I like that sound. Well, let's pray and we'll get started tonight, theology. Father, thank you for the many blessings you've given us. The greatest is knowing you. And as we study theology proper tonight, the eternal God has you as our father, that we might have a greater understanding of what you are and therefore what you've done for us. in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, just for the recording, so systematic, or gracebibleny.org, systematic-theology, that's where the notes and any postings are gonna be, and including this video later. All right, we have Stella, who lives, Brooks, who lives, I believe, in England. i've told people who are going to be watching the videos later there's a fellow in Africa that's watching them it's a little early in the morning for them right now. it's like 1am in Africa that they can send me questions or comments and that I would address those first so she got her book and. Right here. See no new special revenue, yes. So that raises lots of questions when you look at certain ministries involved in spiritual warfare and deliverance counseling ministry, much to think about. And we'll be covering that more when we get to pneumatology. So there's a whole specific thing we'll be dealing with that. We'll actually mention it tonight too, but it's right there. 1 Corinthians 3.16, she says she's not sure how that shows the Holy Spirit as God. The verse says, do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you? So the spirit is stated to be of God, spirit of God. That's the beauty part of that. Then she said she loved the way Matthew 28, 19 was used for the Trinity. We baptize in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We're gonna be talking about the Trinity tonight. And so hopefully she can join us at some point. All right. All right, we start off with some simple things. Everybody get to do the reading? Okay, hopefully it wasn't too mind-boggling. Some of it, God is an infinite subject, infinite being. I hope this starts getting a little bit of a handle on it. The first is, how do you define God? So whatever definition we give is going to be less than what he actually is, because we don't know how to define him. But within the realm of what we do understand, we can give a working definition. Anybody come up with one? I'll give you the one that we actually use in seminary, in our theology class. God is a personal and perfect spirit. was infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being and attributes. So by throwing attributes in there, it covers all the other things you could say about God. But I wanted to emphasize the personal part, because he's not an entity out there that's not personal. He is personal. He interacts with us. He is perfect. There's that removed sense of being like any other acclaimed gods. infinite, eternal, unchangeable. Those are characteristics that, again, separate him from any other claims of any kind of deity. Okay, how do we know that God exists? We can't know him through the regular scientific method, right? Because that's not going to work. Yeah, we're not going to be able to do it by the regular scientific method. Although we can use science to make observations around this and see that there is something powerful, something creative when we get into those kind of arguments later. So we can know him by... But his self-revelation works in his word. So what is he revealed to us? And how is he demonstrating himself? So that'd be Psalm 19, right? His works and his word both declare something about the nature of God. I didn't ask you number three, but four witnesses to God's existence by means of general revelation. People experience God. There's an innate awareness of God within mankind. We see that in Romans 1. People's senses and people's reason. We're going to talk about that in the philosophical sense and ontology. There are four rational arguments for God's existence. Again, I didn't ask you to talk about that, but I want to at least mention it. And he does talk about it in the book. The first was cosmological. Don't be thrown by the big words. It's very simple. For every effect, there's a cause. So the universe is an observable effect of a cause, and you're going to have to have an infinite regression of causes which is actually inconceivable, how can you have that? Or you have to reach eventually to a sufficient cause that itself is uncaused, sort of sufficient uncaused cause, and that would be God. Does that make sense? Well, it was much simpler in the book. It was much simpler in the book. I mean, it said every house has a builder. Yeah, well, that's the basic idea. But why do you have that? Well, this is the philosophical argument. Something caused it. So there has to be some cause that's sufficient that is not itself cause and that would be God. That's how he defines himself. That's where a lot of the people that are in the universe would say, if you answer God made everything, then who could make God? Right? But by definition, God is. He is. He is an uncaused cause. He always is. And that's why even defining he's eternal. Now that starts messing with their minds because they think eternal. I just keep going back on time. It's like, no, you go to the beginning of time and he was there before time began. What? Well, it's because he's eternal. Time isn't. Don't think about that too much. Okay. Um, and you can, or you can put it this way. Either matter is eternal. or God is eternal, one or the other. So a lot of the atheists want to choose for that matters eternal, but then they keep running into problems of physics. You have to do something with a second law for my dynamics. So the other one is teleology. Why can't I say that word tonight? purely logical, intelligent design. There's a purpose in the design. When there is a design, it demands a designer. And everyone innately knows this. And yet, it's one of the favorite things that creationists like to point out to evolutionists, and they just ignore it. You cannot have such complexities in biological systems without somebody designing it. And they just went, well, it happened all by chance. But then you start reading more of the material, and they give intelligence to chance. And they make evolution intelligent. Evolution is not intelligent by its definition. It's random chemical interactions. It's physics. It doesn't work. So they actually make a god out of evolution. So if something is designed, it demands a designer. You can't get around that. Ray Comfort had a good tract, The Atheist's Nightmare, but it caused him such grief. That's where we showed that film. He had, kept being labeled Banana Man, but actually still a very good illustration. And biologically, they want to try and argue, well, the commercial bananas you get now have been selected for those qualities. So what? Man didn't design it. you could select for what was already available from God's design, so it still works. But, you know, a banana is a great tool to show that there's design. Or you can use an apple, you can use most fruits. If you want to compare what, compare that, the complexity of that. I like the banana because it comes, how does he put it? It's shaped perfect for the human mouth because the banana's curved. So if you, put in your hand, it goes right into your mouth, unless you put it the other way, in which case you're probably not as good as a monkey. Monkey knows turn it this way. It's got a pop-top, right? It peels, so it protects the fruit. It's very nutritious. It reproduces itself, and it comes color-coded, right? Green too early, yellow just right, black too late. Now, if you read the tract, he talks about, we'll have a theory. You got a can of Coke here. Millions and millions of years ago, it goes on about how we got this can and how it managed to form and then a cylindrical and aluminum. And then it weathered so that you could read it. This is Coca-Cola, 12 fluid ounces, you know, and then something sealed a brown syrupy fluid got inside and got sweet and then it sealed itself. You know, it's obviously that's ludicrous. And you tell someone a story like that and they understand, but you say, here's a piece of fruit. All that's happened since the fruit is infinitely more complex than a can of Coke. But that's the way it goes. So teleological intelligent design. There's got to be a designer. And the more complex the design, the more intelligent the designer. OK, anthropological, this is applying the theological argument specifically to man. Man designed a man designer with similar qualities of personhood, self-awareness, volition, all the qualities of personhood can't come from nowhere. Ontological, maybe the weakest argument, This one is, if you can conceive of a perfect being, then a perfect being must exist. That's philosophical, but it is used. And then there's the moral argument. If everything is by random chance, there is no morality. And no one can claim there is if everything's just by random chance, period, because chemicals have no morals. Physics has no morals. But we all know there is good and bad, and we make decisions about what's good and bad. you cannot have a moral quality without a moral law giver. It comes from somewhere, but it's within us. Jonathan did a debate with a guy and he let the guy choose the debate topic. And it was going to be about the existence of God. And the guy came up and says, this is great. I already won just by your topic. Let's talk about morality. because he had no basis to talk about morality. How do they make any moral judgment? They can't. Not if you're just from nothing. If there's a God, you can have a moral law comes from God, what he demands from us. Without that, then there is no morality. And people will argue back and forth. You're still going to come back to that same thing. Obviously, there is a God. Because there's morality, there is a moral law giver. There's a God. All right, so why do we not have to prove, this is a good question, why do we not have to prove God's existence to the unsaved? That's essentially a losing battle, right? I mean, people try to prove the existence of God to an unsaved person, their lens is basically covered by sin, and they're just not going to, you can offer proof after proof after proof, they're just not gonna accept it. And yet it's a losing battle for them because they innately know it's there. And so they're going to keep arguing about it and they want you to give another proof. And so like, well, what proof would you accept? There is no proof they'd accept. So then you've got a problem. You know, there's a God, it's innately within you, because the Word of God tells us that. That's why you, you know, the old adage, there's no atheist in a foxhole. You get really scared and suddenly you're praying to God. Why? You said you don't believe it. Then you have the stupidity of atheists who want to fight against theists and they're mad at something that doesn't exist. Why are you so mad at God? You say he doesn't exist, yet you're mad at him. It's innately within man. You have to work really hard to get someone to say they're an atheist. And even then, they're inconsistent. So I guess the question then is what's our responsibility if you have like an atheist guy that wants to talk to you, right? Is that don't throw pearls to the swine, tell them the gospel if they don't want to accept, that's it? We just tell them the truth, you know, and go from there. And Proverbs has answered, do not answer a fool according to his folly. unless you like him, but also it says answer according to his folly, i.e. demonstrate his foolishness. And that's where you can deal with the atheists. So how did it all get here then? And then you can play, the other one's like, really? You were there? You know this? What's your evidence? You know, you can play those games all the time. What's your evidence there is no God? Because I don't have to prove there is a God. It's innate, it's within us. that's what Free Conference does on a lot of his interviews. Oh, you really believe that scientific fact that nothing, all of this comes from nothing, you know, which people start thinking, oh, that's true, you know. So they, they box themselves in a corner. So we don't really have, we don't have to prove God's existence. It's already there within them. We just point out the truth. Someone's really searching, we'll give them to the right, the information, here's where you need to go and start searching. And you really do need to make sure that you're getting them to start doing the work of search, rather than trying to do it all for them, because they're not gonna believe until they actually do it themselves. Otherwise, you're just looking for some way to discount whatever you say, because they don't want to believe. And that's the bottom line of it. Even the Bible doesn't prove the existence of God. It just says, God in the beginning is there, right? He doesn't have to. Romans 1 is creation itself shouts it, then it's so much evidence that man is without excuse. Seven, give and describe the various non-Christian views of God. So what's atheism? There is no God. How about agnosticism? Existence in the nature of God. that is unknown or unknowable. Correct. The agnostic is at least honest. I don't know. His problem comes when he says, I don't know, that means you can't know. That is the problem with the agnostic. If he wants to say he doesn't know, at least you can start with humility, and that's a good place to start. We can say, but you can know, but you need to search for him and seek him. I'd like to help you. An atheist is actually a proud agnostic because he can't know that there is no God because he hasn't been everywhere. Or as is used in some apologetics, like, so how do you know God's not just on backside of Mars? You just haven't seen him yet. Or maybe he's out toward Pluto. He's just taking a stroll. You haven't been anywhere. How do you know he's not there? There is no such thing as an atheist. There is no God, because they can't know that. At most, they can be agnostic and just be proud and arrogant about it. Polytheism. There are many gods. Many gods, OK. Zoroastrianism and related. That would also go into a lot of the Eastern ideas. You talked a little bit about that, OK. There's distinct realities when good and one evil. Yeah, so like a call it a reality. Well, there's, he's trying to broaden it. So there's a good God, there's a bad God, there's a bunch of good God, there's a bunch of bad gods, there's the gang, and there's the gang, there's, there's a bunch of these habits, you have good and evil playing off each other. And whatever deific forces behind it, or many There's a whole bunch of those. It's Korean, if I recall correctly. So it's coming out of Buddhist philosophy. But there's a lot of religions that have that. Steven said in Iraq, there were some, seven of the students were this. It still exists. It's still around in the Middle East. Where is the error in that, though? Because that is kind of true, though, isn't it? It's a reality. Well, they're balanced between each other. That's why the yin-yang thing is a good one, because that's used a lot here. There's this guy and there's this guy. They're equal with each other, and they just keep battling. So the falsehood is that there is a good God and the evil God is not a God. So kind of like the bad conscience and the good conscience, they're not really addressing the fact that there's one God. Correct. Gotcha. So they end up, they're polytheistic, at least with at least two. Many have many. Some are more philosophical, but there are equal forces against each other. So the problem is that God is more powerful. There is a God. Pantheism. That's Hinduism, Eastern thought. God is everything and everything is God? Yeah. So it permeates everything. And so you can worship the tree, the rock, whatever. God's in everything. So you have all these that a lot of paganism, a lot of idolatry and pantheism. Pantheism, polytheism usually go together. The Star Wars stuff, that taught very clearly pantheism. The force was pantheistic. Theism, that was popular in Western Europe in the 18th century especially. So it's like he started the clock and left or something like that. Yeah, so he's the absentee landlord. He got it started and I'm gone. And that's not true. God's intimately involved in each person's life. That was popular. especially the 1700s, you have the reason is coming about and they want to be thought of as philosophical and fit with that. And yet they still want to believe there's a, there's God. So they mix the two. So he exists, he started everything, but he's not really that involved anymore. Theism. one God, okay? The Christian view would be called Christian theism. One true creator God has revealed himself in the Bible as opposed to other theistic groups. There are several monotheistic religions. We are Christians, one God revealed himself in the scriptures, okay? Okay, I didn't have you do nine active and passive forms of God's revelation. Active is intentional revelation of himself to man. Scripture, passive, it can be deduced from what he's created. Why is it necessary for God to reveal himself to man? Because you cannot get everything you need from creation. You will not know a lot about God. You'll know certain things, but not everything. All right. 13, in what way is general revelation insufficient? I think general revelation says that there is a God, but doesn't tell you how to get right to God. Correct. So it can't tell you his plan of salvation. It can't tell you about his love. It might be able to tell you about his kindness he provides, but can you know his love? Can you know his sacrifice for you? You can't know all of these attributes. How is general revelation effective? There is a God. And Romans 1, 18 through 21 is, There's enough in general revelation to prove there's a God, so that man is without excuse. Same passage is going to deal with there's an internal understanding that there is a God, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. So it's innate within man, God has placed it there. And no, every man is without excuse because you just have to look at creation, any aspect of creation. And I think that's the issue now that the society removed God from the picture that people doesn't realize that, oh, I have to answer to God, you know, at the end of my life. And that's a comfort to us because we know that when there's injustice, we know eventually justice will be done. And whatever evil is there, eventually it's going to be corrected because there is a God. That also keeps us walking the straight and narrow. But he's there. So that's another reason you don't have to prove that God is there. There is enough there to demonstrate it. They have to deny what's in front of them. And you can have fun with them. You can make up stories. If there's something you're working with, put some things in a row you know, shouldn't belong there, like put leaves. Paul just put them in a row or make a design from them and go, wow, isn't amazing how the happenstance, and look at it, spelled your name. Yeah, you did that. How do you know I did that? Well, because you had a design. See, we just went back to designer. There's a designer here. And then you can take and start talking about the leaf itself. Why does it do this? How did the tree learn to shed its leaves before the snow falls? Hmm. And why is it shed leaves at different times, different places? How did it know that? Trees have intelligence? Well, that's like the dahlias are sitting in my basement all winter and it's spring, it's still cold, there's still snow, but they know to have their tubers, you know, in the basement with very little light. And they know it's time. So you can, you can train them, you're actually playing with how God has designed them. You know, certain things, you got to put them in your refrigerator for a certain length of time, and then you pull them out. And that's how you, that's how they tie Easter lilies. You know, Easter pops around, it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after spring equinox. So it pops all over the place. They time it by, they put it in the refrigerator, they put it at the right time, and that's how the plant's designed. Let's see. 17, in what ways was special revelation given during the Old Testament period? I'm sorry, 16, in what ways is special revelation effective? Let's go to 15. In what ways is, 15, in what ways is special revelation sufficient and which way, how is it effective? So, how is special revelation sufficient? that makes known our need for salvation through Jesus. Yeah, it gives us everything we need to know about God and his plan that we should be able to know him and place our faith in him. How is it effective? Well, Hebrews, right? Hebrews 10, where God has said, like the sharpening two-edged sword and fight us under the soul and spirit. It's effective. And that's one thing we have to keep in mind is I don't have to prove things to people. I just have to declare the truth to them. Let the word of God do the work. Because the Holy Spirit uses that. Too often we can easily get caught up in intellectual arguments with someone and we start forgetting that it's a spiritual battle. And we think it's an intellectual one. It's a spiritual one. Just let the Word of God do its work. You know, how do you protect a lion? Just let him out of his cage. Okay. So what do you do with the Word of God? Let it out of its cage, let it go. And it will do its own work. OK, what ways was special revelation given during the Old Testament period and in the New Testament, 1718? So the Old Testament, you had many different ways. Theophanies, what's a theophany? Visualization. Yeah, and it could be many different ways, right? The burning bush, the cloud by day, the fire by night, voice speaking from the cloud, the Fire of Mount Sinai, so a physical manifestation. It could also be a manifestation that's a physical person. That would also be part of a theophany. How else? Dreams. Dreams. What's the difference between a dream and a vision? When you're asleep. Huh? At night or in the day? Yeah. Were you asleep or awake? And then sometimes God actually spoke to people. I had a bunch of them. How about New Testament? Jesus is the final revelation. In these last days revealed himself through his son, but he also has revealed himself and given a special revelation to the prophets and the apostles. Okay. So Paul had vision, the apostle. So there were special things that God had done, that special revelation. So during the testament, during the apostolic period, we had the apostles, we had the prophets, angelic servants but now obviously it's just a word it's just a word the unique thing in the new testament is you have the word you have christ so god has manifest himself in his son dwelling among us there's just like yeah there's some angels they're so so old testament new testament i can see it's actually the same because there's not as many prophets there are some prophets they're mentioned in scripture but what was written down came from the apostles but there is angels, there's visions, there's dreams, there's all those same things, but in the New Testament, you have Christ revealing. That's the special unique thing about the New Testament. 20, why do we say that new special revelation is not being given today? Yep. 19. 20. Yeah, said Jesus. 20, why do we say the new special revelation is not being given today? Subtracting from it. So we have a complete manifestation of what God wants for this time period. What's another reason we don't need it? Holy Spirit indwells us. So there's not a need for special revelation. The Holy Spirit actually dwells is to be able to guide us and direct us to understand the things of his word. There are those that are claiming that they're still getting special revelation, but I don't see them writing this down as additional scripture. And if it really was that kind of special revelation, they need to be writing it down. And if it has anything with prophecy, and if they're wrong on any part, you need to stone them. Maybe that's why they're not writing it down. That would be pretty bad. Because you don't want to go to jail for stoning a heretic. OK. When will new special revelation be given again? Yes, it says the Tribulation in the Dominion Kingdom. Right. So when we say there's none now, we're talking about the church age. And we'll end up doing more detail on that in eschatology toward the end of the class. Not this class, but the end of the whole session. So right now, there is, there will be in the future. For right now, we have a completed revelation from God in the scriptures. During the tribulation period, there will be some revelation given through other two prophets. But that's the next period. In the millennium, well, we will dwell with God. 22, how does religious liberalism use special revelation? Nancy? Well, I'm just going to read what you said because I was confused. religious liberalism says that God's revelation can't be expressed in human words or be recorded by a man who is fallible. Yeah, so they just rejected for them, it goes back to last week, we're talking about inspiration, the Bible, they don't have the same definition for inspiration. Yeah, so they, it seems to me from what it says, he talks about, you know, they have experiences that they think is revelation to them, emotional. Yeah. sensual, you know, sensual experiences. I felt something. Yes. I ate that ghost pepper and then I started dreaming. This one is almost like agnostic, meaning that I can't know, you know, meaning that, okay, there's, oh, you can't really know God. And here's the thing, I can't express God really, you know, again, it's going to be an internal thing. And so this ties directly into definitions we gave last week about inspiration. Their view of inspiration is wrong. Therefore, their view of God becomes wrong because it becomes whatever's coming out of them. Like I said, Sunday, God created man as his image. And ever since Eden, man has tried to return the favor. So whatever I'm thinking about God, I'll make God in my image. We're all prone to it. With liberalism, they actually condone it. Well, we'll make up what we want about God. That's why all these mainline denominations rejecting special revelation of the scriptures as actually being God's word and said it's something that comes from man, that he's written down, it's the mystical musings and the religious speculations of man. They make God to be something completely different and they keep changing their moral stand because of that. So God can say specifically this is wrong and they will twist it around to, well, that's okay. There's no problem with that. I heard a news blurb today that Congress people were arguing even on the steps of the government buildings about this bill, the Democrats shut through to allow abortion anytime, anywhere, any place, any reason. And some of the Congress were arguing that Christians can't do that. How can someone say they're a Christian and argue that you should be able to kill your infant at any time? So some were taking the task as you obviously have a different view of inspiration because you're not following scripture. But that's where they come from. That's why you had that question. They reject it. Why is that any different than what they agree with now? So it was legal. No, no, no, no. This is this is far beyond right now. It's still regulated by states. And it's also not legal. The Roe versus Wade premise was viability. So by pushing viability backward, you keep moving back when it could be done. This one is any time within the pregnancy, any place. For any reason. You don't like the sex of the child. It's like an awful divorce. You want it, you get it. You go get it. And it's designed to try to remove all state restrictions. So no, this is as evil as it gets. So that's why you have someone who's saying they're a Christian arguing for this. So the other ones like it. You're not reading the same Bible. You have a different view of revelation. You have a different God. So please don't keep calling yourself a Christian. But that just shows this is at the heart of that. It's liberalism. Yeah. It's religious liberalism at the heart of it because it's changed the idea of who God is. We've made God in our own image. We can make God approve. twist things around, anything we want. So he will prove ourself. So what's their view on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit? Well, there are constructs that man came up with. So if the religion is generated by man, man can change it any way he wants. So that's why, again, you have the religious liberals of the mainline denominations have shifted so far away. They're not really even theistic. to some degree, because they have a God of their own making. And they don't believe what scripture says. So that's in all the areas of morality, because they want to excuse their sin. That's what any form of regular theism is, though. It's obviously man-made. It's not to say it's out of the Bible. If it's not a Christian theism, and that's just the theism, then what is your God? What's his characteristics? And if he's mutable, i.e. he keeps changing, which is what they keep doing, they keep changing what God is and what he stands for and what he accepts. Because it comes still back to some basic premises, and this is one of them. They reject special revelation. They deny the work of the Holy Spirit and God's ability to express himself through fallible men to give a perfect word. They reject that. Therefore, the Bible's fallible. The Bible's fallible. I can make whatever I want. All right, 24, let's talk more about God himself. What features show that God has personhood? I've talked about that actually in my sermons the last several weeks. What are the qualities of personhood? Self-awareness. Okay. Self-determination. Sense of morality. God-perpetuity. Okay, what else? He didn't really discuss it, but I have. Intelligence, emotion. Volition. One of those. Okay. Animals think, but do they think in the abstract? They react. They're programmed by instinct. There's debate about whether animals have emotion. Do they actually have emotion or is it instinctual? If you have a dog, you should know. They are definitely emotional creatures. Well, what about cats? They're just always pissed off. If you don't feed them. So do they or do they not? They can debate it. Do they have emotions like humans? Does your dog ever have conflicting emotions? Yes. When I'm neurofounding with my wife, he doesn't know who to go after. He's like, he jumps and tries to hit both of us at the same time. Maybe you'll get the picture. Stop it. Stop it. Just feed me. That's all you need to do. Feed me. Okay. So God has all the characteristics that we use to define the idea of personhood. because it actually are who what we are made as image has personhood because it comes from God. God's nature of spirit, optional question 25. And the qualities of divine nature, we call those attributes or perfections. And some of the reform works tend to call them perfections instead of attributes. 27, which of these qualities are communicated to save people? And by what means are they communicated? So what are the incommunicable attributes? They exist in God, but they don't exist in man. He doesn't change. Yeah, you're right. He doesn't change. We change. Praise the Lord, we change. All the things that relate to us are infinite. All right, if it's infinite in time, that's eternal. What about infinite in power? Well, we are. We are eternal. Not backwards. Not backwards. OK, that's it. We exist before time. We didn't. And then omniscience, omnipresence. OK, infinite in knowledge. Omnipotent. Infinite in power. OK, omnipresence, omniscience. Yeah. So these are qualities of God that only he has. Although in communicable, we don't share those with God. The omnis, right? All the omnis. But I guess that when I was looking at this question, it kind of bothered me. I mean, it confused me. It's like, communicate with the same people, right? That part of the question. Well, not telling you about it, but actually you can share it. That's the idea of communication. What about communicable ones? Grace, mercy? Love, truth, righteousness. Patience. Long-suffering. How about some of the negative ones? Hatred. God has hatred. God has wrath. God has jealousy. Ours are sinful. His are not. So all these are qualities of God that exist in us because we're made in His image and likeness. So 2080 says, describe God's qualities or attributes, give a blessing that each attribute is to us who are saved. The author does not break up the divine essence and attributes in a standard fashion. Just want you to know that. So I'm gonna let you answer, then I'm gonna give you some answers here in a standard fashion. So what'd you come up with? Faithfulness. Okay, faithfulness. Looking back and forth in the book. Sovereignty. Sovereignty. What's the blessing? He said sovereignty, so what's the blessing of sovereignty? can supersede what he decides to do. So it means I can trust him. He can do what he promised. He can do what he promises. Oh, if he says. There's a lie. That's a good thing. OK. Trust what you read. That is slow to anchor. That's very good. That's more like mercy, right? Well, mercy is withholding what you deserve. Slow the anger, I mean, there's an emotional component there. So the actions, so there's patience. Let me get several, let me run through some of this, okay? God's essence, the essence of God, let's talk about five main qualities. First is spirituality, God is a spirit. John 4.24. That means he's immaterials. He's incorporeal. There is no matter. There is no body. He's a spirit. He is invisible. That means no man has seen nor can see God in his uncovered essence for what he is. We can see God manifested in the person of Christ. We can see him manifested in things that he does or as we said in the old Testament, you can have these theophanies, but his essence of what he is a spirit, we can't see that. We can't see spirit. He is alive. He's a living God. And he is the source of life. And he is a person, as we've discussed in number 24. There's a simplicity and unity within God. He's a singular unified substance. there is one triune God. Self-existence, God is independent and has the ground of existence in himself. Man has a ground of existence in God and we're dependent upon God and interdependent with other people. God doesn't need anybody. He's completely self-existent. He has no need, that means anything. In creating us, it wasn't because he had a need for us. He simply chose to do so. And a lot of those Jesus is my boyfriend songs are really bad. He needed me. No, he didn't. He chose to create you, but he didn't need you. And he doesn't need your worship. It's a privilege to worship him. We tend to think somehow we're giving something to God. How do you give something to somebody who is self-existent? I mean, it's hard enough to try and figure out someone's in their 80s or 90s. Where do you get them? I mean, that was a hard time. My dad turned 99 yesterday. Where do you get them? I know what he'd like. I know what he'd like, but I can't give it to him. He'd like some new feet so he can walk around without pain. So we sent him a letter with, there's going to be 99 reasons that grandpa, my dad, grandpa is loved and respected. And we ran out of time at 121 because it was time to go to bed. Had a great time. And we sent that to him. If that's hard for a 99 year old, what do you do with God? He doesn't need anything. Can I get a gift certificate? He doesn't need it. But he doesn't need it. He's self-existent. You can dwell on that one and drive yourself a little batty. Entity, that's the idea that God fills all is infinite in reference to space. He's not limited. We don't understand that. that also speaks of his transcendence. That means he is above, outside, and separate from, and something other than the universe he's created. He's not in the time box, time space continuum with us. We've got to keep that in mind. He's not like us. But our minds immediately start putting upon God characteristics that we have, we attribute to him, and think he's like that. And he's not, which is part of the reason for the sermon last Sunday. Don't put him in the box with you. He is something other than we are. His sovereignty is greater than we think it is. Because he doesn't do it the same way we would have to do it, of controlling and manipulating everything. His sovereignty is beyond that. Eternity, eternal, infinite with reference to time. It means he's free from time, yet conscious of it. There's no past, present, or future with God. He is before time, Genesis 1-1, above time, Isaiah 57-15, and He's after time, 1 Corinthians 15-28. No, we don't understand that, because He's something other than us. That's the essence of God. So these attributes, let's define a few of these. Immutability, what's that? Unchanging. So He stays constant, doesn't change in purpose, word, or attribute. He can change in response to the changes in his creatures, but that's consistent with what his promises are. So he actually is unchanging, okay? It's not that he changes his mind, he changes his response toward us as we have changed. So that's an example for the Jonah, right? With the Ninevites? They changed and they repented. That was the plan all along. So the consistent with what the promise was, if you do this, I will do this. It doesn't mean he's changed his mind. He sent them for that purpose. A hundred years later, Nahum is written and it's the Ninevites as well. It's like, you didn't, you went back to what you were and you didn't change, you're wiped out. okay and the benefit of that he's trusted fulfill all his promises omnipresence um okay everywhere present that means wholly present don't confuse that with the pantheistic thought that he's in everything he is wholly present um within the universe not just part of it or limited by it that's again beyond our comprehension because he's infinite relationship to immensity is omnipresence holy everywhere present omniscience okay we use it just like god all-knowing right okay means he's fully aware of all things with all understanding so that's not just a computer he has all the data and the thing is too is that he knows it completely you know it's not like he's going to know something new or something like that he doesn't learn Right. It's all there. That means that's why Jeremiah could say, you know, our hearts are wicked. Who can understand it? God can understand it. He understands us. He understands us better than we do. That's part of his omniscience. The benefit from that, that means he knows you completely, wholly. He still loves you. And that's a comfort to us, right? That sometimes you don't want your somebody to know what you've done, but God already knew that. Well, let's face it, what do we do? Throughout most of our lives, we are trying to hide from others what we really are, right? In everything, right? Why do you use makeup? I don't want anybody to see what I really look like. Well, you got to see it while you're putting it on, you know, excuses that people give. I mean, but God knows intimately everything. Holy. He still loves you. That's incredible. That's a great surprise. Right. So I don't need to fear disclosing myself to God. That's what you see. It's expressed along the Psalms. come out with. And it's like, why would I hide this from God? He already knows it's there. I just need to be respectful in how I express it. Okay. Omnipotence, all powerful. We usually use that. But that means his power is always used in conjunction with all of his other attributes. And his power then can keep me safe. All right, if God is all powerful and can do anything he wants, can he make a rock so big he can't pick it up? That's an absurdity. And that would be inconsistent with his character. So that's how you answer the absurd questions that are thrown out there. Sovereignty, supreme over all, holiness. See if I got through the last few weeks. All right. I did well. He set apart. He's something other than us. And as we're separated to God, we start reflecting that attribute. Righteousness. He is the standard of what is right. He sets it. So in his character, he never does wrong. Try to emphasize that last Sunday. Justice. OK, but not fair like we're using now, fair and justice, right? Not equitable outcome. That's how we twisted the word around. Well, that's not fair. No, it's not fair. But that's how it's now being used. Impartial, is that a thing? Well, justice is the correct one. He is absolutely equitable in his treatment of people. He treats us the same. It doesn't mean we have the same outcome. He treats us with love, kindness, and mercy. But he's also going to judicially act according to what his word says. So if we do not repent, then he is going to carry out justice. That's part of his righteousness exhibited. There's no partiality with him. You can't bribe him. Fair in the sense of equal opportunity, equal treatment. And that's what fairness used to be here in this nation, and justice, but now we've changed it around. Equal treatment before the law. Now we just find out that some people are more equal than others. That's injustice. We've seen a lot of that lately. But that's not the way God is. So the only reason I'm kind of harping on this a little bit is that means we have to be careful when we're using words that we define it out for people what we mean by that. Because especially the younger generations are not going to understand the words to mean the same thing. That's by design. It is to keep it confused. you know? No, we didn't. Yeah, we didn't do the Bible. Just like back in the day when we used the King James. The words change meaning, what are we doing now? But it is by design to keep changing the meaning of words so that it's confusion. So you're saying something and you think you're communicating and they don't even understand what you're talking about. Goodness. I want you to find goodness. It's about moral excellence. He is good and he does good. Love, adopting, affection, caring that will sacrifice itself for the object of its love. Hatred, It's an extreme dislike and opposition toward those things. That's why we call it hatred. It encompasses both the hostile attitude and action. So he hates what is evil. Opposite of hatred, grace. Undeserved favor. Getting a blessing you do not deserve. That's grace. For its own sovereign purposes, he will do that. Mercy. You're not getting what you're supposed to get. Not receiving the punishment you have deserved. So it's compassion that he extends upon distressed and guilty. So he withholds the punishment that is due, that's mercy. So mercy is the distress that brings us relief, bad for mercy. Long-suffering, so a combination of patience and forbearance. Long-suffering, it's you're always being irritated by something and yet you're still patient with it, that's long-suffering. In truth, what is truth? Pilate asked the question and truth was standing right there. Truth is God's perfect representation of reality and absolutely consistent with all that is, is, and is of himself. Truth is actual reality. not your perception of it, not what you'd like it to be. It's what really is. All right, 29, explain God's transcendence and his eminence. We're in big words here. Transcendence? Being above, outside, separate from something other than the universe. Yeah. So he's not part of it. He transcends. He's outside the box. Does it include transcending time? That's that space, but we also transcend. Yeah, I one reason I keep using out of the box when I was I was wise enough not to take the required philosophy class until my last quarter. So that means I was 23 sitting in there with these 18 year olds who were getting pummeled because they never thought about why would you how do you even know anything epistemology and the Professor, to my great benefit, did not grade on what test he gave, because I never did pass one of his tasks, because I always disagreed with him. But he graded on participation, and I liked to participate. But he always, he called it his philosophical thing. He would have, this would be the world, and he would put his stick figures in here, you know. address. Okay. He's not happy. He's in the box. So he had been put in here all the other things. But one day he was doing this and he put, you know, their ideas to God. He put God in the box. So I walked up and I said, you got a problem with your whole thing here. Your whole idea here is wrong as well. So I walked into class, I went, get God out of the box with you. Because that's the reality of what the world is, is that God is not part of what we are. He's not something we've imagined. He transcends it. And that means that we are trapped within here. And the idea of transcendence is he's over here, he's over here, he's in here, he's in there, everywhere. He transcends it all. Space-time continuum. So with a God, past, present, future, he exists in all of them. Don't dwell on that too long. It's mind boggling. You end up in some kind of sci-fi thing that may be fun, but it'll drive you nuts a little bit. Okay. Eminence. That's that's the fact that he can yeah he's everywhere present within it right but not like the pantheist but he's not part of it okay yeah he that's what he created he's not part of it but he's everywhere present within it that's the eye of eminence um 30, I didn't give you three kinds of God's love, sacrificial, compassionate, paternal, as a father. God's perpeting love, Jesus Christ, the supreme expression of that love, 31. 32, I didn't give you God's hatred from human hatred. God's hatred is holy hatred. It's righteous hatred. All these other alphabets figure in with it. Human hatred, according to James, says does not achieve the righteousness of God. The anger of man does not achieve the rights of God. So our problem is our anger gets tied in with our own sin and selfishness. If we can move past that, we could have righteous indignation of something that was done wrong that's an affront to God. But even there, usually we get it because it's an affront to us as well. And so we're upset about it. Really, it's an issue that's directed toward God. I did ask you, number 33, what two kinds of wrath does God's hatred express? Toward sinners and sin? Yeah, toward sinners and sin, but it's both emotional and active. So there is a state within him emotionally of a hatred toward, and then there's an action, which is the wrath. 34, explain and give an example of each of the following terms, anthropomorphism, Okay, that's correct. So if it talks about God with a human characteristic, that's anthro man, or morphism, his characteristics, his body flesh. Then he has another one, anthropo path isms. He's like, yeah, he's a college professor. He likes these big words. Okay, that's a subset of anthropomorphisms. But this is emotions. Actually, we were fine, Tim, we don't, we grow where he doesn't. How about zoomorphisms? Some kind of animal, you know, the pinions, the lion under his feathers. Okay. Now what's the purpose of all those kinds of, these are actually all metaphors and similes. Without that, we don't know what he's like. So this gives us a little bit of tidbit of, He is something like this. But does God have feathers? No. It's expressing, as a bird would, he protects. That's the idea of it. All of those. Let's see. I went down to 39. Give a four statement summary of the biblical doctrine of divine trinity. Oh, you're having fun with this one. The final statement, the final paper in your to get your degree was like that. This is a thesis. Yeah, that's getting real now. There is one God between two persons, members of three distinct coexistent persons, which member of the Trinity is fully God. Okay. What are the three false views of the Trinity that he talks about? Okay. Okay, these are generally named after the heretic that first to find them out. Okay. Civilianism is also called modal marconism. So it denies the individual personhood and perpetuity or eternal existence of each member. So each, and that is a temporary expression of, but they don't all exist at the same time. One transforms into the other. Is that correct? Yeah, that's why it's called a modal, sometimes called modalism, transforming to the other. Like the water example. You've probably heard that one. God is like water, you know, he's just a solid and liquid and gas, promises those transfer back and forth. That's not the Trinity. Each one is a distinct and they remain distinct from each other. Okay, these things are still around. They're ancient heresies, but they're still around. Arianism, named after Arius. Jesus is not really holy God, but he's a created being, created by God. So it exalts the Father at the expense of the Son and the Spirit, who are lesser gods. For them, for Arius, the son was created out of nothing by the father. And the spirit is the force that emanates from the father or the son. So what group currently is the major pusher of Arianism? It's a cult group. Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses. It's classic Arianism. So they don't get it. they actually are polytheistic because for them Jesus is a god but he's a lesser god because they deny the trinity so they end up with two gods so they don't believe in the holy spirit at all the holy spirit for them is a force sort of like electricity has force there's no personhood in the in the holy spirit for them so the jesus that they believe is not a jesus that can save them Correct. It's wrong, Jesus. They must believe in work salvation. They do. There's no other thing left at that point. It's a work salvation religion. That's why they have to be out knocking on your door. It's part of renewment. They're all working to be part of the 144,000 at the end, right? Well, at least in a good position on earth. Did you say they consider Jesus a God as well as a personal preacher? Because what I copied that they said there's only one God and they've got Jesus created. But they will still say that he's a God, but he's a lesser God. Oh, he's a lesser God. Yeah. And when you really push them, you can get them tied up in knots on that one. It's like, so is he just a man? Yeah. How does he save you? Well, he's God. Well, then I thought you just said there's only one God and that's Jehovah and Jesus is not Jehovah. So You got one god or two gods? You know, they don't really understand their own inconsistency. So they end up with two gods and a force that emanates from that which is not a god. So that's how they're trying to get around to understand a triune expression in scriptures by denying it. Now, what's behind both of those is because they're trying to push upon God something that they can grasp and understand, which is usually the problem of all heresies. You're trying to take something that God has revealed, and this one about God himself, and make it something that man can comprehend and do. If it's like salvation, he can do this instead of letting God be God. Can anybody understand the Trinity? No. Because there's nothing within the realm of our experience that's anything like it. No, you can't relate to it, but you can understand it. Well, I need to do something to wipe this off. Because if you're trying to give human attributes to God, you're going to be stuck not understanding it. Restricting your understanding of God and what we are. So we already talked about some of these modalisms, a problem, what about an egg? Is that a good analogy? God, the Trinity. An egg has an outer shell, it's got the white inside, it's protein, it's got the yolk. So see one, two, three parts, the whole thing is one egg. What's the problem with that? You could separate it, but if you separate it, you still have the egg. No, you're destroying it. You're destroying it. So you have to have all three in order to have the egg. Correct. Okay. Is the father fully God? Yes. Yeah. Is the Son fully God? Yes. Yes. Is the Holy Spirit fully God? Yes. It's not in the egg. That's right. Because with that, you have to have all three in order to have the whole. Right. The Father's holy God, the Son's holy God, the Spirit's holy God. So the egg doesn't work. So, you know, You already did the water one relationships. It's like, you know, I have a father and I'm a husband and I have a son. Kind of in the middle there. That's three, right? Three relationships. No. Three relationships doesn't make it three distinct people. But this is, there's three distinct persons within one triune Godhead. That's one God. So one is three, but three is one. So that's the reason why we're going over the attributes of God, right? That's right. We realize that he's all powerful. He can do whatever he wants. He can do whatever he wants. He's something different. How do we know that? I think I broke it. Yeah, looks that way. Like, man, that's weird. How do we know each one is what they are? It's because scripture presents them, number 41. What makes each of the three persons Trinity be God? Well, each member of the Trinity of God is God because they each possess the single divine nature. They each have it. So each has the essence and all the qualities of Godhood. So you run around the ashes, each has it. If you go to major things like creation, who created everything? God. Well, which part of the Trinity? The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. All are attributed to creation, each one. Who raised Jesus from the dead? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I would raise myself. And he also referred to God would raise him. And the Holy Spirit is the one who raised him. All three are referred, each one raised him. So the actions, the work of, they all share those things and attribute it. So each one individually has all the attributes and qualities of the eternal Godhead. 42, what makes the three persons training to be together one God? They share one divine nature because their God is a singular unity. The Shema Deuteronomy 6, 4. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, actually it's Yahweh our Elohim is one Lord, one God. There's a plural and a singular right there. Yahweh, our God, is one Lord. You already have it. In Genesis, let us make man in our image. Who's the us? That's the trinity in Godhead. So each one is distinct. was funny, because I was listening to a Hebrew lesson, or this is a university professor trying to explain that let us make man. And he was just saying that, oh, the us is like a, like a majestic thing. When you're a, when you're like a queen. Royal we. You're a royal we. It's like, what? It's unbelievable. So we'll go to a literary device that will stretch it out. Angels are not made in the image of God. And the angels don't create. God creates. So it's not the angels, but us make God in our image. So you have throughout the Old Testament, these references to a a triunity of the Godhead. There's a very good passage in Isaiah, 48, 16. I'm going to start at verse 12. Now, Follow carefully what's here, Isaiah 48, 12 through 16. Okay, listen to me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called, I am he, I am the first, I am also the last. Surely my hand founded the earth, my right hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand together. So who's talking? God's talking, right? He's the first, he's the last, he's the one who created everything. Assemble all of you and listen, who among them has declared these things? The Lord. Okay, that's Yahweh. Yahweh loves him. He shall carry out his good pleasure on Babylon. His arm shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken. Indeed, I have called him. I have brought him, and he will make his way successful. So who's speaking? Well, Yahweh. Come near to me, listen to this. From the first, I have not spoken in secret. From the time I took place, I was there. Now the Lord God, okay, that's Adonai Elohim. Now Adonai Elohim has sent me. Who's the me? Well, the first and the last, the creator. So that'd be Yahweh and his spirit. So here in the Old Testament, What chapter of Isaiah is that? Isaiah 48, 12 through 16. That's why I couldn't find it right, wrong chapter. So here's one of those passages in the Old Testament, one God, three persons. So triunity of God. So each person of the Trinity shares the divine essence. So it's one God and three persons. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Hero Israel, the Lord, that's Yahweh, is our God, Elohim, the Lord, Yahweh, is one. So the singular who is a plural is singular. Okay, you shall love the Lord your God, Yahweh your Elohim. So singular plural with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. So how can we understand a concept? We don't wanna end up with one of these analogies that end up promoting a heresy. So you can't use water, can't use relationships. So we usually use called the Trinitarian triangle, make an isosceles triangle. All right. Eternal Godhead. Father. All right, so the Father is eternal Godhead, the Son is eternal Godhead, Spirit is eternal Godhead. But the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father. So does that make a whole lot of sense? No. I don't know if this is wrong. They all have their own tasks. Okay, we're going to talk about that next. Okay, what is the relationship between each one within the Godhead? But you start off with is there's one God. Three persons, the persons are not each other. They're distinct for each other. That's what God is presented in the scriptures in describing himself. One God and three persons, but one God. I think I like one sermon that you did a while back where you said that if God is made my man, he wouldn't conceive of the Trinity because it's so confusing and it's not, you know, it's not something that we can fully grasp, you know. We couldn't. Lewis Barry Schaeffer said that in the whole scripture. The Bible is not a book that man could write. And if he could write it, he wouldn't write it. Or would he do that? If you like math, right? The only problem with that, though, is that you don't want to get into the idea that they are not equal and the character, the nature, everything else. This really just translates, A is not B, is not C. They are still distinct. Each one is God. That's really the issue there. So let's say I'd be labeled a heretic. The problem with any model that we put together, it's not sufficient. It's not sufficient. Exactly. But that's what we're after. That's what we're trying to do is get some kind of concept that expresses what is true, even though the expression of it says that doesn't make a lot of sense either. Because we can see by the math, if each one is, but they're still the same. So let's go on to what Karen was talking about, the relationships among the person of trinity with reference to divine age that was optional number 44. Each one person of the trinity shares the divine essence, the person of the father. Now this is a classical way of expressing it, but I would have to say in some ways this is somewhat philosophical more than I can find a chapter and verse. But the person of the father eternally generates the son And then together, the persons of the Father and Son, the word that's used in theology is spirate, the Holy Spirit. And this is eternal without reference to time. So I think that's still a man trying to grasp some idea of the relationship. But we know that the Son is begotten of the Father. And we know the Spirit is sent by the Son and by the Father. those are things we can say there's a scripture that states this, but that's a classical way that theologians try to somehow express this. So when did they actually start to kind of define the concept of trinity, which is like the first century Christians? Fourth century is when it was finally nailed down. Arius was a heretic and he actually was winning the debate and actually got Athanasius marked as a heretic for a while until Athanasius was able to come back and make his case, and Arius then became the heretic, because it was hotly debated. And that's how theology has developed as godly men and, well, godly men and a heretic end up debating these things. Usually it's heretics that push theology, because you go along and find that someone starts saying something, but that's not true, so you have to fight against it. And now you start defining more clearly as that is not true. So it's not just stating this is true. You have to start stating, and that is not true. And so that was early 300, I believe, Athanasius and Arius. So that was nailing down the Trinity. Okay, 45, explain the subordination that is manifest among the person of the Trinity with reference to their eternal, their internal relationships, their relationships to the universe. That's the question for you. Going to Karen? I keep rereading it, and I'm still confused. Okay, we'll try and clear that up. Anybody want to make a stab at that? Okay, well, what's the order of subordination? So just as far as subordination to God, and Holy Spirit's subordination to God. Okay, to both. Okay, so Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that's the order. That's based on the order of presentation. It's not an expression of inferiority, that's important. Not inferiority of the essence, it's not. They're equal in power, they're equal in quality. all things are out of, ek, which is the Greek word for out of, the Father brought about through the Son by means of, which is the Greek word in, by the Holy Spirit. So the Son does the Father's will, and Jesus kept emphasizing that. In John you see that. I have come only to do my Father's will. So there's a subordination of the Son to the Father. Then he sends the Holy Spirit to carry out what he would do. So the Holy Spirit then will glorify the Father and the Son. It seems I could be wrong that Jesus sends the Holy Spirit or asks the Holy Spirit to do, Jesus asks the Holy Spirit to um acknowledge a prayer and but he sends also has to send it to god to for god to um accept that that prayer well the son and the spirit both intercede for us with the father romans 8 and then it's in hebrews so Romans 8, the Holy Spirit, even when we don't know how to pray, he intercedes for us. And Hebrews tells us the Son intercedes for us as well. So both are interceding with the Father for us on our behalf, but we're also told specifically to go to the Father directly. So that's ancillary in one sense, that we can see that they are interceding when we don't know what we're doing or how to do it. But Jesus told us to pray to our Father who art in heaven. That was how we're directed to pray. We pray to the Father. So we don't pray to the Holy Spirit to go get things done. He intercedes as part of his ministry. He prompts our prayers, but we pray to the Father. There is some verses that talk about asking Jesus for things. So there would be Proverbs says, I could pray to Jesus. But Jesus' directions are to pray to the Father. And like David, he asks God to keep the Holy Spirit in him. Because in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon somebody and then leave. And David's great fear, because when he watched King Saul, he understood his life. The Holy Spirit was on King Saul, and he saw the Holy Spirit leave. David did not want that to happen to him. That was the prayer of Moses too, that everyone would get the Holy Spirit. Yeah, everybody get it. This would be great. But we live in the church age, and the Holy Spirit indwells in us. He never leaves us. So we are in a different dispensation. So that's a great comfort to us, is we don't have that danger. Now, we could quench the Spirit. We could grieve the Spirit or quench the Spirit, in which case we're not paying attention to Him. But He hasn't left. He's still there. So if you're doing the same, the Holy Spirit will be in you. Correct. If you're saved, the Holy Spirit indwells you. So we don't have to worry about David's prayer. He's not going to leave. Maybe that's the issue with the subordination. Because the thing is, our minds are, whenever we think that somebody is subordinate over somebody, that somebody is like better than yours, you know? That's wrong. Well, that becomes a problem in marriage, right? Too often the guy thinks, well, my wife is supposed to, she's subordinate, right? She's supposed to submit to me. So she's subordinate. No, it's a difference in role. It has nothing to do with equality or value, importance, ability. It's simply the order that God has given by which things are to be done. Hence that's why in first Corinthians 11, it is demonstrated as the, Father is over the sons. The son is doing the father's will. So he then goes into marriage. The husband carries the responsibility, but there's no difference in value. There's no difference in equality in any of those things. They're different roles. So that goes into what is the role of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one has slightly different things they will do in relationship to things, right? In creation, it starts in Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, et cetera, et cetera, right? In Colossians, it talks of all things reformed by Christ. So God has decreed it. And apparently, through Christ, this stuff is created. But right in Genesis, you have the spirit of God hovering over the waters. So he's also involved with it. but each one is carrying out their particular aspect of what they're going to do within the Triune Godhead. But then we start trying to make the division one, two, three, and not quite work that way. So a lot of the revelations given to us is a concession to us to be able to grapple with it. But this Trinity, Triune Godhead himself is their equals. but they're gonna carry out the particular ministry they have as part of the Gaia. And no, we don't understand exactly how that works. We only understand what he's revealed to us, so we understand some aspects of it. Yeah, that subordination is really taken the wrong way. You think in the, like the army. Yeah. Now, but even in the army, if you have a general that has no privates, what will he do? Nothing. He will accomplish nothing. So you need the whole unit to function, right? So I hope at least this helps a little bit put something in your mind of how to grapple through this. Okay. 46 was optional, three basic Hebrew names of God. Elohim, generic God, functional, Adonai, Lord, and then the personal covenant name is Yahweh in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we're given several different, well, actually, there's quite a few different names. I gave that question to you, 47. Elohim is plural, El is singular, also cursive, Eloah and Elah meaning strength, powerful, the all-powerful creator. That's the term that's usually used in terms of creation. Elohim, created. And there's compounds, El Shaddai, the almighty God, El Elyon, most high God, El Alam, everlasting God, El Gebor, mighty, strong warrior God, Yahweh is a form of the to be from the I am and hence the self-existent one. That is the name that was given to Moses by what name shall I tell them that's sending me Yahweh. I am a self-existent one. So then there's compound ones Yahweh, Elohim, Lord God, There's Adonai Yahweh, which is also translated Lord God, but now it's small case Lord, uppercase God. Yahweh is Sabaoth, Lord of hosts. Adon or Adonai, Lord, Master, and it's used of both the father and the son. Also thrown in from men, master-servant relationships. In the New Testament, we have Theos. There's a general name for God or gods. Context tells you. Lord is Kurios, one of the authority of the master. But the personal name for God in human flesh is Jesus. So that's his personal name. It's his form of Joshua. Right, 49, what is the human personal name of God the Son, and when did he receive the name? Jesus. When did he receive that name? Well, scripture tells us when he got it. Son will be born to you, you shall call his name, Jesus. So he received the name at the incarnation. Okay. All right, I tried to break this up so it wasn't totally overwhelming. So I think it's three sections to get through theology proper, because there's a lot to get through. But tonight, Moses, here's the essence of who God is. As soon as you think you understand God, you have changed him, because he's going to be beyond you. And that's really our comfort. we can be really glad that God doesn't act like us. He's not limited like us. That's the nature of our creator. And yet he pays attention to us, it's amazing. So, yeah. All right, so next week we will cover the next section of this. So again, probably start early. Don't wait to the last minute because, again, you're still dealing with mind boggling things. The reading isn't that hard. It's the concepts that they're talking about that just sit there and kind of wrestle through it. OK, any questions, comments? Ready to go home and give your mind a break. Yeah, me too. Any questions, Marianne? Yes, actually. Okay. Um, remember the question I had last week? Well, that same girl I saw again, and she she was coming up this week, that I really questioned. She was talking about salvation. And she was saying that salvation isn't it's it's sort of not, it's not complete until you get into heaven. And I felt that that was wrong. And I tried looking up, I was actually looking in the back in the, you know, trying to find it in here, what I could show her. And that was like a lot, there's like a big area for salvation. But I really thought like the doctrine of salvation, saved, you know, you're saved and it's now and forever. It's not something that's gradual. So could you talk a little bit about that? But you're going to have to nail her down exactly what she's talking about because you are saved. Being saved will be saved in the aspects of it. You're saved from sin because you got to remember what you're saved from. You're saved from sin. So that's part of holiness. I'm set apart. I'm saved from this. In the presence, I am also still being saved from sin because I'm becoming more holy. I'm being more separated from that. I'm saved from that sin that would be part of my life otherwise. And then in glorification is the final aspect of salvation. I am completely saved because I'm completely changed. So there is a parallel between I am Sanctified, being sanctified, will be sanctified, which is glorification. If that's what she's talking about, fine. If she's talking about your salvation is incomplete, as in an unknown and you can fall away, that's a different question. Right. That's where I think she was headed. And that's part of your salvation or something. That's where I thought she was going. Well, that's part of Arminianism, which we're going to talk about in the future. And they have the belief is that you can lose your salvation. So for them, security in your salvation does not occur until you're actually in heaven. But for us, we look at what Paul says in Romans eight, is that whom he predestined, who before knew he predestined those who predestined, he called those he called he glorified. And it's actually in a past tense there, because the future is so secure, he can speak that way. So we will definitely be saved, no doubt about it. So our security is in what God has promised. Within Arminianism, though, you always have this working towards salvation, which is why there's a tendency within it to end up with a workspace salvation. They're always trying to earn it, rather than resting in it, that it's secure. So that's what you'd have to nail down with her. What exactly is she talking about? If she's afraid she's going to lose her salvation, I would take her to John 10 and say, Jesus loses none that the father has given. So don't call Jesus a liar. The question is, did the father give her to Jesus? So it's an issue of genuine salvation, not losing salvation. So it sounds like you're still gonna have some interesting talks with her. Well, this is the one that, you know, thought Peter didn't write Peter. So, yeah. So, you know, it's frustrating. Well, liberal theologians always have somebody else that wrote it. It doesn't matter who it is. It's always written by somebody else at a later time. So they'll go pseudo-Peter, you know, the false Peter, the false this, somebody writing is that. And so their view of inspiration is different. So for them, that's just musings of men. And frankly, pretty lousy because they have liars. When they write, you know, Peter and apostles and then say it wasn't Peter, well, then who was it? So the guy is lying from the beginning and you want to say and trust this, why are you bothering to study it? Why do you wanna follow the writings of a liar? But that's the way to try to undermine the authority of the scripture. So be patient with her, just keep pointing her back to the scripture. That's all we can do. And pray the Holy Spirit will work on her. Does that help, Marianne? Yes, very much, thank you. Okay, Denise, you have any questions? No, I think I'm okay this week. Yeah, it's a lot to take in. Thanks so much. You're welcome. All right, then I'll bank five minutes for next week. Thank you, Father, that we can know who you are, because you've revealed yourself in your word. We look around us and see your creation and like the psalmist, considering the heavens, the stars, the moon, Who in the world are we that you didn't take thought of us? But your special revelation, what you declared in your word, says that you have, and you love us, and you've sent Christ to pay the penalty for us that we might be bound in an eternal relationship with you as your adopted sons and daughters. We are very grateful for that. Father, you are beyond our comprehension. We acknowledge it. But thank you for what you have revealed that we can at least get some of these glimpses and that you are something completely other than us. Thank you that we can take comfort in each of the attributes that are revealed to us in Jesus name. Amen.