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 - Glory Above All
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Why is the glorification of God, not human salvation, the ultimate purpose of history, drawing on Romans 11 and the language of doxology.
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_00:Let's go into the doctrine of the glorification of God and talk about four or five major points. Now, the first major point is that the glorification of God is the ultimate purpose of history. Every Sunday we begin our service typically by singing the doxology. The doxology is from the Greek word doxa, from which we get glory. What are we doing during the doxology? We are giving glory to God, right? Father, Son, and Spirit. They're all mentioned. Now, this is what dispensationalists, and I'm gonna use a big word there, but dispensationalists claim is the ultimate goal of history. Sometimes they state it as it's the underlying goal of history, meaning it's what is always going on through all the events of history. They're all ultimately there for the glorification of God. But we have to talk about what this means. Not all theologies agree with this. So covenant theology is usually the competitor of dispensational theology, and they well, we'll talk a little bit about the differences here in a second. But basically, they make salvation the center rather than glorification. They make salvation the center point of history, they make it the ultimate purpose of history rather than the glorification of God. So let's go to Romans 11 just to show that everything, all things, are ultimately for the glory of God. Paul has just finished Romans 9, 10, 11, his covenant with Israel and how this covenant was designed to bless the whole world, uh, both Jews and Gentiles. And he comes to the end of this great historical plan of God, and he says in verse 33, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, unfathomable his ways. In other words, you can't entirely search it out, you can't entirely understand his ways. Verse 34, for who has known the mind of the Lord, who became his counselor, or who has first given to him that it might be bade back to him again? And of course the answer is no one, right? For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever. Amen. And at the benediction, typically I'll read some doxology from one of Paul's epistles to remind us of this great purpose of God. The underlying purpose of all of history is in fact the glory of God. It's not the salvation of men. That's not his ultimate purpose. Now, this is the difference between, well, I'll just quote the Westminster shorter catechism. So the Westminster shorter catechism, that's a document that is developed from the Westminster longer catechism, just a regular catechism. But they get this right, and this is basically a Presbyterian document. Presbyterians aren't typically dispensational, but this is right, and I put this up here because, in some sense, everybody sees this. They say that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Indeed, in fact, the chief end of all things, not just man, but also angels, nature, everything is to glorify God, and of course, man to enjoy him forever, which is interesting. Um God is to be enjoyed, and he should be enjoyed. So this is basically a very good statement put out by the Presbyterians many, many, many centuries ago. But in practice, those who hold this theology are typically covenant theology. Covenant theology is going to be like your Reformed churches, Presbyterian churches, Anglican, Episcopal, uh, some Baptists, like Southern Baptists a lot, are uh covenant in their theology. This does not work out in practice in their theology. Uh so let me say a few things by way of difference, just so you know. Covenant theology basically states that salvation is the ultimate purpose of God. And this is built out of their concept of Genesis. God made a covenant, they say, with Adam and all of Adam's elect offspring. So this is where the concept of election actually comes from. It's not really coming from other verses, it's actually coming from their belief that God made a covenant with Adam. Does anybody know about that? Where that could you show me where that covenant is? No, of course you can't, because it's not there. Um and I'm not misrepresenting it. Even Louis Burkhoff, who was a covenant theologian, said it's implied. It's not there, but it's implied. It's not explicit, right? Which would mean you could read it. Okay, but it's implicit, he says. It's implied, which means it's not really there, but you're supposed to realize that it is there. And sometimes implications are true, but sometimes they're not, right? So they believe that God made a covenant with Adam and all of Adam's elect offspring. In their way of thinking, then, this means that there's one people of God, that is the elect. Okay? This is their way of thinking. Now, once you have stated that, let me ask you a question. Can you have Israel and the church being distinct peoples of God? I'll just wait and let you think about this one. Because you really need to think about this one. If there's only one people of God, the elect, can you have a distinction between Israel and the church? Yes or no? It's not a maybe. It's okay. I can't answer out loud. No. It's absolutely impossible. This is the source of replacement theology. Okay, people who believe that the church has replaced Israel or the church is Israel, uh, that when we read Israel in the Old Testament, that's just the church. When we read church in the New Testament, that's just Israel. Okay, this is where it all comes from. Okay? Now, they because of their idea of the one people of God, they view everything in terms of salvation. Okay? And that's why in many churches, this is the ones I mentioned, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Anglican, not all, but a lot of these, um, when you go, every passage that's taught in the Bible will be taught in terms of salvation. Because they are viewing things salvifically through a lens. They're viewing things through a salvific lens, how God gets his elect. Okay? Now, um I'm not covenant theology, I'm dispensational theology. And what we emphasize is that the ultimate purpose of God is not the salvation of men, but the glorification of God. See, if you're saying that the ultimate purpose of God is salvation, then that's very anthropocentric, isn't it? It's very man-centered. But if you say the ultimate purpose of God is the glorification of God, that's very, very theocentric. It's God-centered. Now we know the ultimate purpose of God is not about salvation, because if it was, why are less than 2% of the population saved? Why are angels, fallen angels, not given an opportunity for salvation? They don't even have a plan of salvation, do they? So it's very clear that the ultimate purpose of God is not salvation, but something else. Now, salvation is a prominent theme in the Bible. We we know that, right? There are other prominent themes in the Bible. Kingdom, the concept of the kingdom. Uh, the the concept of the seed or the messiah is a huge theme in the Bible, right? The covenants, what we call the biblical covenants, I'm not talking about the covenants covenant theology talks about. Those are theological covenants, what I consider basically made up. Uh, but the unconditional covenants that God made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, right? Of the land, seed, and the blessing, these are, this is a prominent theme in the Bible. But a theme that is broader than all these and bigger than all of these is the idea of the glorification of God.
SPEAKER_01: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 uh 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.