Deeper Waters

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters. Tonight, we’re going to wrap up the book of Jude and then move on to Revelation where we will be ready to wrap up our Trinitarian Commentary. I hope you all have enjoyed it. I do ask for your continued prayers on my path to Christlikeness. Thing seems to be going well in that area and especially thanks to some friends of mine who helped chat with me about various issues today. Also, prayer for my financial situation. This Christmas has been tight. Finally, prayer for an area in my life I wish to leave unnamed. God knows. Tonight, we’re going to finish Jude not with one verse but rather a collection of verses.

First is verse 5:

⁵Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.

Notice in this case the Lord is the one who delivers his people out of Egypt.

And verse 9:

⁹But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Notice in this case, the Lord is the one who will punish the devil.

And verses 14-15:

¹⁴Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

This is a key one in my belief. The Lord is coming to judge. The New Testament writers knew about Jesus coming to judge, but not about God the Father coming to judge.

Verse 17:

¹⁷But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.

The Lord in this case is specifically said to be Jesus Christ.

And in verse 21:

²¹Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

And here, we see a distinction of persons between God, meaning the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And finally, verse 25:

²⁵to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Once again, we see a distinction.

So what’s the point?

The point is if we take Lord to be Jesus Christ and we hear that Jesus is our only Lord, well let’s look at what the Lord does in these passages. He is the one who delivers the people of Israel from Egypt. He is the one who judges the devil. He is the one who is coming to judge. This is a high position.

Also, if all of this applies to one person, Jesus, in Jude 4, then that means that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a problem with their favorite verse of John 17:3. By their standards, the Father cannot be Lord then and he could not have been the one to deliver from Egypt, judge the devil, etc.

What’s the conclusion? Jesus is Lord in the sense that he is Lord and God.

Tomorrow, we begin Revelation.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. My thanks goes out to JB for his kind compliment on last night’s blog. It’s hard to believe, but tonight, we’re going to start the next to last book of the New Testament, the book of Jude, in our Trinitarian Commentary. I ask for your prayers however in that I continue to grow in Christlikeness and cease to be a man of fear more often but rather one of courage. I also ask for your prayers concerning my current financial situation. Finally, I ask for your prayers in a certain are of my life. I’ve had a good deal of anxiety today that I’m working through which is in connection with the first prayer request that I list. For now, let’s go to the book of Jude. Today, we’ll be looking at verse 4:

⁴For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Let’s get some introductory comments in first. Jude was the half-brother of Jesus, but yet, refers to himself as the brother of James, the half brother of Jesus, and the servant of the Lord. He’s creating a parallel of who he is in distinction to Jesus.

He also says he was eager to write about the salvation that is shared, but thought it imperative to write about a threat entering the church. While we as Christians should be in the practice of preaching the gospel, let us always follow the example of Jude and remember that in addition to that, we also have to contend for the faith.

Jude is dealing with the threat of people coming in to corrupt the family of believers with the idea that since we are saved by grace through faith, let’s go and live as we please. This is a kind of antinomianism that Paul also argued against.

There are mixed opinions as to the interpretation of this passage. Some see the only sovereign as the Father and the only Lord as Jesus. That is one held by many conservative evangelicals. Some see it all referring to Jesus. I agree with the latter and I will be looking at some reasons why as we go through this book.

But let us suppose that it is the former. How does that hurt the case? Not a bit. The relationship of the Father and the Son are still tied in together. To deny one is to deny the other. Both of them are given titles relating to sovereignty. We as Trinitarians must emphasize the relationship between the two persons.

The latter would give a much stronger case for the unique position of Jesus as the word used is “Despotes” which we can see the word “despot” in. Jude would be challenging them to consider who it is they’re going against and his position as the sovereign Lord and not to take that lightly.

As I said, we will look at this issue as we go further in the book, which we shall start doing tomorrow.

I welcome you all back to the Deeper Waters blog, or if this is your first time, welcome aboard. At this blog, we dive into the ocean of truth regularly. I simply ask in return for the writing I’m putting out that you all pray for me. First on the path of Christlikeness. For me, it’s overcoming a lot of doubt and fear and with my habit of obsessive thinking, that can be very difficult. I’m having to learn to change my attitude on a lot of things. Second, my financial situation. Third, I’d appreciate your prayers for a certain area in my life that I don’t want to mention. For now, let us go to the text. We’re not looking at a Trinitarian verse per se tonight, but at 2 John 10-11, which is relevant to those who minister to cultists.

¹⁰If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. ¹¹Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.

Today, there was a chance I could have had some Jehovah’s Witnesses return to visit me. We’ve been trying to get them to come for awhile, and it hasn’t been easy. It’s been a number of months since I saw them last. So let’s suppose you came to me and said that what I am doing is in violation of this passage in 2 John. What am I to say?

In the early church, there weren’t exactly church buildings on the streets where people could meet and worship. Most churches met in house churches. The ones who could do some of the teaching were often the visitors. The parallel is in the Jewish synagogue, with a passage such as Acts 13 where Paul and Barnabas were visitors and were allowed to address the congregation. One suspects that membership would drop drastically at churches today if visitors were expected to teach those inside.

This is the context that John is dealing with. At the start of this book, John mentions the word truth five times in four verses. Truth is of utmost emphasis. He wants the churches that he writes to to be those that care about the truth.

Thus, if someone comes along with a different message, they are not to be allowed to teach. That is what is going on here. When John is talking about houses, he is not saying that they are not to come into individual houses to meet with people. He is saying that they are not to be given a place of authority within the church. They are not to teach as if they were valid teachers.

So today, when we live in our homes, unless you are allowing the cultists a place to teach in your house, there is no sin in allowing a cultist to come in and have a discussion with them. I would in fact encourage it. For Mormons, I would invite them over on major holidays when they’re away from their families. When we had some coming here for awhile, we would often pick up pizza for when they came so we could all snack together and serve them drinks. It worked well. Make the cultists feel like guests in your home to show them the love of Christ.

Above all, please don’t slam a door in their face. They’ll take it as persecution and that will convince them more of their message. If you don’t have time, be honest. Just tell them that now isn’t a good time and ask if you can rearrange. This could be a chance for you to give them the gospel or at least plant a seed someone else can water.

Cultists are people too. They’re caught in bad ideology and need the love of Christ. Show it to them.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome again everyone to Deeper Waters. Tonight, we are going to finish up the book of 1 John. I am amazed that we have come this far. I had no idea this is how the blog would turn out when I started blogging on the Trinity. It’s been a fun ride however. I again ask for your prayers for my continued commitment to Christlikeness. I constantly see sides of myself that are not loving as they should be and I am learning to work on that. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation and then again, a certain area in my life that I would like prayers for. God knows. For now, let us go to 1 John 5:20.

20We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

This is one of the debated verses again. I would recommend for an in-depth look at this and several other verses where the word theos is used of Jesus, that one check out Murray J. Harris’s book “Jesus as God.” Harris takes the position that this does not refer to Jesus. Of course, there are several passages where he does believe that “God” refers to Jesus, but he is a fair interpreter of the text.

The book has been telling us at this point much about the nature of God. It was Jesus who came to reveal God to us. We know the Father best by looking at the Son. When we see Jesus, we are seeing what a person of the nature of God is like. He comes to us and shows us how we are to live. Ultimately, Jesus doesn’t just show us who God is, but he shows us who we are to be.

Thus, the passage says that the Son came to reveal him who is true. This would be God. It is the nature of God that has been the real focus and Jesus is the one who tells us the nature of God. So, when John says “He is the true God”, is he saying that Jesus is the true God, or is he saying that this is the nature of God? He is true.

I would say that it is referring to God himself. I think the him that is true refers to God and Jesus Christ is his Son. The one who is true then is the one that John wishes us to think about and he says that he is the true God and eternal life. I also think that this is in contrast to the evil one all throughout. The one who is true is a counter to the one who is evil. This also fits with John’s final warning for us to avoid idols. It’s not just idols of wood, but idols of false gods of the mind.

Tomorrow, we shall move to 2 John.

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters as we dive into the ocean of truth. I thank you all for your continued prayers as I work to grow into the man I need to be, which is a more Christlike man. It is a slow process, but those who know me are saying that tremendous progress is being made. I also ask for your continued prayers with my financial situation, especially seeing as we’re in Christmastime. Finally, I ask prayers for a certain area in my life that I wish to remain silent on. For now, let’s get to the text. We’re going to be looking at a text that isn’t in everyone’s Bible, and that is 1 John 5:7. (I’m sure you had no idea from the title what passage I would talk about.) Let’s go to the text!

⁷For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

As someone who deals with cults regularly, it would be wonderful if I believed such a verse was real. Unfortunately, this is one of those verses that I just don’t believe was in the original letter that the apostle wrote. I stand in this opinion alongside giants in textual criticism such as Daniel Wallace and the late Bruce Metzger.

The truth is that the number of manuscripts that have this text is definitely in the  minority. Erasmus when he was putting together his translation was asked about this and said he’d put it in if someone could find a Greek manuscript that had it. This was after considering that Erasmus had a number of manuscripts at his disposal that didn’t have the verse in them. Well someone did bring one to him and as a former professor of mine said “And the ink had not yet dried.”

Erasmus grudgingly put it in. The KJV today has the text, which is where I went to to get it, but most of your modern versions will not and if they do, they will put a footnote with the passage that says that the oldest and best manuscripts do not contain this verse.

So let’s consider something in the area of the text and the message of Scripture. I do not believe the text that is the topic of our blog tonight is legitimate. However, that does not mean that I believe that the proposition that is spelled out by the text is in error. I would love it if that text were in the Bible. It would make dialogue with Jehovah’s Witnesses so much easier.

What we need to realize as Christians is that many of the doctrines of Scripture are systematic. This is also an area the new atheists make a mistake in. The assumption is that the Bible must spell out everything when really, people need to study the Bible. It’s a complex book. There’s a lot that’s hard to understand. I won’t claim to understand it all. The Trinity is one such area of understanding. You will not find one verse, but you must take the whole of Scripture and look at it systematically. In doing so, you can arrive at what the Scripture teaches.

We shall continue 1 John tomorrow.

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.