WWUTT 1732 Q&A Following 2 Corinthians (Part 2)

What's the difference between rebuke, reprove, and refute? We refer to God as Father. How much is He like a man? Can we refer to God with feminine pronouns? The answer is when we understand the text.

Opening Theme and Program Introduction

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. So we're currently listening to a Q &A that I did at the conclusion of my sermon series through 2 Corinthians. And this Q &A was at First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas in January of 2019.

We're coming into the middle of that Q &A, still finishing up questions from 2 Corinthians, and then I'm going to answer some questions from Genesis. The last question, we actually stopped in the middle of, so I'm still answering the following question.

Rebuke, Reproof, Admonish, Refute, Exhort, and Encourage

What's the difference between rebuke, reproof, admonish, refute, exhort, and encourage? So first of all, I define the word reproof. I'm going to play the last portion of that answer and then go from reproof into explaining rebuke as we pick up on our Q &A.

Here is 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is the doctrine that we refer to as double imputation.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, our sins were imputed to him and his righteousness was imputed to us. So now clothed in the righteousness of Christ, we stand before God justified. All those who have faith in Jesus.

But to know that you need that righteousness, it's necessary for you to know your guilt before a holy God. That's what it means to reprove, to show a person their guilt before God. To rebuke sounds the same, slightly different.

The word rebuke in the Greek, when we have it in the New Testament, is epitomeo. And epitomeo means to warn strongly with a properly assigned value. I love that. We kind of lose the meaning a little bit in the translation into English, but when that word is used that way in the Greek, it was understood that the guilt that a person is guilty of is properly assigned.

That's what it means to rebuke somebody. So you're not rebuking someone for something greater, like overwhelming a penalty for the sin that they've committed or something like that, but rather that we would properly assign the value of the sin that has been committed.

There are certain things that are laid out in Scripture that are worthy of being dismissed from the church. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 5. If a person is guilty of sexual immorality, if they are guilty of being liars and thieves, and yet they bear the name of brother, they're supposed to be put out from your midst so that they may learn not to do such things, and such sins will separate a person from the kingdom of God.

But if you lose your temper with somebody and somebody catches you doing that, I saw you get mad at your brother and I heard you call them a name. You can go to them and you can encounter them one-on-one, as Matthew 18 says, Jesus talking about those ways that we're to correct and admonish one another.

You go to your brother just between the two of you and you correct that brother or sister, and if they repent, then you've won your brother. And there's no need to have to make a public case of it. But then if they will not listen to you, take one or two others along, right?

So that every charge may be established by the witness or the evidence of two or three witnesses. And then if they won't listen to even them, you take it before the church. And if they won't listen to the church, treat them as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

It means treat one as you would an outsider if they will not repent. So there are certain sins that don't need to be dealt with as severely, but they're still sin. It's still something that separates us from God and must be repented of.

And so it's properly assigning the value of the sin that has been committed. That's what it means to rebuke. The next word is exhort. To exhort means to summon or beseech. Now I have not done my job as a pastor preaching to you if I don't give you an exhortation.

Otherwise, all I've given you is a Bible lesson or maybe some sort of history lesson. But what we read in the scriptures must also come with exhortation. What does that mean? It means like, in light of what we've just read, therefore, you must go and do this.

Which by the way, every time you read in the New Testament the word therefore, whatever comes after the therefore is exhortation. Every time. Paul will lay down some sort of deep theological biblical truth or something about God and then he will say, therefore, this is what this means for you as a believer.

This is how this should be reflected in your life. That's what that means to exhort somebody. Next word is admonish. I've given you the definition of that one. To correct with goodwill and to give counsel.

The next one is refute. Now this word is actually rarely used in the Bible. The most prominent place that it's used in the New Testament is in Acts 18 .28. And it's where Apollos was refuting the Jews.

And he was countering their arguments with more Christological arguments. And so he was doing a refutation. So to refute means to prove wrong or provide a sound argument against. And then the last word is encourage.

And the interesting thing about encourage is it's the Greek word parkaleo. And this is the same word that we've had come up 10 times in the passage that we started with this morning that's translated comfort.

Encourage and comfort in the Greek are the same word. To encourage means to offer up evidence that stands in God's court. That's lovely. That literally in the Greek, that's how that translates. To offer up evidence that stands in God's court.

And words that might be translated from parkaleo include comfort, encourage, and exhort. In the book of 1 John, chapter 2, we are told that we have an advocate before the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

That means not only is Jesus our mediator before God, but he is also speaking of us favorably before God. He is our encourager, for he offers up evidence that stands in God's court. How does Jesus do that?

I have paid for this one's sins, and they are mine. Praise God for that. 1 Corinthians 4, 14, Paul says, I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my dearly beloved children.

And though the things that Paul writes might be very strong and very harsh, yet he does this for the purpose of raising up saints to glory in Christ. Question number four. My question is on the sovereignty of God.

I believe that God is sovereign over every purpose, will, and plan that he has. Why is it that among some believers, they believe that men have free will to choose Christ as Savior? Let me qualify that word free will before we continue on.

The term free will that we use only appears in the Bible in one way, and it's referring to the free will giving that is offered up to God in addition to the responsibilities and the obligations that we have.

So it more specifically related to the offerings that the Israelites were supposed to give to God in the Pentateuch. Then if there was anything else they wanted to give to God beyond that, there would be free will offerings.

It doesn't matter whether you're reading the King James Bible or any of the more modern translations, that's the only way that term free will appears. Whenever we talk about the will of man versus the will of God, do you have free will?

Absolutely you do. But you only have the will to do what is in your nature to do. For example, a cow can only do what is in a cow's nature to do. A cow can't be a pig. It can't go rooting around for truffles, okay?

A cow does not have that in its nature to be like a pig. A cow can only be a cow. Likewise for you, you can only do what is in your nature to do. And before you come to Christ, the will that you have desires to sin.

It does not desire to please God. If you have the desire to please God, it's because your heart has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Titus 3 .5 mentions that, and God talked about that through the prophet Ezekiel, and we've mentioned this before in Ezekiel 36, where God says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and cleanse you from all your uncleannesses.

And I will take your heart of stone, and I will give you a soft heart, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. We talked about this also, we were in 2 Corinthians 6, verses 1 and 2.

Do not receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, in a favorable time I listen to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

So it is God who has worked out this salvation in us through his Holy Spirit and belief in the gospel. You did not have faith in God until the gospel was proclaimed to you, and you turned from your sin, and you came to faith in Jesus Christ.

And when that was done, there was probably an exhortation that was given to you. And that exhortation probably sounded like this, repent and believe the gospel. Did you make a choice to follow Jesus? Yes, you did.

That was your decision. You made it. When you study the theology of it, you find out in the scriptures you could not have made that decision unless God had acted first. And he transforms our will, which was previously against God, into a will that is for God.

Our orientation has changed. We had an orientation that was heading in one direction, away from God. And his Holy Spirit turned us around, and we're now oriented to God and in his direction and desiring him.

Yes, people will still sin on the way because we are weak in our flesh, but what should happen there because we have the Holy Spirit within us is that we're convicted. We feel guilty because we know we've sinned against God.

And so therefore, our orientation is to desire to repent of that sin and be in the pursuit of God even when we stumble and fall. And so this is what it means for us to have a will. When we come to Christ, we have a freed will.

We are released from the bondage to our sin, and we're now free to worship God where previously we could not do that. Romans 8, verse 9 says that they who do not have the Spirit of Christ cannot please God.

So it is only when we are given his Spirit that we are able to live in such a way that pleases the Lord. When Paul says in Romans 3 that no one does good and no one seeks God, who he's talking about there in Romans 3 is every fallen man, descended from Adam, who does not even have the will to seek after God because their will is fallen.

So they have the will to rebel against God. You sin, and you sin of your own choice, but that's what you and your desire want when you don't have God. You want the sin instead of God. And it's by his grace that we're transformed then to pursue God instead of the passions of our flesh.

So then the nature of this question here in question number four, what I sense from this is, why is it then that among believers there are still those who believe that it was by their own will that they came to faith in God instead of by the will of God?

I believe the answer to that is in Romans 12, 3. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned.

So we're all at various stages of development in our maturity in the Holy Spirit of God. And there is a necessity for those who are more mature to help to raise up those who are less mature. Not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to recognize that God has assigned you a measure of faith.

So take that measure that God has assigned to you and use it to help another regardless of where they are in their measure of faith. That we may build each other up. This is what Paul talks about in Ephesians 4, 15, and 16.

We would speak the truth in love, growing one another into the head who is Christ Jesus, the head of the church. J .C. Ryle has said, Of all the doctrines of the Bible, none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God's sovereignty.

These are truths that natural man cannot stand. Nothing in short will make him submit to them but the humbling teaching of the Holy Spirit. So let us continue with steadfastness in prayer and the word of God, holding out the word of truth to one another, that we may grow each other in righteousness, preparing Christians together for the day of glory.

Amen. Amen. Question number five. At what age would you say that you discovered Christ? And I'm putting this question with a passage that I just read out of 2 Corinthians 6, 2. Behold now is the favorable time.

Behold now is the day of salvation. What was that day for me? I don't know. I haven't the foggiest idea. Now I can tell you this, I've known about Christ my entire life and there's not a day in my life that I did not know about Him.

From the very first Sunday that I was breathing in this world outside of the womb, I was with my parents in church and almost every single Sunday since then. I have a life where I am grateful to say I've spent more of my Sundays in my life in church than out of church.

There was a phase there in college where I felt like I didn't have to go to church. But nevertheless, even there, the Lord still pulled me in that direction. In Psalm 119, 109, David said, I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.

There were times when I took matters into my own hands and I would stray from God, but yet it was the Lord that held me close to Him and so I was never able to stray too far and I'm thankful to God for that.

It's only by the grace of God that I didn't stray as far as I could have strayed. But nevertheless, I've known Christ my entire life. When I was four years old, I prayed to God and I said at the age of four, Jesus, I want to follow you.

And I remember that. I wasn't baptized until I was a teenager. Then of course I kind of went by the wayside when I was in college, but the Lord still brought me back to that. At what point in my life, in the 38 years that I've been alive, did I actually come to redeeming, saving faith in Christ?

I don't know. There are some people who do know that and praise God. Like they can tell you the exact day. The hour before this hour, I was a sinner headed for hell. But after this hour, praise the Lord, I was transferred into His glorious kingdom.

That's wonderful if you know that. Unfortunately, my progression was much slower than that. It was a much broader stretch of time. It didn't really happen in one single moment, I don't think. Was my prayer genuine when I was four?

I believe that it was, but only God knows for sure. I know that today I stand favorably in the presence of God, and for that I am thankful. Now that concludes the first five questions. I'm not going to spend as much time on these next.

I think I can go through these a little more quickly. The next five are the Genesis questions. Genesis 1 .26 says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Then Genesis 2 .7 says, Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So the question in light of these two passages is this.

The Two Accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2

Why are there two different accounts of the creation of man? Very simply, the account that we see in Genesis 1 is a day-by-day account of what God did on those respective days of creation. Genesis 2 looks more specifically at what happened on day 6.

That's simply the reason why there appears to be two different accounts, but they're not really two different accounts. Genesis 1 is a very broad summary of what happened on each day. Genesis 2 is more specific about the events that happened on day 6.

Question number 7. Were both man and woman made in the image of God? If so, what gender does that make God? Well, we come to an understanding of being made in the image of God. The key passage in the whole Bible related to this is Genesis 1 .27.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Are both man and woman created in the image of God? Yes. What does that mean to be created in the image of God?

It does not mean that you bear the physical likeness of God. That's often the way that gets interpreted, but that's not what that means. And that's why you see the Michelangelo paintings with God reaching out and touching the finger of Adam, and he just looks like a man with old white hair.

But that's the way that we perceive that. Whenever we read that we're made in God's image, where we go is, oh, so God looks like us. But to be made in the image and the likeness of God—and by the way, there's no difference between the two.

Image and likeness are the same. The Catholic Church has separated these two things out into two different things. And they'll talk about we're fallen in one sense but not in another. But that's not exactly what that means.

Image and likeness are used interchangeably. To be made in the image of God means that we are created to reflect the Lord's holy character. Can the animals do that? No, they cannot. Only we, men and women who were created in the likeness of God, can reflect God's holy character.

So essentially what happens at the fall of man is man goes his own way, and what he reflects in his character is not God. So therefore, that creature which was made to reflect the likeness and the image of God has blasphemed God with every action that he does because what he shows in his likeness and in his image is that God is not holy.

That's why sin is so horrible. Everything that you do that is chasing after the passion of your flesh and is not in the holiness of God is by itself a blasphemous action. Because you are conveying, you who were created in the likeness of God, that God is unholy and that is what makes sin so blasphemous because God is indeed holy.

Yet you who were made in his likeness are trying to convey that God is not. Going after your own way instead of giving him the glory and the honor and the worship that he deserves. I hope I've stated that correctly, that you're not hearing me say that God is unholy, but it's as though with your actions you're proclaiming that he's unholy.

Closing Remarks

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word. When We Understand the Text.