Is Jesus God? w/ Samuel Nesan (Explain Apologetics)

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today we are gonna be talking about a central apologetic issue, okay?

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This is kind of the bread and butter of Christian apologetics. It's very much rooted in the

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New Testament. You have the Apostle Paul reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue, trying to show that Jesus is the

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Christ, he's the Messiah, he's the Son of God. And we're gonna be talking about the essential apologetic issue, the deity of Christ.

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Is Jesus Christ God? And today I have a special guest with me,

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Samuel Nisan, and he can, or Samuel Nisan, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, so he's gonna correct me once he comes and joins me.

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But I have Samuel Nisan from Explain International, which I mistakenly called

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Explain Apologetics. His ministry is just moving along quickly. Well, I'm still on the old name.

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They already changed things up, and there you go. So I'm a little behind. But Samuel Nisan from Explain International.

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Folks might be familiar with his YouTube channel. He had a very interesting episode on his show a while back where he had a couple of scholars debating the issue of apologetic methodology.

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So definitely wanna check out his YouTube channel, Explain International. Also, I wanna give folks a heads up.

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I'm very excited. This Thursday at 5 .30 p .m. Eastern, I'm going to be having

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Dr. Matthew Barrett on. He is the author of Simply Trinity, and he is also the author of God's Word Alone.

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So we're gonna be talking about the question, is the doctrine of sola scriptura true?

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Okay? And so that's a very important kind of reformed doctrine that I think is very, very important for Christians to be able to defend as we want to uphold the scriptures as our sole ultimate authority for faith and practice.

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So that's going to be a super exciting episode. Also, at some point, I don't know,

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I'm still waiting for him to get back to me, but I'm gonna be having Matt Slick on for a jumbo episode on refuting the

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Jehovah's Witness cult. Okay? So we'll do a little bit of a cult apologetics. Matt and I are good friends, and we typically shoot the breeze for the first 20 minutes of when

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I do have him on. But this episode, it's just going to be very brief. Hey, Matt, how's it going? Let's unpack how we can equip people to utterly and completely refute

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Jehovah's Witness theology. So you don't wanna miss that. I will definitely be keeping folks updated as to when that happens.

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All right? Well, without further ado, I'd like to invite on the screen with me Samuel Nisan, or Nissan, or he's going to correct me right now.

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How's it going, Samuel? It's going great, Eli, and it's a joy to be with you. Thanks for having me on.

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And it's Nason. It's pronounced Nason as in your neighbor, and raisin. Nason, it's, okay, so Nason.

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Nason, that's right. Oh, like Jason, but Nason. Okay. Exactly, yeah. All right, okay. All right, well, thank you so much.

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You are coming to us from Malaysia, is that correct? That's right. And what time is it over there on the far reaches of the earth?

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Oh yeah, so it's 12 hours, well, ahead of you guys. So it's basically the same time, just a different time of the day.

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Okay, all right. Now, why don't you tell folks just for a few moments here about your ministry, your

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YouTube channel, and the sort of things that you guys are doing over at Explain International?

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Thanks, yeah, sure. What we do in Explain International is that we are dedicated to the defense of the gospel.

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We, now, simply put, what we try to do is great commission apologetics, and that is to equip the churches to fulfill the great commission through apologetics.

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And to quote one of, to quote Dr. Travis Kearns, who really teaches on this in Southwestern, this, what we do is not intended to make people better debaters, but to make them better disciples and evangelists.

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So that's the focus. We want, we believe that everyone should be an apologist. Everyone is an apologist. We've all been mandated with the task of the great commission.

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And so Explain exists to equip people to do that by introducing them to biblical apologetics, and also to historical apologetics, looking through history to see how churches have always practiced apologetics from the beginning, from the time of people like Aristides, Justin Martyr, and so forth to the present day.

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And so we look through some of the things that worked, and some of the things that didn't work, and some of the challenges they had, and how they overcame it.

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And so that's kind of what Explain does, and we do it internationally, hence the name from Explain, hence the change of the name,

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I should say, from Explain Apologetics to Explain International. We've been thrilled to have Dr. Stephen Boyce joining us in Explain.

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And so Explain has merged with City Light, which is a church planting network.

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And so with this merge, Explain now comes under the umbrella of City Light. And so I actually serve both as a church planter and an elder in a local church, and also as an apologist.

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And I think that one of the things that we're trying to do to help, if our apologists do, is also

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God willing to look into church planting. Well, that's excellent, Samuel. And I like what you said, where you guys are trying to produce apologists, not necessarily debaters.

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I think folks who are consumers of YouTube content, the context there is typically debating, right?

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You're listening to debates, or you're listening to some conflict. And people can mistakenly think that apologetics is what you see online.

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Us YouTube folk are very different than the average person. We're weirdos when compared to what apologetics looks like on the day to day.

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So I really like how your ministry goes much more, it goes beyond the YouTube and online scene.

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You're really wanting to equip believers. Just as a side note, and then we'll jump right into our topic.

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As you know, guys who listen to this channel, and you're familiar with apologetics, if you reflect really briefly on 1

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Peter 3, verse 15, which says to set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that's within you, yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

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The apostle Peter is talking to persecuted Christians. And they're just generic, non -YouTubing consuming

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Christians, right? So when he says that we're to set apart Christ as Lord, to always be ready, this is, as Samuel said, this is a task for all believers.

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And so I very much appreciate that that's a strong emphasis of your ministry. All right, well, let's jump right in.

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So the name of this episode is, Is Jesus God? So is Jesus God, Samuel?

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And why is that an important question? Why is that an essential question to address? Thanks, Eli.

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Yeah, and I think that the answer to that question, which may shock some people, is depends.

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Is Jesus God? It really depends. What do you mean by God? See, I live in a cultural setting where people use the word

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God, especially in Asia. We use the word God in different ways. We use the word

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God to venerate a human being. This person is God -like. And so some people would be familiar with Satya Sai Baba, who used to be a big figure in India, where he's worshiped as God.

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And so we have the Jehovah's Witnesses who have an understanding of God. God can be either God Almighty or just Mighty God.

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And they distinguish between the two. Mormons, of course, believe that, well, we are all, in a sense, gods.

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We are children of God, spiritual children of God, and we'll all become gods one day and hopefully get our own planets.

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And so, but different faiths or belief systems have their different view of God.

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And one of the dangers, I think, coming from an environment which is very diverse, is that if I use the word

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God without defining what I mean, I run the risk of confusing people. And I think Jesus recognized that.

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And that's why you don't find Jesus explicitly calling Him, saying, I am God, because it would have meant something entirely to His Jewish audience.

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So, I mean, I could get into that later on. But in essence, it really depends what we mean by God.

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If God means some sort of, well, if God means just someone who is just having supernatural powers, just like,

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I mean, Sathya Sai Baba or anyone else. No, if God means just one of many supernatural beings that have certain powers, no,

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Jesus is not God. But if God means the one creator of the universe who shares the same essence of the

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Father, and that's our definition of God, then yes, Jesus is

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God. But I think it's so important to define what God is. Otherwise, we run the risk of saying Jesus is God.

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And if you deal with people like Hindus and Buddhists in Malaysia, and you say Jesus is God, they would have no problem saying, yes,

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I believe that Jesus is God. We just mean different things by God. So, yeah. Yeah, that's excellent.

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I'm glad you answered that way. Are you familiar with Walter Martin's classic book on the cults? Yeah, there's an entire chapter on the importance of defining terms.

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He spoke about a lecture that he gave, and he was talking about the existence of God and Jesus being the

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Son of God. And then someone asked a question, and he realized, well, wait a minute. I never defined what

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I meant by God. And so he had to unpack what he meant by God because his audience had a completely different understanding of what he was getting at.

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So I think that's a key element there to define our terms. Very good. I very much appreciate that.

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Now, okay, so let's talk about the deity of Christ. This question, is Jesus God? In terms of apologetic value, what is the value of being able to defend the deity of Christ apologetically?

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What does that allow the apologist to do? Who does that allow the apologist to engage with effectively?

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Because I think understanding how to defend this doctrine, I think puts a lot, a lot under your belt and equips you in ways that are perhaps more effective than say an argument for God's existence.

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You might talk to an atheist here or there. What's the value of this doctrine apologetically? Well, thanks. Yeah, I think

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I would love to approach this, you know, in view of what the scripture says historically.

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In the Old Testament, God performed signs and wonders in Egypt, Yahweh does that.

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And he says to Moses, when I do these things, then they will know that I am the Lord. And so the theme in the

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Old Testament is God performing signs and wonders or what we would call in our modern day evidence. God is performing signs and wonders in order that he may be recognized as the

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Lord. It's interesting that that kind of, it's the same theme, but in the

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New Testament, the difference is Jesus does those signs and wonders in order for us to recognize that Jesus is

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Lord. The claim that Jesus is Lord is the central claim to all of Christianity. And so I get really concerned,

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Eli, when people say, well, I'm just arguing for mere theism. I just want to argue for mere theism or just that a generic

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God exists. I mean, so if someone converts, well, as an atheist becomes a generic theist, to me, that's still a big failure on our part.

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I mean, obviously it's not in our hands to be able to bring anyone to faith, but people are still gonna go to hell as generic theists.

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It's just different categories. So at the end of the day, I think that our calling in apologetics in talking about the scope, it's not only to get them to recognize that God is

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Lord, but it's to get them to recognize that Jesus is Lord. And that's why the apostle Paul says that that proclamation is central to Christian belief.

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So we cannot, I mean, underemphasize the importance of recognizing

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Christ's deity. It's from there that we get into the discussion of God's existence as well, as Paul does.

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See, when Paul actually discusses God's, well, Paul discusses his famous sermon on Mars Hill in the area of Pergus in Acts 17, verses 16 onwards.

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One of the things that I had always believed, Eli, and this was not true at all, I've realized, is that Paul doesn't even talk about Jesus.

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The focus is not on Jesus. The focus is just on, you know, Paul is talking about, you know, the unknown God and God created the world.

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He doesn't live in temples made by man. He's gonna judge the world by a man. And Christ comes in somehow as like the footnote at the end of his talk.

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But what I failed to realize is prior to that talk, the reason he got invited to go there was because he was discussing

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Christ and the resurrection. So that was the basis. And in fact, what he discusses on Mars Hill in the area of Pergus was an extension of what he had actually discussed earlier on.

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So he begins with Christ and the resurrection. And so in terms of apologetics, it is applicable to every worldview that we encounter.

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We begin by not only defining God as, or defending God as Lord, but it has to be

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Christ as Lord if it's to be Christian apologetics. That's excellent. I love it. So are you familiar with the story of Anthony Flew?

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Yes, I was actually referencing him actually. Yeah, okay, that's good. Because I noticed that when Anthony Flew moved from atheism to,

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I suppose, deism, or if you wanna call it theism, that was celebrated all throughout the apologetics world like, oh my goodness, look, this guy's changed his mind and he passed away.

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And unless he repented, he went to hell. I mean, theists are in hell.

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And I think that's a very important point to keep in mind because we really need to bring to bear the fully robust Christian worldview where Christ sits at the center and that we need to point people directly to the

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Savior. I think that's a very important point that you made there. And I liked that application you made with Paul, the

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Areopagus Address. Okay, well, okay, so is Jesus God? Yes, if we define God accordingly.

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Now, let's talk about the biblical basis for this. There are people who think, well, nowhere in scripture. I remember when

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I took a class, literature of the Bible, and I was at secular community college. I took literature of the

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Bible. I thought I'd do a good job. I was raised in church. I knew the Bible, I'll take this class. And the teacher said, nowhere in the

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Bible does it teach that Jesus is God. And so, of course, I raised my hand.

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I said, well, in the Gospel of John. He goes, no, no, no, you can't use the Gospel of John because the Gospel of John was the latest of the

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Gospels and it was embellished. But if you go to the earliest Christian writings, it never teaches that Jesus is

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God. How would you approach someone who doesn't think the Bible teaches the deity of Christ?

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What scriptures could you point folks to that they'll find useful in engaging people like that?

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I mean, this is something that we face in our time, especially when we deal with people who deny the existence of God, whether it's

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Muslims, I mean, the deity of Christ, rather, whether it's Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so forth. What I would usually do is to ask them, which

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Gospel do you want me to start from? Because now, when someone comes and tells me that, and I love the way the question is phrased, which part of scripture says that Jesus is

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God? Because what typically I hear from my side, from this side of the world, is where does Jesus claim to be

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God? Which is kind of a different claim altogether. It implies that Jesus's words are somehow more authoritative than the scripture.

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And no, it is not, because all of scripture is God's word. What Jesus is speaking is God's word.

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Scripture is God's word, yet equally authoritative because they come from the same source, God. But what

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I would, if someone is asking where in the Bible does it say Jesus is God? That's the much better question to ask.

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What I would do is ask them, which Gospel do you want me to talk from? Because all of them do. How about this,

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Samuel? So Gospel of Mark, and here, I know people are gonna, the Gospel of Mark is the earliest

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Gospel. It's the simplest. And then you get this embellishment. You'll hear Shabir Ali.

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You know, there's an embellishment, right? Why don't you demonstrate for us, Samuel, where in the

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Gospel of Mark is the deity of Christ taught? Right from the very first verses of Gospel of Mark.

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I have my Bible. I'm gonna, walk me through, Samuel. I want to know the Gospel of Mark.

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So, okay, I'm gonna, we're gonna pretend I'm the unbeliever here, and you're gonna, you know, I'm gonna turn to the

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Gospel of Mark. So I'm at the Gospel of Mark chapter one. I got my Bible here, okay?

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So walk me through this. Is it the authorized King James Version? I'm just kidding. It's the

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NIV, the not inspired version. So, no, no, I'm using an ESV. That's what you reform people use, right?

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Okay. That's right, I'm using the ESV as well. All right, so we're on the same page, quite literally. So, okay.

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So, all right, so I'm in chapter one. Show me. Verse one. In the beginning of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now I'm not, yeah, I could spend time describing why the

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Son of God title, where that comes from in the Old Testament, why that points to Christ being divine, but we'll go to verse two, because I think that's a much more powerful case.

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And three, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way.

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The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his path.

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Make straight, make his path straight. So, right from the get go, he begins by the statement, the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which is the theme throughout the entirety of Mark, because when it comes to the end of Mark, it's finally the

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Roman centurion that gets it and says, truly this man was the Son of God. But verse two kind of sets the tone.

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What does Mark mean by the Son of God? Is he talking about Son of God as a Messianic title? Or is he talking about Son of God in the way the

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Romans would have understand it? Well, you've heard folks say, God has sons by the tons, right?

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Son of God doesn't mean that he's God, he's divine, right? So unpack this for me,

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Samuel, come on. Sure thing. And verse two and three, Mark kind of defines for us what he means by that.

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And he's talking about this prophecy in Isaiah, where God says, I'm gonna send my messenger before him, and it's going to prepare the way for the

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Lord in the Old Testament. So this messenger is prepared a way for the Lord. Now, where in the

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Gospels does God show up? If one denies the deity of Christ, they're gonna have a hard time looking through the

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Gospels showing when does actually God come? Because, and the only person that comes in the Gospel is

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Jesus, and that's Mark's point here. When he says the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God, his understanding of God is what Isaiah had, where Isaiah stopped predicting

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John the Baptist who prepares the way for the Lord himself, for Yahweh, and Jesus is the manifestation of that in God.

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And the same thing is emphasized in Matthew as well, but go ahead, yeah, sorry. Okay, so let me see if I can follow this for the listeners.

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Okay, I think this is excellent. So you say, okay, so the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, you don't have to stop at the

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Son of God. Verse two, you said is a better point here. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold,

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I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. We all know that that's

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John the Baptist. Prepare the way of the Lord. Now, this is a quotation from the book of Isaiah.

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So the Lord here is Yahweh, but it is John the Baptist who prepares the way for Yahweh, but we know that John the

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Baptist is preparing the way for Jesus. And so you're making the application that Jesus, whom

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John the Baptist is preparing the way for is Yahweh. That's right. Okay, that's excellent. Very good.

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And first three verses. Yeah. Okay, that's excellent. Very good. Okay, I like that.

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Okay, is there any other places in the Gospel of Mark that you can make this application? Yeah, I mean, I could go to a number of places.

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Let me, in fact, try to see if I can go to Mark chapter four. Okay. And that's the other passage that I think really, really demonstrates

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Jesus' self -understanding of himself. Chapter four.

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Chapter four, and let me get the verse up in a minute. Sure. I like this. We're having kind of like a Bible study.

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If people listening in, they have their Bibles open, that's a good way to learn. Right. As you're looking,

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Slam RN says, hello, Sam, maybe you know who that is. Oh, yes, I do. Thanks to Slam for following.

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I think she's a very faithful supporter of Explain, yes. She's on every live stream, too.

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I very much appreciate Slam. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So, and,

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I'm sorry, it's so, I've kind of got it mixed up with the same account in Matthew.

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I'm trying to see if I get the same verse in Mark. May need a little bit of time on this, so.

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Sure, so could you make an application on multiple places in the Gospel of Mark where the word Lord is being used?

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Is it kind of the same deal because you have the Lord established in Mark chapter one as John preparing the way for Yahweh, and since the

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Lord Jesus is the theme of the Gospel, can you make application just about most places where the word

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Lord pops up, or is it just at certain specific places that need to, their context needs to be considered and things like that?

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I think we have to consider the context as well, because one of the things that is important is sometimes the word is just being used as Adonai or master in that sense, and so I think we have to be faithful to the exegetical background.

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Sometimes Jesus' audience did not intend to call him Lord as in that, but I think that in a number of places that actually comes, that's actually seen.

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I think Peter's declaration of Jesus being the son of God again, which is this key theme in Mark, comes in really, really strong because Peter identifies him as the son of the most high

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God, and then in the next couple of verses down, you see

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Jesus transfigured, and here is now Jesus, and again, I'm struggling to find that exact chapter in Mark's Gospel, but if you actually go to that passage in Mark's Gospel, what it actually shows, which is remarkable, is that you see

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Jesus side by side with two of the greatest, some of the greatest, two of the arguably greatest prophets of the

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Old Testament. Moses, to the Jews, is the greatest prophet, hands down.

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He's like Michael Jordan of the prophets. Exactly, and so you've got

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Elijah, and Peter, being the good Jew that he is, goes to Jesus and, well, goes to Jesus and says, it's good that we're here,

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Jesus. Let's build a tabernacle, one for you, one for Moses, and you know what? We're kind of gonna give you the same status as some of these greatest prophets that we have, and the voice from heaven rebukes him, just saying, this is my son.

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What are you talking about? Now, we've got to ask ourselves this question here, and this is one of the things that I intended to discuss with Dr.

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Shabir Ali. We were supposed to co -author a book together, but he's taken a bit of while to get back, but so one of the questions that I wanted to ask him is,

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Dr. Shabir Ali seems to believe that God can do this for any one of his creatures, but what status is there between the greatest prophets of God in the

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Old Testament and God himself? It can't be the angels, because in many ways, the angels themselves revere, as you see in the book of Jude, the body of Moses, so you find that there is no place in between.

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You see, Jesus is basically, what the father is declaring about Jesus is that he's on a completely different level.

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This is my son, this is, and to Mark writing to a Roman audience, that would have been a lot clearer than it would have been, because to the

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Romans, the sons of the gods are the gods, so it's a society where it's,

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I mean, so Mark, of course, defines it from a Jewish perspective, but he's also speaking to a group of people that recognize that the sons of the divine are divine, so those things, when you take into account, shows that Mark actually, there's no doubt that Mark perceives

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Jesus as a divine figure. All right, excellent. All right, so we have the deity of Christ in Mark, arguably the most non -divine

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Jesus book of the gospels, people say. What about some of the kind of the heart -punching deity of Christ passages in John?

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Why don't you walk us through some of the proof texts? So suppose the person says, hey, all right, the gospel of John's fair game, unlike my professor who was, by the way, that was,

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I took that class before I ever knew anything about P52. When I learned about P52, I was like, wait a minute, the gospel of John is pretty early.

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Like, I wish I had that nugget in my pocket when he said that. But just taking the gospel of John, what are the most powerful verses that you can think of in the gospel of John that really highlight the teaching that Jesus is

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God? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I was just wanting to add on the P52. I've had the opportunity of seeing that in person in the

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University of Manchester, John Ryland Library. Hands were shaking as I saw that, because it was an experience all in itself just to see that in John Ryland Library.

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But the gospel of John is, now, before I get to the gospel of John, I have to say this.

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Dr. Bart Ehrman has recently made a concession not too long ago where his previous position was that the synoptic gospels don't present a divine

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Jesus. But he's actually changed his position after the last book that he published. And he's actually said now in his blog, and you can find this in his blog article, that he's willing to concede that the synoptic gospels do in fact present a divine

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Jesus. But he goes on to give the disclaimer, not as divine, if I'm paraphrasing him correctly, not as divine as the

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Johanna Christology. So even Dr.

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Ehrman actually would concede this now. Now, there are lots of places in Mark we can go to, the Johannine Thunderbolt in Mark, and just lots of places that we can go through that.

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But John is really the place to go. And so John chapter one was 1 to 18 in the prologue to the gospel of John.

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That's one of the clearest passages that anyone would ever have on Jesus as deity.

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So that would be, again, the chapter one that would go in. John chapter one, one, and one, four. So let's talk about that.

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So as I hear, when people are engaged in cult apologetics and they're dealing with the Jehovah's Witness who deny the deity of Christ within the orthodox context,

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I hear people say, well, the Jehovah's Witness are so familiar with John 1, 1, it's really not useful or helpful to go to John 1, 1.

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Do you agree with that? And if you do, why, and if not, and you think

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John 1, 1 is a legitimate place to take a Jehovah's Witness, how would you unpack John 1, 1 to show that the

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Jehovah's Witness interpretation of that passage is incorrect? And for people who might not be familiar, John chapter one, verse one says, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was

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God. John 1, 14, the word became flesh. In the New World Translation, which is the official translation of the

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Jehovah's Witness organization, it says, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was a

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God. So why is that understanding, why is that interpretation incorrect? And why should we understand it as how we find it in our

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Bibles? Yeah, that's a great question. And so, I mean, whenever I deal with the

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Jehovah's Witnesses, I love to go to John 1, 1. And I think that there's a tendency, and I've noticed this in myself, that when we find that our opponents are very familiar with a passage, we kind of try to avoid those passages.

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And I don't think that's a very helpful thing. In fact, I think their familiarity with that passage should actually give us more reason for wanting to engage it, because we want to clarify the misconceptions.

28:14

And I would love to talk through, when I speak to Jehovah's Witnesses, John 1, 1 is always my go -to. And the reason is because most of the

28:21

Jehovah's Witnesses that you speak to don't know Greek or Hebrew, for that matter. I've had one missionary,

28:27

Jehovah's Witness missionary, talk to me about the name Jehovah. And he gave me, and he showed me, this is the

28:32

Hebrew word for Jehovah, that the vowels were not there in the Tetragrammaton. So he didn't know that, right?

28:38

He's telling me that it says Jehovah. If you know Hebrew, read it. And I was like, it's not there.

28:44

I mean, the vowels are not here. He's like, it's there, read it. I was like, do you read Hebrew? No, I don't. But they told me it's there.

28:50

I was like, well, they told you wrong. By the way, without the vowels, it made reading

28:56

Hebrew, when you have it transliterated, very difficult. When I took a little bit of Hebrew, it's very difficult.

29:02

Without the vowels, you kind of just have to know how to fill it in. So yeah, that's a good point there. Yeah, and so when

29:08

I deal with that, one of the things I want to go through is the Greek of John 1 .1. Okay. And the Greek is profound in the third clause, kai theos en hologos, which is,

29:20

I mean, without getting too technical into the Greek, you've got both of these are actually in the nominative case in the

29:28

Greek, which is both of them are actually in the subjective case. Theos, God, is in the subjective case or the nominative case in the

29:36

Greek, and so is hologos. Both of these are in the subjective case. And the thing is, the word order then comes into, the word order comes into play.

29:47

Because had the word order been switched around, it may actually be ground for saying it's a

29:53

God. But the emphasis in the Greek, word order in Greek exists for emphasis, and God comes in first.

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So theos is God, kai theos, and God, and hologos was the word.

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But we don't translate it that way in English because in Greek, the word order is for emphasis.

30:12

But the actual nominative, not a nominative predicate, the actual nominative is the word hologos because that's the one that contains the

30:20

Greek article. And so that has to come in in English because that's the subject case and the other one is the subject predicate.

30:27

So, but the word order, and I think, I'm not sure if Martin Luther said this, but it's the word order that refutes

30:32

Jehovah's Witnesses. Right? So, because if - Martin Luther wouldn't have said that because Jehovah's Witnesses didn't exist, but.

30:40

Oh, I mean, sorry. He said Arianism. Oh, there you go. Okay, all right. I think it was

30:46

Luther that said - Which is related, yeah. It's related. It's just an old heresy. I think if it was

30:53

Luther that said it, he said that the word order is against Arianism. Okay. And then he said the article was it,

31:01

I think was it that the article was against Sabellianism. So, but anyway, that was

31:06

Luther. Yeah, Arianism was what he said. Thanks for correcting me on that one. It's like my favorite quote of Martin Luther, "'Mormonism is heresy."

31:16

You know, he's like, I'm not sure if he would ever say that. In my mind, I've gotten so used to, you know, equivocating

31:25

Arianism with Jehovah's Witnesses. But yeah, I think that in the Greek, if we actually help them understand the

31:31

Greek, you actually see that it's inescapable. Now, even if you had any doubts, if you have the word a god there, you already are into polytheism, which

31:43

Jehovah's Witness, unlike our Mormon friends, would openly reject. They say, no, we're not polytheists. But you have polytheism if that's a god.

31:49

If it's not god, you have another god who is not god. There are two gods. That's a logical conclusion that's inescapable.

31:56

But I think what's even greater than that, Eli, is to recognize that in verses one to five,

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John actually describes what he means by using that term for the word.

32:09

He says in verse two, he was in the beginning with God, which is something that the

32:14

Jehovah's Witnesses cannot accept, because for the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus is a created being.

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He is the archangel Michael. That's right. Verse three, all things were made through him and without him, not anything that was made.

32:29

In him was, well, let's stop at verse three. All the created things belong in this created category.

32:35

And Jesus is the creator of all the great things that exist in this created category. That's something, now, according to the

32:42

Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus too would have to be in this created category. But it doesn't say that in the

32:47

Gospel of John. It's the Logos that is actually creating everything that was in the created category.

32:54

And it goes on to say, in him was life. And that life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

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This is a reference. It kind of alludes to the creation account in Genesis one, where God says, let there be light.

33:08

And so this, to me, demonstrates what did John mean? He didn't view

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Jesus as a God, as like the Jehovah's Witnesses would claim, but rather God himself, the word through him, everything came into being.

33:22

Now, don't they have in their translation, I think in Colossians, where it says that he made all other things.

33:29

And so they add the word other to make that qualification. And then it is conveniently in brackets, indicating that it's not in the original text, but it's added there for clarification.

33:41

Yeah, I was about to say the Greek word alos is not there for other or another. So it's strange that they would give us the clarification when

33:51

I think the scripture is clear enough. When someone, I think, needs to give us clarification by adding words that are not in scripture.

33:57

And I don't mean that in translation. I mean, that's just grammatical. But to use another theological concept to give clarity to God's word, what we're actually accusing

34:07

God is, is being a poor communicator, right? So you can't escape that. Now, okay, so there is value in knowing some of the biblical passages, the kind of go -to passages that teach the deity of Christ.

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But suppose we're dealing with someone who really knows how to give pushback on those specific texts, and we wanna maybe use a different tactic to make our point.

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Are you familiar with any obscure passages that kind of like indirectly teach the deity of Christ, and maybe it's not something that, say, a

34:40

Jehovah's Witness or someone else is expecting, kind of like a curve ball? Like, hey, you know, the

34:46

Bible teaches so clearly the deity of Christ, we don't have to appeal to these popular passages.

34:51

There are actually some obscure passages over here that actually make our point as well.

34:57

Do you know any scriptures that do that? There are lots of proof texts that we could go to that do that.

35:04

But what I would love to do, Eli, if that's okay, is to go to actual parables, which I think are a huge resource to going through the deity of Christ.

35:13

And maybe I could start with Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son, which is actually one of the passages that I think affirmed the deity of Christ.

35:21

So this is in Luke 15. The parable of the prodigal son.

35:28

Do you want me to read the whole thing? First of all, what I'll do is, yeah, I mean, it's entirely up to you if you want to.

35:35

I don't mind. I would like to, if it's all good, I think it'd be cool for people to hear it, and then you can make the application.

35:41

That'd be good. Is that okay? That'd be good. Okay, so the parable of the prodigal son. And he said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

35:53

And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

36:00

And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need.

36:09

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

36:16

And he was longing to be fed with pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger.

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I will arise and go to my father. And I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

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But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

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And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am now no longer worthy to be called your son.

36:56

But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hands and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

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For this is my son who was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

37:13

And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

37:21

And he called one of his servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.

37:30

But he was angry and refused to go in his father, go in his father came out and entreated him.

37:36

But he answered his father, look, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command.

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Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes and killed the fattened calf, you've killed the fattened calf for him.

37:54

And he said to him, son, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this your brother was dead and is alive.

38:03

He was lost and is found. And the reason why Samuel, I wanted to read that is because that's such a beautiful and powerful story.

38:11

And apart from kind of the broader meaning of it, I'm and which most people are familiar with, why don't you zero in on the application of how this points to the person of Christ?

38:23

Sure, thanks for reading that Eli. It's always good to read God's word and I really appreciate you doing that.

38:30

I think that the key thing to recognize in this parable, in short, is that I believe

38:37

Jesus is the father in this story. Now, when I say that, some people jump in and say, wait, you're confusing

38:42

Jesus as God the father. No, we're not. There are references to Jesus being the father, which does not confuse him with God the father.

38:50

And of course, Isaiah 9 ,6 would be a good example of that. Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given.

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The government shall be on his shoulders and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.

39:03

So it's not referring to Jesus as the father, the lack of the definite article there, but he is father of salvation and eternal life in that sense.

39:13

But when you come to the parable of the prodigal son, it says that a man had two sons.

39:21

And so this idea of two sons is not unique to the parable of the prodigal son.

39:27

If we go to the context in Luke 15 verses one to three, it says, now the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him.

39:35

So the context of the parable is you have got a sinful group coming to Jesus. Sinners, tax collectors, people who...

39:42

Tax collectors betrayed the people of God for money by aligning with the Roman authorities and just the sinners.

39:49

And then verse two says, the Pharisees and scribes grumbled saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

39:55

So you've got an angry, self -righteous, religious group coming to Jesus. And you've got a repentant, sinful group coming to Jesus, two groups.

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And verse three, the most important verse of this entire parable is he told them this parable.

40:11

So I believe there's only one parable in Luke 15. All three tie into the same parable.

40:16

And so the third part of the parable is the prodigal son. And so when we see a father has two sons here, essentially

40:26

Jesus is referring back to the context where he's got the angry religious group upset with him.

40:33

And he's got the sinful repentant group. And that's gonna be reflected in the two sons. The youngest son is a sinful repentant son.

40:40

The religious leaders are the angry self -righteous group. And so in this story,

40:46

Jesus identifies himself as the father because who would the religious group angry at?

40:53

Jesus, who is the eldest son angry at? It's Jesus. Who did the sinful repentant group come to?

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Jesus. Who is the youngest son coming to? Jesus. So Jesus sees himself as the father of both the righteous and the unrighteous

41:09

Jewish people. And in that sense, Jesus is playing a role that only God in the Old Testament would play, which is to see

41:16

Israel and the people of Israel as his children. So that's one reference that demonstrates

41:22

Jesus' self -understanding. But more than that, what's happening here, which is remarkable, is that Jesus considered the sins committed against him because when the youngest son comes back to the father, the youngest son says, verse 21, father,

41:39

I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

41:45

Notice it distinguishes between heaven and you. So he sinned against God, the father in heaven, and then he sins against the earthly father, which as I said, is

41:55

Jesus. But here's the problem. If the tax collectors and the sinners were committing sins, how were they offending

42:03

Jesus? How is Jesus the offended party to their sin? Unless Jesus considered himself to be

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God, in which case the sins of the younger son is committed against, is the sins of the treachery of the tax collectors and the sinful lifestyle of the sinners were actually sins committed against Jesus, in which case

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Jesus is actually considering sins committed against God to be sins committed against him, which is a remarkable concept in the

42:31

Old Testament because in the Old Testament, when David sins against Bathsheba and Uriah and gets

42:37

Uriah killed, he goes to God in prayer and says, it's only against you and you alone have I sinned, you're wondering how

42:43

Uriah is feeling, David, he's hearing that prayer. What about me? He's like in the background, he's like, bro, what's up with that, man?

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But Jesus here identifies himself as the offended party to this, in that sense, he's doing that.

42:57

And it's also interesting that towards the end, Jesus is appealing to the younger son to welcome, to welcome because he was lost and is found.

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And so if we take this concept, especially the parable of the lost sheep, which emphasizes

43:14

Jesus as the shepherd, that's actually a reference to, I think it was Ezekiel 37. I need to go back and check the exact chapter.

43:20

But in Ezekiel where it says that Yahweh is a shepherd to his people. So Jesus is kind of playing the role.

43:27

If Jesus is the shepherd to Israel, he's playing the role of God, who is a shepherd to his people. And some people may object to that and say, well,

43:34

David considered himself a shepherd to the people too. Yes, that's because David was the king, right?

43:40

But he's the shepherd. God has put him as shepherd of God. He's also a type of, typologically, he's a type of Christ as well.

43:45

Exactly. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's just a type of Christ as well. And Jesus is a son of David, but Jesus sees it as his sheep that the father has given him.

43:54

So I think in lots of ways, Eli, the parable of the prodigal son kind of gives us a self -disclosure as to what

44:00

Jesus thought of himself, which is really powerful. And I think we go through other parables. You can, we get to see that as well.

44:06

Hey, I think that's an obscure, but powerful way of going about it because what you've done there, and the reason, and this is one of the reasons why

44:15

I wanted to read the whole thing, is not only did I, I wanted to set you up for the point you were making, but there is a powerful gospel -centered message to that story that people have heard it so many times that they resonate with this beautiful story.

44:30

So to be able to highlight what it says about Christ and also to put that within the context of God running towards us because he loves us.

44:38

So I thought that was an excellent, excellent example that you used there. I think that's, I'm gonna use that one.

44:44

I never thought of it that way. So someone mentioned in the comments, and by the way, I didn't say this before, but if anyone has any questions to ask

44:52

Samuel by the end of the episode, we'll take some questions if there are any. If not, no worries, but feel free to leave a question in the comments there.

45:03

But, oh man, I lost my train of thought. Forgot what I was gonna say. Someone in the questions, you said.

45:09

Oh yeah, someone, thank you. Someone in the questions, in the comments, I think came in a little late. And so they kind of seemed concerned because you called

45:18

Jesus Father, and I know you qualified it, but someone was saying modalism? Why don't you clarify that?

45:25

Why you're not, maybe you could repeat what you said before. Why when you call Jesus Father, you're not committed to modalism because you made a qualification.

45:36

You mind repeating that qualification for us? Sure, I mean, Finding Truth is one of our apprentices in Explain International.

45:42

Of course, I don't think he meant that seriously. Okay, I wasn't sure. He's one of those who runs our YouTube channel as well.

45:48

And do check out his work on our YouTube channel. This is Santi. But yeah, so modalism is the view that God takes on different modes.

45:58

And so God was the Father in the Old Testament, became the Son in the New Testament.

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And after his ascension, he becomes the Holy Spirit in the age of the church.

46:11

The problem with modalism is that it renders the conversations, the IU conversations that God has, or that Jesus has in the gospels to be essentially illusory.

46:20

I mean, it's not real. Jesus just using that as some sort of a methodology. And the problem with modalism, again, is that it fails to deal with the passages, which not only does the

46:32

Father says you to Jesus, and I'm pleased with you, which would otherwise mean Jesus pleased with himself.

46:38

But more than that, there's a number of passages to me that demonstrate that why it cannot be a modalistic framework.

46:46

And one of them is when Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says, not my will, but yours be done.

46:52

If he is the Father, that statement makes no sense whatsoever, because his will is the Father's will. But Jesus is referencing the two wills of God, and the two wills that he has, the human and the divine will.

47:02

And in relation with one another, he's saying, no, he's submitting to the will of the Father as the perfect man.

47:08

So yeah, modalism is unbiblical, and it's refuted by so many passages in scripture.

47:14

So you also have, okay, so you've given us biblical references, how to defend the deity of Christ biblically, but what about people who present incoherency arguments?

47:23

Like this is kind of an incoherent concept, and you just brought up Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he says, not my will, but your will.

47:30

You know, what we're saying, well, it's a human nature, the divine nature, he's speaking to the Father. Does Jesus' human will in conflict with the

47:38

Father's will? How would you kind of explain that to somebody? He says, not my will. If I can,

47:43

I want to avoid this, but not my will, your will. How would you address that apparent conflict between the human nature and human will of Jesus, and the will of the

47:53

Father with respect to Jesus going to the cross? Oh, yeah, that's a great question. And one of the things, let me say before I answer that, is that the big danger there is for apologists who deal with the deity of Christ is to approach the deity of Christ purely from a logical perspective.

48:11

Because one of the questions that I get from, especially people who disagree, our Muslim friends, for example, or even certain cult groups that come to us, and they would say, well, it makes no sense that God would do this.

48:23

It makes no sense that God can become a man. But the issue at the end of the day, and this is going back to presuppositionalism, the issue at the end of the day is...

48:37

Oops, well, I think we lost Samuel. He got raptured, look at that. That's not a good thing,

48:43

I got left behind. What's up with that? All right, he might be experiencing some technical difficulties. So we will...

48:52

Well, I don't know if you could hear me, Samuel, but you can sign out of the room and then click the link to get back in.

49:00

That's just the way the cookie crumbles. Sometimes you would get some technical difficulties there. So let me remove him from the screen.

49:06

We'll see if he comes back. All right, again, if you have any questions, now's the time to ask them.

49:13

If you have a specific question, maybe relating to just apologetics in general, if you have a presuppositional apologetics question or anything, you can leave them in the comments.

49:23

And if Samuel doesn't return, I'll just take it from here. Do you guys remember, okay?

49:30

And maybe you could tell me in the chat. Do you remember when I had Tim Stratton of Free Thinking Ministries and Braxton Hunter from Trinity Radio?

49:40

And we tried to talk about apologetics in Star Wars and I got kicked off my own show.

49:47

I had the technical difficulties and Tim and Braxton ended up doing the show for me. And I sat back, having popcorn, watching them do my own show.

49:57

And I had to figure out how to sign the show off so that it wouldn't be a 20 -hour episode posted on YouTube.

50:04

Anybody remember that? If you could let me know in the comments. All right. All right, well, it looks like Samuel's trying to connect.

50:11

I think he's good. Whoa, he changed locations. He's outside there. Are you outside or inside?

50:17

No, I'm still inside, but my laptop crashed for some reason. I have no idea why. I was just telling folks, are you familiar with Braxton Hunter at Trinity Radio?

50:27

Yes. He's a friend of mine. I had Braxton Hunter and Tim Stratton come on to do a show with me on the topic of apologetics in Star Wars.

50:36

And we're all big Star Wars nerds. I had them on for a couple of minutes. We were having a great conversation and my computer crashed.

50:42

And so I ended up, I wasn't able to do my own show Braxton and Tim ended up doing the show for me while I was watching my own show.

50:51

I couldn't sign back on. So the crash situation happens and it's just comes with the territory with technology, but you're back.

50:59

And so I don't know if you remember where you left off, but - Yes, I do. You can pick it up. Go ahead. Yeah, so thanks, thanks.

51:06

Yeah, so again, sorry for our viewers that happened, but so essentially I think there's a danger in approaching it purely philosophically because at the end of the day, the reason why

51:17

I believe in the deity of Christ is not because I think it's logical. The reason I believe in the Trinity is not because I think it's logical.

51:23

The main reason I do that is because that's what God's word says. God says, that's what happens. Who am

51:29

I to disagree? Right, because I think God defines truth. But then it also leads to the question, which is the question that you raised.

51:36

Is that a logical contradiction at all? And it's not because one of the things that we recognize in the incarnation is that there is a mystical union in how,

51:48

I mean, the harmonious nature where Jesus is able to be God and man.

51:53

And I mean, as Dr. Sproul rightly points out, not to use the word fully God, fully man, but rather truly

52:01

God, truly man. How does that actually work out? I don't know how that works out, but Jesus does have two wills.

52:09

Now, I could give probably some reasons to show that why that is not in conflict whatsoever.

52:16

It doesn't violate any laws of logic. It's not a contradiction to say that Jesus has one will and then two wills in the same time, same sense.

52:24

No, he has a human will and he has a divine will. And it's as simple as just saying that makes no, it's not contradicting any laws of logic whatsoever.

52:34

And so a Christian is perfectly within rational grounds to accept that, accept the prima facie, the testimony of scripture.

52:43

Yeah. Now, I'm glad you said that because there is an element of mystery and we don't put mystery in theology because we just are trying to avoid critique or anything.

52:55

No, we're dealing with the transcendent God who has saw fit to reveal himself. And there are aspects that he reveals to us that we just are not given enough information.

53:04

Deuteronomy 29, 29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord, but the things that he's revealed belong to us and our children's children.

53:11

So there is nothing wrong with not knowing metaphysically how the Trinity works.

53:17

But what I am responsible for, what Samuel's responsible for, what other Christians are responsible for in apologetics is to demonstrate that the doctrine does not violate the laws of logic.

53:28

There is no contradiction, even though I cannot present a positive explanation as to metaphysically how it works.

53:34

And that's okay. I think in some regards, we need to be okay with an element of mystery in our theology.

53:39

And I sure don't have a problem with that. All right. The last kind of set of questions

53:48

I wanna ask you is going to deal with, I mean, you've given us biblical grounds for the deity of Christ, and that's going to be very helpful apologetically when we're speaking with other people who maybe piggyback off the

54:00

Bible. Maybe they believe portions of it or whatever. You're dealing with a cult who affirms the Bible, but they're extra revelation.

54:06

And so it's gonna be very useful for you to go to some of these passages and provide these explanations to people.

54:12

But what happens when you're dealing with a skeptic who just says, well, is Jesus God? Of course not. How would you then try to show that Jesus is in fact who he claimed to be?

54:21

Jesus is in fact what the Bible says about him to a skeptic who does not affirm the scriptures.

54:27

So that's where I wanna go next. But before we go there, I want to take a question from a friend of mine,

54:32

Charles, who I think he has a good question that touches on something we briefly talked about when we were talking about the

54:37

Gospel of Mark. All right, you ready, Samuel? Yep. Ready? Okay, here's the question from Charles.

54:43

He says, would you please expound the first century Jewish thought on the phrases son of God and son of man?

54:49

How are those phrases relevant to our discussion tonight? Yeah, I think that's a really good question,

54:56

Charles. And the phrase son of God is something that is used in many different ways in Jewish literature.

55:04

Son of God is a Messianic term. Son of God, I think, applies to, it points to the deity of Christ in a vocational sense.

55:16

And I think Dr. Carson's book on the son of God is a good place to go to kind of see how the vocational understanding of the son of God emerged then.

55:25

It's used in the New Testament where it actually means that the son does everything that the father does.

55:31

Well, in Jewish culture, your father does not just determine your genetics.

55:37

He determines your vocation, what you do. And so if your father is a farmer, you and I would end up being a farmer back in the day.

55:46

So when it says that, Jesus would say, for example, blessed are the peacemakers in Matthew 5, for they shall be called sons of God.

55:55

God is peace. And those who are making peace are vocationally doing what God does.

56:00

And in that sense, they are sons of God. Another example would be later on in Matthew 5,

56:06

Jesus says, but I say to you, pray for those, bless those who curse you and pray for those who persecute you, for then you shall be called children of your father in heaven, for he makes it rain on both the just and the unjust.

56:19

So that's a good example of showing, I mean, if I start blessing those who curse me and praying for those who persecute me, how do

56:25

I automatically become a son of God biologically? But it's not biological. It's vocational.

56:32

It's meant to display that I'm doing what God does because Jesus says, God causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust.

56:40

Those who bless God, he causes the rain to come and even those who curse him. And so when

56:45

I bless those who curse me, I'm essentially doing what God does. But the problem in all of this is that we as human beings imitate

56:54

God in one aspect. David is called a son of God because he's vocationally doing what God does, namely ruling as a king.

57:02

So, but we all, in many ways, the people in the Bible to whom the sons of God are, or the term son of God is applied to, are actually doing it in one way or more than one way.

57:13

I mean, in one particular aspect, maybe in ruling or maybe in being charitable or being loving, but no one can imitate

57:20

God in all that he does, except Jesus. So when Jesus uses that term, in John chapter five, he says, the son does nothing on his own.

57:29

He does what he sees the father doing for whatever the father does, the son also does.

57:35

Jesus is establishing vocational sonship in a very, very dynamic way.

57:40

He's saying, I'm a son, not just in some things that the father does, but in every way

57:46

I can do whatever the father does. In that sense, I'm not just the son of God. And this is key to John's theology or Christology rather.

57:54

I am the begotten son of God of a unique kind monogamous in the Greek. So that's the distinction between just son of God and begotten son of God, or God, the one and only.

58:06

So, but I think the words, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no worries. So the term son of God doesn't necessarily imply deity, but there is a sense in which

58:17

Jesus uses that term in which he is unique and refers to deity. So when someone says, oh, well,

58:24

Jesus is called the son of God. Many people are called sons of God. It's like, yeah, but there's a very special unique way in which

58:30

Jesus uses it and here's why. So is that what you're saying? Yes, absolutely. In the vocational way, everyone only fulfills one or two aspects.

58:39

Jesus fulfills every aspect in that he can imitate the father in everything the father does, including receiving worship.

58:46

That's right. They share the same nature as Hebrews chapter one says, right? It's the imprint of his nature.

58:52

All right, and what about the son of man? I've been told that the son of God, while we can make that argument for the deity of Christ, an even more profound title that I think points to the deity of Christ is actually the son of man.

59:03

How does the title son of man point to the deity of Christ? Can you unpack that for us?

59:09

Sure, and this is, I mean, firstly, we have to acknowledge that the word son of man in scripture does not always mean divine, right?

59:18

It just actually means just human, right? Literally, son of Adam or son of man, a human being.

59:27

But when Jesus has used it specifically in his testimony in the

59:34

Sanhedrin, he's actually referencing Daniel chapter seven, verse 13 to 14, which says, in Daniel seven, 13 to 14,

59:43

Daniel sees one like a son of man. Now, what Daniel means from that, of course, is that he sees a human being riding the clouds, which is a remarkable thing, because only

59:53

God comes in the clouds, whether it's on the day of atonement in Leviticus 15, in the cloud of glory, or whether it was with the people of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness in the pillar of cloud,

01:00:04

God rides the clouds with his people. But here seems to be a son of man, like an imposter, pretending to be

01:00:11

God, riding the clouds. And the logical conclusion is God will smite the imposter because this imposter, what seems to be an imposter, is riding the clouds and coming towards God, almost challenging

01:00:22

God himself. But instead, the remarkable thing in Daniel seven, 14 is that instead of smiting the imposter, well,

01:00:28

God actually says, I'm gonna give you authority, dominion, power of men, every tribe and tongue and nation will serve you.

01:00:35

What on earth is God doing? Well, so this is a unique figure. And this also is important,

01:00:42

I think, to stress, that Jesus never considered himself to be God for this reason.

01:00:49

He never considered himself to be God in the New Testament use of the term, because in the New Testament, God is used typically of father,

01:00:57

God the father. So if Jesus had said, I'm God, he's essentially claiming to be the father, which would destroy the Trinity.

01:01:03

So Jesus never claims to be God, he claims to be equal to God, in the sense that he can do whatever

01:01:10

God does. And in that sense, it's a brilliant picture of the triune God. That's not to say that Jesus is not divine, because the word

01:01:18

God is in the early part of the first century is used only of the father. Paul says, grace and peace to you from God our father, and the

01:01:25

Lord Jesus Christ, they distinguish the two. So what Jesus is doing is he's applying the

01:01:31

Daniel 7, 14 passage to himself and saying that he is that unique son of man that is gonna be ruling the world one day.

01:01:38

And so the Jewish leaders are simply asking him, are you the son of God, are you the Messiah? His response is,

01:01:44

I'm not just the son of God, I'm the son of man, I'm the divine figure that reigns with God. And no wonder they find it blasphemous.

01:01:52

Right, and as you said, they make a distinction between God and the Lord Jesus Christ. But that distinction, when you boil down to the broader teaching of scripture and just how we bring this all together, the distinction is with respect to their persons, not with their nature.

01:02:07

So to avoid miscommunication, we believe in one God who exists as three persons, and then that's differentiated throughout scripture.

01:02:15

I think it's very important for people to understand that these doctrines are derived from what all of scripture has to say.

01:02:23

So it's not enough to kind of appeal to verses, oh, he was just a man, or, oh, look, he's just God.

01:02:29

It's what all the Bible says. And so I think that's an important point to keep in mind. All right, so why don't we touch on my last point, my last question, and then we'll take maybe some questions if there are any.

01:02:40

If not, we'll wrap things up. But how would you then demonstrate that Jesus is God to a person who doesn't accept the authority of the

01:02:48

Bible? Oh, I think that in the first case, I would actually begin by establishing the authority of the

01:02:56

Bible, because I think the authority of the Bible is key to establishing Jesus as God.

01:03:02

Now, one of the things I've seen people do, and I'm not inclined to mention any names, is to try to make a sort of historical argument to the resurrection, maybe a minimal facts kind of argument from the resurrection.

01:03:15

And if you can show that, it's kind of what, well, let me name someone who is not around anymore, Pannenberg's Christology from Below.

01:03:23

So if you approach it in that way, what you would essentially do is you try to make a case from Jesus's resurrection.

01:03:33

His resurrection proves that he's God. So historically, if you can demonstrate that, technically, you don't need the

01:03:39

Bible. It is said that you don't need the Bible to prove Jesus is God. If Jesus raised from the dead, he must be

01:03:44

God. By just using the historical evidence, you can actually make a case for that.

01:03:50

Now, I don't think that's true at all, because even if it is true that you, I mean, even if by some amazing thing you can demonstrate that historically proof, and proof is a strong word, historically proved that Jesus rose from the dead, you still cannot justify the theological ramifications or the theological implications, because the theological implications are not a historical claim.

01:04:15

Yes. I mean, it's definitely part of a historical claim, but the theological claim is grounded in Scripture. So you still need to go to the

01:04:22

Scripture. At best, if all you have are the historical evidences, at best, you have a historical anomaly of someone being able to rise from the dead.

01:04:29

That's it. It doesn't prove he is God, because to say that Jesus is God is to make a theological statement.

01:04:34

And at the end of the day, we need to go back to the Bible to make a theological statement and to justify that.

01:04:39

So I would much rather focus on defending the Scripture and the authenticity of Scripture by actually using the

01:04:46

Messianic prophecies, which demonstrate who Jesus' identity is. And in that case, you kind of kill two birds with one stone.

01:04:53

You prove the validity of the Bible and the nature of Jesus based on the Old Testament prophecies. Samuel, as you're saying this, that makes me think, because what you just described there, appealing to Messianic prophecies,

01:05:03

I don't see that as a very popular apologetic method used by many modern, maybe

01:05:12

YouTube Christians, or even scholars in debates. Yet that was a great emphasis in the

01:05:18

New Testament as to how Paul would try to demonstrate who Jesus was. Perhaps that's something that some of us

01:05:24

Christians need to get back to in terms of how we present. I mean, I haven't seen in a debate an appeal to prophecy.

01:05:31

It's almost embarrassing for some people to even use in scholarship appealing to, oh, prophecy.

01:05:36

So they tend to come from it as like a historical kind of neutral, objective standards.

01:05:42

We all agree on sort of minimal, the mere Christianity approach, the blockhouse approach of establishing this fact and establishing that fact, and then there's the conclusion.

01:05:52

I think that's a very interesting point you made, because I see a lack of that sort of apologetic, at least in the circles

01:06:00

I run. Is that something you experience as well? Do you see people use Messianic prophecies as kind of a go -to apologetic?

01:06:09

No, not at all. But I think it should be, because, well, the earliest

01:06:15

Christian apologists used it all the time. Aristides, in his letter to the Emperor Hadrian, actually makes a case from the

01:06:23

Old Testament, Messianic prophecies. Justin Martyr, and also in his letter to Hadrian, and also his famous debate with Trifold, appeals to Messianic prophecies.

01:06:33

This is part of our Christian heritage. We use the scripture to validate who

01:06:38

Jesus is. I mean, in fact, that was Jesus' own argument for his deity. Jesus appeals to Psalm 110 and says, well, who is

01:06:45

David speaking about when he says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand? So it seems that Jesus rests his case on who his identity is on the

01:06:55

Old Testament. And maybe to borrow a KJV -only phrase, if it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us.

01:07:01

But I would also say that my first debate that I did was with an atheist. The very first debate

01:07:06

I did was with an atheist back in 2012. This was nine years ago.

01:07:12

And the first argument that I used was actually the argument from Messianic prophecies. I did really badly in the debate, but because I just didn't know how to use it.

01:07:21

But that's been something that I've been convinced about for a long time. I think with atheists especially, if they're looking for evidence, the

01:07:27

Messianic prophecies are a rich place to go to in terms of evidence. Yeah. All right, very good.

01:07:32

So let's follow this through. So you would defend the integrity of the Bible, and then how would you move from the integrity of the

01:07:39

Bible to proving that Jesus is God? What does that look like in brief outline?

01:07:45

Oh yeah. I mean, so what I would do is, for example, make a case from Isaiah chapter nine, verse six. One of the things that I've enjoyed doing, which some people may accuse me of being a little bit speculative, is to make a case as to how

01:07:57

Daniel predicted the Messiah, to look at basically the - 70 weeks of years prophecy?

01:08:05

Oh no, actually way before that, Daniel chapter two. So Daniel chapter two.

01:08:12

So in Daniel, essentially, there's this one vision, and this vision is played out in many different ways.

01:08:19

So Daniel chapter two to seven is what's commonly referred to as the

01:08:24

Aramaic section of the book of Daniel. And in Daniel two to seven, the structure of Daniel two to seven is arranged very interestingly.

01:08:32

They correspond to one another. Two to seven are connected in the sense they are both dreams and interpretation.

01:08:41

Daniel two, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, Daniel interprets. Daniel seven, Daniel has a dream, the angel interprets.

01:08:48

And then three and six in between are dealing with persecution. In three, Daniel's friends are persecuted.

01:08:54

Six, Daniel is thrown to the lion's den. And then four to five deals with the judgment of the king. Four, Nebuchadnezzar is judged and is restored.

01:09:02

And five, of course, Belshazzar is judged, not restored, however.

01:09:08

So when I looked through the prophecies of Daniel two and seven, Daniel two and seven is the identical vision that Nebuchadnezzar has and Daniel is having.

01:09:16

And in both of those, in Daniel two, at the end of the statue, you come to this, again,

01:09:23

I have to rush through this, but the head of gold, the chest of silver, and it's talking about different empires.

01:09:28

And you come to this, what it's alluding to, which is the Roman empire. And after that, you have this rock that comes smashing, flying rock that comes smashing into this, this entire structure destroys it.

01:09:39

And that rock, not cut by human hands, it said in Daniel two, becomes this great mountain and fills the whole world.

01:09:46

It's interesting, in Daniel seven, there is no flying rock that destroys the statue. What you have is

01:09:51

Daniel seven, 13 to 14, the flying son of man that comes in and sets up his kingdom and his reign forever.

01:09:58

So Daniel two and seven are actually both referencing Christ. And it's talking about Christ who is going to rule the world.

01:10:05

But then in Daniel chapter four, I believe, was it four or five, that it actually says that, no, actually it's

01:10:11

Daniel four. Nebuchadnezzar actually says, oh, Daniel, I think it's Daniel four, nine, Daniel, chief of the magicians.

01:10:19

So Daniel is chief of this group of astrologers called the magicians. And his prophecies are actually predicting that the

01:10:27

Messiah is going to come and rule the world. He's going to rule the world and he's going to basically judge the enemies.

01:10:34

He's also going to die according to the 70 weeks prophecy, Eli, that you referenced in Daniel chapter nine.

01:10:41

And he's also God, according to, well, Daniel seven, of course, he's a divine figure because he reigns with God.

01:10:51

And so you have these three things that are in play. This figure is going to be king, he's going to be

01:10:57

God, he's going to be, he's going to die. And then you come to the New Testament when, and Daniel gives you the timeline in Daniel nine as to how this is going to, when this is going to happen.

01:11:08

And in the New Testament, when we look, we see that this wise man from the East, the Magi, which is

01:11:13

I think short for magicians, are coming looking for this king. And they're not coming, in my mind,

01:11:20

I don't think they're coming to say, welcome to planet earth. They do something really remarkable. They go to Herod, who is the king, and they say, where is the newborn king who have come to worship him?

01:11:31

That's like going to, you know, Shaquille O 'Neal or any one of these basketball players and saying, where is

01:11:38

LeBron James? And I'm looking for his autograph. You know, it's like, what's wrong with you?

01:11:44

But they go to Herod and they say that we've come to worship this newborn king in Matthew chapter two. And Herod is confused and he says, no, you go find him when you do.

01:11:52

Let me know, I, as the king too, will worship this newborn king. I will join you in worshiping him. Which is strange, why the king would do that.

01:11:59

And so they go and they go to Jesus and they give him gold, which I think symbolizes a royal tribute.

01:12:07

Incense, which is what they give to their gods. And myrrh, which in some way, maybe symbolizes his death.

01:12:14

And what I think they're doing is they're saying to Jesus, we are your people. We know you're gonna rule, but we're subjecting ourselves to you ahead of time.

01:12:22

And so that's my understanding. And I think they got that theology from Daniel. So these are some of the things,

01:12:28

Eli, that I would use in my apologetic to talk about how the Old Testament is able to do that and kind of kill two birds with one stone.

01:12:35

Reliability of scripture and the deity of Christ, both at the same time. And I think that's great because when you're speaking to an atheist, it actually,

01:12:43

I mean, remember, if someone's a YouTube apologist and they're like, well, I don't know if I'd use that in a debate. Well, remember, the majority of apologetic interactions aren't debates, they're conversations.

01:12:52

And I think it's a powerful tool to be able to sit down with an unbelieving friend and have the

01:12:57

Bible open. And you're walking them through scriptures and explaining the scriptures to them. And that's really how

01:13:02

Paul did it, right? He went to the synagogues, he reasoned with the Jews in the synagogues from the scriptures. And so I think that's an excellent way to go about it.

01:13:11

And you're gonna have varying degrees of success and you get better at it the more you do it.

01:13:17

But that's the sort of thing that we should be doing, fashioning our apologetic after the apostle Paul, Peter and the other apostles as well.

01:13:24

So thank you so much for that. If I could add one more point, Eli, and that is that, you mentioned it really well, that there's a difference between a debate setting and doing it on an individual level.

01:13:36

I've had the joy of being able to talk to some of the opponents that I've debated and to tell them, hey, we've debated and all that, you disagree.

01:13:44

But I don't think you understood what I said. And so if it's okay with you, I would love to explain with your private and let's have a chat about that.

01:13:52

So that even though you disagree, I mean, it sharpens your point the next time you want to argue against someone, at least you understand what the text is saying.

01:14:01

And what I've found is that it's a fantastic experience to be able to do that Bible study with them on an individual level.

01:14:06

And they're less confrontational on an individual level.

01:14:12

So I think that having this personal conversations is what apologetics is. That's right. And this kind of stuff that we're doing,

01:14:18

YouTube stuff, like that's almost always confrontational, right? If you're gonna do an APS on your show, this is a debate or it's a discussion or whatever, and they can be respectful, but there's just something about sitting in a park somewhere or at a coffee shop, opening the scriptures and just walking someone through the text and reading the word of God.

01:14:37

I think that's a very powerful tool to use, something that we all should be doing to various degrees.

01:14:43

Samuel, thank you so much. This was excellent. Folks who want to know a little bit more about what

01:14:51

Samuel's doing, you wanna check out his YouTube channel, Explain International. Am I correct? That's what it's called?

01:14:57

That's right. Explain International. And he's got some great content there. You can support him by subscribing to his

01:15:05

YouTube channel and watching his videos, sharing it for myself as well.

01:15:10

If this discussion was helpful for you and you haven't subscribed to the Revealed Apologetics YouTube channel, do so.

01:15:16

Click the like button, share these videos and get it to people who you think this might prove very helpful for.

01:15:21

Thank you so much, Samuel. I don't see any other questions here and that's okay. That sometimes happens.

01:15:27

But I think you did an excellent job and I learned a few things myself. So thank you so much. Would you like to say anything, closing words or something that maybe you think the audience might need to hear?

01:15:40

Oh no, yeah. Just really appreciate being on your channel and thank you for the good stuff that you're putting out as well.

01:15:45

And thanks for being so encouraging. Well, I appreciate that. So thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. That's all for this live stream.

01:15:51

Please, please, please. On Thursday, we're having Dr. Matthew Barrett.

01:15:56

I'm super excited. We had to push this interview back twice. So he was busy the first time.

01:16:03

He was sick the second time. And so now he's gonna be here on Thursday defending the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

01:16:11

You guys do not wanna miss that discussion. All right, well, that's it for this episode. Thank you so much, guys. Take care. God bless.