1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,872 Now we shift gears into the big discussion of Christology. 2 00:00:09,709 --> 00:00:14,414 And we get to spend a fair amount of time talking about our Christological issues, 3 00:00:14,948 --> 00:00:19,986 which are obviously of some import, pretty important stuff. 4 00:00:23,323 --> 00:00:24,491 Christology is what? 5 00:00:26,893 --> 00:00:27,994 Study of Christ. 6 00:00:27,994 --> 00:00:28,595 Right. 7 00:00:29,229 --> 00:00:36,870 And so Christology, we're looking at the second person of the Trinity and thinking about his person and his work. 8 00:00:37,303 --> 00:00:44,444 And actually we're going to spend one whole time here, the rest of this time, just kind of talking about his person, who He is. 9 00:00:51,518 --> 00:00:53,086 So who is Christ? 10 00:00:55,655 --> 00:00:56,189 Human. 11 00:00:56,589 --> 00:00:57,123 Son of God? 12 00:00:57,991 --> 00:00:58,725 Both. 13 00:00:58,725 --> 00:00:59,192 Right. 14 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:03,997 And that's the whole point of our Christian faith, is God in human flesh. 15 00:01:04,764 --> 00:01:10,770 So what we confess is that Christ is the second person of the Trinity, 16 00:01:12,906 --> 00:01:20,613 and Christ exists from before creation, has always been there. 17 00:01:21,614 --> 00:01:27,854 And we would confess that Christ is in relation to the Father as the Son. 18 00:01:30,190 --> 00:01:32,325 Does that mean that the Father comes first? 19 00:01:33,293 --> 00:01:33,626 No. 20 00:01:34,894 --> 00:01:37,730 It just means there's a difference, a Father to a Son. 21 00:01:38,231 --> 00:01:44,137 And you can even make a good case to say that the Son has to be eternal or the Father can't be a Father. 22 00:01:45,805 --> 00:01:48,274 Because unless there's a Son, there's not a Father. 23 00:01:48,374 --> 00:01:52,545 The Father has to have a Son, and so the Father and the Son are always just that way. 24 00:01:52,745 --> 00:01:57,217 So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity, is just that way from eternity. 25 00:01:57,650 --> 00:02:00,954 It's not like the Son somewhere came into existence later. 26 00:02:01,588 --> 00:02:03,790 He's always just the Son. 27 00:02:04,124 --> 00:02:05,058 That's the reality. 28 00:02:06,626 --> 00:02:07,293 Okay. 29 00:02:09,329 --> 00:02:18,638 Now, the big scandal is that we teach in the Christian church that Christ is God in the flesh. 30 00:02:21,574 --> 00:02:25,812 And that's what we mean by this word incarnate. 31 00:02:27,147 --> 00:02:27,347 Okay. 32 00:02:28,815 --> 00:02:30,150 Incarnate or incarnation. 33 00:02:30,750 --> 00:02:32,485 You need to get quite familiar with that word. 34 00:02:32,485 --> 00:02:33,720 incarnate means what? 35 00:02:35,188 --> 00:02:37,590 It comes straight out of Latin this time. 36 00:02:38,224 --> 00:02:41,895 And in looks just like it looks like it's a prefix put into something. 37 00:02:42,295 --> 00:02:45,031 And then you have carnet or carne. 38 00:02:45,732 --> 00:02:46,499 Carne means what? 39 00:02:47,534 --> 00:02:48,067 Flesh. 40 00:02:49,269 --> 00:02:49,736 Yes. 41 00:02:50,470 --> 00:02:53,139 A carnivore is a meat eater. 42 00:02:54,407 --> 00:02:58,011 And chili con carne means chili with meat. 43 00:02:58,711 --> 00:03:00,847 That's that rare stuff you don't find too often. 44 00:03:01,381 --> 00:03:01,714 All right? 45 00:03:01,714 --> 00:03:04,984 Carne means flesh. 46 00:03:05,585 --> 00:03:07,153 It's a rather a graphic word. 47 00:03:07,687 --> 00:03:12,258 It parallels the Greek word sarx for the idea of flesh. 48 00:03:13,259 --> 00:03:17,497 And you have this concept that Christ is in flesh. 49 00:03:18,398 --> 00:03:18,665 Meat. 50 00:03:20,366 --> 00:03:21,568 Rather a strong language. 51 00:03:22,602 --> 00:03:26,906 And that's the blow you away thing that I was giving you before about John chapter 1. 52 00:03:28,041 --> 00:03:29,309 So John chapter 1. 53 00:03:29,776 --> 00:03:32,812 In the beginning was the word, the logos. 54 00:03:33,646 --> 00:03:34,447 The word of God. 55 00:03:34,881 --> 00:03:36,249 Greek is logos. 56 00:03:36,816 --> 00:03:38,952 Or logos depending on how you learn how to pronounce it. 57 00:03:39,485 --> 00:03:40,954 So in the beginning was the word. 58 00:03:41,254 --> 00:03:42,155 The logos of God. 59 00:03:42,488 --> 00:03:44,390 And the word was with God and the word was God. 60 00:03:44,624 --> 00:03:45,024 Great. 61 00:03:45,391 --> 00:03:48,695 Nothing came into existence that didn't come into existence through him. 62 00:03:48,928 --> 00:03:49,229 Fine. 63 00:03:49,295 --> 00:03:49,629 We're okay. 64 00:03:49,729 --> 00:03:50,296 This is great. 65 00:03:50,663 --> 00:03:52,865 Though the world did not receive Him. 66 00:03:52,999 --> 00:03:53,233 Fine. 67 00:03:53,233 --> 00:03:57,103 Then you have this and the word became flesh. 68 00:03:59,205 --> 00:04:05,378 And as I was talking about yesterday, this was a big problem for Greek believers. 69 00:04:05,812 --> 00:04:06,946 Or for unbelievers for that matter. 70 00:04:07,046 --> 00:04:08,214 Big problem. 71 00:04:08,514 --> 00:04:14,354 Because in the Greek world, God is by definition other than material. 72 00:04:15,121 --> 00:04:18,391 And material is by definition evil and suspicious. 73 00:04:18,391 --> 00:04:26,065 And so for Plato and for Aristotle both, it's a problem how God can become flesh. 74 00:04:26,933 --> 00:04:30,470 Or how God can change and bring something else into himself. 75 00:04:30,870 --> 00:04:33,339 But this is precisely the thing that we recognize. 76 00:04:33,706 --> 00:04:37,377 That Christ is God in the flesh, God in human form. 77 00:04:39,712 --> 00:04:47,086 And the New Testament ratchets this thing up even higher because Jesus is referred to as Lord. 78 00:04:49,622 --> 00:04:56,095 In fact you've got Thomas at one point saying, my Lord and my God, referring to Jesus. 79 00:04:57,130 --> 00:05:04,771 So what we confess is that God in the flesh comes in the form and the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 80 00:05:09,642 --> 00:05:11,944 A real man at a real time. 81 00:05:12,145 --> 00:05:13,813 He's joined to human flesh. 82 00:05:13,813 --> 00:05:18,618 And that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is recognized as Lord. 83 00:05:19,585 --> 00:05:21,187 A Lord is a loaded term. 84 00:05:21,954 --> 00:05:23,823 In Greek the word is kyrios. 85 00:05:28,661 --> 00:05:30,963 I'll get my oops-a-line right here. 86 00:05:32,632 --> 00:05:33,132 Kyrios. 87 00:05:33,733 --> 00:05:34,534 Word for Lord. 88 00:05:36,669 --> 00:05:40,273 Now we've got to do a little bit of work with our Hebrew and our Old Testament stuff. 89 00:05:40,273 --> 00:05:43,876 In the Old Testament what is the special name for God? 90 00:05:44,210 --> 00:05:45,978 God is Elohim in Hebrew. 91 00:05:46,412 --> 00:05:51,284 But the special word for God, the name that God is given is Yahweh. 92 00:06:01,094 --> 00:06:01,561 Yahweh. 93 00:06:01,561 --> 00:06:04,063 Which in Hebrew looks like this. 94 00:06:06,733 --> 00:06:09,302 Depending on how fancy you want to make your letters. 95 00:06:09,302 --> 00:06:10,303 So Yahweh. 96 00:06:11,070 --> 00:06:14,173 Which is sometimes called the tetragromitin. 97 00:06:22,315 --> 00:06:26,686 I'll try to give you all this fun terminology so you just know it. 98 00:06:26,986 --> 00:06:30,823 The tetragromitin, which just means the four letter word. 99 00:06:31,591 --> 00:06:32,825 That's what it means. 100 00:06:33,593 --> 00:06:37,263 Tetragromitin, the four letter word, because in Hebrew this is four Hebrew letters. 101 00:06:37,263 --> 00:06:41,768 Yod, Heh, Wa, Heh. Yahweh. 102 00:06:43,803 --> 00:06:50,309 Yahweh seems to derive from the Hebrew verb to be, is, being. 103 00:06:51,110 --> 00:06:56,449 And so that's why when Moses talks to God at the burning bush and Moses says, 104 00:06:56,816 --> 00:06:57,650 What's your name? 105 00:06:58,251 --> 00:07:03,589 And the voice in the bush says, I am that I am. 106 00:07:04,023 --> 00:07:05,591 Very low resonant voice. 107 00:07:06,225 --> 00:07:07,894 Charlton Heston goes, Oh. 108 00:07:08,628 --> 00:07:08,828 Okay. 109 00:07:09,629 --> 00:07:10,296 That's how it happened. 110 00:07:10,596 --> 00:07:12,365 I mean, Charlton Heston doesn't get it right, who does? 111 00:07:15,368 --> 00:07:21,307 So Yahweh comes and delivers his name, which is I am. 112 00:07:21,707 --> 00:07:23,876 Which sounds like Yahweh. 113 00:07:24,177 --> 00:07:31,150 And so Yahweh is the special name given to God that he has given of himself that is used. 114 00:07:31,417 --> 00:07:32,485 This is the God of Israel. 115 00:07:32,485 --> 00:07:37,089 And Yahweh and Elohim are the same, but Yahweh is the particular name. 116 00:07:37,723 --> 00:07:44,197 Now, in the world of Judaism, especially into intertestamental Judaism, 117 00:07:45,198 --> 00:07:51,771 and even in earlier times, the name Yahweh was considered so sacred that you didn't want to misuse it. 118 00:07:51,838 --> 00:07:54,207 In fact, God gave a commandment about that, right? 119 00:07:54,774 --> 00:07:57,343 Second commandment, don't misuse the name of the Lord your God. 120 00:07:57,710 --> 00:07:57,844 Right? 121 00:07:58,845 --> 00:08:04,851 So the good Jews would say, well, heaven forbid that we would misuse the name of Yahweh, 122 00:08:05,485 --> 00:08:06,752 so I'll tell you what we'll do. 123 00:08:06,953 --> 00:08:11,757 We won't even say it because it's too sacred. 124 00:08:12,391 --> 00:08:16,963 So when we're reading along in our Hebrew Bible and we come to the Tetragrammaton 125 00:08:16,963 --> 00:08:24,303 and we see these four letters, instead of saying Yahweh, we're going to say Adonai. 126 00:08:28,407 --> 00:08:32,678 Because Adonai means my Lord. 127 00:08:34,814 --> 00:08:35,548 That's what it means. 128 00:08:36,249 --> 00:08:37,483 Adonai means my Lord. 129 00:08:38,084 --> 00:08:40,953 So instead of saying Yahweh, we'll say Adonai. 130 00:08:41,287 --> 00:08:45,591 And then what happened a little later on was the Masoretes, who were the ones who were transcribing the Bible, 131 00:08:45,992 --> 00:08:49,362 wanted to help out the poor Hebrew readers, so what they did was they said, 132 00:08:49,795 --> 00:08:53,733 well, we've got Yahweh there, that's the sacred text, we're not going to mess with that, 133 00:08:53,733 --> 00:08:58,971 but the Hebrew points, you know, the vowel pointing for the vowels, we can mess with those a little bit, 134 00:08:59,105 --> 00:09:07,079 so what they did is they went ahead and they put in the vowel points for Adonai onto the consonants for Yahweh. 135 00:09:07,246 --> 00:09:10,750 And so, to be honest, I haven't looked at them for a while, so I don't remember them right offhand. 136 00:09:11,050 --> 00:09:13,819 So the vowel pointing was the vowel pointing for Adonai. 137 00:09:13,986 --> 00:09:18,291 So what would happen is the Hebrew reader would be going along and he would see those four letters 138 00:09:18,291 --> 00:09:23,029 and he would recognize the vowel points for Adonai and he would say Adonai, he wouldn't say Yahweh. 139 00:09:23,029 --> 00:09:29,802 And that's why when the King James actually translated this sometimes, they translated the word Jehovah. 140 00:09:31,137 --> 00:09:37,443 Jehovah is attempting to try to translate this with those vowels for Adonai. 141 00:09:38,144 --> 00:09:39,412 It's really a mistranslation. 142 00:09:39,946 --> 00:09:43,916 So Jehovah's Witnesses are basing their whole entire religion on a mistranslation of a Hebrew word, 143 00:09:44,083 --> 00:09:48,187 which is rather comical, but it's worth pointing out. 144 00:09:48,187 --> 00:09:52,858 So, the random word is Yahweh, but they would always say Adonai. 145 00:09:53,326 --> 00:09:57,430 And so when the Septuagint was translated, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, 146 00:09:57,697 --> 00:10:05,338 when they came to the word Yahweh, these were all good Jews, they wouldn't say Yahweh and they didn't try to put Yahweh into Greek, 147 00:10:05,538 --> 00:10:13,879 instead they simply translated Lord, Adonai, and in Greek it came in as Kyrios, Lord. 148 00:10:13,879 --> 00:10:21,887 So long story short, what I'm getting at is this, that in New Testament times, Kyrios had several meanings. 149 00:10:22,455 --> 00:10:32,965 It could mean Lord as in Master, it could also mean Lord as in Sir, okay, just kind of a term of respect. 150 00:10:34,066 --> 00:10:37,970 You know, Sir, Master, Lord, help me out here. 151 00:10:37,970 --> 00:10:46,212 Or, it could mean on rare occasions, heavy duty stuff, it could be even a reference for Yahweh. 152 00:10:46,445 --> 00:10:47,413 It meant all of those. 153 00:10:48,614 --> 00:10:54,587 And so that's kind of fun, because in the New Testament, you read along and you have people referring to Jesus as Kyrios, 154 00:10:54,854 --> 00:10:59,492 or are they just being polite and calling him Sir, or are they calling him Master like Rabbi, 155 00:10:59,792 --> 00:11:04,263 or is there even more going on here and are they calling him Yahweh? 156 00:11:05,598 --> 00:11:11,937 In fact, what was one of the very first and earliest creeds of the Christian church? 157 00:11:12,972 --> 00:11:16,809 It was Jesus is Lord. 158 00:11:17,943 --> 00:11:21,614 Alright? Jesus is Lord. 159 00:11:23,182 --> 00:11:24,050 Jesus is Lord. 160 00:11:24,350 --> 00:11:27,887 Which is a whole lot more than to say he's the boss. 161 00:11:28,721 --> 00:11:34,894 To say Jesus is Lord is to say Jesus is Yahweh. 162 00:11:37,496 --> 00:11:39,298 That's pretty heavy duty stuff. 163 00:11:40,466 --> 00:11:45,738 But you see, the Jews, and the disciples of Jesus for that matter, had no choice. 164 00:11:47,039 --> 00:11:52,111 Because in the Jewish mind, it was very clear, you've got two categories of things in the world. 165 00:11:52,111 --> 00:11:57,316 You've got the Creator, and you've got everything else. 166 00:11:58,718 --> 00:12:00,720 The creation. That's it. 167 00:12:02,154 --> 00:12:08,494 The Creator does things like create, make alive, raise people from the dead. 168 00:12:09,028 --> 00:12:10,329 Only God does that stuff. 169 00:12:10,763 --> 00:12:13,666 Only God is the Creator. Only God could be. 170 00:12:14,033 --> 00:12:15,234 And how many gods are there? 171 00:12:16,168 --> 00:12:19,271 It's obvious, there's only one, and he's Yahweh. 172 00:12:19,271 --> 00:12:27,313 So, when Jesus starts doing God stuff, like telling a storm to knock it off, 173 00:12:28,247 --> 00:12:33,385 and raising people from the dead, and helping blind people to see, and deaf people to hear, 174 00:12:33,786 --> 00:12:37,723 the disciples watch this, and when they conclude, who alone could do this? 175 00:12:38,891 --> 00:12:42,061 This is God's stuff. Only the Creator gets to do this. 176 00:12:42,461 --> 00:12:45,264 There's only one God, it's Yahweh. 177 00:12:45,264 --> 00:12:48,367 Holy cats. This guy is God. 178 00:12:50,136 --> 00:12:53,506 This is what they concluded. This is what they, the termination. 179 00:12:53,873 --> 00:13:01,080 So when Thomas says, my Lord and my God, he means it, Yahweh, my God. 180 00:13:02,348 --> 00:13:05,284 And that's what he's confessing. Heavy duty stuff. 181 00:13:06,552 --> 00:13:08,587 That's the heart of the Christian confession. 182 00:13:08,587 --> 00:13:16,762 That Jesus is not some sort of representation of God, or image of God, or reflection of God, 183 00:13:16,829 --> 00:13:20,766 or ambassador for God. He is God. 184 00:13:21,667 --> 00:13:24,270 Because only God does the kind of stuff that he is doing. 185 00:13:25,504 --> 00:13:28,574 Only he can accomplish this. God in the flesh. 186 00:13:29,475 --> 00:13:33,679 So that's what incarnation means, literally, is God in the flesh. 187 00:13:34,914 --> 00:13:39,785 We get way too familiar, way too comfortable with this. 188 00:13:40,553 --> 00:13:43,255 And we crank through Christmas like it's just no big deal. 189 00:13:43,756 --> 00:13:47,426 But we should just be gasping in awe every time. 190 00:13:48,460 --> 00:13:54,900 To think that God, who is the Creator of everything, the Master, and ruler, and the entire universe, 191 00:13:55,734 --> 00:13:59,705 chooses to join us in human flesh. It's just astounding. 192 00:14:00,773 --> 00:14:08,013 God, who is the infinite Creator of all, all powerful, omniscient, perfectly holy, joins us in our world. 193 00:14:08,547 --> 00:14:09,415 That's our confession. 194 00:14:10,082 --> 00:14:12,785 And when you think about how he does it, it's even more staggering. 195 00:14:13,686 --> 00:14:17,156 It's not like he picks a full grown guy and says, okay, I'm going to go invade him now. 196 00:14:18,324 --> 00:14:23,229 But instead, he joins himself to human flesh from the moment of conception. 197 00:14:24,263 --> 00:14:25,965 And this is very important. 198 00:14:25,965 --> 00:14:32,371 So, we talk about the incarnation is God in human flesh. 199 00:14:32,905 --> 00:14:34,807 And when did the incarnation start? 200 00:14:37,343 --> 00:14:38,644 With the conception. 201 00:14:39,845 --> 00:14:45,451 And so the incarnation happened on March 25th. 202 00:14:48,954 --> 00:14:51,824 It's a church festival. You knew that, didn't you? 203 00:14:52,892 --> 00:14:54,894 March 25th. It's the Annunciation. 204 00:14:55,928 --> 00:14:57,196 It is a church festival. 205 00:14:57,863 --> 00:15:01,634 And it's even in our hymnal. Check it out when you go to chapel next time. 206 00:15:02,835 --> 00:15:04,803 March 25th, the Annunciation. 207 00:15:05,604 --> 00:15:11,977 It's when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and says, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 208 00:15:13,012 --> 00:15:16,949 And now we call that the Hail Mary and we don't like that prayer so much. 209 00:15:17,216 --> 00:15:18,851 But that's where it comes from. 210 00:15:19,051 --> 00:15:20,653 March 25th, the Annunciation. 211 00:15:20,653 --> 00:15:23,622 And why March 25th? Well, it's easy. Just back up nine months. 212 00:15:23,756 --> 00:15:26,458 December 25th, bing, bing, bing, bing. March 25th. There you got it. 213 00:15:27,826 --> 00:15:28,394 What's that? 214 00:15:29,662 --> 00:15:30,529 Well, of course. 215 00:15:31,363 --> 00:15:32,331 Nine months exactly. 216 00:15:32,564 --> 00:15:35,167 And of course it was March 25th because of course she was born December 25th. 217 00:15:35,234 --> 00:15:36,535 There's no doubt about these things. 218 00:15:37,403 --> 00:15:38,337 Obviously it wouldn't happen. 219 00:15:39,071 --> 00:15:40,172 Are you doubting this? 220 00:15:43,409 --> 00:15:46,812 Alright. So, yeah, obviously the dates are somewhat up for grabs. 221 00:15:46,912 --> 00:15:47,846 We're not real sure. 222 00:15:47,846 --> 00:15:51,483 But, you know, there's actually some interesting traditions around this kind of stuff. 223 00:15:51,884 --> 00:15:53,786 We don't know that it wasn't December 25th. 224 00:15:53,852 --> 00:15:55,487 Some people try to say, obviously it wasn't. 225 00:15:55,521 --> 00:15:56,922 But we don't know it wasn't. 226 00:15:57,089 --> 00:16:00,793 You know, some people would say, oh, they don't have sheep out grazing in December. 227 00:16:00,893 --> 00:16:03,329 Ah, not necessarily. They might once in a while. 228 00:16:03,529 --> 00:16:05,464 So it's possible that it did happen when they said. 229 00:16:05,965 --> 00:16:15,474 And actually in favor of this date is the fact that in ancient times it was often considered that really important people would be conceived and die on the same day. 230 00:16:15,474 --> 00:16:17,910 This was a common belief that it was around at the time. 231 00:16:18,344 --> 00:16:23,549 And so March 25th actually fits pretty close to when Good Friday would have been about the right time. 232 00:16:24,049 --> 00:16:26,118 And also argues pretty good for it. 233 00:16:26,185 --> 00:16:27,553 Well, maybe that's when it was happening. 234 00:16:27,753 --> 00:16:31,724 So March 25th, the date of his death, because that was the date associated with his birth. 235 00:16:32,057 --> 00:16:36,228 And so the argument goes that you don't have December 25th being chosen and working backwards. 236 00:16:36,662 --> 00:16:39,331 We actually have March 25th being chosen and working forward. 237 00:16:39,832 --> 00:16:41,266 And that's how we end up with a date for Christmas. 238 00:16:41,834 --> 00:16:43,135 And there's some credibility to this. 239 00:16:43,135 --> 00:16:44,703 There's some guy who's done a study on this. 240 00:16:44,837 --> 00:16:47,106 One of my friends was telling me about this. 241 00:16:47,506 --> 00:16:55,147 He said that, you know, we always say, well, December 25th was chosen to try to counteract the Roman festivals, the Osa Adronalia festival and all this kind of stuff. 242 00:16:55,247 --> 00:16:55,948 The winter solstice. 243 00:16:56,081 --> 00:16:57,116 And that's why it was chosen. 244 00:16:57,249 --> 00:16:58,917 And it's all the druids and all that kind of stuff. 245 00:16:59,151 --> 00:17:01,286 And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 246 00:17:01,453 --> 00:17:02,187 So, you know. 247 00:17:02,454 --> 00:17:03,722 But that's kind of intriguing to say. 248 00:17:03,756 --> 00:17:07,526 No, it was chosen because March 25th was the day he died. 249 00:17:07,826 --> 00:17:10,496 So that's obviously the day he was conceived because he was a great individual. 250 00:17:10,496 --> 00:17:12,998 So, it was December 25th. 251 00:17:13,132 --> 00:17:13,632 Kind of intriguing. 252 00:17:14,566 --> 00:17:15,968 Turning the whole thing around a little bit there. 253 00:17:16,869 --> 00:17:17,169 All right. 254 00:17:17,636 --> 00:17:20,305 Now, more so the point of our purposes, though.