Getting the Trinity Right with Dr. Edward Dalcour

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I think it's very important that Christians have a set foundation for what they believe, and especially today with so many bizarre doctrines out there, and no one knows if they're coming and going theologically.

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Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Boske, and I am a Calvinist, and I'm excited today to welcome my guest, Dr.

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Edward Dalkor.

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Dr.

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Dalkor is the President and Director of the Department of Christian Defense and Educational and Apologetic Ministry, which is based in Los Angeles, California.

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He is Mentor of Theology at Greenwich School of Theology in London, England, and he serves as Vice President of Grace Bible University based in Baghdad, Florida.

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I didn't even know there was a Baghdad, Florida, so I'm from Florida and I didn't even know.

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He also holds a Master's in Apologetics from Columbia Evangelical Seminary and a PhD in Theology from Northwest University, and Dr.

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Dalkor is a published author of several apologetic and theological books.

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He is a prolific speaker, evangelist, apologist, and contributor to various theological journals and Christian organizations.

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He currently resides with his wife and family in Los Angeles, and he holds ongoing Christian apologetic and theology classes.

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Dr.

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Dalkor, thank you for being with me on the program today.

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Thank you very much, Keith, and it's a pleasure to see you again.

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We were just talking about the last time I saw you was, well, over 10 years ago, right? In Milton, Florida.

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Yes, sir, and as we were saying, I got to hear you preach on the doctrine of the Trinity, and then that night we got to sit around a table, and what was great about that conference is all the speakers were so accessible.

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You guys hung out with everybody, and we all went to the tables, and we sat and ate, and I remember you and I had a conversation about the warning passages in Hebrews and the different ways that people interpret those, and I remember coming away being very encouraged, and again, it was obviously a meaningful conversation, because it stuck with me even 10 years later.

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I remember what it was that we talked about, so I'm grateful to have you today and to be able to introduce you to my audience, and like I said, in regard to who you are, I know I read your bio, but just as I'm on a more personal level, I would like to say that Dr.

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Dalkor, he is not only a man with a lot of letters behind his name, but he's also a man who is in the trenches.

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There's a lot of people who do what we might say like ivory tower scholarship, who are just writing books and sending out tracts, but Dr.

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Dalkor is actually going and doing debates.

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If you go online, you type in his name, you'll see his books, you'll see his debates, his interactions with Oneness Pentecostals, interactions with Muslims, interactions with different people.

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You were even on the Sheologians.

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I noticed that when I was looking.

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Of course, James White hoarded the whole show, but yeah.

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Now, what is your relation? I know you and him have been friends for years, Dr.

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White.

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Are y'all, were y'all friends, because the way it sounded was like you guys had been kind of buddies for a while.

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Yeah, we have a lot of history together.

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I first met him in the early 90s or no, late 90s.

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It was all because of a typo I found in his King James Only book against King James Onlyism.

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I remember back then there was just AOL.

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Everyone had AOL and there was chat rooms.

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Remember that? I just chatted and I said, Hey, I found this and this and this and this on this page, this page, this page.

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There were typos and every author has, and he was all, Oh, thank you.

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I knew about this one and that one, but I didn't know about this one.

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So we started talking and I told him what I did at the time, you know, my past life, I was in that athletic ministry called the power team and he didn't believe me.

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And so we were going back and forth.

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I invited him and his kids.

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There were little kids, his daughter and son.

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I said, why don't you come to our crusade? We're going to be in Mason, Arizona.

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He still didn't believe me.

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He said, okay, if you're on the power team, why don't you come to my house? We'll work out.

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So he was kind of calling my bluff.

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He gave me his address actually.

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And I went there and he was with all his little buddies and we worked out and we became really good friends ever since.

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Now, unfortunately, not unfortunately, but every time we do a conference together, he still refers to me as my team name, the gripper because of feet I used to do.

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So wherever we go, he'll say, Oh, and I'd like to introduce the gripper.

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And he just, it's really funny, but yeah, we've been friends for a long time.

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And well, what is, what is the gripper referred to? Is that something you were, you afraid you would ask them? We are a Presbyterian conference at Jeff Downs church in, in Virginia.

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And he was there and the, you know, everyone came to see a lot of people came to see him and it was with my friend, Anthony Rogers.

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We were doing a conference on the Trinity.

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And when he first gets up behind the pulpit, he says, you know, I wasn't going to come.

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But when I found out the gripper was here, I just changed my mind.

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I was really embarrassed anyways, during question and answer, he actually wrote in a question.

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So the pastor kind of smirking said, first question of the panel, what is the gripper? And I go, Oh man, it was in the nineties, you know, we were doing altar calls, you know, I didn't know the difference.

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And so I said, it basically was a feat of strength where I'd hold my wrist together.

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We'd have 15 minutes on each side to try to break it apart.

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It was called the gripper and it looked more impressive than what it was, but you know, that was one of the things that we did, you know, crowd liked it.

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Very cool.

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I have actually some friends of mine here in Jacksonville who used to be on the power team.

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So that's interesting that, that, that, that having that connection guys, I always say they break stuff for Jesus.

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Well, I would like to sort of begin the interview by asking you to share a little bit about your, how you came to know Christ, but also how you, how that transitioned you into an apologetics ministry, because of course I'm interested to know how the Lord saved you, but also I I'll just share a little bit about myself real quick.

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When I was in seminary, I was introduced to apologetics and I fell in love with, I actually wrote my master's thesis on defending the Bible with or on the defense of the Bible.

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And, and, and so when I see somebody else who has apologetic mind, apologetic heart, I often want to know what got them there.

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I know for me, it was being confronted with atheism.

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When I was a young man, I didn't get saved.

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I was 19.

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I was confronted with an atheist at AOL.

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It was at, when I worked there, an atheist confronted me.

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He, he challenged me on my belief in God.

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And that actually forced me to have to begin to defend the things that I had always said that I believed.

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And I genuinely got saved out of that.

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Cause I wasn't even saved, but I, but I grew up in church.

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So how, how did that, how did God do that with you? What was your process? In a similar situation, I was brought up in a, in a church.

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And it's interesting because I didn't know it, but I was going through my mom's at her house, at her garage.

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And I found a baptismal certificate.

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I was baptized at this Kirk of the Valley Presbyterian church.

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So I used to tell my friends, Hey, I was, I was, I was, I was born a Calvinist, but anyways I, you know, I was brought up in a Christian home and I was always preached to.

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And so I understood doctrine, you know, basic stuff.

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And I went to church, just Baptist church.

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I was baptized 11 years old.

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I don't know if I've saved, but I had a knowledge, of all that, some of the essentials.

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And it wasn't until through the college years, I started more, I guess, reevaluating my faith and that's what the Lord does.

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And it was a Jehovah's witness that came to my door and I was a little haughty.

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I thought I had the answers, but back then or early nineties, late eighties, I didn't.

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And they just like, just confused me.

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Not that I doubted anything, but I just couldn't answer.

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It bothered me.

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And that really led me on a course of apologetics.

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But after college, I started reevaluating things and it's particularly doctrine and spiritual things, my Christianity and things I've heard at churches.

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And I was getting more convicted and I was getting more, I wanted to be more serious about my faith.

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And, no, I didn't say a sinner's prayer, but I just really was in a position where I wanted to really develop a relationship and that took learning more.

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And I can't pinpoint a particular time when I was saved, but in the late or early nineties, I had a friend and I was bodybuilding.

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I had a friend at this time and he introduced me to John Jacobs, who was the leader of the power team.

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And I was studying, I was giving my testimony at a couple of different churches, but I never really spoke publicly besides that.

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I met John Jacobs, he flew me to Crescent City, California.

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He interviewed me, I was hired.

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And for the next eight or nine years I was in full-time ministry.

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And Keith, I got to tell you, I really did see the true face of ministry, the good, bad and ugly.

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Because we went to all kinds of churches around the world, some of the biggest churches.

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And you know the premise of the power team, we do feats of strength and draw people that would never go to church, but they would come to church to see a guy put his head through 10 feet of ice and all these other weird stuff that we used to do.

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And nine years I was in this ministry.

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And at that time I started doing a lot of extraneous studies, because I was interested in a few different topics and Jehovah's Witnesses, because they were the ones that really springboarded me in this area, which led me to language studies and all kinds of things.

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And of course back then in the 90s, I didn't know the difference.

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I thought altar calls was the thing to do.

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I thought Jesus standing at the door knocking, that's what you tell people.

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You tell people we have a God-shaped void in our heart.

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I knew all the terminology.

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I didn't see anything wrong with it, because I wasn't raised with, I wasn't indoctrinated with Armenian theology, so I had no reason to reject it.

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I wasn't sure what Calvinism was, but after later being on them, even on the power team, I started reading.

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I read this book by R.C.

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Sproul, Chosen by God.

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And one thing about him, he's very scholarly, but he writes in a very user-friendly fashion.

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And I had no reason, I wasn't again, I wasn't brought up in a Calvary chapel church where I was indoctrinated, why Calvinism is evil.

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I didn't know any, I didn't know what election taught and all those things.

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I heard Hank Hanegraaff, remember him, you know, he said God looks in the corridors of the future and he knows what decision you're going to make and all these things.

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But reading that book, that first, it sparked my interest.

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And everything Sproul said made so much sense.

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And I started really embracing the doctrines of grace.

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And this really was how I went to embrace all the doctrines of grace and started studying it coherently.

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And that's, then I saw how wrong altercals was.

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So that's really in an abbreviated way from start to finish.

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And then after the power team in the late 90s, I was doing a little road development for them, but I was teaching.

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I was doing, I was involved in all kinds of things and my study material went up and my study level went up and up.

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And I was so interested in not just evangelism, but apologetics and everything that had to do with ministry.

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And even today, you know, I have a website christiandefense.org.

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It's not just apologetics, it's apologetics, educational theology.

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And I think it's very important that Christians have a set foundation for what they believe.

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And especially today with so many bizarre doctrines out there and no one knows if they're coming and going theologically and they embrace TD Jakes.

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You talked about debates, Keith.

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I have done debates, but it seems when you're, when you embrace the sovereignty and doctrines of the sovereignty of God and doctrines of grace, you'll find there's more debates within Christianity on those issues.

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Even at end times, you know, Christians are really interesting, the things they choose to debate.

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That's funny because in a couple of weeks, I've got a Presbyterian who's going to come on the show and we're going to debate, of all things, whether or not images of Christ represent the second commandment violation.

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Which, I mean, because this is a big topic online right now among Christians is whether or not shows like The Chosen, which I have issues with The Chosen, not because of it being Jesus, but because of it being apparently produced by Mormons.

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Now that was the bigger issue, but do shows like Mormon, The Chosen or the Jesus film or The Passion of the Christ, do those constitute a breach? God is not dead.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Does that constitute a Roman movie? Yeah.

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So anyway, those are, you're right.

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There is a lot of intra-brother debates that sometimes are, you know, secondary, but can still be fun as long as we love each other.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So you've done a lot of interaction on the subject of the Trinity, which is why, you know, I asked you to come on today and talk about that.

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And one of the things that you've dealt with and I've noticed in looking at your material and your videos and stuff is that you've dealt with a lot of oneness advocates.

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You've also dealt with, of course, as I mentioned earlier, Muslims and Jehovah Witnesses, and you just said Jehovah Witnesses, what got you into doing apologetics.

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Why is it that the Trinity is such a big part of what you do? Because it seems like all of that is sort of centered around the Trinity.

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What is it about the Trinity that makes you feel like that's the issue of apologetics that you have desired to focus on so much? Well, first, in the area of apologetics, it's not just offending, but it's also providing a reason for our faith, a reason for our hope, as Peter says.

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In fact, in the hallmark passage of apologetics, 1 Peter 3.15, when it says, set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a defense, the only commandment in that entire passage is to set Christ, hagiocita, to set Christ, to sanctify Christ as Lord.

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That's the only commandment.

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So if we're not setting Him first, apart in our heart, devoted to Him, you have no business doing apologetics because that's really the commandment.

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So apologetics has to do with not only defending but affirming the faith that you have, and the Trinity is the very marrow of redemption because it defines the work of God the Father.

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It defines the redemptive work of the person that He sent.

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Now, even in those two statements I just made, without a Trinitarian context, you have a muddled false doctrine because you have to explain how a person of God the Son, deity, truly God, was sent by another person.

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God the Father sent God the Son.

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God the Son lived the life on behalf of us, vicariously lived the perfect life, fulfilled what Adam couldn't fulfill, and He died on the cross, absorbing the wrath due to us on behalf of us, literally on behalf of us, resurrected from the dead, ascended to God the Father.

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The Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father and God the Son to regenerate, empower, and other functions He has, and clearly the Holy Spirit is a person.

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So the fact of the matter is there is no reality of salvation without a triune God.

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You either have this monad or this unipersonal God where Jesus is not God, or you have oneness doctrine who believes there's no relationship between persons at all.

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It's the same concept, Keith, as a Muslim in oneness doctrine.

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They believe God is unipersonal, a one person.

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So salvation is predicated on the fact that God the Father sent God the Son to die for us, to live the perfect life, die for us, and God the Holy Spirit regenerates us.

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Forevermore, God the Son intercedes on behalf of us to the Father.

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So we have all these doctrines that really do center on the doctrine of the Trinity, and it always upsets me when Christians and leaders—and you would find this to be true—when Christian leaders reduce the Trinity to a mystery.

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That's deplorable.

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A mystery? First, you know where they go to 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, which really has to do with the Incarnation, not the Trinity.

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And a mystery was something that was hidden, now revealed.

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So they misapply the Trinity, but I think they do it because they just don't want to teach it.

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But it's the most important doctrine, yet it's the most neglected.

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Yeah, that actually makes me want to jump forward a couple of questions, so I'm going to go ahead and do that.

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I'll come back to where I'm at, but I want to mention this.

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Years ago, I was sitting on a panel of a pastor who was being ordained.

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Now, this man was going up for ordination.

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He had graduated from seminary, at least he had graduated, I think, with his—he hadn't done his doctoral work, but he had graduated.

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And he invited me to sit in on the panel.

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Well, I sat in on the panel, and we were all allowed to ask him questions, any question we want.

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They said, you can ask any question you want.

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So I asked the question.

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I said, can you give me a basic understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity? Well, the rest of the men on the panel got angry with me because they said, well, how could you ask him such a difficult question? I said, I didn't ask him a difficult question.

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I said, this is—and they said, well, nobody understands the Trinity.

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And when I heard that from a group of men who were—and they said, nobody understands the Trinity.

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I said, well, if what you mean by that is that no one comprehends in the same way that we can't really comprehend eternality in the sense that we can't fully wrap our minds around the idea of something that is eternal because we are not eternal.

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I said, but that doesn't mean we don't understand the doctrine.

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I said, and we're not hiring this man, and I wasn't hiring him, I said, this man isn't being ordained to be a mailman.

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He's being ordained to be a pastor.

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If anybody should be able to explain this, it's him.

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And they never made him do it.

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They never made him answer it.

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So it just—do you find that? Do you find that even within pastors, not only do they not want to deal with it, they oftentimes can't deal with it? No.

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What I find, Keith, especially out here in Los—I live in Los Angeles, and even Reformed churches, whether it's a Presbyterian or some other kind of Reformed church out here, the doctrine is so watered down.

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Not that they teach falsely, but it's like they're ashamed.

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I feel they're—because I've sat in so many services of Reformed churches out here when we were looking for churches.

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It seems they're ashamed of the doctrines of grace, and they're ashamed to even attempt to teach the Trinity.

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And if they can't comprehend that the fact of teaching the Trinity is important, I don't think they're qualified to be a pastor, because you're talking about the nature of God.

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You're talking about the nature of Christ.

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You really are.

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You're talking about his crosswork as the second person of the Trinity.

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In other words, you can't separate those two.

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Many Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, some of them, would say—and I know people that would say this—as long as you believe in Nicene, the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, then you're a Christian, and we can debate on the other things.

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Well, no, that's wrong, because the Nicene Creed, the Council of Nicene, did not address soteriological issues.

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They didn't.

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I mean, that wasn't the purpose.

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So you're a Catholic, but yet you deny the crosswork of Christ.

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I would submit, as a very sufficient means or cause of salvation and justification, I would submit you don't have the second person of the Trinity.

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You have a different Christ.

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You don't have the second person of the Trinity who became my righteousness.

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So everything's wrapped up in the Trinity, and you can't deny his crosswork, you can't deny the incarnation, even the virgin birth.

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I mean, we're talking all essential doctrines have their center place in the doctrine of the nature of God.

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Absolutely.

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I want to ask you, I know we're way into this, and maybe we should have done this at the beginning, but can you give us a fundamental definition of the Trinity? Can you do what that guy on the panel couldn't do? Because I asked him to do it, and he couldn't do it.

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I'm going to ask you to do it.

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Can you give a fundamental definition of the Trinity that would be acceptable if you ask a pastor, and they said, this is the definition.

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Interesting, because when I start a new class, I ask those two questions.

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I ask, what do you think the definition, or can someone give me a working definition of the gospel? And I'll ask the same about the Trinity, and of course I get 10 or 20 different answers.

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First, I would say there is a difference if I ask you to define the Trinity, and you just kind of mess it all up, and you don't know how to, you try, but it's horrible.

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However, that's different than asking a one that's Pentecostal what the Trinity is, and he'll say it's a false satanic doctrine.

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That's different from not understanding because you've never been adequately taught, so you can't communicate it.

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That's different than the person that rejects it.

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So I find the Trinity, sometimes also it's answered too complex.

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Like, what? I find a good working definition, and we can't deny the role of the Holy Spirit in enlightening and empowering someone in regeneration, believing the sufficiency of the doctrine.

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As you mentioned, Keith, no, we can't wholly comprehend.

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I can't comprehend how Jesus managed to be God and man at the same time.

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But I can apprehend because the clear verses in Scripture tell us, so I can apprehend it.

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I love that.

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I don't mean to stop you, but I love that distinction, the difference between comprehend and apprehend.

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Yes, I can apprehend it.

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I love that.

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I'm going to add that to my notes.

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That's good stuff.

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I mean, it's like, you know, when people say that it's a mystery or no one understands it, one of the questions I ask, well, do you understand there's only one God? Yeah.

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Well, why can you understand that, but you can't understand the doctrine of Trinity? Because the doctrine of Trinity is simplistic if you just give a simplistic answer.

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For instance, normally I define the Trinity very short and very coherent, and then I'll give the Bible passages, the data of the Bible, that is the reason why we use the English word or the doctrinal word Trinity.

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No, Trinity is not in the Bible, the term.

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But no one claims, I mean, we don't claim that it is.

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We use Trinity because it defines the unambiguous data that we read.

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Normally I define the Trinity in two ways.

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If I needed a short definition, it would simply be this.

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There's Scripture presents, I would qualify it with Scripture presents that there's three persons.

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We say persons, we don't mean people, but we mean persons, because they have personal attributes, right? Three persons, distinct persons, who share the nature of the one being.

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Simple definition that's true, or one God revealed in three persons.

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I don't have to be scared or ashamed of a simple definition, because I know it's God the Holy Spirit that has to regenerate someone in order to accept those simple truths.

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When I'm teaching, if I need, you know, and again, very short, if I'm teaching and want to give a short definition, I'll say simply define the Trinity in this way.

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Number one, don't use analogies.

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They're the worst.

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I know we're going to talk about that, but all of them lead to either oneness doctrine or Mormonism, polytheism.

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They're the worst.

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We don't have to.

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Here's the biblical data in short.

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The Bible presents that there's one being, not one person, but one God.

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All through the Old Testament, all through the New Testament, hundreds of passages that denote God as being one, but one being, because being is what something is, not necessarily who something is.

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There's one being—hero is the Lord, God is one Lord, right? One.

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There's one God, and then number two, the second premise or fact, three persons are presented—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are presented as distinct, but they're presented as co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent, and co-redemptive, but co-eternal.

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That's very important.

25:43

Co-eternal and co-equal.

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The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Each are presented as Yahweh, each are presented as God, and each are presented as the agent, not just a helper, but the agent of creation.

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And then the third premise or fact is these three persons who are called Yahweh, who are presented as God in a—not just representing God, but ontologically Yahweh, ontologically God—these three persons are distinct from each other.

26:15

You know, you've got three propositions here.

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One God, three persons called God, presented as God, and three, they're all distinct.

26:25

I'm trying to think of a simple definition.

26:28

Yeah, I would agree, and you're right, and we are going to move right into the idea of analogies, because I think that's the next logical part of this conversation, is what are some of the ways that analogies cause us to go into error, and I know that in my experience growing up, I heard everything from the egg as a shell, a yolk, and the white, or even one person said God is like three in one oil, because there's three in one, and that was the kind of thing that was the description, and everyone just sort of said, okay, not wondering if that was violating some form of essential doctrine, or what we might say essential truth, and so what are some of the other areas that people fail in when it comes to analogies, and why do you think analogies are so bad? You see, in the last conference I did, there was a lady who was involved in the ministry that I was a part of, and she asked, you know, why can't we use analogies? It's easy to understand, because we have the biblical data.

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One God, three persons called God, and they're distinct.

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Why would we have to resort to analogies when I can give you the biblical substance, the biblical passages, to prove those three facts of the Bible? One God, three persons who are represented, or who are called God, and identified as Yahweh, and they're distinct.

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Why would I want to use analogies? One of the most popular analogies, I think the egg is probably the worst, because the shell does not share, the problem is there's three separate components there, and that's not what Trinity is.

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That's closer to Mormonism, because the yolk is different than the shell, not only different, they're not of the same nature.

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The yolk's not the same compounds of the shell, so that's Mormonism, three separate things.

28:20

Water is probably, you know, the water, the ice and steam, or ice, water, and steam is probably the most popular analogy.

28:28

However, that is an analogy that clearly denotes one is Pentecostalism.

28:35

Successive, like what Sibelius taught, where you first have the water, or you first have the ice, then it melts, it's no longer ice, meaning it's not ice, it's not frozen anymore, something else, and then it becomes steam, but that's not ice and that's not water, now it's steam.

28:56

So you have successive modes.

28:59

Why do you think, Keith, that T.D.

29:02

Jakes uses this analogy of water? Because it supports his faulty modalistic view.

29:09

So water is probably a classic, I think, analogy of one is Pentecostalism, at least successive one is Pentecostalism.

29:18

One is people today believe that the modes are simultaneous, so they may not use the water, but certainly it comports with the older Sibelianist view of successive modes, like first there was the Father in creation, His role's done, now Jesus is the Son in redemption, then His role's finished, because He died on the cross, the human Son, now Jesus is only the Holy Spirit, that's it.

29:47

The Father, the Son roles are unnecessary, not needed, it's just Jesus as the Holy Spirit.

29:52

You see the successive modes, that's water, that's the water analogy.

29:56

I don't like them, why can't I use the biblical substance or data, one God, three persons called God, and they're distinct.

30:07

You mentioned T.D.

30:09

Jakes by name, I know that there was a, I think they called it elephant room discussions, did you see that, where he tried to defend what he was, his position as being orthodox, and that's what I think the danger is, is because a lot of these guys feel very, and when I say these guys, I mean people that are caught up in these groups, and I don't know if you would identify them as cult groups or what, but I think oneness Pentecostal certainly is opposed to the biblical gospel, and therefore is a dangerous thing, but they have so many followers, their books are in Walmart and Lifeway and everything else, and they have such a large following, and so they go into groups like the elephant room and say, well what I was saying is in keeping with orthodoxy, what I'm saying is in keeping with the truth, but as you just said, it's not, it's a heresy which goes all the way back to the early church, and you know, why is it so dangerous, and this is my question to you, I'm gonna let you let you jump on this, and this is not one of the ones, one of my, this is just a question that came to my mind, why is it so dangerous to say that Jesus, or excuse me, that God is the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus in the Gospels, and is the Holy Spirit now? What is, what's the danger in that from a, from a, of the perspective of the gospel and salvation? Well, it's twofold.

31:36

First, there's Christians who make those errors, you know, they can embrace the trinity, but they'll make goofy comments like, you know, Jesus wasn't in the Old Testament, quite well still, you know, affirming his deity, but the fact of the matter is, Abraham rejoiced at seeing the day, not of the Father, but the day of the Son, that's what Christ said.

31:55

In 840 of John, Christ tells the Jews, he says, you want to kill me? He says, this is something Abraham did not want to do, so we see abounding evidence of the activity, not just in prophecy, but the activity of God the Son, but we have to keep in mind, as the angel of the Lord, by the way, we have to keep in mind how the, from Genesis to Revelation, we have the active trinity, we have active, the activity of all three members, both in the Old and New Testament, that's super clear, especially in light of the New Testament authors, what they say about Christ in the Old Testament.

32:33

So you do have Christians making goofy mistakes, but let's look at the Oneness people.

32:39

Oneness doctrine clearly believes Jesus is Unitarian, or uni-personally, one-person God.

32:46

They see Jesus as divinity, Jesus as God is the Father, not the Son, but as the Father, or slash Holy Spirit.

32:55

So in the Old Testament, all you had was Jesus as the Father.

32:59

So every time you see Father, that means, or that would be defined as Jesus's deity.

33:07

Well, now Bethlehem came, right? Jesus came in Bethlehem, His humanity came, and that represents Son.

33:16

So Jesus as the Son is not divine, He's human.

33:21

Jesus as the Father is deity.

33:23

So that is the fundamental heresy of Oneness.

33:29

Now I don't, you know, the word cult is thrown around a lot, and you know, it has a lot of definitions, but the fact of the matter is, it's a lot of Oneness groups, just like the Watchtower and Mormonism, they're very cultic sociologically.

33:42

They control every dimension of your life.

33:44

But aside from that, theologically, they are cultic, but I have a different description of these groups.

33:51

You can't deny the Trinity and say you're a Christian, because you're denying an aspect of the Gospel, you're denying the nature of God.

33:59

And Jesus says those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and truth.

34:04

You're not worshiping Him in truth because you have a different God.

34:08

So the question is, is Oneness theology Christian or non-Christian? I would say absolutely, they're as non-Christian as a Muslim, because they reject the idea that the Son, the doctrine that the Son is God, is truly God distinct from the Father.

34:23

So getting to T.D.

34:25

Jakes, clearly I've seen the Elephant Room, and I was ashamed at Driscoll's horrible performance there, how he was so mushy, never really pinned him down, never really disambiguated the Trinity.

34:41

He allowed Jakes to use words like triune, well the Oneness can use triune, meaning he's triune in modes, not persons.

34:50

He will even throw Jakes, you know, some, he's trying to be very slick, because he knows he has a lot of Trinitarian followers.

34:57

And I will say, just because you go to the Potter's house doesn't mean you reject the Trinity, because Jakes rarely teaches on it.

35:03

He knows he has a Trinitarian audience, he's super deceptive.

35:07

But his core view, here's what I tell people, go to the man's website on the church, on the church website, you'll see in a doctrinal statement, God exists in three manifestations.

35:17

That's purely Oneness.

35:20

Your wife's not a manifestation, right? She's a person.

35:24

I'm not, you know, you're not talking to a manifestation, you're talking to a person.

35:28

So by saying manifestations, you're affirming that God is not three persons, but he's dimensions or manifestations.

35:36

And T.D.

35:38

Jakes is still the vice president, or the vice prelate, of a group called Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies, the headquarters is at the Potter's house.

35:49

This is a Oneness Pentecostal group.

35:51

This is a Oneness group, a group who denies how God revealed himself through the pages of Scripture, a group that denies the Trinity.

36:00

So you're not, you know, no one could say Jakes is a Trinitarian.

36:05

If he was, why doesn't he renounce Higher Ground ministry? Why don't he say, I'm no longer part of it, because they deny God.

36:12

They deny Christ.

36:14

Why wouldn't he change his doctrinal statement? And he has a Divinity School, Keith, a seminary, and his doctrinal statement there, he just opened it up in the last few years, says the same thing, how God is manifested, or God exists as three manifestations.

36:29

Three manifestations.

36:31

So all these people going to his Divinity School, they're going to a Trinitarian, a Unitarian school, and a lot of them don't even know it, because you know this, most, I don't like to use the word most, many Christians are just biblically illiterate on these kind of things, because they've never, they're never taught adequate doctrine on these issues.

36:50

Oh sure, yeah, that's absolutely true, and it's unfortunate that people are, oftentimes, I find some, I hate to use the word disinterested, but they say, well, I love Jesus, so that's all I need, you know, and then we say, well, what Jesus? Is it the divine Son of God? Is it the second person of the Trinity? Or is it the Jesus of the Muslims? Or, well, it doesn't matter, I just believe in Jesus.

37:15

Well, you can't, you can't have it both ways.

37:17

You can't say it only, you believe in Jesus, but you can't define who he is, and you can't define what he is in regard to the relationship within the Trinity.

37:29

I want to, as we move along talking about the Trinity, and how important it is in church, and how important it is in regard to our relationship with doctrine, something else that comes to my mind is the issue of how we share the gospel with others.

37:50

Every year, our church does a big evangelism booth.

37:54

In fact, it's coming this next week in October.

37:58

It'll be, or I'm sorry, yeah, what month are we in? Sorry, I just had a baby.

38:04

I'm trying to think.

38:05

It's September 26th.

38:07

Next month, we're having 10 days of evangelism at the fair, where we go out and hand out gospel tracts.

38:12

We, you know, we get to, you know, have hundreds of conversations and give out thousands of pieces of gospel literature, and in those conversations, you know, I normally don't bring up the Trinity in the sense that that's a subject, but is the Trinity something that should be a part of evangelism? Is that something that, or is it just that the understanding who Christ is, is how that works? Tell me more about that.

38:39

It's very interesting.

38:40

I really appreciate, and we have a lot of mutual friends who are definitive in their open-air evangelism, you know, like Ryan Denton, and Mike Stockwell, and a bunch of others that we, Jeff Rose, where they're definitive in their doctrine.

38:55

Now, being definitive doesn't mean you have to give an exhaustive presentation of the incarnation.

39:00

However, Paul said in 2 Timothy 2.8, he says, remember, and this is to pastors directly, remember, Jesus Christ is a descendant, or in Greek, spermatos, doesn't get more literal than that, of David.

39:17

Then he says, according to my gospel.

39:20

So Paul says the incarnation, that he's truly man, was according to his gospel.

39:26

And of course, we see this also in Philippians 2.6-11.

39:29

So the apostles, particularly Paul, was devoted to that doctrine.

39:32

And of course, John, the apostle John in 1 John 4, 1-3, he tells us how we can acknowledge a spirit or a person that has God, that confesses God.

39:48

He says, whoever confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God.

39:54

Now the word come in the flesh, perfect tense in Greek, elaluchthata, and the import of the perfect is a perfect action, completed action with continuous results.

40:06

So literally, any person that would acknowledge or confess Jesus as coming and remaining in the flesh.

40:14

And we can go to many other passages, so I'd say not that we have to give an exhaustive presentation of some of these doctrines, but we can do it within the construct of evangelism by stating that God the Father sent God the Son.

40:30

He was God in the flesh.

40:31

I just define the Trinity by naming two distinct persons.

40:36

I don't have to get into all the nuts and bolts of exhaustive doctrine or Trinitarian doctrine, but I think it's important that we mention things like, because that's what the apostles mentioned.

40:47

If you look in Acts and their sermons, or if you look at John 3 and Jesus' presentation of evangelism to Nicodemus, definitive doctrine is included.

40:58

For instance, and I always point this out, if we want the best example, and we know the gospel is the work of the Son.

41:05

It's not the work of man, you know, man's up on the cross.

41:08

It's the work of the Son and what He did.

41:11

And if you believe in Him, you will have eternal life.

41:15

And that includes His person, that He died on the cross, justification through faith alone, the only recognized gospel, a physical resurrection, the ascension to the Father.

41:26

I mean, these are gospel, how Paul defined the gospel, the work of the Son.

41:31

In chapter 3 of John, I find that Jesus gives the best example to Nicodemus of his evangelism, proper evangelism.

41:42

If you notice, the first dialogue that he has with Nicodemus, he's focusing on the need to be born again through the Spirit, and he presents the Spirit as the agent of regeneration.

41:56

So now he's talking about regeneration in John chapter 3, and then a few verses later in 13, he says, no one has ascended to heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

42:10

So now he presents his pre-existence and his deity, the Son of Man.

42:16

So he presents the Holy Spirit, the need to be regenerated.

42:20

He presents his person and nature by saying, I came from heaven.

42:25

I came from heaven, and then verse 15, in order that everyone who believes has eternal life.

42:32

And then in 16, listen to this.

42:35

Sometimes we miss this.

42:36

God loved the world to this extent, right? God the Father.

42:39

So now He's distinguishing Himself.

42:43

He already affirmed He was God.

42:45

He's distinguishing Himself from another person.

42:48

God the Father loved the world that He gave the one and only Son, the unique Son, in order that he that believes will not perish but have eternal life.

42:58

So He affirms that He's the Son of God.

43:00

That's an affirmation of deity.

43:02

He affirms that the Father is a distinct person from Himself.

43:05

He affirms His pre-existence in John 3.16 and John 3.13.

43:09

He affirms the necessity to be born again.

43:13

He affirms that the Holy Spirit is the regenerator of salvation.

43:18

And then in verse 19, He talks about the darkness of men.

43:23

So He affirms the spiritual status of man.

43:28

He affirms this total depravity.

43:31

So as you can see in Jesus' presentation, and then His delight in His presentation, He affirms definitive theology in a very simple way.

43:41

Why can't we do the same thing? Now we don't have to spend a long time.

43:46

I can say God the Father sent the Son to live the perfect life on behalf of sinners.

43:51

That's a true statement.

43:52

He absorbed the wrath.

43:54

He took the wrath, the payment of sin on behalf of sinners, literally, not hypothetically.

44:00

And He was physically resurrected from the dead, proving that He was God.

44:04

If you put your faith in Him, if you believe in Him and trust Him for your salvation, you will have eternal life.

44:10

What? I just took 20 minutes, I mean seconds.

44:14

I just define the persons of the Trinity.

44:16

I define the Father sending the Son, regenerate justification through faith alone.

44:23

You want to say that within a very short time.

44:27

But of course, sometimes, most of the time, you have longer and open-air evangelism.

44:31

But here's the thing.

44:32

We got to be definitive.

44:33

We should mention the deity, because Jesus said, unless you believe that I am God, you'll die in your sins, right? In John 8, 24.

44:40

And so I think we should.

44:42

We have the necessity and obligation to teach the deity of Christ.

44:46

He was sent by God, the Father.

44:48

He became flesh, the person of the Holy Spirit.

44:52

He's unipersonal, meaning He's a person and He regenerates.

44:57

I think we got to, in the Incarnation, we got to present these definitive doctrines.

45:01

Why? Because if you don't, the Mormon coming or the one that's Pentecostal coming is going to say the same thing.

45:07

And the recipients, they're not going to know the difference.

45:10

Yes, we rely on God.

45:12

He's the ultimate, decisive one in salvation.

45:16

But we need to present a definitive evangelism that includes essential doctrine in a very simple way.

45:24

Amen.

45:24

Amen.

45:24

I think that's very helpful.

45:26

And even for me thinking about how I present the gospel and in those interactions, and we don't get to really do a lot of open air preaching, but we do open air preaching at our church, but not at this particular event.

45:41

But in this event, there's a lot of one-on-one.

45:43

And a lot of these people, because it's a rural fair, it's a rural area, a lot of these people grew up in and around churches, but a lot of them don't really know much about the faith.

45:54

In fact, one of the things we do is we offer money to anybody who can give us all Ten Commandments.

45:58

Nobody ever gets the money.

46:01

Go ahead.

46:03

Well, I know you can.

46:04

But that's funny.

46:06

When you hold up 10 bucks and say, can you give me the Ten Commandments? And you see people, they're looking at their phones trying to figure it out.

46:14

Wait, let me search on Google.

46:16

Yeah, exactly.

46:17

What's the shortest verse in the Bible? Let me.

46:19

Yeah, exactly.

46:21

And it's not Jesus' web.

46:22

I know, I know.

46:23

I actually goofed that up in a sermon recently, because I quoted the wrong verse as the shortest verse.

46:32

It's in 1 Thessalonians, right? Where it says, pray without ceasing.

46:36

Isn't that the shortest in the Greek? Yeah, well, here's what's really interesting.

46:44

Now, Jesus' web literally reads in Greek, web the Jesus.

46:48

You have three words.

46:49

But in Thessalonians, I think it's chapter five.

46:53

It says, rejoice always.

46:54

And that's a sentence in Greek.

46:56

So that has two words.

46:57

So that's less.

46:58

But there is in the Gospels, when the Pharisees were attacking Christ, and Jesus was giving them an object lesson.

47:10

Actually, he quotes something that even though it has three words, they're less words than they have less words in Thessalonians.

47:20

So that technically would be the shortest verse.

47:23

It doesn't have as many words as the Thessalonians, you know, the verse in Thessalonians.

47:28

But so Jesus' web is the third one.

47:31

The second one would be in Thessalonians.

47:33

And the first one's in the Gospels.

47:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:37

I think it's in Luke.

47:39

Well, speaking of Bible verses, I want to ask you about two passages related to the Trinity.

47:46

One of them is actually from a recent conversation that I had online.

47:50

And another one is actually from a sermon series that I have coming.

47:55

I'm going to be starting in Colossians in the fall, going to be starting my exposition of Colossians.

48:01

So I want to ask you something about that.

48:02

But let's start with the first one.

48:05

Just yesterday, I was online with a gentleman who was asking questions about the Trinity.

48:11

And I have written a small book called God in Three Persons.

48:14

I wrote it 10 years ago.

48:16

And it's free.

48:17

It's available on our website.

48:19

I even did the audiobook.

48:20

I read my own book and put it on audio.

48:22

But it gives a biblical and historical foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity.

48:27

It's very simple.

48:28

It's only 80 pages.

48:29

It's really accessible for people.

48:32

You can go to sgfcjacks.org books, and it's there.

48:36

I have two books.

48:36

I have that book and the book I did on ecclesiology called Biblically Functioning Church.

48:41

But anyway, the reason why I bring it up is because one of the guys read my book, and he challenged my position on the Shema, which is Deuteronomy chapter six, where it says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one.

48:53

And I had used that when I was going through the three definitions of the Trinity, which I had put in the book as God is one in essence, God is three in person, and these three persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct.

49:02

That's the way I define the doctrine of the Trinity in three parts.

49:06

And I used Deuteronomy six, along with other passages, Isaiah 43 and others, to define God as monotheistic.

49:14

And he said that he did not believe that Deuteronomy six four really affirms monotheism.

49:23

He said, because that's not the point of Deuteronomy six four.

49:27

His argument was what it was saying was that Yahweh is our only Lord, but it wasn't affirming that He was the only God.

49:38

And I wanted to get you to do, and I'm probably not presenting his argument as best as I could.

49:42

I only heard it yesterday.

49:43

So, but I just, have you ever heard that people say that the Shema doesn't really define Hebrew monotheism? Have you ever heard someone say that? No, not in Hebrew scholarship.

49:55

I mean, even Jews would not hold to that.

49:58

You know, sometimes you got to tell these guys, yeah, prove it.

50:02

The problem is, you know, if he's going to isolate a passage, he's going to have great problems because you're going to have other passages that, you know, contradict.

50:13

And one thing we don't want to do, I always tell even Christians, we don't want to force two verses to militate against each other, or you have contradiction.

50:22

You just have contradiction.

50:26

In places like Jeremiah, interesting, Jeremiah 10, verse 10 and 11.

50:35

Why that's such a great verse is because, first it's the, I think, I believe it's verse 11, is one of the only places in Jeremiah where it's actually written in Arabic.

50:50

And it reads, the Lord, and it's similar, but it refutes that position that Deuteronomy doesn't teach monotheism, the view of one being.

51:01

Remember, monotheism does not mean unipersonalism, you know, or monopersonalism.

51:08

In verse 10 of chapter 10, the Lord is the true God.

51:13

He is the living God, everlasting King.

51:16

And then in verse 11, the people of Israel should tell the nations this.

51:20

This is the only verse that's written in Aramaic in Jeremiah's entire book.

51:25

Very interesting.

51:26

And many scholars speculate because the Babylonians could read Aramaic, or the pagans, so that's directed toward them, this verse.

51:34

Here's what it says in verse 11.

51:37

You people of Israel should tell those nations this.

51:41

Here's the Aramaic phrase.

51:42

These gods that did not make the earth will disappear or be destroyed from the earth from under the heaven.

51:49

So that means any other God that did not make the world the creator of all things, they'll be destroyed.

51:55

They're false gods.

51:56

But the fact of the matter is the Lord is the only true God.

51:59

How would you make two verses fight and contradict each other? So no, I think it's impossible to have that view because there's no scholarship behind it.

52:09

No one held to that.

52:11

I mean, I can make up any—I can say the Torah came from Mars, but showing that, establishing that as factual, that's a whole different thing.

52:20

So I don't know how he would get to that idea.

52:25

Yeah.

52:27

And that—looking at some of what he sent me, and again, I don't want to push this too far.

52:31

One of the things that it seemed that he was saying was that Israel had more of a henotheistic perspective where it wasn't that there weren't other gods, but that Yahweh was just the best.

52:43

Like, you know, here, oh Israel, our God is the best, almost, as opposed to our God is the only God and all other gods, as you just said, are false gods.

52:53

But rather that it's a henotheistic, you know, a tribal view where Yahweh is the best and, you know, Dagon and all these other gods, they're real, but they're just not real.

53:04

They're not more powerful than our God.

53:06

And I mean, that to me seems— Yeah.

53:10

Here's the problem with that.

53:12

Well, first, yeah, I would say it turns out that there's three persons presented as God.

53:17

Our God is Triune, so you're going to see the angel Lord as identifying himself as Yahweh, and he does something on behalf of another Yahweh.

53:25

That's monotheistic Trinitarianism.

53:27

That's our view.

53:28

You know, don't borrow from our view.

53:30

This is the pre-Christian view of Jews who acknowledge the two powers in heaven.

53:36

They couldn't really, you know, come out and say, well, God is multi-personal, but that's what they held to.

53:42

If you look at pre-Christian Christianity references, even apocryphal works like Enoch talks about the Son of Man as a distinct person, but he was deity.

53:55

You know, so this was the Christian view comporting with Christianity before Christianity.

54:00

This is what the Jews held to.

54:02

So what he's bringing is something that the Jews didn't hold to.

54:05

And again, Jeremiah in verse 10 of chapter 10 says, 10-11, this is the only true God, and every other God that did not create, they'll die.

54:18

They'll be destroyed because they're false gods.

54:21

So Jeremiah has a different view.

54:23

He says the only true God is the one who created all things.

54:26

Any other one who asserts to be a God, many did, they're going to die.

54:31

That doesn't sound like a God to me, you know, but the fact that in the Old Testament, the fact that many, many plural verbs, plural adjectives, plural prepositions are described or ascribed to the true God shows that the authors were not Unitarian.

54:56

And we can see this in church history too, and I always qualify church history when I quote a church father because we have a plethora of just abounding passages from patristic literature, verses, and statements of church fathers affirming that God is multi-personal and affirming, like in 190 with Clement of Alexandria, that the Trinity is to be meant.

55:19

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

55:22

But I always qualify when I quote a church father, patristics are not a valid hermeneutic to interpret the Bible, but they do give us some benefit reading what the early church said and in different comments.

55:33

But the fact of the matter is they were not Unitarian, the Old Testament authors.

55:37

That's why they use plural words, plural verbs, plural adjectives, and plural prepositions to describe the one God, like in Genesis 126, let us make.

55:50

That's a plural verb there.

55:51

Let us make man in our image, our likeness.

55:54

Those are two plural prepositions.

55:57

If you were a Unitarian, you would never, if you were writing the Bible and you believe God is a unipersonal God, you would never write in plural words.

56:09

Or in Genesis 218, we read, it is not good that man should be alone.

56:15

Let us make a suitable helper.

56:17

That comes from the Septuagint.

56:19

Again, the same plural verbs.

56:21

Or when, as Genesis 126, when God came down to confuse their language, let us descend and confuse their language.

56:30

One of my favorites, Keith, is Isaiah 54.5, and there's a zillion we can go, there's so many of these, where we read this.

56:39

In our translations we read, for your husband is your maker, whose name is Yahweh of host.

56:46

Well, in Hebrew, husband and maker is plural.

56:51

So literally, your husbands is your makers.

56:54

And Ecclesiastes 12.1, remember your creator in the days of your youth.

56:59

Well, in Hebrew, and everyone has little Bible apps, they can go to Young's Literal Translation, they'll see this.

57:05

In Hebrew, it reads, remember your creators in the days of your youth.

57:11

Why in the world would a monotheistic Jew ascribe plural words to the Lord unless he believed there was one God revealed in a plurality of persons? And that's consistent, that's why we believe in the Trinity, because that's what the Scriptures clearly describe God to be, triune, and that's what we see in the Old Testament.

57:34

So his view, that there's other gods are just not as good, is refuted over and over and over in the New Testament.

57:40

All the gods will die that did not create the universe.

57:43

All the gods will die.

57:45

Those other gods who are idols.

57:48

And you said something in a video I watched just earlier today, I was preparing for our conversation, so I watched some of the stuff from your website, and you said that the argument from Genesis 1.26, that this is a plural of majesty, that that's not a Bible option in your position, that you think that that's not something that is correct.

58:08

Am I understanding you right? Right, because plural of majesty is more of a modern idiosyncrasy, because no one used it back then.

58:17

There's no evidence of Hezekiah, David, Solomon, any king ever using a so-called plural of majesty.

58:26

So no, just first based on all the, you know, you look at all the plural words, you know, where someone, a king or anyone else, would use a plural verb to define himself, or a plural adjective, you know, holy ones, as we see.

58:43

There's no evidence.

58:44

It's not a biblical argument, because we don't find that in the Bible.

58:47

We only find plural references of the not in a plural of majesty, but distinct persons, you know.

58:55

And by the way, in Genesis 1.26, we find early church fathers using Genesis 1.26 to show that God is not unitarian.

59:08

Oh good, awesome.

59:11

You did spike a question, another question, and this could lead us into a whole other podcast.

59:17

I'll ask for just a quick, succinct answer, because I know this could lead us away, and I've got other questions I want to get to.

59:24

Talking about the idea of various gods and councils of gods and different things like that, are you familiar with Michael Heizer and the book Unseen Realm? In a short, succinct, what are your thoughts on him? Do you think he's worth checking out? I know he's not a Calvinist.

59:41

Yeah, no, he, well, let me tell you something about Michael Heizer.

59:43

No, I'm not saying he's not Christian, but he has some bizarre views, and he's very, he has a sense of elitism, you know, like no one else has it except he, because he figured out who the rock was in Matthew 16, and you know, against all scholarship, it's just he has some weird views.

01:00:00

But what he does, he just pretty much copies the work of others, like Segal and others before him, to create this council of the gods.

01:00:07

Now, he's not saying that the gods, these other gods are ontological gods, so he does hold to the Trinity.

01:00:15

In all defense, he does hold the Trinity, but I think he's way off in a lot of different areas, particularly in his idea of judges, because in John 10, Jesus makes his argument about the false judges, they weren't gods, they were called God in representation.

01:00:31

And we know that in Exodus, starting in Exodus 18, remember, Jethro gave Moses some really good advice, hey, you're getting stressed out by all these people giving you questions and coming to you with these domestic disputes, why don't you have some people help you? And these people that he selected, these elders, were called Elohim, God or gods, because they represented the Word of God.

01:00:55

So they were, that's why most translations translated as judges, bring it before the judges, we read over and over and over in the beginning of Exodus.

01:01:03

So I don't agree with Michael's view of the council of the gods, I think they were either judges, but I certainly don't believe, and I'll just comment one time on his view on Genesis 126.

01:01:22

In Genesis 126, and here's why he's off in so many places, in Genesis 126, we read, let us make man in our image, our likeness.

01:01:33

Yeah, plural verb, let us make, and you have plural prepositions in our image, in our likeness, those are two plural prepositions.

01:01:43

He says these are an example of the council of the gods, but not ontological gods.

01:01:48

Here's the problem, and some Unitarians will say this is a reference to angels.

01:01:53

Problem here is, when you look at the phrase, let us make, this particular verb here, you look at every time, I think it's used about, oh, a half dozen times, I think about a half dozen times in the Old Testament.

01:02:08

Every single time, including Genesis 11-7, the ones who are referenced to be the us, the referential identities of the us, are the ones doing the action of the making, or are the confusing.

01:02:26

So in other words, the let us, because he'll say they were helpers, no, the let us make, how it's used in other places, denotes the person's doing the action of the verb, the actual doing the action of the verb.

01:02:40

Angels didn't do the action of the verb, making us, you know, let us make man, and our angels did not participate in that.

01:02:47

That's not how this phrase is used.

01:02:49

Heisner, I guess he just doesn't consider semantically and syntactically how these verbs are used in other places in the Old Testament.

01:02:59

I appreciate you answering that.

01:03:01

It's interesting.

01:03:02

I recently heard that he's actually in my hometown.

01:03:06

I didn't know he was a Jacksonville guy, because I'm here in Jacksonville, Florida, and I've thought about reaching out to him to try to get him to come on the show to answer some of those questions.

01:03:14

I don't know if he'd ever be interested, but Michael, if you hear this, you're welcome to come on the program.

01:03:21

I know you're not a Calvinist, so you may not want to come, but Calvinism.

01:03:24

Yeah, I know.

01:03:26

Well, here's the other passage I wanted to ask you to, and this is almost, I'm going to tell you, this is for my benefit, even though this is for the audience.

01:03:37

This is also for me, because I'm going to begin my exposition of Colossians in a month.

01:03:43

I'm taking some time off to be with the new baby, but I'm beginning Colossians chapter one, verse one, on October 23rd, and when I get to verse 15, and I know how I understand this, but I want to hear how you would explain it, because that's why I have you.

01:03:59

I want to hear a seasoned scholar on this passage, because it says, speaking of Christ, it says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

01:04:11

Now, I know that Jehovah Witnesses, as well as many others, hold on to those words, image, and the word firstborn, of course, image, icon, or icon, where we get the word icon, and firstborn, of course, being a protodicost.

01:04:31

These words are often used by the Jehovah Witness and others to say, see, Jesus did come into existence at a point in time, and this verse proves that.

01:04:44

So, how would you respond, or how would you show someone that that's not the case? Well, the same author in the same book presents Christ as in him dwells all the fullness, always dwells, katoike, always dwells, the fullness of the deity, the ateikos, of the deity, in bodily form.

01:05:06

So, this was the same author.

01:05:07

So, he's not going to present Christ as created and say, oh yeah, but by the way, in him dwells all the fullness of the deity, the ateikos, in human flesh.

01:05:18

And it's the same author that in the next two verses, 16 and 17, presents Christ in the strongest way as the agent, not a helper, as the agent of creation.

01:05:31

The problem with 16 and 17, not the problem, but with, well, with Unitarians, it's a problem.

01:05:37

Paul uses four different prepositions, but he also uses in verse 16, all things were made through him and for him.

01:05:46

The through him construction, dia with the genitive there, denotes agency, not helper, but agency.

01:05:53

He was the agent of creation, so devastating that the Watchtower had to put all other things four times in their translation.

01:06:01

So, I just want people to understand the context of the book itself, the document, Paul's theology.

01:06:08

In him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form.

01:06:13

This was his doctrine.

01:06:15

One of the reasons why he states the things that he states denoting Christ's physicality, like in bodily form, the ateikos, in bodily form, is because the context, the historical context of the book of Colossians was an anti-gnostic polemic.

01:06:37

Most Jehovah's Witnesses have no idea how to respond to that.

01:06:40

We have to understand why Paul was emphasizing Christ's physicality, over and over, redeemed by his fleshly body, in him dwells all the fullness of God in human flesh, you know, all these things.

01:06:51

So, we get to 14, you know, in him we have redemption, and some manuscripts will say, through his blood, like Ephesians 1-7, unambiguously, with no variant, through his blood, we have forgiveness of sins, because Paul was refuting Gnosticism.

01:07:08

Unless you understand that, it's hard to understand, you know, well, it's hard to understand the force of his argument in 14, 15, 16, and 17.

01:07:17

So, the context, number one, the context was anti-gnostic.

01:07:20

They didn't believe that Christ created things.

01:07:23

They didn't believe that he was creator of all things.

01:07:25

So, you have the context, and then number two, you have the lexical semantic of the word prototokos, which denotes supremacy, preeminence, first in rank.

01:07:38

This is the standard definition.

01:07:41

If you look at every recognized lexicon, particularly Badag, which defines the word as having special status, nothing about created, but having special status associated with firstborn.

01:07:55

But look at how the Old Testament uses this word, the Septuagint prototokos, in Exodus 4-22, the Lord Yahweh calls Israel his firstborn.

01:08:08

And I always ask the question was, were there not other nations before Israel? Well, yes, there was a whole lot of them.

01:08:16

Why would he call Israel his firstborn? Because Israel had supremacy as his people.

01:08:23

And in Psalm 89-27, David is called prototokos, firstborn.

01:08:30

But as you know, Keith, David was technically last born, but he had supremacy.

01:08:37

He had preeminence.

01:08:38

Also in Jeremiah 41-51, where Manasseh is called, he's firstborn, and Ephraim is actually called secondborn.

01:08:46

But in Jeremiah 31-9 or 10, Ephraim is called firstborn because he had now the preeminence or supremacy.

01:08:56

So, how you look at the word as it's used, not only in the New Testament, but as it's used all through Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, we discover that it's a word, and in lexical sources, the lexical semantic of firstborn means supremacy or having the rights of a firstborn.

01:09:15

So when you take that back to Colossians, why does he have the rights, the preeminence as the firstborn of all creation? Well, 16 and 17 answer that, because he's the agent of creation.

01:09:28

That's why.

01:09:29

He's the creator of all things, as the Father said in Hebrews 1-6 and John 1-3.

01:09:35

So it means even the Watchtower aid to Bible understanding, where we read—this was their definition—David, who was the youngest son of Jesse, was called by Jehovah, the firstborn—listen to this—due to Jehovah's elevation of David to the preeminent position of God's chosen nation.

01:09:56

Even they agree to it.

01:09:58

In Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, page 584.

01:10:03

So if you ever encountered Jehovah's Witnesses, based on your own understanding—and this was not in the early 19th century, this was 1971—they defined it that way.

01:10:15

Absolutely.

01:10:16

That's awesome.

01:10:17

Thank you.

01:10:18

And I will be going back and listening to this again in a few months when I'm actually preaching on that passage to pull out some of those references.

01:10:28

I'm thankful to get that.

01:10:31

That was good.

01:10:32

And especially the reference.

01:10:34

If you can't remember anything, just remember Colossians 2-9.

01:10:38

That's what Paul defines the Son as.

01:10:42

The deity in human flesh.

01:10:44

He's not going to contradict himself.

01:10:46

Amen.

01:10:47

Well, I want to begin to draw to a close.

01:10:50

I know we've been on now for more than an hour, and I appreciate your time.

01:10:55

I want to ask you one last question.

01:10:58

This may be a little bit of a long one, but hopefully it won't take too much away from you.

01:11:05

Currently, in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, there are a lot of issues that are going back and forth about eternal subordinationism.

01:11:15

I've actually had another man on the show who was opposed to eternal subordinationism.

01:11:21

We talked about what was known as eternal functional subordinationism, eternal relations of authority and submission, which is now the new term that's being thrown around, especially in confessional circles.

01:11:33

And I know that I have friends on both sides of this issue.

01:11:36

I have people who I really respect, and they hold to all different views.

01:11:41

My question to you is, do you think that this is something that should be dividing us, number one, because I do think all of these people would affirm Nicene orthodoxy when it comes to Trinitarianism.

01:11:56

But do you think that this is a primary issue? And if you want to say what position you take, you're welcome to, but if you're not interested in doing that, I don't mind.

01:12:07

You keep playing close to the vest, that's fine.

01:12:10

I will tell you, I think that there are arguments on both sides which are interesting and worth hearing.

01:12:16

I tend to fall more on the non-subordination side personally, so I'll go ahead and play my hand.

01:12:26

But I admit that on this, I think I could be incorrect.

01:12:29

So what do you think, brother? Yeah, I think of the different titles, I think you can reduce it to two frameworks or two beliefs.

01:12:40

And it answers the question of submission of the son.

01:12:44

Now we know in his incarnational state, he was submissive to the father in his incarnational state, we know that.

01:12:51

But the controversy, it really is surrounded on the other view.

01:12:55

But was he submissive in eternity? Now, biblically speaking, the heresy would be if you believe he was ontologically submissive.

01:13:07

Now you're talking heresy, because now you're talking about his actual nature.

01:13:15

Because at that point, we deny co-equality, right? If we say that there's...

01:13:19

Exactly.

01:13:20

Yeah.

01:13:21

Okay.

01:13:22

And first, there's secondary doctrines, aside from ontological subordination or submission, there's secondary doctrines.

01:13:32

And some verses are...

01:13:34

It's just interesting, there's a couple verses that kind of throw a wrench into the whole argument.

01:13:40

And you've got great guys on both sides, similar to the Roman 724 through, or 14 through 24, I believe.

01:13:50

Is it Paul's post-Christianity or is this pre-Christianity? Or is Paul talking about man in general, what I want to do, I can't do.

01:14:01

And you have good guys on both sides, I have my view on that.

01:14:04

But this view, aside from the eternality or a functional, and they're all functional submission, or functional subordination, no one denies that.

01:14:17

But was it for eternity or was it just as an incarnational role? And as you know, this sometimes, oh, it does, it filters out to the role of men and women in the church.

01:14:29

But that aside, let's look at the issues here, the theological issues.

01:14:36

We find verses, very interesting, when I first encountered these arguments, you know, just naturally we tend to believe in the submission incarnationally only.

01:14:48

In his incarnational work he was submissive to the Father.

01:14:51

But a couple things, now in terms of my view, I would just say this, I'm just more compelled, I don't want to say categorically, because there's one verse that really does put a monkey wrench in my view, or at least the implication that I see.

01:15:11

I see a functional, eternal functional subordination or submission of the Son to the Father.

01:15:22

I see before the Incarnation, I see an eternal submission.

01:15:26

Why? They're not arbitrary reasons.

01:15:29

And again, I'm not categorical on this, so you don't have to turn this show off.

01:15:34

A couple, here's my main reasons, and it's very, one verse in particular is very interesting.

01:15:39

First his role, Jesus as the Angel of the Lord.

01:15:43

We find as the Angel of the Lord, now this is pre-Incarnation, there is a somewhat of a functional submission to the Father.

01:15:52

In Genesis 19-24, we see that one of the visitors was identified as Yahweh.

01:15:58

Most likely this was the Angel of the Lord.

01:16:00

It doesn't say Angel of the Lord, but it does say angels in chapter 19.

01:16:05

And in 19-24, the culmination of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where we read, and then Yahweh reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone, or brimstone and fire from Yahweh out from heaven.

01:16:26

So you have the Angel here, the Angel of the Lord, or the person that was identified, one of the visitors, the speaker who Sarah laughed at, he identified himself as Yahweh.

01:16:37

He was identified as Yahweh, but yet in 24, he does something on behalf of another Yahweh in heaven.

01:16:44

Yahweh reigned brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh out from heaven.

01:16:51

It's a horrible verse for Unitarians to explain.

01:16:54

So you see that his function as the Angel of the Lord, and also in Zechariah 1-12, we see the Angel of the Lord who had been claiming he was Yahweh, and the recipient saw him as God.

01:17:04

Now in Zechariah 1-12, he's praying to Yahweh.

01:17:10

He's actually praying to Yahweh.

01:17:13

Also, I mentioned this before, when you look at the creation accounts in John 1-3, particularly when you have the construction through him, Diyah with the genitive, in John 1-3, Colossians 1-16, Hebrews 1-2, they all have that construction attributed to Christ as Creator.

01:17:31

Well, agency, and I won't get complex in this, but agency is used in three different ways.

01:17:35

It's used to denote the ultimate agent, the decisive one of the action.

01:17:40

It's used as intermediate agent, the one that the ultimate agent uses to carry out the action.

01:17:46

And then we have the impersonal agent, just an unnamed agent.

01:17:50

But nevertheless, all are agent.

01:17:54

So if you're one of those, you're the agent.

01:17:57

So in terms of creation, Christ is never—and these are not arbitrary, these are linguistic constructions here—Christ is always presented as the intermediate agent of creation.

01:18:10

He's creator of all things, but specifically or linguistically, with Diyah and the genitive, that denotes intermediate agent, that which the ultimate agent uses to carry out the action.

01:18:21

Again, pre-incarnation.

01:18:23

And also in John—I'll save that for last, just two more points I want to go through.

01:18:33

I'll save the best for last.

01:18:35

In Philippians 2-6, when it says where Christ is the referential identity, who in very nature, God existing, hoparkon, he's always existing as God in the nature of God, in the morphe of God, did not—and here's the point—did not consider equality with God a thing to, as Dan Wallace says, to usurp, meaning his—he didn't desire to usurp the Father's authority, is one classic interpretation, based on how the Greek terms are used.

01:19:17

But the word hegesata, hegesata is a word that means consider, it's only applied to persons, which is really interesting.

01:19:24

It's only applied to persons.

01:19:25

Horrible, again, for Unitarians, because you have a person who's considering something before he was incarnated.

01:19:31

But he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped or usurping the Father's authority.

01:19:38

And the fact that he was sent.

01:19:40

I don't know if that's a strong argument, because the Holy Spirit was sent also, but he was sent before he came to earth.

01:19:48

But here's the, I would say, the big gun.

01:19:54

It's in Colossians—I mean, I'm sorry, it's John 6-38.

01:20:00

I remember I asked Dr.

01:20:02

White on this, and he didn't really answer me.

01:20:06

We're at a Mexican restaurant.

01:20:09

I'm not sure if he's ever evaluated this verse.

01:20:11

But notice in John 6-38, this is probably the most compelling, I think, verse of the argument.

01:20:20

I mean, the angel of the Lord's good, and Philippians, you know, hegesata, did not consider the sending of the Son.

01:20:27

But John 6-38, very interesting verse.

01:20:31

I use this in debate with one of his Pentecostals, namely to show he was a distinct person before Bethlehem.

01:20:39

We read in this fabulous verse, Jesus says, I have come down, I have come down, that's a perfect indicative tense there, katababeka, I have come down out from heaven, apatu uranu, out from heaven, and let note follow, not in order that I should do—here's how it literally reads—that I should do my will or the will of me.

01:21:10

I have come down from heaven, not that I should do my will, but the will of the one having sent, having sent, the arius participle, having sent me.

01:21:22

Now here's what we have here.

01:21:25

Normal grammar, and I haven't seen an exception to this, normal grammar simply says when you have a perfect indicative in a sentence or in a series of clauses, and you have an arius participle, the arius verb comes before the perfect, it's an antecedent action.

01:21:51

So the perfect is indicating Jesus coming down, but before that He was sent.

01:21:59

He was sent first before He came down to heaven, having sent, hems and haws, arius participle.

01:22:07

So the action, if allowing normal Greek grammar to stand, the action of Christ deciding not to do His own will, but to do the will of the Father, that whole submissive action of submitting to the Father's will was done before He came down to earth.

01:22:32

Now that, you know, I haven't found any, even the ones who affirm the eternal functional subordination or submission, I haven't seen anyone use this.

01:22:43

I don't know why.

01:22:44

I haven't read, you know, volumes on this, but just from a plain grammatical standpoint, before He came down, He submitted to the Father.

01:22:55

Someone would have to say normal grammar doesn't work here, this is an exception, or show me some kind of justification grammatically why this isn't true when you have a perfect followed by an arius participle.

01:23:08

That's the, probably the big gun, and I'll tell you what throws the wrench in it though.

01:23:16

Not, I would say absolutely, in John 17, in Jesus's high priestly prayer in verse 7 or verse 5, glorify me now Father with the glory I shared with you before the foundation of the world.

01:23:29

Great verse, right? Because He's saying He shared glory with the Father, that I had, ikon, I had in perfect tense, I had it, I possessed it, before the world was.

01:23:40

Anyways, the first verb there when He says Father glorify, right, doxosan, glorify me, that verb glorify, it's an arius imperative.

01:23:55

That in Greek grammar is the strongest way to issue a commandment from a subordinate to someone under Him, or a subordinate to, from a subordinate to a subordinate from somewhere over Him.

01:24:14

But the fact that the Son uses, as recorded, the arius imperative to the Father, and that's normally how an arius imperative is used.

01:24:25

A single imperative can be used, just the imperative alone, standing alone, it can be used as a commandment or a request.

01:24:33

But the fact is this is an arius imperative, and that's how it's normally used, as a commandment.

01:24:38

How is the Son commanding the Father? Obviously by virtue of His deity, but you see this one person of the Trinity commanding another person of the Trinity, but it's the Son that's done.

01:24:53

But that's a difficult issue there, and I don't think it absolutely refutes it, the eternal submission of the Son, and there's other issues, but it's a very interesting dialogue, very interesting discussion.

01:25:06

But John 638, that's a hard one.

01:25:09

Yeah, and I see guys going back and forth, and the worst part for me is the argument of heresy, and this kind of goes back to something we talked about earlier, how quickly we are to throw out, you know, that's a different gospel, or that's a different God, or that's heretical.

01:25:26

When we really are nailing down the finer points of doctrine, not to say that these things don't matter, but that we are not disagreeing on what the essentials are, and we are coming to different conclusions on some of the way that, like you said, functional things, not ontological things, and that's, yeah, and so I think that's where a lot of people talk about, you know.

01:25:49

Yeah, and I think again, we have to remain brothers, and love each other, and encourage one another, and again, you know, identify error, you know, none of us are unwilling to identify error.

01:26:00

Recently somebody said, because I posted something about how MacArthur and Sproul were such good friends, even though they disagreed on covenantalism, and baptism, and things, and somebody says, well, you got to take a stand, and I said, yeah, I know, but you still, you can't draw the circle so tight that you're the only one left inside, and that's what I, that's my fear, right? And some things you can't take a stand with exegetical certainty.

01:26:25

Yeah.

01:26:26

You know, like the Romans 7.24, I have great problems with, you know, 14 through 24, or even this issue, because, or even, you know, at what point did God ordain to elect, you know, before or after the fall.

01:26:40

You know, some things are not categorical, and you can take a stand on the non-certainty of it, because some are not certain, and Christians have to realize that, especially if they're, you know, going to have a debate, whatever they're doing.

01:26:56

Say, look, Philippians 2.6, 6 through 11, the Carmen Christi, most, I think it's fair to say, would see this as denoting his incarnation, God becoming flesh, and the whole Gospels included, but not every scholar.

01:27:10

You have Robert Raymond, systematic theologian, saying the emptying and the humility happened at the cross.

01:27:18

He emptied himself at the cross, and others agreed to that.

01:27:21

Now, okay, I mean, that's very interesting arguments, and some of the things he says is compelling.

01:27:27

I'm not there yet, you know, I still see with incarnational context, but nevertheless, we as Christians have to understand not everything is categorical, and as soon as we start, you know, taking a stand categorically, we might change our view later in life.

01:27:44

I mean, you know, the only thing we can take a view on, I think, categorically are things on essential doctrines, things on the Gospel, who Christ is, that kind of thing.

01:27:53

Yeah, absolutely.

01:27:55

Well, as we close, I want to ask you this quick question.

01:27:58

What do you currently have going on? Do you have any upcoming writings, classes, debates we should be looking out for? What's going on in your life right now that we could be looking out for? I start school that I teach, and I have a YouTube page if anyone wants to see it, Department of Christian Offense YouTube.

01:28:14

I'm trying, as time permits, to add content, short things like 15 minutes.

01:28:19

Anyways, and Christian Offense is the website, but I'm finishing a book on a basic intro to apologetics, which actually I'm late getting that done.

01:28:29

I start this new semester at a school that I teach at in LA this Wednesday.

01:28:35

We're going through, fortunately, I can write my own syllabus, so I can, you know, and they're so eclectic, the people that come in, they're all from all kinds of backgrounds, and I'm privileged to be there to disambiguate their horrible doctrine a lot of times.

01:28:50

So I start that Wednesday, then the big trip in November, we're going to Nepal.

01:28:57

We have a seminary actually for free, so we'll be teaching there, because we do that also in Nigeria and Philippines.

01:29:04

We do pastor conferences as well.

01:29:05

So that's coming in Nepal, and everyone can pray for that trip.

01:29:08

It's a long, long flight.

01:29:12

So, you know, with that, and I just did a conference with Ministry to Muslims, our annual 9-11 conference, at which headquarter, we talked about Baghdad, Florida.

01:29:21

I never knew that either.

01:29:22

That's where the headquarters of what we do, something called First Lab Publications.

01:29:25

When we do these pastor conferences, we give away books and all these things, but to pastors, so we can educate their church, and it's great, because they each get a bag of books, and we write the stuff.

01:29:36

You know, we know all the authors.

01:29:38

It's all Calvinistic, deals with apologetics too.

01:29:42

You know, a lot of it is just good doctrine that their churches need out there.

01:29:46

Here's the thing, Keith, if we don't reach them, whether they're here or abroad, someone else will.

01:29:52

I think the greatest evangelistic field is right here in the United States with Christians.

01:29:56

I think Christians, look, Paul in Romans 1.16, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, but in 15 he says, I'm eager to evangelize you.

01:30:08

Now, why does he want to evangelize Christians? He's speaking to Christians.

01:30:13

It wasn't the Roman Catholic Church.

01:30:15

I can understand that better, because they need to learn better.

01:30:19

They need to be more equipped to communicate the simplicity of the gospel.

01:30:23

That's why Paul said, I think every pastor should be eager to preach the gospel, so their congregation can increase and be equipped and effectual when they go out and evangelize, whether it's one-on-one or to a group.

01:30:36

Awesome.

01:30:37

Well, I'm grateful that you are out there doing that.

01:30:39

I'm grateful for the ministry that you have, and look forward to seeing more of you, and supporting you in all the ways that we can, and first and foremost, as he mentioned, please go to his website and look at the materials that they have available, and educate yourself with those things.

01:30:54

I think it would be beneficial for all of you, as all my audience, to do that, and again, your website is, one more time, christiandefense.org.

01:31:06

Okay, well, Dr.

01:31:08

Dalkor, I want to thank you again for being on the show, and giving us this time, and giving us your wisdom, and your years of training, and look forward to maybe at some point in the future having you on again.

01:31:19

Thank you very much, Keith.

01:31:21

Yes, sir, and to the listening audience, I want to thank you for being with us, and if you have questions, please go to christiandefense.org.

01:31:27

You can look up Dr.

01:31:29

Dalkor's information, and get in touch with him there if you have questions, and if you have questions for me, you can get in touch with me at calvinispodcast at gmail.com.

01:31:37

I like to do shows that are based on listener questions, so if you have a question, please send it to calvinispodcast at gmail.com.

01:31:44

Also, look us up on YouTube at youtube.com slash conversations with a Calvinist.

01:31:49

You'll see there that we not only have our podcast, but I'm doing short videos answering theological questions, and doing a little bit of humor along the way, so if you want to check those out, you can do that at youtube.com slash conversations with a Calvinist.

01:32:02

Thank you again for listening to conversations with a Calvinist.

01:32:04

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

01:32:07

May God bless you.