Pradeep Tilak - Ordination Q&A

Then comes the awareness that the Word of God is rich and deep and you need to be taught. I think Pastor Mike, I was in a discipleship class with him where I recognized that there is an urgency to what needs to be done as men here in this world that is dark.

And then Pastor Mike was encouraging me to go to a shepherd's conference and I avoided it as much as I could because I knew sometimes when you put your foot out that door you can't pull it back in. But between my wife and Pastor Mike they prevailed.

I went there. I didn't even go expecting much. I know me and Brother Kent shared a room. And we met some men there who spoke about how the Lord was using them in ministry and I think that was the time when I realized here I am blessed by the Lord in so many ways and here I am wasting my life.

I had all these excuses for why I was tired, I need to watch TV and come home. And then when I came back I knew that the Lord had a purpose and then we discovered the Southern Seminary and I started going there.

And then that was when I realized that the Lord had called me, he had gifted me and I needed to be serving. So I got to serve in pulpit supply. Pastor Mike sent me to some of the churches here and then I got to love the ministry in serving the Lord and serving the saints and I tend to ramble.

Thank you, Doctor. We are going to have Pastor Harry ask questions on bibliology now. At the end of his 15-minute segment, the other men may ask clarification questions about some of the things that Pastor Harry has asked.

And so now please, bibliology, theology proper, and Christology.

Brother, if you would give us two seminal passages, this is on bibliology, the doctrine of the Bible, of the Scripture. Give us, if you would, two seminal passages on the inspiration of Scripture.

The first one that comes to my mind is 2 Timothy 3 .16 and can I open and read it because I don't have it memorized. So 2 Timothy 3 .16 talks about, the other passage I'm thinking of is in Peter, but let me first go through the first one here.

So here Paul admonishing or counseling and giving God's word to Timothy, he says, all Scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good word.

And when I think of the importance of the word of God, this is one of the passages that I constantly remind myself on. This is a reminder that this is not just a book written by people thinking it was good, but rather every word, it is verbal and plenary.

It is from God and every single word here is exactly what God meant it to be. So it is the Spirit of God who breathes out or who moves these authors, whether the prophets or the apostles, in order to write down what we need to hear.

Without this word, we cannot know God. We cannot know how to be right with God. And this is how we minister God's gospel and his grace to the people of God. And it goes on to talk about how it is sufficient and it is vital in the life of the church.

The other passage is in 1 Peter, and unfortunately I don't know the reference. I know I'll find it if I may take a quick look at it. What I'm thinking of is when Peter talks about the word, he compares it with experience.

He talks about how he has been in the mountain with Jesus in the transfiguration. And when he sees, and then he says we have the more sure word that is given to us. And if you can think of anyone who has had the greatest experience in seeing Jesus Christ transfigured and brighter than any light and seeing his glory come through his human body.

And yet, when he says what is more certain than this experience that I have had, it is the word of God that has been given to me. So I, very first question, I don't know the reference and that's.

I think it was the second epistle of Peter, not the first. Thank you. Yes. Just a follow up brother on the second Timothy passage. Yes. Since you mentioned it very well. What is meant when we talk about the verbal plenary inspiration of the scriptures?

What do we mean by verbal plenary inspiration?

We use that term mainly because our understanding of the scriptures has come under attack. People find it difficult to submit to every word and every command in the Bible. So they come up with this idea that it's inspired in the broader sense, you know, in its overall thrust and its message, it may be inspired.

But if you look at issues like the role of women or we look at other miracles or things that they have trouble with, we could probably try to work around it by saying that maybe some of these specific words that don't conform to our thinking and our culture and our way of life, we could work around it by just saying, you know, there's a broad message from God we can get and we can customize it the way we want to ourselves.

So when we say verbal plenary, essentially what we are saying is God didn't just, yes, God didn't do a mechanical dictation to these authors to say, you know, write these words. But the inspiration that we see in 2 Timothy 3 .16 is how the Spirit of God moves these people that through their faculties that he would actually write the exact words that he wants.

So the Spirit of God is the author, has the very words that we need. So when we talk about verbal plenary, what we are actually saying is in the autographs, the original manuscripts that were written in the Greek and the Hebrew and Aramaic, they actually, word for word, contain what God wants us to have.

And today in the English Bible, we have the lower criticism which actually looks at all these manuscripts and we don't have the autographs with us, but we have the manuscripts that are copied. And from these huge wealth of manuscripts, we are very easily able to go back to find what those words are.

So we have a very high degree of confidence that the English Bible we have in our hands is accurate and we can trust in what God has given us today.

Thank you. And from inspiration, I wanted to ask about illumination. What is illumination?

So we have the Word of God written to us as the Spirit of God inspired the original authors to write. Now, when we read the scriptures, the Bible is clear, it's perspicuous, it is not written in some magic code so everyone can read it.

But it is conveying God's spiritual truth that the carnal man cannot understand. And each of us here as believers, when I was talking about my conversion, I was reading the Bible before I knew the content of what the Bible was speaking of.

But when it came to knowing God, to understanding the depths of what the Bible says, we need a helper and that helper is the Holy Spirit who illumines our hearts and minds that we can understand what we read, that we can hear God's Word as we read and it is the Spirit of God that illumines the scriptures to us.

Excellent. As a follow-up to that, many people will say, well, since the Holy Spirit whom we have as believers illumines the Word of God and many people might refer to the epistle of 1 John saying it is the Spirit of God who teaches us, why even take an IBIS class on hermeneutics or why even become part of Pastor Mike's preaching discipleship class where he teaches us exegesis and hermeneutics, if we just have the Holy Spirit, that's enough?

How would you answer that question?

That was exactly my view when I first got saved. I didn't have good teaching and when my eyes opened to the pages of scriptures and I realized God is communicating to me, I said, you know, this is enough.

I can be a lone Christian. I actually remember staying in the top of my roof and just spending hours there saying, oh, this is great, just me and God, we are great. And, you know, there's an element of pride that comes in when you say, you know, I can do this on my own.

And then you look at the rest of the scriptures that talk about the need for teaching. Timothy, the passage that we looked at, talks about teaching and reproof. Why do you need teaching and reproof if everybody is capable of knowing and living out the truths of the scriptures?

In Ephesians 4, we see how the Lord calls pastors and teachers to equip the body. So, the Lord gives different gifts to different people and one of the gifts is the gift of teaching. And so, it is a huge blessing that as a corporate body in the church, we have men who are equipped to teach and I can testify to how I have grown in the knowledge of the word because of men like Pastor Mike and the elders here, and other men who have written through the ages, what they have learned and studied from the word.

I use commentaries that there's a collective understanding of how the scriptures speak to the truth of God.

Excellent. Let's move on to theology proper, which is the doctrine of God. If you could first explain to us the difference, brother, between the communicable and the incommunicable attributes of God, and then briefly, just name some of each of them without expanding on them, but explain the difference between communicable and incommunicable, and then name some of each of those attributes.

Okay.

So, there's two terms, the communicable and incommunicable attributes. They talk about attributes that God possesses that are revealed to us in the scriptures, and whether or not we as individuals share or can reflect in God's image some of these attributes and grow in them in a limited fashion.

So, for example, when you think of incommunicable attributes, we think of eternity. We think of independence. We think of unchangeableness. We can think of, I think, simplicity or unity. There is a way in which God doesn't process things in a progressive fashion like we do.

He knows all things at once. He is eternal from eternity past. We all have a beginning from existence, and we all began at a point in time, while God never began to exist. He always existed. So, these are certain attributes that are just unique to God, and we just look at that, and we say, wow, God, you're great.

When we think of the communicable attributes, now, God in his grace has made us in his image, and there are certain things that we reflect or image him with. So, when we think of things like, oh, actually, I thought of one more attribute, omnipresence.

That's something that we can't have. We are always limited to one space where God is not. But when we think of omniscience, for example, we cannot be omniscient because God alone knows all things that can be known and all possible things and knows them all at the same time.

And because we are not God, because we are finite creatures, we are limited, but we can know. So, there is a rational ability that God has placed in us that reflects God's own reasons, and this is one of the great tools in apologetics as well.

Why do we know the things that we do? How do we understand things? This is because we are made in God's image. God is a rational being who has made things to be reasonable as well. So, we can think of...there's many communicable attributes.

We can think of the moral attributes like goodness, patience. There are...but God exemplifies them in his perfection. He is all good. He is the...whereas we reflect them and we grow in these attributes as we are sanctified by the spirit of God.

For this next question, one-sentence answer for each of the three, what is the role of each member of the Trinity in salvation?

The father elects, predestines, he is...oh, one sentence. The son accomplishes...does the atonement and accomplishes redemption, and the spirit makes it effective and he seals us in salvation. Excellent.

How is modalism an attack on the Trinity?

Modalism claimed that instead of the father, son, and the spirit being three distinct persons, that God...their desire was that they preserve the...that there is one God. And they were afraid that when Christology was being developed in the early church, when Christ was recognized as God, that they could see the texts that speak to Jesus being God, and they were afraid that this was going into two gods or tritheism with the spirit of God.

So they wanted to somehow preserve the one God, which is just throughout the scriptures. And so what they tried to do was to think that you cannot avoid the passages that talk about Jesus being God, and therefore they tried to say that there was the one God appearing as the father, and appearing as the son, and then appearing as a spirit.

And so their failure is in trying to preserve one truth of the scripture and compromising other scriptures that talk about distinctness in the Trinity. Excellent.

I want to move on to Christology now, the doctrine of Christ, brother. I'll be careful not to go beyond Hebrews 1, verse 5. No, but in all seriousness. As briefly, this could be an expansive answer, but as briefly as you can, brother, if you can explain to us what is the...and explain both positions of the impeccability and the peccability of Christ.

Both...well, impeccability. What it says is that Jesus could not have sinned as a human being. So that's the definition of impeccability. And peccability says that Jesus could have sinned while he was here on earth.

Now, neither of these positions actually say that Jesus sinned. So they recognize that Jesus lived a perfect life. But the...let me tell you upfront, I hold the impeccable position that Jesus could not have sinned.

And when the people who hold peccability go along these lines, and their reasoning... and there are good Christian men who hold this view through historically. And their position has been, well, if Jesus, when he was tempted, could not have sinned as a man, then his temptation could not have been real.

I think that was their challenge that they were struggling with in the peccable camp. And therefore, they would say that there is a possibility for Jesus as man to be able to sin. So he could have sinned, and yet he did not because he obeyed the father completely.

From the impeccable position, what we would say is that Jesus is both God and man. And I think that's one of the challenges when we look at Jesus, it's hard because he has two natures united in one person, and he never divested himself of his divinity.

And here is Jesus who did not call upon all of his divine attributes in order to accomplish his obedience as a man. And yet, because of who he is as both fully God and fully man, it is impossible for him to have sinned.

Now, to answer the charge of could the temptation have been real, I think Pastor Steve did the Sunday School here talking about various analogies that we can use about how you might have all the reserves in your back pocket, but as long as you have not used them, you have still done, run the race fully as you were called to.

You did not cheat. But I think one of the examples was there's a boat right behind you, you're swimming, but you never took advantage of the boat because you stopped swimming. Jesus, every single temptation that he faced, he relied upon God the Father and in the spirit, and he trusted in him, and he never, ever once sinned.

And it is not because he just said, okay, I'm going to just reach out and then use my divine strength. So he, as a man, fulfilled the law perfectly. So, I'm sorry, that was a long answer again.

For the sake of time, in 30 seconds or less, my final question, whereas that dealt more with the deity of Christ, obviously, he was sinless. Can you explain to us how the heresy of docetism is an attack on his humanity?

In 30 seconds. Yes, in 1 John, we talk about this. 1 John 1 just opens with that which we have seen, that which we have heard, that which we have handled. And the idea there being that Jesus was man, fully and completely like us.

Doceo is from appear, oh, I'm not a Greek person. So, there were some who said he just appeared like a man. He was not really a physical human being, because he's God and he cannot be man. And docetism annuls the atonement, because here was Jesus fully and completely a human being who lived a perfect life, and then he was our substitute on our behalf, and he didn't just appear to be a man.

Thank you, Dr. Pradeep. Scott Brown or Steve Cooley, do you have any follow-up questions on bibliology, theology, proper or Christology, or clarification questions? I just have a couple, Pradeep. The first gospel was written, what was the first gospel written?

I believe the scholar's disputed, but I think it is Matthew, not Mark.

Pradeep, what do you think the last verse of Mark is?

It's in Mark, is it eight? So, the ending of Mark, we have, I'll have to open my Bible to tell you the exact words. I believe it's verse eight or seven. Yeah, you're right, 16, eight.

Okay. Okay, thank you. And when Jesus said, Father, forgive them, they do not know what they do. Do you think that has reliable text support or unreliable text support for that verse?

I don't remember a controversy on the verse, so I'm assuming it is reliable, but based on your question, I'm assuming there is a controversy there.

Okay, thank you. Scott Brown is now going to talk about practical theology, anthropology, and pneumatology. Thank you, Scott.

Thanks, brother. Quick question for you, Pradeep, is if God is sovereign, especially in the Reformed type of belief or understanding, why evangelize people, if that is the case?

We know from passages like Ephesians 1 and 2 and elsewhere that God is sovereign in saving. But we are too evangelized because, first and foremost, we are commanded to. So, the Great Commission in Matthew 20, which you taught on.

And so, when God calls us to evangelize, we don't question how this fits in with God's grander purpose. We obey, trusting that God knows best. Now, God doesn't just accomplish the ends, but he also ordains the means.

So, he has, and I think this is one of the greatest wonders of God's will in the way he works it out, that Jesus would die and be raised from the dead. And then he would ascend into heaven, and then he would let his apostles and the disciples communicate the gospel to the people.

I mean, Jesus could do this a whole lot better than each of us could. But in his will, he has ordained it for the believers to be ambassadors and messengers of the gospel, people who are changed by the gospel to be the people who are also spokesmen for the gospel.

So, God has ordained both. And I think to say that just because God will save person A and B and not C, I shouldn't be evangelizing, is actually taking the reformed teaching into more hyper-Calvinist positions, which is unbiblical.

So, really, you're saying it's actually a privilege that God gives to his children to be able to spread the gospel?

Yes, indeed. To be representatives of Christ here on earth is a weighty privilege and an important one and a necessary one. Excellent, thank you.

Should Christians or the church itself align themselves with non-Christian organizations solely for social needs? I don't believe so.

The reason is this. In the social gospel and in other liberal movements of this, quote unquote, Christian church, people have seen the need of compassionate ministry, and then they have seen humans who are organizations that are not necessarily Christian but doing the same efforts, and then trying to align the goal of the church with the goals of these non-Christian agencies.

The reason I don't believe it is wise is because there is a primary function of us as a church, and that is to proclaim the supremacy and excellency of Christ here on earth. And while ministering to the needs, whether within the body or outside, can be done as part of a church ministry, whether local or global, aligning ourselves with organizations that are non-Christian, I think, jeopardizes the primary function, which is that of the gospel.

And we ought not to be yoked with those who are unbelievers.

And the next question, if you could give me also a scripture reference that you would use for this, but what is the Christian's responsibility towards government?

As many of you are going to quickly figure out, I have to look up many of these references. I wish I was like Pastor Harrington, and I can not just quote the reference, but also say the verse by heart.

But I believe it's Romans 13 or 14, where Paul instructs our submission to the authorities. I'll actually turn there. I still haven't answered Pastor Harrington on the first Peter passage. But in Romans 13, verses 1 to 7, we have the command that we must be subject to the authorities.

God has placed them there. And we see them not just as any authority in any place, but the right authority that God has placed at the right time in this right place. And when I am under them, I need to submit to them.

And I think we need to recognize that whether within the family or within the nation, God is a God of order, and he has provided the structure within which we are to live. And so we are to live peaceably.

We need to submit as long as we are not called to sin.

So I was going to have the follow up question is, is there any opportunity where we are not to follow the government? And thank you, you did answer that, so thank you. Excellent. Moving into anthropology at this point, how does the term federal headship, what does it mean?

And why is it important to both the Christian and the non-Christian?

So when we think of federal headship, I think the passage, I don't remember this, is from Romans 5. I think that just exemplifies how Adam and Jesus represent us in specific ways. So when we think of a federal head, let me maybe explain the biblical term and then why we use the term federal head.

So when Adam in the garden was given the responsibility to obey God, to trust him, and to enjoy all the blessings that God had given him, he was not just representing himself as an individual, but he was representing all of humanity as the proto-individual, as the first man.

And I think maybe the analogy here would be, when we think of a nation and we have a president who represents the country, and he takes a nation into war, it's not like the president alone is going to go fight.

It is the entire nation that is behind him that goes with him. Now, God had appointed, maybe I'll just turn to Romans 5. And we see how Adam, when he failed to obey Christ, when he sinned, this sin is something, the guilt of the sin and the corruption of the sin are not just inherited by him, but also by everyone under him, because he is the head.

So the text that I'm thinking of is in verse 12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. We know that the fall in Genesis 3 has impact on every individual, not just Adam, not just Cain, not just Abel.

But, and I think it is in Genesis 5, we see everyone dies. The consequence, the punishment that God promised Adam didn't happen just to Adam, not just to Abel and Cain, but to every generation after him.

And that was because that in Adam, we all fell. And we, theologically, we call this total depravity or radical corruption. We, our nature is also tainted because of the fall. And we are unable, incapable of pleasing God as Adam could have before he fell.

I'm sorry, I think, did I answer your question?

You did, but now for the Christian side, so we have Adam as a federal head, then how is it important for the Christian from a federal headship, as you somewhat alluded to? Thank you.

So we continue to see in Romans 5 how Jesus now gives us this free gift. In Adam, everyone fell, but in Christ, we now have salvation. And when we think of this idea of substitution, that Jesus' death, atoning death, the sacrifice was a substitutionary death, what we really understand is when we come under Christ, we have his righteousness transferred to us.

And I think maybe we should just step back a little bit here. When we think of Adam, Adam's sin and guilt was inherited by all of us. Now in Christ, we have our sin transferred to him and his righteousness given to us.

So we are, just as how we inherited death through Adam, we now inherited eternal life through Jesus Christ. Excellent, thank you.

So with also that, on a similar discussion here still in anthropology, if total depravity then is there, and we have a full belief in that, is man capable of doing anything good? And I would put good in quotes.

When Adam fell, Adam was made in the image of God. We talked about the communicable attributes earlier. And that is why we are able to reflect and do things that are moral, because we have God's moral character in us.

Through the fall, this image is tainted or marred, but it is not lost. Now, because of the corruption that we inherit, nothing we do can please God completely, because all of our actions are tainted by sin.

So when we talk about pleasing God for salvation, it is impossible. No man can please God. And I think Galatians talks about it. We have the entire New Testament talking about how, even if you break one command that God has revealed to his righteousness, it is as if we have broken all of the commands of God.

And no man has ever kept all of the commands of God perfectly, and no man can actually do good to God to be acceptable to him. And that is why we need Jesus, who is the only man who lived a perfect life and obeyed all of the commandments and provides us that substitute.

When we talk about good, so people might say, you know, here is an unbeliever and here is a believer. When I compare their lives from a purely human perspective, this Christian seems to be such a lousy guy.

You know, he's just doing a lot of bad things. And this non-Christian seems to be such an exemplary guy. He doesn't, you know, he just seems to be the kind of model guy that everybody should look like.

So how would, the way we would look at that is this. Maybe I'll pick with this guy first. So this unbeliever, to the common grace of God, has, still has the image of God in him, though it is mud. And he is capable of doing things like maybe helping people across the street, being kind and generous and all of those things.

So it doesn't, total depravity doesn't mean that we are, every single action is as horrifically sinful as it can be, but rather that this corruption extends to all of our being, whether our thinking, our actions.

So even the best deed we do will be tainted by it. So I could be helping this person cross the street, but why am I doing this? Am I doing this to glorify God who gave me the ability to help this person?

Or am I doing this because I want to feel good about myself? And so you can see how sin can come in, in a lot of different ways. And in contrast, when you look at a believer who's probably, I mean a genuine believer, I'm not saying, you know, there are people who call themselves believers, but they have no fruit to prove it.

But you can have someone who's just newly converted, like I was when I was 15 years old. The Lord just opens my eyes to some areas of sin, and the Spirit of God enables me to grow in those. But in other areas, I'm still unaware, and I'm still sinning.

And my life, or the believer's life, will be one of constant, progressive sanctification. So you want to look at this person in a couple of years, see what's happening as the Spirit of God is working in their life.

In contrast to an unbeliever who might have been in the best homes with the best etiquettes and the best teaching. But here you can take the worst murderer, the criminal, and God is able to transform him into the image of Christ daily.

So moving on to pneumatology, or the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, a couple questions here. Within the Reformed circles, why is it that we often don't see the Holy Spirit emphasized in worship?

I'll interpret the question in a certain way and answer if I'm not going in the right direction, you can correct me. I think the question is true in one sense, in that we have Pentecostals and Charismatics who take the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and apply it in ways that are not conforming to the text of scripture.

So I talked earlier about experience and the word. And so among certain Christians, there's a push for the role of the Holy Spirit in ways that are not necessarily biblical. And maybe it's possible that in some Reformed churches that to use the Holy Spirit, to talk about the Holy Spirit seems scary, I don't know.

Maybe that's a reason why the Holy Spirit may not be emphasized. But I think in any true church, including the Reformed church, we are not ashamed of the Spirit of God active in our lives. In fact, he's the one who we talked about illumining.

So we place a great experience on the text of scripture. And in contrast to experience, we don't elevate experience over scripture. But it is not just a dry academic study. We rely upon the Spirit of God as we even read the pages of scripture.

We recognize, we place a strong emphasis on sanctification. And we know that without the power of the Spirit within us, we cannot be sanctified. We talk about being filled with the Spirit in order to glorify God with our bodies.

And we cannot do that without the aid of the Spirit. Is that fair?

Nope, that's perfect. Perfect, thank you. One last question I have regarding, again, the Holy Spirit. And define for me, if you can, what it means when the Holy Spirit has the act of sealing the believer.

So in the end of Ephesians, I think it's Ephesians 1, 12 and 13. We talk about being sealed with the Holy Spirit. Now, one of the doctrines in Reformed theology is the perseverance of the saints. And we, well, actually, this is one of those doctrines that each member of the Trinity is involved in.

You know, the father, you know, no one can snatch them out of his hands. The son whom he has died for, you know, he will keep to the very end. And we have the Holy Spirit who actually seals. And the word seal is used as a guarantee.

Because right now, after we get saved, I remember when I was first saved, I was super excited, and I could now see who God is, and I'm enjoying his word. And then, it was about six months later when I sinned, I was just shattered because I didn't understand the sealing of the Spirit or the perseverance of the saints.

And I was thinking, how could I do this to my Lord? And what happens to me now? You know, can I actually go into heaven? Do I deserve to go into heaven because I have sinned? I didn't realize I'd been sinning for six months.

I just was...you know how it is. As I mentioned, as a newly saved believer, there are some areas you're just so happy that God has rescued you out of, and there are other areas the light of God's word hasn't yet illumined.

But thanks be to the Spirit of God that even as I discover, you know, I'm just being transformed daily, progressively, that the end is certain because I now have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. And he who started the good work in me will finish it at the very end.

Thank you.

Any follow-up questions from Harry or Steve, please? I have a couple.

You mentioned hyper-Calvinism. Would you define that, please? I shouldn't have mentioned it.

You know, Calvinism has enough heat as it is, you know, because people cannot comprehend the idea of God sovereignly choosing and saving people. And I was talking to one of you this morning, and most of the times, they struggle with it because they cannot understand responsibility, how sovereignty and responsibility go together.

And as Calvinists, we would say that there are some things that we just don't understand. You know, God says you must be responsible. We say amen. God says he is sovereign, and we say amen. And I think hyper-Calvinism stretches, and just like I think modalism, we talked about taking one God versus three persons, takes the sovereignty of God to a degree that is unbiblical.

It loses the texts of scripture that talk about responsibility as well. And so when you say, you know, it's almost like all of God, and I'm no longer responsible for what I need to do. Good.

And the second question, follow-up question I had was, because you were talking about being yoked to unbelievers, et cetera, et cetera, and I wonder what your opinion would be about parachurch ministries, specifically, is there biblical support for parachurch ministries?