From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. Thank you for joining us today. This is Alan Kearns with you once again to welcome you to Let the Bible Speak. I trust you'll be able to stay with us for the next 30 minutes as we continue our study in the life of Christ, thinking this week particularly upon what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ immediately following his baptism. We read that the Holy Spirit descended upon him. So this week our study is in the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. And we're going to consider that throughout the week because it has a message, not only of historical and theological importance regarding the life of Christ Himself, but for us who name His name in the Church of Christ and in our service for Him. So I trust you'll stay with us as we continue this series of studies in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. A little later in the broadcast, our commentary for today will be on theologians who speak out of both sides of their mouths. But first we start with some music. The SMS Choir with Phil Gingery, a soloist, with a beautiful piece, know a name. I know a name, I know a wonderful name, it's Jesus. I know a name that can drive away all sorrow. I know a name that is sweeter than them all. I know a name from which comfort I may borrow when trials come and when tears of anguish fall. I know a name, a wonder That wonderful name is Jesus. I know a wonderful day Take the name of Jesus with you Child of sorrow and of woe ♪ Joy and love forgive you ♪ ♪ Take it where you go ♪ ♪ Precious name of sweet ♪ ♪ Hope of earth and joy of heaven ♪ ♪ Precious name of our sweet ♪ ♪ O mother and joy of heaven ♪ ♪ Joyful name of wonderful day ♪ As I said at the top of the broadcast, our commentary today is on theologians speaking out of both sides of their mouths. On the 16th of November 2006, members of the Evangelical Theological Society met to clarify the organization's position on scripture and, by a vote of 171 to 19, decided to add the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to the Society's bylaws. The hope is that now the organization will be able to exclude members or potential members who hold aberrant theological positions, such as open theism, that undermine biblical inerrancy. According to open theists, God doesn't have a full or perfect knowledge of the future. He's reduced to reacting to what happens. a far cry from the God of the Bible who works all things after the counsel of his own will. A corollary of this insistence on the ignorance of God is the notion that some scripture prophecy will never be fulfilled. It's not difficult to see why the Evangelical Theological Society sees such views as attacks on biblical inerrancy. ETS founder Roger Nicole had brought charges against two open theists in the Society's membership, Clark Pinnock and John Sanders, but couldn't make them stick because until now the Society did not have a clear definition of biblical inerrancy. He now hopes that the new statement will be sufficient to exclude Pinnock and Sanders and their supporters. The meaning of inerrancy is clarified, and if there's any member who does not agree with that definition, he should resign or be disciplined," Nicole said. I hope he's ready for a fight, for Pinnock and Sanders will not go quietly. Pinnock has already said of the adoption of the Chicago Statement, both John Sanders and I see it as a good statement that we can both agree with. This is classic infidelity. Pinnock and Sanders will affirm the full inerrancy of Scripture, even while they openly deny some of Scripture's most fundamental statements, for nothing can be more fundamental than the very nature of God. The God they preach is not the God of the Bible. If they are right, the Bible is wrong. If the prophecies of Scripture remain forever unfulfilled, then again, the Bible is wrong and inerrancy is a myth. Yet this is precisely what Pinnock and Sanders propose. But to maintain their standing as evangelicals and members of the Evangelical Theological Society, they will speak with a subtlety worthy of the Jesuits, affirming what they deny and denying what they affirm. Speaking out of both sides of the mouth may seem like a successful ploy in the world of academic theological discussion, but it will prove fatal in the end. God is not ignorant, as the open face claim. He knows all things. He knows a lie when he hears one, and he knows how to deal with all liars. God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days. Almighty victorious, thy great name we praise. Great Father of Glory, your Father of Light, Thine angels adore Thee, availing their sight. Many of you have become avid readers of Let the Bible Speak's quarterly magazine, and we'd love to see many more of you join the ranks of our readership. The January to March issue of Let the Bible Speak Quarterly is available. It's always a beautifully produced magazine, and the subject matter is always instructive, edifying, challenging. It's something that we thoroughly recommend to you. The current issue is on the book of Psalms. And I think you'll find that there's much here that will be of great benefit to you, so it's not an issue that you'd want to miss. If you'd like to obtain a free copy of the magazine, and I should emphasize that I don't mean simply one free copy and then you get a bill for something else following, if you simply ask to be put on the mailing list, we let you have your copy of the Let the Bible Speak quarterly free as it appears each printing. So if you'd like to receive your free copy, we invite you to be in touch with us. You can write to us or you can call us. Our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. You may write us by email and our email address is ltbs at freepres, F-R-E-E-P-R-E-S, ltbs at freepres.org. Or if you'd prefer to call us toll free, you may call us at 866-877-LTBS, that is 866-877-5827. I trust we'll hear soon from you and that you'll very soon be enjoying reading the Let the Bible Speak Quarterly. Now it's time to return to the Bible study that we commenced yesterday in the series on the life of Christ. We started to look at how the Holy Spirit fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ after his baptism, and how at that time the Father, by that anointing, identified the Lord Jesus as the very Son of God. And that's the point where we pick up today's message. By anointing Christ with the Holy Ghost, God the Father established Christ's credentials And then he supplied him with all the necessary power for his ministry upon the earth. God, by sending the Spirit upon Christ, first of all, clearly established his credentials to be the Savior, to be the Mediator, to be the Redeemer, to live and to die and to rise again. And He gave him all the power that was necessary for the Savior to do the work that He had been sent to do. Now, that's a simple statement. It's easily made. But it has far-reaching consequences. I want you to think first of all that descending upon Christ, the Holy Spirit identified Him as the Son of God. We have read in Matthew 3.17 how that a voice from heaven came when Christ was baptized and the Spirit came upon Him, and the voice said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And the other Gospels tell us how that the Father actually addressed Christ personally as the Spirit came upon Him and said, Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now this is how God the Father identified His Son for Him to be recognized on earth so that we may know who He was and Why He came into the world? The Lord Jesus, you see, when He came into the earth, He came as God, yes, but God veiled in flesh. And the word veiled, I think, is a good word. We'll be singing it a few times in the next few weeks. In Charles Wesley's great hymn, the greatest of all Christmas carols, hark the herald angels sing, veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Veiled in flesh. What does that mean? Take the words of Paul, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. This is why men couldn't see Him. This is why they despised Him, according to Isaiah 53. They took Him to be one of themselves. Philippians 2 tells us how Christ made Himself of no reputation, amazing indeed, that He would so veil His glory that standing among man, He would need a voice from heaven to identify His person and establish His credentials. But it's also instructive, for we have much to learn from this event. The first thing that I think is very interesting is that when the Holy Ghost came upon Christ, He came in the form of a dove. He did not come as in the day of Pentecost with the sound of a mighty rushing wind. He did not come with tongues of fire. He did not come in any way but in the bodily shape like a dove. Now, why? I think that in so doing, first and foremost, he was testifying to the purity of Christ. I emphasized when we were reading this how that the Holy Spirit came upon Christ and John said he was told to watch for the one upon whom the Spirit came and remained upon Christ. Now what's the significance? Every time I read that, my mind goes back to the 8th chapter of Genesis. Because there you've got the story of the end of Noah's flood. Noah sent out first a raven from the ark. The raven was completely at home amidst all the debris and all the carnage that was then on the earth. It didn't matter to a raven at all that there was no clean place. So the raven never returned. But when he sent out a dove, The dove flew around, and we read in Genesis 8, verse 9, how the dove returned to the ark, but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto Him in the ark. It was only later that she went out and came back with an olive leaf plucked off. And then, later still, that she could go out and remain upon the earth when she had found a clean place upon which to rest the sole of her feet. Now take the emblem in Matthew chapter 3. It is in the form of a dove that the Spirit of God comes. He could go across all the world. And among all the sons of men, there was not a single person upon whom the holy dove of God could come and remain. There was not one who was clean among all the sons of Adam. This is the first time in the history of the world that the Spirit of God could come without measure, not merely imparting some of His gifts, not merely imparting some of His benefits, but in the fullness of His own blessed person, He could come and He could rest and He could remain upon this one. Never in the history of the world could that happen. But it did happen with the Lord Jesus Christ, for the holy dove of God had found in the person of the God-man the one who was absolutely pure and the one who was absolutely holy. So the coming of the Holy Ghost like a dove upon the Savior was the testimony of God to the purity of the Lord Jesus Christ. But attending that event, we read of the Father's voice. And the Father testified with that voice to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's interesting that in the New Testament, three times the Father, at least in the Gospels, three times the Father is said to have spoken from heaven in this fashion. First of all, as we have read in Matthew 3.17 and the other texts, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son. Matthew 17, verse 5, at the time of the transfiguration, We read that while Peter was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And then it added these very significant words, Hear ye Him. Now, I can't make the mistake or commit the crime, the homiletical crime, of announcing one text and preaching on another. Chris Barnes is sitting down there, and he will well remember a day in this pulpit in class when he had one text and ended up preaching another. I think it was Chris, and I gave off to him, so if I do the same, I'll have my head on a platter. Or at least he'll have it on a platter. But anyway, I'm very tempted to do it. Hear ye him. You see, Peter had just said, let's raise three tabernacles. One for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Christ. Peter always blundering in, opening his mouth when he couldn't understand what was going on. You know that someone was like that. When you don't know what to say, you end up opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. One fellow who shall be nameless, we used to tell him here in Greenville, you only open your mouth to change feet. And then we shortened that further to say, just simply when he was running on, look, your laces are hanging out. Some of us are like that. Well, that's the way it was with Peter. He just opened his mouth and put his foot in it. And he was well wrong here. He was failing to recognize that Moses and Elijah were there to witness to Christ. And he was the fulfillment of all their witness. So the father said, this is my beloved son. Moses was my servant. Hebrews 3 tells us. Elijah was my prophet. But this is my son. Hear ye Him. The voice from heaven the second time. Then there was a third time, John chapter 12, verse 28, Jesus prayed, Father glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Now, there is an increasing publicity to this. In Matthew 3, it would appear that only Jesus and John the Baptist could see and hear what was going on. I say that because of the constant emphasis upon Him seeing, Him hearing. In Matthew 17, you had Moses and Elijah, and you had the three disciples with Christ. So you had a wider audience. But in John chapter 12, it would appear that anybody who was willing to hear could hear. There were some who said, Oh, it's thundering. There were others who realized it was an articulate voice that they were listening to, and they would put it down to the angels. But it was God speaking, saying, This is My beloved Son. I have glorified my name in Him, and I will glorify it again." So you have this triple testimony from heaven of the Father's voice. And what a testimony it was. It came at the beginning of Christ's ministry, launching upon that public ministry. It came more or less in the middle of Christ's ministry. at the time of His transfiguration, and that came just before the cross, when He was praying with Calvary in view, Father, glorify Your name. And the Father answered Him again. I think the Lord was identified very clearly in His person as the Prophet, the Priest and the King. I say that because in Matthew 3, for example, at the baptism, what was John preaching? He was preaching the Kingdom of God. What was Jesus coming to preach? He was coming to preach the Kingdom of God. It was the King who had come to work. This is the one who in this very capacity could say, My Kingdom is not of this world. He could say to the people, the kingdom of God is among you, because He was there. So the very first emphasis of the voice from heaven was on Christ the King. Obviously, in Matthew 17, when the Father says, Hear ye Him, He's Christ the Prophet. And when He's standing in the shadow of Calvary, and He's praying, Father, glorify Thy name, and the voice comes from heaven again, then it's Christ the priest. In other words, it is a complete Savior. that the Father identifies with the voice from heaven. And if you look carefully enough, I think in the very first of those identifications in Matthew 3, that it's all actually either there or prefigured. There you've got the gospel in a nutshell. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. You've been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freepres.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at LetTheBibleSpeak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, we'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us. Or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, but you can find it all on our website, LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak. You.