MS Top 6 Season 3 #2

This is the Truth Network. Monday through Friday, Matt takes calls from all around the world on his radio show. We've compiled this week's best, Matt Slick's Top 6.

Number 5. Here people say a lot, Jesus Christ is God all by himself and stands alone, this, that, and the third, but I couldn't understand that because, of course, we have the Holy Spirit and we have the Father, so we're just trying to figure out why would they say that. Well, it's just a matter of understanding the doctrine and the terms and then being a little more clear than most people are. So we have to go through what's called monotheism, which is a teaching that there's only one God in all places, in all time, and the Christian God, by necessity, has always existed, so there's no place or condition or situation in which the Christian God could not or might not exist, and the Christian God has eternally existed as a Trinity. Now, the Trinity is not three parts, but what we call three persons, and yet at the same time, the three persons share the same divine essence, but they express themselves differently in different functions in creation. So the fathers and Holy Spirit are all the one being.

Number four. My question was, there in the passage in 1 John chapter 4, I got the impression that it's saying that no man has seen God. So when it says no man's ever seen God, for example, in John 1.18, you'll find that the word God there, after verse 14, means God the Father. We know this because John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, Word was with God, and the Word was God. In verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That's Jesus. When he's speaking, he is speaking of God, he's speaking of the Father, and John does that, and John speaks that way when he writes what's meant by God, and we know that because Jesus says in John 6.46, he says, no man has seen the Father at any time. So he's specifically referencing the Father is not the one who has been seen. They were seeing God in the Old Testament, it was God Almighty, but it was the pre-incarnate Christ whom they were seeing, and that's how you reconcile it.

Number three. I was doing some research, and it actually brought me to an article that you wrote back in 2009 about why we reject the Apocrypha. When someone says books were taken out of the Bible, you say, show me the proof from that. Anybody say that to me, I say, you show me where the books were included in the early church, where the Jews recognized them because they're talking about the Apocrypha. If the Apocrypha is Scripture, why is it the Jews rejected it as Scripture?

Because the Apocrypha was written between the book of Malachi and the first book of the New Testament. So why is it that the Jews never considered them to be inspired? Furthermore, Jesus never quoted them as being inspired. It's technically like their Old Testament. But they aren't Old Testament.

See, Testament means covenant. The Apocrypha is not part of the covenant. They're not part of the covenantly revealed documents for the people of God, Israel. The Apocrypha books are historical books, and they're worth examining. They are, but they're not Scripture. They're not considered to be Scripture.

Number two. Oneness, Pentecostals, comes up with that Jesus sat on the Father's throne, so therefore they're the same. Is it a good argument to say that heaven is the throne that is spoken of in there? When you look at Isaiah 66 one. Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. That's just poetry.

It's exaggeration representation. God doesn't sit on heaven, particularly since there's three heavens. First heaven is where the air is and the birds and the clouds. The second heaven where the sun, moon, stars. The third heaven is God's dwelling place. So it says heaven is my throne. It would seem as though we talk about the third heaven. I was in a debate recently with a oneness person who said there's only one throne in heaven, hence one person. And that's God, not a trinity. And I quoted him Revelation 321. Jesus says, He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. So there's two different thrones right there.

Number one. Libertarianism doesn't make any biblical sense because it's contradicted by the Scriptures. The Scriptures teach compatibilist free will, which is that God's sovereignty and human freedom are compatible. If anybody were to deny that, they're denying the sovereignty of God. And they'd have to say, well, man's freedom has to be so free that not even God can influence it. And that's blasphemy because they're saying God is not God. So this is what always happens when libertarian free will is defended. God's character, God's nature, God's abilities are reduced.

They're restricted in order to make way for man's greatness. This is how it works. This is one of the great sins in the Christian church today. And it is a sin that needs to be repented of. There's only one God. You're not him. There's one God. He's on the throne. He works all things after the counsel of his will and how we have to understand those particulars being a little bit difficult for some people. But the truth is, he works all things after the counsel of his will.

Whether you like it or not is irrelevant to whether or not it's true. I always trust a guy named Matt Slick on the radio. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Matt Slick's Top Six. For more on Matt and his live syndicated call-in radio show, go to truthnetwork.com. Got a question? Matt Slick has your answer. This is the Truth Network.