So what we've been working through in this study of Christology, this asking this pivotal question, who do you say that I am? And of course, we can look at Matthew 16, for example, and find Peter's profound but very brief answer, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. But what we've been working to do is through the scriptures and bounding ourselves, as it were, in accordance with the ancient creeds of the church, Flushing out this question more specifically, who do you say that I am? And what did Peter mean? What all was entailed into that answer, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God? Now, I want to, by way of reminder, present to you this maxim that I've urged you to meditate upon, to think about, and even just commit to memory, because the statement itself is very simple. but the implications of it are profound. And that is that our Christ is one person in two natures. One person, two natures. Or we could say one Christ, but two natures. And of course, the two natures are human and divine. And then when we look to our confession of faith, we have something, this language expanded a little bit further. If you look at chapter eight in our confession of Christ the mediator, I'm not going to read all of paragraph two, but looking down at the very last two phrases. So that two whole, perfect and distinct nature. So you see the wording here, natures and persons, natures and persons. Nature and, or I should say person, singular. Two whole perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person. So there you have the very explicit language, two natures, one person. But here are the key qualifiers without conversion, composition, or confusion. Those are three Cs that will be helpful for us to commit to memory. When we think about the Christ, our Redeemer, our mediator, the God-man, who is one person, two natures, and those two natures are joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ? the only mediator between God and man. So we see how this language is critical in our understanding of Christology, our understanding of the person and work of our mediator, and specifically his person. He is one person, one mediator, one Christ, two natures, human and divine. The question I want to wrestle with today, though, is what do we do When we read in our Bibles, perhaps you're sitting around in your own private reading or you're sitting around one evening at the dinner table or in the living room with your children and family worship, and you come across a passage that speaks about the Lord of glory being crucified. It sounds like his divine nature is experiencing death. How do we think about those things? What do we do when Peter declares to the Jews, he accuses them of killing the author of life? See, we've confessed from the scriptures, from the ancient creeds, from our confession of faith, that our one mediator, our one Christ, has two natures joined together, without conversion, composition, or confusion, and yet they're distinct natures. But then we come to the place in Scripture sometimes where one nature seems to be of spoken of, or the attributes of one nature, or that which is predicated upon one nature, seems to be predicated to another. What do we do with that? Does the question make sense? Well, let's pray and ask the Lord's help as we seek to answer that very question, or at least began to answer it. Father, we are grateful that you have given to us your word, that we are not in a place where we're having to grope around in the dark, as it were, and discover these things on our own. That you have given to us your infallible, immutable word, certain, sufficient, and infallible. And you've given to us your Holy Spirit to lead us into all understanding, to testify to us that this is in fact the Word of God. So I pray for wisdom, I pray for clarity of mind for us. I pray that you will grant to us not just an academic understanding, but a growing delight and devotion. in confessing the beauty and the glory of our mediator, the word Jesus Christ, very God and very man. We ask for your help in his holy name. Amen. Let's look at a couple of passages. I just want you to see this with your own eyes. What we're dealing with here is what theologians refer to as communicatio idiomatum, nice Latin phrase, basically the communication of idioms. or the communication of properties or the communication of names. So when we see something in the scriptures that seem to be predicated to one nature of the mediator, that technically speaking ought to be predicated to the other nature, is the Bible contradicting itself? Well, we of course would answer immediately, I hope, no. But we still have to have an answer for it, don't we? And we have to be prepared because throughout history, heretics have sought to twist the scriptures to conform to their own ideas, or they get stumped on a text and they try to reinvent a whole Christology based on their inadequate reading or understanding of one particular text. The term would be the 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter two. Let's look at a couple of examples, or just a handful, small handful of examples. These examples come from Dr. Dolezal's lecture notes. I'm looking at these specific passages. We're going to look at 1, 2, 3, 4 that he highlights that I thought were helpful to meditate upon. In 1 Corinthians 2, let's look at verse 6. Well, let's back up. Let's back up to the beginning of chapter one and get Paul's thought here. Chapter two, verse one. And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. Now, these are familiar words for us from Paul. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, even there, we haven't really gotten to the to the potentially problematic verse, but even here, Jesus Christ, that's speaking of the person of our mediator. Now the Christ is one person, two natures. Now properly speaking, which nature does Paul proclaim as crucified? It's human, right? But Paul speaks of him as the person of the Christ. Verse 3, And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory." Now, here's the verse we need to think about. Verse 8, none of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. So what do we do when the apostle declares, if they understood these things, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory? Now, taking it at face value, Lord of glory, doesn't that sound like it's speaking of Christ's divine person? What's the remedy? Now, before we work through the answer, let's look at a few of the other examples. Turn with me to the book of Acts. You want to put a finger on Acts 3 and Acts 20, we're going to look at both. In Acts chapter 3, so Peter and John are preaching in the portico of the temple, and Peter addresses the crowd. And in verse 13, he says, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. See, you killed the author of life. Well, can the author of life be none other than God? You see, Peter, so it's not just Paul, Peter's saying, you killed the author of life. Christ is the author of life in so much as he is divine. And so this divine title is used, so says Dolezal, in predicating something that is proper only to Christ's creatureliness. So doesn't that sound like a dilemma? Well, hold that in your mind and turn over to Acts 20. In Acts 20, Verse 26, I mentioned this text last week, but this is the scene where Paul's meeting with the Ephesian elders on the beach at Miletus. Because of persecution, he could no longer go into the city of Ephesus, but he wanted to see these brothers again, one more time, face-to-face, knowing that he was going up to Jerusalem and was going to be put in chains there. He would not see them again face-to-face. And so he's exhorting these elders, and he says in verse 26, therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. And what Paul's doing is he's gonna sense, say it this way, channeling Ezekiel here. There's an allusion to Ezekiel where Ezekiel talks about if the watchman is on the wall, and an enemy is coming, and the watchman blows the trumpet, then the blood is not on that watchman's hands, because he warned the city. But if he does not blow the trumpet, if he falls asleep, or he doesn't do his duty, or if he runs and hides, then the blood of that city is on his head. And so Paul is saying, like that prophet, I'm not guilty, I have no blood upon me because I didn't shrink back. And Paul uses that phrase multiple times, I didn't shrink back. So again, thinking about the watchman on the wall, he sees the mighty horde coming over the hill toward the city, and the watchman may be tempted to shrink back. They say, save myself, the city will have to, every man for himself, the city's gonna have to fend for themselves. And Paul said, I didn't do that. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood." Do you see the dilemma again? Here's the church of God, which he, God, obtained with his own blood. So here's a death. that's predicated to the divine person that properly belongs to the human person, right? So how do we do with that? What do we do with that? One more. You probably already said, okay, you made your point. Well, let's answer the question. Just one more. Romans 8, Romans 8. Romans 8 verse 31. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Now this one perhaps is not as explicit. We can maybe read over this one more quickly and not grasp what Paul is saying. If it is God who did not spare his own son, what's the nature of Christ's sonship? to God the Father. He didn't begin to be a son when he was conceived in the womb of Mary, did he? He was eternally a son. So this is speaking of the divinity of Christ. And just as the divine son in Acts 20 has no blood, as divine, he doesn't suffer or experience passion, and yet since the person who shed his blood for the church is none other than God the Son, it's right for us to speak of God's blood on the basis, and here's the key, of the unity of the person. One of the things that happens historically with various heresies is there's a recognition because, let me step back a little bit. One of the things that happens is we try, as human beings, to make the incomprehensible comprehensible. Isn't that a tendency? And whether it's with the Trinity. How many bad illustrations have we heard with the Trinity? Well, the Trinity is like an egg. Or the Trinity is like ice and water and steam. No, it's not. He is not. Anytime you hear someone begin a sentence with the Trinity is like, just stop them. Just stop them and say, don't go any further. You're about to become a heretic. And in a similar way, when we think about Christology, the God domain. the one person of the Christ inseparably joined human and divine, two natures. And so our human minds, because we cannot fully grasp that, there remains a mystery there. We want to, in a sense, oversimplify and say, oh, well, here's what it must mean then. We want to take the human nature and the divine nature and distance them so much so One approach to the problem was let's distance the divine and human nature so that we fail to recognize the unity of the person. To go back to our language of our confession, there are two whole perfect and distinct natures. We're inseparably joined together in one person. Without conversion, without composition, without confusion, Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. So how do we deal with this, what may feel like at first glance, a dilemma, where whether it's Paul or Peter, seems to predicate to the divine what properly belongs to the human nature. So for example, God shed his blood. or Peter's finger pointing at him and said, you crucified the Lord of glory. How do we think about that? Well, here's one of the answers from John Gill. We can say, for example, that the man Jesus is omnipresent and that God suffered on the cross, But it's not true that Christ suffered in his deity, or that he is omnipresent in his humanity. Or we could take that further, or that he is omniscient in his humanity. And this is why, and I want to look at this more next week in the passage in Philippians chapter two, what does it mean that Christ emptied himself? Some have taught, well, for a time, maybe from the time of his conception, or maybe from the time of his birth until the time of his resurrection or his ascension, that he set aside those divine attributes, that for three years plus or minus, he ceased to have omniscience, or he ceased to have omnipotence, or other divine attributes. or omnipresence, that he, we talked about this some weeks ago, that he ceased to exist in heaven, that he changed his location by coming down, and that the eternally begotten, infinitely eternal second person of the Trinity ceased to be omniscient, or ceased to be omnipresent. And so the temptation is then to separate the divine and human natures far more than what the scriptures give to us. Here's Gill again, he said, it cannot be said that the deity of Christ suffered, or that the humanity of Christ is everywhere, but it must be said that God, the son of God, suffered. You might be tempted to think, well, that's a distinction without a difference. Let me read it again, it's a crucial distinction. It cannot be said that the deity of Christ suffered, nor can it be said that the humanity of Christ is everywhere, but it may be said that God, the Son of God, suffered, and that the Son of Man was in heaven when on earth, or everywhere. It cannot be said that the deity is humanity, nor that the humanity is deity. nor equal to God, but it may be said that God the Word is man, and the man Christ is God, Jehovah's Fellow, because these names respect the person of Christ, which includes both natures. So what is the remedy to what may feel to us like a dilemma? When we see something like Paul saying, you've crucified the Lord of glory, Or when Paul says to the Ephesian elders that God purchased the flock with his own blood, what's the remedy to that? Well, the remedy is the unity of the persons. So what we can say about the Christ, the God-man, we say about his person, and because of the unity of nature, it must be true of the respective persons. This doesn't mean, this I'm quoting from Dolezal here, this does not mean that we can ignore the reason for our varied statements about the Son. We should not allow the unity of Christ's person to blind us to the distinction of his natures and how those natures distinctly ground our various predications. In other words, that doesn't mean that we just say, okay, well it doesn't matter at all, now we're just gonna flatten the two persons into one. Remember, two persons inseparable, without conversion, composition, or confusion. So you see the two errors we're trying to guard against. On the one side is flattening the two persons, I'm sorry, the two natures. There I go, the two natures, divine and human, into one. But the other error is just as bad, to say that the two natures are so separated that we have to be wooden and how we speak and even call them contradictions when the scriptures speak about something that seems to be predicated to one nature being predicated to another. So the communication of idioms or the communication of properties should not be understood to denote any real transference of properties from one nature to another. I'm quoting from Dolezal again, the communication of idioms, or the communication of properties, should not be understood to denote any real transference of properties from one nature to another. This would inevitably lead to some Eudachean-style dissolution of the natures and subsequent mixture producing a third nature that is neither true God nor true man. What he's saying is, Eudaicheanism is basically putting, conflating the human and divine natures, just mashing them together and almost creating a third entity, like we talked about last week. I saw a pastor a while back bring Play-Doh into the pulpit, and he had blue Play-Doh and he had yellow Play-Doh, and he, in the sermon, mixed them together. And of course, he'd come up with green Plato. And he was using that as a negative illustration, saying this is not what happens when divine and human are joined in the Christ. We don't create a third entity. We don't create green out of blue and yellow. Those all continues. Rather, the communication of the Orthodox theologians have in mind is that the natures to persons or have in mind is that of natures to persons, such as those things proper to each nature are true of the one person of the Christ. Moreover, things proper to one nature may be said of Christ using names proper to the other." Really distinct nature, only because of the unity of his person. So how is it that Paul can say, that God purchased the flock of God with his own blood because of the unity of the person in the God-man, the unity of the person of the Christ mediator. How is it that Peter can say, you crucified the author of life because of the unity of the person? The God-man, the Christ, is the author of life. Strictly speaking, his humanity is not the author of life. But because of the unity of the person, the divine and human natures unified in one person, it is proper to say that God was crucified. We can say that. So we speak of the one subject using both divine and human names, but not on account of the divine nature divinizing the human, or the human nature humanizing the divine. Now if we say that, if we say the human nature humanizes the divine, or the divine nature, in a way, divinizes or makes the human nature divine, then we violated the very principles that we confess, that the two persons, or the two natures are joined without conversion, composition, or confusion. You may be thinking, oh, there's plenty of confusion right now. Well, that's true, but the confusion is in us, in our finite minds, not in the person of the Christ. Is your head hurting again? Yeah. And I debated going through some of this material today, But I thought, if we're reading our Bibles, we're reading them carefully, especially if we've established some of these categories in our study on Christology, and we're wanting to make careful distinctions between the two natures of the Christ, human and divine, then these Bible passages and others are there that we're going to run across. And I didn't want you sitting at home with your kids or even in your own private reading one morning and thinking, I wish I had an answer for what to do with these passages, because this doesn't seem to fit what we talked about at Sunday school. And so that's why we're looking at that today, is to think about that. In a sense, it's diagnostic, it tests us. When we run across a passage like this in the scriptures, are we so persuaded of the unity of the person of our mediator, that what might at first glance seem to be an inconsistency, it doesn't bother us. Because we're so persuaded from the scriptures of the unity of the persons, or the unity of the natures, divine, the unity of the person, the unity of the natures. The union of the divine and human natures in the person of the Logos does not involve a communication of one nature to another. So again, we don't transform one nature into the other. Here's John Gill again. For though the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, that is, substantively and really, not in shadow and tide, yet the perfections of the Godhead are not communicated to the manhood as to make that uncreated, infinite, immense, and to be everywhere, etc., the properties of each nature remain distinct, notwithstanding this union. So let's turn over, this is what Gil's talking about in the book of Colossians. One more passage I wanted to look at this morning. In the book of Colossians, Paul's epistle there, Colossians 2. Verse eight, Colossians 2 verse eight. See to it. or put yourself on guard, that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. And here's the passage, for in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. And perhaps this passage was less profound before we developed some of the categories to think Christologically, to think of one person and two natures. For in him, so this is in the Christ, so he's speaking about the person, the mediator, the God-man. In him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. The full essence of God, all that God is, all the Godness of God, to say it more crudely, dwells bodily in the Christ. So unified is his person, divine and human natures, that Paul can say, the whole fullness of deity, all the godness of God dwells bodily, physically, in the person of the Christ, not in the human nature of the Christ, but in the person of the Christ. You hear the distinction? So this is why Gil says what he says, and he cites Colossians 2.9 specifically, for the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, that is, substantively and really, not in shadow and type. So in other words, Gil is saying Paul's not speaking in a metaphor. He's not speaking typologically. Paul's speaking theologically. He's speaking actually. The perfections of the Godhead are not communicated to the manhood as to make that uncreated, infinite, immense, and to be everywhere, et cetera. And the properties of each nature remain distinct, notwithstanding this union. I think that's probably enough for today. But as we think about this maxim of one, our Christ is one person, two natures, we need to fix it in our mind that those two natures really are inseparable. There is a true unity in the natures of the Christ, the human and the divine. Distinguished, certainly, we must make careful distinctions, but we can't, as many of the heretics have done, is flatten out or separate the unity. of the divine person, the unity of his two natures. Any questions about what we looked at today? Yeah. You know, there was a significant controversy about a church historian, I don't remember the particular dates, 4th, 5th century, I think. on whether it is proper to call Mary the mother of God. And there were some who said no, it's not really proper to call her, because she was merely human, she could not be the mother of God. But the more orthodox position is to say yes, Mary is the mother of God. And because she was more than just a host, more than just a surrogate, God in his infinite wisdom chose that particular young woman at that particular time and place in the fullness of time. God sent forth his son born of a woman, not just born in a woman, not just using her womb, but born of her. the most plain reading, the most clear reading of the scriptures is to recognize that it is the Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary and she conceived. But it was she that conceived. It wasn't some other conception that was then sort of cosmic IVF that was placed in her. She conceived. Let's pray. We'll prepare ourselves to worship. Father, we are grateful for your faithfulness to us, your faithfulness to your own word. Lord, I pray for us as your people that you will grow us in our understanding of our Christ. That we will delight more and more in both his person and his work. That you will help us as we study your word, as we contemplate the ancient creeds of those who've gone before us, that we would give our voices in hearty union with those who have called upon you in every age, that you will give us the grace to confess truly, fully, accurately, the one person of the Christ, inseparably joined in two natures. We thank you for that great gift that you've given to us of the Christ on which our salvation depends. There is only one mediator between God and men, even the Lord Jesus Christ. And further, there's only one name under heaven by which we must be saved, even the Christ. We ask this in his name, amen.