SRR 124 WLC: Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person?

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And Lord, we ask that you bless the study that you help us to learn and to grow in it and In the truths that we we are going to study today about Christ and his mediatorial Mediatorial work in person and we ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. Okay, so last week we picked up on the Siri on a series of questions Relating to the mediatorial Person of Christ. So it's going to capstone on a very important question here and So I'm going to go ahead and read the question.

This is question 40 of the larger catechism. Why was it requisite that the mediator should be God and man in one person? It was requisite that the mediator who was to reconcile God and man. Where was I?

Okay, so should be himself both be both God and man and this in one person that the proper works of each nature Might be upset accepted of God for us and relied on by us as the works of the whole person.

So.

One thing always you always want to Make sure that the the terms are properly defined and understood right? So there's a key term here That we need to understand that's not defined in the question. And what term is that in the question not the answer.

In the question so that there's the term I have in mind is person right? What is a person? And so that this is a really loaded question because we have to keep in mind that the Westminster the the Westminster Confession the reformed creeds and confessions they don't go against necessarily the ecumenical creeds the seven ecumenical creeds of of the early church like the Apostles Creed the Nicene Creed the Athanasian Creed, so this is building on those creeds and some some standards even Incorporate the Apostles Creed like the Heidelberg Catechism and the Orthodox Catechism, for example, so but obviously Here it should it's talking about the mediator being God and man in one person.

And so person is an extremely important term to understand especially when we're talking about the Trinity and.

The.

The Godhead and and Christ himself.

Right.

What is the What what's the traditional or the Orthodox definition of Christ? Regarding his natures and his person he is. Right. So the formulation goes he has two what? natures and one person, right so.

But again, we have to keep in mind what the word and a lot of this we have to be really careful because the terms Have been confused they've been Used differently defined differently and so it's very important to to make sure that the terms are properly understood.

Some and some theologians actually criticize the fact that the terms are not clearly defined and so We have to keep that in mind. It's really important. And so The the end in terms of the Trinity there's there's another sort of Orthodox formulation for that.

Does anybody recall what that is? It's one.

What's that.

Yeah, basically what one God three persons or one one substance one essence and three Persons but and it's better to use the Greek terms to make it a little bit more precise. So it's one Osea one Osea and three Apostasis.

Apostasis is a hypostasis like a hypostatic Union. So if you guys study churches for your Christology, that's those are the these were the crucial terms that were being wrestled with in the early church to solidify what the Trinity was and or how they how to properly understand the Trinity and the person of Christ and so this actually presupposes Greek philosophy.

So in order to properly understand these terms, you kind of have to have an understanding of the Greek metaphysics and philosophy, so it's it's really it's important to keep that in mind because the word Osea is.

Oh.

Usia, yeah. So the word Osea for example is basically It means substance or essence so in in philosophy, there's a there's a a School of thought called essentialism or I think foundationalism essentialism.

It's what is it that? Makes up a a thing. What are the essential components of a thing without which if you remove one? It will no longer be that thing right, so. This is kind of important when it comes to the the Godhead because if you remove any one of God's attributes He will no longer be God right if he if you remove omniscience He he wouldn't be God anymore.

So that's the Osea is supposed to represent. What is the What are the fundamental properties or characteristics or attributes? That that compose the Godhead the what what God is and Who post offices is basically translated as persons or subsistence sub subsistence.

Oppo yeah oppo h u p o s t a s e is so one Osea three who post offices and.

And.

Here this gets a little tricky because who post offices typically gets translated into persons or subsistence so one substance three subsistence is and.

So.

Or persons. But there's it's important to keep something in mind that person the way we understand person today. We kind of Intuitively think or assume that it means a thinking or rational being. But in Greek philosophy that wasn't necessarily the case.

A Basically, there was persons for everything. There was a tree person a Any inanimate object, you know trees mountains had persons. They have persons and. The relationship of person to nature also becomes critical because The a person is basically an instance of a nature in reality.

So this is where the Greek metaphysics stuff comes in a little bit because You there has anybody studied programming like object-oriented programming? Any chance. No.

So.

It's if one analogy used to describe it is like do you have a Cookie a mold, right? You have a mold that if you apply it up to something, it'll make a cookie so the cookie mold is an instance or is it is a nature basically it defines the Cookie basically and then when you make a cookie, that's a person.

It's an instance of a nature, right? So a more simple example. What are we we're human beings right each and every one of us is an instance of a human and. The nature that we belong to or that belongs to us is a human nature, right?

And so. That's something that really is important to keep in mind in order to make sense out of. What these questions are presupposing they're assuming historic Christian Terminology and and the creeds of the early church and so we can just.

We can go over to we can read the script. The scriptures weren't all that Helpful, but we can we can read them just to. Just to say that we read the Bible because it's a Bible study. No, just kidding.

It's what's the first one here? That's okay. So the first one is yeah, Matthew 121 23. Anybody want to read that? Hey, can you keep reading to verse 23?

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Behold the Virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel Translated translated means God with us.

Yeah, so this is just talking about the incarnation obviously in the prophecies and It does kind of help to to to keep in mind what the question is asking. It's you know, why why does it have to be God and man in one person?

And it's important because the two previous questions we're talking about Why why did the meteor have to be God and why did the meteor also have or should have to be man? And so There's various reasons like we talked about before and so but they also have to be the same person and Let's let's go to the next verse here.

What's the neck is Matthew 3 17. So Matthew 3 17 just says and behold a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son with whom I am. Well, please. And this is just kind of showing God's affirmation of Christ whom he sent to to fulfill the covenant that Adam broke and that we are all guilty of in him and.

So.

And then the next verse here's Hebrews 9 14. Anybody want to read that who wants to read that? Yeah, so this again, it's just it's talking about the The death of Christ the the Christ offering himself.

So it's different aspects of Christ's Purpose for coming here right for coming and becoming a man and The last verse is first Peter 2 6. And I'll just go ahead and read it for it stands in Scripture behold I am laying in Zion a stone a cornerstone chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So it's just again. It's explaining. It's it's bringing to light some of the prophetic Passages in the Old Testament that prophesy a Savior and I'm not sure why they left Other really relevant verses that talk about this and this is one actually one of my favorite verses.

Let's jump over to Isaiah 9 6 so Isaiah 9 6 says for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and The government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called wonderful counselor mighty God Everlasting Father Prince of Peace and so here you kind of see Very clearly that it's talking about a man being born.

But his name will be mighty God his one of his titles will be mighty God and so this is where it's crucial that the same person had to be both God and man and I've heard that in Jewish interpretation.

They believe some Jews believe that there would be two messiahs because of the prophecies that talk about. That suggests that the Messiah will be God and then there's other passages that suggest that it will be a man.

And so but here it's very clearly showing that it's talking about the same person. It's going to be God and man and don't let the Everlasting Father throw you off. I think a more a more accurate Rendering is Father of Eternity.

So it's just another title for God because God is eternal. He is never he has no origin. He has no beginning. He's he's always He's he's always existed. And so this is clearly talking about Christ and In one person not to not not separate Messiah is nothing like that.

It's just it's just one person and he's God and men. And so that's why it's important to make sense of this in light of what the scripture teaches because. That's what it's that's what it's clearly teaching.

And so With that in mind we come back to the question of what a person is and so with a person. The church had a lot of some of the most complicated Aspects of Christian doctrine theology centers around the Trinity and Christology which is just a study of how do we understand Christ as a person and his work and so The issue is.

Is.

Pretty obvious, right? How can he be both God and man in one person? How do we make sense of that and. There's been a whole trail of heresies and even today there's still modern Modern heresies. Even William Lane Craig.

He's a very popular apologist. He's sort of a neo a pollinator. Pollinarian which is basically the denial that it's kind of the the slogan for it was God in a body I think is that it was a denial that.

That.

Sort of like the the divine aspect of Christ swallowed up the the the human and I think he denied that Jesus had a Human soul and so it was just basically the divine nature in a human body. And so it's a That's that's historically been heretical.

So there's there's a lot of missing wrong understandings of Christ and There's only obviously one right one and if we go back to the question here Here it says He should be Both God and man and this in one person that the proper works of each nature Might be accepted of God for us.

So it's using both of these terms right nature and person. So it's extremely important to have a good understanding of what those terms mean. And like we talked about so what who wants to give a shot at what what those two things are and how they relate to each other.

What's a nature? Anybody recall.

Well.

Okay, so in nature like this is going back to Greek metaphysics right. The Greek philosophy stuff a nature is a a.

A a.

Metaphysical substance or Usia that defines what something is essentially something so.

There.

There's a complement to this called accidental properties. So there's essential properties and accidental properties and Accidental properties are properties that can change or can go away but you still are fundamentally the part the the nature.

The nature doesn't change and so this is incidentally how the Roman Catholic Church explains the doctrine of transubstantiation. They believe that Christ becomes literally becomes the the body and blood.

In the bread, right? They say that the the essential Nature of Christ is still there, but the accidental properties of his appearance has changed into bread.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the little wafers, you know the.

No.

It's all it's saying is that Christ is essentially still his body and blood but that his accidental properties change into bread so that's how they do they use Greek this Greek kind of Philosophy to make sense of it.

Well, that's a good that's a good point. He one yeah, right one of the Core historic Orthodox understandings of the Godhead is that God is simple and by simple we mean that God is not composed of parts.

So God has no parts. He has no Thing fingers and toes or body spirit. He's just a spirit and he has he is the essence of his attributes. So he has no there's no Divisions in God there's no parts to him.

So God is essentially Who he is and nothing about him is Accidental so to speak you could argue in some ways like okay. Well, maybe Christ could have had blue eyes instead of brown eyes. You could you could maybe say that that was accidental property and.

So that's partly how they defend how they describe their view. The Catholic Church describes its its view of the transubstantiation. But we we have to keep in mind that this is presupposing Greek philosophy so we have to make understand that and so.

Well, this is well you mean the Catholic from the Catholic Church or so this is the Orthodox view that the Orthodox view is that there's one Oosia and three who post asses and This is coming from a Greek philosophical framework so this is what the early church used to formulate an understanding of the Trinity and of Christology and things like that, so there's there's it's it's what we've inherited and.

As.

A result of it and it's it's gotten it's a pretty stable. It's a pretty stable Doctrine like we've basically ironed out the boundaries and that's not to say that it's a fully fleshed out Understanding because there's still issues there's still issues with the with the Christology especially but it's it's served a good purpose for as Over, you know hundred over a millennia, basically.

Yeah, right and so I Wanna I want to read a little okay. So in the in the Nicene Creed. Yeah, so that's what. That's what a substance the Oosia is a substance is a metaphysical reality that generically defines the the the Apostasis the instances or the person of that and I remember a person is not necessarily rational.

It doesn't necessarily mean that in Greek on Philosophy a person is not necessarily a thinking or rational feeling willing individual the the the The personal component that made That defined Christ as those things.

They used another term for that and that term was prosop on. But also pawn also gets translated sometimes interchangeably with person. Pro s o p o n and so there's a so in the Nicene Creed you have What that that Talking about Christ that he has one substance with the father or the same substance.

With the father that word substance is that word? One substance is homo ocean. Does anybody? recognize that homo ocean that what homo means One right and Oosia means what we just talked about right? It means substance.

So Christ and The father are of the same substance. They have the same nature and. But even we have to be careful with the word nature because nature is actually referring to something else. It's a little bit more technical.

So Oosia substance God is the same all three persons of the Godhead have the same substance. But they have three different persons with or who post a sees.

Now.

So that's the Nicene Creed and That was a response to Arius right because Arius denied that That Christ was of the same substance as the father. He denied that he was God and so There was a controversy with the term and another term proposed was homo ocean ocean which means like substance and So like substance as opposed to same substance, it's obviously not as strong as same or one substance.

The same the one in the same substance. So there's a big controversy behind that the whole history of the church and some of these terms didn't get really fleshed out. It took time for it to flesh these terms out.

There's there were used differently by different authors and things like that. So It gets it gets very it gets Very controversial and a lot of arguments and Controversies in the church in the history of the church to to flesh this stuff out and so.

Chalcedon. When you get to the Council of Chalcedon, which is the later later Creed it's You have a phrase there caught that that says concurring in one person and one subsistence so here you have the term person and subsistence and again, the English terms get a little shaky and then the Latin so these were originally formulated with Greek and then the the Latin kind of Added a layer of confusion and Complexity and then the this also is partly why the East and the West had some Disagreements about things like this and the fact that they were not in an agreement with certain things.

But.

Person here in one person in one subsistence. It's one prosop on and one who post asses so prosop on and Who post asses the prosop on part? That's basically that is going is making it or as an attempt to make it more explicit that this is a personal presentation that Christ is a He's he's not just a person in the sense that well, he has this He's a he's a yes, he's a God.

He has a God nature and a man and the man nature in one person so this is where the term person kind of comes into play and Now we have some issues here because what was calcedon going against. Does anybody recall what what what calcedon was trying to go against starts with an N Historian is it.

So what's the what is an historian ism?

Nestorian ism. Does anybody know what that is that Christ was. Two.

Persons right and that's not the Orthodox Understanding. If you say Christ is two persons you've sort of created a rift in the in this in the unity of Christ and.

So.

Second.

Okay, is this making sense is it. Do you guys have questions comments?

Manifestations instead of. And they're trying to say that it's the same.

That's modalism. Modalism or Sibelian ism that was the the heretics name. Modalism is the belief that God is one person and three different modes. So he appears as God the Father he appears as God the Son and God the Spirit.

But he can't be all three at the same time. He can only be one at a time and that's obviously heresy because God in the Bible is clearly showing that all three persons are. They all Operate and exist at this at the same time and they at the yeah, they coexist.

Nestor Claiming it was. There were two people in there, but you only see one body.

Well Nestorius is an interesting case because most there's scholars today that say that Nestorius probably wasn't a Nestorian. The heresy just kind of dubbed his name and part of it was church politics because he I think it was Cyril who opposed him and There was there may have been some misrepresentations of Nestorius and they kind of it got kind of ugly.

But.

The the it doesn't change the fact that it's still a heresy to say that Christ is two persons. You can't say that he's two persons in the sense that we under that the terms are being used because that would make that would make too much of a separation with the unity of Christ as a single individual and so.

The way the early church basically resolved this was.

What.

What well we have the term nature now, right nature as opposed to person and so when we mean By nature, there's a term the Greek term for it is foosies foosies p-h-u-s-i-s and This is what's used to describe the different Aspects of Christ like the the human nature and the divine nature and there was also some controversy With with with that with namely the the monophysite controversy and the diophysite.

So mono means one right and dial dial means two so Christ had two natures one person and so but the the way this works out is that What nature came first? His divine nature, right? So Christ the Son The second person of the Trinity He has he has a divine nature.

Is he a person? Yes, right Christ is a the second person of the Trinity is a person in the sense that he is a He is a he's a divine person he has an instance of the the God right. He is an instance of God and He is of the substance the same substance now He is a divine person.

What happens when Christ is born? How does that work? So when Christ? He has he yeah, he assumes right at the conception he assumes a Person a nature.

So.

Yeah, we have a human nature. We're humans. We're humans, right? So our our Osea is is human human humanity humankind now.

The.

When Christ became a man is he fully man? He was fully man, right? So therefore is he a human person? Well, then that now you're in a story, right. That's the problem right that's the dilemma. How can you be fully man? but not a human person.

This is the whole issue surrounding The Christological controversies that came later on and so the way the church resolved this. It's kind of clever. It's you know what they did was essentially Christ Was a divine person.

And he assumed a human nature now this nature. In order to become a a fully human nature and not just an impersonal.

And.

Upostos is an actual a Part of his. His person was that his nature became attached to his divine person and That is what made him fully man Without being a distinct or separate human person.

So.

When christ The second person of the trinity the divine person assumed a human nature that nature became Fully human by virtue of becoming attached to his divine person not by becoming a human nature or a human person on its own.

It's by attaching itself to the his divine person. And there's the the technical term for that is in hypostatic. It literally I guess means impersonal so christ is not. The the issue here is that a person is an instance of a nature but christ Nature is not a person right?

It's Enhypostatic it's impersonal by virtue of the divine person. So that's really important to keep in mind as to what the orthodox Uh formulation of this is. I know it's a little tricky. Does that make sense?

Is that kind of making sense. You can't say he's two persons right. That's the big issue with historianism that was clearly condemned and there's actually Calcedon had some very helpful. Uh, i'm going to read a phrase from it.

That the two natures are inconfusedly unchangeably Indivisibly and inseparably Uh united in the one person.

So.

Those are the four boundaries that they established in calcedon and.

Uh.

So you can see why this is kind of a loaded question because this. This assumes the the definitions that were taken on by the earlier creeds and this is basically how the terms are are used. So christ is not a human person.

He is a impersonal human nature. Because it's attached to the divine person.

And.

Um, that's very important to understand in this, uh. In light of what the question says that it's it's god and man in one person, right? Um any any question? Yeah.

No.

Subsistence is Equated with person that's the hoopoe stasis. Subsistence is the hoopoe stasis and calvin preferred to use that term again. These terms.

It's.

There's there's some there's there's some problems here because in in when you're talking about a term That applies to everything the term essentially Means nothing. So a good example of this is existence.

The term existence can be applied to anything. God exists. Men exist you exist. I exist everything exists unicorns exist. Uh bad dreams exist hallucinations exist. Everything exists. And so the word existence when you apply it to everything doesn't actually mean anything.

It's sort of it just doesn't say anything like you to say god exists doesn't actually mean anything. And a lot of people don't realize that but god exists doesn't mean anything. Like what do you mean by god?

What do you mean he exists? So it's like saying god is. Well god is what. In order in order to define or to to say who god is you have to attach predicates to him. You need to define him with predicates or attributes or characteristics.

And to say that he exists doesn't actually say anything and it's similar in this situation with the term person or hoopoe stasis. Because everything has an hoopoe stasis. The only thing that doesn't have a hoopoe stasis according to this greek way of of looking at it.

Are things that don't exist in reality that don't have a a concrete manifestation in reality so for example Uh science fiction or fantasy novels, right? Those are all made up in somebody's mind. They don't exist in reality so those are not hoopoe stasis so that the the 20 headed dragon and.

Uh.

You know, what what's a popular? Uh i'm going blank. But harry potter right harry potter the. All that. Yeah, anything in there is not a hoopoe stasis. Because it doesn't actually have a concrete reality.

So.

In that sense it limits out the the the it excludes those things that aren't actually uh manifested in reality. But the term is still kind of vague it's not really saying a whole lot and so in order to understand who christ is you still have to add predicates to To the natures and to the person in order to make sense of it and so.

Um.

Yes. Yeah, does I am make any sense? Yes, because that's a title that's a title for god, right? Um, The title for god I am or I will be who I will be. Um, it kind of gets translated in different ways.

Um.

But but the the issue of existence Is such that so that that title I am Is a title that only applies properly to god.

Because he.

Yeah, well, he's not everything right. Because that would be pantheism right. God can't. And in fact, uh spurgeon so spurgeon.

Uh.

Brilliantly said that pantheism is actually atheism on a fig leaf. Because if you say that god is everything. Then god is essentially nothing. If you say that god is this table, he's this phone. He's you and he's me.

How can god be everything? And and we that's that's like impossible, right? You can't be everything and and still.

Like.

Be something else it doesn't that's a contradiction. I I can't be this or I can't be those glasses in this cup and myself in the same time and at the same sense. That's a contradiction. And so that's why pantheism is atheism on a fig leaf.

And this is the problem to these greek terms that they kind of don't really add a whole lot um, they help in some sense, but Um, it kind of leaves stuff a little bit unclear and that's why a lot of theologians have criticized this and have attempted to Contribute more a more Fleshed out understanding of of these controversies and these doctrines and so.

Uh, that's the the key thing here though. Is that christ is in hypostatic in the sense that his divine his human nature? Is not a human person. It becomes a person by virtue of attaching itself to the divine person.

That's the main thing to keep in mind and so.

Uh.

So.

So.

Yes, god can't he's the creator. And everything is the created. Yes, right.

Yeah, and So and yeah in order for a word to mean something it has to also not mean something. This is just going back to basic logic in order for A cat to be a cat. It also has to not be a dog. If it was a dog and a cat in the same sense, then that's a contradiction.

That doesn't make any sense, right? Because now you're contradicting the very Substances of what they mean like you can't be a dog and a cat at the same time. Uh, you can't be a man and a woman in the same sense even despite what our culture may may try to make of that or think right and so.

Yeah.

Right, so. That's that's uh, really important to keep in mind and there's there's philosophical problems. There's some issues with with with these Distinctions that are they're attempting to make because we just talked about how everything exists even harry potter exists.

It doesn't it exists in the in the in the book. I mean you if it's it exists as a concept.

Um.

The greek the greek understanding. Just attempts to make a distinction between stuff that actually manifests in reality or stuff. That's actually has a concrete instance of that nature. And so yes, go ahead.

Yeah. Yes, they exist. They. Yeah, as a I think they do. I think unicorns are in the bible actually. Yeah, so that may very well be a legitimate creature but.

Um.

This is it gets really loaded and tricky here because you have to really uh. It's it's it's appealing to it's it's it's presupposing the calcedonian definition the the nicaean creed and all of those uh earlier creeds to kind of.

And.

Further developing what what that means and so. There's another really important section and it's if you have the london baptist confession.

Yeah, he said that. Can't just say that God is but in hebrews uh, it says that Hebrews 11 6 it says. But without faith it is impossible to please him for he who. He who comes to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently sees him.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, um, the fool says there is no god. So what you mean by he is means something. What. When you say god is you're assuming what god actually is defined as? So who is god? He is the father he is the son the holy spirit all of that is assumed into that meaning of in hebrews.

Otherwise god would be an empty empty term.

So.

You have to. That's what in a better way to say when you say god exists is is a God is who he says he is. That's that's what it really means that god is who he says he is. Do you believe that god is who he says he is in his word?

And that is what he is. Otherwise the term god is means nothing if you just say god exists. Well, what does that mean? You have to know. By virtue of the predicates and how he's defined himself in the bible.