The Divine Imprint
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Imprint of God on Society
Imprint of God on Society
Two weeks ago we talked about creation vs evolution and things like general revelation and special revelation and last week we talked about history.
Today we are going to talk about how God is actually imprinted throughout our society.
First of all God created order in the world. He is a God of order
“Dominion and fear are with God; he makes peace in his high heaven.
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
Have you ever considered a chicken egg? It has three main parts right—what are the main parts?
It has the shell, the yolk and the albumen (egg white)
Each part of the egg has a purpose. It has vessels that connect to the yolk for food. Another vessel attaches to the membrane. The chick has a specific part of its mouth that is designed to break through the membrane into a little pocked of air (notice when you hard boil an egg there is a little pocked on one side, thats an air bubble). The chick has just enough air from that pocket to all it to break through the shell
The shell has over 10,000 pores which allows oxygen in and CO2 out.
It has purpose and specific functions, it has order.
You could look at all sorts of different systems or ideas and see this order. Water cycle, DNA, photosynthesis, cleansing tides, egg, blood clots, etc.
We have different social systems, the material I used to study identified 6 of them. Can you guess any of them?
Family
Church
Labor
State
God & Man
Community
Within these social systems we see order and the way things were meant to be.
I want to spend some time focusing on the nature of God, specifically the trinity
The Triune God has perfect unity, relationship, equality, roles, authority and submission.
First lets look at the nature of the Trinity.
God is Triune
Tri- meaning what? (three)
Une coming from the Latin unus meaning what? (one)
We see all throughout the Old Testament that God is one. A summary of God in the OT can be “I am God, there is no other.” We see this in Deuteronomy and Isaiah
So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”
You have a list of references on your paper, I don’t have time to go through them all but I want you to have them in case you want to do some study on it. 2 Sam 7:22, 1 Kings 8:60, Isaiah 46:9, Psalms 86:8, 2 Sam 22:32, 2 Kings 19:19, Jer 10:10
There is only one true God in the new testament too. John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
This is communicated in the OT too Exodus 22:20, Isaiah 42:8-9, 1 Samuel 7:3, Psalm 71:16
So God is one and yet he is also three.
It is not directly revealed in the OT but it is all throughout it.
In the creation story you see both God and the Spirit creating and hovering
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Psalm 104:30, Job 26:13,
The spirit directs the prophets in the OT 2 Sam 23:2, Ezk 2:2, Zech 7:12
We see all three parts in Matthew 28
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Matt 3:16-17, Luke 3:22, John 17:5, John 17:10-11, John 17:22, John 17:26, John 20:21-22, Eph 1:13-14, Eph 2:18, Eph 3:2-5, Eph 4:4-6, 1 Cor 12:4-6
Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
So God is one, but is Three, and each of these parts are unique and special.
1st God the Father, the first person of the trinity
What are some things the father does?
He orders all things Psalms 145:8-9, 1 Cor 8:6
He is creator Gen 1:1, Eph 3:9
He is sovereign Psalms 103:19, Rom 11:36
He upholds, directs, governs all creatures and events 1 Chron 29:11
He is neither author or approver of sin Hab 1:13
He adopts us John 1:12, Rom 8:15, Gal 4:5, Heb 12:5-9
The second person of the trinity is the Son
What are some things the Son does?
First he is coequal and coeternal John 10:30, John 14:9
The father creates through the Son John 1:3, Col 1:15-17
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the incarnation—God became man Phil 2:5-8, Col 2:9
He came to reveal God Psalms 2:7-9, Isaiah 9:6, John 1:29, Hebrews 7:25-26, 1 Peter 1:18-19
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
He accomplished redemption through the shedding of his blood on the cross John 10:25, Rom 3:24-25, Romans 5:8, 1 Peter 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
He through death freed the sinner from the punishment, penalty and power of sin and one day the presence, by which we are declared righteous Romans 3:25, 2 Cor 5:14-15, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Peter 3:18
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
He resurrected and ascended Matt 28:6, Luke 24:38-39, Acts 2:30-31, Romans 4:25, Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
He will return for His church Acts 1:9-11, 1 Thess 4:13-18, Rev 20
Mediator between God and man
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
The coming universal King who will reign on the throne of David Isaiah 9:6-7, Ezek 37:24-28, Luke 1:31-33
The third part of the trinity is the Spirit
What does the Spirit do?
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
Incarnation—conceived the child
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Does the work of divine written revelation
knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Does the work of salvation
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
From John MacArthur--The spirit is supernatural and sovereign agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
It is the teacher and guide for apostles and prophets
Indwells believers Rom 8:9-11, Eph 5:18, 1 John 2:20-27
Administers spiritual gifts, glorifies Christ by redeeming lost and building up believers John 16:13-14, Acts 1:8, 1 Cor 12:4-11, 2 Cor 3:18
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
So with all this in mind we see this diagram right. There are three parts with three unique relationships
You have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (write on circle)
There is a relationship between the Father and the son
I and the Father are one.”
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
There is a relationship between the Son and the Spirit John 16:7
There is a relationship between the Father and the Spirit John 14:26
So we see this unique three sided relationship and we see this all over
There is a relationship between solid, liquid and gas
There is a relationship between physical laws, spiritual laws and social laws
It’s all about relationships right? What are the severed relationships as a result of the fall?
God & man—the most obvious and most drastic one but it is severed
Man to Man—there is now something (sin) that seperates us from others and makes relationships hard
Man and creation—work is hard, that relationship was severed
Man internally—that peace that was there pre fall is now gone
We see in Genesis everything was created and it was good except for 1 thing: man, not good for it to be alone
We see this idea of 1—aloneness, and it is not good. You add a 2nd person and you now have relationship and intimacy, it can’t be there with just one person. You add a third person and you now have community and fellowship—it cannot be there with just two people.
And so we see this idea of relationships being an imprint of God in our world.
Let’s go back to our diagram, let’s go ahead and replace the trinity here, because this is true of other relationships.
Let’s look at the family
Lets put the Husband here, now there are three parts of this relationship right? They are all unique and important. Who has a unique relationship with the husband just like the Father and the Son? The wife. They have this special relationship within this context
Who else is apart of this relationship? The children. There are three seperate parts but together they make the family unit.
The husband is the head, the leader, the wife submits. By the way we think of submission as a bad thing, but the relationship between the husband and wife is the same as the father and son, Jesus submitted to the father in Mark 14 in the garden, it clearly wasn’t bad
What about the church?
We have who as the head of the church? Christ
Who has the special relationship with Christ? The leaders, elders
Shepherds
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
They are specially appointed and have a unique relationship over the FLOCK.
Who is the third piece? The flock, the body, us.