SPEAKER_01: In our Bibles this morning to Deuteronomy chapter 6, and we're going to begin reading in the first verse in what is uh not just for uh modern Christians the basis of our belief in one God, but is also for the Jews the basis for their belief in one God.
SPEAKER_01: And this morning I'm going to be reading my passages from the NIV.
SPEAKER_01: And it begins like this These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me, and me is Moses.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God is related to Moses directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
SPEAKER_01: A command with promise for those who obey.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey, so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
SPEAKER_01: And then here are some commands.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus in the New Testament affirmed that this was the greatest of all the commandments of the Shema.
SPEAKER_01: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Impress them on your children.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
SPEAKER_01: Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
SPEAKER_01: Write them on the door frames of your homes and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray uh this morning together for a revelation that God is one.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you would direct us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that I would have a sensitivity to those who are in this room.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that those who watch uh right now online, who are here in this room, and who will watch later, God, would come to the revelation of your word.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Jesus, I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe seated.
SPEAKER_01: Um I want to clarify a couple things from the outset this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The first is that I'm not endeavoring to defend a denominational position.
SPEAKER_01: My objective this morning is to teach the word of God and what the Bible says about the nature of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the scriptures claim that there is one true God.
SPEAKER_01: And second, I don't have time uh to pause this morning, and we're not going to even endeavor to have every passage up on the screen this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as a resource for you, if you also want to go and search the scriptures throughout the week, I've provided a handout.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm not going to quote every scripture that's on there, um, but that is the supports for what we're going to go through this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, for the sake of um being uh open and very clear about my resources, I'm teaching directly from The Oneness of God by Dr.
SPEAKER_01: David Bernard this morning, which as always you can purchase on Amazon or on the Pentecostal publishing house.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Let's see if we can get this done.
SPEAKER_01: The belief in only one God is called monotheism, which comes from two Greek words, monos, which means one, and theos, which means God.
SPEAKER_01: It means alone, single, one, and among the major religions, only Islam, Judaism, and Christianity affirm that there is one God.
SPEAKER_01: And then within the ranks of those who identify themselves as Christian, there are sever several divergent views about the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: And when we use the word the Godhead, we're speaking about all of God's character, all of God's nature, all of God's power is in the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we mean when we say that.
SPEAKER_01: And so one view called Trinitarianism asserts that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: They would say God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, yet generally they would still affirm that there is one God.
SPEAKER_01: And amongst Trinitarians, there are two extreme tendencies.
SPEAKER_01: On the one hand, some Trinitarians so emphasize the unity of God that their explanations sound oneness.
SPEAKER_01: However, they still use this language of persons, which is not found in Scripture and is very difficult to define, because when we speak of a person in the English language, we mean a distinct individual.
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, some Trinitarians emphasize the triune nature or the threeness of God to the point that they begin to talk about three self-conscious beings, and then their view becomes almost indistinguishable from Trinity or from tri-theism, the belief in three gods.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christians who are strict in their view of the Bible's monotheistic teaching, there again is sort of two groups that people fall into.
SPEAKER_01: And so one group asserts that there is only one God, but they do so by denying the full deity of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In early church history, Arius was one of the teachers of this, and he led a group and he would teach things that Jesus was a created God or a subordinate God, or somehow, uh, and he was impacted by Greek mythology, where you would find demi-gods, the gods create gods who are lessers.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in that way, there are those who affirm that there is one God, but they do that at the expense of saying that Jesus was not God at all.
SPEAKER_01: The second group of strict monotheists also believe in one God, but this group affirms that the fullness of the Godhead is manifested in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are manifestations that the one God has displayed to mankind.
SPEAKER_01: In the 20th century, um this group of people has become identified as oneness, and that is the belief that we as a church hold best reflects the scriptures and the teaching of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Um there are many Old Testament verses that affirm monotheism, and so we need to be very careful uh across Christianity, no matter what one specific view of the Godhead is, but across Christianity, there's really no place for a belief in more than one God or multiple uh self-conscious beings.
SPEAKER_01: The Ten Commandments begin with, You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: God emphasized this by stating, I the Lord am a jealous God.
SPEAKER_01: David would proclaim in prayer, There is no one like you.
SPEAKER_01: There is no God but you.
SPEAKER_01: The Psalms declare, You alone are God.
SPEAKER_01: God would declare through the prophet Isaiah, I am the first and the last.
SPEAKER_01: Apart from me, there is no God.
SPEAKER_01: God would continue in the same passage, is there any God beside me?
SPEAKER_01: No, there is no other rock.
SPEAKER_01: I know not one.
SPEAKER_01: In response to any question about how many were there during creation.
SPEAKER_01: God said in Isaiah, I the Lord, the maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself.
SPEAKER_01: This continued emphasis on strict monotheism continues into the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul would write to the Romans, There is only one God.
SPEAKER_01: He would write to the Corinthians, there is no God but one, and there was but one God, the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He would write to the Galatians, God is one.
SPEAKER_01: In his letter to Timothy, he would write, There is one God.
SPEAKER_01: And James would write a very famous passage, you believe that there is only one God.
SPEAKER_01: You do well, for even the demons believe in one God, and they shudder.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture continually affirms a strict monotheism, and as Christians in the world, we must never cease to declare any other message but there being one God.
SPEAKER_01: In order to engage in some further discussion about this, it's important that we know some things about God's nature.
SPEAKER_01: If we don't really understand his nature or what scripture says about him, it will be very difficult to interpret his word.
SPEAKER_01: In John 4 24, Jesus said, God is spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And this is consistent with Genesis 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: During creation, it says, and the spirit was hovering over the waters.
SPEAKER_01: A spirit is supernatural, it's a supernatural and rational being, but we cannot see a spirit.
SPEAKER_01: They are invisible to people, but they have the power to become visible at will.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Hebrew word translated as spirit is ruach, and the uh Greek word that is translated as spirit is pneuma, and both of these speak as something that cannot be seen.
SPEAKER_01: Does not have flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: This is consistent with Luke 24 and 39 and Matthew 16 and 17, each affirm that God does not have flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Bible says that God is a spirit, it means that he cannot be touched or seen or physically engaged with by humans.
SPEAKER_01: And as a spirit, he's intelligent and he's a supernatural being who does not have a physical body.
SPEAKER_01: And since God is a spirit, he's invisible unless he chooses to make himself visible.
SPEAKER_01: God told Moses, You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.
SPEAKER_01: John would write both in his gospel and in his epistle in 1 John, no one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wrote regarding God, no one has seen or can see me.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible consistently teaches that we cannot see God, for he is invisible.
SPEAKER_01: However, God is able to make himself visible by appearing in various forms, and we see this in the Old Testament with Theophanes.
SPEAKER_01: There are appearances of God where he appears in the form of a man for the benefit of someone.
SPEAKER_01: And because God is a spirit, we understand that he is omnipresent.
SPEAKER_01: He can be at all places at once.
SPEAKER_01: All other spirit beings, such as demons or angels, or even Satan, they are confined to one specific location.
SPEAKER_01: When you read in Mark chapter 5 and 10, the demons ask Jesus not to send them out of that place because they are confined to a location.
SPEAKER_01: They're not omnipresent.
SPEAKER_01: And Job, when when uh the Satan is speaking to God, God says, Where have you been?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I have been roaming the earth because he's confined to one location.
SPEAKER_01: They're not omnipresent spirits.
SPEAKER_01: But Solomon recognized that God was omnipresent when he prayed at the dedication of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: They had built this temple for God.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he said, But who is able to build a temple for him?
SPEAKER_01: Since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him.
SPEAKER_01: Paul preached that the Lord is not far from any of us, so that they might seek him and perhaps reach out and find him.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist would write, Where can I go from your spirit?
SPEAKER_01: You are if I go up, if I flee from your presence, where can I go?
SPEAKER_01: If I go up to the heavens, you are there.
SPEAKER_01: If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
SPEAKER_01: If I rise on wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Bible says that God appeared as a man, or that God came to earth, that does not negate his omnipresence.
SPEAKER_01: Very key point.
SPEAKER_01: When God comes to earth, heaven is not empty.
SPEAKER_01: He is still just as much in heaven as he ever was.
SPEAKER_01: He can act simultaneously on earth and in heaven or at several locations on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Surely we would have to schedule our services very carefully.
SPEAKER_01: If he could only be in one place at once, but we believe that he is in all places at all times.
SPEAKER_01: And it's very important that we recognize that he is omnipresent and not think about him with our own human limitations or our own human experience.
SPEAKER_01: It's also worth noting that the Bible often describes the infinite God in human terms.
SPEAKER_01: For example, the phrase the heart of God denotes his intellect and his emotions, not a blood-pumping organ.
SPEAKER_01: When God says that heaven is his throne and the earth of his footstool, it means that he is omnipresent.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that his feet are propped up on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible says the eyes of the Lord are in every place, it speaks of his omniscience.
SPEAKER_01: He knows everything that is happening.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that he has physical eyes around the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And so we believe God is a spirit who does not have a body unless he chooses to manifest himself in bodily form.
SPEAKER_01: And we believe that he is everywhere at one time or can be in all places at one time.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to make two last important points about God's nature.
SPEAKER_01: First, God is eternal, he has no beginning that we can track or we can pinpoint.
SPEAKER_01: He is eternal from uh he's the Alpha and Omega from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_01: Um second, God is unchanging.
SPEAKER_01: So the Old Testament says that he is the eternal God, everlasting Father and King eternal.
SPEAKER_01: And so God has no beginning and no end.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, God's character never changes.
SPEAKER_01: In Micah 3 and 6, he declares, I the Lord do not change.
SPEAKER_01: It is true that God, in scripture, we read that God repents, which means that he changes his mind in relation to humans.
SPEAKER_01: If someone prays, God, Moses uh uh interceded on behalf of the people of Israel, and he said, Lord, these are your people.
SPEAKER_01: What good would it be if you slay them now?
SPEAKER_01: For these are the people that you have delivered from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And God repented, he changed course.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't sin in the in he didn't repent in the in the sense that we do, for repentance is means a change of course, but he changes his mind, but he doesn't change his nature.
SPEAKER_01: He he did not destroy Nineveh as he had determined to do, because he changed his course in response to the people's repentance.
SPEAKER_01: However, God's nature remains unchanged.
SPEAKER_01: Um so even though we can't fully comprehend God, God has employed several methods to reveal himself to mankind.
SPEAKER_01: And in one of these ways that he has chosen to reveal himself is through his names.
SPEAKER_01: So scripture, um, one person wrote, to know the name of God is to witness the manifestation of those attributes and apprehend or to understand and receive that character which denotes that name.
SPEAKER_01: God's name, that is, is his self-revelation.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture shows that God used names as a means of progressive revelation for his people.
SPEAKER_01: When Abraham needed a lamb to sacrifice, God revealed himself as Jehovah Jirah, the Lord that provides.
SPEAKER_01: When Israel needed deliverance, God revealed that his name was Jehovah, which had previously been unknown in the previous generations.
SPEAKER_01: He was the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He showed himself.
SPEAKER_01: They had known him as Jehovah, but they didn't quite understand that he was Jehovah's Savior and He revealed Himself.
SPEAKER_01: When Israel needed protection from sickness and disease, God revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that heals.
SPEAKER_01: And when Israel needed victory over its enemies, God revealed himself as Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, our banner.
SPEAKER_01: However, none of these are a complete revelation of God.
SPEAKER_01: When God performed an act and they came to know him a little bit more, they understood some more about him, but not everything.
SPEAKER_01: And they often, we see, desire to know him more.
SPEAKER_01: When Jacob wrestled with the angel of God, who in that in this instance very much seems to be a theophany or a manifestation of God, God appearing to man.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet Agor asked God, What is his name?
SPEAKER_01: And what is the name of the Son of Man?
SPEAKER_01: He was looking into the future, trying to see by what name God would reveal himself when he would appear as the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Zachariah prophesied, The Lord will be kind over the whole earth.
SPEAKER_01: On that day there will be one Lord and his name the only name.
SPEAKER_01: And so when the fullness of time came, God did satisfy the longings of his people and revealed himself in all of his power and all of his glory through one name, the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus means Jehovah's Savior, or Jehovah is, or has become salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Thus the angel declared, She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is the culmination of all of the Old Testament names of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's the highest, most exalted name that has ever been revealed to mankind.
SPEAKER_01: The name of Jesus is the name of God that he promised to reveal in Isaiah when he said, There, my people will know my name.
SPEAKER_01: Although other people throughout history and people today are named Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who has fulfilled everything that that name describes.
SPEAKER_01: The New Testament church is identified by none other but the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that we would be hated by all men for his name's sake.
SPEAKER_01: The early church was persecuted for the name of Jesus, and they considered it a privilege and an honor to be counted worthy to suffer for his name.
SPEAKER_01: Peter stated to the layman at the gate, beautiful, when he was healed.
SPEAKER_01: He said, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: He then explained the supremacy and the necessity of that name in receiving salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Peter would preach just two verses later in Acts 4 and verse 12 salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name in heaven given amongst men by which we must be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wrote, Therefore, speaking of the Son, speaking of Jesus, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus was a subordinate God, if he was somebody else, if he was a created God or a demigod, then how could he have a name that is higher than God?
SPEAKER_00: But God said, I have given him the highest name, and I will give him the highest glory, for he is the God manifest in the flesh, come into the earth for the salvation of his people.
SPEAKER_01: Because of the exalted position of this name, we are exhorted to rely upon the name of Jesus in all we do and all we say and whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, let it be done in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
SPEAKER_01: So when you worship the Son, when you worship Jesus, you're not worshiping someone else, but the Father receives the glory for the Father.
SPEAKER_01: God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.
SPEAKER_01: We are instructed to teach and preach none other name but the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We cast out demons, speak in tongues, receive supernatural power, and pray for the sick, all in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Signs and wonders are done in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, which has been revealed to us as the most exalted name, the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We call his name because there's salvation in only one name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And this doesn't mean that the name of Jesus is a magic formula.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the sound of the name that is powerful, it's not the syllables or the consonants that make it powerful, but we have power in the name of Jesus because we have faith in who he is and what he's done and what he claimed to be.
SPEAKER_01: When we speak the name of Jesus in faith, Jesus is actually present.
SPEAKER_01: And he begins to work.
SPEAKER_01: The sons of Skeva thought it was a spell.
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of spell books in their time, and they said, We've heard this name, we've seen Paul, and we've seen Peter, and we're going to try it too.
SPEAKER_01: And they were overtaken.
SPEAKER_00: They were overrun because they thought it was just speaking the name, but they didn't understand it was having faith in the one who could do the work, having faith in the Jesus who was there with them working.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist foretold that the Messiah would declare the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I will declare your name to my people in Psalm 22 and 22.
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament passage is quoted in Hebrews in direct reference to Jesus in Hebrews 2, 12.
SPEAKER_01: So the writer of Hebrews connects to that passage in Psalm 22 and 22, speaking of the Son and speaking of his name.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus spoke regarding his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Speaking to his disciples, speaking regarding the Father's name, I have revealed your name to those whom you gave me.
SPEAKER_01: I have made your name known to them and will continue to make you known.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the New Testament teaches that Jesus has inherited his name from the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
SPEAKER_01: And so all these scriptures lead to a very clear conclusion that Jesus is the Son of God manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be clear, we are not afraid of the titles Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We're not afraid to say that Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: We're not afraid to say that his Father was God.
SPEAKER_01: And we're not afraid to say that he is manifest his spirit in the New Testament church.
SPEAKER_01: We are not afraid of using these titles.
SPEAKER_01: We just believe that they are manifestations of the one true God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, we don't believe these are separate persons working in separate ways.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 9, 6 is truly a beautiful verse that we use often, but it's also one of the most compelling proofs that Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_01: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders.
SPEAKER_01: A son is given and a child is born.
SPEAKER_01: Hold those things in your mind.
SPEAKER_01: A son is born and a child, a son is given and a child is born.
SPEAKER_01: What does it describe him as?
SPEAKER_01: Mighty God.
SPEAKER_01: The Son is mighty God.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe he's another person or a subordinate God or a separate self-conscious, then the scripture doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: It says he's everlasting father.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how can the son be everlasting father unless he's God come in the flesh?
SPEAKER_00: He's Prince of Peace and wonderful counselor.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah also prophesied the Lord Himself will give you a sign.
SPEAKER_01: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.
SPEAKER_01: And what will you call him?
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: God.
SPEAKER_01: God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Not some other, but God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah prophesied again, be strong, do not fear.
SPEAKER_01: Your God will come.
SPEAKER_01: He will come to save you.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes because of the New Testament, we um many parts of Christianity just use the New Testament, for God sent his only begotten Son, and they create this separation between Father and Son.
SPEAKER_01: But in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, as I just read, there's no separation.
SPEAKER_01: God will come.
SPEAKER_01: He will come to save you.
SPEAKER_01: He will come.
SPEAKER_01: He's not sending just some other.
SPEAKER_01: No, he speaks about another, he speaks of the Son for our own human understanding, so that we might understand that he has manifest himself in flesh, in true human flesh.
SPEAKER_01: But there's no separation.
SPEAKER_01: God did not send another, he came himself.
SPEAKER_01: Micah prophesied similarly.
SPEAKER_01: But you, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah prophesied.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even finish my last one.
SPEAKER_01: I got so excited.
SPEAKER_01: Let me finish it.
SPEAKER_01: He will come to save you.
SPEAKER_01: This is in Isaiah 35, 4 and 6.
SPEAKER_01: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened.
SPEAKER_01: This is what these are the signs that you're to look for, Israel, when God comes in flesh to save you himself.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
SPEAKER_01: Then will the lame leap like deer and the mute tongue shout for joy.
SPEAKER_01: Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: And when John the Baptist is in prison and he has some doubts, and he says, Are you really the Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Or is another one going to come?
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus tell you?
SPEAKER_00: Go and tell John that deaf ears are opened and that lame legs are beginning to walk and that the dead are being raised up from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Go and tell John, because John knows the scriptures and he knows when these things are fulfilled, that God Himself has come into the world.
SPEAKER_01: When Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus, now moving to the New Testament, when Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus, he declared, My Lord and my God.
SPEAKER_01: He saw that this risen Savior, this risen man, Jesus, was God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus didn't rebuke him, and the disciples didn't rebuke him.
SPEAKER_01: Far from it, Jesus called him blessed.
SPEAKER_01: Paul described Jesus as our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Paul also described him as our God and Savior, or Peter also described him as our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Colossians strongly emphasizes the deity of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For in Christ, all the fullness of the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: As I said, the Godhead is his full nature, his full character, all the fullness of the Godhead dwell in the bodily form of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And again, regarding Jesus, God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, him being Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so according to the scriptures, Jesus is not just a part of God, but all of God is resident in him.
SPEAKER_01: The whole of Scripture testifies to the full deity of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And the statement that Jesus is God necessarily implies that God took on human flesh, which is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Regarding God, Paul writes regarding God.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know they're the same, but for the sake of understanding Scripture and for the sake of protecting against what I believe is a heretical teaching, regarding who Paul says is God in here.
SPEAKER_01: He says regarding God.
SPEAKER_01: Got that?
SPEAKER_01: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like Jesus to me.
SPEAKER_01: And in Jesus, God was made visible or manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: He was seen by angels.
SPEAKER_01: They were there at his birth.
SPEAKER_01: God was believed on in the world as he ministered and his disciples established the church, and God was received up into glory when he ascended to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And this could only be true.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Timothy 3.16, which I just read, can only be true if God was manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Any other way, God's word is not true.
SPEAKER_01: God begins with this thesis statement for his gospel, the gospel of John.
SPEAKER_01: He says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, that sounds like there's two there, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_01: Very quick clarification.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, there's only one there in the beginning, and he says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, We have seen his glory, the glory of the only one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is a spirit, and we established that and went through that.
SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't have flesh, and he doesn't have blood, and he's invisible to man in order to make himself visible to man, and in order to have a body that could shed innocent blood.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible teaches that without blood, there was no forgiveness, there was no remittance, there's no covering for sins.
SPEAKER_01: And so he needed a physical body in order to shed blood, because God, in his invisible essence, does not have blood.
SPEAKER_01: And he put on flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, robed in flesh, the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wrote that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: John continued in his prelude to the gospel: no one has ever seen God but the one and only Son, who is himself God, and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews opens with this claim of Christ's complete deity.
SPEAKER_01: In the past, God spoke to our ancestors in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to this the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, after he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he had inherited is superior to theirs.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful when it says that he is seated behind beside Majesty, or when you see this language that some would interpret as two thrones in heaven, the first confusing thing about the two thrones is where is the third person in the Trinity?
SPEAKER_01: The second issue with two thrones is when uh John has a revelation of heaven, and we read this in the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: When John sees the throne in heaven, he says that there was one sitting up on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: And so to say that there are two thrones, first, if you uh affirm that there are three persons in the Trinity, uh, one of the persons is missing in heaven, that seems like a problem.
SPEAKER_01: And then the second issue is that John says there's only one sitting on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wrote in his epistles, the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: And God was manifest.
SPEAKER_01: Um people ask the question so when uh when did the son have his beginning?
SPEAKER_01: Was he there at the beginning of the world?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the father had the son in mind at the beginning of the world.
SPEAKER_01: God knew all things and could anticipate all things, and he knew that his creation would need a savior, and so the son was in mind.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible teaches uh that God was manifest in the flesh at the moment of Jesus' human life beginning.
SPEAKER_01: For the angels worshiped him as at his birth.
SPEAKER_01: Simeon recognized the infant Jesus as Christ, Anna saw the infant Jesus as the redeemer of Israel, and the wise men worshiped the young child.
SPEAKER_01: Some people affirm that the Son became uh deity or glorified later in his life, but this would have been false uh worship then at the beginning of his life.
SPEAKER_01: But he um God was manifest in the flesh, and at that moment of conception, that was God in the baby Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Luke's gospel explains why Jesus uh was God at the beginning of human life.
SPEAKER_01: It says the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_01: So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the reason for this language: because he was literally uh begotten by God in the womb.
SPEAKER_01: The mother of Jesus was Mary, so he was fully man.
SPEAKER_01: We affirm his uh his human nature.
SPEAKER_01: He was fully man.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't have special flesh, he had human flesh, just like you and I.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the scripture teaches.
SPEAKER_01: But he was the Son of God in the sense that Joseph was not his father, but God was his father.
SPEAKER_01: He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit not being another, but the Holy Spirit always speaks of God in action.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Spirit is, it's God in action.
SPEAKER_01: Thus, Scripture affirms that it was at the moment of conception that God placed his divine nature in the seed of the woman.
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that God became flesh is one of the most wonderful, but also one of the most incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_01: We don't mean that we don't understand the scriptures when we say it's a mystery or we say it's incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_01: What we mean to say is that it's very difficult for our human minds to grasp how an eternal God came in flesh.
SPEAKER_01: We understand the scriptures well.
SPEAKER_01: We're not saying the scriptures are mysterious.
SPEAKER_01: We are saying that that is a mystery, how God could make that happen.
SPEAKER_01: Yet scripture affirms that both the Father and Son are revealed in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would make a continuous claim that he was God.
SPEAKER_01: He would look at his disciples and say, I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_01: He would say, The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.
SPEAKER_01: If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Believe in me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus taught these things, uh, one of his disciples, Philip, had not fully grasped this.
SPEAKER_01: He had not fully uh understood that Jesus was claiming to be uh the Messiah, God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, Don't you know me, Philip?
SPEAKER_01: Even after I've been with you such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
SPEAKER_01: How can you say, show us the Father?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
SPEAKER_01: The words that I say to you, I don't speak on my own authority, rather, it is the Father living in me who does his work.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a coincidence that John's gospel so strongly emphasized Christ's identity as God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: John wrote much later than the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and he understood that he had a special uh perspective, that he had he had the other gospels, he knew what they had written, so he didn't try to mirror the synoptics, but he wrote for a particular uh purpose.
SPEAKER_01: John 20 and 31.
SPEAKER_01: John tells you why he wrote his gospel.
SPEAKER_01: But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that but by believing you may have life in his name.
SPEAKER_01: And that title, Son of God, means that God was manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And so John authored that book that we might know that Jesus was God come in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: John also authored the book of Revelation, where Jesus is presented in both his humanity and his deity.
SPEAKER_01: He's presented uh in the passages we we hear the the lamb, the lamb is slain for the sins of the world, so the lamb is there.
SPEAKER_01: But he's also describing that the Almighty God is there also, and in the last chapter of Revelation, he describes God and the Lamb in singular, the throne singular of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him, not them.
SPEAKER_01: His servants will serve him.
SPEAKER_01: It's the revelation that the God Eternal was also the Lamb slain for the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And when John looked up on that throne, he saw only one sitting on that throne.
SPEAKER_01: Um I want to give you a couple of tools that will help you because I can't possibly cover everything.
SPEAKER_01: Not with you all continuing to sit here.
SPEAKER_01: Um you're very gracious, but I don't think you'll stay the couple more hours that are required.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to give you a couple tools because there are verses that are seemingly challenging.
SPEAKER_01: If you read your Bible, there are there are passages that are seemingly challenging.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to give you two important points.
SPEAKER_01: First, when you see a plural or a duality used in reference to Jesus, we must avoid the the um the error of assuming that there are two separate persons at work.
SPEAKER_01: But we need to keep in mind Christ's deity and his humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Often, when there appears to be a duality, it's speaking both of his human nature and of Jesus' uh deity, his nature of being fully God.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a distinction of persons.
SPEAKER_01: And second, we should remember that the New Testament writers had no conception of a doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: It was still very far in the future.
SPEAKER_01: They came from a strict monotheistic background.
SPEAKER_01: One God was not an issue for them at all.
SPEAKER_01: They had no other understanding of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: As they wrote and as they read the scriptures, they understood that the mighty God was in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And they did not see this as contradicting strict monotheistic views.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to be helpful this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Golly, how much time do you give me, Pastor?
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the prayers of Christ very quickly.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' prayer indicates a distinction between the Son of God and God.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus prayed in his humanity, not in his deity.
SPEAKER_01: To put it another way, the human nature of God prayed to the eternal spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: The divine nature, God and flesh, his divine nature didn't need any help.
SPEAKER_01: But God also had a human mother.
SPEAKER_01: He was completely human.
SPEAKER_01: And so his human nature had weakness and needed God.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus would affirm this in the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh is weak, but the Spirit is willing.
SPEAKER_01: Even Jesus was saying, My flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_01: This human nature I've taken on is weak, but the spirit is willing.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, we don't say that Jesus prayed to himself or that God prayed to God, uh, for that would not make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't need God's help, peace God.
SPEAKER_01: But when we see Jesus praying, it's the human nature of the Son of God, it's the human nature of Jesus that is praying to the eternal spirit of God.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 5:7 says that it was only during uh Jesus' days in the flesh that he needed to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And so it was the human will submitting itself to the divine will.
SPEAKER_01: And so, again, we don't say Jesus prayed to himself because that incorrectly implies that he had only one nature.
SPEAKER_01: But in fact, he had uh a human nature and a divine nature.
SPEAKER_01: And I would urge you to apply this understanding, keeping in mind his human nature and his divine nature when you read things that speak of both the Father and the Son, and one of those would be his baptism.
SPEAKER_01: Um, another example would be when uh Jesus said that he loved God.
SPEAKER_01: Well, um Trinitarians make the argument that you need two people to have a loving relationship, but don't don't the disciples of God love God?
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't the human nature of God have loved the eternal spirit of God?
SPEAKER_01: And then the scriptures say that God loved Jesus, so he just loved himself?
SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly the eternal spirit of God would have loved the human nature that was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus' dual nature is God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the uh also the activity of the spirit, the action of God in the New Testament is central to New Testament theology.
SPEAKER_01: Um, my objective today and my is not to respond to Trinitarianism, that will have to happen on another day.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I I'm not going to engage in that part because I won't have the capacity to do it well.
SPEAKER_01: And my objective today was to teach the scriptures, not to respond to church history.
SPEAKER_01: And so um, but I want to bring your attention to one passage and ask you this question.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus were subordinate to God, or a different person in the Godhead, and some say who maybe took orders from God, so he's subordinate to him somehow, then that would make John 17 and 5 again incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus prays to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This is Jesus in his human nature, praying to the Father and saying, Father, glorify me with the glory that was there, with the only glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: A person cannot ask that.
SPEAKER_01: They can, but it would not be true, and it would not be praying in accordance with the will or revealed uh nature and truth of God.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus prays that, glorify me with your glory.
SPEAKER_01: And in Isaiah 42 and 8, God declares, I am the Lord, that is my name.
SPEAKER_01: I will not share my glory with another.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if the glory of God, Paul writes, is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if God's glory showed up in this man named Jesus, and if he fulfilled all of what the prophet said he was going to do, and if God had said, I'm not sharing my glory with another, but this man Jesus, he is the exact imprint and expression of the Father, and he's inherited a name that's above every other name.
SPEAKER_00: And if this Jesus has the glory of God shining in his face and present in his ministry, then it is clear that he was God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 10, I'm closing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus claims, I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_01: We already read it.
SPEAKER_01: And in response, the Bible says, His Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus said to them, I have shown you many good works from the Father.
SPEAKER_01: For which of these do you stone me?
SPEAKER_01: They said, We are not stoning you for any good work, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.
SPEAKER_01: They understood God's claim.
SPEAKER_01: They understood Jesus' claim, but they had gotten it backwards.
SPEAKER_01: For Jesus was not a man who had made himself God, but he was God who had made himself man.
SPEAKER_01: And so as you stand with me, I exhort you, and I'm going to use this as my closing prayer, I exhort you from the scriptures that we began with.
SPEAKER_01: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Impress them on your children.
SPEAKER_01: And talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
SPEAKER_01: Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
SPEAKER_01: Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and with all your strength.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.