Category: Isaiah

I was at Wal-Mart, serving you, buying the little electronic game that so entertained you last night. (BTW: How do you pronounce “corps” Danielle?) My allergies were killing me and my wits were numb; hey, that’s as good of an excuse as I can conjure up. You know how the Taurus only unlocks from the passenger side; so I took the laborious venture to the other side of the car, exhausted I flung the door open to place your goodies in the passenger seat and rammed the door into my forehead.

Unfortunately the stupidity didn’t start there. Immediately I thought, “Well, at least it makes me look tough, like I got into a fight.” “I can walk around with a smirk on my face that make others think the other guy must be even more messed up.” Only my prideful depravity could take my stupidity and human fragility and turn it into a reason for boasting.

Again, unfortunately this is not the end or ultimate demonstration of my depravity. No, that is more clearly seen when I try to make the cross an echo of my worth. I like to think God really got a bargain when he ransomed me. I’m special like that, what would he do without me? Foolishness. The cross of Christ shows me the depths of my sin and I want to twist it such that it glorifies me? I would gladly suffer from intense klutziness than this kind of stupidity.

I am an ungrateful, prideful, arrogant, selfish sinner. God grant me eyes to see the depths of my sin so that I might better know and be constrained by the fathoms of your glorious grace and mercy.

I ask your forgiveness that a subject so precious was treated so lightly last night. The doctrine of the person of Christ is a treasure, preserved and fought for by the early church. My words were too brief and not precise enough and my diagram lacking.  Much of what I will say is taken from Grudem’s Systematic Theology. It has some helpful figures that I will present to you the next time we meet, for now words must suffice.

Grudem gives three inadequate views of the person of Christ:

1) Apollinarianism – This view teaches that Christ had a human body but not a human spirit or mind; that the spirit and mind were from His divine nature. One problem with this is that Jesus would only be a fit redeemer for our body but not our soul and mind which equally need redemption.

2) Nestorianism – Teaches that Christ was two separate persons. This would make Christ a “they” and not a “He”. If you don’t understand this mess or why someone would hold to it – you are not alone.

3) Monophysitism (Eutychianism) – This view teaches that Christ had just one nature. Its like the divine nature and human nature were traveling toward each other at light speed, collided, and a new third nature was all that was left, such that Jesus was not fully human nor fully divine but brand x. Because Jesus is not fully man he is not the perfect substitute or high priest who was tempted in every way we were yet without sin. Nor is He truly God rendering Him incapable of earning our salvation. Mono creates a mut Jesus who cannot save.

Finally Grudem brings us to Chalcedonian Definition as the orthodox statement of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ. The statement is:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial (coessential) with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has been handed down to us.

The two natures, human and divine are united in Christ so that He is one person but yet each nature remains truly human and truly divine. His divine nature is exactly the same as the Father, and His human nature is exactly like ours excepting sin. Grudem goes on to explain that “one nature does some things that the other nature does not do” and yet “everything either nature does the Person of Christ does”.

Finally two statements that help me greatly are: 1) Remaining what he was, he became what he was not.  2) This excerpt from the The Athanasian Creed:

33. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.
34. Who although he be [is] God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking assumption of the Manhood into God;
36. One altogether, not by confusion of Substance [Essence], but by unity of Person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ

Solus Christus

If we meditate and really see our idols for what they are, glory will be given to God.

Go look in the mirror, you are not all that. You have flaws. Hair grows where it shouldn’t. You are not that intelligent, there is always a more intelligent gent. We think we are something because we compare ourselves to men lesser than us, but it is not men with whom we will finally deal.

Look at your clothes. Right now they are in style, next year they will be stupid. If they are ‘timeless’ and remain cool, they will fall apart or you will stain them. It is because you are not all that that your clothes will stain due to: 1) your being a klutz or 2) your body leaving skid marks or pit yellowing.

Your car, its value decreases exponentially once you take it off the lot. It is a hungry god that you must consistently feed. If you opt not to buy the wheels, stereo, chrome accessories, upgraded parts, and dice for your rear view mirror you still have to wash it and give it gas to drink.

My iPod was the coolest when it came out. It was the limited U2 edition. One with a color display came out a few months later, then one with video capabilities, and finally the iPod touch. If technological gods are so amazing why are there always upgrades?

Truly I can only see the foolishness of such idols in the superior light of Jesus’ splendor. So once my blind eyes have been opened to see Jesus and I notice the lie that is in my hand, I think on it rightly. I loose no-gods for the God. With David Livingstone I exclaim:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

So after having cast your idols aside and clinging to Christ, think of the foolishness of your idols and reckon that you have lost nothing and thereby gained everything in Jesus.

Near the end of this passage there are two big assemblies gathered for a great tribunal before Yahweh.  One assembly is a group of sinners, the blind and deaf whom God has chosen as servants to know, believe, and understand that God is God.  They are the redeemed, the elect, the called, the ones of who God is their Savior.  They serve as God’s witnesses.  The other throng is made up of sinners as well, heathen idol worshippers scrambling to gather a credible witness for their case.  So how is it that a group of redeemed sinners serve as witness for God?  What makes our testimony valid?  Our history shows us anything but fine witnesses by virtue of our character.

Lets say O.J. has supposedly done it again, you pick what ‘it’ is exactly.  He has two witnesses that serve as character references; Micheal Vick and Mike Tyson.  You get the point?  But lets say that we are ten years from now and Vick is an ardent supporter of PETA, carries a little handbag with a pomeranian named Pookey inside of it, and has a secret identity as ‘PETA Man’ tackling animal abusers and giving the dogs to deserving, caring children.  Tyson starts taking responsibility, talking like a man, and walks dangerous streets punching women-abusing men in the throat.  Vick and Tyson then testify that the reason for all the changes that have occurred in their lives are owing to the influence of one man – O.J. Simpson.

The redeemed are witnesses to the fact that God is God not because of something in themselves, but by virtue of the acts God has wrought upon them.  As you look at those whom God has chosen, created, formed, called, redeemed, protected, saved, and gathered… the only explanation is God.  We were blind and deaf!  I am what I am by the grace of God.  I am not perfect, but everything within me that is admirable and praiseworthy, all the progress, and all that is truly good is the work of God.  It is no burden to be a witness, rather it is a great privilege for God to demonstrate his power in us, a power which none can thwart.

We readily realize the immaturity of a child when they cry out, “It’s not fair”, yet the arrogance that fuels the statement is revealed when the pain and loss is our own, and we echo the statement that we formally thought ourselves beyond. We seem to only want justice when it benefits us.

The ultimate injustice is that the God worthy of our all gets none, or very little. When justice is ultimately brought forth it will not simply mean that there will be no more wars, or that poverty will be ended. No, above all justice will be had when all worship is given to Jesus as He supremely deserves.

I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols (Isaiah 42:8).

Fortunately for the saints God is also just to justify us based on the merits of Christ, such that the stamping out of idols does not result in our condemnation, but our greatest comfort. The war I hate most – the battle within with indwelling sin against every false contender for His throne will be ended in glorious worship. The poverty that is most devastating – a famine of seeing and savoring Jesus will give way to feast. Oh for justice to have its perfect work in my soul. Jesus purchased me with His blood, I am His. May His sanctifying grace destroy airy substitutes.