How should we talk about Jesus? In one sense, talking about Jesus seems easy. He's our savior. He's our redeemer. He's the atoning sacrifice for sinners. He's the son of God who has demonstrated his great love for us by satisfying God's righteous judgment in our place. He is the risen King, the reigning ascended Lord who has triumphed over death. So in one sense, we talk about Jesus with very familiar language, phrases we love to ascribe to Him. In another sense, talking about Jesus can be rather dangerous. And sometimes people talk about Jesus even meaning well when they say what they say, but they veer into heretical waters. Heresy is any teaching that contradicts the core doctrines of historic Christianity. Heresy is any teaching that contradicts the core doctrines of historic Christianity. Not every biblical doctrine ranks as equally important because we recognize even among believers there are legitimate disagreements in interpretation where we still recognize that we as one another in Christ, we are brothers and sisters and we can disagree about a manner of important things, but not the most important things. Heresy is a teaching that contradicts the core doctrines of historic Christianity. A heretic is not just someone who disagrees with you about anything. A heretic is someone who rejects essential doctrines like the Trinity. the person and work of Christ, the nature of salvation. These are things that strike at the very core of what we confess with Orthodox Christianity throughout the ages. When a person teaches contrary to the essential doctrines of Christianity, that person is a heretic. And what we typically find is that person identifies themselves nevertheless as a Christian. So they may say, well, I'm a Christian and they're teaching things about Jesus, or I'm a Christian and they're saying things about God. But what they're saying undermines, contradicts, directly or indirectly, core essential teachings of Christianity. So even though they might claim to be a Christian, by the measure of orthodoxy and historic Christian faith, they would be outside the bounds of the essential teachings of Christianity. They would be considered a heretic. Even in the early church, people could not believe whatever they wanted to believe about Jesus. Don't you get that impression from 1 John chapter 4? There is a spirit of antichrist that was at work. People who were saying things about Jesus that were false or saying things about Jesus that needed to be confessed as true. You could not say whatever you wanted about Jesus and be considered a true and faithful Christian. Sometimes people believed and said things about Jesus that was outside of the teaching of the apostles. That is because Jesus is not whomever we want him to be. He is who he has revealed himself to be. And he is who the apostles of Jesus, who represent him faithfully, these apostles teach us about Jesus. So he is who he has revealed himself to be, as well as what the apostles of Jesus teach him. to be. Understanding the truth about Jesus' identity is important because false saviors don't save sinners. A savior that is false, some kind of notion of a figure that it receives worship, if that figure is not true, we call that an idol. And so the task of thinking well about Jesus, both from the Bible and in concert with the creeds and tradition of church history, that matters because Jesus's identity is the most important thing for us to confess. So part of what we need as disciples of Jesus is a growing awareness of the history that has gone before us. The many saints that have written and taught, the theologians that have gathered and proclaimed and heralded truth, and people who have engaged in deep controversies in a variety of settings. We need to know the history of the church and we need to know the battles they face, the heresies they combated. Edmund Burke was an 18th century Irish philosopher. He didn't mean this about church history in particular, but I am going to apply his statement to church history. Maybe you've heard what he said. Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. Haven't you heard that in various fashions over the years? Edmund Burke is right. Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. And the same would be the dangers in church history that would be repeated generation by generation if sound doctrine and right thinking about Jesus is not a priority. Heresy does not always originate from individuals who wanted to sow discord in the church. Somebody shows up with bad motives and a malicious heart, and they're like, I'm really gonna foul things up now, just get ready. And so they start teaching all these things, and they're trying to sow discord in the church, hoping and crossing their fingers that it's gonna go badly as they're intending. We might be surprised to find that heresies did not always originate from individuals wanting to sow discord, but rather, as one writer puts it, from natural, well-intentioned, essentially benign motives. They were people like us wanting to interpret passages, wanting to think about mysteries in Christian doctrine, wanting to avoid contradictions influenced by variety of cultural factors and assumptions. And yet, nevertheless, the outcome of their words deviated from what Christians believe. So we're not looking at every history, I mean, every heresy in the history of Christianity. We're gonna focus on 10. And they'll go rather quickly, 10 is a large number to think about tonight, I know, so no apologies up front, but we wanna do this in one gathering, okay? So we are looking at heresies which aim to distort, or at least their outcome is to distort, the person of Jesus. So understanding these heresies and why they are heresies will help us grow in sound Christology. The first one. The first of the 10, Ebioniteism. Ebioniteism. Here's the claim of this heresy. Jesus is only human and not divine. That's the essence of this heresy. Ebionitism would say Jesus is only human and not divine. Well, we immediately realize that not only is this an early heresy, it hasn't exactly gone away, has it? So let's think about that claim for a moment. Jesus is only human and not divine. Well, there are plenty of people who believe that. So the spirit of Ebionitism, let's call it, is alive and well. Because people who believe that Jesus is a historical person might refuse to grant him the status as the son of God. They might say, well, he was a good teacher. He was inspired by various things. Ebionidism believes that he is only human. And so even if he seemed to do great things, he was empowered by the Holy Spirit. He himself was not divine. One writer puts it this way, that Ebionidism sought to situate Jesus within the context of Judaism, and by analogy, saw him like one of the great prophets of Israel. They were only human and not divine, and Jesus is like that. A great teacher with amazing insight, even empowered by the Holy Spirit, but let's not ascribe deity to him. Well, of course, the problem here is this heresy ignores the testimony of the Gospels, which highlight the deity of Jesus and the apostles who proclaim the deity of Jesus. So the biblical correction here is that though Ebionidism says Jesus is only human and not divine, the correction is to say the Bible teaches, especially in the New Testament Gospels, that Jesus is both human and divine and we are not given some sort of option to choose between them. Do we want a divine Jesus or do we want a human Jesus? Ebionidism goes the heretical route of denying his deity, only affirming his humanity. The second heresy, it's pronounced docetism. Docetism. And it comes from a Greek word that means to appear like, but not to actually be. And here's the essence of this heresy. Docetism means Jesus only appeared to have a physical body. So the appearance, or what seemed to be the case, was his humanity. But it wasn't real. It wasn't actually physically in the flesh. Docetism, he only appeared to have a physical body. So this, the problem here, is that this heresy denies to Jesus a genuine humanity. He wasn't really human. He just has the semblance of, the appearance of, humanity. It seems that the Apostle John in 1 John chapter 4 is addressing this kind of heresy, at least in its early seed form, though the term docetism was not something used in the first century, but later came to be a label describing this kind of heresy. So when you hear in 1 John chapter 4 that these people who are teaching falsely are those going around and denying that Jesus has come in the flesh, It's this kind of heresy. So in the early centuries of the church, we can notice in these first two heresies, there were heresies that denied to Jesus his divinity. And there was a heresy that denied to Jesus his humanity. You could err on either side, couldn't you? You need it instead, biblically, to make the important correction that Jesus is both truly divine and truly human. And the Ebionites only wanted to see him as a man. And those who were Docetists, they only affirmed his deity. They denied that he was actually, genuinely in the flesh. Ignatius is an early church father who speaks to this heresy. He says in one of his letters that Jesus is, quote, both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God. Ignatius is trying to toe that careful line with his words, isn't he? Avoiding the error of denying his humanity, avoiding the error of denying his deity, seeking with his language to affirm and confess both. The third heresy, is called Sebelianism. Sebelianism. And the claim of this is that the sun is a mode of God. This heresy is sometimes known as modalism. Sebelianism or modalism. The word Sebelianism is based on a guy. He lived in the third century AD. His name was Sebelius. What an unfortunate legacy to have your name as part of the word identifying a heresy to reject. But that's this guy's legacy. Sibelius was a theologian in the third century AD, and he taught that God is one person who appears in various forms, but not all at the same time. So the person of God would be the Father creating the world, and then he would become the Son redeeming sinners, and then he would take on the mode of the Holy Spirit. But he would deny that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternally and entirely. Instead, Sibelius argued, and Sibelianists believed, that God is one person acting in three different modes. Sometimes people try to illustrate the Trinity in ways that unfortunately adopt the error of modalism or subalienism. Here's what I mean. They might say, well, you know, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, difficult for our human minds to comprehend. It's just like water. Water can be gas, water can be liquid, and water can be solid. See, Trinity. No. Because water is not all of those things at the same time. Water would have to move into a form of liquid to solid, or from liquid or solid to gas. And that's modalism. You see, so we want to recognize that trying to comprehend the existence of the Father, Son, and Spirit, eternally one God, three persons, has challenges in the way that we speak. And Sabellianism is a heresy, believing that the Son is simply a mode of God. And what this would mean is that the Father essentially dies on the cross, except it's just in the mode of the Son. And then the Son is poured out upon the New Testament church at Pentecost, but we just call that the Spirit. Just different modes or forms of the one person. Well, that's not what Christians confess. That is not what the early church fathers believed. That is not what the creeds and councils solidified. Christians confess that God eternally exists, not as one person in different modes, but as one being of three persons eternally. Always Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Subalienism, also known as modalism, is a heresy. The fourth heresy is called subordinationism. You can hear that word subordinate in it. Subordinationism, sometimes this is known as Arianism. A-R-I-A-N-I-S-M, Arianism. Subordinationism was popularized by a man named Arius in the 3rd century AD and into the 4th century when he was still alive. He was an Alexandrian presbyter. He was teaching that the Father alone is God. So here's what I think the essence of subordinationism is. The Son is created by the Father. That's the essence of it. The son is created by the father. Now you can understand why that would mean subordination. Because if the son is a thing that is made, then the son is inferior to the father. How could he not be? The father would be supreme over him. He would be eternal in his essence. But that wouldn't be true of the son. The son would be a thing that was created. So the son is created by the father. Arius taught this and many people followed him. He said in one of his most famous lines, there was a time when the son was not. There was a time when he was not. As one writer recounted the history, Arius had people around him and wrote songs together, chanting in streets, no less, the heresy of Arianism. But they didn't believe it was. They believed they were proclaiming Christian truth about Jesus. The Son was simply made by the Father. Well, this is a denial of the eternality of the Son. This is a huge problem. And if Jesus is a thing that is made, then Jesus is subordinate to the Father because He is a creature entirely, and not Creator. But the Bible teaches that the Son, the Word that became flesh, is the Word that was before all made things. You get this from John 1. You get this in Colossians 1. You get this from a myriad of other places. But in those two chapters especially, it is clear that of the things God has made, the Word or the Son is not one of those, but rather by Him and for Him, and even as the creator of agency Himself, the Son, is prior to all made things. Arianism has not gone away. You've heard of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses adopt the heresy of Arianism. also known as subordinationism. They believe that Jesus is not eternal like the Father, but rather Jesus, the Son, was made at a point in time. So there was a time when he was not, and there was a time when he came into being. Subordinationism does not square with Christian doctrine. We proclaim in concert with not only the New Testament's teaching about the person of Jesus, but in consistency with the cloud of witnesses after the apostles throughout the history of the church that have upheld the truth that the Son is eternal as the Father, and there is no insubordination in the Trinity. So subordinationism is heresy. The fifth one, the fifth heresy, is called adoptionism. Adoptionism is the idea that the sun became divine at a later point in his earthly ministry. It's as if God adopted the sun and granted to him deity. So the sun was not always divine, but in that wonderful, gracious work of God adopting the sun, the sun becomes divine. Here's the essence of adoptionism. The sun's deity was granted during his earthly life. Adoptionists don't always agree on the point of when it was granted, but the essence of it is that his son's deity was granted during his earthly life. One of the common moments that you will hear adoptionists point to is the baptism of Jesus. because of how significant that is as a launching of his earthly ministry with John the Baptist role there and all the people coming to the Jordan to be baptized. Adoptionism is the heresy that the son's deity was granted during his earthly life. Here's one of the problems we could identify then. We would be saying that his humanity preceded his deity. How weird is that? How weird is that? That is not the biblical ordering of things. That's not the doctrinal precision of things. The Christian believes that the Son has been eternally divine and then took to himself a human nature without ceasing to be divine. But adoptionism says that the humanity of Jesus came first. And then as Jesus was born, and as he grows, and then as he ministers, at some point in his earthly life, maybe his baptism, he's granted deity. So adoptionists would say something like, Jesus is divine and human. But they'd say his humanity came first and his deity had to be given to him. So once you start zooming in on adoptionism, you realize that's not good. This is not what we want to say. This is not in keeping with Christian doctrine. Adoptionism is a heresy. Instead, as Christians, we want to say, in biblical correction of it, that the Son is eternally divine. And then in the fullness of time, takes to himself a human nature without ceasing to be divine. Number six. See, we're halfway through, all right? Number six. Number six is Apollinarianism. This is named after a guy, Apollinarius. Again, his legacy is his name is tucked into the title of the heresy, not the way you want to go down in history. But Apollinarianism, Apollinarius lived in Laodicea and he was a bishop, which means he has some influence and some leadership among Christians. And as a bishop in Laodicea, the fourth century AD, he believed, and I think we could say the essence of it is this, Jesus had a human body, but a divine mind and spirit, not a human mind. So it's as if there's a body, just a body, possessed by a divine mind and spirit. So Apollinaris believed Jesus had a human body, but a divine mind and spirit. The danger here is failing to understand what a genuine humanity involves. A genuine humanity involves both body and mind. both soul and mind, both body and spirit, human will, consciousness, growth, maturation. We want to avoid the semblance of, well, there's just sort of a shell of a body. So the incarnation kind of gave this body, but then that body, you know, that's just divine mind and spirit doing everything. Apollinarianism denies to Jesus a complete humanity. We don't want to do that. We don't want to go the route of denying to Jesus a genuine humanity. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote in the fourth century AD, and he addressed this particular heresy. He says, essentially, that if Jesus lacks a mind and will, in what sense can you call him a man? He contended, and I quote, that if Christ has a soul and yet is without a human mind, how is he a man? For a man is not a mindless animal. The biblical correction to this is that in the incarnation, a genuine humanity is assumed to the Son of God. And in this genuine humanity, there is growth, There is learning. There is maturation and temptation. There is a genuine humanity where there is a will and obedience. We want to avoid the error of Apollinarianism, which would say that Jesus has this body, this shell, But then we don't want to go any further than that. No, instead, we want to set aside that heresy and say, how should we conceive of genuine humanity? Because we know that Jesus took flesh and became like us. The seventh heresy is called Eudacheanism. Eudacheanism, in its essence, means Jesus's divine nature absorbed his human nature. So Eutychianism, named after a monk named Eutychus of Constantinople. See, these are not people who are like God denying teachers outside the church. There's a lot of heresy that arises within the ranks of churches. And so guarding sound doctrine and being careful about how we talk about Jesus, this is something that not just we are guarding against unbelievers who say wrong things, we wanna be thoughtful as believers that we say what is right. Because here's an example of a monk named Eutychus, who lives from 380 to approximately 456 AD. And Eutychianism believes that Jesus has one nature. It's just that his divine nature kind of absorbed his human nature and formed some kind of third thing. I think the best analogy to try to get at this is mixing colors. If you start out with blue and then you add yellow, you don't end up with blue or yellow, you end up with green. That's right, you know your colors. Blue and yellow then mix together and become something else. The idea of Eudaicheanism is Jesus has a divine nature that then becomes mixed and absorbs his human nature so that he has one nature, but it's not anything like it was. It's important in the Christian creeds that language that is used is that Jesus is of both divine and human natures that are unmixed. undiluted, that the divine nature doesn't negate the human nature, and that the human nature doesn't nullify the divine nature. There is simultaneously a human and divine nature for Jesus. So, Eudaicheanism is wrong. The divine nature of Jesus did not just absorb his human nature and create some third thing like mixing colors would. Instead, we want to insist from the biblical record that Jesus' deity is unchanged. undiluted, and that he takes to himself a truly human nature, and we affirm both. Number eight. Number eight is the heresy of monothelitism. Monothelitism is a word that means one will. Monothelitism at its essence means Jesus did not have a human will, only a divine will. Jesus did not have a human will, only a divine will. That's what this teaches. Monothelitism. And yet we recognize that as the Son of God experiences temptation and as He overcomes the tests of the evil one and others around Him, and as Jesus submits to moral righteousness and embodies a sinless life in His heart, in His words, in His actions, there is a genuine human will in view. And I think you see it most profoundly when He says to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, Not my will, but yours be done, a further expression of submission. So monothelitism is a heresy because its problem is that it denies to Jesus genuine humanity. And genuine humanity involves a will where choices are made and obedience is accomplished. And Jesus does this with a genuine humanity, making genuine choices, achieving genuine victory. Monothelitism says Jesus only had one will, the divine will. The Bible teaches that in the incarnation, a genuine human nature is taken to the sun. And that genuine human will is a humanity like ours, mind and will and body. The ninth heresy is called Nestorianism, again named after a guy, another person going down in history for thinking wrong things about Jesus. Nestorianism is from a man named Nestorius. He was a bishop in Constantinople in the fifth century. So I'm just wanting to recognize he's not somebody who is this atheist figure declared an enemy of the church and that nobody was going to listen to. He's in a position of leadership, he's got influence and authority, and as a fifth century bishop, Nestorius believed Jesus does have two natures, but two persons are required. So here's the essence of this heresy. Nestorianism teaches that Christ's two natures mean that he is two persons. Two natures must mean two persons. This is what Nestorius believed. Cyril of Alexandria is an early church father who combated this error of Nestorianism. He says, and I quote, the two natures are brought together in a true union of the one Christ, the one son of God. while retaining their respective characteristics. So I think he's saying Jesus is truly divine, truly human, and all the properties and things that are respective to those, that is unchanged with a genuine deity, a genuine humanity, but united in one person. So Nestorianism says if he has two natures, that means two persons. The Bible says no. There is not the creation of a new person. It is the one person, the Son, possessing two natures, truly and genuinely. So Nestorianism is a heresy because it says not something wrong about Christ's natures that he had, you know, a different number than we would have confirmed. He says two natures. It's the implication Nestorius drew that the two natures must mean two persons. The Bible teaches, and Christians confess, one person, two natures. That is the person of Jesus in his incarnation. And then lastly, the last heresy, canonicism. Canonicism. At its essence, this teaches that at the Incarnation, the Son laid aside His divine attributes. At His Incarnation, the Son laid aside His divine attributes. And one of the reasons someone might conclude this is a misunderstanding of a part of Philippians. I'll speak to that in a moment. but also something that might seem a natural perspective from our human vantage point, where they see Jesus walking in one place at one time. They listen to Him say things like, who touched me? After the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of His garment. Or He says something like, only the Father knows, not the Son nor the angels in heaven, the day and the hour of His return. When they hear things like that, or when they see Him, or when He is weak, and needs sleep and can suffer and die. Those things don't look like deity. Those things look like humanity. And so one of the conclusions people have sometimes drawn is, well, then at the incarnation, he must have laid aside his divine attributes. when really what they should be noticing is he has a genuine humanity evidenced by all of this particular set of examples we could point to. Genuinely human, genuinely human, look at this, look at that. But it's an unnecessary and theologically disastrous conclusion to say that he must have laid aside his divine attributes. One of the reasons biblically that somebody might try to say this is from something that Paul says in Philippians 2. In Philippians 2 verse 7 Paul says that Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. And some people have said emptied himself. What did that mean? Now I think Paul explains what emptying himself looks like in the very next phrases. He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. So I think he's saying the emptying of himself looks like the Son of God incarnate. A wrong implication would be to say he emptied himself of his divine attributes. The text doesn't say that, but sometimes people imply that. That is unfortunate and wrong. Instead, we should say that Jesus would not ever empty himself of his divine attributes because God can never un-God himself. There is not a part of God or parts to God that he can switch off and on like switches. Somebody might think to themselves, well, Jesus in the incarnation, he's kind of switching off omnipresence, switching off omniscience, switching off his omnipotence. So he's laying aside some of these divine attributes. Not only does the Bible not teach that, God is not made up of individual attributes or parts that can come and go. In fact, what would we say about the eternality of God if the son who is eternally divine can in some way be something that he isn't, or cease to be something that he is, that's the way to say it, cease to be something that he is for a time. According to his deity, I want you to think very carefully with me here. According to his deity, the son was never less than he always had been. How could it be otherwise? God is unchangeable. And if we confess that Jesus is divine, that his truly divine nature is therefore unchangeable because it's the fullness of the divine essence and all that it would mean for him to be God, then John Calvin is right. when he says the following in his institutes. And this is where our brains just melt into the floor. Okay, here's what Calvin says. The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven. He was pleased to be conceived miraculously in the Virgin's womb, to live on the earth and hang upon the cross, and yet always filled the world as from the beginning. So there's Calvin just trying to help us realize that in the true humanity of Jesus, we're not fiddling with deity. We're not trying to say, well, what attributes? Can we switch off and what does it look? Instead, we say, that Jesus, according to his deity, was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and all the things are what it means for God to be God. Because if we start denying things to Jesus of what properly belonged to God, we're in theologically troubled waters. Those aren't the waters we wanna be in. And we also want to say that according to his genuine humanity, He's not omnipresent. Those disciples walked with him, he was here, he was with them as they walked here, walked there, and he was tired. He didn't seem like a godlike figure having to go to sleep and eat and thirst or he was gonna die. He could suffer and experience pain. He had to grow, he had to learn. There's a genuine humanity. But we don't take those observations and say, well, he must have emptied himself of divine attributes. He did no such thing. It would not be possible for God to do that. And should the son have ever even hypothetically done that, in what sense does he remain divine? In what sense? So, canonicism makes the error of saying that at His incarnation, the Son laid aside His divine attributes. The biblical correction is, at His incarnation, the Son ceases in no way to be divine in any way that we say divinity is true. He takes to Himself instead a genuinely human nature, and we confess both and all of their respective properties and attributes. Calvin is right. The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven without abandoning heaven. And it gives us so much to think about in how we recognize the truth of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament about Jesus. So with these 10 heresies, and not even an exhaustive list of heresies, but you can see what people are trying to do. They might be taking part of a scripture, and they're trying to reason about it, and they're saying, well, I think that this must mean this. or they're taking some sort of mystery, or what seems to them to be a contradiction, and they say, well, I guess if it's this, then it can't also be this. And you see that heresy, especially with the names I've given, can even arise within the ranks of well-meaning, professing Christians in the church's history, who are trying to not lead people astray, and yet, at the same time, veered into dangerous and troubled waters. When we read things like John 1, We see that the Son of God is the Word that preceded all created things, that it was by Him and for Him all things are made, and that He Himself is not any of those made things, and that this Son who is eternal takes to Himself a human nature, a genuine humanity, not just a shell of a body, but a real genuine human nature, and that Jesus is then both truly God And he is truly man. He is forever the God-man. The incarnation was not an experiment. When Jesus dies, on the third day, he is raised bodily from the dead. And he is raised the perishable putting on imperishable, and the mortal putting on immortality. Does mortal putting on immortality, is that with respect to his deity? According to the eternality of what it means for God to be God, he's always been immortal. Always the source of abundant life. It's never been anything other than that. But his genuine humanity? He was born with a mortal humanity. And when he was raised from the dead, he is raised with perishable, putting on imperishable as the first fruits of those who shall be raised like him. So the incarnation is forever. The Son, at the Incarnation, shall forever now be the God-Man. The Father does not have a human nature. The Spirit does not have a human nature. So God is not a person with various modes. He doesn't just appear to have genuine flesh. There's no situation where humanity preceded his deity. We've got to allow a plethora of biblical texts and not just someone's well-meaning but wrong instinct about one to undo a lot of creedal affirmations. The creeds of the church matter. Somebody once said, the creeds are not higher than the Bible, but they're higher than you. And I think that's a really insightful statement. It is no safe thing to say. Well, and how I conceive of Jesus, I know that, you know, in Nicaea, here's what they confessed, or with the Athanasian Creed, here's what they believe, but here's what I think. We don't care what you think. If it deviates from what the church of Jesus Christ confesses, then you are adopting the spirit of the Antichrist. You see the danger here? So we're not trying to be innovative. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're not trying to say, all right, let's start from square one. What can we say and garner from the scriptures about who Jesus is? We come from a long line of people who have thought long and hard about the person and work of Jesus and the doctrines of the Christian faith. And when we think about the subject of Christology, the doctrine of Jesus, the doctrine of Christ, we are dealing with those essential matters. so that people who reject what the Bible teaches about Jesus and what believers throughout the ages have confessed about Jesus, they would be rightly deemed heretics. Not a light word to throw around, but it just further confirms what we concluded as we opened. We concluded in the opening of the, which sounds like a weird thing to say concluding in the opening, but in the introduction, as we were drawing that part to a close, we were recognizing afresh, Jesus is not whoever we want him to be. And he's not whoever this well-meaning teacher or preacher calls him and labels him. He is who He has revealed Himself to be, who the apostles teach Him to be, and who the faithful church throughout the ages have confessed and written of Him to be, as they have interpreted faithfully the written words. So therefore, we want to come with hearts of eagerness and openness to the saints and theologians of the church, and to the scriptures which are divine and errant and inspired, that we might say, Lord, teach me who you are. Guide me faithfully as I understand more about who Jesus is. Because these are 10 ways we can go wrong. These are a lot of multi-syllable words. We don't have to remember any of these words. What we have to do is recognize that what they're teaching is astray from the biblical record, and the longer we are disciples, the more committed we need to be than ever to rightly think about Jesus and the doctrines of Christology, and that in rightly thinking of His person and work, our hearts would be filled with delight in Him and true worship of Him. That honors God. It blesses our souls. It leaves a faithful stewardship for the saints to come. Let's pray.