Sunday School | The Works of Christ

Introduction

So we're doing a series. We're doing a series for a while now on theology. We're gonna look at the 10 major doctrines of Christianity, 10 broad categories. And I wonder, before we jump into what we're doing today, as a class, can you come up with all 10? What are the 10 like buckets of our theology survey that we're doing?

The first three are kind of obvious. What are they? God and the Holy Spirit. Father, son, and holy spirit. The doctrine of god the father, god the son, god the spirit. That's three. Okay. What else we got? What comes next?

Once we're done talking about him, who do we talk about? So, we call that this doctrine of man known as anthropology. After that, we're going to move into kind of the source material for all of this which would be what? Theology. Yes, right. Very much so the study of the scriptures, Bibleology essentially.

So, we got theology, yeah, theology, Christology, pneumatology. Pneuma is like a pneumatic drill. It means air, spirit, talking to the spirit. So, theology, Christology, pneumatology, anthropology for man, and then bibliology for the bible. We got five more. What are we missing? Can you come up with them?

You said eschatology. Eschatology is going to be the very last one. So, yes, that's the, remember that one last. What comes before that? Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus said, So, the doctrine of sin and then what kind of goes with it? Salvation. Sin and salvation. So, that's doctrine of sin. The fancy word for that is hamartiology, H A M A R, and then soteriology is the doctrine of salvation. So, we're going to get this, you know, the trinity, the man, and what do I skip? Oh, Bible and then, sin, salvation, and what do we have left? Three more. What is it? Gather. Yeah, ecclesiology. The doctrine of the church and then we're gonna do one that's kind of a funny one that you probably less likely to think of. It's angelology. Angels and demons and Satan and all that and then the final one is? Eschatology.

Eschatology, the doctrine of last things. Okay. So, we're walking through it and where are we right now in the setup? Two. Did you say two? That's right. We are in two. We are in the doctrine of the son, the second person of the trinity. I'm sure it's exactly what you meant. Right? Number two.

Right? So when we come to the doctrine of the son, Christology, we spent a couple weeks setting up the fact that he is fully god and fully man. Yes, yes. So, we gave us some time looking at the ancient creeds on this and some of the biblical basis that he is a man, really a man and if he wasn't, he never could have been our savior. And not only if he wasn't a man, could he not have been our savior, but if we weren't made in his image, then he never could have been made in ours. Which is just one of the many hints that our salvation was planned before the creation of the world. Everything was set up so that he could come live our life, die our death, and redeem us when we fell. Right?

So we walked through that and then the reality of his deity, the reality of his humanity. What I wanna do now for the next I don't know how long, maybe three weeks or so, we're gonna look at the work of Christ. And so I sat down with Kelly and we workshopped this to try to be like, how would we organize all that he did? Right? John said, he did so many things that if we had all the paper and all the pens there wouldn't be enough time and enough space to write down what he has done.

So, how do we take the infinite work of the infinite God-man and reduce it into a subject matter for a class? It's a little bit tricky. But it's also helpful to do this in a way that I think you might be able to remember who he is. And so Kelly and I worked up a list of 10 things that I think you can tell I'm I'm open to being corrected on this if you think I'm wrong. You think Kelly's wrong. On this list of 10 things but I think that we could we could reduce, not reduce, we could summarize or categorize the work of Christ as Messiah into 10 buckets, okay?

There's two ways we can do this. Number one, we can play my favorite game which is read my mind or I can just tell you. So, what kind of mood are you guys in? Okay, we gotta Hannah wants to read our mind, okay? Who what who who anybody else wanna play the read my mind game? Okay. Well, let's see what we can do, okay? But we're gonna make Hannah start, okay? So, and it's and you have to be try to be orderly and then I'm gonna put this in and we'll see come up with.

The work of Christ and by the way, when this is all done and you didn't catch anything because it was so helter skelter and chaotic, I'm gonna email you this. So I'm gonna give you what I what I think is the the right answer. Okay? So the work of Christ, and I think this is comprehensive, in 10 categories are what are they, Hannah? Miracles.

This is one. Very good. That's gonna be, I'm gonna put, that's that's not the very first one but that's in there. So, the work of Christ, we're gonna put miracles. What else we got? Calling disciples. Too specific. Okay. That's gonna be a subsetty thing, okay? And now, this is again, he did a lot of things, right? Which we're trying to find like broad bucket categories. Yeah, Gil? What is birth counts? It would but we're gonna be a little fancier than that, Gil, and that's gonna be number one and it is incarnation.

So, the work so from incarnation, that's number one, okay? After his incarnation, I think miracles has like an obvious pair in terms of like the subject matter but well, no, that's that might confuse you. So, incarnation, yes, miracles, yes. What else? Okay, too specific. Okay. Yes, that's coming. Resurrection's coming. That's gotta be on the list, right? That's going be toward the end. We'll get this here. Okay. Yes. Yes. But we're going to call it something else. We're going to do it later. So, yes. I mean, it's gonna be on it's on the list though. So his we're gonna call it his intercession. Right? That he that that he lives he always lives to intercede for us. Massive category. Obedience is.

Obedience is. His obedient life is is on the you don't don't write this down. I'll give it to you when we're all done. Okay? But you're doing great. But yes, his obedient life, his resurrection, keep going. Big broad categories. What does he do? Teaching. Teaching. Okay. This, who said that? Kelly, that's exactly right. His so when I think of that, was teaching and his miracles. That is basically what the gospel records show us. Right? His teaching is miracles.

So, to a little bit of organization, his incarnation, his teaching, and his miracles. This is what you've said so far. And then I would place Catherine his obedient life. Right? His incarnation, his teaching, his miracles, his obedient life. Now, we got something before we get to resurrection.

Atonement. His death. Okay? This is what you're gonna see. What we we wanna really think holistically about the work of Christ as Messiah. It begins with his incarnation. We get his teaching. We get his miracles. We get his obedient life. We get his death and his resurrection. And that might feel like a pretty good place to stop, but it's not. Okay?

So what happens thereafter? Ascension. Yes. And now I'm gonna change that language just slightly, Sam, because what is my favorite topic here? You don't even have to read my mind. Say it. Kingship. His ascension is king. And I would say his reign is king. We're gonna we'll get to this in a couple of weeks. Jesus was not always king. Yeah. He was always god. He was not always king. He became king through his death and resurrection. So, we have his incarnation. We have his teaching and his miracles. We have his obedient life, his death, his resurrection, and then his ascension as king continuing as his reign as king.

Okay? Now, what's next? Something really important. Your whole every good thing in your life is contingent upon this, but you might not be conscious of it. Although you do go to a church that might remind you of it. The holy spirit. Giving of the holy spirit. Okay? Massive. This is a big block category. Amen, Dan? Would you agree with me on this one? I would. You would. Okay. He reigns as king. He gives the spirit, and then Catherine said it. What does he do forever and ever? He intercedes for us. Right? John write in in in the very end of first John chapter one, he says, I write these things to you who so that you won't sin but if side chance, just on a bad day, if any of you do sin, we have one who does what? Speaks to the father in our defense, right? Right? Jesus always lives to intercede and then, I think that's nine. If I haven't got lost track and the final one is the, well, what's the final thing? His return. His return and we love to say return with two other companion Rs. When he returned, what is he doing?

I'd say, I'd say he's reigning already. Restore all things and one other thing, when he comes back, what happened when when Jesus, when Jesus comes back, the three great things, he returns, he restores all things. And he now something else. To all you corpses, he raises the dead. Right? So here's how it's gonna work. So that that last thing is the the return of Christ when he raises the dead and restores all things. Right? That's the that's the capping thing. So the work of Christ in 10 boxes, maybe, unless you wanna argue with me. Oh, Kelly already wants to go. 11. What is it?

Where would you put justification? Would that be in crucifixion? Yeah, I'd put that as a toning work on the cross. My eleventh would be the over all of it is for the glorification of god. Yeah, I'd say that's not what he does. That's what's why he does and how he does everything he ever does. See also, it is why he does everything we ever do. See also, it is why literally everything ever happens. Universe exists for the glory of god.

Alright. So you want a big over a rainbowy thing. Okay? The work of Christ as Messiah. Now, by the way, he did create the world, right? And he is sustaining all things by his powerful word but those are more his function as as god and what we're really looking at is his function as messiah. When he came, what did he come to accomplish? What did he do? What were the means by which he did it?

And so my suggestion to you is, number one, he was incarnated. Number two, it says or two and three are his miracles and his teaching. His obedient life. I'm losing track. His death and his resurrection. And then he he ascends as king where he reigns over the universe forever. He gives us his spirit. He always lives to intercede for us, and he is coming back. He will come back to raise the dead and restore all things. And I think that's what Jesus does. But Judy thinks I'm wrong. So, Judy, what do you got?

I just had a question. Seems like, just for looking at this, that somewhere between incarnation and teaching when he had the maybe that comes out of the obedience where he was he went and got baptized and this holy and the dove came down. It's like that was such a big it was like the beginning of his from being an incarnated baby Yeah. A child to being here who he is. It seems like there should be a step.

Yeah. Okay, so Judy's Judy's pointing out that wasn't his baptism a big, big deal? And I would say his baptism was a big deal, but he even he stated the reason he's being baptized is it's a function of his obedient life. Okay? Now there are other, I would say equally and maybe even greater moments. Like we didn't say for instance, one of the 10 is not the transfiguration. That's a massive event, but we're not putting that as a category because it actually fulfills something else. And really if you could if you could stand it, I think the transfiguration fits as a function of his incarnation because the transfiguration is the revelation that this is god. The incarnation is god become man. And we tend to see at his birth is the man part. But at the transfiguration, it's a revelation of the god part. That he really is. Like the light or the light, you know, the veil comes off and glory shines through and we see all those things.

So I think they fit into there. Okay? So could anybody rattle off all 10? Could you? This is how you learn, and it's okay if you trip on the way. What do you do? You wanna take a shot? Stand up real loud. I'm loud when I stand or Oh, good. Good. Good. Good. Carnation, miracles. Teaching, obedient life, death, resurrection, ascension, giving of the spirit, return of Christ, one before that was intercedes. That's right. That's very good. And for that's excellent. And then for Ascension, I'm I would just put I would put Ascension king because his reign as king is is crucial for the whole thing. This is what he's doing. What he has done, what he will do. How you doing? Make sense?

Okay. So what we're gonna do, if we can live in that that thing, and you might be able, you know, tonight when you're drifting off to sleep, see if you can recreate repeat it. There was his incarnations, teaching his miracles, that's obvious. His obedient life, his death, and his resurrection. They kinda like they kinda exist in little chunks. Right? He reigns as king. He gave his spirit. He always intercedes for us, and he's coming back to raise the dead and restore all things. If you have that, then you can kinda like begin to organize things in your brain. And some of you have more or less organized minds. Is that a fair thing to say? I like a world that's organized. I like my mind to be organized. So those kind of things are helpful to me. So what we're gonna do now, we're just gonna start at the front and we're gonna walk our way through it. So every week, we'll pick, you know, we'll hit a couple and we'll process through. What did he do? Alright. We're gonna start with incarnation. Are we all good? Do you do you accept my model here? We good? Okay. So we started incarnation. Why is the incarnation a big deal? And I'll give you a hint. It's a solution to a problem that we talked about maybe a month ago.

Why is the incarnation a big deal? Sam? Is it similar? I think it's Romans six, where it's like Through one man sin came into the world, through another man our sins are forgiven.

For one man sinned, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. — Romans 5:12

This is excellent. So, what what what Sam is referring to is a a a doctrine that we we call federal headship. Okay? Federal headship is a is a maybe not an entirely intuitive concept, but the idea that Paul is expressing in Romans five is that if you are in Adam and you are, then you inherited something from Adam. The the Puritans would say, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. Paul is gonna say, sin interworld through one man, death through sin, and this way death came to all men because all sinned. But he doesn't mean that you all did bad things in your time in your time on earth. He's saying, in Adam you sinned. That Adam is your federal head. And in the same way that you inherit wealth or poverty from your father, we inherited something from Adam. And if you if you're like, well time out. That's not fair. I wasn't in the garden and I wouldn't have taken I would have knocked it out of Eve's hand. I wouldn't have done it. And I don't like the doctrine of federal headship. Slow down. Be careful. Because your only hope is that federal headship is true. The same mechanism whereby you inherited sin from Adam is the means by which you inherited righteousness from Christ.

What Paul is saying is the way the universe is designed is that what your federal head does, you get. And what what Adam did, we get. If you are in Adam and you are, you inherit death. But should you come to be in Christ, which you can, you will inherit life. And he has come. It is true, Sam, that in his that's all to explain what Sam said. Okay? Now, when Jesus comes or when Jesus came, when he was incarnated, he was coming to be the new Adam or as Paul says, the last Adam. So it is a re-embodiment, a human being that will be the one that represents us. That's true. And there's actually a lot of things going on there. It's not the problem I mentioned a month ago but that is absolutely true and it's good.

Fetzer? I don't know if this is correct but to to make the father known like so that we. Yes. Yes. God, the one and only. Yes. That the father's side has made him do. This. Okay. So do you recall? I suggested to you, like, a month ago when we we walked through all these attributes of god. He's just and he's holy and he's righteous and he's merciful. He's all these lovely things. And just as we were getting ready to land the plane and everybody's happy, I ruined everything. And I argued that he's not only all of those things, but he is also what? He is silent. He is invisible. He is formless. Right? He's the invisible God.

And then I think this problem lies behind all of our other problems. What most people would would say or would would ultimately come to find out is that the greatest problem in the world is the problem, what we call the problem of evil. Right? If God were powerful, then He could stop it. If God were good, then He would stop it. And yet we live in a world with pediatric, you know, cancer units. Like what in the what is happening? Right? And we struggle. But behind that, behind all of your griefs is the question, where were you?

And we studied the the hiddenness of God that he's silent, formless, invisible. Give me a minute, Gil. Silent, formless, invisible. And I want if if you really grapple with the misery and the difficulty and all of the strategies that you employ in light of that, and in fact, what is the primary strategy to deal with the hiddenness of God?

God. To make a new God. And what is the word for that? Idolatry. Idolatry. Idolatry is the strategy of the human heart, and it is specifically a strategy designed to manage our grief over the hiddenness of God. And we are barred from idolatry. We are not allowed to make a visible god because in the fullness of time, god would send his son, of a woman, I.e. incarnation, born under law, not just to redeem those under law, but two, as Andy said, make the father known. Right? His incarnation is the beginning, and it's not the end. Right? But we'll we'll get to that in a minute. Is the beginning of the solution of the greatest problem behind all the problems. He's hidden as that Jesus shows up to make him known. In the language of John one, he tabernacles among us. He comes to be with us. In fact, John, who wrote those same words, also wrote first John. And listen to how he listen to what he is saying here concerning the hiddenness of god and the beginning of the end of that.

He says this, this is first John one one. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and have touched with our hands concerning the word of the year. He's we can't see him. We can't hear him. He's formless. We cannot touch him. He's hidden in every way and so John says, yeah, but hang on a second. For we have heard him. We have seen him with our eyes. We've looked on him. We've touched him with our hands. The life was made manifest. We have seen it, and we testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us.

That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. The reason that our joy is complete is that in Christ, we begin to see it's not it's not final, but we have begun to see the hidden God.

We've begun to hear the silent God. We can they were able to touch the formless God. And this is an absolute game changer. Right? Now, he has gone away. And so you and I who were born in this moment and not in that moment, like, yeah, but I didn't get to see him. Yeah. I didn't get to touch him. I haven't heard him. But the promise of the New Testament is that he's coming back. And every eye every eye will see him. Right? We won't just be known, but we will know. And so we see what we see what happens, you guys, when when Jesus shows up in the incarnation, he is the down payment.

If you I mean, the the holy spirit is called the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. I mean it in a different sense than than Paul means that. But it is the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise that he will not always be hidden. That he has come. He has been seen. He has been heard. He has been touched. And he's coming again. And you will see him with your own eyes. You will hear him with your own ears. What he has done in the incarnation what he's begun in the incarnation is a massive life changing thing. Okay. Now, Gil. I just I feel like what I was about to say was basically what Seth said where it's just like, it's God becoming human. So that that's a huge deal, but that's based Yes. Yeah.

So, we have we have a couple things. So he became human. And that in the incarnation, we usually talk about his humanity. Right? His in I mean, Carne. Right? Carne Asada. He's it's he's he was meated. Right? His is that too weird? Okay. He was in meated as a human being, but he was also just don't miss it. He was also incarnated as a visible physical sound making thing. Right? He probably you could probably taste him. That would have been weird, but you maybe could've. Right? I mean, he's he's here. He's a sensory present and that changes that that changes everything.

Okay. There are a couple of hands. Gary? About three or four weeks ago, we mentioned Hebrews one where you said he had to become human. Yep. He could not have come as a sacrificial bull or something. He had to be human. Can you expand on that?

Yeah. So, it's it's Hebrews two, actually. Go to Hebrews two. The passage there, let's see. Hebrews Dos. In Hebrews two, whoever the heck wrote Hebrews says, verse 14, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood hang on. That's ESV. I'm incapable of reading ESV. God bless you all. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too share in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil. So he shares in their humanity. And then it says again, down in verse 17, for this reason, he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. And what I take that to mean, Gary, is that in his incarnation, in his actual humanification, not just wearing a mask, but his his human DNA. He was born of a woman. And the only thing that women can give birth to is humans. Right? It enabled him to do two things. Number one, to live our life and to die our death. It was his humanification, which isn't actually a word, so don't write it down, that made it possible for him to to atone for us. He had to be human to live the law given to the humans, and he had to be human in order to die the death that humans are sentenced to die. He became a human and accomplished both. Which we'll get to more when we get to the atonement. Does that satisfy that? Okay. Incarnation. Anybody wanna anybody wanna throw in? We we we're gonna kinda walk through all of these as many as well. Yeah. We'll keep going. So, as many as we get to. DFB. This is maybe jumping the gun a little bit but with the incarnation He's provided kind of a halfway step for now with the holy spirit who is our comforter. That is a real Presence in our lives. So it's not arms around us. Yes. But there is a reality that was not there for sure. This is right. So here let me so can I go to the timeline? So you've got god makes the world, but he's hidden and he's invisible, and for all of eternity, people have longed to see him. Moses was extremely unique in his ability to see the god's back while he walked across a crack on a rock. Right? It was just very slight touches. Jesus comes and he is like boom boom. He's everywhere. I mean, can see him. You can touch him. People crowds gather around him. And now he's gone. And so it's like it was before he came except it's not like it was before he came, which is Dan's point. When when he came this is like what is this? Number nine? Number eight, we said? The giving of the spirit. So we haven't quite gotten there yet, but we live in this moment not only after Jesus has left, but after Jesus has come. And having come and having left, he has given us his spirit. So he is I would contend that he remained that god remains hidden. But he is not as hidden as he was before Jesus came. He is not as he was as hidden as he was before Jesus gave the spirit. Does that satisfy what you're That sounds great. Okay. Alright. Super good. One of the things about he had to be human. Okay. Be a little louder. I should not walk close to you because it makes you talk quiet. What's that, Catherine? Having to be human, I keep thinking about is how else were we gonna know how to act, how to forgive That's right. How to go ahead and eat anyway. I mean, just Yes. Things that people wanna do. And the people let's see. And what's what's great about that, Catherine, is that his incarnation is not merely the manifestation of god in a visible sense, although he is that. Hebrews one, he's the exact representation of his being. He's the radiance of god's glory. He's all of those things but he is simultaneously a perfect human being. He is one of us. He is tempted in every way just as we are and yet was without sin. So we see in him the perfections of humanity. And you really honestly, guys, you see more it is more generally the case. If you look at Jesus doing anything in any particular chapter of the gospels, you will be right more often than you are wrong if you assume that he's functioning as a perfect human being than as a god who is cheating. Right? You know your kids can play video games and they kinda go into god mode and you're like, well, fine. I mean, you just you have infinite ammunition. It's just easy now. Right? Jesus is God, but he did not live in God mode. He functioned as a human being. This is the Philippians two, the doctrine of kenosis, the emptying. So what we see in him is perfect humanity. He is God. I'm not denying that for one second. But what we are observing the way he lives his life is he is incarnated to be a real human being doing real human being stuff perfectly. Yeah. The dude's a game changer.

The Work of Christ: Categorization and Summary

Okay, Scotty? That means that as a subset of forty days is just as important as the baptism. The transfiguration. Do we need to lump that in there? Yes.

So, Scott is asking. So, when I give you these 10 things, what about this? What about that? Scott's saying, well, should we put his time in the wilderness? Should that have gotten like number 11? Or should that have been on the list?

And I would say that his time in the wilderness, I would group that under his obedient life. But also his obedient representative life. And what I mean by that is that when he came, he didn't just live any old life doing any old thing and just obeying the things that happened to be in him, but he kind of lived an obedient choreographed life. And his time — it's not that it's this one's got a pretty thin veil on it — his time in the wilderness that lasted for forty days was a relatively obvious reenactment of what? The time Israel's time in the wilderness that lasted for forty years, right? So his time and that he his life, his ministry begins with a wilderness period that last forty days as a way to say, remember when you guys were in the in the desert and you were terrible at everything and you grumbled and you complained and you disobeyed? Well, he goes and he lives it.

This is first Adam, second Adam. Right? He is the — the doctrine is called recapitulation. He's reliving the life of Israel, but everything they did badly, he does well. You could think of it like this, that God really has two sons. He has a disobedient son named Israel, and he has an obedient son named Jesus. And Jesus comes and he lives obediently what the other brother did poorly. Right? That's essentially what he's doing.

Okay, Jason? It's also there's also a parallel to Adam because he was — yeah. Created but then set in a perfect setting and still fell. Whereas Christ was sent in the wilderness where he had no food and it's boiling, it's hot, and it's every — and he still did not see it.

Yes. So, Jason's just pointing out that you can see Jesus as reliving the life of Israel. We could also see that he's essentially reliving the life of Adam. He is the second Adam. And again, where Adam has a situation that he like, I've — I've — I've — I've this 500 times because it's my favorite Tim Keller quote. So, forgive me if you're like, again. Okay, yes, again, it's really good. Keller says, god said to Adam in a garden, obey me about the tree and you will live. But he couldn't do it. And god said to Jesus in another garden about another tree, obey me about the tree and I will crush you to powder. And he did it. That he is superior to Adam in a more difficult situation, succeeded where the easy one, Adam failed. And this is across the board. This is what this is the nature of this is this is more obedient life than incarnation.

So, we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but this is what he's come to do. To do perfectly what we couldn't do, but poorly, if at all.

Okay, Sloop? We danced around this, but I this is actually a — that was a new discovery, but it's something I've focused on more in the last couple of years. That his incarnation in his incarnation, we learn what God is like. But in his incarnation, God learns what we are like. That he would not have known what it was like to be human. And we would not be — you know, he is the sympathetic high priest. He understands what it's like to be in our skin. It's not just that he was perfect where we failed, it's that he can identify with us in our pain. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Hang on. I'm gonna go Catherine, and then we may not get past incarnation today. That's okay. That's great. This kinda falls a little bit more under the purview of, like, death, the, like, death and atonement, but further evidence of him needing to become human, I think we can look at.

The covenant that god made with Abraham where he they, like, split the animals and he like goes through with the torch and whatever. As like a representation of like, I know you're going to break this covenant and the the the punishment for breaking this covenant is death but like, I'm gonna go in your place and in my place and like because god can't die, he like had to become human.

Yes. That's exactly right. So, you, I don't know if you caught everything that Catherine said, but she's referring to there's a — there's a sermon we call it cutting a covenant. In Genesis, what is it? 15? I think it's Genesis 15. Am I wrong? Where God makes a covenant with Abraham. And the way that it works, it's basically a giant version of cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Remember this? Where they take a bunch of animals, they kill them, they rip them in half, and they make a pathway of half animal carcasses, like half a bull, half a bull, half a goat, half a goat, half a sheep, half a sheep. And you got this pathway between them. And in this really astonishing moment, what's supposed to happen is that if if I make a covenant with Doug, that Doug and I both walk through this path of animals. And as we walk through it, we're essentially saying to each other, if I don't uphold my side of the covenant, then may what has been done to these animals be done to me. That's the stick of needle in mind. That's what we meant. Like, if I don't do this, then I suffer this. Right? So any covenant is gonna have certain obligations, the parties to the covenant, the benefit of the covenant, the punishment of it. But what's so amazing in Genesis 15 that Catherine's pointing out is when it happens only God walks through the covenant, walks through the path. Abraham falls asleep and this smoking fire pot thing appears and it passes through and anybody paying attention would be like, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Why why why did you sign the contract but I didn't sign the contract? We both need to sign the contract. We both need to say, foreswear ourselves into this. And when only God passes through that path and Abraham is literally asleep when it's happening, the import of that is that God is saying, if I don't keep my end of the covenant, may what has been done to these animals be done to me. And god is saying, if you don't keep this covenant, may what has been done to these animals be done to me. And so Catherine is I think pointing out that when he when when Jesus comes and becomes a human being, he becomes the sort of a thing that can be torn in half and suffer the cost of failing to meet the covenant.

Right? Did I capture what you meant? Okay. So there's that. Noah? Yeah. I had a question about this thing that you just described. When the as the god of the fire passes through the, the animal. Yeah. He's basically saying to Abraham that he's willing to die if he doesn't hold uphold his covenant. But later, like, he has Jesus. Like, Jesus dies anyway even though he upheld that covenant. So that's like, I guess, confusing for me. Like Yes. Okay. So what what what god obligated himself to do in Genesis 15 is not only to keep the covenant for both parties, but to suffer the failure for keeping that covenant for both parties. And he suffered anyway even though he didn't break his covenant. That's right. He suffered he suffered because we broke it. Oh, he's taking one. The deal. Yes. Because Abraham didn't do it. That's it. That's it. And that that really, the language of Isaiah 53, the famous kind of the final servant song, that the punishment that was upon us — I'm sorry. The punishment how does that go? He was how does it go? He was bruised for our iniquity. He was crushed for our transgressions. He was how does the rest of this go? The punishment that should have been upon us was laid upon him. The lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. I'm mangling all those phrases, but that that is what's what's happened there. It was it's a pitch — it's a — it sets up his substitution in our place. Gotcha. Good. Is that cool? Okay. So, we're not gonna have time to get in any of these. So, let me just do this, incarnation language. Here's where you'd go. John one, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. That's one fourteen. We've seen his glory. Again, the hiddenness of God has been rolled back. We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the father full of grace and truth. You got first John one, the way that he frames that all out.

Andy, what's the reference that you were quoting about that you started us with? 18 verse 18.

No one has ever seen god but god, the one and only who's at the father's side has made him known.

This is what we see in the incarnation. So, next week, we'll be right back here and we'll pick it up with we're gonna continue just walking through this list of 10 things. Incarnation, his teaching and his miracles, his obedient life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension to reign as king, his giving of the spirit, his interceding for believers, and his someday soon return to raise the dead and restore all things. Okay? There's your paradigm. I'll email it to you. If you and by the way, you're like, how are gonna email it to me? Because you signed up for the email thing. Which means you send an email, Hannah, to what? chschsdoctrine@gmail.com.

So, if you're not currently getting like little updates and notes from us, just email us at chschsdoctrine@gmail.com. That'll add you to the thing and I'll send you that list. And then we'll just kinda march down the line for our Christology study. Good enough?

Alright. Thanks for coming.