OK, welcome everyone. It's very exciting to have you
here. I am, I'm I'm just going to
welcome everyone again. And if anyone can remember the
acronym from last time, I will just be so happy because I'm
actually going to expand it with a letter.
So it was a three letter word last time, which is the culture
of this conversation, both here and in any conversation we have
at Hope or with anyone for the next year.
It was a three letter word. Can anyone remember it?
Gap. Mind the gap.
So what did G stand for? Close gentleness.
So we are, what we want to do is hold a space where people will
have very differing experiences, very different kind of
perspectives and different theology.
But we can do that with gentleness.
In fact, Peter says, always be willing to share the hope that
you have within you, but do it with gentleness and respect.
Gentleness is so compelling, especially in an age of vitriol.
And second point G gentleness. A.
It's difficult this ask. Thanks, Peter.
So ask if you don't know words. There's nothing more annoying
than theologians who forget that most people don't use words like
soterology or Christology and they have no idea all that means
is being saved or Jesus. It's like you just like we put
ology on things to for no reason.
So please, there is no question that is too simple.
And in fact, it's really important we don't, we have this
conversation and are able to say actually, I literally don't
understand a word you're saying because otherwise we're not
having a conversation. The idea of a conversation is
one person connects with another person, but if one person is
speaking a different language, the idea of a conversation isn't
happening because there's not a connection.
It's really serious, actually. So we need to say, I don't
understand what you're saying. Now, what's the P?
Because I'm going to add in an extra letter which I'm quite
excited about. But what was the P?
Gentleness. Ask something.
This quite might be an emotional roller coaster, so we pay
attention to what rises up in us when we hear something.
For example, when I hear the word God is in everyone,
something rises up in me. I just pay attention to that.
Why does that? What is that?
Why am I experiencing some sort of emotional response to that?
That's interesting. I believe God created everyone.
I believe he's with everyone. I even believe he came in the
socks in the human condition. He, Adam, everyone died in Adam.
Everyone's made alive in Christ. That's a direct quote from Paul.
So why does that? Why is that difficult for me?
Not saying that is a it's not about a right or wrong.
It's just pay attention to the things that provoke us because
they're very helpful in our growth and self-awareness.
OK, so that's gap, but I'm going to add in an S so it's going to
be gasp, do you like that? I'm quite pleased with that.
I was thinking, can I make a 10 letter word where every single
time over the next 10 months I build gasps, grasps and then I
anyway, the point is gasp, say something.
OK, if which I've just modelled and I'm going to ask Emma in a
minute to model. If you are struggling with
something, do not just leave quietly.
Like, it's really important you don't just leave quietly.
People, British people just leave quietly.
They don't know how to say. That is so scary for me.
That's so uncomfortable. That's so discombobulating
because no one knows what the heck that word means.
That is so disorientating. I can't actually go there.
Just say it. Like, what's the worst thing
that can happen? Someone goes, yeah, I don't
know. I don't know.
We're talking about the biggest ideas or way of reality in the
cosmos here. There's going to be things that
are hard for us to get our minds around.
The word mystery is used a lot for a reason, I think.
I think it's more dangerous if we think we've somehow got our
faith buttoned up and we can explain it coherently and we're
in alignment with it. Personally, I wake up and think
Jesus said that, that the cosmos is held together by the word.
Wow, do I live with integrity to that reality that everything's
held together by the word. So say something.
So today it's gentleness. Ask if you don't understand, say
something and pay attention. So Emma, would you like to?
Emma's going to share a bit of her journey with this content so
far. And that the biggest thing I
have, which I've been talking to Paul and Grace about, is I
struggle with the the idea that the problem of evil is a big
thing I think about and sin and death.
It's great, isn't it? Welcome to my brain.
And I think so I'm struggling a lot with that and the content
here with that. At the same time, I think I, I'm
touching something that I've never touched before.
When the Father says to the Son at the baptism, you're my
beloved, He's saying that to the new humanity.
He's saying it to Christ. He's saying it, I'm in Christ,
I'm in the Father. He's saying to the new humanity.
We are in Christ. We are the beloved.
I think there's some participation in the Trinity in
that moment. I'm, I'm kind of touching, but I
can't really explain. So I've got the darkness stuff.
I wrestle with a lot how what why Jesus died.
I think about that a lot, how it achieves the change of the human
condition. But on the other hand, I feel
like I'm touching something that is profoundly hopeful in every
way. So that's where I'm at with this
content. Yeah.
So after we got together last month, I was quite interested at
my reaction. I felt, I felt very emotional.
And I, I think it, the feeling was, gosh, am I meant to believe
everything that this course is teaching us?
Are we all meant to be adopting this way of thinking?
And what happens if by the end of the course, I don't?
Does that mean that I'm no longer able to be part of this
community? And does that mean I have to
leave hope? And Oh no, I've just made lots
of lovely relationships and I mean, that's catastrophizing.
But on the other hand, I was observing this and going, that's
interesting. What's that about?
So I, rather than quietly leave hope I I've talked to what I
talked to Alice about it and had a really good conversation with
her. And I've talked to a few people
and just express my doubts, my fears, the things that I'm
struggling to get my head round. I had a conversation with Paul
this afternoon, which is really helpful.
And so I think it's a journey and I don't necessarily think I
will agree with all of it. And then, but I've come to the
place where I think that's fine. But it is really it's been great
for sharpening actually what what is it that I believe?
What do I think about that? So I'm hanging in there.
Thank you. Thanks, Emma.
I'm just going to Did you? It's Rob going to come up?
Rob, it's Rob going. Rob, do you want to come up now?
I'm just going. To no, you shouldn't clap first,
you haven't heard what I've said and I've got way more notes here
than than I want. But I actually just to add on
one bit for that. I think for me, where I've got
so far, it's really stood out and where my little talk on
Hillary of Hillary, of, of Poitiers is, is is linked.
It's this idea of why the Trinity is so important and why
it was so important to to to defend this idea of a God that
exists in relationship with himself, experiencing love, not
needing anything additional, but out of that loving place looking
to bring us in. And I said to Charlie Karen, I
don't know if you guys remember, you know, occasionally he's done
this sort of the bat God and the Trinity in church.
And I said, I so love that you've done that because I don't
think I grew up too much with bat God, but there's elements
that are there. And the thing that's really
where I'm at so far with is that feeling of art just.
But like how I said, I I don't fully get it, but I'm really
excited to come back to that place of God is inherently
loving. And you know, he he doesn't, you
know, this is not about me needing to do the right thing.
Yeah. So, so Hillary of Poitier have a
little picture of him here. That's the man.
He's gone. How's he gone?
Very good looking guy. Long beard, but so he was he
became a Christian. So I think ever got it right.
The Council of Nice and the Nice and Creed has decided in 325
about that. So he becomes a Christian after
that. He came from quite a a wealthy,
well educated background in France.
So he'd have known Greek and he'd have he'd have had a lot of
the, you know, some of the best of the academic skills at the
time. And so he quite often, he
sometimes gets described as a couple of ways.
One is the the Athanasius of the West pronouncing that right.
So Athanasius was a, an Eastern Church father who'd have been
older than him, but he'd been very key, I think round about
the time of the Nicene Creed of making the point that Jesus is
not created by God. You know, less than the first of
the new creation, which I think is the, the Aryan.
So Aries is it so Arius? And then there's is it Sibelius?
Sibelius had this idea that that God is 3 distinct things.
And Athanasius, I think was very key at saying no, no, Jesus is
God and really defending this idea that this this is God in
three persons in relationship with themselves, which is, you
know, a lot of the stuff that's been picked up on from John.
And so Hillary of of Pache is born later after the council of
the nice increase come back is out and it's been, you know, a
couple of maybe a couple of decades, but it's being
contested. And so I think it was it maybe
that's where Arias was Arias. OK, so he's saying Jesus
actually is not God. He is the first of all creation.
And I can see there's this thing, if you begin to pick
apart the Trinity in terms of who they are as one relating and
loving each other, you begin to introduce the option that that
God is somehow separate. And that's been a really
interesting thing for me to be, to be thinking about with all of
this, you know, this idea of a separate God who who could then
drift into the judge that I need to apologise to because I've had
a bad day. And I'm like, you know, are we
OK yet? God versus, you know, Charlie
Caron, you know, the, the, the, the Rube Lev picture, you know,
the Trinity in relationship, sitting facing each other,
inviting me in. And that feels really, really,
really powerful. So, so a lot of what Hillary did
was, was defending this. And he's a, he's a, he's a
Bishop. But at that point, the Roman
Empire, depending on who was sort of emperor at the time, it
seems like that this idea of Jesus was God and he is God
versus he's somehow slightly less than is being sort of
kicked around. And so Hillary's actually kicked
out of the church a couple of times.
And at one point he sort of excommunicated.
And at that point he actually goes to live somewhere in the
East. And I thought this was quite
interesting just about how God sometimes works.
So he's, he's taken out of his role and put over into the East.
But whilst he's there, he's able to learn a lot more about what a
lot of the Eastern church fathers were saying coming from
the West and playing around with this, this, this Greek word homo
homo eusis, no, homo eusis, which is the word that means he
is of the same substance as God versus homo eusis, which means
not that I can't remember quite what, but of, of different Subs,
you know, like, but not the same.
And I love the fact that in this period of exile, he, he
essentially, you know, God uses that and he, he produces his big
a, a major work, which is a book basically is the Latin for the
Trinity or something like that. He, he writes a, a key bit of
doctrine, but it's been really influenced by the exile and
where he's been and the people that he's been with.
That's, you know, that's really, really key.
So, so he's sometimes described as the, the hammer of the Aryans
or the Athanasius of the West. So there's this idea that he was
somebody that took, took on this, this, this essentially
like a, a battle for church theology about Churchill.
Yeah, the Christology like who was Jesus?
So that's the that's the main one.
There are various quotes that I could read to add on to that,
but they don't add too much other than the main quote that
you find from him, which was. It can also be a boy's name.
Nice one, Alice. Just going to do a quick pot of
church history because this will really help.
SO100AD all the Bibles. The New Testament is written
down. OK, but then then there's this
age of persecution. But 300 AD Rob mentioned the
Nicene Creed. What I'm going to do is ask
someone to find it and read it out in a minute where basically,
so those 200 years church fathers wrestled with what that
meant. Who is Jesus with the big
question, who is he? Is he fully human, fully divine,
or both? Every single thing that we
understand as heresy forever is can be stemmed back there.
So, for example, if the Muslims believe Jesus is a prophet, but
he wasn't God, that that's heresy according to Orthodoxy,
which was established by 300 all the Mormons, everything's tested
and is he Jesus? Did Jesus come in the flesh?
Is he fully human, fully divine? And there was some Trinitarian
thinking on the on the Holy Spirit as well.
But then the empire becomes Christian and you have basically
this kind of the beginnings of an East West division.
So what language do you think the West was thinking and
speaking? Yeah.
And what kind of mindset do you think they had?
Yeah. So judicial, legal, systematic.
Can you feel that if you feel it's more of a like A and it's a
lot of us, not all of us, but a lot of our my certainly
MyHeritage is more, more on the West.
I know Paul has Greek heritage as well, which is is more on the
East, but so then just giving it away.
But what's the main language over here?
So what Rob just said was there was a man in the West thinking
like the West was developing where people like Augustine were
who who coined the term original sin.
He actually moved to exile over here and had and did a did a lot
of work on who Jesus is. And then you tragically have
what's called the schism in 1054.
But all theology was developed by about 300, which means
there's actually unity on agreement between everyone.
But there was a schism on on whether the Son proceeds or not
from the Father in the Trinity. It's quite a niche thing in
1054. We don't need to think about
that now. Anyone know what the name of
this sort this church is now then called?
Yeah, they're about, you can ask chap GBT, but I think they're
about 24. But they are all in communion
with each other. Do you know what this side is
called? Catholic?
Brilliant. And then so do you know what
happened to roughly 1500? So Orthodoxy never went through
an enlightenment. It kept what we call a mystical
vision, which means reality is experienced and then it's
explained the E the West went through something called the
Enlightenment, which is our minds are what works out
reality. And we did very well on that.
Anyone who's in medicine will be very we're all grateful for the
scientific revolution that came out of that.
Our minds are incredible and when we can never knock that.
So that that's the heritage here.
And then, as I said, does anyone remember how many Protestant
denominations there are? 30 to 45,000?
Not necessarily in disagreement, but individualism came in
humanism. So you could kind of just start
your own thing. But then something really
extraordinary happened. I talked about this at our last
time at Maze Green Farm with Silas and Annie.
Something happened in the in the the from the year 1900 to 2000.
That change. I think it's the biggest story
in history ever that often goes unnoticed and it it's, sorry,
Pentecostalism. Exactly.
Pentecostalism came out of this side.
It's spreading across over here. And essentially, I think Paul
would agree with me on this. People started experiencing
things that this theology couldn't explain.
They were, we have someone here who's who's now left, but she
met Yeshua Jesus in tarot cards when she was spiritually
seeking. And we have story after story
and we look back at our lives and say God was where he
shouldn't have been. And that changed the nature of
the global church such that at the beginning of the 1900, a
typical Christian would be a white person with European
heritage. And by the end of it, it would
be a black woman who's 30 something in Africa.
And the entire Latin America, African continent and the global
SS and East Asia just experienced pretty much zero to
500 million people coming to faith.
So something happened quite extraordinarily there, including
more mystical, what the Orthodox would call mystical experiences.
So what I think we're doing is part of a, a unifying process
because this, this is healing a lot.
The Protestant Catholic thing, I don't know if you've noticed,
even in my lifetime, there's so much more collaboration,
friendship. No one really, no one really
minds about whether the real presence is in the sacraments or
not. Sorry, a Catholic would mind.
I'm saying that I love my Catholic brothers and sisters.
I don't want to kill them, which we did 500 years ago,
apparently. Do you see what I mean?
Like something's changed in our heart condition.
We're like, OK with it somehow, even though it's a very
different way of understanding communion.
And I think at the moment this is going towards here.
So I'm not, I'm not going to speak anymore, but I want Paul
to host now the rest of the evening, obviously.
But I hope that gives you a sense of the bigger picture of
what what this conversation's about this side far more
Trinitarian, far more communion, far more about union with Christ
and mysticism about here something developed a legal
model of atonement, which is probably the model of atonement.
I'm not going to go into now, but we've inherited.
I think all I'm saying is it's relatively recent and it's
relatively Western. And it may be true like that
isn't a problem, but it's it's, it's small compared to the
global historic church, and it's certainly very recent compared
to all the theology that was worked out by here.
So if someone's got the Nicene Creed, pay attention to what it
says about who Jesus is, the Trinity and why Jesus died.
Can someone read it out, please? This is the first of a number of
creeds that that the church has agreed was what we call
orthodoxy. The first thing I want everyone
to do is say, why does this matter?
Why we're talking about celebrity traitors.
We're just trying to get out of bed in the morning.
We're trying to get through the day.
Some of us have got financial problems, some are why the heck
is this relevant? Because if we don't know our
why, we we won't have what it takes to do this journey.
But if we have a why, we will. So I just, yes, Pete, why does
it matter to discuss what we think God's like, the Trinity's
like, why Jesus died, Why does this matter?
So I'd love you to just talk about that in your groups and
then I'm going to hand over to Paul.
Let's let's hear a couple of feedback points before we before
we continue with the journey. Does anyone want to feedback
what your discussions mean on your table?
Louis does. Oh, you put your hand up there.
OK, Well, you there's some of the things that we were chatting
about was so we asked ourselves a question again.
Why do we need to know? So one of the things that came
up was creations want to know their creator.
So we were talking about TV shows where people why?
And then we talked about TV shows where people want to go
and find out their ancestors. What does it matter that your
great, great, great, great grandfather did such a
horrendous thing or a great thing?
Why should that actually matter to you now?
And we were relating that there's a piss.
There's something in US that wants to know truth, and then if
truth is not a concept, it's a person.
And if the person is Jesus, which it is, then we want to
know who God is because we want to know truth, because we are a
creation and want to know our Creator.
Pass it on Whoever's next. A few other hands.
Shut up Micah. Hey, I can't tell if this is on
or not, but something that something that Olivia shared was
how our kind of beliefs end up evil, consciously or
unconsciously affecting our actions so.
We. We were just kind of playing
that out and thinking like if we're, if we're believing
something which is inaccurate, which is a lie, which is not,
which is not true, is not kind of a right reflection of God and
his character and his nature. Then that subconsciously or
consciously could start affecting our actions and how we
treat other people or treat ourselves or what we believe
about God and that kind of thing.
So I thought that was quite interesting.
It's like a a reason for oh, actually this is important
because it it dictates yeah, how we how we behave, how we treat
people. Cool.
Thanks, Micah. Peter, we said clarity is good.
We said clarity is good. But also if we just look around
and see what what's come up when people don't don't have good
right idea of who God is and what his relationship is to
Western, all sorts of horrible, nasty things come, which I'm
sure those of you who have studied history, Alice could
probably go into a much greater and gorier detail of the night
than I could. Thank you.
Very good. No, let's, we'll go and we'll go
back to discussion in a minute and kind of keep it going
because I think it's sounds like good discussions were going on.
We were having good ones here anyway, but it sounds like other
good ones are going on too. Just thinking about the the the
lecture for this week and some of the kind of headlines here
begin to recognise how the incarnation diagnosis and
addresses the darkness first learning outcome for this week.
I think that there is, I'm, I'm really glad we've kind of spent
time hovering on the, on the history and on the creed and why
we look at Saint Hilary and, and these things now.
Because although it's in a couple of weeks, couple of
months time, we'll look at the 20th century as well,
particularly the, the Carl's Carl Bath Karlraner, but also
looking at the in, in a little bit more detail into this
Sabellian and Aryan heresies. It's it's interesting if we ask
this question, why does it matter that Jesus is God?
Why, why does that matter from a salvation point of view?
What really is the problem if you if you just stop and dwell
on that for a while? Well, why can't he just be the
supreme ultimate creation? Why does he actually have to be
of the same being or of the same substance of the father
homoesios to patri they of the same being or of the same
substance? Why was it so important for
those early believers that they get to that point?
Because for a long time the the majority of the Christian world
was Aryan. Even Saint Augustine says this,
I think it was. Augustine, he says, uses the
phrase up until then. The whole world groaned under
the weight of Aryanism, he said. So that the the kind of
worldwide Christian movement had adopted A majority Aryan
position. Or at least that was his
impression that it was a very widespread view that Jesus was
not in fact God, but he was the supreme creation.
And the the conversation that leads into the Nicene Creed is a
Christological conversation. And you have Hillary, you have
Athanasius, you you have them really flying the flag for the
of the same being the same substance and that that
Trinitarian formula. You even have Father Christmas
who turns up apparently at Nicaea and gets into a punch up
over the homo Esios. Yeah.
So good. Good old jolly Father Christmas.
Saint Nick Lamps. Somebody you know Sarah.
No, it's a different Aryan. Different Aryan.
Yeah, Yeah, it's a good question, but it's a different.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, I think. I think that's Aryan.
This is an Aria N Aryan from Arius.
Arius is the was a Bishop of Alexandria who was known for
promoting the view that Jesus is not God.
He is. He's from he's he's a superior
higher order creation, but he's not actually of the same being
as the Father. So.
So Arianism from Arius the Bishop.
Yeah. So I think this is a, this is an
interesting question. I want you to just hold as we're
going to go back into discussion.
Why does it matter that Jesus is God?
Why did it matter to them? First of all, we might ask the
question, why does it matter to us?
And I want you to think about and talk about why does it
matter from the perspective of what actually is our problem
anyway? What is the problem that the
human race has? And how is it that Jesus's
arrival presents any form of a remedy?
What? What's going on here?
And to remind you again of the lecture, we really looked at
John 1 and the concept of the darkness and the light shining
in the darkness. The darkness is neither
understood nor overcome the light.
The darkness is neither understood nor overcome the
light. What is this issue of the
darkness that John is talking about?
Why does he bring it out to the front of the gospel?
This, this important idea? What is it that he's trying to
get us to see that we we haven't seen?
And the third part to that question is, OK, maybe we've had
some ideas about why Jesus had to die, but I think the question
is not why did Jesus have to die?
The question is, why did he have to die the way that he did?
Because if it's just about Jesus dying, he could have just killed
over and had a heart attack. If it was just about doing, if
that was going to do the job, why does he have to die in the
way that he did? What is that about the
significance of it? So putting those, those three
things together, why does he have to be God?
Why does he have to die the way that he did?
And what is the diagnosis that's given to us, especially from the
perspective of John 1 and the, you know, the, the overall
testimony of the Gospel? Let's go back into discussing
those three points. If you, if you paid attention to
the quote from Athanasius, then by all means bring that up from
the lecture. I'll quote it for you
afterwards. But I don't want to quote it
just now because I want you to kind of discuss and then we'll
kind of come back into that. And then we'll look at at how
how Athanasius anchors the problem and from the perspective
of what is it that they were thinking at that time that that
led them to say that this was really very important.
So let's take a few more minutes back in the groups again,
everyone. Cool, throw up.
Throw up a hand and I'll come around if you are unsure of the
questions or the discussion. We're going to have another
discussion now. Paul's going to do it.
But if every month 5 different people wash up, that's the rota.
But we're not going to write a rota.
So if you've done it now, that's the time you don't have to do it
again. And so in the discussion, Paul's
going to host something in the discussions.
Most people will be around their tables discussing, but there'll
be four or five people who will be washing up because Bex and
Esther did it for a long time last time.
We don't want that to happen again, Esther.
Thanks Alice. So let's hope hope again.
You had some some good discussions.
Ciao, everyone. You can listen in on the
recording or through the wall. I don't know if you can hear it
Four OK, grand. So should we should we just get
get to it some some feedback and then let me maybe maybe teach
into this a little bit to pull out a couple of key points that
maybe haven't come up for your attention from the from the
manual and also from the lecture, But comments,
questions. So we unfortunately picked
everything apart, didn't really like every question came kind of
fell out of these first questions about, well, if you
know, if Jesus is God and then the spirit is also Jesus living
in US. And then we went down the well,
if everyone has the spirit in them, does that mean that
everyone's saved? And then we went picked, we
picked everything apart, but we really need help now building it
all back together because we're we're all completely lost.
Completely lost. OK, only because one question
went into the next question, then went into the next question
and it didn't it it kind of spiralled into like, is there
hell or isn't there And all sorts.
We went everywhere. So I don't know whether that
helps or not. Cool.
OK, let me come back to that one.
Although maybe everyone just wants to talk about that now.
But yeah, I mean, as I say, it's fine.
It's fine. I, I, I, I understand why you
might, why you might end up down that rabbit trail.
It's only session 2. And this is, this is part of the
problem of doing it once a month is if it were not once a month,
we would already be like 2/3 of the way through the course like
by now. So, so yes.
But I'll, I'll speak to some of that in a moment, But maybe we
could pass on on on those questions.
Or do you just want me to we're running out of time so I can
just plough on. Jazz is nodding at me.
Sarah's nodding at me. All right, let me let me just
come back to that that one for a moment.
But just on the these kind of key outcomes really.
And also to highlight, please do look at the manual and make
Micah. I don't have them at all, but
you can have one. Yeah, I'm sure someone will have
spares. If not, I can always send you
the electric, electronic, electric, the electronic
version. Yeah.
So, OK, I think, I think I just want to want to restate some of
the things from the lecture that I think is super important to
make sure that we don't miss them.
And maybe speak a little bit to your questions.
And I'll stick around for a bit if you want to keep talking as
well. But I do want to let everybody
go sort of officially at half past.
So there's this question, what why does it, why does it have to
be that Jesus is God? Why was this so important?
Because you could have some logic that says, all right,
well, I could kind of get that. If somebody needs to die in
order to pay off a debt, well, if Jesus is supreme enough, then
maybe it's still valuable enough to God that God's willing to
kind of accept him in a hostage SWAT type situation.
And he is this sort of still this supreme kind of creature.
So why is that a problem? And that is basically what the
Aryans kind of more or less saw it as, you know, except that the
the early church fathers were so resolute that that this is not
right. And if you do that, then you
lose the entire gospel. And I think this is super
significant because for us, often when we ask that question,
well, does why does it have to be that Jesus is God for this
thing to even work? We're like, Oh yeah, I didn't
really know, actually. Like, why is that so important?
And that in itself to me is very telling when we compare what
we're practising as Christianity Today and where the discussion
was right at the very foundation of the Christian faith.
And how much of that has to speak to us now and kind of
critique the way we're asking these questions?
So you have Athanasius. And if anyone paid attention to
this, Athanasius is actually one of the Church fathers who's
quite easy to read. And you can find his major works
for free online or simple books. He's not an obscure figure by
any stretch of the imagination. And Baxter often quotes this
particular phrase from Athanasius, and he does in the
lecture. He says, you know, the God, the
God of all, is good and supremely noble by nature.
Therefore he is the lover of the human race.
So number one God is good and supremely noble and therefore
he's the lover of the human race.
So Athanasius is pointing out that the love that God has for
the human race emerges from the very nature of who God is.
This isn't something that's an addition that God decides to do.
This is very core to the absolute central being of who
God is, that he is the lover of the human race.
And then the second one is what then was God being good to do,
seeing that his creation was on the road to ruin and lapsing
into non being. And this is the phrase he uses
when he's talking about the the fall, the story of the fall,
Adam and Eve in the garden. What then was God being good to
do, seeing that his creation was on the road to ruin and lapsing
into non being So for Athanasius, he looks at us and
says the the problem that we have here is that whatever the
whatever the full story symbolises, whether he took that
literally or not, I don't know, but we we take it as speaking a
very important truth to us. Whether or not you're going down
the kind of I wouldn't bother with the the debate about, you
know, is it is it literal at this point?
Not saying it's not a valid debate, but it's not really the
important thing here. The key thing is Athanasius is
looking at this and saying the the problem we have here is we
see the human race in Adam begin to dissolve and unravel from the
moment this alienation sets in. And that this is a cosmic
catastrophe that affects not only them, it affects the entire
creation and the the creation itself is at risk of coming
apart at the scenes and dissolving away into non being.
And non beings, a technical word in kind of classical philosophy.
So this is not a strange word for them.
And so non being means that they they become they begin to become
less than who they really are in to put it in kind of more modern
terms, that their their authentic, true created identity
that is grounded in their creator, that that begins to
dissolve and fall away and disappear into nothingness.
This is this is how Athanasius diagnosis our problem, and this
is the problem of death. The death is now in control and
death is is exerting this influence on the creation to
cause it to begin to dissolve and fall away into nothing.
So what then was God being good to do?
God is good. He loves the human race.
Therefore, what does he do about this?
He becomes flesh, right? The word becomes flesh and flesh
is, it's an important word here because it's Sox.
It's not anthropos. Anthropos means human.
Sox means flesh. Literally, it's the when we talk
about all the sins of the flesh, that's the word Sox.
So Sox and the word Adam as well, it means of the earth or
of the ground. So we're talking about material
existence, material 3 dimensional and Newtonian
existence, that the word becomes that and takes on everything
that we are, everything that is human, that is inextricably
connected to our physicality, being of the earth and our
mortality. Also being under the this
paradigm of death. He takes on everything that we
are now when he does that. What this means is that the
indestructible God in whom is the ground of all life and light
in everything else, that God has now come and taken up residence
in our flesh. So it's not just a supreme being
who is extremely high up the hierarchy.
Maybe the maybe the, maybe the top of the angelic hierarchy,
you know, the, the chief of all the angels or something that
it's not that that being has come down.
And because that being is so valuable to God the Father,
God's willing to accept him as a sort of in a sort of bait and
switch situation with humanity. This is the very God of very God
entering fully into our problem and our problem is dissolution
and enslavement to death. And by coming into that, what
happens to death when the indestructible immortal one goes
into death, Death is destroyed, right?
Death is obliterated, which is the resurrection, right?
That's the, that's the story of the resurrection in the, in the
Eastern Church. It's a tradition that we tend
not to practise very much in the Western Church, although if you
go down to Bristol Cathedral, you'll see the oldest Christian
artefact in the city is the Anglo-Saxon icon of the
Harrowing of Hell, which is a it's an icon, it's a stone
relief. Then you can, you can see these
eastern icons of the Harrowing of Hell.
It's the depiction of what does Jesus do on Holy Saturday?
Like we have Good Friday and we have Easter Sunday.
Well, what happens on the Saturday And it's a bit more,
don't really know. It's kind of a bit, it's a bit
morose and don't know, are we supposed to, are we supposed to
take it as a holiday and go out and do something with the kids?
Or are we supposed to feel sorry and like, how are we supposed to
feel on Holy Saturday? Well, in the East, there is
something you're supposed to be recognising is that Holy
Saturday is the day that Jesus is in death, destroying death
from the inside out, like he's blowing it up from the inside.
And so the, in the depictions of the harrowing of Hell, you often
see death depicted as like the mouth of a dragon.
And you see Jesus leading Adam and Eve out by the hand with a
whole train, you know, of, of people coming out and being
being brought out from the mouth of the, of this dragon.
So here you have death and the, the dragon symbol being used
simultaneously for Satan and death.
So for Athanasius, he's saying, look, this Aryan thing destroys
the entire gospel, because if Jesus is not the indestructible
God, he has no life in himself. He is still a created being.
Well, a created being is not sufficient to destroy death from
the inside out, only the uncreated one who is the ground
of life and existence on everything.
He is the one who can, by virtue of going into death, destroy it
from the inside. And this is the, this is the
earliest or amongst the earliest of articulations about, of what
the Gospel is all about. What is it that Jesus is
actually doing? Why is it that it's essential
that we stand for He must be fully God.
The other side is he also must be fully man, because if he's
not fully man, then he has not fully assumed all of us.
He's left something of us behind.
And that's the that's part of the Gnostic heresy that's
saying, well, what we really need to do is escape our
humanity in order to be saved. And that means escaping the the
trap of materiality. So you have a lot of this
discussion in the New Testament around Jesus is a material
human. He, he's Newtonian, 3
dimensional. You know, even though in his
resurrected state he can transcend those Newtonian rules,
he still cooks fish and eats it. Peter yes.
Yeah, because of the Trinity. It's because this is a triune
revelation, right? So we have John One in the
beginning was the Word brackets the Son.
The word slash Son was face to face with God brackets the
Father. So what what you have John
testified to, well, it's through the whole New Testament, but if
we're thinking about John's gospel, you have Jesus coming to
reveal and communicate the relationship that he has with
the Father. Now, that relationship is not
the relationship of Creator and creation.
This is the relationship of parachoretic oneness, an
invented word right in the Greek, because they had to
invent words for this. They didn't have words for it.
And what what John is saying is that before the world was
created, this relationship existed.
It has and has always existed. And this is important because as
you you kind of get into this critique backs it does on the on
the Westminster Greater Catechism, which is this trying
to define who God is. And it leaves out the fatherhood
of God and it leaves out the love of God is and and this is
very much what the Nicene Creed doesn't do.
So the Nicene Creed begins, we believe in one God, the Father
Almighty and it's even in the word order that's deliberate.
So father becomes becomes before almighty in the Nicene Creed.
And that hierarchy is deliberate.
It's not one God the Almighty Father, it's one God the Father
Almighty. And that's because they're
they're emphasising that God's fatherhood is fundamental to
everything. There's no point at which God
becomes Father, Arias said. God became Father in the
creation of Jesus. And these guys were saying
absolutely not. There was never a point when the
Father was not the Father, and there was never a point when the
Son was not the Son. In fact, that relationship and
in the Spirit that relationship is the very fountainhead from
which creation came, and that is also the very fountainhead from
which the salvation enters into the disordered creation.
So Jesus brings his relationship with the Father into Adamic
humanity, Adam and the, the race of Adam, the progeny of Adam.
So he brings and that is the indestructible life, right?
So this is the other thing we're not supposed to miss that the
the indestructible immortal life is not just because God is
supreme, but it's the it's inextricably tied to the nature
of God, which is other focus and self giving love.
That's why John says God is love and he doesn't say God is
loving. He says God is love.
So to say that is to say that the ground of all creation is
this mysterious love. John in John 1 deliberately
takes us back to Genesis 1. So Genesis 1 you have in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We still have a Trinitarian formula even within there, but
it's little mysterious. So John takes us right back to
the beginning, but it's like he goes behind the curtain in
Genesis 1. You see, well, this is what God
is doing in John One, You're saying this is what's going on
within the mind of God as he's doing it, the Son and the Father
face to face with one another. And so you have this image then
of the face to faceness, which comes up over and over again.
Then in in the New Testament, we have the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
We have the transfiguration narratives, all of this stuff,
this concept of finding the face of God.
You know, Philip saying, show us the Father and it will be enough
for us. And Jesus said, if you've seen
me, you have seen the father. I thought if I saw the Father,
I'd spontaneously combust because doesn't the Bible say no
one can see my face and live? Apparently not because he is
Jesus and I'm seeing the face of God and I'm living.
So what does that tell me about what we got wrong about God
before? So all all of this is is kind of
tied together. But so so when he says this is
my beloved son, it's because he's this father Son relation,
the familial relationship is fundamental to all of creation
because it exists within the Trinity.
God doesn't become father. He always is Father.
So therefore, his default relationship to the creation is
the relationship of a father, unlike how it's often
articulated that he is a judge fundamentally.
And then if you get on the right side of the judge, then he
becomes a father, which is a a misinterpretation of the concept
of adoption, which we'll come to in a couple of sessions time.
So there is that. There's more to it as well.
But is that is that enough? Yeah.
No. Dan, you, you had do you want
this or are you, you OK? Is it a quick one?
Yeah, I don't know what to do with it.
Oh, there. Thanks.
We're going slightly over, so leave if you want to, but I
will. I want to answer everything,
respond at least. One of the things that I found
confusing in the video was the way that Baxter talked about the
Holy Spirit. And I think the Father and the
Son I can understand because I'm a father and I'm a son and I
sort of have a grid for that. But when Baxter was talking
about the Holy Spirit, he was saying the Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of the Father and he's the Spirit of Jesus and they're
their own person. And to me, I don't understand
how you, the Holy Spirit can be those three things, because
that's three different things and can't be all of them,
surely. Or if he is the Spirit of the
Father, then why is how is how? How is he or she or they
different to the? Well, welcome, welcome to
Christianity, right, Trinitarian theology.
So I think what we, what we see. And again, Baxter's he, he, he
does go into this in, in the lecture, he says, look, we get
the apostles seeming to make some distinctions, right?
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the
fellowship of the Spirit. So there's something
experiential about that, but they don't, they don't really
elucidate on it. And neither really did the
church fathers, you know, to quote Hillary, which is the
again, the quote from the, the lecture, Hillary's basically
saying, look, we, we have to argue, we have to actually try
and go into things that we shouldn't even be trying to
articulate. We should just be worshipping
like contentious to engage, receive and worship.
But it's the challenges of the heretics which are forcing us to
articulate and put into words things that we probably ought
not to. Because the more we try to put
it into words, the the risk is the more untrue it becomes that
there is something that is transcendent, that goes beyond
human language, that can't be articulated here.
And it's supposed to guide us into encounter and experience
that the the rational mind wants to set all those pieces out.
And but the, but the New Testament doesn't neither,
neither do the Church Fathers. They emphasise the significance
and the importance of it. But you're, you're not going to
get a, a kind of a, a forensic breakdown that in fact, any
attempt to break down and apportion roles or
responsibilities or things to the Trinity collapses into one
heresy or another much of the time.
So yes, it is mysterious. The reason my friend put it, you
know, if you want to understand the triune God, you have to be
the triune God. And I think that there, there's,
there's certainly a, a good deal of truth to that statement.
But I think that we, what, what we do see, however, is we see
the, we see the dynamic action of Father, Son and Spirit
working in an interrelated way, in a cooperative way.
So we see a plurality within the God that is 1 God.
But this again, I mean, the we're, we're, we're right.
We're right at the kind of the, the nub of, I mean, all true
Christianity is Trinitarian, right?
It's, it's a nice scene. It's what, how seriously we take
that for our understanding of everything else.
And so this is not a, this is neither a new idea nor, nor a
new question and new discussion. But the best thing I would say
to do that is Holy Spirit, I need you to, I need you to
introduce yourself like this is supposed to be relational.
So, OK, show me what? What is it you want me to know?
We can't deduce our way to the knowledge of God.
And that's another another point in here talking about Nicodemus.
You know, Nicodemus is not able to deduce his way.
Yeah. Where was it?
Yeah, in John 3, Jesus shows Nicodemus that he's come to give
him the Holy Spirit. But what what are the
implications? That the Holy Spirit was never
something Nicodemus could get himself.
Actually all, all the New Testament Pharisaical sect, the
whole point of their religion was to try and get the Holy
Spirit. In fact, they're all trying to
get the spirit. This is what it's about.
They understand to get the Holy Spirit is to return to Eden and
to return to union with God. So they, there's loads written
in the rabbinic literature about this.
So they, they know that the spirit is the thing that they
need and they don't have, they don't know how to get it.
And that's interesting to read the book of Acts with that in
mind, because then you, you, you see on the day of Pentecost, all
these pilgrims are thinking, hang on a minute.
How is it these guys have got the thing that we wanted?
If they can recognise that this is the spirit, or some of them
can, at least they can recognise this.
And they're, they're completely gobsmacked.
Like how is it that these people have this thing we spent our
years cultivating in kind of mystical practise?
And Paul makes a statement too. He says I was advancing in
Judaism beyond most Jews of my own age and he's talking about
mystical cultivation. And then he gets completely all
of that gets completely blown out of the water by his
encounter. So I think that we we have to we
have to drink the spirit and allow that to begin to reform
our understanding. But yeah, I think I can't, I
can't give you a more sewn up answer for that one.
Thanks. There was another hand went up.
Was it Sarah? Did you?
Sarah's right here. Did I see someone else?
No. OK.
Just just let me. Let me land.
Just make sure we've. Oh, Tim.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Chris isn't here and he's really strict on time keeping and we
should finish at 9:30. Just to encourage you.
I've been talking to Paul about this for seven years and I'm,
I'm still talking to him and I'm doing a masters in theology and
reading some of these people. This is very deep and incredibly
liberating and helpful and discombobulating.
So everything we're all asking is exactly what lots of
thoughtful people have asked for a long time, which is great.
I really want people to know they can go now because I don't
feel I'm honouring Chris. If I I could chat all night.
But that's why we're a partnership.
However, Paul is going to wrap up now, so you can kind of don't
let him go before. I need a volunteer for the
seminar exercise next week. Tim's volunteered.
Great. Athanasius of Alexandria, cool.
Next, the next lecture, we're going to get into the question
of holiness. Someone was asking about that
today. How do we understand holiness?
And and also we're going to go a little bit further into the
implications of inclusion. OK, So what are we talking about
to your question, we're saying that everybody's in.
What does that then mean for how we do everything else?
You know, what are the the implications of that?
So we're going to begin to unpack that a little bit too, as
well as hearing from Tim on Athanasius.
But I'm I'm not running off if you want to, you know, if you if
you, if you got burning questions or want to continue to
discuss. So thanks, Alice.
I'm just going to pray now, but we are really blessed to have
Paul just offering his time to us both in these evenings and on
Sunday mornings and to talk to, to literally to have a good like
hour or two hour, really wrestle with these questions.
And that is actually a real gift.
And so should we just give Paul a round of applause for just
being available? Yeah.
So grateful and being incarnational.
Like he's in the community. He's not sort of buzzing in
doing this thing. You know, he's in, he's amongst
us, you know, married with kids, trying to do life and wrestling
and trying to bring some of this content to us.
So we're super grateful for that.
I'm going to pray now because I think the key is, isn't it that
the primary nature of God has always, has always been Father?
That that is incredibly profound and that is nowhere else.
It's in no other worldview or religion or philosophy like
there's no other fathering anywhere else.
So God, we we just agree with what Dan was was wanting to know
about the Holy Spirit. And we agree with what Paul's
saying that we need you to reveal the Father's love for us.
We need you to do that work in us to reveal yourself to us as
Father. The Spirit cries out daddy and
I've actually been to Israel, I've seen kids, they really do
run up and down the beach saying ABBA, ABBA.
That isn't an exaggeration. It isn't over affectionate.
It isn't making God some sort of sort of cosy armchair person is
exactly how he wants to be identified ABBA daddy, father.
And so we just cry out to you to reveal that the Father's love to
us as we go on this journey together.
Amen.