0:11 I look at the theme of this conference
0:16 and if there's ever a time in
0:18 Ministry that I'm overwhelmed with a
0:20 sense of
0:23 inadequacy it's when I have the
0:25 responsibility of
0:29 lecturing on the person and work of Christ
0:30 Christ
0:33 there is no higher
0:37 topic for any of us to
0:41 address we can never reduce his person
0:47 and his work merely to academic
0:50 scrutiny putting him as it were under our
0:53 our intellectual
0:55 intellectual
0:58 microscope because he's not only our
1:01 savior but he is our
1:05 Lord and he is our
1:10 all and so when we do
1:14 theology in the area of
1:18 christology what we're about is
1:22 doxology because it can be nothing other than
1:23 than
1:26 that my topic this evening is to speak
1:30 on the current crisis in christology
1:32 that the church
1:35 faces and I'd like to begin by reading a
1:38 short passage from The Gospel According
1:40 to St
1:44 Matthew from Chapter 3 of that
1:47 book beginning at verse
1:51 13 and reading through verse
1:55 17 if you're from St Andrews you're
1:57 allowed to stay in your seats because
2:00 this isn't a Sunday morning worship ship
2:11 God then Jesus Came From Galilee to John
2:12 at the
2:16 Jordan to be baptized by
2:20 him and John tried to prevent
2:23 him saying I need to be baptized by
2:27 you and are you coming to
2:31 me but Jesus answered and said said to
2:34 him permit it to be so
2:37 now for thus it is fitting for
2:45 righteousness then he allowed
2:49 him when he had been baptized Jesus came
2:51 up immediately from the
2:54 water and behold the heavens were open to
2:56 to
2:58 him and he saw the spirit of God
3:01 descending like a dve love and a
3:04 lighting upon
3:08 him and suddenly a voice Came From
3:11 Heaven saying this is
3:13 my beloved
3:18 Son in whom I am well
3:21 pleased shall we
3:25 pray our father and our
3:28 God when we
3:31 consider the signific begin of this
3:36 moment recorded for us by Matthew in the
3:38 history of the
3:42 world we stumble before it because we
3:45 know it is beyond our
3:51 Ken beyond the reach of our
3:54 understanding and so we plead with you
3:57 this afternoon that you would send Among
4:01 Us your Holy Spirit this Spirit of
4:06 truth that he may illumin this text for
4:09 us break through the
4:12 artificial Shields that we place over
4:15 our heart and our
4:18 understanding that we may see the
4:21 truth the
4:23 Excellence and the
4:27 sweetness of what is to be found in this text
4:29 text
4:33 for we ask it in our lord Jesus name
4:41 amen when we read the various aspects of
4:45 the Gospel account of the baptism of
4:49 Jesus that signaled the beginning of his Earthly
4:50 Earthly
4:54 Ministry we encounter some elements in
4:59 it that to say the least are mystifying
5:02 there are some things in this
5:05 abbreviated version that Matthew gives
5:11 here that leave us in no small degree of
5:15 consternation and with great Wonder at the
5:16 the Unspeakable
5:18 Unspeakable
5:21 audacity of this man who had been
5:25 commissioned by God to be the harbinger
5:29 and the herald of the coming kingdom of God
5:31 God
5:33 though he was given the epith of saying
5:36 there is none greater than John the
5:40 Baptist here this great prophet recorded
5:42 in the New Testament belonging but
5:46 belonging to the period of the Old
5:48 Testament we
5:52 find seeks to rebuke
5:56 Jesus to admonish
6:01 Jesus and to instruct Jesus
6:05 Jesus which would qualify him instantly
6:15 theologian but we see that Jesus came to
6:17 John at the Jordan in order to be
6:21 baptized and we read and John tried to
6:23 prevent him
6:27 what you're trying to
6:30 prevent Jesus
6:33 you just sang the AGN day you said
6:36 Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take
6:39 away the sin in the world and you said
6:43 that you weren't worthy to unloose the
6:46 ties of his sandals and
6:49 that you must decrease and he must
6:51 increase and
6:55 still you want to instruct him and
7:00 prevent him from doing what he came
7:02 to have
7:05 done well why in the world would such a
7:08 Godly Man as John the Baptist be so
7:10 audacious as to seek
7:14 to instruct Jesus well the answer is
7:15 very clear here in the
7:18 text why he tried to prevent him because
7:19 he said to
7:23 him I need to be baptized by
7:26 you and you're coming to me don't you
7:28 get it Jesus don't you understand what's
7:32 going on here I'm baptizing people for
7:35 repentance of their
7:39 sin and I know you don't have
7:42 any you're without
7:45 blemish so you're being baptized would
7:48 contradict the whole purpose of my Earthly
7:50 Earthly
7:53 Ministry Jesus I don't know what you've
7:57 been drinking or smoking this morning
8:01 but you've got it wrong
8:04 you should be baptizing me look at me
8:06 there blemishes all over me I'm not the
8:14 God and I can't baptize
8:16 you because that would
8:18 mean you had
8:22 sins of which to repent
8:25 repent
8:27 so like Peter who would
8:31 say things like no
8:36 Lord John persists in trying to persuade
8:38 Jesus not to do it and then you would
8:41 think the text would go on to say that
8:44 Jesus then pulled John aside away from
8:45 the crowd away from the multitude and
8:48 said look let's have a short little
8:52 seminar here on theology let me explain
8:57 to you why this uh strange phenomenon uh
8:59 should take place and that really
9:03 there's sound reason for me to have you
9:08 baptize me and then go into a discussion
9:11 with him about the Covenant of works the
9:14 Covenant of Grace and the need of the
9:18 mediator to so represent his people as
9:22 to do everything that is required of
9:25 Israel to pray he could have done that
9:27 that
9:30 instead he used the sort of G damac
9:34 Clays to cut the gordian
9:39 knot and a little bit of aams Razor to
9:44 simplify the matter by just simply
9:46 saying hey
9:55 alone suffer with me a little
10:02 to
10:09 righteousness I know you don't
10:12 understand just do
10:14 it because I told
10:17 you to do
10:21 it and the rest is Biblical
10:26 history John said yes sir and proceeded
10:28 proceeded
10:30 to B baptize
10:32 baptize
10:37 Jesus but we note in this text a
10:41 point that I believe is at the very
10:43 core of one of the most
10:47 significant issues about the person and
10:48 work of
10:51 Christ that the church faces
10:55 today and I think will continue to
11:00 face through the 21st century
11:03 I'm asked frequently by interlocutors
11:07 what I believe to be the most serious
11:10 issues that the church WIll face in
11:15 future decades and I plead not the fifth
11:18 but the response of the Prophet Amos I'm
11:22 not a prophet nor the son of a prophet
11:23 and so I don't know what's going to
11:26 happen tomorrow in the church let alone
11:29 10 years from now but my best guess and
11:31 that's all it is is a
11:34 guess is that the great issues that we will
11:35 will
11:38 face in the near decades to
11:41 come will be
11:45 concerning the church's understanding of
11:48 Jesus who he
11:50 is and what he
11:54 did during his Earthly
11:57 Ministry now that the church should face
11:59 a crisis with respect to the person and
12:02 work of Jesus is nothing
12:05 new if we know anything about church
12:07 history we know that there have been four
12:08 four
12:12 centuries since the Advent of Jesus
12:14 where the church's understanding of the
12:18 person and work of Christ reached a
12:20 point of critical
12:23 mass those centuries were the fourth
12:26 Century the fifth century the 19th
12:30 century and the 20th century
12:32 in the 4th Century we had the Aryan
12:36 controversy that challenged the church's
12:37 understanding of the deity of Christ
12:40 that consequently led to the Council of
12:43 NAA and the nyine
12:46 Creed in the fifth century the attack
12:48 from the monophysites and then
12:51 historians again on the church's
12:53 understanding of the Dual nature of
12:56 Jesus in The Mystery of the
12:58 Incarnation which culminated in the
13:01 Council of ch Al on in
13:04 451 then in the 19th century with the
13:05 Advent of European
13:07 European
13:10 liberalism or so-called 19th century
13:13 liberalism which denied the supernatural
13:16 virtually alt together as it is found
13:19 with respect to Jesus his virgin birth
13:23 his satisfactory atonement his Ascension
13:25 his return at the end of the age and
13:28 every miracle that he performed on this planet
13:29 planet
13:33 Planet which critical
13:37 skepticism and naturalism spilled over
13:40 and spread through the whole world in
13:44 the 20th century and held in a vice grip
13:46 virtually every major
13:50 denomination certainly in this
13:53 country now we're just at the beginning
13:54 of the 21st
13:59 century and so this crisis of skepticism
14:02 that is now endured over 200
14:05 years is not
14:07 over it
14:10 continues but what I find most alarming
14:13 about it is that the crisis in
14:18 christology today is not confined to
14:20 Liberal institutions or the so-called Mainline
14:21 Mainline
14:25 churches but has raised its head in the
14:35 circles now in the decade of the
14:40 90s we had an initiative from leading professing
14:42 professing
14:45 Evangelical Scholars and
14:49 preachers with uh Scholars from the
14:51 Roman Catholic
14:54 communion in which a declaration was made
14:55 made
14:59 jointly titled evangelicals
15:01 and Catholics
15:05 together for the most part an initiative
15:07 to stand shoulder toosh shoulder to
15:10 address what we call common Grace issues
15:14 in our culture with abortion
15:18 relativism and the like in the midst of
15:21 this statement was the Declaration that
15:26 the signator said that they had a
15:36 gospel which raised a human cry among
15:39 the Evangelical World which said since
15:44 when did Rome repudiate her anathema of
15:48 the Gospel as we understand it how can
15:50 we say that we have a union of faith in
15:54 the gospel when there's such a radical
15:56 different understanding of what the
15:59 gospel is
16:02 a lot of theological blood was spiled
16:04 over that
16:06 controversy because the article of
16:09 justification by faith alone which was
16:11 what Luther called the article upon
16:14 which the church stands or Falls was now
16:19 being brought into question within
16:22 evangelicalism and so ECT
16:24 framers gave us volume
16:28 two much longer trying to answer the
16:31 critics that saw a threat to the
16:33 doctrine of justification by faith alone
16:36 and in this one they said that we are
16:39 both sides agree on the fundamental
16:42 elements of the doctrine of
16:45 justification by faith alone
16:47 alone
16:51 however the language of imputation
16:52 imputation
17:00 table Michael Horton from
17:03 Southern California responded to that by
17:06 saying that if all of the ingredients of
17:09 justification by faith alone are agreed
17:12 upon here is like saying that you can
17:15 have chocolate chick cookies by putting
17:19 sugar and flour and making cookies and
17:24 just leave out the one little element of
17:26 chocolate chips and think that you still
17:29 have chocolate chip
17:32 cookies well dear friends you can't have
17:33 chocolate chip
17:37 cookies without chocolate chips it might
17:40 look like a chocolate chip cookie it
17:43 might quack like a chocolate chip cookie
17:46 but it's not a chocolate chip
17:48 cookie but you see the crisis there was
17:50 on one
17:52 word that one word
18:00 imputation and
18:03 ironically that in the 16th
18:06 century after the largest and most
18:09 significan sism occurred in the history
18:12 of Christendom with the Protestant
18:15 Reformation there were very serious
18:18 attempts by very serious Scholars and
18:24 leaders to heal that Rift and bring the
18:26 parties of the Protestants and the Roman
18:31 Catholics back together to reunify the
18:34 church lengthy discussions took place
18:35 and at
18:40 Regensburg the parties came that
18:43 close to making
18:46 up but what was the sticking
18:49 point what was the point that Rome choked
18:51 choked on
18:56 imputation now is this simply an academic
18:59 academic
19:04 exercise and technia that has no real
19:07 significance for the average person what
19:13 make the difference is
19:15 simply heaven or
19:18 hell that's what difference it
19:21 makes the Bible tells us that if the
19:24 Lord should Mark iniquity it ask
19:27 rhetorically who would
19:32 stand I I know I would not
19:34 stand if I am judged in the final
19:37 analysis at the Gates of
19:41 Heaven on the basis of my
19:44 righteousness even if that righteousness
19:51 Grace I could not
19:54 stand at the Council of Trent in the
19:56 16th century at the six
20:00 session Rome declared that for a person
20:03 to be justified they have to have
20:06 faith they have to have
20:09 Grace and they have to have
20:14 Jesus they categorically repudiated pure
20:20 pelagianism not then or since has Rome
20:21 ever said that a
20:24 person can be saved by his own
20:26 righteousness without the help of
20:29 Grace or without the help of
20:38 Faith so we often misunderstand the
20:41 dispute but the issue was
20:44 this at the Judgment seat when God
20:47 declares a person just or
20:49 unjust what's the
20:52 basis or the
20:55 grounds by which God will
21:00 declare a person just
21:02 and the difference is
21:05 this let me back up just a second and say
21:11 that when we articulate the difference
21:13 between the Roman view of
21:16 justification and the reform view of
21:19 justification we use a couple of words
21:21 they're a little bit
21:25 technical the two words are
21:27 analytical and
21:29 synthetic let me just take a second to
21:30 unpack those
21:33 terms when we speak of
21:37 analytical justification as Rome
21:40 does the term
21:43 analytical refers to a statement
21:45 statement
21:50 where when something is predicated of a
21:53 subject there is nothing new in the
21:56 predicate that wasn't already present in
21:58 the subject
22:01 for example if I
22:03 defined a
22:06 bachelor as an unmarried
22:10 man what I've predicated of the bachelor
22:13 gives you no new information that wasn't
22:17 already there in the definition of the word
22:19 word
22:24 Bachelor if I said that a triangle has three
22:25 three
22:27 sides what I've predicated of the
22:30 triangle has has not given you any new
22:32 information has
22:37 it if I say 2 and two equals
22:41 4 the sum of the matter is identical on
22:44 both sides of the equal
22:49 sign an analytical statement is a
22:52 tautology it's true by
22:56 definition nothing new in the
22:59 predicate that's not all already there
23:00 in the
23:03 subject now how does that apply to the
23:04 Theology of justification well in the
23:07 Roman view which is
23:10 analytical it said God will only ever
23:13 declare a person
23:16 just if and when he subjects that person
23:18 to his omniscient
23:20 omniscient
23:22 examination he
23:25 sees that that person really is
23:30 just that that person actually is
23:34 righteous if he finds one
23:38 impurity in that person according as the
23:40 most recent uh statements of the Catholic
23:41 Catholic
23:44 catechism that person must first go to
23:48 Purgatory before he can go to
23:50 heaven the place of
23:53 purging where the impurities and the
23:55 draw will be
23:59 separated from the gold
24:02 and even worse if the person is found at
24:06 his death to be guilty of mortal sin he
24:09 won't even have the advantage of going to
24:10 to
24:13 Purgatory that will be bypassed for a
24:16 direct trip to
24:19 hell if our
24:23 salvation and justification is
24:26 dependent upon God's final
24:29 analysis of the state of our
24:33 righteousness at our death let me
24:35 declare to you something this
24:38 afternoon with absolute
24:42 certainty no one in this
24:46 room can possibly go to
24:49 Heaven There is no gospel
24:55 all reformed theology
25:03 which means that when God looks at you
25:05 on the Judgment
25:08 Day he doesn't just see
25:13 you but he sees something added to
25:16 you now if I say The
25:19 Bachelor is a rich
25:22 man I've told you something about the
25:25 bachelor that's not analytically
25:28 contained in the term Bachelor
25:30 because not all
25:35 Bachelors are rich men they're all
25:38 unmarried men but they're not all rich
25:40 men do you see now the difference
25:43 between the analytical and the
25:46 synthetic and again this is not just an
25:49 exercise in abstract
25:52 theology but our life and death depend on
25:53 on
25:57 it because the only way I get to
26:00 heaven is when God looks at
26:04 me he sees something added to
26:08 me and that which is added to
26:11 me is the perfect
26:14 righteousness of Jesus
26:17 Christ you see when we say that
26:20 justification is by faith alone that's just
26:21 just
26:25 shorthand theological shorthand for
26:33 is by Christ
26:36 Alone by a
26:40 righteousness that is not found in
26:43 me but is reckoned for
26:46 me assigned to
26:50 me by the forensic Judgment of God when
26:52 all who come before him putting their
26:56 trust in Christ are covered and
27:01 clothed by the imputation ation the
27:04 transfer of his
27:10 us so how
27:12 important is
27:17 imputation without it we
27:19 perish with
27:21 it we enter into the family of
27:24 God and live in
27:40 well where does this righteousness come
27:44 from that becomes our
27:47 possession that we bring with us to the
27:52 Judgment seat of God again it's not our own
27:53 own
27:56 righteousness it's nothing that we've
27:59 achieved it's what Luke Luther called an
28:03 alienum eum an alien righteousness a foreign
28:05 foreign
28:07 righteousness a righteousness he said
28:09 that is
28:13 extros apart from us again the
28:15 righteousness of Jesus one of Luther's
28:17 most famous slogans you've all heard it I'm
28:18 I'm
28:24 sure is the slogan simus at
28:29 pator at the same time just and
28:32 sinner this is the gospel in a nutshell
28:35 at the very same time right now as I
28:39 stand before you I am just in the sight
28:43 of God by the imputed righteousness of
28:47 my Lord and Savior My mediator Jesus
28:51 Christ yet at the same time considered
28:56 analytically in and of myself I am still
28:58 a sinner
29:00 do you get
29:04 it the only way Sinners can get past the
29:05 gates of
29:09 Heaven Is by wearing the
29:12 Robes of somebody else's
29:15 righteousness that's the good
29:18 news the good news
29:20 is I'm not going to be
29:23 judged on the righteousness of oury
29:26 Sproul let them be judged on the
29:29 righteousness of Jes Jesus
29:33 Christ you take away
29:35 imputation you take away justification
29:37 by faith
29:40 alone you take away justification by faith
29:41 faith
29:44 alone you take away the
29:47 gospel you take away the
29:52 gospel you take away all hope for your future
29:58 survival now
30:01 this imputed
30:03 righteousness where does it come
30:06 from what is
30:10 it how did it
30:14 happen well since the ECT
30:18 debate and the debate over
30:21 imputation we have seen within
30:24 historically Evangelical
30:41 Christ which really is an attack on the
30:45 gospel we make a distinction between the
30:51 active and passive Obedience of Christ
30:54 during his Earthly
30:56 life what does that distinction mean
30:59 well me keep in mind it's a woman's
31:02 prerogative to change her mind that's a
31:04 moral absolute isn't
31:07 it and it's the
31:11 theologians right to make
31:14 distinctions that's what we're about and
31:19 so we distinguish between the active and
31:22 passive Obedience of
31:25 Jesus if you ask a six-year-old
31:28 child what did Jesus do for you
31:32 you they will often respond in Sunday
31:37 school Jesus died on the cross for my
31:40 sins and indeed he
31:50 imputation that God
31:52 transferred my
31:54 sin and my
32:02 he didn't die for
32:05 himself he died for
32:08 us as he bore our
32:11 sin on the
32:13 tree that
32:16 transfer is an act of imputation and we
32:21 call that Jesus passive
32:24 obedience now it's a this distinction
32:25 between active and passive is a little
32:28 bit fine and uh
32:31 and it can be more of a distinction it
32:35 needs to be but in any case what is
32:37 meant by the
32:40 distinction is that in his
32:43 suffering and in his
32:46 death Jesus
32:49 passively allowed
32:52 himself to be a
32:55 sacrifice the sacrificial
32:58 lamb for you
33:00 and for
33:03 me he
33:07 acquiesced into his father's will only
33:10 hours after he sweat droplets of blood in
33:11 in
33:14 Gethsemane asking to have that cup pass from
33:15 from him
33:18 him
33:21 nevertheless he accepted it
33:23 it
33:26 passively let it
33:33 when we speak about the active Obedience of
33:34 of
33:36 Jesus we are
33:39 looking at the
33:43 activity of his whole Earthly life not
33:46 just a few hours on the cross at golgatha
33:47 golgatha
33:50 but over his whole
33:53 life where his meat and his drink was to
33:55 do the will of the
33:59 father where he SP spent his entire
34:05 life with Zeal for his father's house actively
34:07 actively
34:11 obeying every jot and tit of the
34:16 law that God had given to the human race
34:17 in this
34:19 regard he served as the second or the new
34:21 new
34:24 Adam who accomplished that which Adam
34:25 failed to
34:29 do by Adam's Disobedience the world was
34:31 plunged into
34:34 ruin but by the son of God's
34:39 obedience we are brought safely
34:44 home so it is Jesus entire
34:46 life of perfect
34:48 perfect
34:50 obedience to the law of God we don't
34:58 like historians tell the story of
35:04 Luther's torment as a monk in
35:06 erfort where they would have daily confessional
35:08 confessional
35:10 time the rest of the monks would go in
35:14 and say father I've sinned I coveted
35:16 some of brother Jonathan's chicken at
35:18 dinner last
35:21 night and I'm hardly sorry and the
35:23 Confessor would say say so many Hill
35:26 mares and our fathers and Grant
35:29 absolution send them back to
35:34 work Luther would go on into the
35:38 confessional spend 15 minutes 30
35:41 minutes an
35:44 hour sometimes two
35:48 hours confessing the sins that he had
35:52 committed in the last 24
35:55 hours he would get his
35:58 Absolution and on the way back back to his
35:59 his
36:02 cell would fall into despair because he
36:05 would think of a
36:08 sin he failed to
36:11 confess oh Luther was trained in
36:14 law some people say he was insane and
36:17 just simply neurotic and overcome with
36:19 these guilt
36:22 complexes but here's how Martin Luther would
36:23 would
36:25 think he would say now let's see the
36:27 great commandment is Thou shalt love the
36:29 Lord your God with all your mind with
36:37 on he said that's the great
36:40 commandment wow if that's the great
36:42 commandment then it would seem to Luther
36:44 that the great
36:47 transgression would be to violate the great
36:51 commandment and then he would think and he
36:52 he
36:56 said I have some affection in my heart
36:59 for God for my
37:03 Lord but all of my
37:06 heart I haven't loved God with all of my
37:09 heart for a single second in my life not
37:11 to mention in the last 24
37:14 hours with all of my
37:18 mind have I given my entire mind to the
37:20 service of
37:23 God well Luther would say I've been a
37:25 serious scholar I study hard I read a
37:32 but often when I'm reading my mind is
37:36 gathering wool it's wandering to and
37:39 fro I haven't devouted
37:42 devoted the entire intellectual
37:45 abilities that God has given to me to his
37:48 his glory
37:50 glory
37:53 no now how many days did Jesus live in this
37:54 this
37:57 world without loving the father with all of
38:06 heart how many afternoons did Jesus take
38:08 off from loving the father with all of his
38:14 mind with all of his
38:16 strength you see if he would have failed
38:19 to keep the great commandment for one
38:22 second in his entire
38:24 lifetime he could not have been our savior
38:27 savior
38:31 because God required a lamb without
38:35 blemish not just
38:42 righteousness but perfect
38:44 perfect active
38:55 required there are those who call
38:58 themselves evangelicals who
38:59 deny the
39:04 passive obedience by saying that Jesus
39:06 being a substitute to satisfy the
39:09 demands of God's justice and
39:12 righteousness by
39:15 being suffering at the presence of the
39:17 hands of the
39:20 father that that view
39:23 involves God in
39:29 I've heard a lot of heresy in my life
39:32 but nothing worse than
39:34 that or
39:37 those who dispute imputation and the
39:40 perfect ACT of righteousness of Jesus
39:42 because they don't like the distinction
39:43 between the Covenant of works in the
39:46 Covenant of great which re foreign
39:49 people teach that initially the Covenant
39:51 that God made with
39:55 Adam was a covenant of
39:58 works that the promises of benefits that
40:01 were given to them were conditioned upon
40:04 their fulfilling the proh pro
40:07 probationary period by rendering
40:09 obedience to the
40:13 father and after they
40:17 failed if there was to be any
40:20 salvation from the first moment that
40:22 Adam and Eve sinned and God continue to
40:25 fellowship with them and stoop down to
40:27 clothe their nakedness
40:30 he instituted a Covenant of Grace by
40:32 Said by my
40:35 grace the seed of the woman will crush
40:42 head and since that moment anybody
40:44 that's ever been
40:48 saved he been saved by
40:50 grace and because of that some say well
40:51 listen God didn't even have to enter
40:53 into a covenant at all with Adam and Eve
40:55 and the Very fact that he stooped to
40:57 enter a covenant with his creatures was
40:59 a gracious thing so why have this
41:01 concept of the Covenant of works well in
41:03 that sense that's true but again you ask
41:06 why these distinctions are made
41:12 answer in the final
41:17 analysis we are not justified by
41:19 faith in the final analysis we're
41:31 The Works of
41:35 Christ who by fulfilling the Covenant of
41:38 Grace through his perfect ACT of
41:40 obedience fulfilled the terms of the
41:56 people so this theological
42:00 dispute that is Raging even as I speak this
42:05 afternoon
42:08 again is not an abstract issue of
42:11 theology I hear it all the time from
42:14 people saying I'm not interested in
42:16 Doctrine I'm interested in relationships
42:19 I'm interested in
42:22 Jesus Doctrine divides of course Doctrine
42:24 Doctrine
42:28 divides when didn't it divide
42:31 I'll tell you the first division that Doctrine
42:33 Doctrine
42:36 produced was when this fellow came into
42:39 the Garden of Eden and I'm guessing I
42:40 have to help me with her mic I don't
42:42 think he was slithering on the ground
42:44 yet I think he was probably standing
42:49 up and he came to Eve and he
42:52 said did God
42:55 say that if you eat of the
42:58 tree you will surely die
43:01 what kind of Doctrine is
43:04 that you won't
43:08 die what difference does it
43:11 make do you realize that the fall of the
43:14 human race was a profoundly theological doctrinal
43:16 doctrinal
43:20 issue who's telling the truth
43:22 truth
43:25 God or the
43:28 serpent so I beg you don't don't never be
43:30 be
43:33 Cavalier about the truth of
43:35 God the truth of God didn't matter
43:37 there'd be no reason for us to be here this
43:38 this
43:42 afternoon there'd be no reason to have a
43:45 Reformation Bible
43:48 college but it does
43:51 matter because Christ
43:55 matters and because God
43:58 matters and because we
44:00 matter to
44:02 him let's
44:05 pray Our
44:09 Father eternity is not long
44:13 enough for us to praise you and thank
44:16 you for the gift of the perfect ACT of
44:22 Jesus for the imputation of his
44:29 us and in your
44:31 presence thank
44:35 you not only for an adequate
44:42 one we pray in his
