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 - Able and Not Able to at the same time.
Do you have the capability to do something, or sometimes more difficult, the ability to resist temptation and NOT do something?
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:And what he's trying to protect, then, is that Jesus is just one person. We can't. We've got to be careful. You know, talking about his divine nature and his human nature, before we know it, we're talking like two people, and he's not. He's only one person. And so my conclusion is, of course, we want to do justice to both, both of these ideas that these men set forth, which are both of these statements here, these phrases. Now, I'll just introduce this. I don't know if we have time to resolve it, but the difficulty is this this is the difficulty I'm really I've ever given you to understand. Okay, are you ready?
Speaker 2:The word able in those two sentences means something different in each sentence, and it has to. It cannot have an identical meaning. The first phrase right, not able to sin. We said that applies to God, james 1.13. Second, able, not to sin. That applies to man, at least Adam and Christ.
Speaker 2:Now, are God and man the same? Everybody will say no, god and man are not the same. God is the creator and man is a creature. When we make a sentence about God and then we make the same sentence about man, do those two sentences mean the same thing? I'll give you an example God loves. Does everybody like this? I love this statement. God loves Now. God loves Now man love. Do those two sentences mean the same thing? Does the love that God has and the love that man has? Are they identical? If they are the same, let's say the word love means the same and God's love is equated with man's love, then isn't man God? Because we express the same type of love exactly as he expresses. See, that's the problem. The problem is that we know that God's love is infinite, but we know that man's love is finite. So they can't be the same exactly. They have to be similar, or we wouldn't know what it was talking about God's love or man's love, we wouldn't even know what that meant. So they have to have a similarity, but they can't be identical, because if they're identical, then we love in the same sense that God loved. And what we've done is we've produced a universal category of love and we put God and man underneath that universal category. And you can never, ever, ever, ever do that, ever, ever do that.
Speaker 2:What does Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 say? My ways are not, my thoughts are not your thoughts, but my ways, he says, are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts and you say but I don't understand and I said amen, yes, we do not entirely understand this because ultimately, god is incomprehensible. But when you see these two statements not able to sin, that word able in that sentence is a word reserved for the creator, a word reserved for the creator, and its entire meaning is filled by his nature, in essence, not our idea. The second one, that word able able not to sin, able there has the concept that is among us as humans. Are the two words similar in meaning? Yes, they must be similar, or we have no connection point. But they're not identical.
Speaker 2:Okay, they're not identical. This is the only way to preserve both of those two statements as true. It's the only way, but it is the way that we understand it. Okay, jesus Christ is both God and man. Okay, so the problem is complicated because of our inability to comprehensively understand what God is like. You just can't, sorry, for all eternity, you're still never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to know God as God knows himself, because he's an infinite being and we will never be infinite or have infinite understanding. You just can't. We'll always be creatures.
Speaker 2:The two phrases are similar, you know right. So we have an idea of what God is like. But again, if they're identical, then God and man would be identical, and we know that's not true. Everybody knows that's not true. So the bottom line is that both phrase one not able to sin and phrase two able not to sin are true of Jesus Christ. And phrase one refers to his deity right, it's looking at him from the deity side. And phrase two refers to his humanity. So we can look at him in his two natures and say phrase one applies to his deity, but phrase two to his humanity. But then the question becomes well, what about him? He's only one person. So how would we speak about this in terms of his one person? Well, because of the hypostatic union, because his deity and humanity are inseparable. They're not mixed. Remember, they're not mixed, but they're not separated either. They're just, let's just say, touching. Okay, because of that phrase one, not able to sin. Now, because I wanted to finish, I'm going to take you to the last statement. Okay, again, we can't completely explain this. God can.
Speaker 2:Let me use an illustration. Assume a battleship was built that was impervious to every weapon known to man. You've got this ship. It's impervious to any projectile that man knows the enemy can fire as many of those projectiles as he wishes at the ship right, yet no projectile will sink it right Because it's impervious right projectile which sink it right Because it's impervious right. In the same way, the enemy could fire as many temptations at Jesus as he wished, yet Jesus would not succumb to the temptation. Would he have been genuinely tested? Yeah, yes, yes. Just like the ship would have genuinely been kissed, so there's he could, and yet not succumb, not be able to succumb. Um jesus christ, though genuinely tempted beyond anything, any other creature ever experienced, could not sin as the one having true humanity and undiminished deity coexisting in one person. Forever, christ would always be victorious, even though canonic, during his life on earth, he would always be victorious. That is what is so interesting about Luke 4. I spent all this time on this discussion just so I could take you to Luke 4, so you could see one little phrase, because without all this, this phrase will probably never even get noticed by most of us as readers.
Speaker 2:Luke, chapter 4. The first verse Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and he was what, led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil who was leading him around in the wilderness? The Holy Spirit was leading him around in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit doing by leading him around in the wilderness? He's taking Jesus to the fight. He's taking him to the temptations. He's leading them into the battle. He's taking him right to the front lines.
Speaker 2:You say, why would he ever do that? To show that he's impervious. It is to show that he could not sin. Satan waited 40 days, during which he was, he was tempting him through the 40 days, and then, after the 40 days, it says what it says he ate nothing during those days. When they had ended, he became hungry. In other words, it's an opportune time to break through this seemingly impervious individual, and that's when he brought the three, what we call the three temptations, these great temptations.
Speaker 2:But the point is that the Holy Spirit was taking him to the fight to show who he was in impeccability. Jesus Christ could never sin, yet he was, at the same time, tempted to sin, just like you and I were. And you say but I cannot understand that. Good, if you could, you would be God, and you are not and I'm not. But we are supposed to be impressed with this. There's one other occasion in the Gospels we'd probably miss if we didn't talk about it, and that's that later in Gethsemane, when he has everybody praying right, I'm sorry, they were asleep, they couldn't even for one hour and he says behold, the betrayer is at hand. And that's not all it says. It says and he went in that direction, he went to the fight, he went to be arrested. Why? Because it's not my will. He says it's thy will be done.
Speaker 2:Now, is this the way you live your Christian life? I have to say many, many, many, many, many times, most times, I don't. If I don't face this, if I don't look at these truths, I don't get convicted and I don't have the humility that I need to be exalted by God. And you don't either. You know, without him you're nothing. Until we recognize that even the Lord Jesus Christ recognized this. Without him I'm nothing. If he will do that, will you not do that? No, I'm something. That's what we think. I'm somebody. It's when you become nobody that you actually become somebody. It's when we are weak that he is strong. His power is made perfect in our what Weakness. That is what the whole Christian life is about. It's not about being the top dog on the block. It's about being least of all.
Speaker 2:Matthew 18, he who becomes like this little child will be greatest in the kingdom. He who is servant of all will be greatest in the kingdom. How do you get greatness? You become servant of everybody. You become a nobody. Are you going to be great in the kingdom? This life's going to pass. The kingdom is forever. Which one's more important, now or then? These things cannot compare, paul says, to the glories to come. All I'm trying to do is make you think like the Bible. That is all I'm interested in doing. These things cannot compare, paul says, to the glories to come. All I'm trying to do is make you think like the Bible. That is all I'm interested in doing, because I don't think most Christians want to think like the Bible, even though they sit there and listen to it Some of them.
Speaker 2:Whatever the preacher has to say that Sunday Hopefully something deep like this. You need this stuff. You need it Because I'll tell you why. Eternity is forever and he who is least in the kingdom is greater than anyone in this world. But he who is greatest in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist. You realize that. Jesus said that You'll be greater than John the Baptist in the kingdom if you become least of all and servant of everyone. That's the way to live your life, just like the Lord, jesus Christ. He showed us All right. Next week, a little bit more about impeccability, and then we'll start applying it and talk more about how this works in our own practical Christian life.
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. 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. No-transcript.