Two Natures in One Person, Part 2
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.
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Topics
A full transcript is available on the tab. 140 paragraphs, roughly 60 minutes.
Recap of Cautions and Today's Plan
To possess a right knowledge of faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures is of the very essence of all saving religion. to possess a right knowledge of, faith in, and obedience to Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures is of the very essence of all saving religion. It was our Lord himself who said in John 17, This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
In this present series of sermons entitled Here We Stand, we've been engaged for several months of Sundays in the contemplation of the central figure in our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. as the people of God have received the knowledge of Christ from the Scriptures and by the Spirit illuminating their minds in the Scriptures, they have always confessed this person to be true God, true man, one person in two distinct natures forever. They have confessed him to be true God, as much God as though he were never a man. True man, as much man as though he had never been God.
They've confessed him to be one person in two distinct natures. The scriptural evidence of the first two aspects of that confession, his deity and his humanity, has been considered in past Lord's days. and we began last week to approach the biblical evidence for this third element of the confession that the Lord Jesus Christ is one person in two distinct natures forever. And as an introduction to the biblical consideration, I gave you a word of caution and then a word of exhortation.
The word of caution was, beware, you're on dangerous territory. In the history of the church, evidence is that many have made shipwreck when attempting to be more wise than the Scriptures in handling the biblical materials concerning the person of Jesus Christ. Some have been more wise than Scripture out of bad motives. It's been carnal pride.
Others, out of good motives. They've tried to help the people of God as though God didn't give enough help in the data of Scripture. But for whatever reason, we must not be wise beyond Scripture, and we must proceed with great caution as we address ourselves to the biblical evidence of the fact that Jesus Christ is one person in two distinct natures forever. And then the word of exhortation was to the intent that we cultivate a spirit of dependence, that we cultivate a spirit of determination, and that we be prepared for precise definition.
If ever we need to be dependent upon the Spirit to steer a straight course, it is in the contemplation of the person of Christ. If ever we need to be determined not to go beyond Scripture or fall short of the statements of Scripture, It is with reference to the inevitable tension that comes when we contemplate the full spectrum of biblical data concerning this one who is true God and true man. And begin to ask how could there be in one person true Godhood and true humanity so one that there are not two Christs. And yet still in such distinction of natures that there is no confusion of the Godhead with the manhood.
and no confusion of the manhood with the godhood. It's when we begin to wrestle with that that we need desperately to be determined that we shall not go a hair's breadth beyond the teaching of the word of God. And then thirdly, we must come to some appreciation of clear definition. As one man has said, terms record discoveries.
And in terms of this great doctrine, terms do not so much record discoveries as they record the faith resident in the hearts of the people of God throughout the centuries. Well then, so much for that review. We come now this morning to consider if we get through this, what will be our final study on the person of Christ. If we don't get through it, it will be the first half, the latter half you'll get next week, God willing.
But we're going to look at the biblical materials with reference to the one person in the two distinct natures forever. In the language of the shorter catechism, the only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God became man, and so was and continues to be both God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. Now how shall we organize the biblical materials? Well, let me attempt to do it along the following lines.
First of all, I want to give a brief explanation of the issue at hand. Secondly, a scriptural demonstration of these facts. And then thirdly, a practical application of the whole. First of all then, a brief explanation of the issue.
Brief Explanation: Addition Without Subtraction
When the Confession or the Catechism says that the Redeemer of God's elect is this person who is to be found in such a condition as we can only describe him one person in two distinct natures, what are they trying to convey? What understanding are these terms attempting to capture and convey to the people of God? Well, first of all, there must be no confusing or compounding of the natures of Christ. The second person of the Godhead, the eternal Word, assumed, that is, he took to himself a true human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
But in so doing, the divine eternal Word does not become the created temporal humanity. In other words, there is an addition, but no subtraction. Look please at John 1, verses 1 and 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Here is an assertion that that one whom we call the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Word, the eternal Son of God, ever was, ever was with God, and ever was God. Among other things, that's what this verse teaches us. In the beginning, the Word was ever being. It doesn't say in the beginning the Word became, or the Word came into being.
In the beginning the Word ever was being. The Word ever was with God, distinct from God. And yet the Word was a sharer in the divine essence. The Word was God.
Now look at verse 14. And the Word, not something less than the Word, not something the Word altered, the Word stripped of true Godhood, the Word stripped of eternity, of existence. No. and the Word became flesh.
All that the Word had ever been, He continued to be. But He became flesh. He took something that He had never had before. Now I want to use a simple object lesson this morning to emphasize only one point of the study and if you drive it beyond that, you'll end up a heretic.
Please don't abuse my illustration and make it the mother of heresy. But especially for the children, I feel the illustration may be helpful. When we are trying to grapple with the issues involved in this teaching, that he is one person in the two natures, we are concerned, first of all, that we will not confuse or compound the natures. The eternal word takes something to himself that he never had before.
The Hand and Glove Analogy
But what he was never ceases to be what it always had been. Now, before me and before you is my right hand, constituted of five fingers. I've forgotten the number of bones and sinews and joints and muscles. There it is, a fully functioning, active human hand.
That's what it has always been from the moment of my birth. Now, it has undergone certain changes as far as size. Probably has a few more lines in it now than it had when it was a teenage hand. But nonetheless, it is my hand.
Now I'm taking my gloves.
And I'm putting my hand in the glove or I'm putting the glove over my hand. Now what has my hand relinquished? Absolutely nothing. My hand has all of the properties and faculties that it had before I placed my glove upon it.
It has bones, sinews, muscles, five fingers, shape and form peculiar to a hand. but it now has something it didn't have before I put the glove on it. It has a leather sheath that covers it.
The hand has lost nothing in the process. All of its faculties are still there. It has gained something that it never had before. Now, do you see the point I'm trying to make from John 1?
In the beginning was the Word, and all the properties of Godhead were his as the second person of the triune Godhead. When the word became flesh, the word, the hand, did not become a glove, a piece of leather. Nor did it become something halfway between a piece of leather and a hand. The word remained what it always had been.
Chalcedonian Definition: No Confusion, Conversion, Division, Separation
but it took something that it never possessed before flesh that is a true humanity and so the great concern of the church through the history of its wrestling with the doctrine of Christ has been to assert we must never confuse or compound the natures the created humanity does not become uncreated deity or something in between if that were possible nor does the uncreated deity pass into some kind of elevated humanity. When the eternal word becomes flesh, the eternal word is still the eternal word, now joined to a true humanity,
but remaining distinct in its nature. Therefore at Chalcedon, we mentioned to you last week, the council at Chalcedon in 451 AD, and then the Westminster Confession picking up the language of Chalcedon, expresses this truth in this kind of language. Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the godhood and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion. Without conversion, the Godhead did not become manhood.
The manhood did not become godhood. There was no conversion of one to the other. There was no composition, mixing them up together so you have something in between, nor was there any confusion. You say, I don't understand that.
Neither do I. But that's the issue at stake. And as we go to the Scriptures, what we want to demonstrate is that when we confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be one person in two distinct natures, this is what we are confessing. That He is truly God and truly man.
He is the God-man. And then the second thing that involves the issue before us is, there must be no dividing of the person. When the eternal Word assumes human nature, what is constituted is but one person, our glorious and blessed Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. To go back to my illustration, once the glove was put on,
it will never be put off again. Once the Word becomes flesh, the person thus constituted, our Lord Jesus Christ will forever remain one person in the two distinct natures and that forever. The person constituted in Mary's womb, born in a manger, raised in Nazareth, baptized in Jordan. the one that itinerated in Palestine, the one that was fixed upon a cross, laid in Joseph's tomb, raised from the dead, ascended back to the right hand of the Father who will sit upon the throne of His glory to judge the living and the dead is but one Christ.
And it is this Christ who is the object of our faith, of our love and our obedience. We do not believe in, love or obey the divine nature of Christ. We believe in love and obey the person of Christ. We do not believe in love and obey the human nature of Christ.
We believe in love and obey the one Christ who is both God and man. In the language of Colossians 2, 8 and 9, For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, And old Bishop Usher, seeking to address himself to this great mystery, said with unusual perception, He in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily is the person. Paul doesn say the divine nature dwells in him and the human nature dwells in him and we worship something that is just two distinct natures He says no all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily
It's the person in whom the fullness dwells. But old Bishop Usher goes on to say, the fullness which doth so dwell in Him is in the natures. There dwells in Him the fullness of the Godhead. There dwells in Him the fullness of the manhood.
But the fullness of Godhood and the fullness of the manhood in the one person, that is the object of our love, of our trust, and our devotion. And so the issue before us is to maintain this biblical tension. There are two distinct, unmixed natures constituting one undivided person. Have you got that? It wouldn't hurt you to memorize that.
two distinct, unmixed natures constituting one undivided person. Now you hold on for a while because you'll see that this is not just a tempest in a theological teapot. Remember, Christ is exactly what He is because no other Savior would suit your need and could take you to heaven.
If He were a Savior who was simply some kind of a composite of two distinct individuals dwelling together under the veil of one personality, your salvation would never have been effected.
And if the union of the two natures in any way meant that he ceased to be true God and the Godhood passed into some semi-Godhood because of the downward pull of the humanity, and if the humanity was somehow elevated beyond true humanity to semi-Godhood, we'd have no Savior. Our salvation rests upon these realities. That there is this distinction of natures joined in the one person. Alright, so much for a brief explanation of the issue at stake.
Scriptural Witness to the One Person
Now, let us turn to the scriptural demonstration of this great mystery. First of all then, the scriptural witness to the one person of our blessed Redeemer. Do you want a big word and an accurate one? The uni-personality, the one person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Now, what has always pressured the people of God who reverently studied the Scriptures, what has pressured them always to confess that the object of their faith and love and obedience was but one person, one Christ? Well, first of all, it is the fact that there is no evidence of a dual personality in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no evidence of a dual personality in any of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why are we Trinitarians?
Why do we confess the one God to exist as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Well, among other reasons, it's because we find a distinct I-thou relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father, and the Father and the Son and the Spirit. They are objective one to the other. We read from John 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.
There is something distinct from God, although the Word was Himself God in His essence. We turn to John 17, and I ask you to turn for a moment. Here the incarnate Word is praying.
And this glorious person, when he prays, looks up into the face of his Father and says, John 17, 1, These things spake Jesus, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. Here is the Lord Jesus praying to one called the Father. There is an I-Thou relationship.
Therefore, we never say that Jesus Christ is just a temporal manifestation of the one God who is not only one numerically, but one in terms of His essence. We say, no, the divine essence is to be found resident in three persona, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Jesus takes this relationship right back into eternity and speaks of the glory that He had with the Father, not as the Father.
But He said, the glory that I had with Thee before the world was. Christ continually manifest that there was in his consciousness an I-Thou relationship between him and the Father. Never once does he manifest there is an I-Thou relationship between his divine nature and his human nature. Never once.
Let me illustrate it. Though the consciousness at certain points was that of the divine nature or the human nature, Christ always speaks of it as his personal consciousness. For instance, he says in John 10, I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. He says in John 6, I came down from heaven.
Well, did his human nature come down from heaven, yes or no? Where did the human nature of Christ begin?
In Mary's womb. And yet he says, I came down from heaven, obviously speaking of his divine nature. But he doesn't say my divine nature came down from heaven. And he said, I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
He refers to certain things that are obviously the consciousness of his human nature. Now is my soul troubled. John 12. There is our Lord's humanity breaking through.
But he doesn't say, now is my human nature troubled. He says, now is my soul troubled. Upon the cross he cries, I thirst. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
You see, throughout all of the gospel records, there's not a shred of evidence that our Lord ever spoke out of any other context than that of being one undivided personality. The unipersonality of our Lord is seen in that there is no evidence of a dual personality in his own words. Secondly, there is no evidence of a dual personality in the apostolic witness concerning him. You remember the promise Christ gave?
We'll be studying it in several weeks in the adult class. In John 16, Jesus said the spirit of truth will come to you, speaking particularly to the apostles in that instance, and he will bring to remembrance all that I've said unto you. He will lead you into all truth. He will show you things to come.
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.
Look at Romans chapter 1 as an example. Romans chapter 1, verse 1, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he promised afore through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, now notice the language, concerning his son, one person. Now notice the emphasis upon the two natures. Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.
Who was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Even one person, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is probably the closest thing we have in Scripture to an assertion of two distinct natures. The Christ whom Paul preached had an according to the flesh element, and he had an according to the spirit of holiness element.
And yet there were not two Christ's but one. It is the gospel concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. You find the same emphasis in Philippians chapter 2 in that great Christological passage, where Paul is enjoining the spirit of humility and unity. and preferment of one above another.
And he takes our Lord's incarnation as the great pattern of this. Verse 5 of Philippians 2, Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself of no reputation taking. Now notice, in the form of God taking, he doesn't relinquish anything that is peculiar to his Godhood. God is immutable.
If the second person of the Godhead could in any way, shape, or form cease to be everything that God is, he never would have been God. I am Jehovah, I change not. And so he who is in the form of God takes While never ceasing to be God He takes the form of a servant Being found in fashion as a man He humbles himself Becomes obedient unto death Now what do we have in this passage? Well among many lines of truth We have this emphasis It is but one Christ Who though in the form of God Takes the form of a servant and is still God and the man, the servant.
He is but one Christ, not two.
And so we confess Him to be one Redeemer, for there is no evidence of a dual personality in His own words, no evidence of a dual personality in the apostolic witness, even when they are giving what we would call a description of the two natures. It is one person. and also in the apostolic witness while focusing on one nature it is but one person. Look at Acts 20.28 The apostle is charging the elders to be careful in preserving and feeding and shepherding the flock of God and that exhortation is bucked by the reminder of whose flock it is and what was necessary to bring it into being.
Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit made you bishops To feed the church of God In the better manuscript evidence as far as I'm concerned And that opinion is simply hiding behind what I feel to be the most competent linguist and textual analyst Or analyst To feed the church of God Which he purchased with his own blood Now it's obvious God cannot die God has no blood But the Godhood is so joined to the manhood in Christ That what is peculiar to one nature Is attributed to the whole person In the humanity he dies
But it's God who purchased the church with his own blood Why? Because it's one person One person 1 Corinthians 2.8 Paul says they crucified the Lord of glory. The Lord of glory can't be crucified.
God cannot die. But you see, the humanity is so joined to the Godhead in the one person that whatever is done to the person can be ascribed to one of the natures alone.
You see, as you're describing me further and further in the waters, Pastor, I'm sorry. I'm just quoting Scripture. That's the Christ who is the object of our faith. Then you have it reversed.
Jesus says in John 3, he says, even the Son of Man who is in heaven. No man hath ascended up into heaven. No man has known the mysteries of God, but he who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven. Well, in what sense was Jesus in heaven while he was talking to Nicodemus?
Not as to his human nature, but as to his divine nature. The divine essence was as much in heaven and filled heaven and earth after the incarnation as it did before.
Yet Son of Man was one person, the person standing in front of Nicodemus. You say, that confuses me. It probably confused him.
But that's the scriptural testimony.
Paul does the same thing in Romans 9, 5. He speaks of Christ who came as of the flesh from the Jews. but then he says, who is over all God, blessed forever.
Concerning the flesh, he comes from Jewry, and yet he is God over all, blessed forever. Well, we know that the person who came of the flesh is that person whose human nature came through Mary's womb, and yet he describes the whole person in those terms. Now, this has been called in the history of the church the hypostatic union. And when you hear people talk about the hypostatic union, they're speaking of the fact that the two natures are so joined that they constitute one single person, and that person is our Redeemer, perfectly suited to our needs.
Distinction of the Natures Within the One Person
Now then, what about the scriptural evidence for the distinction of the natures within the person? Having shown the biblical evidence that there is but one person, only one person in the consciousness of our Lord in all of his statements, only one person in the apostolic witness concerning him, how do we know that he who is one person, one Redeemer, is that one in whom there is this distinction of the natures without conversion without confusion without composition If the assumption of a true human nature by the eternal word resulted in the divine nature becoming something less, or the human nature something more, then there would be no clear
expressions of true divine or truly human consciousness. Now get this. See, follow closely what I'm trying to say. And if you're laboring to listen, I've labored much harder to prepare this and to try to present it, and this is the best I can do.
Now follow closely. If the natures did not remain distinct in the one person, then never would you find that person speaking in such a way as to indicate a consciousness of undiluted deity. If when the Godhood joined the manhood, it was so fused as to form something not quite God and not quite man, then the person thus formed would never speak, if he were honest, in a way that only God can speak, would he? If I were to speak like I were a king, I'd be lying.
I'm not a king. If Christ then is found speaking as though he were truly God after the incarnation, either his godhood remained a distinct nature, and out of that consciousness he speaks, or he was a liar. If in the incarnation the humanity is so mingled and converted into something other because of its proximity to the deity, that he's not a true man, and yet he speaks as a true man, he's a liar, a deceiver. But wonder of wonders, when we turn to the same Bible in which Christ speaks as one person.
Before Abraham was, I am. The same one upon the cross says, I first. But within that person, within that glorious person, there are moments of consciousness in which he speaks according to his divine nature, words that can only be spoken by God. and then other times when he speaks according to a consciousness that can only be understood as the consciousness of a man.
Let's look at some biblical examples. In Matthew 11, 27, when our Lord says, and we studied this in another connection with reference to his deity, so I'll not go into a careful exegesis, simply remind you of the force.
When our Lord says in Matthew 11, 27, All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save the Father. Neither doth any know the Father save the Son. What is the point of consciousness? What is the pressure of present consciousness when Jesus Christ says, No one fully knows and comprehends the Father save the Son.
He is saying God comprehends God. And it is God the Son who alone can comprehend God the Father. The form of the consciousness in Matthew 11, 27 was divine. And yet in Matthew 24 this same person says of that day nor hour knoweth no man, nor the angels, nor the Son.
What is the form of consciousness at that point? The form of consciousness is that of a human mind with human limitations. When we read in the Scriptures, John 8, 58, Before Abraham was, I am. What is the form of consciousness?
It's that of eternal, uncaused deity. Before Abraham was, I am. The form of consciousness is that of undiluted Godhead.
Eternal existence is the form of consciousness at that moment.
When that same one says in John 19, 21, 19, 28, I thirst, what is the form of consciousness? that of a true humanity that was undergoing in its physical nature dehydration upon a Roman cross that caused him while he's conclaimed to his jaws to cry, I thirst! And you go all the way through the scriptures and you find this. Now what do you do with all that material?
You can do what men have tried to do. You can say, I can't live with that enigma. Therefore, I'm going to explain away those expressions which point to a form of consciousness that is nothing less than the consciousness of God. Or you're going to take the expressions that point to the consciousness of humanity and explain them away.
But we are not to be explainers in that sense. We are to be believers. And we say there is no way to unlock this mystery but to say that one person who said before Abraham was not my divine nature was. He says, before Abraham was, I am one person. But he says, there is something of me that existed before Abraham. And the same person says, not my human nature thirst, but I thirst, which is not the language of deity, but the language of humanity. How do we make sense of this? Didn't Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have any sense of the problem they were creating for those who'd pick up their gospel records and read them?
If you credit them with any intelligence, credit them with enough intelligence to know they were creating some tremendous problems. Why was it no problem to them? Ah, listen, listen, listen. Because they were simply reporting the Christ who'd been revealed to their hearts by the Holy Spirit.
And it was the confession of the gospel writers that their Christ was one Christ in two distinct natures forever.
Body and Soul Analogy of Two Centers of Consciousness
Now I'm going to use an illustration. I've wrestled, I've prayed, I've sought counsel from others as to whether I ought to or not. When I preached on the Trinity, I used no illustrations. They only cloud the issue.
But this analogy, faint, has many weaknesses, but perhaps it will help just as the glove analogy I hope helped a little. It's inadequate, inaccurate, it pressed too far, but I offer it with dependence. I trust that the Spirit may be pleased to use it. Think of yourself as a human being.
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 experience is fully sensuous
if someone were right now to step on your toes you're reacting just like an animal would if someone stepped on his toe at that point of sensuous consciousness we're very much like the animals but sitting here and thinking lofty thoughts of Christ your Redeemer you are lifted as high as the pure spirits of the angels and in every single day's experience these two forms of consciousness in the language of Shed chase each other over the landscape of our lives like shadows over the landscape.
A man says, I love God and he says, man, I love pizza.
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.
That's a faint analogy. In the one person of our Lord Jesus are these two distinct whole unmixed unconverted natures and at times He speaks according to the consciousness of the divine. At times He speaks according to the consciousness of the human. But it is one Christ who speaks.
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.
Though the I is referring in the latter primarily to the consciousness of the soul. I love God. The former refers to the consciousness of the body. I am hungry.
But it's I who am hungry. And I who love God. And so with our blessed Lord, there is in the one person those two centers, those two pivots, those two forms. those two orbits of consciousness.
I thirst before Abraham was. I am. And so this distinction in the natures is evident in our Lord's consciousness. It's evident in the inspired witness concerning Him.
The Apostolic Witness to Distinct Natures
The Godhood in the apostolic witness is eternal, unchanged Godhood. I go back to John 1 again. when John would describe the Lord Jesus at the very outset. You see, the other Gospel writers don't tell you so much at the beginning concerning who He is.
As you read the record through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, more and more you're pressed to ask, Who is this man that even the winds and the waves obey Him? Who is He that moves with such humility and yet who receives divine worship from his followers? Who is he? Until at the end of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you're forced to say he is none other than the incarnate God.
John saves you that trouble, and at the very outset he says, now my record's going to raise some questions. I'll tell you who he is at the outset. He is God.
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.
And then, in the force of the language in the original, is such that John was obviously very careful not to misconstru the reality. Verse 14, And the Word became flesh.
Not the Word was made. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It is only God who is full of grace and truth.
And John says, the one we beheld, and he describes him in his first epistle, that which our eyes have seen and our hands have handled of the word of life, that is none other than the eternal word, who, joining to himself a true humanity, has become the object of all of our hopes and all of our trust. That Godhood is eternal, unchanged Godhood. It is the Word that becomes flesh and never ceases to be the Word in becoming flesh. You say, Pastor, you said that before.
Yes, and I want to say it again. Until under the blessing of God it sinks in. And then in the Philippians 2 passage He who is in the form of God Tates He takes Here is in the language of one man Humiliation by addition Not subtraction He takes The form of a servant Some of you wonder why the old theologians Loved the term assumption This is why they used it The second person of the Godhead assumed a human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He did not relinquish anything of that which he was as God.
The inspired witness points to him as that one in whom Godhood is eternal, unchanged, and unmixed. and they point to him as the one in whom manhood begun in the womb of the virgin continues to be throughout eternity amidst human nature. Hebrews 2, Romans 9 and all of those passages that we considered with reference to the humanity of Christ. Now there are certain accidents of human nature that Christ laid aside when he was glorified.
But everything essential to the properties of human nature He is with now in the glory. We have, not we had while he was here, we have a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And you say, Pastor, can't you somehow bring that all together now and give us a simple little formula? No, my friends, that's as far as I can go.
That's the teaching of the Bible. There it is. I can't give you any resolution of it. He is one person, his own consciousness, the apostolic witness one person two distinct natures his own consciousness the apostolic witness now what does all of this say to us and I trust you'll forgive me for holding you just a little bit longer this morning but I want to bring home the practical application of this teaching and I trust then you'll see it's been worth hanging in there and trying to grasp it some understanding of these things is absolutely necessary if number one we are to understand the biblical records concerning our Lord. There is no way to make sense of the Gospel records but to understand that Jesus Christ is one person in two distinct natures forever. Without that you have no key
to unlock the mystery of the Gospel records And as Warfield so eloquently says a key that fits so delicate and intricate a lock must indeed be the right key How can you unlock the gospel records How can you figure out the enigma of this person who says before Abraham was I am
And who says, I better go look at that fig tree and see if it's got any figs on it. Now, how do you put all that together? Come on now, how do you make sense of that? you can make no sense of it unless you realize this is one person in two distinct natures your glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the gospel records are an insolvable enigma unless you have some understanding of this and when you do have some understanding then you begin to see it on every page and you say ah in this particular instance he's speaking according to that consciousness of His real humanity.
Ah, but here, three sentences later, He's speaking according to the consciousness of His true and essential deity. We had an example of it this morning in John 13. Jesus, knowing that all things have been delivered of Him from the Father, that He came from God and goes to God, girds Himself and takes the place of the serpent. Here, the point of consciousness was that divine consciousness of his identity.
Application 1: Key to Unlock the Gospel Records
And you'll find then the gospel records opening up with freshness in a way you've never seen them before. Now I did not say that understanding this will form a scalpel to dissect the mystery. No, it's simply a key to unlock the door to gaze upon the brilliance of the mystery. It's not a scalpel to dissect it.
It's just a key to unlock the door to look at it and to wonder and to worship and to fall before him and say, my Lord and my God. Secondly, by way of application, some understanding of this great truth is necessary for the regulation of our worship and our prayers. How are we to conceive of our Lord when we worship Him and pray to Him and pray through Him to the Father? Do we worship only the divine nature?
Application 2: Regulating Worship, Prayer, and Confession
Do we trust only the divine nature? No, we worship Him. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive blessing and glory and honor and power and riches and might and dominion. It's the Lamb who is worthy, not just His divine nature.
When Thomas fell at the feet of Christ, he did not say, My Lord and my God, as to your divine nature. It was a Christ whom he could hold with his hands In the full integrity of true sinless humanity Who was the object of worship But not humanity in isolation from deity Nor deity isolated from humanity But the God-man was the object of his worship And oh dear children of God He is the object of our worship this morning If he is not then we've been idolaters we sang a hymn of praise to Him as God.
To regulate our worship and our prayers, we must understand that He's true God. But when we seek consolation, we can then focus not just upon the person, but upon one of the natures and suck sweetness from the flower of His human or His divine nature. Isn't that what the writer to Hebrews does in Hebrews 2? He focuses upon the reality of human nature.
He took not on him the nature of angels, but he laid hold of the seed of Abraham. It behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and hazed faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. And there are times in your prayers when you need to focus upon the reality of that human nature that He presently bears at the right hand of the Father.
And there are other times when you need, under the pressure of tremendous obstacles, not to think of Him so much in the reality of His human nature, but to think of Him in the language of Isaiah, the mighty God, El Davor, the mighty God. And say, Lord Jesus, gird Your sword upon Your thigh and come forth in all the plentitude of divine power. And oh, how your prayers will take wings as eagles and your faith will be strengthened. I say this is a practical doctrine.
You can't understand the biblical record unless you have some understanding of it. You cannot regulate your worship and your prayers. Thirdly, we need it for the regulation of our confession and our proclamation. The duty of every Christian is to confess Christ.
The privilege of some Christians is formally to proclaim him. But how are we to confess him? How are we to proclaim him? How are we to understand this Jesus friend of sinners?
Do we confess him to be son of God alone? Do we confess him to be son of man alone? What do we make as our confession? Our confession is that we believe in Jesus Christ.
And I go back to the language of the old shorter catechism, who being the eternal Son of God became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures in one person forever. Oh dear people, much blood has been lost And much mental agony expended To give to the church that articulate statement We betray our heritage If we do not confess with accuracy to our generation who Christ is My heart is pained with this sick, saccharine, sentimental slop About Jesus, an undefined, an undescribed and inarticulate Jesus.
Paul didn't preach Him that way. When he opens up Romans and says, Paul separated unto the gospel, he says, the gospel concerning his son, and the first thing he does is give a confessional statement about the one person in the two nations. That's the first thing he does. Separated unto the gospel of his son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord.
And all this gospel diddism, and all of this so-called witnessing that means nothing more than a sentimental, mystical flight into some kind of undefined and undescribable encounter with Jesus. It's heresy, beloved. It's heresy.
And it's the devil's tools of blind people into thinking they have biblical salvation when all they've had is a mystical, psychological release from some of their gross hang-ups. we've got to confess him and proclaim him as he's revealed and finally the practical application of this is seen in that it will regulate our hopes and our expectations one of the essential aspects of the true Christian life is communion with Christ 1 Corinthians 1.9 God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship koinonia Here, communion of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And oh, what a privilege to hold communion with Christ. But to hold communion with Him means we must think of Him. And to think of Him means we must have some conception of Him. Well, how are we then to frame the conceptions of Christ that go into the orbit of communion with Christ?
Let me close with a quote from Warfield again. The glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze. Young man, that's true theologizing. Notice he doesn't say it presents to our understanding, our raw, noetic exercises.
No. The glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze. Not a humanized God or a deified man, but the true God-man. One who is all that God is and at the same time all that man is.
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.
We cannot afford to lose either the God in the man or the man in the God. And oh, here it is. Get it? Our hearts cry out for the complete God-man whom the Scriptures offer us.
Closing Plea and Prayer
Oh, people sitting here this morning, does your heart cry out for this kind of a Jesus? Does your heart cry out and say, My plight is such that none can meet my need but he who is truly God and truly man? Warfield says so eloquently and expresses the consciousness of every believer, our hearts cry out for the complete God-man in whom or whom the Scriptures offer us. You see, it is God who purchased the church with His own blood.
And if He be not God, the purchase is worth nothing. If he be not man, the purchase is not real. But thank God our salvation rests down upon the purchase of God with his own blood. And it is his essential deity that gives infinite worth to the suffering of the humanity.
And it is the integrity of the humanity that validates all of the sufferings of the God-man, Christ Jesus. And after contemplating such mysteries, what can one say but the language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 16, 22? If anyone loved not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Oh, how could you fail to love so lovable a Redeemer as the God-man, Christ Jesus?
Do you love Him? Do you trust Him? Do you adore Him in the truest, highest, most elevated sense? Do you magnify Him? Does your heart run out with war fields and say, my heart can be satisfied with nothing less than a Savior who is God and man, one person in two distinct natures forever.
That's the Redeemer whom we proclaim to you. Oh, if you don't know Him, give yourself no rest until He becomes to you the pearl of great price for which every lesser object is sold in pursuit of that one great and glorious possession. Let us pray.
O our Father, when we read that angels desire to look into these mysteries, we can understand something of their holy curiosity. We stand back and we cry out from the depths of our hearts, Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. or, Father, overcome us with something of the glory and majesty of His ineffable person. And when we contemplate that all of this is for our salvation,
oh, that we may not despise such offers of mercy,
may we not treat with indifference such divine condescension, Seal the word to our hearts. Preserve to our generation and for unborn generations a true confession of your beloved Son. Preserve and perpetuate, we pray, through this assembly and every place that rightly honors your Son, a proper presentation of Him to this needy generation. Lord we long for the day when the airwaves and the television screens that carry gospel broadcasting and when books and literature and tracts and when every medium of communication that purports to proclaim the gospel will set forth our glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
in the full orbed majesty of all that he is O God raise up from this place and all across our country men who feel the weight and the burden of these great issues of truth and who will spend and be spent to the end that Jesus Christ will be magnified before the eyes of this generation. Hear our cry, our Father, and receive the thanks that we offer for answering our prayers that you would make your presence known and felt among us in this place today. Receive then our praises and dismiss us with the benediction of your own presence resting with us. We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Thank you.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The eternal Word became flesh without ceasing to be God
Existing in the form of God, he took the form of a servant
In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily