I hope that you're doing well in the Lord and that you're enjoying the blessings of Christ. It's just been a joy to walk through these topics with you. And I trust that you've been stretched and also challenged in your own studies of God's word. And we just look forward to seeing the fruit of your study in the word of God.

And I'm just privileged to be a part of your lives and your training in biblical counseling. So tonight we have a wonderful topic. We're looking at theology exam number 12. We're looking at the dual natures of Jesus Christ. Just a incredible topic that I trust will be, first of all, just a blessing to our own souls, just to be reminded of Christ and who he is, his saving work and all that he has done for us.

It's always good to take our eyes off ourselves and to set them on Christ. And we hope to do that in this hour. And I do hope that this will be a training time for us to think through the implications of this doctrine for biblical counseling and how we offer our counselees something that the secular world could never offer, which is the saving message of Jesus Christ.

I think it was Heath Lambert who said at one of the ACBC national conferences that ACBC is distinguished in its counseling methodology in that we not only allow our counselors to talk about Christ and him crucified in the counseling sessions, we require our counselors to talk about Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And I don't think it could be said any better than that. We are distinguished as a counseling movement by our focus on Christ, our desire that the message of Jesus Christ would be magnified and communicated to each of our counselees. We are distinguished by our reliance upon Christ and all that he has done for us.

We offer our counselees the hope of Christ and that distinguishes biblical counseling from every secular methodology that's being practiced in the world. So I think we're in for a wonderful time of study tonight. And thank you again for joining us. Thank you for your faithfulness in God's word. I wanna begin with just a devotional thought from John chapter one, verses one to 14.

And I can't, it doesn't get any better than this. This is one of the most familiar and wonderful sections of scripture that just speaks of the incarnation, the glory of Christ and his coming to earth as a man, the addition of the nature of humanity to his deity. And we'll just read this passage together just to set our minds on the topic that we're looking at tonight.

John chapter one, starting in verse one, says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word 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 was 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. And then in verse 11, it says, 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. 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. It's what an amazing statement that is, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's a glorious topic that we're gonna look at tonight. And that is the subject of theology exam number 12.

And just some thoughts to prime the pump for our study tonight. This amazing truth of the incarnation that the word became flesh and dwelt among us has been called the greatest miracle in the history of the universe. And I can't think of a message or a miracle that would be greater than this, that the person of Christ, the eternal son of God would take on an additional nature, the nature of humanity.

This has to be greater than the parting of the Red Sea. It has to be greater than Elijah calling down fire from heaven. This has to be greater than the apostolic healings performed in the early church. The fact that true sinless humanity was joined with undiminished eternal deity in one person forever has to be by far the greatest miracle in the history of mankind and the history of the universe.

And I hope that gives you some motivation to write essay number 12. You're writing about the greatest miracle ever in the history of the universe. This is the assessment of Wayne Grudem in his systematic theology. He says that the fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever so that infinite God became one person with finite man will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.

Just think about what Wayne Grudem is saying there as he reflects upon the glory of the incarnation. He says that this mystery of perfect humanity joined with eternal deity in one person will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and mystery in all the universe. I believe that 10,000 years from now when we are in heaven worshiping the lamb, the son of God, we will still be in awe and in wonder at the fact that we are worshiping the man Christ Jesus as he is called in 1 Timothy 2, verse five, the man Christ Jesus.

It's not that Jesus came down to earth and took on a human nature. And then when he ascended to heaven, he sort of shed that human nature. He was exalted to heaven and ascended to heaven in glorified humanity so that 1 Timothy 2, verse five calls him, even today he is the man Christ Jesus, perfect humanity and perfect deity in one person.

And Grudem says, we're never gonna get over that. I mean, we're gonna be in awe and in wonder thousands of years from now at the fact that we worship the man Christ Jesus. And so this is gonna be the theme of our worship and the theme of our praise.

J.I. Packer has said it this way, that the mystery and the incarnation is unfathomable. We cannot explain it, we can only formulate it. The supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us is that he took humanity without loss of deity so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human.

I'm so many counseling implications in that statement, but I'm gonna restrain myself for a moment here. Packer continues, here are two mysteries for the price of one, the plurality of persons within the unity of God and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. It is here in the thing that happened at the first Christmas that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie.

And the good news that we have for our counselees and for ourselves is you don't have to wait till Christmas to celebrate this truth. You can celebrate this truth each and every day of your life that Jesus Christ is the perfect God-man, perfect deity and sinless humanity. I just wanna encourage us pastorally for a moment, just give some practical applications before we look at the handout proper.

And I was just reflecting on this this week that we live in a world of distractions and I hope you agree with that assessment that we live in a world that pulls our attention in so many different areas. If we are not intentional about what we're gonna focus our minds and our hearts and our affections on, our thoughts and our focus will be pulled in a hundred different directions.

And that's just in the first 15 minutes of the day. This is a world of distractions and I just wanna encourage us that we need to make a conscious decision each and every day to focus the majority of our thoughts and our energies and our affections on the truths which are most important in this life.

And you may have heard the categories that there are primary doctrines in the Bible that they distinguish a believer from an unbeliever. And then there are secondary doctrines that good and golly Christians disagree on, doesn't make you a Christian if you disagree or agree or disagree with a certain doctrine doesn't make you a non-Christian if you disagree with a secondary doctrine.

But this teaching that we're looking at tonight, the dual natures of Christ, this is not a secondary doctrine. This is a primary doctrine. This distinguishes a believer from an unbeliever. And if you believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. And so it demands our full attention, it demands our greatest concentration of thoughts, and emotion.

I mean, if you're more engrossed in the cat videos that your kids are showing you on YouTube than you are with the doctrine of the incarnation, then there needs to be a realignment of your focus and your priorities. And I just say that 'cause my kids show me cat videos on their YouTube and you can get distracted with kind of the trivialities of life or you can choose to focus your thoughts and your attention on the greatest realities in all the universe.

And this has to be one of the greatest realities in all of the universe, that we worship the God, man, Jesus Christ. And I hope you will find that the writing of this essay will be a great blessing to your soul and also equip you for counseling ministry. I hope to get to spend some time in the end to talk about some counseling implications of this doctrine.

But I do wanna encourage you that this is a wonderful study. So let me pray for us briefly and let's get into our handout for tonight and I hope we'll be blessed. Father, thank you for this time around your word. Thank you that we can come and just focus our thoughts and our minds upon the glorious truth of your son, who he is, the greatest realities in all of the universe, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, that Jesus Christ is our perfect savior and substitute.

We thank you that because of Christ, that we have hope to offer to our counselees. We have hope to offer to our communities. We thank you that we have hope to offer to those who are weighed down by sin, to those who are struggling with the trials of life.

We thank you that because of Christ, that Lord, we can enter into the counseling ministry and trust that you will use us by your grace to make us effective and that the glory will not belong to any of us, but will belong to Christ forever and ever. And so we just pray that you would help us to think through this topic carefully, biblically and clearly, give us your grace.

And I thank you for my friends and my brothers and sisters here and their faithful study. And I pray this in Jesus name, amen. Okay, let's dive into our theology exam number 12. And I put on your handout on the first page, a number of good resources that I think will help you in your study.

The question is, describe the dual natures of Jesus Christ and explain why this reality is crucial for salvation. And we'll walk through an approach to writing this essay, but just note there that the standard systematic theology, such as Paul N's Moody Handbook of Theology, Wayne Grudem, Heath Lambert and Charles Ryrie all have excellent sections in their works dealing with the doctrine of the incarnation, the doctrine of the hypostatic union, which we'll talk about tonight.

And Heath Lambert does have a good section in his Theology of Biblical Counseling, dealing with the counseling implications of this doctrine. And so all of those resources are worth your careful attention. Wayne Grudem in particular does an excellent job walking through the hypostatic union and the inadequate understandings of the hypostatic union and how that doctrine was carefully formulated in church history.

And we'll do a brief summary of that tonight, but I wanna commend his section in systematic theology to you, that that is a section that is worth reading and cherishing and committing to your own understanding for your own blessing. If you move to page two of your handout, we have a section just introducing the dual natures of Jesus Christ.

And the key point here is that Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine in one person. So that's what we're talking about when we're articulating understanding of the dual natures of Christ, you want to articulate an understanding of the full humanity of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ was fully human in every sense of the word.

He was sinless humanity. It was not merely Christ physicality that made him human. So you may have heard the saying, God in a bod, the idea of Jesus was only human in so far as he had a physical body. And it was sort of like there was this divine mind and a divine soul placed in a human body.

And that is what John 1, verse 14 meant when it said that the word became flesh. Well, that would be an inadequate understanding of what happened in the incarnation. It's just, it's not merely that Christ had a physical body, he was fully human yet without sin. And so the first nature of Christ is that he was fully human.

He had a fully human nature, and that was joined to the second nature, which is the nature of full divinity. And so any articulation of doctrine on this subject will convey an understanding of the full humanity of Christ, the full deity of Christ in one person. That's the key element there.

It's not that there was a human person and a divine person, and they sort of coexisted in one body and wrestled with each other. That's not an accurate understanding of what happened at the incarnation. Jesus Christ was and is one person, both fully human and fully divine, so that what could be said of one of the natures of Christ could be said of the person of Christ.

He is not a divided person. He is one person with two natures. And so you have the key point there that the divine nature did not diminish his human nature. His human nature did not diminish his divine nature. And the union of Christ deity and humanity in one person is the greatest miracle in the history of the universe.

So let me jump from your handout to the screen here. And I just wanna give you a practical approach to writing this essay. I would say there's four basic elements that you would need to articulate if you are gonna be faithful to the truths that this essay is asking you to write about.

The first element would be the humanity of Christ, just articulating a full understanding of the sinless humanity of Christ, and we'll walk through some material in the next few minutes, dealing with the human mind of Christ, the human soul of Christ, the human emotions of Christ. It was more than mere physicality, although that was essential part of Christ's humanity.

It was more than that. He had a physical body. He had a full human nature. A second element is to articulate a full understanding of the deity of Christ. Jesus is God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is co-equal with the Father, co-equal with the Holy Spirit.

All of the attributes of deity belong to Christ eternally. And so you will want to articulate a full understanding of the deity of Christ. The third element would be the union of the two natures, or what theologians call the hypostatic union. You will want to articulate some understanding of how the humanity of Christ and the deity of Christ were joined together in one person.

And that is, as I mentioned, what theologians refer to as the hypostatic union. This is a truth that we'll look at in a little more detail at the end of today's session, but that would be a third element you will want to include in your writing of this essay.

And then the fourth element is what the question is asking for. Why is this reality crucial for salvation? Why was it necessary for Jesus Christ to be both fully human and fully God in order for salvation to be brought to the world? In other words, if Jesus Christ were to be fully human, but not fully God, would he have been able to pay for our sins at the cross?

That's kind of the reasoning behind this fourth element. If Jesus Christ had been fully God, but not fully man, would he have been able to pay for our sins at the cross? Would he be our perfect substitute if he was not fully human? And so the fourth element here is you want to articulate some understanding of it was necessary for Jesus Christ to be both fully human and fully God in order for him to be the perfect substitute for sin.

Only a man can stand in the place of a man. And also he had to be God because only a sacrifice of infinite value could fully satisfy the holy wrath of God against our sin. It had to be that the sacrifice was more than human. Had to be a human sacrifice 'cause a substitute had to be a man standing in place of a man, but it also had to be a sacrifice of infinite value so that the wrath of God could be fully satisfied.

And you want to articulate some understanding of how the dual natures of Christ relate to the work of Christ on the cross for our sins and why that reality is crucial for salvation. Okay, so I know that's a lot. That's four basic elements, and we'll walk through those in the next half hour or so as we go through the handout.

But I just wanted to give you some markers here so that when you sit down and write your essay, you're gonna ask yourself this question is, how do I articulate an understanding of Christ's humanity? How do I articulate an understanding of his deity? How do I articulate an understanding of the union of the two natures?

And then why is this reality crucial for salvation? That would be a basic approach to writing this essay is make sure you hit on those four basic elements. So let's walk through those elements together. This is sort of near the middle of your handout on page two. Paul Enns has this very clear articulation of the definition of the word incarnation.

He says the word incarnation means in flesh and denotes the act whereby the eternal son of God took to himself an additional nature humanity through the version birth. The result is that Christ remains forever unblemished deity which he has had from eternity past, but he also possesses true sinless humanity in one person forever.

That's a very clear statement of what the incarnation means. It means that the eternal son of God took to himself an additional nature humanity. It's not that Jesus lost his divinity when he was born to the Virgin Mary. It's that he retained his deity which he possessed from eternity past.

And he took to himself an additional nature humanity. The incarnation is not the subtraction of deity, it's the addition of humanity. So that's a very good definition for the incarnation. The Athanasian Creed is a statement which communicates an understanding of this glorious reality. It says, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, "is God and man, perfect God and perfect man, "who although he be God and man, "yet he is not two, but one Christ, "one not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, "but by taking of the manhood into God." And there's an amazing mystery in that statement and yet I think we understand what J.I.

Packer meant when he said, "We cannot fully understand this truth, "but we can articulate it clearly and accurately." It was the taking of manhood into God. It was the addition of humanity to the nature of deity. The incarnation then concerns not the subtraction of deity, but the addition of a full nature of humanity to the person of Christ.

And as Wayne J.I. Packer has said, "Christ was not now God minus some elements of his deity, "but God plus all that he had made his own "by taking manhood to himself." And as a church father, Gregory said, "Remaining what he was, he became what he was not." And so Christ is the perfect man and worthy of all of our worship.

And he is at the same time a full deity. He is fully God and he never ceased to be God in his incarnation. Some other quotes here. I don't think this is on your handout, but I thought these were helpful quotes to help us understand the incarnation. Matt Perman has said this, "It should be obvious that if Jesus is God, "then he has always been God.

"There was never a time when he became God, "for God is eternal. "But Jesus has not always been man. "The fantastic miracle is that this eternal God "became man at the incarnation "approximately 2000 years ago. "That's what the incarnation was, "God the Son becoming man." And as Grudem has well summarized, "We may summarize the biblical teaching "about the person of Christ as follows.

"Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person "and will be so forever." So if you move to the page number three of your handout, this is the element of the humanity of Christ. And I just have a listing here of the number of truths from the scripture which testify to the full humanity of Christ.

Remember, it is not merely Christ's physicality which made him human. He had a human mind, a human body, a human soul. We see letter A, he had a real physical birth. Luke two, verse seven says, "She gave birth to her firstborn son "and wrapped him in swaddling cloths "and laid him in a manger "because there was no place for them in the inn." Just think about that for a moment, that the one who rules over the universe in power was completely dependent upon Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem in his humanity.

Just the tremendous paradox there that Christ was sustaining the universe by the word of his power and at the same time he was a helpless babe in his humanity. That is the essential core of the gospel message, the two natures of Christ in one person. We say that he had a true physical body.

This body grew weary. This body became hungry. Jesus died a true physical death at the cross. You will remember the story of Jesus with the disciples in the storm on the boat and Jesus is found fast asleep on the stern of the boat. He was so exhausted by the ministry events of his public ministry that just physically he was exhausted.

It was a true physical body. And you see that in Matthew chapter four that Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights. He became hungry and the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the son of God, "command these stones to become loaves of bread." I just want you to note that that was a real temptation because of Christ's physical body, he was extremely hungry after fasting 40 days and 40 nights.

And so this temptation to act outside of the will of his father and to command the stones to become loaves of bread was a very real temptation for the God man, Jesus Christ. My theology professor, Dr. Larry Pettigrew explained it this way. If you have a wooden rod that is welded inseparably to a strong piece of iron, you can take that wooden rod and strike it against a hard object.

Because it is welded to a very strong piece of iron, the wooden rod will not break. However, because it is a wooden rod and it's being struck very forcefully, that rod will feel the full force of the blows that are being made. And that is an illustration of how the humanity of Christ and the deity of Christ were joined together in one person.

Jesus Christ, because he was fully God, could not sin. And yet Jesus Christ, because he was fully man, could feel the full force of the weight of the temptations to sin. And that's why Hebrews 4 verse 15 says that he is a sympathetic high priest who is able to literally feel the same things as we are, to sympathize with us, because he has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

This has marvelous hope for our counselees and those whom we minister to. But it goes back to the fact that Jesus had a true physical body. And so those temptations that he experienced, especially in Matthew chapter four, were very real temptations. And we don't wanna minimize the force of those temptations.

Letter C, he had a human mind. That's a mystery as well. Mark 13 verse 32, "But concerning that day or that hour, "no one knows, not even the angels in heaven or the son, "but only the Father. "The mystery of the truth that Jesus Christ "possessed the attribute of omniscience, "and yet he did not know the day or the hour of his return." So that indicates that Jesus had a human mind that we see in his childhood, that he is developing in wisdom, he is growing in wisdom.

Those are remarkable statements of the human mind of Jesus Christ, developing and growing as a five-year-old will progress to a six-year-old, seven-year-old, eight-year-old. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Letter D, he had a human soul and a human spirit. Jesus said, "In the garden of Gethsemane, "my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

"Remain here and watch with me." Just a counseling note there that I believe that truth, that Jesus experienced sorrow in his soul to the point of death equips a biblical counselor to minister to the grieving. And if you are a biblical counselor who is able to minister to the grieving, you will have wide opportunities to minister because we have many in the church and many in our community who are struggling with grief over the loss of a loved one, grief over the diagnoses of different illnesses.

Just sorrow is a part of this world and Jesus experienced sorrow in his soul. He was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief. And so to understand that truth of the soul of Christ, experiencing human sorrow equips us to minister to those who are grieving. Letter E, he had human emotions.

This is a related truth. One of my favorite passages speaking of Jesus is John 11, verse 33, that says, "When Jesus saw her weeping "and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, "he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. "And he said, 'Where have you laid him?' "They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' "Jesus wept." He didn't preach a sermon.

He didn't give a lecture. He knew when to grieve and simply weep with those who weep. That's the full humanity of Jesus Christ. And then letter F, human development, Luke 2, verse 40, "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, "and the favor of God was upon him." Verse 52, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature "and in favor with God and men." Hebrews 5, eight says, "He learned obedience." Yes, the question, how did Jesus learn obedience when he was perfect deity?

How did, why does the writer of Hebrews say, "He learned obedience?" I believe the best explanation of that is that Jesus Christ, when he was five years old, obeyed God perfectly as a five-year-old human. When he was eight years old, he obeyed God perfectly as an eight-year-old human. When he was 20 years old, he obeyed God perfectly as a 20-year-old human and so forth and so on.

At each point of the human development of Christ, there was at the same time progression in his obedience and perfection in his adherence to the law of God. There was progression because he was continuing to develop as a human. There was perfection because at each point, Jesus Christ was without sin.

So he learned obedience. He grew in wisdom and in stature, just these marvelous truths about our Lord Jesus Christ. And then letter G, he had characteristics of a human being. Matthew 13, verse 53, it says that those in his hometown were astonished and said, "Where did this man "get this wisdom and these mighty works?

"Is not this the carpenter's son? "Is not his mother called Mary? "Are not his brothers James and Joseph "and Simon and Judas and not all his sisters with us? "Where then did this man get these things?" And they took offense at him. You notice no one said in this passage, "Well, I knew it all along because when I played "with him as a five-year-old, he had a halo over his head." Nobody said that.

Is this not the carpenter's son? Doesn't he have brothers, James and Joseph, Simon and Judas, at least from an outward human perspective, there was nothing to distinguish Jesus from the others who were living in the hometown of Nazareth. In fact, Isaiah 53, verse two says this, "For he grew up before him like a young plant "and like a root out of a dry ground.

"He had no form or majesty that we should think at him. "And no beauty that we should not desire him. "He had the characteristics of a human being. "He looked like everyone else in Nazareth. "And yet he was sinless, perfect humanity. "He was tempted as we are yet without sin." Now, each of those elements, I mean, we could go on and talk through that.

The full humanity of Jesus Christ, but I just want to pause for a second here. I know I'm gonna run out of time, but just for a second, I just really need to encourage you as those who are preparing to be counselors, that the doctrine of Christ's humanity is incredibly useful in counseling ministry.

This is a precious doctrine that really gives hope to our counselees, to encourage them that Jesus Christ is a sympathetic high priest, that he understands what you're going through, to encourage counselees who are walking through a season of grief, that Jesus understands you. He sympathizes with you. He knows sorrow.

He's walked through it in his earthly incarnation. He walked through this world. He wept at the grave side of Lazarus. He was sorrowful to the point of death, just to let them know that even our counselees who feel overwhelmed with sin and just guilt, and they feel weak, and they feel like they'll never overcome a particular sin, and just to let them know, to encourage them, that your high priest does not condemn you, but he sympathizes with you.

You need to fully love this doctrine and then use it in counseling ministry to encourage, to give real encouragement to your counselees, because the humanity of Christ gives us hope. I mean, it really does. It teaches us that Jesus Christ does not stand in heaven far off and aloof and uncaring, and he's just out to condemn us and trying to find out all the things that we do wrong, and he's just gonna hit us over the head with some kind of rod of discipline every time we do something wrong in life.

No, the humanity of Christ teaches us that we are to come boldly to the throne of grace and have confidence because we serve a high priest who knows us, who understands us, who sympathizes with our weaknesses, and who has died for us on the cross as our perfect substitute.

And I just wanna encourage you to see the counseling implications of the humanity of Christ and use this doctrine in counseling ministry. I need to move on to the deity of Christ. I'm gonna do a brief overview of this. We see that divine attributes are applied to Christ. Attributes that can only be ascribed to divinity are said to be true of Jesus Christ.

These are statements that would be blasphemous if it were not true that Jesus is fully God. A statement such as Matthew 28, verse 18, and Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Jesus claims that omnipotence belongs to him.

Well, that would be blasphemous if Jesus wasn't fully God. He is claiming the right to a divine omnipotence. And then John 8, verse 58, Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." That's claiming the attribute of eternality. And just, again, they understood what he was saying.

He was claiming to be God because it says in verse 59 that they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Hebrews 13, verse 8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." That's the attribute of immutability. So you have these statements throughout the scriptures, divine attributes applied to Christ.

You have divine names being applied to Christ. The name God is applied to Christ, that's pretty clear. In Hebrews 1, verse 8, "But of the son," he says, "your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom." The term son refers to Christ.

And the writer of Hebrews says that the son is clearly to be referred to as God. Not only the title God, but the title Lord is ascribed to Christ. Matthew 22, verse 42, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to him, 'The son of David.' He said to them, 'How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord?' The great confession of Thomas in John 20, verse 28, "Thomas answered him, 'My Lord, am I God?'" A clear reference to Christ as God.

And then Titus 2, verse 13, says, "Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." We find that the title Savior is ascribed to Christ. Luke 2, verse 11, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, and Jesus Christ himself claimed to be God." In John 5, verse 18, "This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God." So they understood that Jesus was claiming the titles of deity.

And then letter C, moving quickly, "Divine works ascribed to Christ." Colossians 1, verse 16, "For by him that is Christ, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together." That's the wonder of who our Savior is.

At some point, you stop speculating, you just start worshiping. Just look at these truths, and you realize that I'm never gonna figure all of this out, even when I'm in heaven, I'm gonna be standing in awe and wonder at who Jesus is, but you just start worshiping Jesus, the God-man.

And that leads us to letter D, "Divine worship ascribed to Christ." Remember, this would be blasphemous if Jesus were not God. Matthew 28, verse 16, "Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted." You remember the passage in Revelation 22, verse eight, "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things.

And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. But he said to me, 'You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book, worship God.'" So only God is to be worshiped.

And Jesus Christ receives divine worship. That would be blasphemous if Jesus were not God. So you have the full humanity of Christ. You have the full deity of Christ. Those are the dual natures of Christ. The third thing we need to deal with is an understanding of how those two natures are joined together.

So let me move to, I think this is on your handout on page five, the hypostatic union. What does the hypostatic union mean? Well, simply said, the term hypostatic union refers to the union of two distinct natures in one person. It's the union of the distinct nature of deity and the nature of full humanity in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If there is a difference between the term incarnation and the term hypostatic union, it would be that the incarnation refers to the act whereby the son of God took to himself an additional nature, the nature of humanity. The hypostatic union, that term refers to the union that resulted through the joining of full humanity to full deity.

And so we're referring to the union of two distinct natures. Now I have there on your handout some inadequate views of the hypostatic union. I'm gonna skip some of this material. You can read on your own, but let me move to some inadequate views just to let you know that we need to be careful on how we understand the hypostatic union.

The first inadequate view, and Wayne Grudem does a great job of walking you through this if you read through his systematic theology. The first inadequate view would be Apollinarianism. Apollinarianism was the view of the Bishop Apollinaris who lived in the fourth century AD. Apollinaris sought to avoid an undue separation of the two natures of Christ.

And so he taught that Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit. Jesus Christ was essentially a divine mind and a divine spirit in a human body. That's where we get the term God in a bod, that idea that Jesus wasn't fully human, but merely he was a divine mind and a divine spirit in a human body.

Now that does not capture, as I've shared with you, the full biblical understanding of who Jesus Christ is. Apollinarianism was rejected by several church councils, including the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. And what we learn from Apollinarianism and the church's response to this error is we have to be very careful to affirm the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

Those who hold to Apollinarianism would say that, yes, Jesus had a human body, but not fully a human mind or a human spirit or soul. And so we need to be very careful to affirm the full humanity of Jesus Christ. That's indicated as well in 1 John 4, verse two, which says, "By this you know the Spirit of God.

"Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ "has come in the flesh is from God, "and every spirit that does not confess Jesus "is not from God." So that's speaking of the necessity of affirming the full humanity of Christ. A second inadequate view is the view of Nestorianism. Nestorianism divided Christ into two persons and held that these two persons existed in one body.

So that is an additional error, an inadequate view of the hypostatic union. It's actually disputed whether Nestorius, a Bishop of Constantinople in AD 428, actually taught that the error bore his name, and Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Grudem writes this. This isn't on your handout, but it was a very helpful explanation.

He writes, "Nowhere in Scripture "do we have an indication that the human nature of Christ "is an independent person, "doing something contrary to the divine nature of Christ, "nor do we have an indication of the human "and divine natures talking to each other "or struggling within Christ or any such thing.

"Rather, we have a consistent picture "of a single person acting in wholeness and unity. "Jesus always speaks as I, not we. "The Bible always speaks of Jesus as he, not they. "And though we can sometimes distinguish actions "of his divine nature and actions of his human nature "in order to help us understand "some of the statements and actions recorded in Scripture, "the Bible itself does not say "Jesus's human nature did this "or Jesus's divine nature did that "as though they were separate persons.

"But the Bible always talks about "what the person of Christ did. "Therefore, the church continued to insist "that Jesus was one person, "although possessing both a human nature "and a divine nature." So a very good explanation of that idea that Jesus is not two persons. He is a one person with two natures.

And then a third inadequate view would be Eutychianism. This was a reaction against Nestorianism and emphasized that there was only one nature in Christ. And so Eutychianism taught that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature so that both natures were changed somewhat and a third kind of nature resulted.

So this is the informal way of putting it. Apollinarianism would be God in a bod, Eutychianism would be God in a blender. It's this idea of you have the divine nature of Jesus and the human nature of Jesus, and they sort of mix together and blended together and formed this kind of hybrid third kind of nature.

And again, that is an inadequate view of the hypostatic union. That is not reflective of what the Bible would teach of how the two natures were joined together. So this is the opposite error from Nestorianism. Eutychianism denied that the human nature and divine nature of Christ remained fully human and fully divine.

He held rather that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature so that both natures were changed somewhat and a third kind of nature resulted. So how do we understand the hypostatic union? Grudem does a great job of walking you through the Chalcedonian definition of 451 AD.

And there's a couple statements in that definition. You can read the whole thing on your own. But a couple key portions of that definition, which was a response to Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, those were all things that were floating around in that day. And the Chalcedonian definition sought to clarify the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

And this definition said, our Lord Jesus Christ at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body. Now, why is the statement saying that he is truly God and truly man? Well, what the statement was doing there is affirming the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

That part of the statement was responding to the idea that Jesus Christ was merely human in terms of his physical body. And so you have that language of truly God and truly man, complete in manhood. It was an attempt to assert the full humanity of Jesus Christ in response to Apollinarianism.

And then you have this famous statement here in the Chalcedonian definition, recognized in two natures, and then note those four statements that follow, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. Those are four very important statements that I'll bring up on the next slide that really clarify what we mean by the hypostatic union.

I'll just note at this point that there are four really important statements there, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. And then it goes on to say the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, that's responding to Eutychianism, the idea that you sort of blended these natures together and got a third kind of nature.

The statement is saying, no, the natures are distinct, and distinction is in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form, how many persons? One person. So that's a response to Nestorianism that said, because you have two natures, there has to be two persons.

You find that this statement is really responding to all three inadequate definitions. So Kevin DeYoung does a great job walking us through those four key phrases without confusion. So the Lord Jesus Christ is not what you get when you mix blue and yellow together and end up with green.

It's a good way of talking about the whole idea of blending. There's no confusion. He's not a tertium quid, a third thing, the result of mixing a divine and human nature. The second statement, without change, in assuming human flesh, the Logos did not cease to be what he had always been.

The incarnation affected no substantial change in the divine son. The third statement, without division, the two natures of Christ do not represent a split in the divine person. Jesus Christ is not half God and half man. And then without separation, the union of the human and divine in the person of Jesus Christ is a real organic union, not simply a moral sympathy or relational partnership.

And so that statement is still the standard definition of a hypostatic union affirmed by Protestant churches today. Okay, so here's the payoff. Give me five minutes and I'll wrap this up. This is the last part of the essay question. The question is, discuss the dual natures of Christ and then talk about why this is necessary for our salvation.

So let me just end this on a very happy note by saying it has everything to do with our salvation. If Jesus Christ were not fully God and fully man, there would be no salvation. He is the perfect savior because he is the perfect man, the second Adam. He is the perfect man who obeyed when Adam disobeyed.

He triumphed where Adam fell. He was the only man to ever fully obey the law of God perfectly and never fail to obey God's law. He never sinned in attitude, in action. He never sinned in sin of omission or commission. He is the perfect man. And because he is the perfect man, he is the perfect substitute.

The whole concept of substitutionary atonement that there was one who stood in our place, who took the place that we ought to have stood in, who bore the wrath we ought to bear and paid the payment that we ought to have paid. That whole beautiful concept of substitution that was foretold in the Old Testament where there were lambs and bulls and the blood of goats.

And there was always this concept of someone needs to die for your sins in order for you to be saved. And it all pointed forward to the perfect substitute who is Christ. And because he was the perfect man, he was able to be the perfect substitute. And that is just something we ought to rejoice in.

But the second part of it is because Jesus Christ was fully God, he could make perfect atonement for our sins. That's why the writer of Hebrews says, "There's no more need for sacrifices. "There's no more need to bring the blood of bulls and goats. "The perfect sacrifice has been offered." And Jesus Christ sat down once and for all because he had completed the work of atonement.

Perfect atonement has been made. The infinite value of the sacrifice of Christ at the cross was fully sufficient to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future. And it all relates to this topic, the dual natures of Jesus Christ. This is a work by Bruce Ware, "The Man, Christ, Jesus." I'd encourage you to pick this up if you have a spare $10.

It's well worth the price of admission. He has a book called "The Man, Christ, Jesus," where he reflects on the humanity of Jesus Christ. And he says this, "Why couldn't a perfect second Adam have been our savior? "If God had created a perfect and sinless second Adam, "if God had worked in him so that he never sinned, "this perfect man still could not have saved us "by taking our sin and dying in our place." So he's saying, "If you had a perfect man, "but he was not also perfectly God, "he could not have been the perfect substitute.

"Why? "As a man, he would qualify to take our place in death, "but as only a man, he could take our sin and pay for it "in just the same manner we as mere humans would pay for it." So now the question is this, how do we as humans pay for our sin if we are required to pay for it ourselves?

Here's the answer. We pay for it eternally. That is, we never finished paying for our sin because our sin requires an infinite payment. The reason that hell is eternal is simply that justice demands a full payment for our sin, and a full payment is impossible for finite humans to render to an infinitely holy God.

Therefore, if we pay for our own sin, we pay forever, and hence there never comes a time when we can say it is finished. It can never be said of us, the payment for our sin has been completed, and God's just demands against us are fully satisfied. That's staggering.

I mean, 10,000 years in hell, if you die without Christ, there will never come a point in hell where people will say the payment is complete for my sin because sin requires an infinite payment. And so the duration of the punishment is eternal. And what, where it goes on to say is, this is the glory of our Savior.

Therefore, Jesus had to be fully God as well as fully man. He had to be fully God for the payment he rendered to be of infinite value, satisfying fully the demands of an infinitely holy God, but he also had to be fully human in order for his death to be substitutionary.

He died in our place, dying the death that we deserve to die, burying in his body on the cross the sin we commit, the infinite value of Christ's payment for our sin attaches to his being fully God. The substitutionary nature of Christ's death attaches most squarely to his being fully human.

I know it costs $10, but that's worth the price of admission. I'd encourage you to get that book. It'll help you answer the fourth part of this question. Why did Jesus need to be fully God as well as fully man in order to bring salvation to the world? And where says it, I think as good as anyone could say it, he had to be fully human to be our substitute.

He had to be fully God to make perfect atonement. And so Charles Ryrie concludes with this. If because of the death of Christ, God is satisfied, then what can the sinner do to try to satisfy God? The answer is nothing. Everything has been done by God himself. I mean, that's the glory of our salvation is that Jesus has paid it all.

He says a sinner can and need only receive the gift of righteousness God offers. God is appeased, placated and satisfied eternally. This is the message we bring to a lost world. Receive the savior who through his death satisfy the wrath of God. I don't know of any sweeter sound that a sinner can hear than to know that God is satisfied through the death of the perfect substitute, Jesus.

And so this is what we bring to our counselees. So I know I've gone over time, but let me just encourage you in this way. This is the message we have to bring to our counselees. I mean, this is Romans 8, verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Can you imagine a counselee who comes for counseling, who is so weighed down because this person's going through so much suffering, so many trials, and this person feels like God is punishing him or her. And he cannot see the favored smile of God. He only sees the frowning providence of God's hand.

And it is your role as a biblical counselor to reorient your counselee to these gospel truths that you are not being condemned. You are not being punished for your sins. Jesus was punished for your sins. The satisfaction has been complete in him and you are not being condemned. Now God is using these trials to make you more like Christ.

And he's gonna give you all sufficient grace to help you through your trials. But these are not, this is not punishment. It's not condemnation. Hebrews 10, verse 14, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And Romans 5, verse one, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

I mean, that's just the truths that we need to internalize and learn and give to our counselees. ACBC is the one counseling organization that I know, maybe there's others, but this is our distinctive as ACBC is we train our counselees, our counselors to speak about Jesus. I mean, that's basically it.

We want our counselees to talk about Jesus and him crucified, the gospel of Christ, the good news of Christ. And so theology exam number 12 is part of that training. It's part of that training to produce Christ-centered counselors who can minister the truth of Christ to others. And so I hope you'll do well on this essay, that you'll rejoice your way through it, and that you'll have a wonderful time this week writing this essay.

So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna close and in prayer, and you can be free to go tonight. I'll hang on for a few minutes if any of you have questions on the essays or anything that I can help with. But let me close in prayer and let you guys go.

Father, we just rejoice tonight. Just thank you so much for Christ. We can never thank you enough for the gospel message, this glorious news of the salvation of Jesus, our perfect substitute, the one mediator between God and man, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

We just thank you that our sins have been paid for in full at the cross, that there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. We pray that Lord, you would allow these truths to bring joy to our hearts, and that you would help us, Lord, to then minister these truths to others.

Make us into gospel-centered, Christ-centered counselors who can take your word and minister hope and help to those who are so desperately in need of these truths. And we give the fruit of this time to you, and we thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, friends, thanks so much for joining us tonight.

If you have any questions on anything, I'll be happy to, I will be happy to answer that on the chat. Otherwise, we will see you next week at five o'clock, where we'll go through theology exam number 13. Thanks so much, you guys, for your encouragement. A question came in, "Could you please expound "on counseling issues related to grief "and diagnosis of illness?" Yeah, a quick response to that would just be, biblical counselors must be equipped to minister to those who are grieving, not only because of the need and the many who are grieving in the church and in the world, but so that we could be like Christ.

I mean, that is Jesus, the man of sorrows, Jesus who was grieved to the point of death. Jesus understands, Jesus draws near to those who are grieving. And so we must learn to be like Christ. I think that would be as simply as I would put it. Christ went to the grave site of Lazarus and he wept.

And he didn't try to explain all of the sorrows away. He just wept with those who weep. And that's something that I really want to encourage our counselors to develop is, you need to learn to weep with those who weep. 25 years ago, I went to seminary, I came out with all the answers, and I was just a Bible machine gun.

Anyone who's struggling with anything, I would know the answers and just kind of shoot them with Bible verses. And it was when God took me through my own personal wilderness and God broke me and humbled me and he took me through my own seasons of sorrow. And now I've sat with many counselees and just before giving answers, I just weep with them.

I just weep with those who weep because that's a biblical command. And also that's one of the most effective ways to counsel. I always remember the deacon who counseled me at Kindred. And I don't remember what he said, but I remember the tears in his eyes as he just grieved with me over certain things that were going on in my life.

And when you see that kind of counselor, I tell you, you're open to whatever that person is gonna say, 'cause you know that person cares about you. So learn to be compassionate, learn to enter a person's world, just learn to, it's never the, the goal is never to eliminate grief.

Grief will be with us, sorrow will be with us until we go to heaven. The goal is to help people walk with God in seasons of grief, to know that they can draw near to Christ in their sorrow, that Christ understands them. And that's for each of us. It's not the elimination of emotion, that's sanctification.

It's drawing near to Christ in your sorrow. So I just encourage you to think through that and to develop those truths and to learn to minister to those who are hurting. Greg Laurie said that if you minister to hurting hearts, you'll always have an audience. And that's true for counseling as well as it is for preaching and teaching.

So please think through that and develop that in your own ministry. - Well, God bless you guys. Thanks so much for taking the hour tonight. And I had a lot to say. So it went a little bit over time, but I just really appreciate your patience and your faithfulness.

We'll be back here at five o'clock next week, next Sunday, and we'll go through the-