We began last week looking at just an overview of the subject of Christology. And we looked last week at reasons that we, as God's people, ought to study this. And we readily admit that the work can be difficult. We freely admit that the subject of Christology, because we're dealing with the God-man, the Son of the living God, the eternal second person of the Trinity, assuming to himself human flesh, we get into the realm of that which is incomprehensible. And we have to do the work of comparing all of scripture and drawing conclusions from the scriptures. So it is not a doctrine that we can establish on a verse or two. that are expressly set down and we take those, we memorize a couple of verses and great, we've got good, solid, clean Christology. The weight of the evidence of church history tells us it's more complex than that. But at the same time, the rewards are great because we have the privilege of meditating upon the very person and work of our Redeemer. And so we looked last week at some reasons why it is imperative for us and a blessing for us as Christians to enter into the deep waters and to do the sometimes difficult, sometimes tedious work of being able to say very clearly what the Scriptures say. and to avoid saying things that the Scriptures don't say, or that the Scriptures contradict, as many of the heretics have done. What I want to do today is provide a working definition. When we think about Christology, what is Christology? When we talk about this sort of subheading under the study of theology and study of theology proper, what is Christology? And then we want to consider, what are our sources? What are our authorities when it comes to exploring these deep waters? Where do we go for that which is true, that which is praiseworthy, that which is profitable to us? So first of all, We need to acknowledge, once again, our complete, our utter dependence upon the revelation of God to us and the power of His Spirit necessary to us in order for us to have any reasonable expectation of understanding the things that God has revealed to us about Himself. So let's go to Him and ask for the help of the Spirit of the living God to give us understanding and to give us the ability kind of a preview of the sermon today, to see Jesus, to have spiritual eyes, to see what we want to see, and to be able to hold him as he really is, and to delight and exalt in our triune God. So let's pray and ask for his help. Our gracious God and Father, thank you that you've revealed yourself to us, that your word speaks abundantly and sufficiently about the person of our Redeemer, about the God-man, our prophet, priest, and king who stands daily ready to make intercession for us. Father, we thank you for your Holy Spirit who proceeds from you and from your Son. And we pray now that you would give us light, give us understanding, give us discernment, guard us from the errors of history whereby men have wrongly confessed the person of Christ. Help us to confess with all those true Christians who've gone before us what is true, what is praiseworthy about our blessed Redeemer. We ask this in His name. Amen. Let's think about a definition of Christology. I want to read from 1 Timothy 3, beginning in verse 14. I'm going to read down through verse 5 of chapter 4. Here's the Word of God. Paul's writing here, of course, to Timothy. Timothy is in the city of Ephesus. And Paul says to you, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, You may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." We find here in this little section of Paul's letter to Timothy one of the early church's earliest creeds. It's a confession of faith that we find here. In fact, I'm reading from the ESV, and many of the editors will actually indent this and set this off, because it is a It is not Paul just simply rehearsing these things in his own mind. This was an already explicit confession of faith that was used in the early church. He, Jesus, was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. And on either side of this statement is Paul's exhortation to Timothy, that my desire is to come to you soon. Paul recognized that there were a number of problems in Ephesus, not only practical problems, but there were theological problems. If you read the book of Ephesus, or read the book of Ephesians, the first half, Paul is articulating the mind of God from eternity with respect to the gospel of Jesus Christ being presented to men. And then only then does he begin to work out some of those very practical things in the home, in the workplace, in the church. And so what Paul's doing here is he's beginning here with the household of God. This is our reason to exist, because we belong to God and we share a common confession. So Paul gives this confession. He speaks about Jesus, who is the Christ. And then, immediately after that, and again, we know the chapter breaks are not original to the text. And so Paul immediately goes into this, now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith. And over and over and over again, when we read through the pastoral epistles, Paul uses the definite article with faith, the faith. It is not just some ephemeral, nebulous, nonspecific feeling of faith. It is an objective belief. And Paul's saying that some will depart from this. Some will depart from the objective revelation of God with respect to one thing in particular, or better, one person in particular, the Christ. And that when people depart from a right understanding of who Jesus is, what happens? All manner of mischief follows. Now, and he gives some examples here. This is not comprehensive, but some will depart from the faith, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. I think that strikes me at first read as maybe odd, that that's where Paul goes. that those who reject the faith, those who reject the person of Christ, that this is where they go. But when you read this first paragraph of chapter four, is there any particular religious system that comes to mind, Matthew? And I will grant you that's a religious system. I will grant you that. But in terms of formal historic religious systems, is there anything that comes to mind? Rome, Rome. who systematically denies marriage, who teaches at abstinence. And we're seeing this in this time of year, right, during Lent and all that, the teaching as a necessity of faith, the denial of the body of certain things. And Paul calls these teachings of demons. Now, what's the connection between a rejection of Jesus, as he's really revealed to us in Scripture, and these kinds of things. Well, if we reject Christ, we will necessarily begin to focus on other things to sort of satisfy the religious whole that's left. And so we want to think about, what is this? What is Christology? We think about the formal study of the person of Christ. What is this? One author puts it this way, he says, Christ's person and work constitutes the central object of the Christian faith. Christology is a study of what the faith teaches regarding this central mystery. It is nothing less than an examination of the meaning of the very early Christian creed found in 1 Timothy 3.16. So it is a study of that which is contained here, not exhaustively, but that which is declared here about the mystery of the person of Christ. Paul says, great indeed we confess is the mystery of God. He, Lord Jesus, was manifested in the flesh. That statement alone, we can go into theological libraries and find hundreds of volumes written about that idea, that theological truth. that the second person of the Trinity, very God of very God, light of light, God of God, was manifested in the flesh, that he took to himself without adding anything to his divine person, not subtracting anything from his being, assumed to himself human flesh. that he was endowed with the Spirit beyond measure, vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Another author puts it this way, says this is the aim of Christology. In a certain way, the profession of faith that Jesus is the Christ is a resume of the Christian faith. Now, I'm going to pause for a moment. kind of a preview for next week, in one of the climaxes of Mark's gospel, Jesus takes his disciples aside and says, who do the people say that I am? And then he asks them pointedly, but who do you say that I am? Isn't this the decisive question for all of human history? Not just for the Christian, but for all of human history. Who is this Jesus? So in a certain way, the profession of faith that Jesus is the Christ is a resume of the Christian faith, and Christology is nothing other than the theological development of the content of that profession. We can say Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the Christ, but do you know the Mormons say the same? Rome says the same. Jehovah's Witnesses will say the same. Many of our lost neighbors will say something similar, but what does it mean? Does it mean anything at all? So Christology is nothing other than the theological development of the content of that profession. Remember Jesus in Matthew's gospel, we'll see this next week in Matthew 16, Matthew records a longer section there with the same event. Jesus had his disciples. And when Peter, by God's grace, gives the right answer to the question, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus, of course, responds to Peter, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven has given this to you. And then he goes on to say, you are Peter, you are Petros, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Now, we know Rome has interpreted that statement to be upon Peter himself, upon the person of Peter as the first pope the church will be built. Well, isn't that an immediate denial of the central plank of Christology that is upon Christ and Christ alone that the church is built? And that's precisely our Lord's meaning by that statement, upon this rock. What's the rock? that confession of faith, that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's the statement, that's the confession that is the key to the kingdom. I mean, quite literally, it's the key to the kingdom. And yet, the study of Christology is unpacking that. What do we mean as Bible-believing historically Orthodox Christians when we proclaim, when we confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Because, again, the Mormons will say that Jesus is the Son of God. By that, they mean he's a created being, brother of Lucifer, that he is an exalted man. The Arians said he's the son of God, but he's a created being. He's not eternal. He's not of the same substance as God. Going further, the author says, it involves obviously not just speculation on something in which the student is not involved, not committed to. Rather, it means exercising reason enlightened by faith in order to discover Christ and repeat the very words of the first disciples when they told each other of their joy at having found Him. Come and see, John 139. We have found the Messiah, John 141. So it is not just speculation. I think this is a helpful caveat. This is not a subject that we study from a distance. We study this as insiders, as immediate benefactors. So there are all kinds of disciplines that we can study, right? We can study art, we can study history, we can study music and science, and most of those things, we are somewhat remote from them. I mean, we can study ancient Roman history, and perhaps we make some connections to our present circumstances. Maybe we see as, That great philosopher Mark Twain said that history does rhyme, and so maybe we can see those rhyming elements as we study ancient history. I saw a quote recently that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, and those who suppress the study of history intend to repeat it. But it's not the case when we study Christology. We're not studying this as something where we are distant observers. We are one in Christ. We are one with him. And so we study this doctrine as not only benefactors of his person and work, but as those who have been united together in him. I mean, if you think about the Pauline use of the term in Christ, that's his most frequent way of describing the believer. Those of you in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. So we don't study as outsiders, we study as those who are very near. Well, that brings us to the question of how do we study Christology? What are our sources? What sources are authoritative? And to what degree and what measure are they authoritative? And it's a very important question to ask. And the first and most comprehensive answer has to be what? Scriptures. The scriptures. This is what Paul declares is that, great indeed we confess, is the mystery of godliness. How do we know anything about this mystery? It's declared to us in the word of God. Now, there is a distinction that we make with respect to the study of Christology and the study of perhaps the greater or larger subject of theology proper. When we use the term theology proper, what are we talking about? Yes, the totality of God's revelation to us. Well, God has given us two books to study, hasn't he? The Bible, special revelation, that which he has breathed out using the instrument of human authors, but God has breathed that out. But according to the scriptures themselves, what is the other source of knowledge that we have about God? natural revelation. The heavens declare the glory of God. Now, that revelation is not comprehensive, is it? And so, according to the Apostle Paul, for example, in Romans 1, even the invisible attributes of God are plain to men. looking at the heavens, looking through a microscope, looking at all the created world, man is without excuse if he comes to any other conclusion than there is a God, and there is a God who is good, there is a God who's made all things, and a God who governs all things. But from that special revelation, what can we know about the Christ? Nothing. The answer is nothing. We cannot know from creation, from natural revelation, that God is triune, that God has an eternal son, an eternally begotten son. We don't know from natural revelation that this God-man, at a particular point in time, took on human flesh. And we don't know the particulars of his assuming to himself human flesh, that he adds something to his nature, Did he subtract something from his nature? Did he leave his omniscience and omnipotence, for example, in his suitcase in heaven as he came down? But we don't know those. We can't answer those things from natural revelation, can we? So with the study of Christology, our first, our chief, our primary source is Scripture. Our knowledge of theology proper, I'm quoting here directly from Dolezal, Our knowledge of theology proper draws upon God's revelation in both nature and Scripture. Christology, with its central focus on the incarnation of the Son, is known only through God's special revelation in Scripture. This does not mean that it disregards natural theology in examining what it means that Jesus is divine, but that the Son's subsistence into nature's The core Christological mystery is not known through a contemplation of the things God has made. Only the inspired biblical record makes this known to us. I think it's important. So when we get to, we're contemplating Jesus as God, then certainly, with respect to his divinity, there are things that we can glean from and be helped by with respect to natural revelation. But the mere fact that he is the God-man is not something we discern from natural revelation. I'm gonna turn to a couple different scripture passages, but I'm gonna pose a question to you, kind of a hypothetical. Could we know Christ sufficiently as our mediator, as the God-man, by personal experience alone? Before you answer too quickly, What about if you had the opportunity, if you could go back in time and walk immediately and directly with it? I mean, think about the apostles. Spent roughly three years with it. Matthew? Yes. Okay, good. They would have the Old Testament, so they had a good starting place to discern. So yes, to your point, the hypothetical that I've envisioned can't exist because they weren't tabula rosa, were they? They weren't blank slates. They did have the Old Testament. They had the Old Covenant revelation. But let's think about a couple of passages. Let's go to John's Gospel first. John's Gospel, we'll pick up at the very end of chapter 15, and get a running start into 16. In John's Gospel 15, verse 26, Jesus here speaking privately, with His disciples, and He says, When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. But now I'm going to Him who sent me, and none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in Me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will see Me no longer, concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you." I think this is a profound statement here from Jesus. He has spent three years teaching, instructing, performing signs and wonders and miracles in the disciples' presence. He has corrected them, He's rebuked them, He's encouraged them, He's exhorted them, He's taught them patiently. If anyone could say that they had a sufficient understanding, a sufficient Christology based on their personal experience with Christ, Wouldn't the disciples qualify? And yet Jesus says, there's something you lack. Having been with me for three years, there's something you lack. They need the Spirit to come and guide them into all truth. I mean, Jesus says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. And it would be only after the Spirit descends upon his people at Pentecost. And the eyes of the disciples were opened, shall we say, further. I'm thinking about a particular sermon text, where a blind man was healed in two phases. He had initial sight, but later was given full sight. And here, Jesus is telling them, when the Spirit comes, he will glorify me. Now there's another passage that I want to think about that is echoing a similar theme. This is in 2 Peter. Because I think in my mind, maybe you think this way, maybe you don't. I hope you don't, I'm twisted. But I think, well, the disciples in general, and he's talking to all 12, which includes Judas, may be the inner circle. Maybe, for example, Peter, James, and John, because they got to spend the most time, they got to have the most unique experiences with Jesus, maybe they would have a sufficient understanding. I mean, Nathaniel, Thomas, who was a doubter anyway, of course, Judas, who was the betrayer. We can recognize that their understanding was limited because, well, they weren't the brightest students. Maybe we make that argument. But Peter, James, John, who got to see up close, they got to be behind the veil. I mean, literally, with Jesus, they got to be on the Mount of Transfiguration. When He was glorified in front of them, they heard the very voice of God, they would have a full and sufficient Christology, wouldn't they? Now listen to Peter's testimony much later, now as a more seasoned man, faithful apostle, And he describes this very event in 2 Peter 2. No. Where's my... I have my notes down incorrectly. Yes, chapter 1, not 2. Thank you. In verse 16, Peter testifies, we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Now, he's referring here to a very specific event. This is the transfiguration. We were eyewitnesses of His majesty, for when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him onto the holy mountain. Now, surely this is the testimony that would say we, those select few, Peter, James, and John, would have our Christology down pat based on what we witnessed and observed. But look at the very next words that he said. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And then we have one of the most wonderful testimonies about the authorship about the source of Holy Scripture. But here are Peter reflecting back upon that experience. He doesn't deny his experience. He doesn't deny the importance or the significance of that experience. But he says, we had a greater source of authority. We had a greater source of revelation, even more so than what our eyes witnessed. I think this is important. We live in a day that in which Pentecostalism in its various forms, both the name brand and the generic form of it, is highly influential. And it's influential even to us more than perhaps we realize sometimes. You may find yourself drifting into a kind of thinking that if I had a certain experience with Jesus, I would know him better. If I had a certain event that I could walk with Him in a particular way, in a sense of this experiential understanding of Christ, that that would be superior. But on the authority of the Scriptures, brothers and sisters, we have to reject such a notion. And we have to come back again and again and again to the revealed Word of God. We have the objective, immovable, full and complete revelation of our triune God through His Holy Scripture, where Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father also. You cannot know the Father except through me. and through the Word of the living God. So the Scripture has to be first and foremost. The Latin phrase that our fathers in the faith would use is norma normans, the norming norm. Scripture is what authorizes anything else to say, any other source, to declare something about Christ, it has to be normed. It has to be conformed to Scripture. Now, if we went out on a job site, Andrew just smiled because he spends a lot of time on job sites. And they're not just, when they're out there putting pipes in place, they're not just willy-nilly. They're not just going, that looks about the right place to put that. They have a plan. There are specs. There was a designer. There was an architect. There was someone who put all these things in place, and everything has to be built according to that. The architectural plans, the schematics, the plumbing diagram, the electrical schematics, the building plans, those are the norming norms. It doesn't mean that the PEX pipe, the iron pipe, the electrical wiring, the concrete, the steel, that that's less real. It just means all those things are normed by one standard in a similar way, in a more comprehensive way. Our understanding of the Christ has to be normed according to the scriptures. Now, that doesn't mean that we do not use other sources to guide us, to aid us, to help us. But we come back again and again. This is our point of reference. This is our plumb line. Jesus is, Paul says, the cornerstone. The prophets and the apostles are the foundation. Everything else is built upon that. All of our sources for theological knowledge, including, this is Dolezal again, including Christological, Scripture is the norma normans, the norming norm that stands behind subordinate sources such as the creeds and the confessions. Those other norms are all subordinate to Scripture. He goes on to say, a quote, high view of Scripture regards it as a special divine revelation to which our ecclesial confessions and personal opinions must be reverently submitted. Now, what I'm going to make, I'm going to make the argument that it is even necessary for us to rely upon creeds and confessions. I think it's necessary for us. When I opened the session this morning, I read an inspired creed from 1 Timothy 3. And so the church has followed this example, has used this practice, but all of those confessions, all of those creeds have to come back and be normed by the sacred scriptures, the inspired scriptures. One author describes it this way, says theologians who have held both a high view of Scripture and unorthodox Christological views allegedly derived from or compatible with Scripture include Arius, the Nestorians, and perhaps Origen. So a high view of Scripture does not guarantee an orthodox Christology. But it does foreclose certain ways of thinking about Christology that are theologically unpalatable. For instance, someone with a high view of Scripture is probably less likely to think that Jesus is merely a human being, given statements Christ makes about Himself and His relationship to the Father, or statements made about Him in the New Testament documents. Or, that His work is less than the means by which God reconciles human beings to Himself. Again, given what the New Testament says about Christ being the means by which salvation is brought about. So we want to use these other tools, these other documents, but recognizing that all of them are subordinate to the Word of God. These creeds, the author goes on, they act as a sort of hermeneutical bridge. I like the phrase. They act as a sort of hermeneutical bridge. between Scripture and the church, helping us to understand what Scripture is or is not saying about a particular doctrine. The function of the creeds in respect to Christology is twofold. One, they are a means of confessing faith in Christ. Remember, we saw that in 1 Timothy. Great is the mystery of godliness. There is a confession that's required of us. Jesus asked His disciples, who do the people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? So it's an imperative for us to confess Christ. And these creeds are one of the means that we do that. That's part of the reason that that's part of our liturgy and our Sunday morning worship. is to confess what we believe and what the church has articulated throughout the centuries. So that's, first of all, they are a means of confessing the faith in Christ, too. They attempt to make sense of the gospel accounts of who Christ is. So the creeds are an attempt, they are no doubt a human attempt, to reconcile all the statements that the scriptures make about Christ. both the affirmations and the denials. We affirm certain things about Christ, we deny certain other things about Christ on the authority of the Scriptures. And the creeds are an attempt to put those together in a small package, but also an accurate, precise way of saying it. So we have, I think we could consider seven councils of the church, of the ancient church being truly ecumenical. We did a study, it's been several years ago, Justin Holcomb wrote a little book called Heresies and Heretics, or Heretics and Heresies, and looking at each of these ancient creeds and what were the particular heresies that were addressed in each one of those. That's beyond the scope of what I want to handle in this brief introduction to Christology. But I think it's important for us to know about these ecumenical councils and which ones would be considered ecumenical. Even that term ecumenical, what do we mean by that? Because that term has taken on a lot of baggage. What's a good and useful way of understanding that word ecumenical? Correct. Yes. Yes. I think we can say two things. One, these are things that would be agreed upon by all true Christians. And then secondly, kind of the other side of that coin, these are things that would be necessary to believe in order to be a true Christian. Someone who denies the divinity of Christ, for example, we can't say, well, that's a brother, or that's a sister. That's just a little off. No, that's the big deal. As we confess in the Apostles' Creed every week, there are certain planks there that we recognize. These are necessary to believe in order to be a true Christian. but also that every true Christian is going to confess these things. So we have seven church councils that are truly ecumenical. The symbols of the four great councils, Nicaea, 325 AD, Constantinople, 381, Ephesus, 431, Chalcedon, 451. These are ones that, as we work through this in the class, Dr. Golezal explains that these ought to be taken with a particular seriousness by Christians. not because they're infallible, not because they are the product of special revelation, but because they are the most precise and the most time-tested of those human attempts to articulate all that the Scriptures say about Christ while rejecting all the things that are not true of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now, with respect to Christology in particular, Constantinople Creed of 381, and the Chalcedonian definition of 451, and the canons of the Third Council of Constantinople in 681 are rightly seen as dogmatic pronouncements that were worked out in the teeth of various attempts to revise what was believed to be the biblical view of the person and work of Christ. These particular conciliar statements are of considerable dogmatic significance. Although they are not revelation, nor the place wherein God reveals himself by his Spirit, although some might want to claim this. They bind together the one holy Catholic, lowercase c, Catholic, and apostolic church with Christological bands that reflect the teaching of Scripture. Now there's more to say on this. I'm looking at the clock. I'm going to put a placeholder here. and pick up here next week because we want to think about what's the order in which we view these things. Obviously scripture is first, but are there other sources besides the ones that we've just considered already? These seven ecumenical creeds, the scripture, how do we use these things and how do we think about others? How do we think about reading your own favorite theologian? Modern or historical? How do we weigh those? How do we think about, how do we prioritize one over the other? Even among Christians who say, we will all agree the scripture is the norming norm. But what about these other things, these other subordinates? Are they all equal? Is every opinion equally praiseworthy, equally valuable? And how do we weigh those things? How do we measure them? How do we hold them in our own thinking with respect to our understanding of Christology? When you're in your home, and you pull a book off your shelf, or you read something online, or you listen to a sermon online, and you're hearing things about Christ, what things do you prioritize over others? So they're very practical questions that I want to spend some time with next week, working out how do we think about these things, and how do we, in our own minds and our own use, what do we prioritize? I'm gonna close there. Any questions what we've done up to this point? Yeah, Emerson. Okay. Hm. Hm. Hm. I am writing down your question. I want to give that some thought and also knowing that even a preliminary answer, you're right, it would exceed our time remaining. But that's a really good question. And I think Paul does mean something far more than that, far more in that statement than great is the mystery of our personal piety. Or great is the mystery of our working out of our faith in time and space. He means something far more significant than that. So we will give that some thought and time to answer next time. Matthew or Justice? Yeah, and I think that's part of what I want to look at as we work through these things. How do we prioritize? Because Peter doesn't say, for example, he describes his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. He doesn't deny it. He doesn't say that it was insignificant. He doesn't say it was unimportant. But how does he prioritize it? How does he think about it? He subordinates it to the objective revealed Word of God. But for us as Christians, surely God in His providence uses experiences that we have. to fortify us, doesn't he? Or to sharpen us, or to refine us, or to hone away things that, you know, the impurities. By draws to consume, by gold to refine, said the hymn writer, right? So there are useful aspects of our experience, but what authority do we give to that experience is really the question, isn't it? Yeah, Matthew? So you're going to blame me for, okay, all right, go ahead. A couple words immediately come to mind. First is thankfully. We should consider it thankfully. God the Holy Spirit was actively at work. in and among his people. The church fathers contributed much that the later generations would build upon. Second word, I guess, would be cautiously. These were not infallible. And so some of the things that they wrote and studied, we might, for example, origin, we might read some things in here that were profitable. But we also look at his asceticism. I mean, he castrated himself. I mean, we look at those kinds of things and say, we have to reject some of these things because these were not helpful and not worthy of praise, not worthy of imitation. So thankfully and cautiously, but also I think productively because the nature of theological work and development took time. And so it also ought to, the other word would be humbly, because if minds who are far greater than mine were working for centuries to wrestling with some of these things, then I ought to be prudent and circumspect as I think about these things, and certainly ought to hold my own views that would contradict some of these creeds suspiciously. Right? Amen. Let me close there, and we'll prepare for worship. Father, we are grateful that you have granted to us life in your Son. We thank you that in Him we have life, that we have our being, that we have redemption, that we have the forgiveness of sins, that we have the promise of new and glorified eternal life, unstained from sin and protected from even the potential of rebelling against you. Such is the glory of this covenant of grace in which we stand. The Holy Spirit help us as we meditate upon the person and work of Christ, not to be joyful, not to be humble, not to be grateful of the work of those who've gone before us, but most of all, to be grateful for the work of the one who went before us, the one who entered into our own human experience, the one who knew no sin, who in fact became sin for us. that we might live for eternity a new life in the Son. We praise you. We thank you for the help that we have in your spirit. And we ask that you give us much grace, not only to understand these things, but to delight in them. Amen.