Inseperable

Hello everyone. I hope things are going well for all of you.  We’ve been going through the Bible understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the epistle to the Romans. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the 8th chapter and that’s where we’re going to be again tonight. We’re starting at verse 31 tonight and going all the way through the end, to verse 39:

31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Once again, let me remind readers that I am not getting into secondary issues here. This is a passage often used in the debate on eternal security and while I have a stance on that, I do not intend to write on the topic. However, this is a passage on justification no doubt and it is interesting that it is a constant interplay between the Father and the Son.

God is said to have given up his own Son. This was something unique. It wasn’t like God could make another Son and give him up. He couldn’t. John 1:18 has already shown us that this is the only one. There is none like him and there can never be one who is exactly like him. We shall be like him one day in our moral and human character, but certainly not in the sense of being eternal deity!

God is the one who justifies in Pauline thought and in this process is the Son who is making intercession. The two are constantly working together. God is the one who justifies and he justifies us in Christ Jesus the Lord.

It’s also interesting how he speaks about being separated from the love of Christ. It’s not the love of YHWH. It’s the love of Christ. How did Christ earn such a position in Paul’s Jewish mind? It can only be that he had shown who he was by his resurrection. He was not a blasphemer. He’d said the truth. It could be when Paul got hit on the road he realized immediately that all Jesus had said about himself was true and had to work out the ramifications of that.

When we get to the end, we find that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. There is no concept of the love of God apart from the work of Christ. Now this doesn’t mean that OT saints didn’t know the love of God or those who never heard necessarily, but it means if there had been no Christ, there would have been no justification whereby we could be made righteous and enter into the love of God. Apart from Christ, we are enemies of God. In him, we are not.

So where are you today?

Conformed to the Image

Hello everyone. I hope all my readers are ready to continue our study in the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re going to be continuing our walk through the book of Romans and we’re in chapter 8, which I have often had people tell me is one of their favorite passages in the Bible. We’re going to be looking at two verses tonight. Open your Bibles or an appropriate Bible website to Romans 8:28-29:

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

This is one of the greatest encouragements in Scripture and something we need to keep in mind when the problem of evil rears its head. Too often in our walk we often act like something has taken God by surprise. No matter where I am in my walk, I often try and remember “God has seen this moment and it has passed through his hand first.” Now I’m not going to tell you I’ve mastered this lesson. Far from it. It is a rather calming belief when I begin to really think about it.

Let us consider what we know about human beings first. We are created in the image of God according to Genesis 1:26-27. This is what ultimately sets apart humanity from every other species on Earth. There is no other creature that bears the image of God.

Man’s problem ultimately is that he is in the image of God but he does not act like he is in the image of God. Cats will be cats and dogs will be dogs, but humans are the species that we see that seem to continually go against their nature. We often speak of people acting “inhuman.” We do not speak of dogs acting “indog.”

There was only one person who did not fail at this, and that was Christ. Christ is the one who shows us what humanity is meant to be like. We all attempt to live human lives. Christ is the only one who truly lived a human life. In Christ, we have the true unity of humanity and divinity, though let us be sure that this does not mean the natures overlap. His humanity is still humanity and his deity is still deity and he is still one person in all of this.

What is the good news of this passage? The fulfillment of the image of God is to be conformed to the likeness of the Son. If you are to be like God, then you must be like the Son. Why? Because the Son is the exact representation of the Father’s nature as we will see in Hebrews. If you have a belief about the nature of deity that does not match with what you see in the Son, it is incorrect. If you have a belief about humanity that does not match what you see in the Son, it is also incorrect. Note we are talking about essential natures. This isn’t saying that people of different sexes or races aren’t human.

The biblical promise is also that you might be conformed but that you will be. You will be like the Son one day. When God looks at you on the final day, he will see his Son and thus not see anything that contradicts his nature. Now this does not mean you will be deity. You will not be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, etc. You will be what God wants to see however, a being that is like himself.

Why? You will be like the Son, a being who has the exact nature of deity. Isn’t that good news?

Co-Heirs

Hello everyone on this Saturday evening. At least, as I write this, it is a Saturday evening. I hope all is going well for you. We’re going to of course tonight be continuing our look through the New Testament as we seek to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re going through the Pauline epistles now and we’re in the book of Romans and in the 8th chapter. Tonight, we’ll be looking at verses 12-17.

12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,Father.” 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

I blogged on this passage a long time in my look at the concept of hearing the voice of God. That will not be my purpose of reviewing this passage tonight, but for all who are interested in that, the post can be found here:

http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/feeling-led/

Let’s note that at the start, the Spirit is the one who enables us to live holy and righteous lives. Paul has no concept of holiness coming to us without our submitting to the Spirit. We know from other Scriptures that this is because the Spirit is God working in us.

Why is this the case however? It is because the lives we live indicate that we are indeed sons of God. This is where we definitely have to be clear in our terminology. Are we sons of God the same way that Jesus is the Son of God?

Not at all. The passage tells us that we are co-heirs of Christ and we will share in his glory. However, the main difference comes to how Christ came to be an heir and how Christ came to glory. John 17 has already told us that Christ had that glory before the world was and he had it with God.

This is what was so important in John 20:17. Christ is the archetype of what it means to be a Son of God. He is that by his very nature. He has eternally been Son. We are sons only by adoption. Paul stresses this point in verse 22. We await our adoption. Not that we are not adopted already, but we wait the full fulfillment of this in glory.

Note also again how Trinitarian this passage is. We have God, Christ, and the Spirit all together working. This passage makes no sense without the doctrine of the Trinity.  It is this beauty that we see at work in this passage and working to bring the children of God, which is what we are, into full fruition and adoption of sons so we may share in the glory of Christ for all eternity.

That final remark is something that we should keep in mind in this study. It is important to know the Trinity, but make sure you know the difference the Trinity makes in your day-t0-day life. The Trinity’s not just a nice theory on paper that helps you study systematic theology. The Trinity invites you into the wonder of who God is and enables you to live a life that brings glory to him.

Spirit of Who?

Hello everyone. We’ve been going through the New Testament trying to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re in the book of Romans and we’re in the middle of that great book. Tonight, our focus will be on the Holy Spirit with a look at another Trinitarian passage. I recommend that readers wanting to learn more about the Trinity should when reading the New Testament epistles look and see how many passages there are that speak of all three persons of the Trinity. Tonight’s passage is one like that. It’s Romans 8:9-11:

9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Let’s look at verse 9. In that verse, we have one person being spoken of three different times and that is the Holy Spirit. The first time, he is identified as the Spirit. The second time he is said to be the Spirit of God. The third time, he is the Spirit of Christ. There is no reason to think Paul is speaking of three different Spirits in this passage.

Once again, this is said as if it should be understood. Paul doesn’t have to explain his terminology. He merely has to explain how the terminology fits in. The early church did not have any problem in identifying the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ.

But does this mean that the Holy Spirit is the Father and/or the Son? No. We’ve already seen several passages where a distinction is made between the two. As we will see in this passage as well, there are distinctions present so what does the language mean?

The language refers to a more instrumental view. The Spirit is the agency through which God and Christ act in one’s life. After all, Christ does not live in us in the sense that his physical being is in us. Christ lives in us by the Holy Spirit however and not AS the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the agent that brings the life and righteousness of Christ to us.

The way the Spirit comes from both the Father and the Son also points to the relation between the two and how both were seen as equal in nature. God’s Spirit is Christ’s Spirit. There is not a distinction because there is one Holy Spirit coming forth from the Father and the Son. The early church had no problem accepting these claims and it wasn’t until the heretics came later on that the terms had to be further clarified.

Finally, we once again see that in the ministry of the gospel, all three persons work in the act of raising Jesus from the dead and in bringing about righteousness in a believer. Salvation is the work of the Triune God.

We shall continue going through Romans tomorrow.

In The Likeness

We’re continuing tonight our look through the New Testament in an attempt to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re in the middle of Romans now. Much of what Paul says in this book is on the doctrine of justification and Christians should realize that the chapters are not put together haphazardly but rather throughout this book, Paul is putting together an argument. Sadly, in many of our daily readings, we can lose track of that argument. We’re not looking however to see Paul’s view on justification per se so much as his view on the Trinity in relation to the doctrine if need be. Again, Calvinists and Arminians and all others are called to battle this out amongst themselves. Tonight, we’ll be looking at Romans 8:1-4.

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

This passage is loaded with Trinitarianism. Just go through and notice how many references there are to each person of the Trinity and each is playing their own part in the role of salvation. We error in our thinking if we assume that salvation is simply the work of Christ. It is the work of all three persons together.

I love how Matthew Henry commented on the first verse. Henry said that it does not say there is no reason for condemnation. There’s plenty of reason. It does not say there is no accusation of condemnation. There’s plenty of that as well. It says there is no condemnation. We’re all deserved of confirmation. I recently heard of one theologian who said “I deserve Hell so I count as grace anything that God gives me.”

It is through the Spirit that Paul has been set free from the condemnation of the Law of death. For Paul, justification is just unthinkable without the work of the Son. What is most important for our purposes however is how this came about.

How did God do this? He sent his Son in the likeness of sinful man. Note that the Son is sent first off which would point to his pre-existence. However, he also comes in the likeness of sinful man and not in the likeness of man, which would be docetism. If you saw Christ on the street, you would think him a man like any other man, which would mean a sinner. Christ was not a man like any other man however. He was fully God and fully man and not tainted by sin. His coming was the only way that sin could be defeated.

What happens on the cross is that the wickedness of man meets the holiness of God in the person of the Son. In this clash, sin cannot overcome holiness. We see this in the ministry of Jesus in that he was never contaminated when unclean persons touched him, but rather they were made clean by his holiness. In Christ, God condemned sin as sin without condemning sinful man. That is, in Christ. All who are in Christ are set free from that condemnation. All who are not, are not.

In the spot of four verses then, we have the Trinity working together to bring about salvation. God is the judge who makes the pronouncement. Christ is the one whose action sets us free. The Spirit is the one who comes and enables that freedom. For Paul, if there is no Trinity, there is no justification.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Baptized Into Christ

Hello everyone. We’re continuing tonight our study of the doctrine of the Trinity going through the New Testament. We’re in the book of Romans. Much of the epistle deals with the doctrine of justification and while the deity of Christ is not the main focus in those chapters, we will find that it plays a part in them. The view that Paul holds of Christ in justification shows how he views him. Now we’re also not going to get into the debates of Calvinists and Arminians. That’s not our focus. We want to speak on what we all agree on, and that is who the person of Jesus is. We’ll be in Romans 6:1-14 tonight.

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

The idea of being baptized into Christ shows taking on the identity of Christ with what he went to. The Israelites identified with Moses when they were baptized into Moses metaphorically through the Red Sea crossing. (1 Cor. 10:2)

However, how are we to identify with Christ? In death and resurrection, and this in the context of speaking about righteousness. We are to take on the identity of Christ to be righteous. Imagine this coming from a Jew who would have found righteousness in YHWH. Now he says righteousness is found in Christ. What an amazing switch! Again, the matter-of-fact way this is spoken of should catch our attention.

Notice also that the goal is living with Christ. We are to live with him. For the Jew, they would have longed to be in the presence of YHWH. Now Paul says the goal is to be with Christ. He goes on to tell us that the only way we can be alive to God is to be alive in Christ. Our eternal relationship with YHWH depends on our eternal relationship to Christ. Is this a mere man YHWH is basing this all on?

I answer no. Justification is something that a mere man cannot provide us and as we get to Hebrews, we will see this more as the identity of Christ is stressed strongly in that epistle. For tonight, I hope we have seen the importance of who Jesus is to Paul in his teaching in Romans. Tomorrow, we shall see what more he has to say.

Jesus and Adam

Hello everyone. We’re continuing our look through the New Testament to study the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the epistle to the Romans. Tonight’s passage won’t directly deal with the deity of Christ, but will be part of the Christian view of who Jesus is and thus important to our study. Paul will touch on issues later on in his writings that we will get a preview of tonight. Our text will be Romans 5:12-21.

12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.15But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is a comparison between Christ and Adam in relation to life and death. It’s noteworthy that Adam is referred to as a pattern of Christ while no one else is. Humanity is divided into two groups. Those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ. What separates them is not their being men. Both of them are. What separates them is what they brought into the world. Adam brought death into the world and all who are in him are in death. Christ brought life into the world and all who are in him are in life. (I also believe that this is talking about spiritual death and not physical death. After all, many are physically alive who are in Adam, but they are spiritually dead.)

What we need to pay attention to is the affect of Christ in that Christ is the bringer of life. To bring death to someone is a simple task. Anyone could do that. To bring life to those who are dead is not such a task. Christ is the one on whom all history turns. The world was in a downward spiral getting worse and worse until Christ came and began the change going upward. As we move away from the teachings of Christ however, evil becomes more prevalent. We see this in the mass murders that took place under the atheistic regimes of people like Stalin and Mao. We in America should be concerned about this and realize that the gospel needs to thrive in America if America is to thrive. It has been a contention of mine for some time that the gospel does not need America. If America falls, Christianity will survive. Amercia needs the gospel however. Our country cannot last without it.

Does Christ bring righteousness to all men? Yes. That is, all men who are in him. We are in Adam by nature for we are descended from him. We are not in Christ by nature. To be in Christ is to realize his truth claims. One can either accept his covenant or reject it. To accept it is to choose life. To reject it is to choose death.

Note how this part closes also. Eternal life is brought through Christ Jesus our Lord. This could be taken as a statement of the identity of Christ in that he is called Lord and that he is the one through whom eternal life comes. We’ll see more on Christ being Lord when we get to Romans 10.

We conclude then by saying that Christ is the focal point of all history and the one on whom it all changes. You may call him simply a man if you wish, but do we really believe that that is the message the New Testament wishes to convey?

Jesus As Savior

We’re going through the New Testament with the goal of coming to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. We’ve reached the epistles and we’re going through the book of Romans. One difference in the epistles is that you get spelled out a lot more the doctrines that aren’t explained in the gospels. If you want to understand the atonement, for instance, the gospesl show you event while the epistles tend to be the works that explain the event. There is some speaking of the doctrine in the gospels, but most of it is found in the epistles. Tonight, we’re in Romans 3 and we’ll be reading verses 21-26.

21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The righteousness of God is what saves us. That is found in Christ Jesus. So what does it mean to us to have Jesus as savior. How can this be? There are a number of truths we must believe before we come to him as savior.

First, we must believe he can forgive us, as was seen in Mark 2, but he can only forgive us if we have sinned against him. The priests in the Old Testament pronounced forgiveness but only with sacrifices present. Jesus pronounced forgiveness regardless. The Pharisees understood that only God can forgive sins. When we tell Jesus was have sinned and ask his forgiveness, we are assuming that he can grant it, a belief of deity.

Second, we believe that he is capable of bearing our sin. In saying this, we realize that he is not a sinner himself and lived a pure life set apart from sin. We also realize that he is not a mere mortal who died for our sins as a man could not cover the cost for every man.

We realize that he is the holy one of God as well. By trusting him, we are affirming all his claims including his resurrection. We are affirming the righteousness of God in his life. This is what substittionary atonement is. It is his life for ours.

We can imagine how a Jew would have seen this passage. A verse like Isaiah 45:21 would have come to mind.

Declare what is to be, present it—
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the LORD ?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me.

Ultimately, we are implicitly recognizing Christ as deity when we call him savior. There is none that can do it besides God, and Jesus is our savior. Consider it this way.

Jesus is the only savior.

The only savior is God.

Jesus is God.

Of course, we understand this in the Trinitarian sense in that Jesus is fully in the divine identity. We do not understand him as being the Father.

In conclusion then, when we speak of Jesus as our savior, implicitly, we are speaking of him as our God. Keep in mind as a point to consider that the cults regularly deny who Jesus is and then regularly also teach salvation by works ultimately. The two go hand in hand.

The Two Natures in Romans

Hello readers. Tonight we begin going through the epistles. For many of us, the epistles are a favorite part of the New Testament because we thrive on teaching so much and that is what we get in the epistles. It’s been a part I’ve been looking forward to getting to for some time and we will be spending a long time here. After all, there are 21 books to go through. I’m also just going straight through the epistles, Pauline and non-Pauline. It doesn’t really matter to me. Tonight, we’re going to begin at the beginning, which is usually a good place to begin, with Romans 1:1-6.

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

We’re going to begin at verse 3, but I wanted to get the earlier context in. This is one place in the New Testament where we see the two natures of Christ upheld, something that was stated clearly at the council of Chalcedon. Christ is one person with two natures and he will always have a human nature and a divine nature.

For the human nature, he gets his Davidic descent from that. I contend that he got it through birth via his mother and he got it through legal descent via Joseph. It is just as essential to our salvation that Christ be a man as it is that he be God. We are right when we strongly emphasize the deity of Christ and defend it. Let’s not make the extreme error however that we teach his deity to the exclusion of his humanity. He has to be 100% man and 100% God.

However, through the Holy Spirit, he was declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection. The idea is not that the resurrection made him the Son of God. It is that he was proven to be the Son by his resurrection from the dead. The resurrection has always been central to the Christian faith as it vindicated all the claims of Christ, something that we often lose sight of.

Note also that this says through the Holy Spirit. Thus, in this one verse we have Jesus being declared to be the Son of God through the Holy Spirit by his resurrection. In one verse, we have all three persons of the Trinity together. Redemption was not an event that involved just the Son. It was a work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, each doing their own part.

It is also through him that we have grace and the right to be apostles and call the Gentiles to faith. This is probably to be understood as the grace of apostleship. It is by the authority of Jesus that Paul is an apostle. All people are called to come to obedience and the people Paul is writing to are among those who have accepted the call.

Once again, we are reminded of how this is stated so matter-of-factly. Paul does not have to give an argument for this. It is understood. The identity of Christ would be seen as basic Christian doctrine and yet today, most Christians cannot defend basic doctrine against the cultists. It’d be surprising to me if most even knew the basic doctrine of who Jesus is.

This is how Paul has opened his letter. What else does he have about who Jesus is in the letter? We’ll see as we go on.

Unhindered

Hello everyone. We’re continuing through Acts again in our study of the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. We’re going to wrap up that book tonight in chapter 28 by looking at the last few verses. We’re going to emphasize the Trinitarian points and then we’re going to end with a message about the spread of the gospel in the book of Acts. To be sure I am getting the whole context, I will quote verses 23-31:

23They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. From morning till evening he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. 24Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. 25They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet:
26” ‘Go to this people and say,
“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
27For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’

28“Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”

30For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. 31Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Note the 25th verse where we are told that the Holy Spirit spoke. This was the same passage referenced in John 12, which indicates that this was probably a favorite one amongst the early church in their evangelism and Paul used it here as the book closes with him preaching the gospel in Rome.

Our point that we wish to notice is that the Holy Spirit is the one who spoke. The Trinitarian dynamic is well under way as the Holy Spirit is seen as a person with authority. It’s also noteworthy that Paul is speaking to a Jewish audience who doesn’t seem to contradict any of his statements on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This is important to emphasize since in Trinitarian apologetics, we can be eager to defend the deity of Christ and sadly, the Holy Spirit is forgotten. His deity and personality are just as essential.

Notice when Paul quotes the first passage, he is very pointed and makes the pronouns into “you” as if to say “You are the ones spoken about in this passage.” This is a pesher kind of fulfillment of text where one event symbolizes another event. As the people were obstinate in Isaiah’s day, so they were in the day of Paul.

However, Luke does speak of the gospel going to the Gentiles and ends on a good note. The passage properly translated ends with the word for “unhindered.” Luke wants us to have one message as we close this book. The gospel was still going out and it wasn’t going to be stopped any time soon. In fact, about 1,950 years have gone since then and the gospel is STILL being spread and more than ever today.

Do we still have the obstinate people also? Yes. We do. Let us not have them stop the spread of the gospel however.

Tomorrow, we shall begin looking at Romans.