Systematic Theology (part 12)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning that we can worship you, that we can read the

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Word and learn more about you. We thank you for revealing yourself as a triune God, and this morning,

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Lord, as we study about who you are, we ask that you would illumine our hearts and minds through your

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Holy Spirit, that we would grasp your Word firmly as it reveals you to us.

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In Christ's name we pray, Amen. All right, in the last few weeks, we have been looking at different attributes of God as they relate to each person of the

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Trinity. We saw Father, Son, Spirit. We've seen different attributes, not all of the attributes that we can reflect on, but some of them just to get a grasp of who the

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Trinity is. And, oh thank you, we want to be audible.

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And God has spoken to us audibly and in His Word, and so we now understand how each person is fully and truly

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God. Now, in the next couple of weeks, we're going to spend a little more time on theology proper, the study of God, before we move on to anthropology, the study of man.

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So there are two things I want to take from here, and I believe in the last few weeks, even though some of them are very detailed, they provide a base from which we can look at the bigger picture.

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So today, and hopefully we'll finish this in just today's time, we're going to look at the challenges to Trinity.

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And I don't want to do this, maybe some of you were in my Church History IBS class, I've got my content here, but I'm not going to use that.

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The focus will be more on our ability to understand the Word in responding to these challenges.

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So hopefully it's going to be adventures in theology. We've seen several adventures in the first four centuries of the early

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Church, where people grappled with this, some became heretics, and others defended the truth.

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So we're going to be looking at that part of it today, and then later, in the next couple of weeks, we will look at some of the broader attributes and how to look at God, the triune

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God, as the God of all of these attributes. So some of the things like the incommunicable and communicable attributes, we'll look at it in a broader picture, and then how

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God, from who God is, how God operates with creation and providence. So that's coming.

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But for today, the question is, are you a heretic?

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Teaching this class, you know, I could easily get disqualified if I make a mistake and not get audited this morning.

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You know, the Trinity is such a wonderful mystery that's revealed to us, and it doesn't take a lot to go just a little bit out of sync and be, you know, completely off the deep end.

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So I'm going to start with three things you want to keep in mind, and then based on that,

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I'm going to pick three major categories, and then depending on how the conversation goes, we may expand it, take more, and then

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I want to see how we can respond to this. I'm going to throw challenges that hopefully will challenge you, not just in an academic sense, but to say, how well do

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I know my scriptures? How can I answer someone who asks these things? So let's begin with the first three things

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I want you to keep in mind. When we think of Trinity, we want to remember that God is three persons.

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So there's three persons in the Godhead. Second, each person is fully and completely

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God. And the third one, there is one God. The second one, each person is fully

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God, is what we kind of tried to grapple with in the last few weeks. Now with that in mind, God is three persons, each person is fully

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God, and there is one God. Let's now look at some of the errors that have come in looking at Trinity.

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Now the first one that we're going to look at is called modalism. Who knows what modalism is?

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You can guess based on the term. Yes. Okay. Manifestations that came after each other.

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Excellent. So instead of God is three persons, it's God is one person, and he manifests or appears in different modes.

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That's where the modalism comes from and in the way he relates to people. So the idea here, actually let me ask this.

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This should be easy to work through. What do you think was the main motivation for the heretics?

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You know, they didn't start out saying I'm going to be a heretic today. They took the Bible. They said, you know, there are some truths in the

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Bible that are just uncompromising, and what do you think would have been the foundational motivation for these people to be modalist?

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Excellent. So part of it is that, you know, here are these truths about the Trinity that are just, you know, stretching our minds, and we want to try to comprehend them and present them in a very clear, in as rational and clear a way that we can.

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Now, that's not a sinful motive. That's a good motive to say how can I understand this, but what truth of Scripture do you think that they would have used?

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Absolutely, because God is one, and the Bible constantly talks about there is only one

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God, and so here you have, in the Old Testament, it seems a lot more clearer. You come into the New Testament, and suddenly you start seeing things about Jesus.

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You still think about the Holy Spirit, and then the biggest fear is, are we polytheists or tritheists?

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You know, we worship God the Father, and we worship God the Son. We are no longer monotheists.

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So what are some of the texts you can think of for monotheism that modalists could be using, or anybody should be using?

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What are some of the things that tell you that God is one? That's exactly right. So the Shema, here is where the

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Lord is one, and this is something that you keep reminding the people of Israel who are surrounded by these polytheistic nations, and all these gods.

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There is only one God, and we must never ever forget that. So that's Deuteronomy 6. Let's maybe have a couple of more verses, so we have this in the back of our minds.

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If someone can read Isaiah 45, 5 to 6, and someone else James 2, 19.

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Isaiah 45, who wants to read that? Mark? James 2, 19.

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Don't be shy. Thank you. All right, first Isaiah 45, 5 to 6.

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So here's God speaking, God revealing about himself, and it's pretty unequivocal that there is no other

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God but the God of Israel, the God Yahweh, the God of the

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Bible, and James 2, 19. So it's not just an Old Testament concept, and here again

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James talking about what true faith, about belief really is. He goes on to say, you believe the

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God is one, there is only one God, and you do well. That's a true statement, and affirmed in many other places in the

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Bible. So here is their underlying motivation. We want to preserve the unity of who

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God is, and so the way they try to present the modalism is in a number of different ways.

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One of them is, here are these forms or modes God appears. So here in the

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Old Testament, you have God the Father that is revealed to us. So he appears, the one

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God appears as God the Father in the Old Testament. You have the Gospels, where the same God, one person, now appears in this mode of Jesus Christ.

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So this way we can preserve there's only one God, not two gods. And then in the Church Age, with Acts and beyond, we now have the same

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God now present among his people as the Holy Spirit. So one God, and then he just has all these various modes, and what do we end up preserving?

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The monotheism, the one God concept, and then we have to try to figure out these other texts.

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Now you would think that, oh is this just, heresy can come from two ways. I think as Michael pointed out, if I'm trying to reason things out,

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I can come from the outside, bring some concepts in, and say this text has to fit my concept.

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You know, I have this idea that this has to fit in, and so I can bring heresy from the outside in. But it can also be taking some text in the

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Bible, and misconstruing it, so that you now have a different understanding of what the

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Bible itself says about God. So when we think about modalism, that there is only one person in the

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Trinity, can you think of any biblical texts that these modalists could be using to justify their position?

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What position? I mean, all of us here who trust in the triune God, this may seem alien.

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It's like, what kind of people would come up with this? But can you think of any biblical texts that they can use to come up with modalism by saying that there is no two persons, there's only one person, and maybe some texts they think support that view.

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Yes, I and the Father are One, that's one of the texts I have. Excellent, Michael. Actually, does anybody else think of any other verse?

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All right, let's look at these two verses. If someone can, maybe Michael, you can read this. John 10 .30,

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and then the other verse, John 14 .9. Who'd like to read John 14 .9?

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Thank you. So whenever you're ready,

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Michael. John 10 .30. Do I have the wrong reference? Okay.

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Thanks, Michael. Actually, Michael, you read John 9 .30, and I'm glad you did, because that passage talks about the deity of Christ.

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If you notice, you know, Jesus has done the miracle in John 9. This man who's blind now comes and asks him, and then

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Jesus, do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is this Lord? And then

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Jesus says, I am He, and then he falls down and worships

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Jesus Christ, and gives glory to God, and Jesus says, I have come for judgment, talking about the attribute of God Himself.

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But I'm glad you ended up reading it, so if you can read John 10. I and the

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Father are One. So here is a text, so going back to John 9,

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Jesus claims to be, you know, God, and this man worships

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God. John 10, Jesus says, I and the Father are One. So, modalists, look at that and say, okay, one person,

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I was like the Father in the Old Testament, now I'm like, I am the

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Son in the Gospels. So that's one. Who has the other? Tom? Whoever has seen me, has seen the

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Father. Again, from a modalist viewpoint, you know, you've seen

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Jesus Christ, and you've seen the Father, therefore the Father and the Son must be one person, and He just has appeared as the

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Father. So, you don't need to see the Father, because you have seen the Son. Excellent. Actually, what you just heard is the key way to answer heretics, and we will talk about this, because we ourselves can be in danger of this, if you're not careful.

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When a scripture says something, you want to say, what does this scripture say about this, and what does the scripture, the rest of the scriptures say about this?

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And you want to make sure that you have the whole counsel of God, as you look at one specific doctrine. Most of the times when you get heresy, it's always, you take one text, and then you run with it, to the exclusion of all others.

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And then you say, like, similar to what Michael, you said, where you start off with the seed idea of what the scripture says, and then you say, okay,

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I'm going to build my system around this, and I'm going to refactor all the other texts, in such a way that it makes sense to my idea about who

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God is, in this particular case. So, one of the answers will be, you know, what the relationship between the

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Father, Son, and the Spirit, that we see in the text, and we'll look at some of those texts, to say, you know, there is no way you can just do justice to these texts, by having a modalist understanding of who

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God the Father, and God the Son are. But before we go there,

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I think it's good for us to actually respond to the texts, themselves, that they have brought forth.

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So, when we look at John 10 .30, I and the Father are one. John 14 .9,

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you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How do we respond to that? So, we want to be good

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Bible students, in the way in which we look at those texts, and explain them. And before we actually get into that, maybe this is a good time to talk about the doctrine of the

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Word of God. We've seen doctrine of the Word of God, before we came to doctrine of God, or theology proper.

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One of the things we study in the doctrine of the Word of God, is perspicuity of the

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Scriptures. And I didn't cover that. So, can someone explain what you think perspicuity is?

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What does it mean? Yes, Andrew. Excellent. You actually gave a much rounded, well, that's great explanation, in terms of how

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God has actually used language, in terms of wanting to communicate exactly, in precise terms, what we need to understand.

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And I think in the earlier part of your message, your response message, I love when

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Andrew preaches. You know, you talked about how things are, it's actually how the

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Bible is clear. You know, on the essential doctrines of the Bible, things are very clear.

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And there are some areas, which are not so clear for us to understand. It's because of our inability to understand them.

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And we look at the rest of the Scriptures, to help us understand how they must be understood.

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So, it doesn't mean that every single verse in the Bible is at face value, just jumping out of the text.

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It means that the essential doctrines of the Scriptures are clear, perspicuous, you can understand all of them.

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And the rest of the Scriptures, you understand in light of, I mean, and this goes back to the concept of hermeneutics, which is you let

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Scripture interpret Scripture, and you want to let the Word illuminate, the Spirit of God illuminate the

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Word for us. Now, when you look at these two texts, how would you respond?

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Maybe I'll just throw that question out. So, I and the Father are one, and the claim is that there is one,

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Jesus is saying, I am one person, and the Father and I are the same.

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You know, that's the interpretation of, I and the Father are one, that the modalists would bring in. So, how would you respond?

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What do you think that the text says, when Jesus says, I and the Father are one? And maybe you can open up to John 10 30, maybe look around the verses a little bit, to say, you know, what could this text mean, if it doesn't mean modalism?

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Or does it mean modalism? Do we need to change our minds? So, John 10 30, any takers?

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You won't be branded a heretic. That's actually very good, because if you look at the context, he's not driving toward this goal of saying, you know, there is one person, there is no distinction between the

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Father and I. In fact, he uses the distinction in the whole of John 10, if you just see that Father is the one who draws.

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I am, you know, no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand, and his role as the shepherd. So, there is a distinction that is brought throughout.

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And if you look at the immediate context, he's talking about the works of God, the purpose of God, the will of God in accomplishing redemption.

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And so here, you know, there is a, we would like it, wouldn't we, to have another word,

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I and the Father are one in purpose, one in will.

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You know, then nobody would be debating these things. And really, especially the Gospel of John, if you just look at John, many a time

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I'm reading it and I'm saying, Jesus, if alone you had just said a couple of more words, these

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Pharisees, these Jewish guys, they would have just said, oh, that's John 6, you know, you need to eat my flesh.

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If you had just said a little bit more, these guys would have all bowed their knees to you. Aren't you glad I'm not

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God? You know, the point of believing is faith.

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You know, if it, if all it took was, you know, here is a list of facts and, you know, it just acknowledged to it and then you had to go back to James 2 and 19 and say, okay, here is all this stuff.

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You know, God says this, would I trust him? And that's basically where it all comes down to. But Andrew? I love that.

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I mean, when you said blood relationship, suddenly my antenna started to go up, because I think, you know, there is a relationship and a unity in the

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Godhead that is maybe a little different. And in fact, I think in prayer you mentioned twins, and I want to maybe talk about that a little bit.

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There are, there is a kind of oneness that we share, either in husband and wife, there is a oneness, there is a body of Christ, there is a oneness.

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But when it comes to the Godhead, we need to be very careful with analogies, because, you know, anything we say can and will be used against us.

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So we need to be careful, you know, in what sense is there a unity and what's, but, but the verses you mentioned were excellent, because this whole chapter is just filled with the distinction of roles between the

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Father and the Son, and at the same time, that deep unity in will and purpose that is just coming out in that, in that very verse.

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And so, and really the, anytime we misunderstand scripture, it's always taking the scripture out of context, you know, just making it run on its own, and then building a system around it.

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And, and we need, we're always bringing it back to context. You mentioned one more thing, the

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Father is in me, and I in the Father, verse 38. Maybe, how would you respond to that?

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You know, the Father is in me, and I in the Father, maybe we're just one person. I don't, and I think, you know, there are other texts, and I think

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John 17, you get to see, you know, Father in the Son, Son in the

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Father, that, and then he prays for the believers, that they may be in me, you know, in us, that we are all one.

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And so, you know, you want to say, okay, what does these other texts talk about, when you talk about in, and is this the, what kind of in is this?

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And I think, you know, that's where we want to let the scriptures interpret scripture for us. And so, everybody would clearly say, well, unless you're a heretic who says you're

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God too, you know, you would not say that you are God, just because you are in Christ, or you are in God the

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Father and God the Son, that there's a unity there that we share. And so, we need to be always saying, you know, what does the immediate context of the text say?

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What do the rest of the scriptures say? And then, how do we best understand what all of the scriptures say about a given subject?

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So, let's take to the next verse, John 14, 9. He has seen this, seen me, has seen the

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Father. What do you think Jesus is talking about here, if not that the

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Father and the Son are one person? I like that. So, you understand the

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Father, because the Father and the Son share a common purpose. That's excellent.

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Actually, that's another thing to keep in mind, especially JWs, when they look at John 1, 1 and other texts, you can say, okay, could this text have been written in a different way to convey what you think it means?

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And in many cases, it can. You know, the Greek would have been different than the way it actually was.

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Now, when you talk about this one, John 14, 9, you want to think about, and again, if you look at the very context, you know, knowing the

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Father. That's what Philip is asking, right? Is it Philip? Yeah. Show us the

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Father. You know, we want to know who God the Father is, and Jesus says, how long have you seen me?

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And you know, well, let me just, I've been with you so long, you still do not know me. Whoever has seen me has seen the

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Father. And you want to think about who Jesus Christ is, and you need to go back to John 1, the beginning.

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You know, what, who is Jesus? He's the Word, the revelation of God. He's the one who has, who communicates the invisible

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God to us. He is the second person of the Trinity who makes known to us the

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Father in heaven, and that is his purpose. He has come here, he has tabernacled among us, in order that he may show the glory of God in our midst in flesh and blood.

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So that, that is his purpose. So when you see Jesus Christ, you get to see in, in colors who

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God the Spirit is in heaven, and that's basically what Jesus is saying. I am here as the revealer of God, as the person of God, and he is not saying

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I am the father of one person. Alright, so that's, those are the texts. Any, any comments on this? I wanted to say a few more things, and then we'll move to the next.

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Yes. Excellent. And, and, and, and essentially, you know, anytime you get stumped with a question, just keep reading, and the scripture will explain for itself.

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So maybe one more comment, and then I'll, we'll, we'll move to the next heresy. So in here, there is, yeah, today's topic is, are you a heretic?

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So, so modalism first came with a couple of guys very, very early in the church.

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The guy, Noidus, Praxeus, and the more famous Sibelius. So you may call it Sibelianism, and these were the guys who said, you know, manifestation of Father, Son, and Spirit, and they came up with really weird ideas that the

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Christians of that time would call Patri -Passionism, which means the father,

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Patri, is the one who suffered on the cross, you know. So here you have the death of God, as it were, on the cross, and so, you know, the implications of modalism are pretty weird, and so the early church,

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Irenaeus in particular, you know, wrote against this, and then with, with the

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Nicene Creed, you know, the council, you, you have these thoughts brought together, and then the later councils, you know, pick up this

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Trinity, as well as Christology, and then you have a formulation that says, you know what, you can't just take one text and run.

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Here's what the whole scriptures say about it, and here is an articulation of who God is, in a way that does justice to all the scriptures.

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So today, we have Oneness Pentecostals who take this concept, and let me tell you, they will not present it the way

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I just presented it to you. They have a much more sophisticated way of presenting it, and tying you up in knots, tying me up in knots, in terms of how they will try to say, here is a way for me to understand a modalistic understanding of who

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God is, and no matter whether they're sophisticated or not, our responsibility is always to bring them back to the Word. What does the

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Word say in context, in the way in which we explain? And I think one of the ways that we would respond is the relationship between, within the

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Trinity, you know, there is lots of things that are happening between the Father, Son, and the Spirit that would just be deceitful or plain lies in the scripture, if God, the

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Father, Son, and the Spirit were just one person. So some of the texts that we have, Jesus' baptism, the

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Father, Son, and the Spirit, three involved in a certain action, and unless that is an intentional lie to deceive, you know, you cannot make sense of that text.

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You have three persons. You have Matthew 28, in the name of the Father, Son, and the

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Spirit. What are those three roles involved over there? Then you have both the

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Son interceding to the Father on our behalf. Actually, if someone can just read this, we'll just have these texts in our mind as we move from here.

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Someone can read Hebrews 7 .25. Who can read that? Thank you. Romans 8 .27.

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Thank you. And then Isaiah 53 .11. Yes.

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All right, so let's begin with, and actually one more text, 1 John 4, 1

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John 4 .8, and also verse 16. 1

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John 4 .8 and verse 16. Let's begin with Hebrews 7 .25. So here is our salvation because of what

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Jesus has done, and one of the things he continues to do is interceding. So here is the Son interceding to the

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Father on our behalf, and if he is one person, it makes no sense. And who is the Spirit interceding to, if not to the

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Father? So he understands our circumstances, and he prays for us to the

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Father. And once again, that relationship makes no sense if there is only one person, and the text itself should be misleading if it is not true.

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Isaiah 53. And this is talking about the atonement. In fact, there are many verses talking about what the atonement really is.

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Is this the Son fulfilling the work of redemption by taking our sins and dying on the cross on our behalf and being raised again, in order to satisfy the wrath of God the

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Father? Or is this patripassionism? And in which case, how does atonement even work?

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So you have atonement itself hinging upon the very nature of the relationships between the Father and the Son, and the way in which it is accomplished.

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And the last text is 1 John 4, 18 and 16. That's correct, yes. Now this is not a very explicit text talking about the relationship in the

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Trinity. Both texts have one thing in common. They talk about God is love. How do you think this could relate to the relationship in the

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Trinity? Did I get the right text?

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Theologians use this to talk about one of the attributes of God. Next week or so, we will cover this, called independence, and the fact that God does not need to rely upon others in any way, shape, or form, in order to be

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God. He is fully and completely independent in and of himself. He has all the resources he needs to be

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God. His attributes are from everlasting to everlasting. Actually, that's a great verse, but that's not the one

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I'm looking for. This is a little confusing, but I think it's important for us to just maybe let this sit.

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Maybe we won't spend time on this. When we talk about God is love, it's talking about one of his essential attributes of who

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God is in and of himself. One of the problems with the monotheistic religions that do not have plurality in the

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Godhead is with this specific attribute. You can have Allah, or you can have the

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Judaistic understanding of a one -person God, and you cannot reconcile that with the understanding of how

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God is love. So the issue of independence becomes, now I need to be actually creating some objects of my love on which

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I can exercise my attribute for that attribute to even be existing.

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In fact, Augustine is one who just builds upon this. He wrote a book on the Trinity and talks about how this inner

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Trinitarian love is something that is just unique in terms of who God is, and he does not need the world in order to be

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God, the God of love, but rather there is love inner within the Trinity. So this is maybe a little bit abstract, but it is something that theologically follows from the text of God's essential attribute, which is love.

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Thank you so much. And John 17 is just, like you said, just filled with that loving relationship, you know, the glory that we had from eternity past, what you have, and the

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Bible is just filled with the relationship of the inner Trinitarian relationship. Yes, do you want to answer that first of all?

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Yes, that is true, and we need, maybe just throw a couple of more questions and we'll move on, but the question you want to ask is, you know, what really happened on the cross, right?

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So when Jesus dies, what was the actual event that took place?

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So in Jesus we have this mystery of both God and man in one person, and two natures, one person, and then you have

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Jesus as the perfect man, who was this spotless lamb, who has been given this body, and he now comes there and presents it as the sacrifice for our sin, substitutionary atonement prefigured in the

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Old Testament. So his life is poured out on the cross on behalf of us, and it is because he is fully

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God, that he is not just dying for one person, or he is actually able to die for all people.

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So there you have this hypostatic union and its mysteries on the cross, where you have

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God and man presented, and you have Jesus physically dead, his body has no breath, three days in the grave, and then he is raised back up with the pleasure of the

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Father, and yet the moment he lost his, he gave up his life, he was in heaven with God, you know, into your hands

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I commend my spirit. So here, Jesus in his spirit, human nature and divine was with the

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Father. So now we come back to the hymn, which is, Thou my

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God has died for me, and I'll stop right there before I become a heretic. Yes, you skated across it beautifully.

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Next time I need to give you a microphone, and I think that's that's perfect, you know, life is one of the attributes of God as well, he cannot be without life, and so all of you who heard it, you're blessed.

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All right, I realize we probably will take a little more time to go through this. Let me just take this, maybe

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I'll give you a little bit more historical context here. So the theologians lump these heresies in some categories.

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It's called Monarchianism, it comes from Monarchio, or single ruler, so there's only one

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God ruling over all, and this modalism is one, it's called, if I can find the heading here, oh, so this is called the

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Modalist Monarchianism, where you have the, you give full weight to, you remember the three things we started out with, there is,

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God is three persons, each person is fully God, and there is one God. So taking the second truth there, that Jesus is fully

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God, the Father is fully God, and the Spirit is fully God, and you want to preserve this truth, and yet not give up your idea of one

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Monarchio person, one ruling person, and then they bring in this modalism, to say it's a

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Modalistic Monarchianism, where you have these three, instead of persons, it's modes, and so it's

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Modalist. The next type we are going to be looking at, maybe I'll just introduce this and we'll stop, is called

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Dynamic Monarchianism, and what that means is, Dunamis is power, so you have the

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Logos redefined in a way that we would not, so that we can somehow recognize what happens in the person of Jesus and in the

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Holy Spirit, but keep the Monarchianism under just this one

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God who is ruling. So Dynamic Monarchianism, I'll just maybe comment on it, so you can think of some answers for next week, and then we will cover this.

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So essentially what they would do, is they would deny the full deity of the Son and the Spirit, so the

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Son and the Spirit are involved in some way, but they are not God, so Arianism is the one that popularized this, this was a huge heresy for a couple of centuries, fourth century to sixth century, this would come back and forth, it was so big that, first in Nicene Creed, this

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Arianism is what was kicked out, this was the purpose of the Nicene Creed, Nicene Council was actually done, because this

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Arianism was just attacking the truths of the scriptures, and so maybe

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I'll just read you this hymn, and I think you might like that, it's a hymn of Arius, Arius was a bishop in Alexandria, and here's what he said,

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I'm the Arius of Alexandria, I'm the talk of town, friend of saints, elect of heaven, filled with learning and renown, very humble man, if you want the

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Logos Doctrine, I can serve it heart and heart, Jesus begat him, before he was begotten, he was not,

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Logos Doctrine, so you can already start to see, okay, what text is Arius thinking of, when he is coming up with his, with this theology, so this, in our political culture, it's very hard to talk about theology, you know, you go to your work, this is a tavern song, and you know, you don't talk about theology in taverns, and in your marketplace, but in that fourth century, this is what people were talking about, and you might have different kinds of problems, when people are talking theology in your taverns, and this is basically what was happening, there was heresy, and the crux here that you want to be thinking of is, let me just lay out the heresy here, and then

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I'll give you some pointers to be thinking about, one of them is, the two texts that will give trouble for dynamic monarchianists, or those who have followed

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Arian, Arius, Arianism, is this only begotten, so you have a few texts there,

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John 1 14, John 3 16, 1 John 4 9, all talking about this monogamous, and only begotten, so begotten seems like begetting in a human sense, which means there is a point of time, when someone is begotten, that's exactly what

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Arius is saying, and then you have firstborn, in Colossians 1 15, you know, firstborn of all creation, so if everything is created, then the first one to be created, probably is what it means, that he is firstborn, so if Jesus, or the

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Logos, and they can sometimes be used together, sometimes separated, had a begetting, or had a birth to be a firstborn, then he cannot be eternal, like God the

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Father, and therefore he is not God, fully God, maybe he has some divine attributes, but he's not

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God, and so the subordinationism would then say, that the

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Son and the Spirit are subordinate, or in some way inferior to God the

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Father, because they lack some things that the Father has, and subordination is used in a couple of ways, we would use it in a proper way, which we would call a functional subordinism, in fact if you remember the attributes we've been looking at, there are ways in which

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God the Father initiates, God the Son executes, and God the Spirit seals, when you think of Ephesians 1, and at various other passages, so we see a functional subordination, in which the

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Father is the one who directs, but when we talk about an ontological, or in the being of God, when you say the

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Son or the Spirit are subordinate, that's basically heresy, because you deny the deity of the Son, or the deity of the

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Spirit, so that's one place where the subordinationism goes, the other one is on the other extreme, and the other extreme just says, you know

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Jesus, he was just a man like you and I, he just lived a perfect life, he was like this real rugged, hard man, who followed

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God so hard, and God was so pleased with him, that he sent him the Logos, and you know, made him capable of, you know, doing all these mighty miracles and stuff, and then, you know, just before the cross,

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God cannot die, and therefore God took away the Logos, and then Jesus says, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me, because the Logos is gone, and just the man dies, and once again, theological weighty difficulty, how do

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I solve it? I come up with a nice little solution of my own theory, and so those are the two broad subordinationism and adoptionism, where Jesus is adopted as God, the

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Son of God, for a season, so that he can show people how they can live their life, and so these are the challenges that the second type of heresy,

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Arianism, brings, and of course, as you're listening, you can think of what cult today, or what movement today, that might use this.

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Jehovah's Witnesses, yeah, so you know, Jesus is not God, and so you want to be thinking of, actually, how would you respond?

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Maybe we'll just close with that, if not, I'll give you a few things to be thinking of this week. Hebrews 1, that's right, and it is just, and again, the same truth of, you know, here is some text that you're talking about, and there is plenty of other texts that talk about the full and complete deity, eternal nature of God the

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Son. Excellent. Philippians 2 and actually,

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Colossians 1, they may take verse 15 and say, I don't understand this one word, and you just read the rest of the Colossians 1, and say, okay, what is the rest of the scriptures of Colossians 1 talking about?

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And Philippians 2, you know, being in the form of God, emptied himself, and then took on the form of a man, and so the

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Morphe is talking about essence, it's talking about substance, you know, he has the substance of God, and he took on, added the substance of man.

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So here are some ways to think of, and those two words are very important for you to think about. Monogenes, what does that really mean?

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And firstborn, what does it really mean? And monogenes is a little harder, we'll talk about this next time.

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Firstborn, if you just look at the rest of the scriptures talking about firstborn, you will actually get that idea of what firstborn means.

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So there are, so the Nicene Creed, and then going all the way up until the

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Constantinople, no, not Chalcedon, you have these formulations that take the scriptures, and then help explain how all of scriptures, and each scripture can explain how the father is

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God, the son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is only one God. All right, final comments?

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Let's pray. A loving and gracious Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us as Father, Son, and Spirit.

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We thank you that you guarded and protected the church from false doctrine, that when heresy came up, that you raised men, you filled them with the

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Spirit, that they, that your word, which is perspicuous, that you guarded and preserved the truth through all these centuries.

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And even today, Lord, as there are many who are lost in cults that twist the word to their own folly,

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I pray that you would be gracious. Lord, I pray that you would equip the saints here to present the truth with boldness and with love, and that you would be gracious to save any according to your good pleasure.

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And we commit the rest of this morning into your care, O Lord. I pray that you would be exalted, and that you,