A Defense of the Deity of Christ

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All right, well, whenever it's around two o 'clock, genetically
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Baptists fall asleep. I'm not sure about Presbyterians, but it's a genetic thing.
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This is time for a, this is time for Baptanap. And so I always end up getting scheduled to speak while I'm supposed to be asleep.
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And I realized that you all are only hanging around so that you can see the gripper later on.
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What, no, has anybody asked you about that? I mean, people need to be, okay, good, good, I need to,
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I'm just trying to help the man continue to live in his old glories, you know. And so you're all waiting around for Eddie to speak.
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And if you haven't asked him why I call him the gripper and why many other people in the world call him the gripper, then you need to, you need to do that.
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And he'll regale you with his fascinating stories. But we have a limited amount of time.
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I forgot to look, actually, at the clock. I think
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I'm supposed to go to 3 .30. So I have a full hour and three minutes, something like that. That's pretty good.
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We'll take a shot at it here. If you turn with me and your Bibles, please, to 1 Peter 3.
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And you might be going, oh, great, 1 Peter 3. We all know that one. If you go to any apologetics conference, if you go and listen to any presentation on apologetics, everybody knows 1
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Peter 3. And every person who works in apologetics ministry has some talk that they are prepared to give based upon what you have here, because, hey, apologetics, the very term itself is found in verse 15, but treat
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Christ as holy or sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to give pros apologion, always being ready to give a defense.
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There's the whole concept of apologetics right there, pros apologion, to anyone asking you a reason for the hope that is within you, yet with gentleness and reverence.
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And so there you go. You're supposed to start talking about the importance of the fact that each one of us has this responsibility.
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This is not just addressed to the elders of the congregation, et cetera, et cetera. And as far as that goes, that's true.
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But I'm going to make a confession here, and that is for many years, I would make reference to this text, and I would give talks upon this text, and I had never really dealt with it in its own context.
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And to be honest with you, I can't remember anybody else who had either. Listening to my fellow apologists, maybe
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I was tuned out, maybe I wasn't listening. I don't know. But the fact of the matter is,
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I'm starting here in talking about the deity of Christ because this is an extremely strong reference to the deity of Christ, and I want to use it to introduce one of the key categories of evidence for the deity of Christ.
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If I were to lay them out, we would have the texts that we argue about the most, and those are the texts that use the word theos, or God, of Jesus.
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John 1 .1, John 20 .28, Romans 9 .5,
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maybe 1 John 5 .20, we have the issue of what's called the
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Granville Sharp Constructions in Titus 2 .13, 2 Peter 1 .1. The texts that utilize the very word
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God in description of Jesus. And you will find that your sharpest
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Unitarians know every single one of them, and can argue them in their sleep.
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And so, for example, I've often said, if you're going to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, you don't start with John 1 .1.
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That's exactly what they expect you to do. They have their answers down, they don't have to start thinking.
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You want to try to get a Jehovah's Witness to start thinking critically. And if they're just simply re -quoting to you and regurgitating to you what they've said to 500 other people at the front door that morning, they're not going to be really listening to what you have to say.
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And so you have those categories, and they're important, they're vitally, historically important. Then you have the categories of texts that describe
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Jesus in divine ways, that is, doing divine actions.
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And so, clearly, Colossians chapter 1, the description of Jesus as the creator of all things, whether in heaven and earth, is in that category.
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After John 1 .1, you've got John 1 .3, he's the one who's, you know, all things are made by him, without him was anything made that was made.
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You have texts like Philippians chapter 2 that would fall into that.
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And the exalted language texts, where Jesus is associated with the
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Father, things like that. Then you have a bunch of other stuff that we almost never see as evidence of the deity of Christ, and that was pointed out in,
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I think, one of the best books on the deity of Christ called Son of God, Lord of Glory, which I think you can get free online because it's way out of copyright, but I'm pretty sure
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Solid Ground Christian Books makes it available. One of the best books I ever read on the subject of the deity of Christ.
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And in that book, it is pointed out that we generally ignore the strongest evidence, which is found in forcing those who deny the deity of Christ to give a coherent, meaningful presentation of who they believe
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Christ to be. We as Christians generally allow ourselves to be put into the defensive mode, rather than saying to the
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Jehovah's Witness, okay, so you're telling me that Jesus is Michael the
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Archangel, the first and greatest of God's creations, right? And so the
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Spirit is just God's impersonal active force, and so your interpretation of the
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Great Commission in Matthew 28 is go and baptize them in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the
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Archangel, and an impersonal active force like running water. Right, that makes perfect sense.
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And we generally, they are good at putting us in the position of having to understand difficult text.
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We never do the same thing, because when you think about it, there is just, Jesus is walking along, and he'll say, anyone who believes my word will have eternal life.
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And we're like, yeah, and then you stop and go, wait a minute, most normal people don't say that.
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And in fact, in that context, believing my word, that's believing the word of God, really, and so what's
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Jesus saying about himself? And you're making yourself central to whether you're going to have eternal life, and that's really
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God's prerogative. And there's just, we are so accustomed to reading the
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New Testament properly and recognizing the exalted status of Jesus, that we just go flitting over all these texts.
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Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. That's not what Moses says. Any true prophet's pointing you to the one true
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God. Jesus is standing there, me, and we don't see it. And we don't push others to recognize that that is a massive category of information demonstrating that Jesus is something more than whatever it is the group you're talking to thinks he is, whether it's the
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Jehovah's Witness perspective, whether it's just a mere prophet, a mighty prophet of a law in Islam, whether it's whatever in the world the current crop of Unitarians are trying to come up with him to be, he doesn't fit into those categories, and we very frequently ignore that.
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But this text fits into what I think is the strongest category of text, and given limitation of time,
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I want to try to make sure we get these texts down before we move into any of the other texts, because believe me,
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I could spend this entire time on just Philippians 2, 5 through 11. Really could.
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We could spend just this time in Colossians chapter 1, we could spend just this time looking at Colossians 2, 9, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.
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I mean, you have tremendous texts that, especially if you have memorized them and understood them in context, will place you in great stead to be able to give a reason for your belief in the deity of Christ.
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And by the way, anymore, it's not just because you want to be ready on a Saturday morning when the
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J -dubs come by. In our context today,
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I would emphasize that believing in the deity of Christ is central to how we are giving a response to these social issues that we are facing.
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I don't know if any of you saw it, but about three years ago, four years ago, I had the opportunity of being, when it was still on, on the
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Dr. Drew Show, and it was on the subject of transgenderism. And at one point, one of the hosts just completely murdered the doctrine of the
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Trinity. And I had to sort of sit there and say, yeah, no, that's not what we believe, actually. And he was like, it's not, that's not what you believe.
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And when I raised the reality that Jesus had taught that God created mankind, male and female, and that this was a good thing, and of course there are transgender folks, quote unquote, on the panel.
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One of the things that I said to one of the hosts was, and by the way, he predicted his own death and his own resurrection, and he left behind an empty tomb, and that gives him the authority to teach on these particular issues, an authority you don't have.
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And so it's no longer just, I want to be able to help that Jehovah's Witness come to know the truth about who
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Jesus is. That's a very good thing. I appreciated meeting someone here just last evening, or maybe it was this morning already, greeted a lot of folks who came out of that, and that's what you needed.
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You needed someone who could really sit you down and show you what the scriptures said. That's a fantastic, good, wonderful thing.
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We need to pray for Jehovah's Witnesses and seek to reach out to them. But beyond that now, in our day, in a way that we really had not thought of in the not -too -distant past, we need to have in our own minds a proper recognition and understanding of the fact that when you present
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Jesus' teachings, you're not presenting the teachings of just another moral teacher. You're presenting the teachings of the one who designed you.
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And every breath that you take and every beat of your heart is at His will. That gives
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Him ultimate authority. And so often when we have conversation with people, we have conversation with people who are limiting
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Jesus to just merely one of many historical perspectives. A nice guy, but limited.
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No, if what we believe is true about who Jesus is, you cannot be neutral about Him, and you cannot question
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His authority. That's what was so stunning to me about Daniel Kirk's statement in that debate I mentioned this morning.
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Here is an ostensible Christian teacher. Well, Jesus is just a first century man.
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I mean, He didn't really understand all these things, you know, and we need to be able to move beyond His limited understanding of things.
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That's not Christianity. That's not even close to Christianity. And so, keeping that in mind, these texts are becoming all the more important, because you may be called upon to give an answer for why you believe that you should give more authority to Jesus's teaching than the
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Supreme Court, which in the not -too -distant future, whether we like it or not, unless God does something, is probably going to rule that you should lose all of your property and your civil rights if you dare to offend somebody who's transgender.
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You say, that'll never happen. Obergefell. It's the only word
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I have to say. And just read the minority opinions. They see it coming. The justices and the minority opinions in that case, and of course, that was just merely opinions of the majority too, they saw it coming.
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They recognized this opens the door to a complete reorientation of our entire structure of society, and they were exactly right.
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And so, are you going to be willing to lose it all? House, family, friends, relationships, based upon Jesus's teaching?
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Then you better know who He was. You better know who He was. So these things have become important. So 1 Peter 3, 15, where is the deity of Christ?
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Well, you ready? You awake enough to do this? I'm not, I was a little hesitant, you know, in the afternoon, you know,
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I'm not sure how much caffeine is really in that stuff, and I don't drink coffee. So if you're like me,
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I can't, I can't do caffeine. It would kill me. I'm a heart patient. So that would, that'd be, you know, that'd be the end of that.
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And I'm sure there'd be a lot of people would love to watch the video of that personally. That would be a big, that'd be a big
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YouTube sensation. James White, you know, falls dead while every false religion on the planet would be claiming that one for themselves.
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They'd probably just blame you, Sam, because the camera would pan around, they'd go, hey, I know what happened.
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I know what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. All right. So where is it? Well, here's, there's some background stuff that this has been really important for you on all sorts of different levels.
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But one thing you want to have, if you do not have access to the
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Greek New Testament directly, is you want to have a translation of the New Testament that gives you a clear indication of when the
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Old Testament is being cited. The old NASB did that by screaming at you. Of course, you're going, what?
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The New American Standard Bible, and I'm not sure what's going to be in the 2020 edition coming out, but the
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NASB has used block print in capital letters to indicate
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Old Testament citations. The problem is that was done long before there was an internet and long before putting everything in caps is how you scream at people on the internet.
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And so now that you ever quote the New American Standard, it looks like you're screaming at everybody. And that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a problem.
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So different translations will do it. Some translations won't do it at all.
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When I was in Russia, they're not only do their, almost, they only have pretty much just one translation that they use, the
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Russian Synodal Bible. And not only does it not give any indication of Old Testament citations, it gives no indication of the use of the
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Tetragrammaton. What do I mean by that? When you're reading in the
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Old Testament, in your Bible translations, you see the words, the letters L -O -R -D in caps, even though the
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O and the R and the D are a smaller font size, but they're still in the capital forms. That's the English Bible translator's way of telling you the underlying
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Hebrew term is the Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wau -Heh, Yahweh, or as we slaughter it in English, Jehovah.
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So it's very important to notice that. It's very important to recognize when that's being used.
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It's used over 6 ,000 times in the Old Testament, so it's sort of good to know when it's there. But in Russia, they had no way of knowing when the name of Yahweh was being used.
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They didn't know when the Old Testament was being cited. And that was troubling to me because there are some extremely important issues to be found there.
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So if you look at verse 14, the end of verse 14, do not fear them, neither be afraid nor troubled or something along those lines is normally the translation.
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Now if you look at your translation, is that indicated as an Old Testament citation?
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Is it put in block quotes or italics or something along those lines? Maybe there's a note in the column or something like that, which we normally ignore those things.
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But this is a citation from the Old Testament. And if you go back and you look, for example, you will find a number of texts in the
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Old Testament that are going to be somewhat related to what we're looking at here, but specifically if you look at Isaiah chapter 8 and you start reading through Isaiah chapter 8, you discover that there is this very, very interesting discussion of Immanuel, Immanuel, God with us.
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And some of the English translations aren't really good at being consistent in how they render this.
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But if you go to Isaiah chapter 8, verse 12, you are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all this people call a conspiracy.
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You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. There's your source.
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There is what Peter is making reference to in talking to the
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Christians who are the recipients of this letter. Isaiah 8, 12, you are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all this people call a conspiracy and you're not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.
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Now, you might look at that and just go, okay, so he found, you know, he looked through his
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Old Testament and found a text that had something about not being in fear and not being in dread.
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And it's sort of like one of those inspirational, you know, things you see in bathrooms, you know, to be the best you can be, or some really bad
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Christian ones where people just were not looking at the context at all. And still they may put a pretty picture and they sold it for 50 bucks.
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So all was well. But is that what Peter was doing? Well, don't think so.
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Because look at verse 13, it is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy.
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And look at the word LORD. You should notice that it's in all caps. The O and the
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R and the D are smaller font size, but it's in all caps. That is the English Bible translator's way of saying that is
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Yahweh. So it is Yahweh of hosts whom you should regard as holy.
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So what's interesting is when you look at verse 15,
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I don't know of an English translation, I could be wrong about this, but I do not know of an
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English translation that continues the indication of Old Testament citation into verse 15, but they should.
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They should, because it continues. Peter's still quoting from Isaiah 8. And in my
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Greek text, it is indicated as being a continuation of the
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Old Testament citation because they put the word Lord and sanctify, hagiocite, in italics, which is this way, this version's way of saying this is a citation from the
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Old Testament text. And so the editors of the Nessiolan text recognized, yeah, Peter continued to quote.
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Ah, but what does that mean? Those first few words, Lord, but Lord, the
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Messiah, the Christ, hagiocite, treat as holy in your hearts.
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Now that term kurion then, Lord, as it's coming through in Peter's citation, is in reference to whom?
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Yahweh. It is Yahweh of hosts that you are to treat as holy. So the word that has been added in by Peter is
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Messiah, Christos. So who is the
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Messiah? Because he puts Christos, it's Christon, it's in the accusative, kurion is in the accusative.
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They're both a direct object of treat as holy. So treat as holy, set aside as holy, in the very center of your being, in your hearts, what?
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Kurion tan Christon, Yahweh the Messiah, because that's what it's being quoted from.
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If we look back at Isaiah chapter 8, if we ignore the Old Testament background, if we close our eyes to it, then we might not see it.
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But this is one of those many places in the New Testament where the New Testament writers purposefully, knowingly, draw from an
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Old Testament text that was about Yahweh, and they apply that terminology and that language specifically to the
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Son. And yet, often because of our translational issues and because we don't take the time to look back at Old Testament context, we don't see that right here we are being told to treat as holy in our hearts, kurion tan
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Christon, the Lord, the Christ. Now one of the reasons that I confess years worth of having handled this text without having seen this is because the always being ready to give a defense, the apologetic part, is all subservient to this part.
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It's all subservient to this part. If you are not, in your hearts, setting aside and treating as holy, the incarnate
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Lord, the one who entered into human flesh, Yahweh God, in the person of the
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Son, then you're not really ready to be giving an answer for the hope that's within you because the hope's going to be within you because you've got things right, first of all, in your heart.
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And I never emphasized that. Whenever I addressed this text, I was just, we've got to get everybody excited about apologetics.
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Got to get them excited about going out and talking to this group or that group. But the point is this text is addressed to every single
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Christian and it's in the imperative. It's a command. And the command is to every single Christian, you are to order your heart and your life in light of treating as holy, the incarnate one himself.
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That's what orders all the priorities of your life. And when your life is prioritized and ordered in that way, then it will make such an impact upon how you respond to trials and difficulties and tragedies.
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It'll have such an impact on how you are not going to be in love with the things of this world.
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And if you have the love of those things, love the Father is not in you, happens to be a direct biblical citation.
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That the result is that people are going to see the hope that is within you and they're going to go, hey, where did you get that?
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You're not like the rest of us. You're not responding the way the rest of us do. But you see there is an order here and we skip it if we don't recognize what comes first.
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And it's a daily command to set aside Yahweh the
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Messiah as holy in your hearts. Recognize that you have been called to serve not merely a moral philosopher, but the very incarnate
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Son who entered into human flesh, who together with the Father and the Spirit share that one being of God identified in Scripture as Yahweh.
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Now, that sermon was free. I was not asked to, well, not be charging Jeff or the church for that extra little bit of sermon there, but this is just one of many texts.
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Now you've probably seen on the back of books and stuff like that, these charts where on the one side you have texts about Yahweh, Jehovah, and then on the other side you have texts about Jesus, and there's an arrow that goes between the two.
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And it's like, see, Jehovah is this, Jesus is this. That's fine, but be careful.
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Because sometimes some of those will say, Yahweh is king, Jesus is king.
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Does that make Jesus Yahweh? Because there have been lots of kings. If kingship makes you
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Yahweh, then David was Yahweh too. So you have to be very, very careful in thinking through, was it the intention of the author to actually communicate identity in these words, or are we just simply talking about general categories?
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God is loving, Jesus is loving. Okay? Therefore, Jesus is God. That's not the best type of argumentation that can be made because there are others who are loving in the universe as well.
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So it has to be something that actually communicates something about identity, something that's unique.
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Now, obviously, treating Yahweh as holy in Isaiah 8 is unique.
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You're not to treat anyone else as holy. You're not to worship anyone else. So the uniqueness aspect is found here.
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But those charts, they can be helpful in some places, but in other places you're actually leaving yourself open to fairly easy reputation by someone who's really, really sharp.
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Okay? Now, many years ago, I've told this story before. If you've heard it, I'm sorry, you're going to get to hear it again, but people have found this to be so useful when they've not heard it before.
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But many years ago I was asked to meet with three Jehovah's Witness elders in someone's home on a Saturday morning.
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I came in, I was very open with them. I said, I teach at a local university,
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I lecture on theology and apologetics, I teach people what you believe. Now, normally with most
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Jehovah's Witnesses, that would be enough to start zipping up the book bag and heading for the road. We ain't, he ain't going to be taking any washed hours and awakes from us, so let's just not even worry about it.
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But these were elders, and there were three of them together, and I think that sort of made them like, you know?
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And so I said, in fact, could I explain to you, could
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I tell you what I tell other people you believe? And they're like, okay. They found that to be interesting.
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And so I gave them just the best theocratic ministry school language presentation of what
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Jehovah's Witnesses believe, and using their language and sources and stuff like that. And I get done, and they're like, wow, you could have given that at the
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Kingdom Hall. No one would have had any objections to anything you just said. And I said, well, I think it's important that you be accurate.
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I think you need to represent the other side fairly and accurately. Having accurately represented them and shown them some respect and having done my homework, then
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I said, now, I'm a Trinitarian. I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. I know what your objections to the doctrine of the
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Trinity are, but I'd like to explain to you why I'm a biblical Trinitarian. And I said,
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I'd like to do it from the Bible. And they're like, okay.
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Because they obviously don't believe there's any way to do that. Any way to do that at all, all right? So here's what
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I did. And I would suggest possibly following this same order.
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It will work best for you. I said, could you turn in your Bibles, please, to the
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Psalter, Psalm 102, and could you read some verses for me? And it's okay to go ahead and use the
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New World Translation at this point. You don't need to get into an argument about the NWT. That gets their defensive shackles up, and they're all, and you can get into that at another point.
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You'll run into some mistranslations during this, but get to it at a later point. You want, most
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Jehovah's Witnesses will not take literature from you. Some do, but very few. But I've never had a
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Jehovah's Witness leave their Bible behind. And so if you can show them in the
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Bible, they'll take that Bible with them, all right? So could you read me
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Psalm 102, 25 through 27? And so they'll turn to Psalm 102. And so I say, now, if you just go back just a few verses to verse 22, is not the name of Yahweh used.
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And, of course, in their translation, it's Jehovah. So it'll say, in the kingdoms to serve Jehovah, verse 24, oh my
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God, do not take me away in the midst of my days, et cetera, et cetera. And so we're talking about Jehovah God here.
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And I say, now, is there anyone other than Jehovah God who is unchanging, who founded the earth of old, the heavens are the work of his hands, they perish, you endure, all them wear out like a garment, by clothing you will change them, they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will not come to an end.
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Is this not uniquely about the one true God, Jehovah? Well, yes,
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Jehovah is the one true God. Now, of course, they believe that the first and greatest thing that Jehovah God created was
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Michael, and then through Michael created all other things, and that Michael became Jesus, even though it became part, it's a little bit difficult to trace in their theology, but that's the mindset that they have.
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But Michael is still a created being. He is still on this side of the creator -creation distinction. And so what you've done is you have put your finger on a unique attribute of Jehovah God, he is unchanging.
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And it freaked them out a little bit that I was using their language and admitting, hey, Jehovah God, this is how
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Jehovah God is, there's only one true God, Jehovah God, et cetera, et cetera. You keep your hand or your finger in that and say, okay, in light of that, could you turn over to Hebrews chapter 1?
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And again, you don't want to get into an argument about some of the other texts that you can get into an argument at about at this point or you'll lose their attention.
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But it is important to recognize who's being addressed in Hebrews chapter 1. And so at verse 6, and when he again brings firstborn in the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him.
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Now the Jehovah's Witness thinks firstborn means first created, get to that at a later time. You can deal with Colossians 1 .15
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at a later point. The point is, let all the angels of God worship him, of the angels, he says, who make angels winds and his ministers the flame of fire, but of the sun, he says.
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Now here, the sun is distinguished from the angels. That's also important in dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses.
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But don't go there right now either, because you'll mess it all up. The point is that verse 8 says, but of the sun, he says, your throne,
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O God, is forever and ever the righteous scepter of the seventh kingdom. You have loved righteousness, hate lawlessness, therefore God, your
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God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. They're going to want to look at verse 9 primarily, see God has a
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God, can't have that. Their translation says, God is your throne. Don't get into that.
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The whole point is that verse 8 says, but of the sun, he says, and then verse 10 says, and comma, next quote.
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So the point is this, even in their translation, this is about the sun. This is specifically about the sun, okay?
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And you, Lord, the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens, the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.
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They all become old like a garment, like a mandrel, you will roll them up like a garment. They will also be changed, but you're the same and your years will not come to an end.
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Direct citation from the Greek Septuagint, initially about Yahweh here being applied to the sun.
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Now there are Unitarians who try to find ways around this. I believe that Brother Eddie is going to be addressing part of that in the next talk in regards to how one particular individual that I've debated, some of you may have seen the debate that I did, and I had forgotten that there were a couple of troublemakers in the audience, one of whom is with us today, that day at the
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Jewish Voice broadcast where Michael Brown and I debated Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Good on this, and this particular issue came up.
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But I think Brother Eddie is going to be going into a little more depth on this. Most Jehovah's Witnesses have never seen this.
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And so at this point, very, very, very practical piece of advice here, very, very practical.
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All depends on what your attitude is at this point. If you simply want to draw theological blood, then what you're going to do is you're going to pull out your nice, long theological sword, and you're going to aim it at the
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Jehovah's Witness heart, and you go, so what about that, buddy? Yeah! Okay?
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And then you're going to pull it out and wave it around and go, Facebook, look at me!
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You know? And that will be the end of the conversation. And the problem is that individual will come up with an answer.
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It may be the dumbest thing they've ever said in their entire life, but they will come up with an answer, and they'll probably go to their grave believing that answer because you forced them to.
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You've got to do a heart check, not with the sword, by the way. Okay? You've got to do your own heart check and say, what do
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I really want to accomplish here? And what really needs to be done is if you can tell they've never been hit with this before, then you need to give them space to consider it.
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You need to take the pressure off, because they feel the pressure as Jehovah's Witnesses to give an answer to anything.
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That's their way of doing things. So what you've got to almost immediately do is say, now, if you've not looked at that before, it would be unfair of me to ask you to give an answer for that.
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I would just ask you to look into that and to maybe get back with me. Now you're opening up the possibility of another meeting.
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Get back with me on that, and could I show you another? Now you see, if you just thrust your sword, you never get to show them the second one, you're probably not going to ever have a second opportunity of talking to them.
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And they're not going to walk out going, I had never seen that before. I need to look at that.
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So very practical application at that point. Where did I go next?
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Because they said, I said to them, it wouldn't be fair. I said, can
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I show you another one? And I've never had a Jehovah's Witness say no. I can see that happening.
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But I've never had a Jehovah's Witness say no, whenever this has happened. And so I said, okay, let me show you just one other.
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And this time, the order isn't overly important, but I think it's probably best simply to go to John chapter 12.
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And I have found it's very, very useful in talking to people to establish the context of the verses that you're looking at.
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Simply on a human to human level, if they can tell that you can turn to John chapter 12 and say something along the lines of, now, of course, we know this is the end of Jesus' public ministry from John chapter 13 onwards.
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It's his private ministry to his disciples. And, you know, the Greeks have come looking for Jesus and Jesus doesn't show himself to the
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Greeks. And he instead starts talking about this judgment that is coming and making blind people as judgment upon them and stuff.
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And so it's a fascinating text. Just simply by giving that accurate background, what you're communicating to the person is,
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I'm not just giving you some pre -memorized verses I have written in the back of my Bible and I really don't, I'm just doing my best here.
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You're communicating something that's going to help them to actually see your point and give it a proper evaluation.
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And so you can go to 39 or, you know, 39 is a good place to go.
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For this reason, they could not believe for Isaiah said, he is blind to their eyes and he hardened their heart so they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted and I heal them.
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These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the rulers believed in him, but because the
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Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. Now, one quick translational issue here.
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If you have the NIV, it's problematic at this point. And the reason for that is that the
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NIV had a rule in its translation that basically
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Greek will utilize pronouns. And because Greek pronouns have case, gender, and number, they'll go with pronouns longer than we normally will because you can tell what it's referring to.
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You can tell what its reference is. So when there's a bunch of pronouns in a row that go for a long time, the
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NIV said, once you're a certain number of words away, we're going to go back and use the proper name of someone who's being referred to so people don't get lost.
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And so what happens is in the NIV, it says these things Isaiah said because he saw
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Jesus's glory and he spoke of him. But no manuscript says Jesus. That can be a problem because their
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Bible's not going to say Jesus. Their New World Translation is going to say these things
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Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him. So that can make them go, hey, you're trying to pull something on me type of a situation.
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So just be aware of that, whatever translation you happen to be using. The literal translation is these things
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Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him. OK?
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Now, most of us have read this text over and over again. Our minds were focused upon, hey, verse 40's got some tough stuff in it.
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He's blinded their eyes, hardened their hearts, and all the issues about judicial hardening and what that means and what comes first.
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And we've got all that stuff going on in our minds. And as a result, verse 41, you just sort of go wandering past it.
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But stop and think about it. These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him.
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When did Isaiah see the glory of Jesus? Because that's what it says.
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He saw his glory and he spoke of him. It's the him is Jesus. Nevertheless, many even of the rulers believed in him.
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That's talking about Jesus. So when did Isaiah see the glory of Jesus? Well, again, it's important to recognize verse 40 is a quotation.
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It's a citation from the Greek Septuagint, and it comes from probably the best known chapter in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6.
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And if you know that text, you know that that is the vision, the temple vision that Isaiah has of Yahweh sitting upon his throne.
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Now, it actually says, I saw the Lord. It's Adonai there. I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, but later in the text, he's identified with the
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Tetragrammaton as Yahweh, as Jehovah. And it is from the commissioning of Isaiah.
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When Isaiah says, how long, O Lord? Part of that response that comes from the commissioning is, he has blinded their eyes, hardened their hearts, so on and so forth.
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So the question then becomes, is this what John is referring to?
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Because some people like Greg Stafford have said, well, before that, back in verse 38, he's quoting from Isaiah 53, which, of course, is about the
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Messiah, and that's glorious too. And so it's just there, it's just about the Messiah. But here's the issue.
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If you remember back to Isaiah 6 .1, in the year that King Uzziah died,
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I saw the Lord, lofty and lifted up, sitting upon his throne. And then what? And the train of his robe was filling the temple is the
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Hebrew Masoretic reading at that point. But this is interesting.
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That's not what the Greek Septuagint says. And ask yourself a question. When John's writing his gospel, most people would say that he is writing after the destruction of Jerusalem.
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There's some people that say everything's pre -70, whatever. But if he is writing later, and if he is
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Patmos, Ephesus, there's various places he's been identified as having gone, his quotations are from the
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Greek Septuagint. His quotations are from the Greek version of the Old Testament. And so when you look at the
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Greek version of the Old Testament, there's something very, very interesting. In Isaiah 6 .1,
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it makes no reference to the train of his robe filling the temple. In the Greek Septuagint, it says, his glory filled the temple.
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And what does verse 41 say? These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory.
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So everybody that John can assume is going to be in his audience, at least initially, the version of the temple vision that they have specifically has
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Isaiah seeing the glory of Yahweh at the beginning of the
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Isaiah 6 story, which is where the quotation verse 40 comes from. And so plainly, if you ask
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Isaiah, Isaiah, whose glory did you see? Isaiah's response is, I saw Yahweh's glory.
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If you ask John, John, whose glory did Isaiah see? John's response is
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Jesus'. He saw Jesus' glory and he spoke about him.
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Now, once again, at that point, in talking to the Jehovah's Witnesses, I again said, now, if you've not seen this before, it'd be inappropriate for me to ask you to give an answer.
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But what I want you to understand is that this is why I'm a Trinitarian. I'm a
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Trinitarian because I believe there is one being of God. There is only one true
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God, Jehovah. And you believe the same thing, right? Well, sort of.
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I believe Jesus is a God. I didn't get into that at that particular point in time. There is one true
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God who has eternally existed. He's unchanging, and that's Jehovah. And if you understand the doctrine of the
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Trinity, we believe that there is one being of God that is shared by three persons, being and person are not the same thing.
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There is one being of God, of Yahweh, eternal, unchangeable, unlimited.
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That one being is shared by three persons. And you and I agree, the Father is identified as Yahweh.
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It is the Father who laid our sins upon the Messiah in Isaiah 53, and that's
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Yahweh. So the Father is identified as Yahweh. Now we've seen two texts here, and of course, we have seen three texts when you put in 1
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Peter 3 .15, that identify Jesus as Yahweh. There are others you could add.
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I mean, Philippians 2 .5 -11, if I have, we may have time to actually get to that one. I'll show you one there. But there are numerous places where Jesus is identified as Yahweh.
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And of course, the spirit of the Lord in the Old Testament is spirit of Yahweh, L -O -R -D in caps.
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And the spirit searches the deep things of God. So if you're the spirit of Yahweh, then that identifies you intimately with Yahweh, not some other
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God or some other. So you have, and I said, look, we do not confuse. You need to sort of explain this to Jehovah's Witnesses because they run into oneness people once in a while, but more often they just run into Christians that don't know what they're talking about, and so they get confused.
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And so they sort of think we think Jesus is functioning as a ventriloquist at his baptism, and he's throwing his voice and all the rest of this kind of stuff.
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And the Watchtower doesn't mind that they remain confused about that. That's helpful from their perspective too.
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But you need to say the Bible plainly distinguishes between Father, Son, and Spirit.
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They are not confused with one another. And yet each one is identified with the one name
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Yahweh, Jehovah. And so the reason I am a Trinitarian is because I believe all the
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Bible teaches. The Bible teaches there's one God. The Bible presents to me three persons who are distinguished from one another, and then identifies them each as participating in that one name,
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Yahweh. That's why I'm a Trinitarian. That's why Christians down through the centuries have been Trinitarians. And it got really quiet in there.
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It got really quiet in there because they just never heard a presentation like that. And you've just got to, you know, from my perspective, that's when you hopefully prayed beforehand, you're going to pray afterwards, that the
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Spirit of God is going to work upon these individuals' hearts. But these particular texts, especially in that context,
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I find to be exceptionally compelling. They're also very useful within the context of dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, because from their perspective, they'll go ahead and call
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Jesus God in a sense. But as one former Jehovah's Witness said to me many, many years ago, we could argue about whether Jesus is a
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God or God, but if Jesus is Yahweh, the case is closed. The case is closed.
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It's done. And so for Jehovah's Witnesses especially, that's exceptionally compelling to utilize those particular texts.
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It might not be as—I wouldn't suggest 1 Peter 3 as one to necessarily use in that context, just because of the difficulty of bringing the textual data to bear, but it is still in that particular context.
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And so it would be useful if we go to the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as a
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God, Philippians chapter 2. I've got enough time to sneak this in because I obviously believe it to be one of the most important Christological texts in the
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New Testament for obvious reasons. And it's also simply one of the most incredible texts in all of the
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New Testament. But this also falls into—this is a mixed text.
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And what I mean by mixed text is there is a portion that, again, makes the sun -Yahweh connection later on in the text, but it also falls into another category of references to the deity of Christ, not only in his actions, but in the descriptions that are made of him.
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And so it really is a central text. And so let me go through it.
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Some of you may have seen an article I wrote, wow, decades ago now, I think, that was in the
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CRI Journal. And this is the translation that I gave in that article of the
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Carmen Christi, and then we'll go back through it a little bit more slowly, though we only have limited time. Here's my translation.
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You must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who, although he eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality he had with God the
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Father something to be held onto at all costs, but instead he made himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness.
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And having entered into human existence, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death one dies on a cross.
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Because of this, God the Father exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him the name, which is above every name, so that the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bows the knee, and every tongue confesses,
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Jesus Christ is Lord, all to the glory of God the Father. Now, you'll notice a few italicized words there.
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Let me run through it as quickly as I can to explain where they came from, but here is the key to remember.
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This is a sermon illustration. That's what's astounding about it to me.
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This is a sermon illustration, because if you look at verse 4 and then go to verse 12, you could take the sermon illustration out and the sermon would be the same.
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Just wouldn't have an illustration in the middle of it. That is the key to the interpretation of the text at a key point, because Unitarians say, no, he did not have equality with the
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Father, and he did not try to grasp at something he did not have. But this is an illustration of humility of mind.
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And humility of mind is having certain rights and privileges, but voluntarily laying them aside in the service of others, because that's what
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Paul is saying. The secret to unity in the church, don't be so focused upon yourself. Yes, we're all equal before the cross, but you lay those rights aside in the service of others.
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That's what humility of mind is about. And you want to see the greatest example of that, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.
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So let's see how Jesus exercised humility of mind. Who eternally existing.
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It's a present tense participle, and some people say you're pushing that too far, but given the context,
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I don't think that I am. Who eternally existing in the morphe theu, the form of God.
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And here's the probably most disputed portion. Did not consider it something to be grasped, that is equality with God.
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Now, the question is, is that something he already possessed and did not consider it something to be held on to, or something he did not possess and did not try to obtain?
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So there are, the Lutherans have an interesting view of this, at least some
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Lutherans have an interesting view of this, that goes to their doctrine, the ubiquity of the body of Christ, do not have time in 11 minutes to get into that.
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But they do have an interesting, which changes the context of this. This text has come up in the complementarian egalitarian debate as well, which is interesting.
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But for me, the deciding factor is that if equality with God was not something that he actually possessed, that makes him a creature.
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And hence, to grasp at equality with God as a creature could never be seen as an act of humility.
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That's just not committing blasphemy. I mean, I can think of somebody else who tried to grasp at equality with God.
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They called him Lucifer, Satan, Satan. I can't do as well as certain people could, but I'm not going to ask them to do that from the audience.
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That's not humility of mind. That would not make this a fitting example of what humility of mind is.
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Not only that, but then at the beginning of verse 7, you have Allah, an adversative that is used there, rather than what you have in verse 6, instead, he made himself of no reputation.
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Literally, the term there, kana 'o, means to empty. But Paul never uses kana 'o in a literal sense.
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He always says, I don't want my labor amongst you to become empty. That's not a literal utilization.
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That is a metaphorical use of becoming vain, becoming useless, having no reputation. And so, who does this?
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It's a reflexive pronoun in the original language. He made himself of no reputation. He emptied himself.
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This is the action of a person. A divine person. And if this taking the form of a servant is the incarnation, which
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I believe that it is, this is where the Lutheran view comes in. There are certain Lutherans who believe that this actually has reference to the night of Jesus' betrayal, where he girded himself with a towel and washed the disciples' feet.
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Just letting you know. I think that really misses the point, but there are people out there that will say that.
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And so, taking the form of a servant. The problem here is, although existing in the morphe theu, the term morphe, and here, taking the form of a servant, morphe dulu, that's morphane, that's in the accusative, but it's the same root.
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So, whatever, however it was he existed in the form of God, that's the way he exists in the form of a servant as well.
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So, if he was truly a servant, then he was truly in the form of God as well. And so, the only way for this to function as an illustration of humility of mine is, even though he truly exists in the form of God, he did not consider that equality he had with God the
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Father something to be grasped or held onto, but instead, he made himself of no reputation by, this is the incarnation, doing something positive.
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And what is that? Taking on the form of a servant. So, the incarnation makes himself of no reputation by positively taking on that human nature.
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So, it is a voluntary act of humiliation. That's even what it's described as later on.
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And being found, and being made in the likeness of man, and being found in likeness as a man, he humbled himself.
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That's the exact term that Paul has used in the preceding portion of Philippians chapter two.
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You need to have a humility of mind amongst yourselves, and here is an ultimate example of what that looks like.
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He takes on the form of a servant. He's made in the likeness of men, and being found in that appearance as man, he humbled himself.
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There it is again. Not he was humbled, but he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, literally, even the death of the cross.
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Even a cross death, or a crucifixion death. That term, staurao, was so strong in many people's minds that they would not use it in polite conversation, because a
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Roman could not be crucified. It was the worst way to die. It was almost a curse word. And yet Paul uses it to describe the death that he died.
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He became obedient unto the point of death, even a cross death, a crucifixion death.
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Therefore, and I rendered it as God the Father, because that is who is being identified here.
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You see that down in verse 11. So since the context is going to utilize it,
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I do as well. Therefore God the Father highly exalted him and gave to him the name which is above every name, in order that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven, on earth, under the earth, every tongue confess that.
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And then Hati is functioning here like introduction quotes.
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Every tongue confess what? Here's the quotation. Kurios Jesus Christos, Jesus Christ is
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Lord. But the word kurios comes first, Lord, Jesus Christ. What does
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Paul say you can only say by the Holy Spirit? Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the confession, but it has to have meaning to it.
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And so every tongue will confess that, kurios Jesus Christos, Jesus Christ is
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Lord, to the glory of God the Father. That beautiful balance that you have in John chapter 5, where Jesus is not some renegade deity going out doing his own thing.
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There is perfect harmony between the Father and the Son here found in Paul's theology as well.
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But did you note the reference there that connects us back to the name of Yahweh?
01:00:00
Notice what you have. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, straight out of the prophet
01:00:08
Isaiah, straight out of the text of Scripture itself. And hopefully you saw in your
01:00:18
English translation, in verse 10, the reference that is found there to Isaiah 45, 23.
01:00:28
Hopefully it was put in block or italics or however it works to indicate to you this comes where Yahweh is saying, to me every knee will bow, to me every tongue will confess.
01:00:41
How could Paul not know that? Well, of course, Paul knows that. And so just as we saw this morning that Paul was willing to expand the
01:00:50
Shema in 1 Corinthians 8, 6 -7 in light of the reality of the incarnation, here
01:00:56
Paul is willing to take a text specifically about Yahweh that to him every knee will bow, every tongue will confess to him, and you have the confession that is to be made.
01:01:10
What is the confession that is to be made? Kurios Iesus Christos, Lord is Jesus Christ, and yet unto the glory of God the
01:01:20
Father. There is no polytheism, there is no division. I'm reminded over and over again,
01:01:28
Calvin talks about in the Institutes, when he's talking on the Trinity, he reminds us of, if I recall correctly, it was
01:01:35
Gregory Nazianzus who had said, I cannot think of the three persons without constantly being drawn back to the one, and I cannot ponder the one without recognizing the revelation of the three.
01:01:47
And anyone with New Testament eyes, that's exactly what they see, that's exactly what they do.
01:01:55
We should never, anytime you see a teaching that ends up dividing the
01:02:03
Godhead into three gods and destroying their unity from one another and places them at odds with one another, you've encountered heresy, you've encountered minimally imbalance, but probably heresy in the process as well.
01:02:19
So, the Carmen Christi, Philippians 2, we could have done Colossians 1, we could have done the prologue of John, John 1 .1,
01:02:27
John 1 .18, how they go together. There are so many texts like this that we can go through.
01:02:34
The richness of it would be a lifetime of study, to be honest with you. But don't forget what
01:02:42
I said at the beginning, there is an entire category of evidence that unfortunately we frequently don't see because we only focus upon a small number of texts rather than seeing that we need to make the other side answer, put the
01:02:59
Unitarian Jesus in this text. There was recently a debate where one
01:03:05
Unitarian by the name of Dale Tuggy, listening to him try to explain some of these texts was painful.
01:03:12
It was painful because that Unitarian Jesus does not belong in the pages of the
01:03:18
New Testament. He's not big enough. It's like watching a little kid trying to run along in his daddy's size 12s.
01:03:26
It doesn't work. It doesn't work. The evidence is absolutely positively overwhelming.
01:03:34
So, with that, I realize, like I said, you all have just been sitting here waiting for the big event coming up next.
01:03:45
I can just see you're all sort of fidgeting around, and I just hope that you all will try to remember we're in a
01:03:54
Presbyterian church and Pastor Downs is wearing a bow tie. And so, if you get too excited when
01:04:01
Eddie comes up here, it might cause some problems. So, just try to, you all promise me some self -restraint?