You know, it's always, when I
speak, it's always refreshing to come to a church where the
pastor is a teaching pastor. It's very difficult, I've been,
throughout the years I've spoken at so many different churches,
and I've spoken at Charismatic churches, Assembly of God, Lutheran
Methodists, all kinds of churches. Sometimes when you're teaching,
you can see in the audience, a lot of them that haven't really
been exposed to teaching, or having a teaching pastor, and
you look at them and it's as though they're in a dense fog.
They have no idea what you're talking about when you're talking
about substantive issues. So it's always refreshing for
me, and it's always comfortable for me when I'm talking to people
on the same page, in terms of seeing the importance of doctrine,
in terms of seeing the importance of being able to share accurately.
And it always reflects on the pastor. I've known James since
the early 2000s or something. I met him up north, California,
the Holy Coast. Harley, right? And we used to
do a lot of conferences once a year up there. And I got to know him very well.
And I tell you, it's rare to find teaching pastors. It's easy
to find. cruise ship directors that lead
churches. But it's hard to find. It's just
a rarity teaching pastors. And I always appreciate men like
Pastor James Tippins because he sees the importance of educating
the church. He sees the importance of honoring
God in your doctrine. Because the Lord says himself,
Hosea 6.6, Yahweh says, I, I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifices. want knowledge, he says. Knowledge
of God is better than all the works you can possibly do. And
he says this in Hosea 6. That means all these works that
you're doing that a lot of folks do, unless you have accurate
knowledge of God, you could be damaging people in your presentation. And worse off, it's not loyal
to the Lord. I wanted to talk about a subject
that's very important because, as the apostle points out, In
places like 2 Timothy 2.8, it's part of the gospel. And that's
the pre-existence of Christ. Anything that has to do with
the person, nature, and finished work is part of the gospel. And we have to understand that
when we're out there, we're speaking to folks who are not regenerate,
unsaved. Number one, we have to understand
that they literally are zombies. I mean, spiritually speaking,
they're dead people. So in that sense, When we're
presenting an accurate description of who the Son is, we're glorifying
God. Whether God saves him or not,
we're glorifying Him. In fact, Paul says, quoting from
Isaiah, our feet are beautiful that deliver the gospel. He calls
them beautiful. He doesn't say it's beautiful
when you see tons of conversions. He says it's beautiful when you
present the gospel, which is, of course, the power of God for
salvation. And this will be our key text, John 8, 24. Jesus said, and it doesn't reflect
on our English translations, but we have to keep in mind English
translations really are secondhand information. Translators do the
best they can, and for the most part, look, the essentials of
Christianity are contained in our passages. I don't have to
give you Greek. I don't have to give you Chinese.
I don't have to give you a Slavonic, a Hebrew. I can read it from
this translation, a recognized translation, give you all the
basic truths of the gospel and who God is. But sometimes, and
this is why we study, we go to the original. And it's good to
compare passages and consult the Greek text when you're looking
at the New Testament, to consult because sometimes the Greek text
can enhance a word or phrase or a meaning. John 8.24, Christ sets forth
a condition. He says, unless you believe,
that I am he in your translations, or I am the one I claim to be.
The NIV has brackets on that phrase, I'm the one that I claim
to be. You will perish in your sins.
Now, if you have an NASB or a couple other translations, you'll see
that the he there, unless you believe that I am he, is italicized
because the translators are letting you know that the pronoun there,
he, was not in the original text. In the original Greek text of
John 8, 24, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will
perish in your sins. Now, of course, he says this
several times. He affirms the I am with no predicate,
meaning I am what? Just I am. The Jews understood
this clearly because In places like Isaiah 41.4, 43.10, 48.12,
Yahweh says, I am. See now that I am. Deuteronomy
32.39. See now that I am. There is no
other God aside from me. So the Jews understood what this
phrase meant. It's a present indicative, am,
meaning I'm the one that always was. It's a stronger term in
terms of a claim to deity than just saying, I am God. Because
judges were called God, false gods were called God, mighty
men were called God, angels were called God. So if Jesus would
have said literally, I am God, well, what would that mean? Is he claiming that he's an angel
or a judge? But we find that Christ was more
precise in his claim to be deity because he used phrases like
this and other ones like alpha and omega, first and last, that
only Yahweh used. So there'd be no mistake. He
was claiming to be full deity, the eternal one. Unless you believe
that I am, you will perish in your sins. And this should be
our key text when we're looking at the eternal nature of Christ. Not the eternal thought, as if
the Father was thinking of someday there's going to be a son, but
rather the person of the Son pre-existed from eternity. We believe in the doctrine of
the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity holds
that there's three divine, distinct persons that share the nature
of the one God, simply put. Unless you're an atheist, you're
not going to accept it. Only regenerated people accept
the doctrine of the Trinity. Only if you're regenerated. Now,
you might say, well, what about Roman Catholics? Don't they assert
the Trinity? Well, they affirm the concept
of the Trinity, but since they deny the work of the Son as being
sufficient for salvation, they have a different Son. than the
son that's presented in biblical revelation. So I don't say they
believe. You can't deny the son or anything
about his work and claim you have the son of biblical revelation.
If you don't have the son, you don't have the father. And if
you don't have the father and son, you don't believe in the
doctrine or concept of the Trinity, at least how it's presented in
scripture. John 8 24 is a key text. Question
is, if the Son, and I pose it this way, if the Son really preexisted,
meaning in terms of His person, what would we expect to find
in the Bible? If He really preexisted from
all eternity, co-eternal with the Father and with the Holy
Spirit, what would we expect to find in Scripture? I've marked out four particularly
things that we would expect to find in Scripture. Number one,
intimate fellowship and communicable activities between the Father
and Son and the Holy Spirit. We would find before time there
was intimate fellowship with the persons of the Trinity and
they communicated Did they speak in King James English? No. We don't know how they spoke.
But that's why we say there is communicable activities, and
that's exactly what we would expect to find. Intimate fellowship
and communicable activities between the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Also, we'd expect to find passages
that show clearly that the Son was sent from somewhere else.
From heaven. We also expect, number three,
passages that show that the person of the Son was the creator of
all things. Because if he was the creator,
that means he's eternal. Because he himself is not created. And four, we would find clearly
passages that show that the person of the Son was distinct from
the Father, but He was divine. We would expect to find passages
in the Scriptures where the Son before the Incarnation was a
divine person distinct from the Father. That's what we expect
to find. I like to explore these points
briefly. And then I'd like to talk to
James about this. If you have any questions toward
the end, please ask. We'll take some time out for
that. So number one, we would expect to find intimate fellowship
and communicable activities between the father and son before time. Now, I'm going to focus more
of my intention on the New Testament, but I just want to say a couple
words of the Old Testament. Do we find Christ in the Old
Testament? Where? Where? I mean, huh? We do. We find him in Isaiah
9-6 and all these other places. We really do. And also with the
angel of Yahweh, right? If you look in the Old Testament,
from Genesis to Zechariah, we find this character, the angel
of the Lord, right? But, now what does angel mean? Messenger. The malach in the
Hebrew, the angel of Yahweh. But we find that this particular
angel of the Lord was identified as Yahweh. Who spoke to Moses
through the burning bush that said, I am the one? It was the
angel of the Lord. Who told Moses in Exodus 3, I
think verse 6, I'm the God of your fathers? Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. I'm the God of your fathers.
It was the angel of the Lord who was the speaker there. Who
spoke to, remember the three visitors to Abraham? In 18, it said there was three
men. But one is identified not only
as the angel of the Lord, but as Yahweh. And he spoke to Abraham. And we read that Yahweh said,
but it was one of those visitors. One of them. And Sarah even laughed
at him. Very interesting though, in chapter
19, I think verse 1, 2, or 3, we find that the narrator says,
and the two angels, Where's the other one? Well, the other one
was Yahweh. And he was speaking to Abraham.
And then he's talking about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
It culminates in verse 24, 1924. We read this in the infallible
scripture. Then Yahweh rain brimstone and
fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh in heaven. That's communicable
activities. Yahweh rains fire, rains brimstone
and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and it says he does this from
Yahweh in heaven. How do you explain that? It's
only consistent with monotheism, the doctrine of one God. one
being, in the context of Trinitarianism. In fact, the early church used
1924 of Genesis to show that God was multi-personal and not
unipersonal, like a Jehovah's Witness or a Muslim or a one
that's Pentecostal would believe, a one-person deity. The early
church would use, among many others, Genesis 1924. I'd like
for everyone to go to John 1.1. John 1.1. John 1.1 has been used historically
by the early patristics or early fathers and used by modern scholarship
to affirm the deity of Christ, the distinction between the Word
and the Father, and the nature of who the Word is. In the beginning
was the Word. The Word was with God. And the
Word was God. Basically, the Greek says essentially
the same thing. The only difference is the very
end clause, where it says, and the word was God, the Greek actually
reads, God was the word. Theos, hein, halagos, God was
the word. Because in Greek, when you wanted
to emphasize a word, they didn't have punctuation points. They
would put the word of emphasis first. We call this the emphatic
position of the word, as if The author wanted the reader to shout
it out. God was the Word. John 1.1, simply
three clauses. In the beginning was the Word.
That's clause A. And the Word was with God, clause
B, and the Word was God. Simple, right? In the beginning
was the Word. The grammar there shows that
the Word was already there in the beginning. The imperfect
tense is used. In the beginning was. The word
pain or was. Imperfect. A past continuing
action. That means that the word was
was antecedent or before the beginning. The word was already
existing. He preexisted. John 1, 1, I would
submit it refutes every theology of non-Christian cults. From
the beginning, the very first clause, it's presenting Jesus
was, the word was eternal, before beginning. And then we read the
second phrase, and the word was with God. Now, the word with
is pros in the Greek text. Now, there was many words for
with in the Greek. And John could have used son,
para, and meta, you know, different words. But prost normally denotes
intimate fellowship. In the beginning was the eternal
word and the word was prostambion, with, intimate fellowship with
the God. In fact, we find that term as
it relates to us, Romans 5.1. Therefore, having been justified,
we have peace. Prostantheon, with the God. The same words used. Same preposition
as John 1. The Son had fellowship with the
Father. We have fellowship with the Father. Because we have been justified
through faith. 2 Corinthians 5. Absent from
the body, is what? Prastankirion, present with,
intimately, the Lord. So in John 1.1b, the Word was
distinct and had intimate fellowship with the Father, and the last
clause, and the Word was God. It's a very strong statement. Now, it's so definitive that
the Word was God Jehovah's Witnesses had to actually change their
Bible or add an indefinite article. So if you ever seen their translation
and the word was what a God reads. Now, the question is, can it
be translated like this now grammatically, it is possible, but theologically,
no, it contradicts John's theology. And we interpret by the context,
not just by a word. God was the word. As to his quality
or essence, don't say the God, it says God. It's pointing to
the quality and essence, not the person of the Father. It's
a beautiful set of passages. And we know that the word here
had personal attributes that were applied to him, like in
him was life. It's the light of men. John the
Baptist, verse 6, was a witness unto the Word. John 10, he was
creator of all things. And John 14, he became flesh.
And what does John 1, 18 read? No one's ever seen God at any
time. That's because the Father no
one has ever seen. He's in His nature. He's invisible.
No one has ever seen God at any time. And John writes, I'll say
what he writes, then I'll interpret it. Monogenes Theos, the one
and only God, or the unique God, who is always at the Father's
bosom, revealed the Father, revealed Him. And if you look at that
passage, What you don't notice in a translation is a couple
very important points as to our discussion of the pre-existence
of Christ. In John 1, we already saw that he was always existing.
In John 1, 18, if you read it, no one has ever seen God at any
time. And it says the only begotten, some translations will say son. I think it's a better reading
to go and see the earlier translations if you have ESV or NASV or even
NIV. the only begotten God, or the
one and only God. Right after that phrase, if you
look down at your text, it says, Who is? Now, in the Greek text, we call
this, and I'll explain it, this is a present participle. An ongoing
verb. Who is always. Timeless existence
in these contexts. It's from the same verb when
Jesus said, I am. From the same verb. So, literally,
no one has ever seen God. The one and only God who is always
at the Father's bosom has revealed Him. It's a beautiful text denoting
the pre-existence of the Father. And by the way, in Romans 9.5,
the same haon, the one always being, Paul uses it in Romans
9.5, to them belong the patriarchs. from their race according to
the flesh is the Christ, Ha'on, the one always, Panton Theos,
who is God over all. The Son is always God over all. So we have two verses that so
demonstrate the eternality of the Son, the person of the Son.
Why is this important? Because we should grow in the
grace and knowledge of who God is. I'd like to go to John, since
you're in John, John 17.5. Remember, we're looking at the
first point. Communicable activities, intimate
fellowship between the Father and Son or the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. John 17.5. Now, this is Jesus' high priestly
prayer. He says, glorify me together
with yourself. Literally, it says, now glorify
me, you, Father. It's literally what he reads.
Together with yourself. Parasa alto. With yours. It was
a shared glory. And we know in Isaiah 48 too,
and other places, Yahweh does not share His glory with anyone.
Right? He says, Now, Father, glorify
me together with Yourself. It's an I and You relationship
here. A shared glory. With the glory which He Akan,
I had, in perfect tense. He possessed it. He says, I possessed
it. With the glory I possessed. When
did He possess this glory with the Father? What does the text
say? before the world was. Pratutam kasavan anai. Before
the world came into being, I was sharing glory with you. He's
praying for the restoration of the glory which he had from all
eternity, but he had it with the Father. He shared it with
the Father. Our point number two, what would
we expect to find? Passages that show clearly that
the son was sent from heaven, not as an idea that the father
had, but the son was specifically sent from heaven. Interesting.
Jesus Christ himself, the Gospel of John. Asserts in a very strong
way that he was sent by the father 40 times in the Gospel of John,
that he was sent from somewhere else by the father. Now, the
one that was sent was not part of creation, like Jehovah's Witnesses
did, but he was sent from eternity. He was sent. This is the eternal
God, the Son, who was sent, as we see in John 1 and John 1.18. In John 6.38, I like to go, this
is a, I use this in debate, in fact, the last debate I had with
the one that's Pentecostal, this is one of my primary texts, because
there's a lot of theology in it. We don't have time to go
through all of it, But for simplicity's sake, I want to go through a
couple points here. John 6.38. First in John. Now, there's always a pragmatic
context. We always got to look for the
context when we interpret anything. Because context rules. It rules
over the definition of words. It rules over Greek constructions.
It rules over tenses. It rules the context. In verse
35, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Whoever is
ergomenos, the coming ones, whoever is coming to me, will never, never, or literally
shall never, never, not even a possibility, go hungry. That's
a very strong phrase he uses. It's a double negative here,
followed by a mood of possibility. So he's saying in the most emphatic
way, who's ever coming to him will never, never, not even a
possibility. Thirst. That's what it literally
says. And then he says, whoever is believing in me, participles
used, that's us. We're actively believing. The
regenerate Christian does not stop believing. Who's ever believing
in me, will never, never, double negative again. Not even a possibility,
thirst. So you'll never go hungry and
you'll never thirst. Then he says in verse 36, some
of you don't believe. There's some standing here that
just don't believe. And then it's in verse 37 following
that he explains why they don't believe. Verse 37, he explains
why they don't believe. The first word is what? All. All that the Father gives me,
hexe, will come. It's a future indicative. That means it's a presentation
of truth, grammatically. Jesus says, if you were given
by the Father, you're going to come. You're not going to think
about it. ponder about it. He says, you
will come. Hexay, future indicative, you will come. And he says, whoever
comes to me, what? I will. We have that double negative
again. It's beautiful. Never, never,
not even a possibility. Will I cast them out? Ume, never,
never. Ume, equilo, exo. Never, never,
not even a possibility. Will I cast out the ones that
the Father gave to me? Now, if you notice, he says, only the
ones that the Father gave me. Then the next verse, the same
referential identity, the Son. He says, because I have come
down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will
of Him who sent me. Before He came to earth, according
to the grammar here, Before he came to earth, he says, I'm going
to do your will and not my will. There was communication, intimate
fellowship. It's a very powerful passage
here. Similar to John 3.13, no one
has ascended into heaven, but he who descended, ectu urano,
from the heavens, the son of man. So we see the sent passages,
and there's many. And then. Our point number three,
what else would we expect to find? So we expect to find communicable
activities, intimate fellowship between the father and son. We'd
expect to find places where Jesus is sent. The son is sent from
somewhere else by the father from heaven. In fact, in John
6, alone, he's sent from heaven nine times. We read this in John
6. But number three, what would we expect to find? Passages that
show. that the Son was the agent of
creation. There are several passages that
do this, not just one. John 1.3, literally it says,
again 1.3 is connected to verse 1 and verse 2, verse 18. He's a creator of all things,
in 1.3. It literally reads, Panta di auto, again it talks. Through Him, the Word, who is
God, who is with God, who was God, through Him, all things
came to be. Or literally, all things through
Him came to be. All things through Him, the Son,
came to be. Also, in verse 10 of John 1,
we have the same really construction, the through him. Just remember
the through him. So I'm going to note something on the through
him. In Colossians 1, 16 and 17. Now
again, if you ever read a New World Translations, you know
how they butchered Colossians 1, 16 and 17, they add the word
other four times. He's before all other things.
But let's read how the apostle actually wrote it. I'll start
with verse 14. In whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible
God. The firstborn, meaning he has supremacy over all things. In verse 16, by him, all things. Now, the all things that's used
here in 16 and 17, it literally is translated as The all things. There's an article there. The
all things. So no one would, no one will
make a mistake. Remember, he's combating that
horrible view of Gnosticism, which they didn't believe a good
God or a good angel or a good Eon would ever create anything.
But Paul says no. Not only in him do we have redemption,
which was a a concept in Gnosticism, wasn't called Gnosticism, but
that whole philosophy that would cause their blood to boil. It
was so repugnant. But through him, all things were
created. The all things. Tapanta. The
all things. Both in heavens and earth, visible,
invisible, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things,
Tapanta, have been created through him. Remember that, through him,
like we saw in John 1.3. And for him, he's before all
things. And in him, all things, sunesticane,
hold together. See how many times he says all
things? Now here's the point I wanted
to draw your attention to. The phrase, through him. Grammatically,
it indicates agency. It indicates dia alta, through
him. It indicates agency grammatically.
This is not just an arbitrary thing. By way of God, the Holy
Spirit, revealing that Jesus is the actual agent of creation
through him. And we see that construction,
dia with the genitive, the preposition dia means through, and alta,
him. We see that also, same construction,
denoting agency. First Corinthians 8.6. through him all things Hebrews
1 2 through him the world was created Hebrews 2 10 is that enough passages to show
the prove biblically that the Sun was a creator of all things
especially Hebrews 1 10 our last point what would we expect to
find if the Sun pre-existed we would find that many passages
that show that he was God before he came to earth. The person,
the distinct person, was both co-eternal and distinct from
God the Father. That's what we expect to find.
Now, first, again, aside from Genesis 19.24 or Daniel 7.9-14,
where you have the Son of Man and the Ancient of Days, it's
interesting, verse 9 of Daniel 7, it says, the thrones were
set up. Plural, the thrones were set
up. Then it speaks of the Son of Man coming in the clouds.
And it speaks of the Son of Man that all the earth and the languages
and men will worship him. Right. Which is consistent with
the New Testament. But aside from these passages
that show distinction, and we went over John 1, 1 and
John 1, 18 that show he was always in existence as a divine person.
And also in John 17, 5, because only a divine person could share
glory because Yahweh does not share his glory with anyone else.
And the doctrine of God is that there's three persons who share
the nature of the one being. There's many passages. I'm just
going to go to two, Philippians 2, 6 through 11. Now, we can
take a whole week, weeks and weeks to look at Philippians
2, 6 through 11, but I'll just read it and I'll highlight just
a couple areas. Now, what was the context of
Philippians? It's interesting because Paul
doesn't really talk about a heresy. in this church. But he does talk
about heresies in the other church, like Galatians, Romans, all these
others, and Colossians. But here, there's no apparent
heresy. Their problem, as far as we can
see, is a humility problem. If you look in chapter 2, Paul
is telling you to put others first. Put others first and think
lowly of yourself. Think of others as higher. It's
easy to do. See, this is the easy part to
teach. but to live it out and put people first. That's the
hard part. That's what the Lord is telling
us to do. Put people first. Think of yourself
as lowly than them. That's humility. So the whole
context is humility. Then he gets to verse 5 of chapter
2, and he says, have the mind that Christ had. And then, in
this beautiful hymn, the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as
God, from verses 6-11, Paul presents the greatest and
most clear illustration of what humility is. The ultimate example
of humility. He's saying, you know, I want
you to be humble. You want to know what real humility is? Let
me tell you what real humility is. Verse 6. Who, although, I'll read these
three terms in Greek, the next three words. Morphetheo huparkon,
which means the nature of God existing. Who, although he was
God subsisting, it's a participle there, huparkon, he was always
the nature of God. So whatever the other verses
are saying, Paul safeguards against a view that he became God or
he lost his deity. Because he says, who always is
existing or subsisting, huparkon, in the morphe, the substance
of God. He did not consider, hegesetaka,
regard equality with God a thing to be taken advantage of or to
be grasped after. He didn't have to regard that.
Keep in mind, and this is a semantic, very important grammatical point.
When he was considering, it says he did not consider, that word
consider, only a person can consider or reckon something. Electricity
can't consider things. When he was considering this,
this is before he emptied himself. In heaven as God. Verse 7. A thing to be graphed,
and it says, But he emptied himself. Now, when it says he emptied
himself, the auton, he himself, ekinosin, emptied himself, this
is what's known as the reflexive pronoun. It's where the subject
does something to himself. So the emptying was a self-emptying. The Father didn't empty him.
The Holy Spirit didn't empty him, according to infallible
scripture, if you believe it. But Paul is saying he himself,
he out on he emptied himself. Remember, he's talking about
humility. God, the son emptied himself. But how did he empty
himself? See the next word. Taking. He emptied himself by the participle,
taking. Labone, in Greek. He emptied
himself, how? By taking the very nature, or
morphe, same word as verse 6, of a servant. Being found. Phenomenos. Being found in human
likeness. Being made in human likeness.
Being found in the appearance of a man. How did he empty himself? By taking the nature of a man. His incarnation. The ultimate
example of humility. by becoming, says he humbled
himself, by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
He humbled himself. Again, a reflexive pronoun is
used. He himself humbled himself. He did it. No one humbled him.
He did it to himself. He humbled himself, became obedient
to death, even death on a cross. And then it says in verse 9,
for this reason also, God, the Father, highly exalted Him and
bestowed the name on Him, which is the name above every name."
And in verse 10, in order that clause, that the name of Jesus,
or the power and authority of Jesus, the name, the name that
belonged to Him, the name of Jesus, not His name, like my
name's Edward, and there's James over there. Not the name in that
sense, but rather The name, it's a genitive of possession, Jesus.
The name that he possessed. The word Jesus, Jesu, is a genitive. He possesses the name. Because
it's not the mere linguistic symbols, Jesus, because thousands
were named Jesus in the first century. It's a common name.
But rather the name that he possessed, and we'll see the name that he
possessed. In order, at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow,
or bend, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
the glory of God the Father. Now, here's the interesting thing
here. Paul loosely quotes from Isaiah
45, 23, where Yahweh says every knee will bend of me, every tongue
will confess of me, that I'm Lord. Paul takes that Old Testament
future prophecy, because there's future tenses that are used,
He imports it to Philippians, but Paul changes the tenses,
it's very interesting what he does, to make it a purpose and
result, no longer than a future. The actual fulfillment of the
prophecy in Isaiah 45, 23 and Romans 14, 11. The fulfillment
of that is Christ. What is Paul saying? That Jesus
is the Yahweh of Isaiah 45, 23. The fulfillment of that prophecy
to the glory of God the Father. It's beautiful. Now, there's many other passages
we can go to that show He was God before the Incarnation, like
Hebrews 1-3 and others. I want to give you just one more,
and it's in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews. Hebrews
is a contrast, the first chapter.
A beautiful, sharp contrast of everything created, angels, heaven
and earth. There's nothing outside the category
there of creatures, right? Heaven, or angels, the heavens
and earth. He makes a contrast between everything
created and the eternality of the sun. That's the context.
That's what the author does. And another point is, from verses
five onwards, it's as though the author of Hebrews steps back
and now he's just citing the Father. It's not even his own
word. He's citing the Father from v. 5-13. Now v. 6, it's an affirmation
of the Son's deity by telling all the angels. It says, again,
when He brings the firstborn into the world, let all the angels
of God worship Him. This is a strong commandment.
Arius Imperative. Worship the Son, you angels.
And it says all the angels, proving that Jesus is not what? An angel.
And only God can be worshipped. And the Father affirms, worship
is to the eternal Son. In verse 8, your throne, O God,
is forever and ever. He's talking about the Son. But
I want to look at verse 10. This will be our last passage. Now, in verse 8, it says about
the Son. So there's no difference of referential
identity. It's still the Son that the Father
is speaking to. And you, Lord, in the beginning,
and you, Lord..." Who is he talking to? The Son. Just like verse
8 about the Son, he says, you. Verse 10, "...you, Lord, in the
beginning, laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens
are the work of your hands." Who is the Father talking to?
He's speaking to the Son. He's directly addressing the
Son. Now here's the beautiful thing
about this passage. In Greek, they had different
cases depending on the function of the sentence. In other words,
if I'm talking about James, I can talk to someone. You know that
guy James? See, I'm not talking to him. I'm talking about him. But there's a particular case
that's called the Bacchative, and I'll explain it. It's the
case of direct address. It's not even used that much
in Koine Greek. It's rarely used. But the word Lord here, when
he says, you Lord, in the beginning, lay the foundation of the earth
and heaven to the work of your hands. The word for Lord is not
the subject Kyrios, which is Lord, but it's Kyrie, Kyrie,
Kyrie, which is Lord in the direct address. So no one will make
a mistake. The Father is directly addressing
the Son. You, Lord. He's directly addressing. He's talking to the Son. And
He's affirming that the Son... Where did the Father quote this
from? It's an Old Testament quotation. Psalm 102, 25. Where the context
is Yahweh in Psalm 102. is the unchangeable creator of
all things. And from 12, in Hebrews chapter
1, verses 10 through 12. It's quoting that psalm. Psalm
25-27. So what is the Father saying? He's saying, You, Lord, You're
the Yahweh of Psalm 102. Because I'm talking to You and
the Father's applying the psalm that's directed to Yahweh as
the unchangeable creator The father is applying that to the
son. So according to the father, the son is the Yahweh of Psalm
102, the unchangeable creator. The father's affirmation. Remember,
the author of Hebrews is stepping back and he's just quoting the
father. So in conclusion, and there's many other passages where
the son is presented as the Yahweh of the Old Testament by New Testament
authors. like Romans 10 9 through 13 in
verse 13, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be
saved. Well, the only Lord there in that context is Jesus as Lord
confessing Jesus as Lord. But that came from Joel 2 32.
He's a Joel of two. He's the Yahweh of Joel 2 32. And we already saw in Philippians.
He's the Yahweh of Psalm or Isaiah 45, 23, and 1 Peter 3, 15, and
Isaiah 8. I mean, there's so many places
where a New Testament author would quote a passage in the
Old Testament referring to Yahweh and apply it to the Son. In conclusion,
the New Testament affirms in the clearest way the preexistence
of the divine Son. We saw the intimate fellowship
and communicable activities, like in Gentleman 1, where they
had fellowship before the incarnation. We also looked at passages where
Jesus was sent from heaven. And number three, we looked at
passages where Jesus was the actual agent of creation, particularly
with the grammar there. John 1.3, Colossians 1.16-17. And finally, number four, we
find places where Jesus is presented as God, distinct from the Father,
but before the incarnation. John 75, Philippians 2, 6, following. So in sum, this is a very important
point of our doctrine. Because if we can't show the
world in our gospel that Jesus is God, what are we doing? What
are we proclaiming out there? John 3, 16? I mean, we've got
to be solid that He was the Lord. Now, you don't have to give an
exhaustive presentation like I did. What you can merely proclaim,
He's God, the unchangeable creator of all things. That's all. Because
God uses our proclamation of the gospel, this is the normal
means he uses to save his people. And it's our obligation to preach
Christ crucified. But as Jesus said, unless you
believe that I am, that I'm God, you will perish in your sins.
And he is the eternal God, the unchangeable creator of all things.
Let us close in prayer. Lord God, thank you for this
information and scripture. Thank you that we're able to
hear your words. And we're able to, because we
have the ability, to proclaim to a dying world the gospel of
the Son, Yahweh incarnate. And thank you for revealing in
scripture that He alone is the eternal divine person, the Son.
We thank you that the biblical authors and yourself and Jesus'
self-proclamation proves this to be true. This is the God that
we serve, one God revealed in three persons. He's the unchangeable
creator of all things, the Yahweh of Psalm 102. And we thank you,
Lord God, that you saved us and you brought us to this understanding. So I pray for everyone here,
Lord God, that they will be benefited and they can use this information,
Lord God, not only in their self studies, Lord God, but they can
use it when they go out of the church into the world. And I
pray for this church, pray for the pastor, I pray for the people
here. In the name of Christ the Lord
Jesus, God the Son. Amen.