Okay, this is lecture number six in our series on Christology for the Clareston Theological Seminary's Remington Extension. We're talking about Christophanies, about theophanies, the Old Testament appearances of God. I was stating that one of my professors believed that every Old Testament appearance of God, every theophany, is a Christophany, an Old Testament appearance of Christ. And Eric Purcell wrote up John 1, verse 18, which really settles the case. John 1, verse 18. That reads, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God is in the bosom of the Father. He has explained them. Now, let me say this. The only begotten God, if that word is theos, God, it needs to be translated, should be translated, God, the only begotten. In other words, God, the second person of the Trinity, the only member of the Trinity who became a man, was begotten as a man. He has explained it, but there are a lot of manuscripts that aren't as old as this manuscript that this is based on, that says the only begotten Son. Son in the Greek is kweos, and theos, in the Greek are very similar, so somebody made a mistake there with some copies. But even if it's the only begotten Son, it still sells it. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. So it would be saying, no one has seen the triune God at any time, but the one who has explained Him, the member of the Trinity, that it's His job to explain the Father to us, to explain the triune God to us, that is the Son. And so that would pretty much settle the issue there. Now, in today's lecture, oh by the way, we're still going to need to look at the Old Testament types. The animal sacrifices. Number one, the animal sacrifices. Every animal sacrifice. The Hebrews tells us over and over again, the book of Hebrews, that our sins could never be forgiven by the bloodshed of animals. But the animal sacrifices were tight, they pointed forward, they foreshadowed Jesus Christ that someday he would come, he would be the perfect lamb of God who would die and be sacrificed, take away the sins of the world. Animal sacrifices. Number two, the Passover lamb. That was one animal sacrifice that was the ultimate animal sacrifice, the Passover lamb. The blood of the Lamb was applied to the doorposts of all the Jews so that when the angel of death would go by and slay the oldest, the firstborn son of every Egyptian household, he would pass over for judgment the Jewish household because of the blood of the Lamb. Same with us, we're passed over for judgment by the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. The tabernacle furniture, we don't have time to break down all the individual parts of the tabernacle furniture, but they are symbolic of certain things. One portion is symbolic of Jesus Christ as the water of the living water. Another part is Jesus Christ as the table of showbread would be symbolic of Jesus Christ as the bread of life. The Ark of the Covenant would be symbolic of the holiness of God, but it's covered with the mercy seeds of the mercy of Christ, with the tabernacle and temple furniture. The Jewish feasts, the Jewish feasts, like the Feast of Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, First Ruth, Pentecost, we're not down the line, it's seven Jewish feasts. Now, we don't have time to get into them individually, but each one of them speaks about some part of Christ's ministry. There's so many different types in the Old Testament, things that foreshadow Christ, including people. I mean, even the nation of Israel. There's some Jews today who no longer are waiting for the Messiah. They said they gave up on the Messiah, and they're convinced that the Jewish nation is the Messiah. And we listened to that, and we laughed, and we said, that sounds weird. But even the nation of Israel was a foreshadowing, was a type of the Messiah. Israel was in bondage, and then she was in the promised land. There was the suffering, and then the glory. Israel right now, because they rejected Christ, they're in turmoil and being persecuted in suffering. So the day is going to come when Christ returns, and then comes the glory, the millennial kingdom, where the nation of Israel will be the greatest nation on earth. The suffering, then the glory. You look at Christ, The suffering, the first time He came was to die on the cross for a sin. The next time He's coming in power and glory to reign forever. The suffering and the glory. See, even the nation of Israel is an Old Testament type of Christ. Adam, the first Adam, was an Old Testament type of Christ. The founder of the race. That's why Jesus is the last Adam. In the first Adam all physically lived. Of course, in the first Adam all physically died. But in the first atom, all physically live. Because we're related to Adam, we have physical life. But because we're in Christ's family, the second atom, we spiritually live. We have spiritual life. Noah is a type of Christ. God brought judgment on the old ancient world, but delivered Noah through the ark. And we're delivered through Jesus. Joseph. one of Jacob's twelve sons. He's a type of Christ. His brothers sold him into slavery, into Egypt, and he was arrested. Some lady claimed that he raped her, which he did not do, so he was thrown into prison. And there were just the sufferings and all. But then, because of his ability to interpret dreams, a seven-year famine came, and Joseph is moved up basically to the vice president of Egypt. And people come from all over to feed them during the famine and stuff like that. There's the suffering, and then the glory. He was even sold into slavery for the price of a common slave. This was 20 pieces of silver back then, but because of inflation, by the time Christ came, the price for a common slave was 30 pieces of silver. The price would be traded for 30 pieces of silver. King David, the king of Israel, The second king of Israel, from him would come the Messiah, and he was a type of Messiah. At first, when he was anointed by Samuel the prophet to be the king of Israel, Saul got jealous and wanted him killed. And David was running all over the place as a hunted fugitive. And he was a man of sufferings and a man of sorrows. But then finally he took the throne, and the most glorious years of Israel came from David. And then Solomon came on the scene and he got even richer and stuff, but he was just kind of living on the foundation laid by him. In fact, if I died right now and another guy became the pastor, I started a church with five people and the Lord blessed us and brought some good people and brought some good people and brought some good people. Now it looks like we're pushing close to a hundred for service. But if I died right now, and then some other guy came in and went from 100 to 500 people, Although he would have taken it much, much further, the foundation of that work had been laid. That's what happened with David. The most glorious years of Israel was during David. David went out and conquered and defeated the enemies of Israel, and then Solomon came in for an age of peace because the foundation had already been laid. He expanded the building projects of the wealth of Israel, but David had basically laid the foundation. Also, by the way, Solomon as well was a symbolic type of Christ. And in every type of Christ, you're going to find areas where there's a similarity, but you're also going to find areas where there's a little bit of a difference as well. And Solomon's many wives and his sinfulness and idolatry obviously doesn't match up with Christ there. But his wealth and all, it was some of the glories of the Millennium Kingdom. People who came from miles away to hear Solomon's wisdom Once a year, everybody on earth is going to be going to Jerusalem to worship King Jesus. He's going to sit enthroned in the Holy of Holies. And we're going to look at the hands, the holes in his hands and the holes in his feet. The one who took those wounds, took that punishment, took our punishment for us. Moses is also a type of Christ. He brought the first covenant in Christ. himself brought the new covenant, the covenant of grace. Moses delivering the Jews out of Egypt as well, through the power of God. Joshua, conquering the promised land. Jesus Christ comes, he comes as the conquering king. And even Abel, offering the sacrifice that God accepted. Jesus offered himself with the sacrifice that God accepted. So many Old Testament types of Christ. Now what I'd like to basically touch on here is the four different areas. Man, these are tough. It's going to be tough to fit them in. We're going to run a little late again, I think. The virgin birth of Christ. The virgin birth of Christ. The incarnation. That's when God became a man. why the second virgin became a man. Eternal generation, we're going to talk about that. And the three offices that Christ holds. Three offices of Christ. By the way, on the virgin birth and the eternal generation, I hold a view that is not common among conservative evangelical Christians. They're not heretical in any way. At the same time, I go against a lot of my professors in these areas. It's not a big area, but I do disagree with them a little. There are ways to be very heretical about the virgin birth and the eternal generation, but my views are not heretical there. And there's some good godly people that do hold them, but they're not quite as common as a lot of other youths in there. But we'll talk about that. First off, on the virgin birth, I'd just like to mention that, number one, it was predicted in the Old Testament, Isaiah 7.14. If you don't have time to turn there, I'll quote it though. Isaiah 7.14, Behold, the Lord will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with child, and she will bear a son. And she shall call his name Immanuel. Immanuel means God with us. So it was predicted in Isaiah 7.14. Now the Hebrew word for virgin there could mean virgin or just a young girl who's usually too young to be married. But the fact remains that the Jews, when they translated that into Greek, from the Hebrew to the Greek, when they made a Greek conclusion 200 years before Christ, they very clearly saw that this is talking about a virgin, so they translated it as virgin in the Greek. So it was very clear to the Jews of that day, and by the way, it wouldn't have been a sign just a young lady has a child, that doesn't give you much of a sign, but if a virgin gives birth, that is definitely a sign. Genesis 3.15, where Christ is referred to as the seed of the woman, the only time in the Scriptures the seed of the woman is ever mentioned. Every other time it's like the seed of Abraham or the seed of some man. That's because when they say seed what they mean is pretty much the sperm of the man. And of course the woman has the egg. So just the fact that it says the seed of the woman seems to imply that there's going to be a man born of woman without the agency of another man. And so it seems to imply the virgin birth. So it was predicted, Genesis 3.15. So it was predicted in the Old Testament. The accounts are given that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Christ in Matthew 1.18-25. Matthew 1.18-25. And Luke 1.34-35. We don't have time to turn here once again. Well, let's take a look at Luke passage real quickly. Chapter 1, verse 34. Luke 1, 34 and 35. And Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the Holy Offspring shall be called the Son of God." That's a key verse. This is where, this is an area, by the way, what I've said so far about the virgin birth, that Jesus was born to Mary, and Mary was a virgin when she conceived him, and when she bore him, gave birth to him. And Matthew, in chapter 1, it says that Joseph did not have sexual relations with Mary until after Jesus was born. All conservative evangelical scholars agree with that. The area where we would differ, though, is going to be an area about one of the areas on eternal generations where, see it says here, the reason why Jesus is called the Son of God is because he was born of a virgin. He became, God became the man. That's why he's called the Son of God. Most conservative Christians today teach that Jesus always existed as the Son of God. I do not believe that. When we get to eternal generations, we're going to see, I believe I agree with Walter Martin on this point, that Jesus is called, even when he's called the Son of God in the Old Testament, it's just prophetically, it's pointing forward to the day, to the time when Jesus was going to become a man, when the second person of Trinity was going to become a man. Even if you point to a verse where it says that God sent his Son into the world, That still doesn't lessen the case. Because, for instance, you could say Muhammad Ali was born 52 years ago. Well, a lot of guys could say, no, he wasn't. Muhammad Ali was never born. Cassius Clay was born, and then he took the name Muhammad Ali much later, when he was in his 20s. Well, see, to say Muhammad Ali was born 52 years, that's not a lie. It's just that his name was something different. So you could say, God sent his son into the world, even though he really wasn't called the Son back then. That's why John calls him the Word. When Jesus is called the Son of God, what it means is, God become a man. Too many people, that's why so many people say, well Jesus isn't God, he's the Son of God. How can he be both God and the Son of God? Well, when it says the Son of God, what it's talking about is God become a man. It's talking about the fact that he became a man. And I agree with Walter Martin on that, and there's many other scholars that I agree with. In fact, it was some of the Puritan writers when they first came over to America. But we'll talk about eternal generation a little bit further. But see there it says, the reason the incarnation and him being born of a virgin, that was the reason why he was called the son of God. He was not the eternal son. Now, he did exist through all eternity as the second person of the Trinity. But at the point of time that he became a man, that's when he took on the name the Son of God, because he has got to become a man. I hope I'm not confusing anybody on that point. But in Galatians 4.4, we don't have time to turn it in, but in Galatians 4.4, Paul doesn't talk about the virgin birth, but he does say, he does mention that Christ was born of a woman under the law. He never said Christ was born of a woman, who had relations with a man. Just the fact that he leaves out the man there shows at least that he did not contradict the teachings of the other apostles on the virgin birth. Galatians 4.4. Also, the Jewish Talmud, the Jewish writings between 70 and 200 AD, the oral traditions, were written down. the oral traditions of the Jewish rabbis, the Jewish teachers, and they claimed that Jesus was illegitimate. Now, why in the world would you make a claim like this enemy of yours was illegitimate, unless there was something weird about his birth? See, the fact was, I think it was common knowledge that Jesus was claiming that Joseph was not his father, but that he came directly from God and was born of a virgin. John 8.41, the Jewish religious leaders were arguing with Jesus, and so they smirked at him and said, well, we were not born of fornication. And some scholars, some Greek scholars, think that what these guys were getting at was they were implying that Jesus was born of fornication. So what I'm getting at, I believe it was common knowledge that Jesus was claiming not to have been born of Joseph. That he was born of a virgin named Mary, and that he came directly from God. And so others, recognizing that Joseph never denied this, his enemies were trying to say, well, if Joseph isn't his father, then some other human must be. And so they started all kinds of vicious rumors. Now, here's the view on the virgin birth where I disagree with most Protestants on this. Jesus was born of Mary, but somehow he doesn't have a sin nature. But everybody who's born has a sin nature. How could Jesus really be a man and be born of a woman and not have a sin nature? The Roman Catholic view is what they call the immaculate conception of Mary. The Roman Catholic view is, well, if Jesus didn't have a sin nature and he inherited his humanity from Mary, then I guess she didn't have a sin nature. Well, there's a problem with that view. Number one, the Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The Bible teaches that all mankind has inherited his sin nature from Adam except Jesus. So there's a problem with that view. Also, if Mary had to have no sin nature to give birth to Jesus, because he had no sin nature, then Mary's parents had to have no sin nature, and then their parents had to have no sin nature, and then their parents before them, and on and on until you get back to Adam, and all of a sudden you've totally destroyed the doctrine of the original sin and the sin nature that we inherited from Adam. So obviously I don't hold the Roman Catholic view. But at least, I'll say this much for the Catholics, at least they tried to deal with the question. They ended up coming up with a lot of heresies because of it, but at least they tried to deal with it. The common Protestant view here is really, really weak. Well, it's not even a common, it's a common Protestant. Most Protestants just don't deal with the issue. They just say, well, I don't know, I guess God could just have a woman with a sin nature. He could inherit his human humanity from Mary, yet at the same time not have a sin nature. And they just leave it at that. But there is a common point of view that tries to deal with it, and they're ending up in dangerous waters. Dr. Henry Morris, who is a dynamite defender of the faith, he takes this view, and I disagree with him. Miller J. Erickson, who wrote The Word Became Flesh. Miller J. Erickson wrote The Word Became Flesh. One of the best quotes out on Christology today. He doesn't die on my job, but in some areas he's off the wall. I met him, too. One of the nicest guys you ever want to meet. When I met him, he's at the Theological Society. I am what is known as the low man on the totem pole. He's known as one of the top men on the totem pole. I introduced myself to him and said, I really like his book. And he said, where are you from? I said, New Jersey. He said, I went through there once. I really enjoyed it. He talked for like 30 minutes on the journey. He said, Donna might die, and I don't want to give you the idea he's a heretic. He's not a heretic. He's a great, great theologian, one of the greatest theologians, pushing theologians a lot today. But his view is dangerous here in this area. He holds that maybe Mary's egg, and Harry Morris agrees that maybe Mary's egg wasn't used, and that God put a fertilized egg in the womb of Mary. What does that make Mary? It makes Mary the surrogate mother of an alien. Jesus really would not be able to trace his line back. Let's face it, if somebody took, if a guy and a girl get together and had Or if they took away with a sperm bank and took the sperm of a man, the egg of a woman in a test tube, and then put it in a woman and it wasn't her egg, though the woman would carry this person, the person really would not be related to her. But in this case, if you take a fertilized egg that has nothing to do with any of the descendants of Adam, Then you've got an alien. Jesus really isn't human. Mary is a surrogate mother of an alien Jesus, not human. So I disagree with Erickson and Harry Mars there. But I am of the school of thought that we really should think these issues out. And I think if we really think them out, just think about it. Who sinned first in the garden? Adam or Eve? Eve. So the Bible teaches that when Eve sinned, mankind fell, right? No, it doesn't teach you. It teaches when Adam sinned, mankind fell. Okay, so what does the Average Protestant say about that? Well, they say, well, I guess that means that if Adam didn't sin, God would have provided another woman, would have created another woman, and provided another woman for Adam. So here's the God who hates divorce, Eve committed one sin and God automatically said, I'll divorce her and I'll pull another woman from your side. No. No. But what it does tell us is that mankind had not fallen, even though Eve had fallen. Mankind had not fallen yet. One member of the human race fell, but mankind didn't fall. So I believe that if Adam and Eve had relations and Adam did not fall, they would have a son, their children would not have a sin nature, even though Eve had a sin nature. In other words, what I'm saying is, I believe women are carriers of the sin nature, and they inherit the sin nature from their fathers, but I believe that if the male, in the sperm somehow, don't ask me to explain it, passes on the sin nature, maybe not even in the sperm, maybe it's something because of the sin nature, there's a big debate about whether it resides in the flesh, or whether it resides in the soul, most evangelical scholars say it resides in the soul, but some of my professors, they're good enough, these guys are great men, but every once in a while, you know, these great men make mistakes, I'm sure I make mistakes as well, but some of them believe that God creates a soul in us, that we don't inherit our soul from Adam, And so they would reject that view because of that reason. Well, the problem with that is, if God creates a soul in us, and if you believe the sin nature resides in the soul, then why would God create a soul that has a sin nature? Why not create a perfect soul in us? And then if God did create a sin nature in our soul, we got our sin nature from God, not from Adam. So there's a whole lot of contradictions come out of it, but basically my view is that because Jesus had no human father, he fully got his humanity from Mary, yet the woman doesn't pass down the sin nature. Everybody else had a human father, so they would inherit the sin nature from them. Eve got her sin nature because she sinned, Adam got his sin nature because he sinned, and then all mankind got their sin nature because they inherited it from Adam. Now, do I make a big deal out of this? No. Supposing Tom Thompson comes up to me after the study and says, Phil, I disagree with you. I think you're off the wall. You're out of the water. Praise God. I really don't care. I really think this is what is true, but it's no big deal. Tom Thompson believed Jesus is God. He worshiped Jesus as God. That's what matters. The essentials of the faith. This is a non-essential. Now, there are some guys who take the other view, which really is no view at all, and they'll slam me for it and act like I'm some kind of big heretic. I don't think it's a big heretical view. And there are some godly men that do hold this view. There's not a whole lot of them. But I don't think there's anything heretical by it. Whether it's in the soul or the spirit, we inherit every bit of our humanity from Adam. And so I think it was passed on from the male. Jesus, everything that we have as a human, he has, except the sin nature. And the only difference, humanity-wise, between him and us, is that he didn't have an earthly father. And so Jesus Christ inherited humanity from Mary, yet without sin nature. That's the view I hold there. I tell you, that's the virgin birth. The incarnation, Just basically, the incarnation is the same thing as the virgin birth, only it's the theological explanation of the virgin birth. The virgin birth is the historical thing. In history, at a point in time in history... Al, get Eric on the... keep getting him on the screen right there. He's the guy that gave me that John 118 passage. Wait for the camera. Okay, I just want to give you some air time. But the historical fact is that a virgin gave birth to a child. The theological interpretation of that is that God became a man. John does not record the virgin birth. What he does do is record the incarnation. In other words, he gives the theological explanation to the historical events. Look at John chapter 1 and verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Okay? Then he says in verse 14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. Glories of the only begotten, from the Father, full of grace and truth. He says the Word was God, the Word became flesh. Very clearly he says that the theological explanation of the virgin birth is the incarnation. God became a man. 1 Timothy 3.16, we don't have time to turn there, but in the newer translation it says, who, talking about Jesus, who was manifested in the flesh. However, in the manuscript that went into the King James Version and the New King James Version, though these manuscripts came later, they're much more numerous, that says God was manifested in the flesh. I favor that particular translation there because in the writings of the early Church Fathers, the Apostolic Fathers, and the early Church Fathers, their writings predate the ancient manuscripts that went into the newer translations, and when they quoted it, they quoted it as God was manifested in the flesh. So I would think 1 Timothy 3.16 would talk very clearly about the Incarnation. And then that same passage that we looked at earlier, Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 to 8. In fact, I'm going to read it again. I'm going to read it so much, you guys may have it memorized by the time it is done. Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 to 8. Passages like this that are so difficult to interpret. In fact, Peter talked about Paul's writings and he said, hey, this guy is very complex in his thought. He's a man of God, he is running scriptures, they are the Word of God. But keep in mind that uneducated men read his writings and they take it out of context and they come up with all kinds of heresies. That's why you don't get Joe Schmoe, the numb brain, to be your preacher, to be your pastor, okay? Hey, you know, we laugh, but I'll tell you. Nowadays, if somebody's got to operate on your heart, that guy better have 12 to 14 years of training, and then he's got to have at least 20 years' experience before he's going to operate on my heart. But then when somebody's talking about eternal issues from the pulpit, oh, I could care less if I never went to Bible college. Oh, I could care less if Dad's only been saved two years. Oh, I could care less that, you know, the whole nine yards. It's like, wait a minute here. Well, we gotta get back to recognizing it. This is God's Word, and we better study to show thyself a proof of this. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, and handle it accurately. But this passage here is butchered, but take a look at Philippians 2, verses 6 to 8. Talking about Christ, he says, who, although he existed in the form of God, though he existed in nature as God, he did not regard equality as God's thing to be grasped. He's willing to lay aside his equal rights with God, to come to leave the throne room of God that Pallas had be born in a manger, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, but becoming obedient to the point of death, he was in death on the cross." He's basically saying, God became a man, the incarnation. That's the virgin birth and the incarnation. Now I want to talk about, open up a real can of worms here, the eternal generation. Eternal generation. The Bible teaches that over and over again, Jesus was begotten of the Father. The Bible nowhere says that he is eternally begotten of the Father, but that's what it says in the Nicene Creed and many of the early creeds of the Church which taught so much pure biblical doctrine, but I think they've missed the boat on this issue, okay? I do not believe that Jesus was eternally generated or eternally begotten from the Father. Because the Church has held to this, many, many cults have been developed and heresies that have been developed. Only begotten, it's like John 3.16 talks about Jesus as the only begotten Son. Only begotten in Greek is monogenes. Monogenes? One of those things you know? Monogene, it means only begotten, and it's a biblical term, but eternal generation is a traditional view that dates way back in church history, but I don't believe there's any real biblical basis for it. But what it basically teaches is to make it started, the traditional view actually started with Origen, an early church father named Origen. He was, he by the way got booted out of the church on at least one occasion for holding some bogus view of Christ, watered down his deity, and then he recanted and they brought him back in. Origen was also the guy when Christ said, When Christ said that if your eye causes you to stumble, rip it out, and it's better for you to go into heaven with one eye, because of that, he emasculated himself. He removed his male organ. And he took... Origen had a problem. He took the verses that were supposed to be taken literally, he took them symbolic. And the verses that shouldn't have been taken symbolically, he took literally. And that was when he removed his male organ. And so he had a lot of weird views to begin with. But when it came to Christ being begotten, Christ just said, how could Jesus be begotten? And so the view he held to was that Christ was begotten as God, not begotten as man. And he changed, of course, the church history because of that view. I do not believe that Jesus was begotten as God. Eternally begotten means that Jesus, throughout all eternity, the Father has begotten the Son. Throughout all eternity, He generated the Son. Number one, yeah, that would make Jesus eternal, but His existence would be dependent on the Father. It seems that that would make Jesus a lesser God. I mean, God is sustaining us, if he stopped keeping us in existence, sustaining us in existence, we would go out of existence immediately. So that means we're dependent on God. If Jesus is eternally being generated or begotten from the Father, it seems that he would be a lesser God. Another thing is begotten means something that occurs to be brought into existence at a point in time. That's what begotten means. Eternal means that you can't pinpoint it in a point in time, it's eternal. So, it seems to be a contradiction. It means to be eternally... It means that you're being begotten, Jesus is being begotten, being brought into existence at a point in time through all eternity. And it just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Another guy came up after Origen, just about 230 A.D. named Arius. We learned about him in one of our first lectures, first or second lecture. Arius was from Alexandria, same place as Origen. Origen had a great influence on his life, his teachings. Arius came up about, what, 50 to 100 years later or whatever? And Arius comes on the scene and says, you know what? That doesn't make sense to me. If Jesus was begotten as God, you can't be begotten throughout all eternity. That doesn't make any sense. You have to be begotten at a point in time. Therefore, Jesus was begotten as a lesser God. He was the first creation of God, and everything else was created from Him. That's the Aryan heresy. Today, the Jehovah's Witnesses use that same exact argument, and that's why in Walton Warren's book, The Kingdom of the Cults, he spends about four or five pages refuting the doctrine of eternal generation. And he says, he calls for the Church to go back and to use to use biblical terms about Christ as much as possible, and if the Bible never says that Jesus was eternally begotten, to think twice before you start bringing something like that into it. He said that if the church would have never gotten into this, then there would have been a strong argument that both Arius and the Jehovah's Witnesses used that we would not even have to worry about. but it's the doctrine that God throughout all eternity generates a second person like himself, the Eternal Son. Arius rightly rejected this as illogical, but Arius then drew the conclusion that it was heresy that Jesus was begotten as a lesser God. My view, I agree with Walter Martin, Jesus was not eternally begotten of the Father, he is not the Eternal Son, But Jesus was never begotten as God, He always existed as God. Throughout all eternity He always existed as God, was never begotten as God, never generated by the Father, but He was begotten at a point in time, He was begotten as a man. In other words, when John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." I don't believe what he's saying is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. In other words, that He had His only begotten Son, the Incarnation, become a man. No. I think he's saying His only begotten Son, the already incarnated Son of God, God gave Him When? At the cross, the cross of Calvary. Sacrificial language, a sacrificial giving rather than giving in incarnation, giving in atonement, giving on the cross. In other words, for God so loved the world that he gave his incarnated son as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. So Jesus Christ was begotten as a man, he was never begotten as God. So the phrase only begotten Son means that Jesus is the unique Son of God by nature. He became God's Son at conception, but always existed as the second person of truth. But you could say, the Son of God existed throughout all eternity. There is nothing wrong with saying that, so long as you know. It's just like saying Muhammad Ali was born 50-something years ago. That's true, but he wasn't Muhammad Ali when he was born. He was Cassius Clay. The sun existed throughout all eternity, but he wasn't the sun until he was conceived in the womb of Mary. Before that, he just was the... John called him the Word. We commonly call him today the second person of the Trinity. This is also an area where I don't bring up... It's not a radical, in my view. But for some reason, most theologians are so narrow-minded, they just generate more heat than light when you bring it up to them, so I don't bring it up a lot. But I really think the church should be more consistent on that. We don't have time to cover it right now, we'll cover it in the next lecture, the three offices of Christ, the fact that he is prophet, he is priest, and he is king. And so right now we'll take about a five minute break. Again, no time for questions.