March 3, 2017 Show with J. V. Fesko on “The Trinity & the Covenant of Redemption”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday. On this third day of March 2017, and I am delighted to have back on the program,

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Dr. J .V. Fesco, author, academic dean, professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Westminster Seminary in California.

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We are going to be discussing his book, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

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J .V. Fesco. Hey, Chris, it's great to be here with you today. Great, and in studio with me is my co -host, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. It's good to be back again. Thank you. And today, again, the

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Presbyterians are outweighing or outnumbering the Reformed Baptists. And I think this is good for you, Chris. I really do.

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Yes, I happen to be... I'm glad you noticed those things. I happen to be a Reformed Baptist and my co -host is a

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Presbyterian, as is my guest today. But, in fact,

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I'm going to announce our email address right off the bat. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Dr.

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J .V. Fesco on our theme, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the goal

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USA. Well, Dr. Fesco, you have written this book,

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The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption. And let's start off with the

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Trinity. A lot of the cults, non -Christian religions or religions that claim to be

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Christian, but in reality are not. They are non -Trinitarian,

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Arian, and other forms of heretical expressions of God, and the

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Godhead, and so on. They will very often bring to our attention that the

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Trinity, the Word, is not in the canon of Scripture. It's not a biblical term.

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And they will say, therefore, it is not to be trusted as a biblical truth.

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And they will say it is an invention of the Catholic Church. If you could respond to those things that immediately are what we are confronted with, typically, when we face the cults.

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Yes, I think that one of the first things that we've got to recognize is that, you know, yeah, there are many things in the

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Scriptures that we develop terms to describe what is there. And just because the term does not exist does not mean that the concept is absent.

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And in particular, the term Trinity was coined by an early church theologian by the name of Tertullian, who was basically trying to come up with a word that would describe how

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God is one God, but in three persons. And he came up with the idea of a triunitas, or a threefold, you know, threefold

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God unity. And that's where we get Trinity as a combination of three and unity. And so the idea is that, yes, that term doesn't exist in the

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Scriptures, but the more fundamental question is, does the concept exist?

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Do we find a good reason to say that there is one

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God, and nevertheless, this one God is manifest in three persons, as, you know, the classic historic creeds of the

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Church do affirm these things, such as the Council of Nicaea, or the Council of Chalcedon in the 4th and 5th centuries, respectively?

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Or as these truths have been professed by literally the whole, you know,

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Christians around the world. And so in that respect, I think that the next question is, is that we'd want to ask is, well, where do the

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Scriptures teach these truths? And it appears in a number of places, but for example, when you read in Deuteronomy 6 -4, that it says,

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Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, we want to ask the question, okay, well, the

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Scriptures certainly affirm that there is one God. Is that what's called the Shema? Is that what's called the

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Shema? Yes. Yes, and that's a Hebrew term that means hear. That's, you know, it's the command, hear

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Israel, listen to what I'm about to say. And so it affirms that there is one God.

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But on the other hand, we find other passages of Scripture, such as the opening of John's Gospel, when he says,

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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Where there's a clear distinction in that there is the Word, and there is God, but nevertheless, the

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Word is also God. And you see John in his

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Gospel ascribing things to the Word that were only traditionally and typically ascribed to God in the

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Old Testament. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

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In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And so I think that that is, you know, an important passage that we say, okay, how does this passage fit in connection with the affirmation that there is one

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God? And how can John ascribe deity to the Word?

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I think along those similar lines, we see, for example, in Paul's famous ninth chapter of Romans, where he is talking about all of the blessings that Israel has received.

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And he says, To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the

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Christ, who is God over all. So here he explicitly identifies the

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Messiah as being God over all. But just a chapter over in the next chapter, when

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Paul is talking about the Gospel, and he goes and quotes the prophet Joel, when he says, you know, whoever calls upon the name of the

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Lord will be saved. And he says that in Romans 10, 13. Where does he finally land?

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He says in verse 17, So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

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So that to call upon God is to call upon Christ. And in line with the earlier passages that we just referred to, you know, this

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Christ has been identified as God. But another passage that's important that we want to take into consideration is in the baptism of Jesus, where here we have

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Jesus. He's been baptized, and in addition to this, we have the

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Father proclaiming from the heavens, you know, This is my Son, with whom

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I am well pleased. So here is the Christ who is identified as God, but now here is

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God, you know, speaking from the heavens. And then in the segue that we go from Matthew chapter 3 to Matthew chapter 4,

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Matthew tells us that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And now here's a third appearance of somebody, who is the

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Spirit. And why does God pour out and anoint his Son with the outpouring of the

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Spirit as the Spirit descends in the form of a dove upon Christ to rest on him? Well, the

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Church looked at all of these things and said, you know, how do we put this all together? And in the book of Acts, for example, when

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Ananias and Sapphira are caught in their deception and Peter says, you have lied to the

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Spirit, you have lied to God, how do we account for this? Well, this is where the

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Church, after, you know, hammering these things out on the anvil of controversy and through Church councils, comes to the conclusion, and the right conclusion,

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I think, by affirming that we have one God, but this one God is in three persons.

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And in the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, it says, in the unity of the

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Godhead, there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity. God the Father, God the

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Son, and God the Holy Ghost. And so this is where we, you know, we embrace this teaching because it's ultimately a scriptural teaching, that the

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Scripture speaks of this one God and three persons, to which we append the term, the

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Trinity. Yeah, before the Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment or question, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things.

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First of all, you mentioned clearly that the Scriptures teach that people can sin against the

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Holy Spirit, which would prove that the Holy Spirit is not an it, it's not a power or force, it's a person.

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Or he is a person, I should say. And the claim that the cults and the non -Trinitarians would hurl at us would actually involve some of what you said.

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In fact, I'm going to combine what the cults say and what the Roman Catholic Church says. Both will say, we would never have this understanding without the

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Roman Catholic Church, and you just were speaking of councils that hammered these things out.

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The Roman Catholic Church will actually want us to believe that those councils created the teaching, rather than just deriving from the

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Scriptures themselves what the teaching is. And the cults will say, well, you see, the

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Catholics are right, you never would have a Trinity without the Roman Catholic Church. How do you respond to those kinds of claims by both

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Romanists and cultists? Yeah, you know, I think on the one hand,

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I'd want to distinguish and say that technically speaking, you know, the Roman Catholic Church didn't exist.

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I mean, the Roman Catholic Church, people in the Roman Catholic Church would object to that. But it really doesn't become formalized until the 16th century with the

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Council of Trent. And that's why historically Protestants have willingly appealed to the early

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Church to say that, you know, that is us in that sense. Yes, the

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Roman Catholic Church wasn't codified until Trent. I mean, not the

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Trinity. Correct, correct. And so in that sense, we look at this as being as part of the

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Protestants, as Protestants, we would see ourselves as part of the Catholic with a small c, not

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Roman Catholic in caps, but the Catholic tradition or the universal tradition in terms of, you know, looking at these things.

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And within the context of that, these theologians and pastors that gathered together, they didn't create the doctrine of the

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Trinity, but as you read these documents and you see what they're doing and you read the literature surrounding the period, they're hammering these things out exegetically.

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But just for the sake of discussion, let's just say for the sake of discussion, you know, to set aside the

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Church Councils for a minute, you know, I would want to press the case to say, you know, against, say, the cultists and say, when

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Paul says in Romans 9 .5 that, you know, here is the Christ, you know, God over all, you know, and he says it unflinchingly.

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Or just in terms of the opening of Paul's letter in Romans chapter 1, where he talks about Christ and he declared, you know, that he's declared to be the

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Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, you know, and he says,

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Jesus Christ, our Lord. It would be unthinkable, it would be unthinkable for a first -century

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Jew to ascribe the title of Lord to anyone less than God.

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And Jesus himself pressed the Pharisees when he asked them, you know, quoting

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Psalm 10, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

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You know, he says, how can David call his descendant Lord? You know, and the implied answer is, well, he can if his descendant is actually

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God. And who but God could sit at the right hand of the

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Father? And in this sense, we also see this, I think, in Christ's, you know, the crucifixion passages, where the religious leaders crucified him because he claimed to be

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God. When you look at numerous passages in the scriptures, especially, say, for example, in the

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Gospel of John, where Christ repeatedly takes upon himself the title of I Am, you know, before Abraham was,

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I Am. That's the divine name. So you take all of that exegetical information, and I would say there are simply too many passages for the cultist to say, oh, that's just one text, or that's just two texts.

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No, it's just there's a, you know, a cornucopia of different texts from which we, you know, come to the conclusion that we worship a triune

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God. And then quickly on the, you know, the Roman Catholic question is, you know, I would want to appeal to the standard

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Protestant idea that the Church does not give birth to the Word, or, you know, correlatively, the

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Church ultimately does not give birth to doctrine, but rather the scriptures and its teachings give birth to the

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Church. So that apart from God's Word, there would be no Church, and that takes precedence.

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And before Nicaea or the Council of Chalcedon, there were

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Christians and those amongst the Church Fathers who believed in the concept of the

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Trinity without using the term, correct? Yes, absolutely. All right,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, I was just kind of, you can either, I'm going to the doctor for some teaching here, okay.

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But I can't understand why the Jews would have a difficult time understanding the concept of the

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Trinity, because as soon as inspired scripture was let out of the gate, when it said, in the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth, the word for God there, Elohim, is a plural word in itself. Why would that be instead of using the singular

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Eloah? I'm not a language expert, so you can, you know, enlighten me if I'm wrong on that. Yeah, no,

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I think that it's just a common way of talking about, it's an honorific in the sense that it's talking about the exalted nature of, you know, of God, and so the plural is used there.

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And I think that you can find similar occurrences with other terms that in order to elevate the term, you put it into the plural.

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But in this particular case, even when you read some of the Jewish commentaries, the very, very early

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Jewish commentaries, the Targums and the Midrashes, on the opening of Genesis, they will, you know, they will not know what to do.

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They kind of punt, or they kind of will change some of the wording. Say, for example, in Genesis 126, when, you know, the grammar is seemingly off when it says, let us make man in our image, because it says, then

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God, singular, said, let us make man in our image. They're not quite sure what to do with it, and so they kind of, you know, they have different opinions, but they don't want to acknowledge anything close to the doctrine of the

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Trinity. It's not until you get, I think, to the New Testament Church that theologians begin looking at, throughout the

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Scriptures and to passages such as Genesis 126, and say, okay, this is in very seminal form, but it's ultimately speaking of the triune

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God, and the way they do that is they look through the New Testament as the

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Apostles and the Disciples exegeted these things in the New Testament as they were looking at the

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Old Testament. So that, I think, is how I would, you know, try to explain that as far as the

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Jewish reception or non -reception of the idea. We have

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Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know your opinion on the current

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Reformed controversy on the Trinity involving eternal subordinationism.

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I know that Chris has had those representing either side of the issue on his program.

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Both sides seem to have much Orthodox and Reformed teaching behind them, but disagree on this issue.

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What is your guest's side on the issue, and if he believes that the opposing side to his own is in serious error?

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Yeah, I think, let me say up front that I have not followed the debate terribly closely, but I've kind of kept an eye on it.

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And a second observation is that it's my understanding that one of the debate participants,

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Wayne Grudem, you know, delivered a lecture at the recent meeting of the

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Evangelical Theological Society in November of last year, where he changed his view.

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Really? Yeah, I have it somewhere in my office, but I can't comment much more than that, but that he did change his view.

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You probably would find it out on the internet. But setting aside, you know, representatives of the different, you know, positions, because I'm not sure who's aligned with what,

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I would want to say that, you know, I would A, want to affirm the historic, you know,

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Christian teaching on this that we have basically throughout all of Western Christendom, and it's the idea of the complete ontological equality of all three members of the

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Godhead. You know, again, as the Westminster Confession says that in the unity of the Godhead, there are three persons of one substance, power, and eternity, so that they all are

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God. And in that sense, to affirm the aseity, or the self -existence of the second person of the

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Trinity. The second thing that I would want to say is that I think it's unfortunate to talk about the eternal subordination of the

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Son apart from really explaining in great detail what exactly that means, because at a bald reading of it, it makes it sound like Jesus, the second person of the

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Trinity, or the Son, is in some sense eternally inferior, which it ends up clashing with the affirmation of the complete and total deity, the full deity of the

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Son, as the classic creeds affirm. And in this respect, I don't know that this has been brought up in the past, but it was

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Jacob Arminius who affirmed, or who advocated, the eternal subordination of the

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Son, saying that the Son was essentially, in some ways, inferior, and you can find that in his theological works, the three -volume works that's been republished by Baker back in the

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Baker books in the 90s. So that, I think, is problematic. But then the question is, is how do we account for, you know, how do we account for the

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Son's obedience to the Father? And I think that it's important to recognize that it's one thing to talk about his person as being fully

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God, and it's another thing to talk about his work as the

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God -man. One is necessary, in the sense that we have to affirm the

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Son's complete and full equality with the Father and deity. The other is, in technical terms, contingent, in the sense that the

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Son was not under obligation to redeem, but, you know, in the words of Philippians 2, he voluntarily embraced this, and as the

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God -man submitted himself to his Heavenly Father. And so in that sense, it's important to recognize the distinction between the

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Son's ontology, or who he is in his being, and the economy, you know, in terms of what he does, in terms of his work as the

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Redeemer, or in other terms, the procession, the eternal processions of the

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Trinity, and distinguish those from the missions, the missions of each member of the

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Trinity. So that when Christ says, you know, the Father is greater than I, he's not saying,

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I am somehow ontologically less than God, but rather he's saying, as the

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God -man, and within the context of the work of redemption,

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I am voluntarily submitting myself to the will of the Father in order to accomplish the plan of redemption, which is essentially, more or less, the whole idea behind the covenant of redemption, is that this is voluntary on the

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Son's part, and not a necessary part of his being. So to say that the

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Son is eternally subordinate is, at best, I think misleading or confusing, and at worst, it's serious, you know, serious doctrinal error, even potentially heresy.

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But I'd want to say, well, let me talk to the person who's saying these things to try to figure out where he or she is.

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Right, in fairness to the folks on the eternal subordination side, who

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I've had on this program, who are theologically reformed, they would say, just as in complementarianism in regard to the gender roles, which teaches that a man is not superior in any way, shape, or form to his wife or to females, at the same time they have been given an order where the wife is subordinate or submissive to the husband, not making him superior, it's just that the way that it was a part of God's design, and they will say that there is no reason to think that it violates the co -equal and co -eternal nature of the

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Trinity, because they will, as you must know, that those that are within the Reformed faith would insist upon the

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Trinity including the aspect of the members of the Trinity being co -equal and co -eternal.

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Yeah, no, I think you're right on that, yes. And by the way, Ronald, you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing today,

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The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, thanks to our friends at Christian Publications, and that will be shipped to you, thanks to our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cv, as in Cumberland Valley, bbs, as in biblebookservice .com,

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cvbbs .com. We have

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Joe in Slovenia who has a question, and I have to enlarge

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Joe's font on his email because it's very, very tiny. Since modalism, also called

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Sabellianism, was condemned as heresy long ago, and Christian Trinitarian orthodoxy has been taught and disseminated thoroughly and widely for centuries, how do modern -day modalists such as T .D.

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Jakes gain a following? What is going on in Christianity that creates a situation which heresy of this magnitude is present and tolerated in broader evangelicalism?

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Thank you for instructing us today. A very good question. A lot of it is when

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I have conversations with people that are non -Trinitarian or question its importance, they will very often use some of the rhetoric that I brought up earlier.

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They will say, well, I don't need the Catholic Church or councils to define what

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I believe from the inerrant word of God. I will just look at the Bible, read what it says, and sure, it talks about the

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Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but I don't need to be bound by any kind of Trinitarian understanding of that, and they will typically wind up devolving into some kind of a heresy like modalism.

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But if you could explain yourself why you think this is tolerated in a much greater way than it was centuries ago.

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Yeah, I think there are a couple of reasons. The first is that I think that there's a tendency, especially at least in the

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United States, I can't necessarily comment as much about other parts of Western culture, but in terms of the

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United States, in terms of that we often believe that Christianity begins with our own profession of faith, and that we don't realize that, you know, when we make a profession of faith in Christ, it's not just to do so as individuals, but rather as individuals bound to a body, the

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Church, and that this Church extends from the present day all the way back to Adam and Eve.

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And so that when we're thinking about these things, we have to recognize that we are not the first to come to these ideas, you know, and to come to the

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Scriptures. Secondly, I think that in that regard, when Paul says in Ephesians 4 that Christ has given gifts to the

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Church, and that these gifts are pastors and teachers and what have you, that these theologians in the past are part of Christ's gift to the

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Church. And so that when we come to study the Word of God, we have to recognize we're not the first ones to come and study the

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Word, and that many other gifted people have been given to the Church to teach us.

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And so the saying that I like to use is that we're theological hobbits who get to stand on the shoulders of these giants, and so we can get a greater glimpse of the glory of Christ, like Zacchaeus sitting in that tree.

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So that, you know, we want to say, well, what does the earlier Church have to say about this?

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I'm not the first to read this text, and maybe I can learn something from these theologians of the past.

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And so I think that that probably, you know, explains part of it, is that we're disconnected from the past, we don't realize that there are many others that have professed the faith, and then that these other theologians from the past are gifts to the

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Church. And so in that respect, I think it requires some humility on our part to say, you know,

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Lord, teach me through these other people and through these gifted theologians, because what I may find very difficult,

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I might be able to have tremendous insight and learn a great deal from other people.

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As C .S. Lewis, you know, characterized it, we want to have the fresh breeze of centuries gone by blow through our minds to remind us of truths forgotten, or to show us things that we need to learn.

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We have to go to a break right now. And by the way, Joe, in Slovenia, you have also won a free copy of the book we are discussing,

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The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, by our guest J .V. Fesko. And this is quite a substantial work.

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It's a gorgeous hardcover book. And we thank Christian Focus in the

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UK for providing us with these free copies today. And keep your eye out in the mail, or should

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I say, have your daughter in the United States, to whom we are mailing this, have her keep her eye out in the mail for a package from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

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That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com. And we thank you for contributing to today's show with your question.

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We're going to a break right now. And if anybody else would like to join those who have already asked questions with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I am

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the Pastors Study, every

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

36:57

Dr. J .V. Fesco. He is author, academic dean, professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Westminster Seminary in California, and we are discussing his book,

37:11

The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

37:19

chrisarnson at gmail .com. In studio with me is Rev. Buzz Taylor, and I have a humorous email from our faithful listener in Greensboro, North Carolina.

37:32

Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepherd's Fellowship says, in reference to that last ad you heard about the

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New American Standard Bible, he says, only you could hip up Dr.

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James White. H -I -P as in Peter. Hip up Dr. James White. Good music in the background of the commercial.

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Well, I have to give credit where credit is due because actually the Rev. Buzz Taylor found that music for that ad and definitely did make it more interesting.

38:04

Well, I wonder if anybody's happened to notice how much trumpet exists in all your ads. Yeah, right. The Rev.

38:10

Buzz has been a fountain of musical beds, as they call them in the industry, for our advertising on Iron Shepherds Iron.

38:21

And he is a trumpet player, so a lot of his taste gravitates towards that.

38:27

Going back to what we were saying before, before I actually go to a real question that Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker has, or I should say a question regarding our topic, we were talking about, in response to Joe in Slovenia, we were talking about how the doctrine of modalism has really become accepted as not that problematic by a great number of evangelicals today.

39:04

Even, ironically, a network called the Trinity Broadcasting Network has

39:10

Juandes Pentecostals teaching on it. Wouldn't you say, Dr.

39:15

Fesko, that a lot of it has to do basically with the disdain that modern evangelicalism has for theological precision and doctrinal soundness?

39:31

Or even the very concern for doctrinal soundness has been relegated to Phariseeism, or nitpicking, or being unloving, and being sectarian, and so on.

39:47

If you could comment on that. Yeah, I mean, I think there is that tendency.

39:53

On the one hand, I can understand it in the sense that sometimes understanding the scriptures is hard work.

40:02

It's a very big book, and there are a lot of things in there that at first first blush are perhaps difficult to understand.

40:10

But on the other hand, I want to say that in any type of relationship, whether it's especially, let's say, a relationship between people, the stronger that relationship gets, it's typically going to be driven by a greater knowledge between the two people as to who they are and getting to know one another, so that when we study the scriptures, it's not ultimately about simply the acquisition of knowledge, but ultimately getting to know who

40:40

God is and how he has revealed himself in Christ through the Spirit.

40:45

So yeah, there may be technical aspects, technical things that we have to learn and study, but I would liken them to, you know,

40:54

I know that my wife hates surprises. I know that my wife's favorite color is red.

41:00

I know that my wife likes certain types of clothing and certain types of food, etc.,

41:06

so that the more that I get to know her, the more details I know about her. I know her far better than anybody else probably in the world, though maybe her parents would say, well, we know her pretty well too, and I'd say, okay, sure, but you get the idea, and so that when it comes to studying the scriptures, it's ultimately about getting to know

41:28

Christ, and we want to recognize that it's not nitpicking to say that, wait a minute,

41:35

Christ is not just a man, he's more than that, but he's also

41:40

God. Well, how do we account for that? Well, we want to say that he's fully God and he's fully man, and, you know, there are a host of things that come along with that, because in the end, you know, people say, well, why do we have to talk about these details?

41:55

Can't we just talk about Jesus? You say, okay, sure, and then as soon as you ask the question, well, who is

42:01

Jesus, you inevitably get back into those questions as to, you know, as to who he is, and in some respects, this really is ultimately the difference between heaven and hell.

42:15

You know, I was out in the front yard of my house doing some work, and some people walked up, and long story short, they pulled out their

42:23

Bibles and started saying that there's a queen of heaven, and I said, look, I said, you know, you're seriously mistaken.

42:32

This is not at all scriptural teaching, and if you affirm that there is a queen of heaven when the scriptures don't say that, that's tantamount to idolatry, and this imperils your soul.

42:45

So it's not that we're trying to get overly technical for the sake of pride or for arrogance or for being puffed up with knowledge, but rather it's ultimately to get to know better God who has revealed himself in Christ and the

43:00

Spirit in the Word. Okay, we have again Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina, who says,

43:13

I think it is interesting that eternal subordination always focuses on Jesus's submission to the

43:18

Father. Isn't it another problem that the workman, the Holy Spirit, would be perceived to be of some less value than Christ as he is only the agent of salvation?

43:31

If we look at all three persons of the Trinity, it is harder to see the value judgments that man places on this argument.

43:38

All three persons in some way submit to each other. Father takes on the planning. Son takes on the sacrifice.

43:46

Spirit takes on the work of salvation. So this is more of a comment than a question. Do you have any response to Pastor Vanderwerker?

43:52

No, I think that's important to note. I agree in the sense that we have to account for each the division of labor, if you will, within the

44:02

Godhead, and that it's ultimately voluntary. The triune

44:08

God voluntarily created and the triune God voluntarily redeems.

44:15

In other words, the triune God is not under any obligation to redeem any fallen creature. And even going further back than that, the triune

44:23

God was not under any obligation to create. And that's why Paul, for example, in Acts chapter 17, talks about, you know,

44:31

God doesn't live in temples and doesn't need to be served by human hands. He doesn't need us. But rather, he creates not out of a need, but rather out of an abundance of love and a desire to share of his love with his creation, and in this sense, amazingly so, with creatures who have rebelled and who hate him.

44:55

And in spite of this rebellion, the triune God reaches out and rescues and redeems fallen sinners.

45:04

Well, thank you, Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker. And you are receiving, as well, a free copy of the

45:11

Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, complements of Christian Focus publications in the

45:16

UK, and compliments of our dear friends right here in Cumberland County, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services.

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B -B -S dot com. Keep your eye open in the mail for a package from C -V, B -B -S dot com.

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And it just so happens that Cumberland County is in Cumberland Valley, so it's kind of a tongue twister there.

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And by the way, Reverend Buzz Taylor, our listener, Sterling Vanderwerker, also has a comment.

45:53

He says, another description for those who play the trumpet is a blowhard. I've heard it all.

46:01

Anyway, we have a first -time listener, or at least a first -time questioner.

46:09

We have Linda in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Please ask

46:14

Dr. Fesco to comment on the Spirit's role in the fruit of the

46:20

Spirit. Is this only a New Testament concept, or can the Spirit's work be found in the

46:26

Old Testament? Very good questions, Linda, and thank you for contributing a question for the first time on Iron Trip and Zion.

46:33

If you could, Dr. Vanderwerker. Yes, in terms of the

46:40

Spirit's work, we always want to acknowledge that the Spirit is the agent of the application of redemption, and thus, in that respect, the agent of sanctification throughout the

46:55

Scriptures in both the Old and New Testament. And the distinction that we would want to make, however, is that, you know, when

47:04

Christ, for example, is talking to the woman at the well, he says that there will come a time when you will no longer worship, you know, here, but rather it's wherever you worship in spirit and in truth.

47:19

You see this also in terms of the outpouring of the Spirit, in that it is a greater, more abundant, universal outpouring of the

47:29

Spirit. In the Old Testament, it's much more localized, and not only localized, but restricted, really, to the nation of Israel, and tied particularly to the

47:40

Temple. But in any instance where the

47:46

Old Testament saint manifested love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, or self -control, as Paul says there in Ephesians 5, 22 and following, then it was ultimately going to be as a result of the work of the

48:02

Spirit. But on the other hand, that type of sanctification and that type of Christian life, if we can put it that way, was ultimately tied to the land, it was tied to the

48:15

Temple, and in particular the Old Testament saint could be exiled from the land.

48:21

I think that this is what drives David's comment in Psalm 51, take not your Holy Spirit from me.

48:27

It's not that the Holy Spirit would abandon him per se, but rather because of his sin he would be cast outside the camp, outside the benevolent presence, away from the benevolent presence of the

48:38

Spirit of God there in the land, especially connected to the Temple. Whereas in the New Testament, we read wherever two or three are gathered there,

48:46

I'm in their presence, in their midst. And so that in that sense, we have a greater dispensation of the

48:52

Spirit, and we can know that the Spirit does not abandon us because we are united to Christ and have received that outpouring of the

49:02

Spirit. Well Linda, since you are a first -time questioner, not only are you receiving the last copy of the book that we're talking about,

49:11

The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, by our guest J .V. Fesco, you're also going to get a free

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New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and you're also, on top of that, getting a free copy of A Time for Confidence, Trusting God in a

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Post -Christian Society, by Dr. Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, which is the

49:38

Bible College of Ligonier Ministries, the teaching ministry of R .C. Sproul. And I was very honored and blessed to hear from Ligonier Ministries that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is one of a handful of their very favorite radio programs, and they have given me a lot of copies of Dr.

49:59

Nichols' book to give away to first -time listeners of this program.

50:05

So we thank you, Linda, for joining us today, and we hope to hear from you often in the future on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

50:13

By the way, Linda, I'm going to need your full mailing address because all I have is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in regard to where you are from.

50:21

So thanks again, Linda, and God bless. We have

50:26

Seth in Randles Bend, North Carolina, and I have to enlarge his email as well because the font is so tiny.

50:39

Seth asks the question, Do you think many evangelical churches today are misrepresenting the

50:48

Trinity and or redemption? If so, in what ways do you think can be done to prevent this from happening?

51:02

I guess a post -millennial hope would be the only thing I can think of.

51:08

He could write a book about it. I mean, perfection coming to the human race before heaven.

51:16

But anyway, do you have any comments and suggestions or counsel in regard to this? I mean,

51:23

I think that there's always good reason for us to ask ourselves, how well are we reflecting the teaching of the scriptures, not only in our theology, but also in our practice?

51:36

And so I think in that respect, one of the many ways which we can sometimes misrepresent the triune

51:44

God is in our worship. And in particular, on the one hand, attention to Christ is important.

51:52

By all means, we need to worship Christ. But sometimes in some churches that I've been to, as I'm sitting there listening,

51:59

I rarely hear references to the Father, I rarely hear references to the Spirit. And I think that this is one of the ways that we can continue to inculcate our churches in Trinitarian faith, in the teachings of the scriptures, is by ensuring that our liturgy is thoroughly

52:20

Trinitarian. I think you see a small microcosm of this in the

52:26

Lord's Prayer, when Jesus says, you know, how am I supposed to pray? And he begins that prayer with our

52:32

Father. So do our prayers, for example, begin with appeal to Father, and then conclude in the name of Christ, and then somehow we acknowledge that we are praying in the power of the

52:44

Spirit? But those are things I think that we can do, you know, along the way in our worship services, so that people objectively and continually and regularly hear the imprint of the

52:59

Trinity all throughout our liturgy. Recognizing things, like we can say that,

53:04

Father, we give you thanks for sending the Son and for sending the Spirit to redeem us. You know, small things like that.

53:11

And I think that we would find that as we do so, that we would be more attentive to the doctrine of the

53:18

Trinity, and God -willing, less prone to ignore or perhaps misrepresent the

53:25

Trinity in our worship or in our theology. Reverend Buzz Taylor is going to have a comment or question when we return from the break, but we are going to a break right now.

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If anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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01:02:51

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is

01:02:58

Dr. J. V. Fesco. He's an author. He's the academic dean, professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Westminster Seminary, California.

01:03:08

And he is discussing the Trinity and the covenant of redemption. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:03:19

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. If you have a question for Dr.

01:03:24

Fesco about that subject, and please at least give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:03:32

USA. And I just have to give you another reminder that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is in urgent need for more advertisers and sponsors and benefactors.

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Those of you who wish to donate to Iron Sharpens Iron, no matter what amount you can spare, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

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ironsharpensironradio .com and click on the third option at the top of the page which is support and when you click on support you will have a mailing address where you can mail your checks to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, made out to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as well.

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website after you click support. I do apologize for being much more frequent with these urgent appeals for finances these days but as many of you will attest to who have been listening to this program since 2006,

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I have gone years without making a single request like this on the air but it just so happens that we are facing a more urgent need for financing than we've ever faced before in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio so please let us know if you can help out in any way and you can certainly help out with your prayers, that you can certainly do.

01:05:52

If you're a bible believing Christian we would covet your prayers. Well we are back with our interview with Dr.

01:05:59

J .V. Fesco and the Reverend Buzz Taylor wanted to say something before we go to any more of our listener questions.

01:06:06

Well I first want to start out with just a little bit of inside information here because I think your listeners would appreciate this that I was

01:06:13

Dr. Fesco I was giving you a thumbs up for your last answer and Chris interpreted that as turn my mic up because he turns me down in between things because that way you don't have to hear me gargling on my coffee and all that stuff but yeah

01:06:32

I really appreciated your answer there that we need to be a little bit more upfront about the trinity in the way we pray and so forth in our liturgies and so yeah you didn't know on the radio that you were getting a thumbs up okay well it makes me feel so good now but I told

01:06:52

Chris you know even though he mistook my thumbs up and turned my mic up I said well I'll still take the time because I want to ask you about the rest of your book because we spent the first hour talking about the trinity but I'm curious about how this fits together the trinity and the covenant of redemption that it's not just a book about the trinity right correct so could you explain the title and what you think about what you mean by covenant and specifically covenant of redemption and how it relates to the trinity yeah

01:07:25

I think in historic reform theology we have a you know the two -fold doctrine of the covenants which most people would understand is the covenants of works and grace and so that I think is you know certainly standard teaching but what a lot of people may not realize is that historically a good percentage of reform theologians in the late 16th but especially the 17th century developed a third covenant that we would call or that was historically been called the covenant of redemption and if the covenant of works is the covenant between God and Adam and the covenant of grace is made with the elect sinner in Christ then the covenant of redemption is the intra -trinitarian covenant or agreement among father son and holy spirit when in eternity they you know to speak and kind of humanly speaking so to speak when they gathered together to decide and you know to determine the plan of redemption that is you know that's a very very basic definition of what the covenant of redemption is in some formulations some theologians say that no it's just about the doctrine of Christ and Christ's appointment uh as the covenant mediator or as in the words of hebrews 722 uh the uh the covenant surety or the covenant guarantor it's just about that and while I think that I understand what those theologians are saying when they want to talk about it just in terms of the doctrine of Christ I think a fuller uh statement of the doctrine is to acknowledge that the covenant of redemption is ultimately about the trinity and the father sending the son and then in turn the son and the father sending the spirit and conversely or you know correlatively to say that if the father sends the son that the son willingly consents to go and then if the father and the son send the spirit that the spirit also willingly goes to bring about not only the plan but also to complete and execute the plan of redemption do you think uh going back to something that we were talking about earlier the lack of trinitarian language in modern -day evangelicalism in sermons and in books and in worship uh that some of it is because modern evangelicalism has a false concept very often of who

01:10:02

Christ is they they pit the father and son against each other perhaps not even consciously but it's almost like a bad cop good cop routine where they have this meek and mild

01:10:17

Jesus that is not going to judge he has no wrath he is just sitting there with his arms stretched open waiting for us and uh they want this gospel to be so appealing to even the pagan that they remove the sting out of the the gospel message itself and in fact uh nobody i'm sure you would agree would agree could appreciate the good news of the gospel unless they know what the bad news is but if you could comment on what i said perhaps you disagree with me but perhaps no i agree and i think what i would want to add is that i think one of the things that the covenant of redemption helps us to understand is that contrary to some portrayals that uh that we find in the broader church where you know jesus is somehow the victim or i think notoriously in steve chalk's uh understanding this is a book that was published in the uk a number of years ago where he said that he rejected um you know the doctrine of substitutionary atonement because he believed it was essentially uh divine cosmic child abuse and i think oh so he's the one that said that he's the one that okay yeah i mean those those are just gross misunderstandings and if we take a look say at the covenant of redemption and what it affirms is that so many times when i when i've read the the statements of theologians in the past that have talked about this doctrine they continually make reference to the idea that this is all about the love of the triune god for fallen sinners because you know you see this in so many passages of scripture that i think many of us know and are familiar with but perhaps don't string them together on a on a on a strand so that we can see this glorious strand of pearls all together and it's the idea that you know for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son you know john 3 16 so familiar to us but do we stop and consider the fact that it's the father sending the son in love you know when we think of for example in ephesians chapter 5 where it talks about the sacrificial love of of christ for his bride that he is laying down his life in love and that christ is doing this not only out of a love for his bride but he's ultimately doing this out of a love for his father think again back we mentioned this in the first hour of the shema and deuteronomy 6 4 hero israel the lord our god the lord is of one love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength and that is precisely what jesus did in his obedience to the law he loved his father obedience and love are not oil and water they are not contrary to one another but rather they go hand in hand and so here not only does jesus love his father by obeying him but it's ultimately done to love us and to bathe us with his love and then in romans 5 where paul talks about the outpouring of love through the spirit that historically it was saint augustine who said that the spirit was the bond of love that existed between the father and the son now obviously we could say that equally of the son and the father and the father and the son in terms of their shared bond of love but the way that the scriptures talk about it is that christ when he baptizes the church in the spirit that he's pouring out the love of the triune god upon us through the spirit so that from beginning to end this agreement this covenant among father son and holy spirit to redeem is an over abundant outflowing of the love of the triune god poured out and given to fallen sinners so that they could know of the love of god we have tyler and mastic beach long island new york who obviously wants to put myself and my co -host reverend buzz taylor at further odds with each other and also my guest for that matter he wants us to i think he wants to create a fight here or something but he says is the presbyterian understanding of the covenant of grace identical to the reformed baptists understanding if you could comment on that uh dr vesco yeah i mean you know obviously i think that there are no secrets here is that you know i don't know what the percentage would be but there's probably uh i don't know 95 90 overlap in terms of what um you know historically particular baptists or reformed baptists have uh have believed because they took the the westminster confession of faith and in 1689 they made a few modifications here and there particularly in terms of issues related to baptism and then um you know and then adopted it as their own so in that respect there's a significant degree of overlap uh and in particular in terms of the the broad categories i think in this respect i think i've found a number of very beneficial and useful treatments of uh you know of the doctrine of salvation from historic uh reformed baptists or particular baptist theologians from the 17th century benjamin teach i think you know it stands tall among them or nehemiah cox is another so those are you know some great men but obviously i think where the where the difference of the distinction would lie is in terms of uh who uh is a is a member of the covenant of grace in terms of visibly speaking you know the westminster confession of faith says that the visible church consists of those who profess the true religion and their children uh whereas the reformed baptists would say it consists of those who profess the true religion uh so that they wouldn't uh wrap in uh the uh the children and infants unless they make at least in the case of children uh a profession of faith so obviously that's that's kind of where those where those lines draw and so with your co -host and myself we're on the westminster side of things and you chris are on the on the 1689 side of things and so uh yeah that's where those distinctions lie well thank you tyler and uh so far no bloodshed in the studio so so far and we have chris in runnels iowa who says i am wondering if a little explanation of the wills of god can be given does an inter -trinitarian covenant imply that there are multiple wills coming into an agreement thank you yeah i think that the way that we want to understand this is that when the son says in the gospel of john i think it's some 25 to 30 times i don't remember exactly that's why i write books so that i can write it down and i can forget it but i think it's close to some 30 times that jesus refers to being sent and so the you know the common sense thing that we would say is you can't send yourself uh you know you would instead say i have come and so this reflects the idea that the father sent the son and so in in more slightly more technical terms what we say is is the missions of the godhead find their origins in their processions in their eternal processions or to put that or state that more more simply is that the work that each person of the trinity does in the economy of redemption finds its origin in their respective roles within the godhead and so for example the father sends the son that is you know that's that that fits his role as father and this fits his role as son and then conversely or at least correlatively that the son and the father send the spirit and i wish i had a chalkboard to be able to to draw all this out but the way i like to do it is i like to put a triangle up on the board and show how the father is at the top of the triangle and he's you know he you have the eternal generation of the son he's eternally the son and that this generation if you will extends temporally into history as the incarnate son and then as the son and the father and the technical term is is eternally spirate uh the spirit that they then this extends this eternal you know sent in ascending of the spirit if you will extends into the economy of redemption as they both send the spirit so that in the simplest of terms and this is all essentially wrapped up in the doctrine of the covenant of redemption is that the god the triune god of history is the same triune god in eternity and that the reason that redemption looks like the way it does is because it ultimately reflects who god is in eternity well thank you very much chris and keep spreading the word about iron sharpens iron in runnels iowa and beyond well let's hear about the correlation between the members of the godhead and predestination and justification yeah i mean uh you know we can that's a pretty big question so maybe we can you know how do you at a time you know a step at a time in that in terms of uh you know the doctrine of election uh this is again once again we would you know the classic saying of the church has historically been that the works of the triune god are indivisible in other words that everything comes to us as the indivisible work of the triune god father son and holy spirit but just because we affirm that it is the indivisible work of the holy of the triune god does not mean therefore that each person of the trinity does everything so for example we do not affirm historically or scripturally that the father died on the cross or that the spirit died on the cross that's something that we attribute specifically to the second person of the trinity specifically to the sun in fact wasn't there a heresy a patrae passionism that actually taught that the father died on the cross right exactly yeah that's been identified in the church as heresy so yeah we don't we don't want to affirm that so what we want to recognize is yes the triune god uh you know the work is indivisible they're always working in concert but at the same time we want to say that each one functions in a specific way to execute that plan of redemption so it's the son who is sent and the father who sends for example in that respect so that's the first thing that we want to acknowledge the second thing in respect to say the doctrine of election and you see this play out at several points in scripture is that the new testament invariably attributes the choice or the election of the people of god to the father and you see this uh in john uh john chapter six where john uh recounts christ's words and he talks about um you know i will not lose any of those whom you have given me um you know and that uh i you know you have chosen them i will protect them i uh i will will keep them uh i will keep them so that none will fall away and so i think it's important in that respect that we recognize that it's the father who who does the choosing and you see that i think reflected in uh ephesians chapter ephesians chapter one but also in terms of that the father chooses the son as a part of his decree of election uh and the reason that he does so is because as ephesians chapter one says that we are chosen in him in christ before the foundation of the world so i think that that's an important dimension that we have to recognize in terms of say the doctrine of election uh as it relates to the doctrine of the trinity in terms of say the doctrine of justification along those lines we would want to say that once again the father is the one who judges he's the one that issues the verdict uh and uh over over the sinner and uh famously we see that in romans chapter four when paul says in romans uh four five that uh and i'm sorry in romans uh four one and following that what then shall we say was gained by abraham our forefather according to the flesh and as he gets down into verse three abraham believed god and it was counted to him as righteousness well where does that righteousness come from if god is the judge then that righteousness comes from christ and he is the source of the righteousness as paul makes clear for example in romans chapter five where many are constituted as righteous by virtue of the one act of righteousness of christ but then the question comes up well how is it that we receive the work of christ well it's through the work of the spirit who effectually calls us and unites us to christ and places us in union with christ through faith and it's by this faith by which we are able to lay hold of the righteousness of christ uh or to put it in you know in the terms that luther has used in his galatians commentary says by faith we lay hold of christ christ is present in faith and so you know here we see each person of the trinity carrying out the unified work of the triune god but each with his different role uh the father sending the son being sent or the father choosing christ and you know and uniting in his decree uh the elect to christ in the decree and then in terms of the execution of the decree that um he uh sends the son and the son accomplishes his work and then the spirit applies that work so that when god pronounces his verdict uh over the elect he can do uh he can pronounce the verdict of just or righteous because of that applied work of christ through the work of the spirit and we are going to our final break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest dr jv fesco now would be the time to do it our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com that's chris a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

01:30:03

and we have murray in kinross scotland who asks i was interested very much in dr fesco's comments regarding the holy spirit in old testament times in the case of saul should we assume that saul was in fact an old testament saint or that the holy spirit had non -covenantal dealings with unbelievers in old testament times or is there a distinction to be made between the holy spirit resting on an individual in the old testament but not indwelling an individual in the new testament if you need me to repeat any of that i will repeat it for you yeah no saul is a i think it's a tough case because one of the things that we have to recognize is let me set this out hopefully in a couple of quick steps but just because i do it quickly doesn't mean that everything is easy in that first we want to recognize that the old testament is preparatory and ultimately anticipatory of the ultimate revelation of christ and in that respect i think so many old testament saints are serving as precursors redemptive or revelatory precursors to christ so for example in the book of hebrews uh in the second chapter it talks about moses uh as being uh in god's house or a leader in god's house whereas christ being over god's house and talking about moses in a typological relationship to jesus that moses prefigures jesus same thing with david king david prefigures jesus well as one of israel's kings saul is you know he prefigures jesus at least in terms of the way in which he occupies the office of king because ultimately jesus is the prophet priest and in this case king the second observation to make is that when the holy spirit uh fell upon certain old testament saints we shouldn't be too quick to assume that when he fell on them it was uh indicative of uh their the person's state of salvation the the person received the holy spirit in many cases for not in terms of salvation which could be a distinct issue but rather in terms of them carrying out a specific uh function uh as as a precursor to christ so for example uh this is not you know this is somewhat related in that you see that moses gets precluded from the promised land he's barred from the promised land and we understand that the the promised land is a foreshadowing type of heaven yet so we might conclude if this story were to end there well gee whiz if moses was barred from the promised land was he then therefore barred from heaven itself well we know of course from the new testament and the mount of transfiguration uh that moses appears on the mount of transfiguration so that just because moses was barred from the promised land was not an automatic indicator that he was not saved uh now i always tell my students this how they knew it was moses i'm not sure maybe they had name tags you know but nevertheless they knew it was moses and we know he's he's he's saved so along those lines i you know i tell my students i tell people in my church it's quite possible that we'll run into other in heaven uh that uh you know other reached out his hand to steady the arc violation of god's command and was immediately struck dead uh for this violation but just because he struck dead doesn't automatically mean that he wasn't saved we you know we'll just have to wait and see even i i am assuming that we might even meet ananias and sapphira could we not right i mean that's a distinct possibility as well you know so we want to be cautious with that in terms of certainly they serve as warning signs against deception and lying but uh not just because the lord uh you know punishes them with fatherly discipline in this case intense fatherly discipline would not automatically mean that they're not saved so when we come now to the case of saul uh you know the holy spirit falls upon him in the similar fashion as the spirit would fall upon other prophets in the old testament in order to conduct their unique ministry their their precursor ministry of preparing the way for christ so what we can certainly say with regard to saul is is that saul um you know lost the outpouring of the spirit insofar as it related to his specific function as one of israel's anointed kings and as a precursor to christ but on the other hand at least for me personally i'm not so sure that i want to move that back to say that saul is automatically therefore condemned did he struggle with his sanctification undoubtedly so uh did he um did he sin you know such as you know consulting with the witch of endor which was a capital offense in israel absolutely uh but just because he sins in those fashion and that fashion doesn't automatically mean that he might not be safe so with saul i would probably want to just leave a question mark and say unsure but we would certainly want to learn from saul to say that you know his conduct at many points uh was absolutely sinful and his uh conduct that would in no way or in no way should uh mark a christian uh you know and that we should will we to have such type of conduct we would want to repent from it uh immediately or as quickly as possible any uh biblical reason why we should uh have hope for um nadab and abahu no i i don't know i mean it's possible it's just it's possible just simply from the uh from the from the perspective that uh so little is said about them we just know that it was unauthorized fire according to leviticus 10 that they brought before uh the lord uh so we don't know for sure um i don't see a whole lot of um positive indicators it seems like um you know they that you know the the priestly line at that point was was struggling uh but at the same time because of a lack of information i would want to you know i wouldn't want to make any cold hard you know firm decisions other than to say that as with any person we would pray that uh that the lord would extend mercy to them because in the end we ourselves are ultimately the recipients of of god's mercy as well right and uh i'm surprised when i've heard biblically literate pastors bring a question mark into the situation in regard to the eternal state of judas because jesus himself said it would be better for him that he was never born so obviously that is a clear indication that judas is not going to be waiting for us in heaven right yeah no you're right on that i think that you know there are a few cases in the scriptures where you know the scriptures are just you know very crystal clear as to what's going on and that's certainly one of them uh now i'll uh bring up something that is sure to get some of my uh non -calvinist listeners upset with me because they do express their disappointment with me for bringing up calvinism too much but uh i cannot help but think and this i think applies to the uh accusation that that non -calvinists uh hurl at us they they will sometimes some of them that is will say well even if what you are saying about predestination unconditional election is true uh why do you have to bring it up as such a an important deal like it's uh you know isn't this really something that is for ivory tower intellectuals to discuss over cigars and brandy somewhere we don't really need to be grappling with these mysterious and deep issues let's just love jesus and so on but uh isn't the the system of reform theology the only system that really harmonizes the members of the godhead as being in unity as being in agreement when it comes to the salvation of sinners it it seems that the arminian idea of salvation pits the members of the trinity at odds with each other uh you know you have uh the son wanting all men who have ever lived and whoever will live to come to salvation and he is dying for them purposely to save every single human ever born and whoever will be born and yet they are not going all going to be redeemed they are not all going to be rejected they're not all going to be regenerated by the holy ghost and uh they you know it seems to be a disjointed uh mission on on behalf of the on the part of the members of the trinity am i making too much of this or perhaps you could reply to what i said maybe you disagree with that too i don't know no i think in general i mean you know i i you know it would i'd want to eventually at some point you know where it could be uh uh something that i was writing you know footnote and and documents uh some of these things but i think in general yes you know there's there's there is a disconnect in the sense of saying that um you know why is it you know why is it that christ would universally uh you know provide a universal redemption that ultimately uh somehow falls short and i think at least the generic arminian answer would be that well it's because uh some people you know you know reject uh the offer of the gospel but i think that going back to the uh the earlier comments that you were making in terms of the the unified will of the godhead i think that that's important and as much as um as much as some people you know kind of don't like to hear about the doctrine of election i think it's it's it's such an important thing on on so many levels you know speaking first and foremost about the doctrine of election itself you know to recognize that the triune god sets his love upon us you know from eternity and as paul says in ephesians chapter one that the father chooses us and unites us to christ in eternity before the foundation of the world uh and then the son says okay i am going to set out and redeem those people and nothing absolutely nothing will get between them and me you know in that that rhapsodic and beautiful passage that paul gives us in romans chapter eight where he's talking about uh that nothing can separate us uh from the love of god in christ and that uh you know if god is for us who can be against us uh you know what shall separate us from the love of christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or or danger or sword no through all of this you know we are more than conquerors and paul can say these things because the sovereign god of the universe has you know determinedly set his love upon us when paul talks about you know that that we're predestined according to the foreknowledge the foreknowledge there is not a reference in romans eight to uh god knowing ahead of time that is taken care of with the word predestined but rather it's set it's set in terms of the old testament usage of the term knowledge which means to know when adam knows his wife eve it is an outworking of love it's a manifestation of love and so he says when he when in foreknowledge it's in loving us beforehand in setting his love upon us and then you know he quite literally we can say moves heaven and earth to show that love for us so i think that's that's the first important observation i would want to make the second observation is is that it is hopefully an incredibly comforting thought uh reassuring us that nothing gets in the way of god bringing us home uh and setting his love upon us and you know a couple of passages come to mind is that especially say for example with joseph when he's talking to his brothers in genesis chapter 50 verse 20 he says what you meant for evil god meant for good and for the saving of many lives so that he ordains providentially as the westminster confessional says in chapter 3 paragraph 1 whatsoever comes to pass so that every single event in our lives god uses not only to bring about our redemption and thus unite us to christ by faith but he also uses all of these events in our lives after our conversion as well as even the events prior to our conversion ultimately to bring us in greater conformity to christ we don't realize it sometimes how he's using the events in our lives or perhaps even in life's tragedies and trials we have hope in knowing that these are not just things that happen by happenstance or quite literally i'm not speaking colloquially here but quite literally for the hell of it because satan has somehow gotten control of the situation but rather each and every one of these events in our lives even in life's trials and tragedies lord is using that to conform us more and more to the image of christ so that as paul says there in romans chapter 8 so that christ would have many brothers many who bear his image there at the final day so as as unsettling as the idea might be at first you know i would want to hope that you know one of the outworkings of understanding the doctrine of election especially within the context of the covenant of redemption is that it's ultimately the guarantee that god will show his love not only uh and give us his love in the gospel but he will bring uh this good work that he has begun to its completion now why is the uh reformed understanding of the ordo salutis uh also known as the order of salvation uh why is this so important and how does it relate specifically to the the members of the godhead yeah it's important for us to recognize that when we're talking about the order of salvation we're ultimately not talking about a piecemeal doling out of of the benefits of redemption or the blessings of redemption you know we don't want to give people the impression that we're saying okay uh okay first you're not you're effectually called now let's wait uh an hour uh and after that happens then now okay now you've got faith and so now let's wait a couple of days you know you know piecemeal piecemeal we first want to recognize that the entire order of salvation finds its source in our union with christ we're ultimately talking about the uh the the blessings that we receive through our union with christ it's kind of like discussing and looking at the individual facets on a diamond but when we talk about the order what we're ultimately talking about is a logical ordering of these benefits and that i could you know numerous theologians would say we receive these benefits simultaneously by virtue of our union with christ but if we're talking in terms of their logical relationship or say for example uh the the technical term that the older theologians will use is the order of nature is what they will say which is uh it's a it's an old medieval concept that goes back to the middle ages where they're talking about the uh the the logical ordering of something a non -temporal kind of relationship in in a certain number of you know when you're taking different things and ordering them logically and so for example we see this in the scriptures in many ways for example in john chapter three that you can't see the kingdom of god unless you're first born of the spirit or when paul talks about justification you can't talk about justification unless you have faith in christ which has to be first given to you in some sense and so this is what we're talking about in terms of this this order of salvation as we're recognizing the different priorities that scripture assigns to each of the distinct but nevertheless united benefits of redemption and so for example in classic reform theology we talk about the two -fold grace of christ which is of the duplex gratia which we always denominate as justification and sanctification it's always justification first and we say that because to preserve the integrity of justification to say that we're justified by an alien righteousness that is christ's imputed righteousness not by our own good works and so in fact just a little ago before you know i'm here on the show i was quoting a 17th century reform theologian by the name of herman vitzius who says all sound theologians will recognize that sanctification is the fruit of our justification or to put it in simpler terms uh sanct justified we are justified uh or sorry we are sanctified because we are justified we are not justified because we are sanctified yes and we want it we have to keep those straight otherwise we fall into you know roman catholic views where we're mixing in our good works into the equation so we want to lay all of that out that's the first big step the next big step is to say well why is this why is there this particular order why do we find these logical priorities set out in the scriptures and the answer i think that comes to us is something that gerhardus voss suggested and i think he's true in this and that what he formally suggests is ultimately i think substantively present in the historic tradition as it explains these different relationships is that he says that the order of salvation follows the work of the triune god in terms of the order of their work in that the father sends the son and the son's work comes first and then after the son completes his work um the spirit comes and accomplishes his work and so you see that in terms of christ's outpouring of the spirit at pentecost comes after his own resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the father so the fact that justification takes logical priority to sanctification i think is rooted in the nature that christ's legal forensic work comes first his imputed righteousness is ultimately the legal foundation for the transformative work that the spirit uh accomplishes and that the spirit first applies this work first imputes the righteousness of christ and so in calvin's words if you don't have a foundation upon which to build piety uh you know apart from the doctrine of justification you have no foundation upon which to build piety so that the doctrine of justification creates the context for our sanctification and that's what voss talks about and he does this in his uh reform dogmatics that was recently translated but he also talks about the foundational nature of the forensic work of christ that legal work of christ in his um life death and resurrection in the simplest of terms i can describe it this way and this is i think more or less the way voss puts it though i'm paraphrasing here is that christ's work in me finds its foundation in christ's work for me christ's work in me has its foundation in christ's work for me and hence that's why i think we put in the order of salvation justification before sanctification because justification is chiefly about christ's work for me and sanctification is christ's work in me does that make sense oh yeah and i i think that whenever you have an erroneous understanding of the order of salvation you are whether you recognize it or not you are rising man you are rising or raising the sinful human race to a level that it does not deserve in that we would rightfully be able to claim a share in the glory with god for our own there no matter how you may uh radically protest that kind of a description whenever man is made better than he really is in your systematic theology when you are describing him as being able to please god in the flesh before he even has a new heart as in romans 8 8 where uh the apostle paul tells us those who are in the flesh cannot please god and if repentance and faith please god how on earth can anyone still in the flesh please god with their repentance and faith this all requires a gift of god it requires a heart transplant from god himself and it requires a gift of regeneration from the holy spirit am i uh am i right here in this description yeah no absolutely i think that you find that you know you work you read for example william perkins the golden chain of salvation where he elaborates upon this idea of the order of salvation and he says more or less fundamentally the difference between the reformed and the roman catholic understandings is that roman catholics put sanctification either parallel with or uh prior to justification uh john owen in the famous or perhaps at least at the time it was famous now it's been probably lost upon us but there was this massive controversy towards the close of the 17th century called the communion controversy where he was debating um these doctrines union with christ but also justification and sanctification with uh with uh an anglican theologian who was highly critical of his views and he basically said the fundamental problem here is that again they put sanctification before justification so this is something that reformed theologians have historically rejected and maintain the logical priority of justification to sanctification while at the same time affirming that we receive these things holistically through our union with christ well this book uh has received some pretty impressive accolades uh from people who i know personally who have actually been guests on this program uh dr joel r biki president of puritan reform theological seminary in grand rapids michigan says some books today exegete the shining truths of the holy scriptures others mine the treasures of reformed orthodoxy and yet others interact with influential theologians of the modern era this book is one of the few that does all three and does them well and also ryan mcgraw who's been on the program uh a few times very recently uh he says and by engaging in scripture exegesis historical reflection and interaction with modern trends in theology fesco admirably puts the covenant of redemption back in its rightful place in reformed theology that's ryan mcgraw associate professor of systematic theology at greenville presbyterian theological seminary in taylor's south carolina and uh dr michael horton who is i'm sure recognizable to the vast majority of our listeners he says of of dr fesco's book that it displays the vitality and richness of the covenant of redemption for other doctrines not least the trinity in both method and substance this is an exemplary work that will edify as well as inform that's dr michael horton the jay gresham machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at westminster seminary in california and also host of the white horse sin program one of my co -hosts reverend buzz taylor's favorite programs but if you could uh summarize what you have to leave our listeners with that you most want to etch in their hearts and minds in about two minutes now brother well i think in summary i'd want to say that the covenant of redemption is a manifestation of the triune love that is shared among father son and holy spirit as they agree to plan and to execute the redemption of fallen sinners and to shower these fallen sinners of with this the love of the triune god and that just as the father son and holy spirit share in this close bond of love among one another that it was their desire and intention and plan to share this triune love with us and i can't help but think of a more wonderful blessing that we mere creatures you know in the words of first john what wonderful manner of love is this that we should be called children of god so that through the father's sending of the son through the son accomplishing the work of redemption in agreement with his father and in the spirit in that agreement of the covenant of redemption applying the work of christ that we can call upon god not as judge but rather as father and we can call upon christ uh not as vengeful warrior out to bring god's uh you know wrath upon the fallen world but rather as our brother as our redeemer and as our bridegroom well if anybody would like to get this book if you live in the uk go to christianfocus .com

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christianfocus .com if you live here in the states go to cv bbs .com