Whether wisely or foolishly, a couple of weeks back I said, if I could pronounce without stuttering, monophysite, we're ready to roll on the subject of Christology. I'm not sure if I'm ready to roll just yet, but I'm going to make a stab at it. You know, as a Christian, I've lived with the doctrine of Christ all my life, of course, my Christian life, and read lots of books that dwelt upon aspects of the person and work of Christ, and made that to be, at many, many points, an object of focused study. But yet, you know, it's the old story that you don't know what you don't know. There's so much that I did not know about Christology, so much that I did not know about things that are studied and taught and understood and articulated. I mean, I knew very little about the historic ecumenical councils. I knew very little about much of the terminology in which Christology was discussed. I mean, I knew some. I knew some things. I could hold my own, I guess, with a conversation on things. But if somebody really knew their stuff, I'd probably be very taken aback at what I did not know. And in the recent years, I've been trying to play catch-up on this. So there's a sense in which I have a real sense of inadequacy, but also a real sense that these are two important matters to just not discuss as a church. Now, the term Christology is one of more modern usage. I think I came across something in a tweet that Fred Sanders, who teaches out at Biola, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, And he teaches systematic theology at the Torrey Honors Center. And I've spoken about him before. He's the one that came up with that Chalcedonian box that we looked at. And Fred's a real expert on Trinitarian matters, an area of focus study that he has had. But he came up with a little tweet in which he put out something he'd been reading. And he'd, I guess, taken a picture of it and put it out. And he called it the first mention of Christology. And it came from, I think, a 19th century German author. And I couldn't read the Germans, but I did see the word that's looked in German very similar to our word Christology. It was a little bit different, but I understood that that's what he was referring to. And what Fred was indicating is that a word like Christology is a modern usage. It just has to have been historically common in the church to speak of the doctrine of Christology. In fact, much of the ologies that exist in the theological world are of more modern coinage. Historically, There wasn't things like focused studies on eschatology and ecclesiology and angelology and demonology and all theologies that get spoken about amongst evangelical Christians today. Historically, Christians didn't speak in those terms. Yes, they used the word theology, and everything was part of it. Because theology, in essence, is the doctrine of God and everything related to God. As all these things are related to God, they were all part of theology. And in so doing, there was a far more of a cohesive unified worldview I think the ancients had, connecting everything to the biblical doctrine of God. Today we tend to fragment. We do this in so many ways. I mean, universities, the word university itself speaks of the unity of thought and study. But actually, you have your schools of this, and your school of that, and your school of something else. So everything is specialized today. And in theology, everything has become specialized. You have your New Testament scholars, your Old Testament scholars, and those are called biblical scholars. Then you have your systematicians, who do systematic theology. And then you have your historical guys, and their study is history. And then there's, of course, ancient and medieval and modern, and everything gets fragmented. in areas of specialized study. And I don't dismiss that. And I think some of that is beneficial to have experts in those various fields. But many times, you just don't get a unity of viewpoint. Everything is just, again, fragmented. And so you're not seeing these particular truths. You're studying in a larger perspective. It's hard to see the larger perspective when a specialist is focused in on his one area of consideration and concern. And pastors, if anything, are called to be generalists. We're called to whatever we're studying to try to make it all practical, try to make it all relevant to the people of God to whom we minister. And sometimes these things appear on the surface not to be very practical, not to be very relevant. I mean, there's all kinds of statements that are made against the study of Scripture on the part of the Church. For instance, the difference we saw in the Trinitarian controversies between the Arians that would affirm homoesia and the Orthodox would say, homousia, and it's a question of one diphthong in Greek, two vowels that are put together, whether it's an Omicron Yoda or whether it's, I think, a couple of Omicrons. And the, difference is really that one letter, but it's a big difference. It's a tremendous difference between being able to affirm that Jesus is of one substance with the Father, that Jesus possesses the very stuff of God in his own being, and so It might seem like it's much ado about nothing, but in a real sense, our salvation hinges upon proper understanding of who Jesus is. And so this really does have a great deal of importance. And so some of the things we're going to be talking about, it seems real technical, it seems maybe boring, maybe it seems confusing. I'm going to ask you to hang in there and endeavor to understand that at the end of the day, we're going to see some important practical ramifications of what we understand about the person of Christ. Now, historically, even in terms of 19th century studies when this word Christology was first coined, it too had a more limited concern that we tend to deal with it today. It sounds like I'm contradicting myself. But the term Christology in the systematic theologies today really covers from soup to nuts everything about Jesus, from his person to his work to his offices, and it covers everything. But initially when theologians would speak about Christology, they were trying to wrestle with the question, of the natures of Christ, of how someone could be both God and man in one person. How could you have a person who possesses all the stuff of God on the one hand, and a person who possesses all the stuff of mankind. On the other hand, because you see the historic church confession is not only that Jesus was homoousia with God, of one substance with God, but also homoousia with man, of one substance with mankind as well. So all the stuff of man he possessed as well as all the stuff of God. Good morning. Welcome. And you know, when you really think about that, it seems contradictory. Because when we think of God and his attributes, the things we can say about God or predicate about God, we have a list of things in which Human nature does not participate. We speak about eternity. God is an eternal being and yet man is a creature of time. God is omnipotent. We are weak and needy. God is self-sufficient. We are dependent creatures. And so how could one person possess what seems to be contradictory attributes. How can we say of Christ, or predicate of Christ, that he knows all things in one sense, he's omniscient, and in another sense, he didn't know the day and the hour of his coming. How can we say of Christ that He's in all places. So wherever two or three are gathered together, I'm in their midst. And yet he's also at the right hand of the majesty on high. So there's locality and there's omnipresence. And again, that seems on the surface of things to be quite contradictory. And so the church has had some explaining to do, haven't we? And there's been these ecumenical councils that have endeavored to find appropriate language to express what Christian faith believes about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's not just a waste of time to hear what these councils have said, always recognizing that these councils are not, at the end of the day, authoritative in an absolute sense. We're going to see some things in these councils that seem absurd of some of the things that the councils did and said. There are some points in which you really see the carnality of human beings coming through. You see dependence upon emperors rather than the word of God, and you sometimes say, could this group of men that met in Constantinople in five, whenever it was, I don't remember, Constantinople II, but when they met and they attempted to wrestle with the question of how Jesus can be God and man in one person, and to express that acceptably for Christian faith, You say, well, how could a group that met under those terms have produced anything worth hearing? But it is worth hearing. And I hope as we move along, you'll see that, in fact, it is worth hearing. So that's what I wanted to tell you about the word Christology, its origins. And I want to move on to say just a little bit about the biblical perspective on Christology. I put these things on the board because I want to get to those things and not leave them out this morning. And knowing myself, I'll probably just slide over it, move to other things, and not get to those things that are on the board. But I do want to say something about the question of Christology biblically considered. You have in the Gospels a couple of places where Jesus asks questions such as, who do men say that I am? You have it in Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus and his disciples came to Caesarea Philippi in Matthew chapter 16. The question is, Who do men say that I am? In fact, let me just get the whole quote in Matthew's Gospel. Chapter 16 and verse 13 says, When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And Son of Man is Jesus' own favorite term of self-designation. I don't think there's anybody that calls him Son of Man except himself. People didn't come up to Jesus and say, Son of Man, have mercy on us. They said, Son of David, have mercy on us. So different language was used by others, but Jesus' words of self-identification was always Son of Man. And one of the things that sometimes is said, well that just means human being, it means man, it means mortal man. Just like Ezekiel. When Ezekiel is addressed by God as son of man, we don't say there's anything in particularly supernatural or heavenly about Ezekiel's identity as the son of man. And he's called son of man often in that particular book. However, The Son of Man is also used in a passage like Daniel chapter 7, where a vision in the night is had by Daniel in which he sees the Ancient of Days upon the throne. And he sees one like unto a Son of Man. There's the language that's used. And he comes to the Ancient of Days and he receives a kingdom. That's not an earthly son of man. That's a heavenly son of man. He comes with the clouds of heaven unto the ancient of days, and he's given to receive a kingdom that all peoples and nations and tongues would serve him. And then he turns around in chapter 7 of Daniel's prophecy, and he gives the kingdom to the saints. The saints possess the kingdom that he receives. And those are vitally important passages to understand a lot of things that are present in the New Testament. A lot of New Testament statements go back to that Daniel chapter 7 passage. But Jesus, in calling himself Son of Man, wants to know, okay, that's what I think of myself. I'm the heavenly Son of Man who's come to receive the kingdom from my Father. But who do men say that I am? Who do people say that I am? What's the scuttlebutt? What's the stuff on the street? What's the ideas that are bandied about around Galilee concerning me? And verse 14 says that some say John the Baptist, now we see that John the Baptist was killed, beheaded by Herod. And so this is a notion that John the Baptist has been risen from the dead, and Jesus is John the Baptist. Of course, that makes the whole scene of the baptism at the Jordan, where Jesus is baptized of John, to be silly. The whole story, have you ever seen this actor and that actor in the same place, in the same room? Well, we've seen Jesus and John in the same room there at Jordan as John baptizes Jesus. So he can't be John the Baptist, but yet there's voices that say he's John the Baptist, risen from the dead. Others say Elijah in Malachi. The prophets say that before the great and terrible day of the Lord, Elijah, the prophet would come. So this is what they're saying about Jesus, that Jesus is this Elijah. figure, and others, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. So they, you know, when you really think about it, that's, it's kind of, you know. High praise to say you're like Elijah the prophet, or you must be Elijah the prophet, or you're John the Baptist. Jesus said of John the Baptist, of all that have been born of women, none is greater than John. Elijah wanted the prophets, Jeremiah. It's high praise. However, it's not high praise when you think of who Jesus truly is. It's really fallen wide of the mark, very short of the mark. And then Jesus asks the most important question, it's not just who do people say that I am, what's the common notions around? He says, but who do you say that I am? the personal question, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replies, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And you know, that's just an amazing statement that Peter makes. And I think it's also a matter that Peter himself didn't have a full understanding of even what that confession meant. He confesses rightly. And Jesus' response is that, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. So this is a revelation from heaven. God's given you to understand this proposition concerning Jesus. That he's the Christ of God, he's the Messiah, promised by God, and he's also son of the living God. But the fact that Peter didn't really understand this probably is to be understood from the event that happens soon thereafter, when verse 21 says, from that time, from the time of Peter's confession, from the time at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus said, who did people say that I am and who do you say that I am? From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples he must go to Jerusalem. He must suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.' And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him." I mean, really, do you do that to the Christ of God? Do you do that to the Son of the Living God? Do you have the temerity to rebuke one who you just acknowledged is Son of Living God, who is the Messiah of God? Amazing. that Peter would do such a thing, took him aside and he rebuked him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord. Now that's good, he called him Lord, but yet he's challenging him, and basically saying, what you've said, Jesus, cannot be, it does not comport with my understanding of Messiah, it doesn't comport with my understanding of Son of the Living God, this shall never happen to you. So evidently, Peter didn't really understand the full implications of his own confession. That Jesus is the Christ of God and He's the Son of the Living God. Now you know another way that you can really see that Peter didn't quite get it. Even though he said it. And what he said is right. What he said is true. We need to understand what it means that Jesus is the Christ of God. That Jesus is the Son of the Living God. But even as Peter spoke those words, he really didn't get it. I think that one of the ways we know that is Mark's Gospel. When you go over to Mark's Gospel and Let me see if I can just get it. I don't have it written down and I don't recall just offhand where that confession is made. Yeah, there it is. Chapter 8. Chapter 8 of Mark's Gospel. Now Mark's gospel is interesting because with respect to Jesus' title of Son of God, or Son of the Living God that you have in Matthew chapter 16, no human being in Mark's gospel confesses Jesus to be the Son of God until the cross. Until the cross. And then it's a Roman centurion that confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. And it's interesting that that's true because Mark's gospel begins in chapter 1 and verse 1 with the words, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So, right up front, Mark's telling you what he believes about Jesus. He is the Christ. He's Jesus the Christ, and he's the Son of God. But yet, the only one in Mark's gospel that ever says that Jesus is the Son of God... You know who says Jesus is the Son of God? Anybody? Well, the centurion at the end. But there are others who do say Jesus is the Son of God. They're just not human beings. I'm sorry? The demons. Okay, there's encounters with demonic forces, and the demons say, what have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? They confess Him to be the Son of God. Demon, evil spirits confess the Son of God and His rights over them. Have you come to destroy us before the time, is what they say. And there's one other that calls Jesus Son of God in Mark's Gospel. The Father, absolutely. The baptism. The baptism of Jesus. When the heavens are rent apart and the Spirit comes down as a dove at the baptism of Jesus. See in verse 11. A voice came from heaven, you are my beloved Son. With you, I'm well pleased. And then it happens again in the Mount of Transfiguration, when Elijah and Moses appear on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Peter has that splendid notion of making tabernacles for everyone, hanging out here and just enjoy the fellowship on the Mount of Transfiguration. And the voice that came from heaven at that time again said, this is my son, my beloved, hear him. So the Father calls him the Son of God. The demons call him the Son of God. But until the centurion at the cross, the Son of God is not attributed to him by human beings. And in fact, they seem to have real problems with knowing who Jesus is and believing even what their eyes tell them about Jesus in Mark's gospel. That's one of the things that Mark is doing, is he's making it clear. But whatever sense that people might have that Jesus is the Son of God, even Peter's confession, it wasn't really quite well understood. Because when Mark gives you the same event that took place at Caesarea Philippi in chapter 8 and verse 27, It says, and Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? Same question as chapter 16, it's the same incident. And they told him, John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets. The only thing that's not there is Jeremiah. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, you are the Christ. There's no son of the living God there. Wait a minute, Mark. Did you get it wrong or did you just looking to abbreviate? What Peter said? What gives here? I think it's intentional. I think that Mark omits Son of the Living God because of the fact that really no one got it clearly as to who and what Jesus is as Son of the Living God. What those words mean until the resurrection. Now Paul speaks in Romans chapter 1 of Jesus being declared or marked out to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. It's the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the majesty on high that marks him out as son of the living God. And so Peter didn't get it. I'm pointing this out because in this matter of Christology, let me ask you this, did Peter have faith? Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. So he's the subject of revelation from heaven. He clearly loves Christ, doesn't he? Even in the midst of his arrogance and saying, Be far from me, Lord. Again, this question, he didn't know what he didn't know. That's true of lots of us. But there was the presence of faith in his heart and mind and his life. Blessed are you. He was a true believer. And, you know, it's true in the history of the Church that the people who are true believers don't many times understand fully even what Scripture tells us about the person and work of Christ. Lots of things true believers do not get. And again, since we're embarking upon this theme of Christology, we're going to get into some technical things, and we're going to get into some things that are going to astound you, mind-blowing things, that the Church has stated and understood about the person of Christ. The fact that the Church has come to see it and understand it, again, it doesn't mean that everyone did throughout the history of the Church. It took some six or seven centuries for the church to articulate properly and rightly the doctrine of Christ in Scripture. And yet Christian faith existed, even when some of those things were not stated as accurately and clearly. In fact, you know what? You want to know something else? A lot of times when the church was wrestling with the teaching about the Lord Jesus, they used language, or some teachers used language, that later on was pronounced heretical. That's pretty interesting, isn't it? But it's true. It's true. We use language that comes from the Council of Chalcedon where we speak of Jesus in terms of oneness and twoness, right? Oneness and twoness. And what's the oneness about? When we think of oneness in Jesus, what are we referring to? He's one what? One person. Okay. One person. And the Greek for that is hypostasis. And the Latin for that was persona. And that's where you get person. It's really from the Latin. But hypostasis, we sometimes speak of the hypostatic union. Well, maybe you don't, but theologians did talk about the hypostatic union. And that comes from the Greek. But it's basically the same idea. And to or what? When we think of to-ness in Jesus, we think of what? Nature. Nature, OK. So whatever we say about Jesus in terms of what we find there's one of, that's his person. What we find in Jesus where there's two, there's the two natures. God and man. God and man in one person. But yet there was a time in the history of the Church when hypostasis was used to talk about natures and not person. So it's a question of definition. And there's a big problem that happened after Chalcedon with respect to a man by the name of Cyril of Alexandria and language that he used in his writings that were, after Chalcedon, that language was rejected or that language was viewed in a different way. And the whole question was, was Chalcedon faithful to Cyril? And that's the whole argument that the church got into. And they debated about it. And you know what? One group would anathematize the other group. And when one group's leaders got power as bishops, or even power in the state as emperors, you know what happened to the opposite party? They were kicked out of their pulpits. They were kicked out of their churches. They were sent into exile. They were said to be heretics. And there was all kinds of acrimony that existed over these matters. And I think in some matters, you might have had the strange phenomenon that's a hard reality of church history, that Christians were arguing with Christians. That believers in Christ were arguing with believers in Christ, but they couldn't agree on the terms. Sad, sad, but yet true. And so, I guess what I'm saying to you is, you can have a heart of faith, and have a mind that's kind of dull of understanding or doesn't quite understand conceptually what the church wants to say about the person of Jesus. Now I believe the church needs to say conceptually the truth about Jesus. And we need to learn that language. But let's not allow ourselves to become so filled with our knowledge that it militates against love. You know, knowledge puffs up, the apostle says. It's love that builds up. And we don't want to get into the state of mind that if you don't see things our way, with our language, with our fullness of understanding, you're anathematized, or you're heretical, or you're unacceptable. I mean, let's face it, a lot of us are late to the game, coming to full conceptual understanding of the things the Church, through its history, has said about the Lord Jesus. And we're thrilled to learn the insights that the Church has given. And we're thankful for it, and it makes Christ more to be honored and worshiped and loved and known. But let's not allow that to make us have a Well, to be the Trinitarian thought police, or the Christology thought police, going after people who don't see eye to eye, let's lovingly endeavor to share the things God shows us, and patiently share the things God has shown us, and not use knowledge to be a weapon. We can weaponize some of these things in opposition to other Christians. So I just wanted to say that in the way of a warning. Well, let me pause here. Any questions? We're going to get into these terms. But you see that it is a biblical concern to identify Jesus. Clearly, Jesus is who the people say that I am. Later on in chapter 22, he asks the Pharisees, what do you think of Christ? Whose son is he? And that's an interesting passage to look at as well. But let me just pause here. Are there any questions that anything I've said up to this point has raised in your mind? Yes, Tim? Yeah, I was just going to say that in our own personal Christian lives, We come in with some kind of understanding that God has given us, and yet he's correcting us all the time as to who he is and what he is. You just have to continue to learn to be gracious to other people. We don't know. I used to say, look, I was a Christian, I believed in Christ, I knew my sins were forgiven, and I couldn't tell you where the Bible spoke about Abraham or why Abraham was different from Adam. I didn't have a clue. I wasn't raised in the church, I wasn't raised in a Christian home, and I had not a clue about anything the Bible said when I came to faith. But I believe I came to genuine faith in Christ, and my sins were forgiven, and I possessed Christ and the fullness of Christ, even in the midst of my ignorance. And it's been a 45-year process of growing and learning, and I'm thankful for it. And it's not as if I have a different kind of faith, but it is richer in terms of, again, conceptual understanding of the truth about Jesus, which is a good thing to possess. But let's not allow that, again, to puff us up with pride. Let's walk in humility, and let's give other people an opportunity to learn as we have learned, and not to censure them, or to pounce all over them, or to say, you know, you're not accepted because you can't recite the Nicene Creed with letter-perfect understanding. Let's beware of that. Yes, please. Your name is? Sheldon? Nice to meet you. Nice to have you with us. I think, you know, again, I think a lot of times you have to take the books of the Bible in their whole presentation. Mark is looking to present us with Jesus in a way that in his mind is a full and complete picture of what he wants to say about Jesus. And it differs from Matthew. Matthew is not a different Jesus. It's just a different way of presenting it. These folks, these writers of the Bible, They were theologians who were rooted deeply in Old Testament realities and truth, and they were also preachers. They were evangelists. They're Gospels. And so they're designed to bring us to faith in Christ. And I believe Mark's point, where he brackets from chapter 1, calling Jesus the Son of God, to chapter 15, where at the end, Centurion declares, truly this is the Son of God. That the Son of God theology that Mark is presenting to us is making it clear that it's at the resurrection, that's when human beings come to know, with some degree of more fullness, the meaning of Jesus as the Son of God. Because nobody calls him Son of God in Mark's Gospel except the Father declaring it, the demons declaring it. And even when Peter declares it in accordance with Matthew, Mark excludes it. Again, I don't think, not because it wasn't said, but it's not part of Mark's presentation of Jesus. With the resurrection, as Paul says, he's appointed or declared or marked out to be the Son of God with power by the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. That there's something about the resurrection and Mark's understanding that brings Son of God theology to its rights, to its fullness. Okay, does that make sense? I have more to say, but maybe I'll say it next week and I'll get to this stuff. I did want to say something, and I will next week remind me, about that later passage when Jesus said, I want to say something about that. I also want to say something about the fact that this matter of the revelation of Christ's person is called by Paul and 1 Peter, the mystery of godliness. It's the mystery of godliness. I want to look at those on two things with you, but I think I'm going to put that off until next week. I put this on the board wanting to get to it, because I knew I was going to get to it if I didn't put it on the board, and sure enough, I think I'm right. I want to look at these terms that are used in Christology. This is what I think. I think maybe if you're going to study theology, you're probably going to go online, you're probably going to look for a book, you're probably going to buy it, or you're going to go grab something from Wikipedia or some other thing, and you're going to come up with a book or a writing that's going to give you all these sort of terms, and you say, what in the world is this about? Well, I'm going to explain it to you, okay? I'm going to give you the key to understand what's being said today in our own times about Christology. The first thing is that there's been, at least for 150 years or so, something of a difference in people's minds between what they call the Christ of Faith or the Church's Christ, the Church we profess as believers, going back to the creeds, going back to the councils, Nicene and Chalcedonian notions about Jesus. That's the Christ of the church, these folks say. That's the Christ of faith, people say. But the Christ of history is really a different person. And what you've had happen is life of Christ that had been written by scholars who are looking to tell you about the historic Christ. And what they do is they, in their own minds, try to say, well, what would a first century Jew be like? What a first century Jew that lives in Palestine. What could he say or what possibly could he not say? And in so doing, to find the Christ of history. There was a very famous book that was written by Albert Schweitzer. Some of you remember Albert Schweitzer as a medical missionary in Africa. But before he was ever a medical missionary, he was a classical pianist. Amazing guy. An amazing man. But he was a theologian who wrote works of theology. And one of his most famous books was called The Quest for the Historical Jesus. And with Schweitzer's book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, there began to be what are called the quests for the historical Jesus, plural. Because you had the quest in Schweitzer's day for the historical Jesus. You had a renewed quest, I think sometime in the 70s, or maybe it was a little bit earlier. And then that was called the new quest. And now there's what they call the now quest. And you have all these people, largely they are, Historians, but theologians as well, who marshal biblical materials and historical information, and they try to examine what was life like in the Palestine of Jesus' day? What was the Second Temple Judaism? what's been called the second temple that was built after the captivity. And what was Judaism then? And where would Jesus then fit in as a Galilean carpenter, a man of his times? And perhaps you've heard of the Jesus Seminar. Anybody ever hear of the Jesus Seminar? Jesus' seminar came out of this kind of notion where they studied the biblical documents in order to determine what was a likely statement that Jesus actually made and what was impossible for him to ever have said as a first century Jew of his time, of course. And I think they came up with, what, about half a dozen things that actually Jesus definitely said. He said, Our Father. I think he also said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Because that comes from the 37th Psalm. Okay, out of the Lord's prayer, he only said, Our Father. Nothing else was said by Jesus. And with utter seriousness and utter confidence in the assured results of scholarship, as it's called, they make these pronouncements. Let me just say that the Christ of the Church and the Christ of Faith has clear historical connections to the Christ of History. There cannot be this removed. And the way they make this removed is they make the Gospels to be products of a much later generation. So that you have 50, 60, 70, 80 years between the actual time of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels. They make Mark to be a very late production. And I don't think that's plausible. I just don't think that's in keeping with the fact of the text that still exists in the world today. I don't have an elaborate argument to give you about it. But I would say that most modern scholars today will bring at least Mark's Gospel within the lifetime of those that walked with Jesus. And once you make that concession, and you realize that if you're going to really study the times in which people lived, people of that age were learners who listened to an oral speaker speak, and they retained the things that were said. You know, today, we are not very good listeners. Why is it important to be good listeners? I mean, this is recorded. I can get a tape later and go over it and maybe get some of the details that I didn't get. We remember maybe 5% or 10% of the things we hear. I mean, I remember 5% or 10% of the things I say. We're not very good retaining things that are said in an hour's encounter of conversation. And that's because we are illiterate, a people who have great access to sources of information. through print, through electronic books. And you can just Google it and find it out. You don't need to remember it. You don't need to recall it. You can always check it out later at your leisure. That was not true in the first century. They did not have a print culture. They didn't have Bibles at home that they could run to and look it up. And so, when you read the scriptures, you see how the wise man in the book of Proverbs is telling his son to incline your ear to my hearing, to my words, to treasure it up within your heart. The book of Deuteronomy, same way. Write it on the forefront of your head and put it on your hands. Have it before you. There was a greater concern to conserve and to retain things that were heard. And there was that practice of meditation. You know in Hebrew what meditation means, the word meditation? To masticate? Well, actually, the word itself means to mumble or to chirp. It would be what you would probably do, I've used this illustration a lot, if you're trying to remember a seven digit phone number. Now today you don't have to remember seven-digit phone numbers because it's in your phone, right? But I'm old enough to remember when you didn't have the number that was in your phone and you could just get it up, you actually had to remember. You had to remember that your phone number was 34397, I'm trying to remember Jan's number and I can't, 9788? Did I get that right or close? 87, forget it, forget it. But if I wanted to remember her number, you know what I would do? I would say it over and over. I'd mutter it under my breath. 3, 4, 3, 2, 7, 9, 2. 3, 4, 2, whatever it would be. I'd say it over and over and over and over again. And then I would get it in my brain. Then it would become part of me, if I said it enough times. Remember the problem I had with the word monophysite. That's where I began this morning, a couple weeks ago. I said, I want to begin Christology, but I'm really uncertain as to whether I can begin because the previous Saturday night when we met with the men, I couldn't say Monophysite without stumbling a few times. And since one of the things we're going to look at is the Monophysite heresy, the idea of one nature in Christ and not two, I figured, well, it's not time to begin Christology. So you know what I did? I said monophysite, monophysite, monophysite, monophysite about a dozen times. And you know what? It sticks. It sticks. I don't think I'm going to stumble over monophysite again. I may. I may. But my point to you is that's what a culture will do that's looking to conserve important information. They'll mutter it, say it over. They can't write it down. They don't have sticky notes. easy ways to conserve it, other than their own brains. And so societies of ancient society were able to retain by that very method. If they thought it was important enough. Let me ask you something. Were the words of Jesus important? Was it important when the Son of God spoke to retain the things that He said? Do you think the early church wanted to get it wrong? Do you think they wanted to get it right? It was out of their concern to conserve Christ's words that there began to be the tradition of speaking his words, handing it down from one person to another. That's what tradition means, actually. It's handing it down from one person to another. I give it to you, I teach you the words of Christ. Paul says, what was handed down to me from the Lord That I handed over to you. In 1 Corinthians 12, 11, speaking about the Lord's Supper. What was handed down to me from the Lord, I handed down to you. And that's what the church did. They handed down the traditions. They handed down the very words of Christ. It's interesting, the very words of handed down also is that Jesus was handed down to the cross. The night that Jesus was delivered, he was handed over. Paul says, Christ handed down to me, and I hand it down to you. So you have the repetition of that word. But a lot of times you find the Bible presented in ways like that, in some of these literary devices we speak about. These were easy ways for people to remember. The repetition of the word handed down or delivered over that you find in 1 Corinthians. Many such things are in the scriptures themselves simply as tools for memory because you're concerned to remember the things that God has said. So as long as you see, and I believe it's true, that Mark's gospel was in the time of those who lived and walked with Jesus and spoke with Jesus and heard the words of Jesus. And the very fact that his writings were received by the church at such a time indicates that Mark's gospel got it right. Because if it didn't get it right, there were people that were there when Jesus said the things he said and spoke the things that he spoke. And they would say, Mark, you're all wet. Who told you that, Mark? That's not right. The church would never have received it. So I don't think you can make this distinction between the Christ of History and the Christ of Faith. The Christ of Faith is, in fact, the Christ of History. So that's just the argument I would give to you as to why I think you can't make this radical disjunction and go hunting down in historic sources Jesus' true identity. Jesus' true identity is conserved for us and preserved for us in the very writings of Scripture. Okay? Then the second thing, any questions about that? Christ of Faith, Christ of History? Yes? I was just going to say, again, as far as memorizing the Lord, you know, when he was on the road to Emmaus and he was telling his disciples that he spoke of Moses and the prophets concerning himself, he obviously would have said, Yeah, well, you know, that's an important part of the argument as well, is that what the church has conserved about Christ is not only from the actual things that Christ did. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, let's look at that, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I might not get through these three, but we'll try real quick. But if you look at this, this is an important text. The Apostle says, for I deliver to you, and this is the idea again of handing over. I've handed over to you as a first importance what I also received. So what got handed to me, I hand it to you. The same basic language that you have in chapter 11. That Christ died for our sins. in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and to the Twelve. You see, Paul's basis of rooting the Gospel in history had to do with basically two arguments. Number one, eyewitnesses. Actually, that's number two. Number two are the eyewitnesses. He appeared to St. Cephas. He appeared to more than 500 brothers at once. He appeared to James, and he appeared lastly to me. So Christ appeared. And so the fact of his death, burial, and resurrection is validated by the eyewitness testimony. But there is also the in accordance with the scriptures thing. Everything that Christ did, he did in accordance with the Scriptures. So there's validation in historical acts witnessed by others, and there's also validation by prophetic word that led up to it. Everything Jesus did, he did what was in accordance with the Scriptures. So Jesus could say, foolish and so hard to believe, all but the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? It was necessary. Why? Because the scripture said. So that's an important argument as well. The Christ of faith is the Christ of history. He's also the Christ of prophecy. So all those things really work together to make us clear that, in fact, this is not just some majority view that won the day at Nicaea. You know the book The Da Vinci Code? That's the argument of the Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code got some guy that's supposedly an expert on Christian origins who said that Jesus was just a man. He was a prophet. And then at Nicaea in 324 AD, he got a promotion to deity. The church just promoted him to godhead. That's just absurd. Because, again, the deity of Christ is so clearly testified in the original documents, in the New Testament itself. It's not some way to promotion from some side that won. And that's again what people say, well, what about all the Gnostic writings? Well, all the Gnostic writings, first of all, they came much later. Those documents clearly did come much later. And they were never the things that the early church read. The early church never looked at those Gnostic writings and said, oh, these guys have it right? No. They were reading Mark and Luke and John and Matthew. That's what they were reading. The martyrs were reading those writings. They were not reading the Gospel of Thomas and Philip and all those other things that are claimed to be early Christian literature. Anyway, none of those things show Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. all the early writings will show Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. That in fact there is one canon, one revelation that has unity old and new. We'll see more of that in morning worship. Very quickly, high and low Christology, that speaks of Emphasizing deity of Jesus, low Christology is speaking of the humanity of Jesus. And the claim is that you actually have biblical books that are low Christological books, such as Mark's Gospel. You really have son of God theology that's hard to understand if you think that Mark has low Christology. They say John has high Christology. It begins with, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's high Christology. Speaking of Jesus' deity. But Mark has low Christology. They really haven't read Mark. They really haven't read Mark. Remember I mentioned the baptism, where the heavens were rent open, and the Spirit came down as a dove, and the Father said, This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. You know the word that's used for the heavens being ripped apart? is the word that comes from Isaiah chapter 64, when Isaiah's prayer is, O that you would rip open the heavens and come down. Isn't that interesting? Mark uses a word from the Greek Old Testament, speaks of Isaiah's prayer, that you would rip open the heavens, that God would rip open the heavens and come down. And Mark's telling you, that prayer's fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus has come and the heavens were ripped open because God came down. The Spirit came down upon him and the Father said, this is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. And you have dozens of those things in which the Jesus of Mark's gospel is identified with the God of the Old Testament. And you cannot really understand Mark without coming to the conclusion that Mark's presenting Jesus as the enfleshment of Israel's God. Israel's God has come in the flesh every bit as much as John's statement that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That statement Mark is assuming and his presentation of Jesus shows you that this is Israel's God come in human flesh. So that's the difference between high and low Christology. And Christology from above and Christology from below also is... And that speaks of the starting point. Where do you start in discussing Jesus? Do you start with His deity? Do you start with His humanity? I say that you really can't really begin anywhere but the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. You have to start with the pre-existence of Christ. You have to start with His deity and understand His humanity in that sense. Because in a real sense, His humanity, as we're going to learn, had no prior existence before the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. There was no man Christ Jesus that was not united to the second person of the Godhead. So, we're going to present our perspective on Christology as the Christ of faith being the Christ of history. We're going to present it in terms of a high Christology that's certainly going to acknowledge the reality of humanity that comes in, and a Christology from above that begins from above, that begins with the word being coming flesh or taking flesh and dwelling among us. So I wanted to get that terminology before you. It's important terminology before you begin. Our time's gone. I can't believe it. I've got lots more to say, but it's next week, right? Let's give God thanks. Father, we're so thankful for your Word. We're so thankful that it's truth. We're so thankful that your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And Father, we pray that as your Word reveals your Son, as The scriptures testify about Jesus, that we would see Jesus as you've made him known, as he's to be understood, that our faith would be correct, it would be rich, it would be informed, and it would be steadfast. We ask you, Lord, to hear our prayers, to bless these studies, to the enrichment of our souls, and that your great name would be glorified in us and through us. We ask you to be with us as we greet one another this morning, as we have a time of refreshment. We pray that as we enter into morning worship, your presence would be amongst us. Lord, you'd open your word to us and you'd give us great joy as we worship and as we meet together in your presence. For Jesus' sake we pray. Amen. I can't do this.