¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ The Mystery of Christ's Nature
Smiling waiting for me to interrupt.
I I am. I am wait I'm waiting. We uh we have Brian back in, the surrogate host, uh who's who's always chomp for uh the the position. I was gonna try to see like we got we got Doug and Brian back in here and like last Last few recordings we had Jason and Joe. I was like half tempted to like try to get you guys to pretend like I was gonna get Doug to try to introduce himself as Joe. And like, you know, Brian, I feel like he could do a pretty decent Jason. I don't think he would.
Yeah, I'm the worst in person.
If people look like that.
And you guys would say I was being me?
Yeah. Two things can be true at one time. Well Pastor James here hosting once again. I'm pat joined by uh not Pastor Joe, Pastor Doug.
Absolutely.
Give them a taste of your voice from the new listeners. They gotta know who's talking.
No, don't Don't do it, don't do it.
We don't want your money, I promise.
It's always a phrase.
That's where you just fill out that little card in the background.
We'd be so grateful. That's that's that's that's a good line to quote.
Happy Christian people always do. Sing to the Lord with joy in our hearts.
There it is.
Yeah. What a blessing.
Not Pastor Jason. We're also joined by Pastor Brian today. Uh maybe the anti Jason. It's like That's all I'm saying.
Just uh just for anybody.
In terms of decibel though.
Stumbling over what just happened. Um friend of mine once uh correctly observed men
Tease each other.
And don't mean a word of it. That's right. And women compliment each other and don't mean a word of that. Which is funny if you get on Instagram, you see that all the time. Girl, that dress is amazing. No girl, you're amazing. And I'm like, they're all amazing, apparently, but probably not.
Meanwhile in mainland, bro, you're terrible.
You stink, man. And then it's like I love you dude, let's get coffee.
Ha ha ha ha.
You're amazing, right?
And Pastor Pastor Josh in the mix.
Warren?
I am here.
As per the usual, we uh are walking through a great conversation on the doctrine of Christ. Christ, uh, such a central foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. Uh again, our namesake. We call ourselves Christians. So if we're gonna call ourselves Christians, it's good to know who Christ is. We've talked about uh the significance of Christ, the divine nature of Christ, that He is. God. Uh we talked about his human nature, that he really was a man who lived a human life.
uh the way that we do. And so those things, you know, okay, categorically we kinda get'em, but then you try to do the math, you know. Right. You try to do that one nature plus one nature thing and try to figure out how these things add up and that's where a lot of the confusion comes. And so even throughout the earliest days of the church, this is one of the doctrine
doctrines that got solidified, lots of dialogue about it, lots of arguments about it, um trying to uh be faithful to the scriptures, and many of the earliest creeds and confessions came out of those uh dialogues out of those conversations to uh cement in these creeds and confessions. What do we believe about Jesus? And so Uh we're gonna start there today. Uh simple conversation. How should we imagine the union of the human and divine in Jesus? How should we be thinking about that?
I'm pretty sure that that's what we just said it l led to the problem.
How's good?
Imagine a
How ca how can you imagine what it would be like to be something that you could never be? At some level, no. I mean and this is part of why the Trinity and the uh Specific nature of Jesus Christ, the fully divine, fully human nature hypothetical.
¶ Clarifying Person and Nature
Yeah, I was just trying to avoid that word, but there it is. Uh that's why it's so difficult to imagine. Yes. Because every time I see one Uh human being, I see one human person, but when we speak about the Godhead, there's one divine being and simultaneously there's three divine persons.
And then you look at Jesus and there's
And there's one person. Two natures. And so I don't know that we can imagine it, but what we can do is receive it in faith and recognize it's not a logical contradiction. That's correct.
One one of the reasons why the church tradition has been so careful with words. Like these chapters, some of the f uh sweet folks in our church as they go through the chapters they're reading through, maybe can just get overwhelmed by the um
Just f uh all all the categories, the philosophical categories and just but those things are actually important for talking precisely in accordance with the scriptures about who Jesus is. Person matters. Nature matters. Um and so just even the language that we use is one of the ways that Uh we are trying to faithfully speak the way the Bible uh speaks about Jesus. Um in uh when it comes to a um when it comes to a phenomenon that's hard for us to imagine.
Yeah, I think it's I think that's the the the a great point, James, because th we're Whatever terminology we use, philosophical concepts, what um all all of the the work the early church did, especially through a lot of the early um creeds, was to clarify what we see in the word. So it's continuously our our task is is not to be dreamers, of course, that's not what we're saying, but is to um to hold hold fast and faithful to the word as as received and make sure that whatever words we're using
uh accord most faithfully to the scriptures. This is why a lot of the early heresies or wrong b you know wrong understandings of the scriptures throughout the early church that helped bring about the clarification that was in the scriptures in terms of who Christ is. as as the God man. Uh those are backhanded gifts to help the church.
further clarify what is present in the text. So it's so it's not that the councils themselves are the authority that define Christ. The scriptures do. And the and because of aberrant understandings of the scriptures, especially in the early church around who Christ is. uh the cr the the councils themselves uh help to clarify uh the the word as as received.
Mm. Which is also to say, um this is always an important um thing to point out, that those events were not constructive efforts. You know, sometimes people talk about the councils that way. It's like, well, they didn't come up with that doctrine. No, no, no, it wasn't about c constructing a doctrine.
It's about clarifying language around how we're talking about things that have been received by the church, been revealed in the scriptures and through the apostles. And so how do we rightly speak about these things?
Yes. Yes. I I think a lot a lot of times uh we Uh we have to we have to and the this is just a little bit related, but it does it does uh help help set up uh good guards for us is we have to understand rightly who God is and who we're not. And what our limitations are and what his or not. Like you said, there's not a there's not a contradiction understanding that in the one person of Jesus
is is both he's both fully God and fully man uh together. Th those uh are are true according to the scriptures and we also don't have the capacity to look uh into those things. um with uh so much depth that we're able to exactly clarify maybe all the imaginative questions that we have. Right. And so so it helps us uh be on guard, rightly understand that this is reasonable. Yes. But God is God and we're not
I heard a guy say one time he's like if you were um being tutored by the greatest mathematician in the world And he put up the most insane problem and it covered, you know, whiteboards on on four walls of a room and he's just doing this whole thing. And then he says and and this is the answer. Because he's the greatest mathematician in the world, not you, you would have to say
Well, I guess he's right. That's right. And then and this is how it fits together. And then he of course he can demonstrate how it fits together, et cetera, et cetera. All that's true, but he he would be the one saying So for us in the same way, if if God is real and he is, and if he's came to come to us in Christ and He has, and then He reveals that these things are true, which He has
Our job is not to say, I don't think that's right. Our job is to say, okay, this is how they fit together. This is what it is, this is what it isn't. Uh and then and and I'm my my my brain is not God's brain. And so in the way that I'll actually uh uh uh even though it is i it's logically makes sense, it's existentially, I might never say This is how that works out,'cause that assumes that I can sit above that in some kind of epistemic judgment of it and and decide if it's true or not.
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So if you read through the creeds, uh you know take the Council Nicaea three twenty-five, they're they're clarifying a certain aspect of who Christ is in terms of his divinity. Fast forward to three three eighty one.
God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made of one substance with the Father. So he's a different person than the Father, but he's not a different thing. That's right.
Fast forward three hundred eighty one, further bits of clarification, uh same same with four hundred fifty one. All those were addressed in the
Ephesus four thirty two.
Yes, yes, exactly. Yep. So all all the all the four early early councils were were addressing different aspects to refine the conclusion.
And the way we talk about it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a lot easier for them to say, Well we know what it isn't. It isn't this. It isn't this because those are logically contradictory or they defy what the Lord clearly says in the Bible. So we know it's not that.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's it's it's definitely it's not two persons. Go bold. It's one person. Right. Um it's not one um. Real nature, uh God, and then uh a a pseudo nature.
Skin suit kind of thing.
It's not it's not full god fake man. It's not full man fake god. For God.
Not a man that got uh uh um like appointed to become a god because he did a really good job. Yeah, that's n none of those things.
Things. Yeah I was gonna say we can uh st uh steer this conversation on the fly, so this is a dumb question to ask. We'll just redirect the conversation or edit this out. But uh w one of the things uh you know, you don't have to understand everything, but one of the things uh or some of the terms that may be helpful to get the most clarity on that
people don't always parse out because like you said, Doug, when you see one person, you see one nature. There's a strict continuity all the way down. Maybe it'd be helpful if we can shine a little light on what we mean by person and how that's different than nature. Is there any way that we can help folks parcel those two terms?
Some we're speaking to an individual.
Identity.
Yeah. Okay.
Be careful.
One of the ways we can think about that is at the level of desires and and and wills and other things like this, but uh that can get us in trouble when we come to Jesus because his his His two natures are unlike ours, but in a a person is a is a distinct individual. They're recognizably not the same person as another person is. But to say to speak about a nature uh is to say what kind of thing is that person
Yeah, so here here's a simple. If I could if I could go back we don't have to edit this out, but if I could go back and rewind the clock, I would say this. Uh person is an answer to the who question. Nature is the answer to the what question.
Really good.
Person is who? Jesus of Nazareth. Right. Okay. Oh, what kind of person was he? He was fully human and fully divine.
A he he has human nature. He he the essence of what it means to be a human, he is. Yep. Also, the essence or nature of what it means to be God, he is. Correct. And that's where the what we move.
The the in uh individual uh also terms we that are used is are agent or actor. Mm-hmm. So when we're for when we answer the who question, we're saying well this is Jesus. Well he's an individual, he's a person. Uh he's also an agent. That means he's he's able to or an actor, he's he's able to act with regard to his nature. So uh he obvious obviously can't uh none of us n n you know, n no one can act uh in discord.
So they have to act in uh accord with their nature, but uh because they are an agent, uh they have the capacities to act. and uh realize states of affairs that are in accord with their nature. So responsibility, action, those sorts of things uh tend to um denote what we mean by agency or act or individual
So he can act accord Jesus can act according to his human nature. He can act according to his divine nature.
Correct. And they were never and never in discord of those uh in the incarnation.
¶ Temptation and Ancient Heresies
No, and and both of these are are necessary and spoken about in places of in terms of practical relevance, right? Right. Think about Hebrews chapter four, uh, where it says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are. yet without sin. Well, it says in James one that God is not tempted, and uh he himself tempts no man. So how do you you know, this is actually I I I love these kind of things. How how do you Grow in your understanding in theology. And you can't do it.
If your starting assumption is maybe the Bible got some stuff wrong. Right. If you start there, then what you're actually going to do is be infantile and overly simplistic in your thinking. But if you say, Hey, these guys who wrote this stuff weren't dumb. They had the help of the Holy Spirit, they got it right. Then when James says God's not tempted, and then Hebrew says Jesus is tempted in every way as we are, you and yet without sin, you have to say, Okay
Well, how can these both be true? And then this is how you grow up in maturity, grow into salvation. You say, Well In his divinity, Jesus is not affected by temptation. There's no part of God that's like, I would really love to sin right now, but I'm not gonna.
And there's no infar there's no uh uh there's no um painful infirmities to appeal to. So it's like you can't look at uh God the Father and say, Hey, don't you wanna turn these stones into bread? It's like, Hey, I'm I'm not hungry. I'm so there's n there's no need and there's no sin.
Yeah. But to be human, uh, is to feel a temptation. And so if Jesus didn't feel temptation as we do, then he wouldn't have been fully human. And yet The fact that he's without sin shows he's gotta be more than human because there's no way he would have been able to not sin if he was only a man, only a human in the way that we are.
So when you put both of them together you're like, All right, yeah, so in his divinity he was never for a second tempted to sin, but in his humanity he experienced what temptation feels like for all of us as we go.
'Cause he had a human nature which included a human stomach.
Which closed. Yeah. Therefore God the second person of the Trinity, the eternal uh uh you know, begotten son had to take on a a second nature. So that's the difference. Not not not that he traded one for the other, but that that the he he already had a divine nature and then he took on in one person
a human nature in addition to that. And that's why we're it he's unique among all. There is no uh I read uh a guy recently, I think it was uh Irenaeus of Lions that said there is no species of Christ.
So there is no when we talk about his nature. Right. Th there's a human nature because there's humans, and there's the divine nature, because there is God. But but th they're not mixed in the sense of like there's another nature, there's a species of like this is It's like nope, there's there's humans and there's God.
Like he was a third thing.
That's right.
If God were all all blue and humans were all red, Jesus wasn't purple. That's right. He was both all blue and all red at the same time.
Everything that it means to be blue, everything that it means to be red.
Yeah. So what are some of the other ways that sometimes this goes wrong? Uh that can be either in Christian imagination or we look at um other uh faith systems. I mean what what are some of those we've talked about kind of true north, this one person, the who of
It's actually really good at a lot of it.
Reading I've been reading these chapters a lot trying to get these things prepped.
Yeah.
With three hoops.
There is one what, the divine Godhead, right, the Trinity, and then three whose Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Two human one humanity.
I can feel how helpful this has been to the people. What Who's on first?
It is it is simple. I mean it does apply across the board. I mean it's not it's not Hooville gone wrong. It it just is I mean we have we have Billion uh who's And one what in terms of
Amen.
So all all these categories make sense. I mean they they they just do. The the other thing about studying the early heresies is um you know uh heresy uh tends to repeat itself in just different forms over time.
Yeah.
Repackes. Everything's a remix.
Everything's a remix. So a lot of the a lot of the early Christological heresies actually find their manifestation uh mu much, much later. So Arianism is is repackaged as Jehovah's Witness today.
Right, that God was a created being. That's correct.
He's the first and greatest son of God, but not of the same substance or the same essence as the Father.
So there's one one high god and then some somehow there's a lesser god which of course wouldn't be god at all. That wouldn't be a created uh a created thing. So uh but it but that's uh that's the same thing.
Do that, they're always angry about the Trinity, and um that's the reason why. They're basically just modern day Arians.
Remind me who uh I feel who's the who's the mantle barrel.
Sure. Charles Tays Russell. Mm-hmm.
Mantle bearer for uh modalism these days.
Modalism. Modalism is a different heresy.
That's one that's been a cost.
Yeah, one that's been a costless.
That's right.
It says that uh father, son and spirit are just different roles. uh that God takes on in the same way that I am a husband and a father, uh, you know, and a pastor. And uh God wears different hats and sometimes he wears this hat, sometimes he wears that hat, sometimes he wears that hat, but it's not really three people. It's three
It's like yeah, different mass, that's what I was gonna say, different costumes. So he showed he shows up at one time in the fat is a father.
That's not true because of the baptism of Jesus, there's a voice from heaven, there's the Son of God on earth, and there's the Holy Spirit who shows up in the symbol of a dove. And so I'm like, yo.
Kent and Superman never appear at the same place at the same time.
Never in the same place at the same time because they're the same person. That's right. But if you have one what that has three new who's at the same time, that's such a you're such an illustration master, bro.
I received that down to my bones.
Uh Mormon is a modern day polytheist.
Yeah.
They just are. So they they believe, you know, essentially
This is the Mormons.
Oh, my God.
Right. So so instead of having one God and three persons, strict monotheism as the scriptures teach over and over again, uh you have you have multiple gods and it's a form of polytheism.
That's good.
It's good. Uh one of the things that we learn um from all of these uh uh controversies, if you want to put it that way, people uh haggling about this doctrine, trying to get clarity, is um just what's behind all that, the assumptions that people bring in, the motivations that people bring in.
¶ Recurring Questions and Humility
Um and so what are some of the things that we can learn uh about um uh what what's some things that we can learn from uh these early battles in uh early church history. Like one of things you're pointing out, Doug, was just the difference of assumptions and how people try to accommodate to their assumptions. So we look at Christ look at Christ and say, Well, as modern people like there's no way he could be God. Then you go back two thousand years and people saying the exact opposite.
Did. Yeah, the these this group of people called the docetists, uh or the the idea that came from them, Docetism from this Greek word dokeo means to think or seem like something. They had the opposite experience. They were reading the gospels and they're like, Well clearly he's God.
I don't know if he was really human though. Ain't no way. Right? Because then a human couldn't have done all this. And uh so it's funny to me because that actually reveals more about the people who struggle than the the teachings of the Bible itself.
Our problem is that we struggle to imagine that God is real, that he actually uh could come into a human being and live and all of this. Uh they were having the other issue, which was we know God's real and we know Jesus was God. I don't know if he's really human though, and I'm saying you can't You can't do that because not only do the scriptures teach it, but you lose something central to the Christian faith if you deny either of these.
Well I think it was uh Gregory of Nanzienzis, one of the early church fathers who said that which is not assumed is not healed. And so that that this is w uh again, I know we're we're talking about it thoroughly, but it's like this is this is why this is so important, because it's not just that Jesus took on it wasn't just God uh hiding in a physical body, because he didn't just redeem the body, he redeemed
human nature. That's why we said one one person with two natures. He redeemed hu humanity as as in in in human nature in that way. So he took on not only a physical body A a human nature.
Human mind, a human will, a human psychology. This is part of how you uh parse out things like Jesus praying in the garden saying, Not my will but your will, and you're like, uh I thought it was all the same stuff. It's like, no, he had a distinct human psychology that he had to bring under the authority of the Heavenly Father. Which he did perfectly.
By the power of the spirit.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. So uh what are some of the other things that we learned from some of these early, early debates? So one of the things that we just brought up was the fact that everybody brings their cultural assumptions, which is why modern people, no way he's divine. Some of these other folks know.
What goes around comes around, as Brian said. Um a lot of these things just get repackaged. I had a professor in seminary one time who said cults always do something weird with one or more of the following things. So it could be all three. They do something weird with the Bible.
Right. Um they either add to it, take away from it, or just flat out deny that it is the word of God. So cults do something weird with the Bible. Number two, they do something weird with Jesus, right? So they they get something wrong. They deny some part of
And one of the things that we've already mentioned.
Third one is they do something weird with sex. They always have they either forbid it, um which some cults have done. They've all died out by the way,'cause they didn't have children. Uh and or they
Yeah.
They they do p the polygamy thing like Mus like uh Mormons did and and Muslims do for so long. Uh this is this is what cults do. And so not nothing new under the sun.
A lot of realizing us uh h helps us um mo more quickly have a right humble posture. So if if you find yourself constantly especially this is I mean uh especially temptation maybe for certain types of people, especially maybe even for new Christians, you have a lot of questions trying to figure it all out. Um when it comes to understanding what the scriptures teach about Christ. Uh, if you find yourself thinking, I don't know if anybody's asked this question before. Uh,
Certainly have.
Oh they have.
The best thing about church history in seminary. The first class that I took when I was thinking about going back to seminary, I I just signed up for one class to dip my toes in and it was church history one. And I'll never forget that was my experience basically on every page of every book. I was like Oh my gosh, it there it is again. There it is again. There it is again. And then and and I was I was hooked in a lot of ways, but but because of that, it's just like you said, it's just repacking.
It's it's it's uh faith reinforcing a lot of times. You're you're not losing your mind. These things are understandable. Uh the chur the church has done a wonderful job discerning what the scriptures teach about who Christ is and therefore there's nothing new under the sun in terms of how we may go wrong.
Millions and millions of brilliant spirit filled people doing the same thing that we're doing, trying to know God and trying to live in his world. And they so it's very, very rare uh that that you're asking something somebody else hasn't. Nearly impossible that you're asking something no one else has asked before.
Yeah. Part of the humility is also just the humility of coming underneath the scriptures. Um one of the things that you get more aware of as you retrace some of these historical uh conversations is a a lot of these heresies are people who are actually like
trying to do a service to Christ. Like they actually had good intentions. Some of them were. Well some of them were, yeah. Of course not everybody was a good faith actor, but many of them were actually trying to get it right. You know, they had good intentions. They wanted to worship God as God and this humanity thing kinda like
you know, tampers that down or, you know, vice versa. And so one of the things is uh you have to have the humility to come underneath the scriptures um in um just uh full submission to what they reveal with patience over time because
you might have the best intentions of the world in the world to try to uphold one facet of the doctrine, but sometimes to the detriment of the other. And so we have to constantly walk this out underneath the clarity and authority and sufficiency of the scriptures. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean there's so many implications. Uh I know that uh walk it out in in group with Honoways, but but he you know, God is not distant, he's near. He's with us and he understands.
That was good.
In an amazing way.
W it was a great slogan that was used in a not great way.
That's comforting. Yeah, yeah. Um uh uh if we rightly understand who Christ is.
Yeah. So a good starting place, uh as as you not just starting place, but uh just the foundation as you continue to seek the clarities that the clarity that the scriptures give. is to understand who it is that you're relating to. It is the God of the universe who has all power, all wisdom, all the attributes that we already talked about in earlier recordings.
But one who has walked as us in Christ. And so he really does truly thoroughly. Truly. And so whether it's from his divine omniscience or uh in Christ, his human nature, he really truly does understand you.
Sailed in flesh, the Godhead Sea, hailed the incarnate deity, pleased as man with man to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel.
So continue to rest in all those great truths that we sing in our Christmas. And our Christmas hymns. And we'll see uh you guys on the next one.
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