Okay, welcome to Theology Proper, which means really the study of God, the doctrine of God. We might say the nobility of God. We're going to simply look today at an introduction to theology proper. And I want to show you two things today. I want to show you the centrality of this doctrine and I want to show you the practicality or the right approach to this doctrine. So we'll begin by reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11. Matthew 11, 25 through 30. 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 has revealed him unto babes. Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my father, and no man knoweth a son but the father, neither knoweth any man the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Let's pray. glorious, knowable, yet unknowable God, holy, triune, filled with majesty, glory, beauty, and grace. We bow before Thee in these moments, Lord, to confess that Thou art Lord. And to confess that we enter into this subject that we call so simply, so matter-of-factly, theology proper, yet recognizing that this subject is limitless, beyond our grasp, and yet full of practicality, full of usefulness, full of beauty. Help us then, Lord, to approach this subject on bended knee, remembering that thou art the object of the subject, and that thou art holy, and we unholy. Let it be our cry, then, as we move through this class, our daily prayer, Teach me to know thyself, and teach me to know myself. Lord, help us in teaching. Help us in reflecting. Help us not to study the doctrine of God without knowing the God of the doctrine. But be near to us. Bless us as we move through this class. And when this class comes to a conclusion some three months from now, may we know Thee better and love Thee more and commune with Thee more habitually. O Lord, please don't let us go through a class like this without knowing Thee from heart to heart. and mind to mind. Be with each student. We commend especially the new students to thee. Lift them up, help them, be near to them, give them courage, perseverance, and give to each student what he needs to balance his life in this semester in a way that is well pleasing to thee. give organization and hard work and profitable prayer. We pray, too, Lord, for the seminary. We pray for the whole semester. I pray for my colleagues and the faculty. Grant us all what we need in this semester to have this school reflect Thy image and conform to thy Son, and honor thee. Be with us now, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I've given you two handouts. We'll walk through them a bit, and then we'll start lecturing. The first handout is called... The first outline is actually the one titled Systematic II, Theology Proper. It's titled II because Systematic Theology I is actually the prolegomena to theology. So here we're, even though this is often considered the first loci of theology, Theology Proper, it's the second class of systematic theology. It says classroom 1 up there, but this is actually classroom 2. We will be meeting in classroom 2. That was changed. Course description. The course considers the doctrine of God, which involves the knowability and being of God, the names and attributes of God, and the Trinity of God. But it will also include the works of God that flow out of His being. the divine decrees, and providence, and depending on our time at the end of the course, we will at least study to some degree the good and evil angels, which are usually considered in theology proper as well. Course objectives. By the end of this course, you should be able to understand and define the key terms of theology proper, explain the Reformed perspective on biblical, historical, and dogmatic issues, interact with alternative viewpoints, such as open theism, and offer arguments that support the Reformed perspective, understand the doctrine of the Trinity within its historical context, Be able to use that knowledge to refute modern attempts to diminish the exaltedness of this doctrine. You should be able to understand the centrality of the doctrine of Trinity for a host of things. Defend from scripture the Reformed faith on predestination and providence. and expound the scriptural doctrine concerning the angels, both unfallen and fallen, and preach on any part of theology proper. Textbooks for the course. I'm asking you to read a few chapters in Hermann Bavink, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2. We've got plenty of those on hand right now, if you don't have that yet. Also, Wilhelmus A. Brackel, several chapters there. Unfortunately, Fred Kloster's Kelvin's Doctrine of Predestination is out of print, I believe. I don't know if it's on the web or not, but you probably have several copies. in the library, I would think you could use those. Don't take it too long. Once you check it out, read it quickly so other students can have a chance. You might be able to get one at Cornerstone, across the street, at Calvin, if they're all checked out here. I might have an extra used copy in my study as well. So we'll kind of work together on this. It's a short book, 100 pages. It provides an incredibly well thought out, clear exposition of Calvin on predestination, the clearest thing I know of. You could probably read it in one night. It's not fast going, but it's not overwhelming either. The main textbook for the course is the Holy Trinity by Bob Lethem. I gave the bookstore about a month ago, make sure you get this in and I walked out there this morning to make sure there were 14 copies lined up on the shelf and someone slipped up somewhere. So we have only four copies right now. They're express mail and in order even as we speak this morning. So I'm sorry about that but hopefully within a week we'll have the remaining copies. So I'm assuming most of you probably don't have this. You can take this copy and the three hours on the shelf. And the rest of you will have to wait probably one week. You'll find Lethem to be extremely contemporary, but also very concise, very clear in his thinking. You'll love the textbook, I'm sure. And then I'd like you to read one of the following. Benjamin Farley, The Providence of God, which is not in print. You'd have to use a library copy. John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence, which is in print. Flavel is an old Puritan, of course. And this is a classic, The Mystery of Providence. Paul Helm has a book on The Providence of God that Paul Helm is a 70-year-old theologian today and a clear, profound thinker. And then there's a 19th century book by William Plummer on Providence, which is still available in print. So I believe the second and fourth of these are in print. I'm not sure about the Helm book. That may not be in print either. It is. It is in print? Okay. So we got the second, third, and fourth. We only got one of those that are not in print. And then, not to overwhelm you or frighten you, but to help you, I've given some recommended reading there as well. The way to use recommended reading is to At least that's the way I did it when I was in seminary. I would take most of what the professor gave me under recommended reading and just spend 5-10 minutes with each book, look through it, get a feel for it. If something really interested me, I'd make a note and maybe I'd do it during the summer and read a bit more or whatever. But these are not required for you to read. If you want to do nothing with this list, that's okay too. The other thing you might want to be aware of though is it's a handy list also for starting places for your paper. Because often you'll be taking a subject that will be related to this and the recommended reading list can help you get going. Basic course outline, you see it there in eight simple points. This morning we're going to try to cover point one already. We'll probably almost make it through, if not make it through. And then on Thursday, class meets the same time as on Tuesday, we'll be starting hopefully point two, the existence and being of God, and jumping right into the actual content. In terms of course requirements, this course will have a midterm and an exam. which are both 25% each, the midterm will simply cover to the point where we're at when we give it to you, where we're at in the lecture outlines. Final will not cover the whole course, but will cover from the midpoint to the end, so it won't be cumulative. And on the final exam, you notice the note there, I want you to just write down the percentage of the required readings that you actually read. So let's say you made it through 90% of it, you put 90% there. And that will factor in a little bit into your grade as well. If you only read 50%, it's obviously going to negatively impact you. But I'm trusting you to be honest with me there. Also 25% of the grade There's a 15-page paper on some aspect of theology proper. Right. 15-page paper on some aspect of theology proper. Normally, it's helpful, I'm saying this to your new students, it's helpful to just run by the topic with your instructor in any class that you do. Just shoot a little email, stop me after class and say, I'm thinking of doing this subject, what do you think? By the time you're in your third or fourth year, maybe you don't have to do that because you know about how much you can cover in 15 pages. But a common problem, particularly with beginning students, is they take too broad of a topic. For example, don't come up to me and say, I want to do the providence of God. That's a 500-page paper. If you want to come up to me and say, I want to do David Clarkson on the providence of God, I'd say, great. Or you say, I want to compare John Flavel and Paul Hillman, The Provenance of God. I'd say, well, that's alright, but remember they're writing in different centuries, how are you going to do that? It's a little awkward, but it might be okay. So you need to find a subject that really interests you, that you have passion about. that seems very intriguing to you and you have a love for it and a subject that can do not only your mind some good but hopefully your soul some good as well. I'll just go through seminary and take on subjects that are just out of mere intellectual curiosity. Do something that will do you good and that later on you can use in some way for the church. They can do the church good. We're not in seminary just to play around and satisfy our academic intrigues. We're in seminary because we want to serve the church of Jesus Christ. And normally what serves the church of Jesus Christ is what serves you. If it feeds your soul, it will probably feed the church. So try to pick subjects. that will benefit you and benefit, by extension, the church one day. All right. Are there any questions about course requirements or the outline? Also let me say for the new students, what we're doing, because we are videoing these courses, rather than have you raise your hand and ask questions right in the middle of a sentence or so, We're lecturing, at least this is two of my courses, I'm not sure how the other professors do it. I'm lecturing from an outline, that's the second item I've given you, and when I get to breaking points, I'll say, now are there any questions? If questions pop up and you're afraid you're going to forget them until I ask you seven minutes later, just type them right into your notes in capital letters or something and when I say questions, you can just go right back to it and raise the question. That's the best way to ask questions. Plus, even if we weren't videoing it, I often find that when you interrupt a professor and ask a question in the middle of him explaining something, about eight times out of ten, we're actually going to get to that in the next couple of minutes anyway, particularly if it's a good question, because a good question, well, hopefully the professor is smart enough to get to that as well. So you'll find that some of the questions that will pop into your mind, by the time we actually conclude that point, we'll actually have answered them. All right, any questions at this point? Yes, sir. I noticed that you have a rather busy schedule. Yes. Are there any days that we need to be aware of? Yeah, I'll work with those with you next week. I'll have that all put together next week, Tuesday. But this week is normal. So we'll take a week at a time here, but I will work that up with you. We'll have to reschedule just a couple classes. All right, the other outline I gave you is actually a full outline of the course. I just noticed this morning that on my original outline, all the Greek and Hebrew words, I've actually written them in hand. And they're blank. For example, on page 7, you see a lot of blanks. You see the transliteration. By the time we get to that point, I will probably type them in, in Hebrew and Greek, and then I'll hand you out a new outline. But outside of that, this outline should be really pretty complete, and I hope you'll find it helpful as you go along. If you want me to email it to you, I'm getting your e-mails right now. How many of you would like me to e-mail this to you that you'd actually put it up as you take notes and you can insert things? It was available on Moodle. Oh, is that Moodle? Okay, very good. Alright, ready to jump in? Let's look then, first of all, at an introduction, and this introduction will take me, I believe we have to 10.05, it will take me the whole time, because there are several things I want to say. First of all, I want to say something about the centrality of the doctrine of God, and how important it is to develop a right approach to the study of the doctrine of God. No other area has such potential for such exceeding riches as the doctrine of God. And no other area has such potential to lead us into tragic snares as the doctrine of God. In one sense, we could ask the question, even from the beginning, how can we speak about God when God is so much greater than we are? How can we speak about God without actually thinking that in some way we're becoming level with God or actually becoming God? You see, all other subjects that we tackle, in any branch of education, in one degree or another, tend to be an expression of what our knowledge is and our mastery is. But when we come to speak of God, we know from the beginning we cannot master this subject. We can only go as far as revelation goes. God's revelation in the Bible. And even that is a challenge to fully grasp all that scripture is saying about God. So we approach this subject with a humble heart. We approach it on bent knees, asking, teach me, Lord, who thou art. Now when it comes to the division of the subject, you notice we're first going to look at the being or existence of God, and under that section we'll take a fairly brief look at some of the so-called theistic proofs. Then we'll look at the knowability and the incomprehensibility of God. as well as his spirituality and after that we're going to have a long section on the attributes of God and the names of God and the Trinity and we'll just see how critical the attributes of God are to our thinking about who God is and how critical the Trinity is to the whole of the Christian gospel. And then the last weeks of the course will move into the purposes and the works of God. We'll talk about God's decree, and then more specifically about election and reprobation, and then about providence and miracles. And then hopefully at the end of the course, We'll come back to the whole theme of doxology where we begin by talking about the angels who praise God. And probably have one lesson also on the devils. All right, so first we're going to look then at the centrality of the doctrine of God. I suppose we can begin at no better place than where John Calvin begins in his institutes. And that beginning, interestingly, of Calvin remains virtually unchanged from his original 1536 institutes through all the revisions to the 1559 institutes. I notice in his recent book, Hermann Seldeheis in the so-called Calvin Handbook actually argues that the institutes really in this development are three different books because Calvin added so much and changed so much and that we shouldn't just call them different versions. I found that rather intriguing. But isn't it amazing that the very beginning Calvin doesn't change? 1536, 1539, all the way to 1559. Basically what he says is nearly all the wisdom, this is his opening words, nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom consists of these two parts, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. When I was a child, my parents had us read every Sunday afternoon for quite a while, a spiritual book. And I remember my mother giving me, oh, maybe I was nine years old, ten years old, a little book called The Memoirs of Suki Harley. I think it's been reprinted again now. A very, very simple woman. She couldn't read. But the Lord began to work in her soul. And she became very concerned about her eternal state. But she didn't know where to begin or where to end. So she simply got on her knees and she kept praying to the Lord over and over again. Lord, make me to know thyself. And make me to know myself. And this woman in this simple way is reflecting really what Calvin says here. This is what we need to know. Sometimes Christianity gets pretty complex. But here you see it boiled down, you see, to its profound simplicity. And Calvin then says, I really don't know what to begin with. Really, it's a struggle for me because I talk about man. If I begin with man, you see, how can you begin with man without beginning with God, his Creator? If I begin with God, But you don't connect it to man. How can I keep God from being isolated from us? Well, you've got to begin somewhere. And since God's our creator, I think I'll just begin there. But really, he's saying the two are always interfaced. So there's a sense in which this course is a little bit artificial as well. Because you see, theology proper, the study of God, and theological anthropology, the study of man, actually belong together. And we're separating them into two courses because there's so much to talk about. But let's remember, all course long, we're studying God, not just simply in isolation, but who He is in relationship to us. and that we need to know ourselves as we know Him. And it's as we know ourselves and our sinfulness and our need that we will appreciate Him the more. Now, what Calvin is really saying here is that because we are made as the image of God, it is definitive of our nature, you could even say endemic in our nature, that we cannot truly say anything accurately about ourselves unless it is contextualized within this orbit of God's being and our knowledge of him or to put it another way To be truly human, to be fully human, is to be theocentric. And to be theodependent. So by bringing these two together, Calvin is actually saying, isn't he, that by very definition, we humans are called to be theologians theologians and that the whole of our lives in one form or another is really a matter of theology so we call this subject theology proper because Theo of course means God and Logos means to study so we're studying God and God himself then is the supreme proper object of theology so our very humanity demands theology In fact, Paul in the Bible actually makes clear at various places, Romans 1, Romans 2, that when we strive to be egocentric and anthropocentric, man-centric, rather than theocentric, rather than God-centric, even then we are still theological creatures. Even then we cannot escape the knowledge of God. We can try to suppress it, Paul says, and just live for ourselves and act as if God doesn't exist. But we can never escape the fact that God made us to be image bearers. And we have to reflect a knowledge of God. In fact, every thought of the human heart, every action of mankind, is really at its root a theological thought, a theological action, because we can't ever do anything that doesn't somehow relate to God. That's why Kuyper used to say, all of life is religious. So, theology proper, The whole subject we're about to plunge into really is at the very center of our existence. It's not something out there. It's something that is intimately interwoven with who we are. So to do theology means to think and to live in a way that is centered upon God. To think and to live in a way that is centered upon God. That's why when you go back to the old 16th, 17th century Puritans, for example, They were insistent that to do theology is to live well. Isn't that interesting? Theology for them was really a kind of science of living unto God. How to live well. Because they were saying, You can't live well without thinking well. And you can't think well without your thoughts centering upon God. And so our need to have communion with God, real communion with a real God, which is the only way to live well, necessarily involves studying who God is, prayerfully, carefully, scripturally. And isn't this exactly what the Bible says, distinguishes the believer from the unbeliever, the godly from the ungodly, the godly has God in all his thoughts, says the psalmist. the psalmist also says elsewhere that the ungodly banishes God from all his thoughts so that's the tragedy of the ungodly his eyes are ever turned away from the Lord and Psalm 25 says the eyes of the righteous are ever on the Lord So you can't live well without focusing on God. Now that doesn't mean that the believer doesn't ever think about anything other than God. But rather, rather it means that the believer is dominated by the fact that he or she thinks out of a center that is theocentric. A believer thinks of all things as coming from God and being related to God. So when an affliction comes, for example, a believer doesn't just say, oh well, this is just chance or fate. No, but as he ponders it, he realizes this is from God. This is related to God. Everything is related to God. Joys, prosperity, adversity, whatever the case may be. That's why, therefore, that when the New Testament speaks about our restoration in Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit, whereby we become new creations in Christ, that this new creation that we become, or this new humanity that we join, doesn't only restore us, in the image of God according to righteousness and holiness as Ephesians 4.24 says but also restores us in the knowledge of God as Colossians 3.10 says that we put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him so when you're born again You become God's prophet again. You become His image bearer, His prophet, and you get restored to the knowledge of God who created you. Now that is not to say that the unbeliever ceases to think theologically, even though he's trying to push God away. In a sense, he cannot but think in a theological way, because he knows deep down that everything is related to God, even though he's trying to suppress it. But what he's doing is he's thinking in an anti-divine way. He's thinking in a way that resists God, in a way that is fundamentally distorting who God is. All of this then just simply proves the age-old maxim that Augustine gave us, and you know his quote very well. Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee. So this internal restlessness, even in the natural man, should tell us all how important it is to be centered on God. Now, this general proposition that I've just given you, that the knowledge of God is the central issue of life, I want to break down now into four propositions. And you can see them on the outline. Principle number one. The knowledge of God is the greatest privilege that we possess. The greatest privilege that we possess. Think of that in connection with Jeremiah 9 verses 23 and 24. Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord. which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things," notice this, "'I delight.'" "'I delight,' saith the Lord." Jeremiah is saying here, in Jeremiah 9, 23-24, implicitly at least, that boasting is embedded in our humanity. That is to say, the very instinct to boast is divinely created. But by nature we've corrupted that, you see, so that we tend to boast in our wisdom or our strength or our riches which is of course to turn the truth of God into a lie and to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator because the instinct that God put in us to boast was an instinct that was created to operate in one direction only to operate looking to God let him that glorieth glory only in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord our boast is to be in God and Paul makes that abundantly clear doesn't he in 1st Corinthians 1 verse 31 as well where he picks up these words of Jeremiah he applies them to the life of the believer he says this is our boast let him that glorieth glory in the Lord Alright, do we have any questions on this first principle and the introductory words? Alright, let's look at principle number two. Principle number two. The knowledge of God lies at the heart of the covenant promise of God. Knowledge of God lies at the heart of the covenant promise. What that means is that insofar as we recognize the covenantal structure of divine revelation in the Bible, the focus of that covenantal structure is the privilege of knowing God. It's always covenantal language when you read something like this, and Jeremiah has a lot of it. You are my people and I am your God. That knowledge, or my people shall know me. It's covenantal language. That the heart, you see, of this covenantal promise, therefore, is this knowledge of God. So that in the covenant, What God is doing is He's binding Himself to us, and therefore binding Himself to revealing who He is to us, that we may know Him. And we bind ourselves to Him, so that there's fellowship, there's communion. And this is really the telos, The telos or the end goal we could say, the end point, the ultimate goal of the covenant itself. Particularly the new covenant forged in Jesus Christ. In fact that's what Jeremiah says. in the Old Testament prophecy of the coming new covenant in Jeremiah 31 verse 34 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more so certainly the fulfilling of the promise of the new covenant There it involves the forgiveness of sin and pardon, which is important, of course, is not, however, the telos of the covenant. Forgiveness and pardon are means to a greater end of restored fellowship with God so that we may know God. And this is, of course, always the be-all and the end-all of real relationship, isn't it? I was talking with someone the other day, trying to establish a long-distance relationship for a couple of years with someone with a view to marrying that person. And the person said to me, it's difficult to have this long-distance relationship Email helps, telephone helps, Skype helps, all this stuff helps, but I want to really get to know this person. You see, that's the goal of all relationships, to get to know. So, this comes out, you see, in Jeremiah 31. I will forgive their iniquity. I will remember their sin no more. And then comes the telos of that forgiveness. They shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them saith the Lord. You find the same principle in Jeremiah 24 verse 7. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. Now, what's in view here? Well, apparently, what is in view is some transition from the old covenant to the new covenant knowledge of the Lord. In the new covenant, the primary distinguishing feature is that it will no longer be necessary for a man to teach his neighbors, brother to know the Lord, because they will all know me. So there seems to be a new emphasis in the mode in which that knowledge is mediated to us. Let me explain what I mean by that. in the old covenant under the Mosaic administration. The knowledge of God is mediated to the people through prophets, priests, and maybe even you could say through kings. If you think for example of Amos that he says the Lord does nothing without revealing his secrets to his servants, the prophets. So the prophets had an intimacy of acquaintance with the secret purposes of God which the general people of God did not have you find the same kind of thing with priestly activity not all the people of God have access to the holiest place just the priests could go into the holy place and only one priest, the high priest could go into the holy of holies so the access to the direct knowledge of God under the old covenant administration for the common person had a second-hand character about it a second-hand character Not that that second-hand character wasn't real. Just like today, you can go out and buy second-hand things in a second-hand store and they can be pretty good. So the second-handedness doesn't diminish the actual contents of the knowledge, but it does diminish the intimacy of that knowledge. Think about it this way. You hear about somebody from somebody and you form conceptions, you form right knowledge. It's great. But if you really want to get to know that person, what do you say? I've got to meet him. I've got to meet him myself. I've got to take him out to lunch. I can't do it over email. I can't do it. I've got to meet the person face to face. So that's what happens under the New Covenant, you see. The Holy Spirit is poured out as the Messianic Spirit, the Spirit, with a capital S, of the Prophet, Priest, and King upon all people, upon all those who belong to the Lord. So that in the New Covenant, we don't have mediated access by Prophets, Priests, and Kings, but we have immediate access to the knowledge of God through the God-man, Jesus Christ, who is Himself God. And for that reason, we're brought into the intimacy of knowing God. And that's why John 17.3 says this is life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. You have to understand, of course, and I think most of you know that already, that the very word to know in Greek, as well as in Hebrew, is a very intimate term. Unfortunately, we have just general terms for knowing today, so we can say, I know that's a tree, I know that's a robin, I know that this is Kyle Borg, and I know I love my wife, and I know God, and we use the same word for all of that. To know that's a tree isn't a very intimate, heart-rending experience, is it? To know my wife, intimately, is much deeper. To know God, intimately, in Jesus, is deepest of all. And you see, that's the beauty of the New Covenant. and that's why John says in 1st John 2.27 the anointing which ye have received of him abides in you you need not that any man teach you you see he's picking up actually from Jeremiah's promise but as the same anointing teaches you of all things and is truth and is no lie even as they have taught you you shall abide in him now About this point you might wonder, well, why am I in theological seminary if I don't need any man to teach me? But that's not the point, you see. The point is not that you don't need to be taught, but the point is that you, through human teaching, through ministers, through seminary, through means that God uses, you may be helped along the way in coming to know the Savior more directly. But it's not what I can give you that's going to bring you in itself into the intimacy of that knowledge. It's only as you meditate on truth and come to God in Jesus Christ that you will come directly into the intimacy of this knowledge. So the privilege of knowing God lies at the center of our covenantal fellowship with God. Now that leads me to the third principle. That the knowledge of God is central to salvation. Salvation in Jesus Christ. You see, salvation is not just a matter of justification or just a matter of forgiveness. Salvation is far more. Salvation is not just having my sins wiped away and having a clean slate before God, but salvation is relationship with God, reconciliation with God, restoration with God, fellowship with God, knowing God. That's why Jesus said, that's why I read to you Matthew 11 at the beginning of this hour, Jesus said that he's so happy for God has revealed these things to babes and that through God's revelation in Jesus sinners like you and me can come to know God through His Son with the same knowledge not in its infinite dimensions, but the same essence of knowledge with which the Son knows the Father. That was an amazing thought. That's why Jesus says in the middle of this passage, you notice, All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. So what Jesus is saying, actually, is this. There's a kind of three-stage development that makes us understand why the knowledge of God is central to salvation. First, there is a mutual and apparently exclusive inter-trinitarian knowledge. That is to say, a knowledge among the Trinity itself, in which the Father's good pleasure is to hide from those who think they have no need of revelation, but also to reveal to babes something of that relationship due to His gracious will. So on the one hand you first think, well this is an exclusive knowledge between the father and the son. But then you're told this amazing, tell us, this amazing end of all knowledge of God, that we are made as the image of God, in order that we can come to know God, and taste some of that fellowship with God that the Father and the Son possess together in their uncreated form. This is the miracle of salvation. This is underlined for us as you move on to verse 28 in this passage, which is often, by the way, ripped out of its context, when Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. This is, of course, a gospel proclamation, but it's more than that. These words actually are embedded in the midst of Jesus talking about divine election and his conviction about the knowledge of God being the center of the Christian gospel. And so Jesus says, come unto me and I will bring you into this wonderful knowledge. Knowledge that goes beyond created form. And you will know the Father. The sum of the degree of intimacy with which I know the Father. It's as if he says, come. Let me take your hand. Let me lead you into the presence of the Father. You who are weary and heavy laden with your sin. And I will show you my Father. And I will help you know my Father. For He has seen me and knows me. Sees and knows the Father. It brings us into holy intimacy. Holy familiarity. This is the heart of the Gospel. The knowledge of God is what salvation is all about. Now, you see this both in Johannine and in Pauline literature again and again. I've already mentioned in John, the text John 17 verse 3, this is critical. you see because in John 17 we have the high priestly prayer of Jesus we have this intimate prayer talking about the relationship of the Father and the Son this unveiling in this prayer also of the burdens that lay in the heart of the Savior and within this context he speaks about his desire to have disciples disciples who will live eternally and he tells us this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent so in a sense John 17 3 is the apex of all the Johannine revelation because this chapter represents the climax of intimacy of the father and the son fellowshipping together and here you you have the promise, the guarantee that sinners will enter into that enjoyment that enjoyment by which they will realize that virtually the Father and the Son in terms of intimacy and fellowship with God almost become like synonyms for he has seen the Father through Jesus Christ really comes to know the Father now interestingly John later on in his first epistle ties this all together with assurance of faith he says 1st John 2 verse 3 and hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments so we know him not only intimately by his bringing us into the presence of the Father through the Word revealed to our souls by the Spirit but we continue to want to know him better as we fellowship with him also through obeying him keeping his commandments you see once again John here is saying that the knowledge of God is coterminous with eternal life. You find the same theme in 1 John 2.13.14 when he describes those as fathers, that is those who have some spiritual maturity, as those who know God in Jesus Christ. So again, you get the essence of salvation in knowing God through Jesus Christ. Now Paul says similar things. Paul teaches us repeatedly in his epistles that to be a believer is to come to know God. And to be an unbeliever is not to know God. In fact, says Paul, conversion itself has as its center a movement away from the wisdom of this world in which we don't know God, to knowing God through Jesus Christ. and most vividly I think this comes out in 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 6 where he says for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in the face of Jesus Christ Another place where Paul underscores this in a powerful way is Galatians 4 verses 8 and 9, where he puts the antithesis between faith and unbelief precisely in terms of this knowledge. And then he nuances for us what that knowledge means. This is what he says. I'll put in my own words. He says, formerly you were in bondage. Why were you in bondage? Because you did not know God. This is Galatians 4, 8 and 9. So I find that interesting, don't you think? Paul places the whole of the unconverted life, the ungodly life, the faithless life, the unbelieving life, he places it all under this rubric, under this expression, not knowing God. And then he says here, instead you were slaves. you were slaves. How be it then when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods." You're slaves to your own lusts, you're slaves to your own little gods, your own priorities. But then notice as he goes on to verse 9, Galatians 4, 9 now. Notice the antithesis. What does it mean then to be converted? But now, but now he says, after that ye have known God. See there, that's the decisive thing. Or rather, then he uses an interesting expression. Or rather, I've known of God. How do you turn again to the weak and beggary elements when unto you desire again to be in bondage? So to be converted, Paul is saying, means to be brought to the knowledge of God. That knowledge of God comes to us through being known of God. In other words, this knowledge of God isn't something that we get credit for. But it's something that's real. And it actually flows from being known of God. So Paul brings these two things together. I have real knowledge of God because God knows me in an intimate saving way. I may in turn through Jesus know Him in an intimate saving way. So This knowledge of God involves my whole being, my whole being being exposed to being known of God. Of course, we have that everywhere in the Bible, don't we? That believers want to be known of God, they want to be honest with God, search me O God, know my heart. So, when I'm known of God, who I am, I can in turn, if God knows me intimately, by His grace, through His Son, by His Word, by His Spirit, by faith, know this great God. This is the essence of salvation, knowing God. I heard Sinclair Ferguson at a conference recently say, If Packer hadn't taken the title for his classic, Knowing God, and John Calvin had thought about it in his own day, he probably would have named the institutes of the Christian religion, Knowing God. That's a rather anachronistic statement, to say the least. But you get the point. Really, this is what theology is all about. Knowing God. Well, the last principle, then, a very brief one, and then I'll open for questions again, is that this is the key also to Christian growth, knowing God. This is implicit in everything we've said so far. For example, in Colossians 1, verse 10, when Paul prays for the Colossians, whom, by the way, he has never met, he prays that they might bear fruit in every good work. And he sees growth in the knowledge of God as a precondition of that bearing fruit in every good work. He says this, that ye might walk worthy, Colossians 1.10, of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. And again, Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, says, Ephesians 1.17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. Peter 2 speaks about the grace and peace that are ours through the knowledge of God 2 Peter 1 verse 2. So the knowledge of God works out fruits that cause us to grow in the Christian life. So the knowledge of God is the big epicenter of our salvation. But that knowledge is vindicated, ratified as being true, as the believer bears false fruits. And when the believer can see the fruits that the Holy Spirit has worked in him through the knowledge of God, he can look at those fruits and say, and this is of course going back to John now again, I am a child of God. I do know God. The fruits of my life evidence that I know God. And of course, that is absolutely critical in our study of God. Because if, and I mentioned that in prayer, in one way or another, didn't I? If we don't grow in our knowledge of God through studying God, well, what have we gained? So if you come to the end of this class, come first week of December, and you have to look back and say, I don't know God any better than when I began. What did it profit you? That's why this subject is so daunting and yet so exciting. It's got so much possibility. Because as we talk about God together, if God blesses it, just think, come December, you may know your Creator better than you know Him now. If that's the fruit of this class, it will be an unforgettable class, it will be a tremendous class for you. But if we keep God at arm's distance the whole class, and we just study Him, in G.I. Packer's words, as a spectator, we don't get out in the playing field. He called it a spectator knowledge of God. You keep your distance. You watch what God does, but you remain uninvolved. You don't enter into the wrestling. You know Jacob. You're in the stands, you're distant. If that's all we do in this class, you may get an A at the end of the semester, but in God's book, you really got an F. So what's the right approach to the doctrine of God? Well, four quick things as we wrap up here today. The first is a posture of dependency. A posture of dependency. We approach this subject not as talkers, but as listeners. We approach this subject of the knowledge of God saying with Samuel, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. That is of course the challenge of all our theological education, that we stop talking to the Bible, telling the Bible what the Bible says, and we start listening to the Bible. You see we are so depraved by nature that there are so many levels, multiple layers of cognitive sinfulness in us. that we need to be stripped of all that and be made students of the Word and really listen to what God says in His Word and be entirely dependent on God so that we don't make a God in our image. You know this is the the joke about the crest for the historical Jesus that was often told of liberal New Testament scholars. They were looking down in a well to discover the historical Jesus that was said. They wrote their books on the historical Jesus, but the books really were nothing but a reflection of their own face looking into the well. They made a god after their own image. But we can do the same thing today. And you know how people do it today? You can hear it when their sentences start out like this. Well, the way I like to think about God is... My friend, the way you like to think about God is totally irrelevant. The question is, what does God say about God in the scriptures? That's why we must study the doctrine of God, because we must study what he says about himself in the scriptures to understand and to know him. Praying that what we learn and what we know about him, not that we will master it, but that it will master us. Secondly, we need not only to come to this subject with dependency, but with humility and repentance. You know, the sinless seraphim, to cover their faces, veil their faces before this holy God. Sinless seraphim. their faces before uncreated holiness and if this is so how astonishing it is that the same Isaiah is able to speak forth the word that the Holy One of Israel says He not only dwells in the high and holy place but He also dwells with those who are of contrite and lowly in spirit My friend, if the knowledge of God doesn't make you humble, it's not the knowledge of scripture. Baving puts it so well in your reading assignment. He says this, it is absolutely necessary that the person who cultivates any branch of knowledge first of all and most of all studies to be modest and humble. And this applies particularly to the theologian. He should not think of himself more highly than he ought to think. And so in theology, as we study God, we must pray for humility, that we might think God's thoughts after himself, after the manner of his own revelation, rather than create our own thoughts about him, and that we must do so with intellectual and emotional repentance, being sinners in his presence. But thirdly, the Seraphim, even as they were humble, praised him. Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts. So our attitude must not only be one of humility, but at the same time one of doxology. In fact, humility and doxology well belong together. Where there's true humility, there's always worship and praise and doxology. That's one of the sub-themes of the book of Revelation. the worship of heaven which people are constantly bowing in humility before God is a worship of doxology praising him who is and who was and who is to come praising the aseity the aseity of God or more modern word that's often used is independency but you should be familiar with this word this great aseity that God is absolutely independent of all creation, that He possesses His being in Himself and not from any other. So the church praises Him. The great and glorious, independent God declares with the psalmist, One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. and to inquire in his temple. For the psalmist to see the beauty of God is really the apex of knowing, knowing him. I was once preaching a sermon in the Netherlands and I preached on the application of the beauty of God And I was no sir in the concession room or the session room and a man came through the door with great intensity. I didn't know who he was. I found out later he was a fellow minister. But there were tears in his eyes and he came straight for me and he said, thank you so much for preaching the beauty of God. I said, we don't hear much about that today. inseparable from knowing God. When we know Him, we see His beauty, and we're enamored with it. We're overwhelmed by it. We're taken up by it. Into praise, into doxology. And you see, this is what we need to grow in. Not just this semester, but this is what we need to grow in. All our lifetime, if you men are going to go out to be ministers of the gospel, you are really devoting yourself to a lifetime of studying to know God. Your entire life is theology proper. And the more you can grow in this, not only the more will your spiritual life prosper, but the more your ministry will prosper as well. And you know what I find encouraging? Even the Lord Jesus Christ in his human nature grew in this. I say that with reverence. But you remember that even as a 12 year old he said to his parents, you should have known that I would be in my father's house. You should have known that I would be growing in the knowledge of God. In Luke 2 verses 41 through 52 is a picture of Jesus as the growing theologian. We're told that he grows in favor with God and with man. He's growing in maturity, growing in his humanity, growing in terms of his personal relationship and his humanity with the Father. Increasing. Increasing. In this sense, he's really the model theologian for us. Seeking to know his father better with an attitude of profound humility. Jonathan Abrams also illustrates this well. You know, at one point in his journal, he's so caught up with his own meditations on the being of God. And he says, I found it necessary to sing my meditations while riding on my horse. Isn't that something? The cognitive knowledge of God, which he came to possess, was so married to doxology, that he began to sing his meditations. Have you ever done that? Meditating on God is so sweet, and you just start breaking out into singing what you're meditating on. He put it elsewhere like this, God has appeared glorious to me on account of the Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced have not been those that have arisen from the hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel. Edward saw the beauty of God. So he knew God. Well, finally, we come to this whole subject with a pastoral emphasis as well. The knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourselves, said Calvin, are inextricably interlinked. And you see this everywhere in the Bible. If you take just one psalm, I'll just give you one example, and then we'll be done. Psalm 102. Psalm 102. If you look at the first 11 verses of this psalm, it's kind of like a downward spiral, as several psalms are at the beginning. To the point at which the believing psalmist is saying about God, Thou hast lifted me up, exalted me, and now, well, it's almost as if he's saying, Thou hast discarded me. It's almost like, well, He's saying, like a child with a new toy. Thou hast enjoyed me, but now thou art tired of me. Thou hast cast me aside. Thou art looking for something new. He's discouraged, you see. He's depressed. He's desolate. He feels desolate. But you see, it's a lie. It's a lie. There are lies in the Bible. Not because God is a liar, but because God's record of human experiences is a true record. And so in the psalm it says, because of thy indignation and thy wrath, in verse 10, thou hast lifted me up and cast me down, or as the original has it more, cast me away. It's not true. Because God's covenant faithfulness and God's character and knowing God reveals that God never does that to his people. He doesn't cast them away. He recovers them. And how does he recover them? By their rediscovery of truth about him and his character. And so the psalmist goes back to his Bible, back to his covenantal relationship with God, and you see him marching through this psalm slowly but surely and meditatively. He returns to the revealed truth about the character of God, about his covenantal relationship with God, and that lifts him up spiritually and psychologically to, by the point of the end of the psalm, he's affirming what he denied in the beginning and in the middle of the psalm. It's almost as if he says by the end of the psalm, you know, in the middle of this psalm I was telling you there wasn't a covenant and now I know again that there is a covenant and God will be my God even to my children and to my children's children. Where does he get this from? He rediscovers in his meditations who God is and he refocuses on his deliverance. So there's a very pastoral direction here. When we get hold of a right doctrine and a right knowledge of God, it is pastorally uplifting. And if this is true for the psalmist in the Old Testament era, how much more true is it now for us today, we who live in the light of the full and final revelation of God, given to us in the revealed Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, I hope through this lecture this morning, in an introductory way, you see the centrality now of the doctrine of God and you see properly the attitude with which we ought to approach this doctrine. All right, we've got five minutes here for or three minutes for questions. Yes, Marty. I think we'd all agree on the importance of Christ-centric preaching. Is there a way of abusing that and failing to preach God? Yes, there is. Theologians have labeled it as Christomanism. where the Father and the Spirit are ignored. And of course, that was Calvin's valuable contribution to theology proper, is that he really brought everything back into a very Trinitarian focus. And then the Puritans took that even further and showed the Trinitarian-ness of all theology. And sometimes you do hear preachers that it seems like they're almost Christo-monistic, just talking about Jesus only. At the same time, of course, we have to reckon with statements like Paul, 1 Corinthians 2, 2, don't we? I'm determined to know nothing among you except Jesus and Him crucified. And as we work with that, we realize that to preach Christ really ultimately is to preach the triune God, if you preach Christ rightly. And to preach the trium God is actually, Talbot would tell you, to preach the trium God is also to preach Christ. So when he was preaching about the Father, he thought he was also preaching Christ. And this all ties in together with the whole idea of John 14 verse 6, He who has seen me has seen the Father. So there is an intimacy of connection. But there still can be a danger. You still can preach Christ in a way in which it seems like the Father is just marginalized and the Spirit is marginalized. I think that can be problematic. But when you're preaching the fullness of Christ, of course, the Spirit longs to reveal Christ, the Father gets to delight in Christ. Yes, Christological preaching can also be Trinitarian preaching, but you need to ask yourself What is the fruit of such preaching? When people walk out of church, do they just say, what a wonderful Savior we have? That's a good thing, of course. Or do they also say, what a wonderful God we have, who gives such a glorious Son? So you need to examine your own heart that way. What the fruit of your own preaching is. Any other questions? Okay.