Whitten Q & A - Ep. 4

Alright, very good.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

This is our third or fourth question and answer session at this point.

And I don't remember.

We normally try to do two.

I think one time we did three questions.

But tonight we just have one question, and the question was phrased this way.

Well, we have 16, but we chose one.

Yeah, we have 16, but we chose one.

Oh, by the way, I'm Brother Josiah Shipley.

This is Brother Jeremiah.

And this is Pastor Jeff.

Okay, so the question was stated this way.

How do you explain the triune nature of God, often called the Trinity, but how do you explain the triune nature of

God when witnessing to an unbeliever?

So what we're going to do is we're going to let Pastor Jeff define a few terms for us, and then we're going to jump into the Scripture and

see what it has to teach us.

So Pastor Jeff?

Well, one of the things that I always like to teach and to define is the actual word triune.

Now, historically, there's nothing wrong with it per se.

Historically, the church has used the term Trinity, and that's what most of you will be familiar with.

It's Trinity, the Holy Trinity, the Holy Trinity Church, so on and so forth.

Well, triune is Latin in its base, and it's a better

description because Trinity can actually be just simply three people in cooperation or

three entities in cooperation.

So if, like, the three of us each put a hand on this tank and picked it up, by definition, we are a Trinity.

Or three working as one.

Or three working as one, right.

But whereas triune, three in one, is a better description of the

Godhead.

I mean, it's literally...

Tri -une.

Right.

It's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit literally being three in one,

not just in effort, but in essence as well.

And that's something really to remember.

And they are co -equal and...

Co -eternal.

Co -eternal, that is correct.

So that's why we use, here at Witten, that's why we use the term triune as we

disciple our people.

The second thing I want to talk to you all about is this.

There's a difference between doctrine and theology.

And we here at Witten really, really push that because one of the main things that we want to do here at Witten is

help unify the church.

And when we say church, ecclesia, we're actually talking about the body of Christ, not a

silly building and not silly denominations.

We want to see the true church, the people of God, come together.

That's how the Bible...

That's how the Bible, yeah.

The Bible never ever uses the word church.

It was referring to a building.

To all the saints in the Bible.

Exactly.

And so we want to unify the church.

So when we have different theological positions, okay, that's okay.

Because at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is the doctrine of the Word of God.

That's the only thing that matters.

The three of us don't agree on every piece of theology.

And I'm okay with them being wrong.

Okay?

It's okay.

They're young.

They'll get it.

But we all agree on doctrine.

And doctrine is...

And here's how Pastor Jeff defines it.

Doctrine is something that can be found as a reoccurring cardinal

truth that is going to be found from Genesis to Revelation.

Right?

But it also has to pass the test of what I call the law of non -contradiction.

In other words, if you have something that you think is a doctrine, but it violates any

of the other doctrines, well then it can't be true.

You must be mistaken.

Theology is simply...

An example of theology would be like, should we immerse people or should we sprinkle

people on the head?

Now, personally, the word baptismo in the New Testament means to immerse.

So we immerse here.

But if somebody sprinkles somebody on the head, who cares?

I mean, I always ask people if I can be from the cross.

Right, right.

If you get baptized, well, did it rain real hard?

I mean, they didn't take him off the cross, yet Jesus said, today you'll be...

And so we can use the same example to see what would be doctrinal about that.

Well, if we're going to say that one or either of those removes sin, well then we're

violating doctrine because the Bible says, for by grace you are saved.

That is correct.

And by then it would become a work.

Because if the baptism...

It also has to do with what we do.

If the baptism removes sin, then that means it's something we did to remove sin.

And therefore it's no longer grace.

Right, that puts the weight of it on us.

Just to echo what Pastor Jeff was saying, for any of us, if our theology ever comes

face -to -face with the doctrine, and they oppose each other, we change our theology.

We never change it.

If I find one of my notebooks from ten years ago, I'm going to find stuff in it that I no longer agree with.

Because I realize that, okay, you know what?

John 12 says this, I'm the one that needs to change, not John 12.

That's correct.

And so you've got to come to a point in Christendom where

if it ever comes between doctrine and theology, theology should lose everything.

Every single time.

Every single time.

Well, let's get started.

Now, folks, now remember, we have several people with us here tonight that are monitoring the comments

section.

And if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to type those...

Or not type, I'm old.

Whatever you do, type them.

Thumb type them out, and we will answer those at the end.

So I'm going to turn it over to Josiah first.

The question is, how do you explain the trying nature of God to an

unbeliever?

Sure.

So, start with this premise that this goes back to exactly what we said last week.

You have to start by explaining to people what this is.

This is the Word of God.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it's the very power of God.

Every one of us, everyone in this room, everyone on this planet, at one point was an unbeliever.

And we found the truth of God in the Bible, right?

And we found what God revealed to us, then we became a believer, and then this was no longer foolishness, but God's Word.

So when we say, how can we explain the trying nature of God to an unbeliever?

Well, in one essence, we're talking about an eternal matter.

None of us are ever going to be able to fully comprehend it.

Not in this category.

I'd like to point out on that.

Because I think some people, as you said last week, use that as a crutch not to try not to understand

it or not to study it.

And I think that's an incorrect point of view.

I can look at an ocean or space and whatnot, and I

see that, and I can apprehend that, but that doesn't mean I fully comprehend it.

That doesn't mean you fully comprehend it, but that doesn't mean you can't seek it and learn about it and search through it.

My emphasis when speaking to a non -believer is not to...

I don't want them to intellectually understand each part of a

doctrine.

I want to preach the gospel to them, because that's what the Bible tells me to do.

And God, if I preach what this teaches, the rest is between the Holy Spirit

and them.

So my job is to preach what this teaches.

Now, this teaches the triune nature of God.

So the first thing that I would do, and that I would do whether I'm teaching a believer or a non -believer, is show

that that is what this teaches.

That the Bible teaches the triune nature of God.

So I'm going to go through just a couple passages, and I'm going to go through them kind of fast.

So re -watch this, write them down, and go study them for yourself.

Don't take my word for it, take God's word for it.

The best thing you could do for the next 45 minutes is give you nothing else but take a pencil, and write down the

references we say, and go read them for yourself later, then we've done our job.

That's better than anything.

So I'm going to show a couple passages just to nail down and solidify without question that the triune nature of God

is what this teaches.

And Brother Jeremiah's got some really cool analogies to help us think of it.

So I'm just going to lay the foundation.

John chapter 1.

John chapter 1, verse 1.

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

All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created which has

been created.

You skip on down to verse 14.

And that Word, the one we were just talking about, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

The glory of the one and only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the Word.

That's what John 1 .14 says.

So if you go back, in the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was

God.

And this next verse is the one that pings up some.

All things were created through Him.

Jesus is not a created being.

It says all things.

Guys, I'm sorry.

When the Bible says all things, it means all things.

You know, we like it.

Panda.

Yeah.

You know, we believe it says all things, but it says all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called

to Him.

Why does it not mean all things here?

It means all things.

And I want to point out a couple things there.

One, if you want a second scripture for that, Colossians chapter 3.

Yeah.

It says the same thing that through Him all things were created, it says.

And also, another thing to point out is you'll find some versions of

the Bible that are not scriptural.

The Jehovah Witness version of the Bible adds one letter there, was a God.

That is not what the word God says.

It says was God, not was a God.

So that's just something that if you ever read that or you ever knew Word's

translation, just recognize that that is not scripture.

That is not what was written originally.

And that has been changed.

Right.

Sorry about that.

Oh, no.

You know, going on from that, guys, any time in the Bible someone encountered an angel and tried to

worship him, the angel stopped and said, no, no, no, no.

You don't bow down to me.

John 20, 28.

Thomas bows down at the feet of Jesus and says, my Lord and my God.

Kurios mea theon.

My Lord and my God.

One of my favorite ones that I think we skip over a lot is Acts chapter 20, verse 28.

Well, hold on, let me go back.

Maybe Thomas was just exclaiming.

Like, you know, he saw Jesus there and he went, oh, my God.

Oh, no, no, no.

Because when he says, my Lord and my God, the personal pronouns used twice.

In other words, it's personal.

My Lord and my God.

Probably.

And probably modern English colloquialisms didn't exist.

Probably.

Probably not.

You're right.

You're right.

And if you ever want, this is a side note.

If you ever want a personal study, go and look at, and just focus on what that means.

My Lord and my God.

My favorite one is Psalms 23, verse 1.

In other words, my shepherd.

So that personality, that personal relationship is not your God or his

God or their God.

He's mine.

Well, let me give a shameful plug right here.

Tomorrow morning, we're going to be in Psalms 40.

Okay.

And, you know, he brought me out of the way.

He is mine.

Set my feet on the rock.

Set my feet on the rock.

He's my God.

So that's good for you all tomorrow.

There we go.

1030 Central Time.

That's right.

Right here at Wynton.

Facebook Live.

We'll start with the worship and then we'll move to the message.

Is that right?

Okay.

All right.

Keep going.

No, we'll do a few more.

We'll talk about them.

Remember that Jeremiah will go.

So notice, so far, we have Jesus when he came to earth and he's being worshiped as God.

Okay.

Then we have Acts 20, 28, where we're some years removed after Jesus has ascended back to

heaven.

And we have Paul telling the pastors, the shepherds, the overseers, to shepherd the

flock of God.

This is Acts 20, 28, comma, which he purchased with his own blood.

No, no.

That's a misprint.

No, sir.

No, because Jesus, it purchased with Jesus' blood.

Right.

Oh, you're saying God and Jesus are the same.

Yes.

Wow.

He purchased with his blood.

I mean, Paul said the same thing in Titus 2, 13.

Our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is another verse to, once again, back up what Pastor

Jeff and Josiah said in the beginning, that the church is not a building.

It purchased the church of God with its own blood.

He didn't purchase a building.

Man, that's what I'm talking about.

He didn't purchase property here, okay?

Right.

He purchased his people.

You know, I'm going to tell one of Jermiah's stories about that.

One of Jermiah's old football coaches, when Jermiah was playing defensive back, and they were playing his own coverage,

the coach would tell him, you don't ever guard grass, you guard the person.

Jesus didn't buy a nameless group of a building.

He bought people.

That's what we call my God.

His people for his own possession.

Amen.

A couple more, and we'll move on from this.

So, so far we have John.

We have Luke who wrote Acts.

John 1.

Right, right.

We have Luke who wrote Acts saying the same thing about Jesus being God.

We have Paul in Titus 2 .13.

We'll come back to him.

You know, Peter, 1 Peter 1 .1, our Lord, our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So, we have all these New Testament writers affirming Jesus Christ as God.

Now, they take it one step further for us.

Joel 2 .28.

Okay, here we go.

Joel 2 .28 says this, For whosoever shall call upon the name of Yahweh shall be

saved.

Now, some in an Anglican pronunciation might pronounce that Jehovah, but it's Yahweh, Jehovah, the

same thing, right?

Yahweh is probably the best way it's pronounced.

It doesn't have to be spelled, but anyway.

Whoever call upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved.

Now listen to me, that's Joel 2 .28.

That's the Old Testament.

That's the Old Testament.

That's one of the older prophets.

Probably written 800 years before Jesus ever came.

Now, Paul, in Romans 10 .13.

Those of you who memorize the Romans wrote.

Guys, pay attention when you're reading the New Testament, when it's quoting the Old Testament.

Because the people who read that knew exactly what Paul was saying.

So, Paul says this, Romans 10 .13, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be

saved.

And he attributes that to Jesus Christ.

Now, I want your brains to think about this for a minute.

I didn't notice this for a long time.

Paul took a verse out of the Old Testament that said, Whoever calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved.

And re -attributes that to say, Whoever calls on the name of Jesus Christ will be saved.

Now, there's only two possibilities, guys.

Either Paul committed the worst blasphemy possible, or Jesus Christ is Yahweh.

Jesus Christ is God.

That's right, it's number two.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

There are a million other passages we could look through.

When y 'all were talking about the Old Testament, I've always wondered when people say that Jesus

was a created being, or Jesus was just a man.

You know, we can stay in the New Testament.

You went to Joel, but let's go back 2 ,000 years earlier than that.

Let's go to Genesis chapter 1 -2, where it says, well, first of all, in 1 -1 it says,

God created the heavens and the earth, right?

And then in 1 -2 it says, the Spirit of God hovered like a chicken over her

hens.

And then you go to verse 26.

Let us go down and make man in our own image.

And there you have two doctrines really combined in one.

You've got the trite nature of God, because the words are plural.

In fact, the word Elohim is plural.

El, just the word E -L, is God.

But Elohim is literally the plural form of God.

But it backs that up.

So in the beginning, God's, i .e., God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, created the heavens

and the earth.

And then you just go down 25 more verses, and it uses pronouns in the plural.

Let us go down and make man in our own image.

That's why John in John 1 -1 can call Jesus the creator and not lie.

That's right.

Because when Genesis 1 -1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and John 1 -1 says, in the

beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word created, He's not lying.

That's correct.

Because what we teach, and I'm going to let Jeremiah use some analogies here.

Here's what we teach, guys.

When Jesus was on this earth for 33 years, He was one person with two natures,

two essences, two beings is what we'll say.

His humanity got hungry, got thirsty, died, right?

His eternal nature, His divine nature, you might hear it called the deity of Jesus, is His

nature that has always been.

Father, may they be one as we were one before the world ever created.

Right, right.

John 17.

When we say the triune nature of God, we're saying the opposite.

What we're saying is this, that it's one being in three persons, if you

will.

That's what we're saying.

It's one nature.

Co -equal.

Co -equal.

And, you know, there are different analogies we can use, H2O and all that, but I'm going to let Jeremiah speak to that a little bit.

Now, it's a human analogy, but the Bible teaches it.

Therefore, our job is to know and to search for it.

We're not allowed to say, well, the secret things belong to the Lord.

Right, right.

That's our job.

So, Jeremiah, help us understand, if this Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ,

and that the Father are all one God, and we call ourselves monotheists, the

belief in one God, help us understand that and reconcile that, because we want to believe exactly what the Bible teaches.

Right.

So, help us understand that.

Well, first thing first is I want to just give you a recap, in case you want to pin them down.

So, we just talked about Genesis chapter 1.

Yes.

John chapter 1.

Joel.

Joel 2.

Joel 2.

Okay, we did Titus 2 .13.

1 Peter 1 .1 and Acts 20.

Acts 20 .28, John 20 .28.

If you want another one, you can go to 1 John 5 .20.

We also referenced Colossians.

I think I said Colossians.

Well, we're just going to start naming them.

I mean, one of the most powerful ones is John 8.

John 8.

Or Abraham.

Well, I'll get to that one later.

And I've got one in John 12 that I'm going to do in a second.

Yeah, you go ahead.

Okay, so when we're talking about, because here's the thing, and here's what's thrown in the face of Christians

a lot of times, is that we hold on to our book, we hold on to our Scripture, but it's illogical.

It contradicts itself.

It's non -scientific.

And we've talked some about that last week with evolution.

We did.

But it's not true.

That was on the YouTube page.

With Media Ministries.

They want to see that.

But the very nature of God is thrown in our face.

Now, what's more in the nature of God than the Trinity?

And that we are violating the law of non -contradiction by saying there's one in three and three in one.

If you put them in a human box, if you put them together, it's a man.

So if we say he's three persons and one person, that's a contradiction.

But that's not how I see it.

If I say, what is this?

Well, it's a table.

If I say, what is this?

It's a human being.

I can't ask, who is that?

It's an inanimate object.

You can say, who is this?

What is that?

What is that?

What is this?

I have a what and a what.

This does not have a what and a who.

So follow with me here.

So I have a what and a who.

In the same way, God has a what and a who.

What is his nature?

He's eternal.

He's all -powerful.

This nature of God, of his being, an eternal, limitless being.

We talk about the attributes of God.

Eternal, limitless being.

But he also has a who.

Now, the difference here is that he has three who's.

Yahweh, the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son, and then the Holy Spirit.

So they all have the same nature, the same what.

They are all one, but they have three different who's, the three personalities.

And we, a lot of times, we want to try and bring God down to our level.

We want to try and simplify him so that we can understand him.

C .S. Lewis, he's a brilliant, brilliant apologist.

He said this one time, he said, if you have a line, that's one dimension.

One dimension, you have a line.

If you have a second dimension, you have shapes.

If you have a third dimension, you can have objects.

Right?

So with each added dimension, with each added level, the level

of complexity, the possibilities, exponentially grow.

So when you talk about not the dimension we live in, or the dimension of the angels, but

God, who lives in no dimension at all.

He is far above and beyond us.

The level of possibilities, of the complexity of that can exist, far

exceeds what we have.

But we want to bring him down to our level and say, well, that's impossible.

That can't happen.

Well, it can happen to you right here and now.

In your little physical, material world, it can't happen.

But God is not physical.

He is not material.

He is a spirit.

A limitless, timeless spirit.

You know, back in the war between the states, civil war against the Yankees.

But back in the war between the states, one of the northern generals was talking with Abraham Lincoln.

And he asked Abraham Lincoln, he said, let us pray that God is on our side.

And Abraham Lincoln's response was, no, let us pray that we are on God's side.

The perspective of God is where, with the revealed word of God, is where we need to get to to try to

dumb this down into beings who are limited by time, space, and matter, is

an exercise of utility in the height of arrogance.

The Apostle Paul at the end of his life.

The Apostle Paul may be one of the godliest men who has existed since the time of Jesus.

At the end of his life, with all his knowledge and pouring over scriptures, he said, my goal is to know him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

After all of this.

And I have not yet attained it.

Think about this, guys.

God sent great men of God.

God sent prophets who did miracles.

God sent angels as messengers.

But Immanuel, God with us, was only attributed to Jesus Christ.

Only, only, only.

God with us.

Not God sent someone to us.

God with us.

Right?

Yeah.

Let me, let me...

Go ahead, go ahead.

Let me do one more here in John 12.

Because we're not, guys, we're not just saying that Jesus is a heavenly being.

We are saying that he is the eternal God.

Well, this is saying it.

This is.

Yeah.

Now, John 12.

Write this one down for later.

John 12.

I'm going to read verse 41.

Let me set the scene for you.

Okay?

John 12, 41 says this.

Isaiah said these things because he saw his, Jesus' glory and spoke with him.

Right before that, in verse 40, John quotes Isaiah 6.

And says...

Please.

John quotes Isaiah 6 and says that the prophet Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus Christ.

Let me explain Isaiah 6 to you.

It's Isaiah 6, verses 1 through 8.

You can go read for yourself.

This is 700 years before Jesus.

700 years before Jesus ever came.

Okay.

Okay, we have Isaiah.

Isaiah saw the throne room of God.

Okay, you only, you get a good picture of that in Revelation and Isaiah.

Saw the throne room of God.

Where, at the sound of the seraphim, the angels created to do nothing else but to

praise God 24 -7.

And they cried, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is.

At the sound of their voice, the temple shook.

At the sound of the created beings praying for nothing else than to praise God, the temple shook.

And then it says, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The whole earth is filled with His glory.

Now, who are we talking about there?

We're talking about Yahweh, right?

Because he saw Yahweh.

We're talking about Yahweh.

The whole earth is filled with His glory.

Okay.

John takes that passage known to everyone of his readers.

Right.

And says that Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus.

Guys, he was in the throne room of God.

How do you get around that?

It says Yahweh.

I mean, it's just that simple.

And by the way, if you're reading the Old Testament, guys, in Joel 2 or Isaiah 6, oftentimes

you'll see LORD in all capital letters.

And what that is, that's the L -O -R -D in all caps.

What that is, that's your Bible indicating to you that the proper name Yahweh or Jehovah was just used, right?

Right.

That's what that's indicating.

We see in the Old Testament where it's spelled how we would spell it in English, capital L -O -R -D, like

Psalm 23 .1.

The Lord and my shepherd, the Adam.

If you want an instance where both those are in one verse, write this down.

Psalm 110, verse 1.

In Psalm 110, verse 1.

In English it's going to say, and the Lord said to my Lord.

And Yahweh said to my Adonai, my master.

That's what it said.

And we can get to that later because that is also attributed to Jesus.

But guys, I just want you to notice that we have now gone through all but one of the New Testament writers so far.

And every one of them.

Every one of them.

Luke, Peter, John.

Well, we've done, of course, Jesus and Thomas in there too.

And every one of them have attributed Jesus as God, but not just God as Yahweh.

Guys, when we have Paul in 1 Corinthians saying that they tested

Christ in the wilderness and he sent snakes to him.

Exodus says Yahweh.

Numbers 21.

Exodus.

Numbers says that Yahweh sent snakes.

1 Corinthians says Jesus sent snakes.

There's only two possibilities.

That means that the New Testament writers, the Bible teaches that Jesus is not just a

heavenly being.

He is Yahweh the Son.

I was listening to an atheist talk one time and he said in reality there's only three possibilities.

Jesus is insane.

Jesus is a liar.

Or Jesus is God.

Liar, lunatic, or whores.

It's one of the three.

Even the atheists acknowledge that.

That you can't get around that it is one of the three.

It's to the point to where Jesus looks at the Jews and says if you really knew the Father, you would know

me.

Right.

Because I am the one.

And they understood that more so than we do.

One of the things in history that a lot of atheists and skeptics say

is they go, well, the triune nature of what you've been taught...

Until the fourth century.

Right.

But that's not true because you have guys like Polycarp and Irenaeus and Justin Martyr and all these guys

who were talking about Jesus being Lord.

But why it's not an argument until 300 years after Jesus is because everybody believed it.

It was a common sense, understood teaching of not only Jesus

Christ himself but all the apostles and all of the writers of the New Testament.

Let me ask you this.

We often quote John 8 .58 to show the deity of Jesus.

It says this.

Before Abraham was, I am.

Right.

Okay.

Basically, the Jews said, Jesus is talking about how he knows Abraham personally.

They say, how do you know Abraham?

You're not even 50 years old.

It makes me wonder if Jesus looked a little older than he was.

They didn't say 30.

They said 50.

And he said, before Abraham was, I am.

Let me just stop right there.

The name Yahweh is built off the word am.

Right.

That's how it's built off.

In Exodus chapter 3, he reveals his name three different ways all the same way.

He said, I am that I am.

I am.

I am Yahweh.

All the same.

Basically, you can go back 2 ,000 years.

You can go back to eternity.

You can go to the future.

I am.

I just am.

Right.

I am.

I am.

To clarify a little bit what you're saying, here is Moses back

here.

Here's Jesus.

Now there's 2 ,000 years.

And Abraham's back here.

Yeah.

And Abraham's even further back.

But here's Moses at the bush.

1 ,500 years before Jesus.

1 ,500 years before Jesus.

Right?

And Moses walks up.

And this voice is coming out of this bush.

And he goes, Moses, you're going to lead my people out of Israel.

And Moses, you've got to remember, he didn't go to First Baptist Church there, right?

You know, he didn't know God as a believer.

He wasn't a believer.

And he goes, who are you?

And so God goes through and he sits there and goes, doesn't matter who I am, son, you need to go on up to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go.

And then Moses asks this question, well God, what is your name?

Because, you know, they're a polytheistic.

They had a God for everything.

But God, when he says, God, what is your name?

God gave him the existence part of who he is.

He goes, what do you mean?

I'm God.

There is no other God but me.

And since we're attributing, since the Bible attributes Jesus to that name, did you hear what he just

said?

He told Moses, go and find my people.

You see, those are Jesus Christ's people.

That's Jesus Christ's people 1 ,500 years before Jesus ever was on the cross.

And let me reference back to Psalm 23 .1.

The Lord is.

Not was.

It doesn't say he was.

It doesn't say he will be.

It says he is.

Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today, and forever.

And you know what?

Next week, guess what I can still say?

The Lord is.

The present tense, because it's a state of being.

So, with all that said, when Jesus tells them, before Abraham was, I am, that's not the

part that we should focus on.

The next verse, John 8, 59, says, at that.

Now, when you see the words, at that, look at what just happened.

Jesus said those words.

Before Abraham was, I am.

Period.

Verse 59.

At that, the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.

And it says they plugged their ears, screamed at their mouth, and picked up the rocks.

Now, why was that their reaction?

Because they knew exactly.

They understood.

Exactly what Jesus was saying.

Exactly.

Because he used that sacred name.

Yeah.

He used the same name.

He sat there and basically, to put it in English modern terms, Jesus says, I am

God.

What are you talking about?

What part of my three years of preaching have you missed?

I am God.

And that tripped me out when people kind of said, well, Jesus never claims to be God.

Jesus never claims to be God.

The Gospels even say, in the Gospel writers even say, from that day

forward, the Jews plotted to kill him, because he made himself equal to God.

And, you know, that's another thing.

Guys, as you go throughout, especially in the book of John, where Jesus calls himself, I am the bread of life.

I am the water.

I am the bread that came down from heaven.

Okay.

Yeah, all those things, they knew what he was referencing.

The manna from heaven.

The water that came from the rock.

All these things.

Jesus saying, yeah, Yahweh did that.

I am.

Right.

Right.

So you Starbucks mocha latte theologians.

Right.

You guys have to actually, once again, take the word of God as it's written, but in good harmony, place

it within the context of seeing the reactions of the people Jesus is speaking to.

It might not mean anything to you in 2020 as an American atheist, but I guarantee you

it invoked rage in the people there, because Jesus Christ just committed in

their minds the ultimate blasphemy saying, I am God.

Which, according to Levitical law, was cause for death.

Cause for death.

That is correct.

If that wasn't true, then Jesus would have committed blasphemy.

Absolutely.

But because it is true.

Right.

Right.

Because, I mean, guys, the people writing the New Testament, for the most part,

knew of Jesus' humanity better than I did.

They saw him hungry.

Right.

They saw him thirsty.

They saw him die.

And even they understood, and yet, that is God in human flesh.

Right.

That is God for our nation.

Yeah, something else to think about is that, and you started to allude to it earlier, I want

you to flesh it out a little bit more.

The reality is, you know, every time someone came face to face with God,

they didn't say, what's up, JC?

How's it going?

What did they do?

They bowed down.

They came face to the ground because they were in a...

Well, another thing that's a common denominator when people came in the presence of God was fear,

true, but then worship.

Yes, yes.

Always, in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Now, it's funny, because every time an angelic being, you were mentioning this earlier, or

a mighty prophet or something like that, people would fall down, and every one of those angelic beings...

Don't worship me, man.

Don't worship me.

Don't do that, man.

But it's funny, in the New Testament, every time someone worshipped Jesus, he never stopped it.

He accepts it.

Why?

I am.

And he spoke against idolatry more than anyone.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So, he was told...

Let me go back, if I can, just for a second.

I talked earlier about Genesis 1 -26, and I said there's actually two doctrines in that

one verse.

Let us go down and make man in our own image.

And so we have the plurality of the pronouns there, both in the Hebrew and the English.

The singular of the verb.

Let us go down and do one action.

One action.

Let us go down and make man in our own image.

And it doesn't say images, it says image.

Now, what you can do is take that a step further, is that man is a reflection of the

triune nature of God.

We have a body, a physical body, right?

We have a mind, but we also have a soul.

You have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

It's all one being.

When he said, let us make man in our own image, it's not a spooky ghost kind of, you know, fat

little angels with little arks and all that other garbage that churches and bartenders have made.

It literally is a reflection of...

We are a reflection of the triune nature of God Almighty.

And that just blows my mind.

And I personally believe that that's not... that the main way that is, is the

mind, body, soul.

But I also think it has to do with some of our desire, too, and that we long for love and relationship.

Because God is love.

And within the Godhead is a relationship.

Absolutely.

Here's the thing, is that people, Christians, are asked this question all the

time.

And sadly, they are not able to articulate what they actually believe.

They're not taught well.

We must be able to articulate this.

Because here's the reason why.

This is not a problem, it's actually the answer.

The triune nature of God answers more questions than it brings up.

Absolutely, I agree with that.

It answers questions.

Only in the Christian triune worldview does love

precede life.

When you have the Islamic monolithic worldview, where there's only Allah, and

Allah is the sole being at one point in time.

They'll say He was eternal, but He is alone.

He is solo.

There's no one to love.

There's no communication.

He can't speak.

There's no relationship.

In the Christian worldview, within the Godhead, because there's an I -You...

May they be one as we were one before.

Exactly.

John 17.

There's love.

That's a really good point.

There's relationship.

There's communication.

He didn't create love.

He is love.

He is love.

Because with Allah, He doesn't exist.

So you're saying love comes before life.

Love precedes life only in the Christian worldview.

Because any other worldview, whether it's Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Buddhist, Hindu...

For God so loved.

Love existed before life.

Love precedes life.

That's pretty cool.

In other words, creation was an act of love.

An act of grace.

Yeah.

We love Him only because He first loved us.

Amen.

I want to echo what both these guys just said about the image of God.

Guys, God loves all His creations.

But only one of His creations has an intimate relationship with Him.

Only one that He soothed down and breathed His life into.

Oh, come on.

You're stealing my sermon, man.

Oh, sorry.

Excuse me.

Come on.

Now, that comes at a price in this regard, ladies and gentlemen.

I mentioned this two weeks ago.

I once had a believer come to me and say, you know what, Brother Josiah?

I feel as low as dirt.

But the truth of the matter is, both me and him are really lower than that.

That's right.

And here's what I mean by that.

God saw all His creations all as good.

At the fall of man in Genesis 3, at the sin of Adam and Eve, the ground was cursed because of Adam.

Right.

Okay, the ground was cursed.

So, even though all creation is cursed, only one disobeyed God.

The dirt obeyed God.

The dirt did what God told it to do.

It grew.

We didn't.

We are the ones that sinned.

We rebelled.

And the ground, creation, is cursed because of us.

Because it's under us.

That's right.

It's under our authority.

So, it is punished because it's under our authority.

Some of you dads need to listen up right now.

We'll come back to that in a minute.

Oh, that's okay.

That's okay.

But then, let's put it this way, guys.

God demonstrates, present tense, His love toward us in that

while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

See, to try you and God, guys, Jesus...

God the Father and God the Spirit did not call Jesus and say, okay, it's Genesis chapter 3, we're three chapters in, Adam and

Eve have already messed this up.

See, Revelation says He was slain from the foundation of the world.

Guys, the trying God has never been surprised.

The trying God has never been surprised.

Never one time.

We did not thwart the plan of God.

Almost like He's sovereign.

It's almost like He's sovereign, right?

Going back to that other quick side comment, for those of you who bother listening in, in 1 Samuel 15,

Saul allows the troops to take spoils from war when God said, don't take spoils from war.

Guess who God addressed?

Saul.

And then Saul...

Now guys, I want you to hear the excuse Saul gave.

Probably a better excuse than any of us have ever given to God.

This is the excuse that Saul gave.

He said this, but Lord, they took the spoil, the cattle, to make

sacrifices to You.

Can any of us provide that good of an excuse?

And then Yahweh said this, do you think I desire sacrifice more than obedience?

To obey is better than sacrifice.

To obey is better than sacrifice.

Jesus summed it up by saying this, if you love Me, you will keep My commands.

Not you'll just do good things to make yourself feel better, which are great things.

Feed the poor.

If you love Me, you'll obey Me.

If you love Me, and I don't want to get too far off, but guys, if Jesus Christ can tell His

followers if you obey Him, who else can

tell you to obey them and you're obeying the Father?

Okay?

You see, when a leader, a pastor should be able to

say,.

Imitate me, because I'm imitating Christ.

A pastor does not say obey me.

A pastor, just like Paul, even Paul said imitate, follow me, because I'm following Christ, which is

a mountain of a statement and so on.

But Jesus said, Obey Me.

Obey Me.

I have never thought of that before.

That is a really good point.

And just one more point on this, guys.

You might say, yeah, but Jesus doesn't talk to me directly.

Well, actually He does.

Yeah.

My daughter.

Take it off the floorboard of your car.

Yeah.

Guys, two things about that.

First off, when we say this is the Word of God, if I rap it, so y 'all stop me, but two things on this real quick.

The Bible says, Hebrews 4, the Word of God is living and effective.

And it actually divides between spirit and soul, which we'll talk about earlier.

Remember in Matthew 22, 31, Jesus looks at the Jews.

He quotes a verse from Moses 1 ,500 years before and then utters these words,

Have you not read what God spoke to you?

And then He quotes Moses.

Now, wrap your heads around this.

Jesus is holding the Jews accountable for what God has spoken to them 1 ,500 years later, 500 miles

away.

Guys, have you not read what God has spoken to you through the pens of

men 2 ,000 years ago?

Which is why it is right and justified to say that this was written for you.

Specifically, particularly to you.

If what Moses wrote was specifically written to the Pharisees, then it is a fair and

justified statement to make that this was written for the people of God, for the church, for us today.

And lastly on this part, we can move on from this.

Guys, my daughter is one year old.

If I leave her with a baby sitter and I tell her,

Ava, obey the baby sitter and do what they say.

If I tell Ava that, I leave and come back an hour later

and Ava disobeyed that

baby, me.

Guys, if this is God's Word,

ultimately the one you're disobeying is not your husband or your pastor or your wife.

Ultimately, the one you're disobeying is God.

So that David can murder somebody.

Murder somebody and do way worse than that and then look to God and say, but against you and you alone

have I sinned.

Because I didn't disobey a man, I disobeyed God.

And done this evil in your sight.

Do we have any questions that were posed tonight?

Or any comments?

Well, go ahead.

Real quick.

We can just do this real quick.

If they don't have any questions, I'll bring up some stuff that's thrown in the face of Christians sometimes.

And these are very simple to refute.

How can God and Jesus be the same if Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God?

Or the better one, the more difficult, quote unquote, when Jesus says, I

believe it's in John 16, that the Father is greater than I.

Well, how can they be equal if it says the Father is greater than I?

Alright.

Go ahead.

I'll do the right hand one first.

You do the right hand first.

You know, a lot of the titles of Jesus, we really misread.

I did for years.

He calls himself the Son of Man.

That term is used 80 times in the New Testament.

78 of those times Jesus calls himself that.

That's his favorite title.

The Son of Man.

I always thought he was being humble.

And then I read Daniel 7.

And Daniel 7 says, the Ancient of Days, and the Son of Man came riding on the clouds.

Right?

That's a deific.

That's a deity expression.

It's expressing his deity.

And everyone who heard him say that knew Daniel 7.

Go read Daniel chapter 7 and you'll see exactly who the Son of Man is.

Right?

But it's because of the phrase in the question where there's confusion.

And we've got to quit saying this.

We've got to quit saying, well, you know, there's God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

But we've just proven through the Bible that all of those are God.

What we mean is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

So when we say God and Jesus are the same, what we're saying is the Father and Jesus are both God.

It's redundant to say God and Jesus are the same because Jesus isn't.

But that goes back to, because we're saying it's one being and three persons.

That's exactly what we're saying.

Where it's one being and three persons.

I am one being, though I can be different persons to different people as in Father of Ava,

husband of Rachel.

Right?

We're saying that it's one being and three persons.

And there's a bunch of H20s, for example.

Right?

We may call it water, steam, ice.

But it's all one being, H20.

Any scientist in the world can take a block of ice, a collection of steam, and liquid water and immediately identify they're all

identically H20 though they have different appearance in different forms.

Sunlight, sun, heat, sun radiation.

So when we say how are God and Jesus the same, we're saying they're both God, you're asking how the Father and the

Son.

And that answer is because we're saying it's three distinct persons that have been eternally distinct.

He is the eternal Son of God.

And keep in mind, the term right hand of God, don't think of it as meaning he's

sitting down next to my right hand.

That is the symbol of power and authority.

Jesus.

And I'll end there and let you do the other one, John 16 or whatever it was.

Jesus told the Sanhedrin the day before he was crucified, the morning of, I guess,

you will see the Son of Man, me, sitting at the right hand of God.

At that, there's those words again, they plugged their ears, screamed, and rushed in and

dragged him to Pilate.

Right.

Forty, well, two months later, Acts chapter 7, Stephen is

standing there.

He goes on a long monologue.

And your father's there, and they're like, okay, okay.

And he ends it by saying, I look up to heaven, and I see the Son of Man, the one that you crucified two months

ago.

Same council, Sanhedrin.

Two months later, he goes, remember that guy you crucified two months ago?

And he said he'd be standing at the right hand of God?

Well, I look up and I see him standing at the right hand of God.

Yes.

Exactly as Jesus predicted.

It's not, once again, you have to think outside of the physics of man.

Yeah, we don't mean he's out in the rain.

We mean that's his power.

That's right, that's right.

And to kind of answer the second one about what he's saying with the Father is greater, okay, well, if there's a

CEO, and I'm just the worker, okay, well, he may have a different position than me, but we're both

equal in who we are.

Right.

And not to mention, let's not forget, multiple times in the Gospel, but my favorite was Philippians chapter 2

when it talked about Jesus humbling himself.

Right?

He took on the form of a slave.

He emptied himself.

He emptied himself.

It says he did not...

He did not...

He took equality with God.

That's right.

He did not take equality with God as something to use for his own advantage.

So it's a statement of fact.

Right.

But took on the form of a slave, taking on the form of man.

Right.

So the point is that he is equal with God.

But he humbled himself to a lower position.

People don't understand that that humility is not simply just an act of the will.

The incarnation is an act of humility.

Right.

You take a sovereign God who has existed in an eternal nature and then binds

himself to the limits of time, space, and matter as human beings.

The best metaphor that I can come up with is you become an ant.

Yeah, exactly.

That's just...

And I think most of the confusion, we often put Jesus in a 33 -year box.

Yeah, exactly.

But he's the eternal son of God.

Because he humbled himself for 33 years, first off, that doesn't mean he ceases to be God.

But secondly, when you look at his humanity and you say, oh, this means he's not divine.

No, he humbled himself to take on human form.

Morphe, anthropoid, right?

Human form.

But he was and is Morphe Theion.

He is the form of God.

So we can't put him in a 33 -year box and say, oh, because he had human attributes for these 33 years, that means he's not God.

No, that is saying he is God and he humbled himself.

That's what humbling is.

And that's another thing to think about is Jesus, you know, when they come to

killing, he sits there and he goes, nobody's taking my life.

I'm laying it down.

I'm laying it down.

The idea that mankind could kill Jesus, kill God.

Yeah, if Jesus was just a man, well, of course you could kill him.

But he's more than that.

He had to lay his life down.

In John 8, when we referenced earlier, I love it because it says, they came

to pick up rocks and Jesus just walked away.

He just said, MC Hammer.

He just said, come on, guys.

But you know, guys, we, on Sunday night, Bible studies, six o 'clock on

Sundays, we got to finish Philippians 4 this week.

And after that, we're going to spend two or three weeks on Isaiah 53.

Just the chapter Isaiah 53, two or three weeks on it.

Isaiah 53 10 is the most beautiful and heartbreaking verse in the Bible.

Absolutely.

And this is what it says.

It's referring to Jesus and it says, and Yahweh was pleased to crush him severely.

It was the will of the Lord.

Jesus, guys, the Romans didn't kill him.

The Jews didn't kill him in that sense.

Pilate, Herod, you know what they were doing?

The Lord was pleased to crush him severely.

You know, I hear people say that our sin killed Jesus.

Guys, Jesus didn't have to come and die for our sin.

It was an act of love and grace.

Our sin, the punishment and the separation from God, the causality was

His imputating our sin upon Him.

But the reality is, He died by His own will and that God

punished sin and it cost the physical life of Jesus.

And Pastor, you used the word imputation.

We defined that a couple weeks ago, but for those of you who weren't with us, imputation means to charge to

someone else's account.

So let me give you three examples in the Bible.

Romans 5 12 Therefore sin in the world through one man and death through sin.

In this way death spread to all men.

So we have the sin of Adam imputed, charged to the account of all men.

Guys, you're not a sinner because you sinned.

You're sinned because you're a sinner.

You were born in sin.

David, Jeremiah, Isaiah all said in my mother's womb I was sinful.

I was conceived in sin.

They all recognized it.

We're born in sin because of the fall of Adam.

The ground is cursed.

No longer is creation very good in that sense, in that sense of perfection.

That's the bad news.

And guys, I'm sorry, when it says all men, all anthropoid, that means all human beings that have ever existed, that sin is

imputed.

What Pastor Jeff just referenced is then our sin, the sin of man is imputed, is

charged to Christ's account.

So on that cross, when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The sin has been imputed on Christ.

Guys, I'm sorry, Hebrews says, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Leviticus 17 says there's life in the blood.

God, your sin will be paid for in blood.

The question is, who's it going to be?

But at Jesus, Jesus took on the world's sin.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, right?

So when we say imputed, that means that sin was now charged to Jesus' account.

It was placed on his head, if it were.

So all man received sin from Adam.

Sin is put on Jesus.

And in this part, and ladies and gentlemen, this part is for anyone who believes in the name of the Lord

Jesus.

Not just the Savior, but Lord Jesus.

But this does not go out to humanity willy -nilly, only those who call him Lord.

Christ's righteousness, that perfect life that he lived for 33 years, is now charged to your account.

Swipe your credit card on it.

It's now charged to your account.

So when you stand before God, the righteousness of Christ for those who believe has been put on you.

Just another verse for this.

In verse 521 is it?

He became sin who knew no sin so that we might become

His righteousness.

Not our.

Our righteousness is nothing.

His righteousness.

Okay?

So for those of us who believe, not only has our sin been placed on Jesus, because all that does is put you back in a

neutral state.

That doesn't save you without His righteousness being put on you.

That's that positional part of it.

We are now in Christ because of that imputed righteousness.

Therefore, having been justified, declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through or

in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Him we have obtained access, right?

And that with God is that positional...

Yeah, it's that fellowship.

And that's why the emphasis...

Let's not create a million different analogies when the Bible has a few that work fine.

I like that!

We have the body of Christ.

When it says you were placed in the body of Christ, when Jesus says, the eye can't tell

the ear what to do, and wherever the nose be without the...

Whatever.

When we have all this, guys, when you're placed in the body of Christ, you're part of His body.

His righteousness, right?

It's now on you.

And when you're in that, you are part of the greater body of Christ so that whatever part you play in that,

whatever part you play in that, and whatever you do in order to be, due to something done to the Lord and not from Him, you're no longer of

your own.

You were bought at a price.

So that, you know, on my own, I am nothing.

But as part of the body, we do the work of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of your life.

Praise God.

And so, guys, we just want to say thank y 'all very much tonight for watching.

And do y 'all have any closing comments or statements?

Yeah, I have one.

I would say this, guys.

I think the most important thing that any pastor or teacher can teach anybody is how

to read this.

Because this is God's Word.

Not His Word, His Word, or my Word.

This is God's Word.

How to read this.

Guys, go back through and look at the references we have.

And you'll see, we have covered Genesis, Joel.

You go through Psalms.

Isaiah.

Psalms.

If they're all saying the same thing, written by 40 different people over a span of

1550 years or whatever, and they're all saying the same thing, there's got to be a common

core to that.

Absolutely.

That's because we believe this has 40 writers but one author, and that's the Holy Spirit.

God the Spirit.

Guys, this is the source of all truth.

We're just here to point you to it.

That's all we're here for.

So if it's mentioned all the way through Scripture, like we said, what's it called?

Doctrine.

A doctrine.

Very good.

Well, guys, we love you.

Thank you for joining us.

And remember, if you're watching this later, maybe even weeks or months from now, and you have a

question, we have someone who looks at this stuff and keeps up with it, please feel

free to comment or please feel free to write any questions down and we will get to them.

Also, if you're in the Memphis area, come by and see us tomorrow morning at 1030.

Of course, we're still under the great pandemic quarantine of 2020.

Hopefully only for a little while longer.

Yeah, just for a little while longer.

A very little while longer.

But tomorrow we will be broadcasting.

Is that the correct term for this stuff?

Broadcasting?

Yeah, something like that.

Streaming?

Streaming.

That's probably a better term.

We'll be streaming our praise and worship and then we'll be hearing the Word of God, Psalm

chapter 40.

But if you're in the Memphis area, please come by and see us.

And we're at 6773 Macon Road in Memphis, Tennessee.

Best city in the world.

Apart from that, guys, our music minister does an awesome job with these.

If you're like me and you like to, instead of Facebook, use YouTube videos to mess with the playback speed and

get through them faster, all that stuff to make playlists, he uploads all these live broadcasts the

next day.

He normally gets it done by lunchtime, but the next day he edits them.

He has a scripture pop up at the bottom of the screen, all that stuff.

Makes us look pretty awful.

It happens the next day every time.

So keep that in mind.

Whitten Media Ministry.

You go on YouTube, subscribe to it, all that.

It has more.

And ring the bell.

And ring the bell.

That's right.

It obviously is a little bit more organized and Facebook can be mixed with all posts and stuff.

Go on there, subscribe to it, and you can watch all these that we've done.

And we're going to continue this after the pandemic.

Every Sunday morning, we will be streaming at 10 .30.

Every Sunday night, we have a 6 o 'clock Bible study.

And then on 5 .30 on Wednesdays, we have another Bible study.

On Thursdays, you'll be hearing from our ladies, Pastor Ben Talley, our associate pastor.

He has an encouragement every morning.

There's just going to be a whole bunch, and there's actually more programming coming as we are working on getting all that

to you.

Guys, may the peace and grace of God that passes all understanding.

May it keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord.

God bless, and we will see y 'all tomorrow.