00;00;13;02 - 00;00;42;12
Chris
That's why we've got to know God's Word. And my theology really, truly does matter. Why I loved to preach God's word. And why I try to do it so passionately. Because it's not just facts or things that that don't really matter to the day to day problem of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

00;00;42;14 - 00;00;49;22
Brenton
Welcome back to further. I am Brenton Grim. Chris Carr is back this week and two weeks off here. How are you feeling?

00;00;50;05 - 00;00;59;12
Chris
Pretty good. We're in a very busy season, so. Yes, I would say I'm gearing up for it, but I've been gearing up for it, and now we're we're fully in it.

00;00;59;12 - 00;01;04;06
Brenton
So I've known a little bit of your schedule. Yeah. It has not slowed down.

00;01;04;08 - 00;01;10;23
Chris
And, it will not until Christmas Eve, the last Christmas Eve service is over. So, yeah, it's good.

00;01;10;25 - 00;01;15;21
Brenton
Well, speaking of your busy schedule, you didn't actually have a manuscript this week when you preached.

00;01;15;24 - 00;01;16;05
Chris
Right?

00;01;16;06 - 00;01;17;01
Brenton
How was that?

00;01;18;01 - 00;01;28;21
Chris
It was different, but, maybe better than I thought that it would. So. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that I would do it again. But we'll see.

00;01;28;24 - 00;01;59;06
Brenton
It's fair. All right, well, let's jump into it. So, you used the example of salvation to illustrate the distinct roles of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. God, you know, the father ordains our salvation. God the son accomplishes our salvation, and God the Holy Spirit applies our salvation. I'm wondering if you can provide any other examples of how the Trinity functions in unity, while yet still having distinct roles?

00;01;59;08 - 00;02;29;07
Chris
Sure. I'll give two quickly. In creation, is one one place that we can see him functioning differently? The father wills it. Or again. Ordains plans it and and then says, here's what's going to happen. The son is the agent, so to speak, through whom creation happens. He is the one through whom God creates the world.

00;02;29;27 - 00;02;54;11
Chris
You can see that in John one three. If we go back, a few months now, at this point, Colossians one, Hebrews chapter one, and then this spirit, sustains and gives life. So the spirit is the one who, you know, is the breath, so to speak, there. So father wills it. Son is the agent or, in effect, the creator.

00;02;55;01 - 00;03;02;14
Chris
There and then the spirit is the one who gives the life and and keeps it going. Yeah.

00;03;02;17 - 00;03;21;12
Brenton
Yeah. I think that was maybe surprising a little bit going through John one, that Jesus is really kind of the, you know, you said the agent of of creation. I'm sure there's a lot of different situations in, in Scripture where we see, the Trinity acting and, maybe not even realize it, especially in the Old Testament.

00;03;21;21 - 00;03;23;26
Brenton
We've been through a few of those things. Yeah.

00;03;23;28 - 00;03;46;25
Chris
The other one would be, what we might call Christian living or the Christian life. So the father is the one who adopts us as, his children. We talked about that, too, recently. But Romans eight would be a key passage there. The son intercedes for us. So that's also, found in Romans chapter eight.

00;03;48;04 - 00;04;22;16
Chris
And the spirit is the one who empowers our Christian lives in, sanctify us, through whom God sanctifies us. So sanctification is an aspect of salvation. When I was talking about that on on Sunday, it was more that's more in terms of like justification. Here we're talking about sanctification is is the part of our salvation where we become more Christlike, more more holy, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to bear in our life while the son is interceding for us, essentially praying for us, going before the father for us.

00;04;22;18 - 00;04;28;23
Chris
And, the father is the one who makes us, his children in the first place.

00;04;29;17 - 00;04;57;27
Brenton
Okay. So, to kind of continue on with this Trinitarian thought, you mentioned that many groups of people do not accept that Jesus is God. And I wonder if, you know, part of it is passages like this when we read a passage like this in isolation. It I think you can kind of see why, the Trinity is rejected.

00;04;58;14 - 00;05;24;17
Brenton
I think we see Jesus as submissive to the father here, which is absolutely true. Especially verse 19 that says the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what, what he sees the father doing. And so, I guess, how how can we respond to someone who argues the Christ submission to the father? You know, as incarnate?

00;05;26;05 - 00;05;48;28
Brenton
The the submission implies a lack of being or essence, you know, suggesting that Jesus isn't fully God. So when we look at a passage like this where we see Jesus submitting to the father, I think sometimes that can bring up like issues of, well, if he's submitting to God, how can he be God? Right. So how would you respond to something like that?

00;05;49;01 - 00;06;18;24
Chris
Well, I would first say that it did take the early church roughly 300 years to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity. It didn't, actually become, the official position of the church until the Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D.. And that shows us like this is something that, you know, the church had to wrestle with, but they wrestled with what the Scripture said.

00;06;18;24 - 00;06;43;21
Chris
So you have to to look at Scripture as a whole. This is where you know, biblical theology and systematic theology, both of those things become important for us. Because taken in, in isolation, and this perhaps might lead us to, to assume that you know, that Christ is not equal. The son is not equal with the father.

00;06;44;14 - 00;07;10;25
Chris
So we have to look at everything that the, the, the Bible has to say about this issue. And the Bible does say, say a lot about it. But then I, I think we also got to be careful that we don't bring our, assumptions, especially maybe modern day assumptions, present day assumptions into our understanding of Scripture.

00;07;10;25 - 00;07;51;10
Chris
So today there's this idea that you you have to, if you're submitting to someone, you're not equal to them. Like submission implies in equality. But but that's not actually true. If you if we just think about it as a little bit. So I would submit to, a police officer. Right. Or, someone in, political authority or whatever, that doesn't mean that they are, you know, more valuable or more important that they are of a different essence than me.

00;07;51;12 - 00;08;20;16
Chris
We're human. And and we would not say that they're they're, you know, more valuable than they are. We shouldn't say that. I guess maybe, that, you can be, subordinate to someone and still be their equal. I mean, like, even in this relationship, like, technically, I'm. I'm your boss. That that doesn't make me more important or more valuable than you.

00;08;21;02 - 00;08;21;27
Brenton
But to hear that.

00;08;21;29 - 00;08;48;15
Chris
We're all made in the. You were made in the image of God. And and therefore, and we have equal value, worth. That's a key affirmation for, for us. And so, and this actually plays out a lot. It plays out in the church, plays out in, in marriage. Or at least it should play out in the church and play out in the marriage that people can have different roles and people can be in authority and other people can be submissive, and yet they're still in equality.

00;08;48;15 - 00;09;14;16
Chris
And so I think though we today, there's these, you know, assumptions that submission implies a lack of equality. And that's just not that's just not true. And it's not true logically. And it's not true. Just practically certainly not true theologically. So, but then I think to get back to our text, you know, verse 19, I did point this out.

00;09;14;16 - 00;09;41;12
Chris
I just pointed out again, it says, the son does everything that the father does if if the son is able and actually does everything that the father does, and then there has to be an equality of being, he, Jesus couldn't do everything that the father does if he's not the same, being the same essence, it's just not possible, for that to be the case.

00;09;41;12 - 00;09;54;19
Chris
So it's it's it is both a it's a both and which is why I, I tried to take, time to stress equal in essence, but different and in roles. Yeah.

00;09;54;21 - 00;10;19;18
Brenton
Okay. That's good. Yeah. I, I wonder if this would be, helpful to pull out some kind of systematic theology terms here. Okay, maybe maybe not. But, the, the, there's a division and how we think about the trinity of, you know, the, the ontological or the being essence, view of the Trinity. And then there's the what we would call the economic trinity.

00;10;19;18 - 00;10;51;02
Brenton
And so the, the ontological or the being would be that each one of the members of, of the Trinity are in, in being what they are is God. And so then we look at the economic side of it, and that's more about the roles of each one. And so we see, just as we talked about a little bit ago, that even in, salvation, each member of the Trinity works differently to accomplish the same goal.

00;10;51;04 - 00;11;14;26
Brenton
So I think I don't know, hopefully that's clear, but just the two different views. And I think, you know, this is why we look back, 1700 years ago and the men that that wrote all of this and, and worked it all out, being faithful to Scripture and we, they did a lot, a lot of the heavy lifting for us here at this point.

00;11;14;26 - 00;11;25;16
Brenton
And so we can kind of look back and see how that harmonizes with Scripture. But it's important to keep those two things in mind, that there's the ontological view of it and the economic.

00;11;25;18 - 00;11;52;10
Chris
Yeah, no, that's really good. And and I just want to say two other things here. One, pretty much every heresy flows out of getting the Trinity wrong in some way. Yeah. Okay. So again, I, I mentioned this on Sunday. People can be like, oh, the Trinity, you know, is it really all that important to understand? And the answer to that is there's a limit to our ability to be able to understand it.

00;11;52;12 - 00;12;20;28
Chris
But we do need to understand what, as much of it as we are capable of in Scripture reveals to us, and, then I just remind everyone of the definition, this is Wayne Graham that I find the most helpful. The Trinity is is one God. So there's where the, you know, you talk about ontology. The, equal and being there all the same, being monotheistic.

00;12;21;08 - 00;12;51;06
Chris
Right. Yes. Monotheism. But, three persons. Okay, father, son, the spirit, and three persons with three distinct functions in the way that they, interact really with the world, we might say. And, and, yet three em one, which is where it's okay wrapping our minds around that. But then the final part of that is, each of them are fully God.

00;12;51;08 - 00;13;20;15
Chris
So one, one God, three persons, each of those persons is fully God. And we may not be able to fully understand that, but that's what Scripture clearly teaches. And we must affirm, that and then understand, and, and grow in, recognizing how pretty much everything in the world flows out of that. In our, our theology in particular flows out of that.

00;13;20;21 - 00;13;22;19
Chris
Yeah.

00;13;22;22 - 00;13;46;28
Brenton
Yeah. Well, and I think another thing that we could point out quickly here is that when we, when we when I started this question, the, the word I used was when we read things in isolation and, and I think that one thing that we need to understand is there's no one place in Scripture we can go that's going to give us the definition of the Trinity, right?

00;13;47;04 - 00;14;17;27
Brenton
There's no one proof text. And so understanding that, you know, we approach a topic, or a passage like, like John five with our kind of Trinitarian presuppositions because of how the rest of, Scripture speaks about about God. Right? So so we're not hitting that John five in a, in a blank slate. We're already we're coming out of John one where we have already been told you know, Jesus is Jesus is God.

00;14;18;15 - 00;14;29;26
Brenton
And so, yeah, I guess I just I don't want people to think that we can just point to one, one specific passage and say, here's the Trinity, because the Bible never uses the word Trinity. It's not that.

00;14;29;26 - 00;14;57;26
Chris
Clean, right? Yeah. I mean, you mentioned bring in a true theory and presuppositions in this passage. The reality is, though, is that this passage helps us with the to develop our presuppositions and Trinitarian presuppositions and actually is maybe the key passage in the relationship between the father and the son in all Scripture, or at least it gives us the the most, to work with their in understanding what that is.

00;14;57;26 - 00;14;59;12
Chris
Yeah. What they should ship is like.

00;14;59;13 - 00;15;29;00
Brenton
Sure. Okay. So this kind of brings me to a question that was, submitted by, a listener. And it has to do with kind of the father's father in the sons relationship. Essentially, you know, you were talking about the the unity and love that the father and the son have for each other. And he said I could not help but be bothered by another portion of Scripture from Isaiah 53.

00;15;29;26 - 00;16;01;29
Brenton
I could hear another, teaching from my passing. It pleased Yahweh to crush him. I also pictured Christ on the cross being abandoned. I struggled to understand this, and as someone who deals with fatherly abandonment, both the concept of love and unity are as hard to grasp as being forsaken and crushed on the cross. And so, I guess, to narrow that down, how do we square, God the Father and and Jesus the Son being in perfect unity.

00;16;01;29 - 00;16;09;03
Brenton
And yet on the cross we see, maybe a breaking of that unity.

00;16;11;03 - 00;16;58;00
Chris
Yeah. I mean, this is, a tough question. Yeah. And I am reminded when faced with questions like, like these and this is I should also say is, you know, it is understandable where this question comes from. And how someone could, could, could ask this question and wrestle with this. So I just want to affirm and recognize, that I guess, I, we begin by saying we gotta make sure we understand that it wasn't that God the Father forced Jesus to come to earth or forced him to the cross.

00;16;58;02 - 00;17;32;28
Chris
Yeah, like he did it. Yeah. He made him do it. And it was against Jesus's will. This is a place where they were in lockstep in in unity with this, this plan. And in order to save the world. And so when, we got to begin like that, I think sometimes like our, our negative reaction to this can can be in part because we, we think about a father abusing their child.

00;17;33;02 - 00;17;36;01
Brenton
And we've discussed the idea of the cosmic child abuse. Right.

00;17;36;01 - 00;18;04;02
Chris
That's like it's it is, you know, we've all had parents who've made us do things that we don't want to do, and in them may even be in a good way, but but so we can naturally like, you know, the father is making Jesus do something terrible that he he doesn't want and doesn't want to do so Jesus willingly, in fact, Hebrews 12 tells us for the joy, set before him, he endured the cross.

00;18;04;04 - 00;18;26;12
Chris
And and so there was as hard as it is for us to maybe get our minds around this, that there was joy in, in the cross for Jesus, or going through it on what's going to come on the other end of it. I'm sure not joy in the actual experience. I want to be clear on that.

00;18;26;14 - 00;18;57;14
Chris
And, he Jesus makes it clear we see it in in our passage this week. It was it's his will to do the father's will like he does. He wanted to do the father's will. He wanted to please, please the father. And, so I think we got to start there. I think we go back, and, when, this submission says I could hear another teaching or I passed saying it, please.

00;18;57;14 - 00;19;22;27
Chris
Your way to crush him. Well, that's actually that. That's not just the teaching. That's that scripture. And and so, but I think we got to understand it pleased Yahweh to crush him. It didn't. It's not that God took delight in it. I think that's where it maybe we get a misunderstanding, like God's delighting in in the death and the the murder of his son.

00;19;22;29 - 00;19;49;07
Chris
I think what Isaiah is telling us there is that it was God's desire and plan, to send his son to the cross so that people could be saved. And he he could get the glory. And and I'm going to make it this point for Isaiah. Isaiah is all about God getting the glory. Like I say, I'm I will not give my glory to another.

00;19;49;09 - 00;20;13;08
Chris
And so what's pleasing God? There is not the death of his son. It is is it is the glory that he and the son and the spirit are going to receive through the salvation of people. And so, does that that makes that mean like, yeah. I don't know what response. Maybe I'll just let you respond to that.

00;20;13;08 - 00;20;13;20
Chris
There.

00;20;13;20 - 00;20;39;02
Brenton
But yeah, I'm just reading through the passage right now. It's Isaiah 53. It's I'll just read the ESV. Says yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

00;20;39;05 - 00;21;10;09
Brenton
Yeah, I, I think what you're saying makes sense. The I, the voluntary aspect of that is absolutely important. But also, you know, we we learned through Scripture that this was always the plan, right? This was this was not a surprise. It wasn't a reaction to anything. This was the plan to ultimately bring more glory to God himself. You know, and and, you know, I we're coming out of this Trinitarian, talk.

00;21;10;12 - 00;21;16;29
Brenton
Jesus is God, right? And so Jesus is is still, receiving glory through, through the atonement.

00;21;17;05 - 00;21;40;03
Chris
Right. Well, we've seen in John already, you'll see it again. It's like Jesus talks about the hour. He's he's going to say, father, glorify the son. Right. Like and he's talking about the cross like the cross is, is is where Christ is glorified. And so this like, it's not the way that we naturally think of it.

00;21;40;03 - 00;22;04;08
Chris
And that's, this is where we've got to submit ourselves to, to seeing this through the lens of Scripture. And what God is saying is like, Jesus is glorified through the cross. And I think if we think about that a little bit, we we can we can see that, like, look at the glory of someone who's willing to die for the people who have rebelled and sinned against him and the the.

00;22;04;12 - 00;22;41;16
Chris
Just like how great Jesus looks in, in, through the cross, in the resurrection. Yeah. And so that's in view in Isaiah 53 is like the God is is glorifying not just himself, but he's glorifying God the Father is not just glorifying himself, but but also his, his son. In, in through that and I, I think it's important here that we recognize that we shouldn't be comfortable, completely comfortable with everything we see happen at the cross.

00;22;41;16 - 00;22;52;05
Chris
Right? Like like, okay. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Like this. Yeah. There's no like, man, like, what's going on there? Yeah. Well.

00;22;52;07 - 00;23;19;29
Brenton
Yeah. And I, I think that we can sometimes go too far with what, what Scripture says about Jesus at that moment. You know, I'm kind of reminded of Second Corinthians five again. I'll bring it up this time. Verse 21 says, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin. And I think, you know, we we kind of have to wrestle with what that means.

00;23;20;02 - 00;23;50;07
Brenton
Did Jesus actually become sin? Did he become sinful? At that point, no. And I so I think keeping that in context of did did God actually for good break like, was this out of some, bad motivation from the father to, to do this or was it, part of his, you know, loving decree to, to bring many to himself.

00;23;50;11 - 00;24;26;27
Brenton
Right. And so it it's it's easy. And I just don't see this as completely analogous to a human father son relationship. Right. I think it's a correct. It's a it's a good way to think about the relationship. And that's obviously the way that scripture, you know, gives gives this relationship is kind of the familial like father son, but the, the abandonment things that we talk about here on earth from, from fathers is those are those are problems with the father, right.

00;24;26;27 - 00;24;27;24
Chris
The earthly father.

00;24;27;24 - 00;24;51;10
Brenton
Yeah. And and the son becomes the victim. And I just that's that's not what's going on here. This is, again, the voluntary these these, these two persons are in total agreement with what's going on, and, Yeah, I don't know. I just think we need to be a little careful how how far we go with with this conversation.

00;24;51;10 - 00;25;20;23
Chris
Yeah, I think that's really good. And I completely agree with you first, and I maybe I should have even begun with this. Like this individual. And then there are many, many other people in our church who struggle with, fatherly abandonment. And so, it's certainly understandable how, that definitely impacts I mean, our, our relationship with our earthly father deeply impacts how we view our Heavenly Father.

00;25;20;25 - 00;25;51;16
Chris
And there's no getting around that. And so anybody who's experience abandonment by the earthly father is going to struggle to see their heavenly father is completely loving, in all that he does and has done. So but we just got to be careful there that, like you're saying, we don't then just allow that to determine and direct the way that we think and, about theologically about the relationship between the father and the son.

00;25;51;16 - 00;26;11;16
Chris
And I want to go back to something you just so I think that is really, really good, the the father and the son in the spirit before the foundation of the world had this all planned out and, however, this works amongst the members of the Trinity they all agreed on like there was a total 100% agreement on this plan.

00;26;11;16 - 00;26;24;18
Chris
There wasn't any twisting of arms. In regards to this. And and so I think we've got to think of it in, in those, those terms. Yeah.

00;26;24;21 - 00;26;32;21
Brenton
Yeah. I don't know that we can give a full orbed response to this. So hopefully that conversation was helpful, but we'd be happy to take any more.

00;26;32;21 - 00;27;04;14
Chris
Questions about that as well. But I but I also want to just want to say if if you find yourself struggling with this is just to to see like your to to to recognize into a hopefully if you can affirm that your earthly father is not like your heavenly father, like they couldn't be more different. And your Heavenly father is not abusive, in any way.

00;27;04;14 - 00;27;28;23
Chris
Take advantage of you of any way. He is loving and gracious and merciful and loves you more than you can possibly fathom. Yeah, and how do we know that? Well, he was willing to to send his son to to die in your place. And I know that that may sound like a bad answer, because we say it all the time, but that's the answer.

00;27;28;23 - 00;27;33;07
Chris
The Scripture gives a time and time again. Yeah.

00;27;33;10 - 00;27;44;16
Brenton
Okay. The you said that God is not merely loving. You said that he is love. So what do you what do you mean by that?

00;27;44;27 - 00;28;19;18
Chris
Just what I said. All right. Yeah. As he actually just quoted in verse, John, you know, for but I maybe just to answer succinctly, everything God does is motivated and defined by his love. So I'll say it again. Everything God does is motivated by his love and is defined by his his love. So, you know, I mentioned creation, love motivated that.

00;28;19;18 - 00;28;44;25
Chris
And we can see, his love in, in the world that he created for us. Salvation certainly is motivated by his love. And salvation defines as love. And, I think, we may have a question here a little bit more about judgment here, here in a moment, but that is even motivated. And defined by his his love.

00;28;45;02 - 00;29;08;25
Brenton
Yeah. I think we see something kind of similar. You know, the I think how I would put this is that God is the standard of love that that we shouldn't compare ourselves against. Just like, when we think about Christian morality. Right. It's not God isn't good because he does good things. God is is is the standard of good.

00;29;08;27 - 00;29;15;15
Brenton
And so that's what we compare ourselves against is God's character. And so yeah, I think that's kind of what you're saying there.

00;29;16;02 - 00;29;32;27
Chris
Yeah. Well, I mean, so first Corinthians 13. The love chapter love is all of these things that's got God. God is patient, kind, all of those things. So yeah, maybe the best way to understand it.

00;29;34;06 - 00;29;54;23
Brenton
I'll just throw this out here. Often I hear people refer to God as all loving, and I don't know I don't know where that came from. I think, coincidentally, it seems to come out most when unbelievers are trying to justify their sin. But what do you what do you think of this concept? Is God all loving?

00;29;54;26 - 00;30;31;05
Chris
Well, first I would say it's not just unbelievers. So I'm sure believers will will do that too. I, I think in terms of like he is love, so that means he is always loving, but that doesn't mean what people mean when they say he he he always responds just solely with love. Like, regardless of what I do, there's no there's no judgment or he, he, he doesn't have anything negative to say about my choices.

00;30;32;02 - 00;30;55;12
Chris
And, and so I think that that's what they, they mean is like it doesn't it doesn't matter what I do or that's okay. Or, you know, I'm just forgiven because God is gracious and merciful and sort of anger and all that kind of stuff. And there's, a yes, but also another aspect to them.

00;30;55;15 - 00;31;13;05
Brenton
Yeah, there's definitely things that God does not love. Right. And I think this kind of comes in line with the rest of God's attributes when we say he's all powerful, he's all knowing, and you slip in all loving to and it just sounds right. But there are plenty of things that God hates. Anyway. Yeah.

00;31;13;07 - 00;31;26;14
Chris
Well you know the Bible when he talks about he's all powerful. The Bible does say that he is powerful, but not in the same way. It's not in the same way as when he says God is love. Yeah. So.

00;31;26;16 - 00;31;50;29
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Moving on. The third claim of Jesus that you covered on Sunday was that, he is the judge. I'm sure this is something that, some or all of our listeners wrestle with. I, I guess I'll just kind of open this up with, how can we square the love of Jesus with the justice of Jesus?

00;31;51;01 - 00;32;27;08
Chris
Well, justice is an expression of his love. I think that's the best way to, square it. Psalm 33 five. The Lord loves righteousness and justice. And so, we may think it in terms of the, the vulnerable, the oppressed. He his justice does that. His, his love for justice does that. He restores what is broken, redeems that is, an act of his love.

00;32;27;09 - 00;32;50;20
Chris
But it's also an act of justice making things right. A great example we're going to run into in John chapter eight, verses one through 11 with a woman caught in adultery. Jesus shows her great compassion clearly shows that he loves her. But then, you know, basically says to all the religious leaders, stand around, you want a stone?

00;32;50;20 - 00;33;12;01
Chris
Or like, you know, you, you who are without sin, throw the first, throw the first stone, and then they all leave, the oldest first and then the youngest, which I can't wait to just talk about this whole whole story. But we then at the end, when she it's just her and Jesus, he doesn't just say, hey, your love.

00;33;12;03 - 00;33;43;21
Chris
Yeah, sure. Go. Go and live your. You live your life however you want to. He says go and sin no more. So there's love and there's this justice. There's do right. Live a righteous life. So, again, I mentioned his love is, redemptive. And we see both love and justice on the cross. Right. And and then the key passage there is Romans three, where Paul says a guy could be just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus on the cross.

00;33;43;21 - 00;34;17;00
Chris
God's just because he requires sin be paid for. He has to. But he is loving in the sense that he sent His Son as a propitiation to take the punishment for sin. So God can't just, you know, this idea. That guy can just kind of say, okay, everybody gets a, you know, get out of jail free card. And that's, you know, because he's loving that, actually makes him unloving because I, someone who's loving wants justice, requires justice to be done.

00;34;17;00 - 00;34;44;01
Chris
And so, you know, I think about this in terms of, you know, you have a daughter, I've got a couple daughters. If somebody harms your, your daughter, it it it would it would not be loving for you to say to the perpetrator, oh, it doesn't matter what you've done, you're you're going to want justice. And that's a right that that's that, that's a righteous and loving.

00;34;44;04 - 00;35;05;22
Chris
Not like I think God given natural experience. Know how how you carry that out is another matter. You know, how we seek justice is, is is, comes into play there. So we got to consider that. But it's not loving for, for for for me to simply say it doesn't matter what's been done to you. Just like I'm going to love that person.

00;35;05;24 - 00;35;11;25
Chris
Guy probably, who's harmed you. And so I'm not going to do anything about that.

00;35;12;01 - 00;35;30;07
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, I think that it's a good, analogy there. I think when you look at, like, our justice system. Right? We we don't we don't want to judge that. That is pardoning everyone. Sure. Right. We want we want justice to be done in those situations. And it doesn't it's not unloving for someone to be punished.

00;35;30;07 - 00;36;10;01
Chris
Well, if we want to if we want to bring politics into this, but let's just go there. I mean, and I would suggest that President Biden's pardon of his son is not loving to his son. Yeah. Certainly not loving justice. Right. And and people will say how can you be just him and love your son. Well that that may be one of the reasons why he's in the situation, that he's not in the first place is because there was never any, you know, rules or not or any discipline.

00;36;10;07 - 00;36;28;00
Chris
And it's it. Yeah. So, yeah, we maybe we'll get some, emails about that, but I think it, it is a good I think it is a good example is like when justice is perverted, so to speak. There's the we are actually, perverting love as well.

00;36;28;07 - 00;37;00;21
Brenton
Yeah. Yep. I'll leave that one alone. All right, let's wrap up. With, another submitted question. Really? She's asking, can you can you flesh out a bit more about believers and nonbelievers? On Judgment day? She said today, you said believers who have passed will be raised on Judgment Day and reunited with their spiritual bodies and be present with Jesus in the new Earth.

00;37;00;23 - 00;37;19;00
Brenton
Nonbelievers will endure judgment in the wrath of Jesus. So the question are, are believers spared all judgment? If a believer has not passed away and is still alive on earth when Jesus returns, are they judged?

00;37;19;24 - 00;37;56;20
Chris
Well, let's talk about the term judgment here. If we're talking about judgment in terms of condemnation, the answer is yes. Believers spared all condemnation, so believers are spared all of the condemnation that unbelievers will experience. So, the Bible talks about two different judgments a great white throne judgment, which is which unbelievers will experience. And then there's, Paul talks in second Corinthians chapter five about the judgment seat of Christ, which is something that believers actually will will experience.

00;37;56;20 - 00;38;21;18
Chris
And that's a judgment over works. And it's a judgment, for rewards. And it doesn't determine our eternal destiny, but it does determine in part what our experience will be on the new heaven and a new earth. So that second Corinthians, five passages in the same section where Paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

00;38;21;18 - 00;38;52;28
Chris
So I mentioned that on on Sunday. So unbelievers who die go into the presence. Their spirit goes in the presence of the Lord. Their body goes into the ground. First Thessalonians four would tell us that when Jesus comes back, the dead in Christ will rise first and then, both believers and, that who have died and who are alive, them will receive, new glorified, perfect, imperishable bodies.

00;38;52;28 - 00;39;13;02
Chris
And they they will live in those bodies with Jesus on the new heaven and a new earth forever. Now there are other, things that happen around that. And believers have disagreements as to, to, you know, when and how and all of those kind of things. And not going to I'm not going to get into that today.

00;39;13;05 - 00;39;47;08
Chris
But to answer the question, we we as believers have no fear of judgment. Actually, there's no fear in love because perfect love drives out all fear. We have, the love of God. We will always have love God. And so there's no fear. We have no fear judgment. In terms of condemnation, we will have to, but it seems answer for how we have lived our lives and what we've done with the time, talents, and treasures that God has given us.

00;39;47;10 - 00;40;02;20
Chris
And, but again, it will not be in terms to condemn us, or to punish us, but really in terms of whether we are, rewarded to the degree that we will be rewarded for, the way we live our Christian life.

00;40;02;22 - 00;40;07;05
Brenton
All right. Well, hopefully that was helpful.

00;40;07;07 - 00;40;13;13
Chris
We could have just opened up for more Picasso. All the different things we talked about here today, but can't wait. Yeah.

00;40;13;18 - 00;40;31;19
Brenton
So, yeah, there's a lot of topics that we could talk about. But I appreciate, you put it in this week and you answering some questions today. We'll be back next week with, Jesus wrapping up that conversation that he's having. And, yeah, I'll talk to you next week.