Latest / Reformed Thinking / Mutable Creation, Immutable God: Immutatio in the English Bible

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Mutable Creation, Immutable God: Immutatio in the English Bible · Reformed Thinking

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  You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
• 0:03
  is this baseline expectation of absolute precision, right?
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  You expect a clean answer. Yeah, think about the
• 0:09
  engineering behind it. You break your arm.
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  You go to the hospital and the doctor puts you in front of an
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  X-ray machine. The image comes back and you can
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  see that jagged white line fracturing the bone.
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  The doctor just points at the screen and gives you the
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  verdict. It is binary.
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  Broken or not broken, it is a clean, visible, categorical
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  reality. Yeah, there's no ambiguity
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  there. But then you step into other
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  fields of medicine, like the world of neurodevelopment or
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  trauma psychology, and suddenly that pristine X-ray machine is
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  totally useless. Oh, absolutely.
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  The whole landscape changes, right?
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  We are looking at a diagnostic landscape that is entirely
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  murky. You cannot point to a clean
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  white line on a screen to locate the source of an invisible
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  internal fracture. Yeah, the tools are completely
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  different. I bring that specific contrast
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  up because that is precisely how so many people view their own
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  standing before a holy God. Wow.
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  Yeah, that is a sobering thought.
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  They look inward, you know, trying to find a clean,
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  objective X-ray of their own righteousness to assure
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  themselves that everything is fine, but all they see are
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  diagnostic Muddy Waters. Just shifting shadows.
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  Exact. Well I should say spot on.
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  They see shifting emotions, fluctuating behaviors, past
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  failures and a heart that changes its loyalties by the
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  hour. It is a terrifying place to look
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  for assurance. It really is.
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  Welcome to reformed thinking. I'm so glad you're joining us
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  today. This deep dive into the source
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  material is custom tailored for you, the listener, to help you
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  grasp weighty theological truth without getting lost in the
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  academic weeds. Yes, that is our goal today.
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  Today we have gathered 2 distinct theological analysis
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  focusing on a Latin concept called imutatio, which means
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  change or alteration. And it is a massive concept to
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  unpack. It is our mission today is to
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  unpack how the English Bible handles the undeniable daily
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  reality of change. We are going to examine the
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  staggering contrast between our frail, mutable creation and the
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  immutable Creator. That contrast is the bedrock of
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  so much of our theology. Right.
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  And following that, we will look at the supreme application of
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  immutatio. In Second Corinthians chapter 5,
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  verse 21, we are talking about the great exchange where the
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  unchangeable God acts to justify guilty sinners.
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  Is the heart of the gospel. It really is.
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  Now, before we open this discussion, I want to establish
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  a rule for the conversation. Today we are dealing with
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  massive life altering truths regarding the character of God
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  and the nature of salvation. So we need to tread carefully.
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  Yes. So we are going to take our
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  time. We will listen fully without
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  interrupting one another's main points, letting these realities
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  breathe. Because rushing through the
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  character of God is a mistake. We simply will not make.
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  I agree completely. It requires patience.
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  So let us jump right in. Where do we start with this
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  Latin term? Well, to lay the groundwork for
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  this, we must first establish the lexical reality of Imitocia.
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  The term itself is a Latin noun, and it is derived from the verb
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  immutary. OK.
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  And what does that mean in everyday language?
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  It means to change, to alter, or to exchange one state for
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  another. Historically, this specific term
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  entered Western theology heavily through the Latin Vulgate.
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  The Vulgate being Jerome's translation, right?
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  Right back in the late 4th century, Jerome was commissioned
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  to translate the scriptures into Latin, which was the common
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  language of the Roman Empire at the time.
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  Because before that they were primarily using Greek and
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  Hebrew. Yes.
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  So he actually moved to Bethlehem.
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  He learned Hebrew and he produced a translation that
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  would go on to dominate the Western church for over 1000
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  years. Over 1000 years, that is a
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  massive span of influence. It is, and because the Vulgate
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  was the primary text used for preaching, for theological
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  debate, and for the massive systematic works of the
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  Scholastic period, Latin vocabulary became deeply
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  embedded in how the Church discussed truth.
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  So words like imitaccio just became part of the standard
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  theological toolkit. Precisely, concepts like
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  imitaccio became primary theological categories for
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  discussing the instability of the created order, as well as
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  providing a foil to discuss God's unchangeableness.
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  But there is a catch here, isn't there, regarding the original
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  languages? Yes, and this is the critical
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  distinction we have to make. The Old Testament was written in
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  Hebrew and Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in Greek,
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  right? So imutatio is not an inspired
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  biblical term in the strict original sense.
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  It is a translation. Exactly.
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  It is a Latin rendering of Greek and Hebrew realities.
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  When we analyze how the English Bible handles this concept, we
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  are not tracing a single Latin word straight into English text.
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  We are looking at the translation philosophy of the
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  English reformers, right figures like William Tyndale.
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  Yes, the movement beginning with Syndale and culminating in the
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  Geneva Bible and the King James Version.
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  Their philosophy was driven by a desire to render the truth of
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  Scripture into clear, natural English.
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  They wanted the common person to actually understand it.
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  Right. They did not want to blindly
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  reproduce later ecclesiastical vocabulary that the common
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  person could not comprehend. So they ditched the Latin ice
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  terms. They did so rather than keeping
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  the Latin term and anglicizing it, English translators used
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  plain accessible words, change, variation, alteration, or
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  unchangeable. You know, thinking about that
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  specific translation philosophy brings a helpful analogy to
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  mine. I.
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  Would love to hear. It Imagine you travel overseas
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  for an extended business trip. While you are in Europe or Asia,
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  you accumulate a large pocketful of foreign coins and banknotes.
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  OK, tracking with you. Those currencies have real
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  objective value in their country of origin, but when you fly back
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  home and walk into your local market to buy a loaf of bread,
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  you cannot spend them. Right, the cashier is just going
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  to look at you blankly. Exactly.
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  The cashier will not accept them.
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  You need the actual purchasing value converted into your local
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  currency. That is a brilliant way to frame
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  it. And that is what the English
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  translators accomplished. They took the massive
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  theological wealth stored up in Latin terms like imutatio and
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  traded it for clear, spendable English words.
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  Because the goal was access, right?
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  The Protestant reformers operated on the conviction that
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  the ordinary reader, the plowboy in the field, as Tyndale
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  famously said, needed to grasp the truth directly.
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  They needed to spend that currency in their own daily
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  lives. They were not interested in
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  preserving a foreign coin that the common person could not use
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  in their daily spiritual struggles.
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  The translators traded the Latin term for clear English words so
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  the ordinary reader could directly access the reality of
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  their own mutability and God's constancy.
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  That makes total sense, and a prime case study for this
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  specific conversion of language is found in the book of Job.
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  Oh Job is a perfect example of someone dealing with sudden
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  change. He really is specifically Job
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  chapter 14, verse 14 in the Latin Vulgate.
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  The end of that verse reads Donek Vignat Emutatiomaya.
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  OK, so there's our word. Yes.
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  Now, if the English translation translators were acting as mere
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  copyists of the Latin form, they might have created a clunky
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  transliterated phrase like Until my imitation arrives.
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  Which sounds incredibly sterile and academic.
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  It does. It strips all the emotion out of
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  it. Instead, the English Bible
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  renders this simply and beautifully as Till my change
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  come. Wow till my change come that
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  carries so much weight. It really does.
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  But to understand the gravity of that phrase, we have to look at
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  Job's context. Right, he is an absolute agony
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  at this. Point unimaginable agony.
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  Job has lost his wealth, his children and his health.
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  He is sitting in an ash sheep, scrapping painful sores on his
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  skin with a piece of broken pottery.
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  It is just a total catastrophic collapse of his life.
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  And on top of the physical pain, his friends are accusing him of
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  hidden sins and his wife has told him to curse God and die.
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  So he is completely isolated. Completely.
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  In chapter 14, Job is reflecting on the brevity, the misery, and
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  the apparent finality of human life under the curse of the
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  fall. He compares human life to a
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  flower that is cut down. And to a shadow, right?
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  Yes, to a shadow that does not stay in one place.
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  He is looking at the reality of death, recognizing that when a
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  tree is cut down, it might sprout again, but when a man
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  dies, he wastes away. So it feels permanent to him.
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  It does so when Job says till my change come.
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  He is not talking about a trivial shift in circumstances
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  like hoping the weather improves or his financial portfolio
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  rebounds. He is waiting for something much
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  bigger. He is waiting for a divinely
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  appointed reversal of his condition.
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  He is looking past the grave, waiting for God to act, to
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  reverse the curse of death and to bring final deliverance.
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  And the English word captures that perfectly.
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  The English rendering captures that existential physical ache
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  perfectly with the simple, accessible word change.
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  That simplicity is beautiful, but, and I want to push back a
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  little here, it also raises a question about theological
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  precision. So go ahead.
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  When we look at the history of the Church, the scholastic
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  theologian spent centuries refining these massive, precise
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  Latin categories to defend orthodoxy against various
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  heresies. Right, they were very careful
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  with their definitions. So does stripping away the
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  formal Latin terminology cause us to lose theological weight?
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  When we drop a massive historic scholastic term like imitacio
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  and replace it with a common everyday word like change, is
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  there a risk that we flatten the majesty of the doctrine?
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  I can see why people might worry about that.
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  Yeah, I can imagine a historian or theologian worrying that by
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  making the text too accessible to the common language, we might
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  lose the rigorous precision that the early church fought so hard
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  to establish it. Is a valid concern, but I would
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  argue that losing the Latin form is an absolute gain in clarity.
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  Really an absolute gain. Yes, plain English words carry
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  massive doctrinal weight when they are placed in their proper
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  inspired biblical context. We do not lose the doctrine of
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  God's unchangeableness or the reality of human frailty just
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  because we stop speaking Latin. So the context does the heavy
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  lifting, not the vocabulary itself.
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  Spot on. In fact, the truth becomes
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  accessible without the mediation of a learned ecclesiastical
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  class. Which was a massive issue before
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  the Reformation. A huge issue during the medieval
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  period, the reliance on Latin created a massive burial between
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  the common believer and the word of God.
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  You had to rely entirely on the priest to interpret and mediate
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  the truth to you. You were spiritually dependent
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  on someone else's education. Exactly.
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  By utilizing the native idiom of the people, the Protestant
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  reformers reflected a core conviction that Scripture is
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  inherently clear and that God speaks to his people in a
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  language they can understand. Which is such a comforting
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  thought. It is when a grieving mother
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  reads Till my change come. She does not need a theology
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  degree or a Latin dictionary to comprehend the hope embedded in
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  that phrase. She gets it intuitively.
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  Right. She understands what change
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  means in the context of suffering and death.
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  The English Bible does not rely on imported technical forms to
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  communicate eternal truths. The doctrine stands on its own.
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  The doctrine stands in full robust strength even when the
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  Latin term recedes from view, becoming more directly
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  apprehensible. That makes total sense, and
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  looking at Job's plea for change points us directly to the core
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  problem Job was experiencing. His absolute frailty.
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  Yes, Job was suffering under the constant, often painful
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  instability of human life. Job is not the only one crying
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  out for a reversal. This logically leads us to
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  analyze the total frailty of the creature.
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  And the Bible has a lot to say about that.
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  When we look at the biblical vocabulary used to describe
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  creaturely mutability, it is overwhelming.
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  We are not just talking about getting older or our cells
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  regenerating or changing our opinions on a given topic.
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  No, it goes much deeper than biology or psychology.
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  The scripture describes human life in terms of extreme brevity
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  and fragility. We are fading grass.
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  We are a vanishing vapor. We are a passing shadow.
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  The imagery is universally fleeting.
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  And post fall, this change is inextricably tied to decay, to
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  corruption, and to moral unreliability.
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  We are fragile on an ontological level.
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  The biblical vocabulary you just highlighted is a precise
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  theological judgement on the nature of the creature.
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  To be a creature is to be mutable.
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  We are designed to change. Right.
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  The creature is not self existent.
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  We do not possess permanence in ourselves.
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  We require an external source to sustain our existence moment by
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  moment. We are dependent beings.
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  Totally dependent, and the Scriptures broaden this concept
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  of frailty far beyond individual biology.
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  It applies to massive historical and physical structures.
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  Like entire civilizations. Yes, nations rise and fall.
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  Kings are established and removed.
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  Empires that seem invincible for a season, like Babylon, Persia
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  or Rome, are eventually brought low and buried in the dust.
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  They all look permanent until they are not.
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  Right. Wealth makes itself wings and
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  flies away. Even the majestic physical
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  universe, the cosmos itself, is described in the Psalms in the
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  book of Hebrews as wearing out like a garment.
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  Like an old shirt just fraying at the edges.
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  Yes, the entire creaturely world is defined by succession, time
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  and dependence. Everything under heaven changes
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  because everything under heaven is finite.
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  And sin just accelerates that decay, doesn't it?
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  It absolutely does. In our fallen state, that
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  natural mutability is compounded by corruption.
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  Our loyalties shift, our obedience falters.
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  We forget the mercies of God and turn aside quickly.
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  The Israelites in the desert are a perfect picture of that.
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  They really are. The falling human heart is
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  completely morally unreliable apart from sustaining grace.
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  Against this dark backdrop of a decaying, fluctuating,
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  unreliable creation, we see the great theological antithesis,
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  God's absolute unchangeableness. The contrast is staggering.
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  You look at Malachi chapter 3 verse 6 where the Lord declares
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  I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
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  not consumed. A vital promise.
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  Or you look at James chapter one verse 17 which describes God as
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  the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow
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  of turning. Which is such a vivid
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  astronomical metaphor. Yes, the biblical writers are
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  drawing a massive line in the sand.
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  Creation is on one side, constantly shifting, aging and
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  decaying. The Creator is, on the other,
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  entirely steadfast. The difference between the
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  finite and the infinite. Think of Gad's nature as the sun
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  itself, while creation is like the shifting length shadow on a
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  sun bile. I love that analogy.
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  The sun up in the sky does not oscillate.
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  It burns with constant, blinding perfection.
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  Down here on the dial, the shadow is always moving, always
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  growing longer or shorter, shifting with the hours.
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  It never stays still. The shadow oscillates because it
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  is bound by time, bound by the rotation of the earth, bound by
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  perspective. We are the shadow on the dial.
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  We move through time experiencing succession, but God
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  is the light source, utterly independent of the shifting
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  conditions below. Using astronomical realities to
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  illustrate the distinction between creator and creature is
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  very helpful, especially since James himself uses the phrase
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  Father of lights. It grounds the concept in
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  something we can see every day. It does, but we must be careful
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  here to address a critical misunderstanding that often
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  arises when people hear about God's unchangeableness.
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  What kind of misunderstanding? Well, God's immutability does
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  not mean he is a static, frozen block.
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  He is not a lifeless, immobile deity staring blankly into the
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  void like some Aristotelian unmoved mover who is unaware of
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  the universe. Right, he's not just a cosmic
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  statue. Exactly.
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  He's very active. The God of Scripture truly acts.
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  He creates the cosmos, He judges the wicked, he redeems his
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  people in history, he hears prayers and he shows compassion.
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  So how do we reconcile his actions with his
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  unchangeableness? That is the key.
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  His actions in time do not imply a mutation in his essence, his
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  attributes, or His eternal decree.
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  He's what theologians call pure act, or act as purists.
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  Act as purists, meaning he has no passive potential.
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  Right, right. He is fully actualized.
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  He does not learn new information that causes him to
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  change his mind. He does not improve upon his
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  previous state, nor does he decline in strength or wisdom.
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  Because if he improved it would mean he was not perfect before.
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  Exactly. He is infinite perfection.
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  A change in being logically implies a movement from worse to
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  better or from better to worse. And neither option works for
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  God. No, since God is already
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  infinitely perfect, he cannot become better, and since he is
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  God, he cannot become worse. His works and time are the
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  historical expressions of His eternal, unchanging will.
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  That is a bedrock tenet of reformed theology.
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  It is absolutely essential to our understanding of who he is.
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  Let us bring this massive philosophical and theological
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  reality right down to the listener sitting in the Pew on a
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  Sunday morning. OK, let us ground it.
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  We are talking about divine essence attributes, actus,
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  porous and eternal decrees. Why does this specific doctrine
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  matter for the exhausted parent dealing with a rebellious child,
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  or the person battling A chronic deteriorating illness, or the
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  believer struggling with intense waves of doubt?
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  It matters deeply in those moments.
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  If I am sitting in the Pew feeling the full crushing weight
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  of my own mutability and failures, why is God's absolute
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  immutability the most comforting thing I could possibly hear?
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  Well, think about the alternative.
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  If God could change, his promises in Christ could shift
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  based on external factors. And that would be terrifying.
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  It would be the absolute despair.
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  His immutability is the absolute bedrock of our covenant
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  confidence. Think back to the specific
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  context of that verse from Malachi.
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  I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
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  not consumed. The context there is pretty
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  bleak, isn't it? Incredibly bleak.
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  The Israelites in Malachi's day had been incredibly faithless.
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  They were offering pluted sacrifices, they were dealing
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  treacherously with one another, and they were weary of worship.
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  They were just mocking the covenant, yes.
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  They deserved immediate consuming judgement.
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  The only reason they were not wiped off the face of the earth
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  was because God's character and His covenant promises to Abraham
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  do not fluctuate based on human performance.
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  His patients did not run out because his promise was fixed.
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  Right. If God were mutable, his mercy
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  could expire when his patients ran out.
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  His liking love could wane when we prove unlovable.
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  His justifying verdict could be overturned on a whim.
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  But because he does not change, we are not consumed.
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  Exactly. The exhausted parent or the
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  doubting believer can rest their head on this reality.
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  The God who promised to save them is the exact same today as
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  he was when he made the decree before the foundation of the
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  world. That is a massive comfort.
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  His unchangeableness is the secure fortress where face takes
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  shelter when everything else in life is falling apart.
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  While we are totally dependent, completely mutable and often
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  failing, we rely on a God who is immutable.
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  But that reality raises a massive logical problem.
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  The problem of justice. Yes, we have a perfectly holy,
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  perfectly just unchangeable God on one hand, and sinful, failing
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  mutable creatures on the other. And those two things cannot
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  coexist naturally. Right.
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  If God's justice cannot mutate, he cannot simply sweep sin under
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  the rug and pretend it did not happen.
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  How does this holy God deal with rebels without violating his own
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  unchanging justice? That is the ultimate dilemma of
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  Scripture. That causal link requires us to
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  look at how God acquits the guilty legally.
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  We are shifting our focus to the second analysis, applying this
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  concept of exchange to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21.
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  This is where we see the ultimate immutasia.
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  Yes, but to grasp the mechanics of this exchange, we first need
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  to understand the crisis happening in the city of Corinth
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  that prompted Paul to write these words.
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  The historical context is vital for understanding why Paul
• 20:01
  frames the gospel the way he does in this letter.
• 20:03
  Set the scene for us. What was Corinth like?
• 20:07
  We are looking at the city of Corinth.
• 20:08
  Around AD 55 or 56. Corinth was a bustling Roman
• 20:13
  colony located on a crucial isthmus in Greece, acting as a
• 20:16
  gateway between the East and the West.
• 20:18
  So it was a massive hub for trade.
• 20:20
  A huge hub, it had been destroyed by the Romans in 146
• 20:24
  BC and refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
• 20:28
  It was populated heavily by Friedman veterans and merchants.
• 20:32
  People looking to make a name for themselves.
• 20:34
  Because of its geography, it was incredibly wealthy.
• 20:37
  Ships would literally be dragged across the isthmus on a paved
• 20:39
  trackway called the Diolcos to avoid the dangerous sea journey
• 20:43
  around the Peloponnese. Wow, they dragged entire ships
• 20:45
  over land. Yes, it was an engineering
• 20:49
  marvel and brought massive revenue.
• 20:51
  It was a city built on aggressive commerce, litigation,
• 20:54
  social climbing and the Roman patriot system, where the
• 20:58
  wealthy would secure loyalty by dispensing favors to clients.
• 21:01
  It sounds incredibly modern. Honestly, it.
• 21:04
  Does It was also deeply entrenched in Pagan idolatry,
• 21:07
  most notably the cult of Aphrodite, which was known for
• 21:10
  extreme immorality. Into this dark, hyper
• 21:14
  competitive, prideful culture, the Apostle Paul planted a
• 21:18
  church. But the church was struggling.
• 21:20
  Severely. By the time he writes Second
• 21:22
  Corinthians, the church is in severe crisis.
• 21:25
  They have been infiltrated by intruders that Paul
• 21:27
  sarcastically calls super apostles.
• 21:29
  Super Apostles, That is quite the title.
• 21:31
  Yeah, these false teachers were pushing a gospel of outward
• 21:34
  glory. They valued eloquent rhetorical
• 21:37
  speech, impressive letters of recommendation, and visible
• 21:40
  human merit. Things that would appeal to a
• 21:42
  Roman social climber. Exactly.
• 21:44
  And they actively mocked Paul. They pointed to his physical
• 21:46
  weakness, his unimpressive speaking style, his manual labor
• 21:49
  as a tent maker, and his frequent suffering and
• 21:51
  imprisonment. They thought he was a loser.
• 21:53
  Basically, they argued that a true emissary of God would never
• 21:58
  look so weak and unimpressive. Why would these super apostles
• 22:02
  be so incredibly hostile to Paul's specific message?
• 22:06
  It sounds like they were just attacking his physical
• 22:08
  appearance and his resume, but was it really his underlying
• 22:11
  theology they could not stand? Oh, it was definitely his
• 22:13
  theology. What was it about Paul's
• 22:16
  specific gospel that triggered such a vicious, coordinated
• 22:19
  reaction from these men? In a Greco Roman culture
• 22:23
  obsessed with the cursus honorum, the sequential order of
• 22:26
  public offices, and social honor and visible prestige, the
• 22:30
  concept of a crucified savior and a suffering apostle
• 22:33
  shattered their worldly paradigms.
• 22:35
  A crucified God was foolishness to them.
• 22:38
  Pure foolishness. the Super apostles wanted a religion that
• 22:41
  validated their own excellence, their own intellect, and their
• 22:44
  own social standing. They wanted a theology of glory.
• 22:47
  But Paul brought something totally different.
• 22:49
  Right. Paul preached a theology of the
• 22:51
  cross. Paul's message required total
• 22:54
  submission to a sovereign legal decree of grace that came
• 22:57
  entirely from outside of them. So they could not earn it.
• 23:00
  And they hated that the cross leaves absolutely no room for
• 23:03
  human boasting. It tells the wealthy, eloquent
• 23:07
  Corinthian that all his status, all his money, and all his
• 23:11
  rhetorical skill are nothing but filthy rags before a holy God.
• 23:15
  It leveled the playing field completely, yes.
• 23:19
  The false teachers hated Paul because his message of
• 23:21
  substitutionary atonement completely stripped them of
• 23:24
  their pride and their leverage over the people.
• 23:26
  So Paul had to push back hard. He did.
• 23:29
  Paul was defending the purity of the gospel leading up to verse
• 23:33
  21. Paul spends verses 14 through 20
• 23:36
  outlining the ministry of reconciliation.
• 23:39
  Establishing the groundwork. Right.
• 23:40
  He argues that anyone in Christ is a new creation, and that this
• 23:44
  new creation is entirely the objective work of God.
• 23:47
  Verse 21 acts as the climax of this entire argument.
• 23:50
  It is the hinge of the whole letter.
• 23:52
  It provides the objective historical ground for everything
• 23:55
  else. Paul has said the reconciliation
• 23:57
  is based on a specific forensic exchange.
• 24:00
  To grasp the staggering weight of this reconciliation, we have
• 24:03
  to look closely at the precise grammatical mechanics Paul uses.
• 24:07
  The grammar is where the power of this verse really shines.
• 24:10
  The English translation says for our sake he made him to be sin
• 24:14
  who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
• 24:17
  righteousness of God. Let us O the hood on the
• 24:21
  original Greek structure to see how this exchange actually
• 24:24
  oerates legally. The Greek structure here is a
• 24:26
  masterpiece of divine revelation.
• 24:29
  The main clause hinges on an aorist indicative active verb
• 24:33
  Hamartian eppoyism, which translates to He made him sin.
• 24:37
  OK, an aorist verb. What does that signify here?
• 24:39
  The aorist tense in Greek frequently points to a
• 24:42
  definitive completed action in history is not an ongoing
• 24:46
  continuous process, but a specific objective act.
• 24:49
  It happened once, definitively. Right.
• 24:51
  God the Father actively constituted the Son to be sin on
• 24:54
  our behalf. Then we have the second-half of
• 24:57
  the verse which uses the purpose connector, the word hina meaning
• 25:00
  so that. Showing the result of the first
• 25:02
  action, yes. This connector introduces the
• 25:04
  clause Hina Hami's Jino Mehta Dikaya Senathiyu which
• 25:07
  translates to so that we might become the righteousness of God.
• 25:10
  The great exchange in one sentence.
• 25:12
  The grammar establishes A definitive double imputation.
• 25:16
  God the Father takes the sin of the people and legally imputes
• 25:20
  it to the sun, and he takes the perfect righteousness of the sun
• 25:24
  and legally imputes it to the people.
• 25:25
  So let me make sure I am conceptualizing this correctly.
• 25:29
  Rather than the standard courtroom analogy, which
• 25:31
  sometimes feels a bit distant or abstract, let us think about
• 25:35
  this in terms of a massive corporate acquisition.
• 25:39
  Oh, I like where this is going. You have a failing bankrupt
• 25:42
  company, the liabilities are astronomical, the debt is
• 25:46
  completely toxic, the ledgers are ruin and the company is
• 25:49
  facing absolute liquidation and ruin that.
• 25:52
  Is us and our sin? Right then, a massive, globally
• 25:55
  dominant conglomerate led by an impeccably clean CEO steps in.
• 26:00
  The CEO does not just send a consultant to help the failing
• 26:03
  company reorganize its internal habits.
• 26:05
  He does not just give them Better Business advice.
• 26:07
  No, he executes a complete legal buyout.
• 26:10
  The conglomerate legally absorbs every single cent of the toxic
• 26:14
  debt, paying it off in full from its own limitless reserve.
• 26:17
  Clearing the Ledger completely. Simultaneously, the failing
• 26:21
  company is suddenly credited with the pristine AAA financial
• 26:25
  rating of the conglomerate, the toxic debt is entirely absorbed
• 26:29
  and the perfect credit is legally applied to the
• 26:31
  subsidiary. That is a phenomenal picture.
• 26:33
  The bankrupt company did not internally generate that new
• 26:36
  wealth. It was credited to them purely
• 26:38
  by virtue of the acquisition. Am I understanding the legal
• 26:42
  mechanics of this exchange accurately?
• 26:44
  Yes, that corporate acquisition analogy is an incredibly precise
• 26:47
  way to frame the objective legal reality of imputation.
• 26:52
  It perfectly captures the external nature of the
• 26:55
  transaction. Because it happens entirely
• 26:57
  outside of us. Right, and it relies on a truth
• 27:00
  Paul explicitly states in the text.
• 27:03
  Christ knew no sin. This highlights the absolute
• 27:06
  impeccability of Christ. He had no toxic debt of his own.
• 27:09
  Not at all. He was perfectly sinless and
• 27:11
  thought word and deed. He never violated the law of
• 27:14
  God. The imputation of sin to Christ
• 27:16
  does not mean he became inherently sinful or morally
• 27:19
  corrupt in his internal nature. Right, that would undermine the
• 27:22
  whole thing. That would be sheer blasphemy.
• 27:25
  It means he was treated by the Father legally, as if he had
• 27:29
  committed the sins of the elect. He endured the full penal
• 27:32
  consequences, absorbing the unmitigated wrath of God on the
• 27:36
  cross while remaining personally in forensically holy.
• 27:39
  He was the flawless sacrifice. He was the spotless lamb
• 27:42
  required by the Old Testament sacrificial system, perfectly
• 27:46
  fulfilling the covenant of grace.
• 27:47
  Let me clarify the second-half of that transaction for the
• 27:51
  listener, because this is a massive point of confusion.
• 27:53
  It is probably the most misunderstood aspect of
• 27:55
  justification. When Paul says we become the
• 27:58
  righteousness of God, do we actually become?
• 28:01
  I am inherently morally perfect the moment we believe, because I
• 28:05
  know my own heart, I know my own daily struggles, and I am
• 28:08
  definitively not morally perfect.
• 28:10
  None of us are on this side of glory.
• 28:11
  Does this exchange mean I suddenly possess A flawless
• 28:14
  internal nature the second I exercise faith?
• 28:17
  No, you do not become inherently morally perfect the moment you
• 28:20
  believe, and recognizing the distinction is vital for
• 28:24
  maintaining A biblical theology of justification.
• 28:26
  So how do we explain what actually happens?
• 28:29
  To explain this clearly, we lean heavily on the theological
• 28:32
  framework provided by the Westminster Confession of Faith.
• 28:36
  Paul uses a crucial locative phrase at the end of the verse
• 28:39
  on Otto meaning in him. In him union with Christ.
• 28:44
  Yes, our righteousness is what Martin Luther called an alien
• 28:48
  righteousness. It belongs entirely to Christ
• 28:51
  and it is legally credited to our account.
• 28:54
  So it is not something poured into us.
• 28:56
  No, we do not receive an infuse spark of piety that makes us
• 29:00
  inherently morally good enough to be justified.
• 29:03
  That is the historical error of Roman Catholic theology.
• 29:06
  Where they teach you have to actually become righteous to be
• 29:09
  declared righteous. Right.
• 29:10
  They teach that God infuses grace into you via the
• 29:13
  sacraments so that you can become inherently righteous, and
• 29:16
  only then will God declares you justified based on your internal
• 29:18
  state. Completely reject.
• 29:20
  That Reformed theology completely rejects that
• 29:22
  framework. The Westminster Confession
• 29:24
  states that God justifies us not by infusing righteousness into
• 29:28
  us, but by pardoning our sins and by accounting and accepting
• 29:31
  our persons as righteous. It is a legal declaration.
• 29:34
  It is our legal standing changes entirely because we are united
• 29:38
  to Christ by faith. This encompasses both Christ's
• 29:41
  act of obedience, meaning He perfectly fulfilled the moral
• 29:44
  law of God on our behalf during his life, and His passive
• 29:48
  obedience. His passive obedience being his
• 29:50
  death on the cross. Right, meaning he willingly
• 29:53
  suffered and paid the penalty for our law breaking.
• 29:56
  You are counted righteous not because of any moral virtue
• 29:59
  generated within you, but exclusively because of the
• 30:02
  perfect record of Christ applied to you.
• 30:04
  Understanding this strictly forensic, monarchistic exchange
• 30:08
  where God does absolutely all the work of saving us,
• 30:11
  completely alters how we live our daily lives.
• 30:14
  It changes everything about our approach to God.
• 30:17
  Paul did not write this just to give the Corinthians A detached
• 30:20
  academic systematic theology lecture.
• 30:22
  The authorian intent of this passage was to completely strip
• 30:25
  the Corinthians and modern listeners by extension of all
• 30:28
  self-reliance on moralism and all spiritual pride.
• 30:31
  He was targeting their arrogance directly.
• 30:33
  He wanted to cure them of their obsession with the Super
• 30:36
  apostles and their false worldly glory.
• 30:38
  This draws a sharp, undeniable contrast with many modern
• 30:42
  theological errors we see today. Yeah, we see the exact same
• 30:45
  tendencies now. You look at modern seeker
• 30:47
  sensitive movements, pragmatist church growth models or
• 30:51
  prosperity theologies. These movements routinely take
• 30:54
  the cross of Christ and reduce it to a tool for worldly
• 30:58
  comfort, emotional therapy, or self improvement.
• 31:01
  They make it about us. They do.
• 31:03
  They treat Jesus as a divine life coach whose primary
• 31:07
  objective is to help you achieve your personal goals or manage
• 31:10
  your stress. Which is such a low view of what
• 31:12
  happened at Calvary. It is tragic that framework
• 31:15
  completely misses the terrifying dilemma of God's uncompromising
• 31:19
  justice and our total depravity. The gospel is not a message
• 31:22
  about how you can Polish up your mutable, frail life to impress
• 31:26
  your neighbors or feel better about yourself.
• 31:27
  It is not behavior modification. No, it is the shocking
• 31:31
  historical declaration that you were a condemned rebel facing
• 31:35
  eternal wrath, and the sinless Son of God was crushed under
• 31:38
  divine judgement in your place so you could be declared legally
• 31:41
  righteous. Anything less than that is
• 31:42
  missing the point. Any movement that downplays the
• 31:45
  severe reality of sin, the wrath of God, and the absolute
• 31:49
  necessity of penal substitutionary atonement is
• 31:53
  peddling a false gospel. How does this massive objective
• 31:57
  truth comfort the afflicted doubting listener right now?
• 32:01
  It is the only thing that can comfort them.
• 32:04
  Because there is someone listening to this deep dive who
• 32:07
  feels completely crushed by their own daily failures.
• 32:10
  Satan is actively accusing them. Their own conscience is loudly
• 32:14
  condemning them. We have all been.
• 32:15
  There they know they have fallen short this week, maybe even
• 32:18
  today. How does the reality of the
• 32:20
  Great Exchange speak to them in that dark, anxious moment?
• 32:23
  It speaks to them by directing their gaze entirely outward.
• 32:26
  Away from themselves. Right.
• 32:27
  When Satan accuses you and your conscience condemns you, you
• 32:30
  must not look inward at your own fluctuating mutable performance.
• 32:34
  Because if you look inside, you will just find more failure.
• 32:37
  If you look inward for assurance, you will only find
• 32:39
  despair because your performance is always imperfect and tainted
• 32:42
  by sin. Instead, you look outside
• 32:45
  yourself to the immutable, objective decree of God.
• 32:48
  To the cross. You look to the historical
• 32:51
  reality of the cross and realize that your toxic debt was paid in
• 32:55
  full. You tell your accusing
• 32:57
  conscience, Yes, I am a grievous Sinner.
• 32:59
  I have failed miserably, but I am the righteousness of God in
• 33:03
  Christ. Your record is clean because of
• 33:05
  him. Your legal standing before the
• 33:07
  Father does not rise and fall with your daily quiet time, your
• 33:11
  emotional state, or your recent behavioral track record.
• 33:15
  It is firmly anchored in the unchangeable perfection of Jesus
• 33:18
  Christ. But then an observer might ask a
• 33:21
  logical question, If my legal standing is already flawless and
• 33:25
  perfect, why should I bother obeying God's moral law?
• 33:29
  The classic Antinomian objection.
• 33:31
  Right. Why not just live however I
• 33:33
  want? That brings up the reformed
• 33:35
  concept of the third use of the law.
• 33:37
  John Calvin articulated the third use of the law to answer
• 33:39
  that exact question. What does the third use actually
• 33:42
  teach? The third use teaches that while
• 33:44
  the law cannot save us and it cannot justify us, it reveals
• 33:48
  the moral will of God for those who are already saved.
• 33:51
  So it shows us how to live out our gratitude.
• 33:53
  Yes, we are called to a life of grateful obedience.
• 33:57
  We do not obey the law in order to become righteous.
• 34:00
  We obey the law because we have already been declared legally
• 34:03
  righteous. The order of operations is
• 34:05
  crucial. It is everything.
• 34:07
  The motivation for obedience entirely shifts.
• 34:10
  You are no longer acting out of the terror of a slave trying to
• 34:13
  avoid a whipping. You're acting out of the deep
• 34:16
  gratitude of a redeemed child trying to please a loving
• 34:19
  father. Because the fear of punishment
• 34:22
  is gone. Because Christ bore our
• 34:24
  punishment, our daily obedience is now a joyful spirit,
• 34:28
  empowered response to grace, not a fearful legalistic attempt to
• 34:32
  earn salvation. And this obedience is not just
• 34:35
  an isolated individual pursuit. There is a massive corporate
• 34:38
  mandate attached to this. We do not do this alone.
• 34:40
  The. Church is meant to function as
• 34:42
  an embassy of this reconciliation.
• 34:44
  We gather together every Sunday, weak and mutable as we are, and
• 34:47
  we rely on the ordinary means of grace.
• 34:50
  The preaching of the Word and the sacraments.
• 34:52
  Exactly. Well, I should say right?
• 34:54
  We sit under the explicit preaching of the Word, and we
• 34:57
  partake in the sacraments. Think about the Lord's Supper.
• 35:00
  It is a visual, tangible display of this great exchange.
• 35:04
  We can literally taste and see it.
• 35:06
  We see the bread physically broken, representing Christ's
• 35:09
  body, broken for us. We drink the cup representing
• 35:12
  his blood, poured out for the remission of our sins.
• 35:16
  The sacraments physically preach the Gospel to our mutable
• 35:19
  bodies, anchoring our shifting senses to His immutable promise.
• 35:24
  The sacraments are vital for our ongoing assurance because we are
• 35:27
  physical, forgetful creatures. We need those tangible reminders
• 35:31
  constantly. We need the visible word of the
• 35:33
  sacraments to confirm the audible word of the sermon.
• 35:36
  When we gather as an embassy of reconciliation, we are declaring
• 35:40
  to the watching world that our unity and our hope are not based
• 35:43
  on social status, wealth, rhetorical skill or political
• 35:46
  alignment. The exact things the Corinthians
• 35:48
  were so disastrously obsessed with.
• 35:50
  Right. Our entire existence as a
• 35:53
  gathered church is based exclusively on the historical
• 35:55
  fact that God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him
• 36:01
  we might become the righteousness of God.
• 36:03
  Synthesizing everything we have covered today in this deep dive,
• 36:06
  you, the listener, live in a fragile, mutable creation where
• 36:10
  absolutely everything fades. Everything wears out.
• 36:13
  Your physical health, your financial circumstances, the
• 36:16
  massive empires of this world, they are all exactly like the
• 36:20
  shifting shadow on the sundial, constantly changing and wearing
• 36:23
  out. There is a firm foundation.
• 36:24
  Yes, you are securely anchored to an immutable God whose
• 36:28
  promises never fail. He is the blinding Son that does
• 36:31
  not oscillate. And His greatest unchanging
• 36:34
  promise is the forensic imitatio, the great exchange
• 36:37
  where your toxic, bankrupt Ledger of sin was traded for
• 36:41
  Christ's flawless, perfect righteousness.
• 36:44
  What a staggering truth to rest our lives on.
• 36:46
  Before we sign off, I want to leave you with a final thought
• 36:48
  to Mull over, building on the realities we have discussed.
• 36:51
  Leave them with something to chew on.
• 36:53
  If your legal standing before God is already Florida State
• 36:56
  perfect and unchanged changeable in Christ, how does this
• 36:59
  redefine the way you view your daily messy, mutable struggles
• 37:03
  with sanctification? That changes your whole
• 37:06
  perspective. Could it be that the daily
• 37:07
  fluctuations, the persistent weaknesses, and the moral
• 37:11
  failures you experience are the exact mechanism God uses to burn
• 37:15
  away yourself reliance, forcing your functional daily reality to
• 37:19
  constantly catch up to the unshakable legal perfection you
• 37:22
  already possess? That is a brilliant way to frame
• 37:24
  our ongoing struggles. Thank you so much for joining us
• 37:27
  for this theological deep dive. Until next time, rest in the
• 37:30
  finished work of Christ.