so during the medieval period the biblical foundations of uh the uh Creed were repeatedly explored and affirmed as necessary in Christian Proclamation so they agreed with the church fathers on these issues the great medieval Theologian Thomas aquinus in his studies of God the Father uh characterized uh Divine paternity with five truths he said God the father has love love for his eternal Son by nature and for their creatures by Grace so love was very important for his understanding a second he said God and his son share Mutual knowledge of one another they know one another so love and knowledge and third act the two act in and with one another and this is known uh in uh today is inseparable operations everything the father does so does the son and vice versa fourth with eternal generation the son receives by Nature the fullness of deity everything that the father is becomes the sons by generation fifth uh characteristics which human beings typically perceive as belonging to maternity are also ascribed in scripture to God the Father including this might surprise you conception childbirth and caring for the child are all ascribed to God the Father that'll blow your mind won't it because we we don't tend to you know we think you know male female and here we have the father displaying feminine characteristics we'll see some of that we saw some of that um when we did our scriptural review well that's the medieval period now let's turn to the Reformation during the Reformation Orthodox Divine ontology including the person who the father and his eternal relations with the Son and the spirit it was generally affirmed so the the the nyine settlement the medieval uh investigations were all affirmed by uh the reformers however attention was focused upon the work of God especially with the doctrine of salvation so yes they affirmed the truths that had been gathered through those controversies in the early church but then they were really interested with the doctrine of salvation the great tradition's presentation of the doctrine of God continued to provide the standard for theological discourse among the reformers for instance the 39 articles adopted by the the Church of England in them the son was described and and this is what they say the son is the word of the father begotten of everlasting of the Father the very and eternal God and of one substance with the father so very nice scene the son was incarnate died and arose from the dead so that he might reconcile his father to us the reformers remained Orthodox in their view of God the Father even as they submitted Doctrine to the authority of scripture and emphasized the doctrine of salvation however Heretics still challeng the trinitarian consensus Again by isolating the father from the Son and the spirit you see this with the group known as the socinians socinians begin to uh challenge the Orthodoxy in a major way and socinians uh believe it or not had an impact on the development of what we know as the historical critical method and the historical critical method tends to deny uh the trinity and now you know why let's talk about the shift in modern Consciousness more recent confessions even those favored by conservative evangelicals reflect his shyness toward confessing the full truth about the father's ontology this departure from classical trinitarian Consciousness about the father uh was engendered by modernity's rejection of human access to all metaphysical reality much less Divine ontology I don't want to get too deep into the philosophy but Emanuel Kant uh begin to teach that uh you really can't know that which is above the physical and that's just all guesswork and speculation and that's why many people you encounter today are like well God that's your business that's you know just opinion up there that's C you can't know the metaphysical much less Theology and much scholarship uh has has gone in the same direction so this departure uh is is modernity's uh you know a gift to us today I use gift sarcastically following the trail blazed by the Southern Baptist Theological seminary's abstractive principles the Baptist faith in message for instance did not affirm the Eternal relations of the Trinity can you bring that slide up the generation of the son and the procession of the Holy Spirit were bypassed Instead This Modern confession focuses almost entirely on the work of God and so it says God his father Reigns so it's more interested in what God does than who God is does that make sense God his father reigns with providential care over his Universe his creatures and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of of his grace he is all powerful all knowing all loving and all wise God his father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ is fatherly and his attitude toward all men so all of that is true but notice how weak it is on the ontology of the father and how it emphasizes the work of the father and that reflects that shift in modern Consciousness about trying not to discuss very much about who God is but more about what God does and we're still even as evangelicals we're still like that you know we're more interested in you know Jesus saving me then in who is Jesus of course we need to be interested with Jesus saving me you need to be saved but it becomes to the exclusion of the ontology modern Christians are reluctant to confess God the father and his being although they are willing to speak of his work and this reluctance to confess Orthodox Divine ontology May contribute to the continuing appeal of aryanism to evangelicals you'd be surprised look at some of the uh recent surveys that have been done uh by LifeWay research for instance every couple of years they'll do a survey and I found three surveys in which they continually show that most self-identified evangelicals will uh affirm that the sun was a great creature that's aryanism or that the holy spirit is a force or power and not a person that's Star Wars no seriously that's where they're being you know their catechesis is more from the Jedi than it is from the uh the pastors anyways we got a problem we've got to get back to discussing who God is and that's why I'm emphasizing who God is with you so let's get into some recent debates about the father uh you'll find you'll find these uh interesting certain proposals regarding God's father have stimulated vigorous debate in the last 100 years first theologians have considered the way in which God is father in different relationships so these paternal filia relations and and and you can see these in the Baptist faith and message statement we just read the conclusion of these a second debate considered on the proper translation of ke in the father's relation to the son what does Scripture mean when it uses that Greek term ke um a third argument arose from efforts to apply feminine terms to God and a forth dispute then develop over the anthropological and Theological applications of scriptures description of masculine language to god so let's look at the uh paternal relations and we showed this in our review of scripture uh but just as a rehearsal and and it's really issues that have come to the for in the last uh 100 Years first how do we correlate the diverse biblical testimony which treats God's you God uniquely as the father of Christ generally as the father of all human beings and narrowly is the father of the redeemed God is indeed father in all three relations including his fatherly creation of all Humanity however another father scripture uses the language of Father VI for and one human Allegiance man accorded Divine honor to a usurper the deceptions of this false father the ancient serpent corrupted Humanity's once good relationship with God the father and when the Pharisees questioned Christ's fraternity remember they were doing that Jesus told them they did not truly know my father John 8:19 instead the father of the Pharisees is the devil their Rebellion against the true father LED them to reject the son he had sent verses 42 through 44 of John 8 so God certainly Remains the father of all human beings Even in our Rebellion against him for he made us in His image however many have refused the father's offer of reconciliation to him through his son and his Rec ulation of humanity instead they have chosen to remain under their evil father Satan restoration to a right relationship with the father is available however through adoption by the Holy Spirit and Union with Christ Romans 8 9-11 and 14-17 what about the kef of Christ this is interesting and you might want to go to the next slide so another debate is swirled around Paul's meaning in saying the father is the kef of Christ contemporary Scholars proposed three major options for translating 1 Corinthians 11:3 which says but I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ what does that mean how do you interpret that Cavite can be interpreted as head in the sense of authority in the sense of origin or source or in the sense of preeminence in place the problem with the first interpretation which favors a difference in power concerns not only the lack of evidence for the father's authority over the Eternal son but the contrary evidence that the father and the son share entire Authority and power as the one God for instance earlier in the same epistle Paul said True Believers recognize Christ is the power of God so how can the power of God be less than the power of God that's a question that is is not answered by those who would see the headship of the father over the son as somehow involving Authority the translation had in the sense of authority was much favored by Aryan Heretics too in response to the rise of feminism one 20th century scholar reordered the p message to create a hierarchy of headships in a chain of subordination so that's how he wanted to interpret it and that interpretation by George Knight has become very common since it was first proposed in 1977 the second interpretation had in the sense of origin or source concurs with Paul's subsequent affirmation that woman came from man heading the sense of source is moreover the proper translation for ke elsewhere in Paul Ephesians 4 15 through 16 the source of life for the body is through the head right you got to swallow it through your mouth it's in your head right it's a source of life however the more immediate context in 1 Corinthians 11 concerns Human Social placement and the discussion about the origin of persons comes only afterwards so verses 8 through2 is you know concerns origination of persons and social placement is in verses 2 through 7 which is where verse three of course occurs rejecting the first two options so thistleton who's given lectures here very well-known Scholars uh he rejects both sense of authority and sense of origin of source he argued for the translation of head in the sense of preeminent or uh foremost Athlon emphasized the immediate context of the term in 1 Corinthians 11 he also appealed to the subtle Greek exog Jesus of the early Greek speaking Church Father John chrsm chrsm recognized that a parallel between men women and God Christ should not give the Heretics grounds for subordination is ch ology men and women like God and Christ are of the same mode of being ke indicates in other words a Dignity of place so those are the three options the authority and origin translations must be rejected if they are taken to mean that the father is superior to the son and some of canterbary argued the Divine persons share equally all the Divine properties in including Supremacy he writes the father on his own totally is the Supreme Spirit and the son on his own totally is the Supreme spirit in such a way that they are not two spirits but one Spirit John Calvin agreed saying of the Son of God being of one Essence with the father he is his equal the father is therefore never Superior in deity to the son as recent Evangelical proponents of Eternal functional subordination and eternal relations of authority and submission have erroneously contended the god of feminism feminist theologians sparked a third conversation by representing God as a female in the late 20th century one denomination declaimed use of masculine based language applied to the Trinity including the masculine names father and Lord the National Council of churches called God both father and mother drawing upon feminist Consciousness Elizabeth Johnson renamed god mother of us all or Spirit creatrix she began with the fact that the Hebrew noun for spirit ruok is feminine Donald black disagrees noting these arguments mirror both ancient heresy and new errors including Pagan goddess worship syncretistic gnosticism and the German Christian Movement and protestations against the gendered god of feminism have convinced most evangelicals Have I Told y all about the time I ran into some goddess worshippers in Ephesus took a group from Southwestern Seminary uh to see some of the churches of Asia right or where they were there only one that survives smyna which was the most persecuted of those early churches that's interesting um but whenever we were in Ephesus uh in the hotel and going to go see you know old Ephesus the next morning which the ruins are great to see you can see uh the uh um the marketplace where Paul worked you can see where he was put on trial you can just you can it's just amazing um they also have uh some of the ruins of the Temple of Diana the Ephesians and so I heard some American English voices at another table so I went over to say hello and and this lady and they were all women and this lady put up her hand and she said stop we're from the other side like the other side we're here to worship Diana of the Ephesians and I thought there you go goddess worship is real anyways while the refashioning of God in a feminist vein has not gained nor should it gain Universal agreement we must also recognize that scripture often applies feminine anal analogies to God for instance Isaiah compared God's care for Israel to that of a mother bird to a woman in labor and to a mother nurturing her child our lord Jesus spoke similarly in conclusion scripture never names god with a feminine noun or pronoun even as it ascribes some feminine analogies to God let me say that again in conclusion scripture never names God god with a feminine noun or pronoun even as it ascribes some feminine analogies to God neither the names nor the analogies of scripture justify the presentation of God either as a woman or as some have argued bisexual or androgynous God who is eternal spirit and Cate Creator ultimately transcends the limits of human analogies this is what I meant by crudeness the the crudeness of ascribing sexual organs to God not a good idea just don't do it okay they're important to us but don't use them to describe God that's that's what I meant by the crudeness so God who is eternal spirit and Creator ultimately transcends the limits of human analogies which are bound by time in creation and body all right that's the god of feminism now let's talk about the God of masculinism a fourth controversy arose in reaction to the previous one proponents of Eternal functional subordination have been accused of tampering with the Trinity that's the accusation of Millard Erikson who was a teacher here at Southwestern Seminary so that they might create a paradigm for gender roles they anthrop ological Paradigm for theological masculinity portrays the father as having quote absolute and uncontested Supremacy including authority over the sun and the spirit and that's the language of Bruce wear of Southern Seminary Arguments for masculinism have prompted criticism from conservatives including people like Carl Truman who will be lecturing here uh as well as uh Greg Allison who also teaches at Southern Seminary ought to be some interesting conversations uh Michael bird brought Clarity to the conversation about masculinism by asking is God really truly and literally a father that's the question if so does that mean that mess is a part of God's Essence his being or his nature so that's the question is God a male moreover does a woman if that's the case bear the image of God Like a Man B reminds us that all theological language is analogical you remember what that word means an analogy is something that says this is like that but in saying the word like it's saying there are things that are like it and not like it does that make sense so some things yes other things don't push it too far all right so bird reminds us that all theological language is an analogical and that one should not literalize metaphors like fatherhood the Biblical term father stands as the normative name for God so he agrees call god father but the danger of a centralizing gender of taking gender and making it ontological in God must be recognized I previously warned in other places against abstracting God to justify a preferred social anthropology and that's what I did in this book don't remake God in your preferred idea of what you want Human Society to look like and that's been a problem not only on the right but on the left Jurgen molon Theologian who just recently died famously did that he made uh God into almost a democracy of persons so he wanted to emphasize equality so much that he ended up dividing the persons over against each other like they were you know three voters not a good idea again that crudity of taking our ideas and imposing them on God bird is arguing against and I argue against we must also remember that those who bear the image of God include all human beings male and female while scripture certainly describes god with male terms and attributes and generation is a definite bodily analogy God remains purely spiritual anel argued that the father's beginning of the son is eratively true so he's saying to speak of the Father begetting the Son and to speak of God as father you must think of it in a superlative way you must take the idea and raise it up but what uh naanis refers to is purifying it in other words the human language of generations transcends its natural meaning when applied to God for instance while human generation involves both a male and female the generation of the son involves only the father finally there is Anselm says no sexual differentiation between the father and his word the relationship between the father and his word is not sexual now for for our society which as I mentioned before is hypersexualized that takes some effort for us to back off of the way we think and say let's be careful not to to sexualize God yes sense of the word sexual are we referring to sex or gender as far as God's gender male and female versus sexual both they're related but and Scholars I mean when you you know when you think of gender and sex uh sex is a way to say male and female gender is typically a way to say how is it male how is it female so they're closely related terms sexualizing I just it's got a new kind of definition nowaday and so that's why I was a little confused yeah what's that new definition or do I want to know just like cat calling and like when you see when someone sees someone walking by and they're like only looking at them as far as section objectifying yeah so when you said the relationship between God and His word is should not be sexualized yeah I don't think that's what anom was talking about I think if he heard that he'd be like whoa really off Bas really not just off Bas but really off Bas yeah yeah so again our society is hypersexualized so we've taken it and we've made sex superlative and that's that's the problem for us that's why even this whole discussion about feminism and masculinism it's like you know the investment that we have in this is too much it's just it's overdone and it's because we are uh we're messed up as a culture you know I visited a nation one time and I realized their problem really wasn't about sexuality that's really a very Western thing especially a very American thing theirs was about alcohol everybody was drunk and I mean dead drunk falling over in the snow and wondering if they're going to actually get out of the snow or get frozen to death kind of drunk it's just our was the way to avoid void the the harsh realities of life and I thought this is an epidemic you know different cultures struggle with different things those are human creation cultures are and they reflect the people in those cultures and they help impact how these people act and conceive themselves and that's our problem so when a or ath when anel says there's no sexual differentiation he's not thinking of uh sexuality in you know pornographic sense he's saying you know male and female body parts without necessarily thinking of sexual activity uh the terminology of fatherhood must be elevated above its creaturely meaning including the distinction of sexuality and purified of any crude associations there we're back to that now you understand what I was trying to get at with the crude God Alone defines fatherhood in his Perfection it is dangerous to impose human gender ideals either feminine or masculine upon God the real limits and disappointments of various human fathers for instance are similarly alleviated by the command of Jesus and this is one we don't take seriously but I think we should do not call anyone on Earth your father because you have one father who is in heaven Jesus is saying listen you want to know what a real father is you call that one in heaven father so he's he's asking us to make him superlative and and I think I think it would be wise to take some of Jesus's words literally he's the Lord isn't he okay let's move on to some systematic conclusions on the being of the father well I before we go there any questions I know some of these issues that we've been discussing about masculinism and feminism they're tough for us to deal with but we need to deal with them any questions about these things yes sir with that on the godess feminine I've met a couple people who maybe they have a very tough relationship with their father terrible view of the father and so they have more of a sensibility of oh can I view God as mother maybe bring up those Isaiah passages things like that and I know of course the right answer is well God defines fatherhood but what how would you approach that since it is kind of sensitive emotional yeah you know that's really a good question um I think pastoral sensitivity is required in these issues um I don't think you can ever back off of truth but you can mourn with them over evil fathers my father was not a good man at all and um so I understand that I really do but I can't call god mother because scripture doesn't but I can say that God as father has fatherly characteristics and he has some maternal characteristics as well and uh so dwell you know dwell on those maternal analogies if they find them helpful uh that's actually a good question take a moment and go in your Bibles to Isaiah 31:5 I just I want to demonstrate this truth like he hovering birds so the Lord of armies will protect Jerusalem by protecting it he will Rescue It by passing over it he will deliver in it deliver it chapter 42 verse4 of Isaiah I have kept silent from ages past I have been quiet and restrained myself but now I will groan like a woman in labor gasping breath LLY that's God speaking giving birth to a righteous nation and it hurts um the next one is chapter 49 in verse 15 can a woman forget her nursing child or lack compassion for the child of her womb even if these forget yet I will not forget you God Compares himself to a woman as a mother chapter 66 and verse 13 and by the way Isaiah is not genderbending this is not lgbtq kind of stuff okay this is not caught up in that anxiety over human sexuality or human gender that we have um so look at verse 13 as a mother Comforts her son so I will comfort you and you will be comforted in Jerusalem and then so that's that's God speaking but also listen to our lord Jesus speak look at Matthew 23: 37-38 Jerusalem Jerusalem who kills the prophets and Stones those who are sent to her how often I wanted to gather your children together as a h gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing see your house is Left To You desolate and then uh look again very similarly Luke 13 and verse 34 Jerusalem Jerusalem who kills the prophets and Stones those who are sent to her how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing so I mean the Lord Compares himself so I'm using the masculine pronoun I think that's scripture does that we should do that and one thing I didn't get into the whole idea and I do this in another book talking about the whole idea of you know because ruach word spirit in the Hebrew is a feminine term it actually uses uh uh masculine pronouns so you know the the the the gender of a noun doesn't determine the gender of the person does that make sense so that's an overuse of language on Elizabeth Johnson's part looking it's ISO Jesus it's looking for something and then making more of what the text does or the language does um Dr yarno I've got a question yes sir who is uh this is Matt Parks um I in regards to that question just now uh about the bad experiences with with his Earthly father could you on the one hand say I'm I understand that you haven't had a good father and you haven't had good experiences with your physical father but God he is the standard of what a father should be and he is the actual standard of a loving father the one that you should have experienced but didn't could you say that and spin it that way and make it to where it doesn't sound condescending in a way yeah I think you can and I that's what I usually try to do something along those lines is to help the person to see that you know first of all you might say not all fathers are like that because they're not no no human father is going to be perfect but not all fathers are evil like that um and God is as you said the standard of fatherhood and these Sinners have perverted fatherhood and so yeah I I think that I think that's right and that's what I try to do Dr I know we're hatching this whole sexuality thing like we're beating a dead horse here but you think part of like this question is a combinational us we failed to answer the medic physical truth about sexuality like we've allowed metaphysical truth about what sexuality is and what it Imes when you say metaphysical TR sexuality what do you mean by that it's like we talk about La M great quote Dr Do's book on the day like when um what marriage symbolizes Christ and the church but it you have two different beings coming together kind of like I don't want to say the but it images Christ and the church and so I think a lot of what sex reminds us of is is like that we need each other me community and that's the way it was intended and so like yeah you know using the word sex in that uh it's just that we have hypersexual sex and so even the word sex is a difficult I do think that marriage ought to be a reflection of what Christ does for the church um I I would go back even further in the same genis one two I think marriage reflects the trinity in some way I think being in the image of God in some way uh is reflected in the man and the woman together and not just bar and that's something that Bon Hofer and Bart and Bruni did it before them in 17th century but it became a major idea idea but then we started to take and over schematize that and we begin to look well you know the father is like this the son is like that the spirit is like that we got lost in sauce and and we we overdid it and so by overdoing it I mean you actually have a theologian or two out there who are saying things like uh the the sun is feminized yeah I see you're raed eyebrow that sounds weird it is weird but the sun is feminized because the Sun and this is a guy who's into the whole etal character is feminine gender purifying making the superlative use truest fatherhood is what anel refers to the truest father I like that I need truest father let me make a note so I don't forget that yeah and truest father and truest son so the Son and the father are truest and that might be helpful in that kind of language when you're dealing with people who have had bad fathers uh you know look to the true father not to the not to the false father we have a question on the chat does m says don't show this again okay from Bill boner Bill hello ah it disappeared know there was just a discussion going on because the sound is cutting in and out quite a bit and sometimes we can't hear what's being said I wonder if we need to restart this looks okay uh I wonder is how how long has that been going on basically the entire lecture oh no well we will have to take and uh contact the uh tech people I am so sorry when that happens again let us know and maybe something in this room Chris would you send a note to tech and let them know that's been happening in this room he says it's happening only when you're moving away from the iPad he said no it's good oh so I need to stick to my iPad I will do that all right let's make into the third part of the lecture some systematic conclusions on the being of the father CS Lewis once complained that Christians were turning from the biblical truth taught in the classic Creeds to adopt novel teachings about God and he discovered the Novelties were merely new versions of ancient erors and I quote from Lewis for a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as Novelties today are simply the ones which real theologians tried centuries ago and rejected so following our four conclusions that I believe a true doctrine of the being of the Father which is conversent with the classical Creeds must draw so here are four conclusions first of all the ineffability and revelation of God the father from the earliest sections of scripture to its last we learn that God the father is beyond our natural ability to see or understand God told Moses you cannot see my face for humans cannot see me and live the prophet Isaiah was overwhelmed by his guilt and doom upon seeing the Divine Throne indeed the thoughts and ways of God are Beyond human comprehension I Isaiah said in a separate vision of Heaven the Apostle John could only describe the someone Seated on the Divine throne in terms of Radiance uh read Revelation 4 and it's all about this light that is coming from the throne Jesus agreed he said simply no one has ever seen God John 118a how then can we know God so he's ineffable he's incomprehensible you can't know him you can't see him right how then can we know God after all Jesus also said blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God so we can't but we shall with pureness of heart that's something uh by the way it takes a purifying of the human being to be able to understand God so you have to have your your mind purified your soul purified so that you can see God so you can understand God so you can know God and Jesus promised we will Isaiah said that God descends To Us by the grace of his word Jesus agreed the father Reveals His ineffable self but only through the son Jesus went on to say in John 1:18 the one and only son there's that translation who is himself God and is at the father's side he has revealed him I would prefer the only begotten son Ansel concluded that knowledge of God is a Sublime mystery which stretches well Beyond the Horizon of human understanding the capedan fathers warned against her like eunomius who assumed he could Define the being of God the father as unbegotten like Aras we can never know the nature of God was the response of the capid doans we may perhaps say we can see God but only and this is Gregory of Naes we only see God scarcely like an averted figure and through the purifying grace of God so you can't and this is why I've used the language like in in this book uh and in the last lecture of glimpses of God you you you you have it's like through as Paul would say is it's like through an opaque mirror right you see something but you don't really see him as he is though one day you will the Apostle Paul said the only way we can have knowledge of Our God the father is through his decision to bless us in Christ so that's what it takes to know God the father is through Christ in Christ that's the only way you can if you you know you remember that Philip asked the Lord show us the father that's enough and what did Jesus say have I been with you so long if you have seen me you have seen the father so you see the father through the son it is only in the Humanity of the Son of God that we have access to the father so the ineffability and revelation of the Father the deity of the father is the next point and I want you to bring this quote up here everything that we learned about the Perfections of God in the previous uh semester of these systematic lectures must be said about the Father the father is both Lord and God Scripture tells us that it also ascribes the same to the Son and the spirit but the father is both Lord and God and known by many other exalted names he is a mystery infinite simple and of himself he is the blessed one sufficient spiritual ual and personal he is at once Transcendent and imminent and and I cover that in chapter six of this book God he is Hol which includes his eternity immutability wisdom omniscience omnipotence and omnipresence as well as his jealousy anger wrath and Glory he is righteous he is love which includes his patience Grace faithfulness kindness compassion mercy and his impassibility and he is free so everything you say about God you must say about the father now I will also go on to say everything you say about the father you must also say about the Son and the spirit except for one thing which brings up our next point the father and the trinity the classical theological tradition came to refer to the father as unbegotten due to his generation of the son the son is begotten the father is not begotten however as we just noted with Aryan Heretics like eunomius defining the father's nature as unbegotten goes beyond biblical Revelation sustained reflection upon the biblical Revelation has led Orthodox theologians um I think go back one slide no not this one yet uh maybe I didn't get it in there well I didn't sorry oh well my bad so I'll put it up on the board we've got to learn to affirm the Eternal relations of origin first God the father is the Eternal source of the Trinity he is the Eternal source of the Trinity after all he begets the Son and the spirit proceeds from him right all right second the father begets the son eternally so the father begets the son then he sends the son into the world is the father incarnate no is the spirit incarnate no what's the difference between the father and the son with regard to deity the father is the one who begets the the son the son is begotten and the spirit proceeds from the father and in the west we would say and the son these are known as the relations of origin and this is what you can say is the difference between the father and the son and the SP the I hope I'm not going out on you guys online anymore so the father begets the son eternally he then sends the son into the world to become incarnate and then the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the father and then the spirit is sent into the World by the father and the son in order to convict so we must affirm the truth of the father and the Trinity the father is the source and these Eternal relations of origin which are uh three in number and finally let's look at the equality of the Father the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one Lord God the father shares the fullness of his Divine being with his son and his Spirit holding nothing back Jesus claimed this everything the father has is mine John 16:15 he then explained that the spirit likewise takes the divine nature shared by the father and the son why Paul could identify the wisdom of God and the power of God with Christ in his person Christ is the power of God Christ is the wisdom of God these are ontological claims the three are distinguished as Divine persons by the Eternal relations of authority of origin excuse me not authorita throw that they're defined by the Eternal relations of origin alone the divine nature belongs entirely to the three as one as Matthew Barrett explains scripture always emphasizes the son's equality with the father without any qualification and when I say always he says I mean always and then he puts it in um italics always last week I gave you some uh some of the material from the Gospel of John about how what the father and the son share did you notice everything the name the nature The Authority it's it's all there in the text you just have to read it read it carefully so we're going to rehearse the work of the father as God in subsequent lectures and we'll focus particularly on creation and Providence you'll find that fun especially Providence so we'll end in this way so who is the father to you let us return to our original question who is the father to you so please allow me to recommend that you consider the Ning Creed to help you answer this question it provides some helpful statements that will summarize and solidify your faith in the biblical Revelation about God the Father Unity his deity his power over and creative relation to All Creatures and his eternal relations of generation to the son and procession of the Holy Spirit and notice also that these truths should prompt Our Praise of him we believe in one God the Father ruler of he of all maker of heaven and Earth of all that is seen and unseen and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only son of God who was begotten from the father before all ages and in the Holy Spirit the Lord and lifegiver who is proceeding from the father shouldn't have that period in there who with the father and uh the son is together worshiped and together glorified I think if you're going to have a doctrine of God the father and his being that's a good one uh about the lecture today may I ask a question yes what is your name I'm Tammy cilia uh earlier in the lecture when you talked about the nine creed there was a moment where you said that it came straight from scripture except for I believe you said one word and at that point we the audio kind of jumped or something and I don't what was the word it's hos thank you so the Ning Creed um let me pull it up and read it to you um so the Ning cre I got it on my website give me a moment let me pull it up so um this is what the nying Creed says about the father and the son in the second article it's got three articles father son and spirit it says this we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God I mean all of this is coming from scripture begotten of the father before all ages God from God light from light true God from true God begotten not made being of one substance with the father so that of one substance is not directly found in scripture now I would argue that you can get quickly to that idea in scripture I think Hebrews 1 1-4 takes you right there um but uh it has to be admitted that word itself is not in scripture and that word has become as a result uh a major uh point of controversy with Heretics who want to lessen uh the sun uh one way to do that is to adopt a different word and that's where they've adopted words like H Usos so some will add in the eoda here and so homo usas says same nature homo usio says like nature does that make sense uh others will say well he is not homo usas but homon like the father say no he is a nomon unlike the father word homo Usos put that back up there has become such a an important word in the history of Christianity did you have a follow-up question to that no I just want to be sure I understood um I I heard you say that I think I heard you say hom usas but I didn't when you were emphasizing the one word that wasn't there um that's when I didn't hear it it kind of cut out but you I did already have that yeah thank you any other questions from online or in the classroom the father to you all right thank you all for your time oh do you want to answer thank y allall for your time