Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 3

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Sunday School Back To Basics Part 3 Date: 10/2/2022 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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Sunday School - Living In God's Kingdom Part 4

Sunday School - Living In God's Kingdom Part 4

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in vain, right? Your Yahweh's name in vain, which is where the tradition from the Jews came to not even pronounce the divine name because they felt it was so holy we shouldn't even use it.
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Now is that a good thing or a bad thing, that tradition that the Jews came up with? I would say mostly bad.
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I'd say mostly bad and the reason why is because what happens is that ultimately we then have to substitute
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God's name, the name that He has revealed Himself by, the name by which
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He has given us, with a title and that's not ideal because it's like me saying, you know, instead of calling you by your name,
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I'd call you boy or I'd call you, you know, man or whatever it is and that's not ideal because you have a personal name and your name is significant because it's tied to you.
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So if you heard someone say your name and you're walking down the street, what's the first thing you're going to do? You're going to turn around because someone knows you or may know you and you need to see who it is you're communicating with and what inevitably happens in biblical and redemptive history is that as God's people began to reframe from using
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God's name, they began to turn more and more to the gods of the nations, okay?
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We saw this when we demonstrated this last week when we looked at Jeremiah, I think it was chapter 23 or 22, one of those two and we examined what was happening in that time where they were worshipping, they were turning away from recognizing
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God's name and turning away from Yahweh and they began to turn to another god called Baal or Baal, remember?
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Remember what the name Baal or Baal means? Master or Lord.
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It's a title and it's similar to what we do today when we substitute the name
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Yahweh or Jehovah for Lord. We are substituting God's self -revelatory name for a title and I think we would not like it if there was a major translation that came out that translated the name, that took out the name
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Jesus and put the word Rabbi in its place. Would you like that? No, because what is it doing?
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It's taking away something that is sacred, something that is, that there's meaning and power.
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There's power in the name of Jesus, amen? And so we want to make sure that we understand that we're using
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God's name rightly, correctly and I'm also not a legalist when it comes to that, remember?
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I don't really care if you use Jehovah or Yahweh or Jehovah. I would say that at least those are good attempts at translating the name where Lord is not even an attempt to translate, it's an attempt really to substitute and if you read the translator notes of any major translation that uses the word the
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Lord, capital L -O -R -D in place of the Tetragrammaton, they will tell you as much that we, in our translations, we have substituted, not translated, substituted the
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Tetragrammaton, the divine name, for the title Lord, okay? So they'll tell you as much.
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So it's not a secret, it's not a conspiracy, they're upfront about it at least. So that's helpful.
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And I'm going to print another one of these, can you pick it up in the office?
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Two more just in case. And so today's topic is the topic of the
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Trinity and I want to delve into this. Now, what I've given you is actually a really simplified version of this and the reason is because, again, this is my back to basics series.
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I just want to get to the basics. Now, should time allow, we'll go deeper into it but really
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I just want you to understand and comprehend the basics of this doctrine.
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Ready to ask a question already or are you just, okay, contemplating, okay. Thank you. The first thing we need to do is go to Deuteronomy 6 -4.
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We read the scripture last week as well, you may be familiar with it. It is known as the Shema.
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This comes after the heel of the Ten Commandments. Moses receives the Ten Commandments and now in Deuteronomy he's actually reiterating it and he goes on to give us a kind of a expounded view of what the implications of the
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Ten Commandments are, right. And so he goes from ten and then he breaks it down really to two. And one of them, of course, is going to be in verse four.
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Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
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Notice the words that are used, the Lord, capital L -O -R -D, that's Yahweh, right.
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And they use the word Hebrew Echad for one. Yahweh Elohim Echad, okay.
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Yahweh or Yehovah our God, Yehovah is one. He's one,
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Echad. Now the word Echad is a significant word that's used for one and that it can mean really a plurality within one.
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So you can take, for instance, a cluster of grapes. There's a plurality of grapes but it's one cluster.
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It's Echad. It is a singularity. You can take the same thing, for instance, for, you know, a grouping of things that are one.
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So we see that in Genesis 2 where it says a man should leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife and they should become one
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Echad flesh, okay. So two becoming one flesh.
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In that regard, what is it that we learn about the nature of God? He is what?
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Very simple, three letters. He's one, right. It's not rocket science.
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Basics. Think basics, guys. Come on. Basics. He's one. He's not four.
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He's not three. He's not two. He's not twelve. He's not twenty. He is one personal being, okay.
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So when Trinitarians talk about the oneness or the singularity of God, we are talking as to his being and nature, okay.
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So let's delve maybe a little bit deeper into his terminologies because sometimes Trinitarians, we use confusing terminology to describe the attributes, essence, nature of God.
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And so when we say that God is one being, who can describe that? What does that mean? What are we trying to get at there?
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What are we trying to describe when we use that term? He is one being. Tough one, huh?
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It's one entity. Yeah. Substance and subsistence.
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So here, and that's even a little harder, I guess. Let's break it down really clearly. A being.
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Does a rock have a being? Does it?
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It exists. That's it. What is needed to have being?
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Life. And then something that starts with the letter C. Consciousness, right?
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And so a rock is, but does not necessarily have being, okay?
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It is, it exists, but the rock doesn't have emotions, doesn't have thoughts, doesn't have feelings, doesn't have volition or will.
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These are all things that are important, yeah? Yes, personal being.
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Now, animals have being because not only are they, not only they are, but they also have emotions, instinct, some level of consciousness, maybe not, obviously not the level of humans.
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They're missing the image of God. But to be a being, to exist, is to have a certain set of attributes.
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So we say that there's one God who has these sets of attributes that we went over last week when we talked about who is
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God. He has these attributes. Remember some of the attributes of God? What are some of the attributes?
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Holy. He is just. Love. I mentioned that last week, yeah?
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Omnipresent. How about eternal, right? These are all things that are intrinsic to his nature, and God has a unique nature in that there's no one like him.
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But what we learn in Scripture is this one entity of God is shared amongst three divine persons.
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The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is now the difference between substance and subsistence, right?
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And so we have one substance of God, one being, one essence, one nature.
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Yet, Scripture teaches us, and we're going to go into this in detail later, that he exists in three distinct persons.
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The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father has all the attributes of Yahweh. The Son has all the attributes of Yahweh.
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The Spirit has all the attributes of Yahweh. Yet, the Scripture says there's not three Yahwehs, but what? One. That's where you begin to see what we would call a prototypical doctrine of the
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Trinity, okay? Proto - meaning early, and this is how the Church Fathers and how the early
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Christian New Testament writers began to understand this complexity of God in his self -revelation of himself through the persons of the
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Trinity, okay? And so we're going to demonstrate the trueness of this in just a bit.
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But I want you to also remind you of kind of what I said last week.
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The second bullet point is the God of the Bible is a personal
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God, okay? He's personal. Or I want you to put personal or even triune.
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T -R -I -U -N -E. He's personal, he's triune. Now these two things actually kind of mean, are heading towards the same point, whether we use personal or triune, because God is personal, or what does it mean to be personal?
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Yeah, right? So if you're personal, like hey, you know, let's get personal for a second, yeah?
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Or, you know, it means there's an intimacy, there's a dance that's happening, there is a relationship, there is an interchange of information and words.
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And God, as to his nature, is personal, relational, triune.
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To be personal, to be relational, requires more than one person, okay?
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It requires it. If not, then we cannot say that God is relational, God is personal.
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We can't say those things unless we presuppose divine persons. Yeah, that's right.
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That's right. That's right. That's a great point. That's exactly what we're trying to demonstrate here.
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And the fact that God is personal, you know, I was debating a
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Unitarian once on a program, and he asked, well, why isn't
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God four persons or five persons, you know? I said, well, that's an easy, easy question.
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It's because God has revealed himself specifically as three persons, right? So we don't, and there are other groups that kind of go off on this tangent.
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There's a group of people who believe in something called Mother God, not the Virgin Mary, but they believe that there is a
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Mother God, and this is basically like the fourth member of the
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Trinity. Then you have the Mormon Church who believe in plurality of gods, stretching all the way back from eons, eternity, basically.
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And so you have a pantheon of gods in that respect. And so the biblical answer is
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God has revealed himself specifically in three divine persons, the first one being the title or the name of the
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Father. He's revealed himself as Father, so you can put that in there. He has revealed himself in the distinct persons of the
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Father, obviously, then the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Now, this is really important. I want you to turn to Isaiah 64, and you have a moment. So let's see if our
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Trinitarian doctrine is correct, and let's go to see what Scripture says about these three divine persons.
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So first we have to establish a couple of things, and we've already established the first premise.
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The first premise is that God is one. That's the first premise. The second premise you must establish is that there are three persons who claim to be the one
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God. And then we have to also make another important case, that these are distinct persons and not a plurality of mode, such as what's taught in modalism or oneness
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Pentecostalism. Anyone know what oneness Pentecostalism teaches in regard to the Godhead? Go for it.
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That's right. That's right. So they're Unitarian, essentially.
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So Unitarian means one person of God. We're Trinitarian. We believe in three persons of God.
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Unitarian, in the modalist, are Unitarians of a sort, but they believe that God has three modes.
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So that basically he puts on the mode or the mask of the Father. He takes that mask off.
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So it's one person rotating these roles versus what the
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Trinitarian doctrine is. It's quite different. There are three distinct persons, not that there is one person who takes on this role and then another role.
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These are distinct roles. So does that make sense? Isaiah 64, verse 8.
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Can someone read that? I'd like to read that. Go ahead, Miguel. So the
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Lord, who's that? YHWH, Yahweh, Yehovah.
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He says, Yehovah, you are our what? Father. So we got our first data point.
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We have Yahweh identified as Father. Very important.
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Remember, Yahweh, our Elohim, is a God. He's one. He's one God. Yet, so right now we've identified one person who is
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Yahweh, who is called the Father. Perfect. Let's go to John 8, verse 58.
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I'd like to read that. Read 58 and 59. Go ahead,
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Pastor. So you may have missed that, but it's pretty important what we see there.
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We find Jesus speaking to, we find
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Jesus making an extraordinary claim. And what's the claim that he makes?
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How? How do we see that there? He says, before Abraham was,
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I am. In the Greek, you're reading a Greek lexicon, it says, brin
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Abraham genestai ego emi. And that term, that's huge.
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He says, before Abraham came into existence, before Abraham was, brin Abraham genestai,
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I was, or I am. Really, it's the present tense, I am, that he uses, ego emi.
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Now, that might sound familiar to you, because you recognize in Exodus 3, verse 14,
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Yahweh reveals himself to Moses, and he says, I am, that I am, or I am who I am. And let the children of Israel know,
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I am has sent you. And so the Jews would have understood what
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Jesus was saying. So Jesus is saying kind of three offensive things. One, he's the Messiah. Two, he existed before Abraham.
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But those two in themselves are not enough grounds for, you know, blasphemy. They're not enough ground to, you know, to be stolen to death.
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Because lots of crazy people claim to be the Messiah. Lots of crazy people claim maybe to live before Abraham, or to be a contemporary of Abraham.
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But Jesus goes even further, and he makes another claim by using the words, ego emi, I am.
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And we know that because of the reaction from the Jews in the next verse. What did the Jews do right after Jesus says that?
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To stone him, to kill him. Why? Well, let's look at chapter 10 of John. And notice what it says in, let's look at verse 30.
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Jesus makes another inflammatory statement to the Jews. And he says in John 10, 31, or 30, sorry,
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I and the Father are one. 31 says, the Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
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So again, not just the first time, this is again. They're like, they're hearing this man, and again he's speaking blasphemy according to their ears.
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And he says, and Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you going to stone me?
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The Jews answered him. So here's the charge that the Jews are going to bring towards Christ. It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy.
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Because you, being a man, make yourself what? God. You make yourself
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God. So the Jews understood perfectly what
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Jesus was saying. There's no, you know, mystery here. They heard Jesus on two occasions now claim to be
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God and claim equality with the Father. And in their mind, that's enough to bring a charge of blasphemy, which is deserving of the death penalty.
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So Jesus claims to be Yahweh, claims to be Lord. He claims to be one with the
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Father. Pretty clear. So now we have a second divine person whom we've established, who directly is called
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Yahweh. Now I actually think there's even a stronger text. There's actually quite a few of them, actually.
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Quite a few of them. But I think this is an even stronger text. I'm going to actually share with you two that I think are really strong.
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So if you're ever talking to a Jehovah Witness or a Unitarian, and you're trying to establish the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, not only to say that Jesus is
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God, because you know what? Here's the things that, one of the things that Unitarians do, they'll say that the word God is loose.
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That can be used of anyone. Moses is called a God in Exodus 7. Satan is called a God in 2
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Corinthians 4. Angels are called gods in Psalm 82. So you've got all these things where God is kind of loose.
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But what's interesting is that the God of the Bible, Yahweh, Yehovah, He does not share His name with another.
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We know this because Isaiah 42, verse 8 says, I am Yahweh, that is my name, and I will not share my glory with another.
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So God makes it clear. He doesn't share His name. He doesn't share His divine essence or nature or glory.
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But I'm going to give you another text that shows definitively that Jesus is Yahweh.
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I want you to turn to Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23.
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And we're going to look at verses 5 and 6.
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I'll read that for us. Jeremiah 23, verse 5 and 6. This is a messianic prophecy from the prophet
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Jeremiah to the people of God. He says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, Yahweh.
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When I will raise up for David a righteous branch, he will reign as king and deal wisely and show justice and righteousness in the land.
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So, so far, we can all agree this is about Jesus, right? That sounds like Jesus. That sounds messianic.
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Verse 6. In His days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely.
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And this is the name by which He will be called. So here's His name. Here is His name. The Lord, Yahweh, is our righteousness.
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Or Yahweh tz 'kidnu. Yehovah tz 'kidnu. The Lord, our righteousness.
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What's the name of the Messiah? Yahweh. Yahweh, our righteousness.
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That's His name. Now it's no wonder that the name Yeshua, that was used of Christ, Jesus, you know what that name means?
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Yeshua. What is it? Not only God saves, even more than that, it means
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Yehovah, the Lord, Yahweh, is our salvation. Literally, Yahweh saves.
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And how did Yahweh save? By becoming a man and a person of Jesus Christ. By taking upon our sins the penalty that we deserved, dying a death that we deserved, raised again on the third day unto glory, where He now is reigning, ascended to the right hand of the
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Father. That is how Jesus saves, and that is how Yahweh saves, because Jesus is Yahweh. He is
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God. That's a pretty compelling text, isn't it? Jeremiah 23. And I'll give you one more, we won't read it all, because I've read this like 100 times, but it's
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Romans 10, verses 9 to 13, where it says that you must confess Jesus as Lord, and then it goes on to say that whoever calls the name of the
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Lord shall be saved, in verse 13, and that's a quote from Joel 2 .32, which says, whoever calls the name of Yahweh will be saved, clearly equating,
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Paul equates Jesus with Yahweh. So it's pretty well established in here. Can we all agree that we've found two verses so far, or several verses, one that identifies the
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Father as Yahweh, and now we've found several verses that identify Jesus as Yahweh.
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We all agree on that so far, right? Excellent. Now let's talk about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often kind of referred to as the forgotten member of the
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Trinity, but I don't think he'll be forgotten much longer, because we're going to identify some powerful texts that show his divinity.
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Not only is he called God, but he's even called Yahweh. I'm going to demonstrate that from the text of Scripture.
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And so first and foremost, let's go to Acts 5. Acts 5, starting in verse 3.
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Can someone read verses 3 to 5? I'd like to read that.
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To 5. So we have a situation with Ananias and Sapphira, and it says that Peter confronts them after they lied about the proceeds.
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Why has Satan failed your heart to lie to whom? To the Holy Spirit. Verse 4.
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Who does he lie to in verse 4? To God.
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Why have you lied to the Holy Spirit? You haven't lied to man, you lied to God. Peter is equating the
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Holy Spirit with God. Is that pretty clear? You've lied to the
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Holy Spirit. You have not lied to man, you've lied to God. So the Holy Spirit is
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God. It's a pretty clear text. In the book of Acts alone, there are ten occurrences where the
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Holy Spirit speaks personally. The Holy Spirit is not a force.
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It's not an impersonal being or object.
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He's a personal being. He has will, volitia. He decrees.
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These are all things he can be lied to, he can be transgressed. All things are indicative of a personal being, not impersonal, like the
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Jehovah Witnesses say, that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force. Not what the
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Bible teaches. Instead, we see the Scriptures teach clearly that the Holy Spirit is a divine person.
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Everyone tracking so far? Any questions? Now let's examine where in Scripture does it say that the
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Holy Spirit is Yahweh. Let's return to 2 Corinthians 3. 2
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Corinthians 3 is in the context of Paul speaking of the power of the new covenant, but appealing to Moses in doing so.
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And he says in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 3, this is an astonishing statement.
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It's really powerful. He says in verse 17, Now here's a tidbit of information.
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One of the reasons why translators don't use the name Yahweh in the Old Testament is because they have made an observation that the
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New Testament manuscripts, none of them use the name Yahweh or the
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Hebrew tetragrammaton. Instead, they recognize that all the times that the New Testament writers seemingly, we don't have the original writings of the
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New Testament, so we don't know for sure, but we know that all the manuscripts show that when a writer was quoting from the
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Old Testament where the name Yahweh appeared, they would put in the word kurios, or Lord.
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And so when you look in the New Testament, when a divine person is referred to as Lord, it's likely a reference to the tetragrammaton, to the
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Hebrew name Yahweh. So when the Bible says that Jesus is Lord, we're not saying that he is just another good sir, or that he's one who has some authority.
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Rather, we're saying he's the one who has all authority because he's Yahweh. So Paul demonstrates that in the use of the
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Old Testament scriptures in Romans chapter 10. But I think here we have another occurrence where Paul's doing the same thing, but now in reference to the
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Holy Spirit. He says in verse 17, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the
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Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the
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Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another.
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For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. The Lord is the
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Spirit. Yahweh is the Spirit. The Spirit is Yahweh.
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You tracking? Does that make sense? So the Holy Spirit not only is a person, not only is he called
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God, but he's even called Yahweh. And actually, there's another verse, we won't read it right now, but it's in Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7 through 11, where it's attributed by the writer of Hebrews, saying,
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And then it quotes from Psalm 95. When you go back to Psalm 95, the ones who spoke those words were
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Yahweh. So the writer of Hebrews equates the Holy Spirit also with Yahweh.
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Okay? So it's so clear that there are these three persons,
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Father, Son, and Spirit, and these three persons are the one,
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Echad, Yahweh. The one Yahweh. Are we all tracking so far?
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Now here's another thing we need to establish, though. How can we prove that these three distinct persons are in fact that, distinct?
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How do we make that argument, that they're distinct? That they're not the same person?
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How do we do that? What does he say there? What's the context?
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Yeah, that's a good point. Let's go to John 17. John 17.
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Now I want to look at verse 3. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true
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God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Now, some
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Unitarians love this text. Jehovah Witnesses love this text because they say, well, look, right there. Jesus says, the
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Father is the only true God. Therefore, Jesus can't be the only true God. Is that what Jesus is saying here?
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How do we refute that? Chapter 17, verse 3.
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How do we refute that argumentation from Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses? Well, they're making the case in that verse 3 says that this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true
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God. So Jesus praying to the Father, saying, Father, you're the only true God, and the one whom you sent forth,
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Jesus Christ. Distinction, right? So they say there's a distinction between the true God and the one whom the true
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God has sent, Jesus Christ. So how can that be refuted from the text? Right.
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Verse 5. That's a great point, yeah.
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Yeah, that's right.
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You see, I already tricked you, and I already framed the argument in favor of a
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Unitarian answer. Because, and this is what they do, the Unitarian or Jehovah's Witnesses, when they read this, they'll paraphrase it when they bring it back to you.
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And in the paraphrasing, they're framing the direction of the conversation. So notice what I said to you.
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I read the text, and then I said, you see, Jesus calls the Father the only true God. He doesn't say that.
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Jesus does not say, Father, you are the only true God. He doesn't say that. It's very important, okay?
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I've just framed it that way, and you've accepted the framing. And that's a nice trick that they do, is they make you, without noticing, accept the framing of the question.
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And so here's the problem. Verse 3, Jesus says, this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God. Jesus being the incarnate
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Son, would he say anything other than that? I mean, to assume that Jesus would not call the
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Father the only true God, would assume something other than monotheism.
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Jesus is a monotheist. He believes in one God. Jesus is also of the same essence and nature of the one
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God, but in his incarnate state, he preaches and confesses a truth. You are the only true
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God. But notice what he does. He then couples himself with the same stature of that true
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God, because eternal life is not only knowing the true God, but it's also in knowing
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Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ was a creature, a created being, certainly these would be words of blasphemy.
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To equate knowledge of the true God with a man, Jesus Christ, certainly blasphemous, if he not be
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God. And then he goes on to say, in verse five, again, like a brother read,
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And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world was.
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Isaiah 42a, I am the Lord, Yahweh, that is my name, and I shall not share my glory with another.
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Yet Jesus says, Now share with me the glory that we had before the world was.
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Showing his equality with the Father. Showing his preexistence with the Father.
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All things that are inconsistent if Christ be a created creature and if Christ be not
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God. Does that make sense? But we also, but this point, this is actually a great text for another reason, and that it actually points to the distinction of persons.
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It gives us a distinction of persons between the Son and the Father. We see this from verse three to five, but he also goes on to say this in even stronger terms later on.
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He says, I have manifested your name, verse six, to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me.
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You see the exchange of these personal pronouns in reference to the Father and then to me, to Jesus, and he goes on to describe this relationship between the
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Father and the Son in election. This is really, the High Priestly Prayer is a great, great text on election because Jesus is talking about those whom the
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Father gave him. That's the gift of election. The Father, whom predestined for you, gave his elect over to his
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Son, Jesus Christ, to secure them for salvation. They then in turn are endowed by the
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Holy Spirit with the great deposit of the faith. Yeah. That's right.
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That's right. It's that great discourse from Paul talking about election, and I think that's probably where Paul draws a lot of that from, is from the
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High Priestly Prayer. You see these distinction of person.
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That is a hallmark of Trinitarian doctrine, the distinction of the persons, yet the unity of the substance.
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We're not tritheist. We're not saying there's three gods that are one in purpose or something like that.
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That's actually the Mormon doctrine of the Godhead. Mormons would say that there are three distinct beings, the
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Father, Son, and Spirit. These are not only different persons, but they're different substances, but they are one only in purpose, unity, similar to like a man and a woman would be one in a marriage.
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And we would draw that language too, but go even deeper into the meaning of that for the
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Trinity. But we're not tritheist. We don't believe in three distinct beings of God.
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We're not modalist. We don't believe in three distinct modes of God. We are Trinitarians. We believe in one essence, being nature of God shared amongst three persons.
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Now let's be honest. That doesn't make a lot of sense. To our feeble minds, it's kind of hard to wrap our minds around that.
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One picture that I like to use, and every picture, let me just put the caveat out there, every picture that we use of temporal existence, falls and will fall short of explaining the glorious doctrine of the
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Trinity. But to me, the one that I have found the most helpful is to understand the concept of time.
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Now when we talk about time, it's always in the singular. Only a kid would ask, what times is it?
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Now what time is it? Singular. Yet time is past, present, future.
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Three distinct, I'm going to use this word, but I don't mean it in the modalist way, three modes of time, or three aspects of time, yet it is all the one time.
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Now where that analogy does break down is that the Trinitarian persons are not aspects of God.
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They're not parts of God. They are fully, wholly God in a way that other things just can't be.
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But still, the analogy, I think, helps to some degree understand that there is a complexity in the understanding of time.
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There is a triunity in time, and yet there is a oneness of time.
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And so I think that helps a little bit bring that picture out, but it inevitably falls short.
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Yeah, and again, every analogy I've heard helps to some degree, but then eventually just deteriorates.
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Like I've heard of the egg. Have you ever heard of the egg one? You've got the outer shell. You've got the yolk, and then you've got the white, and all that is represented in the
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Trinity. But when you really think about it, it's actually more of a picture of modalism than the Trinity, because again,
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God is not broken into parts. Right? If you break God into parts, he's no longer
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God. He's not like you and I. He's not divisible as to his attributes in nature. He's indivisible.
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He cannot be broken. He cannot be in parts. He is whole as to all that he is.
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And so, but I like the image here of the baby one, only because there is this
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Trinitarian doctrine in the Bible in regard to eternal generation, right? So the
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Father eternally generates the Son. The Son is eternally proceeded from the
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Father. And we see this in the terms that are used in regard to the second person in the Trinity. The Bible uses the terms the
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Word and Son in reference to the second person in the Trinity. The Word proceeds from one's mouth.
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It originates in you. It is of you. It is of the same essence, nature, and character of you.
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It proceeds from you. And what else proceeds from a father, from a man, is his seed.
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And that which proceeds from a man is of him, is of the same essence and nature of the man.
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Now God isn't a man in that way, obviously. But the pictures are still very powerful.
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And I think that's why the Bible uses these two pictures of the Word and the Son in reference to the eternal generating of the
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Son from the Father in eternity past. And then the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the
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Son from eternity past. So you see the order of the
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Godhead in that way, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing in Scripture. Any thoughts or questions on that so far?
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Now this is important because this is a discussion of attributes. And last week we talked a little bit about the attributes of God. But I want to make sure that you understand that each person of the
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Trinity shares the same exact attributes. The distinction in the person of the
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Trinity isn't in regard to attributes or nature or essence or substance.
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Rather, it is a distinction, more so, of roles and personhood.
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So, for instance, each person of the Trinity is eternal. I want you to write that in the last part.
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All three persons of the Godhead are eternal. All three persons of the
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Godhead are eternal. We know this from the
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Scripture, obviously, in Psalm 90, verse 2, saying, speaking,
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I think, collectively of the Godhead, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. So before the mountains were brought forth, from everlasting to everlasting, you are
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God. Psalm 90. That's a great text for Mormons, by the way, who don't believe that God is eternal. They believe that God was created by His Father and His Father before Him.
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And a total, an eternal regression and progression of God's. But the
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Bible says that God is eternal. He's unchanging as to His nature. From everlasting to everlasting,
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He is God. Now, the Bible also tells us, numerous times in the Bible, that Jesus is eternal. Can you think of one place in Scripture where Jesus is called eternal?
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Think of a place where He is eternal. Eternal. That's true, that's a great one.
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Alpha and Omega. Anyone else have another Scripture in mind? True.
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Want to go into more detail? Expound on that.
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Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to give you some really easy verses. Micah 5 .2 refers to the
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Messiah as having origins from everlasting. From everlasting.
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Some translations at the ESV, I don't like how they translate it. They say from ancient days, but the Hebrew is from everlasting.
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And then you've got even a stronger declaration, obviously in John 1 .1, right? In the beginning was the
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Word, eternal, already existing. Whenever the beginning was, it doesn't say the Word became or the
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Word sprang forth or the Word was created. It says the Word was, showing that the Word is eternal, already existing in the beginning.
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You got one? Everlasting Father.
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Yeah. Yeah, that'd be a good text too. Oftentimes mis -equated with modalism.
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Let me address that real quick. So some modalists who don't believe in Trinity, they say that Jesus is the
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Father and they point to like Isaiah 9 .6 where Jesus is called the mighty God, wonderful counselor, everlasting
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Father, Prince of Peace. How do we rebut that idea that He's, okay, in what way, in what sense is
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Jesus the everlasting Father? Could be.
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I think I have a different view of that actually. My view is a little bit different. My view of Isaiah 9 .6,
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talking about the Son who will be born, the child that will be given, the government should be on His shoulders.
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He's talking about Jesus being the everlasting Father and that He's the Father of a new humanity.
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He's the second Adam. The first Adam is our Father. We are under the federal headship of Adam if we're not in Christ.
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He is our Father. Christ is the Father of a new humanity. Not God the Father. He's the
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Father of a new humanity. We are in Jesus Christ, federally represented by Him and He is the, you know,
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He calls, in the New Testament, we're called His brothers but we proceed out of faith from Christ.
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He is the second Adam and the Bible calls Him that. And so I think that that's the reference, a more satisfactory understanding of Isaiah 9 .6
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in that context. So, John 1 .1, in the beginning was the
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Word. I'm gonna give you another one. Colossians. Very good text. Colossians 1, 15 and 16. He is the image of the invisible
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God, the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn not meaning that He was the first and created, rather that He is the one who is preeminent over creation.
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He has the firstborn rights. He used the word prototicus there to describe
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His preeminence over creation. And we know that because in verse 16 it says,
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For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth. Things invisible, whether they be invisible or visible.
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So, if all things were created by Him, that would preclude
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Him from being part of creation because then
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He can't create all things because He Himself is a thing that needed to be created. So then, you know what the
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Jehovah Witnesses do? The Jehovah Witness Bible, the New World Translation actually inserts the word other into the text four times in Colossians 16 -18.
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It says, For by Him all other things were created. Now, the word other does not appear not even once in that text.
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Not even once. And they put it four times. And they have to because if not, Jesus is the creator not the created being.
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So they view, the Jehovah Witnesses view Jesus more as like a helper. Like God used Jesus like a hammer. And it was by means of Him that He created all things.
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But that's not what the text says. It says, For by Him all things were created. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. Right.
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It's kind of like that. And they borrow that from like Proverbs 8 that talks about wisdom personified and it says,
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You were a worksman with me at the foundation of the world. And so they say, Oh, Jesus is that worksman.
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He's the one who was with God the Father in the beginning of the world who helped create everything else. So they say, Jesus, God the
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Father, Jehovah created Jesus. And it was then through Jesus that He created all other things.
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So they have to put in the word other in the text even though it's not in the Greek at all.
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And there's no reason to insert the word other. There's no grammatical reason to insert the word.
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You know, only to, of course, insert your own theological bias into the text.
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So clearly, Jesus is eternal. So are we comfortable with those verses? We see those verses.
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Those are sufficient verses to describe the eternality of the Son. And there's many more.
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There's so many more actually. I mean, we could spend a whole class on that. But now we want to look at the
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Spirit. Where is the Holy Spirit referred to as eternal? Hebrews 9 .14.
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Let's read what it says. I'll read it for the sake of time.
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Hebrews 9 .14. Fantastic text. It says, How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
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Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living
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God? The Spirit is what? Eternal.
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How amazing is this? We've got three verses of Scripture. More than that, really. But we have three primary identifications.
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The Father is eternal. The Son is eternal. The Spirit is eternal. You cannot have three eternals except of these three eternals be the one
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God. Be the distinct person sharing the one essence nature of the Triune God. This is very compelling evidence for the
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Trinity. And this is just the basics. This is really just the basics I've just given you. These are all very compelling reasons to understand the beauty and the glory of the
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Trinity in the biblical narrative. And I want to close with this. This Triune God is worthy of worship.
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Why don't you write that in there? He's worthy of worship as the one true God. This is the singular
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God. In the New Testament, the New Testament writers and Christ himself use what scholars call again prototypical
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Trinitarian language. And we see usage of this in Matthew 28, verse 19 when our risen
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Lord gave the instruction to his disciples. He says, now go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name singular of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
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Behold, I am with you always even until the end of the age. Jesus says to go in the singular name because it's one
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God. Not names, but the singular name of the Triune God. The Father, the Son, and the
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Spirit. Three persons yet singular. Beautiful picture of the Trinity. The Trinity that we worship.
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The Trinity that is worthy of all things. We see Paul use this at the end of his benediction to the church in Corinth in 2
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Corinthians chapter 13, verse 14. He closes his letter with this benediction.
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The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ one person of the Trinity, the love of God, and the fellowship of the
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Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. That is the
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Trinity that we worship. Father, Son, and Spirit. This God is truly worthy of worship.
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And so when we think about our worship even this morning as we enter into our time of worship, we render our sacred service, we render our worship to the one true everlasting
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God who has revealed himself in the person of the Father, in the person of the Son, and the person of the
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Holy Ghost. And this is a marvelous God. And when one member of the Triune God is glorified, so is the other.
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So the Trinity and the person of the Trinity are not in competition with one another. There's no pushing and shoving in the
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Triune God as to who gets the glory. When the Son is glorified, so is the Father and the
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Spirit. When the Father is glorified, so is the Son and the Spirit. When the Spirit is glorified, so is the
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Son and the Father. It is a one Triune blessed God forevermore.
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And so let us render worship and sacred service to him this morning. Any last thoughts or questions on the teaching?
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Which word are we talking about? Like which six? Ikad? Yeah. One God.
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That's right. That's right. That's right. Yes? Yeah, that's a good question.
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And the answer is pretty simple. It's because Jesus is incarnate. Right? So he is man.
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So Jesus, this is called the hypostatic union. You have the doctrine of the hypostatic union which teaches that Christ is one person of the
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Trinity. But within the person of the Son, there exists two natures by virtue of his incarnation.
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He is fully man and fully God. He's not half man, half God. He's not demi -God. He is fully man.
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So as man, he needs to receive authority. So for instance, we see in Philippians 2, verses 5 through 11, what we call the self -humiliation of Christ.
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And that's where Christ, though he was in the form of God, that means he's in the essence nature of God, he did not count equality of God a thing to be held on to, but he humbled himself by emptying himself by taking on the form of a slave or a man.
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Now, it's not that Christ emptied himself of his divinity. That's not what the text is saying. It shows us by which means he actually emptied himself.
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And it was actually by the taking on of human nature. By the fact that he was incarnate, by taking on human flesh and nature, he then has a self -limitation by means of the limitation of flesh, the limitation of being a man.
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And so Jesus worships the Father, prays to the Father, has to receive authority from the Father. And this is to show that for the rest of human history, for the rest of the history of the cosmos, humanity will be ruled by a man, and that's
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Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the second Adam. He is truly man, and the cosmos will forever be reigned by the
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Son of Man. And so the fact that Jesus has to receive authorities and fulfillment of Daniel 7, where the
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Son of Man approaches the Ancient of Days to receive a kingdom and a people for himself.
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And yet, it's not because Jesus is not God. It's because he is man that he must receive this.
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It is to fulfill Scripture. Does that make sense? So go back to Philippians 2.
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It's all part of the self -humiliation of Christ. Christ willingly submits to this plan of salvation and to the authority of the
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Father in that regard. Right.
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That's right. Obedience.
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That's right. He learned obedience for the things he suffered. And they're only to be understood in the context of the dual natures of Christ.
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You cannot understand that apart from the dual natures of Christ. Because you have on one hand where Jesus doesn't know that they are the hour, yet on the other hand,
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John 16 .30 says he knows all things. So which one is it? Well, the answer is both. He is
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God. He knows all things. Yet he's also man. Therefore, he's limited. How this interaction works in its fullness, again, it's the mystery of the hypostatic union.
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We don't fully understand it. Nor can we. But we accept what
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Scripture says and we go by the authority of Scripture. That's right.
01:00:19
Yeah. That's right.
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Hmm. That's right.
01:00:51
There's a lot of mysteries that scientists just accept. And no one bats an eye.
01:00:57
Right? And so how black holes work or how light is both a particle and a, what is it?
01:01:06
A wave. A wave and a particle. And so we don't know how these things operate. But it's accepted. Right? And so we accept what
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God has said of himself and that's where we go. Man in our image.
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Yeah. I think that that's a perfect picture of the Trinity, actually. I know there are more modern scholars would debate whether that's the triune
01:01:41
God or if that's the divine counsel or something. I would say this is the triune God. Because when you look at Genesis 126 where God says, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, verse 27 says, and so therefore
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God, singular, created man after his singular own image. Singular. Okay?
01:02:00
So the plurality and then the singularity. And if he's speaking to other angels or to another created being, like if Jesus was a created being, that would be problematic because the singular
01:02:11
God is the one who created all things in his singular image and yet you see a hint of the complexity of God's nature when he says, let us make man in our image.
01:02:20
So to me, it's a perfect Trinitarian example in the Old Testament. Another question?
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Sir? Absolutely.
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Absolutely. Good. Well, let's pray together and then we can continue our fellowship and get ready for service. Father, we do come before you thankful,
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Lord, for the knowledge that you've blessed us with and your word to be able to see the beauty, complexity, singularity of the
01:03:45
Holy Trinity. Father, we pray that you would help us to fall even more in love with the depths of your scriptures and the depths of the riches and the knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are your ways, truly, O Lord. We pray, God, that you'd give us a sense of awe as we approach the only true
01:04:01
God, Father, Son, and Spirit. We pray, Lord, that you'd bless our worship this morning that your spirit would bring a strong anointing in our hearts and minds so we may bind your word in our hearts so that we may learn not to sin against you.