(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
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Intro:
Hey friends, one quickie update. Thanks to you who support the ministry financially, and particularly the one of you who got me into a newer car that I wasn’t planning on, I was able to gift my older car to my estranged son. That happened yesterday and was its own really positive moment. Doesn’t mean we’re hanging out, but it was literally a ministry move on my part, and I want to thank you for being co-workers in the the truth.
That said, I’m short on time here today, so I’m going to get rolling…except to say that for a few days here we’re focusing on knowing God, but today’s focus question is a lesson in deduction…What do we know of God from our sin? We’ll tackle that in our Bottom Line segment today.
New Testament segment:
Passage: 1 John 2:3-3:10
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 37
Words: ~877
Old Testament segment:
Passage: Ezekiel 8-9
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 29
Words: ~847
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Psalm 91
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 16
Words: ~263
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Proverbs 19:24-29
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: xx
Words: ~xxx
The bottom line:
In a way, today’s focus question would be more accurate if it was What is one thing we know about God because of our sin? And here it is. Remember these words, and then I’ll share why:
All is god. All is in god.
These world represent two false worldviews. And the latter in particular represents something that many Christians are drawn into by false teachers. Let me first describe them.
Pantheism is the view that “all is god.” All stuff is one and the same. We’re all divine, the trees are divine. All phenomena, spiritual and physical, is god.
Panentheism is the view that “all is in god.” And while I promise you most people aren’t going to know the word panentheism, you’ll recognize that’s what they’re talking about if they’re saying god is in everything that exists, but god is also more that what exists. People who put positive intentions out to the “universe” often mean this. Or people who say god is to the world what the soul is to the body.
There are multiple reasons why both of these are not only incompatible with Christianity, but false philosophically, too. But I promised you one…simply observing something about knowing the true God, one in essence, and three in persons…from our own sin.
We know that there is sin and evil and suffering in the world. But if God is one with the world, that would mean that God is partly evil…he wouldn’t be perfectly good, wouldn’t be the solution to evil.
Now if you’re a philosopher, you’ll know that I radically simplified, if not over-simplified this…except to point out that one thing relative to our focus question. We know we have sin, but as John argues, there is no darkness in a perfect and pure God. Therefore God must be transcendant.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
(1) “The Lexham Figurative Language of the New Testament Dataset,” in Lexham Figurative Language of the Bible Glossary, ed. Joshua R. Westbury et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).