Comprehensive Defense of the Deity of Christ

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics.

I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and I wanna welcome you guys back.

I have another returning guest.

I have Jeremy, the Black Doctor.

And I had him on when we had the Protestant panel discussion and you guys definitely

wanna check that discussion out.

It was kind of a round table discussion in defense of Protestantism.

And so if folks are interested in that, especially if you find yourself speaking with Roman Catholics and

Eastern Orthodox folks, that conversation is going to be very useful to you.

So I just encourage folks to go back and check out that episode.

Also had Paul Facey on last time we went live and that was an excellent discussion as well.

And so I highly recommend you check out that video as well.

We interacted with some points that were made by Jay Dyer, who is a noted Eastern

Orthodox apologist.

And so that was a lot of fun.

And Paul had me in stitches with a spot on impression of Jay

Dyer.

I was impressed, it was really good.

So if for any reason, if you don't wanna watch the whole thing, just watch the video, search the video just so that

you can see the impression.

It was so cool.

But I'm very happy to have my guest on tonight.

We're gonna be talking about a super important topic.

It's kind of a staple of Christianity.

Obviously we all affirm what we call the deity of Jesus Christ.

But we do know that this is a doctrine that is challenged by heretics, challenged by Muslims.

It's challenged from a bunch of different directions.

And so I really am looking forward to kind of getting into this topic.

Jeremy, I actually watched the debate with Jeremy where he was debating a Muslim and he did a

stellar job defending the deity of Christ on multiple levels.

And so I was like, you know what?

I need to get him on to talk about this topic.

So I'm like you guys.

You guys watch this channel to learn.

I learned so much from my guests.

And so I get super excited when I'm able to ask my questions and see how

my guests give these answers that are clear and biblical.

And I greatly benefit from it.

I'm a teacher, so I get to use a lot of this stuff in the classroom once I learn it from others.

So I'm very grateful for the wider body of Christ.

God has blessed us with so many learned people.

So without further ado, let me introduce the black doctor, Jeremy.

How are you doing, brother?

I'm doing well.

How about you?

I'm doing wonderful.

I am thankful to the Lord that it is Friday.

So this is my Sabbath.

It's the day of rest because I'm a teacher.

I'm Scott free after I leave my job, which I love, but I'm happy it's Friday.

What have you been up to?

What are you doing?

What are the topics that you're covering now?

Maybe you can let folks know where they can find you and then we'll just jump right into this topic.

Right.

So for those who know me and those who don't, I am Jeremiah Short, the black doctor.

You guys can find me on TikTok at blackdoctor21, as well as my YouTube channel under the

black doctor.

I also run a Patreon where I do audio books of the early church fathers, as

well as teach church history.

So I've been doing a lot of great stuff.

I'm still in seminary class.

I actually just started back on Thursday.

So getting back into the swing of things and still trying to engage in apologetics

with our friends from Clubhouse, TikTok and everywhere else.

And especially here on YouTube, I actually just reached over 500 subscribers.

So that is an absolute blessing.

On what?

500 subscribers on what?

On YouTube.

On YouTube.

All right, excellent.

And how long have you been doing YouTube?

You said?

I haven't specifically been doing explicit content on YouTube until around

the end of December, pretty much when I started my Patreon.

My YouTube generally was the place where I put most of my lessons that I do at church because I'm

the pastoral intern and interim youth director for my church.

So I did a specific series on woke theology

for my Hot Topic series, if you can find that.

Also some of my old sermons.

And so it's a repository for a lot of sermons that myself and my church do.

And it's also a place where you can find most of the content that I'm doing that's not specifically on YouTube

or specifically on TikTok or my Patreon.

That's excellent.

Hey, I wouldn't mind listening to an audio book with your voice.

When I listened to your debate with that Muslim, you're so, Mansour, you incredibly missed my argument.

I'm like, he's so articulate and expressive.

I'm like, I like that.

I can listen to you do an audio book.

This is a LibriVox recording.

That was actually, it's weird because I was instantly thinking about, you know, getting with LibriVox,

which they do their audio books for free.

And I'm thinking that's great, but what if I also make money off of this?

So I started my own Patreon and started doing my own thing.

And it's actually, it's been pretty well.

Excellent, excellent.

Someone's asking real quick, are you on Rumble?

I just discovered Rumble.

I don't have any -.

I have recently discovered Rumble, so I'm not necessarily on there.

I'm trying to, well, of course I'm trying to spread out to everywhere I could, but also

try to make sure that I have enough time to continue to do my proper schooling and things of that

nature.

So I might go on Rumble, but it really does depend on how much time I have.

Right, right, right, absolutely.

All right, well, let's jump into this topic.

I mean, I was just speaking with my students today and discussing the distinction between

essential doctrine and non -essential doctrine.

Non -essential doctrine, post -mill, pre -mill.

Do you dip a baby?

Do you not dip a baby?

For you, Pato Baptist, Crato Baptist, important, but not definitional to what it means

to be a Christian.

Right.

Not so with the deity of Christ.

Why don't you explain why, before we kind of jump into just a more comprehensive case, why don't

you explain why the deity of Christ is what we would categorize as an essential doctrine of the

Christian faith?

Right, the deity of Christ essentially, well, in its core, is an essential doctrine of the

Christian faith.

Jesus hinges the true faith based upon himself.

He asks his disciples this simple question, who do you say that I am?

And he then says to the Pharisees, to the Jews, unless you believe that I am he, you will

die in your sins.

So he hinges people recognizing who he is, recognizing who Jesus

is, is the core of your salvation.

And the apostles continue to talk about this.

The apostle Paul says that those who believe in a false Christ do not have the right spirit.

And 1 John is incredibly clear about this.

Those who deny that Jesus has come in the flesh are antichrist.

So there are many false Christs running around, but only a true Christ, someone who

really believes of what Jesus said he was, can truly save.

Excellent, so let's go into, we were discussing earlier today, I entitled this a

comprehensive case for the deity of Christ.

Let's kind of start, I'm gonna start kind of narrow and then work out a little more broadly.

Can you give us the run of the mill generic texts that one would go to

first when showing that the Bible teaches that Jesus is God.

And then perhaps we can branch off from that to go to the more obscure elements of scripture, maybe some of the Old Testament

passages or things where we can kind of also demonstrate the deity of Christ,

Old Testament or some obscure passages in the New Testament or something like that.

So explicit texts and ones that when you actually look a little closer, like, wow, this actually demonstrates

the deity of Christ as well.

And then from there, we're gonna branch off from theological defense, the coherency of the concept, and

then the defense of this concept as what the early church believed.

We can maybe look at some of the creeds and what those said about the deity of Christ and the two natures of Christ and things like that.

Right.

So why don't we start with some explicit biblical texts and then work our way out from there.

So some of the explicit biblical texts that we can look at just that easily come to mind

is John chapter one, verse one.

All of us love to go to John chapter one, verse one, and it's for good reason.

If I may, let me see.

You wanna share the screen?

Yeah, let me see if I can share my screen.

I've been actually been doing a lot of stuff on my work on Olive Tree or

the app Olive Tree.

Love Olive Tree.

Yeah, this gives me the NA28, which is the Greek rendering of the New Testament

and the English beside it.

So just, I could honestly spend our entire session on John chapter one, verse one,

but let me give you a quick overview.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

We can easily simply tell you just by reading the prologue of John that the word is

Jesus as we see in John 1, 14 and the word became flesh.

But it says here, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.

So the word is with someone called God and the word was God.

So specifically, if we're going to say, well, find me a passage that says Jesus is God,

here it is, and the word was God.

But some of our friends, whether they're Muslim or Jehovah's Witnesses or others, try to

argue against that from the English text.

Right, now, can I interject real quick because you just mentioned Jehovah's Witness.

I always hear various apologists say that when you're talking to a Jehovah's Witness and you're trying to demonstrate the

deity of Christ, don't go to John 1, 1 because they're so familiar.

Would you agree with that?

Or you can kind of see where they're coming from, but you still see value in going to this text.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, yeah, I understand that a lot of people are hesitant to go to this passage because

the Jehovah's Witnesses love to try to argue from this passage.

But if you understand, just like have a basic understanding of the Greek language,

you have nothing to be afraid of.

Because what you can actually do here is show that when the Jehovah's Witness tries to argue particular arguments

from this passage, that if they were consistent, they would shoot themselves in the foot, metaphorically.

So let's actually demonstrate that.

Let's split John 1 into, well, John 1, verse one, into three parts, three phrases.

The first one, in the beginning, was the word enarche ein halagos.

I wanna point something out here with the word ein.

The word ein here is the imperfect active indicative form of I meet, to

be, or to exist.

So basically it's saying, in the beginning, which is harking back to Genesis,

even as far back as you can place the beginning of time, the word

already was in existence.

So this already argues against the Jehovah's Witness to say that

Jesus was eternal.

He was not the first created.

Instead, he's eternal.

He comes before the creation.

John 1, 1b, kai halagos ein pros tontheon.

The term pros here is very good because the genitive

plus the accusative, which means the term theon here, tontheon, is in

the accusative case, which means that it's the direct object of the phrase.

So basically what this means is that the word is with, or as

many scholars have noted, face -to -face with, in a relationship with, and in communion with

somebody else who is called God.

And then we get to John 1, 1c, which is basically the main point

of conflict between many who deny the deity of Christ.

Kai theos ein halagos.

Now, many, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, try to say that because the word theos here does not have

the definite article here, like ton does here, or halagos

does here, or here in John 1, 1c, that it means that the word is a God,

or something like that.

But number one, if you're going to argue that, then you're gonna have to argue that John is a

polytheist, which, as we know, John is a monotheistic Jew.

He's not that.

But you're also forgetting a crucial Greek rule that you would know in Greek three,

which is called Caldwell's rule, which is basically arguing that because

the word theos here, or any other word, is an anarthorist pre -verbal

predicate nominative.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Let's break that phrase down.

You gotta break that down, because people think you'd be speaking in tongues, bro.

I'm a Presbyterian, not a Pentecostal.

Oh, yeah.

I couldn't tell.

Go for it, man.

But anarthorist, it means that it just doesn't have the definite article.

Pre -verbal, it comes before the verb in the sentence.

Here, the word ain't.

Predicate, which means that when it's translated, it goes to the end of the sentence, like it is

here in John 1, verse one, and it's the predicate nominative.

It's in the nominative case.

It's describing how it fits within the sentence.

And so, we have a similar phrase or a similar construction in 1 John, where

it says, he who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The direct translation would be, and love is God.

But the term love there does not have the

definite article.

And so, what it's doing is that it is describing the nature of God.

God is not a love.

God is as to his nature, love.

And so, we see here in John 1, 1, kaifei asein halagas,

that the word is as to his nature, deity.

It's explicitly stating that the word is not the same person as the father,

but has the same nature as him.

Many scholars like Martin Luther and even Warner Wallace have noticed that this is

the only way where John could have communicated that Jesus was God, but not the same person

as the father.

And Martin Luther notes that in this phrase, he avoids both modalism

and Arianism in one simple phrase.

We then see in John 1, verse two, he was in the beginning with God, again, a repetition of

John 1, verse one.

And then verse three, all things were made through him, and without him was

not anything made that was made.

Here, the term is dia, which means with the accusative

or the genitive, I mean, through or by means of.

Dia plus the genitive in Greek means that he is the personal means, the

personal agent of creation.

We find this construction used not only here in John 1, but also in Hebrews 1 and

Colossians 1, 15 and 16 and 17, where Jesus is the

personal agent of creation.

We see in the Old Testament that Yahweh says that he alone stretched out the heavens and formed the

world by himself.

So if Jesus is active in creation, he by necessity must be

Yahweh alongside the father, as scripture notes.

That's excellent, that's excellent.

So we shouldn't be afraid to go into John 1, 1, and you don't need to have a comprehensive understanding of the Greek to

kind of point out some of those elements, although it is useful to have some acquaintance.

I did take some Greek when I was in seminary, but I lost it all.

I could read what's on the page, I just don't remember what the stuff on the page means.

Right, right, and that's something that I'm always, that I'm always

repeating, not only to myself, but to others.

But when it comes to Greek, you have to use it or you lose it.

That's right, that's right.

And that's why I'm so grateful for starting apologetics early in my study, so that I

actually have a means or a reason to use Greek in my daily life.

Excellent, excellent.

So what other passages, explicit passages, that we can go to?

So John 1, 1, John 1, 14, where else can we point people to?

And would you like to keep this up on the screen?

Sure, let's go to John, well, first, let's go to John chapter 20,

because I think this is some of the most explicit stuff.

Let's go here.

Here we go.

At the end of John chapter 20, Jesus talks, well, John talks about downing Thomas.

And here we get some of the most beautiful phrases about Jesus.

Let's look at verse, beginning at verse 24.

Now, Thomas, one of the 12, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the marks of the

nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.

Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be

with you.

Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my

side.

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God.

Jesus said to him, have you believed?

Have you believed because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

So we see Thomas in John chapter 20, verse 28, specifically call Jesus

his Lord and his God, literally in the Greek, ha kuriosmu, kai

hatheosmu, the Lord of me and the God of me.

John - But Jeremy, but Jeremy, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not what it says.

Thomas was expressing awe.

Oh God, oh my God.

You hear that one?

Oh, most definitely.

I wonder like how many times have in scripture do we see a

monotheistic Jew take the Lord's name in vain?

Right, and he's not even corrected on this.

Jesus says, you believe because you see, blessed are those who believe and don't see.

So he's actually accepting these titles.

Right, and as we see, this is how John actually bookends his text.

He says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written

so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in

his name.

So what John is doing is connecting the phrase son of God to him being

true deity.

So there can't be any clearer statements than this, aside from what we find in the book of Revelation.

I love going to this passage because Muslims always say, where does Jesus explicitly say in the Bible, I am God

or where he says, worship me?

I just turned them to Revelation chapter one, verses 17 and 18 and ask them, even in

the Quran, who is described as the first and the last?

And they will simply say, Allah.

And I say, we agree.

In the Bible, only God can say that he is the first and the last.

And yet here in the book of Revelation, this same John who wrote the gospel of John is in the

spirit on the Lord's day.

And Jesus appears to him in a vision.

And what I find amazing, because I actually preached on this, he describes Jesus the same way that Yahweh is

described by the Old Testament prophets.

And here he says in verse 17, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead,

but he laid his right hand upon me, showing that he had true flesh, saying,

fear not.

I am the first and the last, the living one.

I died and behold, I am alive forevermore.

And I have the keys of death and Hades.

So we see here, Jesus uses a specific term that is only used for God,

the first and the last for himself.

That's awesome.

Well, you know what the problem is, Jeremy, you're quoting from the gospel of John, and you are quoting from

Revelation that is also written by John.

You are quoting from the books that have a development of high Christology,

but you will not touch the other gospels, the earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark, which does not say any of these

things.

And so when you look at the gospel of Mark, you see, as you move along through the other gospels, there is growth, there

is embellishment.

In one sense, Jesus is called teacher, he's called rabbi.

And then in the gospel of John, he's saying crazy things like before Abraham was, I am.

How can you address that?

This idea that John is later.

I remember when I was in college, I was in community college.

It wasn't a Christian school by any means.

And I took a history of the Bible class.

And the teacher said that Jesus never claimed to be God.

And I raised my hand, this is before I got into apologetics and stuff.

I was like, oh, in the gospel of John, he's like, no, no, no, you can't quote from the gospel of John because the gospel of John is the latest.

It's the latest of the gospels.

And so you have development there.

But if you go to the earlier gospels, Jesus never claims to be divine.

How would you interact with that?

And by doing so, you're giving us more of our explicit passages or implicit passages there in the New Testament.

Right.

I love this.

I love this argument because the only thing I have to do, because they say, you don't even go to the gospel of Mark,

which is the first gospel written, which historically it's not, it's Matthew.

And it doesn't say anything about the deity of Christ.

That's a good point.

I thought, okay, yes, I agree.

Yes, there's a Mark in priority, but that's not the only view there.

We have early sources that suggest Matthew was the first written and I hold to that as well.

Right.

And so the only thing you have to do is just go to Mark chapter one, verse one through three.

And this is something, this emphasis is something that all the other synoptic gospels point out

because all of them look at the advent of John the Baptist, the

preparer of the way.

And so it says in Mark chapter one, verse one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God,

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

your way.

The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his

path straight.

If you're actually looking at the text, he's quoting from both Isaiah and Malachi.

Right.

And both of those say that this messenger, this forerunner is gonna be the

one who prepares the way for Yahweh when he comes into his temple.

He is the messenger of the covenant.

And as we see, John is the one coming and preparing the way for Yahweh.

But who does John the Baptist say that he's preparing the way for?

He's preparing the way for Jesus.

And so as he says, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the

straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

So you're saying that when John is saying, there's one coming after me, right?

He's preparing the way for the Lord and he's quoting Old Testament passages which refer specifically to Yahweh.

So if John is preparing the way of the Lord and we know in that context in Mark, that's Jesus, but he's quoting

scriptures which give explicit indication that it's Yahweh, then that's indication there in the text that

Jesus is Yahweh.

However, what do we do when people say, well, wait a minute, Jesus came in the name of Yahweh, so

he is his representative.

So they'll come, they'll kind of take that spin on it to show like, yeah, okay, he's preparing the way for Yahweh

because Jesus so greatly represents Yahweh that he comes in Yahweh's authority.

How would you interact with someone who gives that response?

Yeah, it's simple because what they are doing is they're trying to rely on something called the

Shaliyah principle.

Okay.

And if you actually define it in the way that the Jews have historically done, for example, in the

encyclopedia of the Jewish religion, it defines it in this way.

The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, a person's agent is

as regarded as the person himself.

Therefore, any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle.

This, therefore, the principle, therefore bears full responsibility for it when

the consequent absence of liability on the part of the agent.

So what it's basically saying is that the messenger

is like the representative itself, or the representative is just like the person who sent him.

What's the principle called again?

Shaliyah.

Shaliyah, okay.

Mm -hmm.

However, there are a few problems with this.

The definition doesn't fit the sender -agent relationship found in scripture.

The agent and the sender are always distinguished from one another.

For example, take for example, Exodus 7, verse one.

In this passage, God says, "'I have made you like God to Pharaoh,' but there

is never an acceptance of honor that rightly belongs to God by Moses.

Moses never calls himself by the divine name, nor did anyone who saw Moses

claim that they saw Yahweh or called him Yahweh.".

And by the time of the New Testament, the proper term for Shaliyah would be apostle.

So let's take, for example, the apostles.

While the apostles represented Christ, they go out in his name, and he

says, whoever hears you, hears me.

They were never called Jesus, never were called Christ, and were never worshiped as Christ was or

called God like Christ was.

So in order to say, well, he comes in the father's name, so therefore he could be called God, it's inconsistent with

the rest of the Bible.

So you're gonna have to find another excuse.

And really, specifically, if you're going to argue that way, we can go back to the angel of the Lord,

which says that his name, Yahweh's name, his essence, his personality, his character, is

within the angel.

And that's the only time, the only person, where the name of Yahweh is said to be within someone.

Can you show us some angel of the Lord passages and kind of walk us through that?

Because I think this is, I mean, there are apologists who focus on this, and there's obviously literature there, but for the

average Christian, our knee -jerk reaction to someone who denies that the Bible teaches the deity of Christ is to kind of go to the

more explicit passages, which is completely fine.

You know, John 1 .1, Colossians, I think 2 .9, Philippians 2 .5 -8, Hebrews 1 .3,

all perfectly legitimate passages to go to, but I think it is useful to kind of go into the Old Testament,

take a look at the angel of the Lord concept and kind of add that to our arsenal of responses when we

get into these sorts of conversations with people.

Almost definitely.

Yeah.

So let's go to some of the most explicit passages about the angel of the Lord.

Okay.

Let's begin at Exodus chapter 23, and we'll look at verses 20, yeah,

verses 20, 21, and 22.

Here it says, "'Behold, I send my angel before you,' Yahweh is speaking, "'to guard you on the way and to bring you "'to

the place that I have prepared.

"'Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice.

"'Do not rebel against him, "'for he will not pardon your transgression, "'for

my name is in him.

"'But if you carefully obey his voice "'and do all that I say, "'then I will be an enemy to your

enemies "'and an adversary to your adversaries.

"'When my angel goes before you "'and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites "'and the Perizzites and the Canaanites "'and the

Hivites and the Jebusites, "'and I blot them out, "'you shall not bow down to their gods "'nor serve them

nor do as they do, "'but you shall utterly overthrow them "'and break their pillars into pieces.

"'You shall serve Yahweh, your God, "'and he will bless your bread and your water,

"'and I will take sickness away from you.'".

Wait a minute, there's some things in this passage that are hard to understand.

Yahweh is the one speaking, but he refers to the angel and says for us to be careful,

because if we don't, he will not pardon our transgressions.

And then he is referred to as Yahweh, the one who will bless your bread and your water.

So Yahweh himself is speaking to the angel and calling him Yahweh

and saying that he can do things that only God can do.

Which is consistent with Hebrews where God says of the son, your throne, O God,

right?

So you have this language in the New Testament and then you have these concepts in the Old Testament, they're perfectly compatible with one

another.

And they fit very nicely when taken together.

But if we adopt some of these other interpretations, oh, well, that's not really what it means.

You kind of have this disjointed, it's kind of, you're showing that, you're kind of assuming that scripture

is kind of disjointed and not connected, but there's a beautiful consistency there.

I think that's excellent, yeah.

Ooh, you immediately reminded me back of Hebrews chapter, Hebrews chapter one, verse eight.

Okay.

Because like, just to go back on our previous topic, Hebrews chapter one is all about the

superiority of Christ before angels or above angels.

And so the author to the Hebrews begins to take quotations from the Old Testament and put them in the words

and put them in the mouth of a father for specific topics.

He says in verse seven of the angels, he says, he, referring to somebody else, specifically

Christ, makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.

Verse eight, but of the son, he says, your throne, oh God, is forever and

ever.

The scepter of rightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

So if one could just refer back to what the father is saying,

it's referring back to the Psalms.

And this particular Psalm, someone could argue, it's just, this is a messianic Psalm referring to like the King of

Israel.

So the King of Israel could be said to be called God in a specific sense.

And that's cool.

He's the representative for God.

However, the continual passage refutes that claim.

Verse 10, and you, Lord, in this particular reference,

it's a Psalm specifically referencing Yahweh.

So the father is essentially calling Jesus Yahweh.

You, Yahweh, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain.

They will wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed, but you

are the same and your years will have no end.

We literally see here that the father is speaking to the son, calling him Yahweh,

calling him the creator and calling him eternal.

But there's a problem.

This doesn't make sense, Jeremy, because the Bible says in the book of Isaiah

that I alone created.

Exactly.

Now you're saying that Jesus created with the father.

That means the father wasn't alone.

What's up with that, bro?

The only problem is the person making that objection assumes that the word Yahweh can only refer to the

father.

But as we see here from the lips of the father himself, he calls Jesus

Yahweh.

So is Jesus Yahweh?

Yes.

Is the father Yahweh?

Yes.

Is Jesus the father?

No.

Contradiction.

I can just hear people when they listen to this, they're gonna say.

Oh yeah, I listen to Muslims all the time and they make that.

Because we're aware of these things.

And people bring these things up as though we've never thought about these things.

We can anticipate these sorts of things.

So why don't you interact with that common response there?

Yeah, the only problem is the person making that objection is assuming Unitarianism and not

actually following what the Bible says.

The Bible says that as we see, it portrays the name Yahweh is in

reference to the being of God.

So three persons as we see, the father, son and Holy Spirit are portrayed as Yahweh.

And yet it says with the very same breath that there is only one God.

Now let me provide you with a little bit of an example of that.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians.

Let's see.

I just love how we're in the scriptures.

I love this.

Sometimes I talk about philosophical stuff and theological stuff, but I like how you're walking us through the text.

This is excellent.

Oh, of course.

I love walking through the scriptures in relation to this.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter eight.

And let's begin at verse four.

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and

that there is no God but one.

For although there may be so -called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and

many lords, yet for us, there is one God, the father,

from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord, Jesus Christ,

through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Now, a lot of people won't be able to catch this, but if you're actually reading

the Greek New Testament, what you will find is that the apostle Paul is

adapting the Septuagint version of the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, 4, and

applying it to the revelation that has been given to us in Jesus Christ, to the father and the son.

We know the Shema well.

Shema Yisrael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Echad.

Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

So here in verse eight, well, in verse six,

the term God, Yahweh is our God, Eloheinu, is used to the father,

but the term Yahweh, Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh Echad,

is used of Jesus.

And specifically it says it is through Yahweh, Jesus Christ,

through whom are all things and through whom we exist, diapos the genitive.

He is the creator, the personal means by which all things were made and

through whom we exist.

The only reason you exist today, says the apostle Paul, is because Jesus made you and

he is upholding your existence.

This is the same thing that he says in Colossians chapter one, verses 16 and 17, where it says,

for by him were all things were made in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or

rulers or authorities, all things are created by him and for him.

He is before all things and in him, all things to nest they can.

They hold together.

They find their existence and their substance in him.

No one would be able to say this about a mere man.

Nobody.

That's excellent stuff, man.

I love it.

All right, well, okay, so let's kind of zoom out a little bit from the text.

Now, what about defending the deity of Christ historically?

I mean, there is that common garbage claim that the deity of Christ was

invented at the Council of Nicaea and that the, you know, the teaching that Jesus

is God didn't exist prior to that in the early church.

How would you respond to this terrible, I mean, you're on TikTok, you know all the sorts of crazy things that people say,

right, we were just talking before we went live.

Everyone on TikTok's a scholar and an expert and they say all sorts of crazy stuff, but it's just silliness.

Exactly.

How would we demonstrate that the deity of Christ was well -known, well -taught with clarity

prior to the Council of Nicaea within the first three centuries of Christianity?

Easy.

The best thing to do is look at the early church fathers, and I'm going to go through a

large slew of them, but we'll stop at the end of each quotation to see what

thoughts that you have.

Okay.

So I'm sharing my screen, are you guys seeing it?

Yep, it's up on the screen there. Nice.

So let's look at the extra, the earliest extra biblical writings about Jesus that we find in the apostolic fathers

the Greek apologists, and then the Latin fathers.

First, let's look at the Didache.

The Didache is one of the earliest writings that we have outside of the early church is a church

manual about Christian living.

And in chapter seven, it describes the institution of baptism, the sacrament of entrance

into the Christian church.

And so he says, but concerning baptism, this way shall you baptize.

Having first taught all these things, so catechesis, baptize in the name of the father and of the

son and of the Holy Spirit in living or running water.

But if you have not living water, then baptize in other water.

And if you are not able in cold, then in warm, but if you have neither, then pour water on the head

thrice in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.

So here in the Didache, it specifically says that baptism is to be done in the triune name.

But Eli, I thought the Trinity wasn't invented until 325 AD.

And notice the language there reflects the Matthew and the gospels in the name singular

of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, excellent.

And the Didache, would you say that's a, who, what's the authorship of the Didache?

What's, what do people think?

And do you think it's a legitimate connection or do you think we just can't tell?

It's just a really important early document, but we don't really know who the

author is.

What do you think?

Some of the tradition says that it was actually written by the apostles.

The same thing that is said of the Apostles' Creed, but I'm not necessarily sure all the

evidence that comes with that, but we can be very sure that it is early.

And it was circulated a lot amongst the traveling tribes and traveling preachers

in the time of the early church.

It most likely was written either at or around 70 AD.

So it's one of the earliest documents that we have.

Cool, all right.

And speaking of 70 AD and the earliest documents that we have, let's go to the early church

father, Clement of Rome.

In his first epistle, which many would argue is his only epistle, the rest of the two are

spurious.

He says this in his second chapter, because he's writing to the Corinthians.

Moreover, you were all distinguished by humility and were in no respect puffed up with pride,

but yielded obedience rather than extorted it, and were more willing to give than to receive.

Pay attention to this.

Content with the provision which God had made for you and carefully attending to

his words, you were inwardly filled with his doctrine and his

sufferings were before your eyes.

Thus a profound and abundant peace was given to you all, and you had an insatiable desire for doing good

while a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was upon you all.

So what is Clement saying here?

He says that God's doctrine was filled, it

filled the Corinthians, but he also says that God's sufferings were before your eyes.

Eli, I thought God can't suffer.

The only way that it makes sense is if Jesus is God and that he took on flesh.

That's good.

So here we have one of my favorite documents.

A lot of people have debate over this particular document.

Its official title is the Epistle of Matthaeus to Diognetus or a disciple

to Diognetus.

Many have argued that it is the author, Matthaeus, is actually Polycarp, who

we will go into detail later on.

But here in chapter seven, he's describing the advent of Jesus Christ

and the gospel that has been presented to the world.

It's one of our first explanatory and apologetic documents of the Christian faith towards

a pagan.

And so the epistle says, he, that is God, did not, as one

might have imagined, send to men any servant or angel or created being or

ruler or any one of those who bear sway over earthly things or one of those to whom the

government of all things in the heavens has been entrusted.

But the very creator and fashioner of the heavens by whom he made the heavens,

by whom he enclosed the sea within its proper bounds.

He then goes on to say this messenger he sent to them.

Was it then as one might conceive for the purpose of exercising tyranny or of inspiring fear and

terror?

By no means, but under the influence of clemency and meekness.

As a king sends his son who is also a king, so he sent him as

God he sent him, as to men he sent him, as a savior he sent him and as

seeking to persuade not to compel us for violence has no place in

the character of God.

So the epistle to Diogenes is explicitly saying that the person who was sent to us is not

merely one who has control over physical governments but the very creator and fashioner of

all things.

And he was sent to us as God and as savior seeking to persuade us

and not to subjugate us for violence has no place in the character of God.

Good stuff, brother.

That's awesome.

All right, so let's, we have Ignatius, okay, well, we definitely wanna cover Ignatius.

Right.

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah, there are a few others.

Which ones, I have at least probably three more.

Ignatius, Justin Martyr and Tertullian.

Which one do you want to look at specifically?

Which one do you think offers the most clearest presentation of the deity of Christ which we can just explode out of the

water.

The erroneous claim that this was invented at the Council of Nicaea or

somewhere after that?

Yeah, Tertullian.

All right, let's do it.

Because this one I think is one of the funniest or one of the most fun.

Okay.

Because Tertullian is one of the earliest Latin fathers, basically the father of Latin theology.

And he's the one who first coins the term or uses the term Trinitas

in order to argue against the modalists.

And so he says here in the second chapter of his work, Contra Praxeas or against Praxeas,

"'We, however, as we indeed have always done, "'and more especially since we have been

better instructed "'by the Paraclete, who leads men into all truth, "'believe that there is only one

God, "'but under the following dispensation or economia, economy, "'as it is

called, that this one God also has a son, "'his word, who

proceeded from himself, "'by whom all things were made "'and without whom nothing was made.

"'Him we believe to have been sent by the father "'into the virgin and to have been born of her,

"'being both man and God, "'the son of man and the son of God, "'and to have been called by the name

of Jesus Christ.

"'We believe him to have suffered, died and be buried, "'according to the scriptures.

"'And after he had been raised again by the father "'and taken back into heaven, "'to be sitting at the right hand of the father,

"'and that he will come to judge the quick and the dead, "'who also sent from heaven from the father,

"'according to his own promise, "'the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, "'the sanctifier of the faith of those who

believe "'in the father and in the son and in the Holy Ghost.

"'That this rule of faith has come down to us "'from the beginning of the gospel, "'even before any of the

older heretics, "'much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, "'will be

apparent both from the lateness of date, "'which marks all heresies, "'and also from the absolutely novel

character "'of our newfangled Praxeas.'".

So here he says specifically that Jesus is the word of God who

proceeds from the father.

He is both man and God, the son of man and the son of God.

He died and was buried according to the scriptures.

He was raised again and is seated in heaven, and he has sent us the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of

truth.

And that truth, that faith, is those who believe in the father and of the son and of the Holy Ghost.

And this is the regula fide, the rule of faith that has always been taught in the churches

since the beginning of the gospel.

Excellent stuff, brother.

I love it.

Now let's go move on to kind of the broader question of the coherency of the concept.

So suppose someone were to grant, okay, the Bible teaches the deity of Christ, Jesus is

both God and man, the incarnation.

The early church believed this, okay?

It wasn't invented.

Later on, they clearly believed that we can document it.

But the idea that Jesus is truly God and truly man is a logical contradiction.

And if something's a logical contradiction, then it cannot be true because it's incoherent.

How would you respond to the objection that the concept of the hypostatic union,

the incarnation, that these things are illogical, how would you engage in an objection of that

sort?

Yeah, really, it comes with a misunderstanding of the hypostatic union.

Because a true contradiction would be something that is A and not A at the same time and in the same

way.

We believe that Christ is God in one way because he has one nature, and Christ is man

in another way because he has a different nature.

And those natures are united in one person without mixture or confusion as

the creed of Chalcedon, as the definition of Chalcedon says.

So it is possible that because of the union

denominated by the person of Christ, that the names and attributes of one nature can be said of the

other, as we see in scripture, God died or God purchased the church with his own blood or the

author of life died.

But those natures don't mix.

Because if you mixed the natures, you have neither God nor man.

And that's not something that any of the fathers expressed.

That would be what we call Eutychianism.

But the true doctrine is not that man became God, but that God came down as a man

in the person of Jesus Christ.

As Gregory of Nazianzus once said, that which God has not assumed, he has not healed.

But that which is taken on by God is saved.

Only man can represent human lives, but only God can take the punishment of God and survive.

Excellent.

Now, how would you respond to someone who said, well, wait a minute, if God takes on a human nature,

does that not affect the doctrine of the immutability of God, the idea that God does not change?

It seems like there is a change.

God is without a human nature.

And then now there's another state of affairs in which he takes on a human nature.

How can you hold that in any consistent way?

Sure.

It's simply following Ephesians 2, where scripture says that even though

Christ was in the very form of God, the Morphe Teutheu, he did not take equality with God,

a thing to be held onto at all costs, but instead emptied himself.

But the apostle Paul never uses the term emptying or kenosis literally.

As we see in the next verse, he says, he emptied himself by taking on something else, by taking on the

form of a servant, by being made in the likeness of man and being found in human form.

Now, we believe that God is powerful enough to take on another nature without

compromising his divine nature.

When we speak of God's immutability, we're talking about God's nature.

His nature doesn't change.

He cannot lie.

He cannot go back on his promises.

And that's why he promised that he would enter into human flesh beforehand,.

As we saw in the Old Testament.

When you say that God's nature does not change, this is important, because when we say that he takes on a human nature,

you made mention before that when he takes on human nature and you have these two natures existing within

the person of Christ, they are not intermingled or confused.

So in some mysterious way, these two natures are in the one

person, but they don't get mixed, and therefore the divine nature is not,

the human nature does not tamper with the essence of the divine nature.

They, in a mysterious way, stay distinct from each other, and hence the doctrine of

immutability doesn't get affected.

Is that how I got it?

Exactly.

God doesn't have to become less of a God, less God, in order to take on human

flesh.

We believe that God is powerful enough to enter into his own creation without conflicting

with his own nature.

If God is able to create the world with ease, he's able to enter into it with even greater ease,

so to speak, because it doesn't take any effort for God.

Yeah.

Oh, that's good stuff, man.

So we have a biblical defense, we have historical defense, and

we can show that it does not violate any canons of logic.

Now, can you briefly explain, and this will be my last part, only because I want to get to the questions.

And actually, those who've kept hearing me promote the Epic Online Calvinism Conference, that's tomorrow.

So I actually have to go to bed early because I will be running it from 10 in the morning to four, and I'm the first speaker.

So I have to finish my last bits of my presentation on Calvinism and Molinism.

So we're gonna try to wrap things up a bit, but I still want to interact with some of the comments.

There are some questions and there are some comments that I'd like you to interact.

They're not asking you a question, but they're definitely worthy of responding to.

So that'll be fun to jump in.

But how do you relate mystery with it's not

contradictory?

So someone might be hearing you say, okay, well, you don't think it's contradictory, but you're just slapping the label mystery on it, unless

you think you could explain the metaphysics of how two natures can inhabit a

single person.

So would you claim to know how two natures can inhabit one

person without intermingling or change with respect to the divine essence?

Do you claim to know how that works?

If so, explain it.

If not, then tell us why that's not just a cop -out.

You're just saying it's mysterious.

In reality, it's contradictory.

The reason why, if I, to be asked the question,

can I explain how the two natures work?

No, but I also don't know how quantum physics works.

So my limited brain cannot know most of the things that are found within the natural world,

even much more, do I not understand the spiritual world and how God

works?

I don't know how God can transmutate water into wine, but I believe it happened.

I don't know how God can multiply bread and fish to feed 5 ,000 people,

but I believe it happened.

I don't know how God can literally raise the dead, but I believe it happened.

So I I like this here, the sire says, you may know that something is the case without

knowing how it is the case.

I think that's correct, yeah.

So I don't have to know how to explain everything in order to know what

it is or what it means.

I don't have to fully comprehend something in order to apprehend it.

We have to constantly make the distinction between apprehension and comprehension.

I can get a concept without knowing how all of it works intricately.

I know how a car works.

I mean, I can know what we can do to make a car work instead of knowing all of the

intricacies of the car.

Right, right.

We just have sufficient data in scripture to show that it's not contradictory.

Given the information we're given, it's not contradictory, we can demonstrate that even though we cannot positively explain

the metaphysics of how it works, just like I can't explain the metaphysics of creation out of nothing, water into wine,

walking on water, these sorts of things.

Yeah.

Okay, all right, excellent.

Well, I hope folks benefit from that.

We have biblical defense, we have a historical defense, and we have a coherence defense.

I think that's excellent, and I'm sure Jeremy could expand on each of this, and there's literature on all of this.

I actually have, let me see, there we go.

This is a good book by a theologian, Robert Raymond, Jesus, the Divine Messiah,

the New and Old Testament Witness.

If you wanna jump into like evidence for the deity of Christ, this is an excellent resource if you wanna check that out.

Right.

Which book did, were you gonna suggest a book there?

Yes, I also recommend one that is very helpful to me, Our God is Triune.

It's actually a production from multiple people, but especially produced by Michael Burgos, Michael Burgos

Jr.

It also has stuff from Hiram Diaz, Edward Delcor, Volcad Malone, and

Anthony Rogers.

So this is a really good resource.

Is that on Amazon?

Yes, I believe it is.

Do they have it on Kindle?

Who knows?

I don't know.

Let me check that out.

I'm looking that up right now.

See, I'm a, because I'm always driving, I don't have time to sit and read, but I do like to have,

what is it called?

Our God is Triune?

Yes, Our God is Triune, Essays in Biblical Theology.

Essays, okay.

Oh, come on, no.

Is it on Kindle?

Is it on Kindle?

Let me see, hold on.

I'm sorry to do, I don't know.

I'd have to look into it.

Kindle, it's on Kindle Unlimited.

I'll look into it later.

Sorry, I'm a little Kindle nerd.

No, you're fine.

And trust me, I'm weird because I listen to podcasts and stuff all the time because I have to commute to

seminary and back.

But I just, I love the feel of books.

It actually helps me memorize things a lot better because I sort of have a photographic memory because I

can remember, not specifically the specific page that I'm at, but where I was when I was

reading it.

So I can go back in my mind to see what I'm reading on the page if I remember correctly.

So you're a physical book guy.

You like to read the, yeah.

I would like to be that way.

I just don't have the time.

I actually have an app called Voice Dream and I have thousands of

books on PDF and it just reads it to me.

So I read on my 45 to 50 minute drive into work and it's been super helpful.

But yeah, I wish, I mean, I have a bunch of these books.

I have read lots of them, but they usually stay there because I can't carry the giant thick bad boys wherever I go.

But I love books.

But it sure looks pretty.

It looks pretty, yeah.

I haven't read all these books, but I've read a little bit of all of them, if that makes sense.

Some goodies in the background there.

But nevertheless, let's kind of jump into some of these questions here.

And the sire asks, do you think Jesus being the Logos refers to Proverbs 8?

Not necessarily.

I mean, because the word Logos doesn't appear in Proverbs 8 or the term word doesn't appear in Logos 8

or Proverbs 8.

Proverbs 8 is primarily describing wisdom, lady wisdom.

And many of the fathers just saw Jesus as wisdom in Proverbs 8 because

he's called the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians chapter one.

But if you actually read Proverbs 8, many of the

Aryans would say that the term, it says in Proverbs 8, that the

Lord created me at the beginning of his works.

However, if you actually look at the original language, it simply says that the Lord possessed me

at the beginning of his works.

And if you actually are looking at it historically, the Nicene Creed is a biblical

exegesis of Proverbs chapter eight.

So a lot of our Aryan friends love to use Proverbs 8, but the Nicene Creed is

essentially the refutation, an exegetical creedal refutation of the Aryans

in their exegesis of Proverbs chapter eight.

So I personally don't, but the fathers did.

And I can understand why they did.

Excellent, thank you for that.

Sudafi Meb says, hey guys, nice stuff.

What kind of app are you using?

It seems to be very convenient to use Greek and English side -by -side.

I appreciate your response.

I think he's referring to the one that we shared earlier.

The Olive Tree app that I used.

Right.

And it's really good because, well, you're gonna have to buy

the actual software that I'm using.

It's easy to download on your computer.

The Olive Tree app is free, but you're gonna have to spend a pretty penny to get the

software that I'm using for the NA28 because it has mouses.

Greek parsing, as well as the Greek to English dictionary of the New Testament.

Okay, all right, thank you for that.

Let's see here.

Someone says here, the Holy Spirit proceeds or is taken out of the father

alone through the logos.

Would you agree with that?

Well, something similar to that because what they're talking about is

something that will, as you can see, as you go throughout the comment section, it's talking about the question of

the filioque, which is a theological distinction between the East and the West, and really

one of the main distinctions that caused the split between the East and the West in 1054 AD.

It's specifically about the nature of how

the Spirit relates to the Father and the Son.

Does the Spirit, as the original Nicene Creed

said, proceed from the Father, or does He proceed from

the Father and the Son?

That's what the term filioque is.

The Roman Church, by its own authority, claiming its own authority, changed the Nicene

Creed and added the term filioque outside of the regular way of doing

things, which would require the approval of all of the other patriarchs.

And that caused a pretty big disagreement.

And so now we're dealing theologically about how we properly articulate the

Spirit proceeding from the Father in relation to the Son without making the Son another

originator of the Spirit.

And so many have argued, including Augustine and St. Maximus the Confessor, I take their opinion on

this, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, because the Son says

that all that the Father has is mine, but He does it in a way that keeps the

Father the principium of all things, especially in relation to the divine nature.

Because the term God, in multiple times in the New Testament we see it described of Jesus.

But when people generally refer to a person as God in the Old Testament and the

New Testament, they're primarily referring to the Father, because as the Eastern theologians would say, the Father is the fount

of deity.

I don't necessarily use that phrase, but I understand what they mean.

Excellent.

And Joshua goes on to say, as Eve was taken from Adam's existing substance through the operation of the Lagos,

so too the Spirit is taken from God the Father's substance through the operation of the Lagos.

Would you agree with that?

Yeah, that's definitely an Eastern relationship or an Eastern explanation of it.

So I can understand where he's going to.

I wouldn't say that I would fully subscribe to it, but yeah.

I have to give more context too, because I don't really know where he's coming from.

It's coming from that analogy.

Okay.

Disciple says, great stuff.

Are we gonna look at the dual powers of heaven stuff too in the passages where there are clearly two people named Yahweh?

What is he referring to there?

Are you familiar with that?

Yes, yes.

He's actually referring to something noted by Daniel Boyarin, a Jewish scholar, Michael Heiser, a

Christian scholar, and Alan F. Segal, another Jewish scholar, where at least if you go back to

Second Temple Judaism and even farther, the Jewish belief was

that there were two powers in heaven, a visible Yahweh and an invisible Yahweh, who

interacted with one another and both are called Yahweh.

And there are multiple passages in scripture that show us this.

One of them is Genesis chapter 19, where judgment is falling on Sodom and Gomorrah.

And we see in scripture, Yahweh rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from

Yahweh out of the heavens.

So we see that there are two Yahwehs, one on earth and one in heaven, and they're both interacting with one another.

I love it.

And then when you get to it so leisurely, like you're like, wait, what?

You don't catch it unless you're looking and you're looking closely.

Right.

And then the other passage that I'll look at is Isaiah chapter 48, where

Yahweh is the one speaking.

He says, I'm going to call Cyrus.

I'm going to do all these things.

Listen to me.

He even used the phrase, I am he, there is no God besides me.

He then says, I have not spoken in secret and now Yahweh

and his spirit have sent me.

So this Yahweh is stating that another one named Yahweh and his spirit have sent him.

Interesting.

That's good stuff, man. I love it.

The sire asked, can you give your thoughts whether Justin Martyr thought Christ was created?

Yeah, Justin Martyr thought of no such thing in relation to Christ.

I'm actually really glad that we talked, we just referenced the events

of Sodom and Gomorrah because he says in relation to his, Justin Martyr's dialogue with

Trifo, chapter 128, he says, and that Christ being Lord and God, the

son of God, and appearing formerly in power as man and angel, and then the glory of

fire as at the bush.

So he's saying that Jesus was the one who gave the divine name to Moses at the burning bush,

which actually shows his immutability and eternality.

So also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom and has been demonstrated

fully by what has been said.

He also says in his first apology, the Jews accordingly being throughout of opinion that it

was the father of the universe who spoke to Moses, though he who spoke to him was indeed the son of

God, who was called both angel and apostle, are justly charged both by the spirit of prophecy

and by Christ himself, with knowing neither the father nor the son.

For they who affirm that the son is the father are proved neither to have become acquainted with the father

nor to know that the father of the universe has a son, who also being the first begotten of the word

is even God.

And how of old he appeared in the shape of fire and then the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets.

But now in the times of your reign, having as we before said, become man by a virgin according to the

counsel of the father for the salvation of those who believe on him, he endured to be said at not

and to suffer that by dying and rising again, he might conquer death.

So here he specifically says that he's God, the son of God

begotten before all worlds, that he is the one who was revealed to Moses who revealed the divine name to

Moses.

And he appeared at Sodom and Gomorrah.

So for anyone to try to emphasize that Justin Martyr believed that Christ was created is

absolutely, well, just plain wrong.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff.

So the sire goes on to ask, if Jesus is divine, then why does he inherit his name, Philippians 2,

Hebrews 1, 4?

Yeah, and the simple reason is because in both passages, the incarnation,

he humbles himself and therefore the inheriting name is the exaltation of him

back to his rightful place in glory.

And we see that because when it says that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow

in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of

God the father.

We see that phrase is actually a reference back to Isaiah where

Yahweh says, come to me and be saved.

Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess allegiance to me.

That's good stuff.

I believe that is the last question here that I see.

I thought you did an excellent job, man.

I'm gonna have to listen to this one again on my way to work next week so that I could take it

all in.

It's such, you did such an excellent job.

Why don't you take an opportunity just for a few moments in light of the deity of Christ, why don't

you take a short opportunity to explain the gospel and why this is such a central

issue to the gospel and just take it away as you feel led, man.

Lay out the gospel.

I know that all sorts of people listen to this channel and we sometimes talk about abstract theology and philosophy

but why don't you close us off with a practical, clear presentation of the gospel and

why we do this in the first place?

Right.

Well, again, what have we been talking about?

We've been talking about the person and work of Jesus Christ that in and of itself is the core of the

gospel.

It's the core of what is described in 1 Corinthians 15 verses three through five.

It's the core of what Peter preached on the day of Pentecost.

Who is Jesus?

And what do we have to do with him?

The simple thing is Jesus is God.

He, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven.

He is the only son of God, begotten of the father before all time.

God from God, light from light, true God from true God.

He was born of a virgin and made true man, become true man.

He lived a perfect life that we could never live because we in and of ourselves are

fallen because of Adam's sin, we have sinned and we incur

God's judgment, but Christ who is true God and true man lived a perfect life.

He died in our place, taking on our punishment.

He had to be God and man because only a man can truly represent us, but only God can

take the punishment of God and only God can give life to fallen men.

So he had to be true God and true man, but he did not just die for us taking on our punishment,

but he rose from the dead, defeating death and Satan, obtaining

victory over the powers of the world and satisfying God's wrath against those who believe in him.

He has ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father where he now rules and reigns until

every enemy shall be put under his feet and the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

And now he is interceding for those who believe in him so that they will be saved to the

uttermost for he ever lives to make intercession for them.

So what does that mean for you?

You're a sinner, you incur God's wrath and without the work of Christ

placed on your behalf, you will be destroyed.

So the king has come and he says, all who come to me, I will give you

rest.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you for my burden is light and you will find rest for your souls.

The question now is what will you do with Jesus?

And what will Christ do with you?

The proper answer is to repent and believe.

What does repent means?

It means simply to change your mind, to turn from loving yourself and your sin

and turning to Jesus.

It's the about face of what we say all the time in the military, going from one direction and coming to the other.

And what is faith is placing your trust upon Jesus is recognizing who he is,

acknowledging that he did this on your behalf and trusting that because of

his work on your behalf, you will stand before God blameless,

have faith in him and you will find him to be a perfect savior.

Well, thank you so much for that, brother.

That's an excellent place to end giving people something to think about.

And I hope that this discussion is intellectually stimulating, spiritually

enriching, right?

And causes us to ultimately, when we think about the implications of all this, causes us to stand in awe

of our great God and savior who became a man and dwelt among us for 33

years.

That's an insane concept to even just think about.

But that is the Christian religion.

That is the beautiful story that we have, a story of redemption, story of a God who reconciles

man to himself.

So thank you so much, Jeremy.

I really appreciate this.

And I know that a lot of people are gonna go back and listen to this.

I know I am.

And I just hope that God continues to use you.

And I definitely want you back again in the future.

So hopefully we can do a lot more together.

I appreciate you.

Would you like to say any last second things to maybe if you can just redirect people where to find

your content, things like that, and then we'll wrap things up.

Of course.

It is, as always, an incredible honor to be here and to serve the body of Christ.

If you guys want to know where I am and see what I'm doing, just follow me on TikTok at

blackdoctor21, follow me on YouTube at theblackdoctor, and also just support me.

My Patreon, patreon .com slash theblackdoctor is where I do most of my paid

content for just $5 a month.

You can get the top tier and get access to all of my audio books, all of my live streams, and all of my

lessons on church history, where you have two seminaries worth of knowledge for a very small

fraction of the price.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, Jeremy.

Thank you guys for listening in and being so nice in the comments.

I see some interaction there, but it's been respectful.

So I greatly appreciate that.

I tell people all the time, I take great pride in the comment section of my videos.

Sometimes you got some crazy stuff going on, but for the most part, people play nice and they have some good discussion.

So thank you so much for that.

Until next time, guys, that's it for this episode.

Take care and God bless.

Bye -bye.