Q & A

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It’s now our joy to turn to our question and answer session. Yes sir, and by the way the other rule is you have to give me your name, not because I don’t know but because there may be others who don’t, so…

Hey Tom my name’s Dustin Drain, and after hearing about the Shepherd’s Conference and how much y’all ate and ate and ate, this question may even carry more weight, so.

Oh, you realize that was Dad humor right, there, okay? That’s what my girls say when I do that sort of thing, those puns, oh Dad, that’s Dad humor.

Yea, well I’ve got the third one on the way so I’m due. Recently I’ve been working through Don Whitney’s book, Spiritual Disciplines, last week I read through chapter 9 that deals with fasting. Whitney lays out a very convincing and convicting plea for believers to incorporate this practice into their spiritual lives. I was particularly surprised when I learned that fasting was mentioned more than baptisms or baptizing and on several occasions Jesus seems to expect His followers to fast. For example, Matthew 6:16, and 17 Christ uses phrases like, “and when you fast” and “but when you fast” providing us with detailed instructions on what to do and what not to do when we fast; very similar to His instructions on how we should pray. So my questions are: Did Jesus do this practice Himself and expects His followers to also fast, is this something we as a congregation should receive instruction and place emphasis on, and secondly is this something we should make a priority in our lives and embrace as a discipline, kind of like prayer?

Yea, no that’s a great question. What about fasting? What role does that play? Just to start, I would say this Dustin, there is a lot of disagreement about, not about the fact of fasting or that it should be a part of life. The question is in what way, in what form? And that’s where the disagreement comes. I’m going to give you a brief answer, but I will say that I dealt with this in much more length in a message I did on the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 6 beginning in verse 16 Jesus deals with this issue of fasting. There He’s talking about the fact that we are not to be like the hypocrites, we’re not to do it to be seen. But in developing that text I addressed the whole issue. What about fasting? What role does that play in the Christian life, so, I’m going to give you a briefer answer to the question here, but if you want to sort of fill that out I would suggest that you go and listen to that.

When you look at fasting in the scripture you will find that first of all it is not prescribed, and so in that sense there’re records of it, it is expected, as you said – Jesus said “whenever you fast” “whenever you fast.” Fasting was a part of the nation of Israel, there was only one, if I remember correctly and it’s been a while since I’ve gone through this material, but if I remember correctly there’s only one national fast required and it was a one day fast. It was often fasts in the scripture when they are done when you see specific examples of it, it was for even a part of a day, for the daylight hours or that sort of thing. But I think the key question is what are the circumstances that prompt it? You see examples of the Pharisees who schedule it as a sort of weekly routine into their lives. You remember Jesus in the story in Luke 18 talks about the fact that the Pharisee is standing there and he’s praying and he says I thank you that I’m not like other men, and he inserts into that as Jesus is recording this sort of arrogance of the Pharisee, He inserts into that that this Pharisee takes glory in the fact that he fasts twice a week. This was the prescribed amount of fasting for a Pharisee. Of course those who were more spiritual would do it more often. Just to demonstrate, just like they did with the other parts of their show, to show that they were more spiritual than others. But when you look at scheduled fasting, apart from the one prescribed fast that was a part of the nation of Israel, you won’t find it as prescribed, in other words it’s not like a routine. We’re to pray daily, right? We’re told that that’s a priority with us. We’re to be in the scripture daily. We’re not told to fast weekly for example. So I would say I would start out by saying, you have to let the scripture govern what you do and don’t do and what’s prescribed and what isn’t prescribed.

The second thing I would say is that when you study fasting and I bring this out in that message that I recommended to you, when you study fasting invariably it connected to (Welcome back Seth and Kirsten, good to see you guys, sorry, you caught my eye. I was talking about you earlier.) But when you find fasting in the scripture you find that it is a response to a circumstance, it’s not a discipline in the same sense. I would disagree a little bit with Donald Whitney in saying that it’s a discipline that ought to be sort of prescribed regular part of your life, like bible reading, like prayer. Those are daily disciplines; those are routines that ought to be built into life. The only routine of that sort I see built into lives in the scriptures is the Pharisees.

What you do see with fasting is it is a response to ones circumstances. When you are overwhelmed by what you’re facing, it is a response that says, I am so distracted by this issue, I am so overwhelmed by what I’m facing in my life, whether it’s a decision to be made - for example Jesus you remember was often tied in His prayer life, He prayed all night, when? We have two records of Jesus praying all night. It was when there was a massive decision or a massive event that was coming. And I think when you study fasting in the scripture you see the same thing; it’s often tied to the circumstances of life. There are fasts tied to national tragedies, there’re fasts tied to personal tragedies, to massive life changing personal decisions. And so I think I don’t see personally I don’t see a defense in the scripture of fasting as a regular spiritual discipline in the same way that prayer, scripture reading and those sorts of things are. I do think it ought to be that when we are in a difficult circumstance, we ought to be so consumed with that circumstance that they’re going to be times that we just don’t want to eat so we can devote that time to prayer, we can devote that time to pouring out our hearts before the Lord.

And that brings me to the third crucial issue I would say about fasting. Fasting in particular very easily translates into a sort of earning something from God. And it’s hard for us to get away from this I mean just to be honest with you. There have been times in my life when I have fasted, and particularly in my younger Christian life, I remember one particular circumstance when I was preparing to preach a sermon at the prison, I preached every Saturday night at a prison when I was in college and early grad school and I was preparing the sermon, and my heart was heavy with it and I was working all day in construction on Saturday to make a little money as a poor college student and working hard and I chose that day not to eat anything and then assumed it would be a good idea then to go preach – but in my mind to be honest with you, I really was thinking kind of a tit for tat. If I do this then God is going to be somewhat obligated to bless my ministry of the word that night in a unique and special way. And I think it’s very hard for all of us with fasting. I’m not sure why that is true, for that not to become a sort of earned credit. Like I’m getting brownie points with God, if I do without this then somehow it’s going to obligate God to respond to me or to my request. I don’t think that’s the biblical idea at all. And again I’m not saying that that’s the point of your question, I’m just saying that’s a temptation we all face in this area. And so I would say you have to get that out of you mind and say, no, this is about God expressing my heart and the heaviness of my heart and the circumstances I’m going through or this pressing decision I have to make to God. And I’m going to devote as much time as I can to this and I’m not going to be absorbed in the normal issues of life as much as I can including eating. And so those would be some sort of things I would say, but I would fill it out with that message. I’d go listen to that and let that give you more instructions. But I would say those things are the things you have to guard against in your thinking. I don’t see it as a prescribed weekly discipline, for example. Not saying there’s anything wrong with that, you know this isn’t a fast, okay? I’ve read up and through Doug Briggs our dear friend and brother I’ve been doing this sort of intermittent fasting thing, not for spiritual purposes, but because it’s good for my body. And so you can go without food, you know I do that almost every day. But that sort of prescribed fasting; I just don’t see it in scripture. There’s only one, as I said. So I think you have to get that first in your mind and then come to these other issues, it’s not earning anything with God, it’s not sort of a tit for tat, if I do this it’s going to somehow give me additional favor with God, I’m going to earn something. Maybe I’m the only one that faces that temptation, but I think it’s a very real temptation. And then I think seeing it, not as a – I need to do this all the time. Jesus Himself you remember, said, when the bridegroom is here you don’t need to fast. He’s saying that the fasting is tied to life circumstances, now granted He was talking about His being here and then when He left, fasting would be more appropriate. But I think He’s still making a larger point and that is it doesn’t make sense at certain times to be fasting and other times it does. And again if you’ll trace it through the scripture you’ll see that. I try to do that in that message. Okay?

I know you’re going to be disappointed, but I don’t have a pun for you tonight. I want to refer to Matthew chapter 12 where Christ is responding to the scribes and the Pharisees when they ask for a sign and He says in verse 40, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And then in Jonah chapter 2 he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me.” This is from the stomach of the sea creature. “I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.” Now I’ve got a sort of running discussion with someone about this. They claim that this refers to Jonah as having died in the belly of the fish. Since Christ is comparing His three days in the tomb with Jonah being…what is your take on it? Did Jonah die?

Yeah, I don’t think there’s any indication that Jonah died. And I think you know what does Jesus say? You know it’s always back to, what does the bible say? My father-in-law who was a theology professor for fifty years and is now with the Lord, used to say that all the time. But what does the bible say? In this case, Jesus is very explicit; He says in verse 40 of Matthew if you look there, Matthew 12 verse 40, “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster.” That’s what He says. As he was in the belly of this fish, in the same way, “so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And so He’s just comparing the reference of time. Now that raises, so I don’t believe that Jonah died in the belly of the fish and I don’t see any biblical evidence for that.

But it raises another question and a question maybe some of you have had. I’ve had this question from many people. And that is why does Jesus say here in Matthew chapter 12 that ‘He will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”? And I’ve had people in my life, even teachers who’ve said, okay we’ve got to take Sunday morning resurrection and we’ve got to back up three days and three nights and so all of our time figuring for the time of the death of Christ must have been wrong because it says three days and three nights. Well He’s making an analogy here. He’s tying the basic time frame of Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish to the time He’ll spend in the heart of the earth, dead. Jonah alive in the belly of the fish – Jesus dead in the grave. And so they’ll say well does this mean we need to rethink it? Well let me give you the big picture, this is the only time in these references to Jonah that Jesus say’s three days and three nights. But there are dozens of other references that says He will rise on the third day. That is the primary way that Jesus states the time of His extent in the grave; on the third day.

Well if you know anything about ordinal numbers, third is an ordinal number. If you have ordinal numbers that means if you say on the third day, it means you have one day, second day, third day. And so if you take the traditional understanding of the timing of the crucifixion – Friday, He goes in the grave before Friday is done that’s a portion of one day in the Jewish thinking. Saturday ‘til sunset the second day, and then the portion of Sunday morning when He’s raised – three days. On the third day, He rose. And so that’s the most common way to say it. But the big question you’re asking is no, I don’t see that evidence. You know that term if you look through the psalms especially it refers to a person being near at the gates of Sheol, what you have is often a reference to someone who comes near death, who is brought to the very precipice of life itself. So I think that’s all Jonah is saying there, as he’s referencing the fact that he is near the end of human life because of where he finds himself and the circumstances, but not that he actually died.

I’m glad you clarified that because he uses that cross-reference in Jonah to support his position that Jonah died.

Yeah but if you go to the psalms and you trace down that same word you’ll find that the psalmist will often refer to himself in the same way, and so it’s simply a poetic expression to say, ‘I came near death.’ That’s all he’s saying, I don’t think there’s any argument that can legitimately made that Jonah died and was raised to life. And I think all Jesus is saying, He makes it very clear, ‘just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish’ (I don’t particularly like sea monster as a translation myself) but that’s the point, in the fish. In the same way, timing wise that’s what’s going to happen to Me, but I’m going to be in the grave. Okay?

Thank you, I’m better armed now.

I’m Kari, and this was topic of dinner conversation on Friday night at the Chalgren family, so I’m going to try and say this correctly. We got on the topic of the Holy Spirit which is always kind of interesting, just because you can’t find a lot out there on the Holy Spirit. There’s not a lot of sermons, I know you’ve preached some on that and Dr. MacArthur has, the question was, kind of the comment was, does the Holy Spirit exist? We know that the Holy Spirit is God, God is God and the Father is God in the Trinity. Does the Holy Spirit exist to point to the Father and give Him glory or do we ascribe the same glory to the Holy Spirit, God, and the Father? Or do we have different forms of glory that we give to the, I know Mariah and I as my partner we’ve just talked about the Trinity and it’s just very intensive, and it’s hard to get your mind wrapped around the Trinity and I don’t think we ever will, but does the Holy Spirit, why does the Holy Spirit exist then? Do we glorify the Holy Spirit or do we….?

Kari, you’ve gone over your quota of questions, I just want you to know that. You’ve got about five there I have to remember.

I know this is inquiring minds - my brother and I got into a very intensive conversation.

Alright, let me start by reminding us of who the Holy Spirit is and how He fits within the context of the Trinity. The basic biblical understanding of the Trinity, you can see it even in the passage I read this morning. In the Matthew 28 passage, that is one of the places as at the baptism of Christ where you have all three members of the Trinity mentioned in the same context where it’s clear that the ancient heresy of modalism. Modalist believes that there is one god and one person and he’s kind of just putting on different hats. Right now he’s the Father and he’s hurrying over here and he’s acting like the Son and he’s hurrying over here and he’s acting like the Spirit. You can’t really have that at the baptism, right? Because you have the Father speaking from heaven, Jesus being baptized and the Spirit descending as a dove. You have the same thing in the great commission because Jesus says, I want you to baptize them in the name – singular, one name so that means there’s a unity of being of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And even the Greek construction is very carefully worded so that you have this sense of this unity, one person, one name and yet there’s a plurality of persons. So there’s a unity of – I said person, let me say it differently, that’s not the word I wanted. There is a unity of being but there is a plurality of persons, so there is one God. The doctrine of the Trinity is essentially built on a basic syllogism and you can prove this with any two members of the Trinity. But everywhere you go in scripture you were told there’s one God. First Corinthians 8:6, “there’s one God.” You go to of course the great shema in Deuteronomy 6, there’s one God. Again and again and again we’re told there’s one God. That’s point number one of our syllogism.

Point number two, pick another member pick one member of the Trinity, let’s pick the Son. Jesus is God. Alright I can take you to countless passages; we did that a few weeks ago where it’s clear that Jesus is God. So you’ve got one God, Jesus is God that’s point number two, you could do it with the Spirit as well, and then the third point is that Jesus and the Father are distinct. Okay? I can take you to passages where Jesus is talking about the Father and the Father speaks from heaven to the Son and Jesus speaks to the Father. You have, there’s a distinction between them. When you put all of that together, there’s one God, let’s take the Spirit, the Spirit is God, I can take you to passages that show that. Then you have the Spirit is distinct from God. There is a distinction between Jesus and the Spirit and a distinction between the Spirit and the Father. What you’re left with out of that biblical teaching is the doctrine of the Trinity. There is one God; one being that is God eternally existing in three separate persons.

You say, how do I think about that? Well like you said, eventually you’re going to find yourself in a locked room somewhere with a straight jacket on, because He’s God – we can’t put Him in our little box. But it’s not illogical; it’s not a breach of logic to say that there is one person one being eternally existing in three persons. Okay? That is not a contradiction. If you said there’s one person and three persons – that’s a contradiction. But to say there’s one being that is God eternally existing in three persons that’s not a logical contradiction it’s what the scripture teaches.

Now, let’s go to more your question then. The Spirit Himself then is an equal member of that Trinity. He is one of the persons of the Trinity equal in every attribute. There is no attribute that belongs to the Father, there is no divine attribute that belongs to the Son, forget His humanity for a moment, there’s no divine attribute that belongs to the Son that doesn’t belong to the Spirit and you could say that about all three of them. So they are identical in equality in being, and in attributes. However, they are not identical in personhood, so that, and here’s the way it can be said theologically, there are three distinct centers of consciousness within the one being that is God. Let me illustrate this way for you. When Jesus was dying on the cross, the Father didn’t think I’m dying on the cross. Okay, because He wasn’t, He’s a distinct person – one God in three persons but three distinct centers of consciousness. The Father was aware that the Son was dying on the cross and He wasn’t. As Jesus was dying on the cross, He was aware that He was dying on the cross but the Spirit wasn’t. Okay, so one being that is God completely equal and yet distinct centers of consciousness within the Godhead.

Now, because of that back to your question specifically, is all three persons within the being of God are equally deserving of our praise and worship. There’s a great book, I’ll just be honest with you it’s a heavy sledding book, okay, because it was written by a Puritan, John Owen, in specific if you know anything about that, it’s hard work, it’s going to sweat your brain, but it’s called Communion With God, it’s an excellent book that talks about the fact that we owe equal worship and praise and communion with the Spirit and the Son and the Father. In fact I would even argue that while for the most part scripture teaches that our prayers should be directed to the Father, I can show you examples that it is acceptable to express our prayers at times to the Son, you’ll hear me do that and at times to the Spirit, because they’re all three equal, they all have different roles, they’re three distinct persons with different roles within the Trinity - but equally deserving of our worship, so it’s not inappropriate to worship any person in the Trinity. In fact I would say it’s our obligation to do so.

But now let’s come back to roles and this comes to your other, that fifth question you asked. I think I’m getting most of them, okay. There are distinct roles of the Persons in the Trinity. And so, the role of the Spirit as we see the scripture is to specifically apply the work of redemption. The Father initiates the plan of redemption, the Son accomplishes the work of redemption, and the Spirit applies the work of redemption. So He has a distinct role. Because of that it’s His primary ministry to work in us and through the word to center our praise on the Father and the Son. Not because He isn’t worthy of praise, not because we shouldn’t praise Him, but because that’s His role, that’s His work within the great ministry of redemption. And so there is a distinction, because of that’s why we pray primarily to the Father, because of the great and vast majority of the prayers in scripture are addressed to the Father. We also pray to the Son, because there are a number of examples of that. We pray less to the Spirit because there are only a couple of examples of that. And so, but it’s acceptable and John Owen makes a great case for it in that book Communion with God.

Now to your other issue in terms of what books or how to understand the Spirit and His role. I think you would enjoy this book, it is a little more of a book written to pastors, but it’s the most helpful book I have found on the Holy Spirit. And that is a book written by Sinclair Ferguson, I think it’s just called The Holy Spirit if I remember right. Have you read it? Re-read that, because I think it is very helpful, you can also check out the section in the new Systematic Theology that John MacArthur and Dick Mahew put together, I think there’s a helpful section in there on the Holy Spirit as well. R C Sproul wrote a book on the Holy Spirit that’s also helpful. So if you want to get into that issue more and learn more about the Holy Spirit those are the resources I’d recommend. But absolutely it’s appropriate for us to worship and to praise and even address our prayers to all three Persons of the Trinity. They are equal in every way and there are examples of that in the scripture.

Who’s next?

Tim Baker. I can’t take full credit for this question because William Tyler, he’s out in California right now and he was staying at my house and he was going through his study reading and he brought it up one morning and so anyways…Matthew 27 let’s start at 52, “The tombs were opened,” this is when Christ was being crucified. “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out from the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Now the question is is this part of the 500 that were mentioned in Acts, or what happens to these people? So they’re raised up and they resurrected at His crucifixion, are they witnesses that were just kind of explaining to or kind of making a profession of the Christ and all of that stuff?

Right. Well there are a couple of questions there, let me just answer the first one. And that is that you kind of implied but didn’t specifically ask and that is when were these people actually raised? If you look at the text carefully, if you have your bibles, look at it. Matthew 27 and verse 51, it says at the moment of Christ’s death, verse 50, “and He yielded up His spirit.” You know it’s interesting; I have to stop and say something. As I was preparing for the psalms project I mentioned a few minutes ago, it struck me again, afresh, how much Jesus prayed the psalms. First of all, we know He did it in the weekly worship in the synagogue. And that was the consistent pattern of His ministry to be in the synagogues on a weekly basis. We know they sang the psalms, we know they prayed the psalms in the weekly synagogues, so Jesus did it there.

But here in the moment of the greatest turmoil of His soul, the records we have of His addressing the Father are in the words of the psalms. You know, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ Psalm 22:1. And here this it’s not mentioned here what He said; it just says ‘He cried out with a loud voice.’ But this is when He said, “Father into Your hands I commend My Spirit.” From Psalm 36 if I remember correctly. And so I’m just struck with that. But he goes on to say, “behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split.” So there are these signs intended to show who this really was and is. And then verse 52, “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Get the order here of what Matthew is saying. He’s saying that when Jesus died and that great earthquake happened the tombs were split apart, they were opened, but, Jesus was raised before they were raised. Okay? There’s no indication here in fact he says it, he says, ‘coming out of the tombs after His resurrection.’ Which implies, I mean I doubt they were raised to life and just lay there in their graves until you know a day and a half, two days, that’s not the point. The point is their graves were split open in the great earthquake that accompanied His death and then after Jesus’ resurrection, He was the great first fruits, right? And those who followed were examples of what will eventually happen to us, that we too will be raised to new life.

Now to your follow up question. What happened to them? Well we are not told in what form they were raised. We don’t know if they received glorified bodies and later after they were seen, they were taken into heaven, or more likely they were raised like the people that were raised in the time of Jesus, when He raised people. He didn’t raise them in glorified bodies. They were raised with bodies like we have and they eventually died again. What a bummer, you die twice! But I think that’s probably the more likely explanation here, but we can’t be absolutely certain. It’s certainly one of those two options. But they were evidence and this is the great encouragement; their resurrection was proof to those First Century Christians of two things. One that Jesus Himself had been raised and secondly that He had the power over the grave and that all of His followers would eventually follow Him in coming out of the grave. And so we have great hope here for ourselves and for those we love that nothing can contain Him, not even death and including those He loves.

Yes, yes, sir.

I’m Judah Aquari, as you know. So my question goes to in Matthew and I also believe this is covered in Luke where the disciples have come back from their first time Jesus sent them out and Jesus says, I first sent you out and you didn’t go with the coin bag or with the staff, but now take your bag of money and a staff and if you don’t have a sword, you know sell your cloak and buy one.

Right.

Is that last part a command that all Christians should have weapons capable of defending themselves in the day they live in?

Yeah, no. That’s a question, that’s a good question Judah and it’s a question that a lot of Christians wonder about. What is going on there? Well first of all you have two different experiences that Jesus is preparing them for. In the one case the persecution against Him and His followers has not reached full steam, and so they don’t really have to be prepared for that. But the second time, He realizes that the persecution level has risen significantly against both Him and His followers. And so He’s simply trying to prepare them for that. I think that you cannot make a case from that command any more than you can make a case that the rest of those specific commands are given to us. Okay? I mean you walk around with a staff, yeah, no. You see what I’m saying? I think He is simply preparing them for what they will face.

Now can we extrapolate a sort of principle? Okay, maybe so. Certainly we know Peter carried a sword. We know that he pulled it out right, there in the garden and whacked off the high priests servants ear. And so the idea of defending yourself is a New Testament concept as well as of course an Old Testament concept. In fact under Old Testament law you were allowed, if you were attacked and you needed in order to defend your life, you needed to you could take another life and do so lawfully, you could do so legally. And so we know that God sanctions the principle of self-defense. But I think you also have to be, and let me finish that thought. So I think those people who try to use Jesus’ comment on the Sermon on the Mount about, you know if somebody slaps you on the cheek, turn the other cheek – meaning that you should never defend yourself? That’s just contrary to other clear teaching in scripture. So it is acceptable to defend yourself and defend your life against attack. If someone broke into my home I would do everything I can to defend my life and that of my wife and children. And so I think that’s a biblical concept. It’s written into the Old Testament law code, I think it’s reiterated even in implication in the New Testament.

But I think you cannot therefore justify a sort of vigilantism, a sort of Christian militia mindset. I think you have to be careful. There are Christians I think who go too far. Ultimately we are to submit to government, we are to be involved in government but we are to submit to their leadership and honor them, so I think you didn’t ask that question, but I’m just commenting on the larger problem that’s out there in the Christian community. I think there are some Christians who say, you know look, the Second Amendment gives me the right to bear arms and I’m going to bear arms and boy if somebody comes in my house I’m just going to, or gets on my property, that’s not a Christian mindset. You know we are to, the commandment says, we are not to murder; we are not to take life. And the bigger principle is we are to do everything we can to preserve our own lives and the lives of others. That’s the point of the commandment, and so I shouldn’t be quick to jump into this; I’m going to defend what’s mine. No, if my own life is threatened and I need to or the life of those I love is threatened and I need to then I’ll take that step, but it shouldn’t be this sort of eagerness. You know the sort of Texas mindset, when I got here I saw the plaque on the wall you know that has this pistol and beneath it is says, ‘and I ain’t calling 911.’ You know that’s a little much alright for a Christian, that may be Texan, but that’s not Christian. It is right to defend yourself. It’s not right to glory in the idea that I’m Rambo or whomever and I’m going to take you out. That’s not a Christian mindset. And so I think we just have to balance the two. But I would say you can’t get justification back to your original question from that passage for saying that therefore we should carry a weapon any more than you would say that we should carry those other things. I thing Jesus was giving very specific instructions to His disciples for that time. Nevertheless the principle of self-defense is a biblical one. Okay?

Hey, Tom, I’m Jonathan Hanson. And last week I had the opportunity to share the gospel with a lady and went through the gospel and went through my testimony and she immediately followed up with, ‘Do you have the Holy Spirit, and do you speak in tongues?’ And that was kind of her avenue and she turned to Acts 2:38 which says, “Peter said to them, ‘Repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And I asked her what’s your testimony and she really didn’t talk about repentance or belief in Christ but she relied heavily on ‘I have the Holy Ghost’ or I have the Holy Spirit.

Right.

So again Holy Spirit questions, I got two. But the first one is what scriptures do we turn to and see at what point the Holy Spirit comes or indwells a believer? And then the second one is how do we defend the cessation of like gifts like speaking in tongues?

Okay, stay there and let me answer the first one, you may have to remind me the second one, let me deal with what do we do about when the Holy Spirit comes? We say it this morning in Romans didn’t we? I mean look at Romans 8 again. Romans 8 and notice verse 9. “However, you (speaking to the Roman Christians) you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Now watch this statement in verse 9. “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” What does that immediately imply? That at the moment you are redeemed, the moment you are regenerated you receive the Holy Spirit. Because if you don’t have the Spirit you’re not in Christ and if you have the Spirit you’re in Christ. So that means every believer without exception at the moment of conversion has to receive the Holy Spirit otherwise that statement makes no sense.

I would also go to First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13. You can look at it, First Corinthians chapter 12. Paul is dealing here of course with the use of spiritual gifts. He starts in chapter 12, lays down a basic understanding of spiritual gifts, chapter 13 he talks about the priority of love over all spiritual gifts and that that has to be the driving force behind the exercise of them. And then in chapter 14 he deals with the abuse of tongues specifically in Corinth. But here in chapter 12 notice what he says, First Corinthians 12 verse 13, “For by one Spirit we were all” now stop there and notice those words. We, who’s he talking about? All believers. He’s talking about all the believers in Corinth and all believers generally. “By one Spirit we were”, this is already a reality. “We were all.” So what he’s talking about here is something in the past to all Christians. Now, there were some Christians in Corinth who were new believers, undoubtedly. There were some Christians who, you know by the time he wrote this letter had been in Christ for maybe, I forget now the time span between this letter and when the church there was planted but it’s for years. And so, he says “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” There’s no water in this verse. Okay, he doesn’t say anything here about water; this is a spiritual baptism by the Spirit. All believers at the moment of conversion are baptized into the body of Christ – whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one Spirit. There again the point is it happens at the moment of conversion. All believers regardless of how long they’ve been in Christ have experienced this. That means it has to happen instantaneous with salvation. So there are a number of other passages but those two will give you a start.

In terms of the defense of the modern charismatic movement and specifically the cessation of gifts – I did two messages here on that issue. You can go back when I did the Distinctive Series a year or two ago. I went through all of our churches Distinctives and that was one of them, I did two messages on the cessation of the gifts. Or you can go online and I just continue to be encouraged with how the Lord is used a message that providentially I was able to give at the Strange Fire Conference several years ago. I ran into several folks, in fact at the last night of the Shepherds Conference a young man came up to me and said that he and his wife came out of the charismatic movement, the Lord used that Strange Fire Conference to help accomplish and cement that in their lives. They were traveling and they listened to the whole thing going and the whole thing coming back and by the time they got home they were convinced and the Lord used that to bring them out in part, there were other factors as well. But that’s a message you can get online, you can do a search, Grace To You has it on its website, The Biblical Case for Cessationism. And I present a number of arguments, sort of synthesized all of the arguments against the miraculous gifts continuing in the life of the church. And that’s where I would go with her, but let me just give you one big one.

Just take her to Acts 2, she took you there, so you take her there, and show her what speaking in tongues was in Acts 2. In fact just look at that very quickly, Acts chapter 2 verse 1, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it fill the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire (it doesn’t say fire) as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other” and the word translation there is tongues – its languages, that’s the word. When you look at the word glossa and its other forms in the New Testament it’s always used in one of two ways. It’s used of that fleshy muscle in your mouth – tongue, or it’s used of languages. Those are the only two uses in the New Testament. And here that’s clear. Because they “speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterances,” now watch how this works. Verse 5, “Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak (what?) in his own (tongue) his own language.” His own, specifically the word used here in that verse is dialect, dialectos from which we get our word. And so clearly they were speaking known languages. Read Acts 2 and you won’t find anything about ecstatic utterances, the charismatics teach, you won’t find any of that. This is the pattern. If Acts 2 is speaking in tongues which it is, then it sets the pattern and what it is in Acts 2 is what it is when it occurs again in Acts 10 and in Acts 18 and even in Corinth. And a case can be made for that, but I think here clearly what she’s saying you ought to be doing and she’s doing can’t be defended from this text.

My name is Stephen, you’ll probably know what the question is before I finish asking it but, there’s a lot of conflict over the Greek texts and Hebrew texts to use for the bible. I recently had the opportunity to see a lot of old manuscripts, so I was wondering the advocates of the textus receptus say that eclectic texts have a lot of errors, and advocates of eclectic texts says that the TR has a lot of errors. So I was wondering what can we do about this?

Okay.

This is based on eclectic text as well.

Okay, let me step back for some of you who may not be aware of the question he’s asking. Essentially when it comes to the manuscripts both in Greek and in Hebrew that come to us today, those that have been preserved, let me back up even before that. It’s important for you to understand that the original autographs as they’re called, that is, the original letters that Paul wrote. The ones he dictated and signed with his own hand. That actual piece of parchment, or vellum, those don’t exist. Those original manuscripts don’t exist any longer. What happened though is those were copied, just like we go to our copy machine and we lay something on there and make copies, they didn’t have that but a letter from Paul came to a church and of course they knew other churches would want to receive it as well. They wanted copies, they wanted to keep their own copy and so copies were made. Same thing happened with the Hebrew scripture in a much more managed way through the scribes. But there were copies made. And what we have today that survive are literally thousands of manuscripts that are copies. Copies of copies, and so what you have is you have this manuscript families.

You have two basic theories and we’re primarily talking, let’s talk about the New Testament to keep it simple, the Greek manuscripts. There are about 5000 or so Greek manuscripts. In addition to that there are, some of them are complete, some of them are portions, some of them are individual books, but about 5000. And then you add to that the fact that in the early church fathers, the writings of the early church fathers, you have them quoting from the scripture and you can almost piece together the entire scripture from the quotes in the early church fathers. So you put that in there and you’ve got over 20,000 sort of sources to go to. But primarily this question concerns the Greek manuscripts. The copies of the copies of the copies of the original.

The question is which of those manuscript families should we accept? And there are two basic ideas. One idea says well let’s base our translation of the bible on the majority of manuscripts. They break them into families and they say okay here’s a group of manuscripts that all have the same sort of, they use the same words in this particular text as these other manuscripts – so that’s a family. And they must have sort of come from the same source. And then here’s another family because they have a variation of how that verse is put together. And so the two basic theories, and I’m simplifying this, but the two basic theories are let’s choose those readings where there’s disagreement. I need to stop and say one thing first, this is very important. There are very few differences in the manuscript families that we have. Don’t think, oh there’s a lot of discrepancy among the manuscripts and we can’t know what the bible said. The truth is, there are, most of the variations in manuscripts are things like spelling or word order in some cases, or things like that that don’t effect meaning whatsoever and it makes sense that if you’re copying a whole letter maybe you reverse that word or you misspell that word. Okay, so most of them are that. Less than 1% of the differences in the manuscripts amount to any significant theological issue. And so you have and can have confidence in the scripture you hold in your hand.

But there’s still this debate among academics about, okay, should we then take the most manuscripts? Let’s take the largest number of manuscripts because that wins the vote, it’s kind of a democratic approach to you know, democracy approach to (Sorry I said democratic in Texas, I shouldn’t have said it). Democracy in manuscripts, here’s the largest number, let’s take those, they must be right. Well here’s the problem though. Many of those where there’s more manuscripts it’s because it’s farther out from the original source and more and more and more copies have been made. Okay?

The other philosophy says okay, let’s go back to the oldest manuscripts we have because they’re the ones that have been the least likely for a copyist to have made a change or for errors to have been made. So this is an intramural debate among scholars. Personally I lean toward, in fact I just don’t lean I come down very strongly on the fact that we use the oldest manuscripts we have. And so, I’m not a majority text guy because, a textus receptus, because I don’t see the evidence for that stacking up. But in the end, I think we have to keep this in perspective. Like I said the differences don’t affect any cardinal doctrine of the faith, most of the differences are minor, spelling differences and those sorts of things. There are some issues here and there but they’re relatively minor. So I think you have to keep it in perspective and a lot of people don’t. You know you read on the internet and it’s like, you know you need to die on this hill. Don’t die on this hill, okay? If all we had was the King James based on the majority of texts, that’s the only translation we had, it’d be a good translation of the bible. It would be harder to understand because most of us don’t speak Elizabethan English but it’d be okay. On the other hand, and the others that are based on the textus receptus, on the other hand if all we had was the New American Standard based on the oldest manuscripts that would be a great translation too. You just have to keep it in balance; don’t let the intramural debate overwhelm you. Okay?

My name is Truth and my question is how do you determine certain dates in the bible if it’s not mentioned, like if there’s a time in the bible like part of Jesus’ ministry how would you know when that was if it doesn’t actually say it in the bible?

Okay, Truth, good question. By the way before I leave that last question, let me just say that there is a book that you might enjoy reading and that is The Canon of Scripture by F F Bruce that will answer some of those questions and there are some other resources as well, but that’s just a follow up on that.

Now to your question Truth. I think that the, it depends on what date you’re talking about to certain regards. Is there a particular date or just a general question?

Just in general.

What the way the dates are worked out in scripture, the way we can work out dates is by looking for points of contact in scripture that tie to a secular event. So, for example, we know we can come down on certain clear dates. We know for example, going to the Old Testament first. We know for example that when we look at dates like the fall of Judah, to the Babylonians. We know that happened in three stages. We know the last time when Jerusalem was really destroyed was 586. We know that from secular history. So we can tie that to secular history and we can then construct from there. Same thing with 722 and the destruction of Israel and the ten tribes in the north by Assyria. We know when that happened. You go, further back we go to the time of David and Solomon, we can reconstruct, we know that each of those three kings of the united monarchy, Saul, David, and Solomon all reigned for 40 years. We know when, we can piece all of that together. We know David began his reign therefore in 1051 and we know that ultimately in 931 Solomon, he died and the kingdom was divided from that point forward.

So, all of that’s built on tying biblical history to secular points of contact where we have specific dates written. For example then, you take that and you can reconstruct the timing of other events. For example, I’ll just show you one. Go to First Kings chapter 6 and verse 1. Here you have a time stamp, a time stamp that helps us reconstruct the timing of the exodus. First Kings 6:1, “Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel,” and so forth, “he began to build the house of the Lord.” Well we know when Solomon reigned and we know when this event in Solomon’s life occurred, so now all you have to do is do the math to go back to the exodus. And that’s why we believe the exodus was in 1445 1446 BC. It’s because of this verse. Because we’ve got secular history that gives us a reference for the timing of the reigns of the kings of Israel and then you have this reference within the scripture that connects to that event and so now I can piece that together I can know that in 1445 1446 BC is when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Same thing with the life of Abraham. We can put the timing of Abraham in the same way based on connecting the events of the bible to secular events and then doing the math that it’s given us in the scripture itself we can connect him to 2166 BC. We know that’s when Abraham lived. So this is how we do it.

Now let’s come to the New Testament, the life of Christ. There’s a great book by the way, it’s a little more of academic of a book but it’s helpful for those of you who might be interested in reading it written by Harold Honer who’s now with the Lord, but used to teach at Dallas Theological Seminary called Chronological Aspects in the Life of Christ, that’s a little more of a technical one. There is a good explanation of the timeline of the life of Christ, this is the one I’d recommend to you, honestly there’s a book in our bookstore and probably in the library too, called The Harmony of the Gospel’s by Gundry and Thomas, two men. And in the back of that, so it’s a harmony of all the gospel stories. To show you when the different events happened. In the back of that there’s several great appendices that talk about the timing. How do we know Jesus, when He was born, and when He started His ministries and all of those issues? So that’s very helpful in the back of that book.

But the big picture is this – we know when Jesus was born. And it wasn’t zero, okay? How do we know that? Again we know it from the scripture, we know that King Herod was still alive when Jesus was born, right? Because the wise men came, Matthew 2, they came, they inquired about who He was, and they said, ‘where is He that was born King of the Jews,’ then Herod in a desire to put Jesus to death went to Bethlehem and killed, once Joseph and Mary were told to flee, warned in dream to flee, then he sent and killed all the children 2 and under. Now what we know about Herod is that he was a ruthless man and he was leaving himself a margin of error. So we know that Jesus had been born less than 2 years before that point. We know when Herod died. Herod died in April of 4 BC. Therefore Jesus had to have been born before April of 4 BC.

So then we can piece together. We’re told He then started His ministry about 30, okay there’s a range there. So you start doing the math and we also know that Good Friday, the Passover only occurred on Friday two times in the possible stretch of Jesus’ life, in the year 30 and the year 33. Those are the only two options when you look at the whole picture, you’ll read about that if you’re interested in doing it, and so now we can construct the life of Christ from that. And of course from there sort of unfolds through the New Testament. We know Paul was converted shortly thereafter, the crucifixion, and resurrection. We know that persecution and the stoning of Stephen came about 2 years later, you start putting it together, we know when the Jerusalem Council was, so there’re these points of external reference from secular history and then there are these math problems within the scripture that allow us to connect. Okay? One more question and I think that’ll be it.

Hi, I’m Sally and recently I was listening to a pastor talk about sanctification, he was talking about how God will reward us in heaven based on how serious we take our sanctification, and how well we fulfill our obligation to do good works as it says like Ephesians 2:10. But he went on to say that God will look at your life and how you lived and from that He’ll say well here’s like a wise manager, I’m going to put you in charge of these possessions and he also went on to say that you’re going to want more responsibilities in heaven rather than less. And he talked about how for example Jesus said to the twelve disciples would sit on the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes. But this doesn’t make sense to me because it sounds very merit based and work based and contradictory to the bible that the better we are here based on our sanctification and all that like I mentioned earlier is based off or effects how better we are off in heaven.

No, that’s a good question Sally. Let’s start with the concept of rewards. Clearly the scripture spells out that there are rewards. But when we start piecing it together, there are essentially three categories of rewards in heaven.

First of all and we’ll get back to specifically your question, but first of all there are these crowns. You know we’re told about these crowns, the crown of life and so forth, the crown of righteousness. What are those, well first of all they’re not literal crowns. This is an illusion to what athletes got when they competed in the races and won. So it’s not like a literal crown that I’m going to get. In fact I think the best interpretation of those that are described that way, crown of life, crown of righteousness is the crown which is life. So the crown is life itself. That’s the reward. The crown which is righteousness. But those believers receive.

Now let’s get specifically to rewards tied to, to some degree our faithfulness here. And this is where to some degree, I don’t know all that this preacher said so I can’t affirm everything he said but I think that there is a principle of truth here. We are told, Jesus in a parable He tells ties eternal reward to our faithfulness here. That's why our faithfulness matters. And so He says, if you have been faithful with this then you will be given this, then you’ll have more opportunity. I do think the idea is you’ll have more opportunity for service tied to your faithfulness here, that’s part of our reward. But it’s never, no reward, this is the key issue to your question. No reward we ever receive, whether it’s the crown which is life, the crown which is righteousness, whether it’s reward for our faithfulness here and more opportunity to serve in eternity, none of that it merit based. None of that is earned. It’s all grace. I mean what does Paul say? He says, I labored harder than everyone, yet not I it was the grace of God within me.

And so here’s the amazing thing to me about God and I think this is how you have to think of it. Is God saves us by grace alone, and then He equips us, He gives us a gift, we have the privilege in serving Him – He enables all of that. What I do, it’s not me. If there’s any benefit that comes out of my life and ministry, it’s all grace. If it was me, I have nothing good to offer. So it’s all grace. But then God, who saves me, who gives me everything, gives me the spiritual gift, gives me the place to serve it, blesses my ministry, uses the word in the lives of others, He does all of that and then in an amazing display of grace He turns right around and rewards me for it when I had nothing to do with it. It’s just like our God isn’t it, He’s so gracious. So it has nothing to do with what is earned.

But here’s the thing that’s most special about our reward and I think this is what you’ll live for. The praise of our Lord. Look at First Corinthians, I love this. First Corinthians and we’ll finish our time here. He says verse 10, First Corinthians 3, verse 10. He’s talking about primarily ministers here. But here again, notice how he puts it, verse 10, “According to the grace of God which was given to me,” he says my ministry it’s all grace, that’s all I have. Yet I did what God called me to do. I was “a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds.” He’s talking about leaders in the church building the church. He says, “no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” And he goes on to talk about our efforts in building the church and that we’ll be judged on the basis of that. And then, if any man’s work remains, if it endures he’ll receive a reward.

So what exactly is this reward? Go over to chapter 4 verse 5. I absolutely love this statement. He says, “Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and” then he says this “and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” Here is the greatest reward. Our Lord who has saved us by grace alone, who paid the ultimate price for our salvation, who has done everything in our lives, who has given us spiritual gifts to serve Him, who’s given us a place to serve Him, who’s empowered us to serve Him, who’s produced the results of our efforts, who’s done everything good that there is – He turns around and rewards us for that and what’s His reward? Each man’s praise will come to him from the Lord. You know what the greatest reward in heaven will be? It’s hearing our Lord say, ‘Well done, well done.’ You did what I called you to do, you did what I asked you to do, but it won’t be me, and it won’t be you. It’ll be the grace that He has enable in our lives to accomplish that. That’s what I; I’m overwhelmed honestly by God’s grace in that way. He’s given me everything and now I show up in heaven and He rewards me for something I had nothing to do with, but that He did in and through me. It’s just like our gracious God to do that.

Let’s pray together.

Father, thank You for this time we’ve been able to spend. We are overwhelmed by Your grace, Your grace to us in Christ. We thank You for the opportunity to reflect on these issues and to think about them. I pray You use these discussions for good in our lives. Challenge us to be students of Your word, students of the issues of our times. Father may we be those who like the Bereans search the scriptures to see whether or not these things are so. And Lord I thank You for the privilege of serving You that each of us in our own way and the giftedness You’ve given us serves You. But we acknowledge freely that just like our salvation it is all grace from beginning to end. Left to ourselves we mess up everything we touch. But Father thank You that through Your grace You see fit to use us and then in Your grace You will reward us for what You have done in us. Lord help us to be faithful here knowing, knowing that our faithfulness here is tied to our future service there. Help us to be faithful. Father help us to live not even for that, but to live to please You. To live to stand before You some day and by Your grace alone to hear, ‘well done.’ O Father we long to stand before our Lord and hear that. Make it so in our lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.