The Trinity

So, here we are, God, in three persons, the Trinity, we started this, the previous time I was here three weeks ago, and we'll continue today, and we might do one more Sunday on it. I'm just not sure we'll see how it goes today, and I'm going to also, I put a little note to myself to just quit at 9.15 and get some, about 10 minutes of interaction with all of you, because I have been pushing and trying to get through more material and forgetting to take some time for questions, or enough time for questions and interactions, so we'll try to do that. Here we are, talking about the question, what is God's being like? And especially, how can God be three persons in one God? And this is just a difficult question for us to understand. And the church went through the church that is Christians in the early period of the church from the time the New Testament, well, Jesus died, and rose again, about 30 AD, the New Testament was written from about 45 to maybe 90 AD, and that time, on for the next 200 years, people agreed that God is three persons in one God, but they tried to figure out how that could be, and how to define that, and how to explain it, and the more they thought about it, the more they thought, man, this is really difficult, and they tried different ideas and different teachers tried different ideas that sounded good at first, and then later they found, no, these aren't good, these are denying some essential aspect of the Trinity. So last week, last class, we went through this definition, God exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God. If you believe those three things, then you hold to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. But the question is, where do we find support for those in Scripture, and how do we put them together, and so then we'll go on with that. The doctrine of the Scripture, we said the Trinity, we said the last class period, is progressively revealed in Scripture. There's a partial revelation in the Old Testament, even in Genesis 1, God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Indicating a plurality of persons in God, the people didn't know that there was a Trinity, but on wise reflection on that passage, they would have thought, I think there is something here going on that we don't understand. There's God talking to God somehow, what does that mean? And we went through more verses from the Old Testament last class period. Then there's a more complete revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament, because we have a number of passages where you have Jesus being baptized, for instance, the Spirit of God descending on Him, and God the Father, speaking from heaven, three different persons doing different things at the same time. And the great commission talks about the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and there are other verses like that. And I talked about the fact that the word Spirit is used for the Holy Spirit, Lord often used for God the Son, and God often used for God the Father, not completely, but there's some preference of usage for those two words, both of which refer to the Lord or the Lord God in the Old Testament. So then we came to the point of saying there are three statements that summarize the biblical teaching. God is three persons, so each person is distinct from the other two. So the Son prays to the Father, the Father sends the Son and things like that, and then each person is fully God, and we went through verses demonstrating, of course that the Father is God, no one disputes that, and then that the Son is also God, sometimes he is called God, he was called the Word, and the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, he's called God, and there is one God, and the hero is the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. So we went through passages on all of that, I didn't put up here, there were verses also on the deity of the Holy Spirit, and that was for last class, and there is only one God at a number of verses like that, and so we come to the point where we say that God is three persons, and each person is fully God, and there is one God, and what has happened through the history of the church is that there have been what I call simplistic solutions where people say, oh, I can explain this, I've got this figured out, and what they do is they end up denying one of these statements, so God is three persons, each person is fully God,

there is one God, can you read that from the back row? Okay, way over there too, okay, okay, no, let's say you just cross off that one, God is three persons, then you're left with something that's easy to explain, each person is fully God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there is one God, but you don't have three persons anymore, so the picture looks like this, it's just one person, and sometimes you look at the person one perspective, and it looks like, oh, that's exacting like Father, one perspective is acting like Son, and one perspective is acting like the Holy Spirit, but there's just one person in God, and so you're denying that there are three different persons who can interact with each other in God, that's simple, but it's a heresy, it's called modalism, or subelianism, modalism, and I'll get to that in a few minutes and God has different modes in which he acts, but he's not three persons, that's simple, you just have one person, or if you deny the second one, you say, okay, there are three distinct persons, but not every person is fully God, so what you have then is, let's see, we'll skip this one, we'll say God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there's one God, so what people do in this case is say the Father is and this smaller, and there are two created beings, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and they're not really God, they're just lesser than God, and they're created, so now you don't have any problem, you say, okay, God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there's one God, but you're denying that the Son and the Holy Spirit are God, that's the heresy called aerianism, after a man named Areas, A-R-I-U-S, and the Jehovah's Witnesses today follow that category, they say that the Son was created, or I don't know if anybody actually does this, but you could say this, you could deny the third category, and you could say, God is three persons, and each person is fully God, but you deny that there's one God, and then you get a picture like this, you get three gods, three persons, and each one is fully God, but that's of course polytheism, or tri-theism, and the Bible doesn't teach that, the Bible teaches that there's one God, so we don't want any of those solutions that deny one of these statements, we want to keep all three of these statements, simplistic solutions must deny one strand of biblical teaching, by contrast we must affirm all three, again, just by way of analogy, I have Jack and Pammy and Eric over here, three persons, each one's a full human being, that's no problem, oh you're one, yeah, but I understand, Pammy, but let's leave that aside for him, okay, so Jack is a human being, Pammy's a human being, Eric's a human being, I've got three human beings, each one's a complete human being, but I don't have one being, that's the problem, okay, or I could say Jack is a husband, Jack's a father, and Jack is an elder at the church, so I've got three different roles for Jack, but I don't have three different persons because he's just still one person, so I say I can't figure this out, how can God be one being, but three different persons, I understand three persons, I understand one being, but I can't have them the same time, that's the problem, okay, am I making sense? All analogies have short comings, ultimately no analogy adequately teaches about the Trinity, and all are misleading in significant ways, and so, well, LG is a man who's a father, a husband, and an elder, that's an analogy, three different roles, but it's still just one person, so that's a shortcoming, or somebody says what about a tree, you have a tree with the trunk, the leaves, and the roots, but one tree, three different parts, oh that's like the father's son in holy spirit, no, why not Mark, they're not all the same, right, right, so leaves have different characteristics than the trunk, and they have different characteristics than the root, and leaves aren't the whole tree, we're saying the father is the whole of God, and the son is the whole of God, so that doesn't work, and it's not personal, and I know there's a faint analogy with water, and that people can say water is like you know you can have water that's a block of ice, how can I draw an ice cube here, big enough to eat, I don't know, that's a nice cube, okay, and then you have water in liquid form, and then you have water in steam, that's fine, but no drop of water is all three of these, no one drop is all three, this is the same time, even though they can all three exist in one point, one time under certain conditions, but no drop of water is all this, and they don't have all the same characteristics, and of course it's not persons, you've got got the problem words where Mark is one person, but he's not three persons in one being, so it may be faintly helpful, but it really doesn't explain anything to us, so the analogies are kind of, it might be a little bit helpful for teaching things to children or something, but they really don't solve the problem, God eternally and necessarily exists as Trinity, all three persons were present at creation, so don't want people to think that the Trinity started in the New Testament, this came on the scene, or something like that, God has eternally been Father, Son, Holy Spirit, so for instance John 13, all things were made through him, the Father created through the Son, and at creation the Son was present, there wasn't anything made without him, says John 13, in other words this affirms that everything that exists was made by the Father through the Son, all things were made through him, without him was not anything made that was made, everything that was created was created by the power of the Father working through the Son and the Son being the act of age and creation, that denies the Jehovah's Witnesses claim that the Son was created, see without him there was nothing made that was made, and talking about Christ again in Colossians 116, for by him all things were created in heaven on earth, visible and invisible, that means angels and things like that, whether thrones or dominions or rulers and authorities, all things were created through him and for him the Son was active in and you see Genesis 1, 2 of course, the Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the water, the Holy Spirit was also present at the beginning of creation, more verses on this, the Son, by his Son who me appointed the air of all things through whom also he created the world, this is the constant pattern, the Father creates through the Son, here's the Spirit of God, hovering over the face of the waters, John 17, 5 and 24, Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed, so before there was any creation, the Father and Son, the Father was sharing glory with the Son, there was interpersonal interaction between the Father and the Son, elsewhere he talks about the love that the Father had for him before the foundation of the world, errors have come by denying any of the three statements summarizing the biblical teaching, now I want to take a few minutes and talk about some of the major heresies or major errors in the history of the Trinity that have come into the church, and it's good to know about these so we kind of guard against them. Number one, modalism claims that there is one person who appears to us in three different forms or modes, now this heresy has three different names, just as quiet as I don't know, but it's sometimes called Sibelianism after a teacher in the early church named Sibelius, and then it's sometimes called modalistic monarchyanism because they're saying there's one monarch, God the Father, and then he appears sometimes as the Father and the Old Testament, it appears as the Son and the Gospels, it appears as the Holy Spirit and the Epistles, different modes, but just one person, and that's an easy solution, there's no difficulty in figuring it out, it's like Jack being husband and father and elder at the same time, but it doesn't have three persons anymore, it gains its attractiveness from the idea that they want to emphasize that there is only one God, John 10, 30, I and the Father are one, and whoever has seen me has seen the Father, Jesus says, but the short coming is it must deny the personal relationships within the Trinity, and by implication it denies the independence of God, what do I mean by that? The problem is how can the Father send the Son, if the Father and the Son are the same person? How can John 316 be true? How can God so love the world that He gave His only Son? How could that happen if there's only one person? And they have to say that this is an illusion, or just something for teaching us, but not really the true nature of things, and I don't think that's representing the truth of those verses accurately, and how do you deal with Jesus praying to the Father? See, that's two different persons. Father, glorify in your presence with the glory of you before the world was made, or if it be possible, take this cup from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. All those prayers to grow up the Father, that Jesus gives, that means you have two persons. You can't have a person praying to himself who would be deceptive for Jesus to do that. Now, are there modalists today? Yes, there are. The modalists today are a group called Wondrous Pentecostals. They're not the assemblies of God. They were kicked out of the assemblies of God in 1916, because the assemblies of God said, no, we're classic Pentecostals, and we hold to the doctrine of the Trinity. But the United Pentecostal Church is the official name, and it's sometimes called Jesus-only, and you will know when you meet one, if someone comes and says, have you been baptized in the name of Jesus? Because they won't baptize in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, they don't believe in the Trinity. Again, it gains its attractiveness by saying, well, there's one God, there's one God, therefore there can't be three persons, and the problem is it's denying these verses of the Bible that show interaction between the Father and the Son, their interpersonal interaction. The question is whether what's called these Wondrous Pentecostals, whether they should be considered evangelicals today or not, and I don't, and traditionally they have not. We have friends who were missionaries in Nigeria a number of years ago, and they said it's very difficult for them. The only other missionaries that had any kind of belief in the Bible at all around them were from the United Pentecostal Church, and they're non-Trinitarian, and they didn't know where they have fellowship with them or not, and that was a difficulty. About 15 years ago, the Evangelical Theological Society, it's the Professional Society for Professors of Bible and Theology, I'm part of that. The Evangelical Theological Society, we added to our statement of faith a statement that God is three persons to exclude the Wondrous Pentecostals from this group. There is a Bible colleague having St. Paul Minnesota, and 25, 28 years ago when I taught at Bethel College, we had a number of students coming from that college over and kind of just trying to argue their points and stir up some difficulty. What do I think about these people? I think that people are inconsistent, sometimes with what they believe, and they can say that they believe a doctrine, but if they start reading the Bible so much of the rest of the Bible comes to the defense of true aspects of biblical teaching, that they can be genuinely born again, even though they've got some doctrines that would ultimately be denying their salvation, they may be are not consistent in following through on that, so they may be personally better than their doctrine would allow them to be. But this view has not been the view of the history of the church. I'm troubled that there's a magazine called Charisma. It's really popular in charismatic and pedicostal circles, and the editor J. Lee Grady has been pushing for saying, why do we keep these people out of evangelical circles? Why aren't they considerate evangelicals even if they deny the Trinity? And I think that he doesn't understand the difficulty that this is leading to. What happens is if people deny the Trinity, deny the personal relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then ultimately you run into a lot of trouble with salvation because why did Jesus die? Who accepted the payment for the penalty for our sins? If there is no person in God, you don't have the Father distinct from the Son to put the judgment of our sins on Christ or to accept the judgment of our sins. So salvation is at stake. And the independence of God is at stake. When we talked about a while ago about the independence of God, I said God didn't need to create us because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always existed as three distinct persons. And therefore there was fellowship eternally among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And therefore God doesn't need the creation for anything. But if you only have one person in God, then God needs us for fellowship. He's lonely. And that I think attacks the independence of God. There are other things that happen ultimately as well. And they don't work themselves out in the thinking of a denomination or a religion or a cult. They maybe don't work themselves out in the first decade or two, but eventually they work themselves out. Ultimately, I think also the wonderful aspect of the Christian faith is that we have three persons and each person acts differently. And there's one God. What that means is it guarantees that God can have a universe in which He delights in diversity as well as unity. I just look out at you and I see a whole lot of different colors of clothing. I see different shapes of faces, different styles of hair, different expressions. And if I stop to think about who you are, I see different occupations and interests and personalities, well, how can we be so different and yet be one church? How can we be different and have unity? The way of the world is to say, the way we can have unity is you'll be the same as me and everybody should, and you get dictators in power who try like this guy in Korea, tries to force everybody wear the same uniform and just do the same thing and think the same thing. And that's the way of the world to try to force everybody to be the same. God's way is to delight in diversity and it makes unity and we can have unity out of that. That's why I am not afraid to yield my life completely to God and say, God, I want to do what you want me to do. I give control of my life over to you. You are Lord and I don't fear that He's going to make me just like John or just like Mike or just like anybody else because God delights in making people different and still being one. And that is anchored in the Trinity because God Himself has three different persons and yet complete unity. Am I making sense there? So the Trinity as a one doctrine unequaled by any other religion in the history of the world and it allows us to delight in unity and diversity at the same time. In the world, you go over to other religions, you go over to Buddhism for instance, where the goal is to abolish or deny all the distinctive desires that you have and make yourself just one with the universe. It wants unity but it won't tolerate diversity. You're just trying to blend in with the universe or Islam doesn't have father, son and Holy Spirit and so it can't tolerate diversity. It has one God, the father and everybody's got to be the same and that's enforced in many cases by physical force to make everybody pray at the same time act the same way, do the same thing. I think that the fact that there's no Trinity in Islam that it has much less tolerance of diversity among people but the fact that God is father, son and Holy Spirit means that that works itself out in diversity of gifts but one body in Christ, difference of interests and unity and people can be different in families and yet have unity and that doesn't threaten us. So I think that modalism denying that there are three persons in God is a serious heresy and I don't think it should be considered part of evangelical Christianity. The next heresy and this is really the big one that took a long, long time in the church through most of the 300s or the 4th century AD there was this controversy over Aryanism. Aryanism denies the full deity of the son and the Holy Spirit. So Aryanism Aryanism looks this in a diagram. Aryanism says eternally there's been God the father and then a long time ago before God created the rest of the world God created the son and the Holy Spirit and they are similar to God their great heavenly beings similar to God but they're not equal to God and the Aryans would say there's this kind of sentence in Aryanism. Let me erase this. There was when he was not. Well that's a strange sentence you say what they mean is there was a time when he was not when God the son was not. So if you go back on a timeline in the history of the world here's here's the New Testament, here's the Old Testament, here's Genesis 1 with creation and Aryanism would say back sometime before creation there was the father only and there was no son and Holy Spirit. There was a time when the son was not. Now that's Aryanism. So there's a 4th century bishop named Aryus who taught that God the son was created and he looked at these verses that talked about God's only begotten son. King James Version John 316 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life. What does the word begotten mean? Well only begotten in Greek is monogonase monogonase monos meaning one and they thought that this word genase the second heart half of it had to do with a Greek term gamna-o that can mean beget or bear. Bear would be the woman's role in giving birth to a child. Beget would be the father's role in giving birth to a child and so they thought only begotten meant that somehow in the analogy of a father God the father begot or created the son and so of course back in the 4th century they didn't have the King James Version. They had Greek text and Latin translation but the argument was that this word monogonase meant begotten meant that God the father somehow created the son and that that's what only begotten meant and the shirtled with this for a long time up till the night freed in 325 AD they thought we're not sure what only begotten means we're not sure what it means we're not sure what it means but whatever it means it doesn't mean created and they said areas you're wrong okay and basically they ended up saying only begotten means there was a father's son relationship eternally in the Trinity but it didn't mean created and get to the nice scene creed that that ends up saying begotten not made and that's how they denied this it was created okay modern research in the 20th century however into the meaning of the word monogonase I think convincingly shows and I have some long discussion in in my systematic theology book on around oh it's around page 243 or something if you have that book and you want to read more and then there's a long appendix appendix six discussing this word some more I think it means unique or one of a kind not only begotten and going down the road of thinking that that had to do with begetting got got people confused the rest of the Bible protected the truth of scripture so they said whatever begotten means it just has to do with they thought it had to do with a relationship it didn't have to do with being created but I think it was probably an unnecessary controversy anyway because most translations now will say he gave his only son not his only begotten son um I could go into more detail on that but I think I'll go on the aliens also used glassions 115 he is the image of the invisible god the first born of all creation well they say wait a minute first born of all creation doesn't that mean he was born doesn't that mean he was created

and think the answer to that is and the church in the 4th century in dealing with this said no it doesn't mean created and there are a couple of good explanations one is this just refers to Jesus being first born when he became a man became came came came world but I think a better explanation is first born overall creation that is one who has the rights of the first born and in an ancient biblical family the first born would have the rights of rule in the family and so first born of all creation means he has the rights of ruling over all creation not that he was ever born but he has that that heritage or that privilege and then Colossians used Proverbs 8 that claimed wisdom was created and I've got a discussion of that as well um I think Proverbs 8 where it talks about wisdom is just a poetic personification to you oh man I call my cry as to the children of men oh simple ones learn prudence old fools learn sense this is Proverbs 8 one does not wisdom call does not understanding raise her voice and it's in contrast with the the woman folly or foolishness that that continues to entice these young men to turn aside um like they would turn a prostitute in contrast to foolishness now wisdom is pictured as a woman that's saying um to you oh man I call learn prudence learn sense I will speak of noble things uh take instructions instead of silver take knowledge rather than choice gold wisdom is better than jewels I wisdom dwell with prudence and now later in that verse it says in that passage it says verse 22 the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work Proverbs 8 22 the first of his acts of old ages ago I was set up um there's a technical question here of the meaning of Proverbs 8 22 I think it just means the Lord possessed me but some people have translated it the Lord created me now if it's personification of wisdom no problem it's not saying that God created the father created the son but when they thought that the Proverbs 8 wisdom referred to God the son then I said he's created well again I think that's a misinterpretation of Proverbs 8 I think it just take talking about a poetic image of wisdom um not about God the son as wisdom so those were the passages the Aryans used but you see also the appeal of Aryanism was to say this is simple God is three persons but I don't have to say that each person is fully God or each or that there's one being with three persons in the one being they're saying they're three separate beings and then you don't have any difficulty with it and that was probably the appeal Aryanism was defeated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and again in 381 AD if the Council of Nicaea was reaffirmed and another paragraph was added to the Nicene Creed and what the Nicene Creed said was this I believe in one God the father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God okay they were going to quote what they thought was the right understanding of John 3 begotten father before all worlds so they're saying this never happened it was before all ages but then light of light very God of very God begotten not made and so when they said not made they said this is wrong Aryans I'm going to put a big X over that just to be sure we agree that it's wrong when they said begotten not made they said that that idea is wrong and then they said being of one substance with the father by whom all things were made now this word in Greek homo ucius homo meaning same ucius meaning being so they're saying here in the Nicene Creed and the Aryans could not say this they're saying in the Nicene Creed homo same ucius being they are saying that

God looks like this there is the being of God and in the being of God there's father son and holy spirit but here's the catch how much of the trinity how much of God is the father the whole of this circle is the father well then how much is the son got one being so we have to say the whole of the circle is also the son how can that be well that's the question we can't figure out but when you say the son is fully God I think you have to affirm this that there are thrissons and I can't draw it because I can't I can't show that the whole circle is the father and the whole circle is the son all at once I don't know any way to draw that but when you say same being

homo ucius that is saying that the father and the son have the same being being of the same being as the father and and the the Aryans said hey you know what guys you're being too picky about this we're going to say we'll say something really close to that we'll say homo ucius and homo ucius means similar similar being hey guys we believe the son is a great heavenly being he's greater than everything in creation why don't you just let us in won't that be acceptable and the church said no you've got to say same being you can't say similar being if you say similarly you're denying that there's one God or there's one being in God you're denying that and you're denying that the son is fully God and the Holy Spirit is fully God and so there was this dispute over really one letter see the letter i in Greek it's the letter eota homo ucius same being homo ucius similar being the church said no we're not going to let you affirm that if you want to be part of the church and be accepted and have teaching roles and governing roles in the church you've got to say he's the same being homo ucius with the father by whom all things were made later in the lesson i've got the whole nice in creed on the slide so we can say this together not i mean some lot of churches do this maybe some of you come from churches that do this we don't do it as often but it's a good creed and it's probably worth worth us doing that okay so being of one substance with the father or the same substance or same being you could say that different ways in english by whom all things were made so the home the nice in creed affirmed homo ucius same being substance not homo ucius similar or substance that was 325 AD there was a man named Athanasius

A-T-H-A-N-A-S-I-U-S and he was bishop of Alexandria in Egypt which was a very important church in the early church and Athanasius he he held on to this true trinitarian teaching he was bishop he was secretariat the council of nicaea in 325 he became bishop of Alexandria in Egypt and he defended the doctrine of the trinity however the Aryans lost in 325 but they didn't give up you know like the terminator that keeps coming back in the movie or something like that the bad guy that keeps reappearing I think he's dead and he doesn't the Aryans kept fighting they kept gaining control in different churches in different areas and so from 325 to 381 there's argument argument argument and discussions and debates and things written back and forth and Athanasius was the leader of the forces that were defending the doctrine of the trinity and he wouldn't give up and he said this is important the future of the church is at stake and I'm going to read a paragraph from my book about Athanasius although many church leaders contributed to the gradual formation of the correct doctrine of the trinity the most influential was by far was Athanasius he was only 29 years old when he came to the council of nicaea in 325 AD not an official member but secretary to Alexander then the bishop of Alexandria yet his keen mind and writing ability allowed him to have an important influence on the outcome of the council and he became bishop of Alexandria himself in 328 AD though the Aryans had been condemned at nicaea they refused to stop teaching their views and they used their considerable political throughout the church to prolong the controversy for most of the rest of the 4th century Athanasius became the focal point of the Aryan attack and he devoted his entire life to writing and teaching against the Aryan heresy and now I'm quoting here from a new international dictionary the christian church he was hounded through five exiles embracing 17 years of flight and hiding but by his untiring efforts almost single handedly Athanasius saved the church from pagan intellectualism the Athanasian creed which bears his name is not today thought to stem from Athanasius himself but it's a clear affirmation of trinity and doctrine so he became ultimately a real hero in the 4th century and in 381 AD then there was another church council where leaders from all different sections of the church got together and they added a paragraph onto the nice and creed as it existed to affirm the full deity of the Holy Spirit as well so here's the paragraph they added and I believe in girl mighty and in Jesus Christ his son and then I get the right words here I believe in God the Father I believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and in one Lord Jesus Christ and now they added and in the Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life who proceeded from the Father and the Son who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified now if you worship and glorify the Holy Spirit that means he's also God who spoke by the prophets so that was the nice scene creed added to in Constantinople in 381 and that's the the position that it has today now since that time there was only one church then but then the orthodox church split off in eastern church in 1054 and the Protestant churches split off in 1517 and onward but Catholic orthodox and Protestant churches since 38331 have all affirmed the doctorate with one minor exception with the Greek orthodox church having to do with the Holy Spirit but they believe in the Trinity but just something about the relationships in the Trinity there's a little difference but basically this has been the teaching of Protestant orthodox and Catholic churches since 381 AD and people who have denied it have eventually all fallen away from the Christian faith there are two other wrong views is this morning okay okay there are two other wrong views oh are there aliens today oh yes they knock at your door and they call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses so Jehovah's Witnesses use the same verses and the same arguments they perpetuate the same mistake as the aliens did but otherwise there but there are no aliens sort of in any orthodox churches or truly Christian churches today all right Jehovah's Witnesses because of their view would be called a cult how do I handle the Jehovah's Witness when I come to the door I'll just say one thing here Pammy sometimes I say I think this conversation is going to be a waste of both our time but but I haven't had them for a long time but but what I what I sometimes I've said this you're welcome to come in if we can talk about only one question how can my sins be forgiven and how can I be saved because they hold the salvation by works but I want to I want to play ball in my home field where and that's where we know we know the gospel verses and you can talk about salvation by faith alone in Christ alone and they'll have some answers to that but they won't be very good ones so because I'm interested in that person salvation who's coming to my door and that I can be forgiven by trusting in Christ for forgiveness of sins they're a little obscure disputes about the doctrine of the Trinity turn on technical things that they're making arguing about Greek grammar and I can argue that with them but they don't know what they're arguing there's doing pre-programmed answers so I think I think that's not a good use of my time or their time so talk about salvation good good good thing talk about okay let's see I had a note to myself to stop at 9.15 and take the interaction with you which means this is going to hold over till the following week when it means he's not fully gone see if he's created he's a creature and so he's not eternal he's not omnipotent he's not omniscient he's not infinitely anything infinitely wise or omnipresent or any he's not fully God he's a creature maybe greater creature but he's like a great angel or something like that if he's not fully God I think there well you denies is the talk about in the beginning was the word the word of the word God in the word was God or you Lord laid the foundation of the world and the of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands that's Hebrews one many other passages that I had in the outline earlier talking about Jesus being fully God the people who deny that Jesus is fully God their system leads them to find another way for salvation because if Jesus is not fully God how can he bear the penalty for all our sins and that's why it's not surprising that the Jehovah's Witnesses base their salvation on works and especially going around and witnessing to people that's their way of salvation because they don't have a Jesus who's fully God and and man and they're can buy and pay for all our sins is that is that making sense Wayne okay a lot is it stake here I don't forgot your name in the back Chuck

yes that means the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets yeah yeah in the Old Testament yeah and that there's there's more to it there's a few more words there at the end that I don't have right okay good Andrea yeah yeah what analogy would I use in speaking to children about this yeah 10 under you know I might just go back to saying oh God is there's one God but he's three persons just say that okay and and I and I mean people can kind of understand that without trying to think through all how can that be okay just just stay that way so they're kind of not learning I don't know I'm not sure if I would use other analogies yeah maybe the picture yeah yeah but um see there's there's another thing that I didn't say here and that is all creation shows us something of God so a family of other mother and the daughter or son there are the three or four or five persons there's one family well it's kind of like that see a church many members but one church it's kind of like that so in other words everything kind of everything where there's unity and diversity is another way of saying all the the Trinity is kind of like that so I guess I wouldn't mind doing that too is just like how do we know what God is love well we see human love and we say God's love is kind of like that how do we know God's power well we see human power say God's power was much greater but it's kind of like that so God made the whole universe to show something of what he's like okay Mark yeah the Mormons fall under Aryanism you know I really I'm not an expert on Mormonism but as I understand that they've got a completely different view of who God is and they just have to be a kind of like us but but then us and so you're in a whole different category of thinking the Aryans Aryans have a father who is infinite and eternal and all those attributes they just didn't have the sun sharing those attributes the Mormons don't follow one of those categories they've got just they're a whole different system a different view of God what else okay what's your name Sally okay okay now when we're in the New Heavens and New Earth what will the role of the Holy Spirit be since we won't need that comforter or a teacher I think we'll probably always need a teacher because God is omniscient he knows everything and we're never going to get there so and about a comforter I'm not sure a helper advisor but I so the Holy Spirit will still live within us to guide us and direct us as he does today I'm not sure what else I'm trying to think in revelation but I'm not sure I'm not sure that it helps me I don't know what out the Holy Spirit's work in general from Genesis one to onwards seems to be to preserve and sustain and be be be wonderfully present in God's creation father plans and directs the sun carries out the Holy Spirit fulfills and preserves and sustains so maybe something in that area okay well got about three more minutes I put a note to myself to quit earlier and just allow a little more interaction so I'm going to try to do that at 915 each time and not crowd the last bit of the outline in Sammy good yeah oh God this bishop area is the bishop and it can't gives rives to arianism and then what about the Nazis and their desire for an arian race was that a-r-y i-a-n or a-r-y-a-n I think it's it's different I think there's no relationship but I'm not sure I'm spilling that right there's no i-a-r-y-a-n arian okay okay good because they sound the same in English okay what else what's your name Patrick yes okay okay Patrick and again for the tape I just kind of try to repeat a summary of the question the witnesses view salvation by what as they don't have a son who is fully God to bear sins that makes sense but but Patrick is saying well what about Roman Catholic view that has faith plus some kind of works as we would see it having to do with the sat use of the sacraments is that that is not based on the same origin because Roman Catholics and Protestants agree as I understand 100% on the doctrine of the Trinity and both would use the Nicene Creed and both would say the son is of the same being or same substance as the father and he was never created he always existed and so would have firm three persons in one God so it would be other things in the Catholic in the development of Catholic teaching through history that's led to a different view and we agree Catholics and Protestants agree to disagree on how we're justified or made right by God but that's another a few months from now okay um what else what else I've got one more minute okay um cried and then we're gonna be done

no I cover the difference on the orthodox church um and in the Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life who proceeded from the father and the son that's the first slide for next week they thought that the Pope was wrong in ten a little bit before 1054 in adding the phrase and from the son and it has to do with the relationship between the father and the son it has to do with the relationship between the father and the son I mean sorry it has to do with the relationship between the son and the Holy Spirit and the Trinity before creation it's a really obscure point of doctrine and it split the whole church into eastern west in 1054 AD we'll pick up on that next week let's pray oh Lord God it's amazing that you tell us this much about yourself and that we can that we can sit here and talk about you the great and infinite and eternal and omniscient God the one who is holy and pure and into above all our understand and above the heavens and yet you dwell with us Lord and you enable us to speak with you father and to call you father and and and and Jesus our Savior we can speak to you and pray to you and Holy Spirit with the church from 325 AD and onward we can say that you with the father and son are to be worshipped and glorified oh Holy Spirit and so we thank you that you are our comforter and guide as well father son and Holy Spirit God three and one we worship you we exalt you we give you praise and glory for your your the excellence of your being far greater than we can understand amen