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 - Trinity in the Old Testament
The familiar doctrine of the Trinity is often dismissed as a New Testament invention, but what if it had deeper roots in Jewish thought than we typically acknowledge?
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:When you come into the New Testament, they just speak of this as like the natural flow of events, not a novel idea, but as something that was already in place. He says it's clear that as we read the New Testament, we're not witnessing the birth of a new conception of God. The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear in the New Testament in the making but as already made, which is super interesting because most people they don't think the Trinity is in the Old Testament. They think, oh, that's the New Testament, the New Testament gave us that. But no, the way the New Testament authors speak of it is something that's not really novel and they're not making this doctrine. They're showing that it's already on the table and was in the Jewish mindset. They don't have a problem with it at all, which I find so interesting. Right, because I mean of all people you'd think who would be like strict monotheists, you'd think of somebody like Paul, right, or Saul you know he was a Pharisee, right, yet he didn't struggle with this. In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, it says many of the Sadducees believed. I think this verse gets overlooked. Like the Sadducees, I mean, are you kidding me? These are the people who didn't even believe in resurrection, by the way, these are the people who didn't even believe in resurrection, by the way, and in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, it says many of the Sadducees believed. That's kind of striking, because they would not be the people you would expect to believe, and so to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, they'd have to be believing that he's God. They'd have to believe, of course, in the resurrection. So their beliefs were being challenged. And yet these ideas were already in the air. The concepts of Trinity were already in the air, and they were familiar with these concepts, so it was not that great a leap.
Speaker 2:Let's go into the person of the Holy Spirit and the deity of the Holy Spirit. It's an interesting discussion. The reason we have to do this, especially about both personality and deity, is because not all groups claim that the Spirit is a distinct person in the Trinity. Many groups claim that he is just an impersonal force of God, something that God uses to accomplish things, but something that is simply literally as impersonal as gravity, and so these would be non-Trinitarians. They would also be anti-Trinitarians or Binitarians. Okay, binitarians would just hold to two members of the Trinity being God, but groups like, for example, jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons. They don't believe that the Holy Spirit is a person. They think of the Holy Spirit as a force from God by which he accomplishes things. Now, the Spirit is not a force, as we'll show, but he is in the background, which is very interesting, and this is intentional. It's intentional that he's in the background and not at the forefront or taking center stage.
Speaker 2:Now, this is seen from the words for spirit In the Hebrew ruach and in the Greek pneuma. You know, if you have pneumonia, that's a problem in your what, in your lungs, and that's where we breathe. And we have a diaphragm that, you know, presses up on the lungs to push the air out, the breath, the wind out, and then, of course, the diaphragm allows also us to breathe in. But that's where we get our word pneumonia from, which is from the Greek word pneuma. So we have these two words. The Hebrew word is translated various ways.
Speaker 2:Spirit doesn't always have to be the Holy Spirit, right, it could just be a spirit, like a demonic spirit or the human spirit, or a good spirit, a good angel, wind, of course, breath, breeze, blowing, nothingness, and of course I've put some passages down here where it refers to the Spirit of God. That should be, I think, genesis 1-2, not Genesis 12-3. Genesis 1-2, I mean he's in the second verse of the Bible. I always find this amazing. People think, well, how could you get Trinity out of the Bible? I mean, did you read the first three verses? If you read the first three verses and you actually know some more of the Bible, you see all three persons in the first three verses.
Speaker 2:In the beginning God, plural Elohim, created singular verb, so unity and diversity. Already he created the heavens and the earth and it says the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God there's the Spirit in the was moving over the surface of the waters. And then God said verse 3, let there be light. And that's word, that's speech. Who is the word? Who is the word? Become flesh? Who dwelt among us in the New Testament? Well, that's the second person of the Trinity. So you really have all three members of the Trinity in hindsight in the first three verses of the Bible. But there it is Ruach. There in verse 2, the Spirit of God. He's also used in Genesis 6, verse 3, where just before the flood, the Lord said my spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he's also flesh. Nevertheless, his day shall be 120 years. So he was restraining prior to the flood, but he would not go on restraining forever and under 120 years, and then God would judge which he did.
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.