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Just go to the carm.org website, c-a-r-m dot o-r-g. The right hand side of the home page, you'll see a kind of a, you know, a mass look live thing. Click that.
It takes you to another page and you can watch the video. It's not a big deal. But what is cool is that there are a group of people who have become, well I guess you could say acquaintances. We've got people from Wales and Europe, England, Australia, all over the place who participate in the chat.
Even people from the United States. So that sounds like fun. You want to meet some people and see some good Christian folks. Then all you've got to do is check that out. Alright, now I've got a debate coming up. Let's see, I've got a debate coming up next week on oneness. I'll give oneness versus the Trinity. I'll give more information about that later. And then I've got a debate on justification versus, well, modernism versus synergism.
And then another debate with another oneness. I'll give more dates and stuff like that. Information if you guys want to check that out. So there you go. Three open lines.
877-207-2276. Let's get to Journey from Wyoming. Hey, Journey.
Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, hi. Hi.
I need your help. My sister and I have left. The child was witnesses at different times.
My sister more recently than I. And she is on her own search for God and I've been helping her as much as I can. But she's kind of caught up in this thing where she thinks that she needs an exorcism from generational curses and soul ties. And I don't think that's Christian. I can't find anything in the New Testament for supporting that. So I was hoping you could help me with that.
Sure. We could say out of Exodus 20 that there was a form of a generational curse in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, in Exodus 20. Because it says there that God's a jealous God and he would visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generation, to those who hate me. And so we see that there are verses like that and that's in the Old Testament. That's because of a covenant aspect and it also goes in numbers, I think.
So here's the thing. In the Old Covenant, because the people of Israel were under that requirement to keep covenant boundaries, those who did not would face curses. Now I've explained this because a lot of people might be confused about it. The covenant pattern in the Old Testament is called the suzerain vassal treaty pattern of the third millennium BC.
It sounds complicated, but what it is is the big king, suzerain, would make a pact or an agreement with a vassal, a lesser king. And the introduction of that would be, this is who I am, this is what I've done. This is exactly what we have in Exodus 20. I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, etc.
And so we have that introduction. We also have the pattern of blessings and curses given under the covenant. And so if you read the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, and if you pay attention to the cursing and the blessing, you'll see that those occur inside of that pattern in the Ten Commandments. Likewise, and I always like to say this, is that each party of the covenant would receive a full copy of the document. Hence, that's why we have two tablets. It's not five and five or six and four, it's ten and ten.
And then I'll get into more about that. But at any rate, now that's under the Old Testament covenant system. In the New Testament, we have to understand that with the death of Christ, according to Hebrews 8, 13, and Hebrews 9, 15-16, the old covenant is done away with. So we are no longer under that old covenant system where generational kind of curses could be practiced. But if we were to step back in the Old Testament and say, well, what does it mean to have a curse? Does it mean God's cursing them and they're going to be bad off? It could be meant that, but it also could mean that the effects of the sins of the Father would follow for generations. And God would not bless them because the Father who represents the descendants was going against God covenantally.
And it gets more complicated from there, but we'll get into that. But in the New Testament, we don't have anything like that. We don't have any hint of generational ramifications and cursing and things like that. So in the New Testament, no, and the reason is because we are indwelt by God in all things that are bad are passed away and you cancel all of our sins. And we're seen as being in Christ, and that's 1 Corinthians 15, 22. And so having been raised from the dead in Christ, Romans 6, 4 through 8 were talked about being crucified and dying with Christ. And everything we have is in Christ, and the ones who have died are freed from the law, Romans 7, 4. So there is no curse according to the law that can be held to a Christian because we've died of the law. So this is the foundation of the Old New Testament system so you can understand that if I didn't give you too much information too fast. Now, if someone says that they're under generational curse now, they might be in the sense if they're not a Christian, they could be under some sort of cursing that people have put upon them and there can be a demonic effect that is still going, and they're not cleansed in Christ and freed in Christ, so they could be affected that way. Now, you mentioned a term, and I forgot what that term was, you mentioned a spirit something.
What was that term you said that she was into? Soul ties. Soul ties, thank you very much. And soul ties is a new age kind of a concept, and it deals with the issue of one soul affected by another soul. Sometimes it comes out with the issue of reincarnation, pre-existence and things like this, and it's all bunk.
It just doesn't work. So your sister is obviously unregenerate and deceived by demonic doctrines and false teachings. So what you have to do is understand that you have to pray for her, and you have to specifically pray with specifics against the demonic forces that are binding and blinding her, and you pray that Jesus would open her heart and her mind to the truth. This is Acts 16, 14, God opened the heart of Lydia to receive the things of Paul. Jesus opens the mind to receive the scriptures and the truth of what he was saying, and Luke 24, 45. And so we've got to pray that. You also have to be ready to battle against the enemy when you step into the spiritual realm for that kind of prayer. There's often a pushback. And so there's that.
And actually Helen is right in the chat room. The NAR does this soul tie thing and grave sucking and some other things. NAR is New Apostolic Reformation.
So this kind of crud is around. Just that the group that she seems to have associated with appears to be apostolic or Pentecostal almost. Right. And they are the people generally who couldn't exegete their way out of a wet paper bag and don't know what they're doing.
I agree. And honestly, in my own research, what I looked for was anything in the New Testament that associated generational curses. And then in the end I asked my sister if Christ's sacrifice was enough. Because why would she be punished for our Father's sins? That's not how Jesus works. His death and resurrection is enough.
We can't do anything on our own to save ourselves. So for me, this was not truth. Yeah, well be careful to say for me it wasn't truth. Because truth is not based upon your opinion. And I'm not trying to rebuke you, I'm just trying to get you into the habit of saying, Truth, and thinking in these terms, truth is based on the revelation of God's word. Right, you're right.
And so in that, you're correct, in the word of God it's not there, not in the New Testament for the Christians. Okay? Yes, thank you.
You're welcome. I know I gave you a lot of info, but I wanted to lay the foundation down. So you're an ex JW, do you affirm the doctrine of the Trinity now? Yes, it took me some time to get to a place where I feel like I understand it. But yes, I have accepted that and I got baptized in the church in October. Good. And do you affirm that Jesus Christ is God in flesh? Two natures, both divine and human, okay. And that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone and not by anything you do, right? Absolutely, that's right.
Good, good, good, good. Because the Jehovah's Witness organization denies all of those. And you affirm... Oh yes, they have a different Jesus and a different gospel. Absolutely. So do you also affirm that Jesus is a man right now?
How about that one? That Jesus is a man right now? Yes.
That he is in flesh? Yes. Yes. Good. Because he is, he has two natures, he's both divine and human right now at the same time.
He forever will be a high priest after the order of Melchizedek in a human form, but in the glorified body, okay? So good. Yep. All right, good for you. Good for you. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Well, thanks for calling.
Well, thank you for your help. I appreciate it. All right. Well, thank you. God bless. Okay. You too. Bye-bye. All right. I enjoyed that call.
It was a nice call. Let's get to Rick from High Point, North Carolina. And Rick, welcome. You're on the air. Thank you.
I got cut off the other day. How you doing? Doing all right.
Hanging in there. So what have you got? Okay. First off, first off, I have everything written down.
It's going to be quick. I don't know. Have you ever heard of Bodie Baucom, Jr.?
Bodie Baucom. He's a great guy. Yep.
Mm-hmm. And I heard his explanation on YouTube today about, against homosexual underdrensender. This guy knows what he's talking about, Warren. Yes, he does. He is the man. Okay.
So here we go. Yes, he's good stuff. Yep. I heard you mention it. I heard you mention the other day. I think I'm right.
About T.D. Jakes was against the Trinity. Or did I misquote you? Yeah.
He's not affirming the doctrine of the Trinity. Yep. And that's very, very bad. Okay. I've never heard of it. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
In fact, there was a video. Okay. You've heard him say it. Yeah. Yeah.
He's won this. There was a video. You go to his website.
I haven't done this for a couple of years, so I haven't heard anything different. But you go to his website. The definition of who God is, Trinitarian context, whatever it is, is not clear. There was also a video I watched where people had him in a room, and politely they were respected, and they asked him about the nature of God. And it was as though he was affirming the Trinity, but their questions weren't very good.
And I was so frustrated that they didn't know how to even ask the right questions about this. But hold on. Wow. Wow. So hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Okay.
Okay. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
We have three open lines, 877-207-2276. All right. Let's get to Rick from my point. Rick, welcome. You're on the air again.
What's up, buddy? Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Secondly, I heard Dr. John MacArthur talk against people who were a cross. I guess, symbolize their Christianity.
He says, I don't particularly like it for this reason. He said to him, wearing a cross symbolizes death. Jesus left that when he come out of the tomb. So he says, why would a person want to wear a cross representing the death of Jesus? Do you agree with that or disagree?
No, I disagree. I sometimes wear a cross, and it's the symbol of the place of my redemption by grace through faith in the sacrifice of God in flesh. See, how's he going to look at it?
You can look at it. Don't wear that. Would you wear a gun? Wouldn't the JW's say, would you wear a gun if your mom was murdered with a guy with a gun? It's not the same thing.
So if he wants to say that, that's his opinion, but I have a cross in my house, and no problem. What is your opinion of him and his teaching? Who is that again?
Dr. John MacArthur. Oh, he's good. Absolutely.
I don't agree with him on that one, but yeah, he's good. Right. Okay. All right.
Now, this is critical, because as you can tell by the way I talk, I'm from the street. Okay. I was then. I've been married twice.
Okay. I'm not married anymore, and I am a Christian. I'm 66. Now, I'm wanting to be involved with a lady again.
I'm currently not. Am I disqualified, and we don't have to worry about celibacy, because I lived with a woman one time for 18 months, and we never slept together. We were both in the church.
First of all, did that... Well, I know you're going to say it's wrong, but we were living together, but not sexually involved. That was still wrong, wasn't it? Of course it is. You don't live with a woman that you're not married to, unless maybe your sister, your daughter, things like that, you can share the same house, but no, it's the appearance of evil. Right. Because the sexuality, that's not the whole reason, right? Why?
It's the appearance of evil. So since I'm divorced, what about me wanting to get married again? I've been divorced twice.
What I would do if I were you is... I'm talking about being married from a godly standpoint, is what I'm saying. Okay.
What I would do if I were you is talk to the elders of your church. You do go to church, right? I do. I do. Okay. And hopefully they're good, godly men who are elders, right? Hopefully. Okay.
The few I do, the few I know, yeah. Okay. So there are conditions that they should be aware of in this issue. And let me just say this, there are debates about the extent of certain aspects of remarriage. Within the Christian circles there's debate. Okay. Some will say that once you have been divorced for any reason, you can't get married again for any reason. I don't buy that at all. God divorced Israel for their spiritual adultery, and there's going to be a wedding feast where God's going to be and the bride and the church and things like that.
All right. So, here we go. If two unbelievers get divorced and then, unbiblical reasons, and then one of them becomes a Christian who wants to get remarried to somebody else later, is that permissible? That's where the elders need to be involved, because we just got to see.
But for the most part, the answer is yes, because all things are new in Christ. And the old sin is done away with. But what if the person, say a couple, who are supposed to be Christians, get divorced and it's an unbiblical divorce? They just didn't like each other anymore, and they get a divorce. Can they get remarried? Generally, the answer is no, because the marriage was an unbiblical divorce, and they knew this as they were supposed to walk with Christ. But what if, let's just say, I have a man and a woman and she commits adultery and does not repent, and then he divorces her because of that? Then he's free to remarry, and vice versa. What if he's married to a woman, he's a Christian, and she abandons him, or vice versa, and leaves? Well, in that case, he or she is free to remarry the one who gets abandoned, because the other person is breaking the marriage covenant and it's not your fault.
I mean, everybody's at fault to some degree in every marriage. But the thing is, this is the model that we want to go by. And so, these are the issues that need to be addressed by your elders at church, and you need to go through and talk about that. So whatever they decide, I could go with. Yeah, I get several opinions, but I would suggest that they err on the side of grace than law. So that's more general.
That's the word I wanted to hear, because what you just stated, mine wasn't better. Because first off, we weren't saved when we got married, stayed married for 10 years, and I'm the one who committed adultery. I just keep it real.
So I'm screwed from day one. But my thing is, I'm hoping that word grace will allow me, because I've met a lady, she lives in another state. Heck, I hadn't even seen her in 10 years, but I knew her years ago.
Before that, you said you got married, you divorced twice, so what's the other divorce reason? We just grew apart. She was a good woman.
She was a good woman. Were you Christians? Were you Christians? Were you Christians at the time? Yeah.
Actually, we were. Yeah. All right.
We were saved. Okay. So then, you have a serious problem, and I need you to talk to the elders. I do. I do. Okay. So I'm not worried about an elder. I bet he's your king.
Your king. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Discussions like this get rather involved.
We don't have time on the radio, and the subject matter that could be broached shouldn't be on the air live, and so that's why I always suggest talk to your elders and spend some time with them. Okay. Go through it. Okay? Okay. All right, man. Okay.
Very last one. So we disagree quite a bit, but that's what I love about you is because we can disagree, not get mad, yell, and scream, and come out still, you know, civil. Okay.
You have inspired me. I'm wanting to start a nonprofit, and whether it's a blog or whatever, I don't know how to do that, on the critical race theory. It's going to be called the Critical Race Theory Project.
I'm doing research on all of that. What is your definition? And you know, it's a big Republican thing now. What is the definition of critical race theory in your mind? No, it's, well, I've read definitions of it, and what it is is the idea that race, that culture, generational issues, social issues, all play a role in how a race is perceived and how you work as black, white, brown, green, blue, purple, within that culture. And what it does is it divides people, causes more racism, and causes more problems. Critical race theory is a load of crap. In your opinion, why? Because of what it- In your opinion, why does it come with the vision?
Because it brings up the issue of race and sets white against black and white against brown and black against brown and white and all this kind of a thing. But that's a stupid one to read out. Well, we've got a break, so hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We'll get back after the break.
Okay, folks. We'll be right back after the messages. Give me a call.
877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get right on the phone here with Rick.
You still there? Yes, sir. All right.
Yes, sir. So, critical race theories. So, I have written on it. It's on CARM, and the main problems I want to say with critical race theory is it says racism is everywhere all the time, and it presupposes that white people are inherently racist. It views people as groups and not individuals, and that a free society only supports the racist paradigm, and it actually encourages the racism it seeks to prevent. That's why so many people are against it. Okay.
Some of what you just said is true, though, but you're right. It doesn't cover everybody. See, you're from Idaho, right? No, I moved 40 times. I've been all over.
I live in Idaho now. Okay. Have you ever lived in the South? The South-isht I've ever been is Texas. No.
Okay. I live. I'm in North Carolina, and I grew up, literally grew up in the middle of the Klan, racism, segregation in school. So, it's real, but it doesn't bother me because my parents raised me not to see color.
They raised me not to see color. Absolutely, and I agree with you, and that stuff was real, and I'm glad it's hopefully gone and needs to be destroyed. Are there white racists? Absolutely, there are, but our country has come so far. And there are black ones, too.
There are black ones, too, and there are, and there's Mexican ones, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing is, our country has come so far from moving away from that, but what CRT is doing is actually bringing up the old past and causing more division. Let it go. You know, the Bible says to forgive and to move forward, not to remember a sin suffered against you.
To go forward, because when you live in the past, you have the anger and the failure and the resentment of the past, and it doesn't help anybody. You know, there weren't just black slaves, there were also white slaves in America, and people don't know that. That's right. You know?
It's just ridiculous. I am not popular in my black community, number one, I'm black. I'm not African American, but I'm not popular in my community for one reason, you know?
And I'm a lot like you on this. If you keep on talking about slavery, keep on talking about the George Floyd, which you do have me, keep on being investigated, you'll never move forward, because you could potentially, you know, live through yesterday. But what do you identify with, also? Do you identify with slavery, or do you identify with being an American moving forward? What do you identify with? People who identify with those things in the past live in the past and can't escape the past.
This is where I'm a lot popular in my community. When they start talking about slavery, I let them talk, then I say, well, you know what? At least we got beat and we were living. What if you were a Holocaust, that came up during the Holocaust, where Hitler just burned and murdered millions of Jews, at least we're still living.
And to me, I mean, you can't compare the two. And secondly, they say, well, you know, don't you think about your African ancestors? No, because I don't know nobody from Africa. I don't want to know nobody from Africa, and my side is different from the West Indies. And boy, I'm not popular at all.
I'm the same way, my ancestors are from Germany, so I don't want you calling me a German American, you know, and you know, come on, everybody needs to stop it and do what you can right here and move forward. That's what has to happen. The Marxist socialist system uses race as well as economic diversity and non-parity in order to be able to cause division, to bring down a culture, to enslave the entire culture in its Marxist ideology. So this racist CRT thing is actually a form of service of undermining the entire system. They think, a lot of CRT people think that, oh, we'll just make it better. Really? How? How are you making it better?
How? That's right. That's right. How are you making it better? How are you making it better, Mike, when you continuously talk about division?
That's exactly right. Man, look, you're the best, buddy. I enjoy our conversation.
Thank you, man. Well, you know, I wish we were neighbors, because there's a few of you guys that wish we were my neighbors. We'd have good conversations. We do. We do.
We do. That's right. Thank you so much. All right, man. Well, God bless. Okay. Thank you.
All right. Yeah, I like Rick. He's a good guy. Let's get to Alberto from Georgia.
Alberto, welcome. You're on the air. Yes.
Good evening, man. Slick. Yeah, I got a question. Why do Pentecostals and theory teach that you're saved by grace and faith, but in the practical that you have to live by a holy living to get yourself into heaven? So making Christ, that Christ's death wasn't sufficient or not satisfying to God? Well, they do that. They do that because they don't understand biblical theology. They'll say one thing and do another.
It's called cognitive dissonance. You're either saved by grace alone in Christ alone or you're not. It's either the case that I'm talking to you or it's not the case that I'm talking to you.
There is no mid thing. It's either the thing or the negation of the thing. When you have, in logic, it's called the true dichotomy. When you have something and the negation of that something, there is no third option.
You have either A or not A. So you're either saved by grace or it's not the case you're saved by grace. It's either you're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone or it's not the case you're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
That's how it works. When people hold both positions, they'll say, well, you're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, but it's also not the case that you're saved by grace through Christ alone because you've got to get baptized. So what they're doing is they're holding contradictory and mutually exclusive positions as both being valid at the same time.
This is called cognitive dissonance. I hear preachers, two different preachers, Pentecostal churches, I've been up north. One of them said that God told them that 90% of church members would stay behind. The Lord comes to them because they're not living right. Then another preacher, the same organization, he said that 70% would stay behind because they're not living right. Well, where do they get these numbers?
From the book of Deuterectomy right after the book of 2nd Maronicles? Where do they get these numbers? You know, it just gets me. You know, 80% of this, well, if you've done a Barna research thing and they've done questions and they've asked and they've correlated information, okay, you've got some legitimacy to those numbers. But if a pastor just says, 70%, now what's he talking about? That means 70% of all the people he's spoken to in the church aren't saved or have a problem?
Well, then why isn't he doing something about it? Because if you can say that by your performance, because if that was so, nobody would go to heaven because we're not sinless, we all commit mistakes. So if you're going to base it on that, God can say, well, okay, oops, I'll be committing one sin, I'm sorry, you're not going to heaven because you committed that sin, you know, you fell, you know, you're going to get in a prepped profession, holiness to keep me pleased 24 hours a day, oops, I'll be committing another sin, I'm sorry, you know, I'm going to try to get out of my mind, you know what I'm saying?
Right, yeah. Because that day, you're not going to heaven. Well, it's part and parcel with the idea that you have to live in a holy way in order to go to heaven. They'll say, well, if you're saved, you have to be holy because you can lose your salvation if you're not holy enough. And this is works righteousness, it's a false gospel.
It is, yeah. See, what I teach is so simple. You're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. I quote the references, I'll show that. Jesus is the one who atoned for the people and canceled the sin bed at the cross. You're justified when you believe and God grants that you believe.
That's it. Jesus says you'll never lose any. So this is simple stuff, but no, people have to make it difficult and the reason they do is because they put themselves at the center. You know, if you don't keep the commandments, if you're not holy enough, it's about you, then you're not going to make it. It's not Jesus centered, it's man centered, it's humanism. It's humanism in Christian form and it just takes theological understanding to be able to see it and recognize it.
Yeah, it puts people in bondage, you know what I'm saying? It's like a hamster constantly running in a circle. Getting nowhere. Trying to keep, you know, trying to meet the other, have I met enough, you know, holiness level degree to keep myself, you know, you know, in that certain category of unsafe category, you know, if I live holy enough, how do I know if I still kept the holy living standards?
That's right. You know, if my salvation depended in any way on my goodness, my faithfulness, my ability, my whatever, I'm lost, period, because I know me and I'll tell you on the radio, I can pure nice and holy, but I'll tell you down deep, oh, there's sin, rebellion, stupidity, idiocy, foolishness, pride, arrogance, you name it. It's all lurking at different levels and intensities in different areas.
I'm not good enough at all. That's how it is. And we're saved by God's grace and kept by God's grace. That's how it is, brother.
You know that. All right, Elbelter, we've got to go, buddy. Talk to you later, ma'am. Oh, thank you. God bless you.
God bless. Hey, folks, four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276 will be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. This is Matt Slick. Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. Last segment of the hour, if you want to give me a call, we have some open lines, 877-207-2276. Tim from North Carolina. Tim, welcome. You're on the air.
Hi, Matt. I have a question. I was saved at a young age, 8 to 10, baptized, and then for the next 40 years lived a sinful life and didn't live as I should, and just recently rededicated myself to the Lord. And I heard you earlier talking about the Holy Trinity and God is flesh. And I read the Bible.
Wait, wait, wait. I've got to clarify, sorry, that God is flesh? Yeah, I think I heard that you said that God was a human. I can't remember your first call. Okay. All right.
I'm not exactly sure, so I could be quoting you wrong. But my question is, I read the Bible, the King James Bible, and honestly, as a person who's just getting back rededicated myself, I get confused in the King James Bible sometimes. And when you spoke of the Holy Trinity, I was really confused about that. What are references, and how do you go about learning more besides just reading the Bible and to teach about the Holy Trinity and things that you spoke of today? Well, here's one recommendation I would have if you're having trouble with the King James. I would suggest getting a Bible, the NASB, New American Standard Bible. It uses better manuscripts and doesn't have the thes and thes, and so that you can understand it better. And if you only want to study, that's a better Bible to go with.
But if you don't want to, that's okay. I would recommend also, if you want to learn about the Trinity, is to go to my website karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and the left-hand side, you're going to see a menu. And under there, you'll see Christian Theology, and you click on that, and you'll see something called Doctrine and Theology. And if you go to that website and you look there, you will see, if you scroll down, you'll see several articles written on the Trinity, maybe 20 articles, three or 30. And these are the articles I've written on the Trinity over the years. So I've been defending the Christian faith for 41 years, all right? And I debate the Trinity, I'm for it, et cetera.
Now I'm not saying, hey, look, go with whatever I tell you. What I'm saying is there are some stuff that I've written, but you need to study the Trinity. You can go to James White's book, The Forgotten Trinity, and that's a very good book. What I do is I write very succinctly, very quickly, and show you how it's derived from Scripture and what it is and what it's not.
In fact, I'm probably going to be, I probably will start next week or the week after, depends, starting a series on Patreon dealing with the Trinity out of a almost 400-word long paragraph just dealing with the Trinity, different aspects of it. So if you want to learn what it is, I would suggest what you do is just go to the CARM website and go to the Christian Theology section, click on the menu item, and underneath there you'll see Doctrine and Theology. Click on that and you'll see a couple hundred articles written there. And you can learn about Jesus and the Trinity and other things and the ontological Trinity, the economic Trinity, what they mean, how the Trinity is in the Old Testament, the New Testament, stuff called perichoresis, I mean, there's stuff, okay?
So you don't have to look all, read all of it, memorize it all at once, but that's what it is. There's a lot of stuff there. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Do you have any questions about the Trinity at all or anything else you want to know?
I really, honestly, Matt, do not understand when we're talking about the Trinity. Well, can I help you? Sure. I'll talk right now a little bit, okay? All right.
We have no callers waiting, so we got time, all right? So the Trinity doctrine is not arrived at by looking at a single verse. It's arrived at by looking at the whole of Scripture, the whole Bible. And I'll show you how that's done, but first, the Trinity is the teaching that the one God, there's neither a God formed before, no God formed after. God is just one thing.
He is God, and he exists eternally in a Trinitarian state. And so what we say there is that the Trinity is three simultaneous and distinct persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we use the word person, we're not saying like a person like you and me because you and I have a body, flesh, and bones.
And so we don't, that's not the theological term that word person carries there. What it means is that a center of consciousness, you can say you and yours and me and mine. And so the Father speaks to the Son, the Son speaks to the Father, the Holy Spirit speaks as well. The Father sent the Son, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. They all have wills, they all are involved in creation, they're all called God, and yet they show distinction because they speak to each other and relate to each other. So if there were three martial artists, let's say they're karate experts, and they were the ones in this team, it's one team comprised of three persons.
In that sense, they each have their specialties and things like that. So what I like to do is reference the Trinity as using something called time. Time is past, present, and future. But time has this one nature, and it's redundant to say, but time is just this thing called time.
This procedure, this time, and defining it is another topic, but we won't get into that right now. But we would say that the past also is time, because it's what it is, it's the past. It's time, it's what happened in the past, that's an aspect of time. And the present is also, we would say, time, and the future is also what we would say time. We wouldn't say there's three separate times, there's only one thing called time, but it has three, I don't like using the word parts, I'm going to use the word aspects, just for this analogy, and say that there's three aspects to what time really is. But they're not all identical, because the past is separate and different than the future, which is different than the present, because the events within them are different. Yet all of the nature of what time is, is one thing.
Now this is not the best analogy, but it's an analogy that we can relate to. So God is one single thing with three persons, three centers of consciousness, awareness. I will send, you know, the Father sent me, as Jesus says in John 6, 39. And the Father sent by the Son, or the Son is sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, so we see differentiation. We would also say that there's a doctrine called the ontological trinity, that's from the Greek ontos, which means nature, essence, or being. So the essence of each of the members of the Godhead is the same, it's divine. There's this quality called divinity, which God alone possesses.
It's not shared by anybody, it just belongs to him. And each of the persons possesses divinity, this nature. But it's not like each one possesses part of the nature, because that would violate a doctrine called divine simplicity. So think of a sphere of carbon. It's just a sphere, it doesn't matter how big it is, just between your hands, a sphere of carbon, pure carbon. It is one simple thing.
It is one thing, carbon. It is one thing, divine. But that divine nature has three persons in it, and we call this the divine simplicity of God, as he manifests in real time in what we would call three distinct and simultaneous persons. And we would say that because Jesus says, Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the foundation of the world. So that would mean then that Jesus is identifying himself as preexistent with the Father before the foundation of the world.
And there's other verses like this. Theologians early on when they were coming with these scriptures going, whoa, what do we do with this? Well what they would do is they would read these scriptures, and they had to come up with conclusions.
They said, okay, what are we going to do? So what they did was they understood the Bible clearly teaches there's only one God. And you can go to Isaiah 43, 44, and 45. But they also recognized that the Father is called God, and the Son is called God, and the Holy Spirit is also called God. But there's only one God. Okay, so they're all three, the one God.
But how are they the one God? Well, it turns out that the Father has a will, and Jesus has a will, or the Son has a will because Jesus says in Luke 22, 42, he says, Father, you let this cup pass me, nevertheless not my will, but your will be done. If they're the one person, they're only going to have one will. And so they're two persons because by definition a person has a will. And the Holy Spirit, it says, but one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills.
The Holy Spirit has a will, that's 1 Corinthians 12, 11. Well, the Father speaks, the Son speaks, the Holy Spirit speaks, the Father loves, the Son loves, the Holy Spirit loves, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit each search the heart. And we see the Father and the Son each judge. We would also say, and I give all the references, that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are each all knowing and they all each sanctify, they each give life. We have fellowship with each one.
Now here's a question. Fellowship means intimacy. And so you and I, it can mean intimacy, varying degrees of fellowship, but you and I can become friends and have real fellowship.
We spend time together and we communicate and talk with each other. You don't have fellowship with someone you don't spend time with. And so you have fellowship with the Father, and you have fellowship with the Son, and you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, but yet they speak to each other. So what we do with all this, we say, well, they exhibit attributes of personhood. They speak, they have a will, we can have fellowship with them, their will of themselves as well as they're aware of others.
This is what we call personhood. That's why they use the word person in theology to say the three persons of the Trinity. And so we put this all together and we simply say there's one God in all existence and he exists as three simultaneous persons. The three simultaneous persons, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are each divine in their nature. They each indwell, each resurrect, each our creator, each called God, they each speak, they each have a will and they each love. We each have fellowship with each one of them. But we see a differentiation because the Father sent the Son and the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit convicts the world, but not the Father and the Son. So there's a differentiation between them and their function.
And so there we have the Trinity. That make sense? More, I hope?
It does. And I look forward to reading the articles. Well, I hope it helps, and may the Lord bless you with that. I'm sorry? All right.
Thank you very much. Okay. And one last thing.
We've got like less than a minute of this show. You've got to be careful. Don't trust a guy in the radio whose last name is Slick. You trust what the scripture says, okay? So I'll do that. You make sure.
So you go through and you read and you check those scriptures and you say, is that what is being said? All right. And you'll learn. Okay, brother? All right. Thank you very much, man. All right, man. God bless. Thank you. All right.
That was Tim from North Carolina. Hey folks, we are out of time. May the Lord bless you. Hope that last bit of the Trinity was edifying. And by His grace, we're back on there tomorrow. Oh, by the way, teaching on Bible studies tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern time, well, 9.30 is how it turns out. I'll be teaching on justification. Hey, God bless everybody. Bye. This is a program powered by the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-17 19:40:48 / 2023-09-17 19:59:45 / 19