Hello, welcome to today's program. I am Patrick Hines. I'm the pastor of Birdall Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, and I'm joined today by the two that seem to always be able to make it, although there are a couple other guys eventually we're going to have on here with us, but Jim Thornton, who's the pastor of Reformed Faith Presbyterian Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, and Henry Johnson, who is one of the pastors at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tasswell, Virginia. One of the clearest teachings of the Bible is that there is one and only one God. None of the false deities of man's religions exist. Idols are, to quote Paul in 1 Corinthians 8, for nothing in the world. And there is no other God but one. The deities invented by the imaginations of men in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and everywhere else, tend to look a lot like the people who invented them. The gods of the world are petty, jealous, evil. They plot, scheme, lust, murder, and even die. They are deities made in the image of their makers, which is sinful men. The true God, who spoke the world into existence in the space of six days and created it out of nothing, is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. God is not subject to passions the way that we are. Because of this, God does not learn anything. God's power is limited only by His own righteousness, holiness, and goodness. Because of this, God cannot lie, God cannot break His word, God cannot sin, God cannot contradict His own character. God is passionate for His own glory, and all that He does and planned or decreed to take place in this world does just that. It glorifies His name, even if we cannot see or understand His purpose. On the last day, all will be made clear. God created animals and plants to reproduce according to their kinds, the land and sea creatures, the flying creatures, and all the herbs and trees and grass of the fields. But man was different. Man is made in the image of this glorious Creator God and was made for communion and fellowship with his Creator. Adam's rebellion and our own rebellion in Adam lost this communion with God and has left us under his wrath and curse outside of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, and that's the reason that everybody dies, including all of us here one day will die. But even in the depths of the most hard-hearted of people, there is still that longing to know God and be known by Him, even if it is suppressed in unrighteousness and sin. Another essential aspect to understanding God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture is that God is not unipersonal, but tripersonal. God is not unitarian or one person, but trinitarian, three persons. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks in question six, how many persons are there in the Godhead? Answer, there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. God is one in being, three in person. That became the Christian way of saying it. A lot of blood, sweat, study, and tears went into that wonderful short summary of the biblical data in church history. But are these doctrines and distinctions and issues, are they really important for people to understand in order to enjoy fellowship with God? Or are they just intellectual and philosophical curiosities for egghead theologians with too much time on their hands? In our discussion today, we're going to address the doctrine of God and of the Holy Trinity, how precious these truths are, and how they anchor the very gospel of Jesus Christ we are saved by and love so much. So, Jim and Henry, thanks for joining me again here today. And so I want to pitch the first question to Jim. Theologians often speak of the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. What are these and how would you describe them for us? Well, his incommunicable attributes, for instance, he is all-knowing. He knows everything. He's omnipresent. He's everywhere. It says in the Book of Acts, in him we live and move and have our being. And I was thinking about that yesterday on my bike ride. I thought, I am as much with God in Elizabethton as in Johnson City and all points in between. He is all powerful. There's no reality that he cannot perform that is consistent with his nature. Students sometimes ask, could God make a rock so big he couldn't move it? Well, that's kind of ridiculous. He's all powerful. And he cannot make a circle square, a square circle. That's illogical. He cannot lie. There's things he cannot do. He's unchanging. He's immutable. And we are mutable. We do change. And praise the Lord that when we become a Christian, we are changed. We're born again. We're regenerate. He is loving, and now we're getting into the communicable attributes. He makes us loving. Now, he is, getting back to the non-communicable attributes, he is immense. It says in 1 Kings 8, 27, but will God indeed dwell on earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built. So, you know, sometimes the scripture talks in what Calvin called baby talk. It'll talk about the hand of God. It'll talk about his ear, his tongue. But these are what Calvin called baby talk to stoop to the level of our understanding. And so these are some of the things I think of. I mean, there's a whole list of, communicable attributes given right here. But I don't want to hog the conversation. So let me stop. Yeah. Okay, good. That's good discussion there. So there's some attributes, some things we have in common with God, and there's other things that we can't have in common because we're finite and things like that. Okay, so second point, just thinking about some of those attributes, I really want to tie our discussion of the doctrine of God to the Gospel because I think that's extremely important. Because everything God reveals about Himself kind of serves that purpose for man to understand who He is and how He has redeemed His people. So, Brother Henry, I've often told people that the holiness and justice of God are the attributes which get us in so much trouble with God. What are the holiness and justice of God, and why are those attributes critical for us to understand if we are to know our need for Christ? Well, these two particular perfections of God are at the very heart of who God says he is, and all of these perfections of God cannot be taken in isolation from each other. And I think the term perfections is preferred to the term attributes of God. Attribute has the idea of we're going to take something to a laboratory and we're going to dissect it and kind of discover its parts. The God of the Bible, the God who created the universe is unique. There is nobody like him in the universe. I've had people say, well, Henry, you really don't believe that God is three persons in one being one God, because do you know of anything else like that? And what a silly argument that is, because God tells us that there isn't anybody in the universe, there never has been, never will be, like the true and the living God. And so, our existence depends on God. One of the terms that God has revealed himself by is, I am. And as we think about who God is, only God is self-existent. Only God can say, I am, period. He needs nothing outside of himself to be God or to do anything he wants to do. That's not true of any of us. If we say, I am, we always have to have qualifications. We all always have to have other things that are connected to that. for us to exist and to do whatever we want to do. We are dependent, we're creatures. He is the creator. And so these two attributes, perfections that you mentioned, holiness and justice, have to do with two aspects of who God says He is. Holiness has to do with God's being separate from everything else in the universe. There are two aspects of holiness. One is the concept of other, and then there is connected with that moral perfection, that there is nothing defective. about God. And so, as we think about ourselves, we are fallen in Adam. The first man rebelled against God, and because of that, the holy God, we are alienated from him because he is perfect in his being and all that he does. And so, how can we, who are not morally right, be in any kind of peaceful relationship with this God who created us, who is holy, who is perfect? And the answer to that, of course, is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can bring these two parties, the holy God and unholy man, back together. Justice has to do with that as well, because this holy God must deal with evil, or he would deny himself. Holiness demands that justice also be present, and God has made us in his image. Everybody has a standard of right and wrong. Now, because of the fall, that standard has been perverted, but everybody has a standard of right and wrong. Everybody has this sense of justice. That's not right. And people want justice until it comes to dealing with self. We're happy to say, oh, that person did wrong. They ought not get away with that. But of course, we don't want justice when it comes to ourselves. But here again, the gospel, the good news of the Bible, Jesus is the one who alone can satisfy God's justice so that we who have done wrong can be forgiven and made right with the holy, holy, holy God. Yeah, amen, well said. And, you know, I just want to get you guys' comments on this. When man invents religions, and I know that's not popular, you know, today to say that in the kind of, you know, cultural, ironic, peaceful coexistence stuff that's really pushed today, but there is antithesis, there's contradiction between what God says and what everyone else says, and what God says is true, so we have to say this. The deities of man's religions are not like that. They're not holy in this way that they demand perfection from man. And God requires justice to be satisfied at a tribunal, at a judgment, at the end of all things. And that's one thing that is so unique, completely unique about the Bible, is that God in Scripture is terrified. I remember reading the section on the doctrine of God in the Westminster Confession. It describes God as most terrible in His judgments. And every time God ever gets near anybody in Scripture, they think they're going to die. And I wanted to read a Sproul quote from his book, The Holiness of God. And Jim, I want to get your response to this. Sproul, that book is such a great book, The Holiness of God. He goes through dozens and dozens of passages of Scripture, and just kind of trying to help people understand, you need to know about the holiness of God here. This is one of the most important attributes that he has. That is what the Ten Commandments are a reflection of. But he highlights the narrative where Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat, and a big storm comes down on the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples think they're about to die. And he's asleep in the boat, and, you know, don't you care that we're perishing? And Jesus comes up, peace, be still, and it's as smooth as glass. And listen to what Sproul says about this. What is significant about this scriptural story is that the disciples' fear increased after the threat of the storm was removed. They're more scared now. I mean, they're afraid they're about to die in a storm, but when Jesus calms it, now they're even more terrified. And he goes on to say, the storm had made them afraid. Jesus's action to still the tempest made them more afraid. In the power of Christ, they met something more frightening than they had ever met in nature. They were in the presence of the Holy. We wonder what Freud, what Sigmund Freud would have said about that, because of course Freud says, well, man, man invents a God to help him deal with fear. Why would man invent a God that's even scarier than nature? Right? And Sproul says, why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a God in the first place? We can understand it if people invent an unholy God, a God who brought only comfort, but why a God more scary than the earthquake, the flood, the storm, or the disease? It's one thing to fall victim to the flood or to fall prey to cancer. It's another thing to fall into the hands of the living God, end quote. So, Brother Jim, what do you think of that? Well, it reminds me of what Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, MD, had to say about World War II. He said, before the war began, the mental health clinics were full of people. After the war began, they emptied out. He said they were cured by greater anxiety. And so I think the disciples in the boat all of a sudden realized, this Jesus can control the elements What is this? It was frightening. And Peter said to Jesus, depart from me, for I am a sinful man. They realized the holiness of Jesus. And when they realized his power, it was terrifying. And as you said, when people encounter God in the Bible, they are terrified. And so people who talk about God casually, especially the false teachers, it's a red flag immediately. Yeah, Brother Henry, I wanted to bring up another story, another narrative from the Gospels and get your thoughts on it. When Peter meets Jesus for the first time—remember the narrative, he'd been out fishing all night long and they hadn't caught a thing—and here comes this rabbi to the shore and tells him, you know, go out and try it one more time. of course lectures him you know we've been doing this all night long having kind of thing but obviously there must have been something about him well just because you say so we'll try it one more time and you know that the boats there's so much fish in the nets that it's practically sinking two boats and peter comes back to the shore And he says, depart from me for I'm a sinful man. But what do you think he was experiencing there? Why is that significant that that would be his response? I mean, if I'd been Peter, I would have said, hey, let's sign the guy up for a fishing contract. But he doesn't. He says, get away from me. I'm too sinful. What do you think is going on there? Well, I think. Those supernatural events that are recorded for us show who Jesus is. He is God in the flesh. And when people see who the real God is, it causes us to become painfully aware of our own sin, our own shortcomings. When I was a little boy, my mom and dad gave me a new suit. of clothes, a suit. I'd never owned a suit before. And the one thing my dad told me the first Sunday that I wore it was, now, son, after the service is over, you may not run around. because he was concerned that I would slip and fall. Well, I remembered his instructions for about 30 seconds. And it was dark outside, and the parents couldn't see everybody. And so this little eight-year-old guy took off. And sure enough, the dude had fallen, and I slipped and fell. I had my suit on and in the darkness, I looked down at my pants leg and all was well. Everything looked great. And I didn't think any more about it. I thought, boy, that was a close call. And so we went home and we would always make popcorn on Sunday night. And I walked into the kitchen and all of a sudden I could tell my mom was just staring at me. I still had my suit on. And she was looking at my knee. And in that bright light, I looked down at my knee and I was aghast because my pants leg not only had grass stains all over it, but it was ripped. In the darkness, I didn't see that. I felt comfortable. But when I came into the light, all of a sudden I began to see reality. Now that's what was going on with Peter and those disciples. Before that time, they were in moral darkness. They really didn't understand reality. But Jesus performing those miracles, Just those expressions of power over the natural order. The light was beginning to dull, and they became painfully aware of who he is and who they were. And they had this sense of, I'm not right with God, and woe is me. Yeah, that reminds me of a Calvin quote from the Institutes of the Christian Religion in Book One early on. He says, and because nothing appears within or around us that has not been contaminated by great immorality, what is a little less than vile pleases us as a thing most pure, so long as we confine our minds within the limits of human corruption. And he says this, just so an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even rather darkly mottled to be whiteness itself. And he kind of points out, until we have that encounter with the holiness of God, just like you said, Henry, we don't know ourselves the way we should. You know, Brother Jim, you do a lot of street evangelism, the majority of people. I'm a pretty good person. I'm a pretty good person. And that's where we're totally dependent on God, the Holy Spirit, to show people, you're not. You fall short of my glory. And I'll tell you, I know you guys have been in ministry a lot longer than me. Again and again and again, it's been impressing down on me. God, you have to open people's hearts and minds to see what they are and to see who you are, or they're not going to get this message about a crucified Savior. It doesn't make any sense until you have that encounter. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Okay, so what is, let's talk about the doctrine of the Trinity. So Jim, how would you explain the doctrine of the Trinity? As I know you've had to do that many times. How would you describe that kind of in simple terms so people can understand it? Well, I actually had a young Muslim man come up to me recently asking about, does God have a son? And they're big on God not having a son. And so I said, look, I said, God, the father does not have the body. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, did God the father impregnate some woman naturally the way humans do? I know what you're thinking. I said, but think of it like this. I said, do your parents love each other? He said, yes, they do. And I said, well, you know, the Bible says a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one. And that's not just talking about the act of marriage. It's talking about being one spirit to bearing each other's burden, sharing each other's joys. I said, do your parents do that? He said, yeah. I said, well, we Christians, we believe in the Trinity. It's revealed in the Bible, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, three persons in one Godhead, one essence. And I said, they bear each other's burdens. They share each other's joys. And they're one in essence. And he's like, oh, OK. And he accepted that. And he said, I'm coming back tomorrow to ask you more questions. So praise the Lord. That's great. That's wonderful. OK, so, Henry, what about the role, the roles of each of the persons in redemption? And how is that what how is that revealed in Scripture? Why is that so important? Well, Scripture teaches that there is one God. There are not three gods. There is one God. And we see that in a number of places in the Bible. The first of the Ten Commandments, God said, thou shalt have no other gods besides me. Literally, the Hebrew there, in my face. There is only one God. Deuteronomy chapter 6, there's only one God. In the New Testament, over and over, there's only one God. And we see in the book of Genesis chapter 1, God speaking and saying, let us make man in our image. In the image of God, he made them male and female. Scripture reveals to us, God tells us who He is. It's not our job to imagine God. Our job is to bow before the living God, our Creator, and worship Him, and He tells us who He is. We don't have the right to make Him in our image. He made us in His image. And so each person of the Godhead, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they are one not only in their being, there's one God, but they're one in their work, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we see, for example, in Ephesians chapter 1, where God talks about the mighty work, unique work, of each person of the Godhead in their concerted work as one to save God's lost sheep. The Father is referred to as the one who, before the foundation of the world, chose to set his love upon us. And the Father sent the Son, and the Son comes and takes on human flesh. The Father didn't come and take on human flesh, the Holy Spirit didn't come and take on human flesh, but the Son did. That's a unique role of God the Son. And then God the Holy Spirit is the one who applies redemption. He's the one who makes the dead bones alive in Ezekiel 37. Can these bones live? And Ezekiel answers, well, Lord, you know. And the Spirit is the one who comes and causes people to be born again. And that's what Jesus told Nicodemus. And we see that at the end of Ephesians 1, that section where the Holy Spirit is the one who seals us for the day of redemption. We also see that at the baptism of the Lord Jesus. Each person of the Godhead, we see God the Son in human flesh, and he is identified with his people. And he, the father's voice booms from heaven. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And then God, the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove. This is also in the Old Testament. For example, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 61, we'll just read just one verse there, in Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. And so we've got three persons there, the Spirit, of the Lord God. So we have the Spirit of God and a reference to the Lord God. And then who's the me? It is Messiah. And so the Bible teaches that there is one God in three persons and that they are one not only in their being. There's not three gods. There's one true living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But they are one in their work. One last passage, Matthew chapter 28 in the Great Commission. We are told, instructed by our Lord Jesus that we are to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name. And Greek is a very precise language. And grammatically, This is not correct, but it is correct. It doesn't say names, but it says name singular, and then you have three names. So what's going on? Well, it is the name of God, the one true living God, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So, the Bible reveals that to us, and it is at the very heart of the gospel that each person of the Godhead is doing this amazing work of redemption. Yeah, that's a big question, isn't it? Describe the work of the three persons in redemption. There's a lot there. But yeah, that passage in Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, that's the passage that Jesus read at the synagogue in Nazareth. And then he gives the scroll back to the attendant and says, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And they want to throw him off a cliff for it. So yeah, it's amazing thing. Okay, as far as discussing the roles, I was a really, really good discussion of their roles. So I wanted to share a little story and get Jim's comments on this. I was listening to a radio program a long time ago. And someone brought up this story about Larry King. Remember Larry King, live? And he interviewed a lot of Christian people over the years, and he interviewed a lot of evangelists and stuff. And he interviewed Billy Graham, and Billy Graham asked him the question, if you could sit down with God and would get a definitive answer to just one question, what would you ask him? And Larry King said, I would ask him, was Jesus really born of a virgin? That's actually a really good question. And why is that a good question, Jim? Why is that important? Well, I think several reasons. One of them would be that Jesus was born without sin. And to be born of a woman, I was taught in my theology class and seminary that the sinful nature is passed down through the men. And so to be sinless, he needed to be born of a virgin. So that would be one thing. Another thing would be the miracle, the sheer miracle of being born of a virgin. It was prophesied in Isaiah. And although I have a Jewish acquaintance who likes to say that it says in Isaiah that there was gonna be somebody born of a young woman, and it wasn't the word for an actual virgin, And well, even a prophecy of somebody being born to a young woman, why would that be remarkable? Well, because she was a virgin, the Virgin Mary, who also realized that she needed a savior. In the Magnificat, she talks about her need for a savior. And so she's not an immaculate, sinless virgin to be worshiped. She is a sinner saved by grace. Yes, yes. Yeah, I've heard that argument, too, about the Hebrew term betula is the specific word for virgin. But the word alma that is used there pretty much always only means a young woman that's not married yet. So it really is saying the same thing. It's also translated into the Greek septuagint with the word parthenos, which is the word for virgin. So that is how the term alma is understood there. Be that as it may, it's so important to know, like you said, if Jesus had had a human father, then he would have been a sinner like us. He wouldn't have been able to help us. But as the second Adam, he's got to enter into that broken covenant of works. and fulfill His righteous requirements for us to be tempted in every way like we are and yet remain sinless and be righteous, but also to satisfy His penalty, He has to be fully God. And that's really what a lot of the controversy in the early church, with the Arian controversy that's eventually Creedally, it's solved with the Council of Nicaea, but we know from church history that Creed had to fight for survival for quite some time after that. But the issue of the full deity of Jesus Christ and the two distinct intact natures of Jesus Christ. I want to come to Henry and ask you to comment on that. Why is the doctrine of what we call the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ—the humanity and the divinity—what is that all about, and why is that essential to the Gospel? Well, only God can save, and so if Jesus was not fully God, then there would be no salvation. but only one who is a man could die as a substitute. And so if Jesus were not fully God, he could not save, nor if he was fully man, a real substitution could not be provided to atone for our sin, to make the payment that would rescue us and the perfect life of obedience that is imputed to us by faith alone in Christ. And so this matter of Jesus being fully God and fully man is crucial. It is at the very heart of the gospel. the good news that in the fullness of time, the last Adam did come. The first Adam, he represented the whole human race. And when he sinned in the Garden of Eden, he plunged not only himself, but all of his posterity into the nightmare of being alienated from the living God. And the message of the Bible is that God has not left mankind in the world in this state of darkness without hope. without light, without salvation. And that salvation is in His Son. And so we see a couple of passages, just quickly, one is over in the book of 1 Timothy, where the Lord reminds us that this Savior, had to be a man. In 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 5, we read, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And so the Lord Jesus, he is fully man, fully one of us, and yet he was and is without sin. And the book of Hebrews goes to great length describing how Jesus is the great high priest who is also the sacrifice and is also the altar. And he's the one that we go to to make the payment for our sin. Also, in John chapter 20, we refer to this disciple as Doubting Thomas. Now, that's a bad rap, because he only doubted one week, okay? We ought to call him Believing Thomas, but he stuck with the term Doubting Thomas, and he did doubt that Jesus had really been raised from the dead. He was not with the disciples on the first day of the week when Jesus was bodily raised from the dead and appeared to the disciples. And they had told him, said, Thomas, you should have been there. You missed out, buddy. We saw it. And he said, unless I see with my own eyes and put my hands in the nail scars and put my hand in his side, I will not believe. Well, a week later, eight days later, if you count that day, it's eight days, Jesus came again and stood in their midst. And the first thing he did after he introduced himself, peace be with you, he said to Thomas, Put your hand here and you can just sense the amazement that gripped Thomas's heart and mind. I'm sure he blushed with shame, but he also had great, great joy. And he did confess faith in Christ. And his confession is recorded for us there in John 20. Peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not be disbelieving, but believe. And Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And so only God can say. And so that's why Jesus had to be both fully man, one of us to take our place and fully God, because only God is the savior. Yeah. And question 21 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which we subscribe to, asks, who is the Redeemer of God's elect? And the answer is, the only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. So, there again, you have another very crisp, clear, clean definition to distinct natures, but they're always united in the one person. So, Jim, I wanted to read a passage of Scripture to you and get you to comment on it, because you've been talking about the importance of defining the Incarnation correctly, defining the doctrine of God correctly, and having, you know, defining who Jesus is correctly. Paul said to the church at Corinth in the second letter he wrote to them in chapter 11, verse 4, He criticizes them like this, "'For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.'" Why does Paul speak of other Jesuses, other gospels, other spirits? And why are our definitions essential to these things? Well, the Muslims have a Jesus who did not die on the cross for our sins, did not rise again. But they'll tell you, oh, we believe in Jesus. He was a great prophet. Well, he's not the Jesus of the Bible. The Roman Catholics have a Jesus who did not pay it all, who needs to be continually re-sacrificed at every mass all over the world every day. And that's not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible paid it all. He said, it is finished. on the cross. He made the payment in full. He is the propitiation of our sins. And so it matters because if you have one of these other Jesuses, they don't fit the bill. They don't pay the payment. They don't save. So it's kind of a game of shells, you know, moving the shell here, trying to figure out what's under the shell. We need the Jesus of the Bible. He's the one that saves. He's the real Jesus. And you know, it was Socrates who brought the law of non-contradiction into the philosophy of religion with his dialogue of Euthyphro, where Euthyphro was trying to say holiness was whatever these wild Hollywood-like gods said it was. And Socrates points out, well, they all disagree about what holiness is. So he brought the law of non-contradiction. It was already there. It's in the Bible. A lot of people didn't see it, but it's there. And it's very informative. Those are not real Jesus. I remember when Mitt Romney, remember him? Oh, yeah. When he ran for president, Mitt Romney is a Mormon. And Larry King interviewed Joel Osteen. And Larry King was asking Joel Osteen, so don't you think that, what do you think about Mitt Romney being a Mormon? I remember Joel Osteen said, well, you know, Mitt says he believes in Christ, and I say I believe in Christ, so we have that in common. And, you know, the word J-E-S-U-S, it doesn't mean anything unless you define it biblically, right? So, Henry, why would we say, we look at someone, you know, a nice Mormon person, and we would, if they hold to what that religious perspective teaches, we would say, they're not saved, they're not Christians. Why? Why would we say that? They say they believe in God the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. What's the problem there? Well, they don't mean the same Jesus that the Bible means. The Jesus that they are talking about, and that's true also for the Jehovah's Witnesses. They also, if you talk to them, they would claim, oh yeah, we believe in Jesus. But the Jesus they believe in is not the Jesus of the Bible, because the Jesus of the Bible claims to be fully God and fully man in one person forever. And that's the only Jesus who can save. And we see that not only in John chapter 20, where Jesus says, this is what faith is. It's to confess from the heart, my Lord and my God, to the Jesus of the Bible. But throughout scripture, we see it in the Old Testament. In Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah the prophet is quizzed either in person or it was a vision, we don't know from the text, but he finds himself in the throne room of God Almighty. in the temple, and he sees the living God. He sees the attendants, the flaming mighty angels, the seraphim. And the seraphim are hauling out one to another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the thresholds of the temple were shaking at the voice, and the seraphim were veiling their faces. They have six wings. With two, they flew. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they veiled their face. Now, why would these angels who have never sinned veil their faces before the presence of Almighty God? Well, he is so holy. so perfect that they cannot bear to look, they cannot dare to look upon Him with unveiled face. And so when Isaiah sees all of this, and he sees the Lord, What does he do? He doesn't walk up to the son of God and slap him on the back on the throne and say, good buddy, it's good to see you today. No, he trembles with fear. He cries out, woe is me, I am undone because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Now what did a prophet have as his strong suit? It was that he had the privilege of, by the power of the Holy Spirit, speaking the very word of the living God. point, Isaiah becomes painfully aware of the fact that even though he had spoken the very Word of the living God, yet he was a sinful man in need. desperate need of redemption. And then seen in Isaiah 6, the Lord orders one of the seraphim to go over to the altar and take a burning tongue and come and place it on Isaiah's lips and declares that you are cleansed. And that is how we're made right. The one who died on the altar, his name is Jesus. He gave himself to die there on the cross. When we believe in him, the second we believe in him, the holy, holy, holy God declares us forgiven. and right with the living God. And so that's the message really of the Bible and this teaching of the Trinity and the attributes of God and who the Lord Jesus is. These are all crucial truths so that we might have life by the grace of God to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus so that we can be right with our Creator, the holy, holy, holy God. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Well said. So Jim, I want you to wrap up our discussion here. I just wanted to ask, so if someone, until someone has that Isaiah 6 moment, woe is me, I'm undone. And I pray that way. I pray for the world around me and for our country and for Even people in the congregation, that God would manifest His holiness to them and that they would see their great need for reconciliation with God. We've talked a lot about God's holiness, His justice, and how Jesus satisfies those. So I want to bring it back to a couple of other attributes of God and have you tie these into the gospel for us as we wrap up. What are the love and mercy of God, and how are they manifested in the gospel, the good news of Jesus that we preach to the world? You said the love and what was the other one? Mercy. Mercy of God. Okay. How are they manifested in the gospel? Well, first of all, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, the Lord Jesus, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And that is God's love that he would be willing to send his son and that Jesus was willing to come and that the Holy Spirit was willing to come and convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. All of that is mercy. You know, God loves people and he has mercy in the work of the gospel that he does not give us what we deserve. We all deserve hell. And this is something that I am so shocked. I knew this, and then I became an evangelist 10 years ago. And the most shocking thing to me was how many people think they're good. We're talking about 99% of people that I've talked to. in the last 10 years have told me they're a good person. And I'm just shocked. And it's a major obstacle. And it's why we have to preach sin. And there's a great hesitancy among preachers, I think, to preach against sin, but it's an absolute necessity because people don't even know what sin is, for the most part. Sin is violation of God's law and lack of conformity to God's law. And like I think we've said here today, when the Holy Spirit comes, he'll convict the world where the word is the sword of the spirit. And so for people to come under conviction, the word of God has to be preached against sin. It's not popular, but it's absolutely necessary. And I know preachers who go out like on the streets and on the campuses, when they don't preach against sin, nothing happens. And they're like, well, why didn't, oh, I didn't preach the law of God. You have to preach it. And, you know, a lot of times there were riots when the gospel was preached in the New Testament and Ephesus and other places. Paul was beaten and left for dead one time. I mean, people don't like to hear the law of God preached, but yet it's an absolute necessity. And it's a mercy of God. And it's the love of God that he still wants us to preach it. until it's all over. That's right. Yeah, and I'll just read one last passage and then we'll wrap up here by just listening to you talk. In Luke chapter 23, when Jesus is hanging on the cross and he's got a man on either side of him, they both start out blaspheming him and reviling him. And verse 39 says, Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And then listen to what he says next, And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. What kind of work of the Holy Spirit of God would have to happen for a man nailed to a cross in unimaginable agony to suddenly realize, I'm getting what I deserve? Only God can do it. And that's why, like you said, we've got to preach the law and the gospel. Law is the tutor to show people their need for Christ. And if God the Holy Spirit does not accompany that preaching of the law, people aren't going to see their need for Christ and redemption. But like you said, if we go out and we don't preach about sin and what the standard is, then we've got no context in which the gospel can make any sense. And as Spurgeon said, our doctrine of grace will only be as profound as our doctrine of sin. And so, okay, great discussion today, my dear brothers, very thankful for you. We got through all the notes and right at the hour mark, so that's good. Try to be faithful to time. But we could talk about this stuff all day. I'm excited to get into the succeeding chapters, and we can never exhaust the wisdom and the wonders of what God has revealed in His Word. Amen. All right, well, you guys take care and press on, and I'll be praying that you guys are blessed of the Lord on the Lord's Day to preach the word, and I hope that you'll pray the same for me. Amen. Thank you, Patrick. Take care, brothers. We'll see you. All righty. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. So,