The Incarnation, Saint Nick and a Punch in the Face

Incarnation

We sing it over and over in the great carols of Christms: “Come and Behold Him … born the King of Angels.” … “Come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.” “Who would have dreamed or ever foreseen, that we would hold God in our hands?”

“O Come, O Come Immanuel and ransom captive Israel.”

“Veiled in flesh, the Godhead See, Hail th’Incarnate Deity ...”.

At Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation: God With Us. But what exactly does that mean? HOW did God live with us? It’s a question that people have often misunderstood in history - not just people in the non-Christian world, but people INSIDE the Church,as well.

If our salvation … if your ETERNITY depends on your relationship to this Jesus: Who He is and WHAT He’s done … then we need to be clear in our understanding.

There are very few people I know, who don’t respect Jesus. They will be quick to say – “He was a great teacher, wise guru, prophet. If more people lived like Jesus and followed his example - this world would be a much better place”.

Many will even agree that He was the Son of God. By that they mean, he was filled by God as much as any human possibly can ever be filled with the presence of God

There is NOTHING the devil would rather do than lead people off track, when it comes to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So, buckle up - put your thinking caps on. This morning we are going to dig into what the Bible does say and does NOT say about Immanuel, God with us.

In every single case – these groups will say, “We believe in Jesus”. But in every single case – these other groups answer the question, “Who is Jesus?” with a response that is radically UN-Christian way. Can you articulate the Christian response?

It is absolutely critical that you know Jesus Christ well – and that you can tell the difference between the Christ of the Bible and the Christ that other religions claim to honor. Your life depends on it.

I want to take you this morning, to the prologue of the Gospel of John, where John, the disciple and apostle – the one who know Jesus, while he was on the earth, more intimately than anyone else. And I want to point you to the Christ of the Bible - - that we could understand him a little more clearly, that we could worship the Word made Flesh a little more greatly – and that you would go away from this place this morning, understanding, that when you tear away all the fancy, trendy, wrapping paper of language games – there are ultimately only 2 responses you can give to Jesus - - - and they are the same 2 that there have always been. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

JOHN 1:1-18

The first truth about the Son that we see in this passage is:

The Fully Divine Nature of the Son

Verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word …” These words may easily slip past your eyes, without making much of an impact. But John’s audience – his original readers would not miss what this phrase is saying: They know the Hebrew Scriptures. They read the words and their minds immediately flash back to Gen.1:1, before creation existed …, “In the beginning God …” Here we read, In the beginning was THE WORD.”

Who is Jesus? The answer goes back before Bethlehem’s manger, before the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary - -- it goes back to before creation: “IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God AND THE WORD WAS GOD.”

Now, many would agree that not only is Jesus special, but that he has a special relationship with God – even that he lived before the world was created. “The Word was with God? … No problem.” BUT THE WORD WAS GOD?!

They choke on that one. There is only 1 God! How can the Word be God, too?

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That’s why, when the J.W.s come knocking on your door, you – think to yourself – “Today, I’m going to answer the door – we just looked at John 1 and it says right here in verse 1 that the Word WAS God. I’m going to nail those cultists so hard today, they won’t ever come back!”

You open the door, quickly dispense with the small talk, then whip out your Bible and say, “Here, John 1:1, ‘the Word WAS GOD’. Take that!”

Just so you are prepared, if you do that, they will not cower in fear, they will not run away ashamed that they’ve been busted. They will turn in their own, Watchtower Translation, to this very verse and show you that there, in their Bible, John 1:1 says the Word was A God. And they will tell you that the reason for that is that there is no definite article, no ‘the’, in the Greek of John 1:1.

I don’t have time to go into all the details, but let me point out that, grammatically, you cannot do that here – add the indefinite article, ‘a’. The Greek here is much clearer than our English translations. Literally, in Greek, the verse reads, “… the Word was with God and GOD WAS THE WORD.” It is EMPHATIC. That is why no other English translation and no reputable Greek scholar, whether Christian or not, will affirm the Jehovah’s Witnesses attempt to throw off what God inspired John to write here. But as I said before, there is nothing new under the sun. The J.W.s are simply present day followers of Arius.

Have you heard the name Arius before? The father of Arianism (and I don’t mean the racist philosophy of the German Nazi party in the 1930s and 40s). Arius was born in Libya, North Africa in about 256. He became a well-known elder in the important church of Alexandria Egypt. In those days, Alexandria was second only to Rome as the most important Church in the world. Arius began a great controversy, when he started to teach that the Son of God was different, in his essence from the Father. He taught that the Son is NOT eternal – but that there was some point, somewhere, when he was actually created by the Father. That is the Arianism we are talking about.

Arius pointed out that the Bible says itself that Jesus is begotten: John 3:16, and right here in v. 14. The ESV translates the phrase, ‘the only Son of the Father’, there in the middle of the verse. The NIV has, “The One and Only”. The older translations, like KJV have the “the only begotten”. They are all trying to best translate the Greek word, ‘monogeneis’.

“Well,” said Arius, “if the Father BEGAT the Son, He that was begotten MUST have had a beginning to his existence … there MUST HAVE BEEN A TIME WHEN THE SON DID NOT EXIST.”

Arius used the Greek word: “homoiousios” – “homoi” means ‘like’ and ‘ousios’ means ‘nature or essence’. “homoiousios means that the Son’s nature was LIKE God’s. “He is a great being. He is very much like God – but He is lesser than God – He is a created being.”

Controversy spread across the empire. The Emperor Constantine realized that something had to be done, or the Church would split apart. He called a great council together in 325, in the city of Nicaea..

At this time of year, one of the most ubiquitous images is a jolly old soul, with a white beard, twinkling eyes, wearing a red suit and little children are hoping that he pays a visit to their home on Christmas Eve, to bring them the gifts they’ve been talking to mom and dad about. Everyone knows Santa Claus.

What many people don’t know - is that the person we know as Santa Claus, is based on a real person named Nicholas, who was a bishop in the city of Myra, in modern day Turkey in the 4th century. Nicholas had the reputation for being very generous. He was born into a very wealthy family, was very rich himself, but he was fully devoted to Jesus Christ - so considered his money as a tool for worship and ministry. He helped as many people as he could. The story is told of Nicholas hearing about a local family whose debt was spiralling out of control. A father had been left alone to raise his daughters. He wanted to see his girls married off and taken care of, but he had no money for a dowry. With no dowry, there was very little chance they would ever find a husband.

Nicholas wanted to help - but he didn’t want glory for himself, so he wanted to help them in secret. As he had been doing around the city for some time, he went out, at night, under the cover of darkness, carrying a bag of money - and threw the moneybag through the window of this particular poor man’s house. He did it over and over again - until all the man’s daughters were married off.

Over the years, his fame increased. He received ‘sainthood’ in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches - and the name Santa Claus, comes from the Dutch Sinter Klaas, which is Dutch for Saint Nicholas.

Well, there’s another story you may not have heard about Saint Nicholas. He was apparently invited to the Council of Nicea. While the deliberations were going on - 300 or so church leaders gathered together to deal with the Arian controversy.

As the story goes, Arius or one of his representatives was reading from a sheaf of parchments - the Arian teaching - There was a time when the Son of God was NOT - that He was the first created being .... and so on. Eventually, Nicholas had heard enough - and while others were muttering their disapproval of Arius and some were shouting out loud from their places - Nicholas couldnt’ take it any longer, so he got up, walked over to where Arius stood, tried to reason with him - only to have Arius just raise his voice and keep speaking over top of Nicholas. And that’s when Nicholas raised his hand and punched, or slapped Arius on the side of the head to try and smack some sense into him.

That friends, is the moment Santa Claus punched a heretic.

Now, unfortunately, that story seems to be a legend that has grown up over the years. There is some support for Nicholas being at the Council of Nicea, but not really any support for the punch in the face.

I love the story, though, because it paints a picture of how important the truth of the Incarnation is. Nicholas, along with many other church leaders an Christians, had languished in prison under the brutal persecution of the Emperor Diocletian, for their faith in Jesus Christ,torture was part of life - Nicholas was not sure whether he would ever see the outside world again or rot away in captivity. He suffered because he trusted his Saviour -

Now, freed by Constantine - he is listening to teaching from Arius that denies that the Saviour he has suffered for, is actually the God who can save. Nicholas wasn’t alone -

Pastors, church leaders came from all over the empire to deal with this most important issue: The Council met from May through August, finished its deliberations and concluded with a statement of orthodoxy that has defined Christianity to this day: The Creed of Nicaea:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

The creed ends with an anathema:

“And those who say: there was a time when he was not; and: he was not before he was made; and: he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or thing, or the Son of God is created, or changeable, or alterable; they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

Can you tell what the gathered Church thought of Arius’ teaching?

SLIDE; NOT ‘homoi-ousios’, but “homo-ousios”.

Homo-ousios –“homo” means “the same”.

Do you see the difference? The Son is Not of ‘like’ essence to God; The Son is of the SAME SUBSTANCE. Only one letter different, but that difference is INFINITELY IMPORTANT. Could the Church be any clearer? Arius is WRONG! And just for good measure – they burned Arius’ writings in a big bonfire. Friends, there are doctrines in the Bible that are worth fighting for - living and dying for. The Son IS THE EVERLASTING GOD. This is a hill worth dying for. - - not because a council said so, not because I say so … but because God’s Word says so. The Council of Nicaea recognized that. Though Arius’ allies didn’t give up the fight - - they kept spreading his teaching – All but 2 of the bishops at the council signed the creed. But many of them signed with treachery in their hearts and scheming in their minds. Then they promptly went away and kept teaching Arianism – kept teaching that the Son is less than the Father.

Decades of warfare went by … At times it seemed the whole world had abandoned orthodoxy and run after Arius.

Fifty-Six years later, in 381, another council was called in Constantinople to confirm and clarify what the council of Nicaea had declared all those years before. And that is exactly what happened.

But there is nothing new under the sun. And in every time period, another challenge comes - - another intellectual descendant of Arius comes along and says: “The Son was made: He had a beginning.”

The Councils and the Church throughout history, simply have recognized that, unless we stand here – the Gospel makes no sense. There is no Good News.

The wise men from the east, who followed the star, searching for the newborn Jesus, so that they could worship him – they were committing idol worship.

The risen Jesus, when Thomas had been invited to stick his sweaty finger into the pierced hands and side of the Savior, and fell to his knees with the cry, “My Lord and My God” - - Jesus is guilty of encouraging idol worship, he didn’t stop Thomas – in fact, he approved of the worship.

A created being – no matter how important he is – can NOT pay the price for your sins or mine. And if Jesus, on the cross, did not purchase your freedom, your forgiveness, then you face the prospect of standing before the throne of God the Judge - - - depending solely on your own merits. That’s a HOPELESS prospect. And if you dig beneath the surface of what you are being offered by the couple at your door – AND every other religious faith that offers you a created, lesser Son of God – you will end up with a message that says, “DO IT YOURSELF.” “Work and work and prove and prove that you are good enough for God.”

The Word was God.

Wrong Views of Christ’s Relationship with God:

1) Arianism –– named after Arius, leader in the church in Alexandria, Egypt in the 4th century. He taught that long before creation – God the Father was all alone – He created The Son and the Holy Spirit – Christ is a created being, less God than the Father. Arianism is alive and well today, J.W’s hold to that teaching, among others. Arians believe that Jesus is NOT God incarnate. Oh He’s special, for sure - He’s not like any other human … He’s like the greatest super-hero of all super-heroes. If you take the Avengers and combine all of their powers together - Jesus is something like that - He is a super-Angel … the one who created everything ELSE that exists - everything outside of himself … He is the means of God’s salvation … but He is NOT eternal. He is certainly not co-equal with God the Father. At its root, Arianism is the denial that Jesus is the eternal, uncreated God of the universe. There was a time when He was NOT - He is a creature. Evn if the highest of all creatures - He is a creature still.

But we’ve just read that

J.W’s will support their view by taking you to places in Scripture, like the prologue to John’s Gospel - John 1:1, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word WAS God”. But they will take you there in their own translation, ‘The Watchtower Translation’ because that’s the only place that it works … Their translation reads, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was A god.”

SINCLAIR FERGUSON

SAINT NICHOLAS:

If that were true, Jesus is not God at all – He is a creature – and a creature cannot pay the price for another creature’s sin.

2 DOCETISM:

There have been others who have said, “Well, when it comes to Jesus Christ, we’re dealing with God. We know God is SPIRIT, so surely what is spiritul can’t have anything to do with matter - with the physical - since matter is bad. Matter is what keeps us bound to this earth and keeps us from floating up to heaven. So, if Jesus is God - He can NOT have a physical body).

God cannot actually be ‘Incarnate’ - enfleshed. So Jesus only appears to be fleshly … human.

Docetism comes from the Greek word, ‘dokeo’ - which means, ‘to appear or seem ...’.

It’s some kind of trick performed by God the ‘magician’.

The early Church said, ‘No - that can’t be … docetism doesn’t agree with the Scriptures: We read, in the gospels, that Jesus touched with his real hands to heal real bodies … His back was whipped with real whips and he bled with real blood. After his resurrection, he ate real fish and told doubting Thomas to touch his scars to prove that it was really him … in a real body.

That’s the point John is making in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dweelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father ...”.

John expresses how serious it is to believe the ‘en-fleshedness’ of Jesus, in his second letter, near the end of the NT: 2 John 7, ‘For many deceivers have gone outinto the eworld, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

3 APOLLINARIANISM:

Apollinaris was bishop of Laodicea in the latter part of the 4th century – and his followers taught a kind of ‘Zombification’ of the person of Jesus.

They said, “Okay - Jesu is God incarnate … we get hat. He had a physical body - we’re not Docetists. he really is eternal God - we’re not Arians either. But how can He be BOTH God AND man?”

“Here’s how it went: He took on a human body, but He kept only his Divine Mind and soul.”

So, what happens is a little like one of those zombie shows that used to be on TV all the time. I didn’t watch them, but they were very popular. The zombies are dead in their graves and starting to rot when, somehow, the corpses are re-animated come back to life. That’s the idea of Apolloniarianism: You’ve got a human body, without a soul or mind of its own, anymore … then the 2nd person of the Trinity comes along and inabits or possesses that body. Jesus doesn’t have a human mind or soul - He has a Divine mind and soul that somehow takes possession of a huan body.

That’s Apollonarianism … but that ALSO doesn’t fit. Jesus MUST have a human soul AND a divine soul as well - If He is NOT FULLY human - He cannot save humans

4 NESTORIANISM:

The fourth WRONG idea about the Incarnation comes from the teaching known as Nestorianism. Sticking with the horror movie theme - If the idea of Apollonarianism is like a Zombification of a human body … Nestorianism is like a POSSESSION - Like the Exorcist movie. Once again, I’ve never watched it - but I get the gist of it: A girl is taken poseesion by an outside spirit (in that case it’s a demonic spirit - the opposite of the Incarnation).

The idea is that an existing person is taken over by some other spiritual entity - so Jesus was actually NOT ONE PERSON, but two people, stuck in the same body. In the one body – Human person and a Divine person. If you have ever seen the Lord of the Rings – like the character Smeagle – has the job of guiding Frodo the Hobbit, through dangerous terrain, to the place where he can get rid of the the Ring and set Middle Earth free. Smeagle takes his job seriously - - - only problem is that he has a split personality – an alter ego – whose name is Gollum – and he hates the hobbits and wants the Ring for himself. At various points in the movies – see Smeagle arguing with Himself – Gollum – talking to himself:

The Bible makes it clear – Jesus did not have a split personality - -- Nowhere do you see Jesus arguing with himself - -

5 ADOPTIONISM

There is a fifth error the church has faced about the Incarnation - called ‘Adoptionism’. Adoptionists say that Jesus was born fully human but NOT divine. The baby in the manger was fully human - there was no God there, yet. But at some point in life - usually thought to be at his baptism, God took possession. When Jesus comes out of the water, after being baptized by John the Baptist, when the heavens open, the dove comes down, the voice calls out, “This is my beloved Son” … at THIS moment of anointing - THAT’S when the human Jesus is taken possession of by the 2nd person of the Trinity.

But John 1:14 tells us, ‘The Word BECAME flesh ...’ NOT take control of another person. When Gabriel visits Mary to announce the birth, in Luke 1 - and Mary questions how she’s going to have a baby, since she’s a virgin. His answer makes it very clear that this baby is going to be divine from the womb. Luke 1:35, “And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most Hight will overshadow yuo, therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God’.”

Philippians 2:6-7, “Christ Jesus, … though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being BORN IN THE LIKENESS of MEN ...”. He took on our humanity from.

6 MONOPHYSITISM (EUTYCHIANISM)

One more error I want to point out - Monophysitism or Eutychianism - This view of Jesus was named after Eutyches, the leader of a monastery in the 5th century. If Nestorianism taught that there was an outside personality that came and took over the human person of Jesus … Eutychianism taught that that Christ had only one nature – that Jesus’ human nature was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature – so both natures were changed - - - and what you had left was a THIRD kind of nature – partly human, partly divine. So, it’s like the two natures went through a blender. He is ONE person - so when the Divine nature meets the Human nature - it’s like when you put fruit into your blender to make a smoothie - You put in the blue - blueberries and the yellowish banana and push the button - and what you have at the end is neither blue nor yellow … but a mash up of both.

When it comes to the incarnation - you have one person who is PART God and PART man. Not fully either one. That’s heresy too. You cannot water down God - or you don’t have God at all.

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is ONE person, with TWO DISTINCT natures: He is fully God and Fully man. And all of these heresies were rejected by the church in Church councils because the Church recognized that none of them measure up to the Word of God: Either they sacrificed Jesus’ true Divinity - that He is Fully God, or they sacrificed His True Humanity - that Jesus is Fully Human .... or they sacrificed the unity of His person: He is One Being.

And every single one of them leaves us with less hope, less strength - and leaves Jesus Christ with less glory.

All of these heresies were rejected by the church in several Church councils because the Church recognized that none of these teachings measure up to the Word of God – and every single one of them leaves us with less hope, less strength – and leaves Christ with less glory: “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

Council of Chalcedon 451:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.