The Trinity & Theology Proper

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It is it is time to begin class it is just a little after 630 so It's good to see you all and I want to make mention if you are joining us via live stream on Facebook we have an opportunity which is a little new we have someone who is monitoring our Facebook page So if you are watching live on Facebook, and you have a question you can send your question in the comments We're going to try that and see if anybody actually takes advantage of it I don't know that anybody will but if they want to they can Remember this class is the attempt of this class is to try to be interactive The reason why I give you the books to read is the book is giving you the information And then I have my lecture, but I want you to be able to ask questions I want you to feel like if you need to stop me.
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You're not wasting our time.
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This is why we're here You know if it was just me talking for an hour and a half I could record that and send it home with you You know the part of the reason why what some of my best times in seminary were the times that I had the opportunity to sit and talk to my professor and ask the questions that were Really on my mind the ones that I really have in trouble with so keep that in mind as we go through the class We're going to begin with a word of prayer after which I want everybody to pull out a piece of paper We're going to start with a pop quiz.
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Let's pray father.
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I thank you for this night I thank you for this class, and I pray that you'll bless us as we seek to understand you better in Jesus name Amen all right John if you would close the door and everyone take out a piece of paper and Write your name at the top Yes Now If you were not here last week you can give your best answers to these questions But obviously if you were not here last week It's not going to be expected that you will have exactly what I said But you will probably still know at least some of the answers There's only three questions and the three questions are as follows number one What are the two primary sources of theology? What are the two primary sources of? Theology don't answer it out loud Yeah, I mean if you got them, but try not to try to answer it without your notes first Okay All right number two What is the difference between? General and special revelation what is the difference between general and special revelation and number three? How do we distinguish? Inerrancy from infallibility How do we distinguish inerrancy from infallibility you need a minute or two to answer the question? I'll give you that while I sip my coffee I will repeat all of them number one.
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What are the two primary sources of theology? What are the two primary sources of theology number two what is the difference between general and special revelation Number three, how do we distinguish? inerrancy from infallibility All right, take a few minutes and see where you what you're able to come up with Okay, that's probably for me Just kidding who's ready ready give you another minute If you don't know it it's okay, we're just this part of this is Reminding you of the important things we talked about last week, but it also helps me gauge If I need to go over something again or something like that helps me gauge how well I did so, you know, it's it's helpful Can't reach your own hand, right? Yeah, how do we distinguish inerrancy from infallibility? Alright, we're gonna move on just for the sake of time You can finish writing if you'd like number one What are the two primary sources of theology raise your hand if you want to give the answer Marianna Scripture and nature are the two answers we gave last week scripture and nature God reveals himself through the Word God also reveals himself through the world.
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So there are two ways to Determine things about God So with Bible and creation That'd be yeah, yeah, you can say that Bible and creation is fine scripture nature word in the world.
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However, you want to remember it It's just remembering that there are two primary sources Number two, what's the difference between general and special revelation? The God Spirit reveals something to you like a discernment and to me Special revelation would be like something he gave to the prophets something very specific Not quite you're a little off on the first one.
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Okay, Bob Yeah, that's true there's there's a little bit more though there's one more thing I'm looking for specific General revelation is everyone gets and it does come through nature General revelation is given to all men.
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So it has a general audience and a general content special revelation Unbelievers everybody knows God exists that is an aspect of general revelation Everybody knows God exists according to Romans 1 according to Psalm 19 and several other passages which say the earth testifies to God's existence So that's general revelation Special revelation is primarily the Word of God.
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It goes it's a special act of God whereby he reveals himself And throughout the Old Testament he did in different ways You mentioned this is where you were correct ed prophets and things like that was our examples of special revelation but today our Our source of special revelation is the Bible the Word of God is his final Revelation to us so so general revelation goes to a general audience and it has a content that is general Special revelation goes to a special audience and the content is specific or special Third and finally, how do we distinguish inerrancy from infallibility Brian? That's right Inerrancy means it does not air Infallibility means it cannot air and we say both about the Bible Because the Bible is from God and God being infallible Carries that quality over to his scripture.
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His scripture also is infallible.
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All right.
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Well that that is what we talked about last week Each week, I'm going to try to remind us of what we talked about the week before So keep in mind this won't be the last time I'll ask you to take out a piece of paper and answer a couple questions Moving on to tonight tonight.
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We are going to be looking at the subject of what is typically known as theology proper theology proper or more simply put the doctrine of God the doctrine of God and a prerequisite to the discussion of the doctrine of God is Recognizing what we call divine incomprehensibility Divine incomprehensibility simply means that Even though we can understand certain aspects of God We cannot fully comprehend all that which is God you can't put the Atlantic Ocean in a thimble You can't put all the knowledge of God in your finite mind And therefore even though we can understand what God has revealed We cannot fully comprehend all that which is God the verse for this would be Psalm 145 verse 3 great is the Lord greatly to be praised his greatness is Unsearchable his greatness is unsearchable Dr.
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RC Sproul says this by the way regarding our textbook Dr.
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RC Sproul says this human beings are finite creatures.
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So our minds always work from a finite perspective We live move and have our being on a finite plane But God lives moves and has his being in infinity our finite understanding cannot contain an infinite subject Thus God is incomprehensible the concept represents a check and balance to warn us lest we think we have captured altogether and Mastered in every detail the things of God our finitude always limits our understanding of God we're not saying we can't understand anything about God.
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We're saying we cannot comprehend everything about God and Why is that important? Well, we're going to talk about things tonight like eternality somebody want to get up here and tell me that you fully understand that how God is eternal and What it means to live outside of time and space Yeah, Bobby you won't get a period Yeah, so You understand right We can we can say we know what it means to be eternal without beginning or end But we don't fully comprehend it and see that's the thing Here's the thing when I say that to be about God being eternal we all go.
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Okay, but then when I start talking about the Trinity Everybody goes.
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Oh, I can't I can't accept it if I can't fully comprehend it Slow down, you can't fully comprehend eternality either But you accept it So so God's Trinity Trinitarian nature, which is clearly displayed in Scripture You can't take that because you can't comprehend it, but you can take eternality See, this is why our divine incomprehensibility must be understood.
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Yes, we can know what we are saying But without the full ability to comprehend everything about it make sense alright, so tonight we're going to look at three parts of Theology proper we cannot look at the whole this is why I gave you the book to read The book is covering subjects that we cannot get to tonight such as divine providence I wish we could talk about divine providence, but that will not be on the docket for tonight's lesson Okay.
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Well the three things we are going to focus on tonight is number one Trinitarian monotheism Number two the attributes of God Number three the will of God and if you have your syllabus, that's the outline in your syllabus When you get your syllabus from me, it tells you what I'm going to deal with in every class So it's not a surprise the three things we're going to deal with tonight Trinitarian monotheism the attributes of God and the will of God so let's begin with Trinitarian monotheism I'm going to write three words on the board Would encourage you if you are taking notes to please make a note of these three words All right.
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Number one is monotheism number two is polytheism and number three is henotheism and All three of these have the same root which is what? Theism or a belief in God, what would be the adversative? Atheism right somebody who says don't believe in God all three of these would be categories of people who believe in some form of the divine the first is the belief that there is only one God mono means one and Monotheism means that there is only one God Christians are Monotheists We are not polytheists And we are not henotheist and I'll explain that in a moment.
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But we are we are by confession Monotheists we only believe in one God Polytheism is the belief and more than one God Polly of course being plural or more or more than one or many or poly meaning many and Polytheism is exemplified in what religions? Hinduism Well Buddhism they do believe in divinity so yeah, they could be Egyptians were polytheistic the ancient Greeks and Romans pagan religions often poly What's that? Oprah Winfrey, she's many gods herself She disbelieves Yeah Yeah, so we have polytheism It's I give you there's another one if you want to throw this out there Mormonism is polytheistic because they not only believe that That God was once a man who became God they believe they can also become gods by nature There is no more polytheistic religion than Mormonism because they believe in an infinite regression of gods Meaning the gods go back into infinity It's not regeneration its regressions a little different yeah, but the point of it is there are polytheistic they're not they're not Christian Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than than than than Mormonism Judaism Judaism would be monotheistic.
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Yes, Judaism Islam and Christianity are the three largest monotheistic religion in the world Christianity, of course being the largest next being Islam and then Jews are the third quite quite a bit smaller numerically than than the first two So we have monotheism and polytheism and then we have Henotheism most people have never heard of henotheism Henotheism is the belief in one God Without denying the existence of other gods and you say well, how is that different than polytheism? Monotheism says only one God is worthy to be worshipped but that there are other gods It's a tribal view of God my God is the only one worthy of worship, but that doesn't mean your God doesn't exist It just means my God's better than yours It's also referred to sometimes as monolatry ism meaning only one lottery lottery is the word for worship So monolatry ism would be one worship Of the one God and if you think of the Old Testament Think of the Old Testament How many times did the did the other? Religions in speaking of Yahweh speak of their God.
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Our God is better than your God They weren't denying the existence of Yahweh.
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They were saying our God is greater than yours Our God's better than yours, right and and and it's a tribal Understanding of God there is only one God worthy of worship and it's mine But there are other gods out there, all right, and this one would be This one would be exemplified many different, you know religions, but one that you don't even think of often is Jehovah Witness Does Jehovah Witness believe there's one Almighty God, but they also believe Jesus is a God Therefore he is he is a he's just not you just don't worship him You only worship Jehovah But Jesus is a God in More Jehovah Witness theology.
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So Jehovah Witnesses would fall under the category even though they claim themselves to be strict Monotheists, they're not they are henna theists.
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They believe that Jesus is a God Just a lesser God Yes Yeah, they could they could Because there is one Almighty But they're still they still allow for worship of the other gods though, so it's It could be but I think that like I said the line between henna theism and polytheism is kind of vague You know almost everybody feels like their God's the best God, right? What's that Well It's it's when once you get past the true God, it's it's basically everybody just fighting over who has the best imaginary friend I mean because there's only one God every other God is fake and So it's just a bunch of people arguing over who has the best imaginary friend because they're all fake As harsh as that may sound Yes, that'd be a good example there's one big G God and then everything else is small G but doesn't deny other gods Monotheism would say there are no other gods.
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This is why when Jesus is called God in Scripture when he is declared to be divine He can't just be some lesser divinity God says there was no God before me.
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There will be no God after me Right and Isaiah.
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He says that very clearly so and he says I don't share my glory with anyone Then you get to John 17 and Jesus says glorify me with the glory We shared before the world existed and you say wait a minute.
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God doesn't share his glory with anyone except himself It speaks to the divinity of Christ.
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Yes, Bobby Yes, and again There's such a There's such a bad theology in so much of that, but the little God theology is is among the worst You know, yeah Yes Exactly.
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All right, so I have handouts because now that we're into Trinitarian monotheism I have some handouts to give you so if what we're going to do is we're going to send these this way We're going to send these this way and they'll go all the way around the room.
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Hopefully everybody will get one If we run out, which I hope we don't We'll we'll quickly remedy the situation It's what yeah.
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Yeah, but he said he's bringing another one that you'll get so you'll end up with you That's right Yeah That's right, that's right that that's the big thing about the Old Testament God's often are we out Is there enough to make it around? Okay The the big thing is that all the other gods are false.
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They're not real Next time I'll have them when you guys come in.
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We won't waste time passing passing them out.
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Is there enough? Look at there.
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Look at there Man, I was close.
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I Think I'm out of count of the names on the handout sheet though I said my method why but there's a few of you guys extra by the way if you are here tonight and you didn't sign The sign-in sheet when you came in you need to sign in that you're here And if you came in tonight you weren't here last week write your name down and also make sure I have your email address Because I'm I'm trying to this year keep up with the emails of the classes So like I have this class's emails and I'm gonna send you guys you should if you if you were in this class last week You should have got an email today for me Reminding you about tonight reminding you about your reading if you didn't get it Email me and let me know you have my email address on the syllabus All right.
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What is the Trinity? What is the Trinity? Look at that sheet the one that says What is the Trinity? Not the visual aid the one that says what is the Trinity? The Trinity is a doctrine which explains three very important truths that the Bible explains clearly The Bible tells us that there is one God The Bible calls three people God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and these three people Interact with one another Now that's not on your sheet This is this is we'll get to your sheet in a minute that that is why the doctrine of the Trinity exists What I just said listen to it again the Bible clearly says there's only one God the Bible clearly calls three people God and Those three people are not the same person because they interact with one another That's why the doctrine of the Trinity exists Hear it again The Bible says there's one God The Bible calls three people God Father Son Holy Spirit and those three people are not the same person because they interact with one another Therefore the Trinity is a necessary inference Which is deduced from the scripture.
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We must infer the Trinity We must deduce this from the text because there would be no other way to explain those three things If the Bible didn't say there's only one God then we'd think maybe there were three gods, but it says there's only one God Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 here.
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Oh Israel the Lord thy God the Lord is one Lord We just mentioned all these passages in the Old Testament that say there's only one God and all the other gods are idols all the Other gods are false before me.
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There was no God formed after me.
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There'll be no God formed the Bible throughout Expresses there was only one God and yet we come to the New Covenant scriptures And they all declare Jesus is God You say where do they declare that all over but particularly John chapter 1 John chapter 17 several passages in the other Gospels throughout the book of Acts and throughout the writings of Paul particularly Philippians chapter 2 and Colossians chapter 1 we can go through and well Colossians 1 and 2 The Bible says all the fullness of God dwells in Christ bodily So we have these passages which declare Jesus is God And when we get to Christology, we will look at this a little further but just for tonight for the Trinity's sake to simplify the Bible says there's only one God the Bible says three persons who are called God and Those three persons are not the same person.
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They interact with one another so therefore we have to Discern what that means and the classic formula is found on your sheet Trinitarianism depends on making proper distinctions and the proper distinctions are as follows Number one God is one in essence number two God is three in person number three.
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The three persons are co-equal co-eternal and Distinct now, let's look at those again very quickly one in essence What does that mean? That means God is one in his Substance or in his Being I'll give it like this What God is is one? But who God is is three what God is is one his substance But who God is is three because when we deal with his person We are now dealing with the fact that God though.
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We are monotheists.
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We are not Unitarian monotheists We are Trinitarian monotheists Unitarian means one being one person That is the Muslims believe Allah is one being one person Jews Jehovah Yahweh is one being one person but Trinitarians God is one being three persons share the one being that is God and These three persons are Co-equal meaning there's no sense of hierarchy among them Meaning and here's why that's important because you say well father son that seems to be a hierarchy Yes, but one is not more God than the other One is not God to the expense of the others divinity.
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They are co-equal in that.
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They are all God They are co Eternal Meaning they are all Eternal it isn't as if the father was rolling around in eternity one day and belched and out came Jesus Now again that may sound a little crass But that's the picture a lot of people have is that Jesus is the first creation of God That would mean that Jesus is not divine he is Creature The Bible clearly says Jesus is not creature The Bible says all things were made through him and by him He is creator not creature Yes, yes he Jesus I didn't in fact I preached a sermon on that very text ed Because I've been invited to another church and I Love that Texas John 858 Jesus says to the Pharisees before Abraham was I am he uses the divine Distinction the ego am I or a me is the Greek ego a me? meaning I Exist before Abraham was I exist not I did exist But I exist I always have existed And Christ uses that of himself so we have God is one in essence or substance God is three in person and the the the word which has been used by some theologians is subsistence But ultimately I prefer the word person person makes sense to me and here's why if you think of If you think of the substance of something the substance of something does not always grant it person If I take a rock And I hold up the rock I say this rock has substance you say no It doesn't I throw it at you and hit you and you say why did that hurt because it had substance? It's it is it has being But it doesn't have person so a rock has Substance but no person a cow has substance But does it really have person not in the same way a human being does so now we can begin to relate to what Is personhood? We don't think cows have personhood in the same way humans do that's why we eat cows, but we don't eat people right, so Personhood is more than just sentience All right, because we don't grant personhood to cows or or cubs or Puppies some people do think they're a little bit well some people think they're animals or people But they're not you know it's not a person right.
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You don't spend $5,000 to send muffin to college.
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Yeah Yeah, you know so so we know there's a difference right But there is so sentience is not the same as personhood Personhood is distinct to humans Right so we say rocks have being but no person cows have being but really not person Humans have being and person and it is a one-to-one ratio.
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I only get one person I Don't get multiple persons.
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I just get one and See the problem with monotheism from the perspective of the Unitarian is they limit God to the same? ratio as man They say because man is limited one being one person God must be limited one being one person and that limitation is not something that is Founded upon scripture.
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It's founded upon the fair frailty of human reason I can't understand how God can have three persons in one being again But he do Yes, sir Ross Ross a descendant personhood in this regard is the ability to The ability to interact Think and will so we would say intellect emotion and will is is personhood.
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So going back to the whole cow thing, right? cows have a certain amount of intellect cows have a certain amount of Emotion cows have a certain amount of will but it's not enough that you would say that's a person You would say the intellect emotion and will for an individual is Typically how we define personhood and in that regard and then what so so Jesus Jesus interacts with the Father and He He relates to the Father on Knowledge in emotion and in his will right? He said I didn't come to my will but the will of him who sent me Right, he relates to the Father in a way that is in the mind the heart and the actions and so personhood would be that and the reason why I bring this up is because some people believe in something called Modalism Modalism is the idea that the the God was the Father in the Old Testament God was Jesus in the New Testament, and now he's the Holy Spirit, but he's never all three at the same time He's he's goes to different modes of being this is also known as Sabellianism.
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And the idea that God goes to different modes of being is False because if that were so then the son couldn't interact with the father because the son is the father But in Scripture the son interacts with the father.
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In fact, we see all three of them present at the baptism of Jesus Right, the the father speaks from heaven the son is being baptized the spirit descends as a dove Right, and so we we have all three persons of the Godhead present in Several places in Scripture, but most specifically the baptism of Christ so what is the Trinity the Trinity is saying God is one in essence God is three in person and It is a contradiction to say God is one essence and three essences it is a contradiction to say God is one person who is also three persons and We do not engage in contradiction which is why we make a distinction between essence and person or being and person Make sense Now on the bottom of that handout I just want to we don't really have time to spend a lot of time on this but there is a distinction between what is known As the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity The ontological Trinity is that God is one in essence and three in person That's what we've been discussing but there is also the economic Trinity economic relating to the role of each one The father the son and the spirit do different things The father elects the son redeems the spirit regenerates so The father didn't die on the cross That's called patra passion ism and it's a false view of the cross the father did not down the cross the son did and It is the Holy Spirit who comes and to your heart Now he is called the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8 9 so we could say Jesus in your heart You know, especially when talking to your kids if you want to talk about Jesus being in your heart, it's not necessarily wrong but from an economic Perspective it is the Son is at the right hand of the father and the spirit is the one who is abiding Jesus said I must go away So that the comforter can come and he will abide with you forever.
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So we these are the distinctions within the persons That each person has a role that they are accomplishing within the within the Trinity and They interact with each other and they love one another The son loves the father the father loves the son the Bible says that it says Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world foreknown means loved Jesus was loved by the father before the before the foundation of the world So this is why we don't say God created us because he needed someone to love God didn't need someone to love He had love within himself This is why we can say and when we get to the attributes we talk about the love of God the love of God is Something that came into being when he had something to love the love of God is an essential part of his Nature because he has always been loved and he has always loved within himself.
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So the Trinity is again essential Christian truth All right, so Turn your page over and you'll see the visual aid for the Trinity You notice it says in the in the top one.
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It looks like a star with a circle around it It says God is father.
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God is son God is spirit if you want to if you want to mark next to the word God and write Yahweh Because Yahweh is father Yahweh is son Yahweh is spirit.
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Jesus is called Yahweh It's not as if Yahweh only pertains to the father.
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No, Jesus is Yahweh and the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh That divine name applies to all three persons but the father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the father because they Interact with one another the false views are below it I'll be going over this at set free next week.
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This is this is really all I'm going to do next week Cuz next week I'm teaching on the Trinity at set free.
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This is such a Important foundational thing this and this other handout.
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I just showed you The three false views of the Trinity number one tritheism.
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This is the idea that there are three gods That is not what we're saying.
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There is one God and three persons Number two Sabellian ism also known as modalism is that the father was this God in the Old Testament.
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What? Yes modalism Patrick, yeah, if you've never seen Lutheran satire and you can get online go watch it It's the best and it makes it explains this actually very well in a cartoon form Sabellian ism is modalism which I already explained and unitarianism is that the father is the creator the son is creature and The Holy Spirit is impersonal you ever talked to a Jehovah Witness about the Holy Spirit They'll say the Holy Spirit is not a person.
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The Holy Spirit is a force He is like electricity That goes through the body.
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The Holy Spirit is like power that goes through us.
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It is He is not a person, but if you read the scriptures the Holy Spirit is always given the personal pronoun he always and Called God in many places so the the last thing I want you to look at is the The other handout with the creeds and confessions on it.
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I Want you to note something The Apostles Creed Is is the oldest creed on this list? Dating somewhere probably in the first or assuming in the 2nd century the Nicene Creed dates to the 4th century 325 the accounts of Nicaea and Athanasian Creed dates to the 5th century That would be the 400s.
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I want you to note that That they get longer starts out with the Apostles Creed which actually does not in the fullness of The sense affirm the full deity of Christ listen to it It says I believe in God the Father Almighty creator of heaven and earth I believe in Jesus Christ God's only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified died and was buried.
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He descended to the dead just stop right there We have to read the rest because basically that's that's how it describes Jesus and all of that We would affirm amen all that is true, but the Nicene Creed goes further Affirming not only those things but also things left unsaid in the Apostles Creed regarding the divinity of Christ listen to this We believe in one God Father the Almighty maker of heaven and earth of all that is seen and unseen We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God eternally begotten of the Father God from God light from light true God from true God begotten not made of One being with the Father through him all things were made the phrase that is most important there is That he is begotten but not made You see the the classic understanding of the Trinity has always been that Jesus was from the Father But he was from the Father from eternity This is why we still speak of the relationship of the Father and the Son as Father and Son even in eternity past We say that Christ is the eternal Son of God he has always come from the Father and yet Is fully God and so that that is an important distinction that has to be made Because when we talk about Christ as the begotten of the Father It's an eternal begetting and the best way I can describe that and it's probably not great But I thought of this years ago, and I think it's helpful from the moment I was born I have begat thought Thought has come from me from the moment.
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I was born and it will continue until the moment I stop living I'll move on spiritually, but as far as my thought has all it comes from me, but it's always been as long as I have been and Therefore when we talk about Christ being begotten of the Father doesn't mean he was created in time He is of the Father but from eternity because as long as God the Father has been so to the Son has been and Yet we can still speak of the relationship of one from the other It's an eternal begetting Now if you turn over to the Athanasian Creed you'll notice it takes the whole page And it says I love the way it starts no messing around Whosoever will be saved before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.
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This is not Roman Catholicism This well don't hate it.
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Just understand it It's It means universal.
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Yeah but in this regard the point is The the the creed you got to believe this is what it's saying.
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It's saying this is part of the universal faith What does it say it says which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly That's important And he goes on and The Catholic faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance for there Is one person of the Father and of the another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost? But of the Godhead of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost is all one the glory equal the majesty co-eternal Such as the Father is such as the Son and such as the Holy Ghost the Father uncreated the Son uncreated the Holy Ghost uncreated And they say the same thing about incomprehensible the same thing about eternal, but then it says there are not three incomprehensibles nor three uncreated but one uncreated and one incomprehensible And likewise the Father is Almighty the Son is Almighty and goes through those But it goes on basically to say this it's exactly what I expressed to you earlier There's one essence three persons.
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We do not confound or divide the essence But we describe the persons as true persons Distinct and able to interact with one another I would encourage you to read through this a little bit more at length We're out of time on this on this subject, but spend some time with that.
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It is worth your time We're going to move now to part two The attributes of God And we Going to take a whirlwind tour here When defining the attributes of God it is important to understand there are two categories of God's attributes If you give me those categories right now, you'll get extra credit It's in the book Thank you, brother Richard.
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You now have extra credit doesn't really help but Yeah, don't spend it all in one place your extra credit is a thumbs up no Well, what say you then is a communicable versus an incommunicable attribute you remember That's right easiest way to remember it is communicable like a disease can be shared between God and us and an incommunicable attribute is a unshareable attribute No This would be Ed like God's being eternal He can't share that with us.
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We can be eternal going forward because we never die We're going to live forever in heaven or in hell But there was a time when we were not Going backwards you go back to 1979.
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There weren't no Keith As I was born in the 80s Right.
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Yeah But the point is I cannot share God's eternal nature.
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It is an incommunicable attribute What are some other incommunicable attributes? How about his omniscience? I can't share that.
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I can't know all that God knows How about his omnipresence? I am limited to where I am God is Everywhere the Bible says if I go up into heaven you are there if I go down into Sheol you are there I cannot escape your presence.
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You can escape my presence every one of you's gonna do it in about an hour You're gonna be out of here and you'll be out of my presence for a while But you can't escape the presence of God, right? So when we talk about God's attributes we look at his Attributes as being first the incommunicable attributes are the ones that we cannot share with him.
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What were you going to say Bri? Yeah, absolutely his divinity his his his his we can't be God and we don't become God Even though some people believe, you know, the little gods thing.
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We mentioned that earlier.
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We we we are not gods And not in that sense.
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We're not in any sense.
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We are not God What's another of his incommunicable attributes? Immutability John gets a gold star here.
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That's a that's an important one.
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What is immutability mean? his inability to change God does not change according to Numbers 23 19 Malachi 6 or assuming Malachi 3 6 God doesn't change Right that is called his immutability the term mutable means changeable so immutable means Unchangeable The immutability of God is the most difficult thing to really grasp I think it's even harder than the Trinity to be quite honest with you Because at least when we think of the Trinity we can categorize essence in person, but it's very difficult to categorize a being that does not change Because what we are dealing with in his immutability is his perfection The reason why God does not change is because he is perfect were he to make a change for the better It would mean he was not perfect If he were to make a change for the worse It would mean he ceased to be perfect and were he to make a lateral change neither for the good or for the bad It would necessitate that he needed to change therefore demonstrating some form of deficiency within him Therefore he cannot change if he is perfect.
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So the immutability of God depends upon his perfection Go ahead breath Well, it certainly goes along with it because when we think of God not changing God has always been father son Holy Spirit He didn't become this the son at Bethlehem, you know or something like that but there is there does create a issue for some when we deal with the subject of Christ taking on flesh they say well isn't that God changing the answer is no because the nature of God does not change Even though there is the assumption of flesh the nature of God remains the same.
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This is why we say Christ is fully God and fully man.
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He's not a part of God It's not like God broke off a piece of himself and put it inside of Jesus No, the fullness of Godhead is in Christ.
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We call him vera homo vera Deus Fully God fully man or truly God truly man.
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And so Yeah, I would say immutability in that regard would would would relate to the Trinity so There is there and a time does not allow for this but in regard to immutability There is also a doctrine called the doctrine of impassibility the doctrine of impassibility comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which states that God is I'll read to have it right here.
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God is infinite and being and perfection a most pure spirit invisible without body parts or Passions the phrase without passions is the phrase where we get Impassibility and basically what that means is God does not have emotions like we do Because that would designate a form of change now some people take great issue with that and say well God has emotions He demonstrates angry demonstrates love.
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He demonstrates great being grieved And I'm actually going to deal with this a little bit in my sermon on Sunday Because the Bible says it regretted God that he made man on the earth So the the doctrine of divine impassibility would be something that I would encourage all of you to spend some time Maybe examining outside of class and if you have questions, I would love to entertain them at a later time But it goes along with this immutability though.
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Here's the real heart of impassibility though Can we? affect God That's the question of impassibility.
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Can I do something that would force God to change the answers? No, therefore that's I believe that was what the divine's the Westminster divine's had in mind when they said God is without passions He's not able to be manipulated by me So I do think that there's a truth in it I just think we can't deny we can't turn God into a robot or an unfeeling deity That's the other danger right? So we have to we have to find the truth in it But immutability as I said when you get to the heart of immutability I think it is even more complex than the doctrine of the Trinity because it really gets down to well How can a being who doesn't change? Love me, you know has he always loved me? Yeah, yeah, but I mean Yeah Not manipulated by the maybe there's another but yeah, it's it's it's it's a it's certainly a Lot to chew on the the doctrine again look up the doctrine of impassibility Spend some time here read got questions org is a place.
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I usually point people to they got some great articles.
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They're got questions org and also There was a there's a website I think it's third millennium ministries.
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I think or something.
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It's some reform writers put it together Is that it you third mill? Yeah had a good article on impassibility So that that you know, look around see what you see, but be careful the day internet can be a dangerous place Obviously, but this is something that goes a little further than our book did our book didn't really address the doctrine of impassibility All right.
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So we talked about incommunicable.
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What are some what are some of God's? Well, I we did miss one the most the most important of God's incommunicable attributes in my opinion is his a se ity ASE ity a se ity is God's self-existence God is not dependent on anyone else He is he is fully and completely independent in himself When he says I am He's referring to his own Self-existence, so that is we are not that way.
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You are so dependent.
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I'm so dependent.
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We're dependent on everything and Certainly God we in him we live and move and have our being Now his communicable attributes probably the most precious one is love He loves and we love and he loves us and we love him, you know, that's a communicable attribute hate One of God's attributes is hate because God hates all that which is unrighteous and So that is something we can share.
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I remember one time.
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I was I was actually two rooms down I was teaching a group of youth and I said something about God hating divorce Bible says God hates divorce and Little man raised his hand.
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I didn't know God hated anything.
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I said do you think God hates child molestation? Well, yeah God hates a lot of stuff It is in his nature to hate that which violates his righteousness and so love and hate In fact, I would say it's impossible to love fully without being able to hate that which is opposed to the truth Righteousness is something that God shares with us equality Not in its fullness certainly But God gives us a sense of right and wrong and a sense of ought and ought not it comes from him So that's a communicable attribute.
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How about grace and mercy We're called to mirror those in God.
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God gives us grace and mercy.
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Therefore.
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We are called to be gracious and merciful Now There's one last one and we're I cannot believe I did it with time.
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I'm right on time There's one last one and of course, I've jumped over these so quickly But the one that's most important the attribute of attributes in regard to God I would say is neither a fully communicable or fully incommunicable but I would say it's the immediate one and that is his holiness in Regard to God's holiness.
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He is holy holy holy But he reaches down and he makes us holy by his choice of Saving us but our holiness is not the same as his holiness So that's why I say in regard to his perfect holiness.
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He is that is incommunicable He cannot give that to us, but he can make us holy by his word and by his commands The scripture says that we're made holy by his word In fact, what are we called? What are believers called in the New Testament? What's that? Holiness, but we're called holy ones.
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We're called Saints The word Saint is the word hagiasmos and the Greek comes from the root hagias, which means holy Hagiasmos you are all if you are in Christ This is why the Roman Catholic Church gets it so wrong When they say people are Saints because we declare them to be Saints No, you are a Saint because of faith in Jesus Christ.
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You've been made holy That's right.
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So that's it.
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So there's a certain that certain sense in which it's communicable attribute But there is also I think a sense as I said before well when we think of his perfect divine holiness that we can't fully share in that and So there is that's why I said I sort of find this is The median one and I'll add a final thought we'll take our break God's holiness is the attribute that affects all the rest of his attributes He's never called love love love mercy mercy mercy grace grace grace or wrath wrath wrath, but he is called holy holy holy Therefore his love is a holy love.
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His grace is a holy grace his wrath It's a holy wrath his eternality is a holy eternality His immutability is a holy immutability his holiness is what undergirds all of that and my encouragement to you is if you've never read it Sometime in the near future get a copy of the holiness of God and read it It is a perfect follow-up to this book.
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They're written by the same author it is on God's holiness All right, but we are going to take a five-minute break Please try to keep it at five minutes hit the restroom get you a sip of water or coffee and we'll be back to talk about the will of God Had a question during the break Question was is God's agape love Communicable and the answer to that would be yes because agape and phileo are Descriptions of love but the the type of love that People make a big distinction about agape God agape is this special type of love that only happens from God The word agape and phileo do have different nuances but the distinction between the two is not as vast as a lot of people make it out to be and the way I Know that is because the two were used interchangeably throughout the Bible You'll see the word agape and phileo are used back and forth So to distinguish them to the point of making it some particular type of love that only exists in God is not the truth Agape has the sense of a love which is not dependent upon the receiver And phileo has more of a reciprocal force in it, but it's it's not as if we can't express agape That's what we're told to express love people.
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Even if they don't love you back.
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That's agape Yeah That's it That's right Jesus said what benefit do you have if you love people who love you even the sinners do that, right? So in that sense, yes, we can express agape love My favorite example of this is when Jesus sat with Peter after he had denied him Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? It's the agape agape do you phileo phileo is the third one Which is an interesting we would think it would go the other way that the highest expression would be agape But it actually goes the other way phileo is the last one mentioned and So just just a thought.
01:00:13
All right looking at the will of God When we talk about the will of if you read the book Which I hope most of you have if you haven't make sure you go back and try to try to get that done When when RC talked about the will of God in the book, he made a good point that as a pastor I know I've dealt with before people will come to the pastor and say I Have a choice between option a and option B and I don't know what to do What is the will of God for me and My answer typically is I don't know as long as both of them are equally Righteous Obviously if somebody says should I cheat on my wife or should I go home to my wife? The will of God is that you go home to your wife? That's that's I mean because that is given in the prescription of God's law don't commit adultery But if the person says well, I have a job in Kentucky and I have a job in Maine Both of them are would benefit my family.
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I don't have a good one way or the other You know, there's not always you don't always know what the answer is and in regard to the will of God My answer has been somewhat simplistic and some people get upset with me of it for it.
01:01:30
I say do what you want And they say what you mean? I they say I want to know what God wants I say well in this regard you might not know what God wants But do what you want because if you have delighted yourself in the Lord The Bible says he will give you the desire of your heart that does not mean he's going to give you everything you want What it does mean though is that God will in tune your desires to his Therefore if you have a desire of one over the other it's probably something that God is moving on your heart So do what you want if both of them are right and neither one is sinful do what you want to do Is that too simple It's just you know, if you if you've if all things being equal neither one or sin Do what you want to do? Because ultimately God's gonna work it out for his purpose.
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Anyway if you start to head to Kentucky and everything falls apart and they call you and say the job got given to somebody else and blah blah blah then you'll know God closed that door pretty tight and You say well, what if I go to Kentucky and it all falls apart in the next year? I realize I'm miserable.
01:02:34
I said well God's got a lesson in that too You didn't go there for no reason Now we're getting not only to the will of God.
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We're getting to the sovereignty and the providence of God God has a purpose for you where you are Even if what got you there is terrible Joseph teaches us that at the end of his life.
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He looks at his brothers and says what you meant for evil God meant for Good to save many people alive Same verb what you meant for evil God meant for good what you did was wrong, but God did right in the same Yeah, absolutely Absolutely funny thing about Job is at the end of Job There's you know Job is asking all these questions and the answer is I am God and that's it.
01:03:34
I Form the world can you put a hook in the nose of Leviathan? Can you you know tame the behemoth? No I'm God Yeah, but it's simplifying it it is who are you old man answer back to God Romans 9 sort of you know elaborated but when we talk about the will of God Most people want to know the will of God for them But when we talk about the will of God we have to take a step back and say, okay, wait a minute What are we referring to when we talk about the will of God? What is a will the will is is the expression of? One's desires or choices right if I desire to go somewhere I will and do right Well, what are we talking about when we talk about the will of God was same thing Psalm 135 6 whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth in The seas and all the deeps that's again Psalm 135 verse 6.
01:04:47
God does what he pleases.
01:04:49
That's his will now the question becomes Does God have one will or two wills Because God is not double-minded But at the same time We could say that everything that happens happens by the will of God Yeah, Romans 8 28 And other passages, but everything that happens happens by the will of God because it wouldn't happen if God didn't choose for it to happen and Yet those things often violate what he has prescribed to us in Scripture So give you what we mean when we say does God have two wills? I think that we can describe God's will in two ways his Prescriptive will is The will that he has given by Revelation thou shalt not commit adultery That's God's prescriptive will He tells you not to do it He says this is not the way However, do men commit adultery? every day so God has a and Forgive the wording because as a Calvinist, I rarely use this phrase But I'm going to qualify it a thousand times in just a moment, but I'm gonna say it anyway God has a permissive will The perfect or rather excuse me the the prescriptive will is the will that says thou shalt not and The permissive will is the will that allows men and women to break his Commands or break his prescription.
01:06:50
What's that? Well, we haven't got the grace yet.
01:06:54
We're just dealing with God's allowing of or permitting men to break his law now, I don't like the word permissive and I'm not just using it because it starts with a P and I like alliteration But when we talk about God's will we talk about his prescriptive will he says don't do X But X happens All right things happen that he prescribes ought not happen that he commands must not happen yet They still happen therefore in some sense.
01:07:33
He has permitted those things to happen but Scripture clearly tells us that God does not permit anything with which or for which he does not have a purpose When God permits something he has a purpose for permitting it Even if it's something heinous There is no such thing as Purposeless evil God has a purpose for everything We might not know what it is so I Choose rather than using the word permissive will because I think permissive makes God because when I think of permissive I think like me right? I permit my kids to do some things because I just ain't got the time To to fight that battle today, you know Hey, you've called me a bad father if you want to I have make mistakes and there are times when I permit things that I have Prescribed and I should have just stood my ground, but I didn't because I was tired or they were being obsessive obsessively obnoxious that day I Love my children But I permitted it even though I didn't want it to happen because I really in that moment didn't have the strength or the time to fix it Is that how we see God's permissive will? That he's up there going.
01:09:06
Oh, man.
01:09:06
Oh, I just I would do something but I'm just I just don't got the energy I Mean is that you see that's that's when I use the word permissive.
01:09:16
That's the picture people get and that's the wrong picture But still it's as if God is passive in it God permits it because he has a purpose for it.
01:09:30
That's the point.
01:09:31
I'm making Brother Frank if God has permitted it he has a reason for it That's the thing that's hard to get so I call it God's purposeful will Rather than permissive.
01:09:47
God has a purpose.
01:09:48
Yes, Ed Absolutely, absolutely, but you my point is simply this he could stop it if he so chose Could God stop every sin that we do? Yeah, I hear people say I get to say just say about finish this thought I hear some people say that I say I wish God would just stop all the sins Yeah, but you get mad when you read about the Canaanites being killed every man woman child animal You get all upset about that.
01:10:23
That was God exercising His will that it ain't gonna happen no more Right and people get all been out of shape Over God bringing his punishment on the sodomites God bringing his punishment on the on the people of Noah's generation God bringing his punishment on the Canaanites People get all been out of shape and you said wait a minute Didn't you say we wouldn't be great if God stopped all the sinning.
01:10:50
Well, that's how it happens Okay, go ahead I Exactly because he had a purpose and in the end Joseph could see it and he could see that the will of God is Compatible with these things because God is bringing about his perfect purpose In your book, it's called correspondence That God's will corresponds to what's happening because he's bringing about his will the the theological term another theological term Is called compatibilism that God is making it compatible with his perfect.
01:11:33
Will how can any God say? All things will work together for the good of those who love me if he's not working all things out for the good of those Who love him, right? So when we talk about the will of God, I Did I Sorry I Prefer the word Purposeful or if you want to get a little more specific Decretive his will of decree God has a will of command Don't do this, but God has also decreed that certain things will happen.
01:12:14
For instance.
01:12:15
Was it a sin to kill Jesus? Yes, it was a syndicate.
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It was a worse sin in history of killing.
01:12:21
The only innocent man in all of history Was put to death, but what does the Bible say? And it was done according to God's purpose He had a purpose in the cross as heinous as it were sin it ever was committed against a man was when Jesus was put on the cross and the Bible says it was it was by the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God So I want to read to you two quotes on this subject.
01:12:55
The first one is a paragraph So hang with me because it's a little long But this is from the abstract of systematic theology.
01:13:04
This was written by James Pettigrew Boyce he if you don't know James Pettigrew Boyce is James Pettigrew Boyce was the first president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention He was a theologian par excellence Pettigrew Boyce's systematic theology is still on my shelf to this day and it is a it is honestly This book is great But this is shallow water If you pick up Pettigrew Boyce and again, it's meant to be this is an introduction to systematic theology and Boyce's systematic theology isn't much bigger, but it is very weighty James Pettigrew Boyce Pettigrew just put P period And I think it's P-E-D-R-U-E five Pettigrew no P-E-D-I-G-R-U-E I think Boyce B-O-I.
01:14:10
Oh, I'm sorry B-O-Y-C-E B-O-Y-C-E But listen what he says he's talking about the decree of God because some people take issue with that God decrees all things Does God decree everything does that mean God decrees every single thing that happens this is his answer The term decree is liable to some misapprehension and objection because it conveys the idea of an edict or of some compulsory determination Purpose has been suggested as a better word.
01:14:40
That was the word I used Plan will sometimes still be more suitable The mere use of these words will remove for many some difficulties and prejudices Which make them unwilling to accept this doctrine they perceive that in the creation preservation and government of the world God must have a plan and That that plan must have been just wise and holy Tending both to his own glory and the happiness of his creatures They recognize that a man who has no purpose no aim especially in important matters and who cannot or does not devise the means by which to carry out his purpose is without wisdom and capacity and unworthy of his nature Consequently, they readily believe and admit that the more comprehensive and at the same time the more definite is the plan of God the more worthy it is of infinite wisdom Indeed, they are compelled to the conclusion that God cannot be what he is without forming such a purpose or plan So, what is he saying? If God didn't have a plan for all this he wouldn't be God if God wasn't working out his plan in the Minute things of this world He would not be God as R.C.
01:15:55
Sproul said if there was one rogue molecule in the entire universe That was not at the command of Almighty God It could be that one rogue molecule that threw the whole plan into disarray one nail in the shoe of The horse causes the horse to fall One horse in the battle causes the battle to be lost one battle causes the war To be lost and one war can cause a nation to crumble one Nail in the shoe of one horse can cause the nation to crumble I didn't know that that but you understand the point God's plan must include all things because if there's anything it didn't include Then it would be that thing that could overturn his plan He doesn't like permit you like Purpose you to sin, but when you do it can be used He knows you're going to sin But it's not like I want you to go out and do this so I can make something good Well, we're it says something to the effect of God did that and he would be permitting you to do evil that would make God does not tempt us to evil That's an important biblical Principle the Westminster Confession of Faith says God has from eternity decreed all things which come to pass But that does not make him the author of sin I'm paraphrasing a little bit the confession, but the confession makes the point that God's decree of all things does not eliminate the impact of secondary causation secondary causation is sometimes a Difficult subject and I admit I don't have it completely figured out But I will explain how I understand it secondary causation is the idea that how something takes place is Distinguished from that it will take place for instance If God if there's a bowl of water sitting in a room and God determines that that bowl of water would be emptied He could by divine miracle simply cause the water to evaporate or he could By his divine hand knock the bowl over or he could ensure that a room full of very thirsty basketball players are going to come in that room and drink the water and Those would be secondary causes to bring about his will And so when we talk about causation we talk about God is the primary cause of all things He has decreed all things from eternity, but the secondary causes While still a part of his decree are different Than the primary cause and our choices to sin are in there and they are our choices We make legitimate choices to sin and our desires are displayed in our Choices.
01:19:21
Yes, sir, Brian Yes, but what actually he determines the end from the beginning according to Scripture Because he has a purpose Yes, he has a purpose you're here for a purpose Yes, I see you Frank.
01:19:54
What's got? His prescripts his prescriptive hit yes, because his Yes But his permiss his his purposeful will is not that is the secret things you mentioned earlier secret things belong to the Lord We don't know what God's permissive or purposeful will will be in a given situation But we do know what his prescriptive will is because that is given to us in the Bible So yes, Frank, you are correct The prescriptive will is given to us in the commandments in the in the call to love our neighbors ourself.
01:20:33
That's the prescriptive will right? That's God's command To me Well, it's not in this discussion except to say that God is the only being in the universe that has a completely free will Yes, because our will as we'll see when we get to anthropology.
01:21:10
Our will is a will that is Not free.
01:21:14
Our will is bound to our nature So if like for instance if I said, I want you Frank right now to stop being a sinner You would say I can't my nature is Sinful and therefore while I can battle sin I could struggle with sin.
01:21:34
I can't change my nature Right.
01:21:37
The Bible says it.
01:21:39
Yes, exactly Therefore this is why when people say they have a free will I say we'll slow down you have a free will to do what? Yeah, you're free to sin And the Bible tells us that we are slaves to righteousness or we are slaves to sin, but it never says we're free But the Bible does say God is free And I'll add one other thought to that RC RC said this it wasn't the book But he said this he said when we think of the freedom of man man does have a certain freedom But God is more free and when my freedom runs into God's freedom he wins every time God has the freedom.
01:22:17
He's doing what he chooses in the heavens and on the earth and when my freedom runs into his he wins I'm gonna read you one last quote.
01:22:24
This is Jonathan Edwards.
01:22:25
If you don't know who Jonathan Edwards is The Encyclopedia Britannica defined Jonathan Edwards as the greatest theologian ever born in the United States of America Jonathan Edwards has been considered by many to be the absolute highest example of 19th century Theology even though he was of course a Presbyterian We'll give him that one I I love this quote.
01:22:55
This is a shorter quote, but listen to it in regard to the decree of God Whether God has decreed all things that ever come to pass or not All that own the being of a God own that he knows all things beforehand Now it is self-evident that if he knows all things beforehand.
01:23:10
He either does approve of them or does not approve of them That is he either is willing they should be or willing They should not be but to will that they should be is to decree them.
01:23:23
You may think that's a riddle it's not what he's saying is God knows what's going to happen because he determined beforehand that he was going to let it happen and If it happened it was by the decree of God, so that's heavy stuff Well, maybe I shouldn't say the word letter he decreed that it would happen and we have to be careful putting God on a passive Place where God's just sitting there going.
01:23:54
Well, I'll allow it.
01:23:55
No God has a purpose for it There's a difference by saying I'll allow something that I could otherwise control or to say I have a purpose for something I want you to be a killer.
01:24:08
He knows he is Yeah Sure Yes, yeah, that's We cannot put we cannot put the the responsibility for the sin on God scripture won't won't allow that and we shouldn't And we should Yes, yeah, and this is a yeah, unfortunately, we're out of time you had a question John Yep That's easy enough But again, actually let me back up give me one more minute There is a difference when we talk about predestination and providence Predestination specifically scripturally refers to destined destiny and refers specifically to salvation and so predestination is almost exclusively referred to as the is the byproduct of God's electing grace Predestining those who will be saved But in the passing over of God of the reprobate there is also an act where he is Choosing to allow them to continue to go their own way and therefore choosing to allow them Choosing their destiny as well, but not in the same active sense It's what we call equal ultimacy God does not expand the same amount of energy and saving as he does in passing over the Reprobate and so that's why when we discuss predestination we have to categorize very carefully God Expands grace to the believer, but nothing must be given to the unbeliever for him to be an unbeliever That is what he is by nature Yes, but common grace doesn't say Lot to deal with I wish we had more time you guys have fun Good father in heaven.
01:26:12
Thank you for your word for your truth And may it be that you are glorified by this study in Jesus name.