Apologetics Series 2024 - Part 2: The Deity of Jesus & The Trinity | Samuel Nesan & Andy Yeoh

Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the

word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God given

destiny. Now let's get started today. We're gonna well Jesus, amen,

is Jesus God? Because we have friends even locally in Malaysia that likes to

bring up this topic and say, your Jesus never said is God by He

never claimed to be God himself. He never said about and worship me,

He never said those works. So how even if he him something say he's

gone, why are we claiming him to be God? So it's a pretty

good question. Uh, And I did search up the New Testament. I

can't find Jesus quoted saying I'm God, worship me words? Why is it?

Is it what they claim since he because he's not God, he never

claimed to be God? Is that is that? Is that claim true?

And how do we know he's gone? That's important because if Jesus is not

God, who are we worshiping? Who sees all? Hey, King Jesus

they were thinking about. So we're gonna cover that. But also about trinity.

Unlike any other religion, we have this concept called the trinity h and

while we have this concert triunity, we still claim we worship only one true

living God. We worship one true living God. Yet we also claim that

we have a God who is the Father. We have a God who is

the Son. We've got, we have a God who's the Holy Spirit.

That sounds like tree gods. But you say you worship one God. That's

confusing. So we hope to address that as well. Okay, let's start

with the Trinity. In order for the Trinity to to hold, one of

the three persons of the Trinity, Jesus has to be God. Otherwise the

whole thing breaks apart. So we start with the Trinity and then we go

to whether Jesus is indeed God or not. And so if you if you

look at your work ship, it starts with the question why defend the Trinity?

Or maybe we could even rephrase the question for our context today because we're

not arguing, we're not debating today. But I think we can also ask

the question this way, like why is the Trinity important to us? Why?

Why are Christians? Why is this so important to Christianity? Can we

just ignore it? It's such a it's such a difficult concept to grabs it's

how to explain. We may or may not bring this up in a day

to day basis. So why why border So I like to establish the importance

of the Trinity. Why is it important? And there's at least four reasons

why. And first let's read the scripture, because it's from the scripture that

we get this. Matthew twenty eight, verse sixteen to twenty. I'll read

verse sixteen. Now, the eleven disciples went to Galilee, the mountain to

which Jesus had directed them, And when they saw him, they worshiped him.

They worship who Jesus? They did? What to Jesus? They had

a chat, they had wrote, pick together? What did they do?

They play some games? No, they worshiped Jesus pretty important, even though

some doubted. Some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all

authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, All authority,

not some, not a lot, all authority. And he says in verse

nineteen, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Go do this thing

that will now come to know as the Greek commission. Go therefore and make

disciples of all nations. How baptize them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus himself mentions

these terms, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit. So he mentions these three, these three persons,

and then his continued to say, teaching them to observe all they've commanded you,

and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

So it seems to me that by definition, cannot do the Great commission,

meaning we cannot preach the Gospel, meaning we cannot bring this message of hope

and truth, this message that mixed Christianity, Christianity, all of these things.

We actually can't do it without the Trinity. Right, this would suggest

that Jesus do this, what is this the great commission? Preach the Gospel.

So all your missions, your mission trips, your evangelism, your whatever

it is you do to bring this message to the world cannot be done apart

from the Trinity. So that will be the first point. That would be

the first reason why Trinity. The Trinity, although it's so hard to understand,

so how to explain, But we need this, we need to understand,

we need to accept and believe in the Trinity because it is central.

That's the first plan to Great Commission. The Great Commission cannot be done apart

from the Trinity. So we cannot ignore. We cannot, like, let's

just talk about Jesus. That's the easy part, just the crossmand right,

let's just only focus on that. It's just not possible, not allowed.

So that also brings us to the second point. The Trinity is important because

it is central to the Gospel. That means that you cannot actually preach and

prison the gospel and only talk about Jesus, which is what we like to

do because it's easy because that's there's the picture on the wall, that's the

post, that's the painting, and you know, we all know, yes,

and the whole world knows the name Jesus. And so it gets complicated

when you know we're bringing the Holy Spirit and then the Father, and then

there's this concept of father and son. It gets very complicated. So let's

just avoid that. But I like to propose to you that we cannot do

that. We cannot ignore the Trinity. It's important, all right. So

it's central to the Great Commission. From the scripture, we can see that

it's central to the Gospel and the Bible, which is the third blank.

The Bible actually begins with the Trinity and ends with the Trinity in action.

How do we see the Trinity in action in the beginning? How does the

Bible start? Oh, the Bible starts in the beginning. Okay, great,

wow, so smart? Okay, So in the beginning, in the

beginning, what God created? God created? How did he create? By

his word? Right? He spoke, and I think the first thing he

said was let there be light. There was life. So from scripture we

see the Trinity in action. How I think last week, remember we we

had a little chart. We asked the question, who is the speaker?

Who is the word of God? Who spoke those words? And they say

it's called the Father. So God, the Father is the is the one

that spoke those words? And who is described as the word in the Bible.

Jesus, Right, Jesus is the word. Beginning was the word?

The word was God, and the word was God what became flesh. So

Jesus is the word. And when you speak, what comes out of your

mouth as the words of your mouth, as the words to leave your mouth?

What is that? The physical breath which is by the way, what

spirit means. The word spirit is the word breath. So in that one,

actually, when God spoke the word to existence, all of the three

persons of a trinity are in action together. Right, So the Bible actually

begins with the treaty action and it ends is the Bible. And it's fascinating

because you talked about worships. Now, yes, in the Great Commission,

and I just want to point that out and derve tail to the answer the

question that answered the question that you just said. The Bible begins in the

Great Commission by saying, go make disciples of all nations. In fact,

if you are a very particular on grammar, the word disciple is the only

verb in that entire clause. It's the only verb. Because you you ask

people how many verbs are that they think disciple, make disciples, baptizing,

teaching, and all that going. Actually it's not the other is all participles.

Well, you're asking, what is that well that teaches you how to

fulfill the verb if I told you finish the exam, that's the verb by

filling out all the answers, checking, signing your name in the bottom.

Checking. Filling and signing are not verbs. They are participles. They help

you fulfill the finish your exam. Verb right. Quite a great commission says

that go make disciples, and the Greek doesn't even have the word disciples.

The Greek actually has the word disciple as a verb disciple. And the question

is how do we do that? Well, we do that by going,

because you can't sit on your chair and not this internet maybe can, but

you have to this intentionality. You gotta go. You do baptize, and

you got to teach them to do all that Christ is commanded. And part

of that which Christ taught is the trinity. And so your Christian is we

saw the Trinity in action in creation because in Genesis chapter one, God spoke.

The Bible also says in verse two Genesis one two, the Spirit is

houring over the water. The word creates. So you have the Word of

God Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, you have the Father, all

three persons in the first two verses of the Bible. Now you come to

the great commissions. As to end it out, it says that when they

saw him, they worshiped him. Interestingly, that's not the last time the

Bible talks about the ship of Jesus. Where is the trinity mentioned again?

Revelation chapter twenty two worse three Revelation chapter twenty two, verse three, and

it's the fifth of the Bible. In that final chapter it actually says,

anyone want to turn revelation, Yes, all right, anyone want to turn

to Revelation twenty two three. What does it say that the throne? How

many occupants are there to the throne of God? Revelation twenty two, verse

three, How many occupants are there to God's thrown Two? They are God

and the Lamb. And it goes on to say his servants will worship him,

worship him? Who is the him? Now in Greek, the way

you answer that question is find out what is the nearest anticident, What is

the nearest word that comes close to him? Well, the closest one is

Lamb. So his servants, that is, the servants of the Lamb will

worship him. The worship of Jesus is even in the final chapter, and

the chapter twenty two also goes on to talk about the Spirit who invites us

and says, the Spirit and a bride say come, and so you have

the Holy Spirit, you have the Father, the throne of God. You

have the Lamb, and in the very last chapter of the Bible, it

really begins and ends with it. That's right, amen, Okay, so

far, so good? Okay, important, Uh, the Bible ends,

begins and ends with the Trinity in action. And of course, finally,

the Trinity is important to the Gospel because it distinguishes Christianity from every other religion.

There are other religions that also claim they only worship one God. So

what's so impressive, what's so true about your religion? My we also watch

one God. Suppose you know what'soul being many many gods? Is it's Yeah,

that alone makes it not believable. So Christianity alo one God, some

o the regions of one God. So what's special, what's so different?

What's so unique? The Trinity is what's unique. The Trinity is what distinguishes

Christianity from every other religion. And this is why it's important for Christians to

study and understand this. Yeah. Absolutely. And the thing is that in

every religion, let's be careful of saying every religion, let's just say generally,

what we tend to see in other religions is that the gods of these

religions very often resemble the worshippers themselves. Right, And I'm not getting into

detail, but the gods of the religions, generally speaking, typically resemble the

worshippers themselves, but only in Christianity. To my knowledge, I've yet to

come across a religion that is different. That you have God so incredibly complex

to the human mind that the theologian Augustine One said, to try and deny

the Trinity is to risk your salvation, or is to risk losing your salvation.

And to try to understand the Trinity is to risk losing your mind because

it's that complex. And you say, well, no one could actually sit

down and invent these things. So where did it come from? Well,

it comes from Peacing. Chapter one was one of Genesis all the way to

Revelations. Unity too. It's the compilation of all scriptures, says that we

derived as a amazing doctrine. Andy truly distinguished sets Christianity apart from every other

faith in the world. And we'll look at now next next we'll look at

what what is the doctoral Trinity? What does it tell us? So we

don't we won't break our minds yet, but at least define it. The

five affirmations, right, the five informations? What makes the doctrinal trinity?

What do we believe when we say the trinity? Okay, are you ready

for that? So I'm just gonna breech pool so that we can later on

use these as a foundation and then answer those questions that you are now pouring

in. So five affirmations of the doctrinal of the Trinity. Number one is

that there is one God. There is still no tree gods. There's no

tree hates. There's no one God with three hates. It's one God.

We are still saying it's one God. But what do we What do we

mean by one God? I'm just going to throw the terms out there first

and we can explain later. We mean it by one substance, one being,

one nature. So Jesus and the Father shares one nature, one being.

That's what we mean by one God. By what right? This is

the word. So we'll come to that. But this story is out first

because some of you have this old CD. No, you have to fill

in the blank. If you go home without a blank, spill you'll come

and kill us. So we're feeling the blanks first. Number two, what

we when we say that when we say trinity, we mean the Father is

God, Father is God. We also mean Jesus is God. Okay,

the mind starts so cracky. Wait wait, wait what God? But the

Father has got that Jesus also God. Now we have two gods. Not

so fast. The fourth point is the Holy Spirit is God. Okay,

now we have three gods. How do we deal with this? But we've

already established as one God, one God. And we mean that by saying

there is the three persons that shares one substance, it makes them one.

Okay, we'll get there. Uh, that's where that's where we come to

the last point. The fifth affirmation of the doctrin or trinity, Uh,

that they are Father. They meaning the Father, the Son, the Holy

Spirit. They are distinct persons, distinct persons, okay. Uh. Not

three different gods combining to become one. Not Voltron, not one of those.

No. No, they didn't just combine and like combined power. No

Captain Plannet kind of thing. Not three, not like five elements becoming one

Captain Plannet, not that concept. It's they chair one substance, one being.

All right, So lay out there first, When we say trinity,

we mean there's one God one but but the one God means the Father is

God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. But they

are three distinct persons. I think that the chart kind of explains that.

Okay, go for it. So you have that the Father is God,

is God, the Spirit is God. But at the same time, the

Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Father is not the Son, and

the Holy Spirit is not. So there is this unity and diversity within the

Trinity that it doesn't go against human logic or go against logic. I think

it transcends logic itself. Yeah, so you get that. That's what you

mean by distinction. That means what they all three is one God. The

Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Son, the Sign

is not the Holy Spirit orly Spirit is not the Father. So there's this

distinction plus few one. Yeah, and people don't seem to get that past.

One of the things that strikes me as odd is that you would typically

hear people, especially atheists, say this, and they pretend that they understand

the Trinity. Let's go to the previous light, please, the one before

this. I'm not, just to be clear for the record, I'm not

promoting this t shirt. Okay, so it's not in Chaine shop, not

available. No, don't buy this tation all right? Well, it says

here atheis because God sending himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from

himself is a bit much to believe. What do you think God sending himself

to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself, it's a bit much

to believe. What do you think? Now? I tell you what I

think. I fully agree. I fully agree. Actually I couldn't agree more.

I think it's too much to believe too. I think that's absolutely nonsensical

because we don't believe that God sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save

us from himself. Know what do we believe? In John three sixteen,

God so loved the world that he sent his said, not himself. The

Father is not the son. You see. And these guys who pretend to

make fun of the Trinity, they don't understand the basic fundamental principles of the

Trinity itself. God the Father is not Jesus. They at distinct persons want

God, not the same person. So there's a examples past end of how

of friends who usually want to say, oh, the Trinity doesn't make sense.

Well, obviously if you present it this way, I'm with you,

it doesn't make sense. But that's not what Christians have historically believed it.

Yeah, and from that, can I can I already bring up a question

that's being asked you a thing it's related, uh, and just see how

you and I can answer this. Basically, there's a question that asks that

is asked this way. Is there is there like a father son relationship between

Jesus and God the Father, So it's like a father's relationship or is it

like a self love type of you like God is loving himself? So you

kind of addressed it. Really, But I think what they're trying to ask

behind this question is like, how does it work? How does this father's

some relationship work? Because the Father, the earthly Father's a relationship the way

we understand it is very different than what I think Jesus has to be the

father you will be speaking to. That is God just is like God's loving.

Oh I love me. When I say the Father lost the son,

is he really cause saying I love me? Or is there a distinction this

means to something else? The funny thing is it's one person here who's actually

written an entire research paper on wonder. That person is past Andy. So

he wrote an entire research paperon that. I've had a privilege to read it.

It's it's beautiful because he ties it into the pastoral application as well.

But that I would say something, and of course you have a lot more

to say. Please speak to him about this. He's the best person to

speak to on this. But one of the things I would say to that

is that when the Bible says that there is a father son relationship, notice

that is not the same relationship that the Father has with the Spirit. The

Spirit is not the son of God. So then you ask in what sense

is Jesus the son of God. Now I tell you this, it was

only when I was doing my PhD. I began to really make sense of

this book. I couldn't understand this. If you go to the Nicene Creed,

which was the earliest one of the early Christian creeds that was developed in

the year three hundred and twenty five a d. They talk about this interesting

clause of the sun. They say that the son was begotten of the Father.

Let me hold it the right way, begotten not created, begotten before

all ages? What does it mean to say that Jesus is eternally begotten of

the Father? Now. I struggled with that even when I was doing my

PhD, because it didn't make sense to me until I began to realize that

what it really means is that from eternity pass. And if you don't understand

this, that it's completely fine because in a sense, neider, do I

right? In eternity pass God the Father or already God, the Son proceeded

from the Father himself. In other words, that the son proceeds from the

very nature of the Father. So he is not created, but he is

begotten. Now again, I cannot explain that. One of the best passages

to explain this is in Micah chapter five worse two. Micah Chapter five worse

two. If you have your Bibles, can someone read out loud Micah chapter

five worse two. Okay, well, since we have it here, and

I still want people to read, because your versions are going to say different

things depending because this is such a complex text to explain. It says talking

about by the way, predicting the birth of Jesus. But you, oh

Bethlehem Ephrata, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah.

From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.

But who is the media God a father right comfort for me, one

who is to be ruler in Israe world. That's Jesus, by the way,

whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days. What does that

mean? It means he came faith from ancient days. Now, if you

have another version, if your version says everlasting, can I see your hands?

Yeah? Can you read that out loud? Please? Yes? From

everlasting, which means that in eternity past, Jesus proceeded from the Father.

It was not the Father's will for this to happen. This took place in

eternity just out of necessity. Right, It's out of necessity. It could

not possibly have been by any other way. It's not like the Father chose,

because that would be creation. Jesus proceeded from the Father. And that

is why you have a very interesting raise in John one one. We read

John one one quote John one. We don't realize that John one one begins

with this. John one one says in the beginning was the what do words

do they proceed from? The speaker, don't they That's already there. The

Word was with God, not when did the word proceed in the beginning,

See I read that. I thought that must be dealing past to Andy with

with with with You know that something like Jesus became the word, you know,

when he became men. The problem is John one fourteen says the word

became flesh. So the word is the prior state, eternal state. He

was the word. The Word became flesh. But that means it already eternally

implies procession. He proceeds from the Father. Okay, then you say,

okay, great, great, what about the Holy Spirit? If the Holy

Spirit is not the Son of God, then what is the Holy Spirit?

Now Here is where the Bible uses a very interesting phrase. Now we don't

get this because I think past Andy mentioned this, but only if you know

your Hebrew and Greek you kind of get the feel of this. In the

Hebrew and in the Greek, roch and numa are both words for the spirit,

but they also mean breadth. So the Son is the Word of God,

who proceeds from the Father. But the Father and the Son breathe the

Holy Spirit. So the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son.

That is why, on the one hand, the Father sends the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, of the Bible says Jesus sends the Holy Spirit.

So you have the spirit coming from both the Father and the Son.

So it's not like three friends got together, past Andy and decided to start

a company called Godhead, right, It's not like that. What actually happened

is that from eternity God, the Son proceeded from the Father, and from

Father and son proceed the Holy Spirit. They are of one nature, inseparable,

coequal, co eternal. Answer today, maybe you can break that down

pastorally, I think, Oh okay, So Severn mentioned that I wrote a

paper on this topic. Uh. And the paper is actually on the whole

concept called the eternal generation of the Sun, which basically, if I can

break it down to lay language, is like so most okay, those of

us who are sons, we had a beginning, right, like you know,

Father, mother did something, then we came out right, right,

so we all we all at a beginning. Uh so that makes us a

son. We have a father, right. But if we applied the same

understanding to Jesus, then they will imply that Jesus once upon a time wasn't

the sun, and then he became the son, and that creates a problem

because if Jesus had a beginning, then he can't be God. Right,

he has a limitation and he can't be God. So that's approse. My

paper kind of like touches on that doctrine. Uh, and it examines the

pastoral and pologetical implications on that doctrine. So if if we accept that Jesus

was always the sun from eternity and forever will be the sun, so he

has his son but has no beginning, then how does it affect our evangelism?

How does it affect what we're teaching church and what songs we sing in

church and stuff like that? Right, So I don't know. It's not

being graded yet, to be honest, although you did, but it's not

being graded by the Bible School yet. So I'm not sure. Because I

was about to say, I don't mind sharing this paper onto our church discod

server so that they can read it's good. Okay, So just that I

don't grade those papers. Yes, So yeah, it doesn't grade, so

there's non biasedness. But so it's just if it's good, I will Is

it okay? I will just because it's a long paper and I can't shay

it here. Uh, there's too much to cover. It's worth the reader.

I will put it out on our discords server and you can have a

read. Is that okay? Okay? Great? Great? And then but

I do want to address this because this this is interesting a particular part the

global intenational American past's name is mentioned and what he teaches, and then and

then and then there's a question that I think I have to answer because because

it has got to do his songs, because I mentioned songs just now,

and songs have theology in it and stuff like that. Right, So I

think our adress that part. So Stephen Furtigue mentioned Jesus as being in modes.

God is different modes. How does that affect it mentions? How affect

his theology? I don't know. We can just make it more general,

like in general, I seem like, if you believe that Jesus has different

modes, and how does that affect what we believe? Uh? And then

our address the next part, why do we still sing songs written by his

church? Think this would be pretty easy, pretty quick. Jesus is not

in different modes. Those who claim that Jesus and the Father are different modes

would usually use something like, uh, you know that, you know the

steam water eyes analogy? Have you heard those analogies? Those are really bad

analogies, right, really terrible because they imply that once upon a time he

was the Father in the Old Testament, he became the Son in the New

Testament, and then he went up and came back down as the Holy Spirit.

The one problem with that, as we would see in the biblical verses,

is that at the baptism of Jesus, the Father said, you are

my son. With you, I am well pleased. So if there is

different modes, was Jesus saying to himself that I'm pleased with myself and noticed

the Spirit lands on Jesus. So you have the Trinity all in one scene.

You could have taken a picture of video with the Father's war is the

Spirit there and Jesus, So they're all three there at the same time,

and so it can't be it's impossible for that to be different modes. Rather,

it's better to say they are distinct persons so that they're always having fellowship

with one another. Yes, so can I also say that. I think

as human beings, we've tried our very best, open generations to try to

understand the Trinity. So in our quests and pursuit to try to understand and

explain, So I think we come from a generally speaking like, you're if

you believe in Jesus, you you're God fearing. I don't think you set

out to purposely intentionally teach wrong or bad doctrine or weak doctrine, right,

So it's in our pursuit to try to explain we come up with things like

God is like an egg. You know, it's good, it's the shell,

it makes one egg. It's problematic as well. Then we try to

explain it by all its h two, oh, you know, whether you're

solid or The problem is that, like you know, with with that,

you can exist in one one state at one time. But God's not limited

by that, right, God can exist all three persons exist at the same

time all times. So that's why some of these analogies or examples or metaphors

are not sufficient. But I like to see this as us trying to explain

God and then we kind of like which we tend to do. We since

we can't fully explain God. We try to limit him to our own understanding,

and somewhere there we may have gone off the path. So I don't

know. I don't know who stilling. I mean, I know who steping

for it is, I don't know, like I don't know him. Not

to be fair, I think it's also him trying to explain and maybe just

end up explaining in a way that's weak, it's not as good. But

so if he teaches stuff like that, and you know, we we clearly

now know like, oh, that's not a very good way to explan Trinity.

It's the wrong way. It's bad. It limits God, and it's

saying something about God. It's not true. Why are we singing songs from

his church? Now? There are people who have very strong convictions like if

the past that teaches back doctrine, I will not sing any songs that comes

up from that church. I want to read their books. I will not

even look at their site. I will scroll past the Instagram post. There

are people like that, Okay, God bless them, nothing wrong with that,

that's your conviction. Ah, And there are people who like they are

actually absolutely do not care doctrine and my Li's okay, totally not care,

not responsible at all, not like the Brians, where they actually I wonder

is this really in the Bible, and then go and search and read up

on their own. So I don't know where on the spectrum you are.

But for me, I guess this is a question that only I can answer.

Why do we still sing songs from that church? I tend to separate

this. I don't know whether, yeah, I tend to separate the song,

the product from the person because, okay, maybe they say this way,

like if if you're going to buy a chair, you go to the

furniture shop and you found out that about to buy from it here is created

by an athies, like the person actually hates God. Do you stick by

the chair? So someone might say, now that I know it's in eighteen

chair, I won't buy the chair. I will only buy chairs from people

who believe in Jesus. Fine, you didn't bring any law, you didn't

offind anybody. That's your conviction. But if you do buy the chair made

by an atheists, I find there's nothing wrong in that because you're just buying

a chair to sit on. You're not worship chair. You're not you're not

bound by the chair. It's not the only chair you'll buy, and you're

not only You're not only buy chair from this one athe So I tend to

do that the If there's nothing wrong with the chair, the chair is not

broken, I'm not now bound by the chair. I'm not now addicted to

a chair. I can only sit on this chair or worship this chair.

I feel it's okay. I feel it's okay. Having said that, I

still do examine the chair. So if there's one leg is broken, then

why would I buy it? Right? So, I believe that there's the

songs from the church that may have some bad theology in it or wrong theology

in it. Once we know it, we detect it, we don't sing

it. But if the theology sound or maybe it's a theology that I don't

know enough yet, and so I don't know enough to say it's wrong yet,

then we may still sing it. When the moment we know it's wrong,

we stop singing it. You give them great where I'm going, Like

the moment I examined the chair and I found out wait, one leg shortened

and the other oa, you should know it earlier. But then I'm like,

okay, I'm not buying this chair from this person anymore, right,

because otherwise, if you apprentice to songs, you have to apply it to

everything. Now the chocolate tale that the antiamate and she believes in, like

like Kuanima or something, and then you're, oh, I can't eat this

charco anymore. I can't go to the doctor because the doctor prays to zaiy

bah bah. I will already go to doctor be not and maybe doctor ling

ling and doctor leting you. You get my point? Like I tend not

to throw the baby out with the buff water. But that's not a reason

to be irresponsible. So we do try and try and learn. And I'm

learning. So once I know, okay, this is bad or rong geology,

then me stop singing a song. Until then I have no reason.

I feel like the reason that because the positives back theology. Sometimes therefore I

blanket and say no, books, no, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, just add on to that a bit like I think that if you

want to make a rule that says that you cannot take a song from a

ministry that you know has geological issues, then I think one would have to

find a biblical basis for them. I'm not sure there's any biblical basis.

And I love what you said. If your conviction tells you don't do it,

don't do it, right. But if if you don't have that conviction

and someone's going to impose to you and tell you it, you can't do

that, I guess my question will be raised that in the Bible. Now

I'm not That's that's what I feel, right, So I think you ought

to be free to follow our convictions exactly once you start imposing something that is

a conviction. So if it's a biblical law, by all means we all

you know, otherwise we will be sitting against God anyway, whether or not

the person imposes something on you. But if it's a conviction, if it's

your you know, like Paul says, you know, if you're gonna eat

this en stumble a brother, He's not saying don't eat pork. If symbols

a friend and that hinders your your relationship or hindus your evangelism, then then

don't do it. Right. So yeah, okay, great, Okay,

lots of questions like always that's good, And yes, there there is there

is someone who says trinity it goes and Gus uh, solid vapor and what's

your you know, liquid liquid? Look it? So I hope we've addressed

that. Let's scratch that. Let's see what else is there? Every every

almost every analogy human analogy of the Trinity ends up making it three gods or

modes one one person, one god. You know, every almost and every

analogy ends up doing that, which is why I avoid giving any analogies and

analogies at all. I think in scripture God says to what would you compare

me to? The Creator? The Creator cannot be compared to anything else in

all of creation. Okay, uh, okay, Just just so that I

can address those of you who are putting questions here, some questions here that

is not directly related to today's topic, So we will leave that to later

if there's time, right, So not avoiding your questions, just that we

want to be faithful to the topic, because I think there are people who

came here for the topic, so I hope that they can get those questions

answered. And if it's related to topics that is coming up in the coming

weeks, then we'll leave it to then. All right, He said,

Okay, all right, let's see there was a there was something about omnipotents

earlier. Let me try to find that again. Where did he go?

Okay, if there there is one God but three persons, how do we

explain the omnipotence of God? Is the son, so it's a hieracha concussion.

It's the son in lower hierarchy than the father. So therefore he's less

powerful, not all powerful, because the Father is all powerful. So yeah,

which is addressed in my paper, but we can Yeah, I was

about to say that, Actually, yeah, your paper addresses that, but

just put in simple. So yeah, it's the concept of Uh. I

think we're going to explain substance because earlier there's one God. And when we

we define what we mean one in substance, one in being, one in

nature, one in property. Should we explain that? Yeah, yeah,

I think, I think, but maybe you can explain it. What I'll

quickly do is just say that all of this attributes of God. Now,

just to be clear, how many attributes does God have? The answer is

one? Right, God only has one because God is not chopped up into

different parts, because to do that would say, if I'm going to make

God, let's put a bit of love here, a bit of justice,

a bit of holiness, a bit of mercy, and you mix it up

and you get God. That's not what it is. The whole thing of

concept about God is God has no parts. We call this divine simplicity.

Not that he's simple to understand, but He is not complex or compound,

made up of many small parts. So ultimately God only has one attribute.

Humanly speaking, we don't have the right words to describe what that attribute is,

so we end up saying that God is love and God is just.

But you know, the funny thing is, his love is a just love

and his justice is a loving justice, and so it's all together in one.

It's not that they are balanced, it's that they are perfectly actualized.

Sense is properly in the fuller sense. So when you say that God is

all powerful or all knowing or all present, you're dealing with the being of

God, which is equally shared by the Father, Son, and the Holy

Spirit. So whatever omnipotence is attributed to the Father is also attributed to the

Son and to the Spirit as well. You can't say the Father has more

omnipotence than the Son. No. I think all that pastor stems from this

one worse that people misunderstands the Father is greater than I, and I think

we have to distinguish between a functional subordination that Jesus voluntarily chose to submit versus

a equality. Because if let's say I were to work in generations church,

and let's say I'm the you know, maybe a youth pastor or maybe a

children's pastor, and I say, well, Pastor Andy is greater than I.

I don't mean in size, clearly as you can see right, you

know, I wish I could be that size. But what I mean is

that in function he's greater. If I say that anwa ibra him is greater

than I, what I actually mean is that in position he's prime Minister,

I'm I'm me right. So at the end of the day, he has

two hands. I have two hands. He has two feet. I have

two feet. On being I have, I mean, I'm as much a

human being as he is. So when you talk about omnipotence, it's dealing

with being, not with function. Like to maybe you can can you help

find the scripture collision chapter two these nine? Yeah, So so this would

also address those who say, yeah, but Jesus never claimed to be God.

He's the Son, so he can't be as God as the Father is

at least a little bit less. I think some cows that your witness claims

that Jesus is not God, but he's a very special person just that resulted.

He was the first of our great and because God created him first,

and God existed in eternity, and eternity is so long as because he's exist

for so long, he's being we got for so long. He's almost like

God, but he's not God. So we've got all these different concepts and

sometimes we're like, yeah, actually, how do we explain this? And

you know, we just talked about how that Jesus and the Father shares exact

same nature that miss Jesus is not ninety nine percent of God's the Father's nature,

like, oh, very high. Ninety percent is very high already,

and that will make God, that it will make Jesus lesser than God.

It has to be one hundred percent, right. So there's this powerful scripture

that I discovered in class and I never saw it before and I never raised

before, but I think it's so powerful. So it's a colationship to verse

nine, which says for him referring to Jesus the whole fullness of deity.

And you can understand that as every attribute we know now as one, but

just for the say, with discussion every attribute. So if there were ninety

nine attributes, that makes God God all ninety nine. If it requires so,

we will say it is this nature that makes God the Father God.

So let's call his nature x y ZAC all x y Z for example,

all the attributes, whatever substance that makes God the Father God. All of

that duells bodily in Jesus. And and and these words are carefully not just

chosen. It's inspired God, God inspired that these words are written. So

in Jesus everything that makes God God, all of the attributes are substance,

dunsing Him in the flesh. This is where we get the whole concept of

Jesus being truly God and truly men at the same time. And and and

so this scripture tells us that Jesus is not less, he's not lower on

the hierarchy. He is God. And that's why he is to be worshiped,

because only God deserves worshiped. Only God can receive worship uh. And

Jesus is to be worshiped because he is truly God. He is God and

all in all, in every sense of that, every sense of the word.

Uh. And it speaks to Jesus' humility. I think it's in Philippines

too. Philippians two was fine forwards. Maybe you can pull that up at

so Philippines two was five heaving this mine among yourself, which is yours in

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did

not count equality with God a thing to be grabs, but emptied himself.

It was voluntary. He was not made, He was not made to do

it. Voluntary, emptied himself, taking the form of a seven being born

in likeness of men. This he speaks to his humility. Right you want

to speak more into that? Oh? Yes, because you see it talks.

Verse five says have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ

Jesus. And before this it says, consider one another equal. You know

worse four. Can we go to worse four? Please consider others most significant

of yourselves. That's what it's saying. So that's verse thirty worse four.

Yeah, Let each of you not look only to his own interests, but

also to the interests of others. So you have to count others more significant

of yourselves than it says in worse five, have this mind among yourselves,

which is yours. In Christ, Jesus, who though he was in the

form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grounds,

but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant and being born,

and being born in the likeness of men. So Jesus chose to humble

himself. And Paul cannot use that as an exemplary act of humility. If

Jesus was already lesser than God, right, I'm not if I submit to

my boss, I'm not being very humble, right, because he's my boss.

Right. But if I'm equal to someone and I voluntarily choose to be

a servant, that speaks to humility. And Paul is saying to the church,

you all are equal to one another, but serve one another in the

same way that Christ chose to serve God. In other words, he's equal

to God. Yes, it's awful, powerful lesson of humility. Yes,

I think we've already addressed some of these questions, So just read the questions

so that we know where addressed them. For example, in a trinity.

Do they each have equal power? Yes? Yes, because omnipotent or powerful,

they are one. In fact, Jesus says. One of my favorite

verses is John five. Jesus says, the son does nothing of his own.

He does only what he sees his father doing. For whatever the father

does, the son also does. If the father can create, so can

the son create. The father can judge, so can the son judge that

whatever the father can do he can do? All right, Yes, let

me see what else. There's some question about tongues. We want to address

that today. The hardest part to answer questions on trinity is how they God

get a son. His mother married the mom both on earth and in heaven.

Mary is not the mom in heaven. But Mary can be rightly called

the Mother of God, and this is something that caused a lot of friction

in the early Church. The word in well in Greek that they use for

this is called theo the costs th h e o t o k o s.

It literally means the god bearer. So Mary is rightly called the God

Bearer or the Mother of God because her son is truly man and truly God.

To take to say that Mary is only the mother of the human Jesus,

but not the divine Jesus. To put a dichotomy between the person of

Jesus, thereby creating two persons, the human Jesus and the divine Jesus.

You can't do that. The Bible speaks to the unity of the person of

Christ. So in a sense that means that Mary is the mother of God.

But by all I mean for all intents and purposes. Let's be careful

that not to exalt her to be any more than what Scripture says she is.

Because in Luke Chapter one, I believe she actually says, Praise be

to God, my Savior, which means she recognized she needs saving. Two,

she's not sinless, as some have argued. Wow, it's a lot

of good questions. Okay, this is a practical one, although there are

other questions as well that we've already addressed, but read them to make sure

that we've covered it. For example, what do you mean therefore, that

God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one that each know they're not

they are one? Okay, that's partialism, man, that's partialism. Yeah.

Does it mean spiritually they are one, but physically there are three.

God is spirit God. There's only one person who has a physical body,

and that person is Jesus. Yes, and that time, yeah, at

the Jesus in a day we call Christmas day. Only then did God have

a body. So it's a practical question what would be the best way,

then, the best way we can find to describe the trinity to a pretty

believer? How do we how do we practically expect the five statements we just

read, because that's absolutely biblical everything we read in that five statement there you

go, Yeah, it's work for work. Yeah. So I think what

they're looking for is, oh do I do I use a water? Do

I use uh? You know? Oh, I'm one person, but I'm

I'm the father, I'm a son and a brother all at the same time.

Oh that's still one person. Yeah, still one person, right,

So not three persons, three rules, one person. Yeah. So I

think if our goal is to find an earthly explanation to explain this, we

will be type press. I was going to be kinder like, it's it's

almost impossible and the scripture is the only way to explain it, and I

think we may not be able to fully understand or comprehend it. It's beyond.

And I know that sounds like a cop out. You Christians always say

like that. It's you're playing the mystery card. Anything, you gotta explain

its mysterious. You know, God is beyond, but what it is true?

We'll just add a little bit more to that, and by saying that

a God that can be fully comprehended by finite creatures is no God at all.

Yeah, God who can be fully comprehended by finite creatures, it is

no God at all. You see the doctrine of the trinity. If they

come to you and say is it makes no sense? And I've heard people

do this all the time, right, it makes no sense to me.

Well, as I said, algebra makes no sense to kids. Doesn't mean

it's wrong, right, you know, So it's just means that you don't

get it, and it's okay. In order to say the Trinity is wrong,

you're gonna have to show logical problems with the trinity, and good luck

doing that, right, So I just say that leave it. Yeah.

Yeah, So remember his first statement, there's one God, and we mean

that by substance. One is in substance, one is one as not as

in numerical or quantity is substance, So that means the fact is God,

Jesus, God always pre is God. But they are three distinct persons.

They have different I guess they function differently. They they yeah, function differently

distinct persons. I think Noble Karashi is right when he says that if you

talk about who someone is, that is dealing with personality, right, persons.

If you deal with what, you're dealing with substance and being so Nobil

Karashi, the late Nobel said that God is one what and three? Who's

one? What? Three? Who's one? Substance? Three persons? You

can write it down. There could be. It still doesn't explain everything your

friend probably ask but it's a good way. One what three, Who's what?

Who? Who? You know? It's one more who? Missing?

Okay? Okay? Oh what okay for you gen z people? All right?

Cool? Where does the virt trinity come from? Its Bible? It

is a shot form like think of a like a shorthand of being able to

describe all that you just see in your screen. There's one God, the

fathers God, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit is God. They're not

the same person. If you want to go around using that by all means

do that, but or you can just use the shorthand trinity. It was

first developed by I believe the Tullian, who used the Latin what trinitas uh

to describe what the Bible calls the trinity or what the Bible the doctrines that

the Bible teaches concerning God One, God, Father, God's Son, God,

Holy Spirit, God not the same person. Or have we got six

more minutes? Okay? Someone asks, can these lights be sheard? These

are your slights? Yeah? Yes, yeah, sure, Okay, it's

a bit messy in the next one, but sure, okay, cool.

So we'll put it up on our discod server under the sermon's sermon notes channel.

You can go grab it there. Okay, all right, cool.

B any Way, it's the same thing they have on their notes as well.

Yeah, but if they want it up shure. Yeah, okay,

great, Let's see what else is there? Six more minutes? Okay,

this is not related to the topic, but maybe it can lead to other

the coming weeks. So I thought maybe we would do that. Uh.

And it's quite a generic general question. Maybe it's to you because you're the

apologies. Are there any questions in apologetics that you have yet to figure out

or understand that mean's like with your usual experience, I mean learned all that

you learn. Are there still questions in the politics that you understand and don't

have answers to? What would that be? Far too many? Far too

many? When will Jesus come? What? Where do the Where do the

babies of unbelievers go? So I'm pretty certain where the babies of believers go

to. I think Scripture is quite clear on that that they are saved,

and so we see that in David when he lost his son, the other

places like that, the question of unbelieving children, the scripture is not clear.

That doesn't mean I don't have a guess, but I can't I can't

defend it. There are plenty of things in the Bible that I may not

get may not get a chance to concretely defend, but I may have guesses

about. And so one of the best, well it's not the easiest thing

to do, is to recognize that I don't need to understand all things.

All I need to understand is whatever he said, and to stick within that

boundaries of scripture. I think it was the reformer Calvin that said to confine

our inquiries within the limits of piety. I'll repeat that again, confine our

inquiries within the limits of piety. That is to say, what has God

revealed and what has it got to do with my spiritual life. If it's

going to be of use, I inquire, If not, I stop and

go no further. Yeah for me, you'll be. It kind of ties

in nicely to next week's topic as well. I think we can also ask

this question in a different way, which is like you know that famous question,

like if if you could ask God one question would really be like if

one day you meet God in heaven, like there will be the thing you

ask for me you'll be And I've written a paper on it and all that,

right, But it's got to do with the problem evil because it's personal,

because you know, many know our story. We were trying for a

baby for many years and we finally my wife finally got pregnant, but we

found out later on that she miscarried both babies, so we had a pair

of tweens. And I've never quite got the answer why God would do something

like this, And I know that probably is not the worst thing. You

know, there are family and people who face even greater evils, greater pain,

greater sufferings. I can't quite figure out, Like I know, God

is sovereign, and you know when we say good, by whose standard is

it good? Judas is scared for example, you know, like you know

the younger girl say sucks to be him, sucks to be him because he's

he's literally born to do that one thing to go betray Jesus. Is that

good or bad? Because on one hand, betrayal is bad. You know,

you send you send your your boss to the cross, it's all bad.

But he did what God call him to do. So isn't doing something

got us to do good? So what is good anyway? And I know

all that, but emotionally even intellectually, like why would God allow something like

that? So I don't know. When I get to heaven, I'll be

like God, first of all, where my babies are they here? Zion

is vacuute and sometimes have a argument says I love you. You're my firstborn

son, daddy. Technically I'm the third. So I'm like, oh,

he's aware, but that would be me like probably evil. And I'm looking

forward to next week because that's what we'll be talking about, Like how can

a God who's supposed to be all good, there's no bad, there's no

evil in him, allow war and pain and suffering and sickness. You know,

that's tough for me. I don't know if I'll ever find a sufficient,

satisfying answer. Not so if the answer will be satisfying. So yeah,

yeah, so yeah, it's a tough. Emotional problem of evil is

something that you cannot deal with on an intellectual level. The all of what

we deal with, I mean, it's you very well know, yeah,

is that we're trained to deal with the logical problem of evil, which essentially

amounts to an objection against God's goodness or his omnipotence. But it's the emotional

one that scriptures to mourn with those who mourn, you know, And so

that that's not something that we can do. I guess the only assurance we

have for all parents that have believers who have lost their loved one is Act

two thirty nine. This promise is for you and for your children also,

right, So I believe David was confident that his son or his child that

had passed on. He says he cannot go to me, but I will

go to him. That's a confident, that confidence that believers alone can have.

Now I'm not sure about the unbeliever, but that's something that the believing

parent can go. Sure, but it still doesn't you're right, it still

doesn't deal with the emotional question of why did it happen? Yeah, so

that's next week. Let's see, do you have time? Okay, some

quick ones. But the Bible says the Holy Spirit is in us? So

what about a father and son? So based on what we just talked about,

I love the Christian was waiting for this Christian to come. Yeah.

Well it goes down to the word Perry Core is right. You want to

explain that pass Andy? Or shall I do it for God? What?

Well? Perry crisis is this concept that deals with mutual indwelling and it's I

wish Christians knew more about this because if we understood this, friends, it

will change the way you worship. Right. Perry crisis deals with It's called

mutual in dwelling because because God is one being, although you are three persons,

the son would say the Father who is in me? And he also

says the Spirit who is in me? Spirit, the Lord is upon me?

Right, So the Spirit is in the sun and the Father is in

the Son. And then you also see that the Son is in the Father,

and that the Spirit is in the Father. And you also find that

the Son and the Father are both in the spirit. So there's a sense

of mutual indwelling between the Father, the Spirit, and the Son. So

that when you have Jesus well, Jesus says, I will be with you

always Matthew twenty eight twenty. That's the end of the Great Commission. And

then the Bible says, it's for your good that I go away, because

when I go, I send the Holy Spirit. Our friends say, chup

Jesus in me, or the Holy Spirit in me, and Jesus makes it

even more complicated. If you do my command John chapter sixteen. I think,

if you do my command, if you keep my commands, my Father

and I will come in and dwell with him. Now the Father is dwelling

with me, or the Spirit is dwelling with me or Jesus. In a

sense, the spirit is the medium that carries the present, that mediates the

presence of the Father and the Son. To the believer, I'll repeat that

again. The spirit is the medium or the means that mediates the presence of

the Son and the Father to the believer, because when the Spirit comes,

he is in dwelled by the Father and the Son. So even though Jesus

is glorified at the right hand of the Father today interceding for his people,

the Spirit in me carries the presence of Christ and the presence of the Father,

fulfilling the words of Christ you always, even to the end of the

age. Thank you for listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We hope you

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