So if you will turn in your scriptures to First John, chapter two. Before we continue in this lesson series, I wanted to just have a side note, encouraging thought before we begin. And in verse 20, verse 24, God's Word reads in 1 John 2, verse 24, Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He promised us, eternal life. So here we're seeing our responsibility to let what we heard from the beginning, that is, I take this to be God's Word, the Gospel, to abide in us. In other words, to continue to receive the Gospel, abide in, continue to hear the Gospel, to continue to receive the Gospel. Verse 26, These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. So in a context where there are those who are trying to deceive you, there are outside pressures coming into the church, right? We're learning about some of these that happened in the early church. These things I've written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. Now, here's the encouragement. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you." This thing that He's calling us to abide in is already abiding in us. Right? So in the New Covenant promises that we see in the Old Testament, I will put my law in them. I will inscribe it on their hearts. I'll put my word in them. And we read in the New Testament all these in you passages, right? Work out your salvation and fear and trembling for it is God who works in you. The passage in James 1 where it says, that He will perfect in us what He has already begun. There are so many different in you passages. 1 Thessalonians, I am glad that you have received that which you have heard from us concerning the Gospel and the Word that we proclaim to you. You received it not as from man, but as it really is from God. which is at work in you, believers. So as you come to the scriptures, as you listen to the truth and receive the truth, There's something, the Word of God that you're coming to is already in you. There's a correspondence to something that is in you. Whenever a new believer comes to read the Word of God for the first time, right? I don't know if this happened to you. It's happened to me whenever I was first believing. Whenever I first came to the Scriptures, I never read them before, but it was almost like, hey, have I read that before? It's because the same spirit of truth that inscripturated this word abides in you. And so because of this, you have the anointing and you have spiritual discernment. And so if you're coming to the scriptures and it seems complicated to you or it's hard to understand, Trust in this, that the same Spirit that inscripturated this word abides in you. And you can trust the Spirit to lead you into all truth. So some of the things that we're talking about, biblical truth, may seem hard to understand. This is the encouraging word that I have, that we're going to lift off from. Trust the Spirit to lead you. We've been considering that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. True God, true man. Not sort of man and not sort of God. True God, truly man. We're going to now transition into how do these two natures divinity and humanity relate in Jesus Christ? How do they exist in the one person, Jesus Christ? And you can fall into two airs. One, is you can emphasize the distinction. Okay? In other words, divinity is not humanity. Divine natures don't do human nature things and human nature things don't do divine nature things, right? But you can emphasize that distinction so much that you begin to separate them and they begin to look like two different persons. Okay? That's Nestorius. That's what we're going to look at today. The other side. You can emphasize the unity of these two natures so much that they become one nature, and there's a blurp. They just blurred and confuse into one another. That's the other heir, that's Eutychius' heir. So before we begin this lesson, it's important to understand this, the distinction between a person and a nature. Instead of putting long definitions, I just put these two images. And just to test this, I asked Elena, is that tree a person? And she's like, no. And, well, how do you know that's not a person? Because it doesn't talk. Yeah. True. And she said, it doesn't have a heart. Absolutely. A nature, and a tree may confuse you. Like, I'm not talking about going out into nature. You know, I'm talking about a nature, right? Like, a tree has The kind of thing that that is, is a tree. So whenever you're talking about nature, you're talking about the kind of thing that it is. So a tree has tree-ness. If you have tree-ness, you have leaves, branches, roots, plants. That's its nature. And it's only going to do those things which tree do according to its nature. And you can take that and replicate it. A bike has bikeness. A rock has rockness. So, that's nature. Person. What's the difference between a nature and a person? Anyone? Just throw it out. Name something. Think, thought. Yeah, exactly. To conceive a thought. Awareness. Conscious awareness. Desire. Intent. Purpose. It has to do with the will. to exist in personal relationship. You can't go to a tree and have a personal relationship with the tree. So this is the distinction between a person and a nature, and it's very important as we consider the Nestorian heresy. So, in the year 431 AD, there was the Council of Ephesus. And in this council, the main purpose of it was to refute this Nestorian heresy. There may have been other things in the minutes, but this was the thing. Nestorianism. Which is, basically, the separation of the two natures, and speaking of them as if they're persons. So, if you speak of them as if they're persons, then was there really a union that exists between them? What Nestorius said was that there was a conjunction, which means that they worked together, that the divine nature was doing things and the human nature was doing things. We'll see the development of this. Key doctrines are the unity of Christ's person. A lot of what was guided in the Council of Ephesus was the writings of a man named Cyril of Alexandria. And he wrote a book called On the Unity of Christ. And you might have heard of that because it's highly referenced among scholars and students in theology. And still to this day, a lot of the things that we say, like for instance, without ceasing to be what he was, he became something that he wasn't. that phrase right there that we use came from Zaireo. And related doctrine, the hypostatic union, really those two doctrines go together. And key words, theotokos and communicatio idiomatum. Theotokos, does anyone remember what that word means? We referenced it in the first lesson, I believe. So you see the word theos, Teo means God. Tokos means to bear, to birth, to carry in one's womb. And so what this word is, it's talking about Mary being the mother of God. Okay, we're going to get into that. And then Communicatio Idiomatum. This is something that Charles pointed out in the first lesson, which is the communication of properties. How can we say that God became man? How can we say, go to the next slide. I think I have a list. So, how can we say that the uncreated creator becomes created? How can we say the eternal becomes dependent on time? How can we say the infinite enters finitude, the perfect is broken, the righteous becomes sin, the immortal dies, the all-knowing becomes limited in knowledge, the all-powerful becomes limited in power, what is divine has become human, God became man. How can we say those things? Okay? How can you say those things? This is a mystery. Now, listen. Is this a problem to be solved? Or is this something to revel and glory in? You know what? It's okay that this makes us feel a little uncomfortable. You know? But, I kind of like it. It is kind of scandalous. But what it shows us is the kind of God that we have. It shows us the glory of God. And it really is at the heart of the Gospel. Now, if you are curious as to, OK, how can these things be? You know what? That's normal. And it's OK to ask the how and why questions. But if it's out of an itch to try and solve a mystery, you might end up like Nestorius, right? But if it's out of adoration and wonder, that's healthy. That's good. Like Mary. It says, who pondered these things in her heart. Right? And it seems like in Matthew, that's just like a repetitious thing. And then you see Mary treasured these things up in her heart. Mary pondered these things in her heart. You know what? If you were come to by an angel and told the things that Mary were told, it would blow your mind, right? A good response is treasure these things. Next slide. Okay, so, Nestorius. This is Nestorius. And as I was showing my kids this slide, I asked if he was a good guy or a bad guy. And they said, a bad guy. And I said, how do you know? And they said, a snake. So, that's how you know. Now, this is the way that Nestorius thought. And again, with these heresies, a lot of them come out of good intentions, to uphold certain truths and have certain good burdens. So, the story is thought this, the eternal Logos, which means the Word of God, God, who has a divine nature, cannot suffer or change. there are two full natures at work in Jesus Christ, the divine and human. Now, unlike some of others, other heretics, he actually said that there are actually two full natures at work in Jesus Christ. Unlike Arius, he didn't deny divinity, and unlike Apollonarius, he didn't deny humanity. But this is his conclusion. Therefore, the Eternal Word, by the way, is not synonymous with Jesus Christ, is working in conjunction with the human nature of Christ. Okay? Now, that last statement I just made, or the therefore statement, what do you notice about that? pertains to this lesson. So we've got two natures. That's good. We agree with two natures. What don't we agree with? Doesn't that sound like two people? There are two persons. The Eternal Word and Jesus Christ. And although Nestorius would have never said that there are two persons, the logical conclusion. He was effectively saying, at the bottom here, that there are two persons united with each its own separate nature. And so, this is the way that he protected the divinity, what is divine, from becoming human. Right, he would probably say something to the effect that Jesus is a human name. It's described to this one person who was born of Mary. Yes, I agree with that. But he worked in conjunction. He submitted to the eternal word, right? This man, Jesus, submitted himself to the eternal word. Go to the next slide. So, Nestorius, so here we have two sides. One, the human nature. On that side, where it says the man, that are human nature things, okay? On the other side is divinity. what divine nature things do. Nestorius hated whenever anybody would say, would use, so at the top you have what's in bold, the subjects. The man is a subject. God, the word, is a subject in the other column. And below are predicates, just statements of truth. He would never want you to use the subject of one side, and use it with the predicate of the other side. So he would never want anybody to say, the man Jesus Christ raised the dead. He would want to specify, no, you're not being very careful. It was actually the Word of God that raised the dead. So this is a perfectly normal photolysis. Maybe I'd have to think about that a little bit more. Different than what the current guy would do, but still, it's a division. He would never want the subject God to be used with the predicate on this side. God was born of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God. So, this was the whole thing, was encapsulated in this word, Theotokos. Therefore, Mary cannot be Theotokos, the God-bearer. He would say, no let's be specific and say that she was the Christ bearer. Now don't we kind of feel that itch sometimes? We do. Okay? We want to protect God from this super condescension. But in reality, who is Jesus Christ? Jesus is God. Now let the wonder start. Let's treasure these things." And this is what, Theotokos was actually a phrase used with, they would say things like, God wrapped in swaddling cloths, and they would just wonder in the reality that God condescended to this degree. God entered into that experience. And so, Theotokos had less to do with Mary, although nowadays when that word is used, it's usually only in reference to Mary, to exalt Mary, right? But, no, Theotokos had more to do with God's revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. Who is this God with whom we have to do? the revelation comes to us in this one Jesus Christ, this person who is divine and human. Enter Cyril of Alexandria. In his writings, this is what he said, without ceasing to be what he was, he became what he was not. In other words, this one person who is God, the Son of God, is who took on a human nature without ceasing to be God, without ceasing to be who He was in relationship to the Father. He entered into our flesh. Therefore, Mary gave birth after the flesh to God, who was united by hypostasis with the flesh. Sometimes you may read that hypostasis, the word is attributed to Cyril of Alexandria because of the word hypostatic union. He didn't coin this word, it was actually before that with the Cappadocian Fathers who described each person of the Trinity as a hypostasis. Persons that's the that's the word that should be entered into your mind when you read the word hypostasis is This thing is personal that That the eternal Word of God assumed human flesh not a human person, okay Meaning that there wasn't a conjunction with two people this one person united the two natures in His one person. In other words, it's a personal union because these two natures exist in one person. So, because of these truths, we can say So because of this personal union, we can say these things. Now, remember, natures do not will things, think things. Natures don't relate to things personally, in a personal way. It wasn't as if When Christ came, his divine nature was giving information to his human nature, right? There was not that type of communication, right? It wasn't as if at Lazarus' tomb, when Jesus Christ said, where does he lay? The divine nature is saying, I know where he's laid, right? And then the human nature saying, well, what should we do? Well, we should raise him from the dead. Can you do that, divine nature? No. No. The one person, Jesus Christ, did these things. And because the one person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did these things, the fullness of the humanity and the fullness of the divinity were present in everything that Jesus Christ did. Therefore, we can say things like this. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore, take heed to yourself and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God." Subject there is God. Which He purchased with His own blood. God's blood. Okay? That's in the Scriptures. God has blood, and that's in Christ's reality. You know, our God is the only type of God that would bleed. It shows us the kind of God that He is. A gospel kind of God. 1 Corinthians 2. But we speak of the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The Lord of glory, God, was crucified. And we can also say of his humanity. But the men marveled, Matthew 8 verse 27, saying, What manner of man is this? Now what were they seeing? They were seeing a man. They were seeing a man. That even the winds and the sea obey him. They were seeing a man do these things. So, here we are. Wonder. Amazement. And that's the right response. If you will, go to Mark chapter 2. And you know, when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and ascended, where did He ascend to? He ascended to the right hand of the Father, right? And He now sits, right now, on the throne of God. It would be wrong of us to say, well, the human nature isn't sitting on the throne, but the divine nature is. That's wrong. You're distinguishing too much. You're overthinking it. And in a culture like ours, a church subculture like ours, We do like critical thinking. We do like a rational faith. And that's a good thing to like. Right? We don't want to be having a zeal without knowledge. But, if something like that is overemphasized, you will want to make so much distinction that you begin to try and solve mysteries. And that's not good. So Mark chapter two, we're beginning in the first verse. And again, he entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house Immediately, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And he preached the word to them. Then they came to him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was so that they had broken through They let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying when Jesus saw their faith. Okay, when I was reading this passage, it just, that hit me. Jesus saw their faith. Now, if you think about it, and this came to my mind, I read about an illustration of a physician that goes to an island. This physician has dedicated his life to go to this island where there is a particular disease that he can heal easily. But these people do not have access to that medication to heal it. And he is confident that he can eradicate this disease from that island. And he goes to that island. What is he there for? He's there to heal, okay? But there's resistance on that island. There's a type of questioning and distrust, right? And then there are some that come. And that physician is seeing their faith. Jesus Christ, who came, it's probably in the word that He is preaching to them, the good news. What did He come to do? To heal that which is broken. To save. To give life. The Great Physician. And here the Great Physician is standing before them. And here they are where He's seeing. Think about how much delight Jesus Christ has in you coming to Him with your need. Why? Because that's why He came. He saw their faith and he had said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now check this out. And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone? That's a true statement. No one can forgive sins but God alone. They're personally against Him. Only He can forgive sins. And then Jesus said, But immediately when Jesus perceived in His Spirit that they are reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Arise, take up your bed and walk? but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. God in the flesh, and he uses the word, the name, the title, Son of Man, the Son of Man, which is attributed to Speaking of the humanity of Christ, the Son of Man. He doesn't use the word Son of God. The Son of Man has authority on earth. We're talking about this one person who has two natures. Go to the next slide. And so Cyril believed that this reality, this hypostatic union, these two natures and one person is really at the heart of the Gospel. Because in the person, in Him, you are seeing us and God together. Okay? He says this, It is so that we might see side by side the wounded, the wound together with the remedy, the patient together with the physician, that which had sunk down towards death together with him who raised it up, that which has been overcome by corruption together with him who drove out corruption, that which had been mastered by death together with him who was superior to death. that which was bereft of life together with Him who is the provider of life. In this one person, you're seeing us and God together, joined forever. Next slide. And so as you see Jesus Christ, you can see in Him Our salvation. He is our salvation. Right? He Himself is our salvation. Why? Because He united to Himself our nature. So that wherever you see Jesus Christ go, you see us go. In Him. Okay? And so, when He was born, He was taking, so this one person who existed with the Father in eternal life, in eternal love, brought that relationship into our humanity. So when this, the Son of God, remember, Adam and all that is in him alienated from God, right? When Jesus Christ takes up our humanity in the Incarnation, He is restoring that relationship by bringing His own relationship that He has always had with the Father into our humanity, our broken humanity. And as He lives a perfect life, He's redeeming and restoring our broken humanity. You can see it in His righteous acts as He is giving sight to the blind. He's restoring that which is broken. Touching the leper. Intimately, restoring, redeeming, and reconciling us back to God. So that on the cross, when He died, that old humanity passed away in Him. And then a new humanity is raised up, taken to the right hand of the Father. Now listen to this song. Did you know there was a song about the hypostatic union? I don't know if anybody knew that. Let me go ahead. I'm going to read. more than just this. Just listen. The Son of Man. 100% humanity. The mind stretches to understand how can it be. You got to see what He does. Becoming what He wasn't while never ceasing to be what He was. Is your mind flipping? Does that have you tripping? Me too. But the scripture is true. Let's look at Philippians 2. By faith, we believe this amazing Jesus, who made Uranus and Venus, became a fetus. It's such a secret that few, if anybody, knew it. Months later, he's covered in amniotic fluid. The subjects of the Gospels, the praise of the apostles, is now armed with eye sockets, armpits, and nostrils. Who is this Jesus, God clothed in human weakness, super sweetness and peace for true believers? Now I'm beginning to read. See the one who never tires, knocked out sleeping. See the source of eternal joy weeping. Which one can explain how the sun, abundant with fame, who made thunder and rain, now has hunger pains? See the creator of water become thirsty on the cross when he saves the slaughter from the unworthy. My awe should be sky high and I ought to cry, why? With water in my eyes when the author of life dies. Raised on the third, God-man, soul-seeker, the hypostatic union. It gets no deeper. Is that not glorious to you, brothers and sisters? Like, this is our God. Go to the next slide. So, therefore, we can say these things. We can say these things. Notice, I switch the subjects and all the predicates remain the same. So we can say this, that God, the Son, submitted to the Father. God was born of Mary, Theotokos, knew not the hour, thirsted, suffered, and was tempted, was crucified, became sin, did everything and underwent everything that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did. The man, Jesus Christ, raised the dead, forgave sins, had power over creation, had authority over spiritual beings, cast out demons, is seated on God's throne right now, did everything and underwent everything that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did. Why? Because the person did these things. And when the person did these things, the fullness of the humanity and the fullness of the divinity were present. Go to the next slide. So, a way of application in how we faithfully speak of Jesus Christ, or even relate to Jesus Christ, how we pray to Him, Because of this unity of Christ's person, we shouldn't speak of the natures in such a way that would divide or separate them. When we begin to say things like the nature, that the divine nature did that, the human nature did this, we're very close to air. And I have heard that in our circles, that way of speaking, and really what I think is being done there is, it's good to make a distinction. We don't want to fall into Utaki's air, right? And so, God's nature, the divine nature, does divine nature things. The human nature does human nature things. But natures don't have wills, natures don't have desires, natures don't have a capacity to think and communicate, right? This is what we saw before. And so, when we speak in that way, we're actually committing the Nestorian heresy. And so, also, we shouldn't give personal characteristics to the natures, which I was just saying. Think about it like this. Someone might say, we don't pray to men, but we pray to God. Okay? And therefore, I'm going to pray to the divine nature of Jesus. Do you think like that? You shouldn't. Right? Because you're relating with a person. You pray to Him. who is both humanity and divinity together. Or I also heard this said, that I've heard both, that it was the human nature that was suffering the wrath of God. I've heard the opposite. It was the divine nature that was suffering the wrath of God. What type of thinking goes in that direction is this. If we say that the human nature was on the cross suffering the wrath of God, well, the human nature was on the cross but not suffering the wrath of God, then What that means is that, or if the divine nature is suffering the wrath of God, God cannot suffer. So it had to be the human nature. God can't suffer. Or some may say that it was the human nature that was on the cross, or that was suffering the wrath of God. Well, how can a human nature suffer an infinite wrath of God? It can't. But, just stop. It's the person, Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, who suffered the wrath of God. God poured out His wrath on His Son. If you're going there and nitpicking the natures, you're going too far. And this is the importance of the word hypostatic. The importance of the word hypostatic is that the person is the most fundamental. The word hypo means under. The word static means stand. That which stands under. In reference to the Trinity, what they were burdened for was that there's no divine substance beyond the three. There's just the three in eternal relationship. So the three are the most foundational thing that you could say about God is what? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The hypothesis. With regard to the union of the two natures in Christ, hypostatic is talking about the person. The person is the most fundamental reality. So when you pray, you don't pray to the divine nature, you pray to Jesus Christ. When you do things like that, you abstract the person of Christ, and it becomes impersonal and not relational. Does anyone have a quick thought before I end? Yes? God is infinite and incomprehensible. But he has revealed himself in the Word. And he's given us faith to know the things that we can't quite comprehend. And like you say, to try to nitpick and separate and speak human terms or things about God. Exactly. Go to the Word. Right. Right. Yeah, that's good. That's right. Yeah, that's basically the Nestorian heresy. Basically, all we're saying is that the God-Man did all this. Yeah, okay. Then you've got to be careful, right? Because then on the other side, Eutychius would love that. Eutychius would say, it was the God-Man. But what he meant by it was, that this God-man was separate from God and separate from man. He's a God-man. But that's for the next lesson. Let's pray.