Answering Trinity Objections

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I have a handout for tonight, and I'll ask Cody if you would go ahead and pass this out.
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Last Saturday evening, I had the opportunity to give a lecture at a Reformation group called Little Germany here in Jacksonville.
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And at the end of the lecture, we gave the group about 15 or 20 minutes to ask questions about the lecture.
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And to be honest with you, that was my favorite part.
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Because I've lectured on the Trinity many times, I've taught on the subject many times, but it's always nice to hear what people really want to know and what questions they really have.
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I thought about, man, we ought to do that on Sunday.
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I'll just preach for 30 minutes, because I usually preach 45 minutes, so I'd give the last 15 minutes to questions.
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Just kidding, really.
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But it really was a nice opportunity to hear what people really want to know.
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So I want to, because of that, remind you, if you have a question...
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Like, why did my voice just go real high? If you have a question as we're going, please feel free to ask the question.
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The difference between tonight and what I did Saturday was that was a lecture format, and I gave a lecture for 45 minutes.
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That's not what this is supposed to be.
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I'm teaching, but I want to be able to answer questions.
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Yes, ma'am.
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I said cancer? That is not what I meant to say.
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I meant infection.
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Infection.
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That's a terrible slip of the tongue.
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That was a horrible thing to say.
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No, no, no, no, no.
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She just had an infection.
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And everybody worried.
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No, well, it had me worried.
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No, that was a terrible misspeaking.
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Yes, sir.
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You did it a while ago.
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Yes, sir.
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And so I didn't correct you.
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I'm just saying, it just seems to me that...
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Well, if he's saying in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he's not necessarily leaving anyone out.
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But I do think that he is...
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I think he's just trying to be very specific.
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And yet, at the same time, somewhat unspecific, somewhat...
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What's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, yeah.
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Because the reality is, when we pray, we are praying to God.
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God is one in essence.
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But God is three in person.
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And in the economics of the Trinity that we have learned throughout the course of this study, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all have a different role in my redemption.
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The Father is the one who elects.
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And he is the one who sends the Son.
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The Son is the one who redeems.
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And the Father and the Son send the Spirit.
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And the Spirit is the one who regenerates.
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And so when I pray, I pray under the power of the Spirit.
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Because without the Spirit within me, my prayers would be in vain.
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Without the Spirit, people ask, does God hear the prayers of the unsaved? God hears everything because God is omniscient.
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He knows everything.
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But when we talk about God hearing prayer, I think what the person is really asking is, does God heed the prayers of the unsaved? And to that I would say no.
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I would say that God listens and heeds the prayers of His people who cry out to Him by the power of the Spirit.
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That is by whom we call God Abba, Father.
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And what Romans 8 tells us, it is by the Spirit that we call God Abba, Father.
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And without the Spirit, we can't rightly do that.
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Because that relationship isn't established.
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So when I pray, I pray in the Spirit, through the Spirit.
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And I pray by the name of the Son.
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Because the Son has given me access to the Father.
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You've heard the story of Abraham Lincoln's son? You've heard that? Tad was his name, I believe.
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Tad Lincoln.
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There was a man who came to visit President Lincoln and couldn't get in.
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But Tad recognized him and walked out and he said, no, I know this man.
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And he took him past the guards and took him past the rooms and took him into his father.
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And it was just a good visual picture of what Christ does to us.
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Here we stand outside and the Son ushers us into the Father.
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So that's why when Jesus said, if you ask anything in my name.
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It isn't a formula.
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And I do think people get confused about the formulaic nature.
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I'm going to talk about that Sunday.
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Because on Sunday we're going to be looking at the seven sons of Sceva.
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The seven sons of Sceva who were exorcists.
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The only time the word exorcist is used in the Bible is of these men.
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And they see Paul who is able to remove demons.
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So they come up and they say to the demon possessed man.
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I adjure you by the name of Jesus who Paul preaches.
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And you know what the demon possessed man said? I know Paul.
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And I know Jesus.
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But I don't know you.
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And the story goes in Acts 19 that he prevailed upon them.
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Stripped them naked and seven bruised naked men ran away beaten up.
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That's what the story says.
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And it's true.
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We know.
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But that's the point.
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It's the name of Jesus is not some mere magical incantation.
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The title of my sermon Sunday is fake magic versus a real Messiah.
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They were trying to use Jesus like it was some type of a formula.
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And Jesus' name is not a formula.
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People say I plead the blood.
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What does that even mean? You're trying to use some kind of magic verbal formula.
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That's not the way the Bible works.
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You can't click like and share and get into heaven.
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There's no formula.
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If you're on Facebook you know that's a silly joke.
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When people say click this, like it, share it and God will bless you.
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That's not how any of this works.
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So I think that praying in the Trinitarian name while not wrong Irv.
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I don't think it's wrong.
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I do think, though, that Jesus tells us to pray in his name because he is the one to whom we gain access to the Father.
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Thus, when I pray, I say, Father, I come to you in Jesus' name.
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I always say it at the beginning.
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It's just sort of a habit for me because one of my dear friends who was a mentor to me, he used to do that and it became sort of locked into my noggin.
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So I tend to do it at the beginning.
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I'm coming to you through the gate.
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Jesus said I'm the gate.
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You know, you go through me.
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And so that's sort of the visual picture that I have.
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But I don't think it's formulaic.
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I don't think when somebody doesn't say in Jesus' name at the end of the prayers that they're necessarily blaspheming as long as they know who Christ is and they know he's the one who's given them access to the Father.
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Make sense? Well, like I said, he's not doing anything wrong.
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He's not doing anything wrong.
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God the Father is God the Father.
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God the Son is God the Son.
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I mean, if he wants to invoke the Trinitarian formula in his prayers, not wrong.
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I just, not me.
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Well, tonight we're going to examine some of the arguments against the Trinity.
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You know we've already learned a lot.
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We have learned about what the Trinity is.
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And for those who were not here last week, I have several of these left.
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This is just a little visual guide to helping you understand the Trinity.
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And what it says at the beginning is to understand the Trinity is to understand distinctions.
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God is one in one category, three in another category.
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In the category of essence or being, he is one, substance.
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In the category of person, or what we call subsistence, he is three, three persons.
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One God, three persons share that one nature.
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So, tonight we're going to look at three common objections.
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We're going to look at the common objection from logic, common objections from the Bible, and common objections from history.
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And we're going to see how far we can get.
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So let's look at some of the common objections from logic.
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Probably the most common objection in this category is the simplest of all to refute, but it is very common.
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And if you've ever spent any time arguing with somebody about the Trinity, or maybe you're too sanctified to argue, if you've ever spent any time discussing anything with somebody who disagrees on the doctrine of the Trinity, one of the things they will say is this.
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They will say the word Trinity is not in the Bible.
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Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard somebody make that argument? You've heard somebody say, well, I don't believe in the Trinity because it's not in the Bible.
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It might go something like this.
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They'll say, we're supposed to hold the Bible as the sole rule of faith.
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We shouldn't use non-biblical language to describe our beliefs.
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And this, like I said, this comes up a lot more than you might realize.
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And the honest truth is that the word Trinity is not a biblical word.
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It is a conclusion which is reached out of deductive reasoning.
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But it is not a word that you will find in the Bible.
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What's the deductive reasoning that leads us to the Trinity? We've gone over this a hundred times.
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The Bible teaches God is one.
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The Bible teaches that there are three persons who are called God.
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So whatever God is that is one must be different than what God is three.
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So we establish the category of God is one in essence or being or nature.
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God is three in person.
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So if the Bible teaches that God is one in essence and three in person.
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And we can establish from scripture that these three persons are co-equal.
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Meaning that there is equality in the Godhead.
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That they are co-eternal.
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There was never a time when Jesus was not.
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There was never a time when the Holy Spirit was not.
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But that they all share equal eternality.
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So we get to that and we say, okay, this is clearly what the Bible is teaching here.
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We have a deductive reason to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.
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And it should not upset us nor offend us that we use extra biblical language to describe the nature of God.
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In fact there are many words that we use to describe God that are not scriptural.
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Yet are founded on biblical truth.
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Think about this word.
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Monotheism.
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What's monotheism? The belief in one God, right? Mono being the singular.
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Theos being the Greek word for God.
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Monotheism.
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Is that word found in the Bible? No.
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Is it biblical? Yeah.
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So if somebody says, well I'm not a Trinitarian, I'm a monotheist.
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Because Trinity is not in the Bible.
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Well you just lost your own argument.
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Because you said I'm a monotheist.
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Well that ain't in the Bible either.
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There's a lot of words that aren't in the Bible.
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You know the word atheist is not in the Bible? Agnostic is.
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Agnosis is a Greek word.
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It means without knowledge.
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But it's not used the way we normally use it.
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It just means somebody who doesn't know something.
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We talk about an agnostic as a person who says I don't know if God exists.
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Which is not really true.
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Because the Bible says all men know by nature that God exists.
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They deny it.
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They suppress it.
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But it's not that they don't know it.
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But agnosis is in the scripture.
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But atheist, we don't see that in the scripture.
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An atheist is a person who what? Who fulfills the requirements of Psalm 14.
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What does Psalm 14 say? Boy, you, man.
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That is right.
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That's the national verse for April 1st.
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April Fool's Day.
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The fool has said in his own heart there is no God.
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But the word atheist isn't in the scripture.
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But the description of an atheist is.
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The person who says there is no God.
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So we have words that are not in the Bible.
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Here is a big one that is not in the Bible.
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In this language.
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How about the word incarnation? Do you believe in the incarnation? Well you should because the Bible says the word became flesh.
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John 1.14 Incarnation as a word is not in the Bible.
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But you believe in it.
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What's that? Omniscient, omnipotent, you know, omnipresent.
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These words are words that we use to describe biblical concepts.
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But they are not biblical words.
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And if somebody says I'm only going to use biblical words to describe what I believe about God.
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Say okay, the Bible says God is one.
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The Bible also calls three persons God.
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So we have to make a distinction between that which is one and that which is three.
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And we're right back to the Trinity.
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So whether or not you want to use that word.
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I could say hey look at that animal with the long face and the big black eyes and the hooves and the ears.
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And somebody says you mean the horse? Oh, but I don't want to use that word.
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Because I'm against the word.
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That's ridiculous.
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And if it sounds like I'm being facetious, I am.
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Because that's a ridiculous argument.
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But it is an argument you hear a lot.
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I wouldn't even mention it if it weren't something that I believe you would come across.
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Spend any time on the internet and look at what some of the people are arguing.
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R.C.
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Sproul has a six-part series on the Trinity which I recommend.
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It's on YouTube and it's free.
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I love free.
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Free is the best.
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You go onto YouTube, type in R.C.
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Sproul Trinity.
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And you can watch six 22-minute videos of his teaching on the Trinity.
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And he teaches a lot of what we've already learned.
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But he also gets a little bit into some of the history of Sibelianism and who Sibelius was.
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It's really interesting if you want to learn that.
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But go down to the comment section.
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Hold your nose when you do.
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Because it's terrible.
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But in the comment section, you'll see the people.
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The Trinity is not in the Bible.
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That word is not there.
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So we shouldn't believe it.
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How ridiculous.
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But it is one of the arguments.
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So that is it.
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That's the first.
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If we talk about a logical point, they say, well, the word is not in the Bible, we shouldn't believe it.
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That is not a good argument.
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But it is an argument.
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They're making a logical argument.
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We should only use biblical words.
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The word Trinity is not in the Bible.
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Thus, we shouldn't use the word Trinity.
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It's logical.
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It's not correct.
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Alright.
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The second one on a logical perspective, a logic-based argument.
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Some would simply say that the Trinity itself is illogical.
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Now, we have dealt with this quite a bit over the last few weeks.
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But I want to just remind you why it is not illogical.
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Because we discuss this, you know, pretty much every week.
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If we were saying that God is one God who is also three gods, that would be illogical.
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If we were saying God is one person who is also three persons, that would be illogical.
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And God is not illogical.
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People, you ever heard the question, people will say this, it's an atheist question.
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They'll say, I don't believe in your God because you say your God can do anything.
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And can your God make a stone that he himself cannot lift? That makes you laugh.
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But that's, you ever heard that argument? You ever heard somebody ask that question? No? No? Am I the only one? I promise they're out there.
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Well, but that's the question though.
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Lee, you've heard that before, right? Somebody asked the question.
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Can God make a stone that's so big that he can't lift it? And what they're trying to force you in is to a logical paradox.
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Well, if he can make a stone he can't lift, then he's not all powerful because he can't lift it.
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But if he can't make a stone he can't lift, then he's not all powerful because he can't make it.
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But I tell people this, God can't put a round peg through a square hole.
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Because God doesn't do that which is illogical.
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Because he created the laws of logic.
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So I don't...
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Yeah, God is orderly and not illogical.
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And that's why we can understand at least the essence of what we're saying about who he is.
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He's one in one category and three in another category.
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We're not saying that he mixes categories or he becomes the square peg in the round hole.
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We're not saying that.
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And those who accuse us of that every time miscommunicate what we're saying.
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The Muslim thinks we believe in three gods.
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In fact, if you read the Quran, you will note that within that book it actually identifies the trinity.
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Not as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
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But it identifies the trinity according to Muhammad of God the Father, God the Son and Mary, the mother of God.
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That's how it identifies the trinity.
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Because, well, truth be told, Muhammad didn't have a good understanding of what Christians believed.
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He didn't have a good understanding.
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I mean, this is coming from him.
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But wouldn't you think if you saw some people out there and the way they treat Mary sometimes that there would be people who think Mary is the third person of the trinity? People who worship her, light candles to her, bow down to her.
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I mean, the Pope just tweeted about her, how she's going to give us blessings this year.
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You know what I mean? It makes sense that Muhammad would make that mistake and say, yeah, well, there's a trinity, there's the Father, the Mother and the Son.
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Alright? So we have these logical misunderstandings.
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Islam looks at Christianity and says it's three gods.
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You're idol worshippers.
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They believe that you have committed shirk.
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Shirk is the doctrine similar to idolatry.
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You have given up your monotheism and you have committed blasphemy by worshipping someone other than Allah.
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When you worship Esau, which is the Arabic name of Jesus, when you worship Esau as God, you have denied the faith.
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Because Esau is not God, according to Islam.
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So they have a logical understanding and to them it makes sense because they have categorized the trinity differently than we have.
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Because they're saying there are three gods.
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So again, these are the basic couple of logical arguments that people give.
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The one about the trinity, the one about three and one and not being the same and how those things can be rectified.
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So I want to ask you this question now that we're going to move on to objections from the Bible.
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But before we do that, can you think of an objection that someone has given you? A logical objection to the trinity that maybe you can answer it, maybe you can't.
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But something that someone has brought up to you.
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Yes dear.
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Okay.
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Now, are you asking this or is a person asking you this? People are asking me this.
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Okay, very good question.
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And again, we understand when we talk about God in essence, we're talking about His omnipresence, that God is everywhere.
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So there's no question that God is everywhere at one time.
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But I will say this in regard to Jesus.
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When Jesus was on the earth as a man, even though His nature, that being the nature of God is omnipresent, He as the man was here on earth.
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And that's why when He's praying, He's praying to the Father.
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There's a passage in the Old Testament that I like to point out to people, and I don't remember the exact verse, but you can find it very easily because it's where Abraham is under the oaks of Mamre, and he's talking to the Theophany, which is what I believe is the Christophany.
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Christ has visited him with the two angels.
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They're eating, and then the fire has rained down from heaven onto Sodom.
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In that scenario, in that story in the Scripture, it says that Yahweh in heaven rained down fire, and Yahweh was on earth watching it.
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So there's a good picture there of the economic trinity, because you have the second person of the trinity interacting with Abraham, but there was Yahweh on earth and Yahweh in heaven, and both are there.
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There's no division of natures, but there is an economic difference in what they're doing.
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The son is there with Abraham.
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The father is in heaven casting down fire on the earth.
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So I would point to that Scripture, and I would say, here's an example of where we see the economic difference in the trinity, but as far as the nature of God, He is all places at all times.
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Anyone else have anything before we move to the next part? That was a great question, by the way.
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Thank you.
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Alright, well let's look at common objections from the Bible.
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And boy howdy, we might get through one whole lesson in one night.
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Wouldn't that be amazing? So we go to common objections from the Bible.
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There are a few verses, very specific verses, that people will use to say, well here is proof that the trinity is not true.
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One of those verses is Hebrews chapter 2.
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Go to Hebrews chapter 2.
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And look to verse 9 when you get there.
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Alright, Hebrews 2.9 says this, But we see Him, the Him there is Jesus in context.
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It says, But we see Him, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
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You say, well how do they use that to argue against the trinity? They'll say, well here it says He was made lower than the angels.
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God cannot become lower than the angels because He's the creator.
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So they make the argument God can't do this because He Himself is always by virtue of His nature going to be greater than all things.
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So if we're saying Jesus is God, how can He be made lower than the angels? Now here's how this kind of works out practically.
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Jehovah Witness comes to your door, knock, knock, knock.
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You say, I believe Jesus is God.
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Well why do you believe Jesus is God? Well I believe John 1.1, then they're going to take you through the rigmarole of the indefinite article and all that.
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And they say, well let me show you a verse.
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Let's go to Hebrews.
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It says right here He was made lower than the angels.
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See it says He was made.
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So that's one thing they're going to point out.
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They're going to say He was made, and then they're going to go to say not only was He made, but He was made lower than the angels so He could be exalted.
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God doesn't have to be exalted.
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He's already over the angels.
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See they're miscommunicating the purpose of this verse.
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One of my favorite passages in the Bible has a name.
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It's called the Carmen Christi.
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The Carmen Christi is in Philippians 2, 5 through 8.
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Have this mind among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing.
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Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
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See, Philippians 2 answers the question of Hebrews 2.
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Hebrews 2 says, what does it mean He was made lower than the angels? Well, Philippians says He was in the form of God, and He humbled Himself.
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And it says He did it.
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He humbled Himself by becoming a man.
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How does one become lesser than the angels? By becoming a man.
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Because in light of the creation order, angels are above men.
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So God, in the person of Christ, becomes a man, and in doing so, becomes less than the angels, but only for a time.
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Only for the work and purpose of why He came.
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There's no doubt that when Jesus came, He came as a man.
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A full man.
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I've stressed this over the last few weeks, and we cannot give this up.
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Have we talked about the hypostatic union? I see some...
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Okay, okay.
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That's alright.
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Weeks are long.
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So if I go over a few extra things, it probably won't hurt anybody's feelings.
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The word hypostatic union should be in your doctrinal vocabulary.
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You should at least have a basic understanding of what this means.
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In fact, I know a guy, I don't recommend this, but he is an apologist, and he goes around speaking at churches, and he takes his daughter, and she's a young lady, and he'll ask the group, anybody in here know what the hypostatic union is? And everybody goes, no.
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And he'll have his nine-year-old stand up and say, the hypostatic union is the union of natures between...
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and she just sort of spits out what it is.
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And he says, everybody should know what this nine-year-old knows.
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A little embarrassing, I guess, but the point is, this is an important thing.
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The hypostatic union.
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The word hypostasis simply means essence or nature.
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A hypostasis, an essence or a nature.
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And when we speak of the nature, we are talking about Jesus, who has two natures.
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God is one in essence.
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We might say he's one in nature.
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One in usia.
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But he's three in person.
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How many persons is Jesus? One.
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But how many natures is Christ? Two.
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Right? Huh? He is both God and man.
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Remember the Athanasian Creed we went over last week? Did we get to the second part that talked about the human nature of Jesus? I want to just mention it to you, because it's on the back of these sheets here.
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It says, It is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
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God of the substance of the Father begotten before the world, and man of the substance of his mother born in the world.
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Perfect God and perfect man of a reasonable soul in human flesh subsisting.
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Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead and inferior to the Father touching his manhood.
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Thus when the Scripture says, The head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is God.
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It says that in Corinthians.
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And I had a Jehovah Witness point that out to me one time.
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She says, It says right here.
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It says the head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is God.
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How can you say Christ is God if He has a head? God has no head.
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No authority over Him.
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And you say this is speaking of the humanity.
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This is speaking of the perfect humanity of Christ.
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When Christ came to the earth, He submitted Himself as a fully man.
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Man.
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That's a terrible way of saying that.
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A fully human man.
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Man.
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What is the difference between Christ and you in touching His humanity? According to the Bible.
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Huh? Well, well, yes.
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But I mean in touching His humanity, the Bible says He was like you in every way except what? Except sin.
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But He said though, and the part I was pointing out though, is that He's like us in every way.
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Save without sin.
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I mean the Bible goes to a...
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Why would the Bible go through so much effort to point out the fact that He's like us in every way except without sin? It's to point out the fact that He's like us in every way.
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He had a heart that beat.
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He had lungs that breathed.
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And He was a perfect sacrifice, but He was a man.
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Yes sir? The issue of on the road to Abaia.
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Yeah, oh yeah, well.
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We're speaking now of the humanity of Christ.
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The second person of the Trinity has always been God.
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But the second person of the Trinity has not always been man.
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God became flesh and dwelt among us.
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That's what we know.
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John 1.14.
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There was a time when the second person of the Trinity was not a man.
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He doesn't have an eternal humanity.
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He has an eternal divinity.
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He took on a human nature.
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He adopted, as it were, a human nature with all of its frailty and with its limitations.
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Thus He could say, this is one of the things, how could you say Jesus is God if Jesus said, I don't know when I'm going to return.
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God knows everything.
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Well, it doesn't make sense if we're not speaking of a human nature.
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And Christ, when He says things, there are times when Christ says things that touches human nature and there are times when Christ says things that touches divine nature.
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Like when He said to Philip, I saw you under the tree.
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Was it Philip or Nathaniel? It was Nathaniel, right? He said, I saw you under the tree.
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But he didn't see Him, but he knew because of that omniscient nature.
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He knew.
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And that's when Nathaniel knew that he was special.
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When Jesus did certain things, like forgive sins, of course, that's touching His divine nature.
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But He had that perfect human nature.
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I've heard people say this, and I might have mentioned this before, but it's important to remember because you might hear somebody argue this.
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I've heard people say, well, Jesus can't be perfectly human because He didn't sin.
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And to be human is to sin.
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In fact, to err is human, right? And so they say for Jesus, if He didn't sin, He wasn't a real man.
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And my response to that is very simple.
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Was Adam not a man before he sinned? Adam was the perfect man in man terms, in the terms of humanity.
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He was made a man who didn't sin until sin came into the world.
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Jesus as a man has the same quality of manhood that Adam had before the fall.
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That's why He is called, as you're saying, that's why He is called the last Adam.
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There's the first Adam who brings sin into the world.
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There's the last Adam who pays for the sin of His people.
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That's right.
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And the argument for the virgin birth is because He is born not of the seed of Adam, but of the seed of His Father God.
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And you know Roman Catholics believe that Mary is born without sin too.
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Roman Catholics believe that Mary has no sin.
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In fact, I remember a debate.
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I think it was Tim Staples was debating James White.
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And he told a story that when the lady was come to Jesus and thrown at His feet, and Jesus, who is without sin, cast the first stone, He said a rock flew over His head and Jesus turned around and said, Not you, Mom.
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It's a terrible Catholic joke.
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But it is indicative of what they believe.
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You've heard the term immaculate conception.
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Immaculate conception does not refer to Jesus.
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The immaculate conception refers to Mary.
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The belief that Mary was born without sin and thus became the sinless bearer and mother of God.
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That's why I don't use the term immaculate conception because it's not talking about the virgin conception of Christ.
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It's talking about the sinless conception of Mary.
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It's not a biblical doctrine.
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There's nothing in the Bible that says Mary was without sin.
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The Bible does seem to indicate that the sin nature is passed from the Father.
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That Adam sinned, though he didn't sin first, he is called the first sinner because it's his sin as the federal head of the human race that is passed to all men through the Father.
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And thus Christ coming not from a father but from a mother only, He gets the nature of His Father and the nature of His mother.
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And that's what the Athanasian Creed said.
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In referring to His divinity, absolute perfection.
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In referring to His humanity, the inferiority of man to God as creature and creator.
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So, yes.
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I would say yes.
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Philippians 2 verse when it says that He made Himself nothing.
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That has been argued up, down, left, right and sideways to try to define how He made Himself nothing.
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We do know that in taking on His human nature, He submitted Himself to the will of the Father and He submitted Himself in certain ways.
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But that there were still divine characteristics that He exhibited, such as His ability again to see Nathaniel under the tree and His ability to make water into wine and certain characteristics of His nature.
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We do not believe, at least historically, is not believe that Jesus gave up His divinity but that rather He adopted His humanity.
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And so there was a perfect union between the two.
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And yet on earth, there are times when He says things that would touch His human nature.
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There are times when He says things that would touch His divine nature.
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And so we simply make the distinction when we're reading from what nature is Jesus speaking.
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Not that the two are divided, but they're not mingled either.
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One of the doctrinal arguments of the past was that the two natures of Christ are not to be divided, but neither are they to be mixed.
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He's not a God-man hybrid as some might kind of consider like a hybrid of two things mixing together and becoming one new thing.
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He's completely God and He's completely man and they're not mingled.
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In fact, I do believe going on in the Creed, it mentions something about not mingling of the two.
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So He maintained a fully divine nature, but did not always exercise the authority of that divinity in certain situations.
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I mean...
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Yeah, He knew He was of His Father and was doing His Father's business, so that's a good point of how He...
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And that's a question I've had personally that I don't have an answer to, but I'll throw the question out and maybe you have a good answer.
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But a question I had was, at what point in Jesus' cognitive development did He really understand Himself in humanity as God in the flesh? You could say from the very moment of His birth, but in human terms, did He have to have His diaper changed? Yeah, I would say yeah.
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Because it says He grew in wisdom and knowledge and in favor with God and men.
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So there were things in human terms He learned, and there were things in human terms that He matured in.
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So there is a sense in which we have to say, okay, He experienced full humanity while at the same time not giving up full divinity.
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It's hard to understand, but that is what we see in the text.
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Could you imagine though being Jesus' brother? Mom, Jesus did it.
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I know He didn't.
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I mean, to know that you have a perfect sibling.
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I mean, I know if you have a sibling, it's hard enough, but imagine if you know they can't mess up.
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All right, but moving on.
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If I were to ask a Jehovah Witness to come in or a Mormon or someone, they could probably throw out 50 or 60 verses that would be, well, here's my verse why I don't believe in the Trinity.
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Here's this verse why I don't believe in the Trinity.
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But I'm going to ask you now, is there a particular verse, a particular section of Scripture, or maybe something that you have read or had somebody read to you or ask you about that you would say, well, I don't understand how the Trinity can be if this verse is true.
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I know I didn't prepare you to ask these questions.
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I don't mean to put anyone on the spot, but anybody have any questions from the Scripture? That's okay.
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We'll figure it out.
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Yeah.
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It's talking about we are the sons of God, all sons of God.
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Doesn't Jehovah Witnesses use those verses to prove or try to prove that Jesus isn't God? I think it's 1 John.
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That's okay.
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I think it's like 1 John.
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I've got to find it.
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But anyway, I'll find it.
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I'll get back to you.
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Okay.
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Give me a second.
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But it's about the sons of God and how we're, and it's not referring to adoption.
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There is a passage, and this might be the one you're talking about, that says, that refers to us as gods.
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Yeah, maybe.
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Yeah.
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There's a part that Jesus says, it's in the Gospels, where he says, isn't it written that you will all be called gods? And in that regard, people have said, well, see, Jesus isn't really God as God.
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He is in God in the same way we are called gods, as having authority in the earth.
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God gave man authority over the earth.
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We're made in God's image.
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And that's the reference to that passage.
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And so, because the issue, if I remember correctly, and I'll have to go back and look at it myself, but the issue is the people are wondering, you know, Jesus is calling God his father, and they're saying that's blasphemy for him to do that.
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And he said, but wait a minute, the Old Testament says they will all be called gods, or sons of God.
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And so he's sort of using that to say it's not blasphemy to say this, the Scripture says this.
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But at the same time, again, looking at the passage might be more helpful if we can find it directly.
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We are not gods, but we are made in the image of God.
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We are different than the animals.
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In fact, one of the most terrible things that evolution has done as a doctrine of man is to prove to people that they are nothing more than great apes.
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Because if people believe that they are simply animals by nature, then they will behave according to their nature.
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If you tell a child you're nothing but a monkey, don't be surprised when he acts like a monkey.
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And that's what we have done in the last hundred years of school and the last hundred years of science.
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We have tried to prove that all we are is a product of stardust.
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All our whole bodies are are just chemical soup that's come together.
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And it really doesn't have any intrinsic value outside of the value that we give it.
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It's sort of like money.
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You're only valuable because I say you're valuable, but you're not really valuable.
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I mean, think about money, right? I don't have any.
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It would be nice if I did.
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I was going to pull out a dollar, but I don't have a dollar.
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But you take a dollar.
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A dollar is a cotton-blended piece of paper.
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It's cotton-blended so it doesn't get torn up when you put it in the washing machine.
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Pretty smart, by the way.
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It's a cotton-fibrous piece of paper.
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It's printed with an ink on top of the paper.
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A portrait of a president on one side, a portrait of a famous building on the other side, and a numerical digit indicating the denomination of the money.
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You take that.
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And if I gave you a dollar, Mike, you'd say, Thank you, Keith.
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But if I gave you a hundred dollar bill, you'd say, What's this for? Because it's a lot more valuable.
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But you'd probably still take it.
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You'd say, Why are you doing this? But the question becomes, they're the same size.
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They have the same amount of ink.
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It's not like when you get a hundred dollar bill, it's a hundred ones rolling into one.
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The only thing that changes the value is the value that you ascribe to it.
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You tell it it's valuable because the government tells it it's valuable.
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Why don't we keep talking about, economically, the problem in America? Because why? Because there is no value in paper that's got ink on it.
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Because if I start going hungry, I can't eat money.
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I can't plant and grow money.
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Money doesn't have any value except what we give it.
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The same thing happens with humans.
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Because if all you are is stardust, then really all you are is ink on a piece of cotton fiber paper.
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You don't have any natural value.
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The only value you have is the value given to you by others.
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That's why people believe that abortion is okay.
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Those babies don't have any value.
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Their moms don't want them.
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So it's okay to kill them, you see? That's why euthanasia is okay in so many places.
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If a person doesn't have the value of life, we need to remove them because they are a strain on the economy or they are a strain on their family.
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Well, that's a whole other case.
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Where we put more value, that kind of goes to the Romans 1 thing where we worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.
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We make idols out of dogs and cats and things.
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But the reality is this.
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What makes a human being valuable? It's that God says that we're valuable because we're made in His image.
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In fact, in Genesis 9, it says if you kill a human being, you forfeit your own life because that life was made in the image of God.
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And how dare you take the life of someone made in God's image? They have an inherent intrinsic value.
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Not like money that we have to say it's valuable, but they have an inherent value.
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That's what we have.
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We have an inherent value.
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Where was I going with this? How did I...
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Somebody ask the question.
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Mike was...
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Oh, Mike talked about the sons of God.
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I'm sorry.
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I hate that.
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My mind works that way.
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We're getting close to the end here.
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Mike talked about the sons of God.
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You are valuable because you're created in God's image.
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You are...
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That is who you are.
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Every human being is created in God's image.
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Now, we marred that image because of sin.
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But that doesn't mean we're no longer bearers of God's image.
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In fact, that's what makes sin so sinful.
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It's because it marrs the image that God has placed on all of us.
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Well, time has come and gone.
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The last thing on your sheet, it says arguments from history, objections from history, but I'm going to go ahead and say this has been such a lengthy course.
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We've already looked at a lot of them, so we're not going to even try to finish that out.
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The ones I was going to look at, just so you know, Arianism, which we've already talked about, which is 4th century during the counts of Nicaea.
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And Sabellianism, which was the modalistic controversy.
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So, a lot of these we've already looked at.
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Next week, we're going to talk about worship.
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Trinity and worship.
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That's what we were going to do tonight, but we did this one instead.
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Next week, we'll be looking at Trinity and worship, and maybe that'll be our last lesson.
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And then we're going to go in a different direction.
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What direction, you ask? I'll let you know next week.
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Because I'm not sure yet.
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All right, let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this opportunity to study.
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I pray it's been fruitful for your people, and that you would use it to help grow us all.
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In Christ's name, amen.