The Catechism again is working its way through the Apostles' Creed and has been focused now for a couple of questions on Christ. Today we look at the Lord's Day 14 and we will have several more in terms of Lord's Days concerning Him and His life and death and resurrection. But in this particular Lord's Day, there's two questions. The first being, what is the meaning of these words, he was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary? The answer, that God's eternal son, who is and continues true and eternal God, took upon him the very nature of man, of the flesh and the blood of the Virgin Mary. By the operation of the Holy Ghost, that he might also be true seed of David, like unto his brethren in all things, except for sin. And question 36, what profit does thou receive by Christ's holy conception and nativity, that he is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness covers in the sight of God my sins, wherein I was conceived and brought forth? I'm gonna deal mostly with the first of those two questions, but the second one is important because in it, it clearly links the incarnation with our salvation. A very important book written on the virgin birth by a man named Dr. Robert Grimacki is entitled The Virgin Birth, the Doctrine of Deity, and it's important, and it's, again, kind of like the, the Virgin Birth is kind of like the Doctrine of the Church, only worse, in terms of, again, if you go to a good theological library, Doctrine of God, shelf, shelf, shelf, shelf, you know. The Doctrine of Christ, shelf, shelf, shelf, shelf. Go to your card catalog, whether the old style with real cards or the new, and you look up virgin birth, very few books. In fact, there's only two that I'm aware of. The one I've already mentioned and one by Machen. Of course, the topic is discussed in commentaries and in theological books, but it's a sub thing. But very few books written to defend the virgin birth, which I've always thought was odd. But not only do we learn from these questions that the virgin birth was necessary for him to be both God and man, but apart from the incarnation, there's no salvation. If Jesus didn't become true man, then he is of no value to us. Kind of like Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, if there's no resurrection, we're still dead in our sins. If there's no incarnation, we're still dead in our sins. But the first question says, what is the meaning of these words that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, that he is God's eternal son, who continues, who is and continues to be the eternal God. Verse one of the Gospel of John is an important verse. We've looked at this many times. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It's a very straightforward statement, which some get seriously wrong. If you ever encountered a Jehovah witness, they will give you a goofy, translation of this, which we'll make mention of in a moment. But let me just unpack it briefly. In the beginning, so wherever you go back in eternity, kind of like I said this morning, wherever you go back, however far back you want to go, God is there. But historically, the church has said that of Jesus, and rightfully so, wherever you go, there is Christ. And this phrase that I've used a little bit this morning comes out of church history. A guy named Arius, who was at the Nicene Council, argued that there was never a time in which God was not, but there was a time in which the Son was not. Now, that's heresy. Okay? Just want to make sure I say that so I don't want anybody to go home and say, pastor's teaching this must be true. That's false. What's true of the Father is true of the Son. As we confess, He was very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of the same substance with the Father. The word substance, same substance, comes from one word in the Greek that the Nicene Creed was written on. And you know a phrase, sometimes it's said one way, sometimes it's said another. You might hear someone say, or you might have said, it doesn't make an iota of difference. Right? You've heard that? Or you might have heard it said, it makes an iota of difference, which is the way it should be. Because that little iota, which is a little letter in the Greek alphabet, kind of looks like our I, makes a big difference. Arius argued that Jesus was homoousian, oi, that would be an omicron or O with the iota or I, oi, homoousian, homoousian, I should say, and said that Jesus was like God. And the oi, homoous, is that prefix that would stress The same, but different, like, he's like God. And the Nicene Council came out and said, no, Christ is homoousian. And you're familiar with the prefix homo, homo sapiens, homogenized milk, right? It's in the word for confession. homo ligeo, to say the same thing. In the beginning was the word. And the word was there, unlike Arius, who said there was a time in which the son was not. No, the son always was. And he always had exactly the same nature as the father, because they both are God. Whatever makes God God, the Father has. Whatever makes God God, the Son has in the same way and extent. And so also with the Spirit, so as the catechism says, there is but one God who exists in three persons, same in substance, equal in power and glory. It's been A new heresy, which is really an old heresy, that is coming back even amongst certain Reformed, and sad to say even amongst certain Reformed Baptists, who want to teach about the eternal subordination of Christ. Not good. But the phrase doesn't make an iota of difference, or it should more properly say it makes an iota of difference, is the difference between Arius' word, And the word that is in our Nicene Creed, that the church accepted, was just that one letter, iota. Homoi, or homo. Then followed by the Greek word, ousios, for being. Of like being, like nature, or the same. And John starts out in a rather shocking way, as we will see by the time we get to verse 14, that which was in the beginning was the Word, and that Word was with God, and that Word was God. So wherever God is, you go back in eternity, no matter where you go, you will always find the Word right along with God, unlike Arius, where he'd find only one. The second phrase, and the Word was with God, I've told you this before. It's one of my favorite phrases because of a preposition, with, which in English is not all that exciting. But in Greek, there's a variety of ways in which you can say someone is with something or someone. There's a variety of prepositions and grammatical constructions, and they all have their own nuance. And we do this. We speak this way. I could say, yesterday, I was with Chris and Matt. Right? I was with them. And I could say, last night, I was with my wife. And in Greek, you would probably use different prepositions. But immediately, you know, in English without having to say a whole lot that I was with my wife in a different way in which I was with Chris and Matt, for which they are very thankful. But in this Greek context, the word with is a preposition pros, you've probably heard me say that before. It's at the root of the word face, prosopon is the Greek word for face. And this word with brings with it an idea of an appropriate kind of intimacy. I'm not just with somebody. Oh yeah, I was with my friends hanging out, you know, shooting pool or whatever. Or I'm with somebody. You hear the difference? And so this word, which was in the beginning, wherever you go, just mark the beginning, it's already there. There's never a moment when he's not there. That one, that word, is face-to-face with God. He's with God. Prostheo. And that word, which was with God, he then says, and the word was God. Now, you've probably talked with Jehovah Witnesses somewhere along the line, and they'll want to tell you that the, it says, and the word was a God. So you don't have to know much Greek to know this. You just put this, this is one of those things you might wanna jot down and be ready to use. The word was a God. There is no a, or indefinite article in Greek. You can say God, you can say the God, but you cannot say a God in Greek, or a bike, or a table, or a cup. That indefinite article a does not exist in Greek. It's not that they don't speak of an indefinite object, it's just they don't have any way of expressing it. So the language does not permit the phrase a god. The Greeks had no way of saying that. Secondly, and which is a little more complicated, and I hope not to get too much into the weeds on this, but I've told you on many occasions, word order means everything in Greek in terms of clarifying emphasis, not the way it means everything in English. To say the word was God or God is the word, I shouldn't use that example because that's too confusing. 1 John says God is love. God is love. If you change the word order, love is God. It's not the same sentence, is it? You have a nominative, God, and a predicate nominative, love. God is equals love. If you move the love to the nominative and God to the predicate nominative, love is God, you've made an entirely different sentence. But in Greek, you can do this. Literally, what John writes is God was the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. Well, you might say, well, pastor, you talked about nomitives and predicate nomitives, and how do you know which one is which? Well, I'm glad you asked me that. And again, not wanting to get in the technical weeds, in Greek, you can flip-flop the predicate nominative with the nominative, and you can say, to say the word was God, you can say God is the word or was the word, and you can say God, let's see, the word was God, or you can say God was the word, and meaning the same thing. You can do that legitimately in Greek. But when you have a sentence and you're trying to figure out as a non-Greek reader, well, which is the nominative and which is the predicate nominative? When one has the definite article, the, and the other one does not, then that tends to suggest that the definite article, in this case, the word, is the subject of the sentence or the nominative. So the word, was God is the proper way of translating, even though the word order that John uses is God was the word. Because the word, the, is a sign that lets you know that the word is the subject of the sentence, and God comes first. Now, back to what I said earlier, word order means everything in Greek because of emphasis. What is John trying to do? Why didn't John just save us all a lot of trouble and write God was the word? Why didn't he just write halagos, hein, It would have been so much easier. Yes, it would have been easier, but it would not have been as cool. When you have an indefinite noun like God, you don't have the God, just God, you are stressing essence. You are stressing essence. For example, in the book of Hebrews, chapter one, you have a very similar construction where it says, God, after he spoke long ago in the fathers and in the prophets, in many portions, in many ways, in these last days, he has spoken to us in his son. And the way it actually reads in the Greek is he has spoken to us in son. He has spoken to us in Son, not the Son, but he's spoken to us in Son. Stressing, because he could have said he's spoken to us in the Son, but what he's stressing is in the past he's spoken to us in various ways. He's spoken to us in prophets. Now he has spoken to us in someone who shares the essence of son-ness. And who is that? He goes on to say, he has spoken to us in his son, or one who shares this, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world, and he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power, When he made purifications of sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He's letting us know of the superiority of the vehicle which he speaks through, where he has spoken long ago with the fathers and the prophets. And anyways, now he has spoken to us in son. One who shares this essence of suddenness, and the Son is the radiance of his glory. He's the creator and sustainer of all things. He's the redeemer. He is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. That one, that one is the one he speaks to us from. That's important. He's not just a prophet. It's Son. Well, back in John, he's saying something similarly. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with or face-to-face with God. And God, the essence of God, that which makes God God, that one was the Word. And if the Greek reader would have Read this for the very first time, he would have picked up on that with no problem whatsoever. The stress here is that this word which was from the beginning, this word which was with God, that word, that one, shares in whatever makes God God, he has that. He shares in that. He is that. And there's no way. Anybody except for somebody who is either directly lying to you or has just been lied to him or herself could ever get this verse to say anything other than, and the word was God. And he goes on to talk about him much like Hebrews and that he's the creator of all things. Nothing comes into existence except for by him. He is the life and the light of the world. And he goes on to talk about how salvation comes through him, but we want to skip to verse 14. This word in the beginning was the word. In the beginning was halagos. In the beginning was halagos. Now, in verse 14, and halagos, the word. It's really no more dramatic in the Greek than it is in the English, only when we read the English, we tend to read too quickly. In the beginning was the word, and the word became flesh. It does not say that he became man, though it means that. It does not say the word took a body, though it means that. But as one writer put it, that he became flesh. Flesh is a strong, almost crude way of referring to human nature. And what John is trying to emphasize is the reality that Jesus became real human. Well, why would he need to do that? Well, we know from reading 1 John that already in the first century, there were people who said that Jesus didn't really come into the world by flesh, he kind of appeared. That's why John will say that anyone who says that Jesus did not come in the flesh does not have God. This is known as the docetic heresy, docetic, Doceo means to think, to seem, appear. And there were those already in the first century that says that Jesus simply appeared to be a real human. I think I said this a week or two ago. These people, these docetic people would have said, if you and Jesus were walking on the beach together, And you look back, you would only see one set of footprints. He was a phantom. He appeared to be there, but he really wasn't there. And this issue of the exact nature of the incarnation will be debated and argued and fought for for the next several hundred years, culminating in the Nicene Creed and a couple creeds afterwards, Chalcedonian Creed and the Athanasius Creed. because there were so many people who wanted to prefer the very thing that John is saying. And it's so important that we stop and think about that because we want God to make sense to us. As I quoted from Psalm 50 this morning, where God says, this is what I have against you that you think I'm just like you. We want God to make sense. In order to do that, we need to make him a little more human. Yes, he's a perfect human. Yes, he is larger than life human. He's a marvel human. He's whatever you want, but he's got to be explainable somehow. And just about every heresy that we have comes from some well-intentioned dolt trying to figure out a kinder, easier, clearer way to explain God. You've heard these people. Maybe when you were young, you went to a Sunday school class and someone tried to teach you that the Trinity is like an egg, right? It's got a shell. It's got the yolk. It's got the whatever else you call that stuff. It turns white, you know. That's heresy. You might have heard people say, the Trinity is like a grandfather, a father, and a son. That's a heresy called modalism. God is like water. It can be steam or a liquid or a solid ice. Heresy, I was doing a radio show one time and the host of the radio show Somehow the doctrine of the Trinity came up, and he had been taught these things and thought they were right. And he says to me on air, live, he says, well, the Trinity, isn't it a lot like water, steam, water, and ice? And he's waiting for me to affirm his great insight and wisdom. And I said, no, Dr. Monteith, that's actually heresy. What do you do in the moment? It's like, I'm not gonna say, yeah, that's great, The Word, that which was from the beginning, that which was with God, and that which in itself has every last attribute and characteristic of God, that one became flesh. Gnosticism hasn't arisen yet, although the seeds have probably been planted. Gnosticism, not like Doceticism, doesn't really want God to become flesh, but for a slightly different reason. In Gnosticism, they wanted to have God way over here, and the world way over there, and then all sorts of demigods in between, going from less perfect, and less perfect, and a little less perfect, you know, to where you're getting a little less bad, a little bit worse, a little worser, and to the worst. Yes, I know, I'm making those words up. And there's these, these are called eons, and there's, you know, an infinite number of them. And because the world was dirty, the world was filthy, the world was corrupt, and God isn't. And so the only way God could come into the world was to somehow go through all these different eons to get down to this dirty world. And while Gnosticism is probably yet maybe a hundred years away, the seeds of the thinking already have begun. And it's quite possible that John is certainly confronting the docetic idea that he's just a phantom, but in the back of his mind he feels a need to let us know that that perfect God, that holy God, that absolute God, that one, became flesh, and he uses the word flesh to jar the reader. He doesn't say, as I already said, he doesn't say became man, doesn't say he took a body, he became flesh. So that the reader would understand the absolute reality as the writer of Hebrews would say, he took on flesh and blood to share in the same nature with us, only without sin. Well, why is that important? Well, how long do you have? How long can we stay? It's important because, again, your salvation depends on it. If Jesus didn't have a real body that could die, then nobody died for your sins. We're told in Hebrews several times in which the suffering that he had as a man to perfect him made him a sympathetic high priest. And so you can have someone, as it says in Hebrews 4, a high priest who has been tempted in every way in which you were, yet without sin, so he can sympathize with you in order that you might receive grace and mercy at exactly the right moment that you need it. Now see, some people don't like Jesus being tempted. So they try to be super spiritual. Well, Jesus never was tempted. He was tempted, just like you and me. but never ever with sin. He never sinned, I should say. He was tempted with sin, but never sinned. And therefore, he can understand our weakness. Why? Because he had the same frailties that you and I had. A second reason why it's important, and I think this is very, very modern and prevalent amongst even reformed and was part of the problem that happened breakup of the association we used to be part of, and that these so-called impassibility debates, that God does not have passions. And we would say, and our confession says, God is without body, parts, or passions. As we talked about earlier, passions, the sufferings, the sufferings of Christ. What's happened is in our day, we have so downplayed the significance of him becoming flesh, that the sufferings of Christ have been minimized. So otherwise clear-headed men who are reformed and confessional men no longer believe that the sufferings of Christ are sufficient, and so we must have the spirit suffer and we must have the Father suffer. Those of you who remember Paul Owens, I gave him some of this new modern material to read about how the father suffers. And I gave him to read, and he reads it in my presence, he was reading it, and he just looked up to me, and it made so much sense. As soon as he said this, it made so much sense to me. He says, these people have a Christological problem. See, you would think they would say they have a theological problem. Theology isn't theology proper, a wrong view of the Godhead. Well, they do, but how'd they get there? They had the wrong view of Jesus. The sympathies of Jesus are sufficient for anything and everything you need in this Christian life. And because he is the word who was with God, who was God, he can understand in his Godness and all that it means to be God, he can understand what it means to be truly human because he in fact became truly human, truly God, truly man at the same time. complete natures, complete divine nature, complete human nature, no confusion, no diminishing, no way confusing them, truly God, truly man, same time. And so whatever sufferings you have, he knows, he understands, he can relate, he can care for, he can pray for, he can sympathize with. And he can do that because he became flesh. And I agree with Paul Owens. These otherwise, I don't want to say what I want to say. These otherwise fine gentlemen who are good in theology, a lot of different points, have a very low view of Jesus. He became flesh. And not only did he become flesh, he dwelt with us. Now the word dwell there is, if you've heard the phrase Shekinah, like the Shekinah glory, Or a more difficult word, I'm sure you'll stumble over, I don't know if I should say this word to you, because you probably are gonna say, now pastor, you're just becoming way too academic. The word tabernacle. Probably haven't heard that word before, right? That's a deep word, right? No, I see someone shaking their head, no, you get the humor. The word tabernacle. Where did God dwell in the wilderness? In the tabernacle, right? And in that tabernacle was his glory. You remember back in Exodus, in the final chapter, chapter 30, 4, 40. We'll get there. The final chapter of Exodus, chapter 40. And the tabernacle has been erected Verse 34, and the cloud covered the tent of meeting, or the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day it was taken up. And throughout all the journeys, the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel." This word that became flesh tabernacled among us And we saw the glory. Don't miss the connection to Exodus 40. The one who's able to sympathize, he's taken on a tent. And there, the tent is filled with the glory of God. As Paul would say, the fullness of the deity dwells in him in bodily form. That one, filled with glory, is the one who can sympathize with you in every point of your life. That one. I believe, without a shadow of doubt, that that's exactly who Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6. In the Gospel of John, Jesus will say, Isaiah saw my day and rejoiced. What day did he see it? The day in which the tabernacle or the temple in Isaiah 6 is filled with the glory. Same sounds very similar. Go back and read it. Just like Exodus 40. That one has come. flesh has become flesh and he dwelt among us and we beheld the glory. That one is in this room every Lord's Day when we gather for preaching of the word and to partake of sacraments. That one, the word that was in the beginning, the word that was with God, the word that was God, the word that became flesh, the word that we beheld the glory, that one is with us every day, every Lord's Day, to proclaim in the midst of the great congregation, as we sang this morning from Psalm 40, to proclaim his Father in the midst of his people, that one. And he's able to do it not as an academic Jesus, if anybody could have been an academic, Jesus would have been a good one, right? Because he's all-knowing, being God, And he could be in the pulpit and he could scratch his chin and he could say, you know, the rationalistic pusto of the unregenerate mind. He could talk that way better than anyone. But that's not how he would talk, is it? Because that's not a sympathetic high priest. The sympathetic high priest goes after the lost sheep. It searches for the lost coin. It looks for the wayward son. It hangs with the sinners and the gluttons. The great one, the exalted one, the magnificent one has become flesh and dwelt among us, lived with us. When we go to Cuba, I love going to Cuba. I love going to Cuba more now than I used to love going to Cuba, because when we first went to Cuba, sometimes I'd live in houses that were kind of difficult for an American, or now we stay in hotels or Airbnbs. It's nice, wonderful place. Jesus didn't go to the to the five-star hotel on the beach, he went to be with the people. I'm thankful that when we go that there are so many wonderful places down there to live and to dwell. When we were in that one town the last time we went and one of the hotels was absolutely magnificent. But that's not where Jesus, Jesus doesn't go to Trump Tower, if you will. Jesus goes to be with the broken hearted, the weary, the heavy laden, the sinner, the downtrodden, the outcast. That's who Jesus goes to be with as the infinite God who is the sympathetic priest. We saw the glory. The glory is the only begotten of the Father. The word only begotten doesn't really mean what you might think. It's not a word that's meant to convey some great esoteric metaphysical relationship. The word is used of other ordinary people who had only one child, like in Luke 7.12, the widow of Nain, and in Luke 8.42, in terms of Jairus' only daughter, or I guess that's in Luke 9. But in Hebrews 11, it's used of Isaac, of Abraham. Isaac was not the only son of Abraham, was it? Remember that little song you learned maybe in school? Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham, right? He had many sons. Well, what is the only begotten got to do with Abraham Jacob was a unique of all the sons because he alone was the son of promise. And the word that was with God, the word that was God became the word, the word became flesh, tabernacled with us, and it was a word where we beheld his glory as that one unique son of promise. as we sang from Psalm 2 tonight. Psalm 2. Today I have begotten thee. Ask, and I will give all the nations as your inheritance. Jesus is the son of promise. Father says, I for my will have established him on my mountain, Mount Zion, my anointed, my king, That's the one we beheld the glory of, who came to be with the lowly, the brokenhearted, the contrite, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Full of grace and truth. It's interesting for John, the word grace is so important in the book of the Bible in the New Testament, and he uses it three times in the opening chapter of 1 John, and never again throughout the entire book, and we don't know why. Truth is an important word. It's found over 25 times in the gospel. Clearly, it's one of the key things that he has to say when he's putting that word in the mouth of Jesus. I am the way, the truth, and the life. But probably most importantly is this intimate relationship between this word and the Father. More than any other gospel, John speaks of the Father and the Son. He uses the term Father for God twice more often than any other of the New Testament gospel writers. And so to wrap this up, in the beginning was the Word, that Word was with God, God the Father, And that word himself was God, always has been, always will be. That one became flesh and lived with us, came among us, dwelt with us, tabernacled with us. And so that we would not miss the point, he takes the word tabernacle and links it with glory so we would see Isaiah 6 and Exodus 40 in that it's the glory of God in the tabernacle where God in his glory dwells and meets with his people that we would understand how do we meet with the glory of God? Where do we find the glory of God? Where do we experience the glory of God? in the hearing of the words of grace and truth and the preaching of Jesus, who is the glory of God himself. And we hear it and we receive it and we experience it in the context of grace and truth. We cannot earn the experience and we can't get it from a lie. Even little lies like, and the word was, a God. In a few chapters, Jesus will say the Father is looking for worshipers, seeking for worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in what? Truth. And then he says, verse 18, No one has seen God in any time. The only begotten God, whom is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained to him." This one that was with God in the beginning, in a very close and personal relationship, who was himself God in the terms of being the Word was God, that one became flesh. He became real human to be a sympathizing, sympathetic high priest, he dwells with us in a manner in which he can understand us, and that we might behold his glory in the context of grace and truth, and he came, that one came, to explain to us the Father. That's our Christ. And that's what the catechism wants us to understand. What is the meaning of these words? He was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, that God's eternal Son, who is and continues true and eternal God, took upon him the very nature of man, of flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, that he might also be the true seed of David, like unto his brethren in all things. Sin accepted. May God give us a high and exalted view of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for sending us your son. We thank you that you so loved the world that you gave us your only begotten son, that whosoever would believe on him would not perish but have everlasting life. And life was in him, as was the light. We pray, Lord, that more and more you'd give us the proper view of Jesus, that we might worship him in spirit and truth. In Christ we pray, amen.