Tuesday, December 12th | On the Incarnation

Hello, everyone. Today is Tuesday, December the 12th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. I snapped my neck a minute ago. Are you okay? Part of being on camera is you want to look at the person talking, and then you want to look at the camera, and you're like, mm-hmm, yeah, I agree.

See, I have the easy scene because I just kind of like, just a real quick one of these. I just felt my neck pop. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by sharing the show online with your friends and family, leaving us a couple of good five-star links, sorry, five-star reviews on Amazon. I am seeing sounds right now. Make sure you're sponsoring the show because John is going to have to pay to go see a chiropractor after this.

I really feel as though I'm fainting and freezing a little. Oh, no. What was I saying?

Oh, yes, you can support the show, share it online with your friends and family, leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, where you get your podcasting content from. The verse of the day is coming to us from Psalm 112 and verse 4. Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness.

He is gracious and full of compassion and righteousness. So the Psalms do a great job of balancing the breadth of human emotion. Every experience of humanity is represented in the Psalms, from the high highs to the low lows.

The thing that I love is that they always go back to promises related to God's character. Yes, you may be going through the greatest time in your life, or yes, you may be going through the lowest valley possible that you could even imagine, but the truth remains that God is still good, and God has a purpose in there. That helps us to remember that nothing in the Christian life is wasted. There's nothing that happens without a purpose.

Now, we may not ever know that purpose this side of heaven, but there's nothing that happens without purpose or nothing that happens to us that has not passed through the hand of God first. That's right, and I love that the Psalms, and really all of Scripture, puts impetus on us to participate in being Christians, because we think that living the Christian life is a very passive thing. We let God and let the Holy Spirit work and move in me, and that's great. That's flowery, descriptive, poetic language, but when it comes to salvation, of course, we don't have any input, but when it comes to the Christian life, it says, unto the upright there arises light and darkness. I can't just let God make me upright and me not contribute to Christian living at all.

He's gracious and full of compassion and righteousness. Yeah, it's both a work that God is doing in us and something that we are participating in. Speaking of things that we're participating in, well, of course, we have these social norms. We have unspoken rules that we set in society, and when people don't follow those rules exactly the way I would have them followed, I get very, very annoyed. And those people end up on a segment of our show called The Griped Vine. Welcome to The Griped Vine, everybody.

Welcome to The Griped Vine. Beep, beep, cars. Wait a minute. What?

I need context. Beep, beep, cars. Beep, beep, cars. What is a beep, beep, car? A beep, beep, car is what my son calls little tiny cars. So I don't really care if you drive a beep, beep, car. I don't want you to be allowed to park a beep, beep, car. Oh, you're talking like tiny cars, like smart cars, like a little Prius, like a little tiny, teeny, tiny, something.

It looks like it could have like a wind-up thing on top. Yeah, it's like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. My son calls little cars beep, beep, cars.

Gotcha. So when you park a beep, beep, car, first off, if you're driving a beep, beep, car, I guess it's okay if... You've said beep, beep, cars so many times in this segment. Yeah, that's what having kids will do to you. I literally, I just call them beep, beep, cars now. This is a beep, beep, car. I wave to grown... Go to the dealership. I'd like a beep, beep, car, please.

I wave to grown adults like this now, like not ironically either. So when you drive a tiny car and you park, what ends up happening is other cars park around you and it looks like there's an open spot. Oh, that's the worst. It looks as though there's a parking spot. And so if you're in a parking garage, you're like driving all around up and down three levels, wife is talking to you, kids are crying in the back, wife's like, right there, park right there, park right there.

And then you get up there and it's, it's... There's a beep, beep, car. But you can't see it because there's a big truck.

And so I'm like, oh goodness. So then she's like, oh, okay, I thought there was a car. Now you're getting frustrated at her, even though she didn't know there was a beep, beep car there.

Now you see another empty space. So you get excited, you pull in, she's like, hang on, there might be a car there. I'm like, no, there's not a car there. I start pulling around. Oh, there's a car right there.

Lo and behold. And we know that this is happening to you now because you're out Christmas shopping. You're out trying to finish those Christmas lists and parking is already scarce.

Everybody and their mother is out Christmas shopping. And those of you who drive in beep, beep cars, you're making it really hard to maintain the Christmas spirit. I'm talking to you. Math would suggest that there's a person listening to this show right now trying to park. The numbers just work in my favor. Someone's driving like, they see me, they know my struggle. I'm speaking to you right now.

You don't deserve what's happening to you. It's them. The beep, beep car drivers are the snake in our garden. And I don't think you should be banned from driving a beep, beep car, but I don't think you should be allowed to park a much to the real car. I do think you should have a separate beep, beep car parking.

Yeah, there should be. Where the parking spots are half the length and everybody can see the beep, beep cars lined up in a row. Because there's nothing more infuriating than when you go to park and you think there's a spot open. So you're like, oh good, there's some relief. Then instant frustration again.

And then you go find another one. It's like, okay, cool. Some relief. Oh, frustration. It's just, it's playing with our heads and we just got to get rid of the beep, beep cars, I think. I'm with you. I'm with you on this one.

Support The Grab 100%. You know, there's relegate the beep, beep cars to a different part of society. There are times when we'll be driving and I'm with Dr. Shaw in the church van or something. And you know, the 15 passenger vans, they're terrible.

They're terrible. And one thing I like that Dr. Shaw does is we'll get somewhere. When it's all the staff and families, like we're going to a dinner, you'll be like, all right, everybody out, go park the van.

So you don't have like... It's so much nicer to park by yourself with a van full of people, especially a 15 passenger. Because we've been in places before where Pastor Shaw's like, like there's a, there's a spot right there. Then we pull up. He's like, well, there's not a spot.

All right, go ahead and back up. And then we got to back the van up. He's like, I think there's a spot right there. And it's like, I think there's a car right there. No, I don't think there's a car there. Then you go, oh, there's a car right there. So now it's like, all right, everybody out. David, go park the van. Now go park the van. That's much kinder. I do love that.

That's much kinder. I wonder if Dr. Shaw's ever had an experience. Dr. Shaw's typically, I mean, I don't think I've ever seen him drive anything other than a truck.

No, I've never seen that. He's trying to park somewhere. And I mean, with a truck and a beep beep car, you could probably just move it out of the way. I would imagine. Oh yeah. You could just like lightly press the gas and just could sort of like roll forward.

Yeah. Or you could just like ram into the beep beep car. You'll win that fight for sure every time. I want to ask his experience with the, with the parking in the beep beep car. Let's do it. Stay tuned after this. We're gonna grab Dr. Shaw for the rest of our segment. But if you guys have encountered a beep beep car, or if you are a beep beep car driver, ride in and defend yourself. I dare you.

2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. Or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back. That's right. Clearview produces so much content every single week, including Dr. Shaw's sermons, original music, a full online store, weekly prayer gatherings, and so much more.

Not to mention the number one best-selling Christian talk show of all time. I don't know if that's accurate. Well, maybe not yet, but that's why we want people to download the app. If you're listening from the Triangle area, we encourage you to check out Clearview Church in person. But if not, you can still follow all of our content on the Clearview app.

It's 100% free on the Apple store and Google Play Store. And best of all, all of our content is right there in one convenient spot. Make sure you download the Clearview app today, and let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abidjan Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. And we're here once again in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abidjan Shaw, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shaw, have you ever been driving and you found like just the perfect parking spot?

I'm talking about the creme de la creme a la Edgar Parkinson. You drive up to there, it turns out there's a car, like a little Prius, or like a little, what do you call this? Oh yeah, a little smart car.

Like our daughter's husband, our son-in-law's parents. Yeah, they drive them little tiny cars. They drive this little tiny thing.

It's like, yeah, how does this even run? What do they do when they get up a hill? I think they get out and push.

I guess so. But then like the other thing is like they drive these cars, they park behind someone who's in a parking spot, and they know that someone's going to get excited and be like, oh, there's a parking spot. You drive up to it and there's your little play car. You ever have any experiences like that? You just like parking nightmares? Oh yeah, all the time. What is parking like in India overseas? Does it exist? There's the parking lot.

No, it's more, how do I say this? It is more systematic than it used to be, but it's nowhere close to where we are here today. Really? Yeah.

I would say parking, even technology, other things are at least, I don't know, 60, 70 years behind. Wow. Oh wow. Yeah.

No lines? I can do whatever I want. Yeah, there's no rules here. Yeah. Well, it is what it is. It's important to understand that the rules apply, that what you believe about parking applies across the board.

And just like what you believe about parking applies across the board, what you believe about Christ applies across the board. Very good. Thank you very much. It was Christmas time, so I was fire on all cylinders. That was excellent. It's Christmas time, so I'm fire on all Christmas cylinders. And we're talking about something related to Christmas today. You know, a lot of times we sing those songs away in a manger, baby Jesus born late in, you know, a feeding trough and all those kinds of things. But we're talking today about the incarnation of Christ, what it means that God became flesh and how that impacts not just our understanding of Christmas, but our understanding of Christianity and life in general. Well, this is the time of the year where Times Magazine, Newsweek, several other magazines will publish something on the coming of Christ.

Some of those things are good, other things are not as good. And they always attack either the Trinity or the virgin birth or the deity humanity of Christ coming together. And it's an old, old trick.

People have been doing that for centuries. You go back to the early church, there is the Arian controversy, whether Jesus only appeared to be human. Was he really divine? Was there a time when he was not? You know, that was a little ditty that they used to have.

Like a half, like a Hercules, like half human, half God sort of thing. Yeah, but I don't think Arianism was more about, you know, there was a time when Jesus actually began and there was a time that he was not. It was kind of like a catchphrase, very popular. Like today, I don't know what it would be. I'm trying to think, but just going from my field, which has been sort of popularized by Bart Ehrman, but in a wrong kind of way. Do you know that there are more variants than there are words in the New Testament? Like a talking point almost.

Like a little tagline, a little byline, like, there was a time when he was not. It doesn't have quite the same ring to it. That's a good one. They take a heresy. It's like a little fun Christmas thing you can do with your family. Take a heresy and make like a fun tagline out of it.

No, don't do that. Ugly Christmas sweaters embroidered with various heretical statements. What do you gain by saying that there was a time when Jesus wasn't? Do they take that from the whole, he was the begotten son? Like he was created? Yeah.

The begotten part of Jesus, they believe either came when he was baptized or when at the Mount of Transfiguration. Wow. So you pick. It almost feels like, I mean, just sort of repeating that over and over to yourself. It almost feels like an indoctrination. Like I have to repeat this so many times so that I will believe it because this goes against the grain.

This is not the way that things ought to be. Right. And I've explained it before in other messages that people prior to the coming of Jesus, I'm talking about Jewish people, I'm talking about the people of Israel, they understood about the plurality in the Godhead. They didn't have all the understanding that came about through the coming of Christ or through the Nicene Creed and all that. Maybe they didn't have everything fleshed out in details and in specific form, but they knew there was more to the Godhead than just this dead unity in the Godhead.

No, there was more there. Did they understand Father, Son, Spirit? I think they did. Did they call it Trinity? No, because we don't have any evidence of that.

Right. But I think they understood that. So the first Christians were Jewish people. How could you convince people like that so quickly to leave a core doctrine, which is monotheism and which we are monotheists, but then believe in the plurality in the Godhead.

How can you convince people so quickly? They said, well, because Jesus did all the miracles. He also fulfilled prophecy. And then he came and explained to them who he was on the road to Emmaus.

And he rose from the grave, of course. So that's how they were convinced. I think the foundation was already there.

This reminds me of, we've talked about this before on the show, but the Occam's razor kind of situation, like, what is the most plausible, most direct solution? And that's usually the correct one. Right.

Could it be that, like you said, Dr. Shaw, the foundation was already there, that they already believed that and then now there was verbiage that was given to what they already believed? That's right. That's right.

That's right. It's one of those things that it's tough for me to wrap my mind around as well, because this incarnation, this act of being made flesh, you now have God who's in the flesh, but it has to go beyond 100%. Because we hear that all the time. He's 100% God, 100% man, two natures. He's adding on an additional nature without subtracting from the other.

And it's difficult... Adding on the human side of things. Right.

He's adding on this human nature in a very unique way that the other persons of the Godhead don't have. Right. And yet completely equal at the same time. Right. But see, then again, our minds cannot comprehend how that works. Right.

How can we still say there is one God and yet talk about three persons? Yeah. And mind cannot comprehend that. Right. Because my mind is saying, if I have even 1% divine nature, I'm better than everyone in this room.

But Jesus has two complete natures, 100%, and yet He's not above the Father or above the Holy Spirit. Right. You know what I mean? It's one of those things that I know... It's not that I struggle with, but I just want to wrap my mind around. Yeah. But I also don't want to throw my hands up and be like, well, I can't. I just believe.

I want to understand it as much as I can. Right. Well, we can get into all the details of how that works out.

You know, hypostatic union and all those kinds of things. We can get into all that detail. But what I want to do today is just talk about how this conversation did not emerge in the 19th or the 20th or the 21st century. It was always there. It was there because we have people like Athanasius who wrote this book called On the Incarnation. And in this book, he discusses things that, to this day, the trained theologian still goes, how amazing it is that this man was discussing this in the fourth century A.D. Wow. Do you think there's people out there who say that the gospel is that like the text of the Bible was too unclear and so it needed church fathers to clarify it? Or would you say, no, the what's in the gospel is pretty clear. This is just them putting it in that day's language.

That's a great question, by the way. I think the idea was there. But how do you express it in a way that is biblical? Clear. Understandable.

Applicable. That part probably came through the work of people like Athanasius or Anselm of Canterbury. You know, Cardea's Homo. Why God became man. I think these kind of works flesh things out and use scripture, use some Greek philosophy to help us understand. So I think these people knew about the Trinity. They knew about the deity, humanity of Christ coming together.

They just didn't know how to express it in a way that even I'm struggling to express it. Unless I go and look over my notes or look at my systematic theology books, then I'm like, okay, I'm good. I know what to say here and I know what comes next. And I know how to phrase that without being heretical. Because there are times, I can assure you, people that preach from the pulpit, maybe even me, where we're not intending to, but instead we spoke a heresy. I've heard that. I have done that. I mean, going back and listening and checking things, I'm like, I shouldn't have worded it that way.

That doesn't make sense. Just a peek behind the curtain. I've done that on this show where I'm trying to express or clarify something and we've had to stop and say, hey, hang on one second. Let's take that back. Let's get our minds wrapped around it and take that again.

I'm sure the listeners and the viewers will get a chuckle out of this. Almost every Sunday morning in most churches, there is a huge heresy that is spoken at the end of every service. You know where I'm going with this. When you get somebody to pray and they say, dear heavenly father, thank you so much. Thank you for dying on the cross for us. God probably did not die on the cross.

Just spoiler alert, just so everyone knows. That's a heresy, my friend. No, but we know what they're saying. They're really trying to say Jesus died on the cross, but they address the prayer to father and they thank him for shedding his blood on the cross for us.

So do we intend to do that? I don't think any of those men, if somebody were to stop and say, hey, hey, hey, that's a heresy. Do you think father died on the cross? And he'd be like, no, but you just said that. Well, I didn't mean it. And then they don't know if Jesus is one with the father in a sense, didn't he?

No, he didn't, but okay, let's explain to you. So I think same here. We're not going to try to explain every detail, but there are people like Athanasius who wrestled with these issues and I'm so grateful that they did because today we look back to his work, like this one right here, especially at a time like Christmas. And if you're looking for something to read, this is a good book to read.

Very true. Very good Christmas book. Yeah. Athanasius, just to say a few things about him, we're going back to the third century. So you're talking about 296 AD to about 373 AD are his years from Alexandria. I've been to Alexandria, Egypt, and he studied under the best of the best, but then he was called into the ministry and very interesting about him is that he was exiled almost five times. Really? Did the first four not take?

Well, I mean, you know, when you stand up for the truth, just know you're going to have enemies. Was he exiled from the same place? Like, did he keep coming back?

By four different Roman emperors. I was like, did he get exiled from one place and then they exiled him into another place? I feel like eventually they're just going to start leaving a sticky note for the guy behind them. Like, hey, just watch out for this guy. If he comes back, you're going to have to exile him. I'm thinking like Steve Urkel, like he keeps coming back.

I'm back. Well, I think it's just, you know, he wouldn't bow to or kowtow to what the Roman emperors wanted. I mean, so off with him. Five exiles, man.

That's a lot. He was known as the black dwarf. I mean, that's, that should not be said about anybody, but yeah, because he was African, right? He was from that North Africa, dark skinned and had plenty of enemies and he was shorter in stature. They went after him. They went after him.

The black dwarf can't do that, man. He was very important when it came to defending the full deity of Jesus Christ. This is Athanasius. He, of course, had been, this had been confessed in the Nicene Creed, but then it was developed even further, especially in the wake of Arianism that was growing. You know, we just joked about that. You know, there was a time he was not, that was sort of a thing to say. Like that was a big problem that was rising up. Right.

Yeah. There was a time that he was not. So Athanasius said, no, he always was.

He always was. And of course, as I mentioned, he came from North Africa and he was elected to the position of being a bishop in 328 AD. And the council of Nicaea is 325.

So just think about it, three years after, but he had a big role to play at the council of Nicaea. Something else about him is that he was, this may surprise some of us, he was dismissed from his role as Bishop for his support of the Nicene Creed. Is Bishop to the Catholic Church? Well, there is no Catholic Church, right? I mean, this is, if you're thinking about Roman Catholicism, that's not going to come until way later down. But yeah, in a sense, he was dismissed from his position because he supported the Creed. Now keep in mind, the Nicene Creed was overwhelmingly supported by the majority of the people, but the Arians, okay, I'm not talking about Arians as in the Arian- Like brotherhood. Yeah, not like the Arian supremacy or something.

This is the Arian, A-R-I-A-N. They sort of made their way back into the system. I sort of call them the theological liberals. Yeah. Yeah.

They know how to make the system work for them. Yeah. Right.

They can twist it. Yeah. And they, after the right side won, the wrong side sort of wiggled their way back in and went after each of the main people who were in charge of- Funny how that seems to keep happening.

I was just about to say, there really is nothing new under the sun. We've seen this tactic before. Right. And then of course, Athanasius had many enemies. Of course, the Arians were one. The Melitians were another group.

And then, let's see, I'm trying to find his timeline. But anyways, the Melitians also, just for the sake of those who are listening, also had the similar view regarding the Trinity, like the Arians did. And then the Melitians, of course, as well, went against him. Melitians sort of had the same view like Athanasius, but they had this almost like a legalistic attitude towards those who had apostatized in the face of the face of persecution. Just for the sake of our listeners, what does apostatized mean? Apostasy is like denying the faith. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. So some people had denied the faith. So then there was a big debate over what do we do with them? What made Athanasius Athanasius was how he used words carefully. We can learn a lot from that very carefully when it comes to defining these doctrines, which are the heart of our faith, the bedrock of our salvation.

And so he was very good at that. And he wrote about, now this is a good book to read. Can I read a couple of statements? Let me see if I can find one or two that really touched me.

Here's one. And let's see, he's talking about the image of God. He said, nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature. All that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass alone and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough. But when once transgression had begun, men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace, which belonged to them as the creatures in the image of God. Yeah. I mean, that's deep stuff.

Yes. Like repentance is not going to make you holy before God. It's not going to make you righteous. It's just to keep you from, try to keep you from sinning, but your nature is always there. Right.

What then is there incredible in our saying that mankind having gone astray, the word descended upon it and was manifest as man so that by his intrinsic goodness and his steersmanship, he might save it from the storm? True. Very true. Wow.

Anyways, this will, I think this would really minister to your souls if you take time to read it. Oh yeah. It's one of those things that just we tend to forget because the story of Jesus being born as a little baby is so familiar.

We forget the rich doctrine that's behind it. Yeah. Especially here at Christmas time, as we're already kind of thinking in that way, you know, Christ was more than just one event of a baby being born in a manger. He's more than just a line in a song. Yeah.

It impacts the entirety of history, the entirety of the timeline and us as individuals and us as collectively as believers. Well, we tend to save the cross for Easter, you know, but the cross, and this is one thing I love about your preaching, Dr. Shah, is the cross is the pinnacle of everything that we do. Yeah. That's right.

The cross is to be celebrated at Christmas just as much as it is on Good Friday or Easter. That's right. Yeah. And to read someone just, I mean, there are a lot of good books out there. Wonderful preachers, pastors have written books, and that's great to read them. Professors, theologians, but do read classics like this. I mean, this, this is the man who gave us probably the most complete earliest list of New Testament books. Wow.

Right? The Canon. He's the one who listed them. He's the one who wrote a biography of Saint Anthony or Anthony the Bishop. And somebody read that biography and their life was also changed. And that is Augustine. So this man made an impact on Augustine's life. Wow. He made a huge impact on Christianity.

Yeah. So make sure you read books like this because you can read a lot of books and do read great books out there, but make sure you don't forget classics like this. That was impactful for you, or you'd like to learn more information about where you can pick up a copy of On the Incarnation by Athanasius. Write in and let us know 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. Don't forget you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom and click that donate link and become part of our Clearview Today Show family. John, what's coming up on tomorrow's episode? Tomorrow is another guest episode. Incredibly special guest going to be with us right here on the Clearview Today Show. Same time, same station. Make sure you don't miss it. So excited. Love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.