Pastor Martin now sets out the biblical demonstration of Christ as one undivided person subsisting in two distinct, unmixed natures forever. Using a glove and hand analogy, and the witness of John 1, Philippians 2, Acts 20, Romans 1 and 9, and Colossians 2, he shows that the eternal Word became flesh without ceasing to be all that God is. He then shows from Christ's own consciousness and the apostolic witness that the natures remain distinct, with the one person speaking sometimes from the form of consciousness of his deity and sometimes from the form of his humanity, applying the doctrine to interpretation of Scripture, worship, and gospel proclamation.
7 illustrations in this sermon
Pastor Martin holds up his hand, then puts a glove on it. The hand has lost nothing — bones, sinews, all five fingers remain. But it has gained something it never had before: a leather sheath. The Word lost nothing in becoming flesh; he only added a true humanity.
Now I'm taking my gloves.
9:29 - 9:31 Read in full sermon
Driving home: There is not a shred of evidence that our Lord ever spoke out of any other context than that of being one undivided personality.
Paul says they 'crucified the Lord of glory.' But God cannot die. Yet because the humanity is so joined to the Godhead in one person, what is done to the human nature can be ascribed to the whole Christ — even to the Lord of glory.
He will take the things of myself and reveal them unto you. The apostles were given an infallible understanding of the nature of Christ's person and the implications of his work. So when they describe the Lord Jesus, how do they describe him? Even when they are giving what we would call a description of his two natures, they only describe one person.
22:07 - 22:32 Read in full sermon
You have a sensuous physical part — when someone steps on your toe, you cry out like an animal. You also have a soul that loves God. One person, two distinct centers of consciousness, never confused. A faint analogy of the two natures in Christ.
You have two distinct elements that compose your humanity. The sensuous physical part of you, that hand that now rests upon your lap or fiddles with your hymn book, the eyeballs that I trust look up here, that physical, sensual part of you and then the immaterial, the soul, the mind, the will, the affections. And yet in us as human beings, in the language again of a servant of God of a bygone day, with us there are these varying modes and forms of consciousness that chase each other over the field of human personality like the shadows of the clouds over a landscape. at one moment a man's exper...
36:47 - 37:33 Read in full sermon
A man says, 'I love God.' The same man says, 'I love pizza.' The first speaks of the most elevated act of the soul; the second of taste buds. One person, two registers of consciousness.
You see, one has relationship to taste buds and the sense of being full and the other speaks of the most elevated expression and exercises of the soul and yet it's but one person.
38:22 - 38:35 Read in full sermon
I don't say 'my stomach is hungry' — I say 'I am hungry.' I don't say 'my soul loves God' — I say 'I love God.' Both statements come from the same person, but the consciousness behind each refers to a different aspect.
I don't say my stomach is hungry. I say I'm hungry. I don't say my soul loves God. I say I love God.
38:55 - 39:02 Read in full sermon
Matthew, Mark, and Luke leave you asking, 'Who is this man that even the winds and waves obey him?' John, by contrast, answers the question at the very first verse: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.' The mystery is named upfront.
I'll answer the enigma at the outset. So he starts, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.
40:41 - 40:52 Read in full sermon
The point: Refuse to mistake mystical psychological release for biblical salvation — examine whether the Christ you have embraced is the Christ of Scripture.
Warfield's image: in the God-man we have one in whose almighty arm we can rest and one to whose human sympathy we can appeal. Lose either and you lose the Christ Scripture offers.
One in whose almighty arm we can rest. And one to whose human sympathy we can appeal. You get the combination? Resting on almighty arms, appealing to human sympathy.
53:50 - 54:06 Read in full sermon