Hey, good evening once again. We're up now up to session 26 in our series on systematic theology. We're continuing our look at the doctrine of Christ and this evening we're in part three of the doctrine of Christ. We've talked about the most important question that can be asked, the question that determines our eternal destiny. And that question is posed by Jesus to his disciples in Matthew chapter 16 verses 13 to 17. And I'll go ahead and read that as a review, Matthew 16, verses 13 to 17. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And the world hasn't changed much in the last 2,000 years. People still have their answers to who Jesus is. They can't really ignore the glory of Christ, so they come up with their various explanations. The people back then, when Jesus asked this question, they gave a range of answers that reflected their realization that Jesus is not ordinary. They couldn't ignore him. He wasn't ordinary. He could be a prophet, could even be John the Baptist. Peter replied with the correct answer, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And then Jesus affirmed, this is the right answer and an answer that just doesn't come from our unassisted human reasoning. Peter wasn't just more clever than everybody else. It was the Father who had revealed the true identity of Christ to the apostles. And this is the most important question that can be asked. And we must accept from scripture the correct answer about who Jesus is and what he has done. We looked a couple of sessions ago at what the theologian Burkhoff wrote. He wrote, for all those who appear in judgment, entrance into or exclusion from heaven will depend on the question whether they are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We began by looking at who Jesus is by looking at the world's false notions of his identity. Those are flesh and blood speculations. Then we looked at some of the names of Christ from scripture as an introduction to what scripture says about Christ's identity. And this evening we're going to start looking at the person of Christ. And first I want to go to one of the confessions of the Reformed Church to get kind of a 30,000 foot view of the person of Christ. I've talked about creeds and confessions of the Church before, but here's just a review. The creeds and confessions, they put together in brief statements what the Church agrees is the teaching of the whole of Scripture on a particular doctrine. The creeds and confessions don't take the place of Scripture. And they're not infallible like scripture is. Creeds and confessions are the work of people. And they occasionally have been reexamined and they've been occasionally changed. But even though scripture is above creeds and confessions, and creeds and confessions are subservient to scripture, they do serve an important role. They're a reminder that we don't read scripture alone, but we read scripture with the rest of the church through history. When people have decided to reject all of what the church has said about studying scripture, and then they decide, you know what, I'm just gonna disappear into my closet, just me and my Bible by myself, and read scripture outside of what the Reformed church has taught, and they come to their own conclusions, it usually ends up pretty badly. You usually end up going off into error, and a lot of errors in the church, a lot of false churches have arisen as a result of those kind of efforts. The church has already, in its history, been attacked with every error you can imagine and has already countered those attacks. And those counterattacks, they've been in the form of creeds and confessions. The reformed creeds and confessions can act as a fence to keep us from straying from the truth. You know, if I wanted to go on a backpacking trip in the wilderness, I've never been there before. I'd be wise to take an experienced guide because if I didn't take an experienced guide, I would most assuredly starve to death or fall off a cliff. That's exactly right head. Creeds and confessions, even though they're subservient to scripture, are the product of the church investigating the whole of scripture on a topic of doctrine They summarize what they conclude is truth, and they fence out error from their midst. The act of defining truth fences out the error that doesn't come within that fence. So, for that 30,000-foot view of what the Reformed Church says about the identity of Christ, we're going to take a look at one of the Reformed catechisms, the Westminster Larger Catechism. And the catechism asks the question, Who is the mediator of the covenant of grace? Who is the mediator of the covenant of grace? And that gives this summary of scriptural teaching. The only mediator of the covenant of grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father, in the fullness of time became man, and so was and continues to be God and man into entire distinct natures and one person forever. two entire distinct natures and one person forever. And that's a lot packed into that one sentence in the catechism. So let's pick it apart, we'll see what's inside. First, the catechism answer says that there's only one mediator we can look to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Leaves out all other possible mediators, all other ways to heaven. And then the answer goes on. It says that he is the eternal son of God. He's of one substance and equal with the Father. And if you were with us for the session on the Trinity, you might remember that we saw that the three persons of the Trinity have a common, numerically single, divine nature. When the Catechism makes this statement about Christ, it is plainly saying that Christ is God, the second person of the Trinity. From eternity, He is the Son of God. And from eternity, he is of one substance and equal with the Father. Now, the Catechism answer goes on and says that in the fullness of time, at a particular point in our history, he became man. From eternity, he's the son of God, the second person of the Trinity. But when the planned time had come, he took human nature, becoming man. So Christ was both God and man and continues today and forever to be both God and man. He is the God-man. The Catechism answer then defines how he is both God and man. It says he has two natures, two natures. Each of those natures is an entire nature. There's nothing lacking in his divine nature. He didn't become just partly God when he became man, and he's not just partly man. Everything we are is human, he is, except he has no sin. The Catechism, then it goes on and says that his two natures, God and man, divine nature and human nature, are distinct. Christ is not a hybrid being, where he wouldn't be fully human or fully God, but a composite being instead. A being with one nature that would be a mixture of divine and human, that would remind me of Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, they had demigods. And in that kind of mythology, a demigod was born from a parent who was one of the Greek gods and the other parent being human. So the demigod, well, he wasn't completely human, more than just human, but not really a god either. In the days of the early church, one of the errors that some taught was that Christ was a demigod, more than mere human, but not really God either. But Christ, in one person, has two natures. It's not a single hybrid nature of a demigod. Christ is fully human and fully divine, with two natures that are distinct in one person. Hard for us to understand. That's why it's called a mystery. So from this question and answer in the Westminster Larger Catechism, we have kind of a grand overview of where we're headed. Tonight, let's begin by showing from scripture that Christ has divine nature, that he is truly God, fully God. And that's what we're gonna cover tonight, the divinity of Christ, the divine nature of Christ. So the titles of Jesus and the words of Jesus, the works of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, all combined to show that Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity, the son of God. But someone might say, well, if Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, if he really is God, shouldn't the Bible just come right out and say so? Well, the Bible does come right out and say so in what I'll call the Thos passages. So what is this strange word, Thos? You might notice that when I say the word theos in some pronunciation systems, it's theos. Pronunciation system I learned is theos. It sounds a bit like the word theology. That's because just like theology is the study of God and things relating to God, the word theos is the Greek word for God. That's where we get our word theology. Theos means God. Scripture declares Christ to be God using the Greek word theos several times by different human authors who were divinely inspired, and they declare this consistently. The first verse you might think of is in the Gospel of John chapter one, verse one. If you want to follow along with me, that's where I'll go first. The beginning of the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the phrase here in John, the Word was God, is so explicit that one of the cults that teaches that Jesus is not God, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they have to play around with Greek grammar and play games with the grammar to try to cancel out its power. But you know, without getting into the technicalities, I'll just say that the arguments that the Jehovah's Witnesses try to advance to where they try to change the clear meaning of these words, they just don't hold water. The word was theos, as the original Greek says, meaning the word was God. This statement comes at the very beginning of John's gospel. One theologian said of John's placement of this statement right up front is this, John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God. If this be not true, the book is blasphemous. This wording, the word was theos, the word was God, is a very bold statement by John. And it reflects on all that John writes in the gospel after that. For the next theos passage, let's go forward a few verses. We'll be in John 1 verse 18 next. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. Now, I tend to agree with a certain translation that the theologian Robert Raymond, he translated the verse this way. God, no man has seen at any time, the only son, himself God, who is continually in the bosom of the Father. that one revealed him. I'll read it again. God, no man has seen at any time, the only son himself, God, who is continually in the bosom of the father, that one revealed him. No one has seen the very essence of God at any time. There were in the Old Testament what we call theophanies, which is a word that means an appearance of God in the Old Testament. But these theophanies were not appearances of God in the fullness of his glory, in the very essence of his nature. Let's turn to one of the most clear appearances of God to man in the Old Testament. That's in Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33. And I'll read verses 18 to 23. There's the well-known account where Moses asked God to show him his glory. Moses wasn't asking this just from idle curiosity, but because his love of God was so profound. Moses said, please show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face for a man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen." Moses saw some of God's glory, but not the fullness of God's glory, and not his very essence, since God dwells in unapproachable light. And even this request was fulfilled only with the precaution that Moses must be in the cleft of the rock protected, the rock that was located in a place by God. The rock was located in a place by God. You're probably seeing maybe a parallel here with the passage in John chapter one, which we read a few minutes ago. Christ is continually in the bosom of the father, He is the rock near to the Father, the closest possible place to the Father, the bosom of the Father. When we see God in Christ, we are in the cleft of the rock, protected from the rightful wrath of God. In the Gospel of John, which we read a few minutes ago, John says that in Christ, God is revealed. Only God can reveal God. Jesus, he didn't just receive a revelation of God that he's now passing along to us like the prophets did. Jesus reveals God in his own person. Jesus himself said this to Philip in the gospel of John chapter 14. And I'll read there next, John 14 in verses eight and nine. Philip is asking something of Jesus that reminds us of what Moses asked, to see God. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father and it's enough for us. Not much of a request, huh? Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How could you say, show us the Father? Philip, he wanted a theophany like those in the Old Testament. But what Philip didn't seem to get was that he'd already spent time in the cleft of the rock, seeing the very character of the father as shown in Christ. Christ had already revealed God to them in his very person. Now, going back to this theos passage in John, in John 1, 18, let's note again the translation by Robert Raymond, that the son is continually in the bosom of the father, continually in the bosom of the father. This isn't brought out in the ESV translation, but the wording in the bosom of the father, it's in the King James and the New American Standard. And I agree that in the bosom of the father is the best way to translate this. It's the closest place to the father that's possible. Only one who is God can occupy that place. The word that Raymond uses continually, that's important. It's a word that's supported by the original Greek. The second person of the Trinity didn't stop being in the bosom of the Father at the incarnation. He didn't stop being God when he walked the earth. He is continually in the bosom of the Father. Let's go next to another of the Thoas passages, which uses this Greek word, Thoas, which means God, to identify Jesus. We'll be in the Gospel of John again, chapter 20. verses 27 and 28, John 20, verses 27 and 28. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Here, Thomas truly believes, having seen the resurrected Christ, and he gives a powerful statement of faith, my Lord and my God, my Theos. Thomas calls Jesus God, written in this gospel using the word Theos, and you know what, Jesus didn't come back and say, oh, wait a minute, don't give me the title of God, that's reserved for God alone. Jesus doesn't correct him at all. If Jesus is not God, then not only would Jesus be guilty of receiving worship due to God alone, but he'd also be blessing others who believed the same thing because Jesus went on to say, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. All of us here tonight have not yet seen the resurrected Christ with our own eyes. We will shortly, but we haven't yet. We will someday, shortly. but we are blessed because we believe. And we can repeat the same powerful statement of faith that Thomas spoke, my Lord and my God. Thomas was not violating the creator-creature distinction that we studied some sessions ago, the creator-creature distinction. Thomas was not violating that. When he worshiped Jesus, he was worshiping God. Now going down to the next two verses, 30 and 31, we'll see how John ties this episode with Thomas to the very purpose of his book. Let's read verses 30 and 31. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." Thomas saw the resurrected Christ and believed stating that Christ is the us. Those who have not seen yet believe are blessed because they too say that Christ is the us or God. John wrote his gospel so that readers would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and have life in his name. So we have here in a sense, bookends to the gospel of John. At the very beginning of John's gospel, he makes that declaration that the word was theos, the word was God. And here, as John comes close to the end of his gospel, John relates Thomas' statement of faith, that Jesus is theos. Then John gives the purpose for the book, that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. You know, it's interesting that the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses have a problem explaining this passage, and they use some very unlikely explanations. This is because they believe Jesus to not be the second person of the Trinity, but a creation of God. So one of their explanations is that Thomas looked at Jesus and said, my Lord, and then looked up toward heaven and said, my God. But this is obviously a forced attempt to wave away what the passage truly says. Now for the next of the oaths passage, let's go to 2 Peter 1. We'll read verse one, 2 Peter 1.1. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now a different human author, Peter, applies the same term for God, the os, to Christ, when he writes, the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now there's some uncertainty among translators here. The King James, it renders the phrase, through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. So one could be led to think, well, Peter means two persons of the Trinity that he's kind of pointing out here. God and also the Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, I agree with commentators that read it like we see it here in the ESV, and it's the same in the New American Standard. Without getting technical, there's a reason in the Greek why I think the phrase should be translated the way we see it here in the ESV, and that both titles, God and the Savior, Jesus Christ, refer to the same person of the Trinity. Peter's addressing these fellow believers as having a faith of the same value, or equal standing, or of the same kind that the apostles had. There was no distinction in how the apostles were saved versus how all the other Christians are saved. And that foundation for that faith is the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is the righteousness that we are granted by the finished work of Christ that is foundational to our faith and salvation. So once again, we see the scriptures testifying that Jesus Christ is God by using the words theos to refer to him. And then the last theos passage that I'll call our attention to is in Hebrews chapter one. And I'll read verses seven and eight. And the author of Hebrews, which I believe to be Paul, is proving that Christ is superior to angels in this section. Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels' winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. The angels do have power as ministers of God. But in verse eight, Paul quotes from Psalm 45 to prove that the son of God is greater than the angels. The first person of the Trinity, the Father, He's addressing the Son, the second person of the Trinity, with the address, O God. And the word here again is theos. For those who would ask, if Christ really is God, why don't the scriptures explicitly say so? We've seen that the scriptures do come right out and say that Christ is God. He is theos, as these theos passages proclaim. Now for the sake of time, I didn't go through all the theos passages. The theologian Robert Raymond, he lists nine of them in his theology. The word is used of Christ by John, Paul, and Peter, once again showing consistently as the Holy Spirit inspired three different human authors to use the same term concerning Christ. The scriptures show consistency in using this term over time. Theos was used of Christ right after the resurrection when John quotes Thomas saying, my Lord, am I theos or my God? And the term theos was used of Christ going forward as we go forward into the New Testament. Another way we can see that scripture proclaims that Christ has divine nature is in the fact that he discloses his nature in one of his sayings to his disciples. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew 11. I'm going to read verses 25 to 27. At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, And no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." The 72 disciples that Jesus had sent out to preach and heal had just returned and given their report with joy, that even the demons were subject to the name of Christ. Jesus then gives a prayer and a declaration and answer to this astonishment and joy of the disciples. And Jesus begins his passage by praying, thanking the father for exercising his wisdom and choosing the people to be given to Christ. The father elected to withhold saving knowledge from those who were prideful and thought they had it all figured out, but instead elected to reveal these things to those who acknowledge their need and dependence on God. Jesus' prayer to the Father might remind us of Isaiah 57, 15, where it says, for thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. So after this short prayer of praise and thanksgiving that Jesus directed to the Father, Jesus then turns his attention back to his disciples. He first tells them that the Father has handed over all things to him. But let's focus on what he says next. What comes next is the great self-disclosure of the passage. And no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. The theologian Gerhardus Voss calls this passage the culminating point of our Lord's self-disclosure in the Synoptic Gospels. The culminating point of our Lord's self-disclosure. You might notice that Jesus spoke these words in a parallel kind of structure. No one knows the Son except the Father. And then a parallel, no one knows the Father except the Son. The way Jesus said this as a parallel tells us that the knowledge that the Son has of the Father is of the same quality and extent as the knowledge the Father has of the Son. This parallel statement, that the Son has knowledge of the Father of the same quality and extent that the Father has of the Son, it places Jesus above any creature. What we creatures can know of God intellectually can only come to us by God's revelation in scripture. We only know what God has revealed to us. But what Jesus is speaking of here is a full and complete knowledge, both intellectually and in terms of relationship knowledge. The Father's knowledge of the Son, it has to be complete, right? Because as the first person of the Trinity, the Father has complete knowledge of all things. You might remember from our previous study on the omniscience of God, And we defined omniscience as an incommunicable attribute. Only God has this attribute of omniscience, and he cannot and will not give this attribute to another. Omniscience means that God knows all things, all events, all circumstances, past, present, future, in a way that is perfect. He knows all things as they truly are, and he knows all things immediately. In other words, nobody has to tell him, he doesn't have to investigate, he just knows. People and angels have knowledge, but they can't know things comprehensively like God does, or in the way that God does. The Father being the first person of the Trinity has perfect knowledge of the Son. But then Jesus makes the parallel statement, and this is the great self-disclosure. The parallel is that the Son knows the Father. The parallel structure tells us that the same comprehensive knowledge that the father has of the son, the son also has of the father. Only God can fully and comprehensively know God. Only a person of the Trinity can fully know another person of the Trinity. The knowledge of the Father that the Son has didn't come by revelation or investigation, but because Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity with the same nature as the Father. And Jesus emphasizes this even more by using the words, no one, as we see it here in the ESV. This mutual knowledge of the Father and Son is exclusive. No creature knows the Father in the way that the Son does. What we know of God, we know by revelation. The Son knows the Father because He's the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Only the persons of the Trinity have this knowledge of one another that comes because of their essence and nature. We can only have knowledge of God through revelation, but the Son, because He's God, has complete and perfect knowledge of the Father. So next we're gonna go into some what are called Christological errors concerning the deity of Christ. And there's been a few of them. Through the history of the church, there have been people who have taught errors about the person of Christ. The creeds of the church, they were originally written out of necessity. Because when errors arose, the church had to determine, okay, where's the boundary of truth here? The church had to declare what was healthy and true doctrine and divide it from heresy. And some of the early heresies denied what we just saw in this study, that Christ's nature is divine, that he's the second person of the Trinity. And one of those early errors was Arianism, Arianism. There's a fourth century priest from Alexandria, Arius. He taught that the son did not share in divine essence, that he was only the first creation of God and the highest ranking creation of God the Father. So to get to the bottom of the controversy, that Arianism stirred up, and it did stir up quite a controversy. The Emperor Constantine called together a council of 300 bishops, and that council is known today as the First Ecumenical Council, which means a council of the whole church. It's also known as the Council of Nicaea. Now the hero of this story is an Archbishop of Alexandria called Athanasius. and he guided the council to its proper conclusion. And what came of all this was what we know today as the Nicene Creed. And part of the Nicene Creed reads like this. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. So the church here settled the question of the divine nature of Christ with this sentence, Christ is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. So there, marked boldly and underlined, was this boundary line between revealed scriptural truth and heresy. Now, the Arians didn't give up after this. In Athanasius, he paid a personal price for being the hero of the story, because politics became involved, and he was exiled, not just once, but several times. But eventually, Arianism faded away. Or did it? Arianism is still with us today with Jehovah's Witnesses, who still hold to the heresy that Christ is only the first and highest creation of God. Now, there's another heresy that denies the divine nature of Christ from eternity past. It's called Adoptionism. What Adoptionism holds is that Jesus, he was just an ordinary man, But God adopted him at some point and elevated him to deity. Usually they would say that the Christ spirit entered the man Jesus at his baptism. But until then, Jesus was just an ordinary man. Walking along one day and boom, he's elevated to being God. Another form of the heresy is that God elevated Jesus to divine status at his resurrection. Adoptionism holds that Jesus is not the son of God by his very nature, but was only granted that status by adoption. And one of the early heretics that taught adoptionism was Paul of Samosata, who was a bishop in Antioch. And his view that Jesus was adopted as the son of God at his baptism, that's what he taught and believed, it was condemned by a council in Antioch in the year 268, fairly early in the church, And this person, Paul of Samosata, was deposed from his position as bishop over it. Adoptionism amounts to the belief, really, that Jesus is only the first Christian. Because we as Christians, we're also called sons of God by adoption. So Jesus might be, well, superior, but the difference is really just a difference of degree. The truth is that Jesus is the son of God by nature, not by adoption. Another doctrine that undercuts the true deity of Christ is a doctrine that still finds a foothold today, and that is the theory of kenosis. The theory of kenosis. Now, before we define the strange word kenosis, let's turn to Philippians chapter 2 and see where the word and the concept come from. And we'll read verses 5 to 8. Philippians 2.5, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. You might've noticed the word emptied in verse seven, but emptied himself. And the word that this theory of kenosis focuses on is that word emptied. The Greek word for to make empty is kenao. which is where the word kenosis comes from. And there's definitely a sense in which Christ emptied himself. And the rest of verses seven and eight explained when this happened, by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. That's when it happened. Christ's self-emptying happened at his incarnation. Verses seven and eight tell us that Christ's self-emptying involved his taking of humanity, being born in the likeness of men and becoming a servant. Now, around the middle of the 19th century, there were several theologians who proposed new theories about what occurred when Christ emptied himself. And those theories are known as canonic theories, once again from that Greek word meaning to make empty. The error of adoptionism that we looked at a few minutes ago, well, you know, that's an error you probably won't want to run into very much today. But the canonic theories, they're more recent, and you might run into it. You might run into the word kenosis, or canonic theory. There's obviously a true doctrine of the self-emptying of Christ since the passage in Philippians tells us so, but the canonic theories of the 19th century, and since then, they go too far. They so emphasize the humanity of Jesus that the divine nature of Jesus is either minimized or just obliterated altogether. The canonic theories to some extent claim that Jesus stripped himself of divine nature or his essence in order to be incarnated, left part or all of his divinity behind. Jesus, you know, well, he might have emptied himself of some divine attributes or all of them. And I'll just summarize some of the theories that they have. One theory holds that the divine attributes can be sort of divided up, divvied up into two categories. Some of them God can't give up, like absolute power, holiness, truth, and love. But others, they call relative attributes. And they don't consider those essential to deity. You can give them up and still be God. So Christ could give them up in the incarnation, and it wouldn't affect his deity. And those attributes would be, that they say are, relative attributes are omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. There's another theory that has been called by some, incarnation by divine suicide. This is an even more extreme theory, just like it sounds. It holds that the second person of the Trinity completely gave up all his divine attributes and also gave up his own consciousness of his divinity during his earthly life. So while he walked the earth, his consciousness was only that of a human soul. Another theory is that in the incarnation, well, he was still God, the second person of the Trinity, but in his human life, as he walked the earth, he wasn't really conscious of this. He was conscious of his Godhood in some sense, but he wasn't conscious of his participation in the Trinity. So let's go back to that passage in Philippians that we looked at a few minutes ago, which is the primary passage. those who hold to these theories of kenosis, or the self-emptying by Christ of some aspect of deity. This is what they point to. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Now, when the ESV uses the word emptied, the word is not referring to the form of God or to his deity or his divine nature. Instead, the word emptied refers to his right to grasp or hang onto his sovereignty or his right to command. What the passage is telling us is that Christ voluntarily, as part of the plan of salvation, didn't cling to or grasp his position of sovereignty and command as second person of the Trinity. He instead took human nature alongside divine nature and took the position of an obedient servant to the Father. in carrying out the work of salvation. Christ didn't exchange deity for non-deity or partial deity. Instead, at his incarnation, he voluntarily exchanged a state of exaltation and glory for a state of humility. And there's also some question on whether the best translation of that Greek word for emptied, kanao, is really best translated here as emptied. You know, if you were with me for the study through hermeneutics, which is the art and science of biblical interpretation that we did a while back, you might remember that we looked at the translation of words. We saw that words have what we call semantic range. If you look up an English word in the dictionary, Sometimes it can be rather frustrating that you look up the English word and it has a whole bunch of definitions underneath it, and now you're expected to figure out which one of those definitions really fits the context that you're looking for. And that's what you have to do. You have to determine from the context what that word really means from the possible semantic range that the dictionary is giving to you. The same thing holds true with the original Greek that we're looking at. Greek words also have semantic range. And the word that the ESV translates emptied has a semantic range to it, has several meanings. It can also mean to make of no effect, or to make of no reputation. In fact, the King James translates it that way, but made himself of no reputation. And I think the King James is the correct translation in this case. and carries the actual sense better than emptied himself. Amen. Christ, in order to carry out the work of salvation, he set aside visible glory and the prerogative of divine sovereign command to become an obedient servant to the Father in carrying out salvation. He made himself of no reputation. And there's another reason, even more important, why the second person of the Trinity could not have given up deity. either in part or in whole. In the incarnation, when Christ took human nature alongside his divine nature, his divine nature could not have been missing any attributes of divinity. This is where the systematic part of systematic theology shows its importance. We learned before when we studied the doctrine of God and his attributes, that one of his essential attributes is immutability. Immutability means that God cannot change. He doesn't change and he cannot change. If the second person of the Trinity were to give up even one attribute of deity, he would cease to be God. It's all or nothing. The Trinity would be torn apart. A person of the Trinity can't just simply turn off attributes of deity, then later switch them back on again. You know, this reminds me of one of the Superman movies, Superman II, from way back in 1980. So there'll probably be people here that don't even remember that movie and may never have seen it. Way back in 1980, Superman II. And the plot is that Superman falls in love with Lois Lane and gives up his superpowers for her. And that turns out to be a really bad decision. But even though he was warned that once he voluntarily gave up his powers, he could never reverse the decision, well, you can probably guess the rest of the movie. By the end of the movie, his superpowers are restored. True deity is not like the Superman movie. God cannot just switch off attributes of deity. To suggest this is to violate the doctrine of immutability that we already established in our study of God about a year ago. What Christ did when the ESV says he emptied himself at this incarnation was to voluntarily become obedient to the Father, subordinate to the Father, during the period of time in which Christ carried out his work of salvation, and as a second person of the Trinity, position of Christ as God, well, it's to command all things, but for the purposes of the work of Christ in salvation, he willingly took the form of being a servant, of servanthood. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 20. verses 25 to 28, Matthew 20, 25 to 28. In this passage, Jesus is correcting the ambition of two of the disciples, an ambition toward power and authority. Jesus then pointed to his own actions of servanthood as an example for them to follow. But Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So we need to reconcile the unchangeableness of God, the second person of the Trinity, with the passage in Philippians 2 that we read, which says that Christ emptied himself or made himself of no reputation. The answer can't be that the second person of the Trinity gave up deity or gave up attributes of deity. Rather, in his earthly walk, he took human nature alongside his divine nature, took the form of a servant with his human nature, not exhibiting the divine glory that's appropriate to God. So we can see that these theories of kenosis are incorrect. Now, why did I spend so much time on this particular error? Because even though these theories of kenosis kind of passed out of fashion, you know, there's still a wide influence of those theories today. I'll bet if you were to ask many Christians the question, what did Christ give up in the incarnation when he walked the earth? I'm thinking many of them would say he gave up deity, or he gave up part of his godhood. But rather, we should say that he, in his divine person, took human nature alongside his divine nature, and took the form of a servant in his earthly walk, with his humanity not reflecting the glory appropriate to his divinity during his earthly walk. Let's go back to a very prominent Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah chapter 53, Isaiah 53, to see how in Christ's humanity, he took the form of a servant, and his humanity did not reflect the glory that is appropriate to deity. Once again, we'll be in Isaiah 53, and I'll read just a part of this familiar prophecy, verses one to three. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. The Jews, at the time of Christ's earthly walk, expected the Messiah, but they expected a glorious king who would immediately throw off the yoke of the Romans. But a suffering servant? A man who did not appear with a glorious and majestic form? They didn't expect him. Jesus in his human nature did not reflect his divine glory in that humanity. He was still fully God, still fully divine, with his glory veiled by his taking the form of a servant. As a result, we see in verse three, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. But was he still fully God when he was in the form of a servant in his human nature during his earthly walk? Was he still fully God? Let's turn to Colossians chapter 1. We'll read verses 15 to 20. Colossians 1, 15 to 20. You know, it's possible that these particular verses were a hymn of the early church. And Paul's quoting that hymn and adapting it for his purpose. It says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. In verse 19, we see that in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Now the original Greek, it's difficult to translate. Different translators have come to different conclusions, but I believe this clearly means that all the fullness of God, all the attributes of deity dwelt in Christ during his earthly walk. There's no flipping of a switch to turn off deity. I think this becomes even more obvious that verse 19 says this, when we compare it to a parallel verse. And it's further on in Colossians. We'll read from Colossians chapter two, verses eight to 10. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. In Colossians chapter one, we can see that the fullness of deity dwelled in Christ bodily during his earthly walk. And here in Colossians chapter two, we see that in Christ's resurrected and glorified state, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. The fact that Christ is incarnated does not mean that the fullness of deity wasn't present in him while he walked the earth and now that he's ascended and glorified. We'll look at just one more passage tonight. That's in the Gospel of John, chapter 17, verses four and five. Here, Jesus is praying to the Father, a prayer that we call his Great High Priestly Prayer. And once again, we see here that during Christ's earthly walk, the glory of his deity was veiled. because he took the form of a servant and voluntarily made himself of no reputation. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Once Christ ascended, He was exalted, receiving again the glory appropriate to deity. He's still incarnated today. He still has his resurrected body, his glorified body in heaven right now. So once again, it is three separate aspects of Christ's earthly walk that made him of no reputation during that time. It is the incarnation and the taking of the form of a servant and the veiling of his rightful glory, which made up that state of humility. the making of no reputation during his earthly walk. So we can dispense with canonic theories that say that Christ set aside his deity or switched off his deity or set aside some attributes of his deity during his earthly walk. And I just want to wrap up tonight by quoting a verse of a song we sing at Christmas that states this so well. That song is Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and here's that verse. Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin's womb, veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark, the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Amen. Thanks for coming tonight. Next time we'll get into the humanity of Christ. Thank you.