The Person of the Son of God

[00:00:00] Now, in Matthew 16, this might be a familiar passage story to you all. Matthew 16:13 says, now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea, Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of man is? Does that sound familiar to anybody? [00:00:24] He asks, who do people say that the Son of man is? Well, I want to open with that. I want to hear some answers to the question, what do people say that the Son of man is? [00:00:37] Who is the Son of man? Who's being referred to here? [00:00:41] Jesus. Right. Okay, so who do people say Jesus is? [00:00:45] We'll go through some categories, but I need you guys to answer. Participate. What would a. A Jewish person say to that question? Who is Jesus? Think of a Jewish person today. What would they say? [00:00:59] Yeah, they might say he's a prophet, I suppose. Yeah, maybe that might be generous for a Jew. [00:01:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's true too. Some probably say that. Some say this. I've heard others say that he's, you know, he was just. He seemed like a decent guy, but he was kind of just crazy or he was a liar. Some of them say that. What would a Muslim person say? Who is the son of man, Henry? [00:01:39] Certainly just a prophet. Yeah, they would. That is well known. They would say he's just a prophet. He was just one in a line. He's lesser than Muhammad. Right. What would a Mormon say? Who is Jesus? [00:01:53] Yeah, Gabe, A man who became a God or became God. Yeah, they would say that. They might say, oh, he's the Son of God. He's the savior of our sins. They might honestly say a lot of things that use the same language as Christians, but gave God at the heart of the difference. He is a man who became a God. [00:02:17] What would a theologically liberal Christian. So when I say a liberal Christian, I'm not talking a Christian who is registered as a Democrat. I'm talking about a Christian who doesn't believe that the Bible is completely true and authoritative and they have different beliefs about God. This may not be a clear category to you, but if anybody knows what might this type of Christian say Jesus is? [00:02:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not very common because it's, you know, as ridiculous as saying any historical figure that has so many countless accounts about his life didn't exist. You know, so it's not super common, but it occasionally happens. [00:03:19] This one's a little harder. This person might say, oh, he wasn't really God. [00:03:24] You know, we don't know everything he did, but he seemed to just love people, and so we should love and it's kind of very unclear, but he's definitely not the true Jesus of the Bible to them. What would an atheist say who is the son of man? [00:03:47] A pretty cool guy. [00:03:49] Yeah. Does anyone have a different answer? That's pretty good. Yeah. A liar. [00:03:54] Yeah, a liar. Lunatic, crazy guy. [00:03:59] Yeah. [00:04:01] They probably have different views because they're not ascribing to a set of views. Okay, then in a couple verses after Jesus says, but who do you say that I am? If you were to try to say who is, who is the son of man in a sentence or two, what would you say? [00:04:23] What seems to be maybe the most important elements? You know, there's a lot you could say if you have a sentence or two or a phrase. [00:04:39] Gabe. The son of God. The Messiah. The son of God. The Messiah. I think that's a great answer. Does anyone have anything else? The person of God that came to. [00:04:50] Yeah, okay. The person of God that came to die for us or for sinners. Yeah. I think we could give other answers. [00:05:00] You know, we'll get into the main idea with a couple of blanks. That seems to be like a longer answer to what you guys were saying. [00:05:08] But it really is important. That's why I spent so much time opening on this. What we say about him is important because like we just, we saw there are at least two right answers that Gabe and Ezra told us. And then there are wrong answers that the Jews, the Muslims, the Mormons, liberals, atheists, and so many other people give. So there are right and wrong answers when you say who is the son of man? So we want to get it right. The Bible tells us what we must know. And so we want to look in there. And history has revealed in the course of a couple thousand years many heretics that have twisted truths of the Bible and led millions of people astray. Specifically, even in this topic, who is the person of the Son of God? [00:05:55] So a lot of error and also a lot of blood has been shed over this issue. But today Christians are largely unified, you know, Bible believing Christians and even unified with Roman Catholics as well on this topic specifically. [00:06:13] And today we want to cover just a few of the most important truths about the person of the son. [00:06:18] You know, there could be a lot, but we'll try to hit some of the main points. But first let's review to get back on track with where we've been. [00:06:28] What is theology? [00:06:34] The study of God and. [00:06:37] Yeah, and how to be more like him. Perfect. Those are exactly right. And we have studied theology is like a big umbrella Right. And underneath it are smaller umbrellas that we call categories or doctrines. And underneath those smaller umbrellas are these little lessons we've been doing. [00:06:58] So the person of the Son of God, this is one section underneath the small umbrella of the doctrine of the sun, or Christology. You might hear that word. And Christology is an umbrella, under the big umbrella theology. So it kind of works down into more specific theology, is really broad. We get more specific to kind of work our way through holistic theology. [00:07:26] And so we're starting with the person of the Son, but we're going to talk about the Son of God in a few different ways over the coming weeks. But we want to talk about his person. [00:07:40] This is who he is, in essence, his being, how he's composed. This is what we want to focus on. There are things he does and things he has taught and all sorts of different categories of the sign. But we want to talk about his person first to get an idea. [00:07:59] Now, the main idea, which is really just a pretty specific definition of who the Son of God is, is this. The Son of God is the. Does anyone know what this blank might be? The second. That's right. The second person of the Trinity. This is not a rank. This has more to do with the order in which we see them working in the world. The Son of God is the second Person of the Trinity, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation. [00:08:36] Hopefully that'll be big enough for you to spell, but you can kind of sound it out. Incarnation. [00:08:42] He took on human nature and became the God, man, one person with two natures. [00:08:50] So to do this, let's go through our three points. The first one is the origin of the Son. [00:08:58] Where did he come from? Or where does he come from? [00:09:04] The Son's origin. Let's go to John 1 to learn about this. So you can flip there. We'll read several verses. John 1, John 1. And we're going to start right at the very beginning. So you can just be right at the beginning of the book of the Gospel of John. Not one John, but John one. [00:09:34] It goes like this. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made in him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There's a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the Light that all might believe through Him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through Him. Yet the world did not know Him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. [00:10:35] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [00:10:45] We'll stop there. [00:10:47] Now. We're going to focus first on the first three verses, so you might want to look up there. [00:10:54] Where did the Son come from? [00:11:05] The beginning. Yeah. That's not wrong. Yeah. [00:11:09] Would anyone say anything different? [00:11:13] Always has been, always has been. You could say he comes from God, but He always has been the beginning or even really before the beginning, because when it began, he already was with God and already was God when the beginning of time started. So really it was before, but before time, you know, doesn't really make sense. If there's no time, what is before and after that is eternity. [00:11:42] So, yeah, I guess that's where he came from. He came from God in the beginning. Always was. He was with God. So if we think about this phrase with God, this tells us that there's a distinction, right? There's the Word and the Word is with God. So there's a hint of distinction between the Word, which we know is Jesus the Son, but we also see that he was God. This is showing unity. So he is both distinct, but also in union. [00:12:17] Is there a doctrine that we've covered that explains this idea? [00:12:21] And what is it? [00:12:27] The Trinity. Exactly. There is distinction of the three persons of the Trinity, but they are one God. Unity. There is a tri, Unity, Trinity. That's the Word coming together. [00:12:43] Now, we also mention this one time, maybe twice. Does anybody remember what Arianism is? [00:12:51] Bonus points if you remember this. Arianism. [00:12:56] That's okay. [00:12:58] Are you on the tip of your tongue? [00:13:01] It's a heresy. It's a bad teaching about the. [00:13:06] Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. It is in that video. [00:13:13] Is it separating the persons of the Spirit from each other? [00:13:18] Not quite. That is something else. But Arianism believes that the Son is not God. They take the deity of the Son from Him. [00:13:28] They might sometimes believe he's a different type of God, like the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses say he's, you know, the Mormons, he's a man who became a God, but he is not the God, even to them. And so that's a. Jehovah's Witnesses are a form of Arian, but Arians predate them by many hundreds and hundreds of years. [00:13:49] Yeah, he was created. The Son was created, but might be a God in their view. How does John one, what we just read disprove that? [00:14:02] Yeah, the Word is God. He was in the beginning with God. [00:14:09] All things were made through Him. [00:14:13] Everything that was made was made through Him. So to claim that he was made is incoherent. [00:14:20] Everything that was made was made through Him. Yet if he's made, was He Himself made through himself? [00:14:28] It's incoherent. We can't understand that because the Son was not created. The Son is and was God. We know this because it's clear just in this passage and elsewhere. But before creation, there was only God, only God, nothing else. If anything or anyone else existed before creation, then that person or thing would also be God. [00:14:53] Because the main key important distinction between God and everything else is being created or uncreated. God is uncreated. He's creative, as in he created us. Everything else, every object, every living organism, every person is created by God. [00:15:14] Anything uncreated would have the equal eternal status of God and would thus be equal to him, which doesn't align with the Word at all. [00:15:27] But then how is the Son distinguished from the Father if He is not created like the Arians and others have taught? How is he distinguished? Does anyone have an idea how we distinguish between the Son and the Father? [00:15:45] Oh, Henry, he's what? [00:15:50] That's true. But he wasn't always right. He took on human flesh. So what about before? [00:15:57] Before creation, before anything. It's just God. How's the Father and the Son? How are they distinct from each other? [00:16:04] Because they had to be right. If they become distinct, if he becomes distinct later, then that means God has changed. The Bible tells us God does not change. So it had to be the same always. [00:16:17] This is a harder thing to get. And I know it's 9:40am the son and the Spirit are distinguished from the Father in how they relate to one another. It's kind of right in the names that we call them. [00:16:29] The Son is only a Son because he comes from the Father. The Father is only a Father because he has a Son. The Spirit is a Spirit because he proceeds from the Father and the Son. [00:16:42] There's a term for this relation between the Son and the Father, I'm going to write it down. I think it's worth remembering. It is eternal generation. [00:16:56] This is the fancy term for it, eternal generation. [00:17:03] It's not a perfect word, English, or even just any human language. Our words often fail to capture the whole picture when we're describing God. But eternal generation of the Son means that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. He always was begotten, always is begotten, always will be begotten. That is always his relation to God. It is understandably incomprehensible to us to understand how he is always begotten of the Father. But that is how God existed for eternity before creation. [00:17:43] Their relation does not end and has always existed for all of eternity the same. [00:17:49] Because Jesus wasn't created, he's always been generated or begotten of the Father. Therefore, his person has not changed one bit, because God has not changed. [00:18:02] The Creed of Chalcedon tells us in these words that the Son was begotten of the Father before all ages. So before there was an age, which is to say, before there was time, the Son was begotten of the Father always before all ages. [00:18:21] This is the origin of the Son. [00:18:24] Now, point number two, we're going to talk about the composition of the Son. [00:18:32] How is he composed? [00:18:35] What's he made of composition? [00:18:39] Kind of crammed that in there. [00:18:41] Composition of the sun. We're going to. For this, flip to Philippians 2. [00:18:47] So that should be just a little bit further to the right. [00:18:50] It's a little book, so if you don't know where it is, you might want to look in your table of contents at the beginning. [00:18:56] Philippians chapter 2. We're just going to read a couple verses, verses 6 and 7. [00:19:08] So speaking of Christ Jesus, Philippians 2. 6 says who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of. Of men. [00:19:30] God, the Son. Since he was God, he was Spirit, we can say before creation, because God Spirit. John 4. 24 says, God is Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a person of God. But God has not always existed with a physical body. He was in his Spirit. But then the incarnation happened. [00:19:56] What is the incarnation? What does that mean? Big word. Yeah, yeah. God put on a body. He came to earth in human form. That's what that's saying. He incarnated, put on flesh. So God existing in spirit, then put on flesh in a Moment in time, which is magnificent, that one person of the triune God put on flesh. [00:20:30] How does that work? [00:20:33] Right. [00:20:34] It's hard to understand. [00:20:37] Is he human now? Is he God now? [00:20:41] Yes. [00:20:42] This is called another word I'm going to write down because I think it's helpful for us to remember hypostatic or hypostatic union. So hypo S T A T I C. It's hard to write and spell at the same time for some reason. Hippostatic union. [00:21:06] This is how we describe how God, one person of the Trinity, put on flesh. The hypostatic union. This was the joining together union, the joining together of the two natures into one person, which is in Greek is hypostasis. So that's where the word comes from, the two natures being joined together into one person. [00:21:34] No division. They both exist distinctly, but there's no division between them. [00:21:41] So Jesus has two natures. What are the two natures? [00:21:47] Godly and human. Exactly. He's God and man. You'll see God dash man sometimes reading he's the God Man. [00:21:57] An old theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus, said that while remaining what he was, fully God, the Son became what he was, not fully man. [00:22:08] While remaining what he was, he became what he was not. [00:22:12] This is incredible. The most incomprehensible fact of God, I believe, is how God became man. It is the most incredible miracle that we could fathom. We really can't even fathom it. [00:22:27] Greg Allison, the author of 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith, that has been helping me with these lessons. He points out that Jesus is called the Son of God, Lord, the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of God's nature, and one with the Father. He's also said to have divine attributes like omniscience, omnipresence and authority. He is also said to create, judge, sustain and grant eternal life. And those are all backed up with countless places in scripture that we from, frankly, just don't have time to go to. Jesus was God in the flesh, but Jesus was also born like a human. So he has all these godly characteristics. He's born like a human, he grew and matured like a human. He ate, drank and slept like a human. He had emotions like a human. He was tempted like a human. And he had friendships like a human. [00:23:28] Jesus was. Is the God man. True God and true man perfectly united into one person. [00:23:40] So he has. [00:23:42] How many persons are in the sun? [00:23:49] 1. How many natures? [00:23:52] 2. Two natures perfectly united into one person. [00:23:58] That's I think maybe as simple as I can get the composition of the sun. [00:24:05] Third, the appropriate response to the sun, where it says of. But I think your sheets say to if the doctrine of the Son fell apart, if it was somehow proven to be a myth, not true, what would we lose? [00:24:40] Salvation. [00:24:42] Why? Why do you say that? [00:25:00] Yeah, yeah. The entirety of salvation is dependent on these truths. I know it can seem complicated. There's big words and all these different things. And really this is because there were so many heresies and arguments about it that we just really had to make it clear who is the Son historically. And so we have all these terms to help us understand all of what the Bible says. [00:25:29] So, you know, if you have to learn a few big phrases, it's a lot easier than having to memorize the whole Bible. [00:25:35] So that's kind of what these are helping to do. But yeah, without this belief, if he loses who he is as God, then his sacrifice is not meaningful or effective for you. If he's just a perfect man who dies, well, he has earned salvation for himself, but that's it. He's not eternal. He's not satisfying God's wrath. For all of the believing, if he loses who he is as a man, then he isn't actually tempted to sin. His sacrifice is not true blood. It's not a true sacrifice. [00:26:15] He wasn't wearing the flesh that we wear, so he can't stand in our place. [00:26:22] And so if we lose these natures in the one person, we mix them up inappropriately, we mingle, even something as important as how we're saved. [00:26:34] So it really is important. [00:26:37] It's okay if you can't recite everything we've said, but I want you guys to know that there are answers. There are very clear arguments about this. So whatever atheists or liberals or Jews or Muslims or Mormons or whatever they might say about the sun, we have it clearly worked out and salvation itself and so much more hangs in the balance. [00:27:02] Now I'd like to hear a few examples. How should you respond to the person of the Son? You hear this? What should you do? [00:27:17] Yeah, yeah. You said the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So we look to enjoy God. Hopefully we can see past some of the jargon and say this is actually really beautiful. And this is. I mean, it's fun for me. It's okay if it's not the same amount of fun, but we should enjoy who God is, getting to learn about him and also worshiping him and giving Him Glory. That's a great answer. Does anyone else have a different one? [00:28:08] Yeah. How should we respond to this lesson or all of these things? [00:28:15] So there's probably a lot of answers you could give. [00:28:20] God loves us so much that he sent His Son to die for us. So therefore I would end up coming with an answer that he wants to have a relationship personally with each one of us. Yeah. Yeah. You see the wonderful love of God in Christ, in the eternal God, who does not need us, he doesn't need us at all, puts on food, flesh to save sinners. And sinners are sinners because they've sinned against Him. So the people that have offended him, he comes to save, he suffers and dies for them. And so if you are not a believer, if you haven't given your life to him, then I want to know what holds you back when you hear of such wonderful love. [00:29:07] If you are a Christian and you sometimes feel lackadaisical or sluggardly in your faith, how, when God has done such mighty and wonderful works, can we not live fully devoted to Him? [00:29:22] So I would just encourage you guys to think on those points and how we can appropriately respond to the Son and even how we can learn more about this topic. If you do want to learn more and read stuff, you know I got resources for you because I know it's a lot to cram into the morning, but this is the person of the Son of God. I hope this was helpful and we'll talk about another aspect of the Son next week. Let's pray. [00:29:53] Father, we want to thank youk for your Son, in whose name we're even praying now. [00:30:01] God, we are blown away, or I pray that we are blown away at the truth that you put on flesh, that two natures perfectly dwell in one person and that is the key to our salvation. God, if anyone in here doesn't know you or hasn't fully trusted in you, turned from their sin and to you, God, we pray that you would give them faith and repentance even today to do that. God, help us to remember these things, help us to recall them in time of need, when we're having evangelistic or apologetic type conversations with others. God, give us confidence in our faith. We pray this all in Christ Jesus. Amen.