God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Again, we really want to make sure that that's forefront in our minds, that we're not just rattling off. Here's some here's some doctrinal truths that we we affirm, but rather this is what we really are relying upon. We are relying upon God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Our hope is placed upon him and every bit of what we've just confessed there. And that's the same thing as we move into. this next section of the creed, as we say here in point two. Therefore, as we move into the second section of the creed, we need to again own and take to heart the fact that as we begin a consideration of this next section of the creed, the person and work of Jesus Christ or the Lord Jesus Christ, we are saying, I'm looking to, I'm relying upon, I'm staking my destiny upon Jesus Christ. So it's not just rattling off some historic facts about Jesus, but rather, this is the one in whom we've placed our trust. This is the one upon whom our lives are are entirely relying. So I want to want to make sure that we we keep that before us as we move through our study. The third point here, then, is this section is clearly linked to the preceding section by way of the continuation of the subject in this first line here. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord. In other words, if we ask whose only begotten son? God, the Father Almighty's son. And so there is, even though these are three distinct sections that we're looking at in the creed is broken up into sections of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are there's a continual linking here and even as you look at later on the second to the last line of this middle section he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Again even though we're in a section now dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ it's not as though we look at him in isolation from the other members of the Trinity and so the father's continually referenced throughout this section on on the person and work of the sun. Well, entering the second section of the creed brings us to the heart of the creed and the heart of the Christian faith, for it brings us to the savior of mankind, the promised prophet, priest and king and the one who is the ultimate revelation of God, Jesus Christ. And, uh, well, I'll just keep reading there is no such thing as a Christianity without Christ. There's no such thing as a relationship with God outside of Jesus Christ and therefore there is no salvation in any other name than his. And thus this section is necessarily very important and critical to biblical religion. I hope that you see from from early on the Christian faith has always been about father son and Holy Spirit. Very often, we will experience people in our lives who talk about having a relationship with just a generic term. They say, well, I believe in God. In their minds, that makes them a Christian. But Christianity has always been thoroughly Trinitarian and entirely centered upon the person and work of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as a relationship with God outside of Christ. There's no such thing as claiming or being a Christian outside of having your entire life centered on and your whole relationship with God mediated through the person and work of Christ. And that's why you'll notice here, even if you look back at our printing of the Apostles' Creed, the great proportion, the majority of the words have to deal with the person and work of Christ. And that's very much proportional to the way that the Scriptures would put forward Christ as the one with whom we have to do. Any thoughts or questions at this point on the centrality of Christ and how he's underlined as the center of our faith here in the Creed? I'm trying to be Augustinian in my teaching right now. For those of you who weren't with us this morning, you'll have to ask Andy what in the world did I mean. Pierre Marcel, a great French Calvinist theologian of last century. We don't have a lot of his works translated into English, but if you ever see anything by Marcel, it's worth getting. He wrote a book on baptism, which is fantastic. He also wrote a little book called The Relevance of Preaching, and it's fantastic. Very convicting for a minister. He particularly wrote it for ministers, but I think the whole church could benefit from it. It's an excellent book. Joseph Paipa in the PCA has been instrumental in getting a lot of Pierre Marcel's books either back in print or getting them translated into English. So if you know Joey Paipa, He's a big fan of Pierre Marcel, but Marcel summarizes this section as it teaches that the Son of God is our only Savior and shows the means by which he redeemed us from death and purchased eternal life for us. And so, in summary, this whole section that we're beginning to look at this evening that we're starting into tonight is all about the Savior and what he did for us to bring us from death to life. Our Savior has a complex name, or at least we refer to him with a fairly long title. We look to Jesus Christ, our Lord, or the Lord Jesus Christ, and each part of his name is significant, and we're going to look at each of them tonight in this study. The first name that we are confronted with in this section is the name of Jesus. Oftentimes, I think I remember growing up because, you know, we live in a culture where we all have basically first and last names, unless you're a rock star or something and you've given yourself one of these one word names. But we You know, I kind of thought that that was his first and last name. You know, he was Jesus Christ, like I'm David Reese. But then I kind of thought that I don't remember Mary being called Mrs. Christ or Mary Christ or Joseph Christ. And so that wasn't right. But the name Jesus is his earthly name. It's the Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Joshua. I mean it's just it's straight over from from the Hebrew Joshua which interestingly means that there's an Old Testament book. There's a B in there that shouldn't be there that we could rightly refer to as the book of Jesus. When we think back at the book of Joshua if we were translating it into Greek we could just simply call it that's the book of Jesus which is fascinating and there is a lot in the book of Joshua. typological and pointing forward to Christ. And it's just interesting to see a whole book in the Old Testament by the name of our Savior. So the name Jesus is really just the Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Joshua. This was a very common name. Jesus was not the only one with the name Jesus. It was common like the name David is common and other names like that. And that's why you'll hear him referred to as Jesus of Nazareth to pinpoint the village of the town he came from. This is that Jesus. There's a there's a if you if you read or if you're interested at all in in Scottish Presbyterian history and it is not helpful for someone to say oh go read John Brown on that. There are there's at least a half dozen prominent published John Brown theologians from Scotland. And so you start reading all these guys who are John Brown of Hattington, John Brown of Wamphree, and they are pegged by the city that they came from or where their ministry was. That's when we talk about Jesus of Nazareth where it's because his name is common, it's zeroing in though on this Jesus. But although the name is common, there is significance to it. The name Jesus means Savior. And that is why an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying in Matthew 121 and 22, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived that should be in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. For he will save his people from their sense. Again, we can read over that and not recognize the fact that an angel is playing on and saying there's significance. Call him Jesus, which means savior because or or the one that saves. How else can Joshua be rendered? George, do you know out of the Hebrew? Isn't it the one who saves, I think, would be the most literal way to put it. But the angel's telling Joseph, call his name Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins. In Hebrew culture and at this time, the names were very significant that way. Names had a lot in them, maybe a whole lot more than the way we deal with names today. I can't speak for you all, but our first thing was, did we like the sound of the name? Was that a good name that way? Not really, what does it mean? That was kind of secondary. Oh, that's cool. Secondary, but we really went for what it sounded like more so. Not everybody's like that, but names don't have as great of significance in our culture as they did then. This was a significant thing that Jesus would be called that our Savior would be called Jesus, which means Savior. The significance of this name is not lost on the apostles after his resurrection, and we find Peter and John before the Jewish Council preaching this. Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is no other name under heaven. given among men by which we must be saved. Again, referencing Christ and particularly referencing Jesus as the one who will save us as this latter passage makes clear. We are not to seek salvation in any other name than in the name of Jesus. Thus, neither saints nor our own merits can fit in with this confession. of reliance upon Jesus for salvation. And on the other hand, we are to fully rest in Jesus, for in him alone there is total and complete salvation. As we've seen recently in Colossians 2 10 and you are complete in him. Another thing maybe to think about when it comes to the name of Jesus is this is, in a sense, the earthly designation of our Savior. There was not a Jesus in or we Jesus, how do I put it? The second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, wasn't called Jesus before what we call the incarnation, before he was born of Mary. This is the earthly name of the incarnate Son of God. It was his name while in his ministry here on earth, and because he retains that physical body that he took His name continues on Jesus. And so there continues on to be salvation in that name. But he wasn't Jesus before his incarnation. This was the name that was given him by his father. And. And so in one sense, when we think of the name Jesus Christ, you can there's something when we think of the name Jesus, there's a it really speaks to the humanity of our Savior, not in an isolated little package like that's the only thing it's referring to, but that does remind us very clearly of the humanity of our Savior. Any other thoughts before we move on, on the name Jesus? No, go. So when Jesus says, I am Yeshua, then Yahweh, then really the Pharisees needed no other testament than their latest covenant. Because that title sucked, and that's why we're waiting, as I should say, an hour or two later. We are going to get to that. I think it's great to say it now though. That's good. I saw Isaac and then Greg in the very back. First, Isaac, okay? The New Testament was written in Greek and it was at the time pretty much the universal language. I would argue that at the time of Christ, Probably Israel today is a whole lot more Hebraic than it was then. The whole Mediterranean world had been thoroughly Hellenized by then. That was why the need for the translation of the Septuagint, which was the Greek version of the Old Testament, they commissioned the translation of the Septuagint because most Jews didn't speak Hebrew any longer. at that time. Because of the diaspora spreading throughout the world, they had lost their language. And they had imbibed and basically were immersed in Greek culture. And so there's movements now back to a lot more Jewish, Hebraic kind of trappings on the faith. But I think the Hebrew world or the Jewish world at that time was thoroughly Hellenized. And it's just the name that has stuck. It was the major language. There's just never been a time when Hebrew has been spoken universally. But there was a time when Greek was, and it still is a major language of the classics and all that. So it seems that I'm guessing that's why. George, I don't know, do you have a comment on that? Oh, that's fine. Okay. Gotcha. You guys are, that's like the, that's like the only excuse that would have flown right now. You're all messing around back there, but that, I just can't even argue with that excuse. That was really good. I know. Just why Jesus is stuck and not Yeshua or Joshua. Why? I still think it's because that's the universal language in the New Testament is written in Greek and spread throughout the world. That was the name that. So keep us posted, we'll stop and pray for her and if something changes here in a minute. Greg. I don't know. Does anybody else know? Can I ask you then, why not English speaking Catholics, why wouldn't they name their children Jesus regularly? I don't know. I do think it has something to do with Catholicism, but I guess I don't understand why it doesn't come over into English that way either. at least our cultures. I don't know. I don't know. But you do, along with what Sandra's saying, I think you see a lot of young girls are named Mary and maybe there is something culturally there. But I don't know. It's a good question. It's a tangent though. You said you have a lot. Oh, thanks a lot. Thanks for nothing. Yeah, thanks. OK, the next next segment of this title of Christ of our Savior is Christ. The name Christ is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew word for Messiah or anointed one. This references the fact that Jesus is the ultimate. And this is we're going to get into this in a second here, but you might like, how do you get from here to there? But the fact that he's called Christ. References the fact that Jesus is the ultimate prophet, priest and king offices that all required an anointing to occupy. When a man was anointed to serve in the office of a prophet, priest and king, the act was to be symbolic. I'm sorry when he was anointed to serve in these, the act was to be symbolic of God supplying him and in doing him with skills, wisdom and gifts to carry out his office to the glory of God. and the good of the people. Thus, as the weaknesses of the prophets, priests and kings of old showed a great gap between the symbol and reality, there was a longing among the people, along with prophecies from God, that one would come upon whom the true and full anointing would fall. This one would fulfill all the offices and discharge them all perfectly to the glory of God and the good of the people that or this was the great messianic hope of the Old Testament. This was the hope that Jesus fulfilled and this is and therefore that is why we call Jesus the Christ or Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus which all mean the Messiah Jesus. You understand the name Christ is simply Well, in one sense, we could say it's just generic. It means the anointed one, and it refers to these offices that always required an anointing to fill. Prophet, priest and king all required an anointing, special anointing, which was symbolic of the Lord giving the graces and gifts needed to discharge that office. Cyrus in the Old Testament. He's a pagan king. He's called the Messiah. The Lord refers to King Cyrus as my anointed. Believe it or not it's one of the few places in the Old Testament where the word Messiah is that the whole concept of the Messiah was he was the anointed one. And so, when we talk about the Messianic hope of Israel, we are talking about one who would come and who would fulfill and discharge these offices in the way that they're supposed to be done. Because the people longed for a godly king, godly priesthood, a godly prophetic ministry, and that these offices would be discharged to the glory of God and the good of the people. And so, this great hope was welling up among the people because they would see the man in the office and recognize it's just not being done right. It's not being done the way it's supposed to be. And yet, God would send through his prophets over and over again prophecy saying, I'm going to bring this special king. I'm going to bring this perfect priest. I'm going to bring one who will speak my word perfectly. And so, the great messianic hope welled up. Again, by just the fact of the deficiency of those who held those offices in the Old Testament, but also along with these great prophecies that God gave of his people. That's the whole thing that Jesus steps into, is he comes and he is anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is upon him, and he fulfills the great messianic hope of Israel. He's the one in whom all of this comes to fruition and is personified in. So that's why when we start to talk about Christ, we instantly blast out that singular referent Christ to prophet, priest, and king. That's the connection between those offices and the messianic office, or the title Christ. In fact, our shorter catechism lays all this out very clearly. What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer? Some of you some of you kids are probably starting to rattle it off in your minds right. You know these answers. Christ is our Redeemer executed the offices of a prophet of a priest and of a king both in his state of humiliation and exaltation. What that means is both while he was here on earth and now while he's at the right hand of the father he continues on executing these offices on our behalf. That's that's that. humiliation and exaltation twenty four how does Christ execute the office of a prophet Christ executed the office of a prophet in revealing to us by his word and spirit the will of God for our salvation. The larger catechism is wonderful to read on this it expands on this even even more helpfully than these very short answers here in the shorter catechism. How does Christ execute the office of a priest Christ executed the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God and in making continual intercession for us. Again, we see embodied in Jesus the ultimate work of the priest. He makes sacrifice and he intercedes on behalf of the people. Prayer and sacrifice and we see that in the life of Christ. His great sacrifice of himself ultimately and his prayer for his people. John 17 is the great What is often called the great high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ. Just beautiful to look at it through this lens here. Twenty six. How does Christ execute the office of a king? We were I was referencing this in the sermon last week. Christ executed the office of a king in subduing us to himself in ruling and defending us and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. We could spend a night on this. This is wonderful truth. The three offices that Jesus fulfills on our behalf, prophet, priest, and king, just glorious. To contemplate these things, there's a conference. I'll just put in a plug. This is mainly a plug for the session members, okay? There's been a conference going on at RPTS, the seminary in Pittsburgh. over the last three years, this is the third year, and it comes right on the tails of Senate. So as soon as Senate is done, the conference begins, and so you kill two birds with one stone. You fly out there, you get to go to Senate, and then you get the conference as well. And the theme of the conference has been the offices of Christ as they are taught through the Westminster Confession. The prophetic ministry of Christ was the first one, the priestly ministry of Christ, the second, and this year is on the kingly office of Christ. And so those are I have those on CD if anyone's interested in those world class scholars teaching on these subjects. It's really been an excellent conference and looking forward to the kingship one coming up this year. But these are this is what we're referring to when we say Christ. All of this is involved, not the conference, but all of the These offices are required are comprehended in that term. This is a significant thing to confess Jesus as as the Christ as the Messiah. Any any thoughts or questions on on this one before we move this part of the title of his name that an exterior comment. You mean redemptive historically? Could this, in other words, when Jesus begins to be referred to as the Christ? I believe it's in the Gospels and it could this. Well, the great, in fact, I was going to have this in here and I didn't, but the great confession of Peter is You are the Christ, the son of the living God. That's it. I wanted to run by you brought that up because I want to bring that in. So we see it also is the Apostles Creed is simply an echo of Scripture. We're not confessing anything that we can't find on the pages of Scripture very clearly. And really, in the great confession of Peter, this first line of the second section is almost it's almost all that there. But I don't know if that's the very first instance or not. But it's a good question. I'd be interested to know the very first in the history of the unfolding of redemption when Christ was first designated as such. But at least that's the great time there. All right, only begotten son. When we confess here that we believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, we are reminded of the fatherhood of God, but also the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. We are sons of God by adoption, and we went through that fairly extensively in the previous study, or we talked about that a bit in the previous study. Jesus is the son of God by nature. Thus, the key to this statement here is the word begotten. In later creeds, begotten is contrasted with made. And we see that here. Here's a snippet from the Nicene Creed from 381. The only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. That's the big distinction in church history is this is this is a very important word. He is begotten. He is not made. So when we talk about his sonship, it's very It's absolutely significant that the word begotten is added on to it. In fact, there are trends in modern translations of the creed to simply say, and Jesus Christ is son. And actually skip the terminology begotten. Which is a detriment, I think, to the whole thing. Begotten, not made being of one substance with the father by whom all things were made. The word for only is monogamous. The Greek word in it, it does refer to a uniqueness and it reflects what we read in the Bible about the absolute uniqueness of Jesus in passages like John 114. John 118, John 316. Indeed, as John 118 makes clear, particularly in the New American Standard Version, this is a reference to the fact that Jesus is God. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of a father. He has seen God. He has explained him. Therefore, this reference to Jesus Christ means that he, too, along with the father, is true God from all eternity normally refer we refer to the eternal sonship of Jesus as his being eternally begotten of the father. Thus there was never a time when the father was not father and the son was not son. And this George thank you for your comment earlier I think that's really helpful to and just with the history of Bar Mitzvah and when Jesus claims that he is the son of Yahweh he's claiming to be one in essence with him. He is of the same nature, and that was the big deal that just inflamed the rest of the Jews at that time and said, You're blaspheming because you're claiming to be equal with God. That's what that's what we're saying when we say his only begotten son. That it's a very, very significant designation. The final identification of Jesus here is that we confess him as our Lord. To confess Jesus as Lord means three significant things. I should have said at least three significant things. There's more we could say on this. First, it means that he has ownership of us. This is a wonderful truth that means that he cares for us. And that we can look to him for protection and deliverance. He cares for us. He's our Lord. There's a protector aspect to that. One that we can look to in time of need. He owns us. He's going to take care of us. That kind of matter. Secondly, it means that we owe him obedience. We've been bought with a price, and therefore we must serve him and obey him in anything that he asks of us. He's our Lord. That's why we've often made the comment of the I use this word twice today the oxymoronic statement of Peter when he says no Lord. Those don't go together. The only legit thing to say is yes Lord because Lordship of Jesus Christ means he has the right to tell you what to do. Not only is it is that a boon for you as far as the protection that comes with him being as your Lord and he owns you but it's There's a requirement, a great responsibility that comes along with that. He also gets to dictate your life. That's the Lordship. Thirdly, it means that he is the living and true God and thus is yet another underscoring of the Trinitarian teaching of the Creed. Lord is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew for God's divine name Yahweh. As C.E.B. Cranfield, a British New Testament scholar notes, On a number of occasions Paul applies to Christ Old Testament verses or phrases in which it is clear that the Lord is God himself. For example Romans 10 13. This is whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's a quote from Joel 2 32 which if you look in your English Bibles you'll see Lord in all capitals there. That means that tells you that behind that in the Hebrew is the divine name Yahweh. And here Paul is saying that's Jesus. You call upon him. He's the Lord. He's that Lord of the Old Testament. The Lord God of all the earth. First Thessalonians 5 2 and other passages is a reference to the day of the Lord. The day of the day of the Lord. Again, in the Old Testament, this is you'll see the Lord in all caps, but this is Paul's now applying that to Jesus Christ. And there's a ton of other references that we could look to like that. Before I read this final paragraph here, any comments on these four parts of the title of our Savior that lead off the second section? Jesus Christ is only begotten Son, our Lord. Any questions or final thoughts on these four designations here and the significance of them? When we confess this, this is not a simple content-less confession. We are saying a lot when we confess just this first line of the second section. Let me then, I don't see any hands flying up. Caspar Labianas, he was one of the co-authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. So, one of the major reformed statements of faith out there. His commentary on the Apostles' Creed just came into print about a month ago. His first time it's been translated into English. So I'm thankful to have it. But he he says in his comments on this this line of the creed he ends his comments on this line of the creed saying what all believers have with God is not an ordinary covenant but an extraordinary one in that God wants to regard his covenant partners as children making them members of his only begotten son. from whom they are never torn away and regenerating and renewing them through his spirit. This covenant is in every way so eminent and extraordinary that we can freely say with the apostle he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How can it be that he shall not together with him give us all things? quote from Romans 832. Indeed, this covenant is also grounded in so excellent a love of God towards us and is so firm and unchanging that we can further say, I am persuaded that neither death nor life or angels nor principalities nor powers or things present or things to come or any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8 In other words, Olivenius is saying, when we contemplate who our Savior is, the fact that the only begotten Son of God is our Savior, what a love we see from the Father towards us. I mean, you read something like this, and how can people say that Reformed Orthodoxy is dead and dry and drab stuff? I mean, listen to the beautiful way that the conclusion to our theology is, what a love We've been loved with what a covenant we have with our God who would have who would give us his own son as our savior. I mean he gave us the best. There's nothing better. There's nothing there's nothing more secure that could have been given to us than the very son of God and God gave him for us. That should strengthen every believer's faith that this is this is the covenant we have with him. So, just beautiful stuff. Any other thoughts or comments before we take our break here? First line of the second section, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord. All right. Yeah, Bob. Yeah. We'll be praying, guys. The historical Jesus is usually referring to a scholarly movement that is trying to reconstruct based upon a selective reading of the The text that we have the New Testament documents, particularly the Gospels on who Jesus really was. In other words, as these scholars would read the Gospels, they would in their minds, they need to differentiate between what is real history of the real Jesus and what is myth that the church ended up embellishing the story. exaggerating what what he did or who he was. And so we're there in their minds there. They're on a quest for this historical Jesus, the real one. Not, I mean, they come in with the presuppositions. Clearly, he's not a divine being or anything like that. I mean, that was that that kind of stuff. Anything that has to do with, say, his deity, that would have been added on to try to get people to follow him. and the miracles those kinds of things. And so it becomes a fairly predictable read of what they will think is is authentic and what's not. But when you when you hear that kind of issue of and you'll hear it around a group called the Jesus Seminar it's a group of scholars that sit around and they vote on passages of the New Testament as to whether or not they think it's authentic not authentic or It's like a bean. Yeah, the marble thing. That's just a very brief sketch of that. It's not conclusive. That's everything to say about that, but that's what I would say. Were you going to add something to that, Isaac? I'm sorry. Right, right. Yeah, I agree with you. Ben, would you add anything to that as far as the description of the historic Jesus question? Well, let's go ahead and end our study at this time and we'll take a brief break now and then we're going to be gathering back together for our time of congregational prayer.