KNOWING the One We Confess as Messiah & LORD!
Notes
Transcript
Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Intro: Is Jesus more human to you, or more divine? Froget about the trick part of this question and just answer me - whterh you relate more to His humannens s or HIs God-ness? Why do we write carol’s like Mighty Gitchimanintu, or art depicing not Son of God in his etnerity to be worshipped, but in his incarnation - maybe even different skin colour, or have you seen the Chrsti child with distinctive features of Down Syndrome. Why is it important that we know and confess Jesus as as human as we are expect sin - And why is it imporant that we don’t just know him as mere man, that sense and experience and even rely on Him being Almighty and Glroius God come to us?
Well congregation this the heart of the plot of what God is up to in this whole wide world, over the expanse of the history of happening of the comsom. Greatest thing at the heart is not God sending a angelic rescuer, or taking our best human and giving him a little of His Juice- , but God’s Self, Second person of the Trinity takes to Himself forever our human nature body and soul and does the extraodinary that changes everything - that’s the Person and Work not just of God as eternal Son, but the Son incranate comes to us in human flesh!
In this first half of our Confession, we’ve got the character, the setting (time and place), the problem. And then the hinge of our Christain witness is found in articles 16,-18: the plot - established before time began - God’s electing love - merciful save - chose in CHrist, trembling all over, God who moved towards us involved in Creation, now movees toward us trembling all over - comfort strength - in seed, Son promised to save from spiritula death and physical death and more crush the Serpent head - and more why does the God who is toward us do all this - to make us blessed! Article 18 hinge on which it turns is the one person - Son of God incrante - Immanuel God with us! We need to be able to help people get their bearing with God and how they stand with him in covenant - that’s the hard work of framework in the first half of the Confession. But it’s all prepatory for the main event!
The whole rest of the plot - is gong to be about Him - your individual salvation, the orgnaization and mission of His peope the church, his wrok in this world in the kngdom - and his comiong again! He is the one who fulfills both the first covenant of works that Adam failed in - and the coveant of grace by which salbvation coes. He alone is qualified and able to take on in our place punishment, but also all the rquirments of the law, he alone can unite God to us.
Now it is quite startling how after carefully setting up who God is, who man is , what the purpose of life is - what the plan of covenant of grace, neew admint is - paintstaking slow work - with warp speed - move to work of Christ at heart of the world history and of your own individual life - atonement , righteousness of faith, justification of sinner, sanctification, fulfilling the law, role of Christ in heaven now interceeding , the CHurch! Not beating around the bush, not long bibilcal theoglical details - but broad brsuh stroke this is what it means to have life from above, to have saving relationship , communion withh God in Christ - and the place we need to begin and never really leave from is the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.
Did you notice that in our text too? Where is the encouragement, the comfort from love, the participation in the Spirit, the joy, the example - all in Christ. What is it we confess? We have a big big problem - if we confess Bible knowledge - like Pharisees, - know the Scirpture but you refuse to come to me. Problem if we confess worldview a Christain approach to every part of life - imoprant implication - but not the heart of what we confess. Problem if you know everything about social justice, or about political principles, or ideals of family, or firendhsip and commjhity, or most refined styles of worship - not bad things but the heart of what we confess, what we must build each other up in, which we must wtiness to our neighbours is CHRIST!
Now, you took the time, not just to believe in any God - to push beyond God creation all see and feel to God revealing Hinmself, perosnal full of chracter - TOok the time to meditate that at the heart of God is communion, relationshiop commuincation love - 3 persons all subsiting in one nature of who God is. We are to have a wtiness to living thrice personal God. Speka of Father, Son and Holy SPirit in our experience.
Well in the same way, you can’t witness or experience salvation, church, ingdom of God, unless experience Jesus as more than a nice tidy little key that opens door to forgineess now and heavne later. Can’t get this salvation, if Jesus remains a distant God hero from history, or a incredible human so full of God’s power and holiness. No, just like we needed to know the Person and character and speific plan of God who is towrad, us. Now we must knnow the person and the natures of this God-man Saviour, Immaneul, the ONe competley unique never in whole universe another lifek Him, eternal yet took on human flesh for us and our salvation. No other name under heaven by which we are saved, but necessary for our slavation to get Jesus as more than a key. In bleieving and trusting into Jesus you are to receive all the benefits from him being truly human and him being truly God, all the blessings flow form him being both in hfleness, like fonatin head of God flowing to us, like the fountain of real full humanity flowing to us!
Before we jump in, you must feel this - as wtiness to the two natures and one person of Christ - may seem like theoglical speculations - how many angels can fit on the end of a pin, theoglical trivial pursuit. Doesn’t it just matter tha we say we bleive in Jesus, try to live good XN morals and get to go to heaven. Actually to confess the name of Jesus as Christ and Lord in saving way - is to draw from HIs human and divine nature. Why we saw JOhn say, anyone who denies Jesus is fully GOd and also fully man - is not a Christain: 1 John 3:23, 4:2
And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
And so that is why one of the church’s creeds, the Athanasian Creed says:
Now this is the true faith: That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and human equally. He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards to divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.… This is the catholic faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully. Athanasian Creed
Key Truth: For our salvation the Person Son has been inseparably united together our human nature with His divine nature!
Key Truth: For our salvation the Person Son has been inseparably united together our human nature with His divine nature!
Our goal here is not to exhaust this mystery, or to discover some refined formula, but to summarize the Person and work of our Saviour. And for hthis we do need a few clear definitions.
A) Defining Person & Nature
A) Defining Person & Nature
Here maybe an example would help. I have an uncle and aunt - Henk and Trina. Very different personalities, different looks partiuclar to them - they are not each other. That answers the question who. But they do both have a mind, will, they both have a soul, a body, That’s what they are - and that’s not the questino who? BUt what? So too with the Trinity. The who - is the Persons, modes of subsitence, actually differnt cetnres of consciousness, but they live in and through each other, each with different role, empahsis. But when we talk about their nature - their essence. The what? They all share the same essence of God-ness just like Hank and Trina do of human-ness.
These dfinitions are true when speaking of who and what Jesus is too, and this requires even more careful attention and definition on our part. What is Jesus? What is his nature, his essence? And who is Jesus his person-hood, his centre of consciousness? What is his nature - is he a human that became god-like,or is He God who changed from His God-ness took that off and tranformed into a human, then back to God’-ness after his earthly minsitry? Or is he a mixture of human and divine - like a robo-man, half human half machine? Or was Jesus humanity and godness put together like oil and water - so there a human Jesus with a a human body and maybe even a human spirit, but there is alsoa dvine Jesus - two natures but also two persons. WHo is Jesus? May seem like just some hard speculative questions, but they have eerything to do with what you must turn to Jersus for - both in his humannness and in God-ness.
So the what of Jesus - His nature, unlike the Trnity - where there is One Nature and Three Persons. With the Sn of God taking to HImself our humanity - there are two natures in Jesus - that’s the what. But there is only one Person - two beautifully united natures - but one Person, one Consciusness
We can see this in our text, where is talks about the form of God and the form of a servant/likeness of men. DO you see that Jesus is the Person of the Sun, co-equal and coeternal with Father and HOly Spirit as God . Philippians 2:6a
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
That’s his divine nature, in the essence of the Trinity - equally and fuly God, with all God’s attributes - Jesus in the OT - Mighty God, JOhn the Bptists quotes Isiaah - Prepare teh way of the LORD, make straight in the wilderness a path way for OUR GOD. Jesus in the NT in HIs divine nature - konws everyting about man John 1, in his divine nature He says, I the Son of God even incarnate I can forgive sins. He says, judgment of living God, the Father has comitted the judgment of the ord to me. At the end of the gospel Jesus says, as He’s prven his divie nature rising from the dead, having the power to lay his life donw, and take it up - He now ays, I will be with you always even to the end of the Age - saying He is not only eternal but He is omnipresent in His divine nature! Book of Revelation so clear the attributes
But our text goes on to say, this one who is God in his divine nature, in the etneral Son’s carrying out God’s plan of salvation, he doesn’t use His godness for Himself, with his whole being - move to us as Lord’s Servant and our Serbing Saviour.
So he takes on another nature, like a cicacda insect molting leaving behind shell, but he takes to himself another nature another form, and it tells us how: Philippians 2:7
but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
The one who has always been God’s Son eternally generated as God’s second self - always living relfecting each other, that one said I will now be born and take on a whole new form joined perfectly to my person. In doing so, I will limit myself, the One who is omnipresent now confined in tiniest body, just like you, in virgin Mary’s womb. Still all mnopresent God, but His person now joined to human body and spirit, whole human nanture - sets aside many of his dininve powers and eprogatives - takes on this human nature from virignin Mary, but coneved by the Holy Spirit he still has his divine nature, but they are now beaitufilly united together in one Person the Son of God from eternity, but now the Christ inthe flesh, now the Son of God, fulliling the calling of the Son of Man for us. NOw the King of Eternity, is taking up the throne of the Kin gof David. Now the one who received the praises of Israel and the blood of goats, and , now he becomes the pirest who will ofer Himself as the perfedct sacrafice. You see that in v.8 don’t you? THis isn’t just nice triva about what is Jesus, lke, this about whether He can do the central work at the heart of the universe: Philippians 2:8
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
You know this parabola don’t you, this one person that you and I can be united to - he not only dies with our humannature, but also rises with it - and united to HIm we may participate in His divine nature and in HIs human nature. Philippians 2:9
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
And the point of this article is that as we talk about salvation with each other and and to our neighbours that we will be looking to this Jesus - who as it were is the fountainhead of both God and humanity - He is God come to us, but He is also the new, redeemed Adam. The fountain of Godness and the fountain of humanity -
Underatand the Person and the Plan of the Ages. Understand how his two natures work with each other for our slavaation, understnad this One person must become your fountain of life!
B. Understand the Relationship of Christ’s Human Nature and His God-Nature
And here we nmust remember again the words of Gregory Nazinazus: What he did not assume, he did not save.” Do you get that? The eternal Son - had to assume a whole human nature competely to redeem it. He not just in every way like you, expect sin, even right now in heaven - he is fully human. He got tired, he i his human nature had to grow and learn. In his human nautre his knowledge owas limited, he born under the law - was born mortal like you and me. He in this fallen world suffered pain, he was overwhelmed with sorrow, He got bone weary and had to take a break get away from the crowds, he had to sleep.
BUt unlike early church Bishopo f Laodica thought, the eternal Son of God - also took a on a very real human mind or spirit. Apollinaris thought the thinking, mind , the psiritual part of the one Person Jesus, couldn’t be human. He is the Divine Word, teh Logos, Jesus really only had a human body, maybe soul, but his thinking, feeling, acting part of the self, the mind the Spirit, was a divine Spirit or Mind alone.
Similarly, Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople - said Mary was not the mother of God. Mary’s womb maybe was like a rented incubator - but the child, the Son of God born in her, was a new creation by God. Jesus didn’t take his human nature from his mother, he didn’t share in our human nature like that. But the church thrown into more study concluced yes - here is a Saviuor that became like us in every way, except sin, born with all the curse and borkneess of our human family! Jesus didn’t cheat and live only by the Divine side of the mind and spirit. He lived fully comoeltely as a human like you and I have to do. And in all our borknenenss faced same temtatin in mind and spirit and body - and so this on person the mediator, fully human and divine, -so relatedable and able to stand in our place, as a Mediator, but brings that in touch with fulll God nature. Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
And so though with truly haumn nature and truly divine nature, we have the one Person who is our Mediator!
And as our meidator , not just relates to us, but substitued to for us, only possible for a human to fulfill the law the covenant of works, only pssoible for a human to die bodily and turly , to have his human souls spearated from his human body - And yet as God, he alone being puniseehd for our sins, could endure the full force of the wrath of God, yes dying in our hujan nature to expiate the sin , and to propirate the wrath of God against us , as God with our human nature rising again to be lifted up, even in our humanness to the seat of all blessing and authoriyty and gloiy - he is exalted in our human nature and lifts us up.
And that brings us to the other point
c. How the Divine Nature is Perfectly Present and United to Christ’s Human Nature!
c. How the Divine Nature is Perfectly Present and United to Christ’s Human Nature!
And here it is vitally important to see that Jesus is eternal and tue God always, but in time as he is born its not that he changes into human being. Nor is it like the eternal Son is aghost, that merely fills and acts through a human body for 30 years before leaving that body on the Cross before going back to be in heaven as Mormon’s JW believe.
No, we see all sorts of examples of how Jesus taking on truly human nature, was nonetheless, still eternal God. Seeit in the many times He says, He does the work of the Father. That HIm and the Father are one. In the NT we see the richness of three person sof the Trnity talking to each other - discourse, But do we ever see the divine part of Jesus having a talk with the human part. No they are one Person beautifully united, and the Son of God, even though He has become forever ONe of us, still the whole time on earth remains true God. And when we see Him face to face in heaven, htough we will see HIs glrofied humanture - we will be seeing the LIving God!
Do you remember the distinct propreties of Jesus as true God? Onipoetent, as God omnipresent - so Calvin - responding against Luther who said that Jesus human nature became omnipresent s- so Lord Supper -transubstation on, but consubstantiaon - Jesus physically present in way with us. - no hunan body in heavne. But yet, Christ by his divine nature - make Hismelf known to us, and abides with us.
So too on earth - Chriist’ divine nature didn’t mean he wasn’t one with the Fther and still filing the universe, but physically limitied and local. But Jesus does say, Before Abraham was I AM, And he sayhis great desire: Is that where I am you may also be. Jesus even though dying and giving up HIs spiriit, separated from his human body. Still ssays, Be with me in Paradise.
Our confession makes it clear that the burial of Jesus Christ, the God-man, is so very iportant. Truly died a human deaht - epxeriencing that in fulness. Listeen again to how the Confession puts it:
So then, what he committed to his Father when he died was a real human spirit which left his bod. But meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grace and his deity never ceased to be in him, just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a while it did not show itself as such. Belgic Confession Art 19
Do you get it: true God conquering death by his power, yet true man truly dying for us in the weakness of our flesh! Glorious conquering rescuing seed: your heal is truck by the serpent for us, but your heel has crushed his head!
And so here is the big deal that the church eventually arrived at safely saying. Big mystery don’t exhaust who Jesus is , but we need to be abelto sy - he is the God-man
Council of Chalcedon 451 Son, Lord, only-begotten in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the `properties’ of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one `person’ and in one reality (hypostasis). They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word (Logos) of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us.”
There are four great mysterious unities, in the Bible - Trinity - not exhaustive dfeintion of those WErpdsno how relae how one, don’t compherend, but take hold apprehend the truth and expeience. So too the two natures of Chris in one person - got to say beautiful unity - really hyuman and really God - each nature doesn’t nullify the other. Can’t divide, confusse, or chagne them. Both natures yet one person our Saviuor, received by faiht, but with faith seeking understanding take hold of lal the lblessing of him uniting our huamnity to His divinnity!
Romans 9:5
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
More you know Jesus, the more you get his: Colossians 2:9
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
This is astounding the One Mediator, isn’t someone sent by a big whig from central headquaters. Got to go to the facotry in Oro - idots don’t know what theyare doing, and you bigwhig junior, go and tell them how to turn it around. You go fix it. No, this is God HImself in Christ - everyting that God is the Son is, and He HImself says I am going down there, that surprising enough, But the way he does it wasn’t in display of outward glroy and power - no He becomes oneo fthose factory workers whose world is upside down. He spills HIs blood to fix the whole works. Listen to Acts 20:28
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
SO taht the Jesus who speaks to you and me in his life death and rsurection in the teaching and witness, in the promises of this new Covean tthat Jesus is not separate from God He is God Himself speaking ancting and lovin us!But think of the flip side of this. He not only is the one who saves us from our sins, earning a perect righteouness fo rus. He also became flesh to redeem our human naure! He doesn’t just redeem our souls, but whole person, body and soul. He is in heaven right now in a body gloirified flesh. a body in which he will return to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. And if you believe in this Jesus, if relying on His one Person as the meditoar and his two natures and all there blessing ot us - not only your soul and character being redeemed now alreayd, but your flesh will be transformed on that day - so that we will live with Him ofrever! Amen!