Sunday School | The Incarnation

So here's what we've been doing. We're in the midst of a long series on the doctrines of Christianity, walking through all 10 of the major doctrines. We began with theology proper, which is the doctrine of the first person of the godhead. We moved on recently, transitioning to the doctrine of the second person of the Trinity—the doctrine of the Son, Christology.

You might recall last week we were talking about the doctrine of the Trinity, in particular Jonathan Edwards' vision. We got there because as we talk about what God is like—that he's just and he's righteous and he's merciful and he's omnipotent, all these things—he's also multi-personal. And that's a complicated thing to get our heads around. So we looked at Jonathan Edwards' vision of what that means, and in the off chance that anybody felt like they're beginning to grasp it, that you understand how God can be three in one, co-equal with subordination, co-eternal with begetting and proceeding, then the goal today would be to completely confuse you by throwing in an incarnation.

When we talk about the doctrine of the Son, the Son of God who is—and we'll maybe cover this more thoroughly at another time—who is ontologically the son. In his very being from all eternity, Jesus proceeds from, or is begotten of rather, the Father. That's ontologically in his nature. He also became incarnationally the son. So he was the Son of God in eternity past. But then he also became the son of Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit. He became the son of God in a different sense. He became the son inasmuch as he doesn't have a human sperm donor. He is the Son of God.

When you do that, when you take this three-in-one and all of the complexity of the Trinity, and now you take one of those members of the Trinity and you dress them up in human flesh, the whole thing becomes just impossibly confusing. And the church wrestled with this for about four hundred years. Four hundred years is a long time before they sat down and wrote what we needed. It took about four hundred and fifty years really, until the church sat down and said, okay, let's hash this out. And they wrote a document that's really important.

The Four Historic Creeds

There are four great historic creeds of Christianity. Two of them you know because we say them all the time at church. The easiest way I think to remember it is just to memorize NCAA. You might have a cubbyhole in your brain for the NCAA and that just happens to be the initials of each of the four creeds.

The Nicene Creed we say all the time. One of those A's is the Apostles' Creed—we say that one all the time too. Those are the short ones, those are the simple ones, those are the comprehensive ones. But in addition to the N and the A, there's the C and then another A. The second C is the N-C double-A: the Chalcedonian Definition. And then the final one is the Athanasian Creed. So the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed—those four doctrines are kind of like the foundational creedal definitions of Christianity. On all the major, huge, massive ones—without which we cannot function—those four are biggies.

Today we're going to talk about the Chalcedonian Definition. I'm saying we categorize the Chalcedonian Definition as a creed, but it's really a definition. It's not exactly the sort of thing that we stand up and say.

The Hypostatic Union

So when we're talking here, we're barely getting our head around what it could be that God exists—there's one God who exists in three persons, all of the magnificent complexity of that. One of these persons becomes a human being while retaining his deity. We're going to talk about all the things that Jesus does. We'll talk much more about him in the weeks to come. But just today, I want to try to help you get your head around this phrase, and you probably may not have ever heard this phrase. It's not terribly important that you know it. But it's what we call—does anybody know the big fancy term for the idea that Jesus is God and man concurrently? If you went to seminary, what would you be talking about? Do you know this term at all? Have you ever heard the phrase or the term the hypostatic union?

Okay, it doesn't matter. Have you done pretty well so far without knowing that? That worked out okay? Well now you know it. The hypostatic union—hypostasis is the nature of the thing, the subsistence of its being. And what we're saying is that Jesus is in his fundamental absolute self: he is God. And in his fundamental absolute self: he is a human being.

In the same way that he's not more God—not more three than one, not more equal than subordinated, not more co-eternal—Jesus is actually, genuinely, in his very nature, divine. And he is actually, genuinely, in his very nature a human being. He's not God pretending to be human, and he's not a human pretending to be God. He is absolutely both of those things. His hypostasis is this, and they are unified. He is one person, Jesus Christ, who is 100% God and he is 100% man. This is the Christian doctrine of the incarnation.

The hypostatic union—the fact that within one person exists fullness of deity and genuine humanity—this is what we believe because of what the scriptures teach. Now, what you have in front of you is a document that frames this, that sets this up, that explains after four centuries of the church wrestling with the scriptures, somebody said, we need to write this down. Each one of these creeds is born in opposition. Somebody's walking around saying stuff that isn't true. People are like, that's not true and you're wrong and heretic. And then we create a document that's like, okay, here's the boundaries of it. This document is the defining boundary of that.

Not nearly as well known as the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed, but the Chalcedonian definition is an incredibly important foundational document. So here's what I'm going to do. We're going to walk through it and we're going to talk about it. You guys can jump in. You can ask questions. I want you to notice a few different things. I'm going to read to you just top to bottom and then we'll kind of take apart different parts of it.

The Chalcedonian Definition

This is how we define the hypostatic union in the Chalcedonian definition that came out of the Council of Chalcedon in April:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all unite in teaching that we should confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that phrase wouldn't appear very meaningful to you in the earliest instance, but you're going to see it repeated like a hundred times in this short little document. So we'll talk about why that is.

The same one is perfect in deity and the same one is perfect in humanity. The same one is true God and true man, comprising a rational soul and body. He is of the same essence as the Father according to his deity, and the same one is of the same essence with us according to his humanity, like us in all things except sin.

He was begotten before the ages from the Father according to his deity. But in these last days, for us and for our salvation, the same one was born of the Virgin Mary, the bearer of God, according to his humanity.

He is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, and only begotten, who is made known in two natures united, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction between the natures is not at all destroyed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature is preserved and concurs together into one person and subsistence. That word for subsistence is hypostasis—from which we get the hypostatic union.

He is not separated or divided into two persons, but he is one and the same Son, the only begotten, God the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way the prophet spoke of him from the beginning, and Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and the counsel of the fathers has handed the faith down to us.

That right there is definitionally the orthodox view of the incarnation. So many phrases, so many things that I said in seventeen different ways, and each time they say it's a different facet. But let me just pause there. There's a lot.

Anything before we move on that you need to be like, wait, but what? What does this phrase mean? I really want this to be clear for you guys, so we're gonna take this one nice and slow.

Harry, this is really the argument that when against Gnosticism and Josephism? The duality of God, the perfect cannot inherit what lives in the imperfect?

So Harry's question is, are we responding to basically one error or another? And the answer is absolutely yes. These creeds are always written in reference to some challenging idea, some contradictory idea. And what you can tell in this particular thing—I made it as obvious as I could possibly make it—but what is the recurring phrase here? Same. Same one. Same one. Same.

Why that? Can you tell or are you aware historically what the people who wrote this were so exercised over the same oneness of Jesus? Any idea what that would be about?

Christ, and then he gave him a hair within the body after the resurrection. There was a lot of different things that it was a split—for something, not a faction.

Yes, okay. Yeah, exactly right. So the idea here, you could make a case—you would be wrong, but you could make a case—that Mary gave birth to a human being who was not God. He was just a person.

And then at some point that person, Jesus, gets like almost possessed by God. There's something that overshadows him. So he's really a human being wearing like a God backpack. This make sense? That he's just a person and that at some point God's like, you know what? I like you. You're a lovely vessel. I will come into you and shape you and then I will become like the marionette controlling your strings. So there's God and there's Jesus, but they're really separate entities. You hear this?

This document is saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not it. He is not just a human being whom God overwhelmed or God came onto or God became a—none of that. He is in his very nature, head to toe, fully divine. And in every cell of his body, he's a real human being. And it's the same person. It's incredibly important to them. He's not divided. He doesn't have a split personality. He's not what we call it now—what are multiple personality disorders called? Dissociative identity disorder. Not that. It's not that. He is through and through. That's what's incredibly important to them. And they're responding to an error claimed otherwise.

Now, I don't tend to think of the writers of the creeds as having a sense of humor, but I'm very amused that they could say that it's this way "unconfusedly" when it's also rather confusing.

Yes, exactly. They're not that funny. But let's actually look at that because these guys, I'm telling you, these things are crafted. There's a lot of time that goes into choosing these words.

What struck me from that list is right there in the middle where you've got: "He is one and the same Christ, Lord, only begotten, who is made known in two natures united." And then here are your adjectives: "Unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably."

Sometimes we say something like, "It was wonderful, it was amazing, it was stupendous, it was so great." And those are all synonyms. We're just being emphatic about it. That's not what they're doing. They're not just randomly throwing in a bunch of words to say how magnificent this is. Each one of those conveys something meaningful.

I made my children play this game at dinner. Can you imagine growing up at my house? But we were talking about this at dinner a couple nights ago. What is the difference conveyed by those last two words? "He is indivisibly and inseparably" united in two natures. Those might appear at first glance to be synonyms—indivisibly and inseparably—but they're not. What are we saying in those two? Give yourselves sixty seconds to figure it out.

Okay, so can you tell what is meant by two natures united indivisibly and inseparably?

I think indivisibly means like you have a unit. It's a whole. You can't break it apart in any way, you can't fraction it. That's exactly right. But then inseparably—there are two things and you smush them together.

That's exactly right. Perfect.

So do you hear that? When he says his two natures are united and you can't divide them—you only divide whole things. So it's a thing that can't be cut in half. But you only separate two things. So there are two things that can't be cut. So they're affirming simultaneously: he's a unity of natures that you cannot separate, and it is two natures that have been united and will never be un-united. He's both. You hear it? It's both sides of this. Because there is a sense of his twoness and there is a sense of his oneness.

But what he is, he will always be. He will never not be. And this is really important. When Jesus became a human being, when he was incarnated in a virgin's womb, he became something he had not previously been. He was not a human in eternity past. Will he be human in eternity future? Yes. Because he is indivisible. He is inseparable. His natures are.

So it would be easier if Jesus became human for a little while because there was work to be done, and then he could shed that and go back to just being God where the trinity hangs out with each other. We don't know how that works, but at least it's semi-comprehensible. No deal. He is a human being and he will never not be. It is indivisible. It is inseparable. There are actually important reasons for that to be true. But that's what this document is affirming.

He is like us. The whole point—yes, he's like us. And we're gonna have a new body. God, a new body. Yes. And so he is like us. Hebrews 2 is gonna say he had to be made like us. But it might be surprising news that he remains like us. The cross has been accomplished. Get back to what you have been for all eternity? And he's not gonna. He will remain like us forever and ever, which—what an astonishing thing.

He will still have the nails. He will still bear in his human body the marks of his crucifixion for all eternity.

The Resurrection Body and Eternity

So the question is: is everyone going to be corporeal in eternity? Are we all human in that way and he's human in that way?

This is something we do all the time and it always completely boggles everybody's mind. We'll go down this in like two years when we get into eschatology. But one of my favorite errors to correct is we have a tendency in the United States—our gospel message is that when you die, you go to heaven and live happily ever after in a non-corporeal sense. What does that mean? Spiritual beings. So we're all going to die. Our bodies, our meat, our corp is going to be put on the ground, and then our spirit, soul is going to be with Jesus. That's true for a minute, for a little while.

But the good stuff—this is super important. The good stuff is not that you get to go to heaven when you die. The good stuff is not. You've been lied to. The good stuff is that your body will be raised from the dead when Jesus returns. And yes, you and he will live in one of these for all eternity right here, not just in some ghosty thing someplace else. This is richly orthodox, absolutely true, and shockingly unknown.

There's an idea that everything—heaven and earth—will be banished and undone. Again, we're not going to satisfy this for like three years, so come back later. But there are four places in the Bible that talk about the new heavens and the new earth: Isaiah 65 and 66, 2 Peter 3, and Revelation 21. If you could trust me and just kind of hold on to this, there will be a new heavens, there will be a new earth in the same way that there is already a new creation. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come! — 2 Corinthians 5:17

What he is describing there is likened to what's going to happen in the physical world. Romans 8 says that all of creation is groaning, longing to be liberated from its bondage to decay. We have a very overrealized sense of the disposableness of the created world. It's not gonna be discarded. It's gonna be renewed.

I will prove that to you at length in a couple years. But for now: Jesus has a body, you have a body, we will be given a new body. 1 Corinthians 15 is about the resurrection body. He is and will remain a human being.

Union with Christ

There's something powerful here with this separation language—nothing can separate us now. It's like he is united in one and we are united in one to him. We cannot be separated from him.

That is more insightful than you might realize. In John 17, Jesus is praying what we call his high priestly prayer. And he is likening his union to us to the union that exists within the Godhead. Listen to this language:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. — John 17:20

This is the concept.

Father, just as you are in me and I am in you—that's he's talking about the most indivisible thing in the universe, right, the relationships among the Godhead, that sort of intensity—may they also be in us. Who the heck are we to get invited to that party? Right? If you got invited to the inaugural party, whatever that's about to happen in Washington DC, it might be ridiculous. Like, who are you? You're not the secretary of state. You have no right to be there. Okay? This invitation into this union is more ludicrous. Right?

May all of them be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me. May they be one as we are one. I in them and you in me.

This—it's like, forgive the heresy of this, but it's like those snake balls. You know? You're like, what in the world's going on—this tangling of persons, right? This intimacy of connection. This is what he's arguing for. That our union to him is akin to the union that exists among the Godhead. And I think you could extend that to say even the union that exists within Christ's very nature, right? It's insane. What you have been invited into is—in a billion years, you're still going to be discovering the magnificence of the invitation. It's just so ridiculous.

I mean, it has to be so because our whole salvation is dependent upon our unity in Christ. If we aren't united to him by our redemption, we're left in our unity which will always be corrupted. Then we're goners. Like if you have adopted a vision of Christianity that says the essence of Christianity is just be good, just clean up your act, just obey and all will be well—like, good luck. If that is what we have, it's like, hey, we modify your behavior, we just dial the knobs a little bit and then everything will be well—like, kidding me? We need something far more fundamental than like stop smoking, swear less. That's not going to do it. What we need is uniting of our nature, and what we have is that. I mean, the stakes are so much grander.

Questions on Theophanies and Incarnation

On the distinction between Old Testament theophanies and the incarnation:

So there's a handful of times in the Old Testament that are labeled as theophanies. Generally, when it says "the angel of the Lord"—not just "an angel of the Lord," but the definite article—you would recognize that maybe when Gideon shows up and this angel of the Lord shows up, and then it turns out that it's actually not an angel, but it's God. Or when his friends are in the fire—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—and a fourth one is there who looks like a son of the gods. Or Jacob wrestles with God at Peniel. So all these times where some physical looking dude shows up and they think it's an angel and then it turns out to be God, that's the theophany.

I don't know. It could be that Jesus is outside of time and he looked like Jesus is going to ultimately look—he went back in time. Maybe that's complete heresy. I don't know. It could be that he was simply appearing as human. It seems like the angels have the ability to appear as a human being. So when the angels visit Sodom, they just think they're humans. They just look like dudes. Hebrews references specifically looking back to that moment, says some have entertained angels without knowing it. So in the same way—I don't think we would confer upon angels the status of incarnation. They did not become united to us. Angels did not adopt a human nature, but they dressed up as humans. Was it the case that when God shows up in those moments, he was simply dressing up like a human and not being a human? Maybe. We don't have that much data, and I don't know. But it could be that. I just don't know.

On those not alive to hear the completion of the message:

Ray observed that not everyone will be alive in three years to hear the end of the story. Based on that, he wants to know how this relates to Paul saying that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. It's exactly true. So when I say this, go back—Paul says absent from the body, present with the Lord.

When I say the good stuff is not that you go to heaven when you die, the good stuff is that we're raised from the dead when Jesus comes back, that is not to deny that we go to heaven when we die, for we do. It's just not a permanent state.

I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. — Paul

That's true.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. — Paul

That is also true.

Today you will be with me in paradise. — Jesus to the thief on the cross

That is also true.

When Jesus returns, he will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in him. — 1 Thessalonians 4

That is also true. There is a conscious but disembodied experience between death and the return of Christ. And that's lovely, but that's not the final state of affairs.

That intermediate state where Christians who have fallen asleep—and that's the euphemism that the New Testament uses for dead Christians—it is never dead. It is always that they are asleep because those who sleep, awake. There is this window of time between our death and Jesus' return that believers are in a conscious experience with him. And that's fine. And I'm not denying that at all. I'm just saying that's not the end of the game and that's not the best thing. The best thing happens after that.

The blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ. — Titus

The good stuff is not that you die and go to heaven. It is that you are raised from the dead when he returns. Although you will die and go to heaven, that's just temporary. It's not the good stuff. The good stuff is when he comes back.

How long is temporary? From death until the return of Christ. And whether that's a day, a week, a month, a year, a hundred years, I don't know. I don't think it's ten thousand years, but I don't know. When does he come back? Soon. Time is different for everybody because people die at different times. We will all be raised from the dead when Jesus comes back, but we will all have died at different times. Some of us won't even die. Some of us will be here when he comes. You might be one of them.

The Nature of Christ

So here's the thing. The middle paragraph—we're just starting in the middle. I think it's because this path was taken. Unconfusedly and unchangeably. He is and always will be those things. Now we are confused by this, but he is not.

It's not the case that—we've talked about this. My favorite Jonathan Edwards quote: when we say confusedly or unconfusedly, what we mean is he's not the average of God and man. Is that meaningful to you? He's not an average. He is all of this and all of this. The average adult American has one breast, one testicle, and half a penis. Averages aren't that useful. He is not the average of two things. There's not a confusion in his nature. He is all that he is.

Jonathan Edwards says that his glory is seen in the admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies. He is not the average of a lion and a lamb. He is fully lamb and he is fully lion. He is fully God and he is fully man. When we say he's unconfused, it's not a mingling. It's not like hot and cold makes warm. He remains hot and cold unconfused, unmingled, intact, whole in his nature.

His two natures do not diminish one another like hot water and cold water mingle into something else. He's not like that.

He's perfect in deity. He's perfect in humanity. He's true God. He is true man. He has the same essence of the Father according to his deity, and the same essence with us according to his humanity with this massive asterisk: like us in all things except sin. And that is magnificently important.

When we affirm his humanity, when we talk about it—if I were to say, "I'm only human," what would I mean by that? Imperfect. Exactly. We've figured out that the essence of us is we screw stuff up. So when we say that he is fully human, we don't mean that. He is fully human. He is tempted as we are and yet he's without sin. This is a really important asterisk they throw in here—that there are some things about humanity that do not define his full humanity.

Well, there's really one thing about humanity that is not true of him. He's not a sinner. But he's tempted. He was tempted. He was afraid of the cross. There was all sorts of things. In fact, he's tempted more than you are. Do you know why? The devil, but there's another reason that Jesus experienced infinitely more temptation than you do. Do you know what it is? Because we give in. Temptation stops the second you give in, and you know all about that because it's so relieving. Just give in, and then you just feel so much better. Jesus never gave in, so his temptation never let up. Isn't that astonishing? This is holy, holy, holy.

The Begotten Son

Okay. So he was—hear this line—begotten before the ages from the Father according to his deity. What does the word begotten convey to you?

One person responds: "Exact replica."

Exact replica. Okay, good. There was a beginning. Okay, yeah. And this is problematic for us because he's unoriginated, right? But there is some sense that he's from.

Here's what I want you to recognize. At Christmas time when we talk about the begotten son, you might associate begottenness with his nativity. That's not what this is talking about. This is talking about last week. Jesus is begotten of the Father ontologically in his very nature and his very being. He was begotten before Christmas. Does that make sense? We have a tendency to bring his begottenness up until the manger stuff. The begottenness is a pre-existing state. He is of the Father from all eternity. And then he became a human being at a moment in time, but that's later. His begottenness is a preceding thing. We misplace it.

Begotten vs. Created

Can you explain the difference between begotten and created? Because he was not created. Yes. Good. Okay. So the difference between—we're talking about the difference between begotten and created. It's really important that we affirm—how are we doing? Oh, we gotta stop. He's not created. Jesus is the creator. He's not the creation. But he is—when we talk about his begottenness, we're saying he is of the Father.

It'd be a little bit like this: In the same way that light comes from a flame, the flame doesn't create the light, but nevertheless the light is of the flame. You have a match, it's going to produce light, it's going to produce heat. But you never had a time where you had flame without light and heat. So they are genuinely of it. They proceed from it or are begotten of it. That's a way to phrase that. But there was not a time where you had a flame that's like, "What will I do today? I know. I'll make light." And then it subsequently created light. Rather, it is an emanation of its very nature. And in that way, Jesus is an emanation of the Father's very nature.

We're just out of time. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna email this to you, and you can take a look at this. But next week—are we meeting next week? Probably not. So in two weeks, it'll be January, and we'll be back in the sanctuary. We're gonna take a little more of a dip on Jesus as God and Jesus as man. I want you to consider why did he have to be man, and how is it possible that he could be man. We'll get to that in two weeks.