We have three weeks left in our study on the doctrine of God, and basically it's going to be one lesson broken up into three different parts, and we'll kind of give that outline here in a minute. And at the end of that, three weeks, we are done. We have covered everything about the doctrine of God. There is nothing left to cover. I mean, we have exhausted, oh wait, that goes against everything we said at the very beginning, right? We will never exhaust the infinite, all right? But we're going to hope and pray that within three weeks we've at least touched on enough to maybe encourage your heart and inform your mind and shape your soul a little bit. And you'll have some things you can chew on in the coming months. Lord willing, if Christ tarries and we're here five, six years from now, we'll be back doing chapter two again as we kind of circle back through the confession. And so I really started thinking last night, I thought I'm really gonna have to find some way to be satisfied with this feeling of complete worthlessness when this is all over because There's just so much left to talk about. But we do need to move on to God's decree. And one of these days, I'm going to give Ryan a break from preaching, and I'm going to go back and do some preaching again before I forget how to do that. And so the plan is to come back to the Gospel of Matthew in April, and he will begin the study of chapter 3, God's decree. So let's kind of begin this, I say this study, and when I say this study, it's really a three-part study. It's over the next three weeks, but there's some objectives that I have that I'd like to kind of highlight for you, and I put them briefly on your sheet. I want us to move beyond the foundation of basic grammar. We've spent several weeks now looking at what we've called Trinitarian grammar. We've been making use of Scott Swain's little book, The Introduction to the Doctrine of the Trinity. We're going to continue to use some of his basic structure for this next kind of broken up series here, this lecture that's going to take about three hours or so. And so we want to move forward at this point from the basic grammar that we've had laid out already. In those studies, we've made use of Matthew 28, 19. Now you might just be able to say that from memory, but in Matthew 28, 19, we considered the basic grammar of the Bible's Trinitarian discourse. We noted that the Bible affirms only one God, the name. And further, we noted that Scripture consistently identifies the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit with this one God. And there we just looked at that next little word, the name of. And finally, we noted that these persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though being identical with the one and only living true God, are to be distinguished by mutual relations of origin that are principally relations ad entra, speaking about that inner life of God. They are relations within and among themselves, not relations ad extra, relations with or to us. We're principally concerned in looking at this idea of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and how they relate to one another. Now, secondly, we want to continue though to deepen our scriptural fluency. Now, I say we're moving beyond the basic grammar, but we're not forgetting the basic grammar. We need to bring all that stuff with us, all the stuff we've done the last three or four weeks, all right? We want to deepen our scriptural fluency here. Again, that's Swain's term, or maybe that's my term, I forget. Here we want to consider that though we're moving beyond basic grammar, we're not moving beyond the Bible. So if you're sitting there going, oh, it's just too much Bible. I want less Bible. Yeah, wrong room, wrong class. And hopefully every other class would also do the same thing. So you just come back here. We're going to continue to root our study of the triune God in texts of scripture because we need scripture to tell us about the triune God. We're going to talk about that a little bit as well. Thirdly, we want to consider a variety of text types. Now this is Swain's phrase, text types. Now he may have got it from somebody else, I don't know. There's a lot of borrowing from Peter, borrowing from Peter, Rob, Paul, whatever. A lot of interchange with this terminology. I want to broaden our vocabulary with some text types. So building on the basic grammar, we're going to observe several types, three in particular, types of biblical texts that will fill out our Trinitarian discourse that we might again learn to speak to God and about God. in more rich and truthful ways in our worship. We want to speak about our triune God as he has revealed himself to us. We don't want to be guilty, as is often the case, of just making up. You know, like in Sunday school when you were five and the teacher said, what's God like to you, sweetie? All right? Bad Sunday school class, all right? Any Sunday school teacher tells you to draw a picture of what God is like or tell you what God is like? It's just a bad idea, all right? God has told us what He is like. And it doesn't involve pictures, by the way. It involves words. Fourthly, and finally, and this is not incidental, we want to grow in our knowledge of God and our communion with Him. Remember that last phrase in chapter 2 of our confession, that this doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our communion with God and comfortable dependence upon Him. It's a very rich phrase. We want to wrap up our study Again, here in three weeks, we're gonna offer at that point just a summary sketch of the scripture and our confessions teaching on the Trinity. And hopefully we'll just give you some final kind of things to hang thoughts on that you can take with us as we move into the third chapter, all right? So let's talk about three text types, all right? Text types, all right? And there are three of them. I think they're written out here for you on your sheet. We'll jump ahead to mention those, and then we'll come back to those foundational concepts. The inter-Trinitarian conversation text, where we see the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, at least it seems like they're talking to one another, or about one another. We want to guard from the idea that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit sit around a round table with swords laid out, like Camelot or something like that, and they're all informing one another about what the other's thinking. That's not what we want to do here. But these texts do seem to present this idea of conversations going on between them. Or were they're saying things not just to each other, but about each other. And so we want to look at those inner Trinitarian conversation texts. Secondly, cosmic framework texts. Texts that may point to like Christ, like in Colossians chapter 1 as being the head over all things, the head over the church. head of creation, firstborn of all creation, these kind of language, these texts. And then redemptive mission texts, texts dealing with the Father sending the Son, or the Father and the Son sending the Holy Spirit. And we'll come to those here, Lord willing, in a few weeks, all right? But there are some foundational things that we want to talk about before we really get to looking at today, type one inter-Trinitarian conversation texts. As we've said in these texts, we're going to look at the text here in a moment, but in these texts we overhear the persons of the Trinity in conversation with one another, speaking to one another, speaking about one another. Scott Swain says it this way, he says, the persons of the Trinity belong to the inside of the one God's life. Therefore, knowledge of the persons of the Trinity is known to outsiders only when insiders make it known to them. Fred Sanders, a Trinitarian, I think Fred's Methodist? Is that right? Good to have you here today, James. Is Fred a Methodist? Anglican? Okay, he'd be free now. Okay, he's on his way to becoming a Reformed Baptist. Look at that, it's happening, all right? Well, Fred Sanders refers to this as insider knowledge, all right? It's knowledge that unless God had said it, we would not have known it. So we're desperately in need of insider knowledge if our speech about the triune God is to be true. Again, we can make up stuff all day long, right? We can come up with ideas about God. He's like to me, all right? But we want our knowledge to be true, and we want our speech to reflect that true knowledge. Furthermore, as insider knowledge, we are dependent upon this one triune God to reveal it to us. Think about a couple of texts. There's going to be a turn there. Just kind of listen to them. If you're taking notes, you can write it down. Matthew 11, 27. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. And no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." What does that say? If we want to know the Father, we need the Son to do what? To make Him known. We're stuck. We might be able to have knowledge of God, and we're going to talk about the concept of natural theology or general revelation here in just a little bit, but we can't know God as our Heavenly Father. We can't know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Elder Brother. We can't know the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and our Paraclete unless Jesus does what? Unless He tells us about Him. John 1.18 says this, No one has seen God at any time. That kind of cuts us all off, doesn't it? But it goes on, the only begotten God, and this is Christ, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. He's made Him known. Maybe your translation has there for that. Or 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10. For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. This is the spiritual truths, these mysteries of the gospel. God has revealed them to us, Paul is saying, through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? I mean, I can look at you all day long and I can tell you I think I know what you're thinking, but I don't know what you're thinking, unless you what? Tell me what you're thinking. You may not even know what you're thinking. You may have to ask your wife, all right? And she'll tell you what you're thinking, all right? But, Paul goes on to say, even so, the thoughts of God, no one knows. You hear these statements that exclude the possibility of anyone other than God knowing God. except, it says in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 11, except the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God. And this is where Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 2 to say things like, we have what? We have the mind of Christ. God has revealed things to us, Paul is saying, through the Spirit. Well these texts indicate that what can be known about God in Trinitarian fashion can only be known if God reveals it to us by way of the Son through the Spirit. One cannot know God as Father apart from the disclosure of this truth by the Son, and none could in truth know the mind of God were his thoughts not revealed to him by the Spirit of God. Now, we mentioned natural theology. So let's just say just a brief word about that. Natural theology. There's no way to talk about this for a long time. One, I don't know a lot, but we don't have a lot of time, all right? But let's say something about it, all right? Natural theology. What can be known about God? via nature. Natural theology is that theological thought that men may ascertain about God gained via what is often referred to by general or natural revelation. There's a statement in our confession, interestingly, and I say interestingly because we have a lot of diseases going on in confessional Reformed Baptist life these days. Things like guys holding the confession in their hand and rejecting the idea of any kind of natural theology, which is really just kind of crazy. Look over in chapter 22. If you happen to have a copy of the confession, it says in chapter 22 on religious worship on the Sabbath day, I digress just for a moment to read this. The light of nature shows that there is a God. Now it doesn't show that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it does show there is a God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good to all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted, and served with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might. Now you may not get all that from looking at a tree, You could look at mountains as well. You can go to the ant, you sluggard, and be wise, right? You can learn things about God. You can formulate theological conclusions based upon what he's made. Now, you could also come out with some wrong ideas about God based on looking at what he's made. Because what's happened to what he's made? What's happened to what he's made is groaning under the curse, right? So praise God for special revelation. But we can know some things about God. The scripture is clear that God has made himself known to all men through natural means. We might say through creation, a mediated form of divine speech, or through conscience, a more immediate form of divine communication. The works of the law are what? They're written on the heart. Men know, basically, right and wrong. You don't have to teach a two-year-old it's wrong to steal the cookie. They know it's wrong to steal the cookie. That's why they're grabbing it and running as fast as they can with an evil grin on their face that kind of looks like a sinister person from a cartoon. You put two two-year-olds in a room with one Oreo cookie? We're not coming out with halvesies. It's blood. One kid may not come out alive. Why? Because they're wretched from the womb. All right? They know how to do evil and within a very short time they're very cognizant of this evil as well. Paul makes clear that man has access to the knowledge of God by way of the study of creation. Just think of Romans chapter 1 and verse 19 where it says, "...that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse." for even though they knew God they did not honor him as God nor give thanks and etc. It goes on. It should be noted here also that this knowledge of God through the study of what has been made is knowledge that has been made evident to them by God himself. God made it evident to them. Stephen Duby in his book God and Himself says this, Natural knowledge of God then from a scriptural perspective is not something that humanity obtains of its own initiative or by following a pathway never opened or authorized. Instead, it is made available by God's own purposeful self-revelation in order to render all persons aware of and accountable to their creator. God has made it known to them. Doobie goes on, making use of texts like Psalm 8. Remember Psalm 8? I lift up my eyes to the heavens, what is man that you're mindful of him? You ever had those moments when you're walking outside and you look at the sky and you think, I feel like a speck, like an invisible speck. He uses Psalm 19. Talks about the heavens declaring the glory of God. He uses Acts 17, which is the passage where Paul's on the Areopagus and speaking to the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophers, and he realizes some of their own poets, some of their own philosophers have said things that are true about God and about man. And also borrowing from Romans 1, Duby draws a few conclusions about the concept of natural knowledge available via general revelation. Let me just give you four, okay? Number one is this, the origin of natural knowledge of God is God, the Creator, in His self-revelation. The origin of natural revelation of God is God. It's not you. You don't come up with this on your own. God makes it known to you. Secondly, the content or object of the natural knowledge of God is God the Creator in His eternal transcendence, wisdom, power, beneficence, and righteousness. Those are things kind of like what chapter 22, paragraph 1 of our confession was saying. So the content or the object of this knowledge of God is God the creator himself in his various attributes that are being highlighted there, wisdom, power, beneficence, things such as that. Thirdly, he concludes that the purpose of natural knowledge of God in the biblical narrative is humanity's awareness of the majesty of the creator and the creator's rightful claim to worship and obedience. This is where our confession comes along and says that This God is to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, served with all the heart and all the soul and all the might. But then the confession goes on and says, but the acceptable way of worshiping God, the true God, is instituted by himself and limited to his revealed will, and now pointing us to the scripture. Fourth and finally, So we have the origin of natural knowledge of God is God, the content and object is God as the creator. The purpose for which God makes himself known is that we might be aware of his majesty and worship him, show that he has the rightful claim. And finally, Dubey notes the limitations of natural knowledge of God, both objective and subjective. Objectively it is knowledge that does not include the mysteries of the Trinity. It does not include the mysteries of the Incarnation. Subjectively, it is knowledge that is suppressed and distorted, leaving men to distortion, idolatry, and apart from divine intervention condemned. That's what happens there in Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 says God makes his eternal power in divine nature. It's clearly known through what has been observed and seen. Men can know this, but generally speaking, men do what? They suppress it. They reject that kind So thus knowledge of God gained through natural means is insufficient to save and it's insufficient to lead one to communion with the triune God for which the soul was made. and thus longing and needing to have communion with him, we first must be made privy to the communion that he has within himself in triune fashion. Swain says it this way, only the persons of the Trinity know the persons of the Trinity. I thought that was pretty good. I like that. Only the persons of the Trinity know the persons of the Trinity. Therefore, only the persons of the Trinity can make known the persons of the Trinity. The revelation of the Trinity is a matter of divine self-revelation, divine self-presentation, divine self-naming. Give you those three things again. Divine self-revelation, self-presentation, and self-naming. So, here we're back to our need for what? Insider information, all right? Fortunately for us, this inter-Trinitarian conversation and communion has been made known to us, where? In the Bible, all right? You're not left without this wonderful, precious knowledge. Several examples we're gonna consider here in the coming days, and we'll begin with Matthew chapter three. Thank you for referring to that in the sermon today, and what a great text. So take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to Matthew 3, 16 to 17. While we're doing that, any questions at this point? It's clear as mud. All right, there you go. All right, sounds great. Matthew 3, verses 16 to 17. Now, I think it's printed for you on your sheet, You can turn there as well. So this is the baptism of Christ. Matthew 3, 16. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, And he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him. And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. I think I just messed up this thing, Joe. Is it still working? Technology took my coat off and it's broken. Okay. All right, it's still working. So other texts you could look at for this, Mark chapter 1 verses 10 to 11, Luke chapter 3 verses 21 and 22, we could also look at those, but let's just kind of stick with the Matthew text. I want to make several points of observation about this. Observation number one, regards the presence of the Triune God. This is a text that mentions to us all the members of the Trinity present at the baptism of Jesus. We observe the presence of the three persons of the Triune God. Notice several things that happen. The Father, this is in Matthew 3, the Father speaks. The father speaks. Think about what happens here. The father speaks here of the Lord Jesus Christ, identifying him, Jesus, as his what? As his son, his beloved son. Another thing to notice here about the father speaking, not of one who became his son, but of one who already was identified as son. It's not, okay, oh look, I see that guy Jesus down there. I like him. I'm gonna take him as mine, and we're gonna adopt that boy, all right? Yeah, thanks a lot, okay. Yeah, that would be the ancient heresy of adoptionism, all right? An early heresy in the church that seems to never die. Like most heresies, they just seem to recycle, don't they, all right, through the ages. So another thing to notice here about the father speaking, the son is pleasing to the father, which speaks of the intimacy of the relation between the father and the son. This intimacy is further highlighted in the son being called the beloved of the father. Further, Mark and Luke, if we were to go to Mark chapter one or Luke chapter three, Mark and Luke relay the event as the father is speaking not about the son, but rather to the son. That's quite telling. It's not just information about the son. It's a direct speech to the son. Secondly, notice something else. The son is baptized. The son is baptized. When the son is baptized, he's baptized willingly, all right? This is not, you know, the parents drug little Johnny to the baptistry and said, you're gonna be baptized. We're gonna make it happen, all right? That's not what's happening. There's no kicking and screaming, no discontent. The son is baptized willingly, all right? We might think of this in terms of the passage from the book of Hebrews. Behold, I've come to what? I've come to do your will, all right? This is part of the will of the Father for the Son. Secondly, he's baptized in order, he tells John, to fulfill all righteousness. He's not fulfilling his righteousness. He is God of very God. He is the Son of the Father. He's the Beloved One. He is righteous in and of Himself. But He has to do this, He tells John, to fulfill all righteousness. Thirdly, regarding the Son being baptized, this act is in accord with the will of the Father whose will He has come to do. Think of all the texts. The book of John is full of these. I have come to do what? Will, all right? Remember in John chapter 4, the disciples go away to get food. Jesus is there talking to the woman at the well, and they're like, you know, they come back and they want to give him some food. No, I have food to eat that you know what? You know nothing of, all right? I'm here to do the will of my Father. Over and over again, Jesus is expressing in his incarnation the doing of the will of the Father. Another thing to consider here is that Luke adds helpfully for us here that in the midst of Jesus' baptism, He is praying. What is that? When the Father is making declarations about and to the Son, Jesus is doing what? Jesus is talking to the Father. Jesus is in prayer. And one final thing here, though no words are given, we know from other occurrences that when Jesus prays, He is in communion with the Father, specifically His Father and His God. Consider John 20 verse 17. A third thing to think on here is that we see the Spirit descending. The Spirit descends, comes, remains upon the Son. Just a moment here to pull this. All right, notice a few things about this. This act of the Spirit is by way of the sending of the Father and the Son. And we've already seen this before in that the Spirit is sent, how? The Spirit is sent by the Father, the Spirit is sent by the Son. So to some extent we're borrowing off of past lessons for this, other texts that point to the idea of the Spirit being sent by the Father and the Son. Spirit is not acting independently here of the Father and the Son. We're going to talk in just a few moments about the idea of independent operation of the individual members of the Trinity. And that's not happening. What is happening here is what's known often as inseparable operations. The Father and Son and Holy Spirit are all engaged in this together. Secondly, notice about the Spirit descending. The prophet Isaiah had said that this day would come that the Father would put His Spirit upon His servant, His anointed one, the Lord Jesus Christ. You might go back there to like Isaiah chapter 11. A third thing to notice here about the Spirit descending is that the Holy Spirit is granted to Christ in fullness for His mission. He is given without measure. Consider these texts. John chapter 3 verse 34. It says, For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit. This is the Father giving the Spirit to the Son without measure. Now this is in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah in Isaiah 59 and among others. In Isaiah 59 21, as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, my spirit which is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever. Notice again verse 21, my spirit which is upon you and my words which I put in your mouth. This is the promise that the father will put the spirit upon the son in his messianic mission to come into the world and establish the new covenant. Notice another point here about the spirit descending. presence of the Spirit upon the Lord Jesus identifies him, God, that is Yahweh, come to his people to grant them a new and greater exodus through the outpouring of his Spirit upon the newly born church. Turn over if you would to Mark chapter 1. This is one of the parallel texts to Matthew 3. Mark chapter 1. We'll start in verse nine. It says, in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opening and the spirit like a dove descending upon him and a voice came out of the heavens, you are my beloved son and you I am well pleased. The Greek term here for opening is the word that we basically get schism from. It's like a tear. And the only other place that it's used, at least in the Gospel of Mark, I believe, is in Mark 15, 38, speaking about the tearing of the curtain of the temple from top to bottom. It parallels a text that was mentioned today in the sermon out of Isaiah 64, oh, that you would what? That you would rend, tear apart the heavens and come down. This is indeed fulfillment of that, that Christ is the very, that the Spirit of God descending upon Christ is the tearing apart of the heavens, his anointing for messianic ministry that then culminates at the cross and the tearing of the veil, which opens the way into the presence of God. One might think here, in the coming of Christ, the Spirit rends the heavens and comes down. The coming of Christ is the long-awaited coming of God for His people, and here is the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise of the leading out of the people in this new exodus work of the Messiah. All right. So that's a few things to think regarding this idea of the Father or the presence of the Triune God. But notice something else here about Matthew chapter 3. Not just the presence of the Triune God, but notice with me something about inseparable operations, the inseparable operations of the Triune God. Now this is probably a term that, you know, most of us Inseparable. You know, I can't spell when I'm in my office and nobody's there. And when I'm in a public place like this and I'm spelling, I know you're watching when I'm spelling, I'm thinking, I have no idea what I'm doing. Just write a word that looks close, all right? And I know somebody's gonna come later on, it'll be a homeschooler, you know. They're gonna come up and go, that's spelled wrong. Come here, come here. It's always a homeschooler. I got a house full of them. All right, they're all over the place. What's that? I know it's spelled wrong. OK. Listen to my voice. Don't listen to what I spell on the board. It's like your word processor just told you that was wrong. All right. Well, inseparable operations. All right? Note here should be made of the singularity and the inseparability of the divine operation. One must be very careful not to interpret this event as if the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all doing their own thing in the baptism narrative. This would not be hard to do. In fact, it's been done by many. Adonis Vadu, in a recent article, addresses this point, focusing attention on our very text from Matthew 3. He says this, take Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3, 13-17, for example, where one hears the voice from heaven, one action, one sees the Son of God being baptized, another action, and the Spirit descending upon Christ in the form of a dove, a third action. Phenomenologically or viewed from the vantage point of a lived experience. I'm glad I didn't have to spell phenomenologically up there, but you can imagine the red line appearing underneath it. All right. I'm just glad I said it without totally tripping. That would be something viewed from the vantage point of lived experience. We are experiencing three separate agents doing three separate things. That's what it looks like, isn't it? So the Father does His thing, the Son does His thing, the Spirit does His thing, and maybe they're all just like these three gods working together. No. That'd be bad. That goes against our what? It goes against our grammar. Remember we've already learned the grammar. There's one God. All right? And it's the name of the one God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There's only one living and true God. Don't forget paragraph one and paragraph two in our confession when we get to paragraph three. Notice in your confession, back in chapter two, how it opens up in paragraph three. in this divine and infinite being. What divine and infinite being? The divine and infinite being we've been talking about in paragraphs one and two. We haven't like left the truths that we studied in the first couple of paragraphs. So we've got to be careful. Remember your grammar. Just like when you're in school, all right? And you start writing, all right? And you start splitting infinitives and things like that. And your mom comes back in and says, you forgot your what? You forgot your grammar, all right? There was a day before Grammarly. There was a day before this little thing that pops up on your word processor or whatever. It was a day that you had to kind of know it yourself before you wrote it. And you just turned it in and prayed and hoped for the best. And your teacher would do all that kind of stuff to your paper. And it really happened to mine. I thought I'd never get past my prospectus in the dissertation phase, because it just kept coming back to me. Oh, I just submit it, work like a dog, it would just come back with marks and be bleeding. It was so depressing. But by the grace of God, we get there. So, it'll serve us well. It'll be a safe guide for us, this grammar. There is only one God. The Father, Son, and Spirit are that one and only one God. And furthermore, we've learned in past studies that the one God is simple in His being and cannot be divided and separated in parts. The Father is not part of God, the Son is part of God, the Holy Spirit is part of God. That's not it. They're all like a third, and they all get together, and whenever they get together, they make the whole thing. That's not what our grammar, the text of the Bible, our grammar here, will not allow that to happen. But who adds this? By implication, Even though in Revelation we are introduced to what seem to be varying operations of the triune persons, these need not be taken at just face value, should not be taken at face value. Let's think through them just a little bit and let's let scripture interpret scripture and let's let it serve as a guide for us and a guard as we move forward. There is the theological concept that will safeguard us in the interpretation of such events, of such texts. And that theological concept is known and confessed as the doctrine of inseparable operations. Here is indicated that the external works, those revealed works of the triune God are one. They're one. They are hence undivided. Francis Turretin, 17th century Reformed scholar, I think born in Geneva, Swiss, a man trained in Geneva. I'm not sure where else he lived, but Francis Turretin makes this comment. He said, although the external works of the Trinity are undivided and equally common to the single persons, both on the part of the principle and on the part of the accomplishment, Yet they are distinguished by order and by terms. For the order of operating follows the order of subsisting." We've talked about the idea of how the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit subsist. The Father is of none. He is unbegotten. The Son is begotten, not made. The Spirit is sent or spirates. We've used some of that language before. Think with me here what Turreton says. As therefore, so again the statement he makes, the order of operating follows the order of subsisting. As therefore the father is from himself, so he works from himself. As the son is from the father, so he works from the father. The order of the works follows the order of subsisting. Or think about John 5, 19. The son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do. And when you read that phrase, the son can do nothing of himself, this is not to encourage you to draw the conclusion that the son is somehow impotent. It's not a statement of the weakness of the Son. It's a statement speaking of the oneness of the Son and the Father, the oneness of their being, the oneness of their working. The Holy Spirit, who is from both, His order of subsisting is from both, so He works from both. They also differ in terms as often as any divine operation is terminated on any person. So the voice heard from heaven is terminated on the Father, incarnation on the Son, and the appearance in the form of a dove on the Holy Spirit. Helpful, I think, in pulling this together, this idea of grammar, this text type in the writings that we find here, is a sermon from Augustine, all right? And I've given a handout there, so I'd like you to grab that handout, and I can see from the way that clock is rudely looking at me, we're not gonna get very far, but we're at least gonna try to work our way through this sermon by Augustine. and it's only a portion of the sermon, and it's a sermon on our text from Matthew 3. We're gonna just start in paragraph four, and we'll read four and five, and then we'll stop for just a moment before we jump ahead to six. All right, so let's look through this. Now this is a question which is often proposed by the most earnest brethren. So he's assuming the guy that's asking a question is an earnest believer. And often has place in the conversation of the lovers of God's Word. In other words, true Christians come up with questions like this. And you're going to, I think, be sympathetic with this guy when you're reading this text. It's not uncommon to go It really sounds like they're separate guys doing separate things coming to a common conclusion, all right? For this much knocking is want to be made unto God while men say, does the father anything which the son does not? So does the father do anything that the son doesn't do, all right? Or does the son do anything which the father doesn't do? Let us first speak of the Father and the Son. And when He, to whom we say, be thou my helper, leave me not. shall have given good success to this essay of ours, then shall we understand how the Holy Spirit also is in no way separated from the operation of the Father and the Son. So he's going to deal with the Father and Son, all right? And if he can solve that conundrum, or how the Father and Son relate, then by extension, this is going to cover the Holy Spirit as well, he's hoping. As concerning the Father and the Son, Then brethren give ear. Does the father anything without the son? We answer no. Do you doubt it? For what does he without him by whom all things were made? All things, says the scripture, were made by Him, and to inculcate it fully upon the slow and hard disputations that is added, and without Him was not anything made. You can hear John 1 there, can't you? All right? Jesus makes everything. Apart from Him, nothing was made that was made. All right? So, paragraph 5. What then, brethren? All things were made by Him. That's like, we get that. We understand then, by this, that the whole creation was made by the Son, the Father made by His Word, God by His power and wisdom. Shall we then say, all things indeed, when they were created, were made by Him, but now the Father does not all things by Him? You gotta like supply some little verbs in here, don't you? All right. Let's back up and read that again. Shall we then say, All things indeed were made by the Son when they were created, but now the Father doesn't do all things by Him. So there was a time when God made everything by the Son, but now somehow He doesn't do everything with the Son. Right? Should we say that? God forbid. Be such a thought as this far from the hearts of believers. Be it driven away from the mind of the devout, from the understanding of the godly. It cannot be that he created by him and does not govern by him." So Augustine here is saying, can it be that God made everything by the Son, but somehow doesn't govern everything that he made? Think about the decree. Think about the catechism. How does God fulfill the decree. By the works of what? Creation and Providence. Creation and Providence. This is long before the Baptist Catechism was ever written, but these kind of get at that same idea. It cannot be that He created by Him and does not govern by Him. God forbid that what exists should be governed without Him when by Him it was made that it might have existence. You're telling me that Jesus brought everything to existence, He made everything, and He has no authority and no right to govern everything that He made? That wouldn't make sense. But let us show by the testimony of the same scripture." So here what he's going to say, let's let the scripture, not just logic, all right? I mean it makes sense that Jesus makes everything. He should get to have a say in how everything's, you know, orchestrated, all right? But let's argue from scripture. That not only were all things created and made by him, as we have quoted from the gospel, that is the gospel of John chapter 1, All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made, but that the things which were made are also governed and ordered by him. You acknowledge Christ, then, to be the power and wisdom of God. Acknowledge, too, what is said of wisdom. She reaches from one end to another mightily, and sweetly does she order all things. Now I believe, and I'm not, I don't have the reference here with me, but I believe Augustine there is quoting from the wisdom, probably the wisdom of Solomon, like an Old Testament apocryphal text. that he would have seen, he's saying, as Scripture. That's a whole other canonical issue of the canon of the Old Testament, things like that. But Augustine here is thinking in terms of, I'm arguing from the Old Testament, I'm arguing from the Word of God to prove this particular point. And other texts could have been drawn. We don't necessarily need to draw from that. But, so, having argued then At that point, I want to read a statement. This is Louis Ayers. I think, is it Nicaea and its legacy, the legacy of Nicaea? Louis Ayers, a theologian from, I think, across the pond, Ayers is overseas somewhere, has written a book about Nicaea. And this is his comment that he makes here at this point about Augustine. Having made his way via scripture back to the doctrine of inseparable operation, which had seen initially to be against the scripture, So initially, when the guy comes in with the comment about Matthew chapter 3, hey, this looks like we're doing separate works and stuff, this doctrine of inseparable operations, it contradicts the Bible, right? So Augustine has now made his way by quoting from the Old Testament text. He also quotes here from Matthew chapter 3. And having done so, and John chapter one, and having made his way from the scripture back to the doctrine of inseparable operation, which had seemed initially against the scripture, Augustine restates the paradox caused by inseparable operation. That's what's gonna happen here in paragraph six. So let's move on, all right? But so a difficulty meets us. So he's like, okay, we have a problem. All right? We have this act of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, seems to contradict this idea of inseparable operations that we're affirming. We have a difficulty that meets us, which we have undertaken to solve in the name of the Lord and by His will. If the Father does nothing without the Son, which He is clearly asserting here, nor the Son without the Father, will it not follow that we must say that the Father also was born of the Virgin Mary, The father suffered under Pontius Pilate. The father rose again and ascended into heaven. You see what's happening here, right? If we say the operations are inseparable, then we have to have the same thing that happens to the son happening to the father. That would cause a problem, right? He goes on, God forbid, we do not say this. We're not saying the father was born of Mary We're not saying that the father suffered under Pontius Pilate. We're not saying that the father rose from the grave. God forbid. We do not say this because we do not believe it. And here he quotes from Paul in Corinthians. For I believed, therefore I spake. And Paul is quoting there from the psalmist, I believe. We also believe, therefore we speak. So as Paul would quote the psalmist, believe, therefore I spoke. So, Augustine says, we believe and therefore we speak. What is in the creed? This is interesting to me, because now he's going to use the creed, the Nicene Creed most likely here he's referring to, to be kind of a litmus test for truth. He's going to measure, use this as a standard for himself. What is in the creed? That the son was born of a virgin, not the father. What is in the creed? That the son suffered under Pontius Pilate and was dead, not the father. Have we forgotten that some misunderstanding this are called patrapassions? Boy, that's a big word. What is that? The father suffering, all right? Patrapassionism was another of those heresies in the early period of the church, all right? Have we forgotten that some, misunderstanding this, are called Patrapassians, who say that the father himself was born of a woman, that the father himself suffered, that the father is the same as the son, that they are two names, not two things. What would this be, Patrick? No. Modalism, Patrick, all right? Because they're the same thing, they're just different names. If you haven't seen, is it Donald and Connell? The little Lutheran satire videos, you, you have missed out on a real blessing. Oh man, yeah. I show that to my class every now and then. It's like the highlight of the semester because, well, everything else is just me. But this video of this little cartoon, that's good. That's worth the whole price of the class, all right? Yeah, that'd be modalism, all right? That the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same thing. We just sometimes call them Father, call them Son, call them Holy Spirit. That's modalism. Or it's United Pentecostalism. But anyway, that's a whole other matter. All right. Yeah, thank you, TD Jakes. And these, has the church Catholic separated from the communion of the saints that they might not deceive any but dispute in separation from her? Let us then recall the difficulty of the question to your minds. One may say to me, you have said that the father does nothing without the son. nor the Son without the Father. And testimonies you have adduced out of the Scriptures, that the Father does nothing without the Son, and that all things were made by Him. And again, that that which was made is not governed without the Son, for that He is the wisdom of the Father, reaching from one end to another mightily and sweetly ordering all things. And now you tell me, as if contradicting yourself, that the Son was born of a virgin and not the Father? The son suffered and not the father? The son rose again and not the father? See then, here I see the son doing something which the father does not. You should therefore either confess that the son does something without the father or else that the father also was born and suffered. He's giving his opponent an opportunity to speak here. All right. You should therefore either confess that the son does something without the father or else that the father also was born and suffered and died and rose again. Say one or the other of these. Choose one of the two. No. I love that. No, I won't choose either. I will say neither the one nor the other. I will neither say the son does anything without the father for I should lie were I to say so. Nor that the father was born, suffered, and died, and rose again, for I should equally lie, were I to say this. How then, says he, that is the guy that has the question at the very beginning, who he's assuming is a faithful brother, all right? How then, says he, will you disentangle yourself from these straits? The believer thinks he's, you ever had this moment where you're reading the Bible, and you think you finally found a contradiction? You think you've finally found an error in the Bible. Man, I've had those conversations with people. All right? Usually, usually they're people that haven't read much of the Bible. All right? You know, sorry, you get a teenager and he's read a couple of verses. And man, he knows everything. Or you get the seminary student that's had one Greek class. Oh man, he's ready to take you to the mattresses. All right? It's terrifying how much a little bit of knowledge does what? Puffs up. Well, Augustine does not feel like his hands are tied. And let's read this last paragraph and then we'll close. The proposing of the question pleases you. I love this. It's like when theologians get snarky. I just kind of like it. The proposing of the question pleases you. I can tell you feel pretty satisfied with yourself bringing this up. What was the old Luther comment or whatever? What was God doing before the world was made? He was making hell for impetuous seminary students like you or something like that. Proposing the question pleases you, may God grant his aid that its solution may please you too. He may not be quite as snarky as I'm thinking he is, but gotta be a little bit of snark here somewhere. See what I am asking him, that he would free both me and you, for in one faith do we stand in the name of Christ. and in one house do we live under one Lord and in one body are we members under one head and by one spirit are we quickened that the Lord then may set both me who speak and you who hear free from the straits of this most perplexing question I say as follows. Here's his answer. I thought about just giving you this but I thought no I want to give the whole thing. We didn't give paragraphs one through three so we did cut that out. The Son indeed and not the Father was born of the Virgin Mary. But this very birth of the Son, not of the Father, was the work both of the Father and the Son. Did you hear that? Alright. The Son was born of the Virgin, not the Father. But the birth itself was the work of the Father and the Son. And again, as he said earlier, if I can cover the Father and Son and get you to agree with me on that, it's probably not going to be hard to get you to swallow the issue of the Holy Spirit coming into, all right? The Father indeed suffered not, but the Son. Yet the suffering of the Son was the work of the Father and the Son. The Father did not rise again, but the Son. Yet the resurrection of the Son was the work of the Father and of the Son. I mean, think about the texts that speak about the Son being raised by the power of the Spirit. The Father raising the Son, the Son saying, I lay my life down, I take it up again. They're all involved in this. We seem then to be already quit of the question. But perhaps, it's only by words of my own, let us see whether it is not as well by words divine. And I just love this. I gave out a, yeah, in the house and came out and told Ben, Ben I found something else. And so he says, I mean, I could be satisfied with my own argument. That's what he's saying. But we need what? We need divine words. It is my place then to prove by testimonies of the sacred books. Think about this for a moment. How many debates have you had with Roman Catholics at this point? This is Augustine's principal chief moment. I've given you my words. I've talked about the creed. But the authority of the church says, No, we don't get that. We don't get that at all. Augustine's final argument, his supreme authority for this doctrine is what? The text of the Word of God. I know we're past chapter 1. This is chapter 2. But so good the testimonies of the sacred books that the birth and passion and resurrection of the Son were in such sort the works of the Father and the Son that whereas it is the birth and the passion and the resurrection of the Son only yet these three things which belong to the Son only were wrought neither by the Father alone nor by the Son alone but by the Father and the Son. "'Let us prove each several point. "'You here as judges, the case has been already laid open. "'Now let the witnesses come forth. "'Let your judgment say to me, "'as is wont to be said to pleaders in a cause, "'establish what you promise. "'I will do so assuredly with the Lord's assistance "'and will cite the books of heavenly law. "'You have listened to me attentively "'while proposing the question. "'Listen now with still more attention "'while I prove my point.'" Now I just stopped there. we could go on with the sermon, with the text that he begins to lay out to this fictitious objector or questioner. And Augustine here is not being novel. Turretin we had 17th century, Augustine is like fourth, fifth century, and this is no novel view of his. He quotes here, next, we don't have it on your paper there, but we'll start with this next week. We're gonna look at Gregory of Nyssa, who is a Cappadocian father from the late, middle to late fourth century as well. It's no novel doctrine. And then we could always go back to the Lord Jesus himself in John chapter five. The father's working, and I'm doing what I'm working to. for which they wanted to what? Kill him. Why? Because they knew exactly what he was saying. All right. Well,