Article 4 - Pt. 1 - On The Identity of Jesus Christ
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I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 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.
Introduction:
What doctrine would be important enough to cause Santa Claus to slap a priest?
In AD 325, there was a controversy regarding the identity of Jesus as both God and Man. The Emperor Constantine I got the bishops together in an ecumenical church council to deal with this controversy. We don’t have the official minutes but from Athanasius we see a claim of 300 of them more or less. It wasn’t only doctrine that was discussed but also issues like the universal date to celebrate Easter.
The legend that developed surrounding this council was that Saint Nicolas was there and that he become so upset with Arius’s stances that he walked across the room and slapped or punched him.
The critical question of that council was the identity of Jesus, specifically how that worked.
Most of the major heresies in the ancient world, if you dig back on them, have to deal with an incorrect understanding of identity of Jesus Christ. The critical question for the people in the New Testament and for you and I is to come to a conclusion about who is this man, Jesus?
Our statement of faith is a confession that is structured to flow with the logical structure of the gospel message itself. We begin where the Bible begins, with God. Then God speaking through His Word. We then get to God creating man and woman in His image and the fall of humanity into sin. And now we come to God’s provided remedy for the disease of sin. God sends a Savior. Your eternal destiny is determined by your relationship with Jesus.
Let’s recite Article 4 together.
Article 4: Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in
two natures. Jesus—Israel’s promised Messiah—was conceived through the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the
Father as our High Priest and Advocate.
This article of our confession of faith contains so much good stuff that is important for us to cover that I took the liberty of splitting this article into two sermons. So this morning is Article 4: Part 1 on the Identity of Jesus and next week will be on the Life of Jesus. Let’s dive into His identity in our passage from Romans chapter 1.
I. The identity of Jesus according to Paul
I. The identity of Jesus according to Paul
At the beginning of the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul sets up his letter to address the guilt of people for sin and the wrath they are under, by first giving some introductory. If chapter one is a trial where God is judge and sinful humanity is the accused then these verses today can be thought of as some kind of pretrial introductory material. Paul sets up first his bonafides as to why they should listen to his words. He then gives information about his Christ which is where I want to focus today, and then in verses 6 and following he identifies the congregation in Rome as the audience and we get a bit of his relationship to them. Sometimes introductions can be skipped over but we see some very important doctrines in these verses that were very clear to Paul and he purposely and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit included them for the believers in Rome to see and know as well.
Paul starts out letting them know he is first a servant of Christ. He is an apostle. He’s been set apart to preach the gospel. He is also a missionary to the Gentiles. Setting these facts or credentials before them gave the first audience for this letter solid reasoning for listening to and trusting whatever was to come in the next lines. It also, gives us a basis for what authority these doctrines were conveyed in.
Then in verses two through four, Paul launches into talking about Jesus. I’m going to touch on these doctrines as they pop up in order in our confession. Let’s first look at verse 2.
which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
This point will come up when we talk about Jesus as Israel’s promised Messiah. But I want to take you back to the beginning of the Bible to Genesis 3. If you’ll remember, God created man and woman, Adam and Eve, and placed them in the Garden. He told them they could eat of any tree in the garden except for one, the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent came and tempted Eve and she ate and gave some to Adam and he ate. At that point sin entered the world and all humanity has a sin nature that deserves the wrath of God. In Genesis 3 God is giving out the curses and when he gets to the serpent there’s a very interesting part to it. Look at Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””
This is what theologians call the protoevangelium. That just means first gospel or first good news. This is our first hint that even though the fall had just occured, God had a plan already in place. Oh the hope that springs forth in our hearts when we realize that our good God who must punish sin, prepared even before us a way for that sin to be forgiven! Even here at the beginning we see a promise that would find its ultimate fulfillment in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. The Hebrew construction is emphatic with God announcing a male descendant of the woman who would deal a final crushing blow to the serpent. It’s a foretelling of Christ’s ultimate victory. Knowing the identity of this serpent crusher, is key.
Being solid on the identity of Jesus is essential because, as Evangelical Convictions states, “God’s gospel is made known supremely in the Person of Jesus Christ.” We want to know the truth of God’s gospel, therefore, we must know about the truth of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Each phrase used, even each word, in our confession was chosen for a very specific theological reason. It’s not just to affirm what we do believe but also to deny that which we as a confessional people do not believe.
Let’s look at the first sentence:
II. One Person in two natures
II. One Person in two natures
We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures.
A. God incarnate
Evangelical Convictions reads like this,
“Jesus Christ has always been a controversial figure. However, unlike other figures in history, the controversy surrounding Jesus of Nazareth has not focused primarily on his teaching, or even on his actions, but on how these point to his identity. His moral instruction has been widely acclaimed and his religious devotion almost universally admired. But the early Christians were not content with describing Jesus simply as a great moral teacher or even as a prophet of God. His words and actions compelled them to turn to the category of divinity in order to explain him. Nothing less would do. Jesus was God incarnate. In Jesus, divinity took on humanity; he was truly God and truly man. This is more than a theological proposition; it is at the heart of the gospel, for we believe that God’s gospel—the good news of God’s saving work—is supremely revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is God in the flesh. Our God came to dwell among us. He was fully God and fully man. So not only was He sent from God but He is God. Therefore, He has authority to His teaching. Every word we see that Jesus said is God saying it.
The wording of the confession is in agreement with the Bible and is affirmed by the early Christian creeds.
B. Fully God
Christians have always believed this. In the first recorded description of Christian worship from someone outside the church, the Roman governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger wrote to the Emperor Trajan about the Christians, “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as a god.” Not only this but in his report he included that they refused to worship any other god.
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
The Christians making this claim in the early church was shocking because it rises up out of a Jewish context. The Jews of the day were completely monotheistic, so much so that they would violently oppose a claim like this. Of course that opposition pops up as we read the Gospels. They got very worked up when Jesus claimed to be divine.
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
The Greeks would have thought this idea to be abhorrent that a Savior would be crucified, much less that God would or could come in the flesh (incarnate). The thought of God entering a fleshy world like ours would have been unfathomable to them.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus had to be divine.
Only if Jesus is divine can he be a full and complete revelation of God. If He’s not God then how could Hebrews 1:1-2 make sense?
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 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.
C. Fully Man
The first heresy in the early church was surrounding this issue of Jesus being fully human. A group that we see evidence of in the New Testament called the Gnostics held to a particular view called docetism. This comes from a Greek word that means “to seem or appear.” The Gnostics taught that Jesus only seems to be human. He appeared to be human but was not fully.
docetism
There was one form of this belief that said “the Christ” was a divine person who came upon the man, Jesus at the time of his baptism and departed him right before his crucifixion. You can see John condemning this view in I John.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 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.
Another wrong teaching on this by the bishop of Laodicea was that God lived in a human body in Jesus Christ, but did not have a human nature. They tried to use scripture to prop it up by suggesting that the Word becoming flesh meant that the divine Word (the Logos) replaced the “animating and rational soul of the human Jesus.” Basically they believed that the only part of him that was human was his physical body. This view and it’s main proponent was eventually condemned a the Council of Constantinople.
There was no other way for Jesus to perfectly fulfill the scriptures other than to be both God and man fully.
The second century church father, Irenaeus wrote,
Ancient Faith Study Bible: Notes Chapter 3
IRENAEUS: The enemy would not have been justly conquered unless it had been a man made of woman who conquered him. For it was by a woman that he had power over man from the beginning, setting himself up in opposition to man. Because of this the Lord also declares himself to be the Son of Man, so renewing in himself that primal man from whom the formation of man by woman began, that as our race went down to death by a man who was conquered we might ascend again to life by a man who overcame; and as death won the palm of victory over us by a man, so we might by a man receive the palm of victory over death. [See
D. One Person in two natures
The only way to do justice to the relationship of Jesus’ humanity and His divinity to understand that He truly is One Person in two natures.
The best way to describe this One Person in Two Natures is to say he was fully God and fully man. But what does it mean that He was in two natures?
The debate at the Council of Nicea was really dealing with a pastor named Arius, who was a popular guy, that had also launched one of the most significant attacks on Christianity. Arius taught that Jesus had an exalted status, even a form of divinity but stopped short of believing he was equal with God. He believed that Jesus had a beginning whereas God the Father had always been. How did this idea gain traction in the ancient world? Arius was a great communicator. He was popular and used Bible passages to prop up his view. The conflict over this was heated. Does this sound like anything or anyone today? You get a very gifted communicator who gains popularity and seems to be backing his teaching with scripture but he is not doing so accurately or responsibly and has fallen into error. I know I tell you to be careful what you hear and why it’s vital that we stay anchored to our Bibles and strong doctrinal teaching.
The dispute ended up balancing on the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. One letter - an iota made all the difference.
The letter was in the two words used to represent how they were speaking of the relationship of Jesus to God the Father.
I have these terms on a slide for you:
homoiousios - of “like substance or being”
would be semi-divine
homoousios - “same substance”
would be the very same divine being - Fully God
A guy named Athanasius was the main defender of Jesus’ being fully God. Eventually this view won out and was included in the Nicene Creed. The wording best captures what Jesus Himself and the New Testament writers presented in the scriptures about who Jesus is in relation to God the Father. He is, as Evangelical Convictions words it,
“fully and completely both at the same time, showing us the true nature of each. He’s not some mixture of humanity and divinity, creating a third kind of being, like a horse and donkey producing a mule. The Son of God remained God—he never gave up being God, but he added to his divinity real humanity. As God incarnate, the divine subject made real human experience his own, and since the incarnation, the Son of God will forever be human.” - From Evangelical Convictions
The specificity of having a debate or one letter or iota, shows one of the ways that God has preserved orthodox doctrine for the church over two thousand years.
III. Fulfilling the Promises
III. Fulfilling the Promises
-Israel’s promised Messiah-
E. Israel’s Promised Messiah
Israel had for years been expecting a Messiah. However, when Jesus showed up on the scene, He was not what they were expecting. Some hoped for a political ruler who would overthrow the Romans and reestablish an earthly Jewish kingdom as David had. They were not ready for a God dwelling among them as a suffering servant giving His life for the sin of humanity. And many missed Him.
Over the years heretics have attempted to separate Jesus from His Jewishness. In doing so they have rejected the Old Testament and therefore the promises regarding Jesus as Messiah. One claimed Jesus abolished the Law and the Prophets whereas we know that Jesus came to fulfill the Law. The gospels, and in particular, Matthew tie Jesus to the story of Israel.
The apostle Paul understood that Jesus is the heir of the promises in the Old Testament.
Early Christians understood Jesus in light of the OT. He you can not understand and they could no understand the OT rightly without Jesus. The life and ministry of Jesus is the “lens of understanding” through which we must view the whole Bible.
Conclusion:
• God incarnate, fuIIy God and fuIIy man, one Person in two Natures − hypostatic union − Jesus is the second person of the Godhead from eternity; this was not a truth determined after the fact at the CounciI of Nicea (325)
Preston N Perry: “Please don’t let people tell you that the trinitarian doctrine and the doctrine of Jesus’s divine nature were formulated at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The council was not a place where they created doctrine but a time to debate doctrine. Saying these doctrines were formed at this time is like saying the murder happened during the trial-very false.”
This narrative has been finding more traction in the culture lately. But if the early church had not believed these doctrines, if they didn’t already exist, they never would have made it to the council to be debated.
As God, Jesus is deserving of our worship and devotion.
Jesus can only reveal God personally if He is fully divine.
Further, if Jesus is not God then He would be powerless to save.
I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.
Jesus needed to be God to have the power to save. He needed the power of God to bear our sin and conquer. He needed to be human to represent us. He had to be a man to be qualified to be the sacrifice.
This wraps us right back to last week to the center of Paul’s argument in Romans 5:19.
For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Irenaeus, who I quoted earlier also wrote,
“He became like us so that we might become like him.” - Irenaeus
This is the key question for us and for the world? Who is this man, Jesus? He is both fully God and fully man. He is Savior. Next week we will look at the life of Jesus in part 2 of Article 4.
PRAY
Conclusion of Part 1
Conclusion of Part 1
