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Clement Part 1 · The Reformed Corner

• Quentin James: This episode of the Reformed Corner Podcast is brought to you by Squirrely Joe's Coffee. Stop funding anti Christian agendas with your coffee habit. Every dollar you spend on coffee is a vote for what you value. Instead, choose coffee roasted by believers who share your convictions. Hello, everybody. Welcome into the Reformed Corner podcast. ⁓ my name is Quentin James, and I have with me my co-host. ⁓ my name's Elijah King. Elijah King, Quentin James, Elijah King. We together we make the King James only podcast. And you know it's infallible because it's authorized. Right. Exactly. Yeah. so what we're here to talk about today and in this ⁓ podcast is really ⁓ church history. We we are Protestants, we are Reformed Christians. ⁓ ourselves, we're part of a reformed church. And we think it's very important for Protestants to recover their heritage with the church fathers. We are actually downstream of the early church. We're not some new innovation. Yeah, and this is this is the ⁓ this is the sin of ⁓ the modern evangelical movement, is that they have divorced themselves from church history. Correct. And so when we look into like Protestant history and like when John Calvin, Martin Luther, ⁓ you know, Bootzer, ⁓ Theodore Beza, all of these people are contending with Rome. How are they doing that? They're doing it from the fathers. Right. Yeah, Calvin in his institute cites the church fathers over eight hundred times, I think. ⁓ sometimes it's disagreements, but mostly it's him showing no, actually what we're saying is what the early church said. Yes. And that's the ⁓ that's the beauty of Protestantism, is that we ⁓ we have histor Or Cul Merit, we have a heritage that we can pull from, but we're not ⁓ it's not an infallible dogma. Right. We don't have to just take everything Augustine says. We don't have to take everything that Athanasius says. We should we should understand them in their historical context, we should read their ⁓ writings and we should do our best to ⁓ understand them as they would have presented themselves in their time period. Right. ⁓ Absolutely. ⁓ and that's that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to accurately represent the church fathers ⁓ and examine them and we're gonna begin by going through first Clement. ⁓ we are looking at ⁓ over on ⁓ Logos Software Logos Bible Software, free edition, because we're broke. There is the Apostolic Fathers in English by ⁓ Brennan. Brennan? Yeah. Branon? Brandon's first name or last name? ⁓ last name. So Rick Brandon, he's the general editor. Rick Brandon. All right. Yeah. And he has a whole bunch of guys in here. He's got Clement, ⁓ Polycarp, Ignatius, Letter of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermes. And we're gonna be basically for this first season of the podcast, we're gonna be going through this whole book, ⁓ from ⁓ Clement all the way down to the letter to Diognetus. Yep. ⁓ yeah, so that's the that's the general overview, the general plan. ⁓ today we're gonna try to get through as much Clement as we can. Yep. We'll see how far we get through. ⁓ yeah. It's ⁓ it's a lot. ⁓ it's honestly it's not a terribly long book. I mean, i anyone could read this in an afternoon. It's like reading Romans. ⁓ it's f sixty-five chapters, but each chapter is a paragraph. So like that's really not that long. No, no. And it is it is a wonderful read. ⁓ my god. You can tell how much ⁓ he cares for his congregation and for the congregations around him. Right. ⁓ so It's it's just wonderful. It's a wonderful pastoral letter. Every Christian should read it. Every Christian should try to apply what he talks about to their lives. Yeah. Because he's it's just wonderful. Yeah, that's one of the things that really stood out to me in in this first read through that I did was he does sound so much like a pastor. He is the bishop of of Rome or he is a bishop. A bishop in Rome. We'll get there. ⁓ but he comes off as so loving and caring and pastoral and actually wanting the people he's writing to to repent and correct. And it's not just scolding and criticism. No, yeah, I mean the very beginning he starts out with saying, We're doing the same things. Right. Yeah. Alright, well, ⁓ I'm gonna go ahead and light my pipe. I have my trusty Peterson three fourteen loaded up with some nutty Irishman that I got from Cornell and Deal. It smells lovely. It's like a nice hazelnut with ⁓ like Irish coffee flavor to it. And I know you've packed ⁓ I've I have a new pipe. It was a gift. I don't know what it is, but it's gonna be great. It's a nice little snub nose. You're gonna or I was it a nose warmer? Nose warmer, yes, yes. ⁓ very short and ⁓ you've loaded it up with ⁓ some Westminster ⁓ because we are Reformed Christians. Of course of course we need to have some Westminster in our life. ⁓ so will you go ahead and read ⁓ that first first paragraph while I get my ⁓ get my pipe out? Yeah, so ⁓ I just want to talk about a little bit about what First Clement is. It's the first letter to the Corinthians. It's dated ⁓ most scholars are gonna date it like ninety-five, ninety-six, eighty. There are a couple that will place it as early as seventy eighty, and then there are a few, very few, that will put it down at like a hundred and ten AD. But like I said, most people will place it around ninety-five, ninety-six AD. ⁓ it's ⁓ as we said, it's a pastoral letter from ⁓ the Church of Rome. ⁓ of whom Clement is not named the author. ⁓ the reason we believe it to be Clement is because of the writings of other ⁓ like historians of the church, like Eusebius. as a note, there are other letters that are claimed to be from Clement, ⁓ but most scholarship and most ⁓ early theologians just say that it's this is the only like true letter from Clement. I know there is second Clement. Is are there any others? ⁓ there are a couple other forgeries, but those are just thrown to the side. ⁓ everyone recognizes that. And that's that's an important thing to recognize. When looking at the Church Fathers, we should have a little bit of ⁓ wariness and level headedness and recognize that the Church Fathers have a lot of forgeries. Yes. Not that they were writing the forgeries, but that their names were used to give credit to or ⁓ credibility to To other texts that they didn't ever write. Yes. And so this is where you have like the longer recensions ⁓ in Ignatius. And so that's why ⁓ a lot of people like to harp on John Calvin for, you know, throwing away Ignatius. But i but he doesn't. John Calvin does not throw away Ignatius. What he says specifically in is that he doesn't trust them because there are so many forgeries. And at that time Everyone admitted that. Everyone admitted that. There was something There was somewhere between like twelve and fifteen letters being paraded around as from Ignatius, which we now know is completely backwards. I mean, you have the longer recensions, the shorter recensions, and there's still scholarship working on that and church historians. Yeah, and if you really want to dig into that some more, I would definitely recommend picking up John Daly's treatise on the right use of the fathers. Yes. He ⁓ goes through with a fine-tooth comb, the church fathers, and hundreds and hundreds of examples of forgeries and contradictions between themselves, between each other, and my favorite was that the ⁓ the Council of Chalcedon, ⁓ the Roman church tried to bring a forged ca ⁓ copy of the Nicene canons ⁓ that included the primacy or the ⁓ infallibility of the papacy. And ⁓ they basically tried to use this false, phony Nicene canon to assert their authority, their pr their primacy over the rest of the church. And ⁓ that that's been pretty well admitted and and documented in in Daly's book. That's interesting. I have not finished Daly's book. I've just started it, so I will get there. It's it's really quite funny. You know, and that's ⁓ unfortunately the c the case, you know, is that there are so many forgeries. But nowadays with ⁓ just how much work has been done to figure out what's authentic. Right. We can be fairly trusting of our sources. Yeah, I'm pretty confident that this letter was written by Clement. And I think that this Clement is likely ⁓ the friend of the Apostle Paul mentioned in Philippians three. Yeah, Philippians four. Yeah. So Eusebius in origin also held that belief. but I mean w we can't draw a hard line and say, hey, definitely this is him. But there is some good evidence for it in the early church. ⁓ the other thing is ⁓ As you go through this, you realize how much Clement loves the scriptures. Every other every other sentence is so many citations. So many citations. And he doesn't just like ⁓ pull ⁓ random thing out and says, here you go, but he applies it properly to his congregation and to the congregation of Corinth. Right. So as we alluded to earlier, we say presbyter or bishop. Mm-hmm. And I know we're gonna catch flack for this, but ⁓ the reason is is because in the early church the way that the the way the church is set up is apostle is from the apostles is presbyters and deacons. Now there are ⁓ some overlap between what a bishop is and what a presbyter is because they're used interchangeably in all of the apostolic fathers except for ⁓ the ignatian letters. Right. ⁓ so most scholarship and most ⁓ historians recognize the two tiered structure of the early church. Right. And that it's an innovation to have a difference between a bishop, a priest, and a deacon. Right. ⁓ and I I know ⁓ maybe you already said it, but Jerome talks about it. Jerome does talk about it. ⁓ and I think yeah, the the the general consensus is that in the early church, like you said, ⁓ bishop and presbyter were the same office. And ⁓ for purposes of unity in the church, they ⁓ made a distinction an elevated one above one presbyter elevat was elevated above the rest and titled bishop. Yes. And so this is you you can just read it in ⁓ Jerome's letters. and you can read ⁓ there's a bunch of scholarship on this, not just from Presbyterians. ⁓ Sullivan, ⁓ he's a Catholic historian. ⁓ you have ⁓ Francis Sullivan? Yeah, Francis Sullivan. He's the guy that all of the ⁓ Protestants like to poke at point at and say, Hey, look, here's the guy. ⁓ so I'm gonna do that here. ⁓ As you should. As we should. ⁓ so this is a quote from himself the expressed agreement with the consensus of scholars that available evidence indicates that the Church of Rome was led by a college of presbyters rather than a single bishop for at least s several decades of the second century. Yeah. ⁓ and this isn't to say that Clement didn't fulfill ⁓ like a unique role as possible like a senior leader within the college of presbyters, but that we don't have any th we don't have enough evidence to present him as anything other than that. Right. And there's a difference between a presbyter or a pastor or or an elder, priest, whatever, yeah, who's taking leadership, taking charge, and somebody who's actually the official head. Right. Yes. There's a functioning head and then there's the office of the bishop in this case, if you will. ⁓ We don't see that office in scripture. Yeah, we don't see an ontological distinction between bishop and presbyter. Right. ⁓ and you see this in the New Testament. I mean, Paul uses them interchangeably. Right. And so does Clement. Clement uses of them interchangeably. Yeah. And so do all of the early church fathers except for Ignatius. Yeah. Maybe. And that's the thing, is do we interpret the rest of the witnesses by Ignatius? Or do we interpret Ignatius by the rest of the witnesses? Yes. and you you do see that Ignatius does draw a distinction. Right. But is it a ⁓ but what kind of distinction is that? Right. So there's there's been a lot of people who've done studies on this. ⁓ Sola Media has a great breakdown of what a bishop is. ⁓ Mason over at Biblical Understanding has a good great guy. Yeah. Awesome guy. I love his great guy. Great work. Definitely recommend checking out his channel. Yeah. So ⁓ yeah, so Presbyters and Bishops. So if you want to know where we stand, obviously we're Presbyterian. Correct. This is how we're going to read ⁓ the Church Fathers. And yeah, I mean call us out in the comments. You're more than welcome to. It is the correct position. It is the right it was predestined. And so here we are. ⁓ so yeah, so that's ⁓ little breakdown on what Clement is, a little bit of the background there. Yeah. ⁓ so let's let's get into it. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll read this first ⁓ salutation from from Clement. He says the Church of God which temporarily resides in Rome, to the Church of God which temporarily resides in Corinth. Those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace from Almighty God through Jesus Christ be multiplied to you. So I have highlighted here that that phrase temporarily resides in Rome. ⁓ I think he's really just talking about the temporal nature of the earth, the earthly church. ⁓ the church temporarily resides in Rome, temporarily resides in Corinth because ⁓ this world is not a permanent fixture. ⁓ we are ⁓ we we should be seeing the new heavens and the new earth ⁓ coming together. And so I I when I re first read this I thought, is this a blow against Roman Catholics s ⁓ talking about the the ⁓ eternality or the ⁓ the permanent residency of the church in Rome. ⁓ and I still kinda think there's some truth to that, especially when you look at Paul's letter to the Romans when he says, boast not against the branches, be not haughty, ⁓ or high minded, because ⁓ as the Jews were cut off, so you also, Roman church, could be cut off for your own belief. Mm-hmm. ⁓ so I think there is some ⁓ truth to that, but I don't necessarily think that's actually what he's saying. No, and I I I would push back against that 'cause he also says to the Church of God which temporarily resides in Corinth. ⁓ so I would both would have that same warning. Yeah. If you do not continue in in faith, you will be cut off. Yeah, I I think it has more to do with the ⁓ persecution that they're going under because ⁓ the first, second and third century of the church is just wrought with persecution from the Roman ⁓ emperors and from the Jewish leaders and basically everyone you know, most ⁓ it seems that most official functions of the Roman Empire did not like the Christians because they were atheists. Right. So Right. ⁓ so that's why I would s point to more as like temporarily resides in Rome, more pointing to the fact that they could very well be wiped out. Yeah. But ⁓ But not necessarily for unbelief. Not well, temporal judgments are ⁓ from God as well. Yes, that's true. ⁓ But you're saying for persecution. For persecution, yeah. the other thing I would point out is ⁓ how ⁓ similar it is to Paul's letters. Grace and peace from Almighty God through Jesus Christ be multiplied to ⁓ to you. And it's to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we go through this letter, we're gonna see election talked about a lot. A lot. ⁓ did we say Clement was a Calvinist? Calvin didn't exist yet. Calvin was a Clementine? ⁓ I'd take that. Okay. Yeah. I mean it's it's Pauline's. We could yeah, it was Pauline, yeah. ⁓ so if we want to say Calvin is c ⁓ Clementine, I think people might dislike us. Yeah. But I think it's right because ⁓ again, with with how frequently Clement talks about election, ⁓ and and the way he he articulates it sounds very similar to the the Calvinistic understanding of election. I mean Calvin. loves Romans, so I mean that's part of it. And ⁓ Paul wrote Romans. Paul wrote Romans. Clement was a great friend of Paul. Yes. And a pastor or bishop or presbyter of the church in Rome to which Paul wrote the Roman letter. Yes. So it seems like Clement was really reading what Paul wrote and listening to. Absolutely. And so this is where like ⁓ it becomes useful to have the church fathers is we can read them and see how they understood Paul. Yep. And it helps confirm that our understanding is accurate because we're saying the same things they were. Yes, yes. And so that's something that we're gonna see here as we go through it, is there are l phrases in here that could be pulled right out of Westminster. things that could have been written by Chemnitz, by Calvin, by Luther, ⁓ by Thomas Cranmer. Right. You know. ⁓ and this is why again we're wanting to recover as Protestants and as as on the this podcast, we're trying to recover the church fathers for the Protestant church. Yes because that's ⁓ we're based in scripture, but we are following the fathers as well. And so if we believe something that the church fathers never articulated, like dispensationalism, we should abandon that that belief. ⁓ that no The Dispes gonna have a heyday against you. Yeah. Nobody was ever dispensational until the eighteen hundreds. And so if you have eighteen hundred years of ⁓ a belief system not ever existing, and then now you're saying this is what the Bible has been teaching that whole time You're saying that nobody ever understood the Bible until you came along. Yeah. And that's Which is coincidentally what ⁓ Rome and the East throw against Protestants, you know. Yeah, they say that we're just making things up. And in the case of dispensationalism, they're right. They're yes, they're absolutely right. But they're not pro ⁓ I I shouldn't say dispensationalists are not. ⁓ they're not historic Protestants. Dispensationalism is not a Protestant doctrine. No. I'll say that. No. Anyway, continuing on. What did you say? Do we jump on Baptists right now too? ⁓ maybe not. Maybe not. ⁓ Reformed Baptist is an oxymoron. Yes, just as Lutheran Baptist is. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓ Don Baker has a great video about that on ⁓ YouTube you sent me earlier. Yeah, that was quite fun. ⁓ I love my Baptist brothers. I but sometimes it's fun to make fun of them. You guys are particular Baptists. You are not Reformed Baptists, because we're to be Reformed is to accept covenantal headship and That means you baptize your babies. Right. That that is a necessary implication of covenant theology. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you should baptize your babies, all of you. ⁓ Yeah. Clement would probably say the same as well. ⁓ absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓ continuing on into Close. I love how we just spent like ten minutes just dunking on Dunking disbies and Baptists. That's great. Which they are not the same thing. They are not the same thing. But the overlap is pretty it's just quite large. Yeah. Yeah. If your theology came from ⁓ A particular Bible translation in, you know, seventeen, eighteen hundreds. Yeah, with the ⁓ the was it Ryrie or the Schofield Fields. Yeah. Yeah. Who ⁓ we well not we'll try not to get too derailed, but Schofield was not a good man. No, not in any way. Not any way. so yeah, so don't get your theology from ⁓ serial adulterer. Yes. And ⁓ the second great awakening. Yes. Terrible. The burned over district did nothing good for Christianity. Right, right. Okay, but back back to Clement. Okay. ⁓ so I'll I'll read ⁓ chapter one. So ⁓ because of the sudden and repeated misfortunes and calamities that have happened to us, we realize that we have s been somewhat slow to pay attention to the events disputed among you. Beloved, the abominable and unholy rebellion, both foreign and strange to the elect of God. There it is. There it is. ⁓ which are Few reckless and arrogant people have kindled to such a state of frenzy that your name, honorable and well known and worthy of everyone's love, has been greatly slandered. For who, having stayed with you, has not approved your most excellent and reliable faith? Who has not admired your prudent and gentle piety in Christ? And who has not proclaimed your magnificent custom of hospitality? And who has not blessed your perfect and certain knowledge? For you did all things impartially, and you walked in lawful The lawful ways of God, being obedient to your rulers and rendering appropriate honor to the older ones among you. You instructed the younger ones to think both moderate and honorable thoughts. You commanded the women to accomplish all things with a blameless, honorable, and pure conscience, feeling appropriate affection for their own husbands. And you taught them, being in the rule of obedience, to manage things of the household honorably with all sensibility. Man. Corinth was doing great. Yeah. And Before we actually continue, we should we should mention what this letter is. ⁓ yes. I think we kind of completely lost it. So yeah, tell tell us what this letter is. This is an absolute rebuke of the church in Corinth. In Corinth. Right. Paul has written three or four letters to Corinth. We have two of them surviving in the in the canon of scripture. The first one, ⁓ first Corinthians, Paul says, You're not doing great. The second one, not better. Not better. And then now we have Clement who follows where Paul left off. Yeah. And we s we see that there was some it obviously got better. Mm-hmm 'cause obviously clo ⁓ Clement wouldn't go and say, Hey, you did all things impartially. Yeah. ⁓ you walked in the lawful ways of God, being obedient to your rulers and rendering appropriate honor, you know. And he addresses them as the church, as the elect of God, the saints of God. But he does say that there are a few abominable and unholy, ⁓ wicked, arrogant people. reckless and arrogant people who are in the church. They have infiltrated ⁓ and they are causing divisions and dissensions. All the things that Paul talks about in first first Corinthians, particularly the divisions. ⁓ but now c ⁓ Clement is taking it upon himself, since Paul is no longer with the church 'cause he's he's passed on into glory, Clement is taking it upon himself to issue some corrections to the Corinthian church. Yeah. Roman Catholics would say, see, the primacy of the Pope, because he's the Bishop of Rome. He's the fourth Pope. We shouldn't be surprised when a neighboring church sees poor things happening in another church and writes a letter to them. Yeah. I mean, we're supposed to be seeking the unity of the church. Absolutely. And how do you have unity when you have reckless, arrogant, wicked, abominable, and unholy rebellion in the church? Yes, yes. Especially if ⁓ you know, Clement is you know, i if he is the person talked about in Philippians, you know that Clement has gone around to different cities. You know, he's been a part of different churches. So we shouldn't ⁓ expect him to not care about the other churches. And you know, and Rome obviously was a big church. Yeah. It was an important church. It was the capital city of the empire. Exactly. ⁓ and so yeah, we shouldn't be surprised that a neighboring church or you know, I I'll even grant this maybe Rome did have some jurisdiction over Corinth. ⁓ you see this in ⁓ there's a letter ⁓ my goodness, I should have I should have ⁓ dug into this more. I saw it very briefly, but there's ⁓ a couple letters ⁓ later on I think in the third century that talk about this, how Rome is ⁓ essentially like a parent church to other smaller churches. So yeah, they planted. Mm-hmm. Right. I don't I don't know exactly if that's what happened in Corinth though. No, no. Corinth was set up by Paul and as was the Church in Rome. Paul had when he wrote the Roman letter had never been to the Roman church, right? I don't believe so. Yeah. so yeah, so Corinth was doing great in the past. ⁓ they obviously had been obedient to what Paul had told them to do, and ⁓ then something happened. Right. And this is what the letter is, is it's a rebuke to the church. Mm-hmm. What they have done is they have ⁓ cast out the elders that were lawfully set up. Yeah. And they've installed their own ⁓ presbyters and elders in the church. And so this is a Is it Second Corinthians where he talks about the super apostles? No. Maybe. Maybe. I think it's second Corinthians where he talks about the super apostles and and he's giving his credentials and he's ⁓ lamenting that the Corinthian church is no longer listening to Paul, they're listening to the super apostles. ⁓ yes. I think it's I think it's second Corinthians. Yeah. ⁓ this would be yes, yes. I think you're right. There's a ⁓ this is why I said some people date it early. Mm-hmm. Is that this could be a response to that as well. ⁓ Like you're saying, they've basically deposed their lawfully ordained elders, bishops, presbyters, same office, and ⁓ replaced them with these super apostles with these ⁓ more charismatic false teachers. Yeah. And this is why you should obey your elders. It is condemned all over ⁓ church history to abandon your church leadership. so don't do that. Don't do that. Do you think that ⁓ the Corinthian church had more of a congregational ⁓ church quality? If they were able to just depose their elders? ⁓ they might have tried that, but I think it's clear that ⁓ that Clement was not a fan of it. Yeah. ⁓ because that's what he's condemning them for. Is that they've done is that they've deposed their leadership. Yeah. ⁓ what I think happened is that, you know, the apostles went out and installed ⁓ faithful elders Faithful presbyters, faithful deacons in the churches, and that those within the presbytery ⁓ ordained future yeah. Future successors. So I mean that's what Paul talks about in Timothy that ⁓ he received the gift by the laying on of hands of the presbytery. Yeah. ⁓ so we should ⁓ we should submit to our leadership. Absolutely. ⁓ continuing on, ⁓ And you were all humble minded, in no way being boastful, being submissive rather than forcing submission, giving more gladly than receiving, being satisfied with the provisions of Christ, and paying attention to his words, you have carefully stored away in your innermost being, and his sufferings were before your eyes. Thus a deep and luxurious peace was given to all, and an insatiable desire for good deeds, and a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was upon you, was upon all of you. And filled with holy plans, and in great eagerness, with pious confidence you stretched out your hands to the Almighty God, imploring him to be merciful if you had in if you had inadvertently committed any sin. Sorry, had to cough there. Yeah. He's a rookie smoker. I know, I know. It's ⁓ it's interesting, so that that phrase there ⁓ where he said that his sufferings were before your eyes. ⁓ that that's also Galatians three, one. And I remember having a conversation with an Orthodox friend of mine and he was saying that's icons. The the suffering of Christ is before their eyes because they have an icon of Christ crucified. Yeah, no. Yeah, it's a bit it's a bit of a stretch. And ⁓ for more ⁓ information on icon veneration and its ⁓ spurious ⁓ origins, I would definitely recommend picking up Gavin Orland's What It Means to be a Protestant. Yeah. Or what it means to be Protestant, not a Protestant. Yeah, he has a great chapter on it. He's also done a lot on his YouTube channel. ⁓ and there are a lot of responses to him, which is also good to see. Right. You get to see how people defend the ⁓ Orthodox or Roman Catholic belief of icons. Yeah. ⁓ But I think he I think he's right. I the way he argues for it and the the what he presents I think shows quite clearly that venerating icons was a total accretion. Even if they had ⁓ i even if there are examples of didactic imagery used early on. There isn't, as far as I know, evidence of that in the first two centuries. No. ⁓ so kind of the way it is Not to get off off ⁓ on a tinge, but the way it's appears to be is that the first couple centuries of the church there were no images. And you can see this because all descriptions of images are condemned within churches. Yep. All descriptions of images in pagan uses are condemned. There is no there's never any time where ⁓ we're one of the early, early church fathers, so I'm talking like ⁓ first three, four hundred years of the church where they say all of those images are bad, but our images are good. Yeah, they don't make a distinction. They do not make a distinction. Yeah. It's just blanket condemnation of images. Yes. ⁓ you know, you have people who say there is no religion where there is an image. Is that Blactantius? Black Tantius, yeah. Yeah. so you see that and then you see images, we know that images are early. ⁓ so you say so you have ⁓ like there are some early like cave churches. ⁓ that do have images in like the third century, third, fourth. ⁓ they're not super common, but they do exist. Yeah. ⁓ so that's kind of where you get into the idea of didactic image imagery. ⁓ Pope Gregory speaks on this. He condemns someone for well he he applauds someone for dis for his zeal regarding images. ⁓ he the person he's talking to went and ⁓ destroyed a bunch of images. But Pope Gregory says, Hey, you don't have to destroy them. We're okay with them for didactic purposes. For teaching we're not we're not venerating or worshiping these images. Yeah, he he never says we don't we're not worshiping them, but he says that we're not ⁓ that you don't have to destroy them because we're using them for teaching. Yeah. ⁓ that's like six hundreds. Yeah, I still would disagree with using them for didactic purposes, but that's certain certainly better than objects of our adoration, veneration, worship. Whatever I mean, they try to make distinctions between those words, but I I think. Yeah, it's splitting hairs. It it does become splitting hairs. ⁓ because you see this ⁓ consistently in scriptures where whenever someone is ⁓ prayed to in a religious context, they say, No, this is only due to God ⁓ or prostrating themselves. You see ⁓ that with Peter, you see that with the angel in Revelation. It'd be like if your wife catches you kissing your secretary. And you say, Don't worry, honey, these are these are normal normal sec these are secretary kisses. Secretary kisses. But I save my special kisses for you, sweetheart. Obviously. Yeah. so it's ⁓ you see progression of thought from no images to images for teaching purposes to the veneration of images. ⁓ This is why you have contradictory councils in you know, right around Nicaea two. Mm-hmm. You have Nicaea two, you have Council of Pyrea, you have Council of Frankfurt. ⁓ You even have early councils like Elvira, which is a small local council. Fully grant that, but it still condemns images. Right. And in John Daly's book, The Treatise on the Right Use of the Fathers, he talks about how they burned all the books of the people who were iconoclasts. Mm-hmm. ⁓ but there's still some surviving books and some surviving quotes from church fathers that are venerated as saints. Yeah. Or ⁓ yeah, is that right? Venerated. ⁓ canonized as saints by Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics who condemned the use of images outright. So like they couldn't get rid of all of it. Well you have that, but you also have like ⁓ before any bishops could enter into the council of the second great council, they had to what they have to repent of their sin of iconoclasm. Mm-hmm. So no one who no ⁓ no bishop who participated in the Second Council of Nicaea. was an iconoclast. And there's absolutely nothing in sacred scripture that gives us the idea that we must worship or venerate images in order to be saved. Yeah, no, it just doesn't exist. So and it's ⁓ we would say that it's explicitly condemned. Yeah. So what do you think he is saying there when he says his sufferings were before your eyes, ⁓ in Clement? ⁓ I think he's talking about scripture. And I think he's talking about that hey, we're still within a time period where we can go talk to people who saw Christ. Yeah. Yeah, witnesses are still alive. Yeah, absolutely. Stop giving your hard-earned money to pagans. Look, we are Christians, we are reformed Christians, and all of us love coffee. 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And so he gets into countless examples of jealousy in ⁓ chapters four and on. Yeah, something I do find interesting, I'm gonna pause for a second in chapter three, is that he says that each of you has left the fear of God. Mm-hmm. And that ⁓ instead each of you walks according to the desires of his own wicked heart. Heart, having taken ⁓ taken up unjust and ungodly jealousy. Through which also death has entered this world. Which is interesting. Why why do you find that interesting? because we see that ⁓ Clement is equating jealousy as to the sin of Adam. Jealousy as to the sin of Adam. Because Adam was jealous of the knowledge of good and evil, he was jealous of God's place. Yeah. And that's what that's how Satan was too, right? ⁓ yeah, jealousy I guess could be the root of pride, or is pride the root of jealousy? ⁓ a little bit both. kind of think pride is the root of jealousy. But jealousy is what motivates the prideful to do prideful things, perhaps. I just thought it was interesting that that's what he focuses on right there. So and then in chapter four he ⁓ cites ⁓ doesn't just reference but cites ⁓ Genesis chapter four is that Kelly chapter four and he says ⁓ God said to Cain why are you deeply grieved and why are you downcast? If you offered rightly ⁓ but did not divide rightly, did you not sin? Remain quiet, he will return to you and you will rule over him. ⁓ and Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go to the field. And it came about when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. And then Clement comments, You see, brothers, jealousy and envy brought about a brother's murder. So this is probably what he's referring to when he says death entered the world, because that's the first first murder. ⁓ but I still find it an interesting thought that he says that it's the Yeah. That this is the where he goes to specifically. If this is the first thing he talks about. Yeah, and the the very first human death in history ⁓ was because of Cain's jealousy. ⁓ and he says in this this next line that I highlighted because I guess we're just gonna be dogpiling on the dispensationalists. ⁓ my goodness. He says, Because of jealousy, our father Jacob ran away from the presence of his brother. Yeah. It's interesting. He claims Jacob as our father. Clement is not a Jew. No, he's ⁓ the church in Corinth is not a church of of Jewish people. It is a church of Gentiles, ⁓ Greeks, ⁓ not Jews. Clement, not a Jew, he's a Gentile, but he's claiming Jacob as his father because, as we sing, Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. We can say the same of our father Jacob because he's he I think he's holding to ⁓ the core tenet of covenant theology, that the New Testament church is the continuation of the Old Testament Israelites. And we see this ⁓ when Stephen is addressing ⁓ the Jews in Acts chapter seven. ⁓ he says that Moses ⁓ was speaking with the angel on Mount Sinai, and it says that the angel addressed the church in the wilderness. That's how the King James translates it, which is the right translation. Because we are the King James only podcast. It's authorized, obviously. Yeah. we're not actually King James only, just for the record. My favorite is the LSB. So Yeah. ⁓ you love that Lesb lesbian standard Bible. ⁓ my god. That's right. The Lesbi. The Lesbi. but yeah, he's he's, I think, grasping onto that that central tenet of covenant theology that the church is the continuation of Old Testament Israel. It's not as though God has two peoples. No. God has had one people all throughout history. He has one bride. One bride. He's not a polygamist. One bride, one people. And ⁓ it's always been the church. And in the old testament the church was called Israel. Yes. In the New Testament it's called the Church. and ultimately we see that Christ is the representative of not the Jews, but the church. And he represented the church in the Old Testament as the Israelites. And so here's the question. How are we bound to Christ? How how was Old Testament Israel bound to God by faith? Yeah. And by a covenant. By faith, God's covenants, God's promises, I will be God to you and to your children after you. Same promises in the New Testament. That's why we baptize our babies. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Jeremiah, what is that, thirty thirty-two. Thirty-two, yes. You just keep reading. Yeah, everyone loves ⁓ Jeremiah thirty one, because it's cited in Hebrews eight. But if you just keep going to chapter thirty two, it says that this is for the good of you and your children after you. I will give you one heart, ⁓ cause you to walk in my statutes. These are all promises of the new covenant applied to the children of believers. Yeah. It's just so cool. You know, our kids are in the covenant. Yeah. ⁓ but then he goes on to talk about ⁓ jealousy compelled compelled Moses to or compelled Joseph to flee from his brothers because they were jealous of him. Yep. Moses had to flee from Pharaoh, ⁓ because Pharaoh was jealous. ⁓ Aaron and Miriam as well. Had to stay outside of the camp because they were jealous of Moses. ⁓ we see he doesn't I don't think he cites it, but also Korah's rebellion. Same exact thing, jealousy. ⁓ more examples in ⁓ he says Peter and Paul. ⁓ Peter, who because of ⁓ this is ⁓ chapter five, verse four. Yeah Peter who because of unrighteous jealousy, not once or twice, but many times endured hardship, and thus having given his testimony, he went to a place, the place of glory he deserved. And it's not saying Peter was jealous, it's saying people were jealous of Peter. This is why he was persecuted and why he was ultimately crucified, upside down, as church history ⁓ would attest to. and then also because of jealousy, verse five, ⁓ and strife, Paul pointed the way to the prize of endurance. Having borne chains seven times, having been exiled, having been stoned, having been a preacher in both the East and in the West, he received the noble fame of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world and having come to the limits of the West, and having given his testimony before the rulers, thus he was set free from the world and was taken up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance. No soul sleep. Yeah, just just straight up into glory. Now ⁓ Roman Catholics would likely argue he skips purgatory because he was a martyr. Yeah. And because he's the Apostle Paul. ⁓ I would argue he skips purgatory because there is no purgatory. That's a made up thing. ⁓ and again, if ⁓ who would guess we're Presbyterians, right? And I'm gonna cite John Daly one more time. He ⁓ talks about in Augustine's City of God, where Augustine allegedly talks about purgatory, ⁓ he says that those are actual ⁓ actually forgeries added to Augustine's City of God because they're not in the original manuscripts that we have of ⁓ the City of God. And I think that's pretty compelling. ⁓ they don't exist in the early Greek. Or ⁓ I guess it would have been Latin for Augustine. ⁓ and then he gets on in chapter six to the effects of jealousy. I know you wanted to talk about verse two there. ⁓ yes. Because of jealousy they persecute the ⁓ Because of jealousy, women were persecuted like ⁓ Danaids and ⁓ Dirce, suffering severe and unholy mistreatments. They finished steadfastly the race of faith, and the weak in bot and the weak in body received a noble prize. Right. these ⁓ the thought is is that these two women were ⁓ ⁓ they were persecuted. I mean th this is violently violently persecuted. ⁓ in the way that we that women are. That we're unfortunately in pagan civilizations it happens. Yeah. it's happening today. It's happening today all over the world. All over the world, particularly in Europe. You saw that whole thing about the ⁓ the Muslim rape gangs. ⁓ pretty egregious stuff. Yeah, and it's it's unfortunate, but it gives This part gives me hope because we see that ⁓ the church recognizes their sacrifice and immediately recognizes that hey, they're going to a good place. They've fulfilled ⁓ what God set out for them. Right. And they have received a noble prize. Mm-hmm. ⁓ and so it's just a it's a story. It's it's just a little snippet, but it's a little story there that we can look back on and say, Hey, yeah. ⁓ First off, women are valued in the church. These are our sisters. Yes. And we should we should feel with them the suffering that they felt. ⁓ and we should honor them for going through that. Yes. Honor them and then also look and see what ⁓ what we have in store now, what our ⁓ troubles are and how we can overcome them through Christ. Yeah. So absolutely. ⁓ so Eli, what is the cure to jealousy? The cure to jealousy. What what do we need to to do what do we need to how do we get fixed of how do we get fixed the same way all sins are fixed through repentance let us look intently at the blood of Christ and let us know that it is precious to his father because being poured out for our salvation it brought grace the grace of repentance to all the world. That's right. And it I love that. Being poured out for our salvation it brought the grace of repentance to all the world. We are able To be united to Christ, forgiven of our sins, because he died for us. Yes. Beautiful. he's just so good. He is such a pastor. He is he has such love for his people. Absolutely. ⁓ and he gives us ⁓ examples of this. ⁓ the master gives a place of repentance to those who intend to turn to him. Noah preached repentance, and those who obeyed were saved. Jonah preached destruction to the Ninevites, and those who but those who repented made appeasement for their sin to God through supplication and receive salvation, although being aliens from God. Right. Even in the Old Testament, ⁓ people who were strangers and aliens have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ⁓ and I love that line, ⁓ the master gives a place of repentance to those who intend to turn to him. ⁓ he's talked about election already here, and something that we believe as Presbyterians, as Calvinists We believe that God will save all those whom He has elected. And the way He does that is by bringing the gospel to them. Yes. And so, you know, people will ask, like, Well, what about the the poor African tribal tribesman that never heard about Jesus? Well, if he was one of God's elect, the gospel would have reached him. He would have repented, he would have believed. And we have we have hope in Christ because we we see this happen now in Muslim countries where they will have visions of Christ. Mm-hmm. And they will immediately turn to him. So we shouldn't be surprised if in the eternities we go and we say, ⁓ how did you meet Christ? And they say, He came to me in a dream. How amazing is that? That's yeah, that's absolutely ⁓ beautiful, amazing, and and it's totally within his power to do so. ⁓ yes. We should not expect it as normative because right, the ordinary means of grace are the sacraments, prayer and the the scriptures. ⁓ But God is free, as according to Westminster, to work outside of those Yes, absolutely. And he always has been. He's not bound by the ordinary means of grace. Those are just the normal ordinary ways of the Yeah, it's it's the way we should expect it to happen. Because not everyone has a forgive me, but like a come to Jesus moment. Not everyone has the light switch flicked on. Yeah. ⁓ but we kn we are assured of our salvation because we trust in God and we see its fruits worked out in our lives. That's why we that's how we can be assured of our salvation. one other thing I wanted to touch on here. Have you read ⁓ Dane Ortland's ⁓ Gentle and Lowly? No. No. That is a phenomenal book. Okay. When he says there, ⁓ the master gives a place to those who intend to turn to him, it reminded me of Jesus saying, Come to me, ⁓ all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. That's that's what his book is on, is that Matthew eleven passage. And he does such an amazing job of expositing that and getting a lot of his material from the Puritans to show Christ's heart for the lost. He actually loves us even when we're lost, right? God ⁓ Romans four, ⁓ it's we love God because he first loved us. We love God because he first loved us. That's first John. But then there's also that passage where he says, ⁓ that Christ died for us ⁓ while we were in our sin. Yes. Like he he doesn't expect us to be cleaned up before he'll save us. No. He saves us and cleanses us. Yes. It's all Christ, it's all grace. And it's this is why the gospel is such good news. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Yeah. God is so good. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. but then he goes on to talk about Jonah and the N Ninevites. ⁓ chapter eight, he's addressing Israel's call to To repentance, ⁓ he says, verse three, I think, he says, ⁓ say to the sons of my people, if you stretch if your sins stretch from the earth up to the heaven, and they are redder than scarlet, and blacker than sackcloth, and you turn to me with your whole heart and say, Father, I will listen to you as a holy people. And in another place he says as follows Wash and be clean, put away your wickedness from your souls before. For my eyes, cease from your wicked deeds, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the mistreated, render a decision for the orphan, and vindicate widows, and come and let us reason together, says the Lord. And if your sins are as crimson, I will make them white as snow, and if they are scarlet, I will make them white as wool. And so he's again citing more Old Testament passages. ⁓ To show the grace of Christ that he will wash and cleanse everyone who comes to him in true faith. Yes. Absolutely. And this is in the context of a church who has been extremely disobedient, but they're still the church. Right. They've not been cut off yet. And ultimately, unfortunately, they are because they do not repent, but he is holding out hope for repentance and the possibility of repentance for them as long as possible until their lampstand is put out. Yeah. And this is the beauty of God, is that he's always there. Yeah. And he goes on to talk about the examples of Enoch and Noah, the example of Abraham. ⁓ did you have anything in that that chapter, chapter ten? just a little bit more of the ⁓ just covenant. You know, the way Clement is using Abraham is he's ⁓ being called the friend and found to be the faithful in the in his obedience to the words of God. ⁓ and that The way Clements is using all of these ⁓ all of these stories from the Bible is in such a way as to prove to them that they are still that the church in Corinth is God's people. Mm-hmm. And that God is faithful to redeem them. Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ I like the next section where it talks about ⁓ Lot and his wife. Yeah. That because of hospitality and godliness, Lot was rescued from Sodom. Mm-hmm. While the entire neighboring region was judged with fire and brimstone. Yeah. This is such a good little ⁓ good little section to remind us to be hospitable hospitable. Yeah. Not just like ⁓ to people we know, but to strangers. You know, if you have a family that shows up in your church and you've never seen them there before, invite them to lunch. Yeah. Who knows? It is one of the hardest things to come to a new church and nobody talks to you. That is tough. Yes. So be hospitable. ⁓ because of hospitality and godliness, Lot was rescued from Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the kind of stuff that God loves. He loves when we show grace to other people. ⁓ but it's because of jealousy that Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. Yes. She was jealous of the h her life that she had and she wanted to keep it. There's there's a jealousy that is envying for stuff that other people have, but then there's a jealousy that's Desperately trying to keep what you have ⁓ when when God is trying to give you something different. Yes. And so it says that she doubts ⁓ concerning the power of God, and that this will be a judgment and warning for all generations. Yeah. So and ⁓ I really love that where it says she became a pillar of salt even to this day. Yes. And I remember talking about this before. Josephus records having seen it with his own eyes. ⁓ Josephus has seen Pillar of salt that was Lot's wife. Yeah. I think it's it's so interesting because you have some the Bible's a historical book. Okay. We can go out there and we can see all of the historical records. We can go and we can see it was just found, but the ⁓ the altar on the hill that Joshua made. Yeah, that's there. You can go find it. ⁓ so I'm I'm excited for the day we find the pillar of salt. I think that's probably gone at this point. Probably. Rain has probably destroyed it, unfortunately. Yeah, but it was there for a long time. It was there. Well, I have finished my nutty Irishman, so I'm gonna moving over to the Westminster in my seven LE one eleven K S pipe. This was the first pipe that I ever first ⁓ Briar pipe I ever got. My wife bought this one for me for Easter present a couple years ago. Very kind of her. Yeah. Do you prefer Briar? ⁓ yeah, definitely. ⁓ corn cob is fun. Corn cob's great, but it's cheap. And Briar I think just looks better. ⁓ I don't really notice any difference in flavor or anything like that. Okay. ⁓ I have cherry pipes as well, but they are not as durable and they are very light. You've mentioned that, that they are prone to cracking under high temperatures. Yes, the briar is easily my favorite ⁓ pipe material, pipe wood because it ⁓ it it I mean it's the reason, it's the majority of of quality pipes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. ⁓ then we get into the example of Rahab. I've got some notes on ⁓ verses seven and eight, but if you want to touch on these before we get there. I'll just read a a little bit here. So because of faith and hospitality, Rahab the prostitute was rescued. For the spies were sent out by Joshua, the son of Nun, to Jericho, the king of the land, knew that they had come to spy out their land, and he sent out men who were to seize them. So having seized them, they might put them to death. Therefore the hospitable Rahab, having welcomed them and hid them in the upper level under sea stalks of flax, And the men from the king said, The spies of our land have come in to you, lead them out, for the king has so ordered. And she answered, Indeed, the men who you came to to seek, the men who you seek came to me. But they immediately departed and went on their way, pointing them in the wrong direction, she said to them and I certainly know that the Lord God is handing over this land to you, for fear and trembling of you has fallen upon all those who dwell in it. Therefore When you happens to take it ⁓ when it happens that you take it, rescue me and the house of my father. And they said to her, Thus it will be thus as you have spoken to us. Therefore, when you come to know of our appearing, gather together all your people under your roof, and you shall be rescued. For as many as shall be found outside of the house will be destroyed. And they proceeded to give her a sign, so that she could hang from her house something scarlet. Making it clear that through the blood of the Lord redemption will come on I see what you wanted to touch on this one. Mhm. Yeah, making it clear, ⁓ that by the blood of the Lord redemption will come ⁓ to all who believe and hope on God. You see, beloved, that not only faith but also prophecy is found in the woman. Yes. So he's very clearly seeing some kind of allegorical reading in this old testament scarlet thread and ⁓ we've talked about ⁓ Just you and I have talked about the general scarlet thread throughout all of scripture. Yes. That the whole thing is about Christ. And here we have a literal scarlet thread. Scarlet something. Right? Something scarlet, making it clear that th through the blood of the Lord redemption will come. ⁓ and it's coming to all who believe in hope on God. And in this particular example, Rahab is a woman, not a man, and she is a Gentile, not a Jew. ⁓ showing ⁓ so clearly. God's care for his elect, regardless of their hi ⁓ history, heritage, ⁓ gender. He he loves his people. Yes. He loves them deeply and greatly. And he is showing here through ⁓ a sign, a prophetic sign that the blood of Christ is what will save his people. And it's interesting to me that it's ⁓ Therefore, w ⁓ when you come to know of our appearing, gather together all your people under your roof, and they shall be rescued. ⁓ That's covenantal. That's it's very covenantal. Covenant household. Even though in this instance she's not actually the household head. No, no. But ⁓ God will act as he wants to ⁓ to save his people. Right. And he generally does so households at a time. Yes. Not typically ⁓ by individuals. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ then chapter thirteen, he says it's about remembering the Lord the words of Jesus, ⁓ showing mercy, forgiving that we may be forgiven, as with the measure with which we judge, we will be judged. ⁓ This is a good proof of the gospels being distributed to the churches ⁓ pretty early on. Pretty early on. Because I mean this is like ninety five A D. ⁓ because he's quoting ⁓ I th he's clo quoting Matthew, ⁓ Luke, ⁓ in here, you know, he says, Remember the words of Jesus. Well, how do they know the words of Jesus? Because they're written down. Right. ⁓ we have early attestation of the gospels not just being written, but being proliferated. Mm-hmm. So Right. ⁓ Chapter fourteen, ⁓ the section adding is be obedient to God and kind to others. Again, this is the whole point is ⁓ that we've been talking about so far is jealousy is the cause of so many other sins. How do we repent? Well what what does repentance of jealousy look like? Hospitality, obedience to God, being kind to others. ⁓ chapter fifteen is not being hypocrites. ⁓ he says, therefore we should join with those who practice peace and piety and not with those who desire peace with hypocrisy. So we need to have peace and unity in truth. And not in name only, not in ⁓ you know, giving up your standards. Yeah. This is why it's okay to you you can have unity with someone you disagree with, but you can't do it in such a way that leads to ⁓ lying to each other. Right. Right, exactly. So I I have Roman Catholic friends and they are my brothers in Christ. Not because of the institution they're a part of, right. But because of our union to Christ. And we will hold Our distinctions are important. They're incredibly important. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the I hold to the Westminster standard, you know, the Pope is the Antichrist. The papal office is the Antichrist. That doesn't mean every Pope is, but they're filling a position that is distinctly ⁓ setting themselves up in the place of Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ which brings us to chapter sixteen, verse one. For Christ is of those who are humble minded. Yes. Not of those who exalt themselves over his flock, which again brings us also to this the particular issue that is at hand in this letter. ⁓ the people who have usurped the actual authorities there in in ⁓ Corinth. Mm-hmm. And he says verse two, the scepter of the majesty of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, did not come with the pomp of arrogance or pride, although he could have, but with humble mindedness. And this brings to mind when Jesus says that ⁓ the the Gentiles lord their authority over others. Yes. But it's not to be that way among you. He's speaking to his disciples. And when we look throughout church history, we see so many examples of Roman bishops and particularly ⁓ popes, ⁓ who are exerting their authority over others in a pagan, unchristian way. Yeah. And this is ⁓ this is why the Protestants had room had legs to stand on. That's why the Church of the East had ⁓ you know, legs to stand on when they ⁓ specifically disagreed with the ⁓ the sea in Rome, you know. Yeah. So And I love that he's using Christ here as an example of humility. Right again the o the opposite of jealousy would be humility. Yes. Because you're preferring others over yourself. ⁓ and he says Christ could have come with ⁓ pomp of arrogance or pride because he is the king, but he came in a manger. He could have been born in a palace, but he he decided to be born in a manger. And also the the very fact of the incarnation is such a a humble act. You have the infinite God becoming finite man. Yes. The infinite ⁓ perfectly holy, omnipotent, omnipresent God becomes a man, becomes one of those of the dust. Yeah. To walk with us, to be with us, and to bring us into union with himself. Mm-hmm. He is outside of creation and enters into creation. Right. That is ⁓ unheard of amongst pagan mythology. Yeah. I mean, like you read the Odyssey and the Iliad, you see all kinds of Greek gods coming in to the story, but they're not the creators, and they don't become incarnate. No. They just have a different form. Yeah, I mean they'll take forms and then go off and fornicate with women but they're not ⁓ uniting themselves to those to their bride. Right. Yeah. They they show up and they leave. Yeah. And also the ontological nature of those gods completely different from the ontology of the true god. Yes. He is the creator of all things. Zeus is not the creator. No. ⁓ he is the primary god in the in the Roman the Greek system. But he is not the creator of all other things. No. And all of the other gods have the are the of the same classification, the same kind of being as Zeus. ⁓ whereas the true God is a unique, utterly unique being. There is nothing else that is within the same kind of being that God is. Yeah. He is ⁓ like you said, he is utterly unique, he is above all things. Right. And he becomes one with us. This the person of the Son of God. Comes as a man, uniting human nature to the divine nature for our redemption. Yes. ⁓ utterly amazing. Yeah. And then he says, ⁓ continuing there on in in verse two, he says, Just as the Holy Spirit spoke concerning him, for it says, O Lord, who has believed our report and who has revealed the arm of the Lord? And he's citing ⁓ Isaiah six. ⁓ fifty three. Isaiah fifty three. Yeah. ⁓ and he says, We announced him before we announced before him as a child as a root in parched ground. There is no form or glory in him, and we saw him and had he had neither form nor beauty, but his form was dishonored, inferior to the form of people, being a person among wounds and pain, and knowing how to bear weakness, for his face was turned away, he was dishonored and not credited. Yes, you're right, Isaiah fifty three, he gets into the the bearing our sins. ⁓ for us. But I love that he says there, the Holy Spirit spoke. Yes. Concerning him. And cool thing, Isaiah fifty three is Yahweh speaking. Yeah. It is the Lord. So if you want early attestation of the Holy Spirit being God, here's first Clement speaking as though as though the Holy Spirit is God. Right. So Because Clement was a Trinitarian. He was a Trinitarian. ⁓ crazy that The church for all of history has been Trinitarian. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's kinda where we're gonna have to stop today. We've been doing for about an hour. Yeah. but we made it through sixteen chapters. Yeah. Not bad. So we'll pick up next week or whenever we get this next episode up on ⁓ chapter seventeen to discuss more examples of humility unless there was something else you wanted to add. I would like to stick in sixteen for a minute. Do you have more stuff you want to say on sixteen? ⁓ sixteen is beautiful. It is a very long It is a very long chapter, but ⁓ we might talk a little bit about ⁓ PSA, penal substitution. Ooh, that'll be a good one. It is a good one. That's that's a hot topic right now. It is a it is a very hot topic right now. ⁓ yeah, he's mentioning Isaiah fifty three, so we gotta talk about it. All right, we'll pick up then on ⁓ chapter sixteen ⁓ in the next episode. Thank you guys ⁓ for joining. Thank you for coming into the Reformed Corner Podcast. ⁓ I am again your host, Quentin James with ⁓ the King James onlyist. Yeah. Yeah, Elijah King. Elijah King. Yeah. King James, right? That's that's how it works. You got you get the joke, right? I hope you do. Yeah. yeah. Anyway, ⁓ we'll see you guys next time. ⁓ thank you for stopping by. Take care. God bless.