Major Bible Themes

We're about to start a short bit on God, God the Trinity, and God the Father. We've just left behind four lessons on the Bible, and before we move on, I think it's important to look back a little bit and see what we learned from these four on the Bible, for which I'll turn it over to you guys. What did you pull out of the last four lessons? What can we say about the Bible? Trustworthy. The Bible is absolutely trustworthy, yep.

The relevancy to today. So many people claim that it's only relevant 2,000 years ago. Okay. Say more about that. Why is it relevant to today? Because the gift of salvation is exactly the same as it was. Yeah. Absolutely. It turns out that God himself is unchanging and so it's unsurprising that his word would be relevant in all ages, for sure. And we need God. We needed him then and we need him now. Yeah. Absolutely right. And it's inspired.

We can trust. I mean, where he says the word trust, it is inspired. That word is inspired by our Father. And so every word in there was to use man to get it on paper that he led them and taught them. That's right. So while the Bible was physically written by men, it was inspired by God, and it is his inspired word that we've got, which is cool.

One of my undergraduate degrees is in philosophy, so I know what the wisdom of man looks like. And so I'm incredibly grateful for the wisdom of God, which is something that you can actually hang your hat on. So that's a happy thing. How about true? Is the Bible true? Yes. So, I mean, you said this to some degree, saying that it's trustworthy.

And it's something that we beat into the kids in Sunday school over and over and over again, which is, you know, where do we find truth? And the immediate answer from any kid who spent any time with us in the Sunday school is the truth is in the Bible. And I've told the babies this story, I'll tell it to you. We had a mom come in and tell us this story about her little girl, Abby.

When she was probably three years old, she got into some berries in the yard that she shouldn't have gotten into, and she's got berry juice all over her face. And there were some good berries in the yard, and there were some bad berries in the yard. So mom's a little frightened, and she needs to understand. exactly which berries were eaten. And so she's poking on her daughter and saying, OK, it's very important that you tell me exactly which berries you ate.

Did you eat those or those? There's some waffling in the answer. And so she says, this is very important. I need the truth. Give me the truth. And her daughter smiles and says, the truth is in the Bible. So this is very cool, because it's true. And for myself personally, after studying philosophy for some number of years and seeing how you've got this argument, and it rests on the turtle, and the turtle rests on nothing, so you stick another turtle under there and keep going, and it's turtles all the way down. Well, the word of God is true. And so that's something that we can start from. I guess one more thing I'll say about this.

You know we've got a Doctrine and Covenants statement for this church. Have you guys read it lately? It is online. For those who are listening to this later, you can go to hollyhillsbiblechurch.org and just click on the Doctrine and Covenants statement. Here's what our doctrinal statement says about the Bible, and it's basically what we've talked about this morning already. Where did we find that information? Turns out we found it in the Bible.

Anyway, we believe that all the authors of the entire Old and New Testaments wrote by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, i.e., verbal inspiration. These books are completely inerrant and infallible in the original writings. They're the final authority for faith and practice and the means through which believers behold Christ. So that's what we believe as a church and that's what we've covered for the last month.

And so we can plant our flag. This is something that we know we can rely on the Bible. That's good because now we're going to start in on the Trinity, which is something that no man would ever come up with by themselves. So to this point, We've established that there's no such thing as an atheist.

So, if you look in Romans 1, you see that the truth of God is in man. God put the truth of him in them. So, anybody who is saying, oh, I'm an atheist, I don't believe in God, is, according to Romans 1, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. It's not that they don't believe, they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. So man, independent of the Bible, can come to the realization that God exists.

So far so good, but then there are some things that they don't know. They're not going to know that Jesus died on the cross for their sins and then was raised the third day. So they don't know the saving gospel. And they certainly wouldn't have come up with, okay, I see from the mountains the glory of God and therefore I think that God is probably three persons but one Godhead.

So it's a good thing we've got the Bible and we can rely on the Bible because it says it all over the place and that's what we'll be spending our time on this morning. All right, so there were a few chapters, a few sections within this chapter, I think six. We're going to hit on three and hint at another one. So one of those was the different names of God. And these become especially interesting when we start talking about Christ and God being one. And so I'll pull it back to that toward the end.

So let's start with the first one, which is Elohim. So El actually means strong or strength. And this is meaning that it's basically a covenant-holding God. This is a God that keeps His promises. What's interesting is that this is the most common word for translated God, but it's not It's not used exclusively of the one true God.

And so we'll look at a reference that says, yeah, in fact, this is the one true God. It's very obvious. We'll look at another reference that says, where you can see pretty clearly, this is not one true God. And so you'll see, OK, so it's used almost interchangeably for God in general. And your Bible is likely to take some liberties and try to guess at which one is being used. If the one is being used in reference to the one true God, then they'll capitalize the G, and otherwise they won't. So that's Elohim.

We can start with Genesis 1.1. I'll pop out of here and over into my Bible. And the interesting thing about this particular reference. I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but what's interesting is as we go through, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God in that particular case is Elohim.

It's this one particular word. It's masculine and plural. So but it's used in a singular context, and that's where a Hebrew scholar would be able to say, oh, of course. But for our purposes, we'll understand that this is plural. And so this is hinting at more than one within the Godhead. And we can also look down at Genesis 126 for more hinting toward a Godhead. So Genesis 126 says, Then God said, let us make men in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and so on.

And so we're already seeing within the first chapter of the first book of the Bible that this God is not necessarily singular. This means it starts out so early. Yeah, Genesis 1-1. Okay, so to look at the pagan example, somebody go to Exodus 18 and read verse 11.

I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, he was above them. And Lord in that, is it in block capital letters? Lord is, but the gods are not. Okay. So, gods in that case, Elohim, and clearly not referring to the one true God. And Lord, that's great.

Segue into the next one, which is Yahweh or Jehovah. And so, how do we get Yahweh and Jehovah? Well, the thing is that the Hebrew doesn't use vowels and so depending upon which vowels you feel like throwing in there, you get Yahweh or you get Jehovah.

So, a couple different ones. It's only used of the one true God. This is exclusively used of God and it will show up in block caps. So as you're going through the Old Testament, you don't have to guess which one's being used. You can just look, oh, look, black caps must be Yahweh or Jehovah.

And the one in this that I think is especially interesting is Exodus 3.14. So let's go there and see what that looks like. It says, God replies, I am the one who always You know you are but I'm let's let's back up to 13 because I think that sets up the context Moses protested I go to the people of Israel and tell them God of your ancestors that sent me to you.

They won't believe me. They will ask which God Are you talking about? What is his name? Then how shall I tell them? God replied I am the one who always is, just tell them I Am has sent you. And so here Yahweh relates to I Am and the notion here in the I Am, the reason why his name is I Am, the implication is eternal existence from before time began to until time doesn't. So this is the eternal existence of God. How many have heard somebody at this church rattle on about ego, a me? Somebody? Okay. In the Greek, Greek language is very cool.

It's a little different than English in that the pronoun that goes with a verb actually sits inside the verb. And so one word, a me, means I am. So it's the verb, but it pulls the pronoun in with it. So you end up with a me, which is I am. Now, if you want to really strongly emphasize something, then you add the pronoun in there. So a go is I. So if you were to say a go a me, literally would translate to something like, I alone am, or I, I am. I mean, we've got this double I. And so if you put a predicate with it, it becomes less interesting. So I am bread. Okay, so you're bread. And ego, I mean bread. I'm really bread. Okay, but that's not super exciting.

When it's without a predicate, when it's just I am, The implication is eternal existence. So this right here in the Septuagint, this I Am is translated Ego Ami, and that's going to become really important later on in the lesson, so tuck that back in your head.

The last word that is One of God's names is the word translated Lord in lowercase letters, and it's Adonai. And this word even is used sometimes with respect to men, your lord or master, and it's typically something that gets stuck together with another word. So when we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, it would be Adonai. When we talk about Adonai Elohim, here you go. So you've got Lord God. So it all ends up going together.

And I think we'll skip looking at the individual references. But let's actually skip ahead in the lesson. This is for those who say, Well, Christ was a really cool prophet, but clearly he never asserted any sort of God-ship in the Bible. It's clear to me that they have not read the Bible. And so let's look at a couple examples of that. So let's go to John 8. John 8. And we'll go to verse 56.

So this is Jesus. He's talking to the Jews. And he's saying, your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. Now the Jews are totally puzzled. They're looking at Jesus saying, you're what, late 20s, something like that? And Abraham was quite a while ago? So they say, you're not yet 50 years old. And you have seen Abraham? And it's not a surprise. They're probably starting to get a little angry. And he says, I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was born, I am. And here you've got ego and me. So he's saying, I am eternally existent.

So looking at that, yeah, but did he really mean it? Is that how the Jews would have taken it within the culture? What's their response? Let's kill them. Exactly right. At this, they picked up stones to stone him. They knew what he was saying. He just asserted that he was God. One more, because these are fun. John 18. So we'll start in verse 3. And this is Christ is in the garden. It's the night before he's going to end up being crucified.

And it says, so Judas came to the grove guiding a detachment of soldiers. And the other translations there will have a cohort. Cohort's a very specific group of soldiers. It refers to 600 people. So we've got 600 soldiers coming with Judas with some temple priests. And Jesus, for the record, has less than 600 standing on his side. There are about 12. I guess we're subtracting out Judas. So, they were carrying torches, lanterns, and weapons.

And so, Jesus, knowing that all of this was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, who is it you want? Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. I am he, Jesus said. And so, this I am he, again, is ego and me. I am the eternally existent one. Okay, so it's 600 plus, on 12, all he's done is say, I am he. Do they understand the meaning? And Judas the traitor was standing with them. When Jesus said, I am he, they drew back and fell on the ground. 600 on 12, Jesus says, I'm he. When he says, I'm he, they fall back and fall on the ground. Is it clear they understood he was asserting his Godhead? Yeah, for sure. All right.

So in the Old Testament, we see God referred to as I Am. In the New Testament, we see Christ referred to as I Am. So let's talk some about the Trinity. So we'll talk in two different directions. The concept is not one that we make up in our human brains and that makes a ton of sense. But fortunately, the truth is in the Bible. And I keep saying that over and over and over. So what we need to establish is, number one, that there are more than one persons in the Godhead. And we need to establish that there is one Godhead. And so we'll look through a number of scriptures that point to these facts. So, the unity of God, and this word here, unity, these are Hal and Roger's slides, but I liked his question very much.

Unity, what two ideas are contained just within that one word? Togetherness. Togetherness, that's one of them, sure. And? They have to be separateness. They have to be separateness. Would I ever talk to you about the unity of my hat? That's absurd, right? So, unity brings in the notion of multiple and singular at the same time. I don't get that. Yeah, and I don't think it... I'm sorry. How could you have togetherness if it's only one? Again, this is... You can't have a hat. It's one hat, not two. But you're talking about it as a trinity. When we're talking about the Trinity, you're going to end up with multiple persons in the Godhead. And you're going to end up with them all being God.

And so we have to believe the Bible, is what it comes down to. In fact, I thought that the way that this... Can I borrow your book for a second? I thought that the way the book laid it out in Chapter 5 There was one particular quote that I thought was fantastic and just reinforced again, why do we spend the first four weeks on the Bible? It's so that we understand that this is trustworthy, we can rely on it.

And therefore, even in those cases where things don't make the most sense to us, In the nature of the uniqueness of the Godhead, there is no illustration or parallel in human experiences. Thus, this doctrine should be accepted by faith on the basis of scriptural revelation, even if it is beyond human comprehension and definition. A lot of fancy words saying the truth is in the Bible.

Okay, so let's talk about the triunity of God. So let's start isolating in on the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and see what the Bible says about them all being God. So we'll start with the Son being called God. And so, why don't you grab John 1.

One of you two, Bruce, grab Romans 9.5, and you can grab Titus 2.13. Okay, who goes first? We'll go in the order I just dealt them out.

So, John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Okay. Of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ King, who is overall the eternally blessed God. Does your Bible have Titus in it?

Oh yeah. Good. So, we'll be long now. 2.13. Okay. It says, this is true, so rebuke them as firmly While we look forward to the wonderful event and the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ will be revealed. So Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior. Yeah. Cool. How about the Spirit? Is the Spirit God? That's the next question we need to answer.

I will take Acts 5 And we're back to you, Leslie, for 2 Corinthians 3.17. So Acts 5, this is when Ananias sells some property and gives the money to Peter, or a portion of the money to Peter, and says, oh, that's all of it. So here's Peter's response. Then Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land. Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing?

You have not lied to men, but to God." So to back up to make sure the point gets hit, that you have lied to the Holy Spirit, you have not lied to men, but to God. Okay, let's look at 2 Corinthians. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And I guess we skipped ahead of God, so we've got Christ as God, we've got the Holy Spirit as God, let's find the Father as God, and let's go back to Isaiah 44.6.

And Bruce, you can jump on that one. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, I am the last. Besides me, there is no God. Okay. So the Father is absolutely God. So we've got the Son is God, the Spirit is God, the Father is God. So maybe these are just different names for exactly one God. Right?

That's one possibility. And so we need to look back into scripture to make sure that these are really distinct persons. So let's do that. And for this, actually, I'm going to skip ahead in the slides and read a verse that's a little off the beaten path. So let's go with Matthew 3, 16 and 17. And I think those two verses make the point better than just about anything. Three what? 16 and 17. 16 and 17? So I'll read those.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, so we've got Jesus, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God. Okay, so are Jesus and the Spirit of God the same thing? No. No. descending like a dove and lighting on him." Okay, so now the Spirit of God is on Jesus, and a voice from heaven said, this is my son, whom I love.

With him I am well pleased. Do we have three completely separate persons in these two verses? Yeah, it doesn't get any clearer than that. And so the rest of these slides I think are kind of gravy, but we're going to run through them anyway. So the procession of the Godhead, the reason why this is brought up in Schaeffer's book, again, is to show that we've got separate persons in the Godhead. And so the Father sends the Son. You never see the Son send the Father. That would be weird. And the Son sends the Spirit. And so let's walk through and see those. Why don't we go with John 17... 18? Right. Okay.

So it says, uh... As you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself in power to you, so they also might be, um... You're in exactly the right spot. So this is Jesus in what I like to think of as the real Lord's Prayer, praying to the Father. And he says, hey, just like you sent me, I'm sending them. And here he's talking about the disciples. So Jesus saying, Father, you sent me. And then Wesley John 16 said, But I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I am going away.

Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. Okay. So, until Jesus goes, no Holy Spirit. Once Jesus goes, Jesus will send Holy Spirit. Okay, so separate persons. Again. Alright. So let's start. pulling them back together again. So Christ and the Father. We're going to do it. This is basic mathematics. We're going to get A equals B, B equals C, therefore A equals C. Transitive property. So Christ and the Father are one.

So, John 10.30, you see I and the Father are one, and this, the are, is the amy verb, again, which in the present tense implies continuous existence. So, we're continuously one. It's not like Christ and God were one yesterday, but a week from next Tuesday, that's going to no longer hold true. It's always one.

And then John 14, he who has seen me has seen the Father. So this is in response to, I want to see the Father, and the answer is, you don't have to, completely sufficient. You get to see me. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So equality. OK, Christ and the Spirit.

So this one's interesting grammatically. So John 14, 16. I'm going to actually take us on a little grammar excursion and then we'll come back to John 14-16. So take a look at Galatians 1-6 and it's going to seem irrelevant for a moment. So here is Paul admonishing the church at Galatia. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. What translation am I using here? I'm using NIV. Does somebody have NASB? Because it's actually correct there.

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him. who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. Right. So it's the which is not another that's really interesting there. So he says, I'm just completely surprised that somebody would sway you to this different gospel, which isn't really another gospel.

And the another there is the word alas. And in Greek, you've got two different words for other. One of them, alas, means another of the exact same kind. Heteros means another of a completely different kind. And so Paul here, the distinction that he's making is, you've been called for another gospel, but it's not another of the same kind. It's completely different. I mean, you're way off the tracks.

What's so interesting there, Craig, is there are just so many, and I mean many, churches that take the gift of salvation as a gift and then immediately, right after you accept that gift, they turn it into law. Yeah, that's right. And then there's a different gospel. That's right. They give them a different gospel, which is not another. Right. Not another of the same kind. Completely different.

And that was the Church of Galatia's problem, too, right? Is that they were under the thumb of law and they kind of liked it because it was comfortable. Galatians was my favorite book for the first couple of years I was a believer. I don't know that I have a favorite book anymore.

All right, so let's go back to John 14, 16. Growing up, I always thought the Lord's Prayer was the prayer And it's only upon attending here that I found out that once you look at the context and to whom it's talking, John 17 certainly makes a lot more sense and set aside that Lord's Prayer.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Okay. So, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. And the another here, which kind do you think it is? And don't look at the slides, because that's cheating. The same. Yeah, exactly.

So, I'm going to go back, and the Father is going to send another of the exact same kind. So the Spirit, God. Can we talk about another context where that makes sense? Like if you were talking about I have one glove and this is another. Is this the exact same kind? Yes, exactly. But this is another thing and they're different. Exactly right. Just checking. For those who are listening later, a glove is another glove of the same kind. A glove is... another object would be keys, and that would be an object of a different kind. Alright, so now we're going to apply our transitive property.

So, Father equals Christ, Christ equals Spirit, implies that Father and Spirit are the same. Thank goodness that we have the Bible who can explain things like this to us, but it's incredibly clear. We've seen to this point that we have three completely distinct persons of the Godhead. We've seen that they're all God. And so we accept by faith that we have a triune God.

And I think we might actually be done. Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. Before we go over, what else is the word for another of the same kind? What was the word for another of a different kind? Heteros. How do I spell that? H-E-T-O-R-I-S? H-E-T-E-R-O-S. Some vowels in there, I think. You know, there's a great printout that you have there on the board. You know Optus? And we have it on a disc. Great.

Yeah, you you have this slide. And so this ends up being a fun exercise. That's about all I'm going to say about this slide. If you look at all of the attributes of God, you know, his righteousness, the fact that he's just, that he's truth, that he's love, that he's omnipotent, that he's omniscient, and so on. Fun exercise. And I challenge you guys to do this this week. Pick one of them. Just, almost doesn't matter. Pick one.

And see if you can find in scripture references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with respect to that attribute. Roger Henderson, years ago, way before me, went and did it for truth. One attribute of God, truth. This is great for all of the philosophy majors out there, that there actually is truth somewhere, and truth is a person.

The Father, This is Christ speaking. He who sent me. And who sent Christ? We got that from John 17. It's the Father. So, he who sent me is true. Excellent. So, the Father is true. The Son. I am the way and the truth of life. So, the Son is truth. The Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth. Okay. Well, that's cool.

So if we have three persons, but they're part of one God, then what is true of God should be true of the three persons. And so just as a fun exercise, pick one of these. Pick one of them off on the side this week and look through scripture and see what you can find. Maybe one or two of them you won't be able to find for all three persons of the Godhead, but fun exercise. All right.

And with that, we're going to finish. one minute before the verse fell. So can you give us your testimony? My testimony? I absolutely will. After I pray and take this microphone off. Because nobody wants to hear my testimony online. Lord, thank you so much for this morning and for the wonderful truths that you reveal to us in the Bible. we can hang our hat on them, that we know that they're true, whether they make a ton of sense to us or not, and we trust you to have them make sense to us over time. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.