started, and it's been good to be with you. Last night we looked at Hebrews 2 verses 14 and 18. We didn't really do a deep dive into that passage, but we just kind of sought to answer the beginnings of the question, why does it matter that Jesus is fully God, truly God, and fully, truly man. And I told you last night that we were going to have a little bit of a work session this morning. And don't let that scare you. It's going to feel a little bit like school maybe, either at home or in your classroom. But I've printed a resource for you, and what I want us to do is take a little while in these two sessions in the middle. to talk a little bit very quickly about a review of the Trinity. Now, some of you all had a discussion on the Trinity two years ago, I believe, but because of our topic, the doctrine of Christ, we need to at least kind of make sure everyone's generally on the same page about who God is. And then we'll very quickly move into some errors about who people think that Jesus is. And then we'll look together at a very ancient document called the Creed of Chalcedon. And then at our very last session, we're just gonna open the word of God together and look at another passage in Hebrews and seek to make some final application together. Okay, so that's where we're gonna go, all right? If you have a copy of the Bible, which I'm sure you do, open to Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three. Now, some of our schoolroom work this morning is gonna feel a little bit like we're referring less to one particular passage and more to some general information, but very quickly, we're gonna jump back into some passages together. Matthew chapter three, verse 16. Those of you that remember how the book of Matthew or any of the gospels go, will remember that there was a time when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Everybody remember that? Well, I'm gonna read a passage or two about this to you and then use it as a beginning discussion for helping us to understand a little bit about our God, okay? Matthew chapter three, verse 16. When he was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Now, we won't walk through this particular passage together this morning, but the reason that I read it to start off with is, in Jesus' baptism, what do we see? Well, we see a heavenly voice, the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and Jesus, the Son of God, being baptized or raised out of the water. It's one of many passages in the Bible that point to the reality that we worship one God existing eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? We call that what? The Trinity. So I want us to briefly review that. But I think one way for us to review this is to talk for a brief period of time about some wrong views. I remember when I was a child, I grew up in church, my father was, is a pastor. And so I don't remember a time when I wasn't going to church every Lord's Day morning and evening. praying, singing, going to events like this. But I remember laying in my bed one night, and I remember thinking this thought. I thought to myself, boy, Jesus really suffered on the cross. Now, I probably was six, seven, eight, somewhere in there, right? Jesus really suffered on the cross. That must have been really difficult. And then my next thought was, I'm glad that of all the human beings that ever existed, God didn't pick me to be Jesus. I'm glad you're laughing. What I didn't realize in my very early young age was that that's actually a view called adoptionism. I didn't know that. What that view holds is that God exists and there was a moment in time where God picked a human being and sort of made him, baptized him to be the Savior, right? To be the Son. And so I want to take just a little bit of time today to talk about the Trinity and to talk about some wrong views, like adoptionism, so that we can then say, well, what do we actually believe about the person of Jesus Christ? We said this last night, Pastor Riddle reviewed it for us right at the end before we dismissed, right? But Jesus is the eternal son of God. One person existing with two natures. And by the way, Jesus is now, right now, still truly God and truly man. He didn't stop being human. That's another era, right? And I'd love to stop here and talk for the next 30 minutes about why it's so beautiful that Jesus still is fully and truly man, right? You have a full and complete representative. If you're a Christian, you have a full and complete representative. True God and true man wearing your flesh who is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. And if you're in Christ, your salvation is secure. But alas, I've got to move. So what I've done is I've printed these for you. Some of you are going to love this. You're going to think, great papers with words on it. I can read over this. Some of you are going to think, oh, no, this is summer. Why is he doing this? So wherever you are, take one of these. And these are yours. The reason I'm doing this is because I'm actually going to give you a lot of words. And you know what? After this morning's two lectures, and we get into the last one, which is gonna be more of a sermon. These words are less important. I don't actually want you to memorize all of the errors, but I do wanna at least show you some of them so that you kinda know, and don't be embarrassed if you read one of these errors and you think, oh, that's what I thought, right? So let's talk a little bit this morning And then we'll dive back into the Bible. This might sound strange, because I'm going to be less in the text of Scripture for a few moments, but we will get there. But on the... On the first page, on the inside, everyone notice what I've got there. Errors about the Trinity and or the person of Christ. Please make sure you highlight in your mind that these are errors. Don't adopt these views, okay? These are errors. Except I probably should have been more clear at the bottom. There's a quote by a man by the name of Burkoff. That's not an error, by the way. We'll look at that quote. But everything else there are, are errors. And let's just catch up, okay? How many gods are there? One. How many persons is God? Three. Who are those persons? That's right, and we are specifically talking about the second person of the Trinity, the Son, who about 2,000 years ago became man, right? Now, that's a good Trinity review, but let's look at some errors just for a few moments, and some of these have to do specifically with the person of Christ, okay? The first error is something called modalism, okay? And by the way, there are more errors than I've listed here, but modalism is this. God is not three persons eternally, but he's one being that shows up in three different modes or forms over time. In the Old Testament, he was the Father. In the New Testament, at least in the Gospels, he was the Son. And then he eventually shows up in the Book of Acts as the Spirit. Now, what's wrong with that? Well, God is not one being. God who just shows up in different forms or different modes. But some people think that. God is always and forever Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Well, the Nicene Creed, anybody heard of that, the Nicene Creed? In the Nicene Creed, in the first few hundred years of the church, they addressed this particular issue. They said, no, the son is begotten of the father, which is why I love the fact that in many of our Bibles, the word begotten is still used. It's a word we should keep, even though we don't speak that way today, we should keep that word, right? and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. There is a modern-day example of that. There are churches called Oneness Pentecostals, and they think this. They think, no, it's not three persons. It's just one God that shows up, different forms, different modes. Let's go quickly, Arianism. This specifically relates to the person of Christ. The Arians believed that there was a time when Jesus was created by God the Father, or the Son was created by God the Father. And there was a time before he was once created. He was like God, but not equal with God. Well, this is another error, because we've said, how long has the Son been the Son? forever, right? There's a modern day example of the Arians known as the Jehovah's Witness. Anybody ever have a Jehovah's Witness knock on your door, right? They're essentially modern day Arians. They believe that Jesus was created. And when we say created, we don't mean, oh yeah, the Holy Spirit formed a body in Mary's womb. That's not what they mean. They mean that there was a time when the son was not. How we doing? Is everybody okay? Hanging in there? Is this too much? Good, because we're about to get to some bigger words. Subordinationism. Oh, my. Can we handle this? Summer camp, and this man wants to get into these heavy words. Subordinationism. And by the way, some of these definitions are too simple, but I've just tried to make them kind of one-sentence definitions. Subordinationism. Jesus wasn't created, they say. He's always existed. But he's not equal to the Father. The Son is not equal to the Father. What's wrong with that? It's essentially saying Jesus is less God. The Son of God is less God than the Father. Is that true? No. No. Well, the Nicene Creed sought to address that as well. Adoptionism, that was my early heresy as a seven or eight year old, right? God happened to just pick Jesus 2,000 years ago, and thankfully he didn't pick me, because I would hate to die on the cross, right? I know that that sounds almost irreverent to say, but that's actually a view that some people have held, that God kind of picked someone to be the Redeemer, to be the Son of God. Well, then there's another group. Gnosticism looks like g-nosticism, but the G's silent. Gnosticism, and I threw in there something called docetism. There's not gonna be a test on this, by the way. Just trying to show you all the things not to believe so that we can then say, well, what do we believe? This group of people was very broad with lots of different views, but the docetists, essentially, we think that some of the writings in the New Testament, some of John's letters, are specifically pointed at the docetists. They said, you know what, Jesus only seemed to be human, but he wasn't really human, right? Now, think about this. If you're out, you know, you're playing baseball, maybe you're working now, you're beginning to evangelize, you're talking to your friends about the Lord Jesus Christ. In our day, a lot of times people think there was a man named Jesus 2,000 years ago, but he wasn't God. It's just hard for them to believe that Jesus is God. But 2,000 years ago, believing in a spiritual being that was God is not a problem. But the Docetists had this strange view that matter, physical stuff, was bad. And so to say that God would put on matter, no, no, no, no. He only seemed to do that. He only seemed to come. in the flesh, but he really wasn't fully, truly man. It was a lot we could say, but we're gonna move on. Unitarians, they exist today. God is one God, but not Trinity. If you go to New England, there are still many churches up there that kind of moved that way in the 17 and 1800s. You can see some of them even today, right? They're called Unitarian churches. Tritheism, that's the other view. It's not one god, it's three gods. How many gods are there? One. How we doing? Is everybody tracking with me? Okay. Here's another one. This one's a little bit more subtle. Social Trinitarianism. This is the view that the unity of the Trinity is not substance. but more of a fellowship. There's one God and three persons, but they're kind of like a boardroom. It'd be like if Pastor Jeff and Pastor Tim and Pastor Ryan got together and sat at a table and tried to work together and agree together. The analogy doesn't fully work out, but essentially some people kind of view the Trinity like this. It's kind of like a boardroom. Three brains kind of all sitting around trying to figure something out. but God is one God with one will, right? Okay, then let's move into talking about Jesus for a moment. One God, existing eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory, The Father is not stronger than the Son. The Son is not stronger or more powerful than the Spirit. They are one. The one thing that distinguishes them is their relation. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit, but they are one God. It's very hard to wrap our mind around it, which is why I'm giving you a creed and a confession on the last two pages. Sometimes it's better for us just to memorize the truth than try to find snazzy ways to explain it. But Jesus put on our flesh 2,000 years ago, as we saw last night in Hebrews chapter two. He became man. Now, everybody look and listen. When he became man, Did anything about his godness or his divinity change? No. When Jesus became man, he didn't put on something more divine. He's truly God. Always has been, always will be. But at a moment in time, he also became man. Like unto us, except without sin. But guess what, in the early church, people were trying to figure this out. And there were two particular views about Jesus. This gets into the questions that I asked last night. If God doesn't change, and yet Jesus grew, how do we reconcile that? If God can't be tempted, according to James, the book of the Bible, James, but Jesus was tempted, how do we reconcile that? If God never sleeps, but Jesus slept, if God doesn't need food, but Jesus ate, you see where this is going, right? How do we reconcile that? In the first few hundred years of the church, there were many kind of false beliefs, heresies about Jesus, but two of them I've listed for you there, and these are big snazzy words, which is why I've written them here for you. I actually don't expect you to walk around and say the words Eutychianism or Nestorianism. I don't expect you to do that, but I want you to see what we don't believe, what the scripture does not teach, so that you and I can better recognize what it does teach. Now, these are overly simplistic, But here we go. Eutychianism named after somebody with a snazzy name in the first few hundred years of the church, right? Jesus has only one nature, a mixture of human and divine, right? So he's not truly and fully God because he's part human. And so it's kind of like, He is one person, which we would agree, but he's got kind of a mixture of two natures. It's like if you take a salt shaker and a pepper shaker, take the lids off, and you pour them in the middle, you get one container with kind of a mixture. That's not what the Bible says about our king. He's one person with two distinct, complete, full natures. Nestorianism, this was essentially, probably could have written this even more clearly, but essentially the view that Jesus was two separate persons, kind of, sort of. They would tweak that a little bit. I'm making it too simple. I'm giving you the Facebook, Twitter version here in a little one sentence, but essentially a human person and a divine person. All right, let's see where we've been so far. Was Jesus a human being that God just picked out and made the Son of God? No. Is Jesus two people? You're doing well so far. How many gods are there? How many persons is God? Three. Who are those persons? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Good. Was Jesus kind of one person with just one nature? Does Jesus sort of have less power than God and kind of submit to God? The Son submitting to the Father is less than? Who has more, who should we worship more? The Father, the Son, or the Spirit? All of them equally. You're doing well. And honestly, you're ahead of a lot of believers, right? Let me ask you one or two more. How about this one? Is our God kind of like a boardroom where three persons kind of sit around a table and try to agree on something? No. One God, existing eternally as Father, Son, and Spirit, the Son of God, was sent at a moment in time, put on our flesh, and became the Redeemer of God's people, right? When I say became, he enacted the work, right? This was the plan from the beginning. And as the God-man, he's truly God, fully God if you wish, truly man. There's nothing about Jesus' humanity that is different than ours. Ears, eyes, nose, fingernails, had to eat, had to sleep, but he didn't have sin. Everybody with me? How are we doing? Okay. All right. Let me read this quote. This is not error, by the way. So I know it's on the error section. But do you know why some of these errors come in? It's because the Bible has to use language sometimes that's accommodated to us, because we're small. Remember, well, you're smarter than me, but. We have small brains, we're finite. Our life is like a vapor, right? And the Bible sometimes uses language, and if we're not careful and we just read our Bible and we don't think about what the whole Bible says, we'll start to interpret things strangely, right? So sometimes these errors come in because we use words. Like for instance, look what Louis Burkhoff said. He's writing this about 100 years ago or so. It is generally admitted that the word person is but an imperfect expression of the idea. In common parlance, common language, it denotes a separate rational and moral individual possessed of self-consciousness and conscious of his identity amid all changes. Experience teaches us that you have a person, that where you have a person, you also have a distinct individual essence. Every person is a distinct and separate individual in whom human nature is individualized. But in God, there are no three individuals alongside of and separate from one another, but only personal self distinctions within the divine essence, which is not generically, but also numerically one. What in the world did this man just say to us? Well, how many beings do we have in this room right now? I don't know. Somebody could count us. 19, 20, somewhere in there. Let's just go with 20, because it'll be easier if I have to do math, right? Let's just say 20 beings in this room. How many persons are in this room? 20. It works that way with humans. But how many beings is God? One. How many persons? Three. This is why it's hard for us to wrap our minds around it. So we've got a good Trinity review, at least from your test. Everybody gets a passing score, A plus. We've started to talk about the Trinity a little bit, and now we're gonna zero in in our next session on the person of Christ, the person of the Son, okay? So we'll move from our errors into an early writing known as the Creed of Chalcedon that's gonna help us to talk about true God and true man. But let's just stop there. Let me pray for us, and we'll stop there and take a break, and we'll jump in. God, we ask that you help us to learn more about you for your glory's sake, but that it would be used to enlarge our minds and for us to gaze at you and to worship you and to give you glory as we see the truths of who you are. It's revealed in your word, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.