The Decree of God: Foundation, Vindication

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An intense teaching program today looking at Psalm 2, Job 23, and Ephesians 1, before looking at comments made by Dr. William Lane Craig in his book, The Only Wise God. Almost 80 minutes in length.

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Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. We are in the big studio because we are going to be using our our big board today.
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We have a lot of important stuff to be talking about, primarily within the realm of theology proper, and I mean theology proper, the doctrine of God.
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Not gonna be doing any current events today. It's not that there isn't plenty to be talking about in that realm, but laying that aside for the moment,
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I think it is important every once in a while to go back to basics and to check our foundations.
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And I'm working on a project that I really won't be able to say too much about until probably early
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December maybe. And in doing that work, hours and hours so far,
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I have been reminded of the fact that there are certain words that we use that not only do we take those words for granted, but all sorts of people from different perspectives, even within the faith, can utilize these words and fill them with very different meaning.
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And I refer especially to the sovereignty of God.
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Now the term that we use in English, a sovereign is a king, a sovereign is an exalted
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Lord, a sovereign is one that has ultimate power. And a lot of people are willing to say, yes,
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God has all power. The issue, and the issue that that lays the foundation for many of the differences that exist between us, is not the possession merely of power, but the possession of freedom.
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We speak often of the debates over autonomy in regards to man.
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Autonomy is made up of two Greek terms, autos and namos, self -law, self -law.
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And even that term we use in different contexts. And so we think of autonomy as in man and rebellion, self -law, versus theonomy, man under God's law.
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That's a completely different spectrum of discussion than when we talk about libertarian freedom being an autonomous freedom, a freedom where man has the capacity and ability in of himself to act as he chooses to act without any reference to anything outside of himself.
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And so when we think of people who emphasize the autonomous nature of man, man's libertarian freedom, then these are individuals who, in my experience, in some cases, to be honest with you, over the years, viscerally detest the concept of God's decree.
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The decree being that by which God creates all things, orders all things, and brings all things into the position of bringing honor and glory to himself.
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And so very often, unfortunately, we communicate what we believe about this without being overly straightforward about it, or going to Scripture and laying the foundation, or in this case, since we're talking about something that has to be considered absolutely foundational to everything else.
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We're talking about whether God is free completely to be
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God, to express all of his attributes, and to do so freely, without constraint, or another common way in which that term sovereignty is used, is when people will say that God has sovereignly chosen to limit his freedom.
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That God has placed limitations upon that which he can choose, and the idea normally is he has to do so as to open up a space for other autonomous creatures that are not eternal, unlimited, to exercise some level of autonomy on their own part.
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And in that case, then the range of God's freedom is limited to the choice of limiting his choice.
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So he was free to make that decision, sovereign to make that decision, but having once made that decision, then his sovereignty becomes self -limited.
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When reformed individuals speak of the sovereignty of God, we are starting with the reality that God is the creator of all things.
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That he not only creates physical things, but all spiritual things, and that he does so for a purpose.
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He has an intention to accomplish, a decree that he will accomplish.
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It is a minority position in my experience, and I refer primarily only to those who have the highest view of Scripture.
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I fully understand that if someone has the standard view of Scripture that is taught generally within Christian educational institutions, not only in the
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United States, but especially in Europe, what I'm talking about makes no sense.
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It's just, what is that Scottish idiot talking about? You cannot, as we are going to a moment, go into the text of Scripture.
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I am going to say that there is a beautiful, intentional consistency that exists between Psalm 2,
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Job, Isaiah, and Ephesians.
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And for many people in our world today, those are human works.
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In the case of the more older ones, redacted works, they are internally contradictory and internally incoherent.
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And so the very idea of putting them together and saying, here is, thus saith the
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Lord, for a large number of people who call themselves Christians, that's just simply not a possibility.
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And they would look at anyone who does that as someone far out of step with the times.
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And I am very thankful to be far out of step with those particular times.
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They may say we're on the wrong side of history, but they will discover someday that they are on the wrong side of history.
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Yet as it may, I realize when I say we're in the minority, even amongst those who take the highest view of Scripture.
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And I would like to suggest, right at the start, why this is. There is no other topic that is more personally pride -destroying and submission -requiring than a recognition of the kingly freedom of God.
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I didn't say sovereignty of God simply because, like I said, people use that in many different ways and automatically fill it with kingly freedom.
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Now that has problems, too. We don't have a king. We don't like kings. At least not supposed to. At least in the
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United States, we're supposed to have a governmental system that precludes having a king and precludes anyone ruling by fiat.
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We're I recognize the only people who are really going to hear what I have to say today are the people who probably have already experienced that life -changing moment, period of time, where you've fully come to understand that God is
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God and I am not. That God is completely other and that God has the right to do with me as a lump of clay and any good gifts
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I have come from his hand. Anything I experience in this life, he has the right to bring me through that.
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It is a soul -crushing experience and many of us can remember that time.
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Some of us need to go back to that time in some ways. It can be something you once experienced and then, as with so many truths in the
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Christian life, over time we become distracted and we forget what we once knew.
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But I recognize that pretty much my words will not make a lot of sense to those who view
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God as within the context of, well God, you know, really wanted you to be on his side and he really needed you to join his team and all the rest that kind of blather, and it is blather from a biblical perspective, most of what the scripture says is just not ready to hear it yet and I pray that maybe the
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Lord will use some of these texts to make you go, man, I hadn't thought about that before. But let's look to one particular text that most of us know and it's relevant in other areas right now, but the second
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Psalm is one of the most cited texts in the
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New Testament. It is clearly, obviously, Messianic.
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There are so many vital, important things that we could talk about here, but I just want to focus in upon one thing.
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We literally have here the discussion of the Son. Verse 12, do homage to the
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Son that he not become angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled.
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Blessed are all who take refuge in him, etc. etc. And you know how Psalm 2 begins, but I want to look specifically at verse 7 where you have,
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I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh. He said to me, you are my son, today
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I've begotten you. Ask of me and I'll surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.
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You shall break them with rod of iron and shall shatter them like earthenware. So don't worry, some of you are going, uh -oh, post -meal time.
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Well, yeah, I would invite anyone to think about what that's all talking about, but I want to go more basic and deeper than even the application that we see of these particular texts.
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Yes, I think there is an entire theology. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance.
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How can the Father say such things to the Son? There is a understanding behind these words that without them, without that understanding, the words don't make a whole lot of sense.
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And I believe that it comes specifically from right here.
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I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh.
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The There is a decree of Yahweh and the content is the very central aspect of God's self -revelation.
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I mean, if you look at the Incarnation, death, burial, resurrection of Christ, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this is revelation of the
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Trinity, this is revelation of the very central aspect of what God is doing in his creation. And so here is the decree of Yahweh.
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You are my son today, I have begotten you. So this, over here in the
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Greek Septuagint, Prostagma, Prostagma Kuriu, the decree of Yahweh.
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There is a decree. There are many Christian theologians, there's just no decree.
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The only content of God's decree is that in the end he wins. Well, I struggle with the acceptance of that kind of vacuous understanding of the decree.
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Because when I look at just, let's just look at this particular thing. This whole section here involves something extremely important.
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So you look at, let's just say, look at this section right here, alright? How many, quote -unquote, free will actions of man were involved in bringing about the birth, ministry, betrayal, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ?
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You immediately think within the life of Christ, you immediately think of the first Herod, you think of the the killing of the children, you think of the angelic interactions with Joseph and Mary, you think later on in life, the encounters in the temple, you think about John the
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Baptist, you think about his ministry, you think about the characters of the
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Jewish leaders that were in place in that day in Jerusalem.
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The leaders of the Sadducees, the leaders of the Pharisees. You think of the disciples, you think of Peter, both during the ministry of Christ, his denials of Christ, his restoration, you think of Judas.
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You think of the son of perdition, prophesied in the
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Old Testament. Jesus even makes the identity of Judas and the reality of that, the fact that he told the disciples,
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John 13 and 19, I'm telling you before it takes place that when it comes to place, you may know that I am.
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Ego, I, me, it's one of the I am sayings of Jesus. It is part of Christ's self -revelation to his own disciples that Judas do what
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Judas did. The particularity of all of these things, and when you think about when you think about who was in charge at the arrest of Jesus, the character of these men, there are just so many tiny little elements that if one thing goes wrong, the whole thing falls apart.
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And if you really believe that Jesus was to be crucified on that day, in that place, in the way that he was, then hundreds of millions, if not billions, of free will choices had to go into bringing about that exact situation and it is the decree, the decree of Yahweh.
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And this was written hundreds of years before it happened. So if this can be written hundreds of years prior to its fulfillment, then it is something that is known, but it is not.
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When you talk about Echoch, you're not talking about mere possession of foreknowledge.
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God didn't just create and then he looks down the quarters of time and goes, well golly bob,
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I worked it out! How'd that happen? This is an expression of divine wisdom and divine power.
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And I'm gonna have to fix that. What was that, about 10 minutes before the computer said,
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I'm tired of that. I'm gonna have to change the settings on that. This is an expression of the divine will.
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I don't believe anyone could look at this and naturally go, yes, but you see there were other things outside of God.
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There are other things outside of God that constrained what the form of this decree could take.
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Where would that come from? Where would that come from? Well is this the only place where Echoch is used in that way?
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It is not. Now this is the tricky part.
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I discovered this only today. There is a teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny, and it is right,
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I mean it is maybe a quarter of an inch, and now I'm standing like, you know, 10 feet away from it, trying to go like that, and I got it.
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Wow, that's like, that was like a long -distance shot out on the range or something like that.
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It was pretty good. There are other places. Here in Job 23, this is a fascinating text.
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The whole section from Job, this is one of my favorite sections of Job, and you will notice
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Job is saying, he's picking up verse 14, for he performs, he does, he performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with him.
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Many such decrees are with him. Hmm, what does, what does
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Job mean when he says this? What does he understand?
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He performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are both.
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Many are with him. Job sees, he says, therefore
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I would be dismayed at his presence when I consider I am terrified of him. It is God who has made my heart faint, and the Almighty who has dismayed me, but I am not silenced by the darkness nor deep gloom which covers me.
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The section before this is fascinating, but if I turn to the left, I turn to the right, I can't perceive him. He is, he is outside of my ability to interact with, which is why this eventually leads to God's granting to Job of an interview.
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Job's been demanding this interview, and by the time God gets done, where were you when I did this? Where were you when
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I did this? And what's Job's final response? I place my hand over my mouth, I have spoken foolishly.
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I now realize you are God. I am not. You exist on a level I cannot begin to understand.
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And until we get there, we will miss who we are, and we will miss why we should worship.
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I'm convinced that one of the main reasons much worship within the Christian church is so shallow and can be so easily replaced with,
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Jesus my girlfriend, boyfriend music, is because we really don't spend almost any time at all considering the massive chasm that exists.
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We're made in the image of God, but there is a chasm between ourselves and our Creator in the sense of being.
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We are like flowers the field, we bloom in the morning, we're gone by the in comparison to him.
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And so Job understands, and many such decrees are with him.
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God has a purpose and a plan, and this lies behind...
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Do you honestly think that when Joseph, after years of false imprisonment and injustice, when he can stand before his brothers and say, am
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I God? That he had not come to understand these things himself? That's why he can...
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He doesn't dismiss the brothers sin, they sinned.
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You intended evil against me, but God intended the very same thing for good. So Joseph has come to understand, you cannot flatten out our perspective to just what happens in time.
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God is above. God has many decrees. There are many such decrees are with him.
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He performs what is appointed for me. Job was not wrong about this. Sometimes you have to go, was
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Job right about that? Was Job right? Was that something Job would have repented of later on? This is one of those things where once Job has his interview, puts his hand over his mouth, this is...
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Yeah, he was right. He was right. So kokh, the
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Hebrew term, used in this way and in other places. But let's go to one of the key texts, because I think most people know this is where you should go if you're going to really focus upon what's important and what will aid people.
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Because when we turn to Paul's epistle to the
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Ephesians, well let me mention something to you. I've never done this before,
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Rich, but I hope it doesn't mess you up completely. Yeah, it's all good.
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I'm wearing way too dark clothes, so I just sort of disappear against the background and that's... No, that's okay.
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I don't need to go blind. Thank you very much. This actually helps the old man go a little bit longer, because he's not having to stand as much.
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And I love my whiteboard, so well, it's not a whiteboard right now, but you get it. You understand. Anyway, let me mention something about Ephesians.
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Most, well, I can say, again, don't know what audience is tuned in today, but many of you would be aware of the fact that there are modern scholars who have what is called a limited
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Pauline corpus. They believe that certain of the epistles attributed to Paul are actually pseudonymous, or to use a stronger term, forgeries.
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And hence, Ephesians and Colossians are often dismissed as being
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Pauline. I say this because if you go to your, okay, if you go online, good luck finding a
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Christian bookstore that has commentaries for sale, but if you go online and you purchase a commentary to maybe follow up with some of this, the problem is that you will encounter these types of things.
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And at the very least, there will be a lengthy discussion of authorship at the beginning and things like that, that you have to work through and you're wondering why anyone's going through all this trouble.
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But it's because many of those commentaries will just assume that this is a later follower of Paul, and that this obviously causes people, you know, appropriate concerns.
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There are so many things I could say in regards to this particular subject,
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I will just for the moment make the observation that Ephesians is a special letter.
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When you think about this particular epistle,
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Paul spent years in Ephesus, but there is not a single personal greeting in the letter.
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Now some people might say, well see, there's even more evidence. Whoever wrote this wasn't even in Ephesus.
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No. When you go over and read Colossians chapter 4 verse 16, you'll be told that you should read the epistle coming from Laodicea.
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Well, we don't have an epistle from Laodicea. Well, actually we do. It's very clear that Ephesians was meant to be a circular letter, that is a letter that was circulated around the churches in the
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Lycus River Valley, upriver from Ephesus. And while that was undoubtedly where it started, there are some early manuscripts don't even have
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N -epheso in Ephesus at the beginning of the letter, which is interesting.
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Anyway, the point is that you look at Ephesians, Colossians, there's tremendous parallels between the two.
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They fit historically with what's going on. This is Paul's theology and it makes perfect sense that just as in Romans, you have this very, very high theology argumentation that is being presented there because Paul knows, hey, you established the truth in Rome and it will automatically spread from there.
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Well, that's why he went to Ephesus too. Ephesus was a major, major city. And you plant the truth there and it's going to go everywhere.
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And so this is Paul's theology. This is
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Paul's teaching. But there's a specific range of issues that he wants to address in Ephesians that has parallels in Colossians, but is especially developed in Ephesians.
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As we'll see, there's one particular parallel in regards to all things that you see in Colossians chapter 1 and you see it here in Ephesians chapter 1 as well.
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And so normally I start back in verses 2 and 3 and we walk through, you know,
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I don't know how many times in the program over the years we have walked through Ephesians chapter 1, but I want to go to the section that we normally don't emphasize.
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Because normally what we're doing is we are focusing on the reality of the predestination of God, the fact that he chooses us in Christ, not that he chooses
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Christ and then we can just get in and out of him whatever we want, but that the very grammar of the text says the one that is chosen is us.
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We are chosen in him, but we are the direct object of choosing. This is done in eternity, it is done to the praise of his glorious grace, and it's done according to his good pleasure.
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His good pleasure. And so that term is found here, eudacheon, his good pleasure, but that has been used earlier in the text as well.
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What I want to do in focusing here in 9 through 11 is to suggest to you that without the reality of the decree of God, the decree of Yahweh that we saw back in Psalm 2, that Job understood and experienced, that I think lies behind most of Isaiah's polemic about the false gods.
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They don't know the future because they're not the Creator. And the Creator knows the future not because the
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Creator has some other kind of constraints upon him and he has actualized a particular world, but because this is his world, he's created all of it, there are no constraints upon him, and he is working his eudachea, his goodwill, his thalamatos, his boule, whatever terms are found, they are freely being exercised by God himself.
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And so right up in verse 8, right above this, you can divide this, this is a long, long, long, long sentence.
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But with all wisdom and insight could be attached to this, so there might be a description there.
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But he made known to us, so this is an object of God's revelation.
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He made known to us the mystery of his will.
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The mystery of his will. So the musterion to thalamatos.
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Now, again, you go pick up one of those commentaries and you're going to read page after page after page after page about the use of musterion.
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It is a biblical term, but very, very, very often we don't use it in a biblical sense.
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We sometimes speak of mystery in the sense of things we don't understand, or things that have not yet been revealed, and so on and so forth.
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The mystery of his will, especially in Ephesians, in regards to the church,
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Jews and Gentiles together, is something that was not revealed in the past, but now has been revealed through the ministry of Christ, through the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, coming the
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Holy Spirit. Whatever this is, it has been made known to us, the mystery of his will, and it's his will.
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Everything is focused upon him. It's not something that came from some other source, it is his will.
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You can't get any more personal than this. When you're talking about, you know, the functions of our heart, you know, we are to set aside the
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Messiah as Yahweh in our hearts, as Peter puts it. Well, that's in the most intimate aspect of our being.
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Well, this is a revelation of God's will. This is what God is intending to accomplish, and this is what has been mentioned in the preceding verses.
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His will, all of salvation, adoption of the sonship, forgiveness of sins, and it's all in Christ, and it's all to the praise of his glorious grace, and it's good, and it's beautiful, but it has to be made known to us.
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This isn't a part, you don't sit in a beautiful place next to a lake looking at the mountains and come up with this.
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This isn't natural theology, because natural revelation was never intended to reveal this level of truth.
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This is dependent completely upon supernatural revelation. He has made known to us the mystery of his will, so there has to be something concrete to the expression of this will of his.
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It can't be something that, well, I'm hoping to do this. No, no one reading this would come up with the idea that, well, he hopes to eventually be able to do this.
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No, this is something that is the expression of the eternal
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God's activity to bring about his own glorification, and this will is according to, according to, and then we have the eudaicheia again, his eudaicheia, his, and it, you can see you is good, eudaicheia, that whole realm of terms, plan, intention, will, it's in that same semantic domain.
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Kind intention is, I don't know, a little, doesn't flow all that nicely, but what it's asserting is that what
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God's accomplishing is a good thing. It is a good thing.
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It is his kind intention, his good choice.
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That's, it doesn't come from someplace else. All this is his, you notice it's his will, his kind intention, which he purposed in him, in Christ.
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Once again, over and over and over and over, all the way through the prologue, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in him, absolute exclusivity.
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There is no inclusivism here. There is no pluralism here.
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There is no, there are other equal ways here. This is all what he purposed in Christ, but it is a good purpose.
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God has a purpose, and it's a good one, and he's working it out in Christ, and then he goes to, really, when you think about it, the,
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I can't think of too many passages of Scripture that provide more of the big answers than you have right here.
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So, key terms here. You have oikonomion.
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All right, that's first one we got to get. I'm gonna make these different colors so we can separate them.
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We have the pleioromatous tone, chiron, so the fullness of the times, and then a very interesting term, to sum up.
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It's ana plus kephalae, to summarize, to bring everything together, and is it really everything together?
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Well, you can see for yourself here, we'll go real bright here, ta panta, all things in Christ, and then just as he does in Colossians, the things that are in the heavens and the things upon the earth, in him, in him.
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So, let's, let's look at what we have. The, this is the
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NSB over here, right? With a view to an administration. Well, it is, it is hard to translate this
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Greek in an NIV -ish way, okay? It's not, it's not easy.
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It's literally unto an administration, a working out, the old
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English dispensation of the fullness of times.
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Fullness of times. So, God's goodwill, the mystery of his will, his good, his kind intention, which he has set forth in Christ, he's revealed to us, is that God intends to have an oikonomia, an administration of the fullness of time.
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Now, it's plural, but probably that's to mean all ages, everything that God is doing.
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The fullness of the times, to sum up, to summarize, to the summing up of all things in Christ, whether in heaven or in earth.
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I mean, I don't know that you could be much more expressive of the exhaustiveness of God's intentions in this text.
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What other terms could you use? Things in heaven, all spiritual powers, things upon the earth, that means all men too.
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It is all to be summed up in Christ, in him.
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Again, some people would attach in him to verse 11,
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I don't even know how you do that, but you can because you already had in Christ right here.
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So there's this, some people would say almost excessive repetition of emphasis upon the fact this is only in Christ.
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This is what his purpose was from the beginning, is a summing up of the fullness of times.
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Can we even begin to understand this unless behind all of this, in the summary of all of these things, when you read
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Ephesians 110, when you look at this, can you even begin to understand this within a context of freewill theism, or open theism, or anything that does not have at its root a full understanding of God's kingly freedom, and his ability to accomplish that which he intends to accomplish.
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I mean I suppose there's some people might look at this, yeah that was what God wanted to do, but you know man got in the way and it all got messed up.
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No, these are claims on the inspired writer's part that are absolutely exhaustive.
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And what is involved then, what is involved in our, in the application of all this to us?
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Well, in whom also we have received an inheritance, and we have received that inheritance because we chose to receive an inheritance?
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Having been predestined according to the purpose,
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I wonder if I can, oh I can, good, there you go. Having been predestined according to the purpose of whom?
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This is important, we've got to see this. Having been predestined according to the purpose of the one top
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Panta in Erguntas katta tein bulein to Thelematos autu.
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The one working in Erguntas all things according to the purpose, or the counsel, of his will.
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This is the summary statement. If he is going to sum up all things in Christ, if he is going to sum up all things in Christ, then he has to be the one who can do this.
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He has to be the Erguntas Panta, the one working all things.
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He has to have that kingly freedom. Here you have,
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I think, the greatest unpacking of the Koch of the
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Old Testament. And you can see in Christ, in him, in Christ, isn't that what
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Philippians, or try it again, Psalm 2 was all about? So hundreds of years separating them, here's the unpacking of it.
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Here's the revelation of it, that men of old long to look into. And we have that privilege, yet we very rarely do it.
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Far too easy to be distracted by other things. Here you have laid out for us something vitally important in regards to the biblical reality of God's kingly freedom.
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He works all things according to the counsel of his will.
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The counsel of his will. That doesn't come from outside of him.
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That does not come from outside of him. And when we come up with philosophical speculations that basically say to us that that Bule, that counsel of his will, was constrained by external knowledges, anything that does not come from his free decree, or comes before his free decree, we're no longer dealing with this as our foundation.
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We have come up with a new foundation. And that's why you get some of the rather odd interpretations of these texts.
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Now, what I want to do in the rest of my time, is
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I want to respond to a section,
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I don't think that, yeah, no. Since we're doing it this way, it doesn't work that way.
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I want to respond to a section of a well -known book by Dr.
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William Lane Craig. And Dr. Craig wrote a book a number of years ago.
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I have it here in paper form, but I wanted to have it something that you could see.
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The Only Wise God, it is Dr. Craig's presentation, The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom.
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It is mercifully not massive, and I say mercifully because Molinists tend to multiply words, let's just put it that way.
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And beginning on page 44, at least of this edition, and I have the
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Kindle edition on the screen, Dr. Craig criticizes the denial of human freedom.
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Unfortunately, as is so often the case in dealing with these things, the terminology being used is misleading.
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And all sides assume that everybody else is engaging in that activity themselves.
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Well, I got enough moisture out of that one to go about two sentences. The ice cube blocked it blocked away, so oh well.
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Well, that ice cube has decided to make a permanent home there. Well, it can't be permanent by the nature of ice cubes.
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Anyway, a little ontological observation as we're passing by. Rich is trying to figure out the specific meaning of that.
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Is there a hidden message there? Whatever, don't worry about it. I am concerned, to even put this section as denial of human freedom, to refer, as he does, to extreme scholars and and things like that.
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We have, over the years, noted, for example, when when Dr. Craig responded to presuppositionalism, a very very similar attitude as I experienced in talking to Norman Geisler many many years ago on the same subjects.
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Once you talk about Reformed theology, Calvinists, it's not a whole lot of effort to be overly fair.
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And obviously, given such works as Jonathan Edwards or more modern
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R .C. Sproul, on these topics, clearly
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Reformed theologians believe in creaturely freedom.
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But we don't believe in human autonomy, nor can we in light of the
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Bible's teaching concerning slavery to sin and the epistemological impact of the fall upon the mind of man, the will of man.
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And Jesus' own teaching, he who sins is a slave of sin. So I think there's a much to be said in regards to having a biblical anthropology that's important here, but a biblical anthropology comes later.
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It's based upon Scripture, it's based upon divine revelation, and what we're talking about here, more foundational, and yet very often for most
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Christians, not something has been thought through, and that is, what do we believe about the freedom of God?
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When you begin your inquiry with a concern about the freedom of man, you're probably not going to come to a biblical position because the
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Bible's concern is about the of God. We are his creatures, we are here for his glory, and unfortunately most philosophical analyses that are not, when philosophy is not practiced under the
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Lordship of Christ and the supremacy of Scripture to all human systems of philosophy, you're gonna have a problem.
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And I could not help but notice the, well let me see, yes here we go, in the preface we have these words from Dr.
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Craig, as I read the treatment of divine omniscience in the standard evangelical works of systematic theology,
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I am often amazed at their superficiality and lack of clear logical reasoning. I believe that today the
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Christians seeking after truth will probably learn more about the attributes and nature of God from works of Christian philosophers than from those of Christian theologians.
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Well, I would put another category in there, and I would say that Christian philosophers should first and foremost be looking to Christian exegetes for the foundation of anything that they will do or they will be led astray.
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So when you have the entire section titled,
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Denial of Human Freedom, when the primary individual dealt with is D .A.
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Carson, his divine sovereignty and human responsibility, that's almost all that is cited in this these few pages, obviously all of us who identify ourselves as Reformed believe that man acts according to the desires of his nature, we believe in creaturely freedom, but most importantly here, we believe that the realm in which man acts, the realm of time, is dependent upon all the truths we just saw from Scripture.
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Those truths condition and determine and provide the foundation of any discussion that we're going to have about man's capacities, interaction with God, God's interaction with time, has to have a biblical foundation.
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You don't start with your philosophy and then go find stuff in the Bible to try to fit in there.
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It has to, that's the, that is the difference from my perspective. The only way you can call your position truly biblical is if it flows from the consistent hermeneutical application of sound principles to the entirety of the canon of Scripture.
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Sola Scriptura, Tota Scriptura, let it flow from the text consistently.
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That's the only way to fundamentally identify what you are saying as biblical. I know the term is used all the time, but, so what
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I want to do is I just want to quickly run through this. We don't have forever and we've already gone for a fair amount of time, but I want to go through this and make some comments on this particular material.
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According to the second denial, the doctrine that God foreknows future free acts, God does foreknow all future events including human choices and actions, but only because none of them are, and here's the key term, are, well there we go, are genuinely free.
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Now this is a, we have not only in interacting with Dr.
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Craig in the past, but many people when I dealt with Norman Geisler's material, genuinely free.
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So there is a circular argument behind this. A Christian would want to go free as defined by whom in what, and so I would say that if God says,
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I will judge you in this realm based upon this, these set of criteria, that's our standard as a
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Christian. So if God says, I will judge you for acting on the desires of your heart, and I will judge you based upon my revealed will, then
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I cannot go beyond that, I cannot go behind that and say well that's not good enough, because there's more to it than that, because well you created all things, and you made me the way
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I am, and you made me as tall as I am, and as strong as I am, and you place me at this time in history, and God says, but I'm not judging you on the basis of any of that.
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And there are many people that just go, but that's not enough for me. God may in his
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Scriptures have said that, but that's not enough for me. If it was enough for Jesus, it needs to be enough for us.
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We are his creatures, Jesus is our Lord, you follow him. That's the end of the discussion. Anyone who goes beyond that is just demonstrating they don't recognize that they are the creation of God.
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So when we talk about genuinely free, we would say creaturely free.
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There's being smuggled into this an idea of autonomy, and autonomy, and the question is, does the insertion of human autonomy end divine autonomy?
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Or will there be, and that's what this is somewhat about, a means of providing a way to limit
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God's autonomy, to make room for creaturely autonomy. That's the issue.
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Jewish religion had a strong sense of God's sovereignty, and there is a stream of texts running through Scripture which imply that literally everything that happens is ordained by God to happen.
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Yes, there are. And notice it says, a stream of texts running through Scripture.
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Well, I just have to ask, is there a stream of texts running through Scripture that prophesies the coming of Jesus?
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Answer, yes. Can we dismiss them? Answer, no.
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If they have been properly interpreted, if a consistent hermeneutic has been applied to them, then we see that in the
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New Testament. We see in the book of Acts all the sermons going, taking us back, Moses, all the prophets, so on and so forth.
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So we have to take that seriously, right? So if this stream of texts has been properly interpreted, then don't we have to accept what it says?
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And if we accept what it says, and then we see something over here it looks differently, don't we have to put both of them together rather than simply dismiss one or the other?
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Or bring something in from outside of Scripture to undo these? Or to modify them or reinterpret them?
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Is a stream of texts running through Scripture which imply that literally everything that happens ordained by God to happen. Hence it might be said that he foreknows the future because he foredains everything that will occur.
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Foreordains everything that will occur. The word here is decree.
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I don't know why so many do not want to use that term.
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It's a biblical term. There are some people say, I've never seen anything about a decree in the Bible.
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Okay, I caught the ice cube sleeping.
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Actually got a drink that time. Yes, decree. Yes, God has a decree.
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While too numerous for us to list, yeah, that's true. The texts which led to this view have been collected by D .A.
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Curtis under four main headings. God is the creator. This is absolutely key.
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Absolutely key. God is the creator. Ruler and possessor of all things.
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That includes human beings, by the way. God is the ultimate personal cause of all that happens.
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In other words, once again, he is accomplishing what? His decree. God elects his people, so satirologically there is specificity, no question about it.
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And God is the unacknowledged source of good fortune or success. Well, say 45 -7, even judgment and evil.
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It's there, it's there. Carson concludes, with such sweeping sovereignty at his disposal, Yahweh's predictions concerning what will take place in the future and his control over that future cannot always be decisively distinguished.
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What he decrees must come to pass. What he decrees must come to pass.
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Well, looking closely, now this is Dr. Craig, looking closely at the text cited by Carson, we find that his conclusion seems overdrawn.
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In the prediction to Abraham, there is no suggestion. Now listen, now this is one of the main reasons
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I wanted to look at this. I want you to think this through with me, okay? And I'm gonna, oh yes, we've gone over now already, but we'll get that, don't worry.
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This is one of the things I wanted you to think with me, with me. In the prediction to Abraham, there is no suggestion that God would cause
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Israel to be in bondage 400 years, but only that he would bring her out.
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I want you to think about that. So, God promises to bring
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Abraham's descendants out of bondage from Egypt, but that doesn't mean that the bondage to Egypt is actually a part of his decree?
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How does that even work? How do you, but only that he would bring her out.
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So, is that, but only should she end up in slavery in Egypt that he would bring her out?
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That might happen, might not happen. So, would it be the same as saying if space aliens from the future attack,
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I will deliver them? That kind of thing? Isn't it painfully obvious?
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I mean, the way in which the children of Israel were brought into Israel was what?
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Or into Egypt was what? Joseph, his brothers, famine, coat of many colors, and what does
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God intended this to save many people alive today? God was sovereign in this matter.
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Joseph knew it. We need to know it. And if the reference to Abraham is in the same scriptures as the reference about Joseph, then that's taking all the scripture in a consistent fashion to recognize these things.
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Similarly in Genesis 25, there is no suggestion of foreign nation in connection with Esau and Jacob, though it must be admitted,
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Paul in Romans 9, 10, to 13, seems to make such an interpretation. I'm gonna go with Paul.
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I think, yeah, I'm, yeah, I think we're go with Paul on that one.
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That's, that's an important one, yeah. Okay, Joshua 6, 26, 1
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Kings 16, 34, do not concern for knowledge at all, but a curse is their fulfillment. On the other hand,
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Genesis 41, 25 does seem, and at this point, this is the one problem,
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I don't know how this part's gonna work. Let's find out. Oh, yes, there you go.
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It's, it's a swipe, okay? All I needed was a swipe, so there you go. I had never seen
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Kindle go into this particular format before, so my apologies. Seems to suggest that what
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God had given to Joseph was not so much foreknowledge as a revelation of what God intended to do. Similarly, Isaiah's predictions seem to disclose what
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God intended to do in judgment on Israel. What God intended to do. What was the argument in Isaiah?
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The false gods cannot tell you what's going to happen in the future. I can. The false gods cannot tell you what happened in the past and why it happened.
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I can. This is what separates God from the false gods, and so whether it's in judgment on Israel or judgment on other nations, it doesn't matter.
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God's knowledge of the future is exhaustive because he is accomplishing his what? His decree.
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His decree. In this case, God's foreknowledge seems to be based on his irrevocable intention to do something.
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To do something. How about something like glorify himself by working all things according to the kind intention of his will?
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Can we, can we use Ephesians 1? There are a lot of people who say we can't. I say we can. I say we have to.
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And his knowledge that he can bring about whatever he intends. He can bring about whatever he intends.
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Now, I don't know if Dr. Craig actually believes that because I'm not going to be investing time in it right now, but my understanding is that what
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God can accomplish is depend upon middle knowledge. So in other words, the content of middle knowledge determines the possible worlds that God can actuate.
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Now, we have immediately, immediately left all biblical language behind as soon as we start talking about actuating worlds.
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Okay? But there is not a prophet, there is not an apostle, whoever said anything about actuating worlds.
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Not even close, that's correct. So we've immediately left that realm.
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But that's what this book is about. And I could take you to the last, we've, years ago, went to some of the last chapters and read through and talked about what
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God's intentions, maximal salvation or maximal good, and the idea that there are some people in any world, given middle knowledge, would never be saved.
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So to do something and his knowledge that he can bring about whatever he intends, asterisk, if it is a possible world provided the contours of middle knowledge.
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That's absolutely vital. Absolutely vital. This presents only half the picture, however, for the conviction that human beings are free moral agents.
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Okay? What does that mean? What does free mean?
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Right here. What do we do with Jesus? He who sins is a slave of sin.
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A slave, by definition, is not free. What do we do with Paul? Those who are according to flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God.
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They cannot even submit themselves the law of God, they can't do what is pleasing to God. Dead in sin.
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So what's a free moral agent? If we are looking at biblical revelation, what is a free moral agent?
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What is the context in which judgment takes place? For the conviction that human beings are free moral agents also permeates the
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Hebrew way of thinking. There is no hint of fatalism and, you know, at one point, earlier on, he had properly distinguished between fatalism and determinism.
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They're not the same thing, but then goes here and uses fatalism. Don't know why. Fatalism is a misrepresentation of any
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Christian understanding of the decree of God. The decree of God is purposeful and personal.
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Fatalism is neither of those things. So I reject that as a misrepresentation, as a strawman argumentation.
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It's a form of strawman argumentations through the use of terminology. There is no hint of a fatalism which reduces humans to mere puppets.
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Now I, as I said, working on a project and as I have been working on this project,
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I've had to be looking stuff up. You know how research goes. These days on the web, you're looking at this person's website, that person's website, this reference, cross reference over there, and I have discovered that there are even
01:11:02
Reformed people that have not understood a key element, and I'm going to wrap up with this.
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There's more I could say about this section, much more, but I've gone a little long and I have purposes for keeping this at least somewhat abbreviated.
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That even some Reformed people have not understood one of the key arguments that I have made in the area of open theism,
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Molinism, the kingly freedom of God, God's relationship, the relationship between eternity and time, creation, all those related areas that we address fairly regularly.
01:11:51
I'm just staying here thinking about how many people over the past few weeks have said, boy, you don't ever talk about theology anymore, and I'm just like, oh, okay, right, all right.
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Anyway, got to laugh once in a while. What did
01:12:08
I do with, oh, sorry. It's sort of fun to watch old men just wander around.
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Oh, I like this one better. Thank you.
01:12:20
I think that ice cube finally went the way of the natural world for ice cubes. And that is this, when people say that Reformed theology turns people into mere puppets,
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I very often point out that, and this is because I'm normally talking to Christians, and I want
01:12:46
Christians to hear what they're saying in the light of biblical revelation. I want to be somewhat pastoral in helping them to see.
01:12:55
And that is that the incarnation of Christ fundamentally refutes this.
01:13:05
And I heard a guy, who I'll be talking about more in the future, commenting about a response that I gave related to this topic.
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And he said, I don't have no idea what Christmas has to do with anything. And I wasn't talking about Christmas.
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I was talking about the fact that for Christians, it should be absolutely central, absolutely key, to our understanding of this whole realm.
01:13:42
That we actually believe that the eternal God entered into human experience, and hence, he who eternally existed as the
01:13:56
Divine Son, in the presence of the Father, entered into time itself, as the
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God -man. Not as a mere phantasm, as a ghost, as a chimera, but actually entered into human flesh.
01:14:15
And that means he experienced time as the God -man. He did things in time as the
01:14:23
God -man. And so, what is central here is, what that means is, what happens in time is important to God.
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And it's real. Jesus wasn't a puppet. Jesus did not become a puppet.
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And if Jesus wasn't a puppet, then we're not either. And if we're just mere puppets, then Jesus was a mere puppet. And there's no redemption.
01:14:48
Christian theology is incarnational theology. We have to reckon with it in all things.
01:14:57
And as such, to pretend that the decree of God turns men into mere puppets, cannot be defensible in light of the
01:15:12
Incarnation of Christ. This realm is not a realm of puppets. At the same time, what
01:15:21
Christ came to do was prophesied hundreds of years before. His betrayal by Judas prophesied hundreds of years before.
01:15:30
There was an absolute certainty. Why? Because the decree, the decree of God that brings about creation itself, determines all events in time.
01:15:44
The one working all things. That's the description of the Christian God in Ephesians 1 .11.
01:15:53
And I simply have to ask you, if you limit the range of energuntas, tapanta energuntas, at Ephesians 1 .11,
01:16:04
the one working all things, if you limit that, I have to ask you the question, from whence comes the limitation?
01:16:14
Is that coming from the text of Scripture? Or is that being placed onto the text of Scripture from something back here that you consider to be more important?
01:16:25
Or needed? That is a vitally important question.
01:16:34
And so, we are not mere puppets. The belief in the decree of God does not make us puppets any more than it made
01:16:42
Jesus a puppet. There are some issues I'll get into later on.
01:16:49
I'll just point out that there are some serious questions to be asked about the application of the concept of middle knowledge to the incarnate one.
01:17:00
Because he was the God -man. And questions we have raised as to the source of the content of middle knowledge.
01:17:10
We haven't gotten into defying that today. We will definitely in future discussions. But these are issues that we want to get to.
01:17:21
It's part of thinking these things through. But here's my final comment. The only way to think these things through is to begin with God's revelation to us.
01:17:40
You can't get this from quote -unquote natural revelation. Hence, there is no quote -unquote natural theology.
01:17:49
This is divine revelation. And you don't get it from man's philosophy.
01:17:55
You have to have a starting place in God's self -revelation. These are the actions of the triune
01:18:04
God. So we have to have his word to reveal to us the truth in these issues.
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Well, not your normal program, but hopefully one that you will find to be helpful and challenging.
01:18:20
It'll be somewhat foundational to issues in the future. So I appreciate you taking the time to listen.
01:18:28
And hopefully it will be edifying to the people of God. Thank you for watching.