Simply Trinity (part 20)

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Simply Trinity (part 21)

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Our great God in heaven, we come before you this morning, rejoice in all that you have done for us, in all the ways that you have blessed us, and how you have granted us newness of mind, newness of heart, the promise of eternal life,
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Father, freedom from the presence, or the power, and the pervasiveness, and the penalty of sin, and one day it will be from the presence of sin.
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We'll be with Christ forever in sinless bliss.
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Father, we look forward to that day. In the meantime, we pray that you would bless our time as we look to your word, as we look to what the church has taught throughout the millennia.
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I pray that you would bless us to help us grapple with this topic, and do so to your glory.
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In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, well, good morning. If you don't have a quiz, please raise your hand and blame somebody else, because, oh, it still would be my fault.
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You don't have one? You know what? I think I saw some, and I should have grabbed them in my mailbox.
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Yeah, that'd be great. And check the mailbox first, because I think there might be some in there.
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Chapter 8, yes. Okay, there is a pile. Okay, that's good.
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All right, so we're on, according to my records, number 12. And I keep very accurate records, because I fold the page over.
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John, number 12, true or false, the
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Trinity is not a blueprint for our human relationships. I heard a tr -sh -sh.
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Was that a tr -sh? Okay, the answer is true.
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Barrett says, if the Trinity is a society of persons who are socially related by authority and submission, then the
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Trinity provides one of the most important and neglected patterns for how human life and human relations are to be conducted.
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But where went further, Bruce Ware? Not just calling the Trinity a pattern, but the paradigm and prototype.
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For what exactly? And Ware goes on to say, the workplace, ministry, and the home.
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Workplace, ministry, and the home. So, when you're at work, submit to your boss.
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Why would you do that? Because the son submits to, and that's what we're talking about, by the way, this morning.
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Eternal subordination or eternal submission of the son. Which means, let me just give you a brief declaration, well, you know what, somebody else can give a brief definition.
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Eternal subordination or eternal, see I'm turning this way because it's like the weight of the room is over here, until all the light people come in.
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What's eternal subordination of the son? Within the imminent
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Trinity, which means within the eternal Godhead. So, before Jesus ever came to earth, before he was incarnate, before he took on human flesh, he was still subordinate, that is to say, kind of second in command to the father.
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You know, as a former military guy, that sort of appeals to me, because then we can understand the rank structure.
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We understand that. It's wrong, but it's understandable. So, Ware compares it to the workplace.
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Then he says to ministry, you know, you submit to your elders.
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Well, why would you do that? They're not better than you. Well, that's definitely true. Speaking for myself, not for the other men.
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And the home, and that specifically gets into, of course, wives and husbands.
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Grudem, Wayne Grudem, says the same thing. And this was their way of saying what many social
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Trinitarians before them had already said. The Trinity is our social program.
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And, you know, among the problems with that, and when we talked about the social Trinity, social Trinitarians kind of bend the
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Trinity into different forms and shapes, because they want to justify other things.
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Sometimes it's even sinful things, like homosexuality or whatever.
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But the bottom line, according to Barrett, is that we should not fold, spindle, mutilate, warp the
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Trinity for our own means. The Trinity is the Trinity, and not an example or actually the blueprint for our human relationships.
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Why is that? Why can't we just say, well, you know what, when
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I go to work, I submit to my boss, and submission doesn't make me less because my boss isn't any better than I am, and that's the exact same thing as the son of the father.
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Why would that be wrong? See, I knew that.
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Okay, your boss is more important to your company than you are, although that's not true in Andrew's company.
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But why else is that not a valid construct?
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Why is that a wrong way of looking at things? Okay, God is so much other than us.
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I like that. Go ahead. He's like, God is so much other than us.
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Coffee. Okay, I can't really argue with that. Coffee. Other thoughts?
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I mean, really, the idea that somehow we're going to take the
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Trinity and reduce the triune God into a way where we can understand parent -child relationships better or husband -wife relationships better.
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Like John said, there's an otherness to the Trinity, to God, and so it doesn't really translate one to one.
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Okay, number 13. True or false, the son is only the son because he is submissive.
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In other words, that's part and parcel of who he is. He is submissive. He only does, he says, what he sees the father doing.
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He's fully submissive to the father. So true or false, the son is only the son because he is submissive.
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Okay, that gets a thumbs down, a false. And in fact, that is what the blessed marker says.
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That is, it's false. Barrett. The paradigm and prototype for such authority submission relationships is the
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Trinity. Just as the son, this is in the ESS view, the eternal subordination view.
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Just as the son submits to the father, so wives also to their husbands. These roles are even intrinsic to their identity.
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Just as the son cannot be the son if not subordinate. Now, people actually say that.
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I mean, I've read that on Twitter, so it must be true. Sorry. Why would somebody say that?
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That the son is the son because he is submissive. Why would someone say that? And I won't name any names, but he is the son -in -law of Dr.
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Ware. Why would somebody say that? He has to be submissive.
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Or this. It is the nature of the father to be over a son.
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That's what makes him the father. Because that's the way it works here.
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And so we're taking our ideas of our relationships and then placing them on the
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Trinity and saying, Well, that's the way the Trinity must be. So obviously not the best way to go.
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Okay. Let's see if I skipped anything. Oh, I did. This is a quote here.
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The most marked characteristic of the Trinitarian relationships is the presence of an eternal and inherent expression of authority and submission.
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Problem with that. You wind up with what? Not only a ranking, but you wind up with kind of a different amount of power.
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You know, is the father more powerful than the Holy Spirit? Does he have more of the eternal essence than the
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Holy Spirit? No. Okay. Number 14.
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True or false? Eternal functional subordination. That's what
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EFS is. Which is very similar. It would be difficult.
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We'd have to read several papers to understand the difference between ESS, which is eternal subordination of the
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Son, and eternal functional subordination, meaning he just functions, but he's not essentially different.
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But eternal functional subordination essentially reinvents the doctrine of God.
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Eternal functional subordination essentially reinvents the doctrine of God. True or false? You have a 50 -50 shot.
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True. And the answer is, let's look at the highlighter. Inspired highlighter says true.
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Barrett says, EFSers, those who support eternal functional subordination, are not transparent.
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And I'm just shutting this down so I don't get any more signals from my watch. Are not transparent.
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They are building their case by reinventing the doctrine of God and are doing so without telling the
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Christian public what they are up to. And it's important because we have to understand this, that this is a new concept.
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This ESS, EFS thing is new. They're trying to say that they're orthodox because they don't believe that Jesus is a created being, that he is inferior.
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But then they go on to say that his essence is that he submits to the Father. Liam Gallagher, who is the pastor at First Presbyterian in Philadelphia, called on evangelicals everywhere to weigh what is at stake before they, quote, jettison the classical
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Catholic orthodox and reformed understanding of God. In other words, what, where Grudem and others are putting forth is not the historical orthodox reformed understanding of God.
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In chapter two, we learned that the Nicene fathers did not just affirm eternal relations of origin.
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And that means that the father is unbegotten, the son is begotten, and the spirit is spirited.
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But they said eternal relations of origin alone distinguish the persons. Bruce Ware disagrees.
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He says there are two categories of distinctiveness. One, eternal relations of origin.
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In other words, he agrees with that. But then he says eternal functional relations or roles of hierarchy.
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These two are not unrelated, but eternal functional relations roles flow from and are found within eternal relations of origin.
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In other words, he says he's basically refining the traditional understanding of God.
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Barrett says that is strategic, giving those who believe in eternal functional subordination an opportunity to insert subordination within the eternal
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Godhead. And again, it's important for us to just sort of review this.
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What's the idea of subordination or submission? What does that mean? What does it even imply?
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If I say that something is subordinate to something else, what am I saying? If I say that, you know,
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Jerry is subordinate to the fire chief, what am I saying? What's that?
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Okay, there's opposing wills, but not necessarily. I mean, in submission there has to be, right?
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But if he's subordinate, it just means that he's, yeah, he's under the authority of that person above him.
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Now, if I say that there's submission, then I'm saying exactly what Kelly said, that there are opposing wills, that there's difference of opinions, which essentially when you talk about ESS, essentially you're going to get back to, because as we saw last week, the idea of EFS, eternal functional subordination, pushes so hard on this that they say, listen, the
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Father could have accomplished his plan of salvation or done whatever he wanted to do without the
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Son and without the Spirit, but he graciously includes them. What does that say?
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To me that says there's more than one will in the Godhead. The Father has a will, and it's supreme.
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That's even what they say. So they're redefining God. Number 15, true or false?
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Works of the Trinity are appropriated in keeping with the mode of subsistence. That's a mouthful.
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Who wrote that question? He's fired. Well, we can understand the first part.
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Works of the Trinity, that's easy. And then are appropriated. That just means they're basically assigned, let's say, in Scripture.
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For example, the Holy Spirit impels Jesus, the man
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Christ Jesus, to go out in the wilderness in Matthew 4. So that work of the
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Trinity is appropriated or is assigned to the Holy Spirit, and it's in keeping with his mode of subsistence.
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In other words, that he's eternally spirated. He has a particular role within the Trinity. They don't get into each other's roles.
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I mean, I think that's a little too fine of a... It might be the phrasing of the question, or it might be some of what we're about to read from Barrett.
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But here's the thing. Because the idea of assigned, that was just a word I put in there to kind of...
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When I say assigned, for example, how do we know that it's the Holy Spirit who impels
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Jesus out into the wilderness in Matthew 4? We know that because Matthew 4 says that.
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Why does Matthew 4 say that? Let's get into the mechanics of Scripture.
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Why does Matthew 4 say what Matthew 4 says? Because Matthew wrote it as he was inspired by the
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Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit tells Matthew that the Holy Spirit impelled
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Jesus out into the wilderness. So in that sense, who assigned that role to the
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Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit did.
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He said to Matthew, I impelled Jesus to go out in the... Okay, you don't agree.
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Who was it who designated? If you don't want to say assigned, then say designated. That's true, but you're not a trinity either.
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If the Scripture is going to identify one of the three people as being responsible for something that happens, then it's the
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Holy Spirit who's going to... If we don't like assigned, we could say designated.
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I'm just trying to... You could just say described. Somehow or another, we have to get to the place where we understand that some things are done by a particular person of the
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Trinity. True. Okay, thank you. So the question itself, works of the
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Trinity are appropriated in keeping with the mode of subsistence. In other words, with their particular person.
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I guess I could have said, in keeping with the person. I don't even know how
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I would have phrased it. But anyway, the answer is true. And then
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Barrett says, a particular work may be appropriated, that's a quote, by a particular person, but always in a way that is consistent with that person's mode of subsistence.
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So we can see where I got the question. I took it right out of the book. That doesn't mean that the book was very clear about it.
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That's just what it is. And then he says, for example, the son is sent by the father to become incarnate, which corresponds to his mode of subsistence, eternal relation, which is that of, what's the eternal relation of the son?
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He is begotten. So this is in keeping, the father sending the son is in keeping with the son's eternal relation.
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That is to say, he's begotten. Okay, are there works of the Trinity that seem to be assigned to this person here and that person there and the other person over here?
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Creation. Comfort. Resurrection.
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Okay. Do those things seem to be assigned to different persons of the Trinity in different places? Yes. So what should we draw from that?
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Here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. I mean, in some cases, all three persons are said to do something.
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Okay. There's one God and they all... See, you could do that.
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There's one God and, you know... So, one God, they do all these things together.
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And in some cases, a particular person of the Trinity is identified as doing something. Other thoughts, questions, concerns, heresies?
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Okay. I always like to see if we've got a new heresy, because that would be fun.
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Sure. Okay. It's hard, but they keep trying. Number 16.
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True or false, Bruce Ware speaks of the Trinity as if each is his own separate agent.
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What does it mean to be a separate agent before we answer the question? What's that?
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Separate wills. Okay. So, if we just think about it that way, Bruce Ware speaks of the
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Trinity as if each has his own will. The answer is true.
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Barrett says, for that reason, when Ware does articulate appropriations, his language is not pro -Nicene.
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In other words, it doesn't agree with the Nicene Creed, but goes social instead, social
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Trinitarian. Speaking of the persons as if they are their own separate agents.
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That is not surprising, since Ware has added a social category like roles within the eminent
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Trinity or eminent Godhead. The results? Those who ascribe to eternal functional subordination claim to be orthodox, but simultaneously say a pro -Nicene
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Trinity falls short. In other words, it's not sufficient. The definition of the
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Nicene Creed is not sufficient. Eternal functional subordination supporters are aware their view is, quote, different than, even contrary to, end quote, the pro -Nicene tradition.
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Or at least in their mind, some of that orthodox tradition. But they are convinced, this is scary, that they have, quote, the
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Bible while others do not. Why do
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I say that's scary? They have secret knowledge, you know, they have this
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Gnostic thing going on. And I'm like, this is where, you know, if you talk to a
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Mormon, and I talk about Mormonism frequently because I'm a former Mormon. If you talk to a Mormon and they say, you know, you go to a scripture and you say, well, this clearly teaches that Jesus is
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God and always was God. And their response will be something like, well, that's your interpretation.
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Right? I have a different interpretation based on what our prophets have told us. Because we have the truth while others do not.
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So if somebody says, well, we have the Bible, we believe that the Bible teaches X, Y, and Z.
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And we believe that everybody who came before us was wrong. That's a little breathtaking.
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Because, as I've said on many occasions, I don't believe that new is good. New is not improved.
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Let's put it that way. Well, I've already given that away, so it's true.
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First, a starting point and emphasis is not simplicity within the triune
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God, but the three persons. Some people who ascribe or subscribe to EFS reject simplicity of God altogether.
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Secondly, Trinity is redefined as a society and community analogous to human society.
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In other words, they try to compare our roles with the roles of the Trinity. Persons are redefined as three centers of consciousness and will.
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And we've talked about that ad nauseum. The problem with three wills of God is what? I mean, you're ultimately a tritheist.
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Then they redefine persons. Persons are redefined according to their relationships and roles.
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Number five, large overlaps, sometimes collapse of imminent and economic
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Trinity. In other words, who God always is, is mashed together with what he does, which confuses categories.
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And then social Trinity is a paradigm for social theory, ecclesiology, how the church should work, politics, gender, etc.
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Okay, questions, concerns? No. Number 18, what is the danger of suggesting either multiple motives or exclusive motives in the
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Trinity? Yeah, it suggests there might be disagreement or not on the same page.
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I mean, again, what a crazy thought. Sorry, I apologize, but I can only relate it to Mormonism.
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And let me just tell you kind of how Mormonism imagines the beginning of time.
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The father, having already been promoted to godhood because of his faithfulness in his previous life, has a multitude of spirit children.
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And he decides that he's going to send these spirit children to earth where they're going to be tried.
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You know, in Mormonism, each of us had a prior life. Don't worry about that. Here's the point.
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He says, how are these people going to come back to me? So there are two plans put forth, one by Jesus and one by Satan.
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Not named Satan then, he's Lucifer. But they put forth these two plans. Basically, the father accepts
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Jesus' plan, rejects that of Lucifer. Lucifer and one -third of the host of heaven rebel against him, thus the demons, etc.,
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etc. But the idea then, again, there's two wills, at least, before eternity began.
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So when we think about what EFS is saying, with either multiple motives or exclusive motives in the
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Trinity, we're again talking about these different wills, these different ideas, these competing narratives, as it were.
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Barrett says this, he says, when EFSers, those who support eternal functional subordination, use language that has historically entailed multiple wills.
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For example, EFSers not only say that the father begetting the son means that the father has ontological primacy, that he exists before the son.
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But the father sending his begotten son into the world, out of love for the world, reveals the motive of the father, which must be exclusively the father's, even if his motive is in concert with, or united with, the motives of the son and the spirit.
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So in other words, the father basically initiates the plan of salvation, either with or without the son and the spirit.
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Multiple motives, Barrett says, exclusive motives, that is a recipe for tritheism.
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Three separate gods. So, hero Israel, the Lord our
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God is one. Deuteronomy 6 .4 goes out the window, and we become tritheists rather than monotheists.
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Number 19. True or false, according to Owen, the
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Trinity acts with one power. Guess?
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Okay, sounds good. Sounds good is correct, true. John Owen says that the persons are undivided in their operations, acting all by the same will, the same wisdom, the same power.
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Every person, therefore, is the author of every work of God, because each person is God, and the divine nature is the same undivided principle of all divine operations.
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And this arises from the unity of the person in the same essence. Notice, Barrett says,
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Owen does not exclude power. One in will, the persons act by the same power. Just as the son is not a lesser glory, so too the son is not a lesser power.
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That is something that those who support eternal functional subordination cannot say. In other words, they would have to disagree with Owen.
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Furthermore, the three persons cannot perform a single action if one or more persons are, by definition of their personhood, inferior in authority to another person.
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As soon as you insert gradations of authority within the eminent Trinity, gradations that are person -defining and therefore essential for the
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Trinity to be a Trinity, you forfeit one will in God. You forfeit the Trinity's one simple essence.
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Our God is simply Trinity and no more. Additionally, the minute someone projects authority and subordination into the inner life of God, the eminent
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Trinity, the burden of proof is on them to explain how there is not three wills in God, tritheism, rather than one will, which is simplicity.
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So there's that inherent rub, and this goes back to Nicaea. It goes through the
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Reformation. This is the constant teaching of the Church. And again, to just stress this, eternal subordination or eternal functional subordination is new.
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It's novel. It's the new kid on the block. All right, number 20.
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What is the problem with the idea that a person of the Trinity might exercise power over another person of the
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Trinity? Okay, so there's the dual nature of Christ, which really helps us a lot, right, in understanding this and kind of unraveling it.
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If Jesus says, you know, no one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him, right? Well, what does that mean? It means that no one has the ability, and the
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Father draws, and the Son was sent. You know, the sheep were given.
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When were they given? Okay, but did
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Jesus have any part to play in election? In other words, you know, in the eternal counsel of God, you know, like in John 17.
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The sheep are given to Christ, then they're designated for assignment.
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I just wanted to say that. Those of you, you know, the three of you that are baseball fans will get that.
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When the elect are chosen, is it the Father choosing and the other two going, yeah, okay, sure.
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Why are you shaking your head, Ben? The answer is no. I mean, again, we're getting back into this, you know, does the
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Trinity, you know, act in exclusion? Is the Father above the other two, and the other two are just kind of, you know, along for the ride?
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Okay, whatever you say, boss. No. Did Jesus also not say to his disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you?
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Well, when did he choose them? Like in the night he was praying? Well, I mean, that could be.
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I think there's more to it. I think as the
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Divine Son, he chose them before the foundation of the world, just as the Father did, just as the Spirit did.
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In time, we see that work out, but it's, you know, in time. It's a different kind of paradigm.
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But I think, you know, when we, getting back to this question, what is the problem with the idea that a person of the
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Trinity might exercise power over another person of the Trinity? Again, that just gets back right to this paradigm of one person being more powerful than the other ones.
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Barrett says, when what the persons do, exhibit power over one another, submit to the power of one another, defines who the persons are,
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Father, Son, and Spirit, he says, Sibelianism is not far away. What the
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Trinity is has been conflated with what the Trinity does.
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In other words, when we see these works of God, we should not think, like even election.
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If it's only the Father choosing, then what were the Son and Spirit doing? Consenting?
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And so we wind up with this kind of difference in power, difference in essence, difference in work, and that's just not right.
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We don't have three gods, we have one. Thoughts, questions, concerns?
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Okay. But, you know, getting back to your question, Bev, you know, how are we to discern these things?
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And I think the answer, like John said, a lot of times it's just to look at the humanity, the two natures of Jesus, truly
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God and truly divine, and then sort things out from there. Number 21.
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True or false? Nicene Orthodoxy demands three modes of subsistence. True.
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The Nicene Creed never refers to roles of hierarchy within the eminent
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Trinity. In fact, what was the whole point of the Council of Nicaea? To establish one thing.
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Have I been with you so long? He's looking around.
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Council of Nicaea, you know, 325 AD. Okay, they put together a creed.
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But the essence of the Nicene Creed is this. That Jesus Christ is truly what?
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God. Right? Nobody argued that, well, the Gnostics argued that he wasn't man.
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But the essence of it was, was he a created being or was he truly God of true
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God? He says the
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Nicene Creed never refers to roles within the eminent Trinity. To speak of the eminent Trinity was always to speak of ontology.
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In other words, a being of essence. This is the triune
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God we are talking about. All that is in God is being. He is pure action, pure being.
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Otherwise, it would not be God. Each person is a subsistence of the one essence.
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Again, the Father is unbegotten. The Son is begotten.
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And the Spirit is spirated. There we go. The essence, the divine essence has three modes of subsistence.
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It doesn't get more ontological than that. But by projecting societal roles into the eminent
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Trinity, the persons are no longer subsistences alone but distinct agents cooperating to form a community.
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In this case, community of hierarchy that may fit within a social
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Trinity but is anything but biblical. Okay, number 22, true or false?
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Scripture always, and you can see the bold in the italics, always stresses equality whenever the eminent
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Trinity is in view. Always, without exception.
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Italicized, bolded. It's true.
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You are doing well. You were not fooled by the bold or the italics. Barrett says, any and every time
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Scripture reflects on the eminent Trinity, that is to say the eternal, the being, the triune
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God. And these times are rare considering the focus most of the time is on salvation and the humility of the incarnation.
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Scripture always emphasizes the son's equality without any qualification. And when
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I say always, Barrett says, I mean always. That's why it got the italics and the bold. Let's look at a few passages here.
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How about John 1 .1? You know the verse.
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What does the verse say? Okay, the word was
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God and, or the word was, yeah, in the beginning the word was with God and the word was
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God. Not subservient to God. Not second in the line of Godhood.
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Not, you know, subsisting less than the Father. But was
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God without qualification. Colossians 1 .15. These passages should be very familiar so I'll just go through them.
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He is the image of the invisible God. There's no nuance, no qualification.
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He is the image. He's the icon of the invisible God. Hebrews 1 .3.
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The son of God is the radiance of the glory of God. No lesser glory or authority mentioned.
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He is the exact imprint of his nature. No exception clause around the word exact.
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You know, it's not like he's mostly the imprint. Barrett says if he were a lesser power,
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Hebrews could not say he upholds the universe by his power. By the word of his power.
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Not the power of the Father. 1 Corinthians 1 .24.
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Christ is the power of God. He's not less than the Father.
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He is the power of God. How else could Jesus say this in John 14 .9? Whoever has seen me has seen the
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Father. Barrett says he's not some
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God lower on the Trinity totem pole of divine authority. I like that. There is no
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Trinity totem pole in case you're wondering. Barrett says do we dare correct
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Jesus when he says I and the Father are one. And people try to say what?
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As a Mormon, as a non -Trinitarian, I used to say well what's really happening there when
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Jesus says that? He's not saying he's one in essence with the
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Father. What he's saying is that he's one in purpose with the
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Father. And what's the problem with that? I think we talked about it last week. Everything.
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The heart of the problem is this. Jesus says I and the Father are one. And the people who are listening are saying to themselves well he's just saying that he's one in purpose with God.
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And that's fine. They picked up rocks to stone him.
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Why? For what good work do you pick up these rocks to stone me? It's not for good works that we are going to stone you.
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It's because you being a man make yourself out to be
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God. They understood exactly what he was saying. It's also a very good passage if you're witnessing to Muslims.
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Jesus never claimed to be God. Really? That's not what the original writings thought. Barrett says even the
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Pharisees who did not believe in Jesus understood that he's claiming to be God. Even his most vicious opponents comprehend that he's claiming total equality with the
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Father like in John 5 .18. If Jesus had merely qualified himself as he should have if EFS is correct to explain that he did not mean equal in authority, the
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Pharisees never would have put this so -called blasphemer to death. That's why they put him to death.
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Barrett says, so I ask again, why is it that subordination is never mentioned in any of these scriptural reflections on the imminent
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Trinity? The idea is very simple. Subordination would absolutely throw into question the divine equality attributed to the
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Son. So where does the idea of subordination even come from? Why do people suggest that Jesus is subordinate to the
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Father? Eternally, yes. Okay, because not my will but thy will be done, right?
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And there are numerous scriptures that are similar to that. This is in the Garden of Gethsemane where he says that.
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But what's the problem with saying, well, because he says not my will but your will be done, what's the problem with then saying, well, he was eternally subordinate to the
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Father? Or is there a problem? His human will.
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Again and again, if we think to ourselves, well, if he's subordinating his divine will to that of the
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Father, then that suggests that there are two divine wills and that the two divine wills might be in conflict.
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And so he has to subordinate his divine will to the Father's divine will. But that's not what's going on.
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In the Incarnation, in his humanity, Jesus knows what's coming at the cross.
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He says, if there's another way, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, not my human will be done, but the divine will.
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That's the idea. So, any other questions, concerns, comments before we close?
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Seeing none, we'll close. Father, thank you for this time we've had. Lord, help us to submit to the clear teaching of Scripture and not these speculations that have crept into the
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Church over the last few decades. Help us to maintain the purity of doctrine and the right thinking that has been handed down to us through the ages.
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Lord, these, again, are difficult issues, but worthy of study and thought and grappling.