Matt Slick Bible Study, Justification, 7-29-2021

There we go. All right, it's not good stuff. Okay, I'm gonna make sure you have this going. I forgot about this. There we go. All right, you guys ready? All right, so we're gonna do a study. Justification and we're gonna pray first, of course, so let's pray.

We'll just jump right into it and see how it goes. Let's see, they're having trouble. They have some people on having trouble streaming. Oh Odyssey is okay. I won't worry about it then. All right. Nope.

Oh that light. Yes, that'd be good. Okay. That one right there. He'll get it. All right, so I'm gonna pray and then we'll just we'll just jump in. All right. Okay on the very back of the toggle. Yeah.

That works. For those of you who are watching and you don't know what's going on. We always have fun before. Before we start, all right, we talk and tell stories. What's that? So no more fun. Now. We're just gonna have a study.

So let me pray we'll jump in Lord Jesus thank you for today for this evening and ask lord that you would bless us as we go through your words. We study what your word teaches. Ask lord for mercy. Upon the listeners for grace upon me speaking.

That the hearts and the minds of all of us here lord and who listen will be blessed by the teaching of the truth of Your word. I ask jesus for your mercy. I ask for your grace. We ask this in your precious name.

Amen. All right, so. No, it's good. I mean, we don't want too much light on my face because I. That's right. Well, I figured it's because you don't want to you know, I mean I look like i've been been hit by a by a bag of logs.

All right. So let's just get in. What are you nodding for? He's nodding. Isn't this true? That's right. Yeah, you know how it is. All right, so, uh. Justification where that's what we're studying tonight.

So it's going to tell you that justification is a big topic. It's not a big topic. There's a lot we could cover but there's not really a lot we could cover because it's really one thing. And that's what we're going to talk about is one thing.

So it won't go two hours like it normally does. And we'll be taking questions from people. And um got some of the same people who come in during the show. Look at this mark says nice shirt. This is my wife is making me wear shirts.

Nice shirts that is. More people come in. No, okay and so that's why. And it has buttons normally when we go out, you know. We go out to dinner or something. She goes you wear a nice shirt and I go why mary doesn't impress anybody and then you know, but uh I do her she she made me.

She had to. All right. Now that i've been thoroughly insulted basically my shirts. Okay, we noticed joanne says unique has great taste. That's right. Laura. That's why she married me. I feel like i'm in the line of fire.

The Trinity, Divine Simplicity, and the Nature of Righteousness

All right, so. What we're going to do is we're going to start in genesis and uh in a little bit talk about uh, the entrance of the gospel and um, but before we do that, I want to talk about the trinity a little bit again.

The trinity being the foundation of all knowledge and truth and all justifiable truth. I'll be debating the trinity versus oneness. Twice with two different people in the next three weeks next two or three weeks.

And um on the biblical doctrine of the trinity. And so i've been working also on a a statement on what the trinity is. I've been working on that now for months not every day all the time. But you know, I go oh I could add this and oh I could polish that.

And i'll read it for a bit and work on it for a half hour an hour. Then put it aside for a few days kind of thing. But I i'm developing that and i'm going to I plan on going through patreon and doing a series just out of that thing.

Doing one two three sentences at a time but um. The trinity, you know is the eternal existence of god in three simultaneous persons and Righteousness Is embedded in the very heart the very character of god's essence.

And it's embedded in the sense not that it's something else that became part of him. But it is something that emanates out of his existence. There's a doctrine called divine simplicity. Divine simplicity says that god is one single thing.

So one of the illustrations I use about this to get your mind thinking this way is a a carbon sphere. You know just a sphere of carbon doesn't matter how what the diameter is just pure carbon carbon say carbon 12.

It is one thing it is one essence. It's just one it's it's a material materialistically. Simple divine simplicity says that god is one thing one. Being one divine essence one divine nature. He is what he is and when that is revealed to us in scripture is revealed in three persons.

Not in three parts, but in three simultaneous and distinct persons. And the father and the son the holy spirit have had an eternal fellowship which cannot be had in uh doctrines that deny the plurality of god.

That's another topic now. So righteousness holiness truth goodness are all things that emanate. Or are revealed out of the character of god. So when he speaks as jesus says in matthew 12 34, he said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

So we speak out of what we are so we speak because if i'm really angry i'm going to say angry words. I'm, really in a you know fun mood. I'm going to say fun things and that's just how we are. Well, god is holy.

He's going to speak holiness and since he knows all things for john 3 20. He's always going to be speaking truth. He never can contradict his own nature in essence because that which he possesses Means whatever he does possess.

He does not possess its opposite if he is good. He does not possess not goodness. Because that's a contradiction in nature in essence something is what it is, but it's not what it is not. So his goodness means that he exists in the form Goodness, but he does not also possess non-goodness.

It's a non-sequitur. It's a logically impossible and that can get into the transcendental nature of the laws of logic and why they emanate and. And universalities and universals and stuff, but I won't do that now so when we talk later here in a little bit about justification justification is related to his holiness and his justice and his His mercy and his grace and his purity his perfection and all of that.

It's not a part of god that manifests in justice. It's the whole of god that necessitates justice. And a lot of people think that god arbitrarily chooses. What will be just what will be right will be what will be wrong and that's not the case it's the fact is that as You know atheists will say how do you know god is good and I've talked about this every now and then i'm going to be Repeating this kind of a thing because you guys need to hear this.

But when we say god is good, they'll say how do you know god is good? It's like saying well god is just how do you know? He's just he's loving. How do you know? He's loving what they're doing is they say I want a standard that exists apart from god to be able to judge god.

I want to know what standard god has to hold to because how do we know god's good? Because we don't know if he's good or not. Well, how would you know if he's good or not? Well, no, that's for you the christian.

Well, I know he's good because he says so oh just because he says so yeah. That's it. He's good. Well, how do you know he's good? Well, there is no standard against which he can be compared. There is no other being against which he can be compared.

He is his own eternal being and there's nobody else beside him. There is nothing else by which he can be compared and therefore whatever he possesses He possesses if he possesses goodness. He does not possess also evil if he is good.

He cannot also be the opposite of what good what is good is, you know. And when they say well, where did logic come from and I love talking about that we get into transcendentals. Then we're back to this after a half hour teaching on that I go.

Are you ready to get back on goodness? Yeah, because their brains are hurting, you know. And so the issue here is that we recognize what is right and it was good what is just and all of that from. From the nature of god's revelation.

Now, there are three areas that god reveals himself in Creation we can look out at the world at the stars and go. Wow. He's big. Wow. He's powerful. Wow. We can look at the scriptures. We can say wow, that's pretty good.

That's good. I did. Oh, I read that 18 times. I didn't see that part in there. Oh, it's true, you know. And we can look at the person of jesus christ who is revealed in the scripture. But jesus is the one who walked and talked and lived and rose from the dead.

Calm the ocean. I mean a storm by by uh with a command etc. So the three revelations of god which are all forms of self-revelation. They're all forms of self-revelation because there is no way for anybody to know anything about god unless he reveals himself.

So in creation he was revealing his greatness and the word is revealing his truth and the person revealing himself person of christ we could say it that way so when we get to this issue of of Justification it only exists in the context of law and legality.

Because law is what reveals sin to us. Romans 5 12 5 13 if there is no law there is no sin and so We know that when god speaks he's speaking out of the buttons of his heart. Matthew 12 34. So when he said let her be light it's because it's what his desire is is to create let her be man and woman.

He it's his desire to create and there's reasons for that creation. You go to isaiah 43 7 that were created for his glory. But also so that we might emulate and reflect. The plurality of his nature in the union of male and female in one flesh.

And carry out the issue of fellowship, which is part of his eternal nature as well as the created order. Demonstrating the dominion that he has over all creation and we have over the area of creation that he's given to us.

You with me so far? All right now. So because of this the only way to know what is right. Is it by looking at god? If anybody says you have to have another standard. I say fine. Show me a better one. A universal standard that precedes god to which god himself wants answer.

Mr. Atheist. Mr. Agnostic. Mr. Whatever. And of course, they don't have that and you can hear them. You can hear the intellectual toe snapping. Was there stubbing it against logic and truth? And it does happen a lot.

You've listened closely in chat rooms. You can hear the people do that and you can also hear gaskets blow. Oh because uh their brains are starting to think and they're not used to thinking properly they're used to thinking with cognitive dissonance now.

Justification as Legal Declaration and the Problem of Sin

Justification. All right. What is justification. Justification is the declaration of righteousness. And i'm going to show you this in scripture. It's a declaration of righteousness. That is given to somebody else.

It's a legal declaration. It's a declaring. It's a giving it's an imputing. To impute means to reckon to another's account legally. Legality deals with the issue of sin. If there is no sin that we can have no breaking of the law and if we have no breaking of the law.

We have no need of justification. Now justification is just as if i'd never sinned. That's justification. It kind of works and it's pretty close to being true. And so that's okay. We can we can deal with that.

All right now. So Let's just start with genesis chapter 3 starting at verse 6. There's some cake over there too i'm going to give me some of that later. They got people behind the camera here on my phone getting munchies and man if I suddenly disappear and dive off camera because i'm grabbing stuff, but Let's see how far I can go the people in the room.

Hello from north carolina. Hey roger. There's jimmy. There's a matt from tennessee. I think he is Discernerator of spirits if you know him you should have lots of evidence. Manifestation of stuff. All right, so, uh, that's right.

God is a standard. Okay, let's go on. So verses 6 and 7 when the woman saw that the tree was good for food. And that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise. She took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her.

And he ate then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves Loin covering. Now, let's talk about this a little bit. This is an interesting area of scripture.

Why would they cover themselves? Were they naked to begin with now. It says well they were naked. But were they naked to begin with there is an instance in The in the book of revelation. I forgot where where it says we'll be clothed in righteousness.

And clothed with white garments. When moses came down from the mount talking with god his face was shining. He's in the very presence of god. So i'm just going to throw something out for entertainment value.

Could they have been? Shining in the glory of the majesty of god as a reflection the way moses was. Don't know i'm not saying it was i'm not saying it wasn't. I'm just throwing this out. It's interesting because if they sinned and they lost that they would have known they were naked now.

That's one possibility that they they actually became unclothed in the glory majesty of god. At righteousness that was permeating the very essence of where god is. Yeah, maybe. But it could also be that their eyes are open.

Oh, we don't have any clothes on we're naked. We're exposed but that's interesting because. What's the big deal? What's the big deal? You know if you're with your how do I say this politely when you're growing up with brothers?

And uh. You don't have a big house to live in and you got one bedroom, you know, you got to share and stuff like that. That condition is you grow up with. What's the big deal? It's nothing you grow up with it.

It's not an issue and so. That's why I wonder in their innocent. Well, they lost their innocence at this point. They sit there and they go. Okay, we're naked. And so I don't know what the real issue is uh I don't want to get too far into it and offer too much speculation, but you know, just throwing some stuff out for thought.

Okay. Okay. So they hid themselves right and uh, they covered themselves with their own works. They covered themselves with their own works their own efforts their fig leaves now. Just so you know in the mormon temple ceremony.

When you go through the temple if you're a mormon. You are given a fig leaf apron green fig leaf apron in a plastic bag. And you walk into the with the temple ceremony. And there's a scene in the film as they go through the varying rooms of the temple where uh satan and the devil, I mean satan and the preacher and jesus and adam are all talking they have stuff like this.

And adam says to satan who's wearing a fig leaf apron. He's he's got a but it's black. I think it is. And Adam asked him. Well, what's that? What's that apron you have on and he says it's a symbol of my priesthood and my power or my priesthood my authority.

I forgot which one it is. And then the film stops. And the mormons are instructed to take out their fig leaf aprons and put them on. Yeah, wow. Yep. Unless they've changed that i've talked to temple workers who would did temple work for over 25 years.

And they had it all memorized backwards forward left and up and down that's what they did. That was her job and they said they told me when they became christians, you know, that's exactly what happened.

Yeah, there's there's there's stuff on youtube about it. But the fig leaf apron, so it's that's just a side note about what the cult of mormonism does among other things but nevertheless, all right, so They made coverings of their own works their own hands.

And then they were cursed etc. Genesis 321 the lord god Made garments of skin for adam and his wife and clothed them now. So he is the one who made garments of what? Skin. Now it does not say that he killed any animals to do this.

But The bible says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Leviticus 17 11. Which is repeated I think in hebrews 9 22 I think so a long time. But genesis leviticus 17 11. So we know that's true and since adam and eve were covered by the work of god.

That i'm going to conclude by inference that an animal had to die in the process typifying a blood sacrifice, which was The protowingelia the first mention of that gospel message and action right there and Some say genesis 3 15, you know curse the n 16.

You know bruise your head bruise your heel and stuff like that, but what I wanted you to see was That they covered themselves. And then god covered them so they covered them with Uh fig leaves plants god covered him with Animal skin.

I don't think he produced an animal skin in midair. I think he killed an animal. That's what I believe. And hence the shedding of blood. All right, so we can see then from the very beginning. That righteousness before god is necessary.

Of course god in ephesians 1 4 Uh for the he chose Us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless. So god the father chose the elect In christ before the foundation of the world and hebrews 13 20 talks about the blood of the eternal covenant.

Where the father son holy spirit would have internal eternal fellowship and would redeem Mankind, you know, the father would elect the son would redeem. The holy spirit would apply the redemptive work all right, so Of course the garden was the place where Jesus the pre-incarnate christ wasn't jesus yet entered the garden and Took care of him now jesus When he was captured was captured in a garden And made atonement, right?

So it's interesting how the parallels are there. Okay, so. What god does then? Is he speaks about what the word is he speaks. I'm going to lower this a little bit he speaks. Um. Get the camera a little bit better oriented because I keep looking at and thinking about it.

So hold on one sec. There we go A little bit better framing. I think all right and so. So the law is reflection of the character of god. The law is reflection of the character of god. Because god speaks out of the abundance of his heart out of the bunch of the heart the mouth speaks.

Jesus says in Matthew 12 34 now the ten commandments Are a codification of moral obligation now. If we look back at adam and eve We know that adam represented mankind. And that because of adam the ground was cursed with thorns and thistles.

Genesis 3 talks about this. We know that sin entered the world through one man adam romans 5 12. So god had made a deal covenant with adam To cultivate the land and the garden and subdue the earth. That covenant is not Dissolved by the sin of adam.

Because the curse is in your continuation of this covenant. Now, you're going to have thorns and thistles. So all people Are obligated to follow that covenant. All people are obligated to manifest a proper relationship with god under a covenant Analysis system.

We'll get into this a little bit more. Unbelievers who deny god are not excused from that covenant period. It says in adam all die. So adam represented us that's first corinthians 15 22 in adam all die.

So he represented all of us romans 5 18 through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men so adam's sin Resulted in condemnation to all men, but also romans 5 19 That many were made sinners by the act of the one transgression of adam.

So we were in him in doctrine of federal headship, which i've already taught. So when god speaks He speaks in the beginning was the word the word was with god, but in the beginning god said genesis 1 and john 1.

So in the beginning the word was in both cases and the word Is how god spoke to bring things into creation and when you go to colossians 1 15 to 17 It says jesus who is the word and flesh. Through all things were made through him for him by him.

So we see the the word was involved in this and when god speaks and since he's always true he binds himself by covenant. By his promise. This is why i'm a covenantalist and not a dispensationalist. I'll never be a dispensationalist now.

When we look at the ten commandments. And i've mentioned this before and always it's it's doing great. I mean, it's worth going over it again. The ancient suzerain vassal treaty pattern. This was discovered by meredith klein uh who knows more about Theology or forgotten more theology than i've ever learned.

I mean he just he was brilliant. I think he showed around. Back in seminary. He came into class. And taught us and he's the one Who would read. I forgot what language is ancient ugaritic, you know? Sumerian cuneiform, you know, you're like you read it.

Yeah, this was right here. You're like that and whenever like that, you know, like. You know, he's one of those kind of guys really super smart. And i'd watch him. I learned that what he was doing was reading his bible this hebrew bible and translating in english.

As fast as he could read it in hebrew. He was just brilliant. He Discovered the suzerain vassal treaty pattern which is suzerain and a vassal big king little king. The big king the little king would make a deal.

An agreement which was a covenant document and the covenant document was this is who I am. This is what i've done. And here's the stipulations and rewards and punishments for breaking and keeping the covenant.

Okay. Ten commandments. I'm the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt. This is who I am and what i've done. You're to keep the the covenants if you honor your mother and father you'll live long.

If you don't you won't prosper now and he says in genesis I mean in exodus, I think 20 verse 2 or 3 he says if you don't serve him he'll bring the judgment upon. This generation and three to four generations following there's a consequence so.

This is all important because it represents god's character and his law so the ten commandments. Are those documents that were put in the ark of the covenant? There were two copies 10 and 10. Not four and six not five and five.

I wish i'd get that right. Because there are covenant documents. Each party would get a copy of the Contract or the covenant and it was put in the ark of the covenant. Which on top of that was the mercy seat?

And that's where the high priest would go in the holy of holies once a year on yom kippur and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat. And then the nation of israel was covenantally propitiated. That means that the wrath of god was actually removed from all of the covenant people.

It does not mean that they were all saved and going to heaven. It means that they were covenantally Justified before god or their sins were removed now the blood on the mercy seat, which is the footstool of god.

Demonstrates or typifies the blood of christ who would be sacrificed later on so We see how all this is working together and the covenant god's word god's word god's word. All right. So sin is breaking the law of god first john 3 4.

So if anybody has said, you know god says you shall not lie. And then you lie. Then that means that you've broken the law law. Legality law and legality. There's a problem legality a legal problem. So sin is at the very least a legal problem, but it's also spiritual has certain Deleterious ramifications and things like that so we know that.

That uh when you sin you're separated from god. Isaiah 59 2 your niceties are cause of separation between you and god in robin 6 23. It says the wages of sin is death. Now if you go back to genesis 2 17 god says to adam the day that you eat a fruit you're going to die.

So the day they ate the fruit did they die? Did they die? Well god said they would so did they die? Yes, god said so. So what do we mean by death then the separation from god? This was demonstrated by the fact that they hid themselves from god and then tried to cover themselves with their own works and god rejected that.

That's where the death was a separation from god. Isaiah 59 2 talks about that. That's where the true death is. Physical death is a manifestation of the spiritual death. The real issue is a spiritual realm not this physical one.

The real issue is where god lives and the heavenlies and who he is as a spiritual being because isaiah excuse me, john 4 24 god is spirit and in luke 24 39 you search the script. No, it's 40 44. Oh, I got so many verses in my head.

It says, uh, uh, You would have to Fact-check me. That's right. Uh, let's not john. It's luke 24 39. He says, uh spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have all right. So god is spirit. He doesn't have a body of flesh and bones unless you're a mormon.

Yeah, check it out Luke 24 39 last one. There's a mormon and so You'll see it's right, right? Oh, look at this. Hope you guys are enjoying this on the out there in the internet land. Okay, so I'll get back on track so god Speaks and he speaks out of his heart and don't lie.

Don't cheat. Don't steal all these the ten commandments are the standard that reflect his moral character. He's the standard not us. We can't keep that standard and if you were to go to deuteronomy 27 26 It says there that curses everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.

Now the book of the law in deuteronomy 6 5 says Lord love the lord to god with all your heart soul mind and strength in leviticus 19 18. It says love your uh, and I mean love your neighbor as yourself.

All right, and then jesus says in matthew 24 37. I mean 22 37 and 39. He repeats deuteronomy 6 5 and leviticus 1918. Love god. Love your neighbor and he says in verse 40. This is the summation of the law.

Now we are obligated to keep that law and the reason is because god is the one who's holy. And he's the standard of righteousness now. First peter 1 16 be holy for I am holy. It doesn't mean be holy, but it's okay to not be merciful.

Holiness encompasses all the righteousness and goodness of what god is. So the standard of righteousness is god himself. So we are to be righteous according to the law because he's a standard. God does not lower his standard.

As the book of mormon second nephi 25 23 says you're saved by grace through faith after all you can do. Or what a lot of churches teach as long as you're good as long as you're sincere as long as you're trying God will take our Take care of the rest.

That's damnable heresy. It's false teaching even though it doesn't mean they're damned but a lot of people just stinking ignorant about what the scriptures teach but the thing is. That's what it says.

That's right. Ha ha so. So god has decreed The truth of his word to be revealed and it's a standard of holiness because it's a reflection of his character. We are not excused from keeping that same level of standard.

We are not excused. That's a standard. But there's a slight problem. We can't do it oops. Now, what do we do? Well, there's no hope for us. Now in islam I think it's in short 23 101 or something like that.

It says that if your balance of good deeds exceeds your bad deeds and you you know. And you're alive if all the wills you can be saved. Um in book of mormon 30, uh, dude, I mean maroney 10 32, I believe it is it.

If you deny yourself of all ungodliness, then is god's grace sufficient for you. And I forgot where it is in the watchtower. I think it's 1972 april 1st. There's the three things you got to do. I forgot what page three things you got to do to be saved and one of them is keep the commandments of god.

So all false religions all false things will say that you have to keep commandments of god in order to be saved. Well, guess what? If you keep all of the commandments of god. You can be saved. All of them perfectly all the time.

Because that's the standard so it's doable. Except for one thing. It's I don't know about you guys, but I can't do it. Um, I don't know, I think dave's come close a few times, but he's tried but His wife corrected me on that one once when I said he was a great guy.

So, uh. The standard is god himself, right? Now. Since we cannot keep that standard because we're touched by sin in all areas of what we are. And everything that we do is touched by sin. Our righteous deeds are filthy rags.

Isaiah 64 6. Therefore there's nothing we can do. The only one left to do anything is god himself. So god second person of the trinity became man and incarnated. Hypostatic union. Two natures one person.

He fulfilled the law. He never sinned first. Peter 2 22. He was able to do everything that we could not do. Period he did it perfectly. Which to me is unfathomable? What's that like? I know he could do it.

Conceptually, I've got it. I can understand how aliens could chase you and you run and you scream. As you're firing at him and you're running screaming. I could get that. Okay, I got a good imagination.

I can imagine that. But I can't fathom. Experience understand relate to the idea of keeping the law perfectly in speech in doing and in attitude because my attitude is cryptic to everyone here. And even to me to a degree.

I know my own heart and I don't like what I find. Okay and uh. That's why I don't like colossians 3 1 through 17. Because it shows me myself. Oh Colossians 3 1 through 17. Don't anybody read that? All right.

What's that? What's that? If therefore you've been raised with christ, that's right. Keep seeing the things above very good. Christ says he's where where's he? Oh my goodness. Hold on a sec. Hold on. Hold on.

This is it. There she is right there is my wife. Okay. She spoke. Oh. She did a good job too and uh, I had to put it she she looks so much better than me, doesn't she? That's right you come back next week i'll have some broken limbs probably.

What happened? I fell down the stairs three times. On the same day. Yeah, man, it just that's right. All right, so. So jesus is the one who is able to keep the law perfectly. Because we can't because there's no one else left to do it.

Now remember in ephesians 1 4 it says That he the father chose us. The elect in him jesus before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless in roman 6 6 it says that we Died with christ roman 6 8.

I think it is or I can reverse it says we're crucified with christ. Now, wait a minute. How are we crucified with christ? How have we died with christ? He died 2 000 years ago. How did we die with him?

We don't die with him when we get baptized. We died with him when he was crucified because he's our federal head. He's our representative federal headship is a teaching that the male represents a descendants so jesus represented his people.

In adam i'll die in christ all Shall be made alive that second all can only be the elect because the unbelievers are not made alive in christ. So I can go through this thing about the all. And how god uses it differently than we do particularly in the nature and the extent of the atoning work.

But maybe later. So jesus was able to do everything and we were in him. Now there's some real interesting things we could talk about here If we were in him and he kept the law perfectly. We could almost say that we kept it in him.

If he died on the cross and we died with him because we're in him after the bible said we died with him then. We died with them crucified with them. Now, you know, this is you know illustrations. But also I think there's some literalness to it.