1689 LBCF Chapter 1:9-10 and more

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in paragraph 10 for us tonight. Sweet, who would like to volunteer to do 10?
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Okay, do Jake and then I will. The infallible, therefore when there's a question about the true and full meaning of any part of scripture and each passage has only one meaning, not many, it must be understood in light of other passages.
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Yeah, the beginning part of that sermon this Sunday, we've talked a little bit about hermeneutics, which that involves that for sure.
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We'll discuss that here in a little bit more depth here in a second, but go ahead for paragraph nine. Yeah. The supreme judge, human teachings and individual interpretations and in those judgment we are to that see nothing but the
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Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit. In this scripture our faith finds its final word. Yep, love it, thank you.
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So looking at paragraph nine, it starts off, I appreciate you guys reading those paragraphs by the way.
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Paragraph nine, it starts off with using a term that's already been discussed and already been read about in paragraph one.
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So look back with me at paragraph one. It says in paragraph one, the
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Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.
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So when we look here at verse nine, and I was not here even for that paragraph, paragraph one, but I would assume that we discussed what infallibility meant to a certain degree, right?
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Do we remember or how would we define what infallibility is today? What would we try to sum that up in a sentence?
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It's a hard word, right? Yeah, infallible really means for us that it's incapable of having something wrong within it.
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So it's the word of God is infallible, meaning that it's true. There is no error found inside the scriptures of God.
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So when we come to paragraph nine, what is actually kind of being done for us is it's giving us a pattern of how paragraph nine, and I think
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Carl mentioned it a couple of weeks ago when Jonathan had asked a question, how what's being done for us, it's building up.
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First, you have to establish that scripture is inspired. And then from there, you start making an argument for what you believe in scripture, right?
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And so paragraph nine is continually building off of that. And so now it's saying, if there is a controversy of some kind, if there is a interpretation of the scripture, we need to know that there is no error in it.
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And that one of the rules that we need to have when interpreting those hard, blurry, confusing texts is that we should go to another place of infallibility, which is the scripture itself, right?
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So there's some really cool examples. I wanna,
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I'm really excited to go with this through this with you guys on, because like Emily said, this paragraph nine really is attentive to what we talked about at the beginning of the book of Job, right?
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When we come to the scriptures, and if we have bad hermeneutics, it can completely change the meaning and the interpretation of the scripture itself.
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And so I wanna give you an example, something that was actually given to me as an example that I think is actually very pertinent to how we can see hermeneutics playing such a role in our understanding of scripture, right?
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In Genesis chapter one through three, there are people of today, especially today in the
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LGBT community that would look and say, we believe that the scripture is true, right?
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And the reason I'm telling you guys this right now is imagine if you, and we're not getting into the whole vaccine conversation right now, but imagine if you wanted to not get super sick, the vaccines on the understanding is that it's an introducing you with a little bit of it to try to build your immunity up against the full blown attack of whatever that illness is, right?
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So when I tell you guys this, I'm just giving you a little taste of the poison of the venom that's within bad hermeneutics.
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So in Genesis one through three, we see a multitude of two things being made at the same time.
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So man and woman, evening and day or night and day, we see these things get done over and over and over again.
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The bad hermeneutics could be, well, it's true that God made man and female and then he made them in his own image.
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But is there not 12 o 'clock a day? Is there not a 1 p .m.?
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Is there not a 2 p .m.? Is there not a time when the dusk is settling down with the sun that just because there's evening and morning, isn't there all these in between times in between those sections in scripture?
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So why can't we say that with men and females, that with men and females, that there's all these in between genders, right?
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Another example of that would be that God created land animals, air animals and water animals.
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Well, what about the penguin? The penguin has wings. Was he an air animal or a land animal?
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Well, he also swims. Is he a water animal? What about a platypus? Isn't there all these in -betweens that we see in creation?
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How would you guys... So let me take that and say, that's just introducing that little bit of venom, that little bit of poison so that you can see how bad this hermeneutic is, right?
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If I said, well, that's the same way we need to view it when it says God created man and God created female, that there's a spectrum of genders in between, how would you guys refute something like that?
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Well, it will be your immediate knee -jerk reaction. How would you refute somebody that's saying,
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I believe scripture's infallible. I believe that scripture's inspired. I just showed from Genesis one through three, that there's this spectrum within creation that we can apply to genders.
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As I think I expressed it in the last session, that every person somehow has to establish their own criteria, their own credibility, their own basis.
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And as a person, I have been questioned, as a person.
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And I chose to believe there's God. I chose to believe God is real,
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God created. And the revelation that I see in the
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Bible is God is telling me, man, what you need to believe.
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God created, and he's not writing a story. He's telling what he wants you to grasp.
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He's sharing the basis. I don't, it's not necessary to talk about elephants and platypus and dinosaurs, because the story is
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God created. God created everything, everything that is. Anything that exists,
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God created. Now, that's my basis. That's how
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I establish what I need. If you're a human being,
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I think you have that need. You have, you read every day of somebody mentally ill, mentally deranged, mentally totally messed up.
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And that person needs the stability.
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They need the contact with their creator. We, as humans, we have that need.
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We have a terrible need to be able to reach out.
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And trust. This story,
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I have no problem with it. And I have no problem with what's presented and what's not presented, because I see the story.
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I see it as God revealing himself over time. Yeah, so what you're, and I'm happy you bring that up, because what's really unique is in the garden, right?
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Adam and Eve, before they fall, before there's the sin and the transgression against God, they're in communion with God, right?
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They receive direct communion from him. They could, did Adam know not to eat of the tree, of the fruit of the garden, right?
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Did he know not to do that? Why did he know that? Because God told him so, he was in communion with them.
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And so, Dawn, you expressing that, that you can look at God's word, you know that this is God's word, that there's a story behind it, and you know that this is infallible true, is actually what that tells me, and that should tell any person, any believer that says such a statement, that you have been born again, that you have that renewal in our hearts, in our bodies, to be like Adam prior to the fall, that you've been restored in Christ, that you now, your communion with God is seen in what he has sufficiently revealed to you in scripture, right?
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And so, when we think about that, when there's a interpretation of scripture, like I have given to you guys in Genesis one through three, that is in violation with a multitude of scriptures, that should tell you, first of all, do you think
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I'm being honest with scripture, or being acting like I'm an actual born again
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Christian, when I give you such an ignorant interpretation of scripture? Probably not, right?
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Because that shows that there's some twisting, and some manipulation to the text to try to prove to you a presupposition that I'm bringing into the text, right?
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And so our minds, one way that we can combat these things, is paragraph nine, the infallible rule for interpreting scripture, that means
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Genesis one through three, that means revelation, that means John, that means Philippians, that means the book of Job, it is scripture itself, right?
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So where in the scripture does it say that lying with a man is an abomination before the Lord, that to fornicators and adulterers and homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God, all those things have to be taken to an account when we read
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Genesis one through three, right? Because all scripture is inspired, it's all infallible, that our rule for interpreting scripture has to come from other scripture itself, and if other scripture itself tells us that these things are wrong, can any honest person look at Genesis and say that that was the intended meaning or the intended interpretation of Genesis one through three?
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Absolutely not, right? There's so many examples of this, that that's a presupposition that is brought into the text, that's utilizing wokeness, woke theology to understand the
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Bible, there's other cultural interpretations of the Bible that also play an effect.
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So today in some places in the world, polygamy is very, very prominent, so like in places in like Africa and whatnot.
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Some people would say, well, if you were to go preach the gospel over there, of course God would be okay with their polygamy, because the culture when the text was written to only have one wife, that was just speaking to the
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Jewish people and that was their culture that they were in, right? The list goes on and on and on, and so when we refute these kinds of things, when people narrow in on one
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Bible verse, is we have to open up the rest of the word of God and see what the rest of the word of God interprets those things as.
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Another example of this, we saw this in the book of Hebrews two, in Hebrews, did we not talk about the high priest
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Melchizedek, right? What were the two understandings of who Melchizedek is, right?
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That either he's pre -incarnate Christ or he was this actual physical historical being that's not much as recorded, right?
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Those were the two possible interpretations. Well, see and look at what it says in here.
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It says, therefore, when there's a question about true and full meaning of any part of scripture and each passage has only one meaning, not many, it is to be understood in light of other passages that speak more clearly, right?
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So how many true meanings of scripture is there? How many true interpretations are there?
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There's only one, right? And that's, we're trying to shape our minds and our understanding to what that one interpretation is, but there's times and examples in scripture where scripture isn't explicitly clear to give a definite revealing answer one way or the other.
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And that Melchizedek example is one of those areas. So when we are in church and we see the person sitting next to us that believes that this is pre -incarnate
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Christ and somebody that's sitting next to us that believes this is a historical figure, both of them are within the bounds of saying that you're being scriptural, but at the end of the day, either one's right and the other's wrong or one's right and that one's wrong, or there's a third option that they just haven't seen quite yet, right?
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That they're not both equally right, but they're both equally permissible in scripture, right?
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That it's still not gone outside of the realm of what other interpreting scriptures would tell us.
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Is there any examples that you guys can think of how this could really, this paragraph nine, what hermeneutical principle that this is somewhat teaching us is something
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I mentioned on Sunday, which is the analogy of faith. The analogy of faith is that there's only one true meaning in scripture, and if something's not clear, we go to the clear to help us understand the not clear, right?
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So on and so forth. Is there any examples that you guys can think of with interpretations that a certain part of scripture actually gives us clarity on what the true meaning was?
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And if not, that's okay too. That's totally okay. There's several times.
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Anytime that the New Testament actually talks about scripture being fulfilled or prophecy being fulfilled, that is what paragraphs nine is speaking about, right?
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So when in the Old Testament, it talks about the rock in the Old Testament, and then the
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New Testament says that the chief cornerstone that the builders rejected was Christ and that Christ is that rock.
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How then should we read in the Old Testament who the rock is? See that that's
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Christ. We should see that that's Jesus. Absolutely. And why do we say that? Because the New Testament inspired, infallible, true, told us the true interpretation of that text.
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And there's a plethora of examples of how that can be explained or seen in scripture.
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But it says, it must be understood in light of other passages that speak more clearly. So this is something like, even in terms of eschatology, the really high topic to speak on, the very controversial topic to speak on.
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My encouragement for you in building any doctrine, including eschatology, is don't go to the obscure verses to build an argument.
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Go to that which is clear first, and then use the clarity of the clearness of scripture to help guide you through the unclear texts.
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And there's several examples of that. Matthew 24 is a very hard text for many
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Christians to handle. Daniel 9 is a hard text to handle. The whole book of Revelation is a wonderful book, but there's several examples of things that are difficult for us to understand in that text.
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And so I wouldn't advise someone to go there to build up their whole theological stance on something.
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Go to the clear texts first, such as 1 Corinthians 15, such as all these places.
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And then from there, build out, right? That's just good study habits for us to be making.
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Now, that's not me saying don't study Daniel 9 or don't study Matthew 24. Don't study the book of Revelation. Just do it in light of clear text.
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Paragraph 10, the supreme judge for deciding all religious controversies and for evaluating all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, human teaching and individual interpretations and whose judgment we are to rest is nothing but the
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Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit. In this scripture, our faith finds its final word.
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Now, we're gonna look at some verses here that kind of explain this here that the references give us to tell us to look at.
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Turn to Matthew 22 first. And as you're turning there, I want to explain for us something that's important.
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So there's a term that came about in the Reformation, which is scripture alone, right?
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Sola Scriptura, right? Scripture alone. This is the teaching.
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So the Catholic church in the days of the Reformation, they believed in scripture, right?
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But they had the view that scripture was equal to tradition and what the
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Pope said, that they were equal together, right? So they believed in scripture, but they also believed in tradition being equal, right?
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And that's where the Reformation of, no, we believe in scripture alone as being the infallible certain rule of faith, right?
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Like we see here at the beginning of paragraph one. However, there's something else called Sola Scriptura, and that is the teaching that we only have the scripture and the scripture only, that we don't look at anything else, for example.
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And the danger in that is if traditions emphasize and teach and magnify what scripture says, a tradition isn't being held up on the same pedestal, but that it still is something.
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For example, Sola Scriptura, the dangers in those areas is we can think of different things that we do in the church today that isn't fully described for us in the word of God, right?
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But we can see that in the very early church, they were doing these things. And then the next church did these things and the next church did these things.
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And so we can look at something like that. We can say, well, while it's not inspired, we can see how somebody came to those conclusions and we should try to mimic those things, right?
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We talked about that at the beginning of the need for creeds and confessions, that these things are not of equal weight or equal authority with the scripture, but because our faith is being built upon the chief cornerstone, which is
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Christ, and then the apostles, then there's the foundation, according to Ephesians chapter two, that we're continually being built up in these ways.
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And so we're being built on the back of the shoulders of giants. And so we shouldn't believe in Solo Scriptura, but we shouldn't believe in scripture plus tradition, right?
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We need to have these correct categories when we place these things. But when we look for the
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Supreme judge for deciding all religious controversies, when we read that, let's look at Matthew chapter 22 here.
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Matthew chapter 22, verse 29. Verse 29, we'll go all the way to verse 33.
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Would anyone like to volunteer to read that passage for tonight? Thanks, Patty. 33.
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Not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.
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But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying,
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I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the
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God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
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So those verses that you just read, thank you, Patty, for reading those, is Jesus's response to the
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Sadducees who have brought up a, in their mind, was going to be a catch -22 question.
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Ah, we can trick this mighty teacher, Jesus, into not answering these things correctly according to scripture, right?
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And so they bring up in verse 24, Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies, having no children, his brother, as next of kin shall marry his wife and raise up a seed for his brother.
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Now there were seven brothers with us, and the first married and died, and having no seed, he left his wife to his brother.
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And so the second until the third, down to the seventh, and the last of all the women died in the resurrection.
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Therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.
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So how does Christ respond to this? He responds with scripture, saying, you don't know the scriptures, that the scriptures are clear on something like this.
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And so when we do this, so somebody comes and there's example after example after example of this in history, as well as even,
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I would say that we've seen this recently in our church, right, when accusations and things come about, the only judge for deciding religious controversies for evaluating decrees of councils, which that would be, let's say, to give you an example, and LGBT stuff is just so easy to pick on in this way, but LGBT, there's different denominational groups that come together, right?
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And so as an LGBTQ plus community, they would make a council and they would say, this is what you have to believe, right?
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And so it's saying even the decrees of those councils, the opinions of ancient writers, so when we look at history in the last 2000 years, human teaching and individual interpretation, meaning our own, and in whose judgment we are to rest, so meaning that, do we rest our head on this creed?
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Well, no, do we rest our head on the council of those LGBTQ people?
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No, do we rest our head on Jake's private interpretation in the back of Matthew chapter 24?
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No, we don't rest our head alone in these things, but our head is to rest on the
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Holy Scripture that has been delivered by the Spirit, meaning that it is infallible, that it is God -breathed, and this is our authority as Scripture.
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And I love how it says this here in verse, well, here at the last paragraph here in paragraph 10, it says, in this
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Scripture, our faith finds its foundation.
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It's the final word. It's the authoritative matter on any of our beliefs should be, needs to be
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Scripture and Scripture itself, right? We can look throughout history. I mean, how many of us have a
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John Vernon McGee going through the Bible commentary, or how many of us have a
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Matthew Henry commentary, or how many of us have the 1689s in our hands, right?
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These things can be good and they can be helpful to us, and they should be, but we know that when one of those things contradicts
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Scripture, which one gets precedent? Scripture does every single time because our faith is placed in Scripture and not in the writings of man.
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And the reason I wanna make special emphasis on that is both, and I think,
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I don't know if Rick ever talked about this because I haven't been here for the whole of the teachings of the last two weeks, but the
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West Minister Confession and the Savoy Declaration in the 1689 are very, very similar in what they say.
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They almost are bearing arms with one another, but they still show their distinctives as far as like believer's baptism in the 1689.
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That's something that they wanted to distinguish themselves from the Savoy and the West Minister, right? But paragraph one through 10 in chapter one from the
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West Minister to the Savoy to the 1689 is the exact same wording almost all the way through.
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There's some minor changes here and there that they made just to improve on the language that's going on in there. But this is something that I take great value in because I love the 1689, but it's not where any of us should rest our heads to be the final authority.
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It should be a helpful aid to us in understanding things. I hope that you, everyone in here finds it helpful.
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I hope that in times that maybe in the next coming months, you're like, oh, I don't know what the answer is to this, but I know that there's something mentioned in this chapter in the 1689.
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You open it up, you see the references, you go seek it out in scripture and you can say, okay, I agree with that paragraph, amen to that.
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That's very well -worded. Let's go to chapter two now. Does anybody have any final thoughts or things that they want to mention in chapter one, anything that was highlighting to them that is a value that you think you'd like to share with everybody in the room?
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The whole idea that I gleaned from reading through this, God creates and God knows and God knows the past, the present, the future.
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Yep. But yet, in his divine wisdom, and this is the part that blows my mind,
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God knows the events that will take place, but he is not part of the human choice that leads to those events.
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Hmm. And then I think of what happened when
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Moses went to the Pharaoh and said, let my people go. Yeah. How many times did
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Moses and the Pharaoh agree to only to change his mind?
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Yeah. And the scripture said, God hardened his heart. Yep. So I'm in a dilemma here.
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Yeah. I'm saying God is, he's knowing the future needs, making it happen.
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Yep. There's, you know what's great? Turn with me, if everybody wants to turn there, chapter three, paragraph seven, because this confession actually talks about this, right?
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I know we can't, how dare me right now, but paragraph seven. So what you're talking about is
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God's sovereignty, God's decree and God's providence, which the beginning chapters in here. So it started off in chapter one with the
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Holy scriptures, right? So it's building up this argument, as Carl said from a couple of weeks ago. So the first thing that we have to lay out is the presupposition that God's word is true.
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And then chapter two is gonna tell us about who God is explained as in those scriptures.
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And then chapter three is how does God, his predestination, how does these things work?
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Chapter five or chapter four is on creation, and then chapter five is on providence.
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And so we'll go through these things as a church, but I'm thankful that you bring that up, Don, because paragraph seven, I think just said exactly what you just said.
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The doctrine, which is the decree of God, the sovereignty of God, the doctrine of the high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care so that those heeding the will of God revealed in his word and obeying him may be assured of their eternal election by the certainty of their effectual calling.
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In this way, this doctrine will give reason for praise, reverence, and admiration of God, as well as humility, diligence, and rich comfort to all those who sincerely obey the gospel.
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So listen to that again, the doctrine of the high mystery of predestination.
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I will tell you right now, Don, that question that you've just posed, the idea of that, how do those things work?
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In the last 2000 years, there has not been a single man or woman that could tell you to the exactness of how those things work.
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But that's, God says that I predestined, that he causes all things, that he hardens the
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Pharaoh's heart. In Acts chapter two and Acts chapter four, he says that he predestined the people to crucify
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Christ, right? Yet -
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Man is responsible for those things, and God is not stained by any sin. These things are a high mystery, right?
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We ultimately, in our finite minds, cannot comprehend this infinite
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God that we have, right? And I'm thankful that you bring that up, but that's what's revealed to us in scripture, is this
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God that is amazing, that is intimately involved in all of our interactions and has purpose behind everything, yet he is without sin.
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He is not the author therein to be able to be accused of sin, right? That's what Romans nine says.
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No one has the authority to say, why have you done this to me? Why have you made me like this? No one can cast sin to God, is what scripture reveals to us.
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No, and you read Daniel. Yeah. Daniel explained to Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar had no clue what his dream was all about. Yep. But Daniel, he just explained it.
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God gave Daniel a vision and it's just, whoa.
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Yeah, and then you go to chapter five, I think it is, and then Nebuchadnezzar is on the ground eating out of the field, right?
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And God was the one that made him be like that. And it's just like, this is an amazing story.
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We serve a wonderful God. It's just, you know, we use the word infinity and it is always,
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I have no idea, but beyond anything we can imagine, anything, anything.
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Nothing's new to God. But how can that be? Yeah, I love it.
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Maybe chapter two will answer that for us, Don. Let's look at this. So chapter two, paragraph one.
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Would somebody like to volunteer to read paragraph one for us? And we may get past this today.
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We might get into paragraph two. We may not. So who would like to volunteer to read paragraph one of chapter two? Carl, you got it?
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What am I reading here? Paragraph one of chapter two. Two, one, that works too.
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The Lord our God is one, the only living and true God. He is self, existence, and infinite in being and perfection.
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His essence cannot be understood by anyone but him. He is perfectly pure spirit.
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He is invisible and has no body, hearts, or changeable emotions. He alone has immortality, dwelling in a life that no one can approach.
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He is unchangeable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, in every way infinite, absolutely holy, perfectly wise, wholly free, completely absolute.
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He works all things according to the counsel of his own unchangeable and completely righteous will for his own glory.
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He is most loving, gracious, merciful, and patient. He overflows with goodness and truth, forgiving inequity, transgression, and sin.
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He rewards those who seek him diligently. At the same time, he is perfectly just and terrifying in his judgments.
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He hates all sin and will certainly not clear the guilty. Amen. Thank you,
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Carl, I appreciate you. That essentially says in very fine words what
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Don has been just saying to us, right? Don may have done a better job in that paragraph, maybe not, but that is a wonderful, wonderful thing to think about, right?
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We don't have the capabilities, we're human. We have the limitation of humanity.
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We just, we could go this far and then we're lost.
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Beyond that, we can't wait to be there.
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That's right. All right, this is one of, so one of the things
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I love about this paragraph one that Carl just read for us is that this is actually where we start to see a little bit of differences between the 1689 and the
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West Minister and the Savoy. In the 1689, the Savoy and the West Minister in paragraph one are almost word for word identical.
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The 1689, though, has added some more emphasizing words in here. So such as that he is self -existent.
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That's not said in the West Minister, that he is in and of himself, right?
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That he exists in and of himself, that his essence cannot be comprehended by anybody but himself, that he has immortality dwelling in that light that no man can approach.
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Those are all sayings that are added to the 1689 that are lacking in the West Minister. And that just comes about,
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I truly think that that just comes about because of time, right? When the West Minister was written, they did a great job at writing it, but as time goes on and as our wonderful Baptist forefathers as we build upon the back of the giants of the faith, they saw the need to add these remarkable words that better explain who
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God is, or maybe better explain our uncomprehensibility to understand who God is, which
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I thoroughly appreciate. I don't like that as they're explaining who
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God is, they say it's incomprehensible. Yep. But we're still gonna explain it. We're still gonna do it.
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We're still gonna do it. Yeah. And Albert Einstein said it was inconsistent and improper and that God couldn't do what he does.
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Yep. So he admitted there's a creator.
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Yeah. But not that there was a personal God. Yep. Yeah, he had the knowledge to be able to recognize and accept that there is a
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God, but he couldn't recognize and accept the God of scripture, right? The one and only God that has revealed himself.
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Yeah, he doesn't know the personal God. Yep. And that hurts that someone doesn't know.
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It does. The God, and it's such a satisfaction, a feeling of wholeness to know
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God and to just feel what I'm feeling. Yes. Well, I think even in, so when we read chapter two, this whole chapter, and when we think about what did chapter one, paragraph one say, that the scripture of God is the only sufficient, right?
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It's sufficient. So all these things that are said here in chapter two is what scripture has said, and it's sufficient for us to know who
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God is. Is it explicit at describing in fullness all the depths and the heights of who
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God is? Well, there isn't enough pages in the world to do that, right? But it's sufficient. It's sufficient to do that.
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And that's, to me, that's remarkable to think about. And so these, again, and I think I'll probably go back to how
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Carl explained that a couple of weeks ago, several times in the coming weeks, but that's why this chapter one starts off the way it does, is that it's setting everything up for us.
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So how many gods are there in life or in the universe? There's one, right?
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I see the finger come up, and it's the pointer finger, not the middle finger. There's one God, right? Yes. There's one
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God who is Lord. He is the only living and true God. So what is that getting at?
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In the Old Testament, especially in the Old Testament, there's references over and over again that all these pagan gods are dead gods.
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They're false gods. They are not living. So we have a living God, meaning that there's life in him, that he's not just passive, right?
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He's not just somebody that just sits and gets put onto a stand like an idol would, but that he's the creator and sustainer in these ways, that he's still moving in that sense for us, that because he lives, we exist.
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It says in this that he is self -existent, so an infinite in being and perfection.
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And this is one reason, like I said, the 1689, I think, gets a little bit more superiority over the Westminister in this case, because what this is teaching for us is the theological term of aseity.
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Aseity is that God does not derive his power, his existence from anything else other than himself, right?
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It's not like God, in order to be full, created us, because that means that at one time he was lacking when we weren't around, right?
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And how dare us think that we can make God complete, right? That's not proper. Or it's not like saying that God had to have some god before him make time so that then therefore he could exist.
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No, God is the one and only God who exists outside of everything else, and he exists totally in and of himself, and that his being is infinite, and that he is perfect in his being as well, that there's no shifting shadow, right?
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And I think if my wife was here, I'd refer to her, but we get into the honeymoon phase of our marriage, right?
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But once we get out of our honeymoon phase, we start seeing, oh man, that really bugged me, or oh man, you didn't take the trash out, or oh man, for myself,
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I throw my socks on the ground all the time, right? I could only imagine that Emily, at some point, maybe it was the first week after our marriage, was like, ah, oh man, that really bugs me.
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Maybe, Jake, maybe it'll be a couple months for you when you throw your socks on the floor, right? Maybe.
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But there's a shifting shadow in us when we view things, right? There's this changing of who we are, how we're recognized.
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And so when we look at God, one thing that we'll look at in here is especially, I wanna talk especially about what it means when it says
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God is without passions, because that is something that is without changeable emotions, because that's something that gets attacked by a lot of cults and false religions, as for why creeds are not correct.
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His essence cannot be understood by anyone but himself. So truly all, so when it talks about essence, essence is the very being of a being, right?
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Which that isn't a very great definition of essence, but it's what everything that makes up who someone is or who a being is, is the essence.
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And so when we look at the essence of God, it cannot be understood by anyone but himself, but he is perfectly pure spirit, right?
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So that would be a testimony in scripture that Jesus says, God is spirit.
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We would see several times that he's referred to as being perfect and pure. He's invisible.
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What does invisible mean? That he, again, it says it for us here in a moment, he alone has immortality and dwelling in a light that no one can approach.
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When it says he's invisible, what that's trying to paint for us is, because in one sense you could think of Stephan when he's being stoned and he looks and he sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
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It doesn't say he ever sees the father or the actual being of the father because that would contradict what Jesus says when he says, no one has seen the father, no, not one.
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And no one can see him and live, right? There's these passages over and over again when Jesus says that. So Stephan didn't see the father in that sense, he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, which we talked about the right hand of God in the book of Hebrews very extensively, right?
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So when it's saying that he's invisible and has no body parts, no body is meaning that body physicality, visuality in that sense is part of creation and God is not part of creation because he is the creator, right?
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That he's different in those ways. What this is setting up for us is it's just setting us up to say,
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God is in a whole different class by himself that we just can't comprehend, right?
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That's what it's trying to set up for us. And so he has no body, no parts.
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What does that mean? No parts. How many of us have seen transformers in our life, right?
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The TV show transformers, right? And there's this big robot that's built up of parts and tires,
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Shepherd knows what I'm talking about, huh, buddy? There's transformers and they have a whole bunch of parts. How many tires are on your transformer character?
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There's five tires? I don't think so. I think there's four tires. Is there a spare tire? You have the
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B robot, that's right. But you think about that transformer, right? And it's made up of parts in order to make it a transformer.
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Yes, that's right, buddy. So we can't think of God as like, thank you, buddy.
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So we can't think of God like a building block thing that sets this up. And once we get to the 88th block of this tower, then that's who
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God is. That God is not a dividable being in those ways. So that's a really important part.
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That part of no body parts is actually something called divine simplicity in theology.
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It means that our God is simple. Now, we just expressed
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God is incomprehensible, right? So when it says that God is simple, it's not meaning that God is easy to understand.
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It's just saying that God is God. It's not like God is 20 % love and God is 20 % a creator and then
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God is 20 % immutable and then 5 % wrath. No, no, no, God is
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God. And he is existing in all those things at all times. He is simple in those ways.
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It's getting at the ontological makeup of who God is, that he's simple in that.
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It doesn't say simple in there. So when it's saying no body parts or changeable emotions, that is a theological term.
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Divine simplicity, it's the theological term that helps explain no body parts or passions.
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Sorry, I should have done a better job at explaining that. So changeable emotion. So if you look down at the footnote at the bottom, it says passions, right?
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No passions. This is something that I, so every time I talked with a educated
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Mormon missionary about something and I say how Joseph Smith said that, no, they're all those creeds.
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So speaking of the 1689 or the five solas that were saved by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone, according to scripture alone, for the glory of God alone, that was five solas, all those creeds.
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It says that Joseph Smith said that, or recorded for us that the father said to him that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight, right?
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And so I will refer to that to a Mormon missionary or somebody that believes in Mormonism and reference that and say, this is what
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I believe that there's one God that we've sinned against. And I give them the gospel and I say, how can my creeds that tell me that be an abomination in the eyes of the
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Lord? And they'll say, well, that's not the issues that we have if it's an educated Mormon. That's not the issues we have with creeds.
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It's about how God doesn't have changeable emotions and how could you think that God loves us?
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How do you think God, if he loves us, why would you say that God doesn't have emotions, right? That's not what this is trying to get out in here.
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I want you to think when this is being explained is think about the high school students that is in not just honeymoon phase of love, but is driven by sinful passion that urges and flows and dives.
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And when the breakup happens, you can almost imagine them growing and grabbing the weed killer to go spray mean things on their lawn with, right?
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Like it's their actions are driven by their passions. It almost sounded like that was a real story, right?
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It wasn't, I just, yeah. Anyway, so that is not how
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God acts. So when we think about who God is, is
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God love? Yeah, the Bible says so. Is God an all -consuming fire?
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Yeah, that's what the Bible says so. And it says that that's who God is, essence ontological wise.
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So when we can look at, this is something that's remarkable that we will understand so much better in a glorified state.
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But think about when you go before the judgment seat of Jesus and you're standing there, you're bowing however that prostrate admiration to his kingship would be.
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But thinking about that, is it not true that God and Jesus himself is all loving even when he's telling the person that is uncovered by the righteousness of Christ that's dead in their sins and has the filth of their works of their hands before the
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Lord, is not God still all loving when he says depart from me and he casts them into a lake of everlasting fire?
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Is God still all loving? Yeah, he is. Is God not still an all -consuming fire when he looks at any one of us in this room that has faith in Jesus Christ and undeservingly here enter into my kingdom that was prepared for you before the foundations of the world?
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Is not God still an all -consuming fire when he says those words to us?
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Well, yeah, he is. And so what this is teaching to us is that God isn't 20 % love and 80 % an all -consuming fire or he's not this amount of this and this amount of this, that our experiences of him might change depending on our status of relationship with him in that way, right?
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And it also would mean too along those lines that we can't hurt his character.
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So it's not like we can say something that is sinful to God and make it so God is no more loving, right?
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Because God is still loving even when we harm his character, even when we break his law.
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That's what this is getting at. It's not saying that God doesn't have emotion in the sense of we can't experience his love or his grace or his mercy.
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That's not what this is teaching. It's saying that God is not the high school student that on Thursday the boy was at 100 % love in his girlfriend's eyes and the next day he's at 5 % love and 95 % all -consuming fire, right?
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And the day before she had no consuming fire in her soul. That's what this is making up. So that's part of that divine simplicity, right?
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That God is made up of these different percentages or these different parts. So something
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I think is really interesting and important for us to notice, there's some really deep theological implications for all these things that I think help us worship
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God better. Because think about that for a moment. When we fail to worship God, is
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God still the same? Is still God worthy of worship? Is God still loving towards us?
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Is God still holding the center in condemnation even when we fail to worship him?
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Yeah, he is. That's the remarkableness when we understand this is that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and that he doesn't change based off of how
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I or how you or how we do anything towards him, that he is the same.
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That's divine simplicity is married directly to immutability, which immutability and divine simplicity are also tied directly to the aseity of God, that God is in a class by himself, that he exists in and above himself.
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But we are officially at eight o 'clock right now. We did not make it all the way through paragraph one. Was there any final words or thoughts or considerations on the part of paragraph one that we've gotten through so far?
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Incomprehensible, yeah. I was just thinking there are so many people think that God is just love and you don't need that.
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Incomprehensible, yeah. Incomprehensible, yeah, amen, amen to that, amen to that.
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I know it's a flippant, trivial thing, but the whole idea or the whole reality,
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I guess, of love is something that it's a, with humans, it's a state of feeling, emotions, you know, oh,
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I'm in love. Well, what you feel grows with your relationship.
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If you, if I say to you, I love you, well, I can't really say that with the same feeling that I could say that to my wife.
53:32
Yep. Love is something that we feel, it's an emotion, but it's something that, it's a relationship that grows with your experience and, you know, this, with our love of God, God expects us to be, as his son, well, that's pretty hard too.
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But with daily growth, with daily prayer and understanding, hopefully understanding, you grow and grow and grow and grow.
54:19
Yep, absolutely. I think that, to me, this idea of love, it's so simple, you know, a bridegroom, oh, well, that's love, it is.
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But over 50 years of marriage, it doesn't compare. Yeah, it doesn't even come close to comparing, right?
54:41
I would assume so, Carl and Patty, would you guys, not 50, no, I don't think that's what
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I'm saying, but you guys just being the most senior married people. You're about to feel the 20 % of all consuming fire.
54:58
It's uncompromising, I love it. Would anybody like to volunteer to pray us out? I appreciate everything that you guys have said.
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Shepherd, you want to pray us out? Okay, priest, can you come up here and pray? Come up here. Can you pray?
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Amen, can I pray too? Okay, Lord, we thank you for this evening and just this time to study you and just seeing kind of,
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Lord, just seeing the importance of your inspired word and what it has sufficiently revealed to us about who you are,
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Lord. God, I thank you just for just everyone that was involved with this tonight.
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I just pray that this would bless their lives, that it would bless our lives to walk a more dedicated life in honor and fear of you,
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Lord. And we just ask this in your name, amen. Well, thank you guys for Bible study.
55:54
Oh, do you want to pray too, Owen? Go ahead and pray, bud. Amen. Good job, buddy.