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 - An Impeccable Man
To live a perfect life without regret, it's what we aim for and never achieve. All of us have regrets. But God, loving us with a perfect love, sent His Son, yes to redeem us from sin, and so much more. In Christ we see how to live a life without regrets. He modeled for us the way to rely upon the Father so that we too can 'not sin'. The difficult part is living this way every moment of our life. And when we don't, He is there to forgive us and restore us to fellowship.
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. Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2: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. 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?
Speaker 1:would not succumb to the temptation, would he have been genuinely tested. Today, jeremy is talking about the love of God. Now, as you start to listen through, there are going to be a lot of heavy doctrinal topics at hand here and you're going to wonder how does this relate to God's love? Well, let me put forth this proposition as you're listening today. Well, let me put forth this proposition as you're listening.
Speaker 1:Today, jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days to develop a model for us of how to live the Christian life, how to resist temptation.
Speaker 1:Everything that Jesus did in his time on earth was to demonstrate for us how to live, and the foundation for him doing that was his love for us.
Speaker 1:He wants us to be everything we possibly can be in the Father in this life, for this life and the one to come. What greater love is that than for someone to want the very best for another person? So we're going to talk about heavy doctrinal items. We're going to look into the minutia and wonder how can God be fully man and fully God at the same time in the man Jesus Christ? What does this mean for temptation, for sin, for living by faith, and what does his model mean for us and undergirding all of it is the Father's love for us, sending his Son to live a life that we can follow and, at the end of Jesus's life, redeeming us from sin on the cross, so that when we look back and look at him, we have an idea of how we should be living. It's an amazing and beautiful thing. It is deep doctrinal. It is highfalutin conversations that the church has had that we should be happy, and it's all founded in God's love.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're going to go to another doctrine that grows out of the life of the king. Remember, we're studying basically in the New Testament the life of the king. Remember, we're studying basically in the New Testament the birth of the king and the doctrines that are associated with it for the Trinity and the hypostatic union. Then we move to the life of the king and here we're dealing with three doctrines, most of which are well, all of which are built on the hypostatic union. So we'll have to look at we've already looked at the kenosis. I'll talk a little bit more about the kenosis here in a moment. That's a Greek word out of Philippians 2.7, which means to empty. So the whole doctrine of his emptying, what did he empty himself of, and that type of thing. And then, of course, today we're going to deal with the doctrine of impeccability and then in a few weeks we'll deal with infallibility. So these are the three doctrines that come out of the life of the king and, as I've mentioned, probably in emails and probably here, a lot of people have been Christians their whole life and they haven't heard one or more of these doctrines, which shows you how far the church has moved away from teaching sound doctrine. Mostly they're just interested in getting a crowd. We may not amass a crowd of people by going through these doctrines, but I'm sure we amass a crowd of angels who are interested in these things and attentive, and so you never know who all is here in attendance. We see one another, but we don't see the unseen realm. But we know that they are very interested to look into these things. Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 10 discusses this. So we're going to go into it, and this one's going to kind of be fun because I'm going to go a little bit slower and give us a chance to try to digest and think about some of the questions that I'm going to ask you as we try to delve into some very important matters. So the doctrine of impeccability and, again, as I mentioned, the hypostatic union is the basis of all Christology, and what I mean then is that if you get the hypostatic union wrong, well then you get everything else wrong. If you get the hypostatic union wrong, well then you get everything else wrong, because it's built upon and presupposes the definition that we've given in the hypostatic union, and we dealt with that a whole lot earlier in this part of the series.
Speaker 2:I spent some time going through church history and showing you various viewpoints that people had of Christ as they were wrestling with the text in the first four centuries of the church. And you had Nestorians and you had Eutychians and you had Monarchists and you had Arians. You know, and I showed you through all that, hey, these aren't just ancient ideas. These ideas are still with us in places. Arianism is commonly known today as Jehovah's Witness. So it's not like these are new ideas. These are ancient ideas that the church has never got themselves or people haven't got past. So it's critical to define the hypostatic union correctly, and the definition that came out of the Council of Chalcedon, which is 451 AD so that's kind of a few centuries ago it's a big, long statement, but I've succinctly summarized it here by saying Jesus Christ is undiminished deity, united with true humanity in one person, without confusion or separation, forever. And so this is the idea that the church came to. As they studied the text, dealt with points of view that people brought up and people said no, that doesn't seem to fit the text, and so the church had to wrestle with it, and I even mentioned that this is, to this day, still the greatest discussion the church has ever had. It took over 400 years to resolve it. So we can't take for granted these truths, or we shouldn't, because men of God struggled and wrestled with the text to try to come up with an accurate assessment of what the Scriptures teach about who Christ is, and so this is where they came to. So everything is built on and based on the hypostatic union.
Speaker 2:The next doctrine we looked at is called the kenosis, which is the emptying. Philippians 2.7 is the famous verse that mentions he emptied himself. And so the great question becomes well, what did he empty himself of? Well, I mean, the text says that he is the exact form and representation of God. It says he is also the form and representation of man. So he's both God and man, meaning he has a full divine nature, he is sovereign, he is righteous, he's just loving, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable, eternal right. He is God. He's also fully man, 100% man, meaning he has a human body. He has a human body, he has a human spirit, he is a human soul, he has human characteristics or qualities that are derivative of God's qualities, because we're made in God's image. So if God is sovereign, man has choice. If God is righteous and just, man has a conscience, right. If God loves, man has love. That's why we love. If God is omniscient, meaning he knows all things, man has knowledge. We have finite knowledge. He never learns, but we learn. So there are always differences between his attributes and ours, but we understand who we are.
Speaker 2:And Christ had both a divine nature and a human nature. But he wasn't two people, right, he's only one person. You can't separate him, like the Nestorians did, into two people. So we ended up defining the kenosis this way, saying that in the incarnation, in other words at the virgin birth, which we're about to celebrate this time of year, at Christmas, right, when he took to himself a true humanity, see, in that event Christ gave up or emptied himself of the independent use of his divine attributes. Notice, we didn't say Jesus Christ gave up his divine attributes. If he gave up his divine attributes he'd no longer be God. If he gave up his divine attributes, he'd no longer be God, and that would mean there's an essential change in God, because God is essentially three in one. Then he would have changed and been two in one, see. So you have to be so careful with how you define these.
Speaker 2:So the kenosis means he gave up the independent use of his divine attributes. And that's what it means in Philippians 2, where it says even though he was the exact representation of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. It's that word grasp that kind of throws us into English because it sounds like he's saying he's not really God. But the idea of grasp is he did not consider equality with God a thing to be asserted or utilized. That's what the word means. In other words, he was fully God, but he did not assert his divinity Without what? Without the Father's permission. Because, as he says in John 10, always do what pleases the Father. He came here to do the will of the one who sent him right, the Father. So he's constantly submitting to the Father.
Speaker 2:And this idea of his kenosis is what gives rise to three very, very practical and important doctrines in the Christian life. None of these complicated ideas like hypostatic union or kenosis, or today impeccability, or next week infallibility and a few weeks infallibility, is without application, practical application, and I think you've seen that, I think you've been totally impressed actually by how important these doctrines are for our everyday christian life. So the three applications of kenosis are, first of all, the chief virtue in the Christian life is humility. Humility undergirds everything, and I said fundamentally, humility is a right evaluation of oneself. A right evaluation of oneself, you have, a proper evaluation of who you are. And that all starts with recognizing the creator-creature distinction. Okay, that God is the creator. We're not the creator, we're creatures. We're made in his image, for his purposes. And so the first step in having a right, you know, humility, is to recognize who we are as creatures and he is our creator.
Speaker 2:And that sets up the authority structure, right, it sets up the authority, authority structure for all society. And that's why, um, subordination of role in society is, is, is something that's so important. It's, it's what we're seeing being rebelled against in our culture. Nobody wants to recognize authority. I mean, who are the police? Let's defund them. That's a problem. Let's feminize the military. Let's destroy every structure that has a subordination within it. Let's destroy marriage, let's destroy family. I mean little kids. They're independent, they can turn their parents in to the police and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So all this rebellion against authority, I saw this or I heard this expression in a song. Someone said they had ODD, not ADD, odd. I was like what's that? It's oppositional, defiant, disorder, opposition defiance disorder, defiant disorder, opposition defiance disorder, and I was looking into this and basically what it says opposition defiance disorder is people who have this disorder that they're very rebellious against authority. And I was like you mean the sin nature? Isn't that what you're talking about in Romans, chapter 8? The thing that it says it cannot submit to God, it's not even able to do so. Now we've labeled everything today a disorder that way. See, we can claim to be victims. We're not responsible. See, this is just the way I am. I'm a victim, this victim mentality that everybody in our culture has.
Speaker 2:And the bible says no, that's your sin nature. You need to believe in the lord jesus christ. Then you'll receive the holy spirit and you can live by the spirit. And guess what? You can overcome your sin nature. But that's too great of I mean the free gift that we could overcome our sin nature.
Speaker 2:It seems like nobody wants this free gift. I mean free gift, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. See, salvation is just a free gift, right, and it's the opportunity to enjoy freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from the penalty of sin, but more than that, freedom from the power of sin in your life that dominates you, that crushes you, that enslaves you, that makes you a very difficult person to be around. It makes us all difficult when we live by our sin nature. So, odd, whatever the disorder is, we all just explain that away as I'm just a victim. But the Bible says no, no, no, you're responsible.
Speaker 2:And what the kenosis does is it sets up for us authority structures, because even the Son in the incarnation submitted to the Father. He says not my, but is that not a subordination? It's saying I may want to do this, but whatever you want me to do, that's what I'm going to do. And so this sets up an authority structure as something that does not imply inferiority. In other words, in a marriage between a husband and a wife, the wife is the subordinate partner and the husband is to be the leader. Right, and they're given different roles.
Speaker 2:The man is cast in the role of someone who is like, someone who loves unconditionally, who loves his wife, who cherishes by caring for her, providing for her, ok, all these things. He's out, he's looking out for her best interest. Why? Because she's his own flesh, see, and nobody hated his own flesh, right, but he loved and took care of it. And see, if you really love yourself, of course you'll want to love your wife, you'll want to cherish, you'll want to nourish, you'll want to take care of her, you'll want to be interested in her. As 1 Peter 3 says, you'll want to live with her in an understanding way. And all the guys are like huh, I don't know what is going on in that brain of hers. But the Bible says live with her in an understanding way. Try to understand what is going on. By the way, it never says that women, about men, that you have to figure out and live with us in an understanding way and I know you're saying I don't know what's going on in his head. Well, it never says you have to. So there you go. Just understand that we're trying to figure out what's going on in your head. This trying to figure out what's going on in your head, this is our responsibility.
Speaker 2:But the wife is placed in a subordinate position right Now. That's why it says wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Do you submit to the Lord, women? Yeah, yeah. Why would you want to submit to your husband? Because that's how you demonstrate your subordination to him. Is to submit to your husband because that's how you demonstrate your subordination to him is by submitting to your husband. Does that mean you're less than him? No, if it meant you were less than him, then the implication would be that jesus christ is less than god the father, and that's not the case. They're equal in essence, but they are playing or taking on different roles, and it's the same way in all relationships.
Speaker 2:If society is to have balance and to have freedom, authority structures must be recognized. You have the governing authorities and you have the citizens. The citizens must submit to the governing authorities so long as they do not say no, you must go worship Satan or you must support giving your tax dollars to abortion. No, we can't do that. We cannot go against the Word of God. The Word of God trumps all authorities, but we still have a structure and we should respect and submit to the governing authorities. Does that make us less than the governing authorities? No, in fact.
Speaker 2:In our country, the Constitution says we, the people. Well, that would be the Declaration of Independence. But we, the people, see, power is invested in the people, not in the governing authorities. Remember, they're ministers, minister of this, minister of that. That's why that name is there in history. It comes from a Greek word diakonos deacon. They're servants, they're supposed to be. The people in our government are supposed to be servants. Law enforcement, again, they're supposed to be servants, and many times they are, but many times also, of course, they're not. They want to take the power and rule over people, but in America the rule and power is invested in the people, but still we are to submit to our governing authorities because we voted them into office in most cases. So this sets up all everything in Christ's kenosis, sets up the idea of authority structures in society.
Speaker 2:But today we have kids who rebel against their parents. The parents just stand there and let them just do whatever and I'm like no, take them out of here. If you spare the rod, you spoil the child. Thank you, this is truth. Okay, Please don't set a four-year-old down and start trying to reason with them. No, bank their little butt and move on. The last thing they want to do is listen to a lecture. When they get nine, ten, okay, more lecture. Why? Because their brain has developed. Their mind is about, they can think, but when they're little bitties they just swap them.
Speaker 2:You know, we always used uh, I'm going on the record, okay, the old testament. Uh, the hebrew word for the rod is a very thin rod. This isn't a paddle. You know, I went to middle school too and I got the paddle. You know, they drill holes in the paddle. Somehow. This makes it like steam more or something when it hits your rump. I don't know, and I got licks, okay, I did all that stuff. But that's not what the Bible is talking about. Neither is it talking about a belt, you know. It's talking about a very thin rod.
Speaker 2:Okay, that when it hits the rump, there's a very specific placement. Okay, not on the back, not on the arm, not on the face, not on the head, not on the foot, on the buttocks. Okay, without anything between the rod and the skin of the buttocks. In other words, pants pulled down. Yes, I said that. Okay, why For consistency? What? I said that? Okay, why For consistency? What if they have a big thick diaper on? What if they have just their underwear on? See, all these things matter, okay. So what do you do? You pull it down for consistency. And it stings. It doesn't leave bruises. This isn't a big heavy object.
Speaker 2:We used to go to the little dowel rods. You know that you'd buy the hardware store and we'd use those. And then, when they outgrew that little thin one, we got a little bit thicker one. Okay, now we didn't get to the one inch size or anything like. They're not doing that. Okay, it's something that's flexible and it stings.
Speaker 2:Why do we do that? Because of the hebrew word and because of the implications for how it works out in real discipline. So it works. It works. If you don't think it works, you can go ask those five people over there Now today. Well, you can't even spank your kids. We can't have that. Instead of parents being the authority over the children, today children are authorities over the parents and the parents are scared to death. And so what's happening? We're raising a whole society of children. All the adults are children. They function like children, they're greedy, they're selfish, they think they have their way. I mean, it's hard to be the owner of a business today because all your employees think they're the boss, and it's only going to get way worse. Just wait the next 10 to 15 years. It's going to get way worse because we've lost this concept of authority that is embedded in the kenosis that is Christ submitting or subordinating himself to the father. The last thing that comes out of the kenosis is the sympathetic that jesus christ is a sympathetic high priest.
Speaker 2:I've listed the verses here because while we started this point last week we didn't finish it. So hebrews chapter 2, verse 10 and 4 14, those are the two that say okay, let's just look at it. It's easier just to look at it. Hebrews chapter 4, let's look at that one, verse 14 and 15. Then we'll press into the impeccability idea, especially hebrews 4, 15.
Speaker 2:Okay, but 4 14, since we have a great high priest, who's our high priest now, presently operating at the right hand of the father, the lord jesus christ. He's our high priest. He's not levitical, okay. He's from the line of judah, which was not a priestly house, so he's of a different class of priests. He's a melchizedekian priest, right in the book of hebrews. So we have this great high priest who passed through the heavens, that is, the realm of the angelic realm. He's passed and now he's far above them, all right, seated at the right, at the right hand of the Father. He says Jesus, the Son of God. So let us hold fast our confession.
Speaker 2:Why Verse 15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. See, he's someone who can sympathize with human weaknesses because in the kenosis he's having to live in the same humanity that you share with him. Remember, he didn't just borrow and use his divine attributes to overcome the difficult temptations that he faced. He had to face them in his true humanity, independence upon the Lord, in the same way we have to, and that means that he can sympathize with us in our weaknesses. In other words, he knows the struggles that we're facing in our temptation. Now, this is already looking into the impeccability doctrine, but I want to press on from this high priest guy this idea of him serving in that capacity to the fact that he's the judge. Hebrews chapter I'm sorry, john chapter 5, 22. So let's turn to John 5. Another implication or application of the kenosis doctrine is that he is now the judge of the human race. In other words, let's say that you were taken to a court.
Speaker 2:Why do they have trial by jury? Why do they have the jurors come in, you know, and sit down and listen to the lawyers, examine and cross-examine various witnesses and so forth? Why is there a jury over there? Is it a jury of angels? Is it a jury of foreign people? You know people from Cambodia. Are they the ones on the jury over there? Why isn't it people from Cambodia? Because they're not Americans, they don't live under American law, right? Why is it not angels? Because they're not Americans and they're not under American law. Why is it a group of Americans sitting over there, hopefully in the jury? Because they are your peers and because they live under the same laws in the same society that you live in. So what they know, what you are going through, they've shared the same types of experiences. So it's a peer jury.
Speaker 2:Now, who's our judge?
Speaker 2:Is it God? Is God our peer? God the Father? Did God the Father ever come down here and live in this world, like you and I know? But he sent his son, the second person of the Trinity, god the son. He did so.
Speaker 2:What does John 5, 22 say? What's the significance of it? For not even the father judges anyone. Did you know that the father will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever judge anyone, ever, ever, never, it says. But he has given all judgment to the Son, all of it, all of it, so that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the Father, and so forth and so forth.
Speaker 2:Now, why has he done that? Why has he given all judicial honor to the Son? Because he came down here and in the kenosis he had to go through what you had to go through and what I had to go through, and he had to be tempted in all things as we, and he knows what it is like for you and for me so he can be a sympathetic and good and excellent judge. In other words, nobody can ever stand before god and say, well, you can't serve as our judge, you didn't know what it's like to go through what we went through. And the father said, well, my son did, and that's why I gave all judgeship to him. And so this is an implication of the kenosis is that Jesus Christ is now not only our sympathetic high priest, but he's also the judge of the entire human race. The father judges no one.
Speaker 2:So as far as the summary of these doctrines hypostatic union and kenosis Jesus Christ as the creator. God took to himself the creature and he gave up the independent use of his divine attributes in order to provide the perfect model of sanctification, modeling the cardinal virtue of humility before God, showing us what true submission to authority is and demonstrating what a walk by the Spirit looks like, such that he has become our sympathetic high priest and the judge of all. So that's one sentence. It doesn't do it justice, but it gives a good summary of everything. That is there Now. The impeccability. Remember I told you this thing. That is there Now, the impeccability. Remember I told you this. Well, this doctrine is based on the definition of the hypostatic union that we've already discussed. It's also based on the definition of the kenosis that we've already discussed.
Speaker 2:So, this doctrine, what's it all about? Well, it's about the question of whether Jesus could truly be tempted as we are, since he was God, and God can't be tempted to sin. James 1.14. James 1.14. Make sure you understand that. Let's look at that, james 1.14. Because that's a presupposition for following the argument. James 1.13 and 14, especially 13. James 1, 13. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone. So can God be tempted by evil? Can God be tempted to sin? No, okay, so was Jesus God. Well then, was Jesus tempted to sin? Do you see the? Because we just read it in Hebrews 4.15. It says Jesus was tempted in all things as we, yet without sin. So the text is saying he's tempted, but the text also says God can't be tempted. And the text also says Jesus is God. So the trouble with this doctrine is trying to organize those three statements. Do you see why it's complicated?
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit about this English word impeccable. Remember, I told you in third grade I was a really good speller. I was still pretty good at it. I'm still pretty decent today. But I got a 100 on my spelling paper and my teacher wrote impeccable on there. I think she thought he'll look this up. He's a good speller, he's going to look this up, which I did, and this is what you'll find.
Speaker 2:It comes from the Latin in pecare, which is not to sin, not to sin. So flawless, not capable of sinning, not liable to sin that's what the word in English means, and sin, of course, means missing the mark. So if you're impeccable, you're not capable of sinning, you're not capable of missing the mark. Sin is also, of course, was an archery term. Many Christians have heard this. It was a talk about missing the mark, you know. So in archery, if you miss the mark, that meant you missed the bullseye and they called that sin. That's what they would say he sinned. Today we'd say what he missed the bullseye. Yeah, yeah, that's what it means you sinned, you missed the mark. So an archer who was not capable of sinning was a perfect archer. It means he always hit the bullseye, right.
Speaker 2:The question becomes was Jesus Christ perfect? Did he always hit the bullseye? Did he never sin? Okay, well, the Bible says Jesus never sinned, right? I mean, we've already gone through a lot of these verses. Luke 1.35 says the child that was in Mary would be a holy child. Holy meaning set apart or separate, so of course, sinless right.
Speaker 2:John 8.46, when Jesus himself confronted the crowd and said which one of you convicts me of sin? Go ahead, anybody. Now if I said that there might be a room full of people that could come up here and give testimony that I have sinned, but nobody was able to convict him of any sin. That's one of the most astonishing things that the Lord Jesus Christ did. Anybody convict me of any sin here. Anyone, anyone. It's a remarkable thing. Nobody came forward.
Speaker 2:Romans 8.3,. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other words, he looked like a true human being, just like you and I, but he didn't have sinful flesh right. 2 Corinthians 5.21,. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. That we might become the righteousness of God through faith in him. He knew no sin became sin on our behalf. That we might become the righteousness of god through faith in him. He knew no sin, he never sinned.
Speaker 2:Hebrews 4, 14 and 15 tempted in all things as we, yet without sin, which we already saw. Uh. Hebrews 7, 26. He was holy, innocent, undefiled and separated from sinners. I mean unique, right, totally unique member of the human race. First peter 119. He was precious, unblemished, spotless, all signifying his sinlessness. And in first john 3, 5 in him is no sin.
Speaker 2:So the bible says jesus never sinned, right. I mean there's no question, the bible teaches that. Yet, very interestingly, jesus appears to have been rude to people. Matthew 12, 34, you brood of vipers, who warned you of the wrath to come. I mean, how would you like that if somebody called you and your group, your posse, a brood of vipers? Is that nice talk? No, it's not nice talk. In Matthew 15, 7, he says you hypocrites. I think if some people heard that one today they'd be. I don't think so. I mean we're going to have a fight.
Speaker 2:What about the Syrophoenician woman in Matthew 15, 26, where he called you and me and every Gentile in the world dog, because we don't throw our. The Jews said we don't throw our things. Jews said we don't throw our, our things, our good stuff, to dogs. How does that make you feel dogs are considered, you know, an unclean animal. They didn't have pets in their homes, in Jewish homes in that time. What was it that ate Ahab and cleaned up Jezebel off the sidewalk? They were eaten by dogs, wild dogs. What was it that ate Ahab and cleaned up Jezebel off the sidewalk? They were eaten by dogs, wild dogs. It's a very despicable way to die and to be cleaned up. So you know he called people that. She said what? Even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table. What'd she do? She humbled herself because she recognized that salvation is of the Jews and we have to come to the Jewish people, and especially the Jewish Messiah, to get salvation. And if that meant deprecating herself and saying, hey, I get it, I'm just a dog. But hey, we get crumbs from you spiritual crumbs. And the Lord said, okay, okay. So he listened to her.
Speaker 2:Matthew 16.4,. He says you are an evil and adulterous generation. How would you like that? It's not very nice talk. Here's one that's even worse. 2315. Hypocrites, and he calls them sons of hell. Again, that's not going to go over so well today. In Matthew 15, 27, he calls them whitewashed tombs. You know, you look good, but inside you're just dead. There's nothing there.
Speaker 2:He was abrupt with and insensitive toward his mother, john 2.4. Look at this one John 2.4. Not many mothers would like this. So just imagine if you were his mother and he said this John 2.4. Remember this is at the wedding in Cana. They ran out of wine. Right, we need some more wine, verse 3,. And so his mother said to him when they had no wine you know, hey, hey, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her in verse 4, woman, what does this have to do with me, us? You know, hey, hey, they have no wine. And jesus said during verse four woman, what does this have to do with me, us? You know what? My hour has not come. I just put myself out there, says mary, and you just kind of went no, we're not doing that. So it's not exactly the picture that many mothers would want to see with their own children, this type of response. So he's kind of abrupt with her there, right? What about Matthew 12, 48?
Speaker 2:These are passages you're familiar with. When people say, hey, your mother and your brothers are outside, and he says, who is my mother and my brothers and my sisters? Kind of like they're not that important, who cares about them? You know how would you like that? You're like, thanks, thanks a lot, family. I thought blood was thicker than water, but apparently not in our house. So you know, these types of behaviors and statements that he makes don't come across to people like, well, he was without sin.
Speaker 2:What about his abrasive attitude toward Jewish family loyalties? When Jesus says something like come follow me. And the guy says, well, yeah, but I've got to bury my dad, and he says, let the dead bury their own dead. Now, burying your own family member, that was a traditional Jewish loyalty to the family honor. And Jesus says, ah, who cares about that? By the way, it points up how important it was to follow him when he was on earth. Because I mean, who is he? He's God in the flesh. I mean, what could be more important than that Burying the dead? That's his point. He's not saying burying your own dead is unimportant. He's saying, given the importance of my presence, that is less important and I am more important.
Speaker 2:He assaulted businessmen in the temple right and he damaged their wares John 2, 15 and 16. It says he made a scourge. It didn't say he picked one up, he made it for this purpose. You ever done that? Made a weapon and then went and used it on someone? Many people say that is not the act of someone who is sinless, that's sin.
Speaker 2:Now if jesus took a modern psychological personality profile a lot of companies do these right. They want to evaluate people who are candidates for their positions in their corporations because they want to see if they're, you know, in the right place in the bell curve, because we can't have any people on the outside fringes of the bell curve. So they have these psychological profiles that prospective employees must fill out questionnaires and so forth. Now if you did and Christians have done this they've submitted the gospel accounts of Christ's life to these questions to fill it out, so to speak, on his behalf, to see where he would fit on the bell curve. He wasn't exactly inside the bell curve very far and people like, for example, some of these questions are like do you pray about this or that? And so forth. If you say yes, you get points off. Okay, so Jesus kind of did a lot of that stuff where he lost points on these modern psychological personality profiles. So he wouldn't be considered again by these evaluations to be perfect. He'd be on the fringes of the bell curve.
Speaker 2:Now I'm building all this up because I said on one hand, hey, the bible says jesus never sinned. There are behaviors, things that he states and other things that he does that from some people's perspective indicates he did sin. And now I'm asking the question why is it that there seems to be a discrepancy in some people's minds about whether Jesus was really sinless or not? It has to do with the source of standards for evaluating. It has to do with the source of standards for evaluating. Question who came up with the personality psychological profile test? Well, the guy who wrote the test. In other words, what's it a reflection of? It's a reflection of the person who wrote the test standards. The standards come from the person who made the test. All they are is reflective of his own persona.
Speaker 2:Now, when we evaluate Jesus' life, his bluntness toward his mother, his abrasiveness toward Jewish family loyalties and traditions, his perhaps speech abuse of people calling them sons of hell, dens of vipers, whitewashed tombs and every other thing like this. Where does the source of standards for judging him come from? In many cases, they're coming from us. What do we think is a proper child's response to a parent? Where is that source or standard coming from? Because if the Bible insists that Jesus never sinned, then Jesus' bluntness toward his mother was not sinful, was it so? Could a child be blunt toward his mother like that and be okay? Well, many moms today would say absolutely no. But what is wrong with the picture? The mom has her own standards, or the dad whatever, and they're not the standards of god. They are that person's own standards.
Speaker 2:So what have you done? You've elevated yourself and made your thinking above god's thinking. In other words, you violated the creative creature distinction and made your thinking above God's thinking. In other words, you violated the created creature distinction and you put yourself above him. Is this a problem? Yes, this is a problem. We shouldn't do this. We should never do this. So the source of standards for judging is the Bible.
Speaker 2:In fact, if you want to look at the perfect person to see what the perfect life looks like, so you can design a test. You would take the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and you would build a test based on him and what he did and what he said and whatever that test was. Then people took that test. You'd see how perfect they were or were not, because he's an absolute standard. This isn't Joe Blow working for some corporation who built a personality profile test. This is the God of the universe who came and dwelt among us and he knows what it is to be a human and he lived the perfect human life.
Speaker 2:So this challenges every one of us to ask the question do I have the right standards? Am I adopting the right standards and criteria for evaluating things? Because if we're not, we're not judging things rightly. And that's why I said you know, the modern Jesus has been reduced to a caricature and a what would Jesus do bracelet. I mean it's laughable, because I don't think that 99, and I really mean 99, not 95 or 90 or 88, 99% of Christians would not do what Jesus did and they would think that if they did something like what Jesus did, it would be sinful. And why would they not do what Jesus did? Because they don't really know who he is. And that's why I've gone into the hypostatic union, that's why I've gone into the kenosis, that's why I'm going into impeccability now, because if you really want to do what Jesus did and you really want to love Jesus, you have to know who he is and you have to see what he did and you have to face this stuff. I mean, does the Bible say he called people sons of hell? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Did he go into the temple after making a scourge and tear it out and overturn tables, okay, and spill their money all over the place and run them out of the temple? Yes, he did. Was it sinful? No, on that occasion it was what we call a righteous anger. Right, remember, it was controlled. It was controlled because he says take the doves over there. He was fully under control. If he hadn't been under control, he'd have spilled the whole thing, destroyed the doves. You know it would have just been a big garbage mess after it was all over.
Speaker 2:But he was a righteous anger. We can have a righteous anger. I hope we have righteous anger about things going on in this country, about things going on in Israel right now. I hope we have a righteous anger. We should. It's right, jesus had it. If we don't have it, something's wrong with us, right? So was he really sinless? Well, yes, the Bible says he was, but that's where we get our standard for what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, what is sin and what is righteousness. Now, the doctrine of impeccability, then, is dealing with this big question like um, well, we would want to say he was tempted in all things, as we. But we also say, well, he's god, but god can't be tempted. So how do we get all this together? Okay, answer.
Speaker 2:The debate centers on two latin phrases. I didn't come here to teach latin today, but but so I translated into English as well. These two Latin phrases are non-passe, picare and passe non-picare. Now do you notice? They're the same three words. They're the same three words, just different order. Right? One of them has non first, the other one has passe first. So there's an emphasis difference in the two phrases.
Speaker 2:The first phrase means not able to sin sin. It puts the non first, not. The other phrase means able not to sin. Do they mean the same thing or do they mean something different? Yeah, they mean something different. Good, because word order changes the emphasis and meaning. So the first one. Let me ask you this which one is stronger? A the first statement, not able to sin it makes it sound like it's impossible, right. The second one, able, not, sounds like, well, there's a possibility, possibility of sin. So it's a difference in emphasis here.
Speaker 2:Now, so we could take some questions and just ask these Does phrase one apply to God? Phrase one not able to sin? Does that apply to god? And everybody says yes, okay, james 1, 13, god can't be tempted to evil, so you know he's not able to sin. Um, does phrase two apply to man? Not, not, okay, not that you already saw. Like, uh, well, I want you're saying I want to ask a follow-up question uh, which men us today? Or adam? That's a good clarification adam has originally created versus people who are now fallen, because there's a difference there. You know, adam didn't have a sin nature, but we do, so we're both men, though. So, though. So when you say man, do you mean Adam or do you mean people today who are fallen? Okay, because my answer is going to be different. That's fine, good.
Speaker 2:Does phrase two apply to Adam? Okay, so now I've isolated it to Adam as created, the first guy before he said okay, was he in a condition, when God first created him, where he was able not to sin? Okay, good, good, everybody's like, yes, I think that that sounds right. Like he could have chosen not to sin and he could have remained sinless. That's good, that's good. We're thinking this through Now. Does phrase one apply to Adam Not able to sin? No, we'd say no. So, however, god created Adam. He created him with the capability not to sin, but he didn't create him in a condition where it was impossible for him to sin. If he had created him in that way, well, we wouldn't have any sin today.
Speaker 2:Now let's go to the fifth statement. Does phrase two apply to Jesus when he was born of the virgin? Was he in that condition, like Adam, able not to sin? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I feel like we're pretty safe. Most people are thinking, yeah, yeah, that's, he was a lot like adam when he was first created. So, yeah, phrase two able not to sin. How about, uh, phrase one? This is where it gets hard and somebody says, yes and yes, I would agree with that too. But wait, isn't that a contradiction? I mean, he's not able to sin, but he is able to sin one's impossible, one's possible, possible and impossible opposite one's god, one's man. You say okay, okay, and he's god and man. Right, so you're, you're thinking it through and this is good. I've just repeated the first few lines up there so you don't lose these two phrases.
Speaker 2:The sixth question there does phrase one apply to Jesus? We're going to talk about that one. That's the one that's like no, wait a minute. I mean, if he's not able to sin, then was he really tempted like us? See? I mean, the Bible says he was Tempted in all things his way, but he's also God. So how does this work? So let's look at 6a here. If phrase one does not apply to Jesus in other words, jesus was not in a condition where he was not able to sin well then he's not God. I mean, that's just, you have to come to that conclusion. He wouldn't be God. But we've already confirmed from Scripture that he is God. If phrase one does apply to Jesus, which in general I think that's probably a consensus here how is it that he was tempted in all things this way? Because God can't be tempted, okay.
Speaker 2:So again, I'm just pointing up the difficulty. Why do I do this? To drive you crazy? No, because I want you to think. I want you to think about Jesus Christ. Many ministers want you to think about themselves or their social agenda or something like that, or do good, I'm not trying to get you to do that, I just want you to think about him. I think that is so important that you think about Jesus Christ. You have to if you want to love him, if you want to do what he would do. So here's the difficulty. Now we sense that somehow that first phrase not able to sin applies to Jesus because we say, well, jesus is God, but somehow it's also unsettling to our souls a little bit. So centuries ago, a couple centuries ago, hodge and Shedd had a debate this debate somewhat still continues today Over these two phrases. This debate somewhat still continues today Over these two phrases.
Speaker 2:Charles Hodge said that phrase two able not to sin which we all agree must apply to Christ. But he says guess what Phrase one does not apply to him, because it must be possible for him to sin in order to ensure that the temptations were real. He was concerned about this because of the kenosis. Okay, that Jesus Christ gave up the independent use of his divine attributes. He thought that if otherwise, jesus could not be our sympathetic high priest and judge. In other words, he doesn't really know what you're going through, said Hodge, and therefore he can't really serve as your peer judge, okay. So Hodge was trying to protect that and so he emphasized that Jesus had a true humanity. He didn't deny the deity, he just emphasized the humanity because he wanted to preserve that the temptations were genuine, so that Jesus could identify with you and with me when we're tempted. Next time you get tempted, by the way, what should you start thinking about Jesus? Jesus was tempted in all things, as I am, okay. So he was without sin.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm not going to agree with Hodge here, but Shedd, on the other hand, said this. He said, but he does have a truth. Let's just say that Hodge is on to something. There's something true there in what he's saying. Okay, and he's doing his best to try to understand. Shedd said that phrase two and phrase one must apply to Christ, both of those statements, because he said otherwise it would fracture the hypostatic union. You see how these guys are. They're, they're thinking this through and they're thinking okay, he's undiminished deity, he's, he's true humanity and he's in one person. Now he's.
Speaker 2:What shed was concerned about is that, if we don't say both of these are true of him, we've pulled his humanity and deity too far apart, to where we've fractured the hypostatic union. He's no longer one person, he's two people, and that's what the Nestorian said, and we know that's heresy. So he's trying to balance these two, and what he's trying to protect, then, is that Jesus is just one person. We've got to be careful 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.
Speaker 2: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've ever given you to understand. Okay, are you ready? 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. 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? Give you an example God loves. Does everybody like this? I love this statement. God loves, now man loves. Do those two sentences mean the same thing? Does the love that God has and the love that man has, are they identical? 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.
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 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. 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.
Speaker 2: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. 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.
Speaker 2: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. Okay, so we look at him as 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.
Speaker 2:God can. 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 would 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 tested. So there's he could, and yet not succumb, not be able to succumb. 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 would 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, what? 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. It is to show that he could not sin. Satan waited 40 days during which 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 God and you're not and I'm not. But we are supposed to be impressed with this.
Speaker 2: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 Now.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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. 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.
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. 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.