Episode Transcript
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Will turn your attention with me now
to John Chapter Five. John Chapter Five.
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I'm going to begin reading it verse
eighteen and I'll read through verse thirty.
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This is following an event where Jesus
healed this man who had been paralyzed
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for a long time, thirty eight
years, I'm he had done this great
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work. He had done it on
the Sabbath. It's made, as you
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will see, the Jews, I'm
very angry with him, and it leads
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to some very precious revelation to us
and the world. Sir, God's were
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a John Five, verse eighteen.
This was why the Jews were seeking all
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the more to kill him, because
not only was he breaking the sabbath,
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but he was even calling his calling
God, his own father, making himself
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equal with God. So Jesus said
to them. Truly, truly, I
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say to you, the son can
do nothing of his own accord, but
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only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, that
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the son does likewise. For the
father loves the son and shows him all
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that he himself is doing, and
greater works than these will he show him,
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so that you may marvel, for
as the father raises the dead and
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gives them life. So also the
son gives life to whom he will.
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The father judges no one, but
has given all judgment to the son,
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that all may honor the son just
as they honor the father. Whoever does
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not honor the son does not honor
the father who sent him. Truly truly,
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I say to you, whoever hear
is my word and believes him who
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sent me has eternal life. He
does not come into judgment, but has
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passed from death to life. Truly
truly, I say to you, and
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our is coming, and is now
here, when the dead will hear the
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voice of the son of God,
and those who hear will live. For
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as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also
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to have life in himself, and
he has given him authority to execute judgment,
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because he is the son of man. Do Not Marvel at this,
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for an hour is coming when all
who are in the tombs will hear his
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voice and come out, and those
who have done good to the resurrection of
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life and those who have done evil
to the resurrection of Judgment. I can
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do nothing on my own. As
I hear, I judge, and my
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judgment is just because I seek,
not my own but the will of him
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who sent me. And let's hear
a little more. Now I want to
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go back and read from the very
beginning of John's letter, reminder that we
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might have some of these things fresh
in our minds as we consider on the
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nature of Jesus and his relationship with
the father. John. One in the
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beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word
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was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made
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through him and without him was not
anything made. That was made in him
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was life, and the life was
the light of men. The light shines
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in the darkness and the darkness has
not overcome it. They God bless his
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word to us. You may be
seated. In order to be a Christian,
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in order to have life in God, we must believe in God.
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We must believe in God, not
as we would like to think he is,
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not as we might speculate he is, but only as he is.
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We, in order to have life, Jesus says, have to believe in
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Him who sent the sun. We
have to believe, if in God,
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the father. And how do we
believe him? How do we know him?
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How do we know his word?
How do we understand his word.
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How do we give him honor?
Well, Jesus says, through him,
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through Jesus, that is, through
him, Jesus himself. The one who
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honors him honors the Father. The
one who is saved by him is saved
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by the father. The one who
passes from death to life through Jesus is
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one who has life in the father, through the son. And that's why
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one of our membership vows here on
one those of you who are members have
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taken, is this. Do you
believe in one living and true god in
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whom, eternally, there are three
distinct persons, God the father, God
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the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who are the same in being and
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equal in power and glory, and
that Jesus Christ is God the son come
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in the flesh. This is in
some ways simply simply stated. We could
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say it even more simply that God
is one. There is but one God,
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not three Gods, one God,
one living and True God in three
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persons, and that these three persons
are the one God. Now, though
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we can say it very simply and
very plainly, it doesn't mean that it
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is a simplistic truth. Indeed,
this is the greatest mystery there is not
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because it's this arcane doctrine, because, but because it is describing God.
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Would you expect anything less of a
description of God than something that would be
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a great mystery. Would you expect
to hear of the nature of God and
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go, Oh, yeah, of
course I get that one right? We
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don't even understand ourselves. This is
a great point that Gregory Nancy enzus makes
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in a work that's called the five
theological orations. He says you don't even
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understand yourself, your will, your
mind, the ways in which you were
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born, how your parts were knit
together, the distinctions between your emotions and
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your heart and these other fact you
don't even understand yourself, your own nature.
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And what makes you think, then, that you can understand God in
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all that he is, who is
completely and entirely separate from his creation,
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not dependent on it in any way, distinct as the creator of of the
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creation? His thoughts are not our
thoughts, the scripture says, his ways
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are not our ways and his being
is not our being. If you want
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to avoid heresy, if you want
to avoid falling into idolatry or or just
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simply error, then the one thing
that would be really good to do is
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not impute to God your human nature. This is where we fall over and
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over and over again. Now it's
hard in some ways because God, in
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revealing himself, condescends and speaks to
us in a humanly way. Right.
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What other way is he going to
speak to us other than in the ways
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that we can understand? According to
creation? Right, we cannot sort of
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extract ourselves out of creation, as
God always is and always will be,
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not extracted but separate from we cannot
lift ourselves out of this to think anything
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other than creaturely thoughts, if there's
no way in which we can sort of
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remove ourselves from who we are in
our context to take on a kind of
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a divine thinking, if I can
put it that way, a divin understanding.
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So that being the case, the
only way in which we can understand
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who god is and the things that
he reveals is by him, in his
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infiniteness, in his great wisdom,
in His mercy, to come to us,
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right, to come into the world
and speak to us in a way
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that we can understand. Parents do
this for their children all the time.
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Right. We say things in a
way that makes sense to them. We
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speak simply, we use terms that
they understand. We pick a metaphors and
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analogies that they might go, Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.
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And so this is how God describes
himself to us. He speaks in
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ways that we can understand. But
as we do that and as we come
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to understand that, we want to
remember that it's always something of an analogy.
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We are not giving, we are
not getting, we are not getting
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an understanding of God as he understands
himself. Impossible. His ways are not
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our ways, his thoughts are not
our thoughts. He would not be God
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if we could totally come rehend him
and understand him. So this doctrine is
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a great mystery, but it is
true because God is true and God speaks
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it and it can be trusted.
Indeed, it is for trusting. Right.
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God reveals himself in this way so
that we might believe and understand and
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have eternal life. So though the
doctrine is rich and complex and and and
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indeed the WHO God's nature is something
that can never be fully comprehended, it
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doesn't mean we throw our hands up
in the air and say, well,
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it's not even worth talking about then, right, because then that would just
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be take our scissors and sort of
cut this passage out of the Bible and
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say not worth my time, too
hard, unimportant. But of Coorse,
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it's not the case. God's God's
God, the spirit has inspired these words,
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recorded to them in scripture for our
benefit, so that we might study
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them, so that we might meditate
on them, so that we might grow
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in in godliness and in living in
him. So we approach this passage with
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do humility and respect and reverence and
honor, as we ought to every passage,
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but also, I'm without fear.
We approach it, I'm with boldness
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and faith that God will bless us
as we as we hear him and come
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to him in faith. Now,
one other thing I want to mention before
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we think about some of the particulars
of this passage is that we don't have
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a full doctrine of the trinity here, and every question can't be answered in
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this one passage or certainly in this
one sermon, but we do have a
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very large expression of it and in
particular the focus is on the son's relationship
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to the father. Remember, this
is the Gospel about Jesus. It's a
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revelation of Jesus and who he is. But as we see in this passage.
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There's no understanding Jesus without understanding his
father. He is the son of
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God, and the only way to
understand him as the son of God is
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to understand him in relationship to his
father, and that's why we have this
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big discussion. Remember, this all
turns on this fact that Jesus had healed
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this man on the Sabbath. He
had done something that only God can do,
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and he had done it on this
particular day, God's Day, a
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day that was to be sanctified to
him. It was it belongs to him,
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it was sacred. The Jews accused
him of breaking the sabbath, of
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making himself equal with God. Well, he wasn't making the sad wasn't breaking
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the Sabbath, but he certainly was
making himself equal with God, because he
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is God, son of God.
And so he says my father, this
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is verse seventeen. My father is
working until now and I am working.
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This was very well. This made
the Jews want to kill him, John
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says. Why does Jesus then speak
in this way? Why does he address
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their concerns? Will Not just to
preserve his life, because ultimately that wouldn't
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happen. They would kill him because
of these things. But he speaks to
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them so that we might know the
truth. Notice what he says in Verse
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Nineteen. Truly, truly, I
say to you, he says these things
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that we might know the truth.
He says these things so that we might
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marvel at the works that God has
done. We have this here where he
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says and and and to also know
the love of God. Verse Twenty,
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for the father loves the son and
shows himself, shows him all that he
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himself is doing these this is why
we are given this passage, so that
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we might know that God is love, that the way in which Jesus comes,
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the way in which he lifts up
this Paralytic, the way he lifts
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us all up out of our deadness
and our trespasses and our sins, it's
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out of Love, love that it
is between the father and the son,
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love that is given to us by
God in this way, so that,
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as we have in verse twenty,
you May Marvel. What is the application
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of this sermon? What is the
application of this text? One of them
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is that you may marvel, that
you may stand before God Almighty, the
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try you and God, with your
mouth open or maybe shut, and marvel
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at him, wonder at him,
worship him, praise him, rest in
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Him, knowing that he is not
you, but that he loves you and
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saves you. He gives this passage
so that you might honor the son even
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as you honor the father, and
that, honoring him and believing him and
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marveling him, in other words by
treating Jesus as God, you would have
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eternal life. So what does Jesus
say in particular, beyond the things that
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have mentioned already in this passage,
what does he say about himself and his
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relationship with God, of the Father? There are two things in particular that
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I want to emphasize. The first
is that he is distinct from the father.
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God, the son is not God
the father. They are not the
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same person. But number two,
that distinction between these two persons of the
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trinity is not one of separation,
in that we don't have two gods here.
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When Jesus makes himself equal with God, it is as God that he
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is equal in power and glory.
He on the father have this same substance,
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we say, the same essence,
the same being. There are not
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two beings or two substances or two
essences. There is one God, living
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and true who exists eternally in three
persons, Father, son and Holy Spirit.
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So again, the two points here
are that he is distinct from the
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father, but that he and the
father, together with the spirit, are
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one God. So first we see
that Jesus is God the Son and not
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God the father. Jesus, we
say, is the second person of the
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Trinity. He is God the Son
and not God the father. He's called
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the second person of the trinity partly
because he has revealed himself as the son.
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How do we know he has revealed
himself as the son? Because he
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says it over and over and over
and over and over again, just here
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in John Five and of course,
all throughout the New Testament. He has
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revealed himself as the son. And
sons come after father's again, we speak
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in human ways in our language when
we speak of three, in order to
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make sense, when to make sense
of the distinctions between the three things,
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we have to use words, words
like one, two, three, first,
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second, third. In other words, when we talk about three things,
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we don't say one, one,
one, or two, two,
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two or three, three. Three. So also, God is one.
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He is one in three persons,
and it would be confusing if we said
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that the first person is the father
and the first person is the son and
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the first person is the Holy Spirit, not only would be it the confusing,
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it would also be unorthodox, because
it would be saying that the father
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is the son and the son is
the father, and and so on and
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so forth. But they are three
distinct persons, son, father and spirit,
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not one person. The son is
called second, not arbitrarily, but
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because that's what he calls himself,
and sons come after father's again, this
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is just the plain reading of the
scripture. I'm not doing anything fancy here.
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Right perhaps it even sounds kind of
basic the way I'm talking about it
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here. I point that out to
say that if you are if you are
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offended by this, your argument isn't
with me, it's just with the plain
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reading of scripture. Not Simple,
not undeep, not shallow, but plain.
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But plainness and simplicity in speaking doesn't
mean that we can't marvel at it,
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wonder at it. Now, how
do we know that there are three?
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Because God tells us so in the
Holy Scriptures. He tells us who
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he is so that we might know
him, praise him put our faith in
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him. Father, son and spirit. How do we see that the father
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and son are separate persons though one
God? Some people have claimed that this
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is not true. Some people have
claimed that the father and the son are
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not separate persons but are in fact
the same person, but in different modes.
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This is the heresy of modalism.
It's known by other names. It
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comes in other forms, Sabellianism,
UNITARIANISM, oneness theology. It's a wrongheaded
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attempt to affirm the divinity of Christ
and uphold that there is but one God.
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Now, of course it's not wrong
to affirm those things. We must
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affirm those things, the divinity of
Christ and there is one God. The
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problem with modalism is not what the
heresy affirms, but what. But what?
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But what it denies, namely that
the father and the son are distinct
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persons in the godhead. There are
many ways in which Jesus shows us that
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he is divine and therefore one with
the father in essence, for there is
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only one God, one divine and
we will get to these, but note
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carefully this. In affirming his unity
with the father in essence, he does
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not he does not deny a distinction
between the persons. He does not call
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himself the father. He calls himself
the son. The son is the son,
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the father is the father. Words
matter from the beginning to the end
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of this past sage that I read
to you today, and it's consonant with
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the rest of scripture as well.
Jesus speaks of himself as distinct from the
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father. If he were not the
father and the son, if the father
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and the son were one person and
not to why all the language of begetting,
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of being a son? Why would
why would there be this distinction?
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Why would John Begin the Gospel by
saying that he was with God? Why
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not just so? Why would Jesus
not just say I am God or I
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am the father, I am he
who was from the beginning, instead of
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saying that he was with him,
who was from the beginning? Why not
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simply say that he is the father? Why even speak of a father at
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all if there is no actual father? What do the scriptures say? Did
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the father send himself or did he
send the son? Verse Twenty Four Says
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Truly. Truly, I say to
you, whoever hears my words and believes
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him who sent me, do you
hear the distinction? That person has eternal
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life. What do the scriptures say? Does the son do things of his
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own accord because he is the father, or because he sees what the father
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is doing? Verse Nineteen. Truly, truly, I say to you,
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the son can do nothing of his
own accord, but only what he sees
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the father doing. A distinction.
You always have to ask yourself, what
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do the scriptures say? Do you
want to worship God, the one true
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living God? Do you want to
believe in him and have life in his
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name? Then we have to believe
him as he is, and what we
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see is that the father and the
son are distinct. In God, it
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does no good to love a god
of your own imagination. Think of a
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husband. Would it be good for
him to love a woman of his imagination
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or his wife? Of course it's
the latter. Should a son honor the
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idea of fatherhood merely, or should
he honor his father? Of course it's
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the latter. And when it comes
to God, it's not good enough to
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simply honor divinity or honor divine things
or a higher power. We have to
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honor God who he is. Here's
another question for you. Out of love
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for the son, will you deny
the father? Is that what the son
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would want out of love for the
father, would you deny the son?
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Is that what the father would want? What does God say? He says
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in Verse Twenty that the Father Loves
the son, so I suggest you should
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too. What does God say in
Verse Twenty Three? That all may honor
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the son just as they honor the
father. So should you, for if
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you do not honor the son,
bither do you honor the father who sent
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the son. To deny the father, the son or the spirit, even
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for the sake of affirming one or
two of them, or divinity in general,
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is to Deny God himself, for
these three are one God. I
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don't love my wife as sort of
her just being a woman. I love
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her because she's Dulla. I love
her because she is who she is.
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We Love God because he is who
he is. We don't love another,
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we love him as he is in
three persons. We love these three persons
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because they are one God. Is
this a mystery? Of course it is,
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but we aim not to be comfortable
with God, but to worship him,
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adore him and fear him. Father, son and Holy Spirit. There
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is a distinction between the father and
the son. But having affirmed the distinctions
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between the persons. To say that
the son is the son and the father
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is the father does not mean to
affirm that there are two gods. Here's
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another way to put it. Jesus
is not a polytheist. Jesus is not
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saying the father is God. And
you know what, I'm one too that
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lots of people have said that in
human history. Lots of people have affirmed
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their divinity and lied and died.
I didn't mean to rhyme. Jesus is
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not a polytheist. Jesus is not
saying that God the father, is one
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God and that he is also a
god. When he attributes to himself as
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the son the divine attributes of having
life in himself, of granting life to
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the dead, of creating the world, he's saying that he is God.
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He affirms this in many ways of
his power. For example, Verse Nineteen,
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he says truly, truly, I
say to you, the son can
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do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees the father doing.
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Cyril e Vou Alexandria puts it this
way. Those who don't share a
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CO in nature have different modes of
working, but God the Son and God
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the father have the same nature,
unique nature, and that there is only
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one God. There is not this
nature that is sort of spread throughout various
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other gods. There is one God
with this one divine nature, and Jesus
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is it. And so, for
that reason, he acts and demonstrates the
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power of God. Get up,
take up your bed, walk. It's
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the sabbath, it's a great day
for these things. Right. This is
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what he says, this is what
he does. How does he speak with
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that power? How does he have
that power? It's interesting the way he
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puts it. It's not. He's
not saying he has an inability, like
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he's weak in some way. He
is saying that he is always tied to
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God. In other words, he's
only able to do that which is according
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to his divine nature, and it's
not just his power. In other words,
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he affirms the Second Truth, which
confirms all the more that Jesus is
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in fact divine, the divine,
the one divine, and that's that it's
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not just that he's acting in this
power, but that he's acting according to
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the will. In other words,
God doesn't just grant him this miraculous power,
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as he does let's say, the
Prophets or Moses or even the apostles,
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who also do amazing and miraculous things. Jesus has not merely been granted
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the power of God to exercise it
separately from God. No, he exercises
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this power according to his will,
a will that he shares with God.
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For as the Verse Twenty One,
for as the father raises the son and
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gives life to them, so also
the son gives life to whom he will.
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Is that amazing? How the way
Jesus expresses this. I can't help
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but see the way, see that
the divine nature of scripture. Here Jesus
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simultaneously expresses his his authority, his
singular authority. I do what I will,
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I give life to whom I will, and yet it is in perfect
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unison, perfect unity with the father, the father, he says again,
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for as the father raises the dead
and gives them life, so also the
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son gives life to whom he will. Whoever hears my words, Verse Twenty
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Four, whoever hears my words and
believes him who sent me, has eternal
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life. He does not come into
judgment, but has has passed from death
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to life. That's what's demonstrated here
in this miracle with the paralyzed man with
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this invalid this man has gone from
weakness and inability and frailty to walking around.
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and Jesus says, and you will
see greater works than these, greater
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than that, absolutely like what?
Like raising the dead, not just sick
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and infirm and invalid for thirty eight
years, but dead, dead, dead.
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Who can do that? God can
do that, and Jesus is the
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son of God. An hour is
coming when all who are in their tombs
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will hear his voice. It's interesting
that Jesus says, and Verse Twenty Eight,
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he says do not marvel at this, after he's already said these things
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are given to us to marvel.
Why does he say that? Well,
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in the first place he says Marvel
at this theme, Marvel at these things
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because, well, I almost meant
I was gonna say they are marvelable,
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but oh, that's not a word. They are marvelous, right they we
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ought to marvel at them. But
there's another sense in which we ought to
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00:32:46.140 --> 00:32:52.380
marvel at them, and that,
it's is not a surprise. Jesus is
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pointing back here to the Book of
Daniel and twenty seven and twenty eight when
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he says he has given him authority
to execute judgment because he is the son
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of man. This son of man
phrase does not mean primarily that he is
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incarnate, although that's related. He's
referring back to Daniel and this promised son
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of man who is going to come
and bring about this resurrection from the dead.
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That's what he's talking about. On
the one hand he's saying marvel these
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00:33:22.559 --> 00:33:27.630
things are marvelous. On the others
sand he's saying this has been told for
347
00:33:27.750 --> 00:33:32.349
a long time. Don't be shocked, don't be surprised. In other words,
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the things that Jesus is doing here
have been spoken of by the Triune
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God for a long time. The
prophets testified to this very thing. Of
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course this is true, because God
always speaks through his word. His power
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is exercised in the world through his
word. In the beginning was the word,
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and the word was with God,
and the word was with God and
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nothing was made that was made without
him. Remember back to Genesis. God
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said, let there be light,
and there was lie eight and light came
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into the darkness and the darkness did
not overcome it. And here again we
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00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:30.349
see the same thing happening, as
new creation is happening right this work,
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this this new creation, Sabbath work, this Kingdom of God, work of
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00:34:37.820 --> 00:34:44.179
new life beginning. When Jesus says
to the paralyzed man, get up,
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take up at your bed and walk, he's not just doing this amazing miracle,
360
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he's testifying and pointing to the work
of the Kingdom of God and the
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nature of the Kingdom of God that
comes through him, who is the word
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that God speaks and creates life.
Amazing. The work, therefore, of
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00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:16.840
the father and the son are in
as inseparable as the one who speaks a
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word and causes it to be drawing
on an analogy that God himself uses,
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Augustine compares it to a flame and
a light. He says, give me
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a flame without light and I'll give
you God, the father, without the
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sun. They go together. You
can't take them apart. As instantly,
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as as instantly as you have a
flame, you have a light. As
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00:35:46.699 --> 00:35:55.289
instantly as God speaks through his son
the word, work is done. Nothing
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was made, nothing was created without
Jesus, Jesus as the word of God,
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Jesus as the son of God,
Jesus who speaks this word of life
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and says to this man, get
up, take up your bed, and
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walk or to Lazarus, come out
of your tomb, or to us.
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Believe, and your sins will be
forgiven. This is how Jesus speaks of
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00:36:25.429 --> 00:36:39.019
himself. Speaks of himself not as
another God, but as God, as
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00:36:39.219 --> 00:36:44.500
one with the father, the same
in essence, the same in substance,
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the same in being and equal in
power and glory, and, as we
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confess in our membership vows, and
as the son of God, who has
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come in the flesh, this man
who has healed this paralytic that we considered
380
00:37:00.289 --> 00:37:07.800
last week, as none other than
God himself. He is not a lesser
381
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:10.039
being, he is not a created
being, he is not an angel or
382
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a spirit or some sort of third
thing. He is not the father,
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he is the son. He is
the word who has been spoken by the
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father in this world to bring life, life in his name. He came
385
00:37:31.619 --> 00:37:37.380
into this world not only to reveal
these things, to reveal the nature of
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00:37:37.420 --> 00:37:43.699
the Kingdom of God, but to
accomplish that, and he did it by
387
00:37:43.860 --> 00:37:51.849
taking on the form of man,
my suffering and dying on a cross for
388
00:37:52.289 --> 00:37:59.559
our sins, by taking humanity on
to his divinity. Jesus took our place
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00:38:01.960 --> 00:38:06.079
so that we might rise up out
of our graves, just as he promises
390
00:38:06.119 --> 00:38:14.150
here. So what can else can
I say, other than believe, Marvel,
391
00:38:15.510 --> 00:38:20.949
repent of your sins, turn to
God as he reveals himself in the
392
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Sun, and worship him, knowing
that it is is in his spirit that
393
00:38:27.739 --> 00:38:30.780
he sends to you, that your
heart is changed, that this work is
394
00:38:30.900 --> 00:38:35.860
done in your body and in your
soul, that you might rise up in
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the resurrection of life and praise God. Praise God, Amen.
