We are going to start next week with chapter 10 on effectual calling. Chapter 9, I think, is on free will. And if you remember, we kind of dealt with issues of free will and the decrees of God and election earlier on. We kind of tied some of those chapters together. If you have any questions on chapter 9, I would refer you back to some of those chapters. But we'll be continuing with chapter 10 on effectual calling. And really starting with chapter 10 all the way to chapter 17, we're talking about the doctrine of salvation or soteriology, okay? All those chapters are covering that. And it's appropriate, right? I mean, the confession is well organized if you just kind of step back. It starts with our creation, with the nature of God, it goes through the fall, and then the covenant of grace, right, which is the answer to the fall. Well, now we've seen the head of the covenant of grace, and we're going to go through all the blessings of the covenant of grace, which is in the doctrine of soteriology. And we will look at that. Soter, soter in Greek means savior, and soteria means salvation. So the doctrine of soteriology is the doctrine of salvation, how we are saved. But first, we need to finish out chapter eight on Christ. We started last week with our discussion of the incarnation. We saw that although the Son existed from before all time with the Father and Holy Spirit, He was not yet incarnate. He was the Logos asarchos, the Logos not yet incarnated. And yet in the timing of the Lord, He came and took on flesh. We discussed that the incarnation is addition, not subtraction, nor is it conversion. The Logos, the son, takes on an additional nature. He does not lay aside any of his deity, nor could he even do such a thing. He does not convert some of his attributes to become human attributes. We then moved on to discuss what exactly happened at the moment of the incarnation, right? If we were to look on a, Not a CAT scan, what's it called, like an ultrasound? Well, even then you can't see him, they're so little. One moment, right, Mary's womb, there was nothing there, it was just an empty womb, and then the next moment you had the tiny little baby Christ. How did that happen? What happened for that to take place? Well, we saw that first, we denied the idea that He brought His flesh with Him from heaven. That's also called the doctrine of heavenly flesh or celestial flesh. That was an Anabaptist doctrine. The Reformers, you read about them talking about Anabaptists, and you're like, okay, they just believe in believers' baptism, right? Were they really that bad? Well, a lot of them were. unorthodox in their theology, and this was one way. They believed that Christ brought his flesh down with him from heaven. Mennonites don't believe that today, from what I've gathered, but the early ones did, so they repented of that, which is good, that's good. Okay, we saw, as our confession says, okay, Nor was Christ's flesh created ex nihilo, okay? God didn't speak and then the flesh, this little human, came into existence. But how did he come into existence? Remember? Yes, let me ask, let me be more, Where did Christ get His humanity from? Where did He get His flesh from? His flesh came from His mother, right? Our confession says that Christ was made of a woman. Now, for those who might ask, well, how can that be, right? Especially for us in the 21st century, we're like, well, we know how DNA works, and so how could that happen? He would just have Mary's DNA. Wouldn't that make him like a clone of Mary? You need the father's DNA. Well, remember how God created Eve. Right? God took Eve, really from the flesh of Adam, took his rib or his side and out of her, didn't speak her, didn't form her out of the dust as he did with Adam, didn't speak her into existence ex nihilo, but really took her flesh from the flesh of Adam. Adam says, this is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. Now, she wasn't a clone of Adam. She had her own DNA. Women have an X and a Y, right? Chromosome, or is it the other way? Two Xs, okay? This is why I study theology, guys. Like, math, science, I'm not the guy, okay? And so, The Lord took from Adam's flesh and rearranged it in such a way that she had her own DNA, she was her own person, and yet that's what he did, right? We don't totally understand it, yet he did it. I would say something similar happened with Jesus. He took his flesh from his mother, okay, and yet he was not a clone of her. He was his own person, he had his own DNA, right? And yet he took his flesh from Mary. Now, why is that important? What does that really matter? Well, the first reason that we confess that He took His flesh from Mary is that that's really what the Scriptures teach. They go out of their way to teach that. Think of this from just the very beginning of Scripture. We see the Messiah will truly be born of a woman, okay? Genesis 3.15, He is referred to as the seed of the woman. He's not just a passerby going through her womb, as one of the Anabaptists said, as water through a pipe. He is her seat, right? He's part of her body, like he came from her. We see this similarly with Abraham. Interestingly, God tells Abraham in Genesis 12, 3, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now that blessing to all of the families of the earth will come from Christ, and yet here the Lord says it is in Abraham. I would argue that the language of being in Abraham refers to the fact that the Messiah will come from Abraham from His own flesh. He will literally be descended from Abraham. Otherwise, I don't think He could say He will be in you. Maybe He could come from you and that he will be in Mary, but not that he will be in you, right? We see something similar from the author of Hebrews. He says of Levi, the son of Jacob, Hebrews 7, 9 through 10, one might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. He's saying that since Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek and was the physical ancestor of Levi, it's as if Levi himself paid tithes through Abraham. Well, that argument only stands if Levi was actually in the loins of his father or really came from his own body. Furthermore, just think of how big of an issue it is in the book of Genesis in the Abraham story that Abraham's heir come from his own body. That's actually a huge issue. Genesis 15, three through four, it says, and Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir, for your very own son shall be your heir. The promised seed is said to be Abraham's very own son. I can't help but think if Abraham were to find out that the true promised seed were to not physically descend from him, there would be somewhat confusion. What was the big deal of all of this? Why did it have to be his own son? Why couldn't it have been Eleazar? Or the Lord says to Abraham in Genesis 17.6, I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you, okay? Or consider this, this is probably the strongest language, Genesis 35.11, and God said to him, I think this is to Isaac or Jacob, Maybe Abraham, one of those. And God said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. So it's a very important deal, and it's explicitly part of the promise that not just will he have some descendants kind of through any other means, but specifically through means of physical descent. We see this also in the Davidic covenant. This is very much an explicit promise to David. 2 Samuel 7, 12-13, the Lord says, "'When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.'" It's very important that the Messiah who will come from David, who is a descendant of Abraham, come from his own body as well. Furthermore, think about this. from the perspective of the genealogies in the New Testament. Would this really be necessary? Would the genealogies really be something of weight with the Jews? If you're trying to convince the Jews this is the Messiah, and yet your doctrine is that he's not actually of us. He's not actually ethnically of Abraham. I imagine that would have been a huge, huge problem for the Jews of Jesus' day. Turn with me real quickly to Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2, 10 through 12. In this part of Hebrews, the author is explaining that Christ can be our savior precisely because he came and took on our humanity from Mary. Hebrews chapter two, 10 through 12. He writes, for it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. Let me read that last part of verse 11. For he who sanctifies, who's that? God? Jesus. We'll see, it's Jesus. And those who are sanctified, who would that be? Us, the church, right? all have one source." Now, that's how the ESV translates that last phrase, that we all have one source. What does that mean, we all have one source? The phrase in the Greek is simply, from one, all. The sanctifier and those who are sanctified are, all of us are from one, okay? So, The ESV is not wrong, but it's simply doing translation and not interpretation, which is fine because the author of Hebrews doesn't really interpret anymore what he means, at least by that verb. What does that mean? ESV says source. I don't think that's wrong, okay? But listen to how the NIV translates it, the NIV, the glorious NIV, right? Some of you, you know I'm talking glorious NIV. It goes a bit further, and it does some translation for us. Instead of, of one source, it says, of the same family. Now the NASB goes even further and says, we are all from one Father, meaning Father God. So what's it referring to there? It could plausibly be either of those because God the Father is the source of us all in that He is our Father, right, of the sanctifier Christ and of those who are sanctified. He's become our Father because we've been sanctified. It could also mean of the same family in that we all share the same humanity. We all, and that's where I think the NIV kind of goes with it a little bit more. We all have one source, okay? I kind of like that one. I have to give it somewhat of a tentative approval, but I like that one for reasons which we'll see. This is how Turretin takes it, and these are his reasons. They sound good to me. He points out that we should understand the term being one, okay, in verse 11. in light of what comes after it in verse 14. Did we read those? Okay, no, we read verse 11, right? We are all one. So look down at verse 14. Okay, we'll start with verse 11. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children God has given me. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things. Turretin is arguing we should understand what the source is that we all have as one, particularly in light of verse 14. The children share in flesh and blood, and so he likewise partook of the same thing, right? Otherwise, how could the author say in verse 14, therefore, since he did these things, it's like he's saying, this is what I just said, right? And then Turretin concludes, Christ was of one blood with us, meaning of the same mass or human nature, which he calls flesh and blood. Because of this, he calls us brothers and sisters. We are truly brothers and sisters, although distantly, of Christ. You know, I've often wondered how weird it would be for Mary to look at Jesus and be like, this is my Lord, and yet I'm also related to you. Or for his brothers, when they finally came to accept it, to be like, and you could say this, right, because of the communication of properties, God is my brother. I'm related to God, right? You could say that, right? I've often wondered about that. That's true of us, though, too. Now very distantly, but we are related physically to Jesus. Isn't that weird? We have one common source. So much has he become one of us. we are related to him by blood distantly. If you could do a genealogy.com, you'd go so far back, and then you'd connect with Noah and come back down here. You'd have these two massive branches, yet there would be a connection with Jesus. Isn't that amazing? We're related by blood to Jesus. That's amazing, right? Why? Because he became a partaker of flesh and blood. He truly became Now, let's clarify even further. Turretin gives a few clarifications for why Jesus took His flesh from Mary, okay? First, he says Christ is the seed of the woman, Genesis 3.15, the seed of Abraham, Genesis 12, the son of Abraham, Acts 3.25, the son of David and the fruit of his loins, Luke 1 and Romans 1, the seed of the virgin and the fruit of her womb, Luke 1. that he could only be called these things truly if he had a nature like ours. And I would agree with that. He goes on to say, nor can it be said that Jesus is called the son of Abraham or of David because he was promised to them. Right? Perhaps an Anabaptist might say that. Well, he's called the son of Abraham, not because he's truly physically descended, but because he's promised to them. Turretin says, thus might Jesus equally be called the son of all believers to whom also he was promised. Right? He's promised to me, is Jesus my son? And so Turretin says, no, that's not a good argument. He continues. Nor can it be said that he is the son of David in the same way in which he is said to be the son of Joseph, right? Why not? Was Jesus the son of Joseph? What? Reputedly? Would Joseph have told Annette, well, you're not really my son. Yeah, so he was legally the son of Joseph, truly. He would have called Joseph dad, right? Abba or something. Abba, I don't know what they would have said. But he was the son of David in a whole different sense. in that he was a true descendant of David. So the Anabaptists might say, well, he's called the son of David in the same sense that he's called the son of Joseph. And Turchin says, no, no, no, those aren't the same things. He's legally the son of Joseph, but he's physically a descendant of David. He continues, "'Nor ought Christ to be called the fruit of Mary's womb, because He was conceived in it, but not from it.'" Right? They might say, well, yeah, He's called the fruit of her womb. I mean, He was in her womb. She truly gave birth to Him, but He wasn't totally the seed of her womb. He says, you can't say that. Why? He goes, "'Because by womb, there is not denoted only the place of conception, but also the matter.'" as explained in Romans 1-3 and Galatians 4-4, that he was made of a woman. Nor if Christ was Mary's Lord according to the spirit, does it follow that he could not be her son according to the flesh. So Christ was made of Mary, he took his substance, his humanity for her substance. So you really see the issue at stake here is having a full Christ. It seems that the reason, that last question in particular as an argument, well, if He was truly descended from her, if He took His flesh from her, how could she call Him Lord, right? Well, that exposes that there's this belief that if that's true, he can't truly be Lord, right? And so by not having him take his flesh from her, you have kind of a less human Christ because they can't understand how he could be fully descended from her and still be God. They can understand the God part, but not the other. And so you can see how it safeguards that. It's the very same thing, yeah. And I don't think, yeah, the very fact that that question gets raised and the way that Jesus responds proves we're on the right track, right? So yeah, that's an excellent point. Okay, now tied to the incarnation is the doctrine of the virgin birth, okay, that Mary had not known a man and that therefore her conception of Jesus was truly miraculous. Have you ever thought, perhaps, about why Christ came into the world through a virgin birth? What's the significance of that? Why was that necessary? Could Christ's humanity have been the product of marital relations between Mary and Joseph? Could that have been the case? Chris is kind of nodding. You would have had problems? Why? Oh, okay. The passing of sin? Let's see exactly where we're going here. There are many arguments given over the years about why this was necessary. I'm gonna share with you these, and then afterwards we'll break them down one by one, okay? First, as you guys just said, some have argued the virgin birth was necessary so that Christ would be without sin, okay? It's probably one of the most common ones we hear. Second, others have said it was fitting that Christ come into the world in this way because He was God, right? And so it should be accompanied, it should happen in a miraculous way because this is truly a miracle, right? So that it's fitting in that sense. Third, others have argued it is necessary because of His divine Sonship, His divine Sonship. In other words, the virgin birth prevents Him from having two fathers, in a sense, right? Okay. After that, I'm gonna add, I'm gonna throw one in here now. Others would say, it prevents him from being divided into two persons, in a sense. You kind of have this human who is made and then, like he's a complete human, and then you have Christ take on his humanity. Is he really one united person? Okay, we'll look at that in a little bit too. Sixth, they would say, It shows that our redemption is accomplished by divine initiative and that man had no part to play in it. Okay, that's the sixth one. And then seventh, some have argued it was fitting that he be conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in this manner in order to inaugurate the age of the Spirit which he brings in the new covenant, okay? What do you guys think of those? Sound pretty good? Some of you are like, no, okay, sound pretty good. Okay, first. Some have said that the virgin birth was necessary in order for Christ to be without sin. How would a sexual union have transmitted original sin? The federal headship? Was Mary in Adam though before? What it comes down to, my hesitance with that argument, not that I'm not sympathetic to it, my hesitance with that argument is that First of all, Mary was corrupted by sin as well. Her flesh was under the curse. Now she was redeemed, right? But it's not as though Joseph was particularly more imbued with original sin than Mary was. They were both equally, right? The other issue that I kind of take with that is it almost smacks to me of a little bit of Roman Catholic medieval theology, which tended to see the flesh, and particularly acts of the flesh, of the body, as less than spiritual, as fleshly. And so sex itself was seen as It was necessary for procreation, but you really shouldn't enjoy it, right? And so some have argued, well, it was the act itself of sex that would have corrupted it, which is not true at all, right? And so I'm sympathetic to that argument, but I don't really find an argument as to why that would make it the case. We'll just have to stand there and move on. Second, others have said it was fitting that Christ come into the world in such an extraordinary manner because He was God. I think there's something to that, right? In many ways, the virgin birth, aside from the incarnation itself and the resurrection of Christ, is the miracle bar none of the Bible, right? And there's really nothing up to this point that's bigger than that, you have barrenness that is overcome, right, especially with many of the patriarchesses or whatever they would be called, matriarchs. Many of the matriarchs. But even then, when they overcame it, it was still through a sexual union, right? So the virgin birth is something very unique to Christ alone, and it is fitting. And I think there's, yeah, sure, I'm fine with that. Third, some have said that Christ had to be born of a virgin in order to affirm, I'm just, I'm all over the place today, in order to affirm his divine sonship, okay, that he has only one father. I don't know that I find that one particularly compelling either because he's truly the son of David. He's truly the son of Abraham. Now, he's his great-great-great-grandson, but he's physically descended from them as he might have been from Joseph had there been a sexual union which created him. So, I'm sympathetic to that, but I just don't know that I find that super compelling because he's called son of David, son of Abraham, right? He would say, Abraham is my father. David is my father, right? So, just something to consider. Another one, which apparently I skipped over, some argued that Christ came into the world through a virgin, that it was fitting because death came to the world through a virgin, okay? What do you guys think about that? Obviously, they're talking about Eve, okay? So they say, it was fitting that Christ come into the world through a virgin because death came into the world through a virgin, meaning Eve. What do you guys think about that? Pardon? Well, I guess maybe the argument is like she gave it to him or something. True, yeah. Exactly. That to me is the biggest assumption of that whole idea. For that to be the case, it would almost have to go like, God is like, these are all the trees, you know, you can eat. And he's like, okay, bye. And then the snake like immediately comes, and then the fall happens. Now, I don't think it was terribly long, but it does seem like some time has passed at least, maybe no more than a day, but people tend to consummate their marriage on the day of their marriage, and so I don't find that to be a very compelling answer at all. Okay, fifth. or whatever number we're at now. Others have said that this highlights that redemption is a work of divine initiative. I really like that one. That is a huge concern of the Lord's all throughout Scripture, right? Even in cases of barrenness. In many ways, he does it through a barren woman to prove that the promises could be fulfilled no otherwise but through his own initiative, right? And when Abraham tries to take the initiative or anyone else, that's when you have problems, right? Or consider just the nature of our salvation, particularly in election. and in justification by grace alone through faith alone. Both are specifically done by the Lord to save us, he explains, so that none may boast, right? Well, that could also be true, that's also true if he was born through the virgin birth, right? Not even man had a role into that. It was the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. So I like that one too. Others have said that this protects His being a one single united person. Okay? Now, we're going to get into that just after this because there's one doctrine we need to talk about. That's the last doctrine. We'll get into that in a second. Lastly, others have argued that it's important that He was conceived of the Holy Spirit in order to show that He was bringing the age of the Spirit. What do you guys think of that? Any way that that could be critiqued? Pardon? Could be, it could be, that the beginning of the new age started at Pentecost. My only issue with that, is that it makes it sound as though the incarnation is a particular work of the Spirit, but so also is creation itself. The Holy Spirit is hovering over, you know, the void earth. And it's rather that God always works that way through the Spirit. And so I would expect no less in the incarnation. But that doesn't necessarily signify that it's like, oh, this is showing it's the age of the Spirit, any more than it was showing the age of the Spirit started in creation itself, right? I think it goes hand in hand with the age of the Spirit. I'm not entirely, I just think you have to be careful how you explain that, right? Well, however the Lord chose to do it, He did decide to do it through the virgin birth. I've heard of some people who are Orthodox saying, I don't necessarily have a problem with His humanity being produced. by, or I don't have metaphysically a problem with his humanity being a product of his mother and his father, but that's not how God decided to do it. And this was clearly the best way. And so for many reasons, we would say, God decided to do what he decided to do for specific reasons. And in a lot of ways, we just have to be kind of cautious of prying into it too much. And so I did want to kind of pry a little bit, but just, think through some of the problems of trying to pry too much and being too dogmatically assertive in why, right? I do particularly like, though, if there's some that I really like, it's that it shows divine initiative, right? I think that one is my favorite one. Not that I'm rejecting the others, but I think that one's clearly the strongest one. Okay, well, let's touch on one last thing. Today's gonna be a bit shorter, and then we'll be done with Christology and Chapter 8 in general. This is the idea that Christ's flesh, when He took on flesh, it was anhypostatic, okay? Now, an there means not hypostatic. What do you think that means? What is hypostasis referring to? What's that? A subsisting relation, yeah. Maybe more in layman's terms, the person, right? When we speak of the hypostatic union, we're talking about the union of the two natures in the hypostasis, the person of Christ, the second person, the logos. So to say that Christ's humanity that He took upon Himself was anhypostatic, that means that the human nature did not have its own person, okay? Now, in order to even make this argument, we have to make the distinction between a nature and a person, right? Which you have to do in order to really have either Christology or the Trinity. That a nature is not quite exactly, it can be distinguished from a person, right? Otherwise, there would be, we would have to be, we couldn't have the Trinity. We would just have to confess some kind of God like Allah or something. There's no diversity of the persons, it's just the nature is the persons, it's all one, okay? So we have to make this distinction. Now for us, we have a nature, but we also have a person, okay? Now when we're talking about person, we're not talking about personality, we're not talking about personality traits, we're not saying Christ did not have personality in a sense, right? But it's specifically the concept of a person as separate from the nature, okay? Now, when he took on that humanity, it was anhypostatic, without a person. Why would that be important? Yeah, it guards against making sure that he is united in one person, okay? You really couldn't have the hypostatic union if you have two persons and two natures. There's really nothing uniting them. What other heresy historically do you think this guards against? Dualism? No, not necessarily. Adoptionism. Adoptionism is the idea that Christ was a very righteous, holy man, Jesus of Nazareth was, who can be said to be God incarnate when the Spirit, when God came upon him. And after that, his humanity was joined to God, but he was really adopted so that the incarnation per se doesn't take place like at the moment of conception, but rather when he begins his ministry, right? Well, if that's the case, you have a full person with a human nature operating separately from the divine logos with his divine nature. So basically, what anhypostasis means, kind of to put it more simply, his humanity never had existence apart from being united to the Logos. That's how you put it simply, okay? It doesn't mean that he's less human than we are. He has a full human nature, okay? But his humanity never experienced a time when it was not united to the Logos. It's always been united to the Logos, and it will always be united to the Logos. Well, that's chapter 8. I hope you guys have enjoyed these particular looks at the doctrine of Christ. I've particularly enjoyed them. I hope you've come to appreciate your Savior even more. We've looked at the great mystery of the incarnation. of the hypostatic union, that Christ is very God of very God, very man of very man, and yet united in the one person. We've seen that He has so taken on our nature that we are even distantly related to Him by blood. We see how full our redemption is in Him, seeing Him as our mediator, the head of the covenant of grace, our prophet, priest, and king. And I would encourage you not just to take this as head knowledge, but that it would encourage you all the more to trust in Christ as your Savior and to praise Him and to live lives worthy of such a Savior. With that, are there any questions? Any questions you feel like concerning Christology have not totally been touched on or even if you want to play devil's advocate a little bit, something like that, that's fine before we move on. Anything, Chris? Yeah. Not in so many terms. We discussed that more probably early on in the lectures when we talked about him as our mediator and our union with him. And also, in the fact that, to some degree, we partake of his three offices, but not in so many terms, no. I'm sure, I mean, there's a place for that. He's not just called our head, but we are said to be his body. So yeah, I think there's an idea for that. However that's abused by the Roman Catholic Church, we would reject, but yeah. So kind of not in so many words, but to some degree, yeah. Any other thoughts, questions? Going once, Jeremy, nothing. Were you guys the chatters in school? You'd have to be like, what was it you wanna share with us? Jeremy, that was so important. Okay, yes. Well, with that, you are all dismissed and I will see you shortly as we begin.