Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I hope you're hearing me. We're hoping this is working, but I'll be perfectly honest with you. I've made it a stressful end of the year for someone whose first name sounds like witch. I don't know. I was thinking about the program today. We had planned to do a program today. Couldn't do it yesterday for particular personal reasons, and I don't do any. Look, New Year's for me is trying to keep my cats from having a heart attack, basically, when it sounds like the Iraq war is erupting in the alleyway behind the house, okay? That's all it is to me. I don't watch anything. I'm not watching any football. It's just not a, New Year's has never been a big deal for me. And so, I'm like, hey, it's a Friday. We've only done one program this week. There's important stuff to be talking about. Let's do this, and as I'm looking at what I want to be able to do... this is cool, okay? And Rich got that, so I'd never do anything about it. It just showed up one day, and Rich is like, you're gonna like this, and it's taken me months to figure it out, but now he's very proud of the fact that I'm sitting over there, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, doing my thing, and I know how to make it work. And I think, now I think about it, I think there's a second generation of it out now too, but anyway, this works, it's great, it's beautiful, it's wonderful. And so I'm coming down here, and I stopped at my favorite little Italian place to get some food, and as I'm walking in, I'm like, I sent a text message, because we were gonna do it remote. Rich is gonna be at home, and we've done that a number of times now from the other studio, using both cameras. Nobody can tell. I'm just in there alone, and we've got it dialed in and works fine, and I'm like, I wonder if we can do that in the big studio, because it's a different deal. It's not the same thing. But I was thinking all the stuff he's been doing recently might be possible. And lo and behold, it's working, at least so far anyways. And so here we are, and I'm in here all by my own, so there's nobody down here, but me, myself, and I. And Rich is at home doing his thing, and we just hope it's gonna work and hope it'll be a... a blessing in the process. It's supposed to start raining. I don't think we're getting much out of this one, sadly. Honestly, I was hoping it would just be coming down gangbusters tonight. and keep those morons out of the alleyway with their M60 firebombs that just about break the windows in my house. But we will see. We will see. So anyways, we have important stuff to get to today. We have the big board up and we've got God's word on the big board. And that's why we do the things that we do here. And I wanted to start off with scripture. I think that's, you know, we're finishing two difficult years, and I'd like to pray that 2022 will, that God would see fit to shine the light of his truth in our culture. That's the only hope we have. I mean, how divided we are, how divided we have become, the depth of the depravity of secularism. is all around us. And as far as I can see right now, it has completely taken control of the party on the left. And the party on the right doesn't have a meaningful worldview to stand on. And so, We just pray that the gospel would go forth with great power. It has in this land before, and that's the only hope this land has. So may God be merciful in 2022, and may he use all of us to bring that about. But I want us to think about a key text. in the scriptures that I have here on the screen right now, and I have three columns. I have the 1977 NASB over here, my favorite, and the Hebrew Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensee in the center. We have Ralph's Septuagint on the right-hand side. And the reason for having all three up, obviously, is that we are looking at a text that many people are very, very familiar with, and that is Exodus 3.14. I can't think of too many texts in the Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim. I like the term Tanakh better than the Old Testament. There's a specific meaning to Old Testament that, you know, we use it for the Hebrew scriptures, but Hebrew scriptures, Tanakh, I think is a better descriptor than just Old Testament. But anyway, in the Hebrew scriptures, I can't think of many other texts that you can just immediately point to. and recognize that what's going on in that text has deep theological meaning that will carry straight through to the New Testament. Exodus 3.14, this self-revelation of God. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you. And God furthermore said to Moses, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever and this is my memorial name to all generations. Now, immediately, sadly in some ways, I've thanked the Lord more than once that I did have to go to a seminary that was way to my left. because that has been vitally important to being able to engage with the left in our day. But at the same time, there's a, you know, as soon as I see that, the classes I took in Old Testament, even though I had good professors, I had to learn the left's view of the Tanakh. And I look at that immediately and I know that in, minimally 90% of the seminaries in the English-speaking world or around the world at all. In 90% of the seminaries, someone would look at 314 and 315 and automatically draw a distinction. And if they held the J-E-D-P, Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, priestly viewpoint of the redaction of the Old Testament, they would draw a line right here. Did I turn that off? Come on, baby. All right, there we go. That's on, there we go. They would draw a line right here. And they would say there's been a redaction. And why would they say that? They would say that the Yahwist, because here's Yahweh, so here's 3.15, and so here's Yahweh. And they would say that because in 314, God gives his name as I am who I am. E-y-hey, asher, e-y-hey. I am that I am, right there. They would say, well, that was the original and then 315 is added in by the Yahweh source because you have to have Yahweh in there. The reason being, I wasn't gonna get into all this, but the reason being that once you presuppose that the nature of the Tanakh is a badly redacted and edited mess that has no supernatural origin or source to it, which is not what Jesus believed, then you're stuck with this kind of stuff. It just always is the way you have to think. So you don't even get to think that What you have here is that 314 is giving us one aspect of the self-identification of God. And the second is giving us the covenantal or my memorial name to all generations, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. And that you put the two together and it's beautiful. But no, that's not how you get to do things with the Tanakh in most seminaries and Bible colleges. So, back to Exodus 3.14, burning bush. There's been some fascinating film portrayals of this, trying to, in some way, capture what it must have been like for Moses to see this amazing thing. And the God who reveals himself there, says, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And so the I am part there is the same as right here. And this, most scholars just tell you ahead of time, there are a tremendous number of theories concerning exactly what's going on here, and exactly what this phrase especially, what is that related to, and how to translate it, because it's technically future, so I will be who I will be, I am who I am, and you will get a lot of interpretations. as to exactly what is here. And the problem is that as far as explicating the grammar in Hebrew over here in, I think it is, we do need to point this out. I think it's important. Over here in the Greek Septuagint, God said to Moses, and here is your key phrase right here, Ego, I, me, ha-on. Ego, I, me, ha-on. I am the one being, ha-on. If you're familiar with the term ontology. Ontology, the study of being. That is from on, the Greek, ontology. I am the one being, and thus you will say to the sons of Israel, ha-on. sent me to you. Now, a lot of you will recognize Ego Aimi. We'll get to that later on, but it is important, please catch this, if you're, if you do evangelism to Jehovah's Witnesses, especially tune in here, maybe even some of the sharper Black Hebrew Israelites, those types of folks. There are a lot of books and tracts and things out there that will take you from passages like John 8, 58, where Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am. and they will transport you directly, wholesale, right into Exodus 3.14 and say, here's the connection. But if you're looking with me, you see that there needs to be a stronger connection made. Yeah, Ego Aimi is there. But the emphasis, the power part of the phrase is ha'on. Because you see, that's what's translating Eyyehei. So tell the sons of Israel, ha'on. sent you. And that's the second part, ego, I mean haon. The one being sent me to you. And so, if you don't build the proper connections, which we'll be looking at in a moment, that's an illicit jump. It's an appropriate connection. We can talk about who revealed who revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. And I think you can make a strong argument in light of Isaiah 6 and John 12, Genesis 18, 19, especially because the Genesis 18, 19 account is before this, temporally anyways, that we are talking about another pre-incarnate Theophany, appearance of the sun. But the point is the emphasis here is haon, the one being. So in the Greek Septuagint, it's a present participle. I am the one being. So that's how the Greek Septuagint translators understand it. So how much can we read into this particular text. How much of God's being is revealed in the phrase, Well, some people in the past have certainly freighted this text. with a massive amount of theology proper. A massive amount. I don't think there's any question that God's self-existence is found here. And how would I defend that as a person who believes that exegesis needs to be the source of your beliefs? Well, one thing that I'm afraid we very frequently miss when we read the Old Testament is there is a tremendous amount of very appropriate apologetic being provided in the Tanakh. And if you remember what Israel was surrounded by, and who surrounded Israel, and if you take some time to do some reading in what's called Anet, A-N-E-T, the Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Pritchard, the editor, big old, well, back in the day, my day, it was sort of a reddish maroon volume. Came out with a supplement to it, because so much stuff's been found since then. But if you take some time to read in that material, you get a sense of the Canaanite gods, the Assyrian gods, the Babylonian gods. And that should be in your initial understanding of a text from 1,400 years ago. I would say 1,400 years. Others would say 1,200 years. But in looking at a text from Moses, And I can say Moses while other people will say Pentateuchal author. That's something I wouldn't want to have to say very often. I can look at this and say that initial context should be the first thing that you're seeing. Can we make extended application? Yes, but we need to recognize it's extended application. If we don't recognize that we're doing that, we can fall into some serious errors. And so, what would this have meant in that day to Moses, who has just come out of Egypt? He's been raised in Egypt. Everywhere he has walked, especially since he was viewed as Pharaoh's son, everywhere he has walked, he has been surrounded by the gods of Egypt. And he knows all their mythology. In all their mythology, these gods did not create all things. They can order things and they have certain divine powers, but the cosmos does not exist because of the will of a god. There are many gods, they interact with each other, they have limitations in their powers. There are none who are ha-on, no god of Israel. would say ha'on in this sense. They might claim some type of authority and self-existence within a certain realm, but not like this. And so that's the first thing that you have to understand. And once you've got that, then you can ask, is it appropriate to make further application? Now, the question becomes, how is this used the New Testament. I mean, because we only, if all you have is this, you have to be, I think, humble and simply say, and I don't know why it's doing this, I'm trying to keep an eye on certain Not all of Arizona is quite as nice as all other places in Arizona. Let's just put it that way. And for some reason, this will only work for 20 minutes at a time. I'm not sure why. There you go. I may just have to go over there and tap it once in a while just to keep it happy. Anyways, I apologize. That's the other reason, you know, when you're here alone. You sort of don't want to go out to your truck and find it sitting on blocks. That's one problem with being. within two and a half hours of the border. Anyway, well, we don't have a border anymore, so why does it really matter? What were we talking about? Moses in the bulrush. It's pretty close there, actually. Not too far, actually, after that point in time. So you start there, and then you ask the question, how much more can I put into this? I am who I am. God is the self-existent God. God is not dependent for his being. upon the created order. That is a fundamental part of the revelation that Yahweh makes of himself to the people of Israel. No question about it. No question about it. But how much farther can that be taken? Because if you take the time to look into Aquinas' use of this text, it becomes central to his establishment of a foundational metaphysic borrowing from Aristotle, but Aristotle's God was not this God. So Aquinas has to modify Aristotle, but he's still using Aristotle's categories. And Exodus 3.14 is central to how Aquinas accomplishes this and sees in this, this, emphasis upon the essence of God, and utilizes that in his writings. Well, how far can that be taken? Because there's obviously been, down through the centuries, a lot of argument. And I've noticed, it's interesting, when a well-known theologian who, upon his death, achieves some level of respectful notoriety. When they held a certain position, they taught a certain doctrine. There is a hesitancy on the part of many to question that, not if it's one of the central issues, but especially if it's becomes popular or commends itself or just gets repeated a lot. All of us know how often we have heard something repeated. For example, well, let's use an absurd example first because it's rather clear. Look at the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist King James Only guys. The Bad Preacher Clips fellows posted a whole series, I think yesterday, demonstrating that this Psalm 12 mythology goes back to Ruckman. All this stuff only goes back to the last century. It's a modern tradition. But it goes back to Ruckman and he posted all these people saying the exact same thing that Ruckman said about being purified seven times and all the rest of that kind of stuff. So here you have a small group and a figure repeats this and it sounds like it's a good argument and so it gets repeated over and over again but uncritically. No one really thinks through and in fact there is a there's a hesitancy to critically analyze the claim because that may put you outside the power structures. I'll give you another example. Let's go outside Woo Wooville. And how many times have you heard a preacher Preach on the words of Jesus from the cross, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me, forsaken me? And they have, with great passion and fervor and emotion, spoken of that moment when the Father turned His back on the Son. It's even in that song, the Father turned His back away. And when the Father turned away, not just turned His back away, turned away. Whatever it is in the song, we've all sung it. And it's normally around, you know, Easter time, and then you're preaching about the cross, and wow, it's just so powerful! And I grew up hearing that. I grew up hearing that. And then, in my early adult years, as I am developing as a theologian and as I'm studying, as I am constantly feeling, because I'm doing apologetics, that pressure to be consistent, I analyzed that text and I realized, this is a quotation from Psalm 22. And Jesus is identifying himself as that servant in Psalm 22. It's the most messianic psalm in the Psalter. And the psalm ends with a vindication of the suffering servant and the idea that at the very time Jesus is using the second person, he's addressing God. He's not saying God's gone away. He's not saying, why did he go away? Why have you forsaken me? But those are the words of the psalmist. And so, if Jesus is using…this is actually Jesus pointing people to this 22nd Psalm, being fulfilled in him, and hence the vindication at the end. This isn't anything about a…I mean, literally a disruption of the Trinity itself. The very point where the Son is offering himself, he's doing the very will of the Father, is when the Father turns his back on him. The very next words that he says from the cross, Father into your hands I commit my spirit, there's no sense of separation at that point. And I realized that that strong, passionate, and you've heard so many people preach it. We're gonna play a portion of a sermon today. And it was, I'm not gonna play that portion, but it was right at the end. Same application. I've heard so many men that I love and respect and are good brothers, and I just go, you know, part of Christian maturity is learning to love men who say things you don't agree with. That's part of historical maturity and reading men from the past. It's a wonderful thing when you can break out of that fundamentalist mindset that you had as a kid and actually read church history and appreciate people who worshipped differently and dressed differently and had forms of liturgy that you wouldn't feel comfortable with, and you can actually start recognizing that God has been fulfilling his promise through Christ to build his church, and it's a wonderful thing. It really is. Point is, there's an example of a tradition, and there is a strong pressure exercised upon someone to just, look, if all these people said it, it must be true. As if the fact that it's been repeated means it has been critically analyzed each time it was repeated. How many times was it not analyzed at all? In that first example I gave, none of those IFB guys are analyzing anything. They're not giving any critical thought to it. They're just repeating it thoughtlessly. And in the second example, how many people sit back and really go, now I need to be careful here. I need to, okay, this is Psalm 22. No, you've heard it preached that way? And there is a less than subtle emphasis and pressure to go with what your favorite preacher or teacher or whatever has said. That's why anybody watches this program, how many times I said, you check everything out. I've got my blind spots. I'm not gonna be one of those folks that says you just, no, not gonna do that. So, point being, when we look at something like Aquinas' use of Exodus 3.14, is the fact that there have been many people down through the ages, or at least in the centuries since then, who have utilized the categories that he delineated. Does that mean that they sat back and looked at this text and said, well, hmm, how are these Hebrew and Greek phrases used in the rest of the Bible, and Is the metaphysics that are behind this the same metaphysics that would come from reading this? Is this Moses' metaphysics? Have we given up on even having an idea what Moses' metaphysics would have been? Are they thinking these things? Or are they just running with it because, well, my professors in seminary said that, my professors in university said that, and it just gets repeated over and over and over again. It's an interesting question. So let's think about this phrase. Ego aimi haon. And let me go to another set of texts here. This will be, let's see, oh, that's right. There it is. Oh, and I thought I had blown them up a little bit, but I didn't. There we go. Gotta make it big enough for folks to see, big enough for me to see, let alone you. I mean, it's only, what is this, 72 inches? I don't even know how big it is, All right, remember I said earlier that there is a step that we need to be aware of. Hopefully those taps will keep it from turning off there. When we look at this phrase, ego I mean, There is a place in Zephaniah, I can't scroll back to it right now, but the primary places you're gonna find the connective bridge to Jesus's uses, which is John 8.24, 8.58, 13.19, and 18.5-6. In John, there's argument to be made that when Jesus reveals himself as the I Am and he's walking upon the water, that fits in as well, and that's in Mark. but the specific Johannine uses. You can see that the first is Isaiah 41.4, and immediately, let me just, some people get upset with me for doing this, I'm sorry. Again, it comes from having gone to a seminary way off to my left. But I have had young men come up to me over the years and thank me for doing this part. They admitted it had bothered them at first, but they ended up at like, even at a Christian university or something like that. And they started getting hit with this stuff. And they said, I was prepared because you did this. So I just, I keep doing it. So it hinders the flow, but I think it's important. Why do I say this? When, again, when I look at this, when I look at this list of texts where Ego Aimi is used, the Hebrews on a who, I didn't put the Hebrew up in this, but the first thought across my mind, again, coming from my education in the left is, we'll get the, Notice where it starts, Isaiah 41, 4. Now, 40 to 48, trial of the false gods, massively important stuff. But what you're gonna hear in almost any standard Old Testament class is all of this is called, what they will call it is, spell it right. Deutero-Isaiah. Second Isaiah. Starting chapter 40. And so the theory is, and again, what gave rise to this? Have we ever found manuscripts where it ends at 39? No, we haven't. The theory behind it is, starting in chapter 40, you have reference to Cyrus. And since that's in the future, we can't have writings that know people's names in the future. And so this must be that the first section of the book was written pre-exile. And the second part is added in later, now that Cyrus has come along, and they throw his name in there and call him the, well, he's actually called the Mashiach. He's called the Anointed One. Did you know that? Yeah. And so this is what you're, when you go to that dangerous place called the Christian bookstore, if any exists any longer, and you buy the commentaries, this is what you're gonna run into. And I think it's better to point this out here and point out what started it. The assumption is there's no prophecy. It's better to hit it now. Did I say dootro? Good. Dootro. There we go. Better to hear it now than to run into it in the context of unbelief. That's my view. So anyways, wanted to throw that in there just for the fun of it because it's fun. First one, Isaiah 41.4, who has wrought and done these things? The one calling her from the beginning of generations has called her, I, God, ego theos, I, God, am the first, protos, kai aista ep er kamena ego imi. And for the things that are coming, ego imi, I am. Hmm. There's a lot of that in Isaiah. I'm with the first of generations, the one calling her from the beginning of generations. There's a lot of that in Isaiah 40-48. But here's the first place where we have Ego Aimi being used as a name of God. Well, let's see if that continues. Next one is one of the most important texts, and we've gone through this in the past. But you have Isaiah 43, 10. So, so, so very important. Isaiah 43, 10, be my witnesses. I am a witness, says kurios atheos, and my servant whom I have chosen. And here's hinot note, Don't have a whole lot of time to do this, but go to John 13, 19. Look at the Greek. Jesus quotes this of himself in the context, that's not 17, there's supposed to be a nine there, there you go. In the context of the Last Supper, In the context of prophesying, just as you have right here, you may know and believe and understand that Ego Aimi, I am, here Ego Aimi is being used as the name of God in the book of Isaiah. In the same form, there's no ha'on here. in the same form that it's used, in the exact same form with the verbs, not all three of the verbs, but with the verbs, same thing in John 13, 19, Jesus is quoting of himself. Now, most of us know Isaiah 40 to 10 because this very last phrase, before me there was no God formed and there shall be none after me, because we use this with Mormons all the time, but it is an incredibly rich text. And there you have ego-i-me. Now look at Isaiah 43, 25. Look at this. Ego-i-me repeated twice. I am, I am the one who blots out, who forgives your sins. I am the I am that does this. There you have the use being used in a very strong sense. And then Isaiah 45, 18. Look at this. Ego aimi kurios ha tisase. I am the Lord. I am the kurios who created you. Wow. The connections that we would have to. This is called a study of intertextuality. You have two texts. You've got Isaiah, You've got the Tanakh general, Old Testament, and the New Testament. So when you're looking at the relationships, but especially here, Isaiah into John, Isaiah into Paul. I am kurios. So kurios, of course, standard term for the son over against theos, for the father, though they are switched. But normally you look at 1 Corinthians 8, theos used the father, kurios used the son. I am the Lord who created you. And there's, just go over to Colossians chapter one. It's all over the place. There you have the son as the creator, as the maker. There is no other than I am in Isaiah 45, 18. I mean, this really is the, The source, here's Ego Aimi used again twice with Kurios in Isaiah 45.19. I mean, it's all through Isaiah 45.19. Ego Aimi Hathaios, 45.22. 46.9, Ego Aimi Hathaios. You see what I'm saying? This is where you have to go. from the Johannine corpus, from Jesus's usage, to trace this properly back. Because now once you're firmly established here, with egoimi being used of Yahweh, now you can take it back to Exodus 3, and you have a solid connection. If you just jump between the two, that's not the best way to do it. This is much stronger, okay? But the point is, When we're looking at Exodus 3.14, now we've looked at the utilization of that terminology in the Greek Septuagint, and we've trans, now we can, when we go into the New Testament, we go into Jesus saying, unless you believe that ego I me, you will die in your sins. We go into John 13, 19. Jesus demonstrates who he is, his messiahship. He demonstrates who he is by utilizing this terminology. This is where the open theists fall apart. If you remember the debate I did with the open theist fellow who passed away last year, didn't he? Or was it this year? Yeah, I think I'm recalling that correctly. I think he did. I think it was sudden, unexpected. He wasn't that old. He was older than me, but wasn't that old. But anyway, that was part of that debate that we did, was I focused upon John 13, 19, and what goes on there. Of course, John 18, 5-6. The soldiers come. Who are you seeking? Jesus. Ego, I, me. Jesus says ego, I, me. They fall upon the ground. there's your connection and now the now you have a firm solid basis for saying that at least part of what is being revealed in Exodus 3 14 is that this one who is I am will reveal himself as the Creator by entering into his own creation which is what he's done the burning bush isn't it Now, see, there you have exegetically grounded foundation for saying, what I'm saying to you is biblical. I did not have to go outside of Scripture. Now, you might say, oh, yes, you did. You talked about the apologetic content of the Old Testament and the ancient Near Eastern texts, and so you went outside of Scripture. I did. in the sense of looking at the context, but I did not derive the categories to interpret this from that. It's one thing to look at those categories, that is, what the Babylonians believe, what the Assyrians believe, what the Canaanites believe. It's one thing to look at that and then look at the text and go, oh, the text is saying these guys are wrong. That's one thing. That's an appropriate use of external sources. It's another to go out here and get your categories and then put it on this and say, oh, it must be saying this because these categories say that. See the difference? It's a big difference. It's an important difference. And it's one we need to really stay focused upon. I think that's very, very important. All right. Love. this board, thankful like anything to the Lord that we have it. And I hope it's useful to you. And I just wanna thank all the people who gave so that we could put this, because that was only, when was the first time we did this here? When was our, when did we start? That was like. Yes, Jeff, I watched the video. And so I know. And honestly, Jeff, when I said that, I had you in mind. Love you, bro. But yeah, you show up at my house with all those things and there's gonna be an excommunication. Sorry. Okay. Now, you wanna know how crazy, insane I am? I'm going to criticize Sinclair Ferguson on the dividing line. Can I tell you something? I love listening to this man preach. He is a wonderful brother-in-law we've never met. It is not fair. I think I do a good Scottish, I really do, but he's really Scottish. Well, so am I, but he lives there. Well, he's lived there. And here's again where it's like, We need to have a level of maturity in the reform community where we can actually have conversations with one another. And there needs to be a level of robust confidence so that we do not become brittle and easily shatter when there is disagreement. It just must be. There was a Facebook post. Let's see if I can find it. Yeah, there was a Facebook post on December 29th by Chad Vegas. Chad is a former Baptist pastor over in the communist country of California and so we need to be praying for Chad and all those people under that communist rule and the insane people there in Sacramento. Anyway, at 1019 p.m. he posted this sermon from Sinclair Ferguson. And here's what he introduced it with. Quote, this sermon is well worth your time. It would be great if men like James White listened to it. Let me just mention, it's just astonishing to me how many individuals just assume that if you don't hold their positions, it's just because you haven't done the reading that they've done. I pointed out in response to Brother Chad that, you know, these weren't... I said, remember back in the 90s? I don't know, Chad. I don't know. I said, remember back in the 90s, we weren't... I spoke in Reformed Baptist churches all over the place. I spoke at Reformed Baptist conferences. We were not focused on this. This was not... Nobody was, no one even raised the question in all of the sermons that I remember, well into the 2000s. But now, if you don't just automatically embrace this, then it's just because you just haven't done enough reading. I was teaching church history starting in 1990. I found out later that Chad wasn't even converted at that point and I think became Reformed Baptist somewhere around 11 years ago. That doesn't make me right or him wrong. It's just, I really wonder at the willingness that people have to assume Well, if you don't agree with me, and I'm talking about within our own groups here, that's just because you just haven't done the reading that I have, because if you've done the reading I have, you're going to agree with me. And we need to sort of get past that. It would be great if men like James White listened to it. We need to understand these modern definitions of simplicity being posited by men like White are not the biblical nor the historically orthodox doctrine of Christianity. Now keep that in mind, that term biblical, because we were just talking about what makes something biblical. It is biblical. that the I am statement in Exodus 3.14 is connected to the use of that same phrase in Isaiah and from that into the self-identification of Jesus as the I am in the Ohanian literature and possibly the Markan context as well. That's biblical. Most people admit that the what's called the DDS the divine doctrine of simplicity, doctrine of God's simplicity, whatever terminology you want to use, that the form of that doctrine that is being not only emphasized but insisted upon today, that specifically asserts that ad intra, the attributes of God, are one and indistinguishable. See, it's not the basic doctrine that God is not made up of—that part has almost disappeared. That, I think, is what's most important for people to understand, is that God is not made up of lesser parts. But by going beyond that and making an assertion about the internal reality of God—because that's what you're saying. that ad intra, internally to God, his attributes are one and the same. So that his omniscience is his omnipresence, is his mercy, is his justice. Ad extra, outside of God, in a metaphysically lesser sense, in a way that is not definitional of the being of God. These things are distinguished for us, but internally to God, these are one. The metaphysical assumption being that if they're not one, then they're parts of which God's made up. I challenge that. That is a metaphysical assumption that has no foundation in scripture anywhere, period. Nowhere. But many people believe it. Traditions are traditions. Yes. But that is not, you cannot demonstrate that from scripture. You can't. And the more you try, the more desperate it sounds. So, this again, most people had never heard of any of this before. And yet now, all of a sudden, it is the thing. It is the way to find out if you are truly Orthodox or not. So I say that is an extended, primarily Thomistic application of a divine truth. I believe in divine simplicity. I don't believe God is made up of lesser parts. That is biblical. No question about it. And I think I am that I am would at least be relevant to that. Okay. But now the assertion is, no, no, no, no, that is not enough. You have to go into a positive assertion about the internal reality of God himself. It is modern revision that denies the very thing it purports to revise. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I'm not denying simplicity. I'm denying a Thomistic extension of what could biblically be defined as simplicity. Anyway, I have confidence some of these men will come to see the truth and abandon error as I once had to do myself. Sinclair's sermon here could be a helpful start. So you have a sermon from Sinclair Ferguson on the simplicity of God. And here it is up here. We're going to listen to that particular section. This is the same one where at the end he does go into the, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me material? And I would disagree with the application there too. But once again, if you've never sat in a conference and listened to someone speak and disagreed, I would not call you a very discerning person, okay? I really wouldn't. That would concern me. I have listened, especially someone like myself, when I travel, I listen to a lot of people who say things where I go, hmm, hmm. And I'll be honest, I'll have people walk up to me after someone else has spoken and they'll ask about it. And I'll be honest. And I'll say, yeah, I wouldn't put it that way. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily go there. And if we're mature, we can do that in love without stabbing somebody in the back and saying, yeah, I just can't believe it. This guy's clueless. He's in error. I hope he'll repent. I hope he'll come to see the truth and abandon his errors. I mean, that's serious language. That's serious accusation. It really is. It would be much better to say, because as far as I can see biblically, the best that can be said for this position is, we think this is an incredible insight into the nature of God. All right, well, let's look at the Scriptures about it. Well, we're going to look at that in a moment. Well, let me be consistent here, and then we'll just close up with this because I'm looking at the clock, and that's going to take some time, too. So I responded to the brother, And I said, so Chad, I'm sorry you think someone is an error to not follow you in making these extended claims specifically, that God's wrath is God's mercy or God's justice is God's omniscience. By the way, some people have decided that God's wrath is not an attribute. Okay. So do you want to just use justice? Because some people would, some people don't, whatever. I realize his assertions are based upon a metaphysical foundation that claims that if you can distinguish things in the mind, they are separable in reality, a common notion in the medieval period, especially. But that important discussion aside, maybe you could do what no one I have yet heard has done. Show me where I am in any way, shape, or form, violating a single word of God's divine revelation in scripture. I affirm God as one, unchanging, evident, creator of all things, eternally triune, indivisible. I simply do not believe any prophet or apostle said, indicated, even thought, that God's grace and mercy is the same attribute as God's justice and wrath. I see no reason in scripture to believe that what is true in God's revelation, which plainly distinguishes these attributes, is untrue in God's being. There are many things in God's being beyond us that he does not reveal to us. And if you want to say that in some mysterious way, your assertion is true in God, but it's not true in revelation, that is your prerogative. But you have no basis for saying a fellow believer is in error for not believing such an extended mysterious assertion that has no foundation in scripture, nor is it a necessary result of holding together the teachings of scripture. If you find the concept helpful, fine, but unless you can ground it firmly and unquestionably in scripture, binding my conscience to it is itself a grave error, is it not? 177 people, 86 replies, just that one. And I haven't even read all of them. I don't know how anybody keeps... The form of Facebook has been horrific from the start, I'll be honest with you. So Pastor Vegas was very kind to not only respond, but he invited me to invade a communist country and have a chat with everybody. And by the way, James Dolezal is one of his elders in his church. So that's where this is coming from. And I said, I'm not coming to California, but there are other places that things like that can take place in the future. But I am somewhat frustrated by the fact that in years past, before the internet, these types of controversies, sometimes these types of controversies never even got started because time would pass before an answer could be given. And even the old BBS days, you'd at least have two or three days for a message to bounce back, to think about things and be emotionally calm and things like that. But I haven't even, I guess we today sort of started on some of the biblical evidence because I said, what, less than two weeks ago that I will interact with Dr. Dolezal's biblical presentation. What's the biblical evidence of simplicity? We can play the section from the 2015 Southern California Reformed Baptist Pastors Conference. We can put the quotes on the screen. We've got the books in Kindle. That makes it nice and easy to throw up on the screen and do things like that, just like we did with Willem and Craig. People still want to wait for that kind of stuff. That takes too long. Well, yeah. This isn't the only thing I do, you know? Still dealing with issues relating to Molinism and it takes time. Nobody else puts this stuff together. Like I said, I'm down here alone. I preached last Sunday. I still preach at a church. I'll be doing the sexual ethics, God's law on sexuality sermon January 16th. I hope everybody's remembering that. John MacArthur has joined in with the fun, shall we say, and they're going to preach on that subject on January 16th, and we're going to be doing that apologia, and I'll be doing that sermon. And so this isn't the only thing I do. And believe it or not, in the midst of all this stuff, I'm still doing my CBGM research. There's one thing I can guarantee you, none of my, all my critics, all I'd have to do is show them a graph of CBGM and ask them to interpret any of it and they'd be going, I have no earthly idea. But yeah, I'm the numb one that doesn't do any reading. Anyway, so I, Let's have some patience, some time, you know. If this stuff is important, this stuff's been being, you know, Aquinas died a long time ago. It's nothing. We're probably going to all end up in the same gulag together anyways. We'll have plenty of time. We won't have any food or water, but we'll have plenty of time to be debating these things at that particular point in time. But Chad responded, and I just want to say that I appreciated the response, but there was one part of it that just grabbed me. And I'm just going to read it, briefly comment on it, but this to me is, this is the issue. All right? He's talking about categories of things we need to talk about. We really need to define sola scriptura and what our theological method is in light of it. You make demands in your comment above which plead too much. I read you the comment. I was pleading for too much. First, you demand for an accounting of divine simplicity. Remember, what I was asking for was that extension into the very internal being of God. You demand for an accounting of divine simplicity on the basis of Scripture alone, which while I think can be done, I do not believe ought to be done. Let me repeat that. You demand for an accounting of divine simplicity on the basis of Scripture alone, which while I think can be done, I do not believe ought to be done. The doctrine of God, excluding the Trinity, is a mixed article of the faith. We know it is true, that would be the doctrine of God, excluding the Trinity, We know it is true from nature and scripture. Scripture teaches us that God reveals himself in both. Now, I seriously thought about starting off in Romans 1 today because there is no doubt, and now you see how all this is related to what Dr. Johnson has been saying in his dealing with natural theology, natural revelation, emphasizing that there is a difference between the two, and there is. Why I read the material from Muller on program, two programs ago, where Muller differentiates between different kinds of natural theology. You've got, is there a possibility of natural theology from the unregenerate mind versus natural theology from the regenerate mind? There's all sorts of these things, but the fact is this. I was watching a EPS dialogue on simplicity from a couple years ago. You can tell because I was wearing a mask. That's what a division of time that is. One of the pro-Thomist presenters, in answering objections, specifically said at the beginning, no, divine simplicity is not a biblical revelation. It is, again, like William Lane Craig says about Molinism, it's consistent. It doesn't contradict Scripture, but it's not derived from Scripture. And he was just straight up right. Most people would admit that. I'm not sure if my fellow Reformed Baptists would admit that. But the reality is, the categories that allow you to go from God is not made up lesser parts to the assertion that the attributes of God are one in him ad intra but distinguished ad extra so as to glorify him very key issue that I don't see much discussion about the categories that allow that jump to the extended claim come from quote-unquote natural theology. They do not come from Scripture. There is absolutely, positively nothing in the Bible that applying the same kinds of methodology that we were using just a moment ago in looking at Exodus 3 and Isaiah and John, nothing. will lead you to that conclusion. It has to come from external considerations. It has to. But think about that. You demand for an accounting of divine simplicity on the basis of scripture alone, which while I think can be done, I do not believe ought to be done. That's an assertion that the proper theological method is one that privileges natural theology with the ability to provide constitutive, definitive elements of dogmatic belief. I deny it. Deny it. Romans 1, God's revelation gets through. What gets through? That he exists and we ought to glorify him and give thanks to him. There is nothing in the natural order that gives us insight into the internal operations of God. That requires His willful self-revelation. I never thought that there would ever be any dispute amongst Reformed Baptists or anyone who's Reformed on that issue. Never dreamed it. I'm just trying to be consistent. And I have been all along, have been all along. All right. So. Oh. Hmm. Oh, OK. I got to look through here like that. OK, this will be interesting. All right. Let's. Now, I'm hoping this is going to work. We tested stuff as best we could. And I'm hoping I'm gonna be able to hear it. So let, this is, hey, this first time folks. If this works, I'll give Rich all the credit. Sure, I thought of it today, but I'll give Rich all the credit. Let's see what happens. To the Lord, but Lord, who are you? When the people say to me, what is his name? What am I to say in response? Jehovah gives this enigmatic answer that has puzzled the theologians and the exegetes ever since. I am who I am. Tell them I am has sent you. And among all the other things, God is saying, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am the God who has come down to deliver you in redeeming power with my outstretched right hand. He is also saying to Moses, there is nothing that you can provide by way of analogy to describe who I am in the very quintessence of my being. I simply am. Sometimes, scholars suggest that the Hebrew mind was so different from the Greek mind that thoughts of the divine simplicity that seemed to be such a metaphysical, philosophical idea could never have been part of Old Testament Scripture's revelation. But the truth of the matter is that the Hebrew mind was perfectly capable of grasping metaphysical truth. It was just accustomed to grasping that metaphysical truth through the historical revelation of God in space and time. Now, let me just say, that's an important statement. It is commonly assumed that the Tanakh, the Hebrew scriptures, has a hopelessly muddled and simplistic metaphysical foundation. And I disagree with that, obviously. But what is different in the Hebrew mindset, he's right, they base their metaphysics upon what? divine revelation. So if we follow their lead, our concern should always be to be making sure that our metaphysics are derived from divine revelation. And when we discover that there is a tradition that maybe men we really, really, really respect in the past or even today hold that requires us to embrace a metaphysics not found in scripture? What should be our duty? Here, in this remarkable way, when God says to Moses, I am who I am, He provides, as it were, a space-time illustration of what that means in this bush that was burning and yet was not consumed. The fire that was in the bush present in the bush but preserving the bush. It was a symbol of God's redemptive power, but notice especially the fire that was in the bush but was not dependent on the bush for its energy to burn, a fire that was independent of that on which all fire depends, a fire that was in a bush without burning up the bush, a most pure fire, a fire that was nothing but fire, a fire that was not a compound of other energy sources but had its energy source in itself. As though God in this singularity were saying to Moses, Moses, in your pilgrimage here you will never encounter another analogy of who I am, the ever-living, ever-being God who cannot ultimately be described in any other terms than I am who I am. If you want to know who I am, then you cannot get to know who I am without knowing who I am. There is no other way." And so not surprising that he finds himself, as we're told in verse 6, hiding his face because he was afraid to look at God. As the philosopher Nietzsche said, sometimes in his ravings, sometimes expressing the truth of the human heart with stark simplicity, if this be God, how can I bear not to be this God because His very existence threatens the weakness of my existence? So what do we mean when we speak about the simplicity of God? We mean by the simplicity of God that God is not a compound of anything. God is not dependent upon His attributes for His being. God is not the consequence of those attributes being balanced together. Okay, now, let me... Again, normally, when this position is being presented, this is the argument that's being made. That God is not the sum total of his attributes. Agreed. Attributes are not things, they're not building blocks. You don't have wrath sitting over there, or justice sitting over there, or omniscience sitting over there, or infallibility over there. You can't buy any of it. You can't weigh any of it. They're true statements about God's being, but they don't make up God. You don't put a bunch of attributes together and get God. You can't take an attribute out and get something less than God. The only way you could take an attribute out of God is to lie, because they're true statements about God's being. which is why God is glorified in our seeing and understanding His attributes, because they speak truth about Him. They're perfectly balanced with one another. There is no division in God. He is not made up of lesser parts. All those things are true. Absolutely. No question about it. We haven't gotten to the extended assertion, have we? We haven't gotten to the part where you've got the chasm, you've got to jump over to then say, yeah, that means his omnipotence is his omniscience. That means his justice is also his grace. Where the distinction of those things, which God has glorified in our recognizing, ad extra, ad intra, has to disappear. I say to you, that is only because of a metaphysical consideration. There is nothing in the biblical teaching of attributes or anything else that requires that. What we just said, we can agree with, right? Okay. God simply is God. When the older theologians wrote about this and spoke about this, one of the things that they emphasized about this was that the simplicity of God harmonized beautifully with the attributes of God, that the simplicity of God harmonized perfectly with the trinity of God. that the simplicity of God evoked wonderfully doxology to God. And I want us, as we close our day, to meditate for a few minutes on these three things, the simplicity of God and His attributes, the simplicity of God and His trinity, the simplicity of God and our First of all, the simplicity of God and His attributes. The simplicity of God means this, that the being of God and the attributes of God are one with each other, that the essence of God's being and the attributes of God's possession are not two different things that by some kind of inner divine superglue are held together, but are in fact one and the same thing. God is his attributes. Now, this requires that metaphysical foundation Notice the illustration is super glued together. What are you doing? You are concretizing attributes. You're turning them into a substance that is then distinguished from the essence of God, and now God is complex. He's made up of stuff, and you've got to glue them together. I wasn't going to do this and next week I'll have another way of doing it even better. But I have it, so why not? I did some shopping. Now, if I was Joel Osteen, I would have punched through the bathroom wall. and made this a diamond. Rich, we'll be fine if we punch to the bathroom wall here. Not much. So I got, it's just a crystal. But let's, can we pretend it's a diamond? Can we do that? Let's pretend it's a diamond. And right now, there are a number of different lights shining on this. And as it moves, I'm seeing all sorts of different facets of it. I can see it reflecting on the, podium top in front of me, and there are different colors. All different colors of the rainbow are coming from this crystal. Now, the facets of the crystal are distinguishable to my eyes. The colors are different. The colors change depending on which lights and what's in the background. And there's yellows and greens and blues. It's very, very, very pretty. It's what they're sort of designed to be. Oh, hi. But it's only one crystal. And the yellows are really yellows. And the blues are really blues. And the greens are really greens. And is my assertion that there's only one indivisible crystal compromised when I recognize that, oh, that reflection's blue, and, oh, that reflection's yellow. No, because they're both true. I'm not dividing it up. I'm not saying it's made up of these things. They are true statements about its one being. So if we say God's being cannot be divided up into parts, and it's not made of lesser parts, but that it's very nature is such that to know it truly, we need to know God's omniscience. We need to know God's omnipotence. We need to know God's justice. We need to know God's wrath. We need to know these things, and God has revealed these things to us. That doesn't mean that it's not one crystal, does it? Why would it? Well, it would in the medieval period because the medievals functioned on an epistemology and metaphysics that basically said, if you could imagine it in your mind, then it exists in reality. So the entire ontological argument, the whole great making thing, the whole concept of that is based upon that kind of metaphysics. Nobody in the Bible functioned on that basis. So why should I? Why should I? That's what I'm asking. And it is not appropriate answer to say, because people in the past have. I am not saying you just throw out all of church history, by the way. I'm not. I'm saying that the filter through which you will best appreciate church history is that which is provided by the lens of Scripture, that which is theanoustos. And by the way, there is one thing that is theanoustos. The church is not theanustas. Creation and nature is not theanustas. There is one thing that is theanustas. Scripture. All scripture. Passagrafe theanustas. Once you start trying to expand that category, bad, bad things are going to happen. Bad, bad things. That's different from you and from me. You and I have attributes, but we lose one of that attributes. For example, we are kind and gentle and something happens to us and we become malicious and personally dangerous. We lose that attribute. People say, he used to be so characterized by kindness, but he's lost it all. It was too much for him and he lost it all. And yet you're still the same person. You're still the same man, the same woman. You are not identical with your attributes. Your essence and your attributes are two different things. But the essence of God's being is His attributes, and His attributes are His essence. It isn't that God has goodness. God is goodness. It isn't that God has holiness, it is that God is holiness. That the holiness that He has is the holiness that He is. And that the goodness He has, by which He is good, is actually the goodness that He is. That the attributes of God are not, as it were, attached to His being. This is what He is. Okay, up to this point again, we can agree with all of this. But behind this, we are hearing one thing. We recognize God is goodness. That it's not just simply something added to him from outside. We get that. But there's more to it to the metaphysics here. The metaphysics are insisting that existence in essence cannot be, again, we're going back to Thomas, okay? And there are a lot of problems that could be raised about this that we haven't even gotten into yet. I'm just wanting to respond to this particular aspect of it so you can see how it fleshes out. Because look, vast majority of people never heard of any of this before. And I'm not going to spend the rest of my life on it either, I can assure you that. But we do have people who, I mean, I've gotten some text messages like, so someone says you're not a Trinitarian anymore? Stuff like this, like, oh brother. So, and there's a lot of things I don't do well, but one thing I do do well is I can help explain difficult things so that a lot of people can understand it. And I think that's somewhat frightening to some people because I can, now, of course, if you do that, then people will accuse you of misrepresenting it. You're strawmanning it. That's not really, you know, it's how many times, you don't understand Molinism, blah, blah, blah. No, okay, fine, whatever. Same thing here. You just don't understand. You just haven't read enough. Had a young 20-something, you know, fellow, so you just need to sit down, listen, learn. Okay. Um, and there's everyone, all of us have things to be learning. No question about it. I try to keep doing that every single day. And, um, that's fine. That's wonderful. But you, you take away some of the language and help people understand what's really being said. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Yeah. Why, why do I have to believe that? Hmm. Interesting. Through and through. And the implication of that is, if you will follow me for a moment, that if His being and His attributes are one with each other, then His attributes and His attributes are also one with each other, which is to say that His goodness is His holiness, and His holiness is His goodness. And His righteousness is His holiness and His goodness, and His goodness is His holiness and His righteousness. And that these are not many things in God, as they are discrete and distinct things in you and in me, but these are one and the same thing in God. This is who God is. In a sense, we could say God has only one attribute. He has only one attribute. and his attribute is godness. All right, well, that's what happens when you make the leap to the other side of the chasm and you say all these things that God is intent, add extra. He didn't go into the add extra, add interest. Turretin did. I think Turretin felt the problem here. And so, add extra, God's attributes interact with each other. Have you thought about that? What does God's mercy and grace do? It fulfills his justice and therefore the necessary wrath that falls upon sin. So there's an interplay between two clearly differentiated in scripture attributes, right? But while we glorify God for what those two distinguishable, necessarily distinguishable, not just because we're temporal beings and not just because we use human language, the very essence of redemption at the cross means that God's justice is not his grace. They are related, they come from one God, they're absolutely in harmony with one another, but you have to distinguish between them. If you say they are the same thing, you cannot communicate anything to us to glorify God. And so this physician says, well, but that's just externally. So what we glorify God for, externally, is false in Him. That's what's being said. And when you ask why, and you ask, show us some scripture, well, that ought not be done. Not okay as in I'm gonna accept that, but okay, that's your position. We'll talk some more about it in the future. Okay, wow, we went long and it worked. Congratulations very, very much, yes. Well, that's going to be hard to do in what I have it playing on, but I'll do my best. I can't cue it up ahead of time, unfortunately. So I'm going to try to cue the music up here, but it's going to be a little bit difficult to do. Just keep it real low, Rich, and then I'll get it down there. How's that? But thanks for watching the program today. My sincere thanks to Rich Pierce for making this work. This is amazing that we got this to happen. This thing really, really does help to do this kind of discussion. And so I think it was great to be able to have it. And I do hope that you have a safe New Year's Eve. To certain dear brothers and friends of mine, look, If you blow your head off tonight, I get your Remarkable 2 tablet. I'll just use it as a backup. Just saying it, you know, just the way it is. Have a safe, enjoyable evening tonight. And as you're looking toward 2022, We have great challenges, but we have a greater God. Let us press forward together, and let us seek to advance His kingdom, even in very, very, very dark times. So thanks for watching the program today, and we will see you next time on The Dividing Line. God bless.