Sunday morning. Thank you for giving us life. Thank you for giving us new life in Christ. Thank you for the unity that we enjoy in Christ. We thank you also for your providential work In history, thank you that you work through messy situations. Lord, you accomplish good for your church through all things. And pray, Father, that as we look at the two natures and the one person of Christ this morning, that it would be helpful for us, that we would see what is at stake if we lose one of these truths, and we would also be reminded that you are indeed working to build your church that you have been and that you continue to do so today. And in Christ's name we pray, amen. So last week, if you remember, we looked at the deity of Christ. We looked at the Council of Nicaea, where you have the Creed of Nicaea being produced, and then the Council of Constantinople, where the Nicene Creed is produced. That really helped to define what the Trinity is. and who Jesus is, that Jesus is a fully God. He's not a lesser God. He's not a created being. He is fully God. So is the Spirit. There is one God, three persons. Today, we're gonna look at what is called the Council of Chalcedon. We're gonna look at the two natures of Christ, that there is one person of Christ and two natures. And essentially, the question that we're Going to be answering is how is Jesus both God and man? How is Jesus both? God and man Needham says this in his church history book The Aryan controversy had been about the relationship between Christ and God That's what we looked at last week the status of the son in relation to the father This dispute was settled within the Catholic Church by the Council of Constantinople in 381 note Catholic not as in Roman Catholic, but as the Universal Church at that time However, even before the council met a new set of questions had begun to agitate the minds of Christian thinkers This time the issue was the relationship of the divine and the human within the person of Christ So again, our question is how is Jesus both God and man? To help us sort of set the stage, there are many influential cities, but in this debate, there are two major cities that we're gonna be looking at. There is the church in Antioch, and the church in Alexandria. both very important cities within the early church, and each of them had a different hermeneutical emphasis. In other words, each of them had a different emphasis that they had when it came to interpreting the Bible. This is gonna be important for the context here. Antioch really focused on the literal, the grammatical, historical. And the way that they interpreted scripture, I had a teacher, his name's Mark Chansky, he said that they were sort of like ant-like. In other words, they interpreted scripture bit by bit by bit by bit. And there was more of a focus with them sort of on the individual trees of scripture. You have the forest, and you have the trees. They focus on the individual parts of Scripture, which is important. Alexandria, on the other hand, focused more on the allegorical, which isn't always great, but to their credit, They saw more of the forest of scripture, the big picture. And my former professor, Mark Chansky, he likened them to spiders. In other words, they were very good at building these sort of intricate webs. I don't know how to draw a spider web, I don't know what I'm trying. spiderwebs of scripture, right? Connecting the dots of scripture, looking at the whole big picture, how does this fit in with this and this with this, whereas the church in Antioch was more bit by bit by bit. Now both are important, but if you have one without the other, you can end up with some problems. You need both. And so what the church at Antioch missed often was the big picture of scripture. how things connect, whereas the church in Alexandria could often miss the details, the individual verses that are important. You need both, right? You need the forest and the trees to interpret Scripture rightly. And so within these two cities, you had two different emphases when it came to Jesus, when it came to Christ. The church at Antioch emphasized that Christ had to be fully human. Looked at the clear verses that say that Jesus had to be made like us in every respect. Right, if Jesus is going to represent us, if he's gonna die for us, if he's gonna live for us, he's got to be all that makes a human human. Is that true? Yes, yes, that's true, it's a good emphasis. And they also emphasized that we need to make sure that there is a distinction between the two natures. That Christ's humanity is not his divinity. Christ's divinity is not his humanity. And their point was, if you start mixing those two things together, then you lose both of them, right? If Christ's humanity is mixed with his divinity, is it really humanity anymore? No, right and likewise if his divinity is mixed with his humanity. Is it really divinity anymore? No And so they said we have to have a strong distinction Between christ's humanity and christ's divinity because if we muddle that whole thing up we lose both of them And we and and we lose the gospel Right because if christ is not fully human, he didn't really die for our sins All right, he's not really able to be our representative. And if Christ is not fully God, he isn't able to accomplish that salvation. So we have to have this strong distinction. Now we're gonna see this emphasis could sometimes lead to the thinking that Christ was two different persons. Now does this necessarily have to mean that Christ is two different persons? No. But, oftentimes, that would be the case. The extreme position of this, wish I had more room here, is you have Christ becoming two persons. Which is problematic as well. Because if Christ is two persons, then it's really just God the Son helping along Jesus the human person. and salvation then isn't fully the work of God. It's a cooperation between the human person and the divine person. That's a problem, okay? On the other hand, you have the church in Alexandria. They are looking at the big picture of Scripture and they're saying salvation has to be fully the work of God. They see that that's a clear message throughout Scripture that salvation is of the Lord. Now, are they right about that? Yes, yes. So they emphasize that salvation has to be fully accomplished by God. And so, because of that, they emphasize the unity of the two natures. that Christ's divinity and Christ's humanity had to be united in one person. Because if it's not one person, then salvation isn't fully of God. So the church here emphasizing the distinction, Christ's humanity, Christ's divinity, the church in Alexandria emphasizing the unity of those two natures in one person. Now their error that they could slip into, an error that they didn't necessarily have to slip into, was that in this one person, the deity takes over. The deity swallows up the humanity. And so we'll see here in a moment that uh, what that would look like is that the divine mind takes over like replaces the human mind That christ doesn't actually have a human mind It's it's the god, uh, the the mind of god replacing that human mind The problem with that is if Christ doesn't actually have a human mind or a human soul, if God just replaces that, is Christ really fully human? No. Because what it means to be human is to have a human mind, a human soul, these sorts of things, okay? That's the error that they could slip into if left unchecked. And so, how did this play out historically? So you have Council of Nicaea, Council of Constantinople. In between these two councils, you have Apollinarius. He's the bishop of Laodicea. That's a familiar city, isn't it? Laodicea. He in 361, so that's in between those two councils. And he's of the Alexandrian school, this side. And he taught that Christ did not have a human mind or a human spirit. He said, he's reasoning, he says the human mind necessarily is sinful, and because of that, Christ then couldn't have a human mind. Now let's stop for a moment. Is the human mind necessarily sinful? No, how do we know that? Yeah, when God created Adam and Eve they had human minds that were not sinful now all of those who descend from Adam do we because we're Represented by Adam because we're descendants of Adam. Do we have sinful minds? Are we born with sinful minds? Yes but Christ who is the second Adam, the second representative, does not necessarily, the human mind doesn't necessarily have to be sinful. So Apollinarius is wrong there on that assumption. But because of that assumption, he says the divine mind takes place of the human mind in Christ. Sort of the ability to think and sort of what makes you you, the part that you can't see of you, the immaterial part of you, your spirit, your soul. Christ doesn't have a human one of those, God just sort of fits in the glove, like a puppet almost, right? That when I put my hand in a puppet, I'm sort of clothed in that puppet, and I have my hand, my hand's moving everything, right? It's kind of like that, where the divine spirit, the deity of Christ, just sort of takes on the puppet of human flesh. So Christ doesn't actually have a human soul. The deity takes place of that. Now, his, another line of argument of his is if Christ has a divine mind and a human mind, wouldn't that necessarily make him two persons? Which it doesn't. Now in our mind it does right it seems like if you were to have two Minds a divine mind and a human mind that means two persons, but that's not necessarily the case and again, he's he's trying to maintain the unity of these two natures unity of the person but in doing so he ends up denying the two natures and He loses the humanity of Christ because the divine the deity takes over the human spirit And so at the Council of Constantinople Which is where we have the Nicene Creed being produced. They also address this error of apollinarianism Which I'll That's on this side It's hard to keep track of all these things. They condemn this teaching. They say if Christ is the savior of humans, he must have all that a human has. in order for him to save humanity. And Gregory of Nisantius, we looked at him last week. He's really a champion of the Trinitarian doctrine. He also fights this error. And he writes, the Apollinarians must not deceive others or themselves into thinking that the man of the Lord was without a human mind. For we do not separate his humanity from his divinity. We teach that he is one and the same person you see he's maintaining both he's saying that there's there's one person And yet His divine doesn't take over the humanity once he was not a man But only God the Son existing before all of the ages and he was not connected with a body or anything physical But now he has become a become man to taking humanity upon himself for our salvation he goes on to say to sum up the Savior is made out of two separate components two natures we could say The invisible component is not the same as the visible nor the eternal component the same as the time-born But there are not two separate beings definitely not not two different persons one person With the one that's time-born the humanity and one that's eternal the divinity Both can this is where I wish his he was a little bit more careful with his language but he says both components are blended into one and The divinity takes on humanity, or the humanity receives divinity, or however you wish to put it. Now we don't wanna say that they're blended into one in which you lose the distinction, right? And I don't think that Gregory is trying to say that. And then this next part I think is really the most powerful part of his argument. He says, have you placed your hope in a Jesus who was a human being without a human mind? then you yourself are truly mindless. And do not deserve a complete salvation. This is the key to this argument. For what has not been taken up has not been healed. In other words, if Christ hasn't taken on a human mind, you have no hope for your human mind to be redeemed. You have no hope for your human mind to be fixed, to be saved, if Christ has not taken up that human mind, for what has not been taken up has not been healed. Our nature, in its different aspects, has been saved only to the degree that it has been united to God. If it was half of Adam that fell, then half of our nature might be taken up and saved. But it was all of Adam that fell, his mind included, his soul included. And so all of our nature is united with all of him who was begotten of the Father and thus gains a complete salvation. Then let the Apollinarians not envy us this complete salvation, nor equip the Savior with just bones and muscles, which would only be the outward appearance of humanity. You see his point there? He's saying, if Christ has not taken up a full humanity, you have no hope for a complete salvation. Christ needs to take up all of what it means to be human for all of you to be saved. We don't just need our bones and muscles redeemed, we need our heart redeemed, we need our mind redeemed. And so Christ takes those things on as well. And this is in line with the clear teaching of scripture, Hebrews 2, verses 14 through 18. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, Christ, likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps but he helps the offspring of Abraham Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect So that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God To make propitiation for the sins of the people for because he himself has suffered when tempted He is able to help those who are being tempted. I The author of the book of Hebrews says he has to be made like his brothers in every respect And so what that means is that Christ had to be all that it took all that it takes to be a human Which certainly includes a human spirit? human mind When Adam was created in the garden God did not just form him out of the dust Into a physical being right. What did he do after that? He breathed into him life, the spirit being placed into man. Man is both body and soul. Christ had to be fully human in his body and soul to save us. Next so we have that Council of Constantinople they condemn this view of a pollinarianism Where really the deity swallows up the humanity or replaces parts of the humanity? Next you have Nestorius He's of this school of the the school of Antioch. He becomes the patriarch of Constantinople in 428 so that's about 50 years after the Council of Constantinople so around here And he was taught and taught himself that it is wrong to call Mary the Theotokos. Yeah, the birth giver of God. He said instead we should call Mary the Christotokos. I keep saying tacos and I know that's wrong. Tacos. The problem is Brennan learned Greek from a guy with a southern accent. And there's like three different ways of pronunciation of Greek. So take your pick. I'm going to say tacos. He says that we should call him the birth giver of Christ So he's trying to maintain the distinction here He's trying to say that Christ is fully human merit So he's unwilling to say that Mary's the birth giver of God now those in this school in the Alexandrian school were perfectly fine with that statement because in there there's they understand that The divine son joins himself in the human person of Jesus. They're one person to nature So in one sense you could say that Mary is the birth giver of God not that she created God But she's the birth giver of the one person who is God right and so Nestorius doesn't like that term the school in Alexandria is fine with it and And eventually you have Cyril he's the patriarch of Alexandria, and he opposes Nestorius and There's this sort of geographical like Muscle flexing going on during all this too. Like we're the we're the better city than you and that sort of complicates things bit but He says so the same person was God and human at the same time he was in the likeness of men for even though he was God he was found and in fashion as a man. So Cyril's trying to maintain that, hey, there's one person, and the deity is united with the humanity, and he's hearing Nestorius over here, who's denying, who doesn't wanna say that Mary's the birth giver of God, and in his mind, and in his ears, it sounds like Nestorius is denying the unity of the person of Christ. So he comes out Cyril and he's kind of a brash guy Used by God, but the kind of a brash guy and he tells Nestorius that he needed to accept that in Christ. There is one incarnate physis of the log the logos Okay. Now that's a lot of fancy words and This is further complicated because that word physis could mean two different things. So Okay. So what Nestorius is saying, I'm sorry, what Cyril is saying to Nestorius is, you need to say, Nestorius, that there's one physis, one person. There's only one person. He's trying to make sure that Nestorius is teaching there's only one person of Christ, not two persons of Christ. Unfortunately, that word physis can also mean nature. So it could mean person or it could mean nature. And so to Nestorius, it sounds like Cyril is saying you need to say that there's only one nature of Christ. So in Cyril's mind, Nestorius is denying the unity of the person. And in Nestorius' mind, it sounds like Cyril is denying the two natures of the person. All because this word, physis, has a range of meaning, it could either mean nature or person. So, we don't actually know, it seems like Nestorius, we're gonna talk about Nestorianism here in a moment, it may be that Nestorius wasn't actually a Nestorian. This whole controversy could have just been a complication of words. Them just talking right past each other. Because this one word, very important word, could mean either person or nature. Okay, so it seems like to Nestorius that Cyril's denying the two natures of Christ, and to Cyril it seems like Nestorius is denying the one person of Christ. And so you have the Council of Ephesus comes together in 431, and Cyril gets the Pope of Rome and the Byzantine emperor on his side. Those are important people to have on your side. And what they do, they start this council, and they start it before the Nestorian supporters could arrive, which is really a good way to make sure things go the way that you want it to, isn't it? And so it's it's a mess. It's a mess. They start this council and they Remove Nestorius from his position Because they they're thinking that he's denying the one person of Christ which he may not have actually been doing And then after it, Nestorius' supporters show up, realize the council's already been held, so they say, let's just hold our own council, and they decide to remove Cyril. You know, it's sort of the tit for tat going on here. The emperor, Byzantine emperor, eventually reinstates Cyril. But it's a mess, it's a mess. And when you read church history, church history is a mess. It's a mess. And just as a side note, you can either take two different, you can have two different responses to that fact. You can either look at the mess of church history and get sort of jaded or like, you know, the church is a mess. Why even be part of the church? Why even, you know, sort of have this negative attitude towards the whole thing? Or we can look at that, and we'll see here in a moment, and actually be encouraged because God works through messes. That, you know, you look at the church in America today, are there messes? Yes. And it's actually rather encouraging to see that that's nothing new. And that God has been working throughout history, building His church in very messy circumstances. where men are being sinful where there's pride where there you know, there's just people talking past each other and In all of these problems and yet all the while god in his providence is working good for his church and to me that's encouraging that actually makes me hopeful because Yeah It it's not all Perfect and if you're looking for the perfect church in church history, do you know where it is? It's it's there's only one time where there's been a perfect church in church history. There's two people in it and it didn't last very long Right Adam and Eve that's where it was The perfect church In this world is it doesn't exist Hasn't existed since Adam and Eve It won't exist until the new heavens and the new earth And so, we want to deal with the facts. People are sinful. And yet, God has promised to build His church through sinful people. Amen? And that's encouraging. That's encouraging. And so we don't need to be jaded. You see this sort of back and forth. You see the imperfection. We don't need to hide the imperfections. We don't need to cover it up. We show it and we say, praise God that God worked through this mess. And at the end, we get this wonderful definition of Chalcedon, which we're soon to get to here. And so you have this sort of back and forth councils. We're gonna dispose you. No, we're gonna dispose you. And it could have all been over a misunderstanding of words. But Nestorius goes down in history as one who denied the unity of the person of Christ. Nestorianism says that there's two persons. Nestorius may not have even held that view, okay? Later you have Utikis. He's a Alexandrian. He's in this school. He teaches that Christ's human nature was swallowed up in the divine nature, so similar to Apollinarianism, but a little bit of a different flavor. It's not that God merely replaces the human mind, it's that the deity is so big that it swallows up the humanity there in Christ. But still, what do you end up having him denying? the humanity of Christ, right? And so he said that the incarnate son only has one nature, his divine nature. Second Council of Ephesus was held in 449, and that council was actually pro this view, that the divine nature swallowed up the human nature. But again, it was sort of a shady council. Like, hey, let's just get everybody together and let's pass this thing, sort of a thing. And so Pope Leo, he was the Bishop of Rome at that time, he would call this council a Senate of Robbers. It was just sort of a, again, a mess, a mess. Now, Eventually in God's Providence two years later after this Council of Ephesus that actually Maintained this view you have the Council of Chalcedon being called 451 you have the Emperor Marcian Calls for this council. You have over 400 bishops in attendance. So a large representation there And most there wanted to support Cyril's position that there's only one person, while also wanting to avoid the extremes of Eutyches, where the deity swallows up the humanity. They're wanting to maintain it's one person, but that person is fully human. as well as fully divine. And so these 400 bishops work through all of this mess here, and they come up with a creed that really combines the best of this school and this school. Because looking at these things, you look at this, is there anything incorrect about these emphasis here? Is there anything incorrect about what they said? No. The problem is, is if you ignore one of these, right, that's when you start going into the extremes. And so they said, let's look at this. And they come up with this creed that really safeguards all the truths of Scripture with regard to the person of Christ and the two natures of Christ. And so you have this definition of Chalcedon, The capital letters emphasize the Alexandrian theology of the unity of the person. And then the underlying words emphasize the theological thought of Antioch, which emphasize the distinct two natures. It's a wonderful statement. Let's go ahead and look at this together. We all, with one voice, Confess our Lord Jesus Christ one and the same Son one person one person at once complete in deity and complete in humanity Truly God and truly man consisting of a rational soul and body In other words, he has all that makes a human a human soul and body of the same essence as the father in his deity of the same essence as us in his humanity like us and all things apart from sin begotten of the father before all ages as regards his deity and the same born of the Virgin Mary, the birth giver of God, you see that they were actually okay with that language there, the birth giver of God, as regards his humanity in the last days for us in our salvation, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, The distinction of the natures being in no way abolished because of the union, but rather the characteristic property of each nature preserved. In other words, they come together in one person, but neither of them is altered. The two natures come together in one person, but the humanity is not altered, the divinity is not altered. And coming together to form one person and one hypostasis, he is not split or divided into two persons, but he is one and the same son and only begotten, God the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ, as formerly the prophets and later Jesus Christ himself have taught us about him and as it has been handed down to us by the creed. of the fathers. And so what they do in this creed is they're content to proclaim all the truths of scripture. Are these truths that we can comprehend how they all fit together? No. No, right? Can we understand that Jesus Christ is one person? Yes. Can we understand that Jesus Christ has two natures? Yes. Do I fully comprehend how that all fits together? No. No, there are mysteries, things that we cannot fully comprehend. And so, I like to say that they're really just putting up the theological bumpers on the mystery. You know, you go bowling, and if you're like me, you know, I do maybe good the first frame, or I think I do good. and then I just get tired and then I don't really wanna even do it anymore and I get lazy and I just start getting gutter balls. So what do you have for people like me and children? You have the bumpers, right? You put up the bumpers on the lanes so you don't veer off this way and you don't veer off this way, you just go straight, right? If you start to go off this way, it corrects you, right? That's what we're doing here, that's what they're doing there. Jesus is fully man and fully God and we need to put a bumper here. He is one person Don't go off this way. Don't go veer off here. Don't go veer off there Stay on stay in your lane. Don't go off this way Also, his two natures are not mixed together. See how that might be a thing that we might try to figure out how these all work together. Maybe they're just kind of mixed together. They're saying, no, they're not mixed together, nor are they separated from each other. Nor are they separated from each other. If they start to be mixed together, you lose them. If they start to be separated from each other, you lose the unity of the person. Both problematic. Both end up denying the gospel. And so Jesus is humanity remains humanity is divinity remains divinity and yet he is one person the Lord Jesus Christ and Now it seems like maybe maybe to some that we're just sort of squabbling over You know theological details here, but this is crucial If you if you fall into one of these errors you end up denying the gospel and This is gospel truth that we need to maintain. Because if we start veering off into this gutter, what do we lose? We lose his humanity. And if Jesus Christ is not fully man, can I be fully saved? No, I need a representative that is Just like me in every respect except for sin, right? on the other side If we start veering off this way Where you have two persons and the divine person cooperates with the human person Guess what? You lose the gospel. Because is salvation then all from God? If it's actually a sort of joint effort between man and God? No. The good news of the gospel is that God accomplishes salvation fully from beginning to end. If there are two persons, the divine person and the human person working together, then it's not salvation is not fully of God. You deny the gospel. Both are very problematic. Both are necessary. Yeah. Yes, yeah. So the question is, can you say that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God? Yes. Yeah. Now in our mind, that math doesn't add up. But in God's math, it does. So I'm gonna go with the God who created math and take his viewpoint, right? One person, 100% man, 100% God. Not 50% God, not 50% man. That ends up with like a Hercules, right? A demigod. This is fully God, fully man. You need both, one person. Not separated, not confused, not mixed. And so, these are gospel truths that we need to maintain. Furthermore, kind of mentioned already, if there is confusion between humanity and divinity, we lose both the natures, the distinct natures. And then again, I mentioned that last one there. Well, what do we learn from all this mess? What do we learn from all this? First of all, we need to be careful to uphold all the truths of Scripture, all of them. The problem that was arising from this controversy was you had individuals that were trying to make sense of it all who ended up denying key aspects of Scripture, key truths of Scripture. This side denying the unity of the person, one person, This side, them veering off in denying the full humanity of Christ and the distinction between the humanity and divinity of Christ. We need to uphold all truths of Scripture, even if they seem at odds with each other. Now note that I say, even if it seems, because they are not at odds at each other, it just seems like that to us. And so you have plenty of other topics where people veer off to one end or the other and miss key things. You have the Trinity, which we looked at last week, right? That you can, if you don't uphold that there are three persons and one God, if you don't uphold both of those truths, you run into problems, don't you? Right? that if I try to rationalize there's three persons, I might end up with, without fully understanding, maintaining this one God part, I might end up with three different gods, which is problematic. On the other hand, if I am so zealous to maintain that there's one God and I'm not willing to uphold the three persons because I want to make sense out of it all, I'm gonna deny the distinctions between the persons. The father did not die on the cross, the son did. There's problems, right? Another one, God's transcendence and his eminence. In other words, the fact that God is holy, that he's separate, that he's so far above us, his transcendence. But we also need to maintain that God is eminent, that God is with us. If you end up, those seem at odds, right? How can God be so other than us and so way up there and so far away from us and also be God with us? And you see throughout history, people leaning towards one side and end up denying the other. If God is completely transcendent and not God with us, you end up in deism. where God's the clockmaker and he winds up the universe and steps back and has no dealings with us. That's not biblical. If you just have God's eminence, that God is with us, and not the fact that God is categorically different than us, far above, you end up with pantheism, where we're God, the Earth's God, we're all God, we're all just one God, because God is with us and I'm God and you're God. That's problematic, isn't it? You need to maintain both scripture maintains both or another one God's complete sovereignty and human responsibility Those seem like they're at odds with each other That God is completely sovereign over the smallest detail The number of hairs on your head is predetermined by God God decided it and God chose it before the world was created every detail God has sovereignly determined he's in control of it all and People are responsible for their actions People choose what they want to do and they're responsible for it now in our mind those those things seem at odds and yet scripture clearly teaches both Joseph and his brothers, Jesus's crucifixion, God's use of Assyria to judge Israel. Countless examples, big examples in scripture where you see both at play. And with all of these things, if you deny one of those truths, you eventually, not necessarily in your lifetime or my lifetime, but eventually you lose the gospel. Eventually you lose the gospel. If we deny that there's one God, well, we've lost who God is, and you deny that salvation is of the one God. If you deny the three persons, you end up denying Christ's divinity or something weird like that, you lose the gospel. If you deny that God is so far above us and transcendent, and you deny really our need to be saved, If you deny His eminence, you deny the fact that Christ came and dwelt as a man and lived among us, the Spirit is working in us, you lose the gospel. If you deny God's complete sovereignty in salvation, eventually, again, not necessarily in my lifetime or yours, eventually, if you go down that road, you lose the gospel in which salvation is fully from God from beginning to end. If you deny human responsibility, you also end up denying the gospel. Because if we're not responsible, why do we even need to be saved? We need to maintain all of these truths of Scripture. Another lesson to learn from all this. We should be quick to listen to try to understand people's positions. It's very easy to talk past each other. The whole conflict with Cyril and Astorius may have just been because they were confused about what the other person was saying. Because they're both using this word physis, one means nature, in one man's mind he means nature, in the other man's mind he means person. We've talked about this before, it's important and good to define what do you mean by that? Do you mean this? Do you not mean this? because it's very easy for us to talk past each other, very easy to have unnecessary conflict if we're not willing to listen and try to understand what people truly believe. I think this is especially important with pastors who have, who are very popular, who have a presence or, you know, are known, right? A lot of slander goes on around men in prominent positions. And we wanna be careful to actually read what the guy said, try to understand what he said. And not this guy says this about him, but what does he actually say? What does he actually say? And pastors really, we would appreciate that in general. You know if there's questions, did you mean this not just assuming that someone means something? Actually talking to them hearing from their own mouth what what do you mean because it's very easy to make rash judgments and cause problems Thirdly We ought to interpret scripture both literally historically grammatically verse by verse while also examining the whole picture of scripture We want both of these hermeneutical approaches. If we just go verse by verse, we could end up missing some very important things. You're probably not gonna get to the Trinity very easily just going verse by verse. Right, you have to look at the whole scope, you have to take a step back and look at the whole picture of Scripture to see, oh yes, there's one God in three persons. Right? On the other hand, On the other hand, we also need that verse-by-verse approach to give us anchors, right? Because it's very easy to draw conclusions that aren't necessarily in Scripture. We need the forest and the trees. And we call this the hermeneutical spiral. where, you know, which comes first? Well, they kind of both come, right? That I interpret verse, I try to understand the individual verses so that I can understand the big picture. I understand the big picture so that I can understand the individual verses. And the more that I understand, I go back and forth, right? I go back and forth to try to understand Scripture. And then lastly here, which may not seem like an application, but it is, is regarding communion. Roman Catholics and Lutherans, kind of, they both teach that Christ is physically present in the bread. The problem with that is, Can humanity, can Christ's humanity be infinite? Can it exist in different places all over the world? What it means to be human, it means to be finite. I can only be one place at one time. In my humanity, I cannot be omnipresent, right? And so Christ's humanity, if it is fully human, without the divinity bleeding through somehow, if there's no mixture, confusion, if there's a distinction, Christ's body cannot be present all over the world each Sunday, right? Christ is spiritually present in communion, But in his humanity, it cannot be his actual physical body and blood. That's not how humanity works. Does that make sense? And so that's why we take the position that the bread and the cup do not actually contain Christ's physical body and blood, and yet, And yet, we don't want to deny the fact that Christ is especially spiritually present, communing with his people during that time. That there's something unique about that time as we partake of the bread and the cup. Yeah. And what we are denying is that he's a demigod. He's fully God. If we say he's 100% God, then the language sounds like we're saying there is no part of him that is not God, which is clearly what we're parsing out here. And so I think that the language of 100% God, 100% man is itself problematic because it So Pastor Brennan was saying that, this is for the recording, that the language of 100% God, 100% man is unhelpful in the sense that it could cause confusion, really regarding the distinction, right? The separation there. Yeah, yeah, and I would say yes, I agree with that. All right, thanks for filling up a couple more minutes for me, Pastor Brennan. Yeah, they're... I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, I I think so but I I Think I remember coming across that but I'm not able to confidently say yes, it would say I think maybe Cyril Particularly worked with that passage. I think The problem that I face every week is there's with each one of these topics like you could read thousands of pages and And my problem is I want to read the thousands of pages But I can't so yeah worthy of tracking that down a little bit more And sometimes I think is either next week or this week. I really wanted I think it's next week I really wanted to read this document No, I mean, maybe you've been this kid this week, but I could only find it in Latin. I No problem. Okay, Lou can read it and translate by next week But it was like a hundred hundreds of pages too, so yeah, anyways, let's go ahead and let's pray together Father thank you for your providential work throughout history Thank you that you work in messy situations We thank you for the men who were willing to work through these things, who were willing to live, I'm sure, in the discomfort of being at odds, trying to work things out. And we thank you for this wonderful conclusion that they reached here at Chalcedon, in which we're able to embrace the full truth of Scripture, that Christ is one person, fully man, fully God, that salvation is fully accomplished by you, that Christ was fully human so that he can fully represent us even now. We thank you for these gospel truths. Help us to see the importance of these things. Help us to guard these things. Help us to not lose what our ancestors have fought for. They worked their whole lives for. Help us to treasure these biblical truths Help us more and more to understand the glory of how you have accomplished our salvation in ways that we could never come up with ourselves And pray father that as we enter into corporate worship here in a moment. I pray that we would be of one mind As we are one body in Christ, help us to worship you with all of our person. Help us to listen intently to your word and to receive what you have for us today. And we thank you that we have this hope that Christ even now is our great high priest who is interceding for us, praying for us. And we have this hope that you are building your church. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you, everyone. So next week, we're going to look at Pelagianism, and then we're going to take a break for a couple weeks. But next week, we'll meet again.