What following Christ is really about – Glenn Packiam

0:00Hi, I'm Bill Arnold. Thank you for listening to this podcast. There are many more podcasts available at myfaithradio.com. Your support makes this possible. Thank you. Hi, this is Bill Arnold host of the But what's the name of the show again? Oh, don't you know? It's the Bill Arnold show. It's Bill And a warm welcome to the Bill Arnold show, often with conversations I regularly have with why I'd say, why did he? I really want to get Glenn packing back on the show. And I'll bring up names and and why I'll go, oh, great idea. So wouldn't you know it? Today, we're getting Glenn back on the show. Glenn's a pastor and a theologian and a musician as well. And he does a little bit of everything. Glenn, I didn't I didn't know you were such a triple threat.

1:08You're very kind, Bill. It's good to be on talking to you again. Well, I got a comment on the text line from a gym from a Connecticut that said that if that's the version of Ferris Lord Jesus, is that you? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's more like a long time ago, but yeah, yeah, I heard the teaser for today's episode with Glenn Pacheum. If that's his version of Ferris Lord Jesus, please send my compliments. That's the best version ever. And I've had it on my playlist for years. Oh, that's very kind. I'm not sure I like you having such celebrity status on my show. And listen, I don't think that's true. It's your show, Bill. It's your show. So lately, Glenn, I've been kind of, I, you know, with some regularity, listen to things that I know I'm not going to agree with because I can't only listen to everything that I know I'm going to agree with all the time.

2:10So I'll listen to something I don't agree with and I'll go, yep, I don't agree with it. And I even feel like, why did I do that? But then I want to hear what the other side is saying. And I want to hear what people who are representing Christ are saying. And it turns out they're just not truthful. They're not biblical and they're, they're leading people astray. They're false teachers. And it really leads into the question is, what's a Christian? Anyway, because they're calling themselves Christians. Yeah. Yeah. It's such an important question, Bill. And it's true. We have to be discerning about this stuff. Now, when it comes down to kind of the core of what makes a person a Christian, you know, I think historically, there's a way the church has answered that. And then one of the ways they've answered that is confessionally as in what do you confess to be true? Amen. And the, the distillation of that, or if you will, the irreducible minimum, you know, is kind of a, hey, do you confess this God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

3:11And that this is what that means. And so that, that was kind of fleshed out early on in church history in the form of a document called the Nicene Creed. It was first draft was in 325 AD. It kind of got expanded in 381. But honestly, there were earlier formulations of before the Apostles Creed, which some people will be familiar familiar with it. So one of the ways to answer the question of what's a Christian is, let's go confessionally. Is what we're saying about God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Is that true? Now, when you go beyond that, you go, well, what about the way they're reflecting this God and, you know, extending this outward into what they think about this issue or that issue? That's where it's worth holding people's feet to the fire and going, wait a minute, wait a minute. If this is who God is, then you actually would be in trouble to arrive at these other conclusions down the road. Now, I may not be as bold as to say, therefore, they are not a Christian, but I might say, I don't know if you're representing Christianity faithfully.

4:11Yeah, and I think, then that's exactly what I was thinking. I don't know your heart, but I do know what you're saying is not in line with scripture. Yeah, exactly. And the thing about people. I'm sorry, Bill. I'm sorry. I was just, I got excited when you said scripture. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wanted your listeners to know that, you know, I'm referencing creeds and people are like, wait, what about the Bible? Well, I need to clarify that these creeds were just sort of an outline of the things already contained in scripture. So I want to be sure that we're not elevating some kind of document above the scripture. The Bible alone is the word of God. And what the early Christians decided to do is, you know, maybe this is disrespectful and put it this way, but they kind of created a cheat sheet. And they go, here's some of the phrases from scripture that give us a revelation of what God is like. And so it can't contradict. You can't read the Bible in a way that contradicts these confessions about who God is. And so that, that kind of helps us when you go, hey, you're contradicting scripture and they go, no, I'm not. I picked this verse or that verse. And you go, yeah, but you sort of missed the forest for the trees, bud.

5:17And here's the outline of faith and what God is actually like and read again, you know, look again. Now, glad a lot of evangelical churches don't want to use something that sounds and feels liturgical like the nice and creed. Okay. Yeah, we do rightly in some ways have a nervousness about some of these liturgical elements because liturgical forms or rituals tend to be associated with denominations of the church that have actually lost their way. And there's a certain irony here where you preserved a kind of outward form of Christianity, but you've lost a kind of life conformity and faithfulness to it. And this is a broad statement and I must be careful here, but I think in the Protestant world in America, this sort of happened about 100 years ago where people began to deemphasize the saving work of Christ or the cross or a literal virgin birth or a literal resurrection.

6:22And they go, these are just words that we say and this is sort of symbols and shadows and what really matters is feeding the poor and that kind of thing. And you go, well, hey, how about we hold on to both, you know, and so I think when a lot of evangelicals left or came out of those traditions, they came out of traditions that had, you know, a liturgy where they would say the creed, but they didn't have a life, a living faith in Jesus. And so I think sometimes these creeds get kind of guilty by association, whereas I think, you know, we can hang on to that living faith 100%. And go back to the church's treasury, so to speak, the great treasure chest that we have in these documents and actually leapfrog the recent past of 100 years ago in America and go all the way back to the early Christians in the 200s and 300s and go, hey, we're continuing their story. Nevermind the decades or centuries of of wandering. Glenn, talk about how the nice creed excites you and animates you because when I read these words, my heart gets very full and very excited.

7:31I love that, Bill, and I think so too. So as a, you know, a guy used to lead worship, I think of the creed as a called worship, you know, it's not meant to be said kind of in this dry, like we're reciting some facts or whatever. We're talking about God, the Father, the maker of heaven and earth, all that is seen and unseen. I mean, yeah, that should make us want to shout or we're talking about Jesus who for us for our salvation came down from heaven. You know, so I've done this in church services where the band keeps playing and we recite these phrases and we pause every now and again and let out a hallelujah, you know, so I think that's the right idea. I did too. So how do we want to go through the, could we go through this today? Because I think this is really exciting. Sure, let's do it. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm, you're the golfer. I'm the caddy. So what club do you want? Do you want to start? So, so the creed is outlined in, in, you know, it's in three sections, three stanzas if we keep the songwriting metaphor going and the first one is, you know, is definitely about the Father.

8:36And so it's, we believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. And if we just park it there for a second and say, all right, so what are we saying about God? I mean, the first thing we're saying is one God. And this, of course, is an echo of Deuteronomy, the hero Israel, the Lord your God is one. And we have to kind of go back to that era and think of how radical that was. So in that day, many nations had many different kinds of gods and you needed different kinds of gods. If you wanted a blessing for your harvest and a blessing for your family and a blessing for war and all of that. And God said to Israel, let me introduce myself, I'm the only God you need. And if you have me, you have everything. Now, that's actually not too different from our world today where we kind of think of like, man, yeah, Jesus is sure for heaven and the afterlife. But for this life, maybe I need the God of money or I need the God of success or I need the God of power or I need that, you know, and we in our own ways are tempted to have many other gods.

9:44And so right out of the gate, the Creed says, no, we believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, and Father is a way of talking about the source. In fact, the Greek word for Father in a New Testament is the word for head or source, like fountain head. And so when you think about the way the Creed begins, it directs us right away to the singular source who is the sovereign overall thing. So, you know, I'm a preacher bill, so we got the three S's here, you know, the sole source and sovereign, the bottom of the Almighty, you know. And you know, that's how we have to begin orienting ourselves and say, okay, God, you're the only one, okay, God, you're the source, not just of all I have, but of all that is. I love also that the Creed says, scene and unseen, because scene, you know, you know, you got things like mountains and rivers and trees and stuff. But unseen, I kind of take that in the direction of like, how about unseen things like love, joy, peace, hope?

10:48He's the source of that too. That is wonderful, Glenn. That is just such a great introduction to this. And I find myself wanting now to get up in the morning and say those four lines. We believe in one God, the Father of the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. What a great way to start my day. I love that. That would be, you know, that's kind of inspiring me. I think that is a great way to start the day. Yeah, I mean, it just puts me in my place instantly and puts God where he belongs in his place. But let's, let's move on. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made of one being with the Father. Yeah, I mean, again, so so much there. And this is what's interesting, just from a little side note about the history of this, at the Council of Nicaea, one of the things they were trying to correct, if you will, is the debates about who Jesus was.

11:59Now the New Testament makes that abundantly clear. John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, conveniently, those are all the texts that show us that Jesus was not just a man who got who became a God, you know, as some, you know, cults or belief systems kind of would say, nor was Jesus just sort of this prophet who pointed to God as maybe like the Muslims might say, no, he was the eternal Son of God, which means he existed even before he came into our world. So when you look at this third stanzo, this third verse, if you will, about Jesus, it really subdivides again into three sections, and it's the longest section of the creed, because you know, this is how I like to think of it, Bill, if you get Jesus wrong, you get Christianity wrong. If you get Jesus right, you get Christianity right, you know, and I love how the theologian NC right says, we often in the West go, oh, do you believe in God and then work your way downwards to Jesus? And he's like, I think we should start with what do you believe about Jesus? And then that will in turn will give you the best picture of who God is.

13:03And so I love that. And the early Christian certainly wrote the creed that way. So this first part of what you read is about Jesus as the eternal Son of God, meaning he he existed before in the incarnation. Christmas is not, you know, in one sense, it's cute as kids, kids ministry stuff to go has Jesus's birthday. But in another sense, we need our kids to know Jesus didn't have a beginning through him. All things were made, you know, through him. All things were made. He's the eternal son of God. And that's what the creed wants us to know. When you when you read eternally begotten of the father, how are we to understand that line? Yeah, the early Christians wanted to distinguish this word. And again, they're using language from John's gospel, you know, the that he gave his only begotten son. They're not trying to say that there was a time that Jesus didn't exist, but they're trying to say that he is of one being with the father, which is why they go on to say that of one being with the father, God from God, light from light, to say that it's the same essence, same substance, not secondary, not derivative, not, not less than in any way.

14:17And you know, why Jesus said over and over again, if you've seen me, you've seen the father or Hebrews one says, you know, God spoke through the prophets, but now has spoken through the son. And so this is, you know, we're meant to kind of say the begotten of the father means he's the image of the father. He images the father perfectly, same substance, shared essence, yet distinct person. And that is a mystery. We're coming to the edges of our language here, you know, and how we talk about this. So, Glenn, how would we process the words God from God, light from light, true God from true God? I'm trying to figure out the God from God, light from light, true God, from true God. This has a restart from finish. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I go into some work here in the book to kind of unpack that historically, I think one of the one of the key things they're trying to indicate is that the father is the source.

15:23And so somehow you have the spirit proceeds from the father, but the son is begotten of the father and the New Testament uses different words. And so they go, there's something here that he is God, but he's from God and he is light that he's from light. And again, I think we're coming to the edges of language itself, but they're trying to use as much as they can phrases from Colossians, phrases from John, and phrases from the New Testament writers as they're trying to say he had no beginning. I really like that expression. We've come to the possibly the end of language because that's very comforting to me because sometimes that's exactly how I feel. I bet we've come to the end of language. I just have put it in that in those words. Yeah, and it's interesting to think that, you know, God, obviously he's interested in revealing himself to us. And as kind as God is to do that in a way that we can understand, there's still the reality that we're finite creatures.

16:26And if we could understand all of it, there would be some, we'd be closing the gap between the creature and the creator. And so even some of the ways God reveals himself, we go, I don't know that I fully grasp that. But again, what they're saying is he's of one being the image of light is an echo of John one where it says the word was with God, the true light shines upon all people, the true light was coming into the world. And so they're trying to be faithful as much as they can to the scriptures while showing that there is father as source, son as through whom, you know, as God speaks, this is coming God from God, light from light. And it's, there's a mystery to this for sure. Yeah, we're going to take a little break and come back more with Glenn Pachim. His book is called What's a Christian? Anyway, finding our way in an age of confusion and corruption. We have a question or comment for us. Let us know the text line is open 877-933-2484. We'll be back in 90 seconds.

17:39Hi podcast listener, you know, I'm Bill Arnold and my theme song says What's for dinner? And like when I'm grilling, I'm paying really close attention. And I know that ideal second to get the food off the grill, like all good and ideal timings in life right now would be an ideal time to be a cheerful giver to faith radio. Give now to support this podcast so that more people and more places might come to saving faith in Jesus and grow in their relationship and become a fully devoted follower. Click the link in the show notes or give now at myfaithradio.com. I'm back with Glenn Pachim. He's written a book called What's a Christian? Anyway, and there has been some churches that have lost their ways and they are chasing priorities that are wrong and they are doing all kinds of things that are causing believers to question the core of their faith because they don't understand what's being done in the church and their leadership is not being foundationally strong.

18:52This book is going to help us return to one of Christianity's most ancient statements, which is the nice and creed and it says what do you believe and it's a great way to ask people what they believe and Glenn is doing a great job of walking us through the nice and creed. You haven't recited it in a while. This is going to be a fun hour for you. And when we last left off, we talked about I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally be gotten of the father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, be gotten not made of one being with the father through him, all things were made. Now to continue for us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. That's pretty amazing sense. Yeah, I absolutely love it. I mean, this is the way the story begins to turn. I think of it as like, you know, there's a moment a friend of mine was talking with his father in law and he spent many years listening to his father in law, describe his business and out of politeness, he'd ask him questions and all that.

20:11And then one day he learned that he and his wife were meant to inherit the business and he goes, oh, all of a sudden, I'm thinking, I should have paid better attention, you know, because this is going to end up being mine. And I think this is the moment where the creed goes, oh, wait, I'm involved. This is about me, you know, and it's really the first moment that we are mentioned in the object, not, you know, like, it's not we, we believe. Now there's something done for us or something that's happening for us. And I love the way that that paragraph opens for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven, which even sets the incarnation. So we talked about Jesus the eternal son of God. Now here is Jesus the incarnate son of God. But I love the way the creed introduces it, not just as, oh, yeah, and by the way, Jesus came and was born. It's for us, like, don't miss this. This is for you. And then that paragraph goes on and says, you know, you know, became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and then for our sake was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried.

21:18These are the only two human names in the entire creed, which is so interesting that the early Christians of all the names mentioned in the gospels, they go, oh, let's pull out Mary and let's pull out Pilate. And there could be a number of reasons for doing it. But you know, when I reflect on it, what I think about is I think about Mary represents on the one hand the lowest of the low in the social spectrum. A Jewish teenage girl pregnant out of what log go, but that's probably someone low on this on the Roman society totem pole. And then you got Pilate, someone toward the higher end as a governor. Or maybe you flip it and you go, oh, Mary, purest of the pure or holy, you know, and pilot what a scoundrel wicked. However you create the spectrum, Mary and pilot create opposite ends of a continuum that allows to go, who's the us that Jesus came for? And the answer is all of us, all of us, whether you are low in the world's eyes or high in the world's eyes, whether you are good in your own eyes or wicked in your own eyes, it's for all of us that Jesus came.

22:24Glenn, I find that's so interesting that he meant that it mentions the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate and you've given me a chance to think about the differences between the two and how like you say, how do you put that on the spectrum? And that is a fascinating observation. I just like that a lot. It's so easy to make these things, I'm sorry, Bill, it's so easy for us to make these things abstract, you know, and leave it out there as like, oh, we're just doing theology here, but we're not. We're talking about our real lives and real people and these names ground us in history as well. Yeah, and then Glenn, the line or says, and became truly human, that's pretty mind-blowing. God leaves this, Jesus leaves this, this elite status of heaven and comes as a human and he is fully human. It's like, it's what CS Lewis called almost the intolerable compliment that where we should blush that God decided to become us, to become one of us.

23:28You know, in like an unexpected guest in your home, you're like, oh, oh, you're going to eat dinner like I eat dinner like at my table. And there's something just so stunning about this. And, you know, even jealous sometimes we get caught up in talking about, you know, God wants to save your soul. And heaven when you die and all of that. And of course, there's something so true and beautiful about that. But we forget that God actually loves the physicality, the earthiness, the materiality of this world. He's so much so that he entered into it to redeem it. There was a church bishop in the early centuries, you know, Athanasius who wrote about the incarnation. And it's either Athanasius or Irenaeus, I might be confusing them. But one of them said, whatever he does not take on, whatever is unassumed, what he doesn't take on will be unhealed. But the reverse is true because he took it on, it can be healed. So when we think about our mortal bodies and maybe someone's listening and they're dealing with an illness or chronic pain or you know someone who's in the hospital right now as a pastor,

24:35I've actually just been getting text messages about a person in our church who's recovering in the hospital. And you think, does God care about my physical ailments? Does God care about my bodily suffering? And does he care about my body working? Well, does he just care about my soul? And this line right there, he became truly human, tells us not only that he cares, but he took it on. He shares, he shares in it. And because he shared in it, he has come to heal it and redeem it, which is really good news. Yeah, wonderful. Okay. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. Sounds like 1 Corinthians 15 there, doesn't it? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, definitely. I'm so sorry, but I keep doing this to you. You give me an ancient. I'm like, oh, I want to say something. Perhaps 1 Corinthians 15 is an early, early one sentence formulation of a creed where Paul says, yeah, he Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

25:39And then he goes on, says, and on the third day, he rose again. So you're absolutely right. Sorry. I won't interrupt you anymore. Keep going. Oh, no, no, please, you're the guest. I want you to do all the talking on the third day. He rose again in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and has seated at the right hand of the father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. So this is the third final subsection about Jesus. Remember for listeners who are just catching in the creed works us through in three sections. The father's son and Holy Spirit, but the section on the son on Jesus is the longest and has three pieces to the eternal son of God, the incarnate son of God. And this is the third and final piece, which you could say the risen ascended raining and returning son of God. It gives us a great picture of Jesus that he was raised up. He ascended. He's seated.

26:42He's returning and he's going to return to judge. So, you know, I think there's a lot here for us to think about that isn't just a, oh, that's a nice ending to a gruesome story about his death. The resurrection was not just a validation of his death. The resurrection was much more than that. It's a statement about our hope. What does our hope actually look like? It looks like God putting the world back together again. It looks like God doing what he said he would do, which is not to get us out of here, but actually to make all things new. NC Wright again has this wonderful phrase where he says God will do for the whole cosmos what he did for Jesus on that Easter day. So, when you look at Jesus' resurrection body and you go, okay, that's not just something cool that happened to Jesus. You go, that's our closest and best picture of what's going to happen to believers in Christ. We're going to have resurrection bodies and one day the world creation will be renewed. It will be brought through death into a kind of resurrection, which is exactly what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 8, Revelation 21, all of those threads are there.

27:56But then, okay, so that's hope. That's wonderful. But then there's a little piece about judgment. We go, oh, I don't know what you should do. I have to believe in judgment. He's coming back in glory. Can't we just end it there? Why does it say it's a judge, the living and the dead? Well, justice and judgment are two sides of the same coin. And you think about America right now. We was a lot of conversation about all we need justice, we need this, we need that. But what we've figured out is that humans aren't so great at executing justice. Sometimes because we're corrupt, sometimes because we're finite. We don't know all the facts of the story, even when we try to do it, we make sometimes bigger messes of it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Of course we shouldn't try. But it ultimately means that there's only one who is just enough to judge. And that is Jesus. And so the judge of the whole world will be Jesus. And one day when he comes to judge, he will actually bring true justice, which justice in the biblical sense is the right ordering of the world.

28:56So if resurrection is God bringing things through death to life and oh, wow, everything's made new. Judgment is the sense of God rightly ordering that world to go, here's how things belong. Here's how things fit. Here's how things are supposed to function and flow. And so that is also meant to be really good news. And we have to remember the early Christians were a minority group of, in the Roman Empire, what I mean by that is they were oppressed, kicked around. They didn't have a lot of social power. And so when they said, there's another king who one day will put Nero in his place. Damn, man, that was really good news for them. And then Glenn the lion and his kingdom will have no end. That was always a fascinating line in my, in my young head, because I can't imagine anything that has no end. I know. I thought that same thing too, Bill. I was a, I remember telling my mom when I was a kid, like, what if I get bored? I don't want this to go. I don't want eternity. And of course, I just couldn't understand it. And I think we still, you know, see through a glass darkly as it were in terms of like, what's this going to actually be like?

30:03But again, I think the point is to say all of the kingdoms of this world will fade away. So the things that promise us so much power, the success, the influence, the wealth, the fame, the notoriety, the gold, all of that stuff is going to fade away. But there's only one rule, only one system, if you will, the government that will last forever. And it's Jesus's. And you know, again, the book of Revelation gives us a little glimpse into this that Jesus's kingdom brings joy to the nations. It brings healing to the nations. And so again, I don't know exactly what this is going to look like. I know different people have theorized and hypothesized like, oh, maybe there's a few verses here and there in the New Testament that say, we get to reign with Christ and we get to judge with Christ. And so does that mean we get to be part of reordering the world? I, you know, maybe I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I do know that it'll be purpose. There'll be joy, there'll be healing. And this idea of his kingdom not having an end means that there will be permanence once and for all.

31:09It will, it's the final happily ever after moment that we're kind of longing for. Yeah. And let's just say for a minute what it also won't be, there won't be sin, there won't be evil, there won't be pain and suffering. I mean, this is exciting as well. Absolutely right. God putting a full and complete end to evil. And of course, that does include a different kind of fate for those who refuse him, you know. And they're just wonderful picture at the end of one of the Narnia books, the last battle where the dwarves that rejected Aslan or whatever, like they're invited to be part of New Narnia. But in their own blindness, it has become a torture to them. And so they cannot get over, they believe that they're being tricked and fooled. And they're like, we'll not be fooled again. And then, you know, they're trying to be, they're offered like a great feast and they keep thinking it tastes like dirt, you know. And I think there's something like that that goes on here is when we insist on treating the medicine like it's poison, when we treat God like He is bad news.

32:15Even the eternity that God is bringing will be unpleasant to us. So there is another sort of future for those who refuse Christ. And the Scriptures give us a picture of that judgment and a picture of that eternal, you know, separation from God. But, you know, as difficult as that is, it's also part of what is required in saying this new future in kingdom can no longer have sin. It can no longer have death. It can no longer have anyone that lives against and apart from God's will and God's way. So good. We're going to take a little break and come back lots more with Glenn Pachyam. His book is, what's a Christian anyway, finding our way in an age of confusion and corruption. We'll be right back. I'm back with Glenn Pachyam and he is walking us through the Nicene Creed, doing a great line, doing a great verse, taking us through it line by line. And he's helping us understand it once again and understand the doctrine of the Creed. It's been around for a long time.

33:25And now we're getting to the part of the Creed Glen, where it says, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. Pretty bold declaration. It's really powerful. And this is one of the other places that was expanded a tiny bit in the 381 edition, the follow-up council. And they said, you know, we got to say a bit more about the Holy Spirit because initially they just said we believe in the Holy Spirit as the Lord, which is great. But then they go, you know, actually the Bible, the New Testament tells us a little bit more. And I love that the attribute they chose to highlight is that he's the giver of life. The Bible is full of a lot of imagery for the Holy Spirit. I mean, literally both the Hebrew and the Greek words for spirit are Ruaq in Hebrew and Numa in Greek and both mean breath or wind. And so even breath is a life-giving kind of image.

34:26In fact, in Genesis, God breathes into the lump of dirt, then becomes the human, becomes Adam. You know, so the giver of life is the spirit himself. The spirit is hovering over the waters in Genesis, the waters of the deep, and then God creates out of it. So there's something really powerful about naming the Holy Spirit as the giver of life. And of course, also named as the Lord. I love that Lord is used, you know, both of Jesus and of the Spirit as a way of saying, you know, to some people will know this, but the name for God that Israelites had was Yahweh, but they couldn't pronounce it. They were not allowed to pronounce it too holy. And so every time they saw those letters written, they would instead say, Adonai, which means Lord. And so when the early Christians picked up on that to go, Jesus is Lord. It was a reference. It was a way of saying, no, yeah, he is one and the same with Yahweh. And so when they say, the Spirit is the Lord, they're saying the same thing. The Spirit is not less than. The Spirit is not an impersonal force. The Spirit is not a thing. The Spirit is a person and to be seen as God as well.

35:38And so, and so they clarify even more by saying with the Father and the Son he's worshiped and glorified. But he has spoken through the prophets. That's really important. The past tense verb of that has spoken is intentional. It's a way of saying, I can't add to the Bible. No more additions allowed, you know. So for anybody who goes, oh, no, I have a new insight into God or you go, nope, nope, nope, if it doesn't match what God has said through the scriptures, the writers of scripture, then it has to be rejected. And then finally, I don't, did you stop at the prophets line bill? Or did you keep going to? I did. I stopped there. That's great. But I'll pause there too. Yeah, I think to say that in the present tense, the Spirit is still giving life is beautiful. Because Romans 8 says that when we believe in Jesus, we are given the Spirit to cry, Abba, Father. We can now relate to God as Father because the Spirit has given us life as God's children. So there's so much there to think about this.

36:42I said, you know, frequently say to our church, the offer of the gospel is not that God wants to make you a better human being. It's that he wants to make you alive. So you actually have to confess something way worse than just saying, yeah, I'm a bad person. You actually have to confess that you're dead without God that you're stuck. You're not able to be who you're made to be. But with Christ, you get something better. You don't get behavior improvement or behavior modification. You get a brand new God breathed life through the Holy Spirit. It's funny, Glenn, how people would bristle against that. But that's what it is. You are dead in your sins and then you become alive in Christ. But to say or suggest to anyone who's outside of the family of God that you're dead in your sin, of course, they take offense to that. It's funny. It is truly offensive. And I'm, you know, here I am in Southern California. There's a lot of success coaches who teach this new AG kind of thing, you know, called manifesting where if you just say these certain I am statements about yourself, you can make yourself better.

37:50I called it out recently in a sermon and I said, look, I mean, how offensive would it be instead of saying, I am strong, I am successful, I am enough. You have to say, I am dead. I am lost. I am stuck, you know, but the gospel's so good because it makes us go lower than we want to go, but it'll take us higher than we could ever go if it was up to us. Yeah, that's beautiful. All right, we're getting close to here to the end. I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Let's stop there. Yeah, people trip, you know, the word Catholic, we obviously, oh, it's lowercase C, which is always funny to me because, you know, the creed's written in Greek, it gets translated into Latin and all that. And, and the word Catholic is a Latin word for, for universal, you know, and you go, well, why can't we translate that word? You know, so sometimes I have kind of in a cheeky way. When our church has said it out loud, I've translated the word Catholic into universal or worldwide church because that's the intent. That's what we're trying to say is I believe in one church.

38:59So despite all of the divisions that we see in all of the many ways that we emphasize different doctrines and different secondary things, if we can, if we can move our way upward to the one truth we confess about father, son, and Holy Spirit, then there really is only one church. And so it's a little bit like a wagon wheel or a bicycle wheel that has a, you know, hub and spokes. And the more we move away from the center, the farther the spokes get from each other. But the more we move toward the center, the closer we get to each other. And so the nice and creed is a way of saying, oh, if you confess the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, and invite God's grace to help you live like you believe these lines are true. We're actually one church. We're in. There is no other. And then Holy, I mean, if the word one doesn't contradict reality, surely the word holy contradicts reality. The church is not holy. How could it be? And I chuckle every time I read the opening, the first Corinthians, because Paul calls him saints. And then he goes and tells him that they're doing things that even the world would blush over.

40:08So, like, these are not holy living people. But I think what the scriptures are trying to say and what the creed is trying to say in a similar way is, you are holy in Christ. Now you got to live like this. You are one in Christ. Now live like this. There is only one worldwide church. The apostolic, that means connected to the story. You didn't come up with this. Paul says, I didn't pass on to you, which I made up because I passed on to you that which I also received. And so, you know, let me pause you for a second. I have talked to so many people who have been disillusioned by American Christianity. And they go, I don't know if I can believe this. I don't want to be associated with this or that or this, you know, for these reasons. And I go, man, I hear you. But Christianity is bigger than your local church, my local church. It's bigger than the American church. It includes Africa, Asia, Europe, all the believers around the world right now.

41:08But it also includes the believers throughout history. So, apostolic church means a connection to the last 2,000 years. Catholic or worldwide church means a connection to all the believers all around the world. And so, when you pause and you zoom out, you go, you know what? What is it that God sees about the church that I don't see? What is it that is true about the church that I'm not seeing? And I don't want to take my particular personal experience and project it on all of Christians everywhere in the church, you know. And that's a great danger that the creed kind of helps us guard against. Yeah, no kidding. Glenn, let's take a very short break. Glenn Pachim is my guest. And the title of his book is called What's a Christian Anyway, Finding Our Way in an Age of Confusion and Corruption. We'll take a short break and be right back. You might be the kind of person that goes to Paris and still listens to faith radio on the app. And I'm thinking of a particular couple from Northern Minnesota. Or you might be more like the person that just goes into the next room in your apartment and listens.

42:23Well, the good news is using the app is just as easy in both places. Downloading the free app is crazy easy. Just text the word app to 877-933-2484 and then click the link. And if you happen to be in Paris, there is a coffee shop, but you should see the prices of Biscotti. They have gone through the roof. I recommend avoiding it. I'm back with Glenn Pachim. Who, by the way, is a spectacular guest. He's written a book called What's a Christian Anyway Finding Our Way in an Age of Confusion and Corruption. We're going through the nice scene creed today and we're getting to a pretty important line. Glenn, I want you to spend a little time in this one. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. What baptism is that? It's the baptism in Jesus. And there's a lot of discussion about this. Like, oh, no, what are they trying to do here? But again, in the world of the first couple of hundred years of Christianity, so there would have been some practice of a cleansing bath or a ritual kind of cleansing.

43:34And certainly there was a Jewish one. We know John was baptizing people as a sign of Israel's repentance. And for that Jewish particular tradition in that day, it would have been a kind of way of saying, it's like going through the red sea again, or it's like crossing the Jordan again. Being reborn as a people again. But of course with Jesus, it was something different. It was saying, no, not just repentance, not just a baptism of repentance, but it's actually a baptism of new life. And so Paul goes to great lengths to explain that baptism for the Christian is identification with Christ. You go down in the waters, like Jesus went down in the grave, and you come out of the waters, like Jesus came out of the grave. So the one baptism for the forgiveness of sins is baptism into Jesus. And it is not meant to say that the baptism brings the forgiveness of sins. I think that's where some Christian denominations have put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, so to speak, you know, the baptism is not what brings the forgiveness. The baptism signifies identification with Christ, which is what helps us receive the forgiveness of sins.

44:44All right, I look for the resurrection of the dead. What does that mean? Yeah, this, this is awesome. This means that our future is not as disembodied, floating souls, angelic-like beings, you know, in the clouds somewhere. This means, again, what happened to Jesus will happen to all of those who are in Christ. So we are supposed to look to our own, for our own resurrection of the dead. Romans 8 has this great phrase saying creation has been subjected to slavery, and it can't wait for the revelation of the sons of God. Like, what is that? Meaning when men and women who have been saved in Christ receive their redeemed resurrected bodies, that's a sign that, oh, creation itself is about to be renewed. Which is the very next part of the phrase. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. So these two things are connected when we are given our renewed resurrection bodies, and then creation itself gets renewed as well.

45:52Now, this is important because as a pastor, I talk to people sometimes in later stages of grief. Early stages of grief, man, you just want to be a presence with them, you want to weep with them, you want to sing with them, read scriptures with them. It's different in the early stages, but later stages of grief often I've found pastor early. People have questions, and they go, what's happening? What's my loved one doing? And will we ever get to enjoy the delight of a good meal again? Will we never got to do that trip or that vacation or this experience or whatever? And what resurrection hope means is it means whatever God is going to bring, it is only going to be more than not less than your joy and experience with one another in this world. In other words, the resurrection body will be the completion and perfection of any kind of human delight that we've experienced on this world. So if there's a delight of laughter and a good meal and new experience, there's something about our senses that will be perfected and completed in a resurrection body.

46:59So again, we tread lightly to not give too much detail, but we could look at Jesus after the resurrection. He ate meal, a meal with friends, he ate lots of meals with friends. And you go, it's really interesting. Yet somehow he was able to pass the new walls. I don't know what exactly that means. There are obviously there are some things that are not the same and some things that are the same. But what we do not want to say is, yeah man, it's such a bummer that this life is over. And maybe things will be better in this other place as if God is saying, come over to my place and forget all about, you know, forget all about what used to be and what things were. He's saying, no, let me take your pain and let me transform it and perfect it into a completed reality. And then Glenn, the line and the life of the world to come, that is something that should be in all of our hearts every day, the life of the world to come.

48:06Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, I think the reality of the life of the world to come means that the world as it is right now is not our home. But again, that doesn't mean we're going to some other far away place, but we will see God transform this place. You know, the illustration I like to use with people is, you know, if a kid is being bullied at school and a parent comes and goes, oh man, this playground, so sorry, you're getting beat up here. Just hop in the car and go, let go on a drive with me. Well, I guess on the one hand, that's great. You got away from the bully, but I really wanted to play on the playground. He says, you know, you go, well, forget the playground. That's not what heaven is the life of the world to come. What the scriptures give us and what the early Christians who were being persecuted and what they said, what they confessed is they said, no, God's actually going to get out of the car, get rid of the bully, transform and remodel the playground and give us the ability to enjoy it in a new way. And that's why Revelation says, one day when he comes, every tear will be wiped away. Death will be no more. Heaven will descend onto earth and God will make his dwelling place here. So God will take a place that was a place of pain, a place of death, a place of hurt, and will transform it into a place of joy.

49:23And that is such a miracle that is just like the gospel, just like God to do. That's a fabulous illustration. I love that. Thank you for that. And Glenn, this has really been a great hour. I appreciate all the insight you brought to the Nicene Creed. It's enjoyable. And you know, my hope is that people don't just, you know, learn something and then, okay, now I can confess these words. Really the hope is by God's grace, we begin to live like these words are true. Imagine living like God is your source. Imagine living like Jesus as your redeemer. Imagine living like the spirit is the giver of life. Imagine living like we have a hope of resurrection life. I think that could truly transform everything. Yeah. Amen to that. Thank you, Glenn. Have a great rest of your evening. You too. Yeah, Glenn Packiem has been my guest. His book is what's a Christian anyway, finding our way in an age of confusion and corruption. That's our show for the day. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the show. If you missed any of it, check out the podcast. It's there waiting for you. Have a great night. I'll see you tomorrow.

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