Zootown Podcast

#37 The God is Love Heresy

Zootown Podcast Season 2 Episode 37

Pastor Scott has a conversation with Brad Jersak, Baxter Kruger and Paul Young about Universal Reconciliation, Penal Substitution, and the Character of God, among other things.  Pastor Scott called this one a firehose of theology!

Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome to the zoo town podcast. We're glad that you're joining the conversation today. Thank you so much for being here. Uh, one of the reasons the zoo town podcast exists is to just promote healthy conversations, uh, among our staff, among our church in our city and ultimately, uh, the world, the world. So without further ado, here's the Sue Tom podcast.

Speaker 2:

What's up guys. This is Scott, and I'm actually going to be your only host today. Welcome to the zoo town podcast. And we have an amazing fire hose of theology today, as we bring on Brad juror, Zack, Paul Young and Baxter Kruger all on the same show. And one of the reasons we're doing this is, um, there is, um, a gentleman who's written a couple books calling Brad and Paul and Baxter, uh, heretics. And, um, we're not going to name his name cause we don't want any church fights and that's not what we're about, but we also want to be a church that has opened communication, um, and good dialogue just on these subjects. We pride ourselves and not being afraid of tackling these tough subjects. And so we just wanted to bring them on so they can talk personally about this. And again, there's the depth and richness of knowledge that comes from these guys in all their years of study and, um, is just worth its weight in gold. And so Brad juror, Zach, he is, um, uh, Greek Orthodox, uh, pastor and he wrote three books. He's written many more than that, but his, he wrote a trilogy called the more Christ-like. So it's a more Christlike God, a more Christlike way in a more Christ-like word. Um, Paul Young has obviously written, um, one of the best-selling Christian novels of all time called the shack. Uh, but he also re uh, wrote crossroads and the lies we believe about God and Baxter Kruger is a theologian from Mississippi, um, who has written the books, Patmos, the great dance and the shack revisited. And so, uh, we're just so looking forward to this conversation and I hope you enjoy it too. And again, if you have any questions or comments, um, please send an email to us and we'll try to do the best we can, but, uh, hopefully that this speaks for itself. So I do hope you enjoy this.

Speaker 3:

So thank you boys

Speaker 2:

For being here really appreciate it. Enjoyed the good banter before this. Um, and again, we got a lot of things to answer. So one thing, when I was talking to Jamie Winship, this was super funny. We asked him about theology and he goes, you know, I leave that up to Brad juror, Zach, I don't really know. So I actually appreciated that because it was kind of like, this is my lane and that's Brad's lane and we co-exist together. And so even in this podcast, um, you guys decide who you want to answer the question, cause you guys have been around each other enough and I've listened to tons of pipes.

Speaker 4:

We won't have any trouble differing. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So this is more, these are like, if I ask a specific one to one of you, cause you know, Paul, um, obviously that the book, the lies we believe about God was, uh, an important book to me, loved it. Um, but

Speaker 5:

Yeah, I thought the phone was brilliant,

Speaker 2:

But whoever wrote that was wonderful right there. So you don't have to read anything beyond that, actually. Yeah. So the first question that we get is, um, especially within our church, our church has a culture now that has totally open to talk about this stuff and it's been awesome. And obviously you guys have heard the story of just through pain and trial by fire, but, uh, when did like, we call them the heretic hunters, like when did the Herrick tick thing become such a thing in the church? Like you guys know church history, like when did that really pick up steam where it went from discussing things to burning people at the stake, you know, like, and why are Americans obsessed with finding heretics? That's kind of a two-part question. So where did that come from?

Speaker 6:

They crucified Jesus was there and killed the apostles except for Jonah, but the prophets before them. Yeah.

Speaker 7:

Heretic didn't mean what it means now, explain wasn't there an I'm going to defer a little bit because wasn't there a time in history where a heretic wasn't somebody who burned at the stake. It was somebody that you disagreed with a little bit.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I'll jump in there in the, uh, in the second century, for sure. There were already batches of literature going out called against the heretics or against heresy against heresy. And, and it really was like that it's it was, it was not just a pejorative. It was a you've made a mistake. And the most profound thing I think about the early church is that it was an in-house kind of a debate. And so even a heresy, like area aneurysm that taught the Jesus is not the eternal son that debate continued inside the church for over 100 years. What that tells me is those who thought of themselves as Orthodox warrants, kicking them out. They were an active debate trying to win them, um, Uranus, uh, the great apologist, his name means something like peacemaker. So he's trying to win them. He's trying to win people away from these mistakes. Uh, but then what ends up happening is that we get this narrative, that there was this heavy handed geology that kicked all these guys out. And when in reality, um, they were trying to work with them. And then the big first heresy then actually became those who would leave. They're like we're out of here. So those areas who would slam the door they're Marcy unites or whatever it was, it was them who was saying my way or the highway. And so the church is like, Hmm, but splitting the church, that's severed. That's like an amputation from the of Christ. That's worse than being an area. Oh, wow. So, um, I would just, that's the long version of what Paul said, you know, they saw these are mistakes and I think today a better word for it might be hetero docs means, you know? Um, and so someone like, even, let's say Richard Rohr at times has called himself a hetero docs Catholic. So he sees himself as inside, but he also sees himself as kind of, um, that he he's coloring outside the lines. Now, what does it make me want to kick him out? I couldn't anyway, you know, but that's, I think it's a kinder approach to it. They think Baxter. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Well, first and foremost, uh, before we jump in on the question of heresy, I think that we should say something about all the bugs and Nicea settled that and the fundamental, uh, um, the Nicene creed is that Jesus is the terminal beloved son of the father of the same being as the father and this relationship between the father, the son, the spirit is an indivisible oneness. So that's, that's your benchmark. Uh, therefore Jesus is the creator with the father and the spirit, uh, or the father and the holy spirit accompany Jesus all the way through his entire sojourn as a human being, uh, including God was in Christ as the apostle Paul points out or John or Jesus points out that hour's coming now is when, um, you will each for sake and leave me alone each go into your own home. But I am not alone for the father is with me a Metta in union with me. So for me and for orthodoxy, nice seen orthodoxy, uh, the benchmark, the non-negotiable is the individual, one of the father, son, the spirit. So if you agree to that, um, to me, which is historic Christianity, then that raises a number of questions really quickly. Uh, the whole penal substitutionary model of the tongue split splits a father, son apart, father turns his back and forsakes his son. This is an indivisible oneness and we just ripped it apart. And we're calling other people heretics. Well, we have violated, they felt to me the fundamental of all fundamentals, um, and that alone, um, in the same way that Calvinism, you have limited atonement, it's a flat out denial of the eternal divine son ship of Jesus. And by that, I mean, if Jesus is the son of God, as the apostles testify, if he are not here, but since he is the one in and through and buying for him, all things were created and are sustained. Then the son of God and the father in him and holy spirit in him has a relationship with the entire creation and every human being created in him. And so tutors write that off and throw it away. So you can maintain a view of a tongue is limited to whoever they think these are first order blasts me. So as far as I'm concerned, uh, I don't see my job as to run around pointing Hirsi card everywhere, but I tell you what, it's a very serious matter when you start ripping the father and son apart as if it's no big deal. It's the only source of stability in this cosmos and it will forever be. And that's our hope. So on that side, the first part of the church is, um, struggle was what, what do we make a Jesus? Who is he? And it took them about 32 and a half seconds, um, after the resurrection. So this is what we know, this is our non-negotiable, this, this person is God. And this person is the creator and sustainer of all things. This person was there in the beginning, face-to-face with the father before the creation of the world that we know, okay, now we've got to rethink everything we thought we knew. And that's the apostle Paul. And I think that's the boss, John. And so it's so ironic is that if the apostle Paul and John, or the ones who were evaluating header, uh, orthodoxy and heresy, I think we'd be, uh, the Western church had been boatloads of trouble. So the first two hurdles,

Speaker 2:

So who were, um, let me, they, Peter's obviously talking about somebody, you know, false prophets and Jude, I believe like, so who were they talking about then when they were sorting people?

Speaker 8:

Certainly in first, John, it was those who did not confess the full that Jesus was the Christ and the hoods come in the flesh. And so there was, there was doubts forming about the full humanity of Jesus or like for others, I suppose, you know, the certain fourth century they're working on, was he truly divine, but, uh, upfront in first, John, they they're, the false teachers were those who were calling into question and compromising the full humanity of Jesus Christ. And, and John's like, ah, that's a no-no. But again, he hadn't kicked them out it's they had left and they had sort of slammed the door behind them. And then they were calling the Joe hand-on community. The, you know, the, the, those who'd fallen in terror and John's like, hang on a second. Um, you have the spirit and the spirit has taught you this stuff that Jesus Christ is in the flesh. And these guys left you. Maybe they weren't even part of you too, but you don't have to worry about, so in John, in first, John, especially, he doesn't have these categories of which of the Christians are profits for him. It was like, there's the false profits. And then there's the Christians. So it's like, we're, we're all, we all have the spirit as our teacher. And this is what he's taught us.

Speaker 7:

And you have to keep in mind too, that we don't have a fully formed understanding. We still don't. But, but even the idea of the Trinity was going to take a few hundred years for them to come to some sense of what that meant. So you can't just close off the new Testament and say and say, oh, we've got it all. It's it doesn't work like that. It is so fluid and relational that there is a lot happening, um, to respond to part of your question too, is that, that because we've inherited, many of us have inherited a fear based understanding of the character and nature of God. Then we don't know how to look at a conversation without the fear component. When I wrote the shack, one of the greatest criticisms in a sense was from, it was an emotional one. And people literally would say to me, or they would write to me and say, I'm terrified to take the risk that God is this good and you're wrong. Right. And my response to that was, so you want this terrifying God that you cannot approach that is basically non-relational, that's what you want to end up with. And it was like, well, there's more certainty to a God who doesn't, who doesn't like me than there is to have God who actually loves me.

Speaker 2:

So terribly, no we're laughing, but that's so terrible. And we've all been in the

Speaker 6:

Goodness. You won't teach your children and grandchildren. We need to know, but I don't know what to think about you yet. Right?

Speaker 8:

She hints three. I mean, he just says, look at whatever you conceive about the love of God. I guarantee you this, it will be higher, wider, longer, and deeper than that. Yeah. The moment you think you've arrived at the love of God, uh, you're still, you're still underestimating it always. And so when you just even compare gospels, let's say the gospel of Calvinism I grew up with, for example, and then the gospel of why I would call it night scene orthodoxy today. All I have to do to test them and weigh them is to say, okay, first of all, which, which one holds up Christ as the higher, wider, longer and deeper love of God. Oh, okay. But, but even then I'm guaranteed that I'm under selling it. And so I never need to worry that I'm overselling it or exaggerating what has come to be called the God is love heresy. Goodness, me, sign me up

Speaker 7:

Right. To quote George McDonald's good souls. Many will one day be horrified at what they now believe of God. Yeah. That's me. So

Speaker 2:

Why did, uh, why did Americans, because I guess, I don't know if it's the rest of the world you guys know better than me, but why, why are Americans so hell bent to pun intended to keep this heresy hunting and constantly be pointing out other people's crap? Like what happened?

Speaker 6:

Let me speak to that just quickly. Um, Paul and I have had the privilege of traveling around the country and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and Mexico. And I can't remember wherever we being bald. Um, and I rarely saw any controversy. I saw hundreds of thousands of people in tears. Um, and that's the way it's man. So you're when you said, and this is important. And you said, why are Americans that that's talking about your horizons? Because the people that are calling the Shaq Harris, you are me or whatever. I mean, that's a very small group of people. It's not the majority. Uh, there are 350 million Orthodox Christians. There's over 1 billion Roman Catholic Christians. And there are how many north American evangelicals fundamentally. Yeah. So w wait, wait, wait, wait. It's 300 million Americans who no, I don't. I don't think that America is at all. I think in certain pockets, yes. I happen to live in one of those. Um, but even here, amazing conversations are happening. So I'm not going to grant the, and I'm not, I'm not picking at you, Scott. I'm just, no, I know I'm not putting into the framework there. Uh, I am thrilled. I am. I mean, right this moment, I have more pastors, uh, calling me, uh, OMA classes, online classes, and willing me to come and speak senior, senior pastors. Uh, it's a different day. Now. I would dare say that 15 years ago. Uh, they would have been calling Paul Young, a heretic, but things have changed. And it's a lot more of those people than there is the other group.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And we feel that too here. I mean, it's happening there's this is a movement. And of course the naysayers then say, well, that's the great falling away before the end times. I mean, that's what I hear over and over. And we have that in here. A question on that. So we'll, we'll dive into that in a minute, but, um, to me, after reading some of these books and hearing people's views of you guys, um, in which I always stick up for you guys, because it's a good company, um, it, this usually comes down to universal reconciliation. That's usually what this comes down to, um, that everyone might get in. And so I really want to spend some time in that. Um, even if you guys are tired of talking about it, um, but I want to start just a quick story. And this actually, this is something I mentioned to Brad, um, over DM on Instagram, but I did a, I did a funeral a few weeks ago, uh, about a month ago now of a man from my church whom I loved dearly. And he, um, he played football for the Montana Grizzlies and his nickname was spike because he led with his head and it gave him it. He people let me, we just know he had, um, that brain injury from it, great guy. His life just took a dramatic turn for the worse and he committed suicide. And, um, so I had to address this. I mean, there was all these football players, all kinds of stuff. Anyways, I led with the love of God. And I just, I said that this man was sick and the brain is a part of the body. And I just preached the victory of Jesus Christ. Afterwards this 80 some year old lady kind of comes up to me and she pulls her glasses down and she goes, you sound Greek Orthodox. And I just, I was kind of, my wife was standing next to me and she loved it. And she goes, thank you for sharing the love of our father. And she says, and she goes, it encourages me so much that a church, your size, and with young people are preaching the love of God. And she goes, the difference is, is that evangelicals worry about the fear in the shame? And she goes, we Orthodox, we celebrate the victory of Christ. And she goes, where did you learn this? And I said, well, I I've been kinda mentored by a guy named Brad Jersey. And she goes, oh, he loved Brad jerseys. So that was giving, I mean, that's interesting that like this, this is further than we think, you know? Um, but this is a part of it, the Orthodox tradition. And I ended up meeting with the Greek Orthodox priest here in town. And I just asked him is universal reconciliation, heresy. I'm being called a heretic, is this heresy. And he just laughs. And he goes, well, I guess we'd have to throw out all of the early church fathers. And he hands me a book on Greek orthodoxy with Gregory of Nyssa and all those guys. So I say that story because there is good, just open dialogue happening right now. But, um, when did this become heresy? Because that's a huge, that's a huge, huge drawing line for people because, uh, there's certain gentleman that's coming into town. He said that it started with origin. Origin was the beginning of the heresy and then Gregory of Nyssa. And then finally origin was branded a heretic. And that was the, it, it was over for universal reconciliation. So I guess the theologians, when, when did universal reconciliation become a heresy? Yeah. When Jesus

Speaker 8:

Said, if I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself and then they martyred them. So it wasn't all man. Right. Um, and so, you know, I, I think, you know, we wouldn't call ourselves. I think none of us three would call ourselves Universalists, uh, because pop universalism doesn't seem to give to, to, to say it strongly enough in terms of the problem of human sin, the necessity of the incarnation, the centrality of the cross, the, uh, forthcoming judgment and the necessity of a free and willing response to the good news of Jesus. All three of us, I think, believe that we also believe that the new Testament foresees and foretells everyone making that free and willing response then that when, when we see Christ face to face, but, but it has to be a free and willing response. It can't be this kind of determinist thing. So we might nuance that a little differently, but at the end of the day, um, this I can, I think I found 32 passages, um, in the new Testament that foresee that outcome without skipping the incarnation, the cross, the judgment and the response. It includes that completely then. Um, on the other side of that, you see this in the second century, the third century, the fourth century, fifth century up, not just by a controversial person like Origen, but by Gregory NAISA, who's the father of the fathers, the flower of Orthodox, she then the final editor of the nice scene creed. So they composed it in such a way that you could be a Universalist or an internalist because it wasn't a dogma. There is no dogma of ultimate redemption or eternal conscious torment. So to impose any belief, even mine as, as a doctrine is a violation of the creed. So it's not until, um, it's not until 300 years after origin that a certain version of origin ism is condemn, but it wasn't even his, his beliefs about, about the afterlife that are condemned. It was more to do with the preexistence of souls and stuff like, so, so this sort of a modernist read back into history as if somehow this was condemned, it just didn't happen. Um, and, and I think now there's so many people doing their homework on this, that it won't be long until maybe we do call eternal conscious torment, a heresy because it fails the, the criteria of the goodness of God in Christ. We'll see maybe a hundred years, 200 years.

Speaker 2:

Well, so for you specifically, Paul, um, it seems like everyone loved the shack. Like, I mean, you spoke at a church up the road, you know, and then all of a sudden when you started talking about God's love being bigger and ultimate reconciliation, there was this turn and how one, just, what do you think of that? And what's, what's been your response and what led you to that? What led you to that? Those are my people, there is a kind of a

Speaker 7:

Need for certainty, right? And, and where you don't have to actually encounter a relationship with Jesus as much as you talk about it. And it's, uh, and that's where a lot of doctrinal dogma comes to play. It's like, if you believe the right thing, that is a relationship, you know, my wife doesn't think that's true. And so there's part of that. And I, and I, when, when I wrote the shack and you have this big sweeping wave come through, it started to impact people in unexpected ways. All of a sudden people were giving themselves permission to have an encounter with Jesus. Like face-to-face one-on-one. And, and that began to take some of the frame of reference institutionally, et cetera. And, um, so by the time lies, we believe came out that the response of, of, of some of my people was he wrote nonfiction. He's finally not hiding behind his fiction, you know, that kind of thing. And, um, which is fine with me. You know, I want this to be part of a conversation. I'm not afraid of this conversation and, and there's terms that are being bandied about universal reconciliation, ultimate redemption, all of those kinds of words, universalism. And a lot of times they're not defined very well. We, we don't even talk about it. One of the questions that doesn't get talked about was who is included in what Jesus did, um, is salvation universal. And I think that's really an important question because all the writers of the new Testament and the early church, um, would w they just assumed that all of humanity was included in the finished work of Jesus, that, that he assumed everything, including our experience of death, including our delusion of separation, that we are all in him. And what happens to him happens to all when he died, when he died, we died. When he rose, we rose, when he ascends, we ascend, whether we pray the sinner's prayer or not, we're included in that. Now the outworking of that, because I think my people, one of their fears is, so it doesn't matter what you do.

Speaker 4:

You know, you can, you can do whatever you

Speaker 7:

Want. And, and if you want to read somebody brilliant about this, read George MacDonald in terms of creation and Christ unspoken sermons. And we generally recommend the role in high, in addition, because it's easier for our English to comprehend. And, uh, but for George MacDonald, he writes some of the most blistering chapters on God is a consuming fire. You think you can hold onto one bit of darkness and be comfortable inside the presence of absolute love and light and truth. And, and his point is that God will deal with everything that is in you. That is not of Love's kind. And you can deal with as much of it as you are able to pre-mortem before you experience physical death, but you are going to deal with it and you are going to, and how that works out. We don't know exactly, but you're going to have to deal with all the damage that you've done. You're going to have to face it. Um, wood, hay and stubble is going to be burned away, not by some excruciating torture chamber, but by the very love of God, who is a consuming fire, that is not, he doesn't just want to heal you. He wants to destroy anything that is in you. That is not of love is kind. And that needs to be clear in terms of our conversation about this. Yeah, this is not some easy believism and some grace filled pass. You know, this is about a God who is pursuing, pursuing you with the intention of destroying anything that is not of the very same nature as a God who is only love and everything that God is, is an expression of love. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Great intro to the questions I got from my dear friend. Um, he says if, if universal reconciliation is true, that just seems like good news to unbelievers because they they'll just keep on sinning knowing they're going to get in. Anyways. What are your guys' thoughts on that? And I'm sure you've heard that with

Speaker 7:

Unbelievers who call themselves Christian.

Speaker 8:

I'm sorry. Can you say that again? It okay.

Speaker 7:

That would include, that would include unbelievers who call themselves

Speaker 4:

Christians. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I just don't know anyone actually believes or teaches that it's a, it's a straw man argument. And, and so we would, what you've just like via Paul from George McDonald, also Gregory of Nyssa, you don't get away with anything. Nobody does. We, Jesus said you will all be salted with fire. And, but then he says, but salt is good. So make sure you have salt in yourself. In other words, he internalizes the fiery judgment and he also makes it personal purposeful. You can begin this process now if you're willing, but we will. Uh, Paul says, we're all going to pass through the, you know, would hire and fire wouldn't hand stubble will be consumed in the fire believers and unbelievers the Christians and non-Christians category errors all around. And so, so, um, oh, don't worry. You'll go to hell if that's the worry. Um, but also it's not your worry, whether someone else's, so this is a funny word. So keep your mind in hell, but despair. Not in other words, if you're going to think about the fiery judgment that consumes everything in you, that's not love, you will definitely go there. I'm going to be there, but I'm not sure if Scott and Paul and Baxter will be, I'm just sure I will be. And that it's good. And, and so, uh, w I dunno, it feels like there's a worry that people will experience grace or something. And that's where I love the epistle of James. Oh, by the way, there's judgment, but mercy triumphs over jokes. So what gets the last word? Right. I don't know if I've said it in a way that would satisfy the other guys, but that's kind of, I'm, I'm pretty convinced about, um, the reality of judgment. Oh yeah. George McDonald, I think is exactly on, on base here. And that's why you can have hope for everyone that it's, it's a cleansing

Speaker 7:

And the fire is the very nature of God. And if, if you've got wood hand stumble in your life, I mean, just think about this. How hard is it to face the damage that you've done to others? I mean, really face it, and we're not facing it in any kind of a totality, any kind of, a sense of totality, but even when you betrayed somebody and you have to deal with the fallout and how, how hard that is. Well, that's only a sense of when you begin to understand how much your choices have rippled into the cosmos and hurt those who you even considered, those you love, you know, I don't know how that works out. What if Hitler, for example, has to actually face every family that he has harmed every relationship that he has hurt. Every separation that he has, she has expected in the lives of people. Right. And, and, and walk through the process of reconciliation. Every single of those people you want to, you want to wait and do that. You wanna, you know, deal with that when you fully comprehend, or would you want to start experience that process now and deal with it now, because

Speaker 2:

Mr. You're saying that it's so easy to say, yeah, Hitler's the worst. But when you're saying that I'm thinking crap, I don't, I'm not looking forward to me doing that. Like, it sucks for Hitler, but I'm not Hitler. It's gonna suck for me. Like that sucks. So I'd rather do it now, pastors and

Speaker 6:

Theologians and church leader. How many people having a little boys and little girls have we destroyed because of what we thought through about God, the father, and about the fall. So in relation to being ripped apart on the crop, but I mean, you know, judgment begins with the house. All the fake, no one gets away with anything. We're all gonna be brought to the light in the light and live in it. Otherwise. Uh, and this, this to me is a sort of insanity of, of modern evangelicalism. You know, you, you say the prayer and you get a pass to go to happen, but that's not even dealing with the issue. It's what are you going to do when you get there? You're scared to death of God, and you're not facing your own issues. You're not even facing the stuff that's happened to you or that you've done. You think you'd be in that, that can be a form of fail. You're going to spend all your time hiding from the father, son and spirit because they're light and the light burns darkness. So that's why a careful study of the concept of adoption biblical the biblical scope of it is not only the sense of being included from the found that in the world and the heart of the father, the son, the spirit, it is also the concept of prospect concept. And that is that we will not only, we have been embraced by God, the father almighty in his son with Everlast bear hug and in the holy spirit, we're going to be granted where we want a big that's, where we will be, and we're not going to be ashamed of ourselves. We're going to be able to look the father in the face, through the eyes of Jesus and not be ashamed of ourselves. Only the father is not satisfied with anything less than that. So the concept of adoption include a purification

Speaker 2:

Interesting thing. Like this was an odd statement to make that same man who wrote that book that we're talking about. He wrote another book called exposing universalism. Obviously he brought up your name again, but he, in that book, he said that like, people who haven't heard the gospel get special grace, like, you know, th they get, and, um, I remember thinking then the hell would I want to share the gospel? Why would I want to share the gospel with somebody? Or why would I want to hear the gospel? I mean, what are you guys' thoughts on that? The old, all the alternative special grace

Speaker 8:

Theory. Yeah. There's a S there's a story about that. Uh, from when, uh, one of the missionaries went up to speak to the Inuits people, or what you call the Eskimos and the, they ask about setting asked exactly that it's like, wait a minute. If you hadn't told me, I'd be okay. Now you've told me. And now my, now my soul is in jeopardy because you told me, why did you tell me? You know? And, and I do believe in special grace, that is that, um, it was be unjust for God to condemn anyone to eternity in hell who understood what the gospel was all about and how good Jesus actually is. Um, as I counted, that would be everybody on the planet because nobody resists the good news of Jesus and the father's love if they fully understand. So, so there's a perception problem. And so Maximus, the confessor will say, this is why you need a final judgment. So we can see Jesus face to face so that all of our attachments in this world, the deceptions of the world of flesh and the devil that caused us to say no to the best thing happening, those are removed. You get to see Jesus now with your own eyes. And every eye will see him. At that point. I do expect there'll be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for how we spent our lives. When it could have been so much more about flourishing, right? And then he will wipe every tear from their eyes, you know? So I, I, I kind of see a special grace there that is fulfilled for all people. The final judgment, where we get to make, what I call it, freed will decision where our will has been freed from those deceptions. And we find, but it's like, it's not just the Eskimos or the people with down syndrome who didn't get it. It's everybody who says, no, obviously did not get it. Um, unless God's not as good as I thought. Does that make sense? My own track sensitive. I

Speaker 2:

Mean, that kind of, that's the followup question that I got from my friend was, um, ultimate reconciliation is always say that, um, God's main attribute is love, which minimizes or negates God's justice or wrath. So, um, like for instance, how do you explain Sodom and Gomorrah or the floods or the judgements and stuff like that? How do you guys reconcile? God is love with also his justice. Like what, what is, what is your view of what God's justice is? That's important. I think

Speaker 6:

Before we get to that part of the question, the love of God is not an attribute. Exactly. It's nature, it's being,

Speaker 8:

So there's only one nature, right? Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 6:

And so that's a failure of, of, um, of the Western church to understand the significance of the Trinity. Because if you start with the Trinity, if you start with the nice seen creed, you have the relationship with the father, son, and spirit before creation and everything that the father, son, and spirit think everything that they do every way that they react is rooted in their relationship, which is a holy love, which is other centered self giving, sacrificing love everything. There is no thought of God that does not originate in that fellowship, in that law. So that's the first thing has to be put on the table before you can ask some of these other questions, because I was taught, then on this side, you've got holiness, righteousness, justice, wrath, this side, you have love grace and mercy. And it's almost like God, father doesn't know which one of those sets is going to be, uh, in control or are relating to you. That's the wrong framework. You start with father, son, and spirit, the love of the father, son, and spirit, the love of the father or the son, the mutual, a fellowship in love. Now you talk about justice. Now you talk about wrath.'cause the wrath of God is not the opposite of his love. The wrath of God is I am opposed, passionately determined, opposed to, to your destruction, not on my watch. I didn't create you to perish. So there is an opposition that is fiery, uh, to our destruction. Uh, that's the wrath of God. And even when you look that way, the holiness of God is not some abstract. Um, legal code sort of sits above and evaluates the father, the son, the spirit, the holiness of God is about there's nothing like their life. It is it's in a class by itself. It is utterly unique. It is holy love is holy fellowship. And, and so you don't have these attributes that are spread out, and then we've got to figure out how to reconcile them. They're all different ways of talking about the love of the father, son, and spirit. That if you don't start with the Trinity Augustan Western church, if you start with God, okay, what's the deepest truth about God's being now, we're talking about that, that deity, this, what is this for Augusta? And it was his sovereignty for the rest of the west. Uh, not directly, uh, uh, through Calvinism for the rest of the west. It was the holiness of God. And now the holiness of God is being defined, not relationally in terms of the Trinity, but somewhere, where are we getting this notion of holding this? Isaiah said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. So these, these are things that have to be put on the tape of where you can have an intelligent conversation about any of the so-called attributes of God. Um, and so I think that's fundamental. Um, the holiness of the, the love of God expresses itself in an infinite variety of ways. And as we focus on certain aspects of that expression, um, the wrath of God, for example, I think the purest expression of the wrath of God is the incarnation. That's the father, son's Pearson, not on my watch. I'm going in, I'm going to the bottom. And Papa says, I've got your back. Jesus. You know that you're going to the place. If you go onto the bottom where you won't be able to see me, but you know who I am and you know, you can trust me. And the holy spirit said, well, I'm not standing around holding a box of Kleenex I'm going into. And so what we're going to do is we're going to enter into human darkness with our fire opposition, to their destruction. And we're going to transform human darkness. We're going to transform a posse in their rejection of Jesus and their murder of Jesus. We're going to transform that into the new covenant where we create, we recreate the union within which the creation was called into being. And so it is a fiery, passionate submission of God to us in order to meet us where we are so that he can begin to have a real Mindshare heart shared spirit share with us inside our delusion. So I, in no way, uh, undermine any of the attributes, I just don't list them like a good Greek in two columns and never meet. No, we start with Trinity, not with God. We start with God as father, son, spirit as love. Now we look at all the names and all the attributes of God. It begins to make perfect sense. It's just, it's, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2:

And we're going to talk on penal substitution here in a minute. Um, I'd love to hear from Brad and Paul. Yeah. I want to hear Brad and Paul, what's your view of God's justice and wrath and specifically, cause they always bring up Sodom and Gomorrah and the flood. So like what are your views of justice and stuff going with that? So,

Speaker 8:

Yeah, just to distill, uh, what Baxter said in my language very briefly is, is because God only has one nature and that is love. Think of that as a diamond, every attribute of God must and can only be a facet of that diamond. So it's always, holy love, righteous love, just love never as over against. And so then you have fast, what is the holiness, righteousness, justice, and wrath that is not love. That's the Pharisees who crucified the son of God. Whenever you begin to set us to set righteousness, holiness, justice, and wrath over against the infinite love of God, you will not only then, uh, create God of the Pharisees, but you will become his agents. And that's where some of the heresy hunting comes from, by the way, we're going to be the agents of that wrath now, um, then that means we have to come back and, and we, we are not welcome to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah or the story of the flood without reference to Jesus. And so you, you've got the new Testament authors saying, we won't even talk about that unless, unless we understand what Christ has done in his incarnation. And so what that means is then going back, let's say to the flood narrative, and then in the flood narrative, we see the recreation of the world as a place that can be inherited habited by humans. Before we go extinct in Genesis six, it says, God, God looked at the world and he saw that it was ruined. And he says, what ruined it and ruined it means not habitable. And it was ruined by human violence. And so the flood story, unlike all the other religions are flood stories about a loving God who recreates the earth and invites human kind to come along with them. And only one family's welding Lilly. So, I mean, that would be an example of, so where is Christ in that story? He's the one redeeming the earth before humankind can go from non being right or Sodom and Gomorrah. Um, Paul will pick up stories like that in the first paragraph of first Corinthians chapter 10. And he says a lot of these stories are they're they're cautionary tales about, about how self-destructive we are. And he does not read Sodom and Gomorrah as God's striking down anyone. This is God's consent to, um, to the self-destruction destructive consequences of sin. So that, so that will cry out to him for mercy. But I mean, those are, it takes a lot longer to walk through those in a Christian way, but certainly, um, you, you see that happening? Oh, I've written a book about it, like word. Yeah. Um, it's, it's, it's well worth saying though that whatever we believe the old Testament to be talking about, we have not arrived at truth until we've read it in terms of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, as, or as a trajectory towards redemption. And that even wrath is now seen in the new Testament as a metaphor for God, giving us over to the consequences of our own actions, which is exactly like para I just talked to parents of an addict yesterday and for them, what does love look like? Their son has to bottom out. They, they cannot live in codependency with him. He has to face where this path leads them until he surrenders to the care of a loving God. That's wrath, the wrath of loving parents, you know, but it's love. So I'm just struck by still expect by back through Baxter's statement that the incarnation is the clearest revelation of the wrath of God. That's so beautiful.

Speaker 4:

Bastard

Speaker 7:

Baxter. Um, uh, that was so beautiful and, and Bradley has written a book that just came out called a more Christ-like word in

Speaker 2:

All your guys' books at the beginning of this. Oh my gosh,

Speaker 7:

This is so important because he, by really looking at scripture, particularly what we call the old Testament through the lens of Jesus, talking on the Emilio's road with two disciples and helping them see where Jesus is throughout the educational process of centuries. Right. But you have to remember that Abraham he's, he doesn't know anything. I mean, he's, he's an array of the Kaldi's and, and, you know, he puts one foot into B. If you look at this whole educational process from a to Z, he puts one foot in to B because he can hear somebody talking to him and nobody else can. And so he leaves his place, but he doesn't know anything he's rooted in a sacrificial system that we ultimately find out through the prophets that God hates God didn't Institute a sacrificial system. It came from the destruction of how humans relate to each other all the way back to Cain and Abel. And, and again, there is an educational process here that is not even good enough that those who are trained in religion, what grasp it. Yeah. They're surrounded by Jesus and can't see them. Right. And so unless you have Jesus, you don't understand and Jesus through throughout scripture unveils himself so that we might see him. And, and let me just talk a minute for the justice piece. A lot of the way that we look at God as a judge. And it's so interesting in the gospel of John, in a sense, God abdicates the role of a judge. I've given all judgment into the hands of the son and at the, at another place in John, Jesus says, I don't judge anyone. No one. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, what's going here while there's a whole bunch of different words for judgment. And that's one thing that has to be talked about, but the model that we've inherited, that my people have inherited. Um, and I need to say that the gentleman that we were kind of alluding to, he's my brother and Jesus, and I know that he loves Jesus. And I know that Jesus loves him and we're intended to be in a relationship of love for all eternity. And I just, I just want to make that clear. He's not my enemy. My enemy is anything that would interfere with relational intimacy between him and I, anything that is not a part of covenant. And I want that to be absolutely clear. You will not hear from me anything derogatory about my brother. All right. And, uh, but what we inherited in the west was a forensic model of judgment and justice. And so we see it in terms of a courtroom. And this has a huge effect on how we look at things. Calvin was a lawyer. Luther was a lawyer, Augustan was a lawyer. And so they transferred our idea of judge judgment and justice into a courtroom model. And here's, what's in a lot of things interesting about that model. But for one thing, God, the father is under the jurisdiction of the law in that model. So you've got God, the father who sits behind the judgment podium. And even if he loves you, he's still under the law. And so he's got to punish you according to the law, which means that the law actually is God, because the law is greater than God. Now that's a problem. The other problem is you walk in and you're already guilty. I mean, everybody's going to agree that you're guilty. I mean, the whole cosmos knows that you're guilty. And so the judgment in that scene is eternal conscious torment. And it's like, okay, you're guilty. But there is this lawyer who depends attorney who comes to you and says, all right, there is a way out of this. And, and I'm going to take your punishment. I'm going to go to the judge and take your punishment as long as you pay me. Right. And how do you pay Jesus? You pray the sinner's prayer, which doesn't exist in scripture, but that's, you know, who cares, but, but you pay them through the center's prayer. And then he goes to the judge and he says, I have a solution. I know you love this person. I know you're under the law and you have to punish this person, but I'm going to take their place and experience the judgment. So that justice will be met the justice according to the law. And the judge goes, oh, thank God. We have a way out. You know? And, um, and so supposedly Jesus takes your punishment. He doesn't actually take your punishment because he doesn't experience eternal, conscious torment, which is a problem. Because if the eternal conscious torment is the judgment, then Jesus should be experiencing eternal, conscious torment for all of us. Right. But he does it. What does he do? He goes to the place of the dead and he destroys it. Saturday is not a quiet day. Not in the life of Jesus. He goes, has this huge celebration, destroys death and the power of death and leads, captivity captive. And it's just as Rawkus crazy day. Right. And so, so he doesn't, he doesn't experience the judgment according to the law and all kinds of problems with this, right? Well, the early church didn't see God as a judge behind the podium, under the law, they saw God as a judge, but their model was a doctor in a hospital. Right. And so who, whose motto is, do no harm. Right? And so suddenly the whole landscape's changed. Why would you go see a doctor? I go see the doctor so that he can judge me, that he can tell me that my arm is broken, or I have some kind of a growth in my liver or, uh, you know, I want him to judge me. And once he has judged me, I want him to prescribe a judgment. And what would that be? Well, we're going to have to have an operation. We're going to have to cut a piece out of you. We're going to have to put a cast on your arm. We're going to have to, we're going to, we need to do something. What is the intention of that judgment that I be restored to life? That's the intention of that judgment. See, that's an entirely different landscape and which the love of God is maintained. Yeah, you're sick. And this is McDonald. Again, if you trust the goodness of God, you will run to this God with your arms wide open and say, please come and judge me to the core and burn out of me. Everything that keeps me from being fully human and fully alive, right? Like that's a judge that I know I can run to, but we've created this forensic model and that judge, you don't want to go to that judge because all he's going to do is condemn you. And all he's going to do is tell you you're guilty. And, and it will be shame and fear, fear to go face the judge shame when he pronounces judgment. But I have a judge who is a great physician and I will run to him because I trust his goodness and his love for me and his wrath is not against me. It's against everything in me that keeps me from being fully human and fully alive. Bring on the fiery fury of God, because I know he loves me and his love will be evident in the destruction of everything in me that keeps me from being fully alive and, and, and will enable me in that fire to open my arms wide to the goodness who is God, who loves me without condition. I want all the conditions in me to be destroyed. And this is the love of a God. And this is the justice of God.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That's mic drop.

Speaker 6:

Sorry, go ahead. With what Paul just said, uh, quite amazingly, uh, quote from math, tenacious, um, the God of all is good and supremely noble by nature. Therefore he is the lover of the human race and that that's your brother who defined Orthodox you're right there. Um, I think that that piece of goodness with justice has to be together because as I, as I see it in, in my opinion, um, a good deal of the American church does not believe that God is good. Maybe sometimes. So he's not good to all, especially if you encounter aneurysm. So you can't really on that framework say, God is good. So what Paul is saying is that God is good. And therefore he's not only the lover of the human race. He's the judge here of the human race. The father will never abide by, uh, another McDonald quote or run it through Mississippi, but he's never going to abide us running around in the heaven with a little Satan in our back pocket, because not because of him, it's because he knows that we won't be able to be present and we're not going to be able to participate in the love and the light, the God of all is good, not on Monday and Tuesday, and then goes back to being what he really is on Wednesday. What is he really now see? No, he is good. And when you know that God is good and his judgments are good. Now you're beginning to be a biblical in your understanding of judgment. If you, if you paying attention in the old Testament, the judgment of God, let the whole book of judges judgment is virtually a synonym for salvation that doesn't have any place in the framework that Paul's was pointing out where you've completed law and legalities. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

I have to make a confession in, uh, in about 1989. I actually wrote and directed a play exactly. As Paul described it, having defended penal substitution was who I am a thesis. I was so clever. I just needed to get that message of the courtroom out there. And, uh, it was very well received by a few people.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 6:

Interesting thing thing about, about that view of the cross is that there is no forgiveness in that model. God, yeah, God, doesn't forgive us in that model. If you buy into that definition of justice, then he pours out his wrath and his rage on Jesus. And so he's not angry with us anymore. That's just a transparent, it's a transference, it's not forgiveness and forgiveness at a whole different level back to the, the double, uh, nuance of salvation, which is a cleansing, a retrospective cleansing and a prospect of X saltation and healing. So that the forgiveness of God is not satisfied until it is received by us in our brokenness and in our simple delusion. And we are then lifted by Jesus's, uh, lifted by Jesus. And so we can see the father's face through Jesus's eyes. Now forgiveness is, has found its mark and it's borne its fruit. And the Lord is not satisfied with anything less than that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And that's where we're going to get into the lies, believe about God. And in the penal substitution part that Paul, you kind of talked about the Abraham story and Isaac, um, that was just gold, really opened my eyes. And I I've, I preach penal substitution for years. Like you Brad. And, uh, on there, I forget when Baxter said to me, if you were, have you repented of all that you were preaching yet, his words, not mine. Uh, but the more you think about it, it just doesn't, it didn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense in a way, because, and the thing about it was when I would hear people say, well, you know, God took out his wrath on his son, um, that still didn't sound like great news to me. Um, but those same people are against universalism. And does that make sense? So it's kind of like it says God's wrath was satisfied. Jesus. Well, was it or wasn't it? So let's so even if penal substitution is true, is it satisfied or not?

Speaker 6:

Like, why are we talking about

Speaker 5:

Some reserves

Speaker 6:

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, you got to think he's a Calvinist. He believes that there's the leg to none elect. He believes that for the elect, the wrath of God has satisfied in Jesus 2000 years ago. So why is he bringing up breath now? It doesn't make sense. So is he trying to convert the, the non elect or is he talking to the, LinkedIn's just lying to, I mean, this is the conundrum that would be that we're handed in most of our American churches either it's finished or it's not, I've said that to people all the time.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, does he have like a reserve tank of RAF that he's just holding onto? Cause then Jesus didn't actually accomplish what you're saying he did, but Brad, what was, and then DePaul, Brad, what was your conversion? So to speak from penal substitution and you as well, Paul, or maybe Paul, you never believed in it. And I don't know.

Speaker 4:

I did. I grew up. Okay.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. My conversion was, it was kind of fold. So having received my degree and my cleverness and all of that, I proceeded into pastoring and we began to run into a lot of very broken people. And, and, and in terms of pastoral care, we had to learn the, sort of the realm of the inner healing work and how God would work with them. And meanwhile, I was also, uh, developing a life of contemplative prayer and where I'm listening to God. And so I'm starting to notice things in terms of, um, uh, you know, how God treated people and how he was addressing sin and brokenness and healing. And so that was creating a new environment for my experience of God. And I, I, I had, uh, I had a change of heart one day that ended up causing me to pursue a change of mind. And that is, as I was in prayer, I thought came to me an intrusive thought that would require me to renounce my entire master's degree, uh, in terms of the content and the theology of my thesis, which by the way, was a 180 page defense of penal substitution. The one thought that came was, it sounded like this stop telling people I was punishing my son. That's not what was happening. Well, I'm not going to change my doctrine over a thought, but I will go back to the Bible and I'll start writing a lot of emails to people from across the body of Christ, looking for alternatives and saying, here's my experience. How do you see it? And so Catholics Orthodox, Anabaptists, liberals, conservatives, um, uh, yeah, vineyard people, you name it. Um, Richard Rohr, Rowan Williams, Miroslav volt, NT Wright. I I'm checking in with them. And they're like, no, you're correct. There is alternative ways to see the cross that have nothing to do with God punishing his son and your place. Um, and, and, and then I would go back to all the scriptures that had been the foundations of, of my thesis, Psalm 22, right. Verse one, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Verse 24. He did not turn his face away from me or Isaiah 53. I thought, well, see, it's there's, there's the penal substitution, Isaiah 53. Well, wait a minute. It says, you will think that he was stricken by God, but, but he wasn't, it was your sins that actually crucified him.

Speaker 2:

Well, and in the Septuagint, it says, it says something different to you, right?

Speaker 8:

Yeah. In the Septuagint later in the chapter in a lot of English Bibles where it says it pleased the Lord to crush him, which is just a ridiculous thing. It pleased the Lord to crutch the suffering servant. We, I would hope we know better than that, but in the Septuagint, which is the primary Bible that was used by the apostles and quoted in the new Testament, they translated it, pleased the Lord to heal him. I'm like, how did we go from heel to crush? Well, we went through some courtroom, right where God is under the law, or he's not satisfied for sin through forgiveness. Paul's exactly right there. It, I preach this to Kay, circa 19 89, 19 90. I actually said from the pulpit, God, doesn't actually forgive your sins. He must punish them. He, um, he can either punish them in you in eternal, conscious torment, breaking and punish them in Jesus on the cross. Now you pick isn't it good news that you can pick him. I'm so sorry. Um, that farms people, that trauma, what does it do to the image of the father? Can someone who's been molested as a child run into such a father and that's why as a pastor, we found out, no, they couldn't, but they could run through the God revealed in Jesus. And then I had to deal with that. I was worshiping the wrong God, you know, for the wrong image, at least. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Paul, you did a great job in lies. We believe about God with the Abraham Isaac story. Cause that's been taken is that God needs a sacrifice, a child, like I guess not a child sacrifice there, but later on we find out he did need a child sacrifice. So what is your view like from that book? Like what was your shift and also what do you think was going on in the old Testament then like with those sacrifices? Sure.

Speaker 7:

So sacrifice just means that somebody got to pay, you know, and better you than me. And, uh, and so it's very vengeance oriented and, you know, we know even in the Hebrew scriptures that God does not take away life, that second, Samuel 14, 14, and inside of a book where there's seems like God is always taking away life, you know, but again, this is how people understood the nature and character of God without the revelation of Jesus, you know, they're, they're running their experience right through, um, their pre pre their paradigm, you know, their way of looking at the, at the cosmos. And they believe in, in sacrifice, how is God going to extract their humanity out of a paradigm of sacrifice? How is that even going to happen? You know? And so it's gotta be this slow educational, incremental journey in which one little piece at a time is destroyed. You know? And like I said earlier, that wasn't until the profits where it's point blank stated that God hates sacrifice. And we, we think that the law and the sacrificial system are all instituted by God. They're not. And, and you know, I don't know if it was George McDonald or somebody else who said that, well, you know, the law is better than no God at all, or better than a God made out of, you know, turned into a gold calf, made out of earrings. And, um, and it's like, there is this incremental movement. You don't want to face to face relationship on Mount Sinai. All right, here's a law. It's, you know, thou shalt not kill. Where does that come from? The very heart of God who says, all right, we're going to write it on the outside. If you're not going to take it on the inside, but it's all this educational process. And so in my life I had to be dismantled, you know, and one of the things that I hid inside was my theology. That was my head oriented belief. Cause you, when you believe something, you don't have to trust anything. You know, it's a, it's a very intellectual, what's why we love religion. Cause you don't actually have to trust God. You know, you don't have to trust anybody. And I come from a broken childhood and a very mean that, and I projected the nature and character of my own experience with my dad onto the face of God, the father. And it made sense that he would beat the hell out of his son. Cause that was my experience. And, and he would, he would beat what my dad would beat goodness into me. Somehow he would use punitive measures, you know, and in order to beat goodness and to me, and it was like that transferred really easily, but there was something wrong with it. It made my own love for anyone it legitimate because it wasn't, I didn't want to do that to anybody. And, um, there was a slow dismantling and then I would read somebody, um, like brother Lawrence or I would, you know, somebody would slip me a copy of something and I would find a whole different way of looking that absolutely challenged to the core, these fundamentals that held that I believe from my mind and created this consternation in my heart because ultimately I ended up going like, well, what about babies? You know, what about children? And am I somehow, you know, is my love for anyone less than the kind of love that God has simply because I don't want to harm anybody. You know, because I believe that God was a God of harm. And so, you know, situations like the story of Abraham and Isaac suddenly changed for me that this was, this was an event in which God was going to declare something new that Abraham did not know. And in this case was, yeah, I know you need a sacrifice. And if you need one, I'm Jehovah Gyra, I'm the God who will provide himself. Right. I will provide myself and I know you're stuck here. So one day there'll be a lamb that will take we'll destroy the sacrificial system. And for now, for now here's a goat, you know, and that, that dismantling of, of, and yet it's full of imagery of the cross, right? This is on a hill that is up near where, where the, the crosses would be eventually erected in which Jesus would be crucified. And there is all this language. And then it says that uncle what's, his name had a daughter, I mean, right at the end of this story. And it's like, so what's the big deal about that. But it turns out that that daughter becomes Isaac's bride, who is the announcement of that birth is in the context of this, of this sacrifice of the lamb, right? And on this particular hill, there's just so much going on in that chapter. And remember, Abraham, does it know he's in a world where all God's require sacrifice with no exception. And so obviously this God does too. And Hebrews comes along and says, well, Abraham just believed that either God would raise Isaac from the dead or give them another son in order to fulfill the promise. But we know Isaac wasn't a little boy. He was like 30 years old because he was 30 years older than his wife. And so there's all this work of the kindness of God who doesn't impair the ability of a human being who is lost inside of their own paradigms. And we've all experienced this in our own lives. We've held on to really bad ideas about God, pretty hard. And, and, and yet we've watched God climb inside of our heart and begin to open up our awareness through our human longings, let alone to any kind of external revelation. Just the fact that, that I have a longing for authenticity and a longing to love well and a longing to protect my children and all these a longing to be a truth teller, right? These are, these are lower and deeper and wider than any longing I have to hurt anybody. Yeah. And so it creates this conflict within my very soul that begins to be where God continues to plant seeds that will grow into something that's alive rather than something dead. And, um, that was a slow and very painful process because I had to step outside of my community of faith and my traditions in order to even ask the questions. And, um, and I thought I was alone in this. I didn't realize other than a lot of dead people who wrote things, you know, and then I find out, wow, we're in a kind of a minority that believed this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And one other thing that rubs people the wrong way, kind of in your book, which kind of goes along with the in and out mentality of, you know, I say the prayer you haven't is you, you claim that everyone is a child of God.

Speaker 7:

That's a quote right. Out of acts chapter 17,

Speaker 2:

All the fighters, the apostle. Yeah. So you guys, do you guys all believe that all you, Brad, uh, Baxter, Paul, you guys all believe that. And why, why do you believe that? And um, why does that rub people, Christians? Why does that rub Christians the wrong way?

Speaker 8:

I do want to say it's complicated in the, in the Bible. Um, so you have certain passages in the Bible where it's explicit that we are all children of Christ, um, by virtue of creation, by virtue of the image of God, by virtue of, of, of, um, Christ union with us, uh, the parable, the prodigal sons, uh, begins with sons. They were sons today. They weren't disowned. They weren't, they weren't even adopted in, in the sense that they weren't sons. And now there's no, uh, the default mode for humanity is that we're children and the passage, the passage that Paul quotes from, from acts there is that we are all God's offspring. And you can even see this, um, uh, in the genealogies of Jesus, who is, you know, Adam is the son of God, right? Um, there are a couple of other uses of children of God, those who, those who, uh, blessed are the peacemakers, they'll be called sons and daughters of God. Yeah. Now they're there, we're all sons and daughters of God, but maybe you shouldn't call yourself that until you're at peace, you know, or, um, uh, in gospel of John children is not about our ontology or the truth of her being children is who do you imitate? Whoever you imitate, that's your children of Abraham, then imitate Abraham, your children, and Moses then worship Jesus. If she, if you're plotting to kill Jesus, well, then you're a child of the devil. You know, he's not saying that ontologically is there. There's a there's, um, there's this sense of whoever is choose you're walking in or footprints. You're walking in that, that's your dad, but it's not your real dad ultimately. And so somehow we got it in our minds that, um, and it was based in John one that it's no, only if you've said the sinner's prayer, that then you become children. These guys can both address that from John one easily. But I do want to say part of the problem is the new Testament uses children of God in different ways. And we're just using it in the ultimate way, I think.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. And Brad said this quite clearly, but I want to reinforce it. And that is, there's a difference between an ontological statement, the truth of your being and your existential being that is the way of your being, how you live your life and you, and there, it doesn't take a whole lot to discern the distinction. But the, the, the absolute declaration of the new Testament is that in your ontology, the truth of who you are is that you're a child of God in the way of your being, because you don't know who you are, you can act like that's not true. You will, as a person thinks in their heart about the truth of who they are. So they are in the way of their being. So if you think you're a piece of crap, don't be surprised that you end up acting like one and you end up letting people treat you like one. So again, the ontology is being on toss, being words about being. So what is the deepest truth of who you are? And that's where the truth of who you are is that you're created in Christ. You're a child of God. You are God's offspring. That's undeniably true, but because you are lost in darkness, you don't know who you are, the way of your being will express what you believe to be the truth of who you are. So again, if you act like a piece of crap, I can tell you what you believe about who you are,

Speaker 2:

Baxter. How do you view that as everyone being a child of God?

Speaker 6:

Well, I'm fascinated. Uh, I like Brad's point. You got to take the, uh, the concept is, is very fluid, but, um, Galatians four now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not different all from a slave, although he is owner of everything, but under, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So what also, we, while we were children were held in under the elements of things in the world. But when the pool is the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, more than the law in order that we might redeem, he might redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. Their adoption is more the bar mitzvah. You're moving from being a child and an air under to Lidge to the day where you were released, um, and to, um, sonship or daughtership. And what he means by that is not status. It's not positional. What he means by that is because you are sons, daughters, children, God has sent the spirit of his son, Jesus, the holy spirit to cry out in our hearts. Jesus is the only son of God by nature. Jesus has very own unique address to his father of a father. So we are all heirs or all children, and we're waiting on our bar mitzvah. And that is learning to walk in the spirit and not carry out the desires of the flesh. That is what we're talking about. We're talking about this in different ways, but the same bottom line. Um, so yeah, I mean, when the, when John talks about in, uh, John one 12, when he talks about those who receive him or those who associate with him, um, uh, and the language and a lot of translations, not all, but a lot of translation is when they did that. They became sons of God, children. Well, it's the, the concept there, and the word that's critical in that sentence is the word[inaudible], which is back to ontology. But it's out of being, this is, this is the way John talks about out of being will flow rivers of living water, which is coming out of Jesus's being those who walk with Jesus, get to share in what Jesus sees. I get to feel what he feels. They get to feel his heart and out of their being will flow there, their son ship, or the daughter shipper that adoption. Cause he just said, and I don't, I can go off on John for a little while, but he starts his, his gospel off with the face to face relationship with the father, son and the phatic declaration. All things came into being through him and apart from him, not one thing came into me and um, one commentator or one, uh, John scholar, I love this phrase. He said all things without exception. So you ultimately have a Christological issue. Here is Jesus Christ, the creator and sustainer of all things, if that's true and it is then we're all in him and he's in, he's in us now, where are we in the process of learning that this is true and learning how to be, to live from his I am. And that's the way I translate the passage in John, one 12, those who received him, those who walk with him, they get to live from his, I am inside this crazy darkness. They get to be who they are as children, joint heirs with Jesus. So it's about sharing in his emotions, sharing in his face, sharing his, his, his vision is seeing. And, and that's what he's talking about. The difference between being an, a child in air and the bar mitzvah, the son ship, the daughter ship.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And I think in the passion translation, it says he they're given the authority to become children of God. And I've always, I liked that because it's kind of like I have a son and a daughter and my son can grow up and say, well, you're not my dad and I'm not a clout. And he can live in non-reality. Right. Well, that doesn't change the fact that he's my son and he's a cloud, but I'm probably not letting him run the family business either if he denies that. So that's kind of how I've always kind of acquainted that word authority with that. It doesn't change that he's my son, but until we're in fellowship again, it's kind

Speaker 6:

Of a kid that mindset, that word[inaudible] is translated as authority in some translations of John one 12, but it's also a beautifully used in Matthew's gospel. When it says that Jesus did not teach like the scribes and the Pharisees, he taught as one who had authority, it's ECCC it heat. He wasn't quoting what rabbi Zeke you'll say it. And what all the other rabbis said, Jesus was speaking from his own living fellowship from his father out of his being. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we've got two more questions. The last one's probably going to be a little bit longer one. So I'm gonna let you guys go, uh, just go off on it and I want kind of Brad to answer it first cause it's more of the inspiration of the Bible. Um, the first question is, um, Paul, you, you mentioned God's gender neutral language and the lies we believe about God. Um, I just heard a podcast with Baxter where you talked about the holy spirit, holy spirit, being a woman or a feminine the word. And of course, Paul, you know, from the shack, uh, some people didn't like that. So, um, all three of you, what, what's the concept behind that gender, gender neutral language. And again, a lot of it that when I, that doesn't bug me at all, but I think because of the transgender issue and male masculinity being called into question, all kinds of stuff that, that really rubs people the wrong way at this point. Um, so just explain it to our listeners, why you have come, or if I don't know Brad, if you've come to that conclusion, but um, why you guys have explored that further, the holy spirit being a feminine. Okay. And

Speaker 7:

None of us would say that the holy spirit is a female. And, um, um, we do say that in the incarnation, Jesus has male. We would not say that God, the father is, is male because God is spirit. Yes. But the, the entire gamut of the character and the nature of God is inclusive of the entire spectrum of male and female. Um, and so, you know, the creation is not to create God, but to create something that is, um, less than God, but still contains the attributes of God. And, um, and so, you know, there is, uh, inclusive language in terms of, you know, almost all the names for God in scripture, the old Testament are masculine, almost all the verbs for God are feminine. And there are exceptions in both cases, but ruach, which is the name for the holy spirit is feminine. And it's just it's. And, um, so there

Speaker 6:

Go ahead. Still is still

Speaker 7:

Is. Yeah. And so, but it, but I use that language to disrupt

Speaker 6:

Our,

Speaker 7:

Um, male centered idolatry in terms of crafting an image of God that was, was simply masculine. Um, and it was like, oh, so this is the Trinity three guys in love with each other. Right. And it's like, no, this includes the entire gamut of, of the creation. And, and there is nothing wrong with seeing God in, in feminine language and feminine form, even no different than seeing God in masculine form or as a father. And, um, um, so that's kind of the frame of reference that I would bring to it readily bred with review.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Um, so I I'd add another layer to, uh, so, so there, there's a difference between grammar and gender and sex grammar in languages, except English. There is a masculine and feminine grammar that has nothing to do with masculine and feminine traits or male and female genitalia. It's just a table is feminine in French. Why? No reason, except the grammar, it Derrick gender was actually assigned, um, at some point. So, so sometimes these are, these are just grammatical things. However, then like Paul was talking, what Paul was doing there is he was making a clear distinction between gender and sex. That gender are attributes. And again, sometimes we have assumed that those should, those should link up maybe with, with sex. So let's say w what would be some gender traits? Well, we might think of, of receptivity and sensitivity as feminine gender traits and they are, was Jesus a female? No. Was he receptive and sensitive? Absolutely. So we were like, okay, hang on a second. I know lots of guys that are sensitive and receptive. Paul's very feminine in that way, but you see the problem when you associate feminine with female, Paul Paul is 100% male. I probably even seen them nude at some point I could confirm it. Um, he's, he's also heterosexual as much as we love each other, but he's got all these beautiful, what we call feminine traits. So what Katie and then, and masculine traits would be taking initiative, um, uh, strengths, you know, and it's like, well, wait a minute, my wife is more masculine than me. Then he will wait into hostile territory and do the hard thing while I'm off hiding in my bedroom. Does that make her a male? Does that make her gender confused? Absolutely not. So, so when we're talking gender, as, as, as, as these stereotypical traits, Katie scourge has done a good job just to shift the language over to lion and lamb. Oh, okay. Then you can see that God, the father, son and holy spirit, all contain lion and lamb attributes. And then of course we get to sex and, and, you know, we, we believe that Jesus was a male and, um, and I think a good reason from an Orthodox point of view, why he calls God father when probably source would be a really, um, would capture it better. But father also says something about that's personal and by the way, Jesus had a mom, holy Spirit's not as mom. The father's not as Mary's as mom. So as married says, mom, it makes sense to call his father. Right? And so it's our father and here's my mom and I, so that would be a reason why we, we use father instead of mother for God, while remembering that the mercies of God come that very, the Hebrew word comes from womb. God has a womb. And you were born from above. Not only from your human mom, you're born from a mom from God. So, so I think if we can just keep those category errors apart, right? The categories of grammar, of, of, of, uh, traits and then of sex, then, then there's nothing to be worried about. It's just that in books like the Shaq, when Paul is trying to Paul Young, is trying to show us that God is not only to be associated with maleness. Then it's really helpful to people, especially when they've never once met a male who hasn't abused them. Hmm. Okay. Now I just had this, someone wrote to me yesterday and they're like, you know, I'm so grateful for what, and they mentioned Baxter and they mentioned Paul by name. Um, because they said up until, um, up, up until encountering the kind of theology we're putting out there, they could only imagine God, the father or Jesus as a sexually perversed male. And that alienated them from intimacy with God, their whole life. And now there's like a delay in. And so I'm really grateful for that pop up in the shack could be, you know, portrayed as, as this wonderful. Also, I, I have a deep suspicion that there's racism going on in the resistance. I honestly do. It's like not only how dare God be a woman. Gail is GB, a woman of color that's so offensive to, uh, and I take a lot of the heresies that are attributed or just a way of hiding the racism behind the critiques. Honestly prove me wrong, prove me wrong. So there, I got grumpy for a moment, but other guys will redeem that, that tell

Speaker 6:

You the real, the real controversy of the cheque is the little fateful ladies that have been in church for 50 years, read a book. They have an encounter with the holy spirit to go to the preacher's office. So money and say, why haven't we ever talked about this? Why have I never heard this before? Yeah. That's the real controversy. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I remember when I, uh, the I read the shack and one night I had a daughter with colic and she was not sleeping in someone. I just did it. I was a brand new church planner and I had thrown away all by secular music. Um, and then rebought it and then threw it away again. And that part when mama was in the kitchen and she says, I'm not listening to the music, I'm listening to the hearts behind the music that changed my entire ability to listen to music. It just did. So anyways, side note, thank you for that. But, um, this last, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 7:

Let me just read two verses from Isaiah 46, 3 and four. And I'm going to translate certain words into the Latin Vulgate, which was the translation, um, that was done. That was the Hebrew to Greek and then to Latin later, but you'll recognize a couple of other words and it says, listen to me. Oh, house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, you who have been carried by me from male utero with, from, by my uterus and have been carried from male volva right. So it's specifically using female, uh, genitalia reproductive organs for God, the father. So again, that's, um, Isaiah 46, 3

Speaker 3:

And four. Wow. W

Speaker 6:

One comment that it's, um, it just is always struck me in Matthew when Jesus says, um, do not be called rabbi for one, is your teacher and are all brothers and do not call anyone on earth father for one is your father. He who is in heaven and you not be called leaders for one is your leader that is to Christ, which means the teacher is the holy spirit. Um, I just think that, um, so much, uh, this is not the solution. This is one of the things that has created the mess, um, is that we've all been taught to call our earthly dads father now, and that sets up, um, a problem that, you know, Jesus addresses pretty clearly, you know, don't, don't, don't call anybody on our father, cause you have a one father who is in heaven. So last question,

Speaker 2:

We'll leave, we'll leave that drop mic moment right there. Um, one of the biggest things, um, that you get challenged on Paul and quite frankly, all you guys, um, because Brad, you wrote a book called the more Christlike God, um, which is saying basically you see everything you read in the Bible is through the lens of Jesus, because he's the final authority in all things, which obviously that's, it's so clear to me now because the Hebrews one in your books, but I do get why people struggle with that because one of the things that gets brought up is John. One, one, he was in the beginning before all things. And so they take that then into the old Testament that that was Jesus in the old Testament too then. Um, so I say that because if you guys could break that down a little bit in your own language, what does it mean for Jesus to be the word of God, um, and kind of piggyback off that is, do you believe the, uh, the whole Bible is inspired? Cause this is the question I get asked over and over and over and over. And now that I've made a theological shift, like, um, because that word an errand, you know, and that it's all perfect. Um, and so could you just break that down for our audience, if Jesus is the word of God, what does that do to the rest of the word of God? Meaning the Bible? Um, I hope that makes sense, but I think that's where they struggle in the old Testament wrath parts. They they'd said, okay, we can get down with Jesus being fully God, but then that was Jesus doing those things in the old Testament. And that was Jesus causing the wrath. And so we can't separate that from the new Testament, from the old Testament. So how do you view Jesus as the word of God and the inspiration of the scriptures? So before

Speaker 7:

I turn this over to Bradley, cause this is in his

Speaker 4:

Wheelhouse, this is confused

Speaker 7:

Inspiration from an errancy and infallibility. We only believe that the word of God, Jesus is inerrant and infallible. We don't believe that a book and it never makes the claim for it. This was, this came out of the 18 hundreds and it never makes the claim that scripture is an errant and infallible. And um, so that'd be my opening comment and Bradley, like I said, this is absolutely in your wheelhouse kind of go next to Baxter

Speaker 6:

Beach ball served up brand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And he wrote it again. You just wrote a book called the more Christlike word where you go through this. So this is a great plug for it. But also, and you know, this is one of the main questions we get. Cause people just want to know that the Bible is true.

Speaker 6:

So I'll make one comment and then let big brain take it. Um, you're such a trash talker that I love and you want to play golf with me. We start texting two days before we play anyway. Um, um, all scripture is inspired, spirit breathed God-breathed and profitable, uh, for our liberation or enlightenment or healing. Um, what has troubled me as a, uh, would be scholar is that you can't help, but notice that there's lots of things going on, or you can tell that things have been edited. So I have developed a view and I, I don't, I haven't up with the big discussion about all this, because it's no longer that big a deal to me. Um, I think what we have is we have the father, son spirit talking to people who are delusional and the prophets get ahold of something. They see it and they write it down. And then it's the inspiration. It's not just that moment. It's the whole process of editing within the community, listening to the spirit, listening to the word, and finally in the person of Jesus, we have a definitive revelation, uh, and then it blows everybody's mind. And off we go again. Um, so th that has been a trouble spot for me is to be able to acknowledge, yes, there are problems here. There's editing going on. Yeah. There's different groups of people who, who wrote that chapter. Then you can tell them if you're just paying a little bit of attention. Um, but I think the whole thing is part of inspiration. So I find myself in a position right now at 62 to where, um, uh, I take the Bible more seriously. I study it more respectfully. Um, uh, I love John and Paul and, and how they went from where they worked and what they saw so quickly and calling these phrases. I'm so, so grateful. And I feel like Athanasius and, and, and the, uh, the early leaders of the church, they didn't want to say anything in the Nicene creed that the apostles didn't say, that's why you have the word only the phrase only begotten in there. Yeah. They just had such profound respect for the inspiration and they didn't want it. They were forced. And Hillary says this, the Harris ticks forced us to scale parallel is heist the strain of what resources and language to say, what cannot be said when faith is perfectly satisfied with sitting in wonder and worship. Um, so I think the scriptures are given to us. They've been inspired by the holy spirit, over, over a period of time. And they bear witness to Jesus in the end. These two things work together. The word of God, the son speaking in the holy spirit to us. And, uh, within the framework, the conceptual framework, you to put it that way of holy scripture,

Speaker 2:

Just one quick thing is that's where the mirror Bible, I've never seen someone like he did Francis. He, he would literally say, obviously some copyists put this in there and that even got my heart. I was like, oh my gosh, like that's a bold claim, but then he would go on to say like, yeah, the earliest manuscripts don't have that. Like somebody who copied this, put that in there. And that even got my evangelical bone, like, whoa, like

Speaker 6:

Just a quick, a quick one. Cause I'm, I'm working on, uh, coming up on chapter eight. John is the vast majority of, of, uh, scholars today, um, uh, in commentaries and scholars on John, do not think that the story of the woman caught in adultery was in the original manuscript of John's gospel because the oldest manuscripts don't have it. Uh, I just think, well, it's in there and I don't know if it was in the original or not. It makes perfect sense that it was, uh, but it's in there. The holy spirit made sure it got in there. So I don't, I don't just set that aside. I'm saying that was in there. We're going to deal with it. And if you come to a passage that makes sense, just put it in your notebook and ask Jesus, would you teach me what you mean? There'll be be my teacher here and just teach me what what's going on is

Speaker 2:

All right, Brad and got my brother, the floor is

Speaker 8:

Yeah. And even just to double down on Baxter said, we, we do believe that the woman caught in adultery story was probably a free floating, authentic Chivas tradition that took time to make its way into the final form. So the fact that it's not in the earliest manuscript, doesn't matter to us, it has been received as authoritative by the church and accepted in that way as such. So, so it's not all just about wallets, the earliest manuscripts, then

Speaker 6:

That's what we, we don't know that we have the early Spain script.

Speaker 8:

There's probably no such thing. You know, let's say for example, um, the songs, well, the earliest manuscripts of the songs wouldn't have had half the song they, where it developed it developed and the editors were every bit as inspired as the authors, sometimes more so than the narrators and so on. But, um, okay, so this is such a big topic. That's a whole podcast. Yeah. W w we'll get the book out there, but a couple of things that are really important is the whole Bible inspired. Yes. Emphasis on whole. In other words, if you would extract any chapter from the scriptures and hold it in isolation, apart from the framework of the big story, no, it's absolutely going to be problematic, right? You can't read first Samuel 15 and the commands to genocide in isolation from the one who came and said, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. And, uh, who hung on a cross and showed us that the wrath of God is poured out against death and that God, and that you can't read per Samuel 15, apart from the good news of Jesus who defines God as a life giver rather than a death dealer and tells us explicitly it's the sea who steals, kills and destroys. So the only if you read for Samuel 15 is where the narrator is telling us that God them to go kill babies in a genocide without mercy. And you're not reading that on the amass way with Jesus who puts it in the context of the big story of a people who are working out who God is. You're not reading the Bible as gospel, as sacred scripture at all. It's just the Bible. When you read the Bible with the framework of Jesus and his gospel, as the big story, Paul says in second Corinthians chapter three, then it's, then it, the whole thing is just a ministry of condemnation. But when you turn to the Lord and the spirit opens it up to you, now you're reading it, the whole story as a message of reconciliation, including what Paul calls, you know, um, these cautionary tales about how to misread God and project our own bigotry onto him and our own desire for violence. And so you see that desire for violence, that bigotry that, um, in first Samuel 15, and it is this that Jesus comes along and says, you heard it said, but I'm telling you, and by the way, I'm the word of God. And every scripture that claims to be a revelation must bow to the word of God when he came in the flesh to set things. Right. Okay. So, so there's the one thing is that you have to read it within the framework of the good news of Jesus Christ or it's not scripture. Um, it's, it's just a collection of ancient near Eastern literature. But when you put it into the story, then you're even going to have these, what we call toxic texts make sense, and you don't make the Bible better by getting rid of them. You show them how they work in the context of, of this journey towards the cross. So it's just like with the Lord of the rings, um, you don't get rid of the stupid chapters where people are saying bad stuff to make the story better. Oh, Lord of the rings will be better without Saren. No, it won't be it's part of the story. Right. And so, um, so you've got this rising tension within the old Testament of competing visions of God, some very toxic that create a demand for God to come in person and reveal himself to us through Jesus. Now you can go back and you read the old test and go, how was this pointing the way, how is it inspired in? Well, it's only inspired to the degree that we read it with the illumination of the spirit who shows us how the whole thing has ghosted part of the gospel. And so that's the other thing I would add is the book on the shelf is not inspired. The inspiration comes by way of the spirit, both through the authors and redactors, um, and the re the preachers, the readers. So, so Paul, again, second Corinthians three, but also first Corinthians chapter two. It's like apart from the illumination of the spirit who opens us up to see the Bible, the AMEA sway that is that Moses, the prophets and all the scriptures testify concerning Jesus and his gospel of death and resurrection. Um, you know, you, you've not, you've not arrived at you. Haven't read the inspired text until you've been illuminated by the spirit. And we see this all the time with, with people who are trying to read the Bible, just doing sort of scientific acts of Jesus. And it's like, they don't see it. They don't get it describes it. Didn't the disciples didn't it was only when Jesus opened the scriptures to them to show how the scriptures point to him. Okay. Now we can talk about inspiration, everything up to that is just a journey heading that way, but that led them to read the scriptures in such a way that the crucified, the Lord. And I think that's a good point. Yeah. What would

Speaker 2:

You say to people then who just to piggyback on that because of the road to MAs, it says he started with the old Testament and they say, we'll see, he was in the old Testament. So he was telling the Canaanites or the Jews to kill the Canaanites and all that. He's the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. What would you say to that argument?

Speaker 8:

He's what is he showing them from the old Testament? He's showing them how the Messiah must, um, must suffer before he comes into his glory. Now, I would agree with them that we see Christ appearing every appearance of God in the old Testament, I believe is the second person of the Trinity that's Christ. And the Chicago glory is Christ. That's resting on Sinai. That's showing up on the Ark of the covenant that is in the burning Bush. That is the fourth person in the fiery furnace. That is all the way through. So we're looking for Christ, but what w the thing that is the same yesterday, today, and forever is the nature of Christ revealed in the gospels. That means you have to, that means there's an interpretive process at work, in how you read the old Testament, where you say, um, the God who is revealed in the Christ of the golf balls. Now, how do we see where do we see that Christ that God revealed? And where do we see human conceptions, that conflict with Christ and him crucified? So, in other words, I would go back into those texts. And I would say, wherever, we see God revealed as self-giving radically forgiving coats, suffering love you. We're already seeing an appearance of the second person of the Trinity in the old Testament, who happens to be Jesus Christ, who created all things, you know, wherever you see a depiction of God by the narrator that is in direct conflict with the revelation of Jesus, you are seeing, uh, um, their imperfect conceptions of God at work that Jesus needs to come and correct. And he does. And he says, he does. He says he does, you know, so, so I'm like 10, the, can the father revealed in Jesus command you to commit genocide? No, he can't. But the Bible says he did that's because God let his children tell the story. As they're waiting for that God to come and reveal himself as he truly is. So, John one, no one's ever seen God at any time, except God, the only son who is in the bosom of the father, he has made him known, well, what does it say about the narrator? Who says, Samuel says, God committed one. A genocide means it means he didn't know God yet. He hadn't seen his true nature, but we will. And so to me, I think it's much more, it's a challenge then to read the old Testament scriptures in this way, but I would way rather let Jesus have the last word than to say, God is a genocidal monster because the Bible says, so that that's now putting the Bible at the final authority instead of Jesus, who's not the final authority for faith and practice. It's a who?

Speaker 2:

That was the last question. So thank you so much, you guys for everything. Um, yeah. I love you guys so much. Thank you for what you've done for my son. Get

Speaker 9:

Back. Sure. Thank you. Bradley. You guys. All of you. Good to see you on the golf course. See you on the golf course someday. I am willing to play much love to you all. You guys. Thank you so much. God bless you.