Untitled Sermon (2)

Intro

Philippians 2:6–8 ESV

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

John 1:1–3 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2706 Heresies in Early Church

In the fourth century A.D. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, began to propagate the view that Jesus though the Son of God, could not be co-eternal with His Father and that He must be regarded as external to the divine essence and only a creature. Arius held that Christ was not true God. Our text calls Christ, “the Word,” making Him a Person in the Trinity. Arianism could be classified as the progenitor of modern Unitarianism.

In the fourth century, Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea in Syria, wrote against Arianism and other heresies. Zealously wishing to maintain the true error of denying Christ’s full humanity, he declared that Christ had a human body but did not possess a human spirit. The complete true proper humanity of Jesus was thus denied.

In the fifth century, Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, taught that Christ was both God and man, but that the Godhead was one Person, the manhood another. Instead of a union of two natures with distinction, Nestorians taught that there were two persons.

In this same era lived Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople, who was a zealous foe of Nestorianism: yet he proposed another strange theory concerning the nature of our Lord. The Christological view of Eutyches was that the human nature of Christ is absorbed into the divine; yet Eutychianism holds firmly to one nature, the divine in Christ. This made the humanity of Christ a mere accident of the immovable divine substance.

The early church met these heretics with four adverbs which briefly and conveniently defined the two natures in Christ’s Person. They said that when “the Word was made flesh” the divine and the human natures were united “truly”, to oppose the Arians; “perfectly,” to oppose the Apollinarians; “undividedly,” to oppose the Nestorians; and “unmixedly,” to oppose the Eutychians.

—Thomas G. Lawrence

Nicene Creed

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

Chalcedonian Creed

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, 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; 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 has handed down to us