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 Greatest Conversation
What is the greatest conversation the church has ever had? It wasn't a short one, that's for sure.
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 a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Waiting for the blessed hope and appearing of our great God and Savior, jesus Christ. Our great God and Savior, jesus Christ, is our great God. He's also our Savior, and that is a construction in the Greek which there's over 200 uses in the New Testament, all of which indicate that the two nouns that modify the one object are pointing to the same object, and it fulfills that rule. So nobody's ever been able to defeat that argument as far as Greek grammar is concerned, since it was discovered by Granville Sharp a couple hundred years ago. So very interesting. Hebrews 1.8, which quotes the Old Testament and refers to him as my God. So lots of passages, other passages about the deity of Christ. These are just a sampling to show that he is in fact Yahweh.
Speaker 2:Now, all these things were being discussed in the early church, and because people come up with various views and ideas about Christ and they all started with various presuppositions, I've taken you through all that. You're like I don't want to do that anymore. That was just taxing on my brain Historianism, monophysitism, all the dynamic, monarchism, all this stuff. So okay, so I'm moving past that. Okay, I won't be bringing that up, but I did want to show once more. I just want you to look at these creeds, because what these creeds are showing is the development and understanding about christ. Because, as they would make a creed, say, the apostles creed, the one here, the short one at the top they stated the truths. Real quick, I mean, it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. See, I believe in god, our father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in jesus christ, his only son, our lord, who was conceived of the holy spirit, born of the virgin mary, suffered under pontius, pilate, crucified, died, buried. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You see how? That is what happened.
Speaker 2:After that, people started to interpret these statements differently than they were intended. So they had to come out with another creed called the Nicene Creed. And so, whereas the Apostles' Creed was just a statement of truths, the Nicene Creed was combative. It was combating other interpretations of the Apostles' Creed. This will almost never end, by the way, this reinterpretation of statements. You make a statement. Let me just give you one that's very obvious. Today that happens.
Speaker 2:How are we saved? By grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone? The number of ways this has been interpreted is crazy. So, for example, if we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, then there's a group called Lordship Salvation that says well, yeah, it's faith alone that saves, but the faith that saves is never alone. It's always got to be accompanied by works, and if you don't have the works, you didn't have the right kind of faith to begin with. So that's their interpretation of faith alone.
Speaker 2:Or take, for example, another one that's related to this concept of faith alone is the idea, also of lordship salvation, that faith is a gift of God. If it's not a gift of God, it's a work, and works negate grace, and so it's got to be grace alone, through faith alone. They say so faith must be a gift of God, because if it's not, then we are adding a work, and works contradict grace. Hold on the Bible says that faith is not a work. Romans 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with Abraham. It says Abraham didn't work, but believed in him. Who justifies the ungodly. So faith isn't a work.
Speaker 2:But because this theology interprets faith as a work, well, they've distorted the concept of what is meant by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So I just point this out because that's what was happening in the early church. This will continue to happen when statements are made that are just boom, boom, boom, like the Apostles' Creed. It's inevitable that humans are going to come along and interpret this in different ways. This is why, when we have conversations with people and let's just say this, let's say you're having a conversation with a Roman Catholic and you say to the Roman Catholic, do you believe in Christ? They're all going to say what? Yes? And you think, oh well, we're all on the same page here. You haven't even scratched the surface of that statement. You have to find out what they mean by that statement.
Speaker 2:For example, I was sitting there with my wife the other day, I don't know. She was thumbing through something and I saw it, or I was thumbing through it. She saw, I don't know one way or the other, and it said it said John 3.16, pray the rosary. And I'm like what in the world? How in the world does the rosary? And I'm like what in the world? How in the world does the rosary relate to John 3.16?
Speaker 2:John 3.16, for God so loved the world right that he gave his unique son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. It's just a statement of you know, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean God gave him to us. What does this have to do with saying a prayer? There's nothing about prayer in there. There's definitely nothing about the rosary and there's definitely nothing about Mary. You know, it's just believe in the Lord, jesus Christ. But you wonder, like what is going on? How does the rosary relate to John 3.16? It doesn't seem to have any relationship, but someone obviously thought that it did.
Speaker 2:So this means that what we have to keep doing is we have to keep clarifying, adding explanation for what we mean by statements, and that's what happened at Nicaea.
Speaker 2:They're having to correct all the distortions of the interpretations of the Apostles' Creed. So they add you know everything in yellow here. So we believe in one God, father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. They had to add that because of the angels, because certain people started thinking well, the angels helped god create, so you know that. Well, we got to shut that down. And in one, lord jesus christ, the only begotten son of god, begotten of the father, before all worlds, that is, eons, light of light, and then his very god, of very god, because there are certain people saying well, he, he's the first creation of God, or God bestowed Godhood on him. So you know things like that. So they had to clarify and add more all the way till it got to. They kept doing it, they kept doing it, they kept interpreting these statements differently and so, finally, at Chalcedon in 451, notice, this was over a 400-year discussion okay, mainly about the person of Christ, and it is the greatest discussion the church has ever had.
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.