We're going to go back to a specific person. This is where we get into the more complicated part of history. We're going to be pointing out heresies and heretics, but they're not born out of resentment for God or hostility towards God. They're actually born out of a desire to be faithful to God and His Word and just end up stepping in, you know, something on the side of the road that you shouldn't. This week we're going to be talking about Sibelius. That's where we get Sibelianism, the more common term, and what's known as today is modalism. And that's modes, and we'll see what that thought process looks like. When we see how we got to that, what it looks like, and how that's very relevant still today with some different, I don't want to say denominations, but some religious bodies. And we're going to be discussing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, what we call Trinity, Trinitarian. But at this time in church history, there was also another camp equally trying to be faithful to God's Word that were Unitarian. And we'll explain what that is when we get to it. This defense of monotheism, which there's one God, but also this defending the Trinity, the three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I'm going to introduce you to some more of the early church fathers, Hippolytus. I guess he was a pope candidate that didn't go through, and he ended up being one of the first anti-popes. He was very much against where the church was going at that time, and especially since they were embracing what he considered unbiblical teachings. Tertullian, we do have a lot of writings from Tertullian. And again, I like to put their biographies on here from different sources because even Tertullian and the great stuff he did, he ended up going away from some of the Orthodox faith at the end of his life and embracing something that, and I won't get into that because the monotonism when he started getting into Wasn't necessarily bad, but we also have elements of that today with the you know, everything is the end of the world So let's prepare right now because tomorrow God's coming and that leads you to even Paul warns against that quit getting ready now live but anyway, so it's her tooling did some Fantastic defense. In fact, he's where we started getting the early formations of the idea of Trinity and how to defend that and what that even means and then origin and Origins got some he's a he's a definitely an interesting one. It's another church father from Alexandria And you'll see a lot of them have influence from these Greek philosophers, just again understanding history and how the world at that time was, you know, exploded into the Hellenistic, into the Roman, so it's hard not to have this philosophy thought. But he has some pretty crazy ideas as well, but he definitely defended against civilianism and the modalism and fought for a Trinitarian idea of God, the Triune Nature. But again, he's got some crazy stuff and reading some of origins things like this is awesome The next thing we like that's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. What did I just read here? Not necessarily as bad as the cucumber discussion we had last week but he goes off into some different elements like the pre-existing soul and some different things like that that we say are not biblical and this again is just another one of those points if we are quoting somebody and and Using them to help us defend the faith does not mean that we embrace everything that they believe, everything that they stood for. You can be right on some areas. All right, so we're not holding them up as, you know, this is the ultimate authority on this, but we are going to look at how they defended against this, particularly Sibelius in this era. So as I said, defending monotheism, which means one god, singular god, versus in the Greeks, they had the polytheism. They had many gods, so Zeus, Hera, Athena, all these different gods. So they're trying to defend this idea. And if somebody can read Isaiah 45.5. I am the Lord and there is no god. So I am the Lord, there is no other, there is one God. We see this in the Exodus and repeated in Deuteronomy, I am the Lord your God, there is no other God but me, so there's one God. So here you have, and these men, Sibelius, Origen, they are leaders in the church. Some of them are bishops, some of them are priests, they are leaders, teachers in the church, the early church. So they see this though, no, God is one. Bible says there's one God. But then we read Matthew 28, 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Again, going back to language, this is why I love that John is very much, goes to the original languages. English words change. What I say in Arizona might be different than somebody says up in Massachusetts, even though we're saying the same thing. All right, but going to the original language, it's singular. That name is singular. So it's not in the names of the Father, Son, and Spirit. So again, just this idea of it's a single name, but now they're listing Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So Sibelius wants to defend monotheism of God. And what do you do with these though? Are there three persons? So we get into this idea of modalism, which just means modes. Okay? So his intent was motivated by this pastoral desire for God and explaining God to people. So as I said there, he wants to defend monotheism. And remember, we went over Marcion who had the Old Testament God was a separate entity, a different God than the New Testament God. So Sibelius is completely against that. That is heretical. I'm not gonna teach that to Christians. We need to defend against that. One of them is making sure that they understand there's only one God. Even the two testaments, that was Marcion again. The two testaments, one for old God, one for new God, but he wanted to show the two testaments were of a single God. So how do you do this? He wanted to defend Christ's full divinity. Remember the Gnostics were saying that he was a man or he was a demigod. He was just a good teacher. Even Marcion, he was the messenger of the true God. So Sibelius wanted to defend the full divinity of Christ. This, again, is an admirable intention. And he didn't want to overcomplicate understanding God. All right, getting into this, the distinction of three persons. He was afraid it was going to lead to apologeism. Well, there's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. If you're teaching that and people don't understand it, they're now thinking there's three gods, which we even see that today. I can talk to my kids like, what? They don't understand that. So he wanted to eliminate that misunderstanding again. Good intention. That's not how it is. We don't want you to think there's three gods. And then he starts getting into the, stepping into something with your intentions. Okay, he uses the analogy of the sun. And we've changed the understanding of this, but the analogy of the sun, that the sun is, you know, using that as an allegory to be God. And it's heat, and it's light, and it's energy. So, it's these three different things, that's Father, Spirit, Son, are being talked about. But it's, the sun is God. As in the star, the bright shining star. All right, today, and again, I'm gonna get into how that analogy's changed, but today the example is water. And I know I've heard this, you know, teaching kids, it's hard when you're trying to teach a trinity and you say something like that, well, God is like water. He's liquid, he's a solid when he's ice, and he's vapor when he's heated up steam. That's modalism, Patrick. All right, that's modalism. That's saying that it's three modes. And again, he's trying to defend that there's only one God. As seen later on, these arguments against this Trinitarian language are going to be used by Arian. Arius is going to come into the picture, and Arianism is going to explode using what Sebelius is using against this doctrine of the Trinity. So his intentions are, I want to defend God's Word, this one God, and Christ's full divinity. And here's how I'm arguing that. Arius is going to come in and use those same arguments like, yes, I agree with you. But now, as we're going to see next week, that is now taking away from Christ. So it led to a bigger heresy. And I went through that when we were going through the confessions early on. They start off with a heresy. Somebody wants to refute that heresy and ends up creating another heresy. Now there's two heresies you gotta defeat and you create a third heresy. So it's very difficult, especially as an early church was growing, to formulate these thoughts and ideas and be faithful to God's word and be reverent of who God is. I don't know if that was a skateboard or a car. So anyways, the response to Sabellianism, and this is from the Know the Heretics book. This is a Holcombe, Justin Holcombe. He's an Anglican, so again, I disagree with him on a lot of his practices and liturgy, but as far as church history and his knowledge of the Bible, fantastic source to go for this topic especially. And I like what he says, though, in theology, it's much easier to tell when an idea is wrong than it is to articulate precisely the right answer. The church had been adamant that modalism did not adequately account for the way God had revealed himself in scripture, but as of yet, few theologians had advanced a solution that was adequate. The challenge of civilianism and its brief influence at high places motivated the first substantial Trinitarian theologies and generated the terms we use today. So that is what you're saying is wrong. Sibelius, that's wrong. I can't articulate what the right answer is, but what you're saying is wrong. And that's where Godly men have said he's wrong. How he explained it's wrong. God is not like water. He's like a clover. Okay, now you're wrong. No, no, you guys are both wrong. That's also wrong. I can identify what's wrong. What's right though is God is like, you know, next heresy. And again, it's well intentioned. You're trying to explain it. You know, I've heard the, uh, you're a dad and you're a son and you know, you're a husband. That's, that doesn't explain the Trinity. I know that's wrong. Okay. So let's ask some questions here. I want to get into some discussion before we do look at, uh, some other points here. Is the Father always God? Is God the Father always God? I do expect answers here, because we're going to be wrong, and I want it to be wrong, so let's go with it. So God the Father is always God? Yes. Is the Son always God? Yes. Is the Holy Spirit always God? Yes. So, and I agree with you all, after saying that, is it fair now to say then that God is always the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? No? We'll wait for the big brain on John to get in here and answer this one. In this case, that's getting you a one-way ticket to heresy land. So we asked the question, is God the Father always God? Is God the Son always God? And is God the Holy Spirit always God? And everybody answered yes, unanimously. So then I asked, is God always the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? I know you're looking like this is a trick question, because you just answered yes one way, well, is it also now yes the other way? I'm going to say no, man, that sounds like Patrick. It sounds like a little modalism, but I don't know, man. But that's the point though, this is the discussion that were taking place in the early church. We're trying to formulate doctrine here. We agree, God the Father is always God. When we see God the Father in Scripture, He's always God. When we see God the Son in Scripture, He's always God. When we see the Holy Spirit in Scripture, He's always God. So it's God always the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's why I do like some diagrams here. Exactly. Actually, you should just do the knowing look. This is the idea that Sibelius and as we'll see there are some other groups today that believe this. And actually there was a big chunk of the church that actually believed this. That's why I say we have this Unitarian versus Trinitarian. And we'll see that this battle goes on until the Nicene Council. And then they come up with a solution. But then you start getting static from the opposition. So even the emperor's like, I don't want to see a fight. So maybe we should change this to now favor this side. And we'll get into that when we start going into a couple more heretics when you'll see Athanasian and his creed. And come up and know we're going to fine tune this now because you guys are trying to change words now, changing definitions to say something that's not. Or you're not being firm enough in this. As it was, the Apostles' Creed. I believe in God the Father, right? And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Both groups would say that. So that's why this discussion, well, now, are they always God? This is important because this is what took place, and this is what's not taking place today. We don't have to have a perfect PhD understanding. And as I'm looking at the texts in the Corinthians for this week, that knowledge, and I love knowledge, but not so much where we're arrogant on it, but these men, this was not their goal. They were trying to be defensive of God and who God is. So that conversation, God is all those, is all of them at the same time. So this leads to that. The way Sibelius understands it, God was the father at creation, and the giving of the law. So this was the first mode, right? That way it's still scriptural to him and his understanding. God, the father created, gave the law, rescued them to Exodus until Christ. So now God changes his modes. He goes from mode A to mode B and now he is the son in redemption. Then we get ascension and the comfort of being sent. And now the spirit is applying the grace in mode three. So it's modes, modalism. This is what Sebelius had believed. And for him, it was looking at these texts and trying to reconcile one God, these three different persons. Okay, like I said, next we're going to look at how the three persons idea and his defenses led to Arius to go into a whole other side of the road, stepping in something else over there. So, we use the one here. And we've got the father, son, and spirit. You see this around our stained glass. You'll see it on some letterheads. You'll see it on different things. Oh, that should be knots. So the Spirit is not the Father, the Father is not the Son, and the Spirit is not the Son, but they're all God. So I got my triangle mix up there. Alright, this is where it gets complicated though. So you're saying that there's one God, but he is presenting himself in three people, he is three people. He's, what's he called, impartialism, where it's three gods that all share this godness, so it's like the father's one third of the god, the son is one third, and you start getting into this idea of, well, I'm trying to explain, I know what it's not, so I'm trying to explain what it is, and I'm making a bigger mess of it. Okay, so, That idea, like I said, it's easier to tell when an idea is wrong than to articulate precisely the right answer. So let's discuss that though. How would you explain this trinity, this idea? And I trust that we all in here are Trinitarian in our beliefs, the triune nature of God. We see it evident in Scripture, and where Sevillius would say that that's more of a metaphorical understanding, because you have to look at those texts where it's you know, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, especially when you see them, like in Matthew 28, where they're all right there. So how do you reconcile that? To him, it was metaphorical, but who wants to try to explain the Trinity? What is your understanding of the Trinity? And it's okay to mess this up. That's the point of this here, to show you how difficult it is, so that we're not picking on these men. We look at Sibelius, I'm automatically going, oh, that's a heretic. Oh, wow, you're saying that he was ungodly. Stop. Being a heretic, especially at the early church, did not mean that they were anti-God. It meant how they voiced certain things. Now, there were some, but how they voiced certain things. The guy eating the cucumbers last week, heretic. Get out of here. This, trying to reconcile scripture and be diligent. Who wants to give it a go? Somebody butcher it. Trinity is like, no, I'm just kidding. Well, why is that water analogy wrong then? If we can look at what's wrong, why is saying that the Trinity is like water, where it's a liquid, a solid, and a gas, why is that wrong? It doesn't differentiate the persons. So essentially, it's one person in different modes. Different modes? That's exactly what it is. Whereas, in this idea, God is either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit. That's why I asked that question, is God all of these at the same time? And that's where it gets tricky, because you can say yes and be right, and you can say no and be right. What do you mean? Qualify that. What about that idea of the clover? That's partialism. Oh, and who taught partialism? Well, the first season of Ultron, clearly. I think Jonathan Edwards used that analogy as well. And I would not call him a heretic, but he just, you stepped in some heresy. So it's saying like the three parts, it's like a third, a third, a third. That's partialism, yes. So it's not 100% God and 100% well, that's for Jesus, but so it wouldn't be 100% at all times. It's like third, third, third. This model, modalism, it's not that thirds. Modalism is God is 100% the Father at this time, and the Father is 100% God at this time. These others are not existing at the same time here. God is 100% God only in one of these modes at a time. So they wouldn't think that the Son was always existing with the Father? It can't be always existing with the Father if it's modes. So these are the questions. No, exactly. What was the Son of the Spirit at the time of creation? That's metaphorical language. God is either the Father or the Son. And again, what I'm saying is what they believed here. And these are the questions that are asked. This is what you're asking right now. It's probably what origin, intertwining, like, well, no, wait a minute, that just makes sense. What about this? What about this scripture? All right, so these are the questions. This is why they had a council. Councils, and again, I still hate, especially secularists, Constantine got ruffled. No, I will admit, when you have two parting groups of Christianity and you're a ruler of a big kingdom, that can cause problems. So you want them to get in a room and figure this out. But he's not the one who determined this stuff. These godly men get together. They discuss this. What do you mean by that? Well, what do you mean by this? Well, let's say it the word. Yes, but what about this? So they get together and that's where the whole St. Nicholas smacking area is in a council. That didn't happen, but I still love that picture. They got together to discuss these things. And we don't do that anymore. We're isolationists now, but these are things that are coming back into relevance. So is it like they were all existing at the time, but during creation, like lights, which is sort of like the sun and spirit were off, and then during redemption, it's like the father and the spirit were off and they turned on the sun, like they were always existing? Well, that's this 21st century heresy that we just created right there that I'm going to call that. I like that the light switches. They were always there, it's just they weren't quite switched on yet or something. I think in this thing is God has always existed, but he's revealed himself as the Father at one time. Then he goes and changes costumes and becomes the Son. Then he goes and changes, well now he's the Spirit, so he doesn't have any costume, he's just the Spirit. Like a man can be a father, a son, and a husband. I don't know if they reconcile that with the baptism. You see all three of them at the same time. It's metaphorical. And even praying in the garden, that becomes problematic. Well, and I have one here. If somebody would read John 17.5, since we're discussing the scriptures on that, let's look at this one. John 17.5. And now, Father, I need your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So that scripture right there goes exactly to your question. I had this glory with you before the world existed. So how, reading that, did they both exist before the creation of the world in two modes, but so this was the problem that Sibilius, and the way we're asking and not being able to answer here, this is what he was afraid of for his people. All right, so he's getting questions like this. I don't want to overcomplicate God and have people running around, stepping in heresy, so I'm going to create my own heresy. Unintentional. Okay. I even have an unintentional heretics. There are some that are deliberate. There are some that are definitely going away from a biblical understanding. Like when you completely butcher, throw out the Old Testament, write your own Bible. That's no, that's intentional. But these men are trying to take scripture and do something with it. I believe there's one God. What do I do to justify these texts where there's a three, three persons? All right. This is the dilemma they come up with. And I think they didn't have the categories of of what and who, what I mean by that, God being a neutered concept and persons being a who concept. Some other big words there. But this again is a problem. If we're saying that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all the same essence, This is where he was afraid of. That's now saying that you have three equal gods. That is now polytheistic. That is now Zeus and Poseidon. So that's what he was afraid of happening, especially knowing the pagan cultures around there. So the Hellenistic idea and teaching and stuff, I don't want these people who've now been redeemed from this. Even Paul said, why are you going back to these things that you were saved from? So this is a pastoral heart that these men had and end up trying to do the right thing and making it more difficult. Again, thankfully... It's like the culture of the time and what they're used to when the people are... like they could be saved or Christians or whatever, but they still have that Hellenistic thinking or that old way that they're trying to, yeah, pastor them out or that's a great way of putting it. And they're all just really smart guys just trying to figure it out and not lead them down a path that's... just trying to... that's cool to see that because they're just pulling this out of nowhere. They're creating it, basically, because they're trying to figure it out in the right way. That's what you're saying. be heretical. The other thing is you're dealing with the Western Church and the Eastern Church. So you're dealing with the Western Church in Rome who are using Latin language, then you're dealing with the Eastern Church in Constantinople that's using Greek. So you're dealing with, even the terms aren't easily defined. which is why I like, because Sertullian was, he wrote a lot in Latin, so the way he formulated the words is what we take a lot of. And again, since I missed that point though, but Sibelius, much of what we know about him is not from his own writings. He was excommunicated from the church. We don't have a lot of his writings. What we do have though, is a lot of the counter writings from like Hippolytus, for example. So what we know about Sibelius and his teachings are from the refutations coming from these men. No, you're wrong when you said this because of this. So much of what we understand about him is from their sources. So that also makes it a little bit difficult in judging him. We're judging him unfairly a lot of times because, yes, that's a heresy. But what was his reasons? What was that? He can't defend himself. Maybe he didn't mean it in a certain way, that people took it, and then they're saying, you're wrong, you're wrong. Maybe he meant it in a different way, whatever. But looking at, so you have three men that are going against him. So what he was teaching, and like I say, the church was, it was pretty much split. There was a split in Unitarian versus Trinitarian. And they were all trying to be faithful. There was that Eastern Western. There was this idea of not so much camps, but yes, no, we're not going back. I was saved from this polytheistic culture and believe this one God. Now you're trying to tell me, but there's also three gods. So I'm going to, you know, not buy into that. I'm not going to listen to you. So it is godly men trying to do the right thing. Again, I like Tertullian here though, but talking about the metaphorical and the understanding of that, like you asked, well, what about this in the garden? All right. According to him then, and I think that, Maybe it's Lewis or something, you know, Christ is either a liar, has a mental disorder, or he was a demigod. Because you cannot have these scriptures and credit him with full divinity, but then also say that he's either a mode or less than or something else. So, Tertullian, and he's going to be quoting scripture here. I love, again, the early church fathers are not writing anything new. They are using scripture and then how they understand that to be applied. So Tertullian wrote, and this is John, I am one who am bearing witness of myself, and the Father is another who has sent me and bears witness of me. Now if he were one, this is Tertullian talking about that scripture, now if he were one, being at once both the son and the father, he certainly would not have quoted the sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one, but of two. That's a wordy way of saying, if you're saying that God can only be one mode at a time, But Jesus is saying, we bear witness of each other. because he's using the law that they would understand. The law requires two or more witnesses. Well, if they're the same at one time and not two different people, then there's not two witnesses, there's only one witness. So again, Tertullian's trying to use scripture and show why. Again, it's easier to point out why that's wrong, but he did a very good job in formulating a lot of the early Trinitarian language, but that's a problem he had. If it's metaphorical, that doesn't make sense, because he's quoting where you need two witnesses. And if you can only be one, so I witnessed myself, let me run out of the room, bring my hat back in, second person. I witnessed it too. Well, where's that other witness? Oh, let me go back and get him. Oh, I'm back again. All right, that's a Three Stooges skit. And then the examples that we have even today, the wear and dwelt with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we're going to look at the Apostles' Creed, but Christ is sitting at the right hand of God the Father. So even in our simple creed, the most simplistic creed we have, we see the three. And that's why the others agreed with it, but changed it to this kind of mode. So the next creed is going to be modified at the Council. And I say, the Nicene Creed is awesome. And that's my last thing there. But the video, if you haven't seen the video, go to Lutheran Satire. It's two Irish peasants, and they're talking to St. Patrick. Like, oh, tell us about this Trinity. You know, so he does, and terrible, and they're busting him out, and I love them because they're sarcastic. But then like, you know, well that's modalism, that's this, that's that. So he answers, well the Trinity is a mystery which cannot be comprehended by human reasons, but which is understood through faith and is best confessed in the words of the Athanasian Creed, which states that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity. neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance, that we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess that each distinct person is God and Lord, and the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, and co-equal in majesty." That's still not giving you a specific explanation, but this protects you from stepping into an unintentional heresy. Again, you're not dividing the substance, the essence, you're not dividing that and making it thirds, that partialism. You give them each equal in glory and co-equal in majesty, so they're sharing all at the same time, not in modes. The Nicene Creed is a great creed as well, but I say Athanasian was afraid that they were going to tweak that again going back towards the other way, so he kind of slammed his down there too. Is this important though, us discussing the Trinity and knowing as accurate as we can. How do you express that? Is this important? Yes. Why is it important? Can't, uh, they brought it up a couple weeks ago. Uh, I don't know. Actually, it's the right word. Like, you can't adequately work with Saudi There are no wrong answers here, only heresies and correct answers, so. What else you got? Why is this important, though? What will having an understanding, as best we can, not a perfect understanding, we're not gonna have that perfect understanding, but as best we can, what does having this understanding of the Trinity do for us in our walk? That is true, having an understanding of how we worship, but what does that do for us? For me, I think a lot of these heresies, like especially this one model, person at one time, do one thing. So for me, it's helpful to see that that's a heresy and realize that God is bigger than that, and so big that we just can't fully understand exactly how he works, because he's so great and powerful. Yeah, we're thinking of it from the human level of what we think of, and we can only do one person at a time. But this is God we're talking about that can do anything. So it's all powerful. And what limits God? So for me, it gives me the ability to think about God in relational dynamics and allows me to think about my relationships in light of how God relates to God and Godhead. So, you know, what you see, what I see in God is just this perfect love. And, you know, when I look at my relationships, I don't see that. And so, but I strive for that. Plus, it makes God a liar. It really makes God a liar, because He's not who He says He is. And then, if this relationship doesn't exist until the Incarnation, but then the Father is no longer there, who is the Son a Son of, if there's not a Father? Who is the Father of, if there's not a Son? And I know this talk is why the Holy Spirit gets a backseat in a lot of the Trinitarian talk, too, though. I love the books, you know, The Forgotten God, I think it's James White does that on the Holy Spirit. Because we understand this relationship, our Father and Son, even if, again, not perfectly, or if it's corrupted from our experience, we still know Father and Son. How the Holy Spirit plays into that is a little bit more complicated for us. But regardless, if you don't have that relationship and these roles, Okay, because you get into the, and I should have printed out those other forms you had. What is it? There's another big word where God is suffering as the Son. The Father is suffering as the Son. Okay, so then we just get these other ideas that are, they're not biblical and it is confusing, but like you said, we wanna have an easy understanding, but we have Father. And again, looking at the roles, we talk about roles. All right, one, this perfect love and relationship, if there's not a relationship in eternity past, then that means God is learning as well. If they're all eternal, and again, I'm trying to be careful because I will step in some heresy and try to explain something as well. But if it's eternal, this has always been, that's the Godhead. I don't need to accurately explain that when I can identify what it's not and protect myself by using a very simple creed to make sure that I'm giving each aspect of what I'm looking at the proper reverence and this equal in glory and power and majesty, and we can safeguard ourselves in that. But what is the role of the Father in salvation, for example? I'll go with chooses, election. What is the role of the son? Redemption. And so we do not forget the great comforter. I like one of the, uh, was it quickens? Is that in our, the kids? Quickens. That's the quickening. Oh, Patrick. Seeing how they work together in these roles automatically has to eliminate this idea of modalism. Again, that's the running out of the room and coming back in with a different hat, and that is a weak God. It's hard to grasp and completely understand this Trinitarian, but scripture leans definitely in a way that I have to see this triune nature of God. I can't not see that. What's interesting there is if the father is, does not, if the son doesn't exist until the father creates that mode, then even the very idea of father, then where does that idea come from? Then it's coming from man to God, not from God to man. Because we all would know earthly fathers, but if there is no son until, the father changes costume, there were fathers before Christ came. So it changes everything. That then opens the door for another heresy that we run into, speaking of Christ. If he was not eternally, which scripture says, the glory I have within your own presence, if he was not divine, we'll get into next week, one aspect of that with Arius, and then the modern day cult that follows that. But we have this adoptionism. where that's where Christ is gonna get this divinity, even if not full divinity, he's being adopted by God the Father now. So again, these ideas of not having a proper understanding of this eternality of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit leads to these other complications, you know, adoptionism. So Christ is born a man, and then at his baptism is now adopted as God's Son. This is a belief, this is a early church belief, and there are still some who adhere to this, so. All right, and looking at this, again, it's important for us to study this, and we can continue having discussions, and we're going to with these other heresies that are coming up. We're gonna see more men who try to build on or refute and fall into heresies, and we're gonna see some of the church fathers that battled those, but again, keep in mind, I just talked about some of these. They fall into their own downfalls. And I know John likes origin a lot, but I was telling him about even some of these guys with their crazy ideas and his with the pre-existing souls from eternity and stuff. So they're not all 100%, but their writings, teachings, understandings of what we do know is wrong are great for us to build on. And I know I'm going to quit writing down the actual contemporary examples and make you guys give them to me because I'm going to ask, well, what are some contemporary examples? Who are some people that follow into this now? You can cheat, I already wrote it on your paper, so go ahead and cheat. What does that mean? What is Oneness Pentecostal? It is modalism. And a lot of Church of Christ, and they have these, and again, This is not bashing because they're our brothers, but their overall teaching is wrong. All right. And again, they would even say that if you're believing in Trinitarianism, you're now worshiping idols and you are unsaved because you don't have the right understanding of this oneness. I think one of those famous, Creflo Dollar and T.J.' 's goes back. Yeah. I still say he's a moralist. I'm probably misspelling it. I don't care. Spellcheck didn't underline it in red, so I'm good up there. Yeah, and even theirs, so that... Sorry, Papa can't answer. Their baptism. They're baptizing in what they mean by, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They're going to give all three of these modes one name. So the name of God in these three different modes is Jesus. All right? That way, do you believe in Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus God? Yes. They can answer all the orthodox questions with yes. It's no different than Sevilleus. There's a Filipino sect here in Fayetteville also that's on Jesus only, but I forget what Iglesia is too. And they, yeah, they, I actually am more concerned about them than even the one that's Pentecostals, because I know some brothers in this, and even their King James that they use, you're manipulating what that says, but with the Filipino sect, you can only get their understanding of Scripture by going through their university, and nobody else is allowed to read their writings. Yes, they are. That goes again to what we discussed before and that secret knowledge and only us. So very elitistic. Only this few can have the true understanding of scripture and we're not going to show you how we derive this because those are secret books. All right. But yes, they are definitely there. There are oneness also. Jesus only. There is no Trinitarian, triune nature of God. and the United Apostolic Church. What I do find with a lot of these, though, if you remember Manny and his self-appointed title of the Apostle of Cucumbers Everywhere, a lot of these, one is they all say that it's a special revelation. They already have this higher knowledge because you believe in a three-headed God, where they have this one God, and his name is Jesus, and all that encompasses, which is, again, modalism, and it's wrong, but then they have this special revelation. All right, so because they already have this better knowledge, special revelation, and then this legalistic approach. And we can get into a lot of other teachings that they have, but there are brothers and sisters in Christ that are parts of these churches that are, they're wrong. And there are people who come out of this, like, I can't believe that for all these years, this is what I believed was taught. God opened my eyes to his truth from his word. And that's, that's the point. That's why we are to be diligent. I was talking to a sister tonight, and she recommended a movie she was watching, and it was good. It was biblical. It was accurate. She was looking for heresies. Nothing. Watch their second part. Awesome. They're on the right track. Watch the third part. If you worship God on any day but Saturday, you are carrying the mark of the beast. Seventh-day Adventist. All right, but because studying the word, studying scripture, you're able to identify things that sound, if nothing else, it's raising a little flag in the back of your head there, your hair's getting raised. Like my question earlier, sounds like a trick question. I wanna say yes, but we should be on guard on how to look for these things. So that's what makes it difficult in a lot of ways with heresies. It sounds good. You're not talking about Shaquille O'Neal. I know what you're talking about, yeah. Well, I believe in that one, one of the persons of God is a woman as it is, so right there I have to start, you know, And again, this is where much of Christianity starts to shy away from, oh, I don't want to be accused of being a misogynist. I'm called a misogynist anyway, so I don't care if you're going to apply that to me when it comes to my stance on God. It's masculine. Original languages, there's no way around it. Masculine, there is no room for argument on that. But yes, unless you're Hollywood and you can make a love story. Yeah, that partialism. So we'll see. And I really do. I know I have one printed out of my office, John, but I'll try to remember to get that from you, the different heresies. We are going to go over them next week. We're going to go over probably two of them. We're going to go over Arius and yeah, somebody else. They're going to be kind of showing how they work together. Like I say, Arius is going to take a lot of what civilianism taught and use that against some things. Again, he's another teacher, a Christian teacher, who takes his ideas and argues them, and now he's using them for his own, and we're gonna see this taking down of Christ. And if you're not familiar with Arianism, modern day, it's Jehovah's Witness. So you get to see how that started, what that looked like, how that led to the beliefs, and then, of course, there's no new heresy under the sun, it's just repackaged and revisited. And Connell and Donald do an awesome job with the Jehovah's Witness as well, so check out the Lutheran satire. Just for his whippersnappers. I think Arius also was a gifted musician. He would write Giddings that would be sung. So that kind of makes me step back and go, we need to be careful when we're singing in the church, because people, most Christians, unfortunately, get their theology from the songs in the church. And I like John Cash, and I like coming to the garden alone with a statue. But I like it. Yes, and it's easy for kids. That's why, and I agree with you, when I hear the little ones singing something, even if they're butchering the words because they can't pronounce them all the way, they are singing these truths of God. They're singing the doxology. Or I love hearing Lizzie, my youngest, sings Jesus, thank you. Of course, now your blood is washed away, my sin. Who's that? Lizzie. Does she know what that means? No. And it is very important for us to realize that, yes, the young are being catechized by something. They're being taught by something. All right. And I'm going to mention some of that this week, too. But I know that even in my family, they're like, why are you taking your kids to church? Let them grow up and become an adult before they decide if they want to be a Christian or not. Keep burning yourself. I'll wait till you're old enough to decide whether you want to get burned by touching that fire on the hot stove or not. That's ridiculous. Yeah, you're good. But it is important, and for us to be diligent in studying to see what does the Word of God say and how does that pertain to us. Again, it's not knowledge for the sake of knowledge. We can be like, I can eloquently pontificate up here with the Athanasian Creed and everything that he said. I don't know what that means. Let's talk biblical here. What do you do with that scripture? God is one, Father, Spirit, Son. How do we reconcile this? And there's going to be some other tough ones that we look at. There are still some scriptures and different doctrines. People talk about, what do you do about this? That's a very tough scripture. You know, how do you reconcile that? I don't, I trust God because I don't have an understanding of that. I could fluff myself up and say something very nice and step into heresy or I can say, I don't know. All right, but if it's something that we should know, then we should be diligent and seeking to know that. Like you said, what does God want us to know about? He will reveal what he wants you to know. Some areas in scripture are harder for others than not, but what we need to know, God is gonna reveal to us. So any other questions, comments? I wish I did have the video. I would totally throw up the Connell and Donnell, especially when they tear apart the 1 John. in Greek. Nobody? Nothing else? Questions? Any more heresies? Killianism? Follower of Tua, you're not going to follow him down this road. You're going to come up with your own. Depends on the cucumbers or not, right? That was still great. We got the text from Tyson's mom. What did you teach my son? He's talking about eating cucumbers, the free God, and this and that. And I was like, yes. I knew you were going to question him because he did not let me down. He went right home and said, guess what Jim said? So that's great. All right, well, I appreciate it. And again, next week, we'll go over, like I said, we'll go over two of them. We'll go over areas, and so it'll be a little bit longer, but talk about two, because you have to see how one trying to battle the other, how they work together, and then forming more of the creeds that we do have. On the very last page, just again, so you have something there. I do have the third paragraph from the Second Lenten Confession on the Trinity. This Divine and Infinite Being consists of three real persons, the Father, the Word, or Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have the same substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole Divine Essence without this Essence being divided. The Father is not derived from anyone, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. All three are infinite and without beginning, and are therefore only one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being. Yet these three are distinguished by several distinctive characteristics and personal relations. This truth of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our fellowship with God and of our comforting dependence on Him." That's still difficult, but as you study, there are some things in the Confession that I say we can disagree on. There are some like, if you don't grasp this, you know, anything else but this, this is one of the important ones. Alright, so we want to close this in prayer then, and I thank you all again.