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 - Incomprehensible and yet knowable
Three in One and all are One; and yet distinct and separate. I need another cup of coffee and to sit down to think about this some more. And yet I know that no amount of brain stimulation on my part will ever help me understand fully who God is. Thankfully, His Holy Spirit teaches me in my limited understanding to know what I can.
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. And all this is saying is that, while God, you can't totally know Him in every aspect of His being you'd have to be omniscient to know that but you can know Him in part, and that part can be truly known.
Speaker 1:The Trinity is the great, inexhaustible, inexplainable, unknowable and yet knowable entity that exists outside of time and space. How in the world are we supposed to wrap our minds around this concept of God? Three distinct people and yet one, perfectly the same, and yet acting in different ways? It's a mystery that we try and solve, that we try and understand, but we're always limited in our ability to do so because we are a part creation and therefore we are limited by creation to what we can understand. Every analogy that we come up with has flaws, and yet God, in his infinite wisdom, has patiently and carefully tried to explain His nature to us. We will never know it fully, but we can know it. This is the beauty of what God has done for us and how he has explained Himself in the Bible, bit by bit, aspect by aspect, building upon little block of little knowledge to help us grow in our understanding of him. It's truly a beautiful thing. Same thing.
Speaker 2:So it's very important for their security to be successful and Hamas to not be victorious in this, which was just basically a bloody assault on civilians, and I mean they sent over 2,500 terrorists in in one night. That's very concerning to Israel because it means that they're vulnerable and now they want to get those people back, but it's super complicated, so we'll just have to kind of wait and see what will take place. Okay, but that's where things are. Let's go to the doctrine of the Trinity, and we want to talk about the proper approach to the doctrine of the Trinity. In other words, there's a way to approach knowing God and there's ways not to approach knowing God. We have to approach God and knowing him on his own terms and his terms.
Speaker 2:Are the creator-creature distinction right? When we say that, we mean that God is distinct from his creation, he's not a part of creation. There's not just one level of reality or existence. There's two levels of reality or existence God, who's infinite, and the creation, which is finite. And so when we're approaching God, we have to approach him with this distinction in mind that he's not subject to the creation, he's not subject to created categories, he's not subject to your reason and what we'll try to show, then. Is that human reason, logic, time, all of these mathematics, the concept of number, all these things are derivative from who God is. In other words, those categories that we are so commonly function in, those are derived from him. But we can't take him and put him in the constraints of those categories. Those are created categories.
Speaker 2:So we say two things about God, in the proper approach, that fall under creator creature distinction. That's, first of all, that God is incomprehensible. He's incomprehensible. Now this means, of course, that he cannot exhaustively or comprehensively be known. Now, this means, of course, that he cannot exhaustively or comprehensively be known. So let's go to Romans 11, 33, the end of Paul's section on Israel in the book of Romans, where he deals with God's dispensational dealings with Israel and with Gentiles.
Speaker 2:Romans 11.33 describes the incomprehensibility of God, this concept that we cannot exhaust Him, we cannot totally understand or know Him. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable his ways. In other words, you cannot fathom the manners or ways in which God does things Verse 34, for who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor? In other words.
Speaker 2:This is the concept that if you need a counselor, it's because you need to learn something right, you need to learn something from the counselor. That's why you're going to the counselor, because you don't understand or know something that you need to know. But who has been the counselor of the Lord? In other words, what has he ever learned? What does he need to learn? He doesn't need to learn anything. God doesn't learn things. What does he need to learn? He doesn't need to learn anything. God doesn't learn things. God knows all things. So nobody can inform him of something, nobody can give him a new piece of information. He already has all the information past, present and future, as well as things that are outside of time, related to his own nature and essence.
Speaker 2:So this is just a basic concept that you cannot figure God out. That's what my seminary president used to say. He said he'd just stand up there and he'd say you ain't going to figure God out, and what he meant was that God is incomprehensible. I've given you some other passages here that describe that same concept. But just because we said that, a lot of people stop at that point and say, well, there's no use trying to figure out who God is because we can't understand him. But that's not what it's saying. It's not saying you can't understand him. It's saying you can't understand him exhaustively, you can't understand him comprehensively.
Speaker 2:So God is knowable and therefore he can be known truly, but he can be known truly only in part. Well, in what sense, then, can he be known? Or in what part? In the parts that he has revealed? Things that he has revealed can be known. Just like nobody can know something about you unless you reveal it to someone else, they have to tell you in some way, otherwise we don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're thinking right now. You don't know what I'm thinking, but I was thinking about a rocket fired over from Hamas. You didn't know. I was thinking that you thought I was thinking about what I was saying. No, I'm thinking about something else. You didn't know. I was thinking that you thought I was thinking about what I was saying. No, I'm thinking about something else.
Speaker 2:See, nobody knows unless you reveal, and see Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the things that he's revealed are for us and our children. In other words, there he's talking about the Mosaic law and he's saying this has been revealed and through the Mosaic law you would learn who God was, because God was the lawmaker. So you learn about someone, let's say a lawmaker, by the laws that they make. You learn about a watchmaker by the watch that the watchmaker makes. In other words, you can learn about someone through the craft that they make. You can learn about an artist through the art that they produce. And Romans 1, which is one of the craft that they make, you can learn about an artist through the art that they produce.
Speaker 2:And Romans 1, which is one of the passages that are here listen to Romans 1, 18 to 23, says that all men know God by means of the creation. In other words, they look at what has been made and God is clearly seen through what has been made, so that no man is with excuse. That's Romans 1, 18, 19, and 20 describe these ideas. In other words, god crafted the universe, we would say, and then we, as humans, who are part of the universe crafted in his image, we look at the universe around us and we look at ourselves the complicated nature of our bodies, the physics, the biology, the chemistry, right, and of course, it's extremely complicated. The cell is no longer a black box. We know a lot about the cell, though I doubt we know everything there is to know about the human, the cell, the cellular structure and eukaryotes and prokaryotes and all that stuff. Okay, very interesting, all the little things inside there endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, dna, I mean it goes on and on right, but it's super complicated and it's saying that when people look at this, even just looking outside and looking at a flower, looking at this mountain lion that's supposedly going to destroy Halloween this year in Spokane, the sightings of this mountain lion, whatever, you see a mountain lion, what? This is an amazing creature and it's revealing something about the one who crafted that creature and it's telling us this is whoever made. That is infinitely brilliant. So we can know things about someone through what they've made. We can also know things about someone if they simply give us propositional speech, like Revelation and the Bible, and so God can be known.
Speaker 2:1 Corinthians 2.16. Let's look at that one. 1 Corinthians 2.16. Corinthians 2 16. Let's look at that one. First, corinthians 2 16.
Speaker 2:And all this is saying is that while god, you can't, you can't totally know him in every aspect of his being. You'd have to be omniscient to know that. But you can know him in part, and that part can be truly known. Notice first corinthians 2 16, who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. In other words, now that we're believers, we have access to knowledge of God through his revelation in Christ. That's what this is saying. So he is knowable, but he's only knowable in part. And what that means for you when it comes to Trinity is this you can understand some things about God in Trinity, but there's nothing down here in creation that is an exact correspondence to him and therefore you cannot know him comprehensively. You can never say I figured God out, I've got it all down pat.
Speaker 2:So let's go through these propositions, because at some points you're going to think well, that conflicts with this or how does that work with this? I don't know of anything that mirrors that or is a perfect analogy with that. And I would say, yes, that's what you're supposed to understand, that there is no perfect analogy. And so let's look at some of these points. First of all, god is one. This is the first of five propositions. The next will be God is three. After that we'll say that God's threeness refers to eternal distinctions, not just roles in creation in time. And then subordination within the Trinity, like Father, son and Spirit. And then subordination within the Trinity, like Father, son and Spirit, and the subordination that occurs in that relationship. These are not a reference to their subordination of essence. And then, of course, we'll talk a little bit more about one last point.
Speaker 2:Okay, but first of all, god is one. What this means is that God's persons are mutually exhaustive of one another. Let's explain that further. This means he can't be divided into parts. It's typical for people to say, well, god is like an egg. You've got one egg and it's got three parts Shell, yolk and albumen or whatever. Or one light particle, or is it a wave, whatever? Break light apart into three parts and say, well, that's like God.
Speaker 2:Or a pie you take a pie. This is the easiest one. Here comes Thanksgiving in a month Hopefully we'll have some pies and you cut the pie in three parts. You get a piece, I get a piece and my wife gets a piece. Whew, that's a big piece.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's not God, god, god. God is not like a pie. And you split it. You know you have father, son and spirit and together they're all God. Because what would that mean? That would mean the father is not God, the son is not God, the spirit is not God. In fact, the father is less than God and the son is less than God and the spirit is less than God, because each one of them are only one third. See, okay, that is not what God is like. So if that's your idea of God, that's what we call an idol.
Speaker 2:Did you catch that? Why? Because this concept of God as a pie is a created concept. It's created, it's functioning in the categories that God made, and you can't take God as the creator and subject him to our categories. So what this is saying is that God's persons are mutually exhaustive of one another. In other words, if you were thinking of the pie and you got Father, son and Spirit as three pieces of the pie, what this words?
Speaker 2:If you were thinking of the pie and you got Father, son and Spirit as three pieces of the pie, what this is saying is that each piece of the pie is mutually exhaustive of every other piece of pie. But we're like well, that doesn't make sense to me. I don't see how that can be. There are three separate pieces of pie, but not in the model of the Trinity. That's not the way it works. So what people do, and the reason people tend to think this way and draw analogies with god and say god's like an egg or god's like a pie or whatever, is because that's the way things are down here in creation and that's the only way they know how to think, and so they tend to borrow this idea from creation and then project it onto the creator. This is where all idolatry starts. That won't ever work. As Stanley Toussaint used to say, that dog won't hunt, so that's trying to capture God and bring him into created categories.
Speaker 2:And let's go to Isaiah 40, verse 18. Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 18. See why you can't do this. The Bible explicitly says you can't do this. Isaiah 40, verse 18. To whom, then, will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare with Him? Isn't that what you're doing when you say, well, god is like an egg, god is like a pie, god is like the three parts of music melody, harmony and rhythm. That's what you're doing. You're saying God is like this thing, but the Bible says, well, who are you going to compare him with? To what, then, will you liken him? And then the very next verse is talk about what subject? Idols, because once you begin to compare him with something else, that is the beginning of idolatry. That's how it gets started. So it's actually. Everything is exactly the opposite.
Speaker 2:We don't have these categories down here and then we project the categories on God and put him in our categories. The reason we have categories is because of who he is. They're derived from him. In other words, why do we have a concept called time? Is that a category? I mean, for us it's a category, because some of you are saying I got to be out of here at 12 noon, so you have a concept of time. Why do we have, is that a concept, that we then take and we say well, god must be in time, he's limited by time. You know this is. There's a whole theology called process theology that is built on this idea that God is subject to time. Process theology, so process theology. So this is endemic to people's thinking to bring God into our categories. Here's the reason we have time, though time is a finite derivative of eternality. God is eternal, he's not subject to time, he doesn't experience the passage of moments, so to speak, as we do. But time exists because it is a finite replica of eternity. It's eternity shrunk down in size, so to speak. Now we also have concept of space in geometry. Right, geometry is basically the study of spaces. Why do we have that? I mean, is that just something that exists?
Speaker 2:Bernd Poitras wrote a very interesting article in around 1978. He was a mathematician, also a theologian, and he wrote a paper about mathematics and whether God was silent about it. In other words, is math math whether or not God exists? Can you have math whether or not God exists? And he has a proof that shows that math is not neutral, is a proof that shows that math is not neutral, that math itself is derivative of the nature of God and you can't just go about doing your geometry, doing your calculus, doing your physics, doing all your little formulas for friction and whatnot. You cannot do those without assuming God is actually there. It's a formal proof and it's been very difficult for people to answer. As a result of that, james Nicol wrote a book that's about almost half the thickness of our Bible called Mathematics is God's Silent by James Nicol, very interesting textbook to show that the categories and things that we enjoy, like space, time, math and concept of number time, all these things the only reason we have these categories to function in is because of the nature of God, and these things are derivative of his nature by means of creation. So fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2:But the point here to notice especially is that God's persons the Father, son and Spirit, are mutually exhaustive of one another. And you say, but that doesn't fit my category. Right, I get that, but he's infinite, we're finite, and the categories we have we can't shove him into. It won't work. Second point under this concept that God is one, god's attributes not just the person's, but now I'm talking about his attributes are mutually exhaustive of one another as well. What do I mean by this? I mean that God is entirely love and his love penetrates entirely his justice and his justice penetrates entirely his omnipotence. And so what I'm saying here is that when we think of the attributes of God, we're not supposed to think of it again like a pie where God is part love part, just part, sovereign part, righteous part, omniscient part, omnipresent, part, omnipotent, and if we get all these parts together, the end conclusion will be God. That again is not what God is like, because the attributes are mutually exhaustive of one another.
Speaker 2:You know, the liberal loves to set up the idea that in the Old Testament God was just righteous, big meanie, and in the New Testament he's a God of love. And the liberal would like to say that the God of the Old Testament is a contradiction to the God of the New Testament. That is a simple fallacy of parting God's attributes out, as we're describing here, and not seeing them as mutually exhaustive of one another. God's justice is loving. His love is sovereign. His love is omniscient love. His love is omnipotent. Love. His omnipotence is expressed in justice. These are mutually exhaustive of one another, aren't they? So that's why you can say something like this If someone said to you what is God like and you answered God is love, your answer would be 100% correct, just as if you answered God is righteous.
Speaker 2:That answer is 100% correct because God is entirely righteous, and the Bible says these things right. God is love, god is righteous, he is sovereign. So here's the thing now, if we think about what we experience down here, if we as humans experience love, why do we experience love? Why is that a human quality or characteristic that we experience? Because, first, he is love. That's why why do we experience justice, or have a concept of justice down here amongst ourselves, concept of justice down here amongst ourselves. Because, first of all, he is just right. How do we get a concept of power and control, that we have control or power over a certain segment or sphere in our job, in our marriage, whatever. Where does that even come from? It comes from the fact that God is sovereign, and so down here we have finite derivatives that we experience. Why? Well, because first he was these things, he is these things. So that's the first concept that God is one and his persons are mutually exhaustive of one another, as well as his attributes. He's not pieces put together like a puzzle.
Speaker 2:Second point is that God is three and you say now, wait a minute, you just said God is one, yeah, but he is one and he's in three. He's also three and he's absolutely one and he's absolutely three. And you say but I don't understand Well that there's nothing in creation that we have that corresponds to this. So you don't understand Well that there's nothing in creation that we have that corresponds to this. So you don't have any finite experience of it. So it's not a category we have, right, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So let's talk about this one First of all, god is three.
Speaker 2:He's not two or four or eight, some actually posited. Years ago I got part of a group called Christianity Not Christianity but Christianity and it posited the idea that if God were four persons in one, what would the universe be like? Would it be the same as it is now or would it be different? After years and years of discussion in a discussion board in the late 90s they basically concluded that the world would be a different place than it is now. It wouldn't be the same. But it was just an interesting thought experiment with the Bible.
Speaker 2:But the point here is that God is three, okay, and he has what we call an aggregative nature. What do we mean by aggregative? Clustered? Okay, can tell there are distinctions in this cluster of who God is right. You can tell there's distinctions of person. Why? Well, it's very easy. You read the Bible and it's talking about the Father and then it talks about the son. So you know there's distinctions inside his aggregate nature. Otherwise the Bible couldn't say father and son, it would just be God, right, there wouldn't be any distinctions of person. But the Bible very obviously speaks in terms of distinctions of person, so as well as attributes. So, for example, we look at John 14.1.
Speaker 2:Look at this and I'm going to show you some interesting verses today, very, very interesting descriptions of God and what he's like. That I'm sure you've read, but maybe we don't always think about. John 14 1, the end of that verse. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in god, believe also in me. Okay, same action, believe, but two different objects. I mean, you can see the difference between god and me. You know the sun, you can see that. Okay, but there's an aggregate there because there's the same action toward each one. Believe, believe in each one. Uh, same chapter.
Speaker 2:Look at verse 26. Notice the distinctions in this cluster. But the, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, there's one whom the Father there's two will send in my name. There's three, okay, but do you see they're all working together in something? The Father will send the Spirit and He'll do that in my name. So there's an aggregate, there's a cluster involved, but there's distinctions in the cluster. You see, okay, there's more verses here 15, 26, 16, 7 through 11.
Speaker 2:You can do the same thing with the attributes, just the fact that in some passages it emphasizes God's righteousness, in others it emphasizes His omniscience. The distinction of the attributes. Yet, a lot of times, as you read passages that are very involved with the attributes. They're all clustered together in the passages Like read Isaiah 40s, anywhere in the 40s, a lot of attributes of God, distinct attributes, but they're clustered together, all together, and that's showing the aggregative nature of God being three in one. Okay, so there's a threeness to God. Now, that's the second point I've kind of talked about. Yet all three persons and attributes are viewed as a unit or cluster. Okay, we're in John 14, so let's look at 9 through 11 for a little bit more detail about this.
Speaker 2:Jesus said to Philip have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know me, philip, this is weird. He who has seen me has seen who the Father. Do you see how they're mutually exhaustive of one another, so that if you saw one, you saw the other? You said but I thought they were distinct. Well, they are in this verse, but they're also clustered and mutually exhaustive of one another. Strange, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:These, these expressions are odd. We would never say if you've seen me, you've seen somebody else. You can't say that in creation because we are only one, there's no other. He goes on, he says how can you say show us the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Okay, well, we don't have anything that lines up with this in our experience. Exactly, it goes further the words that I say to you. I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father, abiding in me, does his work. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe just simply because of the works themselves.
Speaker 2:So this is a totally unique description in verses 9 through 11, of someone that doesn't have any application to anyone in this created world. We just don't have this type of nature that God has, and I'm trying to point up in this point the incomprehensibility, right and the impressiveness of who he is. Because what it's saying is the Son fully penetrates the Father and the Father totally penetrates the Son. And you know it would be true for the Spirit too. That's not discussed here, but it's true for the Spirit too. The Father's the Father, and the Father totally penetrates the Son. And you know it would be true for the Spirit too. That's not discussed here, but it's true for the Spirit too. The Father's in the Spirit and the Spirit's in the Father, but yet they are distinct.
Speaker 2:This is not just different masks. You know the idea that God has three masks and he puts on this mask and he's the Father, and then he takes it off and puts the Son mask on. He takes it up with the spirit mask on. No, they're distinct. You can see that, but there's this mutual exhaustion of each and the other. So this is unlike anything we know.
Speaker 2:Now let's go to the third proposition. You say this is hard. It's God. What do you expect? You're going to figure it out. No, this isn't a high-level math which you could figure out. It's God. What do you expect? You know you're going to figure it out. No, this isn't a high-level math which you could figure out. This is beyond that.
Speaker 2:God's threeness refers to eternal distinctions, not just roles in time. I should have said in time there. That would have helped. What I'm trying to point out here is there's two different ways of thinking about God what's called the economic trinity and the ontological trinity. Okay, so what that basically means is this there's two ways of thinking about God. One you can think about God with respect to the creation, in other words, how he relates to creation things in time. Another way to think about God is to think about his relationship within himself without respect to creation, without any creation. Even there let's just say before creation, for lack of a better term. Those are the two ways you can think about God. The Bible is insistent that we think about both. The one where he is relating to time and creation is called the economical trinity. So that's looking at God's relationship to creation from the standpoint of the roles of each member of the trinity, like the role of the Father, the role of the Son and the role of the roles of each member of the Trinity, like the role of the Father, the role of the Son and the role of the Spirit.
Speaker 2:For example, let's go to Ephesians 1. We have this idea that God, the Father, plans salvation. We have another idea, that the Son is the one who executes salvation by dying on the cross right, and then we have the Spirit who applies salvation to those who believe. And this is exactly the way Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 14 break it up. So look at verse 3, and you will see that the subject is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:Now, but come to verse 7. I know it's suffering to skip all this, but just trust me. In verse 7, in him we have redemption. That's talking of the Son, which he just talked about at the end of verse 6, the beloved. And then, if you come to verse 13, I know we skipped a lot In verse 13, it begins to talk about the Holy Spirit right at the end of verse 13. But the whole in him, christ. You also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed that you were sealed in him, in Christ, with the Holy Spirit of promise, the one who's given as a pledge of our inheritance.
Speaker 2:So here's what happens Verses 3, 4, 5, 6,. Those all deal with god, the father. Okay, and notice at the end of verse six, or in verse six, when it finishes, the father, and you want to underline these words. It says to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of the glory. Okay, you want to under I know you don't want to underline your bible because you say I don't do that you want to underline this prayer when you come to the next chapter, uh, verse and verse seven. Again, it starts with the sun and that takes you all the way through verse 12 and I want you to look at the very end of verse 12. What does it say to the praise of his glory? That's a literature marker. Right, we now see it twice.
Speaker 2:Now let's come to the end of verse 14, the section on the spirit. What does it say at the very end of verse 14, to the praise of his glory? Okay, in other words, those are literary markers. It's marking off the three sections the first section, father. Second section, son. Third section, spirit. Okay, but this whole section is about god's plan of salvation, the son's execution of the plan and the spirit's application of the plan to us. So you can read. We'll just read the father's portion, verse three, four, five and six.
Speaker 2:Blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ, the father who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, what we would call the plan of salvation which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. So that's basically outlining what we would call the plan of salvation. We'd say the Father is the member of the Trinity who planned the salvation. Now then you'd come to verse seven, and it's about the beloved Christ, the Son, and it says in him we have redemption. Through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He has made known to us the mystery of his will. And it goes on and on. And the point is who is the one who shed his blood for us? Was that the Father or was that the Spirit? No, that was the Son, and so this is all about the one who executed the plan that the Father had. And then, of course, verses 13 and 14 the spirit. And the spirit is the one who applies salvation to us when we believe. He seals us in christ and he becomes a pledge or down payment of our ultimate inheritance with the view to our resurrection.
Speaker 2:So do you see that there's, there's a, there are roles there. There, it wouldn't make sense if it said the Father who shed His blood for us. You'd say, no, the Father doesn't do that. The Son does that. You're recognizing the roles. This is the economical trinity, it's the way that the Father and Spirit relate to certain aspects of creation and play certain roles, so to speak. Now, this would indicate that the Father is uniquely constituted to do some things, the Son is uniquely constituted to do other things and the Spirit others. It's not that the Father could have been the one who came and died for our sins, or the Spirit could have come. It can't be that way, because that's not who God is in some sense In that way, because that's not who God is in some sense, in some way that's not who God is.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk about that's the Trinity with respect to creation and time, and there are roles there that can be distinguished. But let's talk about His threeness as it refers to eternity. They call this the ontological Trinity. That's a physics word, but anyway, not a physics word, a philosophy word. Ontological trinity okay, what it looks at is God's relationship within himself. Who cares about creation? Okay, this is not talking about creation at all, forget us, it's just him. There was a time when there was just God, right? Well, not really, because there was no time. See, did you catch the limitations in human language? God doesn't exist in time. So I can't really say there's time before creation. It's just a limitation, but you know what I mean. It's sufficient. We can communicate.
Speaker 2:For example, god the Son did not become the Son at the incarnation, because the incarnation is something that took place in time. So the question is well, when did the Son become the Son and when did the Father become the Father? Because doesn't a father become a father at the birth of a son? Okay, but there's no birth of his sonship. He is eternally the son, eternal sonship. So this is talking about god in his being, who cares about creation, just who is god? And god is father and he's son and he's spirit from all eternity. Okay, that didn't change at the incarnation. When jesus took to himself a humanity in the virgin mary. Okay, there was no essential change in god. When that happened was there, because god forever was father and son. He was forever father and son and always will be father and son. So this is a ontological trinity issue and it's really based on this concept that I have here at the end of the quote, where it says god never changes and he is a saiety. Okay, a saiety.
Speaker 2:This is the idea of self-existence. He just exists. People say, well, where'd god come from? Because what are they thinking? Everything comes from somewhere, therefore, where does god come from? That is, what are they thinking? Everything comes from somewhere, therefore, where does God come from? That is, do what you take a created category of coming into existence. Typically, we think of birth, and then we say we project that on God and we say, well, god had to come from somewhere, because everything comes from somewhere. Excuse me, excuse me, everything comes from somewhere. How do you know that? Well, because my experience says something everything comes from somewhere.
Speaker 2:Well, the whole point is that God didn't come from anywhere. He is self-existing, he doesn't need anything outside of himself. He's self-sustaining and he has self-existence. This is the concept of aseity. So, no, all things don't have a beginning and all things don't come from somewhere. Some things just are, in this case, a self-sufficient, all-sufficient being. So that's the ontological idea about God. God exists in himself, and is he loving within himself, within the Trinity? Yeah. Is he sovereign within himself? Yes, is he just within himself such that he never sins? Is he righteous within himself such that he never? Yes, he's able in some way to exercise all of his attributes within himself, whether or not there's a creation. What this means, then, is that God didn't need us, but it does mean that, well, we do need him. We very much need him Now. I think this is a point.
Speaker 2:I wanted to take you over to Acts 17 real quick. Well, let's just do it now, acts 17, because I actually missed this, but this is a good point to inject it. Acts, chapter 17, when Paul's at Athens and he's talking to the intellectually elite, the philosophers of the age, those who lived after Socrates and Aristotle and Plato, and they'd gone through the forms and blah, blah, blah and all this stuff, all this development of some kind of way of thinking, and Paul is there in that city where they thrive. Right and notice what he says in verse 27 and 28. It, right, and notice what he says in verse 27 and 28. Okay, that they, that's people, all men, would seek god. If perhaps they might grope for god and find him, though he's not far from each one of us. Now, this is, then, talking about the economical trinity, right, his relationship to creation says explanation. Says explanation. Verse 28, in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, and he quotes a couple guys here, for we also are his children.
Speaker 2:How is it that people are always coming into contact with God? In him we live and move and have our being. How is it? And even that pagan poets reflected on reality and wrote poems that portrayed that idea. Because here's the thing Every time we experience love down here, right, or a concept of justice, where does it come from? Well, god is love. God is just. That is why we have these concepts and that is why people are always in contact with God, every time they move, every time they move, every time they speak, every time they breathe, every time they think they are having an experience with God.
Speaker 2:I didn't write this okay, I couldn't have written this, but Paul wrote this under inspiration of the Spirit. He understood that everybody was always in contact with God. He says it's not far from each one of us, see, but in Him we live and move and have our being, because God set the world up this way and he is totally inescapable. People say I don't know if God's there, I don't believe in God. Well, do you believe in love? Do you believe in justice? Do you believe in righteousness? Do you believe in space? Do you believe in time? Do you believe in the concept of number? Because, if you do, where are these things coming from, unless there's an adequate justification for it in an infinite, personal God who created those concepts so we could enjoy them.
Speaker 2:You're coming into contact when you go to the grocery store and you check out with some milk. You're totally coming in contact with God because that milk came from a cow that God created, that some human milked. That God created the human and gave him the ability to figure out how to do this. In a bucket that someone made out of the elements that God created, right at a checkout, where there's another person who will gladly accept your credit card, on an electronic system that is built on the protons and electrons and the neutrons in our universe. You, you cannot escape all these things and in fact, you are always touching and in contact with god. And this is the whole point.
Speaker 2:This is the whole point that paul is trying to get across in romans 1, act 17. Everywhere he goes, he's trying to say this to people. So why is he doing that? Because he wants people to get right with God and they're hiding. They're hiding, they don't want to admit all these things when they walk in the grocery store. No, but it's true, okay, and he's just trying to get them to fess up, come clean, right, get right with God through Christ, who paid the penalty for you. This is the logical next step, right? So I wanted to get that in, as we see that this is very practical. Okay, now let's go to this concept. Now, subordination within the Trinity does not refer to essence Very important for the feminist movement and debate in our modern day, okay. So again, I'm trying to make it a little practical.
Speaker 2:We read statements like this well, john 3.16,. Right For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Right, the only begotten. Okay, this is referring to a subordinate role that the Son took on relative to the Father. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, but it's not a subordination of essence. In other words, the Son is not less than the Father. In essence, the Son is equally powerful with the Father, he's equally powerful with the Spirit and vice versa. But Jesus is the only begotten. So go to the origin of this Genesis 22,. The story of Abraham and his son, isaac, which is famous the world over. Right, genesis 22.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes we wonder like well, what does it mean? The only begotten and the Jehovah's Witnesses came along and said well, that means that Jesus was created or made. And I showed you several weeks ago some of the early creeds, like the Apostles' Creed about 180. And then I showed you how. In Nicaea in 325, what is that? 150 years later or so after the Apostles' Creed, they added and the Apostles' Creed got longer. And then by the time you get to Chalcedon in 451, it's even longer. And you're like, why do they keep expanding and explaining further about Christ? Well, the reason was because of heresies, right, and there were heresies. Then Arians came in. They said well, jesus Christ is begotten, that means that he's created. And so they had to say begotten, not made. They had to add that not made, because people were interpreting begotten as being made. So what's the origin or background for all this though?
Speaker 2:Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac, verse 1,. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him Abraham, and he said here I am, that's the right answer. He said take now your son, your only son. Now, why did he say that twice? Take your son Now, wait a minute. Doesn't he have another son, doesn't he have?
Speaker 2:another son I. He says here take now your son, your only son. But he has other sons, so how can you say only son? This is the concept of begotten and this is the source of it when it's applied to jesus in john 3, 16, this is where it all is traced back to. In other words, there's a parallel between the birth of jesus and the birth of this only son here. Okay, take your son, your only son, now, wait, wait a minute. I've got two or three, I've got these others, I've got Ishmael. What are you talking about? No, he knew exactly what he's talking about. So, take now your son, your only son, the only begotten one. See the one whom you love, isaac. Go to the land of Moriah, offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains. I'll show you Verse 12. Verse 12. And he said as he's got them all up on the altar, about to slay him, he says. He said do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
Speaker 2:That's the background for John 3.16 and understanding what it means when it says that God gave his only begotten son, as Abraham was giving his only begotten son. So what does it mean? Does it mean they were born? Does it mean they experienced a physical birth? No, everybody in this world experienced a physical birth, except Adam and Eve, who was created out of him. Everybody else has had a physical birth, so it can't mean that. So there goes Jehovah's Witness. That's gone. He's not created and made. It doesn't have anything to do with being physically born into this world. What does that have to do with Uniqueness? Okay, what does that have to do with Uniqueness?
Speaker 2:A unique supernatural coming into the world of one who is an heir of something and plays a vital link in the plan of God. It's the word of uniqueness. You may have heard me say it Sometimes. I don't say only begotten, when I quote John 3, 16. I'll say I'm sure people think you said it wrong he said, for God so loved the world that he gave his own his unique son I will sometimes say it this way that whosoever believes in him.
Speaker 2:What do I mean by the unique one? I mean one who had a supernatural coming into the world and who is the heir of the world. That's what I mean, because Isaac is the background for this. And Isaac came into the world supernaturally, didn't he? How old was Sarah? You can laugh too. God has a good sense of humor. You're supposed to be laughing right now. 90? Ha ha. She even laughed, didn't she? That wasn't, she wasn't, but anyway, the point is this is somewhat humorous. He was how old? 100. It says his body was dead. Hers was long dead and she'd been barren before that. There's no way she was barren, couldn't have children in her barren years, and then she was now 90 years old. So I mean, it's a no-brainer. It can't happen, right?
Speaker 2:Supernatural birth of who? An heir? Isaac was the heir of the covenant promise that god made with abraham and ishmael wasn't. So it means someone who has this uniqueness. So when jesus christ comes into the world, he comes in like isaac supernatural birth, coming into this world, and he's what he's heir. And both of these guys have played vital links in the plan of God. So that's what we do with begotten.
Speaker 2:But notice, there's this subordination. It wasn't the Spirit who is, you know, the unique one. It's not the Father who's the unique one, it's the Son. He came in in this subordinate role. I mean, do you want to be crucified. He came into the world to be crucified for our sins. So this is a specific subordination role. But see, it doesn't mean that he's less than God, he is God. You say, well, it's hard, yeah, I know it's hard, yeah, I know it's hard, it's god, okay. But we have this concept of a begottenness. We also have another concept, and that's the spirit proceeding. The spirit proceeds from the father and the son. Like john 14 3, I will send the helper from the father, whom he will send in my name, okay. So all three involved, okay, but the helper from the Father, whom he will send in my name. So all three involved. But the Spirit is the one that proceeds from the Father and Son. He's taking on a subordinate role, but again, it's subordination of role, not of essence. So that means the Spirit is equally God in every sense of the term.
Speaker 2:Now, so what is the idea, then, of procession? Well, it refers to being sent to do a specific job. So this is showing job roles and, I would say, job security in the Trinity. In the Trinity, since the Spirit is sent in this role of procession by the father through the son or the name of the son, what is the spirit's relationship to the son. He always points to the son, he always points to the son. He never points to himself. He doesn't put himself on display. He puts christ on display because that's his. It's a subordinate role of not drawing attention to himself but drawing attention to the Son. Drawing attention to the Son, not to himself. So the Spirit is like a behind-the-scenes player. If you've ever watched a theatrical, you know, or even just a movie, you know there's the set, you've got to have the set, but it's really in the background. Right are front and center and that's what you're really paying attention to. But if you didn't have any background, you'd be like what kind of movie is this kind of play is this? So the spirit is like the, the props and everything in the background, okay, but the focus is always on christ right now.
Speaker 2:This truth is very important for feminism. Why do I say that? Because the evangelical feminist movement is trying to say that if there's subordination, like, let's say, of female to male or within roles in the church, that that means there's inferiority of essence, and that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that certain members of the Trinity subordinated themselves and that did not make those members of the Trinity inferior to God, the Father. So, like a good one, is 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3. It says the head of every man is Christ and the head of christ is god. Well, does that mean that christ is less than god because christ is subordinate to god? Well, no, obviously not.
Speaker 2:It's a role. Okay, everybody has to play a role. If you go into the military, I hope there's role, like I hope you have the general and you have other people who play roles, right, they're subordinates, right? Does that make all those soldiers who are under the general less or inferior in essence or personhood than the general? No, everybody knows that it's not. You have a boss, maybe, or maybe you are the boss. If you are an employee, you are subordinate to your boss. Does that make you less of a person than your boss? No, absolutely not. But you play a certain role in the company and your boss plays a different role. But there's no difference in the essence between you and your boss. You're equally persons. You're equally human. It's the same thing with women and men.
Speaker 2:Men are designed for specific purposes and roles. Women are designed for different purposes and roles. Can a man have a baby? No, that's an absolute. Okay, it can't happen. Are men made to do other things and have different types of interests, like I? Like the one about, you know, running heavy machinery, like cranes and the big dump trucks and all that I mean like if you look in that field, it's there are some women in the field, but it's dominated by men, like over 99%. If you go to the hospitals, there's some male nurses, but this is still a field where you've got nurturing, caring, going on. It's predominantly dominated by which side of the human race Female. Does that have anything to do with the way they're made, like design, their makeup? Well, yeah, of course it does. Um, because god has invested in each one different constitution, different roles, different body type, different hormones and all sorts of things that will relate to these areas that they would have an interest in and they would, you know, be proficient at. I mean I, I, probably you, some doctors.
Speaker 2:Doctors tend to tend to be men, but they're both sides right, male and female, but a lot of men they men doctors. They are always criticized for having poor bedside manners. Why? Because they're guys. They're just there to fix the problem. They don't care about the rest of it. Okay, they don't want to know your personal stuff. I fixed your brain. Leave me alone. I got to go see the next patient, you know. I mean, that's just because of their makeup. They're not trying to be rude, that's just who they are.
Speaker 2:But women, I'm sure, as their bedside manager is probably a lot better than guys, probably lovely, so. But this is my point is that just because there's subordination of roles, such as in marriage or certain things that are described in the Bible, that doesn't mean that women are any less persons than men. They're 100% equal as humans and can do a lot of things way better than us as men, totally because they're proficient in those things. They're designed for those things, and those things are their glory, right, and the men? These things are their glory. Don't try to make everybody fit the same mold, right. Let them be who God made them to be and everything will work better.
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.