Deeper Waters

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters, hopefully a blog you regularly visit and if you don’t, hopefully you’ll start doing so. Here, we intend to get people diving into the ocean of truth. I ask for your continued prayers as always as I find more work that needs to be done in me on the path of Christlikeness. I also ask for your prayers for my current financial situation. There are some loose ends there that need to be worked out. Finally, there’s prayer for something ongoing at the moment that the Lord knows about and that is all that matters. For now, let us begin the book of 2 Peter and where better to begin than at the first verse, which lo and behold, happens to be an important verse in establishing the deity of Christ.

¹Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
      To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

This verse has a reference to Jesus Christ as God and savior. The question to ask is if the title in this case does refer to both. In looking at this, it is important for us to note what we spoke of back in the blog on Titus 2:13. That passage also refers to the glorious appearing of our God and savior, Jesus Christ. Where does that mean the appearance of God and the appearance of Jesus Christ, or is the term referring to one person, Jesus Christ, as both God and savior?

This rule is applied here where we have the joining of two nouns with kai and one article. Because of that, Greek grammarians by and large, and definitely the majority, will say that this is a reference to Jesus Christ as God and savior. Now this doesn’t mean that all of them believe Jesus is God and savior as there are many non-Christians who are scholars of the New Testament, but they believe that Peter, or whoever they believe wrote 2 Peter, did believe that Jesus was God and savior.

Not only that, this would have been seen as a challenge to Caesar at the time. To speak of “Our God and Savior” would have been a challenge to Rome, which could be seen in the reference to Babylon if 2 Peter is written to the same audience as 1 Peter. In a challenge to the rule of Caesar, Peter would have been interjecting in instead the rule of Christ.

In other words, the Christians had their own emperor and he was one to whom their true loyalty belonged. Now the Christians weren’t going against the government to go against the government. If the government did right, the Christians could willingly submit without a problem. It was when the government did wrong in forcing Christians to choose between Christ or Caesar that Christians had to place their loyalty to Caesar.

The Caesar would have been seen as deity, but to the Christians, there was only one deity and this deity did reveal himself in the person of Jesus Christ. One could not worship both Jesus and Caesar and Peter wanted to remind his readers of where their true loyalty lay. It was with the one Jesus Christ who was both God and savior, unlike Caesar who had the same title. Jesus was the real deal. Not Caesar. For Peter, there was no question at all. Jesus is fully deity.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask for your continued prayers as there is a lot going on in my life right now and a lot of character I need to have built up. This blogger looks inside a lot of times and finds things that he doesn’t like. I pray that the Holy Spirit will be working in my life to make me more of the man that I need to be. Pray also for me in my current financial situation. I need some loose ends worked out, but I believe God can provide. Anything else that is going on in my life, well God knows. For now, let’s get to 1 Peter 5:1-4.

¹To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: ²Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; ³not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. ⁴And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

Peter is writing to the leaders of the church. Note that he counts himself as simply a fellow elder. This is something we see in the apostles in that they have a great humility. They saw themselves as fellow workers along with the rest of us. While James and John wanted to sit at the right and left side of Christ, we see no more of that after the resurrection.

The leaders of the church are known as shepherds. Historically, God’s people have been seen as sheep and YHWH was the shepherd and he had other shepherds underneath him whose job was to tend to Israel. Today, God’s people also have shepherds in the leaders of the church and those of us who are leaders in some capacity should be cautious with what we do.

However, what is most interesting is the reference to the chief shepherd. In the Old Testament, the chief shepherd would have been YHWH. Peter, being a good Jew, would have known that. However, when he writes to the church, he refers to the chief shepherd as Jesus. The implication is that Peter saw the one who was shepherding Israel as Jesus.

How do we know it’s Jesus? Peter speaks of the appearing of the chief shepherd. We have no reason to think that God the Father ever appears to anyone. I ask the reader to look back at the start of this series to when we did the Angel of the Lord as a Trinitarian precursor. We have texts in the New Testament like John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 6:15-16 that indicate that the Father is not seen. Therefore, the chief shepherd is Jesus and Peter here gives Jesus the position that YHWH had in the New Testament as the leader of the people of God. In Psalm 23, YHWH was the shepherd. In the NT, Jesus is the shepherd. The implication follows for Peter. Jesus is YHWH.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask you all again for your continued prayers. There is a lot going on and mainly, I’m wanting to work on being the man that I need to be. There are many flaws I find in my character that I just pray that the Holy Spirit will do his work and transform me so that I will be a better man. I hope he does so soon, but as the Scriptures say, blessed is he who hungers and thirsts after righteousness. The Holy Spirit can do it and I need to submit to his work. I also pray for help in financial areas. Meanwhile, let’s go to the text. I want to concentrate on verse 25 of 1 Peter 2:18-25. We’re starting at verse 18 for the full context:

¹⁸Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. ¹⁹For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. ²⁰But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. ²¹To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
²²“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.” ²³When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

We should not overlook the example that Peter used in referring to Jesus as the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. He was the one who walked with Jesus and was there no doubt when Jesus spoke of being the good shepherd. The Jewish mindset would have seen that to be a claim to YHWH, especially since in that same passage Jesus said “I and the Father are one.”

Peter doesn’t hesitate to use that same language here. Interestingly, he quotes from Isaiah 53 in order to prove his case. What makes this fascinating is that this passage is the one who speaks of Jesus as a sheep led to the slaughter. This is a theme that we will see an interesting twist on once we get to the book of Revelation.

Our wish at this point is that Jesus is seen as the one in charge of our souls, which is a position that would have belonged to God as God could place a soul in a person or call a soul out and if the account of the witch of Endor actually involved Samuel coming up, could mean that it was Samuel’s soul which God would be in charge of us as well.

Yet if Jesus is the one in this position, then the conclusion is that for Peter, Jesus is YHWH.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask for your continued prayers. There are a lot of changes going on around here and a lot of things that I have to work through. I also would like pray for some financial concerns that I have at the moment. There are numerous requests that I wish to have remain confidential, but we all know that God knows what is on my heart and the best way to work with that. Of course, there is no need to keep confidential my continual prayer for Christlikeness. We are going to move to the text for now and start 1 Peter and we’re going to look at the first two verses.

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

One aspect of the New Testament that I have spoken of is Trinitarian passages. These are passages where all three persons of the Trinity are referred to. Peter, the apostle who seemed to take the lead in the group the most, is the one who is giving this greeting, so let us see the understanding of the one who walked so closely with the Lord.

Let’s look at this one. The first aspect that we have is the foreknowledge of God. The foreknowledge of God is shown in places in Isaiah especially where he is said to tell what will happen proving that he already knows what will take place. This is also important for realizing the truth of Bible prophecy. (I am in no way an open theist after all.) Once again however, I will leave it for the people of different perspectives on foreknowledge and free will to work that out for themselves.

The next activity mentioned is sanctification and that was done through the Holy Spirit. This is a consistent theme in the New Testament and is what is really spoken of when the text speaks of being led by the Spirit. The Spirit is what encourages us to be like Christ and develops the fruit of the Spirit in us that is in keeping with the truth of the gospel. Once again, the Spirit plays an essential role in the gospel as the whole of the Trinity does.

This is done for obedience to Jesus Christ by the sprinkling of his blood. The sprinkling would bring to mind purification rituals in the OT done with blood. One would not be baptized in blood of course, but one would have blood sprinkled that would purify them and set them apart for service to God. This is also then pointing to the concept of the priesthood that is seen in 2 Peter. Thus, God has the foreknowledge and the Spirit purifies so that we may live in obedience to Christ. A Trinitarian passage all throughout that teaches us the truth of the gospel.

We shall continue 1 Peter tomorrow.

Hello everyone. The Deeper Waters blogger is back. I ask that you pray for me as I’m continuing to learn more of the lessons of life I need to know and I had a few curve balls thrown my way today. Oh well. It’s just a chance for me to grow more to be like Christ I suppose. At least, that’s the way I try to see these situations. I ask for your continued prayers in the areas that I have spoken on. I also hope that you all got to have a happy Thanksgiving. I know I certainly did. For now, let us go to the text. Tonight, we’ll be looking at James 2:19.

¹⁹You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

The book begins with addressing the twelve tribes and it’s a verse like this that leads me to believe further that James is writing to an audience largely consisting of Jews. If there was any group in the world that was known for believing in one God, it was the Jews. The pagans all had several deities in their pantheon.

It was the Jews who affirmed there is but one God. Hear O Israel. The Lord your God is one. Every Jew knew that. It was the Shema. They were to recite it twice a day. It was an identifying pledge of theirs. It also became foundational in the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Many critics of the doctrine of the Trinity insist that it is a polytheistic doctrine. I have recently heard a clip of Muslims speaking in Speakers’ Square in London. Speakers’ Square is a sort of public debate site in London where people of different religions can come and debate. The Mormons were speaking about the doctrine of the Trinity and saying that Christians believe in three gods.

As a Trinitarian, I immediately start pondering how badly they’re representing my doctrine. Now if I did believe in three gods, I would have a problem, but it seems that those who speak out most against the doctrine of the Trinity are those who have taken the least time to understand it by really reading great Christian minds on the topic.

If you look at the great creeds of the church, all of them affirm monotheism. We are not polytheists. Now does that mean we fully understand how one God can dwell in three persons? No. It doesn’t. However, it does no good to say that because we do not understand it, that that is not what we believe then.

Which is why this verse has been chosen for our Trinitarian commentary. If we do not have monotheism, we do not have the Trinity. The very words Trinity means “Three in one.” Throughout the New Testament, one finds the constant affirmation on there being one God, but also the affirmation that Jesus is fully God and the Spirit is fully God along with the Father, but these three are one.

While we do not fully comprehend, we must be clear also that this is what we believe. Our opponents would do well to recognize that.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome back everyone to the Deeper Waters blog. I do ask for your continued prayers as things are still a struggle in many ways, but I figure the best way to see things is that the Holy Spirit is at work and it’s a painful process, but it is the process of God working to make someone like Christ and this is something I have been specifically praying for lately. I have another request that I’d like to have answered positively, but I prefer to leave that unmentioned. God knows. For now, we’re going to continue our Trinitarian commentary and we’ll be continuing the book of James in the first chapter with verses 16-18.

¹⁶Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. ¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Why are we going to this text? Because this text while not about the Trinity or about Christ or the Holy Spirit, is about the nature of God as a whole and there are some fundamental qualities of the nature of God that we need to grasp. This is one that we saw back in the last chapter of Hebrews and we’re going to comment on more now.

The unchangeableness of God is referred to as immutability. By this, it means that God does not change in his nature. I do not believe the incarnation counts as a change either as the ontological nature of God did not change, but one person who bore that nature did take on the nature of humanity. I do not know how this works with space and time entirely, but it is something we see in Scripture and we must accept as Christians then.

Why is it that God cannot change? Because God in his nature is perfect. He does not have any property that we would call accidental. That would in essence make him a composed being made of properties that defined his nature and non-essential properties that are in many ways simply add-ons.

If God takes on another attribute, then does that mean he wasn’t perfect before? Did he improve in some way? After all, if he takes on something else, that will count as a change in some way.  If, on the other hand, he loses one and that makes him lesser, then we can be assured that he wasn’t perfect.

This relies heavily on God being the source of all that is. God is not a composed being and does not have parts. This is the simplicity of God. Since he is the source of all, he is simple in his nature as otherwise, he would be a combination of parts and then we could ask where these parts came from and who put them together? This is an objection Richard Dawkins raises in “The God Delusion”, which shows why we should not take Dawkins seriously as a theologian or philosopher, for he has not studied the doctrine of simplicity in Christian thought.

If someone wants to say the Trinity violates immutability or simplicity, they can do so, but the burden of proof is on them. The same applies to the incarnation. This is a doctrine we need to understand however in understanding the doctrine of the Trinity.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask for your continued prayers with a situation I’ve been working on for awhile. God knows the need. I also ask for prayers in another situation as I have recently seen the need for me to be a far better man than I have been and learn some lessons that I never really sat down to take the time to learn. I ask that my readers pray for me in this. Let it always be kept in mind as I would think regular readers respect me. Even teachers you respect need prayer. We can often be put on pedestals, but if we are cut, we will bleed the same way. Tonight, we’ll be continuing the book of James and looking at verses 13-15 of the first chapter:

¹³When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. ¹⁵Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

I have lost track of how many times I have seen someone use this passage to argue against the deity of Jesus. The idea is that God cannot be tempted. However, Jesus was tempted. Since Jesus was tempted, then Jesus is not God.

There are arguments that have been raised to question the Trinity that are good arguments. I don’t think they’re valid, but they’re good arguments that raise points that we need to answer. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. If someone raises this one, it shows a lack of understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Consider the case of the one who makes the argument that God doesn’t sleep but Jesus was asleep on the boat. The same principle applies. Jesus slept in his humanity, but his existence as deity never ceased. He was still fully God even while his human nature was asleep. Do we really understand that? No. It’s not a contradiction however.

This is a different case however. James is talking about the desires that war within us tempting us. In other words, he is talking about temptation that is coming from within and not from without. After all, take a look at what he says.

James tell us that each person is tempted by his own evil desire. The problem is that we are sinners and because we are sinners, we have this internal war waging within us where we want something that we ought not to have or something that we ought not to have at that point in time.

Jesus, however, did not have a sinful nature and so was not subject to that. Was he tempted in other ways? He was tempted from without and not from within.

Note also that the same word is used to describe God being tempted however in the Old Testament, in a passage such as Psalm 106:14. Of course, God could not give in to temptation, but the passages teach of how God was tried by his people when they were in the wilderness. Once again, the argument falls short here as well.

In conclusion, we have another supposed anti-Trinitarian prooftext that is anything but. Perchance we should look more for the struggle with our own temptations instead of trying to impugn Christ with this one.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Again, I ask your continued prayers as God keeps working on this vessel to make him what he ought to be. It is a process and one that is not pleasant as I look at myself and see things that ought not to be there and realize I need to work on developing Christlikeness more. I also ask for prayers regarding a particular situation. I don’t need to tell you the need. God knows it. For now, let us continue our Trinitarian commentary. Tonight, we’re going to start the book of Jams and we’re going to start with the very first verse of the epistle. Let’s go to the text:

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.

James was the brother of Jesus. This is important for our considerations since we know from texts in the gospels that the brothers of Jesus did not believe him and thought he was literally out of his mind. Now we might think that odd, but consider the claims Jesus made. James was one who grew up with him. What would you be thinking if your brother was going around claiming to forgive sins and telling everyone that he was the Messiah and that your eternal destiny depended on what you thought about who he was.

Now we can say James was wrong, which he was of course, but let us not overlook that chances are, most of us would not have been much better. That does not justify James at all, but it does put things in perspective and we will see later on makes this even more remarkable.

James went on to become the leader of the Jerusalem church. This letter I believe was written to Christians of a heavily Jewish background and is the only book of the NT that is Proverbial in nature. It is wisdom literature, such as James 1:5, telling us how we are to live on a practical basis.

However, look at how James identifies himself. First, he is a servant of God. All well and good. Nothing controversial there. Next, he is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. Now it’s time to step back. This is the James who thought Jesus was out of his mind. Now he’s using the title that we’ve seen involves his humanity, deity, and being messiah.

What would it take for you to believe that your brother was the Messiah, God, and yet fully human at the same time? Today, we believe this is because of the evidence of the resurrection. James came to see that his brother had been risen from the dead.

James also identifies himself as a servant. This is the leader of the Jerusalem church. This is the brother of the Lord. If anyone had any step they could take to lift themselves up, it was surely James. James does no such thing. He considers himself to be just a servant.

This tells us much about James and how he viewed his brother. James came to realize Jesus was not out of his mind. He really was the one he claimed to be. James submitted himself to the Lordship of Christ then and became what we know him to be in the NT, one of the heroes of the early church and a writer of sacred Scripture.

What would it take to convince you that your brother was God? Undeniable evidence that he was. That is what James was given. We should see the resurrection of Christ and the claims of who he was as such evidence today.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask for your continued prayers. I have been busy with a project today and I am having a difficult time as there are obstacles that stand in my way. That and there are just many other things going on in my life right now. I know I am general in what I ask, but the Lord knows what is on my heart and he is able to provide. For now, let us go to the text tonight. We will be looking at Hebrews 13:8 and closing out the book of Hebrews with this.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

It’s a simple verse indeed, but it is so profound. The author has been making the point about Jesus being the focal point of history. Everything revolves around Jesus. We spoke about this in our blog last night and how the Jews had a unique view of history and that it was moving towards a point. For the writer of Hebrews, Jesus is that point.

Here we have a statement about the immutability of Jesus. What does that word immutability mean? It means being incapable of change. Now someone will object “Hey! We know that Luke says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man!” That sounds like a change to me.

Fair enough question, but one that misses the point. Our writer surely knew that as well for he is well familiar with the incarnation of Jesus. How is it then that the writer can speak of a Jesus who never changes and yet one who has been made perfect?

He is not speaking of Jesus in his humanity, but Jesus in his deity. Why is this important? Because the Jews certainly knew what it meant for someone to not change. Consider Malachi 3:6:

“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

The changelessness of God meant that God was someone they could depend on. The same is true of Christ. We can depend on Christ because he is the one who never changes. We can be sure, however, that the Jews who were hearing this letter, rather it was read or rather it was a sermon as some suspect, would make the connection.

Why does deity never change? Deity is absolutely perfect and is not in time. Being in time would place one in the area of change. There is nothing outside of the nature of God that he can take in that would make him better than he is or he would be less than absolutely perfect. There is nothing he can lose or else he would cease to be absolutely perfect.

In his deity, Jesus is of this nature. The trust that was to be given to YHWH was given to Jesus as well as he has the same nature. The writer of the epistle began by saying that Jesus is the exact representation of God. Now we see that he is that eternal reflection and he never changes, just as the Father never does.

Tomorrow, we shall begin James.