Latest / Reformed Thinking / Jesus as God: The Biblical, Historical, and Practical Necessity of Confessing the Deity of Christ

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Jesus as God: The Biblical, Historical, and Practical Necessity of Confessing the Deity of Christ · Reformed Thinking

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  You know when you first look up at the night sky with the naked
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  eye, a star looks like a single solitary point of light.
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  It is just one object, clean, isolated, uncomplicated.
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  Yeah, a solitary source of light against this massive dark
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  canvas. But then you get a high
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  magnification telescope. You point the lens at that very
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  same star, and suddenly you realize it is not a single point
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  of light at all. It is a binary star system.
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  Oh what? 2 massive bodies distinct from
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  one another, yet locked together.
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  They share the the same center of gravity, burning with the
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  same intense fire. It completely alters your
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  understanding of what you were looking at, even though the
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  light hitting your eye is the same light that has been shining
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  down on you all along. That is a fantastic way to frame
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  it. Welcome to Reformed thinking.
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  Today we are pointing the telescope of Scripture, history,
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  and the Westminster Confession at the absolute center of the
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  Christian faith. We are looking at Jesus Christ.
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  Our mission in this deep dive is examining the central question
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  of the faith, the true identity of Jesus Christ as God and the
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  eternal Son. We have a massive stack of
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  sources here today. They present a rigorous
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  biblical, historical and practical defense of Christ
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  deity, all from a strictly Reformed confessional
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  perspective. And we really need to dig into
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  those sources. Yeah, absolutely.
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  So, OK, let's unpack this. If the Bible insists from the
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  very first page that there is only one God, how can Christians
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  worship Jesus of Nazareth without committing flat out
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  idolatry? The stakes here, honestly, could
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  not be higher. Believing in the deity of Christ
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  is not some secondary issue. It is not some abstract theology
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  for academics to debate in an ivory tower.
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  Right, it is not just is an intellectual exercise.
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  Not at all. If Jesus is not God, His
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  sacrifice cannot save sinners, period.
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  A creative being, no matter how exalted, cannot bear the
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  infinite wrath of a holy God. Wow.
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  Yeah, that puts it right into perspective.
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  So we're going to look at how Scripture, church history, and
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  the Westminster Confession answer this specific question.
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  The goal here for you listening to this is to see that the
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  doctrine of Christ deity does not stand against biblical
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  monotheism. It actually arises from it and
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  fulfills it. So to understand and Jesus, we
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  have to start where the Bible starts.
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  We have to begin with the absolute jealous monotheism of
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  the Hebrew Scriptures. Yes, the older scriptures set
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  the entire stage. Biblical Christianity is
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  grounded in this truth. It is not some vague generic
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  theism where God is just a higher being among many.
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  It is fierce. When I was looking through our
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  sources, I kept hitting this wall of absolute exclusivity.
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  It is fiercely exclusive. You see this most clearly in the
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  Shima from Deuteronomy 6.4. Which was the daily confession
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  of Israel, right? Precisely.
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  Hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one that stands as a
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  massive banner over all the older scriptures.
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  The Israelites lived in ancient Near Eastern culture, swimming
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  and polytheism. Every single nation around them
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  had a pantheon of regional deities.
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  Right, like the Canaanites had Ball and Asherah.
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  And the Egyptians had Raw and Osiris.
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  Israel was completely unique in confessing one single Creator.
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  And the prophets take this truth and sharpen it into an exclusive
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  claim. I think of Isaiah specifically
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  here. Yes Isaiah is so clear on this
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  and Isaiah 43.7 Michael God says before me no God was formed, nor
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  shall there be any after me. In Isaiah 44.6 he says I am the
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  1st and I am the last. Besides me there is no God, and
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  in Isaiah 45.5 I am the Lord and there is no other.
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  There is zero wiggle. Room 0.
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  The point is undeniable. There's no room for a pantheon.
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  Any view of Jesus that creates multiple gods is completely
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  unbiblical. I have to push back a little
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  here. Or at least voice where I think
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  a lot of people feel when they read those specific texts.
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  Sure, go ahead. If Israel's faith is strictly
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  monotheistic, doesn't introducing a divine Jesus
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  shatter that? It feels like we're looking at a
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  majestic solitary mountain from a distance.
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  OK, I follow you. But then as we hike closer we
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  realize it actually consists of distinct peaks.
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  Does the realization of those distinct peaks destroy the
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  reality that it is still 1 mountain sharing the same base?
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  That analogy captures attention beautifully.
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  The Hebrew Bible is fiercely guarding the oneness of God, but
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  at the same time it contains hints and shadows of a plurality
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  within that one divine being. It is tilling the soil for what
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  is to come. Spot on.
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  For instance, consider the very first chapter of the Bible in
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  Genesis 1.26. God says let us make man in our
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  image after our likeness. And people debate that plural
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  pronoun all the time. Oh, constantly.
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  Some critical scholars try to argue that this is God's to
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  talking to a council of angels. But angels do not create
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  humanity in their image. The text insists that it is
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  God's singular who creates. Right, the verbs are singular
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  even when the pronoun is plural. Yes.
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  So those plural pronouns suggest an internal dynamic relation, a
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  deliberation within God Himself. He is a relational being before
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  the universe ever existed. And as you move through those
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  older writings, those hints start to stretch the categories
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  of a single personhood even further.
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  They really do. One of the most striking
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  examples is a Psalm 110.1. David writes The Lord says to my
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  Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies your
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  footstool. That verse is quoted so
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  frequently in the newer writings.
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  It is everywhere. You have Yahweh speaking to my
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  Lord, whom David sees seated at God's right hand.
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  I was thinking about how Jesus actually uses this specific text
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  against the Pharisees in Matthew 22.
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  Right. He turns it back on them.
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  Yeah, because the Pharisees had a neat, tidy category for the
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  Messiah. He was going to be a human
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  descendant of David, you know, a political military leader to
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  kick out the Romans. That's the.
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  Guy with the sword. Yeah, basically.
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  So Jesus asks them how David, under the inspiration of the
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  Spirit, can call his own descendant Lord.
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  In that ancient patriarchal culture, a father never calls
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  his son Lord. The lesser blesses the greater.
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  Never. It would turn the social order
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  upside down it. Forces the reader to realize
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  that this coming king is vastly more than a mere human being.
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  There is a relational dynamic happening within the divine
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  identity. What is fascinating here is how
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  the prophets build on that relational dynamic.
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  Consider Daniel's vision in Daniel Chapter 7.
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  He sees one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of
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  heaven, approaching the Ancient of Days.
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  And writing the clouds is a huge detail.
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  It is massive. In ancient apocalyptic
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  literature, writing on the clouds is a prerogative
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  exclusive to Yahweh. He's the cloud writer, yet this
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  distinct figure is given dominion, glory, and a Kingdom
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  so that all peoples and nations should render homage to him.
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  His dominion is everlasting. So he is doing things only God
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  does. Exactly.
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  I mean absolutely. The language of coming with the
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  clouds and possessing an eternal Kingdom echoes descriptions of
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  God himself. Yet this figure is distinct from
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  the Ancient of Days. Uncompromising monotheism is
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  preserved. There is one God enthroned, but
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  within the vision there is a second divine person who shares
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  the very prerogatives of God. And then you have the explicit
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  prophetic clues that attach divine titles to the coming
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  Messiah. Isaiah 9.6 speaks of a promised
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  child who will be called Mighty God and Everlasting Father.
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  You cannot just brush those titles.
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  Aside, no you cannot. Micah 5.2 speaks of a ruler from
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  Bethlehem whose origins are from ancient days, suggesting A
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  pretemporal existence. Jeremiah 23 names the righteous
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  branch from David's line. The Lord is our righteousness.
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  Which uses the divine name. Yeah, the literal
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  Tetragrammaton. You cannot reduce a figure with
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  those specific titles to a human reformer or an enlightened
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  teacher. The soil is being heavily
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  tilled. The one God of Abraham has
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  always been Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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  That is spot on. When we step from the Hebrew
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  Bible into the New Covenant writings, we do not leave
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  monotheism behind. We watch it come to full light
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  in the person of Jesus Christ. It is like someone turns on the
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  floodlights. Yeah, the transition focuses on
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  how pious, monotheistic Jewish writers, men who would rather
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  die than offer a pinch of incense to Caesar, suddenly
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  began Speaking of Jesus of Nazareth in ways reserved solely
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  for Yahweh. The transition is blinding.
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  The Apostolic writings do not use vague or poetic language
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  about this. They use explicit divine titles.
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  Let's look at the opening of John's Gospel.
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  Oh, I love the prologue of John. It hits the reader like a
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  Thunder clap, John 1.1 says in the beginning was the Word and
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  the Word was with God and the Word was.
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  God, it is so compact yet so heavy.
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  Right. The word is distinct from God
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  being with God, which establishes a relationship, but
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  the word is also identified as God.
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  He was God. And then at the very end of that
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  same gospel, you have Thomas. Dowling Thomas.
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  Yeah. Jesus appears to him and Thomas
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  falls down and confesses my Lord and my God in John 20.28.
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  For a 1st century Jew to say that to a man standing in front
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  of him is earth shattering. It really is, and the crucial
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  detail is that Jesus accepts this worship.
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  He does not stop him. Right when people try to worship
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  angels in the Book of Revelation, the angels
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  immediately stop him and say do not do that, worship God.
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  When people try to worship the apostles in the book of Acts,
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  Paul and Barnabas care their clothes in horror.
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  Because they knew it was idolatry, yes.
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  But Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for blasphemy.
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  He blesses his faith. It is a unified chorus across
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  all the early church documents. You also have Paul calling
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  Christ God over all blessed forever in Romans 9.5 and Peter
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  writing of our God and Savior Jesus Christ and second Peter
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  1.1. The author of Hebrews even
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  quotes the Father addressing the Son, saying Your throne, O God,
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  is forever and ever. That is Hebrews 1, right?
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  Yeah, Hebrews 1.8 But to really grasp the weight of this, we
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  have to look closely at the title Lord or curious in the
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  Greek. In the Greek translation of the
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  older scriptures this the Septuagint, the word curious
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  regularly translates the divine name YHWH.
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  So it was their standard stand in for the sacred.
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  Man, yes, they knew this intimately.
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  So when the early Christians call Jesus Lord, they're
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  reaching directly back into that older usage and applying it to
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  Christ. For example, Joel 2.32 promises
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  that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
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  Oh, and Paul uses that. He does.
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  Paul takes that specific promise and applies it directly to
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  Jesus. In Romans 10.13, he urges his
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  readers to confess Jesus as Lord.
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  To call upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation is to
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  do with the older writings reserved for Yahweh alone.
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  Here is where it gets incredibly interesting for me.
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  In John 8.58 Jesus is debating with the religious leaders and
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  he says before Abraham was I am. That is a massive mic drop
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  moment. It really is, he does not say.
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  Before Abraham was I was. He shatters the grammar of the
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  sentence to take the divine name straight from Exodus 3.14, where
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  God reveals himself to Moses at the burning Bush as I AM WHO I
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  am. The reaction of the audience
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  tells us everything we need to know.
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  They immediately picked up stones to crush his skull.
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  It was not because they misunderstood his meaning, it
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  was because they knew precisely what he was claiming.
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  He was claiming to be the uncreated, self existent God of
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  Israel. And this divine identity is
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  cemented by the Trinitarian formulas we find throughout the
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  New Covenant. In Matthew 28.1 Teen, the risen
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  Christ commands his apostles to baptize in the name of the
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  Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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  Notice that the word name is singular there.
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  Yes, singular. It indicates 1 singular divine
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  identity, yet 3 distinct persons are named equally.
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  No creature could be inserted between the Father and the
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  Spirit without violating monotheism.
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  It'll be. Wild to baptize in the name of
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  God, Michael the Archangel and the Holy Spirit.
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  It would be supreme blasphemy if Jesus were just a highly exalted
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  Angel or a perfect human. Putting him in that baptismal
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  formula makes no sense. Paul does something similar in
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  2nd Corinthians 13.14 when he blesses the church with the
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  grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the
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  fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Jesus shares the single divine
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  essence. That brings us to a phrase that
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  confuses a lot of people, the phrase Son of God.
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  People hear that title and often think it implies A biological
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  beginning or a lesser status, like a human son is subordinate
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  to his human father. It is a common hang up.
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  Right, because if someone is the Son, they must have come after
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  the Father. Logically speaking, we need to
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  clearly define what this title actually means in scripture,
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  because misunderstanding it leads straight into heresy.
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  We really do. We have to contrast derivative
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  sonship with unique sonship. Scripture uses sun language in a
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  variety of ways. Israel is called God's corporate
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  first born son in Exodus 4.22, indicating a covenant
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  relationship and special affection.
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  Believers receive the spirit of adoption as sons too, as Paul
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  says in Romans 8.5. Yes, even angels are called sons
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  of God in Job 1.6, highlighting their origin from God as
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  creations. But all of those examples are
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  derivative. They do not imply that the one
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  called sun shares the very uncreated nature of God.
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  I like to picture it like an artist creating a brilliant
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  sculpture versus a father having a living child.
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  Oh that is a great image. Yeah, the sculpture is a product
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  of the artist's hands. Think of Michelangelo carving
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  David. It reflects the artist immense
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  skill and creativity. But it's made of marble.
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  It does not share Michelangelo's DNA or humanity.
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  It is an artifact. It is not human, but.
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  A child shares the actual nature, the actual beast of the
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  Father. When scripture calls Jesus the
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  Son of God, it is talking about a unique, one-of-a-kind sonship.
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  He's not a sculpture, He is of the exact same essence as the
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  Father. That illustration is 100%
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  accurate. The Greek word used to describe
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  this is monogenes, often translated as only begotten.
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  It means Jesus is the one-of-a-kind Son, sharing the
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  identical nature as the Father. So he is not just a really good
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  guy that God adopted. No.
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  When Jesus speaks of God as my Father, his opponents in John 5
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  point O's hate perceive accurately that he is making
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  himself equal with God. In John 10.30 he explicitly says
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  I and the Father are one, and again they pick up stones to
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  execute him. They really like picking up
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  stones in John's gospel. They did.
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  The scandal to the religious leaders was that his sonship
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  implies absolute equality with God in being, authority and
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  majesty. Which means we have to break
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  down the 2 dimensions of his sonship, the ontological and the
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  messianic. I know ontological sounds like a
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  dense seminary word, but it just deals with being the nature of
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  existence. Let's start there.
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  Sure, ontological sonship refers to who He is from all eternity.
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  He is true God of true God. His sonship is an eternal,
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  unbreaking relation within the one Godhead.
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  The Father is never without the Son.
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  The Son is never without the Father.
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  So there was never a time when God was just by himself,
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  completely alone. Never.
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  It does not imply A temporal beginning where the father
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  existed alone and then eventually produced the son.
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  A Messianic sonship, on the other hand, refers to the son
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  taking on a human nature to fulfill the specific role of the
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  Davidic king. OK, I see the distinction.
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  Paul writes in Romans 1.3 to 4 that the gospel concerns God's
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  Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and
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  was declared to be the Son of God with might by his
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  resurrection from the dead. So the resurrection did not make
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  him the Son of God. Correct.
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  The resurrection did not turn him into the Son.
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  It publicly vindicated him and enthroned him as the royal
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  exalted Son in his human nature. I see how that connects to Psalm
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  2. You see that messianic
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  enthronement beautifully in that text.
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  The Father declares you are my son.
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  Today I have begotten you. Yes, that verse is key.
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  That is not a statement about Jesus being created in the past.
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  It is an enthronement decree for the Divine Son King ascending to
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  rule. The sum ends with a stark
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  warning. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry,
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  and you perish in the way. A very sobering warning.
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  Submission to the sun is the absolute dividing line between
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  blessing and destruction. He is a royal mediatorial figure
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  through whom God rules and saves humanity.
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  Having established all this biblical data, we need to
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  examine how systematic theology organizes this truth.
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  We're looking through the specific lens of Reformed
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  Christology and the Westminster Confession.
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  Right, taking all the raw data and organizing it.
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  Exactly. I mean the church fathers did
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  not invent the deity of Christ in a vacuum.
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  They simply recognize that everything scripture says about
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  the one true God is also said of Christ.
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  We can categorize this massive amount of biblical data into 4
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  distinct pillars, names, attributes, works, and worship.
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  I was reviewing the works pillar in our outline before we started
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  and Mark 2 stood out to me. So clearly Jesus forgives the
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  paralytic sins. Yes, the healing of the
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  paralytic. As a human being, I can only
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  forgive a sin committed directly against me.
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  If someone steals your car, I cannot step in and say I forgive
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  you for stealing their car. That makes no sense.
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  It would be ridiculous. So for Jesus to forgive a sin
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  committed against a God means he is stepping directly into God's
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  shoes. But let's walk through all four
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  pillars logically. First names.
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  Yes, names. We already mentioned that the
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  early believers called him Lord, applying old covenant Yahweh
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  texts directly to him. The Book of Revelation goes
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  further, calling him the Alpha and Omega, the 1st and the last.
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  Which are huge titles. Those are titles of absolute
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  deity. God uses those titles for
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  himself and Isaiah to prove he is the only God who commands
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  history from beginning to end. 2nd Attributes.
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  Jesus possesses perfections that belong only to the divine
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  nature. He is eternal.
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  He is omnipotent. Hebrews 1.3 says he upholds the
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  universe by the word of his might.
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  Think about the gravity of that upholding the universe.
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  It is staggering. I want to pause on omniscient
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  for a second too. John 2.2425 tells us he knows
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  what is in the hearts of all men.
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  Why does this matter? Well, it links back to Solomon.
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  Right, because in First Kings 8 Solomon prays and explicitly
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  states that God alone knows the hearts of all the children of
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  mankind. To claim to know the hidden
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  thoughts of every human heart is to claim a capacity that belongs
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  exclusively to Yahweh. 3rd works.
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  He performs actions that only God can perform.
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  He created all things, and in him all things hold together.
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  As Paul says in Colossians 1, he exercises Providence over the
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  entire cosmos. And as we said, he forgives
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  sins. Yes, as you brilliantly pointed
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  out with Mark 2, he forgives sins.
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  The scribes ask who can forgive sins but God alone.
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  Jesus does not correct their theology.
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  He confirms it. He heals a man's physical
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  paralysis to prove he has the invisible divine authority to
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  forgive the man's sins. Forth, worship scripts are
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  strictly forbids worshipping anyone other than the Creator.
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  Yet in Revelation 5, the Lamb receives identical praise, honor
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  and glory to the one sitting on the throne.
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  Identical praise that is crucial.
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  We see angels refuse worship. We see apostles refuse worship.
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  Jesus accepts it as his rightful due.
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  If Scripture forbids worshiping a creature and simultaneously
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  commands worship in Christ, the only logical conclusion is that
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  Christ is fully God. But this raises a massive
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  theological question. How do we reconcile the eternal
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  omnipotent Son with the baby lying in a Manger?
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  Yeah, that is the paradox. How do we reconcile the one who
• 19:08
  upholds the universe with the man who slept in a boat, grew
• 19:11
  physically exhausted, and suffered agonizing pain on a
• 19:14
  Roman cross? Honestly, trying to picture the
• 19:17
  creator of the cosmos experiencing human thirst or
• 19:20
  fatigue makes my brain hurt. It is a staggering reality to
• 19:23
  grasp. It definitely stretches human
• 19:25
  logic. I know Reformed theology
• 19:27
  following the Council of Chalcedon and 45180 explains
• 19:30
  this through the doctrine of two natures united in one person,
• 19:33
  but we have to translate that for everyday life.
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  Our sources mention avoiding two major historical errors, Utician
• 19:39
  mixture and Historian division. Can we unpack those?
• 19:42
  Let's start with Utician mixture.
• 19:44
  Let's use a visual analogy. Imagine you you have a cup of
• 19:47
  yellow paint representing the divine nature and a cup of blue
• 19:50
  paint representing the human nature.
• 19:51
  OK, yellow and. Blue you take Anism says that in
• 19:54
  the incarnation, those two natures mixed together to create
• 19:57
  a third hybrid thing, green paint.
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  But green paint is neither yellow nor blue.
• 20:02
  It is something else entirely. Right.
• 20:04
  If Jesus is a hybrid, he is not fully God and he is not fully
• 20:08
  man. He's some sort of demigod.
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  Calcidon firmly rejected this. The divine and human natures are
• 20:14
  united without conversion, without composition, and without
• 20:17
  confusion. So he is not green paint, he is
• 20:20
  100% yellow and 100% blue simultaneously.
• 20:24
  What about the other error? Nestorian Division.
• 20:27
  Nestorianism goes to the opposite extreme.
• 20:30
  If you take Anism blends the nature's into a smoothie,
• 20:33
  Nestorianism separates them so far apart that you end up with
• 20:36
  two distinct persons living in one body.
• 20:38
  Like 2 roommates sharing an apartment.
• 20:40
  Yes, like roommates, you have the divine Son and the human
• 20:43
  Jesus, and they just cooperate closely.
• 20:46
  Chalcedon rejected that too. Jesus is one single person,
• 20:49
  acting according to either his divine or human nature, yet
• 20:53
  remaining a single undivided mediator.
• 20:55
  That makes sense. When Jesus wept with the tomb of
• 20:57
  Lazarus, He was weeping according to his true human
• 21:00
  nature. When he raised Lazarus from the
• 21:02
  dead a moment later, he was acting according to his divine
• 21:05
  might. One person, 2 distinct natures.
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  And that brings us to his mediatorial office.
• 21:12
  God ordained his Son to be the mediator, prophet, priest, and
• 21:15
  king. This role is rooted in what
• 21:17
  Reformed theology calls the covenant of redemption.
• 21:20
  A beautiful doctrine. Think of it like an eternal
• 21:22
  boardroom agreement within the Trinity before time began.
• 21:25
  The Father, Son and Spirit covenant together to save a
• 21:28
  people. They agreed, and eternity pass.
• 21:30
  The Son willingly agrees to assume a human nature, to step
• 21:33
  into time, to perfectly obey the law, to bear the curse we
• 21:36
  deserved, and to bring adopted sons to glory.
• 21:40
  He is perfectly fitted for this specific task because He is both
• 21:42
  God and man. Because as God, his sacrifice
• 21:45
  has infinite worth. And as man, he can represent
• 21:49
  humanity and die in our place. If we pull back and look at
• 21:52
  church history, we see that the truth of who Jesus is has
• 21:56
  constantly been under vicious attack.
• 21:58
  The creeds were not written in peaceful academic retreats.
• 22:01
  No, they were not. They were forged in the fires of
• 22:04
  battle against error. False teachers were offering
• 22:07
  alternative answers to the question of Jesus's identity
• 22:10
  from the very beginning of the church.
• 22:13
  So if the Apostolic writings are this clear about Jesus being
• 22:15
  God, why did it take the Church 300 years to formulate the
• 22:19
  Nicene Creed? Were people actually reading
• 22:21
  these verses and coming to a different conclusion?
• 22:23
  Let's talk about Arianism, named after a presbyter named Arius in
• 22:27
  Alexandria during the 4th century.
• 22:29
  Yes, Arius caused a massive crisis.
• 22:31
  His famous catch phrase was there was when he was not, he
• 22:35
  taught that Jesus was a created being, highly exalted, the 1st
• 22:39
  and greatest creation, the agent through whom God made the rest
• 22:42
  of the universe, but still a creature.
• 22:44
  How did the church respond to that specific threat?
• 22:47
  The. Crisis in Alexandria was severe.
• 22:50
  Arias was essentially A popularizer.
• 22:53
  He put his theology into catchy St. songs so the common people
• 22:56
  would sing his doctrines. Like ancient pop music with bad
• 22:59
  theology. Pretty much.
• 23:01
  The Church responded by convening the Council of Nicaea
• 23:04
  in 325AD. Men like Athanasius fought back
• 23:08
  with incredible intensity. Athanasius Contramundum.
• 23:11
  Yes, Athanasius against the world.
• 23:13
  He was exiled 5 different times for defending the deity of
• 23:16
  Christ. He recognized the fatal flaw in
• 23:18
  Arias logic. A created Christ cannot save.
• 23:22
  A creature cannot bear the infinite weight of sin.
• 23:25
  Which goes back to the stakes we talked about at the beginning.
• 23:27
  So the council utilized a very specific Greek term, homo
• 23:30
  lusios, which means of 1 substance.
• 23:33
  They confess that the Son is of 1 substance with the Father.
• 23:36
  Light from light, true God from true God.
• 23:38
  Begotten, not made. They drew a hard, unyielding
• 23:41
  line in the sand. You also had adoptionism, which
• 23:44
  claimed Jesus was a mere human who lives such an incredibly
• 23:46
  righteous life that God adopted him and elevated him to divine
• 23:50
  status, usually at his baptism or resurrection.
• 23:52
  Another severe error. And then you had modalism or
• 23:55
  civilianism, which taught that God is just one single person
• 23:59
  who wears different masks at different times, sometimes
• 24:02
  acting as Father, sometimes his Son, sometimes his Spirit.
• 24:05
  Modalism is incredibly destructive to reading the
• 24:07
  Bible. It turns the entire Father's
• 24:10
  relationship into a bizarre form of divine ventriloquism.
• 24:14
  Divine ventriloquism. Wow.
• 24:16
  Think about Jesus praying to the Father in the Garden of
• 24:18
  Gethsemane. If modalism is true, Jesus is
• 24:22
  essentially talking to himself to put on a show for the
• 24:25
  sleeping disciples. It makes it a theater
• 24:27
  performance. It really does.
• 24:29
  It destroys the genuine eternal love between the persons of the
• 24:32
  Trinity. God is love, but love requires a
• 24:35
  relationship. If God is just one solitary
• 24:38
  person, who was he loving before he created the universe?
• 24:41
  The Trinity answers that the Father, Son, and Spirit have
• 24:45
  eternally loved each other. Sadly, these ancient distortions
• 24:48
  are not dead museum artifacts. We see them in modern forms all
• 24:51
  around us today. They just change their clothes.
• 24:54
  Right. Unitarianism completely denies
• 24:57
  the Trinity and the deity of Christ.
• 24:59
  The Jehovah's Witnesses essentially repackage Aryanism,
• 25:02
  teaching that Jesus is actually the created Archangel Michael.
• 25:05
  The Islamic view respects Jesus as a great prophet born of a
• 25:09
  virgin who will return at the end of days, but firmly denies
• 25:12
  that he is God the Son Incarnate.
• 25:15
  And liberal theology strips away the miraculous entirely.
• 25:18
  They reduce Jesus to a good moral example, a symbol of love,
• 25:22
  or a political revolutionary fighting for social justice.
• 25:25
  But there is an even more subtle issue today within the walls of
• 25:28
  the church itself. We can call it the evangelical
• 25:32
  downgrade tell. Me more about that.
• 25:34
  We see this rapidly spreading in the prosperity gospel and seeker
• 25:37
  sensitive movements. They might not write doctrinal
• 25:39
  statements explicitly denying Christ's deity.
• 25:42
  If you look at their website, it looks orthodox.
• 25:44
  On paper, they check the right boxes.
• 25:46
  But functionally, practically, they treat Jesus as the
• 25:49
  therapist, a life coach, or a magic genie meant to bring self
• 25:53
  fulfillment. They present Jesus as someone
• 25:56
  who exists to help you achieve your dreams, get a promotion, or
• 25:59
  find your purpose, rather than the sovereign Lord of the
• 26:02
  universe who demands total allegiance.
• 26:04
  So what does this all mean for us?
• 26:07
  Theology cannot just live in textbooks or historical debates
• 26:10
  from the 4th century. It has to leap from the page
• 26:13
  into our actual daily lives. The practical pastoral outcomes
• 26:17
  of a high Christology are massive.
• 26:19
  They change absolutely everything.
• 26:20
  Let's start with salvation and solid assurance.
• 26:24
  We have to understand the nature of sin.
• 26:26
  Sin is not just making a mistake, it is treason against
• 26:29
  an infinitely holy God. The offense is measured by the
• 26:32
  one offended. Because the offended party is
• 26:34
  infinite, the guilt is infinite. A created being, no matter how
• 26:38
  exalted or perfect, cannot bear an infinite punishment.
• 26:42
  Only the true God, man, can offer a sacrifice of infinite
• 26:45
  worth. Which gives us real peace.
• 26:47
  It traces back to Anselm satisfaction theory of the
• 26:50
  atonement. Humanity owed the debt, but only
• 26:52
  God could pay it. I want to speak directly to you
• 26:55
  listening right now. When you lie awake at night and
• 26:57
  doubt if you have done enough to earn salvation, or if your faith
• 27:00
  is strong enough, or if you have repented hard enough, you need
• 27:03
  to remember that the one who shed his blood on that cross is
• 27:07
  God Himself. Such a vital truth to hold onto.
• 27:10
  His work cannot fail. If Jesus were just a man, you
• 27:13
  would have every reason to be terrified and doubt you're
• 27:15
  standing. But because He is God, your
• 27:18
  salvation rests on an unshakable divine foundation.
• 27:22
  It does not depend on your performance, it depends on His
• 27:25
  infinite merit. This truth also completely
• 27:28
  redefines our worship and obedience.
• 27:30
  If Jesus is God, he does not negotiate terms with us.
• 27:33
  He is not an accessory we add to an already busy life to make us
• 27:37
  feel spiritual. He is not a hobby.
• 27:39
  Right, the modern world says try Jesus, he will improve your
• 27:42
  finances or yourself esteem. But if Jesus is God,
• 27:45
  discipleship is costly, cross bearing submission.
• 27:48
  It is the loving surrender of a creature to the Creator.
• 27:51
  You do not invite God into your life.
• 27:53
  You surrender your life to God. It also anchors our comfort and
• 27:57
  suffering. One of the greatest titles of
• 27:59
  Christ is Emmanuel, which translates to God with us.
• 28:03
  God actually stepping into our mess.
• 28:05
  In our afflictions, God does not watch us struggle from a safe
• 28:08
  distance in heaven, offering detached sympathy.
• 28:12
  Because Jesus is fully human. He knows grief intimately.
• 28:14
  He has wept out a tomb. He has felt betrayal from his
• 28:17
  closest friends. He has experienced physical
• 28:19
  torture. He knows what pain feels like.
• 28:21
  But because He is fully God, He has the absolute sovereign
• 28:25
  authority to sustain you through any trial and work it for your
• 28:28
  good. He is not just a sympathetic
• 28:30
  friend, He is a sovereign King who governs your suffering.
• 28:33
  And finally, this sharpens our evangelism and apologetics.
• 28:37
  When we share the gospel, we are not inviting people to try out a
• 28:40
  new religious philosophy. We are issuing a royal summons.
• 28:43
  A. Call to surrender.
• 28:44
  We are calling rebels to lay down their arms before their
• 28:47
  rightful King. A Jesus who is treated solely as
• 28:50
  a life coach will not be worshipped.
• 28:52
  He will be used. We must proclaim the crucified
• 28:55
  and risen Lord who commands all people everywhere to repent.
• 28:58
  We have covered a massive amount of ground today.
• 29:01
  We started with the fierce, unyielding monotheism of the
• 29:04
  Hebrew Scriptures and saw how it prepared the way for the
• 29:07
  revelation of divine plurality. It.
• 29:10
  Has been a long hike. We looked at the blinding light
• 29:13
  of the Apostolic writings explicitly naming Jesus as God,
• 29:17
  Applying the divine name Yahweh to Him.
• 29:19
  We defined his unique uncreated sonship.
• 29:23
  We walked through the Reformed theological frameworks, looking
• 29:26
  at his names, attributes, works and worship, and how He unites 2
• 29:30
  distinct natures and one person without mixing them.
• 29:33
  And we looked at the history, too.
• 29:34
  Yeah, we traced how the Church defended this truth against
• 29:37
  heresies, bringing it all the way down to our daily practical
• 29:41
  faith and assurance. I want to leave you with a
• 29:43
  closing reflection from the Gospel of Mark.
• 29:45
  Look at the Roman Centurion standing at the cross in Mark
• 29:48
  1539. This season.
• 29:51
  Soldier watches Jesus die. It is the moment when Christ's
• 29:54
  divine glory is completely obscured by human suffering,
• 29:57
  blood and extreme humiliation. Lowest point possible.
• 30:01
  Yet even in that battered, hidden state, the centurion
• 30:03
  looks at him and confesses. Truly, this man was the Son of
• 30:06
  God. That is the question for you.
• 30:08
  Have you bowed before Him with that same realization?
• 30:11
  Do you recognize that your eternity hangs entirely on
• 30:14
  whether you meet Him now as Savior or later as Judge?
• 30:17
  When you look at Jesus, do you see a solitary point of light, a
• 30:20
  simple moral teacher to be admired from a distance?
• 30:23
  Or have you looked closer through the lens of Scripture
• 30:25
  and seen the eternal sun burning with the intense fire of true
• 30:29
  deity? Thank you for joining us on
• 30:31
  Reformed Thinking.