We begin this morning to consider the work of Jesus Christ. In previous Sundays, we've considered the work of God and the nature of God in, for instance, creation and in providence, how God superintends all things that come to pass. And we consider the work of God in election, the positive side of predestination, as well as the dark side of predestination, which is called reprobation. And here we consider now beginning the work of Christ. How is it that Jesus saves us? How is it that we are made right with God once more? We need a mediator, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, who is like us. Who is man like us, because it is man who has sinned against God, and it is man who is guilty before God. But we need a savior, a mediator, who, though like us, is unlike us. because man cannot bear the wrath of God. And so we need a mediator who is both God and man. And that's what we begin to see here in Article 18 of the Belgic Confession. I want to walk through the Belgic paragraph by paragraph. It's very clear. This is basic Christianity, all right? And you'll see how basic it is in a moment. In paragraph one of article 18, we read that God fulfilled the promise which he had made to the early fathers by the mouth of his holy prophets when he sent his only and eternal son into the world at the time set by him. At the appointed time, as Galatians 4.4 says, Jesus Christ was sent into the world to be born under the law, to be born of a woman. And we noted this last week, how in the very beginning of time, in Genesis 3, remember that illustration, as butchered as it is by my hands, right, of the seed, the promise in Genesis 3, 15, becomes a little sapling, all right, a little seedling, and then it becomes a little tree, and then It grows into a full oak tree, all right, in the New Testament at the arrival of Jesus Christ. The promise remains the same, all right? There's not a different promise. It's the same. It's one and the same promise. And at every stage of redemptive history, what is the call from God upon his people? To believe that promise and to be saved by that promise. So in Genesis, At the fall, Adam and Eve were to believe and to hold on, to cling on to that promise that God would send a mediator who was born, who would be born, of a woman who would crush the head of the serpent. Believing that promise, they were saved. And in Abraham's time, that promise is repeated. We hear an echo of it, right? That in you, all the nations of the world will be blessed, in Genesis 12, 3. And then we continue to see that promise extended and developed and it continues to grow, right? We see it in the time of the tabernacle that God would come to dwell with his people. And that's what the tabernacle is a sign of. And we see more of the promise given to us in the story of David and Goliath. That here is the champion who would crush the enemy of God's people. Right? It's a promise that is continually made and repeated in the Old Testament. And you need to see, and I noted this last week, that you need to see that oftentimes when we see Genesis 3.15 and then we see the fulfillment in the New Testament, we think, oh, this oak tree is not the acorn. But boy, they look different. Yeah, they look different, but it's one and the same thing. It's not a different entity here, right? Where does the acorn, where does the oak tree come from? It comes from the acorn that had to develop in an organic, progressive way throughout history, throughout redemptive history, all right? So we need to understand that it's not a different promise. It's not a different story. It's not a different way of salvation. It's not a different God. It's not a different gospel when we get to the New Testament. This has great import, as I noted last week, for the sacraments. for how we think about baptism, right? Well, in the Old Testament, it was circumcision to, you know, national Israel. In the New Testament, it's spiritual. No, it's one in the same way of salvation, of God relating to his people and bringing his people to relate to himself, all right? So it's a promise that's made and repeated in the Old Testament. And that's what the confession is getting at, right? That God made a promise and actually fulfilled it. God, our God, is the promise-making and promise-keeping God. There are many passages we can look at. Keep your Bibles handy and open. Let's look at simply two passages here, right? Look at 2 Samuel 7, verse 12. 2 Samuel 7, verse 12. This is a paradigmatic text in the Old Testament, in all of the Bible, that records for us God's promise to David. And of the many aspects of this promise, he is simply repeating, right, the original, the mother promise that gives birth to every other promise, Genesis 3.15. In 2 Samuel 7, verse 12, this is what God 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. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men. with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you." Now, if you read this on a human level, who's it talking about? What is God referring to? Well, you could say, well, he's referring to Solomon, obviously, because Solomon is the son of David. Solomon comes from the body of David, right? He's David's offspring. And who builds the temple? it's not david it's the man of blood right it's solomon and that's his royal name uh having to do with peace um shalom oh all right solomon uh the one who enjoys peace in the kingdom and you need to have peace in order to build a temple Right? That's the lesson from Solomon's life that we understand. And yet, is it really Solomon who's being referred to here? No, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater David, the greater Solomon, the greater son of Abraham. It is Jesus. who will be given to Israel from the loins of Abraham and the loins of David. And it is Jesus who will establish the kingdom of God. It is Jesus who will build the temple, the house of God, in which God dwells with his people. Psalm 132, a second passage here. More could be said and we will in a moment. Psalm 132. Verse 11, the Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. Right here is a promise that's made on a condition of faithfulness. And we know the history of Israel. It was not a history of faithfulness. It was a history of faithlessness. And so who is being spoken of here? Well, it's there's a human referent which is the the line of the Canes of Judah They didn't obey God. They weren't faithful to God and And yet there is one true Israelite, there is one who is the remnant of Israel, a remnant of one, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is the Lord Jesus who will be the promised Redeemer Son who will come from the woman, all right? The Old Testament, in so many passages, speaks clearly of the incarnation. All right, I've just completed a paragraph of my notes and I have three pages here, so we have to move on. Paragraph two of the Belgic Confession says that God not only made a promise, but he fulfilled the promise in sending Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God. He became a man. And we see so many passages here in the New Testament that are referred and alluded to, quoted by the Belgic. We can start with the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. Matthew one, Luke three testify that this one, and this is why genealogies are so important, right? You can simply, you know, skip over genealogies in your scripture reading. They're unimportant. Oh, I can catch up, right? 1 Chronicles, the first 10 chapters has 10 chapters worth of genealogies. I can catch up with my scripture reading by skipping these genealogies. Genealogies have such an important function in the scriptures because they tell us that God is going to fulfill his promise in time and in space in history. Right? Jesus doesn't come out of nowhere. He is from the line of David, from the line of Abraham. So we can look at the genealogies. We can look at John 1, 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We can look at 1 Timothy 3, 16. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh. And then we can look at what 1 John says here in chapter four, verse two. There are a lot of spirits, a lot of teachings, a lot of false teachings in this world. One of the marks of a Christian In john's first letter is not just that you're living right Living in the light and not living in sin, but you're living morally before the lord following his law That's certainly one mark a second mark is are you loving the brothers? We're going to talk a little bit more about that later this uh day when we talk about christian hospitality But a third mark is what is your doctrine? Are you confessing? Jesus came in the flesh verse two chapter four first john By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. You cannot be a Christian if you do not confess the incarnation of the Son of God. I wanna draw out a little bit more what this incarnation is from the budge of confession. What is the nature of this incarnation? We'll look at this in more detail in article 19 next week when we look at kind of a more systematic theological view of the incarnation. But for now, notice what the Belgic Confession says. He was made in the likeness of man, assuming a real human nature, that is taking on a real human nature with all its weaknesses except for sin. A very simple definition of the incarnation is simply this. The eternal Son of God became man with two things foundationally have to be in place. Without sin and without ceasing to be God. The eternal Son of God became a man without sin and without ceasing to be God. Look at two passages in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 2 and then Hebrews chapter 4 Hebrews 2 verse 14 says this, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood he himself likewise partook of the same things, that is Jesus, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. But notice the first part of that verse, Jesus, because the children, because we, the people of God, partake of flesh and blood, that is the mode of our existence, for Jesus to be like us, he has to partake of flesh and blood. When Jesus comes into the world, he is not a mere spirit. He is a true man. Verse 17 of chapter 2. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God. In order for Jesus to be a high priest, our high priest, he has to be made flesh and blood, like us in every way. You cannot have the great high priesthood of Jesus without his incarnation. You cannot, in fact, even have Jesus Christ as king without his incarnation. Remember what we've said in times past, God appointed a man to sit at his right hand. Adam squandered that. And Jesus takes up that mantum that was promised to mankind. There is a man at God's right hand, even the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll write more on that in future weeks. Hebrews chapter 4, a few chapters over. Hebrews 4 verse 15. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." You see, the two foundational stones are in place. Jesus became like us. Jesus partook of our flesh and blood without sin. Without ceasing to be God without sin and without ceasing to be God it is erroneous Beloved to say that Jesus emptied himself of his divinity right and he was a mere man. That's a heresy No, Jesus was God in the flesh But he was God in the flesh without ever ever sinning without the taint the slightest taint of sin He was like us without sin. The other aspects of the incarnation we need to note is that Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He's conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Confession here taking up the language of the Apostles' Creed, right? Our new birth is similar to the physical birth of Jesus. Jesus was born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. He wasn't born, he wasn't conceived with male participation. This was a direct, unmediated conception where the Holy Spirit, we're told in the gospel accounts, overshadows Mary. and she is now with child conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 7 14 therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel the incarnation is a work of the Spirit supernaturally wrought by the Holy Spirit in which the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary and preserves Jesus from conception on from the taint of sin. But it's important to note that this is happening in Mary. And it's not just that Jesus is created in Mary, but that Jesus is born of Mary, born of her, who is his mother. And that's why we can say, in a very real sense, without fear of becoming Roman Catholic, that Mary is the mother of Jesus. Jesus had a mother. Her name was Mary, and she was a virgin. There's another aspect of the Incarnation. We'll come back to the Virgin Mary in a minute. There's another aspect of the incarnation, which is that it's an incarnation of humility, an incarnation of humility. This is important to note, lest we skip by this very quickly, that for God to take on flesh, God, who is most glorious, who lives in inaccessible light, for him to take on flesh is to necessarily veil his glory, right? That Jesus became a man is already humbling for God. And it's not just that he became a man, right, in what theologians call the divine condescension, that Jesus condescended to us, he lowered himself, is that he who was Lord over all became a servant to all, in the words of Philippians 2, to die for us sinners in obedience to God, And not just any death, but the most ignominious death, death on a cross. It's an incarnation of humility, a humbling of God in and of itself. And then continuing on in the Belgic Confession in the third paragraph, all right, we note that it is a comprehensive incarnation. We're talking about the incarnation of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Does that mean that Jesus just takes on a human body, right, but he has a divine will and nothing more? No, we read in the third paragraph of Belgic 18, and he not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned, but also a real human soul in order that he might be a real human being. For since the soul had been lost as well as the body, he had to assume them both to save them both together. He had to take them on together. In Adam's fall, both the human body and the human soul were lost and fallen from the glory of God. And early on in the church, the church realized that it needed to confess that it wasn't just the body that was taken on by God, the son, right? It wasn't just the human body, but a human soul. Gregory of Nazianzus, who lived in the fourth century, And the 300 says, I'm paraphrasing Gregory here, whatever was not taken up by Christ in his incarnation is not redeemed by Christ. So if you confess that only the body is taken up by Jesus, then only the body is redeemed by Jesus. All right, not the soul, not the mind, not the will. No, but as the Belgic puts it, as scripture puts it, if man is to be redeemed, all of man must be redeemed. Christ must be incarnated as a full man, not merely with a human body, but with a human mind, with human emotions, with a human will, with a human soul. Docetism. Thastatism was an early church heresy that sought to preserve Christ's divinity. Right? But in trying to say that God the Son was fully God, right? Jesus was fully divine. They denied his humanity, right? No, no, no. He can't have human emotions. He can't have a human will. He can't have a human soul, right? Because all of these things are tainted. And we'll get to docetism in a moment here. But the early church said, no, he has to have a human body, a human soul, human emotions, a human will, a human mind. You see that in the Garden of Gethsemane, right? Not my will, but thine will be done. No, Jesus, in all things, in all things, what a comfort it is to know that, became like us. Jesus looked like his Father in heaven, but he looked like his mother, Mary. If you would have had Jesus, the child in Jesus and Jesus' mother, Mary, side by side, you would have said, oh, I see the resemblance here. Jesus had our flesh and blood. He was a man. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was tired. He slept. He was in pain. He suffered. He died. And guess what else? He grew up. He matured. Jesus learned things. even as children learn things, right? We think of Jesus in a kind of docetic way, right? Jesus was born knowing calculus. No, this is not a real human Jesus. We're told that Jesus grew in the stature and in the favor of men. He matured. Mark Jones, in his book, Knowing Jesus, says very well, I think, that he, in studying the Old Testament, in studying the Torah, in studying the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, the writings and the prophets, he would have understood what his purpose was. He would have read the story of David and Goliath, and he would have said, as a six-year-old, seven-year-old, who was no doubt a very precocious child, he would have said, This is talking about me. This is talking about me. This tabernacle with the sacrifices, this must be me. Isaiah is suffering servants and he was crushed for our iniquities. It was the will of the Lord to crush him. As a child, Jesus would have read this and he would have said, this is my mission that my Father in heaven has given to me. And he would have understood what his purpose was from the great redemptive stories of the Old Testament, so that when he gets to be 12 years old in the temple, Luke records for us that he's debating, he's talking with the Rabbis in the temple. And he is... He is marveling those teachers of the law because of his knowledge. Where did that knowledge come from? From close study of scripture. Because Jesus studied. He had to learn. He was a real man. He was a human like us. And then as we come to the end of our time here, what is the repeated testimony of scripture in the fourth paragraph of the Belgian confession, right? And we don't have time to go through all of these passages there, but the point is to simply overwhelm you so that you would see. that this is the unbroken, repeated testimony of Scripture. That Jesus is not just God, but He is fully God and fully man. The promised son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of the woman, come into flesh. He is true Jew, a true Israelite, and He is a true man. You need to see the big picture here of what God is doing. God in mercy draws near to us. And we've said this in times past. God is always drawing near to his people to save his people, to draw them near to him in the garden. Right? God could have cast off humanity, could have said, I'm done with you. You've aligned yourself with the serpent. I want nothing to do with you. And yet, God promises a Redeemer. In the tabernacle, God draws near to His people. And in Jesus Christ, God draws near to us so that we say, as the very last paragraph says, in this way, He is truly our Emmanuel. God is with us. As Mary holds in her arms this baby, this child whom she names Joshua, She can look in his face and say, God has not abandoned us. God is with us. As this little boy grows up, all his neighbors, all in Israel can say that child represents God is with us because he is God. Come in the flesh. As Luke records those early songs of Zechariah, of Mary, of Elizabeth, Jesus, You see, has been appointed as a sign for the fall and rise of many in Israel. Israel was to look at Jesus and say, there is God. He is with us. That God would walk the streets, the dusty streets of Jerusalem, of Bethany, of Galilee. God came down to be with us, to dwell with us. As John 1.14 says, to tabernacle with us. What are some consequences of this doctrine? We've said it before. I'll say it again. You cannot be a Christian if you deny that Jesus has come into flesh. Right? If you simply say, well, those are nice stories. The idea of Jesus is so heartwarming. It's so inspirational. You're not a Christian. If you deny that Jesus has come into flesh, as 1 John 4, 1, 2, and 3 says, then you're not a Christian. This is the problem with docetism, coming back to this early church heresy. In seeking to preserve Christ's divinity, they falsely believed that the human body was so evil, right? That if Christ had taken on our flesh, he would have been tainted with sin. No, you see, scripture tells us he became like us without sin and without ceasing to be God. Hebrews 7, 26 says, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. Has Jesus come into flesh? Yes or no. If you deny that Jesus has come into flesh, then you deny that God loved His people and that God sent Jesus into flesh to die for His people. If you deny that Jesus has come into flesh, you deny that there is a mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, as 1 Timothy 2.5 says. If you deny that Jesus has come into flesh, then you deny that God has fulfilled his promise to send the seed of the woman, the son of Abraham, the son of David. And you deny that God has accomplished salvation in Jesus. Because if Jesus has not come into flesh, beloved, if Jesus was merely a spirit, a spirit cannot be crucified. A spirit cannot shed its blood for us. A spirit cannot, doesn't have a body that can be broken and pierced on the cross. which means that we are still in our sins. This is the weightiest of issues, beloved. We must confess always, as scripture confesses, as the faithful church has confessed, that Jesus Christ has come into flesh. Two more consequences for us. Because Jesus Christ has come into flesh, matter matters. Matter matters. The material world The physical creation is not to be neglected as something evil, as something sinful, inherently. Physicality, right? Physicality is not inherently evil. Right? To say this, and you hear a lot of this in our day, the body is a prison of the soul and things like that, right? To say this is to fall back into the heresy of docetism. Docetism comes from the Greek word doceo, to appear, to seem, right? That Jesus was simply a ghost in his humanity. We don't believe, we reject wholeheartedly this heresy. How could physical creation and the human body be evil if Christ entered this creation and became flesh? It can't be inherently evil. There is a new kind of narcissism and asceticism, monasticism in our day, right, that says, don't touch that, don't eat that, that's morally evil, that's bad for you, as if sin lives in material things. No, sin lives in our hearts. It's not what you put in your mouth that corrupts you. It's what comes out of your heart that is corrupting of humankind. So beware of the docetism of our day. Matter matters. And God tells us that he has come not to destroy the works of his father, but to destroy the works of the devil, not to destroy physical creation, but to destroy our sin. And then thirdly, The incarnation sets us up to talk about the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. Without the incarnation, you don't have a priesthood that can save us. But glory be to God that we have in the heavens above a priest who is both like us because he's a man, he's a human, but he's not like us because he's without sin. He is, as Hebrews 4.15 says, as we've read, he is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. That is to say, he understands what you go through. And he doesn't understand what you go through only because he's God and God knows everything with perfect creator knowledge. No, he understands what you go through because he's a man who went through those same things as well. You're stressed out? Do you think Jesus was never stressed out? Do you think Jesus was never anguished in his soul? You think Jesus never suffered physically, spiritually? Do you think Jesus was not tempted as we are? No, it says it right in scripture. He was tempted as we are, but without sin. And the great comfort of the Christian is that we have someone at God's right hand, a great high priest who intercedes for us, who prays for us, unlike you and like me, right? You might say, hey, pastor, could you pray for me? Because I'm going through X, Y, Z. Of course, let's pray right now. But I might not know what you're going through. I might not know what afflictions you're going through, what that's like. But Jesus, Jesus prays not with ignorance, but with full and exact knowledge of our human condition. And thus he can give us strength and mercy and grace in time of need. What a comfort to know that in the heavens above, at God's right hand, we have a great high priest who sympathizes with us because he knows exactly what we go through. We'll leave it there for now and let's pray. Father, help us. to not just confess your truth and your word, Father, in the bud of confession, but to live in light of this glorious doctrine. Hear us, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.