The Doctrine of Christ

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Good morning, fellas.
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We are back to our rigorous pursuit of theological excellence.
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This class is Theology, Basics and Principles of Theology.
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If you are new, and I see that some of you are, this is a rotating course.
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It is a 12-week course.
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And you are walking in today to week number four.
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But on your sheet, it's wrong.
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It says week three.
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This is actually week number four.
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I got handouts.
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Who wants to be my hander-outer? Come on, brother.
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Whoever.
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There you go.
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All right.
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I want one.
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Make sure everybody gets one.
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I have a J.
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J, J.
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Sir, are you getting one? I got a X.
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I got a J.
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My step-mom's name is Pat.
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Used to.
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Oh, okay.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That's her.
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That's Bobby's mama.
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Oh, okay.
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Yep.
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Where is Bobby? He's here.
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All right.
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Today's his day off.
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All right.
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Make sure everybody gets their hand out.
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I want to catch some of y'all up because you're new.
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Are we out, or did they get theirs? Yep.
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Okay.
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Can I get one? There you go.
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Sir, just put the extra ones over there.
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I'm going to keep this one.
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All right.
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When we talk about the subject of theology, we are talking about the systemization of our understanding of God's Word.
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We read God's Word in different ways.
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We can read it categorically, which is the way that it is organized in our English Bibles.
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So if you read the Old Testament, you go from the Pentateuch, which is the books of Moses, to the books of history, to the books of poetry, to the books of the prophets, both major and minor.
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You go to the New Testament, you have the Gospels and Acts, which make up the history.
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You have the epistolary books, which are the epistles of Acts, and then the general epistles, and then you have the Apocalypse of John, which we call Revelation.
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That is a categorical reading of Scripture, starting from the beginning, going to the end by category.
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There is also a chronological reading, starting with what happened and then what happened next.
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So if we read chronologically, we would read the books differently, and if you have a Jewish Bible, the Jewish Old Testament is not ordered the same way our books are ordered.
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Our books are 39 Old Testament books, ordered beginning with Genesis and ending with Malachi.
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But if you read a Jewish Bible, they are ordered differently.
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They are ordered according to events.
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So the minor and major prophets fall into different places as they were in the organization of the history of Israel.
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Well, there is a third way to understand Scripture, and that is what we would call systematically.
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And my area of, if you want to call it expertise, I don't know if that's the right word, my primary area of study is systematic theology.
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Teaching God's Word in regard to the major headings of theological thought.
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So, so far we have looked at three headings.
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We looked in the first week at the doctrine of Revelation, not the book of Revelation, but the doctrine of Revelation, which says that God not only exists, but He has revealed Himself in nature, and He has revealed Himself in Scripture.
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That is the doctrine of Revelation, both natural and special, or what we would call general and special Revelation.
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We talked about that in week one.
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If you were not here for that, you'll get it on the next go-around.
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This is a 12-week rotating course, so you'll get it in eight, nine more weeks, whenever we get back to it.
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The second class we looked at was what is known as theology proper.
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Theology proper is the study of God and His nature, and we looked at the subjects of God's attributes and God's existence.
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And then in the third week, we looked at a subset of theology proper, which was the doctrine of the Trinity.
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That was last week.
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So again, if today is your first day, you're coming into the middle of a theology course, but if you stay here at Set Free for at least 12 weeks, you'll get it all.
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It'll just rotate back through.
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The only thing that may happen is around Christmas time, because that's about when we're going to end the 12 weeks, around Christmas time, I am going to do a couple of special lessons on the virgin birth and the sinless life of Christ.
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I always like to do that around Christmas time, because it's an important doctrine, and it's a subset, again, of Christology.
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And that's what we're going to be looking at today, what is known as the doctrine of Christology.
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And if you don't know, this is my son JJ.
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I bring him here every week.
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He is the mascot for the class.
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He is five.
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He tries to behave.
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He will sometimes make noise, and I will get on to him when he does.
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But I'm trying to give his mother a little bit of a break.
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We are homeschool parents.
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We have five children.
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And my oldest son is in the Air Force, and this is my youngest son.
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And he calls this man work.
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Dad, can we go do man work? Yes.
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This is man work.
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And so we're here doing man work together.
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And my girls are home with Mom.
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So let's look at what we mean by Christology.
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Anytime you put the O-L-O-G-Y on the end of something, like biology or anthropology or any of those things, that means the study of something.
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It comes from the Greek word logos, which means word or knowledge or study.
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And so when we put ology on the end of Christ, we are talking about a study of Jesus Christ.
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And I will say this.
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I have an hour or less.
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I don't have time to do a full study of Jesus Christ.
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In an hour, I don't have time to explain even the most rudimentary things about Jesus' life and ministry, His death, burial and resurrection, all of those most foundational important things.
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So I have to, because this is a survey of theology, I have to focus on those things that I think are indispensable, things that every Christian should know and no Christian should be ignorant of.
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And so I have broken this down to two parts, and you'll notice on your handout, we are going to look first at the pre-existence and eternality of Christ.
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And if big words frighten you, don't let it.
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I will always explain what I mean by these words.
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But I do believe that words are important.
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We should not...
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I will always do this.
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I will never treat you like you can't understand something, because I believe every one of you can.
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And I will always try to raise the bar.
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But if you don't understand what I'm saying, raise your hand and I will stop and I will help you.
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These things are important.
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But don't let big words frighten you, because we are going to explain what they mean.
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So we are going to look at the pre-existence and eternality of Christ, and we are going to look at the hypostatic union.
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So let's look first at the pre-existence and eternality of Christ.
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What does pre-existence mean? Yes? Yeah, the prefix pre- means before.
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His existence.
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That's right.
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So when we say pre-existence, what we are talking about particularly is we are talking about the birth of Jesus.
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So I'm going to create a timeline on the board.
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So if that time represents all of...
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if that line represented all of human history, which certainly it does not, but if it did, we could say there was a point where there was creation after creation at some point there was a fall, after the fall there was a flood, after the flood there were certain things like the Tower of Babel and all that, but the most important thing following the flood was the call of Abraham and what we would say is the Abrahamic Covenant.
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So I'll just put Abraham right there, good old Abe.
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So this takes us through Genesis chapter 12.
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Very important part of history is Genesis chapter 1 to 12.
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It gives us all of that.
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After that, we begin through the time period of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then the twelve sons of Jacob or the twelve sons of Israel, which become the nation of Israel.
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Right? And so we have the patriarchal time period, which then gives way to the nation of Israel under Moses who gives the law of God.
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So we'll just put Moses here and knowing that there's a huge time period, about 500 years there between Abraham and Moses.
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Okay? So a little longer than that, but that's, I'm speaking in broad brushes.
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From Moses, we have the period directly following the life of Moses, which we would call the theocratic period where God ruled through the judges of Israel, and you're familiar with this.
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You had Joshua, judges, right, going through the Old Testament.
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Then you move into the area, Ruth would fall under the judges period, that's still the same period of time.
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Then you have what's called the monarchial period.
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So you have the theocratic period, then you have the monarchical period.
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That's when there was kings, right? You had King Saul and King David, King Solomon, and after Solomon you had Rehoboam and Jeroboam, they divided.
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You had a northern kingdom, a southern kingdom, and that divided kingdom would eventually, the northern kingdom would be conquered by Assyria in 722, and then the southern kingdom would be conquered by Babylon in 586, and these are all B.C.
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So all of this though is what we would call B.C., and B.C.
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stands for Before Christ, right? So there's a moment that happens that we would say splits time in half, and what that is is the birth of Christ, right? So everything after that we call A.D.
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What does A.D.
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stand for? Doesn't stand for after death, a lot of people think that.
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Anno Domini, which means it's Latin for in the year of our Lord.
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Anno Domini is annual, Domini is Lord, so it's in the year of our Lord, so right now we live A.D.
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2020.
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What a year it's been.
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But this is the year of our Lord, meaning it's been 2,020 years approximately, because we're based on a calendar that's not exactly perfect, but we say we live about 2,020 years after the birth of Jesus Christ.
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Yes sir? Can you spell Anno Domini? Yeah, A-N-N-O-D-O-M-I-N-I, Domini.
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A-N-N-O-D-O-M-I-N-I, Anno Domini.
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It stands for in the year of our Lord.
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What? Anno Domini is two words, Anno is annual or year, and Domini is Lord.
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So it's two words, yeah.
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So, Jesus Christ came in the flesh and he split time.
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Even the secularists divide time by the time before Christ and the time after Christ.
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Now they don't call it B.C.
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and A.D.
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anymore, they call it B.C.E.
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and C.E.
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And what they mean by that is before the common era and the common era, that's where B.C.
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and C.E., that's the technical.
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And I remember when I was in school, I have a secular degree and a biblical degree, I remember when I was studying for my secular degree, I'd open up my textbooks and it would say B.C.E.
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And I'm like, they added, what is that? Well, it was before the common era.
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Because even though they still mark time based upon the coming of Jesus, they do not recognize the coming of Christ as the main event of history.
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But I will tell you this, in all of human history, there has never been anything that was more important from God's perspective or from the perspective even of the secularists.
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This is the most important moment in all of history.
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The God who created the universe, the second person of the Trinity, which we talked about last week, came into this world as a man.
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The Bible says He was incarnate.
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He became flesh.
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John chapter 1 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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Literally, He tabernacled among us.
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The tabernacle was a tent.
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He put on flesh, as it were, like a tent.
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And He came and dwelt with us.
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So, that moment in history is when many people believe Jesus came into existence.
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Because we compare Jesus to our own experience, and most of us are very aware that there was a time when we did not exist.
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Right? Like I was born April 2nd, 1980.
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I existed in my mother's womb for nine months prior to my birth.
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So, technically, I was alive in the 70s.
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So, I was alive in the very, very late 70s, but I was in my mother's womb.
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But, prior to my conception, I did not exist.
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There was no me.
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Keith Foskey came into existence at a point in time.
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And you came into existence at a point in time.
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Do you remember what anything was like before you came? No, because you weren't there.
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Some people believe in the pre-existence of the soul.
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The Bible doesn't teach that.
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The Bible says God creates the soul.
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God creates us.
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So, we did not exist prior to our creation.
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And some people apply that experiential reality.
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I didn't exist before my creation.
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And they apply that to Christ.
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And they say Jesus did not exist before Bethlehem.
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So, that's the point, right? Bethlehem is the point.
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He was born.
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You know Bethlehem, right? Remember Christmas? He's born in a manger.
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All that's in Luke chapter 2, right? So, we know it happened that He was born in a manger in Bethlehem.
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So, some people say, well, Jesus, this is where He started to exist.
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And we say, no.
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We would say Jesus existed always.
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Not just before creation.
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But that He has always existed.
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That's where we get the word eternality.
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Eternality is a fancy word for always.
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Or eternal.
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So, if we talk about human beings, we can say human beings are not eternal.
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But Jesus Christ, because He is God in the flesh, in regard to His divinity, He has always existed.
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Now, we could say this.
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His flesh came into existence at Bethlehem.
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Because it was at that moment that the incarnation happened.
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But His divinity has always been.
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So, that's what we are talking about when we talk about the pre-existence of Christ.
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Now, I want you to have your Bibles.
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Because we're going to do several Bible verses in a row.
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So, go ahead and take out your Bibles and immediately turn to John chapter 1.
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Alright, John chapter 1.
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Now, who wrote John? John.
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John.
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That's not a trick question.
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But who is John? He's a disciple, right? He's one of the twelve.
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He's the one who Jesus loved.
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I mean, he said that about himself.
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Some people think he's a little prideful.
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Because he said several times, the one who Jesus loved.
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And he was talking about himself.
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But there is a relationship that he has with Christ.
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There is a friendship that he has that is unique.
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And we do believe that John had a unique friendship in the sense that he, Peter, James, and John were part of what we would call Jesus' inner circle.
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Peter, James, and John were the ones who were with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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Remember when Jesus' face blew and he was up on the mountain? They were there.
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They were the only three of the disciples who were there.
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And there were other times when you only see Peter, James, and John.
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So, while Jesus had...
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Sometimes he had hundreds of disciples.
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He had twelve apostles.
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And within the twelve apostles, he had three that were closest to him.
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And the one that I would say is probably the closest was John.
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Based on the way that he describes his relationship to Jesus in the Gospel of John.
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So, John gives us insight into the nature of Christ that is very important in the very first verse.
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He says, Now, just right there, where is the beginning? Back here, right? Before creation, before the fall, before any of that.
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And remember, how does the Bible begin in Genesis 1-1? In the beginning, God created heavens and the earth, right? So, John is taking the same language.
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In the beginning, it was the first book of Moses, Genesis.
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And he uses the very same introductory statement, In the beginning.
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But now he's going to apply that to Jesus.
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Because he doesn't say, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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He says, In the beginning was the Word.
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We talked about this last week, the word logos.
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Referring to Jesus is John's way of describing Jesus' nature as the living Word of God.
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And he says, In the beginning was the Word.
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And the Word was with God.
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And the Word was God.
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Now, if you weren't here last week to study the Trinity, we went over what we talked about, the nature of the Trinity.
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God is one in essence, but three in person.
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And so, I don't want to go over that again.
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But, notice verse 2.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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Verse 3.
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All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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That verse, that set of verses, tells us that Jesus pre-existed Bethlehem.
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Because He was in the beginning with God.
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There's no way around that.
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You have to either say, I don't believe the Bible, which a lot of people say that.
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But you can't say, I believe the Bible, but I don't believe Jesus pre-existed Bethlehem.
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Because it says, right here, He did.
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So, you're at a point of, it's not an interpretive thing.
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It's not, oh, that's just your interpretation.
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Phooey, that's wrong.
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I'm trying to find a nice way of saying it.
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That's bunk.
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Yeah, I'm not interpreting it.
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I'm reading it.
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It just says, He was in the beginning with God.
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So, we know He didn't start here.
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Right? This pushes Him back to being in the beginning with God.
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And everything that was created, was created through Him.
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Therefore, He had to be here.
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Because everything that comes after, ow, I bit my cheek.
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Everything that comes after is a product of Him.
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So again, you may want to argue whether or not Jesus was pre-existent.
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But you wouldn't be arguing with me.
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You would be arguing with the text.
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And at that point, you would either have to submit to what the text says, or not.
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But, it really wouldn't be a matter of interpretation.
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It would be a matter of whether or not you're willing to accept what it says.
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Make sense? It's very clear.
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Now, there are other verses, and I want us to look at a few.
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Go to John 8.
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Now, time will not allow me to give an exposition of John 8, but in layman's terms, basically what happens is Jesus is having a discussion with the Pharisees, the people of Israel.
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He's talking to them, and He is debating who their Father is.
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Because they said, our Father is God.
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He said, if God was your Father, you'd believe in Me.
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And they said, well, we have our Father Abraham.
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And Jesus basically says, if you believed in Abraham, you'd believe in Me.
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And then He goes on to say this in verse 58.
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He said, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.
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That is one of the most important verses.
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If you highlight your Bible, and that one ain't highlighted, you've missed it.
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Highlight that one.
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Now if you don't highlight your Bible, don't just do it for my sake.
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But if you're somebody who underlines, John 8, 58 should be underlined.
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For several reasons, not the least of which, it proves my thesis.
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My thesis is that Christ existed prior to this line.
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And that's what He just said.
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Before Abraham, remember where Abraham is on the line, before here.
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And He says, before Abraham was, I am.
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And I talked about this last week.
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When He says, I am, He is using the divine title.
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In fact, I just read this in my devotions this morning.
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I'm in Exodus, reading through my daily devotions with my wife.
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And in the daily devotion, we read about the story of Moses and the burning bush.
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And Moses is speaking to the bush.
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And God says, go and speak to the Pharaoh.
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And Moses says, well, who should I say has sent me? And He says, you say, I am has sent you.
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And He says, I am who I am.
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And you tell them that I am has sent you.
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And so that title, that name, I Am, that is God's description of Himself.
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And what it describes is it describes His essential nature of being absolutely without any dependence upon anything else.
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God exists outside of any other force or power.
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The technical term is God is self-existent.
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You exist for several reasons, not the least of which that your mother and father came together and produced a child.
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There was a reason for your existence.
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And your existence, whether you're 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, you've existed this long for several reasons.
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You've got an atmosphere that provides just enough stable gravity for you and air pressure that you don't get crushed and that you don't expand and explode.
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You have the perfect atmosphere.
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You have the perfect amount of air.
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You have the perfect amount of food.
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Maybe a little too much in my case.
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But you have certain things that keep you alive.
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You know, every man has three basic needs, right? Food, water, shelter.
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God has no needs.
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That's what it means when He says, I am.
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I am.
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I exist.
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I exist apart from any need.
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I have existence within Myself, and the power of being is within Myself.
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This is why God can speak the world into existence.
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When it says He spoke, and there was light, He spoke, and there was earth, and He spoke, and there was water, and there was a sky, and there was birds and fishes, and there was beasts, and there was a man.
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Because God has the power of existence within Himself.
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Thus we say God is self-existent.
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Christ says, before Abraham was, and technically, linguistically, He should have said, before Abraham was, I was.
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But He didn't say, before Abraham was, I was.
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He said, before Abraham was, I am.
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Ego eimi.
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It's a Greek construction, which is the direct construction of I am.
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Not I was, not I will be, but I am.
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Jesus uses that phrase of Himself many times in the book of John alone.
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In fact, there are seven I am statements throughout the book of John.
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This one I would say is the most important though, because this one He says there is no qualification.
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Before Abraham was, I am.
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Alright, since we're in the Gospel of John, turn to chapter 17.
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I'm building my case here.
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Jesus is preexistent in Bethlehem.
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I think I've proven it, but I want to continue to show you that this isn't just one text and one opinion.
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But it's a thematic idea about the person of Jesus.
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John 17, verse 5.
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This is Jesus' prayer.
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We call it the High Priest's Prayer of Jesus.
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And He says in verse 5, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.
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I mean, out of the mouth of the Lord Himself.
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Father, I am asking that You would glorify Me with what? With the glory that we had before the world existed.
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That puts Him back here, remember.
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And it says there, the word actually in the Greek means they shared glory.
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And we talked about this with the...
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Okay, go.
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Go to the restroom.
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Remember to wash your hands.
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Yes, I'll get you down.
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Alright, so the word had I think is better translated shared.
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Glorify Me with the glory that we shared before the world was.
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Remember when we talked about the Trinity? There's one God, three persons that share the one being of God.
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And that's how we understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
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And so, close the door.
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Thank you.
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You don't have to close it all the way, but at least close it some.
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Sorry.
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Okay, so that's three statements of Jesus.
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All from the Gospel of John.
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And somebody may step back and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
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Why are you only in John? Why haven't you looked anywhere else? Is this a conspiracy? Maybe John was the one who made us think Jesus was God.
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And nobody else believed it.
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Oh, nay, nay.
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Oh, nay, nay.
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Very important.
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Turn with me to Colossians.
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Colossians was written by Paul.
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Go to chapter 1.
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Verses 16 and 17.
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Speaking of Jesus, I'll let you get there.
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I see some pages turning.
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Colossians 1.16 For by Him, that is by Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
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All things were created through Him and for Him.
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And by the way, that phrase, and for Him is very important because it tells us why we exist.
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We exist for Christ.
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You are not your own.
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The Bible says if you're a believer, you've been bought with a price.
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You are not your own.
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You exist for Him.
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Colossians 1.16 and 17.
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17 says this, And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
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That passage by itself blows my mind.
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I remember, I've told this story many times.
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I maybe have told it here.
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I remember one time, I was walking to my office.
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If you've ever been to our church, you know the sanctuary and the offices are separated by a long hallway.
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I was walking down the hallway and I was struck, literally like dumbfounded struck, with a sense of my own absolute dependency.
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And you say, what do you mean? Well, I had this overwhelming sense of the fact that the only reason why I exist is because God is maintaining my life.
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That God could, if He so chose, I don't believe He would, but if He so chose, He could eliminate my existence.
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Now again, I'm not trying to paint a picture of a mean God.
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I'm saying God is that powerful that my whole existence is in Him.
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My heart beats at His will.
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My life, my breath.
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You know, I don't know when and how I'm going to die.
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My wife and I talk about this sometimes because we know one of us will probably outlive the other.
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And we talk about the difficulty of what it's going to be like one day for one of us to be without the other.
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We've been married 21 years.
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We hope to be married many more.
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But one day, this life will be over.
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But my existence, my life is bound up in Him and I exist through Him.
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This text tells me, in Him all things are held together.
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So not only was He in the beginning, but He is responsible for everything continuing to go.
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There's somebody in there.
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Sorry.
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So, like I said, any one of these verses I could stop and preach a sermon, I don't want to do that.
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I'm trying to point out, again, I'm making my case.
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So we've seen John says Jesus was in the beginning.
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Jesus Himself said, before Abraham was, I am.
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And I was with the Father sharing glory before the world was.
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Now Paul says He was in the beginning and everything came through Him.
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Now turn to the book of Hebrews.
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Again, this is how you do theology, right? You look at what the Bible says.
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You compare Scripture with Scripture.
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It's called the Analogium Scriptorum.
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You're comparing the text.
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You're making an analogy with the text.
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Does this agree with this? Yes.
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Does this agree with this? Yes.
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So this is how you build your theology.
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So Hebrews begins by talking about the fact that Jesus is supreme.
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He is over all things.
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But look at verse 8.
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Hebrews 1.
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Hebrews chapter 1.
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In fact, how does Hebrews 1-1 begin? Long ago, at various times and various places, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets, but now He speaks to us through His Son.
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And He talks about the superiority of the Son in all things.
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Then you get to verse 8.
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It says this, But of the Son, He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
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Notice what it says.
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Of the Son.
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I like it when Jehovah Witnesses come by.
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They don't come by my house much.
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Not anymore.
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But when they used to come...
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One of the passages that I would try to have...
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I would want to see their Bible.
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Because they have a mistranslation called the New World Translation.
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And they have corrupted many texts in the New World Translation.
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They'll say they're better translated, but the people who translated it didn't even know Greek and Hebrew.
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So to say it's a better translation is a farce.
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But this is one of the verses that it's still so clear.
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And they haven't corrupted it because they didn't know to corrupt it.
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Because it says, Of the Son, it says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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Of the Son, it calls Him what? God.
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And how long is His throne? Ever and ever.
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So, that is just a few direct statements.
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Yes.
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His rule.
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The throne in Scripture represents the rule.
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Remember, He created the world.
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He rules over the world.
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So the throne is emblematic of the rule of God.
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Now, is there a throne in Heaven? Possibly.
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When Stephen was dying in Acts, it says he saw the throne of God in a vision.
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And he saw Jesus standing in His defense.
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And he said, Lord, accept my spirit.
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So there is a sense in which there may be something of a throne that's visible.
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When we die, we may see it.
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But the throne itself, like when it says to David, the scepter will not depart your kingdom.
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And your throne will be forever.
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When he talks to David, he's talking about the rule.
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That's what Jesus does.
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Jesus fulfills the promise that God gave to David.
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The promise to David was your throne will last forever.
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How does David's throne last forever? Through Christ.
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Because Christ is what? Son of David.
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He's called the Son of David.
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He is the Son of God, but He's also called the Son of David.
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Why does it matter that He is of the lineage of David? Why does Matthew make such a big deal to prove Jesus is the Son of David? If you go through Matthew's lineage, he proves that David is Jesus' ancestor because Jesus is sitting on David's seat.
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That promise that was given to David is fulfilled in Christ.
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The messianic kingdom, the messianic throne, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
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That was promised to David.
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Your throne will last forever.
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Okay, so that's the direct statements.
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I've got a question.
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Yes, please.
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Is there a John only place that says I am? No, there are other places in the other Gospels.
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I don't have them written down.
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But particularly, remember when Jesus walked on the water? And He said, Fear not, it is I.
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That's not what He said.
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In the Greek, it says, Fear not, I am.
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And He's walking on the water.
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So not only is He displaying power of the elements and divinity, but He also uses Himself the divine name.
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We also have in the Gospels expressions of deity that I would call indirect expressions.
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See, a direct expression is, I am.
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That's a direct expression.
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Or before Abraham was, I am.
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That's a direct expression.
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But the indirect expression would be, for instance, when Jesus was on the boat, with the men in Mark's Gospel, and the wind is blowing and everything, and they're like, Jesus, we're going to die! Why aren't you freaking out? And Jesus stands up and He says, Peace be still.
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And all of the wind and rain stopped.
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And what do they do? Truly, this is the Son of God.
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This is not a normal dude.
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Because normal people don't say to the wind, Stop.
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And it stops.
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So there are indirect testimonies to His deity which coincide with the direct statements regarding His deity.
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Another one, and I think this is probably the most important one.
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This is what got Him stoned.
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I'll answer your question in just a second.
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Oh, I thought you had a question.
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What is it that got Jesus stoned, ultimately? He forgave sins.
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By forgiving sins, the Pharisee says He is making Himself equal with God because only God can forgive sins.
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And you walk through all four Gospels and you will see one consistent thing that Jesus does.
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Your sins are forgiven.
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Go and sin no more.
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Your sins are forgiven.
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Think about when they took the roof off the house and they let that man down who was paralyzed and it was right there in front of Jesus.
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And Jesus said, rise and walk.
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Your sins are forgiven.
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And they freaked out.
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Who can say their sins are forgiven except God? Yep.
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They're not wrong.
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They're not wrong.
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But Jesus had the right to because He was God in the flesh.
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And so there is indirect statements about divinity throughout the Gospels.
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John gives us the most direct statements which is why I started there.
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And of course, there are other things that we could make the argument.
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There are times when Jesus shows up in the Old Testament.
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I'll give you one very important reference.
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Isaiah chapter 6.
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In Isaiah chapter 6, the Bible says, Isaiah saw the Lord seated on His throne and the train of His robe filled the temple.
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And the angels surrounded Him and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty and the whole earth is filled with His glory.
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That's Isaiah 6.
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600 years or so before Jesus.
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600 to 700 years.
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Jesus comes and in John chapter 12, it says that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ.
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In Isaiah chapter 12, let me look, I have it in my notes here.
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Isaiah 12.41.
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I'm sorry, John 12.41.
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John 12.41.
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It says Isaiah saw His glory and the pronoun there is referring to Christ.
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So, did Christ preexist Bethlehem? You better believe it.
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And some people will say this.
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Well, Jesus preexisted Bethlehem, but that doesn't mean that He is eternal.
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And I would answer that by saying His divinity is what provides for us the foundation for His eternality.
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He is eternal because He is divine.
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And this takes us to the second part of our lesson and that is the hypostatic union.
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Everybody, you may need this.
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I can erase this.
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Not done yet.
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Almost.
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I know the guys are probably asking the same question.
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I don't know.
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I've got a question about the right hand.
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It says the right hand of the Father.
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Yes.
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That's more confusing to me because I believe in the Trinity or the Holy Trinity.
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Yep.
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Okay, so when we refer to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, we talk about them being one.
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We're talking about their nature as God.
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They are one God.
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That's where I'm getting.
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Because when we talk about their person, we are talking about their personality.
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God is one in essence.
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We talked about this last week, but three in person.
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Those three persons do interact with one another.
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And they have always interacted with one another.
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And there has always been what we call the economic distinction within the Trinity.
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Economic means doing different things.
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We think about economics, people doing different things.
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God the Father has always been God the Father.
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God the Son has always been God the Son.
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And God the Spirit has always been God the Spirit.
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Therefore, there is a relationship within the Trinity.
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And this is why we talk about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as all being eternal.
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And therefore, the ability for the Son to sit at the right hand of the Father doesn't violate the doctrine of the Trinity.
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It simply just affirms the distinction within the three persons.
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Yes, sir.
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So does Jesus know what God said and God know what Jesus said? Yes and no.
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Well, let me answer the first question.
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When we're fixing to get into the hypostatic union.
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The hypostatic union in very simple terms is when Jesus became flesh, He took not only a human body, but He took on a human nature.
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So He not only has a divine nature, but He also has a human nature.
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And in His human nature, there was growth, which God doesn't need to grow.
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But the human nature grows.
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In His humanity, He said, I don't know when I'm coming back.
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Remember He says, only the Father knows, right? So that's when you said, does Jesus...
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Touching His divinity, I would say He is omniscient, meaning He knows everything.
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And when He proves that in certain passages, like in John where He talks to Nathaniel, He says, you were under the tree.
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And He said, how did you know? He said, because I saw you.
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It meant because He sees everything, right? In that regard, this is where we talk about...
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The hypostatic union is where we talk about Jesus is fully God and fully man.
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Alright? So, Jesus is truly...
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And this is the Latin.
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It's vero Deus, vero Homo, vero Deus.
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And that's fully God, fully man.
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Truly God, truly man.
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And the importance to make this distinction is because there are times in His humanity where He showed weakness.
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God is not weak.
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God can't die.
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But Jesus died.
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God doesn't get hungry.
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But Jesus was hungry.
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God doesn't sleep.
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But Jesus slept.
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And so, when we talk about the limitations, we are touching the human nature.
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We are touching the fact that He was fully...
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And see, there were a lot of false teachings in the early church.
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And one of the most prominent false teachings was that Jesus was only God and He was not man.
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It was called docetism.
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And docetism taught that all flesh is evil.
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So, if Jesus took on flesh, He would be taking on evil.
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So therefore, He was only appearing to be a man.
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He was like a phantom or a phantasm or some kind of a vision or hologram.
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He wasn't...
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Huh? Yeah, like a mirage.
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He wasn't a real man.
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That was the teaching.
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And it was something called Gnosticism.
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If you've ever heard of Gnosticism, it was an early Christian heresy.
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And it taught that Jesus wasn't really a man.
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See, here's the thing.
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Nowadays, we have to argue whether or not Jesus was God.
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Because people have trouble with that.
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But in the first century, that wasn't the problem.
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Everybody knew Jesus was God.
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They didn't know how He could be a man.
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So it was like the opposite of today.
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How can He be a real man? Especially if they believed all flesh is evil.
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So the hypostatic union...
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And by the way, the word hypostatic comes from the word hypostasis, which simply means substance or reality.
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And so what it's saying is there are two natures, or two substances, if you will, two substantive realities that find their home in one person.
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Remember the Trinity? One God, three persons? Jesus is one person, two natures.
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So the distinction in the Trinity is one and three.
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But with Christ, it's one and two.
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One person, two natures.
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He is fully God, fully man.
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I don't like it when people say 100% God, 100% man.
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You've probably heard that.
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Maybe other preachers here use that.
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And that's okay.
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I'm not challenging them and saying they're bad.
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What I'm saying is this.
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We can't personagize God because God is eternal and infinite.
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You can't say, what's 10% of infinity? There isn't, right? You can't be 50% infinite.
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We say fully God and fully man.
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And you think about Colossians, right? It says all the fullness of deity dwelt in Christ bodily.
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Colossians 2.19 All the fullness of deity dwelt in Christ bodily.
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What does that mean? He is fully God, but He's also fully man.
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You had your hand up, sir.
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I didn't mean to overlook you.
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No, no, that's not what I'm saying.
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Because there are parts where it talks about the Holy Spirit empowering Christ and His ministry.
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In fact, when we talk about the Holy Spirit...
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The third person.
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Yes, there are three persons.
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You weren't here last week, and that's okay.
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But the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are distinct and interact with one another.
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And one of the things that Jesus does do, and we're going to see this next week when we look at the Holy Spirit, is Jesus does interact with the Spirit.
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The Bible says the Spirit fell upon Him when He was baptized.
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The Bible says that when He was doing His works, the Spirit was actually empowering those works.
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So, we're referring not to the Holy Spirit when we talk about His divinity, because Christ has divinity of His own.
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But in regard to His works, there were times where the Holy Spirit is active doing the works.
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In the same way that when we are active, the Holy Spirit is working through us.
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We're going to learn this next week.
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The Holy Spirit is meant to take the place of Christ when He goes away.
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He says this in John 15.
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He says, when I go away, the Spirit will come and be with you and be like I am.
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He'll come and walk with you and empower you.
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And so, yes, the Spirit is at work, but when we're talking about Christ, Christ is fully divine in and of Himself.
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So, that is what we mean when we talk about the hypostatic union.
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So, when you hear somebody say, Jesus is the God-man, that's my favorite phrase.
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I just say He's the God-man.
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Because He's not part God, part man.
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He's not half God, half man.
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He is the God-man.
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And He's the only one.
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There's not been another God-man in all of history.
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And you say, well, why is this necessary? Here is why it is necessary.
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And it's important.
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As God, Christ represents God to us.
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But as man, Christ represents us to God.
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You see, by having...
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I'll say it again.
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As God, Christ represents God to us.
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But as man, Christ represents us to God.
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So, for instance, in the book of Hebrews it says He had to become like us.
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Why did He have to become like us? So that He could forgive us.
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He could represent us.
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What is the priest? The priest is one from among the people who goes and makes a sacrifice.
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Jesus Christ comes among us as us to make a sacrifice for us.
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And the only sacrifice that He could make that would be without blemish would be Himself.
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Because this is the other thing that's very important.
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Christ is sinless.
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You say, oh, that's easy.
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That's not easy.
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Because not everybody believes that.
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Some people try to impugn Christ and say, no, He's a sinner.
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If He was a sinner, He could not make a sacrifice of Himself because the sacrifice had to be perfect.
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You had your hand up.
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Yes, sir.
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Why? When they crucified Jesus, He said, Father, why have You forsaken Me? Yes.
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What was He going through? He was quoting Scripture.
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My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? is a Scripture.
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He's quoting Psalm chapter 2.
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Have you got your Bibles? Turn to Psalm 2.
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You see, if I stood up and I said, for God so loved the world, and that's all I said, what would you immediately think of? John 3.16, right? Because I'm saying part of the passage, but you know the whole passage.
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I'm sorry, I said Psalm 2.
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Psalm 22.
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Read it, brother.
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Okay, and it goes on.
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But essentially, what Jesus has done, and this is a very good question.
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A lot of people have this question.
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Why did Jesus say, Eloi, Eloi, lea ma sabachthani? Which is my God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? He is quoting this passage, which is a Messianic passage, to show that He is actually the Messiah who would suffer, but would not be put to shame.
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See, if you read the whole Psalm, the Psalm says He begins by saying, why have You forsaken Me? But it ends with His vindication.
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Christ is announcing Himself as the Messiah by quoting this Psalm.
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And what happens is He is vindicated when? Three days later.
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What does the Bible say? He was raised for our vindication, right? He was raised for our justification.
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Christ dies on the cross by saying, why have You forsaken Me? And then the fulfillment of the prophecy is He comes out of the tomb.
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God has not forsaken Him.
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See, a lot of people will say, I said, on the cross, it's why have You forsaken Me? Three days later, He comes out of the tomb and proves God has not totally forsaken Him because now He's vindicated Him.
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He's gone from forsaken to vindicated.
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Just like the Psalm said.
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Yes, and that's the other point too.
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God was not divided on the cross.
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It's not as if God wasn't there.
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I've heard some people say the Father and the Son were divided.
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I can't take that because God can't be divided.
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Again, He's infinite.
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You can't have half of infinity.
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Right? So what I see with Christ on the cross is Christ is proving His Messiahship by quoting the Psalm that's about Him and He's saying the words of the Psalm which is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Which is the beginning.
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But again, reading the Psalm all the way through, it's a Psalm not of despair, but of vindication.
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This is the purpose for which He died.
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Why does Jesus die? Jesus died and in that moment, what? He died to get His eternal life.
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But how? He took our punishment.
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Isaiah 53 says, On Him were laid the iniquities of us all.
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Yes, well, it satisfied God's wrath.
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Yes, what we call propitiated.
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Propitiated means to satisfy.
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God had wrath stored up for you and me and everybody else.
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And that wrath is what I deserve.
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I deserve to go to hell.
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By the way, that's the first step to being a Christian.
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If you don't believe that your sins deserve God's punishment, you can't really go any further.
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So the first thing you've got to do to get saved is get lost.
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You've got to realize you're lost.
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You've got to realize you're desperate.
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You've got to realize you can't save yourself.
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And you look to Christ.
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On the cross when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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God's wrath was poured out on Him.
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And in pouring God's wrath out on Him, He took my penalty.
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And now I don't have to take the penalty anymore.
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That's the obedience of Christ in my place.
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He takes my penalty.
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Remember the Old Testament scapegoat? Where they'd pray the sins over the goat and they would send the goat away to take the sins away? Christ becomes my scapegoat.
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He takes my sins away.
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But He also gives me His righteousness.
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The Bible says I don't have righteousness of my own.
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It says I have righteousness from God.
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The righteousness of God which comes by faith.
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My righteousness is not mine, it's His.
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When I stand before God, I don't say, God, I deserve to go to heaven because I was a good guy.
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I deserve to go to heaven because I was a preacher.
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I deserve to go to heaven because I spent hours and hours studying the Bible.
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God would say, that is all nothing.
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Your best works are filthy rags.
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The only reason I deserve to go to heaven is Jesus Christ died in my place, He paid the penalty for my sins, and He has given me His righteousness whereby I stand before Him.
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We'll talk about this more when we get to the doctrine of justification.
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But that's the key.
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Understanding the righteousness of Christ that becomes ours through faith.
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Alright, I want to draw to a close because we're out of time.
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I want to read to you from a confession.
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Now, I don't normally read creeds and confessions in here, but in the first several centuries after Christ, a lot of ink was put onto parchment to try to explain what the church meant when they said Jesus was the God-man.
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And one of those councils was known as the Council of Chalcedon.
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This was in 451.
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This council convened for the purpose of expressing what we mean when we say Jesus is the God-man.
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And I want to read this paragraph and when I'm finished, I will pray.
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Therefore, following the Holy Fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, 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 and of one substance with the Father as regards His Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards His manhood.
59:41
Like us in all respects apart from sin, as regards His Godhead, begotten of the Father before all ages, but yet as regards His manhood, begotten for us men and for our salvation of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person in subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ, even as the prophets from the earliest times spoke of Him, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us and the creeds of the fathers has handed down to us.
01:00:34
Now I put that in your notes so that you would have it to read.
01:00:38
I hope that that will be helpful to you when you go back later and try to put into your mind all the things we've talked about today.
01:00:46
Was this helpful? Let's pray.
01:00:49
Father, thank You for Your Word.
01:00:52
May we be evermore in tune to what You had to tell us.
01:00:57
And may we love Christ above all things, for He is the one who both formed us and sustains us, and it's in Him we live and move and have our being.
01:01:07
So it's in His name we pray.
01:01:09
Amen.