02

And, and so, and you can have people that it's told, we're told are elect. So for example, like Paul was told, you know, that he was saved, you know, and so other people could hear that too, that was told to them that he was saved.

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And so we have those examples of the idea of supernatural revelation about somebody else being elect to reprobate. But apart from that, what we're required to do is to look upon the external evidence.

37:22

And so we, we look at people who are, they have a profession of faith. We think they're elect. And if somebody is, is, you know, is behaving in a way where they're claiming to be, you know, to not be a believer, you go, well, maybe they will be, maybe they'll, maybe they'll become a believer.

37:36

Maybe they're elect. Let's preach the gospel to them. And so we use the evidences of good works and profession of faith as the basis to see if we think somebody else is a believer, but we cannot read their minds.

37:47

And we do not know the secret decrees of God. Now, clarify that if you could, should we not preach the gospel to a seemingly unrepentant serial killer on death row, hoping that the

38:00

Lord will change his heart? Absolutely. So it is a supernatural work of God for anybody to believe the gospel.

38:08

We have no power in ourselves to believe the gospel. And so it is entirely a work of the

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Holy Spirit to cause a person to be born again. And so there's no more difficult for a serial killer to come to belief than it is for a, you know, two -year -old raised in a

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Christian home to come to belief. They are both supernatural works of the Holy Spirit, resurrecting dead souls.

38:31

And so that resurrection from the dead, from spiritual deadness is the work of giving faith.

38:37

And so we should absolutely preach the gospel to everybody. And we should call all men to repentance. But we know that God knows who he's going to bring to repentance.

38:46

He accomplishes his purposes. We're told in the book of Isaiah, for example, that the word of God has not returned void, but it accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent.

38:54

And so we know when we preach the gospel, it will either cause a person to believe as God intended, or it will harden a person and increase their responsibility for their rejection as God intended.

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And so we can have surety that the success of the purpose of that word preached will always be accomplished.

39:12

And so it glorifies God in either case. But we do not know who God has elected.

39:18

And so we are called to love our neighbors and to, you know, to treat everybody who we do not know if they're saved or not as a person who could be saved because we don't know.

39:29

God knows. And he will bring the preaching of the word to all those he intends to save. But we don't know who they are.

39:34

And so we're commanded to preach the gospel promiscuously, broadly to everybody.

39:40

One last thing is simply that those who are false prophets, who are called antichrists, that some people will, you know, the idea that blasphemy of the

39:49

Holy Spirit is claiming to speak for the Holy Spirit falsely. And so I would say that I think we've been given, for example, an evidentiary basis to see false prophets, for example, the papacy or the false prophet of Mormonism or something like that, as people who are these sort of people that are blaspheming the

40:07

Holy Spirit. So false prophets, I think, are examples of people that we have an evidentiary base to say that we don't think that they are, you know, elect.

40:15

And so we're supposed to fight them in a more vigorous way. But that doesn't mean they're not human. It doesn't mean they're not in the image of God.

40:21

But that means that they are people who have been revealed to us to be enemies and we have to deal with them in a way that we don't really expect false prophets to repent.

40:29

We just have to fight them. Okay, we have Christiana in Feather Falls, California.

40:38

And Christiana says, how do we differentiate the fact that we are made in the image of God from the heresies of men like Kenneth Copeland and Jimmy Swaggart who teach that God the

40:52

Father actually has a physical body just like you and I? And, of course, we could add to that the

40:59

Mormons. But, of course, the Mormons have a lot more problems than that in their belief system, as do the

41:08

Word of Faith Pentecostals. But if you could let our listeners know why the image of God doctrine does not teach that we are made in God's image, which would include the fact that he is a body like we do.

41:23

You know, the scriptures teach that God does not have bones. It teaches that he does not have flesh.

41:30

So we have that. We have that teaching of the scriptures. And furthermore, the fact that the image of God is equated to knowledge, holiness, and righteousness, and that it's the difference between man and beast is the image of God.

41:44

Those things help to make that plain. This idea that God has a body, I mean, there's many other systematic and scriptural reasons why that would be wrong.

41:53

For one thing, we know that matter itself is changeable.

41:58

It's not an eternal thing. The scriptures teach us that there's a beginning to the creation, and we're told that God is a spirit.

42:11

And the fact that God is a spirit and that he creates the heavens and the earth in time, that's the beginning of time.

42:18

Because in the beginning, Genesis 1 .1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so the place where there's the space itself and matter are all created and to have

42:29

God have a body, have a material body, is a category error to suggest that if he's eternal and he has a body, then space itself has to be eternal and matter has to be eternal.

42:41

So those are things that are category errors that are contradicted in many places of scripture. But furthermore, the idea that the image of God would make us somehow have to be divine is connected to that.

42:58

And that is the first sin is believing that we will be as God, that we can be the definers of good and evil, that we can have the attributes of God that are distinctly

43:08

God's. And so to mix, to make God like a creature is a basic idolatry error.

43:13

And to try to make man like God in ways that only God is, is another type of idolatry error.

43:20

So the raising of ourselves to be God and also the bringing down of God to be a creature are examples of that kind of error.

43:29

By the way, Christiana, if you're a first -time questioner, please give us your full address in Feather Falls, California, because Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

43:44

will mail you a free, brand new, New American Standard Bible as a result of being a first -time questioner.

43:51

So if that is the case, please let us know. And if you could, continue on with some of the primary essential teachings that we should all understand to maintain orthodoxy in our theology in regard to the image of God.

44:08

So the image of God, as we continue to think about the pieces of it in terms of how to maintain orthodoxy,

44:16

I've already mentioned the idea of, okay, again, image of God is rationality, a necessary implication.

44:21

If you are rational, you have thought content. You are going to think thoughts.

44:28

You're going to test those thoughts for coherence. And the scriptures themselves show us how to use reason properly.

44:35

First of all, reason is three laws. Reason is three laws of logic or three laws of thought.

44:42

The law of identity, a thing is itself. The law of contradiction, a thing cannot be both, you know, a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same sense.

44:56

And then the law of the excluded middle, a statement is either true or it is false.

45:01

If it's actually a meaningful statement. And so we think about these, we can find those laws in the scriptures.

45:07

For example, the law of identity, you know, a true statement, a true statement. You can find that when God says when he identifies himself, when he's introduced, when he's identifying himself to Moses, he says,

45:18

I am that I am. And so God in asserting his own name presents to us the law of identity.

45:25

When we get to the idea of the law of contradiction, we're told that, you know, the apostle

45:31

Paul says that the truth is not of a lie. We are also told when we deal with the excluded middle that Lord Jesus Christ communicates, you know, you're either with me or you're against me.

45:42

And he's showing that there's that he's helping to show us the fact that there is no middle ground there.

45:48

And we see that in other places of scripture as well. But there's this idea of a believer or you're not a believer and all not believers are necessarily opposed to Christ.

46:01

And so he's showing us with the law of the excluded middle there, how that works. So these laws of logic, identity, contradiction, excluded middle are are the laws of thought.

46:10

And when we think about us having the image of God, us being rational, being rational and thinking rationally is thinking in the way that God thinks.

46:19

Not that we, you know, that we think eternally, right? God is the eternal thinker.

46:25

He has all truth. He never learned anything. And so he doesn't think successively. We think successively.

46:31

We think one thought after another in time. That's a part of our creatureliness. It's distinct from God. Whereas God has all truth in his mind without change.

46:40

We think one thought after another and we learn. We didn't have a bunch of truth in our mind.

46:46

We learn. And that's the scriptures communicating truth to us and the Holy Spirit illuminating our minds.

46:53

But as we learn to reason, we are learning to think properly. And for example, there's the famous episode in Christ's life where he's arguing with the

47:01

Sadducees and they argue that there's no resurrection. And he communicates, for example, that they don't understand the scriptures of the power of God.

47:08

And he uses a logical argument with them. He shows God is the God of the living and out of the dead. And God is the

47:14

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Well, it's the implication there. The implication is that if he's the

47:19

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that they are living. And so he uses that to argue that the dead view, the soul sleep and non -resurrection view that the

47:29

Sadducees would put forward for something that's wrong. And so he's showing the logical implications there.

47:34

He's using a syllogism, is what it's called, where you're showing a necessary inference from two premises. And then we also have, for example, in 1

47:41

Corinthians 15, laying out a bunch of logical arguments in order where the Apostle Paul is also, again, defending the resurrection.

47:48

It seems as though God really liked to use logic to defend the resurrection. And so we have that in both 1

47:55

Corinthians 15 with the Apostle Paul and also with Jesus arguing with the Sadducees. So the rules of right thinking are proper logic.

48:04

And so that we're taught how to think properly, which that's one of the important things about we realize that how we think is a moral issue.

48:14

And so if we're thinking badly, if we're making category errors, if we're mixing stuff, if we're interpreting the scriptures wrongly, that's sin.

48:22

And we're called to think clearly, to be of a sound mind, to know the truth, to have wisdom, to seek wisdom as the principal thing.

48:30

And so when we think about this, if we're designed to be, if we're designed as the image of God, if we are the image of God and we're designed to be knowers of God.

48:38

And in fact, if our good is to know God, we're told that he who glories, let him glory in this, that he knows and understands me.

48:46

That's from Jeremiah. It's quoted in 1 Corinthians as well. We're also told in John 17, 3, that this is eternal life to know

48:54

Jesus Christ and to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

49:00

And so the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Jesus Christ is eternal life. And so that's what faith is, is the knowledge of God, that saving knowledge of God.

49:09

And so this idea that the image of God is knowledge, holiness, and righteousness, that it is rationality, we realize we're designed to be knowers of God.

49:19

And we're told in Ephesians, for example, that we as the body of Christ are going to be filled and made mature.

49:25

We're going to be filled with the knowledge of God. We're going to be filled with the knowledge of Christ and the church is going to fill the earth.

49:30

And so thereby, the knowledge of God will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, we're told in other parts of scripture.

49:37

And as a result, Christ will be he who fills all in all. So in other words, the church fills the whole earth and the knowledge of God fills the church.

49:46

And so in all of that working, we have as the image of God, as knowers of God, there's this filling with the knowledge of God.

49:53

And as the church spreads and the knowledge of God is filling the church and the knowledge of God is filling the earth.

49:59

And so the image of God is a very important doctrine, because it also helps us to see and understand what man is designed for.

50:06

We're designed to be knowers of God. And if we pursue the knowledge of God as the principal thing, we pursue wisdom, which is the knowledge of the good and the means to get what's good.

50:16

And so therefore, God and his law, we pursue wisdom in the knowledge of God and of his law, then we're seeking the principal thing.

50:24

And so we see that in Proverbs. You can see there's all these places all over Scripture where these things are emphasized and taught.

50:31

And so our purpose of glorifying God is the purpose of seeking to know him more fully and to then spread the knowledge of him to others and to apply the knowledge of God.

50:42

And so the law teaches us how to live a life in accordance with the knowledge of God. And so these things, that's what knowledge, holiness and righteousness are as they're being manifested, is showing forth in those ways.

50:56

And so that as the image of God, that's the orthodox doctrine of the image of God and how it relates to God glorifying himself in the earth.

51:04

And so as we look at some of the more particular applications of how we could do that later on, I want to give that as a sense of that's what we're going for.

51:12

This is about glorifying God and this is about being what we were designed to be so that we can joyfully suffer things that are temporary in this life, but have the fullness of joy in the knowledge of God and have the joy that there is no greater joy than seeing our children walk in the truth as we have disciples, as we have natural children, adopted children, spiritual children in the sense that they've been discipled by us, that type of thing, that we see them walk in the truth.

51:38

That's a great joy. And understanding the image of God makes us that we can pursue to glorify God ourselves, but also help others as we understand what man is really designed to be.

51:48

Great. And before the break, I guess we have time for one quick question.

51:56

We have Chico in Alvo, Nebraska, who asks, can you recommend any good books that explain the image of God doctrine?

52:06

Yeah, so I think there are two that I'd want to emphasize. First of all, a minor thing

52:13

I'd say is make sure you go to look at what the Westminster standards have to say about the image of God under the chapter on creation in the confession, but also about the image of God in the larger and shorter catechisms.

52:24

But I'd say as far as books go, the Doctrine of Man, there's two books with the title of Doctrine of Man.

52:31

One is by J. Gresham Machen and another one is by Gordon Clark.

52:38

They both have the same title and they're both very good books. The one by Machen is a little bit longer and he tries to deal with a lot of the modern errors, whereas Clark seems to try to engage on a more shorter way of trying to talk about the key verses there and he deals with more historical errors.

52:57

So he kind of goes across errors throughout time more. But I think those two books,

53:03

Clark's and Machen's books on the Doctrine of Man. And I would further say that one of the things

53:13

I think is really helpful to do is to really go back to the beginning of Scripture and read what it has to say there in chapters one and two of Genesis and meditate on those two chapters and to see what it talks about in terms of the image of God and thinking about how it's connected to this command to multiply and fill.

53:33

That kind of connects to this idea and going back again, go read Ephesians. Go read Ephesians, especially chapters one through four, thinking about the image of God, looking for stuff in there.

53:41

Great. Well, we have to go to our midway break. Don't go away. We're going to be right back. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a

54:03

Christ -centered gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

54:11

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family.

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At Linbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

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Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

54:39

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

54:56

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear

55:04

God's image. If you live near Linbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

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Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit linbrookbaptist .org.

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That's L -Y -N -Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of the

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Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

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Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

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For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.

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That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. Or call 678 -954 -7831.

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I've been a

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Ironsharpensiron.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

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01:07:47

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01:11:20

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01:11:59

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01:12:15

Yeah. So thanks, Chris. So basically, one of the things that was brought up in the last hour was the idea of God not having a body.

01:12:22

And I had kind of paraphrased something. I wanted to give a citation for that. Luke 24, verse 39, the

01:12:28

Lord Jesus Christ talks about how a spirit doesn't have bones and flesh like he has.

01:12:35

He's using that when he is resurrected to demonstrate that he was bodily resurrected, not just an appearance of a spirit.

01:12:41

So God, we're told, is a spirit, for example. And so John chapter 4 communicates that very plainly, that he is a spirit and he's to be worshipped as a spirit and in truth.

01:12:50

Furthermore, Deuteronomy 4, verses 15 to 18 communicate the fact that God did not reveal a form that he has to be viewed as having.

01:12:58

And so although there are theophanies where God has physical manifestations of his glory or of his presence, they are not his body.

01:13:08

And so he does not have some sort of permanent body. He has temporary manifestations or appearances where he takes on something.

01:13:16

The only thing that's a body that we would talk about as being God's in terms of the second person of the

01:13:21

Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, has obviously taken on a body. He's taken a body as a part of the human nature that he's taken on so that he is

01:13:30

God and man. But that is not eternally the case. He was not from the beginning

01:13:35

God and man. He is forever. He is everlastingly now God and man.

01:13:41

But there was a point in time at which the conception occurred of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the

01:13:46

Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And that is something where we need to realize that that's not the divine nature, having a body, but rather a union between the human and the divine as one

01:14:00

Christ, one person, one legal person where there's the divine and the human.

01:14:06

We spent a time on that in the past. I think it was several weeks ago. We talked about the incarnation in some depth. So if anyone wants to review that, they can check that out.

01:14:13

The other thing I want to point out is also there was this, just to build on this question that came in earlier about the idea of the image of God and whether or not everybody is the image of God, whether every human being is.

01:14:28

So I want to remind you of John chapter one, verse nine, which says that Christ is the light that lights the minds of everyone coming into the world.

01:14:36

And that is the same idea. The image of God is the light of nature. It is reason that equates there.

01:14:43

So John chapter one, verse nine. And the other thing I want to point out, people will sometimes talk about logic being created because humans are created.

01:14:50

And I want to point out that logic is an attribute of God. It's not created. And we know that because in the beginning was the logos.

01:14:57

In the beginning was the word, the doctrine, the logic, the reason, the wisdom. And so John teaches us both that we are, we have logic as creatures given as the image of God, but also that God is logical and he is eternally so.

01:15:15

And so God doesn't contradict himself. And there's not, you know, God's thoughts aren't nonsense. They are logical. And he reveals in his word, his logical thoughts.

01:15:23

The word is beautiful because it cannot be broken. And so we can distinguish truth from error because the word does not contradict itself.

01:15:31

If the word did contradict itself, we couldn't just, we couldn't distinguish truth from error. And in fact, we just have to say that, that in fact, that there's meaningless things when they contradict themselves.

01:15:39

So the beautiful thing is the Bible does not. I also wanted to point out the idea of a reasonable soul.

01:15:45

This point is communicated in the Westminster larger catechism in question 17. It talks about humans being made in the image of God as reasonable souls.

01:15:55

And it says that also in Westminster confession of faith chapter one, section two. So there's a bunch of places where people can go to think about these things.

01:16:03

Besides the actual creation text, Genesis one and two, we have all those places where those issues can be dealt with and looked into further.

01:16:11

And so what I'd like to do is to dive further now into the meaning of the, of knowledge as it applies in terms of the image of God as sort of a duty that we have as Christians.

01:16:21

And so when we think about the idea that we are rational and therefore we're supposed to be knowers of God, that's a part of the commandment that we have to know

01:16:30

God. And that's part of this duty that we've been given to be prophets, not in the sense that you and I Chris are taking new revelation and bringing it to people, but rather that we are called to know the truth of God and to communicate it to other people and to correct error.

01:16:45

And so we can only do that if we know the word of God. And so this idea of teaching and correcting both ourselves and others is done by having the knowledge of God and then communicating that.

01:16:58

The idea of holiness in terms of the work there, that's associated with the office of priesthood.

01:17:06

So priests are called to holiness. And so we are all called to be priests, to be ones who are praying and sacrificing.

01:17:14

We don't sacrifice for sins because Christ as the high priest has offered himself once for all time for all of the elect, for all of the sins and all of the elect has offered himself.

01:17:24

But we sacrifice in the sense that we should self -sacrificially live and we should live our lives as a sacrifice that is acceptable to God.

01:17:33

And so this idea of being priests where we pray using the intercession of Christ, using the mediation of Christ, and we sacrifice.

01:17:44

And holiness is about the purpose, the goal of God glorifying him, but also it's about right relationship.

01:17:52

And if we are focused on the glory of God, we're going to pursue relationship with him, but we're also going to pursue relationship with fellow believers because bad company corrupts good morals, but those who are companions of the wise become wise.

01:18:05

And so this, as we understand that we are relational creatures and that the purposes we pursue, as we invest in things, we increase our perceived value.

01:18:15

The way if we pursue God and his wisdom, it will help us to value God more. And if we are around others who also pursue that, then it ties us relationally in to pursuing that.

01:18:26

That's why the church is so important. God has established a church in the earth where we're to have solid relationships with each other, seeking to honor the

01:18:34

Lord together. And we see that also in families. Godly families are a place where that should be occurring. And then furthermore, righteousness and the idea that we make choices is tied to the idea of the office of the king, that we are to be prophets, priests, and kings.

01:18:50

We've been commissioned to do work. And as kings, we are to provide and protect and we apply the law to know the right means to use.

01:18:57

And so this image of God relates to offices and calling and our duty.

01:19:04

And when we have rightly formed views of knowledge, holiness, and righteousness, they help us to understand how to fulfill the work we've been assigned to do.

01:19:13

And so this is about being more fully human. This is about fulfilling our roles more and being of service to others and living a life that maximally glorifies

01:19:22

God. So I don't know how we are in time, but those are things that I can go into further. As there's availability.

01:19:28

Well, we have, before we go to our final break, 20 more minutes. Great. So then when we talk about this idea of the office of prophet,

01:19:41

I want to again connect back and delve into that a little bit further. So the image of God is rationality.

01:19:48

And if you're rational, you therefore inherently are thinking thought content. And we want to have right content, so we want to have knowledge.

01:19:56

And we really want to know the most important things, right? The most, the most important thing, you know, God. And so if you're going to seek wisdom, you're going to seek the knowledge of God.

01:20:04

So we often feel as though the doctrine of God is impractical. But I want to suggest there's nothing more practical than knowing

01:20:13

God. Because when you know God, the knowledge of the truth, God is the truth. And as we know God, the knowledge of the truth, we're told by the

01:20:20

Lord Jesus Christ in John eight, that the knowledge of the truth sets men free. And so we're free from what?

01:20:25

Well, free from slavery to sin, free, free from Satan, free from the world. And so there's this power as we know the truth, we become capable of governing ourselves.

01:20:37

We are no longer governed and enslaved by passions and by heresies.

01:20:43

We now begin to be able to apply self -control. Ego kratia is the

01:20:48

Greek there. Ego is I, you know, and kratia rule. So this idea of self -rule.

01:20:54

And so as we begin to know the truth more deeply, we begin to exercise self -rule better and we can engage in the work of teaching and correcting.

01:21:04

Now, oftentimes, as we are trying to teach people truth, we want to evangelize. We find people kind of bounce off.

01:21:11

We talked before about the idea that Isaiah says the word of God doesn't return void. But I want to suggest that since we often have to correct and rebuke sin as we're dealing with evangelism, we teach law and gospel, the law to show the need of a savior and then the gospel, the news of the savior.

01:21:27

We have to put that out. And if we're going to correct things, it's funny, we often kind of go after the hot button issues.

01:21:35

But I want to suggest that a part of rationality and a part of being an effective prophet, so to speak, is trying to identify the most philosophically basic or the most theologically, systematically foundational issue where a person is rejecting

01:21:50

God's truth. And so it's so much easier oftentimes for people to discuss the idea of how do you know what's true versus their particular sin.

01:22:00

Now, we should tell people, hey, here's a particular sin. Yes, God forbids that and you ought to obey him.

01:22:05

But oftentimes, we can draw people into discussions by talking about the things of God and talking about questions of how do we know truth or how do you know what's real or how do you know what's right and wrong?

01:22:15

And the ability to kind of examine it in a more academic way. And then you can come in and hit the particular sins again.

01:22:22

But you think about the Lord Jesus Christ when he's talking to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four. And he's talking to her and she is told by him, hey, you've been married multiple times and you're living with a guy you're not married to now.

01:22:41

And then she says, you're a prophet. Where should we be worshiping, here in Samaria or are the

01:22:48

Jews right and we should go to Jerusalem? And a lot of people say, hey, this woman is just like avoiding the topic that Jesus is talking about.

01:22:55

She's avoiding talking about her sin. And at the same time, she's bringing up another subject about her worship and whether or not her worship is done sinfully.

01:23:04

And so I think a lot of times we think that, oh, people want to avoid talking about their sins and they go to theology to dodge that.

01:23:11

But I don't think that's true. I think it's important that we realize that the root sin is the sin of unbelief.

01:23:17

That all of our fruit sins, all of the ways that we disobey God, in particular, come out of a corruption of our not glorifying

01:23:27

God as we ought. And so if we can, like Jesus talks to the woman at the well, talking to her, he gives the answer.

01:23:34

He says, hey, the Jews are right. They're supposed to be supposed to worship in Jerusalem. But a time is coming when God, and now is, when

01:23:39

God is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. And that's throughout the world, not just in a particular location.

01:23:45

And so he goes to the theological issue and answers that. And so what I want to say is we actually really want to try to get in theology and that will address the issues of particular sins.

01:23:57

And so if we can find ways of talking to people about the stuff that's kind of academic and also about the things that are sin, we want to hit both.

01:24:06

And we want to find ways of getting to what's the basic point of disagreement. They reject the authority of God's word.

01:24:12

They reject his law. They reject the reality of an eternal God. What's the thing that is the error that's driving so much of their sin?

01:24:21

And when we when they we want to elevate both God himself and his law and help them to think about both so that they will see the holiness of God and see their own sinfulness.

01:24:33

And so as a prophet, I want to encourage people to look for ways to find the more basic things. And if you want to know how to do that, the

01:24:40

Westminster Larger Catechism, sorry, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the table of contents is basically an order from more basic to less basic.

01:24:47

Chapter one's on scripture. Then it goes to the nature of God. Then it goes to his decrees. Then it goes to creation. Then it goes to providence.

01:24:53

And so you actually have this systematic ordering and almost any systematic theology that you find, like whether it's

01:24:58

Calvin's Institute or whatever, you're going to find an effort to systematically arrange. So this study of these subjects and looking at a confessional standard, for example, to see the order of those things are done, that helps you to find more basic things to get to.

01:25:12

And so this idea of studying the more basic to the less basic, or Augustine liked to use the language of going to the higher things.

01:25:20

He would reverse that. So he'd say, if we can get people to talk about how do they know and whether God reveals things, that's sort of the high questions.

01:25:28

You're getting to these things that are heavenly, so to speak, the high up. So you're trying to get people to engage on those.

01:25:33

As a priest, everybody's looking for relationships and looking for goals. What is it

01:25:39

I should be doing? And if you can study the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Ecclesiastes is a manual of how to deconstruct false views of the good.

01:25:53

The good is the highest good. It's the thing that's the most valuable. God is the good. He's the most valuable thing.

01:25:59

And we possess God by knowing him. And so seeking the knowledge of God is how we pursue God and seeking to apply that knowledge.

01:26:07

And so the book of Ecclesiastes is a manual of deconstructing false views of what is good.

01:26:12

People talk about deconstructing their evangelical faith. Let's not do that. Let's construct our evangelical faith and let's deconstruct every other faith.

01:26:20

Let's tear them down. And the prophet Solomon in the book Ecclesiastes goes through and deconstructs things like, hey, are you pursuing pleasure as your good?

01:26:29

Let me tell you all the reasons why that's totally dissatisfying. Are you pursuing power as your good?

01:26:34

That's not going to work. Let me explain why. Are you trying to fill your life with achievement? That's not going to do it either.

01:26:40

Here's why. And so the book of Ecclesiastes does a really magnificent job of showing how none of the things that people pursue as goods, as false gods work.

01:26:49

And so the goal they've got is wrong. And it presents for us in chapter 12, at the very end of the book, it presents the sum of the matter, fear

01:26:56

God and keep his commandments. And it explains a little bit more about that in terms of the roles of teachers there. But this idea of right relationship and right goal, the

01:27:05

Bible helps us to see the difference between right relationship and right goal versus wrong relationship and wrong goal.

01:27:12

And it uses the language of whorishness or being profane as one side for wrong relationship.

01:27:18

And it talks about right relationship in terms of being holy, being, you know, sort of kept separate and uses the language of like a chaste bride.

01:27:30

And so those are the terms for right relationship, especially with God. And so the church looks at that.

01:27:36

And if we are to study sort of the song of Solomon as first and foremost about a man and a woman in marriage, but that's used as an image of the relationship between Christ and the church,

01:27:47

God and Israel. And so the idea of what does that look like, this idea of the pursuit of the first love with God.

01:27:55

And in the book of Revelation, in the letters to the churches, what we find is that in the letters to the churches, one of the churches is doing very well is told, but they're abandoning their first love.

01:28:08

And they're called to return to the works of first love. And I would suggest that when you are in love with somebody, you seek time to commune with them.

01:28:20

You seek time to spend time with them, to get to know them more. And the activities of first love are seeking to have time to get to know and to build relationship.

01:28:32

And so we are called to spend time with God in worship, in particular, private worship, secret worship.

01:28:38

Jesus talks about going to your closet to pray in secret. And this idea of private worship is how you really build your relationship with God.

01:28:47

You delve into the word on your own. You pray privately. You cry out to God. You sing praises to God.

01:28:53

And these, and I would encourage you to sing the Psalms specifically. They give us, you know, 171

01:28:59

Psalms and those there's 100. We normally number them as 150, but Psalm 19 is 22 of them.

01:29:06

So we have these. I would encourage you to sing these to God. And you build relationship there. These are the works of first love.

01:29:13

These are the works that private worship is how you nurture your own zeal and knowledge and how you will then be able to go out rather than fearing men, you will fear

01:29:23

God. And so that helps to build the reality of God. So priestly focus there, the holiness is encouraged in that way.

01:29:30

So the study of the truth of God and the teaching of the truth of God and correcting error helps to build up our own knowledge and to help us to function well as prophets.

01:29:40

And holiness is encouraged in particular in worship and in these works of first love, especially in secret worship.

01:29:47

And I would encourage everybody who's a head of house to make sure to lead their family in family worship as a way of building the holy affections of their household and taking those same ordinances of the word and prayer and Psalms that sing together with your families.

01:30:03

And lastly, again, with righteousness, we see this idea of applying the law.

01:30:09

And so the king seeks to provide and protect, and he's doing justice. And the law of God helps us to know that if we must meditate on the law of God, Psalm 1 talks about meditating not on the counsel of the ungodly or of the sinner or of the scoffer, but what do we meditate on day and night?

01:30:24

The law of God. And as we study in the law, if we study and meditate on the law of God, it shapes our wisdom of choice and what we should do, and it makes it so that we are able as kings to make decisive choices in the moment because we are ready.

01:30:41

We have stored up in our hearts the word to be able to not only speak, but to choose it and do it. And that only works for somebody who first already believes the gospel.

01:30:50

If you don't know God, if you don't know the gospel, then the law is not going to sanctify you.

01:30:56

What's going to happen is it's going to further show you your guilt. And so the studying of the law has three purposes. First, showing us our need of salvation.

01:31:04

Second, it binds and reduces sin. And thirdly, it is a lamp unto our feet and shows us the way that we should go.

01:31:10

And so that third use as a king is very valuable, is to be a lamp unto our feet so that we can move like a highway.

01:31:16

Proverbs talk about the righteous are on a highway, whereas the wicked are like going through hedges of thorns.

01:31:24

Do you want to move through life like on a highway? OK, well, study the law of God. If you don't want to, if you prefer to spend your entire life getting your skin caught in thorns, then, you know, just keep meandering along like a fool without any light and just get caught in the thorn in the hedgerows.

01:31:40

And we have a question for you from Albrecht in Benjamin, Utah.

01:31:49

And Albrecht said, you already addressed earlier on in the program some aberrant and heretical understandings of the image of God from heretics.

01:32:00

But I was wondering if there are any aberrant views of the image of God that we should be aware of and warned against that might be promoted by otherwise biblically faithful Christians or denominations?

01:32:15

Yeah, so I think the image of God is something that a lot of people, a lot of people are unsure how to define it.

01:32:25

And I think one thing that's frustrating is you have people that are solidly reformed and they're hesitant on defining the image of God.

01:32:33

They're hesitant about it. So I really want to encourage people to feel like they are confident in it, are reformed standard to make it clear that this is the case, that it is reason and that it's knowledge, holiness and righteousness.

01:32:48

But even more than that, Colossians 3 .10,

01:32:56

for example, says, and you have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

01:33:03

And then furthermore, Ephesians 4 .24 says, and you put on the new man, which after God has created in righteousness and true holiness.

01:33:12

So those knowledge, holiness and righteousness as the image of God, that's just explicitly stated right there in those texts.

01:33:20

And so I want to, the main error I want to attack is the error that we haven't figured it out. And I think it's very plain in the scriptures.

01:33:28

And I think the reformed confessional standards have made it very plain. And so we need to not be skittish about this.

01:33:34

We need to be straightforward and clear about it. And so the other thing is, you know,

01:33:40

Bart, Carl Bart was certainly not, was certainly not Orthodox, right?

01:33:46

He was neo -Orthodox. And neo -Orthodoxy is another word for not Orthodox. And so the idea that he was putting forward, he put forward the idea of the body.

01:33:56

Other people put that forward too. But his view is sometimes popularly put forward.

01:34:02

You'll find people who are opposed to logic as the image of God or reason as the image of God in terms of how that manifests in knowledge, holiness and righteousness.

01:34:11

And they'll call it Gnosticism. This is popular amongst a lot of people to call, you know, if you say saving faith is the knowledge of God, or if you say that man is made to know

01:34:21

God or that we glorify God by knowing him and applying the knowledge of him, spreading the knowledge of him.

01:34:27

Some people will talk about that as Gnosticism. And that is not Gnosticism. Gnosticism is a heresy with some particular doctrines that sort of mixes a lot of platonic ideas with the

01:34:38

Bible. Normally has associated with it the idea that matter is eternal and modified. But even if you don't have that, you typically have some sort of system of like graded spirits that are going from God down to down to man or something like that.

01:34:51

But the key thing that makes the differentiate sort of Gnosticism from Christianity as a label is

01:34:57

Gnosticism was sort of like Scientology in that it had secret knowledge, esoteric knowledge that was sold for a fee.

01:35:05

So you go come to my sermon, the sermon, sort of a TED Talk and the TED Talk. I'm trying to get you to want to buy my book.

01:35:11

And if you buy the book and you go through the class and by the way, there's a workbook and that costs whatever. And if you get through that, then you can pay me another fee.

01:35:18

And then I might give you some secret knowledge in the next conversation. And it's sort of this cult manipulation thing to extract information or to extract money out of you by selling secret knowledge.

01:35:28

So that's not Gnosticism. The idea that the image of God is rationality is not Gnosticism.

01:35:34

And there's been this weird throwing out of that recently. But one of the other benefits of throwing around the word

01:35:40

Gnosticism that's occurred a lot recently is also sort of this idea of a lot of Christians don't really care about dominion.

01:35:46

And that's what the kind of using Gnostic as a negative term has been used for recently is to say, hey, you need to care about dominion.

01:35:52

You need to care about the body and the world and all that. Yes, we do. We need to apply the word of God to everything. And Christ is going to rule everything.

01:36:00

And so we need to apply the word everywhere. So that's sort of, I think, what people are trying to communicate when they use that word

01:36:06

Gnostic in a modern sense in a lot of ways. Great. And we have we have time for one more question before the break.

01:36:18

We have Pappy in Crown, West Virginia.

01:36:24

And Pappy asks, are emotions a part of the image of God?

01:36:30

And I was wondering how that relates to the current divide amongst Reformed Christians over the doctrine of impassibility.

01:36:41

Yeah, that's a great question. So so as far as impassibility goes, first of all,

01:36:47

I'm very I want to very clearly express that that God is without emotions.

01:36:53

God has no passions. There's no parts. There's no passions. He has no body. And so he he has no emotion.

01:37:00

Why? Because he doesn't change. And so when we talk about God having anger or wrath or him being grieved or whatever, we're talking about unchanging attitudes, right?

01:37:09

God is is has anger towards wickedness and towards the wicked. God has wrath, hatred towards the wicked, towards unrighteousness.

01:37:18

He is grieved at wickedness. His love is a an attitude of favor, that kind of stuff.

01:37:24

So these this language. So God does not have emotions. The image of God is not emotions. And so emotions are are upheavals.

01:37:33

And so here's what emotion is. Emotion is an effect of the fast changing of the mind.

01:37:40

OK, so so emotion is it's it's a mixture. It is when we talk about emotion, what we're talking about is the the swirling or the instability of the mind.

01:37:50

And we're also talking about sort of there are bodily effects. So if you think about being angry, OK, when we talk about somebody getting really angry, what we're saying is somebody had, you know, somebody was fine.

01:38:01

They were cool, not not angry, whatever. And then something happens that they think is unjust or evil in front of them.

01:38:08

So especially towards themselves or someone they really care about. And and they get they they view that as evil and their mind is changing fast.

01:38:17

And as a result, they have certain bodily reactions, like, you know, maybe their face turns red and a little bit shaky and they've got like an adrenaline dump.

01:38:25

And so they've got some extra strength where they can go and press in against this evil. And so that's the anger, the sadness.

01:38:31

It was sort of, for example, you've got this sort of this external change where the body shifts in terms of you might begin to have teary eyes.

01:38:38

You might have a weakness of the body. You you you you are you are just you are without hope. You're despondent.

01:38:44

And then as a result, that happens fast. Your body changes. So so let's let's let me let me lay out a little bit further how emotions work.

01:38:52

So if there's a fast change of the mind that causes more emotion than slow change.

01:39:00

OK, and in particular, if you're your if your expectation changes quickly. Secondly, the other thing is, if you're going to have an emotional reaction, there are things that you value and there are things that you do not value.

01:39:15

The things that you value more are things where if you, for example, if I think I'm going to, you know, win a billion dollars and I didn't know that and then also they know

01:39:26

I might become really happy because that's, you know, a billion dollars is a ton of money to get. And I can think of all the good works and everything

01:39:31

I can do with that and all the ways I can help other people and all the luxuries I can enjoy and all the ways I can glorify God and all that stuff.

01:39:37

And I go, wow, that's amazing. I might have a really fast change of dramatic thing of something

01:39:42

I value. And that was that I go, wow, I'm really happy. I might be I might be happy from that. Then two seconds later, you say, just kidding.

01:39:52

And actually, and actually everything you own is about to be taken away. And so my expectation goes from really high expectation to really negative expectation really fast.

01:40:05

You're likely to get really powerful emotional reaction out of me because it's something I care about and it's something that's happening fast.

01:40:14

And so that fast up and down would maximize it. Now, a person who's a

01:40:19

Christian who values God above everything else is going to be able to maintain more stability in the midst of that, because even though you might go,

01:40:28

I got a bunch of money or no, I'm losing all my money. You're going to go, well, God is more valuable. And so a person who worships money is going to flip out both ways.

01:40:37

But a person who values God as the highest good is going to keep their head about them and maintain their equanimity to some extent in the midst of all that, even though they might get happier and then get sadder, you know, based upon the changes of news, they're going to have a different stability.

01:40:53

And so actually what happens is as we're renewed after the image of God, the more rational we are, the more properly we have wisdom and holiness and righteousness, the more our emotions are going to be in check.

01:41:04

And so what we're going to find is we have a more stable joy and we're going to have less swings.

01:41:09

And so sanctification moves up our baseline level of joy and reduces the swings that we go through.

01:41:18

Well, we have to go to our final break, and don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. As image bearing prophets, priests, and kings, we teach families to worship together as families.

01:41:49

Puritan is committed to teaching the whole council of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

01:41:57

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline and exalt

01:42:03

Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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That's PTLBibleRebinding .com. Have you noticed the gap that exists between the

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It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the

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01:44:29

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Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

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We do have Greenlee in Mary, Alabama. And Greenlee asks, you were saying earlier that God does not have emotions.

01:54:51

One thing that puzzles me about that is that Jesus Christ is the second person of the

01:54:58

Godhead. He is God, and yet he will forever, since his incarnation, be the

01:55:04

God -man. When he walked the earth, he had emotions. Does he still have emotions? That's a great question.

01:55:12

And yes, Lord Jesus Christ in his human nature does have emotions. But what we need to remember is that the

01:55:18

Lord Jesus Christ has two minds. He has a human mind, and he has a divine mind.

01:55:25

And so there's not a mixing. And I would really encourage you go back and listen to our show on the incarnation, because the idea, we have to keep the reality that Jesus is

01:55:39

God, and he is man, and man and God have contradictory attributes. And so we have two minds that have these attributes, one mind that has all the divine attributes, and one mind that has all the human attributes.

01:55:52

And so we have to realize that. And then we realize that, yes, in a certain sense, we could say there's a technical way in which we could find a way to make the statement true,

01:56:04

God has emotions. We can talk about the emotions of God in the same way that we could say that God has blood.

01:56:11

Because, you know, Acts 20 says that we were purchased by the blood of God. Well, God in his divine nature,

01:56:18

Christ in his divine nature doesn't have blood, but he has blood that was created in time.

01:56:24

And his blood from his human nature is connected to his divine nature legally, so that it's the blood of God.

01:56:33

Now, does that mean that blood is omnipresent? No. Does that mean that blood is, you know, all knowing?

01:56:39

No. Does that mean that blood is all power? No. It's human blood, but it's human blood that has the value of the blood of God because of the hypostatic union, because of the connection of the human nature to the divine nature as one legal person, as one

01:56:56

Christ. And so we have to realize that Christ in his divinity has no emotions, and in his humanity, he does have emotions.

01:57:04

So, yes. Okay. If you could, Pastor David, summarize in two minutes or less what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about this topic.

01:57:15

I want everyone to know that we can know what the image of God is. And the image of God is not an image that you see with your eyes.

01:57:21

God is invisible, we're told in the book of Romans. And so we see the invisible attributes of the invisible

01:57:28

God with our minds. And that's what we, when we have faith, we are believing the truth about God.

01:57:35

We're knowing God. And so the image of God is our rationality.

01:57:41

And if you're a rational mind, you necessarily have thought content, which when it's properly formed is knowledge.

01:57:49

You necessarily have purposes or goals, which when properly formed is holiness. And you necessarily make choices.

01:57:56

And when those choices are properly formed, they're called righteousness. And so I want everybody to know that we can know what the image of God is.

01:58:04

And the scriptures reveal it to us as the light that lights the minds of all those who enter into the world. That is the light of nature.

01:58:10

That is the image of God. It is rationality, which manifests itself in how we are renewed after the image of Christ in knowledge, holiness, and righteousness.

01:58:20

Amen. And if you want further details on Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, where my guest is pastor, go to PuritanPHX .com,

01:58:30

PuritanPHX .com. For more details about the Armored Republic company that he, where he is the

01:58:37

CEO, go to ArmoredRepublic .com, ArmoredRepublic .com. Don't forget Men in Ministry.

01:58:43

If you're interested in attending my next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio free pastors luncheon on June 6th of 2024, featuring

01:58:52

Dr. Joel Beeky as the guest speaker, send me an email to register at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:58:59

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Reese, for being such an extraordinary guest as you always are. I want everybody to remember for the rest of your lives,

01:59:07

Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner. Amen.