Jesus Christ—His only Son, our Lord

Welcome and Recap:

So, last week, we began our Apostles Creed series, through which we are examining the essential doctrines of our faith, which are fundamental and uncompromising. It is my hope, at least, that we may also, through this endeavor, gain an understanding of adiaphora. If you weren’t here last week, this Greek term essentially means ‘things about which we can agree to disagree.’ While it is our goal, as was the point of last week’s message—to preserve what we’ve received from generations of believers’ past and to live those truths and transition them to our children and spiritual children.

Introduction:

So, there are twelve articles, each addressing a member of the Trinity. We discussed how, though The Apostle’s Creed isn’t itself from the Bible, its succinct summary of its points, its tradition of apostolic authorship, and wide-spread use guard it from the critique of the logical fallacy of moving the goal-line and barrier keeping, but make it the actual litmus test between orthodoxy and heresy. 

In his book The Creedal Imperative, Carl Trueman says, “All Christians engage in confessional synthesis; the difference is simply whether one adheres to a public confession.” What he’s saying is that while The Apostle's Creed is not as much a quotation

Because what Trueman says is actually very interesting, he makes the point “that Christians are not divided between those who have creeds and confessions and those who do not; rather, they are divided between those who have public creeds and confessions that are written down and exist as public documents, subject to public scrutiny, evaluation, and critique, and those who have private creeds and confessions that are often improvised, unwritten, and thus not open to public scrutiny, not susceptible to evaluation and, crucially and ironically, not, therefore, subject to testing by Scripture to see whether they are true.”

What fascinates me about the Creedal debate, quite honestly, isn’t so much the aspect that Creeds are important or necessary but that their existence is, in fact, in practice and reality, quite unavoidable.

Your response to the question, “What do you believe?” will be a Creedal Statement of some sort. “I believe the Bible” simply avoids dealing with the problem. Because your response to the question, “And what does the Bible teach?” will, in fact, be, in some form or fashion, a creedal statement. The word creed literally means “a statement of beliefs,” “a set of beliefs which guide someone’s actions,” “a systematic approach to something.”

Prosper of Aquitaine, a 5th-century saint and student of Augustine of Hippo, another saint, I point this out to illustrate the fact that they both, to this point, had clearly traditioned well, and passed down what is a trustworthy doctrine, wrote what became an early Church motto, “Lex orandi, lex credenda,” a Latin term which means, “the law of what is prayed [is] the law of what is believed;” it’s sometimes expanded as Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi,” which means “the law of what is prayed, [is] what is believed, [is] the law of what is lived.” It’s a formulation that states, whatever it is you pray, you do this indeed because of what you believe—or else you would probably not do it, and it informs—or should, because it is the purpose of our faith, how we live.

When I say Creeds are unavoidable, I say this not simply because we’ve got to articulate our faith coherently but because we’re also commanded to be able to articulate our faith.

1 Peter 3:15, “But in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

Transition:

Today, we look at the second article and the first sentence regarding the Second Person of the Trinity: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.”

Illustration:

In the New York Times best-seller One Second After, William Forstchen describes a scenario after America loses a war, literally in one second, after an EMP wipes out all modern electronics, plunging the country into chaos and throwing society back into a pre-industrial state. It depicts the struggle to survive as food supplies dwindle, medicine runs out, and communication with the outside world ceases. Exploring the breakdown of societal norms as desperation leads to violence, disease, and moral dilemmas in such a way that months before its publication, it was cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the Pentagon as an incredibly accurate depiction of our actual, critical weakness and the very real potential that our adversaries might already possess such a weapon.

After its publication in 2009, an entirely new market exploded, “prepping;” there was a TV show where “experts” tested and rated home defense systems, all of which aimed at preserving, naturally, one’s self, ostensibly from hoards of looters in a kill-or-be-killed kind of existence. It excited such a mass hysteria that so many believers even bought in. The reality the book proposes, however, is a meager existence for those who survive past six months.

Thousands of people immediately die as airplanes fall from the sky due to the failure of electronic systems. Did you know there are approximately 5,000 to 6,000 airplanes in the sky over the United States at any given time? That translates to roughly hundreds of thousands of people.

In the first days and weeks, people who depend on modern healthcare die rapidly. Hospitals are overwhelmed and without power or functioning equipment and become unable to treat patients effectively.

In the first months, a lack of sanitation, clean water, and medicine leads to outbreaks of disease. Starvation becomes rampant as food supplies dwindle and distribution systems collapse. Ultimately, the book estimates that 90% of the U.S. population dies within a year.

I’m not saying if you want to live off the grid and provide for you and yours that you’re wrong. I’m not even claiming the moral high ground for how it made me react! I began secretly hoping I might be lucky enough to be in one of those aircraft! My mind went straight to the scene in Titanic where the old couple, disenchanted with the situation above deck, people lying and scheming to get a seat in a lifeboat, they simply cuddled together and tucked themselves in their bed.

Transition:

I say this, I guess, as a disclaimer, I’m acknowledging that it’s an imperfect illustration, but it serves a purpose, and that’s what illustrations do. They’re helpful until they’re not; don’t trip over it. They all break down, illustrations. St. Patrick used the shamrock as a metaphor to explain the concept of the Trinity to the Irish. He illustrated how the shamrock’s three leaves represented the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as distinct yet unified parts of one God.

The concept itself was not inherently heretical but could definitely look a lot like Modalism, a heresy  also known as Sabellianism, after its heresiarch—like our patriarchs, the fathers of our faith; but not—Sabellius, who suggested that God is one person who manifests in three different modes or aspects rather than being three distinct persons in one essence. Latter Day Saints believe this; this is why there is a distinction between them and us; nevertheless, Modalism popularizes and oversimplifies Jesus as simply “God in a bod.” This becomes problematic if indeed it is our understanding that Jesus did, in fact, take on our sin, furthermore for His death having atoned for anything at all, if he had not taken part in humanity—while fully God, become fully man.

The shamrock analogy might inadvertently emphasize the “oneness” of the plant rather than the distinctiveness of each person in the Trinity. While the shamrock analogy was useful as a teaching tool, it is not a perfect representation of the Trinity. The divine mystery cannot be fully captured by human metaphors. Metaphors break down, and God is big!

Point:

I use the illustration I did because it forces a decision. If this is true, what response does it call for?

There are, unfortunately, in our Gospels accounts of people who were invited by Jesus to follow Him but, for various reasons, chose not to do so.

The Rich Young Ruler, an account in all three of our synoptic Gospels [Matthew 19:16–22, Mark 10:17–22, Luke 18:18–23], asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, and the young man claims he has done so. Jesus then invites him to sell all his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him. The young man then goes away sad, our accounts say, “because of his great wealth.” His attachment to material possessions prevents him from committing to discipleship.

Jesus invites another man to follow Him, who asks to bury his father first; this can be found in Luke 9 [vv59–60]. Now, this may be a parable emphasizing the urgency and priority of following Jesus because we see Jesus’ reply, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” and it’s immediately followed by another account emphasizing the need for total commitment. In the very next verse, [Luke 9:61-62], a man expresses a desire to follow Jesus but asks to first say goodbye to his family. Jesus replied that, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Nevertheless, after Jesus teaches about being the Bread of Life and the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, recorded in John chapter 6, [vv60–66], His disciples, finding the teaching difficult to accept, many followers turn back and no longer follow Him, unwilling to accept His challenging message.

Each story demonstrates that following Jesus requires giving up personal priorities, attachments, or comforts. Hesitation or conditions placed on discipleship reveal our lack of commitment to the call of discipleship.

They were not men of conviction.

Even in death, the rich man utters, [Luke 16]

27 “‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

It’s about being men of conviction; if this is true, what response does it call for?

The irony in God calling Gideon a “mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12). He was hiding in fear when the angel of the Lord greets Gideon with this title; he is threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites, who were oppressing Israel. This is not an act of a “mighty warrior” but one of someone afraid and trying to avoid confrontation. We have some insight into how Gideon sees himself—as insignificant and ill-suited for the task (Judges 6:15), responding to God’s call by saying, “My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family;” yet he was a man of conviction.

If this is true, then what?

Proposition:

If we “believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,” if we indeed are to be men of conviction, what else does it mean? What are we called to do; how must we live? What is the implied task? What’s lost if we get this wrong?

Transition:

In Exodus 12, we see God’s instruction to Moses, not just to teach the Israelites about what’s happening to them—right there in that instance, but what’s happening corporately, as a people. He’s saying, see what I’m doing, this is significant. He’s not just saying that they’re going to do something, but that He is going to do something.

In Exodus 12:25–27, we read Moses’ command from God:

25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, you are to observe this ceremony. 26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, and he spared our homes.’” So, the people knelt low and worshiped.

God is setting the stage. He’s looking forward to a time in the future when there is a generation with no personal memory of the Exodus but will witness a reenactment of the Passover. They will not have a firsthand recollection of the Exodus. If you do what I’m telling you, He’s saying, if, in the faith and love found in my Word, you adhere to the pattern of the sound doctrine that I am giving to you, they will know then what they will see when in fact they see it.

Why?:

In the same pattern God prescribes for the people of Israel, Paul informs Timothy that there is a pattern in place that he must adhere to and that he is not authorized to teach anything he pleases. Tradition is the term we use to describe this.

Because there are so many traditions that are man-made and have nothing to do with the apostolic pattern of sound doctrine, because we’ve done a poor job at explaining the ‘why,’ that word has fallen out of favor today. Godly tradition, however, should be regarded as a gift, not a barrier. As Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

In the same way as demonstrated in Exodus, where the Israelites weren’t permitted to celebrate Passover however they saw fit. They were given explicit instructions, very clearly connecting their acts of worship to their lived experience of God with them so that their children and children’s children would recall and proclaim what happened to their ancestors in Egypt. Telling both the story and appropriately interpreting it are their responsibilities.

We don’t see a similar idea in 2nd Timothy; we see the same thing. We see Paul traditioning, passing down, conveying instructions, instituting a practice, not of worship, but soundness in doctrine. In 2nd Timothy 1:13, he says, “Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

There is a generation coming with no personal memory of the incarnation but will witness His coming. They will not have a firsthand recollection of His miraculous workings and Earthly ministry, but if you do what I’m telling you, in the faithfulness and love found in Jesus, adhere to the pattern of the sound doctrine that I am giving to you, they will know then, what they will see when in fact they see it.

Transition:

If this is true, then what?

Because Jesus was not the name of the Second Person of The Trinity prior to the incarnation, when Word became flesh, he was called Jesus. When God’s Son became a man and was born as a baby in Bethlehem, fulfilling Isaiah 7:14, becoming Emmanuele, which means “God with us,” was truly the birth of “Jesus.”

What:

Because of this, we confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rather than Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. That isn’t entirely incorrect. However, by referring to the Son, we recognize that the Father and the Son were in perfect fellowship long before the incarnation and given the name Jesus, which is Hebrew for “Yahweh saves.”

When we proclaim, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” We are actually saying quite a bit.

There is a transliteration (which is the process of converting a word or text from one language to another, preserving pronunciation) inevitably, you’ve seen this early Christian symbol that is a transliteration of the Greek word ἰχθύς (ichthys) [ich·​thus], which means “fish.” But the symbol doesn’t mean fish; it’s an acronym. The letters of the word ichthys are the first letters of the Greek words for “Iēsous Christos theou hyios sōtēr” [EE-ay-soos krees·tohs, Theou hwee-os, Sotare], which translates to “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

Sometimes, in the fish symbol you may have seen on vehicles, there is, in Latin script, ‘IXOYE.’ Early Christians used the acronym as a confession of faith:

The first letter, ‘iota,’ as in Ιησους [Iēsou] for “Jesus.”

The second letter, ‘chi,’ for Χριστóς[Christos] “Christ,” the Chi in x-mas is truly keeping Christ in Christmas!

The third letter, the one that looks like an “O,” is ‘theta,’ for Θεοῦ [ThEE·oh], which means “God.”

The fourth letter, which is similar to our “Y” in the Latin script, even though we speak English and English is not a romantic language, or one derived from Latin, I don’t make the rules… is ‘upsilon,’ which stands for Υἱός [Hu·oys], meaning “Son.”

And the fifth letter, ‘sigma,’ but it looks like an “E,” for Σωτήρ [So·tare] “Savior.”

So, not “IXOYE,” but Iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma, for EE-ay-soos krees·tohs, ThEE·oh Hu·oys, So·tare; Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. The (ichthys) [ich·​thus], an ancient Christian confession, and why, when we proclaim, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,” we say so much.

Proposition:

The point I wanted to drive home is, if this is true, then what? So, what I want you to take away from today, if nothing else, is how does knowing this inform our belief?

What (part 2):

When we confess Jesus, we acknowledge our need. Our need for a Messiah or Christ, both words meaning “anointed one.” When we confess Him as Lord, meaning “master” or “king,” we acknowledge His authority. When we say “Savior,” we recognize our need for Him as our “redeemer of sin” and “saver of souls.” We read in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Therefore, we proclaim “the gift of God [as an] eternal life in Christ Jesus,” if we confess this, we acknowledge our need for a Savior. When we accept Jesus as Messiah and Christ, we recognize our need for a mediator when we acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God. “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” says Romans 10:9. This is a formula called “Roman’s Road.”

It informs our theology of how we see God through the Trinity and, in particular, the Second Person of the Trinity. We acknowledge that He’s not merely a man, but the God-Man. Completely human and completely divine. “Inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion,” as it’s worded in the Westminster Confession [Ch 8.2]. Our sin could only be assumed by one like us. And the mission could only be completed by God Himself.

When we say, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,” we acknowledge that only one like us could have taken on our sin. Only God Himself could accomplish this.

Transition:

This was foretold in the Old Testament by Moses and the prophets, as alluded to by Jesus in his parable Lazarus and the Rich Man. Israel was given prophets, priests, and kings, three offices that stood as a reminder for the people of Israel of their distance from God, which required continuous bridging by God.

But the prophet Amos spoke these words from God, “I hate your religious festivals, I despise your assemblies; they are a stench to me [5:21].

Application:

God sent prophets because they needed His Word. He gave them priests because they needed forgiveness of sins. And he gave them Kings because they needed to be ruled and defended from all God’s enemies and their enemies.

In Christ, the Son of the Father, the fulfillment of all three offices comes to us.

As the Word of God, he revealed to us during His ministry on Earth, and now by His Spirit, the will of God for our salvation. As a priest, he offers himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, and he continues to pray for us. As our King, he brings us to Himself, and He rules and defends us from all His and our enemies.

Summary:

Carl Trueman said, “Creeds and confessions are, in fact, necessary for the well-being of the church, and that churches that claim not to have them place themselves at a permanent disadvantage when it comes to holding fast to that form of sound words which was so precious to the aging Paul as he advised his young protégé, Timothy. . . The need for creeds and confessions is not just a practical imperative for the church but is also a biblical imperative.”

Transition:

We have the most accurate, transparent, and historically robust account that one could have of the most important figure to live in the history of the world. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead, not to mention if you were going to fake a story, you wouldn’t use female witnesses in the ancient world; they have hormones, their testimony didn’t matter—in our scriptures, it says that a woman was the first one to see Jesus resurrected. Moreover, the fact that so many people willingly died a brutal death claiming that this happened; each of the Disciples, minus Judas and John, from Stephen to Cyprian, who was perhaps the last Christian martyred before Constantine converted to Christianity, claiming the half-brother of James, Jesus is Lord.

“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.”

When our forebearers would be martyred, in their final moments, account after account that Roman writers took, these are nonbelievers, wrote that “They sang and recited their creeds.” This is why we sing together and why we are concentrating on what we confess together in this series. Prayerfully, if our Church fathers were prepared to sacrifice their lives to protect and hand down authentic and accurate theology, perhaps the least we can do is live them.

Challenge:

So, if [all] this is true, what then [shall we do]?

As in my introduction, our children and grandchildren may not inherit all the conveniences we take for granted. What, then, are Christians supposed to do when we perceive that we may be in for some challenging times? Paul tells the Thessalonians that we are not to be the same as everyone else:

13 …do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again… 16 the Lord himself will come down from heaven… the dead in Christ will rise… 17 we who are still alive …will be caught up together with them … to meet the Lord … And so, we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

If your actions reflect your prayer life, how would you assess your prayer life? Does your conduct communicate your need for a Messiah? As if you have made Jesus your master and king; does the way you live your life acknowledge His authority?

Romans 10:9 says, “If you believe in your heart… you will be saved,” if it is true that what is prayed is derived from what you believe and informs the way we live, if we pray as if we require a redeemer of sin and saver of souls, it will have observable characteristics, Jesus says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” [John 13:35].

Even in the midst of Peter’s adamant denial of Christ, the people recognized him; we read in Matthew 26:71, 73b “Surely you are one of them,” recognizing him, it says, by the way he spoke! They wouldn’t believe him until he began to curse (Matt 26:74)! Who is it that you sound like? Like the crowd or like a follower of Jesus?

How you live reveals how you believe. If you don’t like what you see, the good news is that it doesn’t have to stay that way. Your heart can be cultivated! It starts with your prayer life.

Close:

So, whether your reaction is prepping or refusing to lie and scheme to get a seat in a lifeboat, prolonging your inevitable death, John writes in his Gospel [12:25], “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

George Beasley describes this as an “exposition of the law of the kingdom of God: life is given through death. The principle [enshrined in v 23] is illustrated by the short parable [in v 24.] No explanation of it is given, but its meaning is transparent: so surely as a grain of wheat must be buried if it is to yield fruit for man, so the Son of Man must give himself in death if he is to produce a harvest of life for the world.”

If we overlay this truth with “the law of what is prayed [is] the law of what is believed; [and therefore lived],” we have then, a construct of another saying present in the synoptic tradition, the call to take up the cross. If, “where I am, there also my servant will be” [v26], we will be in fellowship with Jesus, in suffering and in the presence of God alike.