TILPodcast- Hebrews 2:9-11

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Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance

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Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance

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Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance

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Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance

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Tellin' me to dance, takin' a chance

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They just got back from camp with the kiddos. How was camp, Dan? It was, it was good.

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I was only able to make it for the last half of the week, but we had a good time.

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We had a really good speaker there. Brother HB Charles out of Jacksonville was there.

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So I got to hear him preach a couple of times. Then we just kind of hung out, took the kids around on a boat and just did camp stuff.

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So it was a good time. Nice. Now, so let me put the pieces of the puzzle together.

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HB Charles, he's not, he's not Presbyterian, is he? No, he's a

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Baptist. Right. So. He does write for Ligonier though, so he's close to, he's close to correct.

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So you didn't go to a denomination specific camp? I don't guess. No, no, no.

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We went to Word of Life family camp up in Scroon Lake. Okay. Okay. It is a pretty, pretty

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Baptist up there. Me and my family, we're definitely the odd ones out, but no, we felt welcomed by the broader

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Catholic community, Catholic little C. Well, I feel like I would, if you, if Dan and the selfs trusted,

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I would feel comfortable. Oh, easy. I didn't full endorse anything. Oh, okay. Okay. All right.

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We did have a good experience. Okay. Cool. Well, let's jump into Hebrews.

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Dan and I are continuing to do our recorded series. So you're welcome to leave comments, ask questions, critique, and we'll try to get back to you.

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Even though we are showing these live, they are prerecorded and we're trying to do some 30 minute sessions just to try a different format, but you are welcome to reach out to us.

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We won't see them live, even though it's showing live, but we will see the notifications and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

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So we were in Hebrews chapter two, and let me read verse nine.

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But we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely

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Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

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Simple enough, right? Well, I mean, that's one of the tougher verses for me because you were talking about some of the

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Christological verses coming up and some of the ideas that we, some of the things we learned about Christ and his nature, we're gonna be hitting on some of those.

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However, being a Calvinist, here's one of the verses where it says that he might taste death for everyone.

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And I've not, the arguments that people use against Calvinism, I've not heard them use this verse very often.

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So I know what I try to do is look at the context and see who he's talking about.

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So what's your explanation here for everyone? Well, it's important that we take every, one of my

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Bible professors, I'm sure I've said this before, my systematic theology professor in my undergrad work said this, he said, never read a

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Bible verse. What he meant by that was never read just one Bible verse and by itself, always take the context with it and then understand it in its place, in its setting.

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So we wanna back up and grab the context before we look at what everyone actually means, which

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I think it means everyone, but we gotta see what it means in context. So if we go back just a little bit further, he quotes a song.

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What is man that you remember him or the son of man that you were concerned about him?

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This is back in verse six. You have made him a little while lower than the angels.

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You have crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.

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Now, when that Psalm was written, that Psalm looks like it was written about mankind. Now, here's the thing.

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Here in Hebrews, that particular section is being referred to as Christ, because it says, for he did not subject, back in verse five, to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking, but one has testified some were saying.

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So he says, he didn't give the world to come to angels. He's given the world to come to Christ. And then he talks about this passage from the

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Psalms, which initially looks like it's about man, but is actually about Christ. So you have somewhere in here, a union of Christ and man.

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Now, it gets into this a little bit later. It says that Christ took on flesh, he became man. We are truly linked, humanity is linked with Christ because of Christ coming and taking on flesh and blood.

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We see that, especially in verse 14. So when it says in verse eight, you have put all things in subjection under his feet, we have to think two things and then understand it the way that the writer of the

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Hebrew says. So first, Adam was given rule over the earth.

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It's the way it was supposed to work. They'd fallen into sin. Falling into sin, he was cursed.

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The ground was cursed, it's gonna be harder for him. So the perfect way that the world was supposed to work, didn't work because man introduced sin into the world.

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So Christ having all things in subjection under his feet, it says this, for in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him.

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But we do not as yet see all things subjected to him. So we don't see all things subjected to man the way that we should have in the garden.

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And we also don't see everything subjected to Christ yet either because there's a lot of rebellion in the kingdom.

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But we also have to remember what he says elsewhere. Matthew 24, nope, 28, where he says, all authority has been given to me.

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So even if we don't see everything under his feet, he still has the authority that would cause everything should be under his feet.

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So you've got authority there, full, present and some rebellion in the kingdom. So what gives?

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We don't see everything in subjection to Christ yet. We don't see mankind's dominion mandate fulfilled, something that we couldn't do because Adam sinned and cannot do because we're in rebellion against God.

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But Christ can because Christ is sinless. So what do we see?

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Verse nine, but we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels,

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Jesus. So we see Jesus who has brought, who took on flesh became man, man being slightly lower than the angels, his humiliation, or at least part of what his humiliation is being brought lower than the angels because, how was he brought lower than angels?

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Because of the suffering of death, but even in his suffering and death, look what it says, crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

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Who is everyone? Here's where we get into some Calvinistic what -o's where we kind of wonder, well, what is he talking about?

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And this is where our theology will bleed through into the text.

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And we have to understand, we really need to take a step back and look at what the text is actually saying and then move forward from there, instead of trying to shoehorn our theology into it already.

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So there are two basic ideas of how man fell.

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And I say two, just two basic ideas. Here's what we're going with.

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There's other things, but that's where we're gonna start with. And there's two big words.

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No, we should get Tyler on these. There you go. But one is superlapsarianism, there's infralapsarianism.

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Superlapsarianism has to do with the decree. Both of them have to, let me back up a step even further.

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They have to do with the, and I'll say it again with smaller words.

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It has to do with the logical priority of God's decree that man would fall and that he would redeem mankind.

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So which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did God say mankind's going to fall first and then say he's going to redeem them?

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Or did he say, I'm going to redeem them and in order to do that, they need to fall. Superlapsarianism is the first, infralapsarianism is the second.

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So what that means is, you end up having to think through this is, and it bleeds out in Calvinist understandings.

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We have different types of Calvinists. One would say it would be a strict double predestinarian who would say that God has decreed those who are going to be reprobated as well as those who are going to be saved.

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Those who are elected to damnation and those who are elected to salvation. Then you have those who take a step back and say

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God has elected those to salvation and simply pass over those who he has not elected.

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So that way they stay in their natural state which is a lost state because the decree to sin came first.

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So we fell, he passed over those for salvation. So if you, depending on which style you take, you would say that either he tasted death for everyone that he meant to die for, or you can understand it this way.

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He tasted death for every person on the face of the planet and yet only intended the death that he tasted to be effective for those who would believe.

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So that it's kind of where you shake out at least from a reformed perspective.

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Right, does that make sense? It's a lot there for earlier in the morning.

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You're recording this at what, eight o 'clock? Yeah, it's not as easy as the

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Peter verses where people will go to Peter and say,

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God desires everyone, all men everywhere to repent. Well, you can just trail the context back all the way,

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I think it's in second Peter. And you can go back to the chapter or the actual passage grouping there and then to the chapter and then to the beginning of the book.

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And then you can go all the way back to the first page. You can just follow the trail of the context in Peter and you can see who the audience is and who the everyone is that he's speaking to.

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Right, he says he's patient to us. He's speaking to a people who he says have a like faith as him. So he's clearly speaking to Christians, not willing that any of us would perish so that you make sure, yeah.

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It's not that easy here in Hebrews chapter two to do that.

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There's not that breadcrumb of trails to follow to understand the context.

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So now there's more, but yeah. Well, it just helps to know those passages like in Peter and the greater context of scripture, interpreting the unclear with the clear.

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And so at this point, that's where I am with explaining that everyone is understanding the broader context of scripture because that's how we would understand everyone.

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Because it's, but you just can't use the argument. If you're an

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Armenian or you're a Baptist that rejects some of the points of Calvinism harshly,

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I've run into those. They'll say, I take the Bible literally and right here it says everyone.

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Okay, well, you can't just do that when you have other passages of scripture that say something different like the

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Peter passages or the Romans passages. You can't just throw out a passage in Hebrews and say, it says everyone,

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I take it literally and that's what it means. You just can't do that. So that's why

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I understand this passage in light of the verses that are more clear. Yeah.

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Now, one thing further, not to throw a monkey wrench in anybody's thought process so far, that word everyone is a

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Greek word, pas. That means all, every, everyone, something like that. It's used all over the place.

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It's not some specialized technical word. It's also found in verse 10, translated differently.

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It says, for it was fitting for him, speaking of Christ, for whom are all things, pas, all things, and through whom are all things, pas.

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So when we link those all together, it reads something like this. Because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for all.

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For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, through whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

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So when it says all, we have to look at the context.

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What does all mean? Here, all is, the subject matter is not mankind.

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The subject matter is Christ. And since the subject matter is

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Christ, you look at for whom are all things.

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The purpose here is to show that all things that were ever created were created in order to glorify

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Christ. They were created for him, and not only for him, but through him. So he was the active agent in creating.

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Now, that's not to say that the spirit and the father weren't also involved and involved heavily in creation.

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They were. But it says that through him, through Christ, Christ spoke the world into existence, for whom are all things, through whom are all things.

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And what was his purpose? His purpose was to bring many sons to glory. So he tasted death for all.

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Why? Because all things are his, and all things came about through him.

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So what is the purpose of Christ's death here? Is that all things would be redeemed.

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So I don't know as if it's necessarily talking about everyone in an individualistic sense, more in all things as in, he's going to redeem mankind, mankind that is slightly lower than the angels, mankind who he has partaken of flesh and blood with.

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I think it's talking in a more corporate sense here than an individualistic sense.

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Because the purpose here is not to determine Calvinistic systematic theology.

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The purpose here is to exalt Christ in what he's done in the world. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. And is it similar to the

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John 3 16 passage where for God's love the world? Well, yes, but the context, the specific context is, he's speaking of the global world and he has a global plan for the world.

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And so it. Yeah. Well, I actually think that John 3 16 is talking about like planets and nebulas too, like the whole of creation.

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Yeah, sure. Yeah. He so loved his creation, the cosmos, which is what the word is that he says his son, that whoever believes, he sent his son to redeem the part that had been screwed up.

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Part of it was screwed up was a part that fell into sin. Yeah. You fix man, you take sin from man, you take sin from the universe.

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Right. So. Gotcha. It's good stuff. It's kind of what I think is going on here.

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Christ, we're looking for all things to be subjected to him, all things put under his feet.

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So where's the rebellion? I mean, it's not in centipedes and seals. They're doing exactly what they were created to do.

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It's in us. So is he going to redeem mankind? Absolutely. Why? Because we need fixing.

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Yeah. And Christ is the one to do it. Yeah. And I don't know, you brought up seals and animals and environment and creation.

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And this is, you know, this is not a, I'm not an environmentalist.

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You know, I'm a, I'm a Christian who believes in the stewardship of what, you know, Christ has given us.

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But just, just as you're saying that, I'm thinking about how we, mankind brought sin into the world and it's the curse of sin that everything suffers under.

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So, I mean, it should give us a little extra desire to care for, you know, above and beyond being good stewards of what

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God has given us. I mean, we, we as mankind brought the suffering into this world.

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And so those animals, those seals that doing what they're supposed to be doing could be doing those things in a, in a free world, a sinless world, but we brought it in here.

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And so even, even beyond being good stewards, we should care for what

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God has given us, restoring it. No, you're absolutely right.

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Cause look at, look at American politics in the last, you know, 50, 75 years.

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Yeah. What you're going to see is a Christian, loose, loose term

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Christian people who are, I mean, they're taking dominion over economics, but they're also doing it in a decidedly unchristian fashion.

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They're allowing greed to take over. They're ruining a perfectly good economic system and doing it at the expense of the creation that we were called in the first place to take care of all while abandoning ecological conservation, taking care of God's planet like we were supposed to to godless leftists who care nothing about God and his world, but are just trying to, who view mankind as a disease to be wiped off the planet.

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And there, I mean, it really, we've dropped the ball in two areas. We got greedy and we abandoned what, you know, love

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God and then do what we were told to do, obey him, take care of his world. Well, you use a good word there.

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And I think this concept could really, we could write a book on this.

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You talk about dominion. Okay, well, we talk about folks, legislators who are making policies, we send up there and they're deciding on how our country should move forward, what we should change, what we should do better.

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They are making those decisions based on their beliefs, their constituents, what have you.

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And people could simply have the mindset of, well, they're basing those things and those policies on what they believe.

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But really, if you get down to it, they are taking dominion.

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It doesn't matter what group you're with, with liberal side, conservative side, what special interest group that you support and support your candidate.

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Every individual American has an opinion and they want their representative to decide and make decisions according to their opinions for what reason?

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So that American can go in the direction of your specific opinion.

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I mean, that's dominion. You want America to go a certain direction, so you send a certain individual up there to make decisions and make policies.

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That's dominion. And so why can't we as Christians and why can't so -called or legislators that are calling themselves

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Christians open their mind to that, that your neighbor that you're trying to compromise with is trying to make or claim dominion themselves, whether they realize it, whether you realize it or not.

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Why can't I be who I say I am and submit to Christ and we don't have to call it dominion, but honor him completely in my legislation, in my decision -making?

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Because that's what they're all doing is trying to take dominion. Yeah. Now, we took a pretty big rabbit trail away from the actual subject matter of the text.

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So I'll say this and then we'll jump back into verse 11. But my pastor this past Lord's day preached a absolutely fantastic sermon and it's short too.

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He preached a fantastic sermon from Psalm 47 talking about the kings of the earth, the shields from Psalm 47, how we actually take dominion, how

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Christ is taking dominion, how, what it is going to look like for us as a church to take over.

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It may not be what a lot of people are thinking. And I would suggest to everyone and especially those who are like,

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I don't know about this whole post -mill thing or this dominion thing, at least you'll get a solid covenant review of what it should be.

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Christ's ruling and reigning, his salvation, his kingdom being upon the earth, the nations of the earth joining

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Christ's kingdom along the way. We'll link the sermon in the show notes in the description or whatever.

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We'll put the link below, but we do need to get back to the subject of the passage because we kind of rabbit trailed on that one.

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Well, we're working on 25 minutes, 26 minutes. So - Yes, I would like to get through 11 because 12 starts another quotation of some other verses.

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Okay. And I think it would flow well, if we could end at 11. Okay. All right.

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So you want to pull it up or want me to just run along with it? Well, it says for both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren.

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Right. So he's the author of those who are being saved salvation and he's the author of them through suffering.

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So he's dying in the place of those who would die. And then verse 11, the one who sanctifies, one who sets apart, one who cleanses, who writes holy unto the

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Lord on the foreheads of the people and the ones who are being sanctified are all of one or all from one or all of one father.

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It's saying that Christ became, and this is, I don't know, maybe

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I did bite off more than I could chew with five minutes left. But it's saying that Christ became man in order to do something radical to humanity, being, taking humanity under his wing, healing humanity and bringing them into the family of God, linking us in a real and tangible sense to the

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Godhead, not making us God, not turning the Trinity into a

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Billy entity or whatever many people there are, but still father, son, and Holy spirit.

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We are not God, but we are linked to God. And the next chapter talks about being built up as the house of God with Moses as a servant and Christ as the son.

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But here it says, we're being sanctified. The one who was sanctifying us, we all have one father, which is reason why he's not ashamed to call them brothers.

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He calls us brothers because he has become one of us. He did not put his divinity aside.

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He maintained his divinity, 100 % God. I don't know, that's a weird way of saying it.

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It was truly God and truly man, same time. He linked together the

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Godhead and humanity in Christ. So that way, when we have union with Christ through salvation, when we've been marked off by the one who died in the place of our sins, we have been brought into the household of God in a real sense.

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We've been adopted by the father. We've been called brother by the son. We've been sanctified by the spirit.

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It's a family affair so that we are truly adopted as sons and daughters of the most high.

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So when you go back and you look at all the things that we talked about before, about how things are supposed to be put under Christ's feet, about how all things are not subject to him yet, but we do see

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Christ suffering death, crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for all.

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The all that he created, the all that are there to glorify him. And he is the one who authors their salvation and perfects their salvation with his own suffering so that he dies in the place of sinful men and does so in such a way that he causes us to be family members with him so that we can truly say that God, the one who has created all things, the one who says, peace be still in the water, stop, is our true father, that Christ is our true brother.

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And since Christ is our true brother, it means that our true family is more so those who are in the church than those who are by blood.

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A friend of mine, we're working up here at this church plant in New York, brought up in a sermon, there's a phrase, blood is thicker than water.

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Now the full, a lot of people say that means, family is thicker than friendship or whatever.

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The full saying there is that the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

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So it's the exact opposite of what most people take it to mean. The blood of the covenant, the blood of the covenant of Jesus Christ is thicker than the water of the womb.

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So if we are linked with Christ, we have truly been made brothers with him.

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We have a new family. And this is, I think this is the all that's being spoken of.

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He has tasted death for all, for who? I mean, for his brothers. And it goes on in 13, 14, 15, where he defines what he does exactly.

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But I think that's what it's speaking of, that Christ has done something incredible in linking us to the

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Godhead. Let me throw this at you, because I think if I'm not mistaken, we're gonna, from what

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I was reading, when I was reading on into chapter two, the direction that I feel like I was being led to in the rest of chapter two, kind of pointed me in that direction here in verse 11.

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So the last part of the verse says, he is not ashamed to call them brothers.

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So the them is pointing back to those two groups, the sanctified, those who he is sanctifying, or both he who sanctifies, those who are being sanctified, and then who are sanctified.

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So you got two groups there. Well, a group of one and a group of many.

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Yeah. So here's what is jumping out at me. I could be wrong, but here's what's jumping out at me.

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You got Old Testament, Old Covenant, and New Covenant. And to me, thinking about Hebrews, you're speaking to people who considered themselves brothers.

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They were one family group. Don't go back to the Old Testament ways.

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Here's the New Testament ways, Old Covenant ways, New Covenant ways. Those who are sanctified are those who have gone in the faith and been sanctified.

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He is in the process of sanctifying those who are alive in this New Covenant.

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And that's, I don't know if it's the same, author, but it's, there's a similar theme,

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I think, in Romans, where he is, he's brought down the dividing wall and made the two groups one.

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And so here, he's not ashamed to call them brethren, those who were sanctified, the

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Old Covenant, and those who are being sanctified, the New Covenant, and the Gentiles.

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Well, I don't know if it's necessarily talking about Jew and Gentile here, but it is.

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I don't know if I see Jew and Gentile in he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified, but I do see

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Jew and Gentile in those who are being sanctified, because those who are being sanctified, as we know, was those

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Old Testament saints who believed and had faith in God and what they'd been revealed, and those

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New Testament saints who had believed in the fullness of the revelation through Jesus Christ. Right.

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Yeah. Good stuff, good stuff. Well, the main purpose of us getting together is to dig into these truths, to learn more about Christ, and to share

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Christ. And we want, Christ has given the opportunity now, no matter how you look at the text, no matter what interpretation you draw from the text, whether it,

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Jesus died for every single person in the world, or he only died and it applies to a certain group, his elect, it doesn't matter.

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It does matter. Let me say it like this. The most important thing about that subject is that Jesus has afforded the opportunity now for people to be forgiven because of his sacrifice.

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Right, he's commanded men everywhere to repent. That's right, that's right. So that's the priority.

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And then we can talk about soteriology and how all that works out later. Most important thing is that Jesus gives us that opportunity and calls all men everywhere to repent.

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So if you don't know Christ, we do encourage you and desire for you to come to know him by repenting of your sins, putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

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Dan, do you wanna close with some prayer? Sure. Dear heavenly father, thank you for this morning, for giving us a chance to look into your word.

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More importantly, I pray that people will be blessed by this, that you would be honored in what we've talked about and that you would continue to put things under your feet and put enemies down by either causing them to be defeated or to become friends.

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We thank you, Lord. And in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen. Thank you all for watching or listening to the

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Truth and Love podcast. Remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ.

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Go speak with the authority of Christ and go out there and share the gospel of Christ. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.