Alia
2. Matthew 28 (2): The Galilee Appearance, 'All Power Is Given to Me', and Why God the Father Cannot Envy the Son
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/14-alia/002-matthew-28-2-the-galilee-appearance-all-power-is-given-to/

[0:00] Heard from guard. Now he goes to that appearance in Galilee. It's the end. Galilee, where he is. So the eleven disciples went into Galilee, right, and we saw the spiritual significance of that and the sense of the letter, right? Christ is accustomed to do it that way in Galilee, right? And they would be more secure there. They're scared stiff even afterwards, you know. We need the Holy Spirit to come down.

[0:43] Not for the Holy Spirit to come down at the beginning, begin entirely there. Courage, right? As Thomas said earlier, when Christ says to the woman, "Do not fear, go announce it." The preacher has to be without fear.

[1:05] But the spiritual sense, you have to go from sin to grace, and see that in this mortal life, it's like that. It's also that sense that's going to be. the Gentiles well. They went into Galilee and to the mountain that Jesus had appointed for them. Thomas stops and ascends the mountain.

[1:39] Not on the height of Christ, not the height of the apostles, right? The sight of Christ, would signify this is the status, right? The dog is going to die or suffer. And the mountain is contrasted with the valley. I was thinking about that. One thing to keep in mind of course is that famous prayer, "Hail a holy queen," and then you have the narrative valley of tears."

[2:09] But in the psalm So the valley doesn't always have these kind of metaphors, but the valley can have sense of value tears. Christ now is glorified, still.

[2:33] But then, as far as the apostles went, the moment you have, say, virtue, virtue, yeah, to see Christ. And seeing him, they did like be willing to

[2:56] right. They worshipped him right, but somewhat. That's pretty interesting. That indeed, right, but somewhat. That's part of the reason why you count here in Mark. If you look at the in the Mark there, I was mentioning how the Gospels have perhaps five accounts, five appearances as an account of or the mention of on the day of resurrection, right? Two to the woman, one to Peter, right? One to the two disciples Emmaus, and one to the disciples minus Thomas, right?

[3:47] And then five more, right? And one was the one we just want to get here in Matthew now, right? Another one very closely after that, but after the ascension, all right. But earlier, the second appearance, when Thomas is present, right? The appearance at the lake of Tiberias with uh in John, right? But this one here in Mark. What account is this? One of those two that we mentioned already.

[4:24] Look at verse fourteen, then chapter sixteen. Afterwards, he appeared unto eleven as he sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after his risen.

[4:45] Now, what what one is that? How can that be the one when he appeared to the eleven minus Thomas, because that would be only like ten, right?

[5:02] Seems to be kind of a general one, right? You take that as a separate one, you have, ten, right? Mentioned in the gospel something.

[5:17] And look back at verse 9 that Pastor referred to earlier. Now, when Jesus risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. So that appearance to Mary Magdalene, which is counted at least in the Gospel of John, right? That perhaps was the first appearance. At least the other ones I mentioned in the Gospel. The second one was the one to the two women when they, Matthew, right, where they embraced his feet, right, Worshiped him.

[5:49] and then the third one might have been to Peter, right, because that perhaps took place before the Emmaus one when they come back, and then the fifth one is the one referred to the ten, minus Thomas, right. Okay.

[6:20] People have a difficulty with that. Excepting a third appearance, you know, many of them, right? So you have two to with the Doubt Thomas, right? Now, undoubtedly, he appeared to Mary. No account of that. No mention of it. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, to Peter, James, and John individually to Mary. Yeah. No mention. So we have another appearances that we don't have mentioned of or counted of.

[7:36] So anyway, some are. I went to the Gospel of Mark because there is very explicitly upgrading all of them, right, and not just Thomas, right. But here we see how even at this late day, some doubted him.

[7:54] So you know they're doubting, right? When they're saying. It seems so. Yeah. Do you know you see these? polls, you know, so called poles of Catholics, in them? and a lot of them, you know, don't believe in the real presence of Christ.

[8:31] The dubious way, and that's a kind of doubtful stage, you know. You know those famous things you read about in the Middle Ages there. some priest who doubted about the real presence, you know, and then you saw the blood in the host, and so. Remember the stories the nuns tell us in the St Joseph's sisters in grade school there. and the story was told one of them.

[9:02] Go back to his his uh pew and drop him the host into his handkerchief, right, and took it home or something, right? When he opened it up, he was blood. So as a kid, this really made you. If it was true or not, but darn miracles of this sort, right?

[9:24] But I don't know that happened. But all the men got it. The woman took it. because uh. Some woman wanted in order to get a prophecy or something, so she asked him to bring it home. So now Jesus approaching them spoke to them, saying, "Now Thomas divides what Christ says into three parts, right?

[10:03] The first part is all what, all in heaven and earth has been given to me, right? We'll talk about that in a moment. The second part would be the threefold command or order he gives them, right? And the third part, what he says to them about being with us, all kinds of things. Now let's look at the first of those three parts.

[10:35] Thomas gives three explanations of that, the meaning of that. All power in heaven and earth has been given to me. One of the three meanings he gives, he sees. I think it was about the word as far as the divine second function,

[11:00] the Father giving him the divine nature, giving all power. And the divine nature, you know, God's nature's all to do is simple, right? So the divine nature and power of God are identical. right? And God is all powerful, right? So if he's given Jesus divinity, right? He's given him all power. He's given him the divine nature, right? So it could refer to the eternal generation of the Word of God or the Son of God.

[11:40] That's very interesting, right? Because we're going to go eventually, you know, to the Gospel of John. Right? Here we have a little bit of the eternal generation of the

[11:53] Son. Right? What's the second sense that he sees in that? time? Is there some way in which even Christ, the Man, can be said to have all power? Even though all power belongs in divine nature, not human nature.

[12:19] Yeah, and he makes a distinction there between the grace of union. This is the second two, of course, the grace of union, and then the grace of his human nature, that's an effect of the grace of union. So his human nature and his divine nature are joined in one person. Father makes more money, or more, you know, in their position life. The father brags about it? right? You see?

[12:54] You see? Okay. Now, in Shakespeare's thirty-seven sonnet, he's not talking about himself and another man who's his son. No, he's talking about two men, right? And one of them is enjoying good fortune, and the author of the sonnet is enjoying, or not enjoying, so they're going bad fortune. But he compares his friendship and rejoicing in his friend's good fortune to that of a father to son. But listen to the first quatrain here: as a decrepit father, you know, takes delight to see his active child do deeds of youth, right?

[13:45] So I made lame by fortune's dearest spite, take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. Beautiful, isn't it? Now, in the sonnet, he's represented as being what free of envy, right?

[14:05] In the good fortune, he's kind of playing with his friend, right? And he compares himself to a what Depepped father, maybe he's on crutches, right? And then the son's up there, you know, winning the game or whatever it is. yeah, He's got his crutch up in the air and so on. See, He doesn't say, you know, for whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, or any of these all or all or more entitled in thy parts to crown and sit, I make my love engrafted to the store, So then I am not lame poor or despised, whilst that this shadow doth such substance give that I in thy abundance am sufficed, and by a part of all thy glory live.

[14:56] Look, what is best? That best I wish in thee That's what friendship is, right? To wish well. This wish I have, then ten times happy me.

[15:11] It's interesting that the other greatest poet, who was Homer, of course, when when uh uh Patroclus right? You know you know the story. huh When Achilles mourns the death of Patroclus Homer uses the same simile, right? You know as a father mourns the death of his son, right, that's the way he describes Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus. I mean, it's interesting, right? That that, that both of these great poets compare that friendship, right?

[15:50] that's free of envy, right? you know, you really love the person as you should. To the love of the Father for the Son, you know. I got thinking about that going back to God the Father and God the Son, right? You know, because we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, like the the friendship of the two, right?

[16:17] But could God the Father envy God the Son? No, but you see, kind of a of a of a image of that, right? In Father and Son here on Earth, right?

[16:44] A father doesn't really envy his son, right? Yeah, see. But may for sure be impossible for God the Father to to envy God the Son, right? As if the honor shown for the Son somehow was what taken away, right? You know,

[17:13] unique honor the Father would have, right? without the Son, right? You know. What's impossible Aristotle says, for God to envy the Son. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, greater miracle that he did, right? Yeah. Um, you know, um...

[17:52] We- we- real problem. if God the Father could envy God the Son, right? They're a real problem. Have to call a meeting of the UN. Well, like the- like the pagan gods, you know, they're envious of each other. Yeah,

[18:14] Yeah, and sometimes you know, I'll let this run. Sometimes there's some horrible things that happen to the Father and the Son too. among the gods, right?

[18:26] I mean, I know Thomas speaks of it someplace too. I think he just says that that everything in creatures is ordained to God, right? It's a manifestation of God's excellence, right? So you can't see the good in the creature as being diminishing his good, right? That's all I remember Thomas really saying about this, you know. But you could also, you know, argue that the genus of envy is what sadness, right?

[19:06] Sadness, um... has as its object something bad, right? That that you uh, hate. You couldn't avoid There's no evil that God and His divine nature, right? Inflicted upon Him, right? So there couldn't be any what sadness in God, right?

[19:37] So there'd be another reason, right? You know, from genus, right? Envy is a form of sadness, if there can't be sadness in God, and there can't be envy in God. But I think Thomas, must be coming in the physics, when he touches upon it, there are tons of different reasons why, right? It's impossible for God to be envious, right? But then Thomas gives a reason that seems to be drawn from the difference there of envy, right?

[20:03] And that is that God cannot see the good of another, right? As you mentioned, His good, right? Because every good in some way, you know, comes from God and reflects God's excellence, right? Um...

[20:30] It would be kind of interesting to think more about particularly why it's impossible for God the Father to envy God the Son, right? You know how how, how we say in in the uh, is it in the uh, Gloria or in the creed, I guess? You took the part in the Holy Spirit, right? That he's you know glorified with them, as something says, what do you say.

[21:08] Yeah, yeah. yeah. In other words, um, if you want to look at this in human terms, right? Well, one person one might be one one might want to be what uniquely glorified, right? You know, like you find these things about scientists sometimes, you know, they make a discovery almost simultaneously, because I know these fights you have to who made the discovery first, right? And that sort of thing happens.

[21:46] So in a sense you don't want to be. uh, you want to have uniquely honored for this discovery, right? You don't want to share the Nobel Prize with so and so, right? Uh, you find it really extreme, right? Uh...

[22:13] Well, in human terms, say, you know, looking at it just in human terms, you say, why wouldn't God the Father, then Well, that could be God the Father, right? So I don't want to share this glory with the Son, but have uniquely shown to me, right? The Son is also an image. Perfect image. Yeah.

[22:56] So what's interesting when you study Nicomachean ethics is that the friendship among equals is taken up first, right? Okay. And then Aristotle takes up friendship among unequals, right? And the main example of that is

[23:18] father and son. What's that? Only two men. This is a place these days you don't tell. But so the father and the son is an example of a friendship among unequals, right? And for

[23:37] the case of God the Father and God the Son, right? What's divided in creatures is one. So it's a friendship between a father and a son. It's also a friendship. between like equals, yeah. Quite the friendship of, uh, that you have with your, with your friends, right? Um,

[24:10] equals, right? But uh, with your father it's not. So, it's kind of an interesting example of how it's divided, which is one in God, right?

[25:14] Can you envy yourself Like a friend is another self, right? Uh this I've had a bad bad saying to be said huh When I studied Greek there Philos estin allos autos right? Your friend is another self. huh Shakespeare sometimes calls a friend a second self.

[25:53] But insofar as you regard someone as another self, how can we envy them? No, it's because the father, the human father, I'm talking about the. Human father naturally thinks of his son as another self, right?

[26:15] He can't help but think of his son as another self. That he's more free of envy. It would be to another man, right? In a sense, the friendship with the father and the son is a measure of what friendship should be, right? As far as being free of envy, right? Because you're seeing this person as another self.

[26:45] But um, it seems that that the father and the son are are, as we say in philosophy, not one in number, but one in species, right? These are accidents, two. But but the father, God the father, God the son are one God, not two gods. but the, human father, and the son are two men, right? He's God, right?

[27:20] So that for the God the Father to see the son as another self would be even more so, right? I can say more that he is myself.

[27:38] Father and I are one. Your father and your son can share. You wouldn't have to see me. Me and my dad are one. In some sense, I guess. But you're not one man.

[28:08] So, in a way, for the father to envy the son would be for the father to envy himself, right? You gotta be careful there is a you know real distinction between the Father and the Son, right? It's interesting in the Summa Contra Gentiles when you compare the consideration here: of the simplicity of God in the Summa Contra Gentiles to the Theologiae Thomas has a chapter in the Summa Contra Gentiles having the articles in the Summa Theologiae And it's the uh

[29:26] 19th chapter. And the 18th chapter is the one where he shows there's no composition of God, right? And then it's not until the 20th chapter takes up that God is not a body, which is the first article in Summa Between them, you have chapter 19 where

[29:54] he shows that there's nothing violent in God and nothing unnatural right And it just touches on this envy, you know. Envy is not something natural, right? It's something unnatural. Although I fall naturally. it's very cold envy, right? But since God is the measure of all things there.

[30:40] So this is natural for me to envy my son if I said that. It's already unnatural for God, the Father, to envy the Son, God the Son.

[30:55] So there's nothing unnatural in God right? Thomas shows in the 19th chapter. no violence in God right See Aristotle sees it in the in the he gives out a set of reasons why you should take up friendship, you know. Some are are most proper to ethics, right? Like friendship seems to be a virtue or an effective virtue, right? So they have a business to do with friendship.

[31:44] therefore. Or he says that you know you know ethics is the foundation of political philosophy, right? he talks about how important friendship is among citizens, and that's even more important than justice, right? And how no one wants to live without friends, and then you know he has an inductive argument: poor need friends, right? Well-to-do need friends. you know I need all my money, you know. I got to you know, store it with people and you know friends.

[32:18] and so on first of all, That uh you know, all these reasons, But then he comes to reasons that are deeply natural. And so I always raise the questions too. This when I teach it, I say this seems to be a reason for saying it belongs to natural philosophy, right? I mean, for a second, that is friendship is something by nature. For the next reason, not by belonging to ethics, but by natural philosophy, right?

[32:50] But then I go on to point out that if there's nothing natural about friendship, right? nothing is good or bad by nature uh, then it wouldn't belong to ethics. It wouldn't be the ethics if nothing was good or bad by nature. Uh, it would just be, you know, sociology or something, right? And uh, so uh, the Aristotle says friendship is natural between the parents and the offspring, but that's the same kind of shows But even other animals have that kind of friendship between parents and offspring.

[33:24] And then he goes on, you know, among those in the same tribe, and so on In some ways it's all men, right? He gives an example there as well. you take the wrong turn somebody you know, point out that You know, how spontaneously we do that, right? You know, we help out a stranger and they ask for directions, and like that, right? And, uh, In some sense, every man is a friend of every man, right?

[33:52] You know? And, uh... It's not about what you practice, right? Different nationalities, you know, different tribes are nationalities on each other. This serves the both of them. Each other.

[34:17] Naturalness is purely based on our... All oneness. Yeah. yeah. Their style sees that, you know. Political, by nature. Yeah, but he gives that as a, that is the reason it's appropriate to. you know, ethics being the foundation of political philosophy that you have to talk about. necessarily for like the city, right?

[35:08] This being actually goes back, you know, as I say, fundamentally the father and son, of everybody else. What's that? That's Shakespeare's metaphor there, a symbol, right? His decrepit father that he takes delight to.

[35:41] Comparing his friendship with this man. right, to the decrepit father for this son, doing great deeds. He took care of father's well. People will do it right. It's really kind of marvelous in representing a man free of envy, right? He compares him to a decrepit father. It's kind of that is kind of a model, there, right?

[36:09] I was thinking the other day about about the fourth commandment, which is honor your father and mother, right? And how well it's positioned, right? I'm always struck by the fact that it comes after. That's the first among the commandments, right? But it seems to be the closest to the first three commandments, right?

[36:33] Yeah, well, yeah, honor your father and mother. right? That's a... honor to God, right? I mean, there's some similarity there, right? But then you ask, you know, why should you honor your father and mother, right? I suppose the basic reason is they gave your life. And the next commandment is thou shalt not kill, right?

[36:53] Well. in a sense, there's a contradiction there, right? To honor your father and mother because they gave you life, when you take someone else's life,

[37:07] you wouldn't honor your father and mother for giving you a life if life did not that great good. You know? If you give you a pig, I'd probably honor you. Right? But if you give me a wife, my goodness, right?

[37:27] You need to turn around and take somebody else's life if they don't respect. We turn on takes an element of respect to pray. It's interesting that it's positioned between those two, You know, when, you have things that's in order, right? You got to see how how this you know has an affinity with what comes before, but also some prediction what comes after, right? This took me off.

[37:53] Now, how can you commit abortions and this or you know, or any kind of killing, right? You honor your father and mother, It makes sense, doesn't it?

[38:04] Can't be honoring your father and mother, every reason to honor them without respecting life. Because what you receive from them, that's the whole reasons why you want them, right? You turn around and kill somebody.

[38:19] Not respect life at all. in terms of friendship, though, right? you know, how we reduce the commandments to the terms of friendship? right? But I know of God that? he is greater.

[38:45] It's appropriate that. the first one is the parent or child, but it's effectively the same here. There's great similarity. between God the Father and God the Son, here, the Father and the Son too.

[39:09] Some things on in the Near East biblical studies, this when they made this covenant. Yeah. And said that the ones that they found under one came as another covenant. When at when they make the covenant, they always use the term now my son. the one that points they've made in this chat, at least that's my son. and what my father believes they're now in front of the same.

[39:47] Help find your help. See now, I'm going way, you know. to your break. Can you tell me here? I'm just checking.