[0:00] All right, well, we'll have to hope Chris and Lisa can handle three kids. Okay. All right, well, we are going to be continuing our worship as we receive God's Word this morning.
[0:14] My name is Dave. I'm one of the pastors here at Squamish Baptist Church, and it's going to be my privilege this morning to deliver some teaching from God's Word to us.
[0:24] So let me begin by leading us in prayer. Father, I know that any good thing that happens, any good deed that we do, anything that lasts, that is of true lasting significance has got to start with prayer, seeking you for help and your spirit for help.
[0:43] So we come to you. Lord, I recognize that apart from your spirit, my words are powerless. They fall without accomplishing anything in one ear and out the other.
[0:57] May your spirit be a work to give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to understand. I'm asking you this morning that we may remember who Jesus Christ really is, that we may come to know him better, come to marvel at him more, come to see that he is unique, that he is the only, the only human being who has ever known you face to face, because he himself has that divine nature.
[1:39] May we come to see that clearly and marvel at him and recognize that Jesus Christ is what sets our faith apart. He is the one who gives us life, salvation, and hope for the future.
[1:56] Lord, let us marvel at your son this morning. Amen. Amen. A couple months ago, I was on a flight and was sitting next to my seatmate, and we started, he struck up a conversation.
[2:12] She's one of those guys who's extremely outgoing, extroverted, exuberant, and we ended up starting talking about religion, which is always a really interesting topic of conversation when you're on a few hours' flight next to another person and you sort of wonder how that's going to go.
[2:29] And it was a great conversation because unlike, you know, in Canada, it's like forbidden. And it's not illegal, but it's kind of like, you know, people don't, you don't talk about that.
[2:40] You don't talk about that. But this guy was very open, very excited. We had a, we had a bit of a rollicking conversation because we, we both really liked each other and really disagreed with each other.
[2:50] Which is actually one of my favorite, it's my favorite kind of conversations where you're, you're, you know, you're engaging with each other, you're disagreeing, but at the same time, you know, you both are enjoying each other and enjoying that interaction, that exchange of ideas.
[3:05] And one of the just real sticking points that we had was he fundamentally carried this idea that all religions below the surface are pretty much the same, that any differences among different religions are just surface differences, that once you get underneath, they're all pretty much the same underneath.
[3:25] And of course, I disagreed with him and challenged him on that. And I said, I mean, the very fact we were disagreeing with about that, doesn't that prove my point? He found that one a little challenging to answer.
[3:38] So if you were sitting though next to him and he were to turn to you and ask, okay, well then what is it that really sets Christianity apart? What's at the core that makes the Christian faith different?
[3:53] That sets it, sets it apart from every other religion, from every other spiritual experience or way of living that exists in the world today?
[4:04] How would you answer that? Now I know there's probably many, many different things people could say, but think that through. How would you answer that?
[4:15] What sets our faith apart? I want to propose to you that everything in the Christian faith really flows out of two realities, two things that we believe that are like a fountainhead.
[4:31] That everything else distinct about the Christian faith flows out of that fountainhead and is downstream from these two realities. First, we understand that God is a trinity.
[4:44] There's one God, three persons, each of whom is fully God and each of whom is distinct from one another, and yet there's only one God.
[4:56] There's a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in eternal relationship with one another. And there's so many implications of that. It just fundamentally changes the way that we look at the world, we think about the world.
[5:08] And then second, we understand that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. So the trinity and what we would call the incarnation, that there is a God who has become fully man.
[5:27] Everything about the Christian faith that delights people and everything about the Christian faith that disgusts people flows from those two things, from those two realities.
[5:41] As we've been visiting our church's affirmation of faith, we would do well to consider the second of those two realities, the doctrine of Christ. We want to get this right because it is fundamental to our faith.
[5:55] And many false teachings, many heresies, most of them involve messing around with the doctrine of Christ.
[6:07] Over the last year or so, BK has taken us on a journey through the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the New Testament of the Bible. And we have seen the life of Christ.
[6:18] We've encountered his teaching. We've encountered his works. Now, what I want us to do is let's step back for a couple Sundays and let's consider what all of this means. We want to answer two questions.
[6:31] Who is Jesus Christ? And second, what did he come to earth to do? And next week, we're going to talk about that second question.
[6:41] We're going to summarize the story of Jesus Christ, what he came to earth to do. We're going to talk about his birth, life, death, resurrection, and then, of course, the parts that we don't talk about much, but are actually extremely critical.
[6:52] His ascension into heaven and him being seated at the right hand of God. Today, we're going to consider who the Bible says that Jesus Christ is.
[7:04] Who is he in his nature? That is the question that Jesus confronts his disciples with. In the gospel accounts, there's this critical point where he asks, who do you say that I am?
[7:18] Each of us must be able to answer that question. Who do you say that I am? And here is how we as a church answer this question in our affirmation of faith.
[7:32] And if you want to read this in its fullness, you can find this on our church website. But here's what we have. The supreme revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ, who is both fully God and fully man.
[7:47] The Son of God is a fully divine person of the Trinity who has existed eternally. In order to save human beings, he added to his divinity a full and perfect human nature and became Jesus of Nazareth.
[8:03] In this sermon, I want us to understand what all of that means. And I want us to understand that we're not asserting this blindly.
[8:15] We don't want to just say these things and not back it up. I mean, imagine how you'd feel. Suppose that a friend of yours this afternoon comes up to you breathlessly and says, I met a man at the beach at Alice Lake and I'm pretty sure this man is actually God.
[8:32] Now, you'd probably be, hmm. Hmm. You might have a little skepticism, would you not? Why would we expect any less from our culture?
[8:44] Why would we expect them to have anything less than skepticism when we claim that a Jewish carpenter born in the town of Nazareth 2,000 years ago is God?
[8:57] And if he is God, perhaps they, why would we then be able to turn around and believe and say, oh yeah, and he's fully man too. Where do we get these ideas from?
[9:13] They came from somewhere, right? But let's consider the question. How does scripture claim that Jesus Christ is God? How do the writings left to us by the prophets, the apostles, the eyewitnesses who knew Jesus personally, who saw him and what he did and recorded his words and teachings, how do they claim that Jesus Christ is God?
[9:33] Can we back that up? But we'll be looking at a number of scripture this morning. A number of them I'll have up here on the screen so that you're not frantically flipping around in your Bible to find them. But I want us in particular to be in Hebrews chapter 1 and 2.
[9:48] And so open your Bibles to Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. And those passages, I'd like to invite you to look down in your Bible and see those right there on the page. If you're using one of the Bibles that are usher's hand out, that's page 1001.
[10:06] And I'd like us to consider the direct claim that is being made in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. And this is how the book of Hebrews is introduced.
[10:20] Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
[10:32] But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
[10:45] He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[10:59] After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
[11:14] Now notice what it says about this son, about Jesus Christ. In verse 2, we see that he created the world. Then look at verse 3.
[11:26] It says he upholds the universe. We learn that this son is the exact imprint of God's nature.
[11:36] He is superior even to the most powerful and majestic spiritual beings that God has ever created, the angelic rulers and authorities.
[11:47] And if you glance down to verse 8 on your page, you'll find this statement. But of the son, he says, In this verse, this son is addressed as God.
[12:13] And that is very reminiscent and very consistent with the scripture that Carl read earlier this morning. In John chapter 1, verse 1, Jesus Christ is being referred to as the Word.
[12:28] And it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We could go on to many other passages in the Bible that directly refer to Jesus as God and as Lord.
[12:43] But let's consider further some claims that the authors of the Bible made about Christ. The scriptures claim that Jesus Christ possessed all the attributes of God himself.
[12:56] That's something that is true of no human being. For example, look down to verses 10 through 12 in Hebrews chapter 1. Speaking of the Son of God, speaking of Jesus Christ, it says, Here we see two claims about Jesus Christ.
[13:38] Unlike the world that he created. Jesus Christ is always the same. Later in Hebrews, it says, He is the same yesterday and today and forever.
[13:51] Here it says, His years have no end. In other words, he is eternal. That is something that is true only of God. He exists outside of time.
[14:03] Outside of the created order. He has no beginning and no end. And in the same way that God is, he is immutable.
[14:14] That means that he never changes. He remains perfect forever. Immutable. We could look at other scriptures that demonstrate these attributes of God.
[14:26] For example, in John chapter 2 verses 23 through 25. Look at what is said about Jesus Christ. It says, When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
[14:42] But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them. Because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man. For he himself knew what was in man.
[14:54] He knows what's in people's hearts. The hidden beliefs, the hidden desires, the hidden motives. That even they may not know.
[15:08] That's something only God can do. Only God knows the heart. That inner core of who you are. Which a lot of times even you don't know. Jesus Christ is omniscient.
[15:20] That means he knows everything that is. Everything that was. Everything that will be. Everything that could possibly be. Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus Christ demonstrated his sovereignty.
[15:32] In Mark chapter 2, he forgives the sins of a paralyzed man. The local Jewish leaders, they immediately recognize correctly. That is something only God can do.
[15:43] Only God can forgive sins against God. And then by healing the man, Christ purposely demonstrates, yes, he does indeed have sovereign authority to forgive sins.
[15:56] And throughout his ministry, Jesus Christ, he accepts worship from men. That is something not even angels can do. After Christ walks on water across the sea of Galilee, we're told in Matthew chapter 14, verse 33.
[16:14] Those in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly you are the son of God. He's worshipped. He's worshipped not only by men, but by the angels themselves.
[16:25] And you can see that here in Hebrews 1, verse 6. When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him.
[16:35] Even the angels, even spiritual beings of unimaginable power and glory, who whenever they appear in Scripture, people fall at their feet, tempted to worship the angels and have to be told not to.
[16:51] But the angels themselves bow the knee before the Son of God. Jesus Christ is fully God, just as the Father is, just as the Holy Spirit is.
[17:01] But this claim is not enough. It might surprise you that one of the earliest false teachings that plagued the church, that showed up even when the New Testament was being written, was the teaching, yeah, yeah, Jesus was fully God.
[17:24] Believe it or not, they accepted, these false teachers accepted that, but then what they claimed was, well, but he wasn't really human. He was fully God, but not really human. Rather, they would say, God simply appeared as though he were a man.
[17:40] The Apostle John warned about the people who taught such things. In 1 John chapter 4, he called them false prophets. He writes, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
[17:56] For many false prophets have gone out into the world. So then he gives you, here's how you can tell them. Here's how you can tell they're false. He says, by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
[18:12] And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
[18:26] And John uses that label, Antichrist, to describe the spirit that motivates people to make these false claims about Jesus Christ.
[18:37] If you get Jesus Christ wrong, then you are empowered by the spirit of Antichrist. That is a sobering reality. So we not only have to get it right that Jesus is God, we have to get it right that he is human as well.
[18:56] How does scripture claim and support that Jesus Christ is human? If you're looking for direct claims, it's very easy.
[19:07] You need to go no further than literally the very first words of the New Testament. Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. Here's how it begins. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
[19:21] Right? A guy who came from these human fathers with human ancestors. It then proceeds to catalog his human ancestry. Or just simply, in your Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 2.
[19:33] It's on the very next page from where you're at. The author continues to write about Jesus Christ and then hears what he says in verse 6. It has been testified somewhere, what is man that you are mindful of him?
[19:46] Or the son of man that you care for him? Jesus is indeed a human being because this verse is applied to him.
[19:58] He had, and we see in the gospels, more evidence that he is human. He had a human body that grew tired and needed rest.
[20:09] The gospel authors mention that he would become weary after a long journey or a long day of teaching. He would grow hungry or thirsty.
[20:19] He would need food and drink to sustain him. His body suffered the physiological effects of stress. Famously in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion, his stress and anxiety levels reached such a point that he was sweating blood.
[20:37] It's a real physiological phenomenon. His body was capable of suffering and of dying on a cross.
[20:49] Furthermore, Jesus demonstrated human limitations. This surprises some people. When you read the gospels, they make this very clear. Jesus matured and he learned new things as he grew up.
[21:04] He didn't come out of the womb just with complete, you know, just this completely mature man. In Luke 2, verse 52, we read, Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
[21:17] He grew up just like you and I did. With each new challenge in life, Jesus gained the wisdom to obey God as a man, to obey him perfectly. In Hebrews 5, verse 8, we're told, Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
[21:35] He actually learned. As a human being, now this seems, this is very obvious. Jesus was not omnipresent. He wasn't everywhere in the universe present at the same time, right?
[21:49] He could only be in one place at a time. If you read the gospel accounts, he's walking everywhere. He's moving from place to place with his disciples. Something that surprises many people is that at one point, Jesus even claimed that as a human being, his knowledge of the future was limited.
[22:09] Consider Mark 13, verse 32. Jesus says, concerning, he's talking about this future time of his return. And he says, concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
[22:27] He's actually saying he does not, as a human being, know when that will happen. When Jesus was raised to life, he kept his human body. With all its limitations.
[22:40] He demonstrates this by inviting his disciples to touch him, by eating food with them. Even after Jesus ascended into heaven. And to this day, Jesus remains fully human with a human body and a human soul.
[22:54] And he always will. To this day, Jesus has a human body and a human soul. He will never stop being human. From the time of his conception until the time of his birth, Jesus was and is a man.
[23:09] Just like you and me. And this is captured here in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 17, where you can see on the page about Jesus. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect.
[23:26] So that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God. To make propitiation for the sins of the people. Jesus was made like you and me.
[23:39] Like his brothers, like his sisters, in every respect. Fully human, yet merciful and faithful without any sin.
[23:51] In fact, that means that Jesus Christ is the only fully human being who has ever lived. He is not less human than we are. He is more human. The perfect man.
[24:05] Now we've looked at two truths. That Jesus Christ is fully God. And that Jesus Christ is fully man. Now, what is your gut reaction to that?
[24:21] I think for many of us, if we're completely honest, our gut reaction is sort of a shrugging of our shoulders. That may be for one of two reasons.
[24:32] Sometimes we shrug our shoulders because, you know, the reality is there are very likely people in this room who do not take this seriously. But I think for most of us, we shrug our shoulders just simply because we've gotten so used to hearing this.
[24:49] We heard it all. Maybe you heard it all growing up. You heard it all in church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dave. Get to the good stuff. Tell me how this makes a difference in my life. Do you realize how bizarre this is?
[25:02] How strange. How otherworldly. How alien to our way of thinking.
[25:15] If you ever have any doubt about that, sometimes it's really helpful to sit down to somebody who doesn't think quite the same way you do. Try sitting down with a Muslim friend and telling them, you know what?
[25:29] Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. And watch their reaction. They will be horrified. Because they understand what you're saying.
[25:41] They take seriously what you're saying. Honestly, spiritual conversations with Muslims I find deeply refreshing because they get it. They understand what you're talking about and it horrifies them.
[25:54] How can a high and holy God ever be made a man? It is unthinkable. It is blasphemy. To them. That, by the way, is exactly how the Jewish leaders reacted to Jesus too.
[26:09] You may have noticed that as BK was leading us through the life of Christ. During the trial, when Jesus Christ was on trial before the Jewish leaders, they did not shrug their shoulders at the claims that he made.
[26:21] Here's how the high priest responded in Matthew chapter 26. When Jesus affirmed that he is the son of God, here is what he did. The high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy.
[26:32] What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? And they answered, he deserves death. That is what is at stake here.
[26:44] If we say that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, and if we are wrong, then we are guilty of blasphemy.
[26:55] And each of you who agrees with our affirmation of faith is a blasphemer, who orders vile and degrading things against God, the creator, and the judge of the world.
[27:07] Think about this. Have you ever been in a situation where you were talking with someone about a friend of yours, and you made an ugly and degrading remark about your friend?
[27:23] And then you turned around and you realized they were standing right there. I know that's never happened to you before. How did you feel in that moment when you turned around and saw the look on your friend's face, and you realized what you had just done?
[27:47] Multiply that not by a hundred, not by a thousand, not by a hundred thousand. Because when we do that, not merely to a human friend, but to the living God. That is blasphemy.
[28:01] That is the seriousness of the offense if we get this wrong. We must be sure to get it right. We must be sure to be clear in what we mean when we say this is who Jesus Christ is.
[28:17] How is Christ both God and man? How is Christ both God and man? Thankfully, we don't have to reinvent the wheel on this one.
[28:30] because the reality is our affirmation of faith at our church didn't come out of nowhere. It came out of thousands of years of sorting through and wrestling these issues.
[28:44] We are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. And I encourage you, when we're reading our Bible, we want to read it in the context of our community here being corrected and challenged and encouraged by one another, but also the community of those who came before us, who thought through and wrestled through these things, who lived and sometimes died for these things, who had to work this out and had to respond to false teachers as they appeared because the history of the early church is littered with heresies about how Jesus Christ can be God and man at the same time.
[29:20] If you think the early church was a time when everything was wonderful and perfect and great, well, first of all, you need to read your New Testament more carefully. It was at times a dysfunctional mess.
[29:35] And there were heresies popping up left and right and false teachings everywhere. For example, one view in the first few hundred years of the church, I'll run through three of them real quick, that the early church had to address.
[29:45] One view was that Jesus Christ is one person. And they said, well, maybe he is, he's one person, yeah, but he's this divine soul who's wrapped in a human body.
[29:57] You know, it's kind of like, you know, it's like an iron, like, you know, like Iron Man, the superhero, right? You've got this human being inside of this mechanized suit. Well, here we have God inside of a human suit.
[30:09] And that was the view. But that was rejected by the early church. And among other reasons why that was rejected, it's this, we need Jesus to have a human soul as well. He can't just have a divine soul and a human body.
[30:21] He needs to have a human soul too. Because remember what we read in Hebrews 2, verse 17. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
[30:41] He had to be made like us in every respect, to represent us fully as our priest, as our mediator. You know, up there, the children are learning about how Moses was a mediator with God.
[30:54] Moses was able to stand in for the people because he was human. We need Jesus to be fully human. He has to save not only our bodies, but also our souls.
[31:07] He had a human soul, not just a human body. His material self, his immaterial self, he's human in both respects. And so then another error sprang up in the early church.
[31:20] Well, maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's human, but maybe this Christ is actually two persons. There's this divine person, God the Son, and then there's a human person, Jesus of Nazareth, and those two persons are sort of existing in this Christ wrapper, right?
[31:36] Like, you know, a two-pack, you know, like a two-pack of something or other, right? You know, shampoo and conditioner in a two-pack, right? Sort of like a multiple personality situation.
[31:50] Siamese twins sort of thing, right? Two people sharing one body. But you may have noticed that in all the scriptures that we read, is Christ ever spoken of as though he's like a two-headed thing?
[32:04] No. We never see Jesus talking about, okay, I'm switching over to divine Christ mode, right? And then the human being later wakes up. What happened? What just happened here?
[32:16] Right? Yeah. We don't see divine Christ having a conversation with human Christ, like a little bit of back and forth between the personalities. Christ seems to be one person all the time.
[32:31] Whatever he does as a human, Christ does. Whatever the divine nature does, Christ does. And then there's a third error that appears. Perhaps, well, maybe this Christ, maybe he's become this third kind of thing.
[32:44] Maybe he's not God or man anymore. Maybe he's kind of like this hybrid, right? Like how, you know, you mate a lion and a tiger and the offspring is a liger, right? You know, maybe he's like that.
[32:54] But the church rejected this too because again, how can this, how can a non-human hybrid thing represent us as a man when he's not a man? How can an immutable, unchanging God change, morph into something that isn't God anymore?
[33:13] All of these were rejected and the debate over these things was just finally once and for all settled at the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 AD, named after the town that it was held in.
[33:27] That council produced a document that is now called the Chalcedonian Definition. And the Chalcedonian Definition defines how Jesus Christ is both God and man and it bases its arguments on the scripture and on the teachings that have been handed down from the apostles.
[33:44] The Chalcedonian Definition, which we're going to walk through in a moment here, it confirms exactly what we have just established. Jesus Christ, that Christ has a human body and soul just like ours.
[33:56] Christ is a single person. This single person, unlike us, we just have one nature, a human nature. But Christ is composed of two natures or essences.
[34:08] He has a divine nature and a human nature at the same time. The divine nature and human nature of Christ, they don't mingle together and become a third thing. They remain distinct from one another somehow.
[34:22] And whatever either nature wills and does, the person of Christ does. So here's the Chalcedonian Definition. And there is some technical language, so I'll offer a running commentary as I go through it.
[34:33] But I think what you're going to find is that by the time we're done, you'll say, hey, that Council of Chalcedon, they just simply affirmed everything that we've been talking about so far. So here it is, Chalcedonian Definition.
[34:46] We then, following the Holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
[34:59] The same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood. So fully and perfectly God and fully and perfectly man. Truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body.
[35:13] So he had a rational soul, right? Unlike perhaps an animal that doesn't have that reasoning ability that a human or an angel or that God does.
[35:25] Consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead and consubstantial with us according to the manhood. So consubstantial simply means of the same substance, of the same nature.
[35:35] So he has the same nature as the Father, as God. He has the same nature as us, as a man. In all things like unto us without sin.
[35:46] So he's like us as human beings in every way except that he has never sinned and he has no sin in him. Begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhood.
[35:57] Now that word begotten, we could go into a whole sermon on this, but essentially it's this. That the Son of God is eternally begotten. He's eternally produced and comes forth from the Father in eternity. And in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to the manhood.
[36:20] So just as in eternity he's generated by the Father as God, as a human being he was born of the Virgin Mary, born of a human mother. One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusably, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.
[36:44] Right? Two natures, they don't turn into this weird third nature. They're separate. They're distinct from one another. The distinction of two natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved.
[36:58] So they're distinct. and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[37:14] So we have two natures distinct from one another in one person. He's not 50% man and 50% God. He's 100% man and 100% God and those things stay distinct and yet he's only one person.
[37:27] And then it concludes, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us and the creed of the Holy Fathers is handed down to us.
[37:39] Okay. That wasn't so bad, was it? What does the Chalcedonian definition tell us about Jesus Christ? It tells us this. Christ could grow and mature as a man, yet as God be immutable, unchangeable.
[37:58] Christ could be 30 years old or 25 years old or 12 years old as a man, yet as God be eternal. Christ could be localized in one place as a man, just as we are, yet as God be omnipresent.
[38:14] Christ could lack knowledge and grow in knowledge as a man, yet as God be omniscient. Christ could become weak and even fall asleep as a man, yet as God be omnipotent, all-powerful.
[38:29] Christ could die as a man, yet as God be immortal, undying. Somehow, both realities are true at the same time.
[38:46] Somehow, we have to hold this as a paradox. That means something that seems to contradict itself and yet is true. We don't try to fix it. We don't try to resolve it in a way that, okay, I'm uncomfortable with that.
[38:59] Okay, I need it to make sense. I need it to make sense in a way that relieves our anxieties. That's the way of heresy. Heresy is at its core anxiety relief that we can't handle these deep spiritual realities.
[39:14] We can't handle the fact that God and his ways may beyond our understanding. we must be uncomfortably uncomfortable with this mystery.
[39:26] Be okay with the discomfort that we don't understand this and somehow this is true. That's the way of orthodoxy. That is the only way to be a Christian.
[39:39] That's why it concludes, as the prophets in the beginning have declared concerning him and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us and the creed of the Holy Fathers has handed down to us. They're saying this is the way that we have always been Christians.
[39:52] This is the Christian faith that was handed down to us and we turn aside to no other way. So then, what difference does this make? Okay, that we've talked about, this certainly marks the difference between truth and error, between orthodoxy and heresy, between honor and blasphemy, between heaven and hell.
[40:15] And that is enough, is it not? That's enough to make sure that we know and believe and teach and pass on these things to those who come after us to hand down what we too have received from those who came before us.
[40:30] but there is more. Believe it or not, there's more. Jesus Christ is fully God and that means many good things.
[40:41] That means that he is the creator of all things and that means that he alone is the one who can bring peace to his creation. He alone understands it and knows how to make peace.
[40:52] That's what we find in Colossians chapter 1 where it says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
[41:16] Everything was created through Christ and guess what? This whole world was made for Christ, for the Son of God. He is the reason everything was made. It was made not for you and for me fundamentally although we get to enjoy this good purpose.
[41:30] It was made for him. That's the reason the world exists. As a father's gift to his Son. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
[41:44] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
[42:00] Jesus Christ is fully God. He's not only the creator, that also means he is the sovereign sustainer of all things. He is the only reason that the universe holds together.
[42:13] He's the only reason the atoms of your body hold together and don't just fly off and you disappear into nothingness. He is the one true source of stability in an unstable world.
[42:25] As you can see if you flip back to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 in your Bibles he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[42:41] He is doing it to this day right now as we speak. Jesus Christ is fully God. We saw that he was the image of the invisible God.
[42:53] We see here he's the exact imprint of God's nature and that means that Jesus Christ alone can reveal God to us. That is why in John chapter 1 he is called the word.
[43:08] He's not called the word for no reason. He's called the word because he is the only one who can tell us and show us what God is really like who alone can show us the heart of his father.
[43:21] That's why John 1 verse 18 says no one has ever seen God. Not you, not you, not you, not you, not you, not you. No one has ever seen God. You're not going to know anything.
[43:32] You're not going to really understand God unless someone comes and a word is spoken to you. The only God who is at the father's side he has made him known.
[43:43] Do you want to know what God is like? Look at his son. Listen to his son. Hear the word. Jesus Christ is fully God sent into the world to be its savior and one day its judge.
[44:03] As you can see in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 8 and 9. But of the son he says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
[44:15] You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness as any good judge ought to do. And therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.
[44:29] It is his pleasure, his gladness, his joy to uphold righteousness, to do away with wickedness, to make all things right.
[44:41] And there's more because Jesus Christ is fully man as well. As a man, he was able to be our substitute, to stand in our place, to be the man that we could not be.
[45:01] He was our propitiation. That means that he took the penalty for our sin that we deserved. He received the wrath of God that we deserved. He received the judgment.
[45:14] As a man, he was able to win the victory over the devil that we could not win. Able to triumph over death that we could not triumph over.
[45:27] As a man, Jesus showed us the way to a perfect life of love, a way that we do not know unless we look to him. And as a man, he is able to help us in all our weaknesses, because Jesus understands what it's like to be human.
[45:46] He understands us with deep compassion. And you can read that in Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 through 18. verse 15. Since, therefore, the children, you and me, since, therefore, the children share in flesh and blood, he, as Jesus himself, likewise partook of the same things.
[46:08] He took on flesh and blood. That through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of the death were subject to lifelong slavery.
[46:23] Apart from Jesus, you are subject to lifelong slavery in the fear of death. For surely, it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
[46:39] Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
[46:54] For he, because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. So then, if this is our Lord Jesus Christ, if this is the God-man, what then shall we say?
[47:14] we can say these words handed down to us in the Heidelberg Catechism. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
[47:27] What is thy, what is your only comfort in life and death? That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, I'm not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood is fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head.
[47:59] Yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation. All things must work together for my salvation. And therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
[48:19] Our God and our Father, we come to you confessing that we have not honored your Son as we have been made to do.
[48:32] We have not experienced the joy that comes from seeing and savoring Jesus Christ in all his wonder and all his glory. We've become distracted.
[48:45] We've become satisfied with lesser things. Make us discontent with this world. Make us discontent with anything short of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man.
[49:04] Let us remember that it is he who is at the center of this world. He created all, through him all things were created and for him all things were created and for his pleasure they were created. So this world is about him.
[49:20] Let us not forget that, Lord, but let us remember it because that gives us assurance and confidence in an uncertain, unstable world.
[49:31] we have this rock and this foundation that is hold fast to it. Amen. Amen. Thank you.