A First For the Last Day of 2021!

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I hope you're hearing me. We're hoping this is working, but I'll be perfectly honest with you. I've made it a stressful end of the year for someone whose first name sounds like witch.

I don't know. I was thinking about the program today. Couldn't do it yesterday for particular personal reasons, and I don't do any. Look, New Year's for me is trying to keep my cats from having a heart attack, basically, when it sounds like the Iraq war is erupting in the alleyway behind the house, okay?

That's all it is to me. I don't watch anything. I'm not watching any football. It's just not a... New for me. And so I'm like, hey, it's a Friday. We've only done one program this week. There's important stuff to be talking about.

Let's do this. And as I'm looking at what I want to be able to do, this is cool, okay? And Rich got that. So I'd never do anything about it. It just showed up one day, and Rich is like, you're going to like this.

And it's taken me months to figure it out. But now he's very proud of the fact that I'm sitting over there, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, doing my thing, and I know how to make it work. And I think, now I think about it, I think there's a second generation of it out now too.

But anyway, this works. It's great. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. And so I'm coming down here, and I stopped at my favorite little Italian place to get some food. And as I'm walking in, I'm like, I sent a text message.

Because we're going to do it remote. Rich is going to be at home. And we've done that a number of times now from the other studio, using both cameras. Nobody can tell. I'm just in there alone. And we've got it dialed in and works fine.

And I'm like, I wonder if we can do that in the big studio. Because it's a different deal. It's not the same thing. But I was thinking all the stuff he's been doing recently might be possible. And lo and behold, it's working, at least so far anyways.

And so here we are. And I'm in here all by my own, so there's nobody down here. But me, myself, and I. And Rich is at home doing his thing. And we just hope it's going to work and hope it'll be a blessing in the process.

It's supposed to start raining. I don't think we're getting much out of this one, sadly. But because I was honestly, I was hoping it would just be coming down gangbusters tonight and keep those morons out of the alleyway with their M60 fire bombs that just about break the windows in my house.

But we will see. We will see. So anyways, we have important stuff to get today. We have the big board up and we've got God's Word on the big board. And that's why we do the things that we do here. And I wanted to start off with scripture.

I think that's, you know, we're finishing two difficult years. And I'd like to pray that 2022 will, that God would see fit to shine the light of His truth in our culture. That's the only hope we have.

I mean, how divided we are, how divided we have become. The depth of the depravity of secularism is all around us. And as far as I can see right now, it has completely taken control of the party on the left.

And the party on the right is, doesn't have a meaningful worldview to stand on. And so we just pray that the gospel would go forth a great power. It has in this land before, and that's the only hope this land has.

So may God be merciful in 2022. And may He use all of us to bring that about. But I want us to think about a key text in the scriptures that I have here on the screen right now. And I have three columns.

I have the 1977 NASB over here, my favorite. And the Hebrew, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensee in the center. We have Ralph's Septuagint on the right-hand side. And the reason for having all three up, obviously, is that we are looking at a text that many people are very, very familiar with, and that is Exodus 3 .14.

And I can't think of too many texts in the Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim. I like the term Tanakh better than the Old Testament. There's a specific meaning to Old Testament that, you know, we use it for the Hebrew scriptures.

But Hebrew scriptures, Tanakh, I think is a better descriptor than just Old Testament. But anyway, in the Hebrew scriptures, I can't think of many other texts that you can just immediately point to and recognize that what's going on in that text has deep theological meaning that will carry straight through to the New Testament.

Exodus 3 .14, this self-revelation of God. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you. And God furthermore said to Moses, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial name to all generations. Now, immediately, sadly, in some ways, you know, I've thanked the Lord more than once that I did have to go to a seminary that was way to my left because that has been vitally important to being able to engage with the left in our day.

But at the same time, there's, you know, as soon as I see that, the classes I took in Old Testament, even though I had good professors, I had to learn the left's view of the Tanakh. And I look at that immediately, and I know that in, man, minimally 90 of the seminaries in the English-speaking world or around the world at all, in 90 of the seminaries, someone would look at 3 .14 and 3 .15 and automatically draw a distinction.

And if they held the J-E-D-P, Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, priestly viewpoint of the redaction of the Old Testament, they would draw a line right here. Did I turn that off? Come on, baby. All right.

There we go. That's on. There we go. They would draw a line right here, and they would say there's been a redaction. And why would they say that? They would say that the Yahwist, because here's Yahweh, so here's 3 .15, and so here's Yahweh.

And they would say that because in 3 .14, God gives his name as I am who I am. I am that I am. Right there. They would say, well, that was the original. And then 3 .15 is added in by the Yahwist source because you have to have Yahweh in there.

The reason being, I wasn't gonna get into all this, but the reason being that once you presuppose that the nature of the Tanakh is a badly redacted and edited mess that has no supernatural origin and source to it, which is not what Jesus believed, then you're stuck with this kind of stuff.

It just always is the way you have to think. So you don't even get to think that. What you have here is that 3 .14 is giving us one aspect of the self-identification of God, and the second is giving us the covenantal or my memorial name to all generations, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.

And that you put the two together, and it's beautiful. But no, that's not how you get to do things with the Tanakh in most seminaries and Bible colleges. So back to Exodus 3 .14, burning bush. There's been some fascinating film portrayals of this, trying to in some way capture what it must have been like for Moses to see this amazing thing.

And the God who reveals himself there says, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And so the I am part there is the same as right here. And this, most scholars now just tell you ahead of time, there are a tremendous number of theories concerning exactly what's going on here and exactly what this phrase, especially, what is that related to and how to translate it?

Because it's technically future. So I will be who I will be. I am who I am. And you will get a lot of interpretations as to exactly what is here. And the problem is that as far as explicating the grammar in Hebrew over here in, I think it is, we do need to point this out.

I think it's important. Over here in the Greek Septuagint, God said to Moses, and here is your key phrase right here. Ego, I, me, ha-on. Ego, I, me, ha-on. I am the one being. Ha-on. If you're familiar with the term ontology.

Ontology, the study of being that is from on, the Greek ontology. I am the one being. And thus you will say to the sons of Israel, ha-on, sent me to you. Now, a lot of you will recognize ego, I, me. We'll get to that later on, but it is important.

Please catch this. If you're, if you do evangelism to Jehovah's witnesses, especially tuned in here, maybe even some of the sharper black Hebrew Israelites, those types of folks. There are a lot of books and tracks and things out there that will take you from passages like John 8, 58, where Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am.

And they will transport you directly wholesale right into Exodus 3, 14, say here's the connection. But if you're looking with me, you see that there needs to be a stronger connection made. Yeah. Ego, I, me is there.

But the emphasis, the power part of the phrase is ha-on. Because you see, that's what's translating. So tell the sons of Israel, ha-on sent you. And that's the second part, ego, I, me, ha-on. The one being sent me to you.

And so if you don't build the proper connections, which we'll be looking at in a moment, that's a illicit jump. I, it's an appropriate connection. We can talk about who revealed, who revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush.

And I think you can make a strong argument in light of Isaiah 6 and John 12, Genesis 18, 19, especially because the Genesis 18, 19 account is before this, temporally anyways, that we are talking about another pre-incarnate theophany appearance of the son.

But the point is the emphasis here is ha-on, the one being. So in the Greek septuagint, it's a present participle. I am the one being. So that's how the Greek septuagint translators understand it. So how much can we read into this particular text?

How much of God's being is revealed in the phrase, Well, some people in the past have certainly freighted this text with a massive amount of theology proper, a massive amount. I don't think there's any question that God's self-existence is found here.

And how would I defend that as a person who believes that exegesis needs to be the source of your beliefs? Well, one thing that I'm afraid we very frequently miss when we read the Old Testament is there is a tremendous amount of very appropriate apologetic being provided in the Tanakh.

And if you remember what Israel was surrounded by and who surrounded Israel, and if you take some time to do some reading in what's called Anet, A-N-E-T, the Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Pritchard, the editor, big old, well, back in the day, my day, it was sort of a reddish maroon volume, came out with a supplement to it because so much stuff's been found since then.

But if you take some time to read in that material, you get a sense of the Canaanite gods, the Assyrian gods, the Babylonian gods. And that should be, should be in your initial understanding of a text from 1400 years ago, I would say 1400 years, others would say 1200 years.

But in looking at a text from Moses, and I can say Moses, while other people will say Pentateuchal author, that's something I wouldn't want to have to say very often. I can look at this and say that initial context should be the first thing that you're seeing.

Can we make extended application? Yes, but we need to recognize it's extended application. If we don't recognize that we're doing that, we can fall into some serious errors. And so, what would this have meant in that day to Moses, who has just come out of Egypt?

He's been raised in Egypt. Everywhere he has walked, especially since he was viewed as Pharaoh's son, everywhere he has walked, he has been surrounded by the gods of Egypt. And he knows all their mythology.

And all their mythology, these gods did not create all things. They can order things and they can, they have certain divine powers, but the cosmos does not exist because of the will of a god. There are many gods, they interact with each other, they have limitations in their powers.

There are none who are ha-on. No god of Israel would say ha-on in this sense. They might claim some type of authority and self-existence within a certain realm, but not like this. And so, that's the first thing that you have to understand.

And once you've got that, then you can ask, is it appropriate to make further application? Now, the question becomes, how is this used in the New Testament? I mean, because we only, if all you have is this, you have to be, I think, humble and simply say, and I don't know why it's doing this.

I'm trying to keep an eye on a certain, not all of Arizona is quite as nice as all other places in Arizona. Let's just put it that way. And for some reason, this will only work for 20 minutes at a time.

I'm not sure why. There you go. I may just have to go over there and tap it once in a while just to keep it happy. Anyways, I apologize. That's the other reason, you know, when you're here alone and you sort of don't want to go out to your truck and find it sitting on blocks.

That's one problem with being within two and a half hours of the border. Anyway, well, we don't have a border anymore, so why does it really matter? What were we talking about? Moses in the bulrush. It's pretty close there, actually.

Not too far, actually, after that point in time. So you start there and then you ask the question, how much more can I put into this? I am who I am. God is the self-existent God. God is not dependent for his being upon the created order.

That is a fundamental part of the revelation that Yahweh makes of himself to the people of Israel. No question about it. No question about it. But how much farther can that be taken? Because if you take the time to look into Aquinas' use of this text, it becomes central to his establishment of a foundational metaphysic, metaphysic, borrowing from Aristotle, but Aristotle's God was not this God.

So Aquinas has to modify Aristotle, but he's still using Aristotle's categories. And Exodus 3 .14 is central to how Aquinas accomplishes this and sees in this emphasis upon the essence of God and utilizes that in his writings.

Well, how far can that be taken? Because there's obviously been, down through the centuries, a lot of argument. And I've noticed it's interesting. When a well-known theologian who upon his death achieves some level of respectful notoriety, when they held a certain position, they taught a certain doctrine, there is a hesitancy on the part of many to question that.

Not if it's one of the central issues, but especially if it becomes popular or commends itself or just gets repeated a lot. All of us know how often we have heard something repeated. For example, well, let's just, let's use an absurd example first because it's rather clear.

Look at the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist King James Only guys. The Bad Preacher Clips fellas posted a whole series, I think yesterday, demonstrating that this Psalm 12 mythology goes back to Ruckman.

All this stuff only goes back to the last century. It's a modern tradition. But it goes back to Ruckman and he posted all these people saying the exact same thing that Ruckman said about being purified seven times and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

So here you have a small group and a figure repeats this, and it sounds like it's a good argument. And so it gets repeated over and over again, but uncritically, no one really thinks through. And in fact, there is a hesitancy to critically analyze the claim because that may put you outside the power structures.

I'll give you another example. Let's go outside Woowooville. And how many times have you heard a preacher preach on the words of Jesus from the cross, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you abandoned me, forsaken me?

And they have, with great passion and fervor and emotion, spoken of that moment when the father turned his back on the son. It's even in that song, the father turned his back away. And when the father turned away, not turned his back away, whatever it is in the song, we've all sung it.

And it's normally around Easter time, and then you're preaching about the cross, and why it's just so powerful. And I grew up hearing that. I grew up hearing that. And then in my early adult years, as I am developing as a theologian, and as I'm studying, as I am constantly feeling, because I'm doing apologetics, that pressure to be consistent, I analyze that text and I realize, this is the quotation from Psalm 22.

And Jesus is identifying himself as that servant in Psalm 22. It's the most messianic Psalm in the Psalter. And the Psalm ends with a vindication of the suffering servant. And the idea that at the very time, Jesus is using the second person, he's addressing God.

He's not saying God's gone away. He's not saying, why did he go away? Why have you forsaken me? But those are the words of the psalmist. And so if Jesus is using, this is actually Jesus pointing people to this 22nd Psalm being fulfilled in him, and hence the vindication at the end.

This isn't anything about, I mean, literally a disruption of the Trinity itself. When the very point where the son is offering himself, he's doing the very will of the father, is when the father turns his back on him.

The very next words that he says from the cross, father into your hands, I commit my spirit. There's no sense of separation at that point. And I realized that that strong, passionate, and you've heard so many people preach it.

We're going to play a portion of a sermon today. And it was, I'm not going to play that portion, but it was right at the end. Same application. I've heard so many men that I love and respect and are good brothers.

And I just go, you know, part of Christian maturity is learning to love men who say things you don't agree with. That's part of historical maturity and reading men from the past. It's a wonderful thing when you can break out of that fundamentalist mindset that you had as a kid and actually read church history and appreciate people who worshiped differently and dressed differently and had forms of liturgy that you wouldn't feel comfortable with.

But and you can actually start recognizing that God has been fulfilling his promise through Christ to build his church. And it's a wonderful thing. It really is. Point is, there's an example of a tradition and there is a strong pressure exercised upon someone to just, look, if all these people said it, it must be true.

As if the fact that it's been repeated means it has been critically analyzed each time it was repeated. How many times was it not analyzed at all? In that first example I gave, none of those IFB guys are analyzing anything.

They're not giving any critical thought to it. They're just repeating it thoughtlessly. And in the second example, how many people sit back and really go, now I need to be careful here. I need to, okay, this is Psalm 22.

And no, you've heard it preached that way. And there is a less than subtle emphasis and pressure to go with what your favorite preacher, teacher, or whatever has said. That's why anybody watches this program, how many times I said, you check everything out.

I've got my blind spots. I'm not going to be one of those folks that says you just, no, I'm not going to do that. So point being, when we look at something like Aquinas' use of Exodus 3 .14, is the fact that there have been many people down through the ages, or at least in the centuries since then, who have utilized the categories that he delineated.

Does that mean that they sat back and looked at this text and said, well, how are these Hebrew and Greek phrases used in the rest of the Bible? And is the metaphysics that are behind this, the same metaphysics that would come from reading this, is this Moses' metaphysics?

Have we given up on even having an idea what Moses' metaphysics would have been? Are they thinking these things? Or are they just running with it because, well, my professors in seminary said that, my professors in university said that, and it just gets repeated over and over and over again.

It's an interesting question. So let's think about this phrase. And let me go to another set of texts here. This will be, let's see. Oh, that's right. There it is. Oh, and I thought I had blown them up a little bit, but I didn't.

There we go. Got to make it big enough for folks to see, big enough for me to see, let alone you. I mean, it's only, what is this, 72 inches? I don't even know how big it is. But all right. Remember, I said earlier that there is a step that we need to be aware of.

Hopefully those taps will keep it from turning off there. When we look at this phrase, ego, I mean, there is a place as Zephaniah, I can't scroll back to it right now, but the primary places you're going to find the connective bridge to Jesus's uses, which is John 8 .24, 8 .58, 13 .19, and 18 .5 -6.

In John, I think there's an argument to be made that when Jesus reveals himself as the I Am, when he's walking upon the water, that fits in as well, and that's in Mark. But the specific Johannine uses, you can see that the first is Isaiah 41 .4, and immediately, let me just, some people get upset with me for doing this.

I'm sorry. Again, it comes from having gone to a seminary way off to my left, but I have had young men come up to me over the years and thank me for doing this part. They admitted it bothered them at first, but they ended up at like even at a Christian university or something like that, and they started getting hit with this stuff, and they said, I was prepared because you did this.

So, I just, I keep doing it. So, it hinders the flow, but I think it's important. Why do I say this? When, again, when I look at this, when I look at this list of texts where egoimia is used, the Hebrews on a who, I didn't put the Hebrew up in this, but the first thought across my mind, again, coming from my education in the left is, we'll get the, notice where it starts, Isaiah 41 .4.

Now, 40 to 48, trial of the false gods, massively important stuff. But what you're going to hear in a, almost any standard Old Testament class is all of this is called, what they will call it is, spell it right, Deutero-Isaiah, second Isaiah, starting chapter 40.

And so, the theory is, and again, what gave rise to this? Have we ever found manuscripts where it ends at 39? No, we haven't. The theory behind it is, starting in chapter 40, you have reference to Cyrus.

And since that's in the future, we can't have writings that know people's names in the future. And so, this must be, the first section of the book was written pre-exile. And the second part is added in later, now that Cyrus has come along and they throw his name in there and call him the, well, he's actually called the Mashiach.

He's called the anointed one. Did you know that? Yeah. And so, this is what you're, when you go to that dangerous place called the Christian bookstore, if any exists any longer, and you buy the commentaries, this is what you're going to run into.

And I think it's better to point this out here and point out what started it. The assumption is there's no prophecy. It's better to hit it now. Did I say Deutero? Good. Deutero. There we go. Better to hear it now than to run into it in the context of unbelief.

That's my view. So anyways, wanted to throw that in there just for the fun of it because it's fun. Now, first one, Isaiah 41 .4, who has wrought and done these things? The one calling her from the beginning of generations has called her, I God, Ego Theos, I God, am the first, Protos, Kai Aista, Ep Er Kamina, Ego Aimi.

And for the things that are coming, Ego Aimi, I am. Hmm. There's a lot of that in Isaiah. I'm with the first of generations, the one calling her from the beginning of generations. There's a lot of that in Isaiah 40 -48, but here's the first place where we have Ego Aimi being used as a name of God.

Well, let's see if that continues. Next one is one of the most important texts, and we've gone through this in the past, but you have Isaiah 43 -10. So, so, so very important. Isaiah 43 -10, be my witnesses.

I am a witness, says Kurios Atheos, and my servant, whom I have chosen. And here's Hinnat Note, Kai Pistuseta, Kai Suneta, Hati Ego Aimi. Don't have a whole time, a lot of time, do this, but go to John 13 -19.

Look at the Greek. Jesus quotes this of himself in the context, that's not 17, there's supposed to be a nine there. There you go. In the context of the last supper, in the context of prophesying, just as you have right here, you may know and believe and understand that Ego Aimi, I am.

Here, Ego Aimi is being used as a name of God in the book of Isaiah. In the same form, there's no ha-on here. In the same form that it's used, in the exact same form with the verbs, not all three of the verbs, both with the verbs, same, same thing in John 13 -19, Jesus is quoting of himself.

Now, most of us know Isaiah 43 -10 because this very last phrase, before me there was no God formed and there shall be none after me, because we use this with Mormons all the time, but it is an incredibly rich text.

And there you have Ego Aimi. Now, look at Isaiah 43 -25. Look at this. Ego Aimi repeated twice. I am, I am the one who blots out, who forgives your sins. I am, the I am that does this. There you have the use being used in a very strong sense.

And then Isaiah 45 -18. Look at this. Ego Aimi, kurios ha-tisase. I am the Lord. I am the kurios who created you. Wow. The connections that we could, that we would have to. This is called a study of intertextuality.

You have two texts. You've got Isaiah. You've got the Tanakh general, Old Testament and the New Testament. So when you're looking at the relationships, but especially here, Isaiah into John, Isaiah into Paul.

I am kurios. So kurios, of course, standard term for the son over against theos, for the father, though they are switched. But normally you look at 1 Corinthians 8, theos used the father, kurios used the son.

I am the Lord who created you. And there's just, just go over to Colossians chapter one. It's all over the place. There you have the son as the creator, as the maker. There is no other than I am in Isaiah 45 -18.

I mean, this really is the source. Here's Ego Aimi used again twice with kurios in Isaiah 45 -19. I mean, it's all through Isaiah 45 -19. Ego Aimi Hotheos. 45 -22. 46 -9 Ego Aimi Hotheos. Do you see what I'm saying?

This is where you have to go from the Johannine corpus, from Jesus's usage to trace this properly back. Because now once you're firmly established here with Ego Aimi being used of Yahweh, now you can take it back to Exodus 3 and you have a solid connection.

If you just jump between the two, that's not the best way to do it. This is much stronger. But the point is when we're looking at Exodus 3 -14, now we've looked at the utilization of that terminology in the Greek Septuagint.

And now when we go into the New Testament, we go into Jesus saying, unless you believe that Ego Aimi, you will die in your sins. We go into John 13 -19. Jesus demonstrates who he is, his messiahship. He demonstrates who he is by utilizing this terminology.

This is where the open theists fall apart. If you remember the debate I did with the open theist fellow who passed away last year, didn't he? Or was it this year? Yeah. I think I'm recalling that correctly.

I think he did. I think it was sudden, unexpected. He wasn't that old. He was older than me, but wasn't that old. But anyway, that was part of that debate that we did. I focused upon John 13 -19 and what goes on there.

Of course, John 18 -5 -6, soldiers come, who are you seeking? Jesus, Ego Aimi. Jesus says Ego Aimi, they fall upon the ground. There's your connection. And now you have a firm, solid basis for saying that at least part of what is being revealed in Exodus 3 -14 is that this one who is I Am will reveal himself as the creator by entering into his own creation.

Which is what he's done, the burning bush, isn't it? Now see, there you have exegetically grounded foundation for saying what I'm saying to you is biblical. I did not have to go outside of scripture. Now, I'd say, oh, yes, you did.

You talked about the apologetic content of the Old Testament and the ancient Near Eastern texts. And so you went outside of scripture. I did in the sense of looking at the context, but I did not derive the categories to interpret this from that.

It's one thing to look at those categories. That is what the Babylonians believe, what the Assyrians believe, what the Canaanites believe. It's one thing to look at that and then look at the text and go, oh, the text is saying these guys are wrong.

That's one thing. That's an appropriate use external sources. It's another to go out here and get your categories and then put it on this and say, oh, it must be saying this because these categories say that.

See the difference? It's a big difference. It's an important difference. And it's one we need to really stay focused upon. I think that's very, very important. All right. Love this board, thankful like anything to the Lord that we have it.

And I hope it's useful to you. And I just want to thank all the people who gave so that we could put this, because that was only, when was the first time we did this here? When did we start? That was like, uh, yes, Jeff, I watched the video.

And so I know. And, uh, and honestly, Jeff, when I said that I had you in mind, love you, bro. But yeah, you show up at my house with all those things and there's going to be an X communication. Okay.

Now you want to know how crazy insane I am. I'm going to criticize Sinclair Ferguson on the dividing line. Can I tell you something? I love listening to this man preach. He is a wonderful brother-in-law we've never met.

Um, it is not fair. I think I do a Brit. I think I do a good Scottish bro. I really do. But he's really Scottish. Well, so am I, but he lives there. Well, he's lived there. Uh, and here's, here's again, where it's like, we need to have a level of maturity in the reform community where we can actually have conversations with one another.

And there needs to be a level of robust confidence so that we do not become brittle and easily shatter when there is disagreement. Um, it, it just must be, uh, there was a Facebook post. Let's see if I can find it.

Um, yeah, there was a Facebook post on December 29th by Chad Vegas. Chad is a form Baptist pastor over in the communist, um, country of California. And, uh, so we need to be praying for Chad and all those people under that, uh, communist rule and the insane people there, uh, in Sacramento.

Anyway, um, at 10, 19 PM, he posted this sermon from Sinclair Ferguson. And here's what, uh, he introduced it with quote, this sermon is well worth your time. It would be great if men like James White listened to it.

Let me just mention, um, it's just astonishing to me how many, um, individuals just assume that if you don't hold their positions, it's just because you haven't done the reading that they've done. I pointed out in response to, to brother Chad that, um, you know, these weren't, I said, remember back in the nineties, I don't know, Chad, I don't know.

I said, back in the nineties, we weren't, I spoke in reformed Baptist churches all over the place. I spoke at reformed Baptist conferences. I, we were not focused on this. This was, this was not, nobody was, no one even raised the question in all of the sermons that I remember, uh, well into the two thousands.

Um, but now if you don't just automatically embrace this, uh, then it's just because you just haven't done enough reading. I was, I was teaching church history starting in 1990 and I found out later that Chad wasn't even converted at that point and I think became reformed Baptist somewhere around 11 years ago.

Um, that doesn't make me right or him wrong. It's just, I really wonder at the willingness that people have to assume, um, well, if you don't, if you don't agree with me and I'm talking about within our own groups here and it's just because you just haven't done the reading that I have because if you've done the reading I have, you're going to agree with me.

And, um, we need to sort of get past that. It's, um, anyway, it would be great if men like James White listened to it. We need to understand these modern definitions of simplicity being posited by men like White are not the biblical nor the historically Orthodox doctrine of Christianity.

Now, keep that in mind, that term biblical, because we were just talking about what makes something biblical. It is biblical that the I am statement in Exodus 3 .14 is connected to the use of that same phrase in Isaiah and from that into the self-identification of Jesus as the I am in the Ohanian literature and possibly the Markan context as well.

That's biblical. Most people admit, um, that the, what's called the DDS, uh, the divine doctrine of simplicity, doctrine of God's simplicity, whatever terminology you want to use, that the form of that doctrine that is being not only emphasized, but insisted upon today, that specifically asserts that ad intra, the attributes of God are one and indistinguishable.