Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - The Incarnation Paradox
The Trinity and the Incarnation are truly complex and intricate topics that require a lot of knowledge and ability to see how the various passages from the Old and New Testaments work together; it's no wonder that there have been so many different views throughout history.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas.
Speaker 2:Here's a hint of what's to come. They did this because you know Plato did this. Plato was no dunce, plato was kind of a smart guy. But you don't take Plato into theology, by the way. You don't do that. You need the Bible.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ is just an illusion. He was never a real man. Jesus Christ is just an illusion. He was never a real man. You know, jesus Christ he was actually two people he was a man and he was a spirit, but he wasn't one person.
Speaker 1:These are views that have been held by the Church in years past, and we can start to understand why people might view these things, because it is difficult to take every passage of scripture, compare it to other passages in scripture and understand them in a coherent system. God has revealed all that we need to know, and yet what he has revealed that we do need to know is sometimes difficult, and so we should not look down upon people for having wrong views on God, but we need to understand that it is very possible for us too to have similar wrong views Because, at the end of the day, we're not any smarter than the theologians and believers that have gone before us. And so today we come and look at various views of Jesus Christ and God that the church has held, so that, with greater humility, we can approach the Bible and the God that wrote it and the God that is described therein. We want to know Jesus, we want to know the Father, we want to know the Holy Spirit and we want to know them as accurately as we can.
Speaker 2:We're going to look back at the Trinity and, I guess, really more focus on the hypostatic union, because we're dealing with Christology due to the birth of the king. So our event has been the birth of the king and the doctrinal outworking of that is in the area of Trinity. Hypostatic union and then the issue of peccability or impeccability. You know Christ's temptations, his ability or inability to sin, things like that. So we haven't got to that yet, but I'm going to take that off. It's just too hot. You're not breathing yet, are you? I asked you about 20 minutes ago if you've held your breath all this time. You're Navy SEALs, right? Okay? So let's get in fellowship with the Lord and then we're going to go back to some of these discussions about Trinity. Let's pray.
Speaker 2:Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that you open our eyes to behold wonderful things from your Word. As we look through church history, try to look at how the church wrestled with statements about Christ and his relationship to the Father and to the Spirit, in his relationship to the Father and to the Spirit, and his own person and his human and divine nature, and how this works, and help us to have a proper understanding of you and of your Son, the second person of the Trinity. So help us to have an appreciation for the shoulders that we stand on in church history of others who've gone before us and who have searched the scriptures, studied them very carefully and sometimes come up with misguided conclusions, but still it's a part of the process of the church coming to understand better and be more accurate. So we ask for that, of course, in our own time too, that we would, as we wrestle with the scriptures, become more accurate. So we ask for that, of course, in our own time too, that we would, as we wrestle with the Scriptures, become more accurate in our understanding of you and your intent with the Scriptures. So we thank you for all you've given us, and even the Spirit to teach us you've given us, and we ask all these things in Jesus' name. The good thing about going through some of these aberrant views of Trinity and this is not everything I need, but whatever is that while we do so, we do get to look at a lot of texts that relate to the Trinity.
Speaker 2:So I want to discuss a little bit about why this is so important. As I mentioned last week, it's very important to just follow the discussion in church history, because we can get the arrogance built up in us that we figured all this out, when in fact we really didn't figure a lot of stuff out. Most of us were taught a lot of these things, almost all of these things, and we did not develop them from our own personal Bible study. We are all supposed to have a spirit and dwell and taught by the Spirit, but God has also given teachers to the church. Teacher is one of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives, so these teachers God specifically raises up in each generation to convey truth, to articulate truth to God's people. At the same time, believers individually are supposed to be studying the Scriptures on their own.
Speaker 2:There is a process, though, that has now been going on for 2,000 years, when the Holy Spirit has been teaching the church individually, through general believers as well as those who have the gift of pastor-teacher, to develop an understanding of correct teaching or doctrine. And so, for example, james Orr wrote a book many years ago called Progress of Dogma. In this book, what he did was trace the development of doctrinal understanding through church history so that we understood how it unfolded and how many generations it takes to articulate and develop doctrine. They don't just drop out of the sky in one generation. So a lot, really, everything that we believe most of it has been developed and now of course we're currently developing and working on a few things, but each generation really only takes up a very small number of topics to really work with and to try to clarify. I think we're personally very close to the end of this process because I think there's a logic to church history in the order in which doctrine was developed.
Speaker 2:So things developed very early around Christology who is Christ, things about the Spirit, pneumatology Then the Trinity was developed and then you moved into a period of church history which there wasn't a lot of development until you really get to the concept of substitutionary atonement. So the atonement, the work of Christ, was really developed in the 11th, 12th century. And then you come to the Reformation time and this is when they're really clarifying salvation, justification is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. Then you move into a period when the church is dealing with ecclesiology who is the church, what is the church and what is the church's relationship to Israel. And finally the church after that began to work on eschatology or last things, prophecy and things like that. So this is a logical order and because we're kind of at the end. That is eschatology. It stands to reason that we're moving close to the end and in fact, you know, anyone who looks out their window and sees that there's this place called the State of Israel that's been there for about 75 years now should say eschatology is at work as far as the preparation or stage setting for things to take place that are described in books like the book of Revelation. So we are hopefully nearing the process of completing, articulating accurately doctrine and in our study.
Speaker 2:Of course, I wanted to emphasize that Trinity was quite a discussion and it still goes on around the world. So if you meet Iranian Christians, they'll sometimes hold different views of the Trinity and that's why it's important for missionaries, when they go into an area, say Iran or anywhere, to know that there are pockets of these beliefs that we're studying in those countries that are still held very near and dear to their hearts. So they need to understand that not everybody holds, maybe, the exact views of Trinity that we in the West hold. So that's one thing I wanted to emphasize. Another thing I wanted to emphasize today and pick up on is this word that I keep using every time we look at a view For example, in this view, ancient, modal monarchism, which is similar to modern oneness, pentecostalism this word presupposition. In each one of these, as I evaluate, I say this is the basic presupposition of these ancient and modern views that are aberrant views of the trinity. What do I mean by a presupposition? Well, here I don't mean an assumption, okay, so I'm using the word in a very particular way.
Speaker 2:A presupposition is when you include your conclusion in a statement. You include your conclusion in a statement. See, the presupposition here, for example, is solitary monotheism, that is, god is solitary oneness to him. There is no diversity of person within him, like Father, son and Spirit. There's just a oneness to God. Now, that's actually a conclusion. It's a presupposition, it's a deeply held belief. So when I talk about presuppositions, I'm not talking about something that is easy to, let's say, get rid of. These are deeply held beliefs which form the basis for all of your thinking about a topic.
Speaker 2:So, in this case, what is the deeply held belief that these folks hold, which is actually a conclusion? It's that God is an absolute one, with no diversity in himself. With no diversity in himself. We would want to challenge that presupposition and discuss the concept of unity, meaning one God. But can you have diversity in that unity? Is that possible biblically? So rather than start with this conclusion, we would want to back up and challenge the presupposition underlying it, because our view does not come from the idea of a solitary monotheism.
Speaker 2:Our view is monotheistic there's one God, but there is diversity of persons in this God, and so the problem with presuppositions is they're kind of like flypaper. I used to work in the lab with plants and of course you've got to keep the little fruit flies off the plants. It's this yellow paper and if you grab it it's sticky on both sides. If you try to get it off that hand with using the other hand, it's now stuck on this hand, and that's kind of how presuppositions are. They're very difficult to get rid of because they are a person's core belief and they are really unchallenged and unchallengeable beliefs, and so it's difficult, like getting rid of flypaper, to get people to drop their presuppositions and start from another viewpoint.
Speaker 2:I'm talking with someone this week about the church being Jew and Gentile in one body, the body of Christ. We all know this. This is not that complicated thing to say, but this person wants to say that if a Jew has believed he's no longer Jewish, and I can't get him to drop that idea and accept that. There are passages that describe Jewish believers like 1 Peter is written to Jews of the dispersion who are believers. The olive tree in Romans 11, which has natural branches and it has wild branches. The natural branches are Jewish believers. They're the natural recipients of the benefits of this olive tree. And then you have wild branches and these are Gentiles who have been grafted into this tree and they're the unnatural recipients of blessings from the Jewish covenants, unnatural recipients of blessings from the Jewish covenant. So but I can't get convinced this person that you can have Jewish believers and Gentile believers and we're all united in the church.
Speaker 2:They say no, if you're in the church, you're neither Jew nor Gentile. You know Galatians 3.28. But Galatians 3.28 isn't saying there's no Jews or Gentiles. It's saying there's no Jews or Gentiles. It's saying Jews and Gentiles have equal spiritual privilege. It's not saying you become a non-Jew if you're a Jew and you believe in Jesus, any more than it's saying if you're a Gentile and you believe in Jesus, you're no longer a Gentile. It's no more saying that if you believe in Christ you're no longer a Gentile. It's no more saying that if you believe in Christ, you're no longer a man. Or if you're a woman and you believe in Jesus, you're no longer a woman, because Galatians 3.28 says that too right. Neither male nor female. It's not saying that if you're a slave and you believe in Jesus, you're no longer a slave. Or if you're a free man and you believe in Jesus, you're no longer free, but you're a slave or something else. It's not saying that. It's just saying all these people have equal spiritual privileges, no matter their station in life. That's all that it's saying.
Speaker 2:But the point is I'm trying to get across is I cannot communicate with this individual about this very important topic biblically, because they have a presupposition and it's really unchallenged and unchallengeable, and so every time they go to a passage, they have to interpret it to fit their presupposition, because it's a deeply held, unchallenged and unchallengeable truth to them. So this is the challenge is to make sure our presuppositions are the correct ones and to challenge them personally, individually. So we've gone through some of these. If you start with this presupposition, an ancient modal monarchianism also known as Sibelianism, for its founder, sibelius, and one of the derivatives of that was a concept of patropatianism, the idea that the Father was crucified, as well as modern oneness, pentecostalism. You start with this one idea of God, this absolute one.
Speaker 2:Then you have to come to certain conclusions, because as you read the Bible, you say well, who's the Son and who's the Spirit and who's the Father? How does this all relate to the one God? So the way that they historically have done it is they said well, in the Old Testament God revealed himself as the Father, in the Gospels God revealed himself as the Son, and in the epistles and on down to our own day, he reveals himself as the Holy Spirit. And these are three masks that God puts on, because there's one God. And he puts a mask of the Father on, then later he puts the mask of the Son on, then later he puts the mask of the Spirit on, because there's one God, and he puts a mask of the Father on, then later he puts the mask of the Son on, then later he puts the mask of the Spirit on. We said well, that doesn't work so well, because there are texts where, for example, jesus is talking to the Father, for example in his high priestly prayer of John 17. It's a dialogue. Is Jesus just changing masks. So he puts on his Jesus mask and then says something, and then he switches masks and puts on the father mask and he receives what Jesus said to him. See, this doesn't work. It doesn't make much sense of these texts in the Bible. It also doesn't explain how the father is actually the father of the son, if they're really just the same person with two different masks on, does it? So you go through these and you wrestle with them, but in the end you say nope, that's not right, that doesn't fit what the text says.
Speaker 2:Another one that starts the same way with a presupposition of a solitary monotheism, is easiest to understand in the term adoptionism. But it's also held by modern Unitarians right down here in the street in Spokane. It's held by Judaism, it's held by Islam. So people hold this pretty much exact view today or similar views In this concept.
Speaker 2:The conclusion is well, only the Father is God and Jesus. He was given the godhood, or he was bestowed godhood at his birth, at his baptism or his resurrection. So he is a god, they will say. He's just not. So he's less. In essence. He's not sovereign, righteous, just loving, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immutable, eternal. He doesn't have those attributes of God, he has another set of attributes that are unique to him, that make him less than the one true God, the Father, See.
Speaker 2:So we have to ask ourselves, well, does that fit? Does that fit what the Bible says? Well, it doesn't explain how Christ was with the Father before the incarnation. I mean, if he was created and born, you know then how was he with the Father before his birth? That doesn't fit. It doesn't explain the deity of Christ passages. It certainly doesn't explain why Jesus permits himself to be worshiped or will accept worship.
Speaker 2:I mean, let's think about it. Okay, if there's one true God, he's the only one who should be worshiped, right? I mean, would you worship a creature? Isn't that against one of the Ten Commandments? You don't worship anything in creation. Well, if Jesus is less than the one true God and he's a creation and he was just bestowed godhood and we worship him, or he accepts worship, wouldn't that be idolatry? Well, of course it would be idolatry. You would only worship the one true God. You wouldn't worship Jesus Christ because he's less than God. That would be idolatry. So again, this is a point. You see, this doesn't work, this will not fit with the Bible. So, this one's important right, because we've got ancient Arianism named after a guy named Arius and modern Jehovah's Day witnesses. These are basically very similar views. Arianism, by the way, was the prevailing view in the day of Arius. It dominated the field. In other words, it's what most people believe. Field, in other words it's what most people believe.
Speaker 2:By the way, can most people be wrong? Usually, most people are wrong. How many people got on the ark? Only eight. Do you think there was less people than that off the ark? No, most people were not on the ark, and most people were what they were wrong. Most people are wrong in history, not most people are right. And so in this day, arianism won the day, so to speak, but then, of course, it began to lose.
Speaker 2:But the presupposition here is that God is the pure ideal. This comes right out of Neoplatonist philosophy. It's the idea that there is this world that we have to project from our minds to exist. We have to claim this, what they call the ideal world. The pure ideal world exists. They did this because Plato did this. Plato was no dunce, plato was kind of a smart guy. But you don't take Plato into theology, by the way. You don't do that. You need the Bible.
Speaker 2:Van Thiel wrote a book one time called Jerusalem versus Athens, and it's a discussion of where do we get our presuppositions from Jerusalem, which stands for the Bible, hebrew thought categories, or Athens, which stands for Greek categories of thought? Where do we start? Hopefully, our presuppositions are rooted in Jerusalem, that is, the Hebrew categories of thinking. That's where we derive true categories for thinking. If we get them from somewhere else and then we try to import them and put them on the Bible, well, we're going to misread the Bible again. So what has happened here is a borrowing of neoplatonic categories, where you have this pure ideal world.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what Plato was saying. Now, plato was smart, okay, like I said. So, for example, let's take a chair. What Plato was saying was that I want to be able to say look at a chair and say that's a chair, and look at that and say that's not a chair. This is what he was trying to do. He said well, how can I do this? There has to be this pure ideal concept of a chair, and what he was trying to do was make a world of universals or absolute. But they were a mental projection of Plato. They were just a mental projection, and once he created this world out there there was this pure ideal of a chair and this chair, whatever it was, it has the characteristics that all chairs in the real world down here fit into. By the way, that was absolutely brilliant, because he was absolutely right.
Speaker 2:If you do not have an absolute, universal. You can never say that's a chair and that's not a chair, because everything blends together. For example, let me ask you a question Are you sitting in a chair right now? You're like well, I need to know exactly the characteristics of a chair. We call this thing a pew, but is it a chair? So the only way you can say that is if there is an absolute concept of chairness, and once you know what that is, then you can categorize something as a chair or not. Right, what that is. Then you can categorize something as a chair or not. Right, so in one way it was brilliant. But you cannot say now, god is that pure ideal, because that's just a mental projection. Okay, it's just an idea that someone has projected.
Speaker 2:The conclusion, in this view, was that Jesus is begotten or made before time by the Father, therefore he's a creature. Jesus is begotten or made before time by the Father, therefore he's a creature. And the point was that God made Jesus Christ because God is the pure ideal and he can only communicate with this world down here through this intermediary being named Jesus, which is why he had Him created. He wanted to communicate with us. So he created Jesus as the first being as an intermediator between him and us, but as the son of the father, then obviously as an intermediary being, he's less in essence.
Speaker 2:And they use 1 Corinthians, 8, 5, and 6 to support that, their interpretation of it. Because they're working from a presupposition. They explain that the son's subordination to the Father. You know, like things like when Jesus is on the cross and he says my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And everybody says, well then he can't be God, he's calling him God. Jesus must not be God. That's one way people look at passages like that. But that's not talking about Jesus being less in essence. Jesus was talking about subordination of role, subordination of role. Subordination of role Because other passages say that he is God, he's our great God and Savior. Jesus Christ, titus 2.13. Other passages in Peter, hebrews 1.8.
Speaker 2:All sorts of passages talk about the deity of Christ. So when he says my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, he's speaking of Him from a subordinate role, not someone who has less essence. The Spirit for these folks is just an impersonal power or force of God, goes out from God to accomplish things. So the Spirit isn't even a person. It doesn't explain when Christ for Yahweh's name is substituted or functions are substituted. It doesn't explain a lot of things. It doesn't explain how all things were created by Christ. I mean, if he's the first thing that's created, but he created all things, does that mean he created himself, since he's a part of all things that was created? See, this is illogical, it doesn't work, um, it just, it just won't work and really it cuts us off from truly knowing god.
Speaker 2:Point four because if you only know jesus christ, you only know an intermediary being. You don't know the one true god. But the bible says we know god and it says that jesus christ is the exact representation of the father in his being. He says I and the Father are one. He says if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He didn't say if you've seen me, you've seen a shadow of what the Father looks like. No, he didn't say that If you've seen me, you've actually seen him. So these are very important ideas.
Speaker 2:Now we come to this new one. This has some interesting repercussions. We didn't look at this one last week, but this is ancient docetism. Does anybody know what docetism means? From the Greek doceo, it means illusion. So the ancient view of Jesus's humanity being simply an illusion. That's the idea.
Speaker 2:So, and modern extreme Calvinism. I don't mean to step on anybody's toes, but watch, because these presuppositions, they seep into everything and you have to unearth these and find them, otherwise you may be beholding to some of these and not knowing it right. You pick these things up like you pick up gum on your shoe. You don't even realize it till later. And they're sticky, they're hard to get off, they're a mess. So watch what happens here.
Speaker 2:Presupposition again God is the pure ideal, just like neoplatonic idea of a projection of God, this ultimate ideal. But look at this. There's something added here he is the only reality. Well, if he's the only reality, then everything down here is just what An illusion. It's just an illusion. That's the key to these two views, views.
Speaker 2:The conclusion of this view was that, well, jesus, he only appeared to be human. He wasn't really human, his human form was only an illusion. Now, most held this because they viewed him as so divine. They said, well, he can't be human. He's so holy or divine, he's so God. So everything of his humanity was just an illusion.
Speaker 2:Now, extreme Calvinism. Why do I say this is similar? It's similar. Because, in extreme Calvinism, why do I say this is similar. It's similar because in extreme Calvinism the sovereignty of God is so great that history is determined and human freedom is really just an illusion. I mean, you know their view.
Speaker 2:I mean all extreme Calvinists would say, no, there's no such thing as free will. They might discuss things, like you know, possibly we're free agents, but they would never say we have free choice or free will, right. They are violently opposed to that free will concept. Why are they so opposed to that? Well, because God's sovereign. I mean, if you hold a free will, you're rejecting God's sovereignty. This is the way they think, and in their view then all of history is totally determined. Well, in that view, do we really have any say in any matter at all? I mean, no, it's already totally determined. So if you're sitting there right now thinking about what we're saying, or listening or going to sleep, that was all just determined, okay, by God sovereignly. Now they try to talk around it, I know, and try to explain. It gets really complicated discussions in their books. But to try to somehow basically just talk around it, okay, to satisfy people intellectually that well, there's something there and this really works or something, but it's really just a lot of hot air and talk. History is totally determined in this view, and so any concept of you having free will or freedom or making genuine choices is really just an illusion, and that's why I link this concept to ancient docetism about Christ's humanity. But docetism doesn't explain how the Word was made flesh.
Speaker 2:Let's look at 1 John 4.2. One of the early tests for orthodoxy was does the person, the teacher or the prophet say that Christ has come in the flesh? If they denied it, they were not a true teacher or prophet. So 1 John 4, verse 1, says Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world, and by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. I mean, was it just an illusion? Was his human form just an illusion, or is this verse saying that he actually came in human flesh? See, but there were a lot of people in the first century who were already denying this. This is probably Gnosticism or pre-Gnostic ideas, which developed later into what was called Docetism. So these were popular views at the time, and so this is written in the Spirit of God.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about John 1.14? John 1.14. We'll just look at one more. Was Jesus Christ? Did he have a true human body? You know, physical flesh? John 1.14.
Speaker 2:So this gets us into some interesting passages. John 1.14, the whole discussion of the Word, which we know is the second person of the Trinity. He's the one through whom everything came into being verse 3. And in verse 14, it says the Word became what? The illusion of flesh. Right, he looked like flesh. Isn't that what it says? No, of course. It says he came in the flesh, talking about the actual flesh, and he dwelt among us and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Okay, so another passage is showing for sure that he came in the flesh.
Speaker 2:In Colossians 2.9,. All the fullness of deity dwells in him in bodily form. That one could be questioned, because it says form. But I've shown you other passages that say he came in the flesh, so they're unquestionable. It doesn't explain that he was actually touched. I mean, if he was just an illusion, can you touch an illusion?
Speaker 2:1 John 1, 1-4. 1 John 1, 1-4,. 1 John 1, 1-4, which I'll read what was from the beginning, what we heard, what we've seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and we touched with our own hands concerning the word of life and this life was manifested. We have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and manifested to us. So we saw it, we touched it. What did they see and touch? They touched eternal life.
Speaker 2:Well, who's eternal life? Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. Jesus Christ himself is eternal life. When we believe in him, see, his life is given to us. What is that life? It's eternal life. That's what we're receiving. We're receiving him his life. When we believe in him, see, his life is given to us. What is that life? It's eternal life. That's what we're receiving. We're receiving him his life. They saw it, they touched it. That's not an illusion, that's real. Right. You said I didn't know eternal life could be touched. Yeah, the person of Jesus Christ is eternal life himself. So if you saw him and you touched him, you were seeing and touching eternal life. That is how close it was and that is how accessible it is to you and us when we believe, we receive this life his life him.
Speaker 2:So this doesn't work. So this one is called ancient Nestorianism and what we're going to get into now is more on the concept of the hypostatic union. Okay, this issue, this was named after Nestorius, a guy named Nestorius. Aren't you glad you're not named Nestorius? Okay, that's the ancient view and the modern view is neo-orthodoxy. I'll mention a name of someone who is neo-orthodox so that it shocks you a little bit.
Speaker 2:There's been a book just written about him, bonhoeffer Bonhoeffer. I hope you don't follow his theology. It's not very good. Nothing he did at World War II as far as showing resistance to the Nazis was a necessary connection to his theology. It was what any moral human being would do at that time. His theology is not very good. If you read it, he's called Neo-Orthodox. So Neo-Orthodox is rationalistic, experiential theology.
Speaker 2:They don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Did you hear me? They do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God. They believe it contains the Word. What does that mean? They mean that it contains it in the sense that when it becomes true for you, it's the Word of God to you, but it's not objectively the Word. In other words, all these words are not God's Word. They become the Word of God to you when you have an experience with so neo-orthodoxy. It's not where we are, but this really erupted around World War II and became more and more popular and has been with us, of course, down to this day.
Speaker 2:So, in this view, the presupposition I'm just going to put, the precept is that God is limited by creation. Now everybody should be going no, wait a minute, how could God be limited by his creation? That doesn't even make sense, right? But they had certain conclusions that come from that presupposition. The main conclusion is that the Son's human and divine natures were only loosely connected. What does this mean? This mean? Well, it means that he could not get his divinity and his humanity you know together close enough so that he was only one person. Instead, they're loose, and so really what you have the two natures are two people. He's not just one person, but he's two people. He's not just one person, but he's two people. Now, is anybody shrewd enough, and way smarter than me, to catch right off the bat where this is going to go? If Jesus Christ is not one person but he's two people, actually, if he's two people and then the father is a third person that makes the spirit the. What fourth person? We're not talking about trinity anymore, we're talking about quadrinity. Okay, that's exactly where this goes, because the two natures in christ were not close enough together. He couldn't be one person. He ended up being two people the divine logos and the human jesus. And now you've got four people. So this one is very easy to see.
Speaker 2:The problem with it. The problem was is is that? Well, wait a minute, we don't have three people anymore Father, son and Spirit. We've got Father, divine Logos, human Jesus and the Spirit. We've got four. And does the Bible teach a quadranity? And then we all very quickly say, well, no, that doesn't work.
Speaker 2:So that was the problem with Nestorianism, and in some senses, neo-orthodox holds this concept too, because they keep the divine and the human so separate. Okay, and then the last one we'll look at is ancient. These are. So I put these up here so you can look them up. Meophysitism Put these up here so you can look them up. Meophysitism Now, these are not the same, because these two words I'm just putting them next to one another because they do have some similarities Monophysitism and modern-day Krishna incarnations. Have you heard of that in the Eastern religions, krishna incarnations, which is really an evolutionary thing. So you can see this is going to be an evolutionary type of Jesus. Okay, also held by liberal and pagan theology. So this one is, let's just say, the farthest away from the biblical concept, because when you look at their presupposition, you'll realize, or you should realize right off the bat, this won't work. Okay, god and creation are one. This is known as monism. You know one, everything is one and obviously you know.
Speaker 2:The very first thing that should come to your mind is Genesis 1.1,. Right, in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. They're not him, they're the creature or creation. It's separate from him. The creator this is the very first thing we taught in this whole framework class, I don't know, a year and a half ago right, was the creator-creature distinction. Okay, now, hopefully, all this is going to start to make sense.
Speaker 2:I told you you have to do the whole Old Testament before you can really really get and understand the New Testament. The very first truth that you learn in the Bible is the creator-creation distinction. We put the creator in the open box. We put creation in a closed box. Why do we do that? We're just saying, by the open box, that the creator is infinite, right, he's not limited. And we're saying creation is limited. Now, this is the first truth in the Bible. I mean, you learn it in Genesis 1.1,. Right, in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. So we've got the creator, and then we've got the creation, which is the heavens and the earth, and then he begins to form and fill you know the creation during creation week. So this is the most fundamental truth in the Bible.
Speaker 2:What is happening in Jesus Christ? Isn't the creator taking to himself the creature? What do we have? Let's just draw a line here. You know like we're talking about the, we still have the creator. He is the creator. Right by him, all things were made. He sustains all things. He's the creator. He took to himself the creature. And look how I've drawn them. Notice that the creator and the creature are distinct from one another, not blended together. They're not overlapping, but they're together. In other words, they're touching, so to speak, not mixed, not separated. And he's one person and this is who he is.
Speaker 2:Now, do you see, go back to creation in your mind's eye, god makes Adam and he makes him in his own. What Image and likeness. Why? Why did he do that? Because one day he knew he himself would become and take to himself a creature. The model for Adam was the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God didn't say, let me see what would I do here. No, he knew one day he was going to become incarnate and he made after that model. Looking at Christ, he made Adam. This is why I'm insistent that Adam I wouldn't be dogmatic, but Adam is made in God's image, in his whole person body, soul and spirit.
Speaker 2:You say, but God doesn't have a body. I know I'm not a Mormon, I don't think God has a body. I'm saying that the body that God made Adam, just as the body that God made Jesus Christ, is revelatory of who God is, which is why God can come along later in the Bible and say God's nostrils flared, or God's arm brought deliverance. You say, well, does God have a nose then? And does God have an arm? No, it's conveying something to us through the human nose and the human arm about what God is like that, for example, with his nostrils flaring, he gets angry, that with his mighty right arm he brings deliverance and judgment on his enemies. So the human form is revelatory of who God is. God didn't make it randomly, in that the human form is not a chance form. That is a result of evolutionary processes. It is very specifically designed to teach us about who God is.
Speaker 2:Man also has a spirit, which is the immaterial aspect of man that is also made in God's image. We have such things as the conscience. Is that something that you can surgically remove? No, it's not a physical thing, is it? It's a part of our spiritual makeup. There's this thing that we do called love. We love People, love one another. Is that just a chemical process in us? Now, lust may be, but is true love? Is that something chemical in you, or is it more than that? Is it something that's related to your human spirit? I think it's tied to the human spirit. It's not something. Can you take it out of a person and weigh it on a scale in a laboratory and mean how much love someone has? No, you can't do that, because it's not material, it's not chemical Chemicals. Material it's. It's immaterial, it's part of the human spirit.
Speaker 2:All of jesus christ. First of all, god is spirit. Right, he's a spirit being. He's not physical, uh, but man, we have a spirit. We have a spirit, we have a body and we are souls. We're living souls. So did Jesus Christ have all these going on as a creature? Yeah, he had a body. We already talked about that. He had a real flesh. You could touch it. People saw it, touched it. He said to Thomas reach here and touch my side. See, that is his eye. He ate Spir, it is his eye. He ate Spirits don't eat Bodies, eat. He ate in his resurrection body. So he has a body, he has a human spirit, he has a human soul or person, and he's united with, but not mixed with, the Creator and his divine nature. So this is where everything at creation starts to come together in Christ. This is why we'll get to it.
Speaker 2:But see, when he does miracles in the Gospels, like, let's just say, he makes water out of wine. Now, what is water for anybody who's a chemist in here? Yeah, you have two hydrogens, right. You have one oxygen at certain bond angles, right, that form due to the construction that God made. What's in wine? Water, but what else? Carbon. Well, where did that come from? Carbon, well, where did that come? From Water to wine? Where did the carbon come from? Who is he? What is he saying when he turns water into wine? He's saying I'm the creator. I make things out of nothing, I make carbon out of nothing. I just speak and it's there. And, by the way, in the miracle, he keeps on making it. Every time a glass is poured, not just once in a barrel. Every time a glass is poured, the sense is given that he's doing the miracle. That's the sense.
Speaker 2:Now, then you read other things like this he became tired, he became thirsty, he became hungry. What became thirsty? He became hungry? What You're God? How can that be? Well, he's also what. He's also a creature. See, he's a true human. He has a true human body that gets hungry, gets thirsty, he gets tired. Right, you're seeing the two natures. Right, you're seeing the two natures? Okay, you're seeing the divine nature. You're seeing the human nature, but you're seeing them in one person here. Okay, one person here. But there's no way you can ever get to that unless you know this back in Genesis, can you? You've got to know this because this is what sets the stage for that. This is, the whole bible is a setup. Each page is a set for the next page.
Speaker 2:I remember john whitcomb, who's a great creationist and a hebrew scholar, said this, and it, it, it basically humbled me. He said, every verse in the bible presupposes that you know every previous verse. And, of course, at that point I was just demolished, you know, because I realized how little I understood, how little I really knew, and so you know, it sets you on a track to okay, I've got to learn and understand every verse in the Bible, and that, of course, takes more than a lifetime, I would say, at this rate. So this view, ancient meophysitism, monophysitism and modern Christian incarnation, they deny all this. See this creator-creature stuff. No, no, no, god and creation are all one, everything is one.
Speaker 2:Well, in this case, what you have, the conclusion is that the Son only had one nature. I mean, if all is one, right, I mean how can he have two natures? Everything's one. So it was a fusion of the human nature with the divine. Okay, not like my picture where you have a creator and you have a creature and you have creature and they're connected, you know. So they're not separated but they're not mixed either, they're just together in one person. Not like that. We've got here a fusion of the human with the divine, or an absorption of the human in the divine. And that's kind of how they thought of it, as like a step in evolution where humans are becoming divine and Jesus is like the most evolved human. Okay, so that's what they're kind of thinking.
Speaker 2:This is the thing about this view which I mean you would say well, obviously, this is wrong. But this does not explain, as I described before, distinct expressions of Jesus' humanity, such as I'm tired, I'm thirsty. Okay, if his human nature is absorbed into the divine, then here's the thing he's neither God nor man. He's neither God nor man, but he's a third type of being that's not God or man. Now, does that fit the Bible? And if he is this third type of being, neither God nor man, could he actually die for man, since he's not one? No, no. So this has radical repercussions for the crucifixion and salvation and all that. Can he actually take us to God if he's not really God but a third type of being? No, he can't take us to God either, because he's not God. See, all these ideas have, let's just say, radical repercussions. That's why it's so important to get Trinity right and to get the hypostatic union right.
Speaker 2:We're going to start talking, of course, more about the hypostatic union, but these were all heretical views that were thought about by people. Many people held to them. At some periods of history they were ruling or the dominant view. But then people reflected more on the Scriptures and they said, no, wait a minute, that's not going to work. And we can look down on these people and say, well, fools, you know, but they're not fools. It just takes time and the Spirit teaches over generations.
Speaker 2:He doesn't say, oh, I'm going to teach this pastor who absolutely knows nothing, everything in his lifetime. Well, he is, but he's going to do it in a different way than just directly teaching me. He's going to teach me through people who he's already taught. He's going to say you know, I've already taught these men. Maybe you could learn something from them. I'm sure you've sat under pastors or teachers or scholars and you thought it's just great to sit under them because they bring this wealth of understanding and put scriptures together in a way. I'm like that totally makes sense. I never really understood that. Right, that's the right way, that is God's design for how we are to learn.
Speaker 2:So we're going to go more into well, both of these things, because I'm going to take you to the Old Testament and now we're going to start to look at all the Trinitarian passages in the Old Testament. You're going to say there's Trinitarian passages in the Old Testament. There are strong hints of Trinitarianism in the Old Testament. They're not where you know the strongest passages, but if you have to know every other previous verse to really get the later verses, that's what we have to do. It's what we have to do. Here's the thing. If you do this, you better watch out. You better watch out every one of you.
Speaker 2:If you do this, because God is seeing it, he is interested in those who are interested in him. He is interested in those who are interested in him. If you do this, he could change your life. He could change your life. You say but what does that look like? It doesn't matter, he's the one who's going to do it and everything he does is good. He wants you to look at him. He wants you to look at him. He wants you to look at him. He wants all of us to be looking at him. And if we're looking at him, he is interested in you and he will do things in your life. He will do things in your life. You say what thing, don't worry about it. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding In all your ways, acknowledge him and what he will make your path straight.
Speaker 2:How many of you want a crooked path, a crooked, rough path through life? How many of you want a crooked path, a crooked, rough path through life? How many of you want a straight path? You can even raise your hand. Why? Why do we want that? Because it's the most direct, because it makes the most sense, because we know it's the most efficient and the most beneficial. That's why we want a straight path because it doesn't come with all the horrors.
Speaker 2:Did I say it's going to be easy? No, didn't say that. We know he's got trials for us, james chapter one. But what are we doing if we're focusing on him? When the trials come, we're trusting in him and what? What happens? Then he gets us through and he gives us strength. The other way to go through it is without his strength and to do it all on your own and to just be frustrated and stressed out and all that. Now, which way? The straight path or the crooked one? It's an easy choice. So we're going to do this, we're going to go through these passages because we want to look at him. I hope this is some help, even though I know you probably will not remember meophysitism, monophysitism, historianism, you know, and all of that. We have got to look at passages and we have got a better understanding of who God is.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.