Simply Trinity (part 18)

Our Father in heaven, what a beautiful day, what a glorious morning to gather together at Bethlehem Bible Church and just to think of all the blessings that you've granted us.

Even as we enter fully now into spring, we thank you and praise you.

Father, we thank you for yet another Sunday where we can hear your word, where we can gather together with your people, where we can learn more about you.

Father, I pray that you'd bless our time as we look to what men have said, what you have said, how you have led men throughout the centuries to rightly divide the word.

Father, I pray that you'd bless us and strengthen us as we grapple with this subject of the Trinity. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Excuse me. Well, we left off at our quiz.

Anybody who doesn't have a quiz, quiz number seven, number seven, number seven, number seven. Please raise your hand, speak now or forever.

Hold your peace. Seeing none, we'll move on. OK, I feel like I'm doing Robert's Rules of Order right here in Sunday school.

We left off maybe number 16, looks like, probably.

We did 16. We did 17, too. Really? Wow, that's amazing.

Oh, yeah, we did. Adam was the image of God. Yeah, that was a trick question. Yeah, I like that one. He loves those trick questions.

And basically what we wanted to say there was just that Jesus is the image, not Adam. Adam was made in the image of God, which means that he shares some of the communicable attributes of God.

So do we. OK, number 18, true or false. Jesus was the firstborn of creation, which means the

Father is superior to him. That's false.

It's not. It's not even false. Why is it false, though?

The first part is certainly true, isn't it? Isn't that what the

Bible says? Firstborn in terms of preeminence.

Because what do the Jehovah's Witnesses show up at your door? What do they want to do? Convince you that Jesus is the eternal son of God?

Yeah, that he's a created being. So they'll turn to Colossians 1 and they'll point out to you that, look, even the

Bible says, even your Bible says, you know, they might even take your, oh, what do you have?

The ESV? That's great. They'll jump up and down and they'll say, well, doesn't it say right there that he's the firstborn of all creation?

Colossians chapter one. And you'll say, yes, certainly. That's exactly what it says. And you know what's really great is having the ability to silence your watch and your phone, because then when people send you messages, when they know that you're a church, you can just ignore them.

OK, so he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, which was rightly said here.

It just means he's the preeminent one, not, you know, we've talked about that word prototikos in the

Greek. It doesn't mean that he's the first created being. And so Barrett says,

Arianism misrepresents Paul. When Paul says the son is the firstborn of all creation, he is not referring to God creating his son.

No, Paul is referring to Christ in relation to creation. Sort of poetic, so I have to pause there for a moment.

Paul is not referring to God's supremacy, the father's supremacy over his son, but to Christ's supremacy over his creation.

If the son was created, then Paul overreaches in the worst possible way when he confesses in 119.

And now now that I've coughed, I'm going to sneeze. Hmm, sorry,

I'll let you know. Paul overreaches in the worst possible way when he confesses, for in him, the son, for in him, the son, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

How would it be possible for all the fullness of God to dwell in a created being?

Anybody have an answer to that one? It's good because what's that?

OK, is that right, though? In other words, when

Paul says in him, all the fullness of God dwells in him, is he referring to simply that?

Probably. For in him, the son of God, all the fullness of God was pleased to, or for in him, the son, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in the in his humanity.

But if he's created, is that possible? And I think the answer is no. His humanity is created, his divinity is not created, right?

I mean, if if God the Father creates another divine person, we have a real problem. Yes, Mark.

OK, is it the fullness of God? Well, let's logic this out for a minute.

If I have all the Holy Spirit dwelling in me and you have all the Holy Spirit dwelling in you,

I'm not trying to quantify, I'm going with the question. Yes.

Can all of God be present in every location at the same time? When we say dwelling in us.

Well, I but but I think it's I think it's yeah, I think it's different. Right. The fact that the

Holy Spirit is present in me doesn't mean that I contain all the Holy Spirit.

Right. So I think that's the I think that's the rub there is the Holy Spirit as present in me as he is anywhere else.

And is that all of the Holy Spirit? It's kind of tricky, isn't it?

In other words, I can't let's put it this way. I can't compress the

Holy Spirit into me. Right. So in that sense, if that's the way we're looking at it, then the answer is no.

If you're asking, you know, do I have like point zero one percent Holy Spirit or something like that?

Well, then the answer is also no. Right. I mean, so I I don't I don't know that.

But getting back to this question. In the sense that and here's the key issue here.

If Jesus is a created being, then he can't be truly divine because true divinity is not created.

The father is not created. The spirit's not created. So in that sense, the answer would be, you know, it's so in what sense is the second person of the

Trinity in human flesh? I mean, OK, let's look at your question another way.

Mark, we know that the second person of the Trinity is in Jesus, the human being.

Right. Is that does that. You know, contain

Jesus, the second person of the Trinity in his humanity, yes, in his divinity.

No, because he's still everywhere. So how do we explain that? Does Jesus have less than 100 percent of the second?

You know, so the answer is no, because he's everywhere. Right. Yeah. I mean,

I mean, yeah, to look at it the other way. That's a good point, Jonathan, to look at it the other way. And maybe it's more helpful to look at it that way.

A created being cannot be the creator. So the idea of Jesus being the firstborn of creation, meaning he's a created being.

Well, that can't be because he's the creator of all things. Colossians 1 tells us that.

So so I think that's helpful. I've been thinking after this that maybe we'll do, you know, a book on the

Holy Spirit. So that's a that's a whole other topic. But OK. In brief image, the image of God does not mean the son is inferior to that which he images as if the son were subordinate to the father.

Image conveys likeness. The son, says Gregory of Nazanias, Nazanias is called image because he is consubstantial with the father.

He's of the same substance as the father. And this is going to be very important as we look in, as you might imagine,

I'm studying the next chapter and in the next chapter, he talks about current theologians who say that Jesus is less than the father.

And there are all sorts of rationales given for that. I mean, among others, you know, you've probably heard this a few times here lately, but one of the analogies that was made or has been made and that I've made and that Pastor Mike has made and that is wrong and that we don't do anymore is when we're talking about marriage.

And what's the analogy? Wives submit to your husbands, even as the church submits to Christ.

You know, it's interesting because what Paul, let's look at Ephesians five for this moment, what

Paul doesn't say in Ephesians five and what I think some theologians would like him to say is this, how about this reading of Ephesians five, 22 wives submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

Now, as the son submits to the father, so wives also should submit in everything to their husbands.

There's a problem with that. Of course, it doesn't say that, but we used to say things like submission isn't that bad wives, because if you think about it, even

Jesus submits to the father. So it's not, it doesn't put you in a lesser place.

And that's the reason, or one of the reasons that men like Wayne Grudem and men like Bruce Ware and others have said these kinds of things.

And it's just ultimately wrong. If we look at it historically, it's wrong.

If we look at it biblically, it's wrong. They have their reasons for believing it, but those reasons are not historically or biblically accurate.

It's one of the reasons why we're stressing these days that Jesus is of the same substance as the father.

The son is of the same substance as the father. The spirit is of the same substance as the father and the son, because we ultimately want to represent them rightly as equal, they're fully equal.

There is not a lesser person in the Trinity. There's no hierarchy as it were.

There's a bit of a, well, there's an economy of function, but that's, that, that doesn't have to do with their persons, but we'll skip that for now.

Okay. Number 19, true or false, the new

Testament does not teach that Jesus is the wisdom of God. I'm sorry, did

I hear a false? Did I hear some truths? It's false.

Uh, I'm just like, yeah, you can raise your hand with some confidence. Yeah. Just stick that hand right up there.

Let's turn to first Corinthians one. I have it in my notes.

I don't know why I need it. So, okay. First Corinthians one verses 22 to 24 for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we, we preach

Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both

Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Barrett says, how appropriate then for Paul to conclude that this Christ is the power of God for salvation and the wisdom of God on display for every or to every nation going on to verse 30.

And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God.

Wisdom from God. Okay. So now that we've given that answer, let's look at number 20.

The old Testament teaches that Jesus is the wisdom of God. True.

Barrett goes on. Question is, where did this wisdom originate from? It might appear that Paul is unique in calling

Christ the wisdom from God. Wisdom personified in the person of the son, but Paul is anything but novel.

He's not an inventor of new deities as he was accused of being in, uh, on Mars hill.

Remember as a rabbi who trained under the best of rabbis, Paul knew his old

Testament and the old Testament personifies wisdom in Proverbs eight. Coincidence.

I doubt it in Proverbs eight, Solomon portrays wisdom as a person calling in the streets, summoning any and all who will listen.

So let's look at Proverbs chapter eight, Proverbs eight verses 22 to 30

Proverbs eight versus 22 to 30. Solomon writes the

Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work. The first of his acts of old ages ago,

I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth. Does this sound like Solomon was writing?

I, you know, like he he's talking about himself when there were no depths, no depths of what the sea, right?

I was brought forth when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped before the hills,

I was brought forth before he had made the earth with its fields or the first of the dust of the world.

When he established the heavens, I was there when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea, its limits, so that the waters might not transgress his command.

When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman.

And I was daily his delight rejoicing before him. Always Barrett says, as wisdom calls in the streets, proclaiming its way of righteousness and its paths of justice in verses five to 20 of Proverbs eight, we then hear wisdom, not only personified, but also self -conscious of its own origin.

Wisdom is said to be of old in eight 22. Then he says, we will explore this more.

When we look at the title ancient of days and old Testament name and title, it also attributed to Jesus, but here in Proverbs eight of old says something.

It says, wisdom has an eternal origin. Not only that, but its origin from of old has a source.

Quote, before the mountains had been shaped before the hills, I was brought forth, then

Barrett says, brought forth from where, from whom? And he says, the answer is in verse 22, where the

Lord himself is identified. It is the Lord who quote possessed me at the beginning of his work.

And this same Lord brought forth wisdom before the mountains had been shaped and before he made the dust of the world.

Wisdom. In other words, was brought forth from the Lord and from all eternity. Perhaps you can see why so many from the great tradition, that is to say, historical teachers believed wisdom as personified in Proverbs eight, either directly or typologically referred to God, the son in his eternal generation from the father, even more so when we consider, as we saw in first Corinthians, how the new

Testament authors called Christ, the wisdom of God, wisdom reflects divine glory, the sun reflects divine glory.

Wisdom is from the beginning. The sun is from the beginning. Wisdom is the agent of creation.

The sun is the agent of creation. Wisdom descended from heaven. The sun descended from heaven.

Wisdom enlightens those in darkness. The sun enlightens those in darkness.

And like wisdom, he is the word. So he's making the case that Jesus eternally, the second person of the

Trinity is also eternally wisdom. Yes, Bev. Hmm.

That's a good question. I'd say,

I don't know. Um, you know, I, I think what we have to do and, and, you know, in, in, uh, sorting out even the

Proverbs like Proverbs chapter eight is understand that it's not a constant flow.

We can't just look at it and go, okay, all of this applies to Jesus or all of that applies to him.

Um, we'll see what our, our lovely reformation study Bible says.

If it says anything at all. Well, like in eight, four, it says, uh, the

Hebrew word usually applies to males, which fits the context of the address of lady wisdom to males, but extends to all humanity.

Wisdom in the role of the instructor ultimately addresses not sons or pupils, but all people.

There is no elite class in the matter of learning wisdom. Um, so I, I don't,

I don't think that really changes anything. Does not wisdom call, does not understanding raise her voice.

I think that's just personifying it. And I don't think that, I don't think that changes, uh, versus 22 to 30.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I, I think that's a, I think that's a good point too, but you know, just even listen, you know, that it's something that wisdom is something to be desired.

Um, but even as we read verse eight, all the words of my mouth are righteous.

There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. I mean, when we think about that, who could say such a thing, only

God could say that, or the second person of the Trinity could say that they're all straight to him who understands right to those who find knowledge.

Um, yeah. So I, I, I mean, I think there are several things going on.

Like you said, there's poetry here, but I think, you know, some of this is indeed, you know, we could infer that some of this is just Solomon speaking.

Um, but I, and some of it is effectively a poetry, but I think also we have to, we have to look at it, um, and try to discern which parts would refer to God and God alone.

Other thoughts, questions? Yeah, Dave. Yeah, I, I, I think that's right.

I mean, even as you look at, um, Proverbs eight and then towards the end of the chapter and now sons, listen to me, blessed are those who keep my ways here instruction and be wise and do not neglect it.

Blessed is the one who listens to me watching daily at my gates, watching beside my doors for whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the

Lord. I mean, we, you know, would Solomon be writing that about himself? No.

Um, but he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me love death.

Again, this sounds, this sounds like it's referring to far more than Solomon.

All who hate me love death. That's a pretty bold statement from a mere mortal.

So, yeah, I think we have to allow for the fact that, you know, I'm, even if we, if we were to read through Isaiah, you know, we could see chapters 42, 49, 53, uh, 56, maybe, you know, there are several chapters that seem to speak almost exclusively of Jesus, and then there are different portions that speak richly about him.

So, yeah. And, and, um, you know, contrary to what some people say, not every rock and tree and shrub in the old

Testament refers to Jesus, but the overall picture points to him. Other thoughts?

Yes, Tim. Good. Excellent. All right.

So number 21, a true or false

Micah told us that Jesus was eternal. I mean, it is interesting.

And the answer is true. I mean, yesterday, yesterday morning, we just went on and on.

Well, all these false, I think, I think there were 26 questions we covered yesterday.

And, and I, I believe like 20, 20 of them were false. It was a really bad quiz.

Um, that's true. And let's look at, uh, Micah 5, 2.

Okay. I'm just singing the songs, you know, so I remember where it is. Oh, but I don't even have to turn there.

So blessed am I among men. Okay. And again, poetic, but you, a

Christmas verse, but you, Oh Bethlehem, Epaphra, Epaphra, Epaphra, I mean, why do they put those letters together?

Ephrathah, which, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, common English spelling who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth for me one who is to be the ruler or who is to be ruler in Israel.

Who's coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Barrett says, why is this

King, this prophesied shepherd so unique? Look again at Micah 5, 2.

Yes. He will come from a little town called Bethlehem, but what should jump out at you is this

Bethlehem is not this King's ultimate place of origin. His origin predates Bethlehem.

His coming forth is from of old. Well, how old from ancient days, this language is used throughout the old

Testament to refer to Yahweh's eternal origin, but if Israel's God is from everlasting to everlasting, having no beginning and no end, how can this ruler,

King and shepherd be Jesus when we know where Jesus was born? Well, how can that be?

When we understand this, as we've already seen, the birth of Jesus was no ordinary human birth, despite its humble appearances.

The irony is explicit. This babe born among animals and laid within the trough from which they feed, is none other than the eternal son begotten from the father before all ages.

As John Owen says, he that was in the fullness of time, born at Bethlehem had his goings forth from the father from eternity.

And again, we think about that and we, um, we struggle with that. What does it mean that he's eternally begotten?

What does it mean that he has no beginning, but he's internally generated? It's difficult for us to wrap our heads around.

Okay. Number 22, true or false. Eternal generation is without biblical warrants.

False. False is true. Is eternal generation a doctrine without biblical warrants?

Yes. Only if one adopts a narrow, crude biblicism.

What does that mean? What is a narrow, crude biblicism? Okay. It's extreme literalism,

Cheryl. Okay. Not looking at the whole

Bible, although, well, okay. Let me just expand on that a little bit. There, there are a few terms that are used.

One is biblical theology. Okay. And if we think about biblical theology, what does that mean?

Okay. What we think about God is from the Bible. There's a technical meaning to it though.

Um, or if we said systemic or systematic systemic, I don't even know what, what systemic theology, systematic theology is what

I'm sorry. Okay. You categorize the doctrines of the

Bible, and then you find all the parts of the Bible that kind of go with it. Right. And when you have a, uh, a biblical theology, you are working your way through the

Bible, understanding things and putting them into relation one to another. Um, so if we, if, when we're talking about crude biblicism, what we really mean is we're saying, unless the

Bible says that Jesus, unless it uses the word eternal generation, that Jesus is eternally generated from the father.

I will not believe it. Good. No, that's good. So an example would be, you know, you go, well,

I'm going to prove the Trinity. So you go to your trusty computer and you type in, you know, you bring up your

Bible program, you type in Trinity. What happens? You get zero results.

And then you do what I do, which is I say to myself, well, some machines only understand brute force.

So you give the computer a good slap and you repeat the search. And what happens?

Nothing. Why? Because it's not there because what crude biblicism means is that it does not matter to me, um, what people have taught before.

It does not matter what the confessions say. It does not matter what the creeds say. What matters to me is if I pull up my

Bible without cross -references, without, you know, notes in it or anything else,

I should be able to demonstrate every doctrine on my own.

And what, what does that mean by the way? What does that ultimately mean? It means a few things.

One is how well do you have to know your Bible to be able to do that kind of thing pretty well, which would mean that you would start your

Christian life with. Pretty much zero doctrine. The other thing that it means though, is you're essentially saying

Christianity before me, what either doesn't matter or didn't exist, you know, and what a crude biblicism does is put me in the driver's seat in, in essence, and I, I would submit this, that it virtually kicks open the door to every form of heresy.

If you want to, if you want to know where heresy comes from, you know,

I'd say 95 % of it is crude biblicism, ignoring what everybody's always taught and thinking, okay,

I'm going to start my own church, the church of Steve, and everything that's gone before is irrelevant.

And what matters now is how I interpret the Bible, how I put it together. And, you know, some people would say, well, wait a minute.

If what we're doing then is we're taking church history and the church teaching, and we're putting that above the scripture, then we've got another problem.

So why should I listen to people who've gone before me? Why should I care what they say? And what's the answer?

Why should I care? Okay. So I, I would kind of summarize what

Bev said. And I would, I would look at it this way. The difference is this, me coming to the

Bible and saying, you know what? I don't care what anybody's said before. I need to have, I need to look at scripture with fresh eyes, right?

Me, the Holy Spirit, we can determine what the Bible says. That's one approach. The other one is that men have taught through the ages what scripture means.

They've compiled these creeds and confessions and everything. That's fine. And now

I'm going to compare what they've taught with what? With scripture. I'm going to see if those things are true.

I'm going to examine the scripture, not through the eyes of, you know, doubts. I think these guys were, you know, wrong and et cetera, et cetera, but understanding this, and I've mentioned this scripture on many occasions.

If we look at Ephesians four, we don't have to turn there right now, but the idea is, and we would see this in several places, but it's most explicit here that Jesus gave gifts to men.

He gave gifts to the church and those gifts he gave were teachers, were preachers, you know, were prophets, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, why? So that we might understand sound doctrine and not be tossed around by every new wave of doctrine.

And what happens when people come to the scripture and they say, I'm going to ignore everything that's gone before we have new waves of doctrine.

We have things like eternal subordination. You know, it's a, it's a variation on an old idea, but it's a new wind of doctrine.

We constantly have new things. And if you know,

I'd almost like to, I don't want to get rid of our motto. You know, we proclaim Christ or anything like that, but you know,

I'd like there to be like a sub motto. We don't like new stuff. Um, new stuff is bad.

Take a look at our parking lot. Okay. Sorry. Um, but yeah,

I think, I think it's important that we, we have this desire to yes, grapple with what the church has taught, but not to, you know, automatically discard it and think unless I can prove it or unless I can, you know, immediately get it with my own two eyes, then

I won't believe it. Other thoughts, complaints, crude biblicism.

What does it mean? And, you know, when we, when we hear, yes, I'll get to you in just a moment. When we hear that term though, really what we should think is biblicism.

Does it sound good or bad? Sounds good. Kind of like, you know, it's chocolate ish, you know, it's, uh, biblicism is kind of, it, we, we want to be about the

Bible. We want to be about God's truth. But when we say biblicism, we're saying basically, um, it's more than scripture.

Cause we want, you know, here, here's a question, you know, this would be a good seminary question. What's the difference between scripture alone, which is a basic foundation of the, of the reformation and of Christianity.

What's the difference between scripture alone and biblicism. Okay. So ultimately we want scripture as our authority.

The question is, if we come at it from a biblicist point of view, what we really want to do is set ourselves as the biblical authority and say, you know,

I know more about, uh, as an example, the authority and inspiration of scripture than maybe

B .B. Warfield, right? That the Lord has gifted me more in that area than B .B. Warfield. Maybe he has.

I'm dubious of that concept. You know, maybe I, in other words, if we, if we read these men who've devoted their lives to specific areas of study and we think, well,

I know better than he does, or I know, and maybe you do, but why, and, and I think, you know, caution, caution, and, and I think that's maybe kind of the key is biblicism says,

I'm going to dispense with what the church fathers say.

I'm going to dispense with what these other people say, unless it's explicitly in the scripture, because even our confession says that we want to rightly divided their word of truth.

We want to understand it, but we also want to understand what the necessary implications of what the

Bible says. In other words, if there are things, I mean, this is, this is just really basic and goes contrary to this book of the

Trinity, but if we understand things like, because he said this in the beginning, if you, if you take a sheet of paper and you go, you divide it into two columns, you know, how do

I know the Holy Spirit is God? Well, I know the Holy Spirit is God because he has personality and because he makes choices and because he acts.

Okay. If, if I, if I do those kinds of things and then I say, well, I know Jesus is God because, and you know, the

Holy Spirit creates and Jesus creates and Jesus, you know, is eternal and Jesus, you know,

I don't know, just all, all the, all the different attributes, you know, of God and the actions of God.

And then you say, well, the father does these things. And, you know, so wait a minute, do I have three gods?

You have to, and then you come to the principle that there's only one God. And so eventually you arrive at the

Trinity. You can work all that stuff out yourself, or you can say, this is what the church has always taught. It's biblical and I believe it.

And so the difference between a crude biblicism, as he says here, and historical understanding of scripture is simply this, that we don't have to reinvent

Christianity over and over again. So when we see a question like eternal generation is without biblical warrants, just because the word eternal or the words eternal generation aren't in scripture, doesn't mean the concept isn't there and doesn't mean it's not true.

We have to study it out, but men have done that for us. So thoughts or questions before we close, because some of us have to preach.

Okay. And the idea, if he's not eternally begotten, then we can have no confidence that ultimately that he's divine, right?

The idea, you know, what does it mean to have the divine essence?

What does it mean to be fully divine? And what that means is, you know, contra for example,

Mormons, and I apologize again for using them, but that's what I'm most familiar with. We don't become divine, right?

We can't ascend to divinity. We can't become creators.

We are created beings. And that's Mormonism says that. And in the same way, Jesus, if he's a created being, then when he goes to the cross, how can his life have infinite value?

You know, that's, that's the nature of it. And the answer is he can't have infinite value.

So when Jesus dies on the cross, he dies as a human being.

Yes. But his life has infinite value because he's also truly divine.

So, I mean, he, his divinity doesn't die because his divinity can't die, but the person dies.

Does that answer it? I mean, that that's, that's where we're, you know, that's where you need to go. But I, I think, you know,

I, let's just quickly look at it. Colossians one again, because I, this is where the, you know,

Jehovah witnesses like to go and, and it really is, you know, the first few words there that make it most, the most difficult or the second phrase there.

He is the image of the invisible God. Well, that's easy. We can understand that. He's the imprint. He's the icon.

That's the Greek word there. Um, the firstborn of all creation. That's the word that gives us the most difficulty.

But you, you know, you know, you could just argue that, reason that out with them at the door.

You just say, well, what, in what sense is he the firstborn? Because if he's the firstborn of creation, well, that doesn't make any sense because we know

Adam was the firstborn of creation and then they're going to, you know, or first created being or whatever, uh, you know,

I mean, what do you want to go with, uh, you know, Abel, Seth, I don't know.

Uh, so what they're going to argue for is Michael, the archangel there.

But then you have to listen, you know, for by him, all things were created in heaven on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

Well, if all things were created in Michael, the archangels are created being, then how did he create himself?

There's a logical disconnect there. And he is before all things.

And in him, all things hold together. The only

God holds all things together. Only God can sustain all things. So, I mean, you, you have a, and then that same word there, the firstborn from the dead, uh, that in everything he might be preeminence for in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and all the fullness of God can only dwell in a divine being.

So anyway, we have to close father. Thank you for this time this morning, Lord. I pray that you would just help us to study these things, to understand them and to avoid a crude biblicism, which would lead us ultimately to many, uh, fallacies, errors, heresies that the church has again and again had to defeat throughout her history.

Father, I pray that you keep us faithful to your word and we pray for these things in Jesus name.