The Trinity, Part 2: The Trinity in Church History

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Special 3-part in-depth study of the Trinity

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The Trinity, Part 3: The Trinity Defended

The Trinity, Part 3: The Trinity Defended

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Lord, this morning, this afternoon, we come to you knowing that you are the Almighty, that you are sovereign, you are eternal,
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Lord, that you actually exist in a Trinity, but you are one God.
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And Father, I pray that even today as we look at the history of the Church and how different professions of who you are as the
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Trinity would encourage us in our personal walk with you and our personal understanding and devotion to you as the
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Trinity, the three persons in one God. Speak to Pastor Jeff this morning, we pray, in Jesus' name,
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Amen. Amen. What image comes to mind when
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I mention St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, ho, ho, ho, white beard.
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Would you imagine that St. Nicholas, as they call him. Now, by the way, we're all saints, according to Philippians, to the saints who are in Christ Jesus, referring to the
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Church. It's the ones made holy by the imputed righteousness of Christ. So there doesn't have to be a validated miracle that's attributed to the...
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No. Okay. That is entirely man -made tradition. But Nicholas was a real bishop in the
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Roman Empire, and in the year 325, he attended a council called
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Nicea. And what happened there might surprise you based on the caricature of this bishop.
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Now, we know he was a loving man because he had devoted himself to meeting the needs of the poor, and he was very charitable, and he gained a reputation for doing that in his province.
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But this bishop was at Nicea and heard the arch heretic named Arius stand and deny the deity of Christ.
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And this ranting heretic named Arius went on and on about how
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Jesus is actually a created god, a god, some lesser demiurge that is made by God, but not in fact
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God himself. Well, boy, you can see it's not come over with saints. You're a step ahead of me. You can come teach at Nice Chapel.
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Yeah. We'll get to that, but that needs some explanation, the difference of one iota. One iota.
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So, when Saint Nicholas heard the arch heretic Arius teaching that Jesus is not fully
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God from all eternity, Nicholas stood up and approached
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Arius and slugged him across the face, leveling him.
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Whoa. Well, the other bishops, in which there were over 300 in attendance, all agreed that what
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Saint Nicholas had done was entirely inappropriate, and they stripped him of his bishopric.
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They took his ruling staff, which they used to have to represent the staff of Christ as an undershepherd, and they deposed him of being a bishop.
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But the next day, they actually reinstated him, realizing that he did it in a moment of passion, in defense of Christ.
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But the question remains, what was the Council of Nicaea all about?
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And why was Saint Nicholas so worked up? What is the historical circumstance of that? So, we will begin there.
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But first, let me remind you, church history is tradition that's passed on from generation to generation.
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It is not an authority on par, or in any way comparable, to Scripture.
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The way that we know the Trinity is what we discussed last week. The Bible clearly teaches that there is only one
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God. The Shema of Israel, Deuteronomy 6 .4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one.
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One Lord. That is a simple teaching. But there are three who are God. Jesus clearly proclaims himself to be
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God, before Abraham was born, I am. And in that, he distinguishes himself from God.
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The word was, with God, the Father. So, there's distinction in one sense, but there's identity in another.
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How could this be? A unity and a diversity. Well, this is the teaching of the Trinity, taught in Scripture.
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And in fact, each member of the Trinity that's revealed in the Bible, because there's another counselor that Jesus promised will proceed from him and from the
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Father, this other one, the Holy Spirit, is likewise equal with the others.
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And so, the third statement is that each member of the Trinity is equal. Equally God. No less than fully
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God. So, this teaching, it's a simple revelation, if you look at it that way. And therefore, why is it that we have no explication or explanation of the
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Trinity in the Bible? You guys remember that from last week? We don't have a didactic passage of Scripture explaining and revealing the
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Trinity. Why is that? Yeah, I mean,
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God can do it however he wants. He revealed it. He didn't have to explain it. Yeah, there's a sense in that.
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The thing that I focused on last week is that the revelation of the Trinity is between the
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Testaments. Between Old and New Testaments. So, when the New Testament speaks of it, it does so almost casually.
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Offhandedly. Showing that the people already had a Trinitarian understanding. So, the revelation of the
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Trinity came in the person of Christ. God spoke in the Son when he was made flesh and dwelt among us.
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And then in the sending of the Spirit, the third member is revealed. So, when Paul will write and bless the
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Corinthians, closing 2 Corinthians with the Trinitarian verse, the grace of the
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Lord Jesus, the love of the Father, the fellowship of the Spirit. He's just speaking as a Trinitarian.
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He's already Trinitarian. The Church is Trinitarian. And so, he speaks that way.
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And so, the baptism is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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And in that way, each one is revealed to be equally God. So, this is the revelation.
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The New is in the Old, concealed. The Old is in the New, revealed. Yes, and we discussed that last week, too. The Old Testament had types and shadows that revealed the
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Trinity, but it wasn't until the New that you see the full light of that. Yeah. So, today, let's turn to the
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Trinity in Church history, knowing that the revelation's already been given. We're already done with that. And that's the important part.
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So, why would we look to Church history? God is providentially ruling over the universe that He made.
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And He has preserved what He revealed in the Bible through His bride, the
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Church. Now, Church history can be a help, even if it's not the authority, because what we do as Christians in 2022 is not to come fresh like Tabula Rasa with a blank slate and figure out what the
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Bible teaches. We actually stand on the shoulders of giants, people who have gone before us, who have done hard work in the text to wrestle through questions and come to an understanding of how it all fits together.
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We are blessed to be where we are in Church history. Now, that is an area where we have to be careful, because Church history can also err.
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So, we're going to talk about some error in Church history, as well as the beautiful gifts that have been handed down to us.
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Remember what Jude said. He said he wanted to write about the common salvation, but he thought it was necessary to write to you to contend for the faith, which was once and for all handed down to us.
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We have a true faith in the Scripture, and our job is to contend and hold to that which was once and for all handed down.
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And the Church has been about that business. So, here's how Church history unfolds around this question. The Church, over the course of our history, does not invent the
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Trinity. But rather, the Church did the work of systematizing the biblical data, and it was usually in response to false teachers.
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26 of the 27 New Testament books deal in some way with false teachers.
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The only one I know of that doesn't explicitly do it, although in verse 6, Paul does mention guarding the faith, or holding to the importance of the faith, and that is
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Philemon. All the others have an explicit statement to reject this false teacher, or that false teacher, or this wolf in sheep's clothing, or some mention of being a
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Berean, Acts 17 -11, being discerning of the teaching, Hebrews 5 -14.
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Every book of the New Testament deals with this subject. Here is how the
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Church was, at first, under assault. It came from the outside.
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Now, there were heretics from the very beginning. The early Gnostics were heretics, the
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Judaizers of the Gospel in Galatians were heretics, but for 300 years, the primary assault on the
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Church came from the Roman Empire. There were 10 waves of intense persecution, and during that time, the
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Church never had the time to come together in councils, and to work together, to really parse to the heart of the
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Trinity. So, through the first 313 years of the year of our
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Lord, 313 AD, the Church was under intense persecution. In 313,
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Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, and that brought peace to the
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Empire for Christians. Now, Christians were protected, you couldn't just persecute Christians. But a few years later, a new teacher arose, and he became the primary threat to the
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Church. Roman persecution was no longer the problem, now it was
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Arius. He was a wonderful orator. He wrote amazing songs.
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You know how Martin Luther used to write hymns, and he would use bar songs that people would sing, and take their melody and add
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Christian words, and they were catchy? Well, the Arians who followed Arius were amazing musically.
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At all the ports, they would write these catchy little songs. In fact, this came to be known as the
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Arian Snare. What do you think that means, the Arian Snare? And the music being so attractive would draw people in to the teacher.
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I think that happens to this day. Some music which can be almost hypnotic and enticing might lead people to a false teacher that stands behind it.
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That's called the Arian Snare. Well, Arius arises, and here's his teaching. That Jesus is not fully
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God from all eternity, but is rather a created being.
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That teaching still exists today in the form of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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It has resurfaced in recent centuries. But between the years 318 and 325,
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Arius and his followers gained more and more traction, especially in the port cities, where they had their music, and the popularity was able to spread because of trade.
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To the extent that by 325, Constantine realized that the empire was divided.
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A bishop in Alexandria, whose name, easily remembered, was
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Alexander, began to oppose Arius. Yes.
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And a council was convened, which became the first major council, probably still the most famous of all the councils.
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Now a council is just a calling together of all the Christian bishops, the leaders over the churches from all over the
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Roman Empire. It could be the bishop from Corinth, that Paul himself planted the church, or Rome, where the gospel was established.
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All of these places would send the bishops, and there were over 300 in attendance in 325.
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Alexander was accompanied by a young helper, whose name was Athanasius, who proved, during these months of his council, to have a brilliant mind, and to do well, to help write and articulate what
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Alexander was trying to say. But Alexander was the bishop that was leading the charge. Well, Arius was convinced that he was right, and he was sure that this council was going to side with him.
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But by God's grace, with St. Nick slapping him across the face, this literally happened.
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And the bishops then, coming together to study the scripture, they did not invent a doctrine at the
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Council of Nicaea. What did they do? They reaffirmed what the Word of God had always said.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Or in Hebrews 1,
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He is the exact imprint of God's nature, upholding everything by the Word of His power. Over and over again, the
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Son of God is not presented as a created being, but before Abraham was born, I am.
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And so they took those scriptures, and together they wrote this creed. Who wants to read the Nicene Creed?
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It's part D in your notes of the first section. I will. Yeah, Carol, if you would.
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We believe in one God, the Father of all, the Father Almighty, maker of things visible and invisible, and in one
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Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the
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Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the
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Father, through whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, and in the
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Holy Spirit. But as for those who say there was, there was when
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He was not, and before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the
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Son of God is of a different hypostasis, or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change, these, the
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Catholic and Apostolic Church, anathematizes.
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Anathematizes! Which means condemns to hell. Yeah. So the statement,
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I want to just, I highlighted for you the key phrase that I wanted you to pick up on, begotten, not made.
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So what Alexander and the bishops all come together to say is that Jesus is not made,
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He's not created, He's God from God, light from light, true God of true
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God. Now the doctrine being taught here is the eternal generation of the Son. He is from the
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Father, but that doesn't mean there's a point of origin. He's always been generating forth from the
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Father, like light from light. There's no point in time in the past where He begins or comes into existence, but rather He's always been, eternally, eternally, forever past, generated forth from the
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Father. There is this relationship of eternal generation, and that's what's meant by begotten, according to this creed.
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Now, they also anathematize, which means condemned to hell, anybody who teaches what
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Arius taught. So it's a very definitive, you would think, death blow to Arianism.
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Wouldn't you wish that God, in His sovereignty, would decree our victories to always be immediate and final, in all areas of life, from political to our private battles?
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There's coming a day, but in this world, God has providentially designed, it seems, that we would often have to make war.
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Because even with the decision of the Council of Nicaea in 325, that Jesus is eternal
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God, the war did not end. In fact, Athanasius becomes the leader of that church there, in Alexandria, and for the next more than 50 years, until 381, the winds and waves of doctrine will crash one way or the other.
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In fact, Athanasius will be exiled five different times over those years.
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You see, when the Arians were slapped down, literally by Nicholas, but then also figuratively, as all of the bishops together condemned
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Arianism, he didn't go away, and the teachings didn't leave the populace. They kept resurfacing.
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And what would happen is, an emperor coming after Constantine or after him, each one would side with one teaching or the other.
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So you would have an Arian empire, emperor, who would then exile Athanasius.
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And for a period of time, he would live out in the desert, and some just barely surviving, exiled from his bishopric.
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But he never stopped fighting. For that many years, more than 50, until finally, after this has gone back and forth five times, another council is called to clarify the truth of God's Word.
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Church, this is the lesson. The truth is worth fighting for. And you have to fight for it.
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Jude wished that he didn't have to contend for the faith once we're all handed down. He would rather just talk about positive things.
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Their common salvation. But it was necessary that he write to you that you contend.
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We still must contend for the Trinity. And sure enough, the next council, part two.
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We're only going to go through four. So this will be a big history lesson in a short period of time. We're going to cover all of church history.
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So Athanasius had been exiled no less than five times. But in 381, the bishops called to Constantinople for another council.
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And who would like to read what comes of that? Now, notice before we read it, what was the issue at Nicaea?
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The deity of Christ. Was the Holy Spirit's deity even in question there?
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Not so much. It was sort of a corollary discussion. In fact, look back at the Council of Nicaea.
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How much is said? Two lines beneath begotten, not made. And in the
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Holy Spirit. That's all that the Creed said about the Spirit. So there was now a debate.
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Well, what about the Spirit? Is he truly God as well? If Jesus is God. And the
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Arians were hitting that point. Over and over again.
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And so here is the Creed. Anybody mind reading that? Part two,
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C. I'll read it. Thank you, Barbara. The bishops are called to Constantinople to clarify and say more.
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And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the
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Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who is spake by the prophets.
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And we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
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Amen. Awesome. So this clarifies the deity of the
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Holy Spirit. And that's the big thrust of it. Notice where it says who proceeded from the
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Father. In the year 1054, this will be the source of controversy between the East and the
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West, which actually actually splits Christendom. Because the Roman side, the
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Western side will say who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Which biblically is the case.
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But it was changing this creed and the East was so ensconced in their tradition that they couldn't abide that.
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And the great schism of 1054 happened over that little phrase and the Son. Filioque.
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And the Son. That little phrase and the Son will end up dividing all of Christendom.
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But notice what's the point here. It's to say that the Holy Spirit is fully God. He proceeds from the
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Father, just like the Son is eternally generated from the Father. The Spirit proceeds forth from the
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Father. And it's true he proceeds from the Son because God is of God. One being, one essence, one nature.
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But that's the point. And then if you notice there's something else that might have caught your eye at the end.
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We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. Interesting that that's in the creed, right?
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Well, the word in Scripture, Acts 2 .38, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.
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It's just gar. It could mean in order to, or it could mean on account of.
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So our understanding of the word gar, which is for, in the
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Greek of Acts 2 .38, is that you're baptized on account of forgiveness of sin.
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And corresponding to it, as a display of it, not to accomplish it. And that also could be read, but notice what's happening here.
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And this becomes a major problem. When you're translating from one language to another, people are misunderstanding what you're saying.
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And so some would take this as, well, baptism itself accomplishes, in order that it accomplishes the remission of your sin.
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So here again, what is to be believed as the highest authority and the only, the sole rule, sole of Scripture, it is the
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Bible itself, as originally given by God in the original languages. So the farther you get removed from that, the more potential error is actually introduced.
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So you see the double -edged sword with church history. Tradition can be helpful because good
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Christian men are systematizing, and we don't have to start from scratch. We can read what others have said, and we can learn from one another.
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But it can never become competition to sole of Scripture. Make sense?
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And that's very important at that point. So this council, the second one, second ecumenical council, establishes the deity of the
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Holy Spirit. So we're good now, right? We got, the Son is God, the
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Spirit is God, we've got the Trinity in place. John? That line, one baptism for remission of sin, is that what the
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Catholic Church runs with? Yes. Yeah, because they believe that their baptism is the removal of original sin.
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That's why they can do it for a baby. It operates ex operato operate, in the working of the work.
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It's by the actual doing of the sacrament, which is kind of a loaded term.
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I like to say ordinance, it's ordained, because I don't want to communicate that the thing itself does it.
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But yeah, they actually think from that point. And these would be considered Catholic creeds, but we're going to get to something in a moment.
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These are ecumenical creeds. The Pope in Rome is not here regarded as the sole arbiter of truth, or on par with tradition and Scripture as one of the three -legged stool.
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That's about to evolve, and you're going to see where that begins to happen. Yeah. And yeah, it's probably already happening in his mind, at the councils.
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In the Pope's mind, he's seeing himself as kind of above the other bishops, but it becomes explicit in a debate that happens at Chalcedon.
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All right. So now we're going to the third council. You'd think, we're good, we've got the Trinity. What more could you argue about?
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Well, along comes a man named Nestorius. And he's accepting the orthodoxy of Nicaea and of Constantinople, but he begins to add his own little twist.
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He says that the divine and human nature are mixed.
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You can almost picture it as like, you make lemonade. Anybody like to make your own lemonade? And you pour the lemonade mix into the water, and it becomes a mixture.
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This is how he viewed the divine and human nature. And it's a subtle point, but it actually resulted in yet another council.
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Mary was not just the mother, she was just seen as the mother of God. Yes, that was, yeah, a big part of it too.
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Proto -theotokos, or something like that. Mary as mother of God. Yeah.
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Now, what was meant by the orthodox there, which was Syrum, or something like that, in fighting against Nestorius, was not to say that Mary was the mother of God.
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Even though it used that language, it wasn't like a Mariolatry there. It was saying that Mary carried in her the person
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Jesus, who is fully God. And you can't separate him as a person, as a mixture.
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He's got some God in him, and some that's just human. But that the whole person is
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God. That's what the orthodox side was saying. And Nestorius was trying to make him more like a mixed bag.
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And that was the danger there. So they call another council. And here it is, yeah, Syrum, and at the Council of Ephesus, they declare that Jesus is one person.
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That's very important. He's not just a mixture, he is one actual person.
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Okay, now the next council only takes 20 years to convene, because it never really settled all of this.
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You have another teacher, Eutychus and Apollinaris, who come and try to put emphasis, kind of against Nestorius, but making the emphasis too much the other way, in what is called monophysitism.
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That all you have is the divine nature, and what you then have is another council.
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Now this one's attended by 520 bishops. So this is the big one.
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This is the mother of all councils. 520 bishops, they all come together.
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We need to hammer out orthodoxy. By the way, orthodoxy just means right teaching. How do we rightly handle the word of truth?
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That's actually a good thing to know. As opposed to heterodoxy, you're teaching something different.
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Or neo -orthodoxy. Yes. From this, finally, the church pressed in a little deeper to clarify, what is the nature of Jesus?
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Or better said, what are the natures of Jesus as it relates to him as a person?
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And the doctrine that comes out of this is called the hypostatic union. Hypostatic union.
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So hypo simply means under. And static, stasis, means something which stands or exists.
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What stands or exists under Jesus as the fundamental thing of who he is?
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What is his hypostasis? A better way to think about it, there is no
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God or God's stuff behind them or from which they emerge.
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Hypostasis refers to, and here's a translation that we get in English, just the word person.
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The person is the who, at the most fundamental level, who you are.
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Not that you were made from some divine essence that was drawn together and formed you because that would be prior to your hypostasis.
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At the very bottom, at the very root, under which there is nothing else.
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There's no substance, as the Aryans might have taught, that gathered you and formed you. At the very bottom, who is your person?
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And here's the teaching. That Jesus is one person, at bottom, with two natures.
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Okay, so we already know the Trinity, right? The Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons in one being or essence with sharing the same attributes.
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The hypostatic union is not referring to the Trinity. It's talking about the one person,
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Jesus. He has two natures. What are those two natures?
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Human and divine. Human and divine. Can you just mix them up into some new mixture of the two?
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Can you just mix them up into something new? Very good. You can't just mix them up because that would be the ancient heresy of Nestorianism.
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You can't just take one without the other, like monophysitism. You have to hold both.
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And see, this was already there in the Bible. You have to hold that Jesus had a human nature.
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Otherwise, how can he be a monophysitism? In the Bible, he grows.
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He develops. He grows in knowledge from a child to an adult. This is human stuff.
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This is human nature. You cannot leave that behind or else you're a Gnostic and 1
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John addresses you denying that Jesus has really come in the flesh. Likewise, you have to affirm that Jesus is fully
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God. He has a divine nature. So there's both.
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If you deny one or the other, you've left the scripture. And that's simply the point. There's nothing being invented at Chalcedon.
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It's just underscoring that he has two natures as one person. Yeah. Then it's
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God and the Holy Spirit and they just have one nature? Each of them divine? Yes. Only Jesus unites a human nature to his eternally existing divine nature.
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And he continues like that in a hypostatic union as one person with two natures forever.
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He doesn't revert back to having only one nature. He will always, from the incarnation on, have two natures.
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Isn't that amazing? This is the mystery of kenosis in Philippians 2 that he took on human flesh and became a man.
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John 1 14. And the word became flesh. Think of that.
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The word, the eternal existing one became flesh. He took on a human nature.
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So this is the definition of the hypostatic union. Let me read Chalcedon for you.
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We then, following the Holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same
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Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The same, perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood.
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Amen? Truly God and truly man of a reasonable, rational soul and body consubstantial, that means coessential, with the
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Father, according to the Godhead and consubstantial, with us, according to the manhood.
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In all things like unto us, without sin. Begotten before all ages of the
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Father, according to the Godhead. And in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the
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Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Now that's an interesting use of language that we would later disagree with but you see that?
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According to the manhood, that's how she is the Mother. One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures.
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He has two natures, hypostatic union. Inconfusably, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person.
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See that? So hypostatic union summarizes this and one subsistence, that's that word hypostasis, which was earlier used differently for essence, yeah.
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So is Christ still two natures? Yes. Christ is currently at the right hand of the
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Father fully human, fully human and when we see
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Him, we'll still see nail marks in His human hands for all eternity.
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So we'll stop there, the creed kind of goes on. Now, a few things to mention about this.
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Most evangelicals, Anglicans, most Protestants will stop at this fourth council on this because at this council you begin to see
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Rome asserting itself. At the same council,
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Constantinople, they had said the Bishop of Constantinople shall have the prerogative of honor after the
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Bishop of Rome because Constantinople is a new Rome and Rome, when this came back to the
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Pope, denied that and is still asserting Himself now as above.
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What happens after Calsinon? Well, there's six more major councils.
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Number five, Constantinople in 553 was asserting that Mary is the mother of God.
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Instead of focusing on what the earlier argument had been that He was fully
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God carried as a person but His human nature coming from Mary, they began to put the emphasis on Mary as the mother of God.
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And so that was the fifth council again in Constantinople. The sixth one was against monothelites which was people who said that Jesus only had one will because He only has
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He's one person so He must have one will and the church would actually say that He has two wills.
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Because even though and I might lose you in this part but even though they make this decision and they call it heresy that monothelites thought that there was only one will in the person
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Jesus an earlier Pope had already declared monothelitism.
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So at that council they anathematized an earlier Pope and I think that pretty definitively rules out the idea that the
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Pope speaks at the level of scripture because they themselves anathematized the
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Pope that went earlier. So they're kind of going back it was an interesting thing that happens here too one of the monothelite priests said
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I'll prove that there's only one will in Jesus God will show His power through me bring me a dead corpse
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I'll raise the dead. And they brought Him a dead body and the monothelite priest said pray and pray and nothing happened and he was humiliated and went off in shame.
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He wanted God to answer in that way but God would not be made into a party trick.
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Yes? I have a hard time understanding why it was not us why they prayed to Mary for everything.
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This is why I'm stressing what was happening by these later councils and it's a development that's happening now in the 600s and it's in 553 so this is a late development and from here this is where I'm going with it for the thousand years after Chalcedon you fall deeper and deeper into the traditions of men and away from the simple explication of the scripture.
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They're no longer debating the deity of Christ now it's about Mary it's about this monothelitism which is a
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Christological question. Then they have another Nicaea the seventh one 367 bishops and the issue is icons.
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The Muslims are destroying all their icons and the iconoclasts are saying yeah we need to destroy all the icons and then the others say well no they're just images we don't really venerate them and there's people who argue for and against that.
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They're beginning to split over that and the sun question with the east and the west and then the ninth and tenth were both in Rome and it's about indulgences where they're getting people mad because they're selling forgiveness and that's
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Simon you know trying to sell the power of God so it's come off the rails at that point and the next place where you see any clear and positive work on the
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Trinity is once the Reformation begins. And right away they have these
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Trinitarian questions so right away the question between the followers of Luther and Calvin are wait a minute what is happening in the
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Eucharist in the sacrament? Is this the very body of Jesus?
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Well a Trinitarian question would be where is the body of Jesus? If he's fully human his body is in a real finite location.
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You can't have him out around the world wherever a priest would make an offering and so Luther is arguing for the real presence of the body of Jesus there and Calvin refutes that which it's called the extra you don't need to know this but the extra
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Calvin Calvinisticum is where Calvin helps everybody to understand it was really for Miglia from Italy who came and Calvin was the one who was leading the
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Reformation but the Reformed churches with Zwingli talking about how it's more of a memorial the sacrament is more of a memorial he will teach very clearly that the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ must each be upheld and to leave one or the other is to depart into error and so what he will ultimately do is help the church understand that in the sacrament in communion it is a memorial where the
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Spirit of God the Holy Spirit ministers to you and is present in that way but the very body of Jesus is not there when
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John breaks the bread on Sunday morning he's not making this the real body of Christ and of course with transubstantiation the
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Catholics really believed that was it so these questions are all Christological and Trinitarian so that's the whirlwind tour through church history bringing us up to today yeah
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John I just have a quick question would you consider the
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Jerusalem council the first council with Acts 15 yeah that absolutely was a council
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Acts 15 but when you're talking about yeah it's generally referred to as Nicaea being the first ecumenical council but yeah like biblically that is the first time that the church met to address a theological question if anybody is interested about more information on Roman Catholicism I have a guy
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Mike Gendron I don't know if you've ever heard of him Mike Gendron yes he's from DTS and he has a ministry to the
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Roman Catholics you might follow him awesome very good what is the name of that book
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Delighting in the Trinity who wrote that Michael Reeves yeah Michael Reeves if you want a book that's actually very engaging
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I was shocked when I read it he has so many interesting little stories and he writes in a funny way it's kind of engaging but it helps you delight in the doctrine of the
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Trinity Delighting in the Trinity there's also the Forgotten Trinity by James White which is kind of like more of a surface level primer on it but also very helpful so any other questions before we close it down so regarding the hypostatic meaning would you use that phrase that Christ is 100 % divine and 100 % as a basic explanation
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I use that and MacArthur does but Sproul doesn't like that fully or 100 % he like rebuked
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MacArthur at one of the conferences that they had because fully would imply that he's not the other it's the full of what he is so I think he used the term really or truly
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I think he says truly but the point I still use that term I think the point is to say nothing less like 100 % is a great way to say it he is fully truly 100 % nothing less than God and likewise human you can't diminish that in any way or try to mix it or take some away from the other you have to hold both natures in the one person and the second thing was when did they start venerating saints you talked about Mary right after an epilogue of your teaching we get the immaculate conception of Mary the assumption of Mary and the proclamation of Mary as Queen of Heaven so the veneration of the saints came during that time when ancient
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Roman deities were given saintly names to try to Christianize Roman pagans
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I think that's right I think it's the 700's John and the Muslims coming up smashing everything and then they in reaction to the
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Muslims saying no we're not worshipping these idols we're just venerating what was his name
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Saint John of Damascus being a huge defender of the icons and I think that's he says icons are not idols but symbols therefore when an orthodox venerates an icon he's not guilty of idolatry but I think that's where it's really a reaction to the
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Muslims smashing things up when they came to Jerusalem and upwarded alright so that was the hard one that's the council next week we're going to get into the modern debates so I've been in a theological kerfuffle with a guy named
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Gino Jennings over the years and he is what's called a modalist but they're not
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Unitarian that's a different thing but we'll talk about all those and how we can defend the
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Trinity next week so John Our Lord God we confess that these concepts are so large and deep we do not know the mind of God but what you reveal to us we hold to we confess and we hold true to the fact that there is one
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God we hold true to the fact that he exists in three persons within the
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Trinity and that our Lord Jesus Christ is fully God fully man thank you for the protection that you've had over your teachings over the years where there's been opposition yet there have been those who have stood up and you've protected your truth
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I pray Father that we would hold to your truth and be able to recognize false teaching hold to what you have to teach us thank you