I was tempted to pair up a couple of the heretics this week, but then I'd have to add in another one and another one, so I'm going to keep it broken down. So a lot of material that we cover, going over especially the Christology heresies, Christological, there is going to be some overlap. Going over the heresies and the defense is not a bad thing for us. So if we go over it for three weeks, that's just going to help us as we encourage each other and learn about these heretics and their heresies. But to this week, we're going over Apollinarius and Apollinarianism. And there is some very serious contemporary relevance. So this is a good topic, dealing with the elements of Christ's humanity. And in his view, just a quick summary, some of these elements were replaced by his divinity. So replaced by his divinity at the incarnation. He was a bishop. So if you notice, too, these heretics Or the men who are named for these heresies were teachers, were leaders in the church, in the early church. And he was a bishop in Laodicea. We're going to look at some of the council results because these councils, again, this is godly men getting together to discuss these things of God to defend the faith. And we're going to finish with a lot of heresies on the natures of Christ. You guys are going to help me walk into those. But I have a little bio for Apollinarius there. I say Syrian theologian. He was well educated. So again, this is not just somebody who's looking for a get-rich-quick scheme like we see with some of the modern cults and denominations. This is a man who was raised under Christianity in his home, as much as we can tell. And as we're going to see again, he did not set out to create a heresy. All right, this is another one of those. But again, when I get to the contemporary, I'm gonna show you where it is intentional, and that's why it's important that we look at these things and why they were considered heresies in the early church. So yes, you see that he was, He was excommunicated once for pagan ritual, but then he was excommunicated later for defending Athanasius. So I've got Athanasius up here again. And if you remember, he was a bishop in Alexandria who spent most of his time excommunicated and banished. Not excommunicated, banished. His church refused to replace him. So in four, almost five decades, he only spent a little under two decades in his region there. But Apollinarius defended Athanasius, especially as he was coming up with the defense of the Trinity against the Arians. So Apollinarius was orthodox in his understanding of the Trinity. He's known for this particular rejected heresy here, and we're going to get into what that looked like. And I just got a little, this is not, this doesn't do it justice, but this is a little definition from the Lexham on what they call the unity of Christ, but it's also the hypostatic union. And the unity of Christ is the doctrine that Jesus, although he possesses two distinct and complete natures, he is simultaneously fully God and fully man, is nevertheless one integral person, God the Son incarnate. So we're gonna get into why this is difficult in explaining. Remember, it's easier to say what something is not in theology than what it is. That's where we get into making sure we speak correctly. And a lot of times it's unintentional heresy. But if you remember last week, the Nicene Council, they were battling Arianism, who was this, you know, this idea of Jesus was created. We had the Unitarianisms before that, but this Nicene Council, let's take the Apostles' Creed and formulate a better understanding of the Son of God being eternal. And that's what was battled against Arianism. And so one of the things that Apollinarius was defending against was he was very anti-Arianist. He says Christ is eternal, not created. So this was an orthodox belief that Apollinarius kept to, that Christ is eternal. Another one was the Unitarian. He, again defending Athanasius, was very much of the mindset of a Trinitarian God, the God of three in one. All right, so that's an orthodox position. He held to that. He also emphasized Christ's divinity. So whereas some people were talking about the humanity of Christ, remember, it went from he was just a man, not God, to he was just a God spirit, and back and forth. And we see that even today, where now he didn't exist at all. So he was focusing on the divinity of Christ. He emphasized that. But this whole idea, after the Nicene Council, they had to discuss, well, what happens then to the human nature, the man Jesus, what happens when, during the incarnation, when God becomes man. So there are three avenues here. And I got up here somewhere, yes. These two areas, so near Antioch and then in Northern Africa, Alexandria, they had two different understandings of this. So there was groups. Again, remember the empire split, so there are different groups in the church. someone like it's something new so when when the divine became flesh something happened to the humanity all right that's one understanding the other one was two separate natures which i want to have up here divine nature and human nature all right so the one said that something happened to this nature when The Word became flesh. Others have them separate, but they go into their own extremes, and we're going to see that in the upcoming weeks with the other heretics. So, has Jesus' humanity changed with the incarnation of the Son of God, or are there two separate people acting as one? And then where Apollinarius is going to come in, though, is certain parts are replaced. All right, so I have this avatar here and we're going to get into that a little bit more because it's like this possession that the divine is now possessing a body and taking, replacing a certain aspect, which we're going to get into a discussion after I go over a little more on Polinarius. So as I said, he's a bishop. He rejected subordinationism. That's another thing he wanted. the orthodox stance of the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are equal in power and majesty. So there is no idea of this subordination where they were less divine than the Father. Again, he refuted Arianism. He believed that they were equal, that the Godhead is equal in power and majesty and glory. He rejected the two natures of Christ because he's rejecting Arianism. So he's rejecting the two natures of Christ, proclaiming that Christ is God incarnate. And he argued that his teachings on Christ actually mirrored the Nicene Council. So he believed that what he was teaching was orthodox, just in a new and different way. So he believed that he was on par with the understanding of Christ's full divinity and full humanity without compromising. But again, he was really all about the full deity of Christ, making sure that was emphasized. But in emphasizing this, he de-emphasizes his humanity. We'll get to that in a second, though. I've got the catechism question, but he says the Divine Logos, the Word of God, the Son of God, replaced the rational soul of the humanity of the man Jesus. So I know this is going to get confusing here, but we'll walk this out when we get into some of the questions I ask. That Christ lacked a human will and a mind. So right off the bat, you're hearing that like, this doesn't make sense, but we're going to get into why he says this. That way we can answer why it's wrong. And his understanding, salvation is not affected since the full deity of Christ is not taken away. He was not a created being, he is fully God. And his understanding, since the Holy Spirit is conceiving that he's not born by natural means, so it's okay that he's not completely human. It didn't matter to those who were either Trinitarians or heretics in this belief, because either way, whether Christ was eternal or Christ was created, since the Logos is taking over this aspect of the man Jesus, it fit into both their philosophies. Like I said, he didn't believe he was teaching anything false. But he says that since Christ was human, and what he means by that is that the humanity of Christ leaned on the divinity. That's what we're going to discuss quite a bit in a second. But Christ was human in that he leaned on his divinity and the divine nature of Christ overruled the human nature. So this is how he can keep his divinity, be perfect, but still be humanity. And he was okay with Christ is only mostly human. And I would do that in the Billy Crystal voice from the Princess Bride. He's only mostly human. to some of the responses in the early church. This is post-Nicaea, which was 325. And then since the empire is split, the Pope in Rome, so they had a council in Rome to outright condemn Apollinarianism and his beliefs. That trickled down to these other two areas near Antioch and Alexandria and they at their little synods and gatherings and councils there also condemned it. And then the Eastern Empire at the Council of Constantinople in 381 also condemned it. And that's where they finalized what we read last week in that Nicene Creed. That's where they finalized and modified a few more things there. But there's one other guy here, Gregory of Nazianzus, and he wrote a lot against Apollinarianism. And one of his quotes there I have is, only a Christ who had all the elements of human nature could redeem all of man. And if every phase of man's nature were not redeemed, redemption would not be a fact. What else did he say? Is that which is That which is not taken can be healed. So basically, and we're going to get into some areas here now, this idea of Christ's humanity and his divinity. And Christ is a new and better Adam. Adam was a man. So the new and better Adam, in order to redeem what was lost in the first Adam, must be like him in all ways. And we're going to get into some scripture here, but I just got a little note there that while we love the divinity of Christ and we reject those who say that Christ was only a man, only a teacher, only a prophet, but take away his divinity, we our right to defend against that, but we overemphasize the divinity. And a lot of it was to counter the liberal doctrine that even today you see, you know, yeah, well, Jesus was a good teacher, so we can learn from him even if we don't believe in all the miracles and stuff. So we go to the other side and overemphasize the divinity and take away the fact that he was fully man. So we're gonna read some scriptures and then hopefully get into another rapid fire question and answer. But if you guys have your Bibles, we're going to start in Galatians 4, 4 and 5, if somebody would read that. So again, we get this idea of the fullness of time though, but was born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law. So we have this idea of those who need redeemed are under the law, Christ is born under the law. Again, to redeem that which was lost, he is becoming that which he's redeeming. And I know that it doesn't seem like it really matters, but it will as we keep discussing here. Now we're gonna pair up two and it's a lot of people don't like reading some of the the Pentateuch there especially Leviticus but reading Leviticus and Hebrews and seeing a study together and how Christ fulfills that We'll see an example right here. If somebody can get in Leviticus chapter 17 verses 10 and 11 You seemed more confident when you were talking about cutting him off from the people and the condemning part there, but thank you for reading. I love having this dude in the class, by the way. Pair that up with Hebrews 9 verses 21 and 22. And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified of blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. All right, so we're getting this idea here. And finally, in Hebrews 4, 14 and 15. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted, as we are, yet without sin. So first we look at the necessity of humanity, the shedding of blood, this taking of life, and Hebrews also says that the blood of goats and rams is not going to be able to save, alright, it's not effective for that type of salvation, but we have this Relation the shadow and Leviticus pointing to Christ's sacrifice in Hebrews and then of course going back in Hebrews there speaking of that high priest But he is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses In every respect, he has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. This is where we're going to get into this idea of why what Apollinarius taught is heretical. And we're going to try to get a better understanding of this hypostatic union, this unity of Christ, and these two natures. We're not going to leave here or next week or the week after with a perfect understanding because, what do you say? I'm okay with that answer, but we're going to make sure that we know what it's not. And Keech's Catechism, 25, says, How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man? The answer is, Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin. So, we're going to see some questions here, but they say, in the confession, and I'm going to put reasonable here, that it took on a body and a reasonable soul. So let's ask some questions here, and I am going to start with the Trinity though. Is God three persons and one nature? Good, there was less pausing that time. Three persons, one nature, all right? Because remember, if we have three persons, three natures, we're looking at tritheism, we're looking at multiple gods, all right? Or if we have, you know, three persons at different times with one nature, we get into that modalism, and then again, partialism, if it's, you know, three persons sharing parts of this nature. So, easy ways, three persons, one nature. Now we get to Christ, though. Is Christ two natures and one person? Yes. Is He? Remember, again, my face is going to smile whether you get it right or wrong, so don't look to me for clues. So to an outsider, again, the gospel is foolish to those who aren't saved, but they're looking at this. So you're saying you worship a God who's three persons in one nature, and one of those persons is two natures in one person. Yes. And if I'm a fool for believing that, then call me a fool, because praise God. Do I understand what that means? No. But I know that that is what is required. Where is Christ at this moment? It's like me trying to say productivity this Sunday. Not productive. So he's sitting at the right hand of God the Father. I read something else today. If Jesus was alive today, he would dot, dot, dot. Well, he is. I hate hearing that, and I hate that Christians get into this idea, well, he's in heaven sitting at the right hand of God the Father, but is he alive? We have this misunderstanding, even on the location of our Savior right now. We have that glorious hope that he is returning for his people, but he is currently sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Was he in his God nature or his human nature? I'm sorry, what? So what's your answer? No, he's in his God and human nature. Is he? What does it matter if he's in his God nature? It means he wasn't fully human. Did we discuss a heresy like that recently? Yes. What did we discuss on that? All right, what do they believe? Remember the flesh is corrupt and it's all spirit? But even Christians who are well-meaning get into this idea. Jesus is in heaven, all right? My grandparents are in heaven, so they're dead. Therefore, vis-a-vis concordantly, you relate that to the Savior, and we're missing a proper understanding. It's innocent, but we're missing a proper understanding. So let's hash this out a lot more. Here's what's going to get really fun because you guys are not going to let me down. I know it. What makes up the nature of a person? And I've got some other questions. How many aspects? So let's look at divine nature. What aspects are there of the divine? What are these aspects of the divine? I'm going to help you guys out here so we can get to the next part, okay? Fully God. All that is God. The Holy Spirit is all that is God. Contains all that is God. The Father is all that is God. And Christ is all that is God. So let's look at the human nature. What parts make up a human? What do we have? Body. Soul and spirit. Mind. Emotions. Are you just reading off my list there? It's all of these things, is it? So, for the human nature, we're all made up of a body, a soul, a spirit, a mind, and emotions. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but let's discuss this, let's talk about this. Does anybody else agree with all these or no? What do you mean by the soul in the spirit? Well, you said it, so what do you mean by the soul in the spirit? I mean soul. I don't know about spirit. I'd say body, soul, mind, emotions. I don't know about spirit. I don't understand what it means by spirit and soul. Very good. Anybody else want to knock some of these out, add something to it? I will give you now over here a Greek philosopher understanding what makes up the human nature. Okay? That doesn't look too different than all those other things I rambled off, right? What would they say though is that these parts are contained here. Okay? This is where Apollinarius is getting his idea. I'm going to keep tripping on that and my chain is going to catch me one time, so if I fall, please laugh loud. Alright, so Greek philosophy and People get that from scripture, you know, love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul. Okay, so what does this mean? Okay, well it's body, spirit, and soul. So they're coming up with this idea. All right, and this is where I land. I'm not saying that that is necessarily wrong, but where I land, and there's some different words, but it is gonna be, if you wanna call it the same thing there, I'm gonna say it's interchangeable. But another way of saying that is the material, and the immaterial. So the material, the flesh, and the immaterial, a soul, okay? And where the confession says though, a reasonable soul. We can reason, this is where this intellect comes from. So what's happening with Apollinaris, and I'm just gonna erase all this again. So I can put it in the hierarchy. that, of course, man is body. We have this soul. Yeah, spur it. Okay, but this is where our will, our mind, this is where they are at. So to have a human will and human mind for thinking. So his teaching now is that the divine nature, the lagas, is occupying that. Okay. Did I just go crazy on you here? So this is God, the Lagos, the Word, the Son of God, has now taken the human will and human thinking and human understanding. So that scripture we read on He was tempted like us in all ways, scripture says you can't tempt God. So here's that humanity. If he's suffering with us in all ways, if he's tempted like us in all ways, yet he doesn't have a human will and a human mind to reason as a human in humanity, it's not like us in all ways. So that's just one area of that. Another area is this idea of, here's the inanimate and we have I'm not talking about the stone benders or the water makers or whatever that one is. I'm talking about a occupied body. It's like the blue aliens if you watch Avatar. It's this thing and is now given life by this divine and is you know, puppeted as it were. So it starts sounding very heretical when you're thinking this was not his intent. He was trying to share how God, how the Word could take on flesh. He was very much, you know, God of flesh. He defended Christianity or Christ and his Christological divinity on that. He is, Christ is divine, Christ is God. And this is how he, how he explained that. So in the confession and others though, We don't like that idea. It takes on a reasonable soul and a body. All right, because this is more what I believe is scriptural, and so do a lot of other theologians. That's not why I believe I'm right. But when you die, we see what happens with the body. It's returning to dust, all right? But your soul, your reasonable soul, is somewhere. It is somewhere. What does that phrase mean exactly, a reasonable soul, as opposed to a salt? That's a good question, because Gregory was even saying that if Christ took on the soul and the body, but not the mind, what's different than Him and an animal then? Because men, humanity, have a mind. So the reasonable soul is just basically the life that's in the body. Okay, so, and we think of that as spiritual. That's why I say spirit and soul, where you see those, a lot of times in scripture they are interchangeable. I'd have to look at the language or talk to the more gifted linguist, but a lot of times we try to get that into a third aspect. Or, like I had up there, emotions. In some scripture, emotions come from your gut. Some people, my heart hurts, so where do emotions come from? But that reasonable soul is, so it's talking about all that life, that thinking, the emotions, all that stuff, and then the body is our flesh. Okay, so that's why I like material, immaterial versus the three. And that's, just some big words again, dichotomy versus trichotomy. All right, two aspects or three. I'm not going to argue that point. I think it's just easier and more simplified to go into the two and not the avatar. So what are some reasons that that's a bad understanding to have of, of Jesus Christ? But how do we explain this right here? How was God born in the person of Christ? You got the shoulder shrug. That's a good answer. You ask some Christians now, though, and they're going to take on that avatar approach. It's a basic understanding. Well, God took on a person. So here's this person. He's just occupying the body now. It's a human suit. Didn't you say he took on flesh? Did he take on flesh or did he become flesh? He became flesh. So see even in that wording right there, and that's not so bad for These theologians were using the original language. So our problem today with the multiple translations. They didn't have that They're looking at original languages. So it's different for us like that took on well We say take on like put on a coat and that's why most Christians today would have that understanding. Well, he took on he put on the man suit you know, that's It's a basic understanding, and we pray that somebody would learn and get sanctified out of that understanding of Christ, but that is, yeah, it's gone. I just put it on. Or these mixed natures becoming a weird God-man type of thing that the Greeks and their philosophies had. Anybody want to give this a stab? Come on guys, I'm on the under right now. Come on, you gotta help me out. Does it matter that he was fully human? Not three quarters human, not nine tenths human. Does it matter that he was fully human? Give me a scriptural reason. That's a good one. We don't like attributing certain names to Jesus because we think that it is demeaning. Second Adam is a beautiful name to represent what was done. We were in our first father, the first Adam, and through the grace of God, We are in the second Adam or Christ to redeem what was fallen. And this is just a basic understanding where I don't think you can step in heresy to redeem what was lost in the fall of Adam. A second Adam, exactly like the first Adam, in nature, had to accomplish what could not be accomplished with the first Adam. That is scriptural. You start looking at the theology behind salvation, that is scriptural. He came to correct what was lost, or to redeem, not to correct, to redeem what was lost. And that's why I do love the confession, how they look at that, the twofold there, to forgive us for what we have in our sin nature from the first man, but to also perfectly fulfill, he was born under the law, to perfectly fulfill what was required. All right? Yes, completely God, or fully God. Yes, fully human. And we have some... As I think about Adam, Yes. And now we're gonna get into some of the crazy what Christians say kind of stuff. And some of us have heard it. How Did Jesus fare in the wilderness when he was tempted? Did he sin? No. That's not fair, though, because he's God. Of course he's not going to sin. He's God. God can't sin. But he's also human. All right, but that's an understanding. I've heard that in, I don't know, Jim's not too young. I had some different vacation Bible schools and stuff, and these are some of the questions that come up, or somebody, well, yes, he's God, so he couldn't sin. It was impossible for him to sin, because he's God. But he's tempted like us in all ways. Over-emphasizing, and I'm not saying that I feel really bad saying we're over-emphasizing the divinity of Christ, because praise God, he is God, he deserves all of our adoration and our worship, but we're over-emphasizing it and taking away from the human nature. You said something there earlier and I forgot what it was and I was going to use it and it had something to do with the mind and it's lost now. I didn't write it down. We got caught up. But some modern examples is why this is important too. Who can think of a modern example of this mixing here other than just basic misunderstanding in Christianity? There's a big name and if I misspelled that I don't care. I can spell everything C-A-T but nobody would be able to read what I'm writing. We'll just throw some Spanish in there, too, then, all right? But there's a big name in Christianity, a fantastic debater on monotheism. Fantastic debater, okay? The heresy that came from Apollinarius is called Apollinarianism. Well, this Christian calls himself a Christian, all right, and I have more recently in my years come to doubt that because of what he's teaching. Calls himself a Neo-Apollinarianism. First of all, why would you want to take on the name of a heretic? You know, I'm Neo-Aryan. Neo-Aryus. That's probably not a good thing, and we're gonna get mixed up with a Jehovah's Witness. All right, but in his understanding, And again, it is very much that. Here's the logos, and then here's the body. And it's basically, yes, puppeting. All right, so God is the marionette. orchestrator of Christ the body. He says he's fine with that though because it goes into this material versus immaterial. And since we don't know the immaterial, it's okay to not credit anything that we do have scriptural for that. We can get into a lot of other things, but it takes away, scripture is not inspired divinely or anything. But I want you guys to be aware of this man because in a lot of young Christian circles, especially those who are trying to learn more about theology and debating, All right, Adam is not real. So, this doesn't matter. You don't need to have a second Adam. The first Adam is just figurative. That sounds like some of the other heresies we went into, right? He appeared to be man. We agree he's God. He appeared to be man. That takes away from that necessity. Well, how do you argue that? Well, I don't have a first Adam, so I don't need to worry about a second Adam. Well, what about Jesus who said this or that? But see, that's different now. That was this human aspect that we don't need to worry about because it's not divine. Let's only focus on the divine. And he goes into this exact same thing, even calling himself a Neo-Apollinarist. I didn't realize that he had taken that title. I know he was a big into mental knowledge. I'll tell you his name. Oh yeah, that's why I say more and more. This is the title he gave himself on his understanding of Christological That's why I said first time I heard him was that and I'm like, okay, but I don't know enough about I love sci-fi movies anyway, so go ahead and fractals and Yes, choose your own adventure in the book to all go to page 17, okay Start over again We're not going to be able to understand this, but we should have a what it's not, okay? Divine nature and human nature. I'm not going to get too much into the other heresies that are coming up because there is going to be, like I say, a split where it is two completely different people occupying one person and this mixing, so like pouring, you know, milk and Pepsi. Yeah, don't do that. That's a bad idea anyways. But what is it not? Okay, and again, going back to where we're ridiculed for that, you believe in three persons, one God. So, how did the Divine become human? We say Mary. What is our understanding of this incarnation? What do you tell people is the reason for celebrating the Advent, Christmas? Mary conceived Jesus. No. Yes. Sorry, I was thinking something else. See what do you mean by through the Holy Spirit? Yep, you can come back there. You're going to the right place and it'll tell you what happens there. Because the angel is going to prophesy what's going to happen. You two are being quiet. I don't like that. Uh-uh. Casey, how would you explain this? I would explain it as Jesus is both divine and human and he always has been and we don't understand it and that's pretty much it. That's all I got for you. Thank you. We're at the equal now. Did Jesus always exist? Yes. When did this take place? Go ahead, what did you get there? Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. What does that mean? We start getting people that take that and they're going to be very profane in what they think that means. So God raped her. And that will rattle a young believer, a new believer's faith. Wow. Wait a minute. Yeah. How is it? No, no, no. What does it say again? So you're thinking now, do you want to go for the over? Does this make sense? And I understand, just for simplicity, we're teaching the kids, Jesus is God, God is eternal, ergo vis a vis concordantly, Jesus is eternal. So if Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father, can Jesus be in your heart? Because I was told to ask Jesus into my heart. What did you say, the Holy Spirit? Are you asking us or telling us? That's what I was going to ask you. These are attributes of the divine. Okay? We'll get into that one the last week of this class. Like the Associans! Yeah, because that's a heresy. So because if this is that mindset, if Christ in his divinity is omniscient, all knowing, all right, and omnipresent, yet in that particular place in time, he was there, was he omnipresent? In his human nature? Are they two separate natures then? So his human nature is here on earth and his divine nature is... He is omnipresent because he said that the divine spirit will live inside of you. Is the Son the Holy Spirit? No. So you can't use that, you can't say that that's how Jesus is living inside you because of the Holy Spirit because they're two different... Well how can God, I mean how can Jesus be omniscient? This is what they were discussing in the early church How why explain? His omniscient all-knowing Not even I know, but the Father. This is why, well, okay, and I do like how the Confession says each nature acts according to that nature. Sometimes we use interchangeable because, like I said, that's why I'm not as big on the Jesus, but let's understand Jesus was not eternal. The Son of God was eternal. The Incarnation is where we have Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus. Okay? So depending on the nature, all right, like his knowledge on the word of God, they say that he grew in knowledge. All right, the young man grew in knowledge, but he's all knowing. Okay. If he's going to represent us to redeem what was lost in all ways, there's this other nature where we take all of it. Well, of course, I can say the, of course he can avoid temptation. He's God. All right. Well, he knows everything. He didn't put off his divinity. He didn't leave his divinity, but there are two natures. All right. Nobody answered how that worked. And I'm going to do the same thing. I put a question mark up there. It says that he's God. That's what we see, right? That's the big deal is the one person with the two natures and the two natures cannot mix because now you have a third nature which then Next week we're going to do, I said we're going to do one, but I think we're going to do two. We're going to do the two that tried to fix this and messed up by combining them and then the guy who tried to correct that and messed up by splitting them all the way apart. Doing what we're doing here. Well, that doesn't make sense. I know that's not right. This. And like you even said, he put aside, and you know what, in modern day understanding of that, I forget the name of the, what they call themselves, but I think it was in the 19th century anyways, but the Philippians where he laid aside, alright, he laid aside, what you got, read that? Emptied himself. No, you're right. You're right there that this is one. This is a class for rabbit trails Rabbit trail all day because you know, I'm gonna set you up anyway, so try to get me from that Emptying himself. Yeah, what does that mean and the whole context of Philippians there start reading from I think verse 1 I'll go into So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being with the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. You want me to keep going? You can get right there. Okay. So... I mean, I was reading in there, it was saying it's like humbling himself, but I just wanted to hear y'all's take on it. Yeah, my translation says, but made himself nothing. And they take that, though, out of context. And so then if you go back to the chapter one, even though we're talking about have this this mind and you have this attitude where you're loving others, and they give this example, who counted it not a thing to be equal with God. I am the father of one, the glory that I had with you. before. Glory, the one who is to be adored and worshiped. He is not setting aside his divinity, but he is humbling himself and he's going to be humiliated and he is going to, in his humanity, suffer. for our sake, that is this emptying himself. He's not setting aside his divinity, but that's the example we have. Empty yourself, humble yourself. This is what I'm worth, and I can claim this because I and the Father are one. This is that humility, so that's the example there, but they take, no, he emptied himself. Oh, now it's easy. He got rid of all this, set it aside, and that's now two completely separate natures, and the one person is only the, human nature, which then they can't explain the miracles, where that comes from. So even in some of these sects, is it the Kenodus, Kenosis? That might be the name, the one I'm thinking of too, because even their branch off to where the miracles are not a thing, since all divinity was off. These are just stories that, you know, make people feel good, so. I didn't try to get you off. Well, one, that's a good idea to bring up though, this love. All right? Because we know that these early theologians were defending the immutability and impassibility of God. All right? So, God with emotions. You know, we have this idea of what it means for us. I get angry. We read God got angry, so we think it's the same thing. All right? This is why the two natures, again, is a beautiful understanding of our Savior. How did He exhibit love? Wow, yes. Obedient even to death on the cross, right? Love for who? Okay, so his actions and his role in the redemption of God's people was motivated by love and However, he's fully human. What happened when the news of Lazarus gets to him? That's not the only time we see that, though. Weeping over the city, the people, the remnant of God, what was given to them, this blessing they had. He's weeping over that. All right, that's where we get into the will. How about which nature? All right, if it's something that goes contrary to the attributes of divine God, and I hate saying that like we can put it on because it's not true and we need to be careful on that, but yes, he's fully human. So what we experience, the things we go through, Christ and his humanity was able to also embrace all of that that we feel. not putting aside his divinity. But also, and again, this is where we gotta be careful, he didn't wanna access that part of it, so he just kept it, the divinity in his back pocket and pulled it out for miracles. And that's garbage. That's really, again, a poor, low-level understanding of God and how you're trying to explain it. It's difficult to explain. These men, like I said, this isn't us in a room discussing like it. These were bishops. These were leaders in their areas. These were teachers at the schools. Okay, so they were trying to come up with sound doctrine to explain these things for generations and generations. And like I say, especially with some of the modern day philosophers who call themselves Christians, they're just relabeling and not even relabeling, just putting, you know, it's the Neo version of this and not even gonna hide the heresy that they have there. All right, I'm the Neo antichrist. You know, that's a good thing though now. So I don't understand this, but. So we're going to get into more on the hypostatic union again about what it's not because, what is it? It's the incarnation. It's the word became flesh. That's the hypostatic union. Two natures, one person. I think the other thing is, when you look at that word love, we're already in our And so we have a misconception of what love is. But the other thing is, we also, I don't want to say we're not truly human. We are fully human beings. looks like as God defines humanity. We have a fallen idea of humanity, and we live in a fallen way, but when you want to look at what it means to be human, you look to Christ, and he shows you exactly what perfect human being looks like. But that's a loaded question. I know why you're asking that, though, because we had that conversation. But speaking of, because we're going to go to John 3, 6, and God so loved the world, what did He say when He finished His creation? Yes, we will also get an it is finished quote, but that's... And then we see the rebellion, we see the sin, we see, and I do like that though, the truly man, that's why we're being redeemed. That's why this humanity needs to be redeemed in its entirety. If you wanna say that we're three parts, that's fine, mind, body, and soul. If you wanna say that, it all needs to be redeemed. If you wanna say that we're soul and body only, it needs to be redeemed. All right, every aspect of us needs to be redeemed. So Christ is taking on that nature to redeem it, to heal what was corrupted, what was destroyed. So I know this was not as fun as summing up you guys before because you're a little bit, you're caught up to my games. Some people are trying to ask ahead of time to go looking it up on the Google box. What are you talking about this week? No. We will go over it too next week though. It's easy to look them up, especially if you look up to know the heretics, it's gonna be, there's gonna be two of them. Like I said, they're trying to, again, fix what was messed up in this ideology, and they're gonna step into more, and it's still happening. The people are like, well, let me redefine it, and then we get into more of the, you know, the heresies there, so. Do you think it's mostly because they wanted to not just be satisfied with the points that we just talked about? Like, I feel like where you were saying you just stopped there, where like, we don't know, they wanted to go further. just not having faith, or not really having faith, it's just like... Maybe for some, but remember that there was a whole lot of other things going on there, like the Gnostics. So every battle was being fought and trying to define some terms so that they could defend the faith, so they could have this rule of faith. So let's start with this idea, like I say, even the Ebionites, that yes, Jesus was a real person, but he was not divine. So no, he is divine, we have You know, the word of God here that says he was. So now we have to hash that out. And then each step, though, was more and more to this. Here's what it's not. Let me explain what it is. Oh, heresy. Okay, here's what it's not. Here's what it is. Oh, that heresy. All right, and even to today, we do it unintentionally. I know that I've, like I say, I didn't even realize that I had names for the things that I believe, and now I'm like going through history, wow, yep, there, there, there, there, there. I was a Marcionist, you know, from my understanding of the two gods, so it's difficult in trying to understand that. Some, again, and I just got a text from a brother that finally listened to the Manny and his cucumber father, and was like, you gotta be kidding me. It's like, some of them were just way out there, but others, Yes, we're trying to defend this. So Arius said he was created. So Apollinarius was not saying, you know, I just want to know more. He's like, no, that's wrong. I'm defending my boy Athanasius here. You know, we're in the get exiled club, so that's cool. But I'm going to use what I believe is orthodox and reword it so that you have a better understanding. And he messed up. So it's sometimes what I say, you're too smart for your own good. So it's not that they were, you know, this is good enough, which is what I'm doing because they've ever had these conversations and I would just be rehashing a lot of it. So that's why I love the history of the church and why it is important that we look at the church history. They were not trying to just be smart. They were trying to honestly defend for the faith. Yeah. And I love it because I'm picturing some of the men had their little Tysons there. I was like, wow, man, quit making me think about this stuff. Wow, he brought up a good point. Heretic? How can I explain this to him and teach and not belittle God or blaspheme him and who he is? And that's what we get. We get heretics. A lot of it is counterpunch. Somebody makes this statement. I mean, you don't get to be a bishop in the church, right? In the early church. And, you know, like Arius was teaching, and he was teaching all over, and he was well-renowned. And then all of a sudden, he makes this big error, and then you start counting. I don't know a lot, but I know that, right? Yeah, say enough that it was two large bodies in the church. You know, Christianity at that time was split into these camps. I mean, for us, it would be like an issue going up to our president of the United States, not the current president, but the office of George Washington, who's trying to keep a nation together. And also you have this major thing that's getting ready to split your nations. And so, you know, how do you deal with that? You know, so that's constant. Fix this, guys. Or it ain't gonna be East and West anymore. But what I love about this one, though, is you do see that unity. And again, I know we get into that, the dark ages and Christianity was lost for all this time. And one, no, nothing will prevail against the Church of God. But we do see that in this case, When Rome's like, no, dude, what are you saying? And then the East is like, no. And everybody in between is like, no. So you're probably wrong. If you're on the other side of all the no's, you're probably wrong. Whereas it was very odd that the Arius had his following. Or even like I said before, the week before with the Unitarians, they had a big following. Because they were trying to be faithful to what they believed. We can't have multiple gods. So your idea of this trinity is wrong. Again, they were not seeking out to know more. In fact, that was his reasoning was, I want it to be simple. I don't want to confuse the body by trying to explain this, you know, this three persons here. So let's just not do that. And I was like, no, I think that's, you know, our congregation is smart enough. Oh, did I go past? I know where she gets it from. So any other comments or anything like that? I appreciate you guys for bearing with me as we go through some of this, because we are going to repeat some of this discussion on hypostatic union next week, but we have to go over the other two areas where they tried to explain and mess up. And again, we have to go to, that's why I didn't put a whole lot here, but there is scripture, and hopefully we'll dive into a lot more on why it is necessary that we don't misunderstand that. You don't have to have a perfect understanding, but why we have the two natures of Christ. Anybody else? I'm scared of you right now. Look at me like you wanna hit me. Nothing? All right, I'm gonna ask somebody to close in prayer and I'm gonna stare awkwardly at you until somebody does. So somebody close us in prayer.