Systematic Theology - Lesson 5: The Work of Christ (Romans 3)

Hey everyone, we're back to continue our Christology lesson. In this lesson, we'll talk a little bit about Christological heresies, but I want to introduce this topic, as you can see in your presentation, by talking a little about two schools of thought. I could go straight into the subject of heresies and tell you what they are, but I really like to approach this topic considering the understanding so that you know how the church, unfortunately, arrived at these erroneous formulations regarding the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, right?

We talked a little bit at the beginning of the lesson about the wrong understanding that arises from the presupposition of rationalism regarding the work of the person of Jesus. But when we look at the history of the church, we can also see in antiquity how, from this attempt to reconcile divinity and humanity in the person of the redeemer, theological schools also unfortunately made some mistakes in this regard, okay? So, I just want to remind you of the following: we saw five titles here.

Jesus the Messiah, he is the Son of God, the Son of Man, Lord and God. And basically, what can we conclude from these five titles? That Jesus is a person who possesses two natures, the divine nature and the human nature in completeness.

But the church, trying to reconcile these two matters, ended up making some mistakes. And we have two schools that became quite famous in this attempt to reconcile divine and human nature in the person of the Redeemer. And these are the two schools: firstly, the school of Alexandria and, secondly, the school of Antioch.

This is in your presentation starting from slide 16. I'm not going to read the slide here, folks, because it wouldn't make sense to read this material with you. You have this material at your disposal; you can read it later.

But basically, how did the school of Alexandria try to reconcile humanity and divinity in the person of the Redeemer? So, the school of Alexandria tried to do this by taking as its starting point what we call the doctrine of salvation or soteriology. So, to understand the relationship between humanity and divinity in the person of the Redeemer, the Alexandrian school took as its starting point the understanding of Christ's work, soteriology.

But the question is: what did they understand by soteriology? What did they understand by the doctrine of salvation? And because of a great influence from Greek philosophy, the Alexandrian school tended to think of salvation within the concept of logos, right, within the concept of philosophy.

So they understood the following: to be saved is to return to participating in the relationship with God. To be saved is to return to participating in divinity. Man, then, in the beginning, was created to have a relationship with God, but, unfortunately, because of sin, this relationship was broken and now there is nothing that man can do to return to participating in this relationship with God.

Therefore, it is necessary for God to become a human being, for God to assume humanity, and from this relationship, right, from God becoming a human being, then God can bring humanity back to Himself through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Basically, this concept I'm bringing to you is the concept we learned when we talked about Jesus as the Son of God, right? God the Son became the Son of God so that he could lead humanity back to God.

In other words, how can humans now participate in the inner relationship that the Trinity has among themselves—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Because God the Son became the Son of God, became a human being, and thus led humanity back into the relationship with God. And now we can be counted in the relationship with God through the work and person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So the people of Alexandria understood this, and because of Greek influence, they were very much influenced by this concept of logos. The word logos was very important in philosophy; logos is this mind, this— I won't say force, but it is this intelligence behind all creation that coordinates, sustains, gives meaning and purpose. So the philosophers, upon reading John chapter 1 and seeing Jesus being called.

. . The word for logos in Greek is logos.

So, the writers of Alexandria began to say that Jesus was the Logos, and the Logos became a human being. And what was the purpose of the Logos becoming a human being so that he could lead humanity back to God? So, the doctrine of salvation for the writers of Alexandria had to do with deification.

And by deification we understand man returning to participate within the family of God, within the reality of the Trinity. What happens, folks, is that for the doctrine of salvation within Alexandria to be possible, there is a reality in Jesus that is very important. And what reality is that?

The reality of divinity. It is necessary that Jesus be divine, truly God, for salvation to be possible. If they understand salvation as the divine participating in the human so that the human can return to participating in the divine, then it is very important that Jesus be truly God, of the same substance and the same nature as the Father.

He needs to be truly divine. And that's why great emphasis was placed on the divinity of Jesus within that school. So Jesus needed to be truly divine.

What happened is that upon incarnating, some scholars, some masters of this school, said that perhaps an aspect of the Lord's human nature could compromise his divinity. And what aspect would that be? It would be the soul.

Because some scholars, you have some names here, Cyril of Alexandria, he is one of those thinkers from the Alexandrian school who said: "Look, if Jesus is truly God, in assuming humanity, divinity cannot be compromised by the incarnation. So, since humanity cannot be, divinity cannot be compromised by the incarnation, then it is necessary to think about some aspects of humanity that the son of God cannot have, because if he has these aspects, it could compromise the divine. " For him, what he thought, in the mind of Cyril of Alexandria, was that Jesus could not have a human soul, because in his mind it was precisely the human soul that was tempted in the context of the garden and led man to the fall.

So, if Jesus had a human soul, that soul could compromise divinity. And in a way, then, by compromising divinity, we could not have salvation. Cyril of Alexandria's proposal for this pseudo-tension was to say the following: when Jesus assumed human nature, he did not assume human nature completely, he He assumed a generic human nature.

He was human in his external aspect, in his corporeal aspect, but internally Jesus' human nature was not like ours, right? The Lord's soul, right? The Lord's spirit was replaced by a divine principle, by a divine reality.

So, the Lord's soul was not a human soul, it was a divine soul, right? So, the divine generated a divine soul. What Jesus had of humanity was only the aesthetic aspect.

So, it was as if Jesus were just a human shell. In truth, he was not a complete human being. I just want to read to you here an important point within this issue.

It is when Codo of Alexandria says the following, the text says, on page 17 of the slide it says: "In stating that the purpose of the Word was to incarnate and become human, we are not stating that there was any change in his nature when he became flesh or that he was transformed into a completely human being constituted of body and soul. " What we can say is that the Word, in an indescribable and inconceivable way, united with flesh endowed with a rational soul and thus became a human being and was called the Son of Man. This did not occur through a simple act of will or favor, nor simply by adopting a role or assuming a personality.

That is, Jesus was not a complete human being. So, in trying to preserve the divinity of Christ because of the starting point for understanding what divinity and humanity are, understanding that salvation is the divine, and the human is what allows the human to participate again in the divine, what did they do? They compromised humanity.

But the compromise of humanity by Seril of Alexandria happened because of a misunderstanding regarding the doctrine of the Fall, regarding the doctrine of sin, because for him the soul is intrinsically evil. That is, it is not sin that is evil and corrupted human nature, leading man to a state of decadence, right? Of course, man was tempted, chose sin, chose the Fall, distanced himself from God.

For Seril of Alexandria, the soul was created essentially evil. It is evil from its formation. It does not become evil with the Fall.

It does not become a seat of thoughts contrary to God when tempted and when choosing the path of temptation and experiencing sin. No. It is essentially evil from its formation.

But people, if the soul were essentially evil, essentially evil in its formation, what could redeem it? What could save it? Nothing, nothing could save it.

If God created the sea, there is nothing that can be done, there is nothing that can be done. So, the misunderstanding regarding humanity for Cyril of Alexandria led him to believe that the soul could compromise divinity. It's not sin, it's the soul, it's humanity.

And folks, the Lord Jesus had a complete human nature, as we've already seen. Because what compromises humanity isn't, right? What compromises the divine, what compromises holiness, isn't human nature, but sin.

And Christ was without sin because of the virginal birth given to him by the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But this wrong understanding regarding humanity led Alexandria to this completely mistaken conclusion, and in trying to preserve the divine, he compromised the human. Folks, now if Jesus isn't truly human like you and me, could he save us completely?

In other words, in trying to preserve divinity, he compromised humanity and consequently compromised the work of salvation as well. Because Christ, folks, can only save us, as we read in Hebrews 2, 4, and 5. Christ can only be our high priest because he became like his brothers in every aspect.

If Christ is not truly human like you and me, possessing all of human nature, he cannot be our high priest. And folks, this became so, so clear, right? This became so, so obvious, right, for some writers here who confronted this thought.

I want to mention here another, another scholar from the Alexandrian school, who continued to formulate this mistaken thought, which will even give its name to this heresy: Apollinaris, right? Apollinaris, unfortunately, will be responsible for this mistaken formulation that I'm bringing to you here, which began with Civilus of Alexandria, but ended up being formulated in its complete heresy, in its complete error, by Apollinaris. I'll only need to read a small part here, folks, because this part is very important, and then we'll finish by reading the thought of Gregory of Nazianzus, which directly confronts Apollinaris's idea.

But look, for Polinarius, it's here on page 18 of your slide, it says in part B, for Apollinaris, the impeccability of Christ would be compromised if he possessed a purely human mind, because the human mind was not the source of sin, of rebellion against God. The impeccability of Christ could only be maintained if the mind could be replaced by a purely divine motivating and directing force . For this reason, for Polinarius, he argued that in Christ the exclusively human mind and soul were replaced by divine mind and soul.

Look what he says about Christ. Divine energy reaches the peak of its animating function in the human mind and soul. The nature of Christ, then, in Apollinaris's view, is incomplete, because Christ only has the aesthetic aspect, but he does not have a soul, he does not have a spirit.

Folks, this idea of ​​Apollinaris was completely refuted, as was the idea of ​​Cilo of Alexandria. And one of the great theologians who formulated this idea that I just presented to you is that if humanity is compromised, then salvation is also compromised, because Christ cannot be. .

. Our high priest was Gregory of Nazianzus. And Gregory of Nazianzus says the following: if someone placed their trust in Jesus, believing him to be a human being devoid of a human mind, look what he says.

That person is negligent and does not deserve to be saved. Strong, isn't it? Because what Jesus did not assume was also not restored, folks.

It was precisely what Jesus united with his divinity, that is, the complete human nature, that was redeemed by him. We cannot allow it to oppose our complete salvation or attribute to our savior only bones and nevi and a mere appearance of humanity. In other words, we are not saying here that Polinarius or Alexandria were ill-intentioned, but trying to preserve the divine, the way out for them was to compromise the human.

And you realize that there was a flaw here in their theology, in their understanding of what human nature was like before the fall. But trying to preserve the divine here, compromising the human, they ended up compromising salvation in every way. Because if Christ is not truly man, he cannot be our high priest before God.

If Christ cannot replace us, how can we be saved by his work? If Christ cannot take our place because he is not truly human, how can we trust him as our Lord and Savior? Okay?

Well, to try to solve this problem and reconcile humanity and divinity in the person of the Redeemer, we have another school, the school of Antioch, which was located in what we now know as Asia Minor, in what we now know as modern-day Turkey. And this school also tried to reconcile humanity and divinity in the person of the Redeemer, also taking the doctrine of salvation as its starting point . But for the theologians of Antioch, not so influenced by Greek philosophy, they thought about the doctrine of salvation in a slightly different way, also biblical, but a little different.

For them, God had created man to live in obedience before him, but man sinned. We see this clearly in Genesis, okay? In Genesis, chapter 2, Genesis chapter 3, God gives clear guidance to Adam.

"You may freely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. " And we know that instead of Adam choosing God's will, fulfilling the covenant of works and choosing God's will, he chose to disobey and thus cast humanity into the abyss of separation. What is needed now?

What is needed now, so that God can restore humanity to Himself, is that someone come forward and fulfill the just requirements of God's law, someone who fulfills the requirements of God's character expressed in His laws and commandments. Someone must be presented as faithful, someone must be presented as righteous, since man cannot meet these requirements, man cannot present himself as faithful to God because he is flawed in fulfilling the commandments, so the very Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, entered history, took our place and was completely obedient, presented himself as faithful to God so that now His righteousness can be imputed to each of us. Well, you are realizing that everything I'm saying so far is biblical.

We are seeing this here, the biblical text making it clear to us that the work of Christ came precisely to give us what we did not deserve, because He obeyed, right? He was faithful where Adam failed, where Israel failed, where the kings of Israel failed, where we failed, Christ succeeded. His righteousness was given to us, it was imputed to us.

OK? So, it is necessary, within the understanding of salvation that exists in Antioch, that Jesus be truly divine, because God is doing for us what we cannot do. But it is very important within Antioch that Jesus be human.

It is necessary that he be the faithful man, the perfect man, so that his perfection, his righteousness, can be imputed to each of us. So, unlike Alexandria, which placed great emphasis on divinity, the school of Antioch began to give great importance to divinity. Emphasis on humanity.

Christ is the perfect man. Christ is truly human. So, the Lord's human nature was not compromised here.

On the contrary, it was a complete nature, an integral nature. The problem, folks, is that by giving so much emphasis here on humanity, what ended up happening here in Antioch is that Jesus in Antioch didn't end up assuming a human nature, but he ended up assuming a human person. Remember we said there's a difference between nature and person?

We are different persons, despite having the same nature. For the writers in Antioch, what ended up happening is that in order for Jesus to have a complete human nature, the emphasis was so great here on the question of nature, nature, nature, that nature ceased to be nature and became person. In the incarnation, what the Word of God assumed was a human person, right?

So, it wasn't just nature, but person. What ended up happening is that in Jesus we didn't have one person, we had two, the person of the Word and the human person that was assumed by the Word within the same reality. Oops, let me get my pen here.

Sorry, folks. Okay, I want to read to you here the thoughts of Theodore Mopsia, which will help us understand this issue. Look, Theodore Mopsia, this is on page 21, if you want to follow along with me, page 21, right at the beginning here, okay?

Like this: Theodore Mopsia frequently suggested that the Logos did not assume a human nature in a general way, but a specific nature. He seems to suggest that instead of Jesus assuming a general abstract nature, the Logos assumed an individual, specific, concrete humanity. In his work on the Incarnation, he says: "In coming to dwell among us, the Logos united them as a whole, look at this, the supposed human being to himself, and made him share with him the dignity that the only one who dwells, being the Son of God, possesses by nature.

" So you can see, look, Jesus does not assume a human nature, a nature, he assumes a specific human nature, the supposed human being. Look at the mistake here, folks. So, in the incarnation, what Jesus did was take a human being who was being conceived in the womb of Mary, and the divine took that human being for himself.

There are even some heretical conceptions, right? They think exactly this way, that at the baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, that's when the divine took over the human. So, there was a human who grew, lived, and at the baptism the divine took him, lived with him, enabling him to do God's will.

And there on the cross the divine left , leaving the human there. Only the human died on the cross, because the divine took off, left him behind. Folks, that's not what the Bible is saying.

The Bible says that the Word became flesh. The Word became a human being and dwelt among us. So, what ends up happening here is that, in the view of Theodore of Mop, Sweden, what Jesus assumed was not human nature, but a human being.

So, it turns out that in Jesus we have two persons, right? Two realities, the divine person and the human person within, right, the same body, within the same reality. Two persons within the same nature.

People, this is heresy. We don't see Jesus at any point dialoguing with himself as if they were two distinct persons, but we see only one single will. So, trying to preserve—this is utter madness, right, people?

—trying to preserve humanity in every way. They also ended up making the mistake of transforming this human nature into a human person and creating a rupture within Jesus, creating a rupture within the Son of God, dividing him into two persons and not two natures. And then, people, what we know as three inadequate conceptions within Christology will arise.

There is a fourth conception, but we usually discuss it when we talk about the Trinity, right? So it was a Trinitarian heresy, which is Arianism. What is Arianism?

I'll explain it very quickly here. We're going to focus here on Apollinarianism, okay everyone? Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism.

These are the three Christological heresies. But what would that be? What is Arianism?

Arianism is the understanding that Jesus is divine, but his divinity is less than that of the Father, yet as God he is superior to the angels. So Jesus is not equal to the angels because he is superior to them, but he is not divine like his father. Therefore, the divine nature of the Lord is not like that of his father, but he is superior to the angels.

We read John 11. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Jesus' divinity is shown to be equal to that of the Father, because Jesus says, "I and the Father are one. " Jesus confesses that he is the " I AM," the name given to God in the context of the Old Testament.

Jesus receives the same attributes of praise, honor, and glory that the Father receives. And he has the same characteristics as the Father: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. So, the divinity of the Son is equal to that of the Father.

They are of the same nature in terms of divinity, the same essence, the same substance. He is God from God, he is light from light. So, we don't believe in the Arian heresy, OK?

But there are three other inadequate conceptions that arise regarding the person of Christ, which derive from these two schools here, the school of Alexandria and the school of Antioch. The first is what we know as Apollinarianism. Remember that one of the heretics from the school of Alexandria was Apollinaris, right?

And Apollinaris, who was bishop of La Odyssea, around 361 AD, taught that the unique person of Christ possessed only a human body, but not a human mind or spirit, that the mind, the spirit of Christ came from his divine nature as the Son of God. But his ideas were rejected by the church leaders of his time. They realized that it wasn't just the human body that needed salvation, to be represented by Christ in his redemptive work, but also our minds, our spirits, our souls as human beings.

Christ needed to have complete humanity, as we see in Hebrews 2:17. And so Apollinarianism was rejected at the Council of Alexandria in 362 AD until the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. And then you have a figure in your presentations that illustrates for us what Apollinarianism is.

What is Apollinarianism? It's the union of the complete divine nature with only a part of human nature, only the human aspect. This is Apollinarianism, folks.

This is a wrong view of Christ. Christ wasn't just a hologram. Amen, folks.

He didn't just have the aesthetic aspect. He was truly human in all his dimensions. We saw Jesus confessing that he had a spirit, a soul, and a body.

The body was crucified. His soul was anguished unto death in Gethsemane. And at his crucifixion, he said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

" Here we have another Christological heresy, which is Nestorianism. Nestorianism. What is Nestorianism?

It comes from Nestorius, okay? Who is also the father of this heresy. What did Nestorius teach?

Nestorianism is the doctrine that says there were two distinct persons in the person of Christ. This arises in the context of Antioch, right? If Apollinarianism arises in Alexandria, then we have Nestorianism arising in Antioch.

So you have in Jesus a human person and a divine person, which is a teaching different from what we see in the Holy Bible. In history, he was a famous preacher in Antioch. And although some claim that perhaps he never taught this heretical concept that bears his name, due to a good combination of personal conflicts and a good dose of ecclesiastical politics, he was removed from his office, and his teachings were condemned.

It's important to understand why the church couldn't accept the idea that Christ was two distinct persons. We don't have anywhere in the Bible any indication that the human nature of Christ, for example, is an independent person who decides to do something contrary to the divine nature. So, you see, when we interpret that text from Gethsemane saying: "Ah, the human nature didn't want to go to the cross and the divine nature wanted to go to the cross," we are being Nestorian.

We are saying that in Jesus there were two persons. Two wills. One wanted to obey and the other did not.

But Jesus was not two persons, he was one person. The problem is not with Jesus himself, but with the mistaken way we are interpreting the text, thinking that the cup refers to the cross and not to the wrath of God, as we interpreted in the last class, okay? Nowhere do we have any indication, folks, that human nature conversed with divine nature or fought within Christ or anything similar.

Rather, we have a coherent picture of a single person acting in integrity, in unity. Jesus always says: "I never mean 'we,' even though in his relationship with the Father he speaks of 'we. '" The Bible always refers to Jesus as " he," never as "they.

" And even though sometimes we can, right? For study purposes, distinguish between divine nature and human nature, just to facilitate the understanding of some statements and actions recorded in the Bible, the Bible itself does not say that Jesus' human nature slept, that Jesus' divine nature healed, never, as if there were two distinct persons, but always speaks of the person of Christ acting. Christ slept, how did he sleep?

Truly God, truly man. Christ healed. How did he heal?

By being truly God and truly man. So the church, folks, continued to insist that Jesus was a single person, even though he had two natures, one divine and one human. And you'll see in your presentation that we have a figure that shows what Nestorianism represents.

So you have a filled circle and you'll read, "Human person, not nature. Complete person, you have identity, right, and complete nature. And divine person, complete nature in one reality, in the same body.

" This is a wrong teaching, a wrong understanding of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, we have here, folks, Monophycism or also called Deutochianism. The word mono, you know, is one, phys is nature.

Monophycism is one nature. Eutychism is because, eutych is the heretic who taught this heresy. The third inadequate conception is called Monophycism or Eutychism.

It's the idea that Christ possessed only one nature. Okay, folks, look at this. If things were already bad with Apollinarianism and Nestorianism, here things get incredibly complicated.

Extremely complicated. If we could use some words to associate these heresies, I could say the following: in Apollinarianism you have substitution, because you have the human soul, the human spirit being replaced by a divine principle. So, substitution.

In Nestorianism you have separation, because you have a human person and a divine person. And in Monophysitism you have mixture or confusion. Mixture or confusion.

OK? A third inadequate conception is called Monophysitism , or the idea that Christ has only one nature. The first defender of this idea in the early church was a man named Eutychus, leader of a monastery in Constantinople.

Eutychus taught the opposite error of Nestorianism. He denied that human and divine natures remained in Christ. For him, he believed that human nature was absorbed by divine nature.

So that divine and human natures mixed, forming a third nature. In other words, Jesus was neither true God equal to the Father, because his divine nature had been transformed. Nor was he a true human being like us, because his humanity had been compromised, you know, transformed here by union with the divine.

People, if Jesus is neither God of God nor man of man, he cannot be our high priest. Because it was necessary that Christ be God before God for us, but it was also necessary that he be man in our place, where none of us could be man. Do you understand?

So, within this conception, Jesus cannot present himself as God before God, nor can he be man where we needed a representative. Look, you can see an analogy of Euchianism here when we put a drop of ink in a glass of water. The resulting mixture is neither pure ink nor pure water, but a third substance; the mixture of both, ink and water, ends up undergoing change.

In this way, I was teaching you that Jesus was a mixture of divine and human elements. It was like this. .

. Jesus was an ecclesia. Do you understand?

He was a demigod and a semi-man. He was neither a man like us, nor God like the Father. He is a demigod and a semi-man.

He is an ecclesia. Both were modified to form a new nature. Monophysitism also caused great and justified concern in the church, because this doctrine held that Christ was neither true God nor true man.

In that case, he could not truly represent us as either man or God, so that we could obtain our salvation. So, people, it is very important for us to know these three heresies. Why?

Because many times the biblical text, to teach us what is correct, tells us what is wrong, right? For example, Paul says: "The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. " So, many times by understanding what it is not, we can understand what it is.

Therefore, Christ is not a God who became human compromising humanity. Nor is he God who became human assuming a human person. And he is also not a mixture, right?

So, these three conceptions don't address how we should understand the person of the Redeemer. So, folks, if these three ways aren't sufficient for us to understand the person of the Redeemer, how then should we understand this comprehension of the person of Christ, this relationship between the divine and the human in the person of the Lord Jesus? And here I really need your attention, because we're going to talk about the solution to the controversies, right, Christological heresies, folks.

And this is a very important point. In the second seminar I attended, I had a professor who, when he taught about these issues concerning God, he said something very strong. When he was going to teach about Christology, about the Trinity, about the Holy Spirit, about the person of God, our professor always said the following: "Folks, here we are entering holy ground, so take off your sandals, because this is holy ground.

" Even though we are speaking technically here, in a classroom, folks, this is a very serious matter. We can't just deal with this any old way. Do you understand?

So, take your sandals off, okay? And folks, so that you have a very, very thorough understanding, I'm going to ask your permission here and I want to read the declaration with you. I want to not only quote this point, but I want you to pay attention to every detail, okay?

So, to resolve these problems raised by these controversies surrounding the person of Christ, a council called the Council of Chalcedon was convened, which was held in Constantinople, which is present-day Istanbul, from October 8 to November 1, 451. And the resulting declaration became known as the Chalcedonian Definition, and it teaches us what is orthodox regarding the person of Christ, warning us against Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism. I just want to remind you that within the Christian branch, whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, this is the same confession for all of us, okay?

And I want to read this with you, folks. This is very serious, okay? Buckle up, my son.

Let God speak to you at this moment. Look at this. Faithful to the holy fathers, we all, perfectly unanimously, teach that one must confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, consisting of a rational soul and a body of the same substance, right, equal to the Father according to his divinity and equal to us according to his humanity, in all things like unto us, except sin, begotten according to his divinity of the Father before all ages.

He is begotten of God. He is a monogená, right? As we read there, the Word became flesh, dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

The glory as of the only begotten, only begotten, only begotten, monogená. He is begotten of God before all things, before all ages, and in these last days, according to humanity, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, who is the Mother of God. And here, perhaps some Protestants will tear their hair out, right, Mother of God.

But people, pay attention. Jesus is God, yes or no? Yes.

He was conceived by the work of the Spirit. In the womb of the Virgin Mary. Yes.

Jesus was born of Mary? Yes. So, she is the mother of God.

She is not the origin, right? She is not the person responsible for forming Jesus. She is not that person, but she was Jesus, conceived in the womb of Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Daughter, don't go over there, Daddy 's recording. I want to hug you. Well, I really want to hug you.

Okay. Okay. Uh.

Now over there. Go. So I talked to you.

So, we are, we are saying here that Jesus, he, folks, he was born of Mary. Yes, he was born of Mary. He was conceived in her womb by the work of the Spirit.

Yes, folks, Mary is not the origin of God, but the means by which the Word of God, the Son of God, became a human being in history, was through the womb of the Virgin Mary. So, she is the mother of God. Jesus was born of Mary.

OK, folks? To divide, right? There are people who say: "No, Mary gave birth to the human, but the divine, right?

No, he wasn't born of her. " People, this is Mestorianism, it's dividing human and divine nature, people. No.

Jesus was one person who had two natures, and the divine became flesh in the womb of the Virgin through the work of the Holy Spirit. OK? One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, who must be confessed in two natures that are unmistakable, immutable, indivisible, and inseparable.

The distinction of natures is in no way annulled by the union, people. No. Rather, the property of each nature is preserved, concurring to form one person in one subsistence, in one reality, not separated or divided into two persons, but one, the same Son, the only-begotten, the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning testified concerning Him, the same Lord Jesus taught us forgiveness, and the creed of the holy fathers transmitted to us.

This is our confession. What must we confess concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ? This is our confession.

So , notice this, to conclude this lesson, folks, this is very important, okay? Against Apollinaris' idea that Christ did not possess a human mind or soul, we have the declaration that he was truly man, consisting of a rational soul and a body, that he was of the same substance as us, according to humanity, and in all things similar to us, except for sin. The word "cubstantial" here means having the same nature or the same substance.

In opposition to Nestorius' idea that Christ was two persons united in one body, we have the words "inseparable," "indivisible," concurring to form one person, one subsistence, not separated or divided. Folks, this is very beautiful, isn't it? Against the idea of ​​the Monophysites, we have the confession that Jesus possessed only one human nature.

We have here, that his human nature was lost in union with the divine. We have here the words, right, that must be confessed in two natures, not one, but two, unmistakable, immutable, indivisible, inseparable. The distinction of nature is not annulled by the union, but rather the preserved property of each nature.

The human and divine natures were not confused, nor were they modified when Christ became man. But the human nature remained truly human and the divine nature remained truly divine. You can give glory to God there in your place, folks.

This is a miracle. What is it, or what do we confess concerning Christ? Who is our Lord?

How do we define the person of the Redeemer? Jesus is one person, possessing, possessing two natures, divine and human nature. The person is the person of the eternal Word of God, possessing two natures, the divine nature and the human nature.

Look at this here so we can conclude. Some say that the definition of chalcedon doesn't really define affirmatively what the person of Christ actually is, but simply tells us some things that he is not. Therefore, some say, "Oh, it's not a very useful definition.

" But, folks, that accusation is misleading and inaccurate. Because pay attention, the definition is actually very helpful in correctly understanding biblical teaching. It teaches that Christ indisputably possesses two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, and declares that the divine nature.

. . It is exactly like that of his father, substantiated to the father according to divinity.

It maintains that human nature is exactly like ours, even without sin, substantial to us, according to humanity, in all things like us, except sin. Furthermore, it affirms that in the person of Christ, human nature retains its distinct properties and divine nature also retains its distinct properties. The distinction of nature is not annulled by the union.

Rather, the property of each nature is preserved. Finally, look, this affirms that whether we understand it or not, these two natures are united in the person of Christ. Look at this, people.

So, whether you understand it or not, this is the reality, this is what we confess. Miller Ericson, a very important theologian, says the following: Trinity, try, try to understand it and you will lose your head. Try to deny it and you will lose your soul.

That's it. So, the Trinity is beyond our comprehension. You have to believe to understand.

Try to understand it, you'll lose your mind; try to deny it, you'll lose your soul. The dual nature of Christ, the incarnation of the Word of God, the dual nature of Jesus in one person. Try to understand this, you'll lose your mind; try to deny this, you'll lose your salvation, you'll lose your soul.

Can you understand, people? It's a miracle, and it has to be this way because we're talking about the incarnation of the Son of God, God the Son. Look, people, to conclude here, when the definition of Cedona says that the two natures of Christ occur together in one person and subsistence, the Greek word for subsistence is the word hypostatics, meaning being.

Thus, the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, in his person, is often called the hypostatic union in theology. This phrase simply indicates, right, that the union of the human and divine nature happened in the being, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. OK, my brothers, this is very, very, very, very important, okay?

I really want to encourage you to read this part of the slides, to reflect on it. If you have any questions, please email us, send us questions, we want to solve them, but I want to remind you that this is the orthodox confession of the church since the time of the apostles. We confess this reality for the glory of God the Father.

This is the testimony of the Scriptures and this is what we confess about the person of the Redeemer. OK? Now that we have a clear understanding of the person of Christ, of who Christ is and what he is not, we can then talk about the work of our Lord in the next meeting , OK?

God bless you. Until the next meeting, God willing. Until then.

M.