We're going to continue with the larger and shorter catechisms with question 11 in the larger catechism. This is the last week that we're going to talk about the doctrine of the Trinity directly, although throughout the catechism, because we're dealing with God, we're going to have reason and recourse to the doctrine of the Trinity, particularly when we start to talk about the person and deity of Jesus. We need to understand some of these categories because at the end of all of this, what we have to understand is it was not the Father who became incarnate. It's not the Holy Ghost who became incarnate. It's the eternal Son of God who became incarnate. It's the second person in the Trinity who, in fact, takes upon himself our humanity. So although he is fully God and he is possessed of the fullness of the divinity, the deity, he is truly God, we can't say that it was the Father who became a man or that it was the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit who became a man. We talked last time about personal distinctions and how we know that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are different persons. They are the same God, but they're different persons. There is only one divinity. There's only one substance. There's only one essence that we call God. But that essence, that substance, subsists in three persons. There are three concrete, real, actual centers of that being, where we see distinct agency, we see distinct thought and agency. It's the same mind, there's only one mind, and there's only one will in God. But that one mind and that one will are subject to three different agents or agencies, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that raises a lot of questions because there are, and I'll probably allude to it a little bit as we go through here, In Aristotelian philosophy, I alluded to this last time, and I know this is a difficult concept, but I just want you to be aware that it's out there. Aristotle talked about two kinds of substance. The first substance is what we call hypostasis, and that's the subsisting. That's the actual concrete reality that we would say is in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The secondary substance is that usia, that undivided, unseparated divinity. that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost share, and they not only share like each one is sharing a part of it, each one possesses the whole of that, because each one is equally God. And so at that level, that secondary level, is where the unity of God is found. That's something that's revealed to us. We know that to be the case because we, in fact, ourselves share in a common essence, the human nature. So we have an intuition respecting the unity of the divine nature. But that trinity of persons, the three persons, is a matter of revelation. Special revelation, not natural revelation. Something that we're told, it's revealed to us in scripture. Now once we've talked about those relations, remember that the Father is unbegotten, eternally. Because everything when we talk about God, when we talk about the divine substance, we're talking about eternities. We're not talking about in time. Time exists inside of God. So the eternity of the Father is unbegotten. The eternity of the Son is begotten. which is why we call, we say He's eternally begotten. The eternity of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is proceeding. And so we say that He is eternally proceeding. These indicate three different relations between the persons. Father is God objectively related to Himself. The Son is God subjectively related to himself, and the Spirit is God relatively related to himself. There's a relational element. That's why there are three persons. There are only three possible relations. When we think about this, because of this, because the Church confessed that the Son was eternally begotten. Very early on, there were a number of people who got very confused about this, and they began to assert that maybe the Son isn't really God. Maybe the Son is somehow less than God. Our question that we're going to look at here is asserting very much contrary to that. The Jehovah Witnesses would tell you that Jesus is the highest creature. In the early church they were called Sabellians. In the Reformational church they were called Sassinians. In the earliest church it was also associated with a heresy called Arianism. 11. How doth it appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father? Answer. The Scriptures manifest that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father, ascribing unto them such names, attributes, works, and worship as are proper to God only. There are a couple of angles, and we're going to look at these now. How we know the Son and the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are not only God, but that they're equal with the Father. There are principles that follow upon this. The first question we want to ask is, do the Scriptures manifest the Son and the Holy Ghost are God, and are they equally God with the Father? The answer is yes. And the fact is, and the reason why we have this question in our catechism has to do, as I say, with the controversy in the early Church. And it remains with us today. There are a lot of people who don't really think that Jesus is God. They think he might be a good man, maybe a perfect man. They may have a very high view of him in terms of his humanity, but they don't really believe he's God. Or, if they believe he's God, they believe he's a lesser God. That he's not really God up here, he's God down here. It's a Platonic view of God. Plato said that there's a world of ideas, and that there's something called the Demiurge. And that the Demiurge is the entity which actualizes these ideas in the creation. There are a lot of people who think that they're Christians who are actually holding on to Platonic ideas. The early Church, and when I say the early Church I'm talking about the First Council of Nicaea, they affirm the Scriptural truth using the word homoousion. The Greek word is homoousion. And the English translation in the Nicene Creed is being of one substance with the Father. The word one substance is homoousian. But it really means one, that is as to being, and the same substance, that is the equal substance. And they were speaking primarily of the Son, but by implication we need to understand that this involves the Holy Spirit as well. Because whatever we can say about the Holy Spirit We understand much of that relation by way of analogy between the Father and the Son. So we know that there are three persons. The Bible actually has quite a bit to say about the Father and the Son, and it has more to say about the Spirit than a lot of people think, but the things that are said about the Spirit are not quite as explicit at times as the Father and the Son. But if we understand that there is this relation between the Father and the Son, because the Spirit is proceeding from the Father through the Son, there's also a personal relation, and it has to be similar. Although the Son and the Spirit are from the Father in dissimilar ways, the Son is eternally begotten, the Spirit is eternally proceeding, The fact is that because they're divine persons, persons have and in fact bear out that they are persons by sharing certain relative characteristics or qualities. So we need to keep that in mind, that we're talking about one and the same substance. And when we talk about one and the same substance, we're really saying, look, they are God and they're also equal with the Father. It's not enough to just say that they're both God together with the Father, but they're also God equal with the Father. And that has a lot of implications for what we say and what we do when it comes to not only what we believe, what we practice, the way worship is conducted, and so on. Is there an ordering in the Trinity? Yes. The Father is the first, the Son the second, the Holy Spirit the third persons. Does that order indicate some kind of a subordination. Yes, but it's a subordination of person and relation, not a subordination of substance. Remember, here we're talking about substance. Are they really God and is it the same God that is equal with the Father? And we're saying yes. Now why do we say that? Well, we're going to see. There's actually a lot of reasons in the Bible for us to say that. I'm not just making this up. And the Council of Nicaea, contrary to what a lot of people think today, they weren't just making it up. They didn't just get together to throw out a bunch of people who had different ideas because they were trying to exclude them and they didn't want the church to be broad. The fact is, they didn't want the church to be broad, but it was not a personal thing. They were concerned about what the Bible was actually teaching, and the implications, and ultimately, as I indicated at the very beginning, this is bearing on the issue of our redemption. They're concerned about the identity, ultimately, of Jesus. Is he really divine? Is it possible, because later in the church, there are going to be people who think that maybe the Father could have become incarnate. They're excluding a lot of views. They're saying, no, it's clearly the Son of God. There's some kind of a relation between this idea of the Son eternally proceeding from the Father and the generation that we see among men. Men beget men. That's the course of humanity. And so in some peculiar way, there's already an indication, when we talk about man being created in the image of God, there's already an indication in this idea, and they want to preserve this idea, that the Son is begotten of the Father, that idea of being eternally begotten is an analogous way held in humanity. We see it all the time. Every time a child is born, this idea of someone being begotten is testifying to a difference, a distinction of person. And so we need to ask then, are they equal? Well, just as my son, is equally a man as I am, that is, as to his substance, and even as to his subsistence, he's equally a man. But as to the ordering, as to the personal ordering, he's subordinate because he was begotten by me. So there are both things going on. There's an equality of substance and even in the idea of the subsistence, the reality that is my son, the one who is begotten, he has a personal integrity that is equal because he's equally a man. But in terms of of subordination when we come to persons, that relation from father to son, the son is subordinate to the father relationally, but not substantially. There's no essential difference between a father and his son. Now, we do need to keep in mind when we're talking about God, the Son of God is eternally begotten. There's never a time when he's not being begotten. From all eternity, he's been begotten. And since God isn't in time, he's outside of time, this is just a matter, when we say he's eternally begotten, we're just saying this relation is always there. It doesn't cease to be. It's part of the way God is. They're one and the same God or divinity with the Father. Just briefly, we can see that if we look at Titus 2.13 in Acts 5, 3 and 4. Titus 2.13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Before we move on, I just want to point out the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. The great God even our Savior Jesus Christ, the appearing of our great God. That's talking about Jesus. He's called the great God there. Acts 5. Acts 5, verses 3 and 4. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. It's not light unto men, but unto God. Peter says that when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost, they were lying to God. That's, again, that identification. We're going to come back to that verse in a little while, but we see from that, at least at a glance, that it appears to be one and the same God or one and the same divinity or deity. that is the Son and the Spirit with the Father. Each divine person then is understood to share a complete or perfect. When we say that the Son is perfectly God or the Spirit is perfectly God, we're saying the word perfect means complete. We're saying that they're perfectly or completely God. So there's nothing As I said before, it's not like we have the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and there's some sort of ethereal God stuff outside of them. If we begin with the Father, that circle that is the Father is also all of God, and there's nothing outside of that. So even though we tend to think of it as a circle, it's not circumscribed. We cannot comprehend. There is nowhere where God is not. Where God is, is actually defining everywhere that actually is or exists. There is nowhere else. So that when He created, He created in Himself. As I said before, we're created in Him. As Paul quotes the pagan or the heathen poet, in Him we live and move and have our being. Creation is in God. It's not of God, like the beginning of the sun. So the creation is not of that divine substance. There's a created nature. When the father begets the son, he's not begetting him extra, it's not some extra essential, it's intra, it's within the father. He begets the son in himself. And because the son is in fact God himself, There is nowhere but God. There is nowhere outside of the Son, which is why Jesus says, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. There's no other place to be. If you're the Son and you're God, you have to be exactly where the Father is. If you're the Father and you've begotten the Son, you have to be exactly where the Son is. That's substantial unity. The difference is the Father is unbegotten God, the Son is begotten God, or as the Nicene Creed will say, God of God. So each divine person is understood to share a complete or perfect possession of the whole of the substance of divinity in nature. 1 John 5, 7. 1 John 5, 7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. These three are one. We talked about that before. It's specifically the same divinity. And I say that, we're not just talking about generically. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not generically the same. They are specifically the same. It's the same divinity. They share, if you will, the same space. There are three persons in the Godhead, in that divinity. They're sharing the same space. co-equally and co-eternally. So they're not just generically. If I said they were generically the same divinity, it might be possible that the Father was over here, and the Son was over here, and the Spirit was over here. They might be three gods. They're not. We don't believe in three gods. There's one God. But there are three persons distinct discrete, distinguishable persons sharing the same divinity. Specific same divinity. 1 John 2.23. If you acknowledge the Son, you have the Father also. To have the Son is to have the Father. How can that be? I'm in the Father and the Father's in me. It's what Jesus says. So if you have Jesus, you have the Father. If you have the Father, you have the Son. The people, and this is a problem with non-Christian religion, the idea of Islam or Judaism, that they can have the Father, they acknowledge that God is the Father, without having the Son is contrary to what the Bible is teaching. And not only teaching in the New Testament, by the way, as we're going through here, I want to show you particularly, this is also taught in the Old Testament. It's just not taught in the way that most people, particularly today, are instructed so they can see what's going on. I'm going to point out some things as we go in a moment. The three persons, divine persons, are distinct is also clear if we look at John 14.16. John 14.16, and I will pray to the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. The word another comforter, the word another comforter in Greek is alon parakleton. Another comforter. Now there are some people who say another means here, another like, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. What it means is another distinct. So another comforter, and he's talking about the Holy Spirit, he's talking about another one but distinct from himself. Now I think in the context it's fair to say that If I say I'm going to send another that's like myself, you would conclude from that that it's going to be the same humanity. That is to say the same nature of substance. If I said I'm going to send another like myself and I sent a dog, you would think that that was crazy. I was crazy for saying another comforter. The idea is gone from that, but the context is telling us that there's a likeness. However, there's a distinction of person. And yet, we're also told in Scripture, these are not three gods, but there's one God, 1 Timothy 2.5. 1 Timothy 2.5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. There's one God and one mediator. There's one God, and that is the true God. There's only one divinity, one deity. This actually has bearing, I think, on the idea that Arians and Jehovah Witnesses have that Jesus is somehow a lesser God. It's impossible because there's only one God. That is, there's only one divinity. So that any persons that could be called God in the sense that we're talking about here, they all have to share that same divinity. So again, that word, and it's not in the Bible, but the Nicene Council in 325 AD, they coined the term homoousian. There were a lot of people who didn't like that at the time. They said, why can't we stick to the words that are in the Bible? And the answer is, sometimes we need additional words because people who say, why can't we stick to the Bible on this, are sometimes trying to distort what the Bible really means. Sometimes we have to tease out in order to explain better what's going on. All right, thus, because there's one God, they have one name, whereby their substantial unity is named. And the name is Jehovah, or Yahweh. Look at Exodus 6, 3. Exodus 6, 3. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And you see, The Hebrew word, the Hebrew name I put there, we really don't know the vowel pointing for it. When we pronounce it, when we say Jehovah, we're pronouncing that sacred name using the vowel pointing for the Hebrew word Adonai, or Lord. So when we put the two together, we end up pronouncing it Jehovah. There are people who want to say, well, it's really Yahweh, maybe. Jehovah is a safer bet in that regard. So the fact is, this divinity has a name. We don't just say, when we talk about the true God, the true God is actually named, and the name is that Hebrew name that you see there, Yahweh or Jehovah. So that anyone who has that name in the Bible has that same divinity. Because that's not going anywhere else. So, although there exist then three distinguishable persons of the same divinity, there's a name. Look at Matthew 28, 19. Matthew 28, verse 19. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Yeah, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And what is the name that was given, by the way? What is the name that was given to the Son of God incarnate? Jesus. And Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. It's from Yeshua. Yah is salvation. The very name of Jesus itself is a claim on this title of the divinity, Jehovah. It doesn't say in the names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not the names of that divinity. In the book of Acts, when they baptized, they baptized in the name of Jesus. And that's to demonstrate that, in fact, that divinity, they understood the divinity of Christ. That's why they're doing that. It's an emphasis on that. Yes, we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but we, in the book of Acts, there's an emphasis on the divinity of Christ, and so they're expressing that by saying he was baptized in the name of Jesus. It's just simply a shorthand way of saying Jesus is God, Jesus is the Son of God, which is For example, what they're asking, what Philip asked the Ethiopian eunuch, do you believe that Jesus is the son of God? And he was baptized in the name of Jesus, that is in the name of the son of God. It's a recognition of his supreme deity. So we can see then that the son is actually named Jehovah. And how do we know? Well, look at Psalm 23.1, and we want to compare it with John 10, 11 and 14 first and then we're gonna look at Joel 2 32 and compare with Acts 2 21 John 10 11 and 14 11 I am the Good Shepherd the Good Shepherd life for sheep 14 I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and I'm known of mine and Now, before we move on to the other verses, I want to point out in Psalm 23.1, the King James Version has the word LORD. The LORD is my shepherd. If you note in that translating, they capitalized LORD. Every letter is capitalized. The reason is, it's showing us that the underlying word in Hebrew is that sacred name, that unpronounceable name of Jehovah. So Psalm 23 says something like this, that Jehovah is my shepherd. Now what does Jesus say in John's Gospel? He says, I am the good shepherd. Jesus is saying, I'm Jehovah. This is why the Jews are getting very upset with him, because he's clearly identifying himself with Jehovah. They know what's going on. In the Old Testament, we're going to see, and you can see this in the King James, when the Hebrew says, Adonai, Lord, and then the next word is Jehovah, Lord will appear with just a capital L and then lowercase. But God will be the next word and that will be in all caps. It will all be uppercase. When you see Lord in the lowercase with God in the uppercase, the underlying Hebrew is Adonai Jehovah. And whenever you see that in the Old Testament, if you take note of who's speaking, it's the Father speaking. In other places, what you will see is LORD in all caps, and then God, capital G, and then lowercase. And that is the Hebrew for Jehovah Elohim. And whenever you see that, you know that it's the Son speaking. Now there are other cases where you have to watch what's going on and be careful. But almost inevitably, when you see the terms, the Lord thy God or reference to the God of thy fathers it's talking about Jesus specifically it's the father or some prophet referring specifically to Jesus the son he's not yet incarnate but he is the eternal son of God he's the one in view we're gonna see that in just a moment I'm gonna I'm not making this up I'm gonna show it to you in some of the verses we're going to look at in just a moment. I just want you to be aware that that's what's going on. And you don't need to know Hebrew to know it. If you just know a couple of rules, you can actually discern it from reading the English. There's a lot more going on here. And by the way, Jewish rabbis before Jesus, the Jewish rabbis were quite aware that there were what they called two powers in heaven. this exchange between the Father and the Son. They were quite aware of that. Now the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is sometimes referred to as the Ruach Jehovah, the Spirit Jehovah, or the Ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God. And again, in those two cases, there are nuances that are involved in that. that are less important for our purposes here. But we're going to have reason to call attention to that as well. Okay, look at Joel 2, 32 and Acts 2, 21. Joel 2, verse 32, And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Acts 2.21, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay, in Joel, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, Lord there again is in all capital letters. In Acts, it's very clear, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord is referring to Jesus. So there again, we see the apostles relating that Jesus is in fact Jehovah. When you call upon the name of Jesus, you're calling upon the name of Jehovah. You're calling upon the Lord, your strong tower. Nowhere is a father called Jehovah Sidkenu, our righteousness. But Jesus is called our righteousness. Son of God is our righteousness, and yet in the Hebrew it's Jehovah, Sid Canu. So Jesus is Jehovah, equal with the Father. See, that's an equality, that's not only a sameness of divinity, but an equality of divinity. So the Son is named Jehovah. It's really the same God. He's the same God as the Father. That's the point here. John 10, verse 30. John 10, verse 30. I and my Father are one. I and my Father are one. One what? One person? No. They're not one person. There are two distinct persons there. I and my Father are two. That's already enunciating center of consciousness. There's a person who says I. My father is another person. So how are they one? We're talking about a substantial unity, an essential unity. There's no essential subordination. There's no substantial subordination. They're one. I and my Father are one. Likewise, the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is also named Jehovah. There's that Ruach spirit, Jehovah. He's named the Spirit of the Lord. is the way it's translated in the King James, but it literally, if you look at the Hebrew, the spirit that is Jehovah. And he's called the God of Israel. Elohei Yisrael. 2 Samuel 23, 2 and 3. 2nd Samuel 23, verses 2 and 3. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over men must be just, fully in the fear of him. So the Spirit of the Lord, that's literally Ruach Jehovah. He's denominating the Spirit as Jehovah. And also saying, by the way, that He is, that is, the Spirit that is Jehovah is also the God of Israel. So that's a two-for-one verse. So too, the Son is not only called Jehovah, but He's called our God, in Isaiah 40, verse 3. Isaiah 40, verse 3. The voice of heaven cries in the wilderness, preparing thee the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. We're going to come back to that one in a little while, but our God, he's called our God there, and that's very clearly that idea that he is, in fact, Jehovah, excuse me, that our God there is, in fact, And we see this, the message of John the Baptist. John the Baptist says, look, I'm the one in the wilderness called to prepare the way of our God. He's talking about Jesus there. So we can see that our God, Jesus is our God. He is, in fact, the one who is, subjectively speaking, our God. God is our Father, Jesus is our God. There are two persons there when we talk like that. It's the same God. One is objective and the other is subjective. In this then we see that the Son and the Spirit not only share the name Jehovah, but also are equally God with the Father. We want to look at Titus 3, 4, Hebrews 1, 8, and then 2 Chronicles 15, 1. Titus 3, verse 4, but after that, the kindness and love of God are savored toward man, Peter. Hebrews 1, verse 8, But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. 2 Chronicles 15.1 And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Uzziah. The Spirit of God. Again, that's Ruach Elohim. That is, the Spirit that is God. Titus 3, 4. And Hebrews 1, 8, Thy throne, O God. He's talking about Jesus. God, our Savior. He's talking about Jesus. So He's called God. The Son is called God. Each is clearly then substantially God or divine. And each is clearly the same God Because there's only one Jehovah. They're named Jehovah. Each is named Jehovah. And there's only one Jehovah. Look at Deuteronomy 6, 4. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. The Lord our God is one Lord. Yeah, the Lord our God is one Lord. That is Jehovah, our Elohim, Eloheinu, is one Elohim. Jehovah, that is Yechad Jehovah Eloheinu, our God, is one Jehovah. There's only one Jehovah. And yet, somehow, the Father is called Jehovah, the Son is called Jehovah, and the Spirit is called Jehovah. There are not three Jehovahs. There's one Jehovah. Now this equality of divinity is why each of the three persons then are each called by the same name, Lord, in the New Testament. Unlike in Hebrew, in Greek, the word for Lord, there's only one way we're going to express it, and that's with the word kurios. But if we look at Mark 12, 29 and 36, compared with Matthew 11, 25, and also Philippians 2, 11, and 2 Corinthians 3, 17, Mark 12 verses 29 and 36. Verse 29, And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And verse 36, For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. Matthew 11.25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Philippians 2, verse 11. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The last two verses show us clearly Jesus is being called Lord. In Mark 12.29.36, the Lord said to my Lord. In the Hebrew, it's quoting from Psalm 110. The Hebrew literally says, Jehovah said to my Lord. That is, Adonai. Jehovah said to Adonai. Jehovah said to my Lord. Who is my Lord? Well, my Lord is Jesus, right? But Jehovah, Jehovah, their God, the Father, is also called Lord. In the Greek, the word is kurios. And so the word Lord applies to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost equally. Jehovah is just another way, it's the Old Testament way of saying Lord in the sense that it's used in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ is not saying, like the Lord is not his first name and Jesus is his middle name. The Lord is actually confessing he is Jehovah. Every time the New Testament says the Lord Jesus Christ, it's like saying Jehovah Jesus Christ. Now the sameness and equality is also expressed when taking up the question of the essence. The Greek word for essence is ousia, and nature, and the Greek word for nature is phousis, from which we get the word physical, physics, that has to do with nature. Nature of the Son relative to the Father. If we look at John 5, verse 19. John 5, verse 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself for what he seeth the Father do. For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 1 John 2 verse 23, Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. So, the reason why the Father and the Son are doing the same thing is because, if you remember what I said before, mind and will are attributes of nature, they're not properties of persons. That's why when Adam fell into sin, all men could fall. Augustine was right. That precipitates the fall of all men. Adam had not yet propagated himself. And so in Adam, the humanity was exactly parallel to the person. There was a one for one relation. That's not the case anymore. But when Adam fell, man fell in his mind and his will. That fall affected the human nature because it was corrupted by Adam. It was a personal act, which is why that act of his sin, his fallen sin, is imputed. There's an immediate imputation of the guilt of Adam's transgression, but there's a native depravity that is transmitted from father to son. That's why Jesus is not born by ordinary generation, because any man born by ordinary generation is going to be corrupted. He's going to be not only liable to that native depravity, that is, not only will he show that forth, but he'll show it forth because he's been liable to the guilt. He has that immediate imputation of the guilt. The virgin birth avoids the problem of original sin in Jesus. You don't need to go another step to posit that Mary was herself sinless if you understand that the woman is the one transmitting the nature and the man is the one who is in fact imposing the person in the conception of the next generation. So the woman, in fact, is holding forth an undefined humanity. Remember, Jesus didn't take upon himself a human person. He took upon himself a true human nature. It had a human will and a human mind, a true body and a reasonable soul. But there are not two persons in Christ. There's only one person. There are two natures. The reasons why we confess what we confess, why the Church historically has confessed what it confesses, there's no need to go beyond that. We're not gaining anything by stepping back one step further and saying, you know, that Mary didn't need to be sinless, because the nature, an undefined nature, isn't liable to either the imputation of the guilt of sin or the transmission of the consequences of sin unless the person that is giving form to that nature is himself a sinner. And since he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, the person giving rise to the conception of the Son of God, the incarnation of the Son of God, That person, the Holy Ghost, is Himself sinless. So there's no way that there's going to be transmission. There's one mind and there's one will in the Father and the Son. There are two different persons, that is, there are two different points of agency. You know, that mind is thinking in two different places, if you will, although they share the same space. It's really two different relations. The mind is thinking in two different relations. One is as the unbegotten Father, and one is as the begotten Son. Then the Spirit Himself is thinking as well. So there's a sameness and an equality there. There's not any difference. You don't have three different wills. You don't have three different minds. And this leads us to a question that was somewhat controversial. Calvin brought this up really as a way to defend this idea of homoousia, one and the same substance. But he took a lot of grief for using this word. The word is autotheos. But before we get to that, I want to point out, the sun is not The Son, we're not saying the Son is autotheos. He's not the Son in Himself. That is, He's not the Son by Himself. Okay? And yet He is autotheos if we understand that He is God in Himself. He's not God by Himself. But you know, when the Sassanians attacked Calvin, even Robert Bellarmine, who was the chief theologian at Trent, the Roman Catholic theologian, even he defended Calvin on this point, and said that Calvin is not, we don't like to use that term autotheos, we've never used it historically, but Calvin's not wrong if you understand it correctly. He's not God by himself, but he is God in himself. As the Nicene Creed said, He's God of God. That is, He's God by God. But what is there, that essence, is in fact the same essence, that same substance that is God. There's no subordination of substance. So He has a very life of divinity in Himself by the personal communication of the Father. We see this in John 5.26. John 5.26, Whereas the Father hath likened so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. As a father of life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself. What does that mean? Does the Son have life by himself? No. The Son has life by the Father. But does the Son have life in himself? Yes. And that life is God. God is life. Life is God. When we're talking about the divinity, those things are the same thing. The divine substance or essence is living. He is the living God. So we're confessing that He is God in Himself. Even if we weren't looking over here to the Father, If we just look at the Son, we are face-to-face with the same divinity that we would see if we were looking at the Father. And that's the point of John's Gospel in chapter 1, where he says that the Son is in the bosom of the Father and He's declared the Father unto us. How has He done that? Well, He's done it in two ways. He's declared by being the Son that there is a Father. So he's declared that there are personal distinctions in the Godhead, but he's also revealed to us the true divinity. So, the superior greatness of the Father, then, belongs to the cause of the person. That is, the mode of each hopostasis of person, or the communication of the divine essence to each person. But that greatness of the Father does not refer to the nature of the essence of each person. or each hoopla stasis. Look at John 14, 28. John 14, 28. You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you love me, you will rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I. When Jesus says, my Father is greater than I, what he is not saying is this. He's not saying that God, that is the Father, is more God than I am. He's not saying that there's an essential or a substantial subordination. But what he is acknowledging is that there is a personal subordination. And we see this throughout the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. We see this borne out. The Son comes to do the will of the Father. He doesn't do anything apart from what he sees the Father doing. And the Son is the one who sends the Spirit, so that there's a subordination as we go through that ordering of the Trinity. First, second, and third person. The Father is first, the Son is second, the Spirit is third. and there's a subordination that's going on. There's a subordination of person. And the subordination of person is in fact in some sense tied up with the mode of begetting, or the way that the divine essence is being communicated from one person to another. Now that brings up something I talked about last time, which is the filioque, depending on whether you're from Europe or from America. The fact is that this divinity, the communication of this divinity, is is a communication of the same divinity, but the Father is... We have to get to the point of why is it the Spirit is the third in this order. In the Eastern Church, Orthodoxy says that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father. The Nicene Creed says that. Now the Council of Toledo in the 800s, we find that Phileo K., and from the Sun, that we now find in the Nicene Creed in the West. There's earlier exemplars in the Syriac version, as I talked about last time, which are much older than Toledo. And there are Eastern Fathers as well as Western Fathers who hold that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The East, as I've said, they clearly object because they don't like the idea of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son as from two principles. The fact is, again, and I just want to underscore it one more time because it has bearing on this issue of order, the Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Son as from two principles. The word is not philio-A, and son. It's the feeling of K. K is the Latin word that is talking about the manner in which he proceeds. And so as Augustine said, we believe that the, and some of the Eastern fathers agreed with this, we believe that the Spirit proceeds from the fathers, from the principal, but through the son. Now that double procession underscores exactly why not an essential subordination. And I think the reason that the East gets so touchy about this is because there's a temptation in Eastern Orthodoxy in general that tends at times toward a subordination not merely of person but of essence. In the West we've understood a subordination of person and There are good reasons, and I think the Philio K. underscores the fact that the Spirit is the third person, that there is a subordination. He is therefore able to be the Spirit of Christ because he is also the Spirit of the Eternal Son, proceeding from the Father through the Son, not and the Son as from a separate or a second principle. Augustine didn't say that, and the best Western theologians didn't say that. And frankly, no Western theologians, whether Romish or Protestant, confessed that until much more recently when people got very confused about this doctrine of the Trinity. So there's a superior greatness of the Father, and we need to honor that, and we need to recognize that. The Eastern Church uses a term, and they like to talk about the monarchy of the father. That is, he's the only archaic, he's the only beginning. And we can agree with that. He's the only beginning as to person, and even as to the communication of essence. But that's not a subordination of essence. So it's a personal subordination, but not an essential subordination. That's all, and I don't want to keep belaboring that. Alright, the second question. In what ways do the Scriptures manifest the Son and the Holy Ghost, or God equal with the Father? Well, there are really four ways that the Catechism holds out, and these are pretty standard These are pretty standard observations. First, that the Son and the Spirit are both God-equal, the Father is manifested in the Scripture's use of such names as are proper to God alone. And we did talk about this a bit, but let's go over it a little bit more. Although it's said of the Father that He alone is the one God, if we look at 1 Corinthians 8.6, 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6, But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. And beyond that, we know the prophet restricts the proper use of the term God to one who is both just and Savior, Isaiah 45.21. Isaiah 45.21, how do you bring him here? There's none beside me. There's no other God. So we're talking about the true divinity. There's there's none other Right, there's just the one God Paul says the Father and yet Yet the Son is expressly called by that denomination of God. 1 John 5, verse 20. 1 John 5, verse 20. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true and we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God in eternal life. This is the true God. In fact, John goes further and says, look, Jesus, the Son of God, is the true God. How do we square that with what Paul says, there's one God, the Father? If we understand what God is, what we mean by God, we're talking about essence. We're talking about that substantial nature, that substantial divinity. So when he says there's one God, the Father, he's not saying that there aren't others who are also God. He's saying that there's one divinity, and it is, in fact, radically in the Father, which is what we've already confessed, right? The Father, that principle of monarchy, The Father is superior. The Son is eternally begotten. It's the same God, but we begin, the principle of unity is in the Father. In this, the Eastern Church is following the Early Church a little bit more carefully. It's just that they draw wrong conclusions. The West, I think, has been careful to guard some other things, but has gotten a little sloppy on that. Likewise, the Spirit is called by the same denomination. Again, if we look at Acts 5, verses 3 and 4. Acts 5, verses 3 and 4. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? Why was it remained? Was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. There again, the Spirit is called God. You haven't lied unto man, you've lied to God. He brings forth the divinity. You lied to the Holy Ghost, you lied to God. What makes lying to the Holy Ghost so bad? You're not lying to man. That is, you're not lying to humanity. It's not a human nature, or even a created nature. You're lying to that uncreated nature that is God. Elsewhere in several places the Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of God, 1 Samuel 10.10 and 1 Corinthians 3.16. 1st Samuel 10.10, And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. 1st Corinthians 3.16, Know ye not that ye are in the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? The Spirit of God dwelleth in you. 1st Samuel 10.10, again, the Hebrew term is Ruach Elohim, the Spirit that is God. It's not just the spirit of God, but the spirit who is God is really in view. Is it construct? It can be construct. It can also be indicative of a stative state. You know, Hebrew doesn't use that the verb to be. They just put two things. When the Bible says Jehovah is salvation, it just says Jehovah salvation. If you look, you'll see the word is is in italics. It's not there in Hebrew. But we don't see the Jehovah of salvation. We say Jehovah is salvation. Here we can say ruach, that is spirit is God. Same principle. So, what do we know then? Well, we know that there's one God. Now remember in 1 Corinthians 8.6, the scripture says there's one Lord Jesus Christ. Is Jesus, is the Son of God the only Lord? Remember, Lord is a term for Jehovah, the Old Testament term Jehovah. That's where it's in and through him that we first come to know that name. Remember when God reveals himself to Moses. We just read it. He says, look, to your fathers, I wasn't known by this name, but I'm telling you, my name is Jehovah. It's Jesus speaking. Jesus is the one who reveals the name of that divinity. There aren't three Lords, there's one Lord because there's one Jehovah. But the Father is Jehovah, the Son is Jehovah, and the Spirit is Jehovah. It's the same principle. That's what's going on in 1 Corinthians 8.6. But let's move on again. The Son is named according to that peculiar name, which I just mentioned, Jehovah, which alone distinguishes the specific divinity. from every other essence or substance of being, or even the possibility of some other divine nature. God is a divine nature. Something of a spiritual sort. But Jehovah is saying it's a specific kind of divinity, a specific divinity. Isaiah 42.8 Isaiah 42.8, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to grievant images. I'm not going to give that glory to another. Jehovah, the Lord. I'm not going to give that glory to another. So if the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all called by this name Jehovah, then it's not only one God, it's the same God. The three persons are the same God. The prophet Isaiah and his vision of the heavenly throne applies this name to the eternal sun. Isaiah 6, 3, 5, and 8. Isaiah 6, verses 3, 5, and 8. Verse 3. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Verse 5. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. In verse 8, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. Now, if we look at that in the apostolic interpretation presented in the New Testament, look at John 12, verse 41, and we want to look at that together with Acts 28, verse 25. John 12, verse 41. These things said Isaiah when he saw His glory and spake of Him. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed. After that, Paul had spoken among them. We also thank the Holy Ghost by His eyes, the prophet of our fathers. Okay, so Paul makes it clear, he quotes the same passage. In John's passage, it's made clear that the one being spoken of there in Isaiah 6, the Lord is on His throne, is in fact Jesus is the Eternal Son of God. This is pre-incarnate vision of Christ that Isaiah has. He sees the Eternal Son in some respect. This name is the name by which Moses claimed divine authority. Jehovah. Exodus 3.14. Jehovah is a name which means I am or I shall be. It's a name which is in fact affirming a specific identity to the divinity. I am. Moses says, look, God says to Moses, somebody says, who sent you? He says, tell them I am sent you. Well, that's interesting because Jesus, the son of God incarnate, identifies himself with this name in John 8, 58. John 8, verse 58, Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Before Abraham was, I am. That's Jesus saying, I am. He's saying Jehovah. That's me. I am. Before Abram was. I am. He's claiming to be Jehovah. Now that's not just my interpretation. Because we see in his assertion the Jews understood that he was asserting equality with God. Go on and look at John 8.59 compared with John 5.18 and John 19.7. out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. John 5 verse 18, Therefore the Jews sought the Lord to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. John 19 verse 7, The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. You see, they understood that if he's saying, I am, He's saying that he's the Son of God. Notice the Jews are not denying, by the way, that there is a Son of God as well as a Father. God the Father. They don't start denying the doctrine of the Trinity until long after the closing of the New Testament canon. Sometime after the establishing of Christianity, they become very hostile to this idea. They taught this idea. They understood this idea. What they didn't like was that Jesus was asserting to be this son of God. They understood that's asserting that he is equal with God. He's made himself equal with God. That is with the Father. Why? Because he's calling himself Jehovah. How can this be? And yet the same truth is the truth assumed by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2.6. Philippians 2.6. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God? Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God? He's talking about the Son. He's equal with God. So Paul understood that. His whole basis of the doctrine of the humiliation of Christ begins with this assertion, and this is the mystery of the Incarnation, that the one who became incarnate is equal with God the Father. He is God, who has emptied himself of all of the prerogative of that divinity in order to walk amongst us on earth. That's Paul's point. Alright, so too we see the Holy Ghost is named by the sacred name Jehovah. We see that if we compare Hebrews 3, 7-11 with Psalm 95, 6-11 and also Hebrews 10, 15-17 with Jeremiah 31, 33 and 34. Hebrews 3, verses 7 through 11. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, today, if ye will hear his voice, pardon not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation, in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works for years. Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation, and said, they do always err in their hearts, and they have not known my ways. So I swear on my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. Psalm 95 verses 6 through 11. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my work, 40 years long was I grieved with this generation. and said, it is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Unto whom I swear in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest." So before we look at the next one, I just want to point out, who is it speaking in Hebrews 3.7? Hebrews 3 says it's the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost speaking. But in Psalm 95, we see that the Holy Ghost is called first Lord, there's a word Jehovah, the name Jehovah, and then he's called our God speaking. So our God speaking is Jehovah. Well, who is that? The apostle says in Hebrews, it's the Holy Spirit speaking. So the Holy Spirit is Jehovah. Again, we see the same thing in Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 verses 15 through 17. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds while I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Jeremiah 31 verses 33 and 34 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days I will put my law in their inward parts right in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people They shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord But they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them such the Lord remember that sin no more. There again we see Jeremiah is using the term LORD, all caps, Jehovah. What is Jehovah? Hebrews says that's the Holy Ghost. So the Holy Ghost is named Jehovah. Same God. The same specific deity. He holds the deity which is named Jehovah, that divine nature. Alright, second. side names that the Son and the Spirit are both God-equal with the Fathers manifested in the Scriptures, ascribing of such attributes as are proper to God alone." There are a couple that they have in particular in mind here. One proper attribute is eternity, whereby the true God is distinguished from all that is created, Isaiah 40.28 and Psalm 90.2. So this idea of eternity or everlastingness, that's an attribute of the true divinity. The true God is not created. He is the creator. He's not created. He's not bounded by time. He's from everlasting to everlasting. He's eternal. That's an attribute of the divine nature. Thus, the Son is described as possessing the attribute of eternity, or being from everlasting, John 1, 1 in Isaiah 9, 6. John 1, verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Isaiah 9, 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, where government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." There's an everlastingness, again, that is attributed to the Son. And hence, He is that eternal life from the beginning with the Father, 1 John 1-2. 1 verse 2 for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which which was with the father and was manifested unto us that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. In case you didn't get the point in John's Gospel, the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, and the Word was with God. If you didn't get that idea, if that didn't sink in, John is saying here, look, this everlasting life, what is everlasting life? It's eternal life. When did it have a beginning? It didn't. It was ever with God, the Father. He's talking about Jesus. He's talking about the Son of God, manifest in the flesh. He's from eternity. The Aryans are wrong, in other words. People want to deny or say that Jesus is just the highest created being. The Son of God is not a created being. Jesus' body is created. His humanity is created. But His divinity, His divine nature is not created. He is homoousian with the Father as to His divinity. He's homoousian with us as to His humanity. So the same substance. Likewise, we know that the Spirit of God is denominated by this attribute of eternity. Hebrews 9, verse 14. Hebrews 9, verse 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? So, the eternal Spirit. Another attribute of divinity that the Catechism brings out at this point is that of omniscience. which again pertains only to God, Psalm 147.5. Psalm 147.5. Great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite. His understanding is infinite. It's the nature of the true God to know all things, 1 John 3.20. 1 John 3.20. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. And yet, this very attribute of omniscience is said to be shared by the Son, John 2, 24-25. John 2, 24-25, But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should test five men, for he knew what was in man. He knew all men. There's an omniscience predicated there. Omniscience is also ascribed to the Holy Ghost because that which is able to comprehend all that is God and man must be omniscient or all-knowing. But so we see the Spirit of God is in fact said to be in 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So we have the sharing of names and titles. We have the use of attributes proper to God alone. Third place, the Son and the Spirit are both God equal. The Father is manifested when the scriptures describe of such works as are proper to God alone. And particularly, the most important work is the work of creation. Creation of all things is described as the work of Jehovah alone in Nehemiah 9.6. God alone then is the one who created everything seen and unseen. Genesis 1.1. It's a great defining work of the true divinity, right? God, He's the Creator. We call Him the Creator. It's the work that sets Him apart from everything else. Why is that important? Well, God alone creates everything, and yet this great work of God alone is clearly ascribed to the sun in Colossians 1.16. Colossians 1.16. For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. And moreover, we see that this work of creation is ascribed to the Spirit as well. Genesis 1, verse 2. Genesis 1, verse 2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. So we can't separate this work of creation from the Son of the Spirit, and yet this is a work proper to the true divinity alone. How is it that they were there to be involved in this creation? Well, they were there from eternity. There was never a time when the Son and the Spirit were not. Because before God created time, there was no time. There was only eternity. Unchanging eternity. And they were there. when God created time. They were there together with the Father. The Son and the Spirit are there and they are there in a capacity that demonstrates that they are each one truly and properly God. Now, fourth and finally, that the Son and the Spirit are both God equal with the Father is manifested in the scriptures describing of such worship as is proper to God alone. Divine worship, after all, is something to be offered only unto the true God. Jesus tells us that in Luke 4.8. Jesus answered and said, Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. However, the fact is this very divine worship is said to be shared by both the Son and the Spirit. If we look at Matthew 28, 19 again, and 2 Corinthians 13, 14. Matthew 28, verse 19. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 2 Corinthians 13, verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. So if you remember, there are several times when people fall down before angels or other beings in the Bible. And the angels will say things like, don't do that. Don't worship me. Worship God. Get up. The apostles do the same thing. Don't fall down. We're not God. The Son and the Spirit are receiving the same worship as the Father. And that's proper only to the true divinity. Really, those are the four points at which we can see, then, that there is both a confession that the Son and the Spirit are God, as well as that they are equal with the Father. And with this question, we're going to move on. Next time, we're going to pick up the issue of God's predestination, the eternal decree, what that is, and how that works itself out. So next time, we'll start looking at the idea of the eternal decree, how and what God is doing or willing to do, and how that relates to creation and providence, and finally, redemption. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. 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