Welcome back again, friends.
This is "The Books of the Book."
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And with us is Dr. Tom Shepherd.
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He joins us from
Andrews University.
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Dr. Shepherd, you were saying
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that these
people were different.
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They did not fit into
these groups of people.
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Can you share
more about that? Right.
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Yeah, the Christian
faith had changed them.
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In fact, we
want to look at this.
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Let's open our
Bibles to 1 Peter 1
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and we want to read
verses 1 and 2 of 1 Peter 1.
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Okay, it says, "Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ,
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to the pilgrims of
the Dispersion in Pontus,
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Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
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elect according
to the foreknowledge
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of God the Father, in
sanctification of the Spirit,
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for obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Grace to you and
peace be multiplied."
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All right. This is the
very opening of the book.
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In New Testament epistles
it's always important to look
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at the opening of the book.
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Because in the
opening of the book
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is where the
concepts and the themes
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of the book are
presented, all right.
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And Peter begins this
right from the very get go.
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He says who he
is, is very typical
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of letter writing in that day.
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He says who its recipients are
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and that's also very typical
of letter writing of that day.
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And then he
says-- he describes them.
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You use the term-- my
Bible I'm using the ESV,
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the English Standard Version.
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It says, "elect
exiles." What does yours call?
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Pilgrims. Pilgrims.
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Yeah. Yeah--
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A foreigner Is
that-- would that be a--
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Foreigners, yes.
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But there's two terms actually.
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Does it just use
the word pilgrims?
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"To the pilgrims
of the dispersion."
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Uh, okay.
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Yeah there's actually two terms
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that are put
together here in Greek.
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And one is this concept
of being elect or chosen.
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And the other is the
idea of being a stranger
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or a pilgrim or an
exile or something like that.
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So we think first of the
idea of being chosen or elect.
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Many countries have elections.
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And what-- so what happens
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when you're having an
election is what you do.
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You choose your
leader, right? You vote, okay.
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Well, this
election is not like that.
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This is God choosing
you. So God gets to vote.
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God gets to vote.
He makes the choice.
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Now some people get the
idea under Biblical election
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that some people are
predestined to be saved
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and others are
predestined to be lost.
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But of course, 2 Peter written
by our same apostle will say
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that God is not willing
that anyone should perish
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but they all
should come to repentance.
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So the chosen is--we'll explain
this a bit more as we go along,
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its linkage to the will of
God and how people respond.
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But people have
free choice in this book.
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We're gonna see
that over and over
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that people have the
ability to change, to choose.
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So this being chosen
is a concept that is tied
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into the Old Testament
ideas about God choosing Israel.
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You know, He chooses
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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And He brings the
people out of Egypt
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and at Sinai He sets
up a covenant with them.
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They become His people.
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Peter is gonna tie into
all those ideas and link it in
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to this Christian community,
this household of faith
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as we might say
that's so important.
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And doesn't Jesus say,
"you did not choose me,
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I choose you?" Yes. Okay.
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Right, so again that linkage
into the teachings of Jesus.
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Now why does
Peter call them elect?
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Yeah, so they are elect.
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They are the special group
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because they have
entered the covenant with God.
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They have become His children.
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And He is--notice it says
He is their father, all right?
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So that is a very
positive kind of terminology,
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a positive way of
talking about somebody.
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If you're chosen, you
know, if somebody choose you
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to get to go to the
White House or something--
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I've been specially
chosen to do this, you know?
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And so you would
be-- that would be
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a very positive honor to you.
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But connected with
this is this word stranger.
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And I know what it's like to
be a stranger and a foreigner.
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My wife and I were
missionaries in Malawi, Africa,
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but we're also missionaries
in Brazil in South America.
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And when you're
foreigner in the land
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where they don't
talk your mother tongue,
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it's really challenging,
you know, just to find out
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where the food can
be, where's the bank,
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you know, where's the bathroom.
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I mean, you know,
there's all kinds of things
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where it can be very
challenging in order to live.
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So that's a very
negative kind of a term.
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That's a term
that puts you down.
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So you have an oxymoron.
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You have a very positive term
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connected with the
very negative term.
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And oxymoron is when two
opposites are combined together.
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Like if we said
an innocent guilt
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or Shakespeare's words
"parting is such sweet sorrow."
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How can sorrow be
sweet? That's right.
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Yeah, so how can somebody
who's elect be a stranger?
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So that we'll unpack as we
go through looking at this book.
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The concept of
stranger is linked
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with the ethical
language of the Book of Peter.
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Some people think
that when he says strangers
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he just means that
they were foreigners.
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They didn't come from
Cappadocia or Asia or something.
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They were imports
from some place else.
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But the problem with
that is whenever you read
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the book of 1 Peter when
he talks about this term,
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and he uses it several times,
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he always links it
up with ethical language
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over theological language.
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He imbues it with--
he seems to imbue it
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with theological
and ethical ideas.
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Therefore, he's
probably talking metaphorically
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that we're strangers.
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We talk about this
in the church today.
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We'll say, "I'm a pilgrim
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or I'm a
stranger in this world."
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Our citizenship is in heaven.
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Our citizenship is in
heaven, not in this earth.
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And you know, it's
just applying the message,
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just briefly
thinking for a moment
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to think of the application
of this method--message.
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You think and you say,
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"okay, what makes me different
from the world around me?
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What makes me a
stranger in this world?
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And makes me,
you know, like Jesus
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different from
the world around me?"
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Now of course,
we, in many places,
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live in a Christian
culture so we may not
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standout quite so much.
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But I dare say that
Seventh-day Adventist
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have a number of things
that make them standout.
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One is the Sabbath, of course,
that makes us really different.
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And we can relate pretty well
to being strangers to this idea.
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But we better press on.
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You know, I notice here
that there are three verse
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linked up with God,
the Spirit, and Jesus
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and that those three
words are for knowledge,
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sanctification, the
sprinkling of the blood.
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Sounds just kind of difficult.
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Can you explain what
does this mean? Yeah.
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First of all we notice
that there is God, the Father
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with the Spirit
and Jesus Christ.
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That's the-- Trini...
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The Trinity, yeah.
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Here's one of those
places in the New Testament
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where this concept, I mean,
the word Trinity is never used.
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But you have these
three members of the Godhead
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working together
for our salvation
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and then each
have a part to play.
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Somebody says, "ah,
I'm not so sure that
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that's really
Trinitarian language.
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Is there any other
evidence for that?"
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Well, as we will
continue to study
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and once we read
further into this first chapter,
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the first part talks
about God, the Father.
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The second part
talks about Jesus Christ.
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And the third part
talks about the Holy Spirit.
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So they are mentioned in
this second verse of the book
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and then their roles
are expounded and explained
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and unwrapped in
the following verses.
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So yes, it is very
much Trinitarian language.
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It is very much kind of
a planned out expression
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that he is putting forth here.
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Now what he does is he
ties each of these individuals
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of the Godhead
to a different idea.
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He talks about the foreknowledge
of God, the Father.
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He talks about sanctification
of the spirit and then he says
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for obedience to Jesus Christ
and sprinkling with His blood.
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Let's start with
foreknowledge, okay.
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This is said to be in accordance
with the foreknowledge of God.
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Now remember he's
talking about election.
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He's talking about us
being God's chosen people.
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How did that take place?
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The three members of the
Godhead were each involved
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in this process of these
people becoming Christians,
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of them becoming linked
to Him in a special way,
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in a special
covenant with Him, okay?
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So the first is according
to the foreknowledge of God.
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God knows everything.
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Before it happens He knows
what's going to take place.
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His foreknowledge, He foresees
everything that will take--
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now that doesn't mean
that He takes and rules,
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you know, overrules our will.
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He has given us
the freedom of choice,
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but He knows
everything that will take place.
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So according to
His foreknowledge,
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seen in His great eternity
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all that will take
place, He elects us.
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He chooses us
to be His children.
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Next comes the phraseology,
sanctification of the spirit.
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What kind of
words do you think of
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when you think of
the word sanctification?
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Holiness. Holiness, certainly.
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Being separate.
Being separate, yeah.
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Separated for
God's use, all right.
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This is what they did.
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The concept of holiness
is a big idea in the Bible.
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And one of the
easiest ways to think of it
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is anything that is
connected with God is holy.
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So anything that is
connected to God is holy.
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You think when He meets Moses,
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He says to him
at the burning bush,
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He says, "take off
your shoes, because"--
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The ground... The ground...
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Is holy. Is holy.
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What made the ground holy?
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God's presence. God's presence.
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He is there in the bush
and that makes the ground holy.
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He's in the temple,
that makes the temple holy.
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Now the Spirit
comes into our life
00:10:39.97\00:10:42.57
and that's what sanctifies us,
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that separates us
for God, for God's use.
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Now the idea of
holiness we will unpack
00:10:47.18\00:10:49.58
as we go through this book.
00:10:49.61\00:10:51.25
It is also connected
with the idea of purity,
00:10:51.28\00:10:54.55
being like God,
being holy, being separate,
00:10:54.58\00:10:57.55
not following the world's ways.
00:10:57.59\00:10:59.79
Holiness is the separateness
from the world's ways.
00:10:59.82\00:11:03.69
Now you can
think of sanctification
00:11:03.73\00:11:06.29
as something that
happens just like that.
00:11:06.33\00:11:08.96
You're set apart
to be used by God.
00:11:09.00\00:11:11.03
But you can also think
of it as that purifying word
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that is--Ellen White says
"is the work of a lifetime."
00:11:14.24\00:11:17.94
Okay, so that
sanctifying, holifying work,
00:11:17.97\00:11:21.58
that work of putting you apart,
00:11:21.61\00:11:23.41
that's the work of
the Sprit in the life.
00:11:23.45\00:11:25.35
Sanctification by
the Spirit of God.
00:11:25.38\00:11:28.85
Then we come to the last phrase
and it kind of confuses people,
00:11:28.88\00:11:31.39
'cause it says, "for obedience
00:11:31.42\00:11:32.89
and sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus."
00:11:32.92\00:11:34.29
Let me ask you a question.
00:11:34.32\00:11:35.69
Which comes first,
justification or sanctification?
00:11:35.72\00:11:39.93
Well, justification.
You would say justification.
00:11:39.96\00:11:42.96
I would say so. That
seems to be right answer.
00:11:43.00\00:11:45.90
But Peter seems
to put it backwards.
00:11:45.93\00:11:48.04
He says obedience, you know,
sanctification kind of things
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and then sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus.
00:11:51.21\00:11:53.41
How can that be?
00:11:53.44\00:11:55.24
Well, actually
what he's referring to
00:11:55.28\00:11:57.75
is a passage of scripture.
00:11:57.78\00:11:59.15
We don't have time
to read it right now.
00:11:59.18\00:12:00.95
But a passage of
scripture in Exodus 24:3-8,
00:12:00.98\00:12:05.55
where Moses comes down
from the mountain of Sinai
00:12:05.59\00:12:09.62
and he says to
the-- he's going to--
00:12:09.66\00:12:12.86
he says God wants to
make a covenant with you.
00:12:12.89\00:12:15.56
He has these
rules for you to obey.
00:12:15.60\00:12:17.20
And then the people say,
"all that the Lord has said,
00:12:17.23\00:12:20.60
we will do." We
will obey the Lord."
00:12:20.64\00:12:22.74
Then it says, Moses
takes and sprinkles them
00:12:22.77\00:12:25.71
with the blood of
the covenant, all right.
00:12:25.74\00:12:28.21
So this whole thing here
00:12:28.24\00:12:30.41
and particularly this last
part obedience and sprinkling
00:12:30.45\00:12:32.88
is all of this
covenant making with God.
00:12:32.91\00:12:35.78
God choosing them as His people
00:12:35.82\00:12:37.45
and then becoming God's people
through God's foreknowledge,
00:12:37.49\00:12:41.59
though the
sanctifying work of the Spirit,
00:12:41.62\00:12:43.79
through the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ
00:12:43.83\00:12:46.53
and their
commitment to follow Him.
00:12:46.56\00:12:48.80
That's what it means
to be chosen and elect.
00:12:48.83\00:12:52.17
Well, I take
motivation, I take courage
00:12:52.20\00:12:55.17
that God has chosen me. Yes.
00:12:55.20\00:12:57.17
He's chosen you and He's chosen
each of our viewers as well.
00:12:57.21\00:13:00.71
Dr. Shepherd, to
wrap up our--this study,
00:13:00.74\00:13:03.68
what is it that
that you'd like to tell
00:13:03.71\00:13:05.28
our listening
audience or viewers?
00:13:05.31\00:13:08.58
We've seen in these
last-- in this verse,
00:13:08.62\00:13:11.02
a beautiful,
beautiful expression
00:13:11.05\00:13:13.46
of how God is choosing your life
00:13:13.49\00:13:16.19
if you will respond to Him.
00:13:16.22\00:13:17.89
The Trinity is working together
to save you, to save me.
00:13:17.93\00:13:22.26
And if we will respond we can
have this wonderful salvation.
00:13:22.30\00:13:25.83
Thank you, Dr. Shepherd.
00:13:25.87\00:13:27.24
And thank you to
listening friends.
00:13:27.27\00:13:28.67
God bless you, till next time.
00:13:28.70\00:13:30.97