In this episode, we chat with C. Baxter Kruger, a delightful Trinitarian theologian from Mississippi. Baxter is the perfect mixture of southern grandpa, scotch aficionado, lover of Jesus, and brilliant theologian. Baxter has written a number of books, many essays, and hosts classes and spaces about the nature and wonder of the Incarnation and our mysterious inclusion into the life of the Trinity. Baxter regularly collaborates with former guests such as Brad Jersak and William Paul Young.
The whisky we taste in this episode is the Three Wood Single Malt Scotch Whisky by Auchentoshan.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity (but he's basically quoting the Bible, so it's fine).
=====
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The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
In this episode, we chat with C. Baxter Kruger, a delightful Trinitarian theologian from Mississippi. Baxter is the perfect mixture of southern grandpa, scotch aficionado, lover of Jesus, and brilliant theologian. Baxter has written a number of books, many essays, and hosts classes and spaces about the nature and wonder of the Incarnation and our mysterious inclusion into the life of the Trinity. Baxter regularly collaborates with former guests such as Brad Jersak and William Paul Young.
The whisky we taste in this episode is the Three Wood Single Malt Scotch Whisky by Auchentoshan.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity (but he's basically quoting the Bible, so it's fine).
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
00:03
well welcome friends to another episode
00:04
of a pastor and a philosopher walk into
00:06
a bar
00:07
we're excited to share this time with
00:08
you today and we're excited about a
00:10
number of things excited about our guest
00:13
our guest his name is baxter kruger he
00:15
is a
00:16
phd he got his phd in at the university
00:18
of saint andrews in
00:19
scotland and he is a theologian
00:22
and i particularly think he's brilliant
00:25
i love
00:26
the way baxter krueger thinks he's an
00:28
author he's wrote written several
00:30
books he is a teacher he does seminars
00:33
with people like william paul young
00:34
and brad gersek who you remember from a
00:37
prior episode
00:38
collaborates with a lot of really
00:40
incredible people and the way he thinks
00:42
about god the way he thinks about the
00:43
trinity
00:44
the way he thinks about jesus and our
00:46
inclusion
00:47
into the life of christ and into the
00:49
life of the trinity
00:50
is just beautiful it's it's pretty
00:53
stunning so
00:54
we get to talk to baxter who is a scotch
00:56
fan here's the second thing i'm excited
00:58
about tonight
00:59
we get to taste some scotch nice
01:02
so our friends at story heel bkc in
01:04
milwaukee
01:05
supplied us with this really really
01:07
wonderful scotch called and i'm gonna
01:09
do my best here akintoshin nice
01:12
would you say yeah i seem right all
01:14
right it is an old distillery
01:16
an urban setting in scotland since 1823
01:19
is what they say
01:20
yeah crafted in glasgow yeah glasgow
01:22
there you go here it is
01:24
awesome in this particular offering by
01:26
ocontocian is their three wood
01:28
offering and it's a single malt three
01:30
wood they um age it
01:32
in a bourbon barrel for i think about 12
01:34
years did you say elliott yeah
01:36
and then it moves on to something i
01:37
don't know sherry cask well i know that
01:40
yep and then another type of cherry cask
01:42
oh it's another type of cherry
01:43
yeah so so the real test here is can we
01:45
taste the third barrel
01:46
right whoever offers that note is really
01:49
good you can discern between the second
01:51
and third
01:51
for sure and i will confess i'm not a
01:54
scotch
01:55
i'm not a scotch connoisseur i the
01:58
peadiness scares me away it's just
02:00
too much for me now do we know if this
02:02
is a peated scotch today
02:03
this is unpeated so i i don't know
02:05
anything about scotch either and i was
02:06
insecure enough that i was googling this
02:08
and that's how i actually know what i'm
02:09
talking about this week
02:10
this is unpeated uh and i haven't tried
02:13
it obviously but it's
02:14
i'm looking forward to after reading
02:16
about it and hearing about it especially
02:18
the unpeated part because that's usually
02:19
what puts me off mm-hmm and that's too
02:21
bad same here
02:22
scotch is repeated but i'm looking
02:23
forward to this yeah you're you're the
02:26
the wise old practice yeah right no this
02:29
is yeah this will probably be a good
02:30
introduction although i've only had
02:32
oakland ocean like one or
02:33
two times before and never this version
02:35
i don't think i've ever had a cherry
02:36
finished one so
02:37
oh man i could just smell this all night
02:39
and be happy oh
02:40
man oh there's so much to say already
02:42
and i've just smelled it
02:43
oh so much fruit in that nose
02:48
yeah dark dark fruit plum
02:51
mm-hmm almost like cooked fruit
02:55
yeah because it's sweet yeah a little
02:57
bit and yet
02:58
yeah that you get that sherry in there
03:00
major sherry nose you can tell it's
03:02
gonna be sweet
03:03
all right i'm just i'm just gonna take a
03:04
sip of this
03:09
yeah now have you guys had any scotch
03:13
before is this your first
03:15
of course yeah yeah some just i it's
03:18
always
03:20
i don't know i don't know what i'm
03:21
drinking and yeah i've had really cheap
03:22
stuff
03:23
yeah i've had scotch a number of times
03:24
pretty good stuff too
03:26
and um i'm gonna say this is my favorite
03:28
scotch i've had
03:29
because yeah this would be an unusual
03:31
introduction so i'm glad you've had
03:32
other stuff
03:33
first this is really good
03:37
this is a lowland scotch which just
03:38
means it comes from the southern part of
03:40
scotland
03:40
and i want to say it's the only or one
03:42
of the only distilleries in that area
03:45
most scotches are in the highlands or in
03:47
the space side which is along a river in
03:49
the east
03:50
or there's a big island off the western
03:52
coast that's
03:53
makes all my favorite stuff and that's
03:55
the really heavily peated really smoky
03:57
stuff
03:58
so each each region kind of has its own
04:00
distinctives about it
04:01
but lowland i'm not sure that it has any
04:04
distinctives
04:05
but this is a really delicious sweet
04:09
uh complex in all the right ways
04:13
not smokey at all oh man it actually
04:16
reminds me of
04:17
certain honey like clover honey the
04:19
really dark kind of honey
04:21
where it's got those deeper flavors i
04:23
get that all over here
04:25
floral it's rich there is but it does
04:28
have that little leather
04:29
kentucky chew with it there's a thing
04:31
that scotch has
04:32
when you do that that bourbon doesn't
04:34
have i can't quite put my finger on it
04:36
it reminds me of leather
04:39
a little bit yeah i mean part of it's
04:41
just being barley instead of corn it's
04:42
delicious
04:43
um if you are in the milwaukee area
04:47
anywhere around it go to star hill bkc
04:49
and grab
04:50
this oakentochen 3 wood it's if you're
04:52
not a scotch drinker this is the gateway
04:54
drug i'm telling you this is
04:56
this is the thing to get thumbs up for
04:57
okintoshin huh thank you
05:03
it's part of the trinitarian tradition
05:05
you understand scotch
05:10
because in scotland you play golf in the
05:12
in the wind and the rain and the cold
05:14
and you come in
05:15
and you refresh yourself
05:18
and then and then you study theology all
05:20
night
05:22
perfect perfect well baxter thank you so
05:25
much for joining us we're super excited
05:27
to chat with you tonight
05:28
my pleasure i love it uh it's a
05:30
beautiful time
05:31
uh right now in history not withstanding
05:33
all the stuff that's going on with covet
05:35
and all the breakdowns and all of that
05:37
but looking at this from a
05:39
historical and spiritual perspective i
05:41
am very excited
05:44
about what's happening can you for our
05:46
listeners who might not
05:48
know who you are baxter can you just
05:49
give them a little bit of background
05:51
where you're from your education
05:52
your your work well i grew up in south
05:55
mississippi in a
05:56
little town called apprentice a thousand
05:58
people um
06:00
and we loved uh we we we hung with
06:02
everybody there wasn't enough people to
06:04
have any kind of social gradation or
06:05
thing we just
06:06
hung out with everybody which has proven
06:08
to be really helpful to me because
06:10
and my dad pointed this out to me not
06:12
long i mean three or four years ago he
06:14
said
06:15
your capacity to communicate comes out
06:18
of that
06:19
where you were you were talking to
06:21
everybody so you'd learn to communicate
06:22
with everybody so
06:24
you're never ever content to just go you
06:26
know
06:27
and stay up in the lofty ideas which is
06:29
important but that's
06:30
the point is to bring those ideas down
06:33
to where people live
06:35
so that from there i went to university
06:36
of mississippi i grew up in a calvinist
06:39
church
06:40
memorized the catechism 13-year perfect
06:43
sunday school attendance pen
06:44
brother and our pastor i mean he's still
06:48
the pastor of the church
06:49
he's been there for 50 years and he's a
06:52
a wonderful man
06:53
uh faithful um in terms of his
06:57
commitment to his community and family
06:58
and all that and i am very grateful to
07:00
him
07:01
i disagree with him in his calvinism but
07:04
i am very grateful to him because every
07:06
single sermon every bible study
07:08
everything he ever did
07:10
was very theologically informed and
07:12
challenging and uh
07:13
they really just you know called us
07:15
forth and we had to think and of course
07:17
my dad being a lawyer and then the judge
07:19
and
07:20
both my older brother my younger brother
07:22
turned out to be lawyers and
07:23
my mother was the smartest one in the
07:25
whole room um
07:27
it was a thinking environment and a
07:30
biblical
07:31
and we learned the bible and i knew the
07:33
bible was taught in sunday school in
07:35
church and
07:36
and then it went off to college the
07:37
university of mississippi and have and
07:39
had what we would call a large time
07:42
and ran aground
07:45
uh in terms of um i mean at the end of
07:48
every party i knew
07:50
i would be walking in this little field
07:52
behind the dormitory which is now
07:54
um a parking lot but i would walk back
07:57
behind the dormitory crying out to god
07:59
this this
08:00
there's more there's got to be more
08:02
jesus you're more i
08:03
i knew i knew it i just didn't know how
08:05
to get to it and
08:06
one thing led to another and i got
08:08
involved in in campus ministries and
08:10
then
08:11
ended up getting married and went with
08:13
seminary and then i
08:14
you know really discovered theology in
08:16
earnest
08:17
uh uh not not
08:20
the reform stuff uh the conservative
08:24
uh narrow conform stuff but the broader
08:26
reform tradition which is bart and the
08:28
torrance brothers and
08:30
uh that larger conversation and just
08:33
blew my mind but
08:34
by then i was pretty pretty well steeped
08:36
in athanasius
08:38
a funny story when i was a senior in
08:40
college at ole miss
08:41
and um took me forever to realize how
08:44
everybody knew who athanasius was
08:46
because nobody ever talked about that
08:47
but
08:48
uh i went to the library at the
08:49
university of mississippi and checked
08:51
out
08:51
um athanasius's little book it's right
08:54
out there above everything i do
08:55
called on the incarnation of the word of
08:57
god and they had a copy and it never
08:59
been checked out
09:00
of course i read it but it just man he
09:04
he in in chat in section six this is
09:08
the quote um what then was god
09:12
being good to do when his creation was
09:15
on the road to ruin
09:17
and i i just oh my goodness and he
09:21
sees god not as good on monday
09:24
but as good and his intentions for us
09:27
are
09:27
um almost unimaginable and we botched it
09:31
and he's not he's not throwing up his
09:33
hands going man i knew
09:34
he's what in it this character this god
09:38
who
09:38
flung the worlds into existence and
09:40
loved us from eternity what's he to do
09:42
when we box
09:43
he throws all in and then earlier or not
09:46
earlier but
09:47
in a equal uh companion book that goes
09:50
along with that which athanasius wrote
09:52
when he was in his 20s
09:54
um and um he was called against the
09:58
gentiles
10:00
and in that he says the god of all is
10:04
good
10:06
and supremely noble by nature
10:10
now this again this is not on monday and
10:12
tuesday this is who god
10:14
is noble good therefore the god of all
10:18
is good and supremely noble by nature
10:20
therefore he is the lover of the human
10:23
race
10:24
and it just i was so eager to find a way
10:27
around or out of the the abuses of
10:31
calvinism
10:32
um but honestly armenianism is no
10:36
no comparison so what do you do well i
10:39
didn't even know there was this thing
10:40
called the trinitarian tradition and lo
10:42
and behold
10:43
i became a fan of athanasius and read
10:45
everything and eventually ended up in
10:47
scotland to study with jb
10:48
torrance at the university of aberdeen
10:51
and to study
10:53
by then i had discovered j.b torrance's
10:55
older brother who
10:56
thomas f torrance and that's the two
10:59
rows of books there
11:00
um and the father's church fathers
11:03
they're up on top they kind of oversee
11:04
everything
11:05
bart and calvin are over there and
11:07
george mcdonald and c.s lewis and uh
11:10
but um t.f torrance
11:13
wrote 30 books 300 articles reviews
11:15
essays and things a very
11:17
uh prolific writer but when i read him
11:19
for the first time it's the same spirit
11:21
the same
11:22
song it lit up the song in my heart
11:25
that i had learned from athanasius and
11:29
one thing led me to another so i ended
11:30
up doing my doctoral dissertation
11:32
in the 80s mid 80s on the theology of
11:36
theory of thorns and particularly on his
11:38
his understanding of knowing god the way
11:41
in which we know god is that we actually
11:43
share in god's knowledge of himself
11:46
that's
11:47
one of the points of the significance of
11:48
the trinity that the one who is face to
11:51
face with his father from all eternity
11:54
this is the beginning of john's gospel
11:56
in the beginning was the word and the
11:57
word was face to face with god
11:59
and the word was god well he became
12:01
human in order to share with us
12:03
what he knows and not only what he knows
12:06
intellectually but his spirit so the
12:09
whole thing was about
12:10
sharing in jesus's eternal relationship
12:13
with his father and spirit which blew my
12:15
mind i'm like this is the coolest thing
12:16
in the world so
12:17
i look back now um and
12:20
when i was 10 years old i had some
12:22
experiences in church that rocked me
12:24
pretty good and i didn't know what they
12:25
were but that was all about this
12:26
it was just the lord the lord saying to
12:28
me um
12:31
you shall know the truth and the truth
12:33
shall set you free and don't
12:34
don't settle don't settle for anything
12:37
other than authentic freedom and
12:39
i'm like a deer in headlights i don't
12:42
know what to do but eventually i look
12:43
back now and i see how the lord led me
12:45
to these great
12:46
figures and leaders and they led me back
12:47
to the early church and to the apostles
12:49
and
12:50
and seeing uh the heart of the new
12:53
testament the relationship between
12:54
father son and spirit
12:56
it's the center of the cosmos you know
12:58
that's great what does it mean
13:00
like so my life is essentially the
13:03
unpacking of the significance of that
13:05
that's what i've written
13:06
on you know nine books later um
13:09
essays where i'm trying to dig
13:12
into and say this is we've got atonement
13:15
backwards
13:16
i'm sorry we just got it backwards this
13:18
has never been about an angry god this
13:20
is always about a father that loved us
13:22
and we lost our mind
13:23
the purpose of the incarnation is that
13:25
everything that jesus knows and has with
13:27
his father and spirit
13:28
he could bring to us and share it with
13:32
us and it could be as much ours
13:34
as it is he is by experience and i
13:37
i grapple with that because that's a
13:39
hard concept to get your brain around
13:41
if you grew up as i did it you know in
13:43
the bible bell in mississippi in the
13:46
western tradition and after scotland i'm
13:49
back in the united states
13:50
my son is probably seven years old
13:55
uh oldest daughter laura's five and
13:58
catherine's a baby
13:59
and on a saturday morning i'm sitting
14:01
there getting ready to
14:02
to uh i'm sorting through junk mail
14:04
getting ready to watch a football game
14:06
on my couch in my den and up to my right
14:08
i see movement
14:09
down toward the floor and i turned and i
14:11
looked and there were two
14:12
camouflaged faces with the hat
14:14
camouflage
14:15
hats on looking at me and before i could
14:18
move they just jumped in the air
14:20
like cannonballs and dove in and we
14:22
started this mock
14:24
fight for and they had you know all the
14:26
camouflage on and their boots and
14:29
plastic grenades and all the politically
14:31
incorrect stuff that we anyway
14:33
and we ended up in this mock battle and
14:36
then we ended up in a ball of laughter
14:38
on the floor
14:39
and i'm i get up and i'm i got my hands
14:42
resting on my
14:44
on my knees and i'm breathing heavy and
14:46
i look at them the two of them just
14:47
laughing
14:49
and a ticker tape flies across my brain
14:52
in my mind it says baxter pay attention
14:55
this is important and i'm like well
14:58
okay it's important you know dad's
15:00
horsing around with his son and his
15:02
buddy you know on saturday afternoon i
15:03
mean what's the
15:05
it's got to be going on one form or
15:06
another with mothers and daughters
15:08
all over the world and i didn't get it
15:10
and it took me a while but then i began
15:12
to realize that i actually didn't know
15:14
this other little boy
15:16
i didn't i didn't even know he was in my
15:18
house i
15:19
didn't know his name um and i thought
15:23
what would have happened if he would
15:25
have walked into my den
15:28
turned and seen me on the couch by
15:30
himself
15:32
because he doesn't know me doesn't know
15:34
what i'm like he doesn't know how i'm
15:35
gonna respond but the last thing is
15:36
gonna happen
15:36
for him to come flying through the air
15:38
on his own and engaged me in that kind
15:39
of familiarity and play and
15:42
and then then it began to really dawn on
15:44
me but my son knows me
15:46
he was there my son knows that i not
15:49
only love him
15:50
but i like him and i want to be with him
15:52
just today i was with
15:54
my son and his his own son james edward
15:56
baxter kruger jr he's about
15:58
you know seven months old and i'm like
16:01
who
16:02
who saw this coming and but i that day i
16:05
was there and
16:06
and i thought i watched
16:09
my son's knowledge of
16:12
me of my heart of my good will toward
16:16
him
16:17
i saw that go inside that other little
16:19
boy and he got to taste and play in
16:23
our fellowship and our freedom and it
16:26
became in that moment as much he
16:28
as much his as it was ours and i just
16:31
i just thought that's
16:34
that's the gospel there's only one
16:37
person who knows
16:38
the the father and that's jesus and
16:41
what's he to do
16:43
when his bride has lost her mind and
16:45
runs from him
16:47
i'm going in papa i won't get to the
16:50
bottom
16:51
and i'm not having this in my creation
16:54
i'm not having my children not
16:56
my brothers and sisters my bride think
16:58
this of you
16:59
we're going in and papa said i got you
17:02
back in the holy spirit like you know
17:04
i'm not missing that old [ __ ]
17:06
me and kyle in the last few weeks or the
17:08
last couple of days read
17:10
one of baxter's books called patmos
17:12
which is a
17:14
fascinating concept where you wrote
17:17
about
17:17
a theologian a just pretty average
17:21
religious guy who gets kind of we would
17:24
say revelation style beamed
17:26
into the isle of patmos 2000 years ago
17:28
and just gets to spend three days with
17:29
the apostle john john the revelator
17:32
no less and some fascinating
17:34
conversations and it's just a really fun
17:36
creative way
17:37
to introduce john's theology and
17:40
introduce maybe a different way of
17:41
of seeing uh the gospel in a more
17:44
original
17:45
early church sort of way right so you
17:48
did a number of things that we've got
17:49
some questions for you in that book
17:51
but it's a really fun just theological
17:55
uh it's it's a put together a
17:59
theology in story form so it's pretty
18:01
fun kyle you had the first question i
18:02
think right
18:03
yeah there's several things you do in
18:05
the book that i'd like to ask you about
18:06
one thing that occurs kind of early on
18:08
is john refers to the holy spirit as she
18:13
which is a practice i've been i've
18:14
adopted several years ago when i read my
18:17
first
18:17
feminist theologians and
18:21
i think it has changed the the way i
18:23
view god just just that simple little
18:25
tweak
18:26
but the the character in the book that's
18:27
the theologian is like shocked by it or
18:29
whatever
18:30
um so why did you choose to put that in
18:33
there was there a personal experience
18:34
that was behind that decision to include
18:36
that in the book tell us about
18:38
tell us about why that's in there well
18:41
yes there's there's a lot there's a lot
18:43
to it when i was growing up the holy
18:45
spirit was referred to as the holy ghost
18:48
uh that's the way it's used in the king
18:50
james bible it's that's the way it was
18:52
used in the
18:53
apostles and the nicene creed that we
18:56
used
18:57
in most of the hymns
19:00
and if you just stop and think about it
19:03
a 12 year old little boy doesn't want to
19:05
hang around with a ghost let alone a
19:06
holy one
19:08
so there's a real disconnect from me
19:10
personally from the holy spirit
19:12
um and i'm functioning from memory here
19:16
but i think that there are 200
19:17
references
19:19
in the hebrew bible to ruach
19:23
or uh which can be translated breath
19:26
wind or spirit and of the 289
19:34
uh generally there's always scholarly
19:36
debate about these things but
19:38
generally 89 times refers to the holy
19:41
spirit
19:42
of the 89 80 times
19:45
is feminine and followed
19:49
i think 45 44 times something like that
19:52
by
19:52
feminine verbs so the very second verse
19:55
in the
19:56
in the bible rule feminine
19:59
spirit uh all through one of the ones
20:01
that blew my mind was all through the
20:02
book of judges when the spirit of the
20:04
lord came
20:05
mightily upon you know it's all feminine
20:09
i wasn't taught that i didn't learn that
20:11
until i started studying hebrew but even
20:13
then nobody made anything of it
20:14
and then there's the fact that jesus
20:16
spoke aramaic in both hebrew and in
20:19
aramaic to this day
20:21
ruach is feminine so
20:26
you know my question is why haven't we
20:28
ever been told this
20:31
um because it seems to me to be a rather
20:33
large thing and
20:34
it's really when you discover the
20:36
trinity and the importance of it that
20:38
you begin to see
20:39
that and i don't want to say that the
20:41
spirit is
20:43
the feminine part of god and god the
20:44
father's masculine
20:46
i think masculinity and femininity are
20:48
part of the divine being
20:50
all the way around but i do think that
20:52
the holy spirit
20:53
um is um is referred to in feminine ways
20:57
on purpose um and i think there's
21:00
something
21:01
beautifully healing about that and to
21:03
discover
21:04
that this has been a part of the
21:06
tradition all the way through the church
21:08
it didn't it didn't
21:09
become the big thing but it's always
21:12
been there
21:13
yeah i love um the extensive
21:16
use in in the book referring to
21:20
the holy spirit as she and her um for
21:23
two reasons two main reasons one
21:24
it personalizes the holy spirit because
21:26
i if if i have to hear another person
21:28
call the holy spirit it
21:30
i'm going to lose my mind it's i
21:33
when when the spirit is it's it doesn't
21:35
mean a whole lot and you can't get to
21:36
knowing it
21:37
but when you personalize the spirit then
21:40
all of a sudden you can have a
21:40
relationship with that person
21:42
and then i desperately met a point in my
21:44
life where i
21:45
need to see the feminine life within the
21:49
godhead
21:49
um i can't i can't deal with all the
21:52
male pronouns anymore
21:53
i can't deal with the the overly um
21:57
masculinized version of god that we have
22:00
and
22:00
this is a beautiful way in to see it's
22:03
it's not only like
22:04
it's not wishful thinking it's right
22:06
there in the scriptures the holy spirit
22:07
is referred to as a she
22:09
it's you're not doing any any crazy
22:11
liberal
22:12
jumping jacks to get there and jumping
22:14
through hoops it's just there
22:16
we didn't see it for whatever reason
22:18
probably intentional right
22:20
um and now we could get to see this
22:22
beautiful femininity within the godhead
22:24
which was already there
22:26
but when you open yourself to that
22:27
there's something deeply healing and i
22:29
think that's where you said where you
22:30
were spot on when he said particularly
22:32
for men
22:33
i know for women in different ways but i
22:36
just need to see
22:37
the beautiful feminine life within the
22:40
divine
22:40
godhead and this is a beautiful way to
22:43
do that
22:43
i was driving down the road one day on
22:45
my way to nashville tennessee and i was
22:47
right outside of jackson tennessee
22:49
on the interstate just me i was by
22:52
myself driving and
22:53
and this sense came over me and i was
22:58
like what what's going on
23:00
and i couldn't quite make it out and i'd
23:03
wrestle with it
23:04
i drove up the road and i finally it
23:06
finally dawned on me
23:07
that i was not only in that moment
23:09
experiencing
23:11
the holy spirit's joy
23:15
i always experienced the holy spirit's
23:17
enjoyment of me
23:19
which is like what
23:22
i'm broken i'm a mess
23:25
[Music]
23:26
i'm not yet earned a spot and
23:29
once you see how god really is
23:33
that he never designed us to be perfect
23:37
he never designed the father-son spirit
23:39
never designed us to be
23:41
wise never designed us to be righteous
23:46
never made us to be good they made us
23:50
to participate in their perfection
23:53
in their goodness in their righteousness
23:57
in their wisdom we're the ones that turn
24:00
from that to try to create our own
24:02
but they are the ones who meet us as
24:05
their children
24:06
broken and you know sometimes i just
24:09
think
24:10
stupid as i am meet us
24:13
in that and delight in perfecting it
24:18
transforming it into something beautiful
24:20
and good
24:21
and right even when we're trying to
24:25
pretend that we already are
24:26
we got bible verses and we're part of
24:28
the right church to prove that you know
24:31
so there's a tremendous freedom uh in
24:34
that i
24:35
i like to tell a story about a carpet
24:38
weaver
24:39
and his six-year-old granddaughter that
24:41
he adores
24:42
and she adores him and she he's like the
24:46
best carpet
24:47
weaver in the world and she's pestering
24:49
him for a year
24:50
you know pops when are you when are you
24:52
gonna let me make a carpet with
24:54
and so on it's on her seventh birthday
24:57
he presents to her two of his own
24:59
favorite needles and shows her how to
25:02
make
25:02
two or three stitches and sets her up
25:05
on one end and off she goes and she's
25:08
making the carpet
25:10
doesn't even know what a carpet is and
25:12
doesn't make a single
25:14
correct stitch not one
25:18
and he so loves her and so adores her
25:20
and so wise and experienced
25:22
that he's steadily watching all of her
25:24
mistakes and he's weaving that in
25:26
so that when they meet in the middle it
25:28
is again a masterpiece
25:30
because he has woven her mistakes into
25:32
the overall pattern
25:35
and that that is the father son and
25:36
spirit
25:38
they're not standing off waiting for us
25:40
to figure out how to get it right
25:42
they're in the middle of the mess and
25:44
they're perfecting it
25:46
it's just like goodness and so
25:49
i i just think it it's in their times
25:52
you know in your in your journey where
25:54
you realize
25:56
lord i hadn't got a single stitch right
25:58
and i've been so self-righteous
26:01
and condemning others and that's when
26:05
you need
26:05
the holy spirit as mama and you need to
26:09
feel her joy
26:10
um because when we return from
26:13
our um escape from our own heart because
26:18
it can be painful in the light
26:20
but when we return to our own soul
26:24
the holy spirit is just like she's like
26:28
a mother who is
26:30
whose sons and daughters are coming home
26:32
from college
26:33
spend the weekend she can't wait
26:38
you know and that that that is so
26:40
foreign it was to me
26:42
it i didn't know but i now see that it's
26:44
foreign to most people's understanding
26:47
of the holy spirit and um i didn't
26:49
intentionally set out to
26:51
say as much about the spirit in the book
26:53
as it
26:54
came out and i love it i love it
26:57
matter of fact one of my charismatic
26:58
friends called me up and says baxter
27:00
you're going to be known as a theologian
27:02
the holy spirit go figure that
27:04
i said i said yeah and you read the book
27:06
didn't you
27:08
go figure it called to mind some sayings
27:12
of the desert fathers that i'm a big fan
27:13
of
27:14
about what we would call theosis or what
27:16
the eastern christians would call
27:18
theosis
27:19
which seems to be kind of a big theme in
27:21
your book you don't use that terminology
27:22
but it seems to be something you're
27:24
after with that
27:25
irene and johanna and tradition um
27:28
so what can you explain in
27:32
a little more concrete terms what it
27:34
means to become what god is in his
27:36
essence
27:38
you know the technical term that they
27:39
used was theosis
27:41
um that scares the jebus out of most
27:44
western christians but
27:45
if you go back to the story of my son
27:47
and his buddy in the den
27:48
that's it it is the experiential life of
27:52
god
27:52
it's the love which is unspeakable in
27:56
its beauty
27:58
but that love that life that sharedness
28:01
that oneness that paracritic
28:03
unity without loss of personhood um that
28:06
creativity
28:08
is in us and and nothing you just used a
28:10
big word there
28:11
pericaretic can you define that that's
28:14
the the name of our ministry it's my
28:16
favorite theological word
28:18
because once jesus said or once
28:21
john wrote in his gospel
28:25
and jesus says i'm in the father the
28:27
father is in me
28:29
then from that moment forward the search
28:31
zone for a way of talking about that
28:34
without emerging so that
28:38
well jesus is the father the same person
28:40
but
28:41
there is two distinct persons of course
28:45
the holy spirit's right there
28:46
so how do we talk about that in a way
28:49
that we guard
28:50
the distinction and yet we honor the
28:54
oneness
28:56
which is what we're all searching for in
28:57
every relationship and especially our
28:59
marriages
29:00
uh to maintain distinction
29:04
within oneness most of the time we end
29:06
up failing and it's
29:08
someone dominates the other and the
29:09
other disappears
29:12
or it gets enmeshed where you lose
29:15
yourself so
29:16
um they were searching for that word in
29:18
nicaea they used the word
29:20
hamauciostopatri of phrase which means
29:22
of one being
29:23
of the same being with the father and
29:25
then eventually
29:28
they took up a word uh periquerasis
29:31
is the proper pronunciation or
29:32
pericardius as they would say
29:36
and it means mutual indwelling
29:40
without loss of personhood um
29:44
and and that became this the one word
29:47
summary of the
29:49
of the doctrine of the trinity if you
29:51
want to put it that way which is
29:52
almost stupid to even say but uh it
29:55
maintains
29:57
it's i create space for you in all of my
30:00
life
30:01
and you don't get lost and neither do i
30:03
but our
30:05
togetherness is such
30:09
that togetherness of the father and the
30:11
son is so unclouded
30:13
it's so non-religious there's no fear
30:16
there's no darkness
30:18
there's light they're turned toward
30:20
their face to face they share all
30:22
things and the more you try to describe
30:24
the nature of their togetherness you
30:26
just end up
30:27
with the word one and then you
30:30
comma but they don't merge so that
30:33
they're
30:34
the same person so that's the the beauty
30:37
of it the whole creation
30:39
is created in this paracritic
30:42
relationship of oneness without loss
30:44
everything is wired that way uh we're
30:47
all searching for it
30:48
and it's really fascinating to me i
30:50
don't keep up with
30:52
physics like i wish i could i mean it's
30:54
just too much to do
30:56
too many things but um it's very clear
30:59
that the whole world of physics is
31:01
searching for the concept of paraphrases
31:03
because they they very they they see
31:05
that everything is of a peace
31:08
and yet i'm not you you're not me you're
31:11
not a rock
31:12
i'm not a tree i mean but there's a deep
31:16
and
31:16
profound connectedness with creation um
31:20
and a union there without loss so
31:23
that's the main the main theological
31:26
point in the story is union
31:28
as john is raised in question again
31:29
again union or separation you either
31:31
assume that you're
31:32
separated from god the father-son spirit
31:34
and therefore we've got to get back so
31:35
somebody tell me how to do it
31:37
the birth of religion or you understand
31:39
separate
31:40
union and now you're trying to
31:42
experience this
31:43
so john is helping aiden sort through
31:46
that because
31:47
the point of the theological clarity is
31:49
not that john
31:50
that aiden would get a gold star in
31:52
theology the point is he would begin to
31:54
suspect that jesus
31:55
is in him so that's the main story of
31:58
the book is that jesus
32:01
the aidan is going to discover and
32:03
encounter
32:04
jesus and the holy spirit and the father
32:07
because they're indivisibly one
32:09
inside of his own scuba
32:12
he's never looked there because he was
32:14
always told he tried
32:16
he had to he had to become accepted by
32:19
cleaning himself up
32:21
and what lo and behold he discovers that
32:23
that they love
32:24
him as he is in his brokenness so he
32:27
gets to meet
32:28
the father son of spirit in the things
32:31
and in the places in his old
32:32
soul where he's most ashamed of himself
32:36
so i had a friend one time that that
32:39
came to me
32:40
and said that he was struggling with
32:41
panic attacks
32:43
and we were sitting on my back patio and
32:45
he said i don't know what to do he said
32:47
i quote the bible verses i pray
32:49
i just don't i don't i can't beat it and
32:52
i said well
32:53
i'm panicked i'm the holy spirit you've
32:55
got to give me something because i don't
32:56
i don't want to make anything up not
32:59
here
32:59
not at this point not with this problem
33:02
and he
33:03
and so the holy spirit he told me said
33:06
well
33:06
when you drive because this would come
33:07
to him mainly when he would get driving
33:09
when he would drive his car
33:11
um and i said so when you leave here
33:13
going back home
33:14
and this happens i want you to pull over
33:18
all the way as far as you can on the
33:20
right side road hit park
33:22
take the keys out and throw them in the
33:23
floorboard on the passenger side and say
33:25
all right bring it home
33:27
bring it on i want to see your teeth
33:28
what you got
33:30
we're going to duke it out right here
33:31
we're going to get to the bottom of this
33:33
and he said he called me back on the
33:34
phone
33:35
10 15 minutes after he left he said it
33:37
happened i pulled over he told me where
33:39
he was i knew exactly where he was i
33:40
could see it
33:41
with him and he said man the whole world
33:43
went dark actually i'm falling back in a
33:45
pit
33:45
i think was a pit it was just dark i
33:47
couldn't see my hands
33:49
i just felt that i was falling backwards
33:51
in in
33:52
unimaginable abyss and i was gone
33:55
forever
33:56
and he said suddenly i kind of stopped
33:58
at least i
33:59
felt like i stopped i wasn't on the
34:01
ground
34:02
but i didn't feel like i was moving but
34:04
it was pitch black dark
34:06
and he said you're not going to believe
34:09
what happened
34:10
i said what happened
34:13
he said i turned to my right and there
34:16
sat jesus
34:20
i said yeah that's the gospel we we're
34:23
trying to perform to get in by being
34:25
good which is [ __ ]
34:27
excuse me scubala he's met
34:30
us he's met us in our crap
34:33
and we're performing you got to meet him
34:36
at the place that scared you to death
34:37
your whole life
34:39
and that's what's called and knowing the
34:41
truth shall set you free
34:43
who gets a vote in that place your mom
34:46
your dad your church
34:47
who gets it nobody gets a vote in that
34:49
place jesus
34:50
is yeah this i i am what's at the bottom
34:53
of your being
34:54
in the bottom of your crap help us
34:57
understand that so one of the questions
34:58
i put on the outline was
35:00
um what does it mean to say that jesus
35:02
dwells
35:03
in our sin so use the word flesh a lot
35:06
in the book but you do eventually get
35:07
around to using the word sin too
35:09
um how how is that possible and i'm
35:13
asking in two senses i'm asking it in
35:15
the spiritual formation
35:16
sense but also in like the metaphysics
35:20
like what does it mean to say that the
35:22
holy spirit indwells
35:25
my flesh or jesus okay
35:28
this is this is basic christology
35:32
and this is really important because
35:34
you're asking a question
35:36
that is answered on two levels one is
35:38
the conceptual and the other is the
35:41
experiential so
35:42
at the conceptual level the the brothers
35:46
and sisters of the early church realized
35:48
that we are staring a mystery in the
35:50
face
35:51
we cannot explain it we cannot define it
35:54
but we're going to defend it
35:55
the mystery is this the one who is face
35:58
to face with his father from all
35:59
eternity which is a mystery
36:01
and is god but not the father which is a
36:04
mystery
36:05
this one who is anointed in the holy
36:06
spirit became a real human being without
36:08
ceasing to be
36:09
divine don't know how to explain that
36:11
that's a mystery we're holding it
36:12
together
36:13
this happened we believe it we know that
36:15
jesus is god we know that he's human
36:17
and lo and behold john
36:20
says matthew says immanuel which means
36:24
god with us
36:26
john says the word became not anthropos
36:29
which is human man but sarx
36:33
which is flesh which is not good
36:36
it's our humanity twisted so word
36:40
becomes flesh
36:41
no way to explain how that can be how
36:43
can the one who is face to face with his
36:45
father entering into the place where he
36:46
can't see his father's face
36:49
don't have an answer but that happened
36:51
that's what we hold on to this is the
36:53
mystery
36:54
of the faith it's what the apostle paul
36:56
you know calls the mystery of godliness
36:58
well the apostle paul goes even further
37:02
he not only says that that the son
37:04
became
37:05
anthropos human or sarks flesh
37:09
ii corinthians 5 21 he who knew no sin
37:12
he made to be sin how
37:16
how does that don't know but the logic
37:20
of it is
37:22
identified and stated by gregory
37:24
nazianzen when he said
37:26
that the unassumed is the unhealed
37:30
so if all he became was human
37:33
that's beautiful but that doesn't help
37:35
me or you
37:36
because we're more than human we're
37:37
twisted human but if all he can't became
37:40
his
37:41
twitter human that helps but that
37:43
doesn't get to the root
37:44
the root is what the apostle paul is
37:46
saying so i liken it to
37:49
um miners that are down in the earth
37:53
and the mine collapses so they bring in
37:56
a surface
37:57
rescue team that sets up shop on the
37:59
surface
38:00
but suppose the rescue team never goes
38:02
down and makes contact with
38:05
the the miners that are in the collapsed
38:07
mine there's no rescue
38:10
or suppose that they get all the way
38:12
down to the bottom and they see them
38:14
embrace them and they give them oxygen
38:16
and food but then they
38:18
get trapped they lose contact with the
38:20
surface crew
38:22
so they're just as lo so it's necessary
38:25
that both mysteries be held
38:26
all this is held together in the person
38:28
of christ and this is what we adore and
38:30
hillary said that the the heretics
38:33
force us to scale perilous heights to
38:35
strain
38:36
the poor resources of language to say
38:39
what cannot be said with words
38:41
when faith is perfectly content to sit
38:43
and wonder at this
38:45
but we have to talk about it because of
38:47
the heretics
38:48
so they're saying that this is the
38:50
mystery christ in you
38:53
not just anthropos not just sarcs
38:57
but christ in you the sinner christ in
38:59
you at your deepest worst
39:01
and he brought his father the holy
39:03
spirit with him how
39:05
don't know we'll never figure that out
39:06
that's just the mystery of the
39:08
the goodness and the overflowing love of
39:10
god
39:12
but the closest i know to come to that
39:14
in human terms is
39:16
as a father um
39:20
i can't think of anything i would do for
39:22
my children
39:23
and now that i have grandchildren i'm
39:25
like just you know
39:26
take me um and i know that that
39:30
that has to be the love of god inside of
39:32
me that pales in comparison to the
39:35
fullness so the mystery of godliness
39:38
is there how can god become human
39:41
without ceasing to be god
39:43
don't know aries you know well it can't
39:46
be
39:46
can't happen so nicodemus says how can
39:49
these things be
39:50
aries is how can these things be
39:52
athanasius
39:53
is the aryans are like the sadducees of
39:56
old when they hear that the son
39:58
is the wisdom and the radiance and the
39:59
word of the father
40:01
they are accustomed to rejoin how can
40:04
this
40:05
be as though nothing can be
40:08
unless they understand it so
40:11
there you see it is that you have people
40:14
with mindsets that want to clamp it down
40:16
and say god whatever you are you got to
40:18
fit inside my mind says
40:20
the early church is saying you got to
40:21
blow them blow my mindsets
40:23
i know this i've met jesus and he's the
40:26
father's eternal son
40:28
how do i explain that i don't know i
40:31
worship
40:32
i love i adore it i'm safe there and so
40:35
that's the theological significance of
40:37
what you're saying on a practical
40:39
you know experiential level
40:43
when jesus says after he fed the 5000 in
40:46
john chapter 6
40:48
he says gather up the fragments see that
40:51
nothing is lost
40:54
and john typically speaks on multi
40:56
levels but that's one of them
40:59
i want all of baxter i don't want just a
41:02
sunday version
41:04
i want all of him and all of you and all
41:07
my cheap
41:07
all my my bride so i'm going into the
41:10
very bottom where there is nothing
41:11
beyond that
41:13
and to me the very power of the gospel
41:16
is when you can
41:17
look at i don't care if it's ten
41:18
thousand people or five or one
41:20
when you can look at a human being and
41:21
say let me let me tell you and this
41:23
happened in the story of patmos
41:26
uh hayden had already met jesus he'd
41:28
already encountered jesus and the father
41:30
the holy spirit he still didn't know
41:31
that that encounter was inside of
41:33
himself
41:33
and he still didn't know it was inside
41:35
of his crap
41:37
there is no freedom from your bondage
41:39
until you meet the father son and spirit
41:41
in it
41:42
because it's like i don't have to hide i
41:44
don't have to pretend i
41:46
perform they love me and they're content
41:48
for you to park right there and
41:50
and just be loved so the experiential
41:53
side of this
41:53
is there is not a place in the dark
41:56
world of sin
42:00
there is not a pla there is not a thing
42:02
you could do
42:03
wrong that jesus hasn't entered into
42:07
there with his father in the holy spirit
42:09
and he can meet you there and you can
42:12
have a new life
42:13
right there this is not about cleaning
42:15
yourself up
42:17
i get so bored and tired with that you
42:21
you know somebody give me a bible let me
42:23
walk in the church and act like
42:24
everything's just like no
42:26
man we're a mess we're just a broken
42:29
mess i don't even know how to spell
42:31
life i used to tell you how to live it
42:36
i don't even know i don't even know what
42:37
eternal life is except knowing the
42:39
father
42:40
well i don't know how to get there from
42:41
where i am jesus does
42:43
and he says take sides with me back i'm
42:45
leading you i'll lead you
42:47
i'm doing so both of those together
42:51
without the mystery without taking the
42:54
mystery to its dirtiest place
42:56
this is offensive to the to the fallen
42:59
mind but nevertheless the word of god
43:01
became
43:02
flesh he who knew no sin became sin
43:06
praise god for the apostles testicular
43:09
fortitude to write that down
43:11
for us because it means that there's no
43:15
part of me that's left out
43:17
and i don't have to hide that part and
43:18
pretend it's not there
43:20
i can bring that to jesus and say
43:23
can you fix this can you
43:27
can you i can't i don't even know how
43:29
jesus my my inner world is like a box of
43:31
loose coat hangers
43:33
and i used to be sure i could fix it i
43:35
don't even know which one to move first
43:37
now
43:37
and i'm done with religion can you fix
43:39
it he's the he's
43:41
actually you're still looking for me up
43:43
at the top of the box we're down here
43:46
come on come on down here you see it
43:48
frees
43:49
the the human person uh if you
43:52
in in most people that go to therapy
43:56
go to therapy to find out what's wrong
43:58
with their partner
44:01
and most people refuse to go to
44:04
something like that because they're
44:06
terrified to look inside the garbage can
44:08
stuck over in the corner of their soul
44:11
because if they look in there they're
44:12
convinced they're gonna find nothing
44:14
but irrefutable proof that they are no
44:17
damn good
44:18
that as my dad used to say to me born
44:20
trash you die
44:21
trash as my church used to say to me
44:23
you're totally depraved
44:25
if i look in that garbage can i'm gonna
44:27
find irrefutable proof
44:28
and now i'm standing before god with my
44:30
garbage can open and nowhere to hide
44:32
so i'm gonna pretend somebody showed me
44:34
how to be religious
44:36
or somebody show me how to but when you
44:38
hear
44:39
that the father in the sun and the
44:41
spirit in the sun
44:43
have submitted to us has submitted to me
44:46
and gotten inside of my darkness down to
44:48
the bottom and they they
44:50
they they built their tents their
44:53
tent inside of the bottom of my garbage
44:57
can
44:58
which means to me now for the first time
45:00
you mean that's not the deepest truth in
45:02
my being the deepest truth of my being
45:03
is the father son of spirits union with
45:05
me
45:06
and i can look in there and i can begin
45:09
to build from that place
45:10
then nobody gets a vote shame doesn't
45:12
get a vote evil doesn't get a vote
45:14
husband wives divorce finances nothing
45:17
gets a vote on how
45:18
we feel about ourselves we now know how
45:20
god feels about us
45:22
and we discovered it in that place
45:25
or you can live your entire life up here
45:27
on this level pretending none of this is
45:29
going on
45:30
and we're just going to go to church and
45:31
smile
45:33
and unfortunately we've come to a place
45:35
in human history where that doesn't work
45:36
anymore
45:38
and the gospel is being proclaimed it's
45:40
being recovered and proclaimed
45:42
wow probably the major theme in the book
45:44
is union and separation
45:46
the apostle john is getting after that
45:48
all the time in your book and
45:50
you talk about how the in the
45:51
incarnation the incarnation happened to
45:54
bring us into union with god and that
45:55
that union
45:56
with a divine life is what everything is
45:58
always about
45:59
and everything everything around us is
46:03
all about union with god and so
46:04
how has this idea of union with god and
46:06
all things being connected
46:08
change the way you see and interact with
46:10
the world
46:12
it changes the way i see every person
46:14
the recognition
46:16
let me give you one of my little mantras
46:20
the recognition of the sacred presence
46:25
of the father son and holy spirit
46:29
in every person moment and place
46:33
is the beginning of wisdom it's the
46:36
beginning of freedom
46:37
to embrace people and life
46:40
in their union with the father-son
46:42
spirit whether they know it yet or not
46:45
so it's radically altering the way i see
46:48
myself
46:49
the way i see every person
46:53
especially those that are unlike me that
46:56
i would
46:56
probably be you know called enemies
47:00
before
47:01
so that's it begins with the trinity and
47:05
our inclusion
47:06
i want to be clear and this is a place
47:08
of development for me
47:09
in in my journey um the incarnation
47:13
doesn't mean that jesus is coming to
47:15
establish a relationship with you
47:17
or the human race he has that
47:21
you create you're created in him you
47:24
live and move and have your being
47:26
in jesus all things came into being
47:29
through him
47:30
and apart from him not one thing came
47:31
into being he's not coming to establish
47:34
a union with you or
47:35
relationship he's coming to establish
47:37
that existing union relationship
47:40
inside of our delusion
47:44
that is a huge difference in point
47:47
yeah entering into relationship with god
47:49
is not something that we can do because
47:50
it's already there
47:52
so good conversely then baxter speaking
47:55
of separation
47:56
um you obviously have some issues with
47:58
augustine and his theology
48:00
and where where western uh the western
48:03
church went in
48:04
because of augustine give us your
48:06
snapshot of
48:08
separation and how it entered into the
48:09
church and perhaps through augustine
48:12
it didn't enter through augustine it
48:13
came really from
48:15
adam it's there in genesis
48:18
when uh the evil one says god knows that
48:21
you will become wise
48:24
well whoever told them there would be
48:26
wise and and
48:27
he said you will be like god well i
48:30
thought they would create an image and
48:31
likeness of god
48:32
so he's suggesting assume a separation
48:36
then take action to fix it
48:38
that's the fall that's also built into
48:41
the fabric of the greek philosophical
48:43
mind
48:44
which in augustine inherited
48:48
through neoplatonism and he was not able
48:51
to extricate himself and even calvin
48:53
says that
48:54
that augustine was excessively addicted
48:57
to the philosophy
48:58
of plato or neoplatonism so there's so
49:02
much that i have great respect for
49:03
augustine but man
49:05
when you boil it all down it comes to
49:06
this you either assume you're separated
49:08
from god and have to get back
49:10
or you assume union and i start seeing
49:12
everything different
49:14
let me let me uh let me throw in an
49:16
interjection here just real quick so
49:18
um in interpreting genesis in in the way
49:21
that you just did and attributing
49:23
something similar to augustine and
49:24
saying that's what the fall is
49:26
reminds me of a philosopher of religion
49:30
that i respected a guy named john hick
49:33
and he he wrote a book in which he
49:36
argued that
49:37
you could trace two lines of thought
49:40
from
49:41
early christianity one through augustine
49:43
and one through irenaeus
49:45
and he actually argued for a reading of
49:47
genesis that didn't include a fall
49:50
he called it an irony in reading so i'm
49:53
curious what your thoughts about that
49:54
are is it actually an augustinian
49:56
reading to see a fall in genesis
49:58
yeah yes you're right i'm with iron ass
50:00
and read in
50:02
this book he deal up
50:05
thoughts about you know it's beautiful
50:06
um
50:08
so it's it's not a a of
50:11
a fall in the sense that you became
50:13
sinful by nature
50:15
because if you are by nature sinful
50:19
broken by nature then that's an
50:22
ontological statement
50:24
good luck on fixing yourself um
50:27
so iron ass is more in the world of
50:29
blindness
50:31
and assumptions and not seeing
50:35
and how we respond and react to not
50:37
seeing in our blindness and
50:39
um so adam and eve
50:43
hid they hid
50:46
themselves in the bush in the tree
50:49
of knowledge of good and evil from god
50:54
who had created them and given them with
50:56
all this and
50:57
and it's like and they thought they were
50:59
right
51:01
and they thought they needed to hide and
51:02
they needed to run
51:04
and they had already invented a false
51:06
deity it's got nothing to do with the
51:08
father-son spirit not really
51:10
but it's true to them and by god they're
51:13
going to create a religion and go with
51:14
it
51:15
and pilfer and destroy the earth and
51:16
we're going to follow in suit because we
51:18
grow up in that darkness without knowing
51:19
any better
51:20
the light of the gospel shines and is at
51:23
work
51:23
to overcome that that's not a by nature
51:27
uh problem and it's very dangerous to
51:30
tell people
51:31
like when my gran my first grandchild
51:34
caroline was
51:34
was born and i got to baptize her
51:38
um i quoted that statement at the
51:40
beginning of um
51:42
that the recognition of the sacred
51:44
presence of the father son and spirit
51:46
in every person moment place is the
51:48
beginning wisdom
51:49
and i said my point is that caroline
51:51
does not have her family of origin
51:55
in the union of kyle and laura
51:58
that's the proximate cause of her being
52:01
her family of origin is the father son
52:03
of spirit
52:05
and they don't do trash this is good
52:09
it gets twisted but it's good
52:13
we are good um and we're good with the
52:16
goodness of the
52:17
son and spirit and jesus has come to
52:18
find us in the place where we
52:21
he's come to find leah and give her a
52:24
new interpretation on the dress
52:25
on her mom and everything else and lead
52:28
her out of her darkness into the
52:29
experience of her father
52:31
her true father
52:34
oh yeah that's a big big
52:37
you know you already know the answer to
52:38
the question but it's a big
52:41
problem i mean i grew up in calvin's
52:43
church man it was a matter of doctrine
52:45
we're totally praying to every one of us
52:47
i mean you you tell a 10 year old little
52:50
boy he's totally
52:50
praised and hope he's going to turn out
52:52
doing anything right he's just going to
52:54
live out of it well
52:55
i can't fix that i mean no you tell
52:59
you tell a child that they belong to the
53:01
father someone spirit they always
53:02
haven't always will
53:03
and they're being told lies and they're
53:06
free to live out those lies but they
53:07
don't have to
53:09
let's live in the truth it's so that
53:12
that's a that's a huge
53:14
western issue there and
53:17
the orthodox which is which irenaeus
53:19
represents of course
53:21
they don't have that same vision
53:25
and they look at us i one time i asked
53:27
an orthodox
53:28
leader i said how do how do orthodox
53:31
christians look at
53:32
quote unquote north american
53:33
evangelicals and he said
53:36
he said we see you as a christian sect
53:40
and we we hurt for you because you
53:43
believed that the father had to be
53:44
bought off
53:46
[Music]
53:49
it helps to read widely and
53:52
have conversations outside of your own
53:54
little club amen
53:57
so i saw a quote i think two days ago by
54:00
saint bonaventure that made me think of
54:02
you
54:02
and in this quote bonaventure in the
54:05
13th century he spoke of the eternal
54:07
generation of the sun
54:09
as the eternal art of the father here's
54:12
the quote
54:12
he said it is the in the eternal art
54:16
from which and through which and in
54:19
accordance with which
54:20
all beautiful things are formed i'm
54:23
going to say that again
54:24
bonaventure said and he's referring to
54:26
the eternal generation of the sun
54:27
it is the in the eternal art from which
54:30
and through which
54:31
in accordance with which all beautiful
54:34
things are formed
54:36
can you just give us your brief snapshot
54:38
of what you think bonaventure was
54:39
getting at there
54:40
the the difference between being
54:42
begotten and created is the begotten is
54:44
an eternal
54:45
generation thing there's no time it's
54:47
the best that they could do it's the
54:49
best anybody's ever been able to
54:50
there was never a time when the father
54:52
was alone
54:54
and just god and not father so this is
54:57
eternal relationship point two is that
55:00
this eternal
55:01
relationship of the father and son and
55:04
holy spirit is the womb
55:06
you said of all good things bonaventure
55:08
said of all good things it's the womb of
55:09
everything
55:11
everything comes out of this and it's
55:14
baptized in the logic of that love with
55:16
father son and spirit
55:17
and you add darkness to that would get
55:20
twisted
55:21
but this is the truth of our being and
55:23
we're learning now in the gospel to
55:25
learn to
55:26
to begin to recognize that
55:29
when you when you lose the trinity and
55:31
carl rauner said this back in the 80s
55:34
roman catholic theologian he said we
55:36
must be willing to admit
55:39
that should the doctrine of the trinity
55:41
have to be dropped as
55:42
false the vast majority
55:46
of religious writing would would remain
55:48
virtually intact
55:50
bonaventures he's trying to to say no no
55:53
everything must be trinitarian
55:56
it must have this this beautiful vision
55:59
of it
56:00
of this love and other centered
56:02
self-giving love
56:03
um or else it's not christian
56:06
yep so last quick question here for you
56:09
baxter um in the chapter in which you
56:11
talk about george mcdonald which is
56:12
really fun
56:13
um you're pretty hard on calvinism which
56:16
i don't mind
56:17
i'm gonna be honest with you it's okay
56:18
with me but um
56:20
you're clearly come out swinging against
56:22
some of the doctrine
56:24
in theology of calvinism give us just
56:26
snapshots of
56:27
the issues you have with calvinism okay
56:29
here it is
56:31
father son and spirit is either eternal
56:33
relationship or it's not
56:36
if it is eternal relationship which it
56:38
is
56:39
then everything that they think
56:42
do act flows out of their love for one
56:46
another
56:47
calvinism teaches that before the
56:48
creation of the world
56:50
a vast majority of human beings were
56:52
rejected by god the father
56:54
and some were loved and jesus agreed to
56:57
save that psalm
56:59
and that the rest of them are going to
57:00
be on the eternal rotisserie
57:03
magnifying the justice of god and i'm
57:04
like wait a minute
57:07
there's no split in the father's being
57:11
unless you can explain to me how
57:15
the doctrine and this is a doctrine of
57:17
reprobation
57:18
of rejection of which is worse than
57:21
premeditated abortion
57:23
but where is that flowing out of the
57:25
relationship of the father son and
57:26
spirit
57:27
is there a fourth member a second son
57:31
that the father hates from all eternity
57:32
and so you know this is reflected this
57:35
no this this is the failure to take the
57:38
trinity seriously
57:39
so in the west one of our habitual
57:42
problems
57:43
is that we talk about the trinity but we
57:45
all know that there's something deeper
57:46
about god than the father-son spirit
57:48
relationship you with me
57:51
what is that deeper than that's what
57:53
causes shots
57:54
because it's deeper than the trinity
57:56
well in augustine
57:58
that deeper was the absolute
57:59
mathematical sovereignty of god which
58:01
got into all kinds of trouble
58:03
in the west in general it's holiness of
58:05
god but notice that holiness is now not
58:07
even trinitarian holy it's not it's not
58:09
talking about
58:10
the magisterial love of the father son
58:12
of spirit and there's nothing like it in
58:14
the universe it's talking about
58:15
something else
58:17
so that's what calvinism has done to us
58:19
is split the trinity
58:21
from the being of god and and
58:24
now we've got to think about the being
58:25
of god in the trinity that's why i kept
58:27
saying at the beginning of our
58:28
discussion
58:29
the god of all is good not on monday not
58:32
sometimes towards some this is character
58:36
this is the deepest truth of the divine
58:38
being is the trinitarian fellowship and
58:41
oneness and love of the father son and
58:42
spirit
58:43
out of that they do towards us exactly
58:45
what they
58:46
do towards one another which is
58:48
self-giving love
58:51
the doctrine of god and to think
58:54
to think and i was taught this and i
58:57
probably even taught it myself at some
58:58
point
58:59
i blocked it from my memory but to think
59:02
that you would teach
59:03
that god the father loves some
59:07
um come on i mean for real
59:10
and we don't throw up and to think that
59:13
he turned his back on his own son
59:15
and we don't puke in the church pew when
59:18
we hear that
59:19
that's just foreign to the character of
59:22
the eternal being of god which is back
59:24
to bonaventure's point of body
59:25
eternal begottenness this relationship
59:28
is the womb of the creation there is no
59:30
god behind the back
59:31
of the trinity so where is all this come
59:34
from it's coming straight out of adam
59:36
through greece through rome write to us
59:38
and we we preach it on sunday
59:40
we don't i don't you guys but it's
59:42
preached on sunday as the gospel
59:44
it's not the gospel is blasphemy there
59:47
is
59:48
no way that you can have a rupture in
59:51
the relationship of the father son and
59:53
spirit it's the most stable reality in
59:55
the cosmos
59:56
always has been always will be to quote
59:58
george mcdonald as long as the father
60:00
loves the son and the son loves the
60:02
father all is well with the little ones
60:05
you break that relationship good luck
60:08
with your religion getting that part of
60:10
god to love you
60:11
god the father is not split towards you
60:15
when he looks at his son he says you are
60:17
my beloved that
60:18
echoes throughout the entire cosmos
60:21
that's what jesus came to teach us
60:25
all right i love it so much last
60:27
question baxter and this is a doozy it's
60:29
a
60:30
it's a good one we we actually recorded
60:32
an episode on the atonement and um in
60:34
your penultimate chapter in
60:36
patmos you do some really really good
60:39
work on the atonement i mean some
60:41
some really really beautiful concepts
60:43
and ideas that define the atonement in a
60:45
way that
60:46
um doesn't make you scared for your
60:48
existence doesn't make you scared of god
60:50
it it shows that the atonement the cross
60:53
needed to happen where god needed to to
60:56
dive into the depths of the human
60:57
experience and human
60:59
human brokenness and failure and sin and
61:01
all of the ugliness
61:03
in order to inhabit it and in in and
61:06
heal it
61:07
give us your picture of the we we have
61:10
the penal substitutionary theory of
61:11
atonement we have
61:12
others we have we have a number of
61:14
others but what you wrote in there needs
61:17
to be
61:18
made public and and preached in the
61:20
pulpit on sunday mornings
61:22
lord willing it will be um two quick
61:25
things there's an
61:26
essay that i wrote called god in the
61:27
hands of anger sinners
61:30
and a new one that just come out called
61:33
um
61:34
the mediation of jesus christ where
61:36
these
61:37
my understanding is developed and i'm
61:40
working on a third one
61:42
on the death of jesus in the gospel of
61:44
john
61:46
i want to be crystal clear on this
61:50
father son of the spirit had a
61:51
discussion before creation the father
61:53
says i want them with me in my house
61:55
face to face and not ashamed
61:56
jesus says i'll take care of it the holy
61:58
spirit says i'm in
62:00
so that's the beginning of the whole
62:02
concept of the incarnation
62:04
and of that uh but the cross is not
62:07
about jesus doing anything from the
62:09
father
62:10
where was god when jesus was being
62:13
crucified
62:14
god was in christ
62:17
reconciling the cosmos he wasn't up
62:20
there pouring
62:21
wrath out on the sun and the holy
62:23
spirit's not freaking out thinking which
62:25
side am i going to take
62:27
this is an act of an indivisible
62:30
peripheral
62:31
oneness and love from the foundation of
62:33
the world in which they
62:34
sacrifice themselves to get inside of
62:37
our delusion
62:39
and the only way to get inside of our
62:41
delusion is for jesus to submit himself
62:44
to the pharisees religion to the empire
62:47
politics i will submit myself and you're
62:50
going to beat me to death
62:52
and you're going to curse me you are
62:54
going to damn the eternal word of god in
62:56
whom you live and move and have your
62:57
being
62:58
and i will let you do it and my father
63:00
will let you do it the holy spirit will
63:01
let me
63:02
let you do it and in so doing in my and
63:05
our submission to you we are now
63:07
inside of your delusion and the holy
63:09
spirit's turning the lights on and you
63:10
can't kill them
63:11
kill me again and so this is about the
63:14
obliteration
63:15
of the power of death this is about the
63:17
defeat of
63:18
evil's deception and this is about the
63:21
light
63:21
of the love of the father son and spirit
63:23
foreign shining in us in our deepest
63:25
place
63:26
and to me saul of tarsus i just love
63:28
this because three times
63:31
in acts it's narrated
63:34
uh saul's conversion is narrated all
63:37
three times it's like a light shining
63:40
external to him knocks him down to the
63:42
ground and he has scales and
63:45
you know you know the story but in
63:47
galatians
63:49
chapter one he says but god
63:52
who set me apart from my mother's womb
63:55
when he was pleased to reveal his son
63:58
in me not to me as it's translated in
64:02
several english but not all
64:06
but he was revealed in me
64:09
saul of tarsus met jesus christ not
64:12
external
64:13
that would have been a theological
64:14
argument he met jesus
64:16
inside of his own soul
64:19
while he was trying to murder jesus's
64:22
people
64:24
and that blew his mind took him three
64:26
years to sort through
64:27
that's the way this works uh i'm not
64:30
going to leave
64:31
adam and eve in the bushes and stand
64:34
outside and try to convince them
64:35
theologically i'm going to get inside of
64:37
their mind
64:39
i'm going to get inside of leah's mind
64:41
i'm going to get inside of my bride's
64:43
mind
64:44
she hates me she runs from cover for my
64:46
life she doesn't want me she don't want
64:48
anything to do with me
64:49
i'm going in papa and paul says i got
64:52
you back forever you know that
64:53
so jesus knows what it's like to go to
64:56
the place where he cannot see his father
64:58
and he cannot feel the holy spirit but
65:00
he knows that they're real and love him
65:02
and he commits himself to them and they
65:04
can do
65:05
and he's doing the same thing inside of
65:07
us
65:08
he's not saying over here theologically
65:11
baxter you've got to memorize this verse
65:12
he's saying dude i'm turning the lights
65:14
on and you're seeing my father with my
65:16
eyes
65:16
and that doesn't make sense to you what
65:18
are you going to do about that
65:19
walk with me so the the whole idea
65:23
of god needing to be a peace of the
65:26
father needing to be appeased or
65:28
sacrificed already
65:29
implies the separation between the
65:31
father and the son which is
65:32
just first order blasphemy i mean just
65:36
come on i please write write down baxter
65:39
call it blasphemy
65:40
it is it may be what we grew up with
65:43
penal substitution has got nothing to do
65:45
with blessed father son and spirit
65:47
and our creator and redeemer they've
65:50
come to find us
65:51
in our delusion i don't know if you've
65:53
ever dealt with anybody
65:54
that was delusional i i've been to a
65:57
psych ward
65:59
and i walked in the room and there were
66:00
three nurses in this person
66:02
and this person recognized me and that
66:05
was it
66:06
and then started throwing stuff at me
66:08
because i would participate
66:10
in her way of seeing things
66:14
and i didn't know what to do and i left
66:16
there
66:17
praying and i thought oh my god jesus
66:19
says yeah
66:21
yeah that's what happened adam
66:25
he began to think of me and my father
66:26
like that and i tried to talk to him
66:29
i tried to talk to all his people for
66:31
thousands a couple thousand years we've
66:33
had conversation they wouldn't listen
66:35
so i'm not gonna go and stand up and be
66:37
a prophet one more time and speak to
66:39
them i'm gonna go
66:40
enter into their delusion so that i can
66:43
be on the inside shining the light so in
66:45
john 5
66:46
i know we're running out of time but
66:48
this is so john 5
66:50
jesus squares off with the sanhedrin
66:53
and he says you have never
66:56
heard the voice of god ever you have
66:59
never
67:00
seen his form you do not have the word
67:02
of god abiding in your heart
67:05
you do not have the love of god in your
67:07
heart you seek the glory that comes from
67:09
your fellows and you
67:10
you do not seek the glory that comes
67:12
from the one tr and true god
67:14
and you are unwilling to come to me and
67:16
i think in that
67:17
little paragraph in john 5 jesus is
67:20
saying this is the fall
67:22
and i am not a prophet who's come to
67:24
point this out
67:26
i am the word of god in whom you live
67:28
and move and have your being
67:29
and you've lost your mind and i have
67:31
come to deal with this
67:33
you are unwilling to me i have come to
67:35
deal with this you don't have the love
67:37
of god in your heart i've come to deal
67:38
with this
67:39
you don't have the word of god abiding
67:41
i've come to do you've never heard the
67:42
voice of god i've come to deal with this
67:44
so you john 5 go to john 17 father
67:47
i have made you known
67:50
to them and i will make you known in
67:53
order that
67:53
get this the love with which you love me
67:57
may be in them
67:58
and i in them he's addressing the
68:01
problems
68:02
and he does it by submission to us the
68:05
word becomes
68:06
flesh he doesn't become flesh by
68:09
by sinning he becomes flesh by
68:12
submitting to us
68:13
in our delusion and the father turns our
68:17
apostate rejection of his son into the
68:20
mercy seat
68:20
where he embraces us and says let me
68:23
tell you who i am and i've always
68:25
been always will be i am your father and
68:27
i'm doing what fathers do which is
68:29
affirm their children in their mess in
68:32
the holy spirit saying
68:33
i'm transforming your temple the temple
68:36
of your shack
68:37
to use paul young's metaphor
68:41
or of your apostasy and rejection into
68:44
the mercy seat into the temple where i
68:46
dwell with all my gifts and we're gonna
68:47
dance
68:49
it's gonna take a while because you
68:51
really got some bizarre things you
68:52
believe about
68:53
the father and about me holy spirit says
68:56
and about jesus
68:57
so i'm i feel like my life um
69:01
i didn't intend to live it this way this
69:03
is what happened but it's like
69:05
when i was 10 years old the lord's was
69:06
taking my hand through an old sock
69:09
the sock of western theology all the way
69:11
to the end and it just turned and pulled
69:13
it inside
69:13
out that's it
69:17
we've been backwards that's good it's
69:18
okay it's not surprising
69:21
to the father son of the spirit but
69:22
now's the new day with new light shining
69:25
and the day will come and i'll end with
69:27
this a quotation from
69:29
our beloved george mcdonald fellow
69:31
graduate of the university of aberdeen
69:36
good souls many will one day be
69:40
horrified
69:41
by the things they now believe of god
69:44
[Music]
69:46
that's coming at the beginning you
69:49
alluded to this being
69:51
a remarkable moment uh even exciting
69:54
can you elaborate on that we can't just
69:56
leave that
69:57
well it's a moment where people are
69:59
scared to death and they realize their
70:01
powerlessness
70:02
there's an invisible force at work that
70:04
could kill us
70:06
and we have a bunch of politicians on
70:07
both sides that have lost their minds
70:09
and that makes it all the worse and we
70:10
don't know
70:12
but uh that's one layer another layer is
70:14
that um
70:16
the western tradition has been locked in
70:18
its head
70:19
um disassociated from its heart as
70:22
a rule and the the gig was who can
70:26
produce the best theological argument
70:29
with the most
70:29
bible proofs and win the day and that's
70:33
what denominationalism
70:35
is basically just arguing back and forth
70:37
with
70:38
uh and so we're whatever else we are as
70:41
a denomination
70:42
we're out to prove we're right and
70:43
you're wrong and that's been the whole
70:45
gig and
70:46
and it's you know left us all bored and
70:48
sad but the holy spirit
70:51
has been steadily changing the question
70:53
for within the last 500 years and
70:56
the question is is this rid across our
70:59
culture
70:59
and this pandemic and other things just
71:02
fuels it
71:04
uh this is the good part of all that i'm
71:06
talking about are seeing in our culture
71:08
um the question is not who can produce
71:11
the best theological argument and win
71:14
the the victory the question is who can
71:17
lead us
71:19
to experience the life that jesus christ
71:21
promised to us
71:23
so you mentioned classes that you're
71:24
teaching you mentioned uh
71:26
seminars you mentioned uh
71:29
essays that you've written you've
71:31
mentioned books you've got even
71:32
extensive and beautiful prayers that
71:35
you've written
71:36
where can people find your work basket
71:37
baxter this go to pericreases.org and if
71:40
you can't spell that just
71:42
google baxter kruger you can get to the
71:45
mothership that way
71:46
there's a lot of stuff going on there's
71:47
400 hours of teaching material
71:49
on our website there's essays there's
71:53
lots of free stuff
71:54
and i'm working on the sequel to the
71:56
patmos right now
71:57
well baxter krueger it's been a pleasure
72:00
serious pleasure thank you so much for
72:01
joining us
72:02
welcome bless you boys
72:08
thanks for listening to a pastor and a
72:09
floss for walk into a bar we hope you
72:11
enjoyed the episode
72:12
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72:14
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72:16
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72:17
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72:19
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72:22
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72:23
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72:26
pastor and a philosopher
72:27
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72:29
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72:30
until next time this is ben a pastor and
72:32
a philosopher walk into a bar
72:36
[Music]