Month: December 2009

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I had an interesting evening, but it seems all worked out well for me and most of those involved in the end. I ask that you pray for me as I continue down the path of Christlikeness. Much is being learned. There is still much more to learn. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers concerning a certain area in my life of which I do not wish to give the details at this time. For now, let’s go to the text and we’re going to deal with a refutation supposedly of the Trinity tonight in 1 John 4:12.

¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

John has been telling us that God is love. No one can see God, but if we love one another, then we are revealing the love of God in our lives and his existence is made known to those who deny. However, this is a passage that I have seen anti-Trinitarians use in an attempt to refute the doctrine of the Trinity and so we must look at it in our Trinitarian study. I wish for readers to know about the passages that proclaim the Trinity and about the passages that supposedly argue against it.

The argument is that Trinitarians say Jesus is God. Several people saw Jesus, but the text says that no one has seen God. Since that is the case, then that means that if people saw Jesus, then they didn’t see God. From that, it can be concluded that Jesus is not God. What are we to say in answer to this?

We must ask why no one has ever seen God. It is because God in his essential nature is immaterial. God is not a composed being made of matter and so he cannot be seen as all that we are capable of seeing, that is, with our physical eye, is that which is material in some way.

Jesus, on the other hand, in his humanity is material. Notice this however. We do not say that Jesus in his humanity is deity. That would be heresy. The humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus cannot be confused. Both must remain distinct within the one person. He was and is fully man and fully God. He has all the essential attributes of both.

Thus, when we see the body of Jesus, we are seeing a body where the nature of God dwells, but that body is not the nature of God. To see the body of Jesus is not to see God in his essence. Now Jesus does have that nature, but it is nothing that can be seen, much the same way human nature cannot be seen.

I can say people saw Jesus and no one has seen God because God as he is cannot be seen. God can, however, appear in forms that can be seen. This would include theophanies in the Old Testament and the Son appearing in the flesh in the New Testament. Yet another objection fails.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome to Deeper Waters dear readers. It’s good to have you come back here. I know the blog has a lot of regular readers and that’s really such a great encouragement. I ask for your prayers again as I continue the path of Christlikeness and being the man that I ought to be. It’s a process, but really, I’m enjoying the challenge and seeing what I have to overcome just makes it more fun. I also ask for your prayers for my finances, which I did get a little surprise today on so that’s helped. I finally ask for your prayers concerning a certain situation in my own life. I can’t say more, but I do long for your partnering with me in prayer. For now, let’s go to the text. 1 John 4:8 is our passage tonight.

⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Years ago, my Dad told me about hearing a Christian radio station called GIL. He only heard what it stood for one time. He asked me what I thought GIL stood for and I said “God is love.” That was it. This seems to be a common passage people know, but sometimes for the wrong reasons.

There’s a song I also once heard on a Christian station saying “God is love and love is God.” It doesn’t work that way. God is love, but the passage is written in a way in Greek indicating that the nature of God is that he is love. It is not reversible such that the nature of love is God. It’s what we see in John 1:14 and we don’t want to say that the nature of flesh is Jesus.

To do such is to make love an idol. You have love and you have God, and you can go no further. That’s not biblical. The highest good is God whose nature is love. However, it does not mean that anytime there is love for anything that means the person has God. One can only love because God loves, but having love is not a sign of having God.

This verse however has also been used by Augustine and others to show the Trinity. Love is relational and for God to be love, God must be relational in himself. The only way that this can happen is if God is multi-personal in some way. Hence, the doctrine of the Trinity.

When we had some Jehovah’s Witnesses over here one time, they asked us what our favorite attribute of God is. My roommate finally said love. They asked us how we defined love. I realized my chance to leave an opening for the Trinity. So, I thought quickly and said “Love is the singular reaching beyond itself into the relational.” They loved it so much they asked me to repeat it. I smiled and did so and thought “And when the time comes later, that request will trap you.”

God did not need to create to love. He already had that love within himself. There’s a tradition that the ancient celtics had an idea of God in a dance of love for all eternity and mankind is created that they might join in the dance already going on. The love creates not out of need, but out of abundance. The love of the Trinity is offered to all of us to join in.

Join in! Dance!

It’s good to see all of you back at Deeper Waters, the blog that dives into the ocean of truth. We’re in our Trinitarian Commentary and we don’t have much further to go. Our last big book will be Revelation and I am looking forward to that one. We are actually going to go through that book and not discuss Eschatology, but see what it tells us about the Trinity and I think we’ll be surprised how much there is. I ask for your prayers as I continue the path of Christlikeness. I also ask for your prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for your prayers in a current situation that’s going on in my life. For now, let’s go to 1 John 2:24-27.

²⁴See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.

²⁶I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. ²⁷As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

John’s point still continues about life. Eternal life is a major theme in John and for John, that life cannot be separated from the Father and the Son. This makes sense since the Son is life and he lives because the Father lives. If you are cut off from the source of life, then it would follow that you cannot have life.

This life is also not just biological life as there are several who have life right now who do not have eternal life. This is a quality of life. We are to share in the life of God in some sense. To be cut off from that is to live simply a half-life of sorts.

Our main interest is that this involves the Father and the Son. While they are distinct persons, there cannot be no separating of their activity in John. If you have one, you have the other. If you do not have one, you do not have the other.

I also wish to make a point about the anointing. John says that because of the anointing, the readers do not need anyone to teach them. Is he saying that there is no point to Christian teachers? As long as we have the Holy Spirit, we have no need of a teacher?

Well, no. That would be teaching them that they do not need to listen to teachers. John is not refuting himself. He is again countering the gnostic claim that they need secret knowledge. If they have the Holy Spirit, then they have all they need to be saved. They know all that is necessary for salvation. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be built up further and we should all seek that. I regularly like to find good teachers and learn from them all that I can.

We shall continue 1 John tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth with our Trinitarian Commentary. We’re actually all the way up to 1 John now. It’s been a fun ride and an interesting one and let me assure readers that I have learned a lot from this and I hope you have as well. I do ask for your continued prayers as I am becoming the man I believe God needs me to be and growing more in Christlikeness. I also ask for prayers with my current situation involving finances. Finally, there is another event going on in my life and I would like prayer for that as well. For now, let’s go to the text. It’s 1 John 2:20-23.

²⁰But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. ²¹I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. ²²Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. ²³No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

There’s a good deal in this text. Let’s start at the beginning. The Holy One I believe in this case is the Holy Spirit due to passages that indicate such later on in this same chapter. Notice the emphasis on knowing the truth. John is again countering gnostic tendencies that would say one needs a secret experience to know the truth of Christianity. John argues that all one needs is the Holy Spirit.

John also wants to emphasize that we do know that truth, which is why he writes. He wants the readers to know that they are not missing out on any secret information. The truth is in them due to their having the Holy Spirit and being in fellowship with the Father and the Son.

He now tells us who the antichrist is. It is the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ. I could go into some interesting tidbits here in eschatology, but as readers know, that is not the purpose of my blog. At Deeper Waters, we are interested only in what is essential to Christian doctrine and not getting into secondary issues.

However, we are interested in what it means to deny the Father and the Son. For John, you cannot deny one and affirm the other. It’s a package deal. If you deny the Father, then you deny the Son. Ultimately, this is done by denying that Jesus is the Christ. How so?

To deny Jesus is the Christ is to deny the vindication of God on him. By raising him from the dead, God proclaimed the Son to be the Christ. To deny that is to deny the very truth of the Father. It is to deny the identity of the Son. Christians must believe that Jesus is the messiah, the unique one sent from the Father.

On the other hand, if someone believes the Son, they believe in the Father. The relationship between the two is essential. Ultimately then, Arianism is not just a denial of the deity of the Son, but a denial of the nature of the Father as well. To say the Son is not the Son is to say the Father has not always been Father. That he has changed in time.

Trinitarianism affirms the deity of the Father and of the Son and that they are two separate persons. Fortunately, we also have the Holy Spirit in here making this yet another Trinitarian passage. It is a wonder some people can read Scripture and miss the Trinity everywhere.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome dear readers to Deeper Waters. I thank you all for your continued prayers. I do believe I am making great progress on the path that I’m walking on and learning more in an area I need to learn more in. I thank you again and I ask that you keep it up. I also ask for prayers concerning my current financial situation. Finally, prayers concerning a certain situation that all will go well. For now, let’s get to the text. Tonight, we’re looking at 1 John 2:12-14.

¹²I write to you, dear children,
because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
¹³I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father.
¹⁴I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God lives in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

I find it amazing all the references to Christ in this passage. First off, our sins have been forgiven on account of his name. Think about that. In the Old Testament, it was under the name of YHWH where one found forgiveness for their sins. When we get to the New Testament, the writers are quite quick to apply this to Jesus instead. What does this tell us indeed about how they saw Jesus?

What is the next category? They have known him who is from the beginning? We are reminded of 1 John 1:1 and this is a point John wishes to emphasize repeatedly. It is essential to know who Jesus is. This could also be seen as countering the tendency of gnostic teachers to teach aeons, minor deities of a sort who came from the original deity. Jesus was not a created deity in the sense that he had a beginning in time. Jesus is he who was from the beginning. He is not an aeon.

Next is overcoming the evil one. When we get further into this text, we will see this contrasted with the good one. That’s for another chapter however so keep it in memory for now. John is finding it important to stress the victory of Jesus over the powers of darkness however, a theme that is repeated throughout his gospel.

Next is knowing the Father. For John, one can only know the Father through the Son. Remember what we read in John 14:9. He who has seen the Son has seen the Father. The only way they could have come to the knowledge of the Father then is if they had true knowledge of the Son, also a counter to the gnostic teaching.

John repeats the knowing of him who was from the beginning and then closes with the young men. The only difference is that the Word of God lives in them. This could be a reference to the Son living in them as they have fellowship with the Father and the Son, or it could be a reference to Scripture. John refers to both as the Word of God. Finally, it could be a term used to mean both.

We shall continue our study of this epistle tomorrow.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog that seeks to dive into the ocean of truth. I want to thank everyone for your continued prayers. I believe had a breakthrough in a personal struggle of mine last night and today and I hope that it lasts. Some Scriptural principles and some good friends are an aid. Keep it up anyway. Philippians 4:13 certainly applies as well as trust in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation and of course, prayers for the situation that I wish to keep private at this time. For now, let us go to the text. We’re looking tonight at 1 John 2:1-2:

 ¹My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ²He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

John writes as a caring parent writing to his children. His goal is to enable the people to live righteous lives. Isn’t it interesting that this starts with the nature of God? There are many people in the church today who really think they don’t need theology. They just need Jesus. Of course, if Jesus is fully God and fully man, then we need theology to understand Jesus. However, the approach is entirely false. Good theology should result in good living. If it doesn’t, there’s a problem.

The book of Job spoke of the need for a mediator. If only someone would come and speak on behalf of Job to God. The book of Hebrews was a book that had several mediators mentioned as we saw when we went through such as angels, Moses, the high priest, and Melchizedek. It was understood that man could not approach God as he is without some special grace.

The New Testament gives the ultimate mediator for us as we saw in 1 Tim. 2:5. That is Christ Jesus. For John, he is the mediator as well and he is described as the righteous one. What does this mean? It refers to the holiness of this mediator.

To speak of Jesus as righteous is to set him apart from men. He is not sinful as they are. He is holy, for he is fully God as well. He was able to live a righteous and holy life and he is able to represent us before the Father as man and he is able to mediate for us as God. It is because of who Jesus is that he is able to be the mediator.

Also, he is then able to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world. He is not a temporary sacrifice limited to a certain time. He is not a limited physical sacrifice that can only work in one place. He is a universal sacrifice for all people in all times and all places.

Why? Because he is who he claimed to be. He is fully God.

We shall continue our look at 1 John tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our study in 1 John by looking at the third verse of the first chapter. Before that, I wish to thank everyone for their prayers and their continued praying. I believe that I am making progress as I came to some conclusions tonight concerning my own thought processes. Still, I do ask for continued prayer in this area. I also ask once again for prayer in my current financial situation. Finally, I ask prayer for God’s action to be present in the situation that I am going through in whatever way is best. He knows the details. I’m not necessarily asking for a miracle, but for his providential hand. For now, let’s go to the text.

³We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

A lot of people know that one of my favorite verses to go to to prove the deity of Christ is John 1:3. However, it is quite interesting that a passage of Scripture that is also quite good at showing the deity of Jesus is 1 John 1:3.

We have spoken about John telling the testimony openly, as opposed to the teachers who were counting on initiates to have an experience before they could have the full message. The message of the gospel is not hidden however. John is proclaiming it. While John certainly had a unique experience in seeing the resurrected Christ and being an apostle of his, he did not require others to have an experience. He chose to share his experience with others.

Now he is telling his listeners that because of this testimony, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,  we can have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. What is interesting for our purposes today is how an idea like this shows the deity of Christ.

Consider a Jehovah’s Witness coming to see you. Ask him if he can pray to the Father, or Jehovah as he will say. Ask him if a friend who is a Witness in another state can. How about a friend who is a Witness in another country? Can you all pray at the same time and the Father hear all of you?

The answer will be yes. Why is that? It is because the Father is omnipresent and if that is the case, then it is possible to have fellowship with him. It is also because he is eternal and not bound by time so he can hear all the prayers being prayed at once.

But this passage also says that you can have fellowship with the Son! How is that possible? There is no distinction made between the type of fellowship. The way that that can be is if the Son is omnipresent and eternal as well and if he is, then he is God. If being that does not make him God, then it does not make the Father God either, putting him in an awkward position.

We Trinitarians have no problem. We know what it means to have fellowship with the Father and the Son at any time in any place and we know how this is possible. It is such because they share the same nature, both being fully God.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters as we continue diving into the ocean of truth. Things are going well for me today as I believe I’ve had an epiphany of sorts concerning a trait I need to work on losing. I find I tend to be a perfectionist and there are things I need not worry about because they’re not worth it. I ask for your continued prayers in that. I also ask for prayers still for my financial situation as things are a bit tight here. Finally, I ask for prayers in the continued development in my life. Things are going well. For now, let’s go to the text. We’re in 1 John 1 and we’ll be looking at verse 2 today:

²The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

John has just spoken about the life and now tells us that the life appeared. He has referred to it as the Word of Life and in his gospel he tells us that the Word became flesh. For John, this is the moment of that which is divine interacting with that which is earthly. In the ancient world, the divine had one sphere and the human had another and never the twain shall meet. In John’s view, Jesus Christ changed that drastically in that the divine and human interacted in the most intimate way possible.

John says that we have seen to it and testify to it. He is giving his testimony as an apostle that this life appeared to him. To say that he saw it and testified to it is to counter the gnostic teachers that were there at the time as he emphasizes that he has firsthand experience with that which he is talking about.

He is now stating that that is what he is proclaiming. This would also be counter to what was being taught. While the other teachers would say you needed to be initiated and have a mystical experience to see the truth of their message, John is coming right out and saying “I am going to tell you the truth of my message. You don’t need an experience to know it. I will show it to you through my testimony.”

John also states that this eternal life was with the Father, which would be a reference to the deity of the Son all in itself.  The eternal life was with the Father, but was not the Father. There was one who has been eternally alongside the Father. Now the Father lives eternally, but here John is talking about someone who was the embodiment of eternal life who appeared and since it was not the Father, then based on John’s gospel, we are fair to believe it was the Son.

He then states that this life appeared. That which was eternal appeared in the world of the temporary. We saw him. We touched him. We heard him. For John, this is an absolutely fundamental truth. The divine and the human have intersected. Eternal life is not just a distant reality. It has dwelt right here with us in the person of Jesus. We are invited to join in.

Join!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are constantly diving into the ocean of truth. We are going to return to our Trinitarian Commentary tonight after our honoring of those who have died for our country last night and a reminder of how we should be vigilant as a church. I ask for your continued prayers that I should be the man that I need to be as God is working on me more and more and I believe his truth is starting to sink in. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for your prayers with the major events going on in my life right now that I will be pleasing to him in them. For now, we are going to go to the text and start the book of 1 John with the first verse. Let’s go to the text:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

I love the writings of John, but the epistles are spectacular especially and this is my favorite epistle of his. I find it amazing that this was the one who was called a Son of Thunder for his hot temper. He wanted to send fire down to destroy the Samaritan city. Now what do we see in this letter? Go through it sometime as a whole and see how the love of Christ changed him.

However, let’s look at the words now. There is some speculation by some scholars that this book could have actually been a prologue to the gospel of John. Whether that was true or not we cannot say for sure, but there is a strong Johannine theology here with the idea of Jesus as the Word.

Let’s see how it begins. That which was from the beginning. This is a reference to the eternity of Christ. From the very beginning, there was Jesus. An orthodox Jew would have understood it and could have very well tied it in with the idea of Jesus as God’s Wisdom.

Which we have heard. Christ  spoke to us. We heard his words. He was the teacher who walked among us and explained to us the lessons of the Scriptures. John in his own gospel records many discourses of Jesus. In fact, he is most noted for the long sayings of Jesus.

Which we have seen. Jesus really did dwell in a physical body, but John will go into further detail with that. Jesus was not an illusion. He really came down. We really saw him. He who was from the beginning is he who dwelt among us.

Our hands have touched him. There was a voice first and then that voice was put with a body and then we were able to touch that body. John is countering the docetic notion here that Jesus only appeared in a body. He literally did have a physical body and it could be touched just like your body and my body can be.

John has not named Jesus yet, but he says that this is what is being proclaimed concerning the Word of life. John uses the term Word, which is key in the opening of his gospel, and he speaks of Jesus as life, a theme that is also prominent in John’s gospel. All of this will fit in to form a beautiful tapestry of who Jesus is and how we ought to live accordingly. All of this in just one verse.

We shall continue looking at this wonderful epistle tomorrow.